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... in the region, but they discounted the prediction because satellite pictures and conventional weather indicators implied nothing of the sort. A three-day storm began on January 25, depositing 3 feet of snow in northern New England and 4 inches of rain along the coast from Washington to Boston. Wollin has had similar successes, without even looking at a weather map! Obviously, Wollin's forecasting techniques are not yet part of the Weather Bureau's arsenal. This is not too surprising because even Wollin does not understand why major storms should be preceded by several days by nervous magnetometers. He talks in a tentative way about solar storms, which do affect terrestrial magnetism, dumping energy into the oceans and thence into the atmosphere. But this is mainly speculation. Historically, we do know that long-term changes in the earth's magnetic field are linked to global temperature levels (see graphs); but here, too, cause and effect are not obvious. (Gribbin, John; "Magnetic Pointers to Stormy Weather," New Scientist, p. 70, December 25, 1986.) Long-term changes in global temperature follow changes in geomagnetic intensity. From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 burlesque?Astronomers have long wondered about Mercury. Its density (5 .44) is unusually high for such a small planet, and its orbit's inclination (7 ) and eccentricity (0 .206) are also anomalously high. In one blow. W. Benz, A.G .W . Cameron, and W. Slattery may have solved all three problems. Four frames from a computer simulation of proto-Mercury being stripped of its lighter, outer crust by a collision. Frame times are -1 , + 2.3 , + 7.7 , and + 41.7 minutes after impact. The dark molten sheet of iron in Frame #4 will collapse into a sphere, while the silicates will escape Mercury's gravitational pull. They think Mercury's original, lighter, silicate outer layers were stripped off during the impact of one of the small protoplanets that are thought to have swirled around the inner solar system shortly after its formation. Computations on a supercomputer revealed to these three researchers that, if the protoplanet had hit Mercury at between 20 and 30 kilometers/second, then its dense iron core would have survived pretty much intact. A lower velocity would not have stripped off the lighter outer layers; anything higher would have blasted the whole planet into smithereens. Calculations of this type also suggest that if a protoplanet the size of Mars had hit protoearth, it likewise would ...
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... -Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The calico debate, plus a little editorializing Passions run higher in archeology than in most fields of scientific endeavor. Favored hypotheses mesmerize some, despite contradictory data and cogent arguments. In this respect, much science verges on religion. The foregoing "kernel of real truth" was occasioned by letters written to Science News in response to B. Bower's article on the probability of human artifacts -- as old as 100,000 years -- having been found at the Calico site in California. (See SF#51.) First, J.G . Duvall, III, attacked Bower's article, asserting that the human origin of the Calico "artifacts" had long ago been shown to be untenable. For a reference, he cited an article by himself and W.T . Venner in the Journal of Field Archaeology. Duvall's major point was that the Calico "tools" did not resemble proven Paleoindian tools. Responding to Duvall, G.F . Carter first pointed out that the Duvall-Venner paper was "almost instantly shown to be erroneous" by L.W . Patterson in the pages of the very same journal. As for the differences in artifacts, Carter asked why one should expect 12,000-year-old Paleoindian artifacts to look like 200,000-year-old artifacts from an entirely different culture. (Duvall, James G., III; "Calico Revisited," Science News, 131: ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ogam, ogam, everywhere Ogam is a curious sort of writing characterized by a long reference line decorated with shorter perpendicular or slanted lines. The lengths and arrangements of the shorter lines and their crossings and non-crossings of the reference line constitute alphabetical symbols. The ancient Irish are credited with inventing Ogam; and Ogam inscriptions are common in that part of the world. During the last two decades, B. Fell and members of the Epigraphic Society have discovered many possible Ogam inscriptions in the continental United States. In fact, the latest issue of the NEARA Journal (NEARA = New England Antiquities Research Association) contains two articles dealing with supposed Ogam writing and other crude drawings in the Anubis Caves of western Oklahoma. The presence of true Ogam writing in Oklahoma would be traumatic for mainstream American archeology, for it would imply that far-wandering Celts had passed through long before Columbus made landfall. Later in the same issue of the NEARA J., G. Carter describes a tablet in the possession of a South African Zulu, which pictures a giraffe and a zebra along with inscriptions in Egyotian, Arabic, and Ogam! Carter writes: "I put below of picture of a giraffe with Ogam alongside. The Ogam letters are RZRF. Add vowels and this becomes: Rai Za Ra Fa; old Arabic for 'behold the giraffe.' Alongside a zebra figure one finds Ogam letters ZBDB, which in Arabic reads 'painted ...
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... of individuals cooperating in huge synchronized light displays. In reading some of the descriptions of these great natural phenomena, one recalls the light displays used to communicate with the aliens in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind . J. Buck has been studying flashing fireflies for over half a century. In fact, his first review paper was published in 1938. Buck has now brought that paper up to date in the current Quarterly Review of Biology with a 24page contribution. It is difficult to do justice to this impressive work in a newsletter. Our readers will have to be satisfied with a mere two paragraphs, in which Buck summarizes some of the incredible synchronies. "More than three centuries later Porter observed a very different behavior in far southwestern Indiana in which, from the ends of a long row of tall riverbank trees, synchronized flashes '. .. began moving toward each other, met at the middle, crossed and traveled to the ends, as when two pebbles are dropped simultaneously into the ends of a long narrow tank of water...' "In 1961 Adamson described a still different type of display, the first from Africa: 'It is then too that one sees the great belt of light, some ten feet wide, formed by thousands upon thousands of fireflies whose green phosphorescence bridges the shoulder-high grass. The fluorescent band composed of these tiny organisms lights up and goes out with a precision that is perfectly synchronized, and one is left wondering what means of communication they possess which enables them to coordinate their shining as though controlled by a mechanical ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Are the soviet plumes only orographic clouds?F.C . Parmenter-Holt, a NOAA scientist, has reacted to the recent discussions of Soviet plume events as follows: "I believe that these clouds are naturally occurring, orographically-induced formations. When winds blow perpendicular to the 2,500-plus foot glacial ridge, along the northern portion of the island, a long gravitywave pattern is established downwind, on the lee side. The cases collected by Matson show sharp boundaries conforming to the contour of this glacial barrier." The Matson reference is Science News, March 28, 1987, p. 204. (Parmenter-Holt, Frances C.; "Plumes and Peaks," Science News, 131:403, 1987.) Comment. Parmenter-Holt could well be correct in some cases, for wave-like orographic clouds often form in the lee of mountain ranges, such as the Rockies. Some of the plumes, however, extend for 175 kilometers, as described above. This is pretty long for a glacial ridge. Then, too, one should inquire whether such plumes occur near similar ridges in northern climes and not just over Soviet territory. From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... animals either. The suspect microorganism must be isolated from the patient and grown in a culture. Duesberg claims that HIV definitely fails the first two Koch tests. (Shurkin, Joel N.; "The AIDS Debate: Another View," Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1988. Cr. J.M . Ward) Three months after the above article was published. the journal Science jumped into the fray. Additional points of interest: Duesberg considers the HIV to be such a "pussycat" that he would gladly be injected with the virus. Duesberg has published his reservations in Cancer Research , but no formal response from the scientific community has resulted, although there has been plenty of unpublished name-calling. The HIV behaves like no other known virus; viz., its long latency and its persistence despite the production of antibodies. (Actually, the herpes family of viruses is also known for its long latency.) (Booth, William; "A Rebel without a Cause of AIDS," Science, 239:1485, 1988.) Comment. There is much more to this controversy than we can cover here, including charges of financial improprieties and the existence of an AIDS Mafia. Reference. AIDS anomalies are cataloged in BHH14 through BHH22 in: Biological Anomalies: Humans II. For a description of this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A NEARBY RING OF COMETS?Some 589 long-period comets are known. They ply orbits around the sun that may take millions of years to complete. Astronomers are generally agreed that these bodies originate in a very distant (100,000 A.U .