ALL ABOUT 2012

IN THIS NEW TIME CYCLE
TIME IS ACCELERATING

2012 IS ALREADY PAST

DO YOUR CALENDAR WORK -

THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR SCREWED UP REAL TIME

The Pyramid of the Moon

The ancient city of Teotihuacan is located 50 kilometers north-east of the center of Mexico city and is well worth at least one or two days of exploration. There are many restored buildings to explore, as well as artwork and artifacts recovered from the site, as well as the two enormous structures for which the city is best known, the Pyramid of the Moon, shown here, and the even larger Pyramid of the Sun. Unlike the pyramids of Egypt, the pyramids at Teotihuacan aren't build of solid stone, instead they consist of stone and brick rubble covered with layers of cut stone, however they're still an extraordinary achievement, especially since all this was done without the benefit of pack animals, metal tools or the wheel
This photo was taken from 2 miles away.

Pyramid of the Sun

The Pyramid of the Sun, with an estimated weight of three million tons, is much larger than the Pyramid of the Moon, and was also built earlier. Each side is 222 meters long and it's over 70 meters high, making it the third largest pyramid in the world by volume, after the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt and the unrestored pyramid at the Mexican city of Cholula. Unfortunately because of the building method a lot of reconstruction was needed to get it to its current state, and there's considerable uncertainty about its original appearance

THE COUNTDOWN TO 12-21-2012 11:11 A.M.

Customized Counter

Time until Friday, 21 December 2012, 11:11:11 (UTC time)

603		days
14493		hours
869600		minutes
52176045		seconds

On the winter solstice of 2012, the noonday Sun exactly conjuncts
the crossing point of the sun's ecliptic with the galactic plane,
while also closely conjuncting the exact the center of the galaxy.

This photo was taken in Southern France
by Laurent Laveder on 7-28-08

We're not from Milky Way

Astronomical updates of 2012 are pouring in. We are grateful for the Mayan Calendar for pointing the way. It is a good map but now, thru science, we are starting to see the actual landscape. Have you ever looked out into the night sky and seen the Milky Way Galaxy? Did you notice the obvious tilt? It is at a steep angle to the straight line of the horizon. Why? It turns out that our solar system appears to belong to another galaxy that is colliding with the Milky Way. This was recently discovered when scientists were trying to figure sources for "dark matter" that would account for forces we can measure but not see visibly. Using near-infrared (wavelengths of light outside human eye and optical telescopes) a huge sister galaxy circling the Milky Way was discovered. It's called the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy (SGR for short). For those keen on the 2012 data, this is the reason our entry point to the Rift, center, heart (HunabKu) of the Milky Way is thru Sagittarius. The two collide at that point. This explains why our solar system is at an angle to the plane of the galaxy and also why we dip above and below that center line every 12,000 yrs or so. But the trail gets hotter - literally. Moon shots from the 1960s revealed glass on the moon. Glass is made from intense bursts of heat on sand. The event happened within the last 30,000yrs ago. Ancient petrogrpahs of primirtive people (archeological carvings) from that era (12,000+y.a.) show the sun causing extreme energy bursts changing earth atmosphere.

Fish Do Not Drink, They are Teetotalers!

Do fish drink water? Do they ever get thirsty? I know many people think they drink all the time because they live in water but in real sense, they don’t they are as teetotaler as old Shilaho. Read on to discover why.

Do fish ever get thirsty?

Do fish drink a lot? Do they take water all the time? Do they ever get thirsty? I am one of those who have used the expression drinking like a fish but in real sense, fish are teetotalers and do not drink, in fact drinking would be dangerous for a fish! To put it more clearly, there are people who work in cigarette factories without smoking and some who work in breweries but don’t drink alcohol!

Fresh water fish have hypertonic blood compared to their surrounding

Body fluid in fresh water fishes is hypertonic compared to its surrounding making them absorb water through their body surfaces as opposed to drinking like humans do. Instead of taking water to quench non existent thirst, their cells are always hydrated and therefore causing no need for active water intake.

