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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Dynamic Dna Smugness over our discovery of the genetic code and some simple features of biological synthesis has recently been undermined by the recognition that the so-called nonsense segments in genes may be important after all. Now comes the realization that the DNA molecule may not be a staid, static construction. Travelling kinks and other disturbances seem to play some unknown role in biological recognition. Some biochemists have even suggested that DNA winds and unwinds or "breathes" like a living thing as it helps to manufacture biological substances. (Spencer, Michael; "Bent DNA," Nature, 281:631, 1979.) Comment. The addition of the time dimension to biological synthesis evokes thoughts of oscillating systems, frequency dependence, filters, etc. Perhaps Nature has invented something better than the silicon chip. From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... are too weird and amusing to ignore. Love's arrow. Or, rather, love's giant hypodermic needle. Cupid's arrows are rather benign compared with those of some squid. Some small squid will use their sharp beaks or tentacle hooks to rip open the skin of females. They then insert spermatophores with their penises. In the giant squid, however, the male's penis is formidable, muscular, and almost a meter long. It is powerful enough to insert spermatophores directly under the skin of the females. The males are not always accurate, for males themselves are sometimes impregnated in this manner during the squids' deep-sea orgies. (Norman, Mark D., and Lu, C.C .; "Sex in Giant Squid," Nature, 389:683, 1997.) The free-style penis. In the octopus and many cephalopods, the males have a special tentacle with which they insert their spermatophores under the mantle of the female. The tentacle is then retracted for future use. The male paper nautilus is more profligate with its tentacles. The paper nautilus is cephalopod which, like its cousin, the chambered nautilus, "sails the unshadowed main."* When the male detects a receptive female, he avoids intimacy. It's sex at a distance. His spermatophore-bearing tentacle detaches itself from the body and swims -- under its own power -- to the female, being in effect a swimming penis. Just how this peculiar arrangement evolved is anyone's guess. Perhaps it has ...
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... is roughly the geometric mean of the size of the universe and the size of the atom; and The mass of man is the geometric mean of the mass of a planet and the mass of the proton. Less hilarious is the observation that the age of the universe is of the order of the quotient of the electron time scale and the gravitational fine structure constant; and that only at the present time are physical conditions in the universe favorable to the existence of life-as-we-know-it! The surprising number of coincidences that have been identified suggests that we exist and are aware of the universe around us only when certain coincidences prevail among physical constants. Is "now" a magic moment in the history of the universe during which we have "happened" as a natural coincidence of blindly drifting physical constants, or did some metaphysical force tune the universe specially for us? This long, rather mathematical article is redolent with metaphysics and mystery. (Carr, B.J ., and Rees, M.J .; "The Anthropic Principle and the Structure of the Physical World," Nature, 278:605, 1979.) Comment. One might speculate that at other times different coincidences prevail that would permit life-as-we-do-not-know-it or something equally unimaginable! From Science Frontiers #8 , Fall 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... might be attributed to processions of projectiles. The crater chain on the floor of the lunar crater Davy (Nasa) How about our own moon? H.J . Melosh and E.A . Whitaker have studied the close-up lunar photos and found two good candidates. The more spectacular lunar crater chain stretches 47 kilometers across the floor of the crater Davy. This chain consists of about 23 pockmarks each measuring 1-3 kilometers in diameter. A similar, more degraded chain is found in the crater Abulfeda. Melosh and Whitaker suggest that: ". .. the Davy and perhaps the Abulfeda chains were created by tidally disrupted 'rubble pile' asteroids." (Melosh, H.J ., and Whitaker, E.A .; "Lunar Crater Chains," Nature, 369: 713, 1994.) Comment. It is only natural to ask if the earth itself also bears the scars inflicted by similar processions of celestial debris. In SF#80, we described one such possibility located in Argentina. There are also those several hundred thousand Carolina Bays concentrated along the southeastern U.S . seacoast. These shallow depressions are in a shotgun pattern but are also thought to be the consequence of impacts -- perhaps a cloud of debris rather than a procession. (SF#82) Lunar craters display many anomalies. See our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , climatologists have questioned the sizes of gas-hydrate deposits, but cores extracted from the Blake Ridge off the Carolina coast confirm the immense amounts of gases precariously locked up in sea-floor sediments. The stratum of gas hydrates in the Blake Ridge alone covers 26,000 square kilometers -- enough gas is there to supply the U.S . for 107 years. In biological terms the Blake Ridge's carbon is equal to 7% of the carbon locked up in all terrestrial biota -- animals, trees, grasses, etc. And the Blake Ridge gas hydrates represent a miniscule fraction of the planet's frozen gas hydrates. (Dickens, Gerald R., et al; "Direct Measurement of In Situ Methane Quantities in a Large Gas-Hydrate Reservoir," Nature, 385:426, 1997. Also: MacDonald, Ian R.; "Bottom Line for Hydrocarbons," Nature, 385:389, 1997.) Comment. Methane is well-known as a "greenhouse gas." If really large "burps" were released, climatic changes would probably ensue. Unfortunately, gashydrates are rather unstable. What would happen if a large asteroid slammed into the Blake Ridge? Huge quantities of methane would disgorge into the earth's atmosphere. The climate changes might be disastrous for fauna (like the dinosaurs!) and flora. The heavily shaded area of the Blake Ridge (area = 26,000 km2) contains gas-hydrates and free gas. Drill sites 995 and 997 are also indicated. From Science Frontiers #111, ...
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... -Singing Humans are born with one organ that is capable of astonishing performances that greatly exceed what is required for the tracking of animals and the grubbing of edible roots. This is the human brain, of course. Not as widely appreciated for its versatility is the human vocal tract. It can generate much more than brute grunts. It renders operatic arias of great beauty and frequency range. The vocal tract can do even more than that; it can carry two musical lines simultaneously. This skill is called "throat-singing" or "overtonesinging." The best-known throat-singers live in the Tuva region of southern Siberia. The semi-nomadic herders of this wild region were evidently inspired to develop throat-singing so that they could better mimic the sounds they heard in nature: the singing of birds, the wind, the sounds of insects. Throat-songs have two components. The first is at a low, sustained fundamental pitch, which can be likened to the drone of a bagpipe. The second, superimposed on the low drone, is a succession of flute-like sounds that resonates high above the drone. It is the second component that can be controlled so as to mirror natural sounds. The result is like nothing Mozart or Verdi conceived. But it is an art form valued in Tuva and a talent rather remarkable from a biologist's perspective. One should compare the vocal tract to an organ pipe with its standing waves, except that the human pipe is only 7 inches long in the average adult male. One end of the ...
