Science Frontiers
The Unusual & Unexplained

Strange Science * Bizarre Biophysics * Anomalous astronomy
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About Science Frontiers

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

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

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


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


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... an old (534-millionyears-ago) crustal slippage, whereas Hapgood was talking about a cataclysm within the last 10,000 years or so. Nevertheless, it would have been nice to see Hapgood's earlier work acknowledged. Four features of this "new" proposal make it more palatable than Hapgood's to today's geologists and geophysicists: Two of the "new" authors, J. Kirschvink and D.A . Evans, are at the prestigious California Institute of Technology, while Hapgood was a PhD-less history professor at Keene State College. Status is important when theorizing. Kirschvink et al propose a scientifically acceptable mechanism for the onset of rapid crustal slippage. They visualize a huge chunk of the seafloor suddenly foundering and thereby changing the planet's mass distribution. This imbalance caused the continents to shift rapidly in order to restore the smooth rotation of the earth around its spin axis. Within a period of 15 million years, they envisage, the continents had slipped about 90 . Part of what is now North America moved from the South Pole to near the Equator. Evidence for this huge shift is seen in measurements of the earth's magnetic field frozen in the rocks. In other words, Kirschvink et al used the methods of paleomagnetism. The "new" crustal slippage is really only accelerated continental drift (a dominant and well-established paradigm) and not the more radical notion of the entire outer layer of crust slipping over the earth's mantle like a greased onion skin. Nor is the proposed process anything like poleflipping, ...
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... , and cultural purpose" of present-day "rigorously objective" science, but would: Allow a proactive role for consciousness Be more explicit and profound in the use of interdisciplinary metaphors Permit more generous interpretations of measurability, replicability, and resonance (4 ) Reduce onotological aspirations Permit an "overarching teleological causality. R.J . Jahn heads the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Laboratory, which over the years has conducted some 50 million experimental trials, mostly in the search for psychokinetic effects on the behavior of a wide variety of mechanical, electrical, and other types of machines. Jahn and Dunne assert that the results of those experiments clearly show the effects of the pre-stated intentions of the machine operators. In other words, mind can affect matter -- as in the distribution of spheres cascading down a peg board. We now list some of the other salient features of the immense corpus of PEAR experimental results: The scale and character of the results are rather insensitive to the type of random devices (machines) employed. Operator learning and experience have no effect on performance. Operators may exert their "intentions" on the machine hours or days before the machine is run and still produce results similar to "on-time" machine operation. The distance between operator and machine has no effect on the results. (Jahn, Robert G., and Dunne, Brenda J.; "Science of the Subjective," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11:201, 1997.) Comment. That PEAR results are unaffected by by the timing and distance of ...
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... having ten times the angular momentum of the planets, the situation is much worse. According to Asimov, the solar-system angular momentum is split as follows: Oort Cloud 90% All of the planets 9.8 % The sun 0.2 % The total mass of the Oort Cloud is estimated to be roughly that of Saturn. The recent flyby of Halley's Comet created this dilemma. It was discovered that Halley was a chunk containing 140 cubic miles of ice - much larger than anticipated for this "typical" comet. If the estimated 2 trillion comets are, on the average, Halley's size, the Oort Cloud is a thousand times more massive than previously thought. This, combined with estimates of Oort Cloud distance and angular velocity leads to the almost ridiculous distribution of solar-system angular momentum tabulated above. This will keep the theorists busy for a while. (Asimov, Isaac; Frontiers: New Discoveries about Man and His Planet, Outer Space and the Universe , New York, 1989, p. 270. Cr. C. Ginenthal) Comment. Perhaps the Oort Cloud isn't there after all. Or, if it is, it isn't rotating as rapidly as thought. In any case, the accepted theory of solarsystem formation is in trouble. Reference. Details concerning our catalog The Sun and Solar System Debris may be found here . From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 ...
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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 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 ...
