News@UH
Hubble Space Telescope image shows Einstein ring of one of the SLACS gravitational lenses, with the lensed background galaxy enhanced in blue. Image by A. Bolton (UH/IfA).
Weighing Galaxies
An international team of astronomers, including Manoa Beatrice Watson Parent Postdoc Adam S. Bolton made a discovery that helps to settle a long-standing debate over the relationship between mass and luminosity in galaxies.The team achieved this result by compiling the largest-ever single collection of “gravitational lens” galaxies—70 in all. A gravitational lens is a phenomenon similar to a terrestrial mirage, but it occurs on a scale of many thousands of light-years. When two galaxies happen to be precisely aligned with one another in the sky, the gravitational field of the nearer galaxy distorts the image of the more distant galaxy into multiple arc-shaped images or even into a complete ring, known as an Einstein ring. These Einstein ring images can be up to 30 times brighter than the image of the distant galaxy would be in the absence of the lensing effect.
“The SLACS collection of lenses is especially powerful for science,” says Bolton, lead author of two papers describing these latest results, which will be published in the Astrophysical Journal. “For each lens, we measured the apparent sizes of the Einstein rings on the sky using the Hubble images, and we measured the distances to the two galaxies of the aligned pair using Sloan data. By combining these measurements, we were able to deduce the mass of the nearer galaxy.”
The UH team compared directions in the sky where they found superclusters (red circles) and supervoids (blue circles) with the strength of the Cosmic Microwave Background. Credit: B. Granett, M. Neyrinck, I. Szapudi.
Dark Energy Evidence
Manoa Associate Astronomer Istvan Szapudi, Junior Science Researcher Mark Neyrinck and graduate student Benjamin Granett have found direct evidence for the existence of “dark energy.” Dark energy works against the tendency of gravity to pull galaxies together and so causes the universe’s expansion to speed up. The nature of dark energy—what precisely it is, and why it exists—is one of the biggest puzzles of modern science.This is arguably the clearest detection to date of dark energy’s stretching effect on vast cosmic structures: there is only a one in 200,000 chance that the detection would occur by chance.
“We were able to image dark energy in action, as it stretches huge supervoids and superclusters of galaxies,” says lead investigator Istvan Szapudi. Superclusters are vast regions of space, half a billion light-years across, that contain an unusually high concentration of galaxies, while supervoids are similarly sized regions with a below-average number of galaxies. They are the largest structures known in the universe.
The team made the discovery by measuring the subtle imprints that superclusters and supervoids leave in microwaves that pass through them.
Astrochemistry Grant
W.M. Keck Foundation awarded $1.2 million to support Manoa research in astrochemistry.The overall goal of the project is to comprehend the chemical evolution of the Solar System through the study of Kuiper Belt Objects by reproducing the space environment in a specially designed experimental setup. KBOs are small planetary bodies orbiting the sun beyond the planet Neptune, which are considered as the most primitive objects in the Solar System. A study of KBOs is important because they resemble natural time capsules at a frozen stage before life developed on Earth.
“One of the unique aspects of this project is the cross-disciplinary approach involving researchers across the traditional disciplines from the Departments of Chemistry (Ralf Kaiser, John Head), the Institute for Astronomy (David Jewitt, Karen Meech), Department of Physics and Astronomy (Klaus Sattler), and Shiv K. Sharma (Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology) at Hawai'i and John Cooper from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,” says principle investigator Kaiser.
“The W.M. Keck Foundation’s support is vital to this research as it enables us to build an instrument to perform these experiments—an instrument that will be home-built right here at UH Manoa and does not exist anywhere else in the world.”
Kudos
Manoa Associate Professor Maile Andrade, Instructor C Manu Kaiama, Professor Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa, Assistant Professor Karen Kosasa, Professor Geoff White and Lecturer Vicky Holt Takamine participated in the June symposium Exhibiting Polynesia: Past, Present, and Future symposium in Paris.Matthew Craig, Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology researcher, was awarded Best Article Award 2008 by the Ichthyological Society of Japan for his article "A Molecular Phylogeny of the Groupers of the Subfamily Epinephelinae (Serranidae) with a Revised Classification of the Epinephelini."
UH Hilo Professor Robert Fox was elected vice chair/chair-elect of the School Choice Special Interest Group. He will lead an organization devoted to research on charter schools, school vouchers, magnet schools and international school choice.
Peter Quigley
BOR Report
At its monthly meeting on July 31 at Leeward, the Board of RegentsAnniversary List
Faculty Scholar Fund
Carlsmith Ball LLP donated $150,000 to Manoa’s William S. Richardson School of Law to establish the school’s first Law Faculty Scholar position. The fund will offer financial support for faculty research and scholarship for professors at the law school, which is highly ranked in many areas within legal education and is the only American Bar Association-accredited law school in the Pacific-Asia region.“Our gift was inspired by the UH William S. Richardson School of Law’s tremendous contribution to Hawai‘i and the Asia-Pacific legal community,” says Carlsmith Ball LLP Chair and Manoa alumnus Karl Kobayashi. “We are pleased to support the Law School’s efforts to continue its tradition of faculty excellence in teaching and research.”
