... Science Frontiers Sourcebook Project Strange reports * Bizarre biology * Anomalous archaeology From New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, etc Archaeology Astronomy Biology Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics Guides available Biology Catalogs Biology Handbook Archeology Handbook Geophysics Catalogs Geological Catalogs Astronomy Catalogs Astronomy Handbook Science Frontiers Sourcebooks Ordering details Omni Edge Science Winner December 1996 Publishing History 2007: Dark Days, Ice falls, Firestorms and Related Weather Anomalies (Geophysics) 2006: Archeological Anomalies: Graphic Artifacts I 2003: Archeological Anomalies: Small Artifacts 2003: Scientific Anomalies and other Provocative Phenomena 2001: Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in Nature 2001: Ancient Structures (Archeology) 1999: Ancient Infrastructure (Archeology) 1998: Biological Anomalies: Birds 1996: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II: 1995: Biological Anomalies: Mammals I 1994: Science Frontiers, The Book 1994: Biological Anomalies: Humans III 1993: Biological Anomalies: Humans II 1992: Biological Anomalies: Humans I 1991: Inner Earth: A Search for Anomalies (Geological) 1990: Neglected Geological Anomalies 1989: Anomalies in Geology: Physical, Chemical, Biological 1988: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, Submarine Canyons (Geological) 1987: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos 1986: The Sun and Solar System Debris 1985: The Moon and the Planets 1984: Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows (Geophysics) 1983: Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds (Geophysics) 1983: Tornados, Dark days, Anomalous Precipitation (Geophysics) 1982: Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights (Geophysics) 1982: Unfathomed Mind 1981: Incredible life (Biology) 1980: Unknown Earth (Geological) 1979: Mysterious Universe ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ubiquitous Bird-and-fish Motif Pre-Columbiana, a new journal, promote the popular but "out-on-the-fringe" theory that all our planet's oceans were crossed repeatedly before Columbus (an the Vikings, too). One type of evidence adduced to prove such Precolumbian cultural diffusion is the widespread appearance of motifs that are so specific and unusual that one is forced to admit that independent invention seems very unlikely. In the latest issue of Pre-Columbiana, G. Farley has collected examples of the singular "bird-and-fish" motif from Asia, Africa, both Americas, and the Middle East. As you can see from the illustrations, the similarities are striking, and the bird-fish "contact" highly specific. Bird-and-fish motifs. Clockwise from upper left: Mimbres culture, New Mexico; ancient Egyptian hieroglyph; Chimu culture, Peru; ancient China. (Farley, Gloria; "World-Wide Occurrence of a Bird-and-Fish Motif," Pre-Columbiana, 1:187, 1999.) Comment. Yes, we do know that the birds involved are all fish-eaters, but the "kisses" seem more symbolic than pre-consumption. Also, the fish portrayed are often too big to swallow. From Science Frontiers #133, JAN-FEB 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What Sang First?Not WHO, but WHAT! Sophisticated music predates the advent of modern humans by tens or hundreds of million years. Whales and birds filled the ocean and primeval forest with song long before our hominid branch sprouted on the Tree of Life. As a matter of fact, our closest relatives, the great apes, sing not at all. Somewhere in the hominid genome "music" genes reside, unexpressed in the apes, but somehow triggered into activity in the human line. We have learned recently that the Neanderthals manufactured bone flutes as far back at 53,000 years. They may not have been able to speak to one another in words, but they had the language of music. Their music, and ours, may have been entrained in genes inherited from nonhominid ancestors that lived 60 million years ago, but which have been suppressed in primates until Neanderthals and modern humans came along. You may wonder where this argument is taking you. It goes back at least 60 million years to when the cetacea (whales and dolphins) split off from the evolutionary track leading to humans. It may even go back farther to when birds split away from the reptilian line. The music of birds and whales incorporate some of the complexity and sophistication of Beethoven's Fifth. The genes that have led to such musical talents may be ancient indeed, as speculated in the Science article under review. The authors go ...

