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What, Me Worry?

Posted by michael on from the hakuna-matata dept.

Space.com dissects (or see the same story on MSNBC, with handy Torino scale graphic) the asteroid scare that's been in the news for the past week, asking some good questions about the roles of the news media and the scientific community. I suppose my take on it is something like this: given that truly insignificant threats to individuals get hyped all out of proportion routinely, at least in this case it was an insignificant threat to the entire planet.

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  1. NEO Information Centre by Lev13than · · Score: 5, Informative

    A good discussion of the asteroid/comet collision risk is covered by the Near Earth Object Information Centre's website, which is a not-so-secret agency maintained by the UK government:
    http://www.nearearthobjects.co.uk

    Also of note is a /. discussion along similar lines from back in September 2000:
    UK Publishes Asteroid Armageddon Report

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