... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Wrong-Way Phenomena!Electrical currents flowing in opposite directions. How can this be? What about Ohm's Law? This counterintuitive situation was confirmed in a recent issue of Science. Now two teams of researchers have induced millions of electrons to flow simultaneously both ways around a superconducting ring with a non-superconducting notch in it, a gizmo known as a superconducting quantum interference device, or SQUID. This is all pretty weird but it just one more paradoxical phenomenon allowed by quantum mechanics. You see, in quantum mechanics, an object can exist in two or more states at the same time. This is, of course, a statement of fact rather than an explanation appealing to one's common sense -- a common occurrence in the quantum world. (Cho, Advising "Physicists Unveil Schroedinger's SQUID," Science, 287:2395, 2000) Heat flowing from cold to hot. The revered Second Law of Thermodynamics seems to tell us that heat always flows from hot to cold. But out in space, under special conditions, physicists seem to hedge a bit. The groundbreaking experiment was carried out onboard the Mir space station last year as part of the French-Russian Perseus mission. By warming a copper-and sapphire-walled cell filled with a drop of liquid sulfur hexafluoride and one tiny bubble of gaseous sulfur hexafluoride in near-zero gravity, scientists triggered a slight compression of ...

... North Atlantic Ocean. Aboard the m.v . Flinders out of Philadelphia bound for Pennington. The vessel had just passed through a weather front that produced frequent, violent sheet lightning. Green St. Elmo's fire was glowing on the aerials. "At about 2310 it was also noted that the lever extending about 18 cm over the ship's starboard bridge wing to position a deck light was also radiating light. This light was a pale violet glow extending in 'spokes' of 10 cm in length from the round end of the lever which was about 3 cm in diameter. "There were six individual and uniform spokes shot through with brighter purple and white bolts resembling lightning. Over the noise of the wind a sharp crackling and hissing sound could be heard coming from the phenomenon. "The seaman was called to have a look at the light, he attempted to touch it but the light receded as his finger approached within 3 cm of it. The effect died away at about 2340 as soon as rain started to fall." (Smedley, R.; "Corposants," Marine Observer, 69:55, 1999.) Comments. The corposant's six-fold symmetry is like that of snowflakes. Strange as it may sound, they may be a connection. First, recall what J. Maddox once wrote about snowflakes in Nature. "But the symmetry of the whole crystal, represented by the exquisite six-fold symmetry of the standard snowflake, must be the consequence of some cooperative phenomenon involving the growing crystal as a whole. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Black Auroras July 23/24, 1998. Gulf of St, Lawrence. Aboard the m.v . Appleby , Port Cartier to Immingham. "The aurora borealis was sighted at 0330 UTC. There was a band measuring 35 long in azimuth, with deepblue almost black vertical bands lying between the altitudes of 15 and 25 . The colour changed to brilliant blue at 0335, lasting for about 15 minutes before cloud began to obscure it." What were the "almost black" vertical bands embedded in the main band? Aurora expert R. Livesey replied as follows. "There is a phenomenon called the 'black aurora' which consists of small regions of very low luminosity embedded in brighter auroral light; the 'black' rays reported from the Appleby could have been a phenomenon of this type." (Wilson, J.L .; "Aurora Borealis," Marine Observer, 69:112, 1999.) Black auroras may actually be more than just the contrast effect suggested by Livesey. Low-light TV systems detect clockwise vorticity in the black bands, and the bands seem to be associated with upward electron beams. In other words, black auroras are apparently a distinct phenomeon in their own right and not just nonluminous parts of the visible aurora. (Stenbaek-Nielsen, H.C ., et al; "Why Do Auroras Look the Way They Do?" Eos, 80:193 ...

... In Outer Space Most books on biology begin the history of life in those apochryphal warm ponds of primordial soup. Leave comfortable earth for a moment and consider 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 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Problems of aboriginal art in australia A CONTINENT LOST IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN Astronomy Oklo: an unappreciated cosmic phenomenon Is life a transitor phenomenon? Biology Acupuncture 5,200 ears ago? Imprison willy! Is intelligence a deadly pathogen? How homeopath might work October 5, 1998: dark day for homing pigeons Starlings fall out of the sky Geology An arkansas tsunami deposit? Fused ancient garbage dumps Geophysics Tunguska afterglow Lake champlain's two seiches B-24 SIGHTS "CIRCLES OF LIGHT" Psychology Are pets psychic? ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ups And Downs Of Spook Hill The appearance of an article on Spook Hill in the Wall Street Journal of October 25, 1990, induced G. Wilder to have a look for himself. After all, when the conservative Wall Street Journal admits to being "baffled," there must really be something to the phenomenon! Spook Hill is located on a section of road in Lake Wales, Florida. Here, at Spook Hill, the road "seems" to slope downhill, but yet cars in neutral apparently roll up the incline. Wilder, a member of the Tampa Bay Skeptics, made several pertinent observations during his investigation: "( 1 ) Although the phenomenon is striking when one approaches Spook Hill from one direction, if one gets out of the car and looks back, it is quickly apparent that one's senses have been deceived. Because the illusion fails when one looks in the opposite direction, the road has been made one-way, so that tourists will not be disappointed! "( 2 ) A storm drain is positioned at the true low point of the road, and cars seem to roll up to the drain. Water, in its gravitational wisdom, knows where to go! Neither were the city engineers fooled." Conclusion: Spook Hill is only an amusing illusion; there is no gravitational anomaly. (Wilder, Guss; "Spook Hill: Angular Vision," Skeptical Inquirer ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Dna On Cell Surfaces DNA attached to a cell's surface? Such a notion was shocking to scientific orthodoxy in the 1970s. At that time, observations of the phenomenon were rejected. Even worse, funding to continue the work was not forthcoming. Happily, other researchers have later stumbled onto cell-surface DNA; and this startling phenomenon has been rescued from conformity's wastebasket. Now that cell-surface DNA can be talked about, we can wonder aloud where it comes from and what its significance is. First, this out-of-place DNA -- thought to amount to about 1% of a cell's total DNA -- could come from either inside the cell itself or from blood-borne cellular debris. There is considerable argument on this point. Second, this cell-surface DNA does not appear to undergo replication nor does it perform any gentic coding function. Speculation is that it may somehow be involved in the immunological response of the body; for its position on the cell surface is ideal for such a role. Some researchers think that cell-surface DNA may aid in the drug treatment of T-cell lymphoma, a type of cancer. On the other side of the coin, it may mask those molecules on tumor cells that provoke immune responses. Such divergence of opinion indicates how much there is to learn here. (Wickelgren, Ingrid; "DNA's Extended ...

... far as the eye could see and all around the vessel, phosphorescent cartwheels of bright-blue light began forming. The bands of light were roughly 30 cm thick while the maximum diameter of the wheels was 15-18 m. "Their direction of movement seemed random and they were spinning at high speed, some chasing each other, others spinning in opposite directions next to each other, see sketch. "Whole groups dumbbelled around each other, all spinning in apparently random directions. The display lasted for about 18 minutes before petering out." A comment by P.J . Herring of the Southampton Oceanography Centre followed. "A quite extraordinary account of phosphorescent wheels occurring in one of the places where they are most often seen. In the 200, or so, cases of this phenomenon reported in the last 100 years, never have so many wheels been described so close together, nor has there been any association with wind change. I am very intrigued but at a complete loss to explain how the wheels were produced." (Greig, N.J .; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 66:62, 1996) Reference. The amazining variety of bioluminescent displays is cataloged in GLW in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. To order, visit: here . This three-wheel system shows the phenomenon more completely. Imagine the whole sea covered with scores of these spinning wheels! These three wheels were seen in the Gulf of Thailand, on April 24, 1953. From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William ...

... the sky. Looking back toward the car, they saw a reddish fluorescent glow with streams of light coming down from the sky to the glowing region. Grass and weeds along the roadside were standing straight up and glowing. Deep-red lines of light were seen dancing on the road. They returned to the car, and it felt hot to the touch! Soon, clouds moved in and the display was over. The authors of this article personally investigated this event within a few days of its occurrence. They found the two witnesses obviously very shaken, but believe that the accounts are fresh and unadulterated. Also pertinent is the fact that a large solar flare had just occurred, and intense auroral displays had been predicted. Also, the two women were apparently the only witnesses of this phenomenon. (Swords, Michael D., and Curtis, Edward G.; "Atmospheric Light Show," Pursuit, 16:116, 1983.) Comment. The article also contains the authors' analysis in some depth. Basically, they thought the phenomenon to be auroral with coincidental rainfall containing organic debris. Reference. Many other low-level auroras are described in GLA4 in Lightning, Auroras. This Catalog is described here . From Science Frontiers #34, JUL-AUG 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... v . Kinpurnie Castle. Captain M. Brackenbridge. Cape Town to Antwerp. Observers, the Master, Mr. C.A . Neave, 3rd Officer and Mr. T.J . Martel, Radio Officer. "At 0855 GMT the look-out observed what appeared to be a searchlight shining downwards for about 10 seconds on a bearing of 300 T and 20 above the horizon. This light was extinguished and was replaced by a luminescent patch of approximately one degree in diameter. A semi-circular area of over-all moderate luminosity formed about the luminescent patch. This took about three minutes to form and the dimensions are shown in the sketch. When this had formed, another luminescent patch was also observed above the semicircular area and after a total period of seven minutes the phenomenon dispersed completely. Weather conditions were as follows: dry bulb 19.0 C, wet bulb 17.0 C, barometer reading 1016.7 mb, good visibility, no cloud. Position of ship: 23 05'N , 17 25'W ." (Brackenbridge, M.; "Unidentified Phenomenon," Marine Observer, 48:21, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #4 , July 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... -- elsewhere on the planet. We will be most interested in the reception accorded these claims by the scientific community. The claims. In the authors' words: Our research indicates that the entire Great Lakes region (and beyond) was subjected to particle bombardment and a catastrophic nuclear irradiation that produced secondary thermal neutrons from cosmic ray interactions. The neutrons produced unusually large quantities of 239Pu and substantially altered the natural uranium abundances (235U/238U) in artifacts and in other exposed materials including cherts, sediments, and the entire landscape. These neutrons necessarily transmuted residual nitrogen (14N) in the dated charcoals to radiocarbon, thus explaining anomalous dates. Some North American dates may in consequence be as much as 10,000 years too young. So, we are not dealing with a trivial phenomenon! Supporting evidence. Four main categories of supporting evidence are claimed and presented in varying degrees of detail. Anomalously young radiocarbon dates in north-central North America. Example: the Gainey site in Michigan. Physical evidence of particle bombardment. Example: chert artifacts with high densities of particle-entrance wounds. Anomalous uranium and plutonium abundance ratios in the affected area. Tree-ring and marine sediment data. The authors claim that the burst of radiation from a nearby supernova, circa 12,500 years ago, not only reset radiocarbon clocks but also heated the planet's atmosphere, melted ice sheets, and led to biological extinctions. If verified, the claimed phenomenon would also "reset" archeological models of the settlement of North and South America. To illustrate, we may have ...

