Whether any of this really has implications for such things as earthquake prediction is, of course, highly speculative.

ECONOMIST: Extra sensory perception

One of the loudest cheers came for a 14-year-old Brazilian boy who had used Arduino to create an earthquake prediction system ahead of the government.

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From a policy standpoint, the key to earthquake survival and resiliency, disasters experts will tell you, is better building codes, because prediction remains too unreliable to base evacuation decisions on.

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