Got a favourite prediction for the end of the world? Or even one of your own? Which doomsayer has caught your eye?
Pop your top prediction, plus a link, in the comments box and we'll publish a selection in the next issue ...
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Deadly shipment 'under threat from terrorists'
According to the Times yesterday (no, go and find your own damn link!), Greenpeace is claiming a French consignment of reprocessed nuclear fuel to Japan contains enough bomb-grade plutonium to make 225 nuclear weapons and is at risk from being hijacked by terrorists.
The shipment of mixed oxide (MOX), a blend of plutonium and reprocessed uranium, is being carried on two ships from the British-based firm Pacific Nuclear Transport from Cherbourg this week. Areva, the reprocessing company, confirmed the shipment and said the vessels would be "armed and protected by specifically trained guards from Britain".
Just so you know, you recover bomb-grade plutonium by re-processing spent nuclear fuel and separating the plutonium from remaining uranium and waste fission products.
The shipment of mixed oxide (MOX), a blend of plutonium and reprocessed uranium, is being carried on two ships from the British-based firm Pacific Nuclear Transport from Cherbourg this week. Areva, the reprocessing company, confirmed the shipment and said the vessels would be "armed and protected by specifically trained guards from Britain".
Just so you know, you recover bomb-grade plutonium by re-processing spent nuclear fuel and separating the plutonium from remaining uranium and waste fission products.
Radioactive relic found
A bottle discarded at a waste site in the US contains the oldest sample of bomb-grade plutonium made in a nuclear reactor, scientists say.
The sample dates to 1944 and is a relic from the infancy of the US nuclear weapons programme.
The type of plutonium in the bottle - known as Pu-239 - is a so-called alpha emitter. These alpha particles are too bulky to penetrate skin or paper, but they can cause poisoning if swallowed or inhaled.
It has a half-life (the time it takes for half the radioactive nuclei in a sample to decay) of 24,110 years.
The bottle in question was discovered in a burial trench at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state, north-western US.
Established as part of the Manhattan Project in 1943, Hanford was home to the world's first full-scale plutonium production facility.
The sample dates to 1944 and is a relic from the infancy of the US nuclear weapons programme.
The type of plutonium in the bottle - known as Pu-239 - is a so-called alpha emitter. These alpha particles are too bulky to penetrate skin or paper, but they can cause poisoning if swallowed or inhaled.
It has a half-life (the time it takes for half the radioactive nuclei in a sample to decay) of 24,110 years.
The bottle in question was discovered in a burial trench at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington state, north-western US.
Established as part of the Manhattan Project in 1943, Hanford was home to the world's first full-scale plutonium production facility.
Thursday, 26 February 2009
The End is Nigh for Twitter!
Yes, The End is Nigh now has its own newsfeed through Twitter - regular updates on all the apocalyptic news that's fit to scare your socks off!
How to survive the 21st Century
The New Scientist has provided a blueprint for how mankind might make it through the next 91 years, if Mr Lovelock's direst predictions actually come true ...
Life "doomed" by four degree rise in global temps
James Lovelock, the former Nasa scientist and chief proponent of Gaia theory, has hit the headlines again with 'doomsday' predictions of the effects of climate change.
Climate change will wipe out most life on Earth by the end of this century and mankind is too late to avert catastrophe, a leading British climate scientist said.
Climate change will wipe out most life on Earth by the end of this century and mankind is too late to avert catastrophe, a leading British climate scientist said.
Lovelock, 89, has said higher temperatures will turn parts of the world into desert and raise sea levels, flooding other regions.
His apocalyptic theory foresees crop failures, drought and death on an unprecedented scale. The population of this hot, barren world could shrink from about seven billion to one billion by 2100 as people compete for ever-scarcer resources.
"It will be death on a grand scale from famine and lack of water," Lovelock told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. "It could be a reduction to a billion (people) or less."
More worryingly, he claims that even if the world found a way of cutting emissions to zero, it is now too late to cool the Earth.
Ironically, this comes just a few weeks after experts at Britain's top climate research centre launched an attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming.
Talking up the apocalypse
We've talked before about the language of the apocalypse, particularly in issue two in reference to natural disasters. In the verbose excesses of a globalised media, analogies of apocalypse and disaster are easily employed to strike home to the reader or listener the gravity of the situation in a natural, almost knee-jerk reaction to events that seem too big to be true. Such words are not the preserve of the doom-monger, as even those who promise relief and rescue from a frightening and seemingly overwhelming situation find it all too easy to create a backdrop of despair, against which their efforts shine even more brightly.
