Instead of being built on top of the soil, the whole structure rests on over 300 isolators. These giant bearings let the building move laterally during an earthquake. After Istanbul got rocked by a magnitude 7.4 monster in 1999, and another major quake predicted to occur within the next 30 years, you can see why engineers decided to make this massive building shake-resistant.

As terrible as a massive earthquake would be, it would be incredible to see a building this huge move from side to side. Maybe we will in a future “World’s Strongest Man” event. [Wired]

In the first one, you can try to see how earthquakes propagate through the entire planet in three dimensions. I say “try” because while the graphic looks very cool, the interpretation of all those information layers is not easy in 3D space. In this case, a classic bi-dimensional cut — using the latest scientific data — would do a much better job at explaining what is basically a symmetrical movement through the planet’s core. The only better technique would be to add time through animation.

The slicing of Earth’s atmosphere has the same problems. It may be fun, but not necessarily clearer than the old 2D version:

The crosscut would show distances more accurately, and the whole representation would be easier to interpret than the fake 3D video. Not to talk about one undeniable fact: I like the Flash Gordon spaceships better. [Wired]

Some new vending machines in Japan are designed to hand out free drinks to all comers—but only in case of an emergency.

In the earthquake-prone country, specially marked vending machines currently being distributed to subway stations can be set to “emergency mode,” in which they hand out free drinks to everyone.

It’s a pretty great idea, as water is something that people need during a disaster and is just sitting in those vending machines. They’ve just got to make sure pranksters aren’t able to turn free mode on when there isn’t a disaster afoot. [Inventorspot via The Daily What]

The Zipingpu dam, located about three miles form the epicenter of the quake, holds 315 million tonnes of water. Some geologists believed that the weight of the water, and its ability to penetrate rock, could have changed the pressure on the fault line.

The reason scientists want to look into it further is because an earthquake of that magnitude is incredibly unusual for the area. In fact, according to Christian Klose of Columbia University’s Lamong-Doherty Earth Observatory, there had been no “major seismic activity” on the fault line for millions of years.

Fan Xiao, the chief engineer of the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, said that there have been many cases in which water reservoirs have triggered plate shifts. The government had been warned about the danger of building so many massive projects so close to a fault line but had not heeded them, Fan said.

By shifting a huge quantity of water into the region very suddenly, the dams could have relaxed the tension between two sides of the fault and allowed them to move apart. The effect would have been “25 times more” than a year’s worth of natural tectonic stress.

Further research is needed, the scientists admitted, but the government has been quick to deny that their massive construction projects have had any effect on the disaster. Researchers have been cut off from obtaining any more seismological and geological data.

The Hoover Dam is one of the most famous examples of water reservoirs allegedly causing earthquakes. The area around Lake Mead experienced several shakes (though nothing above a magnitude of 5) as the dam was filled. [Telegraph]

The multi-part displays, measuring at 1m x 3.2m and supporting a 240×768 resolution have been placed alongside a few main thoroughfares in the city, and are intended to give pedestrians disaster response instructions. E-paper is perfect for application like this, for a few reasons. A dynamic display is incredibly valuable in a disaster, as it can change its contents to suit the details of a specific situation. A traditional LCD panel would be the most obvious choice for such a thing, but it suffers from excessive power requirements and a lack a durability, which are crucial limitation for the earthquake-prone region.

Power consumption for the whole unit, which can pull data from servers via Wi-Fi, is a mere 24W, and E-paper can keep displaying data after power has been cut, though it can’t change it. A smaller unit, installed at bus stops, consumes just 9W. This test is just to explore the possibilities of low-power digital signage, but the advantages seem obvious—deployments like this are being held up by price more than anything else. [Tech-on]

Sure, they may not look very homey to us, but they’re an ingenious way to deal with the terrible problem of the thousands left homeless by the earthquake, while making sure older subway models don’t end up in a landfill somewhere. Altogether, the trains will accommodate roughly 1,200 people. [China News]

The tester got a hold of SentrySafe’s QA0005, essentially an armour-plated 250GB Maxtor drive. Once it was loaded with a ton of movies, the fun part involved popping the damn thing in the oven to bake away. Not enough heat? It was tossed into the fireplace too, surviving both with ease. (It’s supposed to withstand 30 min. at up to 843ºC.) The dunk test was far more impressive than the faucet shot above suggests: The thing went underwater, and stayed there for 12 full hours. Apparently it could have gone another 12.

Fire and water were no big whup, but the tester did have a problem with another potential act of God: The casing definitely wasn’t built to be shake-, make that quake-proof. Might want to save the $US400 and buy a backup drive instead, to keep somewhere far far away. [Wired]

* See? The dogs too.

In fact, I can already imagine Facebook’s status worldwide:

“Jason is taking off his pants as he watches the city turn into flames”
“Jesus is trying to repent quickly of all his sins and having his last Margarita”
“Brian is liveblogging the incoming tsunami. It’s cool”
“Mark is trying to finish Mario Galaxy II before the asteroid hits”
“Adam is looking for his bong”
“Matt is reading the NYT. Wha’?”
“Benny is looking for Tracie for a last snog”
“Strider is commenting in Brian’s liveblog”
“Lindsay Joy is watching her Lego minifigs melt”
“Curves is keeping it cool, like always”
“OMG Ponies is OMG”

Have your own favourite California earthquake video or your future Apocalypse Facebook status? Post it in the comments.