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... systems. (Science, 221:568, 1983.) Also, men who have recently lost their wives to breast cancer have immune systems less responsive to mitogens. (Journal of the American Medical Association, 250:374, 1984.) (Maddox, John; "Psychoimmunology Before Its Time," Nature, 309:400, 1984.) Comment. This is an appropriate time to suggest that "psychoevolution" may be physiologically possible. If the brain can fight disease and even control cell growth, why not a role for the mind in stimulating the development of new spe cies, perhaps in response to extreme environmental pressures, and perhaps not on the conscious level? The body's sensory system would detect great external stresses, the brain would process the information, and direct some astute genetic shuffling. The genetic inheritance of an organism is not sacrosanct. Radiation, chemicals, and various others mutagens are recognized. There seems to be no a priori reason why the brainbody combination cannot generate mutagens -- possibly not randomly but intelligently! (We ignore here selfish DNA and Sheldrake's morphogenic fields.) Does this mean that if we wish to mutate, we can? Well, it's probably not as simple as wishing warts away, but Maddox's editorial underscores the complexity and subtlety of the brain-body combination. From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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. "In the Milky Way, the so-called "K -effect" shows that hot, young stars seem to be exploding away from us in every direction (i .e ., they have an excess redshift right here in our own galaxy). If this had been heeded when first discovered, the expansion of the universe might never have been promulgated." (Arp, H.; "Companion Galaxies: A Test of the Assumption that Velocities Can Be Inferred from Redshifts," Astrophysical Journal, 430:74, 1994.) Both of the above quotations are from abstracts written by T. Van Flandern in his Meta Research Bulletin, 3:51 and 3:40, 1994, respectively. More on discordant redshifts can be found in our catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. It is described here . From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mental Control Of Allergies "Most of the effort directed at understanding the problems of allergy has focused on the interacting components of the immune system. The possibility that histamine may be released as a learned response has now been tested. In a classical conditioning procedure in which an immunologic challenge was paired with the presentation of an odor, guinea pigs showed a plasma histamine increase when presented with the odor alone. This suggests that the immune response can been hanced through activity of the central nervous system." The article begins by noting that many anecdotal reports suggest that allergic reactions can be induced by suggestion; viz., an allergy to roses induced by an artificial rose. (Russell, Michael, et al; "Learned Histamine Release," Science, 225:733, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 -- A Field Investigation of an Unknown Atmospheric Light Phenomenon," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 8:581, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Everglades astrobleme?Astrobleme means "star wound," and the southern tip of Florida seems to have been wounded by an asteroid or some other celestial projectile. At a recent meeting of the Geological Society of America, E.J . Petuch proposed that the Everglades region received a direct hit from an asteroid about 36 million years ago. The Everglades region is a swampy, forested area surrounded by an oval-shaped system of ridges. Geologists usually maintain that the Everglades represent a collapse feature caused by groundwater dissolving away limestone. (Buildings and cars seem to be swallowed fairly regularly by Florida sinkholes.) Petuch disagrees with the collapse theory and points to the following evidence for an impact origin: 1. The presence of a strong positive magnetic anomaly; 2. Eocene formations, 40 million years old, are missing over the southern Everglades; 3. A network of fractures pervades rock layers older than Eocene; 4. High iridium concentrations, probably of extraterrestrial origin, exist at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary on nearby Barbados; and 5. The oval reef structure that seems to have grown around the impact area as sealevels rose. Some geologists do not concur with the asteroid theory, but they are all reviewing Florida's geological history in a new light. (Weisburd, S.; "Asteroid Origin of the Everglades?" Science News, 128:294, 1985.) Reference. Very large craters and astroblemes ...
