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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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... '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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... "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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Effect Of Noncontact Therapeutic Touch On Healing Rate "The effect of Noncontact Therapeutic Touch (NCTT) on the rate of surgical healing was examined in a doubleblind study. Full-thickness dermal wounds were incised on the lateral deltoid region, using a skin punch biopsy instrument, on healthy subjects randomly assigned to treatment or control groups. Subjects were blinded both to group assignment and to the true nature of the active treatment modality in order to control placebo and expectation effects. Incisions were dressed with gaspermeable dressings, and wound surface areas were measured on Days, 0, 8, and 16 using a direct tracing method and digitization system. Active and control treatments were comprised of daily sessions of five minutes of exposure to a hidden Therapeutic Touch practitioner or to sham exposure. "Results showed that treated subjects experienced a significant acceleration in the rate of wound healing as compared to non-treated subjects at day 8." (Wirth, Daniel P.; "The Effect of Noncontact Therapeutic Touch on the Healing Rate of Full Thickness Dermal Wounds," Subtle Energies , 1:1 , 1990. Quoted abstract text above taken from Exceptional Human Experience , 10:248, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Wyoming. Here, 1100 kilometers from Landers, the geyser Echinus, which had been erupting on a regular schedule of every 56 minutes, went berserk. It didn't settle down for 34 hours. Geyser eruptions are frequently disturbed by nearby quakes, but Landers was hardly nearby! The seismology community. "Those distant shocks have startled seismologists as well as ordinary residents. Conventional thinking, at least among U.S . researchers, holds that stress generated when a fault slips in an earthquake peters out within a distance equal to a couple of times the length of the ruptured fault. For Landers, where about 70 kilometers of fault ruptured, this would amount to only about onetenth of the observed reach." Seismologists are now searching for ways to account for these unexpectedly far-reaching effects. (Monastersky, Richard; "Yellowstone Geyser Shows Quake Effect," Science News, 142:428, 1992. Also: Kerr, Richard A.; "Landers Quake's Long Reach Is Shaking Up Seismologists," Science, 259:29, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... science. A recent spate of letters in Physics Today reveals both the depth of the chasm and why it is there. The major letter writers are P.W . Anderson and R.G . Jahn, who work only a few hundred meters apart at Princeton but are light years apart on the matter of parapsychology. The letter writing commenced 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Computers can have near-death experiences!When HAL, the treacherous computer of 2001: A Space Odyssey, was being slowly disconnected, it began singing "A Bicycle Built for Two." In other words, the cutting of the computer's interconnections did not result in gibberish, rather memories that were previously stored flashed through its data processors. Something similar seems to happen with nonfictional computers. When a type of computer program termed an "artificial neural network" is "killed" by cutting links between its units, it in effect approaches a state which "might" be something like biological "death." S.L . Thaler, a physicist at McDonnell Douglas, has been systematically chopping up artificial neural networks. He has found that when between 10% and 60% of the network connections have been severed, the program generates primarily nonsense. But, as the 90% (near-death!) level is approached, the network's outout is composed more and more of previously learned information, like HAL's learned song! Also, when untrained artificial neural networks were slowly killed, they responded only with nonsense. (Yam, Philip; "' Daisy, Daisy'," Scientific American, 268:32, May 1993.) From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unidentified light explained?The strange optical phenomenon reported in SF#80 may have been the consequence of a barium release from a NASA satellite. At 9:17 PM EST, on January 13, 1991, the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) detonated a small canister of barium over South America. The greenish glow was visible from the U.S . southeast coast in the southwestern sky. (Suplee, Curt; "NASA Light Show 'Paints' Earth's Magnetic Field," Washington Post, January 14, 1991. Cr. D. Kreinbrink) Comment: The observation reported in SF#80 was logged as occurring at 0210 UTC, January 13, so there is a time discrepancy that needs to be resolved here. From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , 1995. Indian Ocean. Aboard the s.s . Lima , Juaymah to Rotterdam. Third officer, S.M .F . Masud, and others of the ship's company observed another instance of one of the sea's great unex plained phenomena. "At 1800 UTC on a clear moonless night while 150 n.mile east of the Somalian coast a whitish glow was observed on the horizon and, after 15 minutes of steaming, the ship was completely surrounded by a sea of milky-white colour with a fairly uniform luminescence. The bioluminescence appeared to cover the entire sea area, from horizon to horizon but above the surface, and it appeared as though the ship was sailing over a field of snow or gliding over the clouds. "There was no damping effect on capillary waves or reduction of visibility at all and there was no mist at deck level although at a distance it seemed as if there was either lowlying mist or the upwelling of the luminescence itself. The bow waves and the wake appeared blackish in colour and thick black patches of oil were passing by. Later, the Aldis lamp revealed that the 'oil patches' were actually light-green kelp, amazingly black against the white water." A water sample contained many singlecelled microorganisms, but they displayed no luminescence. After 6 hours, the luminescence disappeared. Commenting on this report, P.J . Herring, of the Southhampton Oceanography Centre, said that milky seas are most often associated with the Southwest Monsoon. This one was was rare in that the Northeast Monsoon prevailed. ...
