Leading scientists have prepared a doomsday list of external risks that are likely to threaten our planet. A group included Astronomer Royal Lord Rees and physicist Professor Stephen Hawking for the same.

Rampant climate change, bioterrorism and intelligent computers are among dangers indentified by the group. Lord Rees said in a speech to the British Science Festival in Newcastle that events with low probability but catastrophic consequences are likely to become a serious matter of discussion in political arena.

He said, "That's why some of us in Cambridge - both natural and social scientists - plan, with colleagues at Oxford and elsewhere, to inaugurate a research programme to compile a more complete register of these existential risks".

The Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk is making efforts to raise funds for a range of research projects.

Lord Rees said some of the issues are serious concerns for him and his colleagues. Out-of-control climate change, potential runaway technologies, such as artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, and cyber or bioterrorism is among those factors that raised serious concerns for them.

He said that there could be wider threats for the environment and vulnerability of digital world by human error or terror attacks is also a serious concern.