98 results found.
... Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Out-Henging Stonehenge Stonehenge may be more sophisticated in terms of astronomical alignments, but it is dwarfed by the newly discovered henge surrounding Ireland's hill of Tara. (A "henge" is simply a circular ditch and embankment.) The henge's ditch at Tara is 3 meters wide with a curious series of pits on either side. Its diameter is about 1 kilometer (5 /8 mile) compared to Stonehenge's diminutive 100 meters. Tara had long been considered an Iron Age site, but the presence of the giant henge pushes its use as a ceremonial site back to Neolithic times -- say, to 2,500 B.C . (Anonymous; NEARA Transit, 11:14, Spring equinox 1999.) Question. Are those pits analogous to the mysterious Aubrey holes at Stonehenge? From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Heads Down!S. Breiner wields a magnetometer when he searches for Olmec artifacts. This instrument allows him to detect buried objects, and he has made some surprising discoveries. The Olmecs flourished circa 1,500-400 B.C . in Mexican states of Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, and surrounding areas. This enigmatic culture is probably best known for the giant stone heads they carved out of hard rock. These massive heads, 8-15 feet high, seem to display African features. Breiner has found two of the 17 known heads. The most interesting one weighed 10 tons and was buried 18 feet deep! Why would a thriving culture bury the product of so much intensive labor? (Robinson, Dave; NEARA Transit, 11:12, Spring equinox 1999. Item attributed to New York Times, May 26, 1998.) Comment. The burial of the Olmec head might have had ritual significance, like the ritual smashing of pottery or the sacrificing of animals. Be this as it may, we wish to connect the Olmec heads with the large stone spheres found in Costa Rica, just a few hundred miles down the Pacific Coast. The Costa Rican spheres are also beautifully and laboriously crafted from hard rock. Many are several feet in diameter. The curious part is that many of them were also buried in the jungle soil like the Olmec heads. They were exhumed only when banana plantations were established. Giant Olmec head (San Lorenzo I) From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William ...
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... of the Gravitational Field Periodic Changes in Gravity GGH MAGNETIC HILLS Spook Hill and Kin GH PHENOMENA OF THE HYDROSPHERE GHC UNUSUAL PHENOMENA OF WATER SURFACES GHC1 Foam Strips on Inland Waters GHC2 Streaks, Slicks, Calm Patches GHC3 Stratified Typhoon Waves GHC4 Sudden Whitening of Dead Sea GHC5 Dead Water and Slippery Seas GHC6 Bulging River Surfaces GHC7 Swiftly Traveling Surface Disturbances GHC8 Honeycomb Appearance of Flowing Water Remarkable Convection Patterns in Ponds Long Lines of Microorganisms on the Ocean Surface Massive Foam Accumulations Storm Footprints on the Ocean as Seen from Orbit Remarkable Falling and Rising Lake Levels Parting of the Red Sea Reversal of Niagra Falls and Related Phenomena GHG GEYSERS, PERIODIC WELLS, BLOWING CAVES GHG1 Geysers at Sea GHG2 Geysers and Blowing Wells Correlated with Weather Phenomena GHG3 Geysers and Intermittent Wells Correlated with Tidal Forces GHG4 Cold-Water Geysers and Periodic Springs and Wells [GHQ6] Hydrothermal Earthquake Precursors Hydrothermal Explosions Effect of Earthquakes upon Geyser Activity GHS THE BEWILDERING VARIETY OF TIDES GHS1 Sun-Dominated Tides GHS2 Sea and Lake Seiches... GHS3 Spectacular Tidal Bores GHS4 Diurnal, Triple, and Quadruple Tides GHS5 Long-Period Tides of Unexpected Strengths GHS6 Tides That Precede the Moon Extraordinary Tsunamis Tsunami Cycles GHT OCEAN TURBULENCE AND CIRCULATION PHENOMENA GHT1 Extraordinary Deep Circulation Events GHT2 Sonar-Detected Subsurface Oceanic Structures GHT3 Nonvolcanic Underwater Eruptions GHT4 Anomalous El Ninos GHT5 The Guinea Tide GHT6 Energy Transfer to Hurricanes GHT7 Oceanic Rings and Eddies GHT8 Large-Scale Oceanic Chemical Anomalies Deep-Sea Storms Curious Drifts Gas-Hydrate Blowouts Great Whirlpools and Vortices The Gibraltar Dam Oceanic Megaplumes Gulf-Stream Reversal Oceanic Dead Zones Organized Structures in Bubble Clouds North Atlantic Oscillations El Ninos Correlated ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A Sun-and-spiral Clock Astronomy Io's Electrical Volcanos Double Hubble: Age in Trouble Biology Chinese Hunt Red-haired Bigfoot The Universal Urge to Join Up Why Birds Are Pretty Dynamic DNA Geology Cosmic Death Waves The Nuclear Threat: Bad Dates Geophysics Homing in on the Hum Ice-flake Fall Long-delayed Radio Echoes Luminous Ripples Move Through the Night Sky Psychology Bend Interferometers Not Spoons ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Basques in the Susquehanna Valley 2,500 Years Ago? Invention of Agriculture May Have Been A Step Backward Hidden Stonehenge Atlantis Found -- again Astronomy Distant Galaxies Look Like Those Close-by "tired Light" Theory Revived Those Darn Quarks Biology If Bacteria Don't Think, Neither Do We The Evolutionary Struggle Within Geology Is All Natural Gas Biological in Origin? Iceland and the Iridium Layer Geophysics The Novaya Zemlya Effect Massive Ice Lump Falls on England Psychology Is Your Brain Really Necessary? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Florida's circular canals GREAT ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS IN AMAZONIA? RIDICULOUS! The sweet track Another anomaly bites the dust Astronomy Modern technology gets Two hot spots on mercury Astronomers cope with both Biology NATURE COMMUNICATES IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS Those amazing insects The bombardier beetle pulse-jet Duesberg revisited Geology Pennsylvanian time-scale problems OF TIME AND THE CORAL - AND OTHER THINGS, TOO Paleomagnetic pitfalls What's another dipole or two? Wyoming: a periodic spring WYOMING: IS OLD FAITHFUL A STRANGE ATTRACTOR? Geophysics Ball lightning studies LUNAR ECLIPSES AND RADIO PROPAGATION General Novel forms of matter ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Oklahoma's ornate flints: "eccentric" or fraudulent? Stonehenge in the 1990s: a mainstream view Astronomy A SAGA OF SOOT: PART I A SAGA OF SOOT: PART II A SAGA OF SOOT: PART III Biology It's a mole-rat, jim, but not as we know it Facing up to divebombers Fiddling up worms Ichthometers measure pollution A BOON TO THE LUMBER INDUSTRY? Geology Mud springs regurgitate ancient fossils Impact craters: the party line revised and re-revised Geophysics Looking up into a tornado funnel Multiple phosphorescent wheels Psychology Does the human brain compute, or does it do more? Slamming the door on parapschology -- again ...
