• Leading U.S., U.K. scientists condemn conviction of Italian earthquake scientists

    A judge in Italy last week sentenced six Italian seismologists and a former government official to six years in prison over the deadly 6 April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila. The seven defendants were found guilty of manslaughter; Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and Sir Paul Nurse, president of the U.K. Royal Society, issued the following statement

  • USGS: Sandy will erode many Atlantic Coast beaches

    Nearly three quarters of the coast along the Delmarva Peninsula is very likely to experience beach and dune erosion as Hurricane Sandy makes landfall, while overwash is expected along nearly half of the shoreline; the predictions of coastal change for the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia peninsula is part of a larger assessment of probable coastal change released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

  • Hurricanes will test Florida buildings, built under new, post-Wilma building codes

    In 2005 Hurricane Wilma was responsible for five deaths and millions of dollars worth of damage in Florida; building codes in the state were updated, and experts predict that these new buildings, most of which were designed with wind-tunnel testing, should perform well in all but the most severe conditions

  • Human activity can trigger an earthquake

    Earthquakes occur when tectonic plates try to move past each other, and the friction between them holds them in place; the friction creates energy which builds up, and when the plates move past each other, the energy is released, triggering an earthquake; fracturing increases the fluid pressure inside faults; this increased pressure, in turn, lowers the stress threshold for triggering an earthquake enough for one to take place

  • U.S. East Coast braces for Sandy

    Residents along the U.S. Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to Maine, were bracing form Hurricane Sandy landfall; people began to evacuate certain areas, while in many other places school closures were announced and supplies were quickly disappearing from stores’ shelves; public transit services were suspended Sunday evening, and more than 3,000 flights canceled; the hurricane may be especially ferocious because it was on its path to meet a winter storm and a cold front, together with high tides from a full moon

  • ISC East postponed

    Owing to the state of emergency declared by New York the governor, and the potential danger presented by Hurricane Sandy, ISC Events has decided to postpone ISC East; the event was scheduled for 30-31 October at Jacob Javits Convention center in New York

  • Asteroid DA14 will be whizzing by Earth on 15 February -- the closest asteroid fly by in history

    On 15 February 2013, asteroid 2012 DA14, the size of a city block, will be whizzing within 14,000 miles of Earth, squeezing between Earth’s atmosphere and the geostationary satellites orbiting the planet; it will be the closest asteroid fly by in history; experts say there is no chance the asteroid will hit Earth — this time; with more than 4,700 asteroids NASA has identified as potential threats to Earth, however, some as big as sixteen football fields, these objects are getting a lot of attention

  • Paintballs may deflect an incoming asteroid

    With twenty years’ notice, paint pellets could cause an asteroid to veer off course; researchers say that, if timed just right, pellets full of paint powder, launched in two rounds from a spacecraft at relatively close distance, would cover the front and back of an asteroid, more than doubling its reflectivity, or albedo; the initial force from the pellets would bump an asteroid off course; over time, the sun’s photons would deflect the asteroid even more

  • FEMA will pay to replace University of Iowa buildings damaged in flood

    The University of Iowa will receive nearly $84 million to replace an auditorium, as well as arts and music facilities, which were damaged by a flood; the decision comes after the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of DHS said that FEMA had improperly applied a rule requiring facilities to be repaired unless the damage exceeds 50 percent of the cost of building a replacement

     

  • Understanding the effects of Fukushima by studying fish

    Japan’s “triple disaster,” as it has become known, began on 11 March 2011, and remains unprecedented in its scope and complexity; to understand the lingering effects and potential public health implications of that chain of events, scientists are turning to a diverse and widespread sentinel in the world’s ocean: fish; the data from Japan fisheries provide a look at how the ocean is faring eighteen months after the worst accidental release of radiation to the ocean in history

  • The DARPA Robotics Challenge begins

    The DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) began yesterday, and DARPA wants to know whether you will be part of it; DARPA introduces teams for Tracks A and B, opens registration for Tracks C and D, and launches simulation software for download; the goal of the competition is to help advance robotic technology to the point where it can have a tangible impact on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief

  • Entrepreneurial approach to Japan’s disaster recovery

    The 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit off the east coast of Japan in March 2011 killed more than 12,000 people, sent tsunami waves six miles inland, and damaged or completely flattened more than a million buildings; combined with the tsunami and the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, it was the most economically damaging disaster in world history, costing Japan an estimated $235 billion, according to the World Bank; a Japanese organizations tries a new approach to disaster recovery: entrepreneurship

  • Italian seismologists sent to jail for failing to predict earthquake

    A judge sentenced six Italian seismologists and a former government official to six years in prison over the deadly 6 April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila; the seven defendants were found guilty of manslaughter for not alerting the public to the 6.3 magnitude; the tremor killed 309 people, injured thousands, and destroyed cities and villages in the affected region; scientists, alarmed by the verdict, have warned that the case might have a chilling effect, making scientists and experts think twice before sharing their knowledge with the public for fear of being targeted in lawsuits

  • Cosmic rays help gather information from inside the Fukushima nuclear reactors

    Researchers have devised a method to use cosmic rays to gather detailed information from inside the damaged cores of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors which were heavily damaged in March 2011 by a tsunami that followed a great earthquake

  • A Mississippi river diversion helped build Louisiana wetlands

    The extensive system of levees along the Mississippi River has done much to prevent devastating floods in riverside communities; the levees, however, have also contributed to the loss of Louisiana’s wetlands; by holding in floodwaters, they prevent sediment from flowing into the watershed and rebuilding marshes, which are compacting under their own weight and losing ground to sea-level rise