119 results found.
... Some are 3.5 meters in circumference (about 3.8 feet across). When alive, they probably weighed 300 kilograms (660 pounds). About 200 million years ago, according to the geologists, these oysters were thriving under Pacific waters. One must conclude that the Andes rose to their snowy magnificence in a very short period of geological time. (Mayo, Raul; "Descubren Fosiles de Ostras Gigantes en Plena Cordillera," El Comercio, February 28, 2001. Cr. R. Gabbert) Comment. The article calls the fossils "oysters" (" ostras"), but they look more like giant clams. The high Andes boast some curious marine innuendoes. Lake Titicaca is freshened by melting snows but is said to support a species of seahorse and many fish with marine affinities. It drains into lakes that are highly saline. From Science Frontiers #139, Jan-Feb 2002 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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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 Flashy Fish The Amazonian angel fish, popular in aquariums, employs a Star Wars-like weapon in battling invaders of its territory. The flat sides and silvery scales of this species make highly efficient mirrors. These fish have learned how to maneuver their bodies so as to reflect bright flashes of sunlight directly into the eyes of their opponents. These intense bursts of light are often enough to burst blood vessels in the eyes of the target fish -- sometimes even stunning it. Pairs of Amazonian angel fish have been observed flitting about in "light-fights" as they attempt to zap each other and avoid optical counterattacks. (Anonymous; Creation/Ex Nihilo , 21:7 , March-May 1999. Attributed to Sydney Morning Herald , October 13, 1998.) Comments. The use of light as an offensive weapon is reminiscent of those dolphins that stun their prey with powerful pulses of sound. Creation/Ex Nihilo is an Australian Creationist publication. It is easy to see why creationists focus on these lightfighting fish. Their weapons required the coevolution of flat sides, silvery scales, and the complex instinctive behavior needed for orienting their bodies relative to both the sun and their opponents. From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 126: Nov-Dec 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Swimming Up The Wrong Streams Of course, most freshwater fish do swim upstream in the usual way, but not the candiru. It is partial to very specific streams. This small, slim, scaleless species of catfish inhabits the Amazon where it preys on other fish, often by invading their gills and feasting on blood and tissue. They also aim much higher on evolution's ladder: they are the only known vertebrate parasites of humans. It is when they prey upon humans that they swim up the wrong streams -- at least their victims think so! Their technique is simple. They detect human urine released by swimmers and follow it right to the source. They don't stop there but insert themselves right into the penis and keep going, sometimes all the way to the bladder. Once inside the penis they erect their spines and cannot be extracted except by surgery. Left alone, they are not only excruciating to the unwise bather but can eventually be fatal. Surgeons have successfully extracted them from the bladder, but in remote areas penis amputation is the only answer! (Warren, Nicholas; "In Mare Internum," Fortean Times, p. 14, September 1999. Title translation: "Within the Inner Sea.") From Science Frontiers #126, NOV-DEC 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... No. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Some Funny Things Happened On The Way Around The World Weird things happen in the weightlessness of an orbiting spacecraft. In the many videos shot aboard the Space Shuttle s, we are treated to tools, even gently oscillating globules of water, floating aimlessly in midair. Even stranger are the effects of microgravity on humans and other life forms. Astronauts, for example, when they first arrive in orbit, sometimes perceive their world to be upside-down regardless of their orientation. Their nervous systems were apparently thrown for a loop when the force of gravity was cancelled out. These illusions disappear later in the mission. Speaking of loops, consider the medaka. This fish is the only vertebrate to have mated and laid eggs that developed into offspring in microgravity. Said offspring are doomed to lives of somersaulting swimming. (Wassersug, Richard J.; "Life without Gravity," Nature, 401:758, 1999.) Comment. Could there be a connection to the nervous affliction of tumbler pigeons? See BBB8 in Biological Anomalies: Birds. From Science Frontiers #127, JAN-FEB 2000 . 1997 William R. Corliss ...
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... 's last name is related to his or her occupation. A solid example of ND is seen in the name of the Director of U.S . Programs for the Rodale Institute. The Institute, it turns out, is studying carbon and nitrogen balances in organically managed cropping systems. Nitrates originating in such agriculture contaminate the ground water and often end up in drinking water. The EPA has determined that nitrates in drinking water can be harmful; thus this study. Who directs the study? Dr. Laurie Drinkwater! (Anonymous; "Organics Reduce Groundwater Pollution," Acres U.S .A . , p. 11, May 1999. Cr. L. Cortner.) And to whom does the journal Marine Observer turn when expert opinion is required on marine phenomena, including fish identification? Dr. Peter Herring! From Science Frontiers #125, SEP-OCT 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Possible Unrecognized Senses BBT12 Remarkable Feats of Flight BBT13 The Origin of Avian Flight BBT14 Unanswered Questions Concerning Flightlessness BBT15 Some Curiosities of Avian Flight BBT16 Deep-Diving Capabilities BBT17 Vocal Mimicry in Birds BBT18 Birds That Vocally Mimic Only in Captivity BBT19 Vocal Mimicry of Hosts by Parasitic Species BBT20 Duetting BBT21 Chorusing BBT22 Large Vocal-Repertoire Sizes and High Speeds of Delivery BBT23 Female Singers BBT24 Whisper Songs and Subsongs BBT25 The Two-Voice Phenomenon BBT26 Some Curiosities of Avian Vocalizations BBT27 Incubator Nests BBT28 Woven and Sewn Nests BBT29 Nests Containing Protective Materials BBT30 Bowers BBT31 Nest Curiosities BBT32 Tool Use BBT33 Communication between Chick Embryos BBX AVIAN INTERFACE PHENOMENA BBX1 Unusual Attacks on Humans BBX2 Unusual Predators of Birds BBX3 Unusual Bird-Animal Psychological Interfaces BBX4 Curious Associations of Birds with Other Animals and Plants BC BIOCHEMISTRY Titles not yet posted BF FISH Titles not yet posted BG GENETICS Titles not yet posted BH HUMANS BHA EXTERNAL APPEARANCE AND MORPHOLOGY BHA1 Human Asymmetry BHA2 The Appearance of Beauty in the Human Lineage BHA3 General Physique Correlated with the Month of Birth BHA4 Human Body Badly Designed for Swimming BHA5 The Apparent Physical Degeneration of Humans BHA6 Human Physical Degeneration and Genius BHA7 Variability of External Appearance BHA8 Discordances in the Appearances of Identical Twins BHA9 Mirror-Image Twins BHA10 The Apparent Primitive Character of Some Features of the Human Body BHA11 Human and Orang-Utan Physiological Similarities BHA12 Significant Morphological Differences between Humans and the Great Apes BHA13 Sports, Monsters, Terata BHA14 Two Separate Populations of Pygmies BHA15 Birth Weight Varies with Month of Birth BHA16 Human Sexual Dimorphism BHA17 Sex-Ratio Variations BHA18 Gradations between Male and Female BHA19 The Sacral Spot BHA20 Pigmentation Peculiarity on ...
