Preparing for the End of the World: A 2012 Checklist

As 2012 fast approaches and the predictions of Nostradamus, the Mayan calendar, the Hopi Indians, Edgar Cayce, and the Jewish calendar have us all dancing foot to foot with antici........... pation, it might be a good time now to examine a few necessarys that may come in handy in the event of Armageddon. Exciting times! Let's break it down.

Energy: Worst case scenario- earthquake, extreme storms, bombs from Iran... prepare for massive power outages that last for weeks and months, not hours. You need a generator. There are many genearators out there that run on diesel or regular fuel. There are also generators that run on biofuels, solar energy, perpetual motion, wind, and hydro-electric energy. You can even make them yourself! This is not new technology! People have been making generators and wind turbines since the '30s using used car parts! Try to find a generator that does not rely on gasoline and make sure it is portable. You'll need a rechargable battery kit to plug into the generator for radios and flashlights. Better yet, buy solar flashlights and portable solar battery chargers that will recharge your laptop, cell phone, and other little USB cable compatible devices. They are relatively inexpensive these days. Here is a great invention being worked on by the U.S. Army, remember Mr. Fusion from 'Back to the Future'?

Water: No one lasts long without it. Water filters are key here. You have to prepare to be mobile and to filter water that may contain viruses in the case of chemical warfare. Boiling water is an excellent method, as is reverse osmosis, iodine, and water bottles that contain a built in filter. Should the power be out or your home destroyed with no access to power, conceptualize now how you will make fire for cooking or boiling water.

Heat: Eventually, you will run out of lighters and matches, get yourself a steel knife and flint set for making campfires. A firestick is a metal rod that you brush with the edge of a knife to create sparks. Having a good knife and flint or firestick, will ensure that you will always be able to make fire, wherever you are. Both are light and easily carried in your belt. A space blanket is another smart purchase to be made now. It is durable, incredibly light, and incredibly efficient, invented by N.A.S.A. and used by astronauts in space. Lugging around heavy blankets while you are on the run, admidst chaos, just won't do. Space blankets do not retain water or germs and are very easy to keep clean. It can also double as a shelter in a pinch, by laying it across a structure of branches if you find that you need to flee into the mountains.

Light: Having a good supply of emergency candles, votives, and lanterns is a great idea, as is the aforementioned solar flashlight. Supply yourself with months worth of candles. They don't take up much room and you will always need them to create ambience, whether or not the end of the world is approaching.

Food: Try to imagine no more grocery stores. Severe whether or war prevents trucks and planes from shipping food around, or maybe the fields of the midwest have been flooded and the California coast is rocked by severe earthquakes. Stock yourself up with a variety of seeds and beans. You could go all out and line your pantry shelves with preserves (forget anything that requires refrigeration) but, buying a few pounds of sprouting seeds and storing them in glass bell jars would be a mighty smart thing to do. Sprouts are extremely rich in vitamins and nutrients and in the worst case scenario- you could survive very well on sprouts alone. They require minimal water and sunlight to grow and are ready to eat in a matter of 24-72 hours depending on the seed. Alfalfa, mung, broccoli, cabbage, radish, clover and fenugreek are some of the seeds that provide you with great taste and lots of life bearing properties. Assorted dried mushrooms are also a great idea. You can buy large quantities of assorted dried mushrooms like reishi, shitake, porcini, oyster and more and reap the benefits later. Dried mushrooms require no refrigeration and provide essential nutrients, enzymes, and probiotics to your body. They are essential to an anti-radiation diet, as well. Stocking up on beans will also ensure that your protein requirements are met and they can also be sprouted for added cell renewal and good health. Garbanzo, black beans, red kidney beans, and lentils are some of the healthiest beans you can buy and taste excellent cooked or sprouted. Buy a few large boxes of green tea and assorted herbal teas for good measure. It will keep your immune system online and deliver further antioxidants your organs which may come under stress.

Medicine: Prepare to heal yourself and others, by yourself. Obtaining a small medical guide is a practical move. No one expects you to know how to deal with someone's broken leg or open flesh wound. Make sure the book is comprehensive but, lightweight and can easily be thrown into a bag to take with you. Essential oils are more than just aromatherapy. Lavender and tea tree oil are antiseptic and promote healing. For severe pain or hysteria, keep a few dried poppy pods and kava kava extract on hand. You can grind up the pods with a mortal and pestle. and make a hot tea for patients suffering from severe injury when no other painkillers or medical aid is available. Kava kava will help calm hysterical patients and still allow them to be alert. A conventional medical aid kit is also a practical investment now, containing gauze, peroxide, bandaids, etc.

