Science Frontiers
The Unusual & Unexplained

Strange Science * Bizarre Biophysics * Anomalous astronomy
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About Science Frontiers

Science Frontiers is the bimonthly newsletter providing digests of reports that describe scientific anomalies; that is, those observations and facts that challenge prevailing scientific paradigms. Over 2000 Science Frontiers digests have been published since 1976.

These 2,000+ digests represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Sourcebook Project, which publishes Science Frontiers, also publishes the Catalog of Anomalies, which delves far more deeply into anomalistics and now extends to sixteen volumes, and covers dozens of disciplines.

Over 14,000 volumes of science journals, including all issues of Nature and Science have been examined for reports on anomalies. In this context, the newsletter Science Frontiers is the appetizer and the Catalog of Anomalies is the main course.


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Compilations of back issues can be found in Science Frontiers: The Book, and original and more detailed reports in the The Sourcebook Project series of books.


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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Costa rica's neglected stone spheres Books and articles on Stonehenge, the Easter Island statues, and the Egyptian pyramids are legion. Granted that these structures are important and intriguing, we still ask why Costa Rica's meticulously wrought stone spheres are languishing in the wings of science. They epitomize exquisite workmanship. Such geometric perfection rendered in granite is remarkable-- -for any ancient culture. Lastly, the stones' purpose completely escapes us. Why strew such masterpieces of stoneworking around and even buried under the dark jungle floors? M.T . Shoemaker also wonders about these things in a nice recapitulation of the stone-sphere mystery ... His compilation of facts and figures only impels us to learn more about the spheres and what their shapers had in mind. The spheres are found on the Diquis River delta, near the Pacific coast of southern Costa Rica. Stone-sphere sizes range from an inch to 8 feet in diameter. At least 186 spheres have been recorded in the literature. Surely many more were destroyed and other remain undiscovered. No local source exists for the granite; and no stone-working tools have been found near the spheres. "The best spheres are perhaps the finest examples of precision stonecarving in the ancient world." The maximum circumference error in a 6-foot, 7-inch diametre sphere in only 0.5 inch, or 0.2 %. The spheres are often grouped, ...
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... usually jump to the conclusion that they have been shaped by human hands. We assume that natural forces are too erratic to sculpt such neat geometrical solids. This stance is sometimes justified, as confirmed by the hundreds of precisely executed stone spheres found in the jungles of Costa Rica. Nature herself, however, is often an expert craftswoman. Some concretions are beautifically spherical, so are some spheres fashioned in volcanic calderas. In Utah, though, southeast of Cleveland, in a formation called the Molen Reef, there are literally millions ... American, no. 29, p. 31, 1999.) Comment. Smaller lithified "mudballs" (usually under 1-foot diameter) have been reported from many geological formations worldwide. (See ESA2-X3 in Neglected Geological Anomalies.) The Costa Rican human-fashioned stone spheres are cataloged in MSO2 in our just-published Ancient Infrastructure. Large, calcareous, spherical concretions create a "rock city" in Kansas. (From: Neglected Geological Anomalies). From Science Frontiers #127, JAN-FEB ... 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 Natural Stone Spheres Whenever we see nearly perfectly wrought stone spheres in natural settings, we usually jump to the conclusion that they have been shaped by human hands. We assume that natural forces are too erratic to sculpt such neat geometrical solids. This stance is sometimes justified, as confirmed by the hundreds of precisely executed stone spheres found in the jungles of Costa Rica. Nature herself ...
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... , 1998.) Comment. The burial of the Olmec head might have had ritual significance, like the ritual smashing of pottery or the sacrificing of animals. Be this as it may, we wish to connect the Olmec heads with the large stone spheres found in Costa Rica, just a few hundred miles down the Pacific Coast. The Costa Rican spheres are also beautifully and laboriously crafted from hard rock. Many are several feet in diameter. The curious part is that many of them were also buried in the jungle soil like ... Olmec heads. They were exhumed only when banana plantations were established. Giant Olmec head (San Lorenzo I) From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . Now in its third printiing, our archeology Handbook reproduces hundreds of items from the difficult-to-obtain archeological literature. Typical subjects covered: Ancient Florida canals * The Maltese "cart tracks" * New England earthworks * Ancient coins in America * Ancient Greek analog computer * Inscriptions and tablets in unexpected places * The great ruins at Tiahuanaco * Zimbabwe and Dhlo-dhlo * Huge spheres in Costa Rica * The Great Wall of Peru * Ancient batteries and lenses * Mysterious walls everywhere * Pacific megalithicsites * European stone circles and forts * [Picture caption: Scottish carved stones from circa 1000 B.C . Comments from reviews ". .. a useful reference in undergraduate, public, and high school libraries", Booklist. 792 pages, hardcover, $23.95, 240 ... longer available. Now in its third printiing, our archeology Handbook reproduces hundreds of items from the difficult-to-obtain archeological literature. Typical subjects covered: Ancient Florida canals * The Maltese "cart tracks" * New England earthworks * Ancient coins in America * Ancient Greek analog computer * Inscriptions and tablets in unexpected places * The great ruins at Tiahuanaco * Zimbabwe and Dhlo-dhlo * Huge spheres in Costa Rica * The Great Wall of Peru * Ancient batteries and lenses * Mysterious walls everywhere * Pacific megalithicsites * European stone circles and forts * [Picture caption: Scottish carved stones from circa 1000 B.C . Comments from reviews ". .. a useful reference in undergraduate, public, and high school libraries", Booklist. 792 pages, hardcover, $23.95 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Costa rica's neglected stone spheres The calico debate, plus a little editorializing Astronomy Small icy comets and cosmic gaia Carbon in a new comet Meteorites also transport organic payloads Supernova confusion and mysteries "COMPACT STRUCTURES": WHAT NEXT? Biology Nose news Checklist of apparently unknown animals New vertebrate depth record Aggressive mimicry Parasites control snail behavior Geology Do large meteors/comets come in cycles? Complexities of the inner earth Geophysics Concentrated source of lightning in cloud More carolina waterguns More moodus sounds Inside a texas tornado Ship enveloped by false radar echo Psychology Dowsing skeptics converted Do dreams reflect a biological state? ...
