Retinoids to protect from Cosmic Rays?

Scientific American, November 2007:

NASA has worried that cosmic rays could undermine a human voyage to Mars. New simulations and calculations, though, suggest that such lengthy exposure to space radiation may pose only half the health risk that NASA had expected.

...the lower a proton’s energy, the more damage it does. Apparently, lower-energy protons, which travel more slowly, have more time to interact with tissues. In lowering its assessment of risk, NASA also factored in astronauts’ better-than-average health and switched from “whole-body” radiosensitivity to organ-by-organ measurements, where new studies have found lower risks for lungs, breasts and the blood system.

...Possible drugs include retinoids — vitamins that work as antioxidants — and compounds that delay cell division long enough for damaged cells to repair themselves before they can propagate mutations.

Something to consider storing in your bunker, but it might take some finding.

Galaxy fires powerful particle beam

This animation begins with a close-up of the supermassive black hole in the centre of the galaxy 3C321. Hot gas falls towards the black hole; some is swallowed but much is ejected in a particle beam. As the camera pans out, the companion galaxy becomes visible as it swings into the path of the jet, which is deflected in the process (Courtesy of NASA/STScI/G Bacon)

You wouldn't want to be in the path of this space nasty:

A jet of hot gas and high-energy particles is shooting out from the core of a galaxy called 3C321 and hitting a neighbou

...Any Earth-like planets that may lie in the path of this beam might be sterilised. If such a jet were aimed at Earth, it would blast the upper atmosphere with gamma radiation. That would destroy the ozone layer in months to years, says Evans, leaving earthlings exposed to carcinogenic ultraviolet rays from the Sun.

More at New Scientist

Sing-a-long with Bowie...

...we've got 5 years until the end of the Mayan Calendar... Watch the news tonight in case there is any announcement ;)

Pushing thru the market square, so many mothers sighing
News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet, then I knew he was not lying
I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies
I saw boys, toys electric irons and t.v.s
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there
And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people
I never thought Id need so many people

A girl my age went off her head, hit some tiny children
If the black hadnt a-pulled her off, I think she would have killed them
A soldier with a broken arm, fixed his stare to the wheels of a cadillac
A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest, and a queer threw up at the sight of that

I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour, drinking milk shakes cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine, dont think
You knew you were in this song
And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor
And I thought of ma and I wanted to get back there
Your face, your race, the way that you talk
I kiss you, youre beautiful, I want you to walk

Weve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
Weve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, thats all weve got
Weve got five years, what a surprise
Five years, stuck on my eyes
Weve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, thats all weve got
Weve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
Weve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, thats all weve got
Weve got five years, what a surprise
Weve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Weve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, thats all weve got
Five years
Five years
Five years
Five years

2012 metal album by Hanzel Und Gretyl

Just added to 2012Base:

The Brand New album of ballistic, skull-splitting Industrial / Metal from US scene veterans Hanzel Und Gretyl. "2012 : Zwanzig Zwolf" is a sci-fi themed concept album of apocalyptic proportions featuring death, destruction, spaceships and more...

Sex with Gorillas - Idea Affects Scientific Analysis

It has been scientifically proven that pubic lice were transferred between early humans and gorillas about 3.3 million years ago.

Pubic.

Pubic.

However, those discovering scientists:

"claim it is far more likely that early humans caught the lice from sleeping in abandoned gorilla nests than from having sex with gorillas."

...According to Reed, this suggests that early humans and gorillas made close contact, though he “seriously doubts” that pubic lice transferred between the two during sex.

...Pubic lice can live for up to 24 hours once removed from their host. But he acknowledges: “I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to know for certain which hypothesis is correct.”

So, given that gorilla sex is abhorrent to the scientists, despite that 24hr survival time, they have decided that humans snuck into "abandoned gorilla nests" less than 24 hours after they were abandoned.

This is right up there with "every statue is a god or goddess".

NASA: Solar Cycle 24 may have begun

It could be starting now.

"New solar cycles always begin with a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot," explains Hathaway. "Reversed polarity " means a sunspot with opposite magnetic polarity compared to sunspots from the previous solar cycle. "High-latitude" refers to the sun's grid of latitude and longitude. Old cycle spots congregate near the sun's equator. New cycle spots appear higher, around 25 or 30 degrees latitude.

The region that appeared on Dec. 11th fits both these criteria. It is high latitude (24 degrees N) and magnetically reversed. Just one problem: There is no sunspot. So far the region is just a bright knot of magnetic fields. If, however, these fields coalesce into a dark sunspot, scientists are ready to announce that Solar Cycle 24 has officially begun.

Light Source Glows For 12 Years

Litroenergy is a new type of material that will emit light for a half-life of 12 years without needing electricity or sun exposure. The self-luminous micro-particles are called Litrospheres and are said to be non-toxic and inexpensive (although one would assume they are radioactive...). The light is said to be equivalent to a 20 watt incandescent bulb, and would cost a mere 35 cents. Perfect for any bunker!

