... perturbations in whatever medium carries the supposed human-to-matter influences. The analogy to global weather and seismological stations is appropriate here. On September 9, 2001, the Global Consciousness Project network of RNGs did indeed detect a sort of groaning in the consciousness of the planet's human cargo. The dispersed RNGs produced strings of numbers that were rather far from random, as indicated on the accompanying graph. For three days the RNGs defied probability, with stark non-randomness obvious at 10:12 AM Eastern Daylight Time on September 11. One can hypothesize that collective humanity recoiled at the TV images of the World Trade Center catastrophe. Improbable outputs of a distributed network of RNGs around September 11, 2001. But there are skeptical interpretations. For example, the sharp rise in global communications and radar activity might have somehow perturbed the RNGs. (Bishop, Bill; "Is It Global Consciousness or Mere Coincidence?" Austin American Statesman, October 23, 2001. Cr. D. Phelps.) Comment. Recognizing Nature's frequent symmetry, might not material entities (e .g ., RNGs) influence humans in some subtle ways? From Science Frontiers #139, Jan-Feb 2002 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. ...

... However, recent excavations under one pyramid have yielded artifacts identified with the pre-Spanish inhabitants of Tenerife. Meanwhile, Heyerdahl has been checking out a rumored pyramid on Sicily. Could Heyerdahl be right when he claims there were age-old cultural links between Mesopotamia, Egypt, Mexico, the Canaries, and even the Pacific Islands? (Mead, Robin; "Riddle of the Black Pyramids," London Times, December 19, 1998. Cr. A.C .A . Silk) Comment. The pre-Spanish inhabitants of the Canaries were the Guanches, who are noted for two other interesting things: (1 ) A very high frequency of the olecranon perforation of the upper arm bone; and (2 ) The use of a language of whistles, which they use to communicate over long distances. The olecranon perforation of the humerus is usually frequent among the Guanches, the pre-Spanish inhanitants of the Canary Islands. (From Ancient Man). From Science Frontiers #122, MAR-APR 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Feats during Migration BBT5 Homing: Release Experiments BBT6 Curious Migration Phenomena: Navigation Errors? BBT7 Complexity and Sophistication of Avian Navigation BBT8 Inheritance of Migration Data BBT9 The Existence of Avian Migration BBT10 Sensitivity to Impending Weather and Earthquakes BBT11 Possible Unrecognized Senses BBT12 Remarkable Feats of Flight BBT13 The Origin of Avian Flight BBT14 Unanswered Questions Concerning Flightlessness BBT15 Some Curiosities of Avian Flight BBT16 Deep-Diving Capabilities BBT17 Vocal Mimicry in Birds BBT18 Birds That Vocally Mimic Only in Captivity BBT19 Vocal Mimicry of Hosts by Parasitic Species BBT20 Duetting BBT21 Chorusing BBT22 Large Vocal-Repertoire Sizes and High Speeds of Delivery BBT23 Female Singers BBT24 Whisper Songs and Subsongs BBT25 The Two-Voice Phenomenon BBT26 Some Curiosities of Avian Vocalizations BBT27 Incubator Nests BBT28 Woven and Sewn Nests BBT29 Nests Containing Protective Materials BBT30 Bowers BBT31 Nest Curiosities BBT32 Tool Use BBT33 Communication between Chick Embryos BBX AVIAN INTERFACE PHENOMENA BBX1 Unusual Attacks on Humans BBX2 Unusual Predators of Birds BBX3 Unusual Bird-Animal Psychological Interfaces BBX4 Curious Associations of Birds with Other Animals and Plants BC BIOCHEMISTRY Titles not yet posted BF FISH Titles not yet posted BG GENETICS Titles not yet posted BH HUMANS BHA EXTERNAL APPEARANCE AND MORPHOLOGY BHA1 Human Asymmetry BHA2 The Appearance of Beauty in the Human Lineage BHA3 General Physique Correlated with the Month of Birth BHA4 Human Body Badly Designed for Swimming BHA5 The Apparent Physical Degeneration of Humans BHA6 Human Physical Degeneration and Genius BHA7 Variability of External Appearance BHA8 Discordances in the Appearances of Identical Twins BHA9 Mirror-Image Twins BHA10 The Apparent Primitive Character of Some Features of the Human Body BHA11 Human and Orang-Utan Physiological Similarities BHA12 Significant Morphological Differences between Humans and the Great Apes BHA13 ...

