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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 7: June 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ancient Rock Cairns In The California Desert The anomaly here resides in the caliche (CaCO3 ) adhering to the bones and rock undersides in a California burial cairn. The caliche has been dated at more than 21,000 B.P . by radiocarbon methods and 19,000 B.P . by thorium methods -- ages much too large for conventional archeological histories of the Southwest. P.J . Wilke objects that only the age of the soil caliche has been measured and that the bones and their burial may be much younger. This cairn site, called the Yuha burial site, possesses no other datable characteristics. On the other hand, many other California burial cairns (the California desert is amply provided with them) have been dated only from 5,000 B.P . to historic times. In this context, Wilke maintains that it is easier to believe that the Yuha bones are merely 5,000 years old, and that the problem is actually in the dating. (Wilke, Philip J.; "Cairn Burials of the California Deserts," American Antiquity, 43:444, 1978.) Comment. Such reasoning is the typical reaction when data contradict prevailing hypotheses -- and sometimes it is correct. From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 21: May-Jun 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More On Those Chinese Anchors In California Waters In SF#14, the discovery of Chinese-type anchors off the California coast was described, as it had been reported in the Anthropological Journal of Canada. The anchors, according to that report suggested a Chinese presence in America centuries ago. This is not a respectable notion among most archeologists, as we see in a strong rebuttal by F.J . Frost in Archaeology that begins by raising the"horrrible" spectres of Heyerdahl and von Dainiken. [Should these names be used to scare archeologists?] First of all, the rebuttal's author, F.J . Frost, sinks the Land of Fu Sang legend by relating how Gustaaf Schlegel showed in 1892 that the ancient Chinese mapmakers knew perfectly well that Fusan was actually an island just off the northeast Asian coast. Next, Frost tells how a recent attempt to duplicate the voyage from China to America in a Chinese junk riding the Kuroshio Current was a dismal failure. If so, then, how about those stone anchors found in shallow waters off Palos Verdes, California? They are legitimate Chinese anchors all right, but they are modern, having been lost by local California fishermen of Chinese extraction. History tells how Chinese immigrants quickly applied the techniques of their native land to the California Coast. Finally, Frost does identify some genuine unsolved mysteries off Palos Verdes. It seems that some of the stones found underwater ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 139: Jan-Feb 2002 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Surf's Up On California'S Shores: Really Up At Cortes Bank The biggest waves swashing against southern California's beaches have grown by 2 meters or 35% since 1948. (Anonymous; "Surf's Up and Up and Up," New Scientist, p. 29, October 27, 2001.) Comment. The Atlantic's waves, too, have been getting larger. (SF#113) But if you want to surf some true Pacific giants, you must leave the shoreline and head for Cortes Bank 160 miles offshore. There, far out of sight of land, lurks a shallow rock shelf that amplifies wind-driven waves---but only the largest of them. The elliptical swirls of the smaller waves do not reach down to the rock shelf and are unaffected. But when bigger swells encounter the shelf they are amplified into giants. So challenging are these waves that. when conditions are right, expert surfers boat out to Cortes Bank and wait for the really big ones. Mike Parsons caught the first wave at dawn. It was 18 metres tall and moving at around 40 knots. You can't paddle fast enough to get onto a wave like that---you have to be towed by a jet ski. Evan Slater, editor of Swell.com, did try paddling onto a wave, but had to abandon his board and dive deep underwater ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects California's maze stones Humans have been carving and drawing mazes and building labyrinths from prehistoric times. Primitive peoples laboriously carved cup-and-ring designs; newspapers today print puzzle mazes in the Sunday editions. There is something fascinating, even mystical, about mazes. They are "signs that snare men's minds." We will never know why the Indians of southern California lavished so much labor etching mazes on hard rock surfaces, D.F . McCarthy, a University of California archeologist, has been studying these California maze stones for over 20 years. He has found over 50 of them so far. Some are over 3,000 years old, he thinks. Most are carved on rocks and boulders. They are just like our modern Sunday-paper mazes, with rectangular passageways, some blind, but always with a devious route leading to the center. Could they symbolize human life, full of potentially wrong turns, but with a Way to enlightenment? (Hillinger, Charles; "Ancient Carvings of Indians Remain Enigma to Expert," Richmond News Leader , November 11, 1991. Cr. H.C . Nottebart.) From Science Frontiers #89, SEP-OCT 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 24: Nov-Dec 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Seismic Ghost Slithers Under California From 1973 into 1978, instruments monitoring the San Andreas Fault told geophysicists that north-south distances between observing stations along the fault line were contracting. The Pacific Coast was moving north while the rest of North America was heading south! Then, in 1978, the 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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... 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 California Sea Serpent Flap During October and November 1983, several sightings of a dark, eel-like creature came from the California coast. (Stinson Beach, north of San Francisco, and Costa Mesa). Three humps (just like in the classic sea serpents on old maps) followed a small head, which rose above the surface to look around. Many individuals saw the serpent, some with binoculars. At Stinson Beach, the animals was followed by about 100 birds and two dozen sea lions. (Anonymous; "' Sea Serpents' Seen off California Coast," International Society of Cryptozoology Newsletter, 2:9 , Winter 1983.) Comment. Of the vertebrates, only mammals are built so that they can easily flex vertically. Reference. We catalog mammalian "sea serpents" under BMU in Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. For more information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 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 California Skeletons Not So Old After All About a decade ago, considerable controversy erupted when some obviously old human skeletons were dated at 37,000, 44,000, and even 70,000 BP by a new dating technique called Aspartic Acid Racemization (AAR). Conventional radioactive dating