There's alot of talk about 2012 and the end of the world. This is all clearly false. The end of the world will be on Mon Jan 18, 2038 at 22:14:07. Mark your calendars. > #include > #include > #include > > int main(void) >         { >         time_t end_of_ ... Read Full Article

As reported on Slashdot: [Combat Wombat][1] writes with this excerpt from Reuters: *"A strain of flu never seen before has [killed up to 60 people in Mexico][2] and also appeared in the United States, where eight people were infected but recovered, health officials said on Friday. Mexico's government said at leas ... Read Full Article

*Nothing like a little very serious doom and gloom from slashdot: "While we bemoan the current oil crisis, I ran across an editorial that led me to research a more immediate threat. [Ramped-up production of flat-panel displays means the material to make them will be 'extinct'][1] by 2017. This goes for other ... Read Full Article

As reported by the Washington Post: "At least 2.5 million broiler chickens from an [Indiana][1] producer were fed pet food scraps contaminated with the chemical melamine and subsequently sold for human consumption, federal health officials reported yesterday." You can read [the full article here.][ ... Read Full Article

As reported by Der Spiegel, As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal *Der Kritischer Agrarbericht* (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more b ... Read Full Article

I've been paying attention to honey bee population stories for some time. More than most critters, humanity relies on the work on honey bees to maintain the population levels we have. As reported on AOL News: A mysterious illness is killing tens of thousands of honeybee colonies across the country, threateni ... Read Full Article

As reported by the BBC: ** ** **Experts assessing the dangers posed to civilisation have added climate change to the prospect of nuclear annihilation as the greatest threats to humankind. ** As a result, the group has moved the minute hand on its famous "Doomsday Clock" two minutes closer to midnight Y ... Read Full Article

A study published in the Journal Nature concludes that there is a drastic decrease in the phytoplankton in the world's oceans which is a direct correlation to the increase in global temperatures. Since all food chains begin with photosynthetic organisms this could signal the beginning of the collapse of the food ... Read Full Article

According to the Washington Post: "The world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, according to a study released today by an international group of ecologists and economists." Read the [article at the post.][1] [1]: http://www.washingtonpost ... Read Full Article

As reported on Yahoo Finance: "What they don't talk about is a dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows, or at least should. The vast majority of economists and budget analysts agree: The ship of state is on a disastrous course, and will founder on the reefs of economic disaster if nothing is done to ... Read Full Article

A picture is worth a thousand words: [http://www.yml.com/uploaded\_html/albums/2006-10-17\_CopperTheft][1] [1]: http://www.yml.com/uploaded_html/albums/2006-10-17_CopperTheft ... Read Full Article

As reported by slashdot:* "According to Ronald Reagan's former deputy secretary of the treasury in this article in Counterpunch, [globalization is destroying US I.T. jobs][1]. From the article: 'During the past five years (January 01 – January 06), the information sector of the US economy lost 644,000 jobs, o ... Read Full Article

Firmly in the doom and gloom category, as reported by [Slashdot.org][1]: *"As reported on CircleID, Vint Cerf has confirmed that [ICANN's new contracts for the .org/.biz/.info domain prices can be tiered][2], so that google.biz could cost $1 million per year, while sex.biz could cost $100,000/year. This is ve ... Read Full Article

According to the Washington Post: "The loans under scrutiny include interest-only mortgages and "option" mortgages, in which borrowers decide each month how much to repay. Because monthly payments are lower than with traditional fixed-rate mortgages, borrowers can buy more expensive houses. In the p ... Read Full Article

More doom and gloom. According to the Washington Post: "Dirty water and contaminated fish in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries pose a public health threat, but spotty monitoring and tourism industry worries can block the public from learning the full picture, health experts say.Millions of people swim, b ... Read Full Article

In the "the end of the world is closer than we think sub-category of doom and gloom" , Lance came across this article today: MANAUS - Deep in the heart of the world's greatest rainforest, a nine-day journey by boat from the sea, Otavio Luz Castello is anxiously watching the soft waters ... Read Full Article

In the "oh, now this is bad" category: "Bird flu was spread directly between members of an Indonesian family in the first laboratory-confirmed case of human-to-human transmission of the lethal virus, a World Health Organization official said." Full [article at bloomberg.][1] [1]: http:// ... Read Full Article

As reported by the Washington Post: "Global warming -- with an accompanying rise in floods and droughts -- is fueling the spread of epidemics in areas unprepared for the diseases, say many health experts worldwide. Mosquitoes, ticks, mice and other carriers are surviving warmer winters and expanding their ran ... Read Full Article

In the "oh this is not good" category CNN reports: 'And with global warming, scientists are pessimistic about the future of coral reefs. "The prognosis is not good," said biochemistry professor M. James Crabbe of the University of Luton near London. In early April, he will investigate coral reef ... Read Full Article

CNN.com is reporting on Time Magazine's cover story on global climate change. The [article][1] details the seriousness of the problem. You'll have to look at a brief web ad to read the entire thing for free. [1]: http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/26/coverstory/index.html ... Read Full Article

Some say the days of the US successfully propping up its currency with its economic and military practices will soon come to an end. That's not going to go over well with the US economy. Here are a couple references... Think the dollar is backed by gold and poised to stand the test of time? Read Congressman Paul's spee ... Read Full Article

A disturbing article from UPI: "The fact the Texas cow showed up fairly clearly implied the existence of other undetected cases," Dr. Paul Brown, former medical director of the National Institutes of Health's Laboratory for Central Nervous System Studies and an expert on mad cow-like diseases, told Unite ... Read Full Article

As reported by Science Daily: "Increased carbon dioxide emissions are rapidly making the world's oceans more acidic and, if unabated, could cause a mass extinction of marine life similar to one that occurred 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs disappeared. Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Departm ... Read Full Article

An article on the problems associated with the large trade deficit: "Miami economist Manuel Lasaga, who burnished his University of Pennsylvania doctorate in economics with a stint at Citibank renegotiating the Latin-American debt in the 1980s, shares few characteristics with Chicken Little, who always warned ... Read Full Article

As reported by the Washington Post: "Greenland's glaciers are melting into the sea twice as fast as previously believed, the result of a warming trend that renders obsolete predictions of how quickly Earth's oceans will rise over the next century, scientists said yesterday. The new data come from satellite imag ... Read Full Article