Today I kept thinking 'what should I write about on my new blog?'. Time and again, in between the thousand little things I had to take care of, ideas came and went - and by 'went' I mean 'stored, again!' in order to be used on another post when I have gathered more information and more understanding in relation to them.
Almost stressed about me not being able to keep a promise made to myself - see 'the 'Why' ' bit on the right - meaning going to bed without posting anything today, my daily newsletter from 9am News arrived. And Yes, I did notice the irony in it being delivered at 12:15am...
To my great dismay, the headline of the day read Chilean Quake Shortened the Day (the original article from Bloomberg Business Week Magazine, mentioned as source for the Romanian e-news site), or, if you prefer the video version: Bloomberg TV: Rietbrock Says Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth's Axis.
I found the high point of the interview to be when the anchorman decided it was necessary to mention 'we are not talking about the day just in Chile, the day for everybody around the Globe' (minute 1:56) - now, people, let's recap what we learned in school - an Earth/Terra/3rd Planet from the Sun day is made of 24 hours - YES, EVERYWHERE!!! Of course, for those of us who remember something from our high-school Physics classes, it all goes back to speed - the Earth being a moving object, the time it takes to rotate around itself once is the time we traditionally call a DAY, and is estimated to the 24 hours mentioned earlier. Therefore the explanation - howbeit, just theoretical at this point - makes perfect sense: the planet's axis shifted slightly as a result of the quake, therefore changing the distribution of mass and gave a 'wee push', making it go round faster and thus shortening the time.
Now, don't be alarmed, folks - it actually happens all the time! Since we are really talking in terms of microseconds (millionths of a second), and since we know quakes happen frequently, these changes are not as rare as the news-crews want us to believe. Nor they seem to worry any of the geophysicists who answered the questions.
Of course, one can wonder on the long-term effect of such changes, but at this point I remembered some stand-up comedy bit (not sure about the author) that, in reference to our efforts to 'save to planet' said something in the line of 'Earth existed before us, will exist after us as well. If we try to destroy it, wanna bet it gets us first?'. I tend to agree on this fact to some extent - meaning I do, still, advocate for a more ecological way of living - while our planet was proven to go through some Ice Ages before discarding itself of the more 'annoying' species (dinosaurs and such), we have yet to find and colonize another planet. Therefore, what you see is what you get, and if you don't keep quiet and clean, the landlord might decide they had enough with you and Off you go!...
As appalled by the news as I first read it - journalists have really got to get a grip on themselves with their big titles - it now, after making my way back to the source, makes perfect sense to me, and I actually felt a bit stupid not to have realized it all by myself, before someone had to tell me. My self deprecating was stopped dead in its track when I took a more attentive look at both the written and video piece of news - are we, as a species, really getting that stupid, that people, even the scientists, need to dumb-things-down to us quite THIS much? Do me a favor, go back to the article - 'the ice skater effect', 'the Earth rang like a bell' - may I just say WTF???
In conclusion, I will leave you with proof that the 'sun still sets' (metaphorically speaking, of course), as it was captured on my way home:
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