A slow-moving winter storm smacked the Northeast on Friday, unleashing heavy snow, rain and hurricane-force winds as it knocked out power to more than a million homes and businesses, turned Maine beachfront streets into rivers and piled on the misery in places hit by three major blizzards in less than a month.
Every form of travel was miserable if not impossible. More than 1,000 flights were canceled, bus service across northern New Jersey was knocked out and roads from Ohio to West Virginia to Maine were closed. State troopers used snowmobiles to reach motorists stranded for hours on an eastern New York highway.
"We're buried," said Graham Foster, highway superintendent in the town of Wappinger, one of the hardest hit areas in upstate New York. "My men have been out since 7 yesterday morning and we're not making much headway because there are so many trees down and wires down."
Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.
Have a good look at the photos and drawings. Look at the faces. Take in the unusual names. They may not be around much longer. These are humanity's vanishing relatives.
Today a group of the world's leading zoologists reveals the 25 most endangered members of the primates – the biological order which contains monkeys, tarsiers, lemurs, gibbons and the great apes, including, of course, humans.
We may be doing fine, at least in terms of numbers: at 7pm last night, the human population of the world had reached 6,803,362,494. It hit 6 billion in 1999 and will hit 7 billion possibly as soon as next year. But our primate cousins are in a very different position.
The results of the weekend storm that buried many Eastern U.S. locations in 2 feet or more of snow stands out starkly in a new satellite image.
The image from space reveals how the storm swept through Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia but largely spared New York City. The landscape is largely snow-free just north of Manhattan.
Nicknamed "snowpocalypse" and "snowmageddon," the blizzard dumped a record-breaking 32 inches at Dulles International Airport in the nation's capital, according to news reports.
The minute hand of the famous Doomsday Clock will be moved at 3pm tomorrow afternoon, for the first time in two years.
The timepiece in New York conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction, which is represented by midnight.
It was created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947, two years after the U.S dropped the first atomic bombs on Japan in World War II. It was originally set at seven minutes to midnight.
The clock has been altered 18 times since then by the Bulletin's scientific board. This now includes Professor Stephen Hawking and 18 other Nobel laureates.
The latest recorded time was two minutes to midnight in 1953 as the Cold War heated up between the U.S and Soviet Union.
Factors In Change to Include Nuclear Proliferation, Weapon Stockpile Shifts, and Climate Change - Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Will Open Event to World With Real-Time Streaming Web Broadcast.
NEW YORK CITY - NEWS ADVISORY - January 14, 2010 - The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) will move the minute hand of its famous "Doomsday Clock " at 10 a.m. EST/1500 GMT on January 14, 2010 in New York City. For the first time ever, the event will be opened up to the general public via a live Web feed at http://www.TurnBackTheClock.org.
The last time the Doomsday Clock minute hand moved was in January 2007, when the Clock's minute hand was pushed forward by two minutes from seven to five minutes before midnight.
The precise time to be shown on the updated Doomsday Clock will not be announced until the live news conference in New York City takes place on January 14, 2010. Factors influencing the latest Doomsday Clock change include international negotiations on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, expansion of civilian nuclear power, the possibilities of nuclear terrorism, and climate change.
The sun shows its dark side in "2012," when solar flares heat up the Earth's core, resulting in cataclysmic earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and dust smearing across John Cusack's face.
2. Impact event
When Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," the cosmos answered. "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" showed the differences in catastrophic threat between asteroids and comets, which is that asteroids make more money at the box office.
3. Geomagnetic excursion
In "The Core," Earth's magnetic field is in jeopardy when the planet's molten core ceases to rotate. The solution: Nuke it.
4. Global cooling
Nature's revenge is best served cold in "The Day After Tomorrow," after an Antarctic ice shelf falls into the ocean due to global warming and disrupts warm water currents, kick-starting another ice age.
5. Global warming
A depletion of the ice caps raises sea levels, submerging most land masses in "Waterworld" and forcing humans to drink urine in the absence of fresh water.
6. Pandemic
Nothing wipes out humanity like a pathogen. "12 Monkeys" showed us the upside to a viral contagion: We'll invent time travel.
7. Volcanism
An eruption of a "supervolcano" like the Yellowstone caldera (which occurs in "2012") could spew enough ash into the atmosphere to block out sunlight worldwide for years. Kiss your crops goodbye.