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... Day The Laws Of Physics Changed Well, maybe there weren't such things as "days" as we now know them back when the universe was very young. In fact, "time" then might have been different from "time" now. This sounds like so much physics-speak; but, seriously, during the birth pangs of the universe, there seems to have been what cosmologists call a "phase change," a mysterious moment when the laws of physics suddenly became more complex. You can reasonably ask: "How can supposedly immutable physical laws change?" The answer seems to be that anything can happen when something is being made from nothing! This apparent plasticity in the laws governing the cosmos is suggested by observations of how galaxies in the early universe were distributed. The standard theory for the origin of the universe predicts that clumps of galaxies of all sizes were created early on. This is not what a survey by S. Sarkar et al, at the University of Oxford, found. A split second after the Big Bang, galaxies were organized in structures about 300-million light years across. The standard model of particle physics cannot account for this preferred size. The theorists' recourse is a phase change, a point in time when the warp and woof of the universe changed; that is, change the rules until they fit. (Chown, Marcus; "In the Beginning," New Scientist, p.7 , April 25, 1998.) Comment. Hang onto your hats. If a phase change happened once, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 19: Jan-Feb 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects African Fossil Sequences Support Punctuated Evolution East of Lake Turkana, in northern Kenya, the geologist finds exceptionally fine sequences of fossil molluscs in old lake deposits. Williamson has scrutinized the distribution of some 190 faunas with high stratigraphic resolution; that is, he believes he has been able to sketch for the first evolutionary events on a fine time scale. Williamson underlines three important observations: (1 ) Species seemed to arise suddenly, as predicted by the "punctuated evolution" model; (2 ) The formation of new species was accompanied by marked developmental instability in the transitional forms; and (3 ) All lineages were morphologically stable for long periods -- they did not change form! The biological implications of this important study are summarized in the preceding item. (Williamson, P.G .; "Palaeontological Documentation in Cenozoic Molluscs from Turkana Basin," Nature, 293:437, 1981.) Comment. Evolutionists have often bewailed the obvious lack of transitional forms (missing links) in the stratigraphic record. According to Williamson's results, transitional forms would be few in number and display considerable morphological instability. In essence, this means that missing links may not exist in a practical sense. If this is true, one wonders whether those famous evolutionary family trees in all the textbooks, such as that of the horse, are really misleading. From Science Frontiers #19, JAN-FEB 1982 . 1982-2000 ...
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... our expectation that the nine digits should occur with equal probability. Fifty-seven years later, F. Benford, a GE physicist, unaware of Newcomb's paper, observed the same dirty early pages in the logarithm tables. He came up with exactly the same conjecture. Benford didn't stop there. He spent several years collecting diverse data sets -- 20,229 sets, to be exact. He included baseball statistics, atomic weights, river areas, the numbers appearing in Reader's Digest articles, etc. He concluded that his (and Newcomb's ) conjecture fit his data very well. There were notable exceptions, though. Telephone directories and square-root tables didn't support the conjecture. Interestingly, the second digits in numbers are more equitably distributed; the third, even more so. Mathematicians have never been able to prove the Newcomb-Benford conjecture. How could they if it doesn't apply to all tables? Nevertheless, it works for most data sets, and that's still hard enough to explain. (Hill, T.P .; "The First Digit Phenomenon," American Scientist, 86:358, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #120, NOV-DEC 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of drifting continents. Easy as it is to conclude that Martian continents once sailed ponderously cross the planet's surface, the scientific jury is still out. First of all, the Martian magnetic stripes are substantially different from earth's in shape, pattern, strength, and, above all, size. The Martian stripes are about 200 kilometers wide and 2,000 long -- much larger than earth's . Their magnetic field strength is more than ten times that of the terrestrial stripes. Whatever magnetic phenomena occurred on Mars some 4 billion years ago must have been quite different from what happened on earth 200 million years ago. Yet, no other reasonable explanation has been found for the Martian magnetic stripes. (Acuna, M.H ., et al; "Global Distribution of Crustal Magnetization Discovered by the Mars Global Surveyor MAG/ER Experiment," Science, 284:790, 1999. Cowen, Ron; "Plate Tectonics...on Mars," Science News, 155:284, 1999. Recer, Paul; "Mars May Have Been Earth-Like," Northwest Florida Daily News, April 30, 1999. Cr. R. Reid.) Comment. Actually, the earth's geodynamo is not perfectly understood, especially its tendency to quickly reverse polarity. We may not know what is really happening inside the earth either. These terrestrial magnetic stripes off the north-western coast of North America are much narrower, much shorter, and considerably weaker than the 2,000 kilometer long magnetic stripes on Mars. From Science ...
