And now the future...

There is an interesting comment string on the Scientist online today. Does tenure need to change? The overwhelming majority of those writing in seems to be against the tenure process as it is today. Too much emphasis on publications and grant money, and not enough emphasis on innovation and student support. It looks like a lot of bitter postdocs are waiting in line for jobs. Ah, I should get out now while I still have my sanity.

Tuesday update: The link above should work now!

Lost days of my youth, and such and such

Life goes by in a blink of an eye. I realized today I had not updated the blog in quite some time, and my only excuse is that I have been busy building sandcastles.*



Just kidding, I have never and probably will never build anything this cool in my life (although my knitting is coming along well, I don't think building scarves and hats count; btw, Lisa, I loved the "neurotrans-knitters" group. too funny). If you would like to look at more awesome sand art, check out this website. I have seen sand art like this only one time in my life, in Siesta Key near Sarasota, FL, during one of the AChemS meetings. A nine year old girl was the artist. Some people have all the skills...

I hope to get some sandcastle builiding in this weekend while camping with the Sally crew at Waimanalo beach. That is, of course, if I get all my real work done!

* Technically I have actually been writing a grant, rewriting a manuscript, preparing a frisbee tournament for August 18, preparing to teach Anatomy and Physiology this fall, preparing for a workshop in Durham in September, taking care of the dog since I'm by myself since K is on the east coast partying with Bart and teaching workshops, and last but not least, preparing to leave for the east coast this Thursday to go to two weddings, visit with my family, clean my grandfather's house, and maybe sit by the pool one day and enjoy the upstate New York summer. This has been the busiest summer I can remember, and I don't think it will let up until Christmas. C'est la vie!,

with love, Caro-whine

The Line abides

Episode 56 is a big disappointment

So far, Episode 56 is about as exciting as Star Wars Episode 2 (ZING!). After the initial new crack formed, little lava came to the surface. The earthquakes stopped, and the flow into the ocean that has gone on steadily for years, also stopped. Apparently, the lava is being rerouted, but no one knows where. Could it be that we won't have to hike 3 miles the next time we go to see it? Oh wait, I forgot, Kyle and I only walked one mile and then collapsed (Brian, Dacks, Penny, and Carolina went further, but they too, turned around. Hiking 9 miles with packs in the same day probably did not help...)

Here is the update. I hope this isn't the end of the volcano as we know it. That would make me sad. How sad? As sad as this girl:

Episode 56

The volcano gods are smiling. A new crack in the Kilauea crater formed this morning resulting in a new lava outflow. The geologists thought something big may happen after a series of hundreds of mini earthquakes hit on Sunday.

See info here and here.

This is the first time there has been a change in the lava flow since K and I have lived in Hawaii. We may have to plan another hiking trip to the Big Island, although I expect Halape Beach, where we stayed last time, is going to be a prime tsunami target after any major changes. Here's Halape after the October 6.7 earthquake.
You can see the plume of brown water from the rock slides:



Can't wait to see what the gods have in store for us next!

Happy King Kamehameha Day!

Today is a state holiday in Hawaii, which means no work! Yeah! King Kamehameha (Kah-may-ha-may-ha) established the united Hawaiian islands in 1810 by brute force and, oh yeah, guns. If you ever visit Oahu, you will visit the Pali lookout where Kamehameha's troops forced thousands of the other guy's men over a three hundred foot cliff to their deaths (when the Pali highway was built in the early 1900's, the engineers discovered several of the skulls). Once, he was reported to carry a 1000 lb. rock between villages without dropping it. What a guy.

To celebrate the day, I am going to work at home. Part of working at home is procrastinating, so I decided to post some pictures of some of our latest adventures.

First, I reported a couple weeks ago that I was going to ride around the whole island on the back of a motorcycle. It was amazing, and now I want to own one.

Here is my driver, Megan, and I cruising around Makapuhu:


And here is the hang glider who flew above us (can the sky get any bluer than this?):



It was Kim's first time driving around the entire island. She was nervous, but she finished in record time!



