There will never be an end. Why the world will never end. Spiritual world leader - Russia

As we are assured, the end of the world will take place on December 21, 2012 - on this day the Mayan calendar ends. They say that destructive cataclysms will lead to the disappearance of man on Earth. At least some people believe it. Despite the best efforts of scientists, officials, and religious leaders to debunk these rumors, fears of an alleged impending apocalypse persist.

The excitement around the end of the world is especially evident in Russia and Ukraine. People are frantically buying up candles and stocking up on other necessities for future use, the prices of which have skyrocketed. The industrial city of Novokuznetsk surprised with massive purchases of salt.

SURVIVAL KIT

A joke idea to sell end-of-the-world survival kits in Siberian Tomsk turned into a lucrative business.

"IN Lately people talk a lot about the end of the world, and so we decided to make a joke about it,” says Aleftina Popova, an employee of the Marina Mendelson wedding agency offering survival kits, “We came up with this kit to show people how to laugh at such things.” .

Popova says that online orders for kits come from all over Russia. “It was definitely a successful project,” she says.

The 890-ruble ($29) kit includes rope, a bandage, a notepad, vodka, a can of sprats, a bar of soap, and a few other items needed to survive the apocalypse.

Russian officials were not happy with what is happening in connection with this date. A group of legislators in the State Duma of Russia called on the heads of federal television channels not to disseminate "pseudo-scientific information about the end of the world."

The Vatican's chief astronomer also tried to ease concerns about December 21, saying that apocalyptic scenarios based on Mayan calendar predictions "are not even worth discussing."

GPS IS WORKING, THAT MEANS THE EARTH'S ROTATION AXIS HAS NOT CHANGED

Various theories flooded the Internet, for example, that the planet Nibiru is hiding behind the sun and is ready to attack the Earth, or an approaching comet, meteorite, asteroid, which will wipe life from the face of the earth in a collision, or a possible change magnetic poles Earth...

Astrophysicist David Morrison, head of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and senior fellow in astrobiology at NASA's Ames Research Center, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, that the end of the world is pure fantasy.

“There will be no planetary alignment in December 2012,” says Morrison. - There is an approximate alignment of the Earth and the Sun and the center of our galaxy at the end of December, but this happens every year. In any case, the alignment of the planets will have no effect on the Earth. There are also no approaching asteroids or comets."

Morrison also claims that there will be no reversal of magnetic poles this year. The magnetic polarity changes "every million years or so", and this is definitely not foreseen now, nor is any change in the rotation of the Earth's axis. In this case, it would be visible immediately, our GPS system would be out of order.

The US space agency NASA, for its part, has decided to take the unusual step of publishing a bulletin titled Beyond 2012: Why the World Won't End.

Meanwhile, contemporary Maya priests held a water blessing ceremony on December 15 at Noc Ac Cenote, a natural body of water located in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, as part of a cultural festival to celebrate the end of the Mayan calendar.

Some of the heads of government tried to give the event a humorous coloring. In a video posted online earlier this month, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the coming apocalypse in this vein: “Whether the end of the world comes – whether it’s carnivorous zombies, hell monsters or K-pop’s total victory – I want to assure you : I will always fight for you to the very end.

A GOLD MINE FOR THE ENTERPRISE

Meanwhile, attempts to capitalize on the doomsday mania are in full swing.

A number of companies, from Chevrolet car makers to American beer Shock, have produced Armageddon-themed commercials in an attempt to boost sales.

In Serbia, hotels on Mount Rtanj are now swarming with tourists who believe they will be saved when the rest of the world falls into ruin on December 21st.

According to popular beliefs, the mountain hides a pyramidal structure left over a thousand years ago after the aliens, which will protect it from destruction.

"The last 10 days we've been seeing sheer madness here," says Obrad Blecic, manager of one of the local hotels. “People call us to book a room, but we don't have a place. Usually we are only 20 percent full. Two or three families from Austria contacted us, as well as local clients from major cities in Serbia, including Belgrade. People keep calling us, and when we tell them we don't have space, they ask if they can stay in the parking lot or in the restaurant."

At least two other mountain villages, one in France and one in Turkey, were also advertised as doomsday shelters. They are experiencing an unprecedented tourist boom, thanks to which the locals offer accommodation and food at inflated prices.

A number of enterprising doomsday believers prefer to take matters into their own hands.

A Chinese farmer, for example, has built seven fiberglass and steel spheres that he hopes will allow their passengers to ride out the end of the world.

In the US, developer Larry Hall has converted a former Kansas missile silo into several luxury survival apartments. At least three blocks have already been sold, each for $2 million.

WHAT DO THE MAYA SAY?

