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... are so many of them and that they are so neglected in the TV documentaries. The Cush empire did leave us one enigma: an alphabetical script of 23 symbols that has never been deciphered. P. Wolf, at Berlin's Humboldt University, fears that, "Maybe we will never be able to decipher the language. Every-body is hoping for some sort of Rosetta stone." (Anonymous; "228 Pyramids -- South of Egypt in Sudan," Legendary Times, 2:3 , March-April 2000. Some of the above data come from MSP1-X5 in our next catalog which, if our imagination fails us, will be entitled Ancient Infrastructure II .) 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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... 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 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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... #116 ) Thomas-Keprta et al have now come forward with more evidence that ALH-84001 does indeed contain biogenic material. Those worm-like forms have iron-rich rims containing fine-grained crystals of magnetite, some of which possess a unique morphology and which are essentially identical to the magnetite crystals secreted by magnetotactic bacteria on earth. Their conclusion: In ALH84001, the presence of these elongated prismatic magnetite crystals embedded within the carbonate glo- bules, which clearly formed on Mars, represents strong evidence for life on early Mars. (Thomas-Keprta, Kathie L., et al; "Biogenic Magnetite within Martian Meteorite ALH84001," Eos, 80:F69, 1999.) 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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... hypotheses of large-scale continental movements, seafloor spreading, and subduction , as well as the relative youth of the oceanic crust are contradicted by a substantial volume of data. Evidence for significant amounts of submerged continental crust in the present-day oceans provides another major challenge to plate tectonics. (Pratt, David ; "Plate Tectonics: A Paradigm under Threat ," Journal of Scientific Exploration," 14:307, 2000.) Definition. Asthenosphere = upper mantle, a hot, fluid layer of rock. Two kinds of marine magnetic anomalies: (Top) Idealized stripes straddling a rift valley. (Bottom) Actual magnetic anomalies in the North Atlantic. Quite a difference between theory and reality From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 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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... September 26, 1999. Cr. R. Swanson) Comment. An interesting parallel to Sungbo''s Eredo is seen in Offa's Dyke, the largest ancient earthwork in Dritain. It is also an embankment-plus-ditch. Offa, the king of Saxon Mercia, had it constructed between 757 and 796 to keep out the troublesome Welsh. Offa's Dyke is 150 miles long; its embankment is 25 feet high; the ditch 6 feet deep. It, too, is indefensible. Today, it marks the boundary between England and Wales. Details in MSW1 in Ancient Infrastructure. Many other long dykes are draped across the British countryside. (From: Ancient Infrastructure) From Science Frontiers #128, MAR-APR 2000 . 1997 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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... wish to swim again! The polysaccharides and proteins that comprise most of the thin goo are not alive, although the bacteria are. Just how this thin goo and its multitudinous inhabitants evolved has not been explained. Which came first, the goo or the bacteria? Being devoid of life's spark, the goo cannot evolve, or can it? (LaFee, Scott; "Meet Me at the Goo," New Scientist, p. 44, November 25, 2000.) Comment. Do similar microcosms thrive in freshwater lakes, in aquifer pores, the atmosphere? Don't shrug, even the atmosphere has its microstructure and is laden with bacteria, spores, viruses, etc. From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 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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... p. 14, April 1, 2000.) Comments. Science-fiction writers have not neglected the "drifters" as potential sources of intelligent life. F. Hoyle's The Black Cloud is a good example of the genre. Who can say what "plasma entities" might have emerged over the eons on these multitudinous drifters? To illustrate, if you were given only the known properties of the chemical elements and a primitive earth, would you predict that matter would spontaneously mold itself into human beings? Even on earth, on very small scales, we see "plasma entities" like ball lightning and "spooklights" behaving mighty strangely! Who knows what is transpiring on the drifters. 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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... of waking hours. However, speculation is fun. There are at least two rather far-fetched explanations for characteristics (sleeping and dreaming here) that do not appear to have very much survival value. Sleeping and dreaming may be linked genetically to a characteristic that does have considerable survival value. Example: Resistance to malaria is coupled to sickle-cell anemia. Sleeping and dreaming may represent unavoidable, intermediate, evolutionary steps toward something of much greater value. Example: those fea- thers on fossil dinosaurs; i.e ., the protobirds. Are sleeping and dreaming humans slouching toward Teilhard de Chardin's Omega Point or possibly A.C . Clarke's Childhood's End? From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 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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... havoc with anything living in the Late Cretaceous period, 65 million to 99 million years ago. Although the notion that an asteroid was the immediate cause of dinosaur extinction about 65 million years ago has won wide acceptance, many paleontologists have argued that volcanic activity may have played a role in changing the climate and sending populations of the giant creatures into decline. (Bowman, Lee; "Scientist's Say Earth's Magnetic Field Shifted Rapidly in Time of Dinosaurs," Dallas Morning News, January 21, 2000. Cr. Phelps) Comment. Coincidentally (honest!), we are offering with this mailing a reprint of C.H . Hapgood's The Path of the Pole. From Science Frontiers #128, MAR-APR 2000 . 1997 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. 78: Nov-Dec 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Marcahuasi: a mystery in stone In her newsletter of October 1, J. Hunt publishes a letter from B. Cote that tells briefly of an eerie Peruvian site: "In June of 1989, a group of us traveled to Peru and visited a 12,500foot plateau called Marcahuasi. We spent only one night there, but what we saw was so exciting that we decided to go back and make a film of it. The entire plateau seems to be populated with hundreds of figures carved out ot stone, some of them 90 feet tall. Yet this unique spot is relatively unknown to the outside world. "What little is written about Marcahuasi indicates a certain reluctance on the part of archaeologists to say that the figures are man-made. Indeed, many of them are subtle and not always obvious to the viewer. But that is precisely what contributes to the mystery. There are so many recognizable forms there, that one is tempted to say they must be man-made, or else nature is having a great joke on us. "Daniel Ruzo, a 90-year-old archa eologist who lives near Mexico City, aided us. The figures we saw and filmed in 1989 were both strange and fascinating. We were first greeted by a 60-foot rock called by Ruzo The Monument to Humanity because several different races are recognizable on it. They overlap each other in a unique way, but ...