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... to survive" is important in controlling the progression of serious diseases. Most of the evidence linking the patient's mood with recovery from illness is anecdotal -- little wonder since mood is hard-to-measure. Some statistical evidence has recently been accumulated by S.M . Levy and R. Herber-man of the National Cancer Institute; but the situation still seems complex at best. From a study of 75 women with breast cancer, there appears to be a significant and involved relationship between age, the body's immune function, and a psychological factor called "fatigue." One clear-cut finding was that young patients facing radiation therapy and also reporting high levels of psychological fatigue were the only patients in the surveyed group showing diminished activity by the body's natural killer cells. These killer cells com-prise an important part of the defense against cancer. This biological consequence of apathy is confirmed by an-other study showing that cancer patients with "psychological distress" had better chances of recovery than those who had no "fight." (Herbert, W.; "Giving It Up -- At the Cellular Level," Science News, 124:148, 1983.) Comment. Assuming such mind-body correlations are real, how is mental attitude (supposedly some pattern of nerve signals in the brain) converted into greater or lesser populations of natural killer cells? From Science Frontiers #30, NOV-DEC 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Life On Different Scales In SF#110, we introduced the possibility of nannobacteria: life forms that are smaller than 0.4 micron, perhaps even as small as 0.01 micron. Nannobacteria are not completely accepted as bona fide organisms. However, electron microscopes are imaging "somethings" that are very tiny and ubiquitous. We now shift speculation to life forms much larger than blue whales or even that 2,000-meter-wide box huckleberry mentioned in SF#82/170. In fact, we will transcend even Gaia; that is, earth-asanorganism (SF#56/339); and ask whether entire universes might be alive in the sense that they are governed by natural selection, can transmit hereditary information, and adapt themselves to new situations. The evidence for such large-scale living systems or super-superorganisms is widely pooh-poohed by biologists because it does not meet their definition of life; i.e ., metabolism, reproduction, etc. But perhaps they are missing something by thinking too small. In this vein, M.G . Bjomerud has opined: ". .. there is no reason to expect that super-organisms would meet criteria based on observations of individual organisms. Isn't it time to consider the possibility that the boundary between life and non-life may be diffuse, non-stationary over time, and dependent on scale?" (Bjomerud, M.G .; "Live Universes," ...
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... reflected in a thin layer of cirrostratus and, as the vessel approached to 60 n mile from the terminal, the glow from the flares was also visible on the horizon." (Peterson, J.L .; "Optical Phenomenon," Marine Observer, 69:110, 1999.) Tall light pillars rise over the South China Sea February 4, 1999. Toyama Bay, Japan. The caption quoted below is located beneath an impressive color photograph of five tall pillars of light reaching up into the night sky. "Rare beams of light rise to the upper atmosphere over Toyama Bay on Thursday. The lights appeared about 2,000 meters above fishing boats with fires aboard to attract squid, for about 20 minutes from 8 p.m . The night illuminations are a rare natural phenomenon in which lights on the ground are reflected in the hexagonal crystals that form in the cirrostratus. According to experts, the phenomenon can only be observed in ideal weather conditions when the height of the cloud matches the distance from the source of the light to the observer." (Anonymous; Daily Yomiura , February 7, 1999. Cr. N. Masuya.) Comment. Note that the light source in the first case is much farther away than the height of the clouds -- the condition stipulated in the second case! Sun pillars resemble the light shafts described above. D. Steel has recently mused that a sun pillar might well have been the natural phenomenon that convinced the Roman Emperor Constantine of the truth of Christianity! (Steel, Duncan; "A Sun Pillar ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cracks In The Kaimanawa-wall Story?It was bound to happen. The publicity accorded the Kaimanawa Wall by New Zealand newspapers (SF#107) stimulated the scientific community to take a close look at the controversial "wall." The New Zealand Department of Conservation asked geologist P. Wood for his assessment. "He identified the rock as the 330,000-year-old Rangitaiki Ignimbrite. Following the line of blocks both horizontally and vertically, and photographing them in series, he revealed a system of joints and fractures natural to the cooling process in ignimbrite sheets. What Brailsford [see SF#107] had taken to be manmade cut, stacked blocks were no more than a type of natural rock formation." P. Andrews, the author of this article likened the regular jointing of the "wall" to neatly hexagonal prisms seen in many basalt flows. He supplied two photographs of the "wall." One was like the photo in SF#107 and showed regular joints; the second, from the same outcrop, displayed angled fractures and joints that certainly do not look like the work of humans. (Andrews, Philip; "New Zealand: Recent Ash, Ancient Wall," Geology Today , p. 136, July-August 1996. Cr. R.E . Molnar) Comments. If we receive counter-arguments from proponents of the wall's artificiality, we will add ...
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... modern scientists until 1932. In December of that year, P. Clayton, a surveyor for the Egyptian Geological Survey, was driving among the dunes near the Saad Plateau when he heard his tires crunch on something that wasn't sand. It turned out to be large pieces of marvelously clear yellow-green glass -- not just any glass but ultra-pure glass, 98% silica. As often the case, Clayton was not the first to come across the now-famous Libyan Desert Glass or LDG. Prehistoric humans had made knives and other sharp-edged tools from it; the ancient Egyptians had carved a scarab from LDG and deposited it in Tutankhamen's tomb. But Clayton and the ancients did not recognize the scientific implications of their discovery. LDG is the purest natural silica glass ever found. Over a thousand tons of it are strewn across hundreds of kilometers of bleak desert. Some of the chunks weigh 26 kilograms, but most LDG exists in smaller, angular pieces looking like shards left when a giant green bottle was smashed by colossal forces. Pure as it is, LDG does contain tiny bubbles, white wisps, and inky black swirls. The whitish inclusions consist of refractory minerals, such as cristobalite. The ink-like swirls, though, are rich in iridium, which is diagnostic of an extraterrestrial impact -- meteorite or comet. The iridium leads to the heart of the LDG problem: Where did this immense amount of widely dispersed glass shards come from? Was it really created during the searing, sand-melting impact of a cosmic ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An orphan superluminal glob?Radioastronomical observations of quasar 3C345 have picked out a glob of material that seems to be travelling at between 13 and 17 times the velocity of light. (Such "superluminal" speeds may be apparent and not physically real.) This speedy mass of material is not moving radially away from 3C345 and even seems to be accelerating! Although this glob may have been ejected from 3C345 and followed a curved path, its present path may imply a different origin. (Moore, R.L ., et al; "Superluminal Acceleration in 3C345," Nature, 306:44, 1983.) Comment. We classify superluminal velocities as anomalous until their real nature is established. But here we have the added anomalies of acceleration and a possible extra-quasar origin. From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Can organisms direct their evolution?" In 1988. Harvard molecular biologist John Cairns committed an act of scientific heresy. He proposed in a Nature article that bacteria living in an unfavorable environment are able to choose which mutations to produce to adapt to the stressful situation. Cairns made his directed-mutation hypothesis in response to an unusual finding -- data that strongly hinted bacterial mutations might occur more often when beneficial." The above quotation is the lead paragraph in a long BioScience article that details the consternation Cairns' results have created in the biological community. The problem that biology-as-a -discipline has is that it has deified a paradigm: neo-Darwinism. Now, neo-Darwinism is supported by many experiments showing that some mutations are indeed random. Consequently, as M. Gillis re-marks in her BioScience article, the biological community 'got locked into its belief that an organism cannot control its own mutation.' Furthermore, Cairns' claims recall the long battle with Lamarckism, a subject that biology has closed-the-book-on. In a nutshell, Lamarckism has been interred since the 1950s, and 'Nobody wants to give the appearance of straying from the neoDarwinism fold.' Gillis goes on to review some recent experiments supporting those of Cairns. But, impressive though these may be, there have been neo-Darwinian explanations for some of the results. Even so, more and ...
