British scientists have found that humanity will disappear from the face of the Earth in about three years if all food disappears from the surface of the planet and all its inhabitants become cannibals, according to an article published in the Journal of Physics Special Topics.
“Today, over 7.6 billion people live on Earth, and we wondered what would happen if all food disappeared from the surface of the Earth and a global crisis ensued. We calculated how long humanity will survive if it feeds exclusively on meat of its own kind,”write Holly Graham from the University of Leicester (UK) and her colleagues.
In recent years, scientists have found ample evidence that the first inhabitants of Europe could eat the meat of their enemies or tribesmen. For example, last year, paleontologists discovered that the Neanderthals from the Marilyak caves for some reason split the bones of recently deceased relatives, and separated their limbs from the body.
However, this issue remains a matter of debate, as many scientists believe that such damage could be part of burial rituals. Recently, renowned paleogeneticist and palaeontologist Johannes Krause found the first definitive evidence of cannibalism among Neanderthals when he discovered a mountain of ancient human bones with traces of "culinary processing" in a cave in northern Spain.
On the other hand, the calculations of biologists show that cannibalism is unprofitable from an energy point of view - the carcasses of mammoths and just large animals contain much more calories than human bodies. For this reason, the tribes of successive cannibals had to gradually die out, as they would be inferior in the competitive struggle to ordinary "meat-eaters".
Using data on the "calorie content" of one person obtained by these biologists, Graham and her team tried to figure out how many days humanity would live if the entire modern population of the planet ate only the meat of other people, which they would honestly distribute among the survivors.
The body of one person, as the calculations of British researchers show, contains about 125 thousand kilocalories, which is enough to provide energy for another 50 people throughout the day. Therefore, on the first day after the onset of the "food crisis" 1/50 of humanity will disappear, on the second day - 1/50 of the survivors, and so on.
If people still cannot find other sources of food, then in 1149 days, after about three years, only one person will remain on Earth, who ate the last compatriot the day before. Interestingly, most of the world's population will disappear in the first 200 days of such a life - during this time the number of people will fall to the level characteristic of the mid-18th or early 19th century.
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As Graham and her colleagues note, such a catastrophe will noticeably slow down if some of the cannibals behave "dishonestly" and begin to unite in groups that will catch other people and increase their meat supplies. In this case, the "era of cannibals" will last for several decades, if not centuries.
In this case, the main threat to their survival will not be a decrease in food supplies, but “mad cow disease” and other diseases associated with cannibalism.
The Faculty of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester (UK) publishes the scientific journal Physics Special Topics annually, authored and edited by the fourth-year students of the faculty. All articles submitted to the journal undergo mandatory reviewing, and participation in its work is assessed by teachers and is necessary to obtain a diploma.
At the same time, beginning British scientists are interested in an unusual range of topics. For example, in 2013, they figured out whether it was possible to heat the premises with the heat generated by members of the British Parliament during intense discussions, and two years ago they were interested in the properties of Jedi swords, the possibility of shooting down an asteroid with a laser, and many other things.
RIA Novosti during the New Year holidays presents a selection of the most interesting publications from the latest issue of Physics Special Topics.