Top 10 Things You Must Have on a Camping Trip

Camping outside is a great way to have an outdoor adventure with friends and family. Whether you're planning to go camping this weekend or later this year, here is the list of the top 10 things that you will absolutely need to take with you to ensure that the trip goes smoothly. Check with the list below and make sure you have packed all these items that will come in handy in a camping trip without doubt.

1. Tent - It is quite obvious if you're camping outdoors, that is why it holds the no 1 spot in our list. Spacious tents that can accommodate everyone is a must have on a camping trip. Whether it's a large multi-room family tent or a small Coleman pop up tent, make sure the tents you take are waterproof and have no defects. It's good to test this with a water hose before you leave. For beginners it is advisable to practice erecting tents before leaving for the actual trip as well, otherwise even if you follow the instructions, first times can get complicated.

2. Food - Plan what you are going to eat before the trip. For a short weekend trip taking lots of dry food and an adequate amount of water is essential. If you plan on cooking, consider the various ingredients as well as what you will use to cook them (pot? Pan? Grill grate? Portable sink for cleaning food? Etc.). Food that will be quickly ready is a priority in camping. If you plan to cook in campfires or arrange a barbecue you have to be experienced. A fire permit is also necessary in most camping sites.

3. Flashlight and Lantern - You don't want to get lost in the dark. Equip yourself with flashlights for each and every one on the trip beforehand. Do not forget to take extra batteries. Camp lanterns are also very helpful around camp when you may not want to carry a flashlight or may not have a spare hand for one.

4. Mosquito repellant - The outdoors is harsh and after a long day of camping the last thing you want is mosquitoes ruining your sleep. Take ample amount of mosquito repellant or other products that will keep you safe from mosquitoes and other insects. If you don't, not only your trip will be ruined but some of you might even catch a disease.

5. Water - Take no risk with water; load your trunk with purified water supply. If the duration of the trip is going to be more than two days you need to find out what water supplies you can use near the camping site. Do your research beforehand. If you are planning to collect water from natural sources (lakes, rivers, etc) while on your trip, be sure to bring along some purification tablets to prevent sickness.

6. Mountain Boots - These are essential to keep your balance and comfort intact in unpredictable terrains. Don't go overboard with strict cliff climbing materials, but a pair of simple mountain boots will do you lots of good on your camping trip. If you are going to do a lot of hiking, comfortable shoes with good support is essential.

7. Rope - Take a good length of rope with you. Ropes come in handy in all sorts of situations, for example, keeping the firewood checked, securing your tent, making a swing for your children on the nearby tree and a lot more. You might also want to bring along some duct tape for the same reason.

8. First Aid Kit - You must absolutely have a well-equipped first aid kit at your disposal. Apart from the regular content of a first aid kit, stuff yours with the medicine you think you might need on the trip. For example, camping outdoor, eating barbecue, and unhealthy waters can be rough on some people and they might have an upset stomach.

9. Permit - Many camp sites and parks require getting a permit. Do research before you leave to see if you need to reserve your permit in advance or can get the permit when you arrive. If you are getting a permit when you arrive, be sure to bring along enough money and any identification that may be required.

10. A great pair of binoculars - You're out exploring in the wilderness, what better companion is there than a pair of binoculars. For enjoying the view, navigating your way from a distance, or bird watching, binoculars are a must have on any camping trip.

There you have it, the 10 most essential things you'll need on your camping trip. Make sure to pack it all with you before you leave home. In fact, why not print this out and use it as a checklist of things to take with you on a camping trip. When it comes to camping and other outdoor adventures like hiking or trekking, being prepared is the real key to a successful, enjoyable trip.

10 Biggest Buildings In The World

The world has witnessed modern architecture make many remarkable strides over the past century.  Architects have not ceased to beat structural barriers and make history with their groundbreaking, cutting edge designs.

Here is a compilation of the ten biggest building in the world, showing how continental powerhouses like Asia and Europe are dominating the list. They are bringing the race to a completely new level where competition goes beyond mere dimensions, and advances in engineering and technology govern.

1. Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower

Also known as the Mecca Hotel Clock Tower, the Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower is the world’s largest building in terms of floor area of any structure with 1.5 million square meters. Dwarfing London’s Big Ben, this lofty clock tower showcases the world’s biggest clock face as well as the world’s tallest hotel. Albraj Al-bait was completed in 2011 at a cost of $15 billion, and is also among the world’s tallest structures, visible from as far as 25 kilometers away.

2. Grand Egyptian Museum

The $550 million Grand Egyptian Museum is set to open in 2015. Hailed as a portal to the past, the museum aims to walk the whole world through the ancient history of Egypt over the past seven millennia. The new museum intends to host over 100,000 artifacts, where approximately 3,500 of them belong to King Tutankhamen.

The museum is situated between the ancient pyramids and the city of Cairo. The entire project is estimated to cover 480,000 square meters. The design, chosen from among several in an international competition in 2003, was conceptualized to maintain an open view to the Giza Pyramids, which are just 2 kilometers away. The preparation of the required area for constructing the main building alone took a massive, non-stop 24/7 excavation work that lasted seven months.

3. Dubai International Airport

Dubbed as the largest building in the world in terms of floor area prior to Abraj Al-Bait Clock Tower’s completion, the Terminal 3 of Dubai International Airport has a total floor space of 1.456 million square meters. Given this, Terminal 3 alone has a maximum annual capacity of 43 million passengers.

The $4.5 billion airport was completed in 2008. However, the world’s largest single-terminal building will not hold its record for long, for it will soon be replaced by Beijing’s Daxing Airport, which when completed, will be roughly the size of the whole island of Bermuda.

4. Burj Khalifa

Towering at 828 meters, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa is, by far, the tallest building in the world. This 160-storey skyscraper designed by Chicago’s Skidmore, Owings & Merill LLP is also the world’s tallest free-standing structure. Apart from that, this edifice is known to have the highest number of storeys, the elevator with the longest travel distance, the highest outdoor observation deck, the highest occupied floor, and the tallest service elevator in the world. The unique design of Burj Khalifa, which is an abstraction of the Hymenocallis flower, has made the building a complete standout.

5. Skipark 360

A gigantic structure solely intended for indoor ski purposes, The Skipark 360 in Stockholm is a $220 million structure that is scheduled to open in 2015 . This would-be greenest ski resort shows off a downhill slope that stretches 700 meters and a drop that is 160 meters high. With that said, it comes as no surprise why it is regarded as one of the biggest buildings in the world.

It is the only indoor ski slope to meet the requirements to host the World Cup. When completed, the complex will also house a 3.5-kilometer skiing tunnel; an arena for biathlon, bandy, figure skating, and ice hockey; and a snow park. The Skipark 360 is powered by wind, solar, geothermal, and hydropower.

6. Solar City

Measuring 75,000 square meters, the sundial-inspired Solar City in Dezhou, Shangdong Province in northwest China is justly branded as the biggest solar-powered building in the entire planet. The edifice is the focal point of China’s ambitious “Solar Valley City,” signifying the nation’s effort to seek renewable energy sources. It houses a sustainable hotel and provides space for exhibition centers, scientific research facilities, and training and meeting facilities.

With a name that roughly means the “tent of the king,” The Khan Shatyr Tent in Astana, Kazakhstan is the biggest tent-like building in the world. Ten football stadiums can fit under this tensile structure that has a 139,354 square-meter foundation.

In the center of the Khan Shatyr is a tripod that is 149 meters high and weighs 907 kilograms. This unconventional structure has a leaning, needle-like tip. Its construction was manned by 650 professional mountain climbers. The Khan Shatyr houses cafes, shops, rides, movie theatres, and an indoor beach.

8. The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace

The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, located in Yamoussoukro, Cote d’Ivoire, is the world’s largest Christian church. The $300 million project is huge enough to accommodate 18,000 worshippers. The basilica, commissioned by the late President Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast, is adorned with French stained glass and Italian marble. Built between 1985 and 1989, it was ordained by Pope John Paul II in 1990.

