Columbia Pictures

Government scientists should be trusted, obviously

By CHRIS NEEDHAM

vie “2012″ worked you to a tizzy?  Are you wandering around the house, fretting about the Mayan calendar?  Are you hoarding tin foil, constructing not just hats, but entire suits, including wee little ones for the 14 cats you own?  If so, you’re a nutball.

And that’s why the rest of us are all thankful that the government is ready to respond to all citizens, sane and insane alike.

The good folks at NASA — who’ve brought us such innovation as Tang and those pens that write upside-down — have outdone themselves with their latest effort.  They recently posted a 2012 FAQ: your guide to the end of the world.

“Question (Q): Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012.
Answer (A): Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.”

Oh yeah, but what about IN-credible scientists?  What do they say?  I mean, I was just reading this thing on the internet about how the Mayans predicted that real government scientists would try to dupe the unsuspecting public into tranquility before the world exploded, just like in the movie.

“Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of pending doomsday?
A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.”

Oh, but Mr. Scientist — Mr. Can’t-Be-Trusted Government Scientist, that is — can you show us any evidence that there WON’T be doomsday in 2012.  Your puny calls for facts and so-called “evidence” ring hollow until you provide said “evidence” for yourself.  Prove to us that there ISN’T an invisible planet tracking silently behind the sun, waiting to emerge in a few years to destroy Earth.

On one hand, we have government scientists telling us we’ll be OK.  On the other hand, we’ve got a capitalist visionary like Roland Emmerich, director of the movie, telling us something else.  Who’s got more at stake?  The scientists in their cushy taxpayer-funded jobs or the director who stands to lose millions of his business’ money should the movie lack credibility.

Hmm…  Maybe those tin-foilers aren’t so crazy after all.

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Credit Due: http://www.nbcwashington.com/around-town/events/NASAs-Guide-to-Doomsday-69650687.html

By FRANK JORDANS (AP) – 4 hours ago

GENEVA — A rare Panamanian tree frog, a rodent from Madagascar and two lizards found only in the Philippines are among over 17,000 species threatened with extinction, a leading environmental group said Tuesday.

The Rabb’s fringe-limbed tree frog, only discovered four years ago, is one of 1,895 amphibian species that could soon disappear from the wild because of deforestation and infection, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said.

The Switzerland-based group surveyed 47,677 animals and plants for this year’s “Red List” of endangered species, determining that 17,291 of them are at risk of extinction.

More than one in five of all known mammals, over a quarter of reptiles and 70 percent of plants are under threat, according to the survey, which featured over 2,800 new species compared with 2008.

“These results are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Craig Hilton-Taylor, who manages the list. He said many more species that have yet to be assessed could also be under serious threat.

The only mammal added to the list this year was the Eastern Voalavo, a rodent that lives in the mountainous forests of Madagascar. IUCN classified it as “endangered” — two steps from extinction in the wild — because its habitat is being destroyed by slash-and-burn farming.

The Red List already includes species such as the tiger, of which only 3,200 are thought to exist in the wild and whose habitat in Asia is steadily shrinking due to encroachment by humans. Governments and international conservation bodies use the list as guidance when deciding which species to place under legal protection.

The group added almost 300 reptiles this year, including the Panay monitor lizard and the sail-fin water lizard, both of which are hunted for food and threatened by logging in their native Philippines.

IUCN also surveyed 3,120 freshwater fishes, up 510 species from last year, and found 1,147 of them threatened with extinction. They include the brown mudfish in New Zealand, whose wetland habitats have been virtually destroyed through drainage schemes, irrigation and land development.

Some species have recovered thanks to conservation efforts, the group said. The Australian grayling, a freshwater fish, graduated from “vulnerable” to “near threatened” thanks to fish ladders at dams and other protection measures.

But for many other species, conservation efforts are likely to come too late.

The Kihansi spray toad of southern Tanzania is now thought to be extinct in the wild. A dam upstream of Kihansi Falls has dried up the gorge where it lived, and an aggressive fungal disease known as chytridiomycosis appears to have pushed the toad population over the edge, the group said.

