114 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 34: Jul-Aug 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Our aquatic phase!Elaine Morgan, author of The Aquatic Ape, reviews new evidence supporting the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Sir Alister Hardy suggested this hypothesis in 1960 in an attempt to account for several human characteristics that are unique among primates but common in aquatic mammals. Some of these are: position of fetal hair, loss of body hair, subcutaneous fat, face-to-face copulation, weeping, etc. The combination of hairlessness and subcutaneous fat seems almost totally confined to aquatic mammals and humans. Two other characteristics are covered in some depth in this article: The discovery that some prehistoric shell middens consist of deep-water shellfish, which must be the result of breath-held diving. This human skill, again unique among primates, is obviously quite ancient. Furthermore, recent experiments suggest that in humans, in addition to seals and ducks, vascular constriction is not limited to the arterioles but extends to the larger arteries, too. This indicates some degree of specialized adaptation to a diving life. Most animals with a sodium deficiency display an active craving for salt which, when satisfied, disappears. In humans, salt intake has little or no relation to the body's needs. Some Inuit tribes avoid salt almost completely, while people in the Western world consume 1520 times the amount needed for health. In other works, a single African species (assuming humans have an African origin) possesses a wildly different ...
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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 Ball Lightning And Blue Flashes May 31, 1982. Wakefield, England. Kitchen: Blue flashes from a white cellar "We live to the south of Wakefield on the ground floor of a large Victorian house with high ceilings, attics and cellars. Our kitchen and living room face roughly S.S .W . In the late afternoon, a very heavy thunderstorm erupted with torrential rain, and thunderclaps and forked lightning occurring not quite, but almost, simultaneously. Towards the end of the storm, about 5.30 P.M ., I was in the kitchen and my mother in the living room, both facing the windows. There was a very loud peal of thunder and a loud crack, rather like the little explosion of a Christmas cracker greatly magnified. I was at the sink, close to the window, on the ledge of which stands an electric Corvette water heater, plugged in but not switched on. Beside me, about four feet from the ground and two feet to the left of me, at the moment of the crack, there appeared for a second or so, electric blue flashes, six to eighteen inches in length coming from a white centre. I felt nothing, but was startled. There was no damage to the water heater or anything else. Just as I exclaimed at the blue flashes, I heard my mother cry out and ran to her in the living room. She ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "CRYSTAL" BALL LIGHTNING June 1, 1984. Nottingham, England. Testimony of Mrs. Elsie Haigh. ". .. at approximately 5.45 p.m ., I was in my kitchen. The window and door were both closed. I was standing with my back to the window when I heard a 'boiling noise' and a noise which sounded like glass splintering -- a crash sound. I was very scared and turned around to face the window and saw a large glass-looking ball, approximately 10 inches in diameter (25 cm), slightly oblong (oblate), with a white filament in the middle. This was floating on a bowl of water which was in the sink. I ran to the bathroom, and seconds later I heard an explosion and splintering glass. When it was quiet -- I think a few seconds elapsed -- I returned to the kitchen. The ball had gone and there was no damage. I can only describe it as a miracle." (Meaden, G.T .; "' Crystal' Ball Lightning," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 9:218, 1984.) Comment. Other ball lightning observations on file include sounds like "breaking glass." See our Catalog Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. For a description of this Catalog, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #37, JAN ...
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... illustrate, a chess master can usually recall the positions of all the pieces on a chessboard after a quick glance. But if the chessmen are arranged randomly and meaninglessly, his memory is reduced to near-normal. The gist is that long prac-tice and the application of mnemonic devices can vastly improve anyone's memory and, in consequence, memory prodigies are not really so anomalous. (Ericsson, K. Anders, and Chase, William G.; "Exceptional Memory," American Scientist, 70:607, 1982.) Comment. The real anomaly here may be the fact that the human memory and related memory faculties seem orders of magnitude better than needed for survival. How did such capabilities evolve? Of what use is a prodigious memory to an Ice Age man facing a cave bear? Are we dealing with prescient evolution, like the moth described above, holding capabilities in reserve until they are really needed. From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Mysterious Object Winnipeg, Manitoba. "On January 14, 1983, I observed a perfectly round black orb crossing the sun. It started at 17h 54m 23s Universal Time and ended at 17h 54m 26s Universal Time and lasted three seconds. On a projected solar disk with a diameter of 18 centimetres, the object had a diameter of one-half centimeter." (Lohvinenko, Todd; "A Mysterious Object," Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, National Newsletter, 77:L19, 1983.) Comment. This object traveled too fast to be an intramercurial planet; too slowly for a meteor. Path taken by the black spot cross the face of sun. From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... universe, in which there is no room for religious or other non-material elements. This is not correct. On the contrary, the clarifica-tion of the nature of space and time in this theoretical development removes the obstacles that have hitherto prevented science from conceding the existence of anything outside the boundaries of the physical realm. "In conventional science, space and time constitute a framework, or setting, within which the entire universe is contained. On the basis of this viewpoint, everything that exists, in a real sense, exists in space and in time. Scientists believe that the whole of this real universe is now within their field of observation, and they see no indication of anything non-physical. It follows that anyone who accepts the findings of conventional science at their face value cannot accept the claims of religion, or any other non-material system of thought. This is the origin of the long-standing antagonism between science and religion, a conflict which most scientists find it necessary to evade by keeping their religious beliefs separate from their scientific beliefs. "In the Reciprocal System, on the other hand, space and time are contents of the universe, rather than a container in which the universe exists. On this basis, the 'universe' of space and time, the physical universe, to which conventional science is restricted, is only one portion of existence as a whole, the real 'universe' (a word which means the total of all that exists). This leaves the door wide open for the existence of entities and phenomena ...
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... greater volume of rock 300 meters thick adjacent to the present north and south rims. The immensity of the volume of sediment removed is not the real issue. The first problem emerges downstream from Red Butte at Pierce Ferry. There we find 200 meters of Hualapai limestone, which has been dated at 8.7 million years from a thin layer of volcanic ash within the limestone. When this limestone was laid down, the geology is emphatic that no large, sediment-carrying river was in the vicinity. Most geologists agree that the lower end of the Grand Canyon was not active around this time. No one knows where the Col-orado River was flowing at this period. Some say southwest from Peach Springs; others point to a northwest route into Utah. All the likely alternate routes face serious geological obstacles such as lava barriers. What does seem certain is that the stock explanation of the formation of the Grand Canyon is incorrect. It was not steadily ground out, cutting everdeeper as the whole region was slowly elevated. Actually, geologists believe that the region stopped rising over 50 million years ago. Where, then, did the sediments from a 450-kilometer canyon and the wide areas surrounding its rims go? The present exit of the Colorado near Pierce Ferry was blocked until fairly recently while the Hualapai limestone was being deposited; and other routes don't look too promising. (Rice, R.J .; "The Canyon Conundrum," Geographical Magazine, 55:288, 1983.) Comment. Moral: beware of facile explanations. The data presented ...
