... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 131: SEP-OCT 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Earth Made Mars Different At the June, 2000, meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, R.A . Day presented a paper that: Itemized the many important ways n which Mars differs from the other inner planets and moons; Proposed a mechanism that might lave created these stark differences; and Identified the earth as the most likely perpetrator of this celestial catastrophism. Day's abstract follows: Mars has surface features that are not seen on inner planets or moons. These are hemispheric asymmetries, idiosyncratic surface fracturing, localized vulcanism, altitude differences, chains of pits, and the nature of dry river-like channels. Other features include extensive loss of an early atmosphere and liquid water. There is interest in the lower-altitude northern region, with its surface formed after the period of heavy bombardment, as a possible ocean basin. The evidence for this is very sparse: no river deltas, no river networks, little debris at the ends of the catastrophic flow channels. The surface is consistent with the stripping anticipated by a Roche-limit encounter. The low-density Martian moons appear to be unconsolidated material of higher density; they appear to be from low-gravity aggregation of that part of the Martian debris that went into orbit as a short-lived ring. A Roche-limit encounter is invoked as a reasonable hypothesis to explain these features. Earth, Mars' nearest planetary neighbor, may have ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Extremophilic Terraforming of Mars If we are to colonize Mars, we must make it more earthlike; and that is what terraforming does. Right now, the Martian atmosphere, surface temperatures, level of ionizing radiation, and noxious soil are inimical to delicate, complex life forms, such as us. But these hostile Martian conditions are easily endured by some bacteria, such as Deinococcus radiodurans . This bacterium, one of the extremophiles, lives in our sewage systems and other unpleasant places. It can survive desiccation, freeze-drying, and high radiation levels. D. radiodurans can do more than survive on Mars. It can begin to detoxify the soil and prepare the way for other pioneer microorganisms. And even more: What D. radiodurans can provide is a microscopic (and therefore easily portable) factory -- a kind of terra-forming toolkit -- from which any number of products potentially can be derived. Whether it is engineered to reduce metals, produce drugs for ailing astronauts or simply manufacture the polymers necessary for the production of thread, D. radiodurans , one of the world's oldest bacteria, may provide a means of expanding the limits of human imagination beyond the written sci-fi page. (Slotnick, Rebecca Sloan; "Extremophilic Terraforming," American Scientist, 88: 124, 2000.) Comment. Perhaps D. radiodurans is the oldest bacterium on earth. Having arrived eons ago on ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 137: SEP-OCT 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Martian "Flares"Focussing now on Mars, a long-lasting mystery has been the source of the rare "flares" or bright flashes of light that have appeared on the Martian surface down the years. A famous flare example was observed and reported in 1900 by A.E . Douglass, at the Lowell Observaory. The popular press quickly announced that the Martians were signalling us. Actually, this assumption was quite understandable because in those days the newly discovered Martian "canals" were in everyone's thoughts. Most scientists, however, rejected the signal notion preferring to attibute the flare to the specular reflection of sunlight from snowy peaks on Mars. But they were wrong, too. Close-up inspection by modern spacecraft has revealed no snowy peaks or large bodies of water on Mars that might mirror the sun. But another possibility has now come to the fore. The Martian flares could be reflections of sunlight from flat, hexagonal crystals of water ice in the thin Martian clouds; the same crystals that create some of the solar halos and sun dogs seen on earth. That this sort of specular reflection does occur was demonstrated on June 7, 2001, when a flare was actually photographed in the area of Edom Promontorium. The photography was possible because scientists had been watching this spot intently -- with cameras at the ready -- because a well-observed flare had occurred at this location in 1954, and ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Missing Planets In Globular Clusters If you lived on a planet circling a star in a globular cluster, you would see a night sky ablaze with thousands of stars all brighter than the brightest in the earth's sky. This is because globular clusters contain tens of thousands of stars all compressed into 5-25 