358 results found.
... Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did barnard & mellish really see craters on mars?The answers are "No" and "Probably," respectively. Well, so what? Everyone knows from spacecraft photos that Mars is definitely peppered with craters; and who are Barnard and Mellish anyway? E.E . Barnard was one of the great American telescopic observers. J.E . Mellish was an amateur astronomer and a protege of Barnard. Both men may have seen Martian craters; Barnard at Lick Observatory in the early 1890s, and Mellish at Yerkes in 1915. These early dates are what make this story interesting, because prior to the Mariner-4 flyby of Mars in 1965, anyone claiming to have seen craters on Mars would have been labeled a crackpot. Just a mere three decades ago, planetary catastrophism was a ridiculous notion. Barnard never dared publish his drawings of Martian craters for fear of ruining his reputation. Mellish was not so reticent. He wrote and lectured widely on his anomalous observations. No one believed him because his observaconflicted with reigning paradigms. Once the paradigm shifted and craters on other planets were legitimized, astronomers looked back and wondered if Barnard and Mellish really did see craters. After all, nobody else had, although several reknowned astronomers had drawn networks of canals they had definitely seen. Some of Barnard's early sketches of Mars surfaced in 1987. They show known volcanos and the huge canyon complex called Valles Marineris, but the spots (thought to be craters) do not coincide with any known craters. Unfortunately, Mellish's drawings ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Growth Spurts In Children Daily length measurements (in centimeters) versus age (in years) for a male infant showing growth spurts. Despite much anecdotal evidence and the convictions of many parents, biologists have not generally recognized the reality of short, sharp growth spurts on the order of 1 centimeter in a single 24hour period. Rather, the consensus has been that child growth was divided into three stages (infancy, childhood, adolescence), each characterized by different, but steady rates of growth. This conclusion was based upon annual and quarterly length measurements. However, when children are measured more often (weekly or daily), the growth curve is seen to be step-like rather than smooth, as in the accompanying illustration. Indeed, the mean amplitude of the growth spurts was found to be about 1 centimeter; and the duration of the spurts, about one day. These spurts punctuated long intervals of no growth. In infants, for example, 90-95% of their development is growth-free! (Lampl, M., et al; "Saltation and Stasis: A Model of Human Growth," Science, 258:801, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #85, JAN-FEB 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... -Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Phobos Mystery Object On March 28, 1989, Russian ground controllers suddenly and unexpectedly lost contact with their spacecraft that was shadowing the Martian moon Phobos. The last close-up photo of Phobos snapped by the spacecraft contained "an object which shouldn't have been there." Naturally, this Phobos Mystery Object (PMO) was quickly dubbed a UFO by some. It was even speculated that the Russian mission had been deliberately terminated by aliens! Such a scenario dovetailed neatly with the old speculations that Phobos is actually an artificial satellite of Mars, which is being used as a base of operations by someone or something. The final photo of Phobos, taken in infrared light just three days before the communication failure, reveals the outlines of both Phobos and the PMO. All surface detail is washed out, as is common in infrared photographs. If the PMO was at the same distance as Phobos itself, it would be about 2 kilometers wide and 20 long. Its surface brightness is the same as that of Phobos. The sides of the PMO are perfectly parallel; it is rounded at both ends; the end towards Phobos narrows slightly; the other end seems to have a slight protrusion. Since the PMO does not appear to have a metallic surface and displays no antennas or other indicators of artificiality, it is reasonable to ask whether it might be some natural phenomenon. One possibility is that the PMO image is only a "trailed moonlet;" that is, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 49: Jan-Feb 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Radar glories on jupiter's moons "Three ice-covered moons of Jupiter, in comparison with rocky planets and the Earth's moon, produce radar echoes of astounding strengths and bizarre polarizations. Scattering from buried craters can explain these and other anomalous properties of the echoes. The role of such craters is analogous to that of the water droplets that create the apparition known as 'the glory,' the optically bright region surrounding an observer's shadow on a cloud." Eshleman, Von R.; "Radar Glory from Buried Craters on Icy Moons," Science, 234:587, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #49, JAN-FEB 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 11: Summer 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mysterious Swirl Patterns On The Moon In at least three lunar locations, enigmatic bright-and-dark swirl patterns drape craters and mare terrains. Ranging from 10 kilometers across to less than 50 meters, they may be ribbon-like, open-looped, or closed-looped. The swirls are sharply defined but do not appear to scour or otherwise disturb the terrains where they occur. Similar swirl patterns have been recognized on Mercury. Two intriguing characteristics of the lunar swirl patterns are: (1 ) They coincide with strong magnetic anomalies; and (2 ) They appear to be very young, being superimposed on top of essentially all lunar features of all ages. Schultz and Srnka suggest that recent cometary impacts created the patterns. (Schultz, Peter H., and Srnka, Leonard J.; "Cometary Collisions on the Moon and Mercury," Nature, 284:22, 1980.) Comment. The terrestrial implications are obvious: our earth must have been hit, too. Perhaps at the Tunguska site there are similar swirl patterns -- now obliterated by vegetation. Reference. Lunar swirl patterns are cataloged in Section ALE5 in The Moon and the Planets. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #11, Summer 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why the hammer head?You probably thought, as we did, that the function of the hammerhead shark's weirdly shaped head was to separate the eyes and thus improve binocular vision. This is not the case. The visual fields of the hammerhead's eyes do not overlap at all. Each eye presents the brain with a separate, completely different image to integrate. What, then, could be the purpose of the hammer head? No one really knows, but three suggestions are as follows: The head acts as a hydrofoil and gives the heavier-than-water, swimbladderless shark better swimming control. Grooves on the hammer head channel water toward the nostrils, providing "stereoscopic sniffing." The head is a platform for electromagnetic sensors that help locate prey. Stingrays are a favorite food of the hammerhead, and the shark may de-tect them electromagnetically, as surmised by the author of this article in the following encounters: "I have observed great hammerheads swimming close to the bottom, swinging their heads in wide arcs (a motion common, in a lesser degree, to all large sharks) as if using the increased electroreceptive area of their hammer like the sensor plate of a metal detector. Sometimes, these animals would doubleback to scoop up one of several stingrays hiding in the bottom silt. The minute electrical pulse that keeps the stingray's heart and spiracles operating betrays their presence to a hungry ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Microorganisms At Great Depths It was a surprise when diverse biological communities were discovered around deep-sea thermal vents, where sunlight is nonexistent and the energy for sustaining life must be extracted from the mineral-charged water gushing from the vents. An analogous situation occurs at great depths in the earth's crust itself, as proven by sampling at three deep boreholes in South Carolina. Number of microorganism colony types at various depths at Site P28. 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Magnetic Precursors Of Large Storms On January 22, 1986, a magnetometer at the Fredricksburg Magnetic Observatory, in Virginia, recorded a sudden jump (of 45 gammas) in the earth's horizontal magnetic field component. Alerted to this, G. Wollin, at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, immediately predicted that a major snowstorm or flooding rains would hit northeastern states within six days. Wollin contacted the weather people in the region, but they discounted the prediction because satellite pictures and conventional weather indicators implied nothing of the sort. A three-day storm began on January 25, depositing 3 feet of snow in northern New England and 4 inches of rain along the coast from Washington to Boston. Wollin has had similar successes, without even looking at a weather map! Obviously, Wollin's forecasting techniques are not yet part of the Weather Bureau's arsenal. This is not too surprising because even Wollin does not understand why major storms should be preceded by several days by nervous magnetometers. He talks in a tentative way about solar storms, which do affect terrestrial magnetism, dumping energy into the oceans and thence into the atmosphere. But this is mainly speculation. Historically, we do know that long-term changes in the earth's magnetic field are linked to global temperature levels (see graphs); but here, too, cause and effect are not obvious. (Gribbin, John; "Magnetic Pointers ...
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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. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Evolution Through Mergers The overview in Natural History describes how, in theory, the mitochondria in cells were created by bacterial invasion. The presence of chloroplasts in plants, too, may have come about in this way. A case also exists for the alliance of spirochetes with cells to form flagella and cilia. These three "mergers" provided cells with metabolism, photosynthesis, and mobility. Margulis and Sagan obviously do not believe that the "bacterial connection" ended there. They bring their article to a close with an almost poetic manifesto that we now quote in part. The context of the quotation is their assertion that plant and animal evolution would never have taken place unless one life form attacked another and the latter defended itself, all this followed by accomodation and the development of a symbiotic relationship. "Uneasy alliances are at the core of our very many different beings. Individuality, independence -- these are illusions. We live on a flowing pointillist landscape where each dot of paint is also alive. Earth itself is a living habitat, a merger of organisms that have come together, forming new emergent organisms, entirely new kinds of 'individuals' such as green hydras and luminous fish. Without a a life-support system none of us can survive. It is in this light that we are beginning to see the biosphere not only as a continual struggle favoring the most vicious organism but also as an endliess dance of diversifying ...
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... : May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Remarkable Photograph Of The Marfa Light The century-old fame of the Marfa, Texas, nocturnal light was greatly enhanced some months ago, when it was written up in the Wall Street Journal, of all places! We now have at hand a time-exposure photograph showing the typical erratic motion and flickering nature of this "spook" light. The photo was taken by James Crocker in September 1986. The location was 10 miles deep in Mitchell Flats, southbound from Highway 90. A single-lens reflex camera mounted on a tripod was used. Exposure was less than 3 minutes, at f/1 .8 , 50 mm lens, EL 400 color film. Three additional observers were present. It is interesting that the light's motion resembles that of some observations and photos of ball lightning. The lights in the upper right, just above the right loop of the Marfa light, are thought to be car lights on Route 67, about 10 miles distant. Unfortnately, the photo is too difficult to reproduce here. See our book: Science Frontiers: Some Anomalies and Curiosities of Nature for a good reproduction. Ordering information here . Time-exposure photograph of the famed Marfa Light in Texas. See text for details (c ) James Crocker. From Science Frontiers #51, MAY-JUN 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Rare but there: hypnotic enhancement of eidetic imagery Eidetic imaging is a remarkable capability, manifested more often in children, in which complex images can be recalled with great detail and realism in a format similar to a hallucination. This mysterious "talent" can be enhanced by hyp notism, indicating perhaps that it is latent in us all. "The production of eidetic-like imagery during hypnosis in subjects with high but not low hypnotizability was supported in three separate experiments using nonfakable stereograms. In Experiment 1, 6 (25%) of 24 stringently chosen, high hypnotizables were able to perceive one of the superimposed stereograms (presented monocularly) during conditions of standard hypnosis or age regression, or under both conditions, but not during waking. In Experiments 2 and 3, low and high hypnotizables were presented stereograms in an alternating, monocular fashion (one-half to each eye). In Experiment 