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... , reveal that if Jupiter and Saturn were only 15 times the mass of the earth, the earth would have been devastated every 100,000 years by giant comets, instead of about every 100,000,000 years, as indicated by the geological record. Under such intense bombardment, it would probably have been difficult for advanced life forms to develop. (Croswell, Ken; "Why Intelligent Life Needs Giant Planets," New Scientist, p. 18, October 24, 1992.) Comment. Reasonable as the foregoing assertion sounds, we do not really know what stimulates the development of new life forms. Actually, the fossil record reveals that some biological "radiations" occurred soon after great geological upheavals. That the Jupiter-Saturn "shield" was and is not completely effective is indicated by the heavy debris traffic mentioned above. From Science Frontiers #85, JAN-FEB 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ; it is usually reserved for human-human interfaces. Folie a deux generally occurs when two or more people are very close emotionally. But some people living alone do develop close emotional bonds with their pets, and apparently, vice versa: "Ms. A, an 83-year-old widow who had lived alone for 15 years, complained that the occupant of an upstairs flat was excessively noisy and that he moved furniture around late at night to disturb her. Over a period of 6 months, she developed delusionary persecutory ideas about this man. He wanted to frighten her from her home and had started to transmit 'violet rays' through the ceiling to harm her and her 10-yearold female mongrel dog. Ms. A attributed a sprained back and chest pains to the effect of the rays and had become concerned that her dog had started scratching at night when the ray activity was at its greatest. For protection, she had placed her mattress under the kitchen table and slept there at night. She constructed what she called an 'air raid shelter' for her dog from a small table and a pile of suitcases and insisted that the dog sleep in it. When I visited Ms. A at her home, it was apparent that the dog's behavior had become so conditioned by that of its owner that upon hearing any sound from the flat upstairs, such as a door closing, it would immediately go to the kitchen and enter the shelter." (Howard, Robert; "Folie a Deux Involving a Dog," American Journal of Psychiatry ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Smoldering Corpse Most cases of SHC (Spontaneous Human Combustion) are written off by mainstream scientists (if they acknowledge the phenomenon at all) as easily explained by the "human candle effect." The elements of this accepted scenario are: (1 ) An ignition source, say, a fireplace; (2 ) The accidental ignition of the victim's clothing and/or adjacent bedding or upholstery; (3 ) The rendering of fat from the (assumed) corpulent victim, which combined with the surrounding wick-like material simulates a candle; and (4 ) The nearly complete, slow consumption of the victim, who is assumed to be asleep, drunk, or otherwise unable to rescue himself. But some cases do not involve all of these elements, as in the following item: " Syracuse (AP) -- Police have scheduled an autopsy today for a woman whose body was found smoldering next to a cemetery tombstone. "The woman's body was found lying on its back Wednesday afternoon next to a massive, 5-foot-high tombstone in St. Agnes Cemetery in Syracuse by the cemetery's caretaker, police said. .. .. . "' We just don't know what happened,' said the Rev. James Fritzen, who runs the cemetery for the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse. 'We don't know if this was foul play or (someone) ...
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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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... but it now appears that there is a complementary mode of communication that relies upon chemistry rather than electricity. While the fastest way to transmit signals in the brain seems to be along the neurons and across their points of contact, the synapses, other signals may travel -- a bit more slowly -- by what is termed "volume transmission." Volume transmission is like broadcasting radio waves in three dimensions, except that in the brain the radio waves are replaced by the diffusion of chemical signals. L.F . Agnati et al explain: ". .. our experiments have shown that neurons also release chemical signals into the extracellular space that are not necessarily detected by neighboring cells but by cells far away, in the same way hormones released by a gland into the bloodstream can have effects on cells far away. These processes occur on much longer time scales than does synaptic transmission, and they probably play a distinct role, perhaps regulating the brain's responses to synaptic signals. .. .. . "We might speculate that volume transmission is involved in the neuroendocrine system and the central autonomic system. Changes in the activity of the brain during sleep and wakefulness, relative levels of alertness, mood and sensitivity to pain may be highly dependent on volume transmission. Thus, although information regarding to location of pain is carried by the circuitry of the nervous system, the intensity and duration of the pain may be somewhat modulated by the ambient homoral signals. In this respect, acupuncture may also be a phenomenon that is dependent on volume transmission." (Agnati, Luigi ...
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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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Electrical Virtuoso August 12, 1992. Conwy, Wales. Here is carefully observed case of ball lightning with rather spectacular side effects. Mrs. P. Stafford was looking through her front window: ". .. when she saw what she first thought was a 'ball of white fire', larger than a football, about 20 to 30 feet from her, travelling horizontally at a constant height up her drive. There was very heavy rainfall, perhaps with some hail, but no lightning or thunder. The ball was seen against the background of other houses and her view of it was not interrupted. It was round, opaque and predominantly white with some yellow, and surrounded by a blue, irridescent halo. She said it was reminiscent of a meteor or comet and the light from it was like that from a fluorescent tube. It was bright enough to be clearly visible in daylight and appeared to be spinning or rotating. It hit the oak tree, perhaps 12 or 13 feet away, in Mrs. Wignall's front garden, with a terrific crack and explosion. "The ball was in sight for about 10 to 15 seconds, and its appearance did not change until it struck the tree, whereupon it became smaller. It hit the trunk about half way up and split the bark and trunk, showering splinters of wood over a distance of about 50 yards. As it did so, it ...
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... May-Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The earth: a doubly charmed planet In SF#85, we learned that the evolution of advanced life forms on earth may have depended upon the protective influences of Jupiter and Saturn. These two giant planets can gravitationally deflect potentially devastating asteroids and comets away from the earth. It seems now that we are doubly lucky! Computer runs demonstrate that the presence of our large moon has stabilized the earth's spin axis down the eons. Presently, the earth's spin axis makes an angle of 23.5 with the plane of the earth's orbit (its "obliquity"). The well-known result is our yearly procession of seasons. Without the steadying effect of the moon, however, the earth's obliquity would probably have swung chaotically over much larger values. Such extreme changes would have been inimical to the development of life, particularly advanced life. As a case in point, the polar axis of Mars, with only two tiny moons to dampen its spin excursions, seems to have gone through many wild swings, as indicated in the figure. What deadly climatic changes must have wracked our sister planet! (Touma, Jihad, and Wisdom, Jack; "The Chaotic Obliquity of Mars," Science, 259: 1294, 1993. Also: Laskar, J., and Robutel, P.; "The Chaotic Obliquity of the Planets," Nature, 361:608, 1993.) Comment. The successful evolution ...