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... 000 years old, probably 60,000. R. Lie, a zoologist at the University of Bergen, and other scientists subsequently found the bones of two more polar bears in the area. These were dated as about 20,000 years old. An associated wolf's jaw was pegged at 32,000 years. The problem is that Norway and many other northern circumpolar lands are believed to have been buried under a thick ice cap during the Ice Ages. In particular, northern Norway is thought to have been solidly encased in ice from 80,000 to 10,000 years ago. Polar bears could not have made a living there during this period. Clearly, something is wrong somewhere. (Anonymous; "Polar Bear Bones Cast Doubt on Ice Age Beliefs," Colorado Springs Gazette , August 23, 1993. An Associated Press dispatch. Cr. S. Parker. A COUDI item. COUDI = Collectors of Unusual DataInternational) An associated conundrum. Some authorities have stated that polar bears evolved recentlyonly 10,000 years ago! Polar bear evolution is discussed in more depth in: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... A TUNGUSKA-LIKE BLAST IN BRAZIL IN 1930 In a review of D. Steel's new book Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets , C. Keay injects a startling bit of news: "Too late for Duncan Steel to include before his book went to press, comes the latest news that British astronomer Mark Bailey and his colleagues have discovered that a Tunguska-like event in 1930 blasted flat a huge expanse of jungle near an upper tributary of the Amazon in Brazil close to the border with Peru. The resulting fires burned for months. The only European near at hand was a Catholic priest, whose reports of the incident have lain unnoticed in the Vatican library until now." (Keay, Colin; "The NonDenominational Day of Reckoning," The Skeptic, 15:44, Spring 1995. This journal is published in Australia and should not be confused with the UK journal of the same name.) From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ?R. Feynman carried out spaghetti experiments but did not deign to theorize on why he almost always ended up with three pieces each time he attempted to break a piece in two. Fortunately for science, O. and R. Nickalls have come up with an answer. "We can only assume that Feynman was not really trying, since when we investigated this profound and fundamental problem in our own kitchen laboratory, not only did we quickly establish the underlying mechanism, but we even went on to formulate the following general rule for linear spaghetti structures:- If a spaghetti stick is uniformly bent until it fractures and ejects a third piece, then the third piece is always ejected outwards from the convex side. "When the spaghetti fractures for the first time, the two remaining pieces then spring outwards, and providing there is a sufficiently weak potential fracture site on the opposite side a second fracture occurs, resulting in a third piece being ejected away from the initially convex side." (Nickalls, Oliver and Richard; "Linear Spaghetti," New Scientist, p. 52, 1995) Comment. We have omitted the mathematical analysis of this complex phenomenon because it involves tensor analysis! From Science Frontiers #99, MAY-JUN 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... " It was and is monolingual because both function and information are carried on a single molecule. It is customary to call the RNA World "prebiotic," meaning that it was all chemistry and no life. But, one does wonder whether that was all there was to it. Catalysis and replication of genetic information occurred in the RNA World. What besides a chemical soup might have existed before "life-as-we-know-it" arrived upon the scene? A science fiction writer like H.P . Lovecraft could certainly come up with an ominous entity based upon RNA alone. Be that as it may, a book is now on the market bearing the title The RNA World (R .F . Gesteland and J.F . Atkins, eds., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 1993) Nature reviewed the book in its January 20 issue. In addition, the RNA World was discussed recently in Science. We now extract one nugget from each of these two sources. From Nature's review. Humans are more primitive than microorganisms in the sense that we still retain cumbersome introns (nonsense DNA) in our genes, while lowly microorganisms have been able to eliminate them. From Science. No one seems to have a clue about where RNA came from. C. de Duve ventured that: ". .. the emergence of RNA depended on robust chemical reactions -- it is wrong to imagine that some fantastic single accidental event supported the development of the RNA World." In connection with the generally accepted idea that the evolution of RNA ...
