Being a professional in the media world but also working as a scientist (in weather forecasting) I frequent many geeky science web sites, so when I was perusing one of my faves the Volcanism Blog this caught my eye:
Volcanoes erupt coal – Fox News
Everything you thought you knew about geology is wrong. Allow Fox News to open your eyes:
From the Fox article:
Scientists investigating the high incidence of lung cancer in China’s Xuan Wei County in Yunnan Province conclude that the problem lies with the coal residents use to heat their homes. That coal was formed by the same 250-million-year-old giant volcanic eruption — termed a supervolcano — that was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. The high silica content of that coal is interacting with volatile organic matter in the soil to cause the unusually high rates of lung cancer.
Gosh, I thought volcanoes erupted lava, not coal...I guess I was wrong- it is right here on the Internets! And from those science-loving folks at Fox no less.
Here is the whole entry
Is that all they got wrong? It gets worse....
That’s right – the dinosaurs were killed off 250 million years ago (the end of the Permian) before they had got around to evolving (which happened after the Permian, in the Triassic and Jurassic, hence there wasn’t a dinosaur movie called Permian Park), and they were killed off by volcanoes that erupted coal..
Words fail me- you would think that whomever wrote that article would at least have a 5th grade knowledge of basic science- too much to ask I guess. To be fair, it is not just Fox that regularly gets science reporting so FUBAR- If you rely on the MSM for knowledge of any technical subject, you is not learning so good. You might as well get that info from Hollywood.
That reminds me, time to go watch Twister or maybe the Day After Tomorrow, I think I may need a refresher in my meteorological training.