264 results found.
... 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 An Animal That Photosynthesizes At a recent meeting of the American Society for Photobiology, chemist Pill-Soon Song, of Texas Tech University, reported the discovery of a blue-green, trumpet-shaped protozoan that employs photosynthesis to sustain itself. Called Stentor coeruleus, this protozoan is only 0.2 mm long and swims backward by rotating its cilia. According to the article, this is the first instance of a photosynthesizing animal. (Anonymous; "Animal That Lives on Light," San Francisco Chronicle, June 28, 1985, p. 2. Cr. J. Covey) Comment. Nothing was said about whether the protozoan also ate food in the conventional manner. If verified, this is not a trivial discovery. Of course, some plants eat meat, but animals seem to have found sunlight too weak to utilize for mobility and other energy-rich processes and activities. From Science Frontiers #41, SEP-OCT 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How Animals Might Get Inverted The above title is just a literary ploy. We don't know how upside-down animals get that way; and, obviously, we don't think anyone else does either. Nevertheless, biologists are now discovering some radical things about life that could lead to some real "answers." First, we have a case of genetic material being transferred from a fish to a bacterium. The case at hand is the light-producing bacterium that provides the ponyfish with its luminous organ. In this symbiotic arrangement, the fish somehow passes genetic instructions to its retinue of bacteria. (Lewin, Roger; "Fish to Bacterium Gene Transfer," Science, 227:1020, 1985.) Comment. Perhaps symbiotic relationships are fine-tuned by the mutual exchange of information! Second, the role of viruses in transferring genetic material across species barriers is at last getting some serious attention. (Remember how Fred Hoyle was snickered at for promoting this idea in his books?) D. Erwin and J. Valentine, of the University of California, are now pointing out how a whole colony of "hopeful monsters" might be created en masse by an attack of viruses carrying new genetic blueprints. (And remember how Richard Goldschmidt got the same treatment as Fred Hoyle for suggesting "hopeful monsters" decades ago? (Anonymous; "Gene-Swapping Breaks Barriers in Evolutionary Theory," ...
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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 Remarkable Distribution Of Hydrothermal Vent Animals Hydrothermal vents support a bizarre array of large clams, mussels, worms and other curious species. These biological communities are unique in that they are supported not by solar energy but rather the earth's thermal energy. What verges on the anomalous is the appearance in both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans of very similar vent communities, with similar or identical species. How did these continent-separated communities originate ? In the words of the author of the present article, "The cooccurrence of a clam, a mussel, and a vestimentiferan worm at widely separated sites in the Pacific and Atlantic represents either an unusual distribution from a single lineage or, even more remarkably, cases of parallel evolution. " (Grassle, J. Frederick; "Hydrothermal Vent Animals: Distribution and Biology, " Science, 229:713, 1985.) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 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 Which came first?The advent of complex life keeps getting pushed back farther and farther in time, as evidenced by the following abstract: "Microfossils resembling fecal pellets occur in acid-resistant residues and thin sections of Middle Cambrian in Early Proterozoic shale. The cylindrical microfossils average 50 x 110 microns and are the size and shape of fecal pellets produced by microscopic animals today. Pellets occur in dark gray and black rocks that were deposited in the facies that also preserves sulfide minerals and that represent environments analogous to those that preserve fecal pellets today. Rocks containing pellets and algal microfossils range in age from 0.53 to 1.9 gigayears (Gyr) and include Burgess Shale, Greyson and Newland Formations, Rove Formation, and Gunflint Iron-Formation. Similar rock types of Archaean age, ranging from 2.68 to 3.8 Gyr, were barren of pellets. If the Proterozoic microfossils are fossilized fecal pellets, they provide evidence of metazoan life and a complex food chain at 1.9 Gyr ago. This occurrence predates macroscopic metazoan body fossils in the Ediacaran System at 0.67 Gyr, animal trace fossils from 0.9 to 1.3 Gyr, and fossils of unicellular eukaryotic plankton at 1.4 Gyr." (Robbins, Eleanora Iberall, et al; "Pellet Microfossils, Possible Evidence for Metazoan Life in Early Proterozoic Time," National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings, 82:5809, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bone Bed Discovered In Florida A new bond bed has been discovered south of Tampa. Paleontologists say it it is one of the richest fossil deposits ever found in the United States. It has yielded the bones of more than 70 species of animals, birds, and aquatic creatures. About 80% of the bones belong to plains animals, such as camels, horses, mammoths, etc. Bears, wolves, large cats, and a bird with an estimated 30-foot wingspan are also represented. Mixed in with all the land animals are sharks' teeth, turtle shells, and the bones of fresh and salt water fish. The bones are all smashed and jumbled together, as if by some catastrophe. The big question is how bones from such different ecological nitches -- plains, forests, ocean -- came together in the same place. (Armstrong, Carol; "Florida Fossils Puzzle the Experts," Creation Research Society Quarterly, 21:198, 1985.) From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Strange Patterns In Another Oceanic Habitat The sea-floor vents and their unique assemblages of animals are just beginning to be explored. "Perhaps the most intriguing biological mystery in the vent area, however, was the finding of thousands of highly symmetric, Chinese-checkerboard-like patterns on the seafloor, which were first photographed several years ago. [P .] Rona thinks the patterns may be either an animal itself or the burrows made by an animal. He says the patterns are 'dead ringers for a 70million-year-old...trace fossil that is exposed in the Alps." (Weisburd, Stefi; "Hydrothermal Discoveries from the Deep," Science News, 130:389, 1986.) Thousands of such checkerboard patterns have been spotted on the seafloors. From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Return Of The Tasmanian Tiger "In March 1982, a park ranger in northwestern Tasmania awoke in the dead of night. From force of habit, he scanned the woods, his spotlight punching through black walls of rain. And there in the beam was one of the strangest creatures he had ever seen. About the size and shape of a dog, it was covered with stripes that ran from its shoulders across its back to its thick, rigid, tail. "The animal stood still as the startled ranger counted the stripes, then it nonchalantly gave an enormous jaw-stretching yawn. But when the ranger reached for his camera, the creature faded into the undergrowth, leaving nothing but a rank smell. It also left a trail of excitement, for the bizarre beast looked exactly like a Tasmanian tiger -- also called a thylacine or Tasmanian wolf -- an animal thought to have been extinct nearly 50 years ago." Hundreds of people claim they have spotted the Tasmanian tiger since the last captive died in 1936, but we have no good photos or other "proofs." Mediaman Ted Turner has offered a prize of $100,000 for "verifiable evidence" that the Tasmanian tiger still lives. Consequently, the Tasmanian wilds are being combed diligently and automatic cameras, triggered by infrared beams, are being set up in likely spots. (Bunk, Steve; "Just How Extinct Is Tasmania's ...