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... precursors of the 1995 kobe earthquake The Japanese are meticulous observers of animals. Many keep birds, insects, fish, etc. as pets. When scientists at the Osaka City University asked for reports of unusual animal behavior around the time of the great January 17 quake, over 1,200 people in the Kobe-Osaka area came forth with anecdotes. Some typical pre-quake observations were: Doves flying into walls. Caged birds (Chinese hawk-cuckoos) flying against the sides of their cages. Fish rising to the surface in great numbers. At the port of Shioya, "millions" of gizzard shad turned the surface of the water into silver. Captive stag beetles and turtles emerging from hibernation. And strangest of all, silkworms and fish in ponds orienting themselves in the same directions. (Minami, Shigehiko; "Creatures Went a Bit Batty, Maybe Knew Quake Was Coming," Asahi Evening News, February 25, 1995. Cr. N. Masuya) Cross reference. Many luminous phenomena were also seen. For descriptions of so-called "earthquake lights" refer to GLD8 in our catalog Lightning, Auroras, etc. It is listed here . From Science Frontiers #99, MAY-JUN 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 123: May-Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mysterious Mountain Deaths Occasionally, young, healthy hikers are discovered lying dead in the mountains without a mark on them. The answer to this mystery may be in the magnetic pulses created by close lightning strikes. Most deaths from lightning are from direct strikes, side flashes, or ground currents. The ground currents kill by passing up one leg and down the other. Cows sheltering under trees are even more susceptible than humans because they contact the ground in four places! People and animals electrocuted by these phenomena bear burn marks and other clues pointing to the cause of death. As for those "mysterious mountain deaths," M. Cherington and colleagues at the Lightning Data Center, Denver, suggest that these unlucky individuals may have been zapped magnetically. Lightning strikes can create electrical currents as high as 100,000 amperes in rocks and soil. These, in turn, create intense magnetic pulses that induce small electrical currents in nearby objects, such as hikers. Although small, these internal currents are sufficient to stop heart action -- without leaving tell-tale signs. (Anonymous; "Mystery Mountain Deaths and Lightning," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 23:230, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects PALEOMAGNETIC PITFALLS "Magnetism in rocks has provided a traditional tool for studies of the Earth's geomagnetic field. These studies have tended to rely on the assumption that the direction of magnetization was 'frozen in' during formation of the rock. But many sedimentary rocks formed during the Palaeozoic acquired their remanent magnetization through alteration processes that occurred after deposition of the sediment. The causes and geological significance of this phenomenon have been much debated." The foregoing paragraph is enough to send shivers throughout the geological world. Does this undermine paleomagnetism and generalizations flowing from it, such as plate tectonics? The "alteration processes" mentioned in the above quotation include: (1 ) The chemical conversion of pyrite into magnetite in ancient rocks after they were deposited; and (2 ) The reorientation of remanent magnetization following exposure to moderately high temperatures. That these processes can be important is evident in a second quotation: "During the past eight years, however, evidence has accumulated that the remanent magnetization of many carbonate sediments was not acquired at the time of deposition, thereby invalidating some previous interpretations of the palaeomagnetic data. Instead, magnetization seems to have been acquired over a limited time span during the late Palaeozoic, from about 310 to 250 million years ago." (Reynolds, Richard L.; "A Polished View of Remagnetization," Nature, 345: 570, 1990.) Reference. Many other problems afflict paleomagnetism. See: ...
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... 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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... blue, as indicated in the diagram. "The colours were very clear, with blues and purples visible in both parts. Both bows began to fade at about the same time as the moon once again passed behind another cloud." (Crofts, A.; "Lunar Rainbow," Marine Observer, 69:67, 1999.) Comments. Because moonlight is much weaker than sunlight, lunar rainbows are rather rare. Even so, they are not anomalous. It is the offset bow that is difficult-to-explain. Rainbow phenomena should be symmetrical around the line containing the light source (moon, here) and the bow itself. In GEB3 in Rare Halos, we note that no reasonable explanation exists for rainbows offset to one side. However, extra bows offset directly above the main bow can be explained as due to reflection of moonlight or sunlight off the surface of the water. From Science Frontiers #124, JUL-AUG 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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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... also at Lamont-Doherty, who took Fairbanks' coral cores and compared the radiocarbon dates with uranium-thorium dates. The result is that at 20,000 BP, the radiocarbon date is 16,500 BP, 3500 years too low. [Of course, all this as sumes that the uranium-thorium dates are accurate.] Use of the newly corrected radiocarbon scale has pushed the peak of the Ice Ages back from 18,000 BP to 21,000 BP. But there is more. The same article in Science, without saying how he came up with the number, has Bard fixing the strength of the earth's magnetic field at only half its present level 20,000 years ago. This is most interest-ing because over the last 400 years of direct measurements, the geomagnetic field has been steadily decreasing! When and why was there a peak in the intensity of the geomagnetic field? Back to Fairbanks, who also used his coral data to estimate changes in global sea level versus time. About 12,000 BP, he states, sea level was rising ten times faster than today due to melt water from the polar ice caps. This amounts to 2.5 to 4 meters per century. ". .. perhaps fast enough to prompt legends of a Great Flood"! (Kerr, Richard A.; "From One Coral Many Findings Blossom," Science, 248: 1314, 1990.) Comment. It is exceedingly rare to find a scientist musing that there really might have been a Flood. From Science Frontiers ...