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... review, two little-publicized but highly pertinent Tunguska observations were discussed. The catastrophe had five centers of destruction rather than one. At the Tunguska site are many large root stumps, not yet rotted away, that cannot be linked to any pits associated with their origin. These stumps were apparently blown out of the ground and hurled dozens of meters from where they stood prior to the Event. Next to be considered were the unappreciated similarities between the Tunguska Event and the 1883 explosion of Krakatoa. The four bright nights in Europe and western Asia, straddling 30 June 1908, are remimiscent of the 1883 Krakatoa outburst, they ask for transient scatterers in the upper atmosphere, above 500 km, at heights which only methane and hydrogen are light enough to reach in sufficient quantity. Fast-rising natural gas has been repeatedly detected in recent years, in the form of "mystery clouds"---by airplane pilots---and indirectly as pockmarks on 6% of the sea floor. In other words, Tunguska might well have been---not an extraterrestrial impact---but a simultaneous outburst and detonation of natural gas from five closely spaced vents. The report continues with pro-andcon discussions, concluding that this outrageous hypothesis cannot be dismissed! (Kundt, Wolfgang; "Tunguska 2001," Meteorite, 7:25, November 2001.) Mirror matter is another new candidate as Tunguska's cause. This and other radical hypotheses, like the methane blowouts mentioned above, cannot be rejected perfunctorily because, even after 75 years and 35 expeditions to ...
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... ahead of the deluge of snow. An unusual rock fall at Yosemite created a similar air blast with severe consequences. July 10, 1996. Yosemite National Park, California. We reported this remarkable event in SF#111 for its far-flung seismic waves, which jostled seismographs at Berkeley and Reno over 200 kilometers distant. Actually, there were two rock falls 14 seconds apart. The "rocks" fell from a 665-meter cliff at Happy Isles in the eastern part of Yosemite Valley. No pebbles these; with volumes of 23,000 and 38,000 cubic meters. Although the impact area of the rock falls was not particularly large, the falls generated an air blast and an abrasive sandy cloud that devastated a larger area downslope of the impact sites toward the Happy Isles Nature Center. Immediately downslope of the impacts, the air blast had velocities exceeding 110 m/s [about 245 mph] and toppled or snapped about 1000 trees. Even at distances of 0.5 km from impact, wind velociies snapped or toppled large trees, causing one fatality and several serious injuries beyond the Happy Isles Nature Center. A dense sandy cloud trailed the air blast and abraded fallen trunks and trees left standing. (Wieczorek, Gerald F. et al; "Unusual July 10, 1996, Rock Fall at Happy Isles, Yosemite National Park," Geological Society of America, Bulletin, 112:75, 2000.) From Science Frontiers #139, Jan-Feb 2002 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient ...
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... Crustacea . Eusociality is considered to be at the apex of animal social organization. What forces have fostered its development in three diverse groups -- insects, mammals (the naked mole-rats), and now the crustaceans? How did the different castes evolve, especially the sterile castes? It must have taken a lot of random mutations to develop such greatly different body forms in a coordinated way such that colonies were continuously viable! Obviously, we have a lot to learn about these snapping shrimp. Are new colonies formed when sexual forms disperse, as with ants and termites; or are there "dispersive morphs" created, as with the naked mole-rats? (See SF#106) (Duffy, J. Emmett; "Eusociality in a Coral-Reef Shrimp," Nature, 381, 1996. Adler, T.; "A Shrimpy Find: Communal Crustaceans," Science News, 149:359, 1996) A "soldier" snapping shrimp with a huge "flighting claw". Overall length: only about half an inch. (Nature) From Science Frontiers #107, SEP-OCT 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Bang? The astronomical quandry is this: If the very early universe looks pretty much the same as today's universe, the implication is that mass, the source of gravitational sculpting, is scarce. But this is at odds with the cosmic expansion rate which implies a much higher density of matter. (Appenzeller, Tim; "Ancient Galaxy Walls Go up; Will Theories Tumble Down?" Science, 276:36, 1997.) Comment. The existence of galaxy walls, like so many astronomical constructs, depends upon the assumption that the red shifts of galaxies are proportional to their recessional velocities and, additionally, their distances and ages. So much rides on this one assumption. The same situation prevails in biology, where everything is founded on the assumption that random mutations and natural selection can together generate any degree of complexity, sophistication, and innovation seen in nature. The history of science tells us that many paradigms have fallen because they depended upon faulty assumptions. From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Instances Of Observed Speciation Creationists have long maintained that no one has ever observed the creation of a new species in nature. C.A . Callag han has sought to counter this attack on evolution with a paper bearing the above title. Her concluding paragraph is: "I have cited several instances of ob served speciation that can be used as illustrative examples in the classroom. They should also silence at least one common creationist argument against evolution." The paper begins with the well-worn peppered-moth story; but Callaghan quickly dismisses this, as the creationists do, as merely an example of variation within a species. We now quote the lead sentences from her discussions of the next two candidates: "An incipient neospecies of Drosophila may have developed in Theodosius Dobzhansky's laboratory sometime between 1958 and 1963 in a strain of D. paulistorum...." "A probable instance of a naturally emerging plant species was discovered on both sides of Highway 205 at a single locality 25.5 miles south of Burns, Harney County, Oregon...." We have inserted underlining beneath the two words that greatly weaken the paper. In short, the biologists are not really sure that speciation occurred in these two cases. The reasons for doubt are also presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of allopolyploidy in plants, in which the chromosomes of a sterile hybrid are doubled, giving rise to a fertile ...
