Even though it is difficult to predict the most likely event that can destroy human civilization on Earth, because we don’t posses a data in which humans have been entirely destroyed. However, a volcanic eruption caused a population bottleneck or near extinction event about 70,000 years ago. Volcanic eruption is still considered by many as the most likely event that could be responsible for human extinction in near future.
However, there are many more catastrophic risks discussed around the world that can potentially be responsible for the extinction of our species such as climate change, artificial Intelligence takeover, nuclear wars, alien invasion etc. But the following article is about 10 unexpected ways that can cause human extinction in future.

8 : Bee Decline
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The importance of bees is sometimes overlooked by most people. These little insects not only bless us with the delicious honey and valuable wax, but also play a significantly important part in a process called pollination.

Bees are primary pollinators for cultivated crops in almost every part of the world. Pollination is the vital process in flowering plant reproduction, which involves the transfer of pollen grains from the male part (or anther) to the female part (or stigma) of the same. The fertilization process then results in the egg cells grow into seeds, and become many fruits and vegetables that we all love to eat.

So it can be said, the death of bees is indirectly linked to the extinction of human civilization. The bitter truth is, the death clock has already began. Because bees are disappearing from the earth at an unprecedented rate, mainly due to rise in the use of certain pesticides and parasites, which are turning out to be toxic for bees. They are weakening their immune systems hence making bees more vulnerable to fetal diseases. Some parasites causing them to develop viral diseases, which could accelerate the decline of bees even further.

There’s not doubt that if the bees die, we would have no choice but to lose a large portion of our food. Not to mention, increased human population is already causing shortage of food. Humans are starving to death in several poor countries, and unfortunately, the struggle is only going to more severe, because human population is expected to reach 9 billion before 2050.

However, research is going on to create biological pesticides which would help to develop sustainable agriculture practices. But we don’t know how long it would take to produce such pesticides, and then implement them into the worldwide agriculture. All we can do is hope that it happens before the extinction of mankind.

7 : Grey Goo Apocalypse
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The fundamental belief of grey goo apocalypse is that sometime in future, self-replicating robots or laboratory made microorganisms on full tilt boogie would consume all matter of Earth while building more of themselves. It may sound like a slow process that some of you might be thinking would take ages to consume all matter of Earth.

But think again, if this kind of microorganisms or micro robots ever come in existence, they would devour all matter of Earth including solar system within days. Now, try to think in a way that a molecular nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler described in his book called Engines of Creation (1986):
“Imagine such a replicator floating in a bottle of chemicals, making copies of itself…the first replicator assembles a copy in one thousand seconds, the two replicators then build two more in the next thousand seconds, the four build another four, and the eight build another eight. At the end of ten hours, there are not thirty-six new replicators, but over 68 billion. In less than a day, they would weigh a ton; in less than two days, they would outweigh the Earth; in another four hours, they would exceed the mass of the Sun and all the planets combined — if the bottle of chemicals hadn’t run dry long before”.

6 : Replaced By Superhumans
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The idea of posthumanism and transhumanism originated in the fields like science fiction, philosophy and futurology, which discussed the idea of humans turning into a much superior species. There are two possible ways in which humans could become superhumans in the future. We could either combine our bodies with sophisticated gadgets such as an electronic eye capable of watching world with better vision, in other words become cyborgs, or genetically modify ourselves with the use of presently unknown codes in our genome.

These humans will no longer be considered humans by our current standards, instead will become more God-like or superhumans. Some philosophers believe that it could still be possible for humans and posthumans to coexist, but the system would be extremely unstable. Mainly due to the obvious behavioral differences between a highly sophisticated species and the one with limited intelligence and capabilities.

Hence, all existing humans on earth would either upgrade themselves into this new species or simply be left behind to die. Technically Homo Sapiens will go extinct like Homo erectus and Homo ergaster, to start a new glorious chapter in the book of evolution.

5 : Collision With Nibiru or Planet X
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There’s possibly an unknown planetary object of diameter larger than or similar to Earth known as Nibiru or Planet X, which is believed to be on the collision course with our planet. A group of theorists believe that the Planet X or Nibiru will one day collide or nearly miss blue planet, either way would cause the extinction of human civilization. They believe that this extinction level event could take place within 21st century.