* ) halo of cometary material surrounding the entire solar system. J. Oort proposed this cloud, and it is named after him. Of course, we anomalists become wary when scientists "generally agree" on a hypothetical entity that no one can see. The Oort Cloud of comets, like the unseeable black holes, are given substance only by the effects they have on other solar-system denizens and seeable cosmic objects. But there may be another cloud of comets that we can view directly. It is called the Kuiper Cloud (after G. Kui per). It is concentrated in the plane of the ecliptic just beyond the orbit of Neptune. Like the Oort Cloud, the Kuiper Cloud has not been seen yet, but we just might be able to with today's equipment! Its existence is hypothesized from the parameters of a different group of comets -- the so-called "short-period" comets, as exemplified by 76-year Halley's Comet. About 120 short-period comets have been discerned so far; and our computers now tell us that they cannot have originated in the Oort Cloud. Something closer and concentrated ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Update on the "infinite dilution" experiments The above summary of J. Benveniste's "infinite dilution" experiments and Nature's subsequent "investigation" was written in mid-August (1988). When we returned from a long vacation at the end of September, we found eleven new references on this novel development in the progress (? ) of science. Basically, there are only two big questions: (1 ) Is there, despite all the furor and the machinations of Nature's "hit squad," anything of scientific value in the experiments of Benveniste's group? and (2 ) Should scientific journals police scientific research? The latter question should be answered by Science itself: we shall focus here on the possibility that real scientific anomalies are being concealed by all the media smoke. What did Nature's hit squad really find? J. Maddox (Nature's editor) et al concluded that Benveniste and his colleagues did not take enough care in their work, that their data did not have errors of the right magnitude (a statistical quibble), that no serious attempt was made to eliminate systematic errors and observer bias, that the climate of the lab was "inimical to an objective evaluation of the exceptional data," and that the phenomenon was not always reproducible. (7 ) No evidence of fraud was found. The data originally published in Nature were not explained or ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Preternaturally rapid development of photosynthesis?" An increased ratio of 12 C to 13 C, an indicator of the principal carbon-fixing reaction of photosynthesis, is found in sedimentary organic matter dating back to almost four thousand million years ago -- a sign of prolific microbial life not long after the Earth's formation. Partial biological control of the terrestrial carbon cycle must have been established very early and was in full operation when the oldest sediments were formed." (Schidlowski, Manfred; "A 3,800-MillionYear Isotopic Record of Life from Carbon in Sedimentary Rocks," Nature, 333: 313, 1988.) Comment. Photosynthesis is not a simple biological process. To discover that it and life forms using it developed so quickly on the primitive earth is surprising. Did this complexity and "biological control" arise so quickly: (1 ) by chance; (2 ) by inoculation from extraterrestrial sources (See Astronomy above.); (3 ) by act of God; or (4 ) by Gaia in nascent form? (Note that Gaian overtones emanate from the "Biological control" phrase above.) From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "? " ! ?Photographs of Comet Bradfield taken on October 10, 1987, show an odd kink in its tail that does not appear on photos taken the nights before and after. This kink was shaped like a backwards "? ". Kinks in the tails of comets are well known phenomena. A comet's tail is electrically charged, and it flaps in the solar wind like a flag on a gusty day. So why run this observation up the anomaly flagpole? First of all, the Bradfield kink is 10 million kilometers long; second, it appeared and disappeared in a matter of hours. Both size and speed-of-formation are difficult to explain in terms of existing solar-wind velocity and the shifting interplanetary magnetic field. (Anonymous; "Did Anyone Photograph This Comet?" Astronomy, 16:16, July 1988.) Reference. Similar cometary anomalies are cataloged in ACO in: The Sun and Solar System Debris. For information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #59, SEP-OCT 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Where on earth is the crust?This long article concludes with an intriguing snippet. "Plate tectonic processes circulate the entire oceanic crust back into the mantle every 100 million years. Ero sion also removes part of the continental crust, and some of the eroded material may eventually find its way to deep oceanic trenches, where it is also returned to the mantle. This implies that at any given time only about 10% of the crust is at the surface. Much of the continental crust, however, is more than half the age of the earth, so one can infer this part has not recirculated recently." (Anderson, Don L.; "Where on Earth Is the Crust?" Physics Today, 42:38, 1989.) Comment. The machinations of plate tectonics, therefore, may well be responsi ble for missing sections of the geologi cal column and fossil record. From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Icebergs and crouching giants Astronomers have discovered what they believe is the largest, darkest, most gas-rich spiral galaxy known in a 'void' beyond the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. Discovered by accident on long-exposure photographic plates, the object, called Malin 1, appears to be still forming. .. .. .. "' We didn't expect to find anything like this,' (C .) Impey says, referring to Malin 1. 'This galaxy is far removed from our ideas of what a normal galaxy should look like. There could be more of these things that haven't been discovered yet.'" (Anonymous; "Massive, Dark Galaxy Found in Void," Astronomy, 15:75, September 1987.) The same discovery is dealt with, in a more technical way, in Nature. A revealing paragraph from the Nature article follows: "Although Malin 1 could be a unique case there is in fact a significant body of circumstantial evidence to suggest otherwise. Our present knowledge of the galaxy population is so biased by a single insidious selection effect that it is entirely possible that Malin 1 is just the first example of a class of such low-surface-brightness giant galaxies that forms a significant constituent of the universe." The "selection effect" mentioned is a consequence of the very bright sky that confronts astronomers. Astronomical interest and instrumentation have focussed ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Hex On Saturn "By piecing together pictures of Saturn taken by the Voyager-2 spacecraft, David A. Godfrey (National Optical Astronomy Observatories) has discovered an unusual feature in the planet's atmosphere. His mosaics reveal a hexagon centered on the north pole. Since neither probe flew directly over the pole, the complete scene has to be created by 'stretching' a series of photographs taken from the side as Saturn rotated, then fitting them into a polar projection." The straight sides of the hexagon are each about 13,800 kilometers long. The entire structure rotates with a period of 10h 39m 24s, the same period as that of the planet's radio emissions, which is assumed to be equal to the period of rotation of Saturn's interior. The hexagonal feature does not shift in longitude like the other clouds in the visible atmosphere. The pattern's origin is a matter of much speculation. Most astronomers seem to favor some sort of standing-wave pattern in the atmosphere; but the hexagon might be a novel sort of aurora. More extreme speculation has Saturn's radio emissions emanating from the hexagon (something we can see and which has the right rotation period) rather than from the planet's interior (something we cannot see). (Anonymous; "A Hex on Saturn," Sky and Telescope, 77:246, 1989.) Comment. Note ...