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... waves of blue auroral light sweeping up from the horizon and meeting at a focal point nearly directly overhead. As the sky blazed, with the blue waves and crimson streamers, she heard: ". .. a distant tinkling, like bells. It came again, louder, just as a curtain of green light swept the entire width of the sky from north to south. Each time green flushed the sky, the bells rang, the sound softening to a gentle tinkle as the light died." (Hasselstrom, Linda; "Night of the Bells," Readers Digest , p. 185, April 1992. Cr. J.B . Dotson.) Comment. Note the correlation of the sound with the green portion of the aurora. July 29, 1990. On Coll Island in Centennial Lake, 120 kilometers west of Ottawa. Watching an auroral display, L.R . Morris heard the sound of the aurora: "It was a faint but distant windlike sound; which, by process of elimination, could not be accounted for by any phenomenon other than the aurora." (Anonymous; "Auroral Sounds," Sky & Telescope , 83:105, January 1992. Cr. D. Snowhook.) Comment. Auroras have been heard for centuries, but they "shouldn't be." Current theory restricts auroral activity to altitudes above 50 miles, where a fair vacuum prevails, and sound generation and propagation are impossible. One explanation for auroral sounds is that intense electromagnetic waves created by the auroras sweep through the observer's brain and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A CONNECTICUT SOUTERRAIN?Souterrains, such as that figured, are megalithic constructions usually considered to be exclusively of European origin. This look-alike, at Montville, CT, could indicate pre-Columbian contacts. Here are some details: "This underground site is built into a rocky hillside in an isolated region. A 37 ft. passage of straight-sided drywall stonework is interrupted after 8 ft. by a 3 ft. collapsed section. It then continues on for 20 ft. to a little corbelled chamber whose end wall is cut into a roughly quarried and levelled ledge. On the slope around the souterrain are about 100 cairns, some carefully constructed; others appear to be the result of field clearing." (Anonymous; "An Arm-Chair Field Trip," NEARA Journal, 26:87, Winter/Spring 1992.) NEARA = New England Antiquities Research Association. Comment. The prevailing explanation of such New England lithic structures is that they were simply colonial root cellars or something of the kind. The structure figured is certainly a very ambitious root cellar! Reference. Our handbook Ancient Man investigates these New England chambers in some detail. For more on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #82, JUL-AUG 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects EVEN TODAY NATURAL SELECTION IS MOLDING HUMAN POPULATIONS Nauru is a remote Pacific atoll with a population of 5,000 Micronesians. Formerly, the Nauruans led energetic lives -- fishing, subsistence farming -- and they were slim and healthy. Then came colonization and phosphate mining; with these came wealth, imported caloriepacked food, sedentary lives, obesity, and, unhappily for this tropical paradise, diabetes. The incidence of diabetes mellitus shot up to 60%, an astounding statistic by world standards. On one of the wealthiest of the Pacific islands, the inhabitants have the shortest life spans! The same scenario is being played out in other parts of the world where life styles have changed drastically; for example, some Polynesians, American Indians, and Australian aborigines are similarly afflicted. Furthermore, an epi-demic of diabetes mellitus is anticipated as the "benefits" of civilization are brought to India and China. Two questions must be answered: (1 ) Why is the incidence of diabetes mellitus only 8% among American junkfood-eating couch potatoes? Probable answer: natural selection has already modified the American genotype by eliminating those who are supersensitive to diabetes mellitus under conditions of rich diets and sedentary lives. (2 ) Why are modern populations still living under Spartan conditions so sensitive to diabetes in the first place? Possible answer: the so-called "thrifty genotype" hypothesis. In this view, the genotype that is ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Winning By A Hair Archeologists have been very skeptical about the purported human artifacts and handprint found in the Orogrande Cave, New Mexico. The chief archeologist working at the site, R. MacNeish, has now found several hairs embedded in the cement-hard layers of the cave's floor. One of these hairs, less than an inch long, has definitely been labeled as human by Canadian forensic experts. Carbon-14 dating of a nearby piece of charcoal from the same layer has yielded a date of 19,180 BP -- considerably more ancient than the passionately defended 12,000-BP date for first arrivals in the New World. MacNeish is confident that his claims will now be accepted, joking, "It looks like I'm going to win this one by a hair." Other archeologists, however, are not laughing. Handprints and hairs are insufficient; they want human bones. (Chandler, David L.; "Strand of Hair May Be Proof of Much Earlier Americans," Boston Globe, June 28, 1992. (Cr. R. Coltman) From Science Frontiers #83, SEP-OCT 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Blondes In Ancient China Authorities on ancient Chinese civilization have usually considered it to have been completely isolated from European influences for millennia -- a homegrown culture characterized by unique cultural and technological innovations. This classical picture of ancient China will have to be modified after the recent unearthing of mummified Caucasians up to 4,000 years old in China's northwestern province of Xinjiang. These dried corpses have the long noses, deep-set eyes, and long skulls typical of Caucasians. Some even have blonde hair! Some 113 such corpses have already been excavated at Qizilchoqa, one of four sites discovered so far. It is clear that we are dealing with permanent settlements and not merely a few lost Europeans. "Besides the riddle of their identity, there is also the question of what these fair-haired people were doing in a remote desert oasis. Probably never wealthy enough to own chariots, they nevertheless had wagons and well-tailored clothes. Were they mere goat and sheep farmers? Or did they profit from or even control prehistoric trade along the route that later became the Silk Road? If so, they probably helped spread the first wheels and certain metal-working skills into China." V. Mair, a professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania, has been spearheading the research on these mummies for the U.S . He asserts that, contrary to the general belief, there was a substantial two- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 99: May-Jun 1995 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The inscribed bricks of comalcalco Ancient modern life and carbon dating Traces of the southern flotilla Astronomy Where have all the black holes gone? Ltps and ets Biology Curious brain asymmetries Did darwin get it all right? When scents make no sense Biological precursors of the 1995 kobe earthquake Geology Ballistic panspermia Geophysics Warning cars rolling uphill ahead 90-DAY SEA-LEVEL OSCILLATION AT WAKE ISLAND Luminous precursors of the 1995 kobe earthquake Psychology The untapped human mind Physics Why does spaghetti break into three pieces instead of two? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 103: Jan-Feb 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Remarkable Mayan Suspension Bridge We tend to think Mayan engineering only in terms of those impressive pyramids at Tikal, Copan, and many other sites, but they were accomplished builders of roads and bridges, too. "Scientists working at the Mayan ceremonial center of Yaxchilan, Mexico, have discovered the remains of a sophisticated 600-foot-long suspension bridge built in the seventh century A.D . The bridge, which spanned the Usumacinta River, had massive concrete piers, a rope-cable suspension system anchored to stone mechanisms, towers, and a bed of hard wooden planks. It probably stood for 500 years above water 40 to 150 feet deep, with a steady current of 5 to 7 m.p .h ., which increases to 10 to 15 m.p .h . at flood stage. Civil engineer and archeologist Jame O'Kon says the bridge was the world's longest until 1377, when a larger one was built in Italy." (Anonymous; "Mayan Suspension Bridge," INFO Journal, no. 73, p. 44, Summer 1995. Source cited: Washington Times, February 26, 1995. INFO = International Fortean Organization) Comment. One wonders why such a talented society collapsed so suddenly! From Science Frontiers #103, JAN-FEB 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The pit-zodiacs Schagen-Muggenburg lies 50 kilometers north of Amsterdam. The Muggenburg part of the town name is only a few years old. Before it was built, archeologists were allowed to explore the meadows making up the construction site. L. Therkorn, an archeologist from the University of Amsterdam, led the exploration team. The digs yielded artifacts going as far back as 300 AD, when this region was sparsely populated by farmers. However, if Therkorn et al had dug up only these old bones and pottery shards, we would not be writing this for SF! For anomalists, it was the pits -- old pits that had been filled in and that seemed to be arranged in an intricate pattern that mirrored the star constellations making up the classical Greek zodiac. But this revelation didn't come until later. After all, pits are common in archeology. Often they contain just rubbish, sometimes human remains. "But the pits at Muggenburg are different. There are 57 of them, each about a meter wide and deep, extending over about half a hectare [about 1 acres] They were certainly not used for storage because the level of the groundwater is too high. Nor were they used as dumps; archaeological evidence shows that they were filled in shortly after they were dug, and some have very little in them." It was only when Therkorn mapped the pits did she see that they ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Reinventing The Neandertals The public image of the Neandertal is that of a brutish, hardly human creature clad in a ragged skin and unable to speak save for a few grunts. Forget that picture. Several hundred meters deep inside a cavern near Bruniquel, in southern France, spelunkers stumbled across a complex quadrilateral structure, 4 x 5 meters in extent, built up from chunks of stalactites and stalagmites. Within its "walls" they found a piece of burnt bear bone that was later carbondated as at least 47,600 years old. A burnt bone and a geometrical structure certainly suggest the work of an intelligent creature, as does the site's great distance from the surface. Torches would have been a necessity that far in. That 47,600-year figure, though, presents a problem. The first Cro-Magnons didn't filter into western Europe until about 35,000 BP. According to the accepted anthropological schedule, only those subhuman Neandertals inhabited that part of France in 47,600 BP. So, we must conclude that the Neandertals knew well the sophisticated use of fire. They also had enough curiosity to venture deep into the earth, where for some unknown purpose they piled together an enigmatic structure. All this also seems to require more information transfer than possible with a few "ughs"! (Balter, Michael; "Cave Structure Boosts Neandertal Image," Science, 271:449, ...
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... No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fiddling Up Worms When fishing season arrives in Tennessee, L. Harvey does not get out his shovel to dig for worms, he gets out his saw! "Using a dull handsaw, Harvey cut a dead dogwood tree down to a 10-inch stump and then began sawing it lengthwise -- an act of worm fiddling that sounded like someone playing the bassoon, and made the ground purr beneath our feet. "At first, Harvey's sawing seemed to agitate only insects and spiders, but after a while we saw our first fiddled worm. It was 6 inches long, wriggling next to Harvey's boot." Twenty worms at each site are about average with Harvey's fiddling. His fiddled worms are top fish-catchers; the slime they produce even glows in the dark. Harvey is a purist and eschews modern worm-catching technology, such as those popular iron stakes driven into the ground and connected to a car's battery. (Simmons, Morgan; "Making 'Music' with Saw and Stump," Knoxville News-Sentinel, April 21, 1996. Cr. J.A . Caywood) Comment. See SF#65 on how to "grunt" for worms with a driven stake and notched stick -- a variation of Harvey's technique. From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 Multiple Phosphorescent Wheels This is the sketch mentioned in the Marine Observer article. April 17, 1995. Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. Aboard the m.v . British Reliance, enroute Fujairah to Kharg Island. Observers: the Master and Second Officer. "At 1525 UTC whilst in the westbound lane of the Traffic Separation Scheme and shortly after settling on a course of 270 , a small amount of blue phosphorescence was noticed in the sea waves ahead (the swell being very low). Suddenly, the wind appeared to blow quite strongly, swirling around the vessel and then for as far as the eye could see and all around the vessel, phosphorescent cartwheels of bright-blue light began forming. The bands of light were roughly 30 cm thick while the maximum diameter of the wheels was 15-18 m. "Their direction of movement seemed random and they were spinning at high speed, some chasing each other, others spinning in opposite directions next to each other, see sketch. "Whole groups dumbbelled around each other, all spinning in apparently random directions. The display lasted for about 18 minutes before petering out." A comment by P.J . Herring of the Southampton Oceanography Centre followed. "A quite extraordinary account of phosphorescent wheels occurring in one of the places where they are most often seen. In the 200, or