... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chain of crevicular habitats?Towards the end of an article on the eerie blue holes of the Bahamas appears this intriguing paragraph: "William Hart, of the Smithsonian Institution, and Tom Iliffe, of the Bermuda Biological Station, believe that blue holes are one link in a chain of crevicular habitats -- caves, fissures, rocks of the sea floor -- that stretches from one side of the ocean to the other, from the Americas, across the sea floor and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, to Africa and the Mediterranean. Related Amphipods are not only found in Bahamian caves but in marine caves in Bermuda, the Pacific, and the Yucatan Peninsula." (Palmer, Robert; "In the Lair of the Lusca," Natural History, 96:42, January 1987.) Comment. With this, the vision arises of an earth-girdling, biologically and geologically connected stratum of life that we know next to nothing about. How porous is the earth's crust, and how far down in these pores and interstices does life survive? From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lunar Magnetic Mollusc From the abstract of a paper in Science: "Behavioral experiments indicated that the marine opisthobranch mollusk Tritonia diomedea can derive directional cues from the magnetic field of the earth. The magnetic direction toward which nudibrachs spontaneously oriented in the geomagnetic field showed recurring patterns of variation correlated with lunar phase, suggesting that the behavioral response to magnetism is modulated by circa-lunar rhythm." The magnetic and lunar-phase detectors of this mollusc are not known. In fact, the authors remark in their introductory paragraph that, even in organisms possessing ferromagnetic materials in their systems, there exists no "direct neurophysiological evidence implicating ferromagntic particles in the the detection of magnetic fields." (Lohmann, Kenneth J., and Willows, A.O . Dennis; "LunarModulated Geomagnetic Orientation by a Marine Mollusk," Science, 235:331, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Too many short-period comets Some comets, such as Halley's , have periods of less than 200 years. Scientists have postulated that these comets, which orbit relatively close to the sun, originally came from the far-distant Oort Cloud on parabolic (non-returning) orbits around the sun. Perturbations by the planets, notably Jupiter, deflected them into the tighter orbits we see today. The problem is that the number of parabolic comets entering the inner solar system from the Oort Cloud of comets (located at the outermost fringes of the solar system) is 100 times too small to account for the existing population of short-period comets. M.E . Bailey believes this discrepancy can be removed if the Oort Cloud possesses a massive inner core of comets. (Bailey, M.E .; "The Near-Parabolic Flux and the Origin of Short-Period Comets," Nature, 324:350, 1986.) Reference. The Oort Cloud of comets is an entrenched part of astronomical dogma. For observations challenging its existence, see our catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. A description of this book may be found here . From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Connecticut "boat" cairn An unusual, large stone cairn is located atop Rattlesnake Hill in Connecticut's Natchang State Forest. At an elevation of 640 feet, it commands an almost 360 view. Its long axis is aligned with the Pole Star. The cairn seems to have been constructed according to some plan rather than just being a deposit of cleared stones. One's first impression is that it resembles a boat. Could it be a Norse "ship burial" such as found in Europe? It is impossible to prove such a conjecture without tearing the cairn apart. (Whittall, James P., II; "The 'Boat" Cairn, Chaplin, Connecticut," Early Sites Research Society Bulletin, 12:39, December 1986.) A side view ofthe Connecticut "boat" cairn. From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects GREEN CLOUD WITH LIGHT RAYS "An account of a mysterious 'green cloud' sending out powerful shafts of light and flying in tandem with an airliner appeared in a Soviet newspaper today. The strange cloud was seen over Byelorussia by passengers and crew of a flight from Georgia to Tallinn, and by the crew of an airliner from Leningrad, passing 10 miles away according to Trud. Nikolai Zheltukhin, a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, said the object was certainly very big. He rejected the idea that the green cloud was an image caused by far-off atmospheric changes because the airman had fixed its location from the shafts of light it sent to the ground." (Anonymous; "Mysterious 'Green Cloud' Appears near Airliner," Baltimore Sun, January 31, 1985, p. 4A.) From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Star Sludge All of a sudden it seem that astronomers are finding dark -- even "charcoal-black" -- materials in unlikely places in the solar system. Three "sludgy" sites have been high-lighted in the recent literature. (1 ) Comets. "Black" comets certainly defy our expectations. Are all those pictures of white, flaming apparitions wrong? Not really. The comets approaching the sun are made visible by sunlight reflected from the gases and dust in the coma and tail, plus some direct emission. However, the heart of the comet, its