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| Jules Tavernier painted a Full Moon over Kīlauea in 1887 and created a Panorama of Kīlauea, which was employed to promote visitors coming to the volcano. See story below in Volcano Watch. |
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| Rep. Tulsi Gabbard asks for re-commitment to aloha. |
“As we head into 2017, we must focus on putting forward solutions and our plan to serve all Americans. That means pursuing a vision of this country where the ultra rich cannot game our political and economic systems for their own benefit, on the backs of struggling working families. It means ensuring that our government is one that protects and values our civil liberties, diversity, justice, and equality. It means fighting to pass the Stop Arming Terrorists Act that I introduced to end our government’s absurd policy of providing direct and indirect support to those allied with al Qaeda and ISIS, as they fight to overthrow the Syrian government, stated the Congresswoman.
“It means an agenda that says the mass incarceration policies that have afflicted our country for far too long are unacceptable and must be reformed. It means raising our voices to protect our most precious resource - water - essential to our ability to live and thrive. It means working to raise the minimum wage so working people don’t have to choose between putting food on the table or paying rent—and a movement that ensures the LGBT community has the same rights and freedoms as all Americans. Now is a time for us to lead a new generation of progressive politics into the future,” stated Gabbard. To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
AN ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE WAS CAST FOR TULSI GABBARD FOR VICE PRESIDENT this week, but was disallowed by the Secretary of State of Minnesota, according to the publication Minnesota Lawyer this morning. The story says that "Muhammad Abdurrahman, the 'Faithless Elector,' wants to protest a Minnesota law that requires members of the Electoral College to follow the statewide vote," which went to Clinton. When the elector "disregarded a pledge he made to vote for the Hillary Clinton/Timothy Kaine ticket and cast his vote for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for president and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawai`i, for vice president," Minnesota Secretary of State "Steve Simon promptly nullified it and substituted a Clinton elector, the procedure required by the Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act, Minn. Stat. sec. 208.40.," reports the publication. The elector said he plans to sue to have his vote reinstated.
To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
PROTECT FAMILY PLANNING is the aim of Sen. Mazie Hirono and 33 Senate Democrats who sent a letter to President-elect Donald Trump today, urging him to oppose any efforts by Republicans to restrict federal funding from supporting Title X family planning centers. The letter says:
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| Sen. Mazie Hirono |
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| Hirono and 33 Senators wrote to President-elect Donald Trump this month concerning women's health care and his upcoming administration. Photo from Planned Parenthood |
The Title X family planning provider network is the only federal grant program dedicated solely to providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and related preventive health services. Four out of ten women who received care at health centers funded by Title X consider it to be their only source of health care, said Hirono.
The letter to Trump begins by saying, "We write to express our great concern regarding the protection of our nation’s family planning centers in the next Congress and under your Administration. The economic security of women and their families is directly tied to a woman’s access to reproductive health care, including birth control and counseling."
TOSANOIDES OBAMA is the name of a newly identified fish living in Hawaiian waters. This week, scientists from Bishop Museum, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Association for Marine Exploration published a description of the coral reef fish they named after President Barack Obama. Tosanoides obama, was discovered during a June 2016 NOAA research expedition to Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The study is published in the open-access scientific journal ZooKeys.
"We named this fish after President Obama to recognize his efforts to protect and preserve the natural environment, including the expansion of the Papahānaumokuākea," said Richard Pyle, Bishop Museum scientist and lead author of the study.
"This expansion adds a layer of protection to one of the last great wilderness areas on Earth."
On Aug. 26, at the urging of Sen. Brian Schatz, Native Hawaiian leaders, conservationists, and many marine scientists, Obama expanded Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. At 582,578 square miles, it is the largest permanent marine protected area on Earth. On Sept. 1, the president was given a picture of the fish that now bears his name during his trip to Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge within the Monument. The photograph was presented to Obama by famed undersea explorer Sylvia Earle, and the exchange will be featured in the National Geographic film, Sea of Hope: America's Underwater Treasures, to be released Jan. 15.
The small pink and yellow fish is a kind of basslet, a group that includes many colorful reef fishes popular in the marine aquarium fish trade. There are two other species in the genus Tosanoides, both from the tropical northwestern Pacific Ocean, including southern Japan. Males of the new species have a distinctive spot on the dorsal fin near the tail, which is blue around the edge and red with yellow stripes in the center.
The new fish is also unusual in that it is the only known species of coral reef fish endemic to the Monument (meaning that this species is not found anywhere else on Earth). All other reef fish species found within Papahānaumokuākea also occur either in the main Hawaiian Islands or Japan.
"Endemic species are unique contributions to global biodiversity," said NOAA scientist Randall Kosaki, chief scientist of the research cruise and co-author of the study. "With the onslaught of climate change, we are at risk of losing some of these undiscovered species before we even know they exist."