With the global turmoil over the end of the world, few have thought to listen to what the Mayan national community has to say on this issue. And they say that the end of the ancient Mayan calendar on December 21, 2012 does not portend any catastrophe - it is simply the beginning of a new calendar.

It must be said that the Maya have three different calendar systems - one 260-day ritual year, the other 365-day year, and together they both repeat every 52 years in a large cycle, says leading Mayan scholar and anthropologist Jeffrey Braswell of the University of California at San Francisco. Diego.

“They were counting days from the moment they were created, almost like your car was counting days or miles,” Braswell says. “And just as the old-fashioned odometer had wheels that turned, so did the wheels on the Mayan calendar. What's happening now is that we're at a point where the car's odometer can reset everything back to zero."

In addition, a very important text carved by King Pakal, who died in 683, was found at an excavation site in Palenque, Mexico. According to the text, the next big cycle will take place on October 11, 4772, says the scientist:

The king says that eight days after the next cycle ends, he will return and rule once more. Thus, it is clear that he does not believe in the end of the world.

The Mayan community denounces the financial exploitation of their cultural heritage and plans to mark the day with a private ceremony at a Mayan archaeological site, far from the huge crowds expected to flock to Mexico and Central America for concerts and fireworks to mark the end of the world.

This article is based on material from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalists Claire Bigg and Eugene Tomiuch.

SURVIVAL KIT

A joke idea to sell end-of-the-world survival kits in Siberian Tomsk turned into a lucrative business.

“People have been talking a lot about the end of the world lately, and so we decided to make a joke about it,” says Aleftina Popova, an employee of the Marina Mendelson wedding agency offering survival kits, “We came up with this kit to show people how to laugh over such things."

Popova says that online orders for kits come from all over Russia. “It was definitely a successful project,” she says.

The 890-ruble ($29) kit includes rope, a bandage, a notepad, vodka, a can of sprats, a bar of soap, and a few other items needed to survive the apocalypse.

The Vatican's chief astronomer also tried to ease concerns about December 21, saying that apocalyptic scenarios based on Mayan calendar predictions "are not even worth discussing."

GPS IS WORKING, THAT MEANS THE EARTH'S ROTATION AXIS HAS NOT CHANGED

The US space agency NASA, for its part, has decided to take the unusual step of publishing a bulletin titled Beyond 2012: Why the World Won't End.

A GOLD MINE FOR THE ENTERPRISE

Meanwhile, attempts to capitalize on the doomsday mania are in full swing.

A number of companies, from Chevrolet car makers to American beer Shock, have produced Armageddon-themed commercials in an attempt to boost sales.

In Serbia, hotels on Mount Rtanj are now swarming with tourists who believe they will be saved when the rest of the world falls into ruin on December 21st.

According to popular beliefs, the mountain hides a pyramidal structure left over a thousand years ago after the aliens, which will protect it from destruction.

A number of enterprising doomsday believers prefer to take matters into their own hands.

A Chinese farmer, for example, has built seven fiberglass and steel spheres that he hopes will allow their passengers to ride out the end of the world.

In the US, developer Larry Hall has converted a former Kansas missile silo into several luxury survival apartments. At least three blocks have already been sold, each for $2 million.

WHAT DO THE MAYA SAY?

The king says that eight days after the next cycle ends, he will return and rule once more. Thus, it is clear that he does not believe in the end of the world.

The Mayan community denounces the financial exploitation of their cultural heritage and plans to mark the day with a private ceremony at a Mayan archaeological site, away from the huge crowds expected to flock to Mexico and Central America for concerts and fireworks to mark the end of the world.

This article is based on material from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalists Claire Bigg and Eugene Tomiuch.

Man is a gentle creature. Able to disappear from the face of the Earth from any misfortune. And very soon. And what must happen for our planet to become completely uninhabitable? So that no one is left on it at all - not a single living being. American physicists Rafael Batista (Dr Rafael Alves Batista) and David Sloan (Dr David Sloan) from Oxford University tried to find the answer to this fundamental question of being.

Before thinking about the eternal, scientists have identified the most tenacious creature on Earth. And with impeccable logic, they assumed: it will die last. Next, physicists figured out what kind of cataclysms could create conditions under which the champion in survival would still not be able to bear the surging hardships. And it turned out: there are no such cataclysms, nothing can make our planet sterile.

The most tenacious creature on Earth was discovered a long time ago - back in 1773. It was first seen and described by a German pastor, and part-time zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goetze. Named the water bear. Later, the creature was called the tardigrade, or, scientifically speaking, Tardigrada. However, his supernatural abilities became known only recently - as a result of scientific experiments.