9. Boeing Everett Factory

Situated in Everett, Washington, the Boeing Everett factory is not only the biggest in the world, but also the largest building in terms of volume. The facility opened for operation in 1967 to produce the 747 jumbo jet.

The factory represents Boeing to the world by its size and magnitude. This 13 million cubic-meter factory is the home of Boeing’s 747, 767, 777, and 787 Dreamliner, the newest twin-aisle airplane. The Everett factory is open for public tours seven days a week.

10. Aalsmeer Flower Auction

With a floor space of 990,000 square meters, Aaalsmeer Flower Auction is rightfully labeled as one of the largest buildings in the world. This gigantic plant and flower auction building has 20 million flowers from around the world being traded inside it each day. Workers busily roam around the facility using 270,000 trolleys. Aside from where the flora gets housed, the building contains 13 auction rooms and 40 auction clocks.

These structures all hold indispensable proof that size does matter engineering and architectural adeptness has indeed gained greater sophistication by the day, and the race to creating bigger and bolder structures never ends.

Two promising places to live

Astronomers said Thursday that they had found the most Earth-like worlds yet known in the outer cosmos, a pair of planets that appear capable of supporting life and that orbit a star 1,200 light-years from here, in the northern constellation Lyra.
They are the two outermost of five worlds circling a yellowish star slightly smaller and dimmer than our Sun, heretofore anonymous and now destined to be known in the cosmic history books as Kepler 62, after NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, which discovered them. These planets are roughly half again as large as Earth and are presumably balls of rock, perhaps covered by oceans with humid, cloudy skies, although that is at best a highly educated guess.

Nobody will probably ever know if anything lives on these planets, and the odds are that humans will travel there only in their faster-than-light dreams, but the news has sent astronomers into heavenly raptures. William Borucki of NASA’s Ames Research Center, head of the Kepler project, described one of the new worlds as the best site for Life Out There yet found in Kepler’s four-years-and-counting search for other Earths. He treated his team to pizza and beer on his own dime to celebrate the find (this being the age of sequestration). “It’s a big deal,” he said.Looming brightly in each other’s skies, the two planets circle their star at distances of 37 million and 65 million miles, about as far apart as Mercury and Venus in our solar system. Most significantly, their orbits place them both in the “Goldilocks” zone of lukewarm temperatures suitable for liquid water, the crucial ingredient for Life as We Know It.

Goldilocks would be so jealous.

Previous claims of Goldilocks planets with “just so” orbits snuggled up to red dwarf stars much dimmer and cooler than the Sun have had uncertainties in the size and mass and even the existence of these worlds, said David Charbonneau of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, an exoplanet hunter and member of the Kepler team.

“This is the first planet that ticks both boxes,” Dr. Charbonneau said, speaking of the outermost planet, Kepler 62f. “It’s the right size and the right temperature.” Kepler 62f is 40 percent bigger than Earth and smack in the middle of the habitable zone, with a 267-day year. In an interview, Mr. Borucki called it the best planet Kepler has found.

Its mate, known as Kepler 62e, is slightly larger — 60 percent bigger than Earth — and has a 122-day orbit, placing it on the inner edge of the Goldilocks zone. It is warmer but also probably habitable, astronomers said.

The Kepler 62 system resembles our own solar system, which also has two planets in the habitable zone: Earth — and Mars, which once had water and would still be habitable today if it were more massive and had been able to hang onto its primordial atmosphere.

The Kepler 62 planets continue a string of breakthroughs in the last two decades in which astronomers have gone from detecting the first known planets belonging to other stars, or exoplanets, broiling globs of gas bigger than Jupiter, to being able to discern smaller and smaller more moderate orbs — iceballs like Neptune and, now, bodies only a few times the mass of Earth, known technically as super-Earths. Size matters in planetary affairs because we can’t live under the crushing pressure of gas clouds on a world like Jupiter. Life as We Know It requires solid ground and liquid water — a gentle terrestrial environment, in other words.

Kepler 62’s newfound worlds are not quite small enough to be considered strict replicas of Earth, but the results have strengthened the already strong conviction among astronomers that the galaxy is littered with billions of Earth-size planets, perhaps as many as one per star, and that astronomers will soon find Earth 2.0, as they call it — our lost twin bathing in the rays of an alien sun.

