GRAB your bucket list. There's less than 100 days left for you to do everything you wish to do - if you believe in the The Mayan Apocalypse
.December 21 is the end of days. Or, perhaps it's the 23rd... Interpreting the Mayan Calendar 
is not a precision science.But what we know is the "Long Count 
" and "Dresden Codex" calendars of the ages of the Earth do expire in December. Maybe.And, according to a thriving industry of books, television documentaries and web blogs, that means it is time to kiss everything goodbye. |  |
Tropical East Africa's epic flora survey completed
The complete flora of tropical East Africa has been recorded by scientists, 60 years after the project first began.
When researchers started the task in 1948 they thought it would only take 15 years to finish. But it took 135 botanists from 21 countries six decades to catalogue all the 12,104 wild plant species of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. 1,500 plant species new to science have been described during the project from acacia trees to flowering plants. |  |
Missing Voices: Native Perspective Lacking in Civil War Accounts
An account of Indians in the U.S. Civil War has been issued in paperback—and with it comes a now-familiar sense of letdown. That’s because such books invariably leave out Native voices, relying on academic research and accounts. Clarissa Confer’s The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War
 , first published in hardcover by the University of Oklahoma Press in 2008, is no exception.American Indian participation in the Civil War tends to be seen as an anomaly. Yet scholars and tribal historians should not be surprised that Indians took part, with men from many nations fighting on both sides. |   |
Guatemalan family doing refurbishments discover Mayan murals
A family in Guatemala was simply looking to renovate their home, hoping to get a different look than what they were used to.
That mission was certainly accomplished when they began scraping back plaster in their kitchen, they discovered a historic Mayan mural that covered multiple walls. When Lucas Asicona Ramirez peeled back the layers and found the murals, he was likely the first person to see the images in centuries. The Maya were a group of people who lived in the areas now known as Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and western El Salvador before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Though the official start and end dates of the civilization vary, the range from 2600 B.C. to about 900 A.D. showing their longevity. |  |
Exorcism boom in Poland sees magazine launch
WARSAW — With exorcism booming in Poland, Roman Catholic priests have joined forces with a publisher to launch what they claim is the world's first monthly magazine focused exclusively on chasing out the devil.
"The rise in the number or exorcists from four to more than 120 over the course of 15 years in Poland is telling," Father Aleksander Posacki, a professor of philosophy, theology and leading demonologist and exorcist told reporters in Warsaw at the Monday launch of the Egzorcysta monthly. |  |
Chile may soon legalise ayahuasca
A Chilean court ruled that ayahuasca
is beneficial to health and therefore its use should not be penalized, an act of collective consciousness that seems to advance the revival of psychedelic medicine and introduicrnos a little more to the mystery of a plant that continues tradition of the drink of the gods, the soma.A few days ago a court in Chile ruled that ayahuasca is not a substance harmful to health. In contrast, this compound may be highly beneficial to the welfare of human beings. A mystery is revealed in this herb, as a vine metaphysical joins heaven and earth, the soul with the body and the conscious mind with the unconscious. |  |
Peruvian buried U.S. teen who died from drinking hallucinogenic brew
A Peruvian shaman admitted to police on Wednesday that he had buried the body of a U.S. teenager to cover up his death during a spiritual retreat in the Amazon last month.
Shaman Jose Pineda Vargas, 58, told the authorities that 18-year-old Kyle Joseph Nolan, from northern California, died on August 22 from exceeding the dosage of a medicinal brew called Ayahuasca while staying at the Shimbre Shamanic Center. Vargas then buried Nolan’s body at his jungle retreat and said that the teenager disappeared. Nolan's mother began searching for him after he failed to return from Peru as scheduled August 27. |  |
Third 5,000-year-old figurine found at Orkney dig
A third 5,000-year-old hand-carved figurine has been discovered during excavations on Orkney.
Archaeologists had previously unearthed two ancient figurines in 2009 and 2010 at the dig at Links of Noltland in Westray. All three will go on display at the Westray Heritage Centre. |  |
Nearly 2,000-Year-Old Jaguar Sculpture Found in Mexico
Mexican archaeologists discovered a nearly 2,000-year-old sculpture of a jaguar in the Izapa archaeological zone, the National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH, said in a communique.
The one-ton piece - which measures 1.38 meters (53 inches) long by 87 centimeters (34 inches) high and 52 centimeters (20.5 inches) wide - "is only engraved on one of its sides with the form of a jaguar, with the front and back paws flexed as if it were lying down," the director of the INAH Center in the southern state of Chiapas, Emiliano Gallaga, said. |  |
Long-held Theory on Human Bipedalism and Gestation Challenged
New research by a University of Rhode Island professor suggests that the length of human pregnancy is limited primarily by a mother's metabolism, not the size of the birth canal. The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of August 27, challenges the long-held notion of an evolutionary trade-off between childbirth and a pelvis adapted for walking upright.
