Although genetic studies have contributed greatly to our understanding of the colonization of Near and Remote Oceania, important gaps still exist. One such gap is the Solomon Islands, which extend between Bougainville and Vanuatu, thereby bridging Near and Remote Oceania, and include both Austronesian-speaking and Papuan-speaking groups. Here, we describe patterns of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) a...

PROBLEM On 6 February 2013, an 8.0 magnitude earthquake generated a tsunami that struck the Santa Cruz Islands, Solomon Islands, killing 10 people and displacing over 4700. APPROACH A post-disaster assessment of the risk of epidemic disease transmission recommended the implementation of an early warning alert and response network (EWARN) to rapidly detect, assess and respond to potential outb...

a tour in the Solomon Islands is most rewarding. Specialists and long-serving officers employed by the Government are anxious to teach and give all possible help to the newly arrived doctor. In the long term there are no career prospects as such, although appointment committees in Britain are now looking more favourably on candidates who have served some time in the so-called "developing world....

The effect of permethrin impregnated bednets was studied for the first time amongst a large community in North Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. The community was divided into two; one covered 23 villages with 860 people who were given bednets impregnated at 0.5 g/m2, and the other 20 villages with 520 people was used as control. Parasitological data were collected by regular prevalence surveys and...

Until the 1950s, information about the levels of fertility and mortality in the Pacific islands (see map on page 6) was fragmentary and much of it was anecdotal, but there was quite a lot of it. In that era, vital registration systems and periodic population censuses were the major sources of information on fertility and mortality, and the extent of these depended on the priority that each colo...

Ladd (1934: 51, Fig. 6) gave a brief description of the former Melanesian continent and outlined on a map of the Pacific Ocean south of lat. 10° N. the probable eastern boundaries of several types of rocks, as well as the probable eastern boundary of the former Melanesian continent. His map, with some modifications, is reproduced as Figure 3 in this paper. In the original figure, one of the lin...

Excessive herbivory can have transformative effects on forest understory vegetation, converting diverse communities into depauperate ones, often with increased abundance of non-native plants. White-tailed deer are a problematic herbivore throughout much of eastern North America and alter forest understory community structure. Reducing (by culling) or eliminating (by fencing) deer herbivory is e...

A biological model of scabies infection dynamics and treatment explains why mass drug administration does not lead to elimination. Abstract Despite a low global prevalence, infections with Sarcoptes scabiei, or scabies, are still common in remote communities such as in northern Australia and the Solomon Islands. Mass drug administration (MDA) has been utilised in these communities, and although...