Disasters

News

Fukushima Crisis Awakes After Reactor Heats Up Mysteriously

10:30AM February 7, 2012 | Jesus Diaz

Just when you thought it was over, the temperature at reactor number 2 at Fukushima’s nuclear plant has soared 26.7C in the last few hours. Worse: they don’t know why the temperature is increasing after being stabilised for so long. More »


Geek Out

Watch This Snowboarder Survive An Avalanche By Floating On An Airbag

11:15AM February 3, 2012 | Brent Rose

Meesh Hytner was doing typical pro-snowboarder things, participating in an informal backcountry competition in Colorado, when suddenly she found herself in a class-3 avalanche. Lucky for her, she was wearing an emergency airbag system, and lucky for you, there’s video. More »


News

The View Inside The Costa Concordia Makes My Head Spin

4:30AM January 27, 2012 | Jamie Condliffe

Since the Costa Concordia ran aground in Italy, it’s been listing at an incredible angle, almost sitting on its side. It looks weird enough from the outside, but images taken by the Italian Navy make my head hurt. More »


Gadgets

9 Tools To Help Tame Hurricane Irene

8:12AM August 27, 2011 | Adrian Covert

Well, Hurricane Irene is here, which means much the US east coast should be prepared for the worst. We ran this toolkit earlier in the week in wake of the earthquake. But it’s just as useful for hurricanes. More »


Science

New Material For Fast Rebuilding After Disasters

12:27AM August 11, 2011 | brent rose

Concrete has fantastic compression strength, but its tensile strength sucks. More to the point, concrete takes 28 days to fully cure, which is no good in an emergency. Now, a new “CO2 Structure” could revolutionise post-disaster rebuilding. More »


News

Oslo Killer Emailed Plan To More Than 1000 People

1:17AM July 28, 2011 | Jesus Diaz

That bloody bastard Anders Breivik sent his plan to kill people in Oslo and Utoya to more than one thousand people at 2.09pm local time, one hour and 17 minutes before the first explosion. His deadly spam even had an attachment. More »


News

BP Has Another Spill On Its Hands

12:54AM July 19, 2011 | Kwame Opam

Seriously? BP admitted today that a pipeline leak on Saturday resulted in “2100 to 4200 gallons” of oil being spilled onto the Alaskan tundra. After last year’s five million barrels spilt, can they really afford even small screw-ups? [Yahoo News]


News

Boston’s Big Dig: The Deadly Engineering Gift That Keeps On Giving

4:00AM July 11, 2011 | Jack Loftus

The Big Dig, a Boston engineering boondoggle that’s national news mostly because you helped us pay for it, is basically a death trap. It’s killed people already, and some precariously perched lights were apparently preparing to off a few more. More »


News

Le Mans Driver Walks Away From 320km/h Crash

7:00AM June 13, 2011 | Jack Loftus

When an Audi clips a Ferrari at 320km/h during a pass at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, this happens. The Audi driver, Alan McNish (seen above, mid-air), walked away from the crash. [The Daily]


Geek Out

Why Was The Titanic Considered ‘Unsinkable’?

10:32AM June 4, 2011 | Brian Lam

This week is the centennial of the Titanic’s launch, May 31, 1911. Why was she considered unsinkable? Because of her 30 compartments which could be sealed against one another with a pull of a single lever. [The Scuttlefish]