279 results found.
... were made a few seconds apart. Even so, one cannot be certain that the first caused the second. For the first observation, there were two witnesses. Both saw lightning strike a low-flying USAF jet. Mrs. E. Shobli wrote the following account: "Two forks of lightning came from the clouds in front of the plane, converged on it and gripped it. The tail end of the plane became illuminated -- vapours came from its end and formed into a bright, dense mass. I thought I was witnessing damage to the plane. The light continued to separate from the plane, downwards like a flare. It appeared as yellow, lit-up gases. These seemed to take shape, becoming brighter and denser, and then move downwards in the same direction as the plane (south). About two seconds after disappearing behind the roof there was an ear-splitting explosion. To my relief the plane reappeared unscathed." At the time of the lightning strikes, the jet was passing over a factory, where a fork-lift driver saw a dazzling blue-white ball bounce along the factory roof and enter the building. Many workers inside were treated to an amazing pyrotechnic display as the ball made its way through the building. "It entered the factory through an upand-over door and was seen as a 'pulsating light' or a 'fiery sphere the size of a tennis ball'. Once inside the building it moved very rapidly for two seconds, following the course of the overhead girders without touching them and lighting up ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Organ Music Your doctor is understandably concerned if he finds your heartbeat is irregular. But it turns out that the healthy heart does not beat steadily and precisely like a metronome. In fact, the intervals between normal heartbeats vary in a curious fashion: in a simple, direct way, they can be converted to musical notes. When these notes (derived from heartbeat intervals) are heard, the sound is pleasant and intriguing to the ear -- almost music -- and certainly far from being random noise. In fact, a new CD entitled: Heartsongs: Musical Mappings of the Heartbeat , by Z. Davis, records the "music" derived from the digital tape recordings of the heartbeats of 15 people. Recording venue: Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Hospital! This whole business raises some "interesting" speculations for R.M . May. "We could equally have ended up with boring sameness, or even dissonant jangle. The authors speculate that musical composition may involve, to some degree, 'the recreation by the mind of the body's own naturally complex rhythms and frequencies. Perhaps what the ear and the brain perceive as pleasing or interesting are variations in pitch that resonate with or replicate the body's own complex (fractal) variability and scaling.'" (May, Robert M.; "Now That's What You Call Chamber Music," Nature, 381:659 ...
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... : Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Blue Flash Green flashes occasionally appear when the sun (or moon or Venus or Jupiter) sink below the horizon. Blue flashes are much rarer but still well-recognized phenomena. An example of the latter was observed in 1995 on the Indian Ocean. August 11, 1995, Bay of Bengal. Aboard the m.v . Repulse Bay enroute Jeddah to Port Klang. "Prior to sunset the vessel was proceeding due east across the Bay of Bengal and it was quite apparent that the sun was still very bright and had not taken on its usual darkorange or red appearance; even with half its diameter above the horizon, the sun was much too bright to view directly. As the last segment of the sun dipped below the horizon, a blue 'horn' formed at each end of it, as shown in sketch (a ), and these then closed up to form a bright-blue arc, as shown in sketch (b ). " (Leslie, A.J .; "Blue Flash," Marine Observer, 66:115, 1996) Comment. The blue flash is a shorter-wavelength version of the green flash. The basic phenomenon is explained in terms of dispersion of the sun's spectrum by the atmosphere near the horizon. Even so, many enigmas remain about these low-sun phenomena. There have been observed: multiple flashes, flashes preceding sunset, complex flash structures, and the apparent psychological origin ...
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... the shore of the Columbia River. (Ref. 1) "From head to toe, the bones were largely intact. The skeleton was that of a man, middle-aged at death, with Caucasian features, judging by skull measurements. Imbedded in the pelvis was a spearhead made of rock." Chatters initially thought he had merely a "pioneer" who had met an untimely death in the Wild West! "The real stunner came last month [June 1996], after bone samples were sent to the University of California at Riverside for radiocarbon dating. The conclusion: the skeleton of the 'pioneer' is 9,300 years old." (Ref. 2) Actually, the skeleton may well be that of a "pioneer" but one who came from the direction of the setting sun instead of the rising sun. Of course, it is perfectly all right for Asians to have crossed the Bering Strait into North America over 9,000 years ago, but a Caucasian raises scientific and emotional problems. "If Kennewick Man were actually Caucasian, it would be a startling discovery. So far, all of the oldest North American skeletons have been of Asian descent, although features on a few skulls have been controversially interpreted as Caucasoid. Another possibility is that the first Americans -- and their Asian ancestors -- had features that were Caucasoid. The real test of these theories would be DNA, which can pinpoint which modern populations are most closely related to the skeleton and so help identify the ancestors of early Americans and perhaps give clues to their migration ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Kinky Sex Among The Invertebrates We suspect that the following two items may embarrass some, but they are too weird and amusing to ignore. Love's arrow. Or, rather, love's giant hypodermic needle. Cupid's arrows are rather benign compared with those of some squid. Some small squid will use their sharp beaks or tentacle hooks to rip open the skin of females. They then insert spermatophores with their penises. In the giant squid, however, the male's penis is formidable, muscular, and almost a meter long. It is powerful enough to insert spermatophores directly under the skin of the females. The males are not always accurate, for males themselves are sometimes impregnated in this manner during the squids' deep-sea orgies. (Norman, Mark D., and Lu, C.C .; "Sex in Giant Squid," Nature, 389:683, 1997.) The free-style penis. In the octopus and many cephalopods, the males have a special tentacle with which they insert their spermatophores under the mantle of the female. The tentacle is then retracted for future use. The male paper nautilus is more profligate with its tentacles. The paper nautilus is cephalopod which, like its cousin, the chambered nautilus, "sails the unshadowed main."* When the male detects a receptive female, he avoids intimacy. It's sex at a distance ...
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... For example, our atmosphere's 21% oxygen, a highly reactive gas, is many orders of magnitude higher than one would expect on a lifeless planet. Furthermore, life-friendly conditions have been maintained for billions of years despite large changes in the sun's output and the traumas of asteroid impacts. T.M . Lenton, writing in Nature, asks a salient question: How has planetary self-regulation (Gaia) been established and maintained by evolution and natural selection which operate on the level of individuals? In other words, evolution tells us that organisms should evolve so as to leave the most progeny not so as to regulate the atmosphere. Lenton answers that there must be feedback loops from the planetary environment that steer the evolution of individuals in the "proper" direction. Lenton goes on to explore some of these many feedback mechanisms; one obscure loop involves the production of dimethyl sulfide by marine phytoplankton. Truly, it is a tangled bank! All of the feedback loops imply that the evolution of life forms is constrained (or dictated) by the need to keep the planet livable and not to simply leave the most progeny, but rather the progeny that will best serve Gaia! (Lenton, Timothy M.; "Gaia and Natural Selection," Nature, 394:439, 1998.) Comments. The obvious implication is that all life forms, including humans, are parts of a planet-sized super-superorganism. This leads to the oft-stated and possibly true suspicion that, if a species endangers Gaia by creating ozone holes ...
