Tag: disasters

ScienceDaily (Mar. 1, 2012) — Probing the largely unexplored question of what characteristics make a leader among schooling fish, researchers have discovered that by mimicking nature, a robotic fish can transform into a leader of live ones.

Through a series of experiments, researchers from Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) aimed to increase understanding of collective animal behavior, including learning how robots might someday steer fish away from environmental disasters.

After the Fukushima crisis, there have been calls to test nuclear power plants against earthquakes and floods.
Recent disasters across the world have raised safety concerns and Russian inventors could soon be cashing in on those fears.

Twin disasters - a tsunami and a volcano eruption - have hit Indonesia. At least 154 people have been killed in the tsunami, while more than 28 died when Mount Merapi erupted. Thousands were forced to flee and seek refuge in shelters. Scientists had warned that pressure building beneath the volcano's lava dome could trigger one of the most powerful blasts in years.