Anyone who has a loved one afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease understands the worry of a wandering incident.

Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia that causes its sufferer to become paranoid, confused, and have memory problems. Being confused about their surroundings, many patients wander around aimlessly, which can lead to life-threatening situations, such as walking into lanes of traffic. The Alzheimer’s patient may now know where they’ve wandered too, where they live, or even their name.

Approximately 60 percent of people inflicted with Alzheimer’s disease are prone to wander.  This is a concerning statistic for family members and caretakers of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, particularly if it’s impossible to keep a close eye on them every second of every day. Read the rest of this entry »

Baltimore County has recently seen an increasing number of gutters, downspouts, and copper wire thefts from homes. But they’ve also seen a rise in the theft of another unique homeowners property: statures from front lawns.

All of these thefts apparently are due to the rising cost of metals, whereby would-be criminals steal the objects to obtain cash for scrap metal.

Investigators found out about the statue thieves when a neighbor videotaped two offenders failing to stuff a neighbor’s large bronze statue into a compact Silver Honda Civic car. The thieves were trying to steal a 6-foot tall bronze boy and his kite lawn statue, which couldn’t quite fit into the small Civic. Read the rest of this entry »

Located on every continent, GPS monitoring stations provide detailed information that help scientists and researchers identify changes that induce earthquakes, like the devastating one that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010 and the powerful 8.8 earthquake that sparked a tsunami in Chili on February 27, 2010.

Because earthquakes occur as a result of movement of the earth’s crust, seismologists and geophysicists around the world have been able to measure such movement with pinpoint precision — thanks to GPS tracking technology.

In the United States, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) uses GPS technology to measure and study the earth’s crustal deformation. Even though the organization’s work spans across the entire nation, most of its concentration is in the western states, where the majority of earthquakes occur. It’s in the western part of the United States where the crustal deformation rates are the highest. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a growing trend in crime prevention. As many as 12 states are using GPS tracking technology to keep accusers of domestic violence away from their victims.

In these states, when an attacker receives an order of protection, a judge can require the offender to wear a GPS tracking device so that law enforcement and the victim can keep tabs on the offender’s whereabouts. The GPS tracker would send an alarm whenever the attacker strayed outside of the protection order.

But a murder victim’s mom is fighting for more widespread use of the GPS tracker in the form of a tougher GPS stalker law. Read the rest of this entry »

While harmless to us humans, one of the largest solar storms to hit earth is set to hit earth tomorrow, March 8th 2012.  The solar storm started with a massive solar flare earlier this week, has been traveling through space as ultra fast speeds.  Scientist estimate when the particles hit earth, they will be traveling at a whopping 4 million miles per hour!

A solar storms biggest threat is to technology.  GPS systems, communication systems and power grids could be affected by this latest explosion from the sun.  But not all is lost, as these solar flares make for incredible auroras or Northern Lights in the sky.

The brunt of the solar rays are expected to hit earth between the hours of 1 am and 5 pm EST.  For more information and a really cool video on this jump on over to the NASA Website.