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... as 12 miles out to sea. Pottery found near the figure has been carbondated at 200 BC and is assignable to the Paracas Culture. Separated by 130 miles from the Nazca Plain, with its famed giant figures, the Candelabra apparently is not the work of the Nazca people. It is puzzling why that such a figure would be placed where it could be seen best by sailors. As with Costa Rica's stone spheres, the Candelabra's makers, purpose, and symbology are in doubt. The Pisco geoglyph really doesn't match the motifs in our books on South American archeology. Some archeologists say it is only a trident, but who ever saw a trident like this? F. Joseph, the author of the present article, thinks it looks like a Jimson weed ... Furthermore, he states that there is a miniature version of the Candelabra drawn on a rock in California's Cleveland National Forest. Joseph associates the two candelabras in this way: The ancient inhabitants of Peru voyaged to California to collect Jimson weed and other hallucinatory drugs. When they sailed back to Peru with their cargo, they used the Pisco geoglyph as a navigational aid! (Joseph, Frank; "The Candelabra of the Andes," The Ancient American , 2:10, no. 10, 1995.) From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 The Spheres Can Dance To Convoluted Music A lot has been written about the "music of the spheres." But we don't hear much about this celestial music anymore; rather, "dances of the spheres" are in vogue. If only gravity and Newton's Laws ruled celestial motion, there would be no general solution to the hoary "three-body problem. But in the three special configurations illustrated, three bodies of equal mass can be shown to be stable. The third, the figure-of-eight, was not discovered until 1993 by C. Moore. Although mathematicians can prove it is stable, R. Montgomery admits: There is no understanding of why the orbit is stable, from either a physical or mathematical point of view. Certainly no figure-eight orbits have ever been observed in the cosmos so far, but who knows?. The situation becomes really bizarre when more than three equal masses are considered. A few of the many stable, but manifestly weird, configurations are also illustrated here. These are among the simplest. To illustrate, C. Simo has found a stable choreography for 799 bodies cavorting happily and stably together in space. And he was using only his laptop! (Appell, David; "Celestial Swingers," New Scientist, p. 36, August 4, 2001.) From Science Frontiers #139, Jan-Feb 2002 . 2001 William ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Disorder Here Produces Order There Physicists use the word "entropy" to describe the well-observed tendency of the universe to run down; that is, become more disorderly. In some situations, though, the increase in disorder (entropy) in one part of the universe can create order elsewhere. For example, if you add tiny plastic spheres of two sizes to salty water, you will not get a uniform mixture. Instead the larger spheres will pack together into tightly ordered crystaline shapes (representing more order) while the smaller spheres become more disordered. It is like watching cream unstir itself from coffee. It smacks of magic, but it is all within the laws of thermodynamics. This strange "force" exerted by entropy may explain some puzzling biological phenomena, such as the expulsion of nuclei from mammalian red blood cells before they enter the bloodstream as sacks of hemoglobin. The idea being that the increasing entropy of the proliferating hemoglobin molecules (analogous to the smaller spheres) is maximized when the nuclei (large spheres) are squeezed out of the cells altogether. (Kestenbaum, David; "Gentle Force of Entropy Bridges Disciplines," Science, 279:1849, 1998.) Comments. The red-blood-cell example presented in the article is on shaky ground, because while mammalian red blood cells do lack nuclei those of birds and reptiles retain theirs. (See BMC6 in Mammals II .) In ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mental Deflection Of Cascading Spheres "9 ,000 polyethylene spheres, 3/4 " diameter, cascade downward through 360 nylon pegs to be collected in 19 bins each equipped with real-time counters and LED displays. The 'Baseline' distribution of terminal bin populations is found closely to approximate Gaussian, so that normal statistics can be applied. Operators attempt, on volition or instruction, to shift the distribution mean to the right or left of the baseline value. Results, plotted as cumulative deviations of the mean, display comparable levels of significance and similar individual 'signatures' of achievement to those obtained by the same operators on our microelectronic random event generator." (Jahn, R.G ., et al; "A Psychokinesis Experiment with a Random Mechanical Cascade," The Explorer, l:7 , November 1983.) Comment. The abstract does not come right out and say it, but some subjects do, with high degrees of statistical significance, slightly alter the cascades of falling spheres. These experiments were conducted at Princeton and constitute some of the best modern evidence for the reality of psychokinesis. From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Btt And Surreality If you think that Beloff's "rent" in the fabric of the cosmos is a bizarre concept, it's because you haven't heard about BTT. Named after S. Banach and A. Tarski, the Banach-Tarski Theorems (BTT) were conceived 70 years ago, and they have challenged common sense ever since. Of course, no one expects that all branches of mathematics will mirror physical reality; but BTT is definitely ultra-weird, so much so that we had to invent that adjective! Take, for example, this specific BTT result presented by B. Augenstein: "In particular, a solid sphere with unit radius can be cut into five pieces in such a way that two of the pieces can be reassembled into one solid sphere with unit radius, while the other three pieces are reassembled into a second solid sphere with unit radius. These are the minimum numbers of pieces required to do the trick, but it can be repeated indefinitely." Impossible, you say? Can one sphere fragment and be reconstituted as two solid spheres of the same size? Regardless of what the math says, it cannot happen in the real world! Well, BTT actually does mirror just such a phenomenon found in particle physics: "The magical way in which a proton entering a metal target can produce a swarm of new copies of protons emerging from that target, each identical to the original, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Revolving Sphere Of Light The following report is from H.D . Mayor, a scientist at Baylor College of Medicine: During an incredible electrical storm [in Houston, Texas, on 18 June 1991] in the evening while sitting at a table in the breakfast room, I saw a ball of lightning enter the utility room [an extension of the breakfast room] apparently through the back door. It hovered as a revolving sphere of bright yellow, orange and red light about 10 inches in diameter, in the air about three feet above the floor. It stayed in the same place. After about two or three seconds the globe disappeared with a loud pop rather like a discharge from a champagne bottle. The discharge was followed by a distinct odor of ozone. My Siamese cat also appeared to see the ball; at least he ran toward it. (Mayor, Heather D.; "Watching the Ball," Nature, 353:496, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When Like Charges Attract The above title implies that a basic law of physics has been overturned. Indeed, a commentary in Nature by C.A . Murray begins as follows: "Larsen and Grier, on page 230 of this issue [Ref. 2], show that two similarly charged polymer spheres suspended in water can attract each other when they are several diameters apart. This surprising result casts some light on a tricky theoretical many-body problem that has been swept under the rug for a century, and it has implications for colloids in nature and in industrial processes." (Ref. 1) Exactly what happens is not yet clear. This counter-intuitive phenomenon occurs in a many-body situation, where screening charges are established between the like-charged spheres. Although Coulomb's Law states that like charges repel one another, the presence of screening particles complicates the picture, as do the van der Waals dipole interactions. The microscopic situation may be murky, but there is no doubt on the macroscopic level that unexpected attractive forces are operating. For example, when sub-microscopic, electrically charged latex spheres are suspended in water, one would expect a homogeneous colloidal soup. Instead, the tiny, charged spheres pull themselves together in patchy, but ordered arrays. These metastable groupings of spheres are called "crystallites." Theorists are not certain what is going on. References Ref. 1. Murray ...
