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

... . GEB11 Anomalous Dewbows, Cloud bows, Horizontal Rainbows GEB12 Sandbows GEB13 Rainbows Parallel to the Horizon GEB14 Purple Rainbows GEB15 Supernumerary Rainbows GEB16 Prismatic Pillars at the Foot of the Rainbow GEB17 The Dark Space between Primary and Secondary Rainbows GEB18 Grossly Distorted Rainbows GEB19 Rainbows Dividing Sky Colors GEB20 The Odor of the Rainbow Double White Rainbows Tertiary Rainbows Polarization of Rainbow Light Segments of Greyish Light in the Sky Unexplained Dark Lines in the Sky GEH UNUSUAL HALO DISPLAYS AND CORONAS GEH1 Offset Halos and Anomalous Arcs GEH2 Noncircular Halos GEH3 Extraordinary Mock-Sun and Mock-Moon Displays GEH4 Halos Dividing Sky Colors GEH5 Bishop's Ring... GEH6 Halos of Unusual Radii GEH7 Jumping and Moving Halos GEH8 Kaleidoscopic Suns GEH9 Skewed and Deformed Halo Displays GEH10 Bottlinger's Rings GEH11 Transient Lines Superimposed on Halo Displays GEH12 Optical Effects Where Halo Displays Touch the Horizon GEH13 Close, One-Sided Mock Suns GEH14 Halo Displays Formed by Terrestrial Ice Crystals Anomalous Lunar Coronas Circumzenithal Arc and Black Band GEI OBSERVER-CENTERED PHENOMENA GEI1 Puzzling Features of the Brocken Specter GEI2 Heligenschein GEI3 Rotating Spokes about the Shadow of One's Head Sylvanshine Snow Sparkles GEL LOW-SUN PHENOMENA GEL1 Puzzling Features of the Green Flash GEL2 Anomalous Diverging Rays at Sunset and Sunrise GEL3 Color Phenomena and the Earth's Shadow on the Sky GEL4 Abnormal Refraction Phenomena with Astronomical Objects... GEL5 Anomalous Aspects of the Krakatoa Sunsets GEL6 The Alpine Glow... GEL7 Spectral Dispersion near the Sea's Surface GEL8 Low-Sun Landscape Fluorescence GEL9 Low-Sun Spectral Bows GEL10 Low-Sun Shadow Bands GEL11 The Second Purple Light GEL12 Moving Patches ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bizarre Physiological Effects Of Lightning July 1969. Lawson, Missouri. Lightning is unpredictable and produces many weird effects, but the following case pushes the weirdness envelope. An electrician was driving home through an intense rainstorm that was accompanied by severe lightning. He parked his truck outside his house. Then it happened: "As I started up the drive, I took about three or four steps, and then it was as though I had stepped into a very soft cotton ball. My whole body felt as if my head was behind my shoulders and being pulled down between my shoulder blades." When he awoke, he was about 50 feet away on the other side of a fence and on his neighbor's property. His boots had been knocked off. The coins in his pocket and his belt buckle had melted. A visit to a doctor proved that he had been struck by lightning, and that his spine had been severely damaged. Much stranger was his reaction to the ambient temperature. He was now impervious to cold. He was most comfortable between -10 and 0 F. His normal body temperature was low, just 95.2 , not terribly far from normal. He just didn't feel the cold. He never wore a coat and was comfortable working that way even at -23 F! The electrician is far from being disabled. He even poses for photographs in the snow wearing just shorts and ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Scientific Basis Of Astrology At a recent meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, S. Ertel, a German scientist, reported on his inquiry into the so-called "Mars Effect," discovered by Michel Gauquelin. Here are two excerpts from his Summary : "Since 1955 Gauquelin claims to have discovered planetary effects on human births: After rise of a planet and after its crossing of the meridian, birth frequencies of eminent men may either increase beyond or decrease below chance level. .. .. . "In order to find out how clean Gauquelin's database is, the author travelled to Gauquelin's Paris laboratory and checked the files, including data which had been separated from publication, especially athletes' data. Using all obtainable data, Gauquelin's strongest hypothesis was tested, that planetary effects are more pronounced the greater the person's professional success. This claim was objectified with the help of citation frequencies, a sensitive procedure Gauquelin himself had not yet used. The total of 2089 athletes was subjected to this procedure. The results clearly supported Gauquelin's eminence claim." (Ertel, Suitbert; "An Assessment of the Mars Effect," The Explorer, 4:8 , October 1987.) Comment. Is all this simply astrology with scientific trappings? It certainly sounds likt it is! Debunking groups, such as CSICOP, have spent considerable effort trying to disprove the Mars Effect ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 46: Jul-Aug 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When To Believe And When Not To Bizarre effects in quantum mechanics. Recently, three "delayed choice" experiments have been consummated in physics labs. In such experiments, the result depends upon what the observer tries to measure; viz., light as particulate-in-nature or light as wave-like-in-nature. The funny thing is that it doesn't matter when the experimenter decides what to measure; he can do this months before the experiment or even afterwards! The effect of the choice is the same -- before or after. Now that is weird! But everyone believes it because a theory for it exists. (Thomsen, Dietrick E.; "Changing Your Mind in a Hurry," Science News, 129:137, 1986.) Bizarre effects in psychokinesis. Recently, several laboratories have been trying to determine if the human mind can affect random physical events, such as radioactive decay. "Surprisingly, the PK effect appears quite independent of physical variables, such as the distance or the complexity of the random generator. The subjects succeed by aiming at the result, regardless of the intermediate steps required to reach this result. Such a goal-oriented, even non-casual feature of PK has been emphasized by PK experiments with pre-recorded, random events. In these experiments, random events were first pre-recorded, and later played back to a PK subject ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 22: Jul-Aug 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Conditioned responses that short-circuit the conscious brain Don't let the title of this item deter you; this is serious stuff. We all know about the placebo effect. A sick patient improves because he believes he is getting a helpful medicine, even though it is an inert substance. The reverse works, too, at least in experiments with mice. It seems that mice can be conditioned into believing that an ordinarily delectable substance (saccharin and water) gives them stomach pain, by simultaneously injecting them with a pain-producing chemical. Unexpectedly, this chemical also suppressed the immune system of the mice. The mice, of course, knew nothing about the effect on their immune system. Nevertheless, whenever they received saccharin after being conditioned, their immune system was suppressed even though the pain-producing chemical was not administered. While one can imagine the mice consciously associating saccharin and stomach pain, and their brains somehow sending signals that simulated pain, it seems inconceivable that the mice knew anything about their immune system. We have always assumed that the placebo effect (and its reverse) worked because of the subjects' logical association of cause and effect, but evidently there is something else going on here! (Wingerson, Lois; "Training the Mind To Heal," Discover, 3:80, May 1982.) Comment. This all opens a rather large Pandora's Box, because it implies that ...

