Science Frontiers
The Unusual & Unexplained

Strange Science * Bizarre Biophysics * Anomalous astronomy
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About Science Frontiers

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

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

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


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


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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 91: Jan-Feb 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Remarkable Hailstones Oddly shaped hailstones from the 1993 Tulsa fall. Such weird shapes are duplicated by the million by some unappreciated storm mechanism. Dimensions in mm. October 16, 1993. Tulsa, Oklahoma. "Circa 5:00 PM, CDT, anomaly witness Keith L. Partain, a trained entomological systematicist, heard a tornado siren. Funnel-like phenomena were reported by local weathercasters, one of which approached within one mile of the witness before it lost its vorticity. This was between 5:00-5 :15 PM and parenthesized the interval of anomalous hail. In the target interval numerous hail peppered the area described above. Partain observered shapes which did not conform to spherical and collected several specimens, which he immediately froze." See accompanying figure for shapes and dimensions. (Partain, Keith L.; private communication, October 17, 1993.) Comment. Often such grotesque hail-stones are produced in immense quantities -- a meteorological factory of the absurd -- and we do not know how this production line operates! From Science Frontiers #91, JAN-FEB 1994 . 1994-2000 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 Did barnard & mellish really see craters on mars?The answers are "No" and "Probably," respectively. Well, so what? Everyone knows from spacecraft photos that Mars is definitely peppered with craters; and who are Barnard and Mellish anyway? E.E . Barnard was one of the great American telescopic observers. J.E . Mellish was an amateur astronomer and a protege of Barnard. Both men may have seen Martian craters; Barnard at Lick Observatory in the early 1890s, and Mellish at Yerkes in 1915. These early dates are what make this story interesting, because prior to the Mariner-4 flyby of Mars in 1965, anyone claiming to have seen craters on Mars would have been labeled a crackpot. Just a mere three decades ago, planetary catastrophism was a ridiculous notion. Barnard never dared publish his drawings of Martian craters for fear of ruining his reputation. Mellish was not so reticent. He wrote and lectured widely on his anomalous observations. No one believed him because his observaconflicted with reigning paradigms. Once the paradigm shifted and craters on other planets were legitimized, astronomers looked back and wondered if Barnard and Mellish really did see craters. After all, nobody else had, although several reknowned astronomers had drawn networks of canals they had definitely seen. Some of Barnard's early sketches of Mars surfaced in 1987. They show known volcanos and the huge canyon complex called Valles Marineris, but ...
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... -Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Plants are not color blind!" Scientists have long known from laboratory experiments that various colors of light can affect stem size, root structure and other aspects of plant growth. But they have remained largely in the dark about the potential practical benefits of the phenomenon. "Using colored mulch to bathe plants in reflected light of certain hues, the South Carolina group (Clemson University) has begun to explore what colors plants prefer in agricultural growing conditions. Last year, for example, the group found that tomatoes grown with red mulch -- made with plastic sheets painted red -- had 20% higher yields than those with black mulch. Preliminary results this year show that potatoes and bell peppers grow best with white mulch...." (Anonymous; "Plants' Colors," Wall Street Journal, September 16, 1987. Cr. J. Covey.) Comment. Many questions arise here, but we'll take only three: (1 ) How do plants sense colors? (2 ) How do different colors mediate growth differently? (3 ) Is all this explicable in terms of evolution? From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... sun. All that is needed is a little water in the planet's atmosphere. Mainstream thinking is that "passing comets and asteroids" might bequeath Mercury some of their H2O cargos. (Cowen, R.; "Icy Clues from Mercury's Other Half," Science News, 140:295, 1991.) Also: Wilford, John Noble; "Photographs by Radar Hint of Ice on Poles of Mercury," New York Times, p. A14, November 7, 1991. Cr. J. Covey) Comment. What the above references do not mention is the possibility that the requisite water vapor for the formation of Mercury's polar caps might come from a steady rain of icy minicomets. L. Frank has suggested that 100-meter icy minicomets continuously pepper solarsystem planets. They might even have contributed to the formation of the earth's oceans. Icy comets are anathema here on earth and are equally detestable at Mercury's orbit. From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , these par-ticles fell by the millions. Aerodynamically sculpted Australasian tektite But another type of tektite is also found in Southeast Asia. These are the layered or Muong-Nong tektites, which are not aerodynamically sculptured. They come instead in large, irregular masses, 3-20 centimeters thick, weighing up to 24 kilograms. Their layered appearance is thought to result from flow and stirrings as they solidified in small pools of melted rock and soil splashed from nearby impact craters. These irregular chunks of solidified melt could not have traveled great distances like their streamlined brothers. They lie at most only a few crater diameters from their parent craters. Since layered tektites are found over an area 800 x 1140 kilometers in extent, and they are not far-travelers, Southeast Asia must have been peppered with many small cosmic projectiles 700,000 years ago (the disputed age of the event). Whereas geologists have been searching diligently for a single huge crater (perhaps 100 kilometers in diameter) to explain the Australasia strewn field, they should be looking for many 1-kilometer craters. This scenario is radically different from mainstream thinking about this great event in earth history. (Wasson, John T.; "Layered Tektites: A