141 results found.
... skull surgery (trepanation); Scratched and smashed bones: The cannibalism signature; Exotic mummies Cloth artifacts: Viking cloth in the High North American Arctic; Diffusion of dyed, patterned textile technology; The early selective breeding of colored cotton in the New World; Stone-Age clothing surprisingly modern; Llama wool indicates selective breeding; Similarity of Chinese and Aztec plumagery; Woven cloth in North American mounds; A woven mat encased in salt; The uncertain origin of the image on the Shroud of Turin. Geological artifacts: Megamiddens -- Giant Bronze-Age waste deposits; Fossil food; Unexplained ground disturbances; Apparent metal tool marks on coalified or petrified wood; Fossilized human-like footprints in ancient rocks; Ancient human handprints; Anomalous Hominid-built hearths and fire areas; Metal artifacts: Low-tech metal artifacts; Familiar metal artifacts claimed to have been found embedded in geologically old rocks; Heavily mineralized, familiar metal artifacts not embedded in bedrook; Enigmatic, artificial-appearing metallic objects found in ancient rocks. Pottery artifacts: Pottery that is anomalous in geographical location and/or age; Enigmatic ceramic artifacts. Stone artifacts: Stone artifacts with anomalous ages; Large assemblages or caches of stone implements; Stone artifacts found in unexpected locations; Pigmy flints and other microliths; Nonutilitarian and totally enigmatic stone artifacts. High-Technology artifacts: Ancient chemistry; Ancient metallurgy; ancient surgery and dentistry; Micro-work -- The magnificent conundrum; Artifacts fashioned from very hard materials -- the tool conundrum; Ancient music instruments; Potentially anomalous toys and models; Ancient scientific instruments; ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 131: SEP-OCT 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Listening for the Unhearable They rolled around with a soundless sound like softly bruised silk; They poured into the bowl of the sky with the gentle flow of milk. So wrote R.W . Service, the poet of the Arctic realms, about the eerie voices of the auroras. The low-frequency sound of the aurora is barely detectable by human ears. It is "felt" more than heard, as Service expressed so eloquently. Some skeptics have maintained that these ethereal sounds do not really exist, but modern instruments confirm that pressure waves are definitely produced in the atmosphere as the auroras weave and dance in the sky. Most auroral sound is in the infrasound range, which begins at the lower limit of human hearing -- about 20 Hertz. Just enough sound energy seeps over the 20-Hz limit to be heard by sensitive human ears during periods of intense activity. Another natural infrasound, weak but continuous, is the "voice of the sea." These sound waves, called "microbaroms," have periods in the 5-7 second range (0 .20-0 .14 Hz), well below the range of human ears. Such low-frequency sounds travel great distances with little attenuation. It is thought, therefore, that the "voice of the sea" is an extended source -- perhaps the collective acoustical signature of all the storms from all the world's oceans. ...
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... " that is; that eroded hill in the Cydonia region that vaguely resembles a human face. When a recent photo of the "Face" taken by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was published far and wide in the science press, we thought the matter had finally been settled. The photo showed a strange hill obviously sculpted by natural forces. No question about it; there was not a soupcon of artificiality. But it now seems that if you look at the "Face" at other lighting angles and process the same data in different ways, the "Face" reappears looking more artificial than ever. T. Van Flandern elaborates: The MGS spacecraft took a high resolution photo of the "Face on Mars" in April 1998. That image suffered from four handicaps: a low viewing angle; a low sun angle from the direction of under the "chin"; an almost complete lack of contrast; and enough cloudiness to scatter most of the light and eliminate shadows. To add to these difficult circumstances, JPL-MIPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Mission Image Processing Laboratory] personnel, apparently judging that the controversy over artificiality would not be ended when the actual photo was released, processed the image through two filters having the effect of flattening and suppressing image details. This step is documented at a JPL web site. Here we do image processing correctly and present the results of computer corrections to compensate for the poor lighting and low viewing angle. The actual image shows clearly the impropriety of the JPL-MIPL actions because the visual impression of artificiality persists. However ...
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... horizon. About five minutes later, having completed the calculations, the observer again looked out to see a ribbon type cloud, broken in formation, stretching almost from [the] eastern horizon to [the] western horizon. If the estimated height (see below) is reasonably correct, then the bandwidth couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet, apparently more cigar-shaped in cross section than flat, the maximum axis being horizontal, the minimum vertical. The cloud was fairly consistent in density, and at a fairly stable altitude, not undulating or rippled, having the consistency of a small cumulus cloud (white and fleecy), but also translucent. Initially, it was thought to be a condensation trail, but this was shortly dismissed as it was considered too low (estimated to be less than 10,000 ft altitude, probably around 7,0008,000 ft). Both ends of the cloud were checked with binoculars but no aircraft was evident; however, as a yardstick, and by good fortune, one did appear around 1910, presumed to be at the usual 30,000 or so feet, heading west-south-westward. (Bennett, Paul; "Ribbons in the Sky," Marine Observer, 70:177, 2000.) Comment. If not a condensation trail, the next best guess would be a meteor trail, although the altitude is also very low for one. A bolide streaking across the sky at such a low altitude at night would have created a spectacular luminous display and probably considerable sound as ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Eclipsing Of Innate Talents The age effect. An idea going the rounds holds that everyone is really a genius but that his or her innate talents have been eclipsed or suppressed. Age is one factor that is blamed. As a child develops, so goes the theory, its brain is bit by bit swamped by the high-level conceptual thinking required for survival in the modern adult world. The child's innate mathematical genius, musical capabilities, and other "low-level" talents are placed on the brain's back burner by the demands of adulthood. It is a common observation that the young assimilate foreign languages more readily than adults. A less-well-known talent, eidetic imagery (the ability to recall images with photographic precision), is found in some children, but it also usually fades with age. Now, we learn that 8-month-old babies are apparently blessed with perfect pitch, a capability they, too, generally lose as they age. (Hall, Carl T.; "Learning by Infants Isn't Just Baby Talk," The Brain, February 28, 2001. Cr. J. Cieciel.) Removal of mental blocks. Sometimes the barriers that eclipse our innate talents are removed by mental disease. The surprising enhancing effect of dementia on some "low-level" talents was mentioned in SF#133. The same mental barriers also seem to ...
