Iceland Volcanos

Iceland, the land of ice and fire, is a true paradise for volcanologists. In few places on earth, geology and human history are so closely connected to volcanism as on Iceland. The island owns its existence to a large volcanic hot spot sitting on a mid-oceanic ridge, a unique setting. The plate boundary between the American and Eurasian tectonic plates crosses Iceland from south to North and the spreading process can be directly measured and observed on land.

Iceland has the land area of Virginia and the population of Virginia Beach (about 260,000 people). The country has the highest literacy rate (100%) of any nation in the world. Its history has always been closely related to volcanoes and knowledge of many volcanic eruptions since the middle ages are preserved in accounts.

First settled by Vikings in the 9th century AD, Iceland established its own parliament in 930 and recorded its first historical volcanic eruption only a few years later. After a golden age of literature in the 12th and 13th centuries (when the sagas were written), natural history reporting reached a low around the 15th century. In the years 1707-09 a third of the population died from smallpox, and the 1783-84 Laki eruption killed a fifth of the remaining population by famine. Iceland gained sovereignty from Denmark in 1918 and complete independence in 1944.

Iceland is noted for subglacial and regional fissure eruptions related to the rifting process between the separating plates.

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Iceland volcano disrupts flights

British airport operator BAA says all flights in and out of Heathrow and Stansted airports are to be suspended shortly because of ash clouds drifting from Iceland's spewing volcano.

Hundreds of flights across Britain have already been canceled, and airports in Scotland closed. Heathrow is Europe's busiest airport, with more than 1,200 flights a day.

A spokeswoman for BAA said Thursday the decision was being made "due to airspace restrictions, in accordance with international regulations." Flights are to be suspended from 1100GMT (8 a.m. EDT).

LONDON (AP) — Ash clouds drifting from Iceland's spewing volcano disrupted air traffic across Northern Europe on Thursday as airports shut down and carriers canceled hundreds of flights in Britain, Ireland and the Nordic countries.

In Iceland, hundreds have fled from floodwaters rising since the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier erupted Wednesday for the second time in less than a month. As water gushed down the mountainside, rivers had risen by up to 10 feet (3 meters) by Wednesday night.

The volcano was sending up smoke and ash that posed "a significant safety threat to aircraft," Britain's National Air Traffic Service said, as visibility is compromised and debris can get sucked into airplane engines.

In Britain, flight were suspended in the English cities of Manchester and Birmingham, as well as in Northern Ireland's Belfast and the Scottish airports at Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Europe's busiest airport — London's Heathrow — had at least 150 flights canceled, while London's Gatwick airport had 138 canceled by 8 a.m. (0700 GMT).

Most of the cancellations involved flights to and from northern airports.

"I think I might cry," said Ann Cochrane, 58, of Toronto, one of the passengers stranded in Glasgow. "I just wish I was on a beach in Mexico."

In northern Sweden all air traffic was suspended, affecting the cities of Skelleftea, Lulea, Kiruna and Hemavan, the national aviation authority said.

Air traffic in northern Finland was also halted.

Norway's King Harald V and Queen Sonja — who had planned to fly Thursday to Copenhagen for the Danish queen's 70th birthday — were looking to take a "car, boat or train" after the Norwegian airport operator Avinor said it was closing all commercial airspace, royal family spokesman Sven Gjeruldsen said.

A canceled trans-Atlantic flight left Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg grounded in New York, where he had been meeting with Norwegian businessmen.

Ireland's low-cost airline Ryanair canceled all of its flights in and out of Britain through Thursday, but said it would try to operate some flights out of southern Ireland.

The national carrier, Aer Lingus, canceled at least 40 flights in or out of Dublin, Cork, Shannon and Belfast.

Emirates airline said it canceled 10 roundtrip flights between Dubai and Britain on Thursday because of the ash cloud.

The U.S. Geological Survey said about 100 encounters of aircraft with volcanic ash were documented from 1983 to 2000; in some cases engines shut down briefly after sucking in volcanic debris, but there have been no fatal incidents.

In 1989, a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines Boeing 747 flew into an ash cloud from Alaska's Redoubt volcano and lost all power, dropping from 25,000 feet to 12,000 feet (7,500 meters to 3,600) before the crew could get the engines restarted. The plane landed safely.

In another incident in the 1980s, a British Airways 747 flew into a dust cloud and the grit sandblasted the windscreen. The pilot had to stand and look out a side window to land safely.

Volcanic ash is formed from explosive eruptions. Particles as hard as a knife blade range in size from as small as 0.001 millimeters (1/25,000 inch) to 2 millimeters (1/12 inch), the Geological Survey says.

Ash can melt in the heat of an aircraft engine and then solidify again, disrupting the mechanics, the agency says.