Multiple Impact Origin for the Australasian Tektites," Journal of Geophysical Research, 102:95, 1991.) Reference. For more on tektites, see ESM3 in the catalog Neglected Geological Anomalies. For details, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #78, NOV-DEC 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... about as much warmth as "cold fusion." One reason for the unpopularity of icy comets is that they would have provided sufficient water to fill the ocean basins, thus undermining the accepted view that our oceans derived from outgassed water vapor from deep within the earth. Besides this mindset, the minicomets do have some counts registered against them: (1 ) The effects of all the purported water vapor on the ionosphere should be easily detected but they are not; (2 ) Seismometers emplaced on the moon have not detected their impacts there; and (3 ) Military surveillance satellites have not seen these housesized objects. (Monastersky, Richard; "Small Comet Controversy Flares Again," Science News, 137:365, 1990. Also: Emsley, John; "Are 'Minicomets' Peppering the Earth's Atmosphere?" New Scientist, p. 36, June 9, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... week that killed one of their colleagues, a British electrochemist. A cold fusion 'cell' at SRI International in Menlo Park, California, blew up while Andrew Riley was bending over it, killing him instantly." Now small explosions in cold-fusion cells are not unknown. At the tops of some cells palladium-wire electrodes are exposed to oxygen and deuterium (heavy hydrogen) gases. If the palladium wires are not protected by films of water, the palladium can catalyze the explosive combination of the oxygen and hydrogen. This sometimes happens if a dry spot develops on a wire. Such detonations, though, cause little damage. The SRI explosion was much more powerful. The detonating cell (only 2 inches in diameter and 8 inches long), not only killed Riley but peppered three other researchers in the lab with debris. (Charles, Dan; "Fatal Explosion Closes Cold Fusion Laboratory," New Scientist, p. 12, January 11, 1992.) Comment. One cannot refrain from asking if the explosion involved only chemical energy. From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 13  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf080/sf080u19.htm
... 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 Instances Of Observed Speciation Creationists have long maintained that no one has ever observed the creation of a new species in nature. C.A . Callag han has sought to counter this attack on evolution with a paper bearing the above title. Her concluding paragraph is: "I have cited several instances of ob served speciation that can be used as illustrative examples in the classroom. They should also silence at least one common creationist argument against evolution." The paper begins with the well-worn peppered-moth story; but Callaghan quickly dismisses this, as the creationists do, as merely an example of variation within a species. We now quote the lead sentences from her discussions of the next two candidates: "An incipient neospecies of Drosophila may have developed in Theodosius Dobzhansky's laboratory sometime between 1958 and 1963 in a strain of D. paulistorum...." "A probable instance of a naturally emerging plant species was discovered on both sides of Highway 205 at a single locality 25.5 miles south of Burns, Harney County, Oregon...." We have inserted underlining beneath the two words that greatly weaken the paper. In short, the biologists are not really sure that speciation occurred in these two cases. The reasons for doubt are also presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of allopolyploidy in plants, in which the chromosomes of a sterile hybrid are doubled, giving rise to a fertile ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 13  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf054/sf054b06.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Melanic Moth Myth "The peppered moth remains one of the best examples of evolution in action. But as in so many other cases, the real story is turning out to be more complicated than the biologists first thought." Several details don't match the moth propaganda. For example, all the photos show the moths resting out in the open on tree trunks, whereas they actually rest inconspicuously under branches and where branches join the tree trunk. (Cherfas, Jeremy; "Exploding the Myth of the Melanic Moth," New Scientist, p. 25, December 25, 1986.) Comment. Since no new species of moth have arisen (merely population shifts between dark and light phases), why do evolutionists make so much out of this? From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 13  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf050/sf050p15.htm
... of Oregon, demonstrates in a long article that both India and China knew and exploited a surprisingly wide range of American plants. For example, many carvings in Indian temples depict maize, which originated in the New World. A similar situation prevails for the sunflower and a many-seeded New World fruit called "annonas." Sunflowers and maize are also prodigious seed producers, suggesting that these three plants were valued as fertility symbols and may not have been consumed as food. The pre-Columbian Pacific was a twoway conduit for plants and even a few animals. For example, the Old World contributed black-boned chickens, cotton, and coconuts to the New World. As for China, Johannessen has gathered evidence for early Chinadestined Pacific crossings of maize, sunflowers, a squash, chili peppers, sweet potatoes, the yambean, and grain amaranths. Most startling, though, has been the discovery of New World peanuts at two Neolithic sites in eastern China. The associated dates are astounding: 2,400 BC and 4,400 BC. Who was sailing the wide Pacific while the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge were under construction? Supporting the fossil peanuts is a written Chinese record of 300 AD describing a plant that buries its flowers in the soil and makes seeds that rattle when dry. Peanuts are very unusual that they flower above ground and then burrow into the ground to form nuts -- a characteristic one must see to believe and a story hard to fabricate. (Johannessen, Carl L.; "American Crop Plants in Asia before A.D . 1500," ...
Terms matched: 1  -  Score: 13  -  15 May 2017  -  URL: /sf125/sf125p01.htm

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