... anomalous?] 297 pages, hardcover, $19.95, 40 illus., 3 indexes, 1993. 494 references, LC 91-68541, ISBN 0-915554-27-5 , 7x10. Biological Anomalies: Humans III: A Catalog of Biological Anomalies Sorry, Out of print Completing our trilogy on human anomalies, this volume focuses on four areas (1 ) the human fossil record; (2 ) biochemistry and genetics; (3 ) possible unrecognized living hominids; and (4 ) human interactions with other species and "entities " Typical subjects covered: Neanderthal demise * Giant skeletons * Tiny skeletons * Hominid gracilization * Sudden brain expansion * Human chimeras * Sasquatch / Bigfoot, Alma, Yeti, and others * Human-animal communication * Humanity and Gaia * Anomalous distribution of human lice Comments from reviews: "Some fascinating thinking om the frontiers of science", Borderlands. 212 pages, hardcover, $19.95, 44 illus., 3 indexes, 1994. 311 references, LC 91-68541. ISBN 0-915554-29-1 , 7x10. Biology Handbook For a full list of biology subjects, see here . Biological Anomalies: Mammals I: A Catalog of Biological Anomalies Sorry, Out of print The first three biology catalogs deal with human anomalies. Here, we attend to the "other" mammals, and two volumes will be required This, the first, parallels Humans I in focusing on external attributes (1 ) physical appearance; (2 ) behavior; and (3 ) talents and faculties. Typical subjects covered ...

... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Lurch of Death Two geophysicists, W. Sager and A. Koppers, have plotted 27 ancient pole positions dated between 120 and 30 million years ago. Using rock samples brought up from submerged Pacific sea-mounts, they find that the earth's magnetic poles shifted 15-20-deg about 84 million years ago. The north magnetic pole was not slowly drifting, it was lurching. It took just a couple million years to shift 700 miles or more; that's more than ten times the rate of continental drift. The earth from afar must have seemed to be a disturbed top---on a geological time scale, of course! What could have perturbed the earth? One suggestion blames a sudden shifting of the planet's mass distribution, some sort of subterranean indigestion, like a subducted ocean plate suddenly plunging through into the lower mantle. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Did the Dinosaurs Live on a Topsy-Turvy Earth?" Science, 287:406, 2000.) The biological consequences of such a sudden tilting could have been severe. The event -- known as rapid true polar wander -- may have been accompanied by worldwide volcanic upheavals and reorganization of tectonic plates that would have played havoc with anything living in the Late Cretaceous period, 65 million to 99 million years ago. Although the notion that an asteroid was the immediate cause of dinosaur extinction about 65 million years ago has won wide acceptance, many paleontologists have argued that volcanic activity may have played a role in changing the climate and ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Antipodal Hotspot Pairs Hotspots are isolated areas of the earth's crust where there is an unusually large amount of basaltic volcano activity. At present, over 120 hotspots are recognized by geophysicists -- and they are not distributed randomly about the globe. In fact, many seem to be diametrically opposite one another, as described by M.R . Rampino: "The observed number of antipodal hotspot pairs depends on the maximum allowable deviation from exact antipodality, At a maximum deviation of 700 km, 26% to 37% of hotspots form antipodal pairs in the published lists examined here, significantly more than would be expected from the general hotspot distribution. Two possible mechanisms that might create such a distribution include: (1 ) symmetry in the generation of mantle plumes; and (2 ) melting related to antipodal focusing of seismic energy from large-body impacts." (Rampino, Michael R.; "Antipodal Hotspot Pairs on the Earth," Geophysical Research Letters, 19:2011, 1992.) Similar Phenomenon. On the moon, the magcons (magnetic concentrations) seem to be located diametrically opposite large lunar impact basins. See ALZ3 in The Moon and the Planets. This catalog volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... redshifts are bunched at intervals 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! ...

