[jwmerrill]

Good to know.

I think the writing in this article is not so good, but I've seen this usage by plenty of respectable writers. Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" is not comically bad writing, and it's full of even more outlandish usages of "million million million ..."

https://www.google.com/search?q=brief+history+of+time+"milli...

[EmbarrassedFuel]

Ah yes point taken: I was implying that the author had used this (nowadays) non-standard construction in order to add some sensationalism.