Watched some doomsday show on the SciFi Channel a few nights ago. Pseudo-documentary about the different ways the world will end. One of them got me to thinking:

Gamma ray bursts happen once a day in the universe, so far only recorded in galaxies other than ours. If we were to have one ‘in our backyard,’ it would basicly cook the earth like a microwave.

To try and combat a similar scenario, there was a recent report about plant seeds and animal DNA being gathered in a repository deep within a mountain. (Picked this up from a separate source last month, actually.)

So, what if it happened? Earth is destroyed, yet the ‘Species Bank’ is unharmed. It’s full of machines and robotic instruments that monitor the planet’s surface until something cues them to start reproduction of the species available.

No humans until the machines . . . clone them? Or fertilize eggs? Or something? What kind of society would that be? How many years would these new humans be underground, growing and training (via video to learn how to BE human) before they’re allowed back onto the surface to begin repopulating and reseeding Earth?