But what effect does this have? What seeds does it sow? According to the latest report from the Global Language Monitor, 'words of hope in the global media have given way to those of despair and fear relating to the economic meltdown in a three-month period since the US presidential election in November'. The way we use language fundamentally affects our view of the world and as people are bombarded with words such as 'armageddon', 'meltdown', 'doomsday' and 'apocalypse' their emotional reaction to the situation will inevitably shift towards feelings of fear and despair. Couple that with the genuine problems faced by people around the world, such as rises in food prices and shortage of commodities, and the consequences can be significant. As people panic, so do their leaders. As a climate of fear evolves, so does the situation where drastic measures seem reasonable.
There are some who inevitably see these societal 'collapses' as precursors for social unrest and, eventually, war; so the way we talk about a crisis deserves attention. Are we playing things up for effect? Are we at risk of affecting the outcome of this economic depression just because of our choice of words? Are we making things worse due a simple poverty of allegory?
But what effect does this have? What seeds does it sow? According to the latest report from the Global Language Monitor, 'words of hope in the global media have given way to those of despair and fear relating to the economic meltdown in a three-month period since the US presidential election in November'. The way we use language fundamentally affects our view of the world and as people are bombarded with words such as 'armageddon', 'meltdown', 'doomsday' and 'apocalypse' their emotional reaction to the situation will inevitably shift towards feelings of fear and despair. Couple that with the genuine problems faced by people around the world, such as rises in food prices and shortage of commodities, and the consequences can be significant. As people panic, so do their leaders. As a climate of fear evolves, so does the situation where drastic measures seem reasonable.
There are some who inevitably see these societal 'collapses' as precursors for social unrest and, eventually, war; so the way we talk about a crisis deserves attention. Are we playing things up for effect? Are we at risk of affecting the outcome of this economic depression just because of our choice of words? Are we making things worse due a simple poverty of allegory?
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Seriously ... what?!
'Many have seen how crowds react to his speaking and have wondered “Is Barack Obama the Antichrist?”'
Many?
We're all for refreshingly new points of view, but this odd blend of post-millennial anxiety, Biblical prophecy that even Joseph Smith would snort at, pseudo-Kenyan nationalism and mis-translation makes even my head hurt.
Of course, many figures have been fingered as The Antichrist, of Revelations fame - the Pope, Henry Kissinger, even JFK. But Obama? It's notable that this prophecy comes out of Kenya itself, rather than from certain right-wing evangelical Christian commentators in America who suggests their new president's moves to repair/improve American relations with the rest of the world means he's due to become some kind of 'President of the world' which, of course, would mean he'd be the unifying Antichrist ...
No, I don't get it either.
Many?
We're all for refreshingly new points of view, but this odd blend of post-millennial anxiety, Biblical prophecy that even Joseph Smith would snort at, pseudo-Kenyan nationalism and mis-translation makes even my head hurt.
Of course, many figures have been fingered as The Antichrist, of Revelations fame - the Pope, Henry Kissinger, even JFK. But Obama? It's notable that this prophecy comes out of Kenya itself, rather than from certain right-wing evangelical Christian commentators in America who suggests their new president's moves to repair/improve American relations with the rest of the world means he's due to become some kind of 'President of the world' which, of course, would mean he'd be the unifying Antichrist ...
No, I don't get it either.
Thursday, 8 January 2009
A little New Year's treat for us all ...
Wondered how long it would be before H5N1 reared its ugly little head. Expect hysterical Daily Mail headlines within a month ...
Bird flu re-emerged as a threat in Asia today after China reported the disease killed a woman in Beijing and neighbouring Vietnam said a girl had contracted the virus.
The cases are the first involving humans in the two countries in nearly a year, and mark a reappearance of the H5N1 virus as Asia moves into the cold winter months that typically favour the spread of the virus.
Oh, and happy new year - let's all hope we make it through 2009!
Bird flu re-emerged as a threat in Asia today after China reported the disease killed a woman in Beijing and neighbouring Vietnam said a girl had contracted the virus.
The cases are the first involving humans in the two countries in nearly a year, and mark a reappearance of the H5N1 virus as Asia moves into the cold winter months that typically favour the spread of the virus.
Oh, and happy new year - let's all hope we make it through 2009!
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