361 results found.
... accepted idea that the oceans were created by the outgassing of water vapor from the newly accreted earth. As a consequence, Frank's data are readily accepted, but his explanation of them is not. "That's as crazy as they come." (A noted astronomer) ". .. a case of Halley's fever." (One geologist) ". .. his interpretation is preposterous." (Fred Whipple) Critical as other scientists may be of Frank's theory, they have no other explanation for the dark spots on the earth's dayglow images. Furthermore, scientists are far from united about how the earth's oceans really did form. As serendipity would have it, Frank's theory connects in an interesting fashion with the origin-of-life speculations in this issue. Frank remarks, in connection with organic sludge in comets: "These objects, because they are like a piston of gas, can bring organic material down without burning it up like a meteor does." (Huyghe, Patrick; "Origin of the Ocean," Oceans, 19:8 , August 1986.) From Science Frontiers #47, SEP-OCT 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... bodies, on the other hand, implies that bodies are secondary or derived features of the organisms. The expansion of genetic research in the twentieth century has led to the conclusion among many geneticists that bodies exist solely for the propagation and dispersal of genes. This perspective has been dubbed 'the selfish gene theory'. While the author acknowledges the insight and creativity that went into the selfish gene theory, it must be pointed out that the idea has not been carried far enough by the geneticists. Where did the genes come from in the first place? Who ever heard of a sea bottom made up of DNA ooze? It is obvious from the fossil data that feces were teeming in the Precambrian oceans well before DNA appeared on the face of the earth, and that feces were therefore the original driving force of life. Bodies exist for the propagation and dispersal of feces, and genes are simply the instructions used by feces in the manufacture of those bodies. This concept is best described as the 'selfish feces theory'." (Sager, J. Curt; "The Origin of Feces," Journal of Irreproducible Results," p. 20, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #46, JUL-AUG 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the Tugela River at a distance of about 1km. This stationary light column seemed to have the dimensions of a pencil stub (approx. 50mm x approx. 7mm) held vertically at arm's length. The column, which had a bluish glow like a fluorescent tube, was visible for about 5 to 10 seconds. .. .. . "At 11.15pm, when the intensity of the storm had abated and the sky was lit intermittently with flashes of sheet lightning, the writer saw a luminous spherical object, seemingly of golf to tennis ball size, moving rapidly with an apparently vertical undulating motion from left (northeast) to right (southwest) on a horizontal course in the general direction of Mont-Aux-Sources (3282m) where the Tugela River has its origin. This sighting lasted 2 to 3 seconds. About 3 minutes later, another similar object crossed the field of view, following the same course as the first object and showing about 2 or 3 undulations in its passage. At midnight, a third object was seen having the same characteristics as the first two objects. However it did not arise from the extreme left of the field of view but appeared to originate from a point marked by a small tree close to and in the middle of the window. These objects had a bright yellowish-blue luminescence, and no noise was heard which could be associated with their passage." (Neish, William J.P .; "Lightning Phenomena in the Drakensberg Mountains of Natal, RSA," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ...
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... -like glasses at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (KTB) on Haiti is leading geological detectives closer and closer to the missing crater. Elsewhere in the world, the KTB is characterized by an iridium anomaly and a thin layer of "impact clay" consisting of tiny bits of shocked minerals. At Beloc, on Haiti, though, geologists find a 55-centimeter-thick layer of glassy debris. Approximately 25% of this stra tum consists of 1-6 -millimeter particles of tektite-like glass. Most of the glass particles are spherical, but a few have the splash-forms and dumbbell shapes of bona fide tektites. The thickness of the Haitian deposit and the large sizes of the particles suggest that the smoking gun must be nearby. Ironically, the Haiti stratum was originally classified as of volcanic origin; and we must add that we are presenting here only the conclusions of the asteroid school. But where oh where is this crater? The Manson crater in Iowa (now buried) is of the right age but too small. The best candidate so far is buried in northern Yucatan. The Chicxulub crater is discernible on gravity- and magneticanomaly maps and is probably of the right age. Only drilling will confirm the guilt of the suspect. Even if Chicxulub is the culprit, much debate prevails over exactly how the dinosaurs were done in. Was it a "cosmic winter" due to dust intercepting sunlight? Or perhaps a "cosmic summer" resulting from a super-greenhouse effect caused by: (1 ) impact-released methane trapped in sediments, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Elliptical Halos Original drawing of the halo of Hissink, observed at Leiden. January 26, 1977. In the catalog Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows, we list nine cases of elliptical halos. Such observations are anomalous becaouse the only wellexplained elliptical halo is formed when the lower and upper tangential arcs of a 22 halo join together. Possibly because of the absence of appropriate theory, R. White, in 1981, suggested that the observations recorded in GEH2 were only the consequences of observational error or inaccuracy in representation of the phenomenon. (This assertion is well-known to all anomalists!) Recently, however, several elliptical halos have graced the skies of Finland. We provide below a summary of these observations, as prepared by J. Hakuma ki and M. Pekkola. First, though, we express appreciation to Hakumaki and Pekkola for a paragraph headlined SOURCEBOOK PROJECT ANOMALIES, where in effect they vindicate the approach of the Project. We now quote from the summary of their article. "In December 1987 two Finnish amateur astronomers observed and photographed a peculiar vertically elliptical ring surrounding the moon. A literature study carried out soon after this first observation brought to light ten reported historical cases of this type of rare halo phenomenon. It was found out that the existence of these elliptical halos has been uncertain to date due to a lack of photographic evidence. One indication of this is that none of the major modern works on ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Life As A Complex Of "Dominant States"To say that life is an "emergent property" of matter seems to have no more explanatory power than any of the other "origin" scenarios. It is less than satisfying. Be