361 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The puzzle of the moon's origin The moon is the closest and best-studied astronomical object. Yet, there is no agreement as to its mode of origin. One might say that planetary scientists have just about thrown in the towel on the three major theories of lunar origin. Two recent articles attest to this discouraging situation. A Sky and Telescope article provides an excellent review of all three theories, indicating the reasons why each fails to convince a majority of scientists. The theories and the primary reasons for their rejection are: (1 ) Fission from earth . Lack of sufficient angular momentum in the earthmoon system and the fact that the moon does not orbit in the plane of the earth's equator. (2 ) Gravitational capture . The capture of such a large object in a nearly circular orbit is considered too improbable. (3 ) Earth-moon accretion as a double planet . The compositions of the earth and moon are too different. This article concludes that the resolution of the problem of lunar origin must await our return to the moon for more scientific exploration. (Rubin, Alan E.; "Whence Came the Moon?" Sky and Telescope, 68:389, 1984.) An article in Science also discusses the classical theories of lunar origin and quickly disposes of them for the above reasons. However, a fourth theory makes an appearance, which we might call the Big Splash Theory ...
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... Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics Catalog of Anomalies (Subjects)Overview Astronomy Biology Chemistry/Physics Geology Geophysics Logic/mathemitics Archeology Psychology Miscellaneous phenomena Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online Science Frontiers: The Book Sourcebook Project M ARCHEOLOGY Catalog of Anomalies (Archeology Subjects)Within each of these fields, catalog sections that are already in print are given alphanumerical labels. For example, BHB1 = B (Biology)+ H (Humans)+ B (Behavior)+ 1 (first anomaly in Chapter BHB). Some anomalies and curiosities that are listed below have not yet been cataloged and published in catalog format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. MA ANTHROPOLOGY MAA PHYSICAL APPEARANCE Polynesian Features Not Asian Blond Eskimos White Africans White Indians in Panama (San Blas, Darien Tribes) Welsh Indians Mandan Origin Red-Haired Nevada Indians Redmen in Africa and Madagascar Amerinds in China White Indians in New Mexico and Northwest Bearded Indians in Brazil Semitic New Guineans Ainu Origin Yellow race in Africa Living Neanderthals [BHE, Human-Neanderthal Hybrids] Chinese Characteristics of the Maya Asamanukpai: the Gold Coast Dwarfs The Maya Sacral Spot [BHA] New World Dwarfs Samurai Origin Whites in Polynesia Melungeon Origin Maoiri Origin Pre-Maori New Zealanders Polynesians in South America Long-Ears on Easter Island, the Maldives, and Elsewhere Whites in the Maldives Beothucks: Norse in Newfoundland? White Inca Aristocracy Toltecs: Carthaginian Origin? Basque Origin Sea Peoples Origin Berbers with Blond Hair, Blue Eyes White Pygmies in Paraguay Guanche Origin Blacks in America [MGT, Olmec Stone Heads] Titans: Who Were They? MAC CUSTOMS, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tektite-like objects at lonar crater, india Arguments about the origin of tektites persist in the scientific literature. A strong consensus has these small, drop like glassy bodies originating when meteors smash into the earth, liquifying themselves and some of the surface rocks. The resulting liquid droplets solidify in flight and when they descend form "strewn fields" hundreds, even thousands, of miles in extent. The main argument has been over whether the 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ironclad proof of the moon's origin? Did earth and moon "coaccrete" at the same time? That is, did two clouds of debris simultaneously collect and coalesce into two rough spheres, which then began orbiting about a common center of gravity? Or, perhaps the earth and moon were once a single mass that ultimately fissioned due to the gravitational tugging of a passing massive object. If either of these scenarios were correct, earth and moon would have similar bulk compositions. This, however, does not seem to be the case. The abundance and distribution of iron on the moon's surface, as measured by the lunar probe Clementine , indicates that the moon is richer than the earth in refractory (high meltingpoint) compounds. The moon, therefore, almost certainly originated elsewhere, contrary to what most astronomers have longbelieved. Given the constraints of celestial mechanics, the most likely hypothesis postulates a colossal impact involving protoearth and the interloping protomoon. After considerable havoc, the two battered spheres settled down into their present configuration. Thus expire the two most popular theories of the moon's origin. (Lucey, Paul G., et al; "Abundance and Distribution of Iron on the Moon," Science, 268:1150, 1995) From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Origin Of The Moon Debated In October of 1984, the Conference on the Origin of the Moon convenved in Kona, HI. The clear favorite among the four contending hypotheses was the earth-impact scenario, which may be stated as follows: "Near the end of the Earth's accretion, after its core had formed and while the growing planet was still molten, an object at least the size of Mars smashed into it at an oblique angle. The cataclysm put large quantities of vaporized or partially vaporized impactor and Earth into orbit. The primitive Moon formed from that material." Conferees turned thumbs down on the theory that the moon was captured by the earth. Still not ruled out are the double-planet hypothesis (earth and moon accreted in their present configuration) and the fission-from-earth theory. (Taylor, G. Jeffrey; "Lunar Origin Meeting Favors Impact Theory," Geotimes, 30:16, April 1985.) Reference. See SF#37 for more details on all four theories mentioned above. From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Paluxy Impressions The response to the SF#45 item on the Paluxy comingling of dinosaur and human footprints was immediate, copious, and sometimes emotional. Even though we regularly survey 100-or-so scientific journals, it seems that considerable Paluxy field work has never attained these hallowed pages -- probably it never will! Even though the SF#45 report was rather negative on the issue of the validity of the claims of the creationists, it evidently was not negative enough. We now have some documentation with which to clarify some points. G.J . Kuban has been in the forefront of Paluxy research for several years. He has submitted a long letter plus the Spring/Summer issue of a publication entitled Origins Research (published by the Students for Origins Research). This issue of Origins Research contains a lengthy article by Kuban plus shorter contributions from J. Morris (author of the ICR article digested in SF#45) and the Films for Christ Association (preparers of the film Footprints in Stone.) First, we quote from Kuban's personal communication: "As is explained in the enclosed Origins Research issue, the tracks never did merit a human interpretation, and presently are not as 'mysterious' as ICR and some other creationist groups would have us believe. Indeed, whereas the geo-chemistry of the colorations is still being studied, the color distinctions are definitely part of the rock material, and show no evidence of a 'painting' hoax. Further, even without ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Life's origin within the earth?Biologists usually hark back to warm, sunlit swamps and tidal pools when contemplating the origin of life. Lately, Hoyle has proposed a cosmochemical origin (see OR DID IT DRIFT IN FROM WITHOUT? ). Few look within the earth. Yet, when Mt. St. Helens erupt-ed it essentially sterilized all lakes and ponds in the immediate area as far as known life forms were concerned, and then introduced previously unknown chemosynthetic bacteria. At least, this is one interpretation. Scientists at Oregon State University found the waters around the volcano to be teeming with these bacteria, up to a billion per drop. The bacteria resemble nothing in the local soil but do seem related to bacteria existing around Precambrian volcanos. (Anonymous; "Secrets of Life in a Volcano?" Boston Globe, July 14, 1981.) Comment. Were the new bacteria in the volcanic ejecta or had they just gone unnoticed in the soil? Could the hot rocks, geothermal brines, and restless magmas beneath our feet be the real cradle of terrestrial life, with photosynthesis-dependent surface species being relatively unimportant to the big picture? From Science Frontiers #18, NOV-DEC 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... "Funerals" BBB41 Avian Graveyards BBB42 Huddling and Stacking BBB43 Bird Battles BBB44 Miscellaneous Curiosities of Avian Behavior BBC CHEMICAL PHENOMENA BBC1 Palatable Eggs More Vulnerable to Predation BBC2 Conspicuous Plumage Advertises Unpalatability BBC3 Why Did Stinking Birds Evolve? BBC4 Poisonous Birds and Poison Dart Frogs: Convergent Evolution? BBC5 Are Ratites More Primitive Than Flying Birds? BBC6 Did Australian Songbirds Evolve Earlier than European Songbirds? BBC7 Are Birds More Closely Related to Mammals Than to Reptiles? BBC8 The Inability of Some Birds to Synthesize Ascorbic Acid BBD DISTRIBUTION OF BIRDS IN SPACE AND TIME BBD1 Discontinuous Populations of Birds BBD2 Uncolonized Areas: Unfilled Niches BBD3 Land Birds Observed Far at Sea BBD4 Late Survival of Moas and Passenger Pigeons BBD5 Distribution Curiosities BBE THE FOSSIL RECORD OF BIRDS BBE1 The Fossil Record of Birds and Associated Paradigms BBE2 Evidence against the Dinosaur Origin of Birds BBE3 Protoavis: A Pre-Archaeopteryx Bird? BBE4 Unresolved Nature of Archaeopteryx BBE5 The Apparent Absence of Transitional Forms of Feathers BBE6 Fossils of Ostrich Ancestors in the Northern Hemisphere BBE7 Controversial Feathers of the London Archaeopteryx Fossil BBE8 Giant Fossil Eggs BBF BODILY FUNCTIONS BBF1 The Avian Respiratory System: Unique, Complex, Sophisticated BBF2 Avian Bodily Functions: Some Oddities BBG GENETICS BBG1 Species mtDNA More Diverse Than Morphology BBG2 Discordance in the Date of Divergence of Modern Birds BBG3 Discordances between Phylogenies Established from Morphology and DNA Analysis BBG4 Dearth of Introns in Birds BBI INTERNAL STRUCTURES AND SYSTEMS BBI1 Avian Magnetoreceptors: Hard to Find BBI2 Curious Internal Structures BBO ORGANS BBO1 Complexity and Sophistication of Some Owl Ear-Brain, Sound-Localization Systems BBO2 Regeneration of Brain Neurons BBO3 Curiosities of Avian Brains BBO4 The Pecten: ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Memoirs Of A Dissident Scientist "The Editors have set aside their ordinary scruples to publish the following recollections, in which Hannes Alfven defends a theory that is now rejected by virtually all working astrophysicists." This first sentence from a (sort of) disclaimer by the Editors of the American Scientist really seems unscientific. After all, Alfven shared a Nobel Prize in 1970; is that not recommendation enough? Apparently not -- at least not when Alfven believes that cosmic rays have a local rather than galactic origin. The reflections of Alfven on the development of cosmic-ray theory are rather amusing; they reveal how much people and ideas change. Alfven originally maintained that cosmic rays were of galactic origin. But when he met E. Teller, who favored a local origin (within the sun's domain), Alfven was swayed. He is now among that tiny minority that defends the local origin view. Ironically, Teller switched sides, too, and now espouses a galactic origin. Alfven concludes his reminiscing with a paragraph that says much about today's scientific environment: "The mentioned conditions and quite a few other factors have led to a disagreement between a very strong establishment (E ) and a small group of dissidents (D ) to which the present author belongs. This is nothing remarkable. What is more remarkable and regrettable is that it seems to be almost impossible to start a serious discussion between E and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is all natural gas biological in origin?T. Gold and S. Soter, from Cornell, have championed the theory that earthquake lights, sounds, and precursory animal activities may be due to abiogenic natural gases escaping from deep within the earth. Perhaps some petroleum and natural gas reserves have been created by primordial hydrocarbons working their way outward through the crust rather than by the geochemical alteration of biological materials. Perhaps almost all petroleum is abiogenic -- some Russian scientists hold this view! Western scientists are almost unani-mous that natural gas and oil are bio genic with maybe a touch of upwelling abiogenic hydrocarbons. A major reason given for this stance is that the biogenic theory has been so productive in locating hydrocarbon reserves. This, of course, leaves the earthquake lights and sounds still unexplained. (Anonymous; "Abiogenic Methane? Pro and Con," Geotimes, 25:17, November 1980.) Comment. The moral of this might be that seemingly inconsequential phenomena historically lead to wholesale changes in scientific thinking; viz., the insignificant advance in Mercury's perihelion. Reference. The possible abiogenic origin of natural gas is covered at ESC16 in Neglected Geological Anomalies. For a description of this Catalog, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Africa not man's origin!The following abstract is from a 1982 paper in Nature. "It has been suggested that the evolution of man took place in Africa. This suggestion results from the unusual abundance of fossil material in Africa that is quite ancient in comparison with what is known elsewhere. The theory of an African origin has influenced the interpretation of the age of some non-African archaeologial sites. A case in point is the 'Ubeidiya locality in Israel, which is generally considered to be about 700,000 yr old because it has been assumed by a few that the associated Early Acheulian tool industry, and the persons who used it, would have taken considerable time to disperse from Olduvai Gorge to this non-African site in Israel. Here we evaluate fossil mammals from 'Ubeidiya, which are stratigraphically and directly associated with Early Acheulian artifacts, and find no substantial reason for considering the locality younger than 2Myr, and possibly as much as 500,000 yr older than any record of Early Acheulian artefacts or Homo erectus in Africa." (Repenning, Charles A., and Fejfar, Oldrich; "Evidence for Earlier Date of 'Ubeidiya, Israel, Hominid Site," Nature, 299:344, 1982.) From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Coming Revolution In Planetology "Current ideas about the moon appear to be mistaken on two fundamental points. First, at least within certain large classes of lunar craters, internal origin (i .e ., some form of volcanism) predominates over impact; this result raises questions about the reality of the 'era of violent bombardment.'Second, the origin of tektites by meteoric impact on the earth cannot be reconciled with physical principles and is to be abandoned. The only viable alternative is origin by lunar volcanism, which implies the following: continuance of (rare) explosive lunar volcanism to the present time; existence of silicic lunar volcanism and of small patches of silicic rock at the lunar surface; a body of rock in the lunar interior, probably at great depth, which is closely similar to the earth's mantle and which contains billions of tons of volatiles, probably including hydrogen; and the origin of the moon from the earth after the formation of the earth's core." " Editor's Note . This article by John O'Keefe puts forth a viewpoint with which most planetologists disagree strongly. On the ground that a fresh airing of the long-standing discussion on lunar volcanism is appropriate, Eos offers this article, untouched by editors or referees, and awaits reply by readers." O'Keefe's article reviews considerable evidence supporting his two points: for Point One; crater ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A NEARBY RING OF COMETS?Some 589 long-period comets are known. They ply orbits around the sun that may take millions of years to complete. Astronomers are generally agreed that these bodies originate in a very distant (100,000 A.U .* ) halo of cometary material surrounding the entire solar system. J. Oort proposed this cloud, and it is named after him. Of course, we anomalists become wary when scientists "generally agree" on a hypothetical entity that no one can see. The Oort Cloud of comets, like the unseeable black holes, are given substance only by the effects they have on other solar-system denizens and seeable cosmic objects. But there may be another cloud of comets that we can view directly. It is called the Kuiper Cloud (after G. Kui per). It is concentrated in the plane of the ecliptic just beyond the orbit of Neptune. Like the Oort Cloud, the Kuiper Cloud has not been seen yet, but we just might be able to with today's equipment! Its existence is hypothesized from the parameters of a different group of comets -- the so-called "short-period" comets, as exemplified by 76-year Halley's Comet. About 120 short-period comets have been discerned so far; and our computers now tell us that they cannot have originated in the Oort Cloud. Something closer and concentrated ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oil & gas from the earth's core In central Sweden this summer, drillers will be boring into the rocks of the Siljan Ring, Europe's largest known meteor crater. Oil and gas should not be down there in any quantities according to current theory, but that's what they are drilling for. Isn't it futile to fight such a well-established dogma that oil and gas have biological origins and therefore must be looked for only where life once thrived? Not any longer! Enough anomalies have accumulated to seriously challenge the idea that oil and gas are byproducts of ancient animal life. Here are a few of these anomalies: The geographical distribution of oil seems derived from features much larger in scale than individual sedimentary features. The quantities of oil and gas available are hundreds of times those estimated on the basis of biological origins. The so-called "molecular fossils" found in oil and claimed as proof of a biogenic origin are simply biological contaminants, particularly bacteria that feed upon the petroleum. Petroleum is largely saturated with hydrogen, whereas buried biological matter should exhibit a deficiency of hydrogen. Oil and gas are often rich in helium, an inert gas which biological pro cesses cannot concentrate. The great oil reservoirs of the Middle East are in diverse geological provinces. There is no unifying feature for the region as a whole and, especially, no sediments rich in biological debris that could have produced ...