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... selection. (Refs. 1 and 2) But G.A . Wray and colleagues seem to have rescued Darwinism. They have analyzed the DNA sequences of seven genes found in living animals. Assuming that these genes mutate at constant rates and working backwards in time, they calculate that animal diversification (i .e ., when chordates diverged from invertebrates) actually began about 1 billion years ago, rather than about 545 million years ago. This expansion of the time frame gives accepted evolutionary processes much more time to innovate and create all those new body plans. The evolutionists are pleased. The paleontologists, however, are in a quandry. They see nothing -- or very little -- in the Precambrian fossil record that substantiates the claim of Wray at al. Thus, molecular biology directly contradicts the findings of paleontology. Not to worry say supporters of the new and much more comfortable scenario: The Precambrian animals were so soft and "squishy" that they did not fossilize well. (Ref. 3) Comment. The molecular biologists are a bit arrogant in their assertions. They seem to assume that because they can quantify molecular divergences; that is, fill their journal contributions with numbers; that their data is more sound than fossiliferous strata. But their crucial assumption of constant DNA divergence in time may be their undoing. References Ref. 1. Anonymous; "Deflating the Biological Big Bang," Science News, 150: 335, 1996. Ref. 2. Perlman, David; "Origin of Animals -- 1.2 Billion Years Ago," San ...
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... exist in forms that verge on the unbelievable. You can even construct large magic squares from smaller magic squares. Nevertheless, the fact that alphamagic squares exist in large numbers is unexpected. Alphamagic squares come in pairs. The first member of the pair consists of a magic square in which the numbers are spelled out letterwise, as in this example: five twenty-two eighteen twenty-eight fifteen two twelve eight twenty-five The numbers add up to 45 in all rows, columns, and diagonals. The square is "magic" in words. The second member of the pair is formed by counting the number of letters in each word of the first square, thus: 4 9 8 11 7 3 6 5 10 This square is also magic, adding up to 21 in all directions! Just a fluke, you say? Not so. You can even construct alphamagic squares in different languages. In his column in Scientific American, I. Stewart provides examples in French, German, Welsh, and even Swahili! In German, there are no less than 221 alphamagic squares using numbers under 100. (Stewart, Ian; "Alphamagic Squares," Scientific American, 276:106, January 1997.) Comment. The "deep meaning" of alphamagic squares is about the same as that associated with the existence of your Social Security Number in the decimal expansion of pi! From Science Frontiers #110, MAR-APR 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ; "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 -- and nutritious. Fruitflies smaller than a tomato seed pro-duce sperm almost 6 centimeters (2 .3 inches) long. These can be seen coiled up in the tiny fertilized eggs. Why so long? Perhaps they carry nourishment for the developing embryo. (Boyce, Nell; "Monster Sperm," New Scientist, p. 40, April 11, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #118, JUL-AUG 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... major contributor to these "carbon burps" may be decomposing methane hydrate. Until recently, climatologists have questioned the sizes of gas-hydrate deposits, but cores extracted from the Blake Ridge off the Carolina coast confirm the immense amounts of gases precariously locked up in sea-floor sediments. The stratum of gas hydrates in the Blake Ridge alone covers 26,000 square kilometers -- enough gas is there to supply the U.S . for 107 years. In biological terms the Blake Ridge's carbon is equal to 7% of the carbon locked up in all terrestrial biota -- animals, trees, grasses, etc. And the Blake Ridge gas hydrates represent a miniscule fraction of the planet's frozen gas hydrates. (Dickens, Gerald R., et al; "Direct Measurement of In Situ Methane Quantities in a Large Gas-Hydrate Reservoir," Nature, 385:426, 1997. Also: MacDonald, Ian R.; "Bottom Line for Hydrocarbons," Nature, 385:389, 1997.) Comment. Methane is well-known as a "greenhouse gas." If really large "burps" were released, climatic changes would probably ensue. Unfortunately, gashydrates are rather unstable. What would happen if a large asteroid slammed into the Blake Ridge? Huge quantities of methane would disgorge into the earth's atmosphere. The climate changes might be disastrous for fauna (like the dinosaurs!) and flora. The heavily shaded area of the Blake Ridge (area = 26,000 km2) contains gas-hydrates and free gas ...
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... all features "derived" during evolutionary history. A look at a photograph of a Barbie doll, which accompanied the article, proves that Barbie epitomizes these favored characteristics. Apparently, human males have been selecting their mates for these traits. The fossil record indicates this Barbie trend over millions of years. In effect, humans are selectively breeding themselves with Barbie as a goal for women. Interestingly, dolls with more of the primitive traits have never been able to compete with Barbie in the marketplace. (Magro, Albert M.; "Why Barbie is Perceived as Beautiful," Perceptual and Motor Skills , 85:363, 1997.) Comments. The article did not mention bosoms or buttocks. Nor were males considered. It follows, though, that men must be evolving in the direction of Ken, Barbie's well-known boy friend. From Science Frontiers #118, JUL-AUG 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the chasm separating archeologists on the date of human occupation of the New World as well as internecine politics in archeology. (Ref. 2) Guidon et al flung two serious charges at the authors of the first Antiquity paper: (1 ) They had their facts all wrong; and (2 ) Their objectivity was distorted by their loyalty to the aforestated paradigm. Not withholding any punches, N. Guidon and A.-M . Pessis entitled their opening broadside: "Falsehood or Untruth"! They wrote: "The article by Meltzer et al (1994) is based on partial data and false information (highlighted below). Its battery of questions takes us by surprise; none of the three colleagues came up with these questions during the 1993 meeting -- mounted precisely to generate direct dialogue on the peopling of the America. We disagree with their statement, 'the comments on Pedra Furada are not offered lightly' (p . 696). The commentaries are worthless because they are based on partial and incorrect knowledge. "We believe that the initial intention of the authors was different; they got carried away into an exercise in academic style, from a fragile scientific base of fragmentary data and with a skepticism born of a subjective conviction." (Ref. 2) In the world of science, these are serious charges. Guidon and Pessis go on to dismiss each complaint made by Meltzer et al in Ref. 1. As for the "geofact" hypothesis, Guidon and Pessis point to two of the illustrations used by Meltzer et al, remarking: " ...
