246 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Platypus Paradoxes After elucidating echidna eccentricities in the preceding item, we now provide platypus paradoxes. Did you know that the platypus bill is a finely tuned instrument with approximately 850,000 electrical and tactile receptors? These are far more sophisticated than those found in fish. When the platypus goes foraging underwater, a furry groove closes, covering its eyes and ears, and the nostrils on the bill are sealed shut. It becomes a high-tech predator -- despite all those snide remarks about its primitive nature. The poison spurs on the back legs of the male platypus are nothing to fool around with. They can cause humans severe pain and weeks of paralysis. And a dog can lose its life when a platypus clamps its legs around its muzzle and drives in its spurs. But, ask evolutionists, how did this poison apparatus get on the hind legs? The supposed ancestors of the platypus, the reptiles, modified their salivary glands for venom delivery. How did the platypusses break from this evolutionary mold and innovate? It's not consistent with the text! The fossil record reveals that a platypus-like creature lived long before the Age of Mammals. These early platypusses had teeth in the adult phase, whereas their modern relatives replace their baby teeth with horny plates -- another innovation. Therefore, far from being a hodgepodge of parts left over from bird and reptile evolution, the platypus has actually pioneered several zoological ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 78: Nov-Dec 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Psychokinetic Control Of Dice For 2000 years, people have been saying: "The die is cast," as if the act of casting relinquished the fall of the die completely to fate. Perhaps not!! "This article presents a meta-analysis of experiments testing the hypothesis that consciousness (in particular, mental intention) can cause tossed dice to land with specified targets face up. Seventy-three English language reports, published from 1935 to 1987, were retrieved. This literature described 148 studies reported by a total of 52 investigators, involving more than 2 million dice throws contributed by 2,569 subjects. The full data base indicates the presence of a physical bias that artifactually inflated hit rates when higher dice faces (e .g ., the '6 ' face) were used as targets. Analysis of a subset of 39 homogeneous studies employing experimental protocols that controlled for these biases suggests that the experimental effect size is independently replicable, significantly positive, and not explainable as an artifact of selective reporting or differences in methodological quality. The estimated effect size for the full data base lies more than 19 standard deviations from chance, while the effect size for the subset of balanced, homogeneous studies lies 2.6 standard deviations from chance. We conclude that this data base provides weak cumulative evidence for a genuine relationship between mental intention and the fall of dice." (Radin, Dean I., and Ferrari, ...
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... or scientific experimentation on humans by an advanced race; (4 ) The extension of the phenomenon throughout recorded history demonstrates that UFOs are not a contemporary phenomenon; and (5 ) The apparent ability of UFOs to manipulate space and time suggests radically different and richer alternatives." If not extraterrestrial hardware, what are the UFOs? Vallee has three suggestions: (1 ) they are "earth lights" a la P. Devereux; that is, an unappreciated terrestrial phenomenon that impresses mental images on the minds of observers; (2 ) They are artifacts of a "control system" operated by a nonhuman intelligence or, perhaps, a Gaia like manifestation of supernature (of which we are a tiny part) that is trying to modify our behavior; and (3 ) They are apparitions caused by entities ma nipulating space and time; viz,. time travellers from our own past and/or future. (Vallee, Jacques F.; "Five Arguments against the Extraterrestrial Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 4:105, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of speed with some interesting talents. Besides being able to home accurately over unfamiliar terrain, they also know how to "grunt" - not vocal grunting, but a much more curious activity. Kaufmann relates one of his observations: "I came upon an adult male. When I first saw him he was sitting quietly beside a creek, but he soon wandered into a damp thicket of alder, spicebush, and false hellebore. Before disappearing from sight, however, he began to rock back and forth. I followed, trying to stay just close enough to see what he was up to without disturbing him. Fortunately, he did not scare easily, which allowed me to approach within a few yards as he meandered, walking and rocking. First, I noticed that the rocking was caused by short bouts of stomping with the front feet, alternating between left and right. Then he suddenly jabbed his head at the ground and ate something. This behavior continued for a half hour, and several times I caught a glimpse of the prey - earthworms snatched from the surface. I suddenly realized the turtle was 'grunting' for worms!" Turtle preparing to stomp; i.e . 'grunt'. Earthworms, for reasons we cannot fathom, pop out of the ground and flee in panic when vibrations flood their milieu. The wood turtle has apparently learned how to take advantage of this weakness of worms. So have some gulls and plovers. In fact, some humans make their living grunting for earthworms. They simply drive a stake into the ground and draw a ...
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... general pinkish brightening of the surroundings accompanied the sound. Half a second after the sound ceased, there was a tremendous clap of thunder. Discussions with neighbors within 1 hour of the event, elicited additional data: one said that it sounded like rocks falling through the air; another heard a strange humming sound from a windowpane for 2 seconds prior to the lightning; yet another spoke of a sound like that of a whistling tea kettle, but with an ascending pitch; and a fourth actually saw the lightning strike the street about 500 feet away. (Gunkel, Patrick; personal communication, May 13, 1989.) Comment. The most common sound heard prior to nearby lightning strikes is a "vit" sound, or a sound like fabric tearing. Such sounds are thought to be caused by brush electrical discharge from nearby objects as the atmospheric electrical field intensifies. See GLL10 in Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. For details on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #65, SEP-OCT 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , and trees in California and Ireland. Most of this evidence points to the same conclusion: Whatever precipitated the Minoan collapse, it was porbably not Thera. The volcano seems to have erupted more than a century before Minoan civilization died." Briefly, although the explosion of Thera certainly occurred, it was too early. Further, its tidal waves were greatly exaggerated (really only about 30 feet high instead of 600 feet), and most of Thera's ash fell east of Thera, with less than half an inch on Crete itself. The shock of Thera's eruption, 70 miles from Crete, would have been slight - hardly enough to knock over many lamps, although fire does seem to have been a factor in the demise of Cretean civilization. In sum, the cause of the collapse of the Minoan culture still eludes us. (Chen, Allan; "The Thera Theory," Discover, 10:77, February 1989.) Comment. It is interesting to note that signs of conflagration are present in the ruins of Troy. From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... for Space Studies, decided to look into the possible correlation of solar activity and terrestrial volcanism, he fully expected to find no connection at all. After all, what force generated by small changes in the sun's output could stir up the earth's magma from a distance of 93 million miles? Stothers was surprised. "Stothers analyzed two immense catalogs, published in the early 1980s, that list more than 55,000 known eruptions since the year 1500. Concentrating on several hundred of the moderate-to-large eruptions, he found statistically significant patterns in eruption frequency that match the solar cycle. Eruptions seemed most numerous during the weakest portions of the solar cycle." Further, there was a 97% confidence that the correlation was not a statistical accident. The only cause-and-effect explanation offered by Stothers was negative and indirect. During periods of abundant sunspots, increased solar emissions jar the earth's atmosphere slightly. Communicated to the crust, these slight taps trigger tiny earthquakes that relieve stresses beneath volcanos, thus delaying their eruptions until solar acitivity dies down. Not especially convincing! (Anonymous; "Volcanos on Earth May Follow the Sun," Science News, 137:47, 1990.) Comment. Down the years, many scientists and laymen have tried to correlate sunspots and earthquake frequency. The results have been murky and sometimes contradictory. For more on this subject, see GQS1 in our catalog: Earthquakes, Tides. Details on this volume here . From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William ...