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... Be happy, be healthy: the case for psychoimmunology Hints are accumulating from many clinical studies that one's mental state has much to do with the effectiveness of one's immunological system. Happy, unstressed people get fewer colds. Introverts get worse colds than extroverts. Men who have just lost their wives have lowered white-cell responses. Although many physicians and medical researchers think it too early to claim that mental stress significantly suppresses the human immunological system and thus leads to more illness, one can see the pendulum start to swing away from the timehonored belief that mind and body are entirely separate entities. The foregoing studies and others like them are discussed in a recent survey of psychoimmunology by B. Dixon. Toward the close of the article, Dixon asks why humans (and other animals, too) have evolved an immunological system sensitive to stress. Evolutionists can always find some sort of justification in Darwinian terms, and Dixon's is rather ingenious. Suppose a primitive human was attacked by a saber-toothed tiger (what else?). If the human survived, his immunological system would immediately go into high gear to clean up the wounds and repel invading germs. The trouble is that a revved-up immunological system (especially the white blood cells) can go too far and chomp up healthy tissue, too. However, evolution has constructed animals such that stress (saber-toothed tigers are stressful!) suppresses the immunological system to restrict the consumption of healthy tissues. While this short-term damper on immunological activity may have been useful to primitive humans ...
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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 Ri = dugong; doggone!The ri has been reputed to be a mermaid-like mammal frequenting the shores of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. (SF#31) Some cryptozoologists have insisted that the ri is not a new species but probably just a commonplace dugong. The skeptics are right. A February 1985 expedition took underwater photos of the animal that some natives call the ri, and it was definitely a dugong. (Anonymous; "New Expedition Identified Ri As Dugong," ISC Newsletter, 4:1 , Spring 1985.) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Piscatorial Data Processing Mammals such as bats and porpoises have their acoustical navigational gear, while many fish have opted for electrical methods of scanning their surroundings. The short-range "radars" of these fish are marvelously sophisticated, considering the low limb fish occupy on the Tree of Life. In fact, the following introductory paragraph from an article in Nature sounds almost as if it came from a textbook on electronic signal processing. "Behavioural experiments have demonstrated that certain species of fish can perform remarkable analyses of the temporal structure of electrical signals. These animals produce an electrical signal within a species-specific frequency range via an electric organ, and they detect these signals by electroreceptors located throughout the body surface. In the context of one electrosensory behaviour, the jamming avoidance response (JAR), the fish Eigenmannia determines whether a neighbour's electric organ discharge (EOD), which is jamming its own signal, is higher or lower in frequency than its own. The fish then decreases or increases its frequency, respectively. To determine the sign of the frequency difference, the fish must detect the modulations in the amplitude and in the differential timing, or temporal disparity, of signals received by different regions of its body surface. The fish is able to shift its discharge frequency in the appropriate direction in at least 90% of all trials for temporal disparities as small as 400 ns." (Rose, Gary, and Heiligenberg, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 40: Jul-Aug 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Glitch in the evolution of funnelweb spider venom?The Australian funnelweb spider has a venom that appears to be effective only against humans, monkeys, baby rats, and fruit flies. None of these animals is normally on the spider's menu; those prey that are seem unaffected by the venom. Did the evolution of the poison miss its intended targets or did the spider's usual prey evolve resistance? It is interesting that mature rats are immune to the venom, although neonatal rats are not. (Anonymous; "Did You Know?" Ex Ni hilo, 7:16, no. 3, 1985.) Facts taken from The Australian Doctor, January 20, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 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 Heretical Evolutionary Theory "Over the past 15 years, away from the limelight of mainstream evolutionary argument, cell biologists have been debating a concept that is fundamental to our understanding of how cells evolved. It is the proposal that some of the structures that are found in the larger cells of animals, plants and fungi (eukaryotic cells) are the descendants of simpler bacteria-like organisms (prokaryotic cells) that had at some stage entered into an intracellular existence, or endosymbiosis. The idea is not a new one, but only in the light of modern experimental evidence has it become acceptable to many biologists. If the hypothesis is correct, then virtually all the major groups of familiar organisms originated 'suddenly' through endosymbiotic associations." Following this lead paragraph, with its paradigm-shaking final sentence, are three pages summarizing the biological evidence favoring evolution by endosymbiosis. (Kite, Geoffrey; "Evolution by Symbiosis; The Inside Story," New Scientist, p. 50, July 3, 1986.) Comment. We cannot possibly do justice to this exciting idea of evolution forced by the uniting of different organisms in the limited format of Science Frontiers. Instead, we encourage readers to purchase a new book by L. Margulis and D. Sagan (son of Carl Sagan and L. Margulis) entitled Micro Cosmos. In passing, we must also remark on the obvious relationship of endosymbiosis to F. Hoyle's ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 40: Jul-Aug 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Circadian Rhythms And Chemotherapy The toxicities of many commonly used anticancer drugs depend upon when they are administered during the day. This phenomenon occurs in humans and other animals. The effect is not trivial but "profound." (Hrushesky, W.J .M .; "Circadian Timing of Chemotherapy," Science, 228:73, 1985.) Comment. This "profound" effect should, by extrapolation, also apply to drug potency, the workings of the immune system, and all biochemical reactions. The location of and reason for the circadian clock are matters of conjecture. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... It seems that in a few recovered specimens, the thin tail is tied in several overhand knots! Now moray eels can knot themselves, but the gulper eel is just a floating stomach with negligible musculature in its whiplike tail. So, just how did the knots get there? (de Sylva, Donald P.; "The Gulper Eel and Its Knotty Problem," Sea Frontiers, 32:104, March-April 1986.) Comment. We cannot resist mentioning the occasional discovery of groups of rats all tied together by their tails. Called "rat kings," these hapless snarls of rodents are usually dismissed as pranks or outright prevarication. How-ever, in recent years, respected naturalists have found "squirrel kings" in the wild. Gulper eels are not the only animals with knotty problems. From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 The Exploding Lake August 15, 1984. The village of Njindom, Cameroon. About 11:30 PM, the villagers heard a loud explosion coming from Lake Monoun. Early the next morning, people in a van driving past the lake discovered the body of a motorcyclist. The air smelled like battery fluid. One of the van's occupants collapsed. The others ran for their lives toward Njindom. By 10:30 AM authorities had found 37 bodies along a 200meter stretch of road by the lake. Blood was oozing from the noses and mouths; the bodies were rigid; first-degree chemical burns were present. Also, animals and plants along the shore had been killed. On August 17, the lake turned reddish brown, indicating that it had been stirred up somehow. Although Lake Monoun is in a volcanic crater, chemical analysis of the water found little of the sulphur and halogens normally associated with volcanic action. However, the analysis did find a tremendously high level of bicarbonate ions, which form from the dissociation of carbon dioxide. One theory is that an earthquake disturbed the carbonate-rich deep water of the lake, which as it rose to the surface and lower pressures, released huge volumes of carbon dioxide -- something like opening a soda bottle. The resulting wave of water and cloud of gas caused the deaths and devastation. If there had been some nitric acid in the cloud, the burns ...
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... 40: Jul-Aug 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Megalithic Recycling During restoration work on a capstone at the tomb of Gavrinis, located on an island just off the Brittany coast, C.-T . Le Roux discovered carvings that had long been concealed. The carvings and the rock itself fit perfectly with the capstone of the Table des Marchands, another famous megalithic monument some 4 kilometers away. Stimulated by this discovery, a third capstone on another monument nearby was found to fit like a jigsaw puzzle piece. The combined result is a huge stela 14 meters high, 3.7 meters wide, and 0.8 meter thick. The total stela would weight about 100 tons. It is decorated on one side with animals (bovids) and other devices. Apparently, this stela once stood near the even larger stela called Grand Menhir Brise or 'er-Grah.' The Grand Menhir Brise is also broken into pieces. Evidently, the period of megalithic tomb building, which probably began about 5,200 BP was preceded by a period when giant, decorated stelae were erected. These stelae were later pulled down and broken up for use in constructing tombs. The civilization that raised the stelae is not well-understood; and one wonders why such impressive monuments were torn down and their engravings concealed. Incidentally, the stela chunk found at Gavrinis weighs about 20 tons and was transported over 4 kilometers across several watercourses. (Bahn, Paul G.; "Megalithic Recycling in Brittany," Nature, ...
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... black. Comet nuclei, according to W. Hartmann and his colleagues, are colored by a brownishblack primordial organic sludge, and have the appearance of "a very dark Hershey bar." The use of the adjective "organic" may be premature, but in light of the next item, maybe not. (2 ) Carbonaceous chondrites . This well-known class of meteorites sometimes appears tarry and is characterized by carbon contents of up to 2% and more. The Japanese have just reported the analysis of Yamoto 791198, a carbonaceous chondrite picked up in the Antarctic. This meteorite is loaded with amino acids, 20 kinds of them. These extraterrestrial amino acids are not considered biogenic because they are half left-handed and half right-handed; whereas all amino acids synthesized by terrestrial animals, plants, etc. are left-handed. [This is obviously presumptious because we have no notion how extraterrestrial life works, assuming it exists at all.] (3 ) The rings of Uranus . Voyager photos reveal that these rings are composed of unknown dark material quite unlike that in the high-albedo (bright) rings of Saturn. References. (Kerr, Richard A.; "A Comet's Heart May Be Big But Black," Science, 229:372, 1985. Also: Emsley, John; "Amino Acids from Outer Space," New Scientist, p. 30, December 19/26, 1985. Also: Anonymous; "Fine Particles Viewed in Uranus' Rings Leave Scientists 'Happily Bewildered'." Baltimore Sun, January ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Evolving on half a wing (and a prayer?)Just about everyone agrees that half a wing is of little use to an animal "straining" to develop the capability of flight. So, how did the marvelously crafted wings of birds, insects, and mammals evolve in infinitesimal steps? Biologists, including Darwin himself, have long puzzled over this. Stephen Jay Gould in a recent article explores a currently favored way of circumventing the negligible additional survival value of half a wing, or even 90% of a wing. This solution (? ) maintains that protowings were not "intended" for flight at all but were developed initially as aerodynamic stabilizers, thermoregulatory systems, sexual attractors or other functions requiring large areas. Gould describes the experiments of Kingsolver and Koehl in which protowings were modelled and tested for their thermoregulatory and flight values. Surprisingly, there was a sharp transition, as the size of the protowing increased, from good thermoregulation but poor flight capability to the reverse -- good flight capability and poor thermoregulation. In other words, a structure developed for one purpose, if enlarged, might be useful for something else! (Gould, Stephen Jay; "Not Necessarily a Wing," Natural History, 94:14, October 1985. See also: Lewin, Roger, "How Does Half a Bird Fly?" Science, 230:530, 1985.) Comment. The work of Kingsolver and Koehl ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Signals In The Night Consider the figure below and the four sets of signals (plain blips) and responses (blips with circles over them). Are these from the radar screen of a fighter closing in on an enemy aircraft? Or perhaps the electrical signals generated by the fish mentioned in SF#43? Of course the answer is: None of the above. We have a different story to tell. These blips, representing queries and responses, are not generated by human-built radars or by electrical fish, but rather by animals much 'lower' on the evolutionary ladder -- fireflies. This illustration is Fig. 3 in a lengthy review article and carries the following unilluminating caption: "Examples of Entrainment of femme C's (see Table 3) Responses to Multiple Counterfeit Flashes." It seems that we have some sort of electronic warfare between the femme (predatory female fireflies that lure other fireflies with false signals) and the preyed-upon species. The many pages describe all sorts of feints, verification signals, and other stratagems. (Carlson, Albert D., and Copeland, Jonathan; "Communication in Insects," Quarterly Review of Biology, 60:415, 1985.) Comment. It is impossible to do justice to this paper in this short review, but two things should be mentioned: (1 ) Fireflies may be considered "low" on the evolutionary ladder, but ...