... 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! ...

... Turner, II, an anthropologist at Arizona State University. He has analyzed secondary dental traits (number of roots, bumps, etc.) of 12,000 individuals from around the world - both ancient and modern. Turner believes that the "great web of humanity" originated in Southeast Asia. Since then, two large populations, each recognizable by their dental features, have evolved.: (1 ) northeast Asians and the ancient residents of the Americas; and (2 ) southeast Asians, Europeans, ancient Australians, and Africans. Also of note is the close resemblance between native Australians and Africans. (Bower, B.; "Asian Human Origin Theory Gets New Teeth," Science News, 136:100, 1989.) Did the eruption of Thera do in the Minoans? According to popular archeolo-gical doctrine, the eruption of a volcano on the island of Thera destroyed the great Minoan civilzation on Crete. Tidal waves, a thick ash blanket, and fires set when quakes overturned oil lamps did the job. This vivid, riveting scenario has been repeated again and again in the media until it seems to be a fact instead of a theory. "Unfortunately, it seems to have been pure myth. Over the past decade or so, evidence against Marinato's theory has been piling up. Much of it has come from unlikely sources - the Greenland ice sheet, for instance, and trees in California and Ireland. Most of this evidence points to the same conclusion: Whatever precipitated the Minoan collapse, it was porbably not Thera. The ...