had put all of these skeletons at well under 10,000 BP, well within bounds of the Bering Strait migration hypothesis. The early AAR dates were thus at odds with current archeological thinking and, in addition, very encouraging to those who believed that humans occupied North America long before 10,000 BP. J.L . Bada, a proponent of AAR dating, now states that the controversial AAR dates were based on calibration skeletons which had been erroneously dated by radioactive methods. It seems that AAR dating requires an accurately dated reference skeleton. With the reference skeleton dates now known to be incorrect, Bada had to recalibrate his AAR dating scheme. The reference skeletons were therefore redated using a more accurate radioactive technique. All of the incredibly ancient skeletons have now been redated by AAR methods using the revised reference skeletons. The 37,000 BP date now becomes a reasonable 5,100 2000 BP figure. The AAR dating crisis seems to be over. All anomalies have been expunged. (Bada, Jeffrey L.; "Aspartic Acid Racemization Ages of California Paleoindian Skeletons," American Antiquity, 50:645, 1985.) From ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The whale-on-its-tail fossil Near Lompoc, California, is a large deposit of diatomaceous earth, so-called because it is composed almost entirely of countless billions of exquisitely sculptured diatom skeletons. Uniformitarian geologists have steadfastly maintained that such diatomaceous-earth deposits require millions of years to form as the tiny skeletons sink slowly to the sea floor. At Lompoc, however, embedded in the thick layer of diatomaceous earth is the fossil of a large whale apparently standing on its tail. How could this whale fossil have maintained its position and integrity over hundreds of thousands of years as it was buried millimeter by millimeter? Wouldn't the bones have been quickly scattered? Creationists have pointed to this whale as proof that the Lompoc diatomaceous-earth deposit was formed catastrophically, interring the whale almost instantaneously, and burying doctrinaire uniformitarianism at the same time. (Creationists want to "shorten" geological time to fit Biblical schedules.) But was the whale really entombed on its tail? Creationist geologists studied the Lompoc deposit and put a different slant on the story but not on its ending. "Contrary to some reports that have circulated, the 80-90 ft (24-27 m) long fossilised baleen whale found in April 1976 in an inclined position in a diatomite unit in the Miguelito Mine at Lompoc, California, was not buried while 'standing on its tail'. An onsite investigation has revealed that the ...
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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 Artifacts Of The Auriferous Gravels Now dismissed entirely and even ridiculed by establishment archeologists is the evidence of ancient human activity found in California's auriferous gravels. R.E . Gentet sets the geological stage in the following paragraph. "The 1849 gold rush to the state of California was the beginning of some of the most unusual reported finds of early man in North America. The gold-bearing gravels of California are recognized as being Tertiary in age, ranging from oldest to youngest Tertiary, depending upon the exact geological setting. At the time these gravels were deposited, volcanic eruptions also laid down lava beds, often tens or scores of feet thick. This occurred a number of times, and together with much erosion since then, have now resulted in table mountains, that is, lava-capped hills where the harder lava has better withstood erosion stresses while surrounding softer material has been swept away. It is under the hard lava beds, in the gold-bearing (auriferous) gravels, where the reported human bones and artifacts were found, not just once or twice, but hundreds of times by miners during the span of time from the 1850s through the 1890s while engaging in mining operations. Findings were spread over a wide geographical area." During the late 1800s, several books and many papers recorded the discoveries. Some of the finds were made by respected scientists of the day. Human skulls were found embedded over ...
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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 Baby Oil Geologists maintain that most of the oil they pump out of the ground was formed tens and hundreds of millions of years ago from biological debris. But in the Guaymas Basin, in the Gulf of California, the oil seeping out of the sediments is only 4240 years old! Actually, it could be even 500-3000 years younger than that for two reasons: (1 ) The organic debris that was C-14-dated may have taken many years to become incorporated in the sediments; and (2 ) The dating may be skewed by older material in the sediments. By subtraction, the oil might be as young as 1240 years! The picture geologists draw of the Guaymas Basin is that of a spreading center covered by perhaps a half kilometer of sediments. Spewing up from the spreading center is hot water at 300-350 C, which "cracks" the organic material in the sediments, converting it into petroleum only 10-30 meters below the sea floor. (Hecht, Jeff; "Youngest Oil Deposit Found below Gulf of California," New Scientist, p. 19, April 6, 1991.) Comment. Since spreading centers are really cracks in the earth's crust, it is possible that some of the feed materials for this modern "petroleum factory" in the Guaymas Basin could consist of abiogenic, primordial methane and other organics seeping up from deep within the earth. Reference ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Earthquake Ripples In The Ionosphere During the January 1994 Northridge earthquake in California, the ground surface acted like a drumhead. By suddenly shoving the surface upwards by about 40 centimeters, the quake generated atmospheric disturbances that spread skyward at velocities of 1,000-2 ,200 kilometers/hour. Upon reaching the ionosphere, the waves created ripples that were detected by the array of navigational satellites that make up the Global Positioning System (GPS). (Monastersky, Richard; "Bouncing an Earthquake off the Sky," Science News, 146:415, 1994) Comment. The great 1964 Alaskan quake not only blasted the ionosphere, it generated air waves that were detected by a microbarograph at Berkeley, California, 3,130 kilometers away. See GSW2 in Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. For a description of this volume, visit here . From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The moon, the stars, and human behavior We humans have an inherited penchant for observing the heavens and wondering if the stars can affect our daily lives. Secular humanists hate astrology with a passion because, like Cassius in Julius Caesar, they believe we are masters of our own destinies. Nevertheless, astrol-ogy columns are still prominent in most newspapers. In the scientific press, however, we have to score a big plus for the anti-astrologers. First, Nature has just published a detailed analysis of the predictive power