... 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 Unusual Circulating Cloud Object July 24, 1996. Malborough, South Devon. About midnight on this date, E. Netley and his wife observed a most peculiar cloud formation. It was so well-formed and precisely organized that Netley felt that the term "cloud object" was appropriate. Even so, he was confident that the apparition represented a natural phenomenon. "Natural" probably, but certainly the strangest cloud we have encountered in 30 years of literature research. The evening of July 23 was warm and a bit humid, with a modest breeze blowing in from the ocean. Netley and wife first saw the "cloud object" from a distance of about a kilometer; they eventually walked to within 400 meters of the phenomenon. The "object" consisted of a slowly rotating ring of thin, vertically oriented clouds. (See figure.) The cloud ring was 80-100 meters across and seemed to rotate in a horizontal plane at the rate of about one revolution per minute. As though this were not strange enough, the rotating "cloud object" itself moved in a larger circle 8-10 times the diameter of the "cloud object." The "cloud object" took 4-5 minutes to complete a trip around the larger circle. The phenomenon lasted for about an hour before dissipating. (Netley, Edward; "Unusual Circulating Cloud Object," Journal of Meteorology, U.K . ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Nuclear Catastrophe In Paleoindian Times?Introduction. We introduce here a remarkable theory of terrestrial catastrophism that seems to be supported by evidence that is equally remarkable. One of the authors of this theory (RBF) is identified as a nuclear scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley Nuclear Laboratory. The second author (WT) is a consultant. The authors' credentials seem so good that we must take a close look at their extraordinary claims concerning a natural phenomeon that they believe reset radiocarbon clocks in north-central North America and -- potentially -- elsewhere on the planet. We will be most interested in the reception accorded these claims by the scientific community. The claims. In the authors' words: Our research indicates that the entire Great Lakes region (and beyond) was subjected to particle bombardment and a catastrophic nuclear irradiation that produced secondary thermal neutrons from cosmic ray interactions. The neutrons produced unusually large quantities of 239Pu and substantially altered the natural uranium abundances (235U/238U) in artifacts and in other exposed materials including cherts, sediments, and the entire landscape. These neutrons necessarily transmuted residual nitrogen (14N) in the dated charcoals to radiocarbon, thus explaining anomalous dates. Some North American dates may in consequence be as much as 10,000 years too young. So, we are not dealing with a trivial phenomenon! Supporting evidence. Four main categories of supporting evidence are claimed and presented in varying degrees of detail ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 64: Jul-Aug 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sheep circles!Britain has been plagued lately with circular areas incised in fields of cereal crops. G.T . Meaden has collected scores of such events, some of which he has published in his Journal of Meteorology. On the theory that one kind of circle might somehow be related to another kind of circle (the same reasoning biologists employ to draw the Tree of Life), J.C . Belcher submitted a most interesting letter to Meaden. "By their very nature sheep tend to be stubborn self-willed animals exhibiting individual characteristics not suggestive of good group co-ordination. For example, when disturbed by a potential predator, a flock of sheep tends to mass protectively in a group of irregular outline, the group being formed of individual groups of small numbers of sheep. When grazing undisturbed, sheep tend to fan out from a given point, sometimes following a dominant group leader. Progress is usually uncoordinated and ragged. In general, patterns presented by sheep en masse are seen to be haphazard, indeed, generally random in nature. If follows that any suggestion of flocks of sheep forming geometric patterns would appear to be highly improbable, since this would call for group coordination only to be found in such as wolves and wild-dogs. In view of this it would appear that certain exceptional observations made on Sunday 21 August 1988 would be worthy of recording. "Out on an afternoon drive M. Belcher ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Immune System As A Sensory Organ John Maddox, the editor of Nature, has written a remarkable editorial on psychoimmunology; that is, the science of the brain's effects on the body's immune system. It is basically a running commentary on new discoveries that are helping us to understand this poorly appreciated relationship. Maddox begins by mentioning the 20-plus-year collection compiled by Professor G.W . Brown, University of London, of life-events that affect the health of outwardly normal