Although many scientists have since discarded the presence of such object in our solar system, but the fact is, nobody is entirely certain. Furthermore, several astronomers have claimed the existence of similar planets in the past, however, none of them have so far turned out to be true.

Conspiracy theorists go so far claiming that the NASA is well aware of the existence of Nibiru, but to avoid massive public panic not revealing information about Nibiru. Recently, a relatively large asteroid or comet discovered by NASA on 27 November 2016 dubbed as 2016 WF9 nearly missed the Earth on 25 February 2017. Conspiracy theorists believe it to be a fragment of Nibiru, and the next object could very well be the much larger Nibiru itself, which unlike 2016 WF9 would certainly cause an incurable harm.

4 : Instant Pole Shift
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Believers of this hypothetical Doomsday event suggests that there might have been geologically rapid shifts in the relative positions of the modern-day geographic locations of the poles and the axis of rotation of the Earth. The idea of instant pole shift have attracted many respectable authors to publish books, giving off their own scientific explanations and evidence on the instant pole shifts occured in the past, and could take place again in future.

Although the scientific studies have ridiculed the idea of instant pole shift. However, they too believe that the pole shift might have happened in the past, but in the course of several hundred million years, which certainly won’t be harmful enough to cause the death of single person, let alone extinction of a species.

But the opposite side of people have proposed several evidence based on the historical data, claiming that the instant pole shifts have taken place several times in the past, the most remembered of whom was by author Charles Hapgood. He argued on the basis of his own research, that each shift took approximately 5,000 years, followed by 20,000-30,000 year periods with no polar movements. If his research is to believe, there could possibly a rapid pole shift, outcome of which would be trail unforgiving earthquakes, cruel floods, aggressive tornadoes and several other calamities that would spare no living creature on earth.

The other possibility of instant pole shift is connected to Nibiru hypothesis, which suggest that in every thousands years Nibiru comes back extremely close to Earth and causes instant pole shifts.

3 : Large Hadron Collider Accident
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Large hadron collider is the largest and most complex experimental facility ever built by humans. LHC is used by some of the greatest minds of this planet to better understand physical laws and discover particles predicted by different theories

But all the goodness aside, several scientists have recently shown concerns over the potential dangers of using Large Hadron Collider. If this kind machine keep becoming more powerful with the current rate of technological advancements, the time isn’t far away when it could start a chain-reaction causing global disaster involving black holes, false vacuum states or strangelets

2 : SuperFlares
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Superflares are extremely intense explosions with energies that can go up to 10,000 times that of typically observed solar flares. Although the superflares of enough power that have the ability to trigger an extinction level event on Earth has never been observed in the past, but there’s a possibility for it to happen in future. Moreover, a young and bright star like our sun has even higher probability of causing SuperFlares.

If SuperFlare ever take place in the future, the result would a catastrophy, which would not only affect mankind but would also disrupt the system of Earth. A superflare of such kind would first damage or entirely destroy all artificial satellites, which mean no communication of any kind including internet. But the worst thing that could happen would be a Significant depletion of the ozone layer, which would result in the increased risk of cataracts, sunburn and skin cancer, that alone can potentinally trigger the human extinction event.

And it would only get worse. In the strongest cases there would be a severe damage to the biosphere,
especially to primary photosynthesis in the oceans. It can possibly cause damage to transformers and switching equipment, Loss of power to the cooling systems of spent fuel rods stored at nuclear power stations, and the loss of most radio communication because of increased ionisation in the atmosphere.

1 : Collapse Of Vacuum
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According to the Chaotic Inflation theory, the universe as we know it could either be in true vacuum state or false vacuum state. if the universe were part of a true vacuum then it could survive until the big crunch, but if the other one is true, a hypothetical vacuum metastability event would be theoretically possible. A false vacuum appears to be stable, but within certain limits and conditions, it is vulnerable of being disturbed to enter in a different or more stable energy state.

Several studies have been carried out to determine the possibility of false vacuum but our current understanding of universe limits scientists to reach at any acceptable conclusion.

A bubble of lower-energy vacuum could come in existence by chance or randomly triggered by a super massive black holes, similar to one at the center of our galaxy. The conversion would result in a volume expanding at nearly the speed of light, destroying the entire universe and converting all the laws of physics, without any warning.