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... Organisms at Great Depths ESB10 Fossils of Warm-Climate, Light Dependent Organisms Found in the Polar Regions ESB11 Time-Wise Anomalous Fossils ESB12 Skipping in the Fossil Record ESB13 "Special" Nature of Fossils ESC ANOMALOUS CHEMICAL PHENOMENA IN GEOLOGY ESC1 Chemical Anomalies in the Stratigraphic Record ESC2 Chemical Anomalies in Igneous and Metamorphic Rocks ESC3 Surface Films on Rocks ESC4 Spontaneous, Rapid, Exothermic Reactions in Nature ESC5 Death Gulches ESC6 Violent Lake Turnovers ESC7 Petrifactions and Lignifications ESC8 Geological Effects of Natural Combustion ESC9 Rocks and Sediments of Controverted Origins ESC10 Unusual Growth Structures ESC11 Possible Extraterrestrial Origin of Ocean Water ESC12 Chemical Anomalies of Lakes and Ground Water ESC13 Petroleum Anomalies ESC14 Coal Anomalies ESC15 Outgassing of Radon-222 ESC16 Methane Anomalies ESD DEPOSITS OF REMARKABLE SIZE ESD1 Bone Caves, Bone Caches,... ESD2 Bone Beds, Fish Beds,... ESD3 Sedimentary Deposits of Exceptional Volume ESD4 Historical Evidence for Large Scale Flooding ESD5 Recent Large Reductions of Polar Ice Cover ESD6 Giant Basalt Flows and Traps ESD7 Giant Accumulations of Oil ESD8 Giant Erratics and Megabreccias ESD9 Deposits of Great Areal Extent ESI INCLUSIONS ESI1 Inclusions in Crystals ESI2 Microdebris ESI3 Erratic Boulders, Stones, and Mineral Patches ESI4 Anomalous Amber Inclusions ESI5 Microfossil-Like Inclusions ESI6 Oil in Fossil Cavities ESI7 Carbon Dust on Fossil Plants ESI8 Great Rarity of Fossil Meteorites and Tektites ESI9 Stretched Pebbles ESM ANOMALOUS SUPERFICIAL GEOLOGICAL MATERIALS ESM1 Unusual Superficial Aggregations of Rocks ESM2 Strewn Fields of Natural Glasses ESM3 Tektite and Microtektite Paradoxes and Anomalies ESM4 Boulder Trains and Belts ESM5 Rock Glaciers, Block Fields,... ESM6 Elevated Erratics... ESM7 Anomalous Glacial Drift ESM8 Fluidized Debris Slides ...
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... Spokes Radiating from Thunderclouds GWC15 Excess of Ice Crystals in Cumulus Clouds GWC16 Cloud Brightness Changes GWC17 Anomalous High-Altitude Haze Green Clouds [GWH] Bright-Night Phenomenon High-Altitude Layers of Material Natural Sodium Clouds Bromine Pulses Arctic Plumes Stratospheric Water Flow and Reservoirs Miscellaneous Unexplained Clouds Holes in the Ionosphere (Icy Comets) Ozone Holes Ozone Clouds GWD DARK DAYS, FOGS, AND OTHER OBSCURATIONS GWD1 Dark Days GWD2 Pogonips and Other Ice Fogs GWD3 Mists and Epidemics GWD4 Dry Fogs and Dust Fogs GWF FALLS GWF1 Ice Falls or Hydrometeors GWF2 Stone Falls GWF3 Sulphur/Pollen Falls GWF4 Falls of Miscellaneous Inorganic Substances GWF5 The Fall of Manna GWF6 Unusual Falls of Hay and Leaves GWF7 Gelatinous Meteors or Pwdre Ser GWF8 Prodigious Falls of Web-Like Material (Angel Hair) GWF9 Falls of Miscellaneous Organic Substances GWF10 Fish Falls GWF11 Falls of Frogs and Toads GWF12 Insect Falls GWF13 Bird Falls GWF14 Falls of Miscellaneous Living Animals Sewage Falls Falls of Liquids and Goo GWH LARGE STORM SYSTEMS GWH1 Ozone in Hurricanes GWH2 Hurricane Geographical Anomalies GWH3 Thunderstorm Systems Hypercanes Unusually Intense Storms Large-Scale Oscillations of the Atmosphere Wind Storms in the Upper Atmosphere Green Thunderstorms [GWC] Hurricane Fine Structure GWP ANOMALOUS PRECIPITATION GWP1 Precipitation from a Clear Sky GWP2 Giant Snowflakes GWP3 Conical Snowflakes GWP4 Hailstones with Anomalous Shapes GWP5 Giant Hailstones GWP6 Hail Strewn Patterns GWP7 Slowly Falling Hail GWP8 Unusual Inclusions in Hail GWP9 Explosive Hail GWP10 Colored Precipitation GWP11 Luminous Precipitation GWP12 Point Precipitation GWP13 Surplus Ice Crystals in Clouds GWP14 Decrease of Rainfall with Increasing Altitude GWP15 Rain Gushes Associated with Lightning Puzzle of Snowflake Symmetry Weekend Rain Rainfall Correlated with Soil Temperature GWR TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES GWR1 Temperature ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Down-Falls "Falls" are a Fortean staple, particularly showers of fish and frogs. But the sky produces other exotic materials, such and blocks of ice and (ugh!) raw sewage. July 26, 1998. Rue, Switzerland. "On Sunday July 26, 1998, at around 9h 45m Central European DaylightSaving Time (7h 45m UT), a Rue farming couple were in front of their house when they heard a whistling sound "like a big rocket on August 1" (Swiss national holiday). They just had time to see a block of ice the size of a "football" pass in front of their field of vision and crash into the tarred path near to their farm. The block broke up into thousands of pieces and the witness recuperated [sic] the largest which was "the size of a skittle." The ice was "very hard" and "snow-colored." "The witness estimated the weight of the ice block at 7-8 kg and the piece he was able to recuperate at 6-7 kg. Unfortunately, he did not think of conserving the block in the freezer, and let it melt near his house after having shown it to his neighbor, who had also heard the noise." Swiss aviation officials claimed they could not identify any aircraft that might have been responsible "because of incertitude over the time of the incident" ...