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... very least, I find curious and engaging. My main objectives with this volume are these: The compilation of a list of scientific phenomena worthy of further attention and research The presentation of a "first look" a the entire spectrum of what I have found anomalous, provocative, and exciting in science The provision, via a menu-type index, of a guide to my many already published Catalogs and Handbooks of anomalies and curiosities. Major Paradigms Targeted Anomalies exist only when they challenge paradigms and hypotheses. It is unavoidable, therefore, that some paradigms, widely considered to be fact, will be contradicted by many of the phenomena listed in this Outline. For example, the following paradigms that presently dominate scientific thinking are her considered to be at risk: The expanding universe The Big Bang origin of the universe Neo-Darwinism (specifically, evolution via random mutation and natural selection) That genomes are the complete blueprint for lifeforms Plate tectonics/continental drift Special and General Relativity View Cart Buy online via PayPal with MC/Visa/Amex 296 pages, softcover, $17.95, 244 illus., Jan 2003. ISBN 0-915554-45-3 , 7x10". Biology Catalogs For a full list of biology subjects, see here . Biological Anomalies: Humans I: A Catalog of Biological Anomalies Sorry, Out of print This volume, the first of three on human biological anomalies, looks at the "external" attributes of humans (1 ) Their physical appearance; (2 ) Their anomalous behavior; and (3 ) Their unusual talents and faculties. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Doubts About Two Ritually Recited Theories Do you think humans originated in Africa? We have heard for so long now that modern humans got their start in Africa. (This assertion is as hackneyed as: "Life began in a warm little pond"!) There is, of course, some evidence for the African claim. Studies of genetic material and the fossil record are suggestive, although the latter includes the Middle East as a possible birthplace. Other data, however, put the "founding group" of modern humans in Southeast Asia. The iconoclast here is C.G . Turner, II, an anthropologist at Arizona State University. He has analyzed secondary dental traits (number of roots, bumps, etc.) of 12,000 individuals from around the world - both ancient and modern. Turner believes that the "great web of humanity" originated in Southeast Asia. Since then, two large populations, each recognizable by their dental features, have evolved.: (1 ) northeast Asians and the ancient residents of the Americas; and (2 ) southeast Asians, Europeans, ancient Australians, and Africans. Also of note is the close resemblance between native Australians and Africans. (Bower, B.; "Asian Human Origin Theory Gets New Teeth," Science News, 136:100, 1989.) Did the eruption of Thera do in the Minoans? According to popular archeolo-gical doctrine, ...
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... Events ESB3 Recent Vegetation and Shallow Water Fossils at Great Depths ESB4 Long-Buried, Undecomposed Organic Matter ESB5 Living and Fossil Marine Organisms Found Far Inland ESB6 Living Organisms and Recent Fossils at Very High Altitudes ESB7 Growth Structures on Marine Organisms and Their Fossils ESB8 Animals Entombed in Rocks ESB9 Living Organisms at Great Depths ESB10 Fossils of Warm-Climate, Light Dependent Organisms Found in the Polar Regions ESB11 Time-Wise Anomalous Fossils ESB12 Skipping in the Fossil Record ESB13 "Special" Nature of Fossils ESC ANOMALOUS CHEMICAL PHENOMENA IN GEOLOGY ESC1 Chemical Anomalies in the Stratigraphic Record ESC2 Chemical Anomalies in Igneous and Metamorphic Rocks ESC3 Surface Films on Rocks ESC4 Spontaneous, Rapid, Exothermic Reactions in Nature ESC5 Death Gulches ESC6 Violent Lake Turnovers ESC7 Petrifactions and Lignifications ESC8 Geological Effects of Natural Combustion ESC9 Rocks and Sediments of Controverted Origins ESC10 Unusual Growth Structures ESC11 Possible Extraterrestrial Origin of Ocean Water ESC12 Chemical Anomalies of Lakes and Ground Water ESC13 Petroleum Anomalies ESC14 Coal Anomalies ESC15 Outgassing of Radon-222 ESC16 Methane Anomalies ESD DEPOSITS OF REMARKABLE SIZE ESD1 Bone Caves, Bone Caches,... ESD2 Bone Beds, Fish Beds,... ESD3 Sedimentary Deposits of Exceptional Volume ESD4 Historical Evidence for Large Scale Flooding ESD5 Recent Large Reductions of Polar Ice Cover ESD6 Giant Basalt Flows and Traps ESD7 Giant Accumulations of Oil ESD8 Giant Erratics and Megabreccias ESD9 Deposits of Great Areal Extent ESI INCLUSIONS ESI1 Inclusions in Crystals ESI2 Microdebris ESI3 Erratic Boulders, Stones, and Mineral Patches ESI4 Anomalous Amber Inclusions ESI5 Microfossil-Like Inclusions ESI6 Oil in Fossil Cavities ESI7 Carbon Dust on Fossil Plants ESI8 Great Rarity of Fossil Meteorites and Tektites ESI9 Stretched ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Glossolalia: possible origins N.P . Spanos et al begin their article with a neat encapsulation of the status of psychological research into glossolalia: "Glossolalia (i .e ., speaking in tongues) is vocalization that sounds languagelike but is devoid of semantic meaning or syntax. In the Christian tradition this vocalization pattern is associated with the ideas of possession by the Holy Spirit and communication with God through prayer or prophecy. Some scientific investigators conceptualize glossolalia as the product of an altered or dissociated state of consciousness, whereas others view it as symptomatic of psychopathology. "The available empirical data fail to support either of these hypotheses. For example, both ethnographic observations and experimental findings indicate that glossolalia can occur in the absence of kinetic activity, disorientation, and other purported indexes of trance, and that experienced glossolalics do not differ from nonglossolalic controls on measures of absorption in subjective experience and hypnotic susceptibility. Relatedly, the available empirical data fail to support the hypothesis that glossolalics suffer higher levels of psychopathology than nonglossolalics." Spanos et al then go on to detail their own research, in which they tried to teach glossolalia as a learnable skill. First, 60 subjects listened to a 60-second sample of genuine glossolalia. All subjects then tried to speak in tongues for 30 seconds. Some 20% spoke in tongues immediately without further training. The subjects were then divided into a control group and a group that received various kinds of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Stealth Catastrophe Recently, as geologists reckon time -- only 800,000 years ago -- Australia, Southeast Asia, and the eastern Indian Ocean were bombarded by untold numbers of small, oddly shaped stones called "tektites." New finds of tektites have expanded the strewn field of these Australasian tektites to include part of China. It now appears that about 30% of the earth's area was subjected to this stony bombardment. It is inescapable that the Australasian-tektite fall was a major event in the earth's history. But where are other signs of this great catastrophe? The present consensus holds that the Australasian tektites originated when a large celestial body slammed into our planet somewhere in Southeast Asia. The energy of the impact splashed droplets of molten rock into the atmosphere, where they were shaped aerodynamically and then fell as tektites. The extent of the immense Australasian-tektite strewn field implies a hard-to-miss crater about 100 kilometers in diameter. Yet, despite the geological recency of the event and despite much geological surveying, no convincing crater has been discovered. (SF#115) So, we have abundant evidence of a terrestrial event encompassing much of the planet but no "smoking crater"! The mystery deepens when one realizes that whatever cataclysm sent the Australian tektites aloft may have been comparable in magnitude to the impact that extinguished the dinosaurs (and other fauna) some 65 million years ago ...