And Andjrez and Brandee completed the biker gang:



And then last Friday, we went to the top of Kokohead to watch the almost full moon rise. It was a beautiful hike, although a bunch of us got cold in the 75d winds. Pathetic, I know.

Here are Kim, Kim, Kyle, and I overlooking Hanuma Bay:


Enjoy your King Kamaehameha Day, wherever you are!

Slight update...

Hi y'all. Things have been busy here. K just finished teaching / running experiments and I am in the tangles of collecting the last data for a paper. In the meantime, we have been checking out the best bread puddings the island has to offer (thanks Honolulu weekly's article) . So far we have tried "European with a twist" and "The best of both worlds". The Grand Cafe and Bakery (B of BW), by the way, has an excellent outdoor patio where we also enjoyed smoked salmon and regular eggs benedict, the best corned beef hash since Ghini's in Tucson, and apple banana french toast with vanilla gellato. I am drooling just thinking about it now.

What else, oh yeah, I am seriously considering buying everyone this for Christmas. After all, who wouldn't want a deed to a piece of an island that may or may not break the surface of the ocean in the next 10,000 years?!? (Mahalo, Meg, for this article!)

Well, I am off to go collect slipper lobsters today. And by collect, I mean I need to go meet a guy from NOAA who will present one to me in a wet cardboard box. What fun!

Who needs men? Not sharks!

Hawaiian waters are full of hammerhead sharks. One of the guys we play frisbee with even studies their electromagnetic sensing capabilities. And now, researchers have discovered that female hammerheads can reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis.

The last line of the article reads:
“I would be concerned about a lot of other things than whether or not a female shark can get a date for an evening."

It makes me giggle to think about sharks looking for dates.

Attack of the killer jellies!

Eight to ten days after the full moon, box jellyfish descend upon Oahu's beaches, threatening Hanauma Bay and Waikiki tourists with their stinging nematocysts. One species, the sea wasp (Chironex fleckeri), is:

"claimed to be the most venomous marine animal known," according to the Australian Institute of Marine Science. They state that it causes excruciating pain to humans, often followed by death, sometimes within two or three minutes, and that the chance of survival if stung while swimming alone is "virtually zero."

The body of Chironex is the size of a basketball.

Luckily, here in Hawaii, we have the Carybdea alata and Carybdea rastonii species. They're not so big (less than 6") and not so bad (only cause anaphylactic shock in the lucky individuals allergic to their venom) as their relatives in Australia. One of the ladies in my department, Angel Yanagihara studies their venom and goes on regular collection trips in the middle of the special "8th night".



I would also like to comment about the figure the author of the Wikipedia article chose for the box jellyfish. It is a drawing by Ernst Haeckel, my new favorite scientific rebel who apparently made up some data to support his pet hypotheses. A case of artistic license, maybe? Some of his famous "fakes" were included in the embryo drawings, shown here in Romanes's 1892 version where the background has been changed to white from black:



He later admited that 6-8% of the images may have been "falsified" (translated).

Tomorrow, we plan on going to the North shore to snorkel Shark's Cove. The jellyfish are not so prevalent up there, so we should be fine. I am more worried about riding up there on the back of Megan's motorcycle. An hour and a half on a cruiser. I can't wait...

The quaking ground

Friday fun facts!!!, by Caroline

The Big Island has had three earthquakes this week, two at 3.5, and today's at 2.1. No tsunamis have formed, but I have a feeling a bigger earthquake may be coming soon. The Hawaii Electric Company (HECO) has replaced their ill-fated mercury containing switches, with new ones so our electricity should fortunately not magically disappear during the next earthquake. Note to engineers: do not place a movable liquid in a switch when the liquid may move from the shaking of the ground.

And did you know, "The brain is the only organ that hates crime"? I love Achewood.

The end of an era...