Do they need water?

Of course they do. They stay in water which not only helps in their movement but also ensures that they breathe. Fish open their mouths to let water glide over their gills and out again. As water moves over the gills, their respiratory surfaces, and out through the other side, there is interchange of gases where oxygen enters the capillaries in the gills while carbon dioxide gets out into the water.

Fish are teetotalers!

Water requirements for fishes are therefore sufficiently met by passive intake through body surfaces such as the skin and the gills and through the food they take which is many a times overhydrated already, making drinking unnecessary. Fish do not therefore drink and neither do they have to drink for if they did, they would die!

Flying Animals or Gliding Animals

All of us know that birds fly, but do you know that there are animals that can fly? Take a look at these amazing flying animals, also called as gliding animals. These include chrysopelea, flying fish, petaurus, and much more…
What can animals do; they can run, jump, hop, walk, but will animals be able to fly? Yes…here is a list of animals that can fly. Birds are of two categories; birds that can fly and those that can’t fly. Find out some of the amazing animal creatures that can fly.

1. Flying Fish:



Flying fishes are also called as “Exocoetidae.” There are nearly 60 species of flying fishes. You can find these flying fishes in oceans, especially in tropical and subtropical waters. These flying fishes have pectoral fins; they use this fin to leap out of the water and take short glides. They are capable of gliding to a height of 50 meters. How do these flying fishes fly? They move their tail at a speed of 70 times per second, spread their pectoral fins, tilts them upward, and start flying.
The longest time spent in flight is 45 seconds. This happened on May 2008 and the video was captured by a Japanese Television crew in the coasts of Yakushima Island.


2. Flying Lizards:

The World’s Smallest Fish

They are small, they are tiny, they are fish, and they are weird. The World’s smallest fish are the Paedocypris progenetica of the carp family which measure less than 8mm in size and live in swamps with a pH of 3.

They measure 7.9mm:
They are small, they are rare and they are weird! Imagine fish that measure less than a centimeter, 7.9 millimeters to be exact. They are the smallest fish in the world and inhabit acidic water with a PH of 3, 100 times more acidic than rain water. They have grasping fins and dwell in threatened swamps.




They were discovered in 2006 in Sumatra, Indonesia:
Scientists discovered these tiny fish in 2006 in forest swamps on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. They belong to the carp family and have been named Paedocypris progenetica. Several populations of these tiny fish have already been lost due to forest fires that decimated their habitats.



They have a reduced head skeleton with larvae like appearance
The fish are tiny see through vertebrates that have a larvae appearance and a reduced head skeleton leaving their brains without bone protection. Aside from being the world’s smallest fish, the Paedocypris progenetica holds the record for being the world’s smallest vertebrate after eclipsing the previous record of 8mm held by an Indo pacific goby.




Discovered by ichthyologists:
The fish were discovered by fish experts Maurice Kottelat from Switzerland and Tan Heok Hui from the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research in Singapore. They were working with their colleagues from Indonesia and with Kai-Erik Witte from the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

10 of the World’s Largest Animals

Have you ever think what are the largest animals on the earth? Here is a list of ten of the world’s largest animals.

Seven Top Scariest, Venomous Big Snakes

These snakes are both scariest and venomous animals. Some of them have extremely high toxic venoms which can stun and even kill their prey at once. They’re not only largest in size but also longest in length.

BLACK MAMBA:




Inhabiting in the areas of open woodlands, open savannahs, and rocky outcrops of Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, South Africa, Kenya, Botswana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Uganda, Mozambique and Namibia, Black Mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) has long been known as the longest venomous snake in Africa and the second longest dangerous snake in the world. Their adults can reach to an average length of 2.5 meters or 8.2 feet and some of them can even grow to a length up to 4.3 meters or 14 feet.

