219 results found.
... That Talk Among Themselves "Acacia trees pass on an 'alarm signal' to other trees when antelope browse on their leaves, according to a zoologist from Pretoria University. Wouter Van Hoven says that acacias nibbled by antelope produce leaf tannin in quantities lethal to the brows ers, and emit ethylene into the air which can travel up to 50 yards. The ethylene warns other trees of impending danger, which then step up their own production of leaf tannin within just five to ten minutes." (Hughes, Sylvia; "Antelope Activate the Acacia's Alarm System," New Scientist, p. 19, September 29, 1990.) Free-ranging antelope can always find unwarned acacias with low levels of tannin to browse on, but on some South African game ranges, they are forced to consume high tannin leaves. Too much tannin inactivates the antelopes' liver enzymes, and they die in about two weeks. Hundreds may perish in a very dry season. (Vincent, Catherine; "Les Arbres Communiquent entre Eux," Le Monde , p. 11, September 14, 1990. Cr. C. Mauge) From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . Fla-herty, an experienced wildlife photographer, saw a single shaft of light descending from high in the sky toward a Wiltshire wheat field. Flaherty's view of the field itself was cut off by a ridge, so he could provide no further data. When morning came, as you probably surmised, the field displayed flattened wheat -- not the run-of-the-mill circles, but a scroll of sorts and even a triangle with rounded corners. (Meaden, G.T .; "The Beckhampton 'Scroll-Type' Circles, the Beckhampton 'Triangle,' and Strange Attractors," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 15:317, 1990.) Comment. Could the English column of light have been created by the same force that made the Ohio burnt circle? The "triangle" nearby. The sides are 10-11 meters long. Des Ronds dans le Ble. Yes, the French are chasing crop circles, too. In fact, a team of 8 French observers (designated VECA 90) spent the summer of 1990 in England. After watching by night without success, reviewing the English data, they finally discovered the secret (" ils ont finalement decouvert le pot aux roses"). The crop circles and all the elaborate designs are man-made! In fact the French team demonstrated how one could quickly make circles and more complex designs with a garden roller. Case closed!? (Pinvidic, Thierry; "L 'Histoire Folle des Ronds dans le Ble," Science et Vie ...
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... 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 and similar events is certainly required. Anomalists know from experience that for every strange phenomenon there exists a hoaxer anxious to reproduce it. Reference. Cookie-cutter holes have been cataloged in ETB7 in our catalog on topographical anomalies: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the usual theories." The gyroscopes employed are small, weighing about 175 grams when not spinning. When spun clockwise, as viewed from above, no weight changes were observed. But rotating at 13,000 rpm counterclockwise, the 175-gram gyroscope lost about 10 milligrams. The balance's sensitivity was 0.3 milligram. This is a very large effect; and the weight loss increased linearly with increased speed of rotation. Obviously, the physicists are most perplexed by this "antigravity" effect. Perplexity has been accompanied by outright disbelief. R.L . Park, a physics professor at Maryland, remarked: "It would be revolutionary if true. But it is almost certainly wrong. Almost all extraordinary claims are wrong." R.L . Forward, an Air Force consultant, con-curs: "It's a careful experiment. But I doubt it's real, primarily because I've seen so many of these things fall apart." (Anonymous; "Anti-Gravity Effect Claim by Japanese," San Francisco Chronicle, December 28, 1989. Cr. J. Covey. Also: Anonymous; "A Gyroscope's Gravity-Defying Feat," Science News, 137:15, 1990.) Comment. The amazing thing - the anomaly - is that such "misguided" research got funded at all and the results published. But then, maybe Japanese research proposals do not have to get by 7 (that's seven) reviewers, as required by the U.S . National Science Foundation! ...
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... the dinosaurs, and so on. Alas, things are not quite as certain as they appear. Radiometric dating is not all that precise; errors may be large indeed. Take the Pennsylvanian period for example. It is part of the Carboniferous period, when many of the great coal deposits were laid down. The classical duration of the Pennsylvanian -- used in many texts -- is 34 million years. A meticulous new study of central European stratigraphy now pegs the Pennsylvanian as spanning only 19 million years. Now that's a 44% change! This new figure for the duration of the Pennsylvanian has already cast doubt on the origin of the famous Pennsylvanian cyclothems (repetitive strata) in North America. It had been thought that these seemingly cyclic deposits were correlated with sea level changes forced by variations in the earth's orbit (the Milankovitch periods). With this substantial compression of Pennsylvan-ian time, this correlation falls apart. The cyclothems, which are of impressive area and thickness, now seem to have been created by some other, still unrecognized phenomenon. (Klein, George deV.; "Pennsylvanian Time Scales and Cycle Periods," Geology , 18:455, 1990.) Comment. Even worse, perhaps, is the fuzziness conferred on the entire geological time scale by this compression of the Pennsylvanian and the possibility of similar revisions for other periods. From Science Frontiers #71, SEP-OCT 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 On The Trail Of The Fifth Force Well publicized lately has been the modern reanalysis of the old Eotvos balance experiments. Some think they show the presence of that famous "fifth force" which is supposed, according to some theories, to modify Newton's Law of Gravitation, and become measurable at distances of about 100 to 1000 meters. The Eotvos results may also be explicable in terms of laboratory air currents. But the fifth force may be showing up in geophysical experiments. "One of the most comprehensive geophysical experiments so far has been conducted by Frank Stacey at University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and his colleagues. Working in two metal mines, the researchers have measured a gravitational constant that is 0.7 percent greater than that measured in the laboratory -- suggesting the presence of a fifth force." (Weisburd, Stefi; "Geophysics on the Fifth Force's Trail," Science News, 131: 6, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Truly Fortean House A host of Fortean forces descended upon a house in Orland Hills, Illinois, in 1988. "Once, a blue flame an inch in diameter shot out of a wall socket for more than 30 seconds, and the outlet still worked. That incident was witnessed by two police officers. Another time, a similar flame set a mattress afire while investigators were prowling outside. "In all, there were 26 separate incidents, all of them witnessed by either police or fire investigators... "' I was there one night when the room was filled with a white haze. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face,' Smith said. 'There was a strong sulfur smell and my eyes were burning. I took a sample (of the vapor) in a vacuum canister. We came up with nothing.' "Neither did engineers, chemists and geologists." Understandably, the occupants of this hexed house had moved out long ago with such goings-on. Teams of experts ruled out arson, natural gas, methane leaks, sewer gas, and electrical malfunctions. The house was finally bulldozed in October 1988. (Elsner, David; "Bulldozers Lay House to Rest," Chicago Tribune, October 16, 1988. Cr. K. Fabian. Also: Anonymous; "Strange Phenomena Force Bulldozing of House," Lorain (Ohio) Journal, October ...
