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... After all, Austrian television companies have little scientific standing. Wiseman and Smith conducted four experiments in all based on a protocol designed to satisfy the inevitable scientific critics. For example, "success" had to be carefully defined, because Jaytee frequently ran out to the porch when other people, dogs, and cars went by the house, and sometimes for no obvious reason at all. In addition, Wiseman and Smith had to be sure that Jaytee was not just responding to Smart's routine, and that there were no sensory cues from Smart (visual, acoustic, or smell) or from the observers left behind to monitor Jaytee who might know when Smart was expected to return. There were several other precautions including random selection of event timing. As in many psi experiments, psychic effects disappeared when the severe protocols was applied. Jaytee failed four times to accurately detect when Smart began her homeward journey. But what about the Austrian results? Wiseman and Smith requested copies of their footage for scientific evaluation. Eventually, they were informed that the tapes had been lost! (Wiseman, Richard, and Smith, Matthew; "Can Animals Detect When Their Owners Are Returning Home?" British Journal of Psychology, 89:453, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 64: Jul-Aug 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Earth As A Cold Fusion Reactor In SF#63, we mentioned the possibility that the helium-3 emanating from the earth might indicate that cold fusion was occurring deep down. In a recent issue of the New Scientist, a short unsigned article reveals that this "excess" helium-3 was an impetus for the cold fusion research at Brigham Young University. In fact, P. Palmer, a geo-physicist at Brigham Young, suggested the possibility as long as three years ago! We have not seen Palmer's speculation in print, but the stimulating effect of anomalies on scientific research is reassuring, whatever the final outcome of the cold fusion wars. The same New Scientist article supports the above speculation as follows: "Calculations show that more than enough deuterium finds its way into the upper mantle by this route (seawater in subduction zones) to account for the heat emitted by the Earth's core, although the heat obviously comes from other sources as well. The rate of fusion of deuterium nuclei required to produce the observed rations of helium-3 to helium-4 in rocks, diamonds and metals is similar to that observed by Jones in his experiments with electrolytes. Tritium can also be a product of the fusion of deuterium. Jones and his group say that the tritium detected in the gases from volcanoes is further evidence of cold fusion." Jones has also wondered whether Jupiter's excess ...
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... terrain-related, luminous phenomena with tectonic strains. In the Zeitoun case, they have discovered that a year before the phenomena commenced there was an unprecedented increase (by a factor of ten) in seismic activity some 400 kilometers to the southeast. Also, there was a moderate (0 .56) correlation between the luminous phenomena and increases in seismicity during the same or preceeding months. Derr and Persinger claim these observations support their hypothesis. (Derr, John S., and Persinger, Michael A.; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: LIV. Zeitoun (Egypt) Apparitions of the Virgin Mary as Tectonic StrainInduced Luminosities," Perceptual and Motor Skills , 68:123, 1989.) Comment. It does seem, however, that seismic activity 400 kilometers away would have little effect at Zeitoun. How is luminosity produced from an earthquake that far away? From Science Frontiers #64, JUL-AUG 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sweeping Anomalies Under The Rug A series of articles in the science magazine Mercury so slavishly followed the scientific party line on the meaning of the redshift that G. Burbidge was prompted to pen a rejoinder. Burbidge reviewed the considerable observational evidence supporting a non-cosmological interpretation of some redshifts. (Such data has been included in past issues of Science Frontiers and in our Catalog Stars Galaxies, Cosmos.) A typical observation is the apparent physical connection (streams of connecting matter) between quasars and galaxies with radically different redshifts. Burbidge remarks: "Evidence of this kind exists. If it is accepted it means: That at least some quasars do lie at so-called cosmological distances. That at least some parts of the redshifts of quasars are due to some effect other than the expansion of the universe. That quasars are physically related to bright, comparatively nearby galaxies." Burbidge is not concerned by the fact that some astronomers find the data unconvincing, rather he objects to the so-obvious attempts to brush such anomalous data under the rug. His concluding remarks are pertinent to all of science: "I cannot end this part of the discussion without making two points which are rarely made, but which are important: Evidence of the kind just mentioned which is favorable to the cosmological interpretations of the redshifts does not negate the other evidence. It simply means that the world is a complicated place. Only in articles of this kind is one expected to describe such re sults. In articles such as that by Weedman, it is somehow considered all ...
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... widely accepted notion that an extraterrestrial projectile slammed into the earth at that time, wreaking geological and biological havoc. But the K-T boundary is anything but simple chemically and paleontologically. To illustrate, J.L . Bada and M. Zhao have found unusual amino acids in sediments laid down before and after this geological time marker. "They find that Danish sediments spanning the narrow boundary layer contain two amino acids, alpha-aminoisobutyric acid and isovaline, that are relatively uncommon in biological materials but abundant in the organicrich meteorites. They suggest that the body which collided with Earth 65 million years ago and left the telltale iridium residue may have been organic-rich, perhaps like a C-type asteroid or a comet. Such a possibility has interesting implications for the extinction and related atmospheric effects, and supports the idea that impact events could have supplied the Earth during a much earlier period with the raw materials for organic chemical evolution." Actually, the above quotation is pretty much in line with present mainstream thinking. Perhaps so, but Bada and Zhao identified two troubling anomalies. First, the amounts of amino acids found were surprisingly high. How could these complex molecules survive the searing temperatures engendered by high-velocity impact? Second, the amino acids may be abundant tens of centimeters above and below the K-T boundary clay containing the iridium, but they are virtually absent in the clay itself! (Cronin, John R.; "Amino Acids and Bolide Impacts," Nature, 339:423, 1989, Also: Monastersky, R.; "Rare ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Impact Delivery Of Early Oceans Where did the earth's oceans come from? For decades the stock answer has been: from the condensation of vapors escaping from the planet's cooling crust; that is, "outgassing." The possibility that some terrestrial water might have ar rived from extraterrestrial sources after the earth's formation has been discounted. The major reason behind this neglect was the expectation that the erosive effects of large-scale impacts of water-carrying comets and asteroids would preclude any net accumulation of volatiles, and could even reduce any existing inventories of surface water. C.F . Chyba has recently reexamined this question of cometary water influx vs. impact-caused water losses using the latest estimates of comet/asteroid fluxes during the period between 4.5 and 3.5 billion years ago, when bombardment of the inner solar system was thought to be especially severe. Rather than the expected net loss, Chyba computes that the earth would really have gained more than 0.2 - 0.7 ocean masses in that billion-year period. Venus would have fared equally well, but Mars, more sensitive to impact erosion, would have accreted "only" a layer of water 10-100 meters deep over the whole planet! (This Martian water is now mostly below the surface supposedly.) (Chyba, Christopher F.; "Impact Delivery and Erosion of Planetary Oceans in the Early ...
