Nasa when is the end of the world

We have to bolster public transportation and redesign cities to discourage the use of cars. The drop in sequencing costs is shifting DNA testing out of the research lab and into mainstream medical practice. Population-based sequencing projects in more than a dozen countries, including the US , are expected to produce 60 million genomes by By , China hopes to add another million from its own precision medicine initiative. The impact is hard to even imagine.

To date, only about a million people have had their whole genomes sequenced. More data from all over the globe will allow for more powerful, fine-grained analyses of how genes shape health and behavior.

Very large genetic data sets are ideal for a new technique called Mendelian randomization , which mimics clinical trials, allowing researchers to tease apart causes and correlations.

Bigger samples will also make it possible to forecast even complex traits—like height or susceptibility to heart disease—from DNA. A world so saturated with genetic data will come with its own risks. The emergence of genetic surveillance states and the end of genetic privacy loom. Technical advances in encrypting genomes may help ameliorate some of those threats.

But new laws will need to keep the risks and benefits of so much genetic knowledge in balance. The prediction that the world would end four days before Christmas — potentially wreaking havoc with gift buying and travel plans — is a long-standing misconception, Nasa explains.

An accompanying post on the agency's website, titled Beyond Why the World Won't End, says that 21 December this year has been labelled as the end of all things because the Mayan calendar ends on this date. But "just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, ," Nasa says. Instead, it just starts over again. One of them in particular, an enigmatic deity named Bolon Yokte' K'uh, would conduct old rites of passage, to set space and time in order, and to regenerate the cosmos.

For him, "experiencing Dec. Author: Dr. Tony Phillips Production editor: Dr. Dec 22, Apparently not. A new ScienceCast video explores what the Maya really thought about Dec. Play it. What caused the fall of the Maya? Using NASA data, one archeologist believes he has found the answer. Recommended Articles. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info. According to combined data from three NASA satellites, the planet's mesosphere has been cooling shrinking at a rate of about ft to ft a year for the last 30 years.

The mesosphere extends between 30 and 50 miles above the planet's surface and is much thinner than the atmospheric layer we live in - the troposphere. Scientists have attributed this worrying phenomenon to the effects of climate change and, unless something is done to slash the planet's greenhouse emissions, it is expected to continue. The discovery is worrying because it indicates that more heat from the surface is making its way to the upper parts of the atmosphere.

Once there, any heat captured by molecules of carbon dioxide CO2 is lost to space , causing the air to cool and contract.