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... 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Another "cookie cutter" hole Back in 1984, the American press had fun with the "cookie cutter" hole found in Washington state. A good-sized chunk of earth or "divot" had been neatly excised intact from the ground and deposited some 73 feet away. (see drawing.) One would think that nature would play only one such bizarre prank, but a remarkably similar occurrence also took place in 1887. A third example of this most curious phenomenon has been resurrected from one of the Middle Ages chronicles: "822 A.D .: 'In the land of the Thuringians, near a river, a block of earth 50 ft. long, 14 ft. wide, and 1 ft. thick, was cut out, mysteriously lifted, and shifted 25 ft. from its original location.' Royal Frankish Annals." (Carolingian Chronicles. W. Scholz, translator, Ann Arbor, 1972. Cr. E. Murphy) Reference. Descriptions of several other "cookie-cutter" holes can be found at ETB7 in our catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, which is described here . Plan view of the much-ballyhooed "Cookie-cutter" hole phenomenon in Washington state, 1984. (From: Carolina Bays, etc). From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 62: Mar-Apr 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The cookie cutter strikes again -- four times - in norway The divot from an And va moor Yes, the cookie-cutter phenomenon has left its mark again: more mysterious divots and holes in the ground. T. Jo nassen has sent us a study of the phenomenon published in Ottar , a publication of the Tromse Museum, in Norway. Even better, he has provided a translation, from which we quote a few paragraphs: "About 1 km SE of Skogvollvatnet (a lake), at Skogvollmyra (a moor), a slab of turf 5.2 m long and 1.8 m wide, has, in an apparently inexplicable manner, torn itself loose from its 'mother turf' and placed itself 4-5 m away. The slab of turf is completely undamaged and is placed with the right side up. The piece of turf has rotated 20-30 degrees compared to the original hole. The hole in the moor is absolutely even at the bottom, and the angle between the bottom and its walls is 90 degrees. The hole is 30-35 cm deep, and its edges are nicely cut. "From the hole there is a crack running westwards for about 6 m. Close to the hole this crack is somewhat widened, and one side of the crack twists itself 25-30 cm above the other. This twisting decreases as one gets further from the hole. The ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Plants are not color blind!" Scientists have long known from laboratory experiments that various colors of light can affect stem size, root structure and other aspects of plant growth. But they have remained largely in the dark about the potential practical benefits of the phenomenon. "Using colored mulch to bathe plants in reflected light of certain hues, the South Carolina group (Clemson University) has begun to explore what colors plants prefer in agricultural growing conditions. Last year, for example, the group found that tomatoes grown with red mulch -- made with plastic sheets painted red -- had 20% higher yields than those with black mulch. Preliminary results this year show that potatoes and bell peppers grow best with white mulch...." (Anonymous; "Plants' Colors," Wall Street Journal, September 16, 1987. Cr. J. Covey.) Comment. Many questions arise here, but we'll take only three: (1 ) How do plants sense colors? (2 ) How do different colors mediate growth differently? (3 ) Is all this explicable in terms of evolution? From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Do large meteors/comets come in cycles?Only a few years ago, geologists refused to recognize any terrestrial meteor craters larger than Arizona's Meteor Crater, which is merely a mile or so in diameter. Now, we have a long list of craters or astroblemes (star wounds), some of which measure hundreds of miles across. In fact, there are enough large dated crters so that some scientists have taken up a time-honored human pastime: Looking for cycles or periodicities in the data. (Humans can find cyclicities in almost any collection of data!) To be more specific, some have claimed that large meteor craters come in clusters dated 28-31 million years apart. These catastrophic events have been correlated with biological extinctions, magnetic field reversals, and basalt flooding. The astronomical causes of this supposed periodicity range from the solar-system's crossing of the galactic plane, to the perturbations of an unseen solar companion, to regular perturbations of the Oort cloud of comets that is thought to hover at the fringe of the solar system. In short, a large, interlocking edifice of geological and astronomical speculation has been erected upon a foundation of terrestrial crater ages. But how well do we really know the ages of these craters? How complete is the cratering record? The answer to the first question is: "Not well at all." Further, we can be certain that many ...
