They are also subject to vagaries of the human psyche: "confirmation bias" ensures that strange behaviour not followed by earthquakes gets forgotten, and "flashbulb memory" can, should an earthquake strike, imbue quotidian animal antics with great import after the fact.
Mr Fuller's breathless tales of youthful guile, and his flashbulb snapshots of legendary New Yorkers, are as entertaining as a well-edited tabloid.His war memories are often electrifying.
Current flashbulb systems use four to 10 tiny bulbs, each in its own reflector, arranged in cube or bar carriers that plug into cameras designed for them.
The flashbulb, developed in the 1920s, is a transparent envelope filled with oxygen and a tangle of fine aluminum, magnesium, or zirconium wire ignitable by an electrically heated filament or, rarely, a chemical deflagrator.
Each flashbulb can, however, yield only one flash.
Sometimes the assassination of a leader is so shocking and profound that it triggers what psychologists call flashbulb memory in a country's citizens.
Those photos are early examples of flashbulb photography.
Perhaps unsurprising as he is no stranger to the glare of many a paparazzi's flashbulb.
Psychologists call this flashbulb memory in which a particularly vivid event burns itself into our memories like a snapshot.
Kim dons a fur hat fit for a chic Russian winter, poses with a flashbulb above a toilet ("I love bathroom selfies"), models huge amber sunglasses, blows us a kiss.
Every time she opened her mouth it was like a flashbulb going off.
