15366892
submission
reillymj writes:
There are three known "exploding lakes" in the world, where volcanic gases build up near the lake bottom until they suddenly fizz over, suffocating people with huge amounts of carbon dioxide. But the lakes also hold methane and one of them, Rwanda's Lake Kivu, is being actively tapped as a source of natural gas to fuel a power plant on the lake's shores. The government hopes that within two years, the plant will be covering a third of the country's needs. By siphoning off the gas, engineers simultaneously defuse a ticking time bomb in the lake and provide power to local communities.
14110730
submission
reillymj writes:
Every so often, a 300-pound manhole cover in blows sky high in Gotham, followed sometimes by a column of flame. Researchers have applied machine learning algorithms to Con Edison's warren of aging electrical wires and sewage access points around Brooklyn and the Bronx (Manhattan's next). As the system learns where dangerous mixtures of sewer gas and decrepit wiring are likely to come in contact, it makes forecasts about trouble spots, including where the next explosion may occur.
13360952
submission
reillymj writes:
Commercial airliners have a strange ability to create rain and snow when they fly through certain clouds. Scientists have known for some time that planes can make outlandish "hole-punch" and "canal" features in clouds. A new study has found that these odd formations are in fact evidence that planes are seeding clouds and changing local weather patterns as they fly through. In one case, researchers noted that a plane triggered several inches of snowfall directly beneath its flight path.
13019910
submission
reillymj writes:
Despite hundreds of media reports to the contrary, a geologist whose life's work has been studying Guatemalan geology has plainly said that the dramatic "sinkhole" in Guatemala City that opened over the weekend isn't a sinkhole at all. Instead, he called it a "piping feature" and warned that because the country's capital city sits on a pile of loose volcanic ash, the over one million people living on top of the ash are in danger of having it happen again in the future.
11013232
submission
reillymj writes:
Research claims toads sensed a severe quake in last year five days before it hit. Last spring's L'Aquila earthquake devastated the medieval city of the same name in Italy. Five days earlier, a group of biologists noticed some toads behaving strangely in a pond nearby what would later be the quake's epicenter. Coincidence? These researchers think not.
