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... It represents our only 'window' upon the first great radiation of complex life on earth. All but one or two modern phyla originated in a burst of evolutionary activity associated with the so-called Cambrian explosion some 570 million years ago. The Burgess provides our only peek at the soft-bodied forms of this first flowering. All other soft-bodied fossil assemblages are much younger; they represent faunas well past the initial burst and sorting out of Cambrian times." The morphological diversity of the Burgess Shale, incorporating many bizarre forms of life, represents a true biological revolution. Here are found a dozen genera that do not fit into any modern phylum. Most of the novelties never survived into modern times. (Gould, Stephen Jay; "Treasures in a Taxonomic Wastebasket," Natural History, 94:24, December 1985.) Comment. Somewhere on today's earth, there must be mudbanks washed by nutrient-rich waters and bathed in tropical sunlight. Is some ingredient missing, or perhaps present, in today's mudbands that suppresses the wild speciation seen in the Burgess Shale? Tow of the many mysterous fossils found in Burgess shale. At the right is Opabina regalis, with five eyes at the base of a nose-like structure ending in teeth. On the left is Amiskwia sagittoformis. Although these creatures are named, nobody really knows what they are! From Science Frontiers #43, JAN-FEB 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... some male ejaculates introduce not only fertilizing sperm but also "kamikaze" sperm specially designed to hunt down and destroy competing sperm. Well, both sexes can play these games. Some females have ways to eject sperm from undesired males. For example, female feral fowl (hens gone wild!) prefer to mate with dominant males. Often, however, subdominant males force themselves on the females despite resistance and stress calls. The female response to such rapes is differential sperm ejection; that is, they immediately expel the unwanted ejaculate -- at least most of it -- raising the probability that they will be fertilized by the preferred dominant males. (Pizzeria, T., and Birkhead, T.R .; "Female Feral Fowl Eject Sperm of Sub-dominant Males," Nature, 405:787, 2000.) Comment. An interesting sort of sperm ejection occurs among Dunnocks, small brown birds common in English gardens. Alpha males try to prevent matings by lower-ranking males but are rarely successful. Most Dunnock matings are preceded by a ritual-like phenomenon called "cloaca-pecking." The female raises her tail exposing the cloaca. Instead of mating, the anticipating male pecks at the cloaca, an action that stimulates a pumping action and ejection of a droplet of sperm from previous matings. After the male inspects the droplet, normal mating follows. This bizarre scenario required the coordinated evolution of two different kinds of behavior (male and female) as well as the development of the female's sperm-ejection mechanism. See BBB23 in Biological ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 119: Sep-Oct 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mounds Of Mystery Unlike many controversies in science, the debates over the origin of the Mima Mounds have been friendly. No one gets overly passionate over bizarre heaps of earth; the Mima Mounds are "fun phenomena." Nevertheless, the biggest of them on the Mima Prairie, near Little Rock, Washington, are very impressive. They are closely-packed, some 6-8 feet high and about 30 feet across. It's kind of eerie walking among them; but they are also fun to ride over in vehicles -- they create a sort of natural roller-coaster effect. There are thousands upon thousands of mounds on the Mima Prairie. Before farmers began leveling them, they stretched for more than 20 miles. If, as some have estimated, they are about 6,000 years old, they were originally twice as high before the elements wore them down. The big question is and always has been: How were these large heaps of churned-up sand, fine gravel, and decayed vegetable matter formed? One has to smile at the dominant theory: pocket! Sure! pocket gophers are bundles of digging energy, but each Mima Mound contains about 100 tons of soil. Multiply that figure by the thousands of mounds, and you begin to wonder about the gopher theory. Also counting against the gophers is the fact that no one has ever found gophers in the mounds, nor has a ...
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... . July 2000. Anonymous; "Some Baseless Speculations," The Economist, p. 83, May 27, 2000. Cr. J. Cieciel. Note the pun in the second title!) Comment. Let us look down the scale of complexity to the relatively small number of chemical elements, and even further down to electrons and protons, perhaps as far as quarks, gluons, etc. Is it reasonable to suppose that within these supposed elementary particles there exists the potential for the unfolding of the million-member proteome? Are electrons and protons fraught with such immense potential? Can or must the apparently simple properties of the elementary particles lead to the flowering of human beings? Or even to more complex entities? (White, Robb; "Armadillos, and Dangerous," Natural History, 109:86, July-August 2000.) From Science Frontiers #131, SEP-OCT 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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... Taking a different tack, D. Gubbins has investigated the possibility that field reversals are triggered by ice ages and meteorite impacts (tektite falls). The physical mechanism here would be the increase in pressure upon the core, which affects the rate of freezing in the outer core, and thus the power available to the core dynamo. Gubbins found that these externally caused pressure changes were too small to explain the polarity changes. However, the parameters involved are not well-known, and external triggers cannot yet be written off. Summarizing, very little progress has been made in explaining how the earth's field is generated and how polarity changes are linked to other geophysical parameters. (Jacobs, J.A .; "What Triggers Reversals of the Earth's Magnetic Field?" Nature, 309:115, 1984.) Reference. Anomalous reversals of the geomagnetic field appear in section EZP2 in our Catalog: Inner Earth. To order this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #34, JUL-AUG 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 131: SEP-OCT 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Brobdingnagian Geode Any rock-and-mineral shop will happily sell you piece of a geode that has been sliced like a cantaloupe and nicely polished to reveal its beautiful crystal line interior. You may have to pay hundreds of dollars for half of a melon-sized geode. If so, what is a geode 26 feet long worth -- one that can shelter several people within its cavity? Such a geode was just a rumor among rock collectors until recently, when J. Garcia-Guinea, a geologist from Madrid's National Museum of Natural Sciences, followed up the leads. Sure enough, some 4 kilometers from Almeria, in north-eastern Spain, he found a veritable crystal cave. Inside, the giant geode is lined with near-perfect, transparent crystals of gypsum, some of which are 11 feet long. (Anonymous; "Giant Crystal Cave Discovered," BBC Homepage, June 12, 2000. Cr. D. Phelps. Holden, Constance; "Brobdingnagian Crystals," Science, 288:2127, 2000.) Comment. The Spanish geode merits headlines for its size, but geodes also offer grist to the anomalist. In particular, we refer to geodes found near Niota. Illinois, that are filled with solid tar or liquid bitumen. When the latter are broken open, the petroleum squirts out violently. There are no oil deposits within 25 miles, so the presence of ...