“Kepler and other experiments are finding planets that remind us more and more of home,” said Geoffrey Marcy, a longtime exoplanet hunter at the University of California, Berkeley, and Kepler team member. “It’s an amazing moment in science. We haven’t found Earth 2.0 yet, but we can taste it, smell it, right there on our technological fingertips.”

A team of 60 authors, led by Mr. Borucki, reported the discovery of the Kepler 62 planets on Thursday in an article published online in the journal Science and at a news conference at Ames.

As if that weren’t enough, a group led by Thomas Barclay of Ames and the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute also reported the discovery of a planet 1.7 times as big as Earth hovering on the inner, warmer edge of the Goldilocks zone of Kepler 69, a star almost identical to the Sun, 2,700 light-years distant. At the news conference, Dr. Barclay described the planet as perhaps a “Super-Venus.” The group’s paper was published on Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal.

And in another paper submitted to The Astrophysical Journal, a group led by Lisa Kaltenegger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, in Heidelberg, Germany, took the first stab at trying to model conditions on the Kepler 62 planets. That is a tough job because the system is too far away for astronomers to measure the masses of these planets, which would allow the densities and compositions of the planets to be pinned down, or to inspect and analyze their atmospheres with telescopes.

Scaling up from the properties of the Earth, Dr. Kaltenegger and her colleagues concluded that both of them were probably ocean worlds with humid, cloudy skies. Any life on them would probably be aquatic, she said, but “it might even be cooler life than we have here. Looking at the oceans, we find a lot of interesting life-forms there.”

Dr. Kaltenegger said she envisioned the pair as a kind of Darwinian test tube and wondered in an e-mail if life would evolve on both worlds and, if so, “Would life evolve ‘the same’ way or would there be very different life?”

“This is huge for the overall life-elsewhere question,” said Sara Seager, a planetary expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not part of the work.

Alan Boss, a planetary expert at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and a member of the Kepler team, called the new results the capstone of the Kepler mission. “I would argue,” he said in an e-mail, “that if this was all that we learned from Kepler, that the cost of this mission was justified.”

Kepler, launched in March 2009, hunts planets by staring at 150,000 stars in a patch of Milky Way sky, monitoring their brightnesses and looking for blips caused when planets pass in front of their home stars. To date the spacecraft has identified 115 planets and has a list of 2,740 other candidates. (Over all, the world’s astronomers now know of almost 1,000 exoplanets.)

But Kepler, which had its mission extended for four years last spring, is only now coming into its prime. A minimum of three blips is required to register a planet, and so planets like the Earth that take a year to make an orbit are only now coming into view in the Kepler data. Indeed, the new Kepler 62 planets each registered just three transits, as they are called.

But there is a hitch, Dr. Seager and others cautioned. Because the Kepler stars are all so far away — hundreds or thousands of light-years — and the planets we want to find are so small, astronomers will never be quite completely sure what any particular planet is made of or whether anything can or does live there.

In the case of Kepler 62, said Natalie Batalha of San Jose State University, a Kepler scientist, the astronomers had determined the composition of the new planets by comparison to three earlier objects that had similar sizes and turned out to be rocky.

“Mass by association,” Dr. Batalha called it in an e-mail.

Which is fine if all you want is the statistics of the cosmos. As Dr. Seager pointed out, “Kepler was not designed to tell us which planet to go live on, only how common Earth-like planets are.”

The legend of Slender Man

There are legends and myths that have been around for centuries and have seared themselves into our minds and culture. Then there are those that have been brought to life by way of modern technologies reminding us of nightmares that should have been buried and forgotten. One such legend is known through internet popularity as Slender man.

The creature known as Slender man is said to have the appearance of a tall, lanky man in a black suit. Not so scary, right? Just wait.

