352 results found.
... University of Iowa have speculated that the earth is continuously and copiously bombarded by small, icy comets. Not just a few now and then, but a steady rain so intense that over geological time some major geological consequences must ensue. (See SF#44.) Some observers commented that surely these scientists have thrown away their careers by suggesting something so ridiculous. But the data are there -- in the form of dark spots on satellite images of the earth's dayglow -- and late results continue to support this far-out interpretation, ridiculous or not. "The mass of these objects is estimated at about 108 gm each, and the total flux is about 107 small comets per year. If this flux is representative of the average flux over geologic time, then the water influx is sufficient to fill the Earth's oceans. The fluxes of these objects are also large for all the planets outside the orbit of Earth. Considerations of thermal stability imply that the fluxes of comets that impact Venus are considerably less. The outer giant planets may be significantly heated relative to solar insolation by the small-comet impacts. For example, the total energy input due both to solar insolation and comet impacts may be similar for Uranus and Neptune. Thus it is possible that the temperatures of these two planets are similar, even though Neptune is farther from the Sun." (Frank, L.A ., et al; "On the Presence of Small Comets in the Solar System," Eos, 68:343, 1987.) Comment. What has ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sand dunes 3 kilometers down Side-scan sonar systems are excellent for mapping the major geological features of the sea floor. Some of the scenery revealed by this sonar challenges conventional geological wisdom. To illustrate, the British ship Farnella has been mapping the floor of the Gulf of Mexico with its GLORIA II side-scan sonar. Hundreds of new salt domes, submarine channels, and landslides have been recorded. A big surprise was the discovery of large fields of sand dunes in 3000 meters of water. Similar dune fields were found in the Pacific in 1984. G. Hill, of the U.S . Geological Survey has ventured, "There's something going on in deep water that people just aren't aware of. " (" A Systematic Sounding of the Sea Floor, " Science News, 128:191, 1985.) (At issue here is how sand dunes are formed in such deep water. Are they the consequence of colossal bottom currents, perhaps set in motion by huge earthquakes of some other natural catastrophe ? Is it possible (gasp!) that the dunes were not formed under water at all ? The area involved also boasts salt layers and submarine channels and canyons, both of which are not well-explained. WRC) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How Homeopathy Might Work Although some people swear to the efficacy of homeopathy's "remedies," skeptics have been fond of pointing out that these fluids are so dilute that no molecules of the active ingredients are likely to remain. Believers respond that the fluid remedies somehow retain the "essence" of the active ingredient. In effect, they maintain that water has a "memory." No wonder mainstream scientists scoff at homeopathy. But wait, perhaps water can have a memory! A Cal Tech chemist has put extremely dilute solutions under his electron microscope and found that some contain strange "ice" crystals, even though room temperature and pressure prevail. Called "IE crystals," they are produced through the action of ions. They are stable even at higher temperatures. Subsequently, an immunologist at the University of California at Los Angeles discovered that the IE crystals can stimulate parts of the immune system. Water containing these strange forms of ice show a hundred times more bioactivity than plain water. (Anonymous; "Homeopathy and IE Crystals," Spectrum , p. 18, November/ December 1998. Cr. E. Fegert) Comment. Of course, we want to see independent confirmations of the Cal Tech and UCLA work, but we hope they will be objective rather than the usual knee-jerk reactions to homeopathy. See SF#59 and SF#69 for past confrontations over homeopathy. From Science Frontiers # ...
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... is entitled "Death Watch." In it, J. Horgan plays dirges for four phenomena that have received considerable attention in Science Frontiers: (1 ) minicomets; (2 ) cold fusion; (3 ) abiogenic oil; and (4 ) the fifth force. (Apparently Benveniste's "infinite dilution" work has already been in terred.) (Horgan, John; "Death Watch," Scientific American, 262:22, June 1990.) But wait, there is a microwave flicker of life remaining in the minicomets. J.J . Olivero and his colleagues at Penn State have been monitoring the sky with a microwave radiometer in their search for emissions from high-altitude gases. During more than 500 days of observations, they detected 111 sudden bursts of water vapor. Olivero et al suggest that these bursts occur when small, icy comets vaporize at very high altitudes. These minicomets are of the same size (about 100 tons) and frequency (20 per minute over the whole atmosphere) as those predicted by L.A . Frank. Frank's icy comets have been received with about as much warmth as "cold fusion." One reason for the unpopularity of icy comets is that they would have provided sufficient water to fill the ocean basins, thus undermining the accepted view that our oceans derived from outgassed water vapor from deep within the earth. Besides this mindset, the minicomets do have some counts registered against them: (1 ) The effects of all the purported water vapor on the ionosphere should be easily detected but they are ...
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... ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Another Tale Of Ogopogo Another report of Lake Okanagan's monster, palindromically named Ogopogo, has surfaced. A Canadian woman, Mrs. B. Clark, actually bumped into Ogopogo while swimming in the British Columbia lake in July of 1974. "Mrs. Clark's report states: 'I did not see it (the animal) first. I felt it. I was swimming towards a raft/ diving platform located about a quarter of a mile offshore, when something big and heavy bumped my legs. At this point, I was about 3 feet from the raft, and I made a mad dash for it and got out of the water. It was then that I saw it.' The report goes on to describe the observation: 'When I first saw it, it was about 15-20 feet away. I could see a hump or coil which was 8 feet long and 4 feet above the water moving in a forward motion. It was traveling north, away from me. It did not seem to be in much of a rush, and it swam very slowly. The water was very clear, and 5 to 10 feet behind the hump, about 5 to 8 feet below the surface, I could see its tail. The tail was forked and horizontal like a whale's , and it was 4 to 6 feet wide. As the hump submerged, the tail came to the surface until ...
