... 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 Strange Craters We have just found the following item from the Australian Post . Can any of our Australian readers elaborate? "For more than 10 years, scientists and geologists have been baffled by the discovery of some 30 strange craters between Bundaberg and Gin Gin (Qld.). Made of sandstone, siltstone, and red ochre, and at least 25 million years old, the craters contain unidentifiable markings which could be manmade! "The holes were discovered by a farmer clearing his land and they have now been opened to the public who offer a multitude of theories about their origin, ranging from natural formations -- although the craters are not of volcanic origin -- to the work of visitors from outer space." (Anonymous; "Strange Craters," Aus tralasian Post , July 31, 1986. Cr. R. Collyns via L. Farish.) From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The insects' revenge Plants may fool some insects with their mimicry and deter others with toxic chemicals, but the insects have their tricks, too, as seen in the following item from Science: "Many mandibulate insects that feed on milkweeds, or other latex-producing plants, cut leaf veins before feeding distal to the cuts. Vein cutting blocks latex flow to intended feeding sites and can be viewed as an insect counteradaptation to the plants' defensive secretion." (Dussord, David E., and Eisner, Thomas; "Vein-Cutting Behavior: Insect Counterploy to the Latex Defense of Plants," Science, 237:898, 1987.) Comment. Right now, even as we write this, the plants are evolving counterploys -- high-voltage veins perhaps! But this may not work. See the final item in this section. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 87: May-Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cosmic Soot And Organic Asteroids Just as we were getting used to carbonaceous chondrites and tarry comets, we have been hit with cosmic soot and organic asteroids. Truly, it seems as if the universe is one vast factory of complex chemicals. This is not a trivial observation, for it betrays a synthesizing, efflorescent cosmos rather than a universe slowly succumbing to the deepfreezing Second Law of Thermodynamics. Any of these soots and tars wafting down upon the surface of a suitable planet might initiate or accelerate life processes. Cosmic soot. A 70-year-old astronomical enigma is the origin of the DIBs (Diffuse Interstellar absorption Bands). These dark absorption bands in stellar spectra have never been correlated with known chemical compounds. Now, L. Allamandola and F. Salama (NASA-Ames) find that the DIBs may be due to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons! A more digestible descriptor would be "soot," like that found in automobile exhaust and on your barbecued steak. (Weiss, Peter; "Cosmic Soot Fills Space between the Stars," New Scientist, p. 15, March 13, 1993.) Organic asteroids. Some asteroids are abnormally red. Newly discovered asteroid 5145 Pholus is 3 times brighter at near-infrared wavelengths than it is in the visible portion of the spectrum. The best explanation so far for this redness is that 5145 Pholus is veneered with organic compounds called "tholins." Tholins are synthesized ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Maize In Ancient India Conventional wisdom is clear on two accounts: Maize originated in the New World. There were no cultural, maizebearing contacts between the New and Old Worlds in the lengthy period between the (hypothetical) dash across the Bering Land Bridge circa the waning of the (hypothetical) Ice Ages and the (hypothetical) Viking incursions into North American waters. But C.L . Johannessen is certain that the ancient Indians (that is those in India) were enjoying corn-on-the-cob at least as early as the Twelfth Century BC. He writes: "Goddesses and gods in sculptuted soapstone friezes in Hoysala temples of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries BC near Mysore, India, hold in their hands representations of maize ears. There are more than 63 of these large ears at Somnanthpur, and maize is represented at three other temples I have visited. "In the Hoysala tradition, worshippers must have used maize as a golden-coloured and many-seeded fertility symbol in their religious rites. That the ears are modelled on maize is shown by the ear length-todiameter ratio, the ear sizes in relation to parts of the human figures, and the wide variation of anatomical detail in the carvings that all belong to maize: the ears have either parallel, highly tapered or bulging sides, their tips are pointed, and their axes may be straight or warped, depending on the moisture at the time ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 149: Sep-Oct 2003 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Stringware Old Viking Bones Lied Astronomy A Bridge too Faint The Dark Side of Cosmology Biology The Sweet Sex The Seventh-Story Paradox Great Walls make Divergent Neighbors Liver Delivery Life's Lethal Quality Control? Life's Biochemical Enforcers Geology Natural Ground Patterns on Two Planets What Caused a Global Planation Event? Geophysics Strange Object Observered during Thunderstorm Giant Electrical Jets Flash up into Ionosphere Horizon-to-Horizon Bioluminescent Bands Psychology When Coming Events cast Psychic Shadows before them Sleight of Hand Physics More Light at the end of the Tunnel ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 153: May - Jun 2004 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology 5,500-year-old Clusters of Stone Pillars Rock Art and Rock Music Bog Butters Astronomy Parallel Double Meteor Trails Martian Bunnies? Inflation Inflated Biology Genome Fusion in Radically Different Species Animal Fasting in the Wild Nanotubular "Highways" Connect and Trap Cells Geology Hydroplaning in Geology Sand Dunes Invisible at Ground Level Another "Cookie-Cutter" Event Geophysics Will-O -The-Wisps Sicilian Sparks Psychology A Strange Property of Hyperlexia Chemistry The Darwinian Breeding of Nanostructures One "Pathological Science" May Not Be So Sick After All! ...

