... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anthracite man?It is not surprising that the discovery described below has not made its way into mainstream scientific literature. Most mainstream anthropologists would shy away from human bones reputed to come from anthracite coal measures hundreds of millions of years old! Our source is a small newspaper in eastern Pennsylvania. Scientifically acceptable hominid fossils are no older than a few million years at most. So, when anyone cognizant of prevailing paradigms enters the Greater Hazelton Historical Society Museum, he is astonished to find an: ". .. elaborate display of rock-like objects found in the anthracite region by Ed Conrad who insists, based on his 10 years of exhaustive research and scientific testing, that he possesses undeniable evidence that they are petrified bones. "Society officials undoubtedly are impressed because a small sign displayed on a front window carries some very large words: ' This is the only museum in the world where petrified bones, found between coal veins, are on display .' " The photos accompanying the newspaper article certainly portray objects that "look like" human skulls. E. Conrad also asserts that he had also found hominid jawbones, teeth, a femur, and even a petrified brain! (Anonymous; "Bone Display Draws National Interest," Hazelton Standard Speaker , December 8, 1990. Cr. L. Farish.) Comment. From the newspaper article it is impossible to learn what professional geologists and anthropologists think about these purported ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Smoldering Corpse Most cases of SHC (Spontaneous Human Combustion) are written off by mainstream scientists (if they acknowledge the phenomenon at all) as easily explained by the "human candle effect." The elements of this accepted scenario are: (1 ) An ignition source, say, a fireplace; (2 ) The accidental ignition of the victim's clothing and/or adjacent bedding or upholstery; (3 ) The rendering of fat from the (assumed) corpulent victim, which combined with the surrounding wick-like material simulates a candle; and (4 ) The nearly complete, slow consumption of the victim, who is assumed to be asleep, drunk, or otherwise unable to rescue himself. But some cases do not involve all of these elements, as in the following item: " Syracuse (AP) -- Police have scheduled an autopsy today for a woman whose body was found smoldering next to a cemetery tombstone. "The woman's body was found lying on its back Wednesday afternoon next to a massive, 5-foot-high tombstone in St. Agnes Cemetery in Syracuse by the cemetery's caretaker, police said. .. .. . "' We just don't know what happened,' said the Rev. James Fritzen, who runs the cemetery for the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse. 'We don't know if this was foul play or (someone) ...

... pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Poets at sea: or why do whales rhyme?We found the following in Newsweek: "When scientists talk about whales singing songs, they're not talking about mere noise. They're talking about intricate, stylized compositions - some longer than symphonic movements - performed in medleys that can last up to 22 hours. The songs of humpback whales can change dramatically from year to year, yet each whale in an oceanwide population always sings the same song as the others. How, with the form changing so fast, does everyone keep the verses straight? Biologists Linda Guinee and Katharine Payne have been looking into the matter, and they have come up with an intriguing possibility. It seems that humpbacks, like humans, use rhyme." Guinee and Payne suspect that whales rhyme because they have detected particular subphrases turning up in the same position in adjacent themes. (Cowley, Geoffrey; "Rap Songs from the Deep," Newsweek, p. 63, March 20, 1989. Cr. J. Covey) Comment. This is all wonderfully fascinating, but why do whales rhyme at all, or sing such long complex songs? Biologists fall back on that hackneyed old theory that it has something to do with mating and/or dominance displays. Next, we'll hear that human poets write poems only to improve their chances of breeding and passing their genes on to their progeny! Reference. Whale "communication" is the subject of BMT8 in our catalog: Biologi cal Anomalies: ...

