Something to Worry About Today

Okay, this is it. 2012. Time to become a prophet.

Just a few reasons to believe the end of everything will happen this year:

• The Mayan calendar ticks away till December 21^st, then stops for the first time in 5,125 years.
• An ancient prediction says that the world will end during the reign of the 112^th pope.  The present one is the 11^th, and he’s in his eighties.
• The Earth’s magnetic field is dangerously weak, maybe presaging a pole reversal.
• The Sun’s surface will erupt in unusually violent storms beginning near the end of the year.
• Volcanoes, mega-storms and earthquakes from space are likely, scientists say.

So, depending on whether you quote vanished Amerindians, St Malachi or NASA, you are eligible for a robe and placard that says The End is Nigh.

Or maybe just, “We’re toast.”

Something to Worry About Today

          The tundra is on fire. And we’re next, say the scientists.

          In 2007, lightning struck the Arctic tundra at a place called Anaktuvuk, setting it ablaze.  This was formerly impossible, because the mixed lichen and very hardy plants were always too moist to burn. But global warming has helped dry out the frozen landscape, leaving us perilously close to a thaw that will send enough greenhouse gases to heat up the world to terminal levels.

          Beneath the permafrost in the polar wastes are enormous deposits of methane and other forms of carbon. If the melt continues, the accumulated gases may drive up Earth’s temperatures at an unsustainable (and unstoppable) level.

          The fire at Anaktuvuk released more carbon in a single go than is emitted in two years by a city the size of Miami.

         So, please: no more jokes about flatulent cows. 

Something to Worry About Today

The looming problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has doctors worried.

Until recently, we relied on medical researchers to stay one step ahead of mankind’s oldest enemy, but now we hear we’re losing the fight. The miracle drugs that allowed us to scoff at maladies that killed our ancestors by the million are losing effectiveness as the microbes mutate and get stronger. One cause in particular seems difficult to tackle.

Germs get horny too.

According to bacteriologist Hugh Pennington, germs can reproduce without climbing all over each other like randy teenagers, but they do it anyway. As they do, they spread an enzyme that can make penicillin-related compounds useless.

The problem is so serious that in places like Scandinavia and Holland, doctors assume that patients transferred from British hospitals already carry the MRSA bacterium. As the enzyme, NDM-1, spreads, formerly curable infections with such germs as E-coli become all but untreatable.

Promiscuity in people is a hard enough nut to crack, as population planners and AIDS prevention professionals know. But you can’t get microbes to take cold showers.

Something to Worry About Today

 

Aliens are here, an international conference said last week, and they want your gold.

Ace doom spotter BKG tells us that a meeting called the UFO Science and Consciousness Conference, appropriately held in gold-rich Johannesburg, has concluded that extraterrestrial visitors came to Earth 300,000 years ago and have returned periodically ever since. Their purpose? Why, collecting gold of course.

Their strategy was to alter bits of their DNA, thereby creating humanity, and to use us as miners for the precious metal. In explanation, conference organizer Michael Tellinger said, “We are all obsessed with gold.”

So if you get tempted to hock the family jewels this recession, look carefully at the guy behind the counter.

           

Something to Worry About Today

Warm weather ahead? Yippee!  

There are some people around who look forward to global warming, who just can’t wait for balmy days on the Costa del Solihull.  And come to think of it, isn’t a bit of warm weather healthier, anyway?  Fewer colds and flu in winter? No problem, right?

Until you get malaria.

Scientists warn that even a small rise in average temperatures in Europe and North America could bring about new waves of deadly insect-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and encephalitis. To further complicate things, ticks and sand flies that carry maladies like Lyme disease and black fever would find our environment pleasant. Already, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Turkey have become danger areas for malaria.

When our book went to press in June, 2011, conventional wisdom had it that an average temperature rise of .8 degrees was the total rise since 1950.  Recently, the Berkeley Earth Temperatures programme upped the total to .911 C. At that rate, we would begin to see diseases against which we have no natural defences very soon.

Forget about new sun suits.  Buy mosquito nets instead.

Something to Worry About Today

Death by caffeine?

Every time you toss your latte cup in the bin, you’re killing off humanity’s most tireless allies. New reports say that honeybees are as easily affected by caffeine as we are and will often drown in the dregs of discarded cups.

