Latest news with #Fenaroli
Business Wire
15-07-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Alaska Communications Accelerates Network Investment With Plans for 100,000 Locations Served With Improved Broadband Service
ANCHORAGE, Alaska--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As part of its ongoing network expansion, Alaska Communications is launching improved broadband service to approximately 100,000 businesses and homes across Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and the Kenai Peninsula. Powered by fiber-fed, next-generation fixed wireless technology, Alaska Communications is expanding broadband access rapidly to meet the needs of businesses and families. With speeds up to 300Mbps download and 100Mbps upload, Alaskans can get the connectivity they need to efficiently run their business, work or learn from home, attend telehealth appointments, stream their favorite programs, connect smart home devices, play online games and more. 'We hear from residents across the state that they want reliable, unlimited internet service. If it matters to Alaskans, it matters to us,' said Paul Fenaroli, President and CEO, Alaska Communications. 'With fixed wireless internet access backed by our state-of-the-art fiber network, we're able to give Alaskans a reliable option for connecting their businesses and homes at affordable rates with local support.' Alaska Communications' new service includes: The speed you need: Up to 300Mbps download and 100Mbps upload. Unlimited data: Like all Alaska Communications services, there are no data caps, throttling or overage fees. Reliability: Advances in technology no longer require a line of sight for a strong signal. Affordable: Competitive pricing at a flat, monthly rate. No extra costs: Free installation and equipment with term agreement. Local support: Installed and supported by Alaskans. Small business solutions: Bundle with our other small business services, which include Microsoft 365, helpdesk support and more. 'For businesses, it opens the door to enhanced productivity, better customer service, improved security and the ability to compete in our digital-first economy,' said Fenaroli. 'For families, this means smoother streaming, faster downloads and more reliable connections for remote work, online learning and everyday use.' North Anchorage available now, midtown and south Anchorage coming soon This high-speed service is available for businesses and residents in the following Anchorage neighborhoods: downtown, Government Hill, Mountain View and Airport Heights. The Anchorage hillside, south Anchorage and midtown Anchorage will be available later this summer. By the end of 2025, 50,000 locations in Anchorage alone will be eligible. 'The Anchorage market is seeing demand for high-speed alternatives to cable internet,' said Fenaroli. 'Competition is good for Alaska and we're excited to build on our more than 120-year history to support Alaskans in new ways.' Other service locations coming soon Alaska Communications plans to improve or expand its fiber-fed fixed wireless network in Fairbanks, Juneau and the Kenai Peninsula starting later this year. How to get connected Business: For business service, fill out a service request form on the Alaska Communications' website. About Alaska Communications Alaska Communications, an affiliate of ATN International, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATNI), is a leading provider of mission and life-critical communications infrastructure in Alaska. The company operates a robust and advanced statewide fiber network and a highly diverse undersea fiber optic system that connects Alaska to the contiguous U.S. For additional information, visit
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Where does vanilla flavoring come from? Probably not beaver butts.
Are there beaver secretions in your vanilla ice cream? News articles or food influencers on social media might have you believe that castoreum, a yellow, syrupy substance from the castor sacs near a beaver's anus, is used as everyday vanilla flavoring, disguised as 'natural.' According to some of these sources, beaver castor is an ingredient in everything from vanilla ice cream to strawberry-flavored oatmeal. But experts say this couldn't be further from the truth. While people have used castoreum for medicinal purposes and, yes, to flavor perfumes and foods since ancient times, there's almost nothing in the grocery store today that contains castoreum. 'It turns out that the stuff is incredibly expensive, because it's rare; there's no way it's in your ice cream,' says Michelle Francl, a chemist at Bryn Mawr College who studies the science of food. According to Francl, in 2020 about 16 million pounds of vanilla extract —collected from vanilla orchids, a large group of flowering plants—was produced worldwide, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization. That said, castoreum still exists in niche products such as bäversnaps, a Swedish liquor, according to the 2022 book Beavers: Ecology, Behaviour, Conservation, and Management by Frank Rosell and Róisín Campbell-Palmer. In total, the U.S. consumes less than 292 pounds a year of castoreum, castoreum extract, and castoreum liquid, according to the latest edition of Fenaroli's Handbook of Flavor Ingredients. To harvest castoreum, trappers kill beavers and remove their castor glands, which are dried and crushed. They then use alcohol to extract castoreum, similar to how vanilla is removed from the plant to make your vanilla ice cream, Francl says. Read more about the history of vanilla. For over 2,000 years, people have turned to castoreum to cure all sorts of maladies, including fevers, stomach issues, and mental illnesses. The secretions were also used in soaps and creams, and at one point was added to cigarettes to enhance the scent. Hippocrates even wrote about castoreum's healing properties in 500 B.C. 'By the Roman period, it was a stock part of people's pharmacopeia,' says Francl. Castoreum's popularity as medicine likely has something to do with its chemical makeup. According to the 2022 book, castoreum can contain more than 75 different chemical compounds—an unusually high diversity. The molasses-like material also contains salicylic acid, or aspirin, which can alleviate pain. Castoreum also has fatty acids like those in expensive skin creams. And some of its molecules are structurally similar to vanillin, the compound in vanilla orchids that's responsible for the trademark vanilla taste. Learn more about how vanilla is produced in São Tomé and Príncipe. Unfortunately, the demand for castoreum came at a cost. It was a byproduct of the centuries-long fur trade, which decimated North American and Eurasian beaver populations, nearly rendering both species extinct by the 16th century in Europe and the 19th century in North America. Castoreum plays a vital role in beavers' everyday lives. To mark their territory, both beaver species deposit mud piles on the ground and excrete castoreum on top. This serves the threefold purpose of elevating the odor, adding moisture to the scent to make it more potent, and protecting the smell from rising water levels, according to Dietland Müller-Schwarze in his 2011 book The Beaver: Natural History of a Wetlands Engineer. While both males and females have castor sacs, adult males in a family are most likely to leave scent markings in strategic locations—like the pathways of other beavers—to send the message that this land is taken. Indeed, when Campbell Palmer smells castoreum in her research in Great Britain, she knows right away 'there's probably two families here, and they're telling each other, 'This is the line. This is my boundary,'' says Campbell-Palmer, head of restoration at Beaver Trust, a U.K.-based organization dedicated to increasing Eurasian beaver populations. Read how beavers are bouncing back in Sweden. 'It's a very distinctive smell, castoreum…it's kind of musky, but sweet,' says Campbell-Palmer. 'Even if you don't see beavers about, you know they're there.' Related beavers can also recognize their family members' individual castoreum scents, which is also a useful tool for Campbell-Palmer. When she wants to trap and relocate a family of beavers, she can extract one animal's castoreum and put it in a humane trap to attract its relatives. 'They're doing very well in Britain,' Campbell-Palmer adds. 'They're adapting readily.' The North American species is also rebounding, thanks to habitat preservation and hunting controls. If castoreum were ever to appear in something you ate, Francl says not to worry. 'When we're thinking about food, what really matters is the structures of the molecules,' says Francl. 'It doesn't matter whether it comes from bear or it comes from beaver, it's the same molecule—it does the same thing.' The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies castoreum as 'generally regarded as safe,' and a 2007 safety assessment published in the International Journal of Toxicology concluded that 'a long historical use of castoreum extract as a flavoring and fragrance ingredient has resulted in no reports of human adverse reactions.' 'I would try it,' Francl says. But 'probably not in ice cream.' This story was originally published on October 1, 2013. It has since been updated.
