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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 ... 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 three ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 36 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf080/sf080g14.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fake Needles but Real Knives The effect of a patient's mind in medical procedures can be as powerful as drugs and real surgery. This is the well known placebo effect. But how can doctors differentiate between the healing power of the mind and that of chemicals and scalpels? The logical thing to do is to fake the procedure with one group of patients and compare results with a second group that got the "real thing." Of course, ethical problems come to the fore because doctors are supposed to cure people and not to pretend to. The ethical dimension is accentuated when real knives are employed and real blood flows. Our ... item is not invasive but interesting nonetheless. Placebo acupuncture. Many physicians scoff at acupuncture. Placebo experiments could prove its efficacy. To this end, special placebo needles have been invented. Like the fake daggers used on the stage, the points are blunt and retractable. The acupuncture patient feels a pinprick and thinks he or she sees the needle penetrating the skin, but it's all fakery. At the University of Heidelberg, 52 people with rotator cuff tendinitis were split into two groups; 25 were punctured with real needles, the rest just thought they were. In this experiment, the first group showed much greater improvement than those treated with the fake needles. Real acupuncture was more powerful than the placebo effect. Now if we can only figure out how real acupuncture works! ( ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 91 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf128/sf128p13.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 132: NOV-DEC 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects It Depends on How you Look at It!The "Face on Mars," that is; that eroded hill in the Cydonia region that vaguely resembles a human face. When a recent photo of the "Face" taken by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) was published far and wide in the science press, we thought the matter had finally been settled. The photo showed a strange hill obviously sculpted by natural forces. No question about it; there was not a soupcon of artificiality. But it now seems that if you look at the "Face" at other lighting angles and process the same data in different ways, ... of under the "chin"; an almost complete lack of contrast; and enough cloudiness to scatter most of the light and eliminate shadows. To add to these difficult circumstances, JPL-MIPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Mission Image Processing Laboratory] personnel, apparently judging that the controversy over artificiality would not be ended when the actual photo was released, processed the image through two filters having the effect of flattening and suppressing image details. This step is documented at a JPL web site. Here we do image processing correctly and present the results of computer corrections to compensate for the poor lighting and low viewing angle. The actual image shows clearly the impropriety of the JPL-MIPL actions because the visual impression of artificiality persists. However, appearances after a discovery are not a valid basis for ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 70 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf132/sf132p04.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How to Win by Loosing (twice)It's all exceedingly counterintuitive. If you switch randomly between two games of chance, each of which is guaranteed to empty your pockets if played separately, you can actually win. This phenomenon can be proved mathematically, but we will not inflict this upon our readers, even if we understood it. Two games played with coins illustrate the effect. One game employs a weighted coin such that the probability of winning is much less than 50%. If played alone, your capital decreases steadily in a rather smooth curve, with a small win now and then but many small losses. The ... game requires two weighted coins and is also a losing proposition by itself. Here, though, the graph of your assets vs. the number of games played is a sawtooth. There are sharp increases and downturns, but with an average downward trend. Switching between the two games in a random manner has the effect of locking in a win before the next loss comes along. It's a ratchet effect. Your overall capital will rise, at least it does according to the equations, though your intuition cannot help but doubt it. No wonder this Is called Parrondo's paradox! (Harmer, Gregory P., and Abbott, Derek; "Losing Strategies Can Win by Farrondo's Paradox," Nature, 402:864, 1999. Anonymous; "Losing to ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 62 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf128/sf128p15.