... of Namibia. Geologically, this feature is a clay pan in the flood plain of the Tsauchah River, which flows on the average only once in a decade. Towering above the clay pan are sand dunes that reach 350 meters elevation above the river bed. They are veritable mountains of sand and the tallest dunes in the world. The potential anomaly at Sossusvlei is not the size of the dunes but rather the mysterious circles of grass that grow upon them. All we have to go on is a photograph showing a dozen or so of the circles situated at some unspecified distance from the photographer. Somewhat irregular in shape, the circles seem to be on the order of 100 meters in diameter. No grass at all grows within the rings of thick grass, but outside grow sparse, evenly distributed grass clumps. The writer of the Sossusvlei article labels the circles "unusual phenomena." (Pupkewitz, Tony; "Sossusvlei," Optima , 36:136, 1988. Cr. P.A . Hill. Optima is a South African publication.) Comment. Are these circles akin to the "fairy rings" found in moister climates? Perhaps also pertinent are the clones of creosote bushes which grow outwards in expanding circles, as mentioned in a fascinating recent article on giant aspen clones, which may be a million years old! (Grant, Michael C.; "The Trembling Giant," Discover, 14:82, October 1993.) From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... after Anderson wrote a column in the December 1990 issue of Physics Today entitled "On the Nature of Physical Law." Here he recommended the categorical dismissal of all anomalous observations that might tear apart the fabric of science. Although Anderson did not name Jahn specifically, it was obvious to Jahn that his work was the primary target. Jahn's response was a long letter summarizing the stupendous quantity of data he and his colleagues have amassed on psi effects. "We have in hand several prodigious data bases, acquired over 12 years of continuous, intensive experimentation, that clearly establish the existence, scale and primary correlates of certain anomalous influences of human consciousness on a variety of physical systems and processes. In our Microelectronic Random Binary Generators experiment, 95 selected human operators attempted to shift the output distribution means to either higher or lower values than the chance mean, in accordance with their prerecorded intentions. In 3 850 000 experimental sequences of 200 binary samples, the overall results were that means in high intensity runs exceeded means in low intensity runs by 4.38 sigma. (The probability of chance occurrence of this outcome is less than 6 x 10-6 .) Jahn also reviewed the results of other types of psi experiments which also produced positive results. Replying to Jahn, Anderson admitted that he indeed had Jahn in mind when he wrote his original article. "What my piece actually said was within my competence as a theorist, which is to make logical connections, and the logical point I made is that physics as it is practiced, and specifically precise mensuration, is ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Globular Clusters Upset Theory Of Galaxy Formation A spherical cloud of globular clusters surrounds the Milky Way galaxy. Each cluster is itself a spherical groups of stars. Through the telescope, globular clusters are beautiful spherical aggregations of bright stars that seem to get ever denser toward the cluster's center. Globular clusters harbor many anomalies (AOB4 and AOB17 in Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos); here, we mention two involving spatial distribution and age. Many spiral galaxies, like our own Milky Way, spin ponderously in the center of a spherical cloud of scores, even hundreds, of globular clusters (see sketch). Not only do the globular clusters surrounding us display a different spatial distribution (spherical rather than flat-spiral), but their individual ages undercut galaxy theory. All of the Milky Way's globular clusters were supposed to have been formed when our galaxy was created. Yet, the ages of these clusters vary by as much as 5 billion years. (Dayton, Leigh; "Globular Clusters Upset Theory of Galaxy," New Scientist, p. 34, May 13, 1989.) Comment. We cannot resist mentioning still another cluster anomaly: The globular clusters do not participate in the galaxy's general rotation. Where did these oddballs come from? Reference. The catalog volume: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos, mentioned above, is described here . From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 ...

