... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The whale-on-its-tail fossil Near Lompoc, California, is a large deposit of diatomaceous earth, so-called because it is composed almost entirely of countless billions of exquisitely sculptured diatom skeletons. Uniformitarian geologists have steadfastly maintained that such diatomaceous-earth deposits require millions of years to form as the tiny skeletons sink slowly to the sea floor. At Lompoc, however, embedded in the thick layer of diatomaceous earth is the fossil of a large whale apparently standing on its tail. How could this whale fossil have maintained its position and integrity over hundreds of thousands of years as it was buried millimeter by millimeter? Wouldn' ... the bones have been quickly scattered? Creationists have pointed to this whale as proof that the Lompoc diatomaceous-earth deposit was formed catastrophically, interring the whale almost instantaneously, and burying doctrinaire uniformitarianism at the same time. (Creationists want to "shorten" geological time to fit Biblical schedules.) But was the whale really entombed on its tail? Creationist geologists studied the Lompoc deposit and put a different slant on the story but not on its ending. "Contrary to some reports that have circulated, the 80-90 ft (24-27 m) long fossilised baleen whale found in April 1976 in an inclined position in a diatomite unit in the Miguelito Mine at Lompoc, California, was not buried while 'standing on its tail'. An onsite investigation has revealed that the diatomite ...

... Darwin himself, have long puzzled over this. Stephen Jay Gould in a recent article explores a currently favored way of circumventing the negligible additional survival value of half a wing, or even 90% of a wing. This solution (? ) maintains that protowings were not "intended" for flight at all but were developed initially as aerodynamic stabilizers, thermoregulatory systems, sexual attractors or other functions requiring large areas. Gould describes the experiments of Kingsolver and Koehl in which protowings were modelled and tested for their thermoregulatory and flight values. Surprisingly, there was a sharp transition, as the size of the protowing increased, from good thermoregulation but poor flight capability to the reverse -- good flight capability and poor thermoregulation. In other words, a structure developed for one purpose, if enlarged, might ... Not Necessarily a Wing," Natural History, 94:14, October 1985. See also: Lewin, Roger, "How Does Half a Bird Fly?" Science, 230:530, 1985.) Comment. The work of Kingsolver and Koehl, though doubtless of high quality, does not come to grips with the fact that a wing for flight is a highly sophisticated combination of skeleton, feathers, membrane, muscles, nervous system, control system, aerodynamic design, etc. -- most of which have nothing to do with thermoregulation. Are the flying crustaceans mentioned on page ** a failed evolutionary attempt at useful flight? And where did their feathery appendages come from? Somewhere we -- all of us -- are missing something! From Science Frontiers #44 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects America b.c . and then some!B. Fell and some other epigraphers have claimed that a large corpus of inscriptions found on rock walls and tablets all across North America proves that Europeans frequented this continent long before Columbus, perhaps 1,000 or more years before. Mainstream archeologists and anthropologists vigorously reject such claims. The scratches are merely plowmarks and the tablets are frauds. As customary in these newsletters, there is a "however"! Some even more ancient North American bones are telling an even older tale. Besides Kennewick Man (SF#109), that well-preserved Caucasoid skeleton found recently in Washington state, ... are a half dozen or so other well-dated North American skeletons that do not appear to be Asiatic. These skeletons are 8,000 or more years old and resemble those recently discovered in Asia. Collectively, they indicate that early Caucasians were farranging indeed. (Also, the Ainus now living in Japan have some Caucasian features.) It is possible that Caucasians preceded or accompanied Asian peoples across that famous Bering Land Bridge. They may even have helped found some of the Native American populations. (Recall the blue-eyed Mandans?) Despite the political incorrectness of Caucasians in "America B.C ." some scientists seem ready to accept the testimony of the bones, even while rejecting later epigraphic evidence. D. Stanford, at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural ...

... BBT8 Inheritance of Migration Data BBT9 The Existence of Avian Migration BBT10 Sensitivity to Impending Weather and Earthquakes BBT11 Possible Unrecognized Senses BBT12 Remarkable Feats of Flight BBT13 The Origin of Avian Flight BBT14 Unanswered Questions Concerning Flightlessness BBT15 Some Curiosities of Avian Flight BBT16 Deep-Diving Capabilities BBT17 Vocal Mimicry in Birds BBT18 Birds That Vocally Mimic Only in Captivity BBT19 Vocal Mimicry of Hosts by Parasitic Species BBT20 Duetting BBT21 Chorusing BBT22 Large Vocal-Repertoire Sizes and High Speeds of Delivery BBT23 Female Singers BBT24 Whisper Songs and Subsongs BBT25 The Two-Voice Phenomenon BBT26 Some Curiosities of Avian Vocalizations BBT27 Incubator Nests BBT28 Woven and Sewn Nests BBT29 Nests Containing Protective Materials BBT30 Bowers BBT31 Nest Curiosities BBT32 Tool Use BBT33 Communication between Chick Embryos BBX AVIAN INTERFACE PHENOMENA BBX1 Unusual Attacks on Humans BBX2 Unusual Predators of Birds BBX3 Unusual Bird-Animal ... -Chemistry Variations BHC12 The Existence of Blood Polymorphisms BHC13 The Complexity, Variability, and Ubiquity of Hemoglobin BHC14 Geographical Anomalies in the Distribution of Blood Groups BHC15 Blood Chimeras Biorhythms BHE THE HUMAN FOSSIL RECORD BHE1 Absence of Transitional Fossils BHE2 Abrupt Changes in Hominid Morphology BHE3 Hominid Evolutionary Stasis BHE4 Hominid Devolution BHE5 The Sudden Demise of the Neanderthals BHE6 Taxon Variability or "Fuzz" BHE7 Hominid Gracilization BHE8 Giant Hominid Skeletons BHE9 Very Small Hominid Skeletons BHE10 Some Hominid Skeletal Curiosities BHE11 Hominid Fossil Sequence Anomalies BHE12 Anomalous Distribution of Hominid Skeletal Material BHE13 Hominid Skeletal Material in Ancient Geological Formations Human-Neanderthal Hybrids Simultaneous Existence of Multiple Human Species in Past Great Differences in Human and Neanderthal Fossils BHF BODILY FUNCTIONS BHF1 Unusual Architecture of the Human Breathing Apparatus BHF2 Anomalously Slow Breathing BHF3 Nostril Cycling [BHO] BHF4 Anomalous Number of ...