nucleus, has long been considered a "dirty snowball"; that is, a mixture of dirt and ices. Now it appears that comets are more like "icy dirtballs"! And some of that dirt is pitch black. New measurments of the bare nuclei of comets, using a visual-infrared technique, find that the nuclei reflect as little as 2% of the incident sunlight. They are indeed charcoal black. Comet nuclei, according to W. Hartmann and his colleagues, are colored by a brownishblack primordial organic sludge, and have the appearance of "a very dark Hershey bar." The use of the adjective "organic" may be premature, but in light of the next item, maybe not. (2 ) Carbonaceous chondrites . This well-known class of meteorites sometimes appears tarry and is characterized by carbon contents ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Subtle Placebo A most interesting series of placebo experiments have been carried out by J.D . Levine and N.C . Gordon, of the University of California at San Francisco. The subjects were all dental patients who were tested when their surgical anesthesia was wearing off. The substances administered were: (1 ) a placebo; (2 ) morphine; and (3 ) naloxone, a substance that blocks the opiates produced in the brain. The doses were administered: (1 ) openly, when the experimenter knew which substance was being given; (2 ) by a person hidden from both experimenter and patient; and (3 ) by a machine. Two findings are particularly revealing. First, pain always increased after naloxone was administered, implying that the opiates blocked by naloxone are probably the same as those released by placebos. More significant, however, was the fact that both the open and hidden administrations of the placebo reduced pain while the machine-applied placebo resulted in more pain. In other words, when either the experimenter or the hidden administrator knew that the placebo was being given, the placebo worked. Levine and Gordon supposed that there must have been subtle clues, detected subconsciously by the patients, that the hidden person was administering the placebo. (Anonymous; "The Subtle Strength of Placebos," Science News, 127:25, 1985.) Comment. If no subtle clues existed, ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The sounds that shouldn't have been November 1984. Several Texas localities. The spectacular reentry of the Space Shuttle Discovery was observed by many Texans in the pre-dawn skies. Among these were Ben and Jeannette Killingsworth. As they observed the Space Shuttle streak across the sky, "they both heartd an unmistakable 'swishing noise' as it passed south of their rural Galveston County home. The sonic boom came several minutes later -- but the swishing sound occurred simultaneously with the visual apparition....Ben graphically described the sounds as 'like a skier coming down a slope,' but with a rapid fluctuation in loudness, 'about two or three hertz.' Jeannette compared the faint sound to the noise made by a fast boat as it slaps across waves on a choppy lake. 'But there was no motor noise,' she added, 'just a sound like repeated puffs of air through your mouth.'" Oberg points out that the mysterious Space Shuttle sounds are basically the same as the anomalous swishes and whizzes attributed by some to meteors. So far, few scientists have accepted meteor sounds as real, preferring to label them "psychological." But now that the Space Shuttles are known to generate similar anomalous sounds, perhaps scientists will install instruments along their well-known reentry paths and find out what is really happening. (Oberg, Jim; "Shuttle 'Sounds' May Provide ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unidentified Flashing Object May 6, 1984. Equatorial Eastern Atlantic. "Whilst the vessel was approaching the equator, on a course of 023 and at a speed of 10.3 knots, flashing white lights were observed. The sea was rippled, with a low NW'ly swell and the wind light airs. The visibility was good, with the moon in its first quarter. At first it was thought that there were three lights, one being bright and the other two relatively dim, but as the vessel approached it it was decided that there were only two, one bright and one dim. "The radar, a 10-cm S-band Decca, was switched on and a single echo was detected initially at a range of 5 n. mile. By this time the lights had already been observed for halfan-hour, so it was estimated that they had first been observed when they were 10 n. mile distant. The time of the first sighting was 2220 GMT. The target, once detected, gave a very strong echo and gave the impression of being a large target. It was plotted and found to be stationary. The initial course of 023 was altered to 028 in order to enable the vessel to close the passing distance. "Throughout the observations neither light followed any set characteristic. Instead they just flashed at random, but never together. The intensity of the bright light would have ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Feathered Flights Of Fancy Some more salvos have been fired in an endlessly fascinating controversy (at least it is that to us). First, F. Hoyle and C. Wickramasinghe, hardly strangers to these columns, have published Archaeopteryx, The Primordial Bird: A Case of Fossil Forgery. The book elaborates their theory that the Archaeopteryx fossils, much ballyhooed as "proofs" of