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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 Nudging Probability The premiere issue of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, published by the Society for Scientific Exploration, contains an excellent summary of the ESP research conducted at Princeton over the past several years. R.G . Jahn, the leader of the Princeton group, terms the research "Engineering Anomalies Research." This title is apparently more palatable to mainstream science than "Mental Influence on Electronic Devices" or "Affecting Cascading Spheres with Thought Waves." Nevertheless, most of the experimental work is in these two areas. As parapsychological research goes, the Princeton work is of the highest scientific quality. In the first category, subjects (called operators in the report) were asked to influence the pulses produced by a Random Event Generator (REG). The REG was actually an electronic noise source coupled with circuits that created random positive and negative pulses. The operator mentally tried to increase or decrease the number of counts, or generate baseline data for experiment control. After 33 different operators and over 250,000 trials, there appeared a small but statistically significant indication that the operators were actually able to influence the equipment. Also interesting is the fact that each operator had a private "signature"; that is, individual cumulative deviation graphs (like the one shown) had typical shapes for each operator. Related experiments were carried out with a Random Mechanical Cascade (RMC). In this device 9,000 3/4 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 19: Jan-Feb 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Magic numbers in helium-atom clusters Because spheres can be packed snugly together in certain configurations, one would expect the atoms of inert gases, such as helium, to cluster together in similar tightly packed groups. The numbers of spheres or atoms in these geometrically and energetically favored clusters are termed "magic." One would expect, for example, the number 13 to be magic because this would be the number of spheres fitting tightly into a 20-sided solid. Sure enough, when clusters of helium atoms are "weighed" with a mass spectrometer, the number 13 is strongly favored; so are 19, 25, 55, 71, 87, and 147. Some of these experimentally derived magic numbers can be predicted theoretically, but others were surprises. Some theoretical magic numbers did not turn out to be magic in reality; notably 7, 33, and 43. Clearly nature has other criteria for "magickness" than the physicists. (Anonymous; "Magic Numbers Do Hold Atoms Together," New Scientist, 92:598, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #19, JAN-FEB 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Those Darn Quarks There's no escaping it, those fractionally charged niobium balls just can't be swept under the rug. In fact, more recent experiments have served only to accentuate the anomaly. Researchers at Stanford University have been magnetically suspending superconducting niobium spheres in a modern version of Millikan's oil-drop experiment. With the niobium spheres thus suspended, their net electrical charges can be measured. The trouble is that several of the spheres have fractional electrical charges -- + 1/3 or -1 /3 electronic charges. For decades the charge on the electron was supposed to be the basic, indivisible natural unit of electrical charge. In 1964, however, theorists began muddying the waters with talk of new fundamental constituents of matter called quarks, which could possess 1/3 or 2/3 electron charges. No one really expected that quarks, if they existed at all, would be floating around free. But the niobium balls tell us that not only are quarks free but that we could have detected them with relatively simple experiments decades ago if we had not been so blinded by the idea of integral electronic charges. (Robinson, Arthur L.; "Evidence for Free Quarks Won't Go Away," Science, 211:1028, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Presumed Ball Lightning November 24, 1987. Tulsa, Oklahoma. "Circa 3:20 P.M . CST. Location: 2800 Southwest Blvd. in said city. Parents of Keith L. Partain saw a lightning strike near an oil refinery storage tank. Immediately after the strike they saw a bluish sphere with red and yellow highlights, not more than 9 feet in diameter, some 100 yards away, near the tank. The sphere lasted in that form some five seconds before fragmenting in a loud detonation. During the act of detonation the sphere became an irregular spheroid before fragmentation. Mr. Partain reported that he could feel the heat from the detonation. Both individuals, seated in a truck, were quite astounded by the apparition. The weather was quite stormy and violent in its gales, rain and lightning." (Partain, Keith; personal communication, November 24, 1987.) Comment. K. Partain checked the Catalog Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights and classified the phenomenon as GLB1 or Ordinary Ball Lightning. The above book is described here . The ball lightning figured left was seen near an Albany, NY, factory in 1975. The event closely resembles that reported by the Partains. From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ironclad proof of the moon's origin? Did earth and moon "coaccrete" at the same time? That is, did two clouds of debris simultaneously collect and coalesce into two rough spheres, which then began orbiting about a common center of gravity? Or, perhaps the earth and moon were once a single mass that ultimately fissioned due to the gravitational tugging of a passing massive object. If either of these scenarios were correct, earth and moon would have similar bulk compositions. This, however, does not seem to be the case. The abundance and distribution of iron on the moon's surface, as measured by the lunar probe Clementine , indicates that the moon is richer than the earth in refractory (high meltingpoint) compounds. The moon, therefore, almost certainly originated elsewhere, contrary to what most astronomers have longbelieved. Given the constraints of celestial mechanics, the most likely hypothesis postulates a colossal impact involving protoearth and the interloping protomoon. After considerable havoc, the two battered spheres settled down into their present configuration. Thus expire the two most popular theories of the moon's origin. (Lucey, Paul G., et al; "Abundance and Distribution of Iron on the Moon," Science, 268:1150, 1995) From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... China in South America Egyptian Electricity Palenque Astronaut China in India Jinmium [MGS Symbols] Horses in South America Microscopic Engraving MGQ QUIPUS AND STRING FIGURES Quipus String Figures MGS SYMBOLS, MOTIFS Cup-and-Ring Carvings Painted Pebbles (Mas d'Azil) Grafitti Comalcalco Pyramid-Brick Markings Jinmium Petroglyphs [also MGP] Painted Lima Beans Minoan Labyrinth Motif Pecked crosses Incised Star Configurations Pockmarks Clay Tokens with Symbols Hindu Motifs in America Hindu Motifs in Indonesia Chinese Motifs in America [MGP] Mexican Sellos Kekip Sesonator Apparent Symbols on Ancient Strata [MGW] Fingerprint Markings Freemason Signs in Anomalous Places Lakin Tablets Spirals African Motifs Worldwide Japanese Symbols Worldwide Inscribed Tokens Pedra Pintada Symbols Old World Motifs in Northeastern North America (Eskimos, etc.) MGT STATUES, CARVINGS, SEALS Crystal Skulls Sphinx Easter Island Statues Carved Spheres [MSO] Chinese Carvings in America Egyptian Carvings in Australia Acambaro Figurines Mastadon and Elephant Carvings in