people. Typical life-events are the death of a spouse, imprisonment, personal bankruptcy, etc. Everyone seems to recognize -- if only through anecdotes -- that mental states affect health, but how this brain-body link is maintained is hard to pin down. D. Maclean and S. Reichlin (Psychoneuroimmunology, 12: 475, 1981.) have reviewd some of the possible connections. One potential link is through the interaction of the hypothalamus on the pituitary. The pituitary is a source of materials that influence the immune system. Maddox lists several specific candidates, and then observes: "The more radical psychoimmunologists talk as if there is no state of mind which is not faithfully reflected by a state of the immune system." So far, not too radical! But then Maddox comes to an article by J.E . Blalock, University of Texas (Journal of Immunology, 132: ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 2: January 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hopeful monsters rather than gradual evolution?S. J. Gould, who conducts a monthly column in Natural History reviews the sad history of Goldschmidt and his villification by the scientific establishment. Goldschmidt saw the fossil record as woefully inadequate to justify the assumption of gradual evolution of one form into another. Intermediate forms between separate species do not seem to exist in the fossil record and, if they did, they would probably not have been viable creatures. What good is half a wing? Gould believes that Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster" concept will ultimately be dusted off. The key to "macromutation," Gould feels, is not to be found in major gene reorganizations that might produce a whole wing, feathers included, all at once, but rather in changes in the genes that control the development of embryos. Embryos in their early stages are pretty much alike regardless of species. Gould hopes further that the ruling neo-Darwinians will not be so hostile to new ideas and eventually acknowledge Goldschmidt's important work. (Gould, Stephen J; "The Return of the Hopeful Monster," Natural History, 86: 22, June-July, 1977.) From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... exceedingly scarce on earth billions of years ago. Any oil that was created billions of years ago would have surely been destroyed by intense pressures and high temperatures over the eons. Yet, Precambrian oil in commercial quantities has been found in formations up to 2 billion years old (in Siberia, Australia, Michigan, for example). While some of this oil might have migrated in-to the Precambrian rocks from younger source rocks, some of it does seem indigenous and, therefore, ancient. (SF#48) Now, three Australian scientists (R . Buick, B. Rasmussen, B. Krapez) have discovered tiny nodules of bitumen (lumps of hydrocarbons) in sedimentary rocks up to 3.5 billion years old in Africa and Australia. These bitumen nodules were formed when natural hydrocarbons were irradiated by radioactive isotopes that coexisted in the ancient rocks. Futhermore, these African and Australian rock formations were never severely deformed or subjected to high temperatures. The possibility exists, therefore, that some of the earth's oldest rocks may contain substantial oil reserves. So far, no one has seriously looked for oil in Precambrian rocks because of the two preconceptions noted above. (Palmer, Douglas; "Any Old Oil?" New Scientist, p.22, March 14, 1998.) Comments. Large quantities of oil and bitumen 3.5 billion years old have profound implications. Far from being lifeless, the most ancient of our planet's seas may have been thick soups of bacteria and other simple life forms. So much terrestrial life so soon after ...

... 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 Earthquakes And Mima Mounds In a recent paper in Nature, P.B . Umbanhower et al described how they created regular geometric patterns in a layer of fine particles (only 0.15 mm in diameter) spread on a vibrating surface. At various forcing frequencies, they saw the layer of tiny brass spheres heap up into hexagonal honeycombs, circular piles, and even stranger shapes. (Umbanhower, Paul B., et al; "Localized Excitations in a Vertically Vibrated Granular Layer," Nature, 382: 793, 1996) Comment. Nothing anomalous here, you say? Quite right, but perhaps there is in this experiment an explanation of a long-recognized geological anomaly: The origin of the famed Mima Mounds found scattered by the thousands in various regions of the planet, such as Mima Prairie near Puget Sound, in Washington State. Actually, the demonstration of Umbanhower et al was preceded by a similar experiment back in 1990. In that year, A.W . Berg reported in Geology how he had covered a piece of plywood with a thin layer of fine sand (loess) and subjected the plywood sheet to impacts simulating earthquakes. Lo and behold, the sand rose up in an array of Mima Mound-like heaps. (See: SF#69 and p. 201 in the book Science Frontiers. This book is described here . Umbanhower, a physicist, probably doesn't read Geology ...

