Then you will likely ask yourself: “What are the chances?”. Well, the book that I’m now reading – “Global Catastrophes and Trends” by Vaclav Smil – goes into this in some detail:

There are perhaps as many as a billion asteroids orbiting the sun in a broad and constantly replenished belt between Mars and Jupiter as well as a similar number of comments moving in more distant orbits withinthe Opik-Oort cloud beyond Pluto. Gravitational attraction of nearby planets constantly displaces a small portion of these bodies into elliptical orbits that move them toward the inner solar system and into the vicinity of Earth.

After an analysis based on the size and varying degrees of damage they may inflict, you’ll be pleased to know:

… probabilities of the Earth’s catastropic encounter with a comment are likely less than 0.001% during the next 50 years, a chance approaching the level of 1 out of 1 million.

Oh yeah, the book is:

Quoted in “The Coming Famine” by Julian Cribb

With eloquent symbolism, this Petronian banquet made clear that the well-off part of humanity has largely forgotten what it is to go hungry and is awakening to an unpleasant shock: starvation and the wars, refugee crises, and collapse of nation-states that often accompany hunger have not been permanently banished after all. Indeed, they are once more at our doorstep. Food insecurity and its deadly consequences are again a pressing concern for every nation and each individual.

FYI, the proverb translated is: Civilization and anarchy are only seven meals apart

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull – May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

And if you’re interested in how it works:

It’s really too bad that Eliot Spitzer couldn’t keep his pants on — he could have been helpful in averting the financial crisis.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“The research, published by the journal Molecular Systems Biology, shows that when an ageing cell detects serious damage to its DNA – caused by the wear and tear of life – it sends out specific internal signals. These distress signals trigger the cell’s mitochondria, its tiny energy-producing power packs, to make oxidising ‘free radical’ molecules, which in turn tell the cell either to destroy itself or to stop dividing. The aim is to avoid the damaged DNA that causes cancer.”