... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Genetic Disconnect Bandings on chromosome 9 from humans (H ), chimpanzees (C ), gorillas (G ), orang-utans (O ) If human and chimpanzee nuclear DNAs differ by only 1.5 %, why are the two species so profoundly different in anatomy and behavior? The obvious external differences are body hair, the use of language, the method of locomotion, and of course culture. Less well known is the fact that humans are more susceptible to diseases like as cancer and AIDS. Apparently, superficial comparisons of DNAs slough over genetic details that result in major differences in the living animals. Some of the genetic differences between humans and chimps seem to belie that miniscule 1.5 % difference everyone bandies about. To illustrate, humans have only 46 chromosomes, while the great apes all have 48. The 1.5 % figure doesn't hint at this significant difference. Next, take a look at chromosome #9 in humans and the great apes. Chromosome bandings are different enough to raise further suspicions about the 1.5 % figure. (Gibbons, Ann; "Which of Our Genes Make Us Human?" Science, 281:1432, 1998.) Comments. It is easy to see how gross comparisons of DNA might miss important details. The popular "DNA-hybridization" method simply mixes together strands of DNA from the two species being compared. These are allowed ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An invisible information superhighway?The eclectic nature of anomaly research occasionally uncovers connections between diverse areas of research. We recount one such instance here. On one hand is the neurological research of M.A . Persinger, at the Laurentian University, inquiring into the claimed effects of minute electromagnetic signals, such as those observed in the geomagnetic field, upon human consciousness and perception. On the other hand, we have R.G . Jahn's work in the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program, which looks into the anomalous information transfer between humans and the environment, as claimed to be seen in psychokinesis and remote viewing experiments. The research goals and methodologies differ, and the resulting reports couched in different terminologies, but the similarities are what is really important. Both scientists are exploring unconventional information pathways connecting the human brain (consciousness) and the environment. The pathways are open in both directions. First, we quote the summary from a recent Persinger paper. The jargon may be technical, but one can readily visualize the human brain immersed in a sea of signals -- nominally electromagnetic but possibly of other sorts. "Contemporary neuroscience suggests the existence of fundamental algorithms by which all sensory transduction is translated into an intrinsic, brain-specific code. Direct stimulation of these codes within the human temporal or limbic cortices by applied electromagnetic patterns may require energy levels which are within the range of both geomagnetic activity and contemporary ...

... 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 The fault, dear reader, is not in our stars but our pigs!Fred Hoyle, in his usual maverick style, has hypothesized that some human flu epidemics are caused by new viruses in jected into the biosphere from outer space. (See his book Diseases from Space .) In yet another book, Evolution from Space , he goes further, stating that the evolution of terrestrial life can also be affected by the extraterrestrial inoculation of genetic material. But, just maybe, influenza pandemics are due to pigs! Every 10-20 years, new flu viruses seem to crop up against which humans have little resistance. The latest theory is that there exists a human-duck-pig connection. It seems that human flu viruses can multiply in ducks, but are not transmitted among ducks. It is also likely that duck viruses multiply in humans, but are not transmitted from one person to another. But enter the pigs: "There is firm evidence that pigs can become infected by and may transmit both human and avian influenza viruses not only amongst other pigs but also back to the original hosts. Therefore, pigs seem to be 'mixing vessels' where two separate reservoirs meet and where reassortment between avian and human influenza A viruses occurs, giving rise to the antigenic shift by creating new human pandemic influenza strains with new surface antigens." The article stimulating this discussion worries about new aquaculture practices, especially in Asia ( ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 24: Nov-Dec 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mice Transmit Human Gene Sequences To Their Progeny Viruses habitually subvert the manufacturing facilities of host cells so that they turn out viruses instead of material useful to the host. Stewart and his col-leagues injected fertilized mouse eggs with human beta-globin gene sequences. One of the resulting adult mice carried the human gene sequence intact; one of the others carried at least part of the sequence. More significantly, the latter mouse transmitted the human gene sequence to its progeny in a Mendelian ratio. (Stewart, Timothy A., et al; "Human Beta-Globin Gene Sequences Injected into Mouse Eggs, Retained in Adults, and Transmitted to Progeny," Science, 217:1046, 1982.) Comment. Animal cells are therefore not too fastidious about what they manufacture and what is transmitted to progeny. The unanswered questions are: How far can this proxy replication and transmission of genes go; and, most important, can it occur in nature to a degree sufficient to contribute to the evolution of new species? From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 34: Jul-Aug 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Our aquatic phase!Elaine Morgan, author of The Aquatic Ape, reviews new evidence supporting the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. Sir Alister Hardy suggested this hypothesis in 1960 in an attempt to account for several human characteristics that are unique among primates