so, cases of this phenomenon reported in the last 100 years, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Greenwich Late Time When J. Brink recently visited the Old Greenwich Observatory, in England, he saw a flag hanging on the building giving the longitude of the site, which by definition is 0 0' 0". The flag also announced that: "The Next Millennium Starts Here." Why is this in error? Answer below. (Brink, Johan; "Greenwich Late Time," New Scientist, p. 59, October 19, 1996) LONGITUDE FAUX PAS The next millennium (the year 2001 or 2000, depending upon your mind-set) really begins where all days begin: at the International Date Line, longitude 180 . From Science Frontiers #109, JAN-FEB 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects http://www.aros.net/angio/pistuff/piquery At this Web site you can enter your Social Security Number (or telephone number, etc.) and discover if it appears among the first 1.25 million digits of pi. Perhaps when God was designing the Universe and was contemplating what the value of pi should be, he put your number somewhere in this transcendental number! (Anonymous; New Scientist, p. 64, January 4, 1997.) Comment. Of course, pi has as many digits as you care to compute (at least we think it does!) If your number is not among the first 1.25 million digits, it will certainly appear somewhere later. It's just that you are not first in line! From Science Frontiers #110, MAR-APR 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 111: May-Jun 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ancient Entertainments Neanderthal musicmakers, The Neanderthals have long been portrayed as insensitive and brutish. But when the remains of flowers were found at Shanidar, a Neanderthal grave site in Iraq, archeologists mellowed a bit in their assessments. Now, there is evidence that those supposed lowbrows were also musicians. In 1996, in a Slovenian cave, researchers discovered a flute crafted from the thigh bone of a cave bear. Stone tools of Neanderthal manufacture were found nearby. The flute is dated between 43,000 and 82,000 years old and is the oldest-known, deliberately manufactured musical instrument ever found. (Folger, Tim, and Menon, Shanti; "Strong Bones, and Thus Dim-Witted? Or Much Like Us?" Discover, 18:32, January 1997.) Really stale chewing gum! The journal Nature recently printed the photograph of a tooth-marked wad of chewing gum said to be 6,500 years old. This particular wad came from a Swedish bog, but similar wads have been found all over Northern Europe. Not having access to South American chicle, ancient confectioners made the gum from birch bark. Birch bark was also the source of the tar primitive humans used for gluing and waterproofing. E. Aveling, University of Bradford, has concocted a fresh batch of birchbark gum for a taste test. (No one volunteered to try the "old" stuff!) She reported that ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Addenda And Emenda Circles of contention (SF#110). As pre-dicted, the well-publicized dates of 116,000 and 176,000 years BP for artifacts found at the Jinmium site in Australia's Northern Territory are being subjected to extreme scrutiny. Thermoluminescence (TL) dating was used in estimating these dates, but TL-dating is in its infancy and full of pitfalls. Geochronologist R. Roberts has looked at the Jinmium data and ventures that the artifacts may be only 10,000 years old. However, he approves of TL dates of 50,000-60,000 years for two rock shelters elsewhere in the Northern Territory. (Gibbons, Ann; "Doubts over Spectacular Dates," Science, 278:219, 1997.) Triangular holes in boulders (SF#113). These puzzling holes may actually be left behind when tourmaline crystals are weathered out of the boulders. (Saul, J.M .; personal communication. November 1, 1997.) Standing stones in North Carolina? SF#114). Grandfather Mountain (5964 feet) is surpassed in height by over a dozen other peaks east of the Mississippi: Mount Washington (6288 feet); Clingmans Dome (6642 feet); etc. Oh well, at least some people are reading this newsletter carefully! (Rice, Charles M.; personal communication, November 1997.) About as anomalous ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hard Facts At Cahokia Monk's Mound, the largest mound at the Cahokia Mounds State Historical Site, in Illinois, is not what it seems. Superficially, it is a terraced earthen mound 100 feet high and more than three football fields long. What we now see of the mound was apparently constructed between 900 and 1200 AD. The prevailing dogma has long been that the Indians who built Cahokia worked only with earth, never with stone. Indeed, suitable stone is scarce in the area. On January 24, 1998, while drilling to construct a water drainage system at Monk's Mound, workers hit stone -- at least 32 feet of it -- perhaps a region of cobbles or slabs of rock. This region of stone, of undetermined geometry, is located 40 feet below one of the terrace surfaces, but still well above the base of the mound. The stones could well be an artificial structure of some sort. The discovery challenges the current thinking about the culture that built Cahokia. Only further research will reveal the extent and configuration of the stony region and where the stones may have come from. An editorial in the March 14, 1998, St. Louis Post-Dispatch put the Cahokia discovery in the larger context: New World archeology is in flux. Humans occupied the Americas long before 12,000 BP, and some of them may have been Caucasian (e .g ., ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 118: Jul-Aug 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Astounding Undersea Structure Near Okinawa "A structure thought to be the world's oldest building, nearly twice the age of the great pyramids of Egypt, has been discovered. The rectangular stone ziggurat under the sea off the coast of Japan could be the first evidence of a previously unknown Stone Age civilization, say archeologists." Wow! Is this true? This so-called "structure" is 600 feet long and 90 feet high. Said to be about 10,000 years old, it obviously predates the edifices of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. The "structure" is now under about 75 feet of ocean near a small island named Yonaguni southwest of Okinawa. During the Ice Ages, it would have been exposed, just like the Bering Land Bridge to the north. Of course, the crucial question is: Is it really artificial? R. Schoch, the Boston University geologist who vouches that the Sphinx is also about 10,000 years old (SF#79), described the "structure" as a series of huge steps about 1 meter high. Schoch is impressed by the regularity of the steps, but does not discount a natural origin. A photo taken by divers does reveal a remarkably regular, stepped surface, but nature can be very methodical on occasion. Adding to the artificiality of the "structure" is the claim that a "road" encloses it. (Barot, Trushar; ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 118: Jul-Aug 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Paradigm