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... , we describe the qanats of Iran. (See figure.) Some of these shaft-tunnel structures run for miles and re-present a prodigious amount of labor. How prodigious? In Iran alone there are about 37,500 qanats with an aggregate length of some 100,000 miles! Qanats rank right up there with the Inca roads and the Great Wall of China as wonders of the ancient world. After reading our catalog section on Iranian qanats, E. von Fange informs us that the qanats of Bahrain pose a set of different problems. The Bahrainian qanats are easy to follow across the desert because the access shafts protrude a few feet above the sand. As one follows them up-slope for a mile or two, some greenery appears in the distance---low bushes perhaps. A closer approach proves instead that the greenery is actually the tops of palms. These trees are growing in a sunken oval area about 200 yards long girt by a wall 20-30 feet high. Outside, the desert sand reaches nearly to the top of the wall; inside, steps lead down to limestone bedrock from which springs of crystal-clear water flow. The qanat entrance can be seen down near the bottom of the wall, but the water level is now too low to feed the abandoned qanat. In his book Looking for Dilmun, G. Bibby asks some pertinent questions. Has twenty feet of sand been dug away by hand over the enormous area needed to expose a matter of fifteen thousand square yards of bedrock and the springs that broke forth there ...
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... stark differences; and Identified the earth as the most likely perpetrator of this celestial catastrophism. Day's abstract follows: Mars has surface features that are not seen on inner planets or moons. These are hemispheric asymmetries, idiosyncratic surface fracturing, localized vulcanism, altitude differences, chains of pits, and the nature of dry river-like channels. Other features include extensive loss of an early atmosphere and liquid water. There is interest in the lower-altitude northern region, with its surface formed after the period of heavy bombardment, as a possible ocean basin. The evidence for this is very sparse: no river deltas, no river networks, little debris at the ends of the catastrophic flow channels. The surface is consistent with the stripping anticipated by a Roche-limit encounter. The low-density Martian moons appear to be unconsolidated material of higher density; they appear to be from low-gravity aggregation of that part of the Martian debris that went into orbit as a short-lived ring. A Roche-limit encounter is invoked as a reasonable hypothesis to explain these features. Earth, Mars' nearest planetary neighbor, may have provided that encounter. The Roche limit is 2.9 Earth radii. The Roche limit is that distance within which Mars would begin to be torn apart by the gravitational pull of nearby Earth. (Day, Richard A.; "A Roche-Limit Encounter Explains Martian Features," Society for Scientific Exploration paper, 2000.) Comment. Anomalists with long memories will see immediately that Day's theory is displaced Velikovskyism. Velikovsky ...
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... the patterns, it was even possible to tell exactly where a rat dreamed it was in the mazes. Whether the rats worked out better maze solutions in their dreams and thereby made their dreaming worthwhile could not be determined from the article. Simple memory-review does not seem to have much survival value. (Anonymous; "Lab Rats Found to Dream of Mazes, Researchers Say," Baltimore Sun, January 25, 2001.) Humans conceptualize and create while dreaming. A few anecdotes suggest that human dreaming may be innovative. The following three oft-told tales are truthfully no more convincing to a scientist than many UFO anecdotes. When carbon atoms danced through the dreaming brain of A. Kekule, they led the waking Kekule to conceive the structure of the benzene molecule. I. Lowe awoke from a dream one night, jotted down a few notes, and fell back to sleep. On waking, he could not decipher his scrawl. Happily, the next night the dream recurred. Lowe raced to his lab, performed the experiment outlined in his dream, and thereby developed a new theory of brain activity. In 1869, D. Mendeleyev was puzzling over the disparate properties of the 63 elements then known. Was there any pattern? One night he fell asleep and in a dream the elements fell into their proper places in the Periodic Table. (Mazzarello, Paolo; "What Dreams May Come?" Nature, 408:523, 2000.) Comments. These mammalian anecdotes involving sleep and dreams are amusing, but most dreams are frivolous, bizarre, and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Multiple Phosphorescent Wheels This is the sketch mentioned in the Marine Observer article. April 17, 1995. Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. Aboard the m.v . British Reliance, enroute Fujairah to Kharg Island. Observers: the Master and Second Officer. "At 1525 UTC whilst in the westbound lane of the Traffic Separation Scheme and shortly after settling on a course of 270 , a small amount of blue phosphorescence was noticed in the sea waves ahead (the swell being very low). Suddenly, the wind appeared to blow quite strongly, swirling around the vessel and then for as far as the eye could see and all around the vessel, phosphorescent cartwheels of bright-blue light began forming. The bands of light were roughly 30 cm thick while the maximum diameter of the wheels was 15-18 m. "Their direction of movement seemed random and they were spinning at high speed, some chasing each other, others spinning in opposite directions next to each other, see sketch. "Whole groups dumbbelled around each other, all spinning in apparently random directions. The display lasted for about 18 minutes before petering out." A comment by P.J . Herring of the Southampton Oceanography Centre followed. "A quite extraordinary account of phosphorescent wheels occurring in one of the places where they are most often seen. In the 200, or so, cases of this phenomenon reported in the last 100 years, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Real perpetual motion?Physicist R.A . Webb and coworkers magnetically induce electrical currents in tiny gold rings at the University of Maryland. The ring temperatures are low but not in the superconducting range. Magnetic induction of electricity is of course perfectly allowable in physics. What is not theoretically permitted is for tiny currents to persist long after the magnetic field has been turned off. The currents are small, only 10-6 of an ampere; but, they are there, and they shouldn't be. (Lipkin, Richard, and Travis, John; "Electric Currents That Merely Flow," Science News, 149:126, 1996) Comment. If you conceive of electrical currents as mists of palpable electrons circulating around inside those gold rings, the situation does resemble perpetual motion. The referenced item is brief and not forthcoming on such mat ters. Do the currents eventually die out? Will any metal work? Does the phenomenon appear at room temperature? From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Don't Stomp on Ball Lightning!Mid-December 1991. Brixham, Devon. Two young men aged about 22/23, Mr. Andrew Clark and friend, were inside Mr. Clark's cottage when a storm of lightning and thunder began. Suddenly, an orange fuzzy airborne blob, the size of a football but not perfectly spherical, came through the wall -- so it was said -- and hovered at a low level. His friend lept on to a settee; Andrew Clark jumped on to the lightning ball. This burnt the plastic sole of one of his training shoes and melted a hole some 50 to 70 mm across. The lightning ball was disrupted and "a part of it" went sideways and burnt out the transformer of his C.B . radio (to which was attached a radio mast fixed on the roof outside). The total duration of the event had been about five seconds. Andrew's foot was quite badly burned and he had to go to the doctor for treatment. (Anonymous; "Ball Lightning at Brixham in 1991," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 26:22, 2001.) From Science Frontiers #135, MAY-JUN 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Does The Earth Breathe?In a superficial sense, the answer is certainly YES. By way of illustration, when a low-pressure area moves in, higher-pressure air residing in deep wells and caves comes rushing out (" exhaling")! Attach a whistle to a likely well and you have a "weather well" that warns of the impending change. The exhalations of large caves (" blowing caves") can be copious and strong; so much so that some aeronautical pioneers tested their airplane models at cave mouths. In a deeper sense, there are new measurements suggesting that the earth's solid crust also contracts by minute amounts in an annual cycle. For example, 50 GPS (Global Positioning System) stations in northeastern Japan detect east-west contractions of the crust of about 50 millimeters/year. The compressions are 15% faster in the fall and 15% slower in the spring. The same rhythmic squeezing has been discerned in a 150-meter tunnel dug into granite bedrock in the same region. To these instrument measurements can be added the strong tendency of some major volcanos to erupt in the fall when the biggest squeeze is on. The analogy of toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube is inescapable here! The cause of these annual "breathing" cycles is uncertain. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Earth's Breathing Lessons," Science, 291:584, ...
