At prestigious banquet held this week in the Great Hall of the People, China’s capitol building, Governor Linda Lingle specifically acknowledged Chancellor Rose Tseng, in attendance at the banquet, who played a pivotal role in Mauna Kea being chosen as the site for the Thirty Meter Telescope, a $1.2 billion project.

Press release from the Office of the Governor:

Governor Lingle was the honored guest of the China Diplomatic Friendship Association and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce banquet held in the Great Hall of the People, China’s capitol building. The special guest at this event was Lu Yong Xiang, vice chairman of the Chinese People’s National Congress and head of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences. Vice Chairman Lu recently returned from visiting Mauna Kea on the Big Island, the site of the forthcoming Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). China intends to be a collaborative partner in the TMT project.

Mr. Lu believes China and Hawai‘i have a great opportunity to work together in scientific explorations. As he stated, “Hawai‘i can see the cosmos and the vast oceans—so its horizons are unlimited.” Mr. Lu praised Governor Lingle for her foresight in establishing strong relationships with China, demonstrated by her four trips to the country during her administration.

Governor Lingle provided a history of the telescope project, including the competition between Mauna Kea and the Cerro Armazones in Chile for the final build site. The Governor specifically acknowledged University of Hawai‘i at Hilo Chancellor Rose Tseng, in attendance at the banquet, who played a pivotal role in Hawai‘i being chosen as the site for this $1.2 billion project.

Governor Lingle thanked everyone for the opportunity to end her trip in such a prestigious location as the Great Hall of the People’s Congress, a mark of the strength of the friendship between Hawai‘i and China.

Have you ever wondered who to call when you see an injured turtle on the beach? Or how to culture a black pearl? How small is a fish that is too small to keep?

Find out the answer to these and other fascinating questions concerning the ocean surrounding us at the 3rd annual Ocean Day Hawaii, hosted by the University of Hawaii at Hilo Pacific Aquaculture and Coastal Resources Center (PACRC, pictured above) and Marine Science Department, in partnership with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant and Hilo Jaycees.

Admission is free for this family-friendly event on Saturday, April 25, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at PACRC on Kalanianaole Avenue in Keaukaha.

Ocean Day Hawaii is a community outreach event designed to increase public awareness of ocean issues such as conservation, ocean resources and ocean safety through fun, interactive displays, activities and booths. Over 1,000 people attended last year’s event. This year’s Ocean Day promises to be bigger and better, with additional and more diverse displays.

All ages will enjoy the hands-on activities prepared by UH Hilo Marine Science researchers and partners, including the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources, Marine Mammal Response Network, Hawaii Wildlife Society and Mokupapapa. For the keiki, there are fishing games, touch-tank exploration and face painting plus crafts and activities, including a poi pounding workshop. Artwork of our coastal Hawaii nei by Keaukaha keiki will be displayed as well as underwater remote operated vehicles (ROVs) courtesy of local robotics groups. Site tours will also be given.

In addition to providing information on current topics such as why plastic is harmful to marine life and what we can do to help identify and control aquatic invasive species, other booths will focus on our coastal heritage here in Hawaii. Information will be available on how to get involved with beach clean-ups, what you can do to help preserve and protect our ocean resources, and how to gain a career in the ocean sciences.

There will be a welcome by Patrick Kahawaiolaa of the Keaukaha Community Association and UH Hilo Chancellor Rose Tseng. For more information, e-mail Sharon Ziegler-Chong at ziegler@hawaii.edu or Michele Kubojiri at mkubojir@hawaii.edu or call 933-3289.

Chancellor Tseng, at center in red, at US-China Energy Conference held at UH Hilo

From Big Island Video News:

March 19, 2009 – Hilo, Hawaii
VIDEO: David Corrigan

An international meeting of the world’s top two energy consuming countries took place on the Big Island Wednesday, as the Committee on U.S. – China Cooperation on Electricity from Renewables convened in Hilo.

The University of Hawaii at Hilo was the host for the joint U.S.-China delegation, which was comprised of leading scientists and experts on renewable energy from the National Academies of Science and Engineering in both countries.

According to a university press release, the committee met at UH Hilo to learn more about how the Big Island’s renewable energy strategies, initiatives and research can strengthen the economic foundation of the community.

Chancellor Rose Tseng, who greeted the Chinese delegates in their own language, took a moment to do a video interview about the important meeting.

Joining the two countries’ leading renewable energy researchers were representatives of Mayor Billy Kenoi, Hawaii Electric Light Company, Kanoelehua Industrial Area Association and local agriculture businesses.

A UH-Hilo press release notes that the U.S. and China rank as the world’s top two energy consumers, but remain largely reliant on fossil fuels.

