Shares slump as humankind threatened by carbon extinction

THE THREAT OF a huge reservoir of carbon erupting and causing the whole world to be utterly destroyed had its effect on share prices on Wall Street this afternoon.

According to Hans Keppler, a German professor at the University of Tuebingen, a huge lake of molten carbon beneath the crust of the earth could exterminate all life on the planet if it erupted.

That caused share prices to decline, including AWOL Time Warner, Sun Microsystems, and Lucent.

But silicon based shares, such as those of the Intel Corporation, rose today, presumably because of the different nature of the two elements.

Meanwhile scientists warned that we are headed into what the British press call the "silly season".

During this period of the year, when many people are on holiday, newspapers find their columns increasingly difficult to fill and run wacky stories that would never get a look in otherwise. µ