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Hurricane Harvey affected thousands and thousands of people. Why?

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It has been a week since the devastation caused in Houston, Texas by tropical storm Harvey. As pictures emerged last Monday of flooding and people stranded on rooftops, Harvey brought back memories of Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans in 2005.

However Harvey was very different from Katrina. It dumped more than 50 inches of rain in Houston and surrounding areas, the greatest amount of rainfall ever recorded from a single storm. What does 50 inches look like? Imagine 19 trillion gallons of water, enough to raise the water level in the Great Lakes by almost one foot!

This excessive rainfall led to dams and reservoirs overflowing and flooding neighborhoods, even though engineers tried to divert water in a controlled manner. Parts of Houston are still under water, and the estimated cost of recovery from the storm is $180 billion.

However, even as Texas struggles to clean up, the Caribbean islands and Cuba are bracing for Irma, a Category 5 hurricane that is heading for the region this week.
"Children Of The Tropics"
Most storms and hurricanes that affect the United States and the Caribbean islands are born off the coast of Africa, near Cape Verde Islands. They are all children of the tropics, and hence called "tropical storms."

For storms to form, the conditions have to be just right: water temperatures of 80 degrees F or more, and winds that don't change much in speed or direction. And that is just what happens in late summer over the Atlantic Ocean. As ocean temperatures rise, the air above the ocean's surface heats up and rises. This causes an area of low pressure to form where the warm air used to be. Cool air from the surroundings rushes in to take its place, which in turn heats up and rises. Meanwhile, the warm rising air condenses to form clouds, which grow in size. This is called a "tropical depression" and typically has wind speeds of up to 38 miles an hour.

As the depression moves over water, it gains in strength. When the winds are above 39 miles an hour, it is called a tropical storm. This is when it gets a name -- "Harvey" or "Irma". The storm begins to take a distinct shape and starts to circulate like a hurricane. As the wind picks up speed, the pressure in the center of the storm begins to rapidly drop giving it more momentum to move and the ability to rotate like a spinning top.

When the winds in this storm reach at least 74 miles an hour, it is referred to as a "hurricane" in the Americas, a "cyclone" near the Indian peninsula, and a "typhoon" in the eastern Pacific. While it takes about one to two weeks for a disturbance to become a depression, it can take just a few hours for a depression to become a hurricane. But take heart in the fact that only a few of these disturbances gain in strength enough to be a hurricane, and depend on the atmospheric and ocean conditions.
Why Was Harvey Different?
Once a hurricane or storm makes landfall, it starts to lose its energy as it is no longer "fueled" by warm ocean waters. It's intensity reduces as it moves further inland.

However, what made Harvey different was that it stalled over the Texas Gulf coast, with warm waters "fueling" the storm and no winds to carry it away. This led to continued heavy rainfall in the region and no place for the water to drain, as the sea levels had also risen from the storm (known as a "storm surge").

Hurricanes are broken down into five categories according to their power and potential damage they can do. Tropical storms and hurricanes are named by the National Hurricane Center by using a six year rotating list of male and female names. When a powerful hurricane makes landfall and causes extensive damage, its name is retired from the list to avoid future confusion.

All eyes will be on Hurricane Irma this week, as she approaches the Caribbean islands with winds of up to 180 miles per hour.

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It has been a week since the devastation caused in Houston, Texas by tropical storm Harvey. As pictures emerged last Monday of flooding and people stranded on rooftops, Harvey brought back memories of Hurricane Katrina that hit New Orleans in 2005.

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Over 16 million children have been affected by this natural disaster.

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About 16 million children across India, Bangladesh and Nepal are in urgent need of life-saving support due to "catastrophic" flooding in the three South Asian countries, a UN agency said.

"Millions of children have seen their lives swept away by these devastating floods" said Jean Gough, Unicef Regional Director for South Asia.

"Children have lost their homes, schools and even friends and loved ones. There is a danger the worst could still be to come as rains continue and flood waters move south" she added.

Weeks of torrential monsoon rains and catastrophic flooding in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh have devastated the lives of millions of children and families. Unicef estimates that almost 16 million children and their families are in urgent need of life-saving support. Since mid-August, there have been at least 1,288 reported deaths.