The new fish was first seen and collected on a dive to 300 feet at Kure Atoll, 1200 miles northwest of Honolulu. Kure Atoll is the northernmost emergent land of the Hawaiian Islands, and is the highest latitude coral atoll in the world. Deep coral reefs at depths of 150 to 500 feet, also known as mesophotic coral ecosystems, or the "coral reef twilight zone," are among the most poorly explored of all marine ecosystems. Deeper than divers using conventional scuba gear can safely venture, these reefs represent a new frontier for coral-reef research. Using advanced mixed-gas diving systems known as closed-circuit rebreathers, scientists like Pyle and co-authors Brian Greene and Randall Kosaki have been characterizing previously unexplored deep reefs throughout Hawai'i and the insular Pacific.
This is the second new species of fish named from Papahānaumokuākea this year. In August, Pyle and Kosaki published the description of a new species of butterflyfish Prognathodes basabei; based on specimens collected at Pearl and Hermes Atoll earlier this year. Elsewhere, Obama also has a trapdoor spider, a speckled freshwater darter (fish), and an extinct lizard named after him.
The study on the Obama fish was published on Dec. 21\in the peer-reviewed scientific journal ZooKeys, and is available online at http://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=11500. On the web: http://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov/news/obama_fish.html To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
NINETEENTH CENTURY VIRTUAL REALTY BRINGS HAWAI`I VOLCANO TO LIFE, says this week's Volcano Watch, issued by scientists at Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
The scientists point out: "The simulation of real and imaginary worlds for video games, movies, and other purposes has become big business in the 21st century. Virtual reality technology is improving rapidly, but the basic concept is not new.
"In the late 19th century, several artists were perfecting the portrayal of the fiery hues and breathtaking spattering of Kīlauea’s lava lake. The most prominent of these painters was Jules Tavernier, who was trained in France and already well known in California before he moved to Hawaiʻi in 1884. Inspired by the active lava lake within Kīlauea Crater, Tavernier created several paintings of various sizes that have remained iconic views of the lava lake’s activity during that period.
In 1888, Tavernier went one step further and created what we would now call a virtual reality depiction of Kīlauea volcano— the Panorama of Kīlauea, an 11-foot tall canvas arranged in a circle with a 90-foot circumference
"The Daily Bulletin (a Honolulu newspaper) described the viewer’s experience: “On reaching the platform [at the center surrounded by the canvas] from which the visitor gazes, the scene becomes impressive. Standing in the very center of the crater, with Halemaumau … and the Volcano House in their proper positions they appear as realistic as can be. The longer the visitor gazes, the stronger becomes the impression, until he fancies that he is actually in Kilauea.”
"The Panorama of Kīlauea was exhibited in the Hawaiian Kingdom for a while before being shipped to the United States. It eventually ended up in Washington, D.C., for public exhibition. Unfortunately, neither this valuable canvas nor any photos of it have ever been found.
"A few years later, Lorrin A. Thurston, a rising political leader of American missionary descendants and expatriates in the Hawaiian Kingdom, was looking for ways to accelerate tourism and to encourage Americans to settle in Hawaiʻi. He proposed a Hawaiʻi exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair to open in 1893.
"After the success of Tavernier’s Panorama of Kīlauea, Thurston thought that a larger cyclorama of Kīlauea “could be used advantageously to advertise Hawaii.” Thurston’s cyclorama was 50 feet high with a circumference of 400 feet—more than four times the size of Tavernier’s panorama.
"The Chicago Times newspaper described the cyclorama viewer’s experience: “The observation platform … places the visitor in the same position that he would occupy if he stood on the brink of the [Halemaʻumaʻu] pit in the vast crater of the volcano [Kīlauea]. … The horizon will present the outlines of … [Mauna Loa’s] snow-capped summit, from which issue delicate clouds of smoke, telling of the slumbering fires beneath her crest. Further along the eye meets Mauna Kea, the volcano house, and the blue sea. In the middle distance is the ragged side walls of the first great breakdown, seamed and furrowed with cracks and jagged edges, where the rocks have been rent by many an earthquake. Beneath his foot will be the lakes of fire, liquid lava, foaming, dashing, leaping in the wildest confusion. The floor will be a facsimile of the floor of the crater in every detail, built up of lava, and the fire effects secured by the use of electricity in the most ingenious and complicated contrivances. The observer will stand on lava rock brought from Kilauea.”
"The Kīlauea cyclorama, accompanied by agricultural exhibits and a Hawaiian village, including musicians and hula dancers, was later exhibited at the San Francisco Midwinter Fair in 1894–1895, and at several more mainland expositions into the early 20th century.
