392 results found.
... 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 Arp banished, but not redshift anomalies Several years ago, H. Arp, a noted American astronomer, moved to Europe to continue his research because, in part, of the hostility of American astronomers to his discoveries. The problem was (and still is) that Arp found galaxies that seem to be physically interacting and, therefore, at the same distance from earth, but yet have radically different or "discordant" redshifts. Since redshifts are supposed to be a measure of distance from the earth, an anomaly comes into focus. This anomaly; that is, the credibility of the redshift distance scale, challenges the ideas of an expanding universe and the Big Bang itself. Freed from the shackles of American scientific correctness, Arp continues to find embarrassing facts about the cosmos. For example, take galaxies NGC 450 and UGC 807, with redshifts of 1863 and 11600 km/s respectively: "Six lines of evidence are presented showing that the two discordant redshift galaxies are interacting. One would have to invoke an enormous conspiracy of galaxies to avoid this conclusion. Yet, if accepted, this case alone brings into question the interpretation of cosmological red-shift for all galaxies." (Moles, M., et al, including Arp; "Testing for Interaction between the Galaxies NGC 450 and UGC 807," Astrophysical Journal, 432:135, 1994.) But discordant redshifts are not limited to distant galaxies. ...
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... the continents. They have controlled the geomagnetic field. They have created volcanoes and massive basalt flows. They have caused mass extinctions. Of course, for two centuries, other catastrophists have proposed similar dire consequences of giant impacts. But Shaw does introduce three ideas that are worth recording here. Large impact craters occur in swaths. Although this has been suggested before, Shaw has mapped out several swaths where large craters of about the same age are located. His "K -T swath" includes the Chicxulub crater (Yucatan), the Manson crater (Iowa), the Avak crater (Alaska), and three more in Russia -- all of which were gouged out about the time of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K -T ) boundary. Shaw has plotted several other swaths of different ages. The application of chaos theory to solar system debris. Shaw hypothesizes that nonlinear gravitational effects channel asteroids and comets into the inner solar system in intermittent bursts. The bursts are then captured by the earth and other inner planets, with some of these objects grouped in like orbits. Gravitational feedback occurs from earth to orbiting debris. Shaw believes that the uneven distribution of mass inside the earth -- due probably to the impact that created the moon -- influences where asteroids and comets impact. In turn, these large objects keep smashing into the same regions and their cumulative effect contols the flow of material inside the earth. Then, this change in mass distribution feeds back to change orbits and impact swaths. The above is just a taste of what is revealed in Shaw's ...
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... 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 An Unknown Atmospheric Light Phenomenon Between 1981 and 1985, hundreds of strange lights have appeared in a small valley in central Norway. Named after the valley, the lights have been named: The Hessdalen Phenomenon. A research station was set up in the valley in 1983. During January-February 1984, eight different kinds of instruments were in use, with the following results: Camera with grating : Three pictures showed a continuous spectrum. No spectral lines were seen on any picture. IR-viewer: This instrument was used too little to drawn any conclu sion. Spectrum-analyzer: Sometimes there were electromagnetic signals with harmonics of about 80 MHz. Seismograph : No local seismographic activity was measured. Magnetograph : The magnetic field did sometimes change when the lights showed up. There also seemed to be a correlation with the mag netic pulsation. Radar : The lights could be seen on radar. The speed varied all the way from 0 to 30,000 km/hour. Sometimes the radar saw something moving at a low speed, but no lights were seen by eye. Clearly, there was something there, but only the radar showed it. Laser : A laser-beam was directed toward the light, and the behavior of the light changed. Geiger-counter : No radioactive radi ation was detected. But the source was 1 km away when this instrument was used. (Strand, Erling; "Project Hessdalen - ...
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... Omanga Hospice, in New Zealand, wondered how often this phenomenon occurred and why. Working with the Hospice nursing staff, Lichter followed 100 patients nearing death. "The results showed 14 patients shed a final tear at the time of death, and a further 13 within the last 10 hours of life. "In 21 of the 27 cases, the dying person was unconscious at the time of the last tear. And in all but one case the tear was shed by patients whose death was expected rather than sudden." Lichter and colleagues wondered if the death-bed tears were emotional in origin or perhaps caused by a reflex action. Notes made by the nursing staff were inconclusive on this matter. Lichter thought of chemically analyzing some of the last tears, because emotional tears have a different chemical composition from those produced by irritation. Unfortunately, a single tear was insufficent for the analysis. (Morrison, Alastair; "The Mystery of the Death-Bed Tear," Wellington Dominion , August 11, 1993. Cr. P. Hassall) From Science Frontiers #94, JUL-AUG 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... space, 1 of time) electric charge need not be conserved. This opens up an experimental avenue to test for an extra spatial dimension. For background, recall that physicists originally maintained that mass and energy had to be conserved separately. Then, Einstein came along to show that mass and energy could be interchanged, via E = mc2 , but that they had to be conserved together. In Shu-Yuan Chu's five-dimensional universe mass and charge can be interchanged, but their sum must be conserved. In other words, there exists an E = mc2 equivalent for mass and charge in five dimensions. We could look for this extra spatial dimension by looking for a particle that can be converted into another particle with the same mass+ charge, but made up of a different combination of mass and charge. If such reactions exist, we may be able to explore hyperspace in fact rather than in science fiction. (Gribbin, John; "Can Electric Charge Be Destroyed?" New Scientist, p. 16, October 5,1994.) From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... their