Anomalous Places Nampa Image Olmec Heads Chinese Seals in Ireland Jade Objects in America Fossil Man of Onodaga (Hoax) Gorilla Carvings in Mesoamerica Ape Carvings in North America Unexpected Faces in America Burrows Cave Artifacts Maize Carvings in India Hooded Snake in America Serpent Sculpture Worldwide Australian Head Carving in cave Crespi Collection Engraved Pebbles Gateway-of-the-Sun Symbols Tiahuanaco Heads Tiny, Gold Airplanes Mexican Cylinder Seals Ica Stones Roman Head in Mexico Phoenician Carvings in Britain MGW WRITING Script in Australia Indus Writing (Mohenjo-Daro) Mystic Symbol Oklahoma Runestones Bat Creek Tablet Easter Island "Writing" Mechanicsburg Stones Kensington Stone Cuna/Kuna Writing Hearn Tablet Chinese in America Ogam in America Norse Runes in America Davenport Tablets Sherbrooke ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mind Before Life For some years S.W . Fox, at the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Evolution, University of Miami, has been experimenting with possible precursors of life. So-called "microspheres" are hot items in Coral Gables these days. Fox and his colleagues make microspheres by preparing a heated stew of various amino acids. These amino acids form long polymer chains spontaneously. Then, when water is added and the mixture reheated (or processed in some other way), the polymers organize themselves, again spontaneously, into spheres a few microns in diameter. Each sphere consists of a two-layer membrane with residual material trapped inside. Although thicker, the microsphere membrane is very similar to the lipid bi-layer enclosing normal living cells. The relatively stable microspheres could, in theory, have formed sheltered environments for the evolution of the more complicated parts of living cells. The microspheres absorb sunlight and, with the addition of this energy, display some of the electrical characteristics of biological neurons, like those in the brain. The implication is that some components of "mind" may have existed in the very earliest life forms. (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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 1: September 1977 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects First writing may have been three-dimensional Archeologists have long been puzzled by large numbers of small, fired-clay objects found in the Middle East. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, University of Texas at Austin, believes that these small geometrical shapes (cones, spheres, disks, etc.) were actually symbols used in commerce to indicate numbers and types of commodities (sheep, oil, etc.). Generally less than an inch in size, the clay objects were apparently sealed in hollow clay spheres to make bills of lading as early as 8,500 B.C . This is 5,000 years before two-dimensional clay tablets were introduced for writing. (Anonymous; "From Reckoning to Writing," Scientific American, p. 58, August 1977.) Comment. These clay symbols might be related to the painted pebbles and small carved stone balls found in Europe. From Science Frontiers #1 , September 1977 . 1977-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... was seen sometime between 3:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon sometime in September 1943. The color was at times orange and yellow, sometimes green, blue, and red. The sky was overcast and the object was on the starboard side of the ship as it moved towards the NW. The ship's crew, consisting of about 20 men, saw the event and concluded that it might be a 'fireball.'" Original observation by Charles L. Reifenhler. (Seal, James; personal communication, June 25, 1986.) Comment. For more accounts of Lumi-nouw Aerial Bubbles, see category GLD7 in Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. This catalog is described here . August 17, 1876. Numerous, luminous, multicolored, bubble-like spheres observed at Ringstead Bay, England. Thousands of the iridescent spheres engulfed observers. This account (Catlog #GLD7-X3) is in the same class as the above observation. From Science Frontiers #47, SEP-OCT 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 118: Jul-Aug 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Song Of The Earth After a major earthquake, the entire earth quivers like a sphere of jelly suspended in space. Already a slightly oblate sphere, the planet becomes successively a bit more oblate, then a bit more prolate, as illustrated. The amplitudes of these deformations are small, just a centimeter or so after big quakes. The tone or frequency of the quivers is just a few millihertz, which translates to periods ranging from 3-54 minutes. We doubt that the telestomping elephants mentioned under BIOLOGY can detect these quiverings. That the earth does indeed "ring" is old news. Geophysicist A.E .H . Love mentioned the possibility in 1911. It is also recognized that large earthquakes can set the earth to ringing (" quivering" is better). What is news is the discovery by N. Suda et al that our planet rings even when no major quakes are occurring, and no one yet knows why. Suda et al write: "The observed "background" free oscillations represent some unknown dynamic process of Earth." Suda and his colleagues detected these oscillations using a superconducting gravimeter, which they installed in a seismically-quiet place: Antarctica. The favorite explanation for the background oscillations is turbulence in the earth's atmosphere. Ocean tides and currents are also on the list as potential "bell-ringers." [El Ninos were not mentioned!] (Suda, Naoki ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Earthquakes And Mima Mounds In a recent paper in Nature, P.B . Umbanhower et al described how they created regular geometric patterns in a layer of fine particles (only 0.15 mm in diameter) spread on a vibrating surface. At various forcing frequencies, they saw the layer of tiny brass spheres heap up into hexagonal honeycombs, circular piles, and even stranger shapes. (Umbanhower, Paul B., et al; "Localized Excitations in a Vertically Vibrated Granular Layer," Nature, 382: 793, 1996) Comment. Nothing anomalous here, you say? Quite right, but perhaps there is in this experiment an explanation of a long-recognized geological anomaly: The origin of the famed Mima Mounds found scattered by the thousands in various regions of the planet, such as Mima Prairie near Puget Sound, in Washington State. Actually, the demonstration of Umbanhower et al was preceded by a similar experiment back in 1990. In that year, A.W . Berg reported in Geology how he had covered a piece of plywood with a thin layer of fine sand (loess) and subjected the plywood sheet to impacts simulating earthquakes. Lo and behold, the sand rose up in an array of Mima Mound-like heaps. (See: SF#69 and p. 201 in the book Science Frontiers. This book is described here . Umbanhower, a physicist, probably doesn't read Geology ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why aren't beach pebbles round?The next time you walk along an ocean beach, forget the greater anomalies of nature and pick up a few well-worn pebbles. Q.R . Wald collected 200 such at random and measured them with calipers. He found that their three axes tended toward the ratios 7:6 :3 . No, beach pebbles are not spherical, they are flattened ovoids. We would naturally expect that the ceaseless action of the surf would turn out nearly perfect spheres. So much for intuition! (Wald, Quentin R.; "The Form of Pebbles," Nature, 345:211, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 California Sea Serpent Flap During October and November 1983, several sightings of a dark, eel-like creature