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... revived (obviously!). Typical of Ring's collected testimonies was this from a 17-year-old NDE percipient: "I was informed that mankind was breaking the laws of the universe and as a result of this would suffer. This suffering was not due to the vengeance of an indignant God but rather like the pain one might suffer as a result of...defying the law of gravity. It was to be an inevitable educational cleansing of the earth... "At the end of this general period of transition, mankind was to be "born anew" with a new sense of his [or her] place in the universe." Surveying his collection of like testimony, Ring generalized: "Surprising commonalities in these visions predicted a rising tide of natural, economic, and political crises culminating around 1988. Unless human beings turned toward God, took better care of the planet and each other, an apocalyptic cleansing would occur, possibly including a nuclear war, followed by the long promised New Age." 1988 has passed and we are still here. Is there objective evidence that humans mended their ways and averted the promised "cleansing? A.S . Alschuler, the author of this provocative paper thinks so, and he produces four graphs to prove his point. Each addresses a concern transmitted via people who experienced NDEs: (1 ) production of chlorofluorocarbons; (2 ) nuclear arsenal levels; (3 ) weapons exports; and (4 ) the number of peacekeeping missions. (We reproduce only two of Alschuler's graphs ...
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... and not look back [brief laughter], is my reaction." Elizabeth told her husband of her dream in the morning. The actual plane crash occurred a few weeks later just where she had been in her dream. Many similar, confirmed reports are presented by Stowell in her study. (Stowell, Mary S.; "Precognitive Dreams: A Phenomenological Study. Part I. Methodology and Sample Cases," American Society for Psychical Research, Journal, 91:163, 1997.) Comments. The literature of parapsychology is immense; the above report is just a tiny sample of what's available. There are scores of parapsychology journals and thousands of books at the Library of Congress. However, we almost never see any mention of all these immense labors in Science, Nature, or even the more adventuresome New Scientist. Why? Mainly because logical positivism, which rules the thinking of mainstream scientists, insists that the only acceptable observations are those that can be experienced by all persons. And we don't all have precognitive dreams, or, if we do, we don't recognize them as such! In addition, anecdotal data, dreams, channeled information, and the like are always viewed with suspicion. Today, some parapsychologists are proposing that science suspend such severe requirements and recognize such phenomena as precognitive dreaming. Only by doing this, they say, will we be able to fully grasp all of reality. Comment. Mainstream science follows the dictates of "logical positivism," which insists that the only acceptable observations are those that can be ...
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... This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why don't we all have cancer?Biologists have just found that the difference between a normal human gene responsible for manufacturing a specific protein and a gene causing cancer is the replacement of a single nucleotide by another in a very long string of nucleotides. This is a very delicate situation. The difference between cancer and no cancer is simply too tiny. Given the high frequency of random changes (mutations), we should all have cancer. One implication is that humans (and other animals, too) have come up with some method of preventing or correcting these minor mutations -- otherwise we would have become extinct long ago. No one knows what this mechanism is or why it sometimes fails. (Anonymous; "More Speculation about Oncogenes," Nature, 300;213, 1982.) Reference. Other anomalies of cancer are cataloged in BHH23-35 in: Biological Anomalies: Humans II. For a description of this volume, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... to detect them! (Pease, Roland: "Globs in Space" New Scientist, p. 5, August 26, 2000.) So-called "Q -balls" are also candidates for dark matter. Theorists claim that Q-balls were created during the Big Bang and may still be roaming the universe. Far from being ethereal, Each one is like "a new universe in a nutshell" [A . Kusenko] says. Inside a Q-ball, the familiar forces that hold our world together don't exist. This has some startling consequences. It means that every Q-ball is on a mission to violate law and order in the universe by assimilating normal matter and compelling it to live by Q-ball rules. Who can deny the exotic nature of Q-balls after that description? Q-balls are so tiny (about the size of an iron nucleus) and move so fast (about 100 kilometers/ second) that they can zip through a planet with scarcely any observable effect. In this elusiveness they resemble neutrinos. As a matter of fact, Japan's Kamiokande neutrino detector, which contains 50,000 tons of water surrounded by a shell of detectors, has been "blinded' several times by the passage of entities that could well be Q-balls. If these bizarre entities do exist, they could be that dark matter that astronomers insist pervades the cosmos. (Muir, Hazel; "Cosmic Anarchists," New Scientist, p. 22, May 20, 2000.) Comment. Can astronomy ...