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... supposedly primitive organisms employing our highly technical concepts; for example, the jamming-avoidance techniques of electric fish (SF#89). Still another potential example has been advanced: The lowly crayfish is now thought to enlist some of our sophisticated information theory. Crayfish often live in noisy environments, where one would expect acoustical information transmission would be degraded. This would be true enough if linear information theory applied, but some, perhaps all, real situations are nonlinear. In such instances, information flow can actually be enhanced by the presence of optimized random noise. Stochastic resonance (SR) is the term applied in such cases of nonlinear statistical dynamics. J.K . Douglass et al write: "Although SR has recently been demonstrated in several artificial physical systems, it may also occur naturally, and an intriguing possibility is that biological systems have evolved the capability to exploit SR by optimizing endogenous sources of noise. Sensory systems are an obvious place to look for SR, as they excel at detecting weak signals in a noisy environment. Here we demonstrate SR using external noise applied to crayfish mechanoreceptor cells. Our results show that individual neurons can provide a physiological substrate for SR in sensory systems." Put more simply, the crayfish nervous system has the potential for cashing in on SR in noisy environments. However, the authors also remark that humans, too, accordingly to psychological experiments, seem to harness SR in the perception of ambiguous figures in noisy situations. (Douglass, John K., et al; "Noise Enhancement of Information Transfer in Crayfish Mechanoreceptors by Stochastic Resonance ...
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... . When the bona fide eggs of the five parasitized species are placed side-by-side with the mimics layed by the cuckoos, the matches are uncanny - except in the case of the dunnock, which the cuckoo doesn't try to mimic at all. The question, of course, is how the cuckoos do it. American cuckoos rarely parasitize the nests of other birds; but the American cowbird is notorious in this regard, although it does not indulge in egg mimicry. On other continents, cuckoos, honeyguides, finches, a weaverbird, and a duck have learned how to slough off parental duties. (Brooke, M. de L., and Davies, N.B .; "Egg Mimicry by Cuckoos Cuculus canorus in Relation to Discrimination by Hosts," Nature, 335:630, 1988. Also: Harvey, Paul H., and Partridge, Linda; "Of Cuckoo Clocks and Cowbirds," Nature, 335:586, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #61, JAN-FEB 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Platypus Bill An Electrical Probe The bill of the duck-billed platypus has always looked kind of dumb -- as if Nature flushed with her success with polar bears (below) got careless when designing the platypus! How ignorant we were of Nature's genius. The platypus didn't borrow its snout from ducks but rather from the electric fishes. "That evolutionary enigma, the duckbilled platypus, has more than its egglaying to distinguish it from other mammals. It now appears that in common with some species of fish and amphibians, it can detect weak electric fields (of a few hundred microvolts or less). Not only that, but it uses its electric sense to locate its prey, picking up the tiny electrical signals passing between nerves and muscles in the tail of a shrimp." (Anonymous; "The Battery-Operated Duck-Billed Platypus," New Scientist, p. 25, February 13, 1986.) Reference. Mammal electrosensitivity is cataloged under BMO8 in Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. This catalog is described here . From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . However, some possess astonishing skills. "He [Snyder] believes the ability to tap raw information -- the mind's secret arithmetic -- is possessed by mathematical savants. They can multiply, divide, factor and identify prime numbers of six and more digits in seconds, or identify the number of objects they can see at a single glance -- 111 matches scattered on the floor, in one case." Snyder's intriguing conclusion is that ". .. we believe that everyone has the underlying facility to perform lightningfast integer arithmetic." (Highfield, Roger; "Study Adds Up to Formula for Math Genius," Chicago Sun Times , March 23, 1999. Cr. J. Cieciel) A more technical review of the SnyderMitchel work has appeared in Nature. There, N. Birbaumer focussed on that mysterious barrier that supposedly prevents most of us from utilizing our innate genius. Unfortunately, his explanations are a bit murky and jargony. We normal people cannot use our innate talents "because we process information in a concept-driven way." Savants, however, can tap these capabilities because of "a functional or pathological loss of executive brain centres." In other words, the way we are programmed to think blocks or suppresses access to our reservoir of mathematical talents. In his review, Birbaumer adds that the work of Snyder and Mitchel is contradicted by studies of non-savant geniuses, and, especially, experiments in which ordinary people are trained intensively to match the mental performances of the savants. (Birbaumer, Niels; " ...
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... like structures. D. raptor, a Hawaiian spider, has lost its ability to spin webs and therewith capture prey. This unusual spider, however, has evolved: ". .. one of the most remarkable morphological features ever found in spiders (immense elongations of the tarsal claws)." These claws, just visible on the two lowermost pairs of legs in the sketch, are employed to skewer passing insects in flight: "The spider is strictly nocturnal, spending most of the activity-period hanging upside down from silk threads. Small insects are snagged directly from the air using a single long claw. For larger insects the spider uses both long claws on legs I, or sometimes all the long claws." (Gillespie, Rosemary G.; "Impaled Prey," Nature, 355:212, 1992.) Comment. Nature has produced many remarkable creatures. They become anomalous only if they cannot be explained as the products of small, random, cumulative mutations. From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... in SF#114) is the assumption that our destiny is controlled by "selfish genes" (or "selfish DNA"). The idea that evolution works only at the gene level has been championed by R. Dawkins, and today it dominates much evolution philosophy. However, this "genetic imperialism" is now being challenged by some scientists who insist that culture also affects an organism's evolution, be it a human or an insect. In fact, it was Dawkins himself who first proposed the term "meme" for the cultural counterpart of the gene. A meme, in other words, is an "element" of culture that can be passed along to progeny by imitation and/or cultural pressures. In reductionist thinking, environmental challenges are met by gene mutations plus natural selection. In meme theory, the same challenges are confronted by cultural changes (meme "mutation") plus natural selection. The meme approach is holistic rather than reductionist and is appealing because it allows us some control over our destiny. There are several phenomena in which some scientists profess to see memes overpowering the genes: Generations of female infanticide have led to more male births than female births. In dairy-farming societies, 90% of the population has the enzyme lactase that allows individuals to digest cows' milk. In other societies, 80% become ill when drinking cows' milk. A variety of cultural pressures have raised the percentage of lefthanders in North America to 12% compared with just 2% a century ago. In Taiwan, where cultural pressures are quite different, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Spiral-circle ground patterns in field crops G.T . Meaden has recently summarized his research into those marvelously sharp and complex designs cut into English field crops by atmospheric vortices. (Why other countries are not similarly affected is unknown.) The simple circles range from 3 to 30 meters in diameter. The central, flattened vegetation is crushed clockwise about half the time, counterclockwise in the other cases. On two known occasions, the flattening process has actually been observed. The invisible atmospheric vor tex does its work in 30 seconds or less and generates a high-pitched humming sound. The complex nature of these vortices is attested to by the rare ringed circles and multiple patterns. Both single- and double-ringed circles are known. The wind direction always alternates from central circle to first ring to second ring. The most common multiple patterns consist of large central circles flanked by two or four, smaller satellite circles, all nicely spaced. In the quintuplets, all five circles are usually flattened clockwise, but one case has presented theorists with four counterclockwise circles accompanied by a single improbable clockwise circle! (Meaden, G.T .; "The Mystery of Spiral-Circle Ground Patterns in Crops Made by a Natural Atmospheric-Vortex Phenomenon," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 13:203, 1988.) Quintuplet pattern in barley crop, west Wiltshire, 1987 From Science Frontiers #60, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fish And Winkle Showers "Loud slapping sounds disturbed Ron Langton as he settled down to watch late-night television at his home in East Ham in London on 26 May 1984. He thought nothing more of the noises until next morning when he went outside and saw half a dozen fish in the backyard and on his roof. They were flounders and whitings, about 10 to 15 centimetres long. "Two residents of nearby Canning Town also reported between 30 and 40 fish scattered over their gardens. Could a flight of herons returning from the Thames have dropped their catch? The Natural History Museum identified the fish as just what you would expect to find in the lower Thames. Could a waterspout on the Thames have lifted the fish up to cloud level, carried them a few kilometres north, and dropped them on Canning Town and East Ham? .. .. . "On 16 June 1984, a month after the fish falls in London, the owner of a service station near Thirsk in north Yorkshire found winkles and starfish covering the forecourt of his garage and the top of its high canopy. The winkles were salty and many were still alive. Thirsk is 45 kilometres from the sea, and the garage owner thought that this collection of marine life arrived with the torrential thunderstorms during the night. Though proof remains elusive, the winkles and starfish were probably lifted by a waterspout along the east coast and carried aloft for an ...