... Violent Collective Behavior BHB9 A Relationship between Number of Wars and Number Killed BHB10 Correlation of Economic Activity with Solar Activity BHB11 Correlation of Economic Activity with the Lunar Tidal Forces BHB12 Correlation of Economic Activity with Solar-System Configurations BHB13 Periodicities in Various Economic Parameters BHB14 Human Culture: An Enigma of Evolution BHB15 Cycles of Religiousness BHB16 "Flock Behavior" in Human Groups BHB17 The Evolution and Persistence of Altruism BHB18 The Evolution and Persistence of Homosexuality BHB19 Unusual Human Sexual Activity BHB20 The Puzzle of Human Handedness BHB21 Handedness and Longevity BHB22 Handedness and Health BHB23 Handedness and Mathematical and Verbal Abilities BHB24 The Uniqueness of Bipedalism BHB25 Human Asymmetry in Locomotion BHB26 Wolf-Children BHB27 Eminence Correlated with Time of Birth BHB28 General Eminence Correlated with Planetary Position BHB29 Eminence in Sports Champions Correlated with the Position of Mars; the "Mars Effect" BHB30 Cultural Creativity Correlated with Solar Activity BHB31 Cultural Flowering Correlated with Climate BHB32 Eminence and Order of Birth BHB33 Periodicity in the Population of Living Eminent People BHB34 Eminence Correlated with Longevity BHB35 Intelligence Correlated with Season of Birth BHB36 Intelligence Correlated with Birth Order BHB37 Intelligence Correlated with Myopia BHB38 A Relationship between Intelligence and Flicker-Frequency Response BHB39 Increasing Intelligence with Vitamin Intake BHB40 The Intelligences of Identical Twins Reared Apart BHB41 Likelihood of College Matriculation and Season of Birth BHB42 Mathematical Ability: Sex Differences BHB43 Intelligence Correlated with Stature Personality Correlated with Astronomy Inheritability of Intelligence Intelligence and Gender Human Intelligence Affected by Past Natural Cataclysms Economic Activity Correlated with Geomagnetic Field Schizophrenia Correlated with Season of Birth Disturbed Human Activity Correlated with Geomagnetic Field Tickling Phenomena Face Preference Correlated with Menstrual Cycle Curious Crowd Behavior (at Train Platforms) Why ...

... ? Easy! By redefining science. This is what R.G . Jahn and B.J . Dunne have proposed in a long, philosophical article in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. They define a "neo-subjective" science, which retains the "logical rigor, empirical/theoretical dialogue, and cultural purpose" of present-day "rigorously objective" science, but would: Allow a proactive role for consciousness Be more explicit and profound in the use of interdisciplinary metaphors Permit more generous interpretations of measurability, replicability, and resonance (4 ) Reduce onotological aspirations Permit an "overarching teleological causality. R.J . Jahn heads the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Laboratory, which over the years has conducted some 50 million experimental trials, mostly in the search for psychokinetic effects on the behavior of a wide variety of mechanical, electrical, and other types of machines. Jahn and Dunne assert that the results of those experiments clearly show the effects of the pre-stated intentions of the machine operators. In other words, mind can affect matter -- as in the distribution of spheres cascading down a peg board. We now list some of the other salient features of the immense corpus of PEAR experimental results: The scale and character of the results are rather insensitive to the type of random devices (machines) employed. Operator learning and experience have no effect on performance. Operators may exert their "intentions" on the machine hours or days before the machine is run and still produce results similar to "on-time" machine operation. The distance between ...