2, 10% of the high hypnotizables perceived one or more stereograms in hypnosis or age regression, but not during waking. In Experiment 3, none of the 17 low hypnotizables reported correct stereograms, but 6 of the 23 high hypnotizables (26%) did. Relationships between imagery performance and visuospatial abilities were investigated. Results support the general hypothesis that hypnosis enhances imaginal processing of information to be remembered that is a literal or untransformed representation." (Crawford, Helen J., et al; "EideticLike Imagery in Hypnosis: ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Checklist Of Apparently Unknown Animals B. Heuvelmans, who operates the Center for Cryptozoology, in France, has compiled an annotated checklist of between 110 and 138 animals (some questions remain about how many are distinct species) which do not seem to be recognized by science. His list is based upon his collection of 20,000 references. Obviously we cannot reproduce all his descriptions here, but we will pass along three of the most interesting. A dolphin with two dorsal fins, both curved backwards, the anterior one set on the forehead like a horn. The first observation was apparently by Mongitore in the Mediterranean. During the Uranie and Physicienne expedition, Quoy and Gaimard reported a whole school of them between the Sandwich Islands and New South Wales. They were spotted black and white. Hairy "wild men," known as satyrs in classical antiquity. These were probably Neanderthals that survived into historical times. The most recent sightings were in 1774, in the Pyrenees, and 1784, in the Carpathians. Giant birds of prey in North America -- the famous "thunderbirds." Observers put the wingspans between 10 and 16 feet, making thunderbirds much larger than the Andean condor. Reports have come in from all over the southern United States. Some remains of these carnivorous birds have been dated at 8,000 years. (Heuvelmans, Bernard; "Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals with Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned," ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Aggressive Mimicry Field studies have revealed that bolas spiders can mimic the odor of female moths, thus attracting for consumption the male moths. More specifically, the hunting adult female spider, Mastophora cornigera , releases volatile substances containing three moth sex pheromone compounds. (Stowe, Mark K., et al; "Chemical Mimicry: Bolas Spiders Emit Components of Moth Prey Species Sex Pheromones," Science, 236:964, 1987.) Comment. As in many other cases of mimicry, one wonders how the spider's capability developed by chance and in small steps. From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nose news "Renewed discussion of a nasal breathing cycle, first discovered 5000 years ago, has recently been documented in the November 1986 issue of American Health by David Shannahoff-Khalsa of the Khalsa Foundation for Medical Science. Apparently the yogis of ancient India were the first to notice that breathing is dominated by either the right or left nostril for short cycle spans of one to three hours. (Cycles of this duration are known as ultradian rhythms, and are common to many biological functions.) By simply placing a mirror under your nostrils and watching for the larger amount of condensation, one can determine which nostril is in use. "What are the ramifications of this seemingly insignificant phenomenon? The yogis reportedly have said that improved sleeping, more satisfying sex, enhanced digestion, and appropriate thought patterns were controlled by the use of a certain nostril." It is further maintained that one can force a change in nostril breathing through meditation. In this way, it is possible to enhance sleeping, sex, digestion, and mental acuity! (LeBow, Howard A.; "Have You Heard about This One?" Cycles, 37:191, 1986.) Comment. All we know is what we read in the journals! The next time you feel down, think about your breathing, or try a little cotton. From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A TSUNAMI AND A PERUVIAN CULTURAL GLITCH Lenses in antiquity Strange craters Astronomy Hypnotic mars The perseus flasher: mystery solved! Three planetary notes Biology Has the second law been repealed? Human direction finding Magnetic "dead" reckoning Another tale of ogopogo Geology Meteor-impact winters, magnetic field reversals and tektites Tektite-like objects at lonar crater, india Geophysics Are the soviet plumes only orographic clouds? Lightning triggered from the magnetosphere Psychology Magnetic fields and the imagination Men in black (mibs) Folie a famille A "MAGICAL GENIUS" Pi and ramanajan A MODEST EXAMPLE OF THE LONG ARM OF SYNCHRONICITY ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Pi in the mind!" Srinivasan Mahadevan, a graduate student from India at Kansas State University in Manhattan, is trying to become the fourth person to remember the first 100,000 digits to pi, the theoretically infinite computation that measures the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He has already memorized the first 35,000 digits of pi. "Only three cases of such ability to remember have been documented in 200 years. One of these people became insane when he became unable to forget anything and his reasoning processes drowned in a flood of facts." (Anonymous; "Student's Memory Wins Bets," San Mateo Times, June 2, 1989. Cr. J. Covey) From Science Frontiers #65, SEP-OCT 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 13: Winter 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fish Change Gender When Necessary Abstract. "The simultaneous removal of three to nine males from large social groups of Anthias squamipinnis led to close to a one-to-one replacement of the removed males by sex-reversing females. The females changed sex serially within each group with a mean interval between successive onset times of 1.9 days. The timing of sex change is thus not independent for each fish but is influenced by the events surrounding other sex reversals within the group." (Shapiro, Douglas Y.; "Serial Female Sex Changes after Simultaneous Removal of Males..." Science, 209:1136, 1980.) From Science Frontiers #13, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Strange Blue Pool Found At The Bottom Of Crater Lake "A mysterious, small aqua-blue pool of dense fluid has been discovered at the bottom of Crater Lake. "' It is bizarre, it is remarkable,' said Jack Dymond, who with Robert Collier heads the three-year Crater Lake exploration project. 'I have never seen anything like it,' he said. "The Oregon State University oceanographer said the pool, about 6 feet in depth, is approximately 3 feet wide by 8 feet long. It is near the lush white and orange bacteria mats found last summer." The murky pool of fluid was discovered during a dive in a research submarine. The temperature of the pool was about 4.5 C (40.1 F) which made it 1 C warmer than the surrounding lake water. (Anonymous; "Strange Blue Pool Found in Crater Lake," Sunday Oregonian , August 13, 1989. Cr. R. Byrd) Comment. Some lakes in northern climes still retain ancient seawater in their bottoms. Also, we have the well-publicized African lakes that suddenly overturn, producing clouds of poisonous gases. See our catalog: Anomalies in Geology. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 14: Winter 1981 Supplement Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Innate Knowledge In the early 1800s, the mathematician Gauss dispatched observers to the tops of three mountains to determine whether the sum of the angles in a real triangle was truly 180 . Gauss was not certain that mathematics really matched reality perfectly. (His experiment was inconclusive.) Today, in most scientific edu-cation and practice, it is customary to assume that mathematics is not only a faithful mirror of the real world but that it can actually lead us to new insights into reality. Unfortunately, two facts mar this idealistic picture. Mathematics itself contains contradictions and does not have a solid foundation; that is, it is "impure." Some portions of reality seem to confound mathematics; for example, Einstein found Riemannian geometry and tensor analysis imperfect for formulating the Theory of Relativity. Despite this disappointment, Einstein maintained his belief that God does not play dice with the universe. Some more recent scientists suggest that God not only plays dice but throws them where they cannot be seen! Despite the acknowledged deficiencies, it is clearly more than a stroke of luck that mathematics describes so much of reality so accurately. And here is the spooky part of the whole business. In formulating their web of logic, mathematicians make many more or less "artistic" decisions that are colored by reality and their expectations of reality. To illustrate, "symmetry" is a human passion that reality may disdain. In other words, because mathematicians ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Clams before columbus Europe's mystery people Astronomy Heavy traffic in near-earth space WHY INTELLIGENT LIFE NEEDS GIANT PLANETS Biology Biology's big bang Singing caterpillars The lures of mussels WHEN A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORSE THAN TWO IN THE BUSH Growth spurts in children GEOMAGNETIC STORMS AND HUMAN HEALTH Our chemical brain Geology Biogeology Two tsumani tales Geophysics A PARADE OF SPINNING PHOSPHORESCENT WHEELS BALL LIGHTNING PUNCHES CIRCULAR HOLE IN WINDOW Unclassified Three views of mortality Electronic channeling ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 16: Summer 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Grooves Of Phobos Still Unexplained The Martian satellite Phobos is etched by curious grooves. Initially, the grooves were thought to be fracture lines formed by the impact that blasted out Stickney, the huge crater seen on Phobos. However, studies of the grooves revealed at least three families of grooves of different ages, with members of each family located on parallel planes cutting right through the body of the satellite. Two recent papers have proposed radically different explanations. A. Horvath and E. Illes wonder whether Phobos might not be a layered structure, having once been part of a larger stratified body. J.B . Murray thinks the families of grooves might have been scraped out by disciplined formations of meteorites that were launched into space by Martian volcanos. (Horvath, A., and Illes, E.; "On the Possibility of the Layered Structure of Phobos," Eos, 62:203, 1981. Also: Murray, J.B .; "Grooved Terrains on Planetary Satellites," Eos, 62:202, 1981.) Comment. It is not easy to conceive of such well-drilled formations of meteorites. Neither is it easy to imagine a large, stratified body that might have given rise to Phobos. From Science Frontiers #16, Summer 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Florida More Exotic Than The Travel Agents Promise Anyone who has visited Florida knows that it differs in several ways from the rest of North America. Now we find that Florida doesn't even belong to North America; it is an interloper, an "exotic terrane." How does one know this? Three facts hint that Florida doesn't belong: When pre-Cenozoic land masses are fitted together, assuming the truth of continental drift, an awkward overlap arises that suggests that Florida was not always where it is today; The latest paleomagnetic measurement of Florida's Paleozoic latitude is consistent with it being part of Gond wanaland rather than at its present latitude; Radiometric dating of zircons retrieved from a core extracted from Northern Florica yield an age of 16501800 million years. There are no known source rocks in the southeastern U.S . that old; Africa and South America are likely sources of such zircons. "These (latter) two new lines of geologic data provide strong evidence confirming previous suggestions that Florida was part of Gondwana during the early Paleozoic and that its current configuration is that of an exotic terrane sutured to North America during the fragmentation of Pangea." (Opdyke, Neil D., et al; "Florida as an Exotic Terrane: Paleomagnetic and Geochronologic Investigation of Lower Paleozoic Rocks from the Subsurface of Florida," Geology , 15:900, 1987.) Comment. Other exotic terranes have been ...
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... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Giant sea-bed pockmarks [The following long, initially dull (? ) discussion leads unerringly to the Bermuda Triangle via a Fortean phenomenon!] Unrecognized until just a few years ago (SF#100*), sea-bed pockmarks are remarkable geological features. They occur worldwide on the floors of all of the oceans and even some lakes. They are found in shallow waters and at depths of thousands of meters. In diameter, these roughly conical depressions may span 350 meters or more and be up to 35 meters deep. No trivial phenomenon, some pockmark fields exceed 1,000 km2. Like the curious abyssal ridges (SF#97), sea-bed pockmarks are rarely discussed despite their great geological and economic importance. Recent issues of Geology contain three fascinating papers relating to giant sea-bed pockmarks. In Ref. 1, J.T . Kelley et al describe a pockmark field in Belfast Bay, Maine. Here, the density of the pockmarks reaches 160 per km2, and they are apparently the largest pockmarks yet discovered. The Belfast Bay field is "fresh" and "active" in the sense that the pockmarks are sharply defined and methane bubbles still stream up from buried organic matter. Natural-gas plume rising from the sea-floor off the Carolina coast. Another pockmark field is the subject of P.R . Vogt et al (Ref. 2). It occupies a strip about 1.3 km wide and 50 km long between Greenland and Spitzbergen. This strip of pockmarks seems to be underlain by ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Superhail December 24, 1993. North Yorkshire. The following description comes from the British journal: Weather. "Some hail fell in a slight to moderate shower which lasted a couple of minutes around 0900 GMT on Christmas Eve. The hailstones were roughly spherical in shape, with a diameter of 4 to 8 mm, and translucent, with a faint, crystalline structure radiating from their centres. There were also some agglomerates of two or three stones and, unusually, a few contained four to as many as eight stones in an irregular but planar arrangement, with the larger ones tending towards a hexagonal conformation and dimensions of approximately 15 x 12 x 6 mm." (Cinderey, Mike; "Unusual Hail -- 24 December 1993," Weather, 50:194, 1995.) Comment. That snowflakes may agglomerate in large pancake-like aggregations has often been observed (GWP2 in our catalog: Tornados, Dark Days, etc.