FLASH - Major Earthquake off Sumatra - UPDATED 3/29 8:25 AM

A magnitude 8.2 earthquake has occurred off the coast of Sumatra, near the epicenter of last December's disastrous 9.0 quake. UPDATE: QUAKE MAGNITUDE NOW REPORTED AS MAG 8.7. QUAKE OCCURED AT 11:09 PM SUMATRA, 9:09 AM MST. [UPDATED 1:01 PM MST.]

NO TSUNAMI REPORTED. [2:35 PM]

Tsunami warnings have been issued. More as it becomes available.

Drudge Report
Yahoo News

UPDATE: Rather than keep posting, I'm doing to update this post.

[1:01 PM] Quake magnitude upgraded to 8.7. Reports of widespread damage and dozens of casualties in Indonesia. Tsunami warnings in Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. There has not been any confirmed report of a tsunami, but the location and magnitude of the quake make a tsunami likely.

[2:35 PM] Some good news, finally. It appears that this quake failed to generate a large tsunami. While a small tidal surge was detected off the west coast of Australia, it appears that the danger is past.

[3/29/2005 8:25AM] No tsunami, but high casualties. The death toll is now expected to climb into the thousands.

The Silent Hive?

A parasite is killing our bees:"Bee Killer Imperils Crops" in the Palm Beach Post:

"A tiny parasite, colloquially known as a 'vampire mite,' is devastating honeybees. That worries experts because honeybee-pollinated crops are valued at more than $15 billion a year."

So, at first, I simply mutter. They're just bees. Then I read this:
"Under attack from a Southeast Asian parasite, vast numbers of the creatures are dying off, worried industry experts say. More than 50 percent of the bees in California, critical to the success of the Golden State's almond crop, have died during the past six months. Frantic growers there have sent out the call around the world, including Florida, for hives."

50% of California bees, gone in six months. That is scary.

Any thoughts, Nate?

Crossposted at The Pacific Slope.

The Radicalizing Force of Technology

"Technology Changes Things" by Jonah Goldberg at National Review.

"I don't agree entirely with Chambers, but he and Chesterton were obviously correct on the basic insight that modernity often crashes down on us faster than we can adapt. New events create new stresses on ideological pillars once considered adamantine while they render old conflicts irrelevant. The Schiavo case split many people along principled lines. Is it so unimaginable that tomorrow they may be reunited by some new and unforeseen crisis that progress brings?"

One of the fundamental challenges of our age will be developing and applying ethics and principles to best use the new ideas brought forth while protecting life and liberty.

The Coming War on Blogs?

James D. Miller over at Tech Central Station:

But won't the First Amendment protect blogs? Unfortunately, courts already hold that many governmental restrictions on speech don't violate the First Amendment, and I can think of three areas in which the MSM might successfully change laws and regulations to hinder their blogger competitors:

1. Campaign Finance Reform -- Blog entries in support of a candidate could be considered political contributions to that candidate...
2. Libel Law -- The MSM used to fight aggressively against any expansion of libel law, but I predict this soon will change...
3. Copyright Law -- Blogs often use information from other sources and, from what I have observed, sometimes flagrantly violate copyright laws. Imagine if Congress increased the complexity and penalties of copyright laws...

Read it all. There is already pressure to try to place weblogs under the MeCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law.

It rather strikes me as a violation of free speech. But McCain-Feingold did too, and Congress passed it, Bush signed it, and the Supreme Court upheld it. So don't assume that appeals to the Constitution can stop this.

Found over at Instapundit.

Turning genetics on its head?

"Scientists shake 150-year law of genetics"
Challenging a scientific law of inheritance that has stood for 150 years, scientists say plants sometimes select better bits of DNA in order to develop normally even when they inherited genetic flaws from their predecessors.

In the Purdue experiment, researchers found that a plant belonging to the mustard and watercress family sometimes corrects the genetic code it inherited from its flawed parents and grows normally like its unflawed grandparents and other ancestors.

Scientists said the discovery raises questions about whether humans also have the potential for avoiding genetic flaws or even repairing them, although the plant experiments did not directly address the possibility in higher organisms. They said the actual proteins responsible for making these fixes probably would be different in animals, if the capacity exists at all.

''This means that inheritance can happen more flexibly than we thought,'' said Robert Pruitt, the paper's senior author.

Simply amazing. When it comes to biology and genetics, we have so much farther to go...

Hello World

Welcome to The Wasatch Front, a group blog by a group of friends living in the Salt Lake Valley. What will we cover? Local and national news and politics, science and technology, and whatever else strikes our fancy.

I don't know where this is heading - but I bet it will be interesting...