Leave Earth to save species, says Hawking.

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http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100810/national/hawking_colonizing_space

Leave Earth to save species, says Hawking.

Tue Aug 10, 4:21 AM

By The Canadian Press

Hawking is suggesting the survival of the human race will likely depend

on changing neighbourhoods and moving to another planet.

The famed physicist says in the centuries ahead, it will be hard for Earthlings

to avoid a disaster of biblical proportion on their home turf, and he recommends

they avoid putting all their eggs in one basket _ or planet.

Hawking writes on the website BigThink.com that he sees great dangers ahead for

the human race, noting such close calls as the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

He warns about a ballooning population using up the Earth's finite resources and

the growing ability of humans to alter their environment for good, or ill.

On a less apocalyptic note, Hawking says that if humans can manage to stave off

self-imposed extinction for 200 years or so, they should be able to spread their

seed into space and thus save the species.

Hawking returned to the UK last month after spending six weeks at the Perimeter

Institute for theoretical physics in Waterloo Ontario. The author of the highly

acclaimed " A Brief History of Time'' retired from Cambridge University in

England last year at age 67.