“Although September 11 was horrible, it didn’t threaten the survival of the human race.” Colonies in space may be only hope, says Hawking: ‘The human race is likely to be wiped out by a doomsday virus before the Millennium is out, unless we set up colonies in space, Prof Stephen Hawking warns today.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Prof Hawking, the world’s best known cosmologist, says that biology, rather than physics, presents the biggest challenge to human survival. “In the long term, I am more worried about biology. Nuclear weapons need large facilities, but genetic engineering can be done in a small lab. You can’t regulate every lab in the world. The danger is that either by accident or design, we create a virus that destroys us.

” ‘