evolution, are outright forgeries. Second, T. Kemp, a zoologist on the staff of the University Museum, has returned the fire with a mean-minded review. He states that Hoyle and Wickramasinghe "exhibit a staggering ignorance about the nature of fossils and fossilization processes." Kemp concludes his review with an admission that the possibility of forgery should indeed be investigated. "But it should be done by those who actually understand fossils, fossilization and fossil preparation, not by a couple of people who exhibit nothing more than a gargantuan conceit that they are clever enough to solve other people's problems for them when they do not even begin to recognize the nature and complexity of the problems." (Kemp, Tom; "Feather Flights of Fancy," Nature, 324:185, 1986.) Finally, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe reply in a letter to Nature that L.M . Spetner and his colleagues in Israel have analyzed samples of the Archaeopteryx fossil with a scanning electron microscope and X-ray spectroscopy. Results: the rock ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Northwest indian tradition of a large-scale sea inundation Science, quite wisely, places little value on legend and tradition. The authors of this article stess the pitfalls of using data handed down verbally from generation to generation. With these caveats, they reproduce an Indian tradition originally set down by Judge James Swan back in 1888: "' A long time ago,' said my informant, 'but not at a very remote period, the water of the Pacific flowed through what is now the swamp and prairie between Waatch village and Neeah Bay, making an island of Cape Flattery. The water suddenly receded leaving Neeah Bay perfectly dry. It was four days reaching the lowest ebb, and then rose again without any waves or breakers, till it had submerged the Cape, and in fact the whole country, excepting the tops of the mountains at Clyoquot. The water on its rise became very warm, and as it came up to the houses, those who had canoes put their effects into them, and floated off with the current, which set very strongly to the north.'" The authors of the present article wonder if the above could be an account of a massive tsunami! They admit that the 4-day recession is inconsistent with tsunami action and that the warm water is hard-to-explain. The height reached by the inundation -- some 400 meters -- is also incredible. (Heaton ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Checking Out Those Australian Pyramids Several Australian readers have been kind enough to send this item about the Australian pyramids reported in SF#41, especially the one at Gympie, Queensland. The article's author, T. Wheeler, personally checked out the Gympie pyramid, the other supposedly ancient artifacts found in the area, and the testimonies of authorities and old-timers in the Gympie area. His results: "What are we left with? The facts are (probably) that the Gympie 'Golden' pyramid is actually an ordinary hill terraced by early Italian immigrants for viniculture that has been disfigured by erosion and the removal of stone from the retaining walls for use elsewhere; the stone wall around Gympie's Surface Hill Uniting Church is exactly what the Rev Mr Geddes says it is -- a wall made from irregular, freshly quarried stone. The 'Gympie Ape/Iron Man' statue was carved by a Chinese gold prospector and later abandoned. The sun symbol and snakes were carved quite recently. The prickly pear was introduced to Australia by early settlers journeying via South America. As for all the supporting statements by the various authorities, all but a few unimportant ones fade away as one after another proves to be a misquote, a falsification or an outright fabrication." (Wheeler, Tony; "In Quest of Australia's Lost Pyramids," Omega Science Digest, p. 22, November/December ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How The Incas Worked Stone Inca stonework is famous for its large stones (some over 100 tons), which are fitted so precisely that "a knife cannot be inserted into the joints." An aura of mystery has always hung about the great "walls" at Saqsaywaman and Ollantaytambo (spellings vary). How could the Incas have quarried, dressed, transported, and lifted such huge stones? As usual with such remarkable ancient structures, the overzealous have proposed antigravity devices, stone-softening agents, and similar wild notions. In truth, as J. Protzen relates in the subject article, Inca stonemasonry was surprisingly unsophisticated and yet efficient, although some mysteries remain. Protzen has spent many months in Inca country experimenting with different methods of shaping and fitting the same kinds of stones used by the Incas. He found that quarrying and dressing the stones were not problems at all using the stone hammers found in abundance in the area. Even the precision-fitting of stones was a relatively simple matter. The concave depressions into which new stones were fit were pounded out by trial and error until a snug fit was achieved. Protzen's first-hand experience is impressive and convincing. Certainly he required no radical solutions. The problems that Protzen was not able to solve to his satisfaction involved the transportation and handling of the large stones. The fitting process necessitated the repeated lowering and raising of the stone