... , we should state that his philosophical views carry considerable weight in scientific circles. He has described how science should work and how its hypotheses should be tested. In this sense, he has defined what is scientific and what isn't . Now, back to the Medawar Lecture, as recounted by M. Perutz. Popper declared his detestation of determinism in all its guises. "Popper disputes the existence of historical laws and holds that our future is in our own hands." Zeroing in on evolution, Popper accepts Darwinism in the sense that "organisms better adapted than others are more likely to leave offspring." He then splits Darwinism into passive and active forms. His passive variety of evolution is that which is currently in vogue -- the deterministic view that random mutation combined with natural selection invariably leads to higher forms of life. But, as already stated, Popper hates determinism and believes that deterministic mechanisms are noncreative. They lead only to deadends. Instead, he prefers "active" Darwinism in which the "idiocyncracies of the individual have a greater influence on evolution than natural selection" and that "the only creative activity in evolution is the activity of the organism." There you have it! Whose side is Popper on? Does it really matter? (Perutz, Max; "A New View of Darwinism," New Scientist, p. 36, October 2, 1986.) Comment. It is unclear how the acts of individuals can modify organisms. Sounds like Lamarckism. From Science Frontiers #49, JAN-FEB 1987 . 1987-2000 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Deep-sixing another hypothesis?T. Gold once said, "In choosing a hypothesis, there isn't any virtue in being timid." Neither have the Swedes been timid in following Gold's lead by drilling for natural gas in the granite of central Sweden. All the experts pre-dicted this quest would come to naught, because there are no source rocks in the area containing biological materials from which the gas could have been generated. But Gold does not believe that the methane in natural gas comes from buried organic debris. Rather, most methane is primordial and abiogenic, a legacy left deep in the earth's crust when our planet was formed. The 72-kilometer-diameter Siljan Ring in central Sweden is generally believed to be of meteoric origin. The granite here has been shattered, perhaps to a depth of 40 kilometers. If Gold's hypo-thesis about the origin of methane is correct, methane might well be found seeping up through this wound in the earth's outer skin. Further, the shattered granite might prove to be a gigantic reservoir of valuable methane. The Swedes decided to drill. After three years and the expendi-ture of $40 million, drilling at the Siljan Ring has been terminated. The drill penetrated to 6.8 kilometers before it got stuck. No significant methane had been found. The experts snickered! But the story is not finished ...

... 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 Are We Really Robots?We imagine ourselves to be different from inorganic nature -- flesh and blood -- certainly not hardware. But the real truth may lie beyond our ken. But can we really prove that we are not machines? G. Johnson has a few words to say on this subject in his book Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order. "Thinking in terms of bits has allowed us to develop the field of computer science, in which we learn how to represent the world with patterns of information. So successful are our endeavors that some physicists and computer scientists believe that perhaps information is not a human invention but something as real, as physical, as matter and energy. And now a handful of researchers have come to believe that information may be the most real of all. Simulated creatures would have no way of knowing they are simulations, the argument goes. And, for that matter, how do we know that we are not simulations ourselves, running on a computer in some other universe? "Nature, it seems, has honed us into informavores so voracious that some can persuade themselves that there is nothing but information." (As quoted in: Science, 273:443, 1996) Comment. If we really are simulations, that "computer in some other universe" has taken great pains to also simulate millions of other species and their fossil ...