of astrology, and astrology has come up very short. The Nature study is by S. Carlson, a physicist at the University of California at Berkeley. At the end of seven data-packed pages Carlson concludes: "We are now in a position to argue a surprisingly strong case against natal astrology as practised by reputable astrologers. Great pains were taken to insure that the experiment was unbiased and to make sure that astrology was given every reasonable chance to succeed. It failed. Despite the fact that we worked with some of the best astrologers in the country, recommended by the advising astrologers for their expertise in astrology and their ability to use CPI (California Personality Inventory), despite the fact that every reasonable suggestion made by the advising astrologers was worked into the experiment, despite the fact that the astrologers approved the design and predicted 50 per cent as the 'minimum' effect they would expect to see, astrology failed ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 24: Nov-Dec 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Calico Site Revisited The following abstract deals with the purported crude stone tools found at the controversial Calico site in California. "Continuation of the Calico investigation, both in the field and laboratory, has conclusively established the presence of Early Man, through the demonstration of numerous tools in several categories, as proven by a number of significant traits or attributes familiar to archaeologists. Microscopic examination reveals use-wear patterns. Uranium-thorium tests yield a date of 200,000 20,000 years for the artifacts." (Simpson, Ruth D.; "Updating the Early Man Calico Site, California," Anthropological Journal of Canada, 20:8 , no. 2, 1982.) Comment. Evidence or no evidence, the archeological community is not yet ready to believe 200,000 years! Reference. For more on Calico and other purported sites of ancient humans, see our Handbook: Ancient Man, which is described here . From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Berkeley Walls Extended For almost two decades, R. Swanson has been searching out the enigmatic stone walls that festoon the Berkeley Hills and beyond, far, it now seems. We first mentioned these walls and provided a photograph back in 1985. (SF#39) Since then, Swanson's labors have received a modicum of public notoriety but hardly a flicker of academic interest. One reason for professional disinterest seems to be that grant money for exploring old walls is nonexistent! To bring new readers of SF up to speed on these perplexing California walls, we quote two paragraphs from a recent article by Swanson. "On the crest of the Berkeley hills there is a long line of large rocks, some are three feet in length, they may weigh a half ton. A century ago they ran for miles on these dry, wind-swept crests then down in a line to what is now the botanical gardens." .. .. . "In the past twelve years, I have visited over forty miles of these stone structures. To call them walls is something of a misnomer. Some do go in a straight line, others twist like a demented snake up a steep hillside, others come in a spiral two hundred feet wide and circle into a boulder with a six-inch knob carved on the top of it. Some are massive, over six feet tall and run for miles." ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 29: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Astronomy And Earthquakes "Large earthquakes in southern California with epicenters between 33 and 36 N have statistically significant 12 hourly, lunar fortnightly and 18.6 -yr periodicities. Smaller earthquakes in the same region do not display these periodicities. A search for tidal effects associated with these periodicities shows that large earthquakes have significant correlations with the times and orientations of daily/semi-daily tidal stresses while the lunar fortnightly terms are associated with the ocean tides along the Southern Californian coast." (Kilston, S., and Knopoff, L; "Lunar-Solar Periodicities of Large Earthquakes in Southern California," Nature, 304:21, 1983.) Comment. The literature contains many similar correlations for quakes of various sizes, for various restricted geographical areas, and for various depths. Many of these studies are summarized in our Catalog volume Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. For more information on this book, visit: here . One tidal strain component (normalized) plotted for 20 days before and after the earthquake of June 25, 1925, showing the large fortnightly modulation of the diurnal tide. Curiously (perhaps anomalously) the quake occurred during a period of minimum strain. From Science Frontiers #29, SEP-OCT 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Geysers As Detectors Of Distant Earthquakes June 1992. Landers, California. An earthquake of magnitude 7.5 shook this small town. In apparent sympathy with the Landers disturbance, seismic activity appeared from one end of California to the other, as well as in Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. The Landers quake stimulated unusual seismicity in the solid black areas. Yellowstone Park, Wyoming. Here, 1100 kilometers from Landers, the geyser Echinus, which had been erupting on a regular schedule of every 56 minutes, went berserk. It didn't settle down for 34 hours. Geyser eruptions are frequently disturbed by nearby quakes, but Landers was hardly nearby! The seismology community. "Those distant shocks have startled seismologists as well as ordinary residents. Conventional thinking, at least among U.S . researchers, holds that stress generated when a fault slips in an earthquake peters out within a distance equal to a couple of times the length of the ruptured fault. For Landers, where about 70 kilometers of fault ruptured, this would amount to only about onetenth of the observed reach." Seismologists are now searching for ways to account for these unexpectedly far-reaching effects. (Monastersky, Richard; "Yellowstone Geyser Shows Quake Effect," Science News, 142:428, 1992. Also: Kerr, Richard A.; "Landers Quake's Long Reach Is Shaking Up Seismologists," Science, 259 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 11: Summer 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bering Strait Theory Again In Trouble If humans first populated North America via the Bering land bridge 10-20,000 years ago, how did human bones and artifacts get buried under a 50,000-year-old alluvial fan in California? Dogma demands that such finds be discredited. Thus, "Pleistocene Man at San Diego," the Calaveras Skull, and dozens of other archeological anomalies have been dismissed as the hoaxes and misidentifications of nonprofessionals. The latest hint of truly ancient man in America came after heavy rains in 1976 cut through 21 meters of deposits at Yuha Pinto Wash, just north of the Mexican border in California. The artifacts, still firmly in place, and associated bones are undeniably human. The overlying sediments are dated at more than 50,000 years old. (Childers, W. Morlin, and Minshall, Herbert L.; "Evidence of Early