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... must have been centuries of sky-watching, to wring rainfall predictions from observations of the Pleiades. This information allowed them to better time the planting of potatoes -- their most important crop. The astronomical phenomenon they employed is far from obvious. The Pleiades are a cluster of bright stars in the constellation Taurus. The visibility of these stars varies slightly depending upon the amount of subvisual cirrus. If the Pleiades were dull in the month of June, the Andean farmers knew from experience that an El Nino was on the way. This betokened reduced rainfall and told them to postpone the planting of their potatoes by 4-6 weeks for best yields. The critical observations were made between June 13 and 24, when the Pleiades shine brightly just before dawn over the northeastern horizon. At this low angle, the presence of the subvisual cirrus has an obvious effect on the brightness of the stars in the cluster, as indicated in the figure. Some of the lesser stars seem to disappear altogether. The visibility effect itself is rather subtle. It is remarkable enough that it was noticed at all by ancient peoples, much more so was their making the obscure connection to future weather. (Orlove, Benjamin S., et al; "Forecasting Andean Rainfall and Crop Yield from the Influence of El Nino on Pleiades Visibility," Nature, 403:68, 2000.) Comment. To the ancients, the Pleiades were known as the "seven sisters," be-cause their eyes registered seven resplendent stars. But today a naked-eye observer counts just six. What ...
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... were sandslides differing from those in Nebraska in their much greater magnitude. But why were the Gobi sandslides so much larger and, apparently, faster? The next clue came from the recent devastating mudflows in California and Central America caused by heavy rains. These debris flows were made deadly when the infiltrating rainwater was blocked by bedrock. The accumulating water turned the soil into a muddy slurries that raced down hills at high velocities, overtaking animals (including many people) trying to escape. There is no bedrock in the Gobi, but a little digging encountered impervious layers of caliche. The Gobi caliche consists of layers of sandgrains cemented together by calcium carbonate. Typically located 2-3 feet below the dune surfaces, the caliche layers were evidence that the Gobi had experienced benign periods in the past with low winds, stable dunes and more moisture. But when heavy rains doused the Gobi dunes, the water was blocked by these caliche layers. Result: fluidized sand and catastrophic sand slides. These Cretaceous events were deadly for wildlife but blessings for future paleontologists. (Dingus, Lowell, and Loope, David; "Death in the Dunes," Natural History, 109:50, July-August 2000.) Comment. The anomalous fossils have been explained by a little digging and good reasoning. Gobi sandslides occurred when impervious caliche layers helped fluidize the sand. Only the sandslide accumulations contain fossils of high fidelity. From Science Frontiers #132, NOV-DEC 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. ...
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... in effect earthquake precursors. Afterwards, residents were queried for details and additional observations. A total of 46 reports sufficiently detailed for analysis were obtained. These luminous phenomena were classified according to a scheme proposed by F. Montandon in 1948. Montandon's five categories are: Seismic lightning (no thunder); Luminous bands in atmosphere; Globular incandescent masses; Fire tongues, small mobile flames near the ground, like will-o '- the wisps; and Flames emerging from the ground. The globular incandescent masses were by far the most common type of earthquake light during this Canadian "flap." Of these, F. St-Laurent writes: There were twenty-two reports coming from different places. Often they were seen far from the epicenter or when the seismic activity was low or quiet. Some were stationary (in one case, the yellow and orange mass presented a horizontal elongated form), others were seen emerging from the ground, some were very fast-moving near the ground, one was seen attached to a luminous band -- all as described by Montandon. (St-Laurent, F.; "The Saguenay, Quebec, Earthquake Lights of November 1988-January 1989," Seismological Research Letters, 71:160, 2000. Cr. J. Derr) From Science Frontiers #130, JUL-AUG 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA ...
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... Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unusual Wave January 14, 1998. Indian Ocean. Aboard the m.v . Oriental Bay , enroute Port Klang to Suez. "At 2230 UTC the vessel was on a course of 269 at 23 knots when a line was observed on the radar at a range of 3 n mile, travelling from northwest to southeast at an estimated speed of 15 knots, as indicated on the sketch. The line was observed to be a wave. "It was about 10 minutes after the first sighting that the vessel passed over the wave, which was approximately 4 m [13 feet] high, and she heeled 5 to port while the autopilot deviated 3 off course. At the time of the event, there was a low swell of 1.0 m from 320 and the sea was 0.5 m from 360 . The current was estimated to be 2.5 knots running to the west." (Talbot, A.P .; "Unusual Wave," Marine Observer, 69:10, 1999.) Comment. The wave could not have been a tsunami because it was travelling too slowly. Tsunamis travel at jet speed and are rarely visible on the deep ocean. Since the wave was solitary and four times the height of the gentle swells, it is unlikely that it was a chance combination of the swells. Most likely it was a surface manifestation of an internal wave that had been reflected from an undersea obstacle like the continental shelf. From Science Frontiers #122, MAR- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ichthyometers Measure Pollution At the Centre International de l'Eau de Nancy, French scientists are putting the South American fish Apteronotus albifrons to work. This electric fish alters its self-generated electrical pulses as its aqueous environment changes. "Generally, when the fish is cruising around, it emits a continuous series of low-amplitude electric pulses at 1000 Hertz. But the researchers found that when the fish were exposed to certain pollutants in their holding tanks, the frequency and form of the electrical signals changed in characteristic ways that could be measured consistently. The electric fish, which are particularly responsive to potassium cyanide, phenols, and trichloroethylene, are soon expected to begin charging their way through French drinking-water treatment facilities." (Anonymous; "Zapping through Pollution," BioScience, 46:312, 1996) From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , when I suddenly spied a geometrical group of faint bluish-green rectangles of light similar to the "Lubbock lights". My wife and her mother were sitting in the yard with me and they saw them also. The group moved south-southeasterly, the individual rectangles became foreshortened, their space of formation smaller, (at first about one degree across) and their intensity duller, fading from view at about 35 degrees above the horizon. Total time of visibility was about three seconds. I was too flabbergasted to count the number of rectangles of light, or to note some other features I wondered about later. There was no sound. I have done thousands of hours of night sky watching, but never saw a sight as strange as this. The rectangles of light were of low luminosity; had there been a full moon in the sky, I am sure they would not have been visible. (Signed August 7, 1957) (Swords, Michael D.; "Clyde Tombaugh, Mars, and UFOs," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 13:685, 1999.) From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... scientists trying to reconstruct solar-system history. At the high end of the density spectrum, we now have an asteroid that seems to be mostly metal (probably iron). This is the asteroid Gaspra, some 13 kilometers across, that the Galileo spacecraft encountered in August 1992 on its way to Jupiter. Scientists had not expected Galileo's magnetometer to flicker as it passed Gaspra at a distance of 1600 kilometers -- but it did. In fact, considering the inverse square law and Gaspra's small size, it was a magnetic wallop. Thus, Gaspra is the first known magnetic asteroid; and it is probably mostly metal. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Magnetic Ripple Hints Gaspra Is Metallic," Science, 259: 176, 1993.) At the low end of the density spectrum, we now find that Pluto's moon, Charon, and some of Saturn's moons have very low densities (1 .2 -1 .4 ), meaning they are probably mostly water ice. Such density figures come from direct observation of these objects' volumes combined with mass estimates from their orbital dynamics. (Crosswell, Ken; "Pluto's Moon Is a Giant Snowball," New Scientist, p. 16, November 21, 1992.) Comment. How did this curious mix of ice and iron objects originate? Did some ancient collision demolish a planet with an iron core (like the earth"s ) and an icy exterior? From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bright Sparks Erupt From Beach Here follows a letter from S. Roman, Melbourne, Australia: "The tide was out one day as a friend and I were walking along a beach. As we walked on the littoral zone -- the part of the beach between low and high tides -- strange blue lights lit up around our feet as we stepped on the sand. The lights were similar to lightning and the harder we stepped on the ground the more intense the blue lights became. Nobody has been able to provide us with a satisfactory explanation and, no, we were not under the influence of any drugs. Just what was happening?" (Roman, Suzanne; "Bright Sparks," New Scientist, inside back cover, January 13, 1996) Comment. A similar phenomenon was observed at Blundellsands, England, on June 5, 1902, when tiny flames erupted from a mud flat. Spontaneously igniting methane from buried organic matter is a possible explanation. See GLN1-X36 in Lightning, Auroras. For more information on this catalog, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Mouse Engineering Shortly after writing in SF#79 about the "Ancient Greek Pyramids" and the Saharan mice that construct small pyramids of pebbles to extract moisture from the air, we serendipitously ran across the following: " Australian Native Mice . The species P. chapmani builds low mounds of pebbles over its burrow systems, and P. hermannsburgensis may use these mounds after they are constructed. The pebbles are of a uniform size and cover a large area, often a meter in diameter. The pebbles are probably collected both by excavation and from the surface. Some local mammalogists believe these are used as dew traps. Since the air around the pebbles warms more rapidly as the sun rises than do the pebbles themselves, dew forms on the pebbles by condensation. As the areas in which these mounds are found are quite dry, except after a heavy rain, these dew traps solve the problem of water shortage. Local farmers use the many pebble mounds for mixing concrete. It is believed that the ancient people of the Mediterranean region used a dew trap method comparable to that of P. chapmani ." (Nowak, Ronald M.; "Australian Native Mice," Walker's Mammals of the World , Baltimore, 1991, p. 820.) Comment. Now we must decide between at least three possibilities. Since the Australian native mice and Saharan mice are many thousands of miles apart, we have: (1 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 87: May-Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Whence the earth's pulse?Geological history records a restless planet subject to a succession of chemical and physical upheavals. Have these great paroxysms been random in time? M.R . Rampino and K. Caldeira do not think so: Number of geological events during geologic time "Published data sets of major geologic events of the past 250 Myr (extinction events, sea-level lows, continental flood-basalt eruptions, mountain-building events, abrupt changes in sea-floor spreading, ocean-anoxic and blackshale events and the largest evaporite deposits) have been synthesized (with estimated errors). These events show evidence for a statistically significant periodic component with an underlying periodicity, formally equal to 26.6 Myr, and a recent maximum, close to the present time. The cycle may not be strictly periodic, but a periodicity of 30 Myr is robust to probable errors in dating of the geologic events." The obvious question is: What could cause a 30-million-year periodicity? Internally, the earth's innards might be periodic, possibly in terms of plume eruption, mineral phase changes, core convection, etc. Externally, comets and asteroids are cyclic. Rampino and Caldeira point out that the solar system crosses the heavily populated plane of the Galaxy every 30 million years. (Rampino, Michael R., and Caldeira, Ken; "Major Episodes of Geologic Change: Correlations, Time ...
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... window. Accompanying it was a roar like that of a military jet. The phenomenon occurred a total of four times; the second of which is the most interesting. "A second illumination was observed twenty seconds later, but this time it reappeared away from the tree so a clear view was possible. The illumination was in the form of a narrow column and of the classic gentle 'S ' tornado shape in the 'roping out' stage; it was silvery in colour towards the top and golden-orange lower down. Additionally, Mr. Smith saw the illumination move from the sky towards the ground, but at a speed slower than lightning. The sound of rushing wind was heard again, while this illumination lasted five to six seconds. Mr. Smith also noted a very low cloud base with a second layer of cloud only slightly higher." (Reynolds, David J.; "Nocturnal Tornado Illuminated by an Electrical Discharge at Farnham, Surrey, 10 January 1994," Journal of Meteorology, UK, 20:381, 1995.) Comment. Although ordinary lightning accompanies many tornados, glowing columns suggestive of other types of electrical discharge are not part of prevailing tornado theory. Nevertheless, observations of glowing discharges within the funnel - making it look like a neon light - have been observed and even photographed. See above sketch taken from GLD10 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. For a description of this book, visit: here . Very rarely the funnel of a nocturnal tornado will glow like a neon light. From Science Frontiers #105, MAY ...
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... above Hurricane Hugo by Minnesota-based SKYFLASH equipment. Hurricanes, of course, are accompanied by thunderstorm activity. Said apparatus consists of three photmetric telescopes using photomultiplier tubes with 19-inch parabolic mirrors. A variety of light pulses appearing in the night sky have been recorded during SKYFLASH surveys. The most puzzling types of flashes were the "long" events, which lasted about 20 milliseconds, with slow rises and falls. During the "long" flashes, no sferics (radio disturbances) are detected, whereas the more common shorter flashes are accompanied by sferics. However, during Hurricane Hugo, these mysterious "long" flashes occurred much more frequently than usual. The origin of the "long" flashes remains unknown. (Winckler, J.R ., et al; "Fast Low-Level Light Pulses from the Night Sky Observed with the SKYFLASH Program," Journal of Geophysical Research, 98:8775, 1993.) Comment. The "light rays," the "jellyfish," and the "long" flashes may be different aspects of the same phenomenon. In any case, some sort of unrecognized electrical activity is transpiring between storm-cloud tops and the ionosphere. Reference. "Rocket lighting" and other unusual electrical discharges are cataloged in: Lighting, Auroras . To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A New Class Of Solar System Objects For decades astronomers have suspected and searched for Planet X, a large body beyond Neptune swinging slowly about the sun and gravitationally perturbing Neptune's orbit. Planet X has never been found, but somewhere out there are some pretty hefty bodies, as described by T. Van Flandern: "The discovery of a second miniplanet beyond Neptune, 1993 FW, augments the discovery of 1992 QB1 last fall. Both objects are believed to be in the 200-300-km-diameter range, with magnitudes between 2324, distances at discovery between 40-45 AU, and low inclinations.... Although the discoverers of these two objects hailed them as the first representatives of the elusive 'Kuiper belt' of comets, other theoreticians have confirmed that the line of reasoning leading to the suggestion of such a belt is spurious. That fact, combined with the absence of any comet-like characteristics in these two new objects, their relative size as compared with any other known comet, and their unusually red coloration, seem to make them the first-discovered members of a new class of solar system bodies. Since the searches leading to their discovery have examined only 1.5 out of tens of thousands of square degrees of sky wherein such objects might be discovered, it seems a reasonable conjecture that thousands of additional similar objects will ultimately be found. In short, it appears at this ...