dry skin seems adapted to generating and retaining electrical charge. Even more curious, laboratory experiments with snake rattles demonstrate that they can generate 75-100 volts when shaken! What is the electrostatic payoff for snakes in their search for prey? It is hard to say. Who has followed hungry snakes around checking on their electric fields? A clue may lie in the ways snakes use their forked tongues in hunting. When following a chemical trail, snakes usually touch surfaces with their flicking tongues. In general exploration, when chemical trails are absent, snakes seem to wave their tongues up and down in a distinctive manner, avoiding surfaces. Herpetologists usually ascribe this action to chemical "sniffing." However, W.T . Vonstille and W.T . Stille, III, venture a different explanation: "The fact that moist air is conductive for the electric charges that exist on the Earth's surface could be very important to a snake's survival. The airborne plumes of moisture exhaled by animals and flowing out from under cover are invaded by static charges from the Earth and could be detected by snakes." (Vonstille, W.T ., and Stille, W.T ., III; "Electrostatic Sense in Rattlesnakes," Nature, 370:184, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The urge to replicate: part i The inside front cover of the March 1944 issue of BioScience displays five pairs of colorful butterflies. Each member of each pair is virtually a duplicate of its partner in shape, design, and colors. Yet, each member of each pair is a different species. Although the pairs are from the same geographical regions, it is not obvious why this astounding mimicry should occur. Here, one cannot invoke the explanation that one species gains an evolutionary advantage by mimicking an unpalatable species, as with mimics of the Monarch Butterfly. That is, there seems to be no evolutionary advantage to looking alike. (Miller, Julie Ann; BioScience, inside front cover, March 1994. Miller's editorial remarks are based upon a later article by H.F . Nijhout, who also supplied the photographs. Nijhout's article explains how butterfly wing patterns may have evolved.) Comment. Cases of remarkable mimicry also occur among geographically separated species. For example, the North American Meadowlarks are dead ringers for the African Yellow-throated Longclaw. "Convergent evolution" names the phenomenon but doesn't tell how or why long chains of random mutations can come up with the same designs where there seems to be no "guidance" by the forces of natural selection. Perhaps genomes contain "subprograms" for those patterns and structures often used in biology. Of course, Sheldrake's idea of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Age Of Fire And Gravel Back in 1883, I. Donnelly wrote his seminal Ragnarok , to which he attached as a subtitle: The Age of Fire and Gravel . He hypothesized that all those sheets of unconsolidated rocky debris strewn across the planet--called the "drift" -- were the consequence of impacts of comets. But in Donnelly's day, all geologists were uniformitarians and wedded to glacial theory. Donnelly's "age of fire and gravel" was really a succession of Ice Ages. Quite a difference in mechanism! Glacial theory, however, has difficulty in explaining apparent glaciations during periods when the earth was supposed to be very warm. Nor does it account easily for glacial-like debris in equatorial regions. With the current ascendancy of "impact geology," some brave geologists are reinterpreting supposed glacial deposits in terms of sheets of ballistic ejecta from the impacts of comets and/or asteroids. Modern estimates of terrestrial cratering suggest that 10% of our planet's surface could be covered by 10+ meters of ejecta, and 2% by 200+ meters. Now that's a lot of ejecta! (Rampino, Michael R.; "Tillites, Diamictites, and Ballistic Ejecta of Large Impacts," Journal of Geology, 102:439, 1994.) Comment. The Ice Ages won't be melted completely away by such reinterpretations. Nor will I. Donnelly ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Ancient greek pyramids? The great wooden well of kuckhoven Astronomy What fluid cut the styx? More evidence for galactic "shells" or "something else" The nullarbor lode Biology Cricket coordination Thousands of grebes fall from the skies Spider swordplay Archaea: the living ancestors of all life forms Life-creation from a different perspective Geology Possible chain of meteorite scars in argentina Dinosaur flatulence and climate changes The steens mountain conundrum Aerial bioluminescence Dead water Concentric, rotating luminous rings seen in sweden Anomalous optical events in the upper atmosphere Unidentified light Unclassified First cold-fusion bomb? When the chips are down ...
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... lights and other scientific anomalies. Now, it is challenging archeological sacred cows using mitochondrial DNA. Quite a switch from pork futures! Of course, the WSJ is not a recognized scientific source, but its reporter did get his information directly from D.C . Wallace, a well-known professor of genetics and molecular medicine at Emory University and a champion of the African Eve theory. Surely an unusual illustration for the archeology section, but the DNA in these mitochondria may upset long-held theories of human migration. Anyway, Wallace has been studying mitochondria, those little energizers in human and animal cells. Strangely, mitochondria have their own DNA, which is separate and distinct from the nuclear DNA that directs other biological processes. Mitochondrial DNA has had its own history of evolution and is different for various human populations. Wallace has used this fact to trace the origins of American Indians by comparing their mitochondrial DNA with that from Asians, Africans, etc. His conclusions are controversial to say the least. The Amerinds, who comprise most of the Native Americans, arrived in a single migratory wave 20,000-40,000 years ago -- not merely 12,000 years ago! Native Siberians lack a peculiar mutation of mitochondrial DNA that appeared in the Amerinds 6,000-10,000 years ago, casting doubt on the Siberian land bridge theory. Instead, this particular mutation is found in Southeast Asia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. The Navajos, Apaches, and other so-called Na-Dene peoples entered North America a mere 5,000-10 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Dreams that do what they're told A few people can dream and, in their dreams, know that they are dreaming, and then take charge of their dreams, directing them to unfold according to their wishes. This all sounds occultish, to say nothing about far-fetched. It is called "lucid dreaming." F. van Eeden, a Dutch psychiatrist, defined lucid dreaming in