... Shahzad Hussain and his colleagues at the Long Island College Hospital in New York gave a questionnaire to 321 allergy sufferers asking them to describe their cats and assess the severity of their symptoms. Those with dark cats were four times as likely to have severe symptoms as people with light-coloured cats. "We were surprised," says Hussain. "So many questions need to be answered." (Anonymous; "The Dark Side of Black Cats," New Scientist, p. 27, November 4, 2000) Tales of toppling penguins. British scientists are heading for the South Atlantic in an attempt to disprove claims that penguins fall over backwards when aircraft fly overhead. Royal Navy and RAF pilots have been bringing back reports of toppling penguins since the Falklands War in 1982. The flightless birds are said to be so mesmerized by helicopters and jets that they lose their balance as they attempt to keep track of them. (Tweedie, Neil; "Scientists to Check on Toppling Penguins," The Age, November 2, 2000. As downloaded from the web: www.theage.com.au/frontpage/20001102/A22021-2000Nov2.html . Cr. P. Huyghe) But a missive from the British Antarctic Survey insists: .. .there is no scientific evidence for penguins falling over backwards when helicopters overfly. (Holden, Constance, ed.; "Prostrate Penguins?" Science, 290:1495, 2000.) Comment. Some birds are easily mesmerized. For example, one can hypnotize a chicken simply by holding it down on a flat ...

... seems to be a 3-page book: biomorphs, geoglyphs, and spoked ray-centers. They all overlap. It's all a gigantic Rorschach test; and different observers see different things! A Nazca biomorph (monkey with spiral tail) overlain by an abstract, unexplained geoglyph. See Book Supplement for still another Nazca figure. Of course, there are doodles on this 400-square-mile canvas that don't fit on any of the three pages. We'll have to ignore them for now. The archeoastronomers first tried to read something meaningful into the Nazca lines, but they were disappointed. Computer analyses revealed no significant connections with the rising and settings of heavenly bodies. Next, some tried to relate the biomorphs to the celestial sphere. Did a terrestrial bird figure point toward a bird-like grouping of stars? A few earth-sky bird connections are interesting in this regard, but generally the idea that the Nazca lines are a terrestrial zodiac has not panned out well. The geo-speculators have had more success. There are many "water" connections. The geoglyphs were drawn at the time of a great drought. The geoglyphs are often colocated with groups of subterranean aqueducts called "puquios," which were constructed during the drought. The "ray centers" are usually located near water sources. The trapezoids are generally oriented parallel to the flow of surface water. Seashells and ceremonial drinking vessels have been excavated near the trapezoids, suggesting water-connected rituals. Fossil footpaths follow many of the Nazca lines. Accumulating evidence has led ...

... the slit. Thus, cats and snakes hunting close to the ground can better detect their prey over a wide horizontal field. But how about the horses, goats and other grazing animals that must keep their eyes open for predators across a wide horizon? Pupils with horizontal slits would seem to defeat this purpose. Ah, but when they lower their heads to graze, their vertical pupils become horizontal. Simple! (Anonymous; "Eye to Eye," New Scientist, p. 85, December 11, 1999.) Comments. But puzzles remain, otherwise we wouldn't address this subject. (1 ) Some snakes have round pupils (as in the illustration) having apparently been subjected to different environmental forces; (2 ) Of all the 9,000+ species of birds, only the skimmers own pupils with vertical slits. You would expect ground-feeding birds like robins and larks to also have them; (3 ) Most interesting are the cuttlefish with pupils shaped like Ws. That's a tough one. Some snakes, the grass snakes, for example, have round pupils. 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. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Facing Up To Divebombers When spring arrives Down Under, the black-backed magpies divebomb everything that moves in the vicinity of their nests. No one is spared: kids, cats, politicians, and even ornithologists are fair targets. But the solution is simple: "The National Parks and Wildlife Service reminds blitzkrieged Aussies that the birds are less likely to attack if they believe they are being watched. So the chic and the sensible don hats with sunglasses propped on top -- facing backwards, of course." (Anonymous; New Scientist, p. 84, February 24, 1996) Comment. The same solution has been adopted by Indians who work in tiger country. They wear human face masks on the backs of their heads. Tigers don't like to be watched either. From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Toppling-Penguin Theory Overturned In SF#133, we related how Antarctic penguins are reputed to become disoriented by watching overflying aircraft. These tales insist that the birds get so dizzy that they topple over backwards. This makes penguins appear rather stupid, when in truth they are being very smart. Penguins, like most animals, are counter-shaded, dark on the back, light below. When the penguins are swimming, avian predators have difficulty seeing them against the dark sea. Marine predators below tend to lose their white bellies when seen against the bright sky. But when the penguins waddle across the white snow, the avian predators can spot them easily. Unless, of course, the penguins are clever enough to flop over on their backs exposing only their white tummies. Since they perceive aircraft as threats, they topple backwards intentionally. Pretty smart of them! (Browyer, Adrian; "White Out," New Scientist, p. 54, December 16, 2000.) Comment. More seriously, an outstanding exception to the countershading rule is Africa's ratel or honey-badger. It is white on top, dark on its belly. But like its cousin, North America's wolverine, the ratel is so strong and fierce that even lions avoid it. It doesn't need camouflage. From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When a bird in the hand is worse than two in the bush When J. Dumbacher, an ornithologist working in Papua New Guinea, scratched his hand while freeing a hooded pitohui from a collecting net, his first instinct was to suck the wound. This was a bad move, for he immediately experienced a numbing and burning in his mouth. The reason for this, it turned out, was because the skin and feathers of pitohuis are loaded with homobatrachotoxin, a type of poison. This discovery makes the pitohuis the first known poisonous birds. Like many other poisonous animals, the pitohuis also emit a foul odor and advertise their unsavory nature with bright colors. (Dumbacher, John P., et al; "Homobatrachotoxin in the Genus Pitohui : Chemical Defense in Birds?" Science, 258:799, 1992. Also: Anonymous; "Bird with a Sting in Its Tail," New Scientist, p. 10, October 31, 1992.) Comment. As we see from the diagram, homobatrachotoxin possesses a rather complex chemical structure. One wonders how the pitohuis acquired the ability to synthesize it through random mutations. The puzzle deepens when one discovers that homobatrachotoxin is also manufactured by the New World poisondart frogs. Although far-separated taxonomically, both species traveled along the same path of random mutations to achieve this evolutionary convergence. From Science Frontiers #85, JAN-FEB 1993 . 1993-2000 William ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Biological Evidence For Two Very Early New World Contacts Talking turkeys? Did the Vikings ship American turkeys back to Europe circa 1010 AD from their reputed colonial foothold in Massachusetts? Some radical archeologists think so, pointing to two old depictions of turkey-like birds from Precolumbian Europe. The upper figure was painted on a wall in Schleswig Cathedral about 1280. The lower sketch is reputed to be from the Bayeux Tapestry, which dates back to 1066-1077. (Anonymous; "Talking Turkey," Fortean Times, no. 61, p. 27, February-March 1992.) Comment. The Bayeux Tapestry turkey, in particular, questionable. In fact, a careful search has not found it! See: SF#103. An archeological hot potato! Mangaia is a small volcanic island in the Cook Island group. During the excavation of a rock shelter on this island, large fragments of sweet potato were discovered. These were subsequently carbondated at about 1000 AD. "The prehistoric transferral of this South American domesticate into Polynesia obviously raises issues of cultural contact between the coast of South America and the Polynesian Islands. In our view, the most likely transferrors would have been the seafaring Polynesians, on a voyage of exploration to South America and return." (Hather, Jon, and Kirch, P.V .; "Prehistoric Sweet Potato ( Ipomoea batatas ) from Mangaia Island, Central Polynesia," Antiquity, ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 87: May-Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Uniqueness Of Human Adolescence What major biological characteristics separate humans from other animals? The usual list begins with our large brain and bipedality, but