USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: "Think Like a Brittle Star"

On a recent collecting excursion in Palau, I repeated the mantra ?Think Like a Brittle Star? over and over as my colleague Jim Haw and I searched for a specimen (Ophiotylos leucus) that was last seen 76 years ago by Japanese scientists (cf. Murakami 1943). With the help of Pat and Lori Colin from the Coral Reef Research Foundation based in Koror, we poured over Japanese-era maps and aerial photographs trying to identify at least a general location in the intertidal zone from where we could start our search for these animals.

Aerial view of SW Nikko Bay, Palau (Koror State). Image courtesy of the Coral Reef Research Foundation.

Beginning in the 1920s, as part of the South Pacific Mandate, Japan began a large-scale effort to develop a range of natural resources available on these islands, which included phosphate and bauxite mining, oil exploration, as well as copra and sugar cane production. Natural science also played an important role in the mandate, and in 1934 the Palao Tropical Biological Station was established on Koror Island with a research mission to study coral reef biology and ecology (Abe 1937, Abe et al. 1937). Internationally recognized as the premier location in the Western Pacific for coral reef studies (Yonge 1940), basic research on Palau suddenly became complicated when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Japan declares war on the United States. Image courtesy of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin archive.

Specimens collected by Japanese researchers at the Palao Tropical Biological Station were sent to their home institutions for further study and analysis. Results from these investigations were published in the appropriate scientific journals of the day (see Work Cited for examples). While that primary literature is still accessible today, the majority of voucher and type specimens were lost (most likely destroyed) during the war, including the brittle star Ophiotylos leucus, which was collected and described by Murakami and his colleagues in 1938.

While collections of Ophiotylos have been made since (from Hawaii and Japan, respectively), they are classified based on a suite of Palauan type specimens not seen since World War II. To add further intrigue to this story, the genetic relationship among different populations of Ophiotylos is unknown. Unlike other species of brittle stars, which haphazardly broadcast their gametes into the plankton, Ophiotylos broods its young (early stage juveniles remain close to the parent). How this species has found itself distributed across its current range is a mystery. Thus, the Palauan type specimen may serve as an important genetic link between individuals collected across the temperate and tropical waters of the Pacific.

Front cover of Palao Tropical Biological Station research journal (May 1937; Volume 1, Number 1).

My initial interest in this project was spurred by a conversation with my friend Gordon Hendler, curator of echinoderms at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. As Gordon?s specialty is the phylogeography and taxonomy of brittle stars, he was excited to learn that I was once again leading a group of USC undergraduates to Palau, and planned to stay a few extra days after the course was complete to follow up on a couple of research projects. From this meeting, we hatched a plan to track down Ophiotylos and reopen a marine science cold case, which has been a pet project of Gordon?s for some time. Although he could not join us on our trip, Gordon provided Jim and me with a stack of relevant research materials, maps, and the advice that our success in the field rests largely on our ability to ?think like a brittle star.?

Given that the brittle star in question is roughly 2-3 cm in total length, lives somewhere amongst the high intertidal, sea grass-coral rubble habitat of Nikko Bay, and was last seen some 70 years ago, I figured I could use all the advice I could get on this project. We started our search for the mysterious Ophiotylos by snorkeling along an area of Nikko Bay known as Omode Channel. After our first day in the field, we turned up more than our share of brittle stars (as well as a fair number of cuts, stings, and irritations from brush-ups with coral, hydroids, and sponges). Unfortunately, Ophiotylos was not amongst them.

On our second day, however, we struck gold! After several hours of swimming or crawling in face-deep water, and having the depressing feeling that our efforts were no better than a wild goose chase, we spotted three individual Ophiotylos specimens amongst the benthos in as many minutes. After searching for more without further success, we eventually ended our excursion and headed back to the Coral Reef Research Foundation?s laboratory facility. As we were scheduled to return to Los Angeles the next day, three specimens would have to do. Interestingly, looking through Murakami?s article from 1943, the last collections of Ophiotylos from Palau were made on June 6, 1938 ? nearly 76 years to the day of our recent discovery (June 5, 2012).

Ophiotylos leucus specimen collected from Omode Channel, Nikko Bay, Palau (Koror State). Photo by Jim Haw.

I can?t say our field techniques were elegant; one minute there was a cloud of sediment and muck and the next the little beast we were looking for was right under my nose. What I can say with absolute certainty is that the only thing on my mind leading up to that eureka moment of finding Ophiotylos were Gordon?s final last words of advice; the path to success is to think like a brittle star!

