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Three earthquakes of significant intensity struck Monday in various parts of Asia. While it is not unknown for quakes to occur in clusters, especially along a single fault line, these quakes are spread across a wide geologic area. While all took place in the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” they were triggered in widely separated geologic zones.

The first struck at 09:24:31 Greenwich Mean Time near the coast of Honshu, Japan. This quake measured 6.9 on the Richter scale.

The second hit Halamahera, Indonesia at 19:23:28 GMT, and was measured at 7.0 on the Richter scale.

The third struck Mindanao in the Philippines at 23:13:29 GMT, and was measured at 6.8 on the Richter scale.
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Was there ever a civilization on Mars that looked up through a telescope at the Earth? A new picture from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor, which has been orbiting Mars since 1997, shows what they would have seen.

The image shows Earth in a “half-Earth” phase. The bright area at the top of the image of Earth is cloud cover over central and eastern North America. Below that, a darker area includes Central America and the Gulf of Mexico. Another bright feature is caused by clouds over South America. The image also shows our moon, as well as Jupiter, with 3 of its moons.
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Scientists now have evidence that Buddhists really are happier and calmer than other people. Tests on their brains show that the parts associated with good moods and positive feelings are more active, because of all the meditation they do. Researchers at University of California San Francisco say that the type of meditation done by Buddhists can change the amygdala, an area of the brain which controls fear memory, which is why Buddhists are less likely to be as shocked, surprised or angry as other people. Reseacher Paul Ekman says, “The most reasonable hypothesis is that there is something about conscientious Buddhist practice that results in the kind of happiness we all seek.”
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After the 1991 Gulf War, many U.S. soldiers came home with what came to be called Gulf War Syndrome. No cause for the debilitating condition has ever been proven, although guesses have included chemical weapons, smoke from burning oil wells, vaccinations and pesticides. Now researchers think it’s caused by uranium dust from U.S. weapons, because a group of Afghan civilians who have the same symptoms have “astonishing” levels of uranium in their urine.
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