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Mont Saint Mishel

The slender towers and sky-scraping turrets of the abbey of Mont St-Michel are one of the classic images of northern France. Rising from flat white sands, the abbey sits atop a small island encircled by stout ramparts and battlements, connected to the mainland by an old causeway. Legend has it that the abbey was founded in the 8th century, when Aubert, the bishop of Avranches, was visited by the Archangel Michael in a dream; to this day the abbey is still crowned by a gilded copper statue of Michael slaying a dragon, symbolising the triumph of good over evil.

The bay around Mont St-Michel is famed for its extraordinary tides. Depending on the season and the gravitational pull of the moon, the difference between low and high tides can reach 15m, although the Mont is only completely surrounded by the sea during seasonal equinoxes. Regardless of the time of year, the waters sweep in at an astonishing rate; at low tide the Mont can be surrounded by bare sand for miles around, but at high tide, barely six hours later, the whole bay is often entirely submerged by the sea.

There are a few expensive hotels around the base of the Mont itself, but most people choose to stay at Beauvoir, right opposite the Mont, or Pontorson, about 5 miles inland from the bay. Unsurprisingly, for one of France’s top tourist attractions, the Mont is always packed with coach tours and bellowing kids at the start of the day – you’ll enjoy a much quieter visit if you turn up in late afternoon.

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Rocky islet and famous sanctuary in Manche département, Basse-Normandie région, off the coast of Normandy, France. It lies 41 miles (66 km) north of Rennes and 32 miles (52 km) east of Saint-Malo. Around its base are medieval walls and towers above which rise the clustered buildings of the village with the ancient abbey crowning the mount. One of the more popular tourist attractions in France, Mont-Saint-Michel was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.

Mont-Saint-Michel is almost circular (about 3,000 feet [900 metres] in circumference) and consists of a granite outcrop rising sharply (to 256 feet [78 metres]) out of Mont-Saint-Michel Bay (between Brittany and Normandy). Most of the time it is surrounded by vast sandbanks and becomes an island only when the tides are very high. Before the construction of the 3,000-foot causeway that connects the island to land, it was particularly difficult to reach because of quicksand and very fast-rising tides. The causeway, however, has become a barrier to the removal of material by the tides, resulting in higher sandbanks between the islet and the coast.

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The beautiful region of Normandy France has many sites of interest: the Bayeux Tapestry, Rhone Cathedral, and the D-Day beaches, among others. Of all Normandy's outstanding sights, Mont St Michel—a UNESCO world heritage site—is the most famous. Its pyramid-like outline has become famous the world over and thousands of tourist flock each year for a Mont St. Michel tour.

Mont St Michel France is situated on a quasi-island on the Normandy coast, near Brittany. At high tide, Mont St Michel is almost entirely separated from the mainland. Only a narrow causeway, constructed in the 1880s preserves a link to the coast. (A bridge to replace the causeway and allow the circulation of tidal waters in the bay is scheduled for completion in 2012.) Beware: the tide comes in quickly—"à la vitesse d'un cheval au galop" (as swiftly as a galloping horse), as Victor Hugo claimed—many tourists have drowned attempting to cross the sandy bay.

Unlike other castles in France, which began as defensive structures (i.e., Carcassonne Castle) or pleasure palaces (i.e., Chenonceau Castle), Mont St Michel had its beginnings as a monastery. There has been a Christian shrine on the site since the eighth century and the first church was completed in 1144. By the thirteenth century, hundreds of Benedictine monks lived in the sturdy structures on Mont St Michel. They held out against the English when most of western France fell during the Hundred Years War.

The graceful Abbey of Mont St Michel that forms the peak of the island's structures was completed in 1521 after centuries of construction. By the seventeenth century, the influence of monasteries was on the wane and by the time of the French Revolution Mont St Michel France was being used as a prison. Like other castles in France, Mont St Michel was falling into disrepair by the late nineteenthcentury. A thorough renovation was begun in 1873. The next few decades saw the construction of the causeway forming a permanent connection to the mainland and the heightening of the abbey's steeple—it is now over 500 feet above sea level.

Today, Mont St Michel attracts over four million visitors a year, far more than most castles in France, making it one of the most popular things to do on a France vacation. The buildings are is open year-round. Admission is about $10 each ($25 for the four museums), but a guided Mont St. Michel tour is highly recommended (about $10 extra). A Mont St. Michel tour visits several otherwise inaccessible towers and rooms. If your French is up to par, there is a guided Mont St. Michel tour every half hour. English speakers should look for the twice-daily English-language tour (more in high season).

The little town of Mont St Michel France is spread around the bottom of the island outside the religious structures. There are several good hotels and restaurants around the island. There is something peculiarly romantic about spending a night on a rock cut off from the mainland, although the place is somewhat crowded in summertime.

Mont St Michel France has been described as the Merveille de l'Occident (wonder of the Western world). It is easy to see why.