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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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... 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. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fake Needles but Real Knives The effect of a patient's mind in medical procedures can be as powerful as drugs and real surgery. This is the well known placebo effect. But how can doctors differentiate between the healing power of the mind and that of chemicals and scalpels? The logical thing to do is to fake the procedure with one group of patients and compare results with a second group that got the "real thing." Of course, ethical problems come to the fore because doctors are supposed to cure people and not to pretend to. The ethical dimension is accentuated when real knives are employed and real blood flows. Our first item is not invasive but interesting nonetheless. Placebo acupuncture. Many physicians scoff at acupuncture. Placebo experiments could prove its efficacy. To this end, special placebo needles have been invented. Like the fake daggers used on the stage, the points are blunt and retractable. The acupuncture patient feels a pinprick and thinks he or she sees the needle penetrating the skin, but it's all fakery. At the University of Heidelberg, 52 people with rotator cuff tendinitis were split into two groups; 25 were punctured with real needles, the rest just thought they were. In this experiment, the first group showed much greater improvement than those treated with the fake needles. Real acupuncture was more powerful than the placebo effect. Now if we can only figure out how real acupuncture works! ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Different Sort of Crop Circle Ball lightning reports are very common, but here is one worth recording because of its unusual physical effects. It was investigated and reported by O. Stummer. In May or June of 1988 or 1989 around 2 P.M . CEST, Mr. Alois Fuehrer, a farmer of 38 years from Jungschlag, a small village south of Ottenschlag, northern Lower Austria, 850 meters above sea level, returned early from fieldwork because a heavy thunderstorm moved in from the north-west. Fuehrer stood in the open on a wooden plank at the rear of the diesel tractor driven by his father. The vehicle had passed the last Ottenschlag houses southbound, when he noticed a falling object. It was round, 20 centimeters across, and "seemed to come down like a toy balloon", vertical, soundless, without rotation. It was brilliant white, a steady light, and had "something like a smoke trail". Only 20 to 30 meters to the right of the tractor and of the road, after 4 to 6 seconds, the object hit the surface of a green summer barley field, flashed up and "exploded with a loud, very high pitched bang". Mr. Fuehrer said "this was no thunder", and noticed no heat or pressure wave. However, what he felt caused panic--a tingling, and his hairs stood on end on his head ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How to Win by Loosing (twice)It's all exceedingly counterintuitive. If you switch randomly between two games of chance, each of which is guaranteed to empty your pockets if played separately, you can actually win. This phenomenon can be proved mathematically, but we will not inflict this upon our readers, even if we understood it. Two games played with coins illustrate the effect. One game employs a weighted coin such that the probability of winning is much less than 50%. If played alone, your capital decreases steadily in a rather smooth curve, with a small win now and then but many small losses. The second game requires two weighted coins and is also a losing proposition by itself. Here, though, the graph of your assets vs. the number of games played is a sawtooth. There are sharp increases and downturns, but with an average downward trend. Switching between the two games in a random manner has the effect of locking in a win before the next loss comes along. It's a ratchet effect. Your overall capital will rise, at least it does according to the equations, though your intuition cannot help but doubt it. No wonder this Is called Parrondo's paradox! (Harmer, Gregory P., and Abbott, Derek; "Losing Strategies Can Win by Farrondo's Paradox," Nature, 402:864, 1999. Anonymous; "Losing ...
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... side which happened to be underneath when the phenomenon occurred, the same side of the body being, in all nine cases, the more seriously injured. The remarkable part of the occurrence is that the house was uninjured, all the doors and windows being closed at the time. No trace of lightning could afterward be observed in any part of the building, and all the sufferers unite in saying that there was no detonation, but only the loud humming already mentioned. Another curious attendant circumstance is that the trees around the house showed no signs of injury until the ninth day, when they suddenly withered, almost simultaneously with the development of the sores upon the bodies of the occupants of the house. This is perhaps a mere coincidence, but it is remarkable that the same susceptibility to electrical effects, with the same lapse of time, should be observed in both animal and vegetable organisms. I have visited the sufferers, who are now in one of the hospitals of this city; and although their appearance is truly horrible, yet it is hoped that in no case will the injuries prove fatal. (Signed: Warner Cowgill, U.S . Consulate, Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 17, 1886.) (Cowgill, Warner; "Curious Phenomenonin Venezuala, Scientific American, 55:389, 1886.) The article in Infinite Energy discusses in some depth the reality of ball lightning, the similarities to modern UFO reports, the reliability of anecdotes, and, especially, the nature of the physiological effects, which resemble, in some aspects, radiation sickness resulting from ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Statistical Astrology No matter how severely scientists demonize astrologers, statistics keep piling up suggesting that season-of-birth can influence human traits and talents. When one relects upon this matter, a rational, cause-and-effect chain is not far out on the lunatic fringe. After all, a pregnant woman's body responds to varying temperatures, changing amounts of sunlight, seasonal foods, and varying physical activity during the year. Such effects can be felt in utero, too. Many of the multitudinous studies looking into the season-of-birth correlations are very specialized and employ small samples. For example, English professional soccer players in the 1991-1992 season were twice as likely to have been born September through November. Mental traits are also influenced by season-ofbirth. More medical students are born April through June than can be explained by chance. Best of all (for us) is the following correlation: Perhaps the most unusual seasonal effect is found amongst scientists who support revolutionary theories. It seems that academics who were quick to support controversial theories such as relativity and evolution tended to he born between October and April. (Thomas, Jens; "Like a Virgo," New Scientist, p. 56, December 25, 1999.) Comment. So, there is a season for iconoclasts and anomalists! However, we (the editorial "we") bucked the trend. Could we have ...
