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If you like your prophecies pin sharp then look away now. The 16th century celebrity seer Nostradamus excelled at the exact opposite, couching his predictions in terms so vague as to be largely meaningless. This has not, however, prevented his soothsayings attracting enormous and unending interest, and his book – Les Propheties – has rarely been out of print since it was first published 460 years ago. Uniquely, for a renaissance augur, the writings of Nostradamus are perhaps as popular today as they were four and a half centuries ago.

The post Look away now: The prophecies of Nostradamus appeared first on OUPblog.

Festival director Thierry Frémaux continues to show his love for animation.

May Contain Spoilers

Review:

Knockdown piqued my interest because it’s a survival story, and it takes place on a sailboat.  The mega-tsunami threatening to destroy every coastline in its path also seemed pretty interesting.  I haven’t read a post-apocalyptic story like this before, so I was game to give it a shot.  I really enjoyed it!

Toni’s at dive practice when her father sends her a text message to hurry to the marina where the family sailboat is docked. She’s worried and confused when he won’t answer his phone, and neither will the other members of her family.  She hears from teammates that disaster is headed in their direction. Mega-tsunamis are rushing toward the Pacific coastline, created after historic seismic events in Indonesia.  They have 18 hours until the tsunamis hit the Oregon coastline.  They have 18 hours to evacuate before the monster waves crush everything in their path.  Only when she gets to the boat, her parents aren’t there.  Only her twin brothers, and some of their friends, are waiting at the dock.  Toni doesn’t want to leave without her mom and dad, but they left strict instructions to head out to the ocean if they didn’t arrive by a certain time, and when they are no shows, the teens have no choice but to brave the open waters without them.

Goodness! Up until the tsunamis knockdown the sailboat, I was on the edge of my seat.  Literally.  The pacing is fantastic; it’s unrelenting and tense, and I could hardly breathe.  I didn’t understand how Toni and her small band of friends were continuing to function.  There is a raging wall of water bearing down on them, and their only hope of survival is to get far enough out to sea, seal up the boat, and hang on as the waves toss it about, flipping it over like an angry child with an unwanted toy.  Having once been caught in rough waters in a disabled boat, I could easily imagine how helpless Toni felt as their vessel was batted to and fro.

I was worried that after the tsunami raged by, the story would slow to a crawl.  That did not happen.  Though the teens survived the waves, they still had to survive the new world they found themselves in.  Coastlines all around the world were ravaged, island nations wiped clean, and most modern conveniences a thing of the past.  With the little group struggling to survive, suddenly the teens find themselves in need of water and provisions.  Worse, as the climate begins to change, sliding towards a new Ice Age, they must find ways to keep warm.

Toni is a capable narrator.  She easily conveys her feelings and fears, her dreams and hopes.  The boat is overcrowded, and tensions and personality conflicts begin to pick away at morale.  When tragedy strikes, it seems that the team will unravel into chaos, and Toni wonders how they will survive afterwards.  She worries that she’ll never see her parents again, and knows that the life she once had is long gone.  I really liked her and found it easy to relate to her.

I didn’t realize that Knockdown was the first in a series, or I might have passed on it.  I’m glad I didn’t.  The ending is satisfying, and I knew that Toni had found a temporary shelter from the destroyed world around her.  I liked the characters and I want find out what happens next, so I’ll be looking forward to Toni’s next adventures.

Grade:  B

Review copy provided by publisher

From Amazon:

A sail boat can tip over and come back up again. Sailors call this a knockdown.

In eighteen hours a mega tsunami will hit the Pacific Coast. It will leave in its wake massive destruction and the threat of an ice age.
Sixteen-year-old Toni, her brothers, and their friends race the clock as they sail Toni’s family boat far out to sea. They must get beyond where the wave crests, or the boat will be crushed.

Without their parents to guide them, the reluctant crew improvises. Romances bloom and tempers flare. There is no privacy. Cell phones won’t work. The engine breaks down. They are running out of time.

Even if they survive the wave, there is nowhere in this ravaged world to go. When disaster strikes, it is up to Toni to find the strength to lead the crew when her brothers cannot.

