subtitled by MosTafa ȜGena mostafaagina1997@gmail.com
imagine our planet without its people
imagine that every single human being has simply disappeared
this isn't the story of how that might happened
this is the story of what happens to the world we leave behind
this time on Life After People
the fate of man's great attempts at immortality
the bodies left behind
some mummified
some chronically frozen
will any of them achieve immortality ?
or will be survived by other memorials to mankind
take a look at the future of once crowded cities
and goes like towns already devoid of man
welcome to earth, population zero
it's one day after people
without humans to maintain them
power plants across the world start shutting down
lights go out
clocks stop
a race has begun to see who or what
can survive the longest
in a hostile world of life after people
around the world the mummies of many of Egypt's pharaohs
lie not in tombs deep inside Pyramids
but beneath the Plexiglas of modern museums
one day after people
the electronic temperature and humidity controls
that mimic the cool, dry environment where the mummies
once resided
shut down
the bodies they've been left in the tombs in Egypt
have lasted 3000 years or more
if the condition are just perfect for the body
i can see why it can last another 3000 years
but if the condition at the museum fail
the body would start decay immediately
you have a high humidity
you have mold spores in the air at all times
so they would probably be attacked by mold and bacteria
how long can these mummies last ?
we shall see!
one month after people
more than 100 bodies kept in suspended animation
at the world's cryonics facilities are still in a deep freeze
according to experts even a month long power cut won't cause the bodies to thaw
they are kept at a temperature of -320 °F
by liquid Nitrogen
which doesn't rely on electricity
to maintain its temperature
but there is a problem
liquid Nitrogen boils off slowly
in the time of humans, the supply had to be replenished every few weeks
with no-one left to restock the crucial refrigerant the bodies begin to warm up
once they reach -184°F
chemical reactions resume
and the nature process of decomposition take over
in the cells are enzymes and fluids
these breakdown quickly
the cell wall is broken down by enzymes it leak out
as soon as the temperature started to go up
the body would just accelerate in the decaying process
for these human beings the bid for immortality is coming to an end
and should some future intelligence wish to recreate humans
they will find no help in the laboratories left behind by man
there are approximately 400,000 human embryos
currently frozen in clinics in the "United States" alone
they along with all the egg and sperm samples in the world quickly decay
as the supplies of liquid nitrogen run out
but man's DNA still has a chance for survival
200 miles above the earth
up in the international space station
rests a computer disk called the immortality drive
delivered into orbit in October 2008
the immortality drive contains the
digitized DNA information of a highly eclectic group
including physicist "Stephen Hawking",
comedian "Stephen Colbert",
and playboy model "Jo Garcia"
it's the brainchild of "Richard Garriott" a video game producer from "Houston"
who thinks alien beings one day might use
the DNA data to reconstruct an extinct humanity
the immortality drive maybe man's best
shot at preserving the species in a life after people
but can it really last forever ?
another medium through which man has achieved immortality is art
creating images that have lasted centuries
but many masterpieces require protection in controlled environments
in the time of humans Michelangelo's magnificent frescoes
of the Vatican Sistine Chapel
were protected by more than 20 miles of pumps, pipes, valves and wiring
to prevent the fresco plaster from absorbing too much water from the air
the humidity was kept between 50% and 60%
air filters remove even microscopic particles of dust
it was all controlled by computer
but without electricity
the system has closed down forever
but 3 months after people
the disappearance of humans is actually helping the fresco
without the annual hordes of 2 million tourists
there are no ascending currents of human body heat
the figures painted on the ceiling including God and Adam
are safe at least for now
6 months after people
while nature attacks some of the bodies and structures left behind
she preserves others
in the barren wastes of "Ross island" "Antarctica"
are the huts used in the early 20th century
by explorers "Robert Scott" and "Ernest Shackleton"
here with an average temperature of 3 below 0
the ravages of decay have been slowed
inside and out the huts remain frozen entire
with the severe cold in "Antarctica"
a lot of the insects, that would no way at the world structure
don't exist there
and the fungus the mold doesn't exist there
cans of beef from 1917 set on the shelves
these cans they last 2 - 3 more centuries!
meat still hangs on metal hooks appearing quite edible even after almost a century
in some cases extreme cold has preserved flesh for thousands of years
in the 1928 explorers club meeting in "Paris"
they ate mastodon !
