233 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 76: Jul-Aug 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Atlantic's waves getting bigger "According to a study by the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, waves in the northeastern Atlantic are getting bigger. The average wave height in the 1960s was about 7 feet. Now the average is 9-10 feet." (Anonymous; Coming Changes , 13:7 , MayJune 1991.) Comment. This is a very large increase (about 30%) for this geophysical variable. Have surface winds increased that much in such a short period? From Science Frontiers #76, JUL-AUG 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 73: Jan-Feb 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crop Circle Corner The Wiltshire crop "scroll". Dimensions in meters. Every week, it seems, some new facet of the crop circle phenomenon appears. It is reminiscent of the early days of UFOs. Several books have appeared. A periodical, The Cereologist , now promises to keep everyone up-to-date. People are scouring the old literature and pouring over aerial photos for pre-1980 examples. Theories abound, especially those invoking extraterrestrials! We have room here for only a few brief items. Scorched earth in Xenia, Ohio. A hired hand of Gene Eck was harvesting a field of soybeans when he came upon a circle of flattened plants -- bent but not broken -- some 80 feet in diameter. Inside this circle was a 40-foot-diameter ring of burnt stubble. Within the ring was a patch of undisturbed foxtail 14 feet in diameter. The soybean circle was a half mile from the nearest road; no tracks led into it. (Williams, Nat; Illinois Agri-News, November 9, 1990. Cr. R.A . Ford) Column of light in Wiltshire. During the summer of 1990, teams of English ob servers scanned the cereal fields at night. At 2:30 AM, on July 25, R. Fla-herty, an experienced wildlife photographer, saw a single shaft of light descending from high in the sky toward a Wiltshire wheat ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects New World Culture Old "Archeologists working in Peru have unearthed stunning evidence that monumental architecture, complex societies and planned developments first appeared and flowered in the New World between 5,000 and 3,500 years ago-- -roughly the same period when the great pyramids were built in Egypt and the Sumerian citystates reached their zenith in Mesopotania." Among these edifices are great stepped pyramids, U-shaped temples over ten stories high, and broad plazas with adjacent residential areas. Scores of such sites built by an ancient Peruvian civilization are nestled deep in narrow valleys leading from the Andes down to the Pacific. Archeologists date this civilization as thousands of years older than those that arose in Central America. The age and size of the Peruvian remains impelled Yale archeologist R. Burger to remark: "This idea of the Old World being ahead of the New World has to be put on hold." Of course, this Andean culture is not as old as that which developed in the Old World's Fertile Crescent; and those ancient Peruvians did not use the wheel and lacked writing. (Stevens, William K.; "Andean Culture Found to Be as Old as the Great Pyramids," New York Times, October 3, 1989. Cr. J. Covey.) Comment. But did they really lack writing? See next item. One has to wonder how these great constructions have es caped the attention of ...
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... note was that around 1600 GMT to 1700 GMT (about 2 hours after sunset), when the mark on the radar was very distinct, the satellite communication system suffered a loss in signal strength sufficient to prevent transmission or reception, the bearing of the satellite being almost due south of the vessel. It was thought at the time that the signal mast had become aligned between the aerial and the satellite, but alteration of the ship's head to port or starboard did not cure the low signal strength. .. .. . "Of note, although this may have been a coincidence only, was that the vessel was passing through patches of bioluminescence at the time, mostly only bright enough to show up in the breaking waves of the ship's wake, but during the period of low signal strength, the whole area of white, foamy water along the ship's side frequently shone a bright greenish colour." (St. Lawrence, P.F .; "Radar Interference," Marine Observer, 60:17, 1990.) Comment. Apparently, some sort of electromagnetic disturbance affected not only the radar but also satellite communications and the bioluminescent organisms in the water. Could it have been one of those plasma vortexes said by some to be responsible for some of those crop circles? Reference. Other examples of radar phenomena associated with bioluminescence are cataloged in GLW10 and GLW14 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #78, NOV-DEC 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... his excavations. On p. 000 we reproduce a photo of the amulet with its strange epigraphy. Now, we add a sketch of the "elongated hafted ground biface, with human figure." Over 13 inches long, this artifact depicts a trousered, bearded man of European countenance, who is missing one arm and a foot. Petersen asserts that the artifacts have no affinities with American Indian artifacts: rather they have a European flavor. What