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... Sourcebook Subjects Traces Of The Southern Flotilla Decades ago, G. Carter reminisces, he found in the Johns Hopkins library a book entitled: Deutsches Verein fur Wissenschaft zu Santiago Chile. In it was an article by a German who had taken refuge from a storm in a Chilean cave. There, he had found a mysterious inscription which he duly copied with German meticulousness. Carter later sent the inscription to B. Fell who translated it as follows: "This is the southern boundary of the long dry mountainous land that the admiral claims for the Pharaoh, his gracious queen and noble son -- , signed Maury, the navigator, in charge of the southern flotilla." (Carter, George F.; "An Eclectic View," NEARA Journal, 28:83, Winter/Spring 1994. NEARA = New England Antiquities Research Association.) Comment. In the preceding two items, we see Precolumbian America being influenced from both east and west. We say "west" because many clues are strewn across the Pacific indicating an ancient Egyptian-sponsored expedition, manned by Libyans, probing the New World long before the Comalcalco bricks (described in this issue) were fired. From Science Frontiers #99, MAY-JUN 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Icy minicomets caught by a satellite camera?A geophysicist really risks his or her reputation if he or she suggests that the earth is bombarded each by 20 house-size, icy minicomets. Well, L. Frank, University of Iowa, did just that in 1986. He was duly pilloried for his trouble. But, at the 1997 spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Frank presented new data to back up his previous assertions. The most startling of his new evidence came from a camera aboard a NASA satellite. Time-lapse photos imaged two objects streaking into the atmosphere over Poland and Germany. Frank identified these as clouds of water molecules from disrupted icy minicomets. The clouds had expanded from the house-size minicomets to clouds 3550 miles wide, weighing 20-40 tons. Frank thinks the minicomets come from a cloud of such objects orbiting the sun from earth out to Jupiter and beyond. Why don't they evaporate in the sunlight and near-vacuum of outer space? Perhaps, thought Frank, they are protected by a thin coating of carbon. (Roylance, Frank D.; "Space Snowballs Theory Gains Credence," Baltimore Sun, May 29, 1997. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Is Earth Pelted by Space Snowballs?" Science News, 151:332, 1997. Thanks to all who sent in clippings. There are too many to mention here. Frank' ...
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... muddy waters have brought up many bizarre fish never seen before. J. Lundberg and his team from the University of Arizona found two species of electric fish that subsist entirely on the tails of other electric fish. Some of the catfish are armorplated; others are transparent; another catfish is only 8 millimeters (1 /3 inch) long. Most interesting to taxonomists will be two separate species of electric fish that can be told apart only by the different patterns of electrical discharges they generate! What will trawls capture in the Rio Negro which is about 100 meters deep in one place? (Bille, Matthew A.; "Recent Discoveries: Fishing in South America," Exotic Zo ology , 4:1 , March/April 1997. Publication address: 3405 Windjammer Dr., Colorado Springs, CO 80920.) From Science Frontiers #112, JUL-AUG 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... year-old French farmer turned from black to pure white in less that 14 days. For six months the embarrassed man endured, but then over a period of four months, his hair grew back to full black. (Nelson, Douglas; "Aaaaaargh," New Scientist, p. 93, April 11, 1998.) Mummified llamas yield superior wool. The wool found on a group of mummified llamas that had been sacrificed and buried some 1,000 years ago in Peru had hair far finer than cashmere and far superior to that of modern llamas. The ancient Peruvians apparently knew how to breed their animals to accentuate certain features. Their secret was lost during the Spanish conquest. (Anonymous; "Mummified Llamas Yield Superior Wool," NEARA Transit, 10:6 , Spring 1998.) Telestomping elephants. Elephants, rhinos, okapis, and even some birds use infrasound (frequencies below 20 Hertz) for communication. At a recent meeting of the American Acoustical Society, University of California researchers reported that elephants also send low-frequency acoustic signals by stomping the ground. Almost inaudible in the air, the sounds travel through the ground and can be picked up by ground microphones. It is thought that this communication channel has a range of as much as 50 kilometers -- far greater than the sounds could be perceived in the air. Supporting this notion, anecdotes say that elephants somehow know when other elephants are being killed far, far away. They run in the opposite direction! But how do they detect the stomping sounds if they travel through the ground ...
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... broadcast a program stating that cocaine and tobacco had been found in Egyptian mummies known to be at least 3,000 years old. Tests used modern forensic methods and were repeated many times under carefully controlled conditions. Since coca and tobacco are not known to have grown anywhere other than the Americas, the evidence points to trade routes across the Pacific or Atlantic in those remote times. The program seemed to favor a Pacific crossing and then delivery via the Silk Route. Watch for a rebroadcast." This news item continued with a reference to Dr. Balabanov's supporting tests on bodies from China, Germany and Austria, spanning the years 3,700 BC to 1100 AD. These bodies contained incredibly high percentages of nicotine. (Ross, Priscilla; NEARA Transit, 9:5 , Spring 1997.) Comment. In SF#7 /48, back in 1978, we reported that the mummy of Rameses II contained anomalous traces of nicotine. From Science Frontiers #111, MAY-JUN 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... (only 0.1 - 0.4 micrometers in diameter) are everywhere on earth, but it seems that virtually no one knows about them. The furor over ALH 84001 has underscored professional and public ignorance of nannobacteria. Some scientists have asserted that bacteria could never be as small as those "objects" seen in the greatly magnified photos of ALH 84001. This claim led R.L . Folk to fire off a letter to Science that began with these two sentences: "Enough! As one of the discoverers of mineralized nannobacteria on Earth*, I must come to their defense. They are so abundant in samples I have studied that I believe they may make up most of the Earth's biomass." Folk reports that nannobacteria are found just about everywhere: hot-spring waters, decaying leaves, even blood. Nannobacteria are key players in the earth's surface chemistry, precipitating a host of minerals and acting symbiotically to precipitate organic hard parts. (Folk, Robert; "In Defense of Nannobacteria," Science, 274:1288, 1996.) Comment. Ignorance of nannobacteria is not surprising. One needs a scanning electron microscope to see them. * See: Folk, R.L .; Journal of Sedimen tary Petrology, 63:990, 1993. From Science Frontiers #110, MAR-APR 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A TWISTED COSMOS?An astronomer really risks his or her reputation if he or she suggests that the universe has a preferred direction. A core belief in cosmology maintains that no point or direction in the cosmos is in any way "special." So, B. Nodland and J.P . Ralston stirred up a hornets' nest this past spring when they published a paper that began with this paragraph: "Polarized electromagnetic radiation propagating across the Universe has its plane of polarization rotated by the Faraday effect. We report findings of an additional rotation, remaining after Faraday rotation is extracted, which may represent evidence for cosmological anisotropy on a vast scale." (Ref. 1) Most inflammatory was their claim that the plane of polarization of the radio waves rotated more along a particular direction [axis?]; specifically, along a line connecting the constellations Aquila and Sextans. (Ref. 2) Only a few days after the NodlandRalston paper was published, it was blasted in Science. The major complaint was that their data were old and incomplete, since they derived mainly from observations made prior to 1980. (Ref. 3) Indeed, a similar study using more recent measurements but fewer radiation sources seems to refute the NodlandRalston claim of a preferred direction in the cosmos. (Ref. 4) Nodland and Ralston disagree with the charges and the implications of the other study. It will be a while before this ...