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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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Shrimp trains are a'coming In March's "Gallery" pages of Discover, several incredibly colored and patterned shrimp stun the eyes of the reader. Some of these shrimp put the gaudiest butterflies and birds to shame. We won't stop here to dwell on why some shrimp are so colorful while others are so tasty. The anomaly at hand is buried in the caption describing the red-andwhite striped peppermint shrimp, which decorates the Great Barrier Reef. It turns out that this shrimp, like the Atlantic spiny lobster, sometimes joins up with others of its species to form long moving trains or chains of animals. This behavior remains very puzzling to biologists. (Anonymous; "Shrimp You Won't Find in Your Cocktail," Discover, 6:55, March 1985.) Comment. Do shrimp belong with the insects? Yes, they are all arthropods. From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 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 Oil & gas from the earth's core In central Sweden this summer, drillers will be boring into the rocks of the Siljan Ring, Europe's largest known meteor crater. Oil and gas should not be down there in any quantities according to current theory, but that's what they are drilling for. Isn't it futile to fight such a well-established dogma that oil and gas have biological origins and therefore must be looked for only where life once thrived? Not any longer! Enough anomalies have accumulated to seriously challenge the idea that oil and gas are byproducts of ancient animal life. Here are a few of these anomalies: The geographical distribution of oil seems derived from features much larger in scale than individual sedimentary features. The quantities of oil and gas available are hundreds of times those estimated on the basis of biological origins. The so-called "molecular fossils" found in oil and claimed as proof of a biogenic origin are simply biological contaminants, particularly bacteria that feed upon the petroleum. Petroleum is largely saturated with hydrogen, whereas buried biological matter should exhibit a deficiency of hydrogen. Oil and gas are often rich in helium, an inert gas which biological pro cesses cannot concentrate. The great oil reservoirs of the Middle East are in diverse geological provinces. There is no unifying feature for the region as a whole and, especially, no sediments rich in biological debris that could have produced ...
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... so, the Nazca lines are remarkable, and we really do not know for certain why they were etched on the Peruvian pampa. In his early research on the Nazca lines, Aveni noted their strong similarity to the ceque system of 41 imaginary lines radiating outwards from the Inca's Temple of the Sun, at Cuzco -- the "navel" of the Inca universe. ". .. the ceque system was a highly ordered hierarchical cosmographical map, a mnemonic scheme that incorporated virtually all important matters connected with the Inca world view." Could the Nazca lines have been a forerunner of the ceque system? Aveni also noticed that the Nazca lines and geometrical figures were closely related to watercourses. Also, many of the lines definitely functioned as footpaths. It was also apparent that the animal figures, which were laid down much earlier than the line systems, were not related conceptually to the line scheme. Aveni concluded: ". .. whatever the final answer may be to the mystery of the Nazca lines, this much is certain: the pampa is not a confused and meaningless maze of lines, and it was no more intended to be viewed from the air than an Iowa wheat field. The lines and line centers give evidence of a great deal of order, and the well-entrenched concept of radiality offers affinities between the ceque system of Cuzco and the lines on the pampa. All the clues point to a ritual scheme involving water, irrigation and planting; but as we might expect of these ancient cultures, elements of astronomy and calendar were also evident. ...
