246 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 16: Summer 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Earthquake Lights And Crustal Deformation Hedervari supports the hypothesis that some earthquake lights, particularly those preceding strong regional quakes, are caused by the release and ignition of gases from the stressed rocks. Several curious features of earthquake lights favor this assertion: Prequake lights are regional in character corresponding to the widespread flexing of the strata. (In the 1933 Japanese quake, earthquake lights were seen along a 1000-km arc); There is no correlation between the earthquake epicenter and the location of earthquake lights. (In the 1977 Romania quake, the epicenter was east of Cluj but the earthquake lights lit up the western horizon. (Hedervari, Peter; "The Possible Correlations between Crustal Deformations Prior to Earthquakes and Earthquake Lights," Seismological Society of America, Bulletin, 71:371, 1981.) Comment. In essense, Hedervari is saying that earthquake lights often do not occur where rock stresses are greatest and that the piezoelectric effect may not be the whole story. Reference. Many examples of earthquake lights are presented in our Catalog: Lightning, Auroras, in category GLD8. To order this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #16, Summer 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What causes the sunspot cycle?Even since the sunspot cycle was discovered, a few people have been trying to prove that it is caused by the influence of the planets, particularly Jupiter with its 11.86-year period. A century of various correlations has convinced almost no one. John P. Bagby has now introduced a new piece to the puzzle of solar-system cyclic behavior. While searching for possible perturbations of the planets due to a tenth major planet or a dark massive solar companion (MSC), he discovered that the perihelia of the outer planets (orbital points closest to the sun) were being disturbed with an average period of 11.2 years. This is almost exactly the sunspot period. This serendipitous finding caused Bagby to wonder whether some common influence was causing not only the sunspot cycle and those perturbations in outer-planet perihelia but also cyclic volcanic and seismic activity on earth. Some correlations indeed do indicate a sun-earth link of some sort. Bagby suggests two possibilities: (1 ) Mutual resonance effects between the planets, (2 ) The effects of a massive solar companion. (Bagby, John P.; "New Support for the Planetary Theory of Sunspots," privately circulated paper, 1983.) Comment. Even "farther out" is the thought that gravitational waves or some unrecognized influence from the galaxy or beyond causes the whole solar system to "ring." In ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Subtle Is The Virus "Without causing noticeable structural damage, a virus administered to laboratory mice has been found to dis rupt hormone production in a particular type of pituitary cell. This novel observation -- that viruses are able to injure their hosts in ways not previously suspected -- may trigger a far-reaching search for viruses as causes of many unexplained human diseases." Some of the other types of diseases mentioned as possible consequences of virus infection are those involving the faulty manufacture of insulin, neurotransmitters, hormones, and immune system regulators. (Miller, J.A .; "Subtle is the Virus: Cells Stay Intact," Science News, 125: 70, 1984.) Comment. This item dwells on the negative aspects of vial infections. Indeed, we automatically assume every infection by any virus or bacterium to be bad for the organism. This may not be so. Now that we have discovered that viruses can cause bodily changes without damaging the cells of the infected organism, we should ask whether favorable physical changes might not be caused by viruses, but not recognized as such. Going a few steps further: Is intelligence a disease? Could evolution be accelerated or directed through the mediation of viruses? See below for more on this. From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 Behind magnetic flip-flops The earth's magnetic field frequently reverses its polarity. Such flips can of-ten be correlated with climate changes, global ice volumes, sea-floor spreading rates, and deposition of black shales, tektite falls, biological extinctions, etc. The frustrating thing is the lack of clear-cut cause and effect; that is, how these phenomena are linked physically to the geomagnetic field. Part of the problem is that we can only guess at how the geomagnetic field is generated. Let us assume that the earth's magnetic field is created by dynamo action in the planet's fluid core. P. Olson finds analytically that the core dynamo may reverse sign due to fluctuations in core turbulence caused by two competing energy sources: heat loss at the mantle-core boundary and progressive growth of the inner core. In concept, the heat lost at the core-mantle boundary might be linked to climate changes and sea-floor spreading. Taking a different tack, D. Gubbins has investigated the possibility that field reversals are triggered by ice ages and meteorite impacts (tektite falls). The physical mechanism here would be the increase in pressure upon the core, which affects the rate of freezing in the outer core, and thus the power available to the core dynamo. Gubbins found that these externally caused pressure changes were too small to explain the polarity changes. However, the parameters involved ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Case Against Impact Extinctions The neocatastrophists seem to be getting overly smug with their iridium-rich deposits at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Is there really incontrovertible evidence that a large asteroid or comet hit the earth at this point in history, causing widespread biological extinctions? To add some perspective, Leigh M. Van Valen has tossed 15 arguments against impact extinctions on the scales. Ten of these are reproduced below, as taken from Nature. More de-tails may be found in Paleobiology, 10: 121, 1984. Freshwater life was unaffected; In Montana and its vicinity, the last occurrence of dinosaurs was detectably below the crucial boundary; Transitional floras also exist below the boundary; Apparently extraterrestrial material exists below the boundary; The expected effects of eliminating atmospheric ozone are missing; The Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is coincident with a very large marine regression, suggesting a nonextraterrestrial cause; Marsupials but not placentals were nearly eliminated, while most aboreal multituberculates (a type of vertebrate) and birds survived; The predicted cooling effects on the earth are absent; The predicted effects of acid rain cannot be found; and Assuming a marine impact, no turbidites can be found; assuming a land impact, no large terrestrial crater has been discovered. (Van Valen, Leigh M.; "The Case against Impact Extinctions," Nature, 311:17, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . ...
