You've now entered the Twilight Zone (Italian Justice system)

[SSS]

yeah....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43187273/ns/technology_and_science-science/


(apologies to bobak)

 

[Fox1]

Oh good god....

 

[T.A.P.]

Someone want to copy/paste that shit?

 

[Phyeir]

Wow, that is retarded. I'm sorry, no other way to describe it.

 

[Domino-chan]

If you guys insist...

Seismologists tried for manslaughter over quake
Italian scientists didn't alert public ahead of time, although peers say that's not possible

By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
LiveScience
updated 5/26/2011 6:14:39 PM ET 2011-05-26T22:14:39

Earthquake prediction can be a grave, and faulty science, and in the case of Italian seismologists who are being tried for the manslaughter of the people who died in the 2009 L'Aquila quake, it can have legal consequences.

The group of seven, including six seismologists and a government official, reportedly didn't alert the public ahead of time of the risk of the L'Aquila earthquake, which occurred on April 6 of that year, killing around 300 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

But most scientists would agree it's not their fault they couldn't predict the wrath of Mother Nature.

"We're not able to predict earthquakes very well at all," John Vidale, a Washington State seismologist and professor at the University of Washington, told LiveScience.

Even though advances have been made, the day scientists are able to forecast earthquakes is still "far away," Dimitar Ouzounov, a professor of earth sciences at Chapman University in California, said this month regarding the prediction of the March 11 earthquake in Japan.

L'Aquila faults
The decision to try the six members of a committee tasked with determining the risk of an earthquake in the area (along with a government official) was announced on Wednesday (May 25) by Judge Giuseppe Romano, according to a news article from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Some people said the committee should've seen it coming, because of the earthquake swarms that occurred days before the big one struck, Vidale said.

"We get swarms of earthquakes all the time without a big earthquake. There was nothing strange about this swarm to suggest a big earthquake," Vidale said in a telephone interview.

Regarding the charges against the Italian seismologists, Vidale said "we're offended" that they are being charged with a crime "for telling the truth." That truth is, he added, there was nothing to say that the level of danger was enough to warrant any public action.

Why we can't see one coming
Talking with Vidale, one gets the impression that predicting an earthquake would take a miracle, as there are so many unknowns.

"One problem is we don't know how much stress it takes to break a fault," Vidale said. "Second we still don't know how much stress is down there. All we can do is measure how the ground is deforming." Not knowing either of these factors makes it pretty tough to figure out when stresses will get to the point of a rupture, and an earth-shaking quake, he explained.

To get measurements of the actual stresses, researchers have to drill miles beneath the surface — an engineering feat on its own — and would only be able to drill a couple places to put sensors along the fault. (Drilling has been done along the San Andreas fault, but no one has measured the stress at depth there, Vidale said.)

On top of all that, the L'Aquila region is a particularly complex nut to crack geologically. While mostly horizontal strike-slip faults, like the San Andreas, are much clearer faults to analyze, the L'Aquila fault system is complex, with several so-called "normal" faults moving mostly vertically.

And several tectonic processes are active in the region: The Adria micro-plate is being subducted under the Apennines from east to west, while at the same time continental collision is occurring between the Eurasia and Africa plates (responsible for the building of the Alps).

Digging into the past
With all the downers, earthquake prediction science, it seems, is coming back into fashion after a lull in the 80s when methods weren't showing any success, Vidale said. The key is to find some strange phenomenon that occurs before, days before, an earthquake, that seismologists can recognize.

While they haven't found any silver bullet, scientists are digging up data on past earthquakes along fault systems to give them an idea of the probability another will occur. Even so, probability of an earthquake coming "doesn't help with predictions a day before an earthquake," Vidale said.

Another method involves detecting evidence of unusual amounts of radon gas in the atmosphere. Right before an earthquake, the fault may release more gases, including radon. In fact, Ouzounov and colleagues found such anomalous signatures in the atmosphere above Japan days before the March 11 quake struck.

