Posts by Ilima Loomis
Thank you!
My article “Change Agents” was named one of Hawaii Business magazine’s top-10 stories of 2016. Read the complete list here.
Solving a solar mystery
Sunbeams — what a drag. That’s the conclusion of physicists trying to solve a longstanding mystery: why the sun’s surface rotates more slowly than its inner core. The team argues that energy radiating outward from the sun pushes back slightly as it is expelled, providing just enough resistance to put on the brakes. The hypothesis…
Two years after shutdown, California oyster farm remains a community hot-button
Conventional wisdom has it that oysters are one of the most environmentally friendly animal proteins. Not only do bivalve shellfish require no nutrients or marine ingredients to be added to the water, as filter feeders they actually clean the water column, removing pollutants and impurities to reduce turbidity. So when one of California’s oldest oyster…
A catalog of Hawaiian star names
You don’t find many linguists at the International Astronomical Union’s General Assembly, the world’s largest annual gathering of astronomers. But at last August’s event in Honolulu, John Kaipo Mahelona was there. He’d co-authored the definitive catalog of Hawaiian star names and knowledge, Nā Inoa Hōkū, the culmination of three decades of research with co-author Rubellite…
Business break-ups
Whether parting ways with a troublesome client, letting go of a contractor or splitting from a partner, ending an important business relationship can feel as stressful and difficult as a “real” breakup. The blending of close business relationships into personal friendships can make a split even more painful. Compounding the possibility of hurt feelings are…
“China’s Relentless Campaign to Pave the Coast”
From Holland’s famous dikes to the construction of New Orleans on a former swamp, humans have a long history of “reclaiming” flooded coastal lands for their own purposes. But in recent years, as the value of wetlands has been better understood, the trend has been moving in the opposite direction, with increasing protection for coastal…
My first byline in Discover
Buff and mahogany swirls and starbursts form distinctive patterns on the shells of hawksbill sea turtles, once common in tropical oceans worldwide. But their numbers dropped because demand for jewelry, hairpieces and other ornaments crafted from their shells made them one of the most widely trafficked species. Now, those same shells can provide critical information…
Where were the whales?
Each fall, Pacific Ocean humpback whales migrate from their summer feeding grounds near Alaska and Russia to the warm waters further south. In these places, the whales spend their winters finding mates, breeding, and giving birth to and rearing calves conceived the previous winter. Or, they normally do. This past winter, the whales, by and…
“Cool Jobs: Getting to know volcanoes”
In my latest “cool jobs” story for Science News for Students, I profile a vulcanologist who studies magma, an infrasound scientist with the Alaska Volcano Observatory, and an atmospheric scientist at the University of Hawaii who helps predict the spread of vog. Read the full story here.
Thank you, readers!
I was thrilled to see that my reporting on “rejections” in the aquarium-fish trade was among the most-shared stories in Hakai magazine’s first year. Thank you for reading and sharing my work, and read more of Hakai‘s most popular stories here!
“Cool Jobs: Mapping the Unknown”
Two hundred million years ago, Earth looked very different. Its landmass was pushed together into one giant continent. Today scientists refer to it as Pangaea. Over time, the rocky plates that make up Earth’s crust split this mega-continent apart. The plates later ripped those new continents apart, too, moving them around and smooshing some of them…
1 in 4 aquarium fish “rejected”
Export data and international trade records have long suggested that millions of fish caught for home aquariums die along the complex supply chain from fish wholesalers to hobbyists’ tanks. But these trade statistics, in many cases the only source of information available, omit a crucial stage in the aquarium fish industry: what happens to fish…