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... of cowbirds, 20 finches, and South America's Blackheaded Duck have adopted it. Brood parasitism fascinates ornithologists because it involves war between the parasites and their hosts. Since host species may eject parasite eggs or fail to nurture parasite chicks, brood parasites have evolved mimicry as a powerful weapon in these battles. Mimicked are host eggs, host nestlings, and host vocalizations. But the most insidious weapons of all involve the outright murder of host chicks. To this end, parasite chicks have evolved some special weapons and behaviors. Some cuckoo chicks evict host eggs or chicks by squirming under them and positioning them in a specially configured hollow on their backs. Then, pushing upward and outward to the rim of the nest, they dump their cargo over the edge. Other brood parasites are more direct and bloodthirsty. "Nestling African honeyguides have bill hooks to stab and kill their nestmates and the brood parasitic American striped cuckoos have independently evolved hooks and pincers to kill." (Payne, Robert B.; "Brood Parasitism in Birds: Strangers in the Nest," BioScience, 48:377, 1998.) Comment. The hollow in the cuckoo's back and the deadly hook on the honeyguide bill disappear once their grisly work is done. Both strategies require bizarre, coordinated innovations in both weapons and behavior. These could, in principle at least, be the work of random mutation and natural selection -- but were they? Is there something we are missing in our theories? Euroasian cuckoo chicks maneuver under host eggs and chicks and dump them over the edge of ...
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... Wins, Einstein Loses in Photon Test," Science, 277:481, 1997. Ref. 2. Buchanan, Mark; "Light's Spooky Connections Set Distance Record," New Scientist, p. 16, June 28, 1997. Ref. 3. Browne, Malcolm W.; "Far Apart, 2 Particles Respond Faster Than Light," New York Times, July 22, 1997. Cr. M. Colpitts.) Comments. "Spookiness" is in the mind of the percipient. We don't usually think of gravity as spooky, but just what does draw two masses together? All action-ata-distance forces are spooky. Everybody is into "codes" these days, as if Nature herself (or God) is not speaking out directly and plainly. We have, for example: The Message of the Sphinx (G . Hancock and R. Bauval); The Bible Code (M . Drosin); and The Biotic Message ( W.J . ReMine). From Science Frontiers #114, NOV-DEC 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... butterflies, however, are mere insects, with tiny brains (navigation-data processors) and not much in the way of the environment sensors and internal clocks required for long-distance migration. Yet, some of these colorful insects manage to flutter up to 4,000 kilometers from the eastern U.S . and Canada to their wintering grounds in Mexico. How do they do this? S.M . Perez et al have now shown that monarch butterflies are equipped with a sun compass; that is, they chart their courses by noting the sun's changing azimuth. This feat requires not only the measurement of solar azimuth but also reference to an internal clock. Humans cannot do this without artificial instruments. Furthermore, even on cloudy days, migrating monarchs fly in the proper direction (generally south-southwest). Apparently, they also have evolved a backup navigation system, perhaps a geomagnetic compass. (Perez, Sandra M., et al' "A Sun Compass in Monarch Butterflies," Nature, 387:29, 1997.) Comment. Somewhere in the tiny bodies of the monarchs are packed sun-azimuth sensors, internal clocks, magnetic-field sensors, and a nervous system that converts the incoming data into signals to the wings. Their genomes must also include map information to pass on to their progeny. From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... to AIDS if inherited from both parents. People carrying the CCR5-delta 32 mutation lack the receptors to which the AIDS virus must attach itself if it is to infect the person. What has all this to do with the Black Death? "Although the origin of the mutation is obscure, it appears to have suddenly become relatively common among white Europeans about 700 years ago. That increase suggests that something must have occurred about that time to greatly favor the survival of people carrying the mutation." What biological catastrophe decimated Europe 700 years ago? The Black Death. One-quarter to one-third of the Europeans succumbed between 1347 and 1350. The Black Death strongly modified the European gene pool, increasing the frequency of CCR5-delta 32. This mutation may not have had any direct effect on the plague itself. It may just be a quirk of fate that the survivors of the Black Death had a higher frequency of the CCR5-delta 32 mutation, and it is doubly quirky that the mutation confers a resistance to AIDS, which is a recent human affliction. About 10% of whites of European origin now carry the CCR5-delta 32 mutation. The incidence is only 2% in central Asia. The mutation is completely absent among East Asians, Africans, and American Indians. (Brown, David; "AIDS Resistance Might Be a Legacy of Plague Survival," Dallas Morning News, May 18, 1998. Cr. D. Phelps) Comment. This is all very interesting but also totally circumstantial. From Science Frontiers #119, SEP-OCT ...
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... the rear of my position, and that was soon followed by a blast slightly to the left of that one and way to the left of all the previous ones. Yet, there was no flash of lightning and no dark mass of cloud moving from right to left. "About 2 hours later, a young man who frequents that region told me that what had woken me up was not thunder but what the locals called 'Lake farts'." (Kuchar, George; personal communication, August 1996) Comment. Both the Cayuga and Seneca Guns have been blamed on eruptions of natural gas from the lake. However, no one ever reports flashes of light that would signify spontaneous detonations of such gas. How could non-detonating gas eruptions cause such powerful booms emanating from various directions? For more on these perplexing "water guns", see GSD1 in Earthquakes, Tides, etc. They are actually a worldwide phenomenon; e.g . the famous Barisal Guns heard in the delta of the Ganges. For a description of the book just mentioned, visit here . From Science Frontiers #108, NOV-DEC 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 Acoustical "vision" underwater When we (and all eyed animals) see an object, we are detecting light reflected from that object. When underwater, though, our vision is limited because light does not travel far. Sound, however, does; and sound is reflected from objects just as light is. This is of course the basis of underwater sonar, in which a sound source replaces the sun or a diver's floodlight. But even without an active sound source, the ocean is full of sound. Waves, rain, and the sounds made by marine animals create a background of noise that "illuminates" objects, not directly, but from the environment in general. Using only this enveloping background sound, it is possible to create acoustical images of objects. "Vision" of this sort is equivalent to "facial vision" in blind humans, who can hear objects using the environmental sound reflected from them. J. Potter and his colleagues at the National University of Singapore have constructed an array of underwater microphones that detects "slices" of the acoustical environment around it. When processed by a computer, images of objects emerge by virtue of the background noise reflected from them. This group has also estimated the ability of dolphins to detect and process background noise. They suggest that dolphins should be able to "see" objects at least 25 feet away without even using their active sonar; that is, their ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 114: Nov-Dec 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The world's largest "playa-slider" furrow Most studies of playa sliders (" moving rocks") have been conducted at Racetrack Playa, near Death Valley, California. There one finds good-sized rocks at the ends of long tracks they have made when some force has propelled them across the flat playa surface. What has moved these rocks, some of which weigh 700 pounds? The current consensus holds that wind is the motive force, but that it is inadequate to move the rocks directly. Instead, the wind acts upon sheets of ice in which the rocks are frozen. As these sheets of ice are moved across the playa, the keels of the frozen-in rocks leave those curious trails that have intrigued Forteans for many decades. (SF#109) Playa sliders have also been found at Magdalenasmeer Playa in South Africa, and in Nevada and Tunisia. In a recent issue of Geology Today, C.C . Reeves, Jr., Texas Tech University, adds to the list a playa at Double Lakes, Texas. Of special interest at Double Lakes is not the rocks and other debris blown across the playa but a discarded hotwater tank. It, too, is a playa slider. It first left a trail a few hundred meters long when it was frozen in an ice sheet spigot down, with the spigot furrow quite obvious. The ice sheet then melted, and the tank ...
