Posts Tagged ‘claim’
May 12th, 2013 | 
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'I was targeted after I made Assange sex crime claim' says accuser of Wikileaks …
The Independent One of the Swedish women who accused Wikileaks founder Julian Assange of sex crimes has spoken out about the ordeal she said she suffered at the hands of her alleged abuser's mother and other supporters. The woman, who cannot be named for legal … |
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Tags: Accuser, after, Assange, claim, Crime, independent, made, says, targeted, WikiLeaks | 
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 News of Iceland |
WikiLeaks considers to file a claim for compensation – News of Iceland
News of Iceland "Now we are thinking about compensations" said Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks spokesperson, following the supreme courts ruling in the DataCell vs. Valitor case. The court ruled that the payment solutions company Valitor should open the payment gateway … |
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Image credit: N. C. Wickramasinghe
After conducting additional testing, a team of scientists restated its claim that extraterrestrial life has been confirmed.
Supposed meteorite recovered in Sri Lanka. (Credit: N. C. Wickramasinghe)
In January 2013, scientists published a paper claiming the discovery of extraterrestrial life in a meteorite recovered in Sri Lanka. The team asserted that microscopic fossilized diatoms (algae) were detected in the meteorite. But the paper quickly met with harsh criticism from the scientific community. Some scientists questioned whether the diatoms were really fossilized, and it was suggested that the diatoms could have been the result of freshwater contamination. Some even questioned the claim that the meteorite was even a meteorite. And the journal in which the paper was published, the Journal of Cosmology, is viewed as a less-than-credible publication.
Seemingly in response to the scientific community’s skepticism, researchers sent fragments of the meteorite to Cardiff University in Wales for further testing. As the website ExtremeTech explains, “The researchers at Cardiff are now reporting that they’re sure that these fragments come from an extraterrestrial meteorite — and that there are definitely ‘fossilized biological structures.’”
Explaining the tests conducted by the research team, ExtremeTech explains:
Cardiff University’s tests took a two-pronged approach: First to confirm that there were actually algae fossils within, but more importantly to rule out terrestrial contamination. To this end, the researchers found very low levels of nitrogen (which is nearly always present in modern-Earth organisms), and their oxygen isotope analysis “shows [that the samples] are unequivocally meteorites.” The meteorite’s atomic makeup, coupled with the fossils being fused with the rock matrix, is a strong indicator that the organisms aren’t terrestrial in origin.
These new findings were published in the March issue of the Journal of Cosmology.
But just like the team’s first publication, this paper has also been met with harsh criticism by the mainstream scientific community. Astronomer Phil Plait of Slate Magazine, who criticized the team’s first paper, quickly published an article in response to this new paper stating:
I read the paper, and really it’s more of the same as from the first paper. In some ways, it’s even shakier; they provide lots of technical data that gives their work a veneer of credibility, but when you look a bit deeper you find they didn’t do a lot of critically necessary tests to establish the veracity of their claims.
Dr. Barbara Cohen (Credit: NASA)
Plait attacks the team’s conclusion that the samples they examined were “unequivocally meteorites.” He conferred with Dr. Barbara Cohen, a planetary scientist who studies meteorites at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Her opinion is that the paper’s data is “suggestive,” but not conclusive.
Another issue Plait takes with the team’s research is the failure to consult with outside experts or use an outside lab to confirm their findings.
What are your thoughts about this new paper? Did the research team do enough to support its claims, or are the criticisms valid? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below, or on the Open Minds Facebook page.
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Tags: claim, life, Mainstream, REJECTS, restated, science, team's |
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 Daily Mail |
UFO watchers claim object seen close by could be a UFO
Daily Mail 'At first, we also believed that the Chelyabinsk meteorite was just an ordinary meteorite, a cosmic body,' said Alexander Komanev, coordinator for the Russian UFO community in Yekaterinburg. But on at least three films of the space rock 'you can see … UFO saved earth from crashing meteor? Theory Suggests UFO Detonated Russian Meteorite |
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Scientists published a paper on January 10 in the online Journal of Cosmology in which they claim that a meteorite discovered in Sri Lanka contains evidence of extraterrestrial life.
The paper, titled “Fossil Diatoms in a New Carbonaceous Meteorite,” asserts that microscopic fossilized diatoms (algae) were detected in the meteorite, and therefore provides “strong evidence to support the theory of cometary panspermia.” Business Day explains that the lead scientist on the paper, the director of the University of Buckingham’s Centre for Astrobiology, Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, “was the co-developer of the theory of panspermia, which holds that life exists across the universe and is spread by asteroids and meteoroids.”
An example of a supposedly fossilized diatom. (Credit: N. C. Wickramasinghe)
But not everyone agrees with the team’s findings.
Astronomer Phil Plait of Slate magazine feels the claims made by the paper’s authors are flawed. He first points to a possible bias on the part of the paper’s lead scientist. Talking about panspermia, Plait explains, “Wickramasinghe is [a] fervent proponent of it. Like, really fervent. So much so that he attributes everything to life in space. He’s said that the flu comes from space. He’s said SARS comes from space . . . Wickramasinghe jumps on everything, with little or no evidence, and says it’s from outer space, so I think there’s a case to be made for a bias on his part.”
Plait contacted Patrick Kociolek, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, to get his take on the findings published in this paper. Kociolek appears to share Plait’s criticism of the study. In Kociolek’s opinion, “There certainly is not any sign” of the diatoms being fossilized. If that is true, it pokes a pretty big hole in the assumption that the diatoms must be native to the meteorite. Plait points out that “all the diatoms shown in the paper are from known species on Earth.
For Kociolek, “It is a clear case of contamination with freshwater.”
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Tags: claim, extraterrestrial, fossils, indicate, life, meteorite, SCIENTISTS |
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Tags: 'Skywatchers', claim, Familiar, fireballs, reports, telepathic, vancouver |
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Damages over WikiLeaks diamond looting claim
Legalbrief (subscription) A Zimbabwean mining executive has been ordered to pay significant damages to the country's spy chief, Happyton Bonyongwe, over comments published by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. According to a report on the allAfrica.com site, Andrew … |
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Tags: claim, damages, diamond, Legalbrief, looting, over, subscription, WikiLeaks |
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Mining Boss to Pay Millions Over Wikileaks Diamond Looting Claim
AllAfrica.com Harare — A Zimbabwean mining executive has been ordered to pay a huge sum of damages to the country's spy chief, Happyton Bonyongwe, over comments published by the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks. Andrew Cranswick, the chief executive of … |
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Tags: AllAfrica.com, boss, claim, diamond, looting, millions, Mining, over, WikiLeaks |
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 RFI |
Zimbabwe mining boss to pay millions over Wikileaks diamond looting claim
RFI A Zimbabwean mining executive has been ordered to pay a huge sum of damages to the country's spy chief, Happyton Bonyongwe, over comments published by the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks. Andrew Cranswick, the chief executive of African … |
 CBS News |
Scientist retracts claim that rock found in Novato was meteorite
KTVU San Francisco On Tuesday, the meteor astronomer with the SETI Institute who reported over the weekend that the first piece of the meteor was found after it hit the roof of a Novato home clarified that the suspected meteorite discovered there is actually a natural rock. That meteorite in Novato? Just a rock Video: Rock That Hit Northern California Home is Confirmed Chunk of Meteor Meteorite found! Fragment of California fireball hit house |
