5 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Killer Bamboos There are more than 500 species of bamboo. Together, they have conspired - in a vegetative way - to exterminate the pandas. Why pick on such a cute, lovable animal? Pandas, you see, eat nothing but bamboos; and the bamboos have had enough! The bamboos' strategy is to flower only once in a lifetime. When the appointed time arrives for each species, all plants of the species all over the world flower simultaneously. The various species flower at intervals of 15, 30, 60, or 120 years. (These 15-year multiples and the unknown clocks that determine them are anomalies in themselves.) After a species flowers, all plants die, leaving the fate of the species to a thick carpet of seeds. Until the next flowering, it will extend its domain via vegetative reproduction only. Ten years will pass before the bamboos have grown enough to be a viable pan-da food source. The pandas' only hope is to find a species of bamboo that did not flower. It is hard to think of a plant as malevolent, but here is how P. Shipman describes the situation: "Green and slender, deceptively innocent-looking, it spreads out slowly, year by year, until it has its victims surrounded. Meanwhile the pandas, poor patsies, are eating out of the bamboo's hand. Only when the pandas are well and truly ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 262 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf070/sf070b05.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects China's bermuda triangle For "triangle" watchers, we provide the following news item: "Some 50 scientists recently surveyed southwest Sichuan Province's notorious high-elevation Black Bamboo Ravine, or Heizugou, where people and livestock have vanished. The Beijingbased Xinhua News Agency reports that scientists believe rotting plants found in the cold, humid region give off a poisonous gas, 'suffocating people and making them fall into the abyss.' The experts also explain that the magnetic field at Heizhugou 'is so strong that it is likely to disable compasses and cause plane crashes.'" (Anonymous; "China's 'Bermuda Triangle'," World Press Review , p. 27, July 1995. Cr. C. Masthay.) Comment. Except for the magnetic field part, Black Bamboo Ravine can be assigned to category ESC5 in Anomalies in Geology, where one also finds Yellowstone's Death Gulch and Java's Poisoned Valley. To order this book, see: here . From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 29 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf101/sf101g12.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A RELUCTANT, LONG-OVERDUE PARADIGM SHIFT Astronomy "TAIL WAGS DOG" IN SOLAR SYSTEM Two anomalous types of stars Tilted planetary magnetic fields Biology Killer bamboos Killer whale dialects Wandering albatrosses really wander Crystal engineering Bird brain Artificial molecule shows 'sign of life' Geology Why aren't beach pebbles round? Antarctic ice sheets slipping? Natural gas explosion? Geophysics Double image of lunar crescent Elliptical halos Belgian flying triangle Lightning "attacks" vehicles Spinning ball of light inscribes crop circles General Successful predictions mean little in science ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf070/index.htm
... of China these days. From western Yunnan and northwestern Hubei provinces come hundreds of recent sightings. Since 1976, four Chinese scientific expeditions have concentrated their attentions in the mountainous, thickly forested Shennongjia region of Hubei Province. So far, though, there are no specimens or even good photos. The major evidence for the existence of the Wild Man consists of anecdotal reports, many casts of footprints (18 inches long), hair (reddish), and samples of feces. The same situation prevails in North America as far as Sasquatch evidence is concerned. Summarizing recent sightings, the Wild Man is a bipedal creature, seven-feet-plus in height, usually covered with reddish hair, possessing human features, with no tail, having the ability to laugh and cry, capable of weaving bamboo sleeping couches, and with no fear of fire. The Wild Man eats fruit and small animals, but has also been known to steal small pigs and corn from farmers. An anecdote from the 1940s: a band of hunters killed a Wild Man with a machine gun and cooked it in a pot. The taste was so foul that no one would eat it! (Wren, Christopher S.; "On the Trail of the 'Wild Man' of China," New York Times, June 5, 1984, p. C1. Cr. P. Gunkel) From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 14 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf035/sf035p15.htm
... 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 Early Chinese Voyages To Australia Dr. Alan Thorne, at the Australian National University, after studying early human fossils from both Australia and China, concludes that there was a significant movement of people from the Chinese coast to North Australia at least 10,000 years ago. He hypothesizes that the Chinese built sea-going rafts of bamboo and explored Indonesia as well as the Australian coast. (Anonymous; "Chinese 'First to Australia'," Melbounre Sun, August 14, 1982. Cr. G.D . Thompson.) Comment. The China-to-Australia trip is simplified by island-hopping, but the existence of an early Chinese sea-faring capability has later significance for the Americas, too. From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf024/sf024p02.htm