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... Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Booms Startle Arkansas "A series of mysterious loud booms reported by residents of Hope, De Queen, Fulton, Mela, Ola, Baresville, Little Rock and other Arkansas cities will remain mysterious, at least for a while. Authorities are baffled about their source. "The noises, which have been described as sounding like an explosion, a sonic boom, a book falling off a shelf and a hand pounding on a wooden door, apparently have been occurring since the beginning of the recent cold weather. Inquiries have produced a number of theories and guesses but no plausible explanations." No supersonic aircraft could be implicated, so the most popular view was that the extreme cold weather caused house timbers to crack. (Anonymous; "Mysterious Booms Heard around State Baffle Authorities; Some Blame Ice Cold," Arkansas Gazette, December 24, 1983. Plus other Arkansas papers of December and January. Cr. L. Farish) Comment. If popping house timbers were the cause, similar reports would be expected from other states every winter. The Arkansas episode echoes the famous 1977-1978 series of booms heard all along the eastern coast of North America. These detonations also occurred during cold weather and were blamed, by some, on the Concorde SST. From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 26: Mar-Apr 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Punching A Hole In The Asteroid Hypothesis Scientists have long searched for a cause for the profound geological and biological changes that apparently occurred between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. When an iridium-rich layer was found in several areas at this important boundary, many claimed it as proof of an asteroid impact or some other catastrophism that would nicely explain the massive worldwide changes that occurred. With this preamble in mind, consider the following abstract from an article in Science: "Analyses of the clay mineralogy of samples from the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary layer at four localities show that the boundary clay is neither mineralogically exotic nor distinct from locally derived clays above and below the boundary. The significant ejecta component in the clay that is predicted by the asteroid impact scenario was not detected." (Rampino, Michael R., and Reynolds, Robert C.; "Clay Mineralogy of the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Clay," Science, 219:1983.) From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 26: Mar-Apr 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Mysterious Copy Of The Grave Creek Stone The so-called Morristown Tablet was apparently discovered near Morristown, Tennessee. A symbol-by-symbol comparison with the famous Grave Creek Stone reveals that both are inscribed with the same message, probably in a Semetic language. Barry Fell renders the message thus: "Tumulus in honor of Tadach. His wife caused this engraved tile to be inscribed." Why would anyone wish to make a second copy of such a message? The Grave Creek Stone was associated with a burial in West Virginia. Could there have been two Tadachs? Are either or both hoaxes? (Buchanan, Donal; "Report on the Morristown Tablet," Early Sites Research Society, Bulletin, 10:22, no. 1, 1982.) Comment. The real anomaly, assuming authenticity, is the presence of Semetic inscriptions in ancient American graves. Reference. The Grave Creek Stone and other anomalous epigraphy may be found in our Handbook: Ancient Man. To order, visit: here . The Grave Creek Stone From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The moon's moonlets The great lunar basins are not arranged randomly. They occur in bands -- not one band but several. How can this geometry be explained. One hypothetical scenario has the primitive moon surrounded by many moonlets 60 miles and larger in diameter, plying equatorial orbits that are unstable. As the moonlets' orbits decayed, some crashed into the moon's equatorial regions, blasting out a band of huge craters. The force of the impacts also caused the lunar crust to slide over the still-liquid core by as much as 90 . When the next group of moonlets crashed, they gouged out a new belt of craters and shifted the crust still more. Magnetic measurements of lunar rocks tend to confirm that the lunar crust did indeed shift by large angles -- several times. (Anonymous; "Did the Moon Have Moonlets?" Science Digest, 92:20, January 1984.) Comment. Such events could also have happened on earth, which would account for tropical-zone fossils being found at the present-day poles. From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Incredible Phosphorescent Display On The China Sea 1720. Four rotating light wheels. Actually the spokes extended to the horizon from all around the four hubs. April 29, 1982. China Sea. The m.v . Siam encountered -- or perhaps caused -- a most baffling display of marine phosphorescence lasting some 2.5 hours. The complete report is 6 pages long, with 8 diagrams, so only the highlights can be reported here. As is often the case, this display began with parallel phosphorescent bands (2 sets) rushing toward the ship at about 40 mph. They were 50-100 cm above the sea surface. The bands then changed into two rotating wheels; then a third wheel formed. All three rotated counterclockwise, with their hubs 300, 300, and 150 meters from the ship. The spokes stretched to the horizon. The display ceased for about 20 minutes and recommenced with four systems of onrushing parallel bands, which soon metamorphosed into four rotating wheels. Radar, visible light (from an Aldis lamp), and engine revolution appeared to have no effect on the spectacle. Next, evenly distributed, circular, flashing patches of brilliant blue-white light appeared all around the ship out to a distance of about 150 meters. This system of patches flashed away simultaneously the wheel display. The patches varied from 15-60 cm in diameter, and flashed 114 times per minute. When an ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Ocean Full Of Viruses "A decade ago, veterinarian Alvin Smith, now at Oregon State University, found that a virus causing lesions and spontaneous abortions in California sea lions was 'indistinguishable' from one that ravaged pigs nationwide in 1952. New varieties of the culprit -- called a calicivirus -- have since turned up in diverse hosts: whales, cats, snakes and even primates. To reach such a variety of hosts, they either jump from organism to organism, Smith proposes, or they escape from bubbles popping on the ocean surface, waft ashore and enter a food chain. If he is right, the seas may be a bottomless reservoir for viruses -- and our attempts to combat diseases on land may be nullified by legions of new strains waiting to come ashore. In fact, some flu viruses are said to be spread by wild ducks." (Anonymous; "Are the World's Oceans a Viral Breeding Ground," Science Digest, 92:20, February 1984.) Comment. We leave it to the reader to fit this piece of the jigsaw to the preceding and following pieces. From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Rise Of Astronomical Catastrophism After being ridiculed for well over