Science Frontiers
The Unusual & Unexplained

Strange Science * Bizarre Biophysics * Anomalous astronomy
From the pages of the World's Scientific Journals

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About Science Frontiers

Science Frontiers is the bimonthly newsletter providing digests of reports that describe scientific anomalies; that is, those observations and facts that challenge prevailing scientific paradigms. Over 2000 Science Frontiers digests have been published since 1976.

These 2,000+ digests represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Sourcebook Project, which publishes Science Frontiers, also publishes the Catalog of Anomalies, which delves far more deeply into anomalistics and now extends to sixteen volumes, and covers dozens of disciplines.

Over 14,000 volumes of science journals, including all issues of Nature and Science have been examined for reports on anomalies. In this context, the newsletter Science Frontiers is the appetizer and the Catalog of Anomalies is the main course.


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Compilations of back issues can be found in Science Frontiers: The Book, and original and more detailed reports in the The Sourcebook Project series of books.


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... be important in biology, too. We obviously have a lot to learn about this new realm between single atoms/molecules and bulk materials. Quasicrystals . Quasicrystals, once considered physically impossible, have been found easy to grow -- once one's mindset is corrected. At Bell Labs, for example, quasicrystals of an aluminum-cobaltcopper alloy reveal atoms packed together in pentagonal arrays -- the very geometry that crystallographers assured us could not exist. As one of the Bell researchers remarked, "Most of the ap plications are unimagined." This goes for the basic properties of quasicrystals, too. (Keller, John J.; "Bell Labs Confirms That New Form of Matter Exists," Wall Street Journal, February 8, 1990. Cr. J. Covey.) Nitrogen molecules that shouldn't exist . "Chemists in West Germany have discovered a compound of nitrogen which breaks one of the fundamental rules of chemistry. The molecule has five bonds and is 'an extremely stable species.' According to the text books, a nitrogen atom cannot form more than four bonds." The unruly nitrogen atom lurks at the center of a tribonal bipyramid of 5 gold atoms. Should you ask to synthesize a few of these molecular anomalies, take some (phosphine-gold) ammonium tetrafluoroborate from your shelf and add (triphenylphosphine) gold tetrafluoroborate! (Emsley, John; "The Nitrogen Molecule that Shouldn't Exist," New Scientist, p. 30, May 26, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #71, SEP-OCT 1990 . 1990 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Meteorites Also Transport Organic Payloads Excerpts from the Abstract of a paper printed in Nature: "Much effort has been directed to analyses of organic compounds in carbonaceous chondrites because of their implications for orgainc chemical evolution and the origin of life. We have determined the isotopic composition of hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon in amino acid and monocarboxylic extracts from the Murchison meteorite. .. .. . "These results confirm the extraterrestrial origin of both classes of compounds, and provide the first evidence suggesting a direct relationship between the massive organo-synthesis occurring in interstellar clouds and the presence of pre-biotic compounds in primitive planetary bodies." (Epstein, S., et al; "Unusual Stable Isotope Ratios in Amino Acid and Carboxylic Acid Extracts from the Murchison Meteorite," Nature, 326:477, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... itself (4 .6 billion years), born of solar-system stuff when a gaseous cloud condensed. Above all, comets do not "burn" or combust! The vision of a "burning" comet was advanced by recent observations that the velocity and temperature of the gases escaping from Halley are higher than one would expect from the sublimation of ices under solar radiation. Also, the concentration of expelled material in large, hypersonic jets carrying large quantities of fine dust further undermine the sublimation model. E.M . Drobyshevski has concluded "The new observations, together with some earlier data still poorly understood (e .g ., the appearance in the coma of large amounts of C3 ) can be accounted for by assuming the cometary ices to contain, apart from the hydrocarbons, nitrogen-containing compounds, etc., also of free oxygen (about 15 wt. %) . Under these conditions, burning should occur in the products of sublimation under deficiency of oxidizer accompanied by the production of 'soot,' 'smoke,' etc. The burning should propagate under the surface crust and localize at a few sites. "The presence of oxygen in cometary ices follows from a new eruption theory assuming the minor bodies of the Solar System to have formed in explosions of the massive ice envelopes saturated with electrolysis products on distant moon-like bodies of the type of Ganymede and Callisto." (Drobyshevski, E.M .; "Combustion as the Cause of Comet P/Halley's Activity," Earth, Moon, and Planets , 43:87 ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 15  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf064/sf064a03.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Diamonds are an anomalist's best friend The diamonds we mine today were, according to prevailing wisdom, formed about 3 billion years ago, at depths of 150-300 kilometers, where pressures of 725,000-1 ,000,000 psi are believed to exist. After lengthy cooling periods, the crystalized diamonds were transported to the surface by fluid, lower-melting-point rocks, such as kimberlite. Many South African diamonds are mined from kimberlite pipes. Diamonds are never pure carbon; they always contain some nitrogen and boron. Occasionally, they harbor tiny radioactive impurities; usually alpha-particle emitters in the uranium-238 decay chain. Alphas emitted by these impurities have well-defined energies and penetrate the diamond matrix only so far. If one examines a diamond with a high-power microscope (say, at 100 x), one can see concentric rings surrounding the impurities. These dark radiohalos or "pleochroic" halos have specific radii and can be used to identify the radioisotopes that produced them. So far, so good; but: "The fact that fully formed, optically visible internal radiohalos in diamonds are now presented casts a considerable shadow over current theories of diamond genesis." Actually, the radiohalos pose three challenges to diamond-genesis theory. Problem 1. The half-lives of the halo-creating radioisotopes are measured in thousands of years rather than the billions prescribed for crystallization. ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 15  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf092/sf092g09.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Nominative Determinism Following in the trail of Feedback's page in the New Scientist, we herewith offer two more cases of nominative determinism or ND. This phenomenon, as readers of SF are well aware, occurs when a person's last name is related to his or her occupation. A solid example of ND is seen in the name of the Director of U.S . Programs for the Rodale Institute. The Institute, it turns out, is studying carbon and nitrogen balances in organically managed cropping systems. Nitrates originating in such agriculture contaminate the ground water and often end up in drinking water. The EPA has determined that nitrates in drinking water can be harmful; thus this study. Who directs the study? Dr. Laurie Drinkwater! (Anonymous; "Organics Reduce Groundwater Pollution," Acres U.S .A . , p. 11, May 1999. Cr. L. Cortner.) And to whom does the journal Marine Observer turn when expert opinion is required on marine phenomena, including fish identification? Dr. Peter Herring! From Science Frontiers #125, SEP-OCT 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ) is a consultant. The authors' credentials seem so good that we must take a close look at their extraordinary claims concerning a natural phenomeon that they believe reset radiocarbon clocks in north-central North America and -- potentially -- elsewhere on the planet. We will be most interested in the reception accorded these claims by the scientific community. The claims. In the authors' words: Our research indicates that the entire Great Lakes region (and beyond) was subjected to particle bombardment and a catastrophic nuclear irradiation that produced secondary thermal neutrons from cosmic ray interactions. The neutrons produced unusually large quantities of 239Pu and substantially altered the natural uranium abundances (235U/238U) in artifacts and in other exposed materials including cherts, sediments, and the entire landscape. These neutrons necessarily transmuted residual nitrogen (14N) in the dated charcoals to radiocarbon, thus explaining anomalous dates. Some North American dates may in consequence be as much as 10,000 years too young. So, we are not dealing with a trivial phenomenon! Supporting evidence. Four main categories of supporting evidence are claimed and presented in varying degrees of detail. Anomalously young radiocarbon dates in north-central North America. Example: the Gainey site in Michigan. Physical evidence of particle bombardment. Example: chert artifacts with high densities of particle-entrance wounds. Anomalous uranium and plutonium abundance ratios in the affected area. Tree-ring and marine sediment data. The authors claim that the burst of radiation from a nearby supernova, circa 12,500 years ago, not only reset radiocarbon clocks but also heated the ...
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... terrestrial sources. Therefore, some scientists, such as D. Deming, University of Oklahoma, have been looking spaceward. Deming ventures that extraterrestrial sources of water and carbon may be four or five orders of magnitude greater than suspected. Obviously, a steady bombardment of icy comets might fulfill Deming's requirements. Down the long eons of geological time, they could have filled the oceans and showered all that excess carbon onto the planet's surface. Deming ups the stakes in the icy-comet controversy when he links these fluffy snowballs to the well-known vagaries of life on earth. "The extraterrestrial influx rate may also act as the pacemaker of terrestrial evolution, at times leading to mass extinctions through climatic shifts induced by changes in accretion rates with concommitant disruptions of the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Life on earth may be balanced precariously between cosmic processes which deliver an intermittent stream of life-sustaining volatiles from the outer solar system or beyond, and biological and tectonic processes which remove these same volatiles from the atmosphere by sequestering water and carbon in the crust and mantle." (Deming, David; "On the Possible Influence of Extraterrestrial Volatiles on Earth's Climate and the Origin of the Oceans," Palaeo , 146:33, 1999. Cr. P. Huyghe) Comment. Need we mention the book Living Comets , by F. Hoyle and C. Wickramasinghe? Why stop at water and carbon? From Science Frontiers #126, NOV-DEC 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... wonder what will be found even farther down. To illustrate, more than 3000 different microorganisms have been found in the boreholes. Many of the bacteria are new to science. As the following two paragraphs demonstrate, subterranean life consists of many well-adapted microorganisms working together. "The traditional scientific concept of an abiological terrestrial subsurface is not valid. The reported investigation has demonstrated that the terrestrial deep subsurface is a habitat of great biological diversity and activity that does not decrease significantly with increasing depth. "The enormous diversity of the microbiological communities in deep terrestrial sediments is most striking. The organisms vary widely in structure and function, and they are capable of transforming a variety of organic and inorganic compounds. Regardless of the depth sampled, the microorganisms were able to perform the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, manganese, iron, and phosphorous. Although the organisms were not of the same physiological types, each niche contained a basic cast of microbiological players capable of these nutrient transformations. Such versatility is surprising, and contrary to traditional thinking in soil microbiology, because the deep subsurface is presumably a nutrientlimited environment where photosynthesis and photosynthates are not abundant." The scientists writing this article speculate that similar microorganisms could well be prospering far below the Martian surface, where they are sheltered from radiation and the cruel surface environment. (Fliermans, Carl B., and Balkwill, David L.; "Microbial Life in Deep Terrestrial Subsurfaces," Bio Science , 39: 370, 1989.) From Science Frontiers #65, SEP-OCT 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 14  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf065/sf065b08.htm

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