Science Frontiers
The Unusual & Unexplained

Strange Science * Bizarre Biophysics * Anomalous astronomy
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About Science Frontiers

Science Frontiers is the bimonthly newsletter providing digests of reports that describe scientific anomalies; that is, those observations and facts that challenge prevailing scientific paradigms. Over 2000 Science Frontiers digests have been published since 1976.

These 2,000+ digests represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Sourcebook Project, which publishes Science Frontiers, also publishes the Catalog of Anomalies, which delves far more deeply into anomalistics and now extends to sixteen volumes, and covers dozens of disciplines.

Over 14,000 volumes of science journals, including all issues of Nature and Science have been examined for reports on anomalies. In this context, the newsletter Science Frontiers is the appetizer and the Catalog of Anomalies is the main course.


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Compilations of back issues can be found in Science Frontiers: The Book, and original and more detailed reports in the The Sourcebook Project series of books.


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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lightning In The Family What follows is hardly a scientific report, but we have no reason to doubt its accuracy. On last Saint Patrick's Day. G. Patterson, of Phoenix, Maryland, north of Baltimore, was in bed sick during a hard rainstorm, when the bulb in her bedside lamp exploded. Lightning had struck her house. She got out of bed and rushed over to her daughter's house nearby to find a red ball of fire on the house's baseboard outlet. Her daughter's house had also been struck by lightning! Worse yet, the TV and VCR had been destroyed. Later on the same day, Patterson's daughter in Bel Air, northeast of Baltimore, called to say that the chimney of her house had been struck by lightning, scattering fireplace bricks all over the floor! (Simon, Roger; "After Lightning Strikes a Family Thrice, Call Priest," Baltimore Sun, April 9, 1997.) Reference. Lightning's "pranks" are cataloged in GLL11 in the catalog: Lightning, Auroras. Information on this book can be found here . From Science Frontiers #69, MAY-JUN 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Researches In Reincarnation I. Stevenson, at the University of Virginia, has long studied claims of reincarnation. The method employed (and there are precious few alternatives) focuses on children who claim to have lived before and can provide verifiable details about their past lives. If the details check out, one can at least claim that reincarnation is a possible interpretation of the data. Usually, however, before a researcher can get to the scene of the phenomenon, the parents of the deceased have been found and the way has been left open for much exaggeration. In his present contribution, Stevenson reports three cases in Sri Lanka where the recollections of the supposedly reincarnated children have been written down in detail and the family of the deceased has not been located. Here is one of his cases: "The Case of Iranga . The child was born in a village of Sri Lanka near but not on the west coast, in 1981. When she was about 3 years old she spoke about a previous life at a place called Elpitiya. Among other details, Iranga mentioned that her father sold bananas, there had been two wells at her house, one well had been destroyed by rain, her mother came from a place called Matugama, she was a middle sister of her family, and the house where the family lived had red walls and a kitchen with a thatched roof. Her statements led to the identification of a family in Elpitiya, one of whose middle daughters had died, probably of a ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hairy Rarity Ordinarily, we avoid two-headed snakes, six-legged calves, and the like. Sometimes biological machinery sputters a bit and freaks (terata) result, just as Detroit assembly lines turn out lemons once in a while. Occasionally, though, we come across a defect so rare and curious that we must pass it along. So, here is the Summary of a serious scientific paper, along with a sketch, that satisfies our Fortean urge. "A Burmese family with congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa [excessive hairiness] had an eventful history in the nineteenth century. The earlier members of this family were employed at the court of Ava, but the later ones spent their lives in show business, being widely exhibited for money in the 1800s. Their extraordinary hairiness attracted much curiosity, and they were photographed several times. The hairy Burmese are the only example of a fourgeneration pedigree of congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa, which is consistent with an autosomal dominant mode of inheritance. There is good evidence that, when members of this family were hairy, their dentition was also deficient." (Bondeson, J., and Miles, A.E .W .; "The Hairy Family of Burma: A Four Generation Pedigree of Congenital Hypertrichosis Lanuginosa," Royal Society of Medicine, Journal, 89:403, 1996. Cr. A.C .A . Silk) Reference. Excessively hairy people are cataloged at BHA26 ...
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... Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How many migrations were there?One way of determining the directions and strengths of human migrations is through language analysis. People carry words along with them and, even after centuries of modification, traces of their original languages survive. In 1492, an estimated 30- 40 million Native Americans spoke more than 1,000 different languages. Can anyone discern patterns in such a hodgepodge? Careful study reveals many similarities. For example, all New World languages can be classified into three groups: The Eskimo-Aleut or Eurasiatic group, which is related to Indo-European, Japanese, Ainu, Korean, and some other languages. The Na-Dene family, related to a different set of Old World languages, such as Sino-Tibetan, Basque, (North) Caucasian, and others. The Amerind family. "The origins of the Amerind family are the most baffling, but there are a number of apparent cognates with language families of Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Oceania. For example, the root 'tik,' meaning 'finger, one, to point,' is found in Africa, Europe, and Asia, as well as in the Americas. The Amerind words for 'dog' bear a striking resemblance to the Proto-Indo-European word..." Can the language analysts answer the question in our title above? Based upon the above grouping, they say: "No more ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nuclear Families Men who work at England's Sellafield nuclear power plant father significantly more sons than daughters. Male plant workers produced 109 boys for every 100 girls. This compared with 105 boys for every 100 girls for men in the same area who did not work at the plant. The bias was even greater for men who had received higher than normal doses of radiation in the 3 months prior to conception: 140 boys per 100 girls. Actually, both sets of figures are significant because of the large sample employed: 260,000 children. (Anonymous; "Does Atomic Plant Generate Sons?" Baltimore Sun, December 12, 1996.) Comment. The average sex ratio worldwide falls between 104-107 boys per 100 girls. There are, however, some fascinating geographical extremes: Montserrat 94.34 Aden 120.31 Why do these large differences prevail? Is Aden radioactive? For more on this subject, see our Catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans II. From Science Frontiers #115, JAN-FEB 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Folie A Famille In the psychological literature "folie a deux" is a common topic. It means that psychological illness can be contagious. We now find that the process can extend to whole families. "Reports of folie a famille are rare; this may be the first reported case involving a Vietnam veteran. Expression of his paranoid schizophrenia involved delusions and hallucinations relating to Vietnam, and his wife and children shared his paranoia. Typical of follie a famille were the dominant family member, the threat of violence, and the family's social isolation, frequent crises, and stable membership." (Glassman, Jaga Nath S., et al; "Folie a Famille: Shared Paranoid Disorder in a Vietnam Veteran and His Family," American Journal of Psychiatry, 144: 658, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 16: Summer 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Grooves Of Phobos Still Unexplained The Martian satellite Phobos is etched by curious grooves. Initially, the grooves were thought to be fracture lines formed by the impact that blasted out Stickney, the huge crater seen on Phobos. However, studies of the grooves revealed at least three families of grooves of different ages, with members of each family located on parallel planes cutting right through the body of the satellite. Two recent papers have proposed radically different explanations. A. Horvath and E. Illes wonder whether Phobos might not be a layered structure, having once been part of a larger stratified body. J.B . Murray thinks the families of grooves might have been scraped out by disciplined formations of meteorites that were launched into space by Martian volcanos. (Horvath, A., and Illes, E.; "On the Possibility of the Layered Structure of Phobos," Eos, 62:203, 1981. Also: Murray, J.B .; "Grooved Terrains on Planetary Satellites," Eos, 62:202, 1981.) Comment. It is not easy to conceive of such well-drilled formations of meteorites. Neither is it easy to imagine a large, stratified body that might have given rise to Phobos. From Science Frontiers #16, Summer 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 111: May-Jun 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is perfect pitch favored by natural selection?People with perfect pitch can identify, play, and/or sing a particular musical note without first hearing a reference note. (SF#99 and SF#102) Even if a string of notes is played randomly, they can instantaneously name them. Although musical training while young fosters perfect pitch, the talent also runs in families. A study of 500 musicians, with and without perfect pitch, by N. Freimer at the University of California, revealed that half of those claiming perfect pitch knew family members of like talent. Only 5% of those without perfect pitch made this claim. (Ref. 1) At the North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, NY, P.K . Gregersen and M. de Andrade were able to locate 126 perfect-pitchers. In this select group, 5.5 % had parents with perfect pitch, and 26% had siblings thus gifted. Among musicians lacking perfect pitch, the figures were 1.1 % and 1.3 %, respectively. (Ref. 2) An unexpected (to us, anyway) correlation of perfect pitch and synethesia (SF#68) was made by Freimer's group. Some perfect-pitchers swear they can "see" musical notes, and even "smell" and "taste" them! (Ref. 1) References Ref. 1. Day, Michael; ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 26: Mar-Apr 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Prescient Evolution Lately, a fossil moth egg was found in 75-million-year-old sediments in Massachusetts. The egg is positively assigned to the moth family Noctuidae and extends the fossil record of this family back into the Cretaceous. So what? Well, it turns out that Noctuidae family moths have special organs for detecting the ultrasonic cries of insect-hunting bats. The fossil record of the bats, however, only goes back to the early Eocene, perhaps 20 million years after the Noctuidae moths. Since no other insect predators like bats existed, it would seem that the moths developed these special organs in anticipation of the bats! (Gall, Lawrence F., and Tiffney, Bruce H.; "A Fossil Noctuid Moth Egg from the Late Cretaceous of Eastern North America," Science, 219:507, 1983.) Comment. Do humans have talents that seem unimportant now but which may be useful some day? Calculating prodigies, eidetic imagers, etc. From Science Frontiers #26, MAR-APR 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 12: Fall 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oh, those clever plants The Lecythidaceae or Brazil nut family is pantropical in distribution. Some members of this family produce two dif ferent kinds of pollen: (1 ) normal pollen for fertilization; and (2 ) nongerminating pollen that is collected by insects for food. The latter variety of pollen is considered (anthropomorphically) as the plant's way of rewarding insects for carrying the fertile pollen to other plants. As in so many of Nature's remarkable adaptations, the two types of pollen are located in exactly the right portions of the flower to match the anatomy of the foraging insect. In the figure, a carpenter bee collects infertile pollen from the bottom of the flower while being dusted on the head and back by the regions of the fertile pollen. (Mori, Scott Alan, et al; "Intrafloral Pollen Differentiation in the New World.. .. ." Science, 209:400, 1980.) Comment. How can the flower, even over many generations, determine that only the pollen from the upper portion is being used for fertilization and that the lower area of pollen may safely "be allowed" to become infertile? From Science Frontiers #12, Fall 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 30: Nov-Dec 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects THE AORTIC ARCH AND EVOLUTION Comparative anatomy is supposed to tell us which creatures are closely related so that we can draw those familiar evolutionary family trees. That anatomical similarities may be misleading is proved by the various configurations of the mammalian aortic arch -- certainly one of the major body structures. Five prin-cipal configurations of mammalian aortic arches are sketched in the accompanying figure. The species possessing these various configurations make kindling of the usual evolutionary family trees. Horses, pigs, deer; Whales, shrews; Marsupials, rats, dogs, apes, monkeys; The platypus, sea cows, some bats, humans; African elephants, walruses. (Davidheiser, Bolton; "The Aortic Arch," Creation Research Society Quarterly, 20:15, 1983.) Comment. On this basis alone, humans are more closely related to sea-cows than the apes. Why aren't such discrepancies highlighted in the