Thorthormi Glacier Lake, Bhutan

As glaciers grind their way across the landscape, they pile up rocky debris, forming moraines. At the terminus of a glacier, moraines can act as natural dams for lakes filled with melt water. When they fail, they can create catastrophic glacial outburst floods. On October 7, 1994, in the Bhutan Himalaya, a partial collapse of a moraine along the edge of the Luggye Lake released a glacial outburst flood that killed 21 people and swept away livestock, crops, and homes.

This natural-color image of the southern slopes of Bhutan’s Table Mountain shows where the 1994 glacial outburst flood occurred. Luggye Lake broke through the moraine at the southwest corner, and the flood scoured a path down the Pho Cho River. Unfortunately for residents down the valley, Luggye is not the only dangerous glacier in the region. Officials are also concerned about the Thorthormi Glacier Lake and the unstable moraine separating it from Raphstreng Lake, to the west.

Raphstreng Lake is roughly 80 meters (260 feet) lower in elevation than the lake forming at the terminus of Thorthormi Glacier, and an outburst flood from Thorthormi into Raphstreng could easily cause the lower lake to overflow as well. The combined outpouring of meltwater and rock debris could be even more devastating than the 1994 disaster.

To reduce the likelihood of a glacial outburst flood, Bhutan has begun a project to lower the water levels of both glacial lakes. In area where heavy equipment could tumble down the slopes, the government of Bhutan has relied on human muscle and low-tech tools to widen the outlet channels and allow the lake water to drain in a more controlled way.

El Misti Volcano and Arequipa, Peru

Several Latin American cities have grown up on the flanks of active volcanoes. This mosaic of two astronaut photographs illustrates the closeness of Arequipa, Peru, to the 5,822-meter- (19,100-foot-) high El Misti Volcano. The symmetric conical shape of El Misti is typical of a stratovolcano, a type of volcano characterized by alternating layers of lava and debris from explosive eruptions, such as ash and pyroclastic flows. Stratovolcanoes are usually located on the continental crust above a subducting tectonic plate. The magma feeding the stratovolcanoes of the Andes Mountains, including El Misti, is associated with ongoing subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate. El Misti’s most recent—and relatively minor—eruption occurred in 1985.

The city center of Arequipa, Peru, lies only 17 kilometers (11 miles) away from the summit of El Misti; the gray urban area is bordered by green agricultural fields (image left). With almost 1 million residents in 2009, it is the second largest city in Peru in terms of population. Much of the building stone for Arequipa, known locally as sillar, is quarried from nearby pyroclastic flow deposits that are white. Arequipa is known as “the White City” because of the prevalence of this building material. The Chili River extends northeastwards from the city center and flows through a canyon (image right) between El Misti volcano and Nevado Chachani to the north. Nevado Chachani is a volcanic complex that may have erupted during the Holocene Epoch (from about 10,000 years ago to the present), but no historical eruptions have been observed there.

Astronaut photographs ISS021-E-8370 and ISS021-E-8371 were was acquired on October 16, 2009, with a Nikon D3 digital camera fitted with an 800 mm lens, and are provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment and Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by the Expedition 21 crew. The image in this article has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast. Lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by William L. Stefanov, NASA-JSC.

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A broken bone one day, a particular infection a few months later and depression the following year may appear to be separate, medical issues.

However, to a new artificial intelligence program developed by Boston doctors, these are all symptoms of domestic abuse.

The new software can identify abuse victims up to six years before these cases would otherwise be found and could eventually be used to diagnose just about any disease or injury.

“It’s very difficult to detect domestic abuse because it often happens in the privacy of the home,” said Ben Reis, a doctor at Children’s Hospital Boston (CHB) who helped develop the program.

“Doctors are often on the front lines of detecting abuse, but so often the doctor is focused on treating the injury, they don’t see the context behind it.”

Dozens of studies over the last 40 years have correlated various illnesses, injuries and other conditions with abuse. Bruising to the middle of the forearm or the core of the body instead of the elbow or knee can signal abuse. Depression or alcoholism may also be symptoms of this condition.

The new program takes all of these studies and puts them in one place. Before a doctor even consults with a patient, the software will alert the doctor about the likelihood of abuse in a particular case using a color-coded system.