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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 Snowballs in hell?Arecibo radar image of Mercury's morth pole showing several craters. In SF#79, we revealed that anomalous radar reflections from Mercury's polar regions might be due to residual deposits of water ice. At first, this possibility seems most unlikely given Mercury's proximity to the sun. Where the sun's rays beat directly on Mercury's surface, the temperature can reach 700 K. Even glancing sunlight, occurring when the sun is perched on Mercury's horizon, should heat the surface to 170 K. At this temperature, water ice would evaporate quickly in Mercury's near-vacuum atmosphere. But any permanently shaded areas at the planet's polar caps -- say, deep in a crater -- would remain below 100 K. This is cold enough to retain ice, even in a vacuum. Radar topographic studies of Mercury's polar regions, using the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Goldstone antenna with the VLA (Very Large Array) plus the big Arecibo antenna in Puerto Rico, have been able to confirm that there are indeed craters in the polar regions of Mercury. These craters match up well with the radar reflectivity anomalies recorded earlier. So, it now seems likely that ice does exist on Mercury. And, since our moon also boasts permanently shadowed crater areas, ice probably survives there, too. This is good news for future lunar colonists ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Some Old Geysers Are Not So Faithful Yellowstone's Old Faithful has a namesake in Calistoga, California. This notso-well-known geyser is usually very dependable, erupting every 90 minutes, shooting 350 F water 60 feet into the air. However, some 60 hours before the October 1989, 7.1 -magnitude quake in the San Francisco Bay area, the geyser's period suddenly lengthened to more than 100 minutes. After the quake, it settled back into its usual routine. Prior to two other earthquakes, in 1975 and 1984, the clockwork of Calistoga's Old Faithful also ran slow. (Anonymous; "Unfaithful Geyser," Discover, 12:8 , July 1991.) Comment. Since the quake epicenters were many miles distant from the geyser, how is the geyser's clockwork altered? Somehow, small earth movements must have changed the size of the geyser's water reservoir or, possibly, pressure changes in the surrounding rocks might have reduced the flow of water into the reservoir. Pertinent here are the often-observed changes in well levels and spring flows prior to earthquakes. Reference. Geysers display many anomalies. These are cataloged in GHG1-GHG3 in the book Earthquakes, Tides. For details on ordering, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 139: Jan-Feb 2002 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Who Needs Boats?We don't know why our distant ancestors would forsake the idyllic tropical island of Bali, but some 900,000 years ago they somehow reached Flores, the next Indonesian island in the chain trending toward Australia. Sea levels were lower 900,000 years ago, but Flores was still 19 kilometers away. How did our ancestors cross this water barrier? There is no evidence whatsoever that these hominids built boats. How about simple rafts? Possibly, but there is another way. They swam the 19 kilometers (12 miles)! Many modern humans can paddle this far and it seems reasonable that ancient peoples could, too. Another water barrier may have been crossed by African swimmers a million or so years ago. Their artifacts are found in southern Spain. Did they swim across the Strait of Gibraltar rather than trek the long land route through the Middle East and across mountainous southern Europe? These possible aquatic feats of our ancestors are not in themselves enough to strongly interest an anomalist but when they are coupled to another recent discovery they add weight to a much more fascinating speculation that early hominids were once marine mammals -- or at least nearly so. More important to this radical thesis than human swimming prowess is the recent scuttling of of the vaunted paradigm that modern humans began evolving only when they split from the forest-dwelling primates and invaded the African savannahs. It now seems that the regions once ...
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... Sourcebook Subjects Martian "Flares"Focussing now on Mars, a long-lasting mystery has been the source of the rare "flares" or bright flashes of light that have appeared on the Martian surface down the years. A famous flare example was observed and reported in 1900 by A.E . Douglass, at the Lowell Observaory. The popular press quickly announced that the Martians were signalling us. Actually, this assumption was quite understandable because in those days the newly discovered Martian "canals" were in everyone's thoughts. Most scientists, however, rejected the signal notion preferring to attibute the flare to the specular reflection of sunlight from snowy peaks on Mars. But they were wrong, too. Close-up inspection by modern spacecraft has revealed no snowy peaks or large bodies of water on Mars that might mirror the sun. But another possibility has now come to the fore. The Martian flares could be reflections of sunlight from flat, hexagonal crystals of water ice in the thin Martian clouds; the same crystals that create some of the solar halos and sun dogs seen on earth. That this sort of specular reflection does occur was demonstrated on June 7, 2001, when a flare was actually photographed in the area of Edom Promontorium. The photography was possible because scientists had been watching this spot intently -- with cameras at the ready -- because a well-observed flare had occurred at this location in 1954, and calculations showed that conditions would be just right for the sun to be again reflected by clouds at this spot on June 7, 2001. It ...
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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 Dowsing Skeptics Converted A while back, New Scientist ran an article on the "dowsing sense." Two letters prompted by the article were from scientifically trained people who originally were very skeptical about dowsing. The first letter from P.L . Younger, a university hydrogeologist, first mentioned that most dowsers are convinced that they are hunting underground streams of water. In actuality, he says, most underground water flow is intergranular and laminar. There are no underground streams to find! Then, he continued: "Having said all this, while conducting hydrogeological fieldwork in Colorado, I was involved in 'dowsing' the exact location of buried metal pipes using two L-shaped metal rods, which were balanced on the fingers (not clutched at all). Surface and subsurface pipes gave clear deflection of the rods. I was led to conclude that the rods operated as a crude magnetometer." B.W . Skelcher originally did not believe that any variation in the magnetic field or any other natural force would cause a hand-held stick to move. But: "One day, on the undeveloped plot of land adjacent to my abode, I spied a 'nutter' pacing to and fro with hazel in hand. When the fellow assured me that he was seriously checking the site for hidden water mains, power cables, and so on, I expressed my grave doubts. At this he handed me the twigs and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 25: Jan-Feb 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Andes Ice Islands High in the Bolivian Andes are some shallow, saltwater lakes. From some of these white-shored lakes rise bizarre "islands" of fresh-water ice, neatly layered horizontally, and up to 20 feet higher than the saltwater surface. The ice crystals comprising these islands are vertical, proving that they grew in water and are not pieces of glaciers. Clearly, they did not form from the present saltwater lakes, but they might be relics of the Ice Ages, when the lakes were deeper and fresher. But whence the nicely layered structure? Some scientists have thought that volcanic springs might be the sources of fresh water, but some ice islands occur in lakes where there are no volcanic springs nearby. At the moment, every-one seems stumped by these strange creations of Nature. (Anonymous; "Who Made the Andes Islands of Ice?" New Scientist, 96:272, 1982.) Comment. Could the ice islands be related to the Arctic pingoes -- those debris-covered ice hills? From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 . 