“Doomsday” was in the news last week. It’s an Old English word, dating to the 900s, at least. Doomsday originally denoted Judgment Day, the decisive event at the end of the world when the Almighty ...

A year from today the world will come to an end, according to some who cite the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar as evidence of a Dec. 21, 2012, apocalypse. But both astronomers and experts on ...