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... nearby are devoid of the gas. (Anonymous; "Methane and Ground Water," Geotimes , 34:19, April 1989.) Comment. As to be expected the possibility of abiogenic methane is ignored. A really-deep ocean. No, this is not in Tarzan's Pellucidar, but rather an incredible mass of water stored hundreds of kilometers deep in the earth's mantle. Several times the earth's visible surface water may be locked up in water-bearing minerals! Brucite [Mg(OH),2 ], for example, is 30.86% water. Perhaps such water was released long ago by changes in temperature and pressure to form the present oceans. (Ahrens, Thomas J.; "Water Storage in the Mantle," Nature, 342:122, 1989.) Reference. Anomalies surrounding the origin of abiogenic methane are cataloged in ESC16 in the catalog: Anomalies in Geology. To order this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Life Forms In Meteorites?Few could have escaped the recent gushy press coverage of NASA's announcement that an Antarctic meteorite, possibly of Martian origin, seems to have carried vestiges of life forms from that planet to ours. No need to recapitulate all that hype. What we do add is the observation that this same sort of excitement has swept through the scientific community at least twice before. Back in 1961, B. Nagy et al discovered tiny particles resembling fossil algae in carbonaceous chondrites. They called these particles "organized elements." Ultimately, these curious particles were explained as natural crystals and terrestrial contaminants. (Ref 1.) Much earlier, in 1881, Hahn, an eminent German geologist, asserted that he had examined thin sections cut from chondrites and found fossils of sponges, corals, and crinoids. In fact, the extraterrestrial coral that Hahn found even received the scientific name Hahnia meteoritica ! In the end, though, Hahn's meteoric life forms met the same fate as the "organized elements" of Nagy et al. (Ref. 2) Ref. 1. Urey, Harold C.; "Biological Materials in Meteorites: A Review," Science, 151:157, 1966. Ref. 2. Bingham, Francis; "The Discovery of Organic Remains in Meteoritic Stones," Popular Science Monthly , 20:83, 1881. Both references can be found in our Handbook Mysterious ...
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... rising sea levels. The records from the Seven Stone Light Vessel are corroborated by an analysis of more then 20,000 wave charts of the North Atlantic drawn between 1960 and 1988. It therefore seems clear that something unusual is going on in the North Atlantic. One would suspect increased winds, but velocities measured at Seven Stone have remained constant while wave heights rose. It is concluded that the bigger waves are not generated by local winds; rather, they are swells that have been created thousands of miles away. The cause of these larger swells now affecting the entire North Atlantic is not known. The authors of this paper are forced to conclude with: "It should be noted that so far it has not been possible to attribute the observed change to either an anthropogenic cause or to natural climate variability on decadal time scales." (Bouws, E., et al; "The Increasing Wave Height in the North Atlantic Ocean," American Meteorological Society, Bulletin, 77:2275, 1996.) Reference. Other unusual wave phenomena are cataloged in Chapter GHW in our Earthquakes, Tides. For information on this volume, go here . Atlantic wave heights, 1960-1988. 1, 10, 50 percentiles. From Science Frontiers #113, SEP-OCT 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 in Brittany," Nature, 314:671, 1985.) Reconstruction of a decorated stela from capstones on megalithic tombs in Brittany. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... to be a sort of magnetic beacon from which radiated these magnetic "paths" that the hammerheads followed so exactly. Now the question became: How do hammerheads -- and perhaps other animals -- sense such exceedingly small changes in the geomagnetic field? Some birds and mammals do have small particles of magnetite in their bodies, but no one knows how they might be incorporated into a sensory organ. On the other hand, hammerheads and many other sharks are extraordinarily sensitive to electrical fields, responding to fields as low as 10-8 volt/centimeter. Possibly the sharks' forward motion cuts the magnetic lines of force generating an electrical navigational signal. No one knows as yet. And so one mystery leads to another. (Klimley, A. Peter; "Hammerhead City," Natural History, 104:33, October 1995) Comment. Some marine biologists suspect that some deep-water whales and dolphins inadvertently strand themselves while following magnetic "paths" like those radiating from Espiritu Santo. (See SF#38) From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... spread, usually at a cost to other genes within the genome." You may not sense it, but your genes are struggling with each other, and you and/or your progeny will carry out the dictates of the victors of the "gene wars." (Hurst, Laurence D., et al; "Genetic Conflicts," Quarterly Review of Biology , 71:317, 1996.) Comment. Given the power that these "selfish genetic elements" can exert on our bodies, it is but a short step to imagining that they can also direct the course of evolution in ways favorable to their agendas. In this interpretation, humans have evolved and are conscious and intelligent because these things are favorable to those genes that have conquered in the "gene wars." Natural selection seems to work at many levels in biology! From Science Frontiers #114, NOV-DEC 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... fold symmetry. In fact, to a crystallographer, these crystals are the equivalent to ESP in psychology. All the rules of crystallography insist that icosahedral crystals should not exist. One scientist reacted in this way: "All my training has been with the assumption that crystals are periodic. Now, almost everything has to be reexamined." Actually, the icosahedral crystals are "quasi-periodic"; that is, they are completely regular only over small distances. Nevertheless, there are hints that these materials that should not exist have remarkable structural and electronic properties. (Peterson, Ivars; "The Fivefold Way for Crystals," Science News, 127:188, 1985.) Two-dimensionsal quasiperiodic geometry (Penrose tiling) with five-fold symmetry formerly thought to be impossible in nature. The tricontahedron with 30 faces is the basis of three-dimensional quasiperiodic structures with five-fold symmetry. From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Initial bipedalism!Our anomaly-collecting net has pulled in an interesting catch; namely, CERBI (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur la Bipedie Intiale). This Center, operated by F. de Sarre, publishes a little journal called Bipedia . In the first issue of Bipedia , de Sarre sets out, in English, his basic thesis: Abstract. "The explanation of Man's special nature is to be sought in the original combination formed by a primordial brain, the globular form of the skull and initial bipedalism. The ape, when compared with Man, appears to be rather a vestige of Man's ancestral line than his predecessor, according to the views of Max Westenhofer, Serge Frechkop, Klaas de Snoo and Bernard Heuvelmans. The study of the human morphology allows logically to carry the problem of Man's origin back to a very early stage of the evolution, and not to which has been reached by apes. From chromosomal and DNA comparison in the cells of living apes and people, several researches argue to-day that humans are genetically more like the common ancestor than is either Chimpanzees or other apes. The array of facts and considerations should be sufficient for an unbiased mind to discount away any idea of simian antecedents in Man's ascent." The body of the article supports de Sarre's thesis with observations from embryogenesis, comparative anatomy (skull, hand, foot ...