The post Review: Knockdown by Brenda Beem appeared first on Manga Maniac Cafe.

Like a tsunami, fear can wash away our life… unless we rise up I believe fear can come in many forms… and sometimes it comes in the forms of “bad thoughts” or nightmares. We don’t always know we are afraid of something until it invades our thoughts. How many times have we wanted to do […]

11 March 2011 the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck Japan.

The country is still rebuilding from the natural and nuclear disaster that resulted from the quake.

Books are beginning to appear to help students understand this tragedy.

Click for Interview with Contributors Leza Lowitz and Shogo Oketani.

The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, resulted in a massive tsunami that caused the loss of life and livelihood for thousands of people in the northern Tohoku region of Japan. So many teens in Tohoku have lost parents, siblings, relatives, friends, homes, schools, and huge swaths of their cities, towns and villages. Their teen worlds have been upended.

Tomo was published on March 10, 2012. Proceeds from the sales of Tomo will go to organizations that assist teens in the quake and tsunami hit areas. Tomo, which means friend in Japanese, aims to bring Japan stories to young adult readers worldwide, and in so doing, help support teens in Tohoku.

Click to find out how you may be able to obtain a free copy

In just over a week, a group of unpaid professional and citizen journalists who met on Twitter created a book to raise money for Japanese Red Cross earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. In addition to essays, artwork and photographs submitted by people around the world, including people who endured the disaster and journalists who covered it, 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake contains a piece by Yoko Ono, and work created specifically for the book by authors William Gibson, Barry Eisler and Jake Adelstein. “The primary goal,” says the book’s editor, a British resident of Japan, “is to record the moment, and in doing so raise money for the Japanese Red Cross Society to help the thousands of homeless, hungry and cold survivors of the earthquake and tsunami. The biggest frustration for many of us was being unable to help these victims. I don’t have any medical skills, and I’m not a helicopter pilot, but I can edit. A few tweets pulled together nearly everything – all the participants, all the expertise – and in just over a week we had created a book including stories from an 80-year-old grandfather in Sendai, a couple in Canada waiting to hear if their relatives were okay, and a Japanese family who left their home, telling their young son they might never be able to return.” ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the price you pay (net of VAT, sales and other taxes) goes to the Japanese Red Cross Society to aid the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. If you’d like to donate more, please visit the Japanese Red Cross Society website

The oldest bird in the world, documented with banding, is Wisdom, the Midway Albatross. She was on Midway when the Japanese Tsunami hit and this is her amazing story of survival of manmade and natural disasters for over 60 years. She has survived the dangers of living wild, plastic pollution, longline fishing, lead poisoning, and the Japanese earthquake. At 60, she’s still laying eggs and hatching chicks. It’s a story of survival and hope amidst the difficulties of life.

This title examines an important historic event – the March 11, 2011, earthquake that spawned a devastating tsunami in Japan. Easy-to-read, compelling text explores the dual disaster that resulted in thousands of deaths and left many people homeless. This book also details the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant near Japan’s northeast coast and the recovery efforts following the disasters.

This Day in World History

March 11, 2011

Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Disaster Strike Japan

Japan, situated on the Ring of Fire on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, has suffered some major earthquakes over the years. However, nothing before compared to the triple disaster of March 11, 2011: a massive earthquake followed by powerful tsunamis which led to a serious nuclear accident.

The horrors began shortly before three in the afternoon local time with a 9.0-magnitude earthquake. Its epicenter was nearly 20 miles below the floor of the Pacific Ocean about 80 miles east of the Japanese city of Sendai. The quake was one of the most powerful ever recorded, and the strongest to hit this region of Japan.

Map prepared by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration depicting the tsunami wave height model for the Pacific Ocean following the March 11, 2011, earthquake off Sendai, Japan. Source: NOAA Center for Tsunami Research.

The quake unleashed several tsunamis, or tidal waves, that moved as fast as 500 miles an hour in all directions — most destructively to the nearby northeastern coast of Japan’s Honshu island. Waves as high as 33 feet high crashed into towns and cities along the coast, washing away anything in their path. One wave reportedly reached as far inland as 6 miles.

