Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past couple of years, you know about predictions from some quarters that the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012. That date marks the end of a 5,125-year cycle as calculated by the now dead Mayan culture that once inhabited parts of southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. While the Mayans themselves marked the end of one of their time cycles with celebration, many interpretations of Mayan hieroglyphics say the planet will be destroyed in violent earthquakes and other cataclysmic events next December.