... "Strange Eclipses," Sky & Telescope , 98:116, August 1999.) E.L . Trouvelot's portrait of the total solar eclipse of July 29, 1878 as seen from Wyoming. Note the geometrical symmetry of the spectacular corona. The TLP Myth. There is a long history of Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLPs). Almost as soon as the telescope was invented, observers began seeing flashes of light, color changes, and other luminous phenomena on the moon. Reddish glows around the rims of the craters Aristarchus and Alphonsus have long been accepted as objective scientific observations. The most popular explanation of these color phenomena involves the eruption of gases around the craters. In 1964, in an attempt to better understand TLPs, NASA organized a network of amateur lunar observers with communication links to the Corralitos Observatory in New Mexico. Corralitos possessed a 5-inch reflector equipped with color filters which could checkout network sightings. In almost 3,000 hours of surveillance, no color phenomena were recorded using the Corralitos instruments -- even when the network reported a colored TLP in progress. Are all TLPs therefore illusory? The NASA program certainly suggested that TLPs might be subjective phenomena, perhaps something like the colored coronas observed during solar eclipses. TLPs are still reported nevertheless. And there are also recognized phenomena that might account for TLPs. One such phenomenon is prismatic dispersion in the earth's atmosphere. On the moon's surface, thermoluminescence is a possibility, as is the fluorescence of lunar soils being bombarded by solar wind. Even so, the gist of this ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 27: May-Jun 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How Trees Talk To One Another Trees talk only in children's cartoons -- that's currently accepted wisdom. But when trees attacked by caterpillars sound an alarm that other trees in the vicinity detect and heed, some sort of communication system seems required. The evidence is found in trees that react to caterpillar attack or leaf damage by making their leaves harder to digest. When one tree is attacked, not only does it start making less nutritious leaves but so do other trees as far as 200 feet away. No root connections have been found. In tests with potted maples and poplars inside plexiglass enclosures, the attack warning got through to trees in the same chamber but not to control trees outside the plexiglass. Thus, the warning seems to be transmitted by air -- probably chemically. David Rhoades is conducting further research at the University of Washington. (Boling, Rick; "Tree ESP," Omni, p. 42, December 1982. Cr. P. Gunkel) Comment. Question: How is the message received, decoded, and turned into biological action? If we could set up chemical "antennas" in the air around us, what other revealing messages would we "hear"? From Science Frontiers #27, MAY-JUN 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 91: Jan-Feb 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crayfish Communication It always comes as a surprise when we find supposedly primitive organisms employing our highly technical concepts; for example, the jamming-avoidance techniques of electric fish (SF#89). Still another potential example has been advanced: The lowly crayfish is now thought to enlist some of our sophisticated information theory. Crayfish often live in noisy environments, where one would expect acoustical information transmission would be degraded. This would be true enough if linear information theory applied, but some, perhaps all, real situations are nonlinear. In such instances, information flow can actually be enhanced by the presence of optimized random noise. Stochastic resonance (SR) is the term applied in such cases of nonlinear statistical dynamics. J.K . Douglass et al write: "Although SR has recently been demonstrated in several artificial physical systems, it may also occur naturally, and an intriguing possibility is that biological systems have evolved the capability to exploit SR by optimizing endogenous sources of noise. Sensory systems are an obvious place to look for SR, as they excel at detecting weak signals in a noisy environment. Here we demonstrate SR using external noise applied to crayfish mechanoreceptor cells. Our results show that individual neurons can provide a physiological substrate for SR in sensory systems." Put more simply, the crayfish nervous system has the potential for cashing in on SR in noisy environments. However, the authors also remark that humans, too, accordingly ...

