Hale County, AL - The Hale County Sheriff’s Office says they are searching for at least one gorilla. A gorilla was last spotted near a store on County Road 61 in Newbern.
A dispatcher with the Sheriff’s Office said a crew consisting of the Newbern Volunteer Fire Department, police department, as well as Sheriff’s deputies were searching for the animal.
Currently, it is unknown how many are loose or in what direction they are headed.
ABC 33/40 has a crew in Newbern and will provide more information as it becomes available. - abc3340
NOTE: What the hell? There are more than one? "Currently, it is unknown how many are loose or in what direction they are headed"...Lon
**********
Western US will face a tsunami eventually
No one wants to believe that the March 11, 2011, Japan earthquake and tsunami could happen again. But it will. Somewhere.
One likely place for a repeat performance is the west coast of North America. The question is when.
Geophysicists from seven research institutions across the country are probing that question like never before, through a five-year, $4.6-million project just getting underway. Combining 1,000-times-faster computing speeds with improved methodologies, the team is creating the first unified simulation of earthquakes all along western North America.
“One of the project goals is to improve our short- and long-term earthquake forecasting capabilities,” project leader James Dieterich of the University of California, Riverside, said in a press release. “More accurate forecasting has practical advantages—earthquake insurance, for example, relies heavily on forecasts."
The new simulation will help scientists determine the interplay between the two very different fault systems that exist along the U.S. West Coast. Californians have known to expect great lurches along the San Andreas Fault and its counterparts ever since the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. But inhabitants of the U.S. Pacific Northwest face a double threat: Lurking offshore is a 600-mile-long gash in the seafloor, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, that is prone to mega-thrust earthquakes and tsunamis on the order of last year’s 9.0 tsunami-generating temblor in Japan. The last great Cascadia quake occurred in 1700, uncomfortably long ago when you consider that such events occur every 300 to 500 years.
“Observations of earthquakes go back to only about 100 years, resulting in a relatively short record,” Dieiterich said. “If we get the physics right, our simulations of plate boundary fault systems—at one-kilometer resolution for California—will span more than 10,000 years of plate motion and consist of up to a million discrete earthquake events, giving us abundant data to analyze.”
From all that new data, Dieterich and his colleagues hope to locate clues regarding the long-term processes that condition fault systems to fail in great earthquakes (greater than magnitude 8). One condition the team will be watching closely is the effect of so-called slow-slip events, a special class of subtle plate motion among the hundreds of earthquakes we cannot feel at the earth’s surface.
The existence of slow-slip events, which scientists discovered only recently, is turning out to be especially important for accurate forecasting. In a slow-slip event, movement is gradual enough not to create detectable ground motion, but the energy release can be the equivalent of a normal magnitude 6 earthquake. The big question is whether these events may transfer stress to portions of a subduction zone most prone to a violent jolt, Dieterich explained in a recent talk on the UC Riverside campus.
He pointed out that scientists reviewing the seismic recordings from Japan in early 2011 noted a slow-slip event occurred between the main shock on March 11 and its foreshock.
Likewise, an analysis of the 1960 Chile earthquake revealed that there appeared to be a slow slip even between it and its largest aftershock. And dozens of slow-slip events have been detected in the Cascadia Subduction Zone deep beneath Washington and Oregon.
So does that increase the chances for another great Cascadia quake? That’s exactly what Deiterich and his colleagues at UCR, Brown University, Columbia University, the University of Southern California, San Diego State University, UC San Diego and the US Geological Survey hope to discern.
Their motives are simple: an increasing fraction of the world’s population lives in regions where great earthquakes occur and is exposed to high seismic risk as a result. While preparedness is crucial to dealing with earthquakes, better forecasting of these natural disasters can save more lives. - discovery
**********
Dementia Derived From Eating Squirrel Meat
The Economist notes that in our strange and economically unstable times, many are turning to eating meats from odder, less desirable animals. One tidbit is that mad-cow disease has broken out in Kentucky of late due to consumption of squirrel brains:
The manager of the Budgens supermarket in the London suburb of Crouch End says sales of squirrel meat have soared since he started selling it in 2010. The bushy-tailed tree-dwellers are just one category in a burgeoning market. Osgrow, a British-based firm, exports bison, crocodile (“ideal for barbecues”) and kudu meat to customers in countries where controls on wild meat are tighter.
Wild meat is not always tasty. Black bear is “bloody and a bit metallic”. Nor is it always healthy. Doctors in Kentucky say eating squirrel brains is linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (better known as mad-cow disease). Squirrels are now mainly sold headless.
**********
Alien Influence
Poland: Unedited - I am writing in a rather strange case namely, that what happened to me and say about 6 years ago, one afternoon suddenly I felt as if something wanted to kidnap me an incredible feeling in the head as if to draw, as if something wanted to kidnap me pull was so strong that I ran into the bathroom and I grabbed a tap that does not fly away. This event has changed something in me because since then I can move things on hand, the heavier the better, all that I can put it on your hand move, but there was something else the other day when I lit the cigarette there was a smell amazing, so incredibly alien, the smell of cigarette turned into something alien thing, the smell of the word gives you hinted that I was dealing with something strange, and it has now been 6 years until one day when I lit the cigarette smoke again turned into an unearthly smell the same smell as before 6 years ago and since the events began to happen to me and say strange things stopped me to heal skin that is sufficient to burn, and remains the smallest sign of the burns I had not had before, normal skin longer to heal me, then, and it made me curious najbaredziej "future" to me, a force that is this force pushes me to the ground when I want something in practice, eg overhang or pump something pushes me to the ground so that I can not do any exercises that will add strength because I have always liked a lot of practice, moreover, the best proof that this power is , is that once every 1.5 Last month I feel that anything goes with me and then it turns out that for half an hour until I can exercise again the power comes and pushes me to the ground, which is another change for me from that event is that I border around the eyes that are almond shape eyes and quite reminiscent of an alien as to which they are accustomed to see, what's interesting the border at night sometimes they become bright green (at the beginning was now a gray color is changed) once shocked me remember what the border have become very strongly green something like have not seen yet further what is already changed the details but mention that to the bottom of the neck where it meets the body skin got a green color, also in the corner of eye color changed to gold all the changes began to happen from July of last year I felt the smell of smoke in June, I know that smell is nieprawdopodowbie and that the state had certainly with something like this already but I is not lyin 'telling the truth smell the smoke really took place! and these changes plus the strength of that for me there really is pregnant and has something on me, I do not know what's interesting as it is still burning but I do not feel normal tobacco smell only the smell and taste of that smell that I experienced (as in 70%), [email removed/cms/tg] - MUFON CMS
**********
Possessed Tree
Anyone remember this incident? Received the inquiry today:
This incident happened in a town called Ifon-Osun in Osun State, Nigeria. It happened about 7 years ago.
There was a very big tree in front of the Olufon (the traditional ruler of the town).
The community decided to cut down the tree because they believe it was inhabited by spirit beings whose activities were inimical to the progress of the town.
The tree was cut down, all the branches were lopped off.
The second day, the tree was found in its normal place; but with the branches lopped off alone on the ground.
This made some news at the time and lots of people were coming to look at it.
As a result the muslim community who felt the tree was becoming some sort of idol, cut down the tree in the night, cut it into pieces and set fire to it.
Ayo
**********