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... sail reliably from one speck of land to another, thousands of miles distant? The archeology of Oceania confirms that the Polynesians made such voyages centuries before they learned about compasses and navigation satellites. But were these voyages anomalous; that is, did the Pacific peoples possess devices or talents unrecognized today by mainstream science? For the most part, the answer seems to be NO. While the navigational abilities of the Polynesian seafarers seemed supernatural to early European explorers, it has been convincingly demonstrated -- through modern voyages -- that the senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and time-passage are and were sufficient for most interisland voyages. The early Pacific navigators were adept at observing the waves, stars, birds, clouds, winds, and several other natural phenomena that carry subtle directional cues. There are, however, modern instances in which Pacific navigators bereft of the usual sensory cues seem to employ an anomalous "sense." B. Finney, in his study of the possibility of human magnetoreception, tells how one native Hawaiian navigator, though wellschooled in traditional Polynesian navigational techniques, conquered the dread doldrums on a 3,000mile voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti in a way we might call "psychic.". In the doldrums, the sky is often overcast and the seas leaden, expunging the usual cues. This particular navigator, Nainoa Thompson, entered the doldrums on a black night, with 100% cloud cover. The wind was switching around and the waves cueless. Nainoa's own words were: "It was like I just got so exhausted that ...
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... recount one such instance here. On one hand is the neurological research of M.A . Persinger, at the Laurentian University, inquiring into the claimed effects of minute electromagnetic signals, such as those observed in the geomagnetic field, upon human consciousness and perception. On the other hand, we have R.G . Jahn's work in the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program, which looks into the anomalous information transfer between humans and the environment, as claimed to be seen in psychokinesis and remote viewing experiments. 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chilean Astronomer Reports Unidentified Atmospheric Phenomena F. Noel is an astronomer at the National Astronomical Observatory located on the outskirts of Santiago. He is a veteran of hundreds of nights worth of stellar observations over almost 30 years. In the latest number of the Journal of Sci entific Exploration, he reported some of his more perplexing sightings in the Chilean skies, two of which are related below: "At approximately 22:30 local time on January 17, 1980, I was in front of my home in the eastern suburbs of Santiago de Chile. The sky was cloudless, although there was some smog, especially in the west in the direction of downtown. Sunset had occurred at 20:55 local time. "At that time I observed a point-shaped luminous object at an elevation of about 20 degrees; it was moving at a rather slow angular velocity from southwest to west approximately. No noise was heard and it looked like an artificial satellite, except for the direction of its motion. Its brightness, color and angular velocity reminded me of the old Echo artificial satellite from the 1960s. The object disappeared from sight during the few seconds it took me to call two persons to participate in the observation. It was not apparent how the object had disappeared from view since there were no sources of obscuration evident. Having become puzzled by this observation I continued watching that same region of sky from time to time. "About ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Giant Crystal At The Heart Of The Earth Geophysicists have been forced to consider this possibility because of two anomalies: Seismic waves from earthquakes pass through the earth's core faster when they travel parallel to the earth's axis than when they travel in the plane of the equator. The transit time difference is 2-4 seconds. Apparently, the earth's core is not perfectly spherical or its properties are different in different directions. The natural vibration or "ringing" frequencies of the earth are "split," that is, instead of a series of single "tones" we detect a series of closely paired frequencies. This is symptomatic of a core that is anisotropic; that is, its properties are different in different directions. J. Tromp, of Harvard, may have de-anomalized both sets of observations with a single theory: "For the shape of the core alone to explain the observations, he says, the shape of the inner core would have to be very unrealistic. Instead, he claims that the inner core behaves like a giant asymmetric crystal, aligned with the Earth's axis so that seismic waves travel faster in that direction. Tromp's analysis fits neatly with suggestions that the inner core is made of a high-pressure phase of iron in which the atoms are close-packed in hexagons, because such a 'sigma' phase is anisotropic." But, ...
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... 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 Ballistic Panspermia Scientists are already convinced that cratering events on the moon and Mars have propelled rocky debris in the direction of the earth, and that some of these fragments have landed here in the guise of meteorites. A logical question is: Can life forms and/or chemical precursors of life be transported thus across the far reaches of the solar system? Can one planet infect another ballistically? An analysis by M.K . Wallis and N.C . Wickramasinghe is rather warm towards this idea: "The mass of escaping ejecta from the presumed 10-km comet that caused the 180-km Chicxulub crater, with a radius of roughly 10 km and 1 m deep, amounted to ~300 Mm3 , of which one third may have been rock and 10% higher-speed ejecta that could have transited directly to Mars. It may have taken 10 Ma to impact Mars but...the probability is not exceedingly low but 0.1 -1 %. "The survival and replication of microorganisms once they are released at destination would depend on the local conditions that prevail. Although viability on the present-day Martian surface is problematical, Earth-to-Mars transfers of life were feasible during an earlier 'wet' phase of the planet, prior to 3.5 Ga ago. The Martian atmosphere was also denser at that epoch, with several bars of CO2 , thus serving to decelerate meteorites, as ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The great exodus Those who believe that the universe is populated by many technically advanced civilizations have long wondered why we earthlings have not been officially invited to join the Intergalactic Federation. Where are those extraterrestrial emissaries anyway? Unfortunately, the extraterrestrial traffic seems to be going at warp speed in the wrong direction. Instead of interstellar spaceships converging on earth full of helpful aliens, everyone (or everything) seems to be fleeing our environs. The proof positive is in all those quasars with high redshifts. In reality, they are not energetic astronomical objects but rather spaceships emitting great power fluxes in our direction from their engines. Earthbound astronomers are really viewing the aft ends of rapidly receding spacecraft. No one ever sees any blueshifted quasars that would tell us that visitors are coming to see us! We are thus truly alone in space, perhaps "deserted" is a better word. What did we do wrong? (Duncan, Dave; "What Do They Know?" New Scientist, p. 52. May 13, 1995.) From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Kobe quake jostles the geo- magnetic field Some luminous phenomena accompanying the January 17, 1995, Kobe earthquake were mentioned in SF#99. Geomagnetic perturbations were also recorded: "At Kyoto University's