An under sea 3.5 Temblor strikes west coast San Fransisco. The 3.5 temblor strikes at 7:47 am today in San Francisco Bay, about three miles west-northwest of the San Francisco Zoon. The earthquake that has struck just off the coast of San Francisco is a minor type. The quake began on the San Andreas fault.
In its history, San Fransisco already experience greater earthquake before. The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California. It struck at 5:12 a.m on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude (Mw) of 7.9. However, other values have been proposed, from 7.7 to as high as 8.25.
Over the long run, earthquakes and shifting fault lines remake the planet. The slip-sliding motion of the San Andreas fault causes San Francisco to move toward Los Angeles at the rate of about 2 inches a year.
“Help protect your pets from dangerous chemicals!” That is the first line warning sentence as written by Scott Shaffer from Organic Authority.com. Here is the summary:
“Research shows that many flea collars for sale at major pet stores contain chemicals known to cause cancer and neurological damage to humans and pets. Luckily, there’s a nation-wide consumer-led movement underway to get PETCO and PetSmart to pull these dangerous products off their shelves. The Natural Resource Defense Council has a request for all pet-owners: go to your nearest PetSmart or PETCO and see if they’re selling flea collars with propuxor or tetrachlorvinphos. NRDC has typed up a handy check-list with all the products to look for. All they need from you is 15 minutes of your time and an email to greenpaws@nrdc.org with the information you gathered.
So here’s your chance to become civically engaged! If you own a pet, care about pets, or just care about reducing the toxic chemicals floating around your neighborhood, please check out your local pet store and send a letter to the heads of the companies and ask them not to sell dangerous chemicals at their stores.”
A dramatic change for Google that has long prided itself on its classic, minimalist look. Google on Thursday began adding background photos to its home page. On Wednesday evening, the company announced it has collaborated with artists to create a gallery of background images and that it would by default place these on the home page with a white Google logo over the next 24 hours.
The change seems to be causing consternation among Google users. On Twitter, complaints about the background rolled in quickly.
Luckily, users can change the background image. Google experts around the net suggest to go directly your Google account. You’ll find there “remove background image link” nested in the bottom left hand corner. Then click a link in the lower left corner of the home page. Google provides plain colors as well as white as options under editor’s picks, although the Google logo remains white even if the images are changed.
A Google spokeswoman told Digits in an email, “The Google home page should be back to normal tomorrow where you can keep it in its simple and classic look, choose to upload an image or photo, or switch back and forth,”.
Today hot topic is about Google TV. This technology is innovation from Google. The idea comes due to facts that 4 billion people across the world watch TV and the average American spends five hours per day in front of one. Recently, however, an increasing amount of our entertainment experience is coming from our phones and computers. One reason is that these devices have something that the TV lacks: the web. With the web, finding and accessing interesting content is fast and often as easy as a search. But the web still lacks many of the great features and the high-quality viewing experience that the TV offers.
Because Google TV is built on open platforms like Android and Google Chrome, these features are just a fraction of what Google TV can do. Soon after launch, the Google TV SDK and web APIs for TV will released so that developers can build even richer applications and distribute them through Android Market.
Speciallly taken from “Forecasts warned of tornadoes days in advance” by TIM TALLEY and ROXANA HEGEMAN
SEMINOLE, Okla. — Days before deadly tornadoes raked the Plains, forecasters warned people big storms were on the way and that they would be large and powerful. Scientists even predicted almost to the hour when the twisters might strike.
They were almost right on the money.
Technological advances, particularly the use of supercomputers that can crunch vast amounts of atmospheric data, have given meteorologists powerful new tools to warn of oncoming storms long before they strike.
The line of storms may have spawned as many as 19 tornadoes as it marched through central Kansas and into Oklahoma Monday evening, leveling houses, flipping cars and dropping hail as big as softballs. Two people were killed and dozens more injured.
"What is disheartening is to tell people for a week that something is going to happen, get warnings out and still have people lose their lives," said Dick Elder, chief meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wichita.
On Tuesday, families picked through broken furniture and dented appliances outside their shattered homes. Garbage trucks scooped up mattresses and other debris.
State officials, meanwhile, revised Monday's death toll from five to two after discovering three critically injured Cleveland County children had survived. A miscommunication occurred when relatives called a hospital to check on the children, who had been transferred, and state officials were later told they had died, said Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Michelann Ooten.
