Instead of being built on top of the soil, the whole structure rests on over 300 isolators. These giant bearings let the building move laterally during an earthquake. After Istanbul got rocked by a magnitude 7.4 monster in 1999, and another major quake predicted to occur within the next 30 years, you can see why engineers decided to make this massive building shake-resistant.

As terrible as a massive earthquake would be, it would be incredible to see a building this huge move from side to side. Maybe we will in a future "World's Strongest Man" event. [Wired]

In the first one, you can try to see how earthquakes propagate through the entire planet in three dimensions. I say "try" because, while the graphic looks very cool, the interpretation of all those information layers is not easy in 3D space. In this case, a classic bi-dimensional cut—using the latest scientific data—would do a much better job at explaining what is basically a symmetric movement through the planet's core. The only better technique would be to add time through animation.

The slicing of Earth's atmosphere has the same problems. It may be fun, but not necessarily clearer than the old 2D version:

The crosscut would show distances more accurately, and the whole representation would be easier to interpret than the fake 3D video. Not to talk about one undeniable fact: I like the Flash Gordon spaceships better. [Wired]

Here's an exterior video of the test:

And here are some of the engineers who participated in this test, explaining the experiment:

According to John van de LIndt—principal investigator of the NEESWood Project—"thorough detailed analysis of the data won't be available for weeks, but scientists are pleased with the initial results." According to the experts, this shows that light-frame wood structures could work against earthquakes. At least, if the earthquake is 7.5 magnitude and the building is engineered like this one. [Colorado State]

See? See what I did there? Aw, never mind.

Tomorrow you can tune in live to see how this building gets destroyed—or not—by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake. The 23-unit wooden condo will be tested on the largest shake table in the world, located in Miki, Japan. The massive hydraulic engines will reproduce the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake amplified 1.5 times.

This experiment—which will happen on July 14, 11am EDT—is designed to check the effectiveness of wood structures against earthquakes. However, they have already tested the building on the same table using a much lighter simulation:

According to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's civil engineer Michael Symans, it's surprising that the building resisted the first two tests so well. He adds, however, that they "really don't know what will happen" in this new experiment. Oh, you teaser. I don't have a clue either, Mr. Symans, but I am hoping for a lot of fun and lots of shakity shakity shaking. [Webcast via Wired]

The Zipingpu dam, located about three miles form the epicenter of the quake, holds 315 million tonnes of water. Some geologists believed that the weight of the water, and its ability to penetrate rock, could have changed the pressure on the fault line.

The reason scientists want to look into it further is because an earthquake of that magnitude is incredibly unusual for the area. In fact, according to Christian Klose of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, there had been no "major seismic activity" on the fault line for millions of years.

Fan Xiao, the chief engineer of the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, said that there have been many cases in which water reservoirs have triggered plate shifts. The government had been warned about the danger of building so many massive projects so close to a fault line but had not heeded them, Fan said.

By shifting a huge quantity of water into the region very suddenly, the dams could have relaxed the tension between two sides of the fault and allowed them to move apart. The effect would have been “25 times more” than a year's worth of natural tectonic stress.

Further research is needed, the scientists admitted, but the government has been quick to deny that their massive construction projects have had any effect on the disaster. Researchers have been cut off from obtaining any more seismological and geological data.

The Hoover Dam is one of the most famous examples of water reservoirs allegedly causing earthquakes. The area around Lake Mead experienced several shakes (though nothing above a magnitude of 5) as the dam was filled. [Telegraph]

The tester got a hold of SentrySafe's QA0005, essentially an armor-plated 250GB Maxtor drive. Once it was loaded with a ton of movies, the fun part involved popping the damn thing in the oven to bake away. Not enough heat? It was tossed into the fireplace too, surviving both with ease. (It's supposed to withstand 30 min. at up to 1550ºF.) The dunk test was far more impressive than the faucet shot above suggests: The thing went underwater, and stayed there for 12 full hours. Apparently it could have gone another 12.

Fire and water were no big whup, but the tester did have a problem with another potential act of God: The casing definitely wasn't built to be shake-, make that quake-proof. Might want to save the $400 and buy a backup drive instead, to keep somewhere far far away. [Wired]

* See? The dogs too.

In fact, I can already imagine Facebook's status worldwide:

"Jason is taking off his pants as he watches the city turn into flames"
"Jesus is trying to repent quickly of all his sins and having his last Margarita"
"Brian is liveblogging the incoming tsunami. It's cool"
"Mark is trying to finish Mario Galaxy II before the asteroid hits"
"Adam is looking for his bong"
"Matt is reading the NYT. Wha'?"
"Benny is looking for Tracie for a last snog"
"Strider is commenting in Brian's liveblog"
"Lindsay Joy is watching her Lego minifigs melt"
"Curves is keeping it cool, like always"
"OMG Ponies is OMG"

Have your own favorite California earthquake video or your future Apocalypse Facebook status? Post it in the comments.

If you've got a MacBook, iBook or Powerbook made after 2005, you too can join the effort to tell people about quakes after it already happened, or maybe even act as a warning system. "Even just a few seconds of warning may be enough time for people to take cover and automated systems could slow trains and divert traffic from vulnerable bridges." And if you think that your constant table bumping from your activities at your computer will trigger The Big One over at EarthquakeHQ, "the Quake Catcher Network's software will analyze shakes sensed by a computer's accelerometer and report only big movements to the central server, ignoring the vibrations from a passing truck, a bump to a table, or even a minor earthquake." [Stanford via Technology Review]

5.1 megapixel camera with self-timer button
35mm wide-angle lens
8x digital zoom
Auto-focus
18.9 mm thick
2.7 inches wide QVGA high resolution LCD
Mobile English dictionary
Voice commands
Micro SD card slot
DMB TV
132 grams
320 hours standby
220 mins talk time
Speaker
Earthquake warning system
Nabi disaster evacuation function
Calorie counter
Adelie Penguin anime story
Timer
Distance measurement

The W61CA comes in four colors: gold; white, green and yellow and I wish it was available in the West. [Casio via i4U]

According to Gizmag:

The Seismic watch functions as an ordinary watch until it receives the EEW, which causes the hour hand to speed up based on the seismic intensity estimation, while the minute and second hands give the countdown time to the earthquake arrival.

The watch itself will be ready in 2010, first for men (given its size) but eventually for women, too. A wall clock connecting to the EEW system via home network will also be available.

Speaking of that, it's probably clear why this technique, using Japan's EEW system, is a better bet than Hitachi's tremor-sensing AirSense watch, which we told you about a few years back. After all, what good is being told of an earthquake when all your crap is already falling off the walls. [Gizmag]

Jump to the middle of the video to see the effects of the heavy shaking. The earthquake was simulated using a six-degrees-of-freedom hydraulic platform and data collected at Northridge, CA on January 17, 1994. Even while hell broke loose, everything kept running and the only failures were caused by "power cords coming out." Not bad at all for a container full of server racks. – Jesus Diaz

Product page [Sun via SiliconNews]

Earthquake gadget [Tokyo Mango]

Luckily enough, the San Francisco City Government has my back. It just implemented a new system where people can sign up their cell phone numbers and will be notified in the event that an earthquake, tsunami, or Mutant Robot Attack hits the Bay area. In addition to alerting you of the impending natural/unnatural disaster, the SMS service also will instruct people on what to do afterwards.

You can sign up here: www.alertsf.org.– Ben Longo

San Francisco gets SMS earthquake alert system [Textually.org]