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... a fishing boat. He launched the boat in about six inches of water and we then engaged in conversation for a couple of minutes. Turning to the boat, we were amazed to find that it was high and dry about 20 metres from the water's edge. Small flatfish, mainly immature brill, could be seen stranded and flapping in the wet sand. About a minute later, the sea started to return and quickly rose up the beach beyond where the boat had originally been launched. An hour later, the oscillation in sea level was still taking place. I determined that the period was just over three minutes and the amplitude just under one metre, the latter measured with reference to a half-submerged rock. At the time of the event, it was just after low water, there were no wind waves or ground swell, and the sea had a glassy appearance." (Kemp, A.K .; "Anglesey Seiche," Marine Observer, 63: 90, 1993.) Short-period oscillations in tidal records at Puerto Princesa, Palawan, the Philippines Permanent feature. Puerto Princesa, Palawan, the Philippines. The basic phenomenon impinging on this coast was described by F.J . Haight back in the 1920s. Haight plotted the sea oscillation in the accompanying graph. Recent studies of the Puerto Princesa seiches show that the amplitudes of the seiches are greatest every two weeks, indicating they are tied to the astronomical tides. However, they lag the lunar tide by a couple of days. Geophysicists now look to Pearl Bank in the ...
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... of the topsoil beneath our feet seethes with thousands of microorganisms. It is less well known that life's domain extends down much further. The hard rocks and strata of earth's crust -- seemingly sterile and inert -- are continuously being transformed by bacteria and other life forms. In fact, it was easy to find three examples of such processes from the literature collected from the past two months. Although the discoveries reported below may seem dull to anomalists ued to more exciting fare, it may well be that life from "inner space" has been and will be more important to humankind than life from "outer space," as implied in third item! Bacteria and placer gold. "Lacelike networks of micrometresize filiform gold associated with Alaskan placer gold particles are interpreted as low-temperature pseudomorphs of a Pedomicrobium -like budding bacterium. Submicron reproductive structures (hyphae) and other morphological features similar to those of Pedomicrobium occur as three-dimensional facsimiles in highpurity gold in and on placer gold particles from Lillian Creek, Alaska." In short, bacteria help create placer gold deposits. The author believes that bacterioform gold is widespread. (Watterson, John R.; "Preliminary Evidence for the Involvement of Budding Bacteria in the Origin of Alaskan Placer Gold," Geology , 20:315, 1992.) Microorganisms and iron deposits. At least 500 million years ago, filamentous bacteria and/or fungi were already playing vital roles in the deposition of iron from hydrothermal fluids. Abundant microbial filaments indicative of biological activity are found in the Cambrian ironstones in Australia' ...
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... were simply the headlights of automobiles traveling along Route 787. The Saratoga display is a bit eerie but not at all mysterious, according to HAST. The Marfa Lights turned out to be more impressive and, in consequence, quite a tourist attraction. The favorite viewing site is on Highway 90, 9 miles east of Marfa. HAST logged a total of 9 hours of observation there on three successive nights. All of the lights observed were easily attributed to cars traveling north from Presidio to Marfa. People at the viewing site who knew of the Presidio-Marfa road had no trouble identifying the lights as those of automobiles. But those unaware of the road called the lights mysterious. As for the frequent reports of Marfa lights cavorting and executing strange maneuvers, HAST thought they were probably due to low-flying aircraft in the neighborhood of the Chianti Mountains some 40 miles away. In fact, just such a plane was observed during a daylight trip to Shafter, a town near the mountains. Admitting that the Marfa Lights are indeed entrancing and even mildly mystical, the report closes (rather incongruously for an admittedly skeptical writer) with: "A reminder that caution must be taken. Because what we saw four nights in Saratoga and three nights in Marfa did not go out of the bounds of the ordinary does not mean that the extraordinary has never occurred in either place." (Lindee, Herbert; "Ghost Lights of Texas," Skeptical Inquirer, 16:400, 1992.) Comment. Previous descriptions of the Marfa lights in Science Frontiers (# 34 and #51 ...
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... 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, which is to make logical connections, and the logical point I made is that physics as it is practiced, and specifically precise mensuration, is not compatible with Jahn's claims; one must choose one or the other, not both, as he also emphasizes. If the 'observer effect' as he calls it -- or 'magic' as one might equally ...
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... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Efficacy Of Homeopathy Over the last several years we have been following the feud between the homeopathists and mainstream medicine, particularly the saga of J. Benveniste. Despite what the media writers say, homeopathy continues to produce positive results, as confirmed in the following item from the British Medical Journal: "Many doctors do not believe that homoeopathy [sic] is an efficacious treatment as it is highly implausible that infinitesimally diluted substances retain their biological effects. It is also often said that homoeopathy has not been evaluated with modern methods -- that is, controlled trials. The first argument may be true, the second is not. [J .] Kleijnen et searched the literature and found 96 reports containing 107 controlled trials of homoeopathy. Most trials turned out to be of very low quality, but there were many exceptions. The results show the same trend regardless of the quality of the trial or the variety of homoeopathy used. Overall. of the 105 trials with interpretable results, 81 showed positive results of homoeopathic treatment. A complicating factor in such reviews, especially of controversial subjects such as homoeopathy, is publication bias. If the results of Kleijnen et do not reflect the true state of affairs, publication bias must be considered a great problem in evaluations of homoeopathy. In any event, there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of trials with sound methodology." (Anonymous; "Clinical Trials of Homoeopathy," British Medical Journal, February 9, 1991. Cr. M. Truzzi.) Comment. Of course ...