came from the California coast. (Stinson Beach, north of San Francisco, and Costa Mesa). Three humps (just like in the classic sea serpents on old maps) followed a small head, which rose above the surface to look around. Many individuals saw the serpent, some with binoculars. At Stinson Beach, the animals was followed by about 100 birds and two dozen sea lions. (Anonymous; "' Sea Serpents' Seen off California Coast," International Society of Cryptozoology Newsletter, 2:9 , Winter 1983.) Comment. Of the vertebrates, only mammals are built so that they can easily flex vertically. Reference. We catalog mammalian "sea serpents" under BMU in Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. For more information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 An exploded planet and the "face on mars"Between Mars and Jupiter swirls the main main asteroid belt. In the view of many astronomers, including T. Van Flandern, there resides the debris of an exploded planet. Van Flandern has adduced considerable evidence supporting the exploded planet hypothesis, which we will pass over in favor of a look at the possible effects of said exploding planet upon a large but equally hypothetical satellite of said planet. Such a satellite would have been heavily pelted by debris on the side facing the exploding planet. Furthermore, this battered sphere, having lost its gravitational "anchor," would assume a new orbit around the sun as well as a new orientation in space. Is there any object in the solar system plastered mainly on one side with debris and craters? You guessed it: Mars! What possible connection could there be between this purported cataclysm and the "face on Mars"? The connecting thread is very weak but so beguiling that we must mention it. T. Van Flandern has proposed eight tests for the artificiality of the "face" and its associated "pyramids," "city," etc. One is the three-dimensionality of the "face." Another is the "fractal" test, which is useful in distinguishing between artificiality and naturalness. The "face" readily passes four of the eight tests. A fifth test (bilateral symmetry) cannot be decided ...
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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 Acoustical Mirrors On Plants In Costa Rica, the plant Macuna holtoni , a vine-like member of the pea family, is pollinated by bats. To help echolocating bats to find its flowers in the dark, it has evolved a single petal on each blossom that is shaped like a concave ultrasound mirror. A bat searching for nectar- and pollen-bearing flowers with its ultrasonic cries can zero in on the strong echoes reflected from the plant. Both plant and bat benefit. (Anonymous; "Bat Mirror," New Scientist, p. 29, November 8, 1997.) Comment. What a neat, technically sophisticated adaptation. How did this plant "know" that the bats echolocated ultrasonically and what a good reflector would look like? Don't worry about trivia like this, evolution can explain everything! From Science Frontiers #115, JAN-FEB 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Two Remarkable Inscribed Stones Astronomy Thou Canst Not Stir A Flower, Without Troubling of A Star Natural Laser Beacons A Mysterious Object Biology Subtle is the Virus An Ocean Full of Viruses An Even Larger Ocean of Life Spores Still Viable After 7,000 Years Animals As Nutrient Carriers Geology Terranes Continue to Pile Up Grand Canyon Shamed Again When the Earth Shifted Gears The Oklo Phenomenon and Evolution Earth's Magnetic Field Jerks Osmium Isotopes Support Meteoric Impact Geophysics Incredible Phosphorescent Display on the China Sea Ball Lightning Splits and Recombines Inside Soviet Airliner Booms Startle Arkansas Psychology Mental Deflection of Cascading Spheres What Makes A Calculating Prodigy? False Pregnancies in Males Unclassified The 'Great Silence'; Or Why Aren't Aliens Landing on the White House Lawn? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 25: Jan-Feb 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Gas Hydrates And The Bermuda Triangle Gas hydrates are stable, solid lattices of water molecules, in which the water molecules are hydrogen-bonded into hollow spheres or oblate spheroids in which gas molecules are enclosed. They are not true compounds, but rather clathrates or inclusion compounds. They often form in huge masses in ocean-bottom sediments and, if disturbed by slumping or some other stimulus, can release immense quantities of gas bubbles. These gases rise to the surface, subdivided en route, and reach the surface as a huge upwelling of frothy, low-density fluid. A ship cannot float in such low-density fluids. If a large plume rose above the sea's surface, aircraft passing through it would lose engine power. Quoting the final paragraph: "Intermittent natural gas blowouts from hydrate-associated gas accumulations, therefore, might explain some of the many mysterious disappearances of ships and planes -- particularly in areas where deep-sea sediments contain large amounts of gas in the form of hydrate. This may be the circumstance off the southeast coast of the United States, an area noted for numerous disappearances of ships and aircraft." (McIver, Richard D.; "Role of Naturally Occurring Gas Hydrates in Sediment Transport," American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Bulletin, 66:789, 1982.) From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 120: Nov-Dec 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bouncing Ball Lightning Autumn 1940, Berwyn Mountains, North Wales. The percipient in this unusual ball lightning sighting was a Mr. H, who was schoolmaster at Sandyhurst College. "While out walking he was caught in a violent thunderstorm on the side of a hill with a scooped valley below. Ahead of him perhaps 300 feet distant, a bolt of lightning struck a tree with a sharp explosion of noise. Almost immediately a sphere six inches in diameter appeared from the direction of the strike and began to bounce across the ground towards him like a rubber ball. Climbing the hill under its own energy, the object rolled in a parabolic path and hit the ground every ten or twenty feet, climbing up to about three feet in height with each 'rebound'. Every time it hit the ground there was no sound, but a puff of greyish smoke or vapor was emitted. The object got to within about 50 feet of Mr. H before it suddenly vanished. This allowed him to have a good look at it at close proximity. He says that it was completely round and was a smokey-grey colour." (Anonymous; "Ball Lightning in Lancashire and North Wales," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 23:139, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #120, NOV-DEC 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Beautiful objects, beautiful theories Imagine a million brilliant stars densely packed in a tight sphere by gravity. In the telescope these globular clusters are spectacular objects: a million points of light in disciplined motion around a center so closely packed with stars that they cannot all be resolved. Surely such an orderly assemblage of matter should be easy to model, given the laws of celestial mechanics and high-speed computers. No so! Both theory and computer models predict that a few stars may escape a globular cluster during its lifetime of several billion years, but that most will be drawn inevitably inward as the cluster collapses. However, observation, the final arbiter, reveals that globular clusters do not follow this scenario. Indeed, some clusters seem to have collapsed already and are again evolving in a sort of "reincarnated" state that our best theories refuse to predict. (Lightman, Alan; "Misty