8. Resource depletion
Civilization collapses after oil production declines in the "Mad Max" series, but that doesn't stop the survivors from driving their gas guzzlers.
9. Nuclear war
Perhaps we don't worry enough about nuclear annihilation since the end of the Cold War, but "Dr. Strangelove" will always be remembered for introducing "bull-ridin' the bomb" into our lexicon.
10. Artificial intelligence
The creation of artificial intelligence becomes our undoing. Sentient machines harvest humans for energy in the "Matrix" trilogy, while a self-aware computer network sets off a nuclear war in the "Terminator" franchise.
11. Alien invasion
Aliens destroy all major cities on Earth in "Independence Day," which grossed $800 million worldwide. John Travolta, sporting dreadlocks and a codpiece, enslaves all humans in "Battlefield Earth," which sustained losses of about $45 million/
In a shocking surge, 24 Ontario residents have died in less than 72 hours from Swine Flu, the Public Health Agency of Canada reported on its website.
Ontario’s fatalities reported between November 10 and 11 a.m. EST on November 12 catapults the death toll from 37 reported on Nov. 10 to a total of 61. That is twice the figure of dead in Quebec and the highest of any province in Canada.
A DEADLY plague could sweep across Europe, doctors fear, after an outbreak of a virus in Ukraine plunged the country and its neighbours into a state of panic.
A cocktail of three flu viruses are reported to have mutated into a single pneumonic plague, which it is believed may be far more dangerous than swine flu. The death toll has reached 189 and more than 1 million people have been infected, most of them in the nine regions of Western Ukraine.
President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko has called in the World Health Organisation and a team of nine specialists are carrying out tests in Kiev and Lviv to identify the virus. Samples have been sent to London for analysis.President Yushchenko said: “People are dying. The epidemic is killing doctors. This is absolutely inconceivable in the 21st Century.”
During an early screening of Roland Emmerich's latest disaster flick 2012, which opens today, laughter erupted in the audience near the end of the film thanks to corny dialogue and maudlin scenes (among the biggest guffaw getters: a father tries to reconnect with his estranged son on the telephone, only to have the son's house destroyed just before he could say anything). Nobody wants to take anything seriously in a movie like this, in which digital mayhem is the draw. But if it were an audience of physicists, the laughter probably would have started in the first five minutes. You can't take any of the science seriously, although I give the filmmakers credit for creativity.
If you haven't heard, December 21, 2012 is supposed to be the day that the Mayan calendar ends (it doesn't really) and therefore somehow marks the end of civilization as we know it—notwithstanding the fact that the Mayan civilization ended centuries ago. (NASA has a good Q&A site that debunks the 2012 apocalypse nonsense.) Thankfully, the movie 2012 doesn't dwell on ancient predictions. Instead, it takes us straight to the, er, science. (Full story : Scientific American)
I would just like to clarifiy that this site does NOT make predictions or state anywhere that a disaster will in fact happen (2012 or otherwise). As much as I enjoy sifting through the e-mails I get... sometimes people get the wrong impression - and end up calling me "scare" or "fear monger". Nowhere does the site have a view on 2012 other than speculation, hype, and internet chatter. We have never stood behind any "predicted" event or disaster, the ultimate goal is to explore the potential ones that we may face. So please, before you e-mail me and say I'm trying to "scare" people.... read over the site and then give me your opinion. I think you'll find at no point to we make such assumptions, but instead try to approach the topics from a "what if" or "science fact" point of view.
PS: To the people that mail me just to insult me, thanks anyways. I still love ya
2012 is coming very soon. The movie, that is — the disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich depicting global catastrophe of Biblical proportions. The year itself is of course a few dozen months away, and there is growing interest, excitement, and concern for both events.
The film "2012," which opens Nov. 13, takes place, rather obviously, in the year 2012, though it could have been set in 1995 or 2013. The movie's disasters have no particular link to that year, it's just when the Earth happens to start burping earthquakes and farting fire. 2012 made a perfect promotional hook for the film, because the ancient Mayans predicted that the world would end that year, if not specifically on December 21, 2012.
That's one story, anyway.
Whether or not 2012 will bring cataclysmic volcanism or a great flood, it has undeniably brought a flood of books. New Age and doomsday authors have been cranking out 2012-themed books at an amazing pace over the past few years; there are literally thousands of such titles in print, with more on the way.