observatory in Mineyama, the terrestrial magnetism suddenly changed in a southeasterly direction by up to 0.6 nanotesla, for 30 seconds, as the quake began at 5:46 a.m . on Jan. 17. .. .. . "A similar geomagnetic variation was also observed at the university's observatory in Shigaraki, but the variation was in the opposite, north-westerly, direction." (Anonymous; "Changes in Geomagnetic Field Noted during Quake," Daily Yomiuri , March 30, 1995. Cr. N. Masuya) Comment. Such clear-cut, earthquake-associated geomagnetic perturbations are rare. For a short history of the controversy, see GQM1 in the catalog volume: Earthquakes, Tides, etc. (Details here .) Evidently, strong earth currents are created when rocks fracture and slip, but the precise mechanism remains obscure. From Science Frontiers #100, JUL-AUG 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Just Plane Weird T. Surendonk has written to New Scientist how he and a friend would stop on Sepulveda Boulevard, at the edge of the Los Angeles airport, to watch the big jets come in directly overhead for a landing. "While the huge planes were impressive enough, our attention was captured by an event that sometimes occurred between twenty and thirty seconds after a plane had flown over: a thin tube of misty air would zap past us at apparently high speed accompanied by a rather loud flapping sound. "Sometimes the "mist" would follow a straight path, but often it would follow a really contorted path that made the "mist" look like a snake engaged in a rather violent path -- rather captivating to watch. "We suspected that the effect was some sort of remnant of the vapour trails that sometimes came off the tips of the wings and tried to confirm this by direct observation, but we could never keep track of such a trail for more than 5 seconds. Also, we were never totally convinced that the two effects were correlated. Anyway, wouldn't such a trail dissipate within a few seconds?" (Surendonk, Timothy; "Just Plane Weird," New Scientist, p. 58, March 5, 1994.) Comment. If these "mists" are merely trailing vortices, the long time delay between passage of the plane and the tube of mist is puzzling ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "ADAPTIVE" MUTATION Six years ago, J. Cairns performed experiments with bacteria that implied that said bacteria could "direct" their own mutations so that they could cope more speedily with sudden environmental trauma. (SF#64) In Cairns' experiments, bacteria unable to digest lactose were presented with an all-lactose diet. They quickly acquired the mutations needed to digest the only food available. They did not have to wait for random mutations to accidentally hit upon the correct genome changes. A firestorm spread across the scientific community, even though other researchers saw similar effects. It was traumatic! One of science's foundation stones was at risk. The current theory of biological evolution insists that all mutations are random. Cairns believed he had shown that his bacteria experienced only useful mutations. This claim was too awful to accept. In the July 21, 1994, issue of Science, two new papers appeared that, while not proving that only useful mutations occur in Cairns-type experiments, do indicate that something unusual is indeed happening. Basically, when bacteria are under stress (say, starving), a "distinctive" type of mutation occurs! Is "distinctive" a code word for "non-random"? The title of the commentary accompanying the two articles says it all. (Culotta, Elizabeth; "A Boost for 'Adaptive' Mutation," Science, 265:318, 1994. ...
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... All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Does the past influence the future?R. Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance answers this question affirmatively. For example, it predicts that once a chemical compound is synthesized it will be easier to synthesize it again in the future because the compound's "morphogenetic field" will "guide" the chemical processes along paths already established. Can you wonder why mainstream science advised that Sheldrake's book, A New Science of Life , be BURNT! Well, there was a lot of smoke but the theory survives. Nature, in fact, is full of observations, such as parallel evolution, that support the idea of morphic resonance. And in the laboratory, a few brave souls are conducting experiments that seem to confirm the theory more directly. "Using a novel laboratory approach, researchers at Yale University have been able to create a morphogenetic effect after stimulating only 100 subjects. They employed a series of trivial paper-and-pencil tasks (such as "Put an X in any one of the four boxes shown below"). Experimenters tallied how an initial group of 100 students responded to these tasks. Then they forced a second group of 100 students to respond to the tasks in a set manner (" Put an X in the third box below"). Finally, they presented the same tasks to a third group of 100 students, allowing them to complete them, as with the first group, however they wished." Results showed that in one task the third group had been unknowingly influenced by what ...
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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 A Yagi Watches A Solar Eclipse During the partial solar eclipse of July 11, 1991, D. Emerson had his Yagi antenna pointed in the direction of the phenomenon. His receiver was tuned to 145.8 MHz. The sun is always emitting radio noise, and one would expect that the moon passing in front of the sun would gradually cut off most, but not all, of the radio noise picked up by the antenna and, after the eclipse's midpoint, the noise would increase back to normal levels. Instead of the expected: Radio noise power measured during a partial solar eclipse. The arrows indicate the stages of the eclipse "There was no radio evidence of any effect of the solar eclipse until 1822 UTC, 58 minutes after the start of the eclipse. At that point, all detectable solar emission disappeared within the space of about nine minutes. The emission did not start to reappear until 72 minutes later, at 1943 UTC, and was fully restored by 1951 UTC, 13 minutes before the end of the eclipse, which occurred at 2004 UTC. "The fact that radio emission disappeared and reappeared fairly abruptly part way through the eclipse indicates that most of the radio emission was occurring from one discrete point on the sun's surface rather than from the entire solar disc." (Emerson, Darrel; "Radio Observations of Two Solar Eclipses," QST , p. 21, February 1995 ...
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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 How To Test For Lucid Dreaming In a lucid dream, everything seems so real, and you can usually exert some control over the content and direction of the dream. If you wish, you can fly! Or, you can trigger specific types of lucid dreams by providing external stimuli, such as a specific piece of recorded music. Some lucid dreams do get out of control, however, and become nightmarish. But pleasant, controllable lucid dreams are the general rule. If you can't seem to get into lucid dreaming, apply to the Lucidity Institute, where you can purchase a Nova-Dreamer machine for $275. Thus armed, you can enter that Never-Never Land anytime you want. But how does one know he or she is dreaming lucidly? There is a simple test that is not only strange but probably anomalous. During your dream find a shop or traffic sign, even a dollar bill or newspaper. Then, find a word of four or more letters. Look away, and then look back. If the word has changed when you look back, you are in a lucid dream. For reasons unknown, the brain centers controlling lucid dreaming cannot consistently process words of more than three letters! (Foremski, Tom; "Designer Dreams," New Scientist, p. 50, December 24/31, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . ...
