Permafrost

• Granite (NYSE:GVA) successfully finished preconstruction services and, on February 1, 2024, was awarded the final $112 million construction option for the Polychrome Area Improvements Construction Manager/General Contractor (CM/GC) project by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in Denali National Park, Alaska.
• This last construction award completes the scope of work the National Park Service (NPS) has planned for the project.
• View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240213096076/en/
  A Granite drill rig stands at the ready while the majestic snowcapped Denali is seen in the distance.
• For the 2026 season, construction includes setting precast bridge approaches, building a retaining wall, installing thermosyphon condensers, coating the bridge deck, and demobilization.

• In a new study led by Professor Youngjune Park from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in Korea, a team of researchers has comprehensively reviewed recent research findings, including their own, that address these myriad challenges associated with clathrate hydrates.
• According to Prof. Park: "By exploring the untapped potential of clathrate hydrates, we have effectively mitigated these limitations and provided efficient hydrogen (H2) storage solutions through the introduction of hydrogen-natural gas blends into clathrate hydrates."
• "This research has significant long-term potential for the gas storage and separation industry, particularly in achieving carbon neutrality.
• Title of original paper: Advances in Nanomaterials for Sustainable Gas Separation and Storage: Focus on Clathrate Hydrates

• Granite (NYSE:GVA) has been awarded Options W.3A, W.3B and W.4 for the Polychrome Area Improvements Construction Manager/General Contractor (CM/GC) project by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in Denali National Park in Alaska.
• Option Y design is complete, and negotiation for the construction contract is expected to take place in November this year.
• Work planned for the 2024 season includes construction of the bridge abutments and temporary launching system, enabling bridge erection the following season in 2025.
• The Polychrome Area Improvements project is at the Pretty Rocks Landslide which intersects Denali Park Road near its midpoint at Mile 45.4.

• This amazing find would subsequently become known as Ötzi the Iceman.
• His body and belongings were extensively studied, prompting numerous questions: what was he doing here?
• His unique preservation enabled the sequencing of Ötzi’s whole genome – the complete “instruction booklet” for building a human.
• But it was enough for a team led by Turi King at the University of Leicester to extract fragments of DNA from them.

Crime scene samples

• Sequencing a genome, which comprises billions of DNA bases, enables scientists to evaluate regions of the human genome that contribute to appearance.
• For more than 30 years, forensic scientists have looked at specific highly variable regions in DNA to match these to crime scene samples, or to relatives of a suspect or victim.
• So how likely is it that DNA from such a sample could accurately paint a picture of me?
• Can forensic scientists build a kind of identikit photo from a crime scene DNA sample?
• Hair colour can be predicted from DNA, but darker shades of hair are more accurately predicted than blonde hair.

Environmental factors

• Commercially sold laboratory kits such as Hirisplex can simultaneously evaluate several DNA regions to predict the hair and eye colour from a biological sample.
• However, unlike eye colour, hair colour prediction from DNA is only of value until midlife, when the natural processes of ageing lead to greying or white hair.
• These processes also lead to hair loss in some people and more than 300 gene variants have been linked to baldness.
• More representative data from the rest of the world will therefore enhance studies in forensic archaeology, such as the Ötzi research.