that as it may, scientists are now seeing some strange things happening on the "mesoscopic" scale; i.e ., from a few nanometers to a few millimeters (10-9 to 10-3 meters). This size range lies between the realms of quantum mechanics and macroscopic physics. Maybe these curious phenomena do have a bearing on how life started and whether it is really different from nonlife. Example 1. G. Whitesides, at Harvard, has dumped large quantities of millimeter-size iron balls into a plastic dish and then spun a bar magnet under the ensemble with startling results. The balls swarm around inside the plastic dish as the magnet rotates. At first the swarm is disordered. But after a minute, it breaks up into a set of concentric rotating rings. Within each ring, the balls follow one another along precise tracks, as if hugging the rim of an invisible roulette wheel. Soon the balls in each track are perfectly equidistant. Finally, one ball in each ring comes to a dead stop. The other balls in each track line up behind the leader in a tiny arc, even though the magnet is still whirling away below. Example ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A CONNECTICUT SOUTERRAIN?Souterrains, such as that figured, are megalithic constructions usually considered to be exclusively of European origin. This look-alike, at Montville, CT, could indicate pre-Columbian contacts. Here are some details: "This underground site is built into a rocky hillside in an isolated region. A 37 ft. passage of straight-sided drywall stonework is interrupted after 8 ft. by a 3 ft. collapsed section. It then continues on for 20 ft. to a little corbelled chamber whose end wall is cut into a roughly quarried and levelled ledge. On the slope around the souterrain are about 100 cairns, some carefully constructed; others appear to be the result of field clearing." (Anonymous; "An Arm-Chair Field Trip," NEARA Journal, 26:87, Winter/Spring 1992.) NEARA = New England Antiquities Research Association. Comment. The prevailing explanation of such New England lithic structures is that they were simply colonial root cellars or something of the kind. The structure figured is certainly a very ambitious root cellar! Reference. Our handbook Ancient Man investigates these New England chambers in some detail. For more on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #82, JUL-AUG 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Flat-faced chephren not sphinx!J.A . West, mentioned above, holds that the Sphinx was not built by the pharaoh Chephren circa 2500 BC. Rather, the revisionists say, it was constructed some 5000 years earlier by predecessors of the "classical" Ancient Egyptians. Adding fuel to the controversy is a reconstruction of the Sphinx's visage by F. Domingo, top forensic artist of the New York Police Department. Domingo traveled to Egypt to measure first-hand the exact dimensions of the statue's facial features. When Domingo compared the Sphinx's profile as it probably appeared originally with the profile of Chephren taken from a statue in the Cairo Museum, there was scant resemblance. (West, John Anthony; "The Case of the Missing Pharaoh," New York Times, June 27, 1992. Cr. J. Covey) But the story doesn't end there. Orthodontist S. Peck responded to the Times article suggesting an even more radical notion: "The analytical techniques he [West] and Detective Frank Domingo used on facial photographs are not unlike methods orthodontists and surgeons use to study facial disfigurements. From the right lateral tracing of the statue's worn profile a pattern of bimaxilliary prognathism is clearly detectable. This is an anatomical condition of forward development in both jaws, more frequently found in people of African ancestry than in those from Asian or Indo-European stock. ...
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... 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. Subscriptions Subscriptions to the Science Frontiers newsletter are no longer available. 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. The publisher Please note that the publisher has now closed, and can not be contacted. Designed and hosted by Knowledge Computing Other links Science Frontiers On Line Browse or search over 2100 free reports, and discover the unusual in archaeology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, geophysics, mathematics, psychology and physics. Search site for: Science Frontiers: The Book and Science Frontiers II An indexed compilation of the first 86 issues of our Science Frontiers newsletter, and a great collection of naturally occurring anomalies and curiosities. An entertaining read! [ Book Index ] The Sourcebook Project The Catalog of Anomalies. These Sourcebooks, Handbooks and Catalogs are compiled from 40,000 articles from the scientific literature. Refer here for details ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Orbiting Mountains Below Two years ago a Russian scientist suggested that tiny black holes orbiting within the earth might trigger volcanic activity. Now, he has extended the idea to earthquakes. "A .R . Trofimenko of the Minsk Department of the Astronomical-Geodesical Society of the USSR believes that all cosmic bodies, including the Sun and the Earth, are riddled with "mini" black holes left over from the big bang. Though much smaller than atoms. such black holes would each contain as much mass as a mountain, up to about 2 x 1020 grams. "Trofimenko originally suggested that energy radiated by these mini black holes could make hot spots that produce volcanic outbursts. Now he has investigated the way in which such objects, by orbiting about the Earth's core, would distort the gravitational field at the surface of our planet." Each time a mini black hole passes beneath a spot on the surface, there would be a "gravitoimpulse" too short to be detected by current instrumentation but sufficient to trigger earthquakes. (Anonymous; "Baby Black Holes Blamed for Earthquakes," New Scientist, p. 18, September 19. 1992.) From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology How Ancient is Vermont? Early Man in Australia Even Earlier A 6,000-year-old Structure in Scotland Astronomy A Redshift Undermines the Dogma of An Expanding Universe Asteroids with Moons? Cometary Appearance of Venus Nine-tenths of the Universe is Unseen Petrol Channels on Mars? Biology Fish Creates Fish The Obscure Origin of Insects and Their Wings Sunspots and Flu Geology Halos and Unknown Natural Radioactivity Geophysics 70th Anniversary of the Tunguska Event Bioluminescent Patch Detected by Radar The So-called Green Fireballs of 1948-1949 Psychology Fire-walking: Anyone Can Do It ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How ancient is vermont?The present article from the British journal Antiquity is obviously an Establishment reaction to the books Ancient Vermont and The Search for Lost America. Two aspects of this "problem" are discussed in the article: The supposed Ogam writing discovered in New England, and The many peculiar stone structures in the same region. A. Ross and P. Reynolds have examined the purported Ogam inscriptions first-hand and are emphatic