Several nuclear plants are located in northern Honshu. Most shut down automatically when the quake occurred, but the powerful tsunamis damaged the backup power systems at a plant in Fukushima. As a result, cooling systems shut down, and nuclear fuel overheated and later caught fire. The fire released radiation in the air, and the use of seawater to try to cool the reactors led to radiation contaminating the sea. Japanese officials had to ban people from a zone up to 18 miles around the damaged reactors, scene of the second worst nuclear accident in history.

In the end, the triple disaster cost Japan nearly 20,000 dead — mostly from the tsunamis — more than 130,000 forced from their homes, more than $300 billion in damage, and a severe jolt to the economy.

“This Day in World History” is brought to you by USA Higher Education.
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“Just one month after the earthquake, it is far from clear what sort of history is being and will be made.”

By Andrew Gordon

On the afternoon of March 11, 2011, people in Japan experienced the most powerful earthquake in the recorded history of the archipelago, and the fifth most powerful ever recorded. Measured at magnitude 9, with an epicenter just off the coast of Miyagi prefecture in northeast Japan, this earthquake unleashed one hundred times the destructive force of the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923, which took well over one hundred thousand  lives.  Thanks in large part to strict building codes and technologies designed to allow high-rise buildings to absorb the shocks, the destruction of homes and offices was relatively modest in proportion to the immensity of the earthquake.  But the unprecedented tsunami that quickly followed sent walls of water of thirty feet or more against a vast swath of the coastline, overwhelming seawalls designed to withstand the strongest imaginable waves.  The destruction of the tsunami left those who survived scarcely able to describe what they saw:  the obliteration of entire towns to the extent that it was impossible to see any trace of the shape of the cities that stood there.   Compounding the disaster, the tsunami destroyed the cooling system of a nuclear power facility located right on the coast of Fukushima prefecture, creating a nightmare scenario of explosions, a partial meltdown of fuel rods, and the release of radiation into the air and water.   The immediate loss of life from the nuclear disaster was modest, and hopefully the long-term impact of the radiation releases will be as well, but as of this writing, the plant’s radiation is not fully contained.  Also as of this writing, with so many victims either buried or swept to sea, the toll of the dead is not fully known.  It will certainly exceed thirty thousand.

At a press conference on March 13, and two weeks later in a speech to parliament, Japan’s Prime Minister, Kan Naoto, called the compound disasters of March 11 “our nation’s severest crisis” since the end of World War II.  As if to ratify that assessment, on March 16 Emperor Akihito delivered an unprecedented nationwide televised message.  This was the first imperial broadcast on an occasion of crisis since August 1945, when the current monarch’s father, Emperor Hirohito, delivered his famous radio broadcast announcing Japan’s surrender.   Indeed, Akihito’s call on people to “never give up hope and take good care of themselves as they live through the days ahead” softly echoed his father’s call on people to “endure the unendurable” in 1945.

Although World War II was a disaster of incomparably greater impact and extent, it is no exaggeration to call this the most severe crisis to face Japan since that time.  It is arguably the greatest compound of natural and man-made disaster ever to strike an advanced industrial society (entirely man-made disasters such as war are another matter).  Both for Japan, and in important ways for the wider world, this disaster marks an extended moment of history-in-the-making.  In areas ranging from the globally connected character of economic supply and production, energy policy, strategies of urban and regional planning, demography, and the self-understandings produced by religions and all manner of cultural forms, the impact of these events will be felt for many years.

Just one month after the earthquake, it is far from clear what sort of history is being and will be made.  It is possible, however, as a historian, to look back at the near-term past to identify a mode of thinking that links this disaster to other recent crises.  That mode of thinking can be summed up in the simple phrase “beyond ima

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By Michelle Rafferty

Last week we received a message from Miki Matoba, Director of Global Academic Business at OUP Tokyo, confirming that her staff is safe and well. This was a relief to hear, and also a reminder that although many of us are tied to the people of Japan in some way, our perspective of the human impact is relatively small.  So I asked Miki if she wouldn’t mind sharing some of her experiences, and she kindly agreed. When she responded to my questions she wrote: “Hope my answers reflect a part of how we view the incidents as Japanese.”

