The True Haiti Earthquake Death Toll Is Much Worse than Early Official Counts

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August 19, 2021

Natural Disasters The True Haiti Earthquake Death Toll Is Much Worse than Early Official Counts A tool built by the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that the number of fatalities may range from 10,000 to 100,000 or more By Sara Reardon

Epidemiology Masks Are a Must-Have to Go Back to School during the Delta Variant Surge Face coverings are essential to protecting children, keeping schools open and slowing the highly contagious coronavirus variant, experts say By Emily Willingham

Astronomy Chinese Astronomers Eye Tibetan Plateau Site for Observatory Project Years of weather monitoring suggest a high-altitude locale in Qinghai Province could host future telescopes By Meghan Bartels,SPACE.com

Fossil Fuels Hydropower Withers in Drought, Boosting Fossil-Fuel Generation The irony reveals the need for a greater mix of renewable energy sources By Corbin Hiar,E&E News

Astronomy This Report Could Make or Break the Next 30 Years of U.S. Astronomy A battle for the future of American stargazing is about to begin—and the stakes are sky high By Lee Billings

Policy Academic Institutions Must Do Better to Protect Caregivers This Fall Schools, colleges and universities that fail to impose mask mandates and other COVID protections put working parents in an excruciating position By 500 Women Scientists

Nutrition Wake-up Call: Climate Change Threatens Rice Farming Half the world’s population relies on rice as a primary food By Sara Schonhardt,E&E News

Public Health Natural Mosquito Repellent's Powers Finally Decoded Here’s how a flower extract keeps off mosquitoes By Rachel Nuwer

Vaccines A New Resource for Fighting Vaccine Misinformation The #ScienceUpFirst initiative was created to provide, support and amplify accurate scientific information to help people make informed health decisions By Jonathan N. Stea,Krishana Sankar

Cosmology When Physicists Follow their Guts Fred Hoyle and George Gamow were brilliant iconoclasts who reached opposite conclusions about the expanding universe (for the record, Gamow was right) By Paul Halpern

FROM THE STORE How to Do Anything Better   When we think about the things we do every day—driving, working, parenting—we realize that even with tasks we are generally good at, there is always room for improvement. As always, science is on the case. This eBook contains a collection of columns written by health and psychology journalist Sunny Sea Gold, whose work has also appeared in O: The Oprah Magazine and Parents. These selections, published by Scientific American between 2009 – 2017, offer practical tips for acing life from nailing that job interview to giving the perfect gift.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Haiti Earthquake Disaster Little Surprise to Some Seismologists Although seismic predictions work on geologic timescales and can miss big quakes by decades, one expert said last week that a temblor in Port-au-Prince was of greater concern than a San Andreas slip By Katherine Harmon | January 2010

QUOTE OF THE DAY "For the modeling, a big problem is: we don't even know how many people died in 2010. The estimates range from 100,000 to 320,000. Most countries have very good reporting, and if the number of fatalities is three, four or five, you can assume it's pretty damn accurate. But once you get into these really big losses, such as in Haiti, the truth is uncertain." David Wald, seismologist at the United States Geological Survey

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