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... 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 Migrating Birds Collide With Magnetic Bump Do birds utilize the earth's magnetic field for navigation? Many have so surmised; and there exists anecdotal evidence for it. A Swedish ecologist, T. Almberstam, decided to attempt scientific observations. At Norberg, in central Sweden, a huge deposit of magnetite creates a powerful magnetic anomaly. The deposit is 12 kilometers long by several wide. At low altitudes, the total magnetic intensity of the earth's field is 60% higher than normal. What happens when migrating birds fly into this magnetic bump? "Although Almerstam found that many migrating birds showed no signs of avoiding the Norberg anomaly, and often managed to keep on the right course as they passed through it, there were definite indications that the birds' orientation might be affected under special circumstances. Some migrants flying at low altitudes, where the magnetic intensity was greatest and the inclination and declination distorted greatly, became disoriented briefly. They nervously landed and then circled around before taking off again. Other birds changed their altitude abruptly, dropping 100 metres in two minutes and breaking up their flock formations." Certainly something is happening, but no one knows what. (Anonmous; "Magnetic Anomaly Upsets Migrating Birds," New Scientist, p. 32, November 5, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Carolina Waterguns "Residents of North Carolina's southeastern coast call it the 'Seneca Guns' and say it's caused by chunks of the continental shelf dropping off a cliff under the Atlantic Ocean. "' You will feel the house kind of shake and windows rattle,' said Walt Workman, assistant chief of police in Long Beach. 'It sounds a lot like a sonic boom type of thing.' "The rumbling boom with a sound like artillery fire is heard along North Carolina's southernmost beaches, sometimes as often as once or twice a week, and scientists can't explain the phenomenon. The sounds have been heard as far north as Fort Fisher, located just north of Cape Fear." (" Booms Keep Coastal Area Guessing," Charlotte Observer, January 26, 1987. Cr. G. Fawcett via L. Farish) Comment. The real Seneca Guns are, of course, in New York, where they have been heard for years about Lake Seneca. Category GSD, in Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds, provides numerous examples of such waterguns, from all around the world. Information about this book may be found here . From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Larger Sun During The Maunder Minimum Europe's so-called "Little Ice Age" (1645-1715) coincided with the Maunder Minimum -- a period during which sunspots were exceedingly rare. How was the sun different during the Maunder Minimum? This subject of solar variability (in both diameter and period of rotation) has been long debated. Some early measurements of solar diameter, begun at Greenwich in 1830, seemed to some to show a steadily shrinking sun, but others found cyclic patterns. E. Ribes et al have just presented some data on solar diameter actually taken during the Maunder Minimum. "By analysing a unique 53-year record of regular observations of the solar diameter and sunspot positions during the seventeenth century, we have shown for the first time that the angular diameter was larger and rotation slower during the Maunder Minimum." A larger sun might be cooler, providing less heat, thus accounting for climate changes. (Ribes, E., et al; "Evidence for a Larger Sun with a Slower Rotation during the Seventeenth Century," Nature, 326: 52, 1987.) Comment. Just why the sun expands and contracts over a period measured in hundreds of years is a major astro physical conundrum. Variation in solar diameter, 1860-1940. Arrows indicate sunspot maxima. (From ASO-X6 in The Sun and Solar System Debris). From Science Frontiers #51 ...
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... (much larger than the moons of Mars) was the key to the melting of the earth's core via tidal friction. With a fluid core, the earth developed a strong magnetic field (much stronger than those of the other inner planets) through dynamo action. This field protected nascent life from space radiation -- and here we are! (Hecht, Jeff; "Lunar Link with Life on Planets," New Scientist, p. 40, January 21, 1988.) Comment. Current scientific opinion declares that the moon was captured by the earth -- a rather rare astronomical event. The capture of a very large moon would be even rarer. From this shaky chain of thoughts, we conclude that life in the universe must be exceedingly scarce. However, such long chains of inferences are usually found to be far off the mark. From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... all by archeologists in America, who blithely declaim the 'absence' of Old World artifacts in America." (p . 14) Ogam inscriptions . A stone inscribed in ogam was recently reported from Connecticut. (See: the Bulletin of the Early Sites Research Society, vol. 12, 1985.) B. Fell translates the ogam as follows: "In this small stone lies the power of averting sickness/The ogam protects from the debilitation of the Evil Eye." In Wyoming and extraordinary rebus/ ogam panel was discovered in 1986. An excellent photograph of the inscription may be found in the Occasional Papers in an article by R.E . Walker. (p . 304) Comment. The implication of these ogam inscriptions is that North America was visited by Celtic peoples long before Columbus. Nos Ancetres Chinois. This article. by M. Chatelain, happens to be in French, which is too bad because Americans are generally poor linguists. Anyway, the article summarizes evidence for ancient Chinese visits to North America. (p . 290) Above we have only a sampling from this 334-page volume. We must pass over the Oklahoma runes, stick-chart naviga tion in Micronesia, and the course in "fantastic archeology" at Harvard, etc. Reference. For more background on this subject, see our handbook Ancient Man. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 62: Mar-Apr 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Researches In Reincarnation I. Stevenson, at the University of Virginia, has long studied claims of reincarnation. The method employed (and there are precious few alternatives) focuses on children who claim to have lived before and can provide verifiable details about their past lives. If the details check out, one can at least claim that reincarnation is a possible interpretation of the data. Usually, however, before a researcher can get to the scene of the phenomenon, the parents of the deceased have been found and the way has been left open for much exaggeration. In his present contribution, Stevenson reports three cases in Sri Lanka where the recollections of the supposedly reincarnated children have been written down in detail and the family of the deceased has not been located. Here is one of his cases: "The Case of Iranga . The child was born in a village of Sri Lanka near but not on the west coast, in 1981. When she was about 3 years old she spoke about a previous life at a place called Elpitiya. Among other details, Iranga mentioned that her father sold bananas, there had been two wells at her house, one well had been destroyed by rain, her mother came from a place called Matugama, she was a middle sister of her family, and the house where the family lived had red walls and a kitchen with a thatched roof. Her statements led to the identification of a family in ...
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... civilizations?Abstract. "Past values for the geomagnetic intensity may be obtained by laboratory analysis of the thermoremanent magnetization carried by clay baked in ancient times. From global averages of such determinations it is commonly accepted that the intensity in any given region went through a broad maximum about 2000 years ago, reaching a level about 50% higher than at present. Here we present results obtained from a wide range of Chinese pottery, spanning the interval from 4000 BC to the present, indicating that the field behaviour was more complex. The intensity was high between 1500 and 1000 BC and again in the first half of the first millennium AD. Comparison with results reported for Western Asia, Egypt and Crete suggests that these high values are due to non-dipole disturbances in the geomagnetic field, consistent with long-term records of the cosmogenic radioisotopes 14C and 10Be." (Quing-Yun, Wei, et al; "Geomagnetic Intensity as Evaluated from Ancient Chinese Pottery," Nature, 328:330, 1987.) Comment. This article stimulates three questions: What caused the geomagnetic changes; could some be of internal origin? Are periods of reduced magnetic fields associated with cultural changes? The graph, for example, reveals a dip during the flowering of Greek civilization. Could such ambient magnetic changes have an effect on human imagination, as reported in laboratory test?. See SF#53. Ratios of ancient geomagnetic field intensity to present intensity versus date. Data from China. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Instances Of Observed Speciation Creationists have long maintained that no one has ever observed the creation of a new species in nature. C.A . Callag han has sought to counter this attack on evolution with a paper bearing the above title. Her concluding paragraph is: "I have cited several instances of ob served speciation that can be used as illustrative examples in the classroom. They should also silence at least one common creationist argument against evolution." The paper begins with the well-worn peppered-moth story; but Callaghan quickly dismisses this, as the creationists do, as merely an example of variation within a species. We now quote the lead sentences from her discussions of the next two candidates: "An incipient neospecies of Drosophila may have developed in Theodosius Dobzhansky's laboratory sometime between 1958 and 1963 in a strain of D. paulistorum...." "A probable instance of a naturally emerging plant species was discovered on both sides of Highway 205 at a single locality 25.5 miles south of Burns, Harney County, Oregon...." We have inserted underlining beneath the two words that greatly weaken the paper. In short, the biologists are not really sure that speciation occurred in these two cases. The reasons for doubt are also presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of allopolyploidy in plants, in which the chromosomes of a sterile hybrid are doubled, giving rise to a fertile ...