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... vital part of the general scientific outlook. How shaky is the Big Bang? L.M . Krauss of Yale, admits that all cosmological theories are "tenuous." He adds: "There are a lot of fundamental assumptions we base our model on that may be wrong." A leading Big-Bang basher in H. Arp, of whom we have written frequently in SF. We will therefore not pursue his sort of bashing any further here. It is sufficient to say that Arp's doubts about the red-shift/distance relationship continue to receive support through observations of the heavens and in the lab. The other Big-Bang basher featured in Scientific American is H. Alfven, a Nobel-Prize winner in physics. Alfven postulates a universe dominated by electromagnetic forces, which he believes to be more important in shaping the cosmos than gravitation. His electromagnetic theory disallows any universe smaller than 1/10 the diameter of our present universe, thus excluding the Big Bang's point origin. Electromagnetic forces can account for all types of galaxies without resorting to the infamous "missing mass." Alfven can even account for the cosmic microwave background. Furthermore, Alfven's theories are supported by observations of solar-system plasma and magnetic fields. NASA's T.E . Eastman allows: "There is a revolution brewing in applying this knowledge to astrophysics." (Horgan, John; "Big-Bang Bashers," Scientific American, 257:22, September 1987.) Reference. Many more doubts about the Big Bang are cataloged ...
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... great mass of data collected over many years, deserves to be checked out." While Gauquelin has concentrated on sports champions, he has found similar effects for other vocations. Musicians, for example, have a negative Mars Effect. (Obviously, violinists should not compete in the broad jump!) Scientists are positive with Saturn; actors are positive with Jupiter. And so on. (Gauquelin, Michel; "Is There a Mars Effect?" Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2:29, 1988.) Comment. In the indented quotation above, Abell could not imagine a "mechanism" for the Mars Effect. Yet, Mars and the other planets are drawn to the sun by gravitation, which is just as "mechanismless" as are the other actionat-a -distance forces. We can write an equation for gravitational force, and perhaps because of this and long familiarity, we feel comfortable with gravitation. But is it any less spooky than the Mars Effect? Reference. The "Mars Effect" and related phenomena are covered in BHB27-BHB30 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans I. Details about this book may be found at: here . From Science Frontiers #61, JAN-FEB 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nereid: grotesque shape or two-faced?Nereid, a satellite of Neptune, is peculiar in several ways: Its orbit is retrograde and highly elliptical (1 .4 x 9.7 million kilometers) Its brightness changes by a factor of four as it rotates Its diameter, according to M.W . and B.E . Schaefer (Nature, 333:436, 1988) is thought to be at least 660 kilometers. None of these facts taken alone is anomalous, but (2 ) and (3 ) taken together seem incompatible. If the large brightness changes are due to a highly irregular shape, Nereid's 660-kilometer size is too large, because astronomers agree that gravitational forces will sphericize all objects larger than 400 kilometers. On the other hand, if Nereid is two-faced, like Saturn's moon Iapetus (it's carbon-black on one side, light-colored on the other), astronomers are again faced with trying to explain how such a large solar-system object can acquire so much carbonaceous material on one side only. Also, Nereid's eccentric, retrograde orbit surely hints at a history of capture or orbit disruption. (Weisburd, S.; "Neptune's Nereid: Another Mysterious Moon," Science News, 133:374, 1988. Also: Veverka, J.; "Taking a Dim View of Nereid," Nature, 333:391, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #59 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Has the second law been repealed?" From the largest to the smallest scales, the universe is evolving. Matter, in the form of galaxies, is undergoing a colossal expansion. Gas, condensed into stars, is radiating thermonuclear energy out across an infall of matter, drawn by gravity. The simplest of chemical reactions and the most complex of biological activities are occurring on the surface of the earth in a state far from equilibrium; they are heated by the sun and cooled by the vacuum of space. This pervasive cosmic imbalance is the driving force in producing an environment conducive to the formation of structure and complexity." This sweeping statement seems to apply to the entire universe. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, however, insists that, on the average, for the entire universe, the above paragraph cannot be true. The article introduced by this unqualified assertion about the evolution of the universe is really about self-organizing chemical reactions. We classify it under biology because the authors imply that some biological phenomena are self-organizing. The famous Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction is used as the prime example of chemical self-organization. First, one takes a shallow dish filled with a solution of bromate ions in a highly acidic medium. Here's what happens: "A dish, thinly spread with a lightly colored liquid, sits quietly for a moment after its preparation. The liquid is then suddenly swept by a spontaneous ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Honest, this is the last "plant" item!In the September issue of Scientific American, S.C .H . Barrett presents an excellent review of mimicry in the plant world. All sorts of wondrous mimicry are described, involving form, color, odor, texture and even synchrony of life cycles. Plants mimic insects, stones, other plants, and substrates (backgrounds). Repeatedly, Barrett asserts that all of these remarkable developments are the consequence of small, randome mutations guided by the forces of natural selection. To Barrett, plant mimicry is proof positive that evolution is true. It should not surprise the readers of Science Frontiers that this very same article is a goldmine of biological anomalies, that is, data that seem to challenge ruling paradigms. (Barrett, Spencer C.H .; "Mimicry in Plants," Scientific American, 257:76, September 1987.) Comment. Evolution, like beauty, must be in the eye of the beholder! At this point, we could easily launch into a lengthy harangue about why it seems highly improbable that a plant, through chance mutations, could hit upon just the right combination of form, color, odor, and flowering time to dupe an insect pollinator -- even with the aid of natural selection and a billion years. The point we wish to stress here is that the author of this paper sees the same facts and comes to ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A WEST COAST MOODUS?Late 1987 to date. Commerce, California. "Something is going bump in the night under the city of Commerce, rattling nerves and household items alike. "' When it goes off, it can shake so badly that you feel it up through your feet and it can collapse your spine.' said David Stacy, a resident. 