... possibility of life forms prospering at temperatures well beyond 100 . Recently, however, the discovery of many new and frequently bizarre organisms clustered around deep-sea vents has forced a reexamination of high-temperature life. It seems that bacteria actually flourish in the 350 C water streams from the deep-sea vents. In the lab, these same bacteria multiply rapidly in water at 250 C kept liquid by pressures of 265 atmospheres of pressure. What a surprise! Quoting a concluding sentence from this article: "This greatly increases the number of environments and conditions both on Earth and elsewhere in the Universe where life can exist." (Baross, John A., and Deming, Jody W.; "Growth of 'Black Smoker' Bacteria at Temperatures of at Least 250 C," Nature, 303:423, 1983.) Comment. Ignoring for the moment the extraterrestrial possibilities, the earth is riddled like a Swiss cheese with hot, fluid environments, which we may now consider potential abodes of life. Subterranean life represents a new biological frontier. Who knows what kinds of organisms have developed to feed upon the planet's heat? Could they have con-tributed to our supplies of petroleum and natural gas? From Science Frontiers #29, SEP-OCT 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... for a Contents page, which is in English, the rest of the book is in Japanese. We'll have to settle for the Contents page, which is rather revealing. Human Beings under the Sea The Submarine Ruins Discovered Were the Ryukyu Islands a Continent? Discovery of a Civilization Lost in the Sea An Ancient Civilization in Southernmost Japan A Continent Lost in the Pacific Ocean Submersion of the Land and Tectonics of the Earth Hypotheses for the Land Lost in the Pacific Ocean A Utopia Sunk in the Pacific Ocean Pretty inflammatory stuff, so much so that we must be wary indeed! One of the drawings in our photocopy is good enough to reproduce here. The immediate impression, as with many of the underwater photographs, is that surely this structure is artificial. But we must remember that Nature has her playful moods and has deposited simulacra everywhere, perhaps even on Mars, certainly with the Grand Tetons! (Kimura, Masaaki; A Continent Lost in the Pacific , all other bibliographical data in Japanese. Cr. R. Molnar) This secion of Kimura's "lost continent" is only about 180 meters long. Artificial structure or natural geological formation? From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... into orderly arrays (the bipolar spindles). Then, the microtubules sort out and separate the two sets of chromosomes required for the two new cells. So, far, our description conforms to what biologists have known and accepted for decades; but there is something more mysterious going on. In 1996, researchers discovered that they can actually substitute DNAcovered beads for the chromosomes, and the microtubules will still go through the motions of sorting and separating the chromosome-less strands. Actually, the microtubules will perform their act even without the DNA-covered beads. In a sense, the bipolar spindle is a puppetmaster, and the microtubules are the strings. The puppet show can go on without the puppets (chromosomes). (Hyams, Jeremy; "Look Ma, No Chromosomes," Nature, 382:397, 1996. Also: Heald, Rebecca, et al; "Self-Organization of Microtubules into Bipolar Spindles around Artificial Chromosomes...," Nature, 382:420, 1996. Travis, John; "Mitotic Mischief," Science News, 150:14, 1996.) Comments. Obviously, neither the chromosomes, the genes, nor the DNA are the master of the show. They are merely passive players in cell division. It is fair, therefore, to ask how these microtubules originate and operate. Whence the information and instructions (" program") required to put on the show? "Self-organization" is the current answer of mainstream biologists, but this term has no explanatory value. Microtubules separating chromsomes prior to cell ...

... Subjects Speculations from gold The item "Restless Gold" in SF#41 has now been amplified by J.-O . Bovin et al. Using a high-resolution electron microscope, magnification 30,000,000, with a real-time video recorder, this group has obtained startling pictures of gold crystals and their environs. "At this magnification, individual columns of atoms in the gold crystals are clearly revealed; it appears that not only are atoms of the surfaces of small crystals in constant motion, hopping from site to site, but also that the crystals are surrounded by clouds of atoms in constant interchange with atoms on the crystal surface. The clouds of gold atoms extended up to 9A from the crystal surface, continually changing their shape and density." The remarkably dynamic nature of solid surfaces, as now revealed, has many implications. (Bovin, J. -O ., et al; "Imaging of Atomic Clouds Outside the Surfaces of Gold Crystals by Electron Microscopy," Nature, 317:47, 1985.) The problem of snowflake growth (SF#38) is probably solvable in terms of clouds of water molecules surrounding crystal nuclei with electrostatic fields guiding the symmetric deposition of molecules. Biological structures, too, are probably encompassed by clouds of atoms and molecules; viz., the crystal-like, polyhedral viruses. Does the highly ordered DNA structure also possess an aura of molecules constantly swapping places ? Such would not be inconsistent with "jumping genes" and M. Kimura's Neutral Theory of Evolution (SF#41) ...