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... : Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects First you don't see it; then you don't don't see it Astronomers are always claiming that they have observational proof that other stars have planets circling them and that black holes truly exist. These claims always fade away or are refuted. Recently, the papers were full of still another claim that a black hole had been found. This time there was no doubt; this was it; a bona fide, undeniable black hole. The search was finally over! Later, though, this claim was muted to: "the best evidence yet for a black hole." [Remember that no light escapes a black hole; you cannot see it directly. It is detected only through its effects on nearby observable matter.] Despite what the theorists fervently believe, black holes may not be lurking out there in space, unseen, but still able to gobble up matter and unwary alien spacecraft. For example, consider the following iconoclastic tidbit: "A gigantic, exceptionally bright star that scientists thought could become a black hole is actually shedding mass at such an astonishing rate that it eventually will disappear, a discovery that casts doubt on theories of stellar evolution, a researcher reports. "' If such massive stars are losing mass at such a prodigious rate, they will not form black holes but will peel off to virtually nothing,' Sally Heap, a NASA astronomer, said yesterday at a national meeting of the American Astronomical Society. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An astonishing medley of bio luminescent displays April 30, 1994. Strait of Hormuz. Aboard the m.v . BP Argosy enroute to Jubail. "At around 1710 UTC large but faint whitish patches of bioluminescence were observed on the port side of the vessel; they were fast-moving with random directions of movement. Over the next five minutes the intensity of the bioluminescence increased to patches of brilliant flourescent green, while the random pattern of movement suddenly changed to fastmoving parallel bands heading toward the vessel. The pattern then changed again to form numerous rotating spirals: some were confirmed to be rotating anticlockwise but it was difficult to assess owing to the large number of overlapping patterns." "At this point the vessel was surrounded by the phenomenon to a distance of approximately 1 n. mile radius. Yet again the patterns changed, this time to parallel concentric circles moving outwards from numerous centres. The display started to decrease at 1725, returning to milky-white patches before eventually disappearing at 1730." (Watson, M.M .; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 65:59, 1995.) Bioluminescent displays often possess mixed geometries. In this illustration, both moving bars and rotating spoked wheels are noted. Location: East Indian Archipelago. Time: 1959. May 23, 1994. Equatorial Atlantic. Aboard the m.v . Taunton enroute to Richards Bay. "At 0550 UTC the vessel was ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Looking Up Into A Tornado Funnel January 21, 1992. Near Cripple Creek, Colorado. Shortly after 2 PM, while fishing at Skagway Reservoir, D. Mc Gown spotted an ominous cloud formation developing in the west. A horizontal, black cloud rolled toward him. Suddenly, it lifted to reveal a huge, twisting funnel advancing directly at him. He threw himself to the ground, but got a good look up into the interior of the funnel. "The outside of the tornado was spinning so fast my eye couldn't follow it, but the inside was rotating almost lazily. I could see a thousand feet up inside it. Tiny fingers of lightning lined the hollow tube." Passing over him, the funnel bounced across the lake, ripped up some trees, and was gone. (McGown, Dennis; "Letters," Time, 147: 8, June 10, 1996) Comment. The "tiny fingers of lightning" are of great interest to anomalists, because most meteorologists deny that electricity plays any part in tornado activity. Of course, there is often plenty of ordinary lightning in the accompanying storms. An observation very similar to McGown's occurred in Kansas, in 1928. (GLD10-X2 in Lightning, Auroras. For information on this book, visit here .) Today, American meteorological journals are mostly filled with articles on the computermodelling of weather systems, satellite-imaging ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Warm lake found under antarctic ice sheet Russian scientists using "ice radar" and artificial seismic waves have discovered a vast warmwater lake under their Antarctic base. Named after the Russian base, which is located 1,300 kilometers from the South Pole, Lake Vostok lies under 3,800 meters of solid ice and, apparently, directly under the base. This remarkable body of water was reported in the journal Kyokuchi , published by the Japan Polar Research Association. The lake is 250 kilometers long, 40 wide, and 400 meters deep. Obviously, it requires some sort of explanation as to why is not frozen. Two theories have been proposed: (1 ) Heat from the earth's interior has kept it from freezing; (2 ) The lake has not yet had time enough to freeze after a temperate period that ended about 5,000 years ago. (Anonymous; "Lake Discovered beneath Antarctic Ice," The Japan Times , May 23, 1995. Cr. N. Masuya) Comment. Can there be a connection between this discovery and the ice-free Antarctica suggested by C.H . Hapgood in his Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings ? From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 "BLUE JETS" EMITTED UPWARD FROM TOPS OF THUNDERCLOUDS Geophysicists have recently recognized that something very strange transpires above thunderclouds. First, there is the phenomenon we have called "rocket lightning" in our books and newsletters. Scientists now call these upwardly directed discharges "sprites." (SF#84) The sprites are short-duration red flashes in the ionosphere, sometimes with bluish tendrils extending down into the thunderclouds. Second, there are the newly recognized "blue jets," a new class of upward discharges. This phenomenon is detailed in a paper by E.M . Wescott et al. Here is their abstract: "Initial observations of as newly documented type of optical emission above thunderstorms are reported. "Blue jets," or narrowly collimated beams of blue light that appear to propagate upwards from the tops of thunderstorms, were recorded on B/W and color video cameras for the first time during the Sprites94 aircraft campaign, June-July 1994. The jets appear to propagate upward at speeds of about 100 km/s and reach terminal altitudes of 40-50 km. Fifty-six examples were recorded during a 22-minute interval during a storm over Arkansas. We examine some possible mechanisms. but have no satisfactory theory of this phenomenon." (Wescott, E.M ., et al; "Preliminary Results from the Sprites94 Aircraft Campaign: 2. Blue Jets," Geophysical Research Letters, ...
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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crop circles not hoaxes: a correction In SF#89, when presenting T. Meaden's "middle-ground" position on the now-infamous crop circles, we stated that an earlier letter to Weather by J.W . Deardorff represented the "all-hoax" position. This was incorrect and, to be fair, we now reproduce Deardorff's letter: "Recent letters to Weather indicate little agreement concerning the crop circles mystery, except that the phenomenon is in general no hoax. Lest it be thought that Dave and Doug made them all, including over 1000 in the season of 1990 and as many as 15 in one night, consider the following crop circle streamline configurations: an upper layer, with an inward directed swirl of stems as viewed from above, and underneath a lower layer swirled outwards and orthogonal to the upper layer. This was the situation for the 17 m circle discovered by Busty Taylor at Headbourne Worthy, which appeared overnight on 1 August 1986 (Delgado and Andrews 1989). Its stem "streamlines" were sketched by Meaden and Andrews (Noyes 1990). Somehow the source-mechanism of this circle apparently first swirled every other stem outwards while leaving the remaining stems standing, then swirled the remaining stems inwards and at right angles to the layer below, again without any appreciable breakage of crop stems. "Not only does this rule out any hoax, since it defies all imagination, but it rules out any natural vortex as the cause. We have no recourse but to consider ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unidentified Light January 14, 1993. Eastern North Pacific. Aboard the m.v . B.P . Adventure , Panama to Chiba. "At 0235 UTC the phenomenon shown in the sketch was first seen about 15 above the horizon, bearing 265 . It was initially thought to be a downward pointing spotlight from an aircraft: it was bright (nearly white), conical in shape and about 1 high. During further observation the shape slowly enlarged, becoming more bell-shaped with a darker elliptical patch at the bottom. As it increased in size, the shape faded away and moved slowly towards the horizon in a slightly southerly direction before disappearing just above the horizon at 0254, bearing 260 . "The maximum height reached by the shape was about 5 and throughout the observation stars could be seen through it while at one point it was nearly obscured by cloud of which there was 1 okta. The only other bright object nearby was Venus, being slightly higher and to the south, bearing 248 , elevation about 20 . Visibility was excellent as about 10 minutes after the observation a ship was spotted bearing 280 at a distance of 16 n.mile. The observers felt that the shape was too regular to be a cloud and had no real idea of its origins." (Peacock, K.E .; "Unidentified Light," Marine Observer, 64:17, 1994.) From Science Frontiers # ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chaos At The Amusement Park Readers of Science Frontiers are well aware that some denizens of our solar system exhibit chaotic motion, as do some pendulums and even dripping faucets. Chaosists seem to be able to find chaos everywhere they look. If you have ever ridden on that amusement park staple called the Tilt-A -Whirl, you will recall that the ride is fun because you never know exactly what the car you are riding in will do as the platforms move along the hilly circular track. Each car is free to rotate about its center and will also tilt in all possible directions as the cars go up and down the hills. Can one mathematically predict whether the car will spin clockwise, counterclockwise, or not at all? What a neat problem for a physicist! And two physicists, R.L . Kautz and B.M . Huggard, have developed a mathematical model of the Tilt-A -Whirl. By integrating the equation of motion, they find that the Tilt-A -Whirl is, indeed, a chaotic system. You really cannot tell what the car is going to do -- even if you take your laptop along with you! (Kautz, R.L ., and Huggard, Bret M.; "Chaos at the Amusement Park: Dynamics of the Tilt-A -Whirl," American Journal of Physics, 62:59, 1994.) From Science Frontiers # ...