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... Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Apathy And Cancer Doctors have frequently observed that the "will to survive" is important in controlling the progression of serious diseases. Most of the evidence linking the patient's mood with recovery from illness is anecdotal -- little wonder since mood is hard-to-measure. Some statistical evidence has recently been accumulated by S.M . Levy and R. Herber-man of the National Cancer Institute; but the situation still seems complex at best. From a study of 75 women with breast cancer, there appears to be a significant and involved relationship between age, the body's immune function, and a psychological factor called "fatigue." One clear-cut finding was that young patients facing radiation therapy and also reporting high levels of psychological fatigue were the only patients in the surveyed group showing diminished activity by the body's natural killer cells. These killer cells com-prise an important part of the defense against cancer. This biological consequence of apathy is confirmed by an-other study showing that cancer patients with "psychological distress" had better chances of recovery than those who had no "fight." (Herbert, W.; "Giving It Up -- At the Cellular Level," Science News, 124:148, 1983.) Comment. Assuming such mind-body correlations are real, how is mental attitude (supposedly some pattern of nerve signals in the brain) converted into greater or lesser populations of natural killer cells? From Science Frontiers # ...
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... -ia brings to mind the Gaia Hypothesis; that is, all life forms work in unison to further the goals of life. The second item is from Nature and is naturally more technical. After reviewing the great difficulties scientists are having in mathematically describing the growth of even the simplest crystal, the author homes in on one of the fascinating puzzles of snowflake growth: "The aggregation of particles into a growing surface will be determined exclusively by local properties, among which surface tension and the opportunities for energetically advantageous migration will be impor tant. But the symmetry of a whole crystal, represented by the exquisite six-fold symmetry of the standard snowflake, must be the consequence of some cooperative phenomenon involving the growing crystal as a whole. What can that be? What can tell one growing face of a crystal (in three dimensions this time) what the shape of the opposite face is like? Only the lattice vibrations which are exquisitely sensitive to the shape of the structure in which they occur (but which are almost incalculable if the shapes are not simply regular)." (Maddox, John; "No Pattern Yet for Snowflakes," Nature, 313:93, 1985.) Comment. It is amusing that this usually fairly open-minded journal Nature once blasted Sheldrake's A New Science of Life as a good candidate for burning. It is in this book that Sheldrake proposed morphogenetic fields as the explanation of crystal growth. Morphogenetic fields seem at least as reasonable as "vibrations". From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Voice Of God Back in 1976, Julian Jaynes promulgated a novel hypothesis about ancient man in his book, The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. "According to Jaynes, consciousness, as we know it today, is a relatively new faculty, one that did not exist until as recently as 2000 B.C . He holds that a basic difference between contemporary and ancient man is the process of decision-making. When faced with a novel situation today, man considers alternatives, thinks about future consequences, makes a decision, ruminates over it, and finally acts. He then reconsiders his action, evaluates it, worries about it, feels good or bad about it, makes resolves about future decisions, and so forth. The cerebral activity that precedes and follows an action response is consciousness. Jaynes believes that man of antiquity had no consciousness -- that when faced with a novel situation, he simply reacted. He reacted without hesitation by following the directions of a personal voice that told him exactly what to do. Ancient man called this voice God; today it is called an auditory hallucination. To ancient man, God was not a mental image or a deified thought but an actual voice heard when one was presented with a situation requiring decisive action." You must really read Jaynes' book to appreciate the evidence he has collected in support of his hypothesis. In the present article, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A JAPANESE PRESENCE IN ANCIENT MEXICO?A. von Wuthenau, a specialist in Precolumbian art, at the University of the Americas in Mexico City, has long been a champion of ancient contacts between the New World and Africa, the Orient, and the Mediterranean region. For example, his book Unexpected Faces in Ancient America contains hundreds of photographs of Precolumbian figurines and other artwork showing facial features typical of the Old World and Asia. His latest find consists of a terra cotta model of an ancient sailing ship manned by figurines of ten oarsmen, all with striking Japanese features. The model boat is one foot long; the oarsmen, two inches high. It was discovered at a burial site in the Guerrero region of Mexico. Von Wuthenau has tentatively dated the boat as 2,500 years old (Anonymous; "Sailors in a Model of an Ancient Ship Found in Mexico Have Asian Features," Boston Sunday Globe, November 10, 1985. Cr. J. Whittall.) A sketch of one of the giant Olmec stone heads from von Wuthenau's book. He believes this particular head, La Venta III, displays Asiatic features. Others seem African. From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Feathers fly over fossil 'fraud' How many plays on words do you count in the following paragraph? "Britain's own scientific knight-errant, Sir Fred Hoyle, has fallen fowl of the palaeontologists. He has flocked together with those who think that the best-ever missing link, the reptile-bird Archaeopteryx, is a convenient fake. Creationists are understandably in high feather about it all. But now, it looks as though they may be left with egg on their faces. ' We first reported on the Archaeopteryx Affair in SF#39. In the present article by Ted Nield, the evolutionists seem to be responding to Hoyle's claim with ridicule and innuendo. Referring to the claim of fossil forgery, which Hoyle based on photos taken with a low-angle flash and EN100 film, Nield wonders why it was published in the British Journal of Photography instead of Nature or Science implying that Hoyle's group didn't dare submit their report to high-class journals! As for the "discovery" of double-struck feathers in the Archaeopteryx fossil, which Hoyle thinks were the result of inexpert forgers, Nield remarks that these were noted by naked as long ago as 1954, and are due to two rows of slightly overlapping feathers with faint "through-printing". And while it is true that the two halves of the fossil studied by the Hoyle group are not perfect positive ...
