Get to the chopper! MH-53E Sea Dragons are giant helicopters used by the United States Navy for minesweeping and shipboard delivery. Young readersÕ interests will soar when they find out Sea Dragons can carry more than 50 troops while detecting water mines in this exciting title.

The Sea Dragon is the largest and heaviest helicopter in the United States military. It can transport troops and haul cargo. It is also used to detect and blow up mines in dangerous waters. Read about the history of the Sea Dragon, the tools it uses to detect mines, and its role in keeping our waters safe.

The MH-53J Pave Low's main mission is to pick up and deploy troops behind enemy lines. It flies low to the ground and uses advanced technology to sneak in undetected. Young learners will find out about these technologies, read about the Pave Low in action, and learn about the crew that makes dangerous Pave Low missions successful.

Recent earthquakes around the world show a pattern of steadily increasing damages and losses that are due primarily to two factors: (1) significant growth in earthquake-prone urban areas and (2) vulnerability of the older building stock, including buildings constructed within the past 20 years. In the United States, earthquake risk has grown substantially with development while the earthquake hazard has remained relatively constant. Understanding the hazard requires studying earthquake characteristics and locales in which they occur while understanding the risk requires an assessment of the potential damage to the built environment and to the welfare of people - especially in high risk areas. Estimating the varying degree of earthquake risk throughout the United States is useful for informed decision-making on mitigation policies, priorities, strategies, and funding levels in the public and private sectors. For example, potential losses to new buildings may be reduced by applying seismic design codes and using specialized construction techniques. However, decisions to spend money on either of those solutions require evidence of risk. In the absence of a nationally accepted criterion and methodology for comparing seismic risk across regions, a consensus on optimal mitigation approaches has been difficult to reach. While there is a good understanding of high risk areas such as Los Angeles, there is also growing recognition that other regions such as New York City and Boston have a low earthquake hazard but are still at high risk of significant damage and loss. This high risk level reflects the dense concentrations of buildings and infrastructure in these areas constructed without the benefit of modern seismic design provisions. In addition, mitigation policies and practices may not have been adopted because the earthquake risk was not clearly demonstrated and the value of using mitigation measures in reducing that risk may not have been understood. This study highlights the impacts of both high risk and high exposure on losses caused by earthquakes. It is based on loss estimates generated by HAZUS(R)-MH, a geographic information system (GIS)-based earthquake loss estimation tool developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in cooperation with the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS). The HAZUS tool provides a method for quantifying future earthquake losses. It is national in scope, uniform in application, and comprehensive in its coverage of the built environment.

When we board a modern twenty-first century aircraft, we are all confident of, hopefully, a smooth flight, and delivery, to our destination of choice. This was not the case of Malaysia Airlines Flight no. MH-370. It never landed at its destination, nor any other airport. This chronology of the facts of its final flight is written to help soothe the nerves of the international flying public. Because MH-370 vanished mysteriously, its story was written beginning as an unsolved mystery disappearance. Later, when arriving at the conclusion of a tale of a mysteriously missing aircraft, with 239 souls aboard, I realized I had composed a history of the facts and human stories, chronicled within the saga of The Mysterious Final Flight of MH-370. Therefore, the inclusion of the safety of today's human flight is annotated, but also the future of human air flight safety, by describing new safety measures designed to replace outdated twentieth century "black box" invention, with twenty-first century digitized data recording innovative technologies. Cost seems to be the inhibition of installing, then implementing, the now preexisting twenty-first century technologies on all aircraft worldwide, hopefully sooner rather than later. The good news is the United States Air Force has it already implemented and utilized daily today. One day, MH-370 may be located, certainly providing solace and closure for the 239 families missing their loved ones, who comprised the flight manifest of the 239 missing souls aboard MH-370. Plus, both "black boxes" may provide answers to what transpired during "The Mysterious Final Flight of MH-370." Additionally, it is said and felt "Hope springs daily, living eternally."