parsecs -- they are much more tightly packed than those in the Milky Way in general. In fact, though, you would have to observe this blazing sky from a spaceship, because diligent searches have not detected any planets in any of the many globular clusters. In 1999, a team of 24 astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to search for planets in the cluster named 47 Tucanae. Their method was to look for dark planets crossing the bright disks of the cluster's stars. After patiently watching 34,000 stars, they came up empty-handed. For some unknown reason, planets never formed around the stars in 47 Tucanae -- or in any other globular clusters checked so far. Are globular clusters in general different from the rest of the Milky Way? Possibly, see below. (Anonymous; "No Globular Planets?" Astronomy, 28:34, October 2000. Anonymous; "Planets Come Up Missing in a Globular Cluster," Sky & Telescope, 104:23, October 2000.) Answer. Globular clusters are peculiar in several additional ways. For example, the ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Few Cracks in the Foundations of Mainstream Astronomy The latest issue of the Meta Research Bulletin digests ten recent unsettling astronomical discoveries. From these, we select four for your delectation. New laboratory experiments suggest a slightly non-symmetric behavior of matter and anti-matter that might explain the dominance of matter in the universe. But it creates a new mystery---why this asymmetry should exist. Distant supernovae have a rise time of 10-15 percent faster than nearby type supernovae. This throws doubt on their use as standard candles, and on the interpretation that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Interestingly, the amount of the discrepancy is close to the size of the special relativity time dilation factor, gamma. If the cause of the red shift were something other than velocity, then no time dilation factor would be applicable, and this discrepancy would disappear. Evidence for water on Mercury implies a rapid-acting, exogenic water source, consistent with the exploded planet hypothesis expectations. Reasonable escape rates imply that deuterium on Venus is from a relatively recent water source. (Van Flandern, Tom; "Highlights of the Latest EME," Meta Research Bulletin, 8:64, no. 4, 199. Address: P.O . Box 15186, Chevy Chase, MD 20815) Comment. (1 ) Although humans are obviously partial to symmetry, there is no reason why nature must please us by ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Viruses as Ancient Artifacts HTLV-1 is a blood-borne retrovirus that causes leukemia in about 3% of those carrying it. In southern Japan, roughly 4% of the populace are afflicted with this virus, so are some isolated groups living today in Columbia and Chile. Does this correlation prove that South America received settlers from Japan in the distant past? Such a biological linkage would augment pottery evidence from Peru and, especially, Ecuador where Jomon-style pottery 4,000-5 ,000 years old has been found on the coast. However, the HTLV-1 virus also could have been introduced to South America by more recent visitors. Is there any way to fix the timing of HTLV-1 's introduction to South America? Actually, there is. The DNA in viruses is not as durable as pottery shards, but it does hang around for a while, as seen is recent efforts to ex-tract DNA from from frozen mammoths for possible "revival" of the species. A team of Japanese and Chilean scientists has been searching for DNA surviving in 104 mummies deposited in South America's arid Atacama Desert 1,200-1 ,500 years ago. Two of the mummies still retained DNA; and one of them included shards of DNA from HTLV-1 . This certainly doesn't prove trans-Pacific diffusion, but it helps. (Holden, Constance; "Backtracking ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bigfoot Mile-high, But Light-years From Acceptance Colorado is not prime Bigfoot country. Most Bigfoot reports come from the Pacific Northwest. Nevertheless, enough Bigfoot sightings, hearings, and footprints have accumulated in the Rockies for the Denver Post to print a lengthy review of the Bigfoot phenomenon. The article identifies three Colorado hotspots: (1 ) Leadville, where the Little Creek Monster was reported as early as the 1880s; (2 ) the southern San Juan Mountains; and (3 ) Pike National Forest. A few reports even come from the plains east of the Front Range. Coloradans have reported seeing the animals walking along a stream below Loveland Pass, drinking from a pond in the Lost Creek Wilderness, running after deer in the Roosevelt National Forest, chasing cars near Gypsum and roaring at hikers, campers and fishermen in various locations. The reports have come from scientists, wildlife biologists and elk hunters. Surely, this enough to convince everyone of Bigfoot's reality. Not so! To recognize Bigfoot officially scientists must have a living specimen, a corpse, or at least an good skeleton. They do not. Even though there are thousands of Bigfoot sightings recorded continent-wide plus hundreds of casts of huge footprints, these are not enough. Just as with UFOs and sea monsters, fraud and misidentification abound in that field of endeavor called "cryptozoology." However, bigfoot researchers do have one advantage over ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Burps of Death Not only did the poor dinosaurs have to contend with an asteroid impact and a lurch of the poles, but also with the possible ignition of voluminous methane burps. 