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... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Booming Dunes "On two occasions it happened on a still night, suddenly -- a vibrant booming so loud I had to shout to be heard by my companion. Soon other sources, set going by the disturbance, joined their music to the first, with so close a note that a slow beat was clearly recognized. This weird chorus went on for more than five minutes continuously before silence returned and the ground ceased to tremble." P.K . Haff opens his review of booming sands with the above quote from R.A . Bagnold. One would think that since booming sand is not uncommon and scientists can pick it up and take it back to their laboratories, we know all about why it booms so unexpectedly when set in motion down a dune face. Haff relates his own experiments and ties them into the rather large body of previous work on the subject. The factors of dampness, grain size, cleanliness, grain shape and smoothness, etc., have all been examined. But Haff concludes: "In spite of these experiments and the work of other researchers, it is still not known how booming dunes work." (Haff, P.K .; "Booming Dunes," American Scientist, 74:376, 1986.) Reference. Booming dunes are cataloged along with "muscial sands" in ESP14 in the catalog volume: Anomalies in Geology. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #47, SEP-OCT 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... fell to the floor and I believe the phone was still in my hand. I'm still not sure if I was knocked unconscious or not. I couldn't swear I was and couldn't swear I wasn't . The ball hit me with the accompanying sounds of smacking and crackling, kind of like a string of firecrackers being set off." The telephone was dead and Mrs. Townsend suffered chest pains for several days. The ball seemed to be made of a soft burlap-type surface with a fuzzy texture. June 21, 1978. Same place, same kitchen. Same person. Thunderstorm out-side. Again a fireball entered the kitchen. It was about a foot across with jagged yellow and white edges. It hit Mrs. Townsend in the face, with the sensation being like a slap with an open hand. The ball possessed a surface like that of a textured fabric as before. The witness collapsed and when recovering found herself with slurred speech and neck pains. She soon regained full faculties and health. (Bailey, B.H .; "Ball Lightning Strikes Twice," Weather, 39:76, 1984.) Reference. Many more examples of ball lightning may be found in Chapter GLB in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #41, SEP-OCT 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How The Cheetah Lost Its Stotts "Faced with a predator, for example, a cheetah, many deer, antelope and other bovids turn tail and run. But they also go in for a very curious display, before and during the run. They bounce up in the air, keeping all four legs straight. Stotting, as the display is known, must make the animal visible, and presumably also vulnerable to the predator. It certainly attracts the human observer's attention, and there has been no shortage of 'explanations' for this strange behavior." Actually, at least 11 hypotheses have been proposed. T. Caro has observed Thomson's gazelles stott on more than 200 occasions, usually in response to a cheetah or himself. Caro thinks that adult gazelles stott to proclaim to the cheetah that it has been detected and no longer has surprise in its favor. Cheetahs often do give up after stotting. Further, stotting gazelles have never been seen to be caught -- so far. (Anonymous; "How the Cheetah Lost Its Stotts," New Scientist, p. 34, June 19, 1986.) Reference. More information on stotting and other unusual mammalian behavior, see BMB32 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Mammals I. Ordering information here . A springbok stotting or 'pronking' From Science Frontiers #47, SEP-OCT 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... that feces are the primitive condition. The variety of animal bodies, on the other hand, implies that bodies are secondary or derived features of the organisms. The expansion of genetic research in the twentieth century has led to the conclusion among many geneticists that bodies exist solely for the propagation and dispersal of genes. This perspective has been dubbed 'the selfish gene theory'. While the author acknowledges the insight and creativity that went into the selfish gene theory, it must be pointed out that the idea has not been carried far enough by the geneticists. Where did the genes come from in the first place? Who ever heard of a sea bottom made up of DNA ooze? It is obvious from the fossil data that feces were teeming in the Precambrian oceans well before DNA appeared on the face of the earth, and that feces were therefore the original driving force of life. Bodies exist for the propagation and dispersal of feces, and genes are simply the instructions used by feces in the manufacture of those bodies. This concept is best described as the 'selfish feces theory'." (Sager, J. Curt; "The Origin of Feces," Journal of Irreproducible Results," p. 20, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #46, JUL-AUG 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... to a crystallographer, these crystals are the equivalent to ESP in psychology. All the rules of crystallography insist that icosahedral crystals should not exist. One scientist reacted in this way: "All my training has been with the assumption that crystals are periodic. Now, almost everything has to be reexamined." Actually, the icosahedral crystals are "quasi-periodic"; that is, they are completely regular only over small distances. Nevertheless, there are hints that these materials that should not exist have remarkable structural and electronic properties. (Peterson, Ivars; "The Fivefold Way for Crystals," Science News, 127:188, 1985.) Two-dimensionsal quasiperiodic geometry (Penrose tiling) with five-fold symmetry formerly thought to be impossible in nature. The tricontahedron with 30 faces is the basis of three-dimensional quasiperiodic structures with five-fold symmetry. From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 A NEW FACE ON MARS?The face on Mars does not seem to go away! Could it, after all, really be artificial? M. Carlotto, writing in Applied Optics, presents the results of his analysis of the photos of this engimatic "face." "The image enhancement results indicate that a second eye socket may be present on the right, shadowed side of the face; fine structure in the mouth suggests teeth are apparent." "Teeth?" This Martian face is becoming too human-like to be an accident of nature! Carlotto also tersely summarizes his impression of the face's features. ". .. results to date suggest that they may not be natural." (Hecht, Jeff; "Computer Does a Double-Take on the Face of Mars," New Scientist, p. 39, July 7, 1988. Also see: Applied Optics, 27:1926, 1988.) In a more light-hearted manner, P. Jones asserts that a second Martian face exists, and that somehow scientists have managed to keep it under wraps. A photo of the second face appears in the August 25, 1988, issue of New Scientist. Jones remarks on the second face as follows: "If faces are what you are looking for, it's reasonably convincing, perhaps more convincing than its better-known sibling. It has symmetry, two eyes ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nereid: grotesque shape or two-faced?Nereid, a satellite of Neptune, is peculiar in several ways: Its orbit is retrograde and highly elliptical (1 .4 x 9.7 million kilometers) Its brightness changes by a factor of four as it rotates Its diameter, according to M.W . and B.E . Schaefer (Nature, 333:436, 1988) is thought to be at least 660 kilometers. None of these facts taken alone is anomalous, but (2 ) and (3 ) taken together seem incompatible. If the large brightness changes are due to a highly irregular shape, Nereid's 660-kilometer size is too large, because astronomers agree that gravitational forces will sphericize all objects larger than 400 kilometers. On the other hand, if Nereid is two-faced, like Saturn's moon Iapetus (it's carbon-black on one side, light-colored on the other), astronomers are again faced with trying to explain how such a large solar-system object can acquire so much carbonaceous material on one side only. Also, Nereid's eccentric, retrograde orbit surely hints at a history of capture or orbit disruption. (Weisburd, S.; "Neptune's Nereid: Another Mysterious Moon," Science News, 133:374, 1988. Also: Veverka, J.; "Taking a Dim View of Nereid," ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ubiquity Of American Archeological Anomalies An inscribed stone from Connecticut. Interpreting the marks as ogam writing; Face 1 (left) reads up, Face 2 (right) reads down. Adapted from the Bulletin of the Early Sites Research Society and the Occasional Publications of the Epigraphic Society. One would think that all North American archeological anomalies worth mentioning would already be firmly ensconced in the professional literature. This does not seem to be the case, unless one is very conservative about defining "worth mentioning." Ancient coins, anomalous inscriptions, and other intriguing tidbits are being found all the time, but few hear about them. The conventional journals, such as American Antiquity and the American Anthropologist disdain such discoveries. One place to find them is in the Occasional Publications of the Epigraphic Society. The 1987 compilation of these papers is at hand, and it is chock full of fascinating things. The following data are from Volume 16 for 1987. Ancient coins. A bronze coin of the ancient Greek city of Amisos was found about six years ago by Doyle Ellis, who was searching for gold with a metal detector in the channel of the Snake River in Idaho. It was deeply embedded in the gravel. In a small Indian mound at Deer Creek, near Chilicothe, Ohio, a Numidian bronze coin was recently uncovered. It has a BC date. "Oddly, those same coins, regarded in the Old World as artifacts of ...
