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... ," Current Anthropology, 23:37, 1982.) Comment. A conventional rationalistic scientist would, or should, react to Winkelman's paper by saying that: Magic is not based on psi, rather psi is magic and has no scientific basis. Winkelman, on the other hand, tacitly assumes the reality of telepathy, precognition, etc. The real issue, of course, is whether there really is an "order of the universe" beyond the ken of present-day science. The history of science shows that science has eventually accepted one impossible idea after another; viz., meteorites and hypnosis. Psi may not make the grade. Even if psi is real, it cannot become part of the scientific belief system until dogmas about the nature of life and man change. From Science Frontiers #21, MAY-JUN 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 26: Mar-Apr 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Do the continents really drift?The distances between terrestrial radio telescopes can be measured with incredible accuracy by pointing the telescopes at the same celestial targets and operating them as interferometers. The distances between telescopes a continent apart can then be pegged to within 5 centimeters. For example, the distance between radio telescopes at Fort Davis, TX, and Onsala, Sweden, is 7,940,732.17 0.10 meters. If North America and Europe are drifting apart several centimeters per year, this change should have been noticed since 1979, when adequate geodetic precision became available. Actually, no drift has been noted. (Thomsen, D.E .; "Mark III Interferometer Measures Earth, Sky, and Gravity's Lens," Science News, 123:20, 1983.) Comment. Of course, continental drift could be episodic, with the continents now static. Reference. Objections to continental drift are legion. Refer to ETL6 and ETL7 in our Catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. Details here . From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the Canadian High Arctic reveals profound difference between the time of appearance of fossil land plants and vertebrates in the Arctic and in mid-northern latitudes. Latest Cretaceous plant fossils in the Arctic predate mid-latitude occurrences by as much as 18 million years, while typical Eocene vertebrate fossils appear some 2 to 4 million years early." (Hickey, Leo J., et al; "Arctic Terrestrial Biota: Paleomagnetic Evidence of Age Disparity with Mid-Northern Latitudes During the Late Cretaceous and Early Tertiary," Science, 221:1153, 1983.) Comment. The anomaly here is in the vision of the high Arctic lands basking in the warm sun busily evolving new life forms well in advance of their appearance in lands closer to the Equator. What happened to the earth's axial tilt. These fecund polar territories should have been engulfed in darkness almost half of the year -- hardly an environment for precocious plant evolution. Further, trees found buried in the Arc-tic muck could never have grown where found due to the long polar darkness. From Science Frontiers #30, NOV-DEC 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... above the background level. Some cyclic phenomenon seems to have been killing off life forms on a systematic basis. But no natural 26-million-year cycles are known although meteors and comets are favored causes of mass extinctions these days, they display no such cyclic period. (Simon, C.; "Pattern in Mass Extinctions," Science News, 124:212, 1983.) Comment. Instead of looking outward to astronomical catastrophism, perhaps we should look inward. The earth itself may undergo cyclic paroxysms; or life might undergo intrinsic phases of decline and rejuvenation. Periodic events in the evolutionary time scale. The 300-million-year cycle shown involves alternations between "icehouse" conditions (O ) and "greenhouse" conditions (G ). These may be due to changes in heat convention within the earth. From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... on incontinence published in the British Journal of Urology by J.W . Splatt and D. Weedon! Does a person's name exert a psychological force of the choice of a career? We have seen no formal studies of nominative determinism, but we have just discovered a closely allied phenomenon that has been scientifically investigated. We call it "monogrammic determinism.' An individual's monogram does not seem to be associated with his or her occupation but rather with longevity. People with monograms such as ACE, WOW, or GOD tend to live longer than those with monograms like PIG, RAT, DUD, or ILL. The study was conducted at the University of San Diego, where 27 years of California death certificates were examined. Only men were chosen because their initials did not change with marriage. They were divided into three groups: (1 ) those with "good" monograms; (2 ) those with "bad" monograms; and (3 ) a control group with "neutral" monograms. Those men bearing "good" monograms lived 4.48 years longer than those in the control group; those with "bad" monograms, 2.8 years less. Manifestly, being called DUD or PIG all your life can shorten it. Being addressed as ACE or GOD can give one a psychological boost that prolongs life. (Anonymous; "Do Initials Help Some Live Longer?" San Mateo Times, March 28, 1998. Cr. J. Covey.) From Science Frontiers #118, JUL-AUG 1998 . 1998-2000 William ...
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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 Geophysics: the sick man of science "In order to be a famed geo-scientist and belong to the inclusive club of fully accepted geophysicists in their unknown thousands, one must kneel on the hassock and swear allegiance to the following tenets regardless of any scientific considerations: "Tenet 1. That the moment-of-inertia of the Earth has never changed. "Tenet 2. That the Earth contains a large central core composed of iron. "Tenet 3. That the continents are drifting as a result of unknown forces. "These must be held with religious fervour, dissenters are just not to be tolerated, the devotees feeling it their right, and indeed duty, to defend the creed against all criticism by any means of chicanery and of sharp-practice within their power, however crude and improper, so long as they judge they can get away with it, but all the time representing themselves to the world as acting with judicial calm in the best interests of their science. It will be shown that all three of these tenets are wrong, and how their (naive) acceptance has hamstrung the believers from making progress in the deep waters of terrestrial science, though not of course in the worldly world of 'modern science.' Shades of Sir Cyril Burt." So begins a long technical article by R.A . Lyttleton, author of many scientific books and papers. (He may lose his ...