*), but this is the first time we have heard of hail being welded together in flat, hexagonal configurations. What draws the separate hailstones together into the same hexagonal geometry displayed by snowflakes? *Described here . From Science Frontiers #100, JUL-AUG 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Another Starchy Anomaly Last issue it was uncooked spaghetti that insisted on breaking into three pieces instead of two. Now, we find that when a grain of cooked rice falls into a glass of fizzy lemonade, it first sinks to the bottom and, then, rises to the top. It sinks again, rises again, and so on. One of N. Hall's rice grains persisted in this yoyo motion for fully 10 minutes! Why? (Hall, Nicholas; "Bouncing Rice," New Scientist, inside back cover, May 13, 1995.) From Science Frontiers #100, JUL-AUG 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 99: May-Jun 1995 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The inscribed bricks of comalcalco Ancient modern life and carbon dating Traces of the southern flotilla Astronomy Where have all the black holes gone? Ltps and ets Biology Curious brain asymmetries Did darwin get it all right? When scents make no sense Biological precursors of the 1995 kobe earthquake Geology Ballistic panspermia Geophysics Warning cars rolling uphill ahead 90-DAY SEA-LEVEL OSCILLATION AT WAKE ISLAND Luminous precursors of the 1995 kobe earthquake Psychology The untapped human mind Physics Why does spaghetti break into three pieces instead of two? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Strange phenomenon detected by radars and satellites January 12, 1994. Near Monte Vista, Colorado. At 2:55 PM local time, radars of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and satelliteborne instruments detected an unexplained "heat-radiating" phenomenon. Some sort of fire or explosion was suspected, but air and ground searches by local authorities turned up nothing. Possibly relevant: On the night of January 15, a Rio Grande County sheriff's deputy on patrol saw three helicopters, two with large strobe lights, apparently searching the suspect area. Military officials denied having any craft in the area. (Anonymous; "Officials Baffled by Spectacle on Radar," New Mexican , January 27, 1994. Associated Press item. Cr. P. Viemeister) Comment. Infrared sensors on satellites could detect "heatradiating" phenomena, but it is unclear what groundbased radars "saw." If some kind of military operation were involved, it is doubtful that radar and satellite observations would be made public. Caution advised here! From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Long Arms Of Venus And Jupiter Many times in the two or three "scientific" centuries now behind us, investigators have discovered, almost against their wills, that the moon and planets affect the earth. The moon's influence is understandable, but the planets are too far away for their gravitational fields to influence one terrestrial dust mote. Well, here is one more study showing that the planets (Venus and Jupiter, in this case) do affect the peak electron density in the earth's ionosphere. The effect is most noticeable when these planets are close to earth and dwindles as they swing around to the other side of the sun. The authors are at a loss to explain this effect in terms of gravitation, suggesting that perhaps Venus or Jupiter may instead affect solar activity, which in turn modifies the terrestrial ionosphere. (Harnischmacher, E., and Rawer, K.; "Lunar and Planetary Influences upon the Peak Electron Density of the Ionosphere," Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Electricity, 43:643, 1981.) Comment. Actually, no one has shown how the planets can possibly influence the sun with known action-at-a -distance forces. Electrical forces are taboo. There are no other "recognized" forces. From Science Frontiers #18, NOV-DEC 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 103: Jan-Feb 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did irish monks build this new england chamber circa 700 ad?Curious stone chambers dot the New England countryside. Are they all potato cellars built by farmers? Most archeologists insist that they are. But some seem too sophisticated for such a mundane application. One of these problematic chambers is built into a hillside at Upton, Massachusetts. J.W . Mavor, Jr., and B.E . Dix carefully measured and studied this chamber over a period of years. They give three reasons for asserting that it was really built by Europeans around 700 AD -- long before the Norse set foot on North America. The dry masonry chamber at Upton, Massachusetts. (Adapted from ESRS Bulletin, 1:12, 1973) The sophisticated corbelling of the structure closely follows that seen in Irish and Iberic chambers, such as New Grange. The long passageway is aligned with the summer solstice sunset, also a feature of some ancient European structures, but hardly of any concern to a New England farmer. The Upton chamber seems to be associated with linear arrays of stones and stone cairns on nearby Pratt Hill. These alignments have obvious astronomical significance. In fact, based upon changes in the setting positions of several stars (due to precession), Mavor and Dix believe the whole complex dates back to 700-750 AD. They conclude: "Of all the enigmatic structures that we have seen in America, the Upton chamber ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Underwater Thumps "Scientists based on the central California coast are trying to identify the origin of a mysterious underwater sound that disturbed surfers and divers for three weeks -- and then just as mysteriously disappeared. "The sound, made up of thumps occurring at 10-second intervals, was compared by one diver to five or six giant bongo drums going off simultaneously. Most experts have concluded that it was of human origin." As usual in such cases, no governmental or military sources knew anything about the thumps. (Shurkin, Joel N.; "Underwater Thumps Baffle Ocean Scientists," Nature, 371: 274, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects That little "roman" head from precolumbian mexico The miniature clay head illustrated below was discovered in 1933 in a burial offering in the archeological zone of Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaja, Mexico. The burial has been dated as from the 12th-13th centuries AD. The features of this little head can hardly be described as typical of Precolumbian Mexicans. In fact, it is often termed a "Roman" head. But is it really? And how did it get into a Pre-columbian burial site? Theory #1 . Some Mexican archeologists insist it is a post-Columbian artifact that somehow "filtered" down into a Pre-columbian site. Given that the head was retrieved from beneath three floors of stone and Indian cement, this theory seems questionable. Theory #2 . The head is truly of Roman origin and was transported to Precolum-bian Mexico from Southeast Asia by Chinese or Hindu voyagers. Theory 3. The author of the present article, R.H . Hristov, favors a Viking origin. The cap on the head and even the physiognomy have Norse overtones. The chronology is right, too, for the Vikings were exploring North America's east coast in the 11th century. Did they venture as far south as Mexico? Hristov points out: "It is well known that in this area very significant political-cultural perturbations occurred among the autochthonous civilizations between the 10th and 13th centuries AD. These were produced by a small group of white immigrants with ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Picture Speaks Louder Than Words We hardly need more than the accompanying drawing to amplify our brief item (in SF#103) on that remarkable 7th. Century Mayan suspension bridge at Yaxchilan, in Mexico. Its three spans stretched 600 feet. The wooden deck was 10 feet wide and was suspended by large-diameter hemp ropes - probably bundles of six 1-inch ropes, according to modern calculations. The towers of the two bridge piers were 35 feet across and built up from large, flat stones (4 x 4 feet) set in bedrock. European engineers did not build a larger bridge until 1377! The following reference contains much more information. (O 'Kon, James A.; "Bridge to the Past," Civil Engineering , p. 62, January 1995. Cr. S. Jones) The precocious Mayan suspension bridge at Yaxchilan. Temples and other city buildings in background. From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 78: Nov-Dec 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Psychokinetic Control Of Dice For 2000 years, people have been saying: "The die is cast," as if the act of casting relinquished the fall of the die completely to fate. Perhaps not!! "This article presents a meta-analysis of experiments testing the hypothesis that consciousness (in particular, mental intention) can cause tossed dice to land with specified targets face up. Seventy-three English language reports, published from 1935 to 1987, were retrieved. This literature described 148 studies reported by a total of 52 investigators, involving more than 2 million dice throws contributed by 2,569 subjects. The full data base indicates the presence of a physical bias that artifactually inflated hit rates when higher dice faces (e .g ., the '6 ' face) were used as targets. Analysis of a subset of 39 homogeneous studies employing experimental protocols that controlled for these biases suggests that the experimental effect size is independently replicable, significantly positive, and not explainable as an artifact of selective reporting or differences in methodological quality. The estimated effect size for the full data base lies more than 19 standard deviations from chance, while the effect size for the subset of balanced, homogeneous studies lies 2.6 standard deviations from chance. We conclude that this data base provides weak cumulative evidence for a genuine relationship between mental intention and the fall of dice." (Radin, Dean I., and Ferrari, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 23: Sep-Oct 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chessie Captured On Videotape May 31, 1982. Kent Island, Maryland. Robert Frew was enjoying a holiday meal with family and friends at his home on Love Point, overlooking Chesapeake Bay, when a large object was seen moving against the tide about 100 feet offshore. Inspection through binoculars revealed a sinuous, humped creature, over 20 feet long, swimming lazily along. As others watched, Frew popped a videotape into his camera and shot a remarkable three minute documentary, which was aired later on TV. Witnesses estimated the creature's length at about 30 feet; width, about 10 inches. Two other recent sightings of "Chessie" occurred in September 1980 at the other end of Kent Island, and in July 1978 near Heathsville, Virginia. (Robinson, Russ; "Chessie May Have Made Video Debut," Baltimore Sun, July 11, 1982.) "Chessie" according to Frew From Science Frontiers #23, SEP-OCT 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why aren't beach pebbles round?The next time you walk along an ocean beach, forget the greater anomalies of nature and pick up a few well-worn pebbles. Q.R . Wald collected 200 such at random and measured them with calipers. He found that their three axes tended toward the ratios 7:6 :3 . No, beach pebbles are not spherical, they are flattened ovoids. We would naturally expect that the ceaseless action of the surf would turn out nearly perfect spheres. So much for intuition! (Wald, Quentin R.; "The Form of Pebbles," Nature, 345:211, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 24: Nov-Dec 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Massive Freak Wave November 23, 1981. Off Fair Isle, Scotland. "The crew of the stern trawler Clarkwood were hauling the net aboard because of gale-force winds when the wave struck. A fisherman told the inquiry the wave was like 'a big green cliff.' .. .. Skipper Stewart Thomson told the inquiry: 'The ship was struck by a massive lump of water.'" No estimates were made of the wave height. Three men were swept to their deaths. (Anonymous; "Massive Freak Wave," Mariners Weather Log, 26:79, 1982.) From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 25: Jan-Feb 1983 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A Far-wandering Lost Tribe? Manifestations of Earth Energy At Megalithic Sites? Astronomy More on "the Massive Solar Companion" Lageos Falls Too Fast Biology Learning by Injection Promiscuous DNA Why Don't We All Have Cancer? Review of the Tektite Problem The Andes Ice Islands Geology Three "proofs" of A Young Earth Geophysics Gas Hydrates and the Bermuda Triangle Psychology Schizophrenia and Season of Birth Chemistry & Physics Anomalons Are Lazy Or Fat ...
