Tag Archives: hawaii

Scientist names new fly species after the Professor who has supported his work

By Guest PostAugust 14, 2013Nature, Scienceamber rocks, aspect of biodiversity, bishop museum, caribbean island, dave penney, dominican republic, fly, hawaii, hispaniola, journal zootaxa, keroplatidae family, neal evenhuis, new species, proceroplatus preziosii, richard preziosi, university of manchester

A Professor from The University of Manchester has had his name immortalised as a new species of fly.

Professor Richard Preziosi, from the Faculty of Life Sciences, said he was delighted with the unusual tribute from researcher Dr Dave Penney.

It follows his continued support of Dr Penney’s unfunded research into amber rocks which he has been investigating for around 20 years.

Dr Penney discovered the new species of fly, which he has named Proceroplatus preziosii, on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, after finding a fossil in 16 million-year-old amber from the Dominican Republic. His findings were confirmed by Dr Neal Evenhuis, of the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, who is the leading world expert on this group. The species is a tiny gnat just a few millimetres long belonging to the Keroplatidae family. (more…)

Breaking Dengue Fever

By Guest PostJune 30, 2013Healthasia-pacific, China, dengue fever, florida, guangzhou, hawaii, infectious disease, malaria, michigan state university, mosquito species, mosquitoes, sun yat sen, united states, university, vaccine, wolbachia bacteria, zhiyong xi

Like malaria, dengue fever is an infectious disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Unlike malaria, there is no vaccine for it. As many as 100 million people contract dengue each year, but MSU researcher Zhiyong Xi is working to change that.

Among the estimated 2.5 billion people at risk for dengue, more than 70 percent live in Asia Pacific countries, which spurred Xi to establish a collaborative research institute at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. (more…)

Sea Turtles Benefiting From Protected Areas

By Guest PostMay 5, 2013Naturealgae, andrew crowder, atris, benthic habitat, carolina, coral reefs, data, dave zawada, dry tortugas, endangered, florida, florida keys, georeferenced, green sea turtle, habitat, hawaii, herbivorous, invertebrates, jellyfish, kaare iverson, kristen hart, national park, protected areas, puerto rico, research ecologist, sea turtle habitat, sea turtles, seafloor, seagrasses, synergistic approach, U.S. Geological Survey, underwater camera system, usgs, vegetarian, virgin islands

Study Offers First Look at Green Sea Turtle Habitat Use in the Dry Tortugas

DRY TORTUGAS, Fla. – Nesting green sea turtles are benefiting from marine protected areas by using habitats found within their boundaries, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study that is the first to track the federally protected turtles in Dry Tortugas National Park.

Green turtles are listed as endangered in Florida and threatened throughout the rest of their range, and the habits of green sea turtles after their forays to nest on beaches in the Southeast U.S. have long remained a mystery. Until now, it was not clear whether the turtles made use of existing protected areas, and few details were available as to whether they were suited for supporting the green sea turtle’s survival. (more…)

‘Most Verbose’: Meet Microsoft’s Original MVP

By Guest PostFebruary 26, 2013Technologybroadband, calvin hsia, calvin list, compuserve forum, database, developer division, Facebook, feedback, foxpro, hawaii, Microsoft, microsoft ceo, microsoft employee, modem, most verbose, most verbose people, mvp list, original mvp, professional program, redmond, sde, software development engineer, steve ballmer, Twitter, verbosity, visual studio

Twenty years ago, Calvin Hsia created a list of the “Most Verbose People” on a CompuServe forum that became Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional program.

REDMOND, Wash. – It’s 1993, and you need technical support. Who you gonna call?

Most techies at the time would plug in their modems and dial up CompuServe. In the days before Twitter, Facebook and broadband, CompuServe’s forums were a gathering place for geeks to talk shop and get answers to burning questions. (more…)

A ‘Golden Era’ of Insight: Big Data’s Bright Future

By Guest PostFebruary 18, 2013Technologybangalore, Beijing, big data, bing, bing directions, bing maps, bing voice search, biomedical informatics terabytes, breakthroughs, bright future, buzzwords, cambridge, capturing data, China, computational mechanisms, data analytics, data centric methods, decision-making, distinguished scientist, DNA, eric horvitz, golden era, government, hawaii, insight, labs, law, machine intelligence, machine learning, mandarin, microsoft research, networking, new england, new york city, North America, predictive modeling, predictive models, redmond, rick rashid, sensing, silicon valley, storage, tianjin, traffic free route, visualization, web

For over 20 years, Microsoft Research’s labs around the world have focused on research across a broad spectrum of topics in computer science. From the start, the organization has invested heavily in pioneering breakthroughs in machine intelligence, including efforts in machine learning and big data. In this interview, Distinguished Scientist Eric Horvitz talks about advances he sees on the horizon, the influence they will have on your daily life, and how insights from big data and developing more intelligent software and services will change the world.