He towers at six to seven feet with unusually thin limbs. His face, if you can call it that, is featureless and white, though some say that it can morph into whatever you fear the most. His arms, however, can stretch out to grab his victims and bend in unnatural ways with long, talon-like fingers used to scratch at the windows of children. Yes that’s right. While he haunts everyone who has the misfortune to see him, he prefers to devour those that are 16 and younger. He is also said to have multiple arms sometimes seen as long tentacles used to ensnare whomever catches his eye, or should I say, the void where his face should be.

Slender man is a silent stalker that likes to hide in plain sight and is usually spotted in wooded areas where he could blend in amongst the trees and dark corners of the forest. When he finds his victim of choice, he follows them home and upon being seen through the window, can use a form of hypnosis that compels you to walk right into his spindly arms. Usually glimpsed at a distance, once he’s close enough to get a good look at, that’s when he slinks into your home appearing in dark hallways or blank t.v. screens.

American legend says that he was once a man who was tortured viciously, first being beaten with a log, then impaled with a 2 foot stick and hung from a tree with his arms and legs pulled from their sockets.

When captured, you will wake to find Slender man standing above you. He will ask one question and if you’re lucky and get it right, he breaks both your arms and legs. But if you are wrong, then he slowly sticks his fingers down your throat pulling out the heart. In circles on the internet Slender man is claimed to be the creation of a website called Somethingawful.com. Many say that this alone debunks the mysterious legend and closes the case on the creature’s fictitious existence. Well, not quite.

It appears that the Slender man myth goes back a lot farther than is claimed. He is based on something called Der Grossman, meaning “tall man”, which is the Germanic version. Legend says that children would site him in the Black Forest days before their disappearance. All that was left behind would be the mutilated remains of livestock and in a few cases, village inhabitants would be found several miles from their homes impaled on the higher branches of the trees.

A Romanian folktale tells of twin sisters Sorina and Stela that were led out into the woods one day by their mother. They could see Der Grossman close by, waiting dressed as a nobleman, his arms boneless as snakes and sharp as swords. The mother, under the order of the creature, told her daughter Stela to cut a circle in the ground with a knife and have Sorina lay down in the middle to be cut open. Stela refused and ran home to hide under her bed. When their father returned home, his terrified daughter told him what had transpired and he then went into the forest to track down the twins’ mother. The girl fell asleep to be awakened by a knock on the door. “Open the door, it’s your father,” a voice said. The girl refused. “Open the door it’s your mother,” the voice continued. Upon refusing once again, the door flew open to reveal the horrible sight of her mother holding the severed head of her sister Sorina in one hand and the head of her father in the other. “Why?” cried Stela. “Because,” said her mother, “there is no reward for goodness in this world, nothing but cold steel teeth and scourging fire for all of us. And it’s coming for you now.” At that moment, Der Grossman, or Slender man, slid from the fireplace clenching the surviving twin in his burning embrace. And that was the end of her.

Internet fiction or not, Slender man indeed has horrifying origins and lore from the old world. What makes this myth so fearful is the fact that to this day, people are still questioning the existence of this humanoid creature. Websites flooded with people claiming to have had sightings of him especially those that live near wooded areas. Even more terrifying is that he has been known to imitate the voice of a human calling out your name in the dark. And it seems that the more you talk about or research Slender man, the more likely you are to encounter him bringing life to a supposed legend.

All I can say is. now I have a new reason to be afraid of the dark.

The boy who lived before

Ever since he could talk, Cameron has been telling stories of his life on Barra, a remote island in the Outer Hebrides, some 220 miles from his current home in Glasgow. He describes in detail his childhood on the island: the white house he lived in, the black-and-white dog he walked on the beach. He talks about his mother, seven siblings and his father, Shane Robertson, who died when he was run over by a car.

Nothing strange about all that. Except the fact that Cameron is only five years old now; his memories seem to be of a former life. Cameron’s stories have become increasingly more detailed since he first started telling them, and the shock of him insisting “I’m a Barra boy, I’m a Barra boy” has worn off a little. But his emotional attachment to his ‘Barra mum’ concerns his mother, and there’s clearly something going on in the poor kid’s head when he says, “My real barra dad doesn’t look left and right.” Intrigued by her enigmatic son, Cameron’s mother Norma has decided to investigate his claims.

