"Alerta sísmica! Alerta sísmica!" Few things strike as much fear into the hearts of Mexico City residents as the words “seismic alert” blaring from speakers in schools and parks. It means an earthquake is rumbling up from the Pacific coast, and you have 60 to 90 seconds to get someplace safe.

If electronics are the underpinning of our modern economy, then batteries are what make the world go round. And since its commercial introduction in 1995, the lithium-ion (li-ion) battery has been king.

Over the past 30 years, a three-fold improvement in energy density has driven li-ion batteries far down the cost curve, from more than $3,000/kWh to approximately $150/kWh today, making li-ion the battery chemistry of choice for our toys, consumer electronics, medical devices, power tools, and increasingly, cars. Applications for household and grid storage that balance the intermittency of renewables are already hitting the market. Indeed, the $30 billion industry is expected to clock a blistering 11.6% annual growth rate through 2024, to a valuation of nearly $80 billion1.

NASA's fleet of satellites have been continually providing forecasters with data on Hurricane Irma. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a look at the wide-eye of Irma and if you think about the area of maximum sustained winds around the eye, it's similar to a wide F2 tornado.

Sixteen years after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers sent a “cloud” of toxic debris across Lower Manhattan, children living nearby who likely breathed in the ash and fumes are showing early signs of risk for future heart disease.

NASA's Aqua satellite captured clear view of the eye of Hurricane Jose at it moved toward the Leeward Islands and strengthened into a Category 4 Hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Aqua also analyzed the storm in infrared light showing powerful storms around the center, capable of heavy rainfall.

Two days of satellite imagery from NASA's Terra and NOAA's GOES East satellites showed that Hurricane Katia was starting to crawl to the coast of southeastern Mexico.   

Strontium (Sr) is an element which in the event of a nuclear accident is the one that is most released into the atmosphere. The chemical behaviour of strontium is similar to that of calcium and can accumulate in the soil, in plants and in animals (in bones, especially). It is an element with two main radioisotopes (90Sr and 89Sr) which have an effective biological life that is relatively high for human beings, and due to its fixation in the bones, ends up giving a dose of radiation over many years.

Hurricane response crews from the U.S. Geological Survey are installing storm-tide sensors at key locations along Florida’s southeast and southwest coastlines in advance of Hurricane Irma.

Under a mission assignment from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the USGS is currently deploying approximately 58 storm tide sensors, 24 barometers and five rapid deployment gauges, and is consulting with federal and state partners about the need for similar equipment for other coastal areas farther north along the coastlines.

The back deck of the Healy is a tough place to work.  It’s wet, it’s cold, and the scientists slogging away there are always covered in mud.  That’s because getting samples off the bottom of the Chukchi Sea is an important part of our mission this year.

Packing tiny solar cells together, like micro-lenses in the compound eye of an insect, could pave the way to a new generation of advanced photovoltaics, say Stanford University scientists.

In a new study, the Stanford team used the insect-inspired design to protect a fragile photovoltaic material called perovskite from deteriorating when exposed to heat, moisture or mechanical stress. The results are published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science (E&ES).