65-million years ago. This was the time of the well-publicized, but still hypothetical, asteroid impact. It is said to have wreaked havoc on our wounded planet and, especially, the dinosaurs. Volcanos spewed out vast lava fields and filled the air with greenhouse gases and dust. It was a bad time for many life forms. Actually, It may have been far worse than generally advertised. In addition to the volcanic activity and climate change, the shock of the asteroid impact could have been sufficient to destabilize the immense amounts of methane hydrate that have long been locked up, frozen and dormant, in oceanic sediments all over the world. According to this scenario, once the shock of the asteroid impact released the methane from its icy prison, it rose to the surface of the oceans in a world-wide burp. Methane, unfortunately for the dinosaurs and many other life forms, is highly flammable. Lightning could have ignited it almost immediately if it was concentrated enough. A colossal firestorm might have then enveloped the entire planet. The whole atmosphere could have been afire. This, according to B. Hurdle and colleagues at the Naval Research Laboratory, who speculate that the dinosaur hegemony may ended suddenly in flames rather than ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Weird Waterspout?Spring 1934. North Pacific. Aboard the freighter Cape Horn enroute to Singapore with a cargo of sawn lumber. G. Craig was the helmsman on the Cape Horn during a powerful storm (winds of Force 9-10, seas running 8 meters high). Even at 4 A.M ., the phosphorescence of the breaking sea made it seem like daylight. At 4:30, Craig saw what he thought was a colossal wave forming. It was so large that the vessel seemed certain to capsize. He thought he was a goner. But, strangely, the "wave" closed with the vessel very slowly and seemed to move independently of the rest of the stormy sea. Craig recalled other strange features of the phenomenon: .. .what I had initially mistaken for wave crests were actually widely-spaced 'geysers', dancing on the upper surface and each rising to a height of about 20 feet. dropping to half of it, then rising again. [See Craig's sketch.] Then, suddenly, when all seemed lost, the wind dropped from a full gale to an eerie calm. The "wave" passed -- gently -- and then the storm resumed. The Cape Horn was drenched, but there had been no shattering of glass nor rending of wood. There was some flooding but no more than usual in very heavy seas. Some of the ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What Sang First?Not WHO, but WHAT! Sophisticated music predates the advent of modern humans by tens or hundreds of million years. Whales and birds filled the ocean and primeval forest with song long before our hominid branch sprouted on the Tree of Life. As a matter of fact, our closest relatives, the great apes, sing not at all. Somewhere in the hominid genome "music" genes reside, unexpressed in the apes, but somehow triggered into activity in the human line. We have learned recently that the Neanderthals manufactured bone flutes as far back at 53,000 years. They may not have been able to speak to one another in words, but they had the language of music. Their music, and ours, may have been entrained in genes inherited from nonhominid ancestors that lived 60 million years ago, but which have been suppressed in primates until Neanderthals and modern humans came along. You may wonder where this argument is taking you. It goes back at least 60 million years to when the cetacea (whales and dolphins) split off from the evolutionary track leading to humans. It may even go back farther to when birds split away from the reptilian line. The music of birds and whales incorporate some of the complexity and sophistication of Beethoven's Fifth. The genes that have led to such musical talents may be ancient indeed, as speculated in the Science article under review. The authors go ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Incroyable?" Incredible?" Yes, if what paleoastronoer C. Jegues-Wolkiewiez claims is borne out by further study. The venue here is the Lascaux Cave in France where, some 17,000 years ago, Cro-Magnon artists drew incredibly expressive portraits of animals