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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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Squirrels As Measures Of Geological Time Over a century ago, when the truth of biological evolution via natural selection was hotly debated, the proponents of Darwinism were delighted when the geologists presented them with almost endless periods of time in which evolution could progress in small steps from species to species. Now, in a strange turn-about, a creationist writer is using evolutionary theory to infer a very short history for the formation where geologists want a good deal of time. We quote from the conclusion of J.R . Meyer: "If any group of animals were ever going to undergo significant degrees of evolution from parent stock and obtain resultant speciation, surely the Kaibab squirrel would be one of the more likely candidates. Supposedly isolated from their neighbors for hundreds of thousands of generations over a period of at least several million years, and significantly violating virtually every restriction of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for the non-evolving population, these organisms, even by creationist standards, should have undergone significant and detectable changes. In reality all they show are moderate changes, primarily in two coat color characteristics for part of their population. To make things even worse, this species is known to have a highly variable coat-color polymorphism throughout its range. Thus, even the differences displayed appear to be easily accounted for by several mutations and a slight change in gene frequency for one or two loci, all occurring in a limited period of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Checklist Of Apparently Unknown Animals B. Heuvelmans, who operates the Center for Cryptozoology, in France, has compiled an annotated checklist of between 110 and 138 animals (some questions remain about how many are distinct species) which do not seem to be recognized by science. His list is based upon his collection of 20,000 references. Obviously we cannot reproduce all his descriptions here, but we will pass along three of the most interesting. A dolphin with two dorsal fins, both curved backwards, the anterior one set on the forehead like a horn. The first observation was apparently by Mongitore in the Mediterranean. During the Uranie and Physicienne expedition, Quoy and Gaimard reported a whole school of them between the Sandwich Islands and New South Wales. They were spotted black and white. Hairy "wild men," known as satyrs in classical antiquity. These were probably Neanderthals that survived into historical times. The most recent sightings were in 1774, in the Pyrenees, and 1784, in the Carpathians. Giant birds of prey in North America -- the famous "thunderbirds." Observers put the wingspans between 10 and 16 feet, making thunderbirds much larger than the Andean condor. Reports have come in from all over the southern United States. Some remains of these carnivorous birds have been dated at 8,000 years. (Heuvelmans, Bernard; "Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals with Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned," ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects You can fool some of the animals some of the time, but....R. Sheldrake has found another possible example of "morphic resonance," as he relates in the New Scientist: "Ranchers throughout the American West have found that they can save money on cattle grids by using fake grids instead, consisting of stripes painted across the road. Real cattle grids, known as cattle guards in the U.S ., are usually made of a series of parallel steel tubes or rails with gaps in between, which make it physically impossible for cattle to walk across them. However, cattle do not usually try to cross them; they avoid them. The illusory grids work just like the real ones. When cattle approach them, they 'put on the brakes with all four feet,' as one rancher expressed it to me. .. .. . "According to my hypothesis of formative causation..., organisms inherit habits from previous members of their species. This collective memory, I suggest, is inherent in fields, called morphic fields, and is transmitted through both time and space by morphic resonance, a process which takes place on the basis of similarity. From this point of view, cattle confronted for the first time by grids, or by things that look like grids, would tend to avoid them because of morphic resonance from other cattle that had learnt by experience not to ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ubiquity Of Sea Serpents Public interest is usually focussed (by the media) upon the supposed monsters in Loch Ness, Lake Champlain, the Chesapeake Bay, etc. Actually, an immense body of sea serpent reports also exists. B. Heuvelmans collected many of these in his 1965 classic In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents. P.H . LeBlond, a professor at the University of British Columbia, is extending Heuvelman's work, concentrating on the thousand miles of Pacific Coast between Alaska and Oregon. Since 1812, there have been 53 sightings of sea serpents or other unidentified animals along this narrow strip of ocean. Some of these are very impressive. Take this one for example: "In January 1984 a mechanical engineer named J.N . Thompson from Bellingham, Washington, was fishing for Chinook salmon from his kayak on the Spanish Banks about three-quarters of a mile off Vancouver, British Columbia, when an animal surface between 100 and 200 feet away. It appeared to be about 18-20 feet long and about two feet wide, with a 'whitish-tan throat and lower front' body. It had stubby horns like those of a giraffe, large (' twelve to fifteen inches long') floppy ears, and a 'somewhat pointed black snout.' The creature appeared to Thompson to be 'uniquely streamlined for aquatic life,' and to swim 'very efficiently and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 64: Jul-Aug 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sheep circles!Britain has been plagued lately with circular areas incised in fields of cereal crops. G.T . Meaden has collected scores of such events, some of which he has published in his Journal of Meteorology. On the theory that one kind of circle might somehow be related to another kind of circle (the same reasoning biologists employ to draw the Tree of Life), J.C . Belcher submitted a most interesting letter to Meaden. "By their very nature sheep tend to be stubborn self-willed animals exhibiting individual characteristics not suggestive of good group co-ordination. For example, when disturbed by a potential predator, a flock of sheep tends to mass protectively in a group of irregular outline, the group being formed of individual 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 ...
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... 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 injected into research animals -- primates for example. The AIDS virus does not; although some other diseases, such as small pox, do not affect other animals either. The suspect microorganism must be isolated from the patient and grown in a culture. Duesberg claims that HIV definitely fails the first two Koch tests. (Shurkin, Joel N.; "The AIDS Debate: Another View," Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1988. Cr. J.M . Ward) Three months after the above article was published. the journal Science jumped into the fray. Additional points of interest: Duesberg considers the HIV to be such a "pussycat" that he would gladly be injected with the virus. Duesberg has published his reservations in Cancer Research , but no formal response from the scientific community ...
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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 Another Tale Of Ogopogo Another report of Lake Okanagan's monster, palindromically named Ogopogo, has surfaced. A Canadian woman, Mrs. B. Clark, actually bumped into Ogopogo while swimming in the British Columbia lake in July of 1974. "Mrs. Clark's report states: 'I did not see it (the animal) first. I felt it. I was swimming towards a raft/ diving platform located about a quarter of a mile offshore, when something big and heavy bumped my legs. At this point, I was about 3 feet from the raft, and I made a mad dash for it and got out of the water. It was then that I saw it.' The report goes on to describe the observation: 'When I first saw it, it was about 15-20 feet away. I could see a hump or coil which was 8 feet long and 4 feet above the water moving in a forward motion. It was traveling north, away from me. It did not seem to be in much of a rush, and it swam very slowly. The water was very clear, and 5 to 10 feet behind the hump, about 5 to 8 feet below the surface, I could see its tail. The tail was forked and horizontal like a whale's , and it was 4 to 6 feet wide. As the hump submerged, the tail came to ...