“Our faculty is a diverse, dedicated and remarkably skilled group of teachers who are recognized nationally and internationally for their legal expertise and scholarship,” says Dean Aviam Soifer. “Excellence in research and scholarship is vital to the law school’s ability to serve current and future law students and the entire community. We are particularly grateful to Carlsmith Ball for its leadership, partnership and investment in Hawai'i’s law school.”
Mark Twain’s Early Reporting
Manoa Associate Professor James Caron published Mark Twain, Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter.Tracing the arc of Samuel Clemens’s career from self-described “unsanctified newspaper reporter” to national author between 1862 and 1867, Caron reexamines the early and largely neglected writings—especially the travel letters from Hawai'i and the letters chronicling Clemens’s trip from California to New York City. Caron connects those sets of letters with comic materials Clemens had already published, drawing on all known items from this first phase of his career—even the virtually forgotten pieces from the San Francisco Morning Call in 1864—to reveal how Mark Twain’s humor was shaped by the sociocultural context and how it catered to his audience’s sensibilities while unpredictably transgressing its standards.
Brimming with fresh insights into such benchmarks as “Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands” and “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” this book is a gracefully written work that reflects both patient research and considered judgment to chart the development of an iconic American talent.
Mark Twain, Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter should be required reading for all serious scholars of his work, as well as for anyone interested in the interplay between artistic creativity and the literary marketplace.
Mark Twain, Unsanctified Newspaper Reporter is available from the publisher’s website.
Bichuan Li
A Week of Contemporary Music
The Hawai'i Institute for Contemporary Music features lectures, concerts and a piano competition Aug. 4–8 at Manoa’s Architecture auditorium. The institute was developed to bring emerging composers and pianists together in a week of innovative music making, while examining issues in contemporary music. (808) 944-2977Aug. 4—Donald Womack speaks on The State of New Art Music in America, 10 a.m.; Bichuan Li piano concert, 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 5—Thomas Rosenkranz piano concert, 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 6—Thomas Osborne speaks The Experience of Writing In Perpetuum, 10 a.m.; Faculty Chamber and Solo Concert, 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 7—Rosencranz speaks on The Piano Music of Gyorgy Ligeti, 10 a.m.; Hyekyung Lee speaks on A View from the Piano Bench, 1:30 p.m.; HICM Competition, 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 8—Takeo Kudo speaks on Performance and Improvisation, 10 a.m., HICM Participant Concert, 4 p.m.
More Events
Aug. 5—Scott Peppet gives the talk Do Lawyers Have to Lie? with excerpts from the films Liar Liar and Thank You for Smoking, Manoa, School of Law classroom 2, 6 p.m., (808) 956-6545
Aug. 6— Christopher McNally speaks on 2008 Beijing Olympics: China’s Coming-out Party, Manoa, East-West Center Art Gallery, 6 p.m., (808) 944-7783
Aug. 7—The N. H. Paul Chung Memorial Lecture features Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia Ira Kasoff and Regional Director for East Asia William Zarit, Hawai‘i Prince Hotel Ballroom, 11:30 a.m., (808) 956-8041
Aug. 7—Murray Silverman and Stephanie Fried present Can Business be Responsible and Sustainable?, Manoa, School of Law classroom 2, 5:30 p.m., (808) 956-6545
Aug. 9—Master chocolatier Melanie Boudar presents a tasting tour of world-class chocolates and liquors, Hilo, Volcano Winery and Crater’s Edge Bed and Breakfast, 1 p.m., (808) 974-7642
For more events, visit the UH calendar.
Announcement
Computer Classes to Help Displaced Workers Available at Windward
Windward offers help to those who have lost their jobs and need to upgrade their computer skills. According to a Pacific Business News report on July 30, 2008, a total of 9,900 jobs were advertised on Internet job boards in July, up nearly 10 percent from the year before. But are applicants ready with the skills needed to fill these jobs?Computer classes
BUSN 121 Introduction to Word Processing is an introduction to computer terminology and keyboarding and covers the Vista operating system, Microsoft 2007 word processing software and Internet searching for information.
ICS 100 Microcomputer Applications is an introduction to information technology and covers file management, word processing, spreadsheets, databases and PowerPoint presentations using Vista and Office 2007.
ICS 101 Digital Tools for the Information World places emphasis on producing professional level documents, spreadsheets, presentations, database and web pages.
ICS 105 Computer and Information Literacy Exam Preparation is geared to passing the CIL requirement and students get an uncomplicated overview of file management, word processing, spreadsheet and Internet technology.
For students with some computing background, ICS 115 is an advanced computer applications course, ICS 214 will show how to create hard copy and web copy work, and ICS 111 will allow students to enter into programming with the Java language.
These courses are available at $71 per credit for residents. To apply, call (808) 235-7432, go online or stop by the admissions office on campus and pick up an application. Classes start on August 25.