Source: National Geographic News The end of the world is near—December 21, 2012, to be exact—according to theories based on a purported ancient Maya prediction and fanned by the marketing machine behind the 2012 movie released. But could humankind really meet its end in 2012—drowned in apocalyptic floods, walloped by a secret planet, seared by an angry sun, or thrown overboard by speeding continents? And did the ancient Maya—whose empire peaked between A.D. 250 and 900 in what is now Mexico and Central America—really predict the end of the world in 2012? At least one aspect of the 2012, end-of-the-world hype is, for some people, all too real: the fear! 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, senior scientist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute. "A lot of [the submitters] are people who are genuinely frightened," Morrison said. ...