250 results found.
... identifiable pre-cursors in the rock, ". .. how did the surrounding rocks crystalize rapidly enough so that there were crystals available ready to be imprinted with radiohalos by alpha-particles from Po218 ? This would imply almost instantaneous cooling and crystallization of these granitic minerals -- and we know of no mechanism that will remove heat so rapidly; the rocks are supposed to have cooled over millennia, if not tens of millennia." In coalified wood dated as older than 200 million years, the ratio between U238 and Pb206 should be low. It is actually very high. "Thus ages of the entire stratigraphic column may contain epochs less than 0.001% the duration of those now accepted and found in the literature." Diffusion calculations insist that Pb in zircon crystals found in deep granite cores at 313 C should diffuse out of the crystals at the rate of 1% in 300,000 years. No loss of Pb can be detected at all. Therefore, the granite must be younger than 300,000 years. (Gentry, Robert V.; "Creationism Discussion Continued," Physics Today, 35: 13, October 1982.) Comment. Scientists admit that Gentry's work raises questions but apparently would rather live with the anomalies than with the thought of a young earth! From Science Frontiers #25, JAN-FEB 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 26: Mar-Apr 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nature's ballistic missile Abstract: "The parasitic fungus Haptoglossa mirabilis infects the rotifer host by means of a gun-shaped attack cell. The anterior end of the cell is elongated to form a barrel; the wall at the mouth is invaginated deep into the cell to form a bore. A walled chamber at the base of the bore houses a complex, missile-like attack apparatus. The projectile is fired from the gun cell at high speed to accomplish initial penetration of the host." (Robb, E. Jane, and Barron, G.L .; "Nature's Ballistic Missile," Science, 218:1221, 1982.) From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... all of space: Immense quantities of water needed for life-as-we-know-it. The carbonaceous material basic to that same kind of life. (See SF#48.) The seeds of life, a la Hoyle and Wickramasinghe. Energy, as discussed above by Frank et al. Observe that Frank et al are saying that the kinetic energy in the flux of small comets is sufficient to raise a planet's temperature as well as supply water. In this light, exobiologists need not confine their search for extraterrestrial life to planets surrounding warm suns. Somewhere, far from stars, there may be places where comets may raise atmospheric temperatures to where life can prosper! Sunlight, of course, is not needed absolutely, as demonstrated by the profusion of life around deep-sea vents. From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... -tech gadgetry are continuously bombarded by all manner of electrical and electromagnetic signals, noise, and transients. A particularly annoying source of unwanted signals impinging upon European radios is the Soviet Woodpecker over-the-horizon radar. In some bands, radio hams are blasted off the air when the Woodpecker is aimed at them. So much for electromagnetic problems. In the audio range of the sound spectrum, Fox brings up the topic of those still unidentified hums that afflict a small group of people, who are now known as "hummers." Fox himself turns out to be a hummer. "By coincidence, I happen to be blessed, or cursed, with good low-frequency hearing. For several years now, I have intermittently heard a curious low-frequency sound coming from a deep below the high ground around my home in Hampstead Heath in London. Most of the time it is swamped by other noises, because human hearing adjusts sensitivity to compensate for background noise. The noise is an intermittent rumble, like a very distant generator, or the compressor for a pneumatic drill, coming on and off load. Most people cannot hear it at all. I usually hear it only in the still of night." Fox applied considerable effort in trying to find the source of the sound to no avail. The hum has been recorded and analyzed. It peaks at about 48 Hertz, and thus seems unrelated to the British 50-Hertz power mains. (Fox, Barry; "Things That Go Buzz in the Night," New Scientist, p. 72, ...
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... and such famous scientists and mathematicians as Euler, Gauss, and A.C . Aitken. The latter ". .. had the uncanny power of mentally computing, to a long string of decimals, the values of e and e163 When asked (by his children) to multiply 987...1 by 123...9 , he remarked afterwards: 'I saw in a flash that 987...1 multiplied by 81 equals 80 000 000 001, and so I multiplied 123...9 by this, a simple matter, and divided the answer by 81.'" But what, asks Smith, led Aitken to 81? To this question, which is the heart of the mystery, he commendably admits he has no reply. And the same deep mystery confronts us even after all has been said about the sur, as distinct from the underlying, structure of the processing. At the unlettered end of the spectrum of mental calculators, the ". .. ignorant vagabond, Henri Mondeux, who at the age of 14 years, before the French Academy of Sciences, was able promptly to state two squares differing by 133." Of course, some mental feats of calculation can be done consciously employing various shortcuts and mathematical tricks. The really fantastic performances, however, are accomplished unconsciously. No one knows how, even the calculators themselves. (Cohen, John; "What Makes a Calculating Prodigy?" New Scientist, 100:819, 1983.) From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984- ...