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... waves are usually preceded by deep troughs. as seen in this sketch of a vessel in the notorious A gulhas Current off the coast of South Africa. (From: Earthquakes. Tides....) Just between 1969 and 1994. 60 supercarriers were lost due to sudden flooding. Of this number, 22 were apparently swallowed by rogue waves. The rogue waves appear unexpectedly. They dwarf all surrounding waves. For a long time, the rogues were said to be just chance additions of two smaller waves. But they are too big and occur too frequently to be statistical flukes. In addition, statiticians have trouble in accounting for the fabled and feared "three sisters" -- three massive waves in succession. Consequently, scientists have retreated to a now-familiar refuge: nonlinear effects. They show mathematically how small perturbations in a physical system can lead to huge consequences -- on paper at least.. (Lawton, Graham; "Monsters of the Deep," New Scientist, p. 28, June 30, 2001.) Comments. Somehow, as insinuated above, blaming monstrous waves on non-linear effects is not very satisfying in our cause-and-effect world. Twenty-two huge vessels swallowed up by giant waves! Yet, we never see notices of such events in the papers! A small tanker oil spill gets much more media attention. From Science Frontiers #137, SEP-OCT 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The ...
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... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Long Reach Of The Hawaiian Islands From aircraft and satellites, one can see strong contrasts in the roughness of the ocean surface in the lee of those idyllic islands with their volcanic peaks that poke over 10,000 feet into the Pacific airstreams. These long streaks on the ocean surface are called "wind wakes." The wind wake leeward the Hawaii is spectacular. These islands are swept by steady northeast trade winds. Mauna Kea (4201 meters), Mauna Loa (4201 meters), and other Hawaiian peaks penetrate high above trade inversion. Together they create a visible wind wake some 3,000 kilometers long to the west -- many time-greater than any other island wind wakes to be seen on the planet. The effects of these soaring peaks are more than visual. Their wind wake drives an eastward ocean current that, in turn, draws warm water away from the Asian coast 8,000 kilometers distant from Hawaii. Thus, a few island mountains affect the climate of a continent a fifth of the way around the globe! (Xie, Shang-Ping, et al; "Far-Reaching Effects of the Hawaiian Islands on the Pacific Ocean-Atmosphere System," Science, 292:2057, 2001.) Comment. The Hawaiian wind wake is not anomalous but it is surely interesting. From Science Frontiers #137, SEP-OCT 2001 . 2001 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. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Eclipsing Of Innate Talents The age effect. An idea going the rounds holds that everyone is really a genius but that his or her innate talents have been eclipsed or suppressed. Age is one factor that is blamed. As a child develops, so goes the theory, its brain is bit by bit swamped by the high-level conceptual thinking required for survival in the modern adult world. The child's innate mathematical genius, musical capabilities, and other "low-level" talents are placed on the brain's back burner by the demands of adulthood. It is a common observation that the young assimilate foreign languages more readily than adults. A less-well-known talent, eidetic imagery (the ability to recall images with photographic precision), is found in some children, but it also usually fades with age. Now, we learn that 8-month-old babies are apparently blessed with perfect pitch, a capability they, too, generally lose as they age. (Hall, Carl T.; "Learning by Infants Isn't Just Baby Talk," The Brain, February 28, 2001. Cr. J. Cieciel.) Removal of mental blocks. Sometimes the barriers that eclipse our innate talents are removed by mental disease. The surprising enhancing effect of dementia on some "low-level" talents was mentioned in SF#133. The same mental barriers also seem to ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hums Ho!Down the years, several mysterious hums have been recorded in the pages of SF. First, there was the persistent, widespread, annoying "English hum" reported in 1977. Most famous has been the "Taos hum" in New Mexico, mentioned here in 1993, and still going strong. We presume the English hum, the Hueytown hum, and all the others are still driving those who can hear them to distraction. There have been some desultory inquiries into the sources of these hums, but no one has come up with anything more specific than engine noises, wind blowing across chimney tops (an organ effect), or some nefarious secret military project. Whatever the cause(s ), the hums have devastating effects on those particularly sensitive to them. Case 1. Take, for example, the Kokomo, Indiana, hum that started about 1999. "Almost immediately after the noise began, nearly every resident reported having chronic and severe headaches and were awakened several times at night and were fatigued." wrote Lisa Hurt Kozarovich, a freelancer. "About 30 residents said they were also nauseated and had other symptoms -- the most common being pressure or ringing in their ears, chronic joint pain, dizziness, depression and diarrhea." (Sharpe, Tom; "Pondering the Hum," Santa Fe New Mexican, July 24, 2001. Cr. D. Perkins via L. ...