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... hour . The surges may be years apart; and they may occur periodically. The surges start high up on the glacier and propagate down to the foot, which plods along a few inches per day until the surge arrives. Then, it leaps forward, only to return to normality until the next periodic surge. The surges seem to occur when water spreads out under the ice, lubricating its flow. Beyond this we know little. Why do some glaciers surge while those right alongside behave normally? Are the surges really cyclic? The Variegated Glacier, in Alaska, for example, surged in 1906, probably in 1926, in 1947, in 1964-65, and in 1982 -- about 20 years between surges. The surges do not seem to be connected to earthquakes, climatic changes, volcanic heat, or anything obvious. (Beard, Jonathan; "Glaciers on the Run," Science 85, 6:84, February 1985.) 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 GREEN CLOUD WITH LIGHT RAYS "An account of a mysterious 'green cloud' sending out powerful shafts of light and flying in tandem with an airliner appeared in a Soviet newspaper today. The strange cloud was seen over Byelorussia by passengers and crew of a flight from Georgia to Tallinn, and by the crew of an airliner from Leningrad, passing 10 miles away according to Trud. Nikolai Zheltukhin, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, said the object was certainly very big. He rejected the idea that the green cloud was an image caused by far-off atmospheric changes because the airman had fixed its location from the shafts of light it sent to the ground." (Anonymous; "Mysterious 'Green Cloud' Appears near Airliner," Baltimore Sun, January 31, 1985, p. 4A.) From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... a fresh airing of the long-standing discussion on lunar volcanism is appropriate, Eos offers this article, untouched by editors or referees, and awaits reply by readers." O'Keefe's article reviews considerable evidence supporting his two points: for Point One; crater dimensions and frequencies, craters with dark floors, lunar soil constituents; and, for Point Two; tektite analysis. He also remarks that the ages of the terrestrial tektite fields correlate with biological extinctions. This can be explained in terms of lunar volcanism as follows: lunar volcanos expel material violently, some of which escapes the moon's gravitational field and is drawn toward earth. Some falls as tektites; the rest forms a temporary ring around the earth. The ring shadows parts of the earth, causing radical climate changes and, as a consequence, biological extinctions. (O 'Keefe, John A.; "The Coming Revolution in Planetology," Eos, 66:89, 1985.) Comment. The Editor's Note does not really convey the depth of the antagonism in the controversy about tektite origin. From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , bringing theory into line with reality. And just what are these WIMPS? One suggestion is that they are photinos, a particle suggested (but not proved) by recent experiments at CERN (SF#37) (Thomsen, D.E .; "Weak Sun Blamed on WIMPS," Science News, 128:23, 1985.) Comment. WIMPS represent just the kind of particle that Dewey Larson railed against in his book: The Universe of Motion. He maintains that astronomers have to engage in such ridiculous theoretical gymnastics and invention only because they have picked the wrong energy-generating mechanism for stars and refuse to give it up! Larson's theory, on the other hand, solves this and many other astronomical problems, but at the initial cost of a radical change in one's conception of the universe. From Science Frontiers #41, SEP-OCT 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Speculations from gold The item "Restless Gold" in SF#41 has now been amplified by J.-O . Bovin et al. Using a high-resolution electron microscope, magnification 30,000,000, with a real-time video recorder, this group has obtained startling pictures of gold crystals and their environs. "At this magnification, individual columns of atoms in the gold crystals are clearly revealed; it appears that not only are atoms of the surfaces of small crystals in constant motion, hopping from site to site, but also that the crystals are surrounded by clouds of atoms in constant interchange with atoms on the crystal surface. The clouds of gold atoms extended up to 9A from the crystal surface, continually changing their shape and density." The remarkably dynamic nature of solid surfaces, as now revealed, has many implications. (Bovin, J. -O ., et al; "Imaging of Atomic Clouds Outside the Surfaces of Gold Crystals by Electron Microscopy," Nature, 317:47, 1985.) The problem of snowflake growth (SF#38) is probably solvable in terms of clouds of water molecules surrounding crystal nuclei with electrostatic fields guiding the symmetric deposition of molecules. Biological structures, too, are probably encompassed by clouds of atoms and molecules; viz., the crystal-like, polyhedral viruses. Does the highly ordered DNA structure also possess an aura of molecules constantly swapping places ? Such would not be inconsistent with "jumping genes" and M. Kimura' ...
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... hybridization" method simply mixes together strands of 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 ...
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... been ice-covered for over 15 million years. But now Peter Webb and his coworkers have found pollen and the remains of roots and stems of plants in an area stretching some 1300 kilometers along the Transantarctic Mountains. The Antarctic wood is so recent that it floats and burns with ease. Webb's group postulates that a shrub-like forest grew in Antarctica as recently as 3 million years ago. The dating, of course, is critical, and is certain to be subjected to careful scientific scrutiny. Nevertheless, these deposits of fresh-looking wood do suggest that trees recently grew only 400 miles from the South Pole. Also of interest is the fact that the sedimentary layers containing the wood have been displaced as much as 3000 meters by faults, indicating recent large-scale geological changes. (Weisburd, S.; "A Forest Grows in Antarctica," Science News, 129:148, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... had an excellent record of the curious parade of the hard-to photograph dark bands. "They were clearly seen for 32 seconds before the second contact and a little fainter for 27 seconds after totality. They moved rapidly across the screen from E to W before totality and from NNE to SSW after 3rd contact. Slow motion studies of the video show occasional merging of the bands and at times they seem to move in opposite directions -- probably a stroboscopic effect." The widths of the bands varied from 2.36 to 6.63 centimeters. (Strach, Eric; "Shadow Bands Recorded at February 26 Eclipse," British Astro nomical Association, Journal, vol. 108, 1998. Comment. Theorists have long been challenged by these ghostly, fleeting shadows. Their widths change; their directions and speeds vary; they come in different colors; sometimes more than one set of bands appear; giant bands have been seen. All of these characteristics are difficult to account for in a single theory. Shadow bands sketch during the February 26, 1998, total solar eclipse. (Top) before totality (Bottom) After totality From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 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 Solar Neutrino Update Our terrestrial neutrino detectors catch only about 1/3 as many solar neutrinos as stellar theory requires. We frequently refer to this anomaly because at risk here is our basic theory of how stars work. Is our knowledge of stellar furnaces fundamentally in error or are some of the solar neutrinos somehow removed from the stream of neutrinos bound for earth? Recent calculations by Hans Bethe have brought sighs of relief to all astrophysicists. Without going into all of the details, Bethe finds that the interactions of the electron-neutrinos emitted by solar thermonuclear reactions with atoms constituting the solar