Only hundred years to go for Humans

Washington, Jun 25: Humans will be extinguished in another 100 years or so, showed a research by Frank John Fenner, an Australian microbiologist and the director of the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, Australian National University.

"We're going to become extinct. Whatever we do now is too late," said Frank Fenner.

"A lot of other animals will, too. It's an irreversible situation. I think it's too late. I try not to express that because people are trying to do something, but they keep putting it off," he added.

Extinction is the process in which groups of organisms die out. If over an extended period of time the birth rate of a species is less than the death rate, then extinction will eventually occur.

Extinction is a natural phenomenon predicted by Darwin in his theory of evolution. A species goes extinct if it is not able to adapt to changes in it's environment, or compete effectively with other organisms.

Over the history of the earth over 99% of all the species that have ever lived have gone extinct.

Fenner believes any efforts to mitigate the irreversible effects of human activities are futile. He also said that the world's population is forecast to balloon to 7 billion next year, putting a terrible strain on food and water supplies - possibly even leading to food wars.

However, not all agree to Fenner's opinion, considering it overtly pessimistic.

"The human race is unlikely to become extinct without a combination of difficult, severe and catastrophic events," said Tobin Lopes, of the University of Colorado Denver.

He added that his team "were very surprised about how difficult it was to come up with plausible scenarios in which the entire human race would become extinct."

ANI