in the glare of torches. Its is in this cave's dark recesses that Jegues-Wolkiewiez sees two phenomena that could overturn our view of the Cro-Magnon culture. First, he claims that some of the animal paintings are really based upon star configurations. In effect, humans 17,000 years ago were constructing a zodiac of sorts. This was about 10,000 years be-for the ancient Babylonians laid out their first zodiacs. For example, Jegues-Wolkiewiez asserts that the painting of a bull in Lascaux is drawn and positioned such that it mirrors a group of stars in the constellation Scorpio. He identifies several other like "congruences." Cro-Magnons, it seems, were astute observers of the heavens and attempted to make some sense out of the star configurations they saw. Cro-Magnon artist painting a zodiac figure on cave ceiling. His assistant holds a star map to guide him. The second claim of Jegues-Wolkiewiez notes that on the summer solstice the last rays of the setting sun penetrate the cave and illuminate a bison painted in red. He believes this is no accident, and that, 17, ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ganymede Magnetic Paradox In December 1995, the Galileo space-craft was injected into orbit around Jupiter, thereby becoming the first known artificial satellite of this giant planet. In the five years that have transpired, Galileo has radioed back voluminous data about Jupiter itself and its four large Calilean satellites. These natural satellites have turned out to be a disparate bunch. Three have iron cores, but Callisto breaks the mold with an unusual core of mixed ice and rock. Europa probably possesses an ocean, and Callisto might also. Only one of Jupiter's large satellites, Ganymede, boasts a magnetic field. In fact, Ganymede is apparently the only satellite in the solar system to display an intrinsic, dipole magnetic field like the earth's . Although Ganymere's magnetic field is like that produced by a permanent bar magnet, its core is much too hot for permanent magnetism. Again like the earth, Ganymede's field is theorized to be generated by the convection of electrically conducting liquid in its core -- a dynamo of sorts. All well and good, but Ganymede is so small that it should have cooled off billions of years ago thereby freezing its metallic core. So then, whence its magnetic field? One way out of this box it to suppose that about a billion years ago Ganymede was circling Jupiter in an orbit that took it much closer to this ponderous planet. Then, Jupiter's powerful ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects I Must Go Down To The Goo Again!With apologies to Masefield for mangling a line of his poetry. it really is tine to go down to the sea and examine its microstructure. The ocean is not what it seems. When you snorkel in crystal-clear Caribbean waters, you do not sense that you are swimming in a very thin jelly. In reality, ocean water is filled with a complex tangle of microscopic strands and particles of gel. According to F. A zam , an oceanographer at Scripps: It's not in the textbooks or in the classical explanations. The gel's existence fundamentally changes our ideas of the microcosmos in which sea organisms live. It has added another layer of complexity that people are only now starting to consider in the context of whole ocean systems . . Gel is like the dark matter of the sea. While sea gel does not impede the snorkeler, . it does herd microbes into clumps or microniches . which we cannot see either. These microbes. in effect, exist in a tangled. 3-D mesh that affects not only their movements but also those of their prey and predators. A few statistics confirm the amazing complexity of the seawater microcosm and its incredibly high microbe population density. The long strands in the oceanic gel are mostly crosslinked polysaccharides. If the polysaccharides in 1 milliliter of seawater could be placed end-to-end, they would stretch out ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Plate Tectonics Subducted?In the Fall 2000 number of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, D. Pratt fired a thunderous broadside at that revered paradigm of geophysics: plate tectonics, nee continental drift. This 47-page study, which includes 10 pages of references, is best summarized by quoting from the author's own conclusions. Plate tectonics -- the reigning paradigm in the earth sciences -- faces some very severe and apparently fatal problems. Far from being a simple, elegant, all-embracing global theory, it is confronted with a multitude of observational anomalies and has had to be patched up with a complex variety of ad hoc modifications and auxiliary hypotheses. The existence of deep continental roots and the absence of a continuous, global asthenosphere to "lubricate" plate motions has rendered the classical model of plate movements untenable. There is no consensus