Assaults From Way Down Under A lengthy article in an Auckland newspaper demonstrates that archeological revisionism is alive and well in New Zealand. We select just three of the more controversy-provoking topics. G. Cook, assisted by a few likeminded compatriots, has been exploring the Waipoua Forest in Northland. Here, he claims, is a treasure trove of pre-Maori stone structures. In a 242-hectare area, he has found 16 sites encompassing nearly 2,000 enigmatic stone structures. Interestingly, the New Zealand government has made a three-year survey of the area and has embargoed release of their report until 2063! (Official coverups are also found in archeology.) B. Brailsford, of Kaimanawa Wall fame (SF#107), now asserts that the Maoris were preceded by the Waitaha -- a claim echoed by others. But Brailsford goes a step further by stating that the Waitaha really comprised three disparate groups of people: (a ) the Moriori, who were of giant stature and superb gardeners; (b ) the Urukehu, a fair-skinned group known also as Starwalkers for their knowledge of the heavens; and (c ) the Kiritea or Stone People from Asia. Finally, stated sans reference, is the fact that in 1996 rock carvings 14,000 years old were found along a 49-kilometer stretch of the Amazon. (Paterson, Kimberly; "Pushing History Back beyond ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 120: Nov-Dec 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Pyramid stones not "cementitious"In SF#119, we followed the item on artificial basalt with a comment about J. Davidovits' claim that the stone blocks of the Giza pyramids are actually made from a limey cement and poured on-site. No long-distance hauling and lifting into place required! We have since found (serendipitously) an authoritative refutation of Davidovits' claim. K.D . Ingram et al analyzed stone samples from the Giza pyramids using scanning electron microscopy, electron diffraction by X-rays, powder X-ray diffraction, inductive coupled plasmography, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and other techniques. Their conclusion: ". .. the pyramids are made of limestone and are not cementitious in nature." (Ingram, Kevin D., et al; "The Pyramids -- Cement or Stone?" Journal of Archaeo logical Science, 20:681, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #120, NOV-DEC 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Enormous structure in japan Circular structures in the kurils Ancient bones on santa rosa Astronomy A NEW COSMOLOGY Magnetic stripes on mars The 21-micron mystery Biology Hand-reading more useful than palm-reading Preadaptive evolution Photosnthesis at deep-sea vents Late survival of the kilopilopitsofy and kidoky Geology The mystery of eugene island 330 Forest rings Geophysics Offset lunar rainbow Unusual corposants Fall of hot globules Unclassified Measuring spirituality! ...
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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 The Stone Enigmas Of New England Beginning with the maze of walls, courtyards, and chambers that characterize New Hampshire's Mystery Hill site, M.F . Doran and B.H . Kunnecke review the various types of anomalous stone structures found in northeastern North America. Three major classes are recognized: Covered passageways up to 25 feet in length and analogous to Cornish fogous. Beehive chambers, such as the 10-foot-high chamber at Upton, Massachusetts. Dolmen-like constructions, as exemplified by the 60-ton "balancing boulder at North Salem, New York. Termed a "glacial erratic" by most, the North Salem stone seems distinctly unlike most erratics and more like some European dolmens. Noting that radiocarbon dates from Mystery Hill go back to more than 1,000 B.C ., Doran and Kunnecke feels that these stone enigmas should receive professional attention in the context of world distributions of blood groups and other evidence of early, frequent transoceanic contacts. (Doran, Michael F., and Kunnecke, Bernd H.; "The Stone Enigmas of New England," Anthropological Journal of Canada, 15:17, No. 2: January 1978 Reference. Many more "stone engimas" are detailed in Ancient Man. This Handbook is described here . From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 14: Winter 1981 Supplement Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ancient camp found 40 feet below colorado surface Outside Fort Morgan, Colorado, workmen digging pits for a landfill uncovered a prehistoric campsite 40 feet under the sandy bed of an ancient stream. The diggers found bones, worked flints, and burnt stones arranged in a ring. Excavations were stopped when the importance of the site became obvious. Estimates of the campsite's age were as old as 30,000 years -- a figure that would have been heresy a decade or two ago. (Anonymous; "Ancient Camp Unearthed at Colo. Landfill," Baltimore Sun, December 14, 1980. AP dispatch.) From Science Frontiers #14, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The Senegambian Megalithic Monument Complex A Celtic Frontier Site in Colorado? Astronomy A Bump in the Cosmic Background Phoebe Not Locked to Saturn Biology Descent of Man -- or Ascent of Ape? Life's Origin Within the Earth? Or Did it Drift in From Without? Geology The Burgess Shale Puzzle Iridium-rich Layers and Catastrophism Geophysics The Long Arms of Venus and Jupiter Giant Thunderstorm Clusters Offshore Booms Are Still with Us Psychology Dreams More Real Than Reality Warts on Demand? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 24: Nov-Dec 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Powerful Earth Current Enters North America From The Pacific An immense current of terrestrial electricity originating somewhere in the Pacific enters the North American continent along the Strait of Georgia (between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland) and shoots past Tacoma toward Oregon. The discoverers of the current, John R. Booker and Gerard Hensel, at the University of Washington, traced the flow of electricity through a narrow wedge of porous, water-bearing rock that parallels a fault line. Another branch of this terrestrial circuit enters along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. No estimates are given of the magnitude of the current; and there are no speculations as to the origin of the electromagnetic force driving the current. (Anonymous; "Nature's Hidden Power Line," Science Digest, 90:18, October 1982.) Reference. This and other earth currents are mentioned in EZC5 in our Catalog: Inner Earth. For ordering information, visit: here . Comment. In some areas, large artifi cial earth currents are created by high-power transmission lines. From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 25: Jan-Feb 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A FAR-WANDERING LOST TRIBE?Imagine hiking near Los Lunas, New Mexico, and coming upon a huge basalt boulder inscribed as shown in the illustration. This is obviously not an Indian petroglyph. Rather, it is the Ten Commandments set down in an