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... , and, when measured by sextant, their upper tips were calculated to be nearly 13 km high. The shafts appeared to be reflected in a thin layer of cirrostratus and, as the vessel approached to 60 n mile from the terminal, the glow from the flares was also visible on the horizon." (Peterson, J.L .; "Optical Phenomenon," Marine Observer, 69:110, 1999.) Tall light pillars rise over the South China Sea February 4, 1999. Toyama Bay, Japan. The caption quoted below is located beneath an impressive color photograph of five tall pillars of light reaching up into the night sky. "Rare beams of light rise to the upper atmosphere over Toyama Bay on Thursday. The lights appeared about 2,000 meters above fishing boats with fires aboard to attract squid, for about 20 minutes from 8 p.m . The night illuminations are a rare natural phenomenon in which lights on the ground are reflected in the hexagonal crystals that form in the cirrostratus. According to experts, the phenomenon can only be observed in ideal weather conditions when the height of the cloud matches the distance from the source of the light to the observer." (Anonymous; Daily Yomiura , February 7, 1999. Cr. N. Masuya.) Comment. Note that the light source in the first case is much farther away than the height of the clouds -- the condition stipulated in the second case! Sun pillars resemble the light shafts described above. D. Steel has recently mused that a sun pillar might well have ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 4: July 1978 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Stone Alignments in Subsaharan Africa Good-bye to the Bimini Wall and Road? Astronomy What Caused the Grooves on Phobos? A New Cosmic Heresy Biology The Four-eyed Fish Sees All A Sinuous Line of Sea Snakes Geology Echo Sounder Outlines Strange Patches Over Underwater Peaks Is the Earth A Giant Methane Reservoir? Geophysics Bioluminescence and Spurious Radar Echoes Curious Patches of Light on the Horizon Meteoric Night-glow Psychology Out-of-the-body Traveller Exerts No Influence Category X South of the Bermuda Triangle ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology How Ancient is Vermont? Early Man in Australia Even Earlier A 6,000-year-old Structure in Scotland Astronomy A Redshift Undermines the Dogma of An Expanding Universe Asteroids with Moons? Cometary Appearance of Venus Nine-tenths of the Universe is Unseen Petrol Channels on Mars? Biology Fish Creates Fish The Obscure Origin of Insects and Their Wings Sunspots and Flu Geology Halos and Unknown Natural Radioactivity Geophysics 70th Anniversary of the Tunguska Event Bioluminescent Patch Detected by Radar The So-called Green Fireballs of 1948-1949 Psychology Fire-walking: Anyone Can Do It ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 13: Winter 1981 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Astronomy More Anomalous Redshifts Tidal Wave of Gammas Sweeps Solar System A Funny Thing Happened Along the Mean Free Path Remarkably Early Dates for Agriculture Biology New Definition for Humans Needed Fish Change Gender When Necessary The Propagation of Acquired Characteristics Terrestrial Life Older Than Expected The Human Compass The Alien Presence Geophysics Violent Undersea Weather Psychology Half A Brain Sometimes Better Than A Whole One Proof of Reincarnation? A Mentally Created Reality ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 14: Winter 1981 Supplement Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The China Syndrome in Archeology Ancient Camp Found 40 Feet Below Colorado Surface Astronomy Venus: Highly Radioactive Or Just Cooling Down? Radial Spokes in Saturn's Rings There's More Than Gold in the Kolar Mines Biology Beetles Make Scents Eyes of Deep-sea Fish Have Spare Parts Worms with Inside-out Stomachs Geophysics More Phosphorescent Boomerangs Do Lightning Channels Accelerate Matter? The Most Identical of Identical Twins Does the Moon Really Faze People? Psychology Innate Knowledge ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Explaining the Nazca Lines Humans in the Americas 32,000 Years Ago? Astronomy Lumps, Clumps, and Jumps Clump of Antimatter 1986: "Tired Light" Revived Again Biology Something Big Down There! Brain Architecture: Beyond Genes Heretical Evolutionary Theory The Chromosome Gap How the Cheetah Lost its Stotts Earth's Womb Geology Oil & Gas From the Earth's Core Oceans From Outer Space? Continental Graveyard? Two Points of Great Impact Geophysics A True Fish Story Booming Dunes Another Luminous Aerial Bubble Psychology Magnetic Theory of Dowsing Chemistry & Physics Unpredictable Things ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology When were the americas peopled? How many migrations were there? Astronomy Supernova problems Were titius and bode right? A LARGER SUN DURING THE MAUNDER MINIMUM Biology First yeti photos? Giant fish reported in china The mite pockets of lizards Evolution through mergers Geology Forests frozen in time A QUESTIONABLE 200-MILLION-YEAR HIATUS Geophysics Shake no quake REMARKABLE PHOTOGRAPH OF THE MARFA LIGHT ANTARCTIC OZONE HOLE HAS COMPLEX STRUCTURE Psychology Glossolalia: possible origins RARE BUT THERE: HYPNOTIC ENHANCEMENT OF EIDETIC IMAGERY ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Stele with Unknown Glyphs Found Near Vera Cruz All Roads Lead to Chaco Canyon How and When the Americas Were Peopled Astronomy "? " ! ? Nereid: Grotesque Shape Or Two-faced? Memoirs of A Dissident Scientist Biology Nothing Reacts with Something? Periodic Extinctions and Explosions in Terrestrial