Mankind must abandon earth or face extinction

Stephen Hawking warned that the human race was likely to face an increased number of events that threaten its very existence, as the Cuban missile crisis did in 1962.
Photograph by: AFP Photo/Geoff Robins, AFP Photo/Geoff Robins
AFP August 10, 2010

LONDON - Mankind's only chance of long-term survival lies in colonizing space, as humans drain earth of resources and face a terrifying array of new threats, warned British scientist Stephen Hawking on Monday.


"The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet," the renowned astrophysicist told the website Big Think, a forum which airs ideas on many subjects from experts.


"Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space," he added.


He warned that the human race was likely to face an increased number of events that threaten its very existence, as the Cuban missile crisis did in 1962.


The Cold War showdown saw the United States and Soviet Union in a confrontation over Soviet missiles deployed in Cuba, near US shores, and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.


"We are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history," said Hawking.


"Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill."


If we want to survive beyond the next century, "our future is in space," added the scientist.


"That is why I'm in favour of manned, or should I say 'personed', space flight."


His comments came after he warned in a recent television series that mankind should avoid contact with aliens at all costs, as the consequences could be devastating.
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

"Mankind's only chance of long-term survival lies in colonizing space, as humans drain earth of resources and face a terrifying array of new threats,"

he may be onto something...

Scientists find new superbug spreading from India


"Health tourists" flocking to south Asia have carried a new class of antibiotic-resistant superbugs to Britain, researchers reported Wednesday, warning that the bacteria could spread worldwide.

By Kate Kelland and Ben Hirschler, Reuters August 11, 2010

LONDON - A new superbug could spread around the world after reaching Britain from India — in part because of medical tourism — and scientists say there are almost no drugs to treat it.

Researchers said on Wednesday they had found a new gene called New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase, or NDM-1, in patients in South Asia and in Britain.

NDM-1 makes bacteria highly resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most powerful class called carbapenems, and experts say there are no new drugs on the horizon to tackle it.

With international travel in search of cheaper health care increasing, particularly for procedures such as cosmetic surgery, Timothy Walsh, who led the study, said he feared the new superbug could soon spread across the globe.

"At a global level, this is a real concern," Walsh, from Britain's Cardiff University, said in telephone interview.

"Because of medical tourism and international travel in general, resistance to these types of bacteria has the potential to spread around the world very, very quickly. And there is nothing in the (drug development) pipeline to tackle it."

Almost as soon as the first antibiotic penicillin was introduced in the 1940s, bacteria began to develop resistance to its effects, prompting researchers to develop many new generations of antibiotics.

But their overuse and misuse have helped fuel the rise of drug-resistant "superbug" infections like methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus (MRSA).

In a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal on Wednesday, Walsh's team found that NDM-1 is becoming more common in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan and is also being imported back to Britain in patients returning after treatment.

"India also provides cosmetic surgery for other Europeans and Americans, and it is likely NDM-1 will spread worldwide," the scientists wrote in the study.

For many years, antibiotic research has been a "Cinderella" sector of the pharmaceuticals industry, reflecting a mismatch between the scientific difficulty of finding treatments and the modest sales such products are likely to generate, since new drugs are typically saved only for the sickest patients.

But the increasing threat from superbugs is encouraging a rethink at the few large drugmakers still actively hunting for new antibiotics, including Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis.

Walsh and his international team collected bacteria samples from hospital patients in two places in India, Chennai and Haryana, and from patients referred to Britain's national reference laboratory between 2007 and 2009.

They found 44 NDM-1-positive bacteria in Chennai, 26 in Haryana, 37 in Britain, and 73 in other sites in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Several of the British NDM-1 positive patients had recently travelled to India or Pakistan for hospital treatment, including cosmetic surgery, they said.

Most worryingly, NDM-1-producing bacteria are resistant to many antibiotics including carbapenems, the scientists said, a class of the drugs often reserved for emergency use and to treat infections caused by other multi-resistant bugs like MRSA and C-Difficile.

Anders Ekblom, global head of medicines development at AstraZeneca, whose Merrem antibiotic is the leading carbapenem, said he saw "great value" in investing in new antibiotics.

"We've long recognized the growing need for new antibiotics, he said. "Bacteria are continually developing resistance to our arsenal of antibiotics and NDM1 is just the latest example."

Experts commenting on Walsh's findings said it was important to be alert to the new bug and start screening for it early.

"If this emerging public health threat is ignored, sooner or later the medical community could be confronted with carbapenem-resistant (bacteria) that cause common infections, resulting in treatment failures with substantial increases in health-care costs," Johann Pitout from the University of Calgary in Canada wrote in a commentary in same journal.

© Copyright (c) Reuters

i will only consider this if he says:


autobots...transform and roll out

What would Hawking transform into, I wonder?

On a long enough timeline, a species whose populace is limited to a single habitat is certainly destined for an ending. But I'm going to wager that mankind isn't going anywhere, and will die on this planet.

His teeth look horrible, that's all I can think about.

fackin hell this thing moves fast. 3 confirmed cases of NDM-1 in the US and 1 confirmed just today in Canada.

Meh, if that Hawkings guy is so smart, how come he can't figure out how to walk?

stephen hawking's british? huh.

yeah... lets go and fuck up another plant! HURRY!
Ummm.... why dont we try to fix the one we are on first?

I cant remember the formula once quoted by Carl Sagan... but the odds of race of beings surviving their own technological advancement without committing some kind of genocide upon themselves through ecological disaster, war.... ect is ASTRONOMICAL.

Anyone want to place a bet? Ill take the longshot...

Humanity's had a good run. If we don't make it past 2349, I'm alright with that.

i'm all for space travel in search of habitable planets (or techniques for making planets habitable).

I'm ready. Let's go.

I'm glad Steve got around to telling us this. I thought the earth was gonna last forever!

He looks like an old white Bubba Gump in that picture.

Ah you've seen the director's cut, where Bubba lives and eventually marries Forrest.

I wonder why he thinks this? Maybe he's been watching too many movies.

AIDS

Off topic:
This is OT but it does have to do with space. Gazing out into space The Milky way was visible, so one could perceive the latitude they live in on the planet. Watching the Perseid meteor shower tonight with this thread in mind it really brought some intense ideas to be considered.

I'm a bit of a "space case" so the idea that life as we know it will never be the same whether we colonize a different planet, or stay on this one, really blows my mind. There are so many things to consider when you move, like how will the weather be, will my neighbors be nice, will the local grocery store still carry my favorite brand of polish sausage, etc. If we discover a planet like earth out there in a different solar system, we may not be welcome there if we try to move in.

So we'll need to pack some really big ass guns.

Take it to the our universe is rad thread.