Everyone who comes across Cameron is sceptical, but his stories are just so consistent. In her search to find a rational explanation for Cameron’s tales of his Barra childhood, Norma first visits psychologist Dr Chris French, editor of The Skeptic magazine. French suggests that Cameron might simply have acquired knowledge about Barra through TV or a family friend, and thus invented the stories himself.

Norma isn’t satisfied by this. Her next port of call is educational psychologist Karen Majors, who tells her that the way that Cameron describes his Barra world is similar to the way in which some children speak about imaginary places and people, except that Cameron really seems to believe that he has seen the things he describes first-hand; he also doesn’t seem to be able to control his ‘fantasy’ as other children do. Norma decides to investigate the possibility of reincarnation, contacting leading expert Dr Jim Tucker at the University of Virginia.

Why didn't world end in 2012 ?

MERIDA, Mexico — Dec. 21 started out as the prophetic day some had believed would usher in the fiery end of the world. By Friday afternoon, it had become more comic than cosmic, the punch line of countless Facebook posts and at least several dozen T-shirts.

At the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza, thousands chanted, danced and otherwise frolicked around ceremonial fires and pyramids to mark the conclusion of a vast, 5,125-year cycle in the Mayan calendar.

The doomsayers who had predicted apocalypse were nowhere to be seen. Instead, people showed up in T-shirts reading "The End of the World: I Was There."

Vendors eager to sell their ceramic handicrafts and wooden masks called out to passing visitors, "Buy something before the world ends."

And on Twitter, (hash)EndoftheWorld had become one of the day's most popular hash tags.

For the masses in the ruins, Dec. 21 sparked celebration of what they saw as the birth of a new and better age. It was also inspiration for massive clouds of patchouli and marijuana smoke and a chorus of conch calls at the break of dawn.

The official crowd count stood at 20,000 as of mid-afternoon, with people continuing to arrive. That surpassed the count on an average day but not as many as have gathered at the ruins during equinoxes.

The boisterous gathering Friday included Buddhists, pagan nature worshippers, druids and followers of Aztec and Maya religious traditions. Some kneeled in attitudes of prayer, some seated with arms outstretched in positions of meditation, all facing El Castillo, the massive main pyramid.

Ceremonies were being held at different sides of the pyramid, including one led by a music group that belted out American blues and reggae-inspired chants. Others involved yelping and shouting, and drumming and dance, such as one ceremony led by spiritual master Ollin Yolotzin.

"The world was never going to end, this was an invention of the mass media," said Yolotzin, who leads the Aztec ritual dance group Cuautli-balam. "It is going to be a good era. ... We are going to be better."

Ivan Gutierrez, a 37-year-old artist who lives in the nearby village, stood before the pyramid and blew a low, sonorous blast on a conch horn. "It has already arrived, we are already in it," he said of the new era. "We are in a frequency of love, we are in a new vibration."

But it was unclear how long the love would last: A security guard quickly came over and asked him to stop blowing his conch shell, enforcing the ruin site's ban on holding ceremonies without previous permits.

Similar rites greeted the new era in neighboring Guatemala, where Mayan spiritual leaders burned offerings and families danced in celebration. Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina and Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla attended an official ceremony in the department of Peten, along with thousands of revelers and artists.

At an indigenous South American summer solstice festival in Bolivia, President Evo Morales arrived on a wooden raft to lead a festival that made offerings to Pachamama, Mother Earth, on a small island in the middle of Lake Titicaca.

The leftist leader and 3,000 others, including politicians, indigenous shamans and activists of all stripes, didn't ponder the end of the world, just the death of the capitalist system, which Morales told the crowd had already happened amid "a global financial, political and moral crisis."

"The human community is in danger because of climatic reasons, which are related to the accumulation of wealth by some countries and social groups," he told the crowd. "We need to change the belief that having more is living better."

Despite all the pomp, no one is certain the period known as the Mayas' 13th Baktun officially ended Friday. Some think it may have happened at midnight. Others looked to Friday's dawn here in the Maya heartland. Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History even suggested historical calculations to synchronize the Mayan and Western calendars might be off a few days. It said the Mayan Long Count calendar cycle might not really end until Sunday.