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Spontaneous Human Combustion

Spontaneous human combustion (SHC) is the alleged burning of a person's body without a readily apparent, identifiable external source of ignition. The combustion may result in simple burns and blisters to the skin, smoking, or a complete incineration of the body. The latter is the form most often 'recognized' as SHC. There is much speculation and controversy over SHC. It is not a proven natural occurrence, but many theories have attempted to explain SHC's existence and how it may occur. The two most common explanations offered to account for apparent SHC are the non-spontaneous "wick effect" fire, and the rare discharge called static flash fires. Although mathematically it can be shown that the human body contains enough energy stored in the form of fat and other tissues to consume it completely, in normal circumstances bodies will not sustain a flame on their own.

History of Spontaneous Human Combustion

Many people believe that Spontaneous Human Combustion was first documented in such early texts as the Bible, but, scientifically speaking, these accounts are too old and secondhand to be seen as reliable evidence.

Over the past 300 years, there have been more than 200 reports of persons burning to a crisp for no apparent reason.

The first reliable historic evidence of Spontaneous Human Combustion appears to be from the year 1673, when Frenchman Jonas Dupont published a collection of Spontaneous Human Combustion cases and studies entitled De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis. Dupont was inspired to write this book after encountering records of the Nicole Millet case, in which a man was acquitted of the murder of his wife when the court was convinced that she had been killed by spontaneous combustion. Millet, a hard-drinking Parisian was found reduced to ashes in his straw bed, leaving just his skull and finger bones. The straw matting was only lightly damaged. Dupont's book on this strange subject brought it out of the realm of folkloric rumor and into the popular public imagination.

On April 9, 1744, Grace Pett, 60, an alcoholic residing in Ipswich England, was found on the floor by her daughter like "a log of wood consumed by a fire, without apparent flame." Nearby clothing was undamaged.

In the 1800's is evidenced in the number of writers that called on it for a dramatic death scene. Most of these authors were hacks that worked on the 19th century equivalent of comic books, "penny dreadfuls", so no one got too worked up about it; but two big names in the literary world also used SHC as a dramatic device, and one did cause a stir.

The first of these two authors was Captain Marryat who, in his novel Jacob Faithful, borrowed details from a report in the Times of London of 1832 to describe the death of his lead character's mother, who is reduced to "a sort of unctuous pitchey cinder."

Twenty years later, in 1852, Charles Dickens used Spontaneous Human Combustion to kill off a character named Krook in his novel Bleak House. Krook was a heavy alcoholic, true to the popular belief at the time that SHC was caused by excessive drinking. The novel caused a minor uproar; George Henry Lewes, philosopher and critic, declared that SHC was impossible, and derided Dickens' work as perpetuating a uneducated superstition. Dickens responded to this statement in the preface of the 2nd edition of his work, making it quite clear that he had researched the subject and knew of about thirty cases of SHC. The details of Krook's death in Bleak House were directly modeled on the details of the death of the Countess Cornelia de Bandi Cesenate by this extraordinary means; the only other case that Dickens actually cites details from is the Nicole Millet account that inspired Dupont's book about 100 years earlier.

In 1951the Mary Reeser case recaptured the public interest in Spontaneous Human Combustion. Mrs. Reeser, 67, was found in her apartment on the morning of July 2, 1951, reduced to a pile of ashes, a skull, and a completely undamaged left foot. This event has become the foundation for many a book on the subject of SHC since, the most notable being Michael Harrison's Fire From Heaven, printed in 1976. Fire From Heaven has become the standard reference work on Spontaneous Human Combustion.

On May 18, 1957, Anna Martin, 68, of West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was found incinerated, leaving only her shoes and a portion of her torso. The medical examiner estimated that temperatures must have reached 1,700 to 2,000 degrees, yet newspapers two feet away were found intact.

On December 5, 1966, the ashes of Dr. J. Irving Bentley, 92, of Coudersport, Pennsylvania, were discovered by a meter reader. Dr. Bentley's body apparently ignited while he was in the bathroom and burned a 2-1/2-by-3-foot hole through the flooring, with only a portion of one leg remaining intact. Nearby paint was unscorched.

Perhaps the most famous case occurred in St. Petersburg, Florida. Mary Hardy Reeser, a 67-year-old widow, spontaneously combusted while sitting in her easy chair on July 1, 1951. The next morning, her next door neighbor tried the doorknob, found it hot to the touch and went for help. She returned to find Mrs. Reeser, or what was left of her, in a blackened circle four feet in diameter.

All that remained of the 175-pound woman and her chair was a few blackened seat springs, a section of her backbone, a shrunken skull the size of a baseball, and one foot encased in a black stain slipper just beyond the four-foot circle. Plus about 10 pounds of ashes.

The police report declared that Mrs. Reeser went up in smoke when her highly flammable rayon-acetate nightgown caught fire, perhaps because of a dropped cigarette.