that are not of Celtic origin, although they are probably deliberately inscribed in many instances. On the other hand, the strange stone structures in New England, particularly Vermont, do bear some resemblance to megalithic remains in Europe. The authors are not as anxious to pass these off as Colonial root cellars as are their American allies in the Establishment. Ross and Reynolds suggest that much more work needs to be done here before the purposes of these chambers and standing stones can be determined. (Ross, Ann, and Reynolds, Peter; "Ancient Vermont," Antiquity, 52:100, 1978.) Reference. Several of these enigmatic New England chambers are detailed in our Handbook: Ancient Man. See a description of this Handbook at: here . From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects There never was a "crater"!Humans favor tales with beginnings and endings, perhaps because we are mortal ourselves. The universe must, we suspect, have been created either naturally or supernaturally, and it will end either according to the Laws of Thermodynamics or by fiat on Judgment Day! Some scientists, though, see other possibilities. In 1948, F. Hoyle, H. Bondi, and T. Gold proposed that the universe had no beginning and was, therefore, infinitely old. Originally, they hypothesized that, as the universe expanded, new matter was continuously created, and thus the density of matter stayed about constant in time. This Steady State Universe was kicked around for a while but ultimately consigned to the cosmological wastebasket. Now, the idea is being revived as the prevailing Big Bang Universe runs into problems, which have been documented perhaps too thoroughly in past issues of SF. The revised steady state model has jettisoned the idea of continuous creation in favor of many discrete "creation events," which will doubtless be called "little bangs." They also fill space with small metallic needles which absorb microwaves and reemit the uniform microwave background. The new theory needs more work, but Hoyle and his colleagues write in the June 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal: "This paper is not intended to give a finished view of cosmology. It is intended rather to open the door to a new view ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Halos And Unknown Natural Radioactivity R.V . Gentry is well known for his studies of giant halos in minerals, particularly micas from Madagascar. Recently, intense debate seems to have determined that these Madagascar giant halos are not due to naturally occurring superheavy elements. But what did cause them? In this article, Gentry, et al present data for giant halos in Swedish biotite. No conclusion is given as to their possible origin, but it is noted that some of these giant halos have bleached circles around their centers. These circles seem related to the enigmatic dwarf halos known and unexplained for more than 50 years. (Gentry, R.V ., et al; "Implications on Unknown Radioactivity of Giant and Dwarf Haloes in Scandanavian Rocks," Nature, 274:457, 1978.) Comment. The "halo" problem is not as trivial as it may seem because anomalous radioactivity, presumably with a very short half-life, should not be present in billion-year-old rocks such as the Madagascar micas. One implication: geological dating is all wrong! From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 6: February 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Positive Ion Emission Before Earthquakes May Affect Animals Both folklore and modern observations are emphatic that many animals become agitated prior to earthquakes. Cats car-ry their kittens outdoors; cattle panic in their barns; dogs bark for no apparent reason; and even some humans become restless. Tributsch notes that similar behaviors also accompany certain weather situations, such as the Alpine foehn and Near East sharav, which are characterized by high concentrations of positive ions. The unusual "fogs" and luminous displays preceding some earthquakes may also have electrical origins. In essence, Tributsch has reviewed many earthquake precursors and suggests that most can be explained in terms of positive ion emission from the earth due to pre-quake strains. (Tributsch, Helmut; "Do Aerosol Anomalies Precede Earthquakes?" Nature, 276: 606, 1978.) Reference. Even humans are sensitive to "earthquake weather." See Section GQW in: Earthquakes, Tides. Unidentified Sounds. More information on this Catalog volume here . From Science Frontiers #6 , February 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "ALREADY, NOW, WE ARE FORGOTTEN ON THOSE STELLAR SHORES" *Humans have many ways to predict the future: animal entrails, Tarot cards, and the Copernican Principle. The Copernican Principle, in particular, leads to all sorts of profound prophecies. The Copernican Primciple states that the earth does not occupy a special place in the cosmos. To this we add Darwinism, which asserts that, in the realm of biology, human origin is not special either; i.e ., we enjoy no special place among life forms. Building upon these two general "beliefs," J.R . Gott, III, proceeds to estimate the longevities of various observables, such as the lifetime of a particular species. What follows is a long, highly technical computation of various probabilities, such as the evolution of intelligent life in the universe. All this (and there is a lot of it) leads to the following: "Making only the assumption that you are a random intelligent observer, limits for the total longevity of our species of 0.2 million to 8 million years can be derived at the 95% confidence level. Further consideration indicates that we are unlikely to colonize the Galaxy, and that we are likely to have a higher population than the median for intelligent species." Why won't we colonize the Galaxy? Not because we are not able to, Gott says, but because " ...
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... to a celestial projectile of some sort -- and perhaps even those bizarre "cookie-cutter" holes found in the U.S ., Canada, Norway, and elsewhere. One of our Russian correspodents has summarized what is known about the Sasovo explosions, and we are pleased to be able to present part of his (lightly edited) letter here: "On April 12, 1991, a strange explosion took place near the Russian town of Sasova (350 km to the southeast of Moscow). After the explosion, a crater, diameter about 30 m and depth 3m, was found. At first, several ideas about its nature were proposed, but now almost all of them are abandoned, except one: that it was a tectonic (endogenic, to be exact) origin. This is proved by geophysical research in the region and a secondary, weaker explosion (a crater also appeared) taking place in 1992 in a sparsely populated area about 9 km away from the first one. For some years before the explosions, there were signs of increased tectonic activity in the region: a great number of 'fireballs' and so-called UFOs, evidence of slow ground deformation, and so on. For about several hours before the 1991 explosion, in many places, people saw numerous 'fireballs,' often accompanied by rumbling and even ground vibrations. In