Tardigrades are microscopic invertebrates close to arthropods. The size of adults is about one and a half millimeters. The body is translucent, consists of four segments. Legs - 8. A tenth of all tardigrades live in sea water. Most are found in mosses, lichens, trees, rocks, walls. They can be found in the mountains at an altitude of 6 thousand meters and on the seabed - at depths of more than 4 thousand meters, in hot springs and in ice. They feed on algae, mosses, lichens, worms. They look like bears. For this they got their name - a water bear.

It is believed that tardigrades appeared on Earth about 530 million years ago.

Now science knows that tardigrades do not die even in liquid helium. Some test subjects were kept for 8 hours at a temperature of minus 271 degrees Celsius. And in liquid oxygen - at minus 193 degrees - they were without harm to themselves for 20 months. And vice versa, the tardigrades were boiled - nothing was done to them.

Water bears tolerate a radiation dose of 570,000 roentgens. For humans, 500 x-rays are lethal.

In 2007, Swedish scientists sent tardigrades into orbit as part of the European Space Agency's FOTON-M3 mission. Put them up in outer space. After 10 days they returned to Earth. Almost all survived.

It turns out that water bears will easily survive and nuclear war, And global warming of any strength, and the cruelest ice Age even with cosmic cold. And even the disappearance of the atmosphere will not cut them to death.

However, it is still possible to lime tardigrades. According to Sloan and Batista, sooner or later they will come to an end if, as a result of some kind of cataclysm, all the water on Earth suddenly evaporates. And this, as scientists believe, can happen in three cases: if a supernova explodes nearby, if an asteroid the size of the one that the heroes of the movie “The Fifth Element” confronted crashes into our planet, and if the Earth falls under a gamma-ray flash.

Sloan and Batista calculated that it takes about 10 to the power of 26 joules of energy to evaporate water. Supernova explosions produce an average of 1044 joules. Enough for the complete end of the world, but only if the flash is close. After all, the energy of such a cataclysm is dissipated in space. For example, if the distance from the explosion to the Earth is more than 5 light days, then there will be no sense from it. In the sense that the explosion will not destroy the tardigrade.

And there are no stars at such a distance from us at all. The closest ones are about 4 light years away. And they don't want to explode.

Scientists from Oxford have counted 17 asteroids, a collision with which could put an end to water bears. But the probability that at least one of them will happen is vanishingly small. It takes 10 to 17 years for a 100-kilometer asteroid to crash into our planet. The lifetime of the universe is not long enough to wait.

The sources of gamma-ray bursts are collapsing, rapidly rotating massive stars. Turning into neutron stars, into quarks or into black holes, they emit a narrow beam of unprecedented power. And at the same time, in a few seconds, they release as much energy as our Sun would release in 10 billion years of glow.

Sloan and Batista have calculated that a gamma-ray burst that occurs closer than 42 light years from Earth will become absolutely unbearable - and the oceans will evaporate and the tardigrades will die. But there are no sources of such destructive radiation in this radius.

The result of the reasoning of American scientists published in the publication: there will be no end of the world - at least not soon. Tardigrades may well survive until the time when the Sun expands, turning into a red giant. According to various estimates, this will happen not earlier than in a billion years, and even 5 billion years will have to wait. But this is not the end of the water bears. The expanding Sun will, of course, swallow Mercury ̆ and Venus. And the Earth, perhaps, will be preserved, moving to a more distant orbit. And save water with tardigrades. In the Universe, there seem to be examples of such an amazing salvation of planets, whose star turned into a red giant. And it - salvation - gives tardigrades about 5 billion more years of existence.

BY THE WAY

Seek and find

The research of scientists from the University of Oxford should inspire those who seek extraterrestrial life. Because they testify: even the most seemingly unfavorable conditions on some planet do not mean that it - life - is not there. Maybe there is - in the form of sleeping water bears. It is known that in an unfavorable environment these creatures fall into a special type of suspended animation - the so-called anhydrobiosis. They dry themselves by drawing in the limbs and becoming covered with a waxy shell that prevents evaporation.

In the scientific literature, a case is described when researchers soaked moss dried up 120 years ago in water. And after a while, awakened tardigrades crawled out of it.

Who knows, maybe it's worth soaking the Martian soil. And wait until someone crawls out of it - like tardigrades. Or vice versa, it is worth melting the local ice - water bears are able to sleep frozen for a very long time. And then - come to life.

Scientists: The world will never end. There is a creature on Earth that will survive any apocalypse

Man is a gentle creature. Able to disappear from the face of the Earth from any misfortune. And very soon. And what must happen for our planet to become completely uninhabitable? So that no one is left on it at all - not a single living being. The answer to this fundamental question of being tried to find American physicists - Rafael Batista (Dr Rafael Alves Batista) and David Sloan (Dr David Sloan) from Oxford University (Oxford University).

