Chilean Quake a Warning to U.S. Northwest

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/chilean-quake-a-warning-to-u-s-northwest/ February 28, 2010, 6:29 PM Chilean Quake a Warning to U.S. Northwest By ANDREW C. REVKIN I'm dealing with a disaster of microscopic dimensions, being among the 200,000 households in the Northeast still lacking electricity, heat and flushing toilets three days after an astonishing dump of snow (with several more days to go, supposedly). But I'm able to get online long enough to reflect on the message sent to the Pacific Northwest from the great earthquake in the southern hemisphere. That message is a clear "get ready." The Pacific " ring of fire" doesn't stop at the equator. While my print story and post on quake threats last week focused on the seismic peril facing millions of poor people living in fast-growing cities in quake zones, there are plenty of prosperous places that have not adequately responded to their exposure to enormous, and inevitable, earthquake risk. A prime case in point is Oregon. After the destruction of hundreds of poorly built schools in China's Sichuan province, I wrote repeatedly here and in print about  similar vulnerability identified by engineers and seismologistsin that state, despite the clear record of devastating quakes and tsunamis generated by the  Cascadia fault beneath the sea bed off the Northwest coast. Read this recent  warning from Patrick Corcoran, a hazards outreach specialist with the Oregon Sea Grant program at Oregon State University: "The release of pressure between two overlapping tectonic plates along the subduction zone regularly generates massive 9.0 magnitude earthquakes –- including five over the last 1,400 years. The last 'Big One' was 309 years ago. We are in a geologic time when we can expect another 'Big One,' either in our lives or those of our children. Prudence dictates that we overcome our human tendencies to ignore this inevitability." The good news is that the state has recognized the problem and has found some money to move forward with a plan to retrofit public schools and other important public buildings (thanks to  Yumei Wang from the state's geohazards group for the alert on this). The bad news, of course, is that the seismic clock is ticking.      SomaLife International Specializing in Health and Wealth 24 7 One SomaLife at a time! http://SomaLife.net/Roy1

Ewe eeee........ http://ericknowsitall.com/lamb-with-human-face/ Lamb born with a human face by ERIC on JANUARY 13, 2010 A sheep gave birth to a dead lamb with a human-like face. The calf was born in a village not far from the city of Izmir, Turkey. Erhan Elibol, a vet, performed Cesarean section on the animal to take the calf out, but was horrified to see that the features of the calf's snout bore a striking resemblance to a human face. "I've seen mutations with cows and sheep before. I've seen a one-eyed calf, a two-headed calf, a five-legged calf. But when I saw this youngster I could not believe my eyes. His mother could not deliver him so I had to help the animal," the 29-year-old veterinary said. The lamb's head had human features on – the eyes, the nose and the mouth – only the ears were those of a sheep. Veterinaries said that the rare mutation most likely occurred as a result of improper mutation since the fodder for the lamb's mother was abundant with vitamin A, CNNTurk.com reports. A goat from Zimbabwe gave birth to a similar youngster in September 2009. The mutant baby born with a human-like head stayed alive for several hours until the frightened village residents killed him. The governor of the province where the ugly goat was born said that the little goat was the fruit of unnatural relationship between the female goat and a man. "This incident is very shocking. It is my first time to see such an evil thing. It is really embarrassing," he reportedly said. "The head belongs to a man while the body is that of a goat. This is evident that an adult human being was responsible. Evil powers caused this person to lose self control. We often hear cases of human beings who commit bestiality but this is the first time for such an act to produce a product with human features," he added. The mutant creature was hairless. Local residents said that even dogs were afraid to approach the bizarre animal. The locals burnt the body of the little goat, and biologists had no chance to study the rare mutation. source Share and Enjoy:                         Tagged as: human faced lamb, mutation PREVIOUS POST: Boycott the college football post season NEXT POST: Pastor pulls gun, threatens to kill son, wonders why church attendance is low.