It would then be up to the doctor whether to treat the patient as a victim of abuse.

To create the artificial intelligence program, the CHB doctors used six years of data from more than 560,000 patients ages 18 years and older.

While many studies have correlated certain injuries with abuse, Reis, along with his colleagues Isaac Kohane and Kenneth Mandi, tasked the program with finding its own connections between an abuse diagnosis and records of injuries leading up to that diagnosis.

The program picked up domestic abuse an average of two years before it was diagnosed. In one case, the program detected abuse more than six years before it was diagnosed by a physician.

Robert Sege, a doctor at the Boston Medical Center not involved with the study, is very impressed with the research.

“By the time someone is identified as abused, the abuse has generally gone on for a long time,” said Sege. “This is really powerful. If I had this with particular patients, I would be aware of the possibility and ask them more detailed questions or tell them about the kinds of services we provide.”

Electronic health records are the lynchpin of the artificial intelligence system, according to both Reis and Sege.

Abuse victims often seek medical treatment at different locations for each injury to avoid detection. Each hospital or doctor keeps separate patient records but often fail to share those records.

Keeping one, consolidated electronic record of a patient activity would enable the software to detect abuse.

The record doesn’t even have to be particularly detailed, says Reis. The CHB doctors used only the most basic patient data, “the lowest common denominator,” as Reis calls it, to diagnose abuse in patients. Using better data should only increase the program’s success at abuse detection.

Better data could also allow the program to diagnose a variety of diseases more accurately as well. Ultimately, Reis and his colleagues want to expand their software to consider every human disease, a project he likens to the Human Genome Project, a multinational, $3 billion effort to sequence the entire human genome.

To support their research Reis was recently granted a four-year, $1.3 million grant to expand their research.

“We want to do a fundamental analysis of the entire human ‘disease-some’ — if there is such a word — to check the predictability of all diseases,” said Reis.

It will take years to finish a complete analysis of all diseases. Even when a project is done, and an artificial intelligence system capable of diagnosing a host of diseases is created, doctors don’t need to worry about losing their jobs.

“We are here to empower doctors,” said Reis, “not replace them.”

Over the past century, dozens of aircraft have been designed and built to fight in the sky. But now based on expert opinion, audience polls and technical comparison, we’ve constructed a five-point matrix, that will rank the Top Ten Fighter aircraft of all time.

No. 10: F/A-22 Raptor
Manufacturer: Lockheed Martin
Power Plant: Pratt & Whitney F-119 PW-100
Top Speed: Mach 2.5
Armament: One 20mm cannon, six AMRAAM and two AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles

Because it is almost invisible to radar and carries an awesome array of weaponry the F-22 Raptor, America’s fourth-generation fighter, gets superb innovation and fear factor ratings. However, the aircraft’s prowess is compromised by its astronomical production costs and the fact it has some way to go to match the combat records of the F-15 and F-16. Therefore, in the kill ratio, production and service length categories, the Raptor scores zip, placing it firmly in 10th place on our list.

No. 9: Sea Harrier FA2
Manufacturer: British Aerospace
Power Plant: Rolls Royce Pegasus mk 104 or 106 turbofan
Top Speed: 736 mph
Armament: Two 30-mm Aden cannon, plus two AMRAAM and four Sidewinder missiles, two Harpoon or Sea Eagle anti-ship missiles

With its unrivaled ability to maneuver, hover and pop up from unexpected places, the Sea Harrier earns a solid fear factor rating. Its unique design and simple-to-produce airframe score well. Despite achieving a high kill ratio in the Falklands, the “jump jet’s” slow speed makes it vulnerable to ground fire, which reduces its overall score. Though the aircraft is being phased out of front-line operations it still earns a respectable ninth place in our top 10 league.

No. 8: Sopwith Camel
Manufacturer: Sopwith Aviation Company
Power Plant: Clerget rotary engine
Top Speed: 112 mph
Armament: Two Vickers .303 machine guns

Credited with destroying at least 1,200 enemy aircraft, the Sopwith Camel rightly deserves to be called one of the best fighters of all time. Its solid, if unspectacular, scoring across the board ensures its standing in eighth place on the list of the greatest fighters of all time.