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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 Earthquake And Subterranean Fire 1738. Month and day are unknown. Pecs, 46 06' N, 18 15' E.I = 7.5 - 8 . A very mysterious event was observed. Near Pecs, a black cliff named Szennyes (= dirty or filthy) belched forth fire during three days, accompanied by an earthquake that was strongly felt in the town of Pecs. After this shock fires were also seen on many occasions from the cliff. Naturally it was not a volcanic manifestation. The nature of this particular event is perfectly obscure. (Note by the author, P.H . "An earthquake light is improbable because of the long time during which the phenomenon was see." (Hedervari, Peter; "Unusual Phenomena Associated with Earthquakes within the Carpathian Basins," Compilation from personal files, 1983.) Comment. Compare this phenomenon with the detonations and flashes from Old Hannah's Cave, Staffordshire, England, as reported in SF#22. From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 . 1983-2000 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 Cold-Fusion Pro-Fusion It has been three years since we last reported on cold fusion. (SF#95) Cold fusion is an anomaly if there even was one, because mainstream science vigorously excludes the phenomenon from its journals, such as Science. It is even characterized as "pseudoscience." Nevertheless, in a 1996 issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, E. Storms required 59 pages to review properly recent work on cold fusion. Based on more than 190 studies (his bibliography runs for 12 pages), Storms reveals just how seriously some "rogue" scientists view cold fusion as a real phenomenon and future energy source. Reflecting the antagonism of the "hotfusion" community, the U.S . expenditures on cold fusion probably do not exceed $1 million/year; Japan, in contrast, spends about $100 million/year. Cold fusion was not interred elsewhere around the planet and is quite healthy. In Storms' own words: "Evidence for large and reproducible energy generation as well as various nuclear reactions, in addition to fusion, from a variety of environments and methods is accumulating. The field can no longer be dismissed by invoking obvious error or prosaic explanations." (Storms, Edmund; "Review of the 'Cold Fusion' Effect," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 10:185, 1996.) More recently, the Wall Street Journal commented derogatorily about cold ...
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... with his novel The Haunted Mesa. It's all about the Anasazi, a remarkable people of the ancient Southwest, circa 900-1200 AD, who, as far as we can tell, disappeared rather suddenly. L'Amour has the Anasazi returning to a parallel world through a space warp in a kiva window. Archeologists have not yet found this remarkable kiva, so we must be content with the things they left behind, but these are impressive enough. A long article in Scientific American introduces us to the accomplishments of the Anasazi. We will concentrate here on their road system, but cannot let a few general statistics go by unnoticed. Of the nine Great Houses of the Anasazi in Chaco Canyon, in northwestern New Mexico, Pueblo Bonito is the best studied. It covers three acres and once rose to at least five stories, with some 650 rooms. Constructed of tightly fitting sandstone blocks, each Great House required tens of millions of cut sandstone slabs. For floors, the Anasazi carried logs from forests 80 kilometers away. The Chaco Canyon Great Houses required about 215,000 trees -- quite a problem in transportation. Strangely enough, the Great Houses seem to have been used only occasionally. In fact, Chaco Canyon was too poor agriculturally to support a large, permanent community. If this is so, what was the purpose of the Great Houses with their many kivas (large circular pits)? Obviously, they were for "ceremonial purposes" -- the standard explanation for enigmatic buildings and artifacts. The Anasazi also built a marvelous system of roads ...
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... : Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The better, bigger big bang Astronomers are ever more discomfitted by the Big Bang hypothesis for the creation of the universe. The reasons are several: The observed universe is extremely homogeneous, even though theory says that distant parts of the universe could never have been causally connected; No satisfactory explanation exists for the density fluctuations that had to occur for galaxies to be formed; and The universe seems to be flat, not curved, and the Big Bang does not explain why. Paul Steinhardt and Andreas Al-brecht, at the University of Pennsylvania, have developed a radically different Big Bang -- a two-stage one, with hot and super-cooled states. The three objections listed above are neatly disposed of in the new version, but at the cost of a radically new view of the cosmos. The "new" universe is about 10100 times as big as the 12 billion light years assigned to the cozy universe we used to know -- and it is presumably correspondingly older. This means that the portion of the cosmos we see is only a negligible fraction of the whole -- a fraction that just happens to be homogeneous. Somewhere, way out beyond the farthest quasar, things could be -- well -- different! (Anonymous; "A Bigger, Better Big Bang," Astronomy, 11:62, February 1983.) Reference. Our Catalog volume Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos brims with challenges to the Big Bang. For ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 29: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects South american-polynesian contacts at easter island In a letter to Archaeoastronomy, Jim Wheeler lists three bits of evidence suggesting that there were ancient contacts between South America and Easter Island. The Rapa Nui legends mention the arrival of strange men (about 25) from the east. Excavation of the ancient Easter Island tombs in 1981 revealed that some of the skeletons belonged to American Indians. The wall of carved stone at Vinapu on Easter Island is almost identical with the South American stone structures at Pisac and Machu Picchu. (Wheeler, Jim; "Comment on Ben Finney's Review," Archaeoastronomy, 5:8 , July-September 1983.) Reference. Many articles on the anomalous diffusion of culture are presented in our Handbook: Ancient Man. For ordering information, go to: here . From Science Frontiers #29, SEP-OCT 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 114: Nov-Dec 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Complexity And Mount Improbable In principle, the combination of random mutation and natural selection can account for any level of biological complexity you wish to have explained. R. Dawkins' Mount Improbable is never too high to scale with this Darwinistic mechanism -- if given enough time, of course. At times though, we have to wonder if there is not a cog railway or something similar to aid organisms as they ascend this Mount. Such thoughts arose when reading C. Koch's Nature article on neurons and their networks. Neurons are cells with three principal components: the cell body, the axons, and the dendrites. These cells and the networks underlie all of our perceptions, actions, and memories. The ways in which they store and process information has turned out to be much more complex and dynamic than previously supposed. Neural networks are so intricate that Koch was impelled to conclude his review of current research with this paragraph: "As always, we are left with a feeling of awe for the amazing complexity found in nature. Loops within loops across many temporal and spatial scales. And one has the distinct feeling that we have not yet revealed every layer of the onion. Computation can also be implemented biochemically -- raising the fascinating possibility that the elaborate regulatory network of proteins, second messengers and other signalling molecules in the neuron carry out specific computations not only at the cellular but also at the molecular level. ...