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... or ocean vents. Scientists should be looking at pizza for the answer. I can remember when my college roommates and I routinely created life every week in our refrigerator. My theory is that around 4.5 billion years ago, the earth was bombarded by intergalactic pizzas. These then provided the ideal breeding ground in which early organisms could thrive and later evolve." (Greene, Mark D.; "How Life Began," Time, 142:8 , November 1, 1993.) Comment. Charles Fort would certainly have chuckled over the near-simultaneous mentions of intergalactic pizzas in two diverse publications. A second report underscores the mystery presented by the unexpected diversity of life in the deep-sea ooze. J.D . Gage and R.M . May ponder in Nature : "Why there should be such exuberant biological diversity in an environment apparently lacking in the habitat complexity of, say, tropical rain forest -- whose species richness it might rival -- remains an enigma." In fact, the enigma becomes more profound when one finds there exists a "depth effect" paralleling the terrestrial "altitude effect." "This phenomenon is associated with an increase in species richness with depth, and is essentially like the pattern of increasing numbers of plant and animal species as one moves down from mountain tops to sea level." This "depth effect" is just the opposite of what one would expect as one descends into the ever blacker, ever colder, higher-ambient-pressure environment. The cause(s ) of this increasing biological diversity ...
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... . 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Flies fly into frogmouth's mouth Papuan frogmouth after just catching a fly Behind this deliberately cryptic title lurks a curiosity that verges on the anomalous; namely, a bird (the Papuan frogmouth) that apparently secretes a substance in its cavernous mouth that attracts flies. This bird, according to several observers, does not have to fly with its mouth agape to catch insects like its relatives (whippoorwills, etc.). It often simply sits on a branch with its huge mouth open, and flies enter of their own accord to investigate the source of a promising odor. J. Diamond, who wrote about this "living flytrap" in the February issue of Natural History, wondered about the evolutionary rationale here: "My first thought was, nonsense! If so, frogmouths would have achieved every species' evolutionary dream -- getting food without work or cost. Then I reflected that there was indeed a cost, that of synthesizing the sticky chemical bait. On the other hand, a raven-sized bird would have to attract a lot of flying insects before its strategy of setting itself up as a living flytrap could rate as successful." In the same article, Diamond introduced the reader to two other remarkable birds also found in Papua New Guinea. Both of these birds are meaty, lumbering, and easy to kill. Ideal prey, one would suppose. However, almost as they gasp their last breath, they begin to stink. ...
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... have been in a coma the past couple months, you have heard that the Big Bang has now been elevated from a theory to a fact. The reason for the media hullabaloo was the announcement that minute fluctuations had been detected in the cosmic microwave background. The media hype was notably chauvinistic. Some Big-Bang proponents declared that discovery was the greatest scientific advance of the century, completely ignoring the genetic code, continental drift, nuclear fission, and so on and so on. More sober scientists rejected such extravagant claims. They pointed out that independent confirmation of the fluctuations was yet to come and that, after all, the fluctuations were very small (only some 30 millionths of a K). And which of the many variations of Big Bang was going to be enthroned? Even Nature advised extreme caution, quoting H. Bondi in this regard: ". .. the data in cosmology are so likely to be wrong that I propose to ignore them." (Anonymous; "Big Bang Brouhaha," Nature, 356:731, 1992.) Comment. It is ironical that before astronomers found large-scale inhomogeneities in the cosmos (galactic clusters and superclusters, the Great Wall, etc.), the Big Bangers claimed that the very smoothness of the microwave background proved the reality of the Big Bang. The Big Bang, it seems, is one of those "politically correct" paradigms, which one criticizes at his peril. (Beichman, Arnold; "The Big Bang Censorship," Insight , p. 22, April 13, 1992. ...
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... unfamiliar" to ustoday because they left no descendents. These archaic mammals succumbed to the effects of the sudden global warming and were ultimately replaced by the ancestors of our familiar deer, horses, and canines that streamed across the now-open Bering Land Bridge. Geology, too, provides evidence of this traumatic event. Ocean-bottom cores reveal landslide debris that was probably triggered by the sudden decomposition of great masses of methane hydrate. Seismic probes of the ocean sediments reveal chaotic zones suggesting a violent event. (Kerr, Richard A.; "A Smoking Gun for an Ancient Methane Discharge," Science, 286:1465, 1999. Monastersky, R.; "Global Burp Gassed Ancient Earth," Science News, 156:260, 1999.) Philosophical observation. Just as natural fires of grasslands and forests eventually lead to vigorous new growth, it appears that methane (a natural product of the decomposition of organic material) also sweeps out old species and replaces them with new ones. No doubt this planetary cleansing is another ramification of the Gaia Hypothesis. Be advised that Gala still lives, and that huge, unstable, methane-hydrate deposits still lie buried under many continental shelves. From Science Frontiers #128, MAR-APR 2000 . 1997 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and ...