but common in aquatic mammals. Some of these are: position of fetal hair, loss of body hair, subcutaneous fat, face-to-face copulation, weeping, etc. The combination of hairlessness and subcutaneous fat seems almost totally confined to aquatic mammals and humans. Two other characteristics are covered in some depth in this article: The discovery that some prehistoric shell middens consist of deep-water shellfish, which must be the result of breath-held diving. This human skill, again unique among primates, is obviously quite ancient. Furthermore, recent experiments suggest that in humans, in addition to seals and ducks, vascular constriction is not limited to the arterioles but extends to the larger arteries, too. This indicates some degree of specialized adaptation to a diving life. Most animals with a sodium deficiency display an active craving for salt which, when satisfied, disappears. In humans, salt intake has little or no relation to the body's needs. Some Inuit tribes avoid salt almost completely, while people in the Western world consume 1520 times the amount needed for health. In other works, a single African species (assuming humans have an African origin) possesses a wildly different ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did humans evolve in siberia?Russian academician Yuri Mochanov thinks so! He does not dispute that humans may also have evolved in Africa and, perhaps, Southeast Asia. And he has brought back some 4,000 stone tools collected at 15 sites in the Siberian permafrost to bolster his claim that Siberia, too, was a point of origin for hominids (see map). "Molchanov's controversial evidence is indeed striking: a collection of chipped and flaked rocks that are clearly artifacts fashioned by humanlike hands and that he contends are 2.5 million years old -- plus or minus a half-million years. "Remarkably, that same era marked the time when early human ancestors known as Homo habilis lived and left their remains in the tropical Olduvai Gorge of what is now Tanzania. Mochanov's collection of tools closely resembles the ones that anthropologists have long collected from digs in Africa." All this contrasts strongly with the dominant view of hominid evolution, which cites warm, verdant African forests and savannas as our most likely place of origin. Siberia, with its -50 winters and fleeting summers, hardly seems conducive to hominid speciation. Mochanov's rationale is that this severe climate actually stimulated ancient hominids to create tools, fashion warm clothing, and build winter shelters -- these Siberian hominids had to evolve or perish! In addition to the climate factor are two other problems: (1 ) The ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Tale Of Two Noses The vomeronasal and olfactory sensory systems. (L . Stansass, M. Reingold) First: An Anecdote. Some 30 years ago, D. Berliner, at the University of Utah, was studying human skin. To acquire raw material, he scraped skin cells from the insides of casts discarded by skiiers who had had broken bones. From this debris, Berliner extracted numerous chemical compounds. As far as anyone could tell, these substances were odorless, so he stored them in open flasks. However, Berliner noticed that when people were working in the lab with the flasks, they were more friendly and relaxed than normal. He could not divine the reason until some months later when he decided to cover the flasks of skin-derived substances. Curiously, the lab workers soon reverted to their usual grumpy selves! What could account for this strange behavior change? Knowing that animals often communicated with one another employing chemicals called pheromones, Berliner suspected that the flasks had been releasing odorless human pheromones. Sure enough, analysis of the skin-derived materials proved him correct. Next: A Look Up the Nose. Biologists have long realized that animal noses actually contain two sensory channels. The first is the familiar olfactory system, which humans also possess. The second channel is the vomeronasal system. In animals, each system has its own separate organs, nerves, and bumps in the brain. The function ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Genome-map User Beware!Omissions. Amid much hullabaloo, it was announced recently that the human genome has now been mapped. To everyone's surprise, we are said to be constructed from blueprints containing only about 30,000 genes. But how accurate are these maps that were drawn up so hastily in the bitterly contested race between the publically and privately sponsored programs? How good are those computer programs that identified these 30,000 or so genes? According to W. Haseltine, who heads Human Genome Sciences, "They're reading smudged text through foggy glasses." Haseltine's company claims to have found more than 90,000 human genes. Two other organizations have identified between 60,000 and 65,000 genes. A research group at Ohio State University at Columbus analyzed the same data used by the public consortium and estimates that there are actually human 80,000 genes! In fact, this groups avers, the public consortium's software seems to have missed 850,000 gene segments for which there already exists protein or RNA evidence. The human genome map seems to harbor many terrae incognitae. So, we best not draw profound conclusions just yet. (Kintisch, Eli; "So What's the Score?" New Scientist, p. 16, May 12, 2001.) Errors. The genome-mapping efforts of both the public consortium and private company (Celera ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Does the human brain compute, or does it do more?Of course, the human brain can add and subtract, but does it perform all of its functions by manipulating 1s and 0s, as a PC does? The recent confrontation between G.K . Kasparov, boasting two hemispheres of gray matter, and IBM's Deep Blue chess-playing computer, with its boards of silicon chips, suggests that the human brain may do things somewhat differently. Consider that in the 3 minutes allotted for each move, Deep Blue could evaluate 