... demonstrate that normal people will respond to scary pictures of snakes and spiders even though they are not consciously aware of them. The zombie agent is acting autonomously. Zombie agents are characterized as on-line systems that act at speeds that far outpace conscious reactions. Since the zombie agents incorporated in our unconsciousness work so well, why did consciousness ever evolve? Conscious actions take milliseconds longer to calculate and activate. Consciousness would, therefore, seem to be a bad evolutionary gambit. But, C. Koch and F. Crick may have an answer. They speculate that: It may be because consciousness allows the system to plan future actions, opening up a potentially infinite behavioural repertoire and making explicit memory possible. (Koch, Christof, and Crick, Francis; "The Zombie Within," Nature, 411:893, 2001.) Questions. Could our zombie agents, primitive though they may be, be the source of those flashes of genius that appear out of nowhere, or perhaps that "dreamwork" from which solutions to problems appear fully formed upon wakening? The quotation from the Nature article presumes that consciousness does have survival value, else it would not have evolved. What sort of highly innovative genetic changes would lead to such a remarkable brain function? Did consciousness evolve in small Darwinian steps or in some grand, lucky mutation? Did any nonhuman animals progress beyond their inheritance of zombie agents? From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. ...

... backed off. One reads virtually nothing on the subject today, despite some encourageing developments. In a panel discussion at the University of Utah, J. Bockris stated that Japan has organized a fusion institute where more than 80 scientists are "rapidly moving forward to develop cold fusion." Bockris himself has achieved positive cold-fusion results in his lab at Texas A&M . Another panel member, R. Huggins from Stanford, who has also replicated Utah's cold fusion results, remarked that several other U.S . labs have achieved excess power levels of 10-30 watts/cc. (Anonymous; Access to Energy , p. 4, October, 1989. Cr. P.F . Young) Despite positive results like those mentioned above, a recent report in Nature, by scientists at Cal Tech and the University of California, states emphatically that they can find no excess heat, neutrons, gamma rays, tritium, or helium in their cold-fusion experiments. (Lewis, N.S .; "Searches for Low-Temperature Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium in Palladium," Nature, 340:525, 1989.) From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... column 'not of steam or fire or smoke, but apparently of aqueous vapour,' which travelled with immense force across the valley (approximately 12 m wide). Within minutes another discharge from higher up the cliff and then 'several ones with crackling sounds producing semi-transparent wavy streaks in the air, not smokey in appearance.' Next came a very loud explosion which 'we had the good fortune to see plainly.' Wardle describes this as 'like a gun but with crackling, a series of continuous reports, cleaving the air in a zigzag or riverlike course in a narrow band about 15 cm to 20 cm broad, of bluish colour." Several other reliable descriptions exist of detonations and flame-like discharges around old Hannah's Cave. The supposition is that natural gases liberated by decaying organic material and, perhaps, geochemical reactions are ignited by static electricity. A recent landslip seems to have extinguished this curious phenomenon. (Pounder, Colin; "Speculations on Natural Explosions at Old Hannah's Cave, Staffordshire, England," National Speleological Society, Bulletin, 44:11, 1982.) Comment. No one should overlook the similarity between Old Hannah's activity and the will-o '- the-wisps, earthquake lights, the Barisal Guns, mistpouffers, the Moodus Sounds, and other sound and light phenomena. See our Catalog Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. This volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #22, JUL-AUG 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... can be converted to musical notes. When these notes (derived from heartbeat intervals) are heard, the sound is pleasant and intriguing to the ear -- almost music -- and certainly far from being random noise. In fact, a new CD entitled: Heartsongs: Musical Mappings of the Heartbeat , by Z. Davis, records the "music" derived from the digital tape recordings of the heartbeats of 15 people. Recording venue: Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Hospital! This whole business raises some "interesting" speculations for R.M . May. "We could equally have ended up with boring sameness, or even dissonant jangle. The authors speculate that musical composition may involve, to some degree, 'the