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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 A Curious String Of Coincidences The journal Nature is not the place where one usually finds mention of bizarre coincidences. Nature's nature is supposed to be exclusively rational -- completely dedicated to a cause-and-effect universe. Yet, there it was: A letter from A. Scott calling attention to the fact that three fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacted Jupiter almost precisely 25 years after three crucial events in the Apollo-11 moon landing mission. Fact #1 . Comet fragment 1 impacted the same day as the Apollo-11 launch, but 25 years later. Fact #2 . The largest comet fragment hit Jupiter 25 years to the minute after the actual landing. Fact #3 . The final comet fragment hit almost precisely 25 years after lift-off from the lunar surface. "So the start, climax and end of the series of impacts coincided exactly with the start, climax and end (in the sense of departure from the Moon) of the Apollo-11 mission to the Moon." (Scott, Andrew; "Strange But True," Nature, 371:97, 1994.) Comment. Truly, nature works in mysterious ways. Are these incredible coincidences a transcendental beckoning, like the monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey ? Wait a minute, it was no other than Arthur C. Clarke, who first pointed out Fact #2 above. And what ...
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... 's time to acknowledge that we do have a pre-Clovis culture in the New World." (Pre-Clovis -before 12,000 years ago.) It's all true! A long-standing consensus has collapsed: the 12,000-year barrier, like the Berlin Wall, has disintegrated. The two most important demolition charges were the widely-accepted dates of 16,000 B.P . from the Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Pennsylvania, and 13,000 B.P . from the Monte Verde site in Chile. The Monte Verde date probably represents an American entry date of at least 20,000 years ago, if one accepts that the first Americans trekked all the way down from the Bering Strait to Chile. Will there be a "domino effect" in American archeology? Radiocarbon dates of 33,000 B.P . have already been accepted by some non-American archeologists for the Monte Verde site. Add 7,000 years for the trip south from Alaska, and the entry date is pushed back to 40,000 B.P . There are even older dates - over 100,000 years - suggested by mavericks such as G.F . Carter. It appears that the American past is going to be exciting in the future. (Morell, Virginia; "Confusion in Earliest America," Science, 248:439, 1990.) Coming back to reality, the archeological picture is not changing as rapidly as we have suggested above. Paradigms don't collapse overnight. Rather, as Planck ventured, ...
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... the physiological state of a human can affect the properties of water. Well, it's worth a try! G. Rein and R. McCraty, of the Institute of HeartMath, first define two physiological states: "We have recently defined two new physiological states in terms of their unique electrophysiological characteristics. These states are generated using specially designed mental and self-management techniques which involve intentionally quieting the mind, shifting one's awareness to the heart area and focussing on positive emotions. Time-domain and frequency spectral analysis of heart rate variability, pulse transit time and respiration were used as electrophysiological measures of these states." Next, the two researchers brought together subjects immersed in one of these states and samples of water: "The present study reports on PK [psychokinetic] effects associated with these intentionality states. ECG monitoring was used to demonstrate when the individuals were in the entrained state. At this point a sample of distilled water in a sealed test tube was presented to the subjects. Five individuals were used in this study...While holding a beaker containing the samples, subjects were asked to focus on the samples and intentionally alter the molecular structure for five minutes. In an adjacent room, control samples were aliquoted from the original stock solution into test tubes." .. .. . "The results indicate that treated water shows higher absorbance values at 200 nm compared with controls which have higher values at 204 nm. These results extend previous findings which observed characteristic changes in IR spectra of water exposed to bioenergy from healers." (Rein, ...
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... "Blue Straggler Stars: A Cosmic Anomaly," The Explorer, 6:4 , Spring 1990.) Socket stars. "A picture book hardly seems a likely source of an astronomical discovery, especially in a world where mysteries of the universe usually tumble from sophisticated electronic instruments attached to huge telescopes. Nevertheless, while recently paging through Exploring the Southern Sky , by G. Madsen and R. West, Walter A. Feibelman (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) recognized something that had caught his attention decades before. High-resolution photographs of nebulae show large numbers of faint stars surrounded by circular or oval 'empty' regions, giving the impression that the stars are sitting in 'sockets,' a few arc seconds across, swept free of nebulosity." Feibelman rules out photographic effects, such as halation, but has no ready explanation for socket stars. M.W . Castelez (Allegheny Observatory) has added to the mystery by pointing out that many socket stars show excess infrared emission. He considers this strong evidence that socket stars are surrounded by shells of dust and may represent an unrecognized stage of stellar evolution. (Anonymous; "Socket Stars," Sky and Telescope, 79:476, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... gas feeds matter into the solar system, some of which interacts with the solar wind and, therefore, affects the geomagnetic field, too. Climate changes may have been caused by entry into this cloud, and very likely the flux of cosmic rays impinging on the earth would have been modulated. (Frisch, Priscella C.; "Morphology and Ionization of the Interstellar Cloud Surrounding the Solar System," Science, 265:1423, 1994. Also: Peterson, I.; "Finding a Place for the Sun in a Cloud," Science News, 146:148, 1994.) Comment. Note that the 2,000-8 ,000-year span brackets many key developments in human civilization. Also, see under ARCHEOLOGY in this issue. For a potentially serious effect this cloud may have on carbon dating. Getting back to Hoyle's "black cloud," we recall that his molecular cloud was sentient and intelligent, being a form of gaseous-phase life. Did our real gas cloud, now seemingly mute, communicate with ancient humans? "Clouds of the Gods." Sounds like a good book title! From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... American scientific correctness, Arp continues to find embarrassing facts about the cosmos. For example, take galaxies NGC 450 and UGC 807, with redshifts of 1863 and 11600 km/s respectively: "Six lines of evidence are presented showing that the two discordant redshift galaxies are interacting. One would have to invoke an enormous conspiracy of galaxies to avoid this conclusion. Yet, if accepted, this case alone brings into question the interpretation of cosmological red-shift for all galaxies." (Moles, M., et al, including Arp; "Testing for Interaction between the Galaxies NGC 450 and UGC 807," Astrophysical Journal, 432:135, 1994.) But discordant redshifts are not limited to distant galaxies. "In the Milky Way, the so-called "K -effect" shows that hot, young stars seem to be exploding away from us in every direction (i .e ., they have an excess redshift right here in our own galaxy). If this had been heeded when first discovered, the expansion of the universe might never have been promulgated." (Arp, H.; "Companion Galaxies: A Test of the Assumption that Velocities Can Be Inferred from Redshifts," Astrophysical Journal, 430:74, 1994.) Both of the above quotations are from abstracts written by T. Van Flandern in his Meta Research Bulletin, 3:51 and 3:40, 1994, respectively. More on discordant redshifts can be found in our catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. It is described here . From Science Frontiers # ...
