Alaska is now attracting more interest from the world’s petroleum and minerals industries, Alaska Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan says.

However, the state still has a lingering reputation as a tough place to do business that is casting a long shadow, he said. Sullivan spoke to business and community leaders in Anchorage Sept. 6 at the Resource Development Council’s first fall bi-weekly meeting of 2012.

Scientists reviewing a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assessment of a potential large copper and gold mine in an environmentally sensitive area near Iliamna Lake said Aug. 8 that the agency’s draft watershed assessment needs work, and should not be based on hypothetical mine scenarios.

Some of the scientists said the agency is too pessimistic in its assessment of risks. The EPA asked 12 scientists to review its Bristol Bay watershed assessment last May as an independent review panel.

Gov. Sean Parnell is playing his cards close on whether he will expand Medicaid coverage to an estimated 38,000 lower-income Alaskans but said he would not form a state-managed health insurance exchange, two provisions of the federal Affordable Care Act passed in 2010.

Alaska health care providers are closely following the governor’s statements on expanded Medicaid because if the coverage is provided it could substantially reduce losses hospitals and other medical providers suffer because of patients who cannot pay for treatment.

Alaska technology entrepreneur Tyler Arnold and two partners based in Europe have formed a new company, SimplySocial, and rolled out new software that helps businesses more easily use social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for marketing.

The software could also help political candidates and elected officials reach voters and constituents.

“Our goal is do for social media what AOL did for e-mail in the 1990s,” Arnold said. “Remember ‘you’ve got mail’?”

Turbotax, for filing tax returns, is another example.