many houses, animals began to be anxious. Some people felt ill. Railroad communication devices failed. About 1 minute before the explosion, noise appeared in broadcast radio receivers, this soon jammed all radio ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 9: Winter 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ancient Dispersal Of Useful Plants George F. Carter, a noted geographer, summarizes the botanical evidence for early transoceanic voyages. Domestic cotton. Thousands of years old in the Americas; believed to be a hybrid between New World wild cotton and species from southwest Africa. Bottle gourds. Of African origin but known in Peru about 11,000 years ago; dispersible by ocean currents but appeared in Peru only after humans learned how to navigate on the oceans. Sweet potatoes. A New World plant that has been known in Polynesia for at least 500 years; but the South American name for the sweet potato (kumara) turns out to be a Sanskrit word from India, which is most perplexing. Coconuts. Arrived in the Americas from the Indian Ocean region via Polynesia; can be dispersed by ocean currents, but this long eastward voyage would have been counter to many currents. Peanuts. Well-established on the Peruvian coast thousands of years ago, but the same variety was known in preShang China before 1500 BC. (Carter, George F.; "Kilmer's Law: Plant Evidence of Early Voyages," Oceans, 12:8 , 1979.) Reference. Our Handbook Ancient Man contains much more evidence for Precolumbian contacts with the New World. Information on this large volume is located at: here . From Science Frontiers #9 , Winter 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery Radio Bursts "Mysterious double bursts of radio emissions, originating near the surface of the earth, have been detected by a small satellite designed to spot nuclear blasts. "Although the powerful pulses of electromagnetic energy occur predominantly at times of day favored by thunderstorms, they are not accompanied by flashes of visible light and they do not resemble the emissions generated by classic lightning." Since November 5, 1993, about 100 of these bursts have been detected by a special radio receiver named "Blackbird" mounted on the Alexis satellite. Most of the bursts have been recorded over Africa and South America, although they may also be frequent elsewhere but are drowned out by man-made radio noise from the ground. The bursts come in pairs that are separated by 40 microseconds. The frequency dispersion of the bursts indicates that the signals have passed through the earth's ionosphere before reaching the satellite. Most bursts are picked up in the afternoon and early morning. There is some speculation that the bursts may be associated with the flashes of light recently reported above storm systems. (SF#90) (Quote from: Sawyer, Kathy; "Electrodynamics: Strange Bursts from the Sky," Washington Post, February 14, 1994. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Puzzling Atmospheric Bursts Spark Interest," Science News, 145:100, 1994. Hecht, Jeff; "Satellite Tunes in to Mystery Radio Bursts, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Comets, asteroids, or neither?Like supernova 1987A, also mentioned in this issue, comet P/Shoemaker-Levi-9 is generating headlines in the scientific and popular media. Everyone expected that the impact of this comet on Jupiter would provide us with some very interesting phenomena, but most thought that the debris kicked up by the impacts would reveal something new about Jupiter -- not about comets, since everyone knows what they are! Instead, the long-held theory that comets are simply dirty iceballs is now questioned. Shoemaker-Levi-9 was originally classified as a comet because: (1 ) Its fragments all appeared to be surrounded by comas like all well-behaved comets; and (2 ) It was easily torn apart by Jupiter's strong gravitational field as it narrowly missed Jupiter in 1992. This is just what one would expect from a loosely compacted dirty iceball. But doubts about Shoemaker-Levi-9 's true nature have arisen because of two observations: (1 ) No water vapor has been detected in the plumes thrown up by the impacts of the fragments; and (2 ) The comet's Fragment M, which was supposed to have vaporized in 1993, as comets are wont to do, apparently did not and left a scar on Jupiter like the other fragments. So, Shoemaker-Levi-9 had no discernible ice (unlike comets; it was fragile and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Close Encounters With Unknown Missiles In addition to all those alien-controlled UFOs in terrestrial airspace, human pilots sometimes encounter bizarre missiles or objects of enigmatic origin. C. Svahn and A. Liljegren have collected several intriguing cases. Here follows the so-called "Britannia Encounter": "A few weeks later, on July 15 [1991], another Britannia Airways Boeing 737 on a holiday flight from Crete to Gatwick (London) had a similar encounter, this one at 5:45 p.m . Descending 15,000 feet, the copilot caught sight of a "small black lozenge-shaped object" some 500 meters ahead and above. The object was on a collision course, and within two seconds it passed the aircraft's wing at a distance of only 100 meters at less than 10 meters above the wing. The crew felt no impact or wake, and the passengers were not alerted. The pilot assessed the risk of collision as high. When reported to London Air Traffic Control Center, the missile was picked up on radar moving away from the aircraft. It was moving at 100 mph in a southeasterly direction and was no known traffic since it had no transponder to identify it. Another aircraft was warned since the unknown target appeared to turn and head toward it, but the other aircraft saw nothing. The radar target, however, may have been a helicopter at a lower altitude. " ...
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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 Nobel gossip!Have you heard that: Alfred Nobel originally planned to use his fortune for the construction of crematoria all over Europe, but opposition from the Catholic Church forced him to find another way to use his money; thus, the coveted prizes? And that Nobel never established a prize for mathematics because his wife had had an affair with a mathematician? (Griffith, John; "Smoke Scheme," New Scientist, p. 48, January 14, 1995) From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Journal of Psychology with two studies of people claiming to have exceptional memories. In their second paper (Ref. 2), they detailed the mental workings of TM, a 25-year-old male, and an accomplished user of mnemonics. TM astounds audiences with his seemingly impossible memory feats. These feats, however, are no mystery to TM, and he has carefully explained how it is all mnemonics and nothing paranormal. But there remains the clear implication is that the normal human mind is underestimated and underused. TM's "performances" involve six demonstrations, two of which we now elaborate upon. Demonstration 2. TM asks audiences for birthdates and very quickly gives the day of birth. He has explained this "gift" thusly: "The day of birth calculations were originally carried out through use of a system of numerical codes for years and months which were combined and subjected to certain calculations. However, with practice many shortcuts and mnemonics have been developed and now TM often knows instantly that certain dates imply certain days, like learning the multiplication table. Every year and month has a code from 0 to 6 and TM has learned the codes (by the method explained below) for all years from 1900 to 2000. For any given date the method is to add the codes for the month and the year and divide the total by 7; the remainder gives the day of the week. For example, 27 October 1964 gives 27+ 1 (the code for October)+ 3 (the code for 1964) = 31. Dividing by 7 gives ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology FROM THE SUNSWEPT LAGOON Astronomy THE METAL-FROSTED MOUNTAINS OF VENUS! ALH 84001: A MESSAGE FROM MARS OR PERHAPS SOME OTHER PLANET IRONCLAD PROOF OF THE MOON'S ORIGIN? Biology THE ALGORITHMIC BEAUTY OF SEASHELLS MORE HEAR EARS DRAGON FISH SEE RED MALE DOLPHIN KILLS MAN Geology POLAR-BEAR BONES CONFOUND ICE-AGE PROPONENTS A TRIPLE ANOMALY IN A DIAMOND THE GIANT LANDSLIDES OF HAWAII "ALMOST INCONCEIVABLE" CHANGES IN THE GEOMAGNETIC FIELD CHINA'S BERMUDA TRIANGLE Geophysics DEATH WAVES AND SEEBARS STRANGE PHENOMENON DETECTED BY RADARS AND SATELLITES AN ASTONISHING MEDLEY OF BIO LUMINESCENT DISPLAYS Unclassified THE GREAT EXODUS ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 11: Summer 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Orphans Of The Wild West North of San Francisco, all along the Oregon and Washington coasts, the geologically oriented traveller will discover many huge boulders, mostly 10-20 m across, but some 100 m in size. Their constitution varies, but many are coarse-grained basalts that appear to have spent much of their lives at least 30-40 km underground. These boulders are "erratics" in the sense that no one has found surface outcrops that might have given them birth. So, where did they come from? But origin is only part of the problem. The presumable non-glacial erratics occur in a geologically confused area that seems to be upsidedown time-wise according to the few fossils that have been found. One theory is that the erratics were long ago carried to great depths by the conveyor-belt layers that slide eastward and downward under the U.S . Pacific Coast. Later, geological pressures squeezed the rock containing the erratics back to the surface like toothpaste. In the last phase, the matrix rock was eroded away leaving the erratics orphans. (Wood, Robert Muir; "Orphans of the Wild West," New Scientist, 85:466, 1980.) Comment. Note that this complex scenario is dictated by the dogmas of continental drift and the geological time scale. From Science Frontiers #11, Summer 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 103: Jan-Feb 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Subterranean Trombone In 1992, while making seismic recordings near Java's Mount Semeru, a German scientific team noticed that the seismic waves were much more regular than one would expect from deep volcanic activity. Their recordings revealed a series of evenly spaced harmonic frequencies. They likened it to a musical instrument emitting a fundamental note accompanied by overtones. Sometimes, the fundamental tone would rise and fall, as if the mountain were playing a tune for them. The Germans, V. Schlindwein et al, postulated that the vibrations originated in a gas-filled cavity, presumably cylindrical -- something like an organ pipe -- capped at the top, with a pool of molten magma at the bottom. Volcanic vibrations resonated in this chamber and, as the magma pool rose and fell, so did the fundamental tone. Rather than a fixed organ pipe, it was a natural trombone! Unfortunately, the "earth music" was always in the infrasound range, 8 Hertz and less, and could not be heard by the researchers directly -- only their instruments could "listen." (Schneider, David; "Country Music," Scientific American, 273:28, November 1995.) Comments. There is no physical reason why such a subterranean trombone cannot play in the audible range. Such a mechanism might explain some of the mysterious hums heard in various localities, such as the Taos hum. (SF#88 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Stonehenge in the 1990s: a mainstream view In a recent number of Nature, C. Ruggles reviewed the present status of Stonehenge as mainstream archeologists now see this world-famous monument. oThe construction of Stonehenge began a bit earlier than previously thought: 2950 50 BC. But beneath the present parking area are post holes dated 4,000 years earlier! They are apparently not related to the Stonehenge we know. oThe idea that Stonehenge's bluestones, which originated in the Preseli Mountains of southwest Wales, 200 kilometers distant, were carried to Salisbury Plain by glaciers has been emphatically disproved by geologists. These 4-ton stones were transported by people! This great effort required precocious social organization, communication, and some kind of psychological impetus. oThe sarsens -- those even bigger stones that define Stonehenge in our mind's view -- evoke the same sorts of questions as this issue's eccentric flints: Why? and How? Ruggles writes: "Why it was important 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 13: Winter 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Alien Presence Hidden behind an obscure technical title is a most curious discovery. I.C . Eperon and his coworkers at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, England, have shown that "human mitochondria did not originate from recognizable relatives of present day organisms." The authors go even further, describing human mitochondria as a "radical departure." (Eperon, I.C ., et al; "Distinctive Sequence of Human Mitochondrial Ribosomal RNA Genes," Nature, 286:460, 1980.) Comment. The inferences above may be far-reaching. Mitochondria are vital components in the cells of the so-called higher organisms. Apparently possessing their own genetic material, they are suspected of being descendants of an cient bacteria that invaded and took up residence in cells. If human mitochondria are radically different, could changes in mitochondria be the source of the purported wide gap between humans and other animals? Did the mitochondria change (" evolve") in existing ancient mammals, converting them suddenly into humans? Or did a new "species" of mitochondria infect terrestrial cells, perhaps coming to earth on cosmic debris, as Fred Hoyle has suggested? From Science Frontiers #13, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A SAGA OF SOOT: PART II Shortly after Hyakutake's X-rays were announced, a fourth theory of origin was put forth by acknowledged heretics C. Wickramasinghe and F. Hoyle. Comet Hyakutake, they said, was not emitting X-rays itself. Instead, solar X-rays were mirrored in earth's direction by a cloud of very tiny carbon-containing particles released by the comet. Electrons in these nanometer-sized particles acted as if