Even though it’s called “Black Mamba”, its entire body isn’t all in black; the name is particularly given for its inky black mouth. It may be in the color of metal, olive green, dark olive, grey brown and you can see a light band around the body of some of their species. Normally, their skin becomes to darken when they age. They rely upon external heat to regulate their body temperature just like other extant reptiles.

Black Mambas move extremely fast, that is, up to 19.5km/h or 12mph. No wonder, they’re regarded as the fastest snake in the world.


VIPERA BERUS:





Dwelling in most of the Western Europe to as far as the Far East Asia, vipera berus, a type of venomous viper species, enjoys basking its thick body in dry sunny places. Even though its bite is extremely painful, it’s rarely fatal. Its adult can grow up to 60 cm in length with the largest ever found in Sweden with a length over 90 cm and the other one observed in France and Great Britain was said to achieve a maximum size of 80 to 87cm



AGKISTRODON PISCIVORUSCONA:




Discovered mainly in shallow and slow-moving lakes and streams, Agkistrodon piscivorus is a semi-aquatic viper which is primarily found in the eastern United States. Since it’s a venomous snake its bite can be potentially fatal. It feeds on fish and frogs, and it’s a good swimmer that is always observed successfully colonizing islands of both Gulf and Atlantic coasts.



CROTALUS OREGANUS:




Crotalus oreganus is a Northern Pacific rattlesnake which is found primarily in parts of British Columbia, and north-western Mexico. This snake is often thought to be the most aggressive, notorious and venomous rattle snake in the U.S. It has a well-camouflaged under a log during a warm winter day and has shown its remarkable climbing and clinging skills in a tree. Wow, amazing!



PSEUDECHIS:




Generally, Pseudechis refers to a black snake. It’s found inhibiting a variety habitat of arid areas and swampland in Papua New Guinea and in almost every part of Australia (excluding Tasmania). Its bite is potentially fatal and it’s no doubt a member of the dangerous snake species. Further, it’s capable of producing large amounts of venom. In the world, it’s regarded as the largest venomous snake but in Australia, it’s the second largest snake. The adult snake can grow up to 2.5 to 3 meters and its size actually exceeds the size of the Australian Taipan, Black Mamba and King Cobra.



BUSH MASTER:




The Bushmaster, lachesis muta muta, is the largest thick-bodied venomous Pit Viper has an amazing record reaching up to 14 feet. It’s marked by its triangular shaped head and is capable of performing multiple bite strikes, injecting large amount of venoms, which are potentially deadly and dangerous to humans. Even its juvenile’s bite can be fatal. Earning itself a nasty reputation of a “cruel and fierce dude”, it can be seen throughout the regions of Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama, Trinidad and Brazil.



OXYURANUS SCUTELLATUS;




Oxyuranus scutellatus is an extremely dangerous largest venomous snake dwelling primarily in tropical regions of the Northern Territory, including Melville and Bathurst Islands, and the West Kimberley’s of Western Australia and it’s also seen along the coast and nearby areas of Queensland. It’s said that one single Oxyuranus scutellatus bite can kill up to 12,000 guinea pigs. It’s characterized by its larger fangs, orange-brown iris, and light to dark brown above its body with paler sides. Its highly toxic venoms from the bite can result in vomiting, abdominal pain, dizziness, nausea, and headache. Often, the poison from its bite causes blurred vision accompanyied by convulsions, and in severe cases, one may become coma after being attacked by an Oxyuranus scutellatus. The bite too, can sometimes cause death.

Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved

Have you ever heard a strange sound behind you but when you turned to look nobody was there? Have you ever looked into the night sky and thought you saw an unidentified flying object? Have you ever heard or seen anything else that did not have a logical explanation?

For centuries, people from all over the world have noticed strange things that they could not explain. People have claimed to see ghosts and UFO’s. Some people have even claimed that they have spoken to aliens from other planets. Others claim that they have seen monsters in mountains and lakes.