... 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 CROP CIRCLE FOUND INSIDE A FENCED COMPOUND IN JAPAN Y-H . Ohtsuki, a physicist at the Waseda University, Tokyo, reports (in pretty good English): "A large circle appeared in the doublyfenced compound of a Radio Nippon transmitting station near Tokyo. At the same time the survey protection equipment of the transmitting system worked abnormally. This shows that the circles effect is not simply a matter of hoaxing. It was the night of 31 August 1991 when the survey protection equipment (electromagnetic-noise warning detector) of the transmitting system of the Radio Nippon station in Kisarazu, Chiba prefecture, worked seventeen times during 40 minutes from 2.00 a.m . (that is, on 1 September). This is a wholly abnormal occurrence because the survey protection goes off only once a week on average. Next morning one of the staff discovered a 10-metre circle in the doubly-fenced ground of the Radio Nippon station. The grass in the ground was pushed down, but without leaving a clear spiral mark. The ground area is approximately 20,000 m2 , and three antenna towers are located in the ground. The fences are formed by 2.5 -m -high wire netting and the station was watching for 24 hours. There were only two men in the station, and they were in a watching room for eight hours from 10.00 p.m . to 6.00 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Sheldrake Heresy "In 20th century physics, the fact that the observer and the observed are linked is well established. In biology this is heresy." Thus spake Rupert Sheldrake, and he is absolutely correct. He was referring, of course, to that "spooky" prediction of quantum mechanics that the mere act of observing subatomic particles affects them. (See: "A Watched Atom Is an Inhibited Atom" in SF#67.) Sheldrake proposes extending the "observer effect" to biology. In effect, he suggests replacing the state of an atom with the state of the neurological connections within the human brain. All this technical jargon breaks down to a simple question: Can a person tell if he or she is being stared at? Before you leap ahead to the next item, which we assure you is not as highly charged with controversy, consider that Sheldrake has conducted thousands of tests that do seem to show the reality of the observer effect in biology. Sheldrake separates starer from staree by a glass window. The staree faces away from starer and is blindfolded. Prompted by a random-number generator, the starer stares or does not stare. The staree responds positively if he feels the starer's eyes locked on to the back of his head. The starees are right more than 50% of the time. In fact, some starees are particularly sensitive to stares and respond correctly up to ...

... 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 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wave-bands in calm waters and biscay boils An excerpt from an article in Nature: "There are numerous reports of internal waves being 'made visible' on the sea surface by their effect on the surface-wave field and the production of bands of steeper, often breaking, waves separated by zones of relatively calm water. The effect is sometimes quite dramatic. There are accounts of a 'low roar' as the bands of breaking waves, 'walls of white water,' pass a vessel. The bands are sometimes visible from aircraft, on ships' radar and are observed from satellites. In the Bay of Biscay 'boils' have been reported on the sea surface in the calm zones, and appear to be related to pulses of nutrients from the thermocline." These surface phenomena are truly delightful and almost always the consequence of internal waves interacting with the surface. The great bulk of the referenced report is concerned with sonar observations of internal waves and their effects along the coast of Scotland. (Thorpe, S.A ., et al; "Internal Waves and Whitecaps," Nature, 330:740, 1987.) Comment. For some remarkable accounts of wave packets, as well as solitary waves, see category GHW in Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. This book is described here . On March 28, 1964, in the Indian Ocean, the R.R .S . Discovery ...

... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Case Against Impact Extinctions The neocatastrophists seem to be getting overly smug with their iridium-rich deposits at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Is there really incontrovertible evidence that a large asteroid or comet hit the earth at this point in history, causing widespread biological extinctions? To add some perspective, Leigh M. Van Valen has tossed 15 arguments against impact extinctions on the scales. Ten of these are reproduced below, as taken from Nature. More de-tails may be found in Paleobiology, 10: 121, 1984. Freshwater life was unaffected; In Montana and its vicinity, the last occurrence of dinosaurs was detectably below the crucial boundary; Transitional floras also exist below the boundary; Apparently extraterrestrial material exists below the boundary; The expected effects of eliminating atmospheric ozone are missing; The Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary is coincident with a very large marine regression, suggesting a nonextraterrestrial cause; Marsupials but not placentals were nearly eliminated, while most aboreal multituberculates (a type of vertebrate) and birds survived; The predicted cooling effects on the earth are absent; The predicted effects of acid rain cannot be found; and Assuming a marine impact, no turbidites can be found; assuming a land impact, no large terrestrial crater has been discovered. (Van Valen, Leigh M.; "The Case against Impact Extinctions," Nature, 311:17, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 48: Nov-Dec 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Phosphorescent Bars And Wheels May 29, 1955. The Java Sea. "At 0210 LMT I witnessed the start of a bioluminescent display. My first impression was that the ship was being 'attacked' on all sides from different directions by pulsing light-bands. A dull 'strobe-light' effect flashed through a mist, giving the bands a dirty white to gray colouration which was not a 'smooth' colour, but rather grainy in appearance. The bands were about 2 m wide and about 2 m apart and moving at speed. At first it was difficult to discern whether or not the bands were in the water or just above the surface, as no form of reflection or distortion was visible off the hull. In the end, I decided that the effect must be waterbourne if only because nothing was visible in the vessel's wake. "The most intense activity was observed on the starboard side of the ship where the phenomenon appeared to stretch as far as the horizon. At this stage, it did not appear localized, just a mass of high-speed interacting bands of light. The effect is shown in the first sketch. As is usual on an 'all aft' ship, you become 'deaf' to the constant background noises, but I gradually became aware that the pulses of light seemed to match those of the main engine's throb, that is, about two per ...

... 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 ...

... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Science waits for - almost begs for - refutation Two Japanese scientists, H. Hayasaka and S. Takeuchi, have spun up some gyroscopes, weighed them and - Horrors! - found that they weighed less when spinning in one direction than the other. They admit the heresy of their results: "The experimental result cannot be explained by the usual theories." The gyroscopes employed are small, weighing about 175 grams when not spinning. When spun clockwise, as viewed from above, no weight changes were observed. But rotating at 13,000 rpm counterclockwise, the 175-gram gyroscope lost about 10 milligrams. The balance's sensitivity was 0.3 milligram. This is a very large effect; and the weight loss increased linearly with increased speed of rotation. Obviously, the physicists are most perplexed by this "antigravity" effect. Perplexity has been accompanied by outright disbelief. R.L . Park, a physics professor at Maryland, remarked: "It would be revolutionary if true. But it is almost certainly wrong. Almost all extraordinary claims are wrong." R.L . Forward, an Air Force consultant, con-curs: "It's a careful experiment. But I doubt it's real, primarily because I've seen so many of these things fall apart." (Anonymous; "Anti-Gravity Effect Claim by Japanese," San Francisco Chronicle, December 28, 1989. Cr. J. Covey. Also: Anonymous ...

