This week in science

Riveting amateur footage of one o the tornados that plowed through Tuscaloosa, AL, this week

Tornadoes are all too common in the US, especially this time of year. Last week was an especially deadly seasonal outbreak of big twisters:

A stunning tornado outbreak of incredible violence has left at least 202 dead across the Eastern U.S.; injuries probably number over a thousand, with 600 injured in the town of Tuscaloosa alone. The tornadoes carved huge swaths of damage, completely flattening large sections of many towns, and damage from the storms is likely to be the greatest in history for any tornado outbreak. Hardest hit was Alabama, with at least 149 dead; at least 36 were killed in neighboring Mississippi. NOAA's Storm Prediction Center logged 160 preliminary reports of tornadoes between 8am EDT yesterday and 8am EDT today.

Storm meteorologists estimate that over a dozen of these storms rated EF 4 to EF 5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale.  An EF-5 tornado is more powerful than any record hurricane over land. Such a storm will destroy solid reinforced structures such as parking garages, lift and disintegrate entire concrete foundations, and in some cases have plowed several meters into the ground.

• National Geographic is taking over Seed Science Blogs, and given the nature of that organization there are some changes in the works for existing Sciblings to consider:

  NatGeo is concerned about the tone of some of our blogging. It is a venerable, family-friendly company with a global reputation to worry about, so I'm neither surprised nor offended by that. But at the same time, I am used to writing without restriction. Seed was a smartass little startup and they let the bloggers write anything we wanted in whatever way we wanted. And I rather like it that way.

   

• Texas edges closer and closer to full on creationism. meanwhile I;ve heard that teachers under three years on the job are at risk of being laid off.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/UXvAPXvT3jk/-This-week-in-science

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