The small but charismatic Hawaiian bobtail squid is known for its predator-fooling light organ. To survive, the nocturnal cephalopod depends on a mutually beneficial relationship with the luminescent bacterium, Vibrio fischeri, which gives it the ability to mimic moonlight on the surface of the ocean, and deceive monk seals and other predators that would happily make a meal of the …
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Three key University of Hawaiʻi staff contributed to Hawaiian voyaging canoe Hōkūleʻa’s exploration and research at Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in June. Chad Kalepa Baybayan is a master navigator and serves as astronomer in residence at UH’s ʻImiloa Astronomy Center on the Big Island. UH graduate assistant Haunani Kane is serving as Hōkūleʻa’s assistant navigator. UH researcher Ruth Gates, an …
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Scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and University of Tokyo revealed that two species of deep-sea sharks, sixgill and prickly sharks, are positively buoyant—they have to work harder to swim downward than up and they can glide uphill for minutes at a time without using their tails. Their results were published in a recent study,“Unexpected Positive Buoyancy in …
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A new paper, published this month in Science, details the explosion in aquatic animal tracking research over the past 30 years and its impact on discoveries about the movements, migrations, interactions and survival of both common and elusive aquatic species. The review, co-authored by Kim Holland, researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), …
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The Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute (HNEI) has commissioned a “Fast-Fill” high-pressure hydrogen fueling station at the Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i (MCBH), Kaneohe Bay. This state-of-the-art station was developed to support a fleet of General Motors Equinox Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV) leased by the Office of Naval Research for use by Marine Corps and Navy personnel on O‘ahu. Operational since …
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Our solar system, and other planetary systems, started as a disk of microscopic dust, gas and ice around the young Sun. The amazing diversity of objects in the solar system today—the planets, moons, asteroids and comets—was made from this primitive dust. NASA’s Stardust mission returned to Earth with samples of comet Wild 2, a comet that originated outside the orbit …
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Researchers from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries today announced the discovery of an intact “ghost ship” in 2,000 feet of water nearly 20 miles off the coast of Oʻahu. Sitting upright, its solitary mast still standing and the ship’s wheel still in place, the hulk of the former cable ship Dickenson, later the …
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El Niño, the abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, is a well-studied tropical climate phenomenon that occurs every few years. It has major impacts on society and Earth’s climate – inducing intense droughts and floods in multiple regions of the globe. Further, scientists have observed that El Niño greatly influences the yearly variations of tropical cyclones …
Read More »Human-induced changes to Earth’s carbon cycle – for example, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and ocean acidification – have been observed for decades. However, a study published this week in Science showed human activities, in particular industrial and agricultural processes, have also had significant impacts on the upper ocean nitrogen cycle. The rate of deposition of reactive nitrogen (i.e., nitrogen oxides …
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UH Mānoa’s Milton Garces has contributed a new essay to the Sounding Out blog’s “Hearing the Unheard” series. The story highlights Garces’ research work in infrasound, low-frequency sounds in the atmosphere that are inaudible to the human ear, but can carry for thousands of kilometers. Infrasound has a variety of important and practical applications including its use in detecting secret missile …
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