There’s a presidential election coming up, so it’s easy to imagine that our least favorite candidate will win and annihilate the human race, or perhaps all life on Earth.  But why should he stop there?  Science offers an array of several more-or-less plausible methods of destroying the planet itself. 

Here’s a top ten list; and here‘s the original from which that list was derived.  An isotope geochemist points out a relatively simple method his discipline has enbled him to see.  This video explains how antimatter could be used to erase the Earth completely; this one explains how a wandering black hole could swallow the Earth.  Here is a news story reporting reasons why would-be Earth destroyers shouldn’t get their hopes up that the Large Hadron Collider will do their work for them.   Several years ago North Korea threatened to destroy the Earth rather than have another meeting with Donald Rumsfeld; I must admit they had a point.  Also, gays apparently have the power to destroy the Earth by getting married.  Who knew?