can one make out of all this? Petersen is only able to state: "Although the site is undoubtedly human-made, its function, antiquity and cultural attribution cannot be precisely specified on the basis of the unique characteristics of both the artifacts and the cist. Tentative interpretations allow suggestion that it is attributable to some portion of the historical period, a European cultural tradition, and probably is contemporaneous with or postdates local stone working at the site." In other words, we could have anything from a pre-Columbian European contact to rock doodling by Colonial stoneworkers. (Petersen, James B.; "Grand Lake Stream, The Elliott II Site: An Archaeologist's Preliminary Report," NEARA Journal, 25:3 , Summer/Fall, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... terrestrial volcanism, he fully expected to find no connection at all. After all, what force generated by small changes in the sun's output could stir up the earth's magma from a distance of 93 million miles? Stothers was surprised. "Stothers analyzed two immense catalogs, published in the early 1980s, that list more than 55,000 known eruptions since the year 1500. Concentrating on several hundred of the moderate-to-large eruptions, he found statistically significant patterns in eruption frequency that match the solar cycle. Eruptions seemed most numerous during the weakest portions of the solar cycle." Further, there was a 97% confidence that the correlation was not a statistical accident. The only cause-and-effect explanation offered by Stothers was negative and indirect. During periods of abundant sunspots, increased solar emissions jar the earth's atmosphere slightly. Communicated to the crust, these slight taps trigger tiny earthquakes that relieve stresses beneath volcanos, thus delaying their eruptions until solar acitivity dies down. Not especially convincing! (Anonymous; "Volcanos on Earth May Follow the Sun," Science News, 137:47, 1990.) Comment. Down the years, many scientists and laymen have tried to correlate sunspots and earthquake frequency. The results have been murky and sometimes contradictory. For more on this subject, see GQS1 in our catalog: Earthquakes, Tides. Details on this volume here . From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... this. "This lack of detections of extrasolar comets is becoming an embarrassment to the theories of solar system and comet formation." McGlynn and Chapman calculate that we should have seen six interstellar comets in the past 150 years, but the actual number is zero. Such interstellar comets would be easy to spot because they would be moving much faster than our own comets. Two possible explanations for the missing interstellar comets are: (1 ) The Oort Cloud theory is wrong; and (2 ) Solar systems like ours are rarer than supposed. (Anonymous; "Mystery of the Missing Comets," Sky and Telescope, 79:254, 1990.) Comment. See SF#64 for musings about Halley's comet being an alien interloper. Reference. More on missing short- period comets can be found in ACO6 in our catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. Ordering details here . From Science Frontiers #69, MAY-JUN 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Predictive Psi "A case study is reported in which the author, a psychologist, began spontaneously saying an unusual word, coup d'etat , aloud repeatedly, and then received a letter from a Mrs. Coudetat the following day." (Tart, Charles T.; "A Case of Predictive Psi, with Comments on Analytical, Associative and Theoretical Overlay," Society for Psychical Research, Journal, 55:263, 1989.) Comment. Verily. psi works in mysterious ways! This amusing abstract came from the periodical Exceptional Human Experience , 8:93, December 1990. From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the present discussion, a throbbing, humming sound afflicting some, but not all, residents of the British Isles. Percipients describe the hum as like a "diesel truck with its engine idling." The electronic environment of Britain has been blamed for the hum: transformers, high-voltage transmission lines, and pulsed radars are all candidate hum-makers. For, it has been discovered, some people somehow convert pulses of electromagnetic energy into a perception of sound. This facet of the British "hum problem" was covered on p.000, where the infamous Soviet "Woodpecker Radar" is mentioned specifically. But are electromagnetic pulses really to blame? The British hum has become a nuisance - to those who can hear it - during the past 20 years. This is just the period during which British Gas has been installing a nationwide gas-distribution system, which employs powerful turbines to pump natural gas through underground pipelines. H. Witherington, an unhappy hum-hearer, has for years driven around Britain at night when things are quieter, plotting places where the hum can be heard. He has found that the sound follows the gas pipelines and extends for several kilometers on each side. Houses, he finds, tend to amplify the sound, because closed rooms sometimes create resonant conditions. (Fox, Barry; "Low-Frequency 'Hum' May Permeate the Environment," New Scientist, p. 27, December 9, 1989.) Reference. Ordering information for our catalog (mentioned above): Earthquakes, Tides may be found here . From Science ...