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... back when a bubble about the size of a tennis ball sailed out of this side-way, in a straight line, about the level with my shoulders, at a distance of some five or six feet. I stared at it in amazement, for where could a bubble have come from at such a place and time?" "I was further amazed that it did not disintegrate...While gazing at the bubble it seemed to me that there was a dark band round it, which I interpreted as being a reflection of the tarmac road, although subsequently when experimenting with childrens' bubble mixture I discovered that bubbles never reflect anything so discernible." "The bubble proceeded at its original speed, curving around me, and drifting down the centre of the road in the direction from which I had come. It then curved further round and descended towards a grass verge (which I had just passed). Here, I expected it to burst, but when it was about to land it ascended again and proceeded upwards, drifting, as it were, with various air currents, up over a six-foot wall on the other side of the road to the height, approximately, of the buildings. It then drifted out of sight into what is a public park. I could not believe how it could remain intact for so long." The percipient was interviewed, and further facts suggested that this may have been a form of ball lightning. (Curtis, Mira; "LongLived Bubble in the Atmosphere, August 1984," Journal of Meteorology, ...
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... evenly spaced harmonic frequencies. They likened it to a musical instrument emitting a fundamental note accompanied by overtones. Sometimes, the fundamental tone would rise and fall, as if the mountain were playing a tune for them. The Germans, V. Schlindwein et al, postulated that the vibrations originated in a gas-filled cavity, presumably cylindrical -- something like an organ pipe -- capped at the top, with a pool of molten magma at the bottom. Volcanic vibrations resonated in this chamber and, as the magma pool rose and fell, so did the fundamental tone. Rather than a fixed organ pipe, it was a natural trombone! Unfortunately, the "earth music" was always in the infrasound range, 8 Hertz and less, and could not be heard by the researchers directly -- only their instruments could "listen." (Schneider, David; "Country Music," Scientific American, 273:28, November 1995.) Comments. There is no physical reason why such a subterranean trombone cannot play in the audible range. Such a mechanism might explain some of the mysterious hums heard in various localities, such as the Taos hum. (SF#88) Many unusual natural sounds are cataloged in Chapter GS in our catalog: Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. Ordering information here . Some animals can hear infrasound. Pigeons, for example, have special organs on their legs (of all places!) that respond to infrasound. Could pigeons and other birds use "musical mountains" for homing and other navigation feats? From Science Frontiers # ...
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... Arnd Schreiber, Doris Erker and Klausdieter Bauer of the University of Heidelberg have looked at the proteins in the blood serum of megabats and primates and found enough in common to suggest a close taxonomic relationship between the two groups. (Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 51:359)" An explanation might be that the similarities between the microbats and megabats represent adaptations to similar environmental niches rather than a common ancestry. (Timson, John; "Did Bats Evolve Twice in History?" New Scientist, p. 16, June 4, 1994.) Comment. Does the black box labelled EVOLUTION contain a special subprogram for converting hands into membaneous wings whenever it seems profitable to do so? Or are we somehow missing a different sort of evolutionary process, perhaps something akin to the "directed evolution" suggested by some experiments with bacteria? (SF#64) The possible separate evolutions of micro- and megabats is covered in more detail in BMA41 and BME1 in Biological Anomalies: Mammals I and II, respectively. To order, visit here . From Science Frontiers #95, SEP-OCT 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , another Britannia Airways Boeing 737 on a holiday flight from Crete to Gatwick (London) had a similar encounter, this one at 5:45 p.m . Descending 15,000 feet, the copilot caught sight of a "small black lozenge-shaped object" some 500 meters ahead and above. The object was on a collision course, and within two seconds it passed the aircraft's wing at a distance of only 100 meters at less than 10 meters above the wing. The crew felt no impact or wake, and the passengers were not alerted. The pilot assessed the risk of collision as high. When reported to London Air Traffic Control Center, the missile was picked up on radar moving away from the aircraft. It was moving at 100 mph in a southeasterly direction and was no known traffic since it had no transponder to identify it. Another aircraft was warned since the unknown target appeared to turn and head toward it, but the other aircraft saw nothing. The radar target, however, may have been a helicopter at a lower altitude. "The sighted object was small, some 1.5 feet in diameter, smooth and round. A balloon, meteorological or toy, was suspected, but this does not conform with the radar reports of an object moving at 100 mph -- if that was the unknown object. The official report still regarded the unknown object as "untraced." (Svahn, Clas, and Liljegren, Anders; "Close Encounters with Unknown Missiles," International UFO Reporter, 19: 11, July/August ...
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... On October 29, 1991, the Galileo spacecraft swept past 951 Gaspra at a distance of 1600 kilometers, snapping photographs as it went. J. Veverka et al report below on what the photos showed: "We report the discovery of grooves in Galileo high-resolution images of Gaspra. These features, previously seen only on Mars' satellite Phobos, are most likely related to severe impacts. Grooves on Gaspra occur as linear and pitted depressions, typically 100-200 m wide, 0.8 to 2.5 km long, and 10-20 m deep. Most occur in two major groups, one of which trends approximately parallel to the asteroid's long axis, but is offset by some 15 , the other is approximately perpendicular to this trend. The first of these directions falls along a family of planes which parallel three extensive flat facets identified by Thomas et al. The occurrence of grooves on Gaspra is consistent with other indications (irregular shape, cratering record) that this asteroid has evolved through a violent collisional history." (Veverka, J., et al; "Discovery of Grooves on Gaspra," Icarus, 107:72, 1994.) Comment. The pits along Gaspra's cracks, as on Phobos, suggest the violent expulsion of gases. Where could these gases have come from? "Sandblows" are sometimes formed during terrestrial earthquakes as natural gases and other fluids are squeezed out of the earth's porous outer crust. Could Gaspra harbor primordial methane? If so, is it biogenic or abiogenic? Reference. An entire ...