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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 The Eels Strike Back Credit cards and bank cards are commonly kept in holders made from eelskin. So what! Who likes eels anyway? Well, there may be more to eelskin than meets the eye. Thousands of bank cards, when taken out of their eelskin holders, have failed to work in bank machines. The electronic coding on the cards has somehow been erased or scrambled. Perhaps, says one theory, the eelskins have bits of magnetite in their skins for navigational purposes. (Some other animals have such magnetic particles in their bodies to help orient them.) But could these tiny particles be powerful enough to erase card information? Another theory is that magnetic clamps on purses and handbags are the culprits. (Anonymous; "Credit Cards Fall Prey to Primitive Fish," New Scientist, p. 30, March 3, 1988.) Banking-business bane. From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Evolution Through Mergers The overview in Natural History describes how, in theory, the mitochondria in cells were created by bacterial invasion. The presence of chloroplasts in plants, too, may have come about in this way. A case also exists for the alliance of spirochetes with cells to form flagella and cilia. These three "mergers" provided cells with metabolism, photosynthesis, and mobility. Margulis and Sagan obviously do not believe that the "bacterial connection" ended there. They bring their article to a close with an almost poetic manifesto that we now quote in part. The context of the quotation is their assertion that plant and animal evolution would never have taken place unless one life form attacked another and the latter defended itself, all this followed by accomodation and the development of a symbiotic relationship. "Uneasy alliances are at the core of our very many different beings. Individuality, independence -- these are illusions. We live on a flowing pointillist landscape where each dot of paint is also alive. Earth itself is a living habitat, a merger of organisms that have come together, forming new emergent organisms, entirely new kinds of 'individuals' such as green hydras and luminous fish. Without a a life-support system none of us can survive. It is in this light that we are beginning to see the biosphere not only as a continual struggle favoring the most vicious organism but also as an endliess dance of diversifying ...
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... Holly Oak pendant in SF#61, the possibility was raised that mammoths might have survived in North America until just a few centuries ago. Such survival is contrary to all mainstream thinking. Thus, when a datum comes along, even though it appears rather far-fetched, that testifies for the recent survival of mammoths, we must at least examine it. The datum in question (and it really is questionable) comes from the The Na tional Tombstone Epitaph , hardly part of the scientific literature! The article develops the theme that Chinese explorers landed in North America several millennia ago. The basis for such speculation is an ancient Chinese work called the Shun-Hai Ching , which is reputed to be about 3500 years old. In it, the Chinese explorers mention encounters with several strange animals. One is easily recognized as the collared peccary, known only in the New World, thus establishing the reality of a transPacific contact. Now, here is the piece de resistance: "Here we met a creature as tall as three men and so great that the earth trembled as he walked. He had a voice as loud as thunder. He was red like fire. From his mouth he spat spears of pearl, and he had but one long arm. He was wont to take up men in his hand and dash their brains out against rocks." Could this creature be anything but a mammoth? Incidentally, the frozen Siberian mammoths are reported to be covered with reddish hair. (Eckhardt, C.F .; "Prehistoric Explorers of the West?" National ...
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... theory. "Cetaceans use the total geomagnetic field of the Earth as a map. A timer, also based on this field, allows them to monitor their position and progress on the map. They are not using the directional information of the Earth's field, as we do with our compasses, but small relative differences in the total local field. I arrived at this explanation after a detailed analysis of the records of strandings in Britain, but it has so far been confirmed by two groups working in the U.S . Similar work is in progress in other parts of the world. "The total magnetic field of the Earth is not uniform. It is distorted by the underlying geology, forming a topography of magnetic 'hills and valleys.' My analysis shows that the animals move along the contours of these magnetic slopes, and that in certain circumstances this can lead them to strand themselves. In the oceans, sea-floor spreading has produced a set of almost parallel hills and valleys. Whales could use these as undersea motorways, but might swim into problems when they came near the shore, because the magnetic contours do not stop at the beach. They continue onto the land, and sometimes so do the whales." In addition to stranding because of land-intersecting contours, unpredictable changes in the earth's magnetic field can upset the whales' timing mechanism, causing them to lose their true position on their magnetic dead-reckoning maps. Magnetically speaking, they become lost. (Klinowska, Margaret; "No Through Road for the Misguided Whale ...
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... "Davidovits said that a new deciphering of an ancient hieroglyphic text now provides some direct information about pyramid construction and supports his theory that synthetic stone was the construction material. .. .. . "Davidovits said the cement used in the pyramids binds the aggregate and other ingredients together chemically in a process similar to that involved in the formation of natural stone. "Portland cement, in contrast, involves mechanical rather then molecular bonding of the ingredients. Thus, pyramid stone is extremely difficult to distinguish from natural stone. "He cites a number of other pieces of evidence to support his theory. Chemical analyses of stone from the pyramids, for example, show it contains minerals not found in Egyptian quarry stone. "Laboratory analyses have also revealed indications of organic fibers -- possibly human or animal hair -- inside the stone used to built the pyramids. Davidovits said he believes the materials accidentally fell into the forms when ancient Egyptians were casting the stone." (Anonymous; "Pyramids Made of Synthetic Stone, Researcher Reports," Orange County Register , April 11, 1987. Cr. S. Yaple via L. Farish.) From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... agricultural fertility." (Wilson, David J.; "Desert Ground Drawings in the Lower Santa Valley, North Coast of Peru," American Antiquity," 53:794, 1988.) Comment. Not surprisingly, the author of the above article, D.J . Wilson, has neglected the popular theory that the Nazca lines were etched to attract and guide extraterrestrial visitors. Mainstream archeology always opts for ex planations involving rituals and societyunifying activities. But why make geoglyphs that cover hundreds of square miles and can hardly be appreciated at all from the ground? Getting back to the article itself, Wilson continues in some detail with the Santa Valley geoglyphs. These differ from the classical Nazca lines in that they display fewer abstract designs and more representations of llamas, condors, and other animals. They are, however, of impressive size and well-executed. Reference. Our handbook Ancient Man offers a photo and considerable more detail on the Nazca lines and other geoglyphs. For details, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 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 Synchronous Rhythmic Flashing Of Fireflies We humans are pretty smug about our ability to communicate complex messages via sound waves. Of course, we recognize that whales and other cetaceans also seem to "talk" to one another, and that other animals employ their sense of smell for relaying messages. But most of us do not realize that lowly fireflies congregate to communicate en masse, with untold thousands of individuals cooperating in huge synchronized light displays. In reading some of the descriptions of these great natural phenomena, one recalls the light displays used to communicate with the aliens in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind . J. Buck has been studying flashing fireflies for over half a century. In fact, his first review paper was published in 1938. Buck has now brought that paper up to date in the current Quarterly Review of Biology with a 24page contribution. It is difficult to do justice to this impressive work in a newsletter. Our readers will have to be satisfied with a mere two paragraphs, in which Buck summarizes some of the incredible synchronies. "More than three centuries later Porter observed a very different behavior in far southwestern Indiana in which, from the ends of a long row of tall riverbank trees, synchronized flashes '. .. began moving toward each other, met at the middle, crossed and traveled to the ends, as when two pebbles are dropped simultaneously into the ends of a long narrow tank of water ...