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... and found that the probability of a left-hander having a car accident was 85% higher; accidents with tools were 54% higher; home accidents were 49% higher; etc. Coren blames these lopsided statistics upon the fact that the world is ordered for right-handers, not that left-handers are innately more clumsy. (Dayton, Leigh; "The Perils of Living in a Right-Handed World," New Scientist, p. 32, October 28, 1989.) But Coren's study, above, omits the "health" factor, which we now supply from a different source. "Halpern and Coren recently described an association between lefthandedness and a lower life expectancy. This finding is not unexpected because left-handedness has been linked to three leading causes of death in our society - alcoholism, smoking, and breast cancer - as well as to several neurological and immune disorders." (London, Wayne P.; "Left-Handedness and Life Expectancy," Perceptual and Motor Skills , 68:1040, 1989.) From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ! It is also said that the soil in the rings is "magnetically altered," whatever that means. (Anonymous; "Outback Martian Rings Riddle," Perth Daily News, July 9, 1990. Cr. P. Norman via L. Farish) Plasma vortex picked up by radar. "Japanese and British meteorologists are investigating a link between a fastmoving object crossing the Pacific and the mysterious appearance of crop circles in English fields. "A ship from Tokyo University's Ocean Research Institute was in the Pacific when its radar equipment located a large object travelling more than four times the speed of sound. The radar discounted it as an aircraft because of its size, 400 metres across, and it sped northwards. "The Japanese scientists identified the object as a plasma vortex, caused by freak weather. The phenomenon is similar to ball lightning and believed to be generated by 'mini-tornadoes' of electrically-charged air. "Plasma vortices can be luminous at night. 'They are often mistaken for UFOs,' says Dr Terence Meaden, director of the Oxford-based Tornado and Storm Research Organization." (Spicer, Andi; "Clue to mystery of Circles," London Observer, May 20, 1990. Cr. T. Good via L. Farish) Alien Hieroglyphics? "The extraordinary variety of circle formations and multiple-ringed circles is quite unlike what one would expect for a natural phenomenon, such as an atmospheric vortex. The complexity has increased through the 1980s, and this year it has developed at a startling pace. "In ...
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... the laboratory." Rather than assign any "conscious" goal-seeking attributes to the bacteria, Hall prefers to think that the environmental stress induced a state of "hypermutation." In this state all sorts of mu-tations occurred in abundance. Only those that synthesized tryptophan survived the starvation program; even potentially favorable mutations died quickly. (Stolzenburg, W.; "Hypermutation: Evolutionary Fast Track," Science News, 137:391, 1990.) Comment. Besides the implication that environmental stresses have initiated the mutations that gave us today's fauna and flora, we see that the idea of hypermutation is merely an acceleration of standard evolutionary processes. But how do environmental stresses turn on the biological switch that starts the mutation machine going? What sort of environmental stresses would cause humans to mutate? What would we turn into if, say, global temperatures rose 5 ? From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Upwardly directed lightning from cloud tops "An image of an unusual luminous electrical discharge over a thunderstorm 250 kilometers from the observing site has been obtained with a low-light-level television camera. The discharge began at the cloud tops at 14 kilometers and extended into the clear air 20 kilometers higher. The image, which had a duration of less than 30 milliseconds, resembled two jets or fountains and was probably caused by two localized electric charge concentrations at the cloud tops." (Franz, R.C ., et al; "Television Image of a Large Upward Electrical Discharge above a Thunderstorm System," Science, 249:48, 1990.) Comment. Note that the above discharges were diffuse and quite unlike most cloud-to-ground lightning discharges. They were, in fact, much like the mountain-top glows seen along the Andes. Also, one should ask where those "localized electric charge concen trations" came from and why they did not disperse. Reference, Upwardly directed "rocket lightning" is cataloged in GLL1 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. Fuller description here . From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 'TERMITE BANDS' IN SOUTH AFRICA Few animals besides man have significantly affected our planet's geology. To be sure, corals built the Great Barrier Reef and beavers left their mark on the hydrology of parts of Canada and the U.S .; but termites!? It seems that in southern Africa this industrious insect is responsible for enormous striped patterns of ridges and vegetation bands. These amazingly regular patterns are caused by alternating low ridges and gullies. The ridges are about 2 meters high, up to a kilometer long, and separated by about 50 meters. The ridges themselves are closely spaced termite mounds. Just why the termites choose to build their mounds in long rows is an unanswered question. And how do the termites maintain strict parallelism, especially since they are blind? How could termites in one mound know how their neighbors in the nearest ridge, 50 meters away, are building their mounds? Anyway, the ridges help channel the flow of water and thus the growth of vegetation, giving immense swathes of country a corrugated appearance. (Sattaur, Omar; "Termites Change the Face of Africa," New Scientist, p. 27, January 26, 1991.) Comment. In Australia, the so-called "magnetic" termites build their slab-like mounds so as to minimize the amount of sun-generated heat. From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 ...