these features are shared with dolphins and birds, respectively. Even our peculiar reproductive biology (permanent breasts, continuous sexual receptivity of both sexes, etc.) no longer seem so unique, particularly after reading about the antics of the bonobos (pygmy chimps)! But wait! No other animal, even the other primates, go through adolescence. That time period between puberty and the attainment of adult stature turns out to be something uniquely human. The great puzzle of adolescence, according to B. Bogin, is its evolutionary origin. What possible advantage does adolescence confer on humans in the battle for survival? To the contrary, skipping the teens would appear to be an advantage in the survivability of parents! One guess is that adolescence -- all 8 or so years of it -- is required for the development of the complex social skills needed by adults. (Bogin, Barry; "Why Must I Be a Teenager at All?" New Scientist, p. 34, March 6, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... officially" reached the New World some 500 years ago, the "official" account states that they found that only the Mayans and Aztecs possessed writing. However, all anomalists recognize that "official" stories often sweep untidy facts under what has come to be an immense rug. One seldom mentioned and rather awkward bump beneath this rug is Cuna writing. The Cuna Indians occupied Panama and some nearby Caribbean islands at the Time of Contact. That the Cuna carved symbols of sorts on wooden boards and scribbled with natural pigments on bark cloth and paper is generally admitted, but this is not considered in the same league as Mayan writing. A sample of Easter Island "writing" from a talking board Cuna writing is ideographic. Today's average Cuna Indian can usually identify each ideogram as a bird, plant, or some other object. However, to those skilled in Cuna writing, each ideogram actually represents a phrase of about 8-10 words. The symbols thus have mnemonic value. Each wooden tablet is actually read from the lower right corner to the left. The next line up reads left to right, in socalled "boustrophedon" style. The tablets are usually songs for healing, histories, etc. In these features and general appearance, Cuna writing resembles the "writing" found on the "talking boards" of Easter Island, which in turn seem to have affinities with the ancient script of the Indus Valley in India. To a diffusionist, these affinities or similarities can only mean that pre-Columbian contacts may have occurred between ancient India, Easter Island, ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 78: Nov-Dec 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fossil Identity Still Up In The Air In 1986, we reported the discovery of bird-like fossils in Texas by S. Chatterjee, a paleontologist at Texas Technical University. Chatterjee was so certain that the fossils (two specimens exist) were primitive birds that he named the species Protoavis texensis (first bird from Texas). During the past five years, the scientific community has chafed while Chatterjee studied his finds and wrote them up. It seems that many paleontologists do not think that Proto-avis is really a bird at all, and Chatter jee has been slow in releasing details. But now his first paper has appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society . Result: Many doubts still remain about the status of Protoavis. A. Feduccia: "Calling this the original bird is irresponsible." (1 ) J.H . Ostrom: "Sad to say, for all its length, little support for the claim is to be found in this paper." (2 ) J. Gauthier: While some of the bones appear bird-like, they also look dinosaurian and could represent a new type of theropod dinosaur. (3 ) For his part, Chjatterjee asserts that Protoavis' skull has 23 features that are fundamentally bird-like, as are the forelimbs, the shoulders, and the hip girdle. "His reconstruction also shows a flexible neck, large brain, binocular vision, and, ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Do birds use genetic maps during migration?Routes taken by migrating German and Austrian blackcaps en route to Africa. Hybrids bisect these initial paths and would end up in the Alps. Many young birds migrate successfully without help from older birds who have made the trip before. The implication is that migration instructions, perhaps even some sort of map of astronomical or geo graphical references, are somehow written upon the genes inherited from their parents. Just how maps can be coded into gene structure is anyone's guess. (In fact, since the DNA in the genes seems to cody only for protein synthesis, the locations and characters of inheritable maps and other biological instructions are not immediately obvious.) The problem has been exacerbated by recent experiments with German and Austrian blackcaps. These two common European warbler species take different routes to Africa in the winter. The Ger-man blackcaps fly southwest and the Austrian southeast--routes 50 apart. A. Helbig has crossed the German and Austrian blackcaps to see what route(s ) their hybrid offspring would take. Curiously, they favored a route intermediate between those of their parents. The hybrids' route -- bisecting those of the parents' -- would take the hybrids right into the Alps, where survival would be unlikely. (Day, Stephen; "Migrating Birds Use Genetic Maps to Navigate," New Scientist, p. 21, April 21, 1991.) ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Birds Of Burden Anthropologists long ago decided that the ostrich was domesticated only in historical times. They pooh-poohed a prehistory sketch showing an ostrich carrying a human rider and pictographs of ostriches apparently fitted with pack saddles. The latest discovery may change their minds. It is a Neolithic figure (5000-7000 years old), deeply engraved on rocks along the River Blaka, in Niger, Africa. Here, the ostrich definitely appears to be loaded with cargo that is strapped on. The bird's legs are folded in a resting position. The Egyptians occasionally captured young ostriches and broke them to harness, but this engraving seems to prove that this practice had been going on long before. (Bahn, Paul; "A Head in the Sands of Time," Nature, 346:794, 1990.) Comment. One wonders what Neolithic goods the ostrich caravans carried and where they were bound. From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... nothing to fool around with. They can cause humans severe pain and weeks of paralysis. And a dog can lose its life when a platypus clamps its legs around its muzzle and drives in its spurs. But, ask evolutionists, how did this poison apparatus get on the hind legs? The supposed ancestors of the platypus, the reptiles, modified their salivary glands for venom delivery. How did the platypusses break from this evolutionary mold and innovate? It's not consistent with the text! The fossil record reveals that a platypus-like creature lived long before the Age of Mammals. These early platypusses had teeth in the adult phase, whereas their modern relatives replace their baby teeth with horny plates -- another innovation. Therefore, far from being a hodgepodge of parts left over from bird and reptile evolution, the platypus has actually pioneered several zoological features. Very curious is the fact that the platypus is in many ways like the beaver -- a very, very distant relative both in distance and position on the Tree of Life. Both platypus and beaver are furry, aquatic creatures with webbed feet and a large, flat tail. We have saved the strangest part for the end! Platypusses, being Monotremes (one-enders) have a common vent for waste and reproduction. Beavers, it turns out, are among the very rare placental mammals that (like the birds) possess a cloaca -- a common vent for urine and excrement. (Hoffman, Eric; "Paradoxes of the Platypus," Scientific American, 264:18, March 1991.) ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Echidna Eccentricities Monotremes: platypus (below); one of two species of echidnas (above) The echidna is one of the monotremes-- an egg-laying mammal. Like its relative, the platypus, it is a strange mixture of mammalian, marsupial, and reptilian characteristics. For example, echidna eggs are soft and leathery, like those of reptiles, but they are brooded in a marsupial-like pouch. The emerging baby echidna has an egg tooth like the birds and reptiles, while the adult has no teeth at all. Rather, it has a narrow snout through which it ingests ants and termites caught on its sticky tongue. In this it resembles the mammalian ant-eaters, which are also toothless but an ocean away from Australia. In fact, the echidna is often called a "spiny anteater" for it has the sharp spines of a hedgehog or porcupine. There are more anatomical peculiarities, but let us focus on the echidna's strange behavior during the mating season. At this time, 2 to 8 echidnas can be seen roaming the Australian bush in "trains" headed by a female with the smallest male acting as a caboose. When mating time arrives, the female anchors herself to a tree with her forelegs. To-gether the males dig a circular "mating rut" up to 10 inches deep around the tree. (Australians have puzzled over these circular trenches for years. ...