... were all bounded by roughly hewn stones, but they had very different configurations. Newgrange was cruciform (see sketch); others were rectangular, beehive, and petalshaped. Quoting the abstract from the Princeton report, here is what the acoustical surveys found: "Rudimentary acoustical measurements performed inside six diverse Neolithic and Iron Age structures revealed that each sustained a strong resonance at a frequency between 95 and 120 Hz (wavelength about 3m). Despite major differences in chamber shapes and sizes, the resonant modal patterns all featured strong antinodes at the outer walls, with appropriately configured nodes and antinodes interspersed toward the central source. In some cases, internal and exterior rock drawings resembled these acoustical patterns. Since the resonant frequencies are well within the adult male voice range, one may speculate that some forms of human chanting, enhanced by the cavity resonance, were invoked for ritual purpose." In a few cases, it appeared that some of the standing stones had beeen intentionally positioned to enhance the chamber's acoustical properties. (Jahn, Robert G., et al; "Acoustical Resonances of Assorted Ancient Structures," Technical Report PEAR 95002 , Princeton University, March 1995. Devereux, Paul, et al; "Acoustical Properties of Ancient Ceremonial Sites," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 9:438, 1995.) Comment. Apparently, humans living over 5,000 years ago were rather sophisticated in their ability to manipulate sound to impress audiences. This talent has not been lost; for example, rock music! *We will cross-reference SF items with both issue number ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Natural Stone Spheres Whenever we see nearly perfectly wrought stone spheres in natural settings, we usually jump to the conclusion that they have been shaped by human hands. We assume that natural forces are too erratic to sculpt such neat geometrical solids. This stance is sometimes justified, as confirmed by the hundreds of precisely executed stone spheres found in the jungles of Costa Rica. Nature herself, however, is often an expert craftswoman. Some concretions are beautifically spherical, so are some spheres fashioned in volcanic calderas. In Utah, though, southeast of Cleveland, in a formation called the Molen Reef, there are literally millions of stone spheres of more mysterious origin. E. Hansen described these in a recent issue of the Ancient American. "The spheres range in size from as small as a baseball to over 10 feet in diameter. The bigger ones are more perfectly round than smaller examples. After a lifetime of trying to form a theory of how these were formed, I can only throw up my hands in surrender! They are clearly formed as mud on a lake bottom, because when two touch, one will indent the other, or both will be equally distorted. The mud simply hardened over time into sandstone." (Hansen, Evan; "Stone Spheres of the American West," Ancient American, no. 29, p. 31, 1999.) Comment. Smaller lithified "mudballs" (usually under 1 ...

... Chemists at the University of Valencia found none of the microorganisms that would identify the ice chunks as falling off aircraft with leaky toilets. One frozen projectile hit an automobile, but the driver was not hurt; another glanced off the shoulder of an elderly woman living in Almeria. As to be expected, the Spanish news-papers played the phenomena for all they could. Also to be expected were a few fraudulent reports. It was all great fun, but scientific explanations for the bona fide hydrometeors are lacking. (Anonymous; "Fortean Ice," New Scientist, p. 5, January 29, 2000. We also referred to several items posted on the Web. Cr. E. Murphy and COUD-I .) Comment. It is extremely rare for ordinary meteorites to hit humans or their structures. Yet, in this icy Spanish fusillade involving only a small handful of ice chunks there were two humans Involved. Suspicious! From Science Frontiers #128, MAR-APR 2000 . 1997 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. ...

... Folklore strongly supports the power of the full moon to disturb people's minds, as underscored by the term "lunatic." The many scientific studies of this supposed lunar effect, however, have come to conflicting conclusions. Templer and Veleber have surveyed previous studies and believe that the discrepancies arise because of different methodologies. By combining new and older data and using a common approach, they confirm folklore by finding a disproportionate frequency of abnormal behavior occurring at the times of full moon, new moon, and the last half of the lunar phase. (Templer, Donald I., and Veleber, David M.; "The Moon and Madness: A Comprehensive Perspective," Journal of Clinical Psychology, 36:865, 1980.) Reference. The moon's putative effect on human behavior is discussed at BHB4 in our Catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans I. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #14, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... . Jahn, who work only a few hundred meters apart at Princeton but are light years apart on the matter of parapsychology. The letter writing commenced after Anderson wrote a column in the December 1990 issue of Physics Today entitled "On the Nature of Physical Law." Here he recommended the categorical dismissal of all anomalous observations that might tear apart the fabric of science. Although Anderson did not name Jahn specifically, it was obvious to Jahn that his work was the primary target. Jahn's response was a long letter summarizing the stupendous quantity of data he and his colleagues have amassed on psi effects. "We have in hand several prodigious data bases, acquired over 12 years of continuous, intensive experimentation, that clearly establish the existence, scale and primary correlates of certain anomalous influences of human consciousness on a variety of physical systems and processes. In our Microelectronic Random Binary Generators experiment, 95 selected human operators attempted to shift the output distribution means to either higher or lower values than the chance mean, in accordance with their prerecorded intentions. In 3 850 000 experimental sequences of 200 binary samples, the overall results were that means in high intensity runs exceeded means in low intensity runs by 4.38 sigma. (The probability of chance occurrence of this outcome is less than 6 x 10-6 .) Jahn also reviewed the results of other types of psi experiments which also produced positive results. Replying to Jahn, Anderson admitted that he indeed had Jahn in mind when he wrote his original article. "What my piece actually said was within my competence as a theorist ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Where did agriculture really begin?The archeological party line points to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. There, the authorities say that, about 10,000 years ago, humans suddenly learned how to sow and harvest such crops as wheat and barley. There, civilization really began. Or was it there? Wadi Kubbaniya, Egypt. At this site, G. Hillman, of the Institute of Archeology, London, has found grinding stones and tubers. This site is dated at 17,000-18,000 years old. New Guinea highlands. J. Golson, formerly of the Australian National University, has found ditches and crude fields in this area. The implication is that humans were tending plants here between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago. Buka Island, Solomons. While excavating Kilu cave, M. Spriggs and S. Wickler unearthed small flake tools with surfaces displaying starch grains and other plant residues. Evidently, these tools were used for processing taro. Further, the starch grains resembled those of cultivated rather than wild taro. Date: about 28,000 years ago. (Dayton, Leigh; "Pacific Islanders Were World's First Farmers," New Scientist, p. 14, December 12, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... inverse pattern in the annual rhythm of wars with a peak in December-February and a nadir in July was found in the Southern Hemisphere latitudes 30-60 S (c in the figure)....The results in the Northern Hemisphere suggest that there is a phase-shift of about one month between the two rhythms. We found a constant rate of acts of hostility throughout the year around the line of the Equator (b in the figure)." (Schreiber, Gabriel, et al: "Rhythms of War," Nature, 352:574, 1991.) Comment. From the curves, it appears that inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere are about 20 times more bellicose than those below the Equator (a population effect?). Reference. The cyclicity of human behavior requires several categories in the catalog volume Biological Anomalies: Humans I, notably BHB8. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #78, NOV-DEC 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... expanded on the Gaia concept. He quotes J. Lovelock's definition: ". .. the physical and chemical condition of the surface of the Earth, of the atmosphere and of the oceans has been, and is, actively made fit and comfortable by the presence of life itself...in contrast to the conventional wisdom which held that life adapted to planetary conditions as it, and they, evolved their separate ways." Mainstream science has shown scant love for the Gaia concept, probably because of its holistic nature. The idea of the earth being greater than the sum of its organic and inorganic parts -- a superorganism -- is foreign to reductionistic science. In Gaia, our planet is a giant, self-regulating entity, something larger than and independent of humanity. Is this scientific? D. Abram deplores modern, mechanistic, reductionistic science as "immature." He thinks that the Gaia hypothesis may well signal the growing up of science. Sattaur concludes the article with Lovelock's assertion that the fate of humanity is interlocked with that of the earth, and that we are not the masters. If we reject Gaia's imperative, she may retaliate! (Sattaur, Omar; "Cuckoo in the Nest," New Scientist, p. 16, December 24/31, 1987.) Comment. God is not mentioned in either article. Extrapolating the Gaia hypoth esis to cosmic dimensions, we get closer to God. At the reductionist end of the spectrum, we could assume that everything the universe (life and all) ...

