Before Shock

One of the first questions people from outside of California ask when they find out you live or have lived in California is “Aren’t you afraid of earthquakes?” My typical reply is “Aren’t you afraid of <insert natural disaster most likely to hit their state />?” I’ve been through more than ten earthquakes and no one I know has died or been injured by one. I’ve known people who have died and people who have been injured by a tornado. The only thing that scares me about earthquakes is the fact that we haven’t figured out how to predict them yet. Countless studies have been done hoping to figure out how to predict an earthquake. None of them has succeeded in producing a reliable way to predict an earthquake. One of the most promising studies I’ve read about is being done by a guy named Friedemann Freund. His research has shown that when a rock is squeezed it generates a small electrical current. He plans to use this concept to develop a method to predict earthquakes. It is going to take a decade of research and millions of dollars, but it sounds like it might work. Wired.com has the story.