Toba catastrophe theory

It lacks some paleoalignment pictures to illustrate the facts.

See http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S092054460800003... for the end carnian impacts - perfect alignment between Manitoba, Quebec, France and Azerbaijan craters

Are you talking about FOXP2? If so, absence of it foremost affects the motor control of speech organs. There also seems to be some effect on the actual brain functions that are usually associated with speech, but it is hard to say if this is really caused by the absence of the gene or by the developmental damage caused by its effects. It always seems tricky to me to pinpoint something as complex as language (and by extension speech) onto a single gene given the multitude of functions that are involved.

I assume "1000 breeding pairs" means at least 2000 people. Elsewhere the article mentions an estimate of "3000 to 10000" survivors.

Either way, if true, it's an fascinating picture. Most of us will have more people within a few miles radius than once lived over all the Earth.

I wonder what sort of traits might have been passed on had the predicted disaster not occurred.

Follow-on question: Are we prepared for the consequences of everyone's taxes quintupling, to prevent/fight the consequences of such an eruption? (Not considering the massive corruption increase caused by such tax increase.)

I think it would really push geo-engineering to a whole new level.

Rapid global cooling would render huge chunks of landmass virtually useless and put many of the worlds most economically important cities under a glacier, so governments would be quickly pressured to fund drastic measures to re-stabilize the climate before we have another ice-age.

Well we did make it through last time with much fewer resources...

You should go visit Yellowstone. That way you can stand on a supervolcano that is due to blow any day now (using geological timelines). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera#Volcanic_ha...

Some idea of what would happen when it blows: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/supervolcano/arti...

People are very resilient so I have no doubt that some would survive, adapt and then flourish. No worries for the species.

The effects could be minimised through standard civil defense type measures. However it would require far greater cross border cooperation than is typical today.

That sounds like a great concept for a TV show.