Free Republic

All earthquakes start very small. But the idea that’s presented in this study is that the added stress from a strong tidal force can help push a fault — already loaded up and strained to nearly its breaking point — over the edge, pushing a small earthquake to evolve into a monster. “When tides are very large, small earthquakes tend to grow a little larger,” Ide said. The magnitude 9.1 Indonesia earthquake in 2004 and magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile in 2010, which both produced damaging tsunami, occurred around the time of a full moon, close to the peak time...

The baby and mother have arrived in Bahrain via helicopter with a medical escort and have been taken to a shore-based hospital for follow on care," Urban said in an email to The Virginian-Pilot. "The family practitioner aboard Ike, who delivered the baby, is certified in child birth and has experience delivering babies. A number of personnel assigned to Ike medical department have received training to deliver and care for a newborn." The Navy requires annual health examinations and for expectant mothers to self-report pregnancy within two weeks of confirmation from a medical care provider, according to Navy Personnel Command....

Our top story is a historic natural disaster in a country that's not too prone to earthquakes. Magnitude 5.1 and 5.8 tremors jolted Korea's southeastern region. This is the strongest quake to rattle the nation's inland since the country started collecting data in 1978. Our Hwang Ho-jun is in Gyeongju the epicenter of the quake he 's live on the phone with us. Hojun what have we got so far? Daniel. We have so far felt two tremors here in Gyeongju. The initial 5.1 foreshock was detected at 7:44 p.m., to be followed by a very strong earthquake measuring 5.8...

Floods that devastated North Korea last month are turning out to be worse than initially feared, with more than 100,000 people left homeless, according to aid workers who visited the area last week. That puts Pyongyang in the inconvenient position of having to turn to the international community for help — at the same time as North Korea is facing global condemnation after its nuclear test last week. “The effects of this flooding will be even more dramatic and devastating than initially thought,” said Chris Staines, the head of the Pyongyang office of the International Federation of Red Cross and...

Libyan forces loyal to eastern commander Khalifa Haftar said on Monday they had tightened their control over four major oil ports, casting a Western-backed project to unite Libya and revive oil exports into deep uncertainty. Haftar's forces met little resistance as they seized the terminals at Ras Lanuf, Es Sider, Zueitina and Brega in an operation launched on Sunday, displacing a rival armed faction aligned with the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. The advance is the latest power struggle over the OPEC nation's energy assets, after the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi and the chaos that followed...

Occidental College Republican Club wrote on Facebook that they had planted the flags on campus Saturday night, but at midnight, vandals had crushed, snapped and thrown each flag in the garbage and had instead put up posters and flyers up “that shamed the victims of 9/11.” College officials say they don’t know who is responsible for the vandalism, but are investigating and will take “appropriate disciplinary action.” Anyone with information can share the information at conduct@oxy.edu.

Tagged as MXene, the nanomaterial coating aims to contain and protect devices from electric interference, which has increased dramatically in the past years due to the boost in gadget production. The study, published in the journal Science, says that electromagnetic noise could actually have a devastating effect on other gadgets such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, etc. It may even lead to malfunctions and degradation. Babak Anasori, PhD, co-author of the study, explains that in order to protect devices, a thick metal coating made of aluminum or copper is needed. However, this is pretty much impractical when applied to everyday,...

NPR correspondent Jennifer Ludden profiled some of my work in procreative ethics with an article entitled, “Should we be having kids in the age of climate change?,” which summarized my published views that we ought to consider adopting a “small family ethic” and even pursuing fertility reduction efforts in response to the threat from climate change. ... Perhaps many of us in rich countries (the “us” who might be reading this) will be largely protected from these early harms; but that doesn’t make them less real to the vulnerable citizens of, say, Bangladesh, Kiribati or the Maldives. In fact, it...

Thousands of opponents of same-sex marriage, including Tijuana’s new Roman Catholic archbishop, gathered for a rally in the city Saturday to protest Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s proposed constitutional reform favoring the right of couples to marry regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. The morning march to City Hall was one of dozens of such protests across Mexico that took place Saturday, drawing a combined hundreds of thousands of citizens. The demonstrations come on the heels of a series of legal victories scored by proponents of same-sex marriage in states across Mexico. Same-sex marriage is legal in Mexico City...

Clinton and his wife started shipping White House furniture to the Clintons' newly purchased home in New York more than a year ago, despite questions at the time by the White House chief usher about whether they were entitled to remove the items. The day before the items were shipped out, chief usher Gary Walters said he questioned whether the Clintons should be taking the furnishings because he believed they were government property donated as part of a White House redecoration project in 1993, during Clinton's first year in office. But Walters was told by the White House counsel's office...

