Videos
Podcasts
Blogs
Quizzes
GamesPosts Tagged: ‘apocalypse’
So the other day, fellow blogger Marshall Brain posted a couple of YouTube videos about whether the world’s going to end in 2012. Naturally, this has led to a lot of discussion about religion and just what the likes of Yahweh and Shiva have to say about all this. So I thought I might take just a moment of everyone’s time to point out an excellent online tool for deciding just how boned we are.
I find that much of what I read regarding neuroscience stirs the unsettling notion that the human experience itself is little more than an absurd dream, a strange byproduct of evolution. Canadian author R. Scott Bakker ruminates on these topics, weaving imagined worlds with philosophic discourse and neurological research. In his book “Neuropath,” he refers to something he calls “the semantic apocalypse.” This catastrophe occurs when science shines enough light on the human condition for reason to fail.
With the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over their heads, governments, companies and even individual families invested in fallout shelters during the 1960s. If worst came to worst, they could descend into their provisioned holes and hope to eventually emerge to reclaim a ravaged world.
Yet even the worst scenarios for man-made Armageddon at the time couldn’t hold a candle to what Earth endured approximately 3.9 billion years ago, during the Hadean Eon. Due to a little orbital readjustment among our solar system’s gas giants, our planet was pelted with a barrage of meteor strikes. The damage was catastrophic, melting the surface to magma. Our oldest rocks formed in these days, and the earliest signs of life emerged in the wake of the destruction — or so we’ve long believed.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
- Golden Fields of Canola
- The Park That Never Sleeps: Central Park
- Draw a Pretty Picture With Your Bike and Your Phone
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Blow Your Mind: Nebula in a Box
- Blow Your Mind: Three Minutes Till Impact
- Touching the Void: Psychedelics and Death
Stuff You Should Know
- Stuff You Should Know at SXSW
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Listener Mail: What’s the world’s largest engine?
- Listener Mail: What makes a “classic car” classic?
- Was Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial a little too political?
How-to Stuff
- How to Enjoy the Fruits of Your Labor
- How to Travel the World in 4 Days
- How to Smell Like Someone at HowStuffWorks
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 68: Astrology: What’s PopStuff’s Sign?
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 67: Collecting: PopStuff’s Cabinet of Curiosities
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 66: Tracy and Holly’s Running Playlists
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
- Good News from the Oldest Mayan Calendar
- One Year Later: Colony Collapse Disorder
- Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
- Are we rooting for D.B. Cooper?
- Party Time: A Look at Unconventional Politics