1.) Where were you, and what were your thoughts as the earthquake hit?

I was in a meeting room with a visitor from OUP Oxford and my staff having a meeting when the earthquake started. You may find this weird but we all are very much living with earthquakes from a young age. So little shakes here and there are just a part of our lives. But not the one we had last Friday as that was the biggest one in some hundreds of years. What I normally think when earthquakes start is when shall I get up to secure the exit and go under the desk. Most of the time, you do not have to do either as it does not last long. But not this time. As the building started to shake for a while I opened the door of the meeting room thinking that this is a big one but should stop soon. But it did not. So we put ourselves under the table hoping for the shaking to cease. When it did not, I thought then that this is a serious one and something really severe will happen as a result.

Then we saw some white stuff coming down in the office (it was not fire – just some dust coming down from the ceiling) and someone shouted that we should leave NOW. So we did. I did not take anything. Just myself and those who were meeting with me, running down from 8th floor to the ground. Even when we were running down the stairs, it was still shaking. After a while, we went back to the office to get things as the decision was made very quickly to close the office for that day. Almost everything on my desk had either fallen over or was on the floor, and it was still shaking.

2.) Was anyone prepared?

Yes and no. As Japanese, we all are prepared for earthquakes but not for something of this size and the aftermath of it.

3.) How do you continue to manage your group at such a difficult time? Is it possible to work?

Try to communicate well. We email and also have set up an internal Twitter account that we tweet to, including who will go into the office and what they are doing as we are still mainly working from home. The situation is still very unsettling making it difficult to concentrate on work (power rationing, aftershocks and the nuclear power plant situation) but we try to process day-to-day things as usual.

4.) How would you describe the city right now (the business activity, the state of mind)?

Interesting question. I think Tokyo is normally one of the most vibrant cities in the world. Now the city is very quiet compared to normal. The weather has been clear and nice after Friday so it feels odd to be in this peaceful, quiet Tokyo under the sun after all that.

5.) I’ve heard radiation levels are higher than normal – is everyone staying inside?

We have lots of information going around including rumors. We live almost as normal – just listening to TV and radio all the time, watching the progress of the nuclear plant situation. I do not go out if that can be avoided.

6.) What do people outside of Japan need to know?

Image by qthomasbower via Flickr

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We moved into our tree house on 3/4 and moved out of butterfly town 3/11, the day of the Tsunami warning in California. Tomorrow all our stuff from LA arrives––a Tsunami of furniture, and belongings you might say. Moves are so incredibly dramatic. We really didn't need the backdrop of a major catastrophe. Our daughter lives in Santa Cruz. It's estimated that the harbor there suffered anywhere from 10M to 20M in damages. On the 11th, the day I was cleaning out our rental I thought what a bummer it would be to leave this world while cleaning out a refrigerator. Then I thought of all the devastation and I just can't get my head around it. It's so much. People here are talking about radiation and carrying Geiger counters and iodine pills and closing the two plants we have in Southern California. And I can't even find the lids to my pans.

We moved ourselves out of butterfly town, and left it to the professionals to move our stuff up from LA. It took us eight days to move everything. Every night I needed two Advil, a ton of water and lots of hand lotion. I can't get enough hand lotion.

And in the middle of all of this we had a gigantic surprise. My daughter flew in from FL and Joe's best friend flew in from LA to join his mom and Mx and we all had an amazing celebration of our new tree house and our 25th wedding anniversary. It was my first surprise ever and I absolutely loved it. The girls and I climbed one of our trees and our house really became a home that day.

This article was originally published by Foreign Policy on March 11, 2011.

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A Radioactive Situation

By Charles D. Ferguson

Is nuclear power too risky in earthquake-prone countries such as Japan? On March 11, a massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake shook Japan and caused widespread damage especially in the northeastern region of Honshu, the largest Japanese island. Nuclear power plants throughout that region automatically shut down when the plants’ seismometers registered ground accelerations above safety thresholds.

