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| The End Of The World; Could it happen in our LIFETIME ? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 13 2006, 04:22 PM (184 Views) | |
| BluesBot | Jul 13 2006, 04:22 PM Post #1 |
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Paul Tait
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Is it time to dust down my sandwich board with the End is Nigh scrawled across ? Seriously some experts reckon theres a good chance and heres how it could happen Viral pandemic "Within the last century we have had four major flu epidemics, along with HIV and SARS," says Professor Maria Zambon, a virologist and head of Britain's Health Protection Agency's Influenza Laboratory. "Major pandemics sweep the world every century, and it is inevitable that at least one will occur in the future. At the moment the most serious concern is H5 avian influenza in chickens in South-East Asia. If this virus learns to transmit from human to human then it could sweep rapidly around the world. The 1918 influenza outbreak caused 20 million deaths in just one year: more than all the people killed in the First World War. A similar outbreak now could have a perhaps more devastating impact. "It is not in the interests of a virus to kill all of its hosts, so a virus is unlikely to wipe out the human race, but it could cause a serious setback for a number of years. We can never be completely prepared for what nature will do: nature is the ultimate bioterrorist." Chance of a viral pandemic in the next 70 years: very high. Terrorism "Today's society is more vulnerable to terrorism because it is easier for a malevolent group to get hold of the necessary materials, technology and expertise to make weapons of mass destruction," says Professor Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the advisory board for the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews in Britain. "The most likely cause of large-scale, mass-casualty terrorism right now is from a chemical or biological weapon. The large-scale release of something like anthrax, the smallpox virus, or the plague, would have a huge effect, and modern communications would quickly make it become a transnational problem. "In an open society, where we value freedom of movement, we can't guarantee stopping an attack, and there is a very high probability that a major attack will occur somewhere in the world within our lifetimes." Chance of a major terrorist attack in the next 70 years: very high Climate change "By the end of this century it is likely that greenhouse gases will have doubled and the average global temperature will have risen by at least 2C," says Nick Brooks, a senior research associate at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia in Britain. "This is hotter than anything the Earth has experienced in the last 1 million years. In the worst case scenario it could completely alter the climate in many regions of the world. This could lead to global food insecurity and widespread collapse of existing social systems, causing mass migration and conflict over resources as some parts of the world become much less habitable. I don't think that climate change will sound the death knell for humans, but it certainly has the potential to devastate." Chance of temperatures rising more than two degrees (the level considered dangerous by the European Union) in the next 70 years: high. Meteorite impact "Over very long time-scales, the risk of you dying as a result of a near-Earth object impact is roughly equivalent to the risk of dying in an aeroplane accident," says Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. "To cause a serious setback to our civilisation, the impactor would have to be about 1.5kilometres wide or larger. We expect an event of this type every million years on average. "The dangers associated with such a large impactor include an enormous amount of dust in the atmosphere, which would substantially shut down sunlight for weeks, thus affecting plant life and crops that sustain life. There would be global firestorms as a result of re-entering hot ejecta and severe acid rain. All of these effects are relatively short-term, so the most adaptable species (cockroaches and humans, for example) would be likely to survive." Chance of the Earth being hit by a large asteroid in the next 70 years: medium. Super-volcanos About every 50,000 years the Earth experiences a super-volcano. More than 1000 square kilometres of land can be obliterated by pyroclastic ash flows (lava, rocks, debris and gases), the surrounding continent is coated in ash and sulphur gases are injected into the atmosphere, making a thin veil of sulphuric acid all around the globe and reflecting back sunlight for years to come. Daytime becomes no brighter than a moonlit night. "The global damage from a super-volcano depends on where it is and how long the gas stays in the atmosphere," says Professor Bill McGuire, director of the Benfield Hazard Research Centre at University College, London. "Taupo in New Zealand was the most recent super-volcano, about 26,500 years ago. The most damaging super-volcano in human history was Toba, on Sumatra, Indonesia, 74,000 years ago. Because it was fairly close to the equator it injected gas quickly into both hemispheres. Ice-core data shows that temperatures were dramatically reduced for five to six years afterwards, with freezing conditions right down to the tropics. "A super-volcano is 12 times more likely than a large meteorite impact," McGuire says. "There is a 0.15 per cent probability that one will happen in your lifetime. Places to watch now are those that have erupted in the past, such as Yellowstone in the US and Toba. But, even more worryingly, a super-volcano could also burst out from somewhere that has never erupted before, such as under the Amazon rainforest." Chance of a super-volcano in our lifetime (the next 70 years): very high. Telomere erosion Every species contains an "evolutionary clock", ticking through the generations and counting down towards an inevitable extinction date, says Reinhard Stindl, a medical doctor at the University of Vienna. "On the end of every animal's chromosomes are protective caps called telomeres. Without them our chromosomes would become unstable. Each time a cell divides it never quite copies its telomere completely and throughout our lifetime the telomeres become shorter and shorter as the cells multiply. Eventually, when they become critically short, we start to see age-related diseases, such as cancer, Alzheimer's, heart attacks and strokes. "However, it is not just through our lifetime that telomeres get shorter. My theory is that there is a tiny loss of telomere length from one generation to the next, mirroring the process of ageing in individuals. Over thousands of generations the telomere gets eroded down to its critical level. Once at the critical level we would expect to see outbreaks of age-related diseases occurring earlier in life and finally a population crash. Telomere erosion could explain the disappearance of a seemingly successful species, such as Neanderthal man, with no need for external factors such as climate change." Chances of a human population crash due to telomere erosion during the next 70 years: low. Robots taking over Robot controllers double in complexity, or processing power, every year or two. "They are now barely at the lower range of vertebrate complexity, but should catch up with us within a half-century," says Hans Moravec, a research professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh. "By 2050 I predict there will be robots with human-like mental power, with the ability to abstract and generalise. "These intelligent machines will grow from us, learn our skills, share our goals and values, and can be viewed as children of our minds. Not only will these robots look after us in the home, but they will also carry out complex tasks that currently require human input, such as diagnosing illness and recommending a therapy or cure. They will be our heirs and will offer us the best chance we'll ever get