being fitted, with ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The fossil record and the quantization of life!A recent article on the possible quantization of galaxies was placed immediately before an interview with S. Stanley, one of the proponents of punctuated evolution. Either fate or the mysterious forces of seriality seemed to be saying that it is now time to broach the subject of the quantization of life itself. The reader can blame Stanley only for the stimulus and his discussions of speciation and the discontinuous (quantized?) fossil record. (Campbell, Neil A.; "Resetting the Evolutionary Timetable," BioScience, 36:722, 1986.) Comments. When we suggest quantization in biology, two phenomena come to the fore: 1. The obvious splitting of life into well-defined states -- the species -- as defined morphologically and/or by the genetic code; and 2. The gaps in the fossil record, which imply a frequent lack of transitional forms from one species to another. As Stanley asserts repeatedly in his interview, the fossil record is actually quite good in many places, despite the long-voiced claims of the gradualists that transitional forms do not exist merely because of the deplorable state of the fossil record. In physics the analogous phenomena would be: (1 ) The chemical elements and their isotopes (or an atom's energy levels); and (2 ) The lack of transitional forms. Straining the analogy still further, the evolution ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Expanding Phosphorescent Rings May 9, 1983. Gulf of Oman. Aboard the m.v . Mahsuri. "At 1650 GMT, a pale green glow was seen to emanate from the horizon ahead. This gave the appearance of strong moonlight upon the surface of the water. The moon, however, was not in evidence. At 1700 GMT, rapid flashes of light were observed sweeping across the sea directly ahead of the vessel, giving the initial impression of a sudden increase of wind speed causing excessive spray. By 1715 GMT, the vessel was totally surrounded by completely random movements of light as far as the eye could see. The onset of this phenomenon was so rapid, not to say eerie, that the Master was called to the bridge to witness the event. For the next 15 minutes the sea was at a height of activity, displaying several systems of the most unusual bioluminescence. The most significant of these were what appeared to be Phosphorescent Wheels, which, although they did not seem to rotate, originated from a central hub and spread out rings in rapid succession, forming concentric circles. This was pointed out by many of those who observed them as being similar to the instance of a stone being dropped into a quiet pond and causing waves to spread out. In this case each wave crest was a band of fantastic light. Each wheel would last for a couple of minutes, continually flashing out bands of ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Squirrels As Measures Of Geological Time Over a century ago, when the truth of biological evolution via natural selection was hotly debated, the proponents of Darwinism were delighted when the geologists presented them with almost endless periods of time in which evolution could progress in small steps from species to species. Now, in a strange turn-about, a creationist writer is using evolutionary theory to infer a very short history for the formation where geologists want a good deal of time. We quote from the conclusion of J.R . Meyer: "If any group of animals were ever going to undergo significant degrees of evolution from parent stock and obtain resultant speciation, surely the Kaibab squirrel would be one of the more likely candidates. Supposedly isolated from their neighbors for hundreds of thousands of generations over a period of at least several million years, and significantly violating virtually every restriction of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for the non-evolving population, these organisms, even by creationist standards, should have undergone significant and detectable changes. In reality all they show are moderate changes, primarily in two coat color characteristics for part of their population. To make things even worse, this species is known to have a highly variable coat-color polymorphism throughout its range. Thus, even the differences displayed appear to be easily accounted for by several mutations and a slight change in gene frequency for one or two loci, all occurring in a limited period of ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Signals In The Night Consider the figure below and the four sets of signals (plain blips) and responses (blips with circles over them). Are these from the radar screen of a fighter closing in on an enemy aircraft? Or perhaps the electrical signals generated by the fish mentioned in SF#43? Of course the answer is: None of the above. We have a different story to tell. These blips, representing queries and responses, are not generated by human-built radars or by electrical fish, but rather by animals much 'lower' on the evolutionary ladder -- fireflies. This illustration is Fig. 3 in a lengthy review article and carries the following unilluminating caption: "Examples of Entrainment of femme C's (see Table 3) Responses to Multiple Counterfeit Flashes." It seems that we have some sort of electronic warfare between the femme (predatory female fireflies