... 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 Malodorous Mystery "A scent squad has been unleashed in Bartlesville, Okla., to trace and identify an elusive odor that has plagued residents for months. The 19-member Bartlesville Odor Mitigation Task Force will distribute about a half dozen devices to trap the scent, which will then be snif fed and characterized by trained noses at a Chicago Research Company. The city has received 60 calls this year about the odor, described as smelling like rotten eggs or butane, but they have been unable to determine the source." (Newman, Steve; "Malodorous Mystery," Baltimore Sun, July 22, 1990.) Comment. We rarely come across olfactory anomalies, although they occasionally crop up in the Fortean literature. From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... but not all, residents of the British Isles. Percipients describe the hum as like a "diesel truck with its engine idling." The electronic environment of Britain has been blamed for the hum: transformers, high-voltage transmission lines, and pulsed radars are all candidate hum-makers. For, it has been discovered, some people somehow convert pulses of electromagnetic energy into a perception of sound. This facet of the British "hum problem" was covered on p.000, where the infamous Soviet "Woodpecker Radar" is mentioned specifically. But are electromagnetic pulses really to blame? The British hum has become a nuisance - to those who can hear it - during the past 20 years. This is just the period during which British Gas has been installing a nationwide gas-distribution system, which employs powerful turbines to pump natural gas through underground pipelines. H. Witherington, an unhappy hum-hearer, has for years driven around Britain at night when things are quieter, plotting places where the hum can be heard. He has found that the sound follows the gas pipelines and extends for several kilometers on each side. Houses, he finds, tend to amplify the sound, because closed rooms sometimes create resonant conditions. (Fox, Barry; "Low-Frequency 'Hum' May Permeate the Environment," New Scientist, p. 27, December 9, 1989.) Reference. Ordering information for our catalog (mentioned above): Earthquakes, Tides may be found here . From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 ...

... This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mind-bending the velocity vectors of marine algae From the referenced paper's abstract: "A consciousness experiment in which the Doppler shift of He/Ne laser light was used to describe changes in the velocity and vector of a marine alga, Dunaliella, was reported by Pleass and Dey in 1985. Because the subject of the consciousness experiment is living, we expect strings of baseline velocity and vector data which are, at some level, inextricably time-variant. This complicates the statistical procedures which must be used to analyze the data. "This paper examines the variation in baseline data strings, and describes two alternative statistical procedures which have been used to determine the probability of consciousness effects. Two levels of control are applied, allowing global comparison of frequency distributions of experimental scores with similar distributions derived artificially from baseline data. In both cases the null hypothesis is that there is no psi effect. The data quite strongly suggest the rejection of the null hypothesis, although the distributions of run scores contain several values beyond 3 sigma and are nonnormal. This limits the definition of probabilities." (Pleass, C.M ., and Dey, N. Dean; "Finding the Rabbit in the Bush: Statistical Analysis of Consciousness Research Data from the Motile Alga Dunaliella," The Explorer, 3:6 , no. 2, 1986. The Explorer is a publication of the Society for Scientific Exploration.) Comment. Scientifically, these experiments seem to far transcend guessing Zener cards. From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . ...

... 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 -inch polystyrene spheres cascaded down through an array of 330 nylon pegs into 19 bins. According to chance a Gaussian distribution of spheres should be found in the bins. The operators were asked to mentally try and skew the distribution to the right or left, or construct a baseline, as with the REG. Once again, there was statistically significant evidence of a mental influence. Jahn's group also engaged in remoteviewing experiments, in which subjective factors were suppressed as far as possible. An excerpt from the report's Abstract summarizes this phase of the work nicely: "Quantitative analysis of a large data base of remote perception experiments reveals similar departures from chance expectation of the degree of target information acquired by anomalous means. Digital scoring techniques based on a spectrum of 30 binary descriptors, applied to all targets and perceptions in the experimental pool, consistently indicate acquisition of substantial topical and impressionistic information about remote ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bacteria One dictionary's definition: "Widely distributed group of microscopic, one-celled vegetable organisms..." As a matter of fact, the nearly universal image of a bacterium is that of a simple, single-cell organism. But: "That view is now being challenged. Investigators are finding that in many ways an individual bacterium is more analogous to a component cell of a multicellular organism than it is to a free-living, autonomous organism. Bacteria form complex communities, hunt prey in groups and secrete chemical trails for the directed movement of thousands of individuals." J.A . Shapiro, author of the preceding quote, attributes the simplistic picture of bacteria to medical bacteriology, in which disease-causing bacteria are classically identified by isolating single cells, growing cultures from them, and then showing that they cause the disease in question. In the microscopic real world, bacteria virtually always live in colonies, which possess collective properties quite different and much more impressive than those of the single-cell-in-a -dish! That old human urge for reductionism has led us astray again. Shapiro seeks to remove the blinders of reductionism in a wonderful article in the June, 1988, issue of Scientific Amer can . We have room here to mention only the Myxobacteria, many of which never exist as single cells in nature. Even those that do are "social" in the sense that ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Celestial Influences The "Mars Effect" refers to the "significant tendency for champion athletes to have been born at the time of either the rise or the upper culmination of the planet Mars." What has the position of Mars in the earth's sky to do with an athlete's prowess? No one knows! And certainly no scientist who wants to remain employed will try to find out. Distribution in 18 Mars sectors for sports champions (top) and ordinary people (below). Solid lines are observed numbers; dotted lines, expected numbers. The two peaks in the graph occur at the rise and upper culmination of Mars. We have M. Gauquelin to thank for discovering the Mars Effect. Gauquelin began his research with checking out the claims of conventional astrology. He "found no truth whatever behind certain major tenets of the horoscope, including the alleged influence of the signs of the zodiac, the reality of the astrological 'aspects,' the reported role of the 'houses,' or the prediction of future events." That's the good news, now here's the bad. During his work, he recorded the birth dates of thousands of French men and women who were especially successful in various endeavors, especially sports. These data, easily veri-fied, do seem to demonstrate that the Mars effect truly exists! G. Abell, who was a reknowned astronomer, did ...