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... some of the largest of them before the modern scientific era have been estimated by several indirect methods. The densest and most persistent dry fog on record was observed in Europe and the Middle East during AD 536 and 537. Despite the earliness of the date, there is sufficient detailed information to estimate the optical depth and mass of this remarkable stratospheric dust cloud. The importance of this cloud resides in the fact that its mass and its climatic consequences appear to exceed those of any other volcanic cloud observed during the past three millenia. Although the volcano responsible remains a mystery, a tropical location (perhaps the volcano Rabaul on the island of New Britain, Papua, New Guinea) can be tentatively inferred." (Stothers, R.B .; "Mystery Cloud of AD 536," Nature, 307:344, 1984.) Comment. Some of the "dry fogs" were accompanied by luminous nights, as in 1821 and 1831. See GWD4 in Tornados, Dark Days, Anomalous Precipitation. This Catalog volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... diversity, which allows selected variants to develop from the primary tumor, means not only that primary tumors and metastases can differ in their responses to treatment but also that individual metastases differ from one another. This diversity can be generated rapidly even when the tumors originate from a single transformed cell." (Fidler, Isaiah J., and Hart, Ian R.; "Biological Diversity in Metastatic Neoplasma: Origins and Implications," Science, 217:998, 1982.) Comment. The ability of single cancer cells to multiply into different kinds of cells, as well as propagate throughout an organism, seems to betoken an insidious biological entity, whose origin and purpose (? ) we have hardly begun to comprehend. How could cancer have evolved if it leaves no progeny? How could natural selection leave us so susceptible to cancer? Reference. The many enigmas of cancer are covered in categories BHH23-35 in our Catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans II. For information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... s attention is first caught by page after page of truly strange depictions of plants, astronomical maps, and even crude human figures. Then, there's the boldly written script that annotates the drawings -- copiously on occasion. Superficially the Voynich Manuscript looks like a medieval herbarium combined with an astronomer's musings. The words look as if you could read them easily, but you cannot. No one has been able to, except for the interpretation of a few plant labels. The words represent no known language, yet statistical tests confirm that a real language was used. "Real" but uncrackable after much labor by leading cryptographers. The plants look like species you might find in your backyard and nearby fields. Botanists, though, assure us that most do not exist in nature. The copious plant labels in that unreadable language are of no help. Astronomical drawings and zodiacs fill some pages. Hope rises when we see a zodiac beginning with Pisces but fades when Scorpius turns out to be a lizard. Cancer is represented by two lobsters; Gemini by a man and woman. Superficially, the manuscript seems so readable and comprehensible, but its meaning forever slips away like the grin on the Cheshire cat. One student of the Voynich Manuscript, Rene Zandbergen, ventures that the problem goes beyond hidden codes and messages; i.e ., it has deeper meanings. The Manuscript probably dates from the late Middle Ages, based upon a medieval crossbow drawn on one page. Down the years, the book has passed through many hands, including John Dee (1527 ...
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... nor disease was the cause. The birds all suffered crunched chests and blood clots in hearts and lungs. Since starlings fly in tight formations, some speculated they had smashed into the side of a large truck (? ), or perhaps a wind gust had thrown them to earth violently. (Anonymous; "Bird Deaths Still Mystery," Houston Chronicle, October 31, 1998. Cr. D. Phelps. Also: Anonymous; "300 Starlings Drop out of Sky Dead," Scranton Times, October 31, 1998. Cr. M. Piechota.) Comment. A much greater avian catastrophe took place near Worthington, Minnesota, March 13-14, 1904. After a storm, dead and dying Lapland Longspurs were strewn over a wide area. A scientist from the Minnesota Natural History Survey marked off squares in the snow covering two frozen lakes and began counting and counting and counting. On the lakes alone, 750,000 Lapland Longspurs lay dead. It was estimated that 1,500,000 died just in the area around Worthington. The injuries of the longspurs were much like those suffered by the starlings. (Details in our latest catalog: Biological Anomalies: Birds) From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... have some sort of electronic warfare between the femme (predatory female fireflies that lure other fireflies with false signals) and the preyed-upon species. The many pages describe all sorts of feints, verification signals, and other stratagems. (Carlson, Albert D., and Copeland, Jonathan; "Communication in Insects," Quarterly Review of Biology, 60:415, 1985.) Comment. It is impossible to do justice to this paper in this short review, but two things should be mentioned: (1 ) Fireflies may be considered "low" on the evolutionary ladder, but their tiny brains certainly process a lot of data in complex ways; and (2 ) In southeast Asia, massed fireflies flash in synchronism along some riverbanks, creating one of the great spectacles of nature. See our Handbook Incredible Life for details. For a description of this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #44, MAR-APR 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Are Pets Psychic?In 1994, R. Sheldrake challenged the world of science with his book Seven Experiments That Could Change the World . One of the experiments he proposed was the objective testing of the claims that pets can somehow sense when their absent owners have begun the trip homeward. An Austrian television company decided to take up Sheldrake's gauntlet. Their experimental subjects were P. Smart and her terrier Jaytee, both of Ramsbottom, England. Two film crews were dispatched to Ramsbottom; one to follow and film Smart, and the other, Jaytee's activities while Smart was away. Sure enough, at the moment Sharp and the shadowing TV crew decided to return, after an absence of a few hours, Jaytee ran to the porch and waited there until his mistress returned. Naturally, this proof of Jaytee's "strong and reliable" psychic ability received much attention in the media. Then, in 1995, Sheldrake invited R. Wiseman and M. Smith, at the University of Hertfordshire, to independently verify Jaytee's talent. After all, Austrian television companies have little scientific standing. Wiseman and Smith conducted four experiments in all based on a protocol designed to satisfy the inevitable scientific critics. For example, "success" had to be carefully defined, because Jaytee frequently ran out to the porch when other people, dogs, and cars went by the house, and sometimes for no obvious reason at all. In addition, Wiseman and Smith had to be sure that Jaytee was not just responding to Smart's routine, and that there were ...
