Note that an increase in detected earthquake numbers does not necessarily represent an increase in earthquakes per se. Population increase, habitation spread, and advances in earthquake detection technology all contribute to higher earthquake numbers being recorded over time. <

Makes sense to me: In some Indian cultures, they believed that the earth was a giant platform that was supported by eight mighty elephants. Earthquakes were caused by one of the elephants getting tired and lowering its head thus disrupting the balance of the earth.

At the Earth’s surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by a shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground. When a large earthquake epicenter is located offshore, the seabed sometimes suffers sufficient displacement to cause a tsunami. The shaking in earthquakes can also trigger landslides and occasionally herald volcanic activity.

Four out of every 5 tsunamis that happen occur in the region called the Ring of Fire. This region that rings the Pacific Ocean basis has some of the most active plate boundaries in the world. If a major earthquake happens here is it will definitely be strong enough to cause a tsunamis.

Each major earthquake is a wake up call for Californians to develop, update, or maintain their own earthquake preparedness plans. If you live within 15 miles of an active seismic fault and/or liquefiable area, you should re-consider retrofitting your home and mitigating its contents to protect yourself and your family. The benefits of seismic retrofitting and mitigation go well beyond being simply reducing financial losses. It will make your home safer and help in returning your family much more quickly back to their normal life style.

In addition, re-considering earthquake insurance would help in managing potential costs of future earthquakes. Finally, develop an earthquake preparedness plan that includes maintaining emergency food and water for 1-2 weeks along with personal survival kits and a household emergency kit.

According to Matt Slick, who has the smarts to understand this stuff. He says that we are all just a bunch of space monkeys, like all the other space monkeys that have been evolving for all of eternity. Morals and sins are nothing more than opinions.

What could have been more fun that a bunch of animated moneys? “Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys” ran from 1996 to 1997 and only made 26 episodes due to the fact that the show ended up being canceled. Captain Simian’s crew consisted of a mountain gorilla named Gor-illa, Splitzy the orangutan, Spydor the spider monkey, and Shao Lin, a Chinese golden monkey.

Mice like space, too: On August 31, 1950, the U.S. launched a mouse into space (137 km) aboard a V2 – the Albert V flight, which, unlike the Albert I-IV flights, did not have a monkey, but the rocket disintegrated because the parachute system failed. The U.S. launched several other mice in the 1950s.

Pesky Monkeys: In some areas, some species of monkey are considered agricultural pests, and can cause extensive damage to commercial and subsistence crops. This can have important implications for the conservation of endangered species, which may be subject to persecution. In some instances farmers’ perceptions of the damage may exceed the actual damage.

Scientific Monkeys? The most common monkey species found in animal research are the grivet, the rhesus macaque, and the crab-eating macaque, which are either wild-caught or purpose-bred. They are used primarily because of their relative ease of handling, their fast reproductive cycle (compared to apes) and their psychological and physical similarity to humans. Worldwide, it is thought that between 100,000 and 200,000 non-human primates are used in research each year, 64.7% of which are Old World monkeys, and 5.5% New World monkeys. This number makes a very small fraction of all animals used in research. Between 1994 and 2004 the United States has used an average of 54,000 non-human primates, while around 10,000 non-human primates were used in the European Union in 2002.

Back to Space Monkeys: On May 28, 1959, aboard the JUPITER AM-18, Able, a rhesus monkey, and Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey, became the first monkeys to successfully return to Earth after traveling in space. Able was born at the Ralph Mitchell Zoo in Independence, Kansas. They traveled in excess of 16,000 km/h, and withstood 38 g (373 m/s2).

Able died June 1, 1959 while undergoing surgery to remove an infected medical electrode, from a reaction to the anesthesia. Baker died November 29, 1984 at the age of 27 and is buried on the grounds of the United States Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Able was preserved, and is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. Their names were taken from a phonetic alphabet.

And the Primate Adventures Continue: On January 28, 2013, AFP and Sky News reported that Iran sent a monkey in a “Pishgam” rocket to a height of 72 miles (116 km) and retrieved “shipment”. The Iranian media gave no details on the timing or location of the launch. After the launch there were many doubts as to the veracity of the Iranian claims, since the before and after flight pictures clearly showed different monkeys. The doubt and confusion caused was due to the publishing of an archive photo from 2011 by the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA). According to Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer, “They just mixed that footage with the footage of the 2013 successful launch.”