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Different Sort of Crop Circle Ball lightning reports are very common, but here is one worth recording because of its unusual physical effects. It was investigated and reported by O. Stummer. In May or June of 1988 or 1989 around 2 P.M . CEST, Mr. Alois Fuehrer, a farmer of 38 years from Jungschlag, a small village south of Ottenschlag, northern Lower Austria, 850 meters above sea level, returned early from fieldwork because a heavy thunderstorm moved in from the north-west. Fuehrer stood in the open on a wooden plank at the rear of the diesel tractor driven by his father. The vehicle ... passed the last Ottenschlag houses southbound, when he noticed a falling object. It was round, 20 centimeters across, and "seemed to come down like a toy balloon", vertical, soundless, without rotation. It was brilliant white, a steady light, and had "something like a smoke trail". Only 20 to 30 meters to the right of the tractor and of the road, after 4 to 6 seconds, the object hit the surface of a green summer barley field, flashed up and "exploded with a loud, very high pitched bang". Mr. Fuehrer said "this was no thunder", and noticed no heat or pressure wave. However, what he felt caused panic--a tingling, and his hairs stood on end on his head, ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 57 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf128/sf128p11.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Burps of Death Not only did the poor dinosaurs have to contend with an asteroid impact and a lurch of the poles, but also with the possible ignition of voluminous methane burps. 65-million years ago. This was the time of the well-publicized, but still hypothetical, asteroid impact. It is said to have wreaked havoc on our wounded planet and, especially, the dinosaurs. Volcanos spewed out vast lava fields and filled the air with greenhouse gases and dust. It was a bad time for many life forms. Actually, It may have been far worse than generally advertised. In addition to the volcanic activity and climate ... whimper. (Day, Michael; "Hell on Earth," New Scientist, p. 5, November 20, 1999) 55 million years ago. Ten million years after the dinosaurs may have roasted in a global firestorm, another methane burp may have erupted from the oceans. This burp was slower and did not ignite but was just as lethal. It filled with atmosphere with a highly effective green-house: methane. The result was a pulse of global warming; as seen in a 5-7 -deg C increase in the temperature of ocean-bottom water during that period. Biological evidence for the event occurs in the skeletons of marine animals that litter the ocean sediments laid down in that lethal period. On the land, prior to the methane release, North America ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 47 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf128/sf128p09.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Archeometeorology (Top) Even with hazy viewing, the six brightest Pleiads are usually visible. (Bottom) With good seeing more of the stars come into view. Ancient farmers the world over counted off the seasons and fixed planting times by watching the stars and the sun. But the stars can also help forecast the weather, even though they have no influence over it. We'll call this unique sort of archeoastronomy: "archeometeorology." Farmer-astronomers in the drought-prone regions of the Andes learned how, after what must have been centuries of sky-watching, to wring rainfall predictions from observations of the Pleiades. ... Andean farmers knew from experience that an El Nino was on the way. This betokened reduced rainfall and told them to postpone the planting of their potatoes by 4-6 weeks for best yields. The critical observations were made between June 13 and 24, when the Pleiades shine brightly just before dawn over the northeastern horizon. At this low angle, the presence of the subvisual cirrus has an obvious effect on the brightness of the stars in the cluster, as indicated in the figure. Some of the lesser stars seem to disappear altogether. The visibility effect itself is rather subtle. It is remarkable enough that it was noticed at all by ancient peoples, much more so was their making the obscure connection to future weather. (Orlove, Benjamin S., et al; "Forecasting Andean ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 47 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf128/sf128p00.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Water Signposts, Ritual Paths The high, desloate, and sere plains of western South America are an ideal medium upon which to inscribe immense pictographs. Die-straight lines several miles long and a few yards wide were made centuries ago on Peru's Nazca Plain by simply removing off to the side the rocky veneer of the plain's surface. Less than an inch of rain falls each year there -- not enough to wash out of word of what was written 2,000 years ago. Actually, no words as such are inscribed, rather there are huge biomorphs (for example, a pelican 1,000 feet long ... oriented parallel to the flow of surface water. Seashells and ceremonial drinking vessels have been excavated near the trapezoids, suggesting water-connected rituals. Fossil footpaths follow many of the Nazca lines. Accumulating evidence has led many archeologists and anthropologists to conclude that some of the Nazca lines are ritual pathways, meant to be walked upon and to lead processions to spots where prayers for more water would be most effective. The geoglyphs, however, remain mysterious. (McClintock, Jack; "The Nasca Lines Solution," Discover, 21:74, December 2000.) Comments. The Nazca lines have not been neglected in past newsletters. See SF#47 and SF#63. Ritual processions like those hypothesized for the Nazca Plain resemble thosethought to have taken place along Avebury's avenue, ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 38 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf134/sf134p00.