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... differently chemically. The "chocolate" niobium, on the right, is a capped icosahedron and reacts readily with hydrogen. The "vanilla" double pyramid (left) has flatter surfaces and does not readily combine with hydrogen. Cluster research is embryonic, with new surprises popping up almost every day. Once a cluster size exceeds a few hundred atoms, its properties begin to resemble those of the bulk material. However, "cluster-assembled materials" have been made by attaching clusterto-cluster in a sort of patchwork quilt. Such materials have unique properties that are quite different from those of the normal crystalline and amorphous materials. (Pool, Robert; "Clusters: Strange Morsels of Matter," Science, 248:1186, 1990.) Comment. One would expect that the effects of clustering would be important in biology, too. We obviously have a lot to learn about this new realm between single atoms/molecules and bulk materials. Quasicrystals . Quasicrystals, once considered physically impossible, have been found easy to grow -- once one's mindset is corrected. At Bell Labs, for example, quasicrystals of an aluminum-cobaltcopper alloy reveal atoms packed together in pentagonal arrays -- the very geometry that crystallographers assured us could not exist. As one of the Bell researchers remarked, "Most of the ap plications are unimagined." This goes for the basic properties of quasicrystals, too. (Keller, John J.; "Bell Labs Confirms That New Form of Matter Exists," Wall Street Journal, February 8, 1990. Cr. J ...
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... altitude gases. During more than 500 days of observations, they detected 111 sudden bursts of water vapor. Olivero et al suggest that these bursts occur when small, icy comets vaporize at very high altitudes. These minicomets are of the same size (about 100 tons) and frequency (20 per minute over the whole atmosphere) as those predicted by L.A . Frank. Frank's icy comets have been received with about as much warmth as "cold fusion." One reason for the unpopularity of icy comets is that they would have provided sufficient water to fill the ocean basins, thus undermining the accepted view that our oceans derived from outgassed water vapor from deep within the earth. Besides this mindset, the minicomets do have some counts registered against them: (1 ) The effects of all the purported water vapor on the ionosphere should be easily detected but they are not; (2 ) Seismometers emplaced on the moon have not detected their impacts there; and (3 ) Military surveillance satellites have not seen these housesized objects. (Monastersky, Richard; "Small Comet Controversy Flares Again," Science News, 137:365, 1990. Also: Emsley, John; "Are 'Minicomets' Peppering the Earth's Atmosphere?" New Scientist, p. 36, June 9, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hypnotic Suggestion Superior To Salicylic Acid Forget the stump water, too, for hypnosis is better than both when it comes to chasing away warts. If you don't believe this, read the following Abstract. "Subjects with warts on their hands and/or feet were randomly assigned to a hypnotic suggestion, topical salicylic acid, placebo, or no treatment control condition. Subjects in the three treated groups developed equivalent expectations of treatment success. Nevertheless, at the sixweek follow-up interval only the hypnotic subjects had lost significantly more warts than the no treatment controls." (Spanos, Nicholas P., et al; "Effects of Hypnotic, Placebo, and Salicylic Acid Treatments on Wart Regression," Psychosomatic Medicine, 52:109, 1990.) Comment. The real import here is not in the vanquishing of these benign tumors caused by papillomaviruses but rather in the potential of altered states of mind for treating more severe afflictions, such as cancer. From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Things that ain't so Back in 1953. Irving Langmuir, the famous American physicist, gave a talk at General Electric on the subject of "pathological science." He discussed several things that could not be so . Of course, UFOs were on the list, but so was mitogenetic radiation -- radiation supposedly emitted by cells when they divide. In the context of Langmuir's talk, despite his emphatic interment of the subject, mitogenetic radiation was resurrected recently in the pages of Physics Today. A letter from V.B . Shirley included several recent scientific references that suggest that Langmuir was premature. "The gist of these articles is that many cell systems emit ultraviolet light during or immediately before cell division and that the total effect of this emission on neighboring cells is unknown." (Shirley, Vestel B.; "Mitogenetic Radiation: Pathology or Biology?" Physics Today, 43:130, October 1990.) From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... suggest that the smoking gun must be nearby. Ironically, the Haiti stratum was originally classified as of volcanic origin; and we must add that we are presenting here only the conclusions of the asteroid school. But where oh where is this crater? The Manson crater in Iowa (now buried) is of the right age but too small. The best candidate so far is buried in northern Yucatan. The Chicxulub crater is discernible on gravity- and magneticanomaly maps and is probably of the right age. Only drilling will confirm the guilt of the suspect. Even if Chicxulub is the culprit, much debate prevails over exactly how the dinosaurs were done in. Was it a "cosmic winter" due to dust intercepting sunlight? Or perhaps a "cosmic summer" resulting from a super-greenhouse effect caused by: (1 ) impact-released methane trapped in sediments, and (2 ) the CO2 from zapped carbonate rocks. (Smit, Jan; "Where Did It Happen?" Nature, 349:461, 1991, and Sigurdsson, Haraldur, et al; "Glass from the Cretaceous/Tertiary Boundary in Haiti," Nature, 349:482, 1991.) Reference. Section ETC in catalog Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds is devoted entirely to impact craters. Ordering data here . From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... a hidden alien presence on the moon also." A transient, reddish glow (shaded area) seen in the crater Gassendi on April 30 - May 1, 1966. Alien activity? To illustrate, says Arkhipov, the impact of Luna 2 and its rocket stage on the moon on September 13, 1959, was accompanied by light flashes and cloudlike phenomena at at least four spots on the moon. Such LTPs (Lunar Transient Phenomena) seem also to be associated with the arrival of other terrestrial spacecraft in a few select regions of the moon, such as Mare Tranquilitatis and Gassendi. What generates these LTPs, and why only in certain areas of the lunar surface? Arkhipov's answer is in his above-quoted abstract. (Arkhipov, Alexey V.; "' Invasion Effect' on the Moon," Selenology , 13:9 , no. 1, 1994) We have never examined this journal. Comment. Reigning paradigms make the moon a barren, lifeless place. But readers of SF should be aware that the popular literature puts forth assertions that the astronauts found more than rocks on the moon, and that NASA is covering up these discoveries. Some see artificial constructions in close-up photos of the lunar surface. There are even entire books devoted to an "alien presence" on the moon! Mainstream selenologists attribute the thousands of recorded LTPs -- all legitimate scientific phenomena -- to gas releases, meteor impacts, etc., but certainly not ETs. Nevertheless, Arkhipov's correlation of LTPs and spacecraft activity should be checked out. ...
