Given that based on arable land, Japan has 18 times the population density of the USA, I don't think that they're going to disappear shortly. If the USA had over 5 *billion* inhabitants, would anyone be dismayed by the prospect of a population drop?

I don't know about *maximum* comedic surliness: the paper examining a dead salmon using fMRI ([www.wired.com]) was a pretty well-placed attack on the fMRI craze.

Well, it was sometime later, but North Africa was the breadbasket of Rome...