No one has ever predicted an earthquake from atmospheric data, and plenty of supposed earthquake precursors, from weird animal behavior to groundwater flowing the wrong way, have proven hit-or-miss.

Of the radon gas method, Vidale said, "now we're pretty confident that's not reliable."

It's pretty facepalm worthy.

 

[neobuyer]

It's almost like that old movie where the fake psychic guy really has a vision of future catastrophe and tries to warn people before it's too late- but they refuse to listen to him. Then, after hundreds of people are dead, the mob tries to chase him down for making it happen by predicting it.

 

[LoneSage]

i wanna watch that movie

 

[aria]

The law in continental Europe can be so damn stupid. Common > Civil.

 

[K_K]

The law in continental Europe can be so damn stupid. Common > Civil.

so can their taste in music. continental europeans just don't get it.

 

[SIXPACK]

Italy does not represent all of europe, you know that?

 

[SNKorSWM]

Didn't some female American exchange student got tried for manslaughter in Italy recently? If this were what it took to convict someone for a manslaughter case...

 

[Takumaji]

Haha, now I can't get the Twilight Zone title tune out of my head anymore... din-din-din-din-din-din-din-din...

As for the case at hand, I've read a few things about it and something tells me there's more to it than it seems. Of course everyone knows that there's no sure-fire way of predicting quakes (including the Italian courts), what we have here is more like a combination of procrastinated bureaucracy and sloppiness. There's a (albeit small) possibility that the scientists had formulated a warning which did not get processed as quickly as it should have been and now someone's trying to make the scientists the scapegoats for it.

 

[OrochiEddie]

Italy does not represent all of europe, you know that?

Of course it does. All Europeans love driving around on scooters and hollering at women.

 

[BRANDI]

Italy does not represent all of europe, you know that?

Of course not.. but it's the best part

 

[neobuyer]

Didn't some female American exchange student got tried for manslaughter in Italy recently? If this were what it took to convict someone for a manslaughter case...

Yeah- and she was hot and evil, my type.

 

[BigTinz]

Oh yea....wasn't it like a sexy death or something?

She's hot.

 

[lithy]

Yet people think you're silly for worrying about things like this

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/...OTHER-S-FIGHT-Woman-DHS-odds-over-girl-s-care

The state knows more than you or me, or science. So good luck Italian seismologists.

 

[SIXPACK]

Of course it does. All Europeans love driving around on scooters and hollering at women.

i agree with the second part!

 

[SIXPACK]

Of course not.. but it's the best part

Well....it probably is!
Its just funny how some people think that europe is one big village!

 

[Takumaji]

Italy definitely is one of the better parts of Europe, that's for sure.

But we all know who runs the show and it's not Italy!

 

[neobuyer]

Haha, now I can't get the Twilight Zone title tune out of my head anymore... din-din-din-din-din-din-din-din...

As for the case at hand, I've read a few things about it and something tells me there's more to it than it seems. Of course everyone knows that there's no sure-fire way of predicting quakes (including the Italian courts), what we have here is more like a combination of procrastinated bureaucracy and sloppiness. There's a (albeit small) possibility that the scientists had formulated a warning which did not get processed as quickly as it should have been and now someone's trying to make the scientists the scapegoats for it.

Will you just stop trying comprehend this situation logically Boris? All those little details mean nothing. Everyone knows all Europeans are all inbred to the point of lunacy. Just go out and join in the love parade rave and shut your strudel-hole.

 

[Takumaji]

Everyone knows all Europeans are all inbred to the point of lunacy.

That's why we're busy with eastward-expanding the EU, can't hurt to get some fresh genes. Will make us smell cabbage-y in the long run but beggars can't be choosers, eh.

Just go out and join in the love parade rave and shut your strudel-hole.

Mmmmmmm... Apfelstrudel...

As for the Love Parade, well, it got out of style to get squashed to death so they canned it.

I also ran out of Es a long time ago... but the Parade will continue, every Friday night 'round my place. BYOB & strap-ons.