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... and right of the nose... "Suddenly the two fighters spotted the intruder on their radar screens, appearing like a little bee dancing on the scope. Using their joy sticks like a video game, the pilots ordered the onboard computers to pursue the target. As soon as lock-on was achieved, the target appeared on the screen as a diamond shape, telling the pilots that from that moment on, the F-l6s would remain tracking the object automatically. "[ Before the radar had locked on for six seconds] the object had speed up from an initial velocity of 280 kph to 1,800 kph, while descending from 3,000 meters to 1,700 meters...in one second! This fantastic acceleraton corresponds to 40 Gs. It would cause immediate death to a human on board. The limit of what a pilot can take is about 8 Gs. The trajectory of the object was extremely disconcerting. It arrived at 1,700 meters altitude, then it dove rapidly toward the ground at an altitude under 200 meters, and in doing so escaped from the radars of the fighters and the ground units at Glons and Semmerzake. This maneuver took place over the suburbs of Brussels, which are so full of man-made lights that the pilots lost sight of the object beneath them... "Everything indicates that this object was intelligently directed to escape from the pursuing planes. During the next hours the scenario repeated twice... "This fantastic game of hide and seek was observed from the fround by a great number ...
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... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Gruyerizaton Of Switzerland An impressive and equally inexplicable variety of the cookie-cutter holes has been reported in Switzerland. In these excavation phenomena, all the material removed from the holes has disappeared instead of being translated intact and set down gently nearby. "The Swiss holes were first observed in 1972. They always occur at night and no one has ever seen them forming. They are circular, drilled deep into the earth, and are created by the total removal of vegetation and soil. A large fleet of lorries would be needed to move the quantities of earth involved, but there are no vehicle marks around the holes. The grass and plants around them exhibit none of the minor damage which would inevitable be caused by any normal process of drilling. The holes have all been excavated directly from above, at an angle of 90 degrees to the surface." Six Swiss holes have been reported from the environs of Lake Geneva. The two largest are at Begnins (December 17, 1982; 18 feet across, 24.5 feet deep) and Confignon (February 3/4 , 1990; 33 feet across, 40 feet deep). Obviously, we are not dealing with minor earth-moving operations here. (Anonymous; "The Gruyerization of Switzerland," The Cerealogist , no. 3, p. 26, Spring 1991. The Cerealogist is a British publication focussing on the crop-circle phenomenon.) Comment. Could the "force" flattening the crop circles also gouge out ...
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... that the smoking gun must be nearby. Ironically, the Haiti stratum was originally classified as of volcanic origin; and we must add that we are presenting here only the conclusions of the asteroid school. But where oh where is this crater? The Manson crater in Iowa (now buried) is of the right age but too small. The best candidate so far is buried in northern Yucatan. The Chicxulub crater is discernible on gravity- and magneticanomaly maps and is probably of the right age. Only drilling will confirm the guilt of the suspect. Even if Chicxulub is the culprit, much debate prevails over exactly how the dinosaurs were done in. Was it a "cosmic winter" due to dust intercepting sunlight? Or perhaps a "cosmic summer" resulting from a super-greenhouse effect caused by: (1 ) impact-released methane trapped in sediments, and (2 ) the CO2 from zapped carbonate rocks. (Smit, Jan; "Where Did It Happen?" Nature, 349:461, 1991, and Sigurdsson, Haraldur, et al; "Glass from the Cretaceous/Tertiary Boundary in Haiti," Nature, 349:482, 1991.) Reference. Section ETC in catalog Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds is devoted entirely to impact craters. Ordering data here . From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 78: Nov-Dec 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tunguska-like event in new zealand 800 years ago?" Very calm and placid have become the raging billows, That caused the total destruction of the Moa, When the horns of the Moon fell from above down." Thus have the Maoris sung. Their myths, songs, and poetry clearly link the demise of the moa, not to their own overhunting as others maintain, but rather to a cataclysmic event that occurred some 800 years ago. Maori oral history tells of "the falling of the skies, raging winds, upheaval of the Earth, and mysterious devastating fire from space." Even some of the place names in New Zealand relate to some kind of catastrophe. In the province of Otago, there is Waipahi (place of the exploding fire) and Tapanui (big explosion). Oral history is entertaining, but scientists want something more palpable before they will entertain Velikovskian ideas about recent history. Well, if you visit Tapanui (big explosion place), you can find Landslip Crater, a 900 x 600meter depression 130 meters deep. This does not have the appearance of a bona fide meteor crater, but all around it are suspicious signs. For example, treefall distribution from 800 years ago was radially away from Tapanui out to 4080 kilometers. In the same area one finds the trinities, small globules of silicates with tektite overtones. And then there is the extirpation of the moas about this time. ...
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... pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Louse Line We all learned about the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer in high school, but the voyagers of old also recognized a "louse line." "They wrote about arriving at a longitudinal point in the tropics -- the so-called 'louse line' -- where fleas and lice abandoned even healthy humans. Although a specific line is a myth, cultural entomologist Charles Hogue of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles believes part of the story. 'Voyagers in the tropics often experience a rise in body temperature of as much as 4 degrees F.' That's enough, he says, to kill some species of fleas. Also, the traumatic experience of being caught in a trap causes the body temperature of animals to rise. Thus, trappers often witness fleas jumping off a trapped animal by the dozens. (Johnson, Donna; "How to Tell Time by a Cat's Eye," National wildlife , 29:12, October/November 1991.) From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , too, for hypnosis is better than both when it comes to chasing away warts. If you don't believe this, read the following Abstract. "Subjects with warts on their hands and/or feet were randomly assigned to a hypnotic suggestion, topical salicylic acid, placebo, or no treatment control condition. Subjects in the three treated groups developed equivalent expectations of treatment success. Nevertheless, at the sixweek follow-up interval only the hypnotic subjects had lost significantly more warts than the no treatment controls." (Spanos, Nicholas P., et al; "Effects of Hypnotic, Placebo, and Salicylic Acid Treatments on Wart Regression," Psychosomatic Medicine, 52:109, 1990.) Comment. The real import here is not in the vanquishing of these benign tumors caused by papillomaviruses but rather in the potential of altered states of mind for treating more severe afflictions, such as cancer. From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Impact Delivery Of Early Oceans Where did the earth's oceans come from? For decades the stock answer has been: from the condensation of vapors escaping from the planet's cooling crust; that is, "outgassing." The possibility that some terrestrial water might have ar rived from extraterrestrial sources after the earth's formation has been discounted. The major reason behind this neglect was the expectation that the erosive effects of large-scale impacts of water-carrying comets and asteroids would preclude any net accumulation of volatiles, and could even reduce any existing inventories of surface water. C.F . Chyba has recently reexamined this question of cometary water influx vs. impact-caused water losses using the latest estimates of comet/asteroid fluxes during the period between 4.5 and 3.5 billion years ago, when bombardment of the inner solar system was thought to be especially severe. Rather than the expected net loss, Chyba computes that the earth would really have gained more than 0.2 - 0.7 ocean masses in that billion-year period. Venus would have fared equally well, but Mars, more sensitive to impact erosion, would have accreted "only" a layer of water 10-100 meters deep over the whole planet! (This Martian water is now mostly below the surface supposedly.) (Chyba, Christopher F.; "Impact Delivery and Erosion of Planetary Oceans in the Early Inner Solar System," Nature, 343 ...