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... ago the answer to this question would have been a resounding "no" from the experts on both volcanism and impact cratering, the only geological processes known to eject solid material at substantial velocities. Observation, however, has once again confounded expectation." In the snowy wastes of Antarctica, scientists have picked up meteorites that almost certainly came from the moon and Mars. And near St. Gallen, Switzerland, there was discovered a 22-centimeter block of Malm limestone that was apparently ejected from the Ries impact crater, almost 200 kilometers away, about 15 million years ago. We know all of these rocks are impact debris because they contain shatter cones indicating a violent origin. Not only did these bits of debris confound expectations, but their shatter cones implied shock-wave pressures far too low to achieve lunar and Martian escape velocities, or even the velocity necessary to propel that chunk of Malm limestone 200 kilometers. Something was wrong somewhere. It has turned out that shock-wave theory had been misapplied. It is not the pressure that is important in ejecting bits of debris from around the impact site, but rather it is the pressure gradient. Anomaly extirpated! (Melosh, H.J .; "Blasting Rocks Off Planets," Nature, 363:498, 1993.) Moral. A.C . Clarke was right again: When a respected scientist says something cannot happen, it probably will! From Science Frontiers #89, SEP-OCT 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... years, we have reported on the British hum (SF#36) and the Sausalito hum (SF#42). The latter has been attributed to mating toadfish in the harbor; the former to an underground network of gas pipelines. We have resisted reporting other hums. However, a recently reported hum possesses some interesting features. It is called the Taos hum, and it has been bothering some sensitive individuals in the U.S . Southwest: "More than a dozen people living in an area from Albuquerque to the Colorado border said in July 1992 interviews with the Albuquerque Journal that they had heard the lowlevel hum. "A Denver audiologist said that she had recorded a steady vibration of 17 cycles per second with a harmonic rising to 70 cycles per second near Taos. The low range of human hearing is 20 to 30 cycles per second." (Anonymous; "Defense Dept. Denies Link to Taos Hum," Albuquerque Journal, April 7, 1993. Cr. L. Farish.) Some residents of Taos are plagued by this machine-like sound that grinds away 24 hours a day, with only occasional respites. Some cannot sleep; others complain of headaches. Most people, however, cannot hear the hum at all. Nevertheless, it is there. Instruments pick it up. In fact, they have even recorded a higher-frequency component that pulses between 125 and 300 cycles per second. The cause of the hum is a mystery. One hint comes from the observation that the hum seems concentrated along the Rio Grande Rift, a fault ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Shc or h/t homicide?The possible case of SHC (Spontaneous Human Combustion) just reported above may have a rational but bizarre explanation. S.L . Wernokoff commented as follows in the Journal of Meteorology: "The very first thing that comes to mind is whether overloaded hightension [H /T ] or low-tension wires were anywhere nearby. Since this incident occurred at a roadside, nearby power lines may well have been present. If such lines are overloaded or badly insulated, fatal arcing can occur from the ground at a considerable distance from the power lines. This has happened often in our country [the U.S .] , in rural areas where public utilities have quietly exceeded the capacity of their lines. The resulting discharges can easily electrocute livestock over mile from the 'leaky' H/T lines. I would wager that the Hungarian utility agencies are guilty of the same practice. Personally, I suspect that this unfortunate young man may have been electrocuted through his own urine! The 'blue light' witnessed by the victim's wife may have been St. Elmo's Fire -- an ungrounded luminous corona visible around the victim in the humid, pre-thunderstorm conditions. The hole in his heel and tennis shoe indicate where the current finally grounded itself." Wernikoff goes on to tell of a case in Canada where a man washing up at an outdoor table, 100 ...
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... likely, according to K. Strier, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is that some monkeys regulate their fertility by the judicious consumption of certain plants. Going even farther, K. Glander, Duke University, suggests that howler monkeys control the sex of their offspring through their diets. Glander divides howler monkey females into three groups. In the first are the high-ranking females that predominantly produce male offspring. This 'male-offspring' strategy favors these females because the males they produce tend to become dominant adults that will pass on more of the females' genes than would female offspring, who are limited in the number of infants they can engender in comparison to the males. Similar optimization strategies, according to Glander, induce middleranking females to produce mainly female progeny, and low-ranking females to birth almost all males. These howler monkeys seem to control the sex of their offspring pharmologically by selecting certain plants to eat. These plants, in turn, control the electrical conditions in the females' reproductive tracts to either attract or repel sperm carrying the male Y-chromosomes, which are thought to carry different electrical charges than the X-carrying sperm! (Lewin, Roger; "What Monkeys Chew to Choose Their Children's Sex," New Scientist, p. 15, February 22, 1992. Also: Gibbons, Ann; "Plants of the Apes," Science, 255:921, 1992.) Comments. It will take much more research to validate these startling assertions. We also have to ask how these instincts (or conscious ...
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... The hammerheads seemed to possess some sort of unrecognized navigation sense. Suspecting they might be sensing the geomagnetic field, Klimley began towing a magne tometer behind the boat. Sure enough, the hammerheads were following paths coincident with lines of high magnetic gradient. And Espiritu Santo itself turned out to be a sort of magnetic beacon from which radiated these magnetic "paths" that the hammerheads followed so exactly. Now the question became: How do hammerheads -- and perhaps other animals -- sense such exceedingly small changes in the geomagnetic field? Some birds and mammals do have small particles of magnetite in their bodies, but no one knows how they might be incorporated into a sensory organ. On the other hand, hammerheads and many other sharks are extraordinarily sensitive to electrical fields, responding to fields as low as 10-8 volt/centimeter. Possibly the sharks' forward motion cuts the magnetic lines of force generating an electrical navigational signal. No one knows as yet. And so one mystery leads to another. (Klimley, A. Peter; "Hammerhead City," Natural History, 104:33, October 1995) Comment. Some marine biologists suspect that some deep-water whales and dolphins inadvertently strand themselves while following magnetic "paths" like those radiating from Espiritu Santo. (See SF#38) From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... type mark varied in length from 1-3 n.miles at a nearest range of 5-10 n.miles. The effect was minimal on the 10-cm radar. "The bearing of the mark remained fairly constant at about 20 abaft the port beam or about 230 . Of particular note was that around 1600 GMT to 1700 GMT (about 2 hours after sunset), when the mark on the radar was very distinct, the satellite communication system suffered a loss in signal strength sufficient to prevent transmission or reception, the bearing of the satellite being almost due south of the vessel. It was thought at the time that the signal mast had become aligned between the aerial and the satellite, but alteration of the ship's head to port or starboard did not cure the low signal strength. .. .. . "Of note, although this may have been a coincidence only, was that the vessel was passing through patches of bioluminescence at the time, mostly only bright enough to show up in the breaking waves of the ship's wake, but during the period of low signal strength, the whole area of white, foamy water along the ship's side frequently shone a bright greenish colour." (St. Lawrence, P.F .; "Radar Interference," Marine Observer, 60:17, 1990.) Comment. Apparently, some sort of electromagnetic disturbance affected not only the radar but also satellite communications and the bioluminescent organisms in the water. Could it have been one of those plasma vortexes said by some to be ...