mass change a substantial fraction of them into muonneutrinos. Since our terrestrial neutrino detectors register only electron-neutrinos, we may really be seeing only a fraction of the total number of neutrinos being emitted by the sun. If Bethe's calculations turn out to be correct, he may have eliminated a Class1 anomaly. But at a price! It seems that his calculations also predict a mass of only 0.008 electron-volts for the muon-neutrino. This is much too small for neutrinos to account for the "missing mass" of the universe -- something cosmologists had devoutly hoped for. (Maddox, John; "Hans Bethe on Solar Neutrinos," Nature, 320:677, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #46, JUL-AUG 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... on observer enthusiasm and active imagination. Modern photographs of coronas provide a much more conservative picture of the eclipsed sun. As for all those old observations of colored coronas, aerosols in the atmosphere, perhaps of volcanic origin, could have added the delicate tints reported. No unusual phenomena were involved. Problem solved! (O 'Meara, Stephen James; "Strange Eclipses," Sky & Telescope , 98:116, August 1999.) E.L . Trouvelot's portrait of the total solar eclipse of July 29, 1878 as seen from Wyoming. Note the geometrical symmetry of the spectacular corona. The TLP Myth. There is a long history of Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLPs). Almost as soon as the telescope was invented, observers began seeing flashes of light, color changes, and other luminous phenomena on the moon. Reddish glows around the rims of the craters Aristarchus and Alphonsus have long been accepted as objective scientific observations. The most popular explanation of these color phenomena involves the eruption of gases around the craters. In 1964, in an attempt to better understand TLPs, NASA organized a network of amateur lunar observers with communication links to the Corralitos Observatory in New Mexico. Corralitos possessed a 5-inch reflector equipped with color filters which could checkout network sightings. In almost 3,000 hours of surveillance, no color phenomena were recorded using the Corralitos instruments -- even when the network reported a colored TLP in progress. Are all TLPs therefore illusory? The NASA program certainly suggested that TLPs might be subjective phenomena, perhaps something like the colored coronas observed ...
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... volcanic sources are grossly inadequate. So are all other possible terrestrial sources. Therefore, some scientists, such as D. Deming, University of Oklahoma, have been looking spaceward. Deming ventures that extraterrestrial sources of water and carbon may be four or five orders of magnitude greater than suspected. Obviously, a steady bombardment of icy comets might fulfill Deming's requirements. Down the long eons of geological time, they could have filled the oceans and showered all that excess carbon onto the planet's surface. Deming ups the stakes in the icy-comet controversy when he links these fluffy snowballs to the well-known vagaries of life on earth. "The extraterrestrial influx rate may also act as the pacemaker of terrestrial evolution, at times leading to mass extinctions through climatic shifts induced by changes in accretion rates with concommitant disruptions of the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Life on earth may be balanced precariously between cosmic processes which deliver an intermittent stream of life-sustaining volatiles from the outer solar system or beyond, and biological and tectonic processes which remove these same volatiles from the atmosphere by sequestering water and carbon in the crust and mantle." (Deming, David; "On the Possible Influence of Extraterrestrial Volatiles on Earth's Climate and the Origin of the Oceans," Palaeo , 146:33, 1999. Cr. P. Huyghe) Comment. Need we mention the book Living Comets , by F. Hoyle and C. Wickramasinghe? Why stop at water and carbon? From Science Frontiers #126, NOV-DEC 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. ...
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... . Cr. J. Cieciel.) Early Australians. A new BBC documentary entitled Ancient Voices proclaims that the first settlers of the New World were from Australia and Melanesia. Skulls thought to be 9,000-12,000 years old have been unearthed in Brazil with features that closely match those of Australians living about 60,000 years ago. Evidence of even earlier contacts comes from stone tools and charcoal at Serra da Capivara, in northeastern Brazil. These artifacts indicate human habitation as long as 50,000 years ago. These very early Australians, however, seem to have been exterminated by a later wave of Mongoloid invaders. W. Neves, University of Sao Paolo, has measured hundreds of skulls between 7,000 and 9,000 years old. He notes a marked change in skull shape during that period going from exclusively Australian to totally Mongoloid. (Anonymous; BBC Online Network , August 26, 1999. Cr. M. Colpitts. Comments The claimed Mongoloid invasion of Brazil jibes nicely with claims of early Chinese visits to the New World. The artifacts at Serra da Capivara support the findings of N. Guidon at Pedra Furada, Brazil -- also said to be about 50,000 years old. (SF#112, #108, #105) The three references given above are not science journals, so caution is advised. From Science Frontiers #126, NOV-DEC 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the tired-light hypothesis was superior. The differences between the rival cosmologies are most apparent at large redshifts, however, and it is in this region that observations are most difficult to make." (Anonymous; "New Study Questions Expanding Universe," Astronomy, 14:64, August 1986.) Gratuitous comment. In all three of the foregoing items, observations are challenging fundamental astronomical hypotheses: the Big Bang, the Expanding Universe, redshifts as cosmological yardstocks, etc. With more and more such data accumulating all the time, the strains in the key girders of astronomical thought are beginning to show. Of course, most astronomers will vehemently deny this assertion. Those who care to read the biological tidbits that follow will discover that biological paradigms are also feeling the pressure of radical change. Geology and psychology are also being wracked by disturbing anomalies. It's like being on the San Andreas fault, these little quakes only presage major shift to come. Reference. The redshift controversy is presented in greater depth in our catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. For details, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #47, SEP-OCT 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... come in from the college and had gone into the room and was standing watching the T.V . The time would be a little before 6.00 p.m . I said something to the effect that his meal would be ready and he'd better wash his hands, so he turned the television off, although it remained plugged in...At this point a spherical object about six inches (15 cm) in diameter floated down the (sealed) chimney and into the room. It appeared to be rather like a soap bubble but was dull purple in colour covered or rather made up of a furry /spiky emission all over. The coating seemed to be about one inch (2 .5 cm) thick with spikes of two inches here and there but changing all the time. It was quite dim and appeared to be semi-transparent, in so much as I could see through to the inside of the opposite side, which appeared quite smooth -- all the spikes pointing outwards from the surface. It appeared to me to be insubstantial and made no sound. It drifted between the two of us towards the television screen at about 30 inches (75 cm) from the floor, covering the six feet (2 m) in about four seconds. When about eight inches from the screen it disappeared (imploded?) with a fairly loud crack /pop sound leaving behind a smell as of an electrical discharge." (Rowe, Michael W.; "Another Unusual Ball Lightning Incident," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ...