... Science Frontiers Catalog of Anomalies (Subjects) Strange reports * Bizarre biology * Anomalous archaeology From New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, etc Archaeology Astronomy Biology Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics Catalog of Anomalies (Subjects)Overview Astronomy Biology Chemistry/Physics Geology Geophysics Logic/mathemitics Archeology Psychology Miscellaneous phenomena Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online Science Frontiers: The Book Sourcebook Project E GEOLOGY Catalog of Anomalies (Geology Subjects)Within each of these fields, catalog sections that are already in print are given alphanumerical labels. For example, BHB1 = B (Biology)+ H (Humans)+ B (Behavior)+ 1 (first anomaly in Chapter BHB). Some anomalies and curiosities that are listed below have not yet been cataloged and published in catalog format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. EC Chemical and Physical Anomalies associated with inner Earth ECC CHEMICAL ANOMALIES ECC1 Anomalous Abundances of Some Noble Gases ECD DEEP-DRILLING DISCOVERIES ECD1 Drilling Truth Confounds Surface Science ECG STRUCTURAL ANOMALIES INDICATED BY GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALIES ECG1 Remarkable Gravity Anomalies ECG2 Gravity Trends That Challenge the Continent-Accretion Model ECG3 Gravity Data Indicating Large Mantle Inhomogeneities ECG4 Anomalous Gravity Signals Following Earthquakes ECH HEAT-FLOW ANOMALIES ECH1 Mid-Plate Volcanism ECH2 Hawaiian Hot-Spot Tracks ECH3 Dearth of Continental Hot Spots ECH4 Non-Random Distribution of Hot Spots ECH5 Thermal Plumes Correlated with Other Geophysical Activity EQ SEISMIC PROBING OF INNER EARTH EQA LOCALIZED STRUCTURES IN THE CORE AND MANTLE EQA1 Stratification of Basement Rocks EQA2 Deep Continental Roots EQA3 Deep Penetration of Subducted Slabs EQA4 Lateral Inhomogeneities in the Lower Mantle EQA5 Mysterious Structures at the Core-Mantle Boundary ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects There never was a "crater"!Humans favor tales with beginnings and endings, perhaps because we are mortal ourselves. The universe must, we suspect, have been created either naturally or supernaturally, and it will end either according to the Laws of Thermodynamics or by fiat on Judgment Day! Some scientists, though, see other possibilities. In 1948, F. Hoyle, H. Bondi, and T. Gold proposed that the universe had no beginning and was, therefore, infinitely old. Originally, they hypothesized that, as the universe expanded, new matter was continuously created, and thus the density of matter stayed about constant in time. This Steady State Universe was kicked around for a while but ultimately consigned to the cosmological wastebasket. Now, the idea is being revived as the prevailing Big Bang Universe runs into problems, which have been documented perhaps too thoroughly in past issues of SF. The revised steady state model has jettisoned the idea of continuous creation in favor of many discrete "creation events," which will doubtless be called "little bangs." They also fill space with small metallic needles which absorb microwaves and reemit the uniform microwave background. The new theory needs more work, but Hoyle and his colleagues write in the June 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal: "This paper is not intended to give a finished view of cosmology. It is intended rather to open the door to a new view ...

... 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 Braille And The Brain The human brain apparently can handle more than one stream of input data simultaneously, as shown by J. Hartley's studies of Braille readers. "A chance observation of a skilled blind reader led me to think that reading braille might provide a more natural task for studying the way in which people do two things at once. My studies of my colleague Lewis Jones suggest that he appears to use some form of parallel processing. Jones cannot recall whether or not he was taught to read Braille with two hands, but in common with other skilled readers of Braille, he has done so for many years. Jones' method of reading is typically as follows. The left forefinger starts to read the beginning of the line. It then meets the the right forefinger returning from the line above. When the two fingers touch, the right forefinger continues to read the line while the left forefinger returns to the beginning of the next line. The whole operation is quite smooth and cyclical, as the diagram...shows. However, I was startled to observe that the left forefinger starts to read the next line before the right forefinger has finished the line above. This overlap, demonstrated by my crude data, suggests that Jones appears to be using some form of parallel processing: it seems as if his brain stores initial information from his left forefinger before using it." S. Miller, at ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The spirit pond inscription stone Molecular clock places humans in new world 22,000-29,000 bp Astronomy Anomalous horizon glows seen on the moon From dust unto dust Biology Marine snow A REALLY ERRANT PIGEON A REALLY ERRANT SEAL Cold-blooded birds? Why snakes have forked tongues Lactating male bats Geology The nebraska sand hills: wind or water deposits? The giant crystal at the heart of the earth Geophysics Strange explosions at sasovo, in russia Just plane weird Psychology The healing of rents in the natural order Mathematics Btt and surreality ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 23: Sep-Oct 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Short-circuiting heredity Genes, those carriers of heredity, have turned out to be great gadabouts. Not only do they jump about within a species, but also between species, especially the simple prokaryotic organisms, such as bacteria. It is now well accepted that genes flow between different species of bacteria in physical contact, thus stirring the evolutionary pot. Until recently, scientists believed that the higher organisms, the eukaryotic species, including you and me, did not indulge in such "horizontal" traffic between species. But a few cases have now been found, one involving humans and a microorganism associated with tumors. And the search is just beginning, as biologists look for something they never thought of looking for before. (Lewin, Roger; "Can Genes Jump between Eukaryotic Species?" Science, 217:42, 1982.) Comment. This apparent short-circuiting of classical heredity channels supports the radical notion that evolutionary blueprints may be transmitted between divergent species. In the long view, may-be we should not malign viruses, germs, and biting insects! From Science Frontiers #23, SEP-OCT 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 21: May-Jun 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Hueyatlaco Dilemma Beds containing human artifacts at Valsequillo, Mexico, have been dated at approximately 250,000 years before the present by fission-track dating of volcanic material and uranium dating of a camel pelvis. The dilemma posed by such dates is clearly stated in the following quotation from the conclusions of the subject article. "The evidence outlined here consistently indicates that the Hueyatlaco site is about 250,000 yr old. We who have worked on geological aspects of the Valsequillo area are painfully aware that so great an age poses an archeological dilemma. If the geological dating is correct, sophisticated stone tools were used at Valsequillo long before analogous tools are though to have been developed in Europe and Asia. Thus, our colleague, Cynthia Irwin-Williams, has criticized the dating methods we have used, and she wishes us to emphasize that an age of 250,000 yr is essentially impossible." (Steen-McIntyre, Virginia, et al; "Geologic Evidence for Age of Deposits at Hueyatlaco Archeological Site, Valsequillo, Mexico," Quaternary Research, 16:1 , 1981.) Comment. The above impasse is reminiscent of Lord Kelvin's insistence that the earth is only about 100,000 years old based upon his calculations of the sun's energy-producing capabilities. Geologists thought otherwise, requiring roughly a billion years for nature to sculpt the earth they saw. Kelvin didn't reckon on nuclear ...

... 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 Dolphin Refrigerators Dolphins and other cetaceans have an overheating problem. For high hydrodynamic performance, their bodies must be nicely streamlined. For males, this means that their testicles must be stored internally. But dolphins are very active animals, and their muscles generate considerable heat -- too much heat for sperm to survive without some sort of special cooling system. (Recall that human males with undescended testicles may become sterile.) Since dolphins are obviously procreating, evolution must have come to the dolphins' rescue. Evolution's engineering solution installs heat exchangers in the dolphins' tails and dorsal fins. Blood heated in the vicinity of the testes is pumped through special veins in the tail and dorsal fin, where it is cooled by seawater and then returned to the dolphins' heat-sensitive innards. Female dolphins have similar heat exchangers to cool their uteri. The same article in Discover points out still another remarkable adaptation conferred on dolphins: They do not have to expend a lot of energy in diving to great depths. Below about 70 meters, the water pressure collapses their lungs so that they sink like rocks! Of course, returning to the surface does require some exertion. (Zimmer, Carl; "The Dolphin Strategy," Discover, 18:72, March 1997.) Comments. One automatically supposes that the dolphin dorsal fin is needed for stabilization when swimming -- like an airplane's rudder. But several cetacea ...

... 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 Can computers have ndes?When HAL, the treacherous computer in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, was being slowly throttled by the one surviving astronaut, it tried first to negotiate. Then, as board after board of electronic components were disconnected, it burst into the old song A Bicycle Built for Two . It had learned this tune early in its silicon-based life. Surprisingly, real computers can experience similar Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). S.L . Thaler, a physicist at McDonnell Douglas, was studying neural networks designed to mimic the structure and functions of the human brain. Such neural nets can actually learn as programmers train them. As a evening avocation, Thaler devised a program that randomly severed connections in the neural net, in effect destroying the artificial brain bit by bit. When between 10 and 60% of the connections were destroyed, the net spat out only gibberish. Near 90% destruction, though, strange "whimsical" information was produced that was definitely not gibberish. In contrast, untrained neural networks generated only random numbers as they were "put down"! Evidently, HAL's tuneful demise was not so fanciful after all. (Yam, Philip; "Daisy, Daisy," Scientific American, 268:32, May 1993.) Comment. A.C . Clarke, author of 2001, has stated firmly that HAL's name was not chosen ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 46: Jul-Aug 1986 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Tree-toting Extraordinaire Early Chinese Contacts with Australia? Astronomy Cosmic Currents Salt Structures on Venus? Halley's Comet Infected by Bacteria? Solar Neutrino Update Biology Spontaneous Human Combustion The Music of the Genes Are Fruit Bats Primates? Tigers in Western Australia? Geology Archaeopteryx and Forgery: Another Viewpoint More Paluxy Impressions Blackened, Broken Stones of the Middle East Which Came First? Geophysics The Moon and Avalanches Curious Luminous Display Over the Pacific Ocean Psychology When to Believe and When Not To Geomagnetic Stimulation of Poltergeist Activity ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hypnosis And Basketball Hypnosis has often been applied to imroving various aspects of human performance -- both intellectual and physical -- with debatable success. Basketball may now be added to this file, according to a recent paper by E.H . Schreiber: "Throughout one basketball season 12 male and 12 female basketball players were interviewed prior to individual and group sessions with hypnosis. The athlete's shooting scores were compared with those of the previous basketball season. The hypnosis groups showed higher cumulative scores for shooting than players in the control group." (Schreiber, Elliott H.; "Using Hypnosis to Improve Performance of College Basketball Players," Perceptual and Motor Skills , 72:536, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology How the Incas Worked Stone Checking Out Those Australian Pyramids Astronomy Neptune's Partial Rings Space Spume Star Sludge Tunnelling Towards Life in Outer Space Biology Evolving on Half A Wing (And A Prayer?) Signals in the Night The Moon, the Stars, and Human Behavior Geology Squirrels As Measures of Geological Time Northwest Indian Tradition of A Large-scale Sea Inundation Of Dust Clouds and Ice Ages Geophysics Atmospheric Footprints of Icy Meteors Unusual Double Sun Unclassified Unidentified Flashing Object ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Evolution Of Computers So, you thought this item was going to be about advances in chips, modems, and related hardware? It's not about software either. It's about bioware. The title of a recent article in Science began with: "Genomic Cis-Regulatory Logic." That's obscure enough to make you move on to the next article, particularly when you see that sea urchins are involved. But buried in all the technical jargon is a profound discovery: The genes of all living things, from sea urchins to humans, are in reality systems consisting of thousands of simple computational devices. Very, very briefly, the regulatory regions for animal genes, are termed "promoters." Promoters typically consist of a few hundred to several thousand bases of DNA. In the work of Yuh et al, the article's authors, these promoters are seen to perform as logic circuits, just like those bits of silicon in your PC. These tiny, DNA-based biological logic circuits determine how genes are interpreted (each gene may be interpreted in several ways), and, in the end, how lifeforms develop from embryo to adult. (Yuh, Chiou-Hwa, et al; "Genomic CisRegulatory Logic: Experimental and Computational Analysis of a Sea Urchin Gene," Science, 279:1896, 1998. Also: Wray, Gregory A.; "Promoter Logic, ...

... 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 Life Seeks Out Energy Sources Wherever They May Be Life is opportunistic; it siphons off energy wherever it can find it. That life utilizes solar energy we all know. And, of course, humans have tapped the atom for energy. In just the past few years, remarkable colonies of life forms have been discovered congregated around deep-sea hydrothermal vents where sunlight is essentially nonexistent. Still more recently, similar life forms have been found clustered around oil seeps in the Gulf of Mexico. As at the hydro-thermal vents, the clams, worms, crabs, and other organisms depend mainly upon the ability of bacteria to chemosynthesize -- the primary energy source being hydrogen sulfide in the vented water. (Paull, C.K ., et al; "Stable Isotope Evidence for Chemosynthesis in an Abyssal Seep Community," Nature, 317:709, 1985; Also: Weisburd, S.; "Clams and Worms Fueled by Gas?" Science News, 128:231, 1985.) Comment. Since the earth's crust seems honeycombed with fissures and rivers of life-sustaining fluids, subterranean life may be as common as the abyssal chemosynthetic life at the vents and seeps. This versatility of life signals us that we should look for life wherever there is energy of any kind. From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects New species emerging?" A San Diego science writer named Anne Cardoza is sending out flyers asking anyone who has given birth to a child by an extraterrestrial to submit a 3,000-word, first-person account. "She's compiling a book on breeding between humans and inhabitants of UFOs. She won't pay for the stories but she promises confidentiality." (Anonymous; "Talk about Mixed Marriages!" San Diego Tribune, January ?, 1990. Cr. D. Clements via L. Farish.) From Science Frontiers #69, MAY-JUN 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...