One thing, however, became clear to many by Friday afternoon: The world had not ended.

John Hoopes, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas, was at the ruins, using the opportunity to talk about how myths are created.

"You don't have to go to the far corners of the earth to look for exotic things, you've got them right here," he noted.

End-of-the-world paranoia, however, has spread globally despite the insistence of archeologists and the Maya themselves that the date meant no such thing.

Dozens of schools in Michigan canceled classes this week amid rumors of violence tied to the date. In France, people expecting doomsday were looking expectantly to a mountain in the Pyrenees where they believe a hidden spaceship was waiting to spirit them away. And in China, government authorities were cracking down on a fringe Christian group spreading rumors about the world's end, while preaching that Jesus had reappeared as a woman in central China.

Gabriel Romero, a Los Angeles-based spiritualist who uses crystal skulls in his ceremonies, had no such illusions as he greeted the dawn at Chichen Itza.

"We'll still have to pay taxes next year," he said.

As if to put the final nail in the coffin of such rumors, Bob McMillan of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory confirmed Friday that no large asteroids are predicted to hit anytime soon.

And Bill Leith, a senior science adviser at the U.S. Geological Survey, noted that as far as quakes, tsunamis and solar storms for the rest of the day, "we don't have any evidence that anything is imminent."

Still, there were some who wouldn't truly feel safe until the sun sets Friday over the pyramids in the Yucatan peninsula, the heartland of the Maya.

Mexico's best-known seer, Antonio Vazquez Alba, known as "El Brujo Mayor," said he had received emails with rumors that a mass suicide might be planned in Argentina. He said he was sure that human nature represented the only threat Friday.

"Nature isn't going to do us any harm, but we can do damage to ourselves," he said.

Authorities worried about overcrowding and possible stampedes during celebrations Friday at Mayan sites such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal, both about 1 1/2 hours from Merida, the Yucatan state capital. Special police and guard details were assigned to the pyramids.

Yucatan Gov. Rolando Zapata said he for one felt the growing good vibes, and not just because his state was raking in loads of revenue from the thousands of celebrants flooding in.

"We believe that the beginning of a new baktun means the beginning of a new era, and we're receiving it with great optimism," Zapata said.

2Pac found alive in Tasmania?

PBS reported that the  rapper Tupac Shakur was sighted in Tasmania this weekend. 

PBS is reporting that  Tupac Shakur was sighted and photographed having drinks at a bar in Snug, Tasmania.  Soon thereafter the internet was ablaze with speculation if this was real and Tupac was really alive.

Tupac Shakur was allegedly gunned down September 7th 1996 after leaving a boxing match.  However reporters have discovered that Tupac actually survived the shooting, but he and record label executives paid off medical examiners to claim he had died.  His apparent death allowed him to escape his assailants and his constant legal battles.

Since then Tupac had lived in hiding under an assumed name in rural Pennsylvania.  Weekly World News reporters tracked down the beloved rap star to his new home.

With regards to going into hiding he said, “At first it was life or death.  I’d just been shot at and I knew it wasn’t going to stop.  Once I was out of the game, a fresh start looked too good.  All the baggage from the old life, I could let it go and walk away.”
Since then, “I mostly keep my head low.  Don’t draw attention.  Staying out of trouble.”
When asked about how he spends his time, he said, “Ya know, same old same old.  Shop at the Farmer’s Market.  Keep my bees, get some honey.  Flirt with the girls at Dairy Queen.  Nothin’ big.”
For creative exploits, Tupac says, “I like to knit.”  His house was covered with hand knit pieces celebrating his former celebrity and sweaters with ‘Thug Life’ stitched on them.   Above the couch was a large tapestry depicting a scene from his California Love video.  He went on: “I do a lot of writing.  Jewel’s book of poetry, that was mine.  I also ghost wrote the screenplay for ‘The Lake House’.”
Tupac said he has no plans to return to the public eye.  “I’m a keep it straight chillin’ here.  Keep them bees, work the strawberry patch.  End of the day, play on with some World of Warcraft.  It’s a good life.