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... other life forms, is highly flammable. Lightning could have ignited it almost immediately if it was concentrated enough. A colossal firestorm might have then enveloped the entire planet. The whole atmosphere could have been afire. This, according to B. Hurdle and colleagues at the Naval Research Laboratory, who speculate that the dinosaur hegemony may ended suddenly in flames rather than in a long, drawn-out whimper. (Day, Michael; "Hell on Earth," New Scientist, p. 5, November 20, 1999) 55 million years ago. Ten million years after the dinosaurs may have roasted in a global firestorm, another methane burp may have erupted from the oceans. This burp was slower and did not ignite but was just as lethal. It filled with atmosphere with a highly effective green-house: methane. The result was a pulse of global warming; as seen in a 5-7 -deg C increase in the temperature of ocean-bottom water during that period. Biological evidence for the event occurs in the skeletons of marine animals that litter the ocean sediments laid down in that lethal period. On the land, prior to the methane release, North America was'populated by an odd assortment of unfamiliar mammals; "unfamiliar" to ustoday because they left no descendents. These archaic mammals succumbed to the effects of the sudden global warming and were ultimately replaced by the ancestors of our familiar deer, horses, and canines that streamed across the now-open Bering Land Bridge. Geology, too, provides evidence of this traumatic event. Ocean-bottom ...
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... predictions from observations of the Pleiades. This information allowed them to better time the planting of potatoes -- their most important crop. The astronomical phenomenon they employed is far from obvious. The Pleiades are a cluster of bright stars in the constellation Taurus. The visibility of these stars varies slightly depending upon the amount of subvisual cirrus. If the Pleiades were dull in the month of June, the Andean farmers knew from experience that an El Nino was on the way. This betokened reduced rainfall and told them to postpone the planting of their potatoes by 4-6 weeks for best yields. The critical observations were made between June 13 and 24, when the Pleiades shine brightly just before dawn over the northeastern horizon. At this low angle, the presence of the subvisual cirrus has an obvious effect on the brightness of the stars in the cluster, as indicated in the figure. Some of the lesser stars seem to disappear altogether. The visibility effect itself is rather subtle. It is remarkable enough that it was noticed at all by ancient peoples, much more so was their making the obscure connection to future weather. (Orlove, Benjamin S., et al; "Forecasting Andean Rainfall and Crop Yield from the Influence of El Nino on Pleiades Visibility," Nature, 403:68, 2000.) Comment. To the ancients, the Pleiades were known as the "seven sisters," be-cause their eyes registered seven resplendent stars. But today a naked-eye observer counts just six. What happened to the "Lost Pleiad?" Apparently it faded away ...
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... infrasound, weak but continuous, is the "voice of the sea." These sound waves, called "microbaroms," have periods in the 5-7 second range (0 .20-0 .14 Hz), well below the range of human ears. Such low-frequency sounds travel great distances with little attenuation. It is thought, therefore, that the "voice of the sea" is an extended source -- perhaps the collective acoustical signature of all the storms from all the world's oceans. But this is surmise. Actually, the air is full of infra-sound emanating from still-unidentified sources, as indicated in the figure. Humans may not hear infrasound, but a form of "mountain music" seems to have a mysterious, depressing effect upon some of us. Some infrasounds that last for as long as several days have been triangulated to distant mountain ranges and tend to occur when winds blowing over them exceed a certain speed. This effect may be a low-frequency version of the aeolian tones produced by the cyclic eddy shedding that occurs when wind flows around obstacles. The reported increase in the incidence of suicides during episodes of warm downslope mountain winds (called Chinooks in the western U.S . and the Fohn in the Alps) may be due to some as yet unknown pressure fluctuations with 20-to-70 second periods. (Bedard, Alfred J., Jr., and Georges, Thomas M.; "Atmospheric Infrasound," Physics Today, 52:32, March 2000.) A sonogram ...
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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 TLPs One Fades, Others Flash The TLP (Transient Lunar Phenomenon) reported in SF#127 involved a 40-minute darkening of an area near the lunar crater Aristarchus on April 23, 1994. The phenomenon was observed independently by some 100 amateur astronomers. The initial analysis of data returned at the same time by the lunar satellite Clementine at first seemed to confirm the amateurs' telescopic impressions. But after correcting the satellite data for lighting geometry and other effects, Clementine's vision of the TLP faded away like the Cheshire Cat. TLP doubters were well-satisfied. (Anonymous; "Lunar Surface Change: A False Alarm," Sky & Telescope, 99:22, March 2000. Cr. D. Barbiero.) Comment. Were the independent observations by 100-or-so geographically dispersed amateurs all hallucinations? The TLP "myth" does not fade away so easily. On the night of November 17/18, 1999, the Leonid meteors pelted the earth's atmosphere and, as one would expect, the moon's surface. The moon's atmosphere, however, is almost non-existent so its share of the Leonid shower did not burn up before hitting the surface. But might not the high-velocity impacts with the surface create luminous phenomena? To find out, a team of observers monitored the dark side of the moon during the peak of the Leonid shower. Sure ...
