AK

Last weekend, thousands of people poured into Anchorage’s Dena’ina Center for the 13th annual Senshi Con, t’s Alaska’s largest celebration of nerdiness and geek culture. Listen now

Officially there are 20 Alaska Native languages in the state. But fluent speakers continue to decline. That led then-Gov. Bill Walker to declare a linguistic emergency last year. Now, Tlingit elders are teaching young children early in a home-like environment, and they’re finding it more effective than the classroom.

Thousands of black brants nest each spring on a piece of marshy tundra near Chevak, in Western Alaska. And for nearly three decades, the small geese have been the research focus of biologist Jim Sedinger. In 1984, the University of Nevada Reno professor decided the brants would be good subjects for a long term study on a bird population. This summer, he brought an audio recorder out into the field.

Earlier this month, homeless Juneau residents and local police competed on equal terms at a downtown bowling alley to draw donations for the cities Glory Hole homeless shelter. Listen now

The rapid rise of "Pokemon Go" raises interesting issues about technology, discipline, and internet access across huge swaths of the state. Listen now

A trip to the coast usually means you’re going to see sea stars, but a mysterious disease is killing them along the West Coast. There had been a few reports of sick sea stars in Alaska, but recently in Sitka, the first mass die offs in the state were detected. Scientists in Sitka are tracking the progress. Download Audio

The Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery is in full swing. In less than a week, the fleet has caught over half of its quota. And while most crew members work on the water, spotter pilots fish for herring from the sky. Listen now

The Kodiak Alutiiq/Sugpiaq Repatriation Commission has been working for years to recover artifacts and human remains of the community’s ancestors. As part of that effort, a new park in downtown Kodiak is dedicated to ancestors uprooted from their homeland.

A group of teenagers from the valley just released their very first CD. Gerygone & Twig used Kickstarter to raise money to produce the album called, “The Slee-py.” The Wasilla based indie-folk band already has a small group of devoted fans. Now, with the new CD they are reaching more listeners in zip-codes across the nation. Download Audio

Some say that after climate warming, plastic is the biggest environmental problem we face. And unlike climate warming, no one argues over who is responsible for the plastic in our oceans – we are. After researching and reporting on it, Johanna Eurich wanted to do her part to reduce plastic trash. The task is daunting. She started at home, in her tiny log cabin in Spenard. Download Audio

Haunted buildings and ghost stories are popular around Halloween, but a newer tradition that combines the two has made its way to Anchorage. For the past two years one man has undertaken the chilly task of leading ghost tours of Anchorage.

Imagine you arrive in a world where it rains all year round, and daylight swings from 17 hours in summertime to a paltry six in winter. And you’re only seven years old. That’s the situation Jasmine Molina found herself when she first got to Sitka, over 5,000 miles from her native city of Manila in the Philippines. Sitka’s Filipino population has grown substantially in the past five years, but there remains no formal system to help new students transition to school. That is, until Jasmine came to town. Listen now:

Residents of Anchorage got a chance to get up close and personal with the film Black Panther when one of the stuntwomen and actresses from the film visited Clark Middle School to talk to the Mountain View community last Saturday. Listen now