a century, astronomical catastrophism is now coming into its own. First, there was the admission that a few small craters, like Meteor Crater in Arizona, just might be of meteoric origin; then, more and bigger craters (astroblemes) were recognized; and, recently, the discovery of the iridium-rich layer at the Cretaceious-Tertiary boundary has made the subject very popular, as evidenced by the following three items: A long, very thorough and scientific review of geological and biological changes caused by meteor strikes throughout the earth's history. (McLaren, Digby J.; "Bolides and Biostratigraphy," Geological Society of America, Bulletin, 94:313, 1983.) A shorter, popular version of the above. (McLaren, Digby; "Impacts That Changed the Course of Evolution," New Scientist, 100:588, 1983.) Evidence is growing that the collision of planetary material with the Earth can profoundly affect local geology, and that impacts of very large meteorites may have influenced the evolution of the Earth and the life that exists upon it. This quotation is from the lead-in to the article references below, which also has a nice world map of major impact sites over 1 km in diameter. (Grieve, Richard; "Impact Craters Shape Planet Surfaces," New Scientist, 100:516, 1983 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wanted: disasters with a 26-million-year period J. Sepkoskiand and D. Raup, two researchers at the University of Chicago, have drawn up graphs showing the numbers of families of marine organisms that have vanished from the fossil rec ord over the eons. From this overview of manifest mass extinction emerged a puzzling and potentially profound pattern. Roughly every 26 million years over the last 250 million years, the number of extinctions jumped well above the background level. Some cyclic phenomenon seems to have been killing off life forms on a systematic basis. But no natural 26-million-year cycles are known although meteors and comets are favored causes of mass extinctions these days, they display no such cyclic period. (Simon, C.; "Pattern in Mass Extinctions," Science News, 124:212, 1983.) Comment. Instead of looking outward to astronomical catastrophism, perhaps we should look inward. The earth itself may undergo cyclic paroxysms; or life might undergo intrinsic phases of decline and rejuvenation. Periodic events in the evolutionary time scale. The 300-million-year cycle shown involves alternations between "icehouse" conditions (O ) and "greenhouse" conditions (G ). These may be due to changes in heat convention within the earth. From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Quick Quasar Quasar 4C29.45 threatens to make quasars even harder to understand. Quasars have always appeared to emit too much energy for their size; that is, our present knowledge of physics does not provide us with a mechanism for generating such huge energy densities. Now, quasar 4C29.45 comes along and pulsates on time scales of 30 minutes and less. These pulsations are sharp and not spread out timewise, implying that quasar 4C29.45 must be smaller than 30 light-minutes in size -- otherwise the disturbance causing the pulsation would have to travel faster than light. On the night of April 10, 1981, the situation (already bad) worsened, when brightness jumps of 0.2 magnitude occurred nearly instantaneously. Conclusion: quasar 4C29.45 may be only lightseconds in diameter, which should really by physically impossible. The anonymous author of this item ventures that: ". .. since the real nature of quasars is unknown, it is uncertain how they can or cannot behave." (Anonymous; "A Quick Quasar," Sky and Telescope, August 1984.) Comment. Perhaps we have been naive in thinking that the laws of physics determined how things can and cannot behave. Evidently these laws are not as secure as we have been led to believe! Note in passing: the quasar impasse would be easier to bridge if quasars were very close instead of as distant as their ...
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... , the genome: ". .. is a highly sensitive organ of the cell that monitors genomic activities and corrects common errors, senses unusual and unexpected events, and responds to them, often by restructuring the genome. We know about the components of genomes that could be made available for such restructuring. We know nothing, however, about how the cell senses danger and instigates responses to it that often are truly remarkable." Thus Barbara McClintock ends the paper she delivered in Stockholm when she received a Nobel Prize in 1983. Most of McClintock's paper reviews her pioneering work with the corn genome, but she adds some examples of other genomic responses to external stresses. One such stress is applied to an oak tree when a wasp lays its egg in a leaf. The stress causes the oak genome to reprogram itself and construct a wholly new and unplanned plant structure to house and feed the developing insect. Some of these structures (galls) are very elaborate and are precisely tailored to each different wasp species. From such examples, it is apparent that the genome of an organism somehow perceives stresses and reacts to them -- often in completely unanticipated ways. The stresses may be mechanical, thermal, chemical; in fact, almost anything. McClintock's conclusion is: ". .. that stress, and the genome's reaction to it may underlie many formations of new species." (McClintock, Barbara; "The Significance of Responses of the Genome to Challenge," Science, 226:792, 1984.) Comment. The implications here are ...
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... Sourcebook Subjects When The Earth Shifted Gears No one really knows just how the terrestrial magnetic field is generated or why it has reversed its direction so frequently in past geological time. Per-haps there is a clue in the following correlation: "The Mesozoic-Cenozoic histories of reversals in the earth's magnetic field and of periods of widespread anoxia in the ocean basins show a remarkable correlation; periods of black-shale deposition (' anoxic events') occur during lengthy periods without magnetic reversals (' quiet periods'). My assembly of published work indicates a remote connection between quiet periods and anoxic events and suggests its form: Magnetic quiet periods coincide with fast seafloor spreading. During these periods, buoyant spreading ridges displace seawater into broad shelves, thus decreasing earth's albedo and causing global warming. Temperature gradients, and thus density gradients, from pole to equator decrease in surface waters, and the deep ocean currents of oxygenated polar waters wane. Oxygen minimum zones intensify and widen; anoxic conditions throughout entire basins are indicated by black shales deposited in the deep sea. These relations thus suggest that the earth's interior processes and its climates are related and their status recorded by both magnetic polarity and anoxic event chronologies of the earth." (Force, Eric R.; "A Relation among Geomagnetic Reversals, Seafloor Spreading Rate, Paleoclimate, and Black Shales," Eos, 65:18, 1984.) Comment. But what stopped and restarted the magnetic reversals and other concurrent processes? Strangely enough, the quiet, anoxic periods do not seem to coincide ...