some mastodon came up through the ice
and they got it and cooked it up
and they served it at the dinner
and i had a friend there
I asked him how did it taste. And he said,
well It tasted a lot like a rodent meat
but it's have been period in the ice for 10,000 years
but, it's edible
while the Antarctic cold will preserve the explorer's huts for many years
it's the more temperate parts of the globe that most people once called home
cities like "Houston" and "Boston"
where the artifacts of man face a much harsher fate
Sitting in Boston harbor is one of the most famous ships in American history
the USS constitution first launched in 1797
is the world's oldest commissioned warships still afloat
during the war of 1812 cannonballs were seen bouncing of the ship's 25 inch
thick wooden hull earning her the nickname "Old Ironsides"
but even "Old Ironsides" is defenseless in this race to survive
along with most of what man has built
9 months after people
the race to see what survives is becoming more intense
in "Boston" a military relic is about to lose its final battle
the hull of "Old Ironsides" maybe tough enough to repel a cannonball
but it can't withstand the constant infiltration of water
wooden ships leak
the wood starts leaking almost immediately
the wood will shrank, the wood will expand the wood will rough
in the time of humans
automatic bilge pumps drained 900 gallons of water a day from the ship
but those pumps stopped months ago
this flooding alone won't be enough to drag the ship underwater
it will take the "Boston" winter to do finally what enemy warships never could
and the world without people maybe the constitution
would remain afloat for a year, maybe less
3 years after people
the international space station still orbits above the earth
but without constant re-calibration from terrestrial stations
or boosts from space shuttles it loses 2 miles of altitude each month
as it drops from its original height of 200 miles to blew 160 miles
the orbital decline accelerates
until it re-enters the atmosphere
where air and friction meet gravity and the space station burns up
incinerated in the descend
the final hope of reconstructing the human species
the digitized DNA of the immortality drive
proves to be quite mortal after all
5 years into a life after people
weeds have transformed the historic streets of "Boston"
if you just leave the gutters and rain spout
not maintained
plants will take grown in little cracks in the brick
and little cracks in the mortar
Boston's old north church is under attack
it's here that lanterns warned "Paul Revere"
of the British invasion in April 1775
now, the nature world has invaded and conquered
if the windows blowout
you've rain coming in
you've pigeons coming in
you've animals coming in
you also have vine starting to grower
the maple tree sending it shoots in here sprout up in the rotting wood
it's 20 years since humans disappeared
nature has conquered the sub-tropical city of "Houston"
the tallest building in "Texas" now looms
over a city that is slowly reverting back to the swamp it once was
once kept at a steady 72 degrees
Houston's great dome sport stadiums
now swelter to 125 degrees in the summer
they become enormous bat caves
the artificial grass of the Astrodome is swallowed up by weeds and muck
feasting on insects the bats make their own contribution to the new ecosystem
their excrement or guano
guano has a lot of nutrients in it
so you've insects that feed on the fungus
bringing in predators that eat insects
that eats the fungus
25 years without people have not been kind
to the mummies housed in the world's great museums
with no-one around to regulate heat and humidity
mold struck first
then insects
mites will probably be the first insect you will see, destroying a mummified body
after the mites eat a decayed body
they'll start to break down fibers
they would start to turn a dust
great kings like "Ramses II" and
"Tutankhamun" have been reduced to skeletons
when "Lenin" died in 1924
his body was given into the hands of skilled embalmers
and his corpse was preserved for decayed in "Moscow"
the process was once a state secret
rumoured to involved repeated bathes in
formaldehyde ethanol and methanol
Caretakers were always on duty to protect the body
scrubbing away bacteria closing up openings in the flesh
and lightening blemishes
his body has treated with makeup
so that he appears like he did 30 years ago
but the process of decay underneath that makeup and underneath that wax
still taking place
it can be slow down but the process of decay never stops
but with no-one to tend it
Lenin's body goes the way of the rotting pharoahs
the wooden steeple of Boston's 18th century
old north Church is on the verge of collapse
the steeple be taller
is going to more susceptible to big storm than the rest of the building
it would all sooner
the once guiding light of the American revolution has been extinguished
35 years after people is long enough to
turn coastal cities like "Boston" into ghostly wrecks
how do we know this !?
it's a future that already happened almost 7000 miles from "Boston"
this island was the most densely populated place on earth
until man disappeared
35 years after the disappearance of people
homes,
offices
and factories
are cracking and subsiding
as nature takes over
it's a future that has already come to pass in one remote corner of the world
several miles off the the southwest coast of "Japan"
a forsaken island stands lifeless and decaying
so island as you can see is a slab of concrete
setting in the middle of the ocean
with high rise buildings
completely empty, no one living here anymore
no electricity, no vegetation nothing!