mainstream scientific literature? Mammalian aortic arch . The key is as follows: RC: right carotid; LC: left carotid; RS: right subclavian; LS: left subclavian; A: aorta. The kinds of animal which have various arrangements are mentioned in the text. From Science Frontiers #30, NOV-DEC 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... possible to test these assumptions by comparing the DNA structures of the different malarial parasites. P. falcipa rum, the parasite transmitting the most deadly human malaria, turns out to be more closely related to rodent and avian malaria than the other primate malarias. Therefore, assumption #1 above is in correct in this view. Assumption #2 is also wrong because some species of malaria parasites which are very similar morphologically are quite different DNAwise. (McCutchan, Thomas F., et al; "Evolutionary Relatedness of Plasmodium Species as Determined by the Structure of DNA," Science, 225:808, 1984.) Comment. The article does not draw attention to still another assumption; namely, that similarities are measures of evolutionary relatedness. If this as sumption isn't correct, evolutionary family trees based on bodily structure, which means most of the family trees in the textbooks, may not truly reflect what really happened in the development of life. Further, if malarial parasites did evolve along with their hosts, hu man evolution seems farther removed from the evolution of the other primates than usually supposed. From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... beetle. Could these radically different forms of the same species have had separate and different evolutionary histories? Our title comes from L. Van Valen's review of a book by D.I . Williamson entitled Larvae and Evolution: Toward a New Biology . We can only touch upon a few of the many profound anomalies raised by the book. We begin with a paragraph from Van Valen's review: "Williamson has given us a new set of anomalies. Mostly he does this by showing that what we know doesn't fit together as well as we thought it did. In particular, the major phylogeny of the animal kingdom as estimated from adult characters doesn't fir very well with that estimated from larvae. Such a discrepancy for different stages has occasionally been reported within families of insects, and it has an apparent resemblance to the discordance occasionally found between phylogenies inferred from morphological and molecular characters. In such cases, the usual conclusion (I ignore data chauvinists) is that we should somehow use all the available information to infer the correct phylogeny. After all, there was just one real phylogeny that occurred in the past, and we want to find it as closely as we can." Comment inserted by the compiler. Van Valen is saying that three evolutionary Trees of Life can be drawn from adult morphology, DNA structure, and larval morphology, and that they may not look the same. Caterpillars may yield a family tree different from that inferred from the butterflies. Which is correct, or are they all correct? Back to the review. Waxing ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The enigmatic "mooring stones" Astronomy Mystery of the missing comets Megawalls across the cosmos A TRIO OF STRANGE METEORS Biology Extinction countdown Extinction discounted New species emerging? Don't pet your house plants! Geology Deep-sixing another hypothesis? A CLASH OF HYPOTHESES Geophysics Machine-like underground noises Lightning in the family Physics Fracto-fusion? Gravity-defying gyros come down to earth Krypton-cluster magic numbers General Spontaneous order, evolution, and life ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery Of The Missing Comets A key feature of our solar system is the Oort Cloud of comets that surrounds the sun and its family of planets. No one has yet seen the Oort Cloud directly, but the textbooks say that it must be there. In fact, all stars like our sun with planetary systems should have their own private Oort Clouds of comets - if the prevailing theory of planetary-system formation is correct. When we see a comet looping around the sun, it is because it has been jostled loose from the Oort Cloud by a passing star or molecular cloud. Further, some of these jostled comets should be kicked outwards and thus escape the solar system. Continuing with this reasoning, we on earth should sometimes see interstellar comets that have been shaken loose from other stellar systems. But we don't ! T.A . McGlynn and R.D . Chapman worry about this. "This lack of detections of extrasolar comets is becoming an embarrassment to the theories of solar system and comet formation." McGlynn and Chapman calculate that we should have seen six interstellar comets in the past 150 years, but the actual number is zero. Such interstellar comets would be easy to spot because they would be moving much faster than our own comets. Two possible explanations for the missing interstellar comets are: (1 ) The Oort Cloud theory is wrong; and (2 ) Solar systems like ours are rarer ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cold-blooded birds?Zoologists have been taking it for granted that birds evolved from warm-blooded, active dinosaurs. They may now have to redraw that part of the avian family tree, because the microscopic structure of the leg bones of two species of long-extinct birds suggest otherwise. "Cross sections of the bones of these birds, which lived during the time of the dinosaurs, reveal growth rings -- concentric rings where normal bone growth was interrupted, possibly because of seasonal temperature changes. No such rings are found in the bones of modern birds, which maintain their body temperatures metabolically even in cold weather. But growth rings are found in such reptiles as crocodiles, which cannot maintain their temperatures metabolically, and in some fossil dinosaurs." (Browne, Malcolm W.; "Study May Shake Birds Down from the Dinosaur Tree," New York Times, March 17, 1994. Cr. J. Covey.) From Science Frontiers #93, MAY-JUN 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Madness And Creativity The observation that creativity and genius are often allied with psychiatric problems is an ancient one. More recently, male writers have been shown to have high rates of mood disorders and alcoholism. Persuing these kinds of correlations further, but with the female sex, A. Ludwig, of the University of Kentucky Medical Center, chose as his "creativity" sample 59 female writers attending a Women Writers Conference. These were compared with 59 non-writers matched in terms of social, demographic, and family factors. Psychiatric problems in both groups were elicited through interviews. As the table below shows, the psychopathological differences between writers and non-writers are large. Diagnosis Writers Non-writers Depression 56% 14% Mania 19 3 Panic attacks 22 5 Eating disorders 12 2 Drug abuse 17 5 Childhood sexual abuse 39 12 It seems that Dryden, back in the 17th century, was correct when he wrote: "Great Wits are sure to Madness near ally'd ." (Anonymous; "Madness and Creativity Revisited," Science, 266:1483, 1994) From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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18. STYTHE?
