... lay pale last eggs. Since the changes in the egg production line exact a cost in the females, there might be an adaptive explanation for the phenomenon; that is, the final paler egg may lead to increased survival of the participating species. To illustrate, in 1980, Yom-Tov suggested that: .. .this last odd egg might have evolved as a signal to potential brood parasites that the female has finished laying the clutch and has begun incubation. If a parasite lays its egg after incubation has commenced, then it would be unlikely to hatch, hence the potential parasite would benefit from heeding such a warning signal, if it could then find an alternative host nest where incubation had yet to commence. The signaling host would also benefit from avoiding the costs of warming an extra egg [the parasite's ] for some of the incubation period, costs that can be considerable, as well as the possible cost of having to rear an extra chick. G.D . Ruxton et al have used game theory to show that Yom-Tov's speculation has considerable merit. However, there are nonadaptive explanations. The females in the species that lay pale last eggs may simply run out of egg pigment, or they may change physiologically as the egg-laying phase nears its end. (Ruxton, G.D ., et al; "Are Unusually Colored Eggs a Signal to Potential Con-specific Brood Parasites?" American Naturalist, 157:451, 2001.) Comment. We will not quarrel with game theory but hasten to point out ...

... Visible Radiation Emitted by the Human Body BHA23 Unidentified, Problematical Radiation Emitted by the Human Body BHA24 The Supposed Human Aura BHA25 Kirlian Photography of the Postulated Human Aura BHA26 Excessively Hairy Humans BHA27 Sudden Loss of Hair and (Sometimes) Regrowth BHA28 Baldness among Musicians BHA29 Human Hairlessness BHA30 Curious Human Hair Patterns BHA31 Sudden Blanching of the Hair BHA32 Sudden Color Changes in Human Hair BHA33 Hair Color Correlated with Eminence BHA34 Hair Color Correlated with Strength and Vitality BHA35 Remarkable Persistence of Hair Growth after Death BHA36 Voluntary Erection of Body Hair BHA37 Night-Shining in Human Eyes BHA38 Eye Color Correlated with Athletic Capability BHA39 Inherited Ear Pits BHA40 Supernumerary Ears and So-Called Gill-Slits BHA41 Nostril Orientation and Musculature BHA42 Differences and Similarities between Human and Primate Teeth BHA43 Racial Dental Differences BHA44 Historical Shrinkage of Human Teeth BHA45 Extra Dentitions BHA46 Human Horns BHA47 Unusual, Inherited Characteristics of Feet BHA48 Progressive Loss of the Little Toe BHA49 Webbed Hands and Feet BHA50 Alleged Primitive Character of Human Hands and Feet BHA51 Large Female Breasts and Buttocks BHA52 The Unusual Location of Human Breasts BHA53 Human Tails BHA54 Concordance of Human Embyro Growth and Evolutionary Developments BHA55 Anomalous Human Odors Babies Born with Full Sets of Teeth Presidential Stature Correlated with Competence Brown Line (Linea Nigra) on Stomachs of Pregnant Women Humans As Robots Height Correlated with Month of Birth Human Proportions and the Golden Ratio Humans Nuturing Foetuses of Their Twins Human Pheromones Correlated with Beauty Pixies and the Williams Syndrome Change of Eye Color with Age Skin Color Correlated with Weather Male Fertility Correlated with Finger Length Anomalous Sound Production The Devil's Spot and Witch Pricking BHB ANOMALOUS HUMAN BEHAVIOR BHB1 Apparently ...

... 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 naked-mole-rat colony, even when thought of as a "superorganism," cannot perceive the future consequences of inbreeding. The invention of a "dispersive morph," according to evolutionists, has to come from a sequence ...

