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Categories: Engineering: Biometric, Geoscience: Landslides

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By flagging disease-associated DNA biomarkers, medical professionals can make early diagnoses and provide personalized treatments, but the typical screening methods can be laborious, expensive or limited in scope. Now, a new biosensor could pave the way to accessible and expansive diagnostics.

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Las Vegas, with its rapid urbanization and desert landscape, is highly vulnerable to flooding. For this reason, flood managers have built an extensive system of drainage ditches and detention basins to protect the public. Now, a new study shows how intentional engineering and urban development are interacting with climate change to alter the timing and intensity of flood risk.

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A new modelling study shows that the Seychelles and other islands in the western Indian Ocean are not responsible for most of the plastic waste that accumulates on their beaches. Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka were found to be the main sources of land-based plastic debris. The Seychelles also accumulate significant amounts of plastic debris of marine origin from fisheries and shipping lanes. • The results highlight the urgent need for a legally-binding Global Plastics Treaty and greater enforcement of regional policies to reduce plastic waste.

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Supporters of the large-scale Mississippi River sediment diversions currently being planned by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority got a boost to their case recently when scientists published an analysis of two existing freshwater diversions on the state's coastline, one of which shows a significant amount of land having formed over the past 17 years.

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Satellite observations have revealed that weak seismic ground shaking can trigger powerful landslide acceleration -- even several years after a significant earthquake.

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Scientists have found a new and better way to use remote sensing to understand where coastal dead zones are and predict changes.

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On March 11, 2011, multiple catastrophes in Japan were triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake, including the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This event, also known as the 3/11 disaster, is what is known as a compound disaster. Now that over a decade has passed since this event, researchers are investigating how to prevent the next compound disaster.

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Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides beneath another, produce the most devastating seismic, volcanic, and landslide hazards on the planet. A new report presents an ambitious plan to make major advances in understanding subduction zone hazards by bringing together a diverse community of scientists in a long-term collaborative effort, deploying new instrumentation in subduction zones, and developing more sophisticated and accurate models.

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The forensic-voice-comparison system, based on state-of-the-art automatic-speaker-recognition technology, outperformed all the listeners.

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A devastating fire followed by an intense rainstorm triggered mudslides in Southern California in 2018 that claimed 23 lives. New findings elucidate the physics behind the deadly disaster that may inform predictive models of future mudslides.

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Rapidly evolving floods are a major and growing hazard worldwide. Currently, their onset and evolution is hard to identify using existing systems. However, seismic sensors already in place to detect earthquakes could be a solution to this problem. Researchers show that a seismometer can sense a flood, such as the devastating one that hit Germany in July 2021, up to 1.5 km away. This could act as an early warning to save lives and lessen damage. They also found that being able to measure the 'seismic footprint' of the flood provides information on its magnitude, velocity and trajectory in real time, which could be used for future flood protection.

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Researchers recently published a study looking at land use changes from the past and the importance of taking factors such as socio-economic development and the dynamic nature of coastal environments into consideration to make these areas more resilient to climate change.

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A new large-scale analysis of hillslope connectivity at the continental scale was recently published. The study gives new understanding of mechanisms that determine how effectively hillslopes drive floods and landslides, as well as promote the presence of wetlands.

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Landslides are inevitable, but landslide disasters are not. With this in mind, the U.S. Geological Survey has released a new report that details the strategic actions necessary to equitably reduce the Nation's risk from landslide hazards.

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A new report outlines a model law for facial recognition technology to protect against harmful use of this technology, but also foster innovation for public benefit.

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Forensic dramas on TV make it seem easy to determine when fingerprints were left at the scene of a crime. In reality, the oils in fingerprints degrade over time, and it's difficult to figure out their age. Now, researchers have discovered molecular markers for changes to these oils over a seven-day time period -- information that could be used to estimate fingerprints' ages more accurately.

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University of Cincinnati geologists reconstructed a massive landslide in Nevada that wiped out an area the size of a small city more than 5 million years ago. Researchers pieced together details of the Blue Diamond landslide, a natural disaster that sent rocks and boulders tumbling more than 6 miles across what is now a desert outside Las Vegas. The landslide in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area had such mass and force that it propelled fragmented rock 2 miles uphill, cresting the enormous Blue Diamond Hill, and flattened an area larger than downtown Cincinnati. Rubble from the landslide stretches over an area of more than 7 square miles.

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Researchers develop the 'photoswitching fingerprint analysis'. A unique technology that for the first time allows the analysis of molecular processes and the regulation of individual proteins in living cells with sub-10 nm spatial resolution. The application ranges from biological to medical research.

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With record temperatures this summer along with dry conditions, ongoing concerns about food security, wildlife habitats and biodiversity, having a healthy soil system is more vital and challenging than ever before. But what does the term 'soil health' mean and how should we measure it? New research says that how we think about, measure and study soil must be changed to give a better understanding of how to manage this resource effectively, with academics proposing an entirely new approach for assessing soil health.

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The catastrophic debris flow that affected Montecito, Calif., in early January, 2018 was the result of a rare confluence of severe events. The Thomas Fire had been raging for weeks in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and an unusually strong winter storm dumped half an inch of rain in five minutes on the newly-charred hills above the suburban enclave. With the tough vegetation that holds the hillsides in place burned off by the fire, tons of water, silt, burnt plant matter and rocks roared down the slopes and engulfed the community below, causing massive damage and the death of 23 residents.