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... calendars, and his errors were often a consequence of lack of knowledge about a particular time period. Mentally retarded individuals who perform calendar date feats are often socially withdrawn and devote considerable periods of time to calendar dates. The most capable calendar-date calculators are usually individuals who have a strong interest in calendars as such." Although some calendar calculators may use visual imagery - perhaps something like eidetic imagery - at least one calendar calculator was blind from birth. Example. "One of the few serious attempts that have been made to understand the mental operations underlying calendar skills is described by William Horwitz and others. They examined the abilities of a pair of mentally retarded identical male twins, both of whom performed calendar-calculating feats. During the twins' early childhood, despite severe family difficulties caused partly by the father's alcoholism, the parents, whose efforts to teach numerical and reading abilities to their sons were largely unsuccessful, were impressed by seeing one of the boys looking at a perpetual calendar in an almanac. Subsequently the parents encouraged the boys to acquire calendar skills. The feats of one twin were especially remarkable: he was reported to have had a range of at least 6000 years - beyond the range of any conventional or (socalled) perpetual calendar - although he gave incorrect answers for dates prior to 1582, owing to his ignorance of the 10-day calendar adjustment which was made at that time, when the Gregorian Calendar replaced the Julian one. As well as solving problems requesting the days of the week for specified dates, the more able twin could also ...
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... perihelion was explained by P. Gerber, 17 years before Einstein's 1915 paper on the subject, using classical physics and the now accepted assumption that gravity propagates at the speed of light. As for the famous Michelson-Morley experiment, Michelson (an unbeliever in Relativity) believed that he and Morley failed to detect ether drift because the ether was entrained with the earth as it orbited the sun. It is rarely mentioned that Michelson and H.G . Gale repeated the experiment in 1925 to see if ether drift could be detected as the earth rotated on its axis. They did! And Einstein was sorely tried explaining the result. A 1979 repeat of the experiment at the University of Colorado, using la-sers found "unexpected perturbations," which were blamed on "other causes." (After all, Relativity and Einstein are sacrosanct!) The gist of all this is that Hayden and Beckmann suspect that Special Relativity is founded upon quicksand. The reader should not be surprised to learn that Beckmann himself has a theory to supplant Special Relativity once it is discredited. (Bethell, Tom; "A Challenge to Einstein," National Review , p. 69, November 5, 1990. Cr. P. Gunkel.) Reference. See our handbook Mysterious Universe for many other challenges to Einstein. Ordering info here . From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , everyone knows that oil and gas derive from buried organic matter. Three years ago, at a depth of 6.7 kilometers, the "misguided" Swedish drillers pumped 12 tons of oily sludge from the granite rock. "Just drilling fluids and diesel-oil pumped down from the surface," laughed the experts. This autumn (1991), more oil was struck in a new hole only 2.8 kilometers deep. This time, only water was used to lubricate the drill. How are the skeptics going to explain this? Well, about 20 kilometers away, there are sedimentary rocks; perhaps the oil seeped into the granite from there. Rejecting this interpretation, the drillers are going deeper in hopes of finding primordial methane. (Aldhous, Peter; "Black Gold Causes a Stir," Nature, 353:593, 199l. Anonymous; "Black Gold," The Economist , p. 101, October 19, 1991. Cr. T. Brown) Reference. T. Gold's iconoclastic ideas are the origin of oil and methane are reviewed in ESC13 and ESC16 in our catalog: Anomalies in Geology. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects PALEOMAGNETIC PITFALLS "Magnetism in rocks has provided a traditional tool for studies of the Earth's geomagnetic field. These studies have tended to rely on the assumption that the direction of magnetization was 'frozen in' during formation of the rock. But many sedimentary rocks formed during the Palaeozoic acquired their remanent magnetization through alteration processes that occurred after deposition of the sediment. The causes and geological significance of this phenomenon have been much debated." The foregoing paragraph is enough to send shivers throughout the geological world. Does this undermine paleomagnetism and generalizations flowing from it, such as plate tectonics? The "alteration processes" mentioned in the above quotation include: (1 ) The chemical conversion of pyrite into magnetite in ancient rocks after they were deposited; and (2 ) The reorientation of remanent magnetization following exposure to moderately high temperatures. That these processes can be important is evident in a second quotation: "During the past eight years, however, evidence has accumulated that the remanent magnetization of many carbonate sediments was not acquired at the time of deposition, thereby invalidating some previous interpretations of the palaeomagnetic data. Instead, magnetization seems to have been acquired over a limited time span during the late Palaeozoic, from about 310 to 250 million years ago." (Reynolds, Richard L.; "A Polished View of Remagnetization," Nature, 345: 570, 1990.) Reference. Many other problems afflict paleomagnetism. See: ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Does the aids virus really cause aids?All but a tiny minority of scientists accept as fact that an organism called the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the cause of AIDS. This fact is hallowed and defended as vigorously as the facts of evolution, the Big Bang, and continental drift. Extremely nasty things are being said about a handful of heretics who attack this position. "One leading dissident, UC Berkeley molecular biologist Peter H. Duesberg, believes that HIV is not the cause of AIDS -- at least not the sole cause. "He thinks the virus may be an opportunistic organism that found a willing host in the AIDS patient who became sick from something else. That is, he believes HIV is the result of the disease, not the cause. Duesberg thinks the cause of AIDS has more to do with the life style of most of the AIDS patients, but he admits that he doesn't know exactly what." Duesberg points out that three things must be true before a microorganism can be blamed for causing a disease. These are called Koch's Postulates, after R. Koch, who formulated them a century ago: Every patient who has the disease must also harbor the suspected microorganism. Some AIDS sufferers do not have the AIDS virus, although it is debated whether as many as half don't or very few don't . The microorganism must cause the disease when ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A COSMIC CAUSE FOR THE OZONE HOLE?Wouldn't you know it? Now they are blaming the polar ozone holes on Frank's icy comets -- or something very much like them! M. Dubin and I. Eberstein, two NASA scientists think that small icy comets can account for the seasonal ozone hole and the mysterious polar strato spheric