Modern Mysteries

How will humans become extinct ?

By T.K. Randall
April 24, 2013 ·  69 comments

Image Credit: Felix Andrews An international team of scientists and philosophers have met at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute in an effort to determine the answer to this very question. Already ruled out as likely candidates are natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes as well as disease, famine and environmental disaster on the basis that throughout history humanity has already weathered several such events.

Instead, it is perhaps our own scientific progression that is most likely to lead to our ultimate demise. While medical applications for genetic engineering, nanotechnology and other advances could see great benefits to overall health and life expectancy, if something goes wrong then we could find ourselves being wiped out by our own creations - a scenario not entirely dissimilar to what we see in numerous zombie apocalypse movies.[!gad]An international team of scientists and philosophers have met at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute in an effort to determine the answer to this very question. Already ruled out as likely candidates are natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes as well as disease, famine and environmental disaster on the basis that throughout history humanity has already weathered several such events.

Instead, it is perhaps our own scientific progression that is most likely to lead to our ultimate demise. While medical applications for genetic engineering, nanotechnology and other advances could see great benefits to overall health and life expectancy, if something goes wrong then we could find ourselves being wiped out by our own creations - a scenario not entirely dissimilar to what we see in numerous zombie apocalypse movies.

Source: BBC News | Comments (69)

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