For nearly two decades, Sports Illustrated has stirred the tea leaves to discern a weekly Sign of the Apocalypse. Deadspin salutes the magazine's ongoing effort to cover the end of times but declines to cede the scoop on the biggest event in world history.
Here's SI's Sign of the Apocalypse this week:
Kenichi Ito of Japan, who says he spent nine years developing his technique, modeled on the gait of African patas monkey, set a world record (17.47 seconds) for running 100 meters on all fours.
We've wondered for some time when the spate of goofy-ass (and perhaps even monkey-inspired) world records would successfully usher in doomsday. Any species that would designate a loudest burp in the world would seem to tempt fates. Ditto a man putting on 155 T-shirts at once. Or a child who tries to kick himself in the face more and faster than anyone else ever. How Mr. Ito's particular feat of face-down Gollum-scrambling rises to the status of apocalyptic harbinger is beyond us, but then, SI is the established authority in such matters.
Undeterred, Deadspin also watched this week's news, and chose this among many worthy candidates as our weekly Sign of the Apocalypse:
The five hottest European summers of the past 500 years have all occurred in the past decade, according to a 300-page European Environment Agency report that predicted further rising temperatures and decreased precipitation on the continent this century.
The 16 Scariest Maps From the E.U.'s Massive New Climate Change Report [Grist]