US has a Doomsday Plan

"...under the new rule, a majority of living congressmen no longer will be needed to do business under "catastrophic circumstances.''

Instead, a majority of the congressmen able to show up at the House would be enough to conduct business, conceivably a dozen lawmakers or less.

The circumstances include "natural disaster, attack, contagion or similar calamity rendering Representatives incapable of attending the proceedings of the House.''

I doubt that in a 2012 situation they'd be too effective, but the reduced government could quite easily freak out and launch a nuke or two.

For me it is interesting that they acknowledge the possibility that someone major disaster could decimate their governmental ranks, but beyond working out who will run the show, they have made no survival provisions...

Sea Squirt - Entire Body Regeneration

Inhabiting shallow coastal waters, sea squirts form colonies of genetically identical individuals. Ram Reshef and Yuval Rinkevich of the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and colleagues took fragments of blood vessels from the animals and watched under a microscope.

Out of 95 fragments they examined, 80 underwent whole body regeneration (WBR). Cells first grouped into hollow spheres, then cell layers in-folded and organs developed until after two weeks an adult sea squirt had grown, capable of sexual reproduction.

If a lesser being like a Sea Squirt can have that level of control over their body (or the other way around), I see no reason why Humans cannot select DNA repair in a beneficial manner...

#1 Most Beautiful Bunker

Forget about your 2012 friends - show this to everyone you know.

Eighth wonder of the world? The stunning temples secretly carved out below ground by 'paranormal' eccentric

For all we know it might be a bunker. If it is, it will surely never be eclipsed in terms of beauty. I would like to shake this gentleman's hand!

1507 Waldseemuller map goes on display

The map was created by the German monk Martin Waldseemuller. Thirteen years after Christopher Columbus first landed in the Western Hemisphere, the Duke of Lorraine brought Waldseemuller and a group of scholars together at a monastery in Saint-Die in France to create a new map of the world.

..."The actual shape of South America is correct," said Hebert. "The width of South America at certain key points is correct within 70 miles of accuracy."

...The map gives a reasonably correct depiction of the west coast of South America. But according to history, Vasco Nunez de Balboa did not reach the Pacific by land until 1513, and Ferdinand Magellan did not round the southern tip of the continent until 1520.

...The mapmakers say they based it on the 1,300-year-old works of the Egyptian geographer Ptolemy as well as letters Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci wrote describing his voyages to the new world. But Hebert said there must have been something more.

Yet more evidence of the ancients knowing more than the recents. Interestingly, his subsequent maps were less accurate, as he replaced old knowledge with new. That's just like the Egyptian pyramids, started out brilliant, then went downhill...

See the map at the Library of Congress

Mitch Barrios - The World Will Not End in 2012

The dark power of the declining Fourth World cannot be destroyed or overpowered. It’s too strong and clear for that, and that is the wrong strategy. The dark can only be transformed when confronted with simplicity and open-heartedness. This is what leads to fusion, a key concept for the World of the Fifth Sun.

As long as we eat well, breathe properly, be nice to others, vote for good leaders and meditate, the transformation in 2012 will be a nice one...

Unfortunately for Mitch and his ilk, less than 0.01% of Earth's people will hear his message, let alone change their behaviour. So whatever occurs in 2012, it won't be the result of positive human action.

Entire article here, including some vague predictions for 2003 that never came to pass...

Oops! Bye Bye Everything.

Astronomers may have unwittingly hastened the end of the Universe by simply looking at it, according to a theory reported in the latest edition of New Scientist.

...The energy shift from the decay would destroy everything in the universe, "wiping the slate clean".

...Measurements of light from supernovae in 1998 that provided the first evidence of dark energy may have reset the decay clock of the "false vacuum'' back to zero, back before the switching point and to a time when the risk of catastrophic decay was greater than now. "Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life expectancy of the universe. We may have snatched away the possibility of long-term survival for our universe and made it more likely it will decay." The claim is contested by other astrophysicists: "The fact that we are still here means this can't have happened yet."

Even when scientists know they could end it all (like creating mini black holes in labs, or nanotechnology), they can't help themselves - they're addicted to discovery!

More at the Herald Sun

2012 Sites

Just a reminder of the other 2012 sites we have, where you can find more info and discuss 2012 with others:

http://2012forum.com - discuss 2012
http://2012wiki.com - help it grow!
http://2012base.com - hundreds of 2012 sites listed

Tomb Raider: 2012

Crystal Dynamics are planning an eighth instalment in the Tomb Raider series. It is rumored to be a continuation of the Legend storyline. In one of its press release of May 2007, SCi Entertainment has revealed that Tomb Raider 8 will be released on PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 during the 2008. The storyline is rumored to be based around the Mayan Calendar beliefs of 2012 as the end of time

Still only a rumour, but makes sense.