Free Republic

Thanks to some thoughtful collaboration between researchers and traditional Inupiat whalers (who are still allowed to hunt for survival), scientists have used amino acids in the eyes of whales and harpoon fragments lodged in their carcasses to determine the age of these enormous animals—and they found at least three bowhead whales who were living prior to 1850. Granted those are bowheads, not sperm whales like the fictional Moby Dick, (and none of them are albino, I think), but still. Pretty amazing, huh? Bowhead whales reach an average length of 35 to 45 feet, and they are believed to live over...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Inupiats in Barrow want the Smithsonian Institution to return dozens of human skeletal remains unearthed in northern Alaska. The American Museum of Natural History refuses to give up the remains of 85 individuals, saying they came from a group of Arctic people who predated the ancestors of the modern-day Inupiat. The Washington D.C.-based institution believes those remains, excavated in the early 20th century, belong to the ancient Birnirk culture, whose descendants apparently left Alaska to resettle in Greenland and Canada around 1,000 A.D. The Smithsonian said the remains, excavated from four sites, are more likely related to...