But all the shutdowns did not go perfectly. Reactor unit 1 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station experienced a mechanical failure in the emergency safety system. In response, officials ordered the evacuation of residents who live within two miles of the plant. Also, people living between two to 10 miles were ordered to stay indoors. The Japanese government described this order as a precautionary measure.

A worst-case accident would release substantial amounts of radioactive materials into the environment. This is unlikely to happen, but is still possible. Modern commercial nuclear power plants like the Fukushima plant use defense-in-depth safety measures. The first line of defense is fuel cladding that provides a barrier to release of highly radioactive fission products. Because these materials generate a substantial amount of heat, coolant is essential. Thus, the next lines of defense are to ensure that enough cooling water is available. The reactor coolant pumps are designed to keep water flowing through the hot core. But loss of electric power to the pumps will stop this flow. Backup electric power sources such as off-site power and on-site emergency diesel generators offer another layer of defense.

Unfortunately, these emergency power sources were knocked out about one hour after the plant shut down. Although it is unclear from the reporting to date, this power outage appears to have occurred at about the same time that a huge tsunami, triggered by the earthquake, hit that part of Japan.

Sustained loss of electric power could result in the core overheating and the fuel melting. However, three other backup systems provide additional layers of defense. First, the plant has batteries to supply power for about four hours. Second, the emergency core cooling system can inject water into the core. Finally, the containment structure, made of strong reinforced concrete, surrounds the reactor and can under even the most severe conditions prevent radioactive materials from entering the environment.

But the earthquake — the largest in the 140 years of recorded history of Japanese earthquakes — might have caused some damage to the containment structure. Japanese authorities announced that they will vent some steam from the containment structure to reduce the pressure buildup. This action may release small amounts of radioactive gas. The authorities do not expect any threat to the public.

Although a meltdown will most likely not occur, this incident will surely result in significant financial harm and potential loss of public confidence. For example, it was less than four years ago, in July 2007, when the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, Japan’s largest, suffered shaking beyond its design basis acceleration. The plant’s seven reactors were shut down for 21 months while authorities carefully investigated the extent of the damage. Fortunately, public safety was not harmed and the plant experienced no major damage. However, the government accepted responsibility for approving construction of the first reactor near a geological fault line, which was unknown at the time of construction. The

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By Elvin Lim

When the dust has settled on the electioneering frenzy of these final days, 2010, the third “change” election in a row, will better be read as an equilibrium restoring election.

In the Senate, Democrats are about to hand back just over half of their recent wins (5 seats in 2006, and another 8 in 2008) to the Republicans. Most predictions for the number of seats the Republicans will pick up in the House hover around 50 because there are currently 49 Democrats occupying seats in districts that voted for McCain in 2008, and they are about to relinquish these seats. Put another way, Democrats picked up 31 seats in 2006, and another 21 in 2008, and they’re about to return just about every one of them back to the Republicans.

This is not coincidence. It is the revealed majesty of the Newtonian system that the Framers of the Constitution set up, and our subliminal internalization of its logic. The Founders weren’t too fond of waves of popular passion, which is why they applied “a new science of politics” and created institutions arrayed alongside each other with the specific principle that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

The invisible constitutional hand appears to be working. Now that Barbara Boxer has pulled ahead of Carly Fiorina in California, as has Joe Manchin over John Raese in West Virginia, it is likely that the Democratic firewall will hold just enough to prevent a Republican takeover of the Senate. To take over the Senate, Republicans must take the seats in CO, IL, NV, PA, and WA. Indeed, because Republicans are polling ahead in each of these last 5 races, a nearly perfect partisan equipoise is likely to occur in the Senate. That means the 112th Congress which starts business on January 3, 2011, will likely see a slim Republican majority in the House, and an even slimmer Democratic majority in the Senate.

Another way to think about this election as equilibrium restoring is to observe the net neutral effect of the Tea Party movement. In some places, Tea Party candidates are giving seasoned politicos a run for their money. Marco Rubio and Rand Paul now look like shoos-in for the senatorial seats in Florida and Kentucky, and Sharron Angle is in a statistical dead-heat with Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada – which means, given the enthusiasm gap in favor of Republicans this year, Reid has a mountain to climb in the next two days.