... 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 Stythe? Has anyone heard of "stythes" before? "Donald Tollett, 60, died from suffocation after a freak weather phenomenon called a stythe caused a drop in air pressure, sucking carbon dioxide from a disused coal mine. He was walking through the Karva Woodcrafts factory unit in Widdrington Station, Northumberland, on 11 February, on his way to feed his neice's horse, accompanied by a family friend, David Wind, 8, and a pet dog when he and the collie were overcome." (Anonymous; "Strange Deaths," Fortean Times, no. 82, p. 20, August-September 1995. Sources cited: London Times and the Daily Telegraph .) From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 23: Sep-Oct 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chessie Captured On Videotape May 31, 1982. Kent Island, Maryland. Robert Frew was enjoying a holiday meal with family and friends at his home on Love Point, overlooking Chesapeake Bay, when a large object was seen moving against the tide about 100 feet offshore. Inspection through binoculars revealed a sinuous, humped creature, over 20 feet long, swimming lazily along. As others watched, Frew popped a videotape into his camera and shot a remarkable three minute documentary, which was aired later on TV. Witnesses estimated the creature's length at about 30 feet; width, about 10 inches. Two other recent sightings of "Chessie" occurred in September 1980 at the other end of Kent Island, and in July 1978 near Heathsville, Virginia. (Robinson, Russ; "Chessie May Have Made Video Debut," Baltimore Sun, July 11, 1982.) "Chessie" according to Frew From Science Frontiers #23, SEP-OCT 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 30: Nov-Dec 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Delusion Of Doubles R.J . Berson has reviewed 33 cases of a curious delusion called Capgras' Syndrome. People displaying this syndrome believe that important people in their lives (family members, etc.) have been replaced by exact doubles. No hallucinations or illusions are involved; rather it is a belief. Those afflicted with Capgras' Syndrome may even believe that they themselves are represented somewhere by a double they never see. Not all persons with close emotional ties are believed to be doubled; and these un-replaced persons are always identified accurately. People with these beliefs usually possess normal perceptions and memories but are (obviously) disturbed emotionally with paranoid tendencies. (Berson, Robert J.; "Capgras' Syndrome," American Journal of Psychiatry, 140:969, 1983.) Comment. This strange mental state is apparently not related to autoscopy, where one hallucinates one's self. From Science Frontiers #30, NOV-DEC 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wanted: disasters with a 26-million-year period J. Sepkoskiand and D. Raup, two researchers at the University of Chicago, have drawn up graphs showing the numbers of families of marine organisms that have vanished from the fossil rec ord over the eons. From this overview of manifest mass extinction emerged a puzzling and potentially profound pattern. Roughly every 26 million years over the last 250 million years, the number of extinctions jumped well above the background level. Some cyclic phenomenon seems to have been killing off life forms on a systematic basis. But no natural 26-million-year cycles are known although meteors and comets are favored causes of mass extinctions these days, they display no such cyclic period. (Simon, C.; "Pattern in Mass Extinctions," Science News, 124:212, 1983.) Comment. Instead of looking outward to astronomical catastrophism, perhaps we should look inward. The earth itself may undergo cyclic paroxysms; or life might undergo intrinsic phases of decline and rejuvenation. Periodic events in the evolutionary time scale. The 300-million-year cycle shown involves alternations between "icehouse" conditions (O ) and "greenhouse" conditions (G ). These may be due to changes in heat convention within the earth. From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Woodhenges before pyramids The berkeley walls extended Addenda and emenda Astronomy Why did life take a left turn? Biology Genes vs. memes A STRANGELY SELECTIVE SPIDER Acoustical mirrors on plants Stroke changes accent Nuclear families Geology The hilina slump a.k .a . "the big crack" Tektite mysteries Geophysics A SUBMARINE ORGAN? Frog fall A SKY-SPANNING AURORAL ARCH Psychology More sheldrake heresy Physics Splitting the electron's charge Unclassified Evolvable hardware ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Acoustical Mirrors On Plants In Costa Rica, the plant Macuna holtoni , a vine-like member of the pea family, is pollinated by bats. To help echolocating bats to find its flowers in the dark, it has evolved a single petal on each blossom that is shaped like a concave ultrasound mirror. A bat searching for nectar- and pollen-bearing flowers with its ultrasonic cries can zero in on the strong echoes reflected from the plant. Both plant and bat benefit. (Anonymous; "Bat Mirror," New Scientist, p. 29, November 8, 1997.) Comment. What a neat, technically sophisticated adaptation. How did this plant "know" that the bats echolocated ultrasonically and what a good reflector would look like? Don't worry about trivia like this, evolution can explain everything! From Science Frontiers #115, JAN-FEB 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Geomagnetic Activity And Paranormal Experiences " Summary . -- 25 well-documented (and published by Stevenson in 1970) cases of intense paranormal (' telepathic') experiences concerning death or illness of friends of family were analyzed according to the global geomagnetic activity (the aa index) as the times of their occurrence. The characteristics of these cases were representative of the general literature and occurred between the years 1878 and 1967. All 25 experiences were reported to have occurred on days when the geomagnetic activity was less than the means for those months. Repeated measures analysis of variance for the daily aa indices for the 7 days before to the 7 days after the experience confirmed the observation that they occurred on days that displayed much less geomagnetic activity than the days before or afterwards. These results are commensurate with the hypothesis that extremely low fields, generated within the earth-ionospheric cavity but disrupted by geomagnetic disturbances, may influence some human behavior. " (Persinger, Michael A.; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: XXX. Intense Paranormal Experiences Occur during Days of Quiet, Global, Geomagnetic Activity, " Perceptual and Motor Skills, 61:320, 1985.) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 Bats may have invented flight twice (at least!)Bats are divided into megas and micros. The "megabats," represented by the fruit bats, possess an "advanced" connection between their eyes and midbrains. No other mammals except the primates possess this type of advanced visual organization. In contrast, the "microbats," the common echo-locating insect-eaters have a "primitive" eyebrain connection. This deep division in the bat family -- mega/micro, vegetarian/carnivorous, sight-dependent/echolocating -- suggests that mammal flight has developed at least twice. (Pettigrew, John D.; "Flying Primates? Megabats Have the Advanced Pathway from Eye to Midbrain," Science, 231: 1304, 1986.) Reference. The problems of bat evolution can be found at BME1 in our catalog Biological Anomalies: Mammals II. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... literature of this well-known anecdote allow us to revisit it here. It is well worth repeating, even though many anomalists have had it in their collections for decades. (In fact we recorded it in 1974 in vol. G1 of Strange Phenomena .) As you read the following quotation from an 1886 issue of Scientific American, remember that the event described occurred almost a decade before the discoveries of X-rays and radioactivity. Although ball lightning was recognized in 1886, the first UFO flap was still 70 years in the future! The following brief account of a recent strange meteorological occurrence may be of interest to your readers as an addition to the list of electrical eccentricities: During the night of the 24th of October last [1886], which was rainy and tempestuous, a family of nine persons, sleeping in a hut a few leagues from Maracaibo [Venezuela], were awakened by a loud humming noise and a vivid, dazzling light, which brilliantly illuminated the interior of the house. The occupants, completely terror stricken, and believing, as they relate, that the end of the world had come, threw themselves on their knees and commenced to pray, but their devotions were almost immediately interrupted by violent vomitings, and extensive swellings commenced to appear in the upper part of their bodies, this being particularly noticeable about the face and lips. It is to be noted that the brilliant light was not accompanied by a sensation of heat, although there was a smoky appearance and a peculiar smell. The next morning the swellings had subsided, leaving upon the face ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 158: Mar - Apr 2005 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Untranslatable Mohenjo-Daro Script? A very Early Compound Machine Khufu's Secret Burial Chamber: A Phony Discovery? Astronomy Allez Allez Old Galaxies in a Young Universe Biology Do Dolphins Sense the Coriolis Force? Disappearing Animals Wayward DNA: Does it Affect the Shapes of Family Trees? Geology Bermuda Triangles in the Desert! Plate-techtonics 'theory' is slowly and inevitably Dyning Geophysics Hum Update Psychology Motherese: A precursor of Human Language? Unclassified Multimedia Communications in the Cosmos Computer Bacteria ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Now it's greece!The general consensus is that modern humans first emerged in Africa. This assertion was challenged in SF#66, where an origin in southeast Asia was championed. Now, it's Greece! "The immediate ancestors to the human family - the hominids - might have been living in Greece, rather than Afica, some 10 million years ago in the late Miocene, according to the French palaeontologist Luis de Bonis. "In September 1989, de Bonis and George Koufos of the University of Thessaloniki discovered the fossilized face of an ape-like creature, Ourano pithecus, at a site in the Valley of Rain, 40 kilometres northwest of Thessaloniki. Although the fossil has not yet reached the scientific press, de Bonis has publically described it as a possible precursor of the earliest known hominid species, Australopithecus afarensis , from Africa 3.5 million years ago." (Lewin, Roger; "Humans May Have Come from Greece, Not Africa," New Scientist, p. 35, January 27, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crop Circle Craze Continues Trying to maintain our sanity during the current crop-circle flap, we have adhered closely to reports in the conservative Journal of Meteorology, U.K . But don't imagine that wilder accounts are not surfacing in the newspapers. Two accounts should suffice. Australia. "Three frightened farmers believe a gigantic UFO landed last week on their Victorian wheat property. "A pattern of five perfect circles - in which unbroken wheat stalks swirl anticlockwise - have been found on the 9000- hectare farm, West Park, run by Max and Nancee Jolly and their son Stuart, 29. "The startling discovery comes only weeks after the family's 700 sheep were panicked by a huge yellow object pulsating above the paddocks in western Victoria's Mallee region." (Pickney, John; "Sheep Panicked by Eerie Light in Fields," Melbourne Truth, December 16, 1989. Cr. P. Norman via L. Farish) Canada. "Argyle, Man. - There's a mystery on Ray Crawford's land and stumped investigators say anything from bizarre weather phenomena to visitors from outer space could have put it there. "Sometime in the past year, an almost perfect circle was gouged out of a remote patch of the elderly cattle farmer's property, 30 kilometres north of Winnipeg, on the edge of the rockstrewn scrub and bush that comprise the region between Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipeg. ...
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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A BOON TO THE LUMBER INDUSTRY?R. Oldfield and her husband were visiting Panama, when they heard about un-usual trees growing at the Summit Botanical Garden and Zoo just outside Panama City. They decided to take a look and were soon walking along a slip pery, narrow trail. "After a short walk the trail ended abruptly. There was a sign that pointed to a group of trees. It said 'arbol' (square tree). From a distance, they didn't look square. I was disappointed. My husband made a closer inspection. He put a field guide against the trunk of one tree. It was totally square. "Later I found that the square trees were a member of the banyan family and grow only in this area of El Valle. Why they are square is still a mystery." (Oldfield, Rochelle; "Panama's Gold Frogs and Square Trees," International Travel News, 21:20, June 1996) Comment. There's a lot of waste at the sawmill when round trees are cut up for lumber. We should ask the gene fiddlers to produce square pines and oaks. Maybe they can even coax 2 x 4s to grow! From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... paintings at Grotte Chauvet in southern France. Even though of slighter build and smaller brains, the Cro-Magnons are thought to have quickly replaced the Neandertals. Complicating the picture is abundant fossil evidence of so-called "archaic" Homo sapiens in Europe commencing some 500,000 years ago. Did these archaic versions of modern humans evolve into Neandertals before the Cro-Magnons (modern humans) arrived on the scene? Some paleoanthropologists now believe so. Just the other day it was generally thought that Homo erectus rather than "archaic" Homo sapiens gave rise to the Neandertals. (Hublin, Jean-Jacques; "The First Europeans," Archaeology, 49:36, January/ February 1996) Comment. We, too, are confused. Don't take these human evolutionary family trees too seriously. They change with each new "find," and these seem to come several times each year. Reference. Human evolution, as seen in the fossil record, is covered in section BHE in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans III. Ordering information here . How a Neanderal was pictured in an 1873 issue of Harper's Weekly. No senstive, caring, loquacious man he! From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... produced, and one of the first on the Web, in 1997 (qv. archive.org ), becoming a UK Web Awards Nominee. I have managed his website, www.science-frontiers.com ever since. For more details, see: July 13, Bill Corliss's death notice at Baltimore Sun July 12, William R. Corliss Dies at Cryptomundo July 16, William Corliss RIP at strangehistory.net Aug 20, William R. Corliss, Scientific Anomalist at Everything In The Universe Aug 28, Some thoughts on the Passing of William Corliss by Bob Rickard at Charles Fort Institute An obituary appears in the October 2011 issue of Fortean Times Oct-Dec, " In Memory of William Corliss ", by Patrick Huyghe, EdgeScience #9 My thoughts are with his family. Ian Tresman, Knowledge Computing Webmaster, www.science-frontiers.com See also: Photocopied Classic Books Please link to Science Frontiers Check out our banners here Science Frontiers and the Catalog of Anomalies are produced by William R. Corliss. Corliss has degrees in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (B .S ., 1950) and the University of Colorado (M .S ., 1953). He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society for Scientific Exploration. He resides in Glen Arm, Maryland, USA, where the Sourcebook Project is headquartered. Coolpick Site of the day June 30, 2002 16 Sept 1999 31 Aug 1999 Science Frontiers Sourcebook Project Reviewed in: Booklist: December 15, 1977 New York Times: April 3, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 2: January 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hedgehogs Use Toad Venom For Defense European hedgehogs chew toad skins to extract venom from the paratoid glands. They then lick their spines with the saliva-venom mixture. Experiments with human volunteers prove that the venomanointed spines are much more painful and irritating than clean ones. Such hedgehog behavior is innate and