... . 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fractals, fractals everywhere Anyone who follows the popular scientific literature knows that fractals are now "in." Commonly employed to "explain" patterns in nature, fractals are, from a simplistic viewpoint, mathematical ways to predict the development of a growing structure, be it a crystalline mass, a plant, or the universe-as-a -whole. Yes, the universe-as-a -whole, the clouds of stars and clusters of galaxies, may be mimicked by cellular automata (i .e ., fractals). Imagine the universe as a cubical lattice, and start in one corner, adding one layer of cubes after another. Galaxy distribution could be simulated by using a rule telling us which of the added cubical cells had galaxies in them and which did not. "The rule actually used supposes that the question whether each point in a newly added layer will (or will not) be occupied by a galaxy is mostly determined by the occupancy of the five nearest neighbors in the previous layer, but for good measure, there is a random variable to introduce an element of white noise to the system. To make the process a little more interesting, the determination whether a new site is occupied depends on whether a number characteristic of that site, and calculated by simple arithmetic from the corresponding number for the five nearest neighbors in the preceeding layer, exceeds an arbitrarily chosen number." Comparing this fractal simulation with the observed ...

... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Remote, extrasensory description of mineral samples "A series of remote viewing experiments were run with 12 participants who communicated through a computer conferencing network. These participants, who were located in various regions of the United States and Canada, used portable terminals in their homes and offices to provide typed descriptions of 10 mineral samples. These samples were divided into an open series and a double-blind series. A panel of five judges was asked to match the remote viewing descriptions against the mineral samples by a percentage scoring system. The correct target sample was identified in 8 out of 33 cases; this represents more than double the pure chance expectation. Two experienced users provided 20 transcripts for which the probability of achieving the observed distribution of the percentage score by chance was 0.04." (Vallee, Jacques,; "Remote Viewing and Computer Communications - An Experiment," Journal of Scientific Exploration , 2:13, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #61, JAN-FEB 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Parasites Control Snail Behavior A species of estuarine snail bearing the larvae of the trematode parasite Gynae cotyla adunca behaves radically different than it does when not infected. It lets itself become stranded high on beaches and sandbars, where it becomes easy prey to crustaceans living in this region. These crustaceans serve as the parasite's next host. Somehow, the parasite is able to modify the snail's behavior in a way that enhances its own chances for success. The question, as always in such cases, is how? And if it is a chemically induced change in behavior, how did it evolve? (Curtis, Lawrence A.; "Vertical Distribution of an Estuarine Snail Altered by a Parasite," Science, 235:1509, 1987.) Comment. Is present human behavior, thought by some to be irrational or suicidal, controlled by some unrecognized parasite that will ultimately benefit? Someone must have written a science fiction story on this theme. From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anomalous distribution of large, fresh lunar craters The overwhelming majority of astronomers favors a meteor-impact origin for the giant fresh lunar craters. (Here, "fresh" means post-mare formation.) Such an origin would seem to favor random distribution of these craters. "However, it appears that the distribution of these large, fresh craters is far from random, contrary to what would be expected if their mechanism of formation was by impact. Even the most casual observer of the Moon cannot help but note that the maria contain very few large craters. The more experienced observer will take note of several apparent anomalies. Six magnificent post-mare craters are almost fortuitously located immediately adjacent to mare regions, these being Langrenus, Theophilus, Cavelerius, Aristoteles, Aristarchus, and Copernicus" The author of these observations then buttresses them with a statistical analysis, which indicates a strong, nonrandom distribution of all of these fresh craters. Apparently, the volcano-meteorite controversy is not completely settled after all these years. (Kitt, Michael