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... backs of our knees are strangely sensitive to light. Illumination of these regions somehow encourages our pineal glands to release melatonin. D. Jones has suggested a more direct way in which light can reach the pineal gland -- through our ears! The pineal gland, which is believed to be the relic of the third eye that our distant reptilian ancestors possessed, is now buried deeply in our brains. But, it is possible that light could reach it through the ears by diffusing through the soft, translucent tissues that lead into our skulls. A commercial opportunity arises here. Jones notes first that melatonin is a mood enhancer and stimulant. We all have read how depressed far-northern peoples become during their long winter nights; and we know first-hand how exuberant we are on bright spring days. Why not, asks Jones, manufacture "earlights" mounted on headbands? These would direct red light (which diffuses better through tissue) into the ears and thence to the pineal gland. People could thereby be made cheerful and enthusiastic whatever the season, weather, or time of day. We could dispense with all those mood-enhancing pills. (Jones, David; "The Seeing Ear," Nature, 391:541, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #117, MAY-JUN 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... : "' These half-million shallow craters represent the visible scars of but a small fraction of the meteors that fell to earth...when a comet smashed into the atmosphere and exploded over the American Southeast,' Savage wrote. 'Countless thousands of its meteorites must have plunged into the sea beyond, leaving no trace; while other thousands fell into the floodplains of rivers and streams that soon erased their scars.'" (Floyd, E. Randall; "Comet May Have Created Carolina Bays," Birmingham News , May 16, 1992. Cr. E. Kimbrough.) Comment. Floyd neglected to mention that D. Johnson, a critic of the comet theory, wrote a whole book ( The Origin of the Carolina Bays ) based on his own theory of spring-sapping. For more information on the Carolina Bays, consult our catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds . Details here . From Science Frontiers #82, JUL-AUG 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... hysteria, similar to the occasional crazes of automobile window-pitting. In all cases where university veterinarians examined the corpses, the mutilations were ascribed to small predatory animals. The veterinarians also pointed out that blood coagulates in a couple days after death, accounting for the frequent "bloodless" condition. With such expert reassurances, the "mass delusions" subsided quickly. Cattle mutilation flaps are thus seen by the author as episodes when people interpret the mundane in bizarre new ways, due perhaps to cultural tensions. It is noted, however, that expert veterinarians examined only a few of the dozens of mutilations, and that some people rejected the above commonplace explanations. (Stewart, James H.; "Cattle Mutilations: An Episode of Collective Delusion," The Zetetic, 1:55, Spring/Summer 1977.) From Science Frontiers #1 , September 1977 . 1977-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chinese hunt red-haired bigfoot Spurred by reports of large (6 -feettall) animals with wavy red hair walking on two legs, Chinese scientists have been combing the thick forests of Shennongjia, in Hubei Province. Many footprints 12-16 inches long as well as samples of hair and feces have been found. So far, though, no photos or specimens. (Anonymous; "It's Tall, It Has Wavy Red Hair and Chinese Keep Hunting for It," New York Times, p. 5, January 5, 1980.) Reference. Bigfoot, Yeti, and other unrecognized hominids are covered in Section BHU in: Biological_Anomalies: Humans III. For more information on this Catalog, go to: here . From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why Birds Are Pretty Darwin believed that many male birds are brightly colored because females prefer flashy finery and thus put evolutionary pressure on the development of these characteristics. A large-scale study by Baker and Parker indicates that Darwin erred and that the evolutionary pressure comes instead from predators avoiding brightly colored targets. Instinct tells the predators -- incorrectly in many cases -- that colorful prey taste bad or are noxious. The remarkable (possibly strange) aspect of bird coloration is the incredi ble external similarity of unrelated birds occupying similar habitats. Example, the American Eastern Meadowlark (left) closely resembles the African Yellowthroated Longclaw (right). (Krebs, John R.; "Bird Colours," Nature, 282:14, 1979.) Comment. Two questions cannot be repressed: How do the genes orchestrate this amazing convergence in response to environmental factors? Why was evolution not equally clever in equipping predators with countermeasures to see through these ruses? From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cosmic Death Waves In the language of science, W.M . Napier and S.V .M Clube provide a scenario of cyclic terrestrial catastrophism. Their thesis is that the solar system periodically passes through the regularly spaced spiral galaxy arms every few 107 years. Planetesimals in these arms cra-ter the solar-system planets at these times and also provide the raw materials for new comets, asteroids, satellites, and even planets. Supporting their theory is the repeating history of geological revolutions with the accompanying extinctions and reflowerings of life. A remarkable feature of this paper is a table of shortlived solar-system phenomena (comets and rapidly evolving staellite-and-ring systems). The tenor is one of episodic catastrophism and a rapidly changing solar system; viz., Saturn's rings evolving in only 104 years. (Napier, W.M ., and Clube, S.V .M .; "A Theory of Terrestrial Catastrophism," Nature, 282:455, 1979.) Comment. This outlook differs radically from that still disbursed in our schools and colleges. From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Dynamic Dna Smugness over our discovery of the genetic code and some simple features of biological synthesis has recently been undermined by the recognition that the so-called nonsense segments in genes may be important after all. Now comes the realization that the DNA molecule may not be a staid, static construction. Travelling kinks and other disturbances seem to play some unknown role in biological recognition. Some biochemists have even suggested that DNA winds and unwinds or "breathes" like a living thing as it helps to manufacture biological substances. (Spencer, Michael; "Bent DNA," Nature, 281:631, 1979.) Comment. The addition of the time dimension to biological synthesis evokes thoughts of oscillating systems, frequency dependence, filters, etc. Perhaps Nature has invented something better than the silicon chip. From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Basques in the susquehanna valley 2,500 years ago?Back in the 1940s, Dr. W.W . Strong assembled about 400 inscribed stones from