Most of these things have a logical explanation. For example, most of the UFO sitings have turned out to be airplanes or hot air balloons. But some explanations for bizarre occurrences are still debated. One such bizarre phenomenon that is still argued today is the mystery behind the Bermuda Triangle.

The strange disappearances that have occurred in the Bermuda Triangle have perplexed people for centuries. The first report of a strange occurrence in that area was recorded by Christopher Columbus in 1492. He reported that he saw a large ball of fire fall into the sea and that his compass was not working correctly. He was in the area of the Bermuda Triangle when these things occurred. The Bermuda Triangle is an area of the ocean where over 50 ships and 20 airplanes have disappeared. The exact parameters of the area have varied over the years, but it generally described as a triangle extending from Florida to Bermuda, then southwest to Puerto Rico and then back to Florida again through the Bahamas. The average size of the area is described as 750,000 square miles.

Cloudy Skies

The official explanations for most of these disappearances tend to be very scientific and logical. The area is known for having harsh weather and a lot of traffic which could explain most of the vanishings. The other more bizarre explanations were sparked by the fact that very few things were found from the missing planes and ships and most of them never sent any distress calls.

One strange disappearance occurred in 1945 when 5 Navy Avengers with 14 fliers disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle. A boat with 13 men was sent to look for the missing planes. It too never returned. The explanation that is generally accepted is that the planes got lost and ran out of gas.

Many explanations have been offered to explain the strange disappearances. Most people explain the missing planes and boats with rational explanations such as bad weather, running out of gas, and inexperienced pilots. Others choose to believe that more unusual and mysterious forces caused these planes and boats to vanish. Some of these theories are that aliens abducted the planes and boats, a large octopus dragged them into the ocean, or that an energy field exists over the area that creates time warps. Strange huh. What’s your theory?

Computer studies of ocean floors around the world, particularly the area known as The Bermuda Triangle, reveal evidence of massive methane explosions in the past. For years, believers in the paranormal, aliens, and other outlandish theories pointed to the the disappearance of ships and aircraft as an indicator of mysterious forces at work in the “Devil’s triangle.” Scientists have finally pointed the rest of us to a more plausible cause.

The presence of methane hydrates indicates enormous eruptions of methane bubbles that would swamp a ship, and projected high into the air- take out flying airplanes, as well.

Any ships caught within the methane mega-bubble immediately lose all buoyancy and sink to the bottom of the ocean. If the bubbles are big enough and possess a high enough density they can also knock aircraft out of the sky with little or no warning. Aircraft falling victim to these methane bubbles will lose their engines-perhaps igniting the methane surrounding them-and immediately lose their lift as well, ending their flights by diving into the ocean and swiftly plummeting.

NO DOOMSDAY IN 2012

Apparently, the world is going to end on December 21st, 2012. Yes, you read correctly, in some way, shape or form, the Earth (or at least a large portion of humans on the planet) will cease to exist. Stop planning your careers, don’t bother buying a house, and be sure to spend the last years of your life doing something you always wanted to do but never had the time. Now you have the time, four years of time, to enjoy yourselves before… the end.

So what is all this crazy talk? We’ve all heard these doomsday predictions before, we’re still here, and the planet is still here, why is 2012 so important? Well, the Mayan calendar stops at the end of the year 2012, churning up all sorts of religious, scientific, astrological and historic reasons why this calendar foretells the end of life as we know it. The Mayan Prophecy is gaining strength and appears to be worrying people in all areas of society. Forget Nostradamus, forget the Y2K bug, forget the credit crunch, this event is predicted to be huge and many wholeheartedly believe this is going to happen for real. Planet X could even be making a comeback.