But one medical examiner stated that the 3,000-degree heat required to destroy the body should have destroyed the apartment as well. In fact, damage was minimal - the ceiling and upper walls were covered with soot. No chemical accelerants, incidentally, were found.

In 1944 Peter Jones, survived this experience and reported that there was no sensation of heat nor sighting of flames. He just saw smoke. He stated that he felt no pain.

Theories about Spontaneous Human Combustion

- Alchoholism - many Spontaneous Human Combustion vicitms have been alcoholics. But experiments in the 19th century demonstrated that flesh impregnated with alcohol will not burn with the intense heat associated with Spontaneous Human Combustion.

- Deposits of flammable body fat - Many victims have been overweight - yet others have been skinny.

- Devine Intervention - Centuries ago people felt that the explosion was a sign from God of devine punishment.

- Build-up of static electricity - no known form of electrostatic discharge could cause a human to burst into flames.

- An explosive combination of chemicals can form in the digestive system - due to poor diet.

- Electrical fields that exist within the human body might be capable of 'short circuiting' somehow, that some sort of atomic chain reaction could generate tremendous internal heat.

No satisfactory explanation of Spontaneous Human Combustion has ever been given. It is still an unsolved mystery.

What Remains After a Spontaneous Human Combustion Event

- The body is normally more severely burned than one that has been caught in a normal fire.

- The burns are not distributed evenly over the body; the extremities are usually untouched by fire, whereas the torso usually suffers severe burning.

- In some cases the torso is completely destroyed, the bones being reduced completely to ash.

- Small portions of the body (an arm, a foot, maybe the head) remain unburned.

- Only objects immediately associated with the body have burned; the fire never spread away from the body. SHC victims have burnt up in bed without the sheets catching fire, clothing worn is often barely singed, and flammable materials only inches away remain untouched.

- A greasy soot deposit covers the ceiling and walls, usually stopping three to four feet above the floor.

- Objects above this three to four foot line show signs of heat damage (melted candles, cracked mirrors, etc.)

- Although temperatures of about 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit are normally required to char a body so thoroughly (crematoria, which usually operate in the neighborhood of 2,000 degrees, leave bone fragments which must be ground up by hand), frequently little or nothing around the victim is damaged, except perhaps the exact spot where the deceased ignited.

Types of Spontaneous Human Combustion

Some events of Spontaneous Human Combustion are witnessed but some are not.

All reported cases have occurred indoors.

The victims were always alone for a long period of time.

Witnesses who were nearby (in adjacent rooms) report never hearing any sounds, such as cries of pain or calls for assistance.

In the witnessed combustions - people are actually seen by witnesses to explode into flame; most commonly. Here the witnesses agree that there was no possible source of ignition and/or that the flames were seen to erupt directly from the victim's skin. Unfortunately, most of the known cases of this type are poorly documented and basically unconfirmed. Sometimes there are no flames seen by the witness.

Non-fatal cases - Unfortunately, the victims of these events generally have no better idea of what happened to them than do the investigators; but the advantage to this grouping is that a survivor can confirm if an event had a simple explaination or not. Thus, there are far fewer cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion with survivors that can be explained away by skeptics without a second look.

Sometimes victims develop burns on their bodies that have no known external cause. These strange wounds commonly start as small discomforts that slowly grow into large, painful marks.

Sometimes the victim will exhibit a mysterious smoke from the body. In these odd and rare occurences smoke is seen to emanate from a person, with no associated fire or source of smoke other than the person's body.

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Croatian teenager wakes up from a coma speaking fluent German

Croatian doctors are baffled after a teenage girl who fell into a mysterious coma woke up speaking fluent German.

The parents of the 13-year-old from the southern town of Knin said their daughter had only just started studying German at school and had been trying to read German books and watch German television - but had never been that good in German.

But since waking up the teenager has been unable to speak Croatian and even refused it, but communicates only in perfect German far superior to her mastery of the language she had when she was taken ill.

Split's KB Hospital director Dujomir Marasovic said they were still trying to find out what caused the mysterious coma and why the girl has apparently forgotten how to speak Croatian.

Marasovic added: 'You never know when recovering from such a trauma how the brain will react. Obviously we have some theories although at the moment we are limited in what we can say because we have to respect the privacy of the patient.'

He said the condition was so unusual that numerous doctors have examined the 13-year-old including German-speaking doctors to try and get to the bottom of the mystery.

Nurse Marika Lenovic, 28, said: 'The case has attracted a lot of interest, not just among the media but also among medical professionals.'

The girl is still being cared for at the hospital and is receiving regular visits from her family although there has reportedly been a large degree of frustration at the fact that they can no longer communicate with each other.

Hospital staff have even had to use an interpreter to translate the teenager's words to her family although apparently when they speak to her in Croatian she does understand - but she cannot respond in anything other than German.

