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94 Comments
- connieLingus, on 05/18/2008, -3/+47no, but i did hear that they spent the night at a holiday inn express.
- Supernova36, on 05/18/2008, -0/+40Pandas acting strangely? What did they do? Breed?
- pwnerofnoobs, on 05/18/2008, -5/+26Ya, I noticed my pet panda in World of Warcraft was acting funny before the quakes.
- Scottievm, on 05/18/2008, -12/+32This isn't really surprising news. I thought it was common knowledge that many animals can sense an earthquake several minutes before it actually hits.
- m0oSe, on 05/18/2008, -5/+21Probably, I've had a cat freak out before an earthquake .
- mfc5200, on 05/18/2008, -1/+15I thought the most interesting thing was this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8OnEnzz_ow&eurl=ht ...
Apparently strange lights appeared in the sky before the Earth quake. There are lots of different videos on it. Apparently its been documented before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_lights
I have no idea what to make of it, just thought it was interesting. - inactive, on 05/18/2008, -2/+15I've had a cat freak out before nothing... more often than he's freaked out before earthquakes. We get quite a few tremors up in the pacific NW too. If anything, my cat freaking out is a sign that everything is okie dokie.
When something can't be used to predict events, and gives false positives if it is tried to be used to predict events, there is a pretty good chance that there is no significant correlation. I'm not superstitious, so it's hard for me to believe in things that can't be convincingly demonstrated. - sensor, on 05/18/2008, -1/+14Studies have been done (I don't have the source but I bet if you google you'll find them) and the results say that animals do not "sense earthquakes".
- alexbu, on 05/18/2008, -4/+15they all started sneezing
- Heiminator, on 05/18/2008, -0/+9what a strange phenomenon,never heard of this before,thanks for pointing it out
- RSMiller, on 05/18/2008, -1/+9SPOILER: No, they didn't sense an earthquake was coming. This is classic example of confirmation bias.
- Murdats, on 05/18/2008, -0/+8the problem isnt in the detection, its in the alerting people and giving them enough time to react, seeing as these animals barely have time to react there isnt too much we can do.
- dartmanx, on 05/18/2008, -1/+7I predict... idiots will make comments that will be followed up by smug responses by people trying to forget that they live in their grandmother's basement...
- EmileVictor, on 05/18/2008, -0/+6Er, no...
- hlehmann, on 05/18/2008, -3/+9Did the Pandas sense the earthquake when it was still in it's initial stages, maybe many seconds before humans would be able to notice it? Possibly, yes.
Did the Pandas sense the earthquake before it even happened? No.
If you think otherwise, then it's your duty to monitor Pandas (or the animal of your choice) around the clock, ready to alert the community if the animals are sensing an imminent earthquake. After all, if animals act in a strange manner just before an earthquake, then obviously someone should be able to notice this strange behavior and sound the general alarm. Or, we could install video cameras at the zoo, monitoring all the animals and running some software that analyzes their movements for this alleged strange behavior.
Still think it's possible, but not willing to do any of that? Then I guess the death of tens of thousands will be on your head, since you claimed that there was a way to predict this quake, and yet you did nothing about it. - inactive, on 05/18/2008, -1/+6You know, there might be something to this, but it seems to always be after the fact. If it's ever the case that they can use animal's behaviour to predict an earthquake BEFORE an earthquake actually happens, then I'll buy it. Until then, this correlation in hindsight is the same misguided nonsense that keeps Nostradamus in business.
- maelnum, on 05/18/2008, -0/+5I think, they don't sense quakes coming, but they hear the huge infrasound waves (which humans cannot hear) that an earthquake emits. SInce sound travels faster, they hear it before the P-waves and S-waves arrive.
/[citation needed] but i'm teh lazy - had3l, on 05/18/2008, -1/+5Well, how would they conduct those studies? You would need to be able to control or at least predict large earthquakes. They are once in a lifetime phenomenons.