this way: ". .. the reintegration of the psychic functions is so complete that the sleeper reaches a state of perfect awareness and is able to direct his/ her attention, and to attempt different acts of free volition. Yet the sleep, as I am able confidently to state, is undisturbed, deep and refreshing." Lucid dreams are real dreams. They occur during REM (Rapid Eye Movements) sleep, usually in the early morn ing, and they last 2-5 minutes. High levels of physical and emotional activity during the preceding day can encourage lucid dreaming. When lucid dreaming occurs, there are pauses in breathing, brief changes in heart rate, and changes in the skin's electric potential. There is even a recipe for triggering lucid dreaming. If you awake from a normal dream in the early morning, wake up fully but don't forget the dream. Read a bit or walk about, then lie down to sleep again. Imagine yourself asleep and dreaming, rehearsing the dream ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Hardball for Keeps Connecticut "Boat" Cairn "High"-tech Farming At Tiahuanaco Astronomy The Cosmological Atlantis Mysterious Bright Arcs May Be the Largest Objects in the Universe Too Many Short-period Comets Quantized Galaxy Redshifts The Fossil Record and the Quantization of Life! Biology Whales and Seafloor Pits Strange Patterns in Another Oceanic Habitat Lunar Magnetic Mollusc Monarchs Slighted -- sorry! Did We Learn to Swim Before We Learned to Walk? How Cancers Fight Chemotherapy The Melanic Moth Myth Chain of Crevicular Habitats? Feathered Flights of Fancy Geology Why Are Antarctic Meteorites Different? More on the Soviet Plume Events Geophysics Sympathetic Lightning Ball Lightning Burns A Rayed Circle on A Shed Wall Magnetic Precursors of Large Storms On the Trail of the Fifth Force Psychology Do You Hear What I Hear? Mind-bending the Velocity Vectors of Marine Algae ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Left-handers have larger interbrain connections The two halves of the human brain are connected by a bundle of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum. The corpus callosum is thought to help integrate the activities of the right and left brains which, for reasons unknown, seem to specialize in different kinds of mental operations. Studies of the corpus callosum reveal that it is about 11% larger in left-handers than in right-handers. In terms of interconnecting nerve fibers this comes to 25,000,000 more for the left-handers. Just what sort of information flows along these myriad pathways is not known, although we do know that left-handers have greater bihemispheric representation of cognitive functions; i.e ., the brain functions are not so specialized in each half of the brain. But why should left-handers and right-handers be different at all? Are they born with unequal corpus callosa? Or are these nerve highways equal are birth and atrophy in right-handers ? (Witelson, Sandra F.; "The Brain Connection: The Corpus Callosum is Larger in Left-Handers, " Science, 229:665, 1985. ) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Immense Complex of Structures Found in Peru Great Pyramid Entrance Tunnel Not Astronomically Aligned More Pyramid Caveats Astronomy A Large Quasar Inhomogeneity in the Sky Double-star System Defies Relativity Peace and Sunspots The Missing Sunspot Peak A Different Way of Looking At the Solar System Origin of the Moon Debated Biology Ri = Dugong; Doggone! Can Spores Survive in Interstellar Space? Fungus Manufactures Phony Blueberry Flowers Music in the Ear Guiding Cell Migration Remarkable Distribution of Hydrothermal Vent Animals Trees May Not Converse After All! Geology Feathers Fly Over Fossil 'Fraud' Sand Dunes 3 Kilometers Down The Night of the Polar Dinosaur Geophysics The Sausalito Hum Mysterious Hums: the Sequel Psychology Left-handers Have Larger Interbrain Connections Geomagnetic Activity and Paranormal Experiences Taking Food From Thought Logic & Mathematics The Fabric of Prime Number Distribution Chemistry & Physics Speculations From Gold ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The Lost City of Nan Madol Bubonic Plague As An Indicator of Diffusion? The Rabbit in the Moon: More Evidence of Diffusion? Astronomy The Martian Great Lakes Antarctic Meteorites Are Different Disparity Between Asteroids and Meteorites Biology The Gulper Eel and its Knotty Problem Bats May Have Invented Flight Twice (At Least!) Scant Ant Chromosomes Champ in 1985 Platypus Bill An Electrical Probe Polar Bear Coats Are Thermal Diodes Geology When Antarctica Was Green Wrong-way Primate Migration Eastern Quakes May Be Lubricated by Heavy Rainfalls The Exploding Lake Backtracking Along the Paluxy: Or is There A Deeper Mystery? Geophysics Electromagnetic Radiation From Stressed Rocks Some English Meteorological Anomalies Ozone Hole Over Antarctica Psychology Be Happy, Be Healthy: the Case for Psychoimmunology ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Romans in Rio? Nazca Figures Duplicated Astronomy Beautiful Objects, Beautiful Theories The Better, Bigger Big Bang The Foamy Cosmos Chiron: the Black Sheep of the Solar System Biology Memory in Food-hoarding Birds Evolution by Numbers Geology The Alaskan Jigsaw Puzzle Hope for Atlantis? Bones of Contention Land Animals: Earlier and Earlier Geophysics Ball Lightning with Bizarre Structure Psychology Different Personalities: Different Brainwaves ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Ancient Egyptians in Hawaii Sinister Development in Ancient Greece Man the Scavenger A Different Way of Looking At the Universe Astronomy A Quick Quasar Monster Star Lurks Nearby Halley's Comet is Winking At Us Galactic Radiation Belt? Biology Dolphins to the Rescue -- again! Gravity and Going Around in Ellipses Getting the Pouch Right Are Bluebloods More Often Type A? Mind Before Life Caenorhabditis Elegans The Chinese Wild Man Geology An Extraordinary Peat Formation Confusing Seismic Data From the Deep Continental Crust Geophysics Infrared Atmospheric Waves Burning Mass Falls in B.C . Psychology The Immune System As A Sensory Organ Parapsychology: A Lack-of-progress Report Chemistry & Physics Blooms in the Desert? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 17: Fall 1981 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Were the British Megaliths Built As Scientific Instruments? Astronomy Mysteries Around Uranus Saturn is Still Cooking Away Biology Was There Really A Big Bang? What Was, Is, and Shall Be Why Conserve Junk? Geology Submarine Canyons: A 50-year Perspective Shergottites and Nakhlites: Young and Mysterious Too Many Pages Missing Geophysics The Gravitational "constant" is Not! Bioluminescent Cartwheels and Whirlpools in the Arabian Sea Solar Cosmic Rays Stimulate Thunderstorms Psychology How NDEs Differ From OBEs ...