Patches in the Sky," Science 83, 4:24, June 1983.) From Science Frontiers #28, JUL-AUG 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The great hopewell road Paradigm quake: the solutreans were here first! A FAR-WANDERING TRIBE? Astronomy Nuclear bombs will not save the earth! Aristarchus blushes for clementine Shadow dance of the gnats What's cooking on europa? Biology Ants like microwaves Stoned dogs Some funny things happened on the way around the world Throat-singing Traitors within Geology Do continents really drift? Natural stone spheres Geophysics The strange case of angled lines in the atmosphere Black auroras Psychology Our filtered brains Mathematics Some magic squares are more magical than others ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A TERRESTRIAL RIDDLE A MARTIAN RIDDLE Astronomy MERCURY'S POLAR CAPS AND ICY MINICOMETS Memories of 1913 Whence the x-ray background? Biology The louse line Siberian lake monster Those slippery (adult) eels Geology Deeply-buried life Black gold -- again Spooky spike Geophysics The ups and downs of spook hill Milky sea Revolving sphere of light Man-killer lightning A LUMINOUS-TUBE PHENOMENON CROP CIRCLES: IF SOME ARE HOAXES, ARE THEY ALL HOAXES? Psychology Telepathic rabbits Chemistry & Physics New kind of cold fusion ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 139: Jan-Feb 2002 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Who Needs Boats Confusion that's Hard to Cut Through Astronomy The Spheres can Dance to Convoluted Music White Mars? Ghostly Martian "Forrests" Biology How the Genome's Message can be Altered The Second Genetic Code and Apparently a Third The Mysterious First Green Egg Geology When the Edges of the Continents were Naked Unstable Earth Really High Oysters Geophysics Surf's Up on Californian Shores: Really up at Cortes Bank Tunguska: An Inside Job? Rock-fall Air Blasts Psychology And the Machines Wept for Man ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chiron: the black sheep of the solar system Charles Kowal discovered the smooth, very dark sphere called Chiron over five years ago. Only a little more is known about it today. Chiron is 300-400 kilometers in diameter -- asteroid-size. But its orbit (aphelion, 18.9 A.U .; perihelion, 8.5 A.U .) is definitely anomalous for asteroids. One would expect to find only comets in this region of the Solar System. To compound the mystery, Chiron's orbit is unstable. This planetoid was originally somewhere else (no one knows where) and was nudged into its present orbit by a major planet. One group of researchers calculates that Saturn could have been the nudger, and that the event might have happened as recently as 1664!! (Lipscomb, R.; "Chiron," Astronomy, 11:62, March 1983.) Comment. Only a minor bit of extrapolation will carry a proponent of catastrophism from a 1664 nudge of a 400-kilometer body to a much more violent Solar System rearrangement sometime during the past 10,000 years. From Science Frontiers #28, JUL-AUG 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... cultural purpose" of present-day "rigorously objective" science, but would: Allow a proactive role for consciousness Be more explicit and profound in the use of interdisciplinary metaphors Permit more generous interpretations of measurability, replicability, and resonance (4 ) Reduce onotological aspirations Permit an "overarching teleological causality. R.J . Jahn heads the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Laboratory, which over the years has conducted some 50 million experimental trials, mostly in the search for psychokinetic effects on the behavior of a wide variety of mechanical, electrical, and other types of machines. Jahn and Dunne assert that the results of those experiments clearly show the effects of the pre-stated intentions of the machine operators. In other words, mind can affect matter -- as in the distribution of spheres cascading down a peg board. We now list some of the other salient features of the immense corpus of PEAR experimental results: The scale and character of the results are rather insensitive to the type of random devices (machines) employed. Operator learning and experience have no effect on performance. Operators may exert their "intentions" on the machine hours or days before the machine is run and still produce results similar to "on-time" machine operation. The distance between operator and machine has no effect on the results. (Jahn, Robert G., and Dunne, Brenda J.; "Science of the Subjective," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11:201, 1997.) Comment. That PEAR results are unaffected by by the timing and distance of the operator ...
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... . Baum. (Cr. E. Kimbrough) For the uninitiated, we are dealing with a computer bulletin board here! Subject: #235852-Ball Lightning From: Jeff Baum (PHX) [email protected] To: Emory Kimbrough [TCL] [email protected](X ) "On 8 January 1992 we were in MSP [Minneapolis/St. Paul] ready for pushback at sunrise. Weather was sleet squalls, temperature of + 2 degrees C (35 degrees F), ceiling of indefinite 100 obscured, visibility of about 1 and mile variable. We deiced and taxied for the active 11L, airborne in 8 minutes after deicing had ended. The First Officer was flying that leg. Climbing through about 900 feet ABL, this incandescent sphere approximately 10 cm (6 inches) in diameter surrounded by a, what I called, plasma cloud of bluish white approx 1 to 1 and meter (3 to 4 feet) in diameter with bright white 'rays' similar to a fireworks explosion formed just forward and to the left of the radome. We contacted this within second on our left side, just aft of the attach seam of the radome (namely about in line with my left foot). With this contact there was a sharp bang. The cabin crew reported the loud bang but didn't see any haze or light inside the cabin. One did report seeing a bright light on the left side of the aircraft's exterior." Reference. Rayed ball lightning is fairly common. We have cataloged it ...
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... of 72 kilometers/second and at onehalf and one-third that value. Mainstream astronomers insist that redshifts be interpreted as Doppler shifts due to the expanding universe. Quantized redshifts just don't fit into this view of the cosmos, for they imply concentric shells of galaxies expanding away from a central point -- earth! Even though more recent redshift data have supported the notion of quantized redshifts, cosmologists find them undigestible, even pathogenic. But replication and non-replication are the essence of science, so B. Guthrie and W.M . Napier, at the Royal Observatory at Edinburgh, undertook another study. They selected 89 nearby spiral galaxies that had not been incorporated in any of the previous surveys. These galaxies had very accurately measured redshifts and were distributed all over the celestial sphere. "As expected, the galaxies' redshifts showed a smooth distribution. Clearly, no quantization was being introduced by the radio telescopes or the data reduction process. But after Guthrie and Napier corrected each redshift to account for the Earth's motion around the center of the Milky Way -- a different correction for each location in the sky -- out popped a periodicity of 37 km/sec, close to one of Tifft's values. It was so strong that the chance of it being a statistical fluke was less than 1 in 3,000." Tifft's work therefore seems to have been verified again. But Tifft is now waxing even more iconoclastic, claiming that galactic redshifts have actually changed slightly in just a few years! (Anonymous; "Quantized ...