Other Tea Party candidates, however, have turned out to be poor candidates. Principally, they don’t know how to handle the media and the rough-and-tumble of electoral politics. Some, like Joe Miller, think it’s OK to hand-cuff journalists; others, like Christine O’Donnell failed to realize that telling us “I’m not a witch” does not kill a rumor but sustains it. Others who have been inducted into office, like Scott Brown from Massachusetts, have long since forgotten their patrons. Like all third party movements since time immemorial, the Tea Party movement – now a flick of sunshine on a strange shore – is not likely to last more than one or two more electoral cycles.

All told, the Republicans are going to regain the seats they lost in 2006 and 2008. But, the electoral tsunami would most likely not be enough, as it was in 1994 or 2006, to flip both houses of Congress. And because of the truncated constitutional calendar, this year’s wave will stop short of the White House. The greatest prize of them all will stay in Democratic hands (a prize that will become especially valuable now that the Vice-president’s tie-breaking vote in the Senate will likely be activated in the months to come.)

A tsunami which converts half a branch is, arguably, no tsunami at all. For this to be a really significant wave that is more than equilibrium restoring, Republicans would need

In his latest book, Megadisasters: Predicting the Next Catastrophe, Florin Diacu looks at a variety of natural disasters, describing how scientists and mathematicians have struggled to understand and predict them over the centuries. In the excerpt below, Diacu tells the story of Tilly Smith, a young English girl whose vigilance saved around 100 lives in the catastrophic tsunami in 2004.

On the morning of 26 December 2004, Tilly Smith was with her parents and younger sister on the Mai Khao beach in Phuket. Ten years old, blond hair falling on her shoulders, Tilly looked jolly and fresh as she smiled in the sun. She had good reasons to be happy, thinking of the damp, cold England she had left behind. As mother and daughter went down to the water, Tilly noticed that the sea looked bubbly and frothy like on the top of a beer. This image triggered some recent memories in her mind. Two weeks earlier, during her geography class at Danes Hill School in Oxshott, Surrey, Tilly saw a movie about the Hawaii tsunami of 1946. She recognized the same warning signs: just minutes before the deadly wave hit, the water had begun to form bubbles and turn foamy, so very much as it did now.

‘A tsunami is coming!’ Tilly shouted. ‘We must run away!’

Her mother, Penny, had noticed that strange phenomenon too, but thought it was due to a bad day at sea, so she didn’t take Tilly seriously.

‘Mummy, we must get off the beach now!’ Tilly insisted.

Penny began to worry about her daughter, who started shouting madly at her, frustrated that her mother was blind to the danger. But in spite of her anxiety and irritation, Tilly didn’t give up. She had to convince her mother somehow. ‘If you’re not coming,’ she screamed, ‘I’m going to leave you here!’

Penny remembered Tilly’s recent geography class about tsunamis, so she gave in, and they both ran to Colin, Tilly’s father. After he heard the story, Colin alerted a lifeguard, who evacuated the tourists from the beach. It was a wise decision. Minutes later the killer wave showed up.

In September 2005, back in England, Tilly received the Thomas Gray Award of the Marine Society in recognition of her timely and decisive actions, which saved human lives. But she most cherished the inner satisfaction that she and her family, as well as the about 100 people who had been on the Mai Khao beach, were alive because she alone had recognized the danger.

Nothing happens without warning; it’s just that the signs are often obscure or opaque. Heart attacks, for instance, take many by surprise because they do not recognize the symptoms. The same problem occurs with most natural disasters. But the difficulty to acknowledge the message and act on the spot can be eliminated through training.

