... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 26: Mar-Apr 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Punching A Hole In The Asteroid Hypothesis Scientists have long searched for a cause for the profound geological and biological changes that apparently occurred between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. When an iridium-rich layer was found in several areas at this important boundary, many claimed it as proof of an asteroid impact or some other catastrophism that would nicely explain the massive worldwide changes that occurred. With this preamble in mind, consider the following abstract from an article in Science: "Analyses of the clay mineralogy of samples from the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary layer at four localities show that the boundary clay is neither mineralogically exotic nor distinct from locally derived clays above and below the boundary. The significant ejecta component in the clay that is predicted by the asteroid impact scenario was not detected." (Rampino, Michael R., and Reynolds, Robert C.; "Clay Mineralogy of the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Clay," Science, 219:1983.) From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Case Against Impact Extinctions The neocatastrophists seem to be getting overly smug with their iridium-rich deposits at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Is there really incontrovertible evidence that a large asteroid or comet hit the earth at this point in history, causing widespread biological extinctions? To add some perspective, Leigh M. Van Valen has tossed 15 arguments against impact extinctions on the scales. Ten of these are reproduced below, as taken from Nature. More de-tails may be found in Paleobiology, 10: 121, 1984. Freshwater life was unaffected; In Montana and its vicinity, the last occurrence of dinosaurs was detectably below the crucial boundary; Transitional floras also exist below the boundary; Apparently extraterrestrial material exists below the boundary; The expected effects of eliminating atmospheric ozone are missing; The Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is coincident with a very large marine regression, suggesting a nonextraterrestrial cause; Marsupials but not placentals were nearly eliminated, while most aboreal multituberculates (a type of vertebrate) and birds survived; The predicted cooling effects on the earth are absent; The predicted effects of acid rain cannot be found; and Assuming a marine impact, no turbidites can be found; assuming a land impact, no large terrestrial crater has been discovered. (Van Valen, Leigh M.; "The Case against Impact Extinctions," Nature, 311:17, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Asteroids with moons?Several recent observations made of asteroids as they occult stars suggest that some asteroids are circled by moonlets. The observational technique used resembles that employed in the discovery of the now-famous rings of Uranus. Briefly, the star being observed blinks out not once in a clean-cut fashion but in a complex scenario that may indicate the presence of a second body. To illustrate, during the 1975 occultation of a star by the asteroid Eros "all sorts of people saw things," meaning secondary events or extra dimmings. Another kind of supporting evidence comes from the light curve of 44 Nysa, which closely resembles that of an eclipsing binary star. (Anonymous; "Asteroids with Moons?" Science News, 114:36, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cosmic Death Waves In the language of science, W.M . Napier and S.V .M Clube provide a scenario of cyclic terrestrial catastrophism. Their thesis is that the solar system periodically passes through the regularly spaced spiral galaxy arms every few 107 years. Planetesimals in these arms cra-ter the solar-system planets at these times and also provide the raw materials for new comets, asteroids, satellites, and even planets. Supporting their theory is the repeating history of geological revolutions with the accompanying extinctions and reflowerings of life. A remarkable feature of this paper is a table of shortlived solar-system phenomena (comets and rapidly evolving staellite-and-ring systems). The tenor is one of episodic catastrophism and a rapidly changing solar system; viz., Saturn's rings evolving in only 104 years. (Napier, W.M ., and Clube, S.V .M .; "A Theory of Terrestrial Catastrophism," Nature, 282:455, 1979.) Comment. This outlook differs radically from that still disbursed in our schools and colleges. From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 21: May-Jun 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The earth's other moons Over the past two centuries, night-sky observers have recorded a number of objects that moved too fast to be asteroids and too slowly to be meteors. John P. Bagby has studied this problem for over 20 years, publishing several hotly debated papers during this period. His latest contribution summarizes evidence supporting his contention that the earth has captured chunks of space debris, some of which have disintegrated, some of which are still in orbit amidst tons of artificial-satellite debris. The supporting observations have come from optical surveillance programs, tracking networks, radio-propagation anomalies, and (most interesting to the anomaly collector) old reports of bright objects near the sun (especially the August 1921 object) and the curious group of retrograde objects that passed over Germany in 1880. (Bagby, J.P .; "Natural Earth Satellites," British Interplanetary Society, Journal, 34:289, 1981.) Reference. Material on the August 1921 object is cataloged at AEO1 in our book: The Sun and Solar System Debris. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #21, MAY-JUN 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... comet showers have created this regular pulse beat in the history of life. A recent issue of Science presents the results of an analysis of the ups and downs of 20,000 marine genera -- that is, percent extinctions over a period of 600 million years, as revealed by the fossil record. The graph of ten groups of 1000 genera shows at least two things: (1 ) strong hints of periodicity; and (2 ) suggestions that extinctions, whatever they really are, "cut across functional, physiological, and ecological lines." The plotters of these graphs, D. Raup and G. Boyajian, claim that whatever the mechanism, "major pulses of extinction result from geographically pervasive environmental disturbances." What besides powerful, external physical forces (read "comets and asteroids") could affect such wide ranges of marine organisms? (Lewin, Roger; "Pattern and Process in Extinctions," Science, 241:26, 1988.) Comment . This all sounds so reasonable that one must wonder why it is given space in Science Frontier. The reason is that we have a suspicion that it is all too easy, too simplistic. Could something more subtle be at work? After all, we really know next to nothing about the real workings of life-as-a -whole, its ups and downs. It is so easy to say that a group of organisms was done in by a temperature change or the fall of acid rain brought on by the impact of an asteroid. We always look for external forces, whereas the real ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER"Poet T.S . Eliot speculated that life on earth might not after all be terminated catastrophically, as in the impact of a large asteroid (today's popular doomsday machine). Rather, we might depart slowly, quietly, and mournfully. Of course, Eliot was not thinking of asteroids -- no one foresaw impact havoc in his day. But, his use of the word "whimper" can be attached to another, much slower astronomical agent of planetary death: cosmic dust and gas. Here's the current situation: "For the most part of the past five million years, the Solar System has been moving through a rather empty region of interstellar space between the spiral arms of the Milky Way. But a few thousand years ago, it entered a diffuse shell of material expanding outward from an active star-forming region called the Scorpius-Centaurus Association. Such 'super-bubble' shells of gas and dust result from the formation of massive stars, or the explosion of those stars as they become supernovas, and contain gas and dust clouds of varying densities." The density of matter in this solarsystem-engulfing shell could well shroud our planetary system with dust and gas a million times more dense than that we now encounter. If this happens, the sun's rays would slowly dim and life forms dependent on photosynthesis would expire. ...

... Sourcebook Subjects Gaia as a super-superorganism The Gaia hypothesis states that the earth's environment is maintained suitable for life by life itself. Our climate, atmospheric oxygen level, ocean composition, and similar vital conditions are kept livable by life's waste products, such as the oxygen emissions of plants. That something like Gaia is required is seen in the extreme disequilibrium of the earth's atmosphere compared to the near-equilibrium of the atmospheres of apparently lifeless Venus and Mars. For example, our atmosphere's 21% oxygen, a highly reactive gas, is many orders of magnitude higher than one would expect on a lifeless planet. Furthermore, life-friendly conditions have been maintained for billions of years despite large changes in the sun's output and the traumas of asteroid impacts. T.M . Lenton, writing in Nature, asks a salient question: How has planetary self-regulation (Gaia) been established and maintained by evolution and natural selection which operate on the level of individuals? In other words, evolution tells us that organisms should evolve so as to leave the most progeny not so as to regulate the atmosphere. Lenton answers that there must be feedback loops from the planetary environment that steer the evolution of individuals in the "proper" direction. Lenton goes on to explore some of these many feedback mechanisms; one obscure loop involves the production of dimethyl sulfide by marine phytoplankton. Truly, it is a tangled bank! All of the feedback loops imply that the evolution of life forms is constrained (or dictated) by the need to ...

... ever reach Little Rock, or even 120 kilometers northeast of Little Rock where, atop a 76-meter (250-foot) hill are perched giant blocks of sandstone. These blocks range up to 7.6 meters (25 feet) in size and weigh many tons. No native rocks in the area match them. The Ice Age glaciers never reached Arkansas, so they can't be glacial erratics. Where did they come from? One clue is the presence of glauconite in the sandstone. Glauconite is common in marine rocks, so suspicion points toward the Gulf of Mexico. Geologist G. Patterson, University of Memphis, thinks that the huge chunks of sandstone came from coastal Louisiana and were carried some 650 kilometers (400 miles) inland by the giant tsunami raised by the asteroid or comet that smashed into the Yucatan to close out the Cretaceous. That, of course, was when the dinosaurs were forced into oblivion. But could the tsunami really have transported such huge rocks 650 kilometers? (Falk, Dan; "Washed Up," New Scientist, p. 26, November 7, 1998.) Comments. Tsunami debris from the end-Cretaceous impact has been found along the Gulf Coast and on some Caribbean islands. In northeastern Mexico, geologists have found a debris layer 3-meters thick that is also of the right age. This layer contains tektites, glass spheres, plant material, and an iridium anomaly. (SF#85) However, these debris deposits can hardly compare to the far-inland Arkansas sandstone chunks. From Science Frontiers ...