Tardigrade, she is a water bear, is considered the most enduring creature on Earth. And maybe in the whole universe

It is believed that tardigrades appeared on Earth about 530 million years ago.

Water bears tolerate a radiation dose of 570,000 roentgens. For humans, 500 x-rays are lethal.

In 2007, Swedish scientists sent tardigrades into orbit as part of the European Space Agency's FOTON-M3 mission. Put them out into outer space. After 10 days they returned to Earth. Almost all survived.

It turns out that water bears will easily survive a nuclear war, and global warming of any force, and the most severe ice age, even with cosmic cold. And even the disappearance of the atmosphere will not cut them to death.

And there are no stars at such a distance from us at all. The closest ones are about 4 light years away. And they don't want to explode.

GRB sources are collapsing, rapidly rotating massive stars. Turning into neutron stars, quarks or black holes, they emit a narrow beam of unprecedented power. And at the same time, in a few seconds, they release as much energy as our Sun would release in 10 billion years of glow.

The result of the reasoning of American scientists, published in the publication Scientific Reports: there will be no end of the world - at least not soon. Tardigrades may well survive until the time when the Sun expands, turning into a red giant. According to various estimates, this will happen not earlier than in a billion years, and even 5 billion years will have to wait. But this is not the end of the water bears. The expanding Sun will, of course, engulf Mercury and Venus. And the Earth, perhaps, will be preserved, moving to a more distant orbit. And save water with tardigrades. In the Universe, there seem to be examples of such an amazing salvation of planets, whose star turned into a red giant. And it - salvation - gives tardigrades about 5 billion more years of existence.

According to one hypothesis, tardigrades were brought to Earth from their space

BY THE WAY

Seek and find

Research by scientists from the University of Oxford should inspire those who are looking for extraterrestrial life. Because they testify: even the most seemingly unfavorable conditions on some planet do not mean that it - life - is not there. Maybe there is - in the form of sleeping water bears. It is known that in an unfavorable environment these creatures fall into a special type of anabiosis - the so-called anhydrobiosis. They dry themselves by drawing in the limbs and becoming covered with a waxy shell that prevents evaporation.

In the scientific literature, a case is described when researchers soaked moss dried up 120 years ago in water. And after a while, awakened tardigrades crawled out of it.

In Guatemala, in a town called La Corona, archaeologists have discovered one of the longest inscriptions in the Maya language, which is about 1300 years old. It contains the second well-known mention of the so-called date of the end of time after the Tortuguero inscription, which, according to the Gregorian calendar, corresponds to the beginning of the third decade of December 2012.

With the approaching date of the “end of the world” according to the Mayan calendar, the history of this people is of increasing interest in the world. The civilization of this people appeared in the first centuries of our era, and disappeared with the advent of the Spaniards in the 16th century. However, the Mayan people themselves still live in the territories of Mesoamerica, and their number is estimated at more than 6 million people. For Maya-speaking citizens in Mexico and Guatemala, there are radio and cable television broadcasts.

Maya were ordinary early civilization, a society that organized itself into city-states. The peak of their heyday came in the 6th-9th centuries - the Maya had magnificent architecture - they built cities, palaces, pyramids with temples from stone, erected steles in front of the buildings, on which historical dates were recorded, and marked the change of rulers. The most striking feature of the Mayan culture was their writing, and this is the only civilization in America that had a phonetic script.

Maya studies began at the end of the 19th century. Mainly produced archaeological excavations cities, and on the basis of excavations, scientists tried to draw conclusions about the culture and lifestyle of the Maya by analogy with what is known about Egypt, Greece, Rome. However, a completely different perception of the world does not allow us to approach Mayan writings from the same point of view as European historical documents. Compared to European civilizations, the Maya describe the world in a completely different way. They approach the same phenomena with other images, other concepts, other systems of gods.

The “end of the world” according to the Mayan calendar, which should occur on December 23 this year, which some sincerely believing in prophecy people are waiting for with trepidation, does not at all mean the end of the life of our civilization. In fact, unlike in Europe, Mayan astronomers singled out not 12, but 13 zodiac constellations. Each of them corresponded to 13 gods, and the worship of each of them began according to the movement of the Sun. The completion of one of these large cycles will just happen on December 23, 2012, and, according to Mayan beliefs, then the circle of reign of all deities will end, that is, a new era will come.

The document on the basis of which the hysteria about the end of the world was raised was found in the state of Tabasco, the town of Els Tortuguero. However, the modern Maya living there do not believe in the end of the world. At present, the Indians are very poor people, preoccupied with economic issues. The myth of the end of the world is interesting to them from the point of view of attracting thrill-seeking tourists.