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... the "cold fusion" experiments making headlines these days are small, simple, and cheap. In contrast, the "hot fusion" physicists have spent some 30 billion dollars since 1951 on huge, complex machines. We don't yet know the specific thoughts and observations that led the Utah electrochemists to cold fusion, but we hope they were anomalous observations of some sort, such as the detection of unexpected neutrons from electrochemical experiments. If such turns out to be the case, the role of anomalies in scientific research will be underscored. Be that as it may, a genie has been uncorked. Both cold fusion and the re-cent excitement over high-temperature superconductivity demonstrate that a largely unexplored universe exists in the electrochemistry of the solid state. Favorite theories lie in shambles; faces are very red; the most elite of our scientific institutions were caught with blinders on! Beyond these amusements, the practical import for energy production is enormous, and who know what else will eventuate? But what about science itself? First, cold fusion will doubtless generate a brand new crop of anomalies which we are only able to guess at now. Pertinent to our effort to catalog anomalies, it is possible that cold fusion may be occurring deep in the earth giving rise not only to heat but the upwelling flux of helium-3 , now called "primordial" perhaps in error. The icy planets Jupiter and Saturn generate heat, too, and may also be cold fusion reactors! Even the sun, which is undeniably hot (at least on the surface!), may ...
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... . 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Truly Fortean House A host of Fortean forces descended upon a house in Orland Hills, Illinois, in 1988. "Once, a blue flame an inch in diameter shot out of a wall socket for more than 30 seconds, and the outlet still worked. That incident was witnessed by two police officers. Another time, a similar flame set a mattress afire while investigators were prowling outside. "In all, there were 26 separate incidents, all of them witnessed by either police or fire investigators... "' I was there one night when the room was filled with a white haze. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face,' Smith said. 'There was a strong sulfur smell and my eyes were burning. I took a sample (of the vapor) in a vacuum canister. We came up with nothing.' "Neither did engineers, chemists and geologists." Understandably, the occupants of this hexed house had moved out long ago with such goings-on. Teams of experts ruled out arson, natural gas, methane leaks, sewer gas, and electrical malfunctions. The house was finally bulldozed in October 1988. (Elsner, David; "Bulldozers Lay House to Rest," Chicago Tribune, October 16, 1988. Cr. K. Fabian. Also: Anonymous; "Strange Phenomena Force Bulldozing of House," Lorain (Ohio) Journal, October 16, 1988. Cr ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Terrestrial maria?Those dark patches that constitute the face of the man-in-the-moon are really huge outpourings of lava. Once considered real seas, they are called "maria." Maria like those on the moon also exist on the earth. This is a surprise because terrestrial maria were never mentioned in my college geology courses. But, in those days, the one-mile-wide Meteor Crater, in Arizona, was the largest accepted consequence of celestial bombardment. Deccan basalt flows (also called the Deccan traps) in Western India, shown before the formation of the Carlsberg Ridge and teh splitting off of the the Seychelles. D. Alt and colleagues, at the University of Montana, have identified four large basalt plateaus that might be terrestrial maria: "Notable examples of large lava plateaus that resemble lunar maria include, among others, the Deccan Plateau of India, the Columbia Plateau of western North America, the Parana Plateau of South America, and the Tungusska Basin of Siberia. All consist mostly of basalt lava flows; those on continents include minor quantities of rhyolite, and variable amounts of sediment. All seem to have appeared suddenly, within plates. No consistent context of plate interactions explains them. We suggest that large lava plateaus are indeed terrestrial maria." Alt et al go on to show that these lava plateaus seem to have initiated continental rifts and hotspot tracks where none existed before. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Edinburgh ufo a mirage?September 30, 1986. Edinburgh, Scotland. "Yvonne Westgarth looked out of a north-facing window of her house in south Edinburgh. She was amazed to see a white cylindrical object like a missile travelling westwards just above the roofs of houses opposite (as she thought). She called her husband who also saw the object. Their sketches of what they saw are shown in Fig. l. Although their descriptions differ slightly, they agree that the 'missile' had a black band around its centre. They watched the object for a period of between 0.5 min and 1.5 min (period uncertain). It was first seen almost due north and it disappeared in the west-northwest. No noise was heard." No one else reported seeing the object. A real missile was considered very unlikely. However, the object appeared in the direction of the glide path of the Edinburgh airport, where two aircraft had landed at about the time of the sighting. The witnesses were adamant that the UFO did not look at all like a plane; and that it was much higher in the sky than planes on normal glide paths, which were to be seen just above the horizon between the houses. S. Campbell, who investigated this event, suggests that the Westgarths saw an enlarged distorted mirage of a Boeing 757 landing at Edinburgh. The timing and direction were right ...
