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Links:

• Blue Line Project
• AquacultureHub

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In the News:

• NASA shifts its sights from small crater to the large crater next door – NASA has changed the target for its Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or “LCROSS,” mission, in which the LCROSS probe and it’s spent rocket will be crashed into the moon next Friday.
• National Science Foundation awards $23 million to UH for EPSCoR program – The National Science Foundation last week awarded $23 million in two grants to the University of Hawaii.
• UH Mānoa’s Library and Information Science Program receives $249,918 grant – The Library and Information Science Program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa has received a National Leadership grant of nearly $250,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for a project entitled, “Pathways to Excellence and Achievement in Research and Learning (PEARL).”
• Hoku and Tianwei Announce Financing Agreement – Hoku Scientific, a Hawaii-based tech firm that bet big on the polysilicon manufacturing business, announced yesterday that one of its largest customers has taken a controlling interest in the company.

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In the News:

• Hawaii Health Matters – A new website has been launched to provide current, varied information about the health of our island community.
• UH Mānoa’s IfA announces world’s largest-ever meeting of astronomers – The world’s largest meeting of professional astronomers is coming to Hawaii.
• Introduced Japanese white-eyes pose major threat to Hawaii’s native and endangered birds – A recent increase in the numbers of Japanese white-eyes (majiro) that live in old-growth forests is beginning to threaten native species.
• Cellphones and iPods go to the field to help study nature – Scientists are turning their attention away from specialized, customized equipment, and looking toward the increasing prevalence of cellphones and iPods as a way to usher in a new era of environmental monitoring in remote places.

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And now the News:

• Scientists report adulthood body size associated with cancer risk: A team of scientists led by an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Cancer Research Center of Hawaii has reported that body mass in younger and older adulthood, and weight gain between these life periods, may influence a man’s risk for prostate cancer.
• NASA’s LCROSS Reveals Target Crater for Lunar South Pole Impacts: NASA has selected a final destination for its Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, after a journey of nearly 5.6 million miles that included several orbits around Earth and the moon.
• Most Distant Supermassive Black Hole: University of Hawaii astronomer Dr. Tomotsugu Goto and colleagues have discovered a giant galaxy surrounding the most distant black hole ever found.
• Hawaii researchers explore previously unseen coral: Scientists over the past month explored coral reefs in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands that until recently were considered too deep for scuba divers to reach.

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Ray Kakuda from Clearwire was on to give us an update on 4G Broadband Wireless service. Clearwire is rolling out WiMax in their key markets across the country. On Nov. 1st Honolulu will start to get commercial WiMax. Access speeds are reported to be comparable to cable modem and DSL rates, multi-meg downloads and 1 meg upload. We will report back actual speeds once we get our hands on the actual service.

And now the News:

1. Hawaii tax credit program cost state $1.29 billion through 2008
2. Expedition to extinct Papua New Guinea volcano unearths new species Here is a video of the giant rat talked about in the article. There was a YouTube video but that is evidently no longer available. This video is a photo sampling of the variety of new species found on the expedition.
3. Further study on irradiator ordered To follow the trail of produce like papaya from local farmer to out of state markets is very interesting and probably not fully appreciated. In order to sell produce to out of state markets, Hawaii needs to 1) eradicate all the fruit flies or 2) thoroughly clean the produce. Mike Kohn from Pa`ina Hawaii is proposing an irradiation solution. Check out his website for his perspective on irradiation. Also Kayla Rosenfeld of HPR produced this news piece on the project.
4. UH Mānoa oceanographers examine mercury levels of pelagic fish in Hawaii

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• Google Docs – Office suite
• Zoho – Office suite
• Evernote – Notes
• Basecamp – Project Management
• Doodle – Scheduling
• Reqall – Notes
• WhenisGood – Scheduling
• Jott – Voice notetaking and transcription
• Google Voice – Phone aggregation and transcription
• Tokbox – Video Conferencing (listener provided)