Hashima island was once a thriving coal-mining town
and homes to thousands of people
now it's abandoned
offices and residential buildings are literally
exploding under nature's relentless hands
the island has been left literally to the elements
all these is exposed completely
the wind is carrying all the sea water up into the building
because of the unsafe conditions
"Hashima" is strictly off limits to visitors
in the 1890s Japan's Mitsubishi company
began mining coal from the seafloor beneath Hashima
at it's peak in 1959 the 15 acre was
home to more than 5000 workers and their families
the highest recorded population density on earth
in 1974 as "Japan" as began favoring petroleum over coal
Mitsubishi closed the mine and relocated the entire population to the mainland
35 years later
nothing remains but decayed buildings and ghostly memories
what is the city look like after all the people were gone !?
this is the Hashima version of life after people
this isn't a war zone, it was one busiest third fares on the island
there was once a row stores along here with wooden shutters
all of the lumber collapsed onto the ground
the concrete walling has fallen
the metal netting is strewn along the ground
it's a facts of 35 years of wind and rain
once one of the busiest places on the island
now it just completely silent
these rooms once echoed with the laughter of children playing
now all that remains are the corroded rusty remains of their toys
overgrown and forgotten
the school playground is now rusting scrap metal
"Hashima" is a laboratory for showing
what happens to reinforced concrete in a savage environment
every year the typhoon season delivers rain and winds of up to 100 mph
whilst huge ocean waves smashed directly into buildings
in the case of this building we have an iron frame and steel reinforced parts
as you can see the front part of this building is damaged
but the backsides isn't
it tells you that the surfaces damaged by saltwater, wind and rain
scientific studies of concrete core samples
reveal that the buildings most exposed
to the ocean had a salt content 15 times greater than the others
the concrete buildings themselves gave the island a warlike profile
and even a new nickname "Battleship Island"
"Hashima" was called battleship island
because from a distance it literally looks
like the shape of a battleship
the similarity is so uncanny fictive
with actually torpedoed during World War II by American submarines
"Doutoku Sakamoto" lived on the island as a young boy
his former home is on the nine floor of a building
that once housed 300 families in tiny apartments
this was a room that we used into 1974
there 5 family members living in this house
and there was my private room
and a balcony over there
the wooden facades of balconies were quickly destroyed
the many passageways and stairs that
connected the buildings are now falling apart
this is the steps of hell
so named because of so steep
the buildings of Hashima
are high rises of up to
9 storeys in height
and so people living in the island had to
negotiate stair like this on the daily basis
there wasn't a single elevator any more in the island
so you can see where the name comes from
overage the "Hashima" was just a rock without vegetation
setting in the middle of the ocean
and by artificial means it was turning into a human community
but in reality is just that appear rock are city in the middle of the ocean
and lifeless and it's gone back to lifeless
it's been 50 years since the last human voices echoed through the streets
alleys and hallways of planet earth
but the words of man haven't been completely silenced
after humans disappeared tens of thousands of domestic parrots escaped into the wild
and still retain the words and phrases taught to them by their vanished owners
parrots are considered one of the smartest creatures on earth now
up with great apes and dolphins
some parrots have learnt learn several hundred words
and might keep that vocabulary even without humans to interact with
i confirm that parrots escaped into the wild
might have a lifespan say of 60 years
then it be very possible that 50 years later
you could still hear human noises in the wild
so for now, some of mankind's words will survive
time and nature are wearing away
Boston's monumental Bunker Hill Bridge
the steel and concrete span is held up
by 116 steel cables strung from 2 towers
and required constant maintenance in the time of humans
truly, bending the steel making sure no corrosion exist
sweeping the debris of the bridge
cleaning out the drainage structures
so plants don't grow in the water flows over the bridge
and sealing the concrete with a motif resin sealer
the cables are coated in a plastic piping to keep moisture off them
the plastic piping also protect them from another source of corrosion
bird droppings are amazingly corrosive to a wide range of building materials
it wasn't even fully recognized 20 or 30 years ago
the waste product of pigeons and starlings
contains high levels of ammonia and salt
mixed with rainwater
the combination triggers are lethal electro-chemical reaction
it was 20 years of bird droppings
penetrating the steel of an eight-lane bridge in "Minneapolis"
that contributed to its fatal collapse in 2007
after a century weather and stress have
cracked the protective plastic coating on the cables
of the Bunker Hill Bridge
storm water some of it mixed with acidic pigeon droppings
has penetrated to corrode the steel
one by one the cables snap
when half have gone
those that remain can no longer support the weight of the roadway
down the coast in "New York" more than 200 years
after she was given as a gift of friendship
from the people of France to the people of America
