4 results found.
... has evolved huge bat-like ears and a highly elongated middle finger on each hand. This specialized finger does the tapping and the big ears relay the nuances of sound to the brain. So sensitive is this specialized form of sonar that the ayeaye can detect grubs 2 centimeters below the surface of the wood. Once a grub has been located, the aye-aye tears into the wood with its forwardcurving, chisel-like teeth. The incisors are remarkable for a primate, for they keep on growing, just like those of rodents. When the grub-containing chamber has been reached, the long, narrow middle finger is inserted and the grub is retrieved. A neat combination of attributes. What is even more interesting is a comparison of the aye-aye with many of the woodpeckers. Many woodpeckers also employ percussive foraging, have special bills for chiselling, and possess very, spiny tongues for extracting grubs. In other words, the aye-aye is a primate that occupies the niche of a woodpecker. As luck (? ) would have it, the aye-aye lives on Madagascar where there are no woodpeckers! (Mason, Georgia; "Grubs on Tap for the Ayeaye," New Scientist, p. 23, June 22, 1991.) Reference. The aye-aye is a most peculia mammal. For more, see: BMA39 and BMT3 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Mammals I. Ordering details here . From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 48 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf077/sf077b09.htm
... 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 Things That Bo Buzz In The Night In a recent issue of the New Scientist, B. Fox mused about the weird world of electromagnetic transmissions and unidentified audio-frequency humming. We and our complex array of high-tech gadgetry are continuously bombarded by all manner of electrical and electromagnetic signals, noise, and transients. A particularly annoying source of unwanted signals impinging upon European radios is the Soviet Woodpecker over-the-horizon radar. In some bands, radio hams are blasted off the air when the Woodpecker is aimed at them. So much for electromagnetic problems. In the audio range of the sound spectrum, Fox brings up the topic of those still unidentified hums that afflict a small group of people, who are now known as "hummers." Fox himself turns out to be a hummer. "By coincidence, I happen to be blessed, or cursed, with good low-frequency hearing. For several years now, I have intermittently heard a curious low-frequency sound coming from a deep below the high ground around my home in Hampstead Heath in London. Most of the time it is swamped by other noises, because human hearing adjusts sensitivity to compensate for background noise. The noise is an intermittent rumble, like a very distant generator, or the compressor for a pneumatic drill, coming on and off load. Most people cannot hear it at all. I usually hear it only in the still of ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 27 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf055/sf055p18.htm
... DNA from the two species being compared. These are allowed to combine, and then they are heated to see how much temperature is required to force them apart. Chromosome numbers and bandings have little if any effect on these crude comparisons of the bare DNA strands that have been stripped from their genes and chromosomes. The significance of all this transcends the comparisons of humans and chimps. Modern taxonomy of all life forms depends increasingly upon DNA comparisons rather than upon morphology. If DNA comparisons can be as misleading as they are in humans and chimps, those textbook family trees that are supposed to tell us how life evolved may also be giving us an erroneous history of life. To underscore the problem, sometimes DNA genetic differences do not result in big morphological changes. For example, Three-toed Woodpeckers hammer on trees all over the northern reaches of North America and Eurasia. These birds all look alike and interbreed freely. Yet, some of the birds differ so much genetically that they should be classified as different species on that basis. (See BBG1 in Biological Anomalies: Birds.) From Science Frontiers #122, MAR-APR 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 14 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf122/sf122p08.htm
... radar or buried pipelines?In our catalog volume Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds, we recorded many curious natural sounds, including the "desert hum," the "Yellowstone Whispers," and, pertinent to the present discussion, a throbbing, humming sound afflicting some, but not all, residents of the British Isles. Percipients describe the hum as like a "diesel truck with its engine idling." The electronic environment of Britain has been blamed for the hum: transformers, high-voltage transmission lines, and pulsed radars are all candidate hum-makers. For, it has been discovered, some people somehow convert pulses of electromagnetic energy into a perception of sound. This facet of the British "hum problem" was covered on p.000, where the infamous Soviet "Woodpecker Radar" is mentioned specifically. But are electromagnetic pulses really to blame? The British hum has become a nuisance - to those who can hear it - during the past 20 years. This is just the period during which British Gas has been installing a nationwide gas-distribution system, which employs powerful turbines to pump natural gas through underground pipelines. H. Witherington, an unhappy hum-hearer, has for years driven around Britain at night when things are quieter, plotting places where the hum can be heard. He has found that the sound follows the gas pipelines and extends for several kilometers on each side. Houses, he finds, tend to amplify the sound, because closed rooms sometimes create resonant conditions. (Fox, Barry; "Low-Frequency 'Hum' May ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf068/sf068g13.htm