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... to-ground bolts of lightning must be erupting somewhere aloft and to the right and out of sight of my position at the window. But they seemed too scattered about, and then one boomed to the rear of my position, and that was soon followed by a blast slightly to the left of that one and way to the left of all the previous ones. Yet, there was no flash of lightning and no dark mass of cloud moving from right to left. "About 2 hours later, a young man who frequents that region told me that what had woken me up was not thunder but what the locals called 'Lake farts'." (Kuchar, George; personal communication, August 1996) Comment. Both the Cayuga and Seneca Guns have been blamed on eruptions of natural gas from the lake. However, no one ever reports flashes of light that would signify spontaneous detonations of such gas. How could non-detonating gas eruptions cause such powerful booms emanating from various directions? For more on these perplexing "water guns", see GSD1 in Earthquakes, Tides, etc. They are actually a worldwide phenomenon; e.g . the famous Barisal Guns heard in the delta of the Ganges. For a description of the book just mentioned, visit here . From Science Frontiers #108, NOV-DEC 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of the sun and the planetary system are 7 apart. The implication is that the sun and planets could not have been formed by the rapid condensation of a molecular cloud -- the present theory. Rapid condensation requires that the sun get a much bigger share of the angular momentum. These anomalies have led T. Gold to propose a slow-condensation model, in which several hundred million years are required rather than the tens of thousands of years in the current scenario. Another unexpected feature of Gold's model makes the sun a degenerate object, perhaps a neutron star. As the author of this article states: "Gold has stood the conventional view of the origin of the solar system on its head." (Maddox, John; "Origin of Solar System Redefined," Nature, 308:223, 1984.) Reference. The above "spin-split" enigma is discussed more thoroughly in ABB3 in our Catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. See description of this book at here . From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 Cooler heads, bigger brains?When anthropologist D. Falk discovered that an automobile's engine was limited in power by its radiator's capacity to cool it, he applied this thinking to the human brain. The human brain, like the automobile engine, must be kept cool if it is to function well. It follows that if the brain of an animal is not functioning well, the body that brain controls will not perform well either. Overheated brains, then, are sure roads to extinction in the highly competitive natural world. A couple million years ago, two groups of human precursors were competing for dominance in Africa. The group that won and subsequently evolved into Homo sapiens had, according to Falk, a better brain-cooling system. The evolutionary development that probably led to this advantage was a more extensive network of emissary veins, which permitted better dissipation of heat. This, in turn, allowed the evolution of larger brains and dominance by Homo sapiens. Other anthropologists, how ever doubt that such a minor change in the circulatory system could account for the emergence of modern man. (Shipman, Pat; "Hotheads," Discover, 12:18, April 1991.) Comment. What an intriguing concept! Perhaps human male baldness also confers more cooling efficiency and is setting the stage for a new expansion of the human brain -- at least the male brain, sorry girls! More seriously ...
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... would have been remiss if it had not tried to evolve "Carnot creatures." For, as D. Jones comments below, Carnot creatures would be adaptable to many more habitats in the universe than photosynthetic creatures, which must have a sun with a very specific electromagnetic spectrum. "Many worlds, from distant 'brown dwarf' stars to the satellites of giant planets, may have internal heating but no effective 'Sun'. If Carnot life is possible, it may well have evolved in such dark and distant places -- making life abundant throughout the Universe. Indeed, our distant descendants may be able to harness Carnot biochemistry to sustain themselves on geothermal or residual browndwarf warmth when the Sun finally grows dim." (Jones, David; "The Dark Is Light Enough," Nature, 385:301, 1997.) Comments. To our knowledge, those who search for extraterrestrial life do not consider the possibility of Carnot creatures and wouldn't recognize them if they stumbled across them or their signals. For example, Carnot creatures might emit infrared signals rather than radio waves; and they might be immense in size. (See related item under ASTRONOMY in this issue.) From Science Frontiers #111, MAY-JUN 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Preadaptive Evolution "Preadaptive evolution" is a remarkable concept. Basically, it asserts that in some -- possibly many -- mutations, a useful response to an evolutionary challenge is "naturally" accompanied by useful responses to challenges that have not yet been posed to the life form in question. This prescience verges on the miraculous to the uninitiated, but mainstream biologists seem content to write the phenomenon off as merely good fortune -- like hitting two jackpots in a row on the same slot machine. A good example of preadaptation occurs when bacteria are cultured in the presence of an antibiotic. Within a few weeks, they have evolved a resistance to that particular antibiotic. This well-known phenomenon is easily explained by evolution. However, often the newly evolved (or "adapted") bacteria are also resistant to several other antibiotics that work by different mechanisms. All of the multiple gene changes needed for the several different defense mechanisms are controlled by a single site on the same chromosome. (Levy, Stuart B.; The Antibiotic Paradox , New York, 1992, p. 99. Cr. A. Mebane.) Comments. How can bacteria prepare defenses against antibiotics they have not been exposed to? Luck, prescience, or some unrecognized mechanism? In his Ever Since Darwin , S.J . Gould acknowledges that "preadaptation implies prescience although in actuality it means just the opposite! His explanation of "preadaptation ...