... 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects High Temperature Suppresses Radioactive Decay Environmental conditions are not supposed to affect nuclear reactions in general or radioactive decay rates specifically. This is one reason why cold fusion got the cold shoulder from most physicists. Now for the "however" that is the hallmark of Science Frontiers : "Thirty years ago, Otto Reifenschweiler was searching for a compound which could protect Geiger-Mueller tubes from damage when they are first ionised. He found the compound, which became a money-spinner for Philips, in a mixture of titanium and radioactive tritium. He also discovered that as the mixture was heated, its radioactivity declined sharply. No process known to physics could account for such a baffling phenomenon: radioactivity should be unaffected by heat. Nevertheless, as the temperature increased from 115 C to 160 C, the emission of beta particles fell by 28%." Reifenschweiler and his colleague, H. Casimir, put this discovery on the backburner and concentrated on the Geiger-Mueller tubes. The recent furor over cold fusion impelled them to resurrect the work and publish it in the January 3 issue of Physics Letters A . Is there a new phenomenon here? Is it relevant to cold fusion? It may be pertinent that some common fusion reactions also employ tritium. (Bown, William; "Ancient Experiment Turns Heat Up on Cold Fusion," New Scientist, p. 16, January 8, 1994.) Comment. How many other potential anomalies simmer neglected on backburners, ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 91: Jan-Feb 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Pizzaspermia!We got a good laugh from that report of a fall of frozen pizza in SF#90, but now the phenomenon has suddenly become more serious! At about the same time Sky and Telescope printed the frozen pizza item, Time had a cover story on the origin of life. It was in response to this story that M.D . Greene wrote the following letter to Time : "Forget bubbles, comets or ocean vents. Scientists should be looking at pizza for the answer. I can remember when my college roommates and I routinely created life every week in our refrigerator. My theory is that around 4.5 billion years ago, the earth was bombarded by intergalactic pizzas. These then provided the ideal breeding ground in which early organisms could thrive and later evolve." (Greene, Mark D.; "How Life Began," Time, 142:8 , November 1, 1993.) Comment. Charles Fort would certainly have chuckled over the near-simultaneous mentions of intergalactic pizzas in two diverse publications. A second report underscores the mystery presented by the unexpected diversity of life in the deep-sea ooze. J.D . Gage and R.M . May ponder in Nature : "Why there should be such exuberant biological diversity in an environment apparently lacking in the habitat complexity of, say, tropical rain forest -- whose species richness it might rival -- remains an enigma ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Memory Structure Of Autistic Idiot Savants The first two paragraphs of this study by N. O'Connor and B. Hermelin provide some interesting background concerning the idiot savant phenomenon. "There are two basic questions which arise from the phenomenon of the idiotsavant. One is whether the specific memory of the idiot-savant is categorically organized or not and the second is whether this memory is IQ independent or IQ related. The first problem needing consideration is therefore concerned with the nature of the memory system which is involved. In the idiot-savant this has, until recently, been deemed to be a relatively unorganized rote memory. It is supposed to be mechanical, inflexible and extremely concrete. However, in a number of studies we have demonstrated that the outstanding memories of idiotsavant calculators and musicians are founded on strategies which are rule based, and which draw on a knowledge of the structure of the calendar or of music. "In addition to evidence concerning the organized nature of the specific memories of idiot-savants for dates and music, we have also accumulated evidence that the eliciting of rules and the development of rule-based strategies tended to be specific in the particular areas of ability of these subjects. For example, although able to calculate past and future dates rapidly, calendrical calculators were often quite poor in the addition and subtraction of numbers unrelated to the calendar. Similarly, in one experiment, musical memory in an idiot- ...

... often we hear of a group of people who unite under extreme pressure to achieve seemingly miraculous results. In these moments human beings transcend their personal limitations and realize a collective synergy with results that far surpass expectations based on past performance. Anyone hearing a fine symphonic or jazz group hopes for one of those "special" concerts that uplift both the audience and the performers. Perhaps less frequent, but more spectacular, are examples in sports, such as the 1980 U.S . Olympic Hockey Team, a group of talented amateurs who stunned the world by winning the gold medal against the vastly more talented and experienced, virtually professional Russian and Finnish teams. These occurrences, although unusual, are much more frequent in American business than is commonly suspected."* Assuming that FGE is a real phenomenon, can it be measured objectively? Yes, says W.D . Rowe, and he tells how it has been done. The Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research group has developed a random number generator that produces an unbiased series of bits such that a large sample will average 50% 1s and 50% 0s. PEAR normally uses this machine in psychokinesis experiments in which an individual mentally attempts to skew the statistically expected 50:50 outcome. But that's a different story. Here, the thought is that the PEAR random number generator is also a "consciousness detector." Since FGE seems to involve a group's collective consciousness, perhaps this random number generator will respond with a skewed train of 1s and 0s -- even when the group in unaware of its presence. ...

... but today our technological infrastructure is suffering. K.H . Schatten has listed some of the "sunburn symptoms" in a recent article in Nature. Fade-outs of over-the-horizon radio communications Greater aerodynamic drag on satel lites and earlier reentry Glitches and outright damage in satellite electrical systems Anomalous induced voltages in elec trical power systems and long-line communications Blackouts of high-frequency polar communications oInduced errors in VLF (Very Low Frequency navigation systems Occasional radiation levels that are hazardous to humans in high-flying aircraft. (Schatten, Kenneth H.; "The Sun's Disturbing Behavior," Nature, 345:578, 1990.) Comment. It would be interesting to learn whether the "computer errors" we encounter so frequently follow the sunspot cycle. One phenomenon, at least, seems anticorrelated with solar activity: The number of solar neutrinos measured here on earth falls as sunspots multiply. This is particularly puzzling because neutrinos are presumably generated in the solar core, whereas sunspots are supposed to be manifestations of solar-surface activity. One phenomenon "should not" affect the other. (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "Solar NeutrinoSunspot Connection Found," Science, 248:444, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #71, SEP-OCT 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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 Mystery Of The Idiot Savant To describe the enigmas of the idiot savant, we can do no better than quote the first two paragraphs of a review article by D.A . Treffert: "At the 1964 annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, a discussant concluded, 'The importance, then, of the Idiot-Savant lies in our inability to explain him; he stands as a landmark of our own ignorance and the phenomenon of the Idiot-Savant exists as a challenge to our capabilities.' In the years that have followed, the inability to explain the idiot savant has not lessened, and the challenge to our capabilities remains undiminished. However, no model of brain function, particularly memory, will be complete until it can account for this rare but spectacular condition, with its islands of mental ability in a sea of mental handicap and disability. "Through the past century, since Down's description of this disorder, the several hundred idiot savants reported in the world literature have shown remarkable similarities within an exceedingly narrow range of abilities, given the many possible skills in the human repertoire. Why do so many idiot savants have the obscure skill of calendar calculating? Why does the triad of retardation, blindness, and musical genius appear with such regularity among them? Why is there a 6:1 male-to-female ratio in this disorder? What accounts for the more common occurrence of the idiot ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Preadaptive Evolution "Preadaptive evolution" is a remarkable concept. Basically, it asserts that in some -- possibly many -- mutations, a useful response to an evolutionary challenge is "naturally" accompanied by useful responses to challenges that have not yet been posed to the life form in question. This prescience verges on the miraculous to the uninitiated, but mainstream biologists seem content to write the phenomenon off as merely good fortune -- like hitting two jackpots in a row on the same slot machine. A good example of preadaptation occurs when bacteria are cultured in the presence of an antibiotic. Within a few weeks, they have evolved a resistance to that particular antibiotic. This well-known phenomenon is easily explained by evolution. However, often the newly evolved (or "adapted") bacteria are also resistant to several other antibiotics that work by different mechanisms. All of the multiple gene changes needed for the several different defense mechanisms are controlled by a single site on the same chromosome. (Levy, Stuart B.; The Antibiotic Paradox , New York, 1992, p. 99. Cr. A. Mebane.) Comments. How can bacteria prepare defenses against antibiotics they have not been exposed to? Luck, prescience, or some unrecognized mechanism? In his Ever Since Darwin , S.J . Gould acknowledges that "preadaptation implies prescience although in actuality it means just the opposite! His explanation of "preadaptation ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 123: May-Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Phantoms Of The Brain In his review of a book with the above title (by V.S . Ramachandran and S. Blakeslee), D. Papineau repeats three irresistible anecdotes from the book. The people involved had either lost limbs or were partially paralyzed, so these three tales are at once sad, bizarre, and amusing. The first two anecdotes involve amputees experiencing the phantom-limb phenomenon. The accepted explanation of this phenomenon is that the irritated stump of an amputee sends nerve messages that deceive the brain into signaling that the limb is there after all. Ramachandran, a neurologist, has shown that this theory is incorrect. Instead, he asserts, when the area of the brain assigned to the lost limb no longer receives sensory input from the area, it begins to react to sensory input arriving at adjoining areas in the brain. In other words, the idle area "overhears" nearby signals that are being processed and acts upon them in error. This view explains why by simply stroking a man who had lost an arm, Ramachandran discovered two virtual hands in the man's face and shoulder. A touch on the man's cheek brought the response, "You're touching my thumb." The second anecdote is explained by the fact that the area in the sensory cortex assigned to the genitals is located next to that for the feet. Genital stimulation of people who have lost a foot ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wyoming: a periodic spring "Near the base of a limestone cliff in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest, spring water gushes from an opening for several minutes, stops abruptly, then begins a new cycle a short time later. This is Periodic Spring, whose intermittent flow is a rare geologic phenomenon. The water is cold and clear, an indication that this is not a geyser like Old Faithful; such geysers, of volcanic origin, send forth hot water. Through the years various observers have timed the flows at anywhere from four to twentyfive minutes, with similarly varying dry spells. The intermittent flow is especially regular in late summer and autumn. During stormy periods or when there is heavy snow melt-off, the flow fluctuates but does not stop entirely." At full flow, Periodic Spring discharges about 285 gallons/second into a stream 9 feet wide and 1 feet deep. Periodic Spring, therefore, is fairly impressive, but it is not anomalous. (Mohlenbrock, Robert H.; "Periodic Spring, Wyoming," Natural History, 99: 110, April 1990.) Comment. Siphon action nicely explains periodic springs. Water keeps flowing through the upper loop until the water level in the reservoir drops below the siphon intake. The spring will not flow again until the reservoir fills to the top of the upper loop(level a) again initiating siphon action. Siphon action seems simple ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 73: Jan-Feb 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crop Circle Corner The Wiltshire crop "scroll". Dimensions in meters. Every week, it seems, some new facet of the crop circle phenomenon appears. It is reminiscent of the early days of UFOs. Several books have appeared. A periodical, The Cereologist , now promises to keep everyone up-to-date. People are scouring the old literature and pouring over aerial photos for pre-1980 examples. Theories abound, especially those invoking extraterrestrials! We have room here for only a few brief items. Scorched earth in Xenia, Ohio. A hired hand of Gene Eck was harvesting a field of soybeans when he came upon a circle of flattened plants -- bent but not broken -- some 80 feet in diameter. Inside this circle was a 40-foot-diameter ring of burnt stubble. Within the ring was a patch of undisturbed foxtail 14 feet in diameter. The soybean circle was a half mile from the nearest road; no tracks led into it. (Williams, Nat; Illinois Agri-News, November 9, 1990. Cr. R.A . Ford) Column of light in Wiltshire. During the summer of 1990, teams of English ob servers scanned the cereal fields at night. At 2:30 AM, on July 25, R. Fla-herty, an experienced wildlife photographer, saw a single shaft of light descending from high in the sky toward a Wiltshire wheat ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hypnosis And Skin Temperature The mind can affect the body in many ways. One of the most bizarre is the use of hypnosis to raise skin temperature on selected parts of the body. A recently published example of this