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... only a tiny portion of her language skills, was amazingly narrow." (Bor, Jonathan; "The Woman Who Couldn't Describe Animals," Baltimore Sun, p. A1, September 7, 1992.) The implications of this strange case were described in Science News: "The peculiar inability of a 70-yearold woman to name animals has led scientists to propose that the brain harbors separate knowledge systems, one visual, the other verbal or language-based, for different categories of living and inanimate things, such as animals and household objects." (Bower, B.; "Clues to the Brain's Knowledge Systems," Science News, 142:148, 1992.) Comment. Experiments with animals suggest that the brain's memory is "distributed"; that is, like a hologram, both nowhere and everywhere. Also, it may not be pertinent, but R.O . Becker, in SF#81, hypothesized that the brain utilizes two modes of communication, one digital, the other analog. From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... named 47 Tucanae. Their method was to look for dark planets crossing the bright disks of the cluster's stars. After patiently watching 34,000 stars, they came up empty-handed. For some unknown reason, planets never formed around the stars in 47 Tucanae -- or in any other globular clusters checked so far. Are globular clusters in general different from the rest of the Milky Way? Possibly, see below. (Anonymous; "No Globular Planets?" Astronomy, 28:34, October 2000. Anonymous; "Planets Come Up Missing in a Globular Cluster," Sky & Telescope, 104:23, October 2000.) Answer. Globular clusters are peculiar in several additional ways. For example, the globular clusters in the Milky Way have a spherical distribution rather than being compressed into a flat spiral with the rest of our galaxy's stars. There is even evidence that the clusters may not participate in the Milky Way's ponderous rotation. See AOB4 in Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos for still more globular-cluster idiosyncracies. A spherical cloud of globular clusters coexists in space with the disc-shaped Milky Way. Each globular cluster is a dense spherical aggregation of tens of thousands of stars. From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The Mysterious Tumuli of New Caledonia How Old is the Los Lunas Inscription? A Japanese Presence in Ancient Mexico? Astronomy Waiting for Saturn's Rings to Collapse Anomalous Distribution of Large, Fresh Lunar Craters The Planets As Fragments of An Ancient Companion of the Sun A Recent Transformation of Sirius? Biology & Geology The Return of the Tasmanian Tiger Life Seeks Out Energy Sources Wherever They May Be The Biological Diversity Crisis Treasures in A Toxonomic Wastebasket Piscatorial Data Processing Exploring the Suberranean World of Life The Cretaceous Incineration Everglades Astrobleme? Geophysics Underground Weather 1500-pound Ice Chunk Falls From Sky Psychology The Voice of God Chemistry & Physics "And So on Infinitum" The Thorny Way of Truth: Part II ...
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... 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 ...
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... dispersed network of random-number generators (RNGs). A total of 38 RNG stations are presently "listening" for global perturbations in whatever medium carries the supposed human-to-matter influences. The analogy to global weather and seismological stations is appropriate here. On September 9, 2001, the Global Consciousness Project network of RNGs did indeed detect a sort of groaning in the consciousness of the planet's human cargo. The dispersed RNGs produced strings of numbers that were rather far from random, as indicated on the accompanying graph. For three days the RNGs defied probability, with stark non-randomness obvious at 10:12 AM Eastern Daylight Time on September 11. One can hypothesize that collective humanity recoiled at the TV images of the World Trade Center catastrophe. Improbable outputs of a distributed network of RNGs around September 11, 2001. But there are skeptical interpretations. For example, the sharp rise in global communications and radar activity might have somehow perturbed the RNGs. (Bishop, Bill; "Is It Global Consciousness or Mere Coincidence?" Austin American Statesman, October 23, 2001. Cr. D. Phelps.) Comment. Recognizing Nature's frequent symmetry, might not material entities (e .g ., RNGs) influence humans in some subtle ways? From Science Frontiers #139, Jan-Feb 2002 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking ...
