Spinning Faster.

The change is negligible, but permanent: Each day should be 1.26 microseconds shorter, according to preliminary calculations. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.” So, on the bright side, I guess that means we’ll all live to be a little older. The devastating 8.8 earthquake in Chile has apparently permanently shortened Earth’s day.

“Such changes aren’t unheard of. The magnitude 9.1 earthquake in 2004 that generated a killer tsunami in the Indian Ocean shortened the length of days by 6.8 microseconds. On the other hand, the length of a day also can increase. For example, if the Three Gorges reservoir in China were filled, it would hold 10 trillion gallons (40 cubic kilometers) of water. The shift of mass would lengthen days by 0.06 microsecond, scientists said.”

Shedding Light on (a) Dark Matter?

The second law states that a force is proportional to an object’s mass and its acceleration. But since the 1980s, some physicists have eyed the law with suspicion, arguing that subtle changes to it at extremely small accelerations could explain the observed motion of stars in galaxies.Also on the subject of spinning, a new experiment finds a way to test Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) on Earth, which, if successful, could revise Newton’s heretofore ironclad 2nd law…and explain away the longstanding dark matter problem. (By way of my new favorite Twitter feed, @newscientist.)