clouds that form during the winter. They propose that ozone molecules bond to tiny ice particles in the winter and, when spring arrives, solar ultra-violet radiation converts water (ice) plus ozone into oxygen and hydroxyl ions. (Anonymous; "A Cosmic Cause for the Ozone Hole?" Sky and Telescope, 75:465, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bacteria One dictionary's definition: "Widely distributed group of microscopic, one-celled vegetable organisms..." As a matter of fact, the nearly universal image of a bacterium is that of a simple, single-cell organism. But: "That view is now being challenged. Investigators are finding that in many ways an individual bacterium is more analogous to a component cell of a multicellular organism than it is to a free-living, autonomous organism. Bacteria form complex communities, hunt prey in groups and secrete chemical trails for the directed movement of thousands of individuals." J.A . Shapiro, author of the preceding quote, attributes the simplistic picture of bacteria to medical bacteriology, in which disease-causing bacteria are classically identified by isolating single cells, growing cultures from them, and then showing that they cause the disease in question. In the microscopic real world, bacteria virtually always live in colonies, which possess collective properties quite different and much more impressive than those of the single-cell-in-a -dish! That old human urge for reductionism has led us astray again. Shapiro seeks to remove the blinders of reductionism in a wonderful article in the June, 1988, issue of Scientific Amer can . We have room here to mention only the Myxobacteria, many of which never exist as single cells in nature. Even those that do are "social" in the sense that, when two cells meet, they align themselves side by side and go through ritual motions that ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Now, it's comet showers that did it The impact/extinction controvery still rages. A careful evaluation of paleontological evidence has persuaded catas trophists to think in terms of comet showers spread out over a few million years, rather than a single impact per extinction. This short abstract from a Nature article says it all: "If at least some mass extinctions are caused by impacts, why do they extend over intervals of one to three million years and have a partly stepwise character? The solution may be provided by multiple cometary impacts. Astronomical, geological and palaeontological evidence is consistent with a causal connection between comet showers, clusters of impact events and stepwise mass exi tinctions, but it is too early to tell how pervasive this relationship may be." (Hut, Piet, et al; "Comet Showers as a Cause of Mass Extinctions," Nature, 329:118, 1987.) Comment. In other words, the nature of astronomical catastrophism is still up in the air! But, bear in mind that a mere decade ago such a paper would have to look far for a jounal that would publish it. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Celestial Crucible "Catastrophic extinctions caused by impacts would change the rules governing who is most fit, who becomes extinct, and who survives. 'If much of the patterning of life's history is not set by Darwin's slow biotic mechanisms, then I think Darwin is in trouble. Is catastrophic mass extinction a major agent of patterning?' If so, 'impacts are a quirky aspect' of the process." Who is speaking within the single quotes above? S.J . Gould, a proponent of the punctuated equilibrium view of the evolutionary scenario. He added: "' The history of life is enormously more quirky than we imagined.'" In fact, the geological record shows so many quirk-inducing impacts that there is little room left for slow, plodding, uniformitarian evolution of the earth itself, life-in-general, and humanity. Mammals, for example, may not have survived the postulated (but now assumed factual) Cretaceous-Tertiary impact event simply because they were small in size - not smarter. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Huge Impact is Favored K-T Boundary Killer," Science, 242:865, 1988.) Comment. It now seems that Cassius was wrong about the stars when he was lining up Brutus to help assassinate Julius Caesar. And the "celestial" situ ation gets even worse below. From Science Frontiers #61, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anomalous Geographical Distribution Of Diabetes Mellitus The incidence of diabetes mellitus among children varies dramatically with geography. For children under 15, it is only 1.7 per 100,000 in Japan but rises to 29.5 in Finland. Within the States, it is 9.4 per 100,000 in San Diego and peaks at 20.8 in Rochester, Minnesota. Children of European descent in New Zea land contract it three times as often as Maori children. U.S . whites get the disease more frequently than blacks and Hispanics. "Causes of these 'extraordinary' distribution differences remain unknown .. .. Both genetic and environmental factors appear necessary for the disease." (Eron, C.; "Cold Facts on Diabetes," Science News, 134:117, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unusual Gust Of Wind Anemograph trace showing 106-mph wind gust, February 7, 1988. February 7, 1988. Near Lancaster, England It was a day with modest winds of 5-10 mph, with some gusts to 20 mph. Suddenly at 2100 GMT, the anemometer at Hazelrigg weather station registered a gust at 106 mph. Almost immediately after, the wind dropped to only 5 mph. A gust of this strength should have caused considerable damage. A few branches and twigs were down in a nearby wood, but the major effect seems to have been the transportation of a 75-kilogram sheep feeding trough across a distance of 5.1 meters! Conclusion: A sudden, small squall had passed through. (Reynolds, David J.; "Unusual Gust of Wind in Lancashire 7th February 1988," Journal of Meteorology U.K . , 13:284, 1988.) Comment. The wind is really playing tricks on the English, with hundreds of mysterious circles cut into field crops and now this dislocated sheep trough. Or is it just weather? From Science Frontiers #61, JAN-FEB 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More confusion at the k-t boundary Just a few years ago, many scientists, especially physicists and astronomers, considered the Book of Science to be closed in the matter of what happened at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K -T ) boundary, 65 million years ago, and why the dinosaurs met their end. It was declared, rather imperiously, that a large asteroid had impacted the earth, causing much physical and biological devastation. Many scientific papers are still being written on this singular period in the earth's history, and the situation is no longer so clear-cut. We select for brief review four papers, each with a different perspective. Occurrence of stishovite. Stishovite, a dense phase of silica, is widely accepted as an indicator of terrestrial impact events. It is not found at volcanic sites. Now, J.F . McHone et al report its existence at the K-T boundary, at Raton, New Mexico. (McHone, John F., et al; "Stishovite at the CretaceousTertiary Boundary, Raton, New Mexico," Science, 243:1182, 1989.) A plus for the pro-impact side. The impact of an asteroid can initiate basaltic flooding and trap formation. Evidence of a global fire. Soot appears at the K-T boundary at many sites, but where did it come from? Chemical analyses of these soots show an enhanced concentration ...