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... as follows: "This article has presented a few examples of the many correlations between modern physics and psychic descriptions of sub-atomic particles published over seventy years ago. Scientists and laypersons alike may find it difficult to believe that Besant and Leadbeater could in some way unknown to science describe the structure of objects at least as small as atomic nuclei, which are about one ten-thousand-billionth of an inch in size. But they cannot in all sincerity dismiss the Theosophists' claims as fraudulent for the obvious reason that they finished their investigations many years before pertinent scientific knowledge and ideas about the structure of sub-atomic particles and the composition of atomic nuclei became available to make fraud possible in principle. "Nor can critics plausibly reject their claim to possess micro-psi powers at its face value and interpret, alternatively, their observations as precognitive visions of future ideas and discoveries of physics. If they had been merely looking into the future, they might reasonably, have been expected to describe atoms or atomic nuclei or both, not more exotic objects formed from two nuclei. The Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom was formulated after they had finished most of their work on MPAs. Yet none of its features can be found in their publications (this, indeed, is the main problem that Occult Chemistry presented to scientists for seventy two years). How can one, therefore, account for the remarkable research of these two people except by admitting that they did, truly, observe the microscopic world by means of ESP?" (Phillips, Stephen; "ESP of ...
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... groups of small numbers of sheep. When grazing undisturbed, sheep tend to fan out from a given point, sometimes following a dominant group leader. Progress is usually uncoordinated and ragged. In general, patterns presented by sheep en masse are seen to be haphazard, indeed, generally random in nature. If follows that any suggestion of flocks of sheep forming geometric patterns would appear to be highly improbable, since this would call for group coordination only to be found in such as wolves and wild-dogs. In view of this it would appear that certain exceptional observations made on Sunday 21 August 1988 would be worthy of recording. "Out on an afternoon drive M. Belcher parked his car near the trigonometric survey point on Baildon Moor, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, at approximately 1430 GMT facing northeast. His wife suddenly exclaimed: 'Look at that circle of sheep in that field!' That was Sheep Circle 1 on the plan where 'a hundred or so sheep were in a circular formation, each sheep being more or less equidistant from the next. At the north end of the field some 20 or 30 cows were standing, grazing and chewing cud in the usual haphazard manner. The circular formation of these sheep was so unusual that I thought I was looking at bales of hay set out in the field by the farmer. Indeed, a stoneage stone circle might have been appropriate on this occasion. I looked around from north-west to north-east, and then espied a similar sheep circle (2 ) on a plateau opposite...In the ...
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... the January 1988 number of Sky and Telescope. Doubts do surface once in a while, despite all the TV documentaries, all the textbooks, and all the newspaper jottings, where black holes are described in the hushed tones used only with profound truths of nature. To set the stage, we quote a paragraph from said article: "There is, however, a serious problem with black holes, one that leaves some scientists skeptical about their existence. The overarching mystery lies hidden at a hole's center. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that we will find there an object more massive than a million Earths and yet smaller than an atom -- so small, in fact, that its density approches infinity. The idea of any physical quantity becoming infinite flies in the face of everything we know about how nature behaves. So there is good reason to be skeptical that such a nasty thing could happen anywhere at all." Among the observations that hint at the reality of black holes are the X-ray binaries. In a typical X-ray binary, prodigious, flickering fluxes of X-rays reveal the presence of an ultradense star and an orbiting companion. The rapid orbital motion of the companion star tells us that the central X-ray star has a mass of more than three suns. General Relativity assures us that such a star can only collapse further to form a black hole. Therefore, black holes must exist. J. McClintock, the author of this article, does not buy this reasoning. General Relativity, he says, has ...
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... very same journal. As for the differences in artifacts, Carter asked why one should expect 12,000-year-old Paleoindian artifacts to look like 200,000-year-old artifacts from an entirely different culture. (Duvall, James G., III; "Calico Revisited," Science News, 131:227, 1987. Carter, George F.; "Calico Defended," Science News, 131:339, 1987.) Comment. We don't really know whether or not the Calico "artifacts" were really made by humans 200,000 years ago. No one really does! One may opine or theorize, and that's it. The really annoying aspect of the Calico business is the tendency of scientists to make absolute statements in the face of contradictory evidence. This desire for certainty extends to all of science. Reviewers of our books often remark that such-and-such an anomaly was explained long ago, despite the many references to contradictory facts and well-founded minority opinions. So anxious are some scientists to stifle dissent that one geologist recently asserted that continental drift was now so well-proven that no more contradictory data should be published! From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... into account leap years and calendar changes. She never attended school or had any formal mathematical training! (Young, Luther; "Numbers Whiz Takes Delight in Beating Computers;" Baltimore Sun, January 21, 1988, p. A1.) Comment. Such prodigies have appeared regularly down recorded history. What is the meaning of the phenomenon? Why does evolution produce talents that far exceed the "need" of the species? Is there a "need" that we are not aware of? It could be that prodigies are precursors of new evolutionary developments, which will leave poor homo sapi ens in the intellectual dust. Surely, science fiction has a story about a secret society of transcendent geniuses living under some mountain or even on some planet! Maybe that's how "the face on Mars" got there! From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two-faced indians trick tigers A significant hazard for fishermen and forest workers in western Bengal is a tiger attack. As these Indians go about their fishing, wood chopping, and honey gathering, tigers are wont to sneak up from behind, spring, and carry off a good-sized meal. But in recent experiments, some 900 volunteers have been wearing human masks on the backs of their heads. This strategem has cut ti-ger attacks drastically. The idea is that tigers, trailing a potential supper, see that human face and figure that the person is alert and watchful. In fact, tigers have been known to track maskwearers for hours without attacking. Pretty clever! How long before the tigers catch on? (Anonymous; "Protective Mimicry in Humans," BioScience, 39:750, 1989.) From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Martian Riddle Adaptation of J. Channon's sketch of the "Face on Mars" emphasizing its similarities to the Sphinx. (From: Pozos, Randolfo Raphael; The Face on Mars , Chicago, 1986, p.50) Once again we return to cold, desertlike Mars, which still clings to a thin, oxygen-less atmosphere and where, some say, the artifacts of a long-dead intelligent race may be seen. A livable Mars in past eons is not a physical impossibility. Some scientists argue that Martian geological and geochemical data: ". .. are consistent with past conditions on Mars that were favorable to earth-like life forms: Abundant liquid water and an atmosphere that was dense and warm, and possibly rich in oxygen." That life -- intelligent life -- once thrived on Mars is suggested by photos taken of the Martian surface by Viking spacecraft: "Images of the surface of Mars showing, at several sites what appear to be three carved humanoid faces, of kilometer scale, and having similar anatomical and ornamental details between all three. Appearing with these objects are numerous other objects and suface features that resemble Earth-like archaeological ruins, of a Bronze Age culture, with no evidence of advanced technology or civilization." The Martian faces, pyramids, and cities are the foundation of the Cydonian Hypothesis: "That Mars once lived as the Earth now lives, ...
