SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

2012 Prophecies Sparking Real Fears, Suicide Warnings

from National Geographic News

It's almost the end of the world, according to purported Maya predictions, and the 2012 apocalypse business is booming.

Survival kits, documentaries, and nearly 200 books presenting the "real" 2012 story are all on offer. And you could probably surf the Web from now until Armaggedon--tentatively slated for December 21, 2012--and still see just a fraction of the Web sites and products devoted to the topic.

But amid all the hype--including a viral marketing campaign for 2012, the disaster movie opening Friday--some people are developing honest "end times" anxiety that has experts seriously concerned. NASA's Ask an Astrobiologist Web site, for example, has received thousands of questions regarding the 2012 doomsday predictions--some of them disturbing, according to David Morrison, a senior scientist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute.