262 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Who built the kaimanawa wall? The irish in iceland Astronomy An old galaxy in a young part of the universe Precocious structure in the cosmos "NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER" Biology Organ music High social order in a new order Subversive cancer cells Rock-based life Geology Antarctica's lake vostok revisited Geophysics More sparks on the beach Horizon-to-horizon bioluminescent bubbling band Tear of the gods? Psychology Did mozart use the golden section? The perils of dhmo Ten myths of science ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Can computers have ndes?When HAL, the treacherous computer in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, was being slowly throttled by the one surviving astronaut, it tried first to negotiate. Then, as board after board of electronic components were disconnected, it burst into the old song A Bicycle Built for Two . It had learned this tune early in its silicon-based life. Surprisingly, real computers can experience similar Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). S.L . Thaler, a physicist at McDonnell Douglas, was studying neural networks designed to mimic the structure and functions of the human brain. Such neural nets can actually learn as programmers train them. As a evening avocation, Thaler devised a program that randomly severed connections in the neural net, in effect destroying the artificial brain bit by bit. When between 10 and 60% of the connections were destroyed, the net spat out only gibberish. Near 90% destruction, though, strange "whimsical" information was produced that was definitely not gibberish. In contrast, untrained neural networks generated only random numbers as they were "put down"! Evidently, HAL's tuneful demise was not so fanciful after all. (Yam, Philip; "Daisy, Daisy," Scientific American, 268:32, May 1993.) Comment. A.C . Clarke, author of 2001, has stated firmly that HAL's name was not chosen ...
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... terrestrial rocks and splash liquid droplets into the atmosphere. There they are shaped by aerodynamic forces and solidify. This scenario is all very reasonable, but some nagging problems remain. Where-o -where is that crater? 770,000 years ago, a huge meteor hit somewhere on earth and strewed an immense batch of tektites and microtektites over fully 10% of our planet's surface (about 5 x 107 square kilometers). This is called the "Australasian strewn field." Such a recent cataclysm must have left a large and inescapable crater somewhere. The problem is that no one has yet found it. (Ref. 1) Many lines of evidence suggest that the missing crater is in Indochina. C.C . Schnetzler and J.F . McHone located four likely structures in Laos from Landsat images. However, visits to these areas found no evidence of an impact. (Ref. 2) So, this mystery persists. How were the Muong Nong tektites formed? Muong Nong tektites are unusually large (up to 24 kilograms), layered tektites. They are found in an area 1,000 kilometers in extent from Hainan Island to southern Indochina. Their large sizes imply that they are probably close to the missing crater mentioned above. Still unresolved is whether they were originally puddles of molten rock near the elusive crater or local ejecta analogous to volcanic bombs. (Ref. 1) Is the "age paradox" finally resolved? Some Australian geologists have stratigraphically dated the Australasian tektites as being just a few thousand rather than 770,000 years old. ...
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... Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ten Strikes Against The Big Bang T. Van Flandern, editor of the Meta Re search Bulletin, has compiled a list of Big-Bang problems -- and it is not a short list. Can the Big-Bang paradigm be that shaky? Like Evolution and Relativity, the Big Bang is usually paraded as a proven, undeniable fact. It isn't . Static-universe models fit the data better than expanding-universe models. The microwave "background" makes more sense as the limiting temperature of space heated by starlight than as the remnant of a fireball. Element-abundance predictions using the Big Bang require too many adjustable parameters to make them work. The universe has too much largescale structure (interspersed "walls" and voids) to form in a time as short as 10-20 billion years. The average luminosity of quasars must decrease in just the right way so that their mean apparent brightness is the same at all redshifts, which is exceedingly unlikely. The ages of globular clusters appear older than the universe. The local streaming motions of galaxies are too high for a finite universe that is supposed to be everywhere uniform. Invisible dark matter of an unknown but non-baryonic nature must be the dominant ingredient of the entire universe. The most distant galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field show insufficient evidence of evolution, with some of them apparently having higher redshifts (z = 6-7 ) than the faintest quasars. If the open universe we see today is extrapolated ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Evolution Of Cyberlife The evolvable hardware described in SF#115 is only one several efforts underway aimed at modeling life and evolution. Network Tierra. Here we have a network of 150 computers linked worldwide by the Internet. One objective is the exploration of structures and patterns of information that drive evolutionary processes. A key element is an artificial lifeform that begins as a "seed organism" (modeled as information, of course) that wanders at will among the different environments presented by the computers in the network. So far, these digital organisms are surviving and changing. (Blakeslee, Sandra; "Cyberlife Critters Evolving in Computer Network," Austin American-Statesman , November 30, 1997. Cr. D. Phelps. Minad Project. Begun in 1953, the Minad Project is pure futurism; that is, the prediction of where the computer revolution is taking us. The Minad Project envisioned three evolutionary stages: Wiring the world (already accomplished as today's Internet); The transformation of the network into a high-speed creative mechanism (the Technosphere); and The emergence of global hyperintelligence (the Autosphere). The Minad Project is now forecasting what this all means for non-silicon-based life in the 21st. Century. (Baker, Lance; "They're Taking Over," New Scientist, p.55, December 6, 1997.) From Science Frontiers #116, MAR- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 118: Jul-Aug 1998 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Archeological revisionism Astounding undersea structure near okinawa More bones that don't belong The mysterious terras pretas Paradigm assaults from way down under Astronomy The "stealth" region of mars The day the laws of phsics changed Biology Lunacy in trees Two creations of life? Biological miscellany Geology The song of the earth Glitches in the terrestrial conveor belt Geophysics Unidentified light Phosphorescent rings and wheels Broadside against small icy comets Psychology Measuring beauty Monogrammic determinism Tactile ventriloquism ...
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... Oct 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Basalt Synthesis Invented Over 3,000 Years Ago!Basalt is a blackish volcanic rock that is hard and durable. In nature it sometimes occurs in long prisms of hexagonal cross section. In fact, ancient Micronesians quarried multiton basalt prisms to build their fantastic megalithic complex of 92 artificial islets at Nan Madol. (SF#45) The inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia had no basalt quarries at hand. Indeed, building stone of any kind was exceedingly scarce. What the Mesopotamians of the second century B.C . did have in abundance was alluvial silt. From this unpromising material they were able to make their pottery, writing tablets, and art objects. However, for grinding grain and engineering structures they needed something harder and stronger. Their innovative solution was: artificial basalt made from silt. They simply melted the silt and let it cool slowly. Sounds simple, but three remarkable intellectual and technical advances were required: The Mesopotamians first had to recognize that silt could be melted. This could not have been obvious in 1000 BC. Next, they had to develop hightemperature (1 ,200 C) smelters that were much larger than those they used for metallurgical purposes. Finally, they had to discover that slow cooling was needed for the growth of large crystals in the cooling melt. (Of course, they had no microscopes to see the crystals. So, it had to have been something learned from experience.) That the Mesopotamians were able to synthesize basalt can be seen ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 120: Nov-Dec 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Pigeon-snaring Mounds Of Tonga In North America, the industrious Mound-builders excavated untold millions of basketfuls of soil which they piled up in impressive mounds. Flat-topped Monk's Mound at Cahokia, Illinois, rivals the Great Pyramid in volume. A casual observer of this huge earthen structure could only conclude that such immense labor was undertaken for some social imperative, such as worship or sacrifice. Perhaps this was the case in North America, but deep in the South Pacific, just east of Fiji, on the islands of Tonga, native peoples scraped large mounds of earth for what seems to be a frivolous purpose: pigeon-snaring ! But bear in mind that carnivory on these romantic Pacific islands was difficult because large game animals were nonexistent. Captured enemies helped solve the protein problem, but pigeons were much more common, and some species were good-sized and delicious. So much so that eventually only island royalty was allowed to catch and eat them. Pigeon poachers were whipped or executed (and maybe eaten?) In fact, pigeon snaring became a royal sport. To this end, starting at least a thousand years ago, the king's loyal subjects grubbed up the thin island soil and piled it up into high mounds. Tonga's pigeon-snaring mounds did not compete with Monk's Mound sizewise, being at most 115 feet in diameter and perhaps 15 feet high. But ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects From Nature's Atelier One of geology's more fascinating mysteries concerns the formation of concretions. Concretions are structures within rock that differ in form and/or composition from the matrix. Often, they form around an impurity of some sort, say, a tiny fossil. If concretions were all nicely spherical or crystalline in shape, we might be able to explain them as we do with the oyster's pearl and winter's snow-flake. Unfortunately for the theorists, concretions usually come in bizarre shapes -- shapes an avant garde sculptor might appreciate. Not only do concretions come in weird geometries but they may be replicated in prodigious numbers, like the famous Kimmeridge "coal money." Additionally, some flint concretions are arrayed in thick chalk beds in amazingly regular three-dimensional arrays that tax the ingenuity of any theorist. To illustrate the extremes of nature's inorganic-chemical imagination, we now provide some illustrations from a recent two-part article in Rocks & Minerals and one of our catalog volumes. (Dietrich, R.V .; "Carbonate Concretions,' Rocks & Minerals, 74:266 and 74:335, 1999. ESA3 in Neglected Geological Anomalies.) Carbonate concretions (" imatra stones") from Finland. Virtually identical concretions occur in the Connecticut River Valley. Vertical lines of flint concretions in chalk cliffs near Norfolk, England. Presumably the 3-dimensional array ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 2: January 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Stone Enigmas Of New England Beginning with the maze of walls, courtyards, and chambers that characterize New Hampshire's Mystery Hill site, M.F . Doran and B.H . Kunnecke review the various types of anomalous stone structures found in northeastern North America. Three major classes are recognized: Covered passageways up to 25 feet in length and analogous to Cornish fogous. Beehive chambers, such as the 10-foot-high chamber at Upton, Massachusetts. Dolmen-like constructions, as exemplified by the 60-ton "balancing boulder at North Salem, New York. Termed a "glacial erratic" by most, the North Salem stone seems distinctly unlike most erratics and more like some European dolmens. Noting that radiocarbon dates from Mystery Hill go back to more than 1,000 B.C ., Doran and Kunnecke feels that these stone enigmas should receive professional attention in the context of world distributions of blood groups and other evidence of early, frequent transoceanic contacts. (Doran, Michael F., and Kunnecke, Bernd H.; "The Stone Enigmas of New England," Anthropological Journal of Canada, 15:17, No. 2: January 1978 Reference. Many more "stone engimas" are detailed in Ancient Man. This Handbook is described here . From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... for the evolution of the more complicated parts of living cells. The microspheres absorb sunlight and, with the addition of this energy, display some of the electrical characteristics of biological neurons, like those in the brain. The implication is that some components of "mind" may have existed in the very earliest life forms. (Peterson, Ivars; "Microsphere Excitement," Science News, 125:408, 1984.) Comment. Two comments here: First, the word "spontaneous" is customarily employed when describing how atoms unite to form molecules and molecules combine into polymers, which then gather into microspheres. The word "spontaneous" seems to imply chance is operating rather than design. Actually, atoms and even subatomic particles must have innate properties which force them to combine into larger structures the way they do. Philosophically, one can ask whether the lowliest subatomic particles are "coded" to combine into molecules, microspheres, and living creatures. In other words, the design of life could be inherent in quarks. Second, if nonliving microspheres possess some of the properties of neurons, it is possible that natural, nonliving minds can form spontaneously -- a sort of "natural" artificial intelligence! Mind, then, could preced life, which is manifestly more complex than computers. The science-fiction possibilities are endless here. From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What caused the grooves on phobos?Photographs from the Viking Orbiters show that the Martian satellite Phobos displays a heavily grooved surface. Enough high-resolution photos have been taken to prove that these grooves emanate from the large crater named Stickney and run around the satellite to its opposite side where they die out. This suggests that the origin of the crater and the grooves are related. Further, the widest and deepest grooves (700 meters wide and 90 meters deep) are located close to Stickney. On the other side of Phobos, grooves are consistently less than 100 meters wide. Despite these hints of impact origin, the grooves are not quite what one would expect from simple fracture by collision. Some show beaded or pitted structures. Other grooves are composed of irregularly bounded segments. Finally, some of the straight-walled sections seem to have slightly raised rims. Evidently, some internal forces, perhaps stimulated by the formation of Stickney, also played a part. (Thomas, P., et al; "Origin of the Grooves on Phobos," Nature, 273:282, 1978.) Reference. The grooves of Phobos and its other anomalies are catalogued at ALL2 and ALL3 in The Moon and the Planets. To order this book, go to: here . Map of the strange grooves on the Martian moon Phobos From Science Frontiers #4 , July 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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." (Muldrew, D.B .; "Generation of Long Delay Echoes," Journal of Geophysical Research," 84:5199, 1979.) References. More information on these curius echoes is located at GER1 in our Catalog: Rare ...
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... Brazil at least 50,000 years ago. F. Parenti, with N. Guidon, presented their data at a recent Paris meeting. The main site studied was the sandstone rock shelter of Pedra Furada, which is one of several hundred painted rock shelters discovered in northeastern Brazil. Guidon began her work in 1978; Parenti, in 1984. The fourvolume, 7-kilogram report (actually Parenti's doctoral thesis) concentrates on three lines of evidence: A coherent series of 54 radiocarbon dates ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 years. Crudely flaked stones, some 6,000 of which are deemed of human manufacture, even when the most stringent criteria are applied. Many of these came from Pleistocene strata 50,000 years old or older. Some 50 Pleistocene "structures" consisting of artificial arrangements of stones, some burned, some accompanied by charcoal. These are likely ancient hearths. (Bahn, Paul G.; "50,000-Year-Old Americans of Pedra Furada," Nature, 362:114, 1993.) Comment. With the Brazil and Chile (Monte Verde) sites looking more and more convincing, it is reasonable to ask why even older sites have not been found in North America, which is nearer the famous Bering Land Bridge. As a matter of fact, controverted human artifacts have been found at such sites as Calico Hills, California, which are claimed to be much older than 50,000 years. It will be interesting to see how the Pedra Furada data are received in the States. From Science ...
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... 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 Structure and Possible Causes," Earth and Planetary Sci ence Letters , 114:215, 1993.) Reference. We catalog crater periodicity in ETC4 in Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. This catalog described here . From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ; but, seriously, during the birth pangs of the universe, there seems to have been what cosmologists call a "phase change," a mysterious moment when the laws of physics suddenly became more complex. You can reasonably ask: "How can supposedly immutable physical laws change?" The answer seems to be that anything can happen when something is being made from nothing! This apparent plasticity in the laws governing the cosmos is suggested by observations of how galaxies in the early universe were distributed. The standard theory for the origin of the universe predicts that clumps of galaxies of all sizes were created early on. This is not what a survey by S. Sarkar et al, at the University of Oxford, found. A split second after the Big Bang, galaxies were organized in structures about 300-million light years across. The standard model of particle physics cannot account for this preferred size. The theorists' recourse is a phase change, a point in time when the warp and woof of the universe changed; that is, change the rules until they fit. (Chown, Marcus; "In the Beginning," New Scientist, p.7 , April 25, 1998.) Comment. Hang onto your hats. If a phase change happened once, it can happen again. Things may fall up tomorrow. See SF#74 for item entitled: "Repent! The Phase Change is Coming." From Science Frontiers #118, JUL-AUG 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . The concentration and diversity of microorganisms (mostly bacteria) at depths as great as 520 meters (1610 feet) below the ground's surface are remarkably high. It makes one wonder what will be found even farther down. To illustrate, more than 3000 different microorganisms have been found in the boreholes. Many of the bacteria are new to science. As the following two paragraphs demonstrate, subterranean life consists of many well-adapted microorganisms working together. "The traditional scientific concept of an abiological terrestrial subsurface is not valid. The reported investigation has demonstrated that the terrestrial deep subsurface is a habitat of great biological diversity and activity that does not decrease significantly with increasing depth. "The enormous diversity of the microbiological communities in deep terrestrial sediments is most striking. The organisms vary widely in structure and function, and they are capable of transforming a variety of organic and inorganic compounds. Regardless of the depth sampled, the microorganisms were able to perform the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, manganese, iron, and phosphorous. Although the organisms were not of the same physiological types, each niche contained a basic cast of microbiological players capable of these nutrient transformations. Such versatility is surprising, and contrary to traditional thinking in soil microbiology, because the deep subsurface is presumably a nutrientlimited environment where photosynthesis and photosynthates are not abundant." The scientists writing this article speculate that similar microorganisms could well be prospering far below the Martian surface, where they are sheltered from radiation and the cruel surface environment. (Fliermans, Carl B., and Balkwill, David L.; " ...
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... the house next door. At this stage my mother rushed in the back door of the house where we huddled for about 30 seconds before hearing a resounding crash some 250 yards away off to the east. It had hit Green's house at the far eastern end of Campbell Road. It apparently then bounced all the way to the Salvation Army home and demolished the whole house somewhere near Dawson and Florence Streets at Fullarton." The ball rotated slowly and emitted small sparks. (Illert, Theodore Charles; "The Parkside Lightning Ball," personal communication from C. Illert. To be published in "Speak No Evil: A Case Study of Lives and Times of German Settlers in South Australia," by C. Illert) Ball lightning with a wormy or rope-like surface structure. The example sketched above appeared in an English garden, but it is basically the same as the Parkside ball lightning. (See the Catalog of Anomalies) From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... minutes to hit bottom, for this research drill hole has now penetrated to 7.5 kilometers. It is the second deepest man-made hole, after the Soviet 12-km hole in the Kola Peninsula. Drilled solely for scientific purposes, the rocks and strata encountered by the KTB drill bits have forced the redrawing of German geological maps. The "real" subterranean world turned out to be quite different from that inferred from both surface indications and the seismic and electrical probing of the depths. Three specific surprises are worth mentioning: Temperatures in the drill hole rose far faster than predicted. The expected boundary (" suture") between two old tectonic plates thought to exist at 3 km according to surface geology had not yet appeared at 7.5 km. Most interestingly, crevicular structure (crevices and pores) existed at almost all depths, even though theory said they could not because of intense pressures. And these voids were filled with fluids. P. Keher, a KTB scientist, was amazed at what the drill found: "When I started 25 years ago, the idea was that the deeper you go into the crust, the drier it gets." (Kerr, Richard A.; "Looking -- Deeply -- into the Earth's Crust in Europe," Science, 261:295, 1993.) Comment. Deep-living bacteria were not mentioned in the above article, but Soviet scientists claim to have pumped them up from 12 km down! Outer space may not be our final frontier despite the introductory blurb to Star Trek ...
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... That cosmology is in flux is apparent in the following sentence found in Nature: " The standard ideas of the 1980s about the shape and history of the Universe have now been abandoned -- and cosmologists are now taking seriously the possibility that the Universe is pervaded by some sort of vacuum energy, whose origin is not at all understood." Does this mean that the Big Bang, the mainstay of the astronomy we were taught in school, is now being cast aside? After all, the Big Bang does model fairly well three important observations: The apparent expansion of the universe; The 3 K microwave background; and The abundances of the light nuclei. But try as they may, cosmologists have not been able to coax the Big Bang model to explain the large-scale lumpiness and structure of the galaxies and galaxy clusters. One problem with the Big Bang is that it has too many free parameters -- too much theoretical slack. Many cosmologists are now looking for a better model. This better model, to use the words of P. Coles, should be more "exciting" and "stranger," something "perhaps not even based on General Relativity." (Coles, Peter; "The End of the Old Model Universe," Nature, 393:741, 1998.) Questions. Isn't cosmology already already "strange" enough? Since when do theories have to be "exciting"? If a vacuum is defined as "a volume devoid of mass," how can it contain energy when E = mc2 ? From Science Frontiers # ...
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... at points where intersecting vibrations cancelled each other out. Could the many fields of Mima mounds in North America, Africa, and other continents have been created in a like manner by earthquakes? The recent severe quake in India proved that the answer to the above question might be "yes." Some farm-lands that had been flat were riven by cracks several inches wide and up to 70 feet deep and, in addition, topped by undulating mounds up to a foot high. (Anonymous; "Farmers Work Land Churned by Earthquake," Spokane Review , October 10,1993. Cr. J. Satkoski) Comment. Mima mounds are often higher than 1 foot, but at it certainly seems that Berg's experiment has been repeated by Nature herself. Mima mounds and like structures are cataloged in ETM1 in Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. This catalog is described here . From Science Frontiers #91, JAN-FEB 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... " Problem 2. The radioactive impurities producing the radiohalos are very tiny -- about 2-4 micrometers in diameter -- and are highly concentrated. Armitage continues: "What is most difficult to understand is that many of these inclusions and impurities have much lower melting and boiling points than the diamonds in which they are found." Why did the impurities fail to disperse as the higher-melting-point diamond matrix surrounding them slowly cooled down the eons? Photomicrograph (100x) of hollow tubes in a diamond Problem 3. Some diamonds contain a strange, rectangular latticework of radiation-stained hollow tubes. Some of the tubes terminate in radiohalos; some do not. Some reach the crystal surface; most don't . What are these tubes and how could they retain their intricate structure during diamond genesis? (Armitage, Mark H.; "Internal Radiohalos in a Diamond," American Laboratory , p. 28, December 1993. Cr. N. Ethridge.) Comments. More on the radiohalo problem can be found in Science Frontiers (the book, p. 213) and under ESP1 in Anomalies in Geology . Ordering information for both of these books is located here . Note, too, that creationists employ radiohalos to attempt to prove that the earth is really young. Finally, American Laboratory is one of the thousands of journals we have not examined. It is painfully obvious that, even with some 40,000 journal volumes reviewed, we have much farther to go! From Science Frontiers #92, MAR-APR 1994 . 1994-2000 William ...
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... ". .. had the uncanny power of mentally computing, to a long string of decimals, the values of e and e163 When asked (by his children) to multiply 987...1 by 123...9 , he remarked afterwards: 'I saw in a flash that 987...1 multiplied by 81 equals 80 000 000 001, and so I multiplied 123...9 by this, a simple matter, and divided the answer by 81.'" But what, asks Smith, led Aitken to 81? To this question, which is the heart of the mystery, he commendably admits he has no reply. And the same deep mystery confronts us even after all has been said about the sur, as distinct from the underlying, structure of the processing. At the unlettered end of the spectrum of mental calculators, the ". .. ignorant vagabond, Henri Mondeux, who at the age of 14 years, before the French Academy of Sciences, was able promptly to state two squares differing by 133." Of course, some mental feats of calculation can be done consciously employing various shortcuts and mathematical tricks. The really fantastic performances, however, are accomplished unconsciously. No one knows how, even the calculators themselves. (Cohen, John; "What Makes a Calculating Prodigy?" New Scientist, 100:819, 1983.) From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... M . Bird from American Antiquity. "While investigating the archaeological background of early maize on the coast of Peru, I realized that several factors affect interpretation. The estimated date for the start of common use of maize there is close to the apparent dates of a large tsunami, the abandonment of many coastal sites, and the start of occupation at Chavin de Huantar in the highlands. While investigating the possible relations between the principal pretsunami coastal culture and Chavin, I discovered that depictions of a monstrous head link the two cultures." The "monstrous head" is thought by the Bird to be a stylized representation of a tsunami wave. Not mentioned at all in the abstract are the physical evidences of tsunami damage along the Peruvian coast. This article portrays the possible effects on the ancient manmade structures in the region as well as the widespread deposits of sand, cobblestones, and other sediments. (Bird, Robert McK.; "A Postulated Tsunami and Its Effects on Cultural Development in the Peruvian Early Horizon," American Antiquity, 52:285, 1987.) Profile of a north-south site trench at a a site on the Peruvian coast, showing thick strata that may have been deposited by a tsunami. From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... seen the walls extending on up outside the cloud. "Up there, too, where I could observe both the front and back of the funnel, the terrific whirling could be plainly seen. As the upper portion of the huge pipe swayed over, another phenomenon took place. It looked as if the whole column were composed of rings or layers, and when a higher ring moved on toward the southeast, the ring immediately below slipped over to get back under it. This rippling motion continued on down toward the lower tip." Hall also reported a peculiar bluish light and blue streamers that appeared to consist of vapor. (Hall, Roy S.; "Inside a Texas Tornado," Weatherwise , 40:73, 1987.) Comment. The luminous phenomena and complex internal structure do not seem to be described by tornado theory. From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... piles of sandstone rocks. All lie on the western slope of Polish Mountain. No one seems to have a good explanation of their origin. Archeological digs have not unearthed any human artifacts. From a photograph of one ring, we estimate an outer diameter of 15 feet, and an inner hole 5 feet in diameter. The height of the rock ring is perhaps 2 feet. The sandstone rocks are generally slab-like. A popular theory states that the rocks were piled up to protect apple trees. (Anonymous; "Rings of Stone Pose Mystery in Md.," Washington Post, June 26, 1988. Cr. J. Judge.) Comment. We have classified this item under GEOLOGY because these rings could be periglacial phenomena; that is akin to patterned ground. Periglacial structures are occasionally found in the Appalachians. From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... passive, and almost asking to be snapped up by their pursuers. Second, the stomachs of whales often contain much faster and more mobile prey -- often without any teeth marks. Finally, bottlenose dolphins are known to have the capability of producing bursts of sound five orders of magnitude more intense than their usual navigating clicks. This is more than enough to kill small fish. (Norris, Kenneth S., and Mohl, Bertel; "Can Odontocetes Debilitate Prey with Sound?" American Naturalist, 122:85, 1983.) Comment. Here is another instance of the "problem of perfection." An existing organ of great complexity seems utterly useless of only fractionally developed. One would think that the complicated sound lenses, the muscular sound-generating tissues, and their containing structures would have to have developed in a single step in order to have any survival value. Reference. Sperm whales also use a stun gun. See BMO10 in our Catalog: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. For more information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #29, SEP-OCT 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Might diamonds be dead bacteria?How can something as beautiful, pure, and crystalline as a diamond be made from dead, disgusting bacteria? In truth, all diamonds are full of impurities and curious microscopic structures. (See: "Diamonds Are an Anomalist's Best Friend" in SF#92.) The main constituent of diamonds is carbon, but even chemically pure carbon is contaminated in a sense. The contaminant is light carbon; that is, C12 , which is an isotope used preferentially by living organisms. Some diamonds, it is found, contain anomalously large fractions of C12, which suggests they have an organic origin. Some diamonds also contain sulfide inclusions that have sulphur-isotope ratios also symptomatic of a biological origin. The specific diamonds suspected to have an organic origin are the so-called "eclogitic" diamonds. These diamonds may have obtained their carbon and impurities from bacterial communities that once lived around hydrothermal vents that existed along ancient mid-ocean ridges. Subsequent metamorphism (heat and pressure) turned the masses of bacteria into eclogitic diamonds. So, those sparklers of yours may just be clumps of billion-year-old bacterial corpses! (Nisbet, E.G ., et al; "Can Diamonds Be Dead Bacteria?" Nature, 367:694, 1994.) Definition. Eclogites comprise a class of metamorphic rocks formed at extremely high temperatures and pressures. From Science Frontiers # ...
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... continue to pile up -- by the tens of thousands! In fact, like the crop-circle events, UFO reports are increasing in number and strangeness. It doesn't matter that the UFOs and their alleged occupants may be physically real. There are tens of thousands of people who think that they have observed something strange -- even after all hoaxes and misinterpretations of natural phenomena have been culled out. Most of those who are willing to accept UFOs as valid phenomenon think they are real hardware piloted by extraterrestrials. J. Vallee, a computer scientist and prolific writer on the subject, demurs, and he gives five reasons why: "( 1 ) Unexplained close encounters are far more numerous than required for any physical survey of the earth; (2 ) The humanoid body structure of the alleged 'aliens' is not likely to have originated on another planet and is not biologically adapted to space travel; (3 ) The reported behavior in thousands of abduction reports contradicts the hypothesis of genetic or scientific experimentation on humans by an advanced race; (4 ) The extension of the phenomenon throughout recorded history demonstrates that UFOs are not a contemporary phenomenon; and (5 ) The apparent ability of UFOs to manipulate space and time suggests radically different and richer alternatives." If not extraterrestrial hardware, what are the UFOs? Vallee has three suggestions: (1 ) they are "earth lights" a la P. Devereux; that is, an unappreciated terrestrial phenomenon that impresses mental images on the minds of observers; (2 ) They are artifacts of a "control ...
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... taken from a letter to Nature by a "practising geneticist." "In the discussion in your columns about the application of quantitative methodology based on the study of evolutionary processes to the analysis of the development of human culture, there is an unquestioned assumption on both sides of that issue that quantitative theory, as expounded by practitioners such as Fisher, Haldane, Wright, Cavalli-Sforza and Maynard Smith, has been successful in illuminating and explaining the process of biological evolution and the genetic relationships between species. As far as I know, there is no evidence to support this assumption. Indeed, there is a vast number of observations unaccounted for in the extant quantitative evolutionary theories. Many of these observations (inducible mutation systems, rapid genomic changes involving mobile genetic elements, programmed changes in chromosome structure) challenge the most fundamental assumptions which these evolutionary theories make about the mechanisms of hereditary variation and the fixation of genetic differences." (Shapiro, James A.; "Evolution by Numbers," Nature, 303:196, 1983.) Comments. The "observations unaccounted for" are buried in such obscure journals as S.B . ges. Morph. Physio. (Munchen). It is pretty obvious that the Sourcebook Project is just scratching the surface. From Science Frontiers #28, JUL-AUG 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... well, interpret sandstones as sedimentary or aeolian accumulations of sand grains. Quartz arenites, for example, are supposed to be detrital accumulations of quartz grains derived from pre-existing formations. The source rocks may have either been igneous or sedimentary, but ultimately most quartz grains in sediments must have an igneous parent rock, probably granite, since this is the most abundant igneous rock on the continents. The quartz derived from granite is characterized by the presence of tiny mineral inclusions. Crystals of mica, rutile and tournaline are common. In sandstones formed from granite-derived quartz grains, mineral inclusions should be evident, but they are rarely present in sand-stones." The accepted explanation of this apparent anomaly is that the inclusions in fresh, granite-derived quartz grains so weakened the grain structure that the flawed grains are quickly broken up during weathering, transportation, and deposition. By the time any sandstone is formed, only flawless bits of sand remain. Case closed. No anomalist worth a grain of salt would let this delightful phenomenon escape without a bit more study. Do young sandstones with identifiable granitic sources show more inclusions than older sandstones? Do desert sands, beach sands, and other unconsolidated quartz grains show any flaws? Has anyone really examined fresh quartz grains weathered from granite to determine how the number of flaws in a grain varies with the grain size? (Cox, Douglas E.; "Missing Mineral Inclusions in Quartz Sand Grains," Creationist Research Society Quarterly, 25:54, 1988.) Comment. Most geologists will complain that we are going out ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The "inscribed wall" at chatata, tennessee Whence the 200,000 logs of chaco canyon? Astronomy How can some stars be older than the universe itself? Did the universe have a beginning? Solar-system puzzles Biology Fruit dupe Possible survival of giant sloths in south america The early (and persistent) insect catches the bird! Geology The earth's most common topographical feature: abyssal hills The 627-foot water slide between australia and india The age of fire and gravel Geophysics Football-sized snowflakes A LINE IN THE SEA Rubber duckies chase nike shoes across pacific Psychology A MAJOR STUDY OF DOWSING Mentally influencing the structure of water Does the past influence the future? ...
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... nuclear holocaust or even in the greenhouse effect. Rather, suggest M. M. Grone and M. Sher, the universe-as-a -whole may undergo a phase change. Such an event has already happened once and it may again. Approximately 10-10 seconds after the Big Bang, the force laws changed discontinuously as the universe cooled. Some models of the cosmos predict that another such phase change may occur when photons suddenly acquire mass. Grone and Sher have sketched the effects on terrestrial civilization: "The most dramatic effect would be the elimination of all static electric and magnetic fields over a range greater than 1 cm, and the elimination of all electromagnetic radiation with frequencies smaller than a few hundred gigahertz. We have shown that there would be relatively little impact on atomic structure and on solar radiation. The absence of electrostatic fields would force a redesign of current power plants (to use smaller solenoids); the absence of radio and television waves would force a much greater use of cables. The elimination of solar and geomagnetic fields would have a significant meteorological impact. The potential ly most devastating effect could be on the propagation of neural impulse along motor neurons; it appears that the effects might be small, but they do depend on the precise value of the photon mass." Crone and Sher conclude that the effect would be devastating to humanity but probably not fatal. (Crone, Mary M., and Sher, Marc; "The Environmental Impact of Vacuum Decay," American Journal of Physics, 59:25, 1991.) Comment. No ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 76: Jul-Aug 1991 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology An ancient egyptian ship in australia? THE MEXICAN SELLOS: POSSIBLE EVIDENCE FOR EARLY EUROPEAN CONTACTS The orogrande, nm, site Astronomy Catastrophic flooding on mars? Will earth's rings return? Biology Ants as "excitable subunits" Eight leatherback mysteries FLYING, PARACHUTING, AND FALLING FROGS Geology Baby oil UNDERGROUND CURRENT ELECTRIFIES AUSTRALIA Geophysics Atlantic's waves getting bigger Subterranean "circles" Psychology PSI EFFECTS IN THE SACRIFICE OF MARINE ALGAE Physics COLD FUSION: NEW EXPERIMENTS AND THEORIES NEW INSIGHTS AS TO THE STRUCTURE OF MATTER ...
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... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Nacp Anomaly The NACP (North American Central Plains) electrical conductivity anomaly snakes west from Hudson Bay, then south into the States, and wiggles a bit before terminating in Wyoming. As delineated by magnetic surveys, it is over 2000 kilometers long, and may be longer and wider than shown on the map. Since the top of this belt of high electrical conductivity rock is some 10 kilometers below the surface, no one is sure of its constitution -- graphite in schistose rocks is one guess. Its mean-ing for the geology of North America is also a mystery -- it could be the edge of a buried tectonic plate. Whatever it is, it is important: "the largest and most enigmatic continental-scale structure discovered to date by electromagnetic induction studies." (Jones, Alan G., and Savage, Peter J.; "North American Central Plains Conductivity Anomaly Goes East," Geophysical Research Letters, 13:685, 1986.) The crosshatched regions represent the NACP anomaly. Triangles, dots, crosses, and MT signify magnetometer stations and surveys. From Science Frontiers #49, JAN-FEB 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 26: Mar-Apr 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Gyroscopic Galaxies The popular conception of a galaxy draws it in pancake shape, with a spiral structure consisting of many millions of stars. Oddities and deviants exist, but hardly anything as bizarre as a handful of recently discovered ringed spirals. Although the spiral sections of the ringed spirals seem normal enough, the rings are perpendicular to the plane of the spiral -- an inclination hardly countenanced by theories of galactic evolution. The ringed spirals look superficially like toy gyroscopes. One suggestion is that two galaxies collided at an angle, but there is no evidence of such a cataclysm. Ringed galaxies are eminently anomalous. (Anonymous; "Ringed Galaxy Clue to Cosmic Riddle," Science Digest, 91:22, February 1983.) From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 23: Sep-Oct 1982 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Ancient Mud Structures in Colorado Astronomy At Poverty Point Astronomy The Cosmic Whirl Where Are the Primordial Stars? Biology Chessie Captured on Videotape Short-circuiting Heredity Remarkable Engineering Design in Nature Geology Facing Up to the Gaps The Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction Bolide Geophysics Zoom Lens in the Atmosphere Psychology High Technology Experiments in Parapsychology ...
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... capabilities? Since language is primarily a left-brain function, it is logical to see if the secret of perfect pitch resides in that half of the brain, too. This is just what a group of researchers headed by G. Schlaug did with the help of magnetic resonance imaging. They compared the planum temporale regions in the brains of 30 musicians (11 with perfect pitch, 19 without) and 30 non-musicians -- all matched for sex and age. The left planum temporale region was larger than the right for both musicians and non-musicians, but in the musicians the asymmetry was twice as great. Furthermore, the musicians blessed with perfect pitch were the most asymmetric of all in this respect. (Schlaug, Gottfried, et al; "In Vivo Evidence of Structural Brain Asymmetry in Musicians," Science, 267: 699, 1995. Nowak, Rachel; "Brain Center Linked to Perfect Pitch," Science, 267:616, 1995) Comment. Perfect pitch is nice to have, but why should it have evolved at all seeing it has little survival value? What good is perfect pitch -- or any kind of musical talent -- in tracking animals or grubbing for tubers? Women vs. men. In another application of magnetic resonance imaging, B. Shaywitz and colleagues at Yale compared the inferior frontal gyrus areas of the brains of men and women engaged in language tests. Specifically, they were being asked whether or not two nonsense words rhymed. Men, they found, use only the left inferior frontal gyrus area, but ...
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... earth that range between 8 and 16 feet in size. These previously undetected bodies match Frank's predictions concerning the speed, direction and number of pro posed comets flying by earth, says Yeates, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. " (Monastersky, R.; "Cometary Controversy Caught on Film," Science News, 133:340, 1988. See also: Hecht, Jeff; "Snowballs from Space 'Filled Earth's Oceans'," New Scientist, p. 38, May 12, 1988.) Comment. Now all this does not mean that Frank's hypothesis is proven in the eyes of all scientists. Far from it, there is too much at stake; namely, our whole view of the small-scale structure of the solar system and, even more important, the heretical notion that the earth's oceans have slowly filled with extraterrestrial water. It has not been an easy two years for Frank. His reputation has been at risk. Huyghe hinted at this when he recorded Frank's reactions to the new photographic evidence: "Looking at the data, seeing those streaks, has made a lot of people's hearts stop," says Frank. He is thrilled at this result, but he dreads what will follow. "For the past two years I paid the price for being wrong. Now I'll pay an equal price for being right. After all, you can't just tip the scientific world askew and expect everyone to cheer." From Science Frontiers ...
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... form of an arc in an east-west line, reaching the surface approximately 2 n. mile ahead and astern of the vessel. Visibility under the cloud was about 10 n. mile in the north-south direction and 2 n. mile to the east and west. Once the vessel reached the point where the cloud touched the surface, the visibility was reduced to approximately 1.5 n. mile. Whilst the vessel was passing the cloud, the barograph trace fell almost vertically and both the air and sea temperatures dropped several degrees." (Shepherd, F.; "Cloud," Marine Observer, 51:107, 1981.) Comment. This is just one more mysterious cloud arch, but on a very small scale. What bizarre meteorological conditions create such strange structures? Reference. Other unusual cloud phenomena may be found in Section GWC in our Catalog: Tornados, Dark Days. For more information on this book, visit: here . A curious cloud arch in the Strait of Gibralta. The ends terminated in the ocean at points 4 miles apart. From Science Frontiers #20, MAR-APR 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The new holism -- but is it whole enough?In the short space of two weeks, the New Scientist printed two articles that confront the obvious complexity of nature. Not only is this complexity persistent under the attack of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but it seems to actually increase with time. Do formative or guiding principles exist that science does not take into account? The two articles have very different answers. The creative cosmos. "Most people accept without question that the physical world is coherent and harmonious. Yet according to the traditional scientific picture, the Universe is just a random collection of particles with blind forces acting upon them. There is, then a deep mystery as to how a seemingly directionless assembly of passive entities conspire to produce the elaborate structure and complex organisation found in nature." The author of this introductory paragraph, P. Davies, asks, as we all do, "What is the origin of this creative power?" In groping for an answer, he presents first a common example of "blind" organization: the hexagonal convection cells in a pan of heated water. Using for a stepping stone the cooperative action of atoms in a laser, he leaps to the development of an embryo from a single strand of DNA! All such systems are "open"; that is, energy can flow in and out. They are also nonlinear, which means that chaotic, unpredictable action may occur. Davies implies that such action can be "creative," almost as if they possessed free will! His final ...
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... Smith-Tuttle. At a conference in Sydney last October, astronomer D. Steele announced that comet SmithTuttle is heading towards a possible impact with earth on August 14, 2116. This 3.1 -mile-diameter chunk of ice would have the destructive power of 20 million megatons (1 .6 million Hiroshima bombs). (Anonymous; "Astronomer Predicts Comet Collision," Baltimore Sun, October 26, 1992.) Some recent meteorite impacts. Turning from the dire consequences discussed above, just what sort of astronomical debris actually does hit the earth on a day-to-day basis? Fist-sized meteorites strike our planet about every two hours. These are the ones we read about in the newspapers; and they have left a surprisingly large legacy of damage to human structures. C. Spratt and S. Stephens, in a survey published in Mercury in 1992, listed 61 verified meteorite strikes since 1790 in which buildings and other human works were damaged. (Of course most fell harmlessly in the sea and unpopulated areas.) Spratt and Stephens also provide a table of 26 nearmisses of humans plus one confirmed human impact. At least one horse and a dog have been killed by meteorites. These lists make engrossing reading, but we cannot take the space to reproduce them here. (Spratt, Christopher, and Stephens, Sally; "Against All Odds," Mercury , 21: 50, March/April 1992.) From Science Frontiers #85, JAN-FEB 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Humans in the americas 32,000 years ago?The following abstract is from Nature. Ir relates to one of the most controversial digs in the New World: Pedra Furada, in Brazil. "The view that man did not arrive on the American continent before the last glaciation has been supported by the fact that until now the known and dated archaeological sites have not been of very great antiquity. But now we report radiocarbon dates from a Brazilian site which establish that early man was living in South America at least 32,000 years ago. These new findings come from the large painted rock shelter of Boqueirao do Sitio da Pedra Furada, the walls and ceiling of which are decorated with a rich set of prehistoric paintings. We have excavated a sequence containing abundant lithic industry and well-structured hearths at all levels. Carbon-14 dates from charcoal establish a continuous chronology indicating human occupation from 6,160 130 to 32, 160 100 years BP. A date of 17,000 400 BP, obtained from charcoal found in a level with fragments of a pictograph fallen from the walls, testifies to the antiquity of rupestral art in the region of Brazil." (Guidon, N., and Delibrias, G.; "Carbon-14 Dates Point to Man in the Americas 32,000 Years Ago," Nature, 321: 769, 1986.) Comment. The Nature article just abstracted and other reports of the Brazilian discovery do not mention or discount the considerable evidence for very ancient man in North America. The dogma that man entered North AMerica about 12 ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hailstorms as Imaginative Sculptors June 29, 1984. Padis Plateau, Romania. This plateau is located in the Transylvanian Western Carpathians. The weather was pleasantly warm even though the ground was still covered with snow. In the south there suddenly appeared a cumulonimbus capillatus whose top seemed to me to be about 14 kilometres or 42 000 feet. As the cloud took on the character of cumulonimbus incus and gradually covered the entire sky, thunder could be heard more and more loudly. The flock of sheep grazing in the deep valley gathered together just as they do before sunset because they too felt the approaching storm. At 16 UT the first raindrops fell. A weak shower of rain followed, and then loose-structured 20-mm-diameter discs of ice. Soon afterwards what was to be 30 minutes of "sky fire" set in. Stone-like pieces of ice streamed to the ground, very heavily and violently. Some of the hailstones were the size of a nut or plum. Within minutes a white carpet covered the plateau of Padis at an altitude of 1200 metres (3900 feet), and the air grew very cool. The landscape was covered by a milky-white veil of fog which rose from the cold ground to a height of 1 to 1.5 metres to embrace the whole dolomite plateau. Then for three minutes the hailstorm paused, before restarting! It lasted for 55 minutes, and it was in these freezing conditions that I began studying and classifying the pieces ...