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... . On this date, the Chief Officer of the m.v . Forthbank , A.D . MacPherson, observed the object detailed below. The vessel was at 13 09'S , 137 49'W enroute to Papeete. "Shortly after sunset at 0337 UTC the 'object' shown in the sketch was observed crossing the sky from starboard. Initial observation was made as the object passed Sirius but whether or not it emanated from there remains unclear. "The passage of the object took about 20 seconds, appearing to follow a straight line through Canis Major, Puppis and Carina, and its luminous intensity was constant until a rapid drop just prior to extinction short of Crux. The object's 'tail' extended upwards about 3" in length with a curve towards the direction of travel and had a bluish tinge while the object itself was whitish in colour." (Ginder, D.E .; "Unidentified Object," Marine Observer, 65:73, 1995.) From Science Frontiers #100, JUL-AUG 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of the fangs for better grasping of prey. But what would have been the selective advantage of the rest of the poison system if just one of its components had failed to evolve? To claim that it can be achieved through unbiased evolution is like expecting that nine independent miners can attack the core of Mount Everest from various points at the foot of the Himalayas and meet exactly in the middle without the guidance of a surveyor." (Moliner, E. Ramon; "' I Hiss Therefore I Am'," New Scientist, p. 48, November 11, 1995) Comments. We will enjoy reading the inevitable letters to New Scientist from evolutionists. Probably, too, creationists will now be quoting Moliner. Even so, we see much discussion of "adaptive" or "directed" evolution in the scientific literature these days. See SF#96. This subject is also mentioned frequently in all catalog volumes in the Biology Series (BH, BM, etc.) The volumes in print are described here . From Science Frontiers #103, JAN-FEB 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Subjects Anomalous phenomena associated with the 1908 tunguska event N.V . Vasilyev has prepared a lengthy review of the 1908 Tunguska "event," which is usually ascribed to a wayward comet or meteorite. Vasilyev's data is based upon 167 reports, mostly in Russian. They show once again that this was no ordinary impact event, as illustrated by the following observations: A "local" magnetic storm began about 6 minutes after the explosion (If that is what it really was.) and lasted for more than 4 hours. These magnetic perturbations resembled those following nuclear atmospheric explosions. The Tunguska object left no smoky trail like many fireballs, but rather irridescent bands that looked like a rainbow. Following the "explosion," at least part of the object continued on in the same direction but veered upwards. [Meteors sometimes skip out of the atmosphere on trajectories like this.] Although the Tunguska event occurred on June 30, 1908, optical anomalies appeared all across northern Europe as early as June 23. These included mesospheric, silvery clouds, very bright nights, colorful twilight afterglows [something like those following the Krakatoa eruption], and remarkably intense and long-lasting solar halos. Some of these effects persisted until late July. Neither craters nor meteoric debris have been discovered so far, despite assiduous searches. The explosion created a shock wave that leveled 2150 km2 of taiga and a flash that singed about 200 km2. (Vasilyev, N.V .; "The Tunguska Meteorite: A Dead-Lock or the Start of a New Stage of Inquiry?" ...
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... effect does exist. In one study, the microwave emission of molecular oxygen was measured by a polar-orbit satellite. These data gave meteorologists the temperatures of the lowest 6 kilometers of the atmosphere from all areas of the planet. The temperature difference between full moon and new moon was only 0.02 C, with the full-moon temperature being the higher. (Ref. 1) A second study took actual surface temperatures measured at noon GMT each day at 51,200 locations around the world. These near-surface temperatures revealed a difference of 0.2 C between full and new moons -- ten times larger than that from the satellite study. (Ref. 2) 0.2 C and even 0.02 C are much too large to be attributed to direct lunar "heating." Instead, geophysicists wonder if the moon's orbit modulates the influx of meteoric dust which may affect solar heating of the earth by absorption. References Ref. 1. Balling, Robert C., Jr., and Cerveny, Randall S.; "Influence of Lunar Phase on Daily Global Temperatures," Science, 267:1481, 1995. Ref. 2. Gribbin, John; "A Mysterious Monthly Temperature Cycle," New Scientist, p. 18, January 28, 1995. From Science Frontiers #100, JUL-AUG 1995 . 1995-2000 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 Snowballs in hell?Arecibo radar image of Mercury's morth pole showing several craters. In SF#79, we revealed that anomalous radar reflections from Mercury's polar regions might be due to residual deposits of water ice. At first, this possibility seems most unlikely given Mercury's proximity to the sun. Where the sun's rays beat directly on Mercury's surface, the temperature can reach 700 K. Even glancing sunlight, occurring when the sun is perched on Mercury's horizon, should heat the surface to 170 K. At this temperature, water ice would evaporate quickly in Mercury's near-vacuum atmosphere. But any permanently shaded areas at the planet's polar caps -- say, deep in a crater -- would remain below 100 K. This is cold enough to retain ice, even in a vacuum. Radar topographic studies of Mercury's polar regions, using the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Goldstone antenna with the VLA (Very Large Array) plus the big Arecibo antenna in Puerto Rico, have been able to confirm that there are indeed craters in the polar regions of Mercury. These craters match up well with the radar reflectivity anomalies recorded earlier. So, it now seems likely that ice does exist on Mercury. And, since our moon also boasts permanently shadowed crater areas, ice probably survives there, too. This is good news for future lunar colonists ...
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... . These flashes must originate in the atmosphere at altitudes above at least 30 kilometers in order to escape atmospheric absorption and reach the detectors." The energies of the gamma rays in the flashes are very high. They are typical of the braking radiation (Bremsstrahlung) from 1,000,000 electron-volt electrons. Since most of the gamma flashes originate over regions where thunderstorms are frequent, it is tempting to associate them with lightning. Ordinary lightning, however, is not energetic enough to generate the gamma flashes and, of course, it does not occur above 30 kilometers altitude anyway. G.J . Fishman et al, who reported on this new phenomenon in Science, speculate that some hitherto unrecognized, high altitude electrical discharges occur high above areas hosting thunderstorms. Possibly, upwardly directed lightning (" rocket lightning") is involved in all three of the newly found flashes in the radio, optical, and gamma portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. (Fishman, G.J ., et al; "Discovery of Intense Gamma-Ray Flashes of Atmospheric Origin," Science, 264:1313, 1994. Kerr, Richard A.; "Atmospheric Scientists Puzzle Over High-Altitude Flashes," Science, 264:1250, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #95, SEP-OCT 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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