A local newspaper identified the Good Samaritan as Juan Jose Panameno Castro of Pomona. He was driving with his 15-year-old son when they apparently spotted the boy on the road. He told the Sun news he was astonished no one else stopped to help. The toddler went on a walk this morning without his parents’ knowledge. The freeway is about a half mile from the family home. ... “I thought it was a dog then when I saw him closer, I said oh my gosh, it’s a kid,” said Castro’s 15-year-old son. “We were shocked, we were really shocked that’s...

fficers say the attacker repeatedly stabbed a 59-year-old man in a suburban park and then tried to stab a policeman. A large knife has been seized from the accused, who will appear in court later on Sunday. The victim, who was reportedly walking his dog in the park, suffered injuries to his body and hands, and remains in hospital in a serious condition. Although the authorities say they believe the attacker was inspired by IS, they do not think he has close ties to any extremist organisation. "This is the new face of terrorism. This is the new face of...

When people think of 9/11, the first names that should cross their minds is Jamie Gorelick and Bill and Hillary Clinton. "Gorelick's Wall" was created to block, slow and mislead investigations into the plethora of Clinton scandals and leads by literally destroying the ability of the country's investigative agencies to speak to each other. For those of you who missed this, in typical Clinton style it was that blunt - Gorelick wrote a memo that decreed that the various agencies could not talk to each other about their investigations, if they thought their leads, evidence or other information might be...

Nearly 2 million Muslims from across the globe have converged on Saudi Arabia for the annual five-day Hajj. Iran is boycotting this year's Hajj, citing Saudi “incompetence” and a poor response by health and safety officials. Masses of Iranian Shi'ites have instead converged on the holy Iraqi city of Karbala for an alternative pilgrimage. During last year’s pilgrimage, several hundred Iranians were among at least 2,000 people crushed to death in a stampede in Mecca. This is not the first time Iran has boycotted the Hajj, but it comes at a time when tensions with rival Saudi Arabia are at...

Orthocarbonic acid – a name which was inspired from the fact that the molecule’s appearance resembles a swastika. As chemical compounds go, it is quite exotic, and chemists are still not sure how to create it under laboratory conditions. But it just so happens that this acid could exist in the interiors of planets like Uranus and Neptune. According to a recent study from a team of Russian chemists, the conditions inside Uranus and Neptune could be ideal for creating exotic molecular and polymeric compounds, and keeping them under stable conditions. The study was produced by researchers from the Moscow...

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx hi tech robotic explorer blasted off this evening in spectacular fashion from the Florida Space Coast on a ground breaking 7 year sampling trek to Asteroid Bennu and back to gather grains of 4.5 billion year old alien sand that could potentially reveal significant answers to the origins of life on Earth. The Earth departure for NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security – Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft began with an on time engine ignition from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket shortly before a crystal...

Using a network of hacked smartphones, attackers could overwhelm a whole state's 911 system with endless calls, shutting out a huge portion of legitimate callers. The approach, known as a denial of service attack, "is a significant threat to the availability of 911 service," wrote researchers Mordechai Guri, Yisroel Mirsky and Yuval Elovici in the paper. The researchers looked at the state of North Carolina and created a model based on its 911 system. In the US, emergency response systems are run at the state or local level. If hackers compromised 6,000 smartphones with malicious software, they could make enough...

Joseph and Lisa Brown, better known as Jazz and Jojo, have made clowning a major part of their livelihood. "We want to make kids laugh and adults laugh and ease worries away for the day or the hour that we're there or the two hours that we're there," said Lisa. She’s been a professional clown for 14 years. Joseph, a clown school graduate, is in his 25th year as a clown. "That shows you how much that I have put into it and have enjoyed the career that I've had being Jojo the clown," said Joseph. For the Forsyth County...

Musk tweeted about the loss of the Falcon 9 hours after the incident, noting that the explosion appeared to originate "around upper-stage oxygen tank" but the cause was "still unknown." SpaceX provided more updates about the incident on Sept. 2. Then, Musk's account went quiet until about 12:30 a.m. EDT this morning (0030 GMT), when he began tweeting actively about the explosion. "Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years," Musk wrote. "Important to note that this happened during a routine filling operation. Engines...

When Bethesda showed off Fallout 4 at E3 2015, the biggest surprise of all was that user-created mods would be coming to both Xbox One and PlayStation 4 for the very first time. It took some time, but Bethesda was finally able to bring mods to Xbox One in May — just a month after their were made available on PC. ... “After months of discussion with Sony, we regret to say that while we have long been ready to offer mod support on PlayStation 4, Sony has informed us they will not approve user mods the way they should...