Apocalyptic Fiction in Hamilton Ontario Canada

Gathering reviews by local and foreign readers alike, The Judas Syndrome, a work of apocalyptic fiction by Michael Poeltl is showing well with an average of 4 out of 5 stars.

Reviews can be viewed at:
Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Judas-Syndrome-Michael-Poeltl/dp/0557085241/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256759796&sr=1-1

The authors Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Hamilton-ON/Michael-Poeltl/97811089791?ref=ts

The authors personal page at GoodReads: http://www.mikepoeltl.com/

With books in print now available locally at select book stores in the Hamilton, Ontario region, Poeltl is looking to further distribute his novel to Chapters in Ancaster and Indigo books on the mountain.
Currently the Judas Syndrome is available at Bryan Prince Booksellers in Westdale: http://www.princebooks.net/home.html , a suburb of the city of Hamilton, and on James Street South at The James Street Bookseller:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hamilton-ON/The-James-Street-Bookseller/86678587229

Of course if you're looking for an end of the world fix, and can't get to one of the stores where it is available, you will be able to order the printed version directly from the author http://www.the-judas-syndrome.com/ or via http://www.amazon.com/.

Another option is the ebook. Poeltl has included his debut novel as a download at:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/4813 where it is available in many ebook reader formats at a very reasonable price.

With the buzz around 2012 and our impending doom, Poeltl is right on track with humanities fears of the end of the world as we know it, and plays on those fears to put together the quintessential apocalyptic novel.

Hope for 2012?

As I research deeper into the mayan culture and refer to experts like Namaste Birgitte, of www.maya-portal.com, I am begining to see both sides of the 2012 argument. As much as I have been one to jump on the 2012 band-wagon, I am also happy to hear - from noted experts - that 2012 holds no more fear for the end of the world than does tomorrow.
One such expert has offered this to one of the many groups I belong to in researching societies fear of the number; 2012.

"To respond to the question of 2012. There is indeed a great deal of speculation about the date 12/21/2012, which according to some scholars is the end of the Long Count, the Mayan calendar which keeps track of vast stretches of geologic time. Please note that the Maya had a number of calendars, which they used for differing purposes (the Tzolk'in is the personal calendar, while the Haab was used for agriculture and accounting), so the "end date" just happens to be the closing of a five-thousand-year cycle, and the beginning of another, in the Long Count. And because that sort of thing happens only once in a lifetime, it's a pretty awesome concept. Other scholars, such as Dr. Carl Calleman, state that the end date should in fact be October 28, 2011. However, the Maya themselves do not particularly concern themselves with any end date, but instead refer to a "year zero" which does not have a specific date, per se; in fact, they are baffled by the West's intense interest in 2012. "

Apocalyptic fiction available in ebook formats

The Apocalyptic novel The Judas Syndrome is now available for immediate sampling and purchase in multiple ebook formats, readable in virtually all ebook reading devices such as the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kimble.
Go check it out at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/4813

Observing fluid motions in the Earth's core could help scientists predict future changes

An interesting study on a future end to life as we know it from MSNBC. Imagine, if the "Earth’s overall magnetic field has weakened at least 10 percent over the past 150 years, which could also point to an upcoming field reversal", what will happen to our communications? Read further for the answers.

Something beneath the surface is changing Earth’s protective magnetic field, which may leave satellites and other space assets vulnerable to high-energy radiation.
The gradual weakening of the overall magnetic field can take hundreds and even thousands of years. But smaller, more rapid fluctuations within months may leave satellites unprotected and catch scientists off guard, new research finds.
A new model uses satellite data from the past nine years to show how sudden fluid motions within the Earth’s core can alter the magnetic envelope around our planet. The outer core extends from 2,500 to 3500 miles below the earth’s surface.

This represents the first time that researchers have been able to detect such rapid magnetic field changes taking place over just a few months.
“There are these changes in the South Atlantic, an area where the magnetic field has the smallest envelope at one third [of what is] normal,” said Mioara Mandea, a geophysicist at the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany.

Even before the newly detected changes, the South Atlantic Anomaly represented a weak spot in the magnetic field — a dent in Earth’s protective bubble.
The Earth’s magnetic field extends about 36,000 miles into space, generated from the spinning effect of the electrically-conductive core that acts something like a giant electromagnet. The field creates a tear-drop shaped bubble that has constantly shielded life on Earth against much of the high-energy radiation flowing from the sun.
The last major change in the field took place some 780,000 years ago during a magnetic reversal, although such reversals seem to occur more often on average. A flip in the north and south poles typically involves a weakening in the magnetic field, followed by a period of rapid recovery and reorganization of opposite polarity.
Some studies in recent years have suggested the next reversal might be imminent, but the jury is out on that question.
Measuring interactions between the magnetic field and the molten iron core 1,864 miles down has proven difficult in the past, but the constant observations of satellites such as CHAMP and Orsted have begun to bring the picture into focus.
Mandea worked with Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, to create a model of the fluid core that fits with the magnetic field changes detected by the satellites.
However, the rapid weakening of the magnetic field in the South Atlantic Anomaly region could signal future troubles for such satellites. Radiation storms from the sun could fry electronic equipment on satellites that suddenly lacked the protective cover of a rapidly changing magnetic field.
“For satellites, this could be a problem,” Mandea told SPACE.com. “If there are magnetic storms and high-energy particles coming from the sun, the satellites could be affected and their connections could be lost.”
The constant radiation bombardment from the sun blows with the solar wind to Earth, where it flows against and around the magnetic field. The effect creates the tear-drop shaped magnetosphere bubble, but even the powerful field cannot keep out all the high-energy particles.

A large sunspot set off a major radiation storm in 2006 that temporarily blinded some sun-watching satellites. Astronauts on the International Space Station retreated to a protected area as a precaution to avoid unnecessary radiation exposure.
The Earth’s overall magnetic field has weakened at least 10 percent over the past 150 years, which could also point to an upcoming field reversal.

Mandea and Olsen hope to continue refining their model with updated observations, and perhaps to eventually help predict future changes in the Earth’s magnetic field.
The study was detailed in the May online edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.