Life Aids: Another Great Deceiver Geology Going for Gold Is There Truth in the Grains? Did An Asteroid Impact Trigger the Ice Ages? The New Archaeoperyx Fossil Geophysics Fish and Winkle Showers Lightningless Thunder? Psychology The Enigma of Multiple Personality Observations of Luminous Phenomena Around the Human Body ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A ROBOT'S MYSTERIOUS DISCOVERY California's maze stones Astronomy An age paradox In the dark about dark matter Biology Why do electric fish swim backwards? Electric fish not backward in data processing Homo erectus never existed! Solar activity, your mother's birth year, and your longevity Smoldering corpse Geology RHYTHMIC SUBMARINE VOLCANOS Blasting rocks off planets Geophysics Looping lightning Crop circles: a middle ground Psychology The birthday: lifeline or deadline? Ganzfeld experiments: do they prove telepathy exists? General Transcendental messages in transcendental numbers ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 91: Jan-Feb 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crayfish Communication It always comes as a surprise when we find supposedly primitive organisms employing our highly technical concepts; for example, the jamming-avoidance techniques of electric fish (SF#89). Still another potential example has been advanced: The lowly crayfish is now thought to enlist some of our sophisticated information theory. Crayfish often live in noisy environments, where one would expect acoustical information transmission would be degraded. This would be true enough if linear information theory applied, but some, perhaps all, real situations are nonlinear. In such instances, information flow can actually be enhanced by the presence of optimized random noise. Stochastic resonance (SR) is the term applied in such cases of nonlinear statistical dynamics. J.K . Douglass et al write: "Although SR has recently been demonstrated in several artificial physical systems, it may also occur naturally, and an intriguing possibility is that biological systems have evolved the capability to exploit SR by optimizing endogenous sources of noise. Sensory systems are an obvious place to look for SR, as they excel at detecting weak signals in a noisy environment. Here we demonstrate SR using external noise applied to crayfish mechanoreceptor cells. Our results show that individual neurons can provide a physiological substrate for SR in sensory systems." Put more simply, the crayfish nervous system has the potential for cashing in on SR in noisy environments. However, the authors also remark that humans, too, accordingly ...
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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 Dragon fish see red Most fish that make a living in deep, dark ocean waters have eyes that are most sensitive to the blue part of the sun's rays (470-490 nanometers). These are the rays that penetrate to the greatest depths in the sea. This adaptation to blue light means that deepsea fish have evolved visual pigments different from those of surface fish and land animals. Visual pigments are complex chemical compounds, and one must suppose that many, many random mutations took place before deepsea fish were able to manufacture visual pigments different from their relatives living near the surface. (Or did deepsea fish come first?) But there is more to this story. Many dwellers in the black abysses generate their own light. They sport bioluminescent organs so they can be seen by others of their own species and, in addition, illuminate prey for easier capture. In another remarkable example of evolutionary convergence, these bioluminescent organs emit light spectrally matching the eye sensitivity of deepsea fish! So far, though, this story is not any more amazing that many others woven into evolution's fabric. But suppose that a deviant species of deepsea fish upset this cosy status quo by evolving visual pigment and bioluminescent organs operating in a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that other deepsea fish could not perceive. It would be as if this species had radar but the others did not! Well, three genera of dragon fish do ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Those Strange Antarctic Fishes A representative Notothenioid fish from Antarctic waters. (From: Eastman, Joseph T,; Antarctic Fish Biology , San Diego, 1993.) In the frigid waters ringing the continent of Antarctica live approximately 275 species of fishes, 95 of which are assigned to the suborder Notothenioidei. This particular group of fishes is renowned for its unusual adaptations, as outlined below by D. Policansky: "Some of them have glycoprotein antifreezes in their blood, some have no hemoglobin, some have so small a temperature tolerance that they die at temperatures above 4 C, some are neutrally buoyant despite lacking swim bladders, and some live as deep as 2950 meters. The suborder has no known fossils, largely because no bony feature -- indeed, no single character of any sort -- can be used to define it. How did these animals arrive there, what are their ancestors, how do they make a living in such an environment, and how can they support commercial harvests?" (Policansky, David; "Southernmost Fauna," Science, 264:1002, 1994.) Comment. Those species lacking hemoglobin in their blood are doubly perplexing: (1 ) Zoologists still do not know how sufficient oxygen is transported in these fishes, for what substitutes for normal blood seems inadequate; (2 ) How could they have evolved from hemoglobin-carrying fishes? and (3 ) Why switch from hemoglobin at ...