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... ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects From The Depths Of The Amazon Trawls lowered between 9 and 45 meters into the Amazon's muddy waters have brought up many bizarre fish never seen before. J. Lundberg and his team from the University of Arizona found two species of electric fish that subsist entirely on the tails of other electric fish. Some of the catfish are armorplated; others are transparent; another catfish is only 8 millimeters (1 /3 inch) long. Most interesting to taxonomists will be two separate species of electric fish that can be told apart only by the different patterns of electrical discharges they generate! What will trawls capture in the Rio Negro which is about 100 meters deep in one place? (Bille, Matthew A.; "Recent Discoveries: Fishing in South America," Exotic Zo ology , 4:1 , March/April 1997. Publication address: 3405 Windjammer Dr., Colorado Springs, CO 80920.) From Science Frontiers #112, JUL-AUG 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 The Carbon Problem The "carbon problem" seems to hit the scientific creationists the hardest, but it also has interesting implications for today's earth. Consider first where the carbon in the earth's crust resides: Petroleum 201 x 1018 grams Coal 15 Limestone 64200 Biosphere 0.3 In this article, these figures are made more understandable by physical descriptions of some of the truly colossal deposits of oil, coal, and limestone. For example, in the Canadian Rockies, the Livingstone limestone was deposited 2000 feet deep on the margin of the Cordilleran geosyncline but thins eastward to about 1000 feet in the Front ranges. ". .. it may be calculated to represent at least 10,000 cubic miles of broken crinoid plates." Two implications are: Even if the earth's biosphere were completely converted into oil, coal, and limestone each year, the earth would have to be far older than the 6000 years desired by the creationists, unless most of the carbon deposits had non-biological origins, which seems unlikely. The immense inventory of carbon tied up in biologically produced deposits was originally abiogenic. Where did it come from? Abiogenic methane and carbon dioxide released from the crust seem the most likely sources. This means that the crust must have once had, and may still have, prodigious supplies of methane. T. Gold and S. Soter have long argued that the earth's crust still ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The moon: still partly molten?Our long-time impression has been that our moon is a cold body, solidified eons ago, when its primordial ration of heat radiated away. But the lunar satellite Clementine -- tracked with great precision by lasers on earth -- undulates suspiciously as it orbits the moon. "The overall shape of the orbit traces the broad tidal bulges raised on the moon by Earth and the sun; the size and timing of the bulges depend on the moon's rigidity. The Clementine data show that somewhere, probably deep in its interior, the moon is not quite as rigid as solid rock would be. Most likely, part of the rock is still molten." (Kerr, Richard A.; "Clementine Mines Its First Nuggets on the Moon," Science, 264:1666, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , a horse-like head, distinct eyes, a visible mouth and either ears or giraffe-like horns. Often Caddy is described as having hair like a seal, and sometimes a mane along its neck." Most interesting is Caddy's body hair, which implies a mammal rather than a reptile. But if it is a mammal, how does it get air, since it surfaces so rarely? Some have suggested that the giraffe-like horns are snorkels! But E. Bousfield, a colleague of LeBlond, thinks that the tubercules reported along the animal's back might be gill-like tissues that would allow a mammal to extract oxygen from seawater! With so little hard evidence, speculation can get pretty wild. (Park, Penny; "Beast from the Deep Puzzles Zoologists," New Scientist, p. 16, January 23, 1993.) Reference. A variety of putative mammals that might qualify as "sea monsters" are cataloged in Chapter BMU in our book: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. For details, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... then started to roll slowly towards the observers across the floor, at about the speed of a dropped ball of wool. Its diameter was about 20 cm, it was translucent, and the rapidly changing colours showed spots of light green, crimson, light blue and pale yellow. It was bright enough to be clearly visible in daylight, and it was uniformly bright over its entire surface. It had protrusions 'like the Andromeda nebula.' "When it came near the table, where my uncle and I were sitting, I tried to get up to have a closer look. My uncle (fortunately) held me back. It then rolled towards the tiled stove on the right side of the room, crept up the iron parts of the stove leaving (in its path) a deep groove about the width and depth of a thumb, then it exploded in the (airvent) higher up, the sound was like that of a blown up paper bag when (burst) leaving a smell of ozone. The path of the ball was about 5-6 m in length, and it left no marks on the wooden floor." (Stenhoff, Mark; "Torro Ball Lightning Division Report: April 1987," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 12:200, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... turns out to be the case, the role of anomalies in scientific research will be underscored. Be that as it may, a genie has been uncorked. Both cold fusion and the re-cent excitement over high-temperature superconductivity demonstrate that a largely unexplored universe exists in the electrochemistry of the solid state. Favorite theories lie in shambles; faces are very red; the most elite of our scientific institutions were caught with blinders on! Beyond these amusements, the practical import for energy production is enormous, and who know what else will eventuate? But what about science itself? First, cold fusion will doubtless generate a brand new crop of anomalies which we are only able to guess at now. Pertinent to our effort to catalog anomalies, it is possible that cold fusion may be occurring deep in the earth giving rise not only to heat but the upwelling flux of helium-3 , now called "primordial" perhaps in error. The icy planets Jupiter and Saturn generate heat, too, and may also be cold fusion reactors! Even the sun, which is undeniably hot (at least on the surface!), may be fusing light elements in ways we have yet to grasp in our stellar models. After all, no one has yet explained that deficit in solar neutrinos! There will be egg on a lot of faces if our notions of stellar energy generation are widly in error. We may be overreacting here; but we predict with confidence that the future will bring a good many scientific papers that begin with those all-toofamiliar words, "We now know ...
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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 300,000-YEAR-OLD SITE IN BRAZIL "Central, Brazil -- Archaeologists excavating a cave in Brazil's remote northeastern backlands say that they have found evidence that man has lived in the New World for at least 300,000 years. "If confirmed, it would be the first proof of pre-Neanderthal man in the Americas and a severe blow to current theories that the first humans came here from Asia during the last Ice Age, only about 35,000 years ago. "The scientists also report that they have discovered what may be the world's oldest astronomical observatory. .. .. . "The signs of man were found in a cave called Toca da Esperanca (Grotto of Hope), deep in the black limestone cliffs of the Serra Negra mountains, 1,100 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro. "The site caught the interest of the scientific community after archaeologist Maria Beltrao reported finding a stone implement and the cut bones of an extinct species of horse in the dig last year. "The bones were so old that they could not be dated by carbon-14, which can measure about 40,000 years. The Weak Radiation Laboratory in France tested them by a more sensitive uraniumthorium method, and came back with a staggering date of 300,000 years. .. .. . "A cave called Grotto of the Cosmos at nearby Xique-Xique contained paintings of suns, stars and comets, and this is what archaeologists believe is the oldest astronomical observatory in ...
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... Tough And Different Today's textbooks recognize only two main divisions of life: the prokaryotes (cells without nuclei) and eukaryotes (cells with nuclei). Humans and most of the life forms we are familiar with belong to the latter group. (Curiously, human red blood cells lack nuclei!) However, a third basic type of life has been found prospering in some extreme environments. These are the Archea, typified by the methane-producing microbes discovered clustered around hot deepsea vents, where temperatures may exceed 400 C. It is not their rugged constitutions that place these miniscule forms of life in a new category; it is their genomes. They are radically different from those found in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The genome of one species of Archea collected from a hot vent 3 kilometers deep in the Pacific has been sequenced. Biologists were taken aback. Methanococcus jannaschii , as it has been dubbed, possesses 1738 genes, of which 56% are entirely new to science. Many of these genes do not look anything like those found in the prokaryotes and eukaryotes. In a word, they seem "alien." (Morell, Virginia; "Life's Last Domain," Science, 273:1043, 1996.) How alien? Well, they are so tough that they could have arrived from Mars on a meteorite. Millions of years of residence in a meteorite edging its way toward a rendezvous with earth mean nothing to the Archea. They have even been cultured from the interior of a salt crystal 200 million years old. (Fanale, Fraser; " ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 87: May-Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Late Survival Of Mammoths Many a sensational article has been written about how the Siberian mammoth population was deep-frozen by a sudden climate change due to a shift in the earth's poles or some other catastrophic event circa 10,000 years ago. But now, Russian scientist A. Sher and two colleagues claim that a dwarf version of the wooly mammoth survived on Wrangel Island, 120 miles off the Siberian coast until about 3,700 years ago. The Wrangel Island dwarf mammoths stood only about 2 meters high and weighed 2 tons. The British mammoth expert, A. Lister, said he was not really surprised at this discovery, because many islands supported dwarf versions of mainland animals during the Ice Ages. (Crenson, Matt; "A Mammoth Discovery," Dallas Morning News, p. 22A, March 25, 1993. Cr. L. Anderson. Also: Bower, B.; "' Dwarf' Mammoths Outlived Last Ice Age," Science News, 143:197, 1993.) Comment 1. If the full-size Siberian mammoths really met their demise because of a catastrophic climate change, how did the dwarf mammoths occupying the same region escape? Comment 2. Lister's remark about other dwarf island inhabitants brings to mind the dwarf elephants of Santa Rosa, off the Californian coast, which apparently were the main course in early human feasts. But, curiously, island isolation also ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 73: Jan-Feb 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Amusing Assemblage Of Anomalies We don't read much about "waterguns" in the modern scientific literature, but a century ago Nature published many ear-witness accounts of them. These muffled detonations heard near the coasts of almost all the continents are believed by some to be caused by eruptions of methane from the seafloor. The same eruptions probably also account for the myriads of "pockmarks" found in the sediments of shallow seas. Whether this outgassing of methane comes from shallow accumulations of organic matter or from deep within the crust is still debated. Here, geophysics merges with biology. Recently, a group of researchers discovered a large (540 square meters) patch of chemosynthetic mussels in a brine-filled pockmark, at a depth of 650 meters, off the Louisiana coast. The mussels grew in a ring around the concentrated brine. The mussels harbor symbionts which consume the methane still seeping up through the brine from a salt diapir (a massive fingerlike intrusion 500 meters below the brine pool. The origin of some diapirs is not well-understood.) The mussels get the oxygen they require from the ordinary seawater covering the dense brine. Like the biological communities surrounding the "black smokers" and other ocean-floor seeps, the brine-filled pockmark community includes several species of shrimp, crabs, and tube worms. We have here another example of the astounding ability of lifeforms to take advantage of unusual, even ...