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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 The Obscure Origin Of Insects And Their Wings The earliest fossil insect is a wingless springtail found in Scotland's Devonian cherts, which conventional dating schemes tell us are about 350 million years old. Some biologists doubt that springtails should be classified as true insects. In any event, these ancient springtails are considered too specialized to be the ancestors of modern winged insects. The next insects in the fossil record appear suddenly in the Upper Carboniferous (300 million years ago) with fully developed wings. There exists an embarrassing 50-million-year gap between the fossil springtails and the more specialized insects. Evolution requires that this gap be filled with many random experiments at insect construction, including the first attempts at fashioning wings. Whalley admits the gap and the total mystification of paleontologists about how insects and biological flight first developed. Perhaps, he surmises, wings may have been the natural extrapolation of flap-like outgrowths required for body cooling. Random mutations would have added the muscles needed to orient the flaps and move them to improve circulation! (Whalley, Paul; "Derbyshire's Darning Needle," New Scientist, 78:740, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fossil from mars?Who would have thought that the dreary Antarctic wastes would harbor a piece of Mars, much less a fossil of Martian life? Yet, British scientists, I.P . Wright et al, in Nature, come close to such a conclusion. "The meteorite EETA 79001, which many believe to have originated on Mars, contains carbonate minerals thought to be Martian weathering or alteration products. Accompanying the carbonates are unexpectedly high concentrations of organic materials (defined here as carbonaceous matter that has a low stability towards oxidation, and so combusts at less than 600 C; the term 'organic' does not necessarily imply an origin by biogenic processes.) Although the carbon isotope composition of these materials is indistinguishable from terrestrial biogenic components, and so cannot be used to assess the source, we argue here that their occurrence in an interior sample of a clean Antarctic meteority militates against a wholly terrestrial origin. A sample of Martian organic materials may thus be available for further study in the laboratory." (Wright, I.P ., et al; "Organic Materials in a Martian Meteorite," Nature, 340: 220, 1989.) But there are many "buts": Meteorite EETA 79001 may not have come from Mars after all, even though many scientists think it did. The organic material in EETA 79001 may have come instead from the comet that supposedly blasted the meteorite into space from the ...
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... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The "inscribed wall" at chatata, tennessee One of our favorite anomalies over the years has been the ancient "inscribed wall" at Chatata, near Cleveland, in Bradley County, Tennessee. The above quotation marks are intended to warn the reader that said wall may not be man-made, and its inscriptions may be natural rather than artificial. An old drawing of a section of the "inscribed wall" at Chatata, TN. Note the triangular marker stone projecting above ground level. The history of the Chatata wall is long and convoluted. Discovered over a century ago, new facts are still coming to light today, as reviewed by D.E . Wirth in a recent issue of The Ancient American. The wall was originally almost completely buried. It attracted attention only because its course was marked on the surface by stones projecting from the ground every 25-30 feet over a gently curving arc about 1,000 feet long. One of these surface stones seemed to be inscribed with strange symbols. Excavations, supported at first by the Smithsonian Institution, revealed a 3-ply sandstone wall-like structure seemingly cemented together by a reddish mortar. Splitting the sandstone sheets revealed diagonal rows of markings like those illustrated. At first, both wall and inscriptions were proclaimed to be artificial. More recent studies by geologists point to natural origins for the wall, the mortar, and even the inscriptions themselves. The latter may be no more than the burrows of mollusks. This interpretation does make sense because the so- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did humans evolve in siberia?Russian academician Yuri Mochanov thinks so! He does not dispute that humans may also have evolved in Africa and, perhaps, Southeast Asia. And he has brought back some 4,000 stone tools collected at 15 sites in the Siberian permafrost to bolster his claim that Siberia, too, was a point of origin for hominids (see map). "Molchanov's controversial evidence is indeed striking: a collection of chipped and flaked rocks that are clearly artifacts fashioned by humanlike hands and that he contends are 2.5 million years old -- plus or minus a half-million years. "Remarkably, that same era marked the time when early human ancestors known as Homo habilis lived and left their remains in the tropical Olduvai Gorge of what is now Tanzania. Mochanov's collection of tools closely resembles the ones that anthropologists have long collected from digs in Africa." All this contrasts strongly with the dominant view of hominid evolution, which cites warm, verdant African forests and savannas as our most likely place of origin. Siberia, with its -50 winters and fleeting summers, hardly seems conducive to hominid speciation. Mochanov's rationale is that this severe climate actually stimulated ancient hominids to create tools, fashion warm clothing, and build winter shelters -- these Siberian hominids had to evolve or perish! In addition to the climate factor are two other problems: (1 ) The ...
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... Science Frontiers The Book Strange reports * Bizarre biology * Anomalous archaeology From New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, etc Archaeology Astronomy Biology Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics Science Frontiers The Book Contents Science Frontiers is an indexed compilation of the first 86 issues of our Science Frontiers newsletter . Chapter 1. Archeology: Ancient Engineering Works * Small Artifacts * Epigraphy and Art * Bones and Footprints * Diffusion and Culture. Chapter 2. Astronomy: Planets and Moons * Solar System Debris * Stars * Galaxies and Quasars * Cosmology. Chapter 3. Biology: Humans .* Other Mammals * Birds * Reptiles and Amphibians * Fish * Arthropods * Invertebrates * Plants and Fungi * Microorganisms * Genetics * Origin of Life * Evolution. Chapter 4. Geology: Topography * Geological Anomalies * Stratigraphy * Inner Earth. Chapter 5. Geophysics: Luminous Phenomena* Weather Phenomena * Hydrological Phenomena * Earthquakes * Anomalous Sounds * Atmospheric Optics. Chapter 6. Psychology: Dissociation Phenomena * Hallucinations * Mind - Body Phenomena * Hidden Knowledge * Reincarnation * Information Processing * Psychokinesis. Chapter 7. Chemistry, Physics, Math, Esoterica: Chemistry * Physics * Mathematics. Comments from reviews: "This fun-to-read book may lead some to new scientific solutions through questioning the phenomena presented", Science Books and Films Publishing details: 356 pages, paperback, $18.95, 417 illus., subject index, 1994. 1500+ references, LC 93-92800 ISBN 0-915554-28-3 , 8.5 x 11. Order From:The Sourcebook Project P.O . Box ...
