Japan: How to Help

 From the Technolog on MSNBC (edited) of a few days ago; how to help those in Japan coping with the devastation:

• Text-message donations of $10 to the Red Cross using your cell phone.
  Text the letters REDCROSS to 90999.
  Or simply visit the organization's website.
  
• The International Medical Corps is providing relief teams, as well as supplies.
  You can donate here.
  Or, you can text MED to 80888 to donate $10.
  
• Save the Children is accepting donations for its Children's Emergency Fund.
  You can also text “JAPAN” or “TSUNAMI” to 20222 to donate $10.
  
• GlobalGiving, based in Washington, D.C., is providing relief and emergency services to victims of the earthquake and tsunami. Text JAPAN to 50555 to donate $10.
  
• The Salvation Army
  You can text JAPAN or QUAKE to 80888 to make a $10 donation to the Salvation Army’s relief efforts.
  
• World Vision, with a staff of 75 in Japan, focuses its relief efforts on children.
  Visit the website to donate, or call 1-888-56-CHILD (1-888-562-4453).
  You can text “4JAPAN” or “4TSUNAMI” to 20222 to donate $10.
  
• American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a humanitarian assistance organization that also helped in Haiti and in countries affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami. Phone: (212) 687-6200.
  
• Adventist Development and Relief Agency can be reached at (800) 424-2372, or text the word SUPPORT to 85944 to make a donation.
  
• The mGive Foundation, which helps with mobile donations, said these groups are also accepting text-based donations: Convoy of Hope, text TSUNAMI to 50555 to donate $10; World Relief Corp. of National Association of Evangelicals, text WAVE to 50555 to donate $10. "When prompted, mobile donors should reply with YES to confirm a one-time gift," the foundation says. "The $10 one-time donation will appear on the donor’s next mobile bill. All donations are tax deductible and receipts may be printed" from the mGive site. "Message and data rates may apply."
  
• Facebook has a Disaster Relief page.
  
• Portland, Ore.-based Mercy Corps  is "accepting donations to help survivors of Japan's earthquake and tsunami through our longstanding partner, Peace Winds Japan." Donations will go to meeting the "immediate and longer-term needs of the survivors," a spokesperson said.
  Text “MERCY” to 25383 to donate $10.

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And finally from the award winning Science blog of theoretical astrophysicist, Ethan Siegel, a different, possibly more comprehensive perspective on the cause(s) of earthquakes:

Ask a geologist, and they'll rightly tell you about plate tectonics, subduction
zones, fault lines, and much, much more. But there's a simple physics reason
that they happen underlying all of it.

The Earth is built like a giant, spherical layer cake. The inner core -- made up
of mostly iron and nickel -- is the densest of all the layers, while the
lithosphere -- the Earth's crust -- is the least dense.

This, by the way, is good.

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