The Maui Land & Pineapple company, the last exporter of canned Hawaiian pineapple, is ending its operations on June 30. This marks the end of 100 years of canned pineapple exports from the state of Hawaii. The loss of the cannery is, "is a victim of cheaper overseas producers" like Costa Rica, Mexico, and Ecuador. Moreover, it marks the decidely necessary, but disappointingly bitter shift from Hawaii's agriculutural heritage to one of land developers and tourist dollars. Aloha, canned pineapples!

Don't worry, though, Hawaii still exports fresh pineapples! For now, anyways.

Read more at the Honolulu Adverstiser.

p.s. Did you know pineapples grew on the ground in these crazy agave-like configurations? I always thought they grew on trees until I moved here!

UFOs in Hawaii?!?

A Katysux original....

p.s. I don't really believe this is a UFO. This is actually a picture I found on the internet. In the "Where's Waldo?" tradition, I have hidden the words, "Katy sux" somewhere in the picture. Can you find it, Katy?

Now presenting....

Creatures of the deep....



The science journal, Marine Biotechnology picked my image of a Labiodocera sp. copepod for its cover for next month! Last June, a colleague here at U. of Hawaii, Gabor Macz asked my boss, Petra, if any of the local copepods expressed green fluorescent protein (GFP). Petra, who was in Maine at the time, asked me to take a look. We discovered that the local species, like some of the other Labidocera, likely contain (a previously undescribed!) GFP in the female sex organs.

Here is the caption for the image:

Confocal microscopic image of the Pacific copepod Labidocera muridae with green fluorescent protein-like fluorescence. Colorful fluorescent proteins (FPs) occur in hydrozoan, anthozoan, and copepodan species, and are the source of exciting research opportunities and technological development. Copepodan FPs are among the brightest FPs in general which lends special value to this class of proteins. FPs have been used to address questions relevant to evolutionary and developmental biology and aquaculture. Photograph by Dr. Caroline Wilson, University of Hawaii, 2006. See the article by Mocz, pp. 000-000.

Isn't science fun?

Beer, earthworms, and lots of shrimp...

For the first time since I have lived in Hawaii, I feel like I am home. It happened this weekend when I was down at Kapiolani Park hanging out with a bunch of friends at a pre-Kokua fest party, when I looked up at Diamondhead and realized that it was my backyard. I live here, and I like it here. And I think I get to stay at least one more year, so I better take advantage of all that Hawaii has to offer.

The feeling was accented by a weekend of parties, starting with a Thursday surprise party for my friend, Kim, at the Ice Palace. Kim used to be a semi-pro figure skater, so it was only fitting to take her to the only ice rink in Hawaii for her 30th birthday. Then, on Friday night, the Sally's camped at Bellows beach, easily the most beautiful stretch of beach on the island. Saturday was the Kokua festival (I got to hear Jack Johnson and Eddie Vedder do a duet, but didn't actually see them since I didn't go into the show. One just needs to set up camp behind the Waikiki shell to hear the bands. Incidentally, this is where Kyle and I "watched" Hootie and the Blowfish play last spring.) Finally, Jake is in town, so we went on what is easily the most beautiful hike on Oahu yesterday, the Maunawili falls trail. People go to the falls and jump off; we saw about 4 guys do it; one came out with a bloody lip from the impact. It was pretty sweet.



Tomorrow begins a new experiment and my list of experimental necessities includes beer, earthworms, and different kinds of shrimp. The beer is for the boat driver, and the animals will hopefully be my control group. If all goes well with this experiment, my boss wants to send a paper to Nature. Hah! We shall see, we shall see!!!! Experiments never work that well, do they?

Have you ever had a lab accident?

Sunday, 10:30am.

Twenty minutes into heating a solution....voila, it was done!

There I was, with my lab coat on, closed-toed shoes (which rarely happens in Hawaii), behind the protection of a hood.

Thank goodness.

I took the solution off the hot plate and....

the bottom of the glass bottle remained on the hot plate, the top, still in my hand.

The lanthanum chloride in sodium cacodylate splashed everywhere. The hot plate is ruined.