'Sometimes it would rattle stuff in the house like the earthquake did.' "The underground explosions occur every 10 or 20 minutes, say residents in the area between Gage and Zindell avenues. They say the tremors have been forceful enough to wake them from their sleep, shake windows and knock down pieces of china." The muffled explosions are not accompanied by smoke or luminous phenomena. They may be due only to the subsidence of traffic noise. (Chong, Linda: "Commerce Becomes Reluctant Boom Town," Los Angeles Herald Examiner, January 17, 1988. Cr. K.H . Taylor) Comment. Will Californians let us know more about these subterranean sounds? They resemble the famous Moodus Sounds in Connecticut, which are thought to be of seismic origin. See Category GSD2 in Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. For ordering information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The new holism -- but is it whole enough?In the short space of two weeks, the New Scientist printed two articles that confront the obvious complexity of nature. Not only is this complexity persistent under the attack of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but it seems to actually increase with time. Do formative or guiding principles exist that science does not take into account? The two articles have very different answers. The creative cosmos. "Most people accept without question that the physical world is coherent and harmonious. Yet according to the traditional scientific picture, the Universe is just a random collection of particles with blind forces acting upon them. There is, then a deep mystery as to how a seemingly directionless assembly of passive entities conspire to produce the elaborate structure and complex organisation found in nature." The author of this introductory paragraph, P. Davies, asks, as we all do, "What is the origin of this creative power?" In groping for an answer, he presents first a common example of "blind" organization: the hexagonal convection cells in a pan of heated water. Using for a stepping stone the cooperative action of atoms in a laser, he leaps to the development of an embryo from a single strand of DNA! All such systems are "open"; that is, energy can flow in and out. They are also nonlinear, which means that chaotic, unpredictable action ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Subterranean life! (part 3)We almost forgot this recent tidbit from Science News that mentions microscopic life forms: "In recent years, scientists have found bacteria, as far down as 1,150 feet, in wells that penetrate deeply buried aquifers -- porous layers of rock that hold underground water. Such finds have forced hydrologists to question their traditional belief that deep aquifers were devoid of life. But it was not clear whether these bacteria were native residents of the aquifers or just contaminants from the world above, living solely within the wells. Moreover, no one had established how the bacteria were affecting the environment, if at all." Experiments have now shown that these subterranean bacteria are indigenous and are important to groundwater chem istry. The bacteria feed on organic molecules and display a curious propensity for metabolizing the carbon-13 isotope rather than carbon-12. Thus, carbon dissolved in some deep aquifer water is enriched in carbon-13 compared to surface water. None of the bacteria found so far seems dangerous to humans. (Monastersky, R.; "Bacteria Alive and Thriving at Depth," Science News, 133: 149, 1988.) Comment. Subterranean bacteria may be associated with the creation of oil and natural gas. From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... second brood, which matures after the catkins have disappeared, develop instead a twig-like appearance after consuming oak leaves. Thus, both broods acquire the proper protective camouflage for each season. Experiments show that plant chemicals control the appearance of the caterpillars. (Green, Erick; "A Diet-Induced Developmental Polymorphism in a Caterpillar," Science, 243:643, 1989. Also: Wickelgren, I.; "Caterpillar Disguise; You Are What You Eat," Science News, 135: 70, 1989.) Comment. Is it naive to wonder why the oaks contribute to their own destruction by providing the caterpillars with chemicals that help conceal them from predators? Plants are usually very clever about producing insect-discouraging chemicals in their leaves. One would expect that "evolutionary forces" would have produced chemicals that would have made the caterpillars more obvious to their predators instead of visa versa. From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... be taken as evidence for non-Newtonian gravity, but can also be accounted for in terms of Newtonian physics if a suitable distribution of high densiity masses exist beneath the borehole." (Zumberge, Mark Al, et al; "Results from the 1987 Greenland G Experiment," Eos, 69:1046, 1988.) The paper on the Greenland experiment led to a short article in Science in which differing opinions among the re-search team members about the experiment's significance were aired. Some opted for an unusual density distribu-tion of the rock beneath the experiment to explain the results; others thought that the required density distribution was too unlikely and contrived and consequently favored a modification of Newton's inverse-square law. (Poole, Robert; "' Fifth Force' Update: More Tests Needed," Science, 242:1499, 1988.) Comment. Should we permit this tiny residue of anomalous observations to cast doubt upon a law verified in count-less experiments and astronomical observations? Those who believe in the "residue fallacy" will say, "No! Discard the wild points!" From Science Frontiers #62, MAR-APR 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... a spreading colony, and bacteria aggregate at specific places within the colony to construct cysts or, in some species, to form elaborate fruiting bodies." The Myxobacteria also collectively form baglike traps to engulf and digest prey. It is apparent now that as simple as a single bacterium may seem, bacterial colonies are pretty complex. (Shapiro, James A.; "Bacteria as Multicellular Organisms," Scientific American, 258:82, June 1988.) Comment. How are the collective actions of bacteria effected? Is there a central control center? Oh, oh! We are falling into the reductionist trap again! Life forms do not have to operate like computers do, nor do their functions have to be defined in those block diagrams we like so well. There may be holistic forces involved that escape reductionist thought. It is all very remarkable that bacteria which have been around for billions of years (See article below.) should have acquired such sophistication so quickly, waiting only for the earth to cool a bit. From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... The sixth uncataloged observation would certainly have been worth including if we had known about it: March 24, 1888. Shirenewton, England. "Snowstorm with extraordinary flakes, some were 3 3/4 in. in diameter, yet only in. thick, falling like plates. The storm lasted only 2 minutes but in this short period the ground was covered 2 in. deep." The quotation is from British Rainfall, 1988, as requoted by Pike. In all cases, huge snowflakes are really aggregations of many thousands of individual flakes. Observers have thought that the big flakes attract individual flakes. (Pike, W.S .; "Unusually-Large Snowflakes," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 13:3 , 1988.) Comment. Could electrostatic forces be involved? Reference. The catalog Tornados, Dark Days, mentioned above, is described here . Snowflakes 38cm in diameter fall in Montana. (From Tornados, Dark Days, etc). From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... -limestone couplets. A bundle of five coup lets, for example, is thought to express 21,000- and 100,000-year Milankovitchtype climatic cycles, as impressed by variations in the earth's orbital precession and eccentricity. Analysis of the Fort Hays