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Archive for April, 2009

Monitoring earthquakes with satellites

Italian Scientists from INGV (Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia)  use the latest images from the European Space Agency to map recent fault displacement.

—> Risultati Preliminari SAR - First Results SAR (in italian)

Envisat ASAR interferogram (01 Feb 2009 / 12 April 2009)
(Courtesy of IREA-CNR)

a simple explanation of the concept here:

“While the fault and the earthquake epicenter are often deep below the earth’s surface, the ground above the fault moves a little too. This movement is very slight, but it is possible to measure it with high precision GPS instruments, or with satellites.”

credit: Ars Technica

the data are freely available at ESA:

“ESA makes freely available to the scientific community a dataset of SAR products (Envisat and ERS) corresponding to the earthquake of L’Aquila (Italy) which took place on 6 April 2009. The ESA package also includes data from Third Party missions, in particular Japanese ALOS data.”"

http://earth.esa.int/ew/earthquakes/Italy_April09/

you may also find this article interesting:

Can Satellites Aid Earthquake Predictions? - National Geographic

Popularity: 93% [?]

a Solar Cooker to save the world?

Jon Bohmer [photo] has invented a cheap, solar-powered cardboard cooker for rural Africa called the Kyoto Box. The invention seems to be very useful and promising.

The Kyoto Box, a $6 solar cooker made from cardboard, has won the Financial Times-sponsored Climate Change Challenge.

Black paint on the inner box, and silver foil on the outer one, help concentrate the heat. The trapped rays make the inside hot enough to cook casseroles, bake bread and boil water [CNN]. Covering the cooking pot with a transparent cover retains heat and water [BBC]

more details on Discover Magazine

img credit: cnn

 

Popularity: 73% [?]

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