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... least this old. Significantly, the oil contains extremely small amounts of steranes, which are thought to be derived from advanced organisms, but there were plenty of chemicals typical of primitive bacteria. The mere existence of commercially exploitable deposits of Precambrian oil implies that, far from being devoid of life, the ancient earth was host to immense accumulations of bacteria and other simple organisms. (Anonymous; "Ancient Oil in Australia: A New Bonanza?" New Scientist, p. 26, September 11, 1936.) Comment. As discussed above this Australian oil might have been produced abiogenically. The surface and near-surface Athabasca oil sands in western Canada constitute a well-known deposit of almost unbelievable size. Geologists have long speculated about where such an immense quantity of biological matter could have originated. (Few dare to suggest nonbiological origins!) Now, we learn that below the Cretaceous Athabasca oil sands lies a 70,000 square kilometer "carbonate triangle" estimated to contain about 2 x 1011 cubic meters (about 6 cubic kilometers) of bitumen. This bitumen is closely related chemically to the oil sands above it. A common origin seems likely. (Hoffmann, C.F ., and Strausz, O.P .; "Bitumen Accumulation in Grosmont Platform Complex, Upper Devonian, Alberta, Canada," American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Bulletin, 70:1113, 1986.) Comment. Many geologists believe that these incredible accumulations of organic matter migrated from some distant source to their present location. But just where was this prodigious wellspring of biological activity? ...
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... 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 A Hoax Admitted Above, we summarized a paper entitled "Uncanny Prophecies in New Zealand: An Unexplained Scientific Anomaly." The author of this paper, R. Kammann, has revealed that the whole business was a hoax. He now comes forth with details of the hoax and an explanation of why he chose to withhold data from the readers of the Zetetic Scholar. "In writing up this episode for readers outside of New Zealand, I chose initially to hide the skeptical origin of these bogus prophecies to allow readers to experience them as they might be presented by paranormal advocates. Although the predictions drew widespread attention in New Zealand media, their impact was undoubtedly dampened by their honest portrayal as an anti-astrology lesson by a skeptical psychologist. For a proper evaluation, it was therefore necessary to hide their true origin for at least one public presentation. Even there (in Zetetic Scholar, #11) I constrained myself to scientifically accurate reporting and quoted my own original wordings of the prophecies and their fulfillments from the tapes of the radio programs. For the miracle mongers of the paranormal press, such loyalty to the facts would be considered a bad precedent." (Kammann, Richard; "New Zealand Prophecies Exposed as a Hoax," Zetetic Scholar, no. 12, p. 34, August 1987.) Comment. Kammann's confession is nice to have, but can anyone be certain that he is not ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Backtracking along the paluxy: or is there a deeper mystery?Ostensibly, the facts are as follows: Several series of tracks in the sedimentary rocks along the Paluxy River, in Texas, which many creationists have considered to be of human origin, have recently changed appearance, apparently due to erosion. "Due to an unknown cause, certain of the prints once labeled human are taking on a completely different character. The prints in the trail which I have called the 'Taylor Trail,' consisting of numerous readily visible impressions in a left-right sequence, have changed into what appear to be tridactyl (three-toed prints, evidently of some unidentified dinosaur. The changes in the impressions themselves are mostly confined to lengthening in the downriver direction. The most significant change, however, is that surrounding the toe area. In almost each of the prints in the trail, three large 'toes' have appeared, similar to nearby dinosaur tracks. These toes, typically, are coloration phenomena only, with no impressions, in most cases. Frequently the 'mud pushup' surrounding the original elongated track is crossed by this red coloration. The shape of the entire track, including both impression and coloration, is unlike any known dinosaur print." J. Moore, the author of this article and a creationist, suggests that creationists no longer use the Paluxy tracks as evidence that humans and dinosaurs once coexisted. But he ...
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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 The bottle-green icebergs of antarctica Antarctic icebergs frequently incorporate sediments that turn them dark, even zebra-striped on occasion. But it is the bottle-green icebergs that provoke the most interest, for it is not certain why they are green. Is it due to intrinsic optical properties of the ice or impurities? A recent paper by J. Kipfstuhl et al suggests the latter and tells us where these translucent, strikingly green bergs originate. "A comparison of samples from a translucent green iceberg with a core from the Ronne Ice Shelf revealed an excellent agreement in isotopic composition, crystal structure, and incorporated sediment particles. Marine shelf ice which constitutes the basal portion of some ice shelves is considered to be the source of green icebergs. It [the green ice] most likely results from 'ice pump' processes which produce large amounts of ice platelets in the water column beneath ice shelves. These subsequently accumulate and become compacted into bubble-free, desalinated ice." The inclusions in the green ice are probably trapped by the accumulating platelets. Since the green ice is confined to the bottoms of the bergs, it becomes apparent only after the bergs capsize. The green icebergs in the Weddle Sea originate mainly from the Amery Ice Shelf. (Kipfstuhl, J. et al; "The Origin of Green Icebergs in Antarctica," Journal of Geophysical Research, 97:20,319, 1992.) Similar phenomenon ...
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... Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Throwing Sand In The Gears Of Molecular Clocks African Eve Gets a Lot Older. It is widely accepted as fact that all women are de-scended from an African "Eve" who lived between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. This conclusion was based upon mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) studies that assume that mtDNA is inherited only from mothers. This assumption has been repeated so often that few ever question it. However, two recent studies seem to show that some paternal mtDNA actually does get into eggs and recombines with maternal mtDNA. This unexpected invasion makes the mtDNA clock run more slowly. So, African Eve, if she ever existed, is probably twice as old as originally thought. (Day, Michael; "All about Eve...," New Scientist, p. 4, March 13, 1999.) Maybe There Were Two Eves! Not only has African Eve aged precipitously but there may have been a non-African Eve, too. J. Hey and E. Harris, at Rutgers, have presented data suggesting that the famous African Eve was the mother of only modern sub-Saharan Africans. Everyone else seems to have descended from an entirely different Eve. These data, if confirmed, demolish the African Eve theory and support the often-reviled multiregional theory of humans origins. (Pennisi, Elizabeth; "Genetic Study Shakes Up Out of Africa Theory," Science, 283:1828, 1999. Bower, B. ...
