Food for thought:
   
  From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction:
   
  Population genetics and demographic phenomena affect the evolution, and therefore the risk of extinction, of species. Species with small populations are much more vulnerable to these types of effects. Limited geographic range is the most important determinant of genus extinction at background rates but becomes increasingly irrelevant as mass extinction arises.
   
   
  From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population:
   
  Minimum viable population (MVP) is a lower bound on the population of a species, such that it can survive in the wild.
   
   
  From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_population_size:
   
  In population genetics, the concept of effective population size Ne was introduced by the American geneticist Sewall Wright,  who wrote two landmark papers on it (Wright 1931, 1938). He defined it as "the number of breeding individuals in an idealized population that would show the same amount of dispersion of allele frequencies under random genetic drift or the same amount of inbreeding as the population under consideration". It is a basic parameter in many models in population genetics. The effective population size is usually smaller than the absolute population size (N).
   
   
  Now, I don't pretend to understand all of the implications of the above as they apply to biology; however, it is my contention that the HP3000 population has already dropped below the effection population size, and is fast approaching the minimum viable population (MVP), and in fact, may have already reached the MVP.  We, ladies and gentlemen, are fast approaching our own extinction.
   
   
  Jim Phillips

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