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... Jan-Feb 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Do earthquakes raise mima mounds?This possibility was tendered in SF#69 in our notice of a paper in Geology by A.W . Berg. Berg had covered a large sheet of plywood with sandy soil and then vibrated the wooden sheet. The result: small mounds formed at points where intersecting vibrations cancelled each other out. Could the many fields of Mima mounds in North America, Africa, and other continents have been created in a like manner by earthquakes? The recent severe quake in India proved that the answer to the above question might be "yes." Some farm-lands that had been flat were riven by cracks several inches wide and up to 70 feet deep and, in addition, topped by undulating mounds up to a foot high. (Anonymous; "Farmers Work Land Churned by Earthquake," Spokane Review , October 10,1993. Cr. J. Satkoski) Comment. Mima mounds are often higher than 1 foot, but at it certainly seems that Berg's experiment has been repeated by Nature herself. Mima mounds and like structures are cataloged in ETM1 in Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. This catalog is described here . From Science Frontiers #91, JAN-FEB 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... end where expected but instead veered upward at a 45 angle. Climbing the incline, the robot found that the texture of the limestone walls changed from the rough-hewn, locally quarried limestone to the highly polished tura limestone often found in the entryways of tomb chambers. "At the end of the polished section was what appears to be a door, made of the same tura limestone and with tongue-and-groove fittings on the side that suggest it can be raised and lowered. It has two corroded copper fittings in the center; a piece of one fitting had broken off and was found lying in front of the stone. A small gap exists at the bottom of the stone, but the camera could not peer through it." But what could lie beyond this tiny door deep in a shaft too small for humans? Is there a hidden chamber? Might it contain the body of Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid, whose remains have never been found? A suspicious layer of black dust outside the door suggests the past presence of organic matter. Egyptologists find the whole business "very annoying." German archeologist R. Stadelman stated, "There is surely no other chamber." Meanwhile, Gantenbrink plans to slip a fiber-optic camera through the crack under the "door" to resolve the matter. (Maugh, Thomas H., II; "A Robot's Mysterious Discovery," San Francisco Chronicle, May 2, 1993. Cr. J. Covey. Also found in the Wellington, New Zealand, Evening Post . May 1 ...
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... National Forest, spring water gushes from an opening for several minutes, stops abruptly, then begins a new cycle a short time later. This is Periodic Spring, whose intermittent flow is a rare geologic phenomenon. The water is cold and clear, an indication that this is not a geyser like Old Faithful; such geysers, of volcanic origin, send forth hot water. Through the years various observers have timed the flows at anywhere from four to twentyfive minutes, with similarly varying dry spells. The intermittent flow is especially regular in late summer and autumn. During stormy periods or when there is heavy snow melt-off, the flow fluctuates but does not stop entirely." At full flow, Periodic Spring discharges about 285 gallons/second into a stream 9 feet wide and 1 feet deep. Periodic Spring, therefore, is fairly impressive, but it is not anomalous. (Mohlenbrock, Robert H.; "Periodic Spring, Wyoming," Natural History, 99: 110, April 1990.) Comment. Siphon action nicely explains periodic springs. Water keeps flowing through the upper loop until the water level in the reservoir drops below the siphon intake. The spring will not flow again until the reservoir fills to the top of the upper loop(level a) again initiating siphon action. Siphon action seems simple and easy to explain; why mention it here? Well, spherical pendulums are ostensibly simple, too, but we now know that they sometimes run amok and chaotic motion develops. Like Old Faithful Geyser, there is a possibility that periodic springs also may exhibit ...