the statue of liberty is still holding her torch high
the second to be held a aloft by Lady Liberty
the original was replaced in a 1980s during a massive restoration period
now beneath her copper skin
only a few millimeters thick her skeleton this beginning to disintegrate
the steel straps that hold the copper to steel framework
would pull away the river threat pull away
over period of a 100 to 200 years
her end has not yet come
but without humans it soon will
in "Houston" the dome stadiums have spent the last 100 years
as sub-tropical paradises
in the time of humans it cost an estimated
half a million dollars a year to maintain the "Astrodome"
the first dome-based baseball stadium in the world
after a century of neglect
the entire structure is cracking and crumbling
finally, in great chunks the 9000 tons
steel and lucite dome comes raining down
150 years after people
leaves "Boston" looking like an untamed, neglected and overgrown garden
in the time of humans
the best observation point in the city
was from in top of the 60 storey "John Hancock" tower
the tallest building in "New England"
but the notorious "New England" weather has destroyed the building's outer skin
corroding steel columns lead to a pancake collapse
the urban jungle is now just jungle
but former cities still echo with familiar words
although these parrots have never interacted with humans
their ancestors did
and some remnants of human speech have been passed down to them
but our languages will not be immortal
while parrots can pass on human words to their chicks
it has no value for the survival of the species
i would think the drop-off would be more than 90% 3rd generation
200 years after the last human
would be highly and unlikely to expect hear human vocalisation
and parrots in the wild
over a period of 200 years
the tallest building in "Texas" has had it's windows
blown out by hurricanes
and it's insides corroded by rain
you have to expect a hurricane in "Houston"
a good one, a big one
every 4-5 years
that's going a create a significant amount of damage
almost in its wall buildings
now the accumulated force of nature will strip the building to it's bones
the steel frame might still be there
200 years later
the rest of the building is gone
then the the steel frame itself will corrode and collapse
1600 miles away in "New York" harbor
the statue of liberty's best chance for immortality
might lie beneath the waves
300 years after people
the statue of liberty suffers a fetal relapse of an old complaint
galvanic corrosion
her torch bearing right arm is the first to fall
other parts quickly follow
here on the ocean floor these shattered symbols of hope
become the fossils of the future
the hand with the torch would by that initial ballistic trajectory in bid itself
maybe a up to half a meter into the mud
and that impression, may will stay
just in the way footprints
a preserved in mud and sand
while one icon of humanity makes a bid for immortality on the ocean floor
the most famous ceiling in the world
is barely hanging on
half a millennium after people
Michelangelo's frescoes still look down from the "Sistine" ceiling
where they cover 12,000 square feet of surface
even though all the frescoes have faded
and cracked from changing temperature and humidity
on the wall depicting the last judgement
Michelangelo's heavenly sky has faded faster than other sections
the ultramarine pigment comes from Lapis Lazuli in Tunisia
it was the most precious color in renaissance art
but also one of the most delicate
it's blue color comes from 3 sulphur atoms
and an electron, protected by Aluminum and Silicon atoms
high humidity breaks apart the structure
allowing oxygen to mix with a sulphur
turning the blue to a yellowish-grey
throughout it's history, people have tried to clean the frescoes
and shore up the chapel itself
but after 5 centuries
the last judgement has come
the walls would weaken
the vault of the roof would push the walls apart
Exterior bracing buttresses fail
initiating a chain reaction
walls would collapse
the Sistine ceiling would not be there a 1000 years for now without people
probably would not be there 500 years for now
10,000 years after people
almost all traces of mankind and it's culture
are buried beneath vegetation and sand
10,000 years from now
they would certainly be somethings you would see
pyramids of Egypt perhaps
but, very very little of human existence
would actually be recognizable in the absence of humans
the planet has become warmer
even in the coldest places on Earth
even in those areas, where "Scott" and "Shackleton" built their huts
we may will start to see an increase in
planet life possibly
even an insects
organisms that would began to increase the
rate of which decay would take away those structures
and 10,000 years, it's a improbable that those huts would still be there
in 10,000 years
the earth itself will have buried most of man's cities
100 million years after people
dreaming of immortality
man tried to make his mark on the world
but those marks have been erased
in the end
what survives isn't what people made
but the simple mineral compounds that made people
we re-possessed bones that made out of calcium phosphate
that is as durable as the bones of dinosaurs
teeth are even more durable
the dentin and particularly enamel very hard to break down
so those parts of us will likely survive here and there
this then is the final fate of humans
along with the bridges they stretched across rivers
and the buildings they build up to the sky
art and architecture
aspiration and achievement
all just fragments on the ground
in a life after people
subtitled by MosTafa ȜGena mostafaagina1997@gmail.com