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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 Leaky Seas Just as we have been assured that the Greenhouse Effect is melting the ice caps and that rising ocean levels will force us to abandon our coastal cities, we read the following: Within a billion years, our planet could be as dry and barren as Mars, claim geologists in Tokyo. They have calculated that the oceans are leaking water into the Earth's mantle five times as fast as it is being replenished. It is true that ocean water is being drained away at subduction zones where oceanic crustal plates dive under the continental plates; there's a 10,000-mile unsealed crack there. S. Maruyama and colleagues at the Tokyo Institute of Technology estimate that 1.12 billion metric tons of water leak through that crack in the earth's integument every year. Geologists have always assumed that most of this leakage was returned to the oceans through deep-sea vents and volcanic action, but Maruyama calculates that only 0.23 billion metric tons are recovered. The balance is probably absorbed by lawsonite and other minerals forming 100 kilometers below the surface. (Hadfield, Peter; "Leaky Seas," New Scientist, p. 4, September 11, 1999.) Comment. Does this mean we should cease our attempts to stem global warming? From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fall Babies Live Longer Not by much, just a few months longer, but enough to look for a reason. In Austria, babies born October-December live about 0.6 year longer than those who first see the world April-June. The same effect emerges in Denmark, but the fall advantage is only 0.3 year. Don't bother looking for an astrological explanation. The longevity enhancement may just be the consequence of more fruits and vegetables being available to pregnant women in the months preceding birth. (Anonymous; "Study: Babies Born in Fall Live Longer," Scranton Tribune, February 27, 2001. Cr. M. Piechota.) From Science Frontiers #135, MAY-JUN 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "Redshift is A Shaky Measuring Rod"So saith M. Burbidge, an astronomer at the University of California at San Diego. Her assertion echoes what Arp has been proclaiming for years. (AR#3 ); namely that some redshifts are not due to the Doppler effect and an expanding universe. Since redshift is the major cosmological yardstick, the whole fabric of modern cosmology would become unwoven if redshifts cannot be used to measure distances reliably. We bring this subject up once more because Burbidge claims that some newly discovered quasar pairs cast additional doubt on redshift distance measurements. For example, she, along with Arp and Y. Chu, point to the quasar pair flanking the galaxy named Arp 220 (one of Arp's earlier discoveries). Quasars are very energetic sources of visible light, radio waves, and X-rays. The problem with Arp-220's flanking quasars is that they have much greater redshifts than the galaxy that seems to be situated in between them and likely at the same distance. Is this just a chance association, and the quasars are really much farther away than the galaxy -- as suggested by their high redshifts? Most astronomers believe this must be the case, but Burbidge and, of course, Arp, doubt it. They point to 10 other galaxies nearby that are also straddled by quasar pairs with higher redshifts. All of these were discovered within the last four years ...
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... MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Longevity And Sardinia If you were not born in the fall (see above item) and thereby received a few months' bonus in longevity, you might compensate for the loss by moving to sunny Sardinia in the Mediterranean. Nowhere else on the planet does a larger proportion of the male population live to the century mark. Strangely, female longevity is unaffected by whatever it is that produces the male Methuselahs. We have, therefore, two questions to answer: (1 ) Why do so many males reach the 100-year mark; and (2 ) Why are Sardinia's women short-changed? No one has good answers. It might be genetic (an inbreeding effect) or simply lifestyle (more imbibing of the island's red wine). (Koenig, Robert; "Sardinia's Mysterious Male Methuselahs," Science, 291:2074, 2001.) From Science Frontiers #135, MAY-JUN 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects It's a mole-rat, jim, but not as we know it Naked mole rats are the most social of all the mammals. They live in underground colonies with a social structure like that of ants and termites. There are castes of workers, and only the queen, an oversized female, breeds. Naked mole rats are also intensely xenophobic; they avoid or fight with other mole-rat colonies. But such tightly closed societies lead to inbreeding with all its deleterious effects. For naked mole rats to survive over the long term, a biological solution to the inbreeding problem had to be found. The response of the species to this threat is the occasional production of a "dispersive morph." The largest and most successful colonies produce -- somehow -- a larger-than-normal individual, almost always a male, that is fuelled with extra fat and possesses a yen to travel. He is disinclined to mate with the resident queen, preferring to leave the colony for amorous adventure elsewhere. Thus, intercolony gene flow is established. (Gee, Henry; "It's a Mole-Rat, Jim, But Not As We Know It," Nature, 380:584, 1996. O'Riain, M. Justin, et al; "A Dispersive Morph in the Naked Mole-Rat," Nature, 380:619, 1996) Comment. Of course, the ...
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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 Songs In Your Head Aneurysms occur when the wall of a blood vessel weakens and bulges outward. They can be very dangerous but in some cases they produce bizarre side effects. Take, for example, this case of a 61-year-old woman. The woman's symptoms began with nausea, fatigue and then disorientation. Then, after a year, she began hearing music in the forms of songs she knew. The music was peristent but kept changing. In December, it involved Christmas songs, for example. The songs were ones the woman learned when she was young. She had no obvious physical problems that might explain the hallucinations. The woman naturally went to a psychiatrist, but to no avail. Finally, repeated MRI examinations revealed two small brain aneurysms. When these were corrected surgically, the music stopped. (Nagourney, Eric; "A Song in Your Head Can Turn Deadly," New York Times, April 24, 2001. Cr. M. Piechota.) Comment. Just how can the pressure from slightly bulging blood vessels cause someone to hear songs stored in one's memory? From Science Frontiers #136, JUL-AUG 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. ...