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... are willing and able to draw up a list of arguments against the "fact" of Continental Drift. Australian P. James is one such brave soul. Here follows the abstract from one of his papers. "Anomalies in the three basic concepts of mobile plate tectonics -- sea-floor spreading, transform faults, subduction -- are analysed. The process is then extended to subsidiary aspects; sediments on a moving basement, continental evidence, mechanisms and measurements. In summation, the criticisms present a formidable and damaging document against the total framework of mobilism, both in its general concepts and it its detailed interpretations." From James' lengthy paper, we select just two anomalies that he has identified in the Atlantic where North America and Europe are supposedly drifting apart. First, repeated direct measurements of the drifting seem to be a wash; that is, there is no drift to speak of. The expansion of the Atlantic basin seems to be only 5-13 mm/year (just 20% of the predicted rate), and this is partially offset by apparent contractions within the North American land mass! Second, St. Peter & Paul Rocks, on the Equator just west of the Atlantic Ridge, are supposed to be riding west on the spreading sea floor. Being close to the ridge, they should be 15-30 million years old. (The closer islands are to the Ridge, the younger they should be, if they are truly riding on a sea-floor conveyor belt.) But radiometric dating of the rocks making up these islets insists ...
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... the Rockies construct special roads for ritual processions? We do know of the Mohawk Trail, the Virginia Warriors Trail, and other utilitarian roads through the wilderness. And before the settlers plowed them up, there were travel-worn trails six feet deep in the earth of Iowa. Now, we learn that, indeed, the Hopewell Culture may have built a long road mainly for ritual processions. It is called the Great Hopewell Road, and it is thought to connect the Hopewell centers at Newark and Chillicothe -- a distance of 60 miles through the heart of Ohio. In 1862, the first 6 miles of this controversial road, marked by parallel earthen banks, were surveyed by two brothers, C. and J. Salisbury. They noted that the road extended much farther in the direction of Chillicothe. B. Lepper, a present-day champion of the Great Hopewell Road, claims that there are still traces of the road remaining at four additional places along the 60-mile line connecting Newark and Chillicothe. Skeptics do not question that the sophisticated Hopewell Culture (circa 200 B.C . to 400 A.D .) was capable of constructing such a road, nor do they contest the 1862 survey covering the first 6 miles. They doubt the existence of the last 54 miles. (Hicks, Ronald; "The Great Hopewell Mystery," Archaeology, 52:76, November/December 1999.) From Science Frontiers #127, JAN-FEB 2000 . 1997 William R. Corliss ...
