Soon after the glaciers melted at the end of the last Ice Age, our planet was vulnerable to abrupt and dramatic shifts in climate, including prolonged cold snaps that lasted for decades. New research suggests early hunter-gatherers living in the British Isles didn’t just manage to survive these harsh conditions—they…
Puerto Rico’s El Yunque National Forest—the only rainforest in the U.S. National Forest Network—took a beating from Hurricane Maria. The photos that emerged after the storm, of downed trees, defoliated canopies, and battered infrastructure, painted a bleak, almost apocalyptic picture. But scientists expected the…
Over the weekend, my social media feeds were draped in neon orange as the world exuberantly shared the first photos of Christo’s latest work, The Floating Piers, a 1.8-mile walkway across an Italian lake. It is easily the artist’s most ambitious piece from an engineering perspective—and one that actually adds value to…
Over the last few years, Venezuelans have suffered from the devastating impacts of a crumbling economy. Now severe drought has incapacitated its biggest hydroelectric plant, leading to daily blackouts. Earlier this month, the country mandated a three-day weekend as part of energy rationing. Now the situation has…
In 2012 Hoboken, New Jersey suffered the brunt of Superstorm Sandy when most of the city was flooded. Now a piece of infrastructure has been designed to prevent this from ever happening again, but some people who live there don’t want it built. Because they think it will look ugly.
The threat of a tsunami is a very real thing for much of the Pacific coastline, yet many cities in the U.S. haven't taken specific infrastructural measures to ensure their residents are safe when they happen. A new building in Washington will have the first purpose-built tsunami shelter in the country, offering…
Thanks to our asphalt-giddy behavior, we've all but paved over the fault lines that zigzag through some of our riskiest seismic zones. A new video shows how a team of geologists and engineers in LA have been digging a hole to find the exact location of a fault which could prove to be especially destructive.
Here's something you might not know about the 6.4 earthquake epicentered near the Pacific Coast of Mexico on May 8: By the time it hit Mexico City, 170 miles away, people there already knew it was coming. Even before the shaking started, they had time to move to safety. They were ready—thanks to their advanced warning…
There’s been plenty written about why the South suffered so much from this week’s surprise snowstorm. But there’s really only one thing to blame: those cold lumps of steel that are still abandoned on the side of the highway. What happened in Atlanta could happen any time, any place where people rely so heavily on cars.