The delegation is also visiting other parts of the state.

From West Hawaii Today:

by Jason Armstrong
Sunday, January 25, 2009

Two-time space voyager Astronaut Daniel Tani, the keynote speaker at Saturday’s ninth annual Astronaut Ellison Onizuka Science Day on the University of Hawaii at Hilo campus, wows his audience with footage of the October 2007 blastoff of the Space Shuttle Discovery on its 16th flight to the International Space Station. Tani spent 120 days living and working aboard the station, during which he performed numerous robotic operations and carried out five extra-vehicular spacewalks. – William Ing | Stephens Media

HILO — An estimated 600 Big Island students spent Saturday learning about science, space exploration and the experiences of a NASA astronaut.

“Today was really a fun day,” said Lauren Miho, a Waiakea High School freshman and Key Club chairwoman for the 2009 Astronaut Ellison Onizuka Science Day held at the University of Hawaii at Hilo campus.

The free, daylong event featured interactive science displays, various workshops and a humorous demonstration on the effects of air pressure.

“I think Ellison is very happy,” said Shirley Matsuoka, older sister of the Kealakekua native who was aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger when it exploded 73 seconds after launching Jan. 28, 1986.

“It was very exciting to see the students enjoying themselves and absorbing all the science they can,” Matsuoka said of the annual event. “It was great.”

The Onizuka family, the Onizuka Memorial Committee, the Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Space Center, Future Flight Hawaii, the Hawaii Space Grant Consortium and UH-Hilo co-sponsored the event.

Also invaluable were corporate sponsors, including American Savings Bank, which has backed the event from its inception.

“It takes a lot of people to make it happen, and we’re very fortunate to have a lot of support,” said Claude Onizuka, Ellison’s brother.

Read the rest of this entry »

In today’s Honolulu Advertiser:

KAILUA, KONA, Hawai’i — The Big Island may become the center of the universe for U.S. space projects. At least that is the vision of the director of a space research program at the University of Hawai’i-Hilo.

Frank Schowengerdt, director of Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, or PISCES, said the Big Island is the ideal spot on Earth for kick-starting NASA’s plans to put men and women on the moon and Mars permanently. “We’re going back (to the moon) and we’re going back to stay by 2018 or 2020,” he said. “We want a permanent presence on the moon, and PISCES has a permanent place on the Big Island.”

The PISCES program, which scored $400,000 last year from the Legislature, bills itself as an international research and education center for the development of technologies to sustain human life on the moon and beyond.

Its mission is to advance the settlement of space through partnerships with industry, academia, NASA and space agencies around the world, Schowengerdt said. Future funding likely will come from federal and state sources, as well as private donations and grants.

The program last month was instrumental in NASA’s successful tests of equipment to turn soil into oxygen and water on the slopes of Mauna Kea.

Link

The 19th century Native Hawaiian artist, after whom UH Hilo’s Hawaiian language immersion school in Keaau is named, now also has a crater on Mecury named after him.

From The Honolulu Star Bulletin:

Heavenly honor bestowed on Nawahi

The native of Puna was an artist, teacher, lawyer, publisher

When the Messenger spacecraft begins orbiting Mercury in March 2011, it will look down on “Nawahi Crater.”

A little smaller than Kauai, the crater is named for Kahooluhi Nawahi, also known as Joseph Kahooluhi Nawahiokalaniopuu.

The self-taught artist from Puna, who died in 1896 at age 54, was known as a Renaissance man with many talents and interests from art, law and teaching to newspaper publishing.

Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, University of Hawaii-Manoa planetary researcher and member of the Messenger space mission team, proposed Nawahi’s name for the crater in Mercury’s Calloris Basin after consulting the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

A Hawaiian language immersion school in Keaau on the Big Island, Ke Kula O Nawahiokalaniopuu Iki, also bears the artist’s name.

Tonight’s guest on Focus on UH Hilo cable TV show is Hawaii Small Business Development Center Network‘s state director William Carter. Carter will discuss the business incubator’s role in development of small enterprises and services that promote job and sales growth.

The 30-minute show airs live tonight on local cable Channel 55 starting at 8:00 p.m. For those who do not have cable, please contact the marketing and alumni office for DVD of show.

Focus on UH Hilo, hosted by Chancellor Tseng and moderated by Ken Hupp, highlights UH Hilo programs, developments and partnerships with community organizations.

For more information, email Michelle Araki at melander@hawaii.edu.

An agreement between the Academia Sinica and the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo was signed this week by Chancellor Rose Tseng during a trip to Taiwan hosted by Hawai‘i Governor Linda Lingle.