Your (Im)Mortal Soul: Do you have any unfinished business? A guilty conscience? Haven't made peace with someone important in your life? Take some time now to get in touch with the people who matter most to you. Tell them that you love them. If you have never tried meditating, now is the time to give it a shot. If you believe in prayer, ritual, angels, God, or the almighty power of Love.... make sure you make some time to nourish your spiritual and emotional being now.

Whether or not the world as we know it is coming to an end in two years, the advice above is withstanding. These are practical steps to take to be prepared for any kind of natural disaster or emergency situation. However, there are a lot of arrows pointing to the year 2012 and they are all saying to prepare for some major catastrophes. Whether we are on the brink of embarking on a new age or are preparing for the worst.... prepare we must. Preparing for your own comfort and survival, and those you love around you, require only forethought and a few inexpensive purchases which will be consumed and enjoyed, no matter what happens in 2012.

If you choose to do nothing else, at least make peace with yourself and your loved ones and be sure to tell them how much they are loved. Having that peace of mind, is invaluable no matter what year it is. Meditate on the meaning of love and how you create, allow, and perpetuate it.

How to Meditate

National Chemistry Week

The purpose of National Chemistry Week is to help schools, businesses and entire communities recognize the importance of chemistry to the quality of human life. The American Chemical Society, which sponsors the event, has more information, including how to participate, at their website.

There are plenty of ways to celebrate chemistry, however. As I was telling a fellow writer, I hated chemistry in school. It was dry and boring, with plenty of bookwork and limited experimentation. The same went for physics. When people asked me about science I would usually wrinkle my nose and murmur how I hated it—no matter that it had been a favorite subject up until my high school days.

But what I didn’t realize was that I loved—and still love!—science; I simply didn’t think of it that way. My husband and I love to conduct “experiments.” We did the Supersize Me experiment where you keep fries for weeks and weeks to see if they decompose. (They didn’t!) We like to buy those experiment kits from hobby stores where you can grow rocks, make slime and a plethora of other fun and/or gross things. My sister just gave us some Harry Potter experiments she had purchased that we plan on using just for this week.

The point is, chemistry is anything but boring as long as you don’t make it boring. Don’t make it about reading books (unless your children are interested in them; if they are, then by all means, let them read—but don’t force it!). Like math, it shouldn’t be a dull, one-dimensional experience. Why do worksheets when you can use test tubes to create? Why do addition on paper when you can create jumping games to play that teach the same thing instead?

For National Chemistry Week, try…

  • Getting one of the kits I mentioned above and doing something fun. You might enjoy making your own lip gloss or making a classic volcano erupt.
  • Playing with the elements. Lightly “teach” them by introducing one or two of them, and instead of requiring rote memorization, find items in your life that contain those elements. Make them relevant to your life.
  • Exploring what careers use chemistry as a foundation. Maybe you have a chemist, doctor, pharmacist or even a veterinarian in your life who can help explain what they do to your child.
  • Blow things up! If done safely with an approved kit, you can show how cans, rockets and even water explode. Be sure to follow guidelines down to the fine print!

NASA: Maya off'd themselves

New research from NASA reveals that the Maya most likely were responsible for their own downfall, according to Archeologist Tom Sever. When times got tough on one of the more successful cultures on Earth, they turned to cutting the forest down for fuel and building. This action caused environmental fluctuations. Their decline also coincided with a massive drought. Its possible the Slash and Burn technique the Maya used caused the drought thus exacerbating the environmental problems. According to Sever, land needs at least 15 years to recuperate from just three years of farming. This was a regeneration rate the Maya could not allow as their growing societies plummetted into famine and revolt. The population average in Maya cities was 200 per square mile, equivalent to modern Los Angeles.

"The cities tried to keep an 18-month supply of water in their reservoirs," says Sever. "For example, in Tikal there was a system of reservoirs that held millions of gallons of water. Without sufficient rain, the reservoirs ran dry." Sever said.

Mass graves of suspected elites suggest political revolt against a top-heavy and ineffective royal system. At the time of the decline, the Maya had cleared huge swaths of land entirely of trees. It took 20 trees to create enough heat for just one square meter of limestone plaster for their temples and buildings. The destruction of trees for construction and to clear space for corn, was the cause of their downfall.

NASA's satelites were able to identify hundreds of previously unknown Maya sites that helped paint a complete picture of the expansive culture.