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... , consciousness, as we know it today, is a relatively new faculty, one that did not exist until as recently as 2000 B.C . He holds that a basic difference between contemporary and ancient man is the process of decision-making. When faced with a novel situation today, man considers alternatives, thinks about future consequences, makes a decision, ruminates over it, and finally acts. He then reconsiders his action, evaluates it, worries about it, feels good or bad about it, makes resolves about future decisions, and so forth. The cerebral activity that precedes and follows an action response is consciousness. Jaynes believes that man of antiquity had no consciousness -- that when faced with a novel situation, he simply reacted. He reacted without hesitation by following the directions of a personal voice that told him exactly what to do. Ancient man called this voice God; today it is called an auditory hallucination. To ancient man, God was not a mental image or a deified thought but an actual voice heard when one was presented with a situation requiring decisive action." You must really read Jaynes' book to appreciate the evidence he has collected in support of his hypothesis. In the present article, J. Hamilton has found additional support for Jaynes' theory. His abstract follows: "When a system for communicating with nonverbal, quadriplegic, institutionalized residents was developed, it was discovered that many were experiencing auditory hallucinations. Nine cases are presented in this study. The 'voices' described have many similar characteristics, the primary one being that they ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 49: Jan-Feb 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sailing Through A Waterspout Sailing on the Pagan in the mid-Pacific, One July morning J. Caldwell spotted a tropic waterspout. Having heard that spouts had hurricane force winds in-side, whirlpools at their bases that could suck a ship under, and a solid wall of water being sucked up into the clouds, Caldwell threw caution to the winds and headed directly for the spout. "Pagan was swallowed by a cold wet fog and whirring wind. The decks tilted. A volley of spray swept across the decks. The rigging howled. Suddenly it was dark as night. My hair whipped my eyes, I breathed wet air, and the hard cold wind wet me through. Pagan's gunwales were under and she pitched into the choppy seaway. There was no solid trunk of water being sucked from the sea; no hurricane winds to blow down sails and masts; and no whirlpool to gulp me out of sight. Instead, I sailed into a high dark column from 75 to 100 feet wide, inside of which was a damp circular wind of 30 knots, if it was that strong. As suddenly as I had entered the waterspout I rode out into bright free air. The high dark wall of singing wind ran away. For me another mystery of the sea was solved." (Caldwell, John; "On Sailing through a Waterspout," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More On The Soviet Plume Events A recent issue of Eos, published by the American Geophysical Union, presents some amazing and at the same time unsettling photographs of immense plumes taken by satellites passing over Soviet Arctic islands. Eleven such events are tabulated from October 12, 1980, to June 12, 1986. Perhaps the most dramatic event occurred on March 12, 1982, over Novaya Zemlya. The picture shows a sharply etched tongue of cold vapor arcing some 175 kilometers at a maximum altitude of 9.5 -10 kilometers. As with most of the plumes, movement of the vapor does not correspond to wind direction. Volcanic activity and natural methane gas releases are considered unlikely explanations. Since the islands involved are used for Soviet weapons tests, the plumes may be due to some incredibly energetic devices, although no radioactive releases or seismic activity seem correlated with the plume appearances. Queries to Soviet scientists have gone unanswered. (Anonymous; "Large Plume Events in the Soviet Arctic," Eos, 67:1372, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Spiral-circle ground patterns in field crops G.T . Meaden has recently summarized his research into those marvelously sharp and complex designs cut into English field crops by atmospheric vortices. (Why other countries are not similarly affected is unknown.) The simple circles range from 3 to 30 meters in diameter. The central, flattened vegetation is crushed clockwise about half the time, counterclockwise in the other cases. On two known occasions, the flattening process has actually been observed. The invisible atmospheric vor tex does its work in 30 seconds or less and generates a high-pitched humming sound. The complex nature of these vortices is attested to by the rare ringed circles and multiple patterns. Both single- and double-ringed circles are known. The wind direction always alternates from central circle to first ring to second ring. The most common multiple patterns consist of large central circles flanked by two or four, smaller satellite circles, all nicely spaced. In the quintuplets, all five circles are usually flattened clockwise, but one case has presented theorists with four counterclockwise circles accompanied by a single improbable clockwise circle! (Meaden, G.T .; "The Mystery of Spiral-Circle Ground Patterns in Crops Made by a Natural Atmospheric-Vortex Phenomenon," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 13:203, 1988.) Quintuplet pattern in barley crop, west Wiltshire, 1987 From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Virgin Mary over a Coptic Orthodox Church in Zeitoun, near Cairo, Egypt. When photographed, these phenomena appeared as irregular blobs of light. Primarily there were two types of events: small shortlived, highly kinetic lights (' doves') and more persistent coronal type displays that were situated primarily over the apical structures of the church. More detailed descriptions of the phenomena, such as visions often occurred as 'flashes'; their details usually reflected the religious background of the experient. "The characteristics of these luminous phenomena strongly suggested the existence of tectonic strain within the area. According to the hypothesis of tectonic strain, anomalous luminous phenomena are generated by brief, local changes in strain that precede earthquakes within the region. Psychological factors determine more elaborate details of the experiences because there are both direct stimulations of the observer's brain as well as indirect contributions from reinforcement history." The authors of the study at hand, J.S . Derr and M.A . Persinger, are well known for their theory associating anomalous, terrain-related, luminous phenomena with tectonic strains. In the Zeitoun case, they have discovered that a year before the phenomena commenced there was an unprecedented increase (by a factor of ten) in seismic activity some 400 kilometers to the southeast. Also, there was a moderate (0 .56) correlation between the luminous phenomena and increases in seismicity during the same or preceeding months. Derr and Persinger claim these observations support their hypothesis. (Derr, John S., and Persinger, Michael A.; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior ...