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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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... (2 ) Geological forces somehow slid the older rocks over the top of the younger rocks. Few mainstream scientists give any thought to the first possibility because it implies that evolution did not proceed as presently envisioned. (Rocks are often dated by their fossil contents.) So, geologists are left with the problems of sliding great masses of rock over rough surfaces for great distances. Sketch of the forces acting upon a thrust block being pushed by a wedge-shaped driver Low-angle thrust faulting is not a trivial geological process. To illustrate, the Lewis Overthrust in Montana and adjacent Canada involves the shoving of a block of old strata hundreds of feet thick, hundreds of miles long, over younger rock for a distance of possibly 50 miles. In contemplating such overthrusts, one immediately comes face to face with the Mechanical Paradox. Brief-ly, given the coefficient of friction between the layers of rock, the weight of the thrust block, and the mechanical strength of the rock being pushed, it can be shown that pushing the thrust block at the rear edge will crush it long before it begins to slide. For nearly a century, geologists have been trying to resolve this Mechanical Paradox. Three potential solutions have been proposed: (1 ) Lubricate the sliding surfaces with water under high pressure (the pore-pressure approach); (2 ) Allow the thrust block to slide, not as a unit, but in small discrete areas at different times (the dislocation approach); and (3 ) Push the thrust block not only from the rear edge but along ...
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... figures are man-made. Indeed, many of them are subtle and not always obvious to the viewer. But that is precisely what contributes to the mystery. There are so many recognizable forms there, that one is tempted to say they must be man-made, or else nature is having a great joke on us. "Daniel Ruzo, a 90-year-old archa eologist who lives near Mexico City, aided us. The figures we saw and filmed in 1989 were both strange and fascinating. We were first greeted by a 60-foot rock called by Ruzo The Monument to Humanity because several different races are recognizable on it. They overlap each other in a unique way, but one can clearly discern a Caucasian youth, a Semitic man, a skull-like face that could be Negroid, and several others. "There are many other faces on the plateau, as well as animals. Some of the animals depicted never existed on the continent, such as the rhino, lion, camel, and a turtle-like creature." (Cote, Bill; "Marcahuasi--A Mystery in Stone," Louisiana Mounds Society News letter , no. 42, p. 1, October 1, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #78, NOV-DEC 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wagnerian Sands Of The Desert "The sun was sinking in the west African afternoon when we plunged into a wild Land Rover ride across the dunes. Within moments we lost all sense of direction, regaining it only momentarily when we caught a glimpse of the sea, as we sped along the notorious Skeleton Coast of Namibia. When we finally stopped, it was at the top of a crescent-shaped behemoth. On the inside of the curve, the dune was a good 200 feet high and as close to vertical as a sand dune gets. "We gathered timidly at the edge of the precipice. But our guide, seemingly bent on suicide, sat down at the crest and started to slide down the dune face, the seat of his pants sending a small cascade of sand slithering to the bottom. Instantly, the entire dune began to pulsate, groaning and grumbling, as if armies of Frank Herbert's sand-worms from Dune were chewing their way to the surface. In a moment, all of us were laughing and scooting down the dune, the unearthly roar echoing in the natural amphitheater." What a delightful introduction to one of Nature's light-hearted anomalies! Such booming dunes and roaring sands may be found in thirty-or-so localities all over the world, mostly in desert envi-ronments. Most of the booming dunes are composed of quartz sands, the main exception being the Barking Sands on Kauai, Hawaii, which are calcium carbonate. Despite over ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Microorganisms complicate the k-t boundary Ancient bacteria, it appears, have tampered with the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary of some 65 million years ago. A key marker of this boundary is a thin "spike" of iridium that is found worldwide, and which was supposedly deposited by the asteroid impact that helped finish off the dinosaurs. For many scientists, the asteroid-impact scenario has become a "non-negotiable" brick in the Temple of Science. The problem they have faced is that the iridium layer is variable in thickness and concentration from site to site. Sometimes iridium can be detected well above and below the K-T boundary. This variability has tended to undermine the asteroid-impact theory. Recent experiments at Wheaton College by B.D . Dyer et al have demonstrated that bacteria in ground water can both concentrate and disperse iridium deposits. In other words, bacteria could smear out an iridium spike, perhaps partially erase it, or even move it to a deeper or shallower layer of sediment. (Monastersky, R.; "Microbes Complicate the K-T Mystery," Science News, 136: 341, 1989.) Comment. An obvious question now is how bacteria might have affected other chemicals, such as oxygen and carbon isotopes, widely used in stratigraphy. From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Now it's greece!The general consensus is that modern humans first emerged in Africa. This assertion was challenged in SF#66, where an origin in southeast Asia was championed. Now, it's Greece! "The immediate ancestors to the human family - the hominids - might have been living in Greece, rather than Afica, some 10 million years ago in the late Miocene, according to the French palaeontologist Luis de Bonis. "In September 1989, de Bonis and George Koufos of the University of Thessaloniki discovered the fossilized face of an ape-like creature, Ourano pithecus, at a site in the Valley of Rain, 40 kilometres northwest of Thessaloniki. Although the fossil has not yet reached the scientific press, de Bonis has publically described it as a possible precursor of the earliest known hominid species, Australopithecus afarensis , from Africa 3.5 million years ago." (Lewin, Roger; "Humans May Have Come from Greece, Not Africa," New Scientist, p. 35, January 27, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Krypton-cluster magic numbers Krypton atoms cluster together in stable clumps of 13, 55, 147, 309, 561,... atoms. Ordinarily, krypton, being a noble gas, does not enter into any combinations with other atoms - even other krypton atoms. However, P. Lethbridge and T. Stace, at the University of Sussex, have coaxed krypton atoms to cluster together in large, crystal-like clumps with icosohedral symmetry; that is each clump possesses 20 regular faces. The coaxing occurs when gaseous krypton trickles into a vacuum chamber through a hole only 200 micrometers in diameter. The expansion of the gas cools it so that when krypton atmos collide, relative velocities are low, and the weak Van de Waals forces between the atoms are sufficient to hold the clumps together. So far, clumps of 147 and 309 atoms have been detected with a mass spectrograph. One theory of atomic "pack ing" predicts clumps should have "magic numbers" of 13, 55, 147, 309, 561, 923 .. .. So far, the "magic" has been working! (Baggott, Jim; "Krypton Atoms Cling Together in 'Shells,'" New Scientist, p. 31, March 3, 1990.) Comment. One would anticipate that the smaller clumps of 13 and 55 atoms would be easier to assemble. From Science Frontiers #69, MAY-JUN 1990 ...