T,; "Anomalous Distribution of Large, Fresh Lunar Craters," Strolling Astronomer, 31:22, 1985.) Comment. Some of the fresh craters on the mare borders, such as Aristarchus and Copernicus, are well-known sites of lunar transient phenomena. Could they be analogous to the terrestrial volcanos constituting the "ring of fire" around the Pacific Basin? From Science ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Fabric Of Prime Number Distribution Mathematicians and many non-mathematicians have soft spots in their hearts for numbers that cannot be subdivided; that is, the prime numbers. No one has ever been able to figure out any foolproof system to their occurrence or how to generate them all by formula. Some primes, such as 11 and 13, 17 and 19, etc., come in pairs; but most don't . And some formulas are particularly good at generating primes, but they all fail somewhere. One such formula was discovered by Leonhard Euler, the great mathematician: n2+ n+ 41 This formula works for n = 0, 1, 2,...39; but fails at n = 40. An interesting consequence of Euler's formula can be made apparent when all numbers from 41 to 440 are written in a square spiral, like so: All of the numbers on the diagonal indicated are Euler formula primes, even when the spiral is expanded to 20 x 20. However, when the 20 x 20 spiral is examined closely, many of the other primes -- those not generated by Euler's formula -- also tend to line up on diagonals. This is a most intriguing characteristic, one which goes far beyond the 20 x 20 array mentioned above. The computer-generated display shown below lays out a huge square spiral, with each prime a bright dot. ...

... findings of John et al are hotly contested by some brain researchers. One obvious conflict is that if up to 100 million brain cells are involved in storing just one simple memory, the brain will quickly use up all available cells. It must be that individual brain cells can participate in the storage of many different memories. The conventional mem-ory-trace theory would have to be replaced by a new type of memory architecture. (Bower, Bruce; "Million-Cell Memories," Science News, 130:313, 1986) Comment. Our thinking about biological memory may be controlled by our preoccupation with the two-dimensional circuits of computer memories. Biological memories might be three-dimensional, or of even higher order. Some scientists have ventured that memory might entail electrical charge distribution patterns in the brain; such need not be limited to two dimensions. The same thinking can be applied to the storage of genetic information. While DNA, RNA, etc., may be pieces in the puzzle, the complete solution may include the ways in which these molecules are bent, twisted, convoluted, arrayed, juxtaposed, and so on. In a letter relating to the above article, P.J . Rosch points out that John's results are consistent with the holographic theory of brain function supported by Pribram and Bohm. "In a hologram, every element of the subject is distributed throughout the photographic plate, making it possible to reconstruct the entire original image from any portion of the picture. In this paradigm, the brain stores memory and deals with interactions ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Space Spume The celestial pot seems to have boiled over "in the beginning." New surveys of the galaxies suggest that they are mostly located on the surfaces of bubbles, not as we thought for so long distributed uniformly throughout the cosmos, the expanding debris of the Big Bang. If further surveys confirm a bubbly universe, the "conventional explanations for the evolution of large-scale structure in which gravity played a dominant role may have to be modified or abandoned." To explain the bubbles, a new scenario has Big Bang #1 creating a population of uniformly distributed, extremely massive stars, which eventually burned out and exploded in a crescendo of supernovas. One stellar detonation stimulating adjacent giant stars to explode in a chain reaction. The bubble-like shock waves expanding outward from these explosions stimulated the condensations of the stars we now see in the heavens. Naturally, these stars and galaxies are concentrated on the surfaces of the shock wave bubbles. (Anonymous; "New 3-D Map Shows the Cosmos with a 'Bubble Bath' Appearance," Baltimore Sun, January 5, 1986.) Comment. The space bubbles are mapped using redshifts as measurements of distance. As all-too-frequently asserted in this book, some redshifts may not be distance yardsticks, in which case these theoretical bubbles would burst. As the structures of the cosmos and the subatomic worlds become more and more foreign to everyday experience ...