For all those 2012 Mayan Prophecy believers out there, I have bad news. There is going to be no doomsday event in 2012, and here’s why…

THE MAYAN CALENDAR:
So what is the Mayan Calendar? The calendar was constructed by an advanced civilization called the Mayans around 250-900 AD. Evidence for the Maya empire stretches around most parts of the southern states of Mexico and reaches down to the current geological locations of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and some of Honduras. The people living in Mayan society exhibited very advanced written skills and had an amazing ability when constructing cities and urban planning. The Mayans are probably most famous for their pyramids and other intricate and grand buildings. The people of Maya had a huge impact on Central American culture, not just within their civilization, but with other indigenous populations in the region. Significant numbers of Mayans still live today, continuing their age-old traditions.

The Mayans used many different calendars and viewed time as a meshing of spiritual cycles. While the calendars had practical uses, such as social, agricultural, commercial and administrative tasks, there was a very heavy religious element. Each day had a patron spirit, signifying that each day had specific use. This contrasts greatly with our modern Gregorian calendar which primarily sets the administrative, social and economic dates.
Most of the Mayan calendars were short. The Tzolk’in calendar lasted for 260 days and the Haab’ approximated the solar year of 365 days. The Mayans then combined both the Tzolk’in and the Haab’ to form the “Calendar Round”, a cycle lasting 52 Haab’s (around 52 years, or the approximate length of a generation). Within the Calendar Round were the trecena (13 day cycle) and the veintena (20 day cycle). Obviously, this system would only be of use when considering the 18,980 unique days over the course of 52 years. In addition to these systems, the Mayans also had the “Venus Cycle”. Being keen and highly accurate astronomers they formed a calendar based on the location of Venus in the night sky. It’s also possible they did the same with the other planets in the Solar System.

Using the Calendar Round is great if you simply wanted to remember the date of your birthday or significant religious periods, but what about recording history? There was no way to record a date older than 52 years.

THE END OF THE LONG COUNT=END OF EARTH?
The Mayans had a solution. Using an innovative method, they were able to expand on the 52 year Calendar Round. Up to this point, the Mayan Calendar may have sounded a little archaic – after all, it was possibly based on religious belief, the menstrual cycle, mathematical calculations using the numbers 13 and 20 as the base units and a heavy mix of astrological myth. The only principal correlation with the modern calendar is the Haab’ that recognised there were 365 days in one solar year (it’s not clear whether the Mayans accounted for leap years). The answer to a longer calendar could be found in the “Long Count”, a calendar lasting 5126 years.

I’m personally very impressed with this dating system. For starters, it is numerically predictable and it can accurately pinpoint historical dates. However, it depends on a base unit of 20 (where modern calendars use a base unit of 10). So how does this work?

The base year for the Mayan Long Count starts at “0.0.0.0.0″. Each zero goes from 0-19 and each represent a tally of Mayan days. So, for example, the first day in the Long Count is denoted as 0.0.0.0.1. On the 19th day we’ll have 0.0.0.0.19, on the 20th day it goes up one level and we’ll have 0.0.0.1.0. This count continues until 0.0.1.0.0 (about one year), 0.1.0.0.0 (about 20 years) and 1.0.0.0.0 (about 400 years). Therefore, if I pick an arbitrary date of 2.10.12.7.1, this represents the Mayan date of approximately 1012 years, 7 months and 1 day.

This is all very interesting, but what has this got to do with the end of the world? The Mayan Prophecy is wholly based on the assumption that something bad is going to happen when the Mayan Long Count calendar runs out. Experts are divided as to when the Long Count ends, but as the Maya used the numbers of 13 and 20 at the root of their numerical systems, the last day could occur on 13.0.0.0.0. When does this happen? Well, 13.0.0.0.0 represents 5126 years and the Long Count started on 0.0.0.0.0, which corresponds to the modern date of August 11th 3114 BC. Have you seen the problem yet? The Mayan Long Count ends 5126 years later on December 21st, 2012.

DOOMSDAY
When something ends (even something as innocent as an ancient calendar), people seem to think up the most extreme possibilities for the end of civilization as we know it. A brief scan of the internet will pull up the most popular to some very weird ways that we will, with little logical thought, be wiped off the face of the planet. Archaeologists and mythologists on the other hand believe that the Mayans predicted an age of enlightenment when 13.0.0.0.0 comes around; there isn’t actually much evidence to suggest doomsday will strike. If anything, the Mayans predict a religious miracle, not anything sinister.