The Hawai‘i-Taiwan joint partnership in undergraduate education, community outreach and astronomy research, stemming from the Taiwan-American Occultation Survey, will facilitate the enhancement of current TAOS research capabilities in Hawai‘i and initiate reciprocal educational, outreach, and research programs.

The purpose of the TAOS project (http://taos.asiaa.sinica.edu.tw) is to measure directly the number of Kuiper Belt Objects in the outer solar system. This knowledge will help scientists to understand the formation and evolution of comets in the early solar system.

“The TAOS-Hawai‘i partnership will lead to an increase in the number of under-represented minorities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) professions, and expand the ability and mission of the UH Hilo ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawai‘i to interpret the relationship between science and culture,” Governor Lingle said.

“Astronomy and space science have become significant activities generating income and employment in Hawai‘i,” said Ted Liu, director of the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. “On the Big Island it is topped only by tourism. The Mauna Kea observatories bring in over $150 million dollars to the local economy and employ over 600 workers, including many kama‘aina.”

TAOS is an ongoing international research program led by the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics with a number of other institutions, including the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Taiwan’s National Central University (Institute of Astronomy), Yonsei University (South Korea), and, through this agreement, the newest member – UH Hilo.

Academia Sinica was founded June 9, 1928. As a prominent academic institution in Taiwan, Academia Sinica has two basic missions: conducting scientific research in its own institutions, as well as providing guidance, channels of communication, and encouragement to raising academic standards in the country.

Link

Teams of scientists from four universities, led by the College of Pharmacy at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, are presenting a large-scale research concept to the National Science Foundation (NSF) in order to study traditional medicine. The universities involved are UH Hilo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University and Purdue University.

“Research is becoming more of a collaborative effort because of fiscal limitations and the complexity of problems we face,” said Dr. John Pezzuto (pictured), dean of the College of Pharmacy in Hilo. “It’s important for us to reach out to other schools to share our expertise and also to show we are a competitive force in the educational arena. It’s also an important step in gaining final approval in the accreditation process, which will take place when our first class graduates in 2011.”

Using advanced analytical technology such as X-ray diffraction, spectroscopy and bioanalytics, the researchers will investigate how characteristics of traditional medicines affect how they work in people. The relationships will be pulled together with informatics and bioinformatics, or the computational organization and analysis of the data. The researchers hope to fill a gap in how to identify the important elements of traditional medicine to treat serious diseases.

“Many traditional medicines have hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of history and it is almost certain that some of them could provide important leads for new drugs or new uses for old medicines,” Pezzuto said.

Team leaders from UH Hilo are Dr. Robert Borris, associate dean for research in pharmacy, and Dr. Kenneth Morris, professor of pharmaceutics. Faculty from the departments of biology and chemistry are helping to lead the effort, as well as other faculty from throughout the College of Pharmacy.

The NSF Science and Technology program is designed to support large-scale research across institutions to advance and create new science. This pre-proposal will be decided on after April 2009, and will be one of the many ways UH Hilo’s College of Pharmacy is building a strong research reputation in the global healthcare industry, Pezzuto said.

To help communicate this vision, Pezzuto is presenting an invited lecture, co-authored with Morris, to scientists at the Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research. The conference, held in Washington, D.C. this week, is organized by the American Association for Cancer Research. Current work, conducted through a collaborative project involving UH Hilo College of Pharmacy, Purdue University, Scripts Institute of Oceanography and the University Illinois at Chicago, is funded by the National Cancer Institute. The lecture focuses on linking traditional medicine to advanced informatics, which is already used for the redesign of drug manufacturing and gene research.

Link to full story.

UH Hilo’s Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems, or PISCES, hosts team of NASA scientists this week, who are conducting research at Mauna Kea in preparation for space exploration.

NASA tests ideas on Mauna Kea

From Big Island VideoNews.com:

NASA wrapped two weeks of tests on the volcanic soil of the Big Island of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, and invited the media to take a look at the technological concepts that will assist future space missions.

The goal was to test systems that will one day assist astronauts in maintaining a sustainable and affordable lunar outpost, by drilling into alien soil and extracting water that could be used to create oxygen.

NASA’s lunar exploration plan currently projects that lunar resources could generate one to two tons of oxygen annually, or the same amount that four to six people living at a lunar outpost might breathe in a year.

The tests were held on Hawaii because Mauna Kea’s soil is so similar to the regolith that covers the moon’s surface. Three prototype systems were tested.

The tests were hosted by Pacific International Space Center [for Exploration Systems], or PISCES, based at the University of Hawaii – Hilo.

In this video, William Larson, Chief of NASA’s Applied Sciences Division, explains the tests in greater detail.