Scientific American has an article this month on University of Arizona professor Alan Weisman's book The World Without Us, imagining what would happen to the Earth if humans suddenly vanished.

The accompanying timeline, “The Fall of New York,” illustrates that it wouldn't take the Earth as long as you might think to erase the vestiges of human splendor in Manhattan. Without water pumps the NYC subways would flood in a couple days; without street cleaning and basic maintenance our roads and highways would buckle after a year.

It might take 35,000 years, but eventually the lead from automobile emissions would dissipate from the soil. Kinda glad we wouldn’t be around for the barnacle covered carapace beetles 1 million years After Man.