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... Abstract: "We studied the birth months of 3,556 schizophrenics at a Minnesota Veteran's Administration hospital before and after instituting corrections for year-to-year across-month variations in birthrates in our expected values and the age-prevalence bias toward the January-March seasonality effect described in some earlier studies. Finally, we reanalyzed our data on a subset of patients in whom the ageincidence effect should be minimal. Even after these corrections the results supported the contention that the winter birthrate for schizophrenics is excessive, at least in severe climates." (Watson, Charles G., et al; "Season of Birth and Schizophrenia: A Response to the Lewis and Griffin Critique," Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 91:120, 1982.) Comment. What could possibly cause this seasonal effect, assuming it withstands scrutiny? From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 584-day canonical cycle on track with its true synodic period of 583.92 days. Their predictions of the position of Venus were accurate to 2 hours in 481 years! Not bad for a civilization that did not seem to have any conception that the planets revolved around the sun. The Maya, in fact, did not seem to care what made heavenly bodies move; they only wished to predict their appearance accurately. Instead of developing celestial mechanics based on gravitation and laws of motion, as we have done, they were content with numerical algorithms; that is, ways of computing a desired result. Their astonishingly accurate predictions of Venus, solar eclipses, and other astronomical phenomena evolved from cycles of numbers advancing each day like interlocking gear teeth. These algorithms gave them no insight into cause and effect, but they got the right answers. They needed no physical laws, just patterns of numbers. It was a different way of comprehending and dealing with the universe. (Aveni, Anthony F.; "Native American Astronomy," Physics Today, 37:24, June 1984.) Reference. For much more on archeoastronomy, consult our Handbook Ancient Man. Details here . An early drawing of the Big Horn medicine wheel in Colorado. It is actually not quite this regular. From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... strain eased in the far south of California only to reassert itself in a few weeks. This strange relaxation of strain seemed to propagate slowly across southern California, as seen by other instruments farther north. As the wave of relaxation moved ponderously along, like a slow flexure of the earth's strata, microearthquakes almost disappeared while the flow of radon from the ground increased, as one might expect. When the strain reappeared, radon flow diminished and a rash of microearthquakes were detected. It took about a year for the strain wave, called a "seismic ghost" by the geophysicists, to flow north from the Imperial Valley into the Los Angeles area. (Alexander, George; "Quakewatch," Science 82, 3:38, September 1982.) Comment. Something had to cause this curious disturbance; and where is it located now? From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of the information to change also in such a way as to match the physics. It is this process that is responsible for our present existence, and it is the one which our descendants would be fated to continue." To continue his search for the ultimate, Hoyle recognizes that, contrary to what transpires in the inorganic world, life as-a -whole is actually gaining order and information. He sees life leading the universe forward to a remarkable future: "That biological systems are able in some way to utilise the opposite time-sense in which radiation propagates from future to past. Biology works backwards in time. Living matter responds to quantum signals from the future, instead of the Universe being committed to increasing disorder and decay, the opposite could be true. The ultimate cause being a source of information, an intelligence if you like, placed in the remote future." (Halstead, Beverly; "Fred Hoyle's Gods," New Scientist, 100:940, 1983.) Comment. In most religions, the great act of creation by a supreme intelligence occurred in the distant past. Hoyle sees this supreme intelligence residing in the future beckoning us on. No wonder the the book was treated harshly. Hoyla and his colleague, N.C . Wickramasinghe, believe this spectrum of GC-IRS6, which closely follows the laboratory spectrum of the bacterium E. Coli, is strong evidence for the presence of bacteria in space. From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... and a mixed sample of earth rocks. However, in Denmark, the boundary is marked by the so-called Fish Clay, which is almost pure smectite -- a single mineral and not a mixture of terrestrial rock flour. If it wasn't an asteroid impact, why the iridium concentration? At least three hypotheses have been proposed to circumvent the asteroid debacle: (1 ) volcanic activity; (2 ) a concentration of micrometeorites, thousands of tons of which fall each day, through extreme reduction of sedimentation; and (3 ) selective enrichment of iridium by an anoxic environment acting upon kerogenand pyrite-rich clay. In short, some geologists at least do not find the asteroid hypothesis compelling at the moment. (Hallam, Tony; "Asteroids and Extinction -- No Cause for Concern," New Scientist, p. 30, November 8, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Why don't we all have cancer?Biologists have just found that the difference between a normal human gene responsible for manufacturing a specific protein and a gene causing cancer is the replacement of a single nucleotide by another in a very long string of nucleotides. This is a very delicate situation. The difference between cancer and no cancer is simply too tiny. Given the high frequency of random changes (mutations), we should all have cancer. One implication is that humans (and other animals, too) have come up with some method of preventing or correcting these minor mutations -- otherwise we would have become extinct long ago. No one knows what this mechanism is or why it sometimes fails. (Anonymous; "More Speculation about Oncogenes," Nature, 300;213, 1982.) Reference. Other anomalies of cancer are cataloged in BHH23-35 in: Biological Anomalies: Humans II. For a description of this volume, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 30 metres) above the adjacent land; it is quite steep in parts on the north side and stretches for about 1 miles (2 .5 kilometres). One day, at about noon, I was inside my cottage when suddenly I heard a very loud roaring sound, not unlike an express train. I ran outside to see what it was, but saw nothing; the noise was something like the sound of a falling bomb. I thought no more of this until the following morning when taking my dog for a walk. Then I saw two large circles, about 25 feet (7 .6 metres) in diameter, of flattened barley in a nearby field. A neighbor who lives on the north side of the ridge had also heard the roaring noise but could find no cause for it. I wondered if we had heard some part of an aircraft or satellite, or even a small meteor, coming down and, with the local farmer, we investigated the circles, but found no debris at all -- just flattened barley. The farmer said that sometimes growing conditions made barley collapse at its base, though he could not understand the almost perfect circle." Further investigation turned up people who had seen a whirlwind in the area at the time. (Anonymous; "Mystery Spirals in Cerealfields," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 8:216, 1983.) Comment. UFO enthusiasts usually attribute such circles of flattened crops to flying saucers, but apparently whirlwinds are adequate explanations. However, the noise and action of the reputed whirlwind ...
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... dentists, an E.N .T . surgeon, and a family practice physician who had prescribed two series of antibiotics, then a powerful mouthwash that had denuded the epithellium of her tongue, resulting in severe pain and diet restriction. It took 16 weeks for the tongue to heal. B.O . came to me in January of 1983, when she felt the symptom had worsened." H.P . Golan, who treated B.O . (sic), employed hypnotic techniques in which the patient was first shown the power of her own mind over her body. B.O . responded well, and was soon able to produce temperature changes in her hand and glove anesthesia. "It was explained to her that her physical symptom was an expression of emotional problems caused by stress. The feeling of her hand temperature change and the view of her hand anesthetized had made her realize physiological control was possible over one part of her body. It was explained to her that stress often causes excess acid production in the stomach, which can cause bad breath. If she could control her hand physically, she could control the excess physical secretions in her stomach." B.O . did just that. Case closed! (Golan Harold P.; "Using Hypnotic Phenomena for Physiological Change," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 28:157, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #48, NOV-DEC 1986 . 1986-2000 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 Expanding Phosphorescent Rings May 9, 1983. Gulf of Oman. Aboard the m.v . Mahsuri. "At 1650 GMT, a pale green glow was seen to emanate from the horizon ahead. This gave the appearance of strong moonlight upon the surface of the water. The moon, however, was not in evidence. At 1700 GMT, rapid flashes of light were observed sweeping across the sea directly ahead of the vessel, giving the initial impression of a sudden increase of wind speed causing excessive spray. By 1715 GMT, the vessel was totally surrounded by completely random movements of light as far as the eye could see. The onset of this phenomenon was so rapid, not to say eerie, that the Master was called to the bridge to witness the event. For the next 15 minutes the sea was at a height of activity, displaying several systems of the most unusual bioluminescence. The most significant of these were what appeared to be Phosphorescent Wheels, which, although they did not seem to rotate, originated from a central hub and spread out rings in rapid succession, forming concentric circles. This was pointed out by many of those who observed them as being similar to the instance of a stone being dropped into a quiet pond and causing waves to spread out. In this case each wave crest was a band of fantastic light. Each wheel would last for a couple of minutes, continually flashing out bands of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Some English Meteorological Anomalies August 16, 1985. Annesley Woodhouse, England. A "scorching" tornado. "What was interesting about the storm was not only the damage it caused, but also the type of damage. After touching down the tornado uprooted a large oak tree, 15 metres high, in Lawn Road (luckily the residents of the house were away on a holiday). The tornado proceeded to rip tiles off several roofs, demolished completely several greenhouses, and next scorched a 4-metre section of gable on the south side of a house in Forest Street (number 9). The gable section was scorched so badly that the gable had already been repainted when I called, although the evidence could still be seen." (Matthews, Peter; "Lightning inside a Tornado?" Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 10:375, 1985.) July 1, 1952. Nottingham, England. Unusual features of a spectacular thunderstorm. Some recently reviewed records of a great thunderstorm mention two interesting anomalies: Hailstones 2 inches long shaped like cigarettes Three successive balls of lightning corkscrewing down from the sky. (Meaden, George T.; "Cigarette-Shaped Hailstones and Spiral Descent of Ball Lightning," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 10:332, 1985.) Reference. The foregoing anomalies are discussed in our Catalog of Anomalies. See GWT2 in Tornados, Dark ...