for immortality by uploading ourselves into advanced robots." Chance of super-intelligent robots in the next 70 years: high. Cosmic ray blast Once every few decades a massive star from our galaxy, the Milky Way, runs out of fuel and explodes, in what is known as a supernova. Cosmic rays - high-energy particles like gamma rays - spew out in all directions and if the Earth happens to be in the way, they can trigger an ice age, says Nir Shaviv, a senior lecturer in physics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "If the Earth already has a cold climate then an extra burst of cosmic rays could make things really icy and perhaps cause a number of species to become extinct. The Earth is at greatest risk when it passes through a spiral arm of the Milky Way, where most of the supernova occur. This happens approximately every 150 million years. Paleoclimate indicators show that there has been a corresponding cold period on Earth, with more ice at the poles and many ice ages during these times. "We are nearly out of the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way now and Earth should have a warmer climate in a few million years. But in about 60 million years we will enter the Perseus arm and ice-house conditions are likely to dominate again." Chance of encountering a supernova in the next 70 years: low. Swallowed by a black hole "Around seven years ago, when the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider was being built at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, there was a worry that a state of dense matter could be formed that had never been created before," says Richard Wilson, Mallinckrodt Research Professor of Physics at Harvard University in the US. "At the time this was the largest particle accelerator to have been built, making gold ions crash head on with immense force. The risk was that this might form a stage that was sufficiently dense to be like a black hole, gathering matter from the outside." Would the Brookhaven labs (and perhaps the entire Earth) end up being swallowed by a black hole created by the new accelerator? "Using the information we already know from black holes in outer space, we did some calculations to find out if the Brookhaven particle accelerator was capable of forming such a black hole. We are now pretty certain this state of matter won't form at Brookhaven and that the Earth won't be swallowed when these particles collide." Chance of Earth being gobbled up by a black hole in the next 70 years: exceedingly low. Nuclear War / World War 3 - The Scenario's Middle east nightmare ? North Koreans Go crazy ? Russian Hold the world to ransom over its massive oil reserves as stocks dwindle ? India and Pakistan go at it again ? Iran hits out ? |
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| TJDIXI | Jul 13 2006, 05:38 PM Post #2 |
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Trevor Francis
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i guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens tommorrow? |
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| Blooboy | Jul 13 2006, 05:41 PM Post #3 |
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That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane and Stevie Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn - world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs. Feed it off an aux speak, grunt, no, strength, Ladder start to clatter with fear fight down height. Wire in a fire, representing seven games, a government for hire and a combat site. Left of west and coming in a hurry with the furies breathing down your neck. Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered cropped. Look at that low playing! Fine, then. Uh oh, overflow, population, common food, but it'll do. Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right, right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched. It's the End Of The world as we know it.......but i feel fine :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: when it comes i won't even know it because i'll be too busy looking good :lol: :lol: :lol: |
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| garrybaldy | Jul 13 2006, 05:45 PM Post #4 |
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foley okenla, richie moran
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**thumbup **thumbup great song **thumbup |
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| Blooboy | Jul 13 2006, 05:58 PM Post #5 |
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Unregistered
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it is, one of my faves of all time..... try singing that without taking a breath!! i think Sky Daz should play it....... if we lose, LMAO :lol: :lol: :lol: would make me smile :D |
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| Paul Tait's Tee-Shirt | Jul 13 2006, 07:48 PM Post #6 |
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Paul Tait's Tee Shirt
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Comforting thoughts **thumbup |
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| proccy_blues | Jul 14 2006, 05:49 AM Post #7 |
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Joe Bradford
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yeah but, no but, yeah but, no but yeah but - the fact is, you're more likely to be run over by a rickshaw and killed than a viral pandemic.... ;) |
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| StAndrews4Eva | Jul 14 2006, 07:49 AM Post #8 |
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Gil Merrick
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We are all gonna die sometime so why waste the precious time we have worrying about it? |
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| kroblues | Jul 14 2006, 06:01 PM Post #9 |
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Geoff Horsfield
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Treat every day as your last, one day you will be right |
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| vivienne04 | Jul 14 2006, 06:36 PM Post #10 |
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Geoff Horsfield
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Saturday August 5th 5:52 pm. If not then, when ? :lol: :lol: :lol: |
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| pestcontrol | Jul 27 2006, 01:00 AM Post #11 |
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a very interesting read and he also predicts the year the world will end. http://www.members.tripod.com/tathagata2000/index.htm |
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| Letsby Avenue | Jul 27 2006, 01:08 AM Post #12 |
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Paul Tait
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Is that 20 years from now, or 20 years from when he worked it out ? :angry: |
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| CarrotBlu | Jul 27 2006, 09:46 AM Post #13 |
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Unregistered
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You know who i blame.............. DOUG ELLIS |
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| Bluenose4life | Jul 27 2006, 09:49 AM Post #14 |
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Paul Tait
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You're joking aren't you? the real blames on the board and bruce BRUCE OUT :lol: |
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| CarrotBlu | Jul 27 2006, 09:59 AM Post #15 |
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Unregistered
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Tis true steve bruce and the board created global warming, but doug ellis is a viler, surely a greater crime |
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| Bluenose4life | Jul 27 2006, 10:08 AM Post #16 |
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Paul Tait
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:o Doug Ellis is doing a fine job Long live Doug Ellis :lol: |
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