that lure other fireflies with false signals) and the preyed-upon species. The many pages describe all sorts of feints, verification signals, and other stratagems. (Carlson, Albert D., and Copeland, Jonathan; "Communication in Insects," Quarterly Review of Biology, 60:415, 1985.) Comment. It is impossible to do justice to this paper in this short review, but two things should be mentioned: (1 ) Fireflies may be considered "low" on the evolutionary ladder, but ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Space Spume The celestial pot seems to have boiled over "in the beginning." New surveys of the galaxies suggest that they are mostly located on the surfaces of bubbles, not as we thought for so long distributed uniformly throughout the cosmos, the expanding debris of the Big Bang. If further surveys confirm a bubbly universe, the "conventional explanations for the evolution of large-scale structure in which gravity played a dominant role may have to be modified or abandoned." To explain the bubbles, a new scenario has Big Bang #1 creating a population of uniformly distributed, extremely massive stars, which eventually burned out and exploded in a crescendo of supernovas. One stellar detonation stimulating adjacent giant stars to explode in a chain reaction. The bubble-like shock waves expanding outward from these explosions stimulated the condensations of the stars we now see in the heavens. Naturally, these stars and galaxies are concentrated on the surfaces of the shock wave bubbles. (Anonymous; "New 3-D Map Shows the Cosmos with a 'Bubble Bath' Appearance," Baltimore Sun, January 5, 1986.) Comment. The space bubbles are mapped using redshifts as measurements of distance. As all-too-frequently asserted in this book, some redshifts may not be distance yardsticks, in which case these theoretical bubbles would burst. As the structures of the cosmos and the subatomic worlds become more and more foreign to everyday experience ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why are antarctic meteorites different?Here's the problem: "Differences exist between Antarctic and non-Antarctic meteorites, and the significance of this is only now beginning to be recognized. Dennison et al point out that relative to non-Antarctic falls, the Antarctic population is underabundant in iron and stony iron meteorites, among others." Trace-element studies: ". .. demonstrate a statistical unlikelihood that both sample populations derive from the same parent population." One reason for the differences is that the Antarctic ice has been accumulating meteorites for many thousands of years longer than modern man has been picking up non-Antarctic meteorites. (Lipschutz, Michael E., and Cassidy, William A.; "Antarctic Meteorites: A Progress Report," Eos, 67:1339, 1986.) Comment. If Antarctic meteorites differ because they impacted the earth over a longer span of time, it must be that the meteor population in the vicinity of the earth has been changing. Why? From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Antarctic Meteorites Are Different The thousands of meteorites rescued from the Antarctic ice are markedly different from those collected elsewhere on our planet. First, the Antarctic collections contain rare types that seem to have come from the moon and perhaps Mars. Second, the trace elements in the Antarctic specimens differ substantially from those found elsewhere. Age is a third distinguishing parameter. The Antarctic specimens seem to have been residing on and in the ice for some 300,000 years. Almost all meteorites collected elsewhere are less than 200 years old, having been picked up soon after they fell. The implication is that those extraterrestrial projectiles that have accumulated in Antarctica had a different source. (Dennison, Jane E., et al; "Antarctic and non-Antarctic Meteorites Form Different Populations," Nature, 319:391, 1986.) Comment. A dedicated catastrophist would ask what extraterrestrial event occurred 300,000 years ago? Did it involve the moon? Was terrestrial life, including humans, affected? From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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 A NEW FACE ON MARS?The face on Mars does not seem to go away! Could it, after all, really be artificial? M. Carlotto, writing in Applied Optics, presents the results of his analysis of the photos of this engimatic "face." "The image enhancement results indicate that a second eye socket may be present on the right, shadowed side of the face; fine structure in the mouth suggests teeth are apparent." "Teeth?" This Martian face is becoming too human-like to be an accident of nature! Carlotto also tersely summarizes his impression of the face's features. ". .. results to date suggest that they may not be natural." (Hecht, Jeff; "Computer Does a Double-Take on the Face of Mars," New Scientist, p. 39, July 7, 1988. Also see: Applied Optics, 27:1926, 1988.) In a more light-hearted manner, P. Jones asserts that a second Martian face exists, and that somehow scientists have managed to keep it under wraps. A photo of the second face appears in the August 25, 1988, issue of New Scientist. Jones remarks on the second face as follows: "If faces are what you are looking for, it's reasonably convincing, perhaps more convincing than its better-known sibling. It has symmetry, two eyes ...