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... minute before the explosion, noise appeared in broadcast radio receivers, this soon jammed all radio stations. At a distance of up to several hundred kilometers from the epicenter, some people said that they felt a "heat wave" and suffocation. Near the epicenter, a bright flash with a duration of several seconds and an explosion (thunder and ground shock) took place. (According to some reports. at first a 'glowing object' flew down to the ground.) Probably light phenomena were present at some other places. "The 1991 Sasovo explosion was accompanied by a number of intri-guing phenomena, sometimes resembling (ball) lightning and even tornado damage. There was some unusual and selective damage in the town and even in the village 20 km from the epicenter. Azimuth distribution of hurled frozen soil from the crater and damage had four lobes. But, on the other hand, a tree 10 m from the epicenter was undamaged. There was no damage on the ground level at a distance up to about 1 km from the crater (only ground swing and jerking), but several high suspended electric wires were torn off. At large distances, there was unusual damage at the ground level, and even water pipes at a distance up to 15 km from the epicenter were torn off. During the explosion, in closed and undamaged rooms, in most cases different things flew with soft landings, and even some people were transported by a unknown force. Hollow plastic toys and electric lamp bulbs exploded. Inner windows were smashed while outer ones were undamaged. At ...
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... those shells coveted by collectors. Meinhardt has devised equations that describe chemical factors that turn pigment-generating cells on and off. In its simplest form, a mathematically modelled seashell is a two-dimensional sheet that grows along only one edge. Cells on this edge may or may not secrete pigment depending upon chemical "influences." B. Hayes describes how this sort of model operates: The triangular pattern on Cymbiola innexa suggests the presence of a "global control element" that turns the pigment-secreting cells on and off in the correct order -- something like a computer-controlled loom! "Given this generating mechanism, some shell patterns are easy to understand. A series of vertical stripes -- that is, stripes running perpendicular to the growing edge -- implies a static distribution of pigment secreting cells in the mantle margin. Where a cell or group of cells is permanently turned on, there is a dark stripe of pigment, and where the cells are dormant, there is an unpigmented space. The complementary pattern -- horizontal stripes, parallel to the growing edge -- results from a temporal rather than a spatial oscillation. All the secretory cells turn off and on in synchrony, so that light and dark bands are left behind on the surface of the shell as the growing edge moves on." All well and good, but some seashells have intricate patterns that require modellers to imagine traveling waves of excitation, oscillating chemical systems, signals that travel faster than chemical diffusion, and longrange synchrony employing a "global control element." These patterngenerating schemes are ...
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... of Basle, Switzerland, has what is certain to be a controversial answer. He was led to his conclusion by a series of experiments with psychoactive drugs, performed in collaboration with Professor Max Fink, SUNY, Stony Brook. Left-handers, the study demonstrated, are much more sensitive to drugs that act upon the central nervous system. Irwin believes that this finding is consistent with the known association of left-handedness with epilepsy and learning disorders. "But perhaps the most exciting aspect of Irwin's hypothesis is that it makes evolutionary sense. 'A greater resistance of right-handers to centrally active substances, when Man was a forager and before he learned to identify non-toxic edibles, would have favoured righthanded survival. This might account for the skew in the present handedness distribution that is unique to humans.'" And why should left-handers be more sensitive to psychoactive substances? Irwin thinks they must absorb or metabolize them differently, or perhaps there is a difference in the blood-brain barrier that affects the transport of substances into the brain. (Grist, Liz; "Why Most People Are Right-Handed," New Scientist, 22, August 16, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... that anomalists should at least take note of them. J. Moore et al have been mapping and sampling huge blocks of rock that slid off the sides of Mauna Loa in the socalled South Kona landslide. These blocks of lava and basalt are truly giants. One was measured at 10 kilometers in length, 300 meters in thickness. Some of these colossal chunks of rock slid 80 kilometers (50 miles) out to sea during the late Pleistocene. Imagine the tsunami (tidal wave) this landslide must have generated! (Moore, James G., et al; "Giant Blocks in the South Kona Landslide, Hawaii," Geology, 23:125, 1995.) Comment. The South Kona landslide, or one like it, and the resulting tsunami might account for the curious distribution of sand dunes along the coast of New South Wales, Australia. See Science Frontiers #85. From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... The complete report is 6 pages long, with 8 diagrams, so only the highlights can be reported here. As is often the case, this display began with parallel phosphorescent bands (2 sets) rushing toward the ship at about 40 mph. They were 50-100 cm above the sea surface. The bands then changed into two rotating wheels; then a third wheel formed. All three rotated counterclockwise, with their hubs 300, 300, and 150 meters from the ship. The spokes stretched to the horizon. The display ceased for about 20 minutes and recommenced with four systems of onrushing parallel bands, which soon metamorphosed into four rotating wheels. Radar, visible light (from an Aldis lamp), and engine revolution appeared to have no effect on the spectacle. Next, evenly distributed, circular, flashing patches of brilliant blue-white light appeared all around the ship out to a distance of about 150 meters. This system of patches flashed away simultaneously the wheel display. The patches varied from 15-60 cm in diameter, and flashed 114 times per minute. When an Aldis lamp played steadily on the patches, nothing happened. When the lamp was flashed, the whole array of flashing patches disappeared, only to reappear in about 2 minutes. Each patch seemed to consist of worm-like segments 2 cm long, 2 cm apart. The worms were all aligned perpendicular to a vector from the ship. In contrast to the bands and wheels, the worms were located about 5 cm below the surface of the water. Water samples revealed no luminous organisms - ...