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... minutes after the explosion (If that is what it really was.) and lasted for more than 4 hours. These magnetic perturbations resembled those following nuclear atmospheric explosions. The Tunguska object left no smoky trail like many fireballs, but rather irridescent bands that looked like a rainbow. Following the "explosion," at least part of the object continued on in the same direction but veered upwards. [Meteors sometimes skip out of the atmosphere on trajectories like this.] Although the Tunguska event occurred on June 30, 1908, optical anomalies appeared all across northern Europe as early as June 23. These included mesospheric, silvery clouds, very bright nights, colorful twilight afterglows [something like those following the Krakatoa eruption], and remarkably intense and long-lasting solar halos. Some of these effects persisted until late July. Neither craters nor meteoric debris have been discovered so far, despite assiduous searches. The explosion created a shock wave that leveled 2150 km2 of taiga and a flash that singed about 200 km2. (Vasilyev, N.V .; "The Tunguska Meteorite: A Dead-Lock or the Start of a New Stage of Inquiry?" RIAP Bulletin, 1;3 , nos. 3-4 , July-December 1994, and 2:1 , no. 1, January-March 1995. RIAP = Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena, P.O . Box 4684, 310022 Kharkov-22, UKRAINE) From Science Frontiers #100, JUL-AUG 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... marine algae (p . 000), why not electrical equipment? Of course, we know why not! But we have heard some pretty weird stories! For that matter, can you account for everything your computer does? "A strange new phenomenon has recently been studied in detail for probably the first time. It is street lamp interference, or SLI. Author Hilary Evans, a founder member of ASSAP, has established SLIDE, the Street Lamp Interference Data Exchange, to study the reports. "SLI is the apparent ability that certain people have to switch street lamps on or off merely by being in their vicinity. While it may seem to be a form of psychokinesis, Hilary insists that no conclusion should yet be drawn from the small body of data so far accumulated. The effect is surprisingly common, though most reports so far have come from the USA. ASSAP, in cooperation with SLIDE, now wants to obtain information on the phenomenon in Britain." (Anonymous; "Standing by the Lamplight..." ASSAP News, no. 39, p. 2, January 1991.) From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Supermasses That Come And Go Quasars, black holes, violently active Seyfert galaxies, jets of matter expelled from galaxies, and many similar puzzles of modern astronomy fall into place (and reason) if one unthinkable assumption is made: the cyclic appearance and disappearance of supermasses inside galaxies. Normal galaxies seem to have masses of about 1011 times that of the sun. The unthinkable assumption suggests that every 108 years or so, these ordinary, unassuming galaxies become supermassive (about 1013 solar masses) for several million years. When the core of a galaxy becomes supermassive, its stars are tugged into tight new orbits. The subsequent switching off of the supermass allows the galaxy to expand outwards again. The author claims to have found just such expansion effects among the globular clusters in our own galaxy. His data are striking and quite convincing. The notorious "missing mass" problem of cosmology disappears with the cyclic supermass assumption because the time-averaged mass of each galaxy will be much higher than that observed in its normal enervated state. Doesn't this sudden temporary appearance of mass violate the laws of physics? No, says the author, physicists habitually assume a superfluid, superconducting vacuum state, which is the ultimate source of all mass-energy, when they develop their theories of fundamental particles. If particle physicists can (and must) evoke such magic, so can astronomers. (Clube, Victor; "Do We Need a Revolution in Astronomy?" New Scientist, 80: 284, 1978.) Comment. The ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unconventional water detection In SF#97, we inserted a short notice about some apparently promising dowsing research being conducted by a group in Germany. A lengthy, comprehensive report of this research has been published in two issues of the Journal of Scientific Exploration. We now quote from that part of the abstract dealing with field experiments in several countries. "This report presents new insights into an unconventional option of locating water reserves which relies on water dowsing. The effectiveness of the method is still highly disputed. Now, however, extensive field studies -- in line with provable and reliable historic account -- have shown that a few carefully selected dowsers are certainly able to detect faults, fissures and fractures with relative alacrity and surprising accuracy in areas with, say, crystalline or limestone bedrock. A series of Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusam menarbeit (GTZ) projects involving this technique were carried out in dry zones with unexpectedly high rates of success. In particular, it was possible to locate a large number of relatively small underground aquifers in thinly populated areas and to drill wells at the sites where water is needed; the yields were low but sufficient for hand-pump operation throughout the year. Finding or locating a sufficient number of relatively small fracture zones using conventional techniques would have required a far greater work input." A second part of the study involved controlled experiments in which dowsers tried to detect concealed targets such as pipes. ( ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 7: June 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Post-eclipse brightening of io confirmed For about 15 minutes after Jupiter's satellite Io emerges from the planet's shadow after an eclipse, it unaccountably brightens far beyond its normal level. Observing Io with a spectrophotometer in 1978, F.C . Witteborn et al measured a brightness increase in the 4.7 -5 .4 micron range that was three to five times the brightness at other phase angles. Long a controversial phenomenon, this confirmation of Io's post-eclipse brightening has led to a search for possible explanations. Witteborn et al suggest that the transient flare-up is a complex thermoluminescent effect excited by interaction with Jupiter's magnetosphere, followed by solar heating as Io emerges from the shadow. (Witteborn, F.C . et al; "Io: An Intense Brightening near 5 Micrometers," Science, 203:643, 1979.) Comment. Io also modulates Jupiter's microwave emissions. From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 1994. Eastern North Atlantic. Aboard the m.v . City of Durban . Enroute from Le Havre to Capetown. As seen by three of the ship's officers: "At 2230 UTC the observers noted on both the 3-cm and 10-cm radars, as well as visually, a wave or band-like phenomenon shown as a succession of 'bands' approximately 4 n.mile long with a uniform separation of about 0.8 n.mile. "The bands appeared as if they were precipitation but on passing through one of them nothing was observed nor were there any other particles [i .e ., no wind-blown dust], seeing as the vessel was off the West African coast at the time. The bands themselves caused a rippling effect on the sea surface of roughly 150 m wide, giving an otherwise calm sea a black appearance beneath them on what was a well moonlit night. Although the phenomenon looked like rain bands, the observers could not give an otherwise definite solution for it." (Herring, R.M .; "Radar Echoes," Marine Observer, 65:170, 1995) From Science Frontiers #103, JAN-FEB 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... total eclipse of December 22, 1870. J.L . Codona, in a long article in Sky and Telescope, described eclipse shadow bands in these words: "There mysterious gray ripples are sometimes seen flitting over the ground within a minute or two of to tality. The bands are initially faint and jumbled; but as totality approaches, they become more organized, their spacing decreases to a few centimeters, and their visibility improves. After totality ends the bands can reappear and become progressively fainter and more disorganized until they disappear. "Shadow bands seem to move perpendicularly to their length, but this is only an illusion. It stems from a lack of features that allow the eye to track motion along the length of the bands." Codona explains the shadow bands as basically a twinkling effect involving the thin solar crescent just before and after totality. The twinkling is created by turbulence only tens or hundreds of feet above the ground. The eclipse shadow bands, like so many other "well-explained" phenomena, display idiosyncracies that do