A new twist on the Apocalypse!

[FramFramson]

Apparently, in 1992, a well-intentioned biotech firm almost killed all plant life on earth*

*Only "potentially", according to relevant GMO interests.

Fun! Exciting!

[racm32]

Heard about this today on "mingles with jingles". I would be interested to know how many times we came close to an appocolips like event and just got lucky?

[Malebolgia]

Woah! How insane...

[Daeothar]

 

The road to hell...

Actually; the whole cause of the apocalypse in McCarthy's The Road has just been explained by this article!

[Dr. Zombie]

Wow

I read somewhere that engineers thought there might be a slight chance that the first rockets they fired into space might accidentally ignite all of earths atmosphere. But I cannot seem to find a reference now.

That is also a pretty serious thing to go F**k it we will give it a go and see what happens.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Wow

I read somewhere that engineers thought there might be a slight chance that the first rockets they fired into space might accidentally ignite all of earths atmosphere. But I cannot seem to find a reference now.

That is also a pretty serious thing to go F**k it we will give it a go and see what happens.

That was the Trinity Test.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)

Enrico Fermi offered to take wagers among the top physicists and military present on whether the atmosphere would ignite, and if so whether it would destroy just the state, or incinerate the entire planet

Not sure if that is true though.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Oh, and this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass.

[FramFramson]

enjoy yourself, it's later than you think......

The years go by, faster than you can wink.....

[Treebeard]

I would be interested to know how many times we came close to an appocolips like event and just got lucky?

When Stanislav Petrov didn't push the button in 1983 is probably one :
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/18/soviet-officer-who-averted-cold-war-nuclear-disaster-dies-aged-77

[FramFramson]

There was also the case of Vasili Arkhipov in '62. And of course Khrushchev agreeing to remove missiles from Cuba later in the same crisis, thereby defusing it.  

Without getting political, both the Soviet Union and modern Russia had or have Problems, but one thing I've noticed is that whenever the world came closest to nuclear war, it was always the Soviets who backed off and not the Cowboys.