Unprepared

The eruption of Mount Pinatubo on June 15, 1991 in the Philippines was the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century. Photo: ARLAN NAEG/AFP (Getty Images)When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted in Tonga on January 15, the result was devastation. The eruption literally blew up an island, caused mass flooding in the surrounding areas, coated whole communities in a thick layer of ash, and took out telecommunications for weeks. Yet in that eruption, we got lucky, according to a new commentary article…

Del Kathryn Barton thought she was psychologically resilient enough to make a film that was informed by a traumatic experience from her own life.She was mistaken.The Australian artist’s debut as a film director and co-writer, Blaze, is not autobiographical, but it is informed by something that happened to Barton as a child. It tells the story of a 12-year-old girl named Blaze who witnesses the rape and murder of a woman.“I had done decades of therapy, and I felt ready to tell the story,” says Barton, 49, seated in her…

A solar flare, as imaged by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on October 14, 2014.Image: NASA/SDOWe’re in the third year of the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle, and satellites in low Earth orbit are already experiencing the deleterious effects. Scientists are now warning that the worst is yet to come, as the current cycle is proving to be stronger than forecasters anticipated. Apanel of space weather experts expressed these concerns at the recently concluded 36th Small Satellite Conference organized by the Secure World…

Yet, despite the heavy toll such incidents have on both the public and private sectors, government officials have only a limited understanding of ransomware attacks and how cryptocurrencies are being used to collect payment, according to a new report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.“Cryptocurrencies—which allow criminals to quickly extort huge sums of money, can be anonymized, and do not have consistently enforced compliance with regulations, especially for foreign-based attackers—have…

The Lovers & Friends Festival saw a new location this year, in Las Vegas, but the move proved to be detrimental to the event.Many attendees took to Twitter to complain about the conditions, saying that the festival was unprepared for the weather conditions in Las Vegas, which were hot this weekend. Festival-goers revealed that there weren’t enough shaded areas, people were passing out from the heat, and there wasn’t any water. There were a handful of cooling buses, which had long lines and weren’t sufficient for the…