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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 Why do flying fish have such colorful wings?As he sailed tropical seas, A.D .G . Bell, in command of the ship Gandara , mused over this question: "Apart from the ones which quite graphically show the lift-off from the water, the other thing that interested me was the wing colouring of brown and yellow, and turquoise. I have noticed during passages around the world how the colours do apparently change, varying from almost trans-lucent purple to a deep navy colour, and wonder how many other colourings of flying-fish wings have been reported. "I think that flying fish are just taken for granted but perhaps if we looked at them more closely, then we may see some really weird and wondeful colours, especially in island areas. What does baffle me, is why, when the wings are only extended during flight, they should be of differing colours. I could understand it if they were a coral-swimming fish where the colours are designed to help them blend into the coral colours and so evade capture, but why the need in flight over crystal clear waters like the Coral Sea?" (Bell, A.D .G .; ". .. and Whether Fish Have Wings," Marine Observer, 64:136, 1994. This journal may be ordered from: The Stationery Office Publications Centre, P.O . Box 276, London ...
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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 Vampire fish -- [x -rated item]A tiny, transparent, still-nameless fish swimming in the Araguaia River in the Amazon Basin comes out at night to suck blood from its victims. It wriggles into the orifices of animals, anchors itself with two hook-shaped teeth, and gorges on blood. The gills of other fish are its usual targets, but the orifices of other animals, including humans, are fair game, too. This Amazonian fish is only about 1 centimeter (less than ½ inch) long, making it smaller than the infamous candirus that threaten bathers in other South American streams. Once a candiru slithered into a cut on a researcher and could be seen wriggling under the skin toward a vein. Candirus also anchor themselves inside their victims' orifices, requiring surgical removal. (Homewood, Brian; "Vampire Fish Show Their Teeth," New Scientist, p. 7, December 3, 1994.) For more on this fish, see BHX12 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans III. To order: go to here . From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Biological 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. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Electric Snakes We have already written about electric fish and how they employ electrical fields to create an "image" of their environment. (SF#89) Snakes, too, it seems, possess an electrostatic sense. The experimental setup for demonstrating the electrostatic-generating capabilities of rattlesnake rattles. Snakes were not blessed with the voltage-generating organs of electric fish, but the simple act of slithering along the ground can generate potentials of 100-1 ,000 volts. In fact, their dry skin seems adapted to generating and retaining electrical charge. Even more curious, laboratory experiments with snake rattles demonstrate that they can generate 75-100 volts when shaken! What is the electrostatic payoff for snakes in their search for prey? It is hard to say. Who has followed hungry snakes around checking on their electric fields? A clue may lie in the ways snakes use their forked tongues in hunting. When following a chemical trail, snakes usually touch surfaces with their flicking tongues. In general exploration, when chemical trails are absent, snakes seem to wave their tongues up and down in a distinctive manner, avoiding surfaces. Herpetologists usually ascribe this action to chemical "sniffing." However, W.T . Vonstille and W.T . Stille, III, venture a different explanation: "The fact that moist air is conductive for the electric charges that exist on the Earth's surface could be very important to ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Earth's oldest paved road Music and theories of everything Astronomy First you don't see it; then you don't don't see it Beware the ides of june -- and the rest of the month, too! The shattering of 951 gaspra Biology LACRIMA MORTIS: THE TEAR OF DEATH Cancer: a precambrian legacy? Horse sense? Those strange antarctic fishes Our genes aren't us! Geology The incorruptibility of the ganges Geophysics Flat-plate hail Mystery radio bursts Plane weirdness made plain An offset solar halo of 28 ...
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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. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Ancient egyptians in the new world? Carbon-14 dating: under a cloud? Translating the grand traverse stone Astronomy The earth has recently been swallowed by a cloud of inter-stellar gas Arp banished, but not redshift anomalies A YAGI WATCHES A SOLAR ECLIPSE Biology Emf fertilizer? Vampire fish -- [x -rated item] Some shaky observations Blindsight also occurs in monkeys Geology A UNIFIED THEORY OF GEOPHYSICS Six immense armadas of icebergs invaded the north atlantic Geophysics An unknown atmospheric light phenomenon Crop-circle litmus test? Earthquake ripples in the ionosphere Psychology Madness and creativity How to test for lucid dreaming Physics Can we explore hyperspace? Unclassified Nobel gossip! ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology That little "roman" head from precolumbian mexico The "kites" or "keyhole" structures of the middle east Astronomy On the sun, south is almost everywhere The moon: still partly molten? Lunar crater chains Biology Too identical! Why do flying fish have such colorful wings? "ADAPTIVE" MUTATION Electric snakes Geology Satellite spies strange stripes Two really deep oceans Geophysics The 536 ad dust-veil event Underwater thumps Remarkable straw fall Unusual lunar halo Psychology Psi phenomena and geomagnetism Physics Cold fission? Mathematics Lazzarini eats humble pi (posthumously) Unclassified A CURIOUS STRING OF COINCIDENCES Close encounters with unknown missiles ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology FROM THE SUNSWEPT LAGOON Astronomy THE METAL-FROSTED MOUNTAINS OF VENUS! ALH 84001: A MESSAGE FROM MARS OR PERHAPS SOME OTHER PLANET IRONCLAD PROOF OF THE MOON'S ORIGIN? Biology THE ALGORITHMIC BEAUTY OF SEASHELLS MORE HEAR EARS DRAGON FISH SEE RED MALE DOLPHIN KILLS MAN Geology POLAR-BEAR BONES CONFOUND ICE-AGE PROPONENTS A TRIPLE ANOMALY IN A DIAMOND THE GIANT LANDSLIDES OF HAWAII "ALMOST INCONCEIVABLE" CHANGES IN THE GEOMAGNETIC FIELD CHINA'S BERMUDA TRIANGLE Geophysics DEATH WAVES AND SEEBARS STRANGE PHENOMENON DETECTED BY RADARS AND SATELLITES AN ASTONISHING MEDLEY OF BIO LUMINESCENT DISPLAYS Unclassified THE GREAT EXODUS ...