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... 45 in all rows, columns, and diagonals. The square is "magic" in words. The second member of the pair is formed by counting the number of letters in each word of the first square, thus: 4 9 8 11 7 3 6 5 10 This square is also magic, adding up to 21 in all directions! Just a fluke, you say? Not so. You can even construct alphamagic squares in different languages. In his column in Scientific American, I. Stewart provides examples in French, German, Welsh, and even Swahili! In German, there are no less than 221 alphamagic squares using numbers under 100. (Stewart, Ian; "Alphamagic Squares," Scientific American, 276:106, January 1997.) Comment. The "deep meaning" of alphamagic squares is about the same as that associated with the existence of your Social Security Number in the decimal expansion of pi! From Science Frontiers #110, MAR-APR 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Frontiers ONLINE No. 103: Jan-Feb 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Remarkable Mayan Suspension Bridge We tend to think Mayan engineering only in terms of those impressive pyramids at Tikal, Copan, and many other sites, but they were accomplished builders of roads and bridges, too. "Scientists working at the Mayan ceremonial center of Yaxchilan, Mexico, have discovered the remains of a sophisticated 600-foot-long suspension bridge built in the seventh century A.D . The bridge, which spanned the Usumacinta River, had massive concrete piers, a rope-cable suspension system anchored to stone mechanisms, towers, and a bed of hard wooden planks. It probably stood for 500 years above water 40 to 150 feet deep, with a steady current of 5 to 7 m.p .h ., which increases to 10 to 15 m.p .h . at flood stage. Civil engineer and archeologist Jame O'Kon says the bridge was the world's longest until 1377, when a larger one was built in Italy." (Anonymous; "Mayan Suspension Bridge," INFO Journal, no. 73, p. 44, Summer 1995. Source cited: Washington Times, February 26, 1995. INFO = International Fortean Organization) Comment. One wonders why such a talented society collapsed so suddenly! From Science Frontiers #103, JAN-FEB 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . Davidson testified: "About 10:30 in the morning we climbed to the top of the mountain in order to get a panorama of the surrounding country. We could see some areas that had been swept down by some great force, trees twisted off some 25 feet above the ground. We tried to enter one of these areas but the bush was in such a tangle that we had to give it up." (Ref. 3) Photographs accompanying the articles confirm some of the devastation. 1995. Northeastern Brazil. "Scientists in Brazil's northeastern state of Piaui are baffled by a crater that was punched into the tropical rain forest shortly after witnesses reported seeing a bright light streak across the sky. Researchers are uncertain whether the crater, 16 feet wide and 32 feet deep, was left by a meteorite or a piece of a comet. Physicist Paulo Frota of the University of Piaui believes it was caused by a block of ice from a comet because the surrounding vegetation is not burned and the crater's rim is not raised." (Ref. 4) References Ref. 1. Bailey, Mark E., et al; "The 1930 August 13 'Brazilian Tunguska' Event," Observatory, 115:250, 1995. Ref. 2. Chown, Marcus; "Did Falling Comet Cause Rumble in the Jungle?" New Scientist, p. 12, November 11, 1995. Ref. 3. Kroff, Serge A., et al; "Tornado or Meteor Crash?" The Sky, 3:8 , September ...
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... 1987A seems to be confounding the theorists. No one can determine which star, if any, blew up. The 12th magnitude star Sanduleak -69 202 was first fingered, for it is located in the proper spot. But it is still there, apparently unchanged, as is a still fainter companion. The problem is that if 1987A really originated with an even fainter star, such a star would not have enough mass to go supernova. Part of 1987A's spectrum, its luminosity evolution, and precursory neutrino burst all indicate a Type-II supernova. Unfortunately, its ultraviolet spectrum is that of a Type-I supernova. Also anomalous are its high rate of evolution and low luminosity (only magnitude 4.5 instead of the predicted 2 +. Japanese apparatus located in a deep mine near Kamioka detected a burst of neutrinos about 22 hours before 1987A flared into the visible spectrum. This fits Type-II supernova theory, but the Mont Blanc equipment detected a neutrino burst just 4.6 hours before the flare-up. Which detector is correct; and why didn't both detectors register both bursts, if such there were? At the moment, some scientists think that the Mont Blanc event was spurious in view of previous unexplained bursts recorded there. (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "The Supernova 1987A Shows a Mint of Its Own -- and a Burst of Neutrinos," Science, 235:1322, 1987.) Reference. See AOF5 in our catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos, for more supernova anomalies. Ordering information here . ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Great Wooden Well Of Kuckhoven While on the subject of ancient hydrological engineering, it is appropriate to mention a remarkable wooden well found in northwest Germany. Over 200 oaken planks have been discovered so far. These are up to 15 centimeters thick and 50 wide. Fairly large oaks had been cut and split with stone axes and then worked into planks. Mortises were cut in some way so that the planks could be joined. It is quite clear that the Neolithic peoples of the region were skilled carpenters. The size of the well, too, is impressive: it was more than 15 meters deep. The tree rings on the planks permitted very accurate dating: 5303 BC -- well over 7000 years ago. (Bahn, Paul G.; "The Great Wooden Well of Kuckhoven," Nature, 354:269, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 111: May-Jun 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Carnot Creatures Photosynthesis is the ultimate source of energy for most of the life forms we recognize here on earth. Sure, there are also a few creatures that derive their energy by oxidizing the sulfides dissolved in the 400 water gushing forth from deep-sea vents. We will call them "geochemical creatures" to separate them from the "photosynthetic creatures" we are more familiar with. But, in principle at least, there could also be "Carnot creatures", whose metabolisms depend upon temperature differences like almost all human-built engines. Some bizarre animal, such as a meter-long tube worm, could plant one end on a hot rock surface and dangle the other in cold seawater to reject waste heat from its Carnot engine. Since thermodynamic-cycle efficiencies can approach 60% compared with only 10% for photosynthesis, evolution would have been remiss if it had not tried to evolve "Carnot creatures." For, as D. Jones comments below, Carnot creatures would be adaptable to many more habitats in the universe than photosynthetic creatures, which must have a sun with a very specific electromagnetic spectrum. "Many worlds, from distant 'brown dwarf' stars to the satellites of giant planets, may have internal heating but no effective 'Sun'. If Carnot life is possible, it may well have evolved in such dark and distant places -- making life abundant throughout the Universe. Indeed, our distant ...
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... 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 Where on earth is the crust?This long article concludes with an intriguing snippet. "Plate tectonic processes circulate the entire oceanic crust back into the mantle every 100 million years. Ero sion also removes part of the continental crust, and some of the eroded material may eventually find its way to deep oceanic trenches, where it is also returned to the mantle. This implies that at any given time only about 10% of the crust is at the surface. Much of the continental crust, however, is more than half the age of the earth, so one can infer this part has not recirculated recently." (Anderson, Don L.; "Where on Earth Is the Crust?" Physics Today, 42:38, 1989.) Comment. The machinations of plate tectonics, therefore, may well be responsi ble for missing sections of the geologi cal column and fossil record. From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 A METEORITIC EVENT LAYER IN ANTARCTIC ICE "Where the East Antarctic icesheet meets the Transantarctic Mountains, old, deep glacial ice is tilted upward and exposed. Within this visible cross section of the icesheet, layers of dark volcanic tephra serve as stratigraphic markers and datable age horizons. Systematic sampling of these layers at a well-known meteorite collection site (the Allan Hills Main Icefield) has revealed a band consisting of unusually dark and rounded particles, many of which are spheroidal. This debris layer (BIT-58) extends parallel to the stratigraphy of the ice established from the tephra bands, and thus apparently marks a single depositional event. Several kilograms of ice from two sites along this band were subsequently collected and melted, yielding a few grams of sediment for further study." Microscopic examination and microprobe analysis led to the following conclusions: "Although direct evidence of an extraterrestrial origin for this debris layer (such as the presence of cosmogenic 10 Be and 26Al) has not yet been obtained, the available data strongly suggest that this sediment originated as meteoritic spallation debris. This debris is distinct from other Antarctic 'cosmic dust' collections by virtue of its uniform, recognizable, ordinary chondrite composition and the consistent relation shown between grain size and texture. The BIT-58 layer probably originated from a single transient event, the passage and/or impact of a single large meteorite over the East Antarctic icesheet." (Harvey, ...