Many areas remain inaccessible due to damage to roads, bridges, railways and airports. The most urgent needs for children are clean water, hygiene supplies to prevent the spread of disease, food supplies and safe places in evacuation centres for children to play, the UN agency said.

Unicef is on the ground working in close coordination with respective governments and humanitarian partners from three countries to scale up its responses and respond to immediate needs of affected children and their families.

"Massive damage to school infrastructure and supplies also mean hundreds of thousands of children may miss weeks or months of school" said Gough.

"Getting children back into school is absolutely critical in establishing a sense of stability for children during times of crisis and provides a sense of normality when everything else is being turned upside down."

In India, four states in the northern part of the country have been extensively affected by the flooding, affecting over 31 million people including 12.33 million children. Some 805,183 houses are either partially or fully damaged and 15,455 schools have been damaged, disrupting the education of nearly one million students. Further heavy rains in Mumbai resulted in at least five deaths by drowning and three people including two children died due to house collapse.

In the affected states in India the state governments, following rescue operations, are conducting relief, rehabilitation and recovery operations. Unicef, at the request of the state governments, is providing multi-sectoral planning and coordination support in the three worst affected states of Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Over 9.8 million people in Bihar have been reached with lifesaving information on topics such as safe drinking water and handwashing, Unicef said.

In Bangladesh alone, more than 8 million people have been affected by flooding, including around 3 million children. An estimated 696,169 houses have been damaged or destroyed and 2,292 primary and community schools have been damaged by high water. There have already been more than 13,035 cases of water-borne diseases in the country.

In Nepal, 1.7 million people, including 680,000 children, have been affected with 352,738 displaced from their homes. More than 185,126 homes have been damaged or destroyed in addition to 1,958 schools, affecting the education of 253,605 children.

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16 million children affected by floods in India, Nepal and Bangladesh: Unicef

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About 16 million children across India, Bangladesh and Nepal are in urgent need of life-saving support due to "catastrophic" flooding in the three South Asian countries, a UN agency said. "Millions of children have seen their lives swept away by these devastating floods" said Jean Gough, Unicef Regional Director for South Asia.

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110-Million Year Old Dinosaur is Napping

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110-Million Year Old Dinosaur is Napping

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Over a 100 million years ago, an 18-foot (5.48 meter) long, 2,500-pound (1,133 kg) pineapple-shaped dinosaur met an untimely death when it was swept away by a river.

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Perfectly preserved Borealopelta markmitchelli (Photo Credit: Royal Tyrell Museum)

Over a 100 million years ago, an 18-foot (5.48 meter) long, 2,500-pound (1,133 kg) pineapple-shaped dinosaur met an untimely death when it was swept away by a river in what is now Alberta, Canada. Fortunately for us, its body ended up situated back-first on the muddy floor of an old seaway. This helped preserve the ancient behemoth's front half in such extraordinary 3-D detail that the armored dinosaur almost looks alive.

The pristine fossil, identified as a new species and genus of the plant-eating armored nodosaur, was discovered by accident. In 2011, Shawn Funk, a heavy equipment operator, was drilling in an oil sands mine in northern Alberta when his machine hit something that was much harder than the surrounding rock. Upon investigating, he found multiple sandy brown disks that did not appear to be like anything he had encountered before.

Anterior View (Photo Credit: Royal Tyrell Museum)

Believing he may have stumbled upon something significant, Funk convinced his supervisor to send the artifacts to the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta. Then began the painstaking process of chipping away the wood that had kept the fossils safe for over a century. It took lab technician Mark Mitchell more than 7,000 hours over six years to unearth the fossil. But it was well-worth the effort. Unlike other dinosaur remains that comprise just bones, this ancient creature still had its skin and scales or, as the museum described it, "(was) encased in intact body armor."

The dinosaur, which is now part of the museum's new exhibit, Grounds for Discovery, is the first member of the genus Borealopelta (Northern Shield). It has been named markmitchelli in honor of Mitchell, whose hard work helped uncover its full glory. In addition to providing researchers new insights into the structure and life of armored dinosaurs, Caleb Brown, the museum's dinosaur expert, and his team have uncovered another interesting fact.