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... connection of sorts. P.B . Pitluga, of Chicago's Adler Planetarium, proposes that some of the figures may be part of a Zodiac; that is, a terrestrial representation of the constellations. Here follows an abstract of her paper presented before a meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration . "New field measurements and computer analysis link the gigantic ground drawings to the Andean tradition of dividing up space and time by cycles of the Milky Way. By including ethnoastronomy in the analysis, these conclusions differ from [those of] previous researchers. The first hypothesis tested was that the figures could be considered like labels to the lines. Of the twenty-seven figures, ten are birds, three are whales, and two are seaweed plants. Theodolite measurements revealed a non-random distribution of the directions of lines attached to look-alike figures. The second test showed a physical relationship of present-day Andean plant and animal figures imagined as silhouettes in dark spots along the Milky Way to figure-lines pointing to the rising and/or setting of the same Andean figure 2000 years ago. In the third test, all other lines extending to the desert horizon from a figure center keyed into dark spots and bright stars along the Milky Way at the same Local Sidereal Time in the same year. Finally, the directions of the long axis of each quadrangle related to the same sky in the same year at each site. Linking these findings with what is known about the Nazca culture, an agricultural-ceremonial model is presented describing how this site may have been used ...
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... Mystery Hill site, M.F . Doran and B.H . Kunnecke review the various types of anomalous stone structures found in northeastern North America. Three major classes are recognized: Covered passageways up to 25 feet in length and analogous to Cornish fogous. Beehive chambers, such as the 10-foot-high chamber at Upton, Massachusetts. Dolmen-like constructions, as exemplified by the 60-ton "balancing boulder at North Salem, New York. Termed a "glacial erratic" by most, the North Salem stone seems distinctly unlike most erratics and more like some European dolmens. Noting that radiocarbon dates from Mystery Hill go back to more than 1,000 B.C ., Doran and Kunnecke feels that these stone enigmas should receive professional attention in the context of world distributions of blood groups and other evidence of early, frequent transoceanic contacts. (Doran, Michael F., and Kunnecke, Bernd H.; "The Stone Enigmas of New England," Anthropological Journal of Canada, 15:17, No. 2: January 1978 Reference. Many more "stone engimas" are detailed in Ancient Man. This Handbook is described here . From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... is in fact a significant body of circumstantial evidence to suggest otherwise. Our present knowledge of the galaxy population is so biased by a single insidious selection effect that it is entirely possible that Malin 1 is just the first example of a class of such low-surface-brightness giant galaxies that forms a significant constituent of the universe." The "selection effect" mentioned is a consequence of the very bright sky that confronts astronomers. Astronomical interest and instrumentation have focussed on those astronomical objects that are bright. In truth, the universe may be full of "icebergs and crouching giants." (Disney, Michael, and Phillipps, Steven; "Icebergs and Crouching Giants," Nature, 329:203, 1987.) Comment. Since astronomers have built their models of galaxies, galactic distribution, and the evolution of the universe on an unrepresentative portion of the actual cosmos, we may be in for some major changes in our overall view of the universe and its beginning -- if it actually had one. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 ...
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... 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 ...