... the earth. Then, he found more suggestions of quantization. The redshifts of pairs of galaxies differed by quantized amounts (see figure). More evidence exists for galactic quantization, but this should give the reader a feeling for the conceptual disaster waiting on the wings of astronomy. Can galaxies, like atoms and mole cules, posses quantized states? And do the findings of Tifft and Cocke undermine the redshift-distance relationship? The answer might be YES; and then all of astronomy and our entire view of the universe and its history would have to be reformulated. (Tifft, William G., and Cocke, W. John; "Quantized Galaxy Redshifts," Sky and Telescope, 73:19, 1987.) Redshift differences for double galaxies. Instead of following the expected distribution (dotted line), they tend to fall into bins separated by 72-km/sec. From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... this is the so-called "dayglow." The experimenters, L. Frank, J. Sigwarth, and J. Craven, all at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, have found that their dayglow images are speckled with transitory dark spots. "According to Sigwarth, each hole expands like a drop of dye spreading out in a glass of water; within about 30 seconds the dayglow intensity drops by about 95 percent over an area of about 3,000 square kilometers. Then, over the next 3.5 minutes, the dayglow intensity increases toward its normal value as the hole grows to an area of about 25,000 km2 ." The Iowa group thinks that the holes or spots are created by meteors hitting the upper atmosphere because the spots follow the same time distribution as meteors. For example, they are more frequent during the well-known meteor showers. The theory is that the dark spots are formed when ice associated with the meteors is turned into water vapor, which reacts with the atmospheric oxygen producing the dayglow, in effect removing temporarily part of the light source. So far, everything seems relatively nonanomalous. But when quantities are calculated, though, jaws begin to drop. The sizes of the spots imply that the average meteor involved weighs 10 kilograms, mostly ice and far larger than has been thought. In fact, they may be characterized as small icy comets; that is, compositionally like the dirty snowballs that comets are now thought to be, but much, much smaller. The implication is that from 1,000 to 10 ...

... 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 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 30: Nov-Dec 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cosmic Rays Not Random Conventional wisdom maintains that the cosmic rays intercepted by the earth are randomly distributed in space and time because of the smoothing action of the galactic magnetic field. But a cosmic-ray telescope buried beneath 600 meters of rock has recently detected bursts of cosmic rays emanating from specific directions. The two major sources are in the direction of the galactic north pole and the constellation Cygnus. Since the galactic magnetic field seems sufficient to randomize all charged particles during their long flights through space, pristine cosmic rays may not be charged particles at all. (Hecht, Jeff, and Torrey, Lee; "Scientists Find Sources of Cosmic Rays," New Scientist, 99:764, 1983.) Reference. The many anomalies of cosmic radiation are cataloged it: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. Details on this book at: here . From Science Frontiers #30, NOV-DEC 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Explanation "The nitrate deposits in the extremely arid Atacama Desert of northern Chile are among the most unusual of all mineral deposits. In fact, they are so extraordinary that, were it not for their existence, geologists could easily conclude that such deposits could not form in nature. The nitrate deposits consist of water-soluble saline minerals that occur as cement in unconsolidated surficial material -- alluvial fill in valleys, loose rocky debris on hillsides, and windblown silt and sand -- and as impregnations and veins in porous and fractured bedrock. They are found chiefly along the eastern side of the Coastal Range, but also within the Coastal Range, in the Central Valley to the East, and along the lower Andean front. Features of the deposits that appear to defy rational explanation are their restricted distribution in a desert characterized throughout by saline soil and salt-encrusted playas; the wide variety of topography where they occur; the abundance of nitrate minerals, which are scarce in other saline complexes; and the presence of other, less abundant minerals containing the ions of perchlorate, iodate, chromate, and dichromate which do not exist in any other saline complexes. Iodate,, chromate, and dichromate are known to form under such conditions, but no chemical process acting at temperatures and pressures found at the earth's surface is known to produce perchlorate." (Ericksen, George E.; "The Chilean Nitrate Deposits," American Scientist, 71: 366, 1983.) Reference. For more on these nitrate deposits and related phenomena, see ESP3 in our Catalog: Neglected ...