on the thickness of the "plates" and no certainty as to the forces responsible for their supposed movement. The hypotheses of large-scale continental movements, seafloor spreading, and subduction , as well as the relative youth of the oceanic crust are contradicted by a substantial volume of data. Evidence for significant amounts of submerged continental crust in the present-day oceans provides another major challenge to plate tectonics. (Pratt, David ; "Plate Tectonics: A Paradigm under Threat ," Journal of Scientific Exploration," 14:307, 2000.) Definition. Asthenosphere = ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Numberless Black Discs Somehow, the following observation was omitted from our catalogs on anomalous atmospheric phenomena -- perhaps because it was hard to classify! What do you think: UFOs or windblown debris? November 4, 1867. Chatham, England . On the afternoon of Monday the 4th, between the hours of three and four, I witnessed a very extraordinary sight in the heavens. I have not heard of any one hereabout having seen it. The facts are as follow: -- At the time above mentioned I was passing by the Mill by the Water-works Reservoir. On the gallery I noticed the miller uttering exclamations of surprise, and looking earnestly towards the west. On inquiring what took his attention so much, he said, "Look, sir, I never saw such a sight in my life!" On turning in the direction towards which he was looking, the west, I also was astounded -- numberless black discs in groups and scattered were passing rapidly through the air. He said his attention was directed to them by his little girl, who called to him in the Mill, saying, "Look, father, here are a lot of balloons coming!" They continued for more than twenty minutes, the time I stayed. In passing in front of the sun they appeared like large cannon shot. Several groups passed over my head, disappearing suddenly, and leaving puffs of greyish brown ...

... This massive object (probably mostly ice) takes 3175 years to circle the sun. 2000 CR105 is real; it has been photographed; it is not Mirror Matter; no one blames any terrestrial extinctions on it. Nevertheless, we can and must wonder how its orbit became so badly distorted. Often in past years, whenever astronomers detected cometary orbits gone awry, they invoked Planet X; that is, some undiscovered massive body plying the outer reaches of the solar system. Indeed, there have been several intense and unsuccessful searches for Planet X over the years. (See Chapter AX in The Sun and Solar System Debris.) History seems to be repeating itself with 2000 CR105. Astronomer B. Gladman proposes that 2000 CR105 was forced into its present eccentric orbit by an encounter with a Mars-size Planet X that now orbits the sun at a distance about 15 times that of Neptune. From the standpoint of celestial mechanics, this perturbation of 2000 CR105's orbit is certainly within the realm of possibility. But two associated problems worry astronomers: (1 ) The accepted theory for the formation of the solar system does not countenance the formation of planets the size of Mars so far away from the sun; and (2 ) If this newly postulated Planet X truly exists, why has it not ejected more 2000 CR105s from the well-populated Kuiper Belt over the billions of years Planet X has been perturbing the Belt ? (Schilling, Govert; "Comet's Course Hints at Mystery Planet," Science, 292: 33, 2001.) From Science Frontiers ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Consciousness Gene We humans assume that our consciousness is something more than just the sum total of all our senses, as integrated by our brains. In other words, consciousness is something "special" that makes us more than automatons. Other animals may be automatons, but not us! D. Jones speculates in Nature that if consciousness is a definite, inheritable characteristic, it must have had survival value for it to have evolved. It then follows that consciousness must be en-coded somewhere in our genes. Only a single gene may be enough, for consciousness seems to be an uncomplicated phenomenon. Why? Because just a few simple molecules, such as those found in anesthetics, can disable it completely without affecting other bodily functions. Eventually, Jones continues, the gene (or small number of genes) responsible for consciousness will be identified. Then, we can determine for certain if any of the lower animals are also conscious. We think chimps and dolphins might be, but we're not really sure until we see if they have the necessary genes. In fact, the old-time behaviorists could be right, and all the other animals really are merely automatons. That would definitely make us "special"! Once we have the consciousness genes in our labs, we can introduce them into those other species, such as Rover and Kitty, upon whom we would like to confer the boon of consciousness ...