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... Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Interplanetary Doldrums A special session of the 1999 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union was convened to discuss an extraordinary event: "The day of the solar wind almost disappeared." That was May 11, 1999. The doldrums lasted over 27 hours. Actually, the velocities of the particles constituting the solar wind did not slacken much: 360 kilometers/second, down just 10% from the norm. The wind's density, though dropped from 10 to 0.2 particles/cubic centimeter. Nothing untoward happened on the earth's surface. In space, the earth's magnetosphere expanded when the pressure of the solar wind diminished and more X-rays were emitted from the polar atmosphere, but these effects did not surprise anyone. The big question is: What happened on the sun that stopped its exhalations? No one seems to have an answer. (Lazarus, Alan J.; "The Day the Solar Wind Almost Disappeared," Science, 287: 2172, 2000.) From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... . Shiroyama asked the following question in the May 13, 2000, issue of New Scientist: I have heard it said that if you drink beer through a straw you will become intoxicated more quickly. Many of my friends have heard it too. Is it an urban myth or true and, if so, why? Thus challenged, the magazine editor conducted an informal test using ten easily found volunteers. Only half used straws; all had plenty of free beer. The five straw-users definitely performed worse on standard sobriety tests than the glass-lifters, even though both groups consumed the same amounts of beer. One New Scientist reader commented that one can get drunk still faster by consuming beer using a spoon instead of a straw. In Russia, chimed in another reader, the effect of vodka is greatly amplified if imbibed with a thimble instead of a glass.(Shiroyama, Haitsu, et al; "Suck It and See," New Scientist, p. 40, May 13, 2000) From Science Frontiers #131, SEP-OCT 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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... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ashen Light Of Venus Closing The Book Scientists are understandably delighted when they believe they have definitively and indisputably explained one of Nature's many mysteries. They can then finally "close the book" on the phenomenon. Sometimes, though, the book is slammed shut prematurely or unjustifiably. Also, as it often happens, closing one book opens another and the new one is even harder to close. Below, we present three examples where finality (closed books) seems to be proclaimed too quickly. On occasion, the night side of Venus (which goes through phases like the moon) seems to glow softly and subtly. For some 350 years, keen-eyed observers have seen this phenomenon through their telescopes. Nevertheless, the effect is so elusive that many astronomers doubt its physical reality. Additionally, it is easy to doubt the existence of the ashen light because good explanations are as elusive as the light itself. During the past decade, two scientific nails have also been driven into the ashen-light coffin: Spectrographic studies of the upper atmosphere of Venus do detect some nighttime air glow, but it is much too weak to account for the abundant telescopic observations from earth. The Cassini spacecraft did not detect any high-frequency radio noise typical of lightning when it passed close to Venus in 1998 and 1999. This put an end to the surmise that the ashen light was due to rapid, widespread lightning occurring deep inside the planet's thick atmosphere and then blended into a steady glow by atmospheric scattering. ...
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... you look at the "Face" at other lighting angles and process the same data in different ways, the "Face" reappears looking more artificial than ever. T. Van Flandern elaborates: The MGS spacecraft took a high resolution photo of the "Face on Mars" in April 1998. That image suffered from four handicaps: a low viewing angle; a low sun angle from the direction of under the "chin"; an almost complete lack of contrast; and enough cloudiness to scatter most of the light and eliminate shadows. To add to these difficult circumstances, JPL-MIPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Mission Image Processing Laboratory] personnel, apparently judging that the controversy over artificiality would not be ended when the actual photo was released, processed the image through two filters having the effect of flattening and suppressing image details. This step is documented at a JPL web site. Here we do image processing correctly and present the results of computer corrections to compensate for the poor lighting and low viewing angle. The actual image shows clearly the impropriety of the JPL-MIPL actions because the visual impression of artificiality persists. However, appearances after a discovery are not a valid basis for drawing conclusions, but only for forming hypotheses for further testing. This is called the a priori principle of scientific method. The 1976 Viking imagery allowed the formation of competing hypotheses, natural vs. artificial origin, and tests to distinguish them. When applied to the high-resolution MGS image of the Face, all artificiality predictions were fulfilled despite a lack of background noise. The combined a priori ...
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... terrestrial zodiac has not panned out well. The geo-speculators have had more success. There are many "water" connections. The geoglyphs were drawn at the time of a great drought. The geoglyphs are often colocated with groups of subterranean aqueducts called "puquios," which were constructed during the drought. The "ray centers" are usually located near water sources. The trapezoids are generally oriented parallel to the flow of surface water. Seashells and ceremonial drinking vessels have been excavated near the trapezoids, suggesting water-connected rituals. Fossil footpaths follow many of the Nazca lines. Accumulating evidence has led many archeologists and anthropologists to conclude that some of the Nazca lines are ritual pathways, meant to be walked upon and to lead processions to spots where prayers for more water would be most effective. The geoglyphs, however, remain mysterious. (McClintock, Jack; "The Nasca Lines Solution," Discover, 21:74, December 2000.) Comments. The Nazca lines have not been neglected in past newsletters. See SF#47 and SF#63. Ritual processions like those hypothesized for the Nazca Plain resemble thosethought to have taken place along Avebury's avenue, Carnac's stone rows, and Chaco Canyon's mysterious converging system of "roads." Ritual processions seem to be built into the human genome. 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, ...
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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 Crop Circles Can be Natural Before today's prolific crops of bogus crop circles, there were rare instances where nature neatly carved circles in fields of grain. These legitimate crop circles have been trashed with the fake ones and are still unexplained. A good example of the "real thing" was resurrected in the Journal of Meteorology. The original source is: Nature, 22:290, 1880. J.R . Capron, a respected spectroscopist of the time, was the reporter. The storms about this part of Surrey have been lately local and violent, and the effects produced in some in-stances curious. Visiting a neighbour's farm on Wednesday evening (21st), we found a field of standing wheat considerably knocked about, not as an entirety, but in patches forming, as viewed from a distance, circular spots. Examined more closely, these all presented much the same character, viz., a few standing stalks as a centre, some prostrate stalks with their heads arranged pretty evenly in a direction forming a circle about the centre, and outside these a circular wall of stalks which had not suffered. Capron thought the nearly perfect circles of crop damage bespoke cyclonic wind damage. (Van Boorn, Peter; "A Case of Genuine Crop Circles Dating from July 1880 As Published in Nature in the year 1880," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 25:20, 2000 ...