1983-2000 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 Subterranean life! (part 3)We almost forgot this recent tidbit from Science News that mentions microscopic life forms: "In recent years, scientists have found bacteria, as far down as 1,150 feet, in wells that penetrate deeply buried aquifers -- porous layers of rock that hold underground water. Such finds have forced hydrologists to question their traditional belief that deep aquifers were devoid of life. But it was not clear whether these bacteria were native residents of the aquifers or just contaminants from the world above, living solely within the wells. Moreover, no one had established how the bacteria were affecting the environment, if at all." Experiments have now shown that these subterranean bacteria are indigenous and are important to groundwater chem istry. The bacteria feed on organic molecules and display a curious propensity for metabolizing the carbon-13 isotope rather than carbon-12. Thus, carbon dissolved in some deep aquifer water is enriched in carbon-13 compared to surface water. None of the bacteria found so far seems dangerous to humans. (Monastersky, R.; "Bacteria Alive and Thriving at Depth," Science News, 133: 149, 1988.) Comment. Subterranean bacteria may be associated with the creation of oil and natural gas. From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ice-Covered Lake On Mars?The Mars Global Surveyor snapped an intriguing photo while orbiting over latitude 24.65 , longitude 207.10 . It looks like a lake! There even seem to be reflections of the surrounding terrain. But, as T. Van Flandern comments, this glassy-looking area cannot be liquid water because the vapor pressure is too low on Mars -- water would quickly evaporate away. Ice, however, is a strong possibility. (Van Flandern, Tom; "' Lake' on Mars?" Meta Research Bulletin, 8:30, 1999. For details, go to: http://www.cbjd.net/orbit/mars/steadlake.html) Comments. The reference did not specify the Martian hemisphere, but it was probably the northern, where there are extensive lowlands. In fact, if water once did flow on Mars, 75% of it would have drained into these lowlands. (Anonymous; "Mars in 3-D ," Science News, 156:11, 1999.) Back in 1976, the Viking Orbiter sent back pictures of so-called "searchlight areas" in the northern hemisphere. The speculation then was that these glassy, seemingly transparent features might be thin layers of ice. (AME5 in The Moon and the Planets) Possible ice-covered lake on Mars (Reproduction of a negative). From Science Frontiers ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cichlids Punctuate Equilibrium In those pesky cichlid fish of African lakes we may be seeing punctuated evolution during an actual punctuation. Responding to the article in SF#108 on the Lake Victoria cichlids, A. Mebane called our attention to Lake Malawi. While the Lake Victoria cichlids seem to have evolved a profusion of species in a space of about 12,500 years, those cichlids in Lake Malawi may have done the same in only a century or two. T. Goldschmidt advances this evenmore-abbreviated time scale in his book Darwin's Dreampond . In it, he discusses how the water level of Lake Malawi fell more than 120 meters during the 1800s -- an exceptionally dry period in Africa. Today, the Lake is again high and once more host to isolated rocky islands, each with its own unique complement of cichlid fish; each island has species found nowhere else in the lake. Where did all these species come from, considering that their little islands were bone dry just a century ago? Goldschmidt writes: "Cichlids that inhabited these exposed rocks would have suffocated, unless they had already left for wetter climes. Yet today, species that do not exist anywhere else can be found near almost every rocky island. From an orthodox point of view, the most plausible explanation for this is quite surprising: many color forms as well as biological species developed over a period of less than two hundred years." This ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 8: Fall 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An oasis on mars -- no palm trees but...Most of the data returned from the Viking Landers and Orbiters confirm a highly desiccated surface for Mars. Life-as-we-know-it would seem to be impossible in such an ultra-dry environment. The Solis Lacus region is an exception. On occasion, Orbiter photos of this region have revealed heavy frosts and fogs. Further, the clouds here have more moisture in them than elsewhere on Mars. Conclusion: Considerably more water exists near the surface of the Solis Lacus region than elsewhere. Since this area was the source of the great 1971 Martian dust storm, one wonders whether the unusual concentration of water has been revealed only because winds have stripped off the normally dry surface layer. (Huguenin, R.L ., et al; "Mars: An Oasis in Solis Lacus," Eos, 60:306, 1979.) Comment. Close-up photos of Mars show many signs of fluid erosion. Abundant water may still remain well below the planet's surface. Reference. Probable wet areas on Mars are cataloged at AME16 in The Moon and the Planets. Ordering information for this book is located here . From Science Frontiers #8 , Fall 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Upside-down animals Stephen Jay Gould's recent essay, "The Flamingo's Smile," like all his writing, is thought-provoking. The essay goes far beyond the happy flamingo. It is about unusual adaptations in nature, as illustrated by three inverted or partially inverted creatures. The flamingo is a filter-feeder that strains food out of the water with its bill while its head is upside-down. The flaming's bill and tongue are (and must be ) radically different from those of other birds to succeed in this strange behavior. One type of jellyfish, rather than swimming around with its pulsating bell on top, plunks itself upside-down on the bottom and uses its bell as a suction cup to anchor itself. It then shoots poisonous darts attached to strings of mucous at passing targets and reels them in. Some African catfish graze on algae on the undersides of water plants. They swim upside down all the time and display a reversed color scheme, being black on the bottom and light on top. Gould employs these three examples to argue that changes in animal behavior must have preceded the many changes in form, function, color, etc. that make upside down living profitable. In other words, the proto-flamingos tried feeding with their heads upside down; and it didn't work too well. But "nature" responded with a series of random biological changes ...
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... natural selection operate on these superorganisms? Salps. Books dealing with the unexplained sometimes include a photograph of a huge marine creature identified as a sea monster. This famous photo is real and so is the monster in it. But this creature is not reptilian; it is really a salp, a colonial tunicate. Tunicates are tiny, primitive marine organisms usually classified as invertebrates. Some species of tunicates have somehow acquired the habit of aggregating in immense numbers to create long, hollow, snake-like tubes called "salpa." Salps may reach lengths of 45 feet, with diameters of 3 feet. No wonder they are falsely identified as sea monsters. Structurally, the tunicates comprising the salp are embedded in a gelatinous wall facing inward. Each possesses a siphon that pumps nutrient-carrying sea water. Working in unison, the tunicates create a surprisingly strong current of sea water through the tube, and the salp becomes jet-propelled. Thus, we have a mobile monster, but no ship-swallowing leviathan. (Griffin, D.J .G ., and Yaldwyn, J.C .; "Giant Colonies of Pelagic Tunicates..," Nature, 226:464, 1970) Slime molds. Moving down life's ladder to even smaller and simpler organisms, some amoebas have a bizarre life cycle that ends as a superorganism called a "slime mold." If you viewed an amoeba through the microscope in biology lab, you know that they are very tiny, very simple, and most certainly not very bright. But given enough food, some ...
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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 Life beyond 100 c Bacteria can survive and multiply in hot springs near and slightly above 100 C -- the boiling point of water at atmospheric pressure. Few scientists have contemplated the possibility of life forms prospering at temperatures well beyond 100 . Recently, however, the discovery of many new and frequently bizarre organisms clustered around deep-sea vents has forced a reexamination of high-temperature life. It seems that bacteria actually flourish in the 350 C water streams from the deep-sea vents. In the lab, these same bacteria multiply rapidly in water at 250 C kept liquid by pressures of 265 atmospheres of pressure. What a surprise! Quoting a concluding sentence from this article: "This greatly increases the number of environments and conditions both on Earth and elsewhere in the Universe where life can exist." (Baross, John A., and Deming, Jody W.; "Growth of 'Black Smoker' Bacteria at Temperatures of at Least 250 C," Nature, 303:423, 1983.) Comment. Ignoring for the moment the extraterrestrial possibilities, the earth is riddled like a Swiss cheese with hot, fluid environments, which we may now consider potential abodes of life. Subterranean life represents a new biological frontier. Who knows what kinds of organisms have developed to feed upon the planet's heat? Could they have con-tributed to our supplies of petroleum and natural gas? From Science Frontiers # ...
