Even The BBC Doesn’t Read The BBC
There’s this mildy interesting story in the BBC today:
Tut’s gem hints at space impact
In 1996 in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Italian mineralogist Vincenzo de Michele spotted an unusual yellow-green gem in the middle of one of Tutankhamun’s necklaces. The jewel was tested and found to be glass, but intriguingly it is older than the earliest Egyptian civilisation.
Working with Egyptian geologist Aly Barakat, they traced its origins to unexplained chunks of glass found scattered in the sand in a remote region of the Sahara Desert.
But the glass is itself a scientific enigma. How did it get to be there and who or what made it?
…An Austrian astrochemist Christian Koeberl had established that the glass had been formed at a temperature so hot that there could be only one known cause: a meteorite impacting with Earth. And yet there were no signs of an impact crater, even in satellite images.
The article than talks about how they think it was made by an ‘air-burst’ sort of meteorite. All fine and good.
But then I looked at the ‘related’ story links in the sidebar and I saw this:
Huge impact crater found in Egypt
06 Mar 06 | Science/Nature
Huge impact crater found in Egypt
The crater dwarfs the next largest known Saharan crater
A giant crater made by a meteorite impact millions of years ago has been discovered in Egypt’s western desert.
Boston University experts found the 31km (19 mile) wide crater while studying satellite images of the area.
It is more than twice the size of the next largest Saharan impact depression and more than 25 times the size of Arizona’s famous Meteor Crater.
The American team that found it says its sheer size may have helped it escape detection all these years.
…The heat from this impact may be responsible for the extensive field of “Desert Glass”, yellow-green silica glass fragments found on the desert surface between the giant dunes of the Great Sand Sea in southwestern Egypt.
How much do the editors at the Beeb get paid? Remember, folks: they’re the professionals. Do not attempt to be a “journalist” at home, and most certainly do not attempt it in your pajamas.
Media | Mr. Bingley | 
July 20, 2006 8:10 am
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Heh heh heh.
Even before I got further, I was struck by the silliness of this line:
Yeah, most jewels predate the people who find them.
The jewel was tested and found to be glass
I’m sure there’s a course being taught at NYU now about how the ancient Nubians invented glass, and we should pay their descendants for ripping off their invention…
If they reported the meteor impact with the glass article, how will the space aliens get proper attribution for building the pyramids?
Sheesh, don’t you guys know anything?
Mike, you’re related to von Daniken, aren’t you?
I think the pyramids were designed to help the aliens target their meteor gun. I learned it all from watching a documentary called “The Last Starfighter.” We’re living on the abandoned artillery range of Xur and his minions.
But where does Xenu get involved? Must… research…
Maybe the glass shards are remnents of the Thetan martini glasses?
Can you prove otherwise?
So it’s not about oil at all – No War for Alien Meteorite Glass!!
Ken – on the serious side, although you can’t find the date when a natural gem was cut, fission track dating allows you to tell how long it’s been since a given hunk of glass cooled down from the fire.
Dirt, don’t you see? Master Karl needs that glass to construct rays that will penetrate the tinfoil. It is vital that we, er, he, obtain it.
Bingley! Shhhhhh.
John, I know, that’s why I found it so silly (since I had assumed that the Egyptians didn’t make the glass itself).
Oh damn, sorry Dave.
Hmm, what’s that black helicopter doing outside my office?
RAY (Dan Aykroyd): You know, Mr. Tully, you are a most fortunate individual.
LOUIS (Rick Moranis): I know.
RAY: You have just been a participant in the biggest interdimensional cross-rip since the Tunguska blast of 1909.
LOUIS: Sounds great.
EGON (Harold Ramis): We’d like to get a sample of your brain tissue.
LOUIS: Okay.
Nothing special, probably Moldavite, a yellowish-green glass formed by meteor impact. It’s often faceted for gemstones.
The Muslims like the shiny things from outer space, they have a bit of meteor in a corner of the Kaaba. We could give them more sand-glass, but Iran is eager to make their own the hard way.