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... comets come in cycles?Only a few years ago, geologists refused to recognize any terrestrial meteor craters larger than Arizona's Meteor Crater, which is merely a mile or so in diameter. Now, we have a long list of craters or astroblemes (star wounds), some of which measure hundreds of miles across. In fact, there are enough large dated crters so that some scientists have taken up a time-honored human pastime: Looking for cycles or periodicities in the data. (Humans can find cyclicities in almost any collection of data!) To be more specific, some have claimed that large meteor craters come in clusters dated 28-31 million years apart. These catastrophic events have been correlated with biological extinctions, magnetic field reversals, and basalt flooding. The astronomical causes of this supposed periodicity range from the solar-system's crossing of the galactic plane, to the perturbations of an unseen solar companion, to regular perturbations of the Oort cloud of comets that is thought to hover at the fringe of the solar system. In short, a large, interlocking edifice of geological and astronomical speculation has been erected upon a foundation of terrestrial crater ages. But how well do we really know the ages of these craters? How complete is the cratering record? The answer to the first question is: "Not well at all." Further, we can be certain that many craters still lie undiscovered beneath sediments. In addition, most meteors/comets splashed into the oceans, leaving no record at all. An updating of the most recent crater data ...
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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 More Carolina Waterguns "Residents of North Carolina's southeastern coast call it the 'Seneca Guns' and say it's caused by chunks of the continental shelf dropping off a cliff under the Atlantic Ocean. "' You will feel the house kind of shake and windows rattle,' said Walt Workman, assistant chief of police in Long Beach. 'It sounds a lot like a sonic boom type of thing.' "The rumbling boom with a sound like artillery fire is heard along North Carolina's southernmost beaches, sometimes as often as once or twice a week, and scientists can't explain the phenomenon. The sounds have been heard as far north as Fort Fisher, located just north of Cape Fear." (" Booms Keep Coastal Area Guessing," Charlotte Observer, January 26, 1987. Cr. G. Fawcett via L. Farish) Comment. The real Seneca Guns are, of course, in New York, where they have been heard for years about Lake Seneca. Category GSD, in Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds, provides numerous examples of such waterguns, from all around the world. Information about this book may be found here . From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lightning Triggered From The Magnetosphere Whistlers are, as their name implies, curious whistling noises heard on radio receivers. They are caused naturally by lightning, which sends radio noise travelling through natural "ducts" in the earth's magnetosphere. It has recently been discovered that some of the whistlers are synchronized in a way that strongly suggests that some event high up in the magnetosphere triggers some lightning discharges far below near the surface. In other words, lightning is not always a product of activity in the lower atmosphere. (Armstrong, W.C .; "Lightning Triggered from the Earth's Magnetosphere as the Source of Synchronized Whistlers," Nature, 327:405, 1987.) Comment. Ball lightning has been correlated with solar activity and other extraterrestrial influences. See GLB17 in our Catalog Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. This book is described here . From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The fault, dear reader, is not in our stars but our pigs!Fred Hoyle, in his usual maverick style, has hypothesized that some human flu epidemics are caused by new viruses in jected into the biosphere from outer space. (See his book Diseases from Space .) In yet another book, Evolution from Space , he goes further, stating that the evolution of terrestrial life can also be affected by the extraterrestrial inoculation of genetic material. But, just maybe, influenza pandemics are due to pigs! Every 10-20 years, new flu viruses seem to crop up against which humans have little resistance. The latest theory is that there exists a human-duck-pig connection. It seems that human flu viruses can multiply in ducks, but are not transmitted among ducks. It is also likely that duck viruses multiply in humans, but are not transmitted from one person to another. But enter the pigs: "There is firm evidence that pigs can become infected by and may transmit both human and avian influenza viruses not only amongst other pigs but also back to the original hosts. Therefore, pigs seem to be 'mixing vessels' where two separate reservoirs meet and where reassortment between avian and human influenza A viruses occurs, giving rise to the antigenic shift by creating new human pandemic influenza strains with new surface antigens." The article stimulating this discussion worries about new aquaculture practices, especially in Asia ( ...
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... The total magnetic field of the Earth is not uniform. It is distorted by the underlying geology, forming a topography of magnetic 'hills and valleys.' My analysis shows that the animals move along the contours of these magnetic slopes, and that in certain circumstances this can lead them to strand themselves. In the oceans, sea-floor spreading has produced a set of almost parallel hills and valleys. Whales could use these as undersea motorways, but might swim into problems when they came near the shore, because the magnetic contours do not stop at the beach. They continue onto the land, and sometimes so do the whales." In addition to stranding because of land-intersecting contours, unpredictable changes in the earth's magnetic field can upset the whales' timing mechanism, causing them to lose their true position on their magnetic dead-reckoning maps. Magnetically speaking, they become lost. (Klinowska, Margaret; "No Through Road for the Misguided Whale," New Scientist, p. 46, February 12, 1987. Also: Ellis, Richard; "Why Do Whales Strand?" Oceans , 20:24, June 1987.) Comment. Klinowska's theory is attractive in the sense that one can test it by checking strandings against magnetic contours and magnetic variations. However, the theory requires whales to sense changes in the earth's field of only 1 nanotesla (that is, one part in 50,000). No one has any idea how this can be accomplished biologically. Furthermore, how are the world-wide magnetic ...