Limestone Member, however, reveals that while bundles of five couplets do occur, the number may vary from 1 to 12. Clearly, things are not clear-cut. (Laferriere, Alan P., et al; "Effects of Climate, Tectonics, and Sea-Level Changes on Rhythmic Bedding Patterns in the Niobrara Formation (Upper Cretaceous), U.S . Western Interior," Geology, 15:233, 1987.) Comment. As the rather comprehensive title of this article states, purely terrestrial forces may alter the rhythm. It may be, though, that cyclothem changes reflect actual changes in the earth's orbit resulting from astronomical catastrophism. The Cretaceous saw many geological and biological changes. Cyclothems may tell us more about them. All ten members are never present at one location. The most common sequences are 1, and/or 2, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10. From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... letter from P.L . Younger, a university hydrogeologist, first mentioned that most dowsers are convinced that they are hunting underground streams of water. In actuality, he says, most underground water flow is intergranular and laminar. There are no underground streams to find! Then, he continued: "Having said all this, while conducting hydrogeological fieldwork in Colorado, I was involved in 'dowsing' the exact location of buried metal pipes using two L-shaped metal rods, which were balanced on the fingers (not clutched at all). Surface and subsurface pipes gave clear deflection of the rods. I was led to conclude that the rods operated as a crude magnetometer." B.W . Skelcher originally did not believe that any variation in the magnetic field or any other natural force would cause a hand-held stick to move. But: "One day, on the undeveloped plot of land adjacent to my abode, I spied a 'nutter' pacing to and fro with hazel in hand. When the fellow assured me that he was seriously checking the site for hidden water mains, power cables, and so on, I expressed my grave doubts. At this he handed me the twigs and after a brief instruction goaded me to try. After a few paces I was astonished to feel the two bent twigs move in my hands. I am not skeptical any more, I know it works." (Younger, Paul L., and Skelcher, B.W .; "Dowsing-Sense," New Scientist, p. 62, April ...
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... been documented in the November 1986 issue of American Health by David Shannahoff-Khalsa of the Khalsa Foundation for Medical Science. Apparently the yogis of ancient India were the first to notice that breathing is dominated by either the right or left nostril for short cycle spans of one to three hours. (Cycles of this duration are known as ultradian rhythms, and are common to many biological functions.) By simply placing a mirror under your nostrils and watching for the larger amount of condensation, one can determine which nostril is in use. "What are the ramifications of this seemingly insignificant phenomenon? The yogis reportedly have said that improved sleeping, more satisfying sex, enhanced digestion, and appropriate thought patterns were controlled by the use of a certain nostril." It is further maintained that one can force a change in nostril breathing through meditation. In this way, it is possible to enhance sleeping, sex, digestion, and mental acuity! (LeBow, Howard A.; "Have You Heard about This One?" Cycles, 37:191, 1986.) Comment. All we know is what we read in the journals! The next time you feel down, think about your breathing, or try a little cotton. From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... an exposed snow slope at 13,000 feet, when his run was halted by a wet snow avalanche. Moving closer to the avalanche to assess the snow's stability, he again saw the strange tracks heading across the slope to a small bush. "Behind the bush stood an erect entity over 6 feet tall. The figure, of general human proportions and stance, remained immobile, seemingly looking down the slope. 'The head was large and squarish, and the whole body appeared to be covered with dark hair.'" Wooldridge quickly snapped several photographs. He then advanced to with-in 500 feet of the entity and took more pictures. After 45 minutes of observa tion, Wooldridge decided to continue his journey. When asked why he did not approach the figure to force it to move or react, he stated that he got as close as he felt it was safe, being concerned about snow stability, the creature itself, and his solitary situation. (Anonymous; "First Yeti Photos Spark Renewed Interest," ISC Newsletter, 5:1 , Winter 1986.) Comment. The photos and sketch drawn under Wooldridge's guidance certainly do show a human-like creature. The maddening aspect of this whole business is the near motionlessness of the entity. If only it had moved significantly during the picture-taking. Instead of a smoking gun, we have just smoke; that is, enticing but still unconvincing data. Perhaps the full report, soon to appear in the journal Cryptozoology, will bolster the case for the yeti. Reference. ...
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... sheep circle (2 ) on a plateau opposite...In the sector between north and north-east, flocks of sheep were in other fields but in no case exhibited the circular formation, being in typically haphazard groups.' In a second letter Mr Belcher emphasized that the sheep of the two circles were 'variously standing, laying down, or grazing. All quietly occupied, but nevertheless forming this very regular circular formation." (Meaden, G.T .; "Sheep in Circular Flocks: Is There a Meteorological, or Some Other, Connection?" Journal of Meteorology, 14:54, 1989. Journal address: 54 Frome Road, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, ENGLAND BA15 1LD.) Comment. In his letter, Belcher wondered what mysterious force had arrayed the two flocks of sheep so neatly. Meaden, very timidly to be sure, ventured that the same sort of whirlwinds that he believes cuts the crop circles might cause sheep to drift outwards into a circle! In the interest of complete-ness, some grazing animals, such as the muskoxen, will form into a circle when threatened. But are there appropriate whirlwinds in the Arctic? So much for deprecating taxonomy-through-morphology! From Science Frontiers #64, JUL-AUG 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Egg Mimicry In Cuckoos In Britain, cuckoos mainly parasitize five species of smaller birds. They do this by laying their eggs in the hosts' nests. After hatching, the young cuckoos grow much faster than the young of the host species. Soon the cuckoo is able to eject the host's young from the nest and get all the food brought by the parents. Actually, the cuckoo is so aggressive in this business of parasitization that, when it finds a host nest with eggs so far along in incubation that parasitization is impractical, it destroys the whole nest. This usually forces the host birds to lay fresh eggs, giving the cuckoo a chance to parasitize the nest. The most remarkable thing about cuckoo parasitism is the birds' ability to match the eggs of the host species in size, spottedness, background color, and darkness. The eggs of all five species commonly parasitized in Britain are much smaller than a bird the size of the cuckoo would normally lay; but the cuckoo still manages to lay eggs of just the right size. When the bona fide eggs of the five parasitized species are placed side-by-side with the mimics layed by the cuckoos, the matches are uncanny - except in the case of the dunnock, which the cuckoo doesn't try to mimic at all. The question, of course, is how the cuckoos do it. American cuckoos rarely parasitize the nests of other ...