not dovetail well with theory. Codona mentions two of these: (1 ) Bands of different colors, travelling at different speeds, are sometimes seen superimposed on each other; and (2 ) Bands of giant size have been observed. (Codona, Johana L.; "The Enigma of Shadow Bands," Sky and Telescope, 81: 482, 1991.) Comment. Still other shadow-band anomalies are cataloged in GES1, in Rare Halos, Mirages. This catalog is described here . From Science Frontiers #77, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 14: Winter 1981 Supplement Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Worms with inside-out stomachs The recently discovered tube worms, living near the hot water vents on the ocean bottom off the Galapagos, have no mouths or guts. Their bodies are covered with thousands of feathery tentacles, each packed with blood vessels. Apparently, the tube worms extract nutrients directly from the sea water and expel wastes the same way -- having in effect external stomachs. These worms, which may be many feet long, contain enzymes that permit them to extract carbon dioxide from the seawater and fix it much like plants do during photosynthesis. George Somero, at Scripps, estimates that the enzyme levels in the worms are similar to those in a spinach leaf. (Anonymous; "15-Foot Sea Worm Has Plant Qualities," San Diego Evening Tribune, May 22, 1980. UPI dispatch) Comment. This curious biological anomaly developed in an ecological niche where the primary energy source for sustaining life is geothermal rather than solar. How did this remarkable situation arise? Do the tube worms have relatives in the fossil record showing a step-by-step development of inside-out stomachs? From Science Frontiers #14, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why we "Roll in the Aisles"Some of the research pursued by the Leiden Medical Center, Netherlands, was truly a laughing matter. G.J . Lammers and colleagues investigated the effects of laughing upon the H-reflex that affects the soleus muscles in our calves. A decrease in the H-reflex is usually accompanied by a marked weakness in these muscles. They first showed slides -- some funny, some not -- to volunteers at 2-second intervals. Sure enough, when the subjects laughed, their H-reflexes nearly disappeared. Trying to quantify the phenomenon: The researchers then repeated the experiment with several new volunteers, but in this case they tried to make the subjects laugh by telling them jokes. When individuals laughed at the jokes, their H-reflexes de-creased in amplitude by 89 percent---significantly more than when the jokes merely made them smile. (Anonymous; "Falling Down Laughing," BioScience, 49:940 Comment. Presumably the subjects were firmly seated during all the hilarity. If they had been standing when their calf muscles gave way, the lawsuits received by the Medical Center would not have been so funny! Who said science was no fun? 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 14: Winter 1981 Supplement Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Most Identical Of Identical Twins In SF#11, under the title "United by an Invisible Cord," some very remarkable similarities between identical twins reared apart were recounted. A truly fantastic case has now come to light where identical twins (reared together in this case) behave synchronously. "They do every-thing together, scream or sulk if parted and, most uncannily, talk in unison when under stress, speaking the same words in identical voice patterns that create a weird echo effect." Doctors say that Greta and Freda Chaplin are so close that they seem linked by telepathy. Talking or working, they function in unison. Otherwise, they are of normal intelligence and suffer no mental illness. (Anonymous; "British Twins Too Close for Trucker's Comfort," Baltimore Sun, December 8, 1980. p. A3. AP dispatch) Comment. Animals often move in remarkable synchrony; e.g ., flocks of wheeling birds, schooling fish, tropical fireflies, etc. What invisible cord links them? From Science Frontiers #14, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... cilitate the formation and functioning of copulatory plugs." The author of the present paper, A. H. Harcourt, thinks that although some 20% of mammalian sperm, on the average, is abnormal (two heard, no heads, two tails, no tails, coiled tails, etc.) such sperm represents only errors on the assembly line. These abnormal sperm have no special purpose, at least in mammals. (Harcourt, A.H .; "Sperm Competition and the Evolution of Nonfertilizing Sperm in Mammals," Evolution , 45:314, 1991.) Comment. Even if mammals haven't yet developed kamikaze sperm, some animals have; and one must wonder exactly how multipurpose sperm (and ova, too) evolved. For a copulatory plug to be effective, large numbers of mutant sperm with special plugging properties and knowing just where to go, would have to be generated all at once. That would seem to require a lot of chance mutations all at once! The "perfection" problem once again. Reference. Kamikaze and other deviant sperms fall into category BMF18 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #78, NOV-DEC 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... January (a in the figure). An inverse pattern in the annual rhythm of wars with a peak in December-February and a nadir in July was found in the Southern Hemisphere latitudes 30-60 S (c in the figure)....The results in the Northern Hemisphere suggest that there is a phase-shift of about one month between the two rhythms. We found a constant rate of acts of hostility throughout the year around the line of the Equator (b in the figure)." (Schreiber, Gabriel, et al: "Rhythms of War," Nature, 352:574, 1991.) Comment. From the curves, it appears that inhabitants of the Northern Hemisphere are about 20 times more bellicose than those below the Equator (a population effect?). Reference. The cyclicity of human behavior requires several categories in the catalog volume Biological Anomalies: Humans I, notably BHB8. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #78, NOV-DEC 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... release and ignition of gases from the stressed rocks. Several curious features of earthquake lights favor this assertion: Prequake lights are regional in character corresponding to the widespread flexing of the strata. (In the 1933 Japanese quake, earthquake lights were seen along a 1000-km arc); There is no correlation between the earthquake epicenter and the location of earthquake lights. (In the 1977 Romania quake, the epicenter was east of Cluj but the earthquake lights lit up the western horizon. (Hedervari, Peter; "The Possible Correlations between Crustal Deformations Prior to Earthquakes and Earthquake Lights," Seismological Society of America, Bulletin, 71:371, 1981.) Comment. In essense, Hedervari is saying that earthquake lights often do not occur where rock stresses are greatest and that the piezoelectric effect may not be the whole story. Reference. Many examples of earthquake lights are presented in our Catalog: Lightning, Auroras, in category GLD8. To order this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #16, Summer 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Brin has conducted an analysis of this puzzle and has come to these conclusions: "The quandry of the Great Silence gives the infant study of xenology its first traumatic struggle, between those who seek optimistic excuses for the apparent absence of sentient neighbors and those who enthusiastically accept the Silence as evidence for humanity's isolation in an open frontier. "Both approaches suffer greatly from personal bias, and from lack of detailed comparative study. In this article we have attempted to deal with a subject that, for all of its great importance, is almost ghostly in its intangibility. We have broken the subject into its logical elements and attempted a morphological discussion of the possibilities. Table I [not reproduced because of its size] presents an overview of many of the ideas discussed here and their respective effects on the equations.... "Some of the branch lines discussed here serve the optimists, while others seem pessimistic to an unprecedented degree. We have laid out only the outline of a full analysis of the problem. Further work should consider every experimental test that could be applied to this fundamental question of humanity's uniqueness. "This survey demonstrates that the Universe has many more ways to be nasty than previously discussed. Indeed, the only hypotheses proposed which appear to be wholly consistent with observation and with non-exclusivity -- 'Deadly Probes' and 'Ecological Holocaust' -- are depressing to consider. "Still, while the author does not accept that elder species will necessarily be wiser than contemporary humanity, such noble races might have appeared. If such a ...