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... -- a period during which sunspots were exceedingly rare. How was the sun different during the Maunder Minimum? This subject of solar variability (in both diameter and period of rotation) has been long debated. Some early measurements of solar diameter, begun at Greenwich in 1830, seemed to some to show a steadily shrinking sun, but others found cyclic patterns. E. Ribes et al have just presented some data on solar diameter actually taken during the Maunder Minimum. "By analysing a unique 53-year record of regular observations of the solar diameter and sunspot positions during the seventeenth century, we have shown for the first time that the angular diameter was larger and rotation slower during the Maunder Minimum." A larger sun might be cooler, providing less heat, thus accounting for climate changes. (Ribes, E., et al; "Evidence for a Larger Sun with a Slower Rotation during the Seventeenth Century," Nature, 326: 52, 1987.) Comment. Just why the sun expands and contracts over a period measured in hundreds of years is a major astro physical conundrum. Variation in solar diameter, 1860-1940. Arrows indicate sunspot maxima. (From ASO-X6 in The Sun and Solar System Debris). From Science Frontiers #51, MAY-JUN 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... in the November 1986 issue of American Health by David Shannahoff-Khalsa of the Khalsa Foundation for Medical Science. Apparently the yogis of ancient India were the first to notice that breathing is dominated by either the right or left nostril for short cycle spans of one to three hours. (Cycles of this duration are known as ultradian rhythms, and are common to many biological functions.) By simply placing a mirror under your nostrils and watching for the larger amount of condensation, one can determine which nostril is in use. "What are the ramifications of this seemingly insignificant phenomenon? The yogis reportedly have said that improved sleeping, more satisfying sex, enhanced digestion, and appropriate thought patterns were controlled by the use of a certain nostril." It is further maintained that one can force a change in nostril breathing through meditation. In this way, it is possible to enhance sleeping, sex, digestion, and mental acuity! (LeBow, Howard A.; "Have You Heard about This One?" Cycles, 37:191, 1986.) Comment. All we know is what we read in the journals! The next time you feel down, think about your breathing, or try a little cotton. From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... relative to the earth's surface, as demonstrated by 300 years of data. These lobes do not drift westward like the general field. (Ref. 2) "Core-spot pairs" of magnetic intensity seem to move westward and poleward. In the southern hemisphere, they originate under the Indian Ocean and drift under South Africa into the southern Atlantic. This motion reminds one of sunspot motion, except that sun-spots move equatorward. There may be a connection here. (Ref. 2) The general decrease in the earth's magnetic field over the past few centuries may be due to intensifying core spots, which are magnetized in a sense opposite that of the main field. (Ref. 2) Large, deep earthquakes in 1983 and 1984 produced slow, wavelike changes in the local gravitational field at the surface, as measured by new superconducting gravity meters. The periods were 13-15 hours. (Ref. 2) Gravity and magnetism measurements from satellites show strong, coincident anomalies in the Indian Ocean (3 N 81 E). In fact the whole ocean surface is depressed in this region. To explain these overlapping anomalies, geophysicists suggest that a "valley" 5-10 kilometers deep exists at the coremantle boundary. (Ref. 3) References Ref. 1. Dziewonski, Adam M., and Woodhouse, John H.; "Global Images of the Earth's Interior," Science, 236:37, 1987. Ref. 2. Weisburd, Stefi; "The Inner Earth Is Coming Out," Science News ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bog Breath Yes, bogs do breathe albeit rather erratically. The slow heaving of their surfaces is a poorly understood phenomenon as the following abstract demonstrates. The surfaces of bogs and fens in northeastern Minnesota may rise and fall by as much as 36 cm in a single day. This phenomenon, known as Mooratmung, or bog breathing, has been traditionally attributed to changes in water storage. However, the surface deformations recorded by static GPS [Global Positioning System] stations on bog and fen sites within the Red Lake peatland are more frequent and out of phase with precipitation events. These vertical fluctuations instead appear to be related to a complex interplay among climate, hydrology, and microbial gas-production. Climate-driven re-charge on bogs, for example, stimulates the production of biogenic gases by advecting root exudates deep into the peat profiles. Seasonal droughts, however, favor the formation of transient confining layers that trap biogenic gases into discrete pockets... Bog breathing may therefore be a surface manifestation of the accumulation and release of greenhouse gases in peat deposits. (Glaser, Paul H. et al; "Bog Breathing: the Curious Interplay of Climate, Ground-water, and Greenhouse Gases in Boreal Peatlands," Eos, 80:F47, 1999.) Spontaneously igniting, biogenic gases are found in many marshy places. These eruptions were observed on an English mud flat in 1902. Comment. When bogs breathe ...