they were free electrons, and these are excellent scatterers of X-rays. Anyone familiar with the writings of Hoyle and Wickramasinghe can guess what these nanometer-sized particles might be: viruses, of course! Said Wickramasinghe: "It all fits in the the idea that there are real viruses in comets and that comets are the agents by which life is brought to planets." (Chown, Marcus; "Do X-ray Comets Shed Carbon?" New Scientist, p. 19, May 11, 1996) From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Subversive Cancer Cells It has been generally believed that most cancers originate in a single founder cell, which then multiplies to create the tumor. But cancer is more insidious than expected. A precancerous founder cell may actually subvert nearby noncancerous cells and turn them into cancerous cells. In this sense, the first precancerous cell recruits and transforms healthy cells, enlisting them in its destructive operations, and thereby turning them against the body that produced them. No one yet knows how this subversion is effected or how it evolved. (Why is there cancer anyway?) The basis for this claim involves a few rare human mosaics, whose bodies are built of cells with two different genetic complements. Cancers in human mosaics have been found to contain both types of cells and, therefore, did not grow from a single cell alone. (Day, Michael; "Cancer's Many Points of Departure," New Scientist, p. 16, June 1, 1996) Comments. Curiously, some "primitive" animals, such as sharks, seem to have evolved defenses against cancer that mammals lack. With reference to "mosaics," see item in SF#105 on "Mixed-Up People." Also relevant is BHH25 "' Insidious' Properties of Cancer Metastases" in Humans II . For information on this book, visit here . From Science Frontiers #107, SEP-OCT 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Basques in the Susquehanna Valley 2,500 Years Ago? Invention of Agriculture May Have Been A Step Backward Hidden Stonehenge Atlantis Found -- again Astronomy Distant Galaxies Look Like Those Close-by "tired Light" Theory Revived Those Darn Quarks Biology If Bacteria Don't Think, Neither Do We The Evolutionary Struggle Within Geology Is All Natural Gas Biological in Origin? Iceland and the Iridium Layer Geophysics The Novaya Zemlya Effect Massive Ice Lump Falls on England Psychology Is Your Brain Really Necessary? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Miles Of Mush The earth's tectonic plates are usually drawn as neatly fitting puzzle pieces. This idealistic picture is changing because several lines of evidence suggest that some plates are separated by miles of geological "mush." J-Y . Royer and R.G . Gordon came to this conclusion after careful inspection of the huge Indo-Australian plate. First, they noticed that many powerful earthquakes originated in the center of this plate. Usually, quakes are confined to the edges of plates where they crunch against neighboring plates. Second, a line of folds 3,000 feet high runs down the center of the plate, as if is being squeezed like an accordion. But they could not identify any geological accordionist. Finally, working backwards in time using paleomagnetic data, they reconstructed plate configurations 11 million years ago. The Indo-Australian plate did not match up with its neighbors of that time period. Royer and Gordon concluded that the Indo-Australian plate really consists of three smaller plates. Even more surprising was their discovery that in between the boundaries of the three new plates there is a tectonic morass perhaps a thousand miles wide in places -- the "miles of mush" of our title. Plate tectonics (nee "continental drift"), once a revolutionary idea in geology and geophysics, seems poised for another upheaval. (Anonymous; "Gaps in the Theory," Earth , 7:11 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The Senegambian Megalithic Monument Complex A Celtic Frontier Site in Colorado? Astronomy A Bump in the Cosmic Background Phoebe Not Locked to Saturn Biology Descent of Man -- or Ascent of Ape? Life's Origin Within the Earth? Or Did it Drift in From Without? Geology The Burgess Shale Puzzle Iridium-rich Layers and Catastrophism Geophysics The Long Arms of Venus and Jupiter Giant Thunderstorm Clusters Offshore Booms Are Still with Us Psychology Dreams More Real Than Reality Warts on Demand? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Accelerating Universe Many laymen are uncomfortable with the idea that the entire universe originated at an infinitesimal point and is now expanding away from this cosmic navel. Many astronomers are equally disturbed by the recent discovery that all these fleeing stars and galaxies are not being reined in by the force of gravity. In fact, observations of distant supernovas indicate that this exodus of matter is actually speeding up. Some universal repulsive force, it seems, is operating on very large scales of distance. From an unknown somewhere energy is being added to all constituents of the cosmos. The universe is more than a cloud of debris flying away from the Big Bang's Ground Zero. Somewhere, perhaps beyond the ken of our primitive instruments, is a fount of energy of which we know nothing. All this is a serious challenge to our understanding of space, time, and matter. Cosmologists are now appealing to quantum mechanical "shimmers," to "X -matter," and to a property called "quintessence." (Glanz, James; "Exploding Stars Point to a Universal Repulsive Force," Science, 279:651, 1998. Also: Glanz, James; "Astronomers See a Cosmic Antigravity Force at Work," Science, 279:1298, 1998.) Comment. When theorists toss around terms like "X -matter" and "quintessence," you can be sure that the basic laws of the universe ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 119: Sep-Oct 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The End Of The Old-Model Universe That cosmology is in flux is apparent in the following sentence found in Nature: " The standard ideas of the 1980s about the shape and history of the Universe have now been abandoned -- and cosmologists are now taking seriously the possibility that the Universe is pervaded by some sort of vacuum energy, whose origin is not at all understood." Does this mean that the Big Bang, the mainstay of the astronomy we were taught in school, is now being cast aside? After all, the Big Bang does model fairly well three important observations: The apparent expansion of the universe; The 3 K microwave background; and The abundances of the light nuclei. But try as they may, cosmologists have not been able to coax the Big Bang model to explain the large-scale lumpiness and structure of the galaxies and galaxy clusters. One problem with the Big Bang is that it has too many free parameters -- too much theoretical slack. Many cosmologists are now looking for a better model. This better model, to use the words of P. Coles, should be more "exciting" and "stranger," something "perhaps not even based on General Relativity." (Coles, Peter; "The End of the Old Model Universe," Nature, 393:741, 1998.) Questions. Isn't cosmology already already "strange" enough? Since when ...
