Japan Earthquake Increases Flood Risk In Fukushima


During the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake in Japan, the ground level sank along the coast near Onahama Port,  Fukushima Prefecture. This has caused recent average tide levels to rise by about 40cm.

A tide level recording from Onahama Port shows the tide level fluctuations at the time of the quake and the subsquent increase in tide levels.


Tide level at Onahama, Fukushima Prefecture.
image source: JMA

The CDF collaboration sent to the preprint arxiv a new paper a few days ago. In it, they report on a measurement of the mass difference of top and anti-top quarks. The result would not be worth discussing in detail, if it did not show a 2-sigma discrepancy which might be the first hint of a CPT violation. So let me discuss it here.

Recent research indicates that bilingual speakers can outperform monolinguals in certain mental abilities, such as editing out irrelevant information and focusing on important information, said Judith Kroll, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Penn State. These skills make bilinguals better at prioritizing tasks and working on multiple projects at one time.  Kroll said that these findings counter previous conclusions that bilingualism hindered cognitive development.

While any individual action in a zero-tolerance culture will be evidence of endemic racism, the plain fact is actual racism is below any level in history and dropping fast.   That makes it possible to again discuss variations in skin color to provide one of the best examples of evolution by natural selection acting on the human body.

Scientists have understood for years that evolutionary selection of skin pigmentation was caused by the sun. As human ancestors gradually lost their pelts to allow evaporative cooling through sweating, their naked skin was directly exposed to sunlight. In the tropics, natural selection created darkly pigmented individuals to protect against the sun.

This is a butterfish:



NOAA describes it unflatteringly as a "small, bony foodfish." Butterfish live along the Atlantic coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland, and they've been fished commercially for some time, with predictable results:

Royally Screwed

Getting screwed - in the sense of being at the receiving end of a whole bunch of badness - has its origins in carpentry.  It's nothing to do with thumbscrews.  It has everything to do with keeping a thing under pressure - or releasing it.  Things can get literally screwed up or screwed down.

If you are trying to clamp something with screws you are screwing something down.  If you have a screw loose then your efforts will result in a screw-up.  A screw-up in a steam locomotive shop may result in a most public screw-up somewhere along the line.

ASAN and the IACC


On Monday, I went through an ASAN petition to the CDC that appears to have been intentionally hyperbolic and meant to get supporters foaming at the mouth. Since I posted the piece, I've continued to look into the ICD-9-CM, IACC's take on wandering, and when it was first mentioned at the IACC, of which Ari Ne'eman is a committee member.

This morning, Wendy Fournier commented at the article on Science 2.0, providing information that placed when Ari Ne'eman would have been first informed of the CDC's interest in wandering:

For days now, scientists and science blogs tell us not to worry about Japan’s nuclear reactors. Nothing can happen; no radiation will be released, all is fine. We are treated to false experts even, to one-sided rants of somebody who studied risk management in corporations, published originally on a business friendly website.

This is a very short note, just to help me get a feel for how this editor works.

What's so spooky about action at a distance?

Entanglement of separated electrons seems no more odd to me than a parameterized hyperboloid of two sheets  .  Change the parameter and the curvature and other properties change identically in the two sheets. 

What is a BLEVE?

A BLEVE is a Boiling-Liquid Expanding-Vapor Explosion.

It is fairly common knowledge that removing the radiator cap of a vehicle with a hot engine will cause the ejection of boiling water.