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... a cataclysmic event that occurred some 800 years ago. Maori oral history tells of "the falling of the skies, raging winds, upheaval of the Earth, and mysterious devastating fire from space." Even some of the place names in New Zealand relate to some kind of catastrophe. In the province of Otago, there is Waipahi (place of the exploding fire) and Tapanui (big explosion). Oral history is entertaining, but scientists want something more palpable before they will entertain Velikovskian ideas about recent history. Well, if you visit Tapanui (big explosion place), you can find Landslip Crater, a 900 x 600meter depression 130 meters deep. This does not have the appearance of a bona fide meteor crater, but all around it are suspicious signs. For example, treefall distribution from 800 years ago was radially away from Tapanui out to 4080 kilometers. In the same area one finds the trinities, small globules of silicates with tektite overtones. And then there is the extirpation of the moas about this time. To be sure, there are separate, conventional explanations of all these phenomena. But, if you add the Maori oral traditions to all these suspicious physical signs, a Tunguska-like event does not seem impossible. (Steel, Duncan, and Snow, Peter; "The Tapanui Region of New Zealand: A 'Tunguska' of 800 Years Ago?" paper at the Conference on "Asteroids, Comets, Meteors, '91'," Flagstaff, June 1991.) From Science Frontiers #78, NOV-DEC 1991 . 1991- ...
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... 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oil & gas from the earth's core In central Sweden this summer, drillers will be boring into the rocks of the Siljan Ring, Europe's largest known meteor crater. Oil and gas should not be down there in any quantities according to current theory, but that's what they are drilling for. Isn't it futile to fight such a well-established dogma that oil and gas have biological origins and therefore must be looked for only where life once thrived? Not any longer! Enough anomalies have accumulated to seriously challenge the idea that oil and gas are byproducts of ancient animal life. Here are a few of these anomalies: The geographical distribution of oil seems derived from features much larger in scale than individual sedimentary features. The quantities of oil and gas available are hundreds of times those estimated on the basis of biological origins. The so-called "molecular fossils" found in oil and claimed as proof of a biogenic origin are simply biological contaminants, particularly bacteria that feed upon the petroleum. Petroleum is largely saturated with hydrogen, whereas buried biological matter should exhibit a deficiency of hydrogen. Oil and gas are often rich in helium, an inert gas which biological pro cesses cannot concentrate. The great oil reservoirs of the Middle East are in diverse geological provinces. There is no unifying feature for the region as a whole and, especially, no sediments rich in biological debris that could have produced these immense concentrations of oil and ...
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... 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 ...
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... 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 ...
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... 75% of the United States. The positive lightning strokes are of longer duration and more liable to start fires than the common negative strokes. But why are they concentrated at one end of the storm complex? R. Orville ventures that in a big mesoscale electrical storm, the prevailing winds blow the positively charged upper portions of the clouds to the northeast, thus establishing bipolarity. (Orville, Richard E., et al; "Bipole Patterns Revealed by Lightning Locations in Mesoscale Storm Systems," Geophysical Research Letters, 15:129, 1988. Also: Anonymous; "New Lightning Theory Strikes," Eos, 69:57, 1988.) Reference. Large thunderstorm complexes are cataloged in GWH3 in: Tornados, Dark Days. For ordering information: visit: here . Lightning distribution across Florida on February 22, 1987, 8:00-9 :00pm. The plus signs designate positive lightning strokes. From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the 1960s. The object disappeared from sight during the few seconds it took me to call two persons to participate in the observation. It was not apparent how the object had disappeared from view since there were no sources of obscuration evident. Having become puzzled by this observation I continued watching that same region of sky from time to time. "About fifteen minutes later (22:45 local time) and more or less in the same region where the bright light had been observed I spotted a faint luminous object moving slowly toward the zenith. During the first few seconds of observation it had the appearance of a luminous thread, oriented perpendicular to its direction of motion. However, as it approached the zenith, I could see that it was in fact a group of at least 30 lights distributed in a broad, symmetrical V-configuration, reminiscent of a boomerang. Three members of my family who were with me also observed the group of lights. "Each individual light of the group looked like a star of third or fourth magnitude; the color was a pale white similar to a neon light, with a slight tint of yellow. The brightness was rather steady, with no apparent flicker. The angular width of the group was about 4 degrees, and the central angle of the V was about 150 degrees. It was first visible about 20 degrees above the western horizon and disappeared at about that altitude in the east. The disappearance was gradual, probably as a result of atmospheric extinction. Since the group was in view for approximately two minutes, the mean angular velocity ...