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... H-chondrites, they find that the meteorites' ages do not spread evenly through time. Instead, the ages seem to cluster at 7 and 30 million years." Astronomers have hitherto been content to attribute these clumped ages to collisions among the meteorites' parent bodies - the asteroids - which ply periodic orbits. However, S. Perlmutter and R.A . Muller, at Berkeley, point to the apparent 26- to 30-million-year periodicities of three terrestrial phenomena: Biological extinctions in the fossil record, Magnetic field reversals, and Terrestrial-crater ages. Could there be a connection between the clumped meteorite ages and these terrestrial phenomena? Perlmutter and Muller propose that all of these phenomena are the consequence of periodic storms of comets that invade the inner solar system from the direction of the Oort Cloud of comets that purportedly hovers at the fringe of the solar system. These comets not only devastate the earth but also collide with the asteroids, knocking off those bits and pieces we call meteorites. (Anonymous; "Do Meteorite Ages Tell of Comet Storms?" Astronomy, 17:12, January 1989.) Comment. Unanswered above is the question of why comet storms should be periodic. One hypothesis is that Nemesis, the so-called Death Star, a dark companion of our sun, lurks out there, periodically nudging the Oort Cloud of comets, causing it to release some of its comets. From Science Frontiers #62, MAR-APR 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... different identity than characterizes his or her current life. Initiation dreams introduce the dreamer to a new worldview, or to a new mission in life. In visitation dreams, the dreamer is visited by ancestors, spirits, or deities, and is given messages or counsel by them. Lucid, healing, and out-of-body dreams were also deemed anomalous but were not defined in the abstract. In fact, lucid dreams were the most common type of anomalous dream. Out-of-body dreams came next. Precognitive dreams were third in frequency. (Krippner, Stanley, and Faith, Laura; "Anomalous Dreams: A Cross-Cultural Study," Society for Scientific Exploration paper, 2000.) Comments. Lucid dreams are especially vivid and, in addition, under the direct control of the dreamer. Actually, all dreams are anomalous in the sense that it is difficult to understand how dreaming evolved. How can a series of small, random mutations introduce these often bizarre images that drift through the not-so-quiescent, sleeping brain? How could dreaming have had enough survival value to our distant ancestors to lock it permanently into the human genome? From Science Frontiers #131, SEP-OCT 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A New Look At The Bat Creek Inscription The Bat Creek Stone. Which side is up has been a problem! The January 1989 issue of the Tennessee Anthropologist contains a long article on the Bat Creek Stone by J.H . McCullock, of Ohio State University. We rely here upon a summary written by R. Strong. "The Bat Creek Stone has generated so much controversy, yet it was excavated in an undisturbed burial mound in 1889 under the direction of Cyrus Thomas, Project Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology's Mound Survey, a part of the Smithsonian Institution. There could be no question of forgery because it was found under the head of one of the nine skeletons that were excavated. Pieces of wood presumed to be the remains of wooden earspools were preserved in the Smithsonian's collections as were a pair of brass C-shaped bracelets. Thomas immediately declared the nine characters on the stone to be Cherokee and the burial assumed to be post-contact - what else could the bracelets be but trade items or native copper?" That would seem to be the end of the story, but some language students failed to see any resemblance between the Bat Creek Inscription and the written Cherokee language. Further, C. Gordon, admittedly a proponent of early Phoenician contact with the New World, declared that the Bat Creek characters were Paleo-Hebrew, a family of languages that includes Phoenician. Then ...