phenomenon was observed by P. Hajek et al, at the Institute of Physiology in Prague: "Eight patients with atopic eczema and six healthy subjects were given hypnotic suggestion to feel pain in the upper part of the back and in one case on the palm. An average local increase in skin temperature of 0.6 C (detected by thermovision) occurred under this condition. For some patients, cutaneous pain threshold was increased before the experiment by means of repetitive hypnotic suggestion of analgesia. These subjects reported feeling no pain subjectively, but the local change in skin temperature was equal in both cases. The results suggest a central mechanism induced by measuring changes in pain threshold in the skin, which changes are independent of local changes in blood flow." (Hajek, P., et al; "Increase in Cutaneous Temperature Induced by Hypnotic Suggestion of Pain," Perceptual and Motor Skills, 74:737, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sour grapes! Darn! Just when we find an amusing anomaly, someone comes along and deanomalizes it. Remember the rice grains in SF#100* that sank in a glass of "fizzy" lemonade, then rose to the surface only to sink and rise again -- over and over? Well, this phenomenon is hardly new and has a good explanation. We quote from a book first published in 1925. Here, a grape and soda water are employed: "A grape is not wetted by water, and so when it is put into the tumbler it sinks to the bottom of the soda water, where it collects bubbles at a great rate. Soon it is covered over with a sheet of bubbles that look like seed-pearls, and these bring it by their buoyancy to the surface. The grape is not much heavier than the water, and does not require much to lift it. At the surface the grape parts with some of its bubbles, which burst into the open air, and this goes on until it sinks again, only to collect a few more bubbles and once more be made buoyant. The process will repeat itself continually for many minutes until the soda water is 'dead.'" (Bragg, William; On the Nature of Things , p. 109, Garden City, 1950. Cr. A. Mebane) *SF#100 = Science Frontiers #100. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Blondes in ancient china Evidence of tobacco in ancient egypt Dwarf mammoths in ancient egypt? Astronomy "AN UNPRECEDENTED AND BIZARRE OBJECT" Comets, asteroids, or neither? This was the big one, but where did it come from? Snowballs in hell? Biology It's according to hoyle and wickramasinghe Music of the hemispheres The urge to replicate: part i The urge to replicate: part ii Geology Might diamonds be dead bacteria? Deep quake deepens mystery Geophysics Sylvanshine: a newly recognized optical phenomenon Gamma-ray flashes in the upper atmosphere A DEEP-SEA HYDROTHERMAL VENT INSTEAD OF A WARM LITTLE POND? Psychology The solar wind and hallucinations Physics Cold fusion update: 1994 Miscellaneous A SKEPTIC'S NDE -- NOT SO MYSTICAL ...

... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Higher Sight In the January 4, 1990, issue of Nature, G. Humphreys reviews a book that is just too expensive for us to consider buying. The title is: Synesthesia; A Union of the Senses . It costs $75 and is published by Springer/Verlag. The review, however, is expansive and provides some facts about synesthesia worth passing on to our readers. Syesthesia is an "oddity" of human perception in which words, musical instruments, objects, concepts, evoke sensations sharply different from what is actually being processed by the brain. For example, specific musical tones elicit specific color sensations; that is, B-flat evokes the color green; A-sharp, yellow, etc. Or the phenomenon may be more complex, with Mozart being green; Wagner, red, etc. Most "synesthetites" seem to experience colors, but geometrical figures sometimes appear in response to particular stimuli. As for the stimuli that call forth these exotic sensations; they are usually music or numbers. To some synesthetites, the cardinal numbers are associated with specific colors. The books's author is R.E . Cytowic, and he has provided some very interesting observations about synesthetites: There is much consistency among them; that is, if the number 5 evokes a red sensation with one, it does with most others, too. Also, synesthetites seem to run in families. Perhaps most significant is the observation that synesthetic experiences seem to be correlated with changes in cortical blood flow! ( ...