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... is, the mound certainly does not seem to be a reservoir, but that is what recent research says it is. The mound is shaped like an inverted frying pan, with a 1500-foot-long handle that leads to a normally dry stream bed higher up in the canyon. The Anasazi were excellent water managers and took advantage of the flash floods that roared down the canyon every few years. To impound some of this valuable water, they initially built a conventional reservoir, but it was soon silted up by the freshets. So, they gradually raised the reservoir walls and constructed a raised canal to the stream bed. It was all very logical. The engineering of the canal is particularly impressive. The channel is 4-8 feet wide, but only 1-2 feet deep. Its steep, 15-foot-high sides are shored up with neatly aligned stones that were carried in from somewhere outside the canyon. (Anonymous; "Mystery Mound Appears to Be an Ancient Reservoir," San Francisco Chronicle, June 6, 1997. Cr. D. Phelps. Also: Anonymous; "Mysterious Mesa Verde Mound Turns Out to Be a Reservoir," Deseret News, June 10-11, 1997. Cr. S. Jones.) Comment. The closely related Hohokam Indians built miles of well-engineered canals where Phoenix now stands. See SF#19 for description. From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of space heated by starlight than as the remnant of a fireball. Element-abundance predictions using the Big Bang require too many adjustable parameters to make them work. The universe has too much largescale structure (interspersed "walls" and voids) to form in a time as short as 10-20 billion years. The average luminosity of quasars must decrease in just the right way so that their mean apparent brightness is the same at all redshifts, which is exceedingly unlikely. The ages of globular clusters appear older than the universe. The local streaming motions of galaxies are too high for a finite universe that is supposed to be everywhere uniform. Invisible dark matter of an unknown but non-baryonic nature must be the dominant ingredient of the entire universe. The most distant galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field show insufficient evidence of evolution, with some of them apparently having higher redshifts (z = 6-7 ) than the faintest quasars. If the open universe we see today is extrapolated back near the beginning, the ratio of the actual density of matter in the universe to the critical density must differ from unity by just one part in 1059. Any larger deviation would result in a universe already collapsed on itself or already dissipated. (Van Flandern, Tom; "Top Ten Problems with the Big Bang," Meta Research Bul letin , 6:64, 1997. Bulletin address: P.O . box 15186, Chevy Chase, MD 20825-5186.) From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Kinky Sex Among The Invertebrates We suspect that the following two items may embarrass some, but they are too weird and amusing to ignore. Love's arrow. Or, rather, love's giant hypodermic needle. Cupid's arrows are rather benign compared with those of some squid. Some small squid will use their sharp beaks or tentacle hooks to rip open the skin of females. They then insert spermatophores with their penises. In the giant squid, however, the male's penis is formidable, muscular, and almost a meter long. It is powerful enough to insert spermatophores directly under the skin of the females. The males are not always accurate, for males themselves are sometimes impregnated in this manner during the squids' deep-sea orgies. (Norman, Mark D., and Lu, C.C .; "Sex in Giant Squid," Nature, 389:683, 1997.) The free-style penis. In the octopus and many cephalopods, the males have a special tentacle with which they insert their spermatophores under the mantle of the female. The tentacle is then retracted for future use. The male paper nautilus is more profligate with its tentacles. The paper nautilus is cephalopod which, like its cousin, the chambered nautilus, "sails the unshadowed main."* When the male detects a receptive female, he avoids intimacy. It's sex at a distance. His spermatophore-bearing tentacle detaches itself from the body and swims -- under its own power - ...
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... impact and this I am sure saved us from even more serious damage." "The wave was higher than our foremost track -- 85 ft above the water. As this wave approached from a direction 90 degrees different from the normal sea and wind, which had been northerly for a few days previously, I put its existence down to a submarine earthquake in the mid-Atlantic ridge. Certainly it appeared so much different from the normal wind-generated sea, of which I have seen thousands. There was no crest, nor white streaks, a nearly vertical front and quite fast approach." (Cameron, T. Wilson; "Treachery of Freak Wave," Marine Observer, 55:202, 1985.) Comment. Earthquake generated waves or tsunamis are hardly noticeable in deep water. Only when they approach shallow water and the shore do they crest dangerously. Reference. Giant solitary waves are covered in category GHW1 in our catalog: Earthquakes, Tides. Ordering information at: here . From Science Frontiers #48, NOV-DEC 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... "RNA and Hot-Water Springs," Nature, 322:206, 1986.) It just so happens that D.W . Deamer, University of California, Davis, has now found that the 4.5 -billion-year-old Murchison meteorite from Australia contains lipid-like organic chemicals that can self-assemble into membrane-like films. His paper was presented before the International Society for the Study of Origins of Life. (Raloff, J.; "Clues to Life's Cellular Origins," Science News, 130:71, 1986.) Comment. Strange that the earth should be "tailor-made" for biochemical operations and that outer space teems with meteorites transporting other ingredients of life-synthesis. That the earth's crust and deep soil are conducive to life is apparent in recent work done sponsored by DuPont and the Department of Energy. This effort has found that life is abundant at least 850 feet below the surface -- a realm hardly suspected to harbor life. "' There is life down there, and it is very diverse,' says Carl Fliermans of Dupont's Savannah River Laboratory in Aiken, S.C . The numbers are high enough to affect the chemistry of the environment: Some of the samples contained as many as 10 million organisms per gram of soil. But even more surprising than the high concentrations is the diversity of the microorganisms, according to David Balkwill of Florida State University in Tallahassee. Many varieties of bacteria and fungi have been seen, and there have been indications of amoeba ...
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... Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Creations Of Life?The lifeforms called Archaea and Eubacteria follow radically different life styles. The former are very happy in such extreme environments as the salty Dead Sea and the sea-bottom, hydrothermal vents; the latter prosper in bad hamburgers and your gut. Despite their differences, they have always been thought to have evolved from a common ancestor. A more subtle, fundamental difference has now been found. Recall SF#117 and how some terrestrial life forms do incorporate right-handed molecules in their structures, especially in cell membranes? The ubiquitous Eubacteria do this. In the Archaea, however, the same structural components of the cell membranes (glycerophosphates) are left-handed. A subtle difference, but one with deep implications. Some scientists maintain that it is impossible for two organisms relying upon mirror-image versions of the same molecule to have evolved from a common ancestor. Their genomes must be fundamentally different. Conclusion: the Archaea and Eubacteria must have evolved separately, and from different biological wellsprings -- that is, "creations." Such thinking is anathema. M. Kates, a Canadian evolutionary biologist, is skeptical. "Both the physics and chemistry of membranes are so complex that I would regard it as highly improbable that they could have auto-assembled twice." (Barnett, Adrian; "The Second Coming," New Scientist, p. 19, February 14, 1998.) Comment. Both opinions rely upon wild probability guesses, as do all opinions regarding the creation ...