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... in the origin of major evolutionary innovations, patterns that presumably reflect the operation of different mechanisms." The most interesting "unexpected pattern" is the gross asymmetry between the diversification of life in the Cambrian explosion (about 440 million years ago) and that following the great endPermian extinction (a little over 200 million years ago). Biological innovation was intense in both instances; both biological explosions burst upon a life-impoverished planet. Many niches were unoccupied. Even so, all existing (and many extinct) phyla arose during the Cambrian explosion and none followed the Permian extinction. ". .. why has this burst of evolutionary invention never again been equaled? Why, in subsequent periods of great evolutionary activity when countless species, genera, and families arose, have there been no new animal body plans produced, no new phyla?" Some evolutionists blame the asymmetry on the different "adaptive space" available in the two periods. "Adaptive space" was almost empty at the beginning of the Cambrian because multicellular organisms had only begun to evolve; whereas after the Permian extinction the surviving species still represented a diverse group with many adaptations. (Just how the amount of "adaptive space" available was communicated to the "mechanism" doing the innovation is not addressed.) Scientists contemplating these matters, however, seem to concur that microevolution, which supposedly gives rise to new species, cannot manage the bigger task of macroevolution, in particular the creation of new phyla at the beginning of the Cambrian. (Lewin, Roger; "A Lopsided Look at Evolution," Science ...
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... crude drawings in the Anubis Caves of western Oklahoma. The presence of true Ogam writing in Oklahoma would be traumatic for mainstream American archeology, for it would imply that far-wandering Celts had passed through long before Columbus made landfall. Later in the same issue of the NEARA J., G. Carter describes a tablet in the possession of a South African Zulu, which pictures a giraffe and a zebra along with inscriptions in Egyotian, Arabic, and Ogam! Carter writes: "I put below of picture of a giraffe with Ogam alongside. The Ogam letters are RZRF. Add vowels and this becomes: Rai Za Ra Fa; old Arabic for 'behold the giraffe.' Alongside a zebra figure one finds Ogam letters ZBDB, which in Arabic reads 'painted ass.' These animal figures are usually considered to date to the Upper Paleolithic. Apparently Arabic speakers added the inscriptions much later. But when, pray, did the Arabs write in Ogam? Those Celts certainly did get around! Has anyone found Ogam in South America or Australia? (Leonard, Phillip M., and McGlone, William R.; "The Anubis Caves," NEARA Journal, 22:51, 1988. Carter, George F.; "Before Columbus," NEARA Journal, 22:61, 1988.) Reference. Details on Ogam and its presence in unexpected places can be found in our handbook Ancient Man. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The babirusa: a quasi-ruminant pig The babirusa, an inhabitant of Indonesia, looks like a thin pig, but its stomach is like that of a sheep, which is a "simple" ruminant. The babirusa's stomach possesses an extra 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 1989 SIGHTINGS OF OGOPOGO Okanagan Lake, in south central British Columbia, is the home of Ogopogo. At least this is where a large, elusive lake monster has been reported for many years. During the summer of 1989, the British Columbia Cryptozoology Club (BCCC) made two expeditions to Okana gan to search out Ogopogo. Several sightings of the animal were made, as well as a video tape. The first sighting, on July 30, was quite detailed, and we quote here from the BCCC report. July 30, 1989. Four sketches of Ogopogo from different vantage points. "The focus of the investigation turned to Summerland, and a particularly good vantage point was located at Peach Orchard Beach, Lower Summerland, on July 30. All four members of the investigating team were stationed at various points on the beachfront when, at 3:55 p.m ., a most extraordinary occurrence took place. A large patch of white water materialized close to a headland at the southern end of the beach, drawing the attention of the BCCC observers. It was about 1,000 feet distant at this point, and it was clear that a large animal was swimming in a northerly direction against the prevailing wind and slight swell. At a distance of about 600 feet, Kirk Sr. was able to see clearly through a Bushnell 40X telescope that this was the classic Ogopogo, with its humps well above the water ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Monster Skeletons Found In Underwater Fiji Cave The scene is a remote underwater cave 51.5 kilometers from one of Fiji's resort islands. K. Deacon, a professional diver from Sydney is the source of the following report. "' We have found what appears to be two adults, one adolescent and one juvenile,' he said. 'They bear no resemblance to any marine creature I know.' "The adult skulls were about 1 m long with a total body length of 8 m to 10 m. They looked prehistoric and perhaps were land animals or amphibious species. "The cave, now a part of a reef about 50 m under water, may once have been above sea level. .. .. . "Mr Deacon believed the creatures were either prehistoric or contempory animals unknown to science -- or, if they were some known kind of animal, then how they had found their way into the cave was a mystery." (Spencer Geoff; "Monsters Found in the Fiji Deep," New Zealand Herald , May 31, 1990, Cr. R. Collyns via L. Farish.) From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Louse Line We all learned about the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer in high school, but the voyagers of old also recognized a "louse line." "They wrote about arriving at a longitudinal point in the tropics -- the so-called 'louse line' -- where fleas and lice abandoned even healthy humans. Although a specific line is a myth, cultural entomologist Charles Hogue of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles believes part of the story. 