Work Cited:

Abe, N. (1937) Ecological Survey of Iwayama Bay, Palao. Palao Tropical Biological Station Studies. Vol. 1, No. 2

Abe, N., Eguchi, M., and F. Hiro (1937) Preliminary Survey of the coral reef of Iwayama Bay, Palao. Palao Tropical Biological Station Studies. Vol. 1, No. 1

Murakami, S. (1943) Report on the Ophiurans of Palao, Caroline Islands. Journal of the Department of Agriculture. Kyusyu Imperial University. Vol. 7, No. 4

Yonge, C.M. (1940) The Palao Tropical Biological Station. Nature 145, 16-17

Editor?s note: Scientific Research Diving at USC Dornsife is offered as part of an experiential summer program offered to undergraduate students of the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. This course takes place on location at the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island and throughout Micronesia. Students investigate important environmental issues such as ecologically sustainable development, fisheries management, protected-area planning and assessment, and human health issues. During the course of the program, the student team will dive and collect data to support conservation and management strategies to protect the fragile coral reefs of Guam and Palau in Micronesia.

Instructors for the course include Jim Haw, Director of the Environmental Studies Program in USC Dornsife, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies David Ginsburg,, SCUBA instructor and volunteer in the USC Scientific Diving Program Tom Carr and USC Dive Safety Officer Gerry Smith of the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies

Previously in this series:

Catching Up with Scientific Diving at USC Dornsife: Surfgrass Monitoring at Catalina
Catching up with Scientific Diving at USC Dornsife: The Robot Submarine
Catching up with Scientific Diving at USC Dornsife: Diving into the Aquarium of the Pacific
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Moving Forward to Guam and Palau 2012
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Finding My Career Through This Course
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: The Devaluation of Ecosystem Services
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Why USC Dornsife was the Right Decision For Me
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Why Experiential Learning is Vital to Academic Life
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: My Walden South of Los Angeles
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Crown-of-Thorns Outbreaks and Anthropogenic Pollution
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: The International Policy Rationale for the Military Buildup on Guam and Some Environmental Drivers
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Marine Ecology from Antarctica to Micronesia
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Palau Water Supply
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: The Contributions of J. S. Haldane to Dive Safety
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Human Impacts on Mangrove Forests
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Global Sea Cucumber Fisheries
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Palauan Mermaids
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: The California Spiny Lobster
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: The Invasion of the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: The Coconut Crab in Guam
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: The Ordot Dump and Layon Landfill
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Marine Ecosystem Based Management
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: The Navy Dive Tables
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Entangled in the Excitement of Every New Day
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Economic Effects of the Revised Military Buildup in Guam
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: The Guam and Calayan Rails
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Chamorro Women and the Spanish
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Diving into Apra Harbor?s Western Shoals and CB Junkyard
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Remaking What We?ve Lost ? A Look At Artificial Reefs
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Ecosystem Monitoring in the Ngederrak Marine Conservation Area
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Micronesia Regional Shark Sanctuary
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Palau, Above the Waterline
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Jellyfish Lake
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Preserving Palau?s Resources through Protected Area Networks
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: A Note on the Rock Islands of Palau
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: Beginning My Journey as a USC Environmental Studies Major
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: New Methods to Avoid Decompression Sickness
USC Dornsife Scientific Diving: An Interview with Karl Huggins
Scientific Diving at USC Dornsife: Monitoring Contaminants of Emerging Concern using new passive sampling techniques

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Could I finance the down payment requirement of my auto loan?

Question by gjonesgrad: Could I finance the down payment requirement of my auto loan?
I have an auto loan approval for $ 17,700. The lender says there is a $ 2,500 down payment requirement. Could I get a $ 15,000 car and add the $ 2,500 down payment for a total of $ 17,500 to be financed?

Best answer:

Answer by euroman71
Sure you can. By the way there is no such thing as a downpayment requirement. Everything is negotiable. Your monthly payments will be based on the $ 17,500 you finance plus interest.

Give your answer to this question below!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2012 at 7:24 pm and is filed under loans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Paul backers seek state path to national impact (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

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Obama scores on immigration, but it?s still 'the economy, stupid'

President Obama's announcement on young illegal immigrants this week was a smart tactical move.?But the main question he still faces is: 'Are you better off now than you were four years ago,' as Ronald Reagan put it in ousting Jimmy Carter in 1980.

By Brad Knickerbocker,?Staff writer / June 16, 2012

President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign event at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio, on Thursday, June 14, 2012.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

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Barack Obama?s surprise announcement on immigration this week ? in essence, a DREAM Act end-run around Congress ? had immediate political benefits for an incumbent president fighting to win a second term.

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It knocked presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney off-message, forcing him to answer for his own very hard line on immigration during the GOP primary fight (?self-deportation?) and pretty much had him muttering his agreement with Obama about treating with mercy as well as justice young immigrants brought to this country by their parents.

It also went a long way toward solidifying Obama?s clear advantage among Hispanic voters ? the country?s most rapidly-growing demographic ? a vulnerability in their party clearly recognized by such prominent Republicans as Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Haley Barbour.