A Brief History of Time: A (Kinda) Clear Explanation

Recently retiring from his Cambridge chair – once held by Isaac Newton – Stephen Hawking was the next Einstein and even proved some of his elder’s theories to be false. That’s some heady stuff to take care of before reaching the age of forty. Beyond even that, the fact that Hawking was and remains confined to a wheel chair makes all of his accomplishments all the more astounding – although it shouldn’t. That being said, his could also be considered the great democratizer of science. Hawking’s aim in writing the 1988 book A Brief History of Time was to engage the lay person in a scientific discourse relating to where the world and our solar system came from and furthermore, why. Heavy stuff.

And even as the writer and scientist aimed at compiling a book that was relatively easy to get through, most of the language and what it references is going to be beyond what most folks can comprehend – I don’t get it at all. I mean, what’s string theory?

To help us dummies out, though, Erol Morris attempted to mix Hawking’s theoretics and the scientist’s background into a digestible film. It works for the most part, although, some of the conceptual stuff is still going to escape people not predisposed to thinking in such a manner.

Either way, it’s an interesting setting for the scientist to be in. He’s not the most film ready individual – and Morris actually shies away from featuring him too much. Instead various relatives and colleagues function to tell a story, lend some quips and insight into all of this. Most of A Brief History of Time (the film, not the book) stays away from theory and tells the stories of Hawking arriving at his genius.

It’ll comfort some that he was a slacker – while still possessing more intelligence and ability than most others on the planet – and didn’t really work too diligently at school. There’s a scene where a colleague goes as far to posit that because of Hawking’s loss of mobility and the use of his hands, the scientist was necessitated to fall back into conceptualizing everything in his mind, thus bolstering his thought process.

There’re are entire sections of the film with Hawking’s mother as she stops a moment before saying her son was lucky to have the disability, otherwise he may have continued upon his slackerific ways. She pulls back repeatedly, but qualifies it by saying that ALS (aka Lou Gerhig’s Disease) would have been worse for most other people.

Regardless, the universe expanding and falling back in on itself gets a thorough explaining as well as how black holes work. Hawking even concludes that he was wrong a few times – which is a pretty shocking revelation. But what the film unintentionally does is to prompt viewers to think that if a man in this physical state can be the most revered scientist of his generation, what other folks potentially have the same scientific acumen, but haven’t been given the proper avenues to utilize it? Is there a third world Hawking somewhere?

1959 Chevrolet Bel Air Vs. 2009 Chevrolet Malibu

This test, using actual cars as a demonstration of just how far car manufacturing and design have come, was for IIHS's 50th year anniversary in the safety research business. The video notes that the driver of the ostensibly "safer" 1959 Bel Air would have died instantly.

Maple Seed Whirlybirds Create Mini Tornadoes

Researchers using a special high-speed video camera and then analyzing the footage prove that maple seed pods can remain airborne for miles because the power the turbulence created by their spinning "blades" produce tornado-like vortexes. There's an understandable though slightly convoluted explanation here.

Inner-nauts Explore a New World

Space is an exciting place these days. We've got an International Space Station that is bigger and better than ever before, the Hubble Telescope has been re-vamped and we now have crystal clear photos of galaxies 5 billion light years away, dark matter is on the move, repelling galaxies and solar systems apart at an ever increasing pace to our mystification and concern. Our understanding and exploration of space has been taken to the next level and the discoveries we are on the brink of making are highly thrilling.

Another discovery was made, in an inner space, deep inside of the earth. The astounding discovery of a giant crystal cave in Naica, Mexico has yielded the largest crystals ever known. Weighing in at 55 tons a piece, some stretching to over 36 feet, this alien world was happened upon in 2000 by miners. Previously under water, the miners introduced water pumps which, uncovered the treasure contained therein. A recent expedition of scientists wearing astronaut like suits to protect them from the extreme heat and humidity, has produced some awe-inspiring and breathtaking images of these giant gypsum and selenite crystals.

The magma flow under the cave has been cooking the mineral rich water for over 5 million years and the virgin cave of crystals remains a steamy 122 degrees farenheight and 90% humidity. Even wearing the special suits equipped with respirators containing chilled air, chilling packs, and a special medic teams on standby- the extreme heat is fatal. Explorers can only withstand 45 minutes at a time and if exposed to the elements, would be dead within 10 minutes.

These amazing crystals are incredibly beautiful and their discovery is out of this world!

nasa.gov

 

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