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... group? and (2 ) Should scientific journals police scientific research? The latter question should be answered by Science itself: we shall focus here on the possibility that real scientific anomalies are being concealed by all the media smoke. What did Nature's hit squad really find? J. Maddox (Nature's editor) et al concluded that Benveniste and his colleagues did not take enough care in their work, that their data did not have errors of the right magnitude (a statistical quibble), that no serious attempt was made to eliminate systematic errors and observer bias, that the climate of the lab was "inimical to an objective evaluation of the exceptional data," and that the phenomenon was not always reproducible. (7 ) No evidence of fraud was found. The data originally published in Nature were not explained or shown to be invalid. (11) In fact, the Nature investigation actually confirmed some of the original findings. (5 ) All of the French work and that of the cooperating laboratories were attributed to "autosuggestion"! (4 ) Qualifications of the Nature investigators. J. Benveniste pointed out that none of the three members of the Nature team had any experience in immunology. (4 , 11) The team consisted of J. Maddox (a physicist), J. Randi (a professional magician), and W. Stewart (an organic chemist). Curious aspects of Nature's publication and following investigation. Why did Nature accept and publish a paper when fraud and poor science were suspected? (4 , 11) Why ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 25: Jan-Feb 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Review Of The Tektite Problem Tektites are small glassy stones with drop-like and button-like shapes. They are found primarily in four strew fields in Europe, Australia, North America, and Africa. Just about everyone believes that tektites are once-liquid droplets of rock that were solidified in flight. The major question -- often intemperately debated -- is the location of the tektite source. Are they of terrestrial, lunar, cometary, or some other origin? A recent study by Shaw and Wasserberg, using element abundances as a guide, strongly favors a terrestrial origin, with meteor impacts serving as the liquefying and splashing agents. Indeed, specific craters have long been associated with the European and African strew fields. Those who believe that the tektites were splashed all the way from the moon by meteor impacts have not given up yet. One provocative fact stressed in this article is that the ages of the four groups of tektites are 35, 14, 1.3 , and 0.7 million years. Tektites are all quite young! (Smith, Peter J.; "The Origin of Tektites -- Settled at Last?" Nature, 300: 217, 1982.) Comment. Were there no tektite-forming meteor impacts prior to 35 millions of years ago? Is this observation related to the great rarity of meteorites in sedimentary rocks? Just what is different about the past 35 million years? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 4: July 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What caused the grooves on phobos?Photographs from the Viking Orbiters show that the Martian satellite Phobos displays a heavily grooved surface. Enough high-resolution photos have been taken to prove that these grooves emanate from the large crater named Stickney and run around the satellite to its opposite side where they die out. This suggests that the origin of the crater and the grooves are related. Further, the widest and deepest grooves (700 meters wide and 90 meters deep) are located close to Stickney. On the other side of Phobos, grooves are consistently less than 100 meters wide. Despite these hints of impact origin, the grooves are not quite what one would expect from simple fracture by collision. Some show beaded or pitted structures. Other grooves are composed of irregularly bounded segments. Finally, some of the straight-walled sections seem to have slightly raised rims. Evidently, some internal forces, perhaps stimulated by the formation of Stickney, also played a part. (Thomas, P., et al; "Origin of the Grooves on Phobos," Nature, 273:282, 1978.) Reference. The grooves of Phobos and its other anomalies are catalogued at ALL2 and ALL3 in The Moon and the Planets. To order this book, go to: here . Map of the strange grooves on the Martian moon Phobos From Science Frontiers #4 , July 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Geophysics Logic/mathemitics Archeology Psychology Miscellaneous phenomena Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online Science Frontiers: The Book Sourcebook Project A ASTRONOMY Catalog of Anomalies (Astronomy Subjects)Within each of these fields, catalog sections that are already in print are given alphanumerical labels. For example, BHB1 = B (Biology)+ H (Humans)+ B (Behavior)+ 1 (first anomaly in Chapter BHB). Some anomalies and curiosities that are listed below have not yet been cataloged and published in catalog format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. AA ASTEROIDS AAB CELESTIAL MECHANICS PROBLEMS WITH ASTEROIDS AAB1 Anomalous Asteroid Orbits AAB2 Asteroid Distribution Anomalies AAB3 The High "Internal Energy" of the Asteroid Population AAB4 Peculiar Distribution of Asteroid Spin Rates AAB5 Unexplained Residual Precession of Icarus AAB6 Evidence against an Explosive Origin for Asteroids AB SOLAR SYSTEM "LAWS" AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS ABB DYNAMICS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM AS-A -WHOLE ABB1 Solar-System Instability ABB2 Circularity of Planetary Orbits ABB3 Anomalous Split of Angular Momentum between Sun and Planets ABB4 Ubiquity of Resonances in the Solar System ABS REMARKABLE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG PLANETARY AND SATELLITE PARAMETERS ABS1 Solar System Laws of Distance ABS2 Similarity of Densities of Composite Terrestrial Planets ABS3 Multiple Primaries in the Solar System ABS4 Supposed Quantization of Planetary Orbital Periods ABS5 Solar System Mass Laws ABS6 The Quantized Nature of Orbital Systems AC COMETS ACB ORBITAL ANOMALIES OF COMETS ACB1 The Appearance of Comets in Cycles ACB2 Nonrandom Direction-of-Approach of Comets to the Sun ACB3 New Comets Have Almost Critical Velocity ACB4 Sun-Grazing Comets: The Kreutz Group ACB5 Changing Cometary Periods ACB6 Jupiter's Family of ...
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... but where did it come from?October 15, 1991. American Southwest. Photomultipliers in the Fly's Eye telescopes 100 kilometers southwest of Salt Lake City recorded the havoc wrought in the upper atmosphere by the most energetic cosmic-ray particle ever measured. When this tiny subatomic particle slammed into air molecules, the ensuing debris caused the surrounding atmosphere to fluoresce. The amount of light produced indicated that this cosmic ray had an energy of 3 x 1020 electron volts -- that's equivalent to the energy of a bowling ball dropped from waist level. Now that's a lot of energy for a subatomic particle! Because cosmic rays normally lose energy as they collide with photons in their cosmic wanderings, astrophysicists believe that "the big one" had to have a recent, nearby origin in order to still be so energetic. But no one has any idea where it could have come from or how it might have acquired so much energy. Somewhere out there in nearby space there may be a natural particle accelerator orders of magnitude more powerful than our biggest earthbound atom smashers. (Anonymous; "The Deepening Mystery of Cosmic-Ray Origins," Sky and Telescope, 87:12, May 1994.) Comment. Actually, the source of "the big one" need not have been nearby and recent. All anomalists will recognize that this is an assumption based upon the particle's extremely high energy when it hit the earth. Why couldn't the particle's original energy have been much higher than 3 x 1020 ev? Then, it could ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A TRIPLE ANOMALY IN A DIAMOND Diamonds as gems have an eerie hold on the human mind. Scientists, too, find them mysterious in several ways. Despite considerable study, the origin(s ) of diamonds remain controversial. In SF#92*, we already mentioned and illustrated the unusual orthogonal arrays of hollow tubes discerned in some diamonds at high magnifications (100X). These tubes remain unexplained, as far as we know. Now, in some diamonds, these tubular arrays are found to be associated with radiohalos. Radiohalos are often seen in some common minerals, such as biotite, but, even there, questions of origin persist. (See SF#25 and SF#58.) No one questions that radiohalos, whether in biotite or diamonds, arise from the the decay of radioactive inclusions; that is, mineral specks carrying uranium, thorium, or some other radioactive element. But how did these radioactive specks get lodged inside the hollow tubes which themselves are encased within diamonds? The problem is that these specks have much lower melting points than the diamond matrix. Why wasn't the liquid radioactive material dispersed throughout the higher melting point diamond matrix long before the latter crystallized? The same question must be asked about the radiohalos themselves, because the application of heat quickly anneals and disperses them. Complicating the picture still further is the fact that some of the radiohalos arise from the decay of polonium-210 ...
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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 Venus Has Uncertain Pedigree The five instrumented Pioneer probes that plunged into the thick Venusian atmosphere in late 1978 discovered unexpectedly large quantities of the isotope argon-36. The significance of argon-36 is that it is supposed to be primordial argon; that is, an argon isotope formed when the solar system was born. Since argon-36 is radioactive, most of the original supply of this isotope should have disintegrated and disappeared over the 4-billion-year history of the solar system. Indeed, the atmospheres of earth and Mars have much, much smaller quantities of argon-36 than Venus. Venus, therefore, may have had an origin different from that of earth and Mars -- either a much more recent birth (such that the argon-36 has not all disintegrated), or an altogether different kind of origin in which more argon-36 was created than was the case for earth and Mars. (Anonymous; "Venus Probes Solar System Birth," New Scientist, 80:916, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #6 , February 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Or did it drift in from without?Hoyle and Wickramasinghe conceive the cosmos as a seething retort of energy, gases, dust, and, most significantly, organic molecules and microbes. The space between the stars is more important than the stars themselves, for this thin soup is, in their view, the real "swamp" where life originated! The main evidence supporting their radical hypothesis consists of spectrograms, particularly in the infrared, which are difficult to account for on an inorganic basis, but which are fitted nicely by some organic materials, especially microbes. Hole and Wickramasinghe devote most of the present article to making a spectroscopic case for their theory, but near the end they shake the Temple of Science a bit: "Precious little in the way of biochemical evolution could have happened on the earth. It is easy to show that the two thousand or so enzymes that span the whole of life could not have evolved on the Earth. If one counts the number of trial assemblies of amino acids that are needed to give rise to the enzymes, the probability of their discovery by random shufflings turns out to be less than 1 in 1040000." They conclude that the genes that control the development of terrestrial life must have evolved on a cosmic scale, where there has been more time and much more room for shufflings. (Hoyle, Fred, and Wickramasinghe, Chandra; "Where Microbes Boldly Went," New ...
