Why is Francis Ford Coppola mentioned?

The top prize of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France, the Palme d’Or, has been a-warded to the film Amour by the Austrian director Michael Haneke. Michael Haneke’s Love, or Amour, takes place in the apartment of an old couple as their lives reach their ends. Despite the gloomy-sounding theme, it was very well received by critics in Cannes. Michael Haneke won the Palme d’Or with The White Ribbon in 2009, and now joins the likes of Francis Ford Coppola as a two-time winner of the top prize.

Scientists at a German research institute say satellite data from Global Positioning Systems, or GPS, could be used to provide much faster tsunami warnings. The scientists say they’ve analysed data gathered from over 500 GPS stations at the time a devastating earthquake hit Japan in March, 2011. They say it could have been used to predict both the correct magnitude of the quake and the size of the resultant tsunami in just three to four minutes, faster than the traditional methods.