recreation by the mind of the body's own naturally complex rhythms and frequencies. Perhaps what the ear and the brain perceive as pleasing or interesting are variations in pitch that resonate with or replicate the body's own complex (fractal) variability and scaling.'" (May, Robert M.; "Now That's What You Call Chamber Music," Nature, 381:659, 1996) Cross reference. See under PSYCHOLOGY a tidbit about Mozart and the golden section. From Science Frontiers #107, SEP-OCT 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Water's memory or benveniste strikes back J. Benveniste has broken a two-year drought in the "water-memory" or "infinite-dilution" saga. "Working with colleagues at INSERM, the French medical research council, in Paris, Benveniste has completed fresh experiments to test his assertion that solutions of antibody diluted to the point where they no longer contain any antibody molecules continue to evoke a response from whole white blood cells, as if they possess 'ghosts' of the original molecules. If proven, this would shatter the laws of chemistry and vindicate homeopaths, who say that extremely dilute drugs can have a physical effect." Benveniste's latest scientific paper was published in Comptes Rendus after being rejected by both Nature and Science. Benveniste states that he has corrected the flaws in his original research that evoked passionate responses from the scientific world. However, Benveniste's latest paper prompted one of Nature's reviewers to charge that Benveniste was "throwing out data because they don't fit the conclusion." This story is not yet finished, because Benveniste promises to reveal new research that demonstrates that a solution of histamine, from which all traces of histamine were subsequently diluted out, can still affect blood flow in the hearts of quinea pigs! Furthermore, this phenomenon can be inhibited by the application of weak magnetic fields!! (Concar, David; "Ghost Molecules' Theory Back from the Dead," New Scientist, p. 10, March 16, 1991.) From Science ...

... Dec 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Burgess Shale Puzzle In British Columbia, a middle Cambrian (550 million years BP) formation called the Burgess Shale has miraculously preserved a vast assemblage of soft-bodied sea creatures, especially arthropods. Does this rich and unusual deposit help elucidate arthropod evolution? No, it has complicated the problem. Few of the fossil arthropods can be easily related to groups now living. The Burgess Shale arthropod population is primitive in some ways but remarkably specialized in others. Some of the fossils have body segments like those in one recognized arthropod group but display limbs resembling those of an entirely different group. (Fortey, R.A .; "The Burgess Shale: A Unique Cambrian Fauna," Nature, 293: 189, 1981.) Comment. It appears that Nature was shuffling the gene deck, or that there was rampant hybridization, or that confusing programs for evolutionary change were drifting in from the cosmos a la Hoyle and Wickramasinghe! From Science Frontiers #18, NOV-DEC 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... he also provides some fascinating facts about the real ones. Genuine Azilian pebbles seem to have been carefully selected for size and shape. Most are oval or oblong and may be up to 8 centimeters long, 3 centimeters wide, and one centimeter thick. Over a thousand have been found around Europe. They have been considered primitive art, markers for prehistoric games, and possibly early forms of notation. Claude Couraude has analyzed the markings and concluded that particular combinations of signs recur frequently; the same for certain numbers of dots. There are 16 simple types of signs (dots and lines) but only 41 of the many possible combinations have been found. Evidence supports the existence of some sort of 'syntax.' Couraud speculates that some sort of cyclic notation is involved, perhaps lunar in nature, like some of the markings found on bones from the same general period. (Bahn, Paul G.; "How to Spot a Fake Azilian Pebble," Nature, 308:229, 1984.) Reference. Additional information on the Azilian pebbles may be found in our Handbook Ancient Man. To order, visit: here . Typical Azialian pebbles (from Ancient Man) From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... , water: how far down?The upper 10-15 kilometers of the earth's continental crust is different in several ways from the lower crust. The top layer is electrically resistive, seismically transparent, the source of almost all earthquakes, and responds to stress elastically. In contrast, the lower crust is electrically conductive, contains many reflectors of seismic energy, provides few quakes, and responds like a ductile material to stress. The diverse characteristics of both regions can be explained if the