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... what one scientist calls Bell's Theorem. Certainly not all scientists would agree with such an absolute declaration. Since Bell's Theorem lurks in the fog-shrouded country of quantum mechanics, most biologists probably haven't even heard of it. In any event, they would probably think the discovery of the genetic code more profound. Why all the fuss over Bell's Theo-rem? In the laboratory, Bell's Theorem is associated with an admittedly spooky effect: the measurements made on one particle affect the measurements made on a second, far-removed particle. In theory, the second particle could be on the other side of the galaxy, with absolutely no physical connection between the two -- unless you admit to spooky action-at-a -distance forces. (Some over-ly zealous think-tankers have even contemplated applying this effect to long distance, untappable, unjammable communications with submarines!) The article (referenced below) in which this apparent magic is discussed also dwells on another profundity associated with quantum mechanics: does that which is not observed exist? Einstein felt intuitively that it did; and one of his remarks on the subject led to this article's title. Unfortunately for Einstein, all recent laboratory experiments demonstrate that spooky actionat-a -distance forces do exist and that Einstein's intuition was incorrect. (Mermin, N. David; "Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks? Reality and the Quantum Theory," Physics Today, 38: 38, April 1985.) Comment. The laboratory experiments ...
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... 50 and 600 kilohertz. Its emissions are known as the "auroral kilometric radiation" or AKR. While some of these terrestrial emissions are spontaneous, others are stimulated by Type-III solar radio bursts. The newly discovered Jovian laser operates at hectometric wavelengths and is also triggered by the solar radio bursts. (Calvert, W.; "Triggered Jovian Radio Emissions," Geophysical Research Letters, 12:179, 1985.) Comment. Earth and Jupiter thus act like radio transponders, releasing large bursts in response to small solar stimuli. The role of electricity in the history of the solar system is only beginning to be appreciated. Of course, the radio lasers mentioned above are not very powerful, but what might have occurred during the formative stages of the solar system? Could electromagnetic forces have been more important then than they are now? In this regard, note that electrical forces seem to be strongly involved in the dynamics of Saturn's rings. And Saturn's rings themselves may resemble a miniature solar system in the accretion phase. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 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 The Return Of The Tasmanian Tiger "In March 1982, a park ranger in northwestern Tasmania awoke in the dead of night. From force of habit, he scanned the woods, his spotlight punching through black walls of rain. And there in the beam was one of the strangest creatures he had ever seen. About the size and shape of a dog, it was covered with stripes that ran from its shoulders across its back to its thick, rigid, tail. "The animal stood still as the startled ranger counted the stripes, then it nonchalantly gave an enormous jaw-stretching yawn. But when the ranger reached for his camera, the creature faded into the undergrowth, leaving nothing but a rank smell. It also left a trail of excitement, for the bizarre beast looked exactly like a Tasmanian tiger -- also called a thylacine or Tasmanian wolf -- an animal thought to have been extinct nearly 50 years ago." Hundreds of people claim they have spotted the Tasmanian tiger since the last captive died in 1936, but we have no good photos or other "proofs." Mediaman Ted Turner has offered a prize of $100,000 for "verifiable evidence" that the Tasmanian tiger still lives. Consequently, the Tasmanian wilds are being combed diligently and automatic cameras, triggered by infrared beams, are being set up in likely spots. (Bunk, Steve; "Just How Extinct Is Tasmania's ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 46: Jul-Aug 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Curious Luminous Display Over The Pacific Ocean Our general policy admits only those phenomena described in the scientific literature, but here we must make an exception. This account, submitted by a retired Air Force colonel, is unlike anything we have found before -- either meteorological or auroral. "During the last week of August 1970, I was on a trip from Viet Nam to Clark AFB, Philippines. We were cruising at 9000 feet. We had departed Camron Bay between 2 and 3 AM. Upon reaching cruise altitude, I noticed a rather unusual display in the sky. Our magnetic heading from V.N . to Clark was approximately 155 . The display appeared on the horizon in an easterly direction. It consisted of a series of dashes perhaps the color of the moon with a south-to-north directional flow. There was no visible beginning of this display,such as you would see in a comet .. .. . "The awesome feature of this display was its magnitude. I thought if whatever was creating the display collided with our Earth, then we would no longer exist. I also feel that I was seeing only a small portion of the whole. As hindsight I can only regret that I did not report this sighting through Air Traffic Control channels. The crew discussed and speculated on what we had seen, then promptly forgot about it." The account continues, relating how on the next ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Brain architecture: beyond genes "The human brain probably contains more than 1014 synapses, and there are simply not enough genes to account for this complexity." .. .. "Neuroscientists at a recent meeting highlighted how extragenetic factors -- including neuronal activity, contact with other cells, radiation, and chemical factors -- influence brain circuitry, especially during development." In computer terms, our brains are constantly reprogramming themselves in response to internal and external forces. (Barnes, Deborah M.; "Brain Architecture: Beyond Genes," Science, 233: 155, 1986.) Comment. Musing in a Lamarckian way, can the brain, as reprogrammed by external influences, ever feed back information to the genes? From Science Frontiers #47, SEP-OCT 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 48: Nov-Dec 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Freak Wave Off Spain 1960s. At sea off Spain. ". .. the wind was north-by-west, force 6-7 and the ship was spraying and occasionally shipping water. The weather was not troubling our ship to any extent. The sky was partly cloudy with a full moon in the west. At 0520 hours the moon was blotted out and all turned dark. I looked to port to see what type of cloud could obscure the moon so thoroughly, and was amazed -- horrified, rather, to discover it was no cloud, but an immense wave approaching on our port beam. It stretched far north and south, had no crest, nor white streaks, and as it neared at quite a speed, I could see its front was nearly vertical. I yelled to the lookout man to come into the wheelhouse as he was on the starboard side of the bridge and could not see the wave. "As near as I could judge, about 80 to 100 yards away the wave started to break, and in another few seconds reached our ship and struck us fair abeam with three distinct separate shocks, sweeping our ship for her full length. Fortunately, the vessel rolled away just before the impact and this I am sure saved us from even more serious damage." "The wave was higher than our foremost track -- 85 ft above the water. As this wave approached ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unpredictable Things Simple spherical pendulums are fixtures of physics labs, to say nothing of grandfather clocks. It is now widely recognized that pendulums can behave chaotically; that is, unpredictably. As the pendulum bob swings farther away from its rest position, the restoring force becomes nonlinear; i.e ., not proportional to the displacement. At some combination of displacement and driving frequency, a region of chaos may develop, in which theory is powerless to tell what is going to happen next. "It is not just the behavior of pendulums that has sprung this surprise. Systems as diverse as simple electrical circuits, dynamos, lasers, chemical reactions and heart cells behave in an analogous way and the implications extend far beyond these examples -- to matters such as weather forecasting, populations of biological species, physiological and psychiatric medicine, economic forecasting and perhaps the evolution of society." (Tritton, David; "Chaos in the Swing of a Pendulum," New Scientist, p. 37, July 24, 1986.) Comment. Some of the anomalies we record may be the consequence of simple systems gone wild. Chaotic motions of some asteroids and at least one solar system moon are already suspected. Imagine what might happen in much more complex systems, such as biological evolution (hopeful monsters?), brain development (idiot savants?), etc. From Science Frontiers #47, SEP-OCT 1986 . 1986 ...