old Hebrew script. The script and its translation seem unmysterious. What everyone wants to know is: Who chiseled it and when? It was apparently discovered in the 1880s. Harvard anthropologist Frank C. Hibben visited the site in 1930 and pronounced the inscription to be at least 100 years old. Who in New Mexico in 1830 knew ancient Hebrew? The inscription may be much older, for the whole boulder, weighing 60-80 tons, is tipped 20-30 , probably by geological forces, so that the lines of script are tilted. (Underwood, L. Lyle; "The Los Lunas Inscription," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications, vol. 10, no. 237, 1982.) Comment. Is it all a hoax? Some think so. It is easier to live with a hoax than with the thought of a Hebrew outpost in New Mexico a couple thousand years ago. It should be remarked that there are many purported Hebrew and Roman finds in the American Southwest; viz, the Tucson lead crosses with their Roman inscriptions. Reference. More anomalous epigraphy is to be found in our Handbook: Ancient Man. For more on this book ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 29: Sep-Oct 1993 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology South American-polynesian Contacts At Easter Island The Ancient Horsemen Astronomy Another Quasar Enigma Sedimentary Rocks on Venus? Biology Porpoise Stun Gun Genes Aren't Everything Life Beyond 100 c Geology Nitrate Deposits Defy Rational Explanation Episode of Steep Geomagnetic Inclination Geophysics Astronomy and Earthquakes Satan's Storm Psychology Solving Problems in Your Sleep Unclassified Temptations of Numerology ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Animals As Nutrient Carriers "It has long been recognized that the movement of grazing animals from one terrestrial ecosystem to another, feeding in one and defaecating in the other, may result in significant movement of certain [chemical] elements between them (i .e . the ecosystems). What has now been made evident, in work on the coral reefs of the Virgin Islands, is that a similar process takes place in aquatic ecosystems." Several examples, terrestrial and aquatic, follow this introductory paragraph of the referenced article. (Moore, Peter D.; "Animals As Nutrient Carriers," Nature, 305:763, 1983.) Comment. This process may emphasize the fine-tuning of the Gaia Hypothesis, in which life-as-a -whole operates in ways that make the planet-as-a -whole more productive of life. From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Squarks and photinos at cern?At the CERN lab, in Geneva, physicists shoot protons and antiprotons at each other so that they collide head-on. The colliding particles usually fragment one another and in the process release a variety of subatomic debris and energy. Large arrays of detectors surrounding the collision site record the particles as they streak away. Usually the escaping particles can be easily identified; but in 1983 nine strange events were recorded, and more have occurred in 1984. Something both invisible and inexplicable carried off large amounts of energy during these "strange" events. Physicist Carlos Rubbia, of CERN and Harvard, said: "There is no sensible way to explain the missing energy by known particles." Some theorists believe that these anomalous events will be explained only by invoking what is termed "supersymmetry" theory. Supersymmetry predicts that twice as many particles as those known today must exist. Already, physicists are rushing to name the new, though unverified particles. The symmetric partner of the "quarks" will be the "squarks"; the "photon" will be paired with the "photino"; there will be the "selectron" for the "electron"; and so on. (Thomsen, D.E .; "Strange Happenings at CERN," Science News, 126:292, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R ...
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... 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 The Hambleton Hill Neolithic Fortress Hambleton Hill sits astride the Stour River in the chalklands of southwestern England. Almost 6,000 years ago, Neolithic people began erecting a great funeral center and fortress here. When the ramparts were complete, they were visible for miles. The southern and western sides were rimmed by a timber-framed rampart 2,500 meters long. The northern flank was protected by a 1,200meter multiditch outwork. "A Neolithic herdsman who looked up to the hilltop in about 3,400 BC would have seen an impressive site. Crowning Hambleton Hill was a huge defensive enclosure with three concentric ramparts. The inner rampart, the most formidable of the three, was supported by 10,000 oak beams as thick as telephone poles. In the ditch around the ramparts human skulls placed at intervals added an eerie note to the appearance of the fortifications." Such a construction feat must have taken considerable organization and community energy, much like the pyramids then under construction in Egypt. In the absence of stone quarries and with plenty of forests, Hambleton Hill's fortress was simple wood and dirt, but nonetheless very impressive. Even its great size, however, did not save it from conquest and burning. (Mercer, R.J .; "A Neolithic Fortress and Funeral Center," Scientific America,, 252:94, March 1985.) Reference. To learn more about ancient British hill ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 40: Jul-Aug 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Megalithic Recycling During restoration work on a capstone at the tomb of Gavrinis, located on an island just off the Brittany coast, C.-T . Le Roux discovered carvings that had long been concealed. The carvings and the rock itself fit perfectly with the capstone of the Table des Marchands, another famous megalithic monument some 4 kilometers away. Stimulated by this discovery, a third capstone on another monument nearby was found to fit like a jigsaw puzzle piece. The combined result is a huge stela 14 meters high, 3.7 meters wide, and 0.8 meter thick. The total stela would weight about 100 tons. It is decorated on one side with animals (bovids) and other devices. Apparently, this stela once stood near the even larger stela called Grand Menhir Brise or 'er-Grah.' The Grand Menhir Brise is also broken into pieces. Evidently, the period of megalithic tomb building, which probably began about 5,200 BP was preceded by a period when giant, decorated stelae were erected. These stelae were later pulled down and broken up for use in constructing tombs. The civilization that raised the stelae is not well-understood; and one wonders why such impressive monuments were torn down and their engravings concealed. Incidentally, the stela chunk found at Gavrinis weighs about 20 tons and was transported over 4 kilometers across several watercourses. (Bahn, Paul G.; "Megalithic Recycling ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Star Sludge All of a sudden it seem that astronomers are finding dark -- even "charcoal-black" -- materials in unlikely places in the solar system. Three "sludgy" sites have been high-lighted