... thunder of falling water might have been heard 500 kilometers away! The Black Sea rose quickly, driving the shoreline and humans back a kilometer or two every day. The fleeing Neolithic farmers were forced up into the rich river valleys of Europe, carrying tales of the catastrophe as well as their culture and agricultural know-how into these areas. The Middle East was affected, too. The traumatic experiences of the survivors may have been the basis for the Sumerian and Biblical flood stories. (Mestel, Rosie; "Noah's Flood," New Scientist, p. 24, October 4, 1997. Also: Kerr, Richard A.; "Black Sea Deluge May Have Helped Spread Farming," Science, 279:1132, 1998.) Scenario #2 . The Eltanin asteroid hits. About 2.2 million years ago, a chunk of space debris about a kilometer in diameter splashed down in the Bellingshausen Sea between Antarctica and South America. It was some splash! The splash zone was about 20 kilometers across, waves 4 kilometers high raced away from Ground Zero, and a column of salt water ascended miles high into the upper atmosphere. The TNT equivalent is estimated at 12 billion tons. Ice clouds formed and shaded the planet, causing severe climate changes. On the floor of the Bellingshausen Sea, 5 kilometers deep, lies the Eltanin Impact Structure. Today, we can still see the geological consequences thousands of kilometers from the impact point. The puzzling remains of marine diatoms in Antarctica's dry valleys may well be fallout from the cubic kilometers of ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fused Ancient Garbage Dumps When a geologist discovers naturally formed glasses, he can explain them in several ways. When an archeologist finds the contents of ancient garbage dumps (" middens") fused into a glassy slag. he has to ponder a bit longer. First, a bit of background. Natural glasses can be created in several ways. Impact-heating by meteorites or asteroids probably fused the famous slabs of Libyan Desert Glass and also the Darwin glass found in Australia. More curious are the peculiar glassy clinkers of fused wood ash found in hollow snags in trees after intense forest fires. This is called "combustion metamorphism." Combustion metamorphism is also common where undergound coal seams have caught fire and burn for decades. Humans get into the act, too. The ancient Scots piled up trees around their rock forts and fused the stones together with fire. (Why they bothered is unknown.) However, a different sort of natural glass has been found in east-central Botswana. There, archeologists have found 5-inch-thick layers of glassy slag interleaved with ashy soil in ancient middens (garbage dumps). These middens are not associated with pottery kilns or iron smelting. It is hard to imagine what could have melted layers of garbage, including pottery, plant material, and other biomass. Analysis of the slag indicates that temperatures of 1155-1290 C were required to fuse the garbage. Open fires could ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The shattering of 951 gaspra 951 Gaspra is an irregular asteroid with an average radius of 6.1 kilometers. Located at the inner edge of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Gaspra is believed to be composed mainly of olivine, pyroxene, and nickel-iron. Shape model of Gaspra showing the locations of the grooves. On October 29, 1991, the Galileo spacecraft swept past 951 Gaspra at a distance of 1600 kilometers, snapping photographs as it went. J. Veverka et al report below on what the photos showed: "We report the discovery of grooves in Galileo high-resolution images of Gaspra. These features, previously seen only on Mars' satellite Phobos, are most likely related to severe impacts. Grooves on Gaspra occur as linear and pitted depressions, typically 100-200 m wide, 0.8 to 2.5 km long, and 10-20 m deep. Most occur in two major groups, one of which trends approximately parallel to the asteroid's long axis, but is offset by some 15 , the other is approximately perpendicular to this trend. The first of these directions falls along a family of planes which parallel three extensive flat facets identified by Thomas et al. The occurrence of grooves on Gaspra is consistent with other indications (irregular shape, cratering record) that this asteroid has evolved through a violent collisional history." (Veverka, J., et al ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Huge fireball explosion in 1994 This remarkable event was mentioned by C. Keay in his review of D. Steel's book Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets . It seems to have escaped or been ignored by the scientific press. We quote from Steel's book, in which he complains that such events get little publicity despite their ominous implications for the future of humanity. "It is therefore not