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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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... or that Mars might at any moment depart from its present orbit, but rather that astronomers must now admit an inability to predict planetary motion over billions of years - even tens of millions of years! For the solar system, if those ubiquitous computers are correct, is not a well-behaved family of planets. J. Laskar concludes from extensive numerical experiments: "The motion of the Solar System is thus shown to be chaotic, not quasiperiodic. In particular, predictability of the orbits of the inner planets, including the Earth, is lost with a few tens of millions of years." (Laskar, J.; "A Numerical Experiment on the Chaotic Behavior of the Solar System," Nature, 338:237, 1989.) Comment. Laskar's comments are directed toward the future, but the same conclusions should apply if we ran the solar system backwards in time. From this very narrow perspective of celestial mechanics, one cannot say positively that the planets, the inner ones especially, could not have radically altered their orbits within the past few millions of years. Reference. See ABB1 in our catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris for more on the solar system's instability. This book is described here . From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Subjects Life Currents In Space A few of the hundreds of meteorites picked up in the Antarctic wastes have chemical properties consistent with a Martian origin. Calculations, too, support the notion that a large meteoric impact could propel bits of the Martian surface into space where, statistically speaking, a tiny fraction would be captured by the earth's gravitational field. Some of these would fall to earth; others would remain in orbit. Now, the reverse scenario has been investigated numerically. S.A . Phinney and colleagues at the University of Arizona have calculated what would happen to small chunks of the earth's crust if a large meteor impact excavated a 60milewide crater. "Phinney's group used a computer to calculate where 1,000 particles would go if ejected from Earth in random directions, moving about 2.5 kilometers per second faster than the minimum speed necessary to escape. Of the 1,000 hypothetical particles, 291 hit Venus and 165 returned to Earth; 20 went to Mercury, 17 to Mars, 14 to Jupiter and 1 to Saturn. Another 492 left the solar system completely, primarily due to gravitational close encounters with either Jupiter or Mercury that 'slingshot' them on their way." (Eberhart, Jonathan; "Have Earth Rocks Gone to Mars?" Science News, 135:191, 1989.) Comment. One implication from the preceding analysis is that terrestrial bacteria and spores could well have infected every planet in the solar system and perhaps even planets in nearby star systems! Conceivably, if other star systems had histories like ours, ...
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... Project Sourcebook Subjects The Magnetic Mountain To find the "magnetic mountain," you must venture out into the Gulf of California about 15 miles east of the Baja Peninsula. Out there, beneath the boat, you can find a basaltic mountain named Espiritu Santo. Next, you don your face mask and descend toward the submerged peak. At about 70 feet, you will likely find yourself surrounded by scores, possibly hundreds, of scalloped hammerheads, some as long as 13 feet. They will ignore you and the teeming fish as they slowly wheel passively around the submerged mountain. Why do these big sharks congregate in this spot? Marine biologists have been asking this for years. (SF#20) A.P . Klimley and his colleagues decided to find the answer. First, by direct observation, they determined that the sharks' main purpose was not pro-creation, although some mating did occur. Mainly, the hammerheads just idled away the daylight hours. At dusk, they disappeared. Klimley et al next implanted some sharks with transmitters and followed them at night. This was their feeding time, they swam 10-15 miles to deep waters where they gorged on squid. At daybreak, they were back drifting around Espiritu Santo. Apparently, the mountain was just a place to rest. But how did the hammerheads find their way back so unerringly? Furthermore, by tracking the tagged fish, the researchers found the sharks often precisely followed the same paths in what seemed a featureless ocean. How did they do it? It was quickly ruled out that they were ...
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... Antarctic icesheet meets the Transantarctic Mountains, old, deep glacial ice is tilted upward and exposed. Within this visible cross section of the icesheet, layers of dark volcanic tephra serve as stratigraphic markers and datable age horizons. Systematic sampling of these layers at a well-known meteorite collection site (the Allan Hills Main Icefield) has revealed a band consisting of unusually dark and rounded particles, many of which are spheroidal. This debris layer (BIT-58) extends parallel to the stratigraphy of the ice established from the tephra bands, and thus apparently marks a single depositional event. Several kilograms of ice from two sites along this band were subsequently collected and melted, yielding a few grams of sediment for further study." Microscopic examination and microprobe analysis led to the following conclusions: "Although direct evidence of an extraterrestrial origin for this debris layer (such as the presence of cosmogenic 10 Be and 26Al) has not yet been obtained, the available data strongly suggest that this sediment originated as meteoritic spallation debris. This debris is distinct from other Antarctic 'cosmic dust' collections by virtue of its uniform, recognizable, ordinary chondrite composition and the consistent relation shown between grain size and texture. The BIT-58 layer probably originated from a single transient event, the passage and/or impact of a single large meteorite over the East Antarctic icesheet." (Harvey, R.P . et al; "A Meteoritic Event Layer in Antarctic Ice," Meteoritics, 30:517, 1995) Comment. The Petrozavodsk Phenomenon under ASTRONOMY might well have left a layer like this ...