- cgruber, on 05/18/2008, -0/+4Mine does that but it usually results in gobs of pleasant smelling regurgitated hair.
- inactive, on 05/18/2008, -0/+4Right... Unless you predicted an earthquake based on that experience, or you believe that no one has seen a herd of deer without there being an earthquake, then I think you missed my point.
- jhop, on 05/18/2008, -0/+4From National Geographic:
"There have also been examples where authorities have forecast successfully a major earthquake, based in part on the observation of the strange antics of animals. For example, in 1975 Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just days before a 7.3-magnitude quake. Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed. If the city had not been evacuated, it is estimated that the number of fatalities and injuries could have exceeded 150,000." - directedition, on 05/18/2008, -2/+5Knowing when rain is coming is one thing. Being able to detect the breaking point of tension between tectonic plates is a whole different manner. This is a physical impossibility. Nothing 'leads up' to an earthquake.
- Asianwaste, on 05/18/2008, -0/+3http://en.allexperts.com/q/Wildlife-2507/2008/4/an ...
http://www.animalplanetasia.com/tsunami_animal_ins ...
I wouldn't call this "evidence" per se. I would just call it observations that raise questions. - directedition, on 05/18/2008, -0/+3Looks like a fire rainbow. It's not that strange. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumhorizontal_arc
- polymorphist, on 05/18/2008, -0/+3caged Panda? It just shows how ignorant you are. Pandas in Wolong (where the epicenter is) are out in the wild.
And talking about being excited about people being dead from natural disaster? - inactive, on 05/18/2008, -0/+3The bile thing is sad but true, though it doesn't really apply to pandas, since they target other bears and pandas are a protected species from the government. But getting excited at 50 000 people dead from an earthquake? You have issues.
- mc4_a, on 05/18/2008, -2/+4The skeptics guide to the universe podcast did a bit about this on their last show. Apparently, there's not evidence to support this.
- zspitfire04, on 05/18/2008, -2/+4Fail.
- stk198323, on 05/18/2008, -0/+2It's not really about superstition:
The Chinese earthquake is the "same sort of thing. [Animals feel] changes in the environment—vibrations that we don't feel."
An earthquake will send out some minor vibration before the actual quake happens at a specific location. Human were probably sensible enaugh to sense those waves before also, but we lost this ability due to the way we live... there is so much different vibration and noise in our town that we just cannot differentiate between what is normal (car with a broken exhaust, loud music from a club, construction site nerby, etc) that we have a hard time differentiating what is nature caused and what is human caused. There is nothing about superstition here, no one pretended that those panda were reading the future or anything else like that. - Flarup, on 05/18/2008, -1/+3It's all very interesting, but so far the scientific research done into this has been inconclusive. Scientists have been breaking their neck to come up with a working method for predicting earthquakes for more than 60 years - until i see an event of animals actually predicting seismic activity instead of these retrospective stories i will remain very sceptic.
- Asianwaste, on 05/18/2008, -6/+8Wouldn't doubt it. Lots of animals can sense a natural disaster before they arrive. I think I remember during the Indonesia Tsunami that there was reports of animals fleeing the area, I could be mixing that up with another big recent disaster.
- BevansDesign, on 05/18/2008, -0/+2"Brody, who has received funding from the National Geographic Society, added that animals' general ability to hear at different sonic wavelengths may attribute to their early warning systems."
This is the most likely explanation. - capriskye, on 05/18/2008, -1/+3so those people, including all those students that died in the earthquake deserve it because "China do outrageous stuff"? People do evil stuff, not country!
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1lots leads up to an earthquake actually. the colliding plates aren't flat surfaces you see, so they crunch together kind of softly at first. the quake itself is when the main masses collide. it's like the bumper on a car. that bumper zone can take days/weeks/months/decades/centuries/millenia to crumble before the main masses actually contact and produce a noticable earthquake. the opposite is also true, plates breaking apart crack first before they give, again can take quite some time, especially if the movement is a large one.
if a several kilometre thick part of the earths crust was to simply and literally instantly tear apart without some precursor cracking, the resulting quake would make richter scale 9.0 seem like a mouse fart - 007kz, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1ohplease, you must be a big fan of Hilter.