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... ever question it. However, two recent studies seem to show that some paternal mtDNA actually does get into eggs and recombines with maternal mtDNA. This unexpected invasion makes the mtDNA clock run more slowly. So, African Eve, if she ever existed, is probably twice as old as originally thought. (Day, Michael; "All about Eve...," New Scientist, p. 4, March 13, 1999.) Maybe There Were Two Eves! Not only has African Eve aged precipitously but there may have been a non-African Eve, too. J. Hey and E. Harris, at Rutgers, have presented data suggesting that the famous African Eve was the mother of only modern sub-Saharan Africans. Everyone else seems to have descended from an entirely different Eve. These data, if confirmed, demolish the African Eve theory and support the often-reviled multiregional theory of humans origins. (Pennisi, Elizabeth; "Genetic Study Shakes Up Out of Africa Theory," Science, 283:1828, 1999. Bower, B.; "DNA Data Yield New Human-Origins View," Science News, 155:181, 1999.) Genetic Clocks Are Fickle. mtDNA clocks have implied that modern birds and mammals were contemporaneous with dinosaurs, and that some animals evolved millions of years before their first fossils. For good reasons, evolutionists are becoming wary about these molecular clocks. It is fast becoming obvious that: "Clocks tick at different rates in different lineages and at different times. And new work on the biology of mitochondria ...
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... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Exceptional Human Experiences Surely everyone reading this has had at least one experience that seemed to transcend the orderly ebb and flow of daily life. It's just as easy to be skeptical about these experiences -- to shrug them off -- as it is to overvalue them. There exists a unique organization dedicated to exploring this neglected body of phenomena lurking at the edges of normal human perception and experience. It is called the Exceptional Human Experience Network (EHEN). S.V . Brown, Director of R&D for the EHEN, has written a paper describing the mission of the Network. With her permission, we reproduce the paper's abstract. "The Exceptional Human Experience Network has a different approach to anomalous, out-of-the-ordinary Exceptional Experiences (EEs). By taking the emphasis off proof, or artificially trying to "cause" or stage events in the laboratory, or passively collecting case reports, we are actively trying to understand what these types of experiences and the experiencers are telling us as a whole. Inspection of the data indicates that there is a distinctive, recognizable patterning or clustering of inner and outer events: triggers, concommitants, and aftereffects which are similar across experiencer reports from over 100 different types of EEs. Preliminary study shows that those individuals who begin to explore their EEs and question conventional answers may undergo a series of similar developmental, predictable, humanizing, and transformative stages of expanding conscious awareness, which we call the Exceptional Human Experience ...
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... Basically, it asserts that in some -- possibly many -- mutations, a useful response to an evolutionary challenge is "naturally" accompanied by useful responses to challenges that have not yet been posed to the life form in question. This prescience verges on the miraculous to the uninitiated, but mainstream biologists seem content to write the phenomenon off as merely good fortune -- like hitting two jackpots in a row on the same slot machine. A good example of preadaptation occurs when bacteria are cultured in the presence of an antibiotic. Within a few weeks, they have evolved a resistance to that particular antibiotic. This well-known phenomenon is easily explained by evolution. However, often the newly evolved (or "adapted") bacteria are also resistant to several other antibiotics that work by different mechanisms. All of the multiple gene changes needed for the several different defense mechanisms are controlled by a single site on the same chromosome. (Levy, Stuart B.; The Antibiotic Paradox , New York, 1992, p. 99. Cr. A. Mebane.) Comments. How can bacteria prepare defenses against antibiotics they have not been exposed to? Luck, prescience, or some unrecognized mechanism? In his Ever Since Darwin , S.J . Gould acknowledges that "preadaptation implies prescience although in actuality it means just the opposite! His explanation of "preadaptation is not easy to grasp. "In short, the principle of preadaptation simply asserts that a structure can change its function radically without altering its form as much. We can bridge the limbo of intermediate stages by ...
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... Aug 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The mystery of eugene island 330 Eugene Island is a submerged mountain in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast. The landscape of Eugene Island is riven with deep fissures and faults from which spew spontaneous belches of gas and oil. Up on the surface, a platform designated Eugene Island 330 began producing about 15,000 barrels of oil per day in the early 1970s. By 1989, the flow had dwindled to 4,000 barrels per day. Then, suddenly, production zoomed to 13,000 barrels. In addition, estimated reserves rocketed from 60 to 400 million barrels. Even more anomalous is the discovery that the geological age of today's oil is quite different from that recovered 10 years ago. What's going on under the Gulf of Mexico? It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the oil reservoir at Eugene Island is rapidly refilling itself from "some continuous source miles below the earth's surface." In support of this surmise, analysis of seismic records revealed a deep fault which "was gushing oil like a garden hose." The deep-seated oil source at Eugene Island strongly supports T. Gold's theory about The Deep Hot Biosphere . Gold holds: "that oil is actually a renewable, primordial syrup continually manufactured by the earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the ...
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... is emerging that precludes such a simple one-to-one mapping. Furthermore, the genome can exhibit considerable flexibility to adapt when the expression of a particular gene fails, and the interpretation of a mutant phenotype [life form] is also less trivial than it may seen. "Not only are behavioural phenotypes very sensitive to non-genetic influences," writes [R .] Greenspan, "but also the highly interconnected network of the nervous system sets up an additional layer of complexity between the gene and the realization of the phenotype." (Ref. 1) Many genes code for multiple variants of the same protein. And many proteins are modified by adding sugar molecules, which play a big role in determining where proteins go and what they do. What's more, different proteins can join together to carry out completely new functions. (Ref. 2) A group of French biologists, led by Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod showed that the gene's boundaries are fuzzier than had been thought and that genes are not restricted to chromosomes. Recently, biologists have found genes within genes, overlapping genes, and DNA sequences that specify one protein when read "forward" and another when read "in reverse." Muddling things further, the instructions encoded in the DNA do not always reach the ribosome as a literal translation. In a phenomenon known as RNA editing, an enzymatic highwayman intercepts the RNA message en route and alters it, so the resulting protein is not identical to that specified by the DNA. (Ref. 3) We can sum up ...