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... , England. Three individuals were monitoring nearby fields for crop-circle phenomena. Instead, they observed a strange, but possibly related, luminous mass. R.L Goold described it in the following words: "Suddenly, at 2.55 a.m ., birds began singing which heightened our alertness and made us check wrist watches. It was soon quiet again, but at 3.00 a.m ., almost exactly, I spotted a tube of light to the northeast descending vertically beneath a cloud in that part of the sky. Most of the remainder of the sky was clear and starry. The tube extended steadily in length as we watched, and its milky-white colour seemed to be due to a self-luminoscity like one might expect from the electrical effect known as plasma. As it came down against the black sky and neared the ground, the tube began to broaden, and branched out to give two opposed arms, as indicated in the drawing, forming a design in the air with rounded ends. Then the tube dissipated from the top downwards, and disappeared into the horizontal arms which themselves proceeded towards the ground out of sight beyond the hill peaks. No noise was heard. The whole phenomenon lasted about six seconds." The trio of observers used their fingers held at arm's length to estimate angular dimensions of the phenomenon. Using these figures and the known distances of the surrounding hills, G.T . Meaden estimated the distance of the phenomenon at 1,400 meters; the width of the tube at l6 meters ...
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... person actually is stimulated by a poison ivy-type plant. Similarly, individuals who are viewed as allergic to pollen or house dust may not manifest the allergic reaction when they believe (falsely) that they have not been exposed to the allergic substance. .. .. . "Believed-in suggestions can affect specific parts of the body in very specific ways. Suggestions of being burned can give rise to a very specific irregular pattern of inflammation on the hand that closely follows the pattern of a previously experienced actual burn in the same place. Suggestions that a congenital skin disorder will ameliorate step by step first in one area of the body, then in another, can be actualized exactly as suggested. At least one set of investigators found that suggestions that specific warts will regress can be effective in removing just those warts and not others." In addition to the subjects mentioned in the quotations, the following topics are explored: congenital skin diseases, blisters produced by suggestion, stigmata, mental inhibition of bleeding, fire-walking in safety, control of blood flow and skin temperature, and so on. (Barber, Theodore X.; "Changing 'Unchangeable' Bodily Processes by (Hypnotic) Suggestions: A New Look at Hypnosis, Cognitions, Imagining, and the Mind-Body Problem," in A.A . Sheikh (ed.) Imagination and Healing, Baywood Publishing Co., Farmingdale, NY, 1984, pp. 69.) From Science Frontiers #34, JUL-AUG 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... -balls were created during the Big Bang and may still be roaming the universe. Far from being ethereal, Each one is like "a new universe in a nutshell" [A . Kusenko] says. Inside a Q-ball, the familiar forces that hold our world together don't exist. This has some startling consequences. It means that every Q-ball is on a mission to violate law and order in the universe by assimilating normal matter and compelling it to live by Q-ball rules. Who can deny the exotic nature of Q-balls after that description? Q-balls are so tiny (about the size of an iron nucleus) and move so fast (about 100 kilometers/ second) that they can zip through a planet with scarcely any observable effect. In this elusiveness they resemble neutrinos. As a matter of fact, Japan's Kamiokande neutrino detector, which contains 50,000 tons of water surrounded by a shell of detectors, has been "blinded' several times by the passage of entities that could well be Q-balls. If these bizarre entities do exist, they could be that dark matter that astronomers insist pervades the cosmos. (Muir, Hazel; "Cosmic Anarchists," New Scientist, p. 22, May 20, 2000.) Comment. Can astronomy call itself a science when it entertains theories like those above? Interestingly, in the 1920s, geology journals used almost indentical words in connection with another too-bizarre theory: continental drift, which is now a dominant paradigm in geology! From ...
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... .; "Fishes That Live in the Mouths or Gill Cavities of Other Fishes," Scientific Monthly, 24:556, 1927.) A fish living within a fish. The shapes and sizes of such symbionts and parasites have evolved to fit their unusual niches. E.W . Gudger (see above) collected all sorts of piscine anomalies. He would have been delighted to learn of a really bizarre type of parasitism involving the spotted rose snapper (and probably other species) and a parasitic isopod (a relative of crabs and lobsters). The isopod first invades the mouth of the host fish and then consumes its tongue. It then hooks itself into the place where the tongue used to be and, being about the same size and shape of the consumed tongue, becomes in effect its replacement. The isopod afterward helps the host fish to hold its prey as if it were the real tongue. Its reward consists of tidbits from the fish's meal. (Zimmer, Carl; "Attack and Counter-attack," Natural History, 109:44, September 2000.) 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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... about 10 meters from an apple tree when she observed a phenomenon that seems to have been an elaborate and hard-to-explain form of ball lightning. When the BL appeared suddenly from behind the tree, it caught the attention of the witness who said that it looked like it "sat down on to the tree." It had the dimensions of "a small truck tyre, not as large as a tractor one," and it had a definite torus shape. What made the dark object an even stranger sight was a considerable number of "Xmas candies", all hanging down from its underside 15 to 20 centimetres long and "sparkling", which means changing brightness with an emission of sparks at the same time. A humming and sizzling sound was associated with the optical effect, but there was no static electricity. The strange light was not blinding, but irritated the eyes of the witness who looked at it only intermittently. Mrs. Reisinger continued her work in the shed, not moving closer to the object and getting more nervous over the 10 minutes that the phenomenon lasted. Her eyes started to water towards the end of the observation. Another phenomenon that she remembers was the irregular extinction of the "candies" which went out piece by piece. (Keul, Alexander G.; "More on a Torus Ball-Lightning Case," Journal of Meterology, U.K ., 25:49, 2000. The initial report was presented in the same journal, 24:178, 1999.) Comment. The buzzing sound remarked upon above ...