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... 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 A Large Quasar Inhomogeneity In The Sky "In an area roughly 20 x 70 on the sky, there exists an excess of bright, high-redshift quasars. Quasars with this distribution of apparent magnitude and redshift have a negligible chance of being drawn from the population of quasars present in other areas of the sky. At a mean redshift distance corresponding to their average z = 2, these quasars would represent an unprecedented inhomogeneity over enormous volumes of space in the universe." It is difficult for astronomers to accept such a large "bubble" in the cosmos, because the Big Bang Theory basically produces a "smooth" universe. The author of this paper, H. Arp, comments that the size of the inhomogeneity could be shrunk considerably if redshifts were not taken as measures of distance. (Arp, Halton; "A Large Quasar Inhomogeneity in the Sky," Astrophysical Journal, 277:L27, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 's outer fringe of planets. In addition, there are unexplained perturbations in the orbits of earth satellites, peculiar periodicities in the sunspot cycle, and equally puzzling regularities in earthquake frequency. Infrared detectors have also picked up unidentified objects in the sky. These anomalies might all be explained by the existence of a large, dark planet with several moons -- or, if the mystery object turns out to be very far away, by a very large, dark stellar companion of our sun with its own system of planets. Several astronomers have been trying to pin down the properties of this Planet X or Massive Solar Companion (MSC). John P. Bagby has recently published a novel solution to this nagging puzzle in celestial mechanics. He suggests that the Massive Solar Companion is actually a distributed system; that is, appreciable mass also occupies the several stable Lagrangian points. The total MSC mass might be as much as half the sun's mass, perhaps 100 Astronomical Units (100 times the earth's distance from the sun.) If the MSC and its attendants are this massive, astronomers will have to revise the mass and density of the sun downward by a good bit. (What they have done in the past is estimate the mass of the solar system as a whole and assumed it mostly resides in the sun.) This would require a large change in our model of the sun and its system of planets. (Bagby, John P.; "Evidence for a Tenth Planet or Massive Stellar Companion Beyond Uranus," paper given at the Tomorrow ...
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... 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 ...
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... 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 131: SEP-OCT 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Will mtDNA Trump C14 and Projectile Points?Do not imagine for a minute that the Clovis Police are successfully suppressing all radical notions in archeology. Revolutionaries are everywhere. Not the least of these are studying the mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) of Native American peoples and comparing it with the mtDNAs of Asians and Europeans. The geographical distribution of mtDNA haplogroups can trace out the migratory routes of early humans in the New World and, in addition, provide rough times-of-arrival. Some of this mtDNA evidence will undoubtedly attract the attention of the Clovis Police. But do these law enforcers -- mostly archeologists -- dare to challenge genetic data? Can mtDNA lie? There are in the cells of North American Native Americans mitochondria that seem to divide these peoples into four major "haplogroups." These four groups can be readily traced back to Siberia and northeast Asia. No trouble from the Clovis Police here! But there is also a "haplogroup-X " that does not fit the Clovis paradigm. In North America, haplogroup-X is found frequently among the Algonkian-speaking tribes, such as the Ojibwa. This same haplogroup occurs in Europe and the Middle East, especially Israel. It is notably absent in Asia. Furthermore, the data suggest that haplogroup-X was resident in North America thousands of years before the Vikings and Columbus made landfall. (Schurr, Theodore G.; "Mitochondrial DNA and the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Psyching Out Piezoelectric Transducers Our title is perhaps too flippant. The experiment described below is serious and was conducted at Stanford Research Institute. Five participants were chosen in an attempt to mentally affect an electronic device. "Each participant was asked to influence one of a pair of piezoelectric transducers, operating in a differential mode, so as to produce an event above a predetermined threshold. During the formal data collection, the transducer enclosure was located in a locked laboratory adjacent to the participants' room. Under these conditions, one of the participants produced a total of 11 events above threshold, distributed in three separate effort periods. Control trials were recorded with no one present in the experimental room but with normal activity in the rest of the building. No equivalent, uncorrelated events above threshold were detected in those control periods." The author emphasizes the preliminary nature of the results, but believes they warrant further investigaion. (Hubbard, G. Scott, "Possible Remote Action Effects on a Piezoelectric Transducer," The Explorer, 4:10, October 1987.) From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 ...
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