Pennsylvania's Susquehanna Valley. Called the Mechanicsburg Stones, they seemed to bear Phoenician characters -- at least Strong interpreted them as such. Naturally, Strong was ridiculed, for the Columbus-first dogma was dominant then. More recently, however, B. Fell claimed that the Mechanicsburg Stones are the work of Basque settlers circa 600 BC. The Basque theory has fared no better than the Phoenician. Now, a noted authority on the Basque language, Imanol Agire, has strongly supported Fell's conclusion that ancient Basques carved the stones. (Anonymous; "Noted Basque Scholar Supports Claim That Mechanicsburg Stones Were Cut by Ancient Basques," NEARA Journal, 15:67, 1981.) Reference. For other enigmatic inscriptions, see our Handbook Ancient Man. This volume is described here . Inscription on one of the Mechanicsberg Stones From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hidden Stonehenge The configuration of standing stones at Stonehenge has been etched in everyone's mind by thousands of photographs and drawings down the centuries. There is also a "hidden" Stonehenge: traces of earlier configurations, hints of trials and errors, and just plain enigmas. The hidden or cryptic Stonehenge is found mostly by accident when some chance digging reveals a previously unrecorded hole, ditch, or buried artifact. To illustrate, in May and June of 1979, a 24-meter trench was excavated along the path of a proposed telephone cable. The diggers found a completely unexpected, backfilled pit showing the impression of the standing stone that had once occupied it. Now called Stone 97, this feature was "erased" thousands of years ago for some unknown reason. Several such fortuitous finds hint that the Stonehenge we now see is like one of those paintings painted over an earlier painting. Apparently, we are just beginning to comprehend the history of this remarkable site. (Pitts, M.W .; "Stones, Pits and Stonehenge," Nature, 290:16, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Invention Of Agriculture May Have Been A Step Backward Anthropological texts have always ballyhooed the development of agriculture as one of man's greatest achievements. Not so, says Mark Cohen, of SUNY Plattsburgh. The switch from hunting and gathering to sedentary agriculture, it seems, occurred rather suddenly and was attended by a sharp drop in life expectancy. Ancient human bones reveal much more disease, fewer older people, and more violent deaths for centuries following the adoption of agriculture. Why did humanity give up the surprising degrees of security, freedom, and leisure intrinsic in hunting and gathering? Cohen claims that population pressure was the cause. Unable to stem the human population explosion, ancient humans were forced to adopt a life of toil, disease, and stress. (Lewin, Roger; "Disease Clue to Dawn of Agriculture," Science, 211:41, 1981.) Comment. Is there an echo of the Garden of Eden story here? From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Distant galaxies look like those close-by Apropos the preceding item that the Expanding Universe Theory may be flawed, astronomers have discovered that supposedly distant galaxies look pretty much like those in our immediate neighborhood. Specifically, galaxies 10 billion light years away differ little spectrally speaking from those only a billion light years away. The point is that the distant galaxies should appear 9 billion years younger because their light took that long getting here. They look the same, and that fact could imply: (1 ) Galaxies mature rapidly and do not change much after a billion years; (2 ) Our cosmic time scale is all wrong; (3 ) There was no Big Bang and galaxies may have widely varying ages; or (4 ) None of the above. (Anonymous; "Most Distant Galaxies: Surprisingly Mature," Science News, 119:148, 1981.) Reference. Distant galaxies are anomalously blue. See AWF1 in our Catalog: Satrs, Galaxies, Cosmos. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Atlantis found -- again When Soviet oceanographers examined their underwater photos taken of the Ampere Seamount, they discovered what seemed to be walls, stairways, and other artificial stonework. The Ampere Seamount is 450 miles west of Gibraltar, just the area where Plato placed Atlantis! (Anonymous; "Undersea Discovery May Be Atlantis," Baltimore Sun, April 5, 1981. AP item.) From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Iceland And The Iridium Layer The high concentration of iridium between the Cretaceous and Tertiary eras (about 65 million years ago) is widely interpreted as indicating a worldwide catastrophe caused by the impact of a comet or meteor. The increase of iridium concentration over normal levels is much higher in northern latitudes, suggesting that the impact point is in this region. But no impact scar of the proper size and age exists. However, if one looks for scabs rather than scars, one finds that Iceland is formed entirely of volcanic rocks younger than the Cretaceous. To Fred Whipple of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, these facts dovetail nicely. Iceland was form ed by magma welling up from a 100-km hole in the sea floor blasted out by a 10-km meteor. (Anonymous; "The Blow That Gave Birth to Iceland?" New Scientist, 89:740, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Novaya Zemlya Effect Rarely, as the long polar night draws to a close, the sun will suddenly burst above the horizon weeks ahead of schedule. This is the Novaya Zemiya Effect, and it is basically a polar mirage. Even when the sun is still 5 below the horizon, its light can become trapped between thermoclines and be transmitted over the usual horizon. The atmospheric ducts act much like flat light pipes. In the Novalya Zemlya Effect the sun's image is grossly distorted, quite different from the high quality mirages sometimes seen over hundreds of miles in the polar latitudes. (Anonymous; "New Light on Novaya Zemlya Polar Mirage," Physics Today, 34: 21, January 1981.) Reference. Related atmospheric phenomena are collected in Section GEM in our Catalog: Rare Halos. More information on this book here . Triple Novaya Zemlya Effect. Three distorted images of a sun still well below the horizon. From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Massive Ice Lump Falls On England December 10, 1980. Birmingham. An ice lump weighing 1 pound, 6 ounces (626 grams) fell into a garden at Kings Norton. The lump was almost spherical and had a circumference of 12 inches. (Anonymous; "Ice-Ball Falls into a Birmingham Garden," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 6:16, 1981.) Reference. Large, fallen ice chunks are often called "hydrometeors." These are cataloged at GWF1 in Tornados, Dark Days. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is your brain really necessary?John Lorber, a British neurologist, has studied many cases of hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and concluded that the loss of nearly all of the cerebral cortex (the brain's convoluted outer layer) does not necessarily lead to mental impairment. He cites the case of a student at Sheffield University, who has an IQ of 126 and won first-class honors in mathematics. Yet, this boy has virtually no brain; his cortex measures only a millimeter or so thick compared to the normal 4.5 centimeters. Although the deeper brain structures may carry on much of the body's work, the cortex is supposed to be a late evolutionary development that gave humans their vaunted mental powers and superiority over the other animals. If the cortex can be removed with little mental impairment, what is it for in the first place? (Lewin, Roger; "Is Your Brain Really Necessary?" Science, 210:1232, 1980.) Comment. Brain size, then, may mean nothing in comparing ancient and modern human skulls or human brain capacity with those of animals! Where is the seat of intelligence? In some cases of hydrocephalus, the cortex is only paper-thin, but little mental impairments is apparent. From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A SUN-AND-SPIRAL CLOCK The astronomical sophistication of ancient humans becomes more obvious each year. A novel method of keeping track of the seasons has been discovered on an isolated butte in New Mexico. Here, the Anasazi, who occupied Chaco Canyon between 400 and 1,300 A.D ., carved spiral petroglyphs into the face of a cliff. Then, they arranged stone slabs so that sharp slivers of sunlight fell on the spirals. The precise position of the sliver of light depends of course upon the location of the sun. The solstices and equinoxes are registered by unique configurations of light slivers and spirals. In contrast to other calendar sites, which rely upon the rising and setting points of sun on the horizon, the New Mexico clock depends upon the altitude of the sun at midday. Slivers of moonlight on the spirals also seem to have astronomical significance. (Sofaer, Anna, et al; "A Unique Solar Marking Construct," Science, 206:283, 1979.) Reference. Our Handbook Ancient Man contains much additional material on archeoastronomy. For a description of this large volume, go to: here . From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Those Darn Quarks There's no escaping it, those fractionally charged niobium balls just can't be swept under the rug. In fact, more recent experiments have served only to accentuate the anomaly. Researchers at Stanford University have been magnetically suspending superconducting niobium spheres in a modern version of Millikan's oil-drop experiment. With the niobium spheres thus suspended, their net electrical charges can be measured. The trouble is that several of the spheres have fractional electrical charges -- + 1/3 or -1 /3 electronic charges. For decades the charge on the electron was supposed to be the basic, indivisible natural unit of electrical charge. In 1964, however, theorists began muddying the waters with talk of new fundamental constituents of matter called quarks, which could possess 1/3 or 2/3 electron charges. No one really expected that quarks, if they existed at all, would be floating around free. But the niobium balls tell us that not only are quarks free but that we could have detected them with relatively simple experiments decades ago if we had not been so blinded by the idea of integral electronic charges. (Robinson, Arthur L.; "Evidence for Free Quarks Won't Go Away," Science, 211:1028, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Double hubble: age in trouble A key concept in modern astronomy -- the distance scale -- has been challenged by a new measurement technique. In recent years, the so-called Hubble Constant has been used to determine the distances of the farthest observable galaxies and, by assuming that they are near the periphery of the expanding universe, obtaining the age of the cosmos by dividing distance by the speed of light. Until this current challenge, the age of the universe was generally taken as about 20 billion years. The "old" Hubble Constant, however, was determined from the measurements of the distances to rather close galaxies and then assuming that the Constant thus derived held for the entire universe. The new yardstick reaches farther out into space. It is based upon the observation that the broadening of galaxy's 21-centimeter radio emission depends upon its rate of rotation, plus the belief that the rate of rotation is proportional to its brightness! This "new" Hubble Constant is 95 kilometers/second/ megaparsec, which translates into an age of only 10 billion years for the universe. Both the 10-billion-year and 20billion-year camps claim strong supporting evidence for themselves and also point to serious difficulties in the opposing method. The stage is thus set for a delightful controversy. (Hartline, Beverly Karplus; "Double Hubble: Age in Trouble," Science, 207: 167, 1979.) ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is all natural gas biological in origin?T. Gold and S. Soter, from Cornell, have championed the theory that earthquake lights, sounds, and precursory animal activities may be due to abiogenic natural gases escaping from deep within the earth. Perhaps some petroleum and natural gas reserves have been created by primordial hydrocarbons working their way outward through the crust rather than by the geochemical alteration of biological materials. Perhaps almost all petroleum is abiogenic -- some Russian scientists hold this view! Western scientists are almost unani-mous that natural gas and oil are bio genic with maybe a touch of upwelling abiogenic hydrocarbons. A major reason given for this stance is that the biogenic theory has been so productive in locating hydrocarbon reserves. This, of course, leaves the earthquake lights and sounds still unexplained. (Anonymous; "Abiogenic Methane? Pro and Con," Geotimes, 25:17, November 1980.) Comment. The moral of this might be that seemingly inconsequential phenomena historically lead to wholesale changes in scientific thinking; viz., the insignificant advance in Mercury's perihelion. Reference. The possible abiogenic origin of natural gas is covered at ESC16 in Neglected Geological Anomalies. For a description of this Catalog, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Evolutionary Struggle Within Ted Steele, an immunologist, has come up with experimental evidence showing in some cases that acquired immunity may be transmitted to progeny. When Steele's research was announced, many scientists and science writers rushed to the defense of Darwinism. They pointed out with unseeming vigor that a revival of dread Lamarckism or the Inheritance of Acquired Characters was not indicated. It is true that Steele has proposed a Darwinian interpretation of his findings, but his theory adds a startling new dimension to the development of life. In essence, Steele asserts that an organism's immunological system is really the evolutionary scenario in miniature and compressed in time. The body's immuno-logical system is trying to cope with up to 10 million defensive cells. The only defensive cells that survive and multiply are those that happen to encounter an invader that they can lock onto and destroy. The "fittest" defensive cells are those that have just the right characteristics to knock off invaders, and only they survive permanently in the body's defensive arsenal, giving it acquired immunity. The Lamarckian part of this story occurs when the RNA of the selected defensive cells gets passed on to the organism's progeny. (Tudge, Colin; "Lamarck Lives -- In the Immune System," New Scientist, 89:483, 1981.) Comment. The picture evolving here is one of a hierarchy of evolutionary struggles -- say, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The nuclear threat: bad dates Woodmorappe has assembled an impressive and disconcerting collection of anomalous radiometric dates. Over 300 serious discrepancies are tabulated and backed by some 445 references from the scientific literature. To remove triviali-ties, only dates that were "wrong" by 20% or more were included. This criterion insured that the anomalous dates were off by one or more geological periods. To enhance his case, Woodmorappe excluded data for such troublesome minerals as K-feldspar, which have unreliable records. The surviving discordances will certainly disturb anyone who has long accepted radioactive dating as the near-final word in geochronology. The lengthy text accompanying the table delves into the geological problems posed by the tabulated anomalies, primarily the severe distortions implied in the supposedly well-established geological time scale. Many attempts have been made to explain away these discrepancies, usually by asserting that the system must have been "open"; that is, contamination and/or removal of materials occurred. But a far more serious situation exists: the reluctance of researchers to publish radiometric dates that fly in the face of expectations. Data selection and rejection are epidemic. Some authors admit tossing out wild points; others say nothing. (Woodmorappe, John; "Radiometric Geochronology Reappraised," Creation Research Society Quarterly, 16:102, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ice-flake fall July 28, 1979, near Norwich, England. On the fringes of a thunderstorm, large ice flakes fell for about 5 minutes along with pea-size hail and a few raindrops. The flakes were about 5 x 10 cm (2 x 4 inches) by 0.3 cm (1 /8 inch) thick. They floated down slowly with the flat areas horizontal like falling leaves. (Anonymous; "Remarkable Fall of Large Ice-Flakes," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 4:280, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Long-delayed radio echoes J. Hals first observed long-delayed radio echoes in 1927. During the following half-century, scientists have been studying this perplexing problem, but it has been the amateurs who have accumulated the bulk of the data. Over 100 reports exist where echoes of radio transmissions were received seconds later at the original transmitting station. Since light travels 186,000 miles per second, any simple radio-wave reflector would have to be well beyond the moon's orbit. A wide variety of natural phenomena (interplanetary matter) and even artificial devices (alien space probes) have been postulated to explain the long delays. Muldrew's article is first of all an excellent summary of the long and fascinating history of this effect. His bibliography is extensive and apparently nearly complete. Muldrew next examines the various ionospheric mechanisms that might cause long delays. The ionosphere is a complex structure with ducts in which radio signals can get trapped. Delays of a second or so might be due to such trapping but the longer delays require some other explanation. Muldrew favors a rather complex interaction between signals from separate transmitters that (theoretically at least) can create a long-lived electrostatic wave that travels in the ionosphere -- a sort of natural memory device. The coded signals could then be read out much later when the proper natural conditions developed. Delays of up to 40 seconds might be possible with this "ionospheric memory ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Luminous Ripples Move Through The Night Sky A.W . Peterson, during his studies of nighttime airglow in the infrared, has reported three events also invisible to the naked eye. The most spectacular event occurred on the night of April 4-5 , 1978, when luminous ripples were observed at about 90 kilometers altitude moving at 91 meters/second, with a crest-to-crest wavelength of 16 kilome ters. The precise source of the visible light is still in doubt as is the identity of the stimulus causing the glowing ripples. Peterson has noted some correlation between the ripples, both visible and infrared, and the lunar high tide in the atmosphere. Gravity waves could thus be the stimulus creating the ripples. (Peterson, Alan W.; "Airglow Events Visible to the Naked Eye," Applied Optics, 18:3390, 1979.) Comment. Peterson's work may lead to explanations of the auroral "meteors" and the many reports of "banded sky" from astronomers. From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bend Interferometers Not Spoons Because spoon-bending and similar purported mental feats involve so much legerdemain and trickery, scientists generally avoid psychic research. Taking a different tack, R.G . Jahn, at Princeton, has been experimenting with microscopic psychic effects, such as raising the temperature of a thermistor by a few thousandths of a degree or changing the separation of interferometer mirrors by a hundred-thousandth of a centimeter. Quite unexpectedly (at least to the conventional physicist) the mind seems able to cause such changes at will under controlled conditions. The changes are minuscule to be sure, but cause-and-effect is clear-cut according to Jahn. But don't say that psi power has now been scientifically proven. The effects vary from person to person and, for the same individual, from time to time. The fact that one cannot predict the occurrence of the effects has led Jahn to speculate that the phenomena are inherently statistical. (Anonymous; "Dean Justifies Psychic Research," Science News, 116:358, 1979.) Comment. In other words, the effects resemble radioactivity where the behavior of a single atom is unpredictable but en masse the atoms follow the law of radioactive decay. From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Homing In On The Hum In 1977 the English Sunday Mirror ran a story about someone who claimed to hear a steady and very annoying humming noise. To everyone's surprise, the article elicited some 800 letters from others who heard hums. Amazed by the magnitude of the problem, doctors began examining some of the afflicted. In a few cases, the hum seemed to be internally generated -- something akin to tinnitus, which causes one to hear a highpitched whine. Many others, however, heard a 40 Hz hum modulated at 1.6 kHz, and apparently of external origin. The hum sufferers were inclined to blame industrial noise, but no obvious sources could be uncovered. The hum investigators have considered sea noise, jetstream noise, and other natural sources. Whatever the source, most people do not