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In Discover Magazine a few months ago, they had this long list of natural disasters that could possibly wipe out most or all of the human race and/or life on earth: asteroids, caldera eruptions (like the oneat Yellowstone) gamma ray blasts from supernovas, and a host of others. Also, sudden earth-slippage from the sides of volcanic islands in Hawaii and the Canaries could happen at any time, triggering 500-foot-tall tsunamis that could wipe out coastal areas.
There've been two mass extinctions of life on earth in the last 2-300 million years -- at the age of dinos, 75 million years back, and another one 200 million years back (which basically set the stage for dinos by wiping out the reptiles that were then in the top spot). Nobody knows what caused that one.
Frankly, I'm amazed we've made it _this_ far.
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