BART Installs System To Give Warning Seconds Before Major Quakes, Slowing Trains – 9/28 KQED Science News Roundup

BART installs system to give warning seconds before major quakes, slowing trains - ContraCostaTimes.comIn a marriage of technology and earthquake safety, BART has become the first U.S. transit system to install an early-warning system that can detect major earthquakes seconds before the ground begins shaking and then slow trains to reduce the risk of derailments, injuries and deaths.

Law may encourage mammogram alternativesA new law that will require California doctors to tell women if they have highly dense breast tissue is expected to increase demand for alternatives to mammography to screen patients for breast cancer. [...] methods include 3-D mammography, gamma imaging, hand-held and automated ultrasounds and, in women with an extremely high chance of getting cancer, breast magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.

Analysis: Access to Health Care Starting to Resemble Access to Air TravelThe old axis of access ­in U.S. health care -- insured or uninsured -- is being replaced by the kind of gradations and complexity in determining who-gets-what-when-for-what-price for which the airline industry has become famous. Some recent data and reactions to the provisions of the Affordable Care Act reinforce the trend.

'Fresh-squeezed water': Desalination debate raises financial, environmental and philosophical concerns - Santa Cruz SentinelClick photo to enlarge Will marine life be harmed during the ocean intake? What will the plant cost and who will pay for it? Have alternatives been exhausted? Will the new water enable the kind of population growth some Santa Cruzans have fought for generations?

Big earthquakes can trigger temblors across globe, USGS saysUSGS The incidence of magnitude 5.5-or-greater earthquakes increased across the globe after a magnitude 8.6 temblor an April. A large earthquake in one part of the globe can trigger earthquakes elsewhere, according to new research by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and UC Berkeley.

Biodegradable Electronics Could End Toxic Trash : NPRA future in which a discarded cell phone dissolves into a landfill, rather than living on for thousands of years as garbage, may not be that far off. Melissa Block talks with John A. Rogers, a 2009 MacArthur Fellow and professor of engineering at University of Illinois, about his research into "transient electronics."

New virus not spreading easily between people: WHOLONDON (Reuters) - A new and potentially fatal virus from the same family as SARS which was discovered in a patient in London last week appears not to spread easily form person to person, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.