"Do you know how to tell when you have acute cacodylate exposure?" asks Tina, our lab manager 10 minutes later when I call her.

"No..." (Oh crap, I forgot about the cacodylate, concentrating only on the effects of the rare-earth metal)

"You'll taste garlic".

Taste buds in check, I let out a sigh of a relief.

Boy, was I lucky. Serves me right for working on a Sunday.

Anyone else have any good work-related stories?

Good, good Friday

Aloha! K and I are back on the islands, and the weather this week has been BEAUTIFUL! This morning, we went to our new favorite place to take the dog, Kahala (Waialae) Beach park. Apparently, it is a sought after destination for beach weddings.

Speaking of weddings, we had a great time at both Dacks and Penny's and Lane and Anne's weddings last week. I would show you pictures, but our camera display died. I did manage to take a picture of Nate hanging out with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, at Solar Culture in Tucson:

Jake told us the afternoon before the show that Casiotone was playing that night, along with XiuXiu, two of Kyle's personal favorite Pitchfork-recommended bands. So we rounded up a posse (Julia, Jake, Nate, Elaine, K, and I) and went to what was easily one of the craziest shows I have ever been to. Awesome music, but the hipster kids just don't dance anymore. At least we had 40 oz. Tecates to make the evening go faster...

In DC, we went to the National Gallery, the Native American Museum, and saw beautiful cherry blossoms everywhere. What a great time of year for a wedding! Also, it was the first time I was back on the east coast for spring in probably 8 years. Spring is my favorite time of year, mostly because of Easter. This year, there is a party both on Saturday and Sunday thanks to all the April babies around the isle (I'm one of 8 frisbee players with birthdays between now and the 18th). And of course, my niece turns 1 year old tomorrow, so Happy Birthday, Megan!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Congratulations!

Love is in the air this week! We're off to Tucson this afternoon for Dacks and Penny's wedding on Sunday. Then, on Tuesday, we leave Tucson to travel to Lane and Anne's wedding the following Saturday in Washington, DC. Congratulations also to Anne-Marie and Kevin who are getting married that same Saturday.

Some inspirational quotes for the occasions:

I got gaps; you got gaps; we fill each other's gaps.
Rocky

What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how
compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.
Leo Tolstoy

Ultimately the bond of all companionship,
whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.
Oscar Wilde

If you live to be a hundred, I want
To live to be a hundred minus one day,
So I never have to live without you.
Winnie the Pooh

Blazer update

RIP Blazer. Wait, what? It's going to be fixed? For virtually nothing? How could it be?!?

Just got this email from Kyle (the f-bombs have been edited):

God Bless the motherf-ing internet.

We destroyed the car on Thursday.  Burnt the cylinder valve which was my
worst fear.  That is why it was loping.  No pressure.

If we had known this, the next step would be to sell the car at auction for
$300 bucks or so.  Not get it fixed.

The call I just got was from the owner of Artesian who told me this.  And he
also told me that his guy (the guy I spoke to) did not tell him that I had
said the engine was loping.  Otherwise - he would not have wasted the time
and effort on a car worth $3000 at most.

Later when he ran it and saw what was happening, he asked his guy if I had
mentioned the engine and he was forced to admit as much.  So this guy is in
big trouble.

We - on the other hand - are in great shape.  They are going to take the
next week or two and fix this (a $3000 job at minimum) for free and only
charge me the $650 for the radiator and pump work.

I am beside myself with joy.  What a f-ing prince this guy is.

Artesian.  Tell everyone you know.  I told the guy I would flood him with
referrals but he said they already had more customers than they can handle.
They don't advertise and he was confused how I even found about them.

F-ing internet.

k   

What a crazy week!

Whales! Alaskans and Tucsonites! Cleveland State Vikings! Leaky radiators!

It's been a busy week.

