On Tuesday, I noted that someone needs to categorize and prioritize all the things that might kill us. Well, someone must have read my post, because the Guardian has done just that. The Daily Ablution has the story.

I’ll chime in with Glenn and others, and note that I also welcome our robot overlords.

I disagree, though, that there’s nothing we can do about supervolcanoes (at least in terms of preserving humanity). Having an economically independent and genetically diverse population off planet will at least preserve the species against such an event. That won’t help with gamma ray bursts though. This list is a little terracentric, in that it doesn’t distinguish between those events that would be a problem just for the earth (e.g., a supervolcano eruption) and those that would be more comprehensive (e.g., gamma rays, or obstreperous robots). By the way, does the robot scenario encompass gray goo?

Anyway, they need to rectify this.

[Tax day morning update]

Phil Bowermaster has all the solutions.

Anyone who thinks that private spaceships are a pipedream should check out this private submarine, which is for sale for a cool eighty million bucks. This is the next big thing in yachts. I think that we’ll have the space equivalent within twenty years.

Ten cool emerging technologies.

I like the silicon lasers and the universal memory, but a $0.25 malaria treatment is going to have huge effects on the developing world. The next step after that will be to get rid of the sickle-cell gene (though if malaria is artificially conquered, it should disappear naturally in a few generations).

[Via Geek Press]