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... that are supposed to deter predators or trick them into striking at the wings instead of the soft, vulnerable body. But some tropi cal butterflies have a double problem; their predators change from dry to wet season. One butterfly, Orsotriena medus, masters this situation by changing wing patterns with the season. In the dry season, it is dark brown and inconspicuous; in the wet season, it switches to black wings with ostentatious eyespots and white bands. (Anonymous; "Cryptic Butterflies," New Scientist, 20, September 13, 1984.) The Asiatic freshwater clam has spread rapidly across North America since its accidental introduction about 50 years ago. In addition to its natural dispersal via its more mobile larvae, the young adult clams have a surprising method of hitchhiking rides on the water currents. Through their siphons they deploy long mucous threads. Water currents pull on these threads just as air currents catch the silken threads of migrating spiders. Given a water current of 10-20 cm/sec, the small clams manufacture and deploy their threads, and off they go downstream. (Prezant, Robert S., and Chalermwat, Kashane; "Flotation of the Bivalve Corbicula Fluminea as a Means of Dispersal," Science, 225:1491, 1984.) Australia boasts many peculiar animals and plants. One of these is an orchid that grows underground. Obviously this orchid cannot employ photosynthesis. Rather, it grows in conjunction with a fungus that obtains nutrients from surrounding roots. The fungal threads penetrate both roots and orchids. The orchids make ends meet by systematically killing ...
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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 A MARTIAN ICE AGE?Long, sinuous depressions called "outflow channels" are concentrated in the equatorial regions of Mars. They clearly resemble terrestrial stream beds and have been attributed to water action. The ancient Spokane Flood that carved our Washington State's channeled scablands is seen as an apt terrestrial analogy. The Martian channels, however, are much larger than the water-eroded terrestrial analogs. The authors of the subject paper suggest that ice rather than water created the Martian channels, pointing out that terrestrial ice-stream and glacier landforms are much closer to the Martian features in terms of scale. (Lucchitta, Baerbel K., et al; "Did Ice Streams Carve Martian Outflow Channels?" Nature, 290:759, 1981.) Comment. This suggests the possibility that earth and Mars may have had synchronous Ice Ages due to solar variations or, perhaps, the envelopment of the entire solar system by a huge cloud of absorbing matter. From Science Frontiers #16, Summer 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ancient Engineering Feat Current excavations at Shringaverapura, in Uttar Pradesh, have brought to light a huge, well-preserved water tank about 800 feet long. At its widest point, the tank is about 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep. The entire complex in brick-lined and includes a large settling tank for water diverted from the River Ganga. During the dry season, additional water was supplied from a series of dug wells. This immense system of channels, walls, access stairways, etc. is about 2,000 years old. (Lal, B.B .; "A 2,000-Year-Old Feat of Hydraulic Engineering in India," Archaeology, 38:48, January/February 1985.) From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Leaky Seas Just as we have been assured that the Greenhouse Effect is melting the ice caps and that rising ocean levels will force us to abandon our coastal cities, we read the following: Within a billion years, our planet could be as dry and barren as Mars, claim geologists in Tokyo. They have calculated that the oceans are leaking water into the Earth's mantle five times as fast as it is being replenished. It is true that ocean water is being drained away at subduction zones where oceanic crustal plates dive under the continental plates; there's a 10,000-mile unsealed crack there. S. Maruyama and colleagues at the Tokyo Institute of Technology estimate that 1.12 billion metric tons of water leak through that crack in the earth's integument every year. Geologists have always assumed that most of this leakage was returned to the oceans through deep-sea vents and volcanic action, but Maruyama calculates that only 0.23 billion metric tons are recovered. The balance is probably absorbed by lawsonite and other minerals forming 100 kilometers below the surface. (Hadfield, Peter; "Leaky Seas," New Scientist, p. 4, September 11, 1999.) Comment. Does this mean we should cease our attempts to stem global warming? From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Nominative Determinism Following in the trail of Feedback's page in the New Scientist, we herewith offer two more cases of nominative determinism or ND. This phenomenon, as readers of SF are well aware, occurs when a person's last name is related to his or her occupation. A solid example of ND is seen in the name of the Director of U.S . Programs for the Rodale Institute. The Institute, it turns out, is studying carbon and nitrogen balances in organically managed cropping systems. Nitrates originating in such agriculture contaminate the ground water and often end up in drinking water. The EPA has determined that nitrates in drinking water can be harmful; thus this study. Who directs the study? Dr. Laurie Drinkwater! (Anonymous; "Organics Reduce Groundwater Pollution," Acres U.S .A . , p. 11, May 1999. Cr. L. Cortner.) And to whom does the journal Marine Observer turn when expert opinion is required on marine phenomena, including fish identification? Dr. Peter Herring! From Science Frontiers #125, SEP-OCT 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Aerial Bioluminescence January 19, 1991. South China Sea. Aboard the m.v . Benavon . The vessel was heading for Singapore on a body of water noted for bioluminescent displays. Flashes of light were seen in the bow wave and the ship's wake, appearing to be both on the surface and slightly below. This type of display is rather common, but another, much rarer phenomenon was also present: In 1880 off the Malabar Coast of India, a vessel was engulfed in great waves of light floating above the sea. "At the same time as the above form of bioluminescence, there seemed to be a second type but it was difficult to pinpoint the source. The effect was that the atmosphere around the ship and extending to the horizon had some form of faint white illumination not provided by the light in the water, which was black apart from the previously described flashes. On the other hand, there was no obvious source in the sky either, which although virtually cloudless was very dark, and certainly darker than the atmosphere at the level of the ship. The only conclusion that the observers could come to was that this was a faint example of (to quote The Marine Observer's Handbook ), 'luminescence in the air a few feet above the sea surface when there is no light in the water'. This form lasted for about 30 minutes, whereas the bright flashes continued for ...