Madurai Kamaraj University’s School of Biological Sciences found that over 25,000 bees died near five coffee outlets over a 30-day period. This amounts to “nothing short of apiscide,” says The Economic Times. Most bee deaths occurred between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm, prime coffee-drinking hours.

Sad news. But even worse when you realise that three-quarters of the world’s food crops are exclusively pollinated by the insects. A major loss of bees would result in a catastrophic famine scenario. Scientists already report that bees are in danger of mass die-offs as a result of a new virus. To make things worse, an Indian university has released data that the use of mobile phones has threatened hives by disorienting the direction sensors of the nectar gatherers.

No bees, no us. Keep that in mind next time you order a cappuccino.

Something to Worry About Today

Has it been 25,765 years already?

Cheery news found on the Net by fellow Doomwatcher Brad Gunn:

“The alignment of (our solar system with the axis of the galaxy or the galactic plane (about every 25, 765 years) will disrupt the orbits of the planets in our solar system generating huge chaos on each, and that this is the meaning of the Mayan calendar - it ends at the date of the next alignment of us with the galactic plane.”

Gee—it seems like only yesterday.

Something to Worry About Today

Grim news from medical researchers: your breakfast may kill you.

This warning isn’t the conventional one about dietary health. Abuse of antibiotics in meat production is bringing about a new crisis in human infections, the Lancet has warned. The journal denounced the “prophylactic” use of common antibiotics in pig and poultry farming.

By administering antibiotics to healthy animals to prevent their getting sick, the constantly mutating bacteria that cause illness in animals may be more likely to infect humans. Pathogens once easily dealt with in the “antibiotic age” have become resistant.  Already more than 25,000 people die each year from resistant strains in the UK alone.

The practice of wholesale dosing of farm animals, coupled with the slowed-down production of new antibiotics as firms withdraw research for financial reasons, has left the arsenals of doctors dangerously under-stocked. In trying to keep healthy the sources of bacon and eggs, farmers may be helping to kill off their breakfast-eating customers.

Muesli anyone?

Something to Worry About Today:

The Pill may be killing men off, a new study reports.

Researchers in a Toronto medical centre have identified a link between the widespread use of oral contraceptives and the incidence of mortality from prostate cancer. This is especially true in developed countries, where the Pill is used by large numbers of women.

Scientists have known for some time that oestrogen leakage from contraceptives has caused unusual effects in the environment. Fish with two sets of genitalia, sexually deformed otters and even penis shrinkage in Florida alligators are all blamed upon the increase of loose oestrogen in rivers. To worsen the problem, certain industrial by-products, such as a compound used for coating aluminium drink cans, have also been shown to produce oestrogen-like chemicals.

Is all life on Earth gradually becoming female?

See our chapter on Gender Erosion in The Coffee Table Book of Doom. Click on the cover for more information.

Something to Worry About Today

Space Age to Stone Age in eight minutes flat?

That’s how long it takes a massive solar flare to reach Earth from the Sun. And now it’s official: solar flares mean big problems for all of us during 2012, according to NASA.

While passing out the good news that a giant fireball from the Sun won’t destroy Earth next year, NASA also said that solar maximum flares (beginning in 2012) can cause serious disruptions to electronic equipment.  This, of course, is what modern civilization is almost entirely dependent upon.

In comparing solar storms to hurricanes, scientists said that just as in advance of terrestrial storms, precautions might need to be taken. This would include turning off the electronics and “getting out of the way”.

Severe enough flares can mean the disabling of satellites responsible for navigation and communications. A strong episode can render such things as cash points, mobile phones and air traffic control facilities encumbered or useless.

Not worried? See our new book for a list of some of the most drastic effects.

Something to Worry About Today

Is the world’s largest volcano getting ready to erupt and cause a global catastrophe?

The Yellowstone Caldera, the largest simmering reservoir of magma on earth, is showing worrying signs of blowing up, scientists report. If it does, an area the size of Europe will suffer complete devastation and ash up to hundreds of feet deep will collect thousands of miles from the crater. A “winter” caused by ash clouds blocking the Sun’s light would cause a global temperature drop of up to 20 degrees C, bringing about probable species extinction.