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... . Why don't trees grow well within the rings, and why the neat circles? At first expanding rings of fungus infection were suspected, something perhaps like the fungus that creates those fairy rings on lawns. But no fungus has been found on the tree roots. One curious fact was discovered about the soil where tree growth is sparse. The soil constituting the rings is poorly drained and is depressed 1-2 meters below the surrounding healthy forest. These circular depressions support mainly peat and tamaracks. But what causes these ring-shaped depressions? One theory holds that the rings are the suface expressions of diamond-bearing kimberlite pipes, like those in South Africa. A few prospectors are already staking diamond-mine claims! Another theory supposes that the rings are created by huge, natural electrical batteries that exist in the carbonate soil. The current flow supposedly creates acidic conditions that eats away at the soil causing it to slump in a circle around one terminal. (Shilts, ELizabeth, "Stranger Than Science Fiction," Toronto National Post , March 16, 1999. Cr. G. Duplantier via L. Farish.) Comment. May UFOs are to blame after all! From Science Frontiers #124, JUL-AUG 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... time its maximum diameter was about 200 miles. No fireball or flash was seen by anyone. A nuclear explosion, possibly on a submarine was suspected. One pilot issued a Mayday alert and ordered his crew to don oxygen masks. However, when an F-4 Phantom dispatched from Japan arrived at the scene, it detected no abnormal levels of radioactivity. Wake Island hydrophones, to the southeast, detected some submarine volcanic activity far south of the cloud, but no detonations in the area the cloud was spotted. The distance of the volcanic disturbances and the prevailing winds ruled out volcanic sources of smoke. In the absence of any hydrophonic evidence, the authors concluded that the mysterious cloud came either from a man-made atmospheric explosion (a huge one!) or some as yet unknown natural phenomenon. (Walker, Daniel A., et al; "Kaitoku Seamount and the Mystery Cloud of 9 April 1984," Science, 227:607, 1985.) From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Secret Of It All Is In The Pi In the above, Pollard discoursed on the meaning of it all and how mathematics seemed to mirror reality so marvelously. Now, one fixture of mathematics is the transcendental number. The adjective "transcendental" is most appropriate here given the title of Pollard's article. Of the transcendental numbers, pi is a great favorite. Mathematicians like pi so much that they have computed it out to well beyond 10 million decimals. Are there any inklings to the meaning of it all in these 10 million-plus decimals? Well, at decimal 710,100 there are seven 3s in a row. At decimal 1,526,800, we find the digits 2718281, the first seven digits of e, the base of natural logarithms. Then at decimal 52,638 there is 14142135, the first eight digits of the square root of 2. But all these discoveries are hardly profound, for they could occur by chance -- nothing really "transcendental" so far. A more astounding discovery is that: 22(pi)4 = 2143 A few multiplications, and the 10 million-plus decimals of pi have vanished. (Can this remarkable relationship mirror some as yet undiscovered facet of physical reality?) While it is difficult to squeeze the meaning of the universe out of pi's 10 million-plus decimals, one has to admit that pi is everywhere. To grasp the insidiousness of this number, write the alphabet out beginning with J, as follows: J K L M N O ...
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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 A SUBMARINE ORGAN?Exactly two years ago, we reported on strange seismic signals detected by German geophysicists near Mount Semeru, in Java. These signals consisted of a fundamental tone and evenly spaced harmonics. Sometimes, the fundamental tone rose and fell. This "natural trombone" was thought to be a gas-filled subterranean cavity capped at the top by rock, with a pool of magma at the bottom. Volcanic vibrations resonated in this chamber. As the magma pool rose and fell, the fundamental tone changed. More recently, a network of seismic stations in French Polynesia has picked up more mysterious seismic signals. These differ from those in Java in that each fundamental tone is "pure"; that is, there are no harmonics. Dubbed "T -waves," the sounds originated from an active volcanic ridge in the South Pacific. Suspicion fell on one flat-topped volcano that rose to within 130 meters of the ocean surface. But, how could this peak generate such a pure tone? The theory is that the active volcano spews out a column of steam bubbles bounded at the bottom by the flat volcano and by the ocean at the top. Computer simulations proved that sound could resonate in a column of bubbles just as it does in an organ pipe. Since the height of the column remains fixed, so does the fundamental tone. Certainly harmonics are generated, too, but the bubbles damp out the ...
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... of magnetic mineral in the roof of each of the brood-rearing cells in their nests. These crystals are roundish and about 0.1 millimeter in diameter. The mineral is ilmenite with the formula: FeTiO3. The purpose of the magnetic crystals is obscure. The favored explanation is that the hornets use them as guides during nest construction -- sort of like those little flags human surveyors set out. This explanation assumes that hornets can somehow sense and make use of the complex magnetic field created by an array of many tiny magnets. Another question asks where the magnetic crystals come from. Do the hornets secrete them like the magnetotactic bacteria or do they gather them from their environments? (Stokroos, Ietse, et al; "Keystone-Like Crystals in Cells of Hornet Combs," Nature, 411:654, 2001.) Comment. It would be so easy to dismiss the hornets' little crystals as just one more animal gee-whiz fact, but we should not. Did the hornets first recognize that magnetic crystals would be useful to them and then set out to find some or, even more remarkably, evolve the ability to secrete them? Did their (presumed) magnetic sense evolve solely for the purpose of employing magnetic markers during nest building? There are more questions, but you get the idea. From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK ...
