"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all"

Dear New England Explorers, Friends, and Guests,

You are cordially invited to the next meeting of the New England Chapter of The Explorers Club, to be held Tuesday evening, the 5th of May 2009, at which event we will have a very special presentation by longtime and far-reaching researcher, author, and close friend of the New England Chapter, EVAN HADINGHAM, senior science editor for the fine documentaries of NOVA. Please mark this event indelibly and forcefully on your calendar.

Evan's presentation on "THE LAST EXTINCTION" is described as follows:

The Last Extinction. Did a comet wipe out the woolly mammoths?

What killed off the woolly mammoths? Near the end of the last ice age 13,000 years ago, these mighty beasts disappeared from North America together with some 35 other groups of mammals, including mastodons, giant ground sloths, saber-tooth cats, lions, and camels. For four decades, debate has raged over the cause of their abrupt demise. In THE LAST EXTINCTION, NOVA presents an in-depth investigation of a controversial new theory that the culprit was a massive impact from space. According to the theory, a comet broke up over North America in a devastating series of explosions, kindling widespread forest fires and wiping out plants, animals, and prehistoric people. The evidence comes from a mysterious "black mat" layer discovered at more that fifty sites across the continent. The black mat contains exotic materials—including rare microscopic "nanodiamonds"--that are claimed to be the signature of an extraterrestrial impact. But other scholars question the evidence and argue that ancient hunters armed with a lethal stone weapon—the Clovis spear point--drove the giant beasts into oblivion. Still others believe the unstable climate at the end of the Ice Age was responsible. To advance the debate, last year NOVA sponsored a research expedition to Greenland led by eminent climate scientist Paul Mayewski of the University of Maine (and of the New England Chapter of The Explorers Club), who wanted to test the theory by taking samples from the relevant layers in the ice sheet. The results (so far unpublished and shown exclusively in the NOVA documentary) were surprising and dramatic. NOVA's Science Editor Evan Hadingham will present excerpts from The Last Extinction and discuss the heated controversy that has surrounded both the theory and NOVA's decision to make the program.

Evan Hadingham is NOVA's Senior Science Editor at WGBH and has written many books and feature articles about prehistory and archaeology. He knows nothing about fungi or arachnids but particularly enjoys the company of N.E. Explorers Club members who are distinguished in those fields.

Yours in exploration,

Greg Deyermenjian