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... -to photograph dark bands. "They were clearly seen for 32 seconds before the second contact and a little fainter for 27 seconds after totality. They moved rapidly across the screen from E to W before totality and from NNE to SSW after 3rd contact. Slow motion studies of the video show occasional merging of the bands and at times they seem to move in opposite directions -- probably a stroboscopic effect." The widths of the bands varied from 2.36 to 6.63 centimeters. (Strach, Eric; "Shadow Bands Recorded at February 26 Eclipse," British Astro nomical Association, Journal, vol. 108, 1998. Comment. Theorists have long been challenged by these ghostly, fleeting shadows. Their widths change; their directions and speeds vary; they come in different colors; sometimes more than one set of bands appear; giant bands have been seen. All of these characteristics are difficult to account for in a single theory. Shadow bands sketch during the February 26, 1998, total solar eclipse. (Top) before totality (Bottom) After totality From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Our Untapped Talents Errol Kerr, an English lad of 3, has a photographic memory and can already count to 10 in five different languages. Even before he reached the age of 2, he could name every make of car he saw on the road. (Anonymous; "Boy Has Genius Figured Out at 3," London Times, March 1, 1999. Cr. A.C .A . Silk) Comment. Kerr is certainly precocious and in him we see the glimmerings of capabilities we may all have but cannot tap. Unlike so many "savants" and "calculating prodigies," Kerr is not deficient in "normal" human skills. He is just unusually smart. He has partially penetrated a sort of barrier that seems to prevent most of us from drawing from a reservoir of remarkable mental capabilities. In savants and calculating prodigies, this barrier is ruptured and these talents flow readily to the fore -- but usually at the cost of some "normal" talents. Two Australian scientists, A. Snyder and J. Mitchel, have studied the "savant syndrome" and have presented their findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (B266:587, 1999). The gist of their paper was reported by R. Highfield in the Chicago Sun-Times . "These savants are often autistic, a developmental disorder that leaves them with little ability to empathize with others. However, some possess ...
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... I suspect it was heightdependent. At this time the sun was high and shining from the south-southwest." J.O . Mattsson, Lund University, surmised that the black streaks in front of aircraft were shadows of the condensation trails behind the two planes. The shadows were cast forward ahead of the planes upon the hazy, though cloudless, atmosphere above the ocean. (Evans, Alun; "Condensation Trail Shadows," Weather, 53:371, 1998.) Comment. Since the sun was high in the sky, it is difficult to visualize how a the vapor-trail shadow could be cast directly ahead of the aircraft. Hummm! We suppose that the vapor trails acted like those sunset clouds that produce crepuscular rays. The geometry, though, is a bit different. Digitized sketch of contrail phenomenon. Apparently, the contrail's shadow was projected on the misty atmosphere ahead of the aircraft. From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... hard to understand. After all, we can easily produce a knee-jerk reaction by tapping our own knee. Why can't we tickle our own ribs? Perhaps because our brain controls the action and also cancels out signals to pull away from the tickle and laugh. It could be the unpredictability of someone else's tickling that makes it so effective. Yet, when the tickler tickles our shoulder rather than our ribs, nothing happens. Strange! Why would evolution have given humans highly specific ticklish areas that respond only to other people and, to boot, makes us laugh? What survival value is there in this? In the end, Harris has to admit that tickling may not be adaptive at all, but rather an almost-neutral side effect genetically linked to some different characteristic that is adaptive. Mother Nature's joke on us? (Harris, Christine R.; "The Mystery of Ticklish Laughter," American Scientist, 87:344, 1999.) From Science Frontiers #126, NOV-DEC 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... #44) Critics claimed that these "holes" were no more than instrumental errors. L.A . Frank and J.B . Sigwarth have investigated this possibility and have rejected it. (Frank, J.A ., and Sigwarth, J.B .; "Atmospheric Holes: Instrumental and Geophysical Effects," Journal of Geo physical Research, 104:115, 1999. Cr. P. Huyghe) Navy radar search used incorrect cross sections. A more recent attack on the icy comets came from S. Knowles et al. (SF#125) They claim that their search of the sky with the Naval Space Command Radar would surely have detected the icy comets if they exist. Frank and Sigwarth respond that Knowles et al used radar cross sections that are significantly different from those typical of icy comets. It is likely that the Navy radar would not have been able to detect the comets. (Frank, L.A ., and Sigwarth, J.B .; "Comment on 'A Search for Small Comets with the Naval Space Command Radar' by S. Knowles et al," Journal of Geophysical Research, 104:22,605, no. A10. Cr. P. Huyghe.) Knowles et al replied that the cross sections were O.K . and their conclusion stands! Too much water and carbon. Strong, indirect evidence for the steady influx of icy comets comes from the geologists. They find that on and near the surface of the earth there is much more water and carbon than can be ascribed to ...