... the immense, cold clouds of gas and dust swirling between the stars and galaxies. At near-absolute-zero, sunless and waterless, these clouds hardly seem the womb of life. Yet, there may be found the atoms necessary to life -- H, C, O, N, etc -- and in profusion. Collisions of cosmic rays can promote the synthesis of fairly large molecules. We have already detected molecules as complex as formaldehyde in the interstellar medium. But surely the immensely more complicated molecules of biology cannot be synthesized near absolute zero. This may not be true either because at extremely low temperatures the quantum mechanical phenomenon of "tunnelling" becomes important. To achieve molecular synthesis, repulsive barriers must be overcome. The warm temperatures in that terrestrial pond can provide the extra kinetic energy to climb over these barriers. In cold molecular clouds we must look elsewhere. The laws of quantum mechanics state that there is always a very low probability that atoms and molecules can tunnel through repulsive barriers -- no need to climb over them via thermal effects. "Specifically, entire atoms can tunnel through barriers represented by the repulsive forces of other atoms and form complex molecules even though the atoms do not have the energy required by classical chemistry to overcome the repulsion." Of course, the reaction rates are slow, but the size of the cosmic pond is vastly greater than any terrestrial puddle. The above quotation is from V.I . Goldanskii who, even before Hoyle, suggested a cold prehistory of life, during which complex organic molecules were synthesized at just a ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 6: February 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Stacked Deck In Esp Experiment Balanovski and Taylor have assumed that the many purported extrasensory phenomena are very likely effected by electromagnetic forces -- the only known action-at-a -distance force they believe could be involved. Therefore, they assembled a wide variety of very sensitive electromagnetic instruments (antennas, EM probes, skin electrodes, magnetometers, etc.) and tried to find electromagnetic fields associated with people claiming paranormal abilities. Despite the high sensitivities of the apparatus, no ESP-connected electromagnetic fields were detected. (Balanovski, E., and Taylor, J.G .; "Can Electromagnetism Account for Extra-Sensory Phenomena?" Nature, 276:64, 1978.) Comment. J.G . Taylor is the author of Superminds, a rather unabashed proparanormal book. He has since recanted. His experiment (described briefly above) certainly has not disproved the existence of ESP, only that there are no accompanying electromagnetic fields. ESP, if it exists, may work through "unknown" fields or, perhaps, no fields at all, as we understand them. Although caveats appear in the article relative to the limited nature of the experiment, such an article in a key scientific journal just makes most doubting scientists say "I told you so." From Science Frontiers #6 , February 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... charged air. "Plasma vortices can be luminous at night. 'They are often mistaken for UFOs,' says Dr Terence Meaden, director of the Oxford-based Tornado and Storm Research Organization." (Spicer, Andi; "Clue to mystery of Circles," London Observer, May 20, 1990. Cr. T. Good via L. Farish) Alien Hieroglyphics? "The extraordinary variety of circle formations and multiple-ringed circles is quite unlike what one would expect for a natural phenomenon, such as an atmospheric vortex. The complexity has increased through the 1980s, and this year it has developed at a startling pace. "In May there began to appear what researchers call pictograms. Initially these consisted of two circles joined by a straight channel of flattened corn, with extra features such as rectangles or semicircular rings. There have now been about 20 of these. The latest have quadrupled the length to about 150 yards and consist of complex arrangements of up to nine plain or ringed circles with new features, like 'keys,' which can be seen in photographs of the Alton Barnes pictogram. Nothing like this was observed in previous years." (Wingfield, George; "Ever-Increasing Circles of Bewilderment," London Independent, August 4, 1990. Cr. T. Good via L. Farish) Comments. Wingfield believes that the circles are symbols left by a non-human intelligence. Having failed to establish communication with us via UFOs, marine lightwheels, cookie-cutter holes, and other phenomena, "they" are now trying crop ...

... " Science, 267:616, 1995) Comment. Perfect pitch is nice to have, but why should it have evolved at all seeing it has little survival value? What good is perfect pitch -- or any kind of musical talent -- in tracking animals or grubbing for tubers? Women vs. men. In another application of magnetic resonance imaging, B. Shaywitz and colleagues at Yale compared the inferior frontal gyrus areas of the brains of men and women engaged in language tests. Specifically, they were being asked whether or not two nonsense words rhymed. Men, they found, use only the left inferior frontal gyrus area, but in women both left and right areas were activated. Conclusion: women, who regularly score better than men in linguistic tests, may acquire this extra capability by harnessing both halves of their brains. (Aldhous, Peter; "Why Women Are Better with Words," New Scientist, p. 10, February 18, 1995) From Science Frontiers #99, MAY-JUN 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Asteroids with moons?Several recent observations made of asteroids as they occult stars suggest that some asteroids are circled by moonlets. The observational technique used resembles that