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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 Fungus Manufactures Phony Blueberry Flowers Mummy-berry disease is a fungus that preys on blueberries. It propagates itself by turning blueberry leaves into whitish, bell-like structures resembling true blueberry flowers. Bees deceived by this ruse land on the fake blossoms, pause for a moment to sip a sugary fluid (fortuitously) exuding from lesions on the leaves, accidentally pick up some fungus spores, and then fly off to true blueberry blossoms. The transferred spores infect other blueberry plants, causing them to produce white mummy-berries rather than blueberries. When spring comes round, the fungus-filled mummy-berries release the fungus to the leaves, and the cycle continues. (Anonymous; "A Fungus That Courts with Phony Flowers," Science 85, 6:10, September 1985.) Comment. The explanations usually served up for such remarkable adaptations are: (1 ) It is the product of chance and natural selection; and (2 ) The Creator made things this way. Are there not other possibilities? Perhaps the fungus somehow stole the blueprints for the flower from the blueberry's genome; i.e ., genetic endowment. After all, viruses are always subverting cell machinery. From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 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 The sausalito hum "The mysterious underwater hum that has annoyed Sausalito's houseboat community for the past 11 summers is back, and investigators still do not know the cause. 'It's a loud and audible mechanical raspy hum,' said Waldo Point Harbormaster Ted Rose, who said the vexing noise sounded like an electric razor. 'It sounds like this mzmzmzmzmzmzmzm,' Rose said. 'Sometimes it gets so loud you have to talk above it. It can drown out conversations and wake people from a dead sleep.' For reasons no one understands, the noise can be heard only from about 8 p.m . until sunrise, and it goes silent from late September until mid-April, when it begins humming again through the summer." Acoustical engineers from Berkeley could not pinpoint the source of the sound with the help of instruments and a diver. Biologists believe the noise is made by the singing toad-fish, also called the plainfin midshipman. (Leery, Kevin, "Sausalito's Weird Hum Is Back, " San Francisco Chronicle, July 29, 1985. Cr. P. Bartindale. Also: Anderson, fan; "Humming Fish Disturb the Peace, " New Scientist, p. 64, September 12, 1985.) (See Category GSMI in EARTHQUAKES, TIDES, UNIDENTIFIED SOUNDS for more instances of underwater sounds, especially those mysterious sounds heard near the mouth of the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Backtracking along the paluxy: or is there a deeper mystery?Ostensibly, the facts are as follows: Several series of tracks in the sedimentary rocks along the Paluxy River, in Texas, which many creationists have considered to be of human origin, have recently changed appearance, apparently due to erosion. "Due to an unknown cause, certain of the prints once labeled human are taking on a completely different character. The prints in the trail which I have called the 'Taylor Trail,' consisting of numerous readily visible impressions in a left-right sequence, have changed into what appear to be tridactyl (three-toed prints, evidently of some unidentified dinosaur. The changes in the impressions themselves are mostly confined to lengthening in the downriver direction. The most significant change, however, is that surrounding the toe area. In almost each of the prints in the trail, three large 'toes' have appeared, similar to nearby dinosaur tracks. These toes, typically, are coloration phenomena only, with no impressions, in most cases. Frequently the 'mud pushup' surrounding the original elongated track is crossed by this red coloration. The shape of the entire track, including both impression and coloration, is unlike any known dinosaur print." J. Moore, the author of this article and a creationist, suggests that creationists no longer use the Paluxy tracks as evidence that humans and dinosaurs once coexisted. But he ...
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... the ground that a fresh airing of the long-standing discussion on lunar volcanism is appropriate, Eos offers this article, untouched by editors or referees, and awaits reply by readers." O'Keefe's article reviews considerable evidence supporting his two points: for Point One; crater dimensions and frequencies, craters with dark floors, lunar soil constituents; and, for Point Two; tektite analysis. He also remarks that the ages of the terrestrial tektite fields correlate with biological extinctions. This can be explained in terms of lunar volcanism as follows: lunar volcanos expel material violently, some of which escapes the moon's gravitational field and is drawn toward earth. Some falls as tektites; the rest forms a temporary ring around the earth. The ring shadows parts of the earth, causing radical climate changes and, as a consequence, biological extinctions. (O 'Keefe, John A.; "The Coming Revolution in Planetology," Eos, 66:89, 1985.) Comment. The Editor's Note does not really convey the depth of the antagonism in the controversy about tektite origin. From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 41: Sep-Oct 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Evolution's motor runs fast and quietly M. Kimura has been promulgating what he terms The Neutral Theory of Evolution. He concludes that "the most prev-alent evolutionary changes that have occurred at the molecular level, that is in the genetic material itself, since the origin of life on Earth are those that have been caused by random genetic drift rather than by positive Darwinian selection." Kimua maintains and can experimentally prove to some extent that the genetic material of all organisms changes rapidly and constantly. The genes change much more rapidly than scientists believed just a few years ago. We observe few if any changes at the phenotype level (organism morphology) because the overwhelming majority of these changes are neutral. They confer no significant advantage or disadvantage on the organism. In fact, Kimura and others have demonstrated that the fastest molecular evolution occurs in the least important genes. It is fastest of all in the pseudogenes or dead genes, which seem to have no discernable functions. In other words, the genetic engine is running, but the gears are in neutral! In Kimura's thinking, these molecular changes may eventually become important at the phenotype level if the environment changes or there is some other destabilizing influence. Kimura is the author of the 1983 book The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution. Although Kimura has some experimental support, his theory is not widely accepted. (Motoo Kimura; "The Neutral Theory of Molecular ...
