NASA said last week that the world was not ending--at least anytime soon. Last year, CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, said the same thing, which I guess is good news for those of us who are habitually jittery. How often do you have a pair of such blue-ribbon scientific establishments assuring us that everything is fine?

　　美国国家航空航天局上周表示，世界并未走向末日，至少短时间内不会。欧洲核子研究中心去年也曾发表过同样的声明。我想这对我们当中那些动不动就心神不宁的人来说是个好消息。这类世界一流的科学权威机构双双向我们保证：万事皆安，这种事你多久赶上过一回？

　　On the other hand, it is kind of depressing if you were looking forward to taking a vacation from mortgage payments to finance one lastblowout.

　　从另一方说，如果你正盼着用还房贷的钱去休假以享受最后的聚会，那么这样的保证有点令人郁闷。

　　CERN's pronouncements were intended to allay concerns that a black hole would be spit out of its new Large Hadron Collider and eat the Earth.

　　欧洲核子研究中心的声明试图消除人们有关新建成的大型强子对撞机在实验时将产生一个黑洞，进而吞噬整个地球的恐慌。

　　The announcements by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in the form of several Web site postings and a video posted on YouTube, were in response to worries that the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012, when a 5,125-year cycle known as the Long Count in the Mayancalendar supposedly comes to a close.

　　美国国家航空航天局在其官网上发了几次消息，并发了视频，就是为了回应人们对世界将在2012年12月21日终结的担心。在以“长历法”闻名的玛雅人的历法中，每5125年是一个轮回，据说在2012年12月21日这天是一个轮回的结束。

　　But this is only one version of apocalypse out there. In othervariations, a planet named Nibiru crashes into us or the Earth's magnetic field flips.

　　然而，这只是世界毁灭的一个版本而已。其他的版本还有名为Nibiru的行星撞向我们或者地球磁场翻转等灾难。

　　There are hundreds of books devoted to 2012, and millions of Web sites, depending on what combination of "2012" and "doomsday" you type into *.

　　有关2012年世界末日的书籍不下数百种，根据你在*上键入的“2012”和“世界末日”的不同组合，能搜到数百万个相关的网站。

　　All of it, astronomers say, is bunk.

　　天文学家们说，所有这些都是无稽之谈。

　　"Most of what's claimed for 2012 relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance of astronomy and a level of paranoia worthy of 'Night of the Living Dead,' " Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory, in Los Angeles, and an expert on ancient astronomy, wrote in an article in the November issue of Sky & Telescope.

　　“大多数关于2012年的断言都来自某种臆想，异想天开的伪科学的荒唐，对天文学的无知，或者一定程度的类似《活死人之夜》的妄想，”洛杉矶里菲斯天文台主任、古天文学专家埃德·克虏伯在11月号的《天空和望远镜》杂志上撰文道。

　　But the trend has gone too far, suggested David Morrison, an astronomer at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., who made the YouTube video and is one of the agency's point people on the issue of Mayan prophecies of doom.

　　但戴维·莫里森认为，这种趋势太过火了，莫里森是英国国家航空航天局位于加利福尼亚莫非特基地埃姆斯研究中心的一位天文学家，他是航天局里有关玛雅人世界末日预言问题的出头人之一。就是他代表航天局在YouTube上发布相关视频的。

　　"I get angry at the way people are being manipulated and frightened to make money," Dr. Morrison said. "There is noethical right to frighten children to make a buck."

　　“我对这种以左右和恐吓观众来赚钱的方法感到愤怒，”莫里森博士说。“从道义上来讲，没有人有权利用吓唬孩子的方式来赚钱。”

　　Dr. Morrison said he had been getting about 20 letters and e-mail messages a day from people as far away as India scared out of their wits. In an e-mail message, he enclosed a sample that included one from a woman wondering if she should kill herself, her daughter and her unborn baby. Another came from a person pondering whether to put her dog to sleep to avoid suffering in 2012.

　　莫里森博士说，他曾一天收到大约20封信和电子邮件，这些信息有的来自遥远的印度，都是些被吓得魂不附体的人发来的。莫里森举例说，在一封电子邮件里，一名妇女正在犹豫是否应该杀死她的女儿和尚未出生的孩子，然后自杀。在另外一封信中，一名女子正在考虑是否让她的够安乐死，以避免在2012年遭劫。

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