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... biological havoc. But the K-T boundary is anything but simple chemically and paleontologically. To illustrate, J.L . Bada and M. Zhao have found unusual amino acids in sediments laid down before and after this geological time marker. "They find that Danish sediments spanning the narrow boundary layer contain two amino acids, alpha-aminoisobutyric acid and isovaline, that are relatively uncommon in biological materials but abundant in the organicrich meteorites. They suggest that the body which collided with Earth 65 million years ago and left the telltale iridium residue may have been organic-rich, perhaps like a C-type asteroid or a comet. Such a possibility has interesting implications for the extinction and related atmospheric effects, and supports the idea that impact events could have supplied the Earth during a much earlier period with the raw materials for organic chemical evolution." Actually, the above quotation is pretty much in line with present mainstream thinking. Perhaps so, but Bada and Zhao identified two troubling anomalies. First, the amounts of amino acids found were surprisingly high. How could these complex molecules survive the searing temperatures engendered by high-velocity impact? Second, the amino acids may be abundant tens of centimeters above and below the K-T boundary clay containing the iridium, but they are virtually absent in the clay itself! (Cronin, John R.; "Amino Acids and Bolide Impacts," Nature, 339:423, 1989, Also: Monastersky, R.; "Rare Amino Acids Support Impact Theory," Science News, 135:356, 1989.) Reference ...
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... recorded the discoveries. Some of the finds were made by respected scientists of the day. Human skulls were found embedded over 130 feet below the surface underneath thick lava beds. Also retrieved were many mortars and pestles, stone sinkers, strange double-headed stones, and the doughnut-like object pictured here. (Gintet, Robert E.; "Geological Evidence of Early Man," Creation Research Society Quarterly, 27:122, 1991.) Comment. One can understand why creationists would evidence interest in Tertiary man, because they reject conventional geological dating and human evolutionary timetables. But why aren't today's archeologists interested? Because their reputations would be in jeopardy. Everyone knows the first humans didn't reach California until 12,000 years ago; and the Tertiary Period ended 1.6 million years ago! All those bones and artifacts must have been planted by mischievous miners or somehow deposited by flood waters. Reference. Additional details on the artifacts found in the auriferous gravels appear in our handbook Ancient Man. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #75, MAY-JUN 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Trio Of Strange Meteors January 25, 1990. Western North America "While residents from Anka to Mankato were calling radio stations Thursday to report the sighting of a bright, slow-moving light in the pre-dawn sky, people across the western half of the nation were doing the same thing." .. .. . "Most eyewitnesses in the spectacle, which was reported over a 12hour period from a number of locations, said it was greenish, although some said it was turquoise, or white, or had an orange tail." (McAuliffe, Bill; "Was It Junk? Maybe So. But It Sure Lit Up the Sky," Minneapolis Star-Tribune, January 26, 1990. Cr. R. PanLener via L. Farish.) Comment. Color changes are not uncommon in meteor sightings. However, the slowness of this meteor was remarkable. January 27, 1990. U.S . Midatlantic States. "Thousands of people in the Eastern United States reported seeing a strange bluish-green light in the sky Saturday night, which some experts said could have been an unusually large meteorite. .. .. . "In North Carolina, Jim Iodice, who was flying a Cessna 172 over Pilot Muntain Saturday night said that he saw a 'glowing, yellowishblue light' between 7 and 7:30 p.m . that appeared to be near the plane. The ...