REDMOND, Wash. – Feb. 15, 2013 – At Microsoft Research labs around the world, some very deep thinkers are contemplating big data.

This includes Eric Horvitz, distinguished scientist at Microsoft and co-director of Microsoft Research’s Redmond lab, who was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his work in “computational mechanisms for decision making under uncertainty and with bounded resources.” (more…)

Flies of the World Embrace Vegetarianism

By Guest PostFebruary 2, 2013Nature, Scienceagricultural pests, animal kingdom, australia, bracken ferns, brassicas, canolas, change of lifestyle, convergent phenotypes, cyanogenic compounds, detoxify the plants, earth, evolutionary biologists, Facebook, family drosophilidae, fly detectives, genetic changes, genetic pathways, genome biology evolution, good model organisms, hawaii, hawaiian lineage, herbivores, herbivorous fly species, insects, levels of alcohol, microbe eating flies, mt lemmon, mustard plants, new zealand, noah whiteman, North America, north american flies, organisms, papua new guinea, richard lapoint, scaptomyza nigrita, South Pacific, toxic plants, united kingdom, university of arizona, vegetarianism

Microbe-eating flies from at least three different locations around the world recently have evolved into herbivores, feeding on some of the most toxic plants on Earth. Fly detectives and UA evolutionary biologists Noah Whiteman and Richard Lapoint are trying to find out what genetic pathways led the flies to such a major change of lifestyle.

For millennia, they buzzed through the woods, contentedly munching yeasts off the surfaces of leaves, bracken and rotting duff on the forest floor. But now, flies in the family Drosophilidae, whose disparate members dwell in areas all across the planet, have evolved into all-out vegetarians with a wicked diet of plants that are deadly to most other organisms.

What, University of Arizona scientists would like to know, has caused these flies, yeast-feeders for nearly 80 million years, to independently go cold turkey with respect to their formerly meaty diets? (more…)

USGS-NOAA: Climate Change Impacts to U.S. Coasts Threaten Public Health, Safety and Economy

By Guest PostJanuary 29, 2013Environmentalaskan coastal zone, climate change, coastal ecosystems, coastal watershed, coastal zone, congress, current environmental stresses, currents, ecological changes, economic, effects, erosion, flooding, flooding related hazards, great lakes, gulf of mexico, hawaii, Health, heat related morbidity, island territories, low lying parts, margaret davidson, mid atlantic, national climate assessment, natural systems, new jersey shore, noaa, northern alaska, permafrost, public hazard, sandy and katrina, scientific data, sea ice, sea-level rise, social, southern california beach, species, storm surge flooding, storms, sunset, threaten, u.s economy, U.S. Geological Survey, united states, us coast, us coastal communities, usgs, virginia burkett, vitality

According to a new technical report, the effects of climate change will continue to threaten the health and vitality of U.S. coastal communities’ social, economic and natural systems.

The report, Coastal Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerabilities: a technical input to the 2013 National Climate Assessment, authored by leading scientists and experts, emphasizes the need for increased coordination and planning to ensure U.S. coastal communities are resilient against the effects of climate change. (more…)

Degraded Military Lands To Get Ecological Boost From CU-led Effort

By Guest PostNovember 16, 2012Environmentamerican west, arid ecosystem, arid land, atmospheric dust, bacteria, biocrusts, biological soil crust, boulder, central america, China, colorado, cyanobacteria, degraded, desert environment, dugway proving ground, erosion, extreme environment, ferran garcia pichel, fort bliss, fungi, general george patton, hawaii, inoculation, jayne belnap, lichens, metropolitan area, michael duniway, microbial communities, military activity, military exercises, military installation, military vehicles, modeling, mojave desert, mosses, new mexico, nichole barger, northwest utah, pollutant, polyacrylamide, probability, restore, sasha reed, soil erosion, soil fertility, soil surface, South Africa, south america, survival, texas, university, water retention, word war

Some arid lands in the American West degraded by military exercises that date back to General George Patton’s Word War II maneuvers in the Mojave Desert should get a boost from an innovative research project led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

Headed up by CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Nichole Barger, the research team is focused on developing methods to restore biological soil crusts — microbial communities primarily concentrated on soil surfaces critical to decreasing erosion and increasing water retention and soil fertility. Such biological soil crusts, known as “biocrusts,” can cover up to 70 percent of the ground in some arid ecosystems and are dominated by cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, fungi and bacteria, she said. (more…)