... 1993 Tulsa fall. Such weird shapes are duplicated by the million by some unappreciated storm mechanism. Dimensions in mm. October 16, 1993. Tulsa, Oklahoma. "Circa 5:00 PM, CDT, anomaly witness Keith L. Partain, a trained entomological systematicist, heard a tornado siren. Funnel-like phenomena were reported by local weathercasters, one of which approached within one mile of the witness before it lost its vorticity. This was between 5:00-5 :15 PM and parenthesized the interval of anomalous hail. In the target interval numerous hail peppered the area described above. Partain observered shapes which did not conform to spherical and collected several specimens, which he immediately froze." See accompanying figure for shapes and dimensions. (Partain, Keith L.; private communication, October 17, 1993.) Comment. Often such grotesque hail-stones are produced in immense quantities -- a meteorological factory of the absurd -- and we do not know how this production line operates! From Science Frontiers #91, JAN-FEB 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Some Shaky Observations Back in SF#65, we offered an item on how wood turtles stomp the ground to force earthworms out of their burrows. (When humans do this -- and they do -- it is called "grunting for worms!) Other animals also use vibrations for communication and, rather surprisingly, for cutting leaves. Malaysian tree frogs. Zoologists already knew that Puerto Rican white-lipped frogs use vibrations to communicate amongst themselves. The Malaysian tree frog can now be added to the list of substrate vibrators. The female will sit on a reed or small sapling and tap out a "come-hither" message with her toes. The message goes forth in minute seismic waves. The males detect these vibrations and proceed, sometimes in great numbers, to the source of the vibrations, and the species is thereby perpetuated. (Mestel, Rosie; "Courting Tree Frogs Make the Earth Move," New Scientist, p. 8, December 10, 1994.) Leaf-cutting ants. Leaf-cutting ants neatly excise penny-size pieces of leaves and tote them back to their fungus gardens. J. Tautz and colleagues, University of Wurtzburg, noted that the ants chirped as they sliced at the leaves with their jaws. With a little instrumentation, they discovered that during each chirp both ant and leaf vibrated at about 1,000 hertz. The vibration apparently rigidizes soft leaf tissues and ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 103: Jan-Feb 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Probable Frauds That turkey on the Bayeux Tapestry. Fortunately, we added a caveat when we mentioned this turkey (see sketch) in SF#81. If said turkey really appears on the Bayeux Tapestry, which dates back to the Eleventh Century, it would clearly indicate Precolumbian contact with the New World. However, careful study of a copy of the Tapestry has failed to find this typically New World bird anywhere. (Sørensen, Erik Ringdal; personal communication, November 2, 1995) That crystal skull in the British Museum. Considered a first-class anomaly, this compelling artifact is carved out of hard crystalline quartz. It is said to exert an eerie effect on its viewers. Some say it was carved by the Atlanteans, but the Aztecs are generally credited with this amazing job of manufacture. The big puzzle is: How could the Aztecs have done it without modern lapidary tools -- the skull is so smooth and perfect? Well, maybe the Aztecs didn't carve it! A. Rankin, of Kingston University, has examined the tiny trails made by fluid inclusions in the quartz matrix. He finds that they are characteristic of Brazilian quartz. In fact, there seem to be no suitable sources of massive quartz crystals anywhere in Mexico; and the Aztecs do not appear to have made any incursions into Brazil. Even worse, British Museum experts have now found small cuts made by steel tools on ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 99: May-Jun 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When Scents Make No Sense A kestrel (sparrow hawk) with ultra-violet-sensitive eyes and an appetite for voles (below) A vole is hard to see in its grassy habitat, but it leaves behind an ultra-violet-dark urine trail for the kestrel (above). The universe of voles -- small, mouse-like rodents -- is one of odor. They communicate with one another and navigate through their world of grass and vegetation by laying down trails of scent-laden urine. The world of kestrels -- eaters of voles -- is one of sight. Now, voles are hard to see in the grass far below a hunting kestrel, but evolution has come to the aid of the kestrels by giving them the capability to see in the ultra-violet portion of the spectrum. Can it be only coincidence that the urine trails of the voles happen to absorb ultra-violet light strongly? Kestrels can see these trails as dark streaks in the grass below and zero in on their prey. Finnish scientists, led by E. Korpimaki at the University of Turku, have demonstrated the above ultraviolet connection by somehow acquiring enough vole urine to lay out artificial trails in voleless areas. Sure enough, hunting kestrels were attracted to the experimental site and searched and searched the artificial vole highways -- volelessly. (Aldous, Peter; "Vole's Urine Is Their Downfall," ...