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... "Green and slender, deceptively innocent-looking, it spreads out slowly, year by year, until it has its victims surrounded. Meanwhile the pandas, poor patsies, are eating out of the bamboo's hand. Only when the pandas are well and truly dependent on it does the bamboo deal its coup de grace. It flowers and seeds, thus ensuring its own survival as a species. And then, in an act of sweet self-sacrifice, it dies, taking its archenemy with it." If the pandas manage to survive after the 15-year bamboos have had a try at death-by-death, a time will come when 15- and 30-year bamboos will flow er simultaneously. In the mid-1970s, several species, with different periodicities, all flowered simultaneously in China. The panda population was decimated. (Shipman, Pat; "Killer Bamboo," Discover, 12:22, February 1990. Cr. R. Dorion.) The pandas may be saved by the human-conceived strategem of feeding plant hormones to bamboo shoots. Researchers in the lab have been able to break the lockstep bamboo cycle in this manner. (Johnson, Julie; "Hormonal Clue to Bamboo's Elusive Blossomings," New Scientist, p. 31, March 31, 1990.) Comment. The panda, it seems is not without its own evolutionary strategy. By evolving into a cute, cuddly, teddybear, it has so enthralled a third species, that this more advanced (? ) life form has found a ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Drip, drop, drup, dr**A dripping faucet is usually conceived as a well-ordered dependable phenomenon. You simple turn the faucet a bit counterclockwise and the drip rate increases. It's so simple. Surprise! Dripping faucets are chaotic systems, as described in the following Abstract: "The dripping water faucet is a simple system which is shown in this article to be rich in examples of chaotic behavior. Data were taken for a wide range of drip rates for two different faucet nozzles and plotted as discrete time maps. Different routes to chaos, bifurcation and intermittency, are demonstrated for the different nozzles. Examples of period-1 , - 2, -3 , and -4 attractors, as well as strange attractors, are presented and correlated to the formation of drops leaving the faucet." (Dreyer, K., and Hickey, F.R .; "The Route to Chaos in a Dripping Water Faucet," American Journal of Physics, 59:619, 1991.) Comment. O.K ., so faucets dribble a bit. From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Do large meteors/comets come in cycles?Only a few years ago, geologists refused to recognize any terrestrial meteor craters larger than Arizona's Meteor Crater, which is merely a mile or so in diameter. Now, we have a long list of craters or astroblemes (star wounds), some of which measure hundreds of miles across. In fact, there are enough large dated crters so that some scientists have taken up a time-honored human pastime: Looking for cycles or periodicities in the data. (Humans can find cyclicities in almost any collection of data!) To be more specific, some have claimed that large meteor craters come in clusters dated 28-31 million years apart. These catastrophic events have been correlated with biological extinctions, magnetic field reversals, and basalt flooding. The astronomical causes of this supposed periodicity range from the solar-system's crossing of the galactic plane, to the perturbations of an unseen solar companion, to regular perturbations of the Oort cloud of comets that is thought to hover at the fringe of the solar system. In short, a large, interlocking edifice of geological and astronomical speculation has been erected upon a foundation of terrestrial crater ages. But how well do we really know the ages of these craters? How complete is the cratering record? The answer to the first question is: "Not well at all." Further, we can be certain that many ...