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... 2000 years ago, reaching a level about 50% higher than at present. Here we present results obtained from a wide range of Chinese pottery, spanning the interval from 4000 BC to the present, indicating that the field behaviour was more complex. The intensity was high between 1500 and 1000 BC and again in the first half of the first millennium AD. Comparison with results reported for Western Asia, Egypt and Crete suggests that these high values are due to non-dipole disturbances in the geomagnetic field, consistent with long-term records of the cosmogenic radioisotopes 14C and 10Be." (Quing-Yun, Wei, et al; "Geomagnetic Intensity as Evaluated from Ancient Chinese Pottery," Nature, 328:330, 1987.) Comment. This article stimulates three questions: What caused the geomagnetic changes; could some be of internal origin? Are periods of reduced magnetic fields associated with cultural changes? The graph, for example, reveals a dip during the flowering of Greek civilization. Could such ambient magnetic changes have an effect on human imagination, as reported in laboratory test?. See SF#53. Ratios of ancient geomagnetic field intensity to present intensity versus date. Data from China. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of his return, in 1987, to the site where the 1986 photos were taken. The bush in the 1986 photos was still there; the Yeti wasn't ; the snow was somewhat deeper. Wooldridge and some companions took more pictures of the site: "Stereo pairs of photos taken in 1987 have been used to produce a threedimensional map of the terrain near the bush. When this is used to derive an absolute scale for pairs of photos from 1986, it shows that, whatever I photographed in 1986, lies below the snow level in the 1987 photos. The object is leaning slightly uphill, and no movement can be detected when comparing photos taken at different times in 1986. The apparent change in position relative to the bush in some photos taken from different camera positions is caused by parallax. This evidence demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that, what I had believed to be a stationary, living creature was, in reality, a rock." (Wooldridge, Anthony B.; "The Yeti: A Rock After All?" Cryptozoology, 6:135, 1987.) Reference. More information on the Yeti is available in BHU7 in the catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans III. For information on this book, see: here . From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the circular formation, being in typically haphazard groups.' In a second letter Mr Belcher emphasized that the sheep of the two circles were 'variously standing, laying down, or grazing. All quietly occupied, but nevertheless forming this very regular circular formation." (Meaden, G.T .; "Sheep in Circular Flocks: Is There a Meteorological, or Some Other, Connection?" Journal of Meteorology, 14:54, 1989. Journal address: 54 Frome Road, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, ENGLAND BA15 1LD.) Comment. In his letter, Belcher wondered what mysterious force had arrayed the two flocks of sheep so neatly. Meaden, very timidly to be sure, ventured that the same sort of whirlwinds that he believes cuts the crop circles might cause sheep to drift outwards into a circle! In the interest of complete-ness, some grazing animals, such as the muskoxen, will form into a circle when threatened. But are there appropriate whirlwinds in the Arctic? So much for deprecating taxonomy-through-morphology! From Science Frontiers #64, JUL-AUG 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Sourcebook Subjects Mystery At Novaya Zemlya F.C . Parmenter-Holt opined above that the long plume-like clouds detected over Soviet territory were merely orographic clouds; that is, a consequence of the terrain below. Some facts presented by W.O Roberts, in the latest issue of The Explorer, hardly square with that interpretation. For example, the March 12, 1982 plume seen over Novaya Zemlya was 109 miles long and at an altitude of about 6 miles. Its position did not con form to the wind direction at that altitude. Other plumes over Novaya Zemlya have been aligned with the wind, but they too have been at great altitudes. Says Roberts: "Taken together the data suggest irregular emissions from a single point source near the north end of the Island as the cause of the myster ious episodes." Just what is being vented, if anything, remains unknown. No active volcanos are in this area, neither are there copious sources of natural gas. There have been no seismic or radioactive signs of nuclear tests. (Roberts, Walter Orr; "Mystery at Novaya Zemlya," The Explorer, 4:6 , April 1988.) From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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, 1988. Cr. L. Ellenberger.) Drobyshevski's combustion theory assumes a "local" origin (within the solar system) for Halley. But measurements of the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13, made during the 1986 flyby, produced a ratio of 65:1 . This compares to 89:1 for solar system material. The 65:1 ratio, it turns out, is more typical of interstellar material. This datum seems to place Halley's birthplace somewhere outside the solar system. (Weiss, R.; "Carbon Ratio Shows Halley May be Alien," Science News, 135:214, 1989.) As if ...
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... This Martian real estate is believed to be 2 billion years younger than the rest of the planet. Even so, it, too, is marked by "fluvial" features that resemble stream beds. Question #1 . How did Alba Patera get smoothed out or "reworked"? In other words, what happened to the ancient craters that must have pocked its surface, as they do everywhere else? Question #2 . Where did the water come from to cut Alba Patera's stream beds if all of the Martian water disappeared 2 billion years earlier? One line of thought maintains that "fluvial" does not mean "pluvial," and that Martian water has come from below rather than as rain from the atmosphere. Both fluvial episodes, in this view, occurred when something caused the Martian crust to release huge quantities of stored water. Hydrothermal activity is mentioned as a possibility. (Eberhart, J.; "The Martian Atmosphere: Old Versus New," Science News, 135:21, 1989.) Comment. Another speculation is that immense quantities of Martian water are tied up in methane hydrate and is released when the ambient temperature is somehow increased or perhaps by seismic activity. Reference. Anomalous characteristics of the Martian surface are cataloged in chapters AME and AMO in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. Details here . From Science Frontiers #62, MAR-APR 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wheels of light: sea of fire It has always been perplexing that scientists have made no concerted effort to find the cause of the many forms of the geometrical luminescent displays seen in the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, and other warm waters. True, a few individual researchers have looked at literature and done some theorizing; but no expeditions have been launched that we know of. Here is a well-verified, richly complex, eerily beautiful, natural phenomenon that is almost completely neglected by science. Happily, P. Huyghe has now brought the problem to the fore in a comprehensive article in Oceans, He reviews several types of luminescent displays and some of the theories-of-origin that have been proposed. We have space here for only one of the observations he records. P. Newton was the Chief Officer on the M.V . Mahsuri, which was passing through the Gulf of Oman bound for Australia. It was a dark, moonless night in May. "Then it happened. What first caught Newton's attention was a pale green glow on the horizon just ahead of the ship, but he said nothing to the cadet standing watch with him. Moments later, parallel bands of bluegreen light began to sweep silently over the water toward the ship from the southeast. Still, Newton said not a word, but he felt as if he should duck. Each light band was about 10 to ...
