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Blown Away

Muse Science Magazine for Kids

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November/December 2018

How Big Data Speeds Disaster Response.

- S. Heather Duncan

Blown Away

A hurricane slams a coastal city with wind, rain, and waves. People are trapped on rooftops or cut off from food and water. But roads are blocked. Cell phone calls can’t get through. Those responding to an emergency need to know where the worst damage is. This helps them quickly repair the services that keep people safe. Have three hospitals lost power, or only two? Is one of them completely destroyed? Are the fire stations operating? Which nursing home, or sewage treatment plant, is under water? And which roads and bridges are still open for delivering precious electric generators, water, and other supplies?

TIME AND PLACE

These questions are all related to geography: where things are on the Earth, what shape they’re in, and how to reach them. Maps usually help us with this, but they aren’t as straightforward as you’d think—especially after a tornado has scrambled a neighborhood or a flood has carried homes miles downstream. Now where is a building—or the person who lives there—and how do rescuers and officials find them?

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is in charge of directing recovery after national emergencies like the devastating 2017 hurricanes in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. But FEMA also helps handle other kinds of natural disasters, like earthquakes, forest fires, and tornadoes.

When attempting to face the death and destruction these disasters cause, FEMA also has to face a data problem. Often the local people FEMA works with to make decisions are using different maps, kept in different forms. Each county tracks local properties in its own way.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA Muse Science Magazine for Kids

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Muse Science Magazine for Kids

ANIMAL FIREFIGHTER TO THE RESCUE

Can animals help manage the risks of deadly wildfires?

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FIRE DANGER

WHY THE RISK OF WILDFIRES KEEPS GROWING

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4 mins

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The Miller NEW Normal

WHAT TODAY’S WILDFIRES TELL US ABOUT OUR FUTURE

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8 mins

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WOMEN AND FIREFIGHTING: A GOOD FIT

Jessica Gardetto is a firefighter. Her father was, too. “I grew up with my dad coming home smelling like wildfire and covered in soot,” she says.

time to read

1 min

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What is happening on your fingertips when they get all wrinkly in a hot tub?

—Felix G., age 10, Montana

time to read

1 mins

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WHEN the SMOKE CLEARS

THE LINGERING EFFECTS OF THE RECENT PACIFIC PALISADES AND ALTADENA EATON FIRES

time to read

6 mins

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PICKING TEAMS

Keep it fair with a strategy that relies on geometry.

time to read

2 mins

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Muse Science Magazine for Kids

SHAN CAMMACK

WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST AND FIRE SAFETY OFFICER

time to read

3 mins

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Scientists Create Mice With Woolly Mammoth-Like Fur

RESEARCHERS AT A COMPANY IN TEXAS ARE WORKING TO CREATE A LIVING ANIMAL THAT RESEMBLES THE EXTINCT WOOLLY MAMMOTH. Recently, they produced mice with traits of the large mammal. The mice all have coats with mammoth-like fur, and some of the small mammals also have genes that help them store fat. Both features would help the animals survive in the cold Arctic, where the woolly mammoth once lived.

time to read

1 min

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Cool Sunshade Added to the Nancy Roman Space Telescope

THE NANCY ROMAN SPACE TELESCOPE IS A NEW TELESCOPE THAT NASA IS BUILDING AND WILL LAUNCH INTO SPACE, LIKELY IN EARLY 2027.

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1 min

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