To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
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| Tosanoides Obama was named after the U.S. President Barack Obama recently after he helped make the Northern Hawaiian Islands into the largest marine preserve on Earth. Photo from Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument |
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| Obama receives photo of his namesake fish from marine biologist Sylvis Earle. Photo from Papahānaumokuākea Monument |
"This expansion adds a layer of protection to one of the last great wilderness areas on Earth."
On Aug. 26, at the urging of Sen. Brian Schatz, Native Hawaiian leaders, conservationists, and many marine scientists, Obama expanded Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. At 582,578 square miles, it is the largest permanent marine protected area on Earth. On Sept. 1, the president was given a picture of the fish that now bears his name during his trip to Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge within the Monument. The photograph was presented to Obama by famed undersea explorer Sylvia Earle, and the exchange will be featured in the National Geographic film, Sea of Hope: America's Underwater Treasures, to be released Jan. 15.
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The Obama fish loves coral and is endemic to Hawai`i.
Photo from Papahānaumokuākea Marine Monument |
The new fish is also unusual in that it is the only known species of coral reef fish endemic to the Monument (meaning that this species is not found anywhere else on Earth). All other reef fish species found within Papahānaumokuākea also occur either in the main Hawaiian Islands or Japan.
"Endemic species are unique contributions to global biodiversity," said NOAA scientist Randall Kosaki, chief scientist of the research cruise and co-author of the study. "With the onslaught of climate change, we are at risk of losing some of these undiscovered species before we even know they exist."
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| Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument is the largest marine reserve on Earth. |
This is the second new species of fish named from Papahānaumokuākea this year. In August, Pyle and Kosaki published the description of a new species of butterflyfish Prognathodes basabei; based on specimens collected at Pearl and Hermes Atoll earlier this year. Elsewhere, Obama also has a trapdoor spider, a speckled freshwater darter (fish), and an extinct lizard named after him.
The study on the Obama fish was published on Dec. 21\in the peer-reviewed scientific journal ZooKeys, and is available online at http://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=11500. On the web: http://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov/news/obama_fish.html To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter.
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| Kīlauea Cyclorama at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, with a statue of Madame Pele, above the entrance, standing on a lava flow and holding a flame. See https://chicagology.com/columbiaexpo/fair052/. |
The scientists point out: "The simulation of real and imaginary worlds for video games, movies, and other purposes has become big business in the 21st century. Virtual reality technology is improving rapidly, but the basic concept is not new.
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| Jules Tavernier |
In 1888, Tavernier went one step further and created what we would now call a virtual reality depiction of Kīlauea volcano— the Panorama of Kīlauea, an 11-foot tall canvas arranged in a circle with a 90-foot circumference
"The Daily Bulletin (a Honolulu newspaper) described the viewer’s experience: “On reaching the platform [at the center surrounded by the canvas] from which the visitor gazes, the scene becomes impressive. Standing in the very center of the crater, with Halemaumau … and the Volcano House in their proper positions they appear as realistic as can be. The longer the visitor gazes, the stronger becomes the impression, until he fancies that he is actually in Kilauea.”
"The Panorama of Kīlauea was exhibited in the Hawaiian Kingdom for a while before being shipped to the United States. It eventually ended up in Washington, D.C., for public exhibition. Unfortunately, neither this valuable canvas nor any photos of it have ever been found.
"A few years later, Lorrin A. Thurston, a rising political leader of American missionary descendants and expatriates in the Hawaiian Kingdom, was looking for ways to accelerate tourism and to encourage Americans to settle in Hawaiʻi. He proposed a Hawaiʻi exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair to open in 1893.
"After the success of Tavernier’s Panorama of Kīlauea, Thurston thought that a larger cyclorama of Kīlauea “could be used advantageously to advertise Hawaii.” Thurston’s cyclorama was 50 feet high with a circumference of 400 feet—more than four times the size of Tavernier’s panorama.
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| Lorrin A. Thurston took a volcano display to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 |
"The Kīlauea cyclorama, accompanied by agricultural exhibits and a Hawaiian village, including musicians and hula dancers, was later exhibited at the San Francisco Midwinter Fair in 1894–1895, and at several more mainland expositions into the early 20th century.
" It is unknown how effective these exhibits were at attracting American visitors to Hawaiʻi, but Thurston’s cyclorama certainly provided an inexpensive way for thousands to experience
Kīlauea Volcano.
Visit the HVO website (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov) for past Volcano Watch articles, Kīlauea daily eruption updates, Mauna Loa weekly updates, volcano photos, recent earthquakes info, and more.
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CHRISTMAS IN THE COUNTRY is ongoing through the holidays at Volcano Art Center in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. Free; park entrance fees apply.
VOTE FOR THE BEST DECORATED Kilauea Military Camp through the holidays.
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| www/kaucalendar.com |