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... high esteem that cosmologists commonly accord it." We have neither the space nor the expertise to lay out before you the details of the new Burbidge-Hoyle-Narlikar cosmology. Suffice that it involves black holes residing in galactic centers performing as "minicreation" centers, thereby replacing the one-time Big Bang creation event. The aspect of the new theory that amazes the most is the acceptance of the Arp heresy: that some quasars possess intrinsic red shifts not associated with the expanding universe. They write: "Nonetheless, observations over many years have accumulated good statistical evidence that many high-redshift quasars are physically associated with galaxies with very much smaller redshifts." So, at least some prominent scientists accept Arp's conclusions. (Burbidge, Geoffry, et al; "A Different Approach to Cosmology," Physics Today, 52:38, April 1999.) Comment. "Minicreation events"? Creation is creation, whether the events are big or small! From Science Frontiers #124, JUL-AUG 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... S . Olympic Hockey Team, a group of talented amateurs who stunned the world by winning the gold medal against the vastly more talented and experienced, virtually professional Russian and Finnish teams. These occurrences, although unusual, are much more frequent in American business than is commonly suspected."* Assuming that FGE is a real phenomenon, can it be measured objectively? Yes, says W.D . Rowe, and he tells how it has been done. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research group has developed a random number generator that produces an unbiased series of bits such that a large sample will average 50% 1s and 50% 0s. PEAR normally uses this machine in psychokinesis experiments in which an individual mentally attempts to skew the statistically expected 50:50 outcome. But that's a different story. Here, the thought is that the PEAR random number generator is also a "consciousness detector." Since FGE seems to involve a group's collective consciousness, perhaps this random number generator will respond with a skewed train of 1s and 0s -- even when the group in unaware of its presence. Rowe reports that eleven group experiments have been carried out in which FGE seemed to be present according to participants. During these periods of group resonance, often hours long, the random number generator produced results that were two, sometime three standard deviations from the mean. Rowe concluded that FGE is a real and robust phenomenon that can be measured. It is "an extra sense above the five common senses." (Rowe, William D.; "Physical Measurement of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Are We Really Robots?We imagine ourselves to be different from inorganic nature -- flesh and blood -- certainly not hardware. But the real truth may lie beyond our ken. But can we really prove that we are not machines? G. Johnson has a few words to say on this subject in his book Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order. "Thinking in terms of bits has allowed us to develop the field of computer science, in which we learn how to represent the world with patterns of information. So successful are our endeavors that some physicists and computer scientists believe that perhaps information is not a human invention but something as real, as physical, as matter and energy. And now a handful of researchers have come to believe that information may be the most real of all. Simulated creatures would have no way of knowing they are simulations, the argument goes. And, for that matter, how do we know that we are not simulations ourselves, running on a computer in some other universe? "Nature, it seems, has honed us into informavores so voracious that some can persuade themselves that there is nothing but information." (As quoted in: Science, 273:443, 1996) Comment. If we really are simulations, that "computer in some other universe" has taken great pains to also simulate millions of other species and their fossil ...
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... 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 Sports, Monsters, Terata BHA14 Two Separate Populations of Pygmies BHA15 Birth Weight Varies with Month of Birth BHA16 Human Sexual Dimorphism BHA17 Sex-Ratio Variations BHA18 Gradations between Male and Female BHA19 The Sacral Spot BHA20 Pigmentation Peculiarity on Upper Arms BHA21 Spotted or Piebald People BHA22 Visible Radiation Emitted by the Human Body BHA23 Unidentified, Problematical Radiation Emitted by the Human Body BHA24 The Supposed Human Aura BHA25 Kirlian Photography of the Postulated Human Aura BHA26 Excessively Hairy Humans BHA27 Sudden Loss of Hair and (Sometimes) Regrowth BHA28 Baldness among Musicians BHA29 Human Hairlessness BHA30 Curious Human Hair Patterns BHA31 Sudden Blanching of the Hair BHA32 Sudden Color Changes in Human Hair BHA33 Hair Color Correlated with Eminence BHA34 Hair Color Correlated with Strength and Vitality BHA35 Remarkable Persistence of Hair Growth after Death BHA36 ...
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... ACB13 Cometary Perturbations Suggestive of Planet X ACB14 Rapid Attrition of the Oort Cloud by Molecular Clouds ACB15 Dynamical Improbability of the Oort Cloud ACO OBSERVATIONAL ANOMALIES OF COMETS ACO1 Two-Dimensional Comet Tails ACO2 Cometary Activity Far from Solar Influence ACO3 Comets without Nuclei ACO4 Absence of Meteorites from Comet-Related Showers ACO5 Contraction of Cometary Comas as the Sun is Approached ACO6 Unexplained Abundance of Short-Period Comets ACO7 Persistence of Long-Period Comets Despite Attrition from Molecular Clouds ACO8 Seriality of Cometary Apparitions ACO9 Multiple Tails and Antitails ACO10 Ejection of Spherical Halos ACO11 Correlation of Terrestrial Auroras and the Phenomena of Distant Comets ACO12 Blinking Comets ACO13 The Anomalous Disappearance of Comets ACO14 Anomalous Brightening of Short-Period Comets ACO15 Comet Reflectivities Are Similar to Those of Asteroids ACO16 Some Cometary Light Curves Resemble Those of Asteroids ACO17 New Comets Exhibit Different Brightening Behavior Than Old Comets ACO18 Anomalous Splitting of Comets ACO19 Tail-Wagging Comets ACO20 Cometary Outbursts ACO21 Comet Attrition Rates Imply Youth ACO22 No Ices in Cometary Reflection Spectra ACO23 The Blackness of Cometary Nuclei ACX OCCULTATIONS BY COMETS ACX1 Cometary Tails: Anomalous Occultations of Radio Stars AE ENIGMATIC OBJECTS AEO BRIGHT ENIGMATIC OBJECTS AEO1 Bright Objects near the Sun AEO2 Starlike Objects with Anomalous Motions AEO3 Unexplained Nebulous Objects AEX UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS TRANSITING THE SUN, MOON, AND PLANETS AEX1 Objects Crossing the Face of the Sun AEX2 Objects Crossing the Moon's Disk AEX3 Unidentified Objects Transiting Jupiter AG THE EARTH AGB ANOMALIES IN THE EARTH'S ROTATION AGB1 Variations in Latitude AGL EARTH-SATELLITE PHENOMENA AGL1 Slow Changes in Satellite Inclination AGL2 Sudden Perturbations of Orbital Elements AGL3 Slow, Unexplained Descent of Satellites AGL4 Direct Visual Observations of ...
