Children’s School of Science, August 2013

Children's School of Science: collecting insectsLast week, from August 12th to the 16th, the children of Onna-son and surroundings had the chance to have an army of scientists from OIST teaching them about SCIENCE! This annual event, called the School of Science, became in spite of its young age an expected tradition for the local kids.

Therefore the Biodiversity and Biocomplexity unit had to be present! On Monday and Tuesday, 27 kids aged from 7 to 9 years old had the opportunity to learn more about arthropods living in Okinawa. During these two days, kids learned about the incredible diversity and importance of insects in terrestrial ecosystems. A brief lecture was proposed to them, quickly followed by field work! There, the young entomologists collected several species of spiders, ants, grasshoppers (quite diverse around the classroom), butterflies, ladybeetle, Hemipterans, and even a praying mantis!
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We’re hiring!

We have two technicians positions open now:  one for a Research Technician, to do all kinds of things around the lab including manage the ant collection, and one for a Research Computing technician, to manage computer systems and help design applications and technologies that help us do our work.

More details about these positions on these pages: http://arilab.unit.oist.jp/research-technicians/ (English) or http://arilab.unit.oist.jp/採用情報/ (Japanese).

Exhibition at the Okinawa Prefectural museum, Summer 2013

During the Summer of 2013, the Okinawa Prefectural Museum is presenting an exhibition on Biodiversity in Japan. Two OIST units have contributed material to this exhibition. The Marine Genomics Unit exhibit presents evolution through several specimens of fishes and amphibians, and illustrates the unit’s work on coral genome sequencing. The Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit exhibit introduces the ants of the Ryukyu Islands through posters and live ants that visitors can observe.