"THE human race is likely to be wiped out by a doomsday virus before the Millennium is out, unless we set up colonies in space, Prof Stephen Hawking warns today."

Hawking has been making alot of statments like this latley.. If you remember about a month ago he was saying something about mankind being in danger of extinction if we didn't start re-engineering ourselves with our new-fangled genetic Kung Fu.

I totally agree with Hawkings. The man is clearly one of the greatest minds of this or any other generation.

I do find it interesting thou that he has become so vocal on this meme of "mankind going away" of late. As I recall, in the past he usually blows off all the "doomsday stuff" with the usual "its billions of years off, chill" thing. Wonder what got him all concerned about mankind's extinction? The market ain't _that_ bad..