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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 GREEN CLOUD WITH LIGHT RAYS "An account of a mysterious 'green cloud' sending out powerful shafts of light and flying in tandem with an airliner appeared in a Soviet newspaper today. The strange cloud was seen over Byelorussia by passengers and crew of a flight from Georgia to Tallinn, and by the crew of an airliner from Leningrad, passing 10 miles away according to Trud. Nikolai Zheltukhin, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, said the object was certainly very big. He rejected the idea that the green cloud was an image caused by far-off atmospheric changes because the airman had fixed its location from the shafts of light it sent to the ground." (Anonymous; "Mysterious 'Green Cloud' Appears near Airliner," Baltimore Sun, January 31, 1985, p. 4A.) From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... is estimated to have been at least 380 miles. It seems unlikely that a groundbased explosion could produce this kind of effect. It is surprising to us that no official data have been provided by government agencies and that such a significant observation from a region of demonstrated military sensitivity was, and still remains, a mystery." (McKenna, Daniel L., and Walker, Daniel A.; "Mystery Cloud: Additional Observations," Science, 234:412, 1986.) Evidently the mystery cloud mentioned above is only one in a long series: "Large icy clouds, similar to plumes of gas that rise over volcanoes, have appeared over islands along the coast of the Soviet Union during the past several years, baffling experts, who cannot explain what they are or what causes them. "The clouds dissipate in a few hours vanishing as mysteriously as they appear. "Among the plumes are a series of massive clouds that during the past four years have periodically swelled over Novaya Zemlya, the Arctic island long used by the Soviets for nuclear weapons tests. "However, there appears to be no correlation between the clouds and known Soviet tests, which are usually detected by Western governments. Further, non-governmental scientists said the 200-mile-long plumes appear to be many times larger than the largest conceivable nuclear explosion could produce." A NOAA satellite detected a large plume coming from the Arctic Ocean near Bennett Island, north of the Soviet Union, in 1983. Three distinct sources were found; one on the island and the other two about 9 ...
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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 Music In The Ear For three weeks a 70-year-old woman had been complaining about hearing music when there was no music within normal earshot. Since the woman wore a hearing aid in each ear, it was first thought that she might be picking up local radio stations; but a check showed that none was playing the repertoire she reported. Mostly she heard songs from the 1930s and 1940s. Finally, it was discovered that she was taking 12 aspirins a day. When this dosage was halved, the music stopped. Doctors have known that too much aspirin can cause ringing in the ears, but this is the first time that specific songs were induced. (Anonymous; "Stop the Music," Science News, 128:168, 1985.) Reference. Actually, the human ear does generate some sound. See BHO9 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans II. For more information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 41: Sep-Oct 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Scrapie Transmitted By Prions Scrapie is an infectious neurological disorder in sheep. The infectious agent has been isolated, but it consists only of geneless prions. Somehow, these prions, which are merely protein filaments, get into a sheep's brain and replicate themselves to cause scrapie. With no genetic material of their own, how do the prions multiply? Recent laboratory work suggests that the prions subvert a gene that normally dwells in the brain. With the help of this gene, an endless stream of prions emerges, and the animal is sick. In hamsters, which are employed in laboratory research on scrapie, a gene demarcated PrP has been implicated in scrapie. PrP is present in both healthy and infected hamster brains, but no one knows what its normal function is, if indeed it has one. (Anonymous; "Prion Gene," Scientific American, 253:60, July 1985.) Comment. One can make an immediate connection between the traitorous PrP genes in the hamster brains and the excess genetic material in humans and all life forms. Biologists commonly call excess genetic material "nonsense DNA" which only means that they haven't devined its purpose. But, as already sugested, these unused blueprints may have had some past purpose or will be called into action in the future. The purpose may be insidious, as in the case of scrapie, or vital to the organism's survival in some ...
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... May Be Lubricated By Heavy Rainfalls Some of our continent's most powerful earthquakes have shaken the eastern half rather than the Pacific states, where the edges of tectonic plates grind together. The devastating New Madrid and Charleston quakes did not occur at plate boundaries, and it is hard to find active faults to blame for the crustal commotion. A hint of a possible solution to the dilemma comes with the correlation of earthquakes with heavy rainfalls and high water tables. For example, the Charleston quake of 1886 was preceded by two years of unusually heavy rainfall followed by a short dry spell. Also, seismicity in the New Madrid (MO) area increases 6-9 months after the Mississippi has crested. The theory is that the added water penetrates deep into the earth where it lubricates faults, causing them to become active and jolt the surface above. (Weisburd, S.; "Trickle-Down Theory of Eastern Quakes," Science News, 129:165, 1986.) Comment. The above correlations and our inability to explain deep-focus earthquakes underscore our ignorance of the mantle. To illustrate, Soviet drillers have found fluids circulating through fractured rocks 11 kilometers down, where one would expect every thing to be sealed tight by the weight of the overlying sediments. From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 46: Jul-Aug 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Music Of The Genes "S . Ohno has cracked a new genetic code. The 58-year-old geneticist doesn't have the whole thing worked out yet, but when he sets the genes to music -- or music to genes -- some strange and wonderful things occur. To wit: "The SARC oncogene, a malignant gene first discovered in chickens, causes cancer in humans as well. When Ohno translated the gene into music, it sounded very much like Chopin's Funeral March. "An enzyme called phosphoglycerate kinase, which breaks down glucose, or sugar, in the body revealed itself to Ohno as a lullaby." Seeing this item is from a newspaper, it was nearly consigned to the wastebasket. But wait a moment, Susumo Ohno is a Distinguished Scientist at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA. Could there be something to it? Reading further; we find that Ohno believes that the structure of music seems to parallel that of the genes. He translates genes into music by assigning notes according to molecular weights. His ultimate goal is the discovery of some basic pattern (melody?) that governs all life. (Anonymous; "Scientist Tunes in to Gene Compositions," San Jose Mercury News, p. E1, May 13, 1986. Cr. P. Bartindale.) Comment. Not too long ago the ...