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... the Earth's geomagnetic field (GMF) activity. ESP experiences are reported more frequently, and accuracy of laboratory ESP is more accurate, on days of relatively quiet GMF activity. On the other hand, there are indications that a complementary paranormal process, psychokinesis, may be enhanced by high GMF activity. We conducted retrospective analyses of possible relations between GMF activity and (a ) electrodermal activity (as an index of sympathetic autonomic activity), (b ) rate of hemolysis of human red blood cells in, (c ) attempted distant mental (i .e ., psychokinetic) influence of electrodermal activity, and (d ) attempted distant mental (psychokinetic) influence of rate of hemolysis. For each of these four measures, high activity was associated with high GMF values, while low activity was associated with low GMF values. The relations were statistically significant for three of the four analyses and showed a consistent trend in the fourth." (Braud, William G., and Dennis, Stephen P.; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior; LVIII. Autonomic Activity, Hemolysis, and Biological Psychokinesis: Possible Relationships with Geomagnetic Field Activity," Perceptual and Motor Skill , 68:1243, 1989.) From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Mechanical Paradox In Thrust Faulting In many parts of the world, older rocks are found on top of younger rocks. Ob-viously the Principle of Superposition is contradicted in such situations. Two possible explanations exist for these inverted strata: (1 ) The dating of the rocks is incorrect; or (2 ) Geological forces somehow slid the older rocks over the top of the younger rocks. Few mainstream scientists give any thought to the first possibility because it implies that evolution did not proceed as presently envisioned. (Rocks are often dated by their fossil contents.) So, geologists are left with the problems of sliding great masses of rock over rough surfaces for great distances. Sketch of the forces acting upon a thrust block being pushed by a wedge-shaped driver Low-angle thrust faulting is not a trivial geological process. To illustrate, the Lewis Overthrust in Montana and adjacent Canada involves the shoving of a block of old strata hundreds of feet thick, hundreds of miles long, over younger rock for a distance of possibly 50 miles. In contemplating such overthrusts, one immediately comes face to face with the Mechanical Paradox. Brief-ly, given the coefficient of friction between the layers of rock, the weight of the thrust block, and the mechanical strength of the rock being pushed, it can be shown that pushing the thrust block at the rear edge will crush it long before it begins to slide. For nearly a century, geologists have been trying to resolve this Mechanical Paradox. Three potential solutions have been proposed: (1 ) Lubricate ...
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... 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Krypton-cluster magic numbers Krypton atoms cluster together in stable clumps of 13, 55, 147, 309, 561,... atoms. Ordinarily, krypton, being a noble gas, does not enter into any combinations with other atoms - even other krypton atoms. However, P. Lethbridge and T. Stace, at the University of Sussex, have coaxed krypton atoms to cluster together in large, crystal-like clumps with icosohedral symmetry; that is each clump possesses 20 regular faces. The coaxing occurs when gaseous krypton trickles into a vacuum chamber through a hole only 200 micrometers in diameter. The expansion of the gas cools it so that when krypton atmos collide, relative velocities are low, and the weak Van de Waals forces between the atoms are sufficient to hold the clumps together. So far, clumps of 147 and 309 atoms have been detected with a mass spectrograph. One theory of atomic "pack ing" predicts clumps should have "magic numbers" of 13, 55, 147, 309, 561, 923 .. .. So far, the "magic" has been working! (Baggott, Jim; "Krypton Atoms Cling Together in 'Shells,'" New Scientist, p. 31, March 3, 1990.) Comment. One would anticipate that the smaller clumps of 13 and 55 atoms would be easier to assemble. From Science Frontiers #69, MAY-JUN 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Milky Sea A report from the Captain of the m.v . Benalder , enroute from Singapore to Jeddah. "18 August 1990. At 1640 UTC the sea surface was noticed to have a white appearance which at first was thought to be low-lying fog. This theory was disproved when shining a light in the water gave to noticeable increase in luminance. "The phenomenon extended to the horizon in all directions and was bright enough to make the ship's foredeck and the sky appear much darker than the sea. Its appearance and disappearance was gradual apart from an area of normal sea which was passed about five minutes before the phenomenon faded away ay 1725." (Anderson, F.G .J .; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 61:117, 1991.) Comment. Luminous bacteria are usually blamed for milky seas, but biologists have paid little attention to the phenomenon. Reference. Milky seas and "white water" are cataloged in GLW9 in Lightning, Auroras. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Upwardly directed lightning from cloud tops "An image of an unusual luminous electrical discharge over a thunderstorm 250 kilometers from the observing site has been obtained with a low-light-level television camera. The discharge began at the cloud tops at 14 kilometers and extended into the clear air 20 kilometers higher. The image, which had a duration of less than 30 milliseconds, resembled two jets or fountains and was probably caused by two localized electric charge concentrations at the cloud tops." (Franz, R.C ., et al; "Television Image of a Large Upward Electrical Discharge above a Thunderstorm System," Science, 249:48, 1990.) Comment. Note that the above discharges were diffuse and quite unlike most cloud-to-ground lightning discharges. They were, in fact, much like the mountain-top glows seen along the Andes. Also, one should ask where those "localized electric charge concen trations" came from and why they did not disperse. Reference, Upwardly directed "rocket lightning" is cataloged in GLL1 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. Fuller description here . From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... radiocarbon (C1 4 ) scale is in serious error beyond 10,000 years BP. Radiocarbon dating is widely used in archeology, but it has always been hard to estimate how much radiocarbon was present in the earth's atmosphere thousands of years ago. As a matter of fact, even before Fairbanks' discovery, a major correction to the radiocarbon time scale was made using tree-ring counts as an absolute reference. But tree ring data go back to only about 10,000 years. The latest correction was made by E. Bard, also at Lamont-Doherty, who took Fairbanks' coral cores and compared the radiocarbon dates with uranium-thorium dates. The result is that at 20,000 BP, the radiocarbon date is 16,500 BP, 3500 years too low. [Of course, all this as sumes that the uranium-thorium dates are accurate.] Use of the newly corrected radiocarbon scale has pushed the peak of the Ice Ages back from 18,000 BP to 21,000 BP. But there is more. The same article in Science, without saying how he came up with the number, has Bard fixing the strength of the earth's magnetic field at only half its present level 20,000 years ago. This is most interest-ing because over the last 400 years of direct measurements, the geomagnetic field has been steadily decreasing! When and why was there a peak in the intensity of the geomagnetic field? Back to Fairbanks, who also used his coral data to estimate changes in global sea level versus time ...
