Sunken remains of USS Nevada found off Oahu
HONOLULU — Researchers located the sunken USS Nevada near Hawaii, helping close the final chapter of a historic battleship that served in both world wars and survived two nuclear explosion tests.
Maritime archaeologist James Delgado announced the discovery of the storied U.S. Navy ship about 75 miles southwest of Pearl Harbor.
Underwater and terrestrial archaeology firm SEARCH Inc. and marine robotics company Ocean Infinity Inc. teamed to make the discovery in more than 15,400 feet of water.
The 583-foot ship was commissioned during World War I. The Nevada was the only ship to get underway during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, but was beached after being struck by a torpedo and bombs.
The ship was struck by a Japanese dive bomber off Okinawa in the waning days of World War II, a collision that killed 11 crew members.
After World War II the Nevada was assigned to be a target for atomic tests off Bikini Atoll in 1946 and survived two blasts from a nuclear air burst and an underwater test.
The ship was rendered unfit for continued service and transported to Pearl Harbor to be decommissioned. The Navy sunk the ship in July 1948 during target practice off Oahu with a barrage of surface gunfire, aerial bombs, rockets and torpedoes.
University program keeping plants from extinction
HONOLULU — Researchers from the Hawaiian Rare Plant Program established small operations that could have enormous benefits by helping save many of the state’s plant species from extinction.
The scientists store and maintain hundreds of threatened and endangered native species at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Lyon Arboretum.
The two small cottages housing the Seed Conservation Laboratory and the Micropropagation Laboratory are making significant contributions toward Hawaii plant conservation.
The Seed Conservation Laboratory is a bank that holds about 27 million seeds. Cooled or frozen in the lab’s handful of refrigerators, the seeds represent 600 plant groups, or 40% of flora native to Hawaii.
The Micropropagation Laboratory grows plant tissue cultures under controlled conditions. A tissue culture in a test tube can be kept alive by planting a piece into a new tube.
The lab houses more than 30,000 plants representing more than 200 native plant groups, with 150 listed as threatened and endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
State to work with UH to train contact tracers
The University of Hawaii is partnering with the state Department of Health to create a program to train personnel and community health workers to support DOH in conducting COVID-19 contact tracing.
Health experts say extensive contact tracing is a key component to prevent the spread of the coronavirus while relaxing stay-at-home-orders and restarting the state’s economy.
DOH at the peak of the first COVID-19 wave had more than 100 contact tracers, including at least 30 volunteers from UH and other DOH divisions with backgrounds in public health, epidemiology, medicine and nursing.
The one-year, $2.5 million program will leverage UH faculty expertise and existing courses to quickly develop content for the contact tracing training.
UH President David Lassner said the program is a brainchild of State Epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park and UH’s Aimee Grace, who leads the university’s UHealthy Hawaii Initiative.
The plan is to train about 300 contact tracers, as well as increase the university’s capacity to prepare 100 community health workers each year.
DOH can then activate the trained individuals as needed, including as emergency hires, in the event of a surge in COVID-19 cases.