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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 Living stalactites! subterranean life! (in three parts)Translation of the Introduction of an article from Science et Vie : "One has always held that the calcareous concretions in caves are the work of water and the chemical constituents of the rock. Surprise! The true workers in the kingdom of darkness are living organisms." It's all true. All the references we have state unequivocally that stalactites and stalagmites are created by dripping water that is charged with minerals, calcium carbonate in particular. That stalactites contain crystals of calcite is not denied in the Science et Vie article. Indeed, an electron micro scope photograph shows them clearly; but it also shows that a web of mineralized bacteria is also an intergral part of the stalactite's structure. Laboratory simulations have shown that microorganisms take an active role in the process of mineralization. (Dupont, George; "Et Si les Stalactites Etaient Vivantes?" Science et Vie , p. 86, August 1987. Cr. C. Mauge.) Besides being a surprising adjustment of our ideas about stalactite growth, the recognition that microorganisms may play an active role in the subterranean world stimulates two new questions: (1 ) Can we believe any longer that stalactite size is a measure of age, as is often claimed? (2 ) Is the immense network of known caves (some as long as 500 kilometers) the consequence only of chemical actions? It turns ...
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... ten recent unsettling astronomical discoveries. From these, we select four for your delectation. New laboratory experiments suggest a slightly non-symmetric behavior of matter and anti-matter that might explain the dominance of matter in the universe. But it creates a new mystery---why this asymmetry should exist. Distant supernovae have a rise time of 10-15 percent faster than nearby type supernovae. This throws doubt on their use as standard candles, and on the interpretation that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Interestingly, the amount of the discrepancy is close to the size of the special relativity time dilation factor, gamma. If the cause of the red shift were something other than velocity, then no time dilation factor would be applicable, and this discrepancy would disappear. Evidence for water on Mercury implies a rapid-acting, exogenic water source, consistent with the exploded planet hypothesis expectations. Reasonable escape rates imply that deuterium on Venus is from a relatively recent water source. (Van Flandern, Tom; "Highlights of the Latest EME," Meta Research Bulletin, 8:64, no. 4, 199. Address: P.O . Box 15186, Chevy Chase, MD 20815) Comment. (1 ) Although humans are obviously partial to symmetry, there is no reason why nature must please us by making matter and antimatter symmetrical. From Science Frontiers #128, MAR-APR 2000 . 1997 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political ...
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... with a pharaoh's headdress. The head's workmanship is excellent and comparable to that seen in the nearby Great Pyramid. The Sphinx's body, on the other hand, is highly eroded, even though it was completely buried under sand for centuries. This severe erosion led R.M . Schoch to proclaim that the Sphinx is actually thousands of years older than the Giza pyramids, much to the annoyance of conventional Egyptologists. (SF#79) Be that as it may, no one denies that the Sphinx's head and body are quite different. Riddle 2. The head of the Sphinx seems too small for the body. None of the many other sphinxes carved by the ancient Egyptians show such an error of proportion. To answer both riddles, R. Waters suggests that the original Sphinx was actually carved as a complete lion several millennia before the Giza pyramids were erected. It was these later pyramid builders -- those master craftsmen in stone -- who recarved the head into human form, necessarily reducing its size relative to the body. (Waters, Richard; "The Lion King," Fortean Times, p. 54, no. 91, October 1996) Comment. Waters is not the first to reinterpret the Sphinx's head. Others have noticed that the surviving facial features of the Sphinx do not match those of the Pharaoh Chephren, the supposed builder of the adjacent Great Pyramid. J.A . West, in his 1979 book Serpent in the Sky , advances this idea. The lion-head surmise has also been ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Baikal: The Inland Ocean Lake Baikal, in Siberia, is the planet's deepest lake (1635 meters) and the richest in biodiversity (over 1,000 species of animals and plants existing nowhere else). Even though Lake Baikal is only 20-25 million years old, more than 5 kilometers of sediment have accumulated in some spots. These facts are remarkable as fresh-water lakes go, but Baikal also has features usually found only in salty oceans. It seals sport in fresh water 1,000 kilometers from the nearest salt water. (How did they get there?) Even more interesting are Baikal's thermal vents or chimneys that are otherwise restricted to cracks in the earth's crust in the deep oceans. Further enhancing Baikal's marine attributes, deep drilling and seismic profiles have recently discovered the existence of gas hydrates (methane hydrate, for example). Plumes of gas bubbles have also been detected where gas hydrates have been tectonically disturbed. There are even craters on Baikal's deep bottom where gas hydrates have erupted explosively. (De Batist, Marc, et al; "Tectonically Induced Gas-Hydrate Destabilization and Gas Venting in Lake Baikal, Siberia," Eos, 80:F502, 1999.) Comments. Baikal's gas-explosion craters resemble those on the floor of the North Sea. There, the sudden releases of gases are thought to cause the famous ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Life In The Dark Two most interesting discovery have been made recently in deep ocean waters. First, abundant plant life has been found at depths of up to 268 meters, well beyond the 200-meter limit biologists had set based on the availability of sunlight. It wasn't difficult to discount photosynthetic life at 268 meters, because light there is only 0.0005% that at the surface. But there it was; and it may be found even deeper now that we've taken off the blinders. (Littler, Mark M., et al; "Deepest Known Planet Life Discovered on an Uncharted Seamount," Science, 227:57, 1985.) The second discovery came at 10,000 feet in the Gulf of Mexico. There, scientists in the submersible Alvin found a well-developed community of large clams, crabs, mussels, and tube worms, which closely resembles those around the Pacific hydrothermal vents. These life colonies do not use sunlight at all, nor do they depend on other life forms based on solar energy. They employ chemosynthesis, and the hydrogen sulfide and other substances in the vented waters replace sunlight. Although there are no obvious vents at the Gulf of Mexico site, the waters there contain plenty of hydrogen sulfide, indicating seepage from somewhere. The life forms are all new to science, although they resemble those in the Pacific. (Anonymous; "Worms without ...
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... Cameroon. About 11:30 PM, the villagers heard a loud explosion coming from Lake Monoun. Early the next morning, people in a van driving past the lake discovered the body of a motorcyclist. The air smelled like battery fluid. One of the van's occupants collapsed. The others ran for their lives toward Njindom. By 10:30 AM authorities had found 37 bodies along a 200meter stretch of road by the lake. Blood was oozing from the noses and mouths; the bodies were rigid; first-degree chemical burns were present. Also, animals and plants along the shore had been killed. On August 17, the lake turned reddish brown, indicating that it had been stirred up somehow. Although Lake Monoun is in a volcanic crater, chemical analysis of the water found little of the sulphur and halogens normally associated with volcanic action. However, the analysis did find a tremendously high level of bicarbonate ions, which form from the dissociation of carbon dioxide. One theory is that an earthquake disturbed the carbonate-rich deep water of the lake, which as it rose to the surface and lower pressures, released huge volumes of carbon dioxide -- something like opening a soda bottle. The resulting wave of water and cloud of gas caused the deaths and devastation. If there had been some nitric acid in the cloud, the burns could be accounted for. (Weisburd, S.; "The 'Killer Lake' of Cameroon," Science News, 128:356, 1985.) Comment. The article states that this event is unique, ...