'Voyagers in the tropics often experience a rise in body temperature of as much as 4 degrees F.' That's enough, he says, to kill some species of fleas. Also, the traumatic experience of being caught in a trap causes the body temperature of animals to rise. Thus, trappers often witness fleas jumping off a trapped animal by the dozens. (Johnson, Donna; "How to Tell Time by a Cat's Eye," National wildlife , 29:12, October/November 1991.) From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Dinosaurs Of Winter And The Polar Forests It seems appropriate after suggesting above that the dinosaurs might have been frozen to death in a cosmic winter to remind the reader that some of the dinosaurs were pretty tough animals. Many dinosaur fossils have been dug up in Alaska, northern Canada, Siberia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. Not only were some dinosaurs cold-resistant but, seeing many were herbivorous, they were also able to migrate to more temperate climes as the long days of the polar summers waned. The point here is that the dinosaurs as a clan were very adaptable and should have survived severe environmental stress. (Vickers-Rich Patricia, and Rich, Thomas H.; "The Dinosaurs of Winter," Natural History, 100:33, April 1991.) That the polar regions were once covered by lush forests has been underscored by recent discoveries in both polar regions. Stumps of huge trees 45 million years old dot the now-bleak landscape of Axel Heiberg Island far north of the Arctic Circle. In Antarctica, heaps of 3- million-year-old fossil leaves have been found within 400 kilometers of the South Pole. (Francis, Jane E.; "Arctic Eden," Natural History, 100:57, January 1991. Also: Peterson, Christian; "Leafing through Antarctica's Balmy Past," New Scientist, p. 20, February 9, 1991.) ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 76: Jul-Aug 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The orogrande, nm, site The discovery in a New Mexico cave of numerous stone artifacts, hearths, butchered animal bones and a clay fragment dating back at least 35,000 years could provide proof that the Americas were inhabited long before the generally accepted date of 12,000 years ago, believes Richard MacNeish, research director of the Andover, Mass., Foundation for Archaeological Research. An article in the Baltimore Sun stated: "The most solid proof of human presence earlier than 12,000 years ago may be a piece of a clay pot that appears to have a human fingerprint. "The shard was found in a layer of sediment that has been dated as being 35,000 years old. If confirmed as human, it could be the key to the findings, some archaeologists say." (Chandler, David L.; "Dig Finds Signs of Humans in N.M . 35,000 Years Ago," Baltimore Sun, p. 3A, May 6, 1991.) Comment. It is certain that these discoveries will be disputed -- and rightfully so. Even if they stand, it takes a generation to erase a false paradigm from the roster of science. From Science Frontiers #76, JUL-AUG 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 No unknown monsters in those fiji underwater caves: nevertheless, the mystery deepens A videotape of those unusual skeletons in the Fiji underwater caves mentioned above has been studied by scientists at the Queensland Museum. The are not the remains of unknown monsters -- they are only dolphin bones! But one mystery has been replaced by several. It seems that there were three different species of dolphins, and they were found at the closed ends of underwater passages that were just a bit larger than the living animals themselves. Why did three different species go into the caves at all? Why did they go all the way to the ends of the closed passages, given their excellent echo-location systems? Pertinent here is the discovery of skeletons and recent carcasses of green turtles in similar situations in underwater caves in Indonesia. Turtles lack the dolphins' echo-location equipment, but they are still excellent navigators. (Molnar, R.E .; personal communication, July 2, 1991. Molnar is a scientist at the Queensland Museum.) Comment. Another question comes to mind: Could the demise of the dolphins in the Fiji caves be related to the occasional strandings of whales and other cetacea on beaches all over the world? Is there a common failure in perception and/or navigation? From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 78: Nov-Dec 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why do flamingos stand on one leg?This profound question elicited a wide range of replies from readers of New Scientist, some of which are worth recording here. W. Smith supposed that because the flamingo has exceptionally long, thin legs that it was difficult for its heart to return blood from its feet. Therefore, by standing on one leg and occasionally switching, the flamingo prevents blood from collecting in its feet. L.J . Los replied with reference to a phenomenon of which we were unaware: "Farm animals are well known for letting sleep be linked to half of their brain at a time. In this way they can maintain a measure of alertness -- even while looking fast asleep. "Flamingos roost upon one of their legs while the other half of their body is in the sleep stage. When the other half of their brain and body earns a rest, they change legs. A leg that is in the sleep stage would not support the bird as a whole." But P. Hardy had the best answer: "Why do flamingos stand on one leg? So ducks only bump into them half the time." (Various authors; "Flamingo File," New Scientist, p. 52, August 17, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #78, NOV-DEC 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Grand Lake Stream Enigma A little over a year ago, we reported on W. Elliott's discovery of a small, stone-covered cist in eastern Washington County, Maine. This cist contained several stone artifacts bearing remarkable symbols, writing, and portrayals of a man and a slain animal. Naturally, mainstream archeologists look askance when amateur archeologists come across such anomalous materials. Happily in this instance, a professional archeologist, J.B . Petersen, Director of the University of Maine's Archaeological Laboratory, took an interest in the site near Grand Lake Stream. After careful study of the site and its artifacts, he has prepared a preliminary report. Petersen's report is accompanied by many photos and sketches made during his excavations. On p. 000 we reproduce a photo of the amulet with its strange epigraphy. Now, we add a sketch of the "elongated hafted ground biface, with human figure." Over 13 inches long, this artifact depicts a trousered, bearded man of European countenance, who is missing one arm and a foot. Petersen asserts that the artifacts have no affinities with American Indian artifacts: rather they have a European flavor. What can one make out of all this? Petersen is only able to state: "Although the site is undoubtedly human-made, its function, antiquity and cultural attribution cannot be precisely specified on the basis of the unique characteristics of both the ...
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