Gửi: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:24 am Tiêu đề: Five minutes to midnight
Five minutes to midnight
Doomsday is edging closer, say those with a pessimistic view of the world - but how might it all end?
Doomsday is coming... rapid advances in technology mean many fear humans will become the architects of their own demise. The film Dr Strangelove was a black comedy about a pending nuclear war. In it, a "Doomsday device", developed by the Soviet Union, would automatically detonate 50 hydrogen bombs if it was attacked - a concept that was entirely feasible, according to nuclear scientist Leo Szilard. The probability of nuclear war and total annihilation is now represented symbolically on the Doomsday Clock. As of January 17, 2007, it stood at five minutes to midnight / AFP/Wikipedia
World on fire... even now, the threat of global annihilation rests in the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the United States stockpile has decreased from more than 12,000 nuclear weapons in 1999 to 4075 active warheads in 2008. As of 2008, the former Soviet Republic was estimated to have about 5200 active nuclear weapons / AFP
Fully armed and operational... scientists hope to employ 192 laser beams, focused on a tiny target at the centre of an enormous spherical target chamber, to create temperatures of up to 100 million degrees. It is believed the laser at the National Ignition Facility in California will create a nuclear reaction like the one at the centre of the sun. It's just the first step to a space station with the potential to destroy a planet / Reuters
The end of the world... on September 10, 2008, many held on to their seats as CERN scientists prepared to flick the switch on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In theory, the LHC could create a reactions so powerful it would produce a black hole. In practice, it has been dogged by operational problems / AFP
Computing super virus... at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2000, millions breathed a collective sigh of relief as fears of the destructive Y2K bug amounted to nothing. Fears of cataclysmic network failures and computer outages had led many to stockpile supplies and hide in cellars as they prepared for the sky to fall. While it was not malicious, fears remain that oversights in computer programming could potentially be manipulated, and the super-viruses of tomorrow will be devastating / Message Labs
Ground-breaking... developed in the mid-90s, High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP, inset) came under controversy for its potential to be used as a weapon that could potentially alter ionospheric properties and can be used for geophysical warfare. Many believed that with the advances in technology developed by Nikola Tesla, HAARP could be used to manipulate worldwide weather conditions causing tornadoes, floods and earthquakes / File photo / HAARP
War on machines... once endowed with the very spirit of humans, artificially intelligent organisms like robots and cyborgs could one day become self-aware and turn against us. He may look innocently scary now, but one-day Robo-boy (CB-2) will have dreams of growing up to be just like T-1000 (inset). We need John Connor / Picture: AFP/AP
Biological warfare... considered a weapon of mass destruction, biological warfare employs the use pathogens and toxic materials. When harnessed, viruses and bacteria have the potential to incapacitate and kill entire cities and can involve anything from using toxins in a weapon system to poisoning food and drink / AP.
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