In UCLA Team Claims It Can Predict Earthquakes, Randall Parker cites a UC NewsWire article that claims that earthquakes can now be predicted months in advance:
‘Earthquake prediction is called the Holy Grail of earthquake science, and has been considered impossible by many scientists,’ said Keilis-Borok, a professor in residence in UCLA’s Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and department of earth and space sciences. ‘It is not impossible.’‘We have made a major breakthrough, discovering the possibility of making predictions months ahead of time, instead of years, as in previously known methods,’ Keilis-Borok said. ‘This discovery was not generated by an instant inspiration, but culminates 20 years of multinational, interdisciplinary collaboration by a team of scientists from Russia, the United States, Western Europe, Japan and Canada.’
The team includes experts in pattern recognition, geodynamics, seismology, chaos theory, statistical physics and public safety. They have developed algorithms to detect precursory earthquake patterns.
The real news story is that Keilis-Borok, the lead scientist, is 82 years old:
Kellis-Borok apparently took on earthquake prediction to give him something worthwhile to do in his old age. Incredible.