Advance warning needed (Image: Tony Gentile/Rex Features)
More than 500 million people live in the shadow of a volcano, but predicting an eruption can be tricky. Forecasts based on periodic gas sampling could be improved with the volcanic equivalent of a breath tester that picks up changes in the composition of gases spewing from its vent.
Most instruments would melt if placed inside the mouth of a volcano, but Alton Horsfall and Nick Wright at the Centre for Extreme Environment Technology at Newcastle University, UK, have been using silicon carbide to create electronic components that can venture where no instruments have ever gone before. "Silicon's a wonderful material to about 175 °C and then it goes horribly wrong, whereas silicon carbide runs to around 600 °C on a practical level," explains Horsfall.