20 billion moves. This means that it could examine every possible move and countermove for twelve sequences ahead and, in addition, selected lines of attack for 30 sequences. Kasparov was obviously doing no such computation. Yet, he won two, drew two, and lost only one game. IBM's A.J . Hoane, Jr., remarked that chess geniuses like Kasparov "are doing some mysterious computation we can't figure out." Hoane's use of the words "mysterious computation" tells us that he is a reductionist. The implication is that everything mental can be reduced to manipulating those 1s and 0s. In reality, Kasparov's brain may have been innovating, working out new strategies, discerning Big Blue's weaknesses. These "higherlevel" functions are needed when the problem (chess) is too complex for a computer to evaluate all ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Throat-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 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 25: Jan-Feb 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Schizophrenia And Season Of Birth Several scientists have published data that suggest that schizophrenics are more likely to be born in the winter months. The data have been subjected to much criticism. In this paper, the authors were careful to avoid previous errors in data collecting and analysis. From the Abstract: "We studied the birth months of 3,556 schizophrenics at a Minnesota Veteran's Administration hospital before and after instituting corrections for year-to-year across-month variations in birthrates in our expected values and the age-prevalence bias toward the January-March seasonality effect described in some earlier studies. Finally, we reanalyzed our data on a subset of patients in whom the ageincidence effect should be minimal. Even after these corrections the results supported the contention that the winter birthrate for schizophrenics is excessive, at least in severe climates." (Watson, Charles G., et al; "Season of Birth and Schizophrenia: A Response to the Lewis and Griffin Critique," Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 91:120, 1982.) Comment. What could possibly cause this seasonal effect, assuming it withstands scrutiny? From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Reinventing The Neandertals The public image of the Neandertal is that of a brutish, hardly human creature clad in a ragged skin and unable to speak save for a few grunts. Forget that picture. Several hundred meters deep inside a cavern near Bruniquel, in southern France, spelunkers stumbled across a complex quadrilateral structure, 4 x 5 meters in extent, built up from chunks of stalactites and stalagmites. Within its "walls" they found a piece of burnt bear bone that was later carbondated as at least 47,600 years old. A burnt bone and a geometrical structure certainly suggest the work of an intelligent creature, as does the site's great distance from the surface. Torches would have been a necessity that far in. That 47,600-year figure, though, presents a problem. The first Cro-Magnons didn't filter into western Europe until about 35,000 BP. According to the accepted anthropological schedule, only those subhuman Neandertals inhabited that part of France in 47,600 BP. So, we must conclude that the Neandertals knew well the sophisticated use of fire. They also had enough curiosity to venture deep into the earth, where for some unknown purpose they piled together an enigmatic structure. All this also seems to require more information transfer than possible with a few "ughs"! (Balter, Michael; "Cave Structure Boosts Neandertal Image," Science, 271:449, ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Humans in the americas 32,000 years ago?The following abstract is from Nature. Ir relates to one of the most controversial digs in the New World: Pedra Furada, in Brazil. "The view that man did not arrive on the American continent before the last glaciation has been supported by the fact that until now the known and dated archaeological sites have not been of very great antiquity. But now we report radiocarbon dates from a Brazilian site which establish that early man was living in South America at least 32,000 years ago. These new findings come from the large painted rock shelter of Boqueirao do Sitio da Pedra Furada, the walls and ceiling of which are decorated with a rich set of prehistoric paintings. We have excavated a sequence containing abundant lithic industry and well-structured hearths at all levels. Carbon-14 dates from charcoal establish a continuous chronology indicating human occupation from 6,160 130 to 32, 160 100 years BP. A date of 17,000 400 BP, obtained from charcoal found in a level with fragments of a pictograph fallen from the walls, testifies to the antiquity of rupestral art in the region of Brazil." (Guidon, N., and Delibrias, G.; "Carbon-14 Dates Point to Man in the Americas 32,000 Years Ago," Nature, 321: 769, 1986.) Comment. The Nature article just abstracted and other reports ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When The Arctic Was Warm According to the anthropologists' schedule of hominid diffusion across the planet, the Ice Ages blocked most east-west travel at high latitudes until about 12,000 years ago. This date now seems far off the mark. A team of Russian and Norwegian archeologists has located a hominid camp at Mamontovaya Kurya in Russia on the Arctic Circle. Bones of horses, reindeer, and wolves were strewn about this Paleolithic camp. Most important of all, though, was a 4-foot mammoth bone bearing grooves made by sharp stone tools -- a sure sign of human occupation. The mammoth bone has been dated as 36,000 years old. This is the earliest sign of hominid presence in the high Arctic. These grooves on the Mamontovaya Kurya mammoth bones were made with sharp stone tools, but for what purpose? Was primitive notation in use 40,000 years ago? You will notice that we use the word "hominid" rather than human, because the campers may have been Neanderthals. No hominid bones were found to resolve this