Two traits that set humans apart from other primates—big brains and the ability to walk upright—could be at odds when it comes to childbirth. Big brains and the big heads that encase them are hard to push through the human birth canal, but a wider pelvis might compromise bipedal walking. Scientists have long posited that nature's solution to this problem, which is known as the "obstetric dilemma," was to shorten the duration of gestation so that babies are born before their heads get too big. As a result, human babies are relatively helpless and seemingly underdeveloped in terms of motor and cognitive ability compared to other primates. |  |
Juno Jupiter probe gets British boost
Nasa's Juno spacecraft will execute the second of two big burns on its main engine on Tuesday.
The manoeuvre will put the probe on a path to flyby Earth in October next year. This sweep around the home planet will then give the mission a gravitational boost and the velocity required to get it out to Jupiter in July 2016. What you might not know is that this critical event depends on British-designed and -built hardware. Juno is equipped with a Leros-1b apogee engine prepared by Moog-ISP of Westcott. |  |
Beyond Concorde: The next generation of supersonic flight
For more than three decades, Concorde represented the pinnacle of business travel -- the ultimate status symbol for the jetset executive.
Considered a marvel of aviation technology, the distinctive droop-nosed aircraft traveled at twice the speed of sound, flying from London to New York in about three and a half hours -- half the time of commercial airliners. But even before an Air France Concorde crashed in 2000, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew members on board, the luster was beginning to wane. |  |
Common Interpretation of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle Is Proved False
A new experiment shows that measuring a quantum system does not necessarily introduce uncertainty
Contrary to what many students are taught, quantum uncertainty may not always be in the eye of the beholder. A new experiment shows that measuring a quantum system does not necessarily introduce uncertainty. The study overthrows a common classroom explanation of why the quantum world appears so fuzzy, but the fundamental limit to what is knowable at the smallest scales remains unchanged. |  |
Tasmanian Devils' best hope for survival could rest on being less ferocious
Taking the devilish element out of one of Australia's most iconic but endangered animals could save it from extinction.
Evolving to be less aggressive could be the best hope for saving Tasmanian Devils in the wild, suggest scientists from the University of Tasmania, in a new study. The species is facing extinction from Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD), an infectious cancer that is spread by the animals biting each other. It is believed that the cancer has wiped out over 60% of the animals since it was first discovered in 1996. |  |
New monkey species identified in Democratic Republic of Congo
A new species of monkey has been identified in Africa, only the second time such a discovery has been made on the continent in 28 years.
The identification of the monkey in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is significant, as identification of mammals new to science is rare. Lesula (Cercopithecus lomamiensis) has a naked face and a mane of long blond hairs, and is described by the researchers who identified it as shy and quiet. It lives both on the ground and in trees in a 6,500 square mile habitat of the lowland rainforests in the centre of the DRC between the middle Lomami (the inspiration for the species' name) and the upper Tshuapa Rivers. Its diet is mostly fruit and vegetation. |  |
Warning on Scottish wildcat numbers
The Scottish wildcat, one of the country's rarest species, could become extinct "at any moment", conservationists have warned.
There could be as few as 35 purebreds left in the wild, according to information gathered by the Scottish Wildcat Association (SWA). Numbers have dwindled in their northern habitat due to cross-breeding with domestic or feral cats. |  |
Wildflowers going extinct at rate of two every year
Colourful species including cornflowers, poppies and oxeye daisies brightened up the meadows around the Olympic Stadium during the Games.
Windflower meadows were also planted in towns and villages to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. But a survey by Plantlife found that ten species have been lost in Britain since the Queen came to the throne including summer lady’s tresses and purple spurge. |  |
UK's 'largest' meteorite on display at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum
A hunk of rock that for years sat on the doorstep of a stately home in Wiltshire has been identified as – possibly – the largest meteorite to have fallen on Britain.
The lump of stone, which weighs 90kg, fell to Earth some 30,000 years ago and is thought to have survived almost whole because it was preserved firstly in the frozen conditions of the last ice age and then in chalk after being built into a burial mound. |  |
Richard III skeleton reveals 'hunchback king'
For centuries historians have debated Richard III and whether his reputation as a ruthless hunchback king was a true reflection of his reign or just a figment of Shakespeare's imagination.
Now it would seem that at least some of that legend may be true, after archaeologists unearthed a fully intact skeleton that they believe is that of the medieval king which, crucially, has a deformed spine. |  |
Curiosity Mars rover to 'drive, drive, drive'
The Mars Curiosity rover has all but completed its commissioning phase and is ready to begin its detailed investigation of the Red Planet.
The six-wheeled vehicle touched down in Gale Crater on 6 August (GMT). Since then, daily activities have been dominated by system checkouts and instrument calibration work. US space agency engineers say they have one final day of testing on Curiosity's robotic arm to complete before handing the rover over to the scientists. |  |
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