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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 Mekong Mystery The following question was posed in the September 6 issue of New Scientist. "My wife and I saw a puzzling sight in October 1994, in the Mekong River near Nongkhai, Thailand, during a full moon, in the evening. Lights appeared under the water for a few hundred metres along the Mekong River. They rose from the bottom of the river and floated to the surface, then shot like missiles into the sky and out of sight. They were the size of beach balls, and many flew out of the water every few minutes, surfacing about 10 metres apart. I am told that this happens every year at the same time. Locals say it is caused by a serpent releasing her eggs. Does anyone know of this phenomenon?" A. Pentecost answered. He noted first the similarity of the Mekong phenomenon to the will-o '- the-wisp or ignis fatuus. The usual explanation of ignis fatuus blames the spontaneous combustion of marsh gas. However, the Mekong lights are initially seen under the water where there would not be enough oxygen to support combustion. Pentecost suggested instead phosphorescent bacteria or the "cold flame" of phosphorus vapor which might form through diphosphane decomposition. (Pentecost, Allan, et al; "Mekong Mystery," New Scientist, p. 96, September 6, 1997.) References. The Mekong phenomenon may be allied with the many examples of luminous ...
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... field, the length of daylight, and the identities of the oceanic currents encountered. There are probably other sensors and, of course, a brain to process all the signals; but virtually nothing is known about them. (Morreale, Stephen J., et al; "Migration Corridor for Sea Turtles," Nature, 384: 320, 1996. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Do Sea Turtles Stop and Ask for Directions?" Science News, 150:342, 1996.) Rectal gills. Sea turtles are airbreathers that make long, deep dives. To descend deep for long periods, they have evolved a diving adaptation radically different from that employed by the dolphins, whales, and seals; namely, rectal gills. They breathe air at the front end and water at the rear. Water is pulled in through the rectum and directed to sacs lined with blood vessels. These function like fish gills by extracting oxygen from the seawater. The oxygen-depleted water is them expelled and another "breath" is taken. (Green, John; ISC Newsletter, 11:10, no. 3, 1991. Actual publication date: 1997. ISC = International Society of Cryptozoology.) Routes taken by migrating leatherback turtles in 1992. From Science Frontiers #112, JUL-AUG 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Rock-Based Life Virtually all biology textbooks insist that all terrestrial life ultimately depends upon sunlight for its survival. The ecosystems clustered around the deep-sea vents and the bacteria found in deep aquifers demonstrate that the sun is not essential to life -- chemical energy does just fine. In fact, the domain of chemosynthetic life has now been extended to a Romanian cave that has apparently been almost completely sealed off from surface influences for 5.5 million years. Air does leak in through tiny cracks, and water partially fills the cave. What is most remarkable in this sunless, sealed ecosystem is its biodiversity: 48 animal species, including 33 brand-new species. The roster includes isopods, a millipede, a centipede, a water scorpion, and a leech. Of course, bacteria and fungi thrive there, too. In contrast to unsealed caves, where insects, bats, and other sources of food filter in from the surface, life in the Romanian cave seems to derive entirely from hydrogen sulfide present in the cave's rocks. This compound is consumed by microorganisms, which are then grazed by cave occupants higher up the food chain. A NASA scientist has called Movile cave a "Mars analog site." And indeed it might be, for Mars has plenty of rocks and subsurface water. (Skinrud, E.; "Romanian Cave Contains Novel Ecosystem," Science News, 149: 405, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 4: July 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Good-bye to the bimini wall and road?A perennial fixture of sensational archeology has been the frequent report of submerged "walls" or "roads" off North Bimini, in the Bahamas. That there are closely fitted, rectilinear stones under about 15 feet of water is not in question. The 1- to 10-ton blocks surely look manmade, but are they really? E.A . Shinn describes several "beach-rock" formations in the area, some exposed and some submerged under a few feet of water. This beach rock, as his photos demonstrate, has a natural tendency to fracture into rectangular blocks, creating strips of pavement-like blocks essentially identical to the famous Bimini road. Proponents of Atlantis and other radical archeological theories do not deny the similarity of the formations or even that the natural and supposedly man-made blocks are of the same composition. The Atlanteans, they say, obviously made use of readily available materials, and beach rock was their choice. Shinn goes on to prove to his satisfaction that the Bimini block formations are still in place where geological forces left them about 2,200 years ago. Further, he notes, there are absolutely no traces of human workmanship and no human artifacts in the area. One mystery is admitted, however, in this debunking article; and that is the unanswered question of how the Bimini rocks came to be submerged in 15 feet of water ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lanzarote: un noveau bimini?Yes, we are drawing on the Frenchlanguage journals again; this timme from Kadath , an archeological publication from Belgium. The reason, of course, is that the mainstream English-language archeological journals are notoriously conservative and, well, mainstreamish! The catchword in the title is "Bimini," a word which loses nothing in translation, for it is well-known in that States as one of the Bahamian resort islands. It was in the waters off Bimini that divers found the famous Bimini "road" or "wall," which some maintain is constructed of human-sculpted stone blocks. (See our handbook Ancient Man.) Lanzarote, on the other hand, is one of the Canary Islands. Here, too, one finds a submerged, Bimini-like row of apparently man-made blocks of stones. Some 22 meters down, the blocks are arranged in a sort of staircase, as shown in the figure. The steps, however, are 40-cm high, too big a step for humans. Is this structure a submerged pier, an altar, or something else. No one knows. Possibly relevant is a statuette, stylistically Olmec, which was also found in Lanzarote waters. (Bajocco, Alf; "Lanzarote: un Nouveau Bimini?" Kadath , no. 66, p. 6, Winter 1987.) Comment. The name, Kadath ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 87: May-Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Amazons In The Sky No, we are not talking about the jet streams. Rather, we refer to the curious "filamentary structures" seen on water-vapor maps of the troposphere. (The troposphere is roughly the lower 10-20 kilometers of the atmosphere.) These filaments are many times longer than they are wide, and deserve to be called "rivers." These aerial streams of water vapor develop in regular patterns and persist as they are translated through the troposphere. It is the huge quantity of water vapor carried by these aerial rivers that make them worthy of note here. Especially remarkable is the river that frequently flows south from Brazil to east of the Andes and thence southeast into the Atlantic. "A typical flow in this South American tropospheric river is very close to that in the Amazon (about 165 x 106 kg sec-1 ). There are typically five rivers leading into the middle latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere and four or five leading into the Northern Hemisphere. The rivers persist for 10 days or more while being translated generally eastwards at speeds of 6 m sec-1 ." (Newell, Reginald E., et al; "Tropospheric Rivers?