geekosystem

For those of us observing at a distance, the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan last year seemed like a singular, horrible event. However, this visualization created by StoryMonoroch shows that it was, rather, a shocking surge in geologic activity. Using red circles and sound effects to indicate the magnitude and depth of each earthquake, this video is a sobering reminder of the powerful forces at work on our planet. See the video, after the break.

According to the preliminary results of a study undertaken by American and Russian scientists, the atmosphere directly above the fault zone from which Japan's devastating 9.0 magnitude earthquake emanated in March heated up substantially in the days leading up to the quake, and saw a "rapid increase of emitted infrared radiation" on March 8, three days before the earthquake struck.

A testament to its current societal integration, popular peer-to-peer file sharing protocol BitTorrent usage stayed strong in Japan despite the recent earthquake, which was the highest recorded earthquake in Japanese history. AquaLab group, a team at Northwestern University near Chicago, using their own BitTorrent monitoring tools and recorded the amount of BitTorrent peers exchanging data during the week before the earthquake and during the week the earthquake hit, and found the numbers to be almost identical, with one exception. From AquaLab's findings:

The exception can be seen in the 24-hour period immediately following the earthquake, which occurred at 2:46PM local time on Friday, March 11th. As the graph shows, the number of BitTorrent peers found online differed by as much as 25% in this period compared to the previous week at the same time. Surprisingly, we still see a large number of peers online and activity returns to normal on Saturday morning.

For some reason, it's a little endearing that the most popular protocol used to pirate software basically laughed in the face of one of the strongest natural disasters in Japanese history, but on the flip side, may be a little worrying that people found it extremely important to continue their leeching and seeding during--and in the wake of--the highest recorded earthquake in Japan has ever experienced.

(AquaLab via Ars Technica)

It's common to refer to the Yakuza as the "Japanese mafia," though the comparison is fraught: For instance, unlike their secretive Italian counterpart, Yakuza openly broadcast their affiliation with signs and tattoos. Nevertheless, the Yakuza represent Japan's most powerful organized crime interest, which is why it may come as a surprise that they are actively aiding in the Japanese relief effort following the devastating earthquake and tsunami, providing food, supplies, and even shelter for the affected. Reporting for The Daily Beast, veteran Yakuza watcher Jake Adelstein documents this unexpected trend:

The day after the earthquake the Inagawa-kai (the third largest organized crime group in Japan which was founded in 1948) sent twenty-five four-ton trucks filled with paper diapers, instant ramen, batteries, flashlights, drinks, and the essentials of daily life to the Tohoku region. An executive in Sumiyoshi-kai, the second-largest crime group, even offered refuge to members of the foreign community—something unheard of in a still slightly xenophobic nation, especially amongst the right-wing yakuza. The Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest crime group, under the leadership of Tadashi Irie, has also opened its offices across the country to the public and been sending truckloads of supplies, but very quietly and without any fanfare.

Why aren't you hearing more about this? For one, , Adelstein says that "right now [the Yakuza] care more about getting the job done than getting credit for it": Moreover, they don't want their donations rejected out of hand due to their origins. (The Daily Beast via Neatorama)

Early this morning, an explosion at the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan prompted fears of high radiation leakage and a possible core meltdown. Those fears have since abated, though the situation remains dangerous. The plant, which was damaged in yesterday's massive earthquake, has been a source continual concern as Japan attempts to stage recovery efforts in the area. From The New York Times:

Officials said late Saturday that leaks of radioactive material from the plant, which began before the explosion, were receding and that a major meltdown was not imminent. But severe problems at two nuclear plants close to the epicenter of the quake forced evacuations of tens of thousands of people from surrounding areas, hampering efforts to search for survivors and forcing Japan’s leadership to grapple with two major crises as the same time.

Reports on the incident say that the explosion was caused by a buildup of hydrogen inside the concrete enclosure around the reactor core. Officials are being quoted as saying that the core itself was not damaged, and that amount of radioactive material released in the explosion was minimal. Since the explosion, radiation readings have actually diminished. The explosion does give workers a chance to directly cool the core, and lessen the chance of a reactor meltdown.

Japan continues to work its way out of the destruction caused by yesterday's massive earthquake. Today, there were reports of aftershocks, a rising death toll, and evacuations around a troubled nuclear power plant. In the aftermath of such a disaster, many are trying to convey the magnitude of the event and the damage in a meaningful way to those outside the country. Pictures and videos have been steadily filtering out of the country since the beginning moments of the disaster, but musician Micah Frank had another approach. Frank has created Tectonic, a program that takes seismic data and processes it into sound in realtime. He released the "sonification" of the Japanese earthquake yesterday. Keep in mind, this eery and often grating track is not exactly what the quake sounded like, but rather an interpretation of the seismic data. Frank's work with sonification focuses primarily on sounds that do not actually exist, with his other works including synthesization of sound from solar and traffic data. The tectonic sonifications are no different; we can see the destruction caused by the earth moving, and the strife that follows, but the actual cause of the quake is hidden beneath the ground. Perhaps it's that sense of outlining an invisible and deadly force that makes it so strange to listen to. (Frank Micah via GawkerTV)

Not to be disdainful, but it's surprising that this is even a thing to be debunked: Since March 19th marks the moon's perigee, or closest point to earth, and since some astrologer [not astronomer] said that scary things would happen during this so called "supermoon," some folks -- with the egging on of major media outlets [see above] -- are asking if the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that hit off the coast of Japan today was caused by said supermoon. Their argument would be that when the moon is unusually close to Earth, its gravity affects Earthly happenings more and causes natural disasters.

At 2:46pm local time, there was an 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the northeast coast of Japan, the biggest to hit Japan in 140 years and the fifth largest earthquake detected worldwide since 1900. The earthquake has triggered tsunamis, first hitting cities on Japan's coast, but as of posting, tsunami waves have hit the shore of Hawaii, and evacuations of coastal cities in California, The Phillipines, and Chile remain a possibility. Japan has declared a nuclear emergency, as the cooling system of a nuclear plant in Onagawa failed following the earthquake. At least 60 people have died in the aftermath of the quake, and the death toll is expected to rise. Our sister site Mediaite has gathered up a few videos of the earthquake as captured by CCTV. In times like these, the ability of journalists and observers on the ground to do anything to impact the situation is frustratingly limited, but up-to-the-minute information is at least available to people in areas bracing for possible tsunamis later today and to concerned observers worldwide. Here are a few of the news sources we're following: *If you use Twitter and follow a diverse set of news sources, you'll likely be getting a lot of information as it happens; thus far this morning BreakingNews and NPR's Andy Carvin have provided some of the best live coverage. Hashtags like #HItsunami allow you to filter information about news from a given region, in that case, Hawaii. *Reddit remains a good source of crowdsourced news: If you're just catching up on what has happened, this thread contains a lot of news, particularly these two posts; the /r/worldnews subreddit also has (slightly slower) information. *Liveblogs and livestreams from news organizations: The New York Times' liveblog Al-Jazeera's liveblog CNN's liveblog Washington Post liveblog Guardian liveblog (title pic via Jefferson Santos via Ryan LeFevre)