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... bit. The groundbreaking experiment was carried out onboard the Mir space station last year as part of the French-Russian Perseus mission. By warming a copper-and sapphire-walled cell filled with a drop of liquid sulfur hexafluoride and one tiny bubble of gaseous sulfur hexafluoride in near-zero gravity, scientists triggered a slight compression of the bubble. That gentle squeeze raised the temperature of the gas above that of the cell walls. For this to happen, heat must have been transferred from the cooler walls to the hotter gas, scientists report in the 1 May Physical Review Letters. This weird phenomenon can be tossed off as a "transient temperature overshoot." The Second Law didn't really apply because the system was not in thermodynamic equilibrium. Also, the Second Law really concerns changes in entropy rather than temperatures. (Sincell, Mark; "Backward Heat Flow Bends the Law a Bit," Science, 288:789, 2000.) From Science Frontiers #130, JUL-AUG 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology 300,000-YEAR-OLD SITE IN BRAZIL Egyptian pyramids actually made of synthetic stone? Astronomy Icebergs and crouching giants Big-bang bashers Fractals, fractals everywhere Biology Instances of observed speciation Plants are not color blind! Electric-power plants! Honest, this is the last "plant" item! The insects' revenge Geology Now, it's comet showers that did it The changing magnetic climate: does it affect civilizations? Huge underground electrical circuit What heats the earth Geophysics Toads fall to squashy fate Ball lightning in bavaria Psychology A HOAX ADMITTED Esp of atoms? Chemistry and physics Through a peephole tantalizingly Unclassified The uncertainty of knowledge ...
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... 00 AM. "The witness who reported the event was nine years of age at the time of the observation, and was indoors with her uncle on the first floor of a building during a severe morning thunderstorm with heavy rainfall. There was a lull in the storm and the ball lightning appeared on the left side of the window sill about 4-5 m from the observers. The window had been left open because there was a balcony above it which prevented the rain from entering the room. "The ball fell to the floor where it jumped up and down once or twice. It then started to roll slowly towards the observers across the floor, at about the speed of a dropped ball of wool. Its diameter was about 20 cm, it was translucent, and the rapidly changing colours showed spots of light green, crimson, light blue and pale yellow. It was bright enough to be clearly visible in daylight, and it was uniformly bright over its entire surface. It had protrusions 'like the Andromeda nebula.' "When it came near the table, where my uncle and I were sitting, I tried to get up to have a closer look. My uncle (fortunately) held me back. It then rolled towards the tiled stove on the right side of the room, crept up the iron parts of the stove leaving (in its path) a deep groove about the width and depth of a thumb, then it exploded in the (airvent) higher up, the sound was like that of a blown up paper bag when (burst) ...
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... artificial origin, and tests to distinguish them. When applied to the high-resolution MGS image of the Face, all artificiality predictions were fulfilled despite a lack of background noise. The combined a priori odds against the natural origin of the Face on Mars are 1021 to 1. (Van Flandern, Tom; "Proof That the Cydonia Face of Mars Is Artificial," Meta Research Bulletin, 9:22, June 15, 2000. Journal address: P.O . Box 15186, Chevy Chase, MD 20825-5186.) Comment. Will conspiracy buffs suspect that something is awry in all this? You bet they will! (Left) The Face as actually photographed by MGS in 1998. (Center) Lighting switched from southeast to northwest. (Right) Viewing angle changed from 45 to overhead. (Processing by M. Kelly, www.electrobus.com) From Science Frontiers #132, NOV-DEC 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... exceeding that of his wife -- as the time-of-delivery approaches. Interestingly, the father's testosterone levels are also elevated prior to birth but fall immediately afterward. As the wife's day-of-delivery approaches, the levels of prolactin, which plays a key role in breast-feeding, increase in both husband and wife. (Rubin, Rita; "Dads Get 'Nurturing' Hormones after Birth," Chicago Sun-Times, June 20, 2000. Cr. J. Cieciel) Comment. Male lactation, which is rare in humans, is probably associated with this increased production of prolactin. Male lactation is also known in other mammals, such as fruit bats. (See SF#93) The mind is driving all of these chemical changes in the father-to-be. The question is HOW? And, maybe WHY? From Science Frontiers #133, JAN-FEB 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... 1970) Slime molds. Moving down life's ladder to even smaller and simpler organisms, some amoebas have a bizarre life cycle that ends as a superorganism called a "slime mold." If you viewed an amoeba through the microscope in biology lab, you know that they are very tiny, very simple, and most certainly not very bright. But given enough food, some species of amoeba divide and keep dividing until they clump together in a "slug" that sends out streamers and sort of flows along the surface. We now have a mobile superorganism searching for food (mostly bacteria). Eventually, the moving colony of amoebas anchors itself. Some of the superorganism's cells specialize to create a stalk called a "fruiting body." The amoebas in the fruiting body change into spores and are wafted away on the wind. In this way, the simple, lowly amoebas are transformed into a radically different entity. One wonders how this superorganism, this slime mold, is controlled. Where are its sensors and its information processing center, if it possesses one? (Stewart, Ian; "Spiral Slime," Scientific American, 283:116, November 2000.) This question becomes more difficult to answer when we learn that slime molds can display rudimentary intelligence in the sense that they can solve mazes in their search for food. They are not as clever as rats, but they do optimize their travels through the maze. (Nakagaki, Toahiyuki, et al; "Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism," Nature, 407:470, ...
