The clock is ticking down to Dec. 21, the supposed end of the Mayan calendar, and from China to California to Mexico, thousands are getting ready for what they think is going to be a fateful day.
The Maya didn't say much about what would happen next, after a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count comes to an end. So into that void have rushed occult writers, bloggers and New Age visionaries foreseeing all manner of monumental change, from doomsday to a new age of enlightenment.
The 2009 disaster flick "2012" helped spark doomsday rumors, with its visions of Los Angeles crashing into the sea and mammoth tsunami waves swallowing the Himalayas. Foreboding TV documentaries and alarmist websites followed, sparking panic in corners of the globe thousands of miles from the Mayan homeland of southern Mexico and Central America.
A seemingly benign number that defines everything from a dozen eggs and the hours of day and night to the days of Christmas and the astrological signs, 12 may be in the spotlight today, 12/12/12.This date structure, in which the same two-digit number gets repeated three times, won't happen again until 2112, according to the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP).
But does the triple dose of 12 hold any meaning? Depends on whom you ask, but in Hong Kong and Singapore, couples are crowding the aisles for a chance to tie the knot on a day they say symbolizes love, according to news outlets. Las Vegas is also abuzz with nuptials, according to CNN, which also reported an Indian numerologist saying today is a great day to start a new business venture. Making the rounds online, a boy who will turn 12 today at 12:12 p.m. in Bronxville, N.Y., suggests we're all a bit "number crazy."
Earthquakes are some of the most catastrophic natural disasters of all time. They can easily destroy buildings, damage cities, and take countless lives in such a short time. Putting the said factors into consideration, those who reside in earthquake-prone locations should make it a point to familiarize themselves with earthquake survival guide programs since they can help them ensure the welfare of their friends and loved ones. [link]
What is it with mountains and the end of the world?
Last month, officials announced that a supposedly mystical mountain in France would be closed on Dec. 21 to prevent a flood of doomsday believers from coming to wait out the Mayan apocalypse. Now, a pyramid-shaped peak in Serbia is the site of similar frenzy, according to the Telegraph newspaper.
Bookings are pouring in for Dec. 21 at hotels around the mountain, the newspaper reported. That date is the day the ancient Maya Long Count Calendar completes a full cycle of creation, a fact that some believers have taken to herald an apocalypse.
Deadly tsunamis threaten Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the rest of the Caribbean and are an overlooked hazard in the region, geologists reported at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union here last week.
The Caribbean's beautiful tropical islands and coral reefs are strung along the junction of several major and minor tectonic plates. Many sit above a subduction zone, where two plates meet and one slides protestingly under the other, down into Earth's mantle. Other islands, like Haiti, straddle strike-slip faults, where plates slide side by side. The last decade's devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Sumatra have brought increased attention to the Caribbean, and scientists at the meeting compared the setting to that of Sumatra, Indonesia, both for its complexity and the risk of tsunamis and giant earthquakes. [LS]
A giant asteroid will make a flyby of Earth over the next few days, and armchair astronomers can watch the action live on their computers.
The near-Earth asteroid 4179 Toutatis, which is about 3 miles wide, will zoom within 4.3 million miles of Earth during its closest approach early Wednesday morning, Dec. 12. That's too far away to pose any impact threat on this pass, but close enough to put on a pretty good show through top-notch telescopes, researchers say. And some of those scopes will be tracking Toutatis' movements for the benefit of skywatchers around the world. The online Slooh Space Camera and Virtual Telescope Project, for example, will both stream live, free footage of the asteroid from professional-quality observatories.
Have you noticed that it has become trendy to bash preppers? For a long time the prepper movement was ignored, but now it has become so large that it is getting very difficult for the mainstream media to pretend that it is not there. In fact, it has been estimated that there are now approximately 3 million preppers in the United States alone. So now the mainstream media has decided that mocking the movement is the best strategy, and lots of “critics” and “skeptics” out there have picked up on this trend. Instead of addressing the very real issues that have caused millions of Americans to prepare for the worst, those criticizing the prepper movement attempt to put the focus on individual personalities. They try to find the strangest nutjobs they possibly can and then hold them up as “typical preppers”. The goal is to portray preppers as tinfoil hat wearing freaks that need to be locked up in the loony bin for their own personal safety and for the good of society. The criticism of preppers has really ramped up in recent months, and it will likely get even worse in 2013. The establishment does not like any movement that is outside of their control, and the prepper movement is definitely not under their control. [SHTFPLAN]
Despite the fact that there are innumerable genuine crises and real economic problems all over the world for which people should be making serious preparations, manufactured hysteria surrounding supposed Mayan prophecies about the end of the world on December 21 has dominated the headlines and stoked panic amongst significant numbers of people.
Here are ten reasons that suggest December 21st will not herald the end of the world as we know it.
Stargazers are about to get their annual celestial treat: A bright meteor shower, the Geminids, will grace skies worldwide this week, with a peak in activity on Thursday.
No telescope or binoculars are required to see the show — just use your bare eyes. The moon will set before the meteors come out to play around 10 p.m. local time, meaning the sky should be nice and dark for optimal viewing. There could be as many as 100 to 150 meteors an hour to gape at, for those patient enough to spend a few hours in a dark area and let their eyes adapt to starlight.
The end of the world is nigh, or so apocalypse observers would have you believe. The Mayan and Hopi Mesoamerican Long Count calendar may have begun in 3114BC and continued unerringly ever since, but it comes to an abrupt halt on 21 December 2012. Hence, the belief gaining ground among those who fall for this kind of thing that the cosmos will cease to exist in 12 days' time.
