Depart For New Earth By David Sloan

Depart for new earth AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Professor Stephen Hawking said recently that for the human race to survive we must gain a foothold on another planet, and as if by divine intervention our astronomers soon found another earth-like planet in the heavens. It has a mass five times that of earth and is probably made of the same sort of rock with enough gravity to hold a substantial atmosphere. It orbits its sun in what is known as the Goldilocks zone, not too near to boil and not too far to freeze, just the right distance to support human life.

Unfortunately this new earth is 20.5 light years away, not exactly on our doorstep. Even with the latest technology it would be physically impossible for anyone to make such a long voyage. So should we just keep searching space for a nearer planet, hoping technology will advance faster than global warming? I think not. The world today is a very unstable place, nuclear weapons are being developed by many countries and states, some of them very unpredictable . It is only a matter of time before genetic engineers release some germ or bacteria that may cause a major epidemic.

Genetic altering of cereal crops could lead to significant crop failures, resulting in widespread famines.

We cannot wait until tomorrow if the human race is to survive. We must depart for this new earth a.s.a.p. Using today's technology we could launch spaceships packed with human DNA to seed this new earth in the future, hopefully creating a humanoid civilisation not unlike our own. This could be our only chance to colonise space. Could human DNA survive in space for hundreds, possibly thousands of years? The answer is yes. DNA has successfully been recovered from insects trapped in amber millions of years ago. It should be possible for scientists to do the same, preparing human DNA to survive very long space flights.

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If mankind pulls together and survives a few more decades I'm sure we'll find even more earth-like planets out there. Every planet found capable of supporting human life must be seeded. Future technology well probably solve the problems of travelling great distances in space so human beings could actually reach these planets in their own lifetimes, but we must not wait one day longer to start this journey. Tomorrow may never come, so we must depart a.s.a.p.

Opinions - Trees Are Bastards By Sally Satan
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	There is a story that I tell. I likely tell it far too often and one of these days, a friend or family member is going to sneak up behind me and garrotte me with a length of fishing line. No, it's not the one about that. Or that one, either. Now that I think about it, there are many stories that I tell too often. However, the story I am referring to today recalls the moment Read more...

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	I watched a TV programme the other night about the seemingly endless, unaccounted and under-investigated murder of scores of young women by street gangs in Guatemala. As a father of three girls myself it was heart-breaking stuff that made me thankful to live in the UK; the 'scandal' of John Prescott shagging his secretary hardly seems to matter by comparison. Read more...

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