Most recent 40 articles: MIT - Natural Disasters
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On planetary change and human health - MIT - Natural Disasters (Dec 18, 2020) |
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Dec 18, 2020 · When anthropologist Amy Moran-Thomas first went to Belize to begin ethnographic research in 2008, she planned to chronicle human health concerns, focusing on diabetes. Then she learned that local diets contributing to such chronic conditions were changing, in part due to losses in ocean food webs, and kept hearing stories about how local plants were in trouble.
“Listening and trying to learn from what people were saying, over the years I came to see human health and planetary health as deeply interconnected,” says Moran-Thomas, the Morrison Hayes Career Development Associate Professor of Anthropology at MIT. “When I think of health now, I think of disarray in bigger ecosystems ... Read more ...
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With lidar and artificial intelligence, road status clears up after a disaster | MIT News - MIT - Natural Disasters (Apr 21, 2020) |
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Apr 21, 2020 · Consider the days after a hurricane strikes. Trees and debris are blocking roads, bridges are destroyed, and sections of roadway are washed out. Emergency managers soon face a bevy of questions: How can supplies get delivered to certain areas? What's the best route for evacuating survivors? Which roads are too damaged to remain open?
Without concrete data on the state of the road network, emergency managers often have to base their answers on incomplete information. The Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Systems Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory hopes to use its airborne lidar platform, paired with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, to fill this information gap. Read more ...
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Supporting students in Puerto Rico after a hurricane's devastation - MIT - Natural Disasters (Dec 13, 2019) |
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Dec 13, 2019 · Postdoc Héctor De Jesús-Cortés works to build up the STEM pipeline from his homeland to MIT and beyond.
When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September 2017, Héctor De Jesús-Cortés was vacationing on the island with his wife, Edmarie Guzmán-Vélez. "Worst vacation ever, but it actually turned out to be the most important in my life," says De Jesús-Cortés. In the days immediately after the hurricane, both focused on helping their families get their bearings; after that first week, however, they were itching to do more. That itch would take them to San Juan, Puerto Rico's capital, where they asked the then-secretary of education a simple question: "How can we help?"
With ... Read more ...
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