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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 Archaea: the living ancestors of all life forms Life's place of origin may soon shift from that long-favored "warm little pond" to undersea hydrothermal vents. "Important new discoveries on the properties of the early earth and atmosphere, including the frequency and size of bolide impacts, have strongly implicated submarine hydrothermal vent systems as the likely habitat for the earliest organisms and ecosystems, while stimulating considerable discussion, hypotheses and experiments related to chemical and biochemical evolution. Some of the key questions regarding the origins of life at submarine hydrothermal vent environments are focussed on the effects of temperature on synthesis and stability of organic compounds and the characteristics of the earliest organisms on earth. There is strong molecular and physiological evidence from present-day mircoorganisms that the earliest organisms on earth were capable of growing at high temperatures (about 90 C) and under conditions found in volcanic environments. These 'Archaea', the living ancestors of all life forms, display a variety of strategies for growth and survival at high temperatures, including thermostable enzymes active at temperatures about 140 C. Further molecular and biochemical characterization of the presently cultured thermophiles, as well as future work with the many species, particularly from subsurface crustal environments, not yet isolated in culture, may help resolve some of the important questions regarding the nature of the first organisms that evolved on earth." (Baross, J.A .; "Hyperthermophilic Archaea: Implications for the ...
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... 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 descendants may be able to harness Carnot biochemistry to sustain themselves on geothermal or residual browndwarf warmth when the Sun finally grows dim." (Jones, David; "The Dark Is Light Enough," Nature, 385:301, 1997.) Comments. To our knowledge, those who search for extraterrestrial life do not consider the possibility of Carnot creatures and wouldn't recognize them if they stumbled across them or their signals. For example, Carnot creatures might emit infrared signals rather than radio waves; and they might be immense in size. (See related item under ASTRONOMY in this issue.) ...
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... bibliography runs for 12 pages), Storms reveals just how seriously some "rogue" scientists view cold fusion as a real phenomenon and future energy source. Reflecting the antagonism of the "hotfusion" community, the U.S . expenditures on cold fusion probably do not exceed $1 million/year; Japan, in contrast, spends about $100 million/year. Cold fusion was not interred elsewhere around the planet and is quite healthy. In Storms' own words: "Evidence for large and reproducible energy generation as well as various nuclear reactions, in addition to fusion, from a variety of environments and methods is accumulating. The field can no longer be dismissed by invoking obvious error or prosaic explanations." (Storms, Edmund; "Review of the 'Cold Fusion' Effect," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 10:185, 1996.) More recently, the Wall Street Journal commented derogatorily about cold fusion. (February 28, 1997) E.F . Mallove, editor of Infinite Energy , reproached the newspaper by pointing out that hundreds of scientists were working on the phenomenon. He asked: "What are you going to tell your fossil-fuel industry readers when they learn that their obituary has already been written by carefully documented, meticulous experiments that show there is something, indeed, very new under the sun?" (Mallove, Eugene F.; "Fusion Confusion Runs Hot and Cold," Wall Street Journal, March 31, 1997. Cr. E. Fegert.) Even more recently, A.C . Clarke, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Incroyable?" Incredible?" Yes, if what paleoastronoer C. Jegues-Wolkiewiez claims is borne out by further study. The venue here is the Lascaux Cave in France where, some 17,000 years ago, Cro-Magnon artists drew incredibly expressive portraits of animals in the glare of torches. Its is in this cave's dark recesses that Jegues-Wolkiewiez sees two phenomena that could overturn our view of the Cro-Magnon culture. First, he claims that some of the animal paintings are really based upon star configurations. In effect, humans 17,000 years ago were constructing a zodiac of sorts. This was about 10,000 years be-for the ancient Babylonians laid out their first zodiacs. For example, Jegues-Wolkiewiez asserts that the painting of a bull in Lascaux is drawn and positioned such that it mirrors a group of stars in the constellation Scorpio. He identifies several other like "congruences." Cro-Magnons, it seems, were astute observers of the heavens and attempted to make some sense out of the star configurations they saw. Cro-Magnon artist painting a zodiac figure on cave ceiling. His assistant holds a star map to guide him. The second claim of Jegues-Wolkiewiez notes that on the summer solstice the last rays of the setting sun penetrate the cave and illuminate a bison painted in red. He believes this is no accident, and that, 17, ...
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... . When you snorkel in crystal-clear Caribbean waters, you do not sense that you are swimming in a very thin jelly. In reality, ocean water is filled with a complex tangle of microscopic strands and particles of gel. According to F. A zam , an oceanographer at Scripps: It's not in the textbooks or in the classical explanations. The gel's existence fundamentally changes our ideas of the microcosmos in which sea organisms live. It has added another layer of complexity that people are only now starting to consider in the context of whole ocean systems . . Gel is like the dark matter of the sea. While sea gel does not impede the snorkeler, . it does herd microbes into clumps or microniches . which we cannot see either. These microbes. in effect, exist in a tangled. 3-D mesh that affects not only their movements but also those of their prey and predators. A few statistics confirm the amazing complexity of the seawater microcosm and its incredibly high microbe population density. The long strands in the oceanic gel are mostly crosslinked polysaccharides. If the polysaccharides in 1 milliliter of seawater could be placed end-to-end, they would stretch out to 5,600 kilometers! Coexisting proteins would span 310 kilometers ; DNA, 2 kilometers. This same milliliter may also contain up to a million bacteria and ten times as many virus particles. Also in this brew are, on the average, 1.000 protozoans and 100 phytoplankton. It's a microscopic metropolis, about the size of a sugar cube, and one ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A TWISTED COSMOS?An astronomer really risks his or her reputation if he or she suggests that the universe has a preferred direction. A core belief in cosmology maintains that no point or direction in the cosmos is in any way "special." So, B. Nodland and J.P . Ralston stirred up a hornets' nest this past spring when they published a paper that began with this paragraph: "Polarized electromagnetic radiation propagating across the Universe has its plane of polarization rotated by the Faraday effect. We report findings of an additional rotation, remaining after Faraday rotation is extracted, which may represent evidence for cosmological anisotropy on a vast scale." (Ref. 1) Most inflammatory was their claim that the plane of polarization of the radio waves rotated more along a particular direction [axis?]; specifically, along a line connecting the constellations Aquila and Sextans. (Ref. 2) Only a few days after the NodlandRalston paper was published, it was blasted in Science. The major complaint was that their data were old and incomplete, since they derived mainly from observations made prior to 1980. (Ref. 3) Indeed, a similar study using more recent measurements but fewer radiation sources seems to refute the NodlandRalston claim of a preferred direction in the cosmos. (Ref. 4) Nodland and Ralston disagree with the charges and the implications of the other study. It will be a while before this ...