... ground in which early organisms could thrive and later evolve." (Greene, Mark D.; "How Life Began," Time, 142:8 , November 1, 1993.) Comment. Charles Fort would certainly have chuckled over the near-simultaneous mentions of intergalactic pizzas in two diverse publications. A second report underscores the mystery presented by the unexpected diversity of life in the deep-sea ooze. J.D . Gage and R.M . May ponder in Nature : "Why there should be such exuberant biological diversity in an environment apparently lacking in the habitat complexity of, say, tropical rain forest -- whose species richness it might rival -- remains an enigma." In fact, the enigma becomes more profound when one finds there exists a "depth effect" paralleling the terrestrial "altitude effect." "This phenomenon is associated with an increase in species richness with depth, and is essentially like the pattern of increasing numbers of plant and animal species as one moves down from mountain tops to sea level." This "depth effect" is just the opposite of what one would expect as one descends into the ever blacker, ever colder, higher-ambient-pressure environment. The cause(s ) of this increasing biological diversity eludes us. (Gage, John D., and May, Robert M.; "A Dip into the Deep Seas," Nature, 365:609, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #91, JAN-FEB 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 23: Sep-Oct 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Remarkable Engineering Design In Nature Two unusual examples of inspired design in nature have been described recently: (1 ) The swordfish possesses special tissues rich in mitochrondria and cytochrome-c that generate heat for the animal's eye and brain. Not only do these heating elements keep the swordfish eye and brain significantly warmer than the surrounding water but they also keep these organs warm and thus more effective during deep dives into the cold ocean depths. (Carey, Francis G.; "A Brain Heater in the Swordfish," Science, 216:1327, 1982.) (2 ) Plants, it seems, developed light pipes long before humans. Certain plant tissues (etiolated or dark-grown) act as multiple bundles of optical fibers and coherently transfer light over distances of at least 2 cm. Optical tests show that these natural light pipes are much more effective transmitters of light than media that simply scatter light. This unsuspected sophistication of Nature's design may require significant revisions in photobiology, which did not allow for such ingenuity. (Smith , Harry; "Light-Piping by Plant Tissues," Nature, 298:423, 1982.) Comment. Since some plants are known to emit light, we would not be surprised, the way things are going, to learn of natural plant lasers! From Science Frontiers #23, SEP-OCT 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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 Unusual Lunar Halo July 29, 1993. North Pacific Ocean. From the m.v . BP Admiral . "At 1045 UTC a large, very well defined and complete halo was seen around the 10-day-old moon. Vertical angles were taken by sextant while horizonal angles were found by gyro repeater. ". .. the area inside the halo was inky black with the inner edge of the halo being very clear cut and well defined; a 'spiked' effect was seen on the outer edge." (Ronald, J.M .; "Halo," Marine Observer, 64:105, 1994.) Comment. The angular diameter of the halo is normal, but the inky black interior is very rare. The same dark effect is sometimes seen between primary and secondary rainbows and has an acceptable explanation. However, the radial spokes are not accounted for by halo theory. From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... spooky actions at a distance." (Ref. 1) So Einstein wrote Max Born in March 1947. Well, even Einstein could have been wrong! "It's getting even spookier out there. Particles can be strangely connected over at least ten kilometres, according to results from physicists in Geneva. Using pairs of "entangled" photons, Nicolas Gisin and his colleagues from the University of Geneva have shown that the measurement of one particle will instantaneously determine the state of the other." (Ref. 2) This particular spooky aspect of quantum mechanics was demonstrated 15 years ago over a distance of just a few meters. Many physicists had expected (probably "hoped") that this "mysterious link" between separated particles would weaken with distance. But this quantum-mechanics effect does not conform to "common-sense" expectations! Now it seems that one particle of an "entangled pair" knows instantaneously what its mate is doing, possibly even if it is located on the other side of the universe. More quantum-mechanics spookiness is seen in "tunneling" phenomena, such as that mentioned in AR#3 , where a Mozart symphony zipped through a barrier at 4.7 times the speed of light. Physicists do acknowledge these counter-intuitive quantummechanics effects, but they are not comfortable with them. Some, on the other hand, embrace them. The late physicist H. Pagels maintained that quantum mechanics is a sort of "code" that ties together everything in the cosmos. He explained all this in his book The Cosmic Code . ...

... 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 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 114: Nov-Dec 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A RECIPE FOR WEIGHTLESSNESS?Take fifty rings of a superconducting ceramic, 27.5 centimeters in diameter, and stack them one above the other. Chill rings to -334 F. Spin rings at 3,000 rpm. You now have an antigravity machine; any object positioned above or below the rings will be weightless! This recipe is based on a claim by Finnish scientist E.E . Podkletnov at the Tampere University of Technology. Podkletnov discovered this amazing effect when researching superconducting materials, However, he used only a single ring, which resulted in a 2% weight reduction. Since antigravity effects are probably additive, it seems reasonable that fifty rings will create a 100% weight reduction. Obviously, more than fifty rings will be required to launch spacecraft from earth! Sure, it's a wild claim, but NASA is checking it out at the University of Alabama in a project headed by N. Li. (Holden, Constance; "NASA's Fling with Antigravity," Science, 274:183, 1996. Also: Port, Otis; "Take That, Isaac Newton," Business Week , p. 42, September 30, 1996. Cr. E. Murphy.) Comment. Facetiousness aside, it is pertinent to add here that physicist P.M .S . Blackett once seriously hypothesized that a magnetic field is generated by a rotating mass, such as the sun. ...