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... 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, but in our Catalogs similar phenomena are reported. For example, Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana, "explodes" at irregular intervals, changing color, killing fish, and releasing gases (GSD2-X17). We also have the sudden whitening of the Dead Sea (GHC4). Both of these phenomena are to be found in the Catalog Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . ...
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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 Everglades astrobleme?Astrobleme means "star wound," and the southern tip of Florida seems to have been wounded by an asteroid or some other celestial projectile. At a recent meeting of the Geological Society of America, E.J . Petuch proposed that the Everglades region received a direct hit from an asteroid about 36 million years ago. The Everglades region is a swampy, forested area surrounded by an oval-shaped system of ridges. Geologists usually maintain that the Everglades represent a collapse feature caused by groundwater dissolving away limestone. (Buildings and cars seem to be swallowed fairly regularly by Florida sinkholes.) Petuch disagrees with the collapse theory and points to the following evidence for an impact origin: 1. The presence of a strong positive magnetic anomaly; 2. Eocene formations, 40 million years old, are missing over the southern Everglades; 3. A network of fractures pervades rock layers older than Eocene; 4. High iridium concentrations, probably of extraterrestrial origin, exist at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary on nearby Barbados; and 5. The oval reef structure that seems to have grown around the impact area as sealevels rose. Some geologists do not concur with the asteroid theory, but they are all reviewing Florida's geological history in a new light. (Weisburd, S.; "Asteroid Origin of the Everglades?" Science News, 128:294, 1985.) Reference. Very large craters and astroblemes ...
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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 Does the aids virus really cause aids?All but a tiny minority of scientists accept as fact that an organism called the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the cause of AIDS. This fact is hallowed and defended as vigorously as the facts of evolution, the Big Bang, and continental drift. Extremely nasty things are being said about a handful of heretics who attack this position. "One leading dissident, UC Berkeley molecular biologist Peter H. Duesberg, believes that HIV is not the cause of AIDS -- at least not the sole cause. "He thinks the virus may be an opportunistic organism that found a willing host in the AIDS patient who became sick from something else. That is, he believes HIV is the result of the disease, not the cause. Duesberg thinks the cause of AIDS has more to do with the life style of most of the AIDS patients, but he admits that he doesn't know exactly what." Duesberg points out that three things must be true before a microorganism can be blamed for causing a disease. These are called Koch's Postulates, after R. Koch, who formulated them a century ago: Every patient who has the disease must also harbor the suspected microorganism. Some AIDS sufferers do not have the AIDS virus, although it is debated whether as many as half don't or very few don't . The microorganism must cause the disease when ...
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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 A COSMIC CAUSE FOR THE OZONE HOLE?Wouldn't you know it? Now they are blaming the polar ozone holes on Frank's icy comets -- or something very much like them! M. Dubin and I. Eberstein, two NASA scientists think that small icy comets can account for the seasonal ozone hole and the mysterious polar strato spheric clouds that form during the winter. They propose that ozone molecules bond to tiny ice particles in the winter and, when spring arrives, solar ultra-violet radiation converts water (ice) plus ozone into oxygen and hydroxyl ions. (Anonymous; "A Cosmic Cause for the Ozone Hole?" Sky and Telescope, 75:465, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bacteria One dictionary's definition: "Widely distributed group of microscopic, one-celled vegetable organisms..." As a matter of fact, the nearly universal image of a bacterium is that of a simple, single-cell organism. But: "That view is now being challenged. Investigators are finding that in many ways an individual bacterium is more analogous to a component cell of a multicellular organism than it is to a free-living, autonomous organism. Bacteria form complex communities, hunt prey in groups and secrete chemical trails for the directed movement of thousands of individuals." J.A . Shapiro, author of the preceding quote, attributes the simplistic picture of bacteria to medical bacteriology, in which disease-causing bacteria are classically identified by isolating single cells, growing cultures from them, and then showing that they cause the disease in question. In the microscopic real world, bacteria virtually always live in colonies, which possess collective properties quite different and much more impressive than those of the single-cell-in-a -dish! That old human urge for reductionism has led us astray again. Shapiro seeks to remove the blinders of reductionism in a wonderful article in the June, 1988, issue of Scientific Amer can . We have room here to mention only the Myxobacteria, many of which never exist as single cells in nature. Even those that do are "social" in the sense that, when two cells meet, they align themselves side by side and go through ritual motions that ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Now, it's comet showers that did it The impact/extinction controvery still rages. A careful evaluation of paleontological evidence has persuaded catas trophists to think in terms of comet showers spread out over a few million years, rather than a single impact per extinction. This short abstract from a Nature article says it all: "If at least some mass extinctions are caused by impacts, why do they extend over intervals of one to three million years and have a partly stepwise character? The solution may be provided by multiple cometary impacts. Astronomical, geological and palaeontological evidence is consistent with a causal connection between comet showers, clusters of impact events and stepwise mass exi tinctions, but it is too early to tell how pervasive this relationship may be." (Hut, Piet, et al; "Comet Showers as a Cause of Mass Extinctions," Nature, 329:118, 1987.) Comment. In other words, the nature of astronomical catastrophism is still up in the air! But, bear in mind that a mere decade ago such a paper would have to look far for a jounal that would publish it. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Celestial Crucible "Catastrophic extinctions caused by impacts would change the rules governing who is most fit, who becomes extinct, and who survives. 'If much of the patterning of life's history is not set by Darwin's slow biotic mechanisms, then I think Darwin is in trouble. Is catastrophic mass extinction a major agent of patterning?' If so, 'impacts are a quirky aspect' of the process." Who is speaking within the single quotes above? S.J . Gould, a proponent of the punctuated equilibrium view of the evolutionary scenario. He added: "' The history of life is enormously more quirky than we imagined.'" In fact, the geological record shows so many quirk-inducing impacts that there is little room left for slow, plodding, uniformitarian evolution of the earth itself, life-in-general, and humanity. Mammals, for example, may not have survived the postulated (but now assumed factual) Cretaceous-Tertiary impact event simply because they were small in size - not smarter. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Huge Impact is Favored K-T Boundary Killer," Science, 242:865, 1988.) Comment. It now seems that Cassius was wrong about the stars when he was lining up Brutus to help assassinate Julius Caesar. And the "celestial" situ ation gets even worse below. From Science Frontiers #61, ...