... . The research goals and methodologies differ, and the resulting reports couched in different terminologies, but the similarities are what is really important. Both scientists are exploring unconventional information pathways connecting the human brain (consciousness) and the environment. The pathways are open in both directions. First, we quote the summary from a recent Persinger paper. The jargon may be technical, but one can readily visualize the human brain immersed in a sea of signals -- nominally electromagnetic but possibly of other sorts. "Contemporary neuroscience suggests the existence of fundamental algorithms by which all sensory transduction is translated into an intrinsic, brain-specific code. Direct stimulation of these codes within the human temporal or limbic cortices by applied electromagnetic patterns may require energy levels which are within the range of both geomagnetic activity and contemporary communication networks. A process which is coupled to the narrow band of brain temperature could allow all normal human brains to be affected by a subharmonic whose frequency range at about 10 Hz would only vary by 0.1 Hz." (Ref. 1) Second, Jahn sees a remarkably similar information channel, but of a cryptic nature, connecting humans to the environment in PEAR's psychokinesis and remoteviewing experiments. In describing his model of this information channel, Jahn writes: "Like physical light (energy) and elementary particles (mass), consciousness (information) enjoys a wave/ particle duality that allows it to circumvent and penetrate barriers and to resonate with other consciousnesses and with appropriate aspects of the environment. Thereby it can both acquire and insert information, both objective and subjective ...

... earth would have been modulated. (Frisch, Priscella C.; "Morphology and Ionization of the Interstellar Cloud Surrounding the Solar System," Science, 265:1423, 1994. Also: Peterson, I.; "Finding a Place for the Sun in a Cloud," Science News, 146:148, 1994.) Comment. Note that the 2,000-8 ,000-year span brackets many key developments in human civilization. Also, see under ARCHEOLOGY in this issue. For a potentially serious effect this cloud may have on carbon dating. Getting back to Hoyle's "black cloud," we recall that his molecular cloud was sentient and intelligent, being a form of gaseous-phase life. Did our real gas cloud, now seemingly mute, communicate with ancient humans? "Clouds of the Gods." Sounds like a good book title! From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... then over a period of four months, his hair grew back to full black. (Nelson, Douglas; "Aaaaaargh," New Scientist, p. 93, April 11, 1998.) Mummified llamas yield superior wool. The wool found on a group of mummified llamas that had been sacrificed and buried some 1,000 years ago in Peru had hair far finer than cashmere and far superior to that of modern llamas. The ancient Peruvians apparently knew how to breed their animals to accentuate certain features. Their secret was lost during the Spanish conquest. (Anonymous; "Mummified Llamas Yield Superior Wool," NEARA Transit, 10:6 , Spring 1998.) Telestomping elephants. Elephants, rhinos, okapis, and even some birds use infrasound (frequencies below 20 Hertz) for communication. At a recent meeting of the American Acoustical Society, University of California researchers reported that elephants also send low-frequency acoustic signals by stomping the ground. Almost inaudible in the air, the sounds travel through the ground and can be picked up by ground microphones. It is thought that this communication channel has a range of as much as 50 kilometers -- far greater than the sounds could be perceived in the air. Supporting this notion, anecdotes say that elephants somehow know when other elephants are being killed far, far away. They run in the opposite direction! But how do they detect the stomping sounds if they travel through the ground? (Anonymous; "Stomping Ground," New Scientist, p. 25, December 13, 1997.) Some sperm are immense ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 120: Nov-Dec 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Force Is With Them The communication loop between earthbased ground stations and interplanetary spacecraft allows extremely accurate measurements of the radial velocities of these distant man-made machines. As these spacecraft hurtle toward the fringe of the solar system, the visible sun dwindles to a small, bright point, and its gravitational field falls off as the inverse square of the distance. At least that is what is supposed to