Including homo sapiens.

Recent studies have shown that the earth around the volcano has bulged by approximately ten inches, changing water levels in the National Park. This may mean that the 600,000-year cycle between eruptions is nearly at an end. It’s been 640,000 years since the last one.

That makes it 40,000 years overdue.

Something to Worry About Today

Is this the last chance for hot tamales, mariachis and tequila?

The Mexican government is using the end of the Mayan calendar to promote last-chance visits to their country. The calendar ends after a 5,000 + year run on 21 December 2012, giving yet more substance to the Doomsday predictions of scientists, priests and nonegenarian numerologists from California. Eeerily, this seems to mesh with a prophesy by St Malachy in 1143, who said that the world would end during the reign of the 112th future pope. The present incumbent, Benedict XVI, is the 111th, and he's 83 years old.

A full breakdown of some of the events that might come to pass in 2012 can be found in our book, The Coffee Table Book of Doom. Click on the cover opposite to see more.

While there's still time.

Something to Worry About Today

Alert: a huge asteroid is heading our way tomorrow, NASA scientists have reported.

The space rock, as big as four football pitches, will pass within .8 lunar distances—closer than the Moon. That’s a close shave in cosmic terms, and we hope the telescope boffins have got it right.

If not, the results of a collision would be a 4,000 megaton blast and a possible tsunami over 20 metres high. The dust cloud would probably cause an artificial winter that would decimate food production for anyone still around and who had an appetite.

This object will be back round in about 100 years.  Meanwhile, we have to worry about another big chunk of rock, expected in 2028, and passing even closer. There’s so much traffic up there these days that it keeps scientists busy making predictions.

Just hope they remember to look both ways.

Something to Worry About Today:

A cocktail of influenza viruses which already exist could become the next global killer, epidemiologists have warned.

Some such cocktails have already appeared, as when ordinary winter flu infects a patient at the same time as the more virulent swine flu. The more dangerous variety can then “hitch a ride” on the other and form a new illness. The nightmare scenario for human health involves a deadly bug such as bird (avian) flu, not normally found in humans, attaching itself to winter flu viruses and mutating into an attack nobody is resistant to.

Medical scientists will keep working on vaccines, even though such a flu contagion could spread in days across the globe. Meanwhile, wash your hands. 

Then wash them again.

Something To Worry About Today

It seems that Harold Camping, the 90-year-old prophet of California radio, has apologised for miscalculating the date of the Apocalypse. That seems OK, but he insists that a "spiritual rapture" did take place back in May.

Maybe you didn't notice it. So if you're still walking around, the bad news is that you've already missed the plane.

Never mind-- today sees the launch of our book, The Coffee Table Book of Doom, which sorts out the end times in a way that might not be able to rescue you but will make the end of the world more entertaining. You can click on the picture to your right to get a copy for yourself.

Something to Worry About Today

Uh-oh.

Just when we thought we had proof that the world is heating up, the research colleague of Professor Richard Muller of the Berkeley Earth Surfaces Temperature programme says he is wrong.

According to Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Prof Muller failed to mention that data exists showing that the earth’s temperature has not risen in the past 13 years. In response, Muller denies leaving out facts, distancing himself from recent claims of British scientists having fiddled the data.

Score one for the climate change deniers. Bad news for the rest of us:  if we can’t get the facts straight, how can we prevent slowly turning to toast?

Something to Worry About Today

The enemies of Western civilisation don’t need bombs and tanks any more, cyber experts have reported. They can bring about our destruction without leaving their desks.

Cyber attack against western countries and global business firms has reached new, “alarming” levels, intelligence officials have revealed. These attacks, coming from unknown and untraceable sources, have even attempted to penetrate such highly protected targets as the UK Foreign Office. What was once a nuisance has become a new kind of warfare.  At stake are military secrets, the security of financial caches and the personal security of millions of taxpayers. Some experts have dubbed GCHQ, the British intelligence headquarters the “fourth service”, along with army, navy and air force.

Apart from the obvious danger of having classified information compromised, concentrated attacks might be able to crash the cyber networks that control air travel, banking services and telephone communications.