employed in the discovery of the now-famous rings of Uranus. Briefly, the star being observed blinks out not once in a clean-cut fashion but in a complex scenario that may indicate the presence of a second body. To illustrate, during the 1975 occultation of a star by the asteroid Eros "all sorts of people saw things," meaning secondary events or extra dimmings. Another kind of supporting evidence comes from the light curve of 44 Nysa, which closely resembles that of an eclipsing binary star. (Anonymous; "Asteroids with Moons?" Science News, 114:36, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... have been ejected by unknown forces. D. Christodoulou, Louisiana State University, found one such "hole" serendipitously. He was studying how the sun and the planets might have condensed from the (hypothesized) cloud of primordial gas and dust. Factoring in gravity, rotation, and magnetic fields, he found the cloud condensing in concentric rings at just the right locations for protoMercury, proto-Venus, and proto-earth. The fourth ring, however, did not correspond to any existing planet, and the position of proto-Mars was off the mark. But the asteroids and outer planets fell rather neatly into place. The implication of these calculations is that some turmoil in the early inner solar system cast out one planet and dislocated Mars. (Hecht, Jeff; "Did Extra Planet Vanish into Outer Space?" New Scientist, p. 18, June 14, 1997.) Comment. These are sour notes in the "music of the spheres," but don't be overly concerned; these are just calculations based upon many assumptions. Calculated positions of rings of condensed dust and gas compared to actual planet locations. From Science Frontiers #113, SEP-OCT 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... area of deep blue, as indicated in the diagram. "The colours were very clear, with blues and purples visible in both parts. Both bows began to fade at about the same time as the moon once again passed behind another cloud." (Crofts, A.; "Lunar Rainbow," Marine Observer, 69:67, 1999.) Comments. Because moonlight is much weaker than sunlight, lunar rainbows are rather rare. Even so, they are not anomalous. It is the offset bow that is difficult-to-explain. Rainbow phenomena should be symmetrical around the line containing the light source (moon, here) and the bow itself. In GEB3 in Rare Halos, we note that no reasonable explanation exists for rainbows offset to one side. However, extra bows offset directly above the main bow can be explained as due to reflection of moonlight or sunlight off the surface of the water. From Science Frontiers #124, JUL-AUG 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... are abnormal. Recall from SF#125, the savant who could tell at a glance that 111 matches littered the floor without counting each individually. He grasped 111-ness! At the other end of the scale, Signora Gaddi cannot even distinguish that 20 is greater then 10. She cannot use the telephone or catch numbered busses. Facts involving numbers above four are a mystery to her. Even when there are four or fewer objects, she must count them one-byone. Nevertheless, Gaddi's intelligence and social skills are normal. She lost her number-savvy when she suffered a stroke that apparently short-circuited that number module over her ear. Are other mammals equipped with number modules? No one knows. And what forces encouraged the human brain to sprout a few extra cells on the inferior parietal lobule; that is, the number module? Did the sense of fiveness give some mutant ancient humans superiority over less-evolved humans? Finally, what factors pushed the number module's capacity to 111 in that savant, or is the savant's talent intrinsic to all of us but somehow suppressed? (Dahaene, Stanislas; "Counting on Our Brains," Nature, 401:114, 1999. Motluk, Alison; "True Grit," New Scientist, p. 46, July 3, 1999.) From Science Frontiers #126, NOV-DEC 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Connections between Quasars and Galaxies AQB5 Quasar Alignments AQB6 Pairs and Clusters of Quasars AQF ANOMALIES DETECTED THROUGH QUASAR RADIATION AQF1 Initial Increase of Bright Quasars with Redshift AQF2 Quantization of Quasar Redshifts AQF3 Possible Redshift Cutoff for Quasars AQF4 Flat Distribution of Faint Quasars AQF5 The Quasar Energy Paradox AQF6 Absence of Blue-Shifted Quasars AQF7 Anomalous Redshifts of Quasar Absorption Lines AQF8 Quasar Variability: Origin and Implications AQF9 Unresolved Nature of Blazers (BL Lacertae) AQO QUASAR MORPHOLOGY AND COMPONENT DYNAMICS AQO1 Quasar Fuzz: What Is It? AQO2 Anomalies of Quasar Radio-Jet Structures AQO3 Superluminal Velocities in Quasars AR SATURN ARF SATURN'S INTRINSIC RADIATION ARF1 The Saturn Electrostatic Discharges (SEDs) ARF2 Measurements of Saturn's Intrinsic Energy ARF3 Sudden, Temporary Cessation of Radio Emissions ARL SATELLITE AND RING ANOMALIES ARL1 Pre-Spacecraft Observations of Extra Rings ARL2 Knots in Saturn's Rings When Viewed Edgewise ARL3 Bright Spot on Saturn's Rings ARL4 Anomalous Shadows of the Planet on the Rings ARL5 Dark Spokes in the Rings of Saturn ARL6 Kinked and Inhomogeneous Rings ARL7 Dark-Sided Iapetus ARL8 Titan's Variable Brightness ARL9 Changes in Saturn's Rings Observed within Historical Times ARL10 The "Gaps" between the Rings ARL11 Ring Asymmetries and Eccentricities ARL12 Hyperion's Chaotic Rotation ARL13 Irregular Density Trend of Saturn's Moons ARL14 Fine Structure of Saturn's Rings ARL15 Varying Crater Densities on Saturn's Moons ARL16 Youthful Features of Saturn's Rings AS THE SUN ASF SOLAR-RADIATION ANOMALIES ASF1 Large Changes in Solar-Flare Activity ASF2 Periodicity of Solar Cosmic Rays ASF3 The "Missing" Solar Neutrinos ASF4 Large Variations in ...