happen. Four far-flung spacecraft, (Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Ulysses, and Galileo are experiencing a mysterious decelerating force not encompassed by the Law of Gravitation. It's a tiny force, but it seems to be real. Making it even more puzzling is the fact that it is decreasing according to the inverse of distance from the sun rather than the inverse square. Is it a non-solar force? Is it "new" physics? Or maybe just an artifact of the spacecraft and ground-based equipment? The fact that four spacecraft feel its tugging suggests the force is real. But the motions of the distant planets do not seem to be affected by it. So, everyone is perplexed. (Schilling, Govert; "Spacecraft Motions Puzzle Astronomers," Science, 281:1581, 1998. Seife, Charles; "If the Force Is with Them...," New Scientist, p. 4, September 12, 1998. Browne, Malcolm; "After Study, ...

... walking on fairly wet sand, just above the tide line. As I stepped, the sand around my feet lit up with small bright dots of phosphorescence. I would not have said that the color was blue, but it could have been like blue-white, like the star Rigel. I found that if I stepped hard or stamped my foot, the lights flashed brighter and the lit area went out farther from my foot. I could see the movement expanding out. After a stamp or two, they did not light up as much. I assumed that this was caused by some organism that lit up when it felt pressure, and 'wore out' after it had done this a few times -- a refractory period probably occurred." (Hastings, Arthur; personal communication, March 21, 1996) Comment. This is probably a pressureinduced biological phenomenon, but we have no idea what kind of organism produces the lights. Footsteps do produce a rapidly expanding pressure wave on damp sand, which whitens the sand as it moves outward. But we have never seen any luminosity on our Atlantic beaches, even on dark nights. From Science Frontiers #107, SEP-OCT 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... readable by the programmer, he can determine the machine's choice depending upon the time required for some complex calculation, which will vary according to such factors as minute voltage variations and the aging of the machine's components. For example, the CDC 3600, on which I learned to program in 1975, had an accessible microsecond clock, and my program to calculate the first five perfect numbers* required about 15 minutes of run time; the last few digits of the exact number of microseconds required to run this program each time varied quite unpredictably. In other words, it was a random number, except perhaps from the standpoint of philosophical determinism, which claims that every event in the entire universe has been determined from the beginning." (Everit, Richard G.; personal communication, November 2, 1996) *A perfect number is equal to the sum of its divisors. The first two are 6 and 28; the others being difficult to find with just pencil and paper! Comment. Computer unpredictability? There's something human in those chips! Of course, K. Capek knew this would be the case with any complex machine, as he predicted in his 1921 drama R.U .R . (Rossum's Universal Robots). From Science Frontiers #109, JAN-FEB 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Project Sourcebook Subjects October 5, 1998: Dark Day for Homing Pigeons Just what happened on October 5 may never be known. On that day thousands of homing pigeons were released by their proud owners in widely separated locations expecting they would quickly race home to their lofts. Few made it. In three separate races in New York and Pennsylvania, a total of 4,000 birds were released on October 5. Only 400 returned home. 3,000 pigeons released in California on the same day are still missing. All over the planet, homing pigeons are not homing as well as they used to. Performance has been falling steadily over the past two decades. The favorite theory blames geomagnetic storms, but no such correlation has been shown. Microwaves are fingered next. Cell phones and satellite communications fill the atmosphere ever more densely with microwaves that may throw off the navigation equipment of homing pigeons, but this hasn't been demonstrated yet either. (Ensley, Gerald; "Case of the 3,600 Disappearing Homing Pigeons Has Experts Baffled," Chicago Tribune, October 18, 1998. Cr. J. Cieciel. Also: Schoettler, Carl; "Pondering the Great Homing Pigeon Panic," Baltimore Sun, October 18, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... the storm's 10-inch deluge of rain. Because the three holes seemed