... 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 The Scientific Basis Of Astrology At a recent meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, S. Ertel, a German scientist, reported on his inquiry into the so-called "Mars Effect," discovered by Michel Gauquelin. Here are two excerpts from his Summary : "Since 1955 Gauquelin claims to have discovered planetary effects on human births: After rise of a planet and after its crossing of the meridian, birth frequencies of eminent men may either increase beyond or decrease below chance level. .. .. . "In order to find out how clean Gauquelin's database is, the author travelled to Gauquelin's Paris laboratory and checked the files, including data which had been separated from publication, especially athletes' data. Using all obtainable data, Gauquelin's strongest hypothesis was tested, that planetary effects are more pronounced the greater the person's professional success. This claim was objectified with the help of citation frequencies, a sensitive procedure Gauquelin himself had not yet used. The total of 2089 athletes was subjected to this procedure. The results clearly supported Gauquelin's eminence claim." (Ertel, Suitbert; "An Assessment of the Mars Effect," The Explorer, 4:8 , October 1987.) Comment. Is all this simply astrology with scientific trappings? It certainly sounds likt it is! Debunking groups, such as CSICOP, have spent considerable effort trying to disprove the Mars Effect ...

... 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 Why didn't galileo resolve saturn's rings?Several times in SF and our catalogs, we have intimated that Saturn's rings may be of recent vintage or perhaps have changed in historical times. In this vein, K. Fabian writes about an interesting inconsistency: "In the early 17th Century, Galileo discovered that the planet Mars goes through a minor gibbous phase. Even in its maximum gibbous phase, Mars is 88% illuminated. Quoting James Muirden in the Amateur Astronomer's Handbook, 'It is remarkable that Galileo was able to make out the phase with his tiny telescope.' "Even more amazing, in my opinion, is that Galileo, while he was able to resolve the slight phase of Mars, was unable to resolve the major ring around Saturn. Mars is a difficult object in a small telescope, while Saturn is easily resolved as a ringed planet in even a 40-mm spotting scope at 30X. Why did the rings of Saturn elude Galileo, while the more difficult Martian phases did not? Perhaps at the time of Galileo the rings of Saturn were much more difficult to observe than they are today." (Fabian, Karl; personal communication, September 9, 1988.) Reference. For more on the many anomalies of Saturn's rings, see ALR in the catalog: The Moon and the Pla nets. Description here . From Science Frontiers #60, ...

... 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 Reincarnation of ramanujan?In India, Shakuntala Devi is considered to be the reincarnation of Srinivasa Ramanujan, about whom we heard in the above item. We will not comment on the reincarnation bit, but it does seem that S. Devi's remarkable capabilities are somewhat different from those of Ramanujan. The latter intuitively saw mathematical relationships as expressed in equations and identities; Devi is a mental calculator of no mean talent. In 1977, Ms. Devi beat a UNIVAC 1108 computer to the 23rd root of a 201-digit number. The machine, which required two hours to program for the task, took more than a minto solve the problem. She took 50 seconds. "And, in 1981, she made the Guinness Book of World Records as the 'Human Computer' by correctly multiplying two 13-digit numbers -- 7,686,369,774,870 times 2,465,099,745,779 -- in 28 seconds. The awesome answer? 18,947,668,177, 995,426,462,773,730." S. Devi is also a calendar calculator, being able to name the day of the week for any date in the past or future, taking into account leap years and calendar changes. She never attended school or had any formal mathematical training! (Young, Luther; "Numbers Whiz Takes Delight in Beating Computers;" Baltimore Sun ...

... 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 Martian canals: is lowell vindicated?Whenever we get the opportunity, we try to clear Percival Lowell's name. Lowell may have gone too far in claiming that the canals of Mars were the labors of intelligent beings, but he definitely saw "something." Earthbound observers still see and photograph Martian canals, despite the acknowledged fact that Martian orbiters and landers saw nothing resembling canals. R. Gordon now relates how on June 6, 1967, he and a friend, W.H . McHugh, were viewing Mars through an 8-inch f/9 reflecting telescope. The thick haze reduced atmospheric transparency, but the seeing was excellent. The infamous canals were there! "Two canals stretched clearly from Sabaeus Sinus and Meridiani Sinus to the northern deserts, where they faded. A most interesting canal was Deuteronilus-Protonilus -- originating in Niliacus Lacus which ran both east and west until I lost sight of it near the limb -- we counted at least six oases on this one, strung out like beads on a string." (Gordon, Rodger; "Martian Canals: Is Lowell Vindicated?" Sky and Telescope, 75:348, 1988.) Comment. Yes, some of the canals that Lowell and others drew are still there -- not physically perhaps -- but possibly as anomalies of perception and/or camera/telescope aberrations. Reference. The Martian "canal" story is ...