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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 Gamma-ray flashes in the upper atmosphere Something strange is definitely going on in the upper atmosphere, particularly above thunderstorms. We have already reported on the mysterious light flashes (SF90) and radio emissions (SF#94). Now, we record similar, possibly intimately related flashes of energy in a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. "Detectors aboard the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory have observed an unexplained terrestrial phenomenon: brief, intense flashes of gamma rays. These flashes must originate in the atmosphere at altitudes above at least 30 kilometers in order to escape atmospheric absorption and reach the detectors." The energies of the gamma rays in the flashes are very high. They are typical of the braking radiation (Bremsstrahlung) from 1,000,000 electron-volt electrons. Since most of the gamma flashes originate over regions where thunderstorms are frequent, it is tempting to associate them with lightning. Ordinary lightning, however, is not energetic enough to generate the gamma flashes and, of course, it does not occur above 30 kilometers altitude anyway. G.J . Fishman et al, who reported on this new phenomenon in Science, speculate that some hitherto unrecognized, high altitude electrical discharges occur high above areas hosting thunderstorms. Possibly, upwardly directed lightning (" rocket lightning") is involved in all three of the newly found flashes in the radio, optical, and gamma portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. (Fishman ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Archaea: the living ancestors of all life forms Life's place of origin may soon shift from that long-favored "warm little pond" to undersea hydrothermal vents. "Important new discoveries on the properties of the early earth and atmosphere, including the frequency and size of bolide impacts, have strongly implicated submarine hydrothermal vent systems as the likely habitat for the earliest organisms and ecosystems, while stimulating considerable discussion, hypotheses and experiments related to chemical and biochemical evolution. Some of the key questions regarding the origins of life at submarine hydrothermal vent environments are focussed on the effects of temperature on synthesis and stability of organic compounds and the characteristics of the earliest organisms on earth. There is strong molecular and physiological evidence from present-day mircoorganisms that the earliest organisms on earth were capable of growing at high temperatures (about 90 C) and under conditions found in volcanic environments. These 'Archaea', the living ancestors of all life forms, display a variety of strategies for growth and survival at high temperatures, including thermostable enzymes active at temperatures about 140 C. Further molecular and biochemical characterization of the presently cultured thermophiles, as well as future work with the many species, particularly from subsurface crustal environments, not yet isolated in culture, may help resolve some of the important questions regarding the nature of the first organisms that evolved on earth." (Baross, J.A .; "Hyperthermophilic Archaea: Implications for the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Going For Gold The name of T. Gold appears often in Science Frontiers. Currently, he is promoting the theory that many of the earth's hydrocarbon deposits (gas, oil, graphite, etc.) are not of biological origin but are formed rather when primordial methane outgases from the planet's interior. A vanishingly small number of geologists buy Gold's theory. Nevertheless, the Swedish State Power Authority and some private investors have been impressed enough to fund a drilling project at the Siljan Ring, a meteorite crater 150 miles north of Stockholm. There are no significant sources of biogenic hydrocarbons nearby, but oil seeps are not uncommon around the Ring. Mainstream theory cannot account for these seeps, but Gold's theory can: primordial methane streaming up through the cracked granite shield is converted, probably with the help of bacteria, into oil and hydrocarbon sludge. "Ridicuous," say the mainstreamers. Recently, the drilling program, which has reached the 22,000foot level, brought up 60 kilograms of very smelly black sludge with the consistency of modeling clay. The gunk seems to have a biological origin. In addition to the black sludge, the drillers have been encountering increasing quantities of various hydrocarbon gases as the hole went deeper. All very supportive of Gold's hypothesis. Establishment geologists are having difficulties explaining these results. They blame contamination by drilling lubricants and/or the surface oil seeps. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Alh 84001: a message from mars or perhaps some other planet ALH 84001 is a meteorite picked up in the Allan Hills of Antarctica a decade ago. Its composition and fused crust suggest an extraterrestrial -- origin probably Mars. Space scientists think ALH 84001 was blasted off the Martian surface by an impacting body 14-18 million years ago, based upon its exposure to cosmic rays while circling the sun, edging ever closer to earth. The composition of ALH 84001 tells us curious facts about its place of origin. First, it contains carbonate minerals deposited by water. Second, the carbonate grains are banded, implying the parent rock formation was washed by water more than once. Third, and most interesting, chemists have found traces of molecules called PAHs, based on interconnected benzene rings. Three sources have been proposed for these PAHs: Terrestrial contamination Prebiotic activity on the planet of origin PAH-bearing comets and/or asteroids impacting the parent planet. Terrestrial contamination has always been a problem in analyzing meteorites, but great care has been taken in recent years, especially with the Antarctic lode of meteorites. In view of these precautions, it seems rather likely that somewhere "out there" life is brewing. (Anonymous; "A Chip Off the Old Mars," Sky and Telescope , 90:12, July 1995.) Reference: See also: Incredible Life for the interesting history of past "discoveries of life ...
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... 's northern hemisphere is now brighter than its southern -- something never observed before. During the past eight years, the southern hemisphere has been consistently brighter, although the hemispheres were of roughly equal brightness during the late 1970s. The cause of these brightness changes remains a mystery. (Cowen, Ron; "Neptune's Northern Half Grows Brighter," Science News, 144:287, 1993.) Iapetus . This satellite of Saturn is dark on one half and light on the other. Quantitatively speaking, the bright side reflects ten times more incident light than the other. An explanation is suggested by the fact that the dark side points in the satellite's direction of motion. A recent study of 12 Voyager images of Iapetus also imply an exogenous (externally imposed) origin of the dark surface, because they show a gradual rather than sharp transition between the dark and light regions. The thought of planetary scientists is that micrometeoroids bombard the leading hemisphere of Iapetus preferentially and in the process volatilize considerable surface material. The residual deposit: ". .. may be an example of the dark, reddish, possibly organic-rich material which is found on other satellites in the outer solar system and on the D-type asteroids. (Buratti, Bonnie J., and Mosher, Joel A.; "The Dark Side of Iapetus: New Evidence for an Exogenous Origin," Eos, 74:193, 1993.) Comment. Here is still another hint that astronomical rather than terrestrial processes may perform that basic chemistry essential for the origin and prosperity ...
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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 Why cancer?" However, the most formidable obstacle to the successful treatment of disseminated cancer may well be the fact that the cells of a tumor are biologically heterogeneous. This phenotypic diversity, which allows selected variants to develop from the primary tumor, means not only that primary tumors and metastases can differ in their responses to treatment but also that individual metastases differ from one another. This diversity can be generated rapidly even when the tumors originate from a single transformed cell." (Fidler, Isaiah J., and Hart, Ian R.; "Biological Diversity in Metastatic Neoplasma: Origins and Implications," Science, 217:998, 1982.) Comment. The ability of single cancer cells to multiply into different kinds of cells, as well as propagate throughout an organism, seems to betoken an insidious biological entity, whose origin and purpose (? ) we have hardly begun to comprehend. How could cancer have evolved if it leaves no progeny? How could natural selection leave us so susceptible to cancer? Reference. The many enigmas of cancer are covered in categories BHH23-35 in our Catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans II. For information on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #24, NOV-DEC 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Might diamonds be dead bacteria?How can something as beautiful, pure, and crystalline as a diamond be made from dead, disgusting bacteria? In truth, all diamonds are full of impurities and curious microscopic structures. (See: "Diamonds Are an Anomalist's Best Friend" in SF#92.) The main constituent of diamonds is carbon, but even chemically pure carbon is contaminated in a sense. The contaminant is light carbon; that is, C12 , which is an isotope used preferentially by living organisms. Some diamonds, it is found, contain anomalously large fractions of C12, which suggests they have an organic origin. Some diamonds also contain sulfide inclusions that have sulphur-isotope ratios also symptomatic of a biological origin. The specific diamonds suspected to have an organic origin are the so-called "eclogitic" diamonds. These diamonds may have obtained their carbon and impurities from bacterial communities that once lived around hydrothermal vents that existed along ancient mid-ocean ridges. Subsequent metamorphism (heat and pressure) turned the masses of bacteria into eclogitic diamonds. So, those sparklers of yours may just be clumps of billion-year-old bacterial corpses! (Nisbet, E.G ., et al; "Can Diamonds Be Dead Bacteria?" Nature, 367:694, 1994.) Definition. Eclogites comprise a class of metamorphic rocks formed at extremely high temperatures and pressures. From Science Frontiers # ...
