A new University of Alaska Fairbanks study featured on the cover of the journal Science explores the life story of a woolly mammoth that lived 17,000 years ago. Thousands of years ago a woolly mammoth researchers dubbed Kik lumbered across what is now the state of Alaska. There were times when he stayed in one area, likely in a group with other mammoths. At one point Kik took off on a long trip, covering great distances of icy landscape. Researchers think that means he left his mother’s herd and struck out on his own. At 28-years-old Kik died above the Arctic Circle--likely of starvation. Lead researcher Mat Wooller said in the lab “It was kind of like watching this soap opera of this mammoth’s life emerge in front of our eyes real time.” Wooller directs the stable isotope facility at UAF. How could researchers uncover such detail about the life of a long-dead animal? They used information stored in Kik’s fossilized tusk to learn about his life. The first step was for the scientists to