Although it may not yet have taken root in Britain's Acacia Avenues, the idea of an approaching cataclysm is troubling folk from Moscow to France, and the US to Brazil. The New York Times has reported that some spooked Russians have been panic-buying matches, fuel and sugar to prepare for the post-apocalypse. And they are not alone. A poll by Ipsos recently found that one in seven people believe the world will end during their lifetime (or, presumably, just after it). The same poll suggests that one in 10 people have experienced fear and/or anxiety about the eschatological implications of Friday week.
Ahead of December 21, which marks the conclusion of the 5,125-year "Long Count" Mayan calendar, panic buying of candles and essentials has been reported in China and Russia, along with an explosion in sales of survival shelters in America. In France believers were preparing to converge on a mountain where they believe aliens will rescue them.
The precise manner of Armageddon remains vague, ranging from a catastrophic celestial collision between Earth and the mythical planet Nibiru, also known as Planet X, a disastrous crash with a comet, or the annihilation of civilisation by a giant solar storm.
It's almost unimaginable: a tsunami more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) high bearing down on the island of Hawaii.
But scientists have new evidence of these monster waves, called megatsunamis, doing just that. The findings were presented here Wednesday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Unlike tsunamis from earthquakes, the Hawaiian tsunamis strike when the island chain's massive volcanoes collapse in humongous landslides. This happens about every 100,000 years, and is linked to climate change, said Gary McMurtry, a professor at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. [MSNBC]
A “doomsday prepper” in a rural area of Maryland became a target for police and the FBI after he told an undercover cop that he was “very irritated” about Barack Obama’s re-election, sparking an investigation that eventually led to 46-year-old Terry Porter being thrown in prison and having his home raided by 150 armed officers.
The series of events began when an anonymous person contacted state police in early November claiming Porter was “getting crazier and crazier” and had been stockpiling “machine gun-style firearms” at his home in Sharpsburg. The police followed up by sending an undercover officer to Porter’s home pretending to be a potential customer for his welding business.
According to a charging document filed in Washington County District Court, Porter “openly admitted to being a prepper” (as if this was an illegal act in and of itself) and said that he was “very irritated” about the recent presidential election. Porter had also invested in an underground bomb shelter and had installed surveillance cameras on his property.
Military drones used to track terrorists or insurgents in Afghanistan have also been flying across the U.S. homeland. Newly released documents show U.S. drone flights by the Air Force, Marine Corps and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the first time.
The Air Force has tested drones in U.S. skies ranging from hand-launched Ravens to the larger Reaper drones responsible for targeting and killing people overseas — all recorded through the Federal Aviation Administration licenses required to fly in national airspace. That information became public through a Freedom of Information Act request from the nonprofit digital rights organization Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). [LS]
Residents in one Queens neighborhood are crying foul after they were written up for failing to clean up the city’s own mess. It is yet another new complication in life after Superstorm Sandy.
Rosanne and Joe Cavaliere are still trying to clean up from the hurricane.
They have branches through their roof, busted front windows, and, to add insult to injury, they recently received a citation notice from the city.
Even after hurricane force winds subside, the dangerously high water and waves following a hurricane can present a threat: Hurricane warnings were not issued north of North Carolina for Sandy because the tropical storm’s wind strength had died down below the 74 mph limit.Yet Sandy brought billions of dollars to the Eastern Seaboard.
Citing criticism of the handling of Hurricane Sandy and the absence of alerts, the National Hurricane Center will now advise consumers about dangerous conditions even after winds have dropped.
"We want people to get ready for hurricane conditions, and that's why we are changing the definition of hurricane warning to be a little more inclusive of other things than just a hurricane," Chris Landsea, Science and Operations Officer at the National Hurricane Center, told AccuWeather.com. [FN]
The strongest earthquakes that strike the planet, such as the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Japan last year, occur at particular "hotspot" points of Earth's crust, a new study finds. (click to enlarge)
About 87 percent of the 15 largest earthquakes in the last century occurred in the intersection between specific areas on spreading ocean plates, called oceanic fracture zones, and subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides underneath another, according to the paper, published recently in the journal Solid Earth. The scientists used a data mining method to find correlations between locations of earthquakes over the last 100 years, the strength and geological origin.
For decades, a source of powerful earthquakes and volcanic activity on the Pacific Rim was shrouded in secrecy, as the Soviet government kept outsiders away from what is now referred to as the Russian Far East. But research in the last 20 years has shown that the Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands are a seismic and volcanic hotbed, with a potential to trigger tsunamis that pose a risk to the rest of the Pacific Basin.
A magnitude 9 earthquake in that region in 1952 caused significant damage elsewhere on the Pacific Rim, and even less-powerful quakes have had effects throughout the Pacific Basin. [SCIDAY]
Scientists using NASA satellite data and climate models have projected drier conditions likely will cause increased fire activity across the United States in coming decades. Other findings about U.S. wildfires, including their amount of carbon emissions and how the length and strength of fire seasons are expected to change under future climate conditions, were also presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Doug Morton of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., presented the new analysis of future U.S. fire activity. The analysis was based on current fire trends and predicted greenhouse gas emissions.
"Climate models project an increase in fire risk across the U.S. by 2050, based on a trend toward drier conditions that favor fire activity and an increase in the frequency of extreme events," Morton said.