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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 Anomalous Geographical Distribution Of Diabetes Mellitus The incidence of diabetes mellitus among children varies dramatically with geography. For children under 15, it is only 1.7 per 100,000 in Japan but rises to 29.5 in Finland. Within the States, it is 9.4 per 100,000 in San Diego and peaks at 20.8 in Rochester, Minnesota. Children of European descent in New Zea land contract it three times as often as Maori children. U.S . whites get the disease more frequently than blacks and Hispanics. "Causes of these 'extraordinary' distribution differences remain unknown .. .. Both genetic and environmental factors appear necessary for the disease." (Eron, C.; "Cold Facts on Diabetes," Science News, 134:117, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More confusion at the k-t boundary Just a few years ago, many scientists, especially physicists and astronomers, considered the Book of Science to be closed in the matter of what happened at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K -T ) boundary, 65 million years ago, and why the dinosaurs met their end. It was declared, rather imperiously, that a large asteroid had impacted the earth, causing much physical and biological devastation. Many scientific papers are still being written on this singular period in the earth's history, and the situation is no longer so clear-cut. We select for brief review four papers, each with a different perspective. Occurrence of stishovite. Stishovite, a dense phase of silica, is widely accepted as an indicator of terrestrial impact events. It is not found at volcanic sites. Now, J.F . McHone et al report its existence at the K-T boundary, at Raton, New Mexico. (McHone, John F., et al; "Stishovite at the CretaceousTertiary Boundary, Raton, New Mexico," Science, 243:1182, 1989.) A plus for the pro-impact side. The impact of an asteroid can initiate basaltic flooding and trap formation. Evidence of a global fire. Soot appears at the K-T boundary at many sites, but where did it come from? Chemical analyses of these soots show an enhanced concentration ...
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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 The fault, dear reader, is not in our stars but our pigs!Fred Hoyle, in his usual maverick style, has hypothesized that some human flu epidemics are caused by new viruses in jected into the biosphere from outer space. (See his book Diseases from Space .) In yet another book, Evolution from Space , he goes further, stating that the evolution of terrestrial life can also be affected by the extraterrestrial inoculation of genetic material. But, just maybe, influenza pandemics are due to pigs! Every 10-20 years, new flu viruses seem to crop up against which humans have little resistance. The latest theory is that there exists a human-duck-pig connection. It seems that human flu viruses can multiply in ducks, but are not transmitted among ducks. It is also likely that duck viruses multiply in humans, but are not transmitted from one person to another. But enter the pigs: "There is firm evidence that pigs can become infected by and may transmit both human and avian influenza viruses not only amongst other pigs but also back to the original hosts. Therefore, pigs seem to be 'mixing vessels' where two separate reservoirs meet and where reassortment between avian and human influenza A viruses occurs, giving rise to the antigenic shift by creating new human pandemic influenza strains with new surface antigens." The article stimulating this discussion worries about new aquaculture practices, especially in Asia ( ...
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... comets come in cycles?Only a few years ago, geologists refused to recognize any terrestrial meteor craters larger than Arizona's Meteor Crater, which is merely a mile or so in diameter. Now, we have a long list of craters or astroblemes (star wounds), some of which measure hundreds of miles across. In fact, there are enough large dated crters so that some scientists have taken up a time-honored human pastime: Looking for cycles or periodicities in the data. (Humans can find cyclicities in almost any collection of data!) To be more specific, some have claimed that large meteor craters come in clusters dated 28-31 million years apart. These catastrophic events have been correlated with biological extinctions, magnetic field reversals, and basalt flooding. The astronomical causes of this supposed periodicity range from the solar-system's crossing of the galactic plane, to the perturbations of an unseen solar companion, to regular perturbations of the Oort cloud of comets that is thought to hover at the fringe of the solar system. In short, a large, interlocking edifice of geological and astronomical speculation has been erected upon a foundation of terrestrial crater ages. But how well do we really know the ages of these craters? How complete is the cratering record? The answer to the first question is: "Not well at all." Further, we can be certain that many craters still lie undiscovered beneath sediments. In addition, most meteors/comets splashed into the oceans, leaving no record at all. An updating of the most recent crater data ...
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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 More Carolina Waterguns "Residents of North Carolina's southeastern coast call it the 'Seneca Guns' and say it's caused by chunks of the continental shelf dropping off a cliff under the Atlantic Ocean. "' You will feel the house kind of shake and windows rattle,' said Walt Workman, assistant chief of police in Long Beach. 'It sounds a lot like a sonic boom type of thing.' "The rumbling boom with a sound like artillery fire is heard along North Carolina's southernmost beaches, sometimes as often as once or twice a week, and scientists can't explain the phenomenon. The sounds have been heard as far north as Fort Fisher, located just north of Cape Fear." (" Booms Keep Coastal Area Guessing," Charlotte Observer, January 26, 1987. Cr. G. Fawcett via L. Farish) Comment. The real Seneca Guns are, of course, in New York, where they have been heard for years about Lake Seneca. Category GSD, in Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds, provides numerous examples of such waterguns, from all around the world. Information about this book may be found here . From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lightning Triggered From The Magnetosphere Whistlers are, as their name implies, curious whistling noises heard on radio receivers. They are caused naturally by lightning, which sends radio noise travelling through natural "ducts" in the earth's magnetosphere. It has recently been discovered that some of the whistlers are synchronized in a way that strongly suggests that some event high up in the magnetosphere triggers some lightning discharges far below near the surface. In other words, lightning is not always a product of activity in the lower atmosphere. (Armstrong, W.C .; "Lightning Triggered from the Earth's Magnetosphere as the Source of Synchronized Whistlers," Nature, 327:405, 1987.) Comment. Ball lightning has been correlated with solar activity and other extraterrestrial influences. See GLB17 in our Catalog Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. This book is described here . From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf053/sf053g14.htm