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... biological extinctions. If verified, the claimed phenomenon would also "reset" archeological models of the settlement of North and South America. To illustrate, we may have to add as many as 10,000 years to site dates in much of North America! (Firestone, Richard B., and Topping, William; "Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times," The Mammoth Trumpet, 16:9 , March 2001. Cr. C. Davant III. This off-mainstream journal is published by the Center for the Study of the First Americans, 355 Weniger Hall, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-6510.) Comment. Thus we add another potential cause of an often-hypothesized, 12,500-BP catastrophe that is said to have changed the world's history. Competing theories involve asteroid impact, volcanism, a Venusian side-swipe, etc. Sites discussed in the region purported to have been zapped by a burst of neutrons circa 12,500 B.P . From Science Frontiers #135, MAY-JUN 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Uncertainty Of Knowledge "Human beings of all societies in all periods of history believe that their ideas on the nature of the real world are the most secure, and that their ideas on religion, ethics and justice are the most enlightened. Like us, they think that final knowledge is at last within reach. Like us, they pity the people in earlier ages for not knowing the true facts. Unfailingly, human beings pity their ancestors for being so ignorant and forget that their descendants will pity them for the same reason." E. Harrison, who penned the above, sees knowledge as perpetually uncertain and always changing. Scientists will always be surprised, he says, and scientific laws are never final. He concludes: "I feel liberated by this philosophy. I find comfort in the thought that the creative mind fashions the world in which we live. For it means that the mind and reality are more profound than we normally suppose." (Harrison, Edward; "The Uncertainty of Knowledge," New Scientist, p. 78, September 24, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... scientific observations. At Norberg, in central Sweden, a huge deposit of magnetite creates a powerful magnetic anomaly. The deposit is 12 kilometers long by several wide. At low altitudes, the total magnetic intensity of the earth's field is 60% higher than normal. What happens when migrating birds fly into this magnetic bump? "Although Almerstam found that many migrating birds showed no signs of avoiding the Norberg anomaly, and often managed to keep on the right course as they passed through it, there were definite indications that the birds' orientation might be affected under special circumstances. Some migrants flying at low altitudes, where the magnetic intensity was greatest and the inclination and declination distorted greatly, became disoriented briefly. They nervously landed and then circled around before taking off again. Other birds changed their altitude abruptly, dropping 100 metres in two minutes and breaking up their flock formations." Certainly something is happening, but no one knows what. (Anonmous; "Magnetic Anomaly Upsets Migrating Birds," New Scientist, p. 32, November 5, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the thermocline." These surface phenomena are truly delightful and almost always the consequence of internal waves interacting with the surface. The great bulk of the referenced report is concerned with sonar observations of internal waves and their effects along the coast of Scotland. (Thorpe, S.A ., et al; "Internal Waves and Whitecaps," Nature, 330:740, 1987.) Comment. For some remarkable accounts of wave packets, as well as solitary waves, see category GHW in Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. This book is described here . On March 28, 1964, in the Indian Ocean, the R.R .S . Discovery encountered five bands of breaking waves in an otherwise nearly calm sea. Wave heights were about 2 feet. There was no wind change when the waves passed. (Category GHW2 in Earthquakes, Tides, etc). From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... to the 23rd root of a 201-digit number. The machine, which required two hours to program for the task, took more than a minto solve the problem. She took 50 seconds. "And, in 1981, she made the Guinness Book of World Records as the 'Human Computer' by correctly multiplying two 13-digit numbers -- 7,686,369,774,870 times 2,465,099,745,779 -- in 28 seconds. The awesome answer? 18,947,668,177, 995,426,462,773,730." S. Devi is also a calendar calculator, being able to name the day of the week for any date in the past or future, taking into account leap years and calendar changes. She never attended school or had any formal mathematical training! (Young, Luther; "Numbers Whiz Takes Delight in Beating Computers;" Baltimore Sun, January 21, 1988, p. A1.) Comment. Such prodigies have appeared regularly down recorded history. What is the meaning of the phenomenon? Why does evolution produce talents that far exceed the "need" of the species? Is there a "need" that we are not aware of? It could be that prodigies are precursors of new evolutionary developments, which will leave poor homo sapi ens in the intellectual dust. Surely, science fiction has a story about a secret society of transcendent geniuses living under some mountain or even on some planet! Maybe that's how "the face on Mars" got there ...
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... Yeti. The latest issue of Cryptozoology contains a letter from Wooldridge in which he tells of his return, in 1987, to the site where the 1986 photos were taken. The bush in the 1986 photos was still there; the Yeti wasn't ; the snow was somewhat deeper. Wooldridge and some companions took more pictures of the site: "Stereo pairs of photos taken in 1987 have been used to produce a threedimensional map of the terrain near the bush. When this is used to derive an absolute scale for pairs of photos from 1986, it shows that, whatever I photographed in 1986, lies below the snow level in the 1987 photos. The object is leaning slightly uphill, and no movement can be detected when comparing photos taken at different times in 1986. The apparent change in position relative to the bush in some photos taken from different camera positions is caused by parallax. This evidence demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that, what I had believed to be a stationary, living creature was, in reality, a rock." (Wooldridge, Anthony B.; "The Yeti: A Rock After All?" Cryptozoology, 6:135, 1987.) Reference. More information on the Yeti is available in BHU7 in the catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans III. For information on this book, see: here . From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... therefore, seem to be a bad evolutionary gambit. But, C. Koch and F. Crick may have an answer. They speculate that: It may be because consciousness allows the system to plan future actions, opening up a potentially infinite behavioural repertoire and making explicit memory possible. (Koch, Christof, and Crick, Francis; "The Zombie Within," Nature, 411:893, 2001.) Questions. Could our zombie agents, primitive though they may be, be the source of those flashes of genius that appear out of nowhere, or perhaps that "dreamwork" from which solutions to problems appear fully formed upon wakening? The quotation from the Nature article presumes that consciousness does have survival value, else it would not have evolved. What sort of highly innovative genetic changes would lead to such a remarkable brain function? Did consciousness evolve in small Darwinian steps or in some grand, lucky mutation? Did any nonhuman animals progress beyond their inheritance of zombie agents? From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 2: January 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fast-moving dark bands cross halo December 15, 1976. Chelmsford, Essex, England. At 1505 GMT, two groups of closely spaced grey bands were seen crossing the upper arc of contact of a 22 halo from left to right. The first group lasted 10 seconds, with a 15-second quiescent period before the second group. The second group lasted about 5 seconds. About 30 straight parallel, regularly spaced bands appeared during the first observation. Moving steadily, they took 2 seconds each to cross the arc of contact. The most likely cause of the phenomenon was thought to be changes in the orientation of the ice crystals that created the upper arc of contact. However, the