The Johnstown Flood of 1889
On May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam in southwest Pennsylvania collapsed. The waters of Lake Conemaugh burst from behind the earthen dam with the force of Niagara Falls. When the 40-foot wall of water reached Johnstown, located in a valley 14 miles below the dam, it had already carried debris, people, and animals from […]
A History of Venice and its Flood Wall
Venice, Italy, is fighting a battle against the ocean that surrounds it. Rising sea levels and sinking land means that the city faces the constant threat of devastating floods. Luckily, Venice has developed a solution: the Experimental Electromechanical Module, or MOSE. But this system, which was fifty years in the making and cost five billion […]
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Pfizer Vaccine Now FDA Approved Although Americans have been receiving COVID vaccinations since early Spring, it was only last week that the Pfizer vaccine was fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Because of the urgency of the pandemic, the FDA granted emergency use authorization. It is important to know, however, that the […]
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Can a Giant Laser Control the Weather? Have you ever heard the story of Ben Franklin ”discovering” electricity with a kite and a key in a thunderstorm? Now, scientists in Switzerland are trying something similar (if much more high tech) with a giant laser. A team of researchers led by Swiss physicist Jean-Pierre Wolf has […]
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Uhlenbeck Wins World’s Greatest Math Prize Known as the “Nobel Prize of Mathematics,” the Abel Prize is the world’s most prestigious award in this field. It was founded in 2003 and is given each year by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters to an outstanding mathematician. And this year, for the first time ever, […]
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Maker of EpiPen Faces Harsh Criticism Millions of Americans suffer from severe food allergies, many of them children. To combat a reaction that could lead to anaphylactic shock, many carrying an EpiPen. This is an “auto-injector” filled with the hormone epinephrine. While epinephrine itself is not considered an expensive drug, the single dose of a […]
Water and Blues: Texas Flood
Last summer, the state of Texas was in the middle of a severe drought. Heavy rains and tornadoes over the recent Memorial Day weekend, however, have saturated the ground and caused flooding across much of the north and eastern part of the state. Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and parts of Kansas have all experienced record […]