fully developed before the juveniles leave the nest. Tenrecs, which are similar to hedgehogs but in an entirely different family, display a somewhat different self-anointing type of behavior that must have developed independently. Conclusion: self-anointing with toad venom is so useful that it developed twice under evolutionary pressures. (Brodie, Edmund D., Jr.; "Hedgehogs Use Toad Venom in Their Own Defense," Nature, 268:627, 1977.) Reference. Hedgehog anointing and other idiosyncrasies may be found in Chapter BMB in Biological Anomalies: Mammals I. This book is described here . From Science Frontiers #2 , January 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 1991, the Galileo spacecraft swept past 951 Gaspra at a distance of 1600 kilometers, snapping photographs as it went. J. Veverka et al report below on what the photos showed: "We report the discovery of grooves in Galileo high-resolution images of Gaspra. These features, previously seen only on Mars' satellite Phobos, are most likely related to severe impacts. Grooves on Gaspra occur as linear and pitted depressions, typically 100-200 m wide, 0.8 to 2.5 km long, and 10-20 m deep. Most occur in two major groups, one of which trends approximately parallel to the asteroid's long axis, but is offset by some 15 , the other is approximately perpendicular to this trend. The first of these directions falls along a family of planes which parallel three extensive flat facets identified by Thomas et al. The occurrence of grooves on Gaspra is consistent with other indications (irregular shape, cratering record) that this asteroid has evolved through a violent collisional history." (Veverka, J., et al; "Discovery of Grooves on Gaspra," Icarus, 107:72, 1994.) Comment. The pits along Gaspra's cracks, as on Phobos, suggest the violent expulsion of gases. Where could these gases have come from? "Sandblows" are sometimes formed during terrestrial earthquakes as natural gases and other fluids are squeezed out of the earth's porous outer crust. Could Gaspra harbor primordial methane? If so, is it biogenic or abiogenic? Reference. An entire chapter on the anomalies ...
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... , as well as ampersands, question marks -- you name it! Although Greek pi and capital omega have turned up, butterflies and maths are clearly trying to impress people who utilize the Roman alphabet. After all, it is difficult enough to evolve an ampersand; generating Chinese characters would strain credulity too much. (Amato, Ivan; "Insect Inscriptions," Science News, 137: 376, 1990.) Comments. Incidentally, of what survival value are these wing symbols? Obviously, the butterflies and moths have not got their act completely together as yet. Words and phrases will come soon, we are certain. Look at the eggplants for example. They have specialized in Arabic. It has recently been reported in British newspapers and on BBC Radio 4 that when the Kassam family sliced up an eggplant, the patterns of seeds spelled out "Ya-Allah" (God is everywhere.). (Donnelly, Steve; "Egregarious Eggplants," The Skeptic, 4:4 , May/June 1990. The Skeptic is a British publication resembling The Skeptical Inquirer .) From Science Frontiers #71, SEP-OCT 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... accompanied by a deafening roar, passed very quickly in a straight line through the processing shop and left by blasting a 2 by 3 metre hole in a wall of 6 mm corrugated asbestos, fragments of which were later found 20 to 30 metres away outside the factory." At Dilhorne. Sea shells fell with heavy hail: "They extended for an area of about 50 by 20 metres and occurred in thousands on lawns, flower beds, paths and even the road. Roy was kind enough to give me half-a -dozen specimens for identification. They turned out to be small gastropods, almost certainly of marine origin." Recourse to field guides did not result in positive identification, so samples were sent to the Bristol Museum. The specimens turned out to be Dove Shells, family Columbellidae, genus Pyrene, which are normally inhabitants of the tropical seas. Their most likely origin was the Philippines! (Swinhoe, P.J .; "Unusual Events along the Squally Cold Front of 2l March 1983 in North Staffordshire," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 8:233, 1983.) Probably track of the shell-carrying vortex. The actual shells, however, are not typical of the Irish Sea! In addition, the Irish Sea was a considerable distance away! From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... al insist that Archaeopteryx could not have flown at all, given its bones and musculature. Archaeopteryx looks like a reptile and was a reptile. As for the modern-looking feathers, they were probably added to the fossil fraudulently. And there do seem to be parts of the fossils on display in London and East Berlin that look highly suspicious. Conventional paleontologists are, of course, aghast that anyone would question the validity of these key transition fossils. (Vines, Gail; "Strange Case of Archaeopteryx 'Fraud'," New Scientist, p. 3, 1985.) Comment. A wonderful tempest seems to be brewing. Could Archaeopteryx be another Piltdown Man? To put the matter in proper context, we must remember that Archaeopteryx is in all the evolution books along side the family tree of the horse. It is an emotional issue. On the other hand, Fred Hoyle seems equally convinced that evolution is statistically impossible, and an Archaeopteryx fraud would fit well with his predispositions. From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... culture. Duesberg claims that HIV definitely fails the first two Koch tests. (Shurkin, Joel N.; "The AIDS Debate: Another View," Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1988. Cr. J.M . Ward) Three months after the above article was published. the journal Science jumped into the fray. Additional points of interest: Duesberg considers the HIV to be such a "pussycat" that he would gladly be injected with the virus. Duesberg has published his reservations in Cancer Research , but no formal response from the scientific community has resulted, although there has been plenty of unpublished name-calling. The HIV behaves like no other known virus; viz., its long latency and its persistence despite the production of antibodies. (Actually, the herpes family of viruses is also known for its long latency.) (Booth, William; "A Rebel without a Cause of AIDS," Science, 239:1485, 1988.) Comment. There is much more to this controversy than we can cover here, including charges of financial improprieties and the existence of an AIDS Mafia. Reference. AIDS anomalies are cataloged in BHH14 through BHH22 in: Biological Anomalies: Humans II. For a description of this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... there were probably several waves of prehistoric immigration into the Americas across the Arctic, the Pacific Ocean (! ), and possibly even the Atlantic (! !) . [This is heresy no longer.] Supporting early Atlantic crossings are several dozen artifacts found in the eastern U.S . that closely resemble some found in France and Iberia. Stanford said, "We don't know yet what that means." Studies of DNA diversity among New World Indian populations find such large differences that at least 30,000 years would have been needed for these differences to develop. (Assuming, of course, a relatively homogeneous group of initial colonists.) Linguist, J. Nichols, from Berkeley, sees a similar diversity in the languages of New World peoples. Some 140 language families -- half the world total -- are found in the Americas. Nichols estimates that it would have taken a minimum of 40,000 years for such diversification. (Again assuming initial homogeneity.) Nichols also pointed out strong similarities in languages all around the Pacific Rim, from New Guinea north to Siberia, around Alaska, and down the west coast of the Americas. The implication is that many of these peoples derived from the same stock. (Lore, David; "Bering Strait May Not Have Been Only Route to Americas," Columbus Dispatch , February 17, 1998. Also: Gibbons, Ann; "Mother Tongues Trace Steps of Earliest Americans," Science, 279:1306, 1998.) Comment. The Bering Strait fetters have been struck. Above we ...