... bacteria, the objects seemed much too small to be viable. Some experts suggested they were just abiotic crystal-line growths. K.L . Thomas-Keprta, who led the NASA team studying ALH84001, snorted that her group was not so stupid that it would mistake crystals for fossils. ( SF#116 ) Thomas-Keprta et al have now come forward with more evidence that ALH-84001 does indeed contain biogenic material. Those worm-like forms have iron-rich rims containing fine-grained crystals of magnetite, some of which possess a unique morphology and which are essentially identical to the magnetite crystals secreted by magnetotactic bacteria on earth. Their conclusion: In ALH84001, the presence of these elongated prismatic magnetite crystals embedded within the carbonate glo- bules, which clearly formed on Mars, represents strong evidence for life on early Mars. (Thomas-Keprta, Kathie L., et al; "Biogenic Magnetite within Martian Meteorite ALH84001," Eos, 80:F69, 1999.) From Science Frontiers #130, JUL-AUG 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 131: SEP-OCT 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Planetary Conjunctions that Changed the World On May 17, 2000, five solar-system planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) plus the moon slowly wheeled into a tight 19 arc. It was a notable heavenly conjunction. All manner of natural catastrophes were predicted but failed to materialize. It has been this way down recorded history. Universal deluges were anticipated during similar conjunctions on September 14, 1186, and February 19, 1524, but the weather refused to cooperate with the planets. Humanity survived nicely. This does not mean that historical upheavals are never correlated with planetary conjunctions. If a society believes strongly enough in the power of the stars and planets to shape human destiny, events may be correlated with the heavens. Such was the case in ancient China. In China, the "Mandate of Heaven" concept has been used since ancient times as both a framework for history and a guide to future actions. The basic idea is that Heaven awards ruling power to a sage-king because of his virtue. His descendants remain as Earthly deputies until they become corrupted, whereupon outraged Heaven gives signs in the sky that the Mandate has passed on to a different sage-king to continue the cycle. Three transfers of the Heavenly Man-date marked the beginnings of the Hsu, Shang, and Chou Dynasties. In fact, the tightest grouping of the five visible planets in the period from 3, ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Leaky Seas Just as we have been assured that the Greenhouse Effect is melting the ice caps and that rising ocean levels will force us to abandon our coastal cities, we read the following: Within a billion years, our planet could be as dry and barren as Mars, claim geologists in Tokyo. They have calculated that the oceans are leaking water into the Earth's mantle five times as fast as it is being replenished. It is true that ocean water is being drained away at subduction zones where oceanic crustal plates dive under the continental plates; there's a 10,000-mile unsealed crack there. S. Maruyama and colleagues at the Tokyo Institute of Technology estimate that 1.12 billion metric tons of water leak through that crack in the earth's integument every year. Geologists have always assumed that most of this leakage was returned to the oceans through deep-sea vents and volcanic action, but Maruyama calculates that only 0.23 billion metric tons are recovered. The balance is probably absorbed by lawsonite and other minerals forming 100 kilometers below the surface. (Hadfield, Peter; "Leaky Seas," New Scientist, p. 4, September 11, 1999.) Comment. Does this mean we should cease our attempts to stem global warming? From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient ...