hear it at all. It is possible that a small percentage of the population is abnormally sensitive to sound at 40 Hz. (Wilson, Steve; "Mystery of People Who Hear the Hum," New Scientist, 84:868, 1979.) Comment. Anomalous natural hums are not unknown; viz., the Yellowstone Lake Whispers and "desert sounds." Al-so a select few seem to be able to hear the very low auroras. For more on hums, see GSH5 and GSH6 in: Earthquakes, Tides, Anomalous Sounds. This Catalog is described here . From Science Frontiers #10, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Io's electrical volcanos Thomas Gold, of Cornell, long known for his provocative theories, has not disappointed us in this paper. Jupiter's moon, Io, exhibits an anomaly that seems to call for a radical explanation. Io's volcanos erupt with such violence that molten material is flung to heights of 250 kilometers. These outbursts proceed from caldera, and one is led to assume that normal volcanic action is to blame. Unfortunately for this simplistic idea, Io does not seem to possess low-molecular-weight substances, such as water, that could serve as a good propellant at reasonable temperatures. Sulphur is common, but its atomic weight is so high that temperatures exceeding 6000 K would be required to shoot matter out to 250 kilometers. Gold suggests that Io's volcanos get their firepower from electrical sources. He points out that Io short-circuits Jupiter's ring current periodically. Gold estimates that 5 million amperes flow through Io when it passes through the ring current. The energetic eruptions and caldera might therefore be electric-arc phenomena. The electrical energies available are sufficient to account for the observed outbursts. (Gold, Thomas; "Electrical Origin of the Outbursts on Io," Science, 206:1071, 1979.) Comment. Several scientists and non-scientists have proposed in the past that the sunspots and even some planetary craters result from large-scale electrical arcing within the solar system ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 12: Fall 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ephemeral Lines On Mars At first, the close-up Mariner and Viking photos of the Martian surface seemed to dispose of the famous "canals." Few permanent linear features were discovered -- certainly nothing like the complex grid of straight lines sketched and photographed by Percival Lowell. Lowell may be vindicated yet, for at least one sharp, dark line has been photographed by a Viking Orbiter during three Martian springs just north of the great volcano Arsia Mons. Called a "weather wave," this line appears only in the spring when Lowell's canals darkened. This year, a second long line, slightly curved, joined up with the first line at a triangular junction looking suspiciously like one of Lowell's "oases." (Anonymous; "Rare Martian Weather Wave -- with a Kink," Science News, 118: 7, 1980.) Comment. Could it be that the notorious Martian canals are atmospheric features that come and go? For more on the history of the Martian canals and recent observations, see AMO1 in our Catalog: The Moon and the Planets. This volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #12, Fall 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Universal Urge To Join Up Take a mouse cell and place it in contact with a human cell. The two separating membranes will dissove and the cell contents will mix. The once-independent and widely different cell nuclei will fuse, forming a single hybrid cell with a common membrane. Even more astonishing, this totally new biological entity will often divide and produce an endless line of the new hybrid. As might be expected, some hybrids do not remain true and revert to one or the other of the original species. Although cell fusion has been observed only under laboratory conditions, it seems to represent a near-universal cell phenomenon that might be realized rarely under natural conditions. The implications for the history of life are far-reaching. For example, the mitochondria in human cells that help our bodies use oxygen to obtain energy may well be descendants of bacteria that once fused with primitive cells. The same may be true for the chloroplasts in plant cells. (Thomas, Lewis; "Cell Fusion: Does It Represent a Universal Urge to 'Join Up'?" Science Digest, 86:52, December 1979.) Comment. Natural cell fusion might make large evolutionary steps possible and be much faster than endless small genetic changes. Are we all composite creatures? From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects If bacteria don't think, neither do we As one goes step-by-step down the ladder of biological complexity, one discovers that flatworms, plants, and even bacteria display purposeful behavior. Bacteria, which are usually regarded as fairly inert when it comes to responding to environmental pressures, actually react in different ways to dozens of different stimuli. This ability at the very least requires sensory equipment, internal clocks, a memory, and a decision-making capability. If bacterial activity is all preprogrammed (the reductionist view), are not humans also preprogrammed? Human programs are larger and more complex, of course, but still devoid of "thinking." Conversely, if humans really do think; that is, transcend preprogramming (free will, if you wish), then bacteria must also think. The third possibility is that at some step in the ladder of life, "higher" life forms begin to think. There is little evidence that life is split so profoundly between thinkers and non-thinkers. (Morowitz, Harold J.; "Do Bacteria Think?" Psychology Today, 15:10, February 1981.) Comment. This ancient controversy about determinism has been revived as: (1 ) Simple life forms have been found to be not-so-simple; (2 ) All life seems unified by a single (or small number of) genetic codes; and (3 ) " ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "TIRED LIGHT" THEORY REVIVED The Expanding Universe Theory depends to a large degree upon the correctness of Hubble's Law; viz., the redshifts of distant objects are directly proportional to their distances from earth. Unfortunately for the Expanding Universe, some redshift measurements indicate a quadratic rather than linear relationship between redshift and distance. I.E . Segal's chronometric theory of the cosmos, however, does predict a quadratic relationship. In Segal's theory redshifts are due to the gravitational slowing of light rather than any gereral expansion of the universe. Even if most astrophysicists are finally persuaded that the quadratic relationship is real, they will be loath to abandon the philosophically appealing Expanding Universe. Not only is the Expanding Universe consistent with Relativity but it states unequivocally that the earth (and man) does not occupy a preferred place in the universe. (Hanes, David A.; "Is the Universe Expanding?" Nature, 289:745, 1981.) Comment. A geocentric theory would intimate a supernatural force favoring humanity. From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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