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... a small seaside town was invaded by birds intent upon homicide. Well, something a little bit like that really happened. The real-life event actually helped Hitchcock plan his movie -- of course, D. Du Maurier's short story with the same title helped even more! Here is what really happened on the California coast: "In 1961, a small seaside town near Santa Cruz was bombarded by hordes of sooty shearwaters. The crazed birds pecked people, smashed into houses and cars, broke windows and staggered around vomiting pieces of anchovy over local lawns." This attack was initially blamed on foggy weather which might have disoriented the shearwaters, which normally stay far out at sea. The latest theory is based on the erratic behavior of the birds. They may have ingested fish that carried a marine neurotoxin called domoic acid. Domoic acid is produced by marine alga that bloom frequently along the California coast. (Mestel, Rosie; "Hitch's Birds Deranged by Dodgy Anchovies," New Scientist, p. 6, July 22, 1995.) From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects From dust unto abyssal mud We know the Creator made at least one species from dust, but ocean-floor mud has turned out to have more biodiversity. Twenty years ago, biologists put the number of species at about 1 million. Then, they started shaking and gassing rain-forest canopies. The rain of new insect species that fell to the ground made them revise the estimate to 30 million. The latest, long-unappreciated reservoir of undescribed species is mud -- oceanic mud. In particular, we know that the mud in the Rockall Trench off the western coast of Scotland teems with untold species of diminutive nematodes. Of course, nematodes are not as pretty as birds and fish, but they are nevertheless bona fide species of life. Examination of the Rockall mud and that from other seabed sites has convinced the nematode counters that there may be as many as 100 million nematode species on our planet. When other classes of life are added, the figure rises to at least 130 million. (Pearce, Fred; "Rockall Mud Richer than Rainforest," New Scientist, p. 8, September 16, 1995.) Comments. Lifeless molecules can apparently unite to form an almost infinite array of life forms! The next reservoir of unexplored biodiversity may be the crevicular realm -- all those fluid-filled crevices and channels that extend miles down into the earth's crust. They are full of bacteria and other unrecognized microscopic life forms. As for extraterrestrial ...
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... be reconstituted as two solid spheres of the same size? Regardless of what the math says, it cannot happen in the real world! Well, BTT actually does mirror just such a phenomenon found in particle physics: "The magical way in which a proton entering a metal target can produce a swarm of new copies of protons emerging from that target, each identical to the original, is precisely described by the BTT process of cutting spheres into pieces and reassembling them to make pairs of spheres." (Gribbin, John; "The Prescient Power of Mathematics," New Scientist, p. 14, January 22, 1994. Cr. P. Gunkel.) Comment. Would it be frivilous to ask that if protons can multiply thus (seemingly magically), why can't fish fall from the sky? Many anomalous phenomena might be explained by BTT and other surreal math, but scientists seem to apply such thinking only to particle physics and cosmology. From Science Frontiers #93, MAY-JUN 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lake victoria's cichlid fishes: can random mutations explain them?Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake (420 kilometers long, but only 69 meters at its deepest). It is also the home of more than 300 species of cichlid fishes. Ordinarily, that number of different species would pose no problem for the biologists -- look at the 400 or so species of hummingbirds in Central and South America! Lake Victoria, however, is a very young lake, and all of these cichlid fishes are endemic. Therefore, they must have evolved rather rapidly. Recent seismic surveys of Lake Victoria and piston cores from its deepest parts by T.C . Johnson et al have surprised everyone: Lake Victoria was completely dry 12,400 years ago. Nor were there deeper "satellite" lakes that could have served as refuges for Lake Victoria's biota during extreme droughts. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the present-day 300+ species of cichlid fishes all evolved in less than 12,400 years. This being so, can random mutations -- the accepted source of evolutionary novelty -- have generated so many new species in such a short time? That would be one new species every 40 years or so on the average. (Johnson, Thomas C., et al; "Late Pleistocene Desiccation of Lake Victoria and Rapid Evolution of Cichlid Fishes," Science, 273:1091 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects From The Depths Of The Amazon Trawls lowered between 9 and 45 meters into the Amazon's muddy waters have brought up many bizarre fish never seen before. J. Lundberg and his team from the University of Arizona found two species of electric fish that subsist entirely on the tails of other electric fish. Some of the catfish are armorplated; others are transparent; another catfish is only 8 millimeters (1 /3 inch) long. Most interesting to taxonomists will be two separate species of electric fish that can be told apart only by the different patterns of electrical discharges they generate! What will trawls capture in the Rio Negro which is about 100 meters deep in one place? (Bille, Matthew A.; "Recent Discoveries: Fishing in South America," Exotic Zo ology , 4:1 , March/April 1997. Publication address: 3405 Windjammer Dr., Colorado Springs, CO 80920.) From Science Frontiers #112, JUL-AUG 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cichlids Punctuate Equilibrium In those pesky cichlid fish of African lakes we may be seeing punctuated evolution during an actual punctuation. Responding to the article in SF#108 on the Lake Victoria cichlids, A. Mebane called our attention to Lake Malawi. While the Lake Victoria cichlids seem to have evolved a profusion of species in a space of about 12,500 years, those cichlids in Lake Malawi may have done the same in only a century or two. T. Goldschmidt advances this evenmore-abbreviated time scale in his book Darwin's Dreampond . In it, he discusses how the water level of Lake Malawi fell more than 120 meters during the 1800s -- an exceptionally dry period in Africa. Today, the Lake is again high and once more host to isolated rocky islands, each with its own unique complement of cichlid fish; each island has species found nowhere else in the lake. Where did all these species come from, considering that their little islands were bone dry just a century ago? Goldschmidt writes: "Cichlids that inhabited these exposed rocks would have suffocated, unless they had already left for wetter climes. Yet today, species that do not exist anywhere else can be found near almost every rocky island. From an orthodox point of view, the most plausible explanation for this is quite surprising: many color forms as well as biological species developed over a period of less than two hundred years." This ...