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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 Precognitive Dreams For her doctoral dissertation, M.S . Stowell completed a deep study of precognitive dreaming. She approached this subject about the only way one can, which is by interviewing people who claim to have had such dreams. Stowell interviewed five such claimants, and it is remarkable how many precognitive dreams they have had collectively. There are 51, and 37 of them have been confirmed as accurate. In addition, all five dreamers had precognitive experiences while awake. Many of these were also confirmed. It is important to bear in mind that it takes only one solid confirmation of precognition to shatter some sacred paradigms! Here, we might have a couple score of them! To give the reader the flavor of this type of parapsychological research, we select one dream that foresaw a plane crash. Here is how Elizabeth described her dream: "It starts out where I'm driving north on the freeway in [City]. Right about by [specific location], going north, heading for the [specific] Bridge, I look up and there's a big plane coming straight at me, and there's also an overpass right where I am. My initial reaction is that it's going to crash on and that I'm in trouble and instead a split second passes in which I realize that I'm going under it, under the overpass, and the plane will go right ...
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... basis can trigger the release of immense volumes of this greenhouse gas from oceanic deposits. For example, when the Ice Ages lowered ocean levels by locking up water in the advancing ice caps, pressures on ocean-bottom methane hydrate lessened and, according to some speculators, released enough gas so that the increased greenhouse heating turned back the Ice Ages. (Was Gaia at work here?) On the other hand, if present human activities are truly stoking the greenhouse effect, ocean temperatures should rise, possibly destabilizing methane hydrate deposits and thereby aggravating the greenhouse effect. Such positive feedback could cook the biosphere. (Anonymous; "Did Methane Curb Ice Ages," New Scientist, p. 24, May 25, 1991. Also: Appenzeller, Tim; "Fire and Ice under the Deep-Sea Floor," Science, 252:1790, 1991.) Reference. Discussions of the origin of methane hydrate can be found in ESC5 in our catalog: Anomalies in Geology. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the van's occupants collapsed. The others ran for their lives toward Njindom. By 10:30 AM authorities had found 37 bodies along a 200meter stretch of road by the lake. Blood was oozing from the noses and mouths; the bodies were rigid; first-degree chemical burns were present. Also, animals and plants along the shore had been killed. On August 17, the lake turned reddish brown, indicating that it had been stirred up somehow. Although Lake Monoun is in a volcanic crater, chemical analysis of the water found little of the sulphur and halogens normally associated with volcanic action. However, the analysis did find a tremendously high level of bicarbonate ions, which form from the dissociation of carbon dioxide. One theory is that an earthquake disturbed the carbonate-rich deep water of the lake, which as it rose to the surface and lower pressures, released huge volumes of carbon dioxide -- something like opening a soda bottle. The resulting wave of water and cloud of gas caused the deaths and devastation. If there had been some nitric acid in the cloud, the burns could be accounted for. (Weisburd, S.; "The 'Killer Lake' of Cameroon," Science News, 128:356, 1985.) Comment. The article states that this event is unique, but in our Catalogs similar phenomena are reported. For example, Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana, "explodes" at irregular intervals, changing color, killing fish, and releasing gases (GSD2-X17). We also have the sudden whitening of the Dead ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Gulper Eel And Its Knotty Problem Occasionally brought up from great depths in nets, the gulper eel consists mainly of a huge mouth followed by a large bag of skin and, finally, a very long thin tail. The eel, often 6 feet long, can swallow prey as large or larger than itself. Such features are not particularly rare in deep-sea-creatures, but we do have to briefly describe this grotesque fish to get a delightful anomaly. It seems that in a few recovered specimens, the thin tail is tied in several overhand knots! Now moray eels can knot themselves, but the gulper eel is just a floating stomach with negligible musculature in its whiplike tail. So, just how did the knots get there? (de Sylva, Donald P.; "The Gulper Eel and Its Knotty Problem," Sea Frontiers, 32:104, March-April 1986.) Comment. We cannot resist mentioning the occasional discovery of groups of rats all tied together by their tails. Called "rat kings," these hapless snarls of rodents are usually dismissed as pranks or outright prevarication. How-ever, in recent years, respected naturalists have found "squirrel kings" in the wild. Gulper eels are not the only animals with knotty problems. From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... career as an ESP subject earned him a mention in the Guinness Book of Records , eventually ran out of steam. When, after a long break, he was retested recently by Dr Kappers in Amsterdam, he could produce only chance scores. I do not think it was loss of motivation or boredom in his case, as has sometimes been put forward as an explanation for the long-term decline effect, for it was Stepanek's great strength that he was constitutionally incapable of ever being bored! Nor can we take seriously Martin Gardner's attempt to explain how he might have relied throughout on trickery. If indeed he was a trickster, he should have steadily improved as he became more practiced. Whatever the explanation of these long-term declines, it must surely be something deep and pervasive." Further, it seems that while "strong" parapsychological phenomena declined rapidly, the "weak" parapsychological phenomena persisted. Here, Beloff cites as "weak" phenomena those measured by R. Jahn's Princeton group, in which thousands of PK (psychokinesis) attempts consistently show small, but statistically significant positive effects over long periods of time. Beloff sees two possible explanations for the decline effect: Each new strong parapsychological phenomenon consists only of a succession of deceptions and blunders, which under severe scrutiny soon fades away -- as with high ESP scorers using the venerable Zener cards. Beloff rejects this skeptical interpretation because of "its failure to offer any specific, plausible, normal counterexplanation to the various episodes that go to make up our history;" i. ...
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... the Starship Enterprise could not really survive out there. Three cautionary tidits will illustrate the hazards as well as our ignorance of them. "What could possibly accelerate a single subatomic particle to such a high speed, 99.99999999999999999999 percent that of light, that it would smash into the earth's atmosphere with the energy of a hard-hit tennis ball? If you don't have a clue you're not alone. These particles are ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, which are billions of times more energetic than the run-of-the-mill cosmic rays that continuously bombard earth's atmosphere." (Anonymous; "Space Streakers," Astronomy, 27:34, March 1999.) "The most powerful explosion ever ever observed -- a deep space eruption detected in January -- released in just seconds a burst of energy equal to billions of years of light from thousands of suns. Researchers say in studies to be published today that the explosion, called a gamma-ray burst, occurred 9 billion light years from earth. What caused the explosion is a mystery." (Anonymous; "Blast's Light May Have Been Greater Than Rest of Universe," Baltimore Sun, March 26, 1999.) "Every day, the sun blows billions of tons of ionized gas, electrons and protons into space -- the "solar wind." Sometimes, especially near the solar maximum, this wind is punctuated by squalls and storms of dangerous highenergy particles." Two giant solar storms erupted in 1972. Luckily, ...