too close together to be blasting holes, I took a closer look at them and was surprised to see that they had "trianguloid" cross sections rather than round ones. By "trianguloid" I mean the cross section was thus: Casts of the holes were made by using modeling clay. The expanded bases of the casts suggest that a shallow pit was pecked out of the granite before drilling began, and the constricted tips show that the first 3/4 inch of the drill bit was of a smaller diameter, perhaps to give it greater penetrating power so that the holes could be started more easily. The smaller "pilot" holes were also trianguloid in cross section." (Anonymous; personal communication, May 27, 1997.) Comment. In SF#69, it was proposed that the triangular holes were made in that shape so that wooden shafts, also of triangular cross section, could be inserted, given a quarter turn, thereby wedging the shaft firmly in place. This idea is behind the speculation that these strange boulders are really ancient "mooring stones." In truth no one really knows how old they are and what their purpose was. The final explanation may be mundane and/or trivial. Reference. The Handbook Ancient Man, mentioned above, presents a wide spectrum of archeological anomalies. For a description, visit here . "Trianguloid" holes drilled in a granite boulder as photographed from 10 feet. Scale length: 13 inches. From Science Frontiers # ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 150: Nov - Dec 2003 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Australians First in the New World? Origin of Clovis Culture Disputed A "Magic Number" Encoded in Three of the World's Major Pyramids Astronomy Mapping and Analyzing Dark Matter Biology Frog Poison Factory Puffin Tongue Trick? Human-chimp DNA Dissimilarities Four-Dimensional Biology A Squid's Eyes that Look Up and Down Tuberculosis and the Extinction of the Megaforna Dark Matter in our Genome Unknown Source of Animal Diversity Communication among Bacteria Geology When the Earth Gets Cracking Subduction Doesn't Check Out Chicxulub Didn't Do It! Geophysics Squishy Ball Lightning Far-Floating Fowl Psychology Natural-Born Readers Physics Mixed Anomalies ...

... All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects MODERN TECHNOLOGY GETS SUNBURNED During the 400-or-so years we have been counting sunspots and taking other measures of solar activity, the sun has, on the average, been getting more and more rambunctious. The sunspot peaks have been ascending to greater heights every 11-or-so years. Right now, near the peak of the present cycle, the earth is being bombarded by extra-high fluxes of X-rays, ultraviolet light, and other energetic radiation. A century ago, no one would have noticed or cared, but today our technological infrastructure is suffering. K.H . Schatten has listed some of the "sunburn symptoms" in a recent article in Nature. Fade-outs of over-the-horizon radio communications Greater aerodynamic drag on satel lites and earlier reentry Glitches and outright damage in satellite electrical systems Anomalous induced voltages in elec trical power systems and long-line communications Blackouts of high-frequency polar communications oInduced errors in VLF (Very Low Frequency navigation systems Occasional radiation levels that are hazardous to humans in high-flying aircraft. (Schatten, Kenneth H.; "The Sun's Disturbing Behavior," Nature, 345:578, 1990.) Comment. It would be interesting to learn whether the "computer errors" we encounter so frequently follow the sunspot cycle. One phenomenon, at least, seems anticorrelated with solar activity: The number of solar neutrinos measured here on earth falls as sunspots multiply. This is particularly puzzling because neutrinos are presumably generated in the solar core, ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 2: January 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Blind Man Runs On Lunar Time A psychologically normal blind man, living and working in normal society, was found to have circadian rhythms of body temperature, alertness, cortisol excretion, etc., that were out-of-step with society's normal 24-hour schedule. The periods of these biological cycles were about 24.84 hours and indistinguishable from the lunar day. (Miles, L.E .M ., et al; "Blind Man Living in Normal Society Has Circadian Rhythms of 24.9 Hours," Science, 198:42l, 1977.) Comment. How are these lunar influences communicated, or are they innate? From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 4: July 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Out-of-the-body traveller exerts no