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... Subjects The Gruyerizaton Of Switzerland An impressive and equally inexplicable variety of the cookie-cutter holes has been reported in Switzerland. In these excavation phenomena, all the material removed from the holes has disappeared instead of being translated intact and set down gently nearby. "The Swiss holes were first observed in 1972. They always occur at night and no one has ever seen them forming. They are circular, drilled deep into the earth, and are created by the total removal of vegetation and soil. A large fleet of lorries would be needed to move the quantities of earth involved, but there are no vehicle marks around the holes. The grass and plants around them exhibit none of the minor damage which would inevitable be caused by any normal process of drilling. The holes have all been excavated directly from above, at an angle of 90 degrees to the surface." Six Swiss holes have been reported from the environs of Lake Geneva. The two largest are at Begnins (December 17, 1982; 18 feet across, 24.5 feet deep) and Confignon (February 3/4 , 1990; 33 feet across, 40 feet deep). Obviously, we are not dealing with minor earth-moving operations here. (Anonymous; "The Gruyerization of Switzerland," The Cerealogist , no. 3, p. 26, Spring 1991. The Cerealogist is a British publication focussing on the crop-circle phenomenon.) Comment. Could the "force" flattening the crop circles also gouge out cookiecutter holes and the Swiss cavernous pits? Additional information on the Swiss excavations ...
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... Preference for Certain Geological Formations BMD9 Entombed Mammals BMD10 Late Survival of Mammoths and Mastadons BMD11 Current or Very Recent Survival of Giant Ground Sloths BMD12 Current Survival of the Thylacine BMD13 Current or Very Recent Survival of Steller's Sea Cow BMD14 Miscellaneous Potential Late Survivors Species Richness Correlated with Latitude BME THE FOSSIL RECORD OF MAMMALS BME1 Scarcity of Transitional Fossils in the Class Mammalia BME2 Persistence of Certain Mammalian Morphological Forms in the Fossil Record BME3 Explosive Radiations in Mammalian Evolution BME4 Unexplained Extinctions of Large Mammals BME5 The Failure of Evolution to Improve Mammal Survivability BME6 Anomalously Early Fossils BME7 Track-Like Markings in Ancient Strata BME8 Mammals with Histories Known Only from Subfossils BME9 Anomalous Distribution of Mammalian Skeletal Material BME10 Parallelisms in the Mammalian Fossil Record BME11 Pleistocene Dwarfing of Some Mammals BME12 Variations in Mammalian Teeth and Skeletons Show a Definite Direction Very Early Australian Placental Mammals Eurasian Apes as Ancestors of the Great Apes (and Humans) Aquatic Sloths Evolution of Cetacean Osmoregulation Evolution of Giraffe Necks Bipedal Apes (before Humans) BMF BODILY FUNCTIONS BMF1 Water-Breathing in Mammals BMF2 Remarkable Adaptations in Diving Mammals BMF3 Oddities of Digestion BMF4 Perpetual Growth in Mammals BMF5 Limb Generation in Mammals BMF6 Anomalies of Hibernation in Monotremes BMF7 The "Winter Sleep" of Bears BMF8 Freeze-Avoidance in Hibernating Mammals BMF9 Cold-Blooded Mammals (Poikilotherms) BMF10 Transmission to Progeny of Adaptations Induced by Low Temperature BMF11 Inheritance of the Effects of Rotation BMF12 Male Lactation BMF13 Asymmetry in the Function of Mammary Glands BMF14 Pressurized, Sealed Suckling Systems BMF15 The Ability of One Mammal to Control the Sexual Functions of Another BMF16 Correlation of Primate Menstruation with Lunar Phase BMF17 The Delayed ...
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