A wave of aloha goes out to Mark Takai

When a life-threatening situation emerges, nearly everything else quickly fades to the background.

So it is, with the announcement by Hawaii Congressman Mark Takai that he won’t seek re-election due to the spread of his pancreatic cancer. The disease was diagnosed a mere seven months ago and Takai underwent surgery Nov. 10. He’d hoped to “aggressively fight this cancer,” but unfortunately, it’s spread.

“Right now, for the sake of my family, I need to focus on getting better rather than getting re-elected,” said Takai, 48, in a statement Thursday.

From President Barack Obama to his congressional colleagues to state legislators, there swiftly came heartfelt expressions of support and hopes for recovery. Thousands of miles from his Hawaii home, let’s hope Takai is feeling the aloha.

Swimming with sharks a reality on Maui

It’s nice to solve a mystery, in this case the one about why Maui suffers more shark attacks on humans than the other main islands of Hawaii.

The obvious answer, of course, is that Maui hosts more sharks — tiger sharks, specifically — in its nearshore waters than anywhere else in the state. But University of Hawaii researchers went beyond that to explain why that’s so: Maui has a large, shallow ocean shelf that serves as an ideal habitat for shark mating and pupping. Satellite and acoustic monitoring found sharks swimming around in those areas virtually every day, and at all times — there’s no best time to avoid them.

Fortunately, the attack rate is still relatively low, considering how many humans are in those waters, too.

For some folks visiting Maui, however, swimming pools might suddenly be looking a little more attractive.