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects I Must Go Down To The Goo Again!With apologies to Masefield for mangling a line of his poetry. it really is tine to go down to the sea and examine its microstructure. The ocean is not what it seems. When you snorkel in crystal-clear Caribbean waters, you do not sense that you are swimming in a very thin jelly. In reality, ocean water is filled with a complex tangle of microscopic strands and particles of gel. According to F. A zam , an oceanographer at Scripps: It's not in the textbooks or in the classical explanations. The gel's existence fundamentally changes our ideas ... the microcosmos in which sea organisms live. It has added another layer of complexity that people are only now starting to consider in the context of whole ocean systems . . Gel is like the dark matter of the sea. While sea gel does not impede the snorkeler, . it does herd microbes into clumps or microniches . which we cannot see either. These microbes. in effect, exist in a tangled. 3-D mesh that affects not only their movements but also those of their prey and predators. A few statistics confirm the amazing complexity of the seawater microcosm and its incredibly high microbe population density. The long strands in the oceanic gel are mostly crosslinked polysaccharides. If the polysaccharides in 1 milliliter of seawater could be placed end-to-end, they would stretch out to ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 37 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf134/sf134p09.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Incroyable?" Incredible?" Yes, if what paleoastronoer C. Jegues-Wolkiewiez claims is borne out by further study. The venue here is the Lascaux Cave in France where, some 17,000 years ago, Cro-Magnon artists drew incredibly expressive portraits of animals in the glare of torches. Its is in this cave's dark recesses that Jegues-Wolkiewiez sees two phenomena that could overturn our view of the Cro-Magnon culture. First, he claims that some of the animal paintings are really based upon star configurations. In effect, humans 17,000 years ago were constructing a zodiac of sorts. This was ... 10,000 years be-for the ancient Babylonians laid out their first zodiacs. For example, Jegues-Wolkiewiez asserts that the painting of a bull in Lascaux is drawn and positioned such that it mirrors a group of stars in the constellation Scorpio. He identifies several other like "congruences." Cro-Magnons, it seems, were astute observers of the heavens and attempted to make some sense out of the star configurations they saw. Cro-Magnon artist painting a zodiac figure on cave ceiling. His assistant holds a star map to guide him. The second claim of Jegues-Wolkiewiez notes that on the summer solstice the last rays of the setting sun penetrate the cave and illuminate a bison painted in red. He believes this is no accident, and that, 17,000 ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 36 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf134/sf134p01.htm
... 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 ... 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 ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 26 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf129/sf129p08.htm
... Their physical appearance; (2 ) Their anomalous behavior; and (3 ) Their unusual talents and faculties. Typical subjects covered: Mirror-image twins * The sacral spot * The supposed human aura * Baldness among musicians * Human tails and horns * Human behavior and solar activity * Cycles of religiousness * Cyclicity of violent collective human behavior * Handedness and longevity * Wolf-children * The "Mars Effect" * Telescopic vision *Dermo-optical perception * Hearing under anesthesia * Human navigation sense * Asymmetry in locomotion * Sex-ratio variations Comments From Reviews: "All I can say to Corliss is carry on cataloging". New Scientist View Cart Buy online via PayPal with MC/Visa/Amex 304 pages, hardcover, $19.95, 52 illus., 3 indexes ... 1992. 548 references, LC 91-68541. ISBN 0-915554-26-7 , 7x10. Biological Anomalies: Humans II: A Catalog of Biological Anomalies Sorry, Out of print The second Catalog volume on human biological anomalies focuses upon the "internal" machinery of the body (1 ) Its major organs; (2 ) Its support structure (the skeleton); and (3 ) Its vital subsystems (the central nervous system and the immune system) Typical subjects covered: Enigma of the fetal graft * Phantom limbs * Blood chimeras * Anomalous human combustion * Bone shedders * Skin shedders * "Perfection" of the eye * Dearth of memory traces * Sudden increase of hominid brain size * Health and the weather * Periodicity of epidemics * Extreme longevity * AIDS anomalies * ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 64 - 10 Oct 2021 - URL: /sourcebk.htm