Borealopelta markmitchelli on display at museum (Photo Credit: Royal Tyrell Museum )

They believe the dinosaur comprised two colors - it was a dark reddish-brown on the back and lighter on its underbelly. While some animals feature two-tone colors to help them regulate body temperature, the scientists who published their findings in Current Biology on August 21, assert that these dinosaursused it for camouflage. This has led them to conclude that the ancient creatures had some ferocious predators. Paleobiologist Jakob Vitner, an expert on animal coloration from the U.K.'s University of Bristol, who co-wrote the study, says, "the short story is, the Cretaceous is bloody scary. We have evidence for the fact that these theropods were eating Borealopelta [and other] large, heavily armored herbivores, taking them down and gulping them up."

However, not all experts agree with this theory. They believe that Vitner's conclusion, based on evidence of chemicals traces left behind by color pigmentation found on the scaly creature, is flawed. Alison Moyer, a postdoctoral researcher at Drexel University, thinks that the study has not taken into account how the fossil's chemistry evolved over time, or whether its darker exterior is skin or remains of a bacterial film developed over the 110 million years. Additionally, since the skin does not extend to m arkmitchelli's underbelly, it is hard to determine if the area lacked pigmentation. Though Moyer may dispute some of the study's conclusions, the expert does agree the specimen is "an absolutely awesome paleontological discovery."

Artist's rendition of Borealopelta markmitchelli (Photo Credit:Royal Tyrell Museum)

Nodosaurs were herbivores that lived in what is now North America, Europe, Asia, and Antarctica between 110 and 112 million years ago. The giants were reputed to be reclusive animals who kept predators at bay with a unique weapon - 20-inch shoulder spikes, similar to bull horns, that jutted out from each side of their body. Like their counterparts, they disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 65 million years ago. Fortunately, thanks to Borealopelta Markmitchelli, we at least know how this armoured dinosaur species looked.

Resources: Atlantic.com. National Geographic.com, theverge.com, daiilymail.co.uk

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110-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Is So Well Preserved, It Could Be Napping!

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Over a 100 million years ago, an 18-foot (5.48 meter) long, 2,500-pound (1,133 kg) pineapple-shaped dinosaur met an untimely death when it was swept away by a river in what is now Alberta, Canada. Fortunately for us, its body ended up situated back-first on the muddy floor of an old seaway.

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Learn about new technology! A self-healing, Wolverine-inspired material which automatically repairs itself within 24 hours.

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Photo Credit: Pexels CC0

While smartphones continue to get increasingly sophisticated and resilient, the same cannot be said about the display screen. The Gorilla Glass cover used for most high-end cell phones tends to shatter easily, leaving owners with little choice but to pay for an expensive replacement screen or buy a new device altogether. However, this issue may soon be a thing of the past thanks to a new self-healing, Wolverine-inspired material which automatically repairs itself within 24 hours.

Dr. Chao Wang, the leading researcher of the UC Riverside team who developed the material, says, "When I was young, my idol was Wolverine from the X-Men. He could save the world, but only because he could heal himself. A self-healing material, when carved into two parts, can go back together like nothing has happened, just like our human skin. I've been researching making a self-healing lithium ion battery, so when you drop your cell phone, it could fix itself and last much longer."

Testing the new polymer (Photo Credit: Wang Labs)

Cell phones with self-healing technology is not a new concept - the LG smartphone model G Flex 2, released in 2015, already has a self-healing back panel which can repair everyday scratches within minutes. However, the material is held together by hydrogen bonds that are unable to conduct electricity and hence unsuitable for display screens, given that most smartphones rely on a grid of electrodes underneath the screen. When the human finger touches the screen, a tiny electrical charge transfers to the finger to complete the circuit and tells the phone what you are trying to accomplish.

How touchscreens work (Image Credit: By Mercury13 [CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

To overcome the shortcoming, the UC Riverside team turned to a different kind of chemical bonding. Called ion-dipole interaction, it is a type of intermolecular force between fully charged ions and partially charged polar molecules.

Image Credit: Socratic.org

For their self-healing material, the researchers selected salt ions and a transparent polymer that can be stretched to 50 times its normal size.

To see if it worked, the scientists tore it in half. Sure enough, the dynamic bond between the ions and polymer molecules caused the torn parts to align themselves back to their original configuration within a day.