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... has now been reliably dated at 32,000 years. If these early Brazilians came over the Bering Land Bridge, they must have left even earlier traces in North America. In fact, there are two hotly debated North American sites that seem to be very much older than the one in Brazil; namely, the Calico site in California; and a spot along the Old Crow River in the Yukon. Thousands of stone artifacts, apparently showing signs of being shaped by humans, have been recovered at Calico over the past two decades. The Calico artifacts are usually contemptuously dismissed as naturally fractured chert flakes. But at the other end of the belief spectrum (Don't laugh, much of science is just as much of a belief system as religion!) are those who see a long human history at Calico. B. Bower writes: "Two periods of human occupation have been dated at Calico. From about 15,000 to 20,000 years ago the area was inhabited by what [R .D .] Simpson suggests was a huntinggathering people with more sophisticated tools, including stones flaked on both sides. In deeper layers estimated to be at least 200,000 years old are the simpler flakes of people, she says, who probably gathered plants and other foods." Much farther north, along the Yukon's Old Crow River, nearly 10,000 horse-and mammoth-bone artifacts have been picked up and dug out of the river banks. W.N . Irving, from the University of Toronto, claims that the last five seasons ...
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... -Hz or 4-Hz magnetic fields that were applied across their mid-superior temporal lobes. During the field application, subjects were instructed to view a green light that was pulsating at the same frequency as the field and to imagine encountering an alien situation. Results were commensurate with the hypothesis that weak brain-frequency fields may influence certain aspects of imaginings and alter suggestibility." (De Sano, Christine F., and Persinger, M.A .; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: XXXIX. Alterations in Imaginings and Suggestibility during Brief Magnetic Field Exposures," Perceptual and Motor Skills , 64:968, 1987.) Comment. The import of this paper is written between the lines of the Summary . One of the authors (M .A .P .) has long been investigating the possibility that UFOs, earthquake lights, and nocturnal lights are basically hallucinatory and are stimulated by natural variations in the magnetic field. From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Epitaph , hardly part of the scientific literature! The article develops the theme that Chinese explorers landed in North America several millennia ago. The basis for such speculation is an ancient Chinese work called the Shun-Hai Ching , which is reputed to be about 3500 years old. In it, the Chinese explorers mention encounters with several strange animals. One is easily recognized as the collared peccary, known only in the New World, thus establishing the reality of a transPacific contact. Now, here is the piece de resistance: "Here we met a creature as tall as three men and so great that the earth trembled as he walked. He had a voice as loud as thunder. He was red like fire. From his mouth he spat spears of pearl, and he had but one long arm. He was wont to take up men in his hand and dash their brains out against rocks." Could this creature be anything but a mammoth? Incidentally, the frozen Siberian mammoths are reported to be covered with reddish hair. (Eckhardt, C.F .; "Prehistoric Explorers of the West?" National Tombstone Epitaph , p.17, October 1988. Cr. H.J . Hanson) Comment. Ancient Chinese in America and the late survival of the mammoth - all in one article! This is rich grist for the anomaly mill. But can we believe any of it? Reference. The possible late survival of the mammoth assessed in BMD10 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. This volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #62 ...
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... socket for more than 30 seconds, and the outlet still worked. That incident was witnessed by two police officers. Another time, a similar flame set a mattress afire while investigators were prowling outside. "In all, there were 26 separate incidents, all of them witnessed by either police or fire investigators... "' I was there one night when the room was filled with a white haze. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face,' Smith said. 'There was a strong sulfur smell and my eyes were burning. I took a sample (of the vapor) in a vacuum canister. We came up with nothing.' "Neither did engineers, chemists and geologists." Understandably, the occupants of this hexed house had moved out long ago with such goings-on. Teams of experts ruled out arson, natural gas, methane leaks, sewer gas, and electrical malfunctions. The house was finally bulldozed in October 1988. (Elsner, David; "Bulldozers Lay House to Rest," Chicago Tribune, October 16, 1988. Cr. K. Fabian. Also: Anonymous; "Strange Phenomena Force Bulldozing of House," Lorain (Ohio) Journal, October 16, 1988. Cr. J.K . Wagner. Also: Anon-ymous; "Mists, Fires in Dwelling Defy Logic," Oregonian , October 26, 1988. Cr. R. Byrd.) From Science Frontiers #61, JAN-FEB 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Gauquelin has concentrated on sports champions, he has found similar effects for other vocations. Musicians, for example, have a negative Mars Effect. (Obviously, violinists should not compete in the broad jump!) Scientists are positive with Saturn; actors are positive with Jupiter. And so on. (Gauquelin, Michel; "Is There a Mars Effect?" Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2:29, 1988.) Comment. In the indented quotation above, Abell could not imagine a "mechanism" for the Mars Effect. Yet, Mars and the other planets are drawn to the sun by gravitation, which is just as "mechanismless" as are the other actionat-a -distance forces. We can write an equation for gravitational force, and perhaps because of this and long familiarity, we feel comfortable with gravitation. But is it any less spooky than the Mars Effect? Reference. The "Mars Effect" and related phenomena are covered in BHB27-BHB30 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans I. Details about this book may be found at: here . From Science Frontiers #61, JAN-FEB 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Nature from H.J . Melosh; "Recent evidence that the SNC meteorites originated on Mars raises the question of whether large impacts on Earth may eject rocks that could fall on Mars (or other planets in the Solar System) and, if so whether they might contain spores or some sort of viable microorganisms that would have the opportunity to colonize Mars." After some computations Melosh concludes: "It seems likely that the impacts that produced craters on Earth that are greater than 100 km in diameter would each have ejected millions of tons of near-surface rocks carrying viable microorganisms into interplanetary space, much in the form of boulders large enough to shield those organisms from ultraviolet radiation, low-energy cosmic rays, and even galactic cosmic rays. Under such circumstances spores might remain viable for long periods of time." (Melosh, H.J .; "The Rocky Road to Panspermia," Nature, 332:687, 1988.) Comment. Next we need a reasonable mechanism that spreads life through interstellar space. Light pressure, that's it; and the idea is over a century old! Incidentally, SNC is short for Shergottites, Nakhalites, Chassignites; all rare classes of meteorites. From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , much smaller than the clouds that previous