Forwarded to me as a news item from Dr. Benny J. Peiser of the Cambridge Conference Network (CCNet):

Review: Edge of the Universe
Tuesday, January 15, 2002
By Joe Joseph
The Times

“It’s 65 million years since the last great impact. The next one could happen at any time!” Actually, that frequency does sound a little similar to Britain’s rail service.

Have you noticed how the further into outer space (and towards the fringes of known science) a documentary reaches, the more its narrator sounds like one of those salesmen on the shopping channel who struggle to convince you that you really do need a revolutionary new grillpan that drains away fat from the food you are cooking and magically processes it into handy firelighters? Both sound just a little too eager; as if they are trying to convince themselves of what they are saying as much as they are trying to convince you.

Take the outer space series that Channel 4 is currently screening. Edge of the Universe promises to explore “the most terrifying and mysterious phenomena that we know of in the universe.” What, including Stephen Byers’s political longevity? Last night’s episode, dramatically entitled Killers in Space, warned us that “the asteroid belt is unstable”. Maybe it is. But so are half the people we come across every day; several of whom have ready access to sharp implements. One of them may even have invented the revolutionary grill pan that neatly drains away fat from the food you are cooking and magically processes it into handy firelighters (banish barbecue misery!).

John Hurt, the narrator, went on to say that: “Orbiting within striking distance of Earth are at least 10,000 asteroids half a mile or more across; there are more than 100,000 the size of a football field; and 100 million the size of a house.” And so? And so “if a near Earth object should be discovered heading our way, what could we do to avert disaster? There is no international plan on how to defend the Earth from the catastrophe of an impact from space. It has been left up to individual scientists to dream up ways of saving the planet.”
(More: The Times News Source)
2002 © Times Newspapers Ltd.

Dan