Man Exposed at Yuha Pinto Wash," American Antiquity, 45:297, 1980.) Reference. More evidence against the Bering land bridge hypothesis may be found in Ancient Man. This Handbook is described here . From Science Frontiers #11, Summer 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... a comet .. .. . "The awesome feature of this display was its magnitude. I thought if whatever was creating the display collided with our Earth, then we would no longer exist. I also feel that I was seeing only a small portion of the whole. As hindsight I can only regret that I did not report this sighting through Air Traffic Control channels. The crew discussed and speculated on what we had seen, then promptly forgot about it." The account continues, relating how on the next night, when the aircraft departed the Philippines for Guam and Wake Island, the same phenomenon appeared in the east, although the plane's heading was then about 60 . The display appeared unchanged on two more mights on the legs from Wake to Hawaii and Hawaii to California. On the fifth night, however, from California to Washington, DC, nothing was seen. (Silva, John J.; personal communication, December 28, 1985.) From Science Frontiers #46, JUL-AUG 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 14: Winter 1981 Supplement Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The China Syndrome In Archeology Bit by bit, evidence accumulates showing that Chinese and Japanese ships visited the American Pacific coast long before Europeans. Indian traditions tell of many "houses" seen on Pacific waters. Chinese history, too, tells a charming account of voyages to the land of Fusang. Even old Spanish documents describe oriental ships off the Mexican coast in 1576. Japanese explorers and traders evidently left steel blades in Alaska and their distinctive pottery in Ecuador. Recent underwater explorations off the California coast have yielded stone artifacts that seem to be anchors and line weights (messenger stones?). One line weight found at 2,000 fathoms is covered with enough manganese to suggest great antiquity. The style and type of stone point to Chinese origins for all these artifacts. Apparently, vessels from the Orient were riding the Japanese Current to North American shores long before the Vikings and Columbus reached the continent. (Pierson, Larry J., and Moriarty, James R,; "Stone Anchors: Asiatic Shipwrecks off the California Coast," Anthropological Journal of Canada, 18:17, 1980.) Reference. Such putative Asian contacts are covered in our Handbook: Ancient Man. A description of this book is located here . From Science Frontiers #14, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... is assignable to the Paracas Culture. Separated by 130 miles from the Nazca Plain, with its famed giant figures, the Candelabra apparently is not the work of the Nazca people. It is puzzling why that such a figure would be placed where it could be seen best by sailors. As with Costa Rica's stone spheres, the Candelabra's makers, purpose, and symbology are in doubt. The Pisco geoglyph really doesn't match the motifs in our books on South American archeology. Some archeologists say it is only a trident, but who ever saw a trident like this? F. Joseph, the author of the present article, thinks it looks like a Jimson weed! Furthermore, he states that there is a miniature version of the Candelabra drawn on a rock in California's Cleveland National Forest. Joseph associates the two candelabras in this way: The ancient inhabitants of Peru voyaged to California to collect Jimson weed and other hallucinatory drugs. When they sailed back to Peru with their cargo, they used the Pisco geoglyph as a navigational aid! (Joseph, Frank; "The Candelabra of the Andes," The Ancient American , 2:10, no. 10, 1995.) From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The birds Remember the Hitchcock thriller with the above title? In it, a small seaside town was invaded by birds intent upon homicide. Well, something a little bit like that really happened. The real-life event actually helped Hitchcock plan his movie -- of course, D. Du Maurier's short story with the same title helped even more! Here is what really happened on the California coast: "In 1961, a small seaside town near Santa Cruz was bombarded by hordes of sooty shearwaters. The crazed birds pecked people, smashed into houses and cars, broke windows and staggered around vomiting pieces of anchovy over local lawns." This attack was initially blamed on foggy weather which might have disoriented the shearwaters, which normally stay far out at sea. The latest theory is based on the erratic behavior of the birds. They may have ingested fish that carried a marine neurotoxin called domoic acid. Domoic acid is produced by marine alga that bloom frequently along the California coast. (Mestel, Rosie; "Hitch's Birds Deranged by Dodgy Anchovies," New Scientist, p. 6, July 22, 1995.) From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "Redshift is A Shaky Measuring Rod"So saith M. Burbidge, an astronomer at the University of California at San Diego. Her assertion echoes what Arp has been proclaiming for years. (AR#3 ); namely that some redshifts are not due to the Doppler effect and an expanding universe. Since redshift is the major cosmological yardstick, the whole fabric of modern cosmology would become unwoven if redshifts cannot be used to measure distances reliably. We bring this subject up once more because Burbidge claims that some newly discovered quasar pairs cast additional doubt on redshift distance measurements. For example, she, along with Arp and Y. Chu, point to the quasar pair flanking the galaxy named Arp 220 (one of Arp's earlier discoveries). Quasars are very energetic sources of visible light, radio waves, and X-rays. The problem with Arp-220's flanking quasars is that they have much greater redshifts than the galaxy that seems to be situated in between them and likely at the same distance. Is this just a chance association, and the quasars are really much farther away than the galaxy -- as suggested by their high redshifts? Most astronomers believe this must be the case, but Burbidge and, of course, Arp, doubt it. They point to 10 other galaxies nearby that are also straddled by quasar pairs with higher redshifts. All of these were discovered within the last four years ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 7: June 1979 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Where Did Chief Joseph Get A Cuniform Tablet? Rameses Ii Hooked on Tobacco Ancient Rock Cairns in the California Desert Astronomy Post-eclipse Brightening of Io Confirmed Seeing Double and Even Triple on Jupiter White Area in Bottom of Martian Crater Biology The Deadly Sun What Drummer Do Periodical Cicadas Hear? The Moon and Life Geology Unwanted Noise on the Terrestrial Tape Recorder Geophysics Solar Activity Triggers Microearthquakes More Milky Seas Seen The Sun Controls the Earth's Global Electrical Circuit Psychology Bpm equals dowsing Is There A Science of Anomalies? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 8: Fall 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Iridium And Mass Extinctions Alvarez and his colleagues at the University of California, while chemically analyzing a series of sedimentary strata from Italy, discovered that one layer had 25 times the concentration of iridium residing in adjacent strata. The iridium-rich layer forms the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, 65 million years ago. During that death-filled interval, 50% of the earth's genera were wiped out. Such are the two correlated facts: iridium increase and mass extinction. But do they have the same cause? Alvarez et al point out that iridium is rare on earth but much more common out in space. The anomalous concentration of iridium could have been injected by a massive solar flare, a big meteor impact, or come other extraterrestrial catastrophe. Thus is catastrophism being resurrected. (Anonymous; "An Iridium Clue to the Dinosaur's Demise," New Scientist, 82: 798, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #8 , Fall 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 9: Winter 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Ancient Planet Beneath A Youthful Veneer Gerald Wesserburg and Donald de Paolo, two California geologists, have studied the isotopic ratios of neodymium 143 and 144 in both continental and deep-sea lavas. If the underground lava sources were the same, the isotope ratios should be the same. But they are not. Midocean lavas are enriched in neodymium143 compared to continental lavas. Since neodymium-143 is a decay product of samarium, scientists have been able to establish the neodymium isotope ratio from the time of the Big Bang to the present. The isotope ratio for the mid-ocean lavas is just what would be expected on a planet where lighter surface materials had come to the surface during a molten state. The continental lavas, though, must tap very ancient reservoirs, possibly those of a true primitive earth. This ancient core is now swathed with younger materials from who knows where! This young envelope wraps around the whole planet, with the present continents being caused by slight protuberances on the ancient core. Whence the young veneer? A rain of material from some recent close encounter? (Anonymous; "Underground Sites of Ancient Earth," New Scientist, 83:886, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #9 , Winter 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A ROBOT'S MYSTERIOUS DISCOVERY California's maze stones Astronomy An age paradox In the dark about dark matter Biology Why do electric fish swim backwards? Electric fish not backward in data processing Homo erectus never existed! Solar activity, your mother's birth year, and your longevity Smoldering corpse Geology RHYTHMIC SUBMARINE VOLCANOS Blasting rocks off planets Geophysics Looping lightning Crop circles: a middle ground Psychology The birthday: lifeline or deadline? Ganzfeld experiments: do they prove telepathy exists? General Transcendental messages in transcendental numbers ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 20: Mar-Apr 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Puzzling Group Behavior Of Sharks For some unknown reason, sharks often congregate in immense groups. Approximately 2,000 sharks took over 24 kilometers of the surf zone near Corpus Christi during June 1977. Some courageous divers decided to study large groups of the scalloped hammerhead that regularly gather in the Gulf of California. Happily, the hammerheads were not aggressive when so occupied and could be approached closely. They swam pointed in roughly the same direction, maintaining about the same spacing through the groups, which sometimes numbered 100 or more. They did not feed, mate, or do anything collectively; but once in a while an individual would suddenly engage briefly in acrobatic behavior -- one common type was dubbed the "shimmy dance." The researchers concluded that these shark groups had no obvious purpose and that, for reasons beyond the ken of man, this behavior somehow contributed to their evolutionary success. (Klimley, A. Peter; "Grouping Behavior in the Scalloped Hammerhead," Oceanus, 24:65, Winter 1981/1982.) Comment. The sharks might be much "farther along" without complex, time-wasting group behavior. What do sharks know about evolution anyway? From Science Frontiers #20, MAR-APR 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 20: Mar-Apr 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Subterranean petroleum factories?Sediment samples dredged up from the bottom of the Gulf of California near some hydrothermal vents contain petroleum similar in some ways to commercial petroleum. Apparently organic matter in the vicinity of the vent is thermally converted into oil, or at least something that, like wine, matures into something useful. (Simoneit, Bernd R.T ., and Lonsdale, Peter F.; "Hydrothermal Petroleum in Mineralized Mounds at the Seabed of Guayman Basin," Nature, 295:198, 1982.) Comment. The recently discovered hydrothermal vents are only the external manifestations of what must be extensive chemical factories beneath the crust. The rich assemblages of thermosynthetic life (not photosynthetic life) around the vents makes one speculate about what might be transpiring chemically and biologically in the hot, fluid-saturated crevices and pores of the earth's crust. Carbon dating of petroleum sometimes yields absurdly young ages. Could it be that all the natural gas and petroleum we could ever need is now being manufactured for us subterraneanly ? The Gaia hypothesis would lead us to expect just such a process. After all, humankind requires abundant fuel if it is to carry earth life out into the reaches of space! From Science Frontiers #20, MAR-APR 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 21: May-Jun 1982 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Strange Megalithic Monuments in the Central Sahara The Hueyatlaco Dilemma More on Those Chinese Anchors in California Waters Astronomy The Earth's Other Moons Flattened Sun Means Trouble for Einstein Natural Lasers in the Terrestrial and Martian Skies? Magnetic Tune Played on Saturn's Rings Biology Don't Build Von Neumann Machines Artificial Panspermia on the Moon Geology Bull's Eye Pattern of Magnetic Anomalies What's Ok in the Mediterranean is Verboten in the Atlantic and the Pacific Geophysics Anomalous Sky Flash Psychology Oh Magic, Thy Name is Psi ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 24: Nov-Dec 1982 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Africa Not Man's Origin! Early Chinese Voyages to Australia The Calico Site Revisited Astronomy Mysterious "thing" in Orbit Around Saturn The Spin We're In Islands of Hope for Life Eternal A Hint of Extraterrestrial Oceans Biology Why Cancer? Mice Transmit Human Gene Sequences to Their Progeny Biological Regeneration: Two Anomalies Geology Seismic Ghost Slithers Under California Powerful Earth Current Enters North America From the Pacific The Polyna Mystery Geophysics Balls of Fire Enter Room Through Metal Screens Massive Freak Wave Psychology The Cinema of the Mind ...