Psychiatric expert dr Mijo Milas who has been involved in the case said: 'In earlier times this would have been referred to as a miracle, we prefer to think that there must be a logical explanation - its just that we haven't found it yet.

'There are references to cases where people who have been seriously ill and perhaps in a coma have woken up being able to speak other languages - sometimes even the Biblical languages such as that spoken in old Babylon or Egypt - at the moment though any speculation would remain just that - speculation - so it's better to continue tests until we actually know something.'

The teenager was only in the coma for 24 hours, and it's thought it may have been prompted by extremely high body temperature.

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Mexico feel 7.2 quake

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — One of the strongest earthquakes to hit Southern California in decades shook tens of millions of people in two countries and three states on Sunday, swaying buildings from Los Angeles to Phoenix to Tijuana. At least two people were killed in Mexico.

The 7.2-magnitude quake struck at 3:40 p.m. PT, about 38 miles southeast of the border city of Mexicali, Mexico, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It had a shallow depth of 10 kilometers. Three aftershocks of magnitudes 5.1, 4.5 and 4.3 followed within the hour and dozens of smaller temblors struck later.

"It sounds like it's felt by at least 20 million people at this point," USGS seismologist Lucy Jones said. "Most of Southern California felt this earthquake."

The earthquake was felt the hardest in Mexicali, a bustling commerce center along Mexico's border with California.

Baja California state Civil Protection Director Alfredo Escobedo said a man was killed when his home collapsed just outside of Mexicali. He said the other man was killed when he panicked as the ground shook, ran into the street and was struck by a car.

At least 100 people were injured, most of them struck by falling objects. At least 20 aftershocks were felt in the city, he said.

"It has not stopped trembling in Mexicali," he said.

Power was out in virtually the entire city and the blackout was expected to last at least 14 hours, Escobedo said.

All 300 patients had to be evacuated from the Mexicali General Hospital to private clinics because the building had no electricity or water. But the emergency generators powering the private clinics might not last long and authorities might have to move patients to hospitals outside the city, he said.

At least 20 people were trapped in two stores when the electrical doors would not open but firefighters quickly freed them, Escobedo said. Authorities initially feared people were trapped in homes but Escobedo said that was not the case.

The parking garage at Mexicali's city hall also collapsed, Escobedo said, but no one there was hurt.

Several Landslides forced the closure of the toll free highway connecting Tijuana to Mexicali and slowed traffic on the toll road.

As darkness fell there were growing reports of damage on the U.S. side of the border in Calexico, a city of about 27,000, but no injuries. The Calexico City Council met and declared a state of emergency.

Law enforcement vehicles guarded downtown streets in Calexico, where windows were shattered and bricks and plaster had fallen from some buildings.

Calexico police Lt. Gonzalo Gerardo said most of the damage occurred in downtown Calexico where buildings that were constructed in the 1930s and '40s and not retrofitted for an earthquake of this magnitude.

"Downtown is going to remain closed until further notice. I honestly doubt that it will reopen soon," he said. "You've got a lot of cracks. You've got a lot of broken glass. It's unsafe for people to go there."

The southeast portion of the city lost electricity for about four hours.

Rosendo Garcia, 44, said he was driving his daughter home from work when the quake struck.

"It felt like I was in a canoe in the middle of the ocean," he said.

He said homes in his trailer park were seriously damaged, including one that was knocked off its foundation

His wife, Elvia Garcia, 47, said her refrigerator door flew open and the food fell out. Her TV and computer crashed to the ground. All the plates were broken.

"It was tremendous," she said.

The Fire Department responded to several calls to transport sick and elderly people to hospitals because of power outages and gas problems. A senior living center built in the early 1900s was evacuated and the people were moved to a shelter by the American Red Cross.

Lights shattered, ceiling tiles fell and shelves collapsed at a Subway sandwich restaurant in Calexico, said manager Rosie Arellano.

"Everything is shut down, the whole town," Arellano said. "All the stop lights and the street lights are out. We have no power."

More than 100 miles west of the epicenter, San Diego's Sheraton Hotel and Marina was briefly evacuated after minor cracks were discovered in the floors, said Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Maurice Luque. All guests were allowed to return.

Susan Warmbier was putting away her groceries in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista when her husband asked, "Is the house moving?"

"We turned and we looked at the house, and it was actually moving. You could see it slightly moving left to right," she said.

A heavy chandelier in the couple's dining room "was just swaying like someone had just jumped from it," she said. There was no sound from the quake itself, but she added, "All of the dogs in the neighborhood were just barking crazy."

Elsewhere in San Diego, there were reports of shattered windows, broken pipes and water main breaks in private buildings, but no reports of injuries, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Maurice Luque said. Coronado Bridge over San Diego Bay was briefly closed by the California Highway Patrol as a precaution.

Across the border in Tijuana, Mexico, the quake caused buildings to sway and knocked out power in some areas. Families celebrating Easter ran out of their homes, with children screaming and crying.