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... of Energy. This effort has found that life is abundant at least 850 feet below the surface -- a realm hardly suspected to harbor life. "' There is life down there, and it is very diverse,' says Carl Fliermans of Dupont's Savannah River Laboratory in Aiken, S.C . The numbers are high enough to affect the chemistry of the environment: Some of the samples contained as many as 10 million organisms per gram of soil. But even more surprising than the high concentrations is the diversity of the microorganisms, according to David Balkwill of Florida State University in Tallahassee. Many varieties of bacteria and fungi have been seen, and there have been indications of amoeba. And the diversity -- which doesn't appear to decrease with depth -- may force a reappraisal of the environment that lies between soil and bedrock." (Anonymous; "The Bugs beneath Us," Science News, 130:58, 1986.) Under the GEOLOGY heading in this issue, the subject of abiotic production of petroleum is explored. Where could abiotic petroleum be synthesized? Below the surface, in hydrothermal systems. From Science Frontiers #47, SEP-OCT 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 The fossil record and the quantization of life!A recent article on the possible quantization of galaxies was placed immediately before an interview with S. Stanley, one of the proponents of punctuated evolution. Either fate or the mysterious forces of seriality seemed to be saying that it is now time to broach the subject of the quantization of life itself. The reader can blame Stanley only for the stimulus and his discussions of speciation and the discontinuous (quantized?) fossil record. (Campbell, Neil A.; "Resetting the Evolutionary Timetable," BioScience, 36:722, 1986.) Comments. When we suggest quantization in biology, two phenomena come to the fore: 1. The obvious splitting of life into well-defined states -- the species -- as defined morphologically and/or by the genetic code; and 2. The gaps in the fossil record, which imply a frequent lack of transitional forms from one species to another. As Stanley asserts repeatedly in his interview, the fossil record is actually quite good in many places, despite the long-voiced claims of the gradualists that transitional forms do not exist merely because of the deplorable state of the fossil record. In physics the analogous phenomena would be: (1 ) The chemical elements and their isotopes (or an atom's energy levels); and (2 ) The lack of transitional forms. Straining the analogy still further, the evolution ...
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... , plants and fungi (eukaryotic cells) are the descendants of simpler bacteria-like organisms (prokaryotic cells) that had at some stage entered into an intracellular existence, or endosymbiosis. The idea is not a new one, but only in the light of modern experimental evidence has it become acceptable to many biologists. If the hypothesis is correct, then virtually all the major groups of familiar organisms originated 'suddenly' through endosymbiotic associations." Following this lead paragraph, with its paradigm-shaking final sentence, are three pages summarizing the biological evidence favoring evolution by endosymbiosis. (Kite, Geoffrey; "Evolution by Symbiosis; The Inside Story," New Scientist, p. 50, July 3, 1986.) Comment. We cannot possibly do justice to this exciting idea of evolution forced by the uniting of different organisms in the limited format of Science Frontiers. Instead, we encourage readers to purchase a new book by L. Margulis and D. Sagan (son of Carl Sagan and L. Margulis) entitled Micro Cosmos. In passing, we must also remark on the obvious relationship of endosymbiosis to F. Hoyle's "evolution from outer space." Hoyle believes that microorganisms and other biological information are transported in cosmic debris. Finally, the story of Lynn Margulis' uphill fight against scientific skepticism is related in: (Keller, Evelyn Fox; "One Woman and Her Theory," New Scientist, p. 46, July 3, 1986.) Serial symbiosis; bacterium to alga to alga; may have led to chloroplasts. From Science Frontiers # ...
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... second later or perhaps at the same time, I heard a loud swooshing or hissing noise and the phone seemed to come alive in my hand. Then my whole kitchen lit up like a floodlight. Lightning or electricity or whatever it was seemed to flow rapidly from the open kitchen door across the expanse of the far end of my kitchen at ceiling level as shown by the jagged line in my drawing. I'm not sure where the red ball came from but I have depicted it as coming from the jagged lightning on my ceiling. Anyhow, almost at the same time as the lightning zoomed across my kitchen and the phone started vibrating in my hand, a large red ball (with yellow and white somewhere) appeared in front of me and hit me on the chest with the force of a large man hitting me with his fist. I fell to the floor and I believe the phone was still in my hand. I'm still not sure if I was knocked unconscious or not. I couldn't swear I was and couldn't swear I wasn't . The ball hit me with the accompanying sounds of smacking and crackling, kind of like a string of firecrackers being set off." The telephone was dead and Mrs. Townsend suffered chest pains for several days. The ball seemed to be made of a soft burlap-type surface with a fuzzy texture. June 21, 1978. Same place, same kitchen. Same person. Thunderstorm out-side. Again a fireball entered the kitchen. It was about a foot across with jagged ...