in the recent literature. (1 ) Comets. "Black" comets certainly defy our expectations. Are all those pictures of white, flaming apparitions wrong? Not really. The comets approaching the sun are made visible by sunlight reflected from the gases and dust in the coma and tail, plus some direct emission. However, the heart of the comet, its nucleus, has long been considered a "dirty snowball"; that is, a mixture of dirt and ices. Now it appears that comets are more like "icy dirtballs"! And some of that dirt is pitch black. New measurments of the bare nuclei of comets, using a visual-infrared technique, find that the nuclei reflect as little as 2% of the incident sunlight. They are indeed charcoal black. Comet nuclei, according to W. Hartmann and his colleagues, are colored by a brownishblack primordial organic sludge, and have the appearance of "a very dark Hershey bar." The use of the adjective "organic" may be premature, but in light of the next item, maybe not. (2 ) Carbonaceous chondrites . This well-known class of meteorites sometimes appears tarry and is characterized by carbon contents ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Northwest indian tradition of a large-scale sea inundation Science, quite wisely, places little value on legend and tradition. The authors of this article stess the pitfalls of using data handed down verbally from generation to generation. With these caveats, they reproduce an Indian tradition originally set down by Judge James Swan back in 1888: "' A long time ago,' said my informant, 'but not at a very remote period, the water of the Pacific flowed through what is now the swamp and prairie between Waatch village and Neeah Bay, making an island of Cape Flattery. The water suddenly receded leaving Neeah Bay perfectly dry. It was four days reaching the lowest ebb, and then rose again without any waves or breakers, till it had submerged the Cape, and in fact the whole country, excepting the tops of the mountains at Clyoquot. The water on its rise became very warm, and as it came up to the houses, those who had canoes put their effects into them, and floated off with the current, which set very strongly to the north.'" The authors of the present article wonder if the above could be an account of a massive tsunami! They admit that the 4-day recession is inconsistent with tsunami action and that the warm water is hard-to-explain. The height reached by the inundation -- some 400 meters -- is also incredible. (Heaton ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Earth's womb Three recent items indicate that scientists are now recognizing how the earth's crust is tailor-made for biochemical reactions of great variety and complexity. First, E.G . Nisbet explains how subsurface hydrothermal systems are ideal places to make biochemical products, particularly in the light of the discovery that RNA molecules can extrude introns and then behave like enzymes. "The most likely site for the inorgan ic construction or an RNA chain, which would have occurred in the Archaean, is in a hydrothermal system. Only in such a setting would the necessary basic components (CH4 , NH3 , and phosphates) be freely available. Suitable pH (fluctuating around 8) and temperatures around 40 C are characteristic of hydrothermal systems on land. Furthermore, altered lavas in the zeolite metamorphic facies, which are rich in zeolites, clays and heavy metal sulphides, would provide catalytic surfaces, pores and molecular sieves in which RNA molecules could be assembled and contained. If the RNA could then replicate with the aid of ribozymes and without proteins, the chance of creating life becomes not impossible but merely wildly unlikely." The article concludes with a statement that self-replicating molecules synthesized in hydrothermal systems would be pre-adapted to "life" in the open ocean if they "learned" to surround themselves with bags of lipids. (Bag of lipids = a membrane.) (Nisbet, E.G .; " ...
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... 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 "HIGH"-TECH FARMING AT TIAHUANACO One of Tiahuanaco's (or Tiwanaku's ) many puzzles has been how food for such a large city was grown at an altitude of circa 3,850 meters (12,600 feet) in the frosty, windswept Bolivian Andes. This problem along with the fabulous stonework and extensive ruins have precipitated theories involving extraterrestrial visitors and an age for the site in the hundreds of thousands of years. At least the food-supply puzzle now seems to be in hand. Stereoscopic aerial photographs show in startling detail: ". .. immense, curvilinear platforms of earth...these fields form elevated planting surfaces ranging from five to 15 meters wide and up to 200 meters long...Extensive and nearly continuous tracts of these fields -- all of which have been abandoned for centuries -- run from the edge of Lake Titicaca to about 15 kilometers inland, and form virtually the only topographic relief in the broad, gradually sloping plain." Some of the raised fields are remarkably sophisticated in design. At the base is a layer of cobblestones for stability. These are covered by a 10-centimeter layer of clay. On top of the clay are three distinct layers of sorted gravel; all capped by rich organic topsoil. These fields were simultaneously an aquifer for the fresh water percolating down from the surrounding hills and a barrier to the brackish water from Lake Titicaca ...
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... pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Checklist Of Apparently Unknown Animals B. Heuvelmans, who operates the Center for Cryptozoology, in France, has compiled an annotated checklist of between 110 and 138 animals (some questions remain about how many are distinct species) which do not seem to be recognized by science. His list is based upon his collection of 20,000 references. Obviously we cannot reproduce all his descriptions here, but we will pass along three of the most interesting. A dolphin with two dorsal fins, both curved backwards, the anterior one set on the forehead like a horn. The first observation was apparently by Mongitore in the Mediterranean. During the Uranie and Physicienne expedition, Quoy and Gaimard reported a whole school of them between the Sandwich Islands and New South Wales. They were spotted black and white. Hairy "wild men," known as satyrs in classical antiquity. These were probably Neanderthals that survived into historical times. The most recent sightings were in 1774, in the Pyrenees, and 1784, in the Carpathians. Giant birds of prey in North America -- the famous "thunderbirds." Observers put the wingspans between 10 and 16 feet, making thunderbirds much larger than the Andean condor. Reports have come in from all over the southern United States. Some remains of these carnivorous birds have been dated at 8,000 years. (Heuvelmans, Bernard; "Annotated Checklist of Apparently Unknown Animals with Which Cryptozoology Is Concerned," Cryptozoology, 5:1 , 1986.) Comment. Although Heuvelmans has a ...
