June 2010

June 29, 2010

NASA planetary protection chief admits: Impact estimates flawed

Donald Yeomans It takes Jupiter getting slapped three times [see Tusk post here], but NASAJPL is finally admitting (carefully in an house propaganda organ) that the estimates they regularly regurgitate to demonstrate things are fine — are false — by an order of magnitude. The Tusk is in New Orleans working to restore wetlands, so I do not have time to get much more deeply into this…

461

Random Tusks

June 26, 2010

NatGeo gets it wrong on Carbon Spherules and Nanodiamonds

Don’t get me wrong from the headline. I love National Geographic. I have received an issue every month of my entire life. But the reporter here, John Roach, made a critical mistake in his otherwise largely accurate report regarding Scott and Pinter’s work. Here is what he says: What’s more, those spherules are found alongside microscopic diamonds, or nanodiamonds, which often…

614

Random Tusks

June 24, 2010

Shhhhhh!

Fungi, Feces Show Comet Didn’t Kill Ice Age Mammals? Image courtesy AGU John Roach for National Geographic News Published June 22, 2010 Excerpted: What About the Nanodiamonds? In fact, most experts acknowledge that carbon spherules are found throughout the geological record, including biological forms associated with wildfires, said James Kennett, an emeritus geologist at the University of…

429

Random Tusks

June 23, 2010

Tusk Scrambled: Low probability, high consequence

…

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Random Tusks

June 17, 2010

Pinter and Scott's Cheap Shot sweeps diamond evidence under rug in rush to undermine heresy

I’ve now had a quick read of the Pinter and Scott paper. They agree with a lot of what the YD team has published previously regarding carbon spherules, principally that Carbon Spherules of some type can occur in ordinary, modern forest fires – but unfortunately they do not tell us they are in agreement. See here from the 2007 paper that started all this from the original authors of…

426

Random Tusks

June 17, 2010

Breaking: Dirt balls -- not diamonds?

(Press Release, Royal Holloway, University of London) — A team of scientists – led by Professor Andrew C Scott of the Department of Earth Sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London – have revealed that neither comet nor catastrophe were the cause for abrupt climate change some 12,900 years ago. Theories of impacts and their influence on animal extinctions and climate…

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Random Tusks

June 12, 2010

Younger Dryas Impact debate rocking to and fro' in PNAS

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381

Random Tusks

June 4, 2010

THREEPEET!!!: Jupiter takes third hit in two decades; second in a year

Astronomers around the world are shocked — shocked! — to once again witness a world busting impact on Jupiter. Regular readers of the Tusk know better. Notwithstanding patronizing dismissals urging us all to “move along, nothing to see here,” we know that the solar system is a far more dangerous place than acknowledged by the wise men and their calculations. We know…

565

NASA planetary protection chief admits: Impact estimates flawed

NatGeo gets it wrong on Carbon Spherules and Nanodiamonds

Shhhhhh!

Tusk Scrambled: Low probability, high consequence

Pinter and Scott's Cheap Shot sweeps diamond evidence under rug in rush to undermine heresy

Breaking: Dirt balls -- not diamonds?

Younger Dryas Impact debate rocking to and fro' in PNAS

THREEPEET!!!: Jupiter takes third hit in two decades; second in a year

Archive

Don’t miss

Marc Young to Holden Thorp: Retract Sun et al.

Journal of Academic Ethics: Data vs. Derision: The Ethics of Language in Scientific Publication. The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis as a Case Study