Most tsunamis give notice tens of minutes before they reach the shore. One or several of the following signs may be seen, heard, or felt:

. an earthquake occurs
. the sea recedes to a considerable distance
. the sea bubbles
. the water stings the skin
. the sea smells of rotten eggs or oil
. a flash of red light sparks on the sea near the horizon
. a boom is followed by a whistle, or by a jet-plane- or helicopter-like noise

Each phenomenon depends on circumstances, and their explanations vary. The sea’s recession compensates for the soon-to-arrive wave. The bubbling and the stinging of the skin, which resemble the effects of sparkling water, are consequences of the air or gases the wave pushes ahead of it. An earthquake or a volcano eruption may release chemical components with funny smells or lead to reactions that produce electrical discharges. Finally, the noises can be consequences of those reactions or may occur because of the friction between the large wave and the shallow seabed.

Some early warnings, which often occur before any of the physical signs are apparent, may come from nearby animals. The first documented animal reaction to a tsunami appears for the underwater earthquake of 1755, whose epicentre was some 350 kilometres southwest of Lisbon. The combined disaster killed between 60,000 and 100,000 people in Portugal, Spain, and North Africa, with the tsunami playing a lesser role in those deaths.

The earthquake struck on the morning of 1 November, causing wide fissures in Lisbon’s centre. Those who rushed to the docks for safety watched as the receding water revealed a seafloor littered by shipwrecks and cargo. More than an hour after the earthquake, a twenty-metre high tsunami, followed by two more waves, engulfed Lisbon’s harbour and downtown area. The animals are said to have run away from the shore long before the wave showed up.

The reason why animals feel the approach of tsunamis is yet unknown. Some scientists speculate that animals can detect certain earthquake waves, which propagate through the Earth’s crust.

Nevertheless, warning signs exist for tsunamis. But we need to learn how to read them. This is not always easy because we may see danger when there is none. Aesop’s tale about a shepherd boy who cried wolf to make fun of his fellow villagers shows how false alarms could do more harm than no warning at all. Nevertheless, Tilly Smith’s example proves that instruction and vigilance can save lives.

Our office received this notice. I don't know anything more, but it's a heads-up and means we need to be paying attention.

UPDATE:
The original notice says to expect waves about 1:23 PM local time. But this new bulletin from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center cancels that alert.

You can follow up for more information at the PTWC Pacific region site.

Wendy's been doing a good job blogging about Ketsana (a/k/a Ondoy), the typhoon that caused devastation in the Philippines.

Today Ken is blogging about a tsunami that washed over American Samoa as we slept last night. Western Samoa also got hit. Reports put an earthquake between 7.9 and 8.3 on the Richter Scale-and if I got this right, time would have been about 7 hours ago for the quake, a bit later for the tsunami.

Several people are already reported as dead or missing, and an entire village may be underwater, with more reports of greater damage and loss expected.

There was a Pacific-wide tsunami alert (already cancelled now), but no one I've talked to knew about it. We need a better warning system.

Angelo is tracking Tropical Storm Melor-heading this way.

EARTHQUAKE!

Written by Susan J. Berger
Illustrated by Eugene Ruble
Nonfiction
Published by Guardian Angel Publishing
Ages 6 to 9
Release: April 2009

This nonfiction book will fascinate children young and old. It offers something to every reader. Susan Berger’s facts and descriptions are informative and easy to understand. Eugene Ruble’s illustrations are clever and humorous.

This book is filled with fun factoids. It has charts and graphs, plus illustrations of the inside of the earth. What is an earthquake? Can scientists predict when an earthquake will occur? What do the terms used to describe earthquakes mean? That and more will be found in this book. This book would be a terrific resource for homeschooled children or the school library.

Experiments are included for children to try that will help them understand what happens in an earthquake. Tsunamis are explained. Some famous past earthquakes and tsunamis are described in detail.

This book offers an earthquake craft for kids to make to help with earthquake preparedness. Children and parents learn to put together a plan and a survival kit. There is extensive information on what to have on hand and how to keep supplies fresh.

Susan Berger takes what could be a frightening subject and uses it to inform and empower children. The book is full of useful tips for preparing for the possibility of an earthquake. She tells the reader what to do during and after a quake. Earthquake is a book that gives the reader tips on ways to help others instead of curling up in fear, ending the book on a positive note. I highly recommend this book for children everywhere.