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... and harder to dismiss. Instead, the search is on for explanations of the rapid field changes. Three possibilities have been advanced -- all of them unpalatable to geophysicists: The Steens Mountain rocks are not faithful recorders of the main geomagnetic field. Should this be actually so, the whole field of paleomagnetism, including plate tectonics, is undermined, for it depends upon similar measurements. The earth's molten core can change rapidly, at least in some regions, in response to forces still unrecognized. This, of course, is not really a satisfying "explanation." The dynamo theory of the origin of the geomagnetic field is incorrect. (Coe, R.S ., et al; "New Evidence for Extraordinarily Rapid Change of the Geomagnetic Field during a Reversal," Nature, 374:687, 1995. Merrill, Ronald T.; "Principle of Least Astonishment," Nature, 374:674, 1995.) Reference. More puzzles of the geomagnetic field are provided in: Inner Earth. For details, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 13: Winter 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Remarkably Early Dates For Agriculture B.K . Maloney, of the British Museum, describes his pollen analysis of sediments that have accumulated in the Toba Highlands of North Sumatra, Indonesia. The base of a 9.7 -meter core from the Pea Sim-sim Swamp has yielded a radiocarbon date of 18,496 years. Pollen studies of the core indicate a brief decline of forest pollen about 17,800 BP along with increased sedimentation characteristic of cleared land. Taken by themselves, these data would probably be interpreted in terms of natural climate changes. But extremely early dates for human activity exist nearby: 14,000 BP for agriculture in Thailand and 11,000 BP for forest clearance on Taiwan. It is possible, therefore, that men were clearing land for planting in North Sumatra almost 18,000 years ago. (Maloney, B.K .; "Pollen Analytical Evidence for Early Forest Clearance in North Sumatra," Nature, 287:324, 1980.) Comment. Some archeologists hotly disoute the early dates mentioned above. For more, see our Handbook: Ancient Man. Ordering information for this volume may be found here . From Science Frontiers #13, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 4: July 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Good-bye to the bimini wall and road?A perennial fixture of sensational archeology has been the frequent report of submerged "walls" or "roads" off North Bimini, in the Bahamas. That there are closely fitted, rectilinear stones under about 15 feet of water is not in question. The 1- to 10-ton blocks surely look manmade, but are they really? E.A . Shinn describes several "beach-rock" formations in the area, some exposed and some submerged under a few feet of water. This beach rock, as his photos demonstrate, has a natural tendency to fracture into rectangular blocks, creating strips of pavement-like blocks essentially identical to the famous Bimini road. Proponents of Atlantis and other radical archeological theories do not deny the similarity of the formations or even that the natural and supposedly man-made blocks are of the same composition. The Atlanteans, they say, obviously made use of readily available materials, and beach rock was their choice. Shinn goes on to prove to his satisfaction that the Bimini block formations are still in place where geological forces left them about 2,200 years ago. Further, he notes, there are absolutely no traces of human workmanship and no human artifacts in the area. One mystery is admitted, however, in this debunking article; and that is the unanswered question of how the Bimini rocks came to be submerged in 15 feet of water ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Imprison Willy!Killer whales get good press and complimentary movies, too. They are usually portrayed as gentle, intelligent, human-friendly marine mammals that dine only on fish. Lately, though, we have been reading that Alaskan killer whales have been snacking on those cute little sea otters. Much more devastating to the killerwhale image is an article in Natural History describing the vicious attack of a pack of killer whales on a pod of much larger sperm whales 70 miles off the California coast. To ward off the attack, nine sperm whales had formed a rosette, heads together, with their powerful tails splayed outwards towards the enemy. The killer whales circled the sperm whales ominously. Every so often, one would dash in and tear off a huge chunk of blubber. Eventually, all nine sperm whales floated dead or dying in an ocean of blood. The "gentle-giant" portrait of the killer whale is tarnished further in the Antarctic where they habitually dine on the lips and tongues of minke whales, then leave them to die. (Pitman, Robert L., and Chivers, Susan J.; "Terror in Black and White," Natural History, 107:26, December 1998/January 1999.) Comment. How will the media spin-doctor stories like these? Killer whales didn't get their name because they ate fish alone. From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Do black holes exist?Can we believe our eyes? Dare anyone suggest that black holes do not lurk out in the cosmos sucking in stars and unwary spaceships? It's all true; an arti cle bearing the above title appeared in the January 1988 number of Sky and Telescope. Doubts do surface once in a while, despite all the TV documentaries, all the textbooks, and all the newspaper jottings, where black holes are described in the hushed tones used only with profound truths of nature. To set the stage, we quote a paragraph from said article: "There is, however, a serious problem with black holes, one that leaves some scientists skeptical about their existence. The overarching mystery lies hidden at a hole's center. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that we will find there an object more massive than a million Earths and yet smaller than an atom -- so small, in fact, that its density approches infinity. The idea of any physical quantity becoming infinite flies in the face of everything we know about how nature behaves. So there is good reason to be skeptical that such a nasty thing could happen anywhere at all." Among the observations that hint at the reality of black holes are the X-ray binaries. In a typical X-ray binary, prodigious, flickering fluxes of X-rays reveal the presence of an ultradense star and an orbiting companion ...
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... -Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects MODERN TECHNOLOGY GETS SUNBURNED During the 400-or-so years we have been counting sunspots and taking other measures of solar activity, the sun has, on the average, been getting more and more rambunctious. The sunspot peaks have been ascending to greater heights every 11-or-so years. Right now, near the peak of the present cycle, the earth is being bombarded by extra-high fluxes of X-rays, ultraviolet light, and other energetic radiation. A century ago, no one would have noticed or cared, but today our technological infrastructure is suffering. K.H . Schatten has listed some of the "sunburn symptoms" in a recent article in Nature. Fade-outs of over-the-horizon radio communications Greater aerodynamic drag on satel lites and earlier reentry Glitches and outright damage in satellite electrical systems Anomalous induced voltages in elec trical power systems and long-line communications Blackouts of high-frequency polar communications oInduced errors in VLF (Very Low Frequency navigation systems Occasional radiation levels that are hazardous to humans in high-flying aircraft. (Schatten, Kenneth H.; "The Sun's Disturbing Behavior," Nature, 345:578, 1990.) Comment. It would be interesting to learn whether the "computer errors" we encounter so frequently follow the sunspot cycle. One phenomenon, at least, seems anticorrelated with solar activity: The number of solar neutrinos measured here on earth falls as sunspots multiply. This is ...
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... ?The hot topic in cold fusion research is now fracto-fusion; that is, the inducing of deuterium fusion by means of the electric fields established along microcracks developing in substances charged with deuterium or tritium. Back in 1986, Soviet researchers reported the observation of neutron emission when they violently crushed lithium deuteride in the presence of ice made from heavy water. More recently, they saw the same phenomenon when milling several deuterium-containing metals. Conceivably, deuterium nuclei accelerated by the electric fields along the cracks could be fusing, producing neutrons. (Amato, I.; "If Not Cold Fusion, Try Fracto Fusion," Science News, 137:87, 1990.) Pouring cold water on the Soviet results, two American scientists described negative results in the February 15 issue of Nature. They fired small (0 .131-gram) steel ball bearings at an ice tar-get made with 99.9 % deuterium. Despite the violent shattering of the deuterated ice, no significant numbers of neutrons were measured. (Sobotka, L.G ., and Winter, P.; "Fracture without Fusion," Nature, 343:601, 1990.) Comment. Whatever the fate of fractofusion, several labs around the world are still pursuing cold fusion. The sci entific mainstream, though, considers cold fusion a dead issue, even though anomalous neutrons and heat emission have been found in several experiments. We are happy to report, however, that cold fusion has definitely generated its first book: Cold Fusion : The Making of a Scientific Controversy, ...