... area observed a red-andyellow fireball moving east-to-west. The bolide's passing was marked by a loud detonation. From this information, one would bet heavily that this was simply a routine meteor detonation caused by the heat generated during entry into the atmosphere. The next morning, however, people discovered a landslide covering several acres on the slopes of Cerro Negro, a mountain 14 kilometers from San Luis. Did the meteor slam into the mountain overnight? So far, investigators have not been able to decide whether the landslide is just gravity-slumping on the slope or a disturbance created by the night's meteor. One observer believes he can see traces of a crater some 50 meters wide. Experts from the U.S . and Canada plan to examine the site in detail. (Anonymous; "A Hit in Honduras?" Sky and Telescope, 93:12, March 1997.) From Science Frontiers #110, MAR-APR 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... points, suggesting that here red shifts have nothing to do with distance. "Given these problems, it is not a sound strategy to put all of our cosmic eggs in one big-bang basket. Rather, we should explore other possibilities. Thirty years ago, there was a more open debate on alternative theories, which made valuable contributions to our undersanding of cosmology. For a healthy growth of the subject, the big bang hypothesis needs competition from other ideas." Some of Narlikar's suggestions are heresies of the first order: Particles are born with zero mass and acquire mass only as they interact with other matter in the universe (consistent with Mach's principle). The radiation from the lighter particles making up young quasars would thus be redshifted when compared to radiation from old galaxies. The background microwave radiation from a lumpy universe could easily be smoothed out by tiny (1 mm) iron whiskers condensing in the expanding envelopes of supernovae. (Narlikar, Jayant; "What If the Big Bang Didn't Happen?" New Scientist, p.48, March 2, 1991.) Comment. These ideas are almost as audacious as the suggestion that continents can actually drift apart! But are they enough to lift the intellectual pall created by a hypothesis-enshrined-as-fact? Reference. The Big Bang paradigm is challenged repeatedly in chapters ATR and AWB in our catalog: Stars Galaxies, Cosmos. Details here . From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... In fact, the echidna is often called a "spiny anteater" for it has the sharp spines of a hedgehog or porcupine. There are more anatomical peculiarities, but let us focus on the echidna's strange behavior during the mating season. At this time, 2 to 8 echidnas can be seen roaming the Australian bush in "trains" headed by a female with the smallest male acting as a caboose. When mating time arrives, the female anchors herself to a tree with her forelegs. To-gether the males dig a circular "mating rut" up to 10 inches deep around the tree. (Australians have puzzled over these circular trenches for years.) Eventually the strongest male evicts the other males from the trench, the purpose of which now becomes apparent. As the old saying goes, porcupines make love very. Well, the echidna has an interesting technique; he simple lays on his side in the trench under the female! (Rismiller, Peggy D., and Seymour, Roger S.; "The Echidna," Scientific American, 264:96, February 1991.) Reference. Many additional echidna "eccentricities" can be found in our catalog Biological Anomalies: Mammals I and II. For more information on these books, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... of In Situ Methane Quantities in a Large Gas-Hydrate Reservoir," Nature, 385:426, 1997. Also: MacDonald, Ian R.; "Bottom Line for Hydrocarbons," Nature, 385:389, 1997.) Comment. Methane is well-known as a "greenhouse gas." If really large "burps" were released, climatic changes would probably ensue. Unfortunately, gashydrates are rather unstable. What would happen if a large asteroid slammed into the Blake Ridge? Huge quantities of methane would disgorge into the earth's atmosphere. The climate changes might be disastrous for fauna (like the dinosaurs!) and flora. The heavily shaded area of the Blake Ridge (area = 26,000 km2) contains gas-hydrates and free gas. Drill sites 995 and 997 are also indicated. From Science Frontiers #111, MAY-JUN 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Archea collected from a hot vent 3 kilometers deep in the Pacific has been sequenced. Biologists were taken aback. Methanococcus jannaschii , as it has been dubbed, possesses 1738 genes, of which 56% are entirely new to science. Many of these genes do not look anything like those found in the prokaryotes and eukaryotes. In a word, they seem "alien." (Morell, Virginia; "Life's Last Domain," Science, 273:1043, 1996.) How