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... region discloses 212 pillar-circle sites and 251 "tombelles," which are stone cairns or heaps often surrounded by ring-like stone walls. Hundreds of sites with tumuli also dot the area. One of the pillar-circle sites boasts all of 50 individual pillar circles. Some of the pillars are topped with cupules, raised discs, or balls. The fanciest pillars are V- or Y-shaped with crossbars. Archeological exploration of these impressive sites is incomplete. Preliminary dating makes the Senegambian Complex over 1,000 years old. The functions of this vast array of megalithic sites is unknown, although it is not obviously astronomical. (Hill, Matthew H.; "The Senegambian Monument Complex: Current Status and Prospects for Research," in Megaliths to Medicine Wheels: Boulder Structures in Archaeology, Michael Wilson, et al, eds., Calgary, 1981, p. 419.) Reference. Much more information about these North African sites may be found in our Handbook: Ancient Man. This volume is described here . Lyre-shaped megalithic monument in Senegal From Science Frontiers #18, NOV-DEC 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... matter. This particular meteorite is one of the handful thought to have been blasted off into space by an oblique impact of an asteroid on the surface of Mars. Somehow, statistics were kind to these tiny Martian orphans, for they found their ways to the Antarctic snows. But what is really exciting is the recent discovery that chemical analysis of one of these purported Martian meteorites revealed a high concentration of organic material deep within. The implication is that Martian life existed, perhaps still does exist, beneath the Martian surface, where the Viking Lander's scoop could not get at it. (Anonymous; "Life under Mars?" Sky and Telescope, 78:461, 1989.) Comment. In other words, Mars like the earth, may harbor an unappreciated fauna in crevicular structure beneath the environmentally rigorous surface. See also: SF#67. From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Lost City Of Nan Madol Nan Madol has never been "lost" as the title of this item implies, but this fantastic complex of 92 artificial islets sees few tourists. Located on Pohnpei (formerly spelled "Ponape") in Micronesia, Nan Madol lacks the well-publicized glamour of the Pyramids and Chichen Itza. If Nan Madol is not glamourous, it is certainly incongruous. Who would expect such huge stone structures to rise in the middle of nowhere? William Ayres, a University of Oregon anthropologist sponsored by the National Geographic Society, has been a recent researcher at Nan Madol. In an interview, Ayres described Nan Madol in these terms: "To withstand time and the sea, the artificial platforms were built in a staggeringly laborious process. Multiton basalt columns, formed by volcanic activity, were stacked horizontally, log-cabin style, to form outer walls. The inside was then filled with coral rubble to form a dry surface several feet above high-tide level. Radiocarbon testing finds signs of human habitation at Nan Madol as early as A.D . 500, and the megalithic construction was completed by about 1500." Besides incongruity and a certain bizarreness, Nan Madol does pose several problems: How were the huge, very heavy prismatic columns of basalt quarried and transported? Why was Nan Madol built at all? Why about 1400 AD did the inhabitants stop building their massive ocean-going canoes and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 17: Fall 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Shergottites and nakhlites: young and mysterious The shergottites and nakhlites are two types of meteorites that have scientists scratching their heads. Both types have been dated by various radioactive clocks at 1,300 million years or less -- far younger than all other meteorites. Where could such young meteorites have originated? The asteroids and moon's surface are far too old. A current guess is the surface of Mars. There, an impacting meteor could have blasted pieces of young lava sheets in space and thence to earth. The shergottites have a shocked structure and could well have originated in such catastrophism, but the nakhlites show no signs of violence and seem to require a separate explanation. (Anonymous; "Mystery Meteorites May Come from Mars," New Scientist, 91:219, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #17, Fall 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... tiny chunks are believed to have been blasted off the Martian surface by five or six impacts of much larger meteorites. All save one of these Martian meteorites have formation ages of about 1.3 billion years. The only part of the Martian surface believed to be 1.3 billion years old is the TMOM (Tharsis Montes and Olympus Mons) region. The rest of Mars -- about 90% of it is much older. To have 12/13ths. of the Martian meteorites originate from 1/10th. of the planet's surface is highly unlikely. Something is wrong somewhere; probably a bad assumption. And what about that 13th. meteorite that did not get ejected from the TMOM region? This is ALH 84001, the controversial meteorite that contains strange worm-like structures resembling terrestrial bacteria. (See SF#130, #116, #110, #108, and #101.) (Taylor, Richard L.S ., and Mittlefehldt, David W.; "Missing Martian Meteorites," Science, 290:273, 2000.) From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 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, 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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... : (1 ) molecules; (2 ) atoms; (3 ) nuclei; (4 ) nucleons; and (5 ) quarks and leptons. But now physicists are beginning to see regularities in the lowest accepted layer, quarks and leptons, that betoken a sixth layer of compositeness or subdivisibility. In other words, quarks and leptons are not really fundamental and instead are composed of something else, which will undoubtedly eventually receive fanciful names. In this article, O.W . Greenberg delves into this sixth stratum and the "regularities" it engenders. The article is really too technical for Science Frontiers, but we thought our readers might like to be warned that our concepts of matter are based on infinite quicksand. (Greenberg, O.W .; "A New Level of Structure," Physics Today, 38:22, September 1985.) Comment. With ever-more-gigantic galactic superclusters being charted and the possibility of Big Bangs occurring "somewhere else," matter may also be infinitely aggregative, too. From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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