entire crust contains saline water. In the up-per crust the water is thought to be in separated cavities, while deep down it forms an interconnected film on crystal surfaces. (Gough, D. Ian; "Seismic Reflectors, Conductivity, Water and Stress in the Continental Crust," Nature, 323:143, 1986.) In an accompanying commentary, B.W .D . Yardley notes that the Soviet deep borehole on the Kola peninsula has found water down to at least 12 kilome ters. (Yardley, Bruce W.D .; "Is There Water in the Deep Continental Crust?" Nature, 323:111, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #48, NOV-DEC 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Lee; "Incas: UCLA Student May Have Opened a New Door," Los Angeles Times, October 4, 1986. Cr. E. Krupp.) Next, let us consider Rockwall, Texas, a small town named for a strange wall, mostly buried, that exists in the area. We have had inquiries about this structure but have little in the way of substantial data. Just arrived is a facetious newspaper item that relates how, some 50 years ago, R.F . Canup excavated part of this wall. He dug 8 feet down and eventually unearthed about 100 feet of the wall. That was enough to convince him that it was the masonry wall of an ancient city. Geologists, on the other hand, ridicule this idea, saying it is only a natural rock formation. (Streater, Don; "Geologists Burst Rockwall's Bubble," Beaumont Enterprise, September 8, 1986. Cr. S. Parker via L. Farish.) Comment. What we really need are some authoritative geological and archeological reports. Have any professionals ever visited the site? It seems incredible that Canup could have mistaken a natural rock wall for an artificial one! Reference. You can read about the Great Wall of the Incas, an massive structure miles long, in Ancient Man. This book is described here . No discussion of ancient Peruvian walls would be complete without a mention of the Great Wall of Peru. Illustration from Ancient man. From Science Frontiers #49, JAN-FEB 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... mixture of oxygen and deuterium. The bottom blew off the cell, turning the rest of it into a rocket which shot upwards at 50 metres per second. It struck Riley in the head." (Charles, Dan; "Piece of Teflon Led to Fatal Explosion," New Scientist, p. 5, June 27, 1992. Also: Holden, Constance; "Fusion Explosion Mystery Solved," Science, 257:26, 1992.) Comment. The proposed scenario leading to the explosion is riddled with the words "may" and "believe." Another cold-fusion book: Huizenga, John R.; Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century , 259 pp., 1992, The title betrays the book's slant. A single sentence from Nature's review will suffice: "Commenting on the hundreds of millions of dollars of research time and resources that were taken up in showing that there is no convincing evidence for cold fusion as a source of nuclear power, he [Huizenga] notes that 'much of this would not have been necessary had normal scientific procedures been followed.'" (Close, Frank; "The Cold War Remembered," Nature, 358:291, 1992.) But what's this from Los Alamos? "A Los Alamos National Laboratory researcher says he has duplicated the results of a Japanese experiment in which power was generated by cold fusion. "Edmund Storms, a high-temperature chemist at Los Alamos, used palladium metal supplied by Japanese fusion researcher Akito Takahashi of Osaka University. ...

... the bowl of the sky with the gentle flow of milk. So wrote R.W . Service, the poet of the Arctic realms, about the eerie voices of the auroras. The low-frequency sound of the aurora is barely detectable by human ears. It is "felt" more than heard, as Service expressed so eloquently. Some skeptics have maintained that these ethereal sounds do not really exist, but modern instruments confirm that pressure waves are definitely produced in the atmosphere as the auroras weave and dance in the sky. Most auroral sound is in the infrasound range, which begins at the lower limit of human hearing -- about 20 Hertz. Just enough sound energy seeps over the 20-Hz limit to be heard by sensitive human ears during periods of intense activity. Another natural infrasound, weak but continuous, is the "voice of the sea." These sound waves, called "microbaroms," have periods in the 5-7 second range (0 .20-0 .14 Hz), well below the range of human ears. Such low-frequency sounds travel great distances with little attenuation. It is thought, therefore, that the "voice of the sea" is an extended source -- perhaps the collective acoustical signature of all the storms from all the world's oceans. But this is surmise. Actually, the air is full of infra-sound emanating from still-unidentified sources, as indicated in the figure. Humans may not hear infrasound, but a form of "mountain music" seems to have a mysterious, ...