author could suggest no physical mechanism for producing such unusual motion in the ice crystals. (Burton, B.J .; "Fast-Moving Dark Bands Crossing the Arc of Contact," Journal of Meteorology, (U .K .) , 2:233 1977.) From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hopeful monsters rather than gradual evolution?S. J. Gould, who conducts a monthly column in Natural History reviews the sad history of Goldschmidt and his villification by the scientific establishment. Goldschmidt saw the fossil record as woefully inadequate to justify the assumption of gradual evolution of one form into another. Intermediate forms between separate species do not seem to exist in the fossil record and, if they did, they would probably not have been viable creatures. What good is half a wing? Gould believes that Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster" concept will ultimately be dusted off. The key to "macromutation," Gould feels, is not to be found in major gene reorganizations that might produce a whole wing, feathers included, all at once, but rather in changes in the genes that control the development of embryos. Embryos in their early stages are pretty much alike regardless of species. Gould hopes further that the ruling neo-Darwinians will not be so hostile to new ideas and eventually acknowledge Goldschmidt's important work. (Gould, Stephen J; "The Return of the Hopeful Monster," Natural History, 86: 22, June-July, 1977.) From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... science is in flux. The words "chaos" and "complexity" are the current buzz words. They betoken, finally, the formal recognition by science that nature is frequently: Unpredictable (as in weather forecasting beyond a few days) Complex (as in any life form) Nonlinear (as in just about all real natural phenomena) Discontinuous (as in saltations in the fossil record) Out-of-equilibrium (as in real economics) Eroding fast are the philosophical foundation stones of the clockwork universe: the idea that nature is in balance, that geological processes are uniformitarian, that life evolved in small, random steps, and that the cosmos is deterministic. My view is that anomaly research, while not science per se, has the potential to destabilize paradigms and accelerate scientific change. Anomalies reveal nature as it really is: complex, chaotic, possibly even unplumbable. Anomalies also encourage the framing of rogue paradigms, such as morphic re-sonance and the steady-state universe. Anomaly research also transcends current scientific currency by celebrating bizarre and incongruous facets of nature, such as coincidence and seriality. However iconoclastic the pages of this book, the history of science tells us that future students of nature will laugh at our conservatism and lack of vision. Such heavy philosophical fare, however, is not the main diet of the anomalist. The search itself is everything. My greatest thrill, prolonged as it was, was in my forays through the long files of Nature, Science. the English Mechanic, the Monthly Weather Review, the Geological Magazine, and like ...
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... organic material into methane and other chemical products. But geologists are confounded by the fact that some water wells are rich in methane while others nearby are devoid of the gas. (Anonymous; "Methane and Ground Water," Geotimes , 34:19, April 1989.) Comment. As to be expected the possibility of abiogenic methane is ignored. A really-deep ocean. No, this is not in Tarzan's Pellucidar, but rather an incredible mass of water stored hundreds of kilometers deep in the earth's mantle. Several times the earth's visible surface water may be locked up in water-bearing minerals! Brucite [Mg(OH),2 ], for example, is 30.86% water. Perhaps such water was released long ago by changes in temperature and pressure to form the present oceans. (Ahrens, Thomas J.; "Water Storage in the Mantle," Nature, 342:122, 1989.) Reference. Anomalies surrounding the origin of abiogenic methane are cataloged in ESC16 in the catalog: Anomalies in Geology. To order this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Parasites Control Snail Behavior A species of estuarine snail bearing the larvae of the trematode parasite Gynae cotyla adunca behaves radically different than it does when not infected. It lets itself become stranded high on beaches and sandbars, where it becomes easy prey to crustaceans living in this region. These crustaceans serve as the parasite's next host. Somehow, the parasite is able to modify the snail's behavior in a way that enhances its own chances for success. The question, as always in such cases, is how? And if it is a chemically induced change in behavior, how did it evolve? (Curtis, Lawrence A.; "Vertical Distribution of an Estuarine Snail Altered by a Parasite," Science, 235:1509, 1987.) Comment. Is present human behavior, thought by some to be irrational or suicidal, controlled by some unrecognized parasite that will ultimately benefit? Someone must have written a science fiction story on this theme. From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... into an oval 21,000 kilometers in length. By early November, it had developed into a planet-encircling band. Apparently, Saturn had "burped," expelling hot gases from its interior. [Saturn emits 50% more heat than it absorbs from the sun.] So far, this is not too beguiling to the anomalist. But now it seems that other white spots, not as large, have been recorded in 1876, 1903, 1933, and 1960. Could the white-spot phenomenon be periodic--like a percolator? More food for thought is found in Saturn's orbital period around the sun: 29.4 years -- not too different from the potential "burp" cycle! (Anonymous; "New White Spot on Saturn Grows, Changes," Science News, 138:325, 1990. Also: Brown, William; "Giant Bubble of Gas Rises through Saturn's Atmosphere," New Scientist, p. 22, October 20, 1990.) Reference. Historical observations of white spots on Saturn are covered in our handbook: Mysterious Universe. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... et al point out that relative to non-Antarctic falls, the Antarctic population is underabundant in iron and stony iron meteorites, among others." Trace-element studies: ". .. demonstrate a statistical unlikelihood that both sample populations derive from the same parent population." One reason for the differences is that the Antarctic ice has been accumulating meteorites for many thousands of years longer than modern man has been picking up non-Antarctic meteorites. (Lipschutz, Michael E., and Cassidy, William A.; "Antarctic Meteorites: A Progress Report," Eos, 67:1339, 1986.) Comment. If Antarctic meteorites differ because they impacted the earth over a longer span of time, it must be that the meteor population in the vicinity of the earth has been changing. Why? From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... their way back so unerringly? Furthermore, by tracking the tagged fish, the researchers found the sharks often precisely followed the same paths in what seemed a featureless ocean. How did they do it? It was quickly ruled out that they were following specific ocean currents or the bottom topography. The hammerheads seemed to possess some sort of unrecognized navigation sense. Suspecting they might be sensing the geomagnetic field, Klimley began towing a magne tometer behind the boat. Sure enough, the hammerheads were following paths coincident with lines of high magnetic gradient. And Espiritu Santo itself turned out to be a sort of magnetic beacon from which radiated these magnetic "paths" that the hammerheads followed so exactly. Now the question became: How do hammerheads -- and perhaps other animals -- sense such exceedingly small changes in the geomagnetic field? Some birds and mammals do have small particles of magnetite in their bodies, but no one knows how they might be incorporated into a sensory organ. On the other hand, hammerheads and many other sharks are extraordinarily sensitive to electrical fields, responding to fields as low as 10-8 volt/centimeter. Possibly the sharks' forward motion cuts the magnetic lines of force generating an electrical navigational signal. No one knows as yet. And so one mystery leads to another. (Klimley, A. Peter; "Hammerhead City," Natural History, 104:33, October 1995) Comment. Some marine biologists suspect that some deep-water whales and dolphins inadvertently strand themselves while following magnetic "paths" like those radiating from Espiritu Santo. (See ...