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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 Evolvable Hardware First, you must envision a computer chip as an evolvable entity -- an array of logic gates that can be connected in an almost infinite number of ways. A soft-ware instruction becomes the equivalent of a biological gene. Software instructions can be changed to achieve certain hardware goals just as genes can be rearranged to modify an organism. Furthermore, human operators can specify a hardware goal to the chip and let it evolve on its own, something it can do in microseconds rather than millions of years. This is not a frivilous subject. D. Fogel, chief scientist at Natural Selection, Inc., in La Jolla, California, asserts: "Eventually, we will need to know how to design hardware when we have no idea how to do it." A few demonstration devices have already been built, and in them we see something worthy of note for Science Frontiers. One such device, built by A. Thompson, University of Sussex, was tasked to identify specific audio notes by certain voltage signals. Given 100 logic gates, the device needed only 32 to achieve the result. The surprise was that some of these working gates were not even connected to others by normal wiring. Thompson admitted that he had no idea how the device worked. Something completely unexpected had evolved. Perhaps, thought Thompson, some of the circuits are coupled electromagnetically rather than by wires. Human engineers would never ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Consciousness Gene We humans assume that our consciousness is something more than just the sum total of all our senses, as integrated by our brains. In other words, consciousness is something "special" that makes us more than automatons. Other animals may be automatons, but not us! D. Jones speculates in Nature that if consciousness is a definite, inheritable characteristic, it must have had survival value for it to have evolved. It then follows that consciousness must be en-coded somewhere in our genes. Only a single gene may be enough, for consciousness seems to be an uncomplicated phenomenon. Why? Because just a few simple molecules, such as those found in anesthetics, can disable it completely without affecting other bodily functions. Eventually, Jones continues, the gene (or small number of genes) responsible for consciousness will be identified. Then, we can determine for certain if any of the lower animals are also conscious. We think chimps and dolphins might be, but we're not really sure until we see if they have the necessary genes. In fact, the old-time behaviorists could be right, and all the other animals really are merely automatons. That would definitely make us "special"! Once we have the consciousness genes in our labs, we can introduce them into those other species, such as Rover and Kitty, upon whom we would like to confer the boon of consciousness ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 132: NOV-DEC 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fish Tales From the Mouth of Fishes Several species of fishes live inside the mouths and gills of larger species of fish. Some are true parasites. Attached by their teeth, they drink the blood of their hosts. Other fishes have fins that have been transformed into adhesive disks that allow them to also live inside the mouths and gill cavities of larger fish. These are true symbionts that feed on food scraps. The sizes and shapes of these invaders are neatly adapted to the mouths and cavities of each host. It is possible, but not easy, to explain how these remarkable physiological and behavioral transformations were initiated and perfected via random mutations and natural selection. (Gudger, E.W .; "Fishes That Live in the Mouths or Gill Cavities of Other Fishes," Scientific Monthly, 24:556, 1927.) A fish living within a fish. The shapes and sizes of such symbionts and parasites have evolved to fit their unusual niches. E.W . Gudger (see above) collected all sorts of piscine anomalies. He would have been delighted to learn of a really bizarre type of parasitism involving the spotted rose snapper (and probably other species) and a parasitic isopod (a relative of crabs and lobsters). The isopod first invades the mouth of the host fish and then consumes its tongue. It then hooks itself into the place where the tongue used to be and, being about the same size ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The View From Within A hypnotized individual can sometimes be coaxed to hallucinate his or her body image as seen by the unconscious mind. The hallucinated body image may be radically different from that conceived by the conscious mind. In cases of mental illness, the hallucinated unconscious body image may not even be a human figure but rather a bird, a fish, or an inanimate object or geometric figure. The nature of the unconscious body image seems to depend upon the nature of the emotional pathology and may even be useful in diagnosis and treatment. (Freytag, Fredericka; "The Hallucinated Unconscious Body Image," American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 7:209, 1965.) From Science Frontiers #113, SEP-OCT 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . But where oh where is this crater? The Manson crater in Iowa (now buried) is of the right age but too small. The best candidate so far is buried in northern Yucatan. The Chicxulub crater is discernible on gravity- and magneticanomaly maps and is probably of the right age. Only drilling will confirm the guilt of the suspect. Even if Chicxulub is the culprit, much debate prevails over exactly how the dinosaurs were done in. Was it a "cosmic winter" due to dust intercepting sunlight? Or perhaps a "cosmic summer" resulting from a super-greenhouse effect caused by: (1 ) impact-released methane trapped in sediments, and (2 ) the CO2 from zapped carbonate rocks. (Smit, Jan; "Where Did It Happen?" Nature, 349:461, 1991, and Sigurdsson, Haraldur, et al; "Glass from the Cretaceous/Tertiary Boundary in Haiti," Nature, 349:482, 1991.) Reference. Section ETC in catalog Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds is devoted entirely to impact craters. Ordering data here . From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... found between the numbers of reports of UFOs (unidentified flying objects) and nearby seismic activity within the Uinta Basin for the year 1967. The numbers of UFO reports per month during this classic UFO flap were correlated 0.80 with the sum of the earthquake magnitudes per month for events within 150 km of the report area. Numbers of UFO reports were not correlated significantly with earthquake activity at distances greater than 150 km but less than 250 km away. The strongest correlation occurred between UFO reports and nearby seismic activity within the same month but not for previous or consequent months. Close scrutiny of daily shifts of epicenters and reports of UFOs indicated that they occurred when the locus of successive epicenters shifted across the area. These analyses were interpreted as support for the existence of strain fields whose movements generate natural phenomena that are reported as UFOs." (Persinger, M.S ., and Derr, J.S .; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: XXIII. Relations between UFO Reports within the Uinta Basin and Local Seismicity," Perceptual and Motor Skills, 60:143, 1985.) Comment. The "natural phenomena" mentioned above are probably close kin or identical to earthquake lights. An earli-er paper by Persinger alone in the same journal (60:59, 1985) links transient and very localized geophysical forces to such psychic phenomena as haunts and poltergeist activity. These two papers are the latest in a long series, mostly authored by Persinger, in this psychological journal. Calculated correlations between seismic activity and UFO observations in the Uinta Basin. From Science Frontiers ...