"I grabbed my children and said, 'Let's go outside, hurry, hurry!"' said Elizabeth Alvarez, 54, who said she was just getting ready to leave her house with her kids in an eastern Tijuana neighborhood when the quake hit.

No tsunami warning was issued, but hundreds of people on Tijuana's crowded beach feared the worst and fled when they felt the ground shake, said Capt. Juan Manuel Hernandez, the city fire department's chief of aquatic rescue. The beach filled up again within an hour.

Scientists said the main earthquake probably occurred on a fault that hadn't ruptured in over a century. Preliminary data suggest the quake occurred on the Laguna Salada fault, which last broke in 1892 and unleashed a magnitude-7.2.

U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Erik Pounders describes the area as a "chaotic" system of faults that needs more research.

The main quake was initially reported as magnitude-6.9. The updated magnitude was still an estimate, but if it holds it would be California's largest temblor since the 7.3-magnitude Landers quake hit in 1992, Jones said. There were at least two other 7.2-magnitude quakes in the last 20 years.

The main quake was felt hundreds of miles away in Phoenix, where residents rarely feel the earth shake.

Jacqueline Land said her king-sized bed in her second-floor Phoenix-area apartment felt like a boat gently swaying on the ocean.

"I thought to myself, 'That can't be an earthquake. I'm in Arizona,"' the Northern California native said.

Mike Wong, who works at a journalism school in downtown Phoenix, said he was in his second-floor office when he heard "cracking sounds, like Rice Krispies," and felt the building sway. He said the swaying lasted for "just a few seconds," and he didn't notice any damage.

The quake was felt in the fire and medical dispatch center in downtown Las Vegas, but there were no reports of damage or injuries, according to Tim Szymanski, a spokesman for Las Vegas Fire and Rescue.

Strong shaking was reported across much of Southern California. The earthquake rattled buildings on the west side of Los Angeles and in the San Fernando Valley, interrupting Easter dinners. Some stalled elevators were reported, water sloshed out of swimming pools and wine jiggled in glasses.

Power outages were rare, and mostly brief. Most of the 3,000 customers who lost power in southwestern Arizona, and the more than 5,000 who went dark in Southern California, regained power within minutes, utility officials said.

Clint Norred, a spokesman for the Yuma, Ariz., Police Department, said the quake was very strong there but he'd heard no reports of injuries or major damage. "In my house, it knocked a couple of things off the wall," he said.

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Speed up your old PC

It's not your imagination. That computer you bought a few years ago really is slower. Programs take longer to open and so do Web pages. Booting your machine takes an eternity. This doesn't necessarily mean it's time for a new computer. You just need to bring it back up to speed. I'll tell you how to do just that. Links to programs and sites I mention are at www.komando.com/news.

Check for malware

Spyware, adware and viruses slow your machine. Malware shouldn't be a problem if you use up-to-date security software. Still, scan your machine for viruses and spyware and remove any problems found. If you need security software, visit my site for free programs.

Clean your hard drive

A full hard drive slows down your computer. It will take longer to access files. So, clean it up. Windows and programs you install often create temporary and setup files. Use Disk Cleanup to remove them. Access Disk Cleanup by clicking Start, then All Programs, Accessories, System Tools and Disk Cleanup.

After the program scans your drive, you'll see a list of file categories. Clear Temporary files, Temporary Internet Files and the Recycle Bin. Make your selections and click OK. It may take a few minutes to delete the files.

Remove unwanted programs

You probably have plenty of programs that you no longer use. They're probably slowing you down.

Remove unwanted programs via Windows' Control Panel. Click Start, then Control Panel. In Windows Vista, double-click Programs and Features. In Windows XP, double-click Add or Remove Programs. Select a program to uninstall and click Uninstall in Vista. In XP, click Change/Remove. Follow the prompts.

Clean restore points

System Restore lets you roll back your Windows settings to an earlier time. It's a handy feature. But too many restore points can slow down certain processes. Clearing old restore points can speed up your PC.

Click Start, then All Programs, Accessories, System Tools and System Restore. In XP, click System Restore Settings. Select "Turn off System Restore." Click Apply and then Yes to confirm. Restart System Restore. When prompted, click Yes to re-enable System Restore.

In Vista, click "open System Protection." Deselect your Drive and confirm your choice. Click OK. Close and reopen System Restore. Click "open System Protection." Click OK. Close System Restore. Reboot your machine to create a new restore point.

Defragment your drive

Windows often splits files, storing parts in separate areas of the hard drive. This file fragmentation makes your computer work harder to access files. Overcome this problem by defragmenting the drive. Data is rearranged for more efficient access. Read and write times will improve.

Click Start, then All Programs, Accessories, System Tools and Disk Defragmenter. Select your C: drive and click Analyze. Then, click Defragment. Don't use your computer or leave programs running while using Disk Defragmenter. It will cause errors.