Reviewed by Shari Lyle-Soffe

No one can escape the hundreds of articles and reports into global climate change: it is one of the most important issues on the political landscape in countries across the world. For this month’s Very Short Introduction column, I put a few questions to Bill McGuire, author of Global Catastrophe: A Very Short Introduction. McGuire is Director of the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre and has authored or edited over 400 books, papers and articles focusing on volcano instability and monitoring, volcanic hazards, natural hazards and environmental change, climate change and global geophysical events. He has worked on or visited volcanoes all over the world, including Mount Etna, Pinatubo and Ta’al in the Philippines, and Soufriere Hills in Montserrat.

OUP: Over the last few years we have seen an alarming increase in natural disasters, such as the Asian tsunami and subsequent earthquakes in the region. Can this rise be put down simply to climate change, or are there other possible explanations?

BILL McGUIRE: We have indeed been seeing a rise in the numbers of natural disasters, especially since 1990. This does not necessarily mean, however, that there have been more natural hazards. Climate change is already driving up the numbers of extreme weather events, such as storms and floods, and this is clearly having an impact. So far, however, we are not seeing any increase in the number and scale of geological hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. The main reason for more natural disasters in recent years is that there are ever more people living in vulnerable regions, particularly in the coastal zone.

OUP: At the same time as being faced with more and more reports about global warming, and the melting polar ice caps, we also hear about a possible new ice age. How can we have an ice age when the earth is getting warmer?

McGUIRE: Current global warming is happening and is unequivocally due to human activities. There is no new ice age on the horizon, and in fact the next one - which would normally be expected within 10,000 years or so - may be postponed by our warming activities for up to half a million years.

If the gulf stream and associated Atlantic currents shut down in the next few decades, we could see a temporary cooling of the UK, Europe and the eastern US, but this would be far from an ice age, and warming would soon take over once more.

OUP: You say in your book that the human race “came within a hair’s breath of extinction” after a massive volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago. How do we know this, and what saved us then? Could the same thing happen now?

McGUIRE: Studies of mitochondrial DNA reveal evidence of a human population crash around about the time of the Toba super-eruption. This is known because we are so genetically similar that everyone alive today must be descended from a limited gene pool at about this time. It may be that just a few thousand humans survived the effects of the blast on the climate, possibly in tropical regions where the succeeding volcanic winter may have been less intense. This remains, however, highly speculative.

OUP: You suggest that the human race can try to preserve itself by moving into space, therefore potentially outliving Earth. Is the move into space really a realistic proposition?

McGUIRE: The only things hindering the colonisation of space are political will and money. Given time, I expect both obstacles to be overcome, leading to our race eventually reaching the stars. The big question is whether this would be good thing - bearing in mind how we have treated our own planet and those species we share it with? It may also be that the economic and social collapse that dangerous climate change looks increasingly likely to bring will set us back for generations.

OUP: Once people have read Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction, which five books would you point them to next?

McGUIRE: Surviving Armageddon: Solutions for a Threatened Planet (also by me) suggests possible solutions to some of the potential catastrophes addressed in ‘global catastrophes’.

To find out how close we are to the oil running out, with consequent economic mayhem, I recommend The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man by David Strahan

The greatest threat to our race and our planet currently lies in contemporary climate change, so I would direct the reader to: Six Degrees by Mark Lynas and The Rough Guide to Climate Change.

Finally, I would (naturally) recommend my new climate change book Seven Years to Save the Planet due to be published in July (in the UK) by Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

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Kathryn Wall started by self-publishing her first mystery. It was picked up by a small press, and she went on to have a contract with St. Martins.

In this blog posting, she talks about the pros and cons of each.

In part, she says, “If I had to name the biggest difference among all three types of publishing, I'd say the elephant in the room is distribution. The big boys have it. The small presses have it to a certain extent, but generally without the sales staff of a NY house, or the connections to the Baker & Taylor buyer, the Costco buyer, and so on. A self-publisher can get placement on Amazon.com, perhaps a local independent bookstore or two, but anything farther afield than that is tough. By its nature, this limits the number of books you can hope to sell in attempting to recoup your investment. Certainly there are people who have done it successfully, but, as a former accountant, I can tell you a lot of them went broke, too.”





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