-A Pilot Study," Geo physical Research Letters , 19:2401, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Saturn's Rings," Icarus, 70:124, 1987.) From Mars. Inside the vast Valles Marineris Canyon complex, Viking Orbiter photos have picked out wind-blown patches of dark material. These patches are strung out along faults for some 200 kilometers. Astronomers believe they are volcanic vents, which are a scant few million years old. (Anonymous; "Recent Volcanism on Mars?" Sky and Telescope, 73:602, 1985.) Comment. Another of the surprisingly large number of youthful features in the solar system. From Europa. The surface of Europa, one of Jupiter's large Galilean satellites, seems to be covered with a relatively smooth veneer of ice. Beneath this frigid skin, according to one theory, lie about 100 kilometers of liquid water. Why hasn't this water frozen completely, given the trifling sunlight at Jupiter's distance from the sun? Tidal stresses provide some heat but not enough; unless, of course, Europa's orbit was much more eccentric in recent times. (Anonymous; "Oceans under the Crust of Europa," Sky and Telescope, 73:602, 1987.) Comment. An alternate possibility is that Europa's ice and water inventories are recent acquisitions, like Saturn's rings! From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Dr. internet You can order books, airplane tickets, and a host of other products and services over the Internet. Soon, perhaps, you will also be able to order and actually acquire medicines without leaving your cozy computer chair. This would be a great boon to shut-ins and PC potatoes. J. Benveniste, a French researcher, claims that he has developed a way to transmit the essence of homeopathic remedies electronically. He states that homeopathic solutions emit characteristic electromagnetic "signatures." These signatures, he continues, can be detected by a copper coil surrounding a beaker containing the solution. By digitizing these electromagnetic signatures, he plans to transmit them over the Internet to similar coil-surrounded beakers containing pure water. The signals are picked up by the pure water and the medicine's signature conferred. Presto! The medicine has been conveyed as surely as by a Startrek Transporter beam. Skeptics will have none of this on three counts: Homeopathy is of no value. It relies upon highly dilute solutions of substances that in large doses cause the symptoms of diseases. This makes no sense to most scientists. Homeopathic medicines are so dilute that no molecules of the active substances exist in most solutions. How can nothing generate a characteristic signal? Even if the active substance were present in the solution, how could it generate an electromagnetic signature? Nobel laureate B. Josephson has challenged Benveniste to participate in a randomized, double-blind test. (Jaroff, Leon; "Homeopathic E-Mail ...
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... Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Really-deep rivers "Ecologists studying rivers have discovered a vast subterranean world filled with dozens of previously unknown species of worms, shrimp, insects and microscopic organisms that live in the groundwater below the stream channel and sometimes for miles on each side." The quotation above once again evokes the concept of "crevicular structure" in the crust. The crevicular world is that immense, unappreciated maze of underground space created by cracks in the rocks, solution channels, permeable gravels, and so on. In the article reviewed here, a crevicular realm has been discovered underneath river beds. But this is just a special case of a subterranean world found many places beneath the surface -- even under the continental shelves. The surface waters we see are just (to use an aquatic metaphor) the tip of the iceberg! Sub-river life lives far under the beds of the great Alaskan rivers and even small desert streams in Arizona. Preliminary exploration has shown that fluid-and life-filled crevicular structure exists at least 30 feet under river beds and may extend several miles to either side. For example, water wells drilled two miles from the Flathead River, in Montana, yield immature stoneflies. J. Stanford, Director of Montana's Flathead Lake Biological Station states, "We have basically enlarged the concept of what a river is." He and his colleagues have found at least a dozen new species in the crevicular world beneath the bed of the Flathead River. (Anonymous; "Life-Filled ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery Glow On The Sea Floor "Marine scientists have discovered two thermal vents on the seabed that glow in the dark. A group of researchers, led by oceanographers from the University of Washington, detected faint light during an expedition to the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The ridge and the vents, 300 km off the coast of British Columbia, follow an underwater fault formed by the junction of the Juan de Fuca and the Pacific tectonic plates...John Delaney, leader of the expedition, described the glow as a 'flame-like light' that seems to emanate from the super-heated water emerging from the thermal vents, 2200 meters below the surface...'The source of the light is still unclear,' said Joe Cann, a geologist from the University of Newcastle in Britain. The scientists suspect that the water itself is glowing." The water temperature is so high -- 350 C -- that bioluminescence is unlikely. The presence of the glow does, however, imply that photosynthesis is still possible in these sunless depths. Life forms do congregate around these vents. A curious shrimp found in the area where the glow was noted is eyeless but does possess photoreceptors on its back! (Dayton, Sylvia; "The Underwater Light Fantastic," New Scientist, p. 32, August 25, 1988. Also: Anonymous; "Mystery Glow Emanates from Ocean Bottom," Albuquerque Tribune ...
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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 The Polyna Mystery "Polyna" is a Russian word meaning "an enclosed area of unfrozen water surrounded by ice." Polynas form for some unknown reason in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. These transient ice-free "lakes" may cover 300,000 square kilometers, inferring a substantial influx of heat countering the frigid polar temperatures. Although small coastal polynas can be blown free of ice by strong Antarctic winds, the open-ocean polynas are much larger and do not seem to owe their origins to wind. One suggested explanation is that warm subsurface water rises suddenly to the surface, but it takes a lot of heat to keep hundreds of thousands of square kilometers ice-free. The most recent polyna opened up a region of the Weddell Sea for about three years (1973-1976). (Simon, C.; "Polynas Surrounded by Ice and Mystery," Science News, 122:183, 1982.) From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Canadian Pond Ice rings (really ice "discs") are large circular discs of ice that occasionally form in rivers. One well-observed ice ring appeared in the Pite River in northern Sweden in 1987, About 100 feet in diameter, it was rotating slowly within a slightly larger hole in the ice covering the rest of the river. (SF#112) This ring was fashioned out of ice floes that had been captured by a whirlpool and set spinning. Its rough periphery had been "machined" to circular perfection over a period of weeks as it rotated ponderously within the confining river ice. A curious phenomenon is this, but one that seems to yield to simple explanation rather easily. Somewhat more puzzling is a 16-foot ice ring that formed overnight in the more placid waters of a farm pond near Delta, Ontario, in December 2000. The ice was too thin to walk upon, so it had to be a natural phenomenon. However, there was no whirlpool to provide the lathe-like action needed to create the neat disc. Nor was the disc said to be rotating when discovered. The whole event happened very quickly, too. (Bronskill, Jim; "Strange Ice Rings Baffle Researchers," Toronto National Post, March 8, 2001. Cr. G. Duplantier via L. Farish.) Comment. Even small farm ponds have some circulation of water, particularly if fed by a stream. Rather than trying to associate ice rings with crop circles, as some do, it would be better to find out what's happening ...