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... Genes Make Us Human?" Science, 281:1432, 1998.) Comments. It is easy to see how gross comparisons of DNA might miss important details. The popular "DNA-hybridization" method simply mixes together strands of DNA from the two species being compared. These are allowed to combine, and then they are heated to see how much temperature is required to force them apart. Chromosome numbers and bandings have little if any effect on these crude comparisons of the bare DNA strands that have been stripped from their genes and chromosomes. The significance of all this transcends the comparisons of humans and chimps. Modern taxonomy of all life forms depends increasingly upon DNA comparisons rather than upon morphology. If DNA comparisons can be as misleading as they are in humans and chimps, those textbook family trees that are supposed to tell us how life evolved may also be giving us an erroneous history of life. To underscore the problem, sometimes DNA genetic differences do not result in big morphological changes. For example, Three-toed Woodpeckers hammer on trees all over the northern reaches of North America and Eurasia. These birds all look alike and interbreed freely. Yet, some of the birds differ so much genetically that they should be classified as different species on that basis. (See BBG1 in Biological Anomalies: Birds.) From Science Frontiers #122, MAR-APR 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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! (Humphreys, Glyn; "Higher Sight," Nature, 343:30, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Don't pet your house plants!Researchers at Stanford's Medical Center were spraying Arabidopsis plants (in the mustard family) with hormones to see if they could trigger any of the plants genes. They could, and the treated plants grew up stunted. But, it was serendipitously discovered, the same genes could also be triggered by spraying with water, by gusts of wind, and even by the human touch. Evident-ly, some of the genes in these plants can be turned on by various environmental stimuli, and thus affect future plant development. This mechanism per-haps explains why trees along the seacoast and timberline are stunted. (Crawford, Mark H., ed.; "Nolo Me Tangere," Science, 247:1036, 1990.) Comment. One is tempted to ask how widespread this phenomenon is in biology. Are humans, for example, born with a console of gene-buttons that the environment can push - as in cancer? Or, even in evolution itself? From Science Frontiers #69, MAY-JUN 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Planets Are Unpredictable It was only about 40 years ago when astronomers, aghast at Velikovsky's vision of worlds in collision, stated very firmly that the solar system was presently stable and had been so for eons. Now it seems that they may have been a bit hasty and all-encompassing. Not that the Velikovsky scenario is correct or that Mars might at any moment depart from its present orbit, but rather that astronomers must now admit an inability to predict planetary motion over billions of years - even tens of millions of years! For the solar system, if those ubiquitous computers are correct, is not a well-behaved family of planets. J. Laskar concludes from extensive numerical experiments: "The motion of the Solar System is thus shown to be chaotic, not quasiperiodic. In particular, predictability of the orbits of the inner planets, including the Earth, is lost with a few tens of millions of years." (Laskar, J.; "A Numerical Experiment on the Chaotic Behavior of the Solar System," Nature, 338:237, 1989.) Comment. Laskar's comments are directed toward the future, but the same conclusions should apply if we ran the solar system backwards in time. From this very narrow perspective of celestial mechanics, one cannot say positively that the planets, the inner ones especially, could not have radically altered their orbits within the past few millions of ...
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... Baker and M.A . Bellis. Baker and Bellis have advanced the Kamikaze-Sperm Hypothesis. (SF#78) Central to this idea is the observation that the sperm of many animals, including humans, are polymorphic. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, some of which are patently unsuited for penetrating an egg. Baker and Bellis draw upon their own studies and classifications of sperm types as well as research by R.A . Beatty and D. Ralt. They assert that sperm come in at least four varieties: "Fertilizers," the egg-penetration specialists, "Blockers," the ones that construct copulatory plugs to prevent further insemination, "Search-and destroy sperm" that hunt down as kill "enemy" sperm from other sources, "Family-planning sperm" that kill all sperm. One can liken this array of sperm types to polymorphic ant colonies with their castes of workers, soldiers, and queen. Baker and Bellis go further and suggest that the numbers of each sperm type are under the control (certainly not conscious control) of the males. For example, where promiscuity is observed, as is common in chimpanzee troops, the numbers of seek-and-destroy sperm are very high. All this out of a short review! Unfortunately, the book itself lists at $78.95, and we don't have a copy. (Sozou, Peter D.; "Mating Games," Scientific American, 274:102, January 1996) Comments. Exercising self control, we add only two ...