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... achieved. Protzen's first-hand experience is impressive and convincing. Certainly he required no radical solutions. The problems that Protzen was not able to solve to his satisfaction involved the transportation and handling of the large stones. The fitting process necessitated the repeated lowering and raising of the stone being fitted, with trial-and-error pounding in between. He does not know just how 100-ton stones were manipulated during this stage. To transport the stones from the quarries, some as far as 35 kilometers distant, the Incas built special access roads and ramps. Many of the stones were dragged over gravel-covered roads, as evidenced by their polished surfaces. The largest stone at Ollantaytambo weighs about 140,000 kilograms. It could have been pulled up a ramp with a force of about 120,000 kilograms. Such a feat would have required some 2,400 men. Getting the men was no problem, but where did they all stand? The ramps were only 8 meters wide at most. A minor problem perhaps, but still unsolved. Further, the stones used at Saqsaywaman were fine-dressed at the Rumiqolqa quarry and show no signs of dragging. Protzen does not know how they were transported 35 kilometers. An intriguing observation by Protzen is that the cutting marks on some of the stone blocks are very similar to those found on the pyramidion of the unfinished obelisk from Aswan in Egypt. Is this a case of anomalous diffusion of Old World technology or simply independent invention? (Protzen, Jean-Pierre; "Inca Stonemasonry," Scientific American ...
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... cosmic rays can promote the synthesis of fairly large molecules. We have already detected molecules as complex as formaldehyde in the interstellar medium. But surely the immensely more complicated molecules of biology cannot be synthesized near absolute zero. This may not be true either because at extremely low temperatures the quantum mechanical phenomenon of "tunnelling" becomes important. To achieve molecular synthesis, repulsive barriers must be overcome. The warm temperatures in that terrestrial pond can provide the extra kinetic energy to climb over these barriers. In cold molecular clouds we must look elsewhere. The laws of quantum mechanics state that there is always a very low probability that atoms and molecules can tunnel through repulsive barriers -- no need to climb over them via thermal effects. "Specifically, entire atoms can tunnel through barriers represented by the repulsive forces of other atoms and form complex molecules even though the atoms do not have the energy required by classical chemistry to overcome the repulsion." Of course, the reaction rates are slow, but the size of the cosmic pond is vastly greater than any terrestrial puddle. The above quotation is from V.I . Goldanskii who, even before Hoyle, suggested a cold prehistory of life, during which complex organic molecules were synthesized at just a few degrees above absolute zero. His article dwells primarily on the physics of the tunnelling phenomenon, which is well verified in the laboratory, but he does not shrink from the biological implications. (Goldanskii, Vitalii I.; "Quantum Chemical Reactions in the Deep Cold," Scientific American, 254:46, February 1986.) Comment. ...
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... not for previous or consequent months. Close scrutiny of daily shifts of epicenters and reports of UFOs indicated that they occurred when the locus of successive epicenters shifted across the area. These analyses were interpreted as support for the existence of strain fields whose movements generate natural phenomena that are reported as UFOs." (Persinger, M.S ., and Derr, J.S .; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: XXIII. Relations between UFO Reports within the Uinta Basin and Local Seismicity," Perceptual and Motor Skills, 60:143, 1985.) Comment. The "natural phenomena" mentioned above are probably close kin or identical to earthquake lights. An earli-er paper by Persinger alone in the same journal (60:59, 1985) links transient and very localized geophysical forces to such psychic phenomena as haunts and poltergeist activity. These two papers are the latest in a long series, mostly authored by Persinger, in this psychological journal. Calculated correlations between seismic activity and UFO observations in the Uinta Basin. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... on the other hand, implies that bodies are secondary or derived features of the organisms. The expansion of genetic research in the twentieth century has led to the conclusion among many geneticists that bodies exist solely for the propagation and dispersal of genes. This perspective has been dubbed 'the selfish gene theory'. While the author acknowledges the insight and creativity that went into the selfish gene theory, it must be pointed out that the idea has not been carried far enough by the geneticists. Where did the genes come from in the first place? Who ever heard of a sea bottom made up of DNA ooze? It is obvious from the fossil data that feces were teeming in the Precambrian oceans well before DNA appeared on the face of the earth, and that feces were therefore the original driving force of life. Bodies exist for the propagation and dispersal of feces, and genes are simply the instructions used by feces in the manufacture of those bodies. This concept is best described as the 'selfish feces theory'." (Sager, J. Curt; "The Origin of Feces," Journal of Irreproducible Results," p. 20, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #46, JUL-AUG 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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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... up about half of all asteroids in the inner belt, doesn't appear to match any common meteorite class, and conversely, common meteorite classes (e .g ., Ordinary Chondrites) appear to match only a few asteroids." (Harris, Alan W.; "Asteroid 29 Amphitrite Is a Topic of Interest," Geotimes, 30:25, June 1985.) Comment. Note that the visual meteors or shooting stars that burn up high in the atmosphere are believed to be cometary debris (SF#44) and mostly ice and dust. The meteors large and substantial enough to make it through the atmosphere and arrive at the surface as meteorites must have a different source -- something more palpable, such as the asteroids, but the spectral disparities reported above may force a reevaluation of this theory. From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 30: Nov-Dec 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cancer: the price for higher life?For unknown reasons, plants and the simpler animals, such as sponges and jellyfish, do not get cancer. But all laterally symmetric organisms are prone to cancer. According to James Graham, the acquisition of cancer-initiating onco-genes by organisms (also an unexplained event) has forced these afflicted organ-isms to develop all sorts of defenses against external forces which might, with the help of the oncogenes, trigger cancer. Typical biological defenses include systems to insure accurate replication of cells, to destroy transformed cells, and to protect or immunize the organism against invading systems. Efficient im-mune systems in turn permitted life to invade mutagenic environments (such as sunlight) and to shed restrictive body coverings. In other words, cancer may have been a blessing in disguise -- the price of higher life| (Anonymous; "Cancer: The Price for Higher Life?" New Scientist, 99:766, 1983.) Comment. Note how easy it is for us to say "developed" this or that characteristic in response to some applied force. Exactly how such responses are made is a major mystery. And why do oncogenes exist? Are they a product of chance? They hardly confer short-term survival capability. Reference. The existence and insidious-ness of cancer pose many questions. These are broached in BHH23-35 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Gravity And Going Around In Ellipses We thought that our readers might like to know that the force of gravity apparently has no significant effect on circumnutation. Now circumnutation is the