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... favored way of circumventing the negligible additional survival value of half a wing, or even 90% of a wing. This solution (? ) maintains that protowings were not "intended" for flight at all but were developed initially as aerodynamic stabilizers, thermoregulatory systems, sexual attractors or other functions requiring large areas. Gould describes the experiments of Kingsolver and Koehl in which protowings were modelled and tested for their thermoregulatory and flight values. Surprisingly, there was a sharp transition, as the size of the protowing increased, from good thermoregulation but poor flight capability to the reverse -- good flight capability and poor thermoregulation. In other words, a structure developed for one purpose, if enlarged, might be useful for something else! (Gould, Stephen Jay; "Not Necessarily a Wing," Natural History, 94:14, October 1985. See also: Lewin, Roger, "How Does Half a Bird Fly?" Science, 230:530, 1985.) Comment. The work of Kingsolver and Koehl, though doubtless of high quality, does not come to grips with the fact that a wing for flight is a highly sophisticated combination of skeleton, feathers, membrane, muscles, nervous system, control system, aerodynamic design, etc. -- most of which have nothing to do with thermoregulation. Are the flying crustaceans mentioned on page ** a failed evolutionary attempt at useful flight? And where did their feathery appendages come from? Somewhere we -- all of us -- are missing something! From Science Frontiers #44, MAR-APR 1986 . ...
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... stratigraphic record, as a whole, is so incomplete that fossil patterns are meaningless artefacts of episodic sedimentation." D.E . Schindel, Curator of Invertebrate Fossils in the Peabody Museum, has scrutinized seven recent microstratigraphical studies, evaluating them for temporal scope, microstratigraphical acuity, and stratigraphical completeness. His first and most important conclusion is that a sort of Uncertainty Principle prevails such that "a study can provide fine sampling resolution, encompass long spans of geological time, or contain a complete record of the time span, but not all three." After further analysis he concludes with a warning that the fossil record is full of habitat shifts, local extinctions, and general lack of permanence in physical conditions. (Schindel, David E.; "The Gaps in the Fossil Record," Nature, 297:282, 1982.) Comment. This candor makes one wonder how much of our scientific philosophy should be based upon such a shaky foundation. From Science Frontiers #23, SEP-OCT 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 23: Sep-Oct 1982 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Ancient Mud Structures in Colorado Astronomy At Poverty Point Astronomy The Cosmic Whirl Where Are the Primordial Stars? Biology Chessie Captured on Videotape Short-circuiting Heredity Remarkable Engineering Design in Nature Geology Facing Up to the Gaps The Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction Bolide Geophysics Zoom Lens in the Atmosphere Psychology High Technology Experiments in Parapsychology ...
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... . One purposeless mouse gene sequence is repeated a million times in each cell. (Stebbins, G. Ledyard, and Ayala, Francisco J.; "The Evolution of Darwinism," Scientific American, 253:72, July 1985.) Comment. Why so much redundance? Or is there some purpose for this excess genetic material that we haven't yet descried? The "useless" sequences may merely be left over from ancient gene shufflings; or they may be awaiting future calls to action. The above tidbits come from a long review article that is generally supportive of the modern theory of evolution. (Would it have been printed in Scientific American if it weren't ?) The article also treats the Neutral Theory of Evolution, noting that this theory still depends upon natural selection operating at the phenotype (organism) level. From Science Frontiers #41, SEP-OCT 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , all other lines extending to the desert horizon from a figure center keyed into dark spots and bright stars along the Milky Way at the same Local Sidereal Time in the same year. Finally, the directions of the long axis of each quadrangle related to the same sky in the same year at each site. Linking these findings with what is known about the Nazca culture, an agricultural-ceremonial model is presented describing how this site may have been used." (Pitluga, Phyllis Burton; The Explorer, 12:1 , Summer 1996. The Explorer is a newsletter published by the Society for Scientific Exploration. Address: P.O . Box 5848, Stanford, CA 94309-5848.) Comment. Probably the best-known terrestrial Zodiac is that alleged to be composed of natural and artificial land forms in the vicinity of Glastonbury, England. See also SF#104 for the "Pit Zodiacs" said to be arrayed in the environs of Muggenberg, Netherlands. From Science Frontiers #110, MAR-APR 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... been a bit hasty and all-encompassing. Not that the Velikovsky scenario is correct or that Mars might at any moment depart from its present orbit, but rather that astronomers must now admit an inability to predict planetary motion over billions of years - even tens of millions of years! For the solar system, if those ubiquitous computers are correct, is not a well-behaved family of planets. J. Laskar concludes from extensive numerical experiments: "The motion of the Solar System is thus shown to be chaotic, not quasiperiodic. In particular, predictability of the orbits of the inner planets, including the Earth, is lost with a few tens of millions of years." (Laskar, J.; "A Numerical Experiment on the Chaotic Behavior of the Solar System," Nature, 338:237, 1989.) Comment. Laskar's comments are directed toward the future, but the same conclusions should apply if we ran the solar system backwards in time. From this very narrow perspective of celestial mechanics, one cannot say positively that the planets, the inner ones especially, could not have radically altered their orbits within the past few millions of years. Reference. See ABB1 in our catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris for more on the solar system's instability. This book is described here . From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 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 "HOPEFUL MONSTERS" IN ICELAND?A UPI item from Reykjavik is appropriate here after the heavy dose of speculation above. Two Icelandic bird hunt ers say they saw a pair of unidentifiable creatures playing on a beach. The creatures, said to be bigger than horses, emerged from Lake Kleiffarvvatn, 20 miles south of Reykjavik. The mysterious animals swam like seals but ran about the beach like dogs. Their footprints were larger than horse hoofs but split into three cloves. An Icelandic scientist commented (quite safely) that, "there is more in nature than we know." (Anonymous; "Icelandic Hunters Claim Sighting of Two Unidentifiable