I am still working out what to use this blog for.  In the most important sense I want to provide a way for the general public to see some of what goes on in the daily work of scientists and university professors.  Also, as a way for people to see a little of what I am up to.  This may also function as a log of activities; however, I do not intend for it to be a full and complete record in any way.  Rather this is an informal and possibly eclectic compilation of topics.

This week our department is having the 38th Annual Albert L. Tester Memorial Symposium in the Keoni Auditorium of the East-West Center, and I volunteered to chair the first session yesterday morning.  The symposium is a series of presentations of student research from any department.

First however, Dr. Tim Tricas gave a short introduction of who Albert L. Tester was, what topics he worked on (Fisheries Biologist) and some memories people shared with him of people who knew Dr. Tester.

Then Jaclyn Mueller from Oceanography gave a talk about "Efficient extraction of nucleic acids from microbial plankton (viruses, bacteria, and protists) collected on aluminum oxide filters."  I talked with her briefly before the session and she is working on marine RNA viruses.  The concentration of viruses in ocean water is amazing.

This was followed by Carolyn Parcheta from Geology and Geophysics on "Volcanic fissure conduits: the first quantification of shallow subsurface geometry."  She made maps on the centimeter scale of fissures to better understand outgassing dynamics.  One detail from this talk was the use of lydar to 3D map deep into volcanic vents beyond what is visible on the surface.  I wonder if rovers could be used to crawl deeper into the fissures to map them some more?

Then Tyler Hee Wai from Mechanical Engineering talked on "Investigating Dusk and Dawn Shifts in Snapping Shrimp Sounds."  There is an applied angle to this work.  The baseline of snapping shrimp sounds can be used to remotely detect boat motors.  It is completely passive and undetectable so activities like fishing in marine refuges could be detected.

Finally, the final talk of the first morning session was by Chelsea Marvos from Nursing on "Emotional Intelligence and Clinical Performance/ Retention of Nursing Students."  I also talked to her before the session; nursing programs have a problem with retention and she is investigating how predictive the performance on an emotional intelligence test is for student retention rates.  Afterward there were questions from the audience about what the test is like.  She said parts of it can be strange like asking to interpret the feeling of a picture of a pile of rocks, etc.  However, during her talk she said emotional intelligence is something that can be trained and brought up the possible value of incorporating this into nursing training programs.