matter. The implication of all of this is that, although the Arctic may have been very cold 36,000 years ago, it was largely ice-free. (Pavlov, Pavel, et al; "Human Presence in the European Arctic Nearly 40,000 Years ago," Nature, 413:64,2001. Wilford, John Noble; " ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Strangely Selective Spider Australia's funnel web spider is one of the world's deadliest. Before an antivenin became available, this species killed one human every four years. It is not this low death rate that impels us to mention this spider. It is because the bite of the funnel web is deadly only to insects and humans. All other mammals are said to be immune. Analysis of the venom yields the remarkable fact that it consists of 45 active compounds. One of these is specific to insect brain cells; another, to human nerve cells. (da Silva, Wilson; "Spider Gives Kiss of Death to Pests," New Scientist, p. 23, May 17, 1997.) Comment. Since humans are not on the funnel web's menu, it must be only a coincidence that its venom kills people so selectively. It would be nice to know if chimps, gorillas, and orangs really are immune. A related phenomenon is seen in the venoms of cone shells. These snails are much more dangerous to humans, particularly naive shell collectors. Their venoms are extraordinarily complex and contain hundreds, perhaps thousands, of toxins. Many of these are specific to potential prey. Once again, humans are not on the menu but are included anyway. (Concar, David; "Doctor Snail," New Scientist, p. 26, October 19, 1996.) Comment. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 27: May-Jun 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hushing Up The Guadeloupe Skeleton Just offshore of Guadeloupe, in the West Indies, lies a kilometer-long formation of extremely hard limestone dated as Miocene, or about 25 million years old. Nothing surprising so far! However, history records that in the late 1700s many human skeletons -- all indistinguishable from modern humans -- were excavated from this limestone. One of the quarried specimens, ensconced in a 2-ton slab, was shipped to the British Museum. It arrived in 1812 and was placed on public display. With the ascendance of Darwinism, the fossil skeleton was quietly spirited away to the basement. The discovery of these human remains has been well-documented in the scientific literature. Here is another pertinent geological fact: the limestone formation in question is situated 2-3 meters below a 1-million-year-old coral reef. If the limestone is truly 25 million years old, the human evolutionary timetable is grossly in error. Even if this is not the case, and the bones are merely 1 million years old or so, as required by the coral reef; then, fully modern humans lived in the New World long before the Bering Land Bridge went into service. The only way a serious geological or archeological anomaly can be avoided is to predicate that the limestone formation was really laid down in the last 10,000-20,000 years -- something like that doesn't ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 139: Jan-Feb 2002 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Who Needs Boats?We don't know why our distant ancestors would forsake the idyllic tropical island of Bali, but some 900,000 years ago they somehow reached Flores, the next Indonesian island in the chain trending toward Australia. Sea levels were lower 900,000 years ago, but Flores was still 19 kilometers away. How did our ancestors cross this water barrier? There is no evidence whatsoever that these hominids built boats. How about simple rafts? Possibly, but there is another way. They swam the 19 kilometers (12 miles)! Many modern humans can paddle this far and it seems reasonable that ancient peoples could, too. Another water barrier may have been crossed by African swimmers a million or so years ago. Their artifacts are found in southern Spain. Did they swim across the Strait of Gibraltar rather than trek the long land route through the Middle East and across mountainous southern Europe? These possible aquatic feats of our ancestors are not in themselves enough to strongly interest an anomalist but when they are coupled to another recent discovery they add weight to a much more fascinating speculation that early hominids were once marine mammals -- or at least nearly so. More important to this radical thesis than human swimming prowess is the recent scuttling of of the vaunted paradigm that modern humans began evolving only when they split from the forest-dwelling primates and invaded the African savannahs. It now seems that the regions once ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Blindsight Also Occurs In Monkeys Blindsight is an eerie phenomenon. Humans with cortical blindness; that is, they have lost their primary visual cortex through brain damage or disease; can still detect objects and yet be unaware of them. Doesn't sound right, does it? The situation is this: A person, apparently totally blind, can somehow discern the location, form, and size of objects, but they will swear that they "see" nothing at all. In fact, they are blind by all tests. They have blindsight. One explanation of blindsight maintains that the visual cortex has not been totally destroyed, and that functional remnants remain. In scientific terms, blindsight represents "suboptimal functioning of the primary visual cortex." But now, A. Cowey and P. Stoerig report that they have totally removed the primary visual cortex from monkeys' brains. (Something one would not try with humans!) Tests with the visual cortex-less monkeys demonstrated that they possessed blindsight. Therefore, blindsight does not seem to be "suboptimal functioning" of a damaged brain -- at least in monkeys. Blindsight thus remains a mysterious biological function. How do blindsighted humans detect objects of which they are not visually aware? Somehow information about the visual world appears in the brain. (Cowey, Alan, and Stoerig, Petra; "Blindsight in Monkeys," Nature, 373: 247, 1995. Also ...

... ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tyrannies Of The Tiny Because we cannot see them with the naked eye, we tend to forget that the earth's atmosphere, its oceans, and the solid crust to unknown-but-great depths are colonized in profusion by minute biological entities -- mainly bacteria and viruses. Only when we get the flu or infected finger do these entities impinge upon our consciousness. Below we will learn that there are many more of them than you think. Do viruses control the oceans? You may avoid the beaches after you learn that one teaspoon of seawater typically contains 10-100 million viruses and onetenth that many bacteria. Obviously, most are harmless to humans. However, the viruses do infect the bacteria and phytoplankton, destroying them, and thereby releasing their nutrients. By doing this, they keep the oceans' biological engines running. Further, the viruses act as genetic engineers as they transfer DNA from one individual to another. The oceans may be viewed as vast test tubes in which biodiversity is maintained by teeming, invasive viruses. (Suttle, Curtis A.; "Do Viruses Control the Oceans?" Natural History, 108:48, February 1999.) We are only 10% human! The average human body contains 100 trillion cells, but only 1 in 10 of these cells is your own. The remaining 90% are bacteria. These alien organisms coat your skin and pave your inner passageways from mouth to anus. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Eyeless Vision Tomatoes see red. And other colors, too! We touched on this subject over a decade ago. (SF#54) Then we described how the use of red plastic mulch greatly improves the yields of tomato plants. More recent research reveals that fruit quality and resistance to pests are also improved. How can this be? Plant leaves, it turns out, contain color sensors -- light-sensitive pigments similar to those it the human retina. Obviously, the plants do not "see," but the pigments provide environmental information. Here's the mechanism: plant leaves reflect infrared light well, so when a tomato plant's pigments detect a lot of infrared, the plant "thinks" that it may be crowded out by competing vegetation. The tomato plant responds aggressively by growing more rapidly. The red plastic mulch between the rows also reflects a lot of infrared light, and it thereby tricks the tomato plant into accelerating its growth. (Raloff, Janet; "When Tomatoes See Red," Science News, 152:376, 1997.) Fire-detecting beetles. The beetle Melanophila acuminata seeks out forests that have just been ravaged by fires so that it can lay its eggs in the nutritious, freshly burnt wood. These insects are capable of detecting fires up to 32 kilometers (20 miles) distant. They do not see the fire with their eyes but instead detect the ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Shc or h/t homicide?The possible case of SHC (Spontaneous Human Combustion) just reported above may have a rational but bizarre explanation. S.L . Wernokoff commented as follows in the Journal of Meteorology: "The very first thing that comes to mind is whether overloaded hightension [H /T ] or low-tension wires were anywhere nearby. Since this incident occurred at a roadside, nearby power lines may well have been present. If such lines are overloaded or badly insulated, fatal arcing can occur from the ground at a considerable distance from the power lines. This has happened often in our country [the U.S .] , in rural areas where public utilities have quietly exceeded the capacity of their lines. The resulting discharges can easily electrocute livestock over mile from the 'leaky' H/T lines. I would wager that the Hungarian utility agencies are guilty of the same practice. Personally, I suspect that this unfortunate young man may have been electrocuted through his own urine! The 'blue light' witnessed by the victim's wife may have been St. Elmo's Fire -- an ungrounded luminous corona visible around the victim in the humid, pre-thunderstorm conditions. The hole in his heel and tennis shoe indicate where the current finally grounded itself." Wernikoff goes on to tell of a case in Canada where a man washing up at an outdoor table, 100 ...