observations have detected in interstellar space. They reveal their presence by diffracting the radio waves coming from distant quasars. .. .. . "The objects move too fast to be near the quasar -- to be that far away, they would have to go at 500 times the speed of light -- so the observers conclude that they are in our own galaxy. Previous observers didn't see them, [R .L .] Fiedler says, because they didn't observe the same quasar at close enough intervals." If these ionized clouds are spherical. they have masses comparable to the asteroids; but, if they are elongated, their mass is anyone's guess. No one knows how they are formed, how long they last, or where the energy comes from to maintain them in an ionized state. Extrapolating from the five instances recorded so far, the observers speculate that these compact structures may be 500-1000 times more numerous than stars! (Thomsen, D.E .; "Oodles of 'Noodles' Found in Galaxy," Science News, 131: 247, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of-origin that have been proposed. We have space here for only one of the observations he records. P. Newton was the Chief Officer on the M.V . Mahsuri, which was passing through the Gulf of Oman bound for Australia. It was a dark, moonless night in May. "Then it happened. What first caught Newton's attention was a pale green glow on the horizon just ahead of the ship, but he said nothing to the cadet standing watch with him. Moments later, parallel bands of bluegreen light began to sweep silently over the water toward the ship from the southeast. Still, Newton said not a word, but he felt as if he should duck. Each light band was about 10 to 15 feet wide and at least 500 feet long, and appeared to be some 15 feet above the water. They came rapidly -- every four or five seconds. .. .. . "After the first ten minutes, the bands gave way to expanding circles of light that spread rapidly, like ripples created by a stone thrown into the still waters of a pond. The wheel diameters ranged from ten feet to more than 600 feet. "' Each wheel would last for a couple of minutes, continually flashing,' Newton recalls. Successive flashes came less than a second apart and glowed a pale green. Newton noticed that the centers of the wheels appeared to travel along with the ship; those on the beam seemed to remain there until they faded and were replaced by a new pattern." (Huyghe, Patrick ...
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... that such a star can only collapse further to form a black hole. Therefore, black holes must exist. J. McClintock, the author of this article, does not buy this reasoning. General Relativity, he says, has been shown to be valid so far only in weak gravitational fields, not in the very powerful gravitational fields of an X-ray star. ". .. we presume that Einstein's theory correctly describes strong gravity when we argue that certain X-ray stars are black holes, yet, at the same time, these alleged black holes are the acid test of Einstein's theory of strong gravity." (McClintock, Jeffrey; "Do Black Holes Exist?" Sky and Telescope, 75:30, 1988.) Comment. The long history of science teaches us that all theories are eventually displaced by more accurate, more all-inclusive formulations. Unfortunately, this makes textbook writing difficult. From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Canadian woman, Mrs. B. Clark, actually bumped into Ogopogo while swimming in the British Columbia lake in July of 1974. "Mrs. Clark's report states: 'I did not see it (the animal) first. I felt it. I was swimming towards a raft/ diving platform located about a quarter of a mile offshore, when something big and heavy bumped my legs. At this point, I was about 3 feet from the raft, and I made a mad dash for it and got out of the water. It was then that I saw it.' The report goes on to describe the observation: 'When I first saw it, it was about 15-20 feet away. I could see a hump or coil which was 8 feet long and 4 feet above the water moving in a forward motion. It was traveling north, away from me. It did not seem to be in much of a rush, and it swam very slowly. The water was very clear, and 5 to 10 feet behind the hump, about 5 to 8 feet below the surface, I could see its tail. The tail was forked and horizontal like a whale's , and it was 4 to 6 feet wide. As the hump submerged, the tail came to the surface until its tip poked above the water about a foot...About 4 or 5 minutes passed from the time it bumped me until the time it swam from view.'" Ogopogo's estimated length was 25-30 feet; breadth, ...
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... Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Vikings in south america?( A )Runes on the 'coiffure' of a statue from San Augustin, Columbia. (B ) Runes found on a Nazca urn, Peru, followed by their 'normalization'. The American archeological establishment admits that the Vikings made it as far as Greenland and probably had a settlement in northeastern Canada at L'Anse aux Meadows; but the Kensington Stone, the Newport Tower, Oklahoma runes, etc., and other evidence of further penetration into the New World are viewed with approbation, even contempt. Nevertheless, the latest number of the Belgian journal Kadath is devoted entirely to Viking (hyperboreene) contacts in South America! Now that's a far piece from Greenland. This long article (40 pages) is replete with photographs, interpretations, and translations of runic inscriptions found in Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. It is impossible to do justice to this mass of inscriptions here, but we will reproduce one of the figures below. (de Mahieu, Jacques; "Corpus des Inscriptions Runiques d'Amerique du Sud," Kadath , no. 68, p. 11, 1988.) Comment. To American anomalists, the frustrating part of this whole business is the need to go to foreign-language journals to escape the prison of archeological orthodoxy. South American runes are rarely mentioned in American archeological journals, and we doubt that the treasure house of material just presented in Kadath will make much of an impression on this side of the Atlantic. Why ...
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... by describing an experiment which showed that blindfolded humans, deprived of environmental cues, also have an ability to estimate accurately the direction of their place of residence within a town, even when driven around that town in such a way as to render them unable to identify where they are. The experiment throws into question the explanation usually offered for the existence of an innate sense of direction, namely, its value to the species, in an evolutionary sense, in facilitating a return to the starting point of exploratory journeys." A fascinating facet of this experiment does not appear in the above Summary . All of the subjects in the study first assembled at the University of New England (in Armidale, NSW, Australia) and were there blindfolded and driven in a circuitous route 19.4 kilometers long to a spot 5.2 kilometers from the University. The sun had set and audible cues were suppressed. Very frew of the 35 subjects could guess the direction of the University, the spot from which the journey began. Thus, this experiment does not really support that which is said to be "well established" in the Summary . On the other hand, the subjects were uncannily accurate in "guessing" the directions of their homes -- a fact duly reported in the Summary . What kind of sense could be involved in such a capability? (Walmsley, D.J ., and Epps, W.R .; " Direction-Finding in Humans: Ability of Individuals to Orient towards Their Place of Residence," Perceptual and Motor Skills , 64:744 ...