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... other organisms are merely lumbering life-support systems for our genes. In this view, genomes are the masters, controlling our evolution and behavior to ensure their own survival and multiplication. In short, our genes are "selfish." J. Shapiro, at the University of Chicago, has gone a step further and ascribed still another human attribute to genomes. "Genomes function as true intelligent systems, which can be readjusted when conditions require. We still lack testable theories to explain how this can be done. ( Genetica , 84:4 , 1991)" Perhaps we see evidence of this "intelligence" of genes when bacteria and other microorganisms rapidly accommodate to environmental challenges, as in the application of new antibiotics. In this context, read below about the fast-evolving cichlid fishes of Lake Victoria. These fish must have macho genes! From Science Frontiers #108, NOV-DEC 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Imprison Willy!Killer whales get good press and complimentary movies, too. They are usually portrayed as gentle, intelligent, human-friendly marine mammals that dine only on fish. Lately, though, we have been reading that Alaskan killer whales have been snacking on those cute little sea otters. Much more devastating to the killerwhale image is an article in Natural History describing the vicious attack of a pack of killer whales on a pod of much larger sperm whales 70 miles off the California coast. To ward off the attack, nine sperm whales had formed a rosette, heads together, with their powerful tails splayed outwards towards the enemy. The killer whales circled the sperm whales ominously. Every so often, one would dash in and tear off a huge chunk of blubber. Eventually, all nine sperm whales floated dead or dying in an ocean of blood. The "gentle-giant" portrait of the killer whale is tarnished further in the Antarctic where they habitually dine on the lips and tongues of minke whales, then leave them to die. (Pitman, Robert L., and Chivers, Susan J.; "Terror in Black and White," Natural History, 107:26, December 1998/January 1999.) Comment. How will the media spin-doctor stories like these? Killer whales didn't get their name because they ate fish alone. From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB ...
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... it their duty to pry out the rubber gaskets around automobile windshields with their powerful bills. A cassowary can be even more forceful. Recently, a motorist near Cairns, Australia, was forced to stop by a sixfoot cassowary standing in the middle of the road. He edged the car forward slowly, but the huge bird stood its ground. Then, he blew his horn. Bad move! The cassowary objected by kicking the auto, pushing the radiator into the fan, which cut a hole in it. (Anonymous; "Feedback," New Scientist, p. 104, June 13, 1998.) Comment. The flightless cassowaries are armed with sharp toenails, with which they disembowel New Guinea natives who displease them. Besides disposing of obstreperous automobiles, cassowaries are said to catch fish by wading into streams, spreading out their wings, waiting, and then closing them on sheltering fish. (From: Biological Anomalies: Birds). From Science Frontiers #119, SEP-OCT 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Acoustical Pipes In Beaked Whales?Because they are relatively rare, the comings and goings of beaked whales remain largely unrecorded. These mammals are effectively toothless for predatory purposes. In fact, some marine biologists speculate that they secure their slippery prey by suddenly vacuuming them up by actuating a pumplike tongue. (AR#2 ) But how do the beaked whales find their prey in the first place? With their sonar, of course. But these superbly streamlined animals lack the huge external ears of the sonar-using bats. How do they detect the weak echoes bouncing off fleeing fish? P. Zioupos and J. Currey, at the University of York, have drawn attention to the rostrum bone that forms the beaklike upper jaw of Blaineville's beaked whale. At 2.7 grams/cubic centimeter, this bone is 50% denser than the average mammalian bone. "The bone also turned out to have unique chemical properties. It contains 35 per cent calcium by weight -- 13 per cent more than the highest value known previously. Using microscopes, the team showed that the bone is riddled with tiny tunnels. containing highly concentrated minerals." The channelled nature of this bone make it very brittle, making it unlikely that it is used as a ram in mating bouts. Zioupos and Currey propose that this uniquely structured bone is really an acoustical pipe for the beaked whales' sonar signals. (Barnett, Adrian ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology More evidence of precolumbian contacts from asia Deflating a paradigm: brazil's pedra furada Astronomy Life forms in meteorites? Sunspots and planetary alignments Biology Those selfish genes may also be intelligent! Lake victoria's cichlid fishes: can random mutations explain them? Hair rarity The glow below Geology Earthquakes and mima mounds The motor of the world* Geophysics Heard above cayuga's waters A BLUE FLASH Unclassified An innovative computer Are we reall robots? Nominative determinism ...
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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 Horizon-to-Horizon Bioluminescent Bubbling Band June 5, 1995. East China Sea. Aboard the m.v . Tokyo Bay enroute Busan to Kaohsiung. "At 1830 UTC whilst the ship was on a course of 218 at 21.5 knots, what seemed to be hundreds of fishing lights were seen right ahead of the ship and stretching from horizon to horizon. As the ship approached them, it became apparent that the lights were bioluminescence. "The appearance was like large single 'blobs' approximately the size of tennis balls, while at the main concentration the water seemed to be 'bubbling up' in a line stretching to both horizons. When the ship passed through the line, the luminescence gave off such a glare, as bright as daylight, that it was possible to read the identification numbers of the containers on the focsle. The duration of the phenomenon was about 5 minutes or 1.5 n.mile." (Hughan, D.S .; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 66:62, 1996) Comment. P.J . Herring, Southampton Oceanography Centre, called this display "a most unusual account which I am unable to interpret." He opined that the blobs were probably cylindrical colonies of luminous sea squirts, but he could not account for the 1.5 -milewide, horizon-to-horizon bright glare and associated bubbling. Reference. For more ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The View From Within A hypnotized individual can sometimes be coaxed to hallucinate his or her body image as seen by the unconscious mind. The hallucinated body image may be radically different from that conceived by the conscious mind. In cases of mental illness, the hallucinated unconscious body image may not even be a human figure but rather a bird, a fish, or