Bookmarks for December 14th

When I'm not blogging, I'm browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on December 14th:

• Connecticut scientist leads the way in freezing coral to give it life later: Hagedorn's lab in Hawaii is the only one in the world dedicated to coral cryopreservation. With funding from the Smithsonian and NOAA, Hagedorn is racing to create frozen archives of live tissue before the endangered Elkhorn and Staghorn corals disappear.

• Meteor hit unlikely cause for climate change, study finds: It's "very unlikely" that a meteor or asteroid colliding with the Earth caused an abrupt climate change leading to the extinction of the woolly mammoth and other large mammals 13,000 years ago, says the University of Hawaii at Manoa leader of a team that investigated the theory.

• Chinese-American Women & Korean-American Women at Highest Risk for Developing Diabetes During Pregnancy: More than 10 percent of women of Chinese and Korean heritage may be at risk for developing diabetes during pregnancy, according to a Kaiser Permanente study of 16,000 women in Hawaii that appears in the December issue of the Ethnicity and Disease journal.

• Isles to gain $387M in funding: Hawaii stands to gain more than $387 million for a myriad of projects affecting schools, transportation and other initiatives under a spending bill passed yesterday by the U.S. Senate.

• Project receives $1.01 million for Native Hawaiian students in STEM majors: The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Kahuewai Ola project recently received a four-year grant of $1.01 million that will allow for tuition support of 45 Native Hawaiian students and the recruitment of ten faculty mentors.

• First Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Sun-Like Stars: An international team of planet hunters has discovered as many as six low-mass planets around two nearby Sun-like stars, including two "super-Earths" with masses 5 and 7.5 times the mass of Earth.

• Solar farm moves Hawaii closer to energy independence: A 2-megawatt solar thermal project called "Holaniku at Keahole Point" on The Big Island is now officially up and running. It uses unique solar power collectors, which harnesses and intensifies thermal energy from the sun. It generates clean, renewable power.

• Haleakala selected for solar scope: After the completion of a long-awaited environmental impact statement this summer, National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement officially selected Haleakala last week as the site of the planned 143-foot-tall telescope and funded the $300 million project.

• Hawaii Biotech filing for bankruptcy: Hawaii Biotech, Inc. announced Friday that it will file for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Honolulu. The move appears to be an attempt to stave off an effort by one the company's largest shareholders.

• 9 undersea routes mapped for power grid: Hawaii's planned project to lay undersea power cables connecting the islands of Lanai, Molokai, Oahu and Maui is physically possible via nine recommended routes, according to a new report released Wednesday.

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