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... random intelligent observer, limits for the total longevity of our species of 0.2 million to 8 million years can be derived at the 95% confidence level. Further consideration indicates that we are unlikely to colonize the Galaxy, and that we are likely to have a higher population than the median for intelligent species." Why won't we colonize the Galaxy? Not because we are not able to, Gott says, but because "living things do not usually live up to their maximum potential." Also of interest here is Gott's assessment of SETI (our Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Will our big radio telescopes pick up intelligent murmurings arriving from outer space? Gott's calculations are very pessimistic here: "Thus, we do not expect to see a Dyson sphere civilization within our Galaxy, or a Karadashev type III civilization within the current observable horizon." (Gott, J. Richard, III; "Implications of the Copernican Principle for Our Future Prospects." Nature, 363:315, 1993.) *A line from Stephen Spender's poem: From All These Events, from the Slump, from the War, from the Boom . Comment. But perhaps the Copernican Principle, Darwinism, or some other of Gott's assumptions are in error. From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... waves and currents. The view from a satellite, thousands of miles up, is startling to say the least. Huge bulges hundreds of feet high and hundreds of miles in extent appear when satellite radar altimeter data are plotted. Equally large depressions in the ocean surface also show up -- none obvious to surface observers. This unexpected macrostructure of the ocean surface is shaped by variations in the strength of the earth's gravitational field and sea-bottom terrain. Wherever the gravitational field is stronger, it creates a depression on the fluid surface. German geophysicists, in fact, have drawn a global map of the ocean's large-scale topography, as measured from the European Space Agency's ERS-1 satellite. The surface of the world ocean departs wildly from a smooth sphere. On their colored map: "Brilliant pink and red areas are continental-size mounds of water most notable northeast of Australia, where the sea topography is up to 85 meters (280 ft.) higher than the standard ocean level. Just to the west near India, deep blue indicates a 105-meter (346-ft.) deep depression in the sea surface. Major differences in the gravity fields and terrain underlying the two regions cause a variation of 190 meters (627 ft.) in sea surface topography between these two adjoining areas." (Covault, Craig; "ESA Radar Scans Global Ocean," Aviation Week , p. 42, October 24, 1994. Cr. J.S . Denn.) From Science Frontiers #97, JAN- ...
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... Patterson, University of Memphis, thinks that the huge chunks of sandstone came from coastal Louisiana and were carried some 650 kilometers (400 miles) inland by the giant tsunami raised by the asteroid or comet that smashed into the Yucatan to close out the Cretaceous. That, of course, was when the dinosaurs were forced into oblivion. But could the tsunami really have transported such huge rocks 650 kilometers? (Falk, Dan; "Washed Up," New Scientist, p. 26, November 7, 1998.) Comments. Tsunami debris from the end-Cretaceous impact has been found along the Gulf Coast and on some Caribbean islands. In northeastern Mexico, geologists have found a debris layer 3-meters thick that is also of the right age. This layer contains tektites, glass spheres, plant material, and an iridium anomaly. (SF#85) However, these debris deposits can hardly compare to the far-inland Arkansas sandstone chunks. From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... quake just operated on a larger scale than a bump to your coffee cup! Short-period oscillations in the tidal record from Puerto Princesa, Palawan Island, Philippines. These are coastal seiches, but hardly "death waves"! So far, so good. But there are exists an interesting -- and sometimes dangerous -- class of related events that affects open coastal waters. The Irish call them "death waves." In the Baltic, they are "seebars;" in the Azores, "lavadiads." Whatever their name, they are large, tsunamilike waves that suddenly enter coastal waters and which cannot be assigned to any known triggering force. The frequency of occurrence of these "coastal seiches" may be a clue to their source. For example, off the Puerto Rican island of Magueyes, coastal seiches are most common about 7 days after new and full moons, suggesting a tidal influence. Oceanographers G.S . Giese and R.B . Hollander think that these coastal seiches are the consequence of internal waves (solitons*) formed at the southeastern edge of the Caribbean where tidal effects are particularly powerful 2 days after new and full moons. These slowmoving internal waves take 5 days to reach Puerto Rico, where they emerge as coastal seiches. Similar internal waves created by tidal currents at the edges of the continental shelves and deepwater sills may explain the mysterious coastal seiches recorded in the Anadaman and Sulu Seas. So far, no one has suggested origins for the Irish "death waves" and Baltic "seebars." (Korgen, Ben J. ...
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... Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Falling Masses Swerve South In 1901, Florian Cajori had a paper published in Science with the title: "The Unexplained Southerly Deviation of Falling Bodies." Cajori reviewed the pertinent measurements that had been made prior to 1901 on falling bodies, emphasizing that the anomaly described in the title of his paper truly existed. In a recent letter to the American Journal of Physics, A.P . French brings the record up to date. (It should be pointed out here that a slight easterly deflection of falling bodies is predicted, but that a southerly deflection should be negligible, although not zero.) In the post-1901 experiments, small southerly and northerly deflections have been detected. These should not occur for an ideal rotating sphere -- which the earth isn't . French ends his brief review by stating that the earth's gravitational field is now known well enough so that further experiments with falling objects might once-and-for-all determine the nature (and reality) of the delightful anomaly. (French, A.P ., "The Deflection of Falling Objects," American Journal of Physics, 52:199, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... serious anomaly has been found. The double star DI Herculis has a Newtonian precession rate of 1.93 degrees per century, with another 2.34 added by relativistic effects. With more than 3,000 well-observed orbits of this star system on the books, astronomers come up with only 0.64 degree per century, instead of the 4.27 predicted by theory. Something is obviously awry; and all searches for errors and other influences on the orbit have been negative. (Anonymous; "Double-Star System Defies Relativity," New Scientist, p. 23, August 29, 1985.) Comment. As a matter of record, Newtonian mechanics can account for Mercury's perihelion advance if the sun is actually an oblate spheroid instead of the mathematically perfect sphere usually assumed. Also, the gravitational theory of J. Moffat seems to explain the motions of both Mercury and DI Herculis. From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Thus, the Nazca Plain seems to be a 3-page book: biomorphs, geoglyphs, and spoked ray-centers. They all overlap. It's all a gigantic Rorschach test; and different observers see different things! A Nazca biomorph (monkey with spiral tail) overlain by an abstract, unexplained geoglyph. See Book Supplement for still another Nazca figure. Of course, there are doodles on this 400-square-mile canvas that don't fit on any of the three pages. We'll have to ignore them for now. The archeoastronomers first tried to read something meaningful into the Nazca lines, but they were disappointed. Computer analyses revealed no significant connections with the rising and settings of heavenly bodies. Next, some tried to relate the biomorphs to the celestial sphere. Did a terrestrial bird figure point toward a bird-like grouping of stars? A few earth-sky bird connections are interesting in this regard, but generally the idea that the Nazca lines are a terrestrial zodiac has not panned out well. The geo-speculators have had more success. There are many "water" connections. The geoglyphs were drawn at the time of a great drought. The geoglyphs are often colocated with groups of subterranean aqueducts called "puquios," which were constructed during the drought. The "ray centers" are usually located near water sources. The trapezoids are generally oriented parallel to the flow of surface water. Seashells and ceremonial drinking vessels have been excavated near the trapezoids, suggesting water-connected rituals. Fossil footpaths follow many of the Nazca lines ...