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... could not be dated by carbon-14, which can measure about 40,000 years. The Weak Radiation Laboratory in France tested them by a more sensitive uraniumthorium method, and came back with a staggering date of 300,000 years. .. .. . "A cave called Grotto of the Cosmos at nearby Xique-Xique contained paintings of suns, stars and comets, and this is what archaeologists believe is the oldest astronomical observatory in the Americas. "' There probably were at least two cultures here,' said (J .) Labeyrie. 'One, about 10,000 years ago, made the pain tings. Another, much older, was responsible for the artifacts.' "In the grotto's dim light, a red comet 4.5 feet long stretches across the low ceiling, against a painted backdrop of stars. Red suns rise and set amid figures of lizards, a creature traditionally associated with the sun. .. .. . "Near the entrance of the cave is a notch where every year, precisely on the winter solstice (June 21 in the Southern Hemisphere), the sunlight enters and illuminates a red sun painted on the slanted ceiling." (Muello, Peter; "Find Puts Man in America at Least 300,000 Years Ago," Dallas Times Herald , June 16, 1987.) Reference. In our handbook Ancient Man you will find many additional archeological anomalies disputing current theories about the peopling of the New World. Further information here . From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A New Look At The Bat Creek Inscription The Bat Creek Stone. Which side is up has been a problem! The January 1989 issue of the Tennessee Anthropologist contains a long article on the Bat Creek Stone by J.H . McCullock, of Ohio State University. We rely here upon a summary written by R. Strong. "The Bat Creek Stone has generated so much controversy, yet it was excavated in an undisturbed burial mound in 1889 under the direction of Cyrus Thomas, Project Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology's Mound Survey, a part of the Smithsonian Institution. There could be no question of forgery because it was found under the head of one of the nine skeletons that were excavated. Pieces of wood presumed to be the remains of wooden earspools were preserved in the Smithsonian's collections as were a pair of brass C-shaped bracelets. Thomas immediately declared the nine characters on the stone to be Cherokee and the burial assumed to be post-contact - what else could the bracelets be but trade items or native copper?" That would seem to be the end of the story, but some language students failed to see any resemblance between the Bat Creek Inscription and the written Cherokee language. Further, C. Gordon, admittedly a proponent of early Phoenician contact with the New World, declared that the Bat Creek characters were Paleo-Hebrew, a family of languages that includes Phoenician. Then ...
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... 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 Wandering Molluscs "How could a mollusc which lived all its adult life cemented fast to the seabed in shallow water occur thousands of kilometers apart in the Arabian Gulf and the Caribbean? Almost identical forms of the extinct bivalve Torreites sanchezi have been found in rocks from the Caribbean and the Gulf. Peter Skelton of the Open University and Paul Wright of the University of Bristol suggest that the larval stage of the bivalve must have 'island hopped.'" The two researchers rule out convergent evolution and note that the two seas were never any closer together. They suppose that in Cretaceous times there was an equatorial current that swept the larval forms long distances. (Anonymous; "Wandering Molluscs," New Scientist, p. 33, October 15, 1987.) Comment. The same situation prevails for other species, such as some of the amphipods and the unique life forms dependent on seafloor vents. From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of humpback whales can change dramatically from year to year, yet each whale in an oceanwide population always sings the same song as the others. How, with the form changing so fast, does everyone keep the verses straight? Biologists Linda Guinee and Katharine Payne have been looking into the matter, and they have come up with an intriguing possibility. It seems that humpbacks, like humans, use rhyme." Guinee and Payne suspect that whales rhyme because they have detected particular subphrases turning up in the same position in adjacent themes. (Cowley, Geoffrey; "Rap Songs from the Deep," Newsweek, p. 63, March 20, 1989. Cr. J. Covey) Comment. This is all wonderfully fascinating, but why do whales rhyme at all, or sing such long complex songs? Biologists fall back on that hackneyed old theory that it has something to do with mating and/or dominance displays. Next, we'll hear that human poets write poems only to improve their chances of breeding and passing their genes on to their progeny! Reference. Whale "communication" is the subject of BMT8 in our catalog: Biologi cal Anomalies: Mammals I. Details here . From Science Frontiers #64, JUL-AUG 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... go overboard! Be this as it may, our purpose here is the recording of some of the features near Bimini that Richards thinks are still anomalous. Three of these are located at A, B, and D in the accompanying drawing, which is based on an aerial photo taken at 6,000 feet. A is a 90 bend in the renowned "road." This bend is decidedly anomalous for a beachrock formation. B consists of a parallel row of stones. D is made up of regularly spaced piles of stones and extends over 1 miles, cutting diagonally across ancient beach lines. Richards also employed a satellite image of the area to locate other "regular" features, such as a triangle, a pentagon, and a sharp, right-angle corner with mile-long sides. Inspecting these regularities from a small boat, Richards found no obvious structures of any kind. Rather, the patterns were caused by sea grass and white sand. Even so, these superficial patterns may reflect the presence of artificial structures under the sediments. Certainly, if these regularities were observed in a photo taken over land, archeologists would rush to dig away the overburden. But this was Bimini, and everyone knows that no "high cultures" ever lived there! (Richards, Douglas G.; "Archaeological Anomalies in the Bahamas," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2:181, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #64, JUL-AUG 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fish And Winkle Showers "Loud slapping sounds disturbed Ron Langton as he settled down to watch late-night television at his home in East Ham in London on 26 May 1984. He thought nothing more of the noises until next morning when he went outside and saw half a dozen fish in the backyard and on his roof. They were flounders and whitings, about 10 to 15 centimetres long. "Two residents of nearby Canning Town also reported between 30 and 40 fish scattered over their gardens. Could a flight of herons returning from the Thames have dropped their catch? The Natural History Museum identified the fish as just what you would expect to find in the lower Thames. Could a waterspout on the Thames have lifted the fish up to cloud level, carried them a few kilometres north, and dropped them on Canning Town and East Ham? .. .. . "On 16 June 1984, a month after the fish falls in London, the owner of a service station near Thirsk in north Yorkshire found winkles and starfish covering the forecourt of his garage and the top of its high canopy. The winkles were salty and many were still alive. Thirsk is 45 kilometres from the sea, and the garage owner thought that this collection of marine life arrived with the torrential thunderstorms during the night. Though proof remains elusive, the winkles and starfish were probably lifted by a waterspout along the east coast and carried aloft for an ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 64: Jul-Aug 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Earth As A Cold Fusion Reactor In SF#63, we mentioned the possibility that the helium-3 emanating from the earth might indicate that cold fusion was occurring deep down. In a recent issue of the New Scientist, a short unsigned article reveals that this "excess" helium-3 was an impetus for the cold fusion research at Brigham Young University. In fact, P. Palmer, a geo-physicist at Brigham Young, suggested the possibility as long as three years ago! We have not seen Palmer's speculation in print, but the stimulating effect of anomalies on scientific research is reassuring, whatever the final outcome of the cold fusion wars. The same New Scientist article supports the above speculation as follows: "Calculations show that more than enough deuterium finds its way into the upper mantle by this route (seawater in subduction zones) to account for the heat emitted by the Earth's core, although the heat obviously comes from other sources as well. The rate of fusion of deuterium nuclei required to produce the observed rations of helium-3 to helium-4 in rocks, diamonds and metals is similar to that observed by Jones in his experiments with electrolytes. Tritium can also be a product of the fusion of deuterium. Jones and his group say that the tritium detected in the gases from volcanoes is further evidence of cold fusion." Jones has also wondered whether Jupiter's excess ...