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Haha once in a lifetime - good one
I remember one summer here we had 14 in as many days. Animals everywhere were noticably quiter during the day, barked more at night, drooled more.
Animals of course have very acute hearing and can hear the rumblings long before a quake occurs. That final bumping of plates that creates a noticable quake has a lot of precursor collisions beforehand - the animals simply hear this just as we can monitor it with geophones and the such - Manuelmty, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1which reminds me of : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQggDD_RteA
- trollick, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1Everybody is predicting that earthquake now. Days AFTER it happened.
- mooseofshadows, on 05/18/2008, -1/+2Actually, this has been used before to the advantage of the city hit by the quake, like in the evacuation of Haicheng.
- harlowsmonkeys, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1There is a simply hypothesis that would allow for animals knowing of earthquakes far in advance, yet requiring no sixth sense.
The animals *cause* the earthquakes! - OrlyonokEaglet, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1But the clouds don't look much like cirrus clouds and the article says this only happens with cirrus clouds.
- shedmyskin, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1humans probably could sense these things simular to animals at one time.....humans however have lost a lot of natural bond with nature and the enviroment.
- stevensj2, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1That is an unfair comparison.
If you can propose a way the behavior of animals can be interpreted into human directions (ie "Go now! Earthquake coming!"), there is absolutely no way it can be noticed BEFORE the incident.
But if a collection of animals in a particular area begin acting strange, and shortly thereafter a phenomenon occurs in that same area, it is appropriate to assert that there may be a link between the two.
It is very established that animals have a sense of their surroundings that we cannot yet comprehend. Why do you not see herds of deer grazing on the side of the highway moments before a storm? They're aware of the changing weather, and have altered their behavior appropriately because of it (seeking shelter, laying low). They didn't have the Weather Channel telling them a storm was approaching and it would be raining later in the afternoon. Some other awareness alerted them to this.
It is that same awareness that may advise them of other natural changes and phenomena. But just because we do not share the ability to detect this awareness within ourselves does not mean it is not there; too much proof of the contrary exists.
To believe that animals aren't aware of these things because we aren't aware of these things is not only scientifically illogical, it's arrogant. - uncoveror, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1Animals know about earthquakes a little faster than we do because many of them have more sensitive hearing than us, and can hear the creaking of the earth before the shaking starts. It is hearing that makes this possible, not a magic sixth sense.
- chenyu768, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1China has used animals for centuries to predict earthquake. I forget which one it was but i think it was the 50s where due to the animals acting weird, they evacuated a couple of hundred thousand people from ChongChing(i think or changchun) and then a few days later a major earthquake hit.
Animals are always more tuned into nature than we are. - HallenbeckJoe, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1My pedobear was acting strangely too.
- hutectro, on 05/18/2008, -0/+1My cat can tell when a quake is to start he runs around in a circle until he gets dizzy and then
stops and point in the direction the quake is going to happen and i might add he is never wrong
By the way his name is compass
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -0/+1I'm not saying anything other than what you watched is how they make fur coats in China.
I like how what they do as a group doesn't count and when we show you what they do as individuals it doesn't count either.
China is sick. Go there and witness it for yourself. They have no such thing as morality. They had a long time ago, but not today.
Go outside of tourist attractions in any of there major cities and see brothels of underaged girls.
Visit their prisons! Where they execute political dissent and remove the organs of executed men for sale on the international market.
Go to Africa, and witness how they hire hunters to steal Ivory and massacre entire hords of elephants, leaving them to rot in the sun.
Then try to find the good in these people and realize there is no such thing.
And yes, they were happy about Katrina. -
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