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... an intimation of a transcendent mind!W.G . Pollard's article "Rumors of Transcendence in Physics," (SF#37) produced an interesting response in the American Journal of Physics by Jan Portnow. Portnow worries about Pollard's assertion that the "remarkable" tendency of mathematics to mirror physical reality betokens the existence of something beyond our ken: i.e ., transcendence. He puts it this way: "All we can ever know about the world is what our mind lets us know -- our perception and awareness of external reality are limited by our mind. We can never know more than the mind can assimilate and process, nor can we discuss any aspect of the world for which there is no language. The fact that our mathematical laws of nature explain the world is no miracle -- it can't be otherwise. The laws of nature describe the world we know and that world is a reflection of our thinking and our language -- of our mind." He goes on to maintain that the fruitfulness of math for physics hints more at the limitations of the human mind than the existence of a transcendent mind! (Portnow, Jay; "Letter to the Editor," American Journal of Physics, 53:299, 1985.) Comment. Apparently we'll be forever boxed in by the limitations of mathematics -- to say nothing of computer programs. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... great depths. Below about 70 meters, the water pressure collapses their lungs so that they sink like rocks! Of course, returning to the surface does require some exertion. (Zimmer, Carl; "The Dolphin Strategy," Discover, 18:72, March 1997.) Comments. One automatically supposes that the dolphin dorsal fin is needed for stabilization when swimming -- like an airplane's rudder. But several cetacea do quite well without dorsal fins; viz., the finless dolphin found in IndoPacific waters. Could dorsal fins actually have evolved for thermal control rather than stabilization? And how do dolphin's breathe if their lungs have collapsed? Their blood and muscles act as oxygen reservoirs -- still another evolutionary adaptation. Speaking of evolution, as one must when discussing Nature's neat methods of solving bioengineering problems, how did random mutation and natural selection hit upon the heat-exchanger and oxygen-reservoir ideas? We know! These were more millimeter-by-millimeter climbs up Mount Improbable. Reference. The finless dolphin and the general question of dorsal-fin evolution is the subject of Section BMA46 in our Catalog Mammals I . Details may be found at here . From Science Frontiers #112, JUL-AUG 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Universal Urge To Join Up Take a mouse cell and place it in contact with a human cell. The two separating membranes will dissove and the cell contents will mix. The once-independent and widely different cell nuclei will fuse, forming a single hybrid cell with a common membrane. Even more astonishing, this totally new biological entity will often divide and produce an endless line of the new hybrid. As might be expected, some hybrids do not remain true and revert to one or the other of the original species. Although cell fusion has been observed only under laboratory conditions, it seems to represent a near-universal cell phenomenon that might be realized rarely under natural conditions. The implications for the history of life are far-reaching. For example, the mitochondria in human cells that help our bodies use oxygen to obtain energy may well be descendants of bacteria that once fused with primitive cells. The same may be true for the chloroplasts in plant cells. (Thomas, Lewis; "Cell Fusion: Does It Represent a Universal Urge to 'Join Up'?" Science Digest, 86:52, December 1979.) Comment. Natural cell fusion might make large evolutionary steps possible and be much faster than endless small genetic changes. Are we all composite creatures? From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Self-organized stone stripes "Geometrically regular stripes of stones are found on many unvegetated alpine and polar hillslopes; known as 'sorted stripes' because of the characteristic textural sorting between surface stones and fine-grained soil, they contrast markedly with the lack of order typical of natural landscapes. The spacing of the stripes can range from centimeters to meters (about 10-20 times the average stone diameter), with individual stripes extending downslope for many tens of meters. A variety of formative mechanisms have been proposed, but it is still unclear how such orderly stripes can arise spontaneously, and what dictates the spacing." B.T . Werner and B. Hallet, authors of the foregoing partial abstract, have mathematically simulated the displacement of surface stones under the forces generated by the growth of needle ice in the underlying soil. As the number of freeze-thaw cycles increases into the thousands, computer simulations show the surface stones gradually arraying themselves into linear patterns. (Werner, B.T ., and Hallet, B.; "Numerical Simulation of Self-Organized Stone Stripes," Nature, 361:142, 1993.) Reference. These stone stripes represent just one type of "patterned ground." Other examples may be found in ETP1 in our catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, described here . From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Peterson, Ivars; "Microsphere Excitement," Science News, 125:408, 1984.) Comment. Two comments here: First, the word "spontaneous" is customarily employed when describing how atoms unite to form molecules and molecules combine into polymers, which then gather into microspheres. The word "spontaneous" seems to imply chance is operating rather than design. Actually, atoms and even subatomic particles must have innate properties which force them to combine into larger structures the way they do. Philosophically, one can ask whether the lowliest subatomic particles are "coded" to combine into molecules, microspheres, and living creatures. In other words, the design of life could be inherent in quarks. Second, if nonliving microspheres possess some of the properties of neurons, it is possible that natural, nonliving minds can form spontaneously -- a sort of "natural" artificial intelligence! Mind, then, could preced life, which is manifestly more complex than computers. The science-fiction possibilities are endless here. From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Memory Structure Of Autistic Idiot Savants The first two paragraphs of this study by N. O'Connor and B. Hermelin provide some interesting background concerning the idiot savant phenomenon. "There are two basic questions which arise from the phenomenon of the idiotsavant. One is whether the specific memory of the idiot-savant is categorically organized or not and the second is whether this memory is IQ independent or IQ related. The first problem needing consideration is therefore concerned with the nature of the memory system which is involved. In the idiot-savant this has, until recently, been deemed to be a relatively unorganized rote memory. It is supposed to be mechanical, inflexible and extremely concrete. However, in a number of studies we have demonstrated that the outstanding memories of idiotsavant calculators and musicians are founded on strategies which are rule based, and which draw on a knowledge of the structure of the calendar or of music. "In addition to evidence concerning the organized nature of the specific memories of idiot-savants for dates and music, we have also accumulated evidence that the eliciting of rules and the development of rule-based strategies tended to be specific in the particular areas of ability of these subjects. For example, although able to calculate past and future dates rapidly, calendrical calculators were often quite poor in the addition and subtraction of numbers unrelated to the calendar. Similarly, in one experiment, musical memory in an idiot- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Blasting Rocks Off Planets "Can rocks from the surface of a major planet or satellite be launched into interplanetary space by natural processes? A few years ago the answer to this question would have been a resounding "no" from the experts on both volcanism and impact cratering, the only geological processes known to eject solid material at substantial velocities. Observation, however, has once again confounded expectation." In the snowy wastes of Antarctica, scientists have picked up meteorites that almost certainly came from the moon and Mars. And near St. Gallen, Switzerland, there was discovered a 22-centimeter block of Malm limestone that was apparently ejected from the Ries impact crater, almost 200 kilometers away, about 15 million years ago. We know all of these rocks are impact debris because they contain shatter cones indicating a violent origin. Not only did these bits of debris confound expectations, but their shatter cones implied shock-wave pressures far too low to achieve lunar and Martian escape velocities, or even the velocity necessary to propel that chunk of Malm limestone 200 kilometers. Something was wrong somewhere. It has turned out that shock-wave theory had been misapplied. It is not the pressure that is important in ejecting bits of debris from around the impact site, but rather it is the pressure gradient. Anomaly extirpated! (Melosh, H.J .; "Blasting Rocks Off Planets," Nature, 363:498, ...
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