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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. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Hex On Saturn "By piecing together pictures of Saturn taken by the Voyager-2 spacecraft, David A. Godfrey (National Optical Astronomy Observatories) has discovered an unusual feature in the planet's atmosphere. His mosaics reveal a hexagon centered on the north pole. Since neither probe flew directly over the pole, the complete scene has to be created by 'stretching' a series of photographs taken from the side as Saturn rotated, then fitting them into a polar projection." The straight sides of the hexagon are each about 13,800 kilometers long. The entire structure rotates with a period of 10h 39m 24s, the same period as that of the planet's radio emissions, which is assumed to be equal to the period of rotation of Saturn's interior. The hexagonal feature does not shift in longitude like the other clouds in the visible atmosphere. The pattern's origin is a matter of much speculation. Most astronomers seem to favor some sort of standing-wave pattern in the atmosphere; but the hexagon might be a novel sort of aurora. More extreme speculation has Saturn's radio emissions emanating from the hexagon (something we can see and which has the right rotation period) rather than from the planet's interior (something we cannot see). (Anonymous; "A Hex on Saturn," Sky and Telescope, 77:246, 1989.) Comment. Note ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 62: Mar-Apr 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects DANCING TO THE COMETS' TUNE "When planetary scientists examine one kind of meteorite rich in iron, the H-chondrites, they find that the meteorites' ages do not spread evenly through time. Instead, the ages seem to cluster at 7 and 30 million years." Astronomers have hitherto been content to attribute these clumped ages to collisions among the meteorites' parent bodies - the asteroids - which ply periodic orbits. However, S. Perlmutter and R.A . Muller, at Berkeley, point to the apparent 26- to 30-million-year periodicities of three terrestrial phenomena: Biological extinctions in the fossil record, Magnetic field reversals, and Terrestrial-crater ages. Could there be a connection between the clumped meteorite ages and these terrestrial phenomena? Perlmutter and Muller propose that all of these phenomena are the consequence of periodic storms of comets that invade the inner solar system from the direction of the Oort Cloud of comets that purportedly hovers at the fringe of the solar system. These comets not only devastate the earth but also collide with the asteroids, knocking off those bits and pieces we call meteorites. (Anonymous; "Do Meteorite Ages Tell of Comet Storms?" Astronomy, 17:12, January 1989.) Comment. Unanswered above is the question of why comet storms should be periodic. One hypothesis is that Nemesis, the so-called Death Star, a dark companion of our sun, lurks ...
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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 A Larger Sun During The Maunder Minimum Europe's so-called "Little Ice Age" (1645-1715) coincided with the Maunder Minimum -- a period during which sunspots were exceedingly rare. How was the sun different during the Maunder Minimum? This subject of solar variability (in both diameter and period of rotation) has been long debated. Some early measurements of solar diameter, begun at Greenwich in 1830, seemed to some to show a steadily shrinking sun, but others found cyclic patterns. E. Ribes et al have just presented some data on solar diameter actually taken during the Maunder Minimum. "By analysing a unique 53-year record of regular observations of the solar diameter and sunspot positions during the seventeenth century, we have shown for the first time that the angular diameter was larger and rotation slower during the Maunder Minimum." A larger sun might be cooler, providing less heat, thus accounting for climate changes. (Ribes, E., et al; "Evidence for a Larger Sun with a Slower Rotation during the Seventeenth Century," Nature, 326: 52, 1987.) Comment. Just why the sun expands and contracts over a period measured in hundreds of years is a major astro physical conundrum. Variation in solar diameter, 1860-1940. Arrows indicate sunspot maxima. (From ASO-X6 in The Sun and Solar System Debris). From Science Frontiers #51 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oceans From Space In keeping with the foregoing extraterrestrial flavor, we are happy to report that our oceans may be exogenous; that is, derived from extraterrestrial materials. Once again, comets seem to be the culprits. C.F . Chyba has examined the lunar impact record and derived an estimate of the total mass of objects impacting the moon during the (hypothetical) period of heavy bombardment 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago. This allowed him to calculate the mass influx for the earth during this period. His conclusion: if only about 10% of the incoming mass consisted of comets (mostly ice), the earth would have acquired all its ocean water. (Chyba, Christopher F.; "The Cometary Contribution to the Oceans of Primitive Earth," Nature, 330:632, 1987.) Comment. Frank claims that the earth today is continually bombarded by small icy comets, which down the eons may have kept the ocean basins full. So, we have two possible extraterrestrial sources of oceans -- both of a cometary nature. It was only yesterday that the idea of ice surviving in outer space was ridiculed; no one even dreamed that our oceans could be composed of space