Three years after a series of tsunamis killed more than 200,000 people and devastated hundreds of communities bordering the Indian Ocean, a team of engineers has figured out how to re-create smaller versions of the killer waves in a lab. Their first-of-its-kind flume, set for completion next year, could better reveal how tsunamis work and help in designing buildings that can withstand their power.

On December 27, 2004, while the world was focused on the Indian Ocean tsunami, a few astronomers were contemplating the possibility of an even deadlier disaster: that of a massive asteroid striking Earth. A fifth of a mile wide—heftier than the space rock that leveled a vast swath of Siberian forest in 1908—Near-Earth Asteroid 2004 MN4 had grabbed the attention of NASA scientists just before Christmas. They put the chance of an April 13, 2029, collision at 1 in 2,700 and two days later upped the odds to 1 in 165.