Japan's quake shifts earth's axis by 25 cm

Initial results out of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology show that the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rattled Japan Friday shifted the earth's rotation axis by about 25 centimetres.

INGV's report, which came hours after the devastating incident, is equivalent to "very, very tiny" changes that won't be seen for centuries, though, Canadian geologists say.

The impact of this event on the axis of rotation, said INGV, was also much greater than that of the great Sumatra earthquake of 2004, which was 7 cm of linear and two thousandths of an arcsecond angle, and probably second only to Chile earthquake of 1960. The earthquake in Chile last year shifted the Earth’s axis of about 8 cm .

"It's going to make minute changes to the length of a day. It could make very, very tiny changes to the tilt of the earth, which affects the seasons, but these effects are so small, it'd take very precise satellite navigation to pick it up."

The earth's rotation will now shift at a different speed because the globe's mass has been redistributed, said Michael Bostock, a University of B.C. earthquake seismology professor.

CLASSIFICATION FOR INTENSITY – The earthquake of 11 March 2011 stands at fifth place in the ranking of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded since the seismic surveys are accurate.

1 – The strongest ever occurred May 22, 1960 between Temuco and Concepcion in Chile: 9.5 on the Richter scale, resulted in 1,655 dead, 3,000 injured, 2,000,000 homeless. That triggered the tsunami caused 61 deaths in Hawaii – did not exist warning systems and even it was known that a tsunami could cross an entire ocean – 138 in Japan, 32 in the Philippines.

2 – The second strongest quake was recorded March 28, 1964 in Alaska, the epicenter of the earthquake of 9.2 degrees was in Prince William Sound, not far from Anchorage: the dead were 113 for the Tsunami and 15 shocks. In nearby Montague Island, the land rose up to 13-15 meters.Valdez in the Gulf of the tsunami wave reached a height of 67 meters, 15 deaths were recorded on the coast of California and Oregon, even in Cuba and Puerto Rico took place small tidal waves.

3- 9.1: it is the magnitude of the earthquake that everyone remembers very well. On Boxing Day, January 26, 2004 two minutes before 8 am (local time) on the Asian plate moves over the Indo-Australian subduction beneath Sumatra. The north-west of the island was devastated following the tsunami in Thailand came up and swept the east coast of Sri Lanka, India and as far as Somalia in the west. In all the dead were 230 000, but some estimates speak of 300 thousand victims.

4- 4 November 1952: south-east coast of Kamtchaka Island Russia (then Soviet). It is an earthquake of 9 Richter scale, there is no news of casualties. Hawaii got a 3-meter tsunami

CLASSIFICATION FOR VICTIMS – The strongest earthquakes are not always those that produce the greatest number of victims. Often, in fact, occur in uninhabited areas. Instead, less intense but earthquakes near densely populated areas or buildings without earthquake resistant, produce devastating effects.

1 – More than 800,000 deaths, estimates of the Chinese earthquake of 8 degrees of Shaanxi January 23, 1556.
2 – Between 250,000 and 700,000 victims in the earthquake of 7.5 degrees in Tangshan, China, July 28, 1976.
3-250 thousand deaths estimated in the May 21 earthquake in Antioch of 525, maybe 8 degrees
4 – even China, Gansu, December 16, 1920: 235,000 dead, probably due to a shock of 7.8 on the Richter scale.
5-230 thousand deaths in the 26 December 2004 Sumatra earthquake tsunami
The earthquake of 7 degrees on January 12, 2010 in and around Port-au-Prince in Haiti is estimated to have caused 223,000 deaths and puts him in seventh place

A 2,000-pound house in the air.

300 weather balloons lift a 2,000-pound house into the air

It took the team about two weeks to plan, build, and lift the house into the air using balloons. They needed about 300 weather balloons, each of which inflated to a height of 8 feet, in order to lift the 2,000-pound, 16x16-foot yellow house. Lifting off early in the morning outside of Los Angeles, the house floated for about an hour and reached an altitude of 10,000 feet.

According to the National Geographic Channel, the floating house set a world record for the “largest balloon cluster flight” ever attempted. The entire aircraft of house and balloons was about 100 feet tall.

The concept of a house being lifted into the air by balloons may sound familiar to young movie-goers who have seen Pixar’s latest animated feature called “Up.” In the movie, an old man and a boy go on a ride when the house they’re in is lifted into the sky by balloons tied to the house’s roof. Just like in the movie, there were a few people inside the real-life house while it was flying.

John Smeaton-"Father of civil engineering"

John Smeaton, FRS, (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792) was an English civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. Smeaton was the first self-proclaimed civil engineer, and often regarded as the "father of civil engineering".
He was associated with the Lunar Society.

Smeaton was born in Austhorpe, Leeds, England. After studying at Leeds Grammar School he joined his father's law firm, but left to become a mathematical instrument maker (working with Henry Hindley), developing, among other instruments, a pyrometer to study material expansion and a whirling speculum or horizontal top (a maritime navigation aid).