To test the material's conductivity, the researchers created an "artificial muscle" by placing a non-conductive membrane between two layers of the newly created material. When an electric current was applied, the "artificial muscle" responded by moving, similar to how the human bicep moves upon receiving a signal from the brain.

Wang, who presented his research at the 253 rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) on April 4, says, "Ion-dipole interactions have never been used for designing a self-healing polymer, but it turns out that they're particularly suitable for ionic conductors."

Photo Credit: Wang Labs

The team now plans to work on improving the properties of the polymer so that is it durable even when exposed to harsh external conditions such as high humidity. According to Wang, previous self-healing polymers have not held up well when exposed to moisture, and therefore, not been useful for real-world applications. The optimistic researcher believes that self-healing cell phone screens will be a reality within just three years! We sure hope he is right!

Resources: acs.org, businessinsider.com

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Your Next Smartphone May Have A Self-Healing Screen

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While smartphones continue to get increasingly sophisticated and resilient, the same cannot be said about the display screen. The Gorilla Glass cover used for most high-end cell phones tends to shatter easily, leaving owners with little choice but to pay for an expensive replacement screen or buy a new device altogether.

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On May 22, Dubai officials added to their list of futuristic accomplishments with the introduction of the world’s first operational robot police officer.

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Photo Credit: Dubai Media Office

The city-state of Dubai that is home to the world's tallest building, manmade islands shaped like palm trees, drone taxis, and jetpack wielding firefighters, is fast cementing its reputation as the city of the future. On May 22, Dubai officials added to their list of futuristic accomplishments with the introduction of the world's first operational robot police officer.

Nicknamed Robocop after the 1987 action movie, the 1.7-meter (5.5-feet) tall humanoid robot was unveiled at the 4 th annual Gulf Information Security Expo and Conference (GISEC) held at the Dubai World Trade Center from May 21-23. First introduced in 2011 as REEM by Barcelona-based PAL Robotics, the robot was built to entertain guests at conferences and serve as an interactive information booth at public venues. However, the forward-thinking officials of the Dubai police force saw another potential application and partnered with the Spanish company to build a version that would help enact justice.

Photo Credit: Dubai Media Office

Locals and visitors can interact with Lieutenant Robocop which is currently on duty at the Dubai Mall, using the touchscreen on its chest. Armed with technology from Google and IBM's supercomputer Watson, the "policeman" can provide visitors with directions and other information regarding the mall in one of six languages, including Arabic and English and also accept payment for any fines, like parking tickets. It can also detect criminals with an 80 percent accuracy from 100-feet away and relay the information real-time to command central through its camera eyes. While Robocop cannot physically protect citizens in distress, an SOS button located on its touchscreen can connect them to a human member of the Dubai police force instantly. When not assisting people or seeking out lawbreakers, Robocop strives to bring smiles to people's faces by posing for selfies or showering them with compliments.

Photo Credit: Dubai Media Office

Once the robot officer has been thoroughly tested, Brigadier Khalid Nasser Alrazooqi, general director of the Smart Services Department at Dubai Police who spearheaded the project, plans to "hire" more Robocops to patrol other public areas and also act as receptionists at police stations.

While Robocop is not armed or programmed to apprehend wrongdoers, Alrazooqi is currently working on creating "a fully-functional robot that can work as (a) normal police officer." The ambitious official envisions that by 2030, 25 percent of the Dubai police force will comprise humanoid robots. He also hopes to introduce a 3-meter (9.8-feet) tall mobile police robot that can run at speeds of up to 80 km per hour at the Dubai Expo in 2020. Though the ideas sound like science fiction, don't be surprised if this Middle Eastern emirate, which has transformed itself from a desert backwater to one of the world's most advanced cities in less than 50 years, manages to pull it off.

Resources: gizmag.com. cnn.com, Rt.com,huffingtonpost.com

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Dubai Deploys A Real-Life Robocop To Help Citizens

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The city-state of Dubai that is home to the world's tallest building, manmade islands shaped like palm trees, drone taxis, and jetpack wielding firefighters, is fast cementing its reputation as the city of the future. On May 22, Dubai officials added to their list of futuristic accomplishments with the introduction of the world's first operational robot police officer.