DINOSAUR CANCER -Reply

[Scott Horton <HORTONS@EM.AGR.CA>]

> Neutrinos colliding with the nuclei of living atoms could damage DNA,
>nature's genetic building blocks, producing cancer-causing mutations.
 ...
>Because neutrinos are
>not halted by the outer layers of the body, the cancers are likely to
>develop in vulnerable tissue like bone marrow, Collar said.
 
Most neutrinos are not even halted by the earth itself, but pass right thru
it. A few can be stopped, but very few, which makes neutrino detectors
very difficult. Maybe the popular press got this wrong, and they really
meant neutrons? This confusion has happened before.

>Other scientists have suggested that mass extinctions could be caused
>by cosmic rays from supernova explosions, but Collar says these
>happen too infrequently to explain the disappearance of the dinosaurs.
 
Rich Muller's book "Nemesis: The Death Star" describes an attempt to
detect heavy elements such as Plutonium in the iridium clay at the K/T
boundary. Their failure to find any suggests that the extinction event
was not caused by supernova.