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... were conical. Each one had an apex angle of about 75 , with a flat or slightly curved base about 4 millimeters across. What caused this? Is this shape common, and is its similarity to an Apollo re-entry capsule coincidental? (Wills, A.; "Hail Capsules," New Scientist, p. 121, March 24, 2001.) Comments. Actually, conical hail is more common than you might think. See GWP in Tornados, Dark Days... for many examples. How conical hail forms in such prodigious quantities and in such geometric perfection in the maelstroms of violent storms is unknown. The morphological similarity to the Apollo reentry vehicle is almost certainly coincidental. Droplets of liquid rock that reenter the earth's atmosphere are molded into buttons, spheres, and other shapes to create tektites. We do not know of any conical tektites. From Science Frontiers #135, MAY-JUN 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... with mini black holes -- objects smaller than atoms but with masses which, in some cases, might be as great as a planet. Such objects, he claims, could account for volcanic hot spots, gravitational anomalies, concentrations of mass on the Moon (mascons), the existence of the rings of Saturn, and even the observations that gave rise to the notion of a 'fifth force.'" J. Gribbin, whose article begins with the above paragraph, is quick to proclaim that this "theory of everything" is not just silly-season kite flying. Rather, it was proposed by A.P . Trofimenko in the well-respected Astrophysics and Space Science (168:277) Restricting ourselves to speculations concerning the earth, Trofimenko sees our planet as a sphere of low-density material enclosing 126 mini black holes that account, first, for the many gravity anomalies we measure on the surface; and, second, the earth's high density. That's right, there's no iron core in this model! Some of the mini black holes near the surface create local hot spots (plumes, volcanos, etc.) through the emission of Hawking radiation. Trofimen-ko's scheme encompasses the planets, the stars, and, as advertised, "every thing." (Gribbin, John; "Could Mini Black Holes Provide a 'Theory of Everything?'" New Scientist, p. 25, September 1, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 ...
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... , downwards like a flare. It appeared as yellow, lit-up gases. These seemed to take shape, becoming brighter and denser, and then move downwards in the same direction as the plane (south). About two seconds after disappearing behind the roof there was an ear-splitting explosion. To my relief the plane reappeared unscathed." At the time of the lightning strikes, the jet was passing over a factory, where a fork-lift driver saw a dazzling blue-white ball bounce along the factory roof and enter the building. Many workers inside were treated to an amazing pyrotechnic display as the ball made its way through the building. "It entered the factory through an upand-over door and was seen as a 'pulsating light' or a 'fiery sphere the size of a tennis ball'. Once inside the building it moved very rapidly for two seconds, following the course of the overhead girders without touching them and lighting up each girder 'blue, white and orange' as it raced along. It produced what one witness described as 'unbelievable sparks'. Intensely bright, the object illuminated the whole printing works and was seen by about 40 people. After thus racing around the interior of the building for two seconds, the 'fireball' hit a window which glowed orange, and the ball disappeared with a bang so loud that the report was even heard by a deaf worker." (James, Adrian, and Meaden, Terence; "Ball Lightning at Tewkesbury, Glos. on 7 June 1996," Journal of Meteorology ...
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... nearly consigned to the wastebasket. But wait a moment, Susumo Ohno is a Distinguished Scientist at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA. Could there be something to it? Reading further; we find that Ohno believes that the structure of music seems to parallel that of the genes. He translates genes into music by assigning notes according to molecular weights. His ultimate goal is the discovery of some basic pattern (melody?) that governs all life. (Anonymous; "Scientist Tunes in to Gene Compositions," San Jose Mercury News, p. E1, May 13, 1986. Cr. P. Bartindale.) Comment. Not too long ago the motions of the planets were supposed to conform to an esthetically pleasing Music of the Spheres. Ohno, it seems, has found a way to express the Music of the Genes. Are simple organisms just short tunes and humans full-fledged operas? Are some refrains repeated in different organisms? All this is not entirely frivilous because a fundamental tenet of science expects nature to be describable in terms of a few laws that are not only simple but esthetically pleasing as well. From Science Frontiers #46, JUL-AUG 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Celestial burlesque?Astronomers have long wondered about Mercury. Its density (5 .44) is unusually high for such a small planet, and its orbit's inclination (7 ) and eccentricity (0 .206) are also anomalously high. In one blow. W. Benz, A.G .W . Cameron, and W. Slattery may have solved all three problems. Four frames from a computer simulation of proto-Mercury being stripped of its lighter, outer crust by a collision. Frame times are -1 , + 2.3 , + 7.7 , and + 41.7 minutes after impact. The dark molten sheet of iron in Frame #4 will collapse into a sphere, while the silicates will escape Mercury's gravitational pull. They think Mercury's original, lighter, silicate outer layers were stripped off during the impact of one of the small protoplanets that are thought to have swirled around the inner solar system shortly after its formation. Computations on a supercomputer revealed to these three researchers that, if the protoplanet had hit Mercury at between 20 and 30 kilometers/second, then its dense iron core would have survived pretty much intact. A lower velocity would not have stripped off the lighter outer layers; anything higher would have blasted the whole planet into smithereens. Calculations of this type also suggest that if a protoplanet the size of Mars had hit protoearth, it likewise would have stripped off its light silicate mantle. After this material that had been ...
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