Check for errors

Errors may also be slowing your hard drive down. Error Checking finds and fixes them for you. It also checks the integrity of your files.

Open My Computer and right-click the C: drive. Select Properties. Click Check Now in the Error-checking section of the Tools tab. Select "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors." Click Start. Allow Windows to fix any bad sectors that are found.

Switch to OpenDNS

You can speed up Web browsing by using a different DNS server. A DNS server helps your browser locate pages online. Your DNS requests may be going through several, distant servers. Instead, use OpenDNS.

OpenDNS sends requests to the closest server. Once you sign up for an account, you have to make a few simple changes on your machine. The service's site walks you through the process. Clean your hardware

The outside of your computer needs to be cleaned, too. Your keyboard may be filthy, and your monitor may be covered with dust. The fan vents are magnets for dust, pet hair and other things that don't belong inside your computer.

Start by wiping down your monitor. Turn it off and unplug it from the power socket. Use a soft, lint-free cloth that is slightly damp. Avoid paper towels and window cleaners; they can scratch and cloud the display.

If you have a standard, no-frills keyboard, run it through the dishwasher. Allow it to dry completely before using. Otherwise, unplug the keyboard and wipe it down with a damp cloth. Canned air can remove debris between keys. Likewise, use canned air to clear your computer's vents.

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Alzheimer's disease - stage by stage

How an Alzheimer's caretaker's life and challenges may evolve as their loved one's disease progresses:

Early stage

•May notice patient is more anxious, forgets friends' names and telephone numbers, places everyday items in the wrong storage locations, leaves projects (laundry, meals) unfinished, has trouble making change and balancing a checkbook.

•May need to take over some household responsibilities — like bill-paying — if not already doing them.

•If patient's work life is suffering, caregiver also may need to take on more financial responsibility.

Middle stage

•Patient will need more physical help: bathing, shaving, dressing, driving.

•Sometimes the healthy spouse or family member will try to protect a loved one as he declines, portray him as functioning at a higher level than he actually is, especially if the patient has had a prestigious or intellectual career.

•There may be behavioral changes in the patient's sleep-wake cycle and more apathy, which may disrupt caretaker's life and cause depression.

•More safety measures should be taken, including use of a device that tracks patient in case he wanders. It's a time to begin thinking about and planning for end-stage care in or outside the home and making sure finances are in order.

•It may be a good time to seek out emotional counseling, as well as additional help from other family members or professionals.

Late stage

•Patient behavior may vary drastically at this stage, from subdued to delusional and paranoid.

•Depending on family resources, a nursing home, day care center or in-home health aide may be needed. A social worker or state aging agency can send someone to the home to assess what is needed at this time.

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New Written Language of Ancient Scotland Discovered

Once thought to be rock art, carved depictions of soldiers, horses and other figures are in fact part of a written language dating back to the Iron Age.
THE GIST:

• A new written language, belonging to the early Pict society of Scotland, has just been identified.
• Stylized rock engravings have been found on hundreds of Pictish Stones.
• If the writing can be deciphered, it would provide a unique insight into early Scottish history.

The ancestors of modern Scottish people left behind mysterious, carved stones that new research has just determined contain the written language of the Picts, an Iron Age society that existed in Scotland from 300 to 843.

The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, instead concludes that the engravings represent the long lost language of the Picts, a confederation of Celtic tribes that lived in modern-day eastern and northern Scotland.

"We know that the Picts had a spoken language to complement the writing of the symbols, as Bede (a monk and historian who died in 735) writes that there are four languages in Britain in this time: British, Pictish, Scottish and English," lead author Rob Lee told Discovery News.

"We know that the three other languages were -- and are -- complex spoken languages, so there is every indication that Pictish was also a complex spoken language," added Lee, a professor in the School of Biosciences at the University of Exeter.

He and colleagues Philip Jonathan and Pauline Ziman analyzed the engravings, found on the few hundred known Pictish Stones. The researchers used a mathematical process known as Shannon entropy to study the order, direction, randomness and other characteristics of each engraving.

The resulting data was compared with that for numerous written languages, such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese texts and written Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Ancient Irish, Old Irish and Old Welsh. While the Pictish Stone engravings did not match any of these, they displayed characteristics of writing based on a spoken language.

Lee explained that writing comes in two basic forms: lexigraphic writing that is based on speech and semasiography, which is not based on speech.

"Lexigraphic writing contains symbols that represent parts of speech, such as words, or sounds like syllables or letters, and tends to be written in a linear or directional manner mimicking the flow of speech," he said. "In semasiography, the symbols do not represent speech -- such as the cartoon symbols used to show you how to build a flat pack piece of furniture -- and generally do not come in a linear manner."