No. 7: Me 262 Schwalbe
Manufacturer: Messerschmitt
Power Plant: Two Junkers Juno 004s
Top Speed: 540 mph
Armament: Four 30mm MK-108 cannons

For innovation the “Swallow” scores maximum points. As the first of its kind, the Me 262 inspired equal measures of fear and admiration, so it also scores at the top of the scales in the fear factor category.

However, because the aircraft was difficult to build and it had notoriously unreliable engines, the aircraft’s production rating is low – so too is its service record, having only been active for a little over two years. Nevertheless, the Me 262 will forever be in the record books as being the world’s first fully operational jet fighter – a legend of the skies and the seventh greatest fighter of all time.

No. 6: Supermarine Spitfire
Manufacturer: Supermarine Aviation Works
Power Plant: Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 piston engine
Top Speed: 369 mph
Armament: Eight Browning .303 machine guns; later version, four 20mm cannon

Used in all British theaters of conflict throughout the Second World War the Spitfire remains the unrivaled symbol of victory and Britain’s finest hour. But the Spitfire is also famous for giving Field Marshall Erwin Rommel the scare of his life.

On July 17, 1944, in the north of France, a Canadian pilot named Charlie Fox shot at the car carrying the German military mastermind and knocked it off the road, putting Germany’s “Desert Fox” out of commission.

No. 4 – A Tie!
MiG 15
Manufacturer: Mikoyan Gurevich Design Bureau
Power Plant: Klimov VK-1 turbojet
Top Speed: 668 mph
Armament: One 37mm N-37 cannon and two 23mm NR-23 cannon

AND

F-86 Sabre
Manufacturer: North American
Power Plant: General Electric J47 engine
Top Speed: 685 mph
Armament: Six .50-caliber machine guns and eight 5-inch rockets

Compared to today’s fighters both these jets are underpowered and primitive but few aircraft have done so well at the job they were designed to do. Both the F-86 Sabre and MiG 15 were the right aircraft at the right time and each richly deserve a prominent place in aviation history.

Both designs relied heavily on captured German swept-wing technology and British engine design, so for innovation the MiG and Sabre are equally matched. Both fighters were produced in large numbers, but the MiG edges in front of the Sabre in the production category because of its renowned simplicity. Both jets have similar service records. The result? They are inseparable in the rankings: the MiG 15 and F-86 Sabre tie for fourth place.

No. 3: F-4 Phantom
Manufacturer: McDonnell Douglass
Power Plant: Two J79 Spey turbojet afterburning engines
Top Speed: 1,485 mph
Armament: Four AIM 7 Sparrow and four AIM 9 Sidewinder missiles.

Produced in large numbers the F-4 Phantom has an unrivaled service history. But the aircraft really earns its third place ranking for being fast, durable and deadly.

Phantoms were the test bed for missile technology – and the aircraft held five speed records for an impressive 13 years before being beaten by the aircraft featured in the No. 2 spot on our list of the top 10 fighters of all time.

No. 2: F-15C Eagle
Manufacturer: McDonnell Douglass
Power Plant: Two Pratt & Whitney F-100-PW-100 afterburning turbofans
Top Speed: Mach 2.5
Armament: One 20-mm cannon, four AIM-7F Sparrow and four AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles

No other fighter in the history of aerial combat has a record that even comes close to the Eagle’s. The F-15 is far superior to most of its brethren – way better than the F-4 – accelerating better, turning better, handling better.

In fact, such is the reputation of the F-15 that during the opening phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Saddam Hussein’s air force simply refused to get in the air. They knew the F-15 would just knock them out of the sky.

No. 1: P-51D Mustang
Manufacturer: North American Aviation
Power Plant: 1600 hp Packard-built Merlin 61 piston engine
Top Speed: 437 mph
Armament: Six wing-mounted .50-caliber machine guns

Fitted with external drop-tanks the Mustang’s range was extended to almost 2,000 miles, making it the only Allied fighter capable of protecting the Allied bombers on long-range, deep-penetration raids.

The Mustang performed its job so well that after its introduction in 1944, casualty rates for bomber crews were reduced by 75 percent. In fact, American P51s destroyed almost 5,000 enemy aircraft in Europe – making it the highest scoring U. S. fighter in the European theater of operations.