Creatures," Houston Chronicle, November 16, 1984. Cr. J.B . Burns) From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... there are four or fewer objects, she must count them one-byone. Nevertheless, Gaddi's intelligence and social skills are normal. She lost her number-savvy when she suffered a stroke that apparently short-circuited that number module over her ear. Are other mammals equipped with number modules? No one knows. And what forces encouraged the human brain to sprout a few extra cells on the inferior parietal lobule; that is, the number module? Did the sense of fiveness give some mutant ancient humans superiority over less-evolved humans? Finally, what factors pushed the number module's capacity to 111 in that savant, or is the savant's talent intrinsic to all of us but somehow suppressed? (Dahaene, Stanislas; "Counting on Our Brains," Nature, 401:114, 1999. Motluk, Alison; "True Grit," New Scientist, p. 46, July 3, 1999.) From Science Frontiers #126, NOV-DEC 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Order from disorder?The apparent creation of order in a universe that is supposed to be running down is the subject of a thoughtful report by Wallace and Karen Tucker. They give additional examples of order arising from disorder in astronomy (spiral galaxies, superclusters), from chemistry (Belousav-Zhabotinsky reactions), and biology (embryonic development). Again and again, they ask why order persists on increasing when the Second Law of Thermodynamics seems to demand more disorder. Throughout the article, the Tuckers employ the card-shuffling analogy. If nature is shuffling the cards of the universe, why are so many royal flushes being dealt? They introduce the works of Ilya Prigogine and others which focus on chemical situations (the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reactions), where reaction by-products actually make the reaction more likely and in which large, stable spiral and ring-shaped structures appear spontaneously. At the macroscopic level, shock waves from supernovas can (at least in computer models) stimulate the formation of spiral arms in galaxies. The article concludes with a quote from astronomer David Layzer: "The universe is unfolding in time but not unraveling; on the contrary, it is becoming constantly more complex and richer in formation." (Tucker, Wallace, and Tucker, Karen; "Against All Odds: Matter and Evolution in the Universe," Astronomy, September 1984.) Comment. Now Layzer's statement seems a ...
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... flowing from it, such as plate tectonics? The "alteration processes" mentioned in the above quotation include: (1 ) The chemical conversion of pyrite into magnetite in ancient rocks after they were deposited; and (2 ) The reorientation of remanent magnetization following exposure to moderately high temperatures. That these processes can be important is evident in a second quotation: "During the past eight years, however, evidence has accumulated that the remanent magnetization of many carbonate sediments was not acquired at the time of deposition, thereby invalidating some previous interpretations of the palaeomagnetic data. Instead, magnetization seems to have been acquired over a limited time span during the late Palaeozoic, from about 310 to 250 million years ago." (Reynolds, Richard L.; "A Polished View of Remagnetization," Nature, 345: 570, 1990.) Reference. Many other problems afflict paleomagnetism. See: EZP in our catalog: Inner Earth. More information on the book here . From Science Frontiers #71, SEP-OCT 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... plant responds aggressively by growing more rapidly. The red plastic mulch between the rows also reflects a lot of infrared light, and it thereby tricks the tomato plant into accelerating its growth. (Raloff, Janet; "When Tomatoes See Red," Science News, 152:376, 1997.) Fire-detecting beetles. The beetle Melanophila acuminata seeks out forests that have just been ravaged by fires so that it can lay its eggs in the nutritious, freshly burnt wood. These insects are capable of detecting fires up to 32 kilometers (20 miles) distant. They do not see the fire with their eyes but instead detect the thermal (infrared) radiation with a special organ on their chests. (Schmitz, Helmut, et al; "Infrared Detection in a Beetle," Nature, 386:773, 1997.) Knees "see". Well, sort of, and then only the backs of the knees. Human circadian clocks can be shifted by shining visible light on the skin on the backs of the knees. It is theorized that the light penetrates the skin and causes chemical changes in the blood, implying that human blood contains "chronobiological photoreceptors." (Oren, Dan A., and Terman, Michael; "Tweaking the Human Circadian Clock with Light," Science, 279:333, 1998. Also: Campbell, Scott S., and Murphy, Patricia J.; "Extraocular Circadian Phototransduction in Humans," Science, 279:396, 1998.) Comment. We can see how the tomatoes and beetles might find exotic ...
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... the floor of the Gulf of Mexico with its GLORIA II side-scan sonar. Hundreds of new salt domes, submarine channels, and landslides have been recorded. A big surprise was the discovery of large fields of sand dunes in 3000 meters of water. Similar dune fields were found in the Pacific in 1984. G. Hill, of the U.S . Geological Survey has ventured, "There's something going on in deep water that people just aren't aware of. " (" A Systematic Sounding of the Sea Floor, " Science News, 128:191, 1985.) (At issue here is how sand dunes are formed in such deep water. Are they the consequence of colossal bottom currents, perhaps set in motion by huge earthquakes of some other natural catastrophe ? Is it possible (gasp!) that the dunes were not formed under water at all ? The area involved also boasts salt layers and submarine channels and canyons, both of which are not well-explained. WRC) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... insects manage to flutter up to 4,000 kilometers from the eastern U.S . and Canada to their wintering grounds in Mexico. How do they do this? S.M . Perez et al have now shown that monarch butterflies are equipped with a sun compass; that is, they chart their courses by noting the sun's changing azimuth. This feat requires not only the measurement of solar azimuth but also reference to an internal clock. Humans cannot do this without artificial instruments. Furthermore, even on cloudy days, migrating monarchs fly in the proper direction (generally south-southwest). Apparently, they also have evolved a backup navigation system, perhaps a geomagnetic compass. (Perez, Sandra M., et al' "A Sun Compass in Monarch Butterflies," Nature, 387:29, 1997.) Comment. Somewhere in the tiny bodies of the monarchs are packed sun-azimuth sensors, internal clocks, magnetic-field sensors, and a nervous system that converts the incoming data into signals to the wings. Their genomes must also include map information to pass on to their progeny. From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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