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... Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cold Fusion Update Over the past six months, we have collected a couple dozen articles on cold fusion. Most authors now dismiss cold fusion as a false trail that leads nowhere interesting, certainly not to small, cheap fusion powerplants. It is time, they say, to stop wasting money and move on. Yet, a small band of researchers insists that "something is going on," something worth persuing just to see what it is. After all, almost 100 laboratories have reported anomalous phenomena; that is, anomalous neutrons, charged particles, heat production, or helium. Can all of these results be in error? Those who would answer "yes" point to more than 100 laboratories with negative results. In the face of all these claims, counterclaims, and contradictions, to say nothing of mean-spirited academic sniping, one must conclude cold fusion is down but not totally out. Good con and pro articles appeared in a recent issue of New Scientist. (Close, Frank; "Cold Fusion I: The Discovery That Never Was," and Bockris, John; "Cold Fusion II: The Story Continues," New Scientist, pp. 46 and 50, January 19, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... sac; and the animal often browses on leaves and shoots. It does not, however, chew a cud. The Indonesian babirusa, a pig-like animal with curious tusks and an unusual digestive system (for a pig). Taxonomists are a bit puzzled over the babirusa. They aren't sure whether its closest relatives are modern pigs, peccaries, or hippos. The babirusa's "tusks" pose more questions about its evolution: "The creature's oddest characteristic is the two impressive pairs of curving tusks grown by the males. One pair are simply extended lower canines, but the second are actually upper canines, the sockets of which have rotated, resulting in tusks that grow through the top of the muzzle and emerge from the middle of the animals's face. The effect is bizarre and startling. The males fight with their dagger-like lower canines and probably deflect opponents' blows with the upper set, thus protecting their eyes. Indonesians say the tusks are similar to deer antlers, giving the babirusa its name, which means 'pig deer.'" (Rice, Ellen K.; "The Babirusa: A Most Unusual Southeast Asian Pig," Animal Kingdom, 91:46, March/April 1988.) Comment. Turning a pair of teeth 180 in the upper jaw is a fascinating evolutionary accomplishment. It is difficultto-explain on the basis of random mutations, especially in view of the fact that many pigs, with lower tusks only, get along quite well. Reference. For more on the peculiarities of the ...
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... is intended as an occasional vehicle for scientific papers that fail to win the full-throated approval of the referees to whom they have been sent, but which are nevertheless judged to be of sufficient importance to command the attention of readers..." Certainly, this is a commendable development. But not surprisingly, the first paper is an at-tack on the Big Bang. Most of the authors of this first article are familiar to readers of Science Frontiers: H. Arp (Not all redshifts are measures of receding velocity.); G. Burbidge (Quasars are not as far away as they seem.); and F. Hoyle (The multidisciplinary iconoclast who helped de velop the Steady State theory of the universe.) None of these scientists has recanted, even in face of not-so-subtle pressures to conform. The first paper in Hypothesis. Arp et al summarize in two sentences: "We discuss evidence to show that the generally accepted view of the Big Bang model for the origin of the Universe is unsatisfactory. We suggest an alternative model that satisfies the constraints better." Most of the paper sets out observational evidence for the authors' main themes, as stated parenthetically above following their names. Space is also devoted to the contention that the vaunted "proofs" of the Big Bang are really not. Since these themes have appeared repeatedly in Science Frontiers, we will bypass details here. The paper concludes with suggestions for an alternative to the Big Bang, which is based upon multiple creation events -- thousands of them, each on ...
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... Africa this industrious insect is responsible for enormous striped patterns of ridges and vegetation bands. These amazingly regular patterns are caused by alternating low ridges and gullies. The ridges are about 2 meters high, up to a kilometer long, and separated by about 50 meters. The ridges themselves are closely spaced termite mounds. Just why the termites choose to build their mounds in long rows is an unanswered question. And how do the termites maintain strict parallelism, especially since they are blind? How could termites in one mound know how their neighbors in the nearest ridge, 50 meters away, are building their mounds? Anyway, the ridges help channel the flow of water and thus the growth of vegetation, giving immense swathes of country a corrugated appearance. (Sattaur, Omar; "Termites Change the Face of Africa," New Scientist, p. 27, January 26, 1991.) Comment. In Australia, the so-called "magnetic" termites build their slab-like mounds so as to minimize the amount of sun-generated heat. From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... etc. Some of the pebbles do indeed resemble humanmade artifacts. (See accompanying sketch.) Most, though, require some imagination. The import of these artifacts, if that is what they really are, comes home when one learns that they come from deposits that are millions of years old! If any of these pebbles are really human-made, anthropology will be stood on its head. Since the present report is the 20th in a series, one can assume that the contributors to Archaeologische Berich ten have amassed incredibly large collections of ancient stones and pebbles that "look like" artifacts. Comment. Similar purported artifacts have been found at the controversial Calico Hills site, California, in Pleistocene deposits that may be 100,000 years old. And don't forget that "Face on Mars"! From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Psychotherapy May Delay Cancer Deaths In previous entries, we have reported that imaging, positive thinking, and other psychological stratagems seemed to have some effect on the progress of cancer in humans. Such positive results have generally been pooh-poohed by the medical establishment. In fact, the results recently reported by Stanford psychiatrist D. Spiegel were obtained during an attempt to show that psycho therapy had no effect whatsoever on cancer. Thirteen years ago, Spiegel participated in a short-term program in which group therapy was given to 86 patients with advanced breast cancer. The goal was simply to make the patients feel better and "face their mortality." The result was that the patients became less anxious, less fearful, and more positive. They even learned to reduce their pain through self-hypnosis. That was the end of the program. Recently, Spiegel, fed up with claims that positive thinking could help control cancer, tracked down the patients who had received psychotherapy earlier. He expected to find no difference between their fates and those of a control group that had not received psychotherapy. Not so! Those in the control group had lived an average of 19 more months, compared to an average 37 months for those getting the psychotherapy. Spiegel said, "I just couldn't believe it." "What I am flat out certain of is that something about being in groups helped these women live longer. But what ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Explaining lunar flashes with life-savers Two recent items in the literature suggest ways in which flashes of light can be generated on the face of the moon. The first enlists the "Life-Saver effect (or "sugar-cube effect"). When Life Savers, sugar cubes, or rocks are fractured, light may flash from their broken surfaces. R.R . Zito, from Lockheed, thinks these flashes occur when energetic electrons are emitted from freshly fractured surfaces. Lunar rocks cracking under stress might very well produce flashes visible from earth. Zito also states that newly fractured rocks emit a curious burst of radio waves in the frequency range of 900-5 ,000 Hertz. (Eberhart, J.; "Does the Moon Spark Like a Life-Saver?" Science News, 136: 375, 1989.) The second explanation of lunar flashes blames them on earth satellites passing in front of the moon. Satellite surfaces can flash like a car's windshield in sunlight, thus simulating a lunar flash. It was just this mechanism that was used to explain the mysterious "flasher" in the constellation Perseus. (SF#53) The May 23, 1985, lunar flash, reported in SF#64, may have been a reflection from a large military weather satellite that was transiting the moon at the time of the flash, say R.R . Rast and P. Maley. ...