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... Mountains, old, deep glacial ice is tilted upward and exposed. Within this visible cross section of the icesheet, layers of dark volcanic tephra serve as stratigraphic markers and datable age horizons. Systematic sampling of these layers at a well-known meteorite collection site (the Allan Hills Main Icefield) has revealed a band consisting of unusually dark and rounded particles, many of which are spheroidal. This debris layer (BIT-58) extends parallel to the stratigraphy of the ice established from the tephra bands, and thus apparently marks a single depositional event. Several kilograms of ice from two sites along this band were subsequently collected and melted, yielding a few grams of sediment for further study." Microscopic examination and microprobe analysis led to the following conclusions: "Although direct evidence of an extraterrestrial origin for this debris layer (such as the presence of cosmogenic 10 Be and 26Al) has not yet been obtained, the available data strongly suggest that this sediment originated as meteoritic spallation debris. This debris is distinct from other Antarctic 'cosmic dust' collections by virtue of its uniform, recognizable, ordinary chondrite composition and the consistent relation shown between grain size and texture. The BIT-58 layer probably originated from a single transient event, the passage and/or impact of a single large meteorite over the East Antarctic icesheet." (Harvey, R.P . et al; "A Meteoritic Event Layer in Antarctic Ice," Meteoritics, 30:517, 1995) Comment. The Petrozavodsk Phenomenon under ASTRONOMY might well have left a layer like this. The 1908 Tunguska Event ...
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... -Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Everglades astrobleme?Astrobleme means "star wound," and the southern tip of Florida seems to have been wounded by an asteroid or some other celestial projectile. At a recent meeting of the Geological Society of America, E.J . Petuch proposed that the Everglades region received a direct hit from an asteroid about 36 million years ago. The Everglades region is a swampy, forested area surrounded by an oval-shaped system of ridges. Geologists usually maintain that the Everglades represent a collapse feature caused by groundwater dissolving away limestone. (Buildings and cars seem to be swallowed fairly regularly by Florida sinkholes.) Petuch disagrees with the collapse theory and points to the following evidence for an impact origin: 1. The presence of a strong positive magnetic anomaly; 2. Eocene formations, 40 million years old, are missing over the southern Everglades; 3. A network of fractures pervades rock layers older than Eocene; 4. High iridium concentrations, probably of extraterrestrial origin, exist at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary on nearby Barbados; and 5. The oval reef structure that seems to have grown around the impact area as sealevels rose. Some geologists do not concur with the asteroid theory, but they are all reviewing Florida's geological history in a new light. (Weisburd, S.; "Asteroid Origin of the Everglades?" Science News, 128:294, 1985.) Reference. Very large craters and astroblemes are cataloged in ETC in out catalog: Carolina ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Too many short-period comets Some comets, such as Halley's , have periods of less than 200 years. Scientists have postulated that these comets, which orbit relatively close to the sun, originally came from the far-distant Oort Cloud on parabolic (non-returning) orbits around the sun. Perturbations by the planets, notably Jupiter, deflected them into the tighter orbits we see today. The problem is that the number of parabolic comets entering the inner solar system from the Oort Cloud of comets (located at the outermost fringes of the solar system) is 100 times too small to account for the existing population of short-period comets. M.E . Bailey believes this discrepancy can be removed if the Oort Cloud possesses a massive inner core of comets. (Bailey, M.E .; "The Near-Parabolic Flux and the Origin of Short-Period Comets," Nature, 324:350, 1986.) Reference. The Oort Cloud of comets is an entrenched part of astronomical dogma. For observations challenging its existence, see our catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. A description of this book may be found here . From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bad Year For Water Monsters R. Razdan and A. Kielar describe in a recent issue of the Skeptical Inquirer the results of their 1983 experiments at Lock Ness with a sonar tracking array. Here are their conclusions: "We have shown that continuous sonar monitoring for seven weeks to a depth of 33 meters in an area where many previous sonar contacts had been reported showed no evidence of anything larger than a 1-meter fish. The circumstances under which previous expeditions had obtained sonar and photographic evidence in support of the existence of the Loch Ness monster could not withstand scrutiny. The evidence itself revealed discrepancies. This is especially true of the Academy's flipper photographs, the published versions of which differ from the original computer-enhanced photographs. Careless deployment of equipment and over-zealous interpretation of the data account for much of the so-called scientific evidence. While it is not possible to prove definitely that the monster does not exist, the evidence so far advanced strongly suggests that the Loch Ness monster is nothing more than a long-lived and extremely entertaining legend." The "Academy" mentioned above is the Academy of Applied Science. This article reproduced both the original JPL computer-enhanced photo of the famed flipper and the photo that was widely published. The "retouching" seems extensive. (Razdan, Rikki, and Kielar, Alan; "Sonar and Photographic Searches for the Loch Ness Monster: A Reassessment," Skeptical Inquirer, 9:147, 1984.) Reference. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Dowsing Skeptics Converted A while back, New Scientist ran an article on the "dowsing sense." Two letters prompted by the article were from scientifically trained people who originally were very skeptical about dowsing. The first letter from P.L . Younger, a university hydrogeologist, first mentioned that most dowsers are convinced that they are hunting underground streams of water. In actuality, he says, most underground water flow is intergranular and laminar. There are no underground streams to find! Then, he continued: "Having said all this, while conducting hydrogeological fieldwork in Colorado, I was involved in 'dowsing' the exact location of buried metal pipes using two L-shaped metal rods, which were balanced on the fingers (not clutched at all). Surface and subsurface pipes gave clear deflection of the rods. I was led to conclude that the rods operated as a crude magnetometer." B.W . Skelcher originally did not believe that any variation in the magnetic field or any other natural force would cause a hand-held stick to move. But: "One day, on the undeveloped plot of land adjacent to my abode, I spied a 'nutter' pacing to and fro with hazel in hand. When the fellow assured me that he was seriously checking the site for hidden water mains, power cables, and so on, I expressed my grave doubts. At this he handed me the twigs and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 17: Fall 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Shergottites and nakhlites: young and mysterious The shergottites and nakhlites are two types of meteorites that have scientists scratching their heads. Both types have been dated by various radioactive clocks at 1,300 million years or less -- far younger than all other meteorites. Where could such young meteorites have originated? The asteroids and moon's surface are far too old. A current guess is the surface of Mars. There, an impacting meteor could have blasted pieces of young lava sheets in space and thence to earth. The shergottites have a shocked structure and could well have originated in such catastrophism, but the nakhlites show no signs of violence and seem to require a separate explanation. (Anonymous; "Mystery Meteorites May Come from Mars," New Scientist, 91:219, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #17, Fall 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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