The same fate could soon befall the unusually large Rabb’s fringe-limbed tree frog, which glides through the forest using its big webbed feet to steer safely to the ground. It is the only known frog species where the tadpoles feed off skin shed by the male while he guards the young.

The chytrid fungus that causes chytridiomycosis reached central Panama in 2006, a year after scientists first discovered the tree frog. Since then the fungus — believed to be spread by international trade and global warming — has virtually wiped out the wild frog population.

“Only a single male has been heard calling since,” IUCN said.

Zoo Atlanta scientist Joseph Mendelson, part of the group that identified the frog as a distinct species, said it is likely that dozens or even hundreds of other amphibians have become or are going to be extinct before they are even discovered.

“This one we caught right before it went off the planet, but other species surely we didn’t catch in time,” Mendelson told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

“When you name a new species you’re attached to it, and when that species disappears so quickly it’s impossible not to have feelings associated with that,” he said. “I’m pretty sad to be honest, really sad.”

• IUCN Red List: http://www.iucnredlist.org/

Film & Internet Rumors Fuel Doomsday Babble

By Joel Achenbach Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 16, 2009

A scene from the disaster film “2012.” (Copyright 2009 Columbia Tristar Marketing Group)

The world is coming to an end.

In, like, 4 or 5 billion years. The sun will get old and cranky and eventually immolate the entire planet.

The world, however, is not coming to an end on Dec. 21, 2012, contrary to the viral Internet rumor propounded by pseudo-scientists, hoaxers, Hollywood movie promoters and assorted void-between-the-ears people who wouldn’t recognize a scientific fact if it tried to abduct them.

The notion that 2012 heralds the End of Time has something to do with a mysterious Planet X that will supposedly hurtle into, or perhaps merely perturb, Earth. Also, there might be geomagnetic storms, a Pole Reversal, and a newfound unsteadiness in the planet’s crustal plates. All of that, or variations thereof, can be studied in depth in scores of books now jostling for eschatological primacy with such titles as “Apocalypse 2012,” “The World Cataclysm in 2012″ and “How to Survive 2012.”

This is no joke to David Morrison, senior scientist for NASA’s Astrobiology Institute. He’s counted 200 different books for sale about 2012. As the author of an online feature called Ask an Astrobiologist, he’s gotten nearly 1,000 e-mails from people who think something dire is about to befall the planet. One teenager wrote to Morrison that he’d rather commit suicide than see the world destroyed. Many of the letters, Morrison said, presume that the government is covering up the imminent catastrophe. Letters begin, “I know you can’t tell me the truth, but . . . “

Read the rest of this entry »

As we reported today, the Governator stopped by Oracle OpenWorld to “pump up” the tech industry and sing the praises of California’s contributions toward innovation.

But it wasn’t all serious talk. Schwarzenegger joked about his wife being caught in photos recently talking on her cell phone illegally while driving. He asked the crowd to find a solution for her so she wouldn’t look like she’s still in the “stone age.”

But he said he’s in tricky no-win situation, trying to look tough for voters while not coming down too hard on his wife.

“If I don’t create action, the voters get upset but if I create action and stop her, then I get no action,” he said.

More laughs came when Schwarznegger recounted how the tech industry helped his movie career. Schwarzenegger said it was technology that allowed him to appear as a Terminator blowing up a T-1000 Terminator. And it was technology that also allowed him to appear like he was saving his daughter while flying a Harrier jet in True Lies. And it enabled him to fight off a huge snake in Conan the Barbarian.

“I could have never done that and looked so studly without green screen technology,” Schwarzenegger said.

And in perhaps a wink to his acknowledged steroid use at the beginning of his career, he said it was technology that helped him during his body building days.

“If I wouldn’t have come to America and used the technology that was available in equipment and also food supplements, I would have never won those world championships in body building,” he said to laughter.

But he said he was most excited about visiting OpenWorld because he’s a big techie himself.

“I love technology, it doesn’t matter if it’s high tech or bio tech, or if it’s nano tech or green tech or clean tech. All of the techs I just love,” he said.