Chaos could be just a few keypad taps away

Something to Worry About Today

There you have it-- the Earth is rapidly warming, a new report says.

Over 1.6 billion temperature readings by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Group show a net increase of .911 degrees in the last fifty years. This will come as a blow to the most feral climate change deniers, who have been claiming the Earth isn't warming up at all. The rest will now have to get busy finding another cause for the phenomenon that doesn't involve the actions of us humans.

Nine-tenths of a degree may not sound like much, but history says otherwise.  The lowering of the global temperature by just half a degree in 1816 led to crop failures all over the world. The thermostat setting for human survival is much narrower than we think. If the anticipated raising of 3 degrees centigrade over the next century actually comes about, we're all toast.

Something to Worry About Today

Polar bears aren't just becoming extinct-- they're shrinking.

New research indicates that the iconic mammals of the ice floes are getting smaller.  So are many other species.  This bodes ill for the worsening global food supply, since crops are also shrinking. 

Scientists see this worrying trend as an outcome of global warming, in which case it can only get worse. But others say that the unusually low strength of the Earth's magnetic field is to blame. Animals which grow to great size, like the dinosaurs, seem to do so when the EMF is strong. Now the field, which shields us from harmful cosmic rays, is near an all-time low.

Pigmy animals might be the least of our worries.

Something to Worry About Today:

Your mobile phone could be killing you.

No, not just because of the possible links to brain and testicular cancers, and not even because a pretty smart phone makes you more susceptible to mugging. New research has found that a quarter of the handsets in circulation are breeding grounds for deadly bacteria such as E coli.

Lots of people don’t wash their hands after using the toilet. The hard to clean little surfaces on their mobiles, which also heat up to optimal breeding temperatures, are havens for such potential killers as MRSA.

Moral: Be careful what you put to your lips.

Something to Worry About Today:

Air miles may come at a higher cost than most frequent fliers realise, a new study has revealed. There are new concerns over the effects of solar flares on human health.

Because of  increased solar activity expected over the next two years, air travellers as well as astronauts run risks from damaging solar radiation. The sun’s 11-year cycle of stormy and calm times reaches a peak sometime in May, 2013.

Although most radiation levels affecting air passengers are within “acceptable” limits (less than an average chest x-ray), the intensity of the rays increases sharply in flights over the poles, such as long haul flights from Britain to parts of the US.

According to NASA scientists, the sun has been in a period called a “grand solar maximum”, which has lasted longer than any other in the past 9,300 years. And the report says that the “damaging space weather” is likely to get worse.

Something to Worry About Today:

            You’ve got just 15 days left to live.

            That’s in case the 89-year-old California evangelist Harold Camping has got third time lucky and correctly predicted the end of the world. After his seemingly failed prediction of global destruction on May 21^st, the biblical numerologist altered his doomsday date to October 21^st. A previous attempt to put the Apocalypse during 1994 was found wanting, due to his own admitted scriptural miscalculations.

            Of course, if you are among the faithful 3% who will be spared, you have nothing to worry about. Even if you’re not, you can celebrate the big day by attending one of the popular “rapture parties”.  Details can be found online, provided the Internet still works.

Something to Worry About Today

The Bad News: The UARS weather satellite will fall to earth today.  Scientists say that the chances it will hit someone are about one in 3,200. That makes it more likely than accidental electrocution (about 1 in 5,000) but about the same as dying in a weather event (1 in 3,357).

Advice: Stay indoors.  Wear rubber-soled shoes and a crash helmet.

Something To Worry About Today

Today: Scientists have confirmed that there are worrying disturbances in the Earth’s magnetic field. This band of electro-magnetic energy is what helps protect 
us from harmful cosmic rays that emanate from other galaxies and even from our own sun.

The bad news: these gaps are growing rapidly. Some scientists predict such a reversal as early as 2012, with an unknown chaotic outcome.These invisible rays can cause diseases like skin cancer, disrupt navigation and digital communication and possibly even cause earthquakes. Without the screen of electromagnetic force that has always protected us, the Earth becomes a sitting duck. Huge gaps in the field have already been indentified, some of which are thousands of square miles in size. If they get big enough, the Earth’s magnetic field will actually flip over, something that hasn’t happened for 300,000 years.