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... Aug 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Eight Leatherback Mysteries Our subject here is the leatherback turtle. Weighing up to 1600 pounds, it is the largest of the sea turtles. It is also the fastest turtle, hitting 9 miles per hour at times. But weight and speed are not necessarily mysterious; here are some characteristics that are: The leatherback is the only turtle without a rigid shell. Why? Perhaps it needs a flexible shell for its very deep dives. What looks like a shell is its thick, leathery carapace -- a strange streamlined structure with five to seven odd "keels" running lengthwise. These turtles are warm-blooded , and able to maintain their temperatures as much as 10 F above the ambient water, just as the dinosaurs apparently could. The bones of the leatherback are more like those of the marine mammals (dolphins and whales) than the reptiles. "No one seems to understand the evolutionary implications of this." Leatherbacks dive as deep as 3000 feet which is strange because they seem to subside almost exclusively on jellyfish, most of which are surface feeders. Like all turtles, leatherbacks can stay submerged for up to 48 hours. Just how they do this is unexplained. Their brains are miniscule. A 60-pound turtle possessed a brain weighing only 4 grams -- a rat's weighs 8! Leatherbacks' intestines contain waxy balls, recalling the ambergris found in the intestines of sperm whales. The stomachs of leatherbacks seem to contain nothing but jellyfish, which are ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Methane hydrate: past friend or future foe?What looks like a grayish ice cube, fizzes at its edges, and soon wastes away to a puddle of water? If you wish, you can accelerate the substance's demise by touching a match to it; it is packed with potential energy. The substance is methane hydrate, and it is found in prodigious quantities in oceanic sediments. Each cubic centimeter of methane hydrate contains about 160 cubic centimeters of methane at standard conditions; it is a concentrated source of natural gas. In fact, methane hydrate deposits in the world's oceans hold twice as much carbon as all the coal, oil, and gas reserves on land! But methane hydrate may be much more than a future fuel source; it may have been humanity's savior in eons gone by; it may be our future nemesis. You see, methane hydrate is very unstable; changes of temperature or pressure on a global basis can trigger the release of immense volumes of this greenhouse gas from oceanic deposits. For example, when the Ice Ages lowered ocean levels by locking up water in the advancing ice caps, pressures on ocean-bottom methane hydrate lessened and, according to some speculators, released enough gas so that the increased greenhouse heating turned back the Ice Ages. (Was Gaia at work here?) On the other hand, if present human activities are truly stoking the greenhouse effect, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Milky Sea A report from the Captain of the m.v . Benalder , enroute from Singapore to Jeddah. "18 August 1990. At 1640 UTC the sea surface was noticed to have a white appearance which at first was thought to be low-lying fog. This theory was disproved when shining a light in the water gave to noticeable increase in luminance. "The phenomenon extended to the horizon in all directions and was bright enough to make the ship's foredeck and the sky appear much darker than the sea. Its appearance and disappearance was gradual apart from an area of normal sea which was passed about five minutes before the phenomenon faded away ay 1725." (Anderson, F.G .J .; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 61:117, 1991.) Comment. Luminous bacteria are usually blamed for milky seas, but biologists have paid little attention to the phenomenon. Reference. Milky seas and "white water" are cataloged in GLW9 in Lightning, Auroras. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why do flying fish have such colorful wings?As he sailed tropical seas, A.D .G . Bell, in command of the ship Gandara , mused over this question: "Apart from the ones which quite graphically show the lift-off from the water, the other thing that interested me was the wing colouring of brown and yellow, and turquoise. I have noticed during passages around the world how the colours do apparently change, varying from almost trans-lucent purple to a deep navy colour, and wonder how many other colourings of flying-fish wings have been reported. "I think that flying fish are just taken for granted but perhaps if we looked at them more closely, then we may see some really weird and wondeful colours, especially in island areas. What does baffle me, is why, when the wings are only extended during flight, they should be of differing colours. I could understand it if they were a coral-swimming fish where the colours are designed to help them blend into the coral colours and so evade capture, but why the need in flight over crystal clear waters like the Coral Sea?" (Bell, A.D .G .; ". .. and Whether Fish Have Wings," Marine Observer, 64:136, 1994. This journal may be ordered from: The Stationery Office Publications Centre, P.O . Box 276, London ...
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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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... 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 Weird Icicles Prism-like vertical icicle growing from a birdbath in Sussex, December 21, 1992. The British journal Weather has published two more photos of upside-down icicles. We reproduce one that is typical of the genre. [Another growing at an angle from a birdbath is sketched on SF#79.] In the formation of such icicles, liquid water is somehow forced upward from a reservoir through a central channel. As it reaches the top, it freezes. If this is indeed the mechanism, why do these upside-down icicles usually form crystal-like prisms with flat sides? (Bjørbaek, Gustav; "Unusual Ice Formations," Weather, 50:188, 1995.) Delightfully, the plot becomes more twisted with a beautiful horizontal helical icicle that was photographed in New Zealand. This truly strange icicle looks like a horizontal bedspring 6 inches long and 2 inches wide. There are eight complete turns in the helix. It has grown several times from a hairline crack in a handrail support which fills with water during a rainstorm. (Dowden, Richard, et al; "Helical Icicle," Weather, 49:435, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #100, JUL-AUG 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 30: Nov-Dec 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Rock Lake Pyramids Professor James Shertz, of the University of Wisconsin, is trying to get to the bottom of the reputed stone pyramids submerged in Rock Lake, near Lake Mills, Wisconsin. Fishermen have hit the pyramids with their oars when the lake is very low; and others have spotted structures (perhaps as many as four) from the air. In 1937, a diver reported seeing a 29-foot-high pyramid in the murky waters. Recent divers have found boul-der alignments; but the visibility is so poor that organized structures cannot be identified. Truncated earthen pyramids exist at nearby precolumbian Aztalan; and strange rock piles exist elsewhere in Wisconsin. Consequently, one cannot brush off the idea that some edifices were built at Rock Lake when the water was much lower. (Smith, Susan Lampert; "Lake Mills' Lost Pyramids," Wisconsin State Journal, June 26, 1983. Cr. R. Heiden via L. Farish.) Comment. The 1937 dives are described in our Handbook Ancient Man. Perhaps it is relevant that sonar-imaging equip-ment has detailed obviously human-built rock structures on the floor of Loch Ness. Reference. Ancient Man is described here . Rock Lake pyramids drawn from 1937 diving observations. From Science Frontiers #30, NOV-DEC 1983 . 1983-2000 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 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 ...
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