... 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 Artifacts Of The Auriferous Gravels Now dismissed entirely and even ridiculed by establishment archeologists is the evidence of ancient human activity found in California's auriferous gravels. R.E . Gentet sets the geological stage in the following paragraph. "The 1849 gold rush to the state of California was the beginning of some of the most unusual reported finds of early man in North America. The gold-bearing gravels of California are recognized as being Tertiary in age, ranging from oldest to youngest Tertiary, depending upon the exact geological setting. At the time these gravels were deposited, volcanic eruptions also laid down lava beds, often tens or scores of feet thick. This occurred a number of times, and together with much erosion since then, have now resulted in table mountains, that is, lava-capped hills where the harder lava has better withstood erosion stresses while surrounding softer material has been swept away. It is under the hard lava beds, in the gold-bearing (auriferous) gravels, where the reported human bones and artifacts were found, not just once or twice, but hundreds of times by miners during the span of time from the 1850s through the 1890s while engaging in mining operations. Findings were spread over a wide geographical area." During the late 1800s, several books and many papers recorded the discoveries. Some of the finds were made by respected scientists of the day. Human skulls were found embedded over ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Explaining the "artifact gaps"Earthquake researchers speak of "seismic gaps," where earthquakes "should occur but don't . Well, "artifact gaps" exist, too, namely in North America and northern Australia. Both Australia and the Americas seem to have been peopled late; and both regions seem to have been invaded from the north - according to conventional thinking. Serious anomalies arise because some controversial dates of human occupation from South America and southern Australia are considerably older than those from North America and northern Australia* - at least if we dismiss those North American dates considered as "unreliable" by the archeological establishment. In the Americas, reliable dates older than 12,000 years are found in South America (Monte Verde, Chile); in Australia, all dates exceeding 24,000 years are found along the southern coast.* The "artifact gaps" are therefore clearly established! R.G . Bednarik, in a recent paper in Antiquity, offers a related observation: "It is generally agreed that both regions have been settled from the north, yet no trace has been found of the first settlers in either North America or northern Australia. In northern Australia one finds groundedge axes at up to 23,000 b.p ., which have no counterparts in the probable catchment area of the first colonizers, Indonesia; while in North America the earlist human settlers used elaborate projectile points, which ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A RUSSIAN PALUXY "This spring, an expedition from the Institute of Geology of the Turkmen SSR Academy of Sciences found over 1,500 tracks left by dinosaurs in the mountains in the southeast of the Republic. Impressions resembling in shape a human footprint were discovered next to the tracks of the prehistoric animals." Professor Kurban Amanniyazov, leader of the expedition, elaborated: "We've discovered imprints resembling human footprints, but to date have failed to determine, with any scientific veracity, whom they belong to, after all. Of course, if we could prove that they do belong to a humanoid, it would create a revolution in the science of man. Humanity would 'grow older' thirty-fold and its history would be at least 150 million years long." (Anonymous; "Tracking Dinosaurs," Moscow News, no. 24, p. 10, 1983. Cr. V. Rubtsov.) Comment. Strata along the Paluxy River, Texas, contain a similar mixture of dinosaur and human-like tracks. From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Measuring Spirituality!" The connection between matter and spirit has been debated for millennia. The central mystery is that certain material objects (human beings) contrive to be conscious and to possess a spiritual dimension. This implies that matter itself has some rudimentary spiritual character." From this opening paragraph, D. Jones advances his thesis by assuming that the spiritual world occupies the same space as the material world. The two "worlds," though are usually only very weakly coupled. However, during the 12-billionyear history of the universe they have had ample time to come into thermodynamic equilibrium. In other words the average temperatures of the material and spiritual worlds are equal; i.e ., 3 K, the same as the microwave background. It is, of course, this low average temperature of the spiritual world that accounts for the chill felt when a spiritual entity (ghost) enters a room and is coupled to the material world. Continuing on this tack, Jones now plans to measure whether holy relics and other material objects with high spiritual value cool faster than non-spiritual objects. He also hopes to work with biological materials, specifically the human brain, which is the seat of consciousness and spiritual thought. Human brains, particularly those of holy men, should be tightly coupled to the cold spiritual world. These human brains should cool much faster than, say, a sirloin steak. Speculating even further ...