The initial impact of a tsunami is dramatic, but the long-term effects of such flooding can be just as devastating for survivors. More »

Here are the best stories on Gizmodo today. Enjoy them! More »

How do you sway a crowd of people angry over the cost of putting food on the table? Not by comparing their worries to the cost of buying an iPad 2. More »

iFixit has the iPad 2 in their possession and they're tearing it down as we speak. But more importantly, they're posting photos as they complete each step in the teardown process, so you can observe in realtime. More »

The Japan tsunami hit the San Francisco Bay Area, but left nary a scratch. This video of the tsunami gently rippling rippling through the Bay is a far cry from the damage done across the Pacific Ocean. [Telstar via BoingBoing] More »

A federal judge in Virginia issued a ruling today that allows the Department of Justice to access the Twitter accounts and associated data like the email addresses of principal Wikileaks members, including Julian Assange. The measure comes after the DOJ subpoena'd those members back in January in a probe to determine whether or not they broke the law in their involvement with the organization. The group's lawyers have already decided to appeal, so we'll have to wait and see just how much heat the Wikileaks higher-ups will be in should an investigation truly begin. [CNet] More »

UPDATE: Japan has requested what looks to be limited foreign aid. So far, that call still seems to exclude several nonprofit aid groups (like The American Red Cross). More »

NASA is currently working on a project called the All-sky Fireball Network, its primary objective to monitor the entire night sky above the US for meteorite activity. Although limited to three fully automated cameras right now, a network of smart cameras that can record, analyze, and make publicly accessible all the events happening overhead could change our relationship with space. [Singularity Hub] More »

There's literally no such thing as a completely safe exposure to radiation. So official reports of 1000 times normal levels in the Fukushima plant's control room are very, very troubling—especially since this plant's venting air. More »

As the world watches what looks to be a meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, the Wall Street Journal reports the site's tested threshold for earthquakes was only 7.9—well below what transpired last week. More »

Today would be L. Ron Hubbard 100th birthday. Who is L. Ron Hubbard? He's the dude who invented Scientology. Yup, that same kooky scientology that turned Tom Cruise into a joke. More »

Matt Berry's Sexytime Soundtrack App uses the iPhone's accelerometer and cracks jokes depending on your level of movement. All you do is place the iPhone on your bed, flip open the app and listen to Matt Berry say crazy things like "Refund" and "Stop thinking about your wife". $1. Enjoy. [iTunes via Cult of Mac] More »

There's no official Facebook app on Android, so you'll have to make do with either the website or an unofficial app. Friendly Facebook is the unofficial Facebook app to get though as it has all things you might use on Facebook: photos, chat, feed, pokes, and whatever else you book the face for. Free. [iTunes] More »

An official with Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency told CNN that "a meltdown may be under way at one of Fukushima Daiichi's nuclear power reactors" (the plant that exploded). Earlier, it looked like things would be under control but the company began to experience difficulty cooling the reactor, even attempting to solve the issue by dumping seawater. [CNN] More »

This is amazing. A duck hunter attached a GoPro HD to his hunting dog and lets us see what it's like to hunt from a dog's perspective. We get to see the whole hunting process from a dog's perspective: the quick reactions, the animal instincts, the ease of swimming, the grab and even the dizzying water shake. Looks fun, but a lot of work too. [The Sugarcoat via Field and Stream] More »

Anandtech put the iPad 2 under a GLBenchmark 2.0 test, a great benchmark for seeing the power of the GPU (where Apple is claiming 9x the performance of the original iPad), and came away with some staggering results. The iPad 2, or I guess more specifically, the A5 chip is going to be an absolute beast for 3D gaming. It's incredible, it's almost silly to put the Tegra 2 (which is in the Xoom) and A4 in the same conversation as the A5. Anandtech says: More »

Kevin Fox, lead designer at Mozilla Labs, thinks the iPad 2 is using pogo pins instead of the more traditional switch contacts. They've actually filed patents for the pogo pin style headphone jack (which is smaller) before and have been interested in re-making the headphone jack entirely. The difference is super slight but Fox thinks it makes the headphone jack waterproof. Not that your iPad is, though. [Fury] More »

You're probably going to want to polish up and open Google Earth. Google has been processing new updated satellite images of Japan and they're constantly trying to find more as fast as possible. They're on top of Kushiro, Tokyo, Kamaishi, Fukushima (before outer structure collapse) and Yokohama right now. Find the full Japan map here and follow them @EarthOutreach for updates to new cities. [Google] More »

When asked a question whether Flash is going to become irrelevant, Jay Sullivan, VP of Products, said: More »

The iPad 2 is here. And yeah, it's pretty great. Despite the early looks, we're still finding surprises. Like? The screen is definitely better than the original iPad's. That's just the beginning. More »