an inanimate object or geometric figure. The nature of the unconscious body image seems to depend upon the nature of the emotional pathology and may even be useful in diagnosis and treatment. (Freytag, Fredericka; "The Hallucinated Unconscious Body Image," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 7:209, 1965.) From Science Frontiers #113, SEP-OCT 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Frog Fall June 16, 1937. Frackville, Pennsylvania. "Astonished householders of this little mining town, ten miles north of Pottsville, went out with brooms and swept bullfrogs off their open porches after a thunderstorm today. "The tiny frogs sounded like the thudding of hailstones as they dropped by hundreds on tin roofs. "Miniature "twisters" accompanying the rain had lifted the frogs several yards into the air, it was suggested, and dropped them over Frackville." (Anonymous; "Bullfrogs by the Hundred Fall in Pennsylvania Rain," New York Times, June 17, 1937. Cr. M. Piechota. Comment. The "whirlwind theory" is always trotted out to account for fish, frog, and toad falls. It is not easy to find hundreds of tiny frogs in a marsh and then vacuum them up without also levitating considerable plant debris and other marsh dwellers. From Science Frontiers #115, JAN-FEB 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... called them. A. Berg has pointed out that Mima Mounds tend to be concentrated in seismically active areas, whereas pocket gophers and their kindred rodent excavators have a more general distribution. This observation has led Berg to theorize that earthquake vibrations rather than gophers raised the Mima Mounds. Indeed, if you sprinkle sand on a vibrating surface in the lab, you do see tiny mounds of sand rising mysteriously. (SF#69, SF#91, SF#108) Working against Berg's theory is the rather poor geographical match between the fields of Mima Mounds and areas of high seismicity. (Geiger, Beth; "Heaps of Confusion," Earth , 7:35, August 1998.) Comments. Some thirty theories have been advanced to explain the Mima Mounds from ancient fish nests to the flooding due to giant tsunamis raised by asteroid impacts at sea. Distribution of mima mounds and pimpled plains in the United States. The Mima Prairie is situated in Area #1 . From Science Frontiers #119, SEP-OCT 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... course, a brain to process all the signals; but virtually nothing is known about them. (Morreale, Stephen J., et al; "Migration Corridor for Sea Turtles," Nature, 384: 320, 1996. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Do Sea Turtles Stop and Ask for Directions?" Science News, 150:342, 1996.) Rectal gills. Sea turtles are airbreathers that make long, deep dives. To descend deep for long periods, they have evolved a diving adaptation radically different from that employed by the dolphins, whales, and seals; namely, rectal gills. They breathe air at the front end and water at the rear. Water is pulled in through the rectum and directed to sacs lined with blood vessels. These function like fish gills by extracting oxygen from the seawater. The oxygen-depleted water is them expelled and another "breath" is taken. (Green, John; ISC Newsletter, 11:10, no. 3, 1991. Actual publication date: 1997. ISC = International Society of Cryptozoology.) Routes taken by migrating leatherback turtles in 1992. From Science Frontiers #112, JUL-AUG 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , 68:695, 1994. Ref. 2. Guidon, N., et al; "Nature and Age of the Deposits in Pedra Furada, Brazil: Reply to Meltzer, Adovasio & Dillehay," Antiquity, 70:408, 1996. Comment. Continuing our SF#105 analogy between geofacts and biological organisms -- both supposedly products of random processes and subsequent selection -- we ask how long it would take for enough random mutations to accumulate, in the proper order (as with the geofact flake scars) to evolve a new species, with the help of natural selection (corresponding to Guidon et al sorting out their flaked stones)? Millions of years? But perhaps that much time was not available. See under BIOLOGY the two items on the rapidly evolving ciclid fishes of Lake Victoria and "intelligent" genomes. Crude stone tools like this are certain signs of human presence -- except when paradigms dictate otherwise! This one is a "bona fide" tool from New Guinea. From Science Frontiers #108, NOV-DEC 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 clicks. This passive acoustical imaging would be a useful evolutionary development because dolphin clicks warn some prey and allow them to escape. (Anonymous; "Cacophony of the Deep," Discover, 19:19, May 1998.) Comments. Some insects can detect the sonar cries of pursuing bats and take evasive action. Perhaps some fish can detect pursuing dolphins, too. Blind people can augment facial vision by tapping with a cane or using a mechanical clicker. From Science Frontiers #120, NOV-DEC 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the ancestors of North America's Clovis people are said to have trekked across the Bering land bridge. (Wilford, John Noble; "Chilean Field Yields New Clues to Peopling of Americas," New York Times, August 25, 1998. Cr. M. Colpitts) New Clues. Just to the north of Monte Verde, on the coast of southern Peru, traces of a hitherto unknown, 11,000-year-old maritime culture have emerged. For short, the new site is called QJ-280 (for Quebrada Jaguay 280). QJ-280 is now about 2 kilometers inland from the Pacific Ocean. But 11,000 years ago, sea levels were lower, and it was 7-8 kilometers inland. This site is littered with the bones of fish and marine birds, such as cormorants. The people of QJ-280 were obviously familiar with the sea and exploited it almost exclusively. Whence this maritime culture? Did they come down the coast from North America or across the wide Pacific? Further, the OJ-280 site has yielded obsidian, which could only have come from the highlands 130 kilometers to the east. Did the QJ-280 mariners penetrate that far inland, or did they trade with an unrecognized highland culture? Finally, equally old Paleoindian sites have been researched by A. Roosevelt in the lowlands near the Atlantic coast -- a continent away. These jungle cultures had developed entirely different ways of living from the others just mentioned. In this context, Roosevelt commented: "There's no apparent ancestral relationship ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 132: Nov-Dec 2000 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Columbus Exonerated: Viking Blamed The Viking Mooring-Stone Saga Sails On Earthmovers of the Amazon Hold that Mega-Megalith Astronomy It Depends on How you Look at It! Theories that are Hard to Believe Explain Things We Cannot See Biology Do Not Try this Experiment at Home! Fish Tales From the Mouth of Fishes Unidentified Cellular Object Geology Sandslides: Desert Catastrophes Geophysics Luminous Toroid Dangled Sparkling "Candies" Curious Phenomena in Venezuala Mathematics Puzzling Partitions ...
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