While many authors and 2012 "experts" are playing up the doomsday scenario, others believe that the year will bring not disaster but a new era of global harmony (as in what did not happen with the so-called Harmonic Convergence in 1987). It seems that anyone with access to a keyboard and an opinion on 2012 (or prophecy in general) is trying to cash in. (It will be interesting to see how many of those books will be for sale on Amazon.com for one cent on Jan. 1, 2013.)
With the upcoming disaster film "2012" and the current hype about Mayan calendars and doomsday predictions, it seems like a good time to put such notions in context.
Most prophets of doom come from a religious perspective, though the secular crowd has caused its share of scares as well. One thing the doomsday scenarios tend to share in common: They don't come to pass. Here are 10 that didn't pan out, so far. (MSNBC) - See also : Whoops! Failed Armageddon Prophecies + Predictions
The world is not coming to an end on December 21, 2012, the US space agency insisted Monday in a rare campaign to dispel widespread rumors fuelled by the Internet and a new Hollywood movie.
Sony Pictures's latest big screen offering "2012" arrives in theaters on Friday, with a 200-million-dollar production about the end of the world supposedly based on myths backed by the Mayan calendar.
The doomsday scenario revolves claims that the end of time will come as an obscure Planet X -- or Nibiru -- heads toward or collides into Earth.
The mysterious planet was supposedly discovered by the Sumerians, according to claims by pseudo-scientists, paranormal activity enthusiasts and Internet theorists.
Some websites accuse NASA of concealing the truth on the wayward planet's existence, but the US space agency denounced such stories as an "Internet hoax."
"There is no factual basis for these claims," NASA said in a question-and-answer posting on its website.
Doomsday predictions are about as common as instances of surviving doomsday prognostications. Prophets of doom can have religious or secular motivations. The latest scare, that the world will end in 2012, is rooted in myths of the Mayan calendar. Doomsday scenarios have been concocted around Halley's Comet, comet Hale-Bopp, Y2K and of course the writings of Nostradamus. But the world has not ended. (Live Science )
For the past 30 years, business leaders, former government officials and scientists have been secretly working on a plan to save humanity from destruction when the Earth collides with another planet on 21 December 2012.
They have set up a covert Institute for Human Continuity which has now agreed to go public and warn the world that there is a 94 per cent probability of "cataclysmic forces" destroying our planet in three years' time.
Its website offers survival kits and encourages people to sign up for a lottery to decide who will be among the lucky few chosen to be saved.
You are probably thinking that this is an elaborate hoax – you would be right. But hundreds of people have apparently been taken in by the nonsense put out by Sony Pictures as part of a "viral marketing" campaign for its film 2012, set for release next month.
Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.
Or is it?
Definitely not, the Mayan elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."
Although the swine flu outbreak of 2009 is still in full swing, this global influenza epidemic, the fourth in 100 years, is already teaching scientists valuable lessons about pandemics past, those that might have been and those that still might be. Evidence accumulated this summer indicates that the novel H1N1 swine flu virus was not entirely new to all human immune systems. Some researchers have even come to see the current outbreak as a flare-up in an ongoing pandemic era that started when the first H1N1 emerged in 1918.
As soon as the newest H1N1 virus burst onto the scene in the spring, it conspicuously assaulted the young and left the old mostly unscathed. To date, 79 percent of confirmed U.S. cases have been in people younger than 30 years and only 2 percent in people older than 65. In light of that lopsided attack pattern, investigators at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quickly started testing hundreds of human serum samples stored between 1880 and 2000, looking for evidence of past human experience with the novel H1N1 virus.
As the first wave of swine flu vaccine crosses the country, more than a third of parents don't want their kids vaccinated.
Some parents say they are concerned about side effects from the new vaccine - even though nothing serious has turned up in tests so far - while others say swine flu doesn't amount to any greater health threat than seasonal flu.
Jackie Shea of Newtown, Conn., the mother of a 5-year-old boy named Emmett, says the vaccine is too new and too untested.
"I will not be first in line in October to get him vaccinated," she said in an interview last month. "We're talking about putting an unknown into him. I can't do that."
A Pacific tsunami warning issued following strong earthquakes off Vanuatu has been lifted, after only a tiny wave was generated.
