Friday Fun: End of the World!

I've never been a big fan of the "staff humans were not meant to know" genre of techno-thriller -- you know, Michael Crichton and his ilk.

But, done well, it can be pretty darn funny, in grim, morbid way.

In that vein, take a look at Cracked's The 5 Scientific Experiments Most Likely to End the World!

The article is quite extensive, with each experiment evaluated in terms of What Could Possibly Go Wrong, How Long Have We Got and overall Risk Level. Great stuff.

In any case, the experiments are, in descending order:

1. Recreating the Big Bang
   
2. The Quantum Zeno Effect
   
3. Strange Matter
   
4. Time Travel
   
5. Nanotechnology
   

Interestingly (and ominously), most of the experiments involve the Large Hadron Collider.

I like this quote:

Basically the only thing that will save us from getting transformed into globulets of grey goo in a few years will be if the Large Hadron Collider kills us first.

(via Digg)