influence Many out-of-the-body travellers describe remote scenes observed during their ad ventures and some are credited with registering their presences on instruments and animals. Tests with a subject using "human detector" instruments a quarter mile away showed no consistent results while the subject was "out-of the-body." A kitten in the area gave no sign of a presence. Although the subject described some of the remote targets accurately, the results did not differ from chance. (Morris, Robert L., et al; "Studies of Communication during Out-of-Body Experiences," American Society for Psychical Research, Journal, 72:1 , 1978.) From Science Frontiers #4 , July 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 19: Jan-Feb 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Diffusion Of Science In Prehistoric Times In contrast to many archeologists who tend to play down the intelligence of prehistoric humans, B.A . Frolov insists that these "primitive hunters" constucted surprisingly sophisticated models of the natural world, especially the motions of celestial bodies. Many of these models seem to have been non-utilitarian; that is, built only to satisfy intellectual curiosity. Furthermore, some scientific notions were widespread geographically, indicating perhaps long lines of communication. To illustrate, Frolov cites the similar astronomical sophistication revealed by the Lake Onega petroglyphs in Russia and those at Stonehenge. He also points out that the aborigines of North America, Australia, and Siberia all called the Pleiades the "Seven Sisters." Coincidence is very unlikely here, he says. This and other notions must have existed before Australia and North America were peopled. The absence of writing as we know it would not have deterred ancient humans from developing and communicating mathematical and scientific skills and accumulating knowledge, possibly in the form of myth. (Frolov, B.A .; "On Astronomy in the Stone Age," Current Anthropology, 22: 585, 1981.) Comment. A passing thought: may not writing as well as today's omnipresent computers be crutches that permit our memories and mental skills to deteriorate? In our Handbook The Unfathomed Mind, we present many cases of remarkable memory and information-processing ability. Such skills ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 6: February 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Some Highly Focussed Minds Here is a modern study of calculating prodigies, idiot savants, or, as Rimland prefers, "autistic savants." Calculating prodigies are rarely idiots; that is, with IQs below 30: rather they are almost always autistic, displaying gross disturbances in communication, and/or motor behavior. Rimland and his colleagues have studied 5,400 autistic children and found 10% of them to have extraordinary abilities. We hear most often about those prodigies who can multiply large numbers in their heads instantaneously or give us calendar information far in the past or future without the blink of an eye. But autistic savants are also prodigal in the fields of art, music, and mechanics. No one knows how they per-form their feats, although psychologists speculate that their minds are intensely focussed on their special skills to the exclusion of most everything else. A few "normal" people, such as Gauss and Ampere, have matched the capabilities of the autistic savants, but the rest of us have our minds spread too thinly. We are in the majority, so the autistic savants usually end up in institutions while we plod along outside. (Rimland, Bernard; "Inside the Mind of the Autistic Savant," Psychology Today, August 1978.) Comment. We may speculate that the capabilities of the autistic savants are inherent in all of us, awaiting only some key. From Science Frontiers #6 , February ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Listening With The Feet "Male white-lipped frogs exhibit conspicuous behavioral responses to calling conspecific males that are nearby but out of view. Since the calls often are accompanied by strong seismic signals (thumps), and since the male white-lipped frog exhibits the most acute sensitivity to seismic stimuli yet observed in any animal, these animals may use seismic signals as well as auditory signals for intraspecific communication." (Lewis, Edwin R., and Narins, Peter M.; "Do Frogs Communicate with Seismic Signals?" Science, 227:187, 1985.) Comment. Rabbits often thump the ground to communicate, but their thumps are thought to be sound generators rather than vibration generators. From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...