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... the oil might be as young as 1240 years! The picture geologists draw of the Guaymas Basin is that of a spreading center covered by perhaps a half kilometer of sediments. Spewing up from the spreading center is hot water at 300-350 C, which "cracks" the organic material in the sediments, converting it into petroleum only 10-30 meters below the sea floor. (Hecht, Jeff; "Youngest Oil Deposit Found below Gulf of California," New Scientist, p. 19, April 6, 1991.) Comment. Since spreading centers are really cracks in the earth's crust, it is possible that some of the feed materials for this modern "petroleum factory" in the Guaymas Basin could consist of abiogenic, primordial methane and other organics seeping up from deep within the earth. Reference. Many questions remain about the origin and migration of oil. Many of these are discussed in ESC13 in our catalog: Anomalies in Geology. Details here . From Science Frontiers #76, JUL-AUG 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... "' We have found what appears to be two adults, one adolescent and one juvenile,' he said. 'They bear no resemblance to any marine creature I know.' "The adult skulls were about 1 m long with a total body length of 8 m to 10 m. They looked prehistoric and perhaps were land animals or amphibious species. "The cave, now a part of a reef about 50 m under water, may once have been above sea level. .. .. . "Mr Deacon believed the creatures were either prehistoric or contempory animals unknown to science -- or, if they were some known kind of animal, then how they had found their way into the cave was a mystery." (Spencer Geoff; "Monsters Found in the Fiji Deep," New Zealand Herald , May 31, 1990, Cr. R. Collyns via L. Farish.) From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A New Cosmology In the April 1999 issue of Physics Today -- certainly a mainstream publication, but occasionally daring -- we find a long, technically deep article outlining a new cosmology that jettisons the Big Bang and even redshifts as infallible measures of cosmological distances. It should come as no surprise that the authors are G. Burbidge, F. Hoyle, and J.V . Narlikar. They propose a quasi-steady-state universe to replace the hot Big Bang. It is easy to itemize narrow, specific problems bedeviling the Big Bang, but the three "boat-rockers" listed above also have an important philosophical bone to pick with modern astronomers and cosmologists. "The theory departs increasingly from known physics, until ultimately the energy source of the universe is put in as an initial condition, the energy supposedly coming from somewhere else. Because that "somewhere else" can have any properties that suit the theoretician, supporters of Big Bang cosmology gain for themselves a large bag of free parameters that can subsequently be tuned as the occasion may require. "We do not think that science should be done in that way. In science as we understand it, one works from an initial situation, known from observation or experiment, to a later situation that is also known. That is the way physical laws are tested. In the currently popular form of cosmology, by contrast, the physical laws are regarded as ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Martian Great Lakes P. Lowell hasn't been vindicated by the discovery of sedimentary formations on Mars, but his spirit must be pleased. Lowell's geometrical network of artificial canals have been superceded by great arroyos, flood-created deposits, and now evidence that Mars was once host to ice-covered lakes up to 3 miles deep and as large as Lake Superior. Photos from the Viking spacecraft reveal sedimentary layers up to 250 feet thick that seem to have been laid down by liquid water. The source of the sediments and mode of deposition are unknown. (Anonymous; "Great Lakes on Mars," Science 86, 7:13, April 1986.) Comment. The scientists reporting these findings, S. Squyres and S. Nedell, called attention to this type of Martian stratigraphy in Valles Marineris back in 1984. See SF#37. Reference. Martain layered deposits are cataloged at AME19 in the catalog The Moon and the Planets. To order, visit: here . Viking photo of probable sedimentary strata along the side of a Martian ridge. From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... via thermal effects. "Specifically, entire atoms can tunnel through barriers represented by the repulsive forces of other atoms and form complex molecules even though the atoms do not have the energy required by classical chemistry to overcome the repulsion." Of course, the reaction rates are slow, but the size of the cosmic pond is vastly greater than any terrestrial puddle. The above quotation is from V.I . Goldanskii who, even before Hoyle, suggested a cold prehistory of life, during which complex organic molecules were synthesized at just a few degrees above absolute zero. His article dwells primarily on the physics of the tunnelling phenomenon, which is well verified in the laboratory, but he does not shrink from the biological implications. (Goldanskii, Vitalii I.; "Quantum Chemical Reactions in the Deep Cold," Scientific American, 254:46, February 1986.) Comment. In the first few paragraphs you can almost hear the theme music from the movie 2001. Evolutionists sometimes get carried away in inventing protobirds. This specimin was developing feathers on its forelimbs to help catch insects. The illustration comes from Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, by M. Denton. It is published in England, and we are trying to get copies. From Science Frontiers #44, MAR-APR 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Those Strange Antarctic Fishes A representative Notothenioid fish from Antarctic waters. (From: Eastman, Joseph T,; Antarctic Fish Biology , San Diego, 1993.) In the frigid waters ringing the continent of Antarctica live approximately 275 species of fishes, 95 of which are assigned to the suborder Notothenioidei. This particular group of fishes is renowned for its unusual adaptations, as outlined below by D. Policansky: "Some of them have glycoprotein antifreezes in their blood, some have no hemoglobin, some have so small a temperature tolerance that they die at temperatures above 4 C, some are neutrally buoyant despite lacking swim bladders, and some live as deep as 2950 meters. The suborder has no known fossils, largely because no bony feature -- indeed, no single character of any sort -- can be used to define it. How did these animals arrive there, what are their ancestors, how do they make a living in such an environment, and how can they support commercial harvests?" (Policansky, David; "Southernmost Fauna," Science, 264:1002, 1994.) Comment. Those species lacking hemoglobin in their blood are doubly perplexing: (1 ) Zoologists still do not know how sufficient oxygen is transported in these fishes, for what substitutes for normal blood seems inadequate; (2 ) How could they have evolved from hemoglobin-carrying fishes? and (3 ) Why switch from hemoglobin at all ...