surprising that the 10-meter-or-so asteroid that blew up over a largely vacant area of the western Pacific on February 1, 1994, producing an explosion equivalent to at least ten times that of the Hiroshima bomb (and possibly rather more), was not seen prior to impact. Surveillance satellites registered it as the brightest such explosion that they have picked up so far. Despite the efforts of numerous scientists in this area of study to make the military aware that such detonations do occur naturally, it appears that the U.S . President was awakened because the Pentagon thought that this incident might be a hostile nuclear explosion." From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Blondes in ancient china Evidence of tobacco in ancient egypt Dwarf mammoths in ancient egypt? Astronomy "AN UNPRECEDENTED AND BIZARRE OBJECT" Comets, asteroids, or neither? This was the big one, but where did it come from? Snowballs in hell? Biology It's according to hoyle and wickramasinghe Music of the hemispheres The urge to replicate: part i The urge to replicate: part ii Geology Might diamonds be dead bacteria? Deep quake deepens mystery Geophysics Sylvanshine: a newly recognized optical phenomenon Gamma-ray flashes in the upper atmosphere A DEEP-SEA HYDROTHERMAL VENT INSTEAD OF A WARM LITTLE POND? Psychology The solar wind and hallucinations Physics Cold fusion update: 1994 Miscellaneous A SKEPTIC'S NDE -- NOT SO MYSTICAL ...

... of species formation in the fossil record confirms that new species appear with a most un-Darwinian abruptness after long periods of stability." In the article that follows, R.A . Kerr reviews several recent studies of fossil bryozoans and snails. Some of these painstaking dissections of the fossil record were carried out by scientists initially committed to Darwinian gradualism. Even these researchers have been forced to acknowledge that much biological evolution proceeds not in minute steps but by large jumps or saltations. Such abrupt speciation is tough enough to explain, but even more daunting are those species untouched by change over millions, even hundreds of millions of years. Indeed, the major characteristic of the fossil record and, therefore, earth life as a whole, has been stasis rather than speciation, despite all manner of asteroid impacts and climatic traumas. Nevertheless, many biologists think that species are somehow frozen in time by environmental forces that keep them from straying from their little niches. This being so, paleontologist D. Jablonski, University of Chicago, asks: If stability is the rule, how do you get large-scale shifts in morphology? How do you get from funny little Mesozoic mammals to horses and whales? From Archaeopteryx to hummingbirds? (Kerr, Richard A.; "Did Darwin Get It All Right?" Science, 267:1421, 1995) Comments. (1 ) The reality of sudden saltations in the fossil record or "punctuated equilibrium" implies that those unfound transitional fossils beloved by the gradualists are truly missing. (2 ) The higher the taxonomic level, the more ...

... . Hansen sent the accompanying mosaic of Landsat photographs of northwestern Nebraska. On this, the famous Nebraska sandhills appear like giant ripples. The width of the mosaic is about 340 kilometers, so you can appreciate the scale of the hills themselves. The crest-to-crest distances seem to be 2-3 kilometers. Roughly 35,000 square kilometers are covered with a sheet of sand that averages 8 meters thick. Mainstream geologists write these sandhills off as eolian (wind-carried) deposits laid down during the late Pleistocene. Hansen, however, along with geological iconoclast A. Kelly, demur. The Nebraska sanhills, they aver, were actually deposited by a wall of water sweeping down across the continent from the north -- very likely the consequence of an impact of a large asteroid. For more on Kelly's rejection of the eolian theory and many additional examples of deposits by huge tsunamis or marine incursions, see his book Impact Geology and/or category ETM7 in our catalog volume: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, etc. (To order the latter book, visit here .) (Hansen, Evan; personal communication, March 26, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #93, MAY-JUN 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... measurements and human records of the period. Until astronomical catastrophism became more fashionable in recent years, the so-called "dust-veil" event of 536 AD was blamed on a huge volcanic eruption. Work by M.G .L . Baillie now casts doubt upon interpretation. "Now tree-ring data, published by Professor Mike Baillie of Queens University of Belfast, has brought catastrophes almost into modern times. The tree rings show that in the mid 530s -- just about the time civilisation on Earth suffered a sharp setback -- there was a sudden decline in the rate of tree growth which lasted about 15 years. Clearly, something dramatic had happened. "There are two possibilities: a huge volcanic eruption or a collision between the Earth and a solid object: an asteroid or comet. Ice-cores drilled from Greenland show no evidence of large-scale volcanic activity at that time, so Professor Baillie and others now believe a cosmic impact is more likely. The result would have been to throw up a huge veil of dust and debris, cooling the Earth and producing widespread crop failures." (Anonymous; "Raining Death and Dark Ages," London Times, July 27, 1994. Cr. A. Rothovius) In the scientific literature, Baillie has elaborated on the cosmic-projectile theme, adding that the dust veil could also have been created when the solar system passed through a cloud of cosmic dust. (Baillie, M.G .L .; "Dendrochronology Raises Questions about the Nature of the AD 536 Dust-Veil Event ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Remnants of tunguska When something exploded over Siberia on June 30, 1908, flattening more than 2,100 square kilometers of forest, it left no crater of consequence and no obvious pieces of itself. Scientists have claimed all along that it was a comet or asteroid that detonated in the atmosphere. A few less conservative people ventured that it was an alien spaceship that blew up! G. Longo and colleagues, Universita di Bologna, have apparently found a way to determine the true nature of this invading object. They examined the resin in the conifers surrounding the site of the blast to see if any particulate debris had been trapped in the sticky goo -- much as ancient insects have been preserved in amber. "Longo and associates used a scanning electron microscope to examine 7,163 particles recovered from the site and from two control sites. They found anomalously high abundances of elements such as iron, calcium, aluminum, copper, gold, zinc, and oxygen in the Tunguska-site samples, strongly peaking around 1908." Their conclusion: The impactor was a stony meteorite of normal density. (Anonymous; "Remnants of Tunguska," Astronomy, 23:26, October 1995.) From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The acoustics of rock art Where did agriculture really begin? Astronomy Meteoric "dust bunnies" Cosmic snowballs and magnetic asteroids Biology Must we die? the medfly's answer How a fly hears what a cricket hears Once more science fiction predicts the future! Rethinking aids Geology Geysers as detectors of distant earthquakes Precariously balanced rocks as earthquake detectors Geophysics An electrical virtuoso The milky sea a.k .a . "white water" A CURIOUS SIGHTING Cloud plumes natural but still a bit anomalous Logic and Mathematics Math's mystery All roads lead to 123 Psychology Hypnosis and skin temperature Hypnosis and basketball Physics Solar radiation and mental illness ...

... dark on one half and light on the other. Quantitatively speaking, the bright side reflects ten times more incident light than the other. An explanation is suggested by the fact that the dark side points in the satellite's direction of motion. A recent study of 12 Voyager images of Iapetus also imply an exogenous (externally imposed) origin of the dark surface, because they show a gradual rather than sharp transition between the dark and light regions. The thought of planetary scientists is that micrometeoroids bombard the leading hemisphere of Iapetus preferentially and in the process volatilize considerable surface material. The residual deposit: ". .. may be an example of the dark, reddish, possibly organic-rich material which is found on other satellites in the outer solar system and on the D-type asteroids. (Buratti, Bonnie J., and Mosher, Joel A.; "The Dark Side of Iapetus: New Evidence for an Exogenous Origin," Eos, 74:193, 1993.) Comment. Here is still another hint that astronomical rather than terrestrial processes may perform that basic chemistry essential for the origin and prosperity of life. Apparently, such prebiotic infrastructure is widespread in the solar system and, most likely, the entire universe. From Science Frontiers #91, JAN-FEB 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Stele with Unknown Glyphs Found Near Vera Cruz All Roads Lead to Chaco Canyon How and When the Americas Were Peopled Astronomy "? " ! ? Nereid: Grotesque Shape Or Two-faced? Memoirs of A Dissident Scientist Biology Nothing Reacts with Something? Periodic Extinctions and Explosions in Terrestrial Life Aids: Another Great Deceiver Geology Going for Gold Is There Truth in the Grains? Did An Asteroid Impact Trigger the Ice Ages? The New Archaeoperyx Fossil Geophysics Fish and Winkle Showers Lightningless Thunder? Psychology The Enigma of Multiple Personality Observations of Luminous Phenomena