ice! From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... been brought by comets that bombarded the planet early in its history. The models show that comets of moderate size would have slowed down enough during entry into the Earth's atmosphere for their organic component to survive the impact intact. .. .. . "The idea that comets supplied the Earth with the organic material needed to create life has been around for more than 20 years, but as often as some scientists have put forth the hypothesis, others have shot it down. "About 20% of comet nuclei are composed of organic matter, the rest ice and dust. Most of the organic component appears to be in a complex, polymerized form similar to kerogen, which is found in sedimentary rocks on Earth. From 4.33.7 billion years ago, during the period of heaviest bombardment by meteorites and comets, an estimated 1023 g of organic material would have been added to Earth by comet impacts had they made up 10% of the extraterrestrial flux. That is 1001000 times larger than most estimates of the photochemical production of the compounds over the same period." (Anonymous; "Comets and Life," Eos, no. 13, 1989.) Comment. Nowhere in the above article does one find the name of Fred Hoyle, whose ideas along these lines have been ridiculed for years. From Science Frontiers #63, MAY-JUN 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... popular notion that nature is fully deter ministic. We like to think that if we are given enough data that scientific laws will allow us to predict the future ac curately. But, unhappily, determinism stumbles when trying to cope with the weather, asteroid motion, the heart's electrical activity, and an increasing number of natural systems. Chaos lurks everywhere! The growing split in scientific outlook is seen very clearly in the statistics of New York City measles epidemics before mass vaccinations. Take a look at the graph of recorded cases. The expected peaks occur each winter, but there is a strong tendency toward alternate mild and severe years. Very nice mathematical models exist that purport to predict the progress of epidemics. They take into account such factors as the human contact rate, disease latency period, the existing immune population, etc. It is all very methodical, but it fails to account for the irregularities in actual data. Deterministic scientists claim that just by adding a little "noise" they could duplicate the observed curve. On the other hand, a very simple model that acknowledges the reality of chaos easily duplicates the measured data. Who is right? The determinists and chaosists (chaosians?) are now fighting it out. (Pool, Robert; "Is It Chaos, or Is It Just Noise?" Science, 243:25, 1989.) Comment. Much more of nature may be chaotic. Even evolution itself may be so. Are we merely a blip on a biological diversity curve, with a future that is unpredictable, regardless of what actions ...
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... progression, which, if one inserts the earth's average distance from the sun, yields the distances of the other planets with enough accuracy to perturb astronomers. You see, all scientists abhor numerology. They must insist that the Titius-Bode Law has physical underpinnings. S. Weldenschilling and D. Davis now propose that the planets owe their present positions to a combination of two effects: The frictional drag of the gas in the solar nebula, which favors the presence of small planets in the inner solar system. Gravitational perturbations that create favored places for the coalesceing of planets. C. Patterson has expanded on this suggestion and finds that a model based on these effects works quite well for Jupiter and beyond, where planets are "bound together" in an interlocking system of orbital-period resonances. (See diagram.) Several important anomalies persist, however. That vacant niche between Uranus and Neptune is presently unexplained. In the inner solar system, the presence of Mercury is "embarrassing." (Anonymous; "Were Titius and Bode Right?" Sky and Telescope, 73:371, 1987. Reference. The "problem" of Mercury is treated in AHB2 in The Moon and the Planets. This catalog is described here . In C. Patterson's model the outer planets accreted at those spots where their orbital periods formed simple ratios. Planet ? ? is indicated by this theory, but has never been found. From Science Frontiers #51, MAY-JUN 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Psyching Out Piezoelectric Transducers Our title is perhaps too flippant. The experiment described below is serious and was conducted at Stanford Research Institute. Five participants were chosen in an attempt to mentally affect an electronic device. "Each participant was asked to influence one of a pair of piezoelectric transducers, operating in a differential mode, so as to produce an event above a predetermined threshold. During the formal data collection, the transducer enclosure was located in a locked laboratory adjacent to the participants' room. Under these conditions, one of the participants produced a total of 11 events above threshold, distributed in three separate effort periods. Control trials were recorded with no one present in the experimental room but with normal activity in the rest of the building. No equivalent, uncorrelated events above threshold were detected in those control periods." The author emphasizes the preliminary nature of the results, but believes they warrant further investigaion. (Hubbard, G. Scott, "Possible Remote Action Effects on a Piezoelectric Transducer," The Explorer, 4:10, October 1987.) From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Edinburgh ufo