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... ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is a singularity worse than a spinning cosmos?Whence the untold billions of stars and galaxies that brighten our night skies? From a "singularity," that's where -- from an infinitely small point in space. The Big Bang hypothesis requires this abandonment of common sense. Both mathematicians and cosmologists instinctively hate singularities. The latter have been trying to exorcise theirs for years. Recently, S. Carneiro, a Brazilian physicist, proposed a way to get rid of this natal singularity but retain the expanding universe. First, he assumes that the universe has been around for an indefinitely (infinitely?) long time, thereby eliminating the problem of origin. Furthermore, this universe was rotating. About 11 billion years ago this spinning universe was transformed into the expanding universe we see today via that clever cosmologists' ploy called a "vacuum phase transition." Carneiro shows how the rotation of the universe-as-a -whole was converted into overall expansion in a paper submitted to the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity . But even if all of Carneiro's equations check out, angular momentum still had to be conserved somehow during the phase transition. Simple! The angular momentum of the universe-as-a -whole was transferred to the spins of all the individual planets, stars, and galaxies. In fact, the angular momentum of each astronomical entity, according to Carneiro, is proportional to its (mass)1 . ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Are We Running On Martian Time?It is really very curious. In the absence of all external time cues, the human body slowly shifts its internal clock from earth time (24-hour days) to Martian time (24.9 -hour days). Could we all have been Martians in the deep, distant past? This thought was triggered by the recent surmises that earth life might have originated on Mars and been brought here by an immigrant meteorite. (Packard, Gabriel; "Martian Day," New Scientist, p. 54, October 10, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #122, MAR-APR 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 24: Nov-Dec 1982 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Africa Not Man's Origin! Early Chinese Voyages to Australia The Calico Site Revisited Astronomy Mysterious "thing" in Orbit Around Saturn The Spin We're In Islands of Hope for Life Eternal A Hint of Extraterrestrial Oceans Biology Why Cancer? Mice Transmit Human Gene Sequences to Their Progeny Biological Regeneration: Two Anomalies Geology Seismic Ghost Slithers Under California Powerful Earth Current Enters North America From the Pacific The Polyna Mystery Geophysics Balls of Fire Enter Room Through Metal Screens Massive Freak Wave Psychology The Cinema of the Mind ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 24: Nov-Dec 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Polyna Mystery "Polyna" is a Russian word meaning "an enclosed area of unfrozen water surrounded by ice." Polynas form for some unknown reason in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. These transient ice-free "lakes" may cover 300,000 square kilometers, inferring a substantial influx of heat countering the frigid polar temperatures. Although small coastal polynas can be blown free of ice by strong Antarctic winds, the open-ocean polynas are much larger and do not seem to owe their origins to wind. One suggested explanation is that warm subsurface water rises suddenly to the surface, but it takes a lot of heat to keep hundreds of thousands of square kilometers ice-free. The most recent polyna opened up a region of the Weddell Sea for about three years (1973-1976). (Simon, C.; "Polynas Surrounded by Ice and Mystery," Science News, 122:183, 1982.) From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chiron: the black sheep of the solar system Charles Kowal discovered the smooth, very dark sphere called Chiron over five years ago. Only a little more is known about it today. Chiron is 300-400 kilometers in diameter -- asteroid-size. But its orbit (aphelion, 18.9 A.U .; perihelion, 8.5 A.U .) is definitely anomalous for asteroids. One would expect to find only comets in this region of the Solar System. To compound the mystery, Chiron's orbit is unstable. This planetoid was originally somewhere else (no one knows where) and was nudged into its present orbit by a major planet. One group of researchers calculates that Saturn could have been the nudger, and that the event might have happened as recently as 1664!! (Lipscomb, R.; "Chiron," Astronomy, 11:62, March 1983.) Comment. Only a minor bit of extrapolation will carry a proponent of catastrophism from a 1664 nudge of a 400-kilometer body to a much more violent Solar System rearrangement sometime during the past 10,000 years. From Science Frontiers #28, JUL-AUG 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Alaskan Jigsaw Puzzle Alaska seems to be plastered together from bits and pieces that originated far from the present position of this state. The units that now make up southern Alaska, for example, started north of the equator 250 million years ago, crossed into the southern hemisphere, and started back north about 160 million years ago. However, the itinerary of northern Alaska cannot even be guessed at. Present thinking is that this portion of the state was close to the geographic north pole during the late Cretaceous. But this is the period when the huge coal deposits were formed on the Arctic slope. Much of this coal comes from evergreens, which could not have survived in high latitudes due to the lack of sunlight. So, the pieces of the puzzle are at hand, but their travels are a mystery. (Anonymous; "Fragmented Alaska," Open Earth, no. 17, 1982.) Reference. For more on exotic terranes, see ESR9 in our Catalog: Inner Earth. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #28, JUL-AUG 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 123: May-Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sophisticated Chemistry In Ancient Egypt The ancient Egyptians applied cosmetics copiously to themselves. Upper-class women (perhaps men, too) favored green, white, and black makeup. These cosmetic powders, dating from 2,000 B.C ., have been exceptionally well preserved in their original vials made of alabaster, ceramic, and wood. A team of French chemists led by P. Walter was not surprised when their analyses of these powders found crushed galena and cerussite (two ores of lead). However, they nearly dropped their test tubes when they also found chemical compounds that are extremely rare in nature; specifically, laurionite (PbOHCl) and phosgenite (Pb2 Cl2 CO3 ). In fact, these compounds are so rare naturally that the Egyptian powders must be artificial. P. Walter et al wrote: "Taken together, these results indicate that laurionite and phosgenite must have been synthesized in Ancient Egypt using wet chemistry. The Egyptians manufactured artificial leadbased compounds, and added them to the cosmetic product. The underlying chemical reactions are simple, but the whole process, including many repetitive operations, must have been quite difficult to achieve." It had been recognized earlier that the Egyptian chemists had used fire-based technology 500 years earlier (2 ,500 B.C .) to manufacture blue pigment. Wet chemistry represented another forward technological step. (Walter, P., et al; "Making Make- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Nominative Determinism Following in the trail of Feedback's page in the New Scientist, we herewith offer two more cases of nominative determinism or ND. This phenomenon, as readers of SF are well aware, occurs when a person's last name is related to his or her occupation. A solid example of ND is seen in the name of the Director of U.S . Programs for the Rodale Institute. The Institute, it turns out, is studying carbon and nitrogen balances in organically managed cropping systems. Nitrates originating in such agriculture contaminate the ground water and often end up in drinking water. The EPA has determined that nitrates in drinking water can be harmful; thus this study. Who directs the study? Dr. Laurie Drinkwater! (Anonymous; "Organics Reduce Groundwater Pollution," Acres U.S .A . , p. 11, May 1999. Cr. L. Cortner.) And to whom does the journal Marine Observer turn when expert opinion is required on marine phenomena, including fish identification? Dr. Peter Herring! From Science Frontiers #125, SEP-OCT 1999 . 1999-2000 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 The Rise Of Astronomical Catastrophism After being ridiculed for well over a century, astronomical catastrophism is now coming into its own. First, there was the admission that a few small craters, like Meteor Crater in Arizona, just might be of meteoric origin; then, more and bigger craters (astroblemes) were recognized; and, recently, the discovery of the iridium-rich layer at the Cretaceious-Tertiary boundary has made the subject very popular, as evidenced by the following three items: A long, very thorough and scientific review of geological and biological changes caused by meteor strikes throughout the earth's history. (McLaren, Digby J.; "Bolides and Biostratigraphy," Geological Society of America, Bulletin, 94:313, 1983.) A shorter, popular version of the above. (McLaren, Digby; "Impacts That Changed the Course of Evolution," New Scientist, 100:588, 1983.) Evidence is growing that the collision of planetary material with the Earth can profoundly affect local geology, and that impacts of very large meteorites may have influenced the evolution of the Earth and the life that exists upon it. This quotation is from the lead-in to the article references below, which also has a nice world map of major impact sites over 1 km in diameter. (Grieve, Richard; "Impact Craters Shape Planet Surfaces," New Scientist, 100:516, 1983 ...