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... locations. Here follows a recent account: "Looking across the field of winter wheat to the east..., he suddenly noticed at a distance of 80 metres... what he took to be a large puff of white 'bonfire smoke' rising to 15 feet (5m) maximum height. The outer part of this 'smoke' column was scarcely rotating but the middle part, which was too thick to see through, was spinning rapidly. In a couple of seconds the effect had ended; the spinning central column had gone and the residual 'smoke' or cloud of fog drifted gently in the prevailing light north-east wind towards the southwest and dissolved after going several yards. He used the word smoke out of convenience but said that the effect was more likely caused by water vapour, cloud droplets or fog. He further emphasized the swiftness of the appearance and disappearance of the phenomenon. It had arrived suddenly like 'smoke from a distant cannon' or just as if 'a smoke-filled or fog-filled balloon had suddenly burst.' That is to say, it emerged as if from nowhere. He made the further point that the spinning column might have been very much longer than he could judge, for he realized that the only part he could see was the part rendered visible by the smoke or fog. The diameter of the cloud was about the same as its height, viz 4 or 5 metres." The same phenomenon appeared again a few seconds later, and still again 5 minutes later. Many crop circles have been ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Taking The Radon Cure "An internationally respected radon researcher has uncovered some surprising and perplexing evidence. High levels of radon exposure are known to cause lung cancer. Studies of people exposed to such levels in mines demonstrate that conclusively. Then it follows, most peo-ple have thought, that the best level is zero, and any increase should produce an increasing rate of lung cancer. But controversial studies show that this may not be so. "In one study Dr. Bernard Cohen of the University of Pittsburgh compared average lung-cancer rates in many counties with the average radon rates found in the respective counties. It's an ambitious study - 39,000 measurements in 415 counties. "The results: In counties where lung cancer in women would have been expected to be up 25 percent from the radon levels, the incidences of cancer were actually down 30 percent. There are others. Finland has average indoor-radon levels of 2.5 picocuries per liter - 2.5 times higher than the world average. Yet the female lung-cancer rate in Finland is only 70 percent that of other industrialized countries." (Gilmore, C.P .; "Radon: Cancer Killer?" Popular Science, p. 8, May 1989. Cr. R.W Schiller) From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... right-handers live longer?" Several findings suggest that lefthandedness may be associated with reduced longevity. For instance, Porac and Coren reported that 13 per cent of 20-year-olds are lefthanded but only 5 per cent of those in their fifties and virtually nobody of 80 or above. We believe that this absence of left-handers from the oldest age groups reflects higher biological and environmental risk." To investigate this asymmetry further, D.F . Halpern and S. Coren repaired to The Baseball Encyclopedia , where longevity and handedness are duly recorded for many players. Here again, they found that, although mortality is about the same up to age 33, thereafter about 2% more right-handers than lefthanders survive at each age. Halpern and Coren suggest a few possible causes: (1 ) prenatal and perinatal birth stressors are more probable in left-handers; (2 ) the immune systems of lefthanders may be reduced by ge netic effects and intra-uterine hormones; and (3 ) left-handers may suffer more accidents in a world designed for righthanders! (Halpern, Diane F., and Coren, Stanley; "Do Right-Handers Live Longer?" Nature, 333:213, 1988.) Reference. A variety of handedness phenomena are cataloged in BHB20-23 in Biological Anomalies: Humans I. To order this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... in quebec?" Are there carefully crafted stone structures in Quebec similar to that most mysterious of man-made structures, Stonehenge? The answer is yes, according to biology professor Gerard Leduc, who says he has found evidence of sundials in four different locations in the Laurentians and Eastern Townships." .. .. . "The stone complexes, comprising a centre stone and others radiating toward the east and west, may have been used as calendars whereby farmers could, for example, have known when to plant and harvest crops." Leduc also claims to have discovered: Unexplained stone walls two to three feet high that begin and end with no apparent purpose, and which are not associated with the fields of farmers. Grass circles showing up as yellowish rings in green grassy fields, caused by a different type of vegetation. These grass circles are perfect in shape and associated with stone structures. Trilithons, located at the sundial sites, consisting of three closely grouped rocks. (Morrissy, John; "Stonehenge in Quebec," Stonehenge Viewpoint, no. 79, p. 3, Winter 1988.) From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... discussion is an article by A.S . Moffat in American Scientist. She says, "The stakes in this dispute are high, indeed. If directed mutations are real, the explanations of evolutionary biology that depend on random events must be thrown out. This would have broad implications. For example, directed mutation would shatter the belief that organisms are related to some ancestor if they share traits. Instead, they may simply share exposure to the same environmental cues. Also, different organisms may have different mutation rates based on their ability to respond to the environment. And the discipline of molecular taxonomy, where an organism's position on the evolutionary tree is fixed by comparing its genome to those of others, would need extreme revision." What sort of experiment did Cairns do to cause such a ruckus? In particular, he studied E. Coli bacteria. Normally, these bacteria cannot metabolize the sugar lactose. Cairns exposed the E. Coli to a sudden dose of lactose, demonstrating that if the bacteria must have lactose to survive, they quickly cast off the two genes that inhibit their metabolizing of lactose. Of course, the experiments were more complicated than this, but the fundamental finding was that the bacteria mutated so that they could use lactose much, much faster than chance mutation would permit, stastically speaking. The battle lines are forming. A sup-porter of directed mutation, J. Shapiro, of the University of Chicago, is quoted as follows in Moffat's article: "The genome is smart. It can respond to selective conditions. The ...
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... P.L . Younger, a university hydrogeologist, first mentioned that most dowsers are convinced that they are hunting underground streams of water. In actuality, he says, most underground water flow is intergranular and laminar. There are no underground streams to find! Then, he continued: "Having said all this, while conducting hydrogeological fieldwork in Colorado, I was involved in 'dowsing' the exact location of buried metal pipes using two L-shaped metal rods, which were balanced on the fingers (not clutched at all). Surface and subsurface pipes gave clear deflection of the rods. I was led to conclude that the rods operated as a crude magnetometer." B.W . Skelcher originally did not believe that any variation in the magnetic field or any other natural force would cause a hand-held stick to move. But: "One day, on the undeveloped plot of land adjacent to my abode, I spied a 'nutter' pacing to and fro with hazel in hand. When the fellow assured me that he was seriously checking the site for hidden water mains, power cables, and so on, I expressed my grave doubts. At this he handed me the twigs and after a brief instruction goaded me to try. After a few paces I was astonished to feel the two bent twigs move in my hands. I am not skeptical any more, I know it works." (Younger, Paul L., and Skelcher, B.W .; "Dowsing-Sense," New Scientist, p. 62, April 9, ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 14 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf052/sf052p20.htm
... began on January 25, depositing 3 feet of snow in northern New England and 4 inches of rain along the coast from Washington to Boston. Wollin has had similar successes, without even looking at a weather map! Obviously, Wollin's forecasting techniques are not yet part of the Weather Bureau's arsenal. This is not too surprising because even Wollin does not understand why major storms should be preceded by several days by nervous magnetometers. He talks in a tentative way about solar storms, which do affect terrestrial magnetism, dumping energy into the oceans and thence into the atmosphere. But this is mainly speculation. Historically, we do know that long-term changes in the earth's magnetic field are linked to global temperature levels (see graphs); but here, too, cause and effect are not obvious. (Gribbin, John; "Magnetic Pointers to Stormy Weather," New Scientist, p. 70, December 25, 1986.) Long-term changes in global temperature follow changes in geomagnetic intensity. From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 14 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf050/sf050p22.htm