... . "Pedestrians dodged hundreds of bats that fell onto downtown sidewalks yesterday afternoon. The winged mammals were sick and dying, and no one knows why. "' I have never seen bats on the sidewalk at 4 o'clock in the afternoon before,' said restauranteur Chris Farkas after encountering the bats in the 600 block of Main Street. 'About half of them were crawling on the ground. There were about 50 in the air flying around.'" Many of the bats subsequently died. Two possible causes advanced were heat-stroke and building fumigation. Neither could be shown correct. (Gilberto, Julie; "Scores of Bats Rain on Downtown," Fort Worth Telegram, September 7, 1989. Cr. R.L Anderson.) Comment. Bat falls and bird falls are rare in the Fortean literature. Storms, intensely cold weather, and sheer exhaustion are the most common causes. From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Elephant Graveyards Legend has it that elephants near death separate from their companions and trek alone to ancestral graveyards, dying only when they reach these special places. The truth is that accumulations of elephant bones have indeed been discovered, but no one seems to have followed expiring elephants to these boneyards. We hope someone will tell us otherwise, but the tale seems apocrythal. The piles of elephant bones could, in fact, be the work of mazukus. (Mazuku means "evil wind" in Swahili.) It seems that there are places on this earth where CO2 and other deadly gases emitted from volcanic vents accumulate. J. Lockwood and M. Tuttle investigated three mazukus known to natives in East Africa. In these low-lying areas, they came upon the remains of small mammals and birds that has been asphyxiated by concentrations of CO2 dense enough to snuff out burning kerosene-soaked rags. Unfortunately for the elephantgraveyard legend, they found no elephant bones. (Anonymous; "Elephant Graveyards," Discover, 12:10, May 1991.) Comment. It would be interesting to know if other species of animals are found in the elephant graveyards. So-called "valleys of death" are found elsewhere in the world, including Yellowstone. Reference. Other "valleys of death" are cataloged in ESC5 in Anomalies in Geo logy, described here . From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mysterious Bird Deaths "An eight-year study by Indian zoologists has failed to establish why birds commit suicide year after year at the small village of Jatinga in the northeastern state of Assam. "Attracted by the lights, birds converge on Jatinga at night and on landing become immobile, stop feeding and starve. They neither resist capture nor try to fly away." The mysterious phenomenon dates back to 1905. It peaks in September and October, as the monsoon season wanes, with as many as 500 birds, from some 36 species, dying each night. The birds alight at the same spot each year -- a one-kilometer stretch in the town. No one can account for the selection of this precise spot or for the dazed condition of the birds. (Jayaraman, K.S .; "Mystery of Bird Deaths in Assam," Nature, 331:556, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Tsunami And A Peruvian Cultural Glitch We quote from the abstract of a paper by R.M . Bird from American Antiquity. "While investigating the archaeological background of early maize on the coast of Peru, I realized that several factors affect interpretation. The estimated date for the start of common use of maize there is close to the apparent dates of a large tsunami, the abandonment of many coastal sites, and the start of occupation at Chavin de Huantar in the highlands. While investigating the possible relations between the principal pretsunami coastal culture and Chavin, I discovered that depictions of a monstrous head link the two cultures." The "monstrous head" is thought by the Bird to be a stylized representation of a tsunami wave. Not mentioned at all in the abstract are the physical evidences of tsunami damage along the Peruvian coast. This article portrays the possible effects on the ancient manmade structures in the region as well as the widespread deposits of sand, cobblestones, and other sediments. (Bird, Robert McK.; "A Postulated Tsunami and Its Effects on Cultural Development in the Peruvian Early Horizon," American Antiquity, 52:285, 1987.) Profile of a north-south site trench at a a site on the Peruvian coast, showing thick strata that may have been deposited by a tsunami. From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Caterpillars That Look Like What They Eat While E. Greene was studying insecteating birds, he was startled when an oak tree catkin started to crawl away from him. The crawling catkin turned out to be a cleverly camouflaged caterpillar ( Nemoria arizonaria ). When these caterpillars start eating oak catkins in the spring, they soon take on the golden color and fuzzy appearance of the catkins. However, the second brood, which matures after the catkins have disappeared, develop instead a twig-like appearance after consuming oak leaves. Thus, both broods acquire the proper protective camouflage for each season. Experiments show that plant chemicals control the appearance of the