Who measures this stuff:

 We are all worried about and our heart goes out to Japan and everyone effected by the recent earthquake/tsunami. On top of the obvious damage, the water damage the potential damage to the nuclear plants now we have to think about ... the earths rotation?

 

(according to yahoo news's story they picked up from the AP *here*) 

 

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Fri Mar 11, 4:15 pm ET

WASHINGTON – You won't notice it, but the day just got a tiny bit shorter because of Friday's giant earthquake off the coast of Japan.

NASA geophysicist Richard Gross calculated that Earth's rotation sped up by 1.6 microseconds. That's because of the shift in Earth's mass caused by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

That change in rotation speed is slightly more than the one caused by last year's larger Chile earthquake. But 2004's bigger Sumatra earthquake caused a 6.8-microsecond shortening of the day.

The Japan quake is the fifth strongest since 1900.

I was looking forward to the days getting longer.