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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 Are nocturnal lights earthquake lights?" Nocturnal lights reported from 1972 to 1977 by fire lookouts on the Yakima Indian Reservation, Washington, correlate with earthquake origin time, distance, magnitude, and depth within a 200 km radius of the observations. Photographs and eyewitness accounts show that the luminous phenomena (LP) near ground level appear to be spherical, are colored white to orange, and show little or no internal detail. Locations of the observations preclude explaining them as terrestrial vehicles or other human activity." This abstract continues and notes that some of the luminous displays seem to be enhanced by geomagnetic activity. (Persinger, M.A ., and Derr, J.S .; "Relations among Nocturnal Lights, Geomagnetic Activity and Earthquakes in Southern Washington," Eos, 64:762, 1983.) From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Frozen in Time A map of Antarctica produced in 1997 using data from the Canadian satellite Radarsat has revealed some unexpected geological features at the bottom of the planet. Among these are vast areas of previously unrecognized snow dunes -- all lined up in parallel like the ripples on a stream bed. However, these snow dunes are no ripples. They measure up to 100 kilometers in length with separations of 1-2 kilometers. They are, in fact, called "megadunes." At ground level, though, the snow dunes are not obvious because they are only a few meters high. Since Antarctica is often buffeted by fierce winds, one would naturally think that these snow dunes have an aeolian origin like desert sand dunes. This does not seem the be the case. Comparisons made using recently declassified images taken in the 1960s by U.S . military satellites reveal that the snow dunes have not moved in over 30 years! Some-thing besides wind-driven snow must be helping to sculpt these immense stationary patterns. (Tomlin, Sarah; "Vast Snow Dunes Frozen in Time," Nature, 402:860, 1999.) Comment. The fossil "string dunes" of Australia closely resemble the Antarctic snow megadunes in pattern and size, but of course they are composed of sand. "Megaripples" charted by sonar and shaped by water currents on the ocean floors are also comparable. See ETR3 in Carolina Bays for more. From Science Frontiers #128, MAR ...
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... L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, circa 1,000 AD. This Viking outpost may have been only a short chapter in a long book on the Norse pre-Columbian presence in North America. Mainstream archeologists contemptuously dismiss the Kensington Stone Rhode Island's Newport tower, and those runestones from Oklahoma; but hard-to-explain artifacts continue to crop up in the Canadian Arctic. Recently, there have been purported rivets from a Viking longboat and strand of Norse yarn from the Arctic tundra -- the latter carbon-dated as 800 years old. The Canadian Arctic is also the location of strange stone towers, stone foundations, and standing stones like that illustrated. Canadian author, F. Mowat, asserts that these structures in the far north are neither Eskimo nor Viking in origin. In his new book, The Farfarers, he claims that some 200 years before the Vikings built L'Anse aux Meadows, voyagers from northern Scot-land crossed the Atlantic in walrus-hide boats and established a colony in Newfoundland. Mowat bases his conjectures upon the strong similarities between the stone structures in the Arctic and those on the Orkneys and other islands in the north of Scotland. Quite understandably, the Icelanders, to whom Leif Ericsson is a national hero, greatly resent Mowat's theory. (Nickerson, Colin; "New Clues Emerge on Viking Voyages," Boston Globe, February 14, 2000. Cr. M. Colpitts.) Comment. The same argument -- similarity of rude stone structures -- is presented to "prove" that the hundreds ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Drifters Sure, there may now be or once have been primitive life forms on Mars, but there does seem to be a serious shortage of carbon-based life forms elsewhere in the universe. In fact, there seems to be a great dearth of small, cool, solid, water-and-carbon-rich planets circling beneficent suns. Can it be that we are looking for extraterrestrial life in the wrong places? Life may have originated and prospered on the multitude of sun-less aggregations of matter drifting through the void, some doubtless quite close to us. Myriad nomadic planets may be roaming our Galaxy free from the clutches of parent stars. Two teams of astronomers think they have detected 25 of these free-floating planets, and say there could be hundreds of millions of them wandering the Milky Way. These free-floaters or "drifters" were created when small clouds of gas and dust coalesced under gravity's urging. If such collapsing clouds were less than 80 times Jupiter's mass, they would not be able to sustain nuclear reactions and become long-lived stars. Many would be-come "brown dwarfs." Still smaller aggregations -- less than 14 Jupiters -- would never shine at all. These would remain warm for a while as they dissipated the gravitational energy that created them. Such small objects would be temporarily detectable by infrared telescopes. Hundreds of such infrared " ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf130/sf130p04.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Midi-Chlorians are with Us!Whoops! We meant to write "mitochondria" in that title. In the movie Star Wars, Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn explains the origin of the supernatural powers possessed by Jedi knights. It arises, he says, from microscopic lifeforms called chlorians" that dwell within all living cells and reveal the will of the Force. Mitochondria are popularly seen as mere powerhouses within cells, with little influence on the organisms they inhabit. They are, it is believed, just the distant progeny of bacteria that invaded complex cells hundreds of millions of years ago. With only 37 genes in their arsenal, human mitochondria would not seem to pose any threat to humanity. After all, we have about 100,000 genes per cell. Of course, mitochondria do evolve separately from us, and this is a bit disconcerting. Could they be more than mere symbionts? The midi-chlorians of the Jedi knights were "good guys", but our mitochondria sometimes seem to be working for an insidious alien Force. There is good evidence that they: Selected which of your mother's germ cells matured to produce you; Have decided your odds of living to be 100; and May influence your being afflicted with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's , as well as rarer disorders. The first item (or "force") is the most ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf130/sf130p07.htm
