Of the hundreds of wildlife encounters they have had over the years, it was the menacing brown bear with feet the size of a turkey-roasting pan that finally unnerved trekkers Erin McKittrick and Bretwood "Hig" Higman.

Walking along the north side of the Alaska Peninsula on the final third of a 4,000-mile walk, ski and paddle that took them from Seattle to Unimak Island, the couple saw a furry face pop up from the brush. They were near a remote spot called Mother Goose Lake on a cold spring morning.

But this encounter would be like no other the couple has had since they took up trekking in 1999 to some of the most remote land in North America. Most times, a bear sees them; they yell "Go away!" and the bear runs off.

Somehow having the wherewithal to keep his camera rolling, Higman, who grew up in Seldovia, filmed the bear as it strode toward him and his wife. McKittrick, a Seattle native who met Higman while the two were in college, began the usual routine of standing her ground, yelling the bear off, joining side by side with Higman to make themselves appear larger.

And waiting.

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Amazing Video: Hig And Erin Stare Down A Grizzly

Joy Crisp is an interplanetary detective. By sending robot geologists to do the dirty work, she spent the past fifteen years deciphering clues left in the rocks covering the Martian surface.

Using data from the spacecraft and rovers NASA has sent to the Red Planet over the past 40 years, Crisp and her colleagues are searching for the telltale signs hidden in the rocks that can offer stories about the fate of its volcanoes, atmosphere and water.

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CANNES, France — Minnesota-based filmmaker Aleshia Mueller is working the market at the Cannes Film Festival in the south of France. For her, that means putting up fliers --"propaganda," as she jokes — for her film "Lady of the Woods," a 10-minute documentary portrait of octogenarian North Country cookbook author and botanist Alma Christensen.

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PacifiCorp has agreed to shut down the hydropower turbines at Upper Klamath Lake's Link River Dam for four months each year to help endangered fish, the utility said Thursday.

PacifiCorp will turn off the turbines in late summer through early fall so Lost River and Shortnose suckers can more successfully migrate to the southern part of the lake to spawn. The suckers are listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Lost River and Shortnose suckers spawn near the dam, which spans Upper Klamath Lake's southern tip. "The fish literally were being taken into the turbines," said Ani Kameenui, Oregon Wild's Klamath campaign coordinator.

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Same Story, More Commercial Format

I'm a forty-something tenured geology professor at a small public college in the Rockies. I love mountains - hiking in them, looking at them, studying them.

You know what I find really interesting about all the various geopuzzles that have been popping up in the geoblogosphere lately? Reading the answers from people with various backgrounds.

When I read other scientists talking about data and interpretation, I occasionally feel like I'm from another planet. My problem usually isn't pushing students to come up with interesting interpretations of their data. My students love to tell a good story. But in field work, it can be difficult to tell what's data and what's interpretation - what's repeatable, and what is one of a large set of reasonable (and testable) explanations.

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The Central Minnesota Community Foundation announced Friday that it is now accepting grant applications for programs that empower girls and women in the region.

Sponsored by the Women's Fund and the Julianne Williams Fund, up to $25,000 in grant money will be available for nonprofit agencies looking to start programs that have a positive impact on female self-esteem and safety.

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Morgan Cowles' father never grasped how many friends his son had made in 39 years until he saw the Facebook group created in Morgan's memory.

The page overflowed with stories of childhood pranks, hiking trips, Morgan's addiction to the weekend New York Times and his mean recipe for Manhattans.

Most striking to the grieving father was how many times the group's 130 members remembered Morgan helping them through a tough time.

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Another Story by the Santa Barbara Independent

Walter Alvarez, world-renowned geologist and author of “T. rex and the Crater of Doom,” is no stranger to scientific revolutions. It was Alvarez, along with his father and two other researchers, who in 1980 published their hypothesis that dinosaurs and other species on Earth were obliterated some 65 million years ago after an object from outer space, either a comet or asteroid, crashed into the planet, creating a large crater and a massive dust cloud.

Alvarez, a professor of geology at the University of California, Berkeley, will deliver a lecture Feb. 21 on scientific revolutions that shaped history, as this year’s recipient of the Eugene Shoemaker Memorial Award presented by BEYOND, the Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University. The 7:30 p.m. lecture will be given in the Great Hall located in Armstrong Hall on ASU’s Tempe campus.

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A 4,000-mile trek will end in the Aleutians this spring, if all goes according to plan for two "crazy" environmental advocates who hiked, skied and rafted their way along the northern Pacific coast, starting in Seattle last June.

Erin McKittrick of Seattle and Bretwood Higman from Seldovia regaled a large crowd packed on Jan. 29 into the recital hall at University of Alaska Anchorage with slideshow of their trip so far. They also fielded questions from the audience.

"How is it that you people look so normal?" was the first.

"Well, you maybe just don’t know us well enough," Higman said, laughing.

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AMERICAN singer/songwriter Laura Veirs seemed genuinely surprised by the size of the crowd gathered at The Point for her first Cardiff show in almost four years.

And so was I.

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The first International Polar year was the brainchild of Austrian explorer Carl Weyprecht (1838-81). The International Polar Year (IPY) brought together scientists from eleven countries to study meteorological and geophysical aspects of the poles. The second and third IPYs (1932-1933 and 1957-1958) maintained this focus on international cooperation and scientific research. The fourth International polar year will follow in the scientific traditions of previous years but will focus on how climate change is affecting the poles.

To mark this exciting event Carleton College has collected a series of books, photographs and newspaper articles that document the previous IPYs. The college also has work on display by two prominent polar scientists: Carleton alumna Christine Siddoway ’84, a geology professor at Colorado College, and St. Olaf College professor of physics Robert W. Jacobel.

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Most people would think twice about leaving their house if the temperature was below zero degrees Fahrenheit. Every day during the winter of 2006-2007, however, four women stepped out of their heated house into minus 80 degree temperatures onto the Greenland ice sheet – all in the name of science.

Sonja Wolter, a researcher with NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), and Kathy Young, Shannon Zellerhoff, and Andrea Isgro braved the barren climate surrounding the Greenland Environmental Observatory for more than three months last winter. They took measurements of snow accumulation and air samples, and launched ozonesondes, among other things, relating to Arctic environment and climate. You can view data collected at the Observatory.

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