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1753, and in 1759 won the Copley Medal for his research into the mechanics of waterwheels and windmills.

Recommended by the Royal Society, Smeaton designed the third Eddystone Lighthouse (1755–59). He pioneered the use of 'hydraulic lime' (a form of mortar which will set under water) and developed a technique involving dovetailed blocks of granite in the building of the lighthouse. His lighthouse remained in use until 1877 when the rock underlying the structure's foundations had begun to erode; it was dismantled and partially rebuilt at Plymouth Hoe where it is known as Smeaton's Tower. He is important in the history, rediscovery of, and development of modern cement, because he identified the compositional requirements needed to obtain "hydraulicity" in lime; work which led ultimately to the invention of Portland cement.

Deciding that he wanted to focus on the lucrative field of civil engineering, he commenced an extensive series of commissions, including:

• the Calder and Hebble Navigation (1758–70)
• Coldstream Bridge over the River Tweed (1762–67)
• Improvements to the River Lee Navigation (1765–70)
• Perth Bridge over the River Tay in Perth (1766–71)
• Ripon Canal (1766–1773)
• Smeaton's Viaduct, which carries the A616 road (part of the original Great North Road) over the River Trent between Newark and South Muskham in Nottinghamshire (1768–70)^[2][3]
• the Forth and Clyde Canal from Grangemouth to Glasgow (1768–77)
• Banff harbour (1770–75)
• Aberdeen bridge (1775–80)
• Peterhead harbour (1775)
• Nent Force Level (1776–77)
• Harbour works at Ramsgate (retention basin 1776-83; jetty 1788-1792)
• Hexham bridge (1777–90)
• the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal (1782–89)
• St Austell's Charlestown harbour in Cornwall (1792)

Because of his expertise in engineering, Smeaton was called to testify in court for a case related to the silting-up of the harbour at Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk in 1782: he is considered to be the first expert witness to appear in an English court. He also acted as a consultant on the disastrous 63-year-long New Harbour at Rye, designed to combat the silting of the port of Winchelsea. The project is now known informally as "Smeaton's Harbour", but despite the name his involvement was limited and occurred more than 30 years after work on the harbour commenced.

Eminem

Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), better known by his stage name Eminem, is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Eminem quickly gained popularity in 1999 with his major-label debut album, The Slim Shady LP, which won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.

LIFE:-

Eminem was born Marshall Bruce Mathers III on October 17, 1972 in Saint Joseph, Missouri, as the only child of Deborah R. Nelson Mathers-Briggs and Marshall Bruce Mathers, Jr. He is of Scottish, English, German, Swiss, Polish, and possibly Luxembourgian ancestry.His father abandoned the family when he was 18 months old, and he was raised solely by his mother in poverty. By the age of 12, Mathers and his mother had moved between various cities and towns in Missouri (including Saint Joseph, Savannah, and Kansas City)before they settled in Warren, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.

Mathers was initially signed to FBT Productions in 1992, run by brothers Jeff and Mark Bass. Mathers also held a minimum-wage job of cooking and dishwashing at the restaurant Gilbert's Lodge at St. Clair Shores for some time.

DRUGS & EMINEM

Eminem has spoken openly about his addiction to prescription drugs, including Vicodin, Ambien, Valium and Methadone.His group-mate Proof from D12 stated that Mathers "sobered up" in 2002 from drug and alcohol dependence.

Discography

• Infinite (1996)
• The Slim Shady LP (1999)
• The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)
• The Eminem Show (2002)
• Encore (2004)
• Relapse (2009)
• Recovery (2010)

Memoir

On October 21, 2008, Eminem released a tell-all autobiography entitled The Way I Am, which details his struggles with poverty, drugs, fame, heartbreak and depression, along with stories about his rise to fame and commentary on past controversies. This book also contains some of the original lyric sheets from songs such as "Stan" and "The Real Slim Shady."

 

^{Interesting facts about Eminem}

Eminem failed 9th grade a total of three times  and then dropped out of high school
, because he didn't care much about school. All he wanted to do was rap.

Eminem says that he can't stand it when people spell his daughter's name wrong.

He loves South Park, and even calls himself a "twenty-six-year-old skinny Cartman" in the song Marshall Mathers.

Eminem has his own radio station, Shade 45.

In December 2007, he was taken to a Detroit-area hospital for a serious heart condition and severe pneumonia.

In 2006, Eminem filed for divorce from his wife Kimberly again.

Eminem has a tattoo on his right lower shoulder of Hallie.

When Eminem was in fourth grade, he was bullied by an older child. The beating caused a near-fatal brain hemorrhage. In one of his songs, Eminem named the bully and the man sued Eminem for $1 million.

The Eminem Show has sold more than eighteen million albums worldwide.

Eminem had a huge fan who ended up killing his pregnant girlfriend and then himself. This is similar to Eminem's song "Stan". Eminem began performing as early as thirteen.

Eminem is a fan of fast food chain Taco Bell, Wendy's and frequently eats there while on tour and at home with his daughter and niece.