The first quake with a magnitude of 7.8 was followed about an hour later by one of 7.1, the US Geological Survey said.
The first epicentre was 295km (180 miles) north-northwest of Vanuatu's largest island, Santo, at a depth of 35km (21.7 miles).
People had already begun to move to higher ground.
In Vanuatu residents evacuated low-lying areas and fled to higher ground. In New Caledonia, schools in coastal areas were evacuated.
More than 170 people died last week when a tsunami triggered by a quake hit Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga.
All three nations were initially included in a "tsunami watch" - a lower level of alert than a tsunami warning - but were later upgraded to the warning level, before the warnings were cancelled.
Earlier on Wednesday, a 6.7-magnitude quake struck off the Philippines, but no tsunami warning was issued. (BBC News )
The volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat shot a plume of ash more than two miles into the sky today, lightly dusting the small island.
The venting by the Soufriere Hills volcano has been accompanied by more than 30 tiny earthquakes since last night, according to Paul Cole, director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory. He said it was the volcano's first sign of activity in 10 months.
"It's just a reminder that the volcano is still active," said James White Jr, acting director of the island's disaster management coordination agency. "It isn't something for us to panic over." (GUARDIAN )
The world ravaged by fires, earthquakes, meteor showers and floods and a heroic struggle for survivors.
It sounds like something straight out of Hollywood - and it is. This is the first glimpse of the latest U.S. blockbuster, 2012.
John Cusack leads an all-star cast, featuring Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Amanda Peet struggling to stay alive when the Earth is threatened with the biggest disaster man has ever known. Discuss this on our message boards!
The software, similar to the “spiders” that search engines use to index web pages, were originally developed in the 1990s to predict stock market movements.
The bots crawl through relevant web pages, noting keywords and examining the text around them. The theory is that this gives an insight into the “wisdom of crowds”, as the thoughts of thousands of people are aggregated. However, the technology was later appropriated for another, more controversial - some say nonsensical - use - predicting the future.
Swine flu 'could kill millions unless rich nations give £900m'
The swine flu pandemic could kill millions and cause anarchy in the world's poorest nations unless £900m can be raised from rich countries to pay for vaccines and antiviral medicines, says a UN report leaked to the Observer.
The disclosure will provoke concerns that health officials will not be able to stem the growth of the worldwide H1N1 pandemic in developing countries. If the virus takes hold in the poorest nations, millions could die and the economies of fragile countries could be destroyed.
Health ministers around the globe were sent the warning on Thursday in a report on the costs of averting a humanitarian disaster in the next few months. It comes as officials inside the World Health Organisation, the UN's public health body, said they feared they would not be able to raise half that amount because of the global downturn. Source : Guardian UK
Swine flu death rate similar to seasonal flu
The death rate from the pandemic H1N1 swine flu is likely lower than earlier estimates, an expert in infectious diseases said on Wednesday.
New estimates suggest that the death rate compares to a moderate year of seasonal influenza, said Dr Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University.
"It's mildest in kids. That's one of the really good pieces of news in this pandemic," Lipsitch told a meeting of flu experts being held by the U.S. Institute of Medicine.
"Barring any changes in the virus, I think we can say we are in a category 1 pandemic. This has not become clear until fairly recently."
The Pandemic Severity Index set by the U.S. government has five categories of pandemic, with a category 1 being comparable to a seasonal flu epidemic. Source : Reuters
UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited Wednesday a vault carved into the Arctic permafrost, filled with samples of the world's most important seeds in case food crops are wiped out by a catastrophe.
"The world faces many daunting challenges today, one of the greatest of which is how to feed a growing population in the context of climate change," a bundled-up Ban told reporters after he toured the site in the Svalbard archipelago some 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) from the North Pole.
"The seeds stored here in Svalbard will help us do just that. Sustainable food production may not begin in this cold Arctic environment, but it does begin by conserving crop diversity," he said.
New research from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) casts doubt on the Government's claim that swine flu cases have now peaked.
Data from an online survey found that 40 per cent fewer people with flu-like symptoms have consulted their GP since the introduction of the National Flu Service just over a week ago. This suggests the reported decline in the number of new cases may be skewed by the fact that many sufferers are now calling the flu line rather than their GP.
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