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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 Eclipse shadow-band anomalies Shadow bands moving across the face of a house during the total eclipse of December 22, 1870. J.L . Codona, in a long article in Sky and Telescope, described eclipse shadow bands in these words: "There mysterious gray ripples are sometimes seen flitting over the ground within a minute or two of to tality. The bands are initially faint and jumbled; but as totality approaches, they become more organized, their spacing decreases to a few centimeters, and their visibility improves. After totality ends the bands can reappear and become progressively fainter and more disorganized until they disappear. "Shadow bands seem to move perpendicularly to their length, but this is only an illusion. It stems from a lack of features that allow the eye to track motion along the length of the bands." Codona explains the shadow bands as basically a twinkling effect involving the thin solar crescent just before and after totality. The twinkling is created by turbulence only tens or hundreds of feet above the ground. The eclipse shadow bands, like so many other "well-explained" phenomena, display idiosyncracies that do not dovetail well with theory. Codona mentions two of these: (1 ) Bands of different colors, travelling at different speeds, are sometimes seen superimposed on each other; and (2 ) Bands of giant size have been observed. (Codona, Johana L.; "The Enigma of Shadow ...
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... , Maine, reports the discovery of some truly remarkable stone artifacts in eastern Washington County, Maine. These artifacts were extracted from a small cist, or tomb, constructed of slabs of slate laid over a hollow space between a ledge and a row of stones. As the following description attests, these artifacts are anomalous to Maine (and perhaps anywhere in the States.) "Elliott has three stone artifacts that he says came to light when he tilted two or three of the slabs covering one end of the tomb, which lies east-to-west. The grave items consist of a smooth rectangular green stone resembling a whetstone but bearing four letters or symbols; a four-inch pendant that is a flat stone oval bearing on one side and eye and on the other side a face of the sun with four rays, a crescent above, and six or seven letters in an undetermined script below; and a 15- inch ceremonial slate spear point showing on one side a bearded, trousered man in a hat or helmet with one arm severed and one foot missing, and on the other side a bear-like animal with two spears sticking out of him. In front of the bear are marks resembling the Roman numerals for eight, with the V tipped to one side." Members of NEARA (New England Antiquities Research Association) have visited the site; and professional archeologists have been invited to inspect the finds. (Wiggins, John R.; "Archaeological Riddle," Ellsworth American , August 3, 1989. Cr. J. Covey.) Comment ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Flat-faced hominid skulls from china The "African Eve" theory of human evolution was given much play in the media a few years back. According to the "African" view, modern humans arose exclusively in Africa and, about 100,000 years ago, expanded rapidly from there into Europe and Asia, displacing "lesser" hominids. Unfortunately, the DNA studies that stimulated this conjecture have been found to be flawed. And now new fossil testimony casts further doubt. In 1989 and 1990, near the Han River, in China's Hube Province, anthropologists found hominid skulls with the characteristic flat faces of modern humans. These skulls seem to be about 350,000 years old. Although they apparently retain some primitive features, paleoanthropologist D. Erler, of the University of California, asserted, "This shows that modern features were emerging in different parts of the world." In other words, all of the evolutionary action was not confined to Africa. Proponents of the "African Eve" theory retort that the dating of the Chinese skulls is questionable and that flat faces alone are not enough to support the idea that modern humans arose separately in widely separated locales? (Gibbons, Ann; "An About-Face for Modern Human Origins," Science, 256: 1521, 1992. Also: Bower, Bruce; "Erectus Unhinged," Science News, 141:408, 1992.) Comment ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Flat-faced chephren not sphinx!J.A . West, mentioned above, holds that the Sphinx was not built by the pharaoh Chephren circa 2500 BC. Rather, the revisionists say, it was constructed some 5000 years earlier by predecessors of the "classical" Ancient Egyptians. Adding fuel to the controversy is a reconstruction of the Sphinx's visage by F. Domingo, top forensic artist of the New York Police Department. Domingo traveled to Egypt to measure first-hand the exact dimensions of the statue's facial features. When Domingo compared the Sphinx's profile as it probably appeared originally with the profile of Chephren taken from a statue in the Cairo Museum, there was scant resemblance. (West, John Anthony; "The Case of the Missing Pharaoh," New York Times, June 27, 1992. Cr. J. Covey) But the story doesn't end there. Orthodontist S. Peck responded to the Times article suggesting an even more radical notion: "The analytical techniques he [West] and Detective Frank Domingo used on facial photographs are not unlike methods orthodontists and surgeons use to study facial disfigurements. From the right lateral tracing of the statue's worn profile a pattern of bimaxilliary prognathism is clearly detectable. This is an anatomical condition of forward development in both jaws, more frequently found in people of African ancestry than in those from Asian or Indo-European stock. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Curious Sighting September 29, 1991. Winchester, Eng land. A wet day, but the rain had stopped and the wind velocity dropped. The 'subject' is a B. Brumpton. His actual words are in single quotes, as told to B. Hayes: "A high easterly breeze was blowing along New Road which runs eastwest and is about 400 yards long. The subject was 30 yards from the western end facing east. He first noticed the 'object' at approximately 150 yards, at which his reaction was that he was 'seeing things'. The object 'filled the highway', so this suggests a width of eight metres or so. It was 'on the ground' and 'round-topped', suggesting to me a hemisphere. The 'object' was a 'mass of mist' and 'looked very wet'. It seemed to 'roll' toward the subject at a speed that he estimated at 30 m.p .h . However, his estimate of halfa-minute for travelling 150 yards gives a speed of 20 m.p .h . Let us not forget that time is difficult to estimate after an event. "The object emitted a noise 'like very heavy rain pounding on the road', except that it was not raining at the time, and the subject became concerned about 'getting soaked'. Also, the 'mist' ...
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