Around the Human Body ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The Lost City of Nan Madol Bubonic Plague As An Indicator of Diffusion? The Rabbit in the Moon: More Evidence of Diffusion? Astronomy The Martian Great Lakes Antarctic Meteorites Are Different Disparity Between Asteroids and Meteorites Biology The Gulper Eel and its Knotty Problem Bats May Have Invented Flight Twice (At Least!) Scant Ant Chromosomes Champ in 1985 Platypus Bill An Electrical Probe Polar Bear Coats Are Thermal Diodes Geology When Antarctica Was Green Wrong-way Primate Migration Eastern Quakes May Be Lubricated by Heavy Rainfalls The Exploding Lake Backtracking Along the Paluxy: Or is There A Deeper Mystery? Geophysics Electromagnetic Radiation From Stressed Rocks Some English Meteorological Anomalies Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Psychology Be Happy, Be Healthy: the Case for Psychoimmunology ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 26: Mar-Apr 1983 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A Mysterious Copy of the Grave Creek Stone Archeology in Britain: Straying From the Party Line Astronomy Gyroscopic Galaxies Antarctic Meteorite May Have Been Blasted Off the Moon Biology Lizardless Thrashing Tails Nature's Ballistic Missile Prescient Evolution Geology Do the Continents Really Drift? Punching A Hole in the Asteroid Hypothesis Geophysics Slithering Patch of Light Earthquake and Subterranean Fire Psychology Everyone A Memory Prodigy The Mind's Rhythm Chemistry & Physics Maybe There's One Stable Particle! ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 123: May-Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Moonstone In Orbit?A chunk of "something" about 50 meters across plays tag with the earth as it circles the sun. Discovered February 10, 1999 by an automated, asteroid-hunting telescope in New Mexico, the object's official name is 1999 CG9. Its orbit is nearly circular and 9 million kilometers farther away from the sun than the earth. Its year is 1.09 earth years. "The object's orbit is extremely unusual. Comets and asteroids that cross the earth's orbit normally have eccentric orbits. There is only one asteroid-like object, called 1991 VG, that has an similar orbit to that of earth. When it was discovered eight years ago, astronomers thought it might be a spacecraft that had escaped the earth's gravity." However, newly discovered 1999 CG9 is much too large to be a wayward piece of space hardware. The best guess is that it is a piece of the moon that was knocked off by an impacting asteroid. (Hecht, Jeff; "Chip off the Moon," New Scientist, p. 13, February 27, 1999.) Comment. Might it not be a chip off the earth itself? Or perhaps space hardware from somewhere else?! From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... of Anomalies (Subjects) Strange reports * Bizarre biology * Anomalous archaeology From New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, etc Archaeology Astronomy Biology Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics Catalog of Anomalies (Subjects)Overview Astronomy Biology Chemistry/Physics Geology Geophysics Logic/mathemitics Archeology Psychology Miscellaneous phenomena Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online Science Frontiers: The Book Sourcebook Project A ASTRONOMY Catalog of Anomalies (Astronomy Subjects)Within each of these fields, catalog sections that are already in print are given alphanumerical labels. For example, BHB1 = B (Biology)+ H (Humans)+ B (Behavior)+ 1 (first anomaly in Chapter BHB). Some anomalies and curiosities that are listed below have not yet been cataloged and published in catalog format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. AA ASTEROIDS AAB CELESTIAL MECHANICS PROBLEMS WITH ASTEROIDS AAB1 Anomalous Asteroid Orbits AAB2 Asteroid Distribution Anomalies AAB3 The High "Internal Energy" of the Asteroid Population AAB4 Peculiar Distribution of Asteroid Spin Rates AAB5 Unexplained Residual Precession of Icarus AAB6 Evidence against an Explosive Origin for Asteroids AB SOLAR SYSTEM "LAWS" AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS ABB DYNAMICS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM AS-A -WHOLE ABB1 Solar-System Instability ABB2 Circularity of Planetary Orbits ABB3 Anomalous Split of Angular Momentum between Sun and Planets ABB4 Ubiquity of Resonances in the Solar System ABS REMARKABLE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG PLANETARY AND SATELLITE PARAMETERS ABS1 Solar System Laws of Distance ABS2 Similarity of Densities of Composite Terrestrial Planets ABS3 Multiple Primaries in the Solar System ABS4 Supposed Quantization of Planetary Orbital Periods ABS5 Solar System Mass Laws ABS6 The Quantized Nature of Orbital Systems AC COMETS ACB ORBITAL ANOMALIES OF COMETS ACB1 ...