How Big Data Speeds Disaster Response.
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.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November/December 2018-Ausgabe von Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November/December 2018-Ausgabe von Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.