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... Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Berkeley Walls Extended For almost two decades, R. Swanson has been searching out the enigmatic stone walls that festoon the Berkeley Hills and beyond, far, it now seems. We first mentioned these walls and provided a photograph back in 1985. (SF#39) Since then, Swanson's labors have received a modicum of public notoriety but hardly a flicker of academic interest. One reason for professional disinterest seems to be that grant money for exploring old walls is nonexistent! To bring new readers of SF up to speed on these perplexing California walls, we quote two paragraphs from a recent article by Swanson. "On the crest of the Berkeley hills there is a long line of large rocks, some are three feet in length, they may weigh a half ton. A century ago they ran for miles on these dry, wind-swept crests then down in a line to what is now the botanical gardens." .. .. . "In the past twelve years, I have visited over forty miles of these stone structures. To call them walls is something of a misnomer. Some do go in a straight line, others twist like a demented snake up a steep hillside, others come in a spiral two hundred feet wide and circle into a boulder with a six-inch knob carved on the top of it. Some are massive, over six feet tall and run for miles." In the same article, Swanson relates how a local TV station that wanted to film ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 29: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Satan's storm June 1960. Kopperl, Texas. Thunderclouds and lightning gave way to winds in excess of 75 mph, with temperatures of up to 140 F. Surveying the storm damage later: "Aside from the expected remains of a severe wind storm -- uprooted trees, snapped telephone poles, roof damage and banged-up boats docked lakeside -- the area had the ironic appearance of having been stung by a June freeze. Tree leaves, shrubs, hanging plants and crops were curled and wilted, as if frost-bitten. Uncut Johnson grass was dried and ready to bale, although the hay normally required two or three days of drying time after being cut. Perhaps the most startling remains of the storm was in what had been the cotton patch at Pete and Inez Burns' farm. The cotton was about knee high and a 'lucious crop' the day before, according to the couple. The next morning all that was left were carbonized stalks peeping out of the ground. The corn fared little better." (Glaze, Dean; "Kopperl's Close Encounter with Satan's Storm," Meridian (TX) Tribune, May 12, 1983, p.1 . Article appeared originally in the Dallas Times-Herald Westward Magazine. Cr. J. Mohn) Comment. The consequences of this storm closely resemble the burning and drying effects of some tornados. See GWT in our ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Phoenix vs. The Hohokam Astronomy Mercury's Orbit Explained Without Relativity The Sun As A Scientific Instrument What Causes the Sunspot Cycle? There Are Cold Anomalies "out There" An Orphan Superluminal Glob? Biology Cancer Even More Insidious Hearing Via Acoustic Holograms Ri Seen The Hypothesis of Formative Causation Lives! Geology The Rise of Astronomical Catastrophism Wanted: Disasters with A 26-million-year Period Thin-skinned Tectonics Early Life and Magnetism Geophysics The Min Min Light Are Nocturnal Lights Earthquake Lights? Three Anomalies in One Storm Mystery Spirals in Cereal Fields Unidentified Phenomena Psychology The Kaleidoscopic Brain At Last: Someone Who Can Predict the Future! Unclassified Reciprocal System Avoids Taint of Reductionism ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ri Seen In June 1983, a three-man team travelled to New Ireland, off the coast of New Guinea, to track down the ri, an unrecognized aquatic mammal with some mermaid overtones. The natives of New Ire-land kill and eat the ri, which they insist is different from the dugong. The team was fortunate to observe a ri from as close as 50 feet as it hunted fish in Elizabeth Bay. The animals was 5-7 feet long, skinny and fast. No dorsal fin was seen, and the tail flukes were mammilian (i .e ., horizontal). The creature surfaced about every 10 minutes. Such behavior is quite unlike that of known cetaceans and sirenians. (Anonymous; "New Guinea Expedition Observes Ri," ISC Newsletter, 2:1 , Summer 1983.) (ISC is the International Society of Cryptozoology.) From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hard Facts At Cahokia Monk's Mound, the largest mound at the Cahokia Mounds State Historical Site, in Illinois, is not what it seems. Superficially, it is a terraced earthen mound 100 feet high and more than three football fields long. What we now see of the mound was apparently constructed between 900 and 1200 AD. The prevailing dogma has long been that the Indians who built Cahokia worked only with earth, never with stone. Indeed, suitable stone is scarce in the area. On January 24, 1998, while drilling to construct a water drainage system at Monk's Mound, workers hit stone -- at least 32 feet of it -- perhaps a region of cobbles or slabs of rock. This region of stone, of undetermined geometry, is located 40 feet below one of the terrace surfaces, but still well above the base of the mound. The stones could well be an artificial structure of some sort. The discovery challenges the current thinking about the culture that built Cahokia. Only further research will reveal the extent and configuration of the stony region and where the stones may have come from. An editorial in the March 14, 1998, St. Louis Post-Dispatch put the Cahokia discovery in the larger context: New World archeology is in flux. Humans occupied the Americas long before 12,000 BP, and some of them may have been Caucasian (e .g ., ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Rise Of Astronomical Catastrophism After being ridiculed for well over a century, astronomical catastrophism is now coming into its own. First, there was the admission that a few small craters, like Meteor Crater in Arizona, just might be of meteoric origin; then, more and bigger craters (astroblemes) were recognized; and, recently, the discovery of the iridium-rich layer at the Cretaceious-Tertiary boundary has made the subject very popular, as evidenced by the following three items: A long, very thorough and scientific review of geological and biological changes caused by meteor strikes throughout the earth's history. (McLaren, Digby J.; "Bolides and Biostratigraphy," Geological Society of America, Bulletin, 94:313, 1983.) A shorter, popular version of the above. (McLaren, Digby; "Impacts That Changed the Course of Evolution," New Scientist, 100:588, 1983.) Evidence is growing that the collision of planetary material with the Earth can profoundly affect local geology, and that impacts of very large meteorites may have influenced the evolution of the Earth and the life that exists upon it. This quotation is from the lead-in to the article references below, which also has a nice world map of major impact sites over 1 km in diameter. (Grieve, Richard; "Impact Craters Shape Planet Surfaces," New Scientist, 100:516, 1983 ...
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