?If you are a worker who has been here for any length of time, we have to have a path, not to citizenship, but a secure knowledge that they will be able to work,? former Mississippi Gov. Barbour said Friday at a Monitor-hosted breakfast for reporters.

Could you pass a US citizenship test?

But immigration doesn?t overshadow the main question Obama faces: ?Are you better off now than you were four years ago,? as Ronald Reagan put it in ousting Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Here, evidence as to how American voters are answering that question illustrates Obama?s challenge. In his ?Morning Fix? column, the Washington Post?s Chris Cillizza ticks off the stark numbers:

?Median family net worth dropped roughly 40 percent between 2007 and 2010?. Large majorities of Americans?believe that the country is headed off on the wrong direction?. More than three in four says now is a bad time to get a good job.?

The headline on a Gallup analysis put things clearly: ?National Mood a Drag on Obama's Re-Election Prospects.?

?Obama's approval rating is below 50 percent, Americans' satisfaction with the direction of the country is barely above 20 percent, and the economy remains a dominant concern,? Gallup?s Lydia Saad wrote.

Several important Democratic analysts have looked at the evidence as to how Americans feel and what they believe, and they?ve concluded that the Obama campaign needs to reframe its message.

Carville, together with pollsters Stanley Greenberg and Erica Seifert, warn that the party is losing middle-class voters ? holding on only because Romney is vulnerable as well.

?These voters are not convinced that we are headed in the right direction,? the three write in a memo widely reported this week. ?They are living in a new economy ? and there is no conceivable recovery in the year ahead that will change the view of the new state of the country.?

?They actually have a very realistic view of the long road back and the struggles of the middle class ? and the current narrative about progress just misses the opportunity to connect and point forward,? Carville, Greenberg, and Seifert write. ?While we hear some optimism, this is framed mostly by the sense that this has to be rock bottom.?

In other words, they say, Democrats must "move to a new narrative, one that contextualizes the recovery but, more importantly, focuses on what we will do to make a better future for the middle class.? Don?t focus exclusively on progress being made (however halting) or the extent to which the country?s economic doldrums can be blamed on the Bush administration and congressional Republicans.

?We will face an impossible headwind in November if we do not move to a new narrative, one that contextualizes the recovery but, more importantly, focuses on what we will do to make a better future for the middle class.?

So Ronald Reagan?s potent question about being ?better off now? is certainly relevant. So is Democratic operative James Carville?s admonition in 1992, when Bill Clinton ousted George H. W. Bush: ?It?s the economy, stupid.?

Could you pass a US citizenship test?

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NYC club where Chris Brown, Drake fought is closed

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BMW's i Pedelec electric bike mates with i-series cars

1 day

Devin Coldewey

BMW has been trying to improve its green image lately with the i series of green concept vehicles. Apparently not satisfied with the greenness of its funky i3 electric, the car maker added a pair of folding electric bikes to the bargain.

Where you would normally have room for kids, groceries, or other cargo, the i3 now has special spots for two of its i Pedelec bikes. These futuristic folding contraptions have 200-watt electric motors that will propel you up to around 16MPH or assist you in climbing hills. They also harvest energy while braking or going downhill, like other eco-conscious electric motors. And if you're hopping on a bus or the subway, it folds up nicely and rolls along like luggage (at 44lbs, it's not quite a carry-on).

Unfortunately, little thought seems to have been given to the needs of urban bicyclists and commuters: the i Pedelec will get you from here to there (as long as "there" is within 20 miles or so), but there's nowhere to put your briefcase, to-go lunch, or any other thing you might want to carry with you. And of course the cargo space in the car has been sacrificed to make room for the bikes. But as they are merely concepts at the moment, some lenience may be given.

BMW isn't the first luxury car company to get into cycling; Audi too has produced an electric, the Worthersee, and?Audi and McLaren both produced rather striking traditional?bikes in partnership with existing bike manufacturers.

Around 200 i Pedelecs will be deployed as part the vehicle?fleet supporting the 2012 Olympics in London, for which?BMW is the sole vehicle supplier. Early pricing info puts the bike's host, the i3 electric vehicle, at a rather pricy ?36,000, or around $56,000. The bikes would no doubt be extra, but BMW hasn't announced anything specific. You can read more about their specs here, or if you're in London, go visit their first i Store on Park Lane?in person.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

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Microsoft patent app wants SMSs in your spreadsheet, so you can Excel while you excel

If you're too busy racking up commissions to submit your expense report, a Microsoft patent application might let you text that steak-dinner-schmoozefest straight to a spreadsheet in accounting. That's one use that pops to mind for the proposed invention, which which could permit text and multimedia messages to interact with Redmond's Office suite. It could then process that info and redirect the message or send you a reply, confirming your shenanigans. Now, how to justify that $1,500 bottle of cognac?

[Image Credit: Shutterstock]

Microsoft patent app wants SMSs in your spreadsheet, so you can Excel while you excel originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jun 2012 10:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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