Best of Last Week: L.A.'s biggest quake threat, more advanced smart clothes and the dangers of eating out
Bob Yirka
news contributor
It was a good week for Earth science as a team with members from several institutions on the U.S. West Coast found evidence that suggested L.A.'s biggest quake threat is an overlooked part of the San Andreas Fault—and it is 80 years overdue for a release. Also, a team at Rutgers's University found evidence that the sea-level rise in the 20th century was the fastest in 2,000 years along much of the U.S. East Coast—ranging from 2.6 to 3.6 millimeters per year. And a team at NASA announced that Asteroid 2001 FO32 posed no threat to Earth as it zoomed by—it was the largest to pass by Earth this year.
In technology news, a team at MIT debuted "smart clothes" they had developed that can measure the wearer's movements—and in so doing, can keep track of time spent sitting, walking or posing in certain ways. Also, a team at the University of Georgia created an AI-equipped backpack that allows the blind to walk in public without using dogs or a cane for up to eight hours at a time. And a team at Chalmers University of Technology announced a big breakthrough for "massless" energy storage—a battery that performs 10 times better than all previous versions. Also, Google announced that its new Wi-Fi Aware functionality allows neighboring 8.0 Android phones to connect without the need for secondary connectivity such as Bluetooth.
In other news, a team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle found that luck is essential for any successful coronavirus variant. And NASA announced that a piece of the fabric that was once part of the wing on the Wright Brothers' first successful flight was affixed to Ingenuity, the helicopter that will soon fly above the Martian surface.
And finally, if you prefer to dine out regularly rather than prepare meals at home, you may want to check out a study led by a group at the University of Iowa—they found that frequent consumption of meals prepared away from home can be associated with an increased risk of death from all causes.