Last Saturday, Rob, Jana, Nate, and Elaine all came to town. They rented a beautiful house on the North Shore and we spent Sunday (and Thursday) eating, drinking, and snorkeling with them. The whales were out in abundance as well, and you could look off their front porch at any given moment and see them frolicking along the reefs. Here's Jana checking them out:

We also drank "Mai-tais" and Miller Lites. A drink for each hand!

On Sunday, we took the crew to our favorite snorkeling spot, Sharks Cove. We enjoyed Miller Lites in the sun-warmed "hot tubs" on top of the rocks. Apparently, on Tuesday, Sharks Cove became Sharks Bay, as the famous north shore waves came in and inundated everything, including the roads. North shore pictures are posted here if you want to see the rest of our adventures.


A spring break coaching trip also brought my friend, Dave, to Hawaii this past week. Dave and I played tennis together at Allegheny, and we hadn't seen each other in probably 5 years. He is an assistant coach for Cleveland State now, and the men's and women's teams came to play the local Hawaiian teams (who, by the way, are really, really good). Dave and I had an awesome night in Waikiki on Wednesday, drinking Killian's and messing with cops by jaywalking right in front of them so we could get our picture taken with Duke Kahanmoku statue. Just like old times...

Finally, on K's and my way back from the North Shore on Thursday, our Chevy Blazer's radiator gave out, leading to some sort of miserable spurting of the water pump whenever the accelator was pressed. After a brief respite of steam streaming out of the hood beside the highway (where are the Green Angels when you need them!!!), we sputtered our way to the local Chevron where there just happened to be a willing tow truck driver (how do you say "tow truck" in Pidgeon?). He towed us home for $65 (which turned out to be twice that amount by the time you added "mileage"). But, I was happy to be home to the poor Gaffers who had been home alone all day.

Now, slightly sick from all this running around, I will relax on this St. Patty's day and thank the basketball gods that Ohio State didn't bite it this morning by losing to Xavier. I picked OSU to win it all, and that would have seriously messed up my bracket. Corned beef and cabbage for dinner, and maybe a Guiness or Boddington to remind us of St. Patty's days of yore. Hanging out with old (and new) friends this week really made me appreciate all those good, good times (you know, the ones we will always remember....)

Mahalo, hale aikāne!

The Godfather

Don't make fun of me (especially Brian who I know owns the whole set), but tonight I am watching The Godfather for, what I believe to be, the first time. K was floored when he discovered this the other day, and immediately put it at the top of the Netflix queue. I am excited to see it, especially since K's making me a dinner of insalata caprese and vodka penne, accompanied by a cabernet (French, damn it!)

By the way, I have also never seen Gone with the Wind, all of Casablanca, or Lawrence of Arabia (I fell asleep).

How do I understand any cultural references? I guess, sadly, I don't.

What have I been doing with my time on this earth? Sitting with my thumb up my arse. Oh, and playing outside a lot (I do live in Hawaii, after all!)

Late winter weather

Here in Honolulu, February / March weather means rainbows. You can imagine my surprise, then, when last Sunday my mother asked how much snow I had (oops, wrong daughter!) Trade winds bring the rain and it dumps on Manoa Valley, and since we live on the sunny side of Manoa, we get to peer into the beautifully refracted light almost every day. The Hawaiians, which are sometimes known as the "Rainbow people" have a rich mythology concerning the rainbow. My favorite story:

Lono – Ancient Tiki God of Fertility and Peace
In Hawaiian mythology, Lono is a fertility and music god who descended to Earth on a rainbow to marry Laka. In agricultural and planting traditions, Lono was identified with rain and food plants. He was one of the four gods (with Ku, Kane, and his twin brother Kanaloa) who existed before the world was created. Lono was also the god of peace. In his honor, the great annual festival of the Makahiki was held. During this period (from October through February), all unnecessary work and war was kapu (taboo). This is also the season of taxes, olympic like games and when chiefs regrouped their forces (and organized campaigns ironically).

Damn. I should have read this before February ended. Now I guess I have to do some unnecessary work (manscripts, argh!). At least I got the taxes paid and out of the way!

For more Hawaiian myths and history, check out this website.