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... processional roads; that is, roads used for rituals rather than commerce or simply getting from one place to another. In Britain, for example, there are the grand processional avenues at Avebury and the longer, wider Icknield Way. In South America, the famed Inca roads were preceded by thoroughfares 100feet wide that had no obvious practical purpose. The hundreds of miles of unnecessarily straight roads leading to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico seem to have been primarily for pilgrims making ritual treks to the great ceremonial complex in the canyon. Did the Indians east of the Rockies construct special roads for ritual processions? We do know of the Mohawk Trail, the Virginia Warriors Trail, and other utilitarian roads through the wilderness. And before the settlers plowed them up, there were travel-worn trails six feet deep in the earth of Iowa. Now, we learn that, indeed, the Hopewell Culture may have built a long road mainly for ritual processions. It is called the Great Hopewell Road, and it is thought to connect the Hopewell centers at Newark and Chillicothe -- a distance of 60 miles through the heart of Ohio. In 1862, the first 6 miles of this controversial road, marked by parallel earthen banks, were surveyed by two brothers, C. and J. Salisbury. They noted that the road extended much farther in the direction of Chillicothe. B. Lepper, a present-day champion of the Great Hopewell Road, claims that there are still traces of the road remaining at four additional places along the 60-mile line connecting Newark and Chillicothe. Skeptics do ...
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... and that rising ocean levels will force us to abandon our coastal cities, we read the following: Within a billion years, our planet could be as dry and barren as Mars, claim geologists in Tokyo. They have calculated that the oceans are leaking water into the Earth's mantle five times as fast as it is being replenished. It is true that ocean water is being drained away at subduction zones where oceanic crustal plates dive under the continental plates; there's a 10,000-mile unsealed crack there. S. Maruyama and colleagues at the Tokyo Institute of Technology estimate that 1.12 billion metric tons of water leak through that crack in the earth's integument every year. Geologists have always assumed that most of this leakage was returned to the oceans through deep-sea vents and volcanic action, but Maruyama calculates that only 0.23 billion metric tons are recovered. The balance is probably absorbed by lawsonite and other minerals forming 100 kilometers below the surface. (Hadfield, Peter; "Leaky Seas," New Scientist, p. 4, September 11, 1999.) Comment. Does this mean we should cease our attempts to stem global warming? From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals ...
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... bogs do breathe albeit rather erratically. The slow heaving of their surfaces is a poorly understood phenomenon as the following abstract demonstrates. The surfaces of bogs and fens in northeastern Minnesota may rise and fall by as much as 36 cm in a single day. This phenomenon, known as Mooratmung, or bog breathing, has been traditionally attributed to changes in water storage. However, the surface deformations recorded by static GPS [Global Positioning System] stations on bog and fen sites within the Red Lake peatland are more frequent and out of phase with precipitation events. These vertical fluctuations instead appear to be related to a complex interplay among climate, hydrology, and microbial gas-production. Climate-driven re-charge on bogs, for example, stimulates the production of biogenic gases by advecting root exudates deep into the peat profiles. Seasonal droughts, however, favor the formation of transient confining layers that trap biogenic gases into discrete pockets... Bog breathing may therefore be a surface manifestation of the accumulation and release of greenhouse gases in peat deposits. (Glaser, Paul H. et al; "Bog Breathing: the Curious Interplay of Climate, Ground-water, and Greenhouse Gases in Boreal Peatlands," Eos, 80:F47, 1999.) Spontaneously igniting, biogenic gases are found in many marshy places. These eruptions were observed on an English mud flat in 1902. Comment. When bogs breathe they release plumes of flammable gases which probably give rise to the many observations of will-o '- the-wisps in marshy areas. Why these gas clouds are luminous ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hailstorms as Imaginative Sculptors June 29, 1984. Padis Plateau, Romania. This plateau is located in the Transylvanian Western Carpathians. The weather was pleasantly warm even though the ground was still covered with snow. In the south there suddenly appeared a cumulonimbus capillatus whose top seemed to me to be about 14 kilometres or 42 000 feet. As the cloud took on the character of cumulonimbus incus and gradually covered the entire sky, thunder could be heard more and more loudly. The flock of sheep grazing in the deep valley gathered together just as they do before sunset because they too felt the approaching storm. At 16 UT the first raindrops fell. A weak shower of rain followed, and then loose-structured 20-mm-diameter discs of ice. Soon afterwards what was to be 30 minutes of "sky fire" set in. Stone-like pieces of ice streamed to the ground, very heavily and violently. Some of the hailstones were the size of a nut or plum. Within minutes a white carpet covered the plateau of Padis at an altitude of 1200 metres (3900 feet), and the air grew very cool. The landscape was covered by a milky-white veil of fog which rose from the cold ground to a height of 1 to 1.5 metres to embrace the whole dolomite plateau. Then for three minutes the hailstorm paused, before restarting! It lasted for 55 minutes, and it was ...
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... region of Bolivia called the Llanos de Mojos (Plains of Mojos). Anthropologist C.L . Erickson and a team from the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that the Llanos de Mojos once supported a Precolumbian complex of societies linked together by networks of communication, trade, and alliances. Erickson asserts that these cultures erected: .. .thousands of linear kilometers of artificial earthen causeways and canals,... large urban settlements, and intensive farming systems. Indeed, aerial photographs of this immense region show patterns of canals and causeways that stretch from horizon to horizon. This is truly a remarkable, virtually unexplored region of ancient human endeavor. Even the geology of the region staggers the imagination. The Llanos de Mojos is a shelf of alluvial deposits 3,000 meters (2 miles) deep! (Mann, Charles C.; "Earthmovers of the Amazon, Science, 287:786, 2000.) Comment. The earth-and-water cultures of the Llanos de Mojos should be compared to the "hydraulic civilization" of ancient Sri Lanka. (MSC7-X3 in Ancient Infrastructure ) From Science Frontiers #132, NOV-DEC 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... even on the Gobi. But one would expect this rain to be quickly absorbed by the sand. Intrigued by the evidence of unexpected catastrophism in the Gobi, scientists from the American Museum of Natural History first took a look at Nebraska's strange Sand Hills. These Sand Hills stretch for thousands of square miles, reach heights of 400 feet, and are believed to be of aeolian origin during the Pleistocene. (See ETM7 in Carolina Bays ) Being a modern analog of the ancient Gobi, the Nebraska Sand Hills might provide some insights as to what happened long ago in the Gobi. An important clue occurs during the summer, when heavy thunderstorms sometimes trigger avalanches of wet sand called "debris flows". These sandslides may be 900 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 4 feet deep. Although they have occasionally partly buried ranch buildings, they are too slow and small to endangerlivestock and wild animals. But what if they were much larger and faster? Back on the Gobi, geologists remarked that the rich fossil deposits were found in structureless sandstone; i.e ., there was none of the cross-bedding seen in sandstones elsewhere in the region. Furthermore, fossils were extremely rare in the cross-bedded sandstones, which were built up over long periods of time. It looked as if the structureless, fossiliferous sandstones were sandslides differing from those in Nebraska in their much greater magnitude. But why were the Gobi sandslides so much larger and, apparently, faster? The next clue came from the recent devastating mudflows in California and Central America caused by heavy rains ...
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