The Conversation

Anyone who has been around wildfires knows the disaster doesn’t end when when the flames are gone. Rainstorms on burned land can quickly trigger destructive mudslides for months afterward.

Hurricanes and earthquakes can also set up cascading hazards that can trigger new disasters within days or years later.

As Indiana University geomorphologist Brian Yanites explains, climate change and more people moving in high-risk areas are increasing the risk of cascading hazards and upending models used to forecast future disasters. That’s creating a growing problem for emergency planners and insurance costs alike.

“Hazard models – used to help communities prepare for disasters – can’t just rely on the past,” Yanites writes. “They need to be nimble enough to forecast how hazards evolve in real time.”

Also in this week’s science news:

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Stacy Morford

Senior Environment, Climate and Energy Editor
The Carter Lodge hangs precariously over the flood-scoured bank of the Broad River in Chimney Rock Village, N.C., on May 13, 2025, eight months after Hurricane Helene. AP Photo/Allen G. Breed

Hurricane Helene set up future disasters, from landslides to flooding – cascading hazards like these are now upending risk models

Brian J. Yanites, Indiana University

Risk models can’t rely just on the past anymore. A team of geoscientists suggests new ways to forecast evolving hazards in real time as cascading disaster risk worsens.
A discredited study published in 1989 first alleged a link between thimerosal and autism. Flavio Coelho/Moment via Getty Images

A preservative removed from childhood vaccines 20 years ago is still causing controversy today − a drug safety expert explains

Terri Levien, Washington State University

There’s no solid evidence that thimerosal harms children. RFK Jr.’s handpicked vaccine advisory committee voted against using it in the one type of flu vaccine where it is still used.
Public health experts worry that factually inaccurate statements by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. threaten the public’s confidence in vaccines. Andrew HarnikGetty Images

I’m a physician who has looked at hundreds of studies of vaccine safety, and here’s some of what RFK Jr. gets wrong

Jake Scott, Stanford University

The health secretary has made many inaccurate statements about vaccines. But the science is clear that vaccines have dramatically reduced childhood illness, disability and death.

Hurricane forecasters are losing 3 key satellites ahead of peak storm season − a meteorologist explains why it matters

Chris Vagasky, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program has been particularly important for understanding when a hurricane is about to rapidly intensify, a dangerous situation for coastal communities.

Keeping brain-dead pregnant women on life support raises ethical issues that go beyond abortion politics

Lindsey Breitwieser, Hollins University

Adriana Smith’s body was kept on life support for 16 weeks so her fetus could gestate. Abortion politics don’t capture the ethical complexities of such situations.

More than half of US teens have had at least one cavity, but fluoride programs in schools help prevent them – new research

Christina Scherrer, Kennesaw State University; Shillpa Naavaal, Virginia Commonwealth University

Fluoride varnish, easily and quickly applied to a child’s teeth, is an affordable and effective way to help prevent cavities.

How can the James Webb Space Telescope see so far?

Adi Foord, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

The James Webb Space Telescope has 2 powerful instruments that see light the human eye can’t.