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... kind we can see directly, suggest that most of the universe is, in fact, composed of dark matter. This conclusion comes mainly from the belief that something unseen (dark matter) is tugging on visible matter, making it do things the laws of motion say it should not do. All visible bodies, therefore, seem to be careening about in a dense cloud of unseen, unknown masses. These might be dark, Jupiter-sized objects, black holes, and/or some exotic forms of matter. We must choose between the reality of dark matter or admit that something is awry with our laws of gravitation and motion when they are applied on a cosmological scale Now, let us examine those four darkmatter items from the recent literature: D. Lin, a University of California astronomer, has shown that the Large Magellanic Cloud that orbits around our own galaxy (the Milky Way) is being torn apart (" cannibalized") by the powerful gravitational pull of a dense cloud of dark matter surrounding the Milky Way. This dismemberment of the Large Magellanic Cloud cannot be explained by the gravitational forces exerted by the stars in our galaxy that we can see. Lin calculates that our halo of dark matter is equivalent to 600-800 billion solar masses, compared to the only 100 billion solar masses of visible matter. (Flam, Faye; "Spinning in the Dark," Science, 260:1593, 1993. Also: Anonymous; "' Dark Matter' Is Observed 'Cannibalizing' a Galaxy," Baltimore Sun, p. 8A, June 8 ...
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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. 33: May-Jun 1984 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The Inca's Use of Bismuth An Ordovician Hammer? The Azilian Pebbles Astronomy A Real Death Star The Moon's Moonlets Comet Puffs A Smoke Ring Bad Spin Split Biology The Failure of Two-dimensional Life Rubberneckia Killer Fungi Cast Sticky Nets Prisoners of the Boundary Layer California Sea Serpent Flap Mokele-mbembe Geology Horsing Around with Evolution Mima Mounds in the Kenya Highlands A Russian Paluxy Geophysics Experiments on Brown Mountain Light Flashes Overhead Mystery Cloud of AD 536 Wormy Ball Lightning Crab Fall At Brighton Psychology Imaging Cancer Away Chemistry & Physics High G-values in Mines Falling Masses Swerve South ...
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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 Horsing Around With Evolution In the Borrego Badlands of California, Barbara Quinan has stumbled upon the fossilized skull of a modern horse, E. equus. The skull was found in situ, partly mineralized, a process usually requiring hundreds of thousands of years. Mammoth bones punctuate the strata immediately above and below those containing the horse fossil. The paleontological anomaly is that modern horses were supposed to have evolved in Asia and not brought to the New World until the Spanish explorers landed. The only way to evade rewriting horse history is to: (1 ) Cast doubt on the dating of the strata, or (2 ) Insist that the fossil is not really a horse at all but a similar animal, such as the long-headed zebra. (Smith, Gordon; "E . Equus: Immigrant or Emigrant?" Science 84, 5:76, April 1984.) From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Underwater Thumps "Scientists based on the central California coast are trying to identify the origin of a mysterious underwater sound that disturbed surfers and divers for three weeks -- and then just as mysteriously disappeared. "The sound, made up of thumps occurring at 10-second intervals, was compared by one diver to five or six giant bongo drums going off simultaneously. Most experts have concluded that it was of human origin." As usual in such cases, no governmental or military sources knew anything about the thumps. (Shurkin, Joel N.; "Underwater Thumps Baffle Ocean Scientists," Nature, 371: 274, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 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 Whales And Dolphins Trapped Magnetically Joseph L. Kirschvink, of the California Institute of Technology, has plotted the hundreds of beachings of whales and dolphins along the U.S . east coast. He finds that these cetaceans tend to run aground at spots where the earth's magnetic field is diminished by the local magnetic fields of rocks. These coastal magnetic lows are at the ends of long, continuous channels of magnetic minima that run for great distances along the ocean floors. Kirschvink believes that the stranded whales and dolphins were using these magnetic troughs for navigation and failed to see the stop sign at the beaches and ran aground. The mag-netic troughs in this view are superhighways for animals equipped with a magnetic sense. If Kirschvink's theory is correct, the magnetic sensors of the whales and dolphins are extremely sensitive, because the deepest magnetic troughs are only about 4% weaker than the background magnetic field. Magnetite crystals have been found in birds, fish, and insects, where they are thought to contribute to a magnetic sense of some sort. So far, no magnetite has shown up in whales and dolphins. (Weisburd, S.; "Whales and Dolphins Use Magnetic 'Roads,' Science News, 126:389, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 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 The Subtle Placebo A most interesting series of placebo experiments have been carried out by J.D . Levine and N.C . Gordon, of the University of California at San Francisco. The subjects were all dental patients who were tested when their surgical anesthesia was wearing off. The substances administered were: (1 ) a placebo; (2 ) morphine; and (3 ) naloxone, a substance that blocks the opiates produced in the brain. The doses were administered: (1 ) openly, when the experimenter knew which substance was being given; (2 ) by a person hidden from both experimenter and patient; and (3 ) by a machine. Two findings are particularly revealing. First, pain always increased after naloxone was administered, implying that the opiates blocked by naloxone are probably the same as those released by placebos. More significant, however, was the fact that both the open and hidden administrations of the placebo reduced pain while the machine-applied placebo resulted in more pain. In other words, when either the experimenter or the hidden administrator knew that the placebo was being given, the placebo worked. Levine and Gordon supposed that there must have been subtle clues, detected subconsciously by the patients, that the hidden person was administering the placebo. (Anonymous; "The Subtle Strength of Placebos," Science News, 127:25, 1985.) Comment. If no subtle clues existed, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Sparks On The Beach Sharp eyes often pick out unusual phenomena in very usual places. From California, A. Hastings writes: "I also had an experience with 'Sparks on the Beach' as in SF#104/4 . This was on the Pacific Ocean Beach at San Gregorio, south of San Francisco, several years ago. I was walking on fairly wet sand, just above the tide line. As I stepped, the sand around my feet lit up with small bright dots of phosphorescence. I