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... Ice Caps... ETM10 Ice-Cored Mounds in the Arctic ETM11 Blister-Like Structures ETM12 Curious Columnar Structures ETM13 Andes Ice Islands ETM14 Natural Beach Pyramids ETP PATTERNED GROUND... ETP1 Patterned-Ground Anomalies ETP2 Rock Cities and Block Fields ETP3 Giant Expansion and Contraction Polygons ETR ANOMALOUS RIDGES, MEGARIPPLES, ESKERS ETR1 Ridges and Ripples in Glaciated Regions ETR2 Esker Anomalies ETR3 Megaripples ETR4 Moving, Gravity-Created Ripples in Rock ETR5 Unusual Natural Dams ETR6 Lake Walls and Ramparts ETR7 Buried Ridges within Continental Margins ETR8 Desert Ridges of Unknown Origin ETS CREVICULAR CRUSTAL STRUCTURE ETS1 Biological Evidence for Wide spread Crevicular Structure ETS2 Fluid-Filled Crevicular Structure at Great Depths ETS3 Seismic Evidence for Deep Crevicular Structure ETV VALLEYS, CHANNELS, FURROWS ETV1 Submarine Canyon Anomalies ETV2 Sea-Floor Channels ETV3 Wind Gaps ETV4 Height Differences of Opposite River Banks ETV5 The Channelled Scablands ETV6 Apparently Youthful Rivers ETV7 Grand-Canyon Anomalies ETV8 Flume-Like Furrows on Continental Slopes ETV9 Labyrinthine Topography ETV10 Uneroded, Elevated Plains of Great Age ETV11 Incised Meanders EZ THE GEOMAGNETIC FIELD AND PALEOMAGNETISM EZC MINOR PERTURBATIONS OF THE GEOMAGNETIC FIELD [GEZ] EZC1 Local Compass Anomalies EZC2 Magnetized Geological Features EZC3 Anomalies of Oceanic Magnetic Anomalies EZC4 Geographically-Specific Geomagnetic Anomalies EZC5 Earth-Current Anomalies EZF CONFIGURATION ANOMALIES AND SECULAR VARIATIONS OF THE GEOMAGNETIC FIELD EZF1 Steady-State-Field Anomalies EZF2 Secular-Variation Anomalies EZF3 Problems of Geomagnetic-Field Generation EZP PALEOMAGNETISM EZP1 Problems in Measuring and Interpreting Paleomagnetism EZP2 Anomalous Excursions and Reversals EZP3 Anomalies Implied by Paleopoles EZP4 Inconsistencies in Paleomagnetic Measurements EZP5 Correlations of Polarity Reversals with Other Phenomena Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, ...
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... , and Elsewhere Whites in the Maldives Beothucks: Norse in Newfoundland? White Inca Aristocracy Toltecs: Carthaginian Origin? Basque Origin Sea Peoples Origin Berbers with Blond Hair, Blue Eyes White Pygmies in Paraguay Guanche Origin Blacks in America [MGT, Olmec Stone Heads] Titans: Who Were They? MAC CUSTOMS, GAMES Similarity of Jewish and Zulu Customs Asian Customs in Central and North America Polynesia (Maori) Customs in South and Central America Neanderthal Burials Money-Cowrie in New World Chinese Customs of the Maya Aztec Backgammon Africans in South America Board-Game diffusion MAD BIOCHEMISTRY Maori Blood-Group Anomalies Blood Types and Diffusion: Global Anomalies Zuni Blood-Type Enigma DNA: Out-of-Africa Theory DNA and New World Settlement Polynesian DNA in New World DNA and Human-Diffusion Anomalies Basque DNA Differences Polynesia/Easter Island Biochemical Anomalies Japanese DNA in South America African DNA in China DNA and Polynesian Origins MAF FOSSILS, MUMMIES, CORPSES American Extinction of Megafauna Denied Grooving of Teeth Anomalously Ancient Fossils: Pliocene, Holocene, Miocene, etc. [BHE] Mummy Anomalies Teeth and Implications for the Settlement of Americas Calaveras Skull Controversy Minnesota Man/Loess Man/ Nebraska Man/Los Angeles Man/Vero Beach Man, etc. Caucasian Mummies in China Vast Ancient Cemeteries Light-Skinned Mummies in New Guinea Ice Man Tattoos Humerus (Olecranon) Perforation Neanderthal Fossils in the New World? Wyoming Mystery Mummy Evidence of Ancient Cannibalism Kennewick Man and Similar Recent Discoveries Rats in New Zealand That Suggest Pre-Maori Occupants Teeth and Ainu Origin Controversial Guadeloupe Skeleton Fossils Supporting the Multiregional Theory Ancient Horse-Cribbing Polynesian ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Genetic Disconnect Bandings on chromosome 9 from humans (H ), chimpanzees (C ), gorillas (G ), orang-utans (O ) If human and chimpanzee nuclear DNAs differ by only 1.5 %, why are the two species so profoundly different in anatomy and behavior? The obvious external differences are body hair, the use of language, the method of locomotion, and of course culture. Less well known is the fact that humans are more susceptible to diseases like as cancer and AIDS. Apparently, superficial comparisons of DNAs slough over genetic details that result in major differences in the living animals. Some of the genetic differences between humans and chimps seem to belie that miniscule 1.5 % difference everyone bandies about. To illustrate, humans have only 46 chromosomes, while the great apes all have 48. The 1.5 % figure doesn't hint at this significant difference. Next, take a look at chromosome #9 in humans and the great apes. Chromosome bandings are different enough to raise further suspicions about the 1.5 % figure. (Gibbons, Ann; "Which of Our Genes Make Us Human?" Science, 281:1432, 1998.) Comments. It is easy to see how gross comparisons of DNA might miss important details. The popular "DNA-hybridization" method simply mixes together strands of DNA from the two species being compared. These are allowed ...