alien? Well, they are so tough that they could have arrived from Mars on a meteorite. Millions of years of residence in a meteorite edging its way toward a rendezvous with earth mean nothing to the Archea. They have even been cultured from the interior of a salt crystal 200 million years old. (Fanale, Fraser; "Martian Substances," Science, 275:321, 1997.) From Science Frontiers #112, JUL-AUG 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... extensive cratering on the northern plains of Mars, suggests that some 2-3 .5 billion years ago these plains were covered with oceans. These ancient seas, perhaps as much as 700 meters deep, protected the plains from direct impacts. Further, crater density counts for Chryse and the Martian highlands imply that Mars possessed a fairly dense atmosphere until about 1.5 billion years ago. In his Abstract Helfer speculates as follows: "With both early Earth and early Mars having similar atmospheric compositions and not too dissimilar atmospheric structures, it is reasonable to suppose that the warm Martian oceans, like the ancient oceans of Earth, would develop anerobic and aerobic photosynthesizing prokaryotes and structures like stromatolites. Their development might have changed the Martian atmosphere. Their fossils might be found along the fringes of the old oceans, the northern lowland plains." (Helfer, H.L .; "Of Martian Atmospheres, Oceans, and Fossils," Icarus, 87:228, 1990.) Comment. The Gaia influence is seen in the molding of the Martian atmosphere into something more conducive to the development of life. One can also speculate that, if life did develop on Mars, it could have seeded the earth via bits of debris blasted off by meteorite impacts. Several meteorites picked up in Antarctica are thought to have come from Mars originally. Reference. Data suggesting Martian life are cataloged in AME14 in The Moon and the Planets. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... to bring stones from so far away is an open question, as is the issue of how people achieved the almost unimaginable feat of hauling the sarsens, weighing 25 tonnes or more, over 30 km from the Marlborough Downs in the north." oNew studies of the other ancient monuments in the vicinity of Stonehenge have revealed that they were not placed at random. Many are visible from Stonehenge. Stonehenge is at the center of a number of "nested bowls." [? ] Further, barrows of the Early Bronze Age were placed in lines along the horizon ridges visible from Stonehenge. There was obvious regional planning -- a master plan that we have not yet deciphered. oIt is now generally accepted that astronomical alignments do exist at Stonehenge, and that the monument itself and the surrounding sites are somehow related to astronomical time cycles. However, mainstream opinion has not been kind to the 1960's vision of Stonehenge as a Neolithic computer and/or astronomical observatory. This idea is now seen as: ". .. an artefact of its times -- one of the most notorious examples known to archaeologists of an age recreating the past in its own image." (Ruggles, Clive; "Stonehenge for the 1990s," Nature, 381:278, 1996) Comment. If Stonehenge is not a 1960's cyber-vision, just what did the Stonehengers have in mind? Did the even more-ancient people who dug those post holes now under a parking lot feel a similar psychological impulse? In the 1960s, some viewed Stonehenge as an astronomical ...

... water vapor at an altitude of 75 kilometers than well-established theory predicted. That was back in 1991. Now, a second satellite experiment of different design has confirmed the existence of this "excess" water vapor. Most geophysicists are perplexed, to say the least. Not L. Frank, though, because these experiments are in line with his theory that the upper atmosphere is continuously pelted by house-size, fluffy, icy comets -- some 20 each minute. (SF#112) Frank asserts: "When you get that excess of water vapor up there, it just can't come from the Earth. It must come from space." Even so, other geophysicists are reluctant to accept Frank's icy comets -- that would be too much "crow" to eat! One point levied against Frank's icy comets is that they would introduce more than three times the amount of water vapor actually measured. M. Summers, a theoretician at the Naval Research Laboratory, summed up mainstream opinion: "There's definitely something very unusual going on in the mesosphere that we don't understand at all, but I'm not even close to saying this supports the small-comet hypothesis." (Kerr, Richard A.; "Rising Damp from Small Comets?" Science, 277:1033, 1997. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Reservoir of Water Hides High above Earth," Science News, 152:117, 1997.) From Science Frontiers #114, NOV-DEC 1997 . 1997 ...

... Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cometary scars on the moon?More information has surfaced on the enigmatic lunar swirl markings (Category ALE5 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. These whitish blotches are not only visually incongruous, being obviously different from the debris spla shes around craters, but they also exhibit curious magnetic properties. J.F . Bell and B.R . Hawke, of the University of Hawaii, have acquired near-infrared spectra of the swirl designated Reiner Gamma. They report that the composition of the swirl material does not match the crater ejecta; and, also, that a previously undetected reddish halo surrounds the swirl. Best guess at present: The swirls are the scars of comets -- probably less than 100 million years old. (Anonymous; "Cometary Scars on the Moon," Sky and Telescope, 75:11, 1988.) Comment. Does nearby earth also bear cometary scars? Some think that the 1908 Tunguska Event was a cometary impact. (See ETC2 in our catalog: Caro lina Bays, Mima Mounds .) Also see the the item below under GEOLOGY about comets and the earth's oceans. Reference. Both catalog volumes mentioned above are described here . From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... ) Over 7,000 of these remarkable dry-stone edifices exist -- a concentration of monumental stone architecture unparalleled in Europe. "' Nuraghe' derives from the prehistoric Sardinian root 'nur' which means both 'hollow' and 'heap.' But the nuraghi are neither hollow nor are they haphazard heaps of stone. The nuraghe interior often presents a complex plan of chambers, winding staircases, dead-end corridors, concealed rooms with trap doors, and a variety of niches and compartments. Standing up to three stories high with magnificently corbelled domes one on top of the other, some structures have as many as 18 subsidiary towers attached to the main keep. Large complexes were sometimes completely enclosed by enormous stone walls punctuated with still more towers." Ocer 3,000 years old, the nuraghi have withstood the depredations of weather and later humans by virtue of their excellent design and construction. As with many other such ancient structures, one is impressed with the size of the stones used. How were they moved? How were the stones -- usually hard basalt -- cut and dressed by artesans with no metal tools harder than copper or bronze? And what was the purpose of the nuraghi? A quick answer to the last question is that they were fortresses, but they might also have been dwellings or storehouses. (Gallin, Lenore; "The Prehistoric Towers of Sardinia," Archaeology, 40:26, September/October 1987.) Reference. The nuraghi and similar megalithic stonework are covered in more detail in our handbook: Ancient Man. This ...

... Pacific voyages 2500 years ago are definitely not part of acceptable archeology. Anthropologist P. Tolstoy, swimming against the mainstream, has surveyed the manufacturing technology of both bark paper and ordinary paper on a worldwide basis. He identified some 300 variable features in the process, 140 uses of the final products, and 100 specific details of bark beaters. Tolstoy concluded: "All this points to the direct transfer of technology from Southeast Asia to Mesoamerica, apparently by a sea voyage that took place about 2500 years ago." Tolstoy rejects the tapa (bark cloth) of Polynesia as a credible link between Southeast Asian and Mesoamerican barkpaper making. The technology transfer was not island-to-island but direct! Invoking Kon Tiki and the prevailing currents and winds, he postulates a 2500-year-old voyage swinging north of Hawaii along an islandless route to Mesoamerica. (Tolstoy, Paul; "Paper Route," Natural History, 100:6 , June 1991.) From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... actual impact craters giving rise to the tektites might actually be on the moon instead of the earth. Looking over the literature, one sees that this debate has been characterized by much invective and scientific infighting. Today, most scientists concur that some tektite strewn fields are definitely associated with specific, although distant, meteor craters on the earth's surface. Unfortunately, the large separations of craters and strewn fields add a circumstantial flavor to the evidence. However, some tektite-like objects are to be found in the immediate vicinities of terrestrial craters, but not in far-flung strewn fields; viz., the Aouelloul Crater in Mauritania, and the Zhamashin Crater in the USSR. Another example has now come to light: the Lonar Lake Crater, a 50,000-year-old impact crater, in the Deccan flood basalts in India. From the paper's abstract: "Homogenous, dense glass bodies (both irregular and splash form) with high silica contents ( 67% SiO2) occur in the vicinity of Lonar Crater, India. Their lack of microlites and mineral remnants and their uniform chemical composition virtually preclude a volcanic origin. They are similar to tektites reported in the literature....Our geochemical data are consistent with these high silica glass bodies being impact melt products of two-thirds basalt and onethird local intertrappean sediment (chert). The tektite-like bodies of the impact craters Lonar, Zhamanshin, and Aouelloul are generally similar. Strong terrestrial geochemical signatures reflect the target rock REE patterns and the abundance ratios and demonstrate their terrestrial origin resulting ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 73: Jan-Feb 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Spontaneous human combustion and ball lightning?Mainstream science scarcely acknowledges ball lightning; spontaneous human combustion it ridicules. Recently, G. Egely of the Central Institute of Physics, in Budapest, investigated a case where both phenomena may have been involved. G.T . Meaden, editor of the Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., summarized Egely's report as follows: "The date was 25 May 1989, and the place a field by the roadside near Kerecsend, a village 109 kilometers from Budapest. The victim was a 27year old engineer within whose body, it is conjectured, ball lightning formed. The man had stopped his car and walked to the edge of a field about ten metres distant to urinate. Suddenly his wife who had remained behind in the car saw that the young man was surrounded by a blue light. He opened his arms wide and fell to the ground. His wife ran to him noticing that one of his tennis shoes had been torn off. Although it looked hopeless she tried to help him, but soon after she was able to stop a passing bus. Amazingly, the bus was filled with medical doctors returning from a meeting; unhappily they immediately pronounced that the man was dead. "At the autopsy a hole was found in the man's heel where the shoe had been. The lungs were torn and damaged, and the stomach and belly were carbonized! This is ...

