Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Studying Avalanches A Little Too Closely

Posted by timothy on from the a-white-womb-with-white-curtains dept.

Makarand writes "ABC News has an interesting article about a Professor in Montana State University who is trying to perfect avalanche prediction techniques. He studies avalanches using the 'direct method,' i.e. he sets off an avalanche and puts himself right ahead of it so that he gets buried alive, a routine he has been doing for 20 years now. His goal is to be able to use data about the climate, mountain topography and snow microstructure in a model to forecast if we are prone to avalanche conditions."

4 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Isn't natural selection supposed to take guys like this out of the gene pool?

    1. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Well, going by Google, the guy isn't married, so there's still time for the snow to win.

  2. Spam by fredrikj · · Score: 3, Funny

    he sets off an avalanche and puts himself right ahead of it so that he gets buried alive

    Sounds like studying spam by giving out your e-mail address in an EFNet warez channel...

    Or submitting a story with a link to the site you run off your DSL connection to Slashdot, and then trying to surf the 'net...

  3. Rule out the invariant by Hubert_Shrump · · Score: 4, Funny

    As a serious scientist, I'm worried that having the same person buried again and again will skew the results of this study.

    I have a short list here that will help fix this otherwise wonderful experiment.

    --
    Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!