caterpillars. (Green, Erick; "A Diet-Induced Developmental Polymorphism in a Caterpillar," Science, 243:643, 1989. Also: Wickelgren, I.; "Caterpillar Disguise; You Are What You Eat," Science News, 135: 70, 1989.) Comment. Is it naive to wonder why the oaks contribute to their own destruction by providing the caterpillars with chemicals that help conceal them from predators? Plants are usually very clever about producing insect-discouraging chemicals in their leaves. One would expect that "evolutionary forces" would have produced chemicals that would have made the caterpillars more obvious to their predators instead of visa versa. From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 48: Nov-Dec 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Archaeopteryx a dead end?" Just as the 150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx fossil is being reinstated as the earliest known bird after considerable controversy, along come two crowsize skeletons that are not only 75 million years older than Archaeopteryx but also more birdlike, according to the paleontologists who discovered them. The Washington, D.C .- based National Geographic Society, which funded the work, announced this week that Sankar Chatterjee and his colleagues at Texas Tech University in Lubbock found the 225-million-year-old fossils near Post, Tex." (Weisburd, S.; "Oldest Bird and Longest Dinosaur," Science News, 130:103, 1986.) Chatterjee has named the new fossil Protoavis. "Protoavis seems certain to reopen the long-running controversy on the evolution of birds. In particular whether the common ancestor of birds and dinosaurs was itself a dinosaur. Protoavis, from the late Triassic, appears at the time of the earliest dinosaurs, and if the identification is upheld it seems likely that it will be used to argue against the view of John Ostrom of Yale University that birds are descended from the dinosaurs. It also tends to confirm what many paleontologists have long suspected, that Archaeopteryx is not on the direct line to modern birds. It is in some ways more reptilian than Protoavis, and the period between the late Jurassic Archaeopteryx and the world-wide radiation of birds in ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Feathered Flights Of Fancy Some more salvos have been fired in an endlessly fascinating controversy (at least it is that to us). First, F. Hoyle and C. Wickramasinghe, hardly strangers to these columns, have published Archaeopteryx, The Primordial Bird: A Case of Fossil Forgery. The book elaborates their theory that the Archaeopteryx fossils, much ballyhooed as "proofs" of evolution, are outright forgeries. Second, T. Kemp, a zoologist on the staff of the University Museum, has returned the fire with a mean-minded review. He states that Hoyle and Wickramasinghe "exhibit a staggering ignorance about the nature of fossils and fossilization processes." Kemp concludes his review with an admission that the possibility of forgery should indeed be investigated. "But it should be done by those who actually understand fossils, fossilization and fossil preparation, not by a couple of people who exhibit nothing more than a gargantuan conceit that they are clever enough to solve other people's problems for them when they do not even begin to recognize the nature and complexity of the problems." (Kemp, Tom; "Feather Flights of Fancy," Nature, 324:185, 1986.) Finally, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe reply in a letter to Nature that L.M . Spetner and his colleagues in Israel have analyzed samples of the Archaeopteryx fossil with a scanning electron microscope and X-ray spectroscopy. Results: the rock ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Status of archaeopteryx up in the air!That famous missing link, Archaeopteryx, the flying reptile, continues to make headlines. The major argument at the 1984 International Archaeopteryx Conference, in Eichstaett, was about whether Archaeopteryx could fly at all, despite its advanced, aerodynamically shaped feathers. It certainly could not have flown well since it lacks the supracoracoideus pulley-system that acts as a wing elevator in birds. Archaeopteryx could not have raised its wings above the horizontal, making it a poor flier at best. It also lacked the birds' keel bone to which the wing muscles are anchored. But those exquisitely designed feathers, so modern in appearance, tilted the scales. The consensus of the Conference was that Archaeopteryx could indeed fly. (Howgate, Michael E.; "Back to the Trees for Archaeopteryx in Bavaria," Nature, 313:435, 1985.) The really interesting part of the continuing Archaeopteryx saga comes from the recent charge of Fred Hoyle and others that the Archaeopteryx fossil is an outright forgery. Hoyle et al insist that Archaeopteryx could not have flown at all, given its bones and musculature. Archaeopteryx looks like a reptile and was a reptile. As for the modern-looking feathers, they were probably added to the fossil fraudulently. And there do seem to be parts of the fossils on display in London and East Berlin that look highly suspicious. Conventional paleontologists are, of course, aghast ...