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... 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Aerial Bioluminescence January 19, 1991. South China Sea. Aboard the m.v . Benavon . The vessel was heading for Singapore on a body of water noted for bioluminescent displays. Flashes of light were seen in the bow wave and the ship's wake, appearing to be both on the surface and slightly below. This type of display is rather common, but another, much rarer phenomenon was also present: In 1880 off the Malabar Coast of India, a vessel was engulfed in great waves of light floating above the sea. "At the same time as the above form of bioluminescence, there seemed to be a second type but it was difficult to pinpoint the source. The effect was that the atmosphere around the ship and extending to the horizon had some form of faint white illumination not provided by the light in the water, which was black apart from the previously described flashes. On the other hand, there was no obvious source in the sky either, which although virtually cloudless was very dark, and certainly darker than the atmosphere at the level of the ship. The only conclusion that the observers could come to was that this was a faint example of (to quote The Marine Observer's Handbook ), 'luminescence in the air a few feet above the sea surface when there is no light in the water'. This form lasted for about 30 minutes, whereas the bright flashes continued for three or four hours before they too eventually ceased." ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Grunting Transcends Biological And Geographical Boundaries "Grunting for worms," that is. Birds are the most frequent worm-grunters; but reptiles do it (turtles, SF#65); and so do mammals (humans, SF#106). Grunting is an amusing and effective technique for luring earthworms to the surface where they can be consumed or used for fish bait. Animals usually grunt for worms by stomping on the ground after a rain. Just why the worms below rush to expose themselves upon detecting these seismic signals is known only to them. Perhaps they think more rain is falling or that a mole is burrowing toward them. All we know is that grunting works. In the article under review, English seagulls are reported doing a flat-footed version of an Irish jig to entice their dinner to the surface. Oystercatchers, on the other hand, prefer a reel-like dance in which they cavort in circles and straight lines. Somehow, the grunting technique has been communicated to birds everywhere. Red-billed gulls in New Zealand grunt for worms, so do the olive thrushes of South Africa. (Smith, Richard Hoseason, et al; "Rain Dance," New Scientist, p. 102, May 12, 2001.) Comment. It is mildly anomalous that this unlikely hunting technique is found in so many places and employed by so many species. Our own research adds that strange New ...
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... phenomenon, which was strongly luminous, consisted of scintillating, rotating rings arranged as a system of plates (small rings in the centre and increasingly large ones towards the edges). The rings seemed to consist of sparks running around in a circular or slightly elliptical path with an impressive speed. Spontaneously I associated them with electrical discharges. The plate shape was felt as being in some way static as to location, and the sparks moved in a pattern without spreading out at the edges. It seemed that strong force was controlling the event. The sparks looked like having a core and a 'tail' behind. They looked like being able to crackle but no sound was heard, perhaps because of the distance. It was interesting to note that the rings were spinning in opposite directions. The effect clearly illuminated the surrounding air space. The whole light phenomenon took place with knifesharp edges in clear weather (temperature between -1 and -3 deg. C." (Witalis. Erik; "An Air Plasma Whirl, Seen in the Atmosphere, Sweden, January 1991," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 16:273, 1991.) Comment. Of course, the author is actually assuming that a plasma was observed. From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 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 Techno-jinx George Gamow once said of his fellow physicist Wolfgang Pauli that "apparatus would fall, break, shatter, or burn when he merely walked into a laboratory." Some people just seem to have adverse effects on machines. When they appear on the scene, computers crash, copying machines jam, and telephones go on the fritz. Robert Morris, an experimental psychologist at Syracuse University, has been collecting such anecdotes and finds them far from rare. On the other side of the coin, other individuals seem to have phenomenal positive rapport with machinery, like those favored few who can fix anything. Of course, bulging files of anecdotes prove nothing. Many of the stories are likely embellished with each retelling. And some people are singularly clumsy, careless, and ignorant about machines. These types are always pushing the wrong buttons and otherwise mishandling the man-machine interface. Obviously, objective tests are required to determine of there is really anything to this curious business. (Huyghe, Patrick; "Techno-Jinx," Omni, 6:20, May 1984.) Comment. Even typewriters can be %r / lim-. ! From Science Frontiers #34, JUL-AUG 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects ARE BLUEBLOODS MORE OFTEN TYPE A? In the 1983 issue of Nature (303:522), J.A . Beardmore and F. Karimi-Booshehri reported that, based on a study of a specific British population, A-blood groups are significantly more common among the higher socio-economic groups. As one might predict whenever someone asserts that human success is genetically determined, an avalanche of mail descended on the Nature office. Two other studies that did not show the blueblood effect were offered, although somewhat different populations were involved. Many letters tried to find an explanation for this anomaly in the constitution of the sample. By the time one got to the response by the authors, the whole issue was clouded. (Mascle-Taylor, C.G . N., et al; "Blood Group and Socio-Economic Class," Nature, 309:395, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #35, SEP-OCT 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Efficacy Of Homeopathy Over the last several years we have been following the feud between the homeopathists and mainstream medicine, particularly the saga of J. Benveniste. Despite what the media writers say, homeopathy continues to produce positive results, as confirmed in the following item from the British Medical Journal: "Many doctors do not believe that homoeopathy [sic] is an efficacious treatment as it is highly implausible that infinitesimally diluted substances retain their biological effects. It is also often said that homoeopathy has not been evaluated with modern methods -- that is, controlled trials. The first argument may be true, the second is not. [J .] Kleijnen et searched the literature and found 96 reports containing 107 controlled trials of homoeopathy. Most trials turned out to be of very low quality, but there were many exceptions. The results show the same trend regardless of the quality of the trial or the variety of homoeopathy used. Overall. of the 105 trials with interpretable results, 81 showed positive results of homoeopathic treatment. A complicating factor in such reviews, especially of controversial subjects such as homoeopathy, is publication bias. If the results of Kleijnen et do not reflect the true state of affairs, publication bias must be considered a great problem in evaluations of homoeopathy. In any event, there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of trials with sound methodology." (Anonymous; "Clinical ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Spiked Ball Lightning December 3, 1979. Fleetwood, England. "On the evening in question there was an intermittent thunderstorm with rain in heavy showers. My son Michael had just come in from the college and had gone into the room and was standing watching the T.V . The time would be a little before 6.00 p.m . I said something to the effect that his meal would be ready and he'd better wash his hands, so he turned the television off, although it remained plugged in... At this point a spherical object about six inches (15 cm) in diameter floated down the (sealed) chimney and into the room. It appeared to be rather like a soap bubble but was dull purple in colour covered or rather made up of a furry/spiky emission all over. The coating seemed to be about one inch (2 .5 cm) thick with spikes of two inches here and there but changing all the time. It was quite dim and appeared to be semi-transparent, in so much as I could see through to the inside of the opposite side, which appeared quite smooth -- all the spikes pointing outwards from the surface. It appeared to me to be insubstantial and made no sound. It drifted between the two of us towards the television screen at about 30 inches (75 cm) from the floor, covering the six feet ...
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