Myths are abound and seem to be fuelling movie storylines. It looks like the new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is even based around the Mayan myth that 13 crystal skulls can save humanity from certain doom. This myth says that if the 13 ancient skulls are not brought together at the right time, the Earth will be knocked off its axis. This might be a great plotline for blockbuster movies, but it also highlights the hype that can be stirred, lighting up religious, scientific and not-so-scientific ideas that the world is doomed.

Could an asteroid wipe out the Earth? (NASA)

Some of the most popular space-based threats to the Earth and mankind focus on Planet X wiping most life off the planet, meteorite impacts, black holes, killer solar flares, Gamma Ray Bursts from star systems, a rapid ice age and a polar (magnetic) shift. There is so much evidence against these things happening in 2012, it’s shocking just how much of a following they have generated. Each of the above “threats” needs their own devoted article as to why there is no hard evidence to support the hype.

But the fact remains, the Mayan Doomsday Prophecy is purely based on a calendar which we believe hasn’t been designed to calculate dates beyond 2012. Mayan archaeo-astronomers are even in debate as to whether the Long Count is designed to be reset to 0.0.0.0.0 after 13.0.0.0.0, or whether the calendar simply continues to 20.0.0.0.0 (approximately 8000 AD) and then reset. As Karl Kruszelnicki brilliantly writes:

“…when a calendar comes to the end of a cycle, it just rolls over into the next cycle. In our Western society, every year 31 December is followed, not by the End of the World, but by 1 January. So 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan calendar will be followed by 0.0.0.0.1 – or good-ol’ 22 December 2012, with only a few shopping days left to Christmas.” – Excerpt from Dr Karl’s “Great Moments in Science“.

Some Interesting Facts About Ex-planet Pluto

The International Astronomical Union defines a planet as a celestial body that orbits around a star (like our sun) and is big enough that it forms into a shape of a sphere by its own gravity. But a planet cannot be big enough that it can cause thermonuclear fusion. It also has to have a clear orbit with no other bodies of comparable size influencing its gravitational force.

Since my formative school days, I grew up to know Pluto was a planet. However, the International Astronomical Union has recently declassified this farthest planet and removed it from the list of planets that orbit the sun.

WHY IT WAS DECLASSIFIED?

The International Astronomical Union declassified Pluto form the list of planets mainly because it was found out that some asteroids have been detected in the solar system about the size or even larger than Pluto. Secondly, Pluto was also discovered not have a regular orbit and it was because of these reasons that it failed to meet the recent rules and requirements set by Astronomers for qualification as a planet. Never-the-less, it is still considered the 10th largest body orbiting our solar system and it is code-named an ex-planet.

Size

Pluto was named by an eleven year old British girl soon after it was discovered in 1930 by Tombaugh. It was named after the Roman god of the underworld. In terms of size, Pluto is smaller than the earth and is reddish-brown in color, unlike the Blue Planet Earth and the Red Planet Mars. Its moon, Charon is more than a half the full size of Pluto itself; this makes it one of the only planets with a giant moon of it own. There are however, two other moons of Pluto that were discovered in 2005

Distance

Pluto is so far away from the sun that it follows a highly irregular orbit around the Sun that at some points, it is closer to the sun than Neptune. At the closest point of its orbit, called perihelion, Pluto gets to within 4.44 billion km from the Sun. And then at its most distant point of its orbit, called aphelion, Pluto gets to within 7.38 billion km of the Sun. When one is in Pluto, the sun looks so small like some little bright star given the enormous this distance that exist between it and the sun.

Atmosphere

Its atmosphere has some traces of methane, nitrogen and carbon-dioxide. the absence of oxygen on Pluto means it cannot sustain life