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... sophisticated "super-organism." The colony carries out its legendary raids and can even keep nest temperatures constant to within a degree. An army ant colony seems en dowed with an intelligence far beyond that of any individual ant. N.R .Franks speculates thus: "It seems that intelligence, natural or artificial, is an emergent property of collective communication. Human con-sciousness itself may be an epiphenomenon of extraordinary processing power. Although experts prefer to avoid simplistic definitions of intelligence, it seems clear that all intelligence involves the rational manipulation of symbolic information. This is exactly what happens when army ants pass information from individual to individual through the 'writing' and 'reading' of symbols, often in the form of chemical messengers or trail pheromones, which act as stimuli for changing behavior patterns." During its 20-day stationary phase, an army ant colony scatters about 14 foraging raids directed 123 apart. The heavy line indicates the colony's path during the nomadic phase. In the body of his article, Franks describes two remarkable capabilities of an army ant colony: time-keeping and navigation. The outward manisfestation of time-keeping is in the precise timing of the colony's nomadic phase of 15 days (during which larvae are growing) and the 20-day stationary phase (during which pupae develop). The queen's egg-laying also conforms with this schedule. Raids into the rain forest occur in both phases. Perhaps more remarkable is the systematic orientation of the raids in the stationary phase. These raids are separated by ...
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... in southern Africa this industrious insect is responsible for enormous striped patterns of ridges and vegetation bands. These amazingly regular patterns are caused by alternating low ridges and gullies. The ridges are about 2 meters high, up to a kilometer long, and separated by about 50 meters. The ridges themselves are closely spaced termite mounds. Just why the termites choose to build their mounds in long rows is an unanswered question. And how do the termites maintain strict parallelism, especially since they are blind? How could termites in one mound know how their neighbors in the nearest ridge, 50 meters away, are building their mounds? Anyway, the ridges help channel the flow of water and thus the growth of vegetation, giving immense swathes of country a corrugated appearance. (Sattaur, Omar; "Termites Change the Face of Africa," New Scientist, p. 27, January 26, 1991.) Comment. In Australia, the so-called "magnetic" termites build their slab-like mounds so as to minimize the amount of sun-generated heat. From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... -Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Arboreal Internets Over a half century ago, Yale scientist H.S . Burr was inserting electrodes into trees to measure how voltage differences varied during the day and lunar month. Y. Miwa, at Waseda University in Tokyo, has gone more than one step farther. He and his coworkers have placed electrodes in the trunks of trees - 250 trees at a time - and measured the voltage differences every 2 seconds. They have discerned intriguing synchrony. "Miwa and his colleages studied primeval forests in Japan's Shizuoka and Nigata Prefectures, recording signals for two days at a time. In each forest, there were several groups of between 20 and 50 trees showing a similar pattern of changes in their potentials, each of which contained about half a dozen species. Neighboring trees were the most likely to be synchronized, but the groups did not have rigid boundaries. The membership of the groups was also not fixed: between the first and second days of recording, individual trees 'joined' and 'dropped out'." Miwa advances the idea that the trees must somehow be communicating with each other to achieve this synchrony. Botanists, though, suspect that environmental conditions force this coordinated behavior. Miwa will next remove a few members from each group to see if his arbicides are noticed by the neighbors. (Endo, Shinichi; "Japan's Ancient Trees Whisper Their Secrets," New Scientist, p. 19, May 13, 1995) Cross reference. This ...
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... in the fossil record, which imply a frequent lack of transitional forms from one species to another. As Stanley asserts repeatedly in his interview, the fossil record is actually quite good in many places, despite the long-voiced claims of the gradualists that transitional forms do not exist merely because of the deplorable state of the fossil record. In physics the analogous phenomena would be: (1 ) The chemical elements and their isotopes (or an atom's energy levels); and (2 ) The lack of transitional forms. Straining the analogy still further, the evolution of one species into another simply means that life-as-a -whole moves from one quantized state to another. There need be no transitional forms, just as there are none when elements are transmuted or galaxies change redshifts (? ). Atomic physicists, long since mystical about this whole business, no longer try to explain what happens during a quantum transition. The only observables are the quantum states -- or species, if you will. Is life no more than a Table of Isotopes, defined once and forever by eerie quantum selection rules? Reference. Many of the anomalies in the fossil record are cataloged in ESB in: Anomalies in Geology. For a description of this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 49: Jan-Feb 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Moho Vicissitudes For a long time the Moho (Mohorovicic discontinuity) has been considered a stable plane dividing the crust from the mantle. It is at the Moho that seismic wave velocities change abruptly. There is something there, but no one knows just what. At the recent Second International Symposium on Deep Seismic Reflection Profiling of the Continental Lithosphere, a lot of doubts about the stability and character of the Moho surfaced. Under the North American Cordillera, which runs from Alaska to Mexico, the Moho is flat, continuous and oblivious to the faults, terrane plastering, mountain "roots," and the geological phenomena above it. In other areas, though, several Mohos are stacked up. Some Mohos are discontinuous, jumping from one depth to another. Others are strongly influenced by overhead geological structures. Gone is the neat, so simple Moho figured in all the textbooks. (Barton, Penny; "Deep Reflections on the Moho," Nature, 323:392, 1986. Also: Weisburd, S.; "The Moho Is Immutable No More," Science News, 130:326, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #49, JAN-FEB 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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