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... knowledge of calendars, and his errors were often a consequence of lack of knowledge about a particular time period. Mentally retarded individuals who perform calendar date feats are often socially withdrawn and devote considerable periods of time to calendar dates. The most capable calendar-date calculators are usually individuals who have a strong interest in calendars as such." Although some calendar calculators may use visual imagery - perhaps something like eidetic imagery - at least one calendar calculator was blind from birth. Example. "One of the few serious attempts that have been made to understand the mental operations underlying calendar skills is described by William Horwitz and others. They examined the abilities of a pair of mentally retarded identical male twins, both of whom performed calendar-calculating feats. During the twins' early childhood, despite severe family difficulties caused partly by the father's alcoholism, the parents, whose efforts to teach numerical and reading abilities to their sons were largely unsuccessful, were impressed by seeing one of the boys looking at a perpetual calendar in an almanac. Subsequently the parents encouraged the boys to acquire calendar skills. The feats of one twin were especially remarkable: he was reported to have had a range of at least 6000 years - beyond the range of any conventional or (socalled) perpetual calendar - although he gave incorrect answers for dates prior to 1582, owing to his ignorance of the 10-day calendar adjustment which was made at that time, when the Gregorian Calendar replaced the Julian one. As well as solving problems requesting the days of the week for specified dates, the more able twin ...
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... could be no question of forgery because it was found under the head of one of the nine skeletons that were excavated. Pieces of wood presumed to be the remains of wooden earspools were preserved in the Smithsonian's collections as were a pair of brass C-shaped bracelets. Thomas immediately declared the nine characters on the stone to be Cherokee and the burial assumed to be post-contact - what else could the bracelets be but trade items or native copper?" That would seem to be the end of the story, but some language students failed to see any resemblance between the Bat Creek Inscription and the written Cherokee language. Further, C. Gordon, admittedly a proponent of early Phoenician contact with the New World, declared that the Bat Creek characters were Paleo-Hebrew, a family of languages that includes Phoenician. Then, in 1987, the wood accompanying the Bat Creek Stone was radiocarbon-dated in the range 32- 769 AD - definitely not "post-contact." Modern analysis was also applied to the bracelets, leading to the discovery that they had the same proportions of lead and zinc as the brass made by the Romans between 45 BC and 200 AD. In sum, the Bat Creek Stone now seems more likely to be something inscribed by early Phoenician visitors to North America. (Strong, Roslyn; "A New Look at the Bat Creek Inscription," NEARA Journal, 23:26, Summer/Fall 1988. NEARA = New England Antiquities Research Association.) From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 ...
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... can quantify molecular divergences; that is, fill their journal contributions with numbers; that their data is more sound than fossiliferous strata. But their crucial assumption of constant DNA divergence in time may be their undoing. References Ref. 1. Anonymous; "Deflating the Biological Big Bang," Science News, 150: 335, 1996. Ref. 2. Perlman, David; "Origin of Animals -- 1.2 Billion Years Ago," San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 1996. Cr. J. Covey. Ref. 3. Wray, Gregory A., et al; "Molecular Evidence for Deep Precambrian Divergences among Metazoan Phyla," Science, 274:568, 1996. Homology vs. DNA. Until the molecular biologists recently arrived on the scene, evolutionary family trees were based upon similarities in appearance; that is, homology. Animals that look alike must be closely related. But molecular biologists have discovered that some animals that seem identical to the eye differ significantly in their DNA complements. Thus, the Pacific skinks may undermine homology. Inhabiting many, far-separated Pacific islands, these small lizards all look pretty much alike externally. For many years, biologists assumed that they all belonged to the same species. Recently, scalpels in hand, they found that the skink innards differed enough to define two species: Emioa cyanura and Emioa impar . Next, the molecular biologists got into the act. They discovered that the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the Guam and Kosrae skinks differed by an amazing 6%, even though both skinks were E ...
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... of the fossil record reveals some unexpected patterns in the origin of major evolutionary innovations, patterns that presumably reflect the operation of different mechanisms." The most interesting "unexpected pattern" is the gross asymmetry between the diversification of life in the Cambrian explosion (about 440 million years ago) and that following the great endPermian extinction (a little over 200 million years ago). Biological innovation was intense in both instances; both biological explosions burst upon a life-impoverished planet. Many niches were unoccupied. Even so, all existing (and many extinct) phyla arose during the Cambrian explosion and none followed the Permian extinction. ". .. why has this burst of evolutionary invention never again been equaled? Why, in subsequent periods of great evolutionary activity when countless species, genera, and families arose, have there been no new animal body plans produced, no new phyla?" Some evolutionists blame the asymmetry on the different "adaptive space" available in the two periods. "Adaptive space" was almost empty at the beginning of the Cambrian because multicellular organisms had only begun to evolve; whereas after the Permian extinction the surviving species still represented a diverse group with many adaptations. (Just how the amount of "adaptive space" available was communicated to the "mechanism" doing the innovation is not addressed.) Scientists contemplating these matters, however, seem to concur that microevolution, which supposedly gives rise to new species, cannot manage the bigger task of macroevolution, in particular the creation of new phyla at the beginning of the Cambrian. (Lewin, Roger; " ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 13  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf060/sf060p08.htm
... old paleonotological record of ancient camels, horses, tapirs, and other fauna found while excavating this cave. Intermixed with the animal bones are layers of charcoal (easily carbondated) and hints of human occupation. But don't we all know that humans did not arrive in the New World until 12,000 years ago? Nevertheless, there they are: (1 ) rude human tools; and (2 ) a possible human palm print. Mainstream archeologists are stonewalling again; there must be some mistake! (Appenzeller, Tim; " A High Five from the First New World Settlers?" Science, 255:920, 1992.) Scene: Inside Amerind cells. DNA analyses of the mitochondria present in the cells of North American Indian populations indicate that the Eskimo-Aleut and Nadene populations arrived about 7,500 years ago. The more geographically widespread Amerind population, however, seems to be descended from two separate influxes; the first about 30,000 years ago, the second about 10,000 years ago. D. Wallace, from Emory University, surmises that the sharply defined rise of the Clovis culture, conventionally dated from 12,000 years ago, may have resulted from the second Amerind immigration. (Lewin, Roger; "Mitochondria Tell the Tale of Migrations to America," New Scientist, p. 16, February 22, 1992.) Comment. The 30,000-year date, however, is consistent with MacNeish's discoveries at the Orogrande Cave. Hang in there archeology anomalists, the 12,000year paradigm is melting in ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 13  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf081/sf081a01.htm
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