... . The group moved south-southeasterly, the individual rectangles became foreshortened, their space of formation smaller, (at first about one degree across) and their intensity duller, fading from view at about 35 degrees above the horizon. Total time of visibility was about three seconds. I was too flabbergasted to count the number of rectangles of light, or to note some other features I wondered about later. There was no sound. I have done thousands of hours of night sky watching, but never saw a sight as strange as this. The rectangles of light were of low luminosity; had there been a full moon in the sky, I am sure they would not have been visible. (Signed August 7, 1957) (Swords, Michael D.; "Clyde Tombaugh, Mars, and UFOs," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 13:685, 1999.) From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did barnard & mellish really see craters on mars?The answers are "No" and "Probably," respectively. Well, so what? Everyone knows from spacecraft photos that Mars is definitely peppered with craters; and who are Barnard and Mellish anyway? E.E . Barnard was one of the great American telescopic observers. J.E . Mellish was an amateur astronomer and a protege of Barnard. Both men may have seen Martian craters; Barnard at Lick Observatory in the early 1890s, and Mellish at Yerkes in 1915. These early dates are what make this story interesting, because prior to the Mariner-4 flyby of Mars in 1965, anyone claiming to have seen craters on Mars would have been labeled a crackpot. Just a mere three decades ago, planetary catastrophism was a ridiculous notion. Barnard never dared publish his drawings of Martian craters for fear of ruining his reputation. Mellish was not so reticent. He wrote and lectured widely on his anomalous observations. No one believed him because his observaconflicted with reigning paradigms. Once the paradigm shifted and craters on other planets were legitimized, astronomers looked back and wondered if Barnard and Mellish really did see craters. After all, nobody else had, although several reknowned astronomers had drawn networks of canals they had definitely seen. Some of Barnard's early sketches of Mars surfaced in 1987. They show known volcanos and the huge canyon complex called Valles Marineris, but ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects It's "smothers" not "pods"An Alaskan biologist writes that those large congregations of king crabs found in northern waters (SF#102) are properly called "smothers." The term "pod" refers to family groups, such as those groups of orcas patrolling the British Columbia coast. (Home, Scott; personal communication, January 26, 1996) From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When The Chips Are Down M.A . Persinger, an indefatigable investigator of terrestrial correlations, has identified another: "The hypothesis that sudden commencements of global geomagnetic activity (' sudden impulses') could induce anomalous changes in onboard computers and facilitate commercial aircrashes was investigated. During the years 1988 and 1989 the mean daily occurrence of a commercial disaster somewhere in the world increased from 0.06 to 0.12 within 24 hr. of a sudden commencement. When numbers of sudden commencements per month were correlated with eight major categories of catastrophes (including air disasters) only aircrashes, primarily occurring during maximum computer-dependent flight conditions, were significantly correlated (. 54) with numbers of sudden commencements but not with the average monthly geomagnetic (aa) activity." (Persinger, M.A .; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: LXVI. Geomagnetic Storm Sudden Commencements and Commercial Aircrashes" Perceptual and Motor Skills , 72:476, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Thousands Of Grebes Fall From The Skies December 10, 1991. Minersville, Utah. About 9:30 PM, the skies of Minersville were filled with the cries of birds. According to V. Hollingshead "They were just falling out of the sky, hitting the church, cars, the ball parks. Hundreds of them fell all over the streets. You could hear them hitting each other in the air, and hitting the ground." Minersville Elementary School Secretary S. Taylor reported that the birds landed everywhere, including the roofs of houses; they even broke some automobile windshields. Hundreds were killed, but many survived their fall and were taken to bodies of water where they could rest and take off. (Grebes cannot take off from land.) The birds were identified as eared grebes, which were migrating from Great Salt Lake to Baja California. It was theorized that a snowstorm and fog had exhausted and disoriented them. (Christensen, Kathleen; "Thousands of Grebes Fall from the Skies," Spectrum , December 12, 1991. Cr. D.H . Palmer.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...