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... required by their functions in life forms. They find energy peaks and valleys are crossed as the chains writhe and fold-- often with blinding speed -- from one energy state to another, the nascent proteins "funnel" toward the minimum energy states that characterize the proteins that are capable of taking on biological tasks. This funnelling is an emergent property of matter that leads to the final "dominant state": a protein or some other biochemical. (Irion, Robert; "Say the Magic Words," New Scientist, p. 32, June 7, 2001.) Comment. Proteins are the workhorses of terrestrial life forms. By gross extrapolation of the protein energy-landscape model, we could say that life forms are merely complexes of multitudinous dominant states and are, in effect, superdominant-states. This speculation is fun, but the WHY of this whole business still eludes us. And we wonder if "emergent property" really doesn't mean "life force"! From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... The smaller ones are completely consumed. A few bigger ones reach earth and are renamed "meteorites." So far, all of this is well-understood. But when meteors begin to burn up much above 100 kilometers, a problem arises. The air there is normally much too thin to cause incandescence and burn-up. Observational anomalies are abundant. Two Leonid fireballs were seen glowing at 160 kilometers by Japanese scientists. In 1998, a Dutch team in China detected bright Leonids at 200 kilometers! In addition, some Russian reentering space-craft began glowing well above 100 kilometers. ANAL is a solid phenomenon. Of course, the density of the upper atmosphere does increase somewhat when solar activity is high. Atmospheric gravity waves can also cause the atmosphere to bulge out. But these effects are inadequate to explain all observations. R. Spalding, at Sandia National Laboratories, ventures that ions in the upper atmosphere are electrostatically attracted to meteors and create light when they collide with them. A. Ol'khovatov suggests that "plasma instabilities" may be involved. To learn more about these, go to the latter's web site at: www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Cockpit/3240/ (Ol'khovatov, Andrei; "Anomalous High Altitude Luminosity," Meteorite!, 6:18, May 2000.) Comments. AHAL remains unexplained. Interestingly enough, ANAL occurs at the same high altitudes where some meteors are heard on the ground, even though the air at these altitudes is too thin to transmit sound! These anomalous hisses are termed ...
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... extent of the immense Australasian-tektite strewn field implies a hard-to-miss crater about 100 kilometers in diameter. Yet, despite the geological recency of the event and despite much geological surveying, no convincing crater has been discovered. (SF#115) So, we have abundant evidence of a terrestrial event encompassing much of the planet but no "smoking crater"! The mystery deepens when one realizes that whatever cataclysm sent the Australian tektites aloft may have been comparable in magnitude to the impact that extinguished the dinosaurs (and other fauna) some 65 million years ago. This much older event has its craterburied below the Yucatan and is further marked by widespread biological extinctions. In contrast, the Australasian-tektite event is not only minus an obvious crater but seems to have had scant effect on the earth's cargo of sensitive life forms. It was a strangely "gentle" event despite the rocky deluge of tektites. What really happened? (Paine, Michael; "Source of the Australasian Tektites," Meteorite, p. 24, February 2001. Varricchio, Louis; "Tektite Origins," Meteorite, p. 4, May 2001.) Comment. Was the Australasian-tektite event an encounter with mirror matter, perhaps like Tunguska might have been? We would be derelict not to mention here the claim by J.A . O'Keefe and others that the rain of Australasian tektites originated in an impact event that occurred not on the earth but rather on the moon. A lunar impact would obviously not require a terrestrial crater, and earthly biota ...
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... now attend to. The following excerpt is from a 1790 gazetteer, as reprinted in New Scientist. A remarkable phenomenon was seen near this town [Harlech] in the year 1694 and it continued about the space of eight months. It was a livid vapour, or fiery exhalation which seemed to arise from the sea on the borders of Caernarvonshire. It made its first appearance on the side of a bay, a little after sunset, and from thence spread itself in the most gradual manner, until it had set all the houses in the neighbourhood on fire. Not only the ricks of hay, corn, and other forts of grain were destroyed, but also the vegetables in the gardens, for it had so noxious a smell that everything perished where it diffused its baleful infuence. Its effect were severely felt by the cattle to whom it communicated a contagious distemper, by which many of them died. It made its appearance regularly every night, always rising at the same place, nor did it stop its course either by rain or storms. It was sometimes visible by day, but it was very remarkable that it never did any damage except in the night. The flames were in no way violent, but its continuance at last consumed everything that opposed it. Those few scientists who have mused over this curious old account have concluded that the "fiery exhalations" resulted from the spontaneous ignition of marsh gas; that is, the flames were will-o '- the-wisps, albeit relatively powerful ones. Will-o '- the-wisp theory states that ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Saguenay Earthquake Lights November 1988-January 1989. Saguenay region of Quebec. During this period, a total of 67 quakes were recorded. The foreshock (November 23) registered 4.8 ; the main shock (November 25), 6.5 mmlg. Many after-shocks followed. During this spate of tremors, 38 unusual luminosities were initially reported from the region, 8 of them before the foreshock, being in effect earthquake precursors. Afterwards, residents were queried for details and additional observations. A total of 46 reports sufficiently detailed for analysis were obtained. These luminous phenomena were classified according to a scheme proposed by F. Montandon in 1948. Montandon's five categories are: Seismic lightning (no thunder); Luminous bands in atmosphere; Globular incandescent masses; Fire tongues, small mobile flames near the ground, like will-o '- the wisps; and Flames emerging from the ground. The globular incandescent masses were by far the most common type of earthquake light during this Canadian "flap." Of these, F. St-Laurent writes: There were twenty-two reports coming from different places. Often they were seen far from the epicenter or when the seismic activity was low or quiet. Some were stationary (in one case, the yellow and orange mass presented a horizontal elongated form), others were seen emerging from the ground, some were very fast-moving near the ...
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