would not have said that the color was blue, but it could have been like blue-white, like the star Rigel. I found that if I stepped hard or stamped my foot, the lights flashed brighter and the lit area went out farther from my foot. I could see the movement expanding out. After a stamp or two, they did not light up as much. I assumed that this was caused by some organism that lit up when it felt pressure, and 'wore out' after it had done this a few times -- a refractory period probably occurred." (Hastings, Arthur; personal communication, March 21, 1996) Comment. This is probably a pressureinduced biological phenomenon, but we have no idea what kind of organism produces the lights. Footsteps do produce a rapidly expanding pressure wave on damp sand, which whitens the sand as it moves outward. But we ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ten Myths Of Science We have at hand a lengthy paper bearing the above title. It is copyrighted with ominous warnings about quotations. So, we will paraphrase a lot. The significance of the article is so great that we dare to quote the first sentence: "This article addresses and attempts to refute several of the most widespread and enduring misconceptions held by students regarding the enterprise of science." We now paraphrase the ten myths of science, as recognized by W. McComas of the School of Education, University of Southern California. McComas analyzes each "myth" in depth, explaining why it is not a "truth." Myth 1. Hypotheses turn into theories which eventually become enshrined as laws. Myth 2. Hypotheses are really only educated guesses. Myth 3. There exists a scientific method that is general and universal. Myth 4. Certainty results when facts are accumulated and analyzed. Myth 5. The scientific method leads to absolute truth. Myth 6. Science is less creative than it is procedural. Myth 7. All questions posed by the universe can be answered via the scientific method. Myth 8. High objectivity is the hallmark of science. Myth 9. Scientific knowledge is based mainly on experiment. Myth 10. Scientists always review and check the work of their colleagues. (McComas, William; "Ten Myths of Science: Reexamining What We Think We Know...," School Science ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 41: Sep-Oct 1985 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The Australian Pyramids The Inka Road System California Skeletons Not So Old After All Astronomy Galaxy Redshifts Come in Clumps Wimps in the Sun? Biology An Animal That Photosynthesizes The Deceitful She-males Scrapie Transmitted by Prions Latest Episode: Loch Ness Evolution's Motor Runs Fast and Quietly Genetic Garrulousness Death and Social Class Geology Anatomy of A Magnetic Field Reversal Did the Australites Fall Recently? Geophysics Green Sky Flashes Ball Lightning Strikes Twice! Chemistry & Physics All Things Appear to Those Who Accelerate A Possible Crack in the Wall of the Temple of Relativity Restless Gold Unclassified Blinded by the Night ...
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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 Mysterious hums: the sequel The toadfish mating season is over and quiet has returned to Sausalito, but over at Pacific Heights and the Marina District on San Francisco Bay a new hum is driving people crazy. Speculation is rampant: Is the source a diesel generator, a hospital's portable CAT-scan machine, or underground electrical power lines ? We'll just have to await more communications from California. (Rubenstein, Steve; "Detours on the Trail of Mysterious Hum," San Francisco Chronicle, September 25, 1985. Cr. P. Bartindale) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... year-old caucasian skeleton in north america?The town of Kennewick, Washington, has lent its name to this ferociously controversial skeleton. It all began when the local sheriff asked anthropologist J. Chatters to take a look at a partially buried skeleton found on the shore of the Columbia River. (Ref. 1) "From head to toe, the bones were largely intact. The skeleton was that of a man, middle-aged at death, with Caucasian features, judging by skull measurements. Imbedded in the pelvis was a spearhead made of rock." Chatters initially thought he had merely a "pioneer" who had met an untimely death in the Wild West! "The real stunner came last month [June 1996], after bone samples were sent to the University of California at Riverside for radiocarbon dating. The conclusion: the skeleton of the 'pioneer' is 9,300 years old." (Ref. 2) Actually, the skeleton may well be that of a "pioneer" but one who came from the direction of the setting sun instead of the rising sun. Of course, it is perfectly all right for Asians to have crossed the Bering Strait into North America over 9,000 years ago, but a Caucasian raises scientific and emotional problems. "If Kennewick Man were actually Caucasian, it would be a startling discovery. So far, all of the oldest North American skeletons have been of Asian descent, although features on a few skulls have been controversially interpreted as Caucasoid. Another possibility is that the first Americans -- and their ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wind-driven Ice Sheets In Death Valley Scientists generally scoff at Forteana as beneath their dignity to investigate. But the mysterious moving rocks on Racetrack Playa in Death Valley have lured them out of their ivied halls. We quote from the abstract of a report seen in the mainstream journal Geology . "Sharply angular boulders as large as 320 kg [700 pounds] sit on the Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, California; trails leading to them indicate that the rocks have moved large distances. The process has never been witnessed. Although high winds and a wetted surface seem necessary, controversy persists about the need for other conditions, especially ice sheets. On the basis of experiments with a wetted Racetrack surface (soft mud about 3 cm deep), we find the effective coefficient of friction to be surprisingly high, about 0.8 . Movement by wind alone of moderate-sized (20 kg) rocks with cubic shape requires sustained winds close to the ground of about 80 m/s (about 180 mph). Larger flat-lying rocks require much higher winds." The authors of this paper, J.B . Reid, Jr., et al, precisely mapped a large number of the enigmatic tracks. Their maps revealed many "mated pairs" of rocks, whose curving tracks matched near their origins to within a few centimeters, even though the tracks were separated by up to 830 meters (over 0. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 111: May-Jun 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is perfect pitch favored by natural selection?People with perfect pitch can identify, play, and/or sing a particular musical note without first hearing a reference note. (SF#99 and SF#102) Even if a string of notes is played randomly, they can instantaneously name them. Although musical training while young fosters perfect pitch, the talent also runs in families. A study of 500 musicians, with and without perfect pitch, by N. Freimer at the University of California, revealed that half of those claiming perfect pitch knew family members of like talent. Only 5% of those without perfect pitch made this claim. (Ref. 1) At the North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, NY, P.K . Gregersen and M. de Andrade were able to locate 126 perfect-pitchers. In this select group, 5.5 % had parents with perfect pitch, and 26% had siblings thus gifted. Among musicians lacking perfect pitch, the figures were 1.1 % and 1.3 %, respectively. (Ref. 2) An unexpected (to us, anyway) correlation of perfect pitch and synethesia (SF#68) was made by Freimer's group. Some perfect-pitchers swear they can "see" musical notes, and even "smell" and "taste" them! (Ref. 1) References Ref. 1. Day, Michael; ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects October 5, 1998: Dark Day for Homing Pigeons Just what happened on October 5 may never be known. On that day thousands of homing pigeons were released by their proud owners in widely separated locations expecting they would quickly race home to their lofts. Few made it. In three separate races in New York and Pennsylvania, a total of 4,000 birds were released on October 5. Only 400 returned home. 3,000 pigeons released in California on the same day are still missing. All over the planet, homing pigeons are not homing as well as they used to. Performance has been falling steadily over the past two decades. The favorite theory blames geomagnetic storms, but no such correlation has been shown. Microwaves are fingered next. Cell phones and satellite communications fill the atmosphere ever more densely with microwaves that may throw off the navigation equipment of homing pigeons, but this hasn't been demonstrated yet either. (Ensley, Gerald; "Case of the 3,600 Disappearing Homing Pigeons Has Experts Baffled," Chicago Tribune, October 18, 1998. Cr. J. Cieciel. Also: Schoettler, Carl; "Pondering the Great Homing Pigeon Panic," Baltimore Sun, October 18, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fall Of Hot Globules January 6, 1909. Santa Cruz, California. "It rained hot bird shot at Santa Cruz today for nearly an hour, according to Mrs. W.H . Burns and her neighbors. Some of the shot has been preserved. "Mrs. Burns's curiosity was aroused yesterday by the peculiar antics of a number of barefooted children who were playing in front of her house. When she asked them what was the matter they told her that the air was full of electricity and that hot shot was falling from the clouds. "Then she heard a clatter on the housetop like hail and saw little white threads of steam rising from neighboring roofs. The steam was found to be the result of the dropping of little hot globules on the damp shingles. "This peculiar rain continued from about 3 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and varied in intensity. At one time the children, who were bareheaded and unshod, were compelled to take cover." (Anonymous; "Hot Shot from the Sky," New York Times, January 7, 1909. Cr. M. Piechota.) From Science Frontiers #124, JUL-AUG 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When were the americas peopled?For more than 50 years, archeological dogma has had the first Americans trooping across the Bering Land Bridge about 12,000 years ago -- about 2,000 years before the termination of the Ice Ages. Despite tight discipline among most professional archeologists (jobs and grants go only to approved individuals), a few cracks are beginning to appear. As reported in SF#47, a Brazilian site has now been reliably dated at 32,000 years. If these early Brazilians came over the Bering Land Bridge, they must have left even earlier traces in North America. In fact, there are two hotly debated North American sites that seem to be very much older than the one in Brazil; namely, the Calico site in California; and a spot along the Old Crow River in the Yukon. Thousands of stone artifacts, apparently showing signs of being shaped by humans, have been recovered at Calico over the past two decades. The Calico artifacts are usually contemptuously dismissed as naturally fractured chert flakes. But at the other end of the belief spectrum (Don't laugh, much of science is just as much of a belief system as religion!) are those who see a long human history at Calico. B. Bower writes: "Two periods of human occupation have been dated at Calico. From about 15,000 to 20,000 years ago the area was inhabited by what [R .D .] Simpson suggests was a huntinggathering people with more sophisticated tools, including stones flaked on both sides ...
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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 Shake No Quake January 30, 1987. Much of southern California was beset by a shaking phenomenon that stimulated scores of tele phone calls to newspapers, universities, and government facilities. The shaken areas included Long Beach, Pasadena, the San Gabriel Valley, Buena Park, San Pedro, Fullerton, and Newport Beach. Caltech's Seismological Laboratory, at Pasadena, insisted that no seismic activity had been detected. The FAA rulled out sonic booms; the Navy said its ships were not engaged in target practice, and the National Weather Service exonerated weather phenomena. No one seems to know what happened. (Tessel, Harry; "Southland Rattled, But This Mysterious Shake Is No Quake," Long Beach Press-Telegram , January 31, 1987. Cr. L. Farish) From Science Frontiers #51, MAY-JUN 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 147: May-Jun 2003 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology New Zealand's 1200AD Barrier Too Many Years Ago, Texas Quick Mud Captured a Young Woman Astronomy Cosmology gets Real! Really! What's Beyond the Kuiper Cliff! Biology The Master Code Some Odd Creaters Wrought by the Master Code Geology Rock Sliders at Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, California Depluming the Earth Geophysics Smokey, Cigar-Shaped Object Floats Across Room Ice Music Crustal Music Chemistry When Gold Goes Bad Unclassified The best UFO Cases ...
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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 A Glitch In The Evolution Of Whales S.A . McLeod, a paleontologist at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, has been studying the bones of a 10-million-year-old whale found in a backyard in Southern California. It is claimed that these bones "will fill an im portant gap in (the) knowledge of the evolution of whales." Actually, the opposite seems to be the case. "One of the interesting things about the discovery is that it appears 'this guy didn't follow the same evolutionary path as living whales,' McLeod says. Sperm whales today have well-developed teeth only in the lower jaw, whereas the fossil whale shows evidence of very large, very welldeveloped teeth in both upper and lower jaws." (Tyndall, Katie; "A Whale's Legacy," Insight, 49, June 15, 1987. Cr. C. Stiles.) Comment. One would think that a full mouth of teeth would serve sperm whales better, especially in their battles with the giant squid they prey upon. Is evolution reversing for whales? From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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