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... correlated with the 2.3 -million-year date, but there appears to have been a major deterioration of climate at about this time. There was a shift in the marine oxygen isotope records and, more obvious, the creation of the huge loess (sandy) deposits in China. What the impact may have done is to vaporize enough water into the atmosphere to increase the earth's albedo, reflecting sunlight back into space, lowering the average temperature, and thus triggering the Ice Ages. (Kyte, Frant T., et al; "New Evidence on the Size and Possible Effects of a Late Pliocene Oceanic Asteroid Impact," Science, 241:63, 1988.) Comment. Aficionados of the Ice Age problems will have to add this theory to the already long list of Ice Age hypotheses. From Science Frontiers #59, SEP-OCT 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... et Vie article. Indeed, an electron micro scope photograph shows them clearly; but it also shows that a web of mineralized bacteria is also an intergral part of the stalactite's structure. Laboratory simulations have shown that microorganisms take an active role in the process of mineralization. (Dupont, George; "Et Si les Stalactites Etaient Vivantes?" Science et Vie , p. 86, August 1987. Cr. C. Mauge.) Besides being a surprising adjustment of our ideas about stalactite growth, the recognition that microorganisms may play an active role in the subterranean world stimulates two new questions: (1 ) Can we believe any longer that stalactite size is a measure of age, as is often claimed? (2 ) Is the immense network of known caves (some as long as 500 kilometers) the consequence only of chemical actions? It turns out that the earth beneath our feet is not so solid after all. Some 40,000 caves are known in the United States alone. There are thought to be ten times that number that have no surface openings and therefore escape spelunking census takers. And besides caves big enough for humans to crawl into, there exists an immensely greater continuum of cracks, crevices, channels, and pores which circulate air, water, and chemicals in solution. This "crevicular structure" may be continuous for thousands of miles, possibly around the world. Furthermore, it is filled with life forms of great variety, usually blind, and usually related to creatures of the light. A recent article in American Scientist focuses on the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did charles darwin become a christian?It has long been claimed by some Christians that Charles Darwin, who helped lay the intellectual foundations of secular humanism, reembraced Chris tianity as he neared death. A central figure in this tale is a Lady Hope, who supposedly visited Darwin in the months before he died. What is the basis for the Lady Hope story; and what do Darwin's own writings reveal about his religious beliefs? Alas, Darwin's return to the fold seems an apochryphal tale. W.H . Rusch, Sr., and J.W . Klotz, well-known scientific creationists, have prepared a 38page historical study of the question -- quoting at length from Darwin himself. They conclude about Darwin: "He had made the human mind his authority, and it led him from orthodoxy to theism to agnosticism. Indeed it appears he might well be characterized as an atheist, a doubter of the very existence of God. His caution, however, and his recognition of the impossibility from a scientific standpoint of proving a negative led him to characterize himself as an agnostic which he says he is content to remain." (Rusch, Wilbert H., Sr., and Klotz, John W.; " Did Charles Darwin Become a Christian? " Emmett L. Williams, ed., Norcross, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . ...
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... 96:10, October 1987. Also: Lewin, Roger; "The First Americans Are Getting Younger," Science, 238:1230, 1987.) The practical effect of this whole business is that a discipline of "shadow archeology" is forming outside the establishment. In this relatively undisciplined and unrefereed environment, we find books and reports loaded with anomalies, dealing not only with early humans in the Americas, but pre-Viking European contacts, expeditions to the Americas from the Orient, ancient pyramids in Australia, etc. As a matter of fact, all scientific disciplines are paralleled by "shadow disciplines," which are often "staffed" by amateurs and mavericks. But enough of this musing. The consequences are now being recognized by a few scientists and philosophers. A long article in a recent issue of Nature provides some pithy, pertinent comments: "The current predicament of British science is but one consequence of a deep and widespread malaise. In response, scientists must reassert the pre-eminence of the concepts of objectivity and truth." .. .. . "By denying truth and reality, science is reduced to a pointless, if entertaining, game; a meaningless, if exacting, exercise; and a destinationless, if enjoyable, journey." (Theocharis, T., and Psimopoulos, M.; "Where Science Has Gone Wrong," Nature, 329:595, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... data, primarily from Van den Berg, place the event between the Kuriles and Sakhalin. The altitude of the center of the halo at the maximum observed size is estimated to have been greater than 200 miles, and the diameter of the halo is estimated to have been at least 380 miles. It seems unlikely that a groundbased explosion could produce this kind of effect. It is surprising to us that no official data have been provided by government agencies and that such a significant observation from a region of demonstrated military sensitivity was, and still remains, a mystery." (McKenna, Daniel L., and Walker, Daniel A.; "Mystery Cloud: Additional Observations," Science, 234:412, 1986.) Evidently the mystery cloud mentioned above is only one in a long series: "Large icy clouds, similar to plumes of gas that rise over volcanoes, have appeared over islands along the coast of the Soviet Union during the past several years, baffling experts, who cannot explain what they are or what causes them. "The clouds dissipate in a few hours vanishing as mysteriously as they appear. "Among the plumes are a series of massive clouds that during the past four years have periodically swelled over Novaya Zemlya, the Arctic island long used by the Soviets for nuclear weapons tests. "However, there appears to be no correlation between the clouds and known Soviet tests, which are usually detected by Western governments. Further, non-governmental scientists said the 200-mile-long plumes appear to be many times larger than the largest conceivable nuclear ...
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