result of an "impressively ubiquitous mechanism" in all elongating plant organs. More simply, it is the elliptical weaving motion seen in the tips of growing leaves, shoots, flower stalks, branch roots, etc. In a 4- to 5-day-old sunflower seedling, the ellipse traced is 6-8 millimeters long and takes about 110 minutes. The ellipses result from differ-ential growth in the elongating plants. No one knew whether the force of gravity played a role in circumnutation until some sunflower seedlings were flown on Spacelab 1. Zero-g did not affect circumnutation at all. (Brown, Allan H. and Chapman, David K.; "Circumnutation Observed without Significant Gravitational Force in Spaceflight," Science, 225:230, 1984.) Comment. Nature seldom indulges in frivolous actions, but we just may have a phenomenon here that has absolutely no deeper significance. From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Thou canst not stir a flower, without troubling of a star This poetic title from Francis Thompson tries to express the unity of nature from the smallest to the largest realms. One characteristic of the realms even smaller than that of the flower is the quantization typical of the subatomic world -- that is, microscopic nature. At the human locus in the dimensional scheme of things, quantization is difficult to detect outside the physics laboratory. Daniel M. Greenberger, perhaps with the above title in mind, asked whether quantization might not also exist in astronomy and cosmology -- that is, macroscopic nature. He has applied the principles of quantum mechanics to nature in-the-large where gravitational forces are dominant. (Gravitational forces are negligible in the subatomic world.) His math cannot be reproduced here. Suffice it to say that Greenberger has applied his findings to the absorption lines of quasars and the elliptical rings surrounding normal galaxies. Now, quasars and galaxies are far from atomic nuclei, being vast assemblages of diverse matter. Somewhat surprisingly, his equations are successful in predicting some features of these two macroscopic entities. (Greenberger, Daniel M.; "Quantization in the Large," Foundations of Physics, 13:903, 1983.) Comment. At the very least it is mindstretching to find that complex systems with millions of stars may exhibit quantum effects. With some relief, we note that like microscopic quantization effects, the consequences of macroscopic quantization will be hard to ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why aren't the martian craters worn down?The preceding, almost-Lowellian vision of a watery Mars is quite different from what the Mariner and Viking spacecraft tell us about the planet's present condition. Wind rather than water is now the main erosional force. The sand dunes and drifts, the wind-shadows behind rocks, and the sand-blasted surfaces all attest to the desertification of Mars. Ronald Greeley, of Arizona State University, and his colleagues have simulated Martian winds in a special wind tunnel at NASA's Ames Research Center. Using spacecraft-measured wind velocities and patterns, they tried to duplicate the Martian erosional environment. The results were a surprise. They implied that the Martian surface should be worn down by wind-driven sand and dust at rates up to 2 centimeters per century. But at that rate, the Martian craters, which are estimated to be hundreds of millions of years old, would have been worn level long ago. The researchers are now wondering what is wrong with their simulation. They venture that the Martian sand may not be "normal," or perhaps the eroding particles do not travel as fast as they figured. (Anonymous; "The Windblown Planet Mars," Sky and Telescope, 68:507, 1984.) Comment. Another interpretation is that Mars has not been desert-like for as long as presently believed. Reference. The subject of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 29: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Life beyond 100 c Bacteria can survive and multiply in hot springs near and slightly above 100 C -- the boiling point of water at atmospheric pressure. Few scientists have contemplated the possibility of life forms prospering at temperatures well beyond 100 . Recently, however, the discovery of many new and frequently bizarre organisms clustered around deep-sea vents has forced a reexamination of high-temperature life. It seems that bacteria actually flourish in the 350 C water streams from the deep-sea vents. In the lab, these same bacteria multiply rapidly in water at 250 C kept liquid by pressures of 265 atmospheres of pressure. What a surprise! Quoting a concluding sentence from this article: "This greatly increases the number of environments and conditions both on Earth and elsewhere in the Universe where life can exist." (Baross, John A., and Deming, Jody W.; "Growth of 'Black Smoker' Bacteria at Temperatures of at Least 250 C," Nature, 303:423, 1983.) Comment. Ignoring for the moment the extraterrestrial possibilities, the earth is riddled like a Swiss cheese with hot, fluid environments, which we may now consider potential abodes of life. Subterranean life represents a new biological frontier. Who knows what kinds of organisms have developed to feed upon the planet's heat? Could they have con-tributed to our supplies of petroleum and natural gas? From Science Frontiers # ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cancer Even More Insidious A recent advance in cancer research has been the discovery that the development of some cancers is initiated by oncogenes -- genes which have been "switched on" by biological or environmental forces. That humans and other organisms harbor such Trojan Horses is unsettling enough, but it now seems that the development of cancer may require the stepwise cooperation of several different oncogenes. In other words, one oncogene controls the action of another and so on in cascade until the cancer is finally initiated. (Marx, Jean L.; "Cooperation between Oncogenes," Science, 222:602, 1983.) Comment. How and why would such a complex mechanism, without obvious short-term survival value, ever have developed? See "Cancer: The Price for Higher Life," in SF#30. Reference. More on the insidiousness of cancer and related anomalies, see BHH2335 in our Catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans II. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Sun As A Scientific Instrument In connection with the preceding item on solar oscillations and asymmetry, a few brave astrophysicists are now proposing that one mode of solar oscillation (the 160-minute period) is really a manifestation of the sun "ringing" in response to gravity waves sweeping through it! A nearby binary star, Geminga, has a period of this length. It seems that the 160-minute oscillation of the sun is far too long to be a solar pressure wave, and external forces could conceivably be involved. This article also mentions "the throbbing earth" reported in SF#30, an effect which may result from gravitational waves emanating from the center of our galaxy. (Walgate, Robert; "Gravitational Waves on the Sun?" Nature, 305:665, 1983.) From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The moon's moonlets The great lunar basins are not arranged randomly. They occur in bands -- not one band but several. How can this geometry be explained. One hypothetical scenario has the primitive moon surrounded by many moonlets 60 miles and larger in diameter, plying equatorial orbits that are unstable. As the moonlets' orbits decayed, some crashed into the moon's equatorial regions, blasting out a band of huge craters. The force of the impacts also caused the lunar crust to slide over the still-liquid core by as much as 90 . When the next group of moonlets crashed, they gouged out a new belt of craters and shifted the crust still more. Magnetic measurements of lunar rocks tend to confirm that the lunar crust did indeed shift by large angles -- several times. (Anonymous; "Did the Moon Have Moonlets?" Science Digest, 92:20, January 1984.) Comment. Such events could also have happened on earth, which would account for tropical-zone fossils being found at the present-day poles. From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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