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Stories Discussed:

• Tesoro Corporation has shipped its first barrels of crude oil from the Atlantic to the Pacific Basin on a reversed Panama pipeline, the company said last week. The 81-mile pipeline, owned by Petroterminal de Panama, or “PTP,” formerly flowed from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Reversal of the pipeline establishes a new conduit for crude oil transportation and will help Tesoro to deliver a broader range of crude oils produced in Africa, the Atlantic region of South America and the North Sea, through Panama.
• Researchers from the University of Hawaii were part of an international team that detonated 80 tons of explosives in an Israeli desert last week to test methods to detect seismic activity across long distances through atmospheric acoustics. The controlled, above-ground explosion in the Negev desert was equal to an earthquake of 3.0 on the Richter scale. The test was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, and coordinated by the University of Hawaii and the Geophysical Institute of Israel.
• Hawaii Biotech, Inc., one of Hawaii’s largest biotechnology companies, announced last week that its one of its dengue vaccines has moved into a Phase 1 clinical study. The study is being conducted at Saint Louis University, and involves double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-escalation tests on healthy subjects.
• Now that Mauna Kea has been chosen as the site for the Thirty-Meter Telescope, the search is on for the funding and other support needed to build and operate it. And last week, astronomers from China expressed interest in becoming partners. The telescope, which will become the world’s largest when completed in 2019, needs total financing of about $1 billion. Canada and Japan already signed up with the University of California and the California Institute of Technology, which conceived and leads the project.
• Finally, a quick update on a story we first brought to you in July. The Hawaii School Guide, at HawaiiSchoolGuide.com, officially launched yesterday. The website is the brainchild of local entrepreneur and parent Evan Leong. The Hawaii School Guide features a searchable database covering over 800 schools statewide, from over 300 public schools to preschools, private schools, and other education centers.

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Stories Discussed:

• Environmentalists have long denounced plastic as a long-lasting pollutant that doesn’t break down. A new study indicates that plastic does decompose, at least in the ocean. But that’s not a good thing, either. Katsuhiko Saido, a chemist at Nihon University in Japan, said, “Plastics in daily use are generally assumed to be quite stable. We found that plastic in the ocean actually decomposes as it is exposed to the rain and sun and other environmental conditions, giving rise to yet another source of global contamination that will continue into the future.”
• The Maui High Performance Computing Center doubled its computing power last week thanks to “Mana.” “Mana” is the name of a new, giant, parallel processing machine brought on line to replace its two-year-old predecessor, “Jaws.” The specifications for “Mana” are impressive. It’s based on Dell hardware incorporating over 1,100 nodes, each containing a pair of 2.8 GHz processors and 24GB of RAM. It has access to nearly 400 terabytes of data storage.
• A fleet of six double-hulled canoes will set sail from French Polynesia for Hawaii next year in the ancient wake of one of the world’s greatest migrations. The 2,500 mile journey from the traditional heart of eastern Polynesia on Raiatea island aims to do more than recreate history. The project involves 16-member crews from six Polynesian islands, including New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa, American Samoa, and Tahiti.
• Scientists are eager to explore and understand the structure and chemistry deep within our planet, and researchers here in Hawaii are on the cutting edge of using “geoneutrinos” to essentially look down into the Earth as we already do scanning deep space. First detected in a Japanese mine in 2005, “geoneutrinos” originate from the radioactive decay of uranium, thorium and potassium in the Earth’s crust and mantle. Scientists have largely focused their study on deep mines on land, but UH researchers are developing a mobile, submersible deep-ocean detector.
• Finally, a quick heads up on an upcoming opportunity to engage with the Centers for Disease Control on plans to initiate a fall vaccination program against the novel H1N1 pandemic influenza virus. The CDC has scheduled “public engagement web dialogues” where members of the public can join a two-day online conversation to discuss various aspects of vaccination.