... to theorize on why he almost always ended up with three pieces each time he attempted to break a piece in two. Fortunately for science, O. and R. Nickalls have come up with an answer. "We can only assume that Feynman was not really trying, since when we investigated this profound and fundamental problem in our own kitchen laboratory, not only did we quickly establish the underlying mechanism, but we even went on to formulate the following general rule for linear spaghetti structures:- If a spaghetti stick is uniformly bent until it fractures and ejects a third piece, then the third piece is always ejected outwards from the convex side. "When the spaghetti fractures for the first time, the two remaining pieces then spring outwards, and providing there is a sufficiently weak potential fracture site on the opposite side a second fracture occurs, resulting in a third piece being ejected away from the initially convex side." (Nickalls, Oliver and Richard; "Linear Spaghetti," New Scientist, p. 52, 1995) Comment. We have omitted the mathematical analysis of this complex phenomenon because it involves tensor analysis! From Science Frontiers #99, MAY-JUN 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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. 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. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Upwardly directed lightning from cloud tops "An image of an unusual luminous electrical discharge over a thunderstorm 250 kilometers from the observing site has been obtained with a low-light-level television camera. The discharge began at the cloud tops at 14 kilometers and extended into the clear air 20 kilometers higher. The image, which had a duration of less than 30 milliseconds, resembled two jets or fountains and was probably caused by two localized electric charge concentrations at the cloud tops." (Franz, R.C ., et al; "Television Image of a Large Upward Electrical Discharge above a Thunderstorm System," Science, 249:48, 1990.) Comment. Note that the above discharges were diffuse and quite unlike most cloud-to-ground lightning discharges. They were, in fact, much like the mountain-top glows seen along the Andes. Also, one should ask where those "localized electric charge concen trations" came from and why they did not disperse. Reference, Upwardly directed "rocket lightning" is cataloged in GLL1 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. Fuller description here . From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... sized particles must have uncreased by a factor of 105 or more. During these times the light transmission properties of the solar system would have been significantly altered resulting in major adverse effects to the earth's climate. Thus it is quite possible that these dust congestion episodes were responsible for the abrupt climatic variations which occurred toward the end of the last Ice Age." Whence these interplanetary dust clouds? The author of this article ruled out terrestrial volcanism (an insufficient source of iridium) and encounters with asteroids and cometary tails (too infrequent to account for the long periods of high dust levels). Rather, the dust source may have been the same event that created the recently discovered dust ring between Mars and Jupiter, which is believed to be only a few tens of thousands of years old. The nature of the "event" is not specified. (LaViolette, Paul A.; "Evidence of High Cosmic Dust Concentrations in Late Pleistocene Polar Ice (20,000-14,000 Years BP)," Meteoritics, 20:545, 1985.) References. See our catalog volume The Sun and Solar System Debris for more on the flotsam and jetsam of outer space. This book is described here . Also see the following item on "icy meteors" which is also pertinent. From Science Frontiers #44, MAR-APR 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... , like those on a sailor's biceps, nor are they on parts of the body usually displayed. What is most interesting are their locations; some groups are placed at traditional Chinese acupuncture points. Bolstering this suspicion is the determination from computer tomography (noninvasive imaging) that the Iceman suffered from arthrosis of the lumbar spine. The Iceman's body is punctured at the points usually used by acupuncturists to treat this condition! "These findings raise the possibility that the practice of therapeutically intended acupuncture originated long before the medical tradition of ancient China (approximately 1000 B.C .) and that its geographical origins were Eurasian rather than East-Asian, consistent with far-reaching intercultural contacts of prehistoric mankind." (Dorfer, Leopold, et al; "5200-Year-Old Acupuncture in Central Europe?" Science, 282:242, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...