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... cold fusion." Bockris himself has achieved positive cold-fusion results in his lab at Texas A&M . Another panel member, R. Huggins from Stanford, who has also replicated Utah's cold fusion results, remarked that several other U.S . labs have achieved excess power levels of 10-30 watts/cc. (Anonymous; Access to Energy , p. 4, October, 1989. Cr. P.F . Young) Despite positive results like those mentioned above, a recent report in Nature, by scientists at Cal Tech and the University of California, states emphatically that they can find no excess heat, neutrons, gamma rays, tritium, or helium in their cold-fusion experiments. (Lewis, N.S .; "Searches for Low-Temperature Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium in Palladium," Nature, 340:525, 1989.) From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... really loud enough to hear over conversation - but definitely sounded like a motor of some sort, with a suggestion of a dynamo-type whine to it. And others had said that it sometimes seems even louder with an ear to the ground. One could easily imagine (Adam's emphasis) the sound was coming from beneath the surface, but whether it did or not remains purely speculative." The report referenced below contains similar observations from Texas, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, California, Puerto Rico, England, and Ita ly. Unusual luminous phenomena have also been noted in the areas where the underground sounds have been heard, which explains why these phenomena were reported in a UFO publication. Some UFO investigators suspect that both the sounds and luminous phenomena are due to low-level seismic activity. (Long, Greg; "Machinelike Underground Sounds and UFO Phenomena," International UFO Reporter, p. 17, November/ December 1989.) From Science Frontiers #69, MAY-JUN 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Care for a cup of viruses?" The concentration of bacteriophages in natural unpolluted waters is in general believed to be low, and they have therefore been considered ecologically unimportant. Using a new method for quantitative enumeration, we have found up to 2.5 x 108 virus particles per millilitre in natural waters. These concentrations indicate that virus infection may be an important factor in the ecological control of planktonic microorganisms, and that viruses might mediate genetic exchange among bacteria in natural aquatic environments." (Bergh, Oivind, et al; "High Abundance of Viruses Found in Aquatic Environments," Nature, 340:467, 1989.) A sip of water could therefore introduce a billion virus particles into your stomach! This level of virus density in natural water is about 10 million times that formerly estimated. Besides reducing your thirst, what are the implications of this discovery? First, it suggests that bacteria in natural waters are probably kept in check by viruses as well as protozoans. So far, this sounds good. Second, since viruses can ferry genetic material between organisms via transduction (i .e ., host DNA is carried to the next host). This means that genes for antibody resistance and increased bacterial virulence (as present in sewage) may be spread quickly and widely. Also, "engineered bacteria" proposed for use in agriculture, viz., the ice-minus bacterium created to protect strawberries, ...
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... gases) starts on Mars and the surface temperature warms up by about 20 K. The regolith and polar caps release their CO2 and the pressure rises to 100 mbar. One of two things could then happen. If there were large regolith and polar CO2 reservoirs, the pressure would continue to rise on its own. If these were absent, the CO2 pressure would stabilize, and additional CO2 would have to be released from carbonate minerals. At this point (perhaps between 100 and 105 years) Mars may be suitable for plants. If there was a mechanism for sequestering the reduced carbon, these plants could slowly transform the CO2 to produce an O2-rich atmosphere in perhaps 100,000 years. If sufficient N2 could also be released from putative soil deposits, and the CO2 level kept low enough, then a human- breathable atmosphere could be produced. (McKay, Christopher P., et al; "Making Mars Habitable," Nature, 352:489, 1991.) Comment. There is more to terraforming, but you get the idea from the above quote. Now. J. Lovelock and others have speculated that our earth is much like a living orgaism that, with the help of the biosphere, maintains conditions suitable for life; that is, the Gaia concept. Terraformers of Mars would some-how have to induce Gaia to emigrate to Mars to regulate things there. Or, since we are on a science-fiction kick, could it be that the earth itself was intentionally "terraformed" in the distant past and Gaia installed for our benefit ...
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... must really be something to the phenomenon! Spook Hill is located on a section of road in Lake Wales, Florida. Here, at Spook Hill, the road "seems" to slope downhill, but yet cars in neutral apparently roll up the incline. Wilder, a member of the Tampa Bay Skeptics, made several pertinent observations during his investigation: "( 1 ) Although the phenomenon is striking when one approaches Spook Hill from one direction, if one gets out of the car and looks back, it is quickly apparent that one's senses have been deceived. Because the illusion fails when one looks in the opposite direction, the road has been made one-way, so that tourists will not be disappointed! "( 2 ) A storm drain is positioned at the true low point of the road, and cars seem to roll up to the drain. Water, in its gravitational wisdom, knows where to go! Neither were the city engineers fooled." Conclusion: Spook Hill is only an amusing illusion; there is no gravitational anomaly. (Wilder, Guss; "Spook Hill: Angular Vision," Skeptical Inquirer, 16:58, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Killer Trees 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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unusual electrical (? ) phenomena November 24, 1975. Tendele Hutted Camp, Drakensberg Mountains, South Africa. The following observations were made during violent electrical storms. "Around 10pm, WN observed a luminous vertical column in an easterly direction which appeared suddenly at a location low on the hillside on the far bank of the Tugela River at a distance of about 1km. This stationary light column seemed to have the dimensions of a pencil stub (approx. 50mm x approx. 7mm) held vertically at arm's length. The column, which had a bluish glow like a fluorescent tube, was visible for about 5 to 10 seconds. .. .. . "At 11.15pm, when the intensity of the storm had abated and the sky was lit intermittently with flashes of sheet lightning, the writer saw a luminous spherical object, seemingly of golf to tennis ball size, moving rapidly with an apparently vertical undulating motion from left (northeast) to right (southwest) on a horizontal course in the general direction of Mont-Aux-Sources (3282m) where the Tugela River has its origin. This sighting lasted 2 to 3 seconds. About 3 minutes later, another similar object crossed the field of view, following the same course as the first object and showing about 2 or 3 undulations in its passage. At midnight, a third object was seen having the same characteristics as the first two objects. ...
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... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Valleys Of Death And Elephant Graveyards Legend has it that elephants near death separate from their companions and trek alone to ancestral graveyards, dying only when they reach these special places. The truth is that accumulations of elephant bones have indeed been discovered, but no one seems to have followed expiring elephants to these boneyards. We hope someone will tell us otherwise, but the tale seems apocrythal. The piles of elephant bones could, in fact, be the work of mazukus. (Mazuku means "evil wind" in Swahili.) It seems that there are places on this earth where CO2 and other deadly gases emitted from volcanic vents accumulate. J. Lockwood and M. Tuttle investigated three mazukus known to natives in East Africa. In these low-lying areas, they came upon the remains of small mammals and birds that has been asphyxiated by concentrations of CO2 dense enough to snuff out burning kerosene-soaked rags. Unfortunately for the elephantgraveyard legend, they found no elephant bones. (Anonymous; "Elephant Graveyards," Discover, 12:10, May 1991.) Comment. It would be interesting to know if other species of animals are found in the elephant graveyards. So-called "valleys of death" are found elsewhere in the world, including Yellowstone. Reference. Other "valleys of death" are cataloged in ESC5 in Anomalies in Geo logy, described here . From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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