All three remained in critical condition Tuesday, Ooten said. But their 27-year-old mother was killed, as was a 41-year-old man who died in southeast Oklahoma City.
More storms moved through Oklahoma on Tuesday and tornado watches were in effect for much of the night across a swath of the state and into Kansas.
In the early 1980s, computer models forecast storms two days in advance. But meteorologists still relied heavily on radar and storm spotters to confirm the location, size and strength of tornadoes.
"Comparing 20 years ago to today it is different as daylight and dark," Elder said. "We still use spotters to verify what we are seeing, but our warnings are so much more."
Computer models can now forecast threatening storms a week or more in advance — and do so more accurately than ever.
Supercomputers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Camp Springs, Md., provide information sent to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., and on to National Weather Service field offices, where warnings are issued for local areas.
"Year after year, the precision and the accuracy of those models increases," said Mike Foster, the meteorologist-in-charge at the National Weather Service office in Norman. "What we have to do is build in the minds of people everywhere that there is accuracy in those, and when they hear something seven days out, there is some meaning behind that."
Despite the advance warning, many people disregarded blaring sirens Monday as three tornado-producing storms bore down on the Oklahoma City area during evening rush hour. Television station video showed motorists clogging roadways as a tornado formed at Norman.
"That looked to me like people cruising down the road there — business as usual," Foster said.
Part of the Oklahoma culture could be to blame. Tornadoes occur frequently here, and with regular TV programming often dumped in favor of storm coverage, forecasters fear people have become desensitized to the seriousness.
"I believe that if we warn too much, the message, even the frenetic message, starts to blend into the white-noise background of life," Foster said.
When a hurricane approaches the coast with several days' notice, residents have plenty of time to evacuate. But it's usually impractical to order large-scale tornado evacuations because twisters occur more frequently, and residents would grow weary of the constant warnings, Foster said.
On Tuesday, Gov. Brad Henry thanked the media for telling Oklahomans the storms were coming but stressed that it was important for people to pay attention.
"If they tell you there's a storm headed your way, you better listen to them and take shelter," Henry said at truck stop along Interstate 40 near. His news conference was interrupted by a telephone call from President Barack Obama, who promised the state's application for federal disaster assistance would be addressed "very swiftly."
Shawna Alvarez, 32, said tornadoes typically follow paths away from Little Axe, where one of her relatives died Monday. "That's why nobody here has shelters. It doesn't happen," Alvarez said.
Misty Vestal, also related to one of the victims, said extended warnings encourage people to take risks they might not have considered when technology was less advanced.
"I think a lot of people think they can beat it home," Vestal said.
But in Wichita, the early warnings a week earlier put the city's school district on heightened alert. Still, it was not until the local tornado warning was issued late Monday afternoon that officials diverted 50 buses full of students to the closest schools with storm shelters.
Wichita schools monitor the weather. All schools have weather radios, and students and teachers practice tornado drills regularly.
With a tornado spotted west of town and headed toward the heart of the city, school authorities recalled buses and activated their computerized notification system for the parents of elementary students.
"We knew about it last week as well. We were monitoring the situation. ... We all know Kansas weather can change," Arensman said.
At Wakita, a little Oklahoma town featured in the movie "Twister" about tornado researchers, the local nursing home stood by to move patients in case a storm approached. When a tornado warning was issued, nurses moved all the patients to a hallway.
Said Elder: "We can have the greatest warnings out with a great deal of lead time, but it all comes down to a person making a decision that they are at risk and getting to a shelter."
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Taken from "Pirates hijack Greek cargo ship off Oman coast" by The CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Pirates hijacked a Greek-owned cargo ship Wednesday morning off the coast of Oman, the European Union Naval Force Somalia said.
The Liberian-flagged Eleni P, operated by Eurobulk, was carrying 26 crew members when pirates overpowered the ship, the EU naval force said. The crew -- 23 Filipinos, two Romanians and one Indian -- are reported to be safe, the force said.
The ship was en route to India when it was taken by the pirates about 250 nautical miles off the coast of Oman, according to the force, which said it was monitoring the situation.
The force's Operation Atalanta focuses on escorting merchant vessels carrying humanitarian aid for the World Food Programme and those of the African Union Mission in Somalia, protecting vessels in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, and deterring and disrupting piracy.