Although Lee and his team have not yet deciphered the Pictish language, some of the symbols provide intriguing clues. One symbol looks like a dog's head, for example, while others look like horses, trumpets, mirrors, combs, stags, weapons and crosses.

The later Pictish Stones also contain images, like Celtic knots, similar to those found in the Book of Kells and other early works from nearby regions. These more decorative looking images frame what Lee and his team believe is the written Pictish language.

"It is unclear at the moment whether the imagery, such as the knots, form any part of the communication," Lee said. He believes the stones also contain semasiographic symbols, such as a picture of riders and horn blowers next to hunting dogs on what is called the Hilton of Cadboll stone. Yet another stone shows what appears to be a battle scene.

Paul Bouissac, a University of Toronto professor who is one of the world's leading experts on signs and symbols, told Discovery News that he agrees "it is more than plausible that the Pictish symbols are examples of a script, in the sense that they encoded some information, which also had a spoken form."

What is known about a writing system, however, "does not amount to deciphering this putative script," Bouissac added.

"We will have to wait for the discovery of what would be the Pictish equivalent of the Rosetta Stone, which made possible the cracking of the Egyptian hieroglyphic code," he said. "This may or may not ever happen."

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The ancient Rosslyn Chapel

The ancient Rosslyn Chapel, beloved as the key to mysteries surrounding The Da Vinci Code, the Holy Grail and the Knights Templar, has thrown up another unfathomable puzzle: what lies behind the secret of the bees?

Builders renovating the 600-year-old chapel have discovered two beehives carved within the stonework high on the pinnacles of the roof. They are thought to be the first man-made stone hives ever found.

It appears the hives were carved into the roof when the chapel was built, with the entrance for the bees formed, appropriately, through the centre of an intricately carved stone flower. The hives were found when builders were dismantling and rebuilding the pinnacles for the first time in centuries.

Malcolm Mitchell, from Page Park, the architects on the £7 million restoration, said it appeared the chapel had been a haven for the insects as long ago as the 15th century.

“From the research that we have done, this is a unique situation in Europe. We haven’t found any precedent of this type of hive before. We were quite taken aback. It’s very unusual.

“In Scotland, hives are so often made of baskets which can be lifted and moved around. It was particularly a surprise because the hives themselves are the ideal size for bees to inhabit — hollowed out to the size of a gas cylinder — but they were constructed purely as a haven for the bees. They weren’t built to harvest honey,” he added.

“It was just out of kindness and respect to the sacredness of these insects. Reverence to bees insects goes back historically to Egyptian times.”

Although human beings have collected honey from wild bee colonies since time immemorial, at some point they began to domesticate wild bees in artificial hives, made from hollow logs, pottery, or woven straw baskets. The Egyptians kept bees in cylindrical hives, and pictures in temples show workers blowing smoke into the hives, and removing honeycombs. Sealed pots of honey were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Bronze Age hives made of straw and unbaked clay have been dug up near Jerusalem. They were found in orderly rows, three high, each one accommodating around 100 hives. The Greeks also developed bee-keeping as an art, and celebrated it on gold rings and ornaments.

Honeycombs were found abandoned inside the hive in the north pinnacle, but, equally strangely, the hive on the south pinnacle did not have an entry hole for bees and therefore had not been occupied.

Mr Mitchell said: “It’s just another of Rosslyn’s mysteries. The north pinnacle was full of honeycombs which had been abandoned for some considerable years. The honey had all dried up.”

The experts believe the interior of the hives were lined with a coating to prevent the wild bees from gnawing away at the stonework.

Allan Gilmour, from Hunter & Clark stonemasons, the main contractors on the chapel, said: “I’ve never heard of man-made stone beehives. What I have seen is bees creating hives in stone. When we restored the Irvine Town House we found that bees had burrowed into the sandstone and created honeycombs. They had weakened the stone.

“Maybe at Rosslyn the monks had the same problem in the past and created the hive as a sanctuary.”

There is anecdotal evidence that visitors to the chapel, which dates back to 1446, used to be disturbed by bees. Mr Mitchell said some of the staff at the Rosslyn Trust were aware some years ago that there had been bees going into the cavity. The hives have now been reinstated within the rebuilt pinnacles on the roof of the chapel.

Rosslyn Chapel was built on the orders of William St Clair, Prince of Orkney. Begun in 1446. work ceased in 1484 when William died, so that the building was then in the form it remains in today.

Members of the Scottish Beekeepers’ Association said yesterday they had not heard of beehives created from stone. Mrs Una Robertson, the organisation’s historian, said: “I’m not an architect, but it’s the sort of thing that might have come my way. Bees do go into roof spaces and set up home, and can stay there a long time, but it’s unusual to want to attract bees into a building.

“Traditonally, bees were kept in a skep — made out of straw or dried grass. Skeps have been around for centuries. Wooden hives only came in since the 17th century. Bees have been kept in all sorts of containers , but I have never heard of stone.”

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