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... detected broad, parallel stripes with alternating magnetic polarity. These stripes across the planet's southern highlands are a great surprise to planetologists because they superficially resemble the magnetic stripes that parallel the rifts along the floors of the earth's oceans where new crust is forming. The obvious implication is that Mars once possessed drifting continents and a geomagnetic dynamo that occasionally reversed its polarity -- just as has supposedly happened and is still happening on earth. Prior to this discovery, Mars was deemed too small to have possessed a heat-driven geodynamo, and there is no obvious surface evidence of drifting continents. Easy as it is to conclude that Martian continents once sailed ponderously cross the planet's surface, the scientific jury is still out. First of all, the Martian magnetic stripes are substantially different from earth's in shape, pattern, strength, and, above all, size. The Martian stripes are about 200 kilometers wide and 2,000 long -- much larger than earth's . Their magnetic field strength is more than ten times that of the terrestrial stripes. Whatever magnetic phenomena occurred on Mars some 4 billion years ago must have been quite different from what happened on earth 200 million years ago. Yet, no other reasonable explanation has been found for the Martian magnetic stripes. (Acuna, M.H ., et al; "Global Distribution of Crustal Magnetization Discovered by the Mars Global Surveyor MAG/ER Experiment," Science, 284:790, 1999. Cowen, Ron; "Plate Tectonics...on Mars," Science News ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Now We Know Why!Circa 1950, physicist E. Fermi observed that our galaxy measures about 100,000 light years across, and that a spacefaring race could cross it in only 100 million years, even if their starships poked along at only 1/1 ,000 the speed of light. Since our galaxy is about 10 billion years old, the very reasonable question is: If other intelligences (ETs) exist in our galaxy, why haven't they found us by now? Actually, many ETs from many different cultures should be stopping by frequently. J. Annis, an astrophysicist at Fermilab, believes he can explain the apparent dearth of ETs. The problem is gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). They are so powerful that they sterilize those galaxies in which they occur. Presently, GRBs occur in each galaxy about once every 100 million years, but theory suggests that they were much more frequent in the past. As a consequence, by the time intelligent life evolves anywhere and figures out how to build spaceships, they are zapped by a GRB. Perhaps some do begin exploration of their galaxy, but they don't get very far. (Matthews, Robert; "Sorry, We'll Be Late," New Scientist, p. 16, January 23, 1999.) Comment. Any reader of science fiction can come up with other explanations: (1 ) ETs have been ...
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... . 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Traitors Within One of the insidious talents of cancers is their ability to coax neighboring, normal tissue to do their bidding. What cancer cells need most, if they are to grow, is sustenance, as normally provided by blood vessels. Obligingly, even though it could lead to their own demise, the tissues surrounding the cancer will grow new blood vessels to supply the killer in their midst. It has now been discovered that some particularly aggressive cancers, some melanomas, for example, can grow without the help of nearby subverted tissue. They can manufacture their own blood vessels which carry nourishment to malignant cells deep in the cancers. These self-made blood vessels differ from normal vessels in their lack of endothelial cells. They are also organized in distinctive patterns of loops around clusters of cancer cells. Normal blood vessels tend to be arranged more randomly Although they originate in specialized tissues, such as the prostate gland, the cells in aggressive cancers become unspecialized. In a sense, they revert to embryonic cells that can then become any kind of cell, such as those in blood vessels. Cancer cells are atavistic -- throwbacks to the womb. (Barinaga, Marcia; "New Type of Blood Vessel Found in Tumors," Science, 285: 1475, 1999. Spinney, Laura; "Organized Killers," New Scientist, p. 11, September 11, 1999.) Comment. It's all very insidious -- like some ...
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... it seems, had colonized the Kurils in bygone days. The implications are far-reaching, for the Ainu were once a seafaring people with Caucasian physiological characteristics. It is only a couple hundred miles from the Kurils to the Aleutians and a foothold on North America. The speculation is that the Ainu could well have bypassed the vaunted Bering Land Bridge 10,000 years ago and continued pushing south along the North American coast. (Holden, Constance; "Possible Ainu Site Creates Buzz," Science, 284:583, 1999.) Comment. Continuing our tour south along American coast, we encounter the remains of Kennewick Man in Washington State with his Caucasian features. (SF#109) Could he have been a far-wandering Ainu? The Ainu of northern Japan are strikingly different from most Japanese. How far did this ancient seafaring race advance around the Pacific Rim? (Adapted from G. Thompson's American Discovery) From Science Frontiers #124, JUL-AUG 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... present our food. Water and air, too, bring more combatants into the fray. Our resident bacteria continually fend off the invaders or accommodate them. Some are pathogenic and must be killed; others are useful in many ways, as in digestion. Who's really in charge in our bodies: the 90 trillion bacteria or the 10 trillion cells we call our own? Probably, neither! (Hamilton, Garry; "Insider Trading," New Scientist, p. 42, June 26, 1999.) Comment. We hear a lot about "selfish" genes and "selfish" DNA, and that we humans exist only to further the goals of DNA -- whatever they might be. But are not all these living bacteria and nonliving viruses also "selfish" at different levels of complexity? Humans may be at the top of the food chain, but are we really in charge? From Science Frontiers #125, SEP-OCT 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hand-reading More Useful Than Palm-reading After learning that mutations in a single gene in mice affected not only the development of their digits but also their ovaries and testes, J. Manning and his colleagues decided to see if there is a link between human hand shape and fertility. There is! Men with hands that are not precise mirror images of each other tend to produce fewer sperm. Manning asserts, "The more asymmetry, the fewer sperm." Easier to test yourself are the relative lengths of your ring and index fingers. Men tend to have ring fingers that are longer than their index fingers. The greater this difference in males, the higher their levels of testosterone, a hormone associated with fertility. In women, the same fingers are usually about equal in length. However, in contrast to males, larger index fingers are correlated with the increased presence of fertility hormones, such as estrogen and lutenizing hormones. (Motluk, Alison; "Fertility Index," New Scientist, p. 10, August 22, 1998.) A virile male's hand? From Science Frontiers #124, JUL-AUG 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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