[syhprum]

We have an example with chimpanzees were an AIDs like virus has run its course and now they all carry it with no ill effects.
I think those few idividuals that have an immunity to AIDS should be encouraged to produce children so that the proportion of immune idividuals will increase.

[Gordian Knot]

Clifford wrote: As far as success of the species.  We have gone from a few thousand individuals struggling to survive 100,000 years ago.  Perhaps nearly wiped out by some calamity.  To, by far the dominant species on the planet today.

And getting close to strangling the planet to death with overpopulation and destruction of the natural environment. I'm not sure this is a good example for your point of view!

[CliffordK]

We have an example with chimpanzees were an AIDs like virus has run its course and now they all carry it with no ill effects.
I think those few idividuals that have an immunity to AIDS should be encouraged to produce children so that the proportion of immune idividuals will increase.

The prevalence of HIV in most Western countries is less than 1%.
In the USA, the rate of new infections is slowly decreasing, except for the infections in African Americans which is unfortunate.

I think I would continue to search for a vaccine, encourage hygiene, and hope for near future eradication of the disease.

In countries with an epidemic rate of infection such as Lesotho, Botswana, and Swaziland with over 20% of the population infected, such a method of resistant gene amplificaiton might be a good idea. 

It would be relatively easy to have a program of artificial insemination with disease resistant sperm donors, preferably homozygous.  This would quickly spread the genes within a few generations.

One would have to have an adequate number of donors to maintain genetic diversity.

I wrote a summary of different AIDS Resistant genes here.

One might want to avoid the "infected/non-progressors" genes in a population with epidemic disease rates.  It may also be controversial to introduce large  numbers of Caucasian and Asian sperm donors into an African population, especially if darker skin tones are protective for other medical issues such as skin cancer.

Clifford wrote: As far as success of the species.  We have gone from a few thousand individuals struggling to survive 100,000 years ago.  Perhaps nearly wiped out by some calamity.  To, by far the dominant species on the planet today.

And getting close to strangling the planet to death with overpopulation and destruction of the natural environment. I'm not sure this is a good example for your point of view!

Strangling...  perhaps a bit.
Serious social/economic issues in the future...  quite likely.

I foresee our population issues as being self-correcting at somepoint in the not-so-distant future if not dealt with, but only to the point where it will cause hardship, and perhaps a partial depopulation which will be traumatic in itself. 

It is inconceivable in the next thousand years or so, that we would cause a calamity short of global nuclear war that would cause total eradication of the human population.

Something such as another ice age would cause severe harm to many Northern countries, but some parts of the globe would reap significant benefits from such an occurrence.

[Gordian Knot]

If we can avoid exterminating ourselves before some sort of balance can be restored, I think the human race has a good chance of protracted survival.  If not, who will miss us? 

Our pets???

[Pmb]

 Its common knowledge that the sun is going to die at some point but I was a little startled to read recently that the entire universe will eventually die, all its energy used and just becoming  cold life space. Have the theorists got any crazy ideas on how we could escape this fate and continue life as we know it?

It seems clear to me that the Earth's life expectancy is much shorter than you think. First off there probably won't be humans that far in the future. We will have either evolved or died out. There is nearly a 100% of a major asteroid, i.e. a planet killer,0 will hit the Earth and wipe out all life long before our sun burns out.

[MikeS]

collaris

clip
"but there has been talk of alternate universes, maybe our only hope???"

There may or may not be alternate universes but finding a method of travelling between them is almost certain to remain fiction.

[Soul Surfer]

The intelligence and communications capability of humans is a great evolutionary benefit and will probably follow the course of other major developments if you look at previous big developments in the past like mammals, reptiles and vertebrates etc.

Humans will overbreed and damage the environment but their capability will enable them to survive in very basic conditions for a very long period they will then evolve and diversify to fill all the evolutionary niches available competing with the species already there but not totally destroying them.

If you would like to read a brief light hearted sci fi story of a more organised period following this period go to one of my web pages.  http://iankimber.pbworks.com/w/page/49777471/Things%20to%20come%20-%20Ecopia

[CliffordK]

It seems clear to me that the Earth's life expectancy is much shorter than you think. First off there probably won't be humans that far in the future. We will have either evolved or died out. There is nearly a 100% of a major asteroid, i.e. a planet killer,0 will hit the Earth and wipe out all life long before our sun burns out.

We probably will get hit by a major asteroid sometime.
Perhaps even a "Dinosaur Killer" asteroid.
I'm not sure about a small moon or a "Planet Killer". 

A "Dino Killer" would wreck havoc on Earth, but might not kill off humanity.

It really depends on how much warning we have.  If we could predict that an asteroid was going to hit Earth with 2 "near miss" passes, then have a 99% likelihood to hit Earth in 10 years, then I think we could fix it.  Even starting from scratch today.

If there is no warning...  We see it hurtling towards Earth on a death course...  the first time it is detected.  Well...  Time for Plan B... 

In 50 years we should have a stable colony on the moon.
In 100 years, a colony on Mars or Venus, or both.
100 or 200 years, a colony on Ganymede or Callisto.
In 1000 years, we will be well on the way to terraforming Venus.

Once we have a good sized off-world colony.  Then it will take two major simultaneous hits to destroy humanity. 

Is a planet killing solar flare possible before the sun enters the Red Giant phase?

Even so, most solar flares are directed, so if the Earth and Venus are on opposite sides of the sun, one would get hit, one would not.

Redundancy, and humanity will survive.

Our biggest threat is if we choose to replace ourselves with computers.

[Don_1]

....... There is nearly a 100% of a major asteroid, i.e. a planet killer,0 will hit the Earth and wipe out all life long before our sun burns out.

I think that is a rather rash assesment and smacks of the doomsday prophets, who regularly tell us that 'the end is nigh'.

It is almost certain that a 10km diameter meteor strike sparked the K/T boundary, a mass extinction which saw the end of the rule of the dinosaurs and 60% of all life on the planet. But this was childs play by comparison to the Permian extinction which wiped out 90 - 95% of all life. This may have been caused by a strike or by a massive rupture of the Earths crust as the giant continent of Pangea began to break up into the land masses which would continue to drift apart over the next 300 million years to form the continents we know today.

I would say there might be a better chance of a mass extinction being caused by an earthquake of a magnitude of 10+ resulting in mass eruptions of volcanoes across the globe and/or the eruption of a supervolcano or two, such as Yellowstone in the USA, Lake Toba in Sumatra or the Siberian Traps.


Ho Hum...... woe woe and thrice woe........

At that point it's game over. Entropy wins.

Would that be an END TROPHY then?