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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 insects' revenge Plants may fool some insects with their mimicry and deter others with toxic chemicals, but the insects have their tricks, too, as seen in the following item from Science: "Many mandibulate insects that feed on milkweeds, or other latex-producing plants, cut leaf veins before feeding distal to the cuts. Vein cutting blocks latex flow to intended feeding sites and can be viewed as an insect counteradaptation to the plants' defensive secretion." (Dussord, David E., and Eisner, Thomas; "Vein-Cutting Behavior: Insect Counterploy to the Latex Defense of Plants," Science, 237:898, 1987.) Comment. Right now, even as we write this, the plants are evolving counterploys -- high-voltage veins perhaps! But this may not work. See the final item in this section. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Global fire at the k-t boundary The worldwide deposit of iridium at the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary has been considered very strong evidence that a large astronomical object (asteroid or comet) devastated our planet some 65 million years ago. Some scientists, however, propose that the iridium layer was instead deposited through widespread volcanic activity. The proponents of an astronomical mechanism should be heartened by a recent paper in Nature, by W.S . Wolbach et al. Here is their Abstract: "Cretaceous-Tertiary (K -T ) boundary clays from five sites in Europe and New Zealand are 102 -104 -fold enriched in elemental C (mainly soot), which is isotopically uniform and apparently comes from a single global fire. The soot layer coincides with the Ir layer, suggesting that the fire was triggered by meteorite impact and began before the ejecta had settled." The composition of the hydrocarbons in the sediments points to the earth's biomass (mainly surface vegetation) as the source of the soot. The total quantity of K-T soot is equivalent to that which would be produced by burning 10% of all present terrestrial plant material. (Wolbach, Wendy S., et al; "Global Fire at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary," Nature, 334:665, 1988.) Comment. Unmentioned in the above article is the possibility that extensive wildfires might have been ...
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... other "geoglyphs" are to be found elsewhere in South America. Plan view of some Santa Valley geoglyphs from Peru. The scale at the lower left represents 10 meters. The vertical double line is not a geoglyph but rather the azimuth heading 280-degrees. It is hard to imagine how such underground drawings could be used for rituals. "For example, several areas that contain crosscrossing lines and figures similar to those of Nazca have recently been studied on the central coast [of Peru] between the FortalezaPativilca and Rimac valleys. Additional lines have been reported for Viru Valley, on the north coast, and for the Zana Valley, over 1,000 km to the north of Nazca. Interestingly, most coastal ground drawings that can be dated tentatively, either by associated ceramic remains and sites or by their similarity to diagnostic pottery motifs, fall in the earlier part of the Early Intermediate period (ca. 350 B.C . to A.D . 650) - i.e ., to a time following the establishment of irrigation agriculture as the primary subsistence focus, but prior to the rise of state societies. .. .. . "As is well known, several studies have been conducted that involved mapping and computer analysis of the Nazca lines to examine the hypothesis that they were related to astronomical phenomena. This theory is now discounted, at least as it applies to the great majority of the lines which do not appear to have been oriented toward the sky. More recent studies dealing with the lines have provided convincing arguments. primarily through comparison with lines ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Samurai And The Ainu Findings by American anthropologist C. Loring Brace, University of Michigan, will surely be controversial in race conscious Japan. The eye of the predicted storm will be the Ainu, a "racially different" group of some 18,000 people now living on the northern island of Hokkaido. Pure-blooded Ainu are easy to spot: they have lighter skin, more body hair, and higher-bridged noses than most Japanese. Most Japanese tend to look down on the Ainu. Brace has studied the skeletons of about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other Asian ethnic groups and has concluded that the revered samurai of Japan are actually descendants of the Ainu, not of the Yayoi from whom most modern Japanese are descended. In fact, Brace threw more fuel on the fire with: "Dr. Brace said this interpretation also explains why the facial features of the Japanese ruling class are so often unlike those of typical modern Japanese. The Ainu-related samurai achieved such power and prestige in medieval Japan that they intermarried with royality and nobility, passing on Jomon-Ainu blood in the upper classes, while other Japanese were primarily descended from the Yoyoi." The reactions of Japanese scientists have been muted so. One Japanese anthropologist did say to Brace," I hope you are wrong." The Ainu and their origin have always been rather mysterious, with some people claiming that the Ainu are ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Microorganisms At Great Depths It was a surprise when diverse biological communities were discovered around deep-sea thermal vents, where sunlight is nonexistent and the energy for sustaining life must be extracted from the mineral-charged water gushing from the vents. An analogous situation occurs at great depths in the earth's crust itself, as proven by sampling at three deep boreholes in South Carolina. Number of microorganism colony types at various depths at Site P28. The concentration and diversity of microorganisms (mostly bacteria) at depths as great as 520 meters (1610 feet) below the ground's surface are remarkably high. It makes one wonder what will be found even farther down. To illustrate, more than 3000 different microorganisms have been found in the boreholes. Many of the bacteria are new to science. As the following two paragraphs demonstrate, subterranean life consists of many well-adapted microorganisms working together. "The traditional scientific concept of an abiological terrestrial subsurface is not valid. The reported investigation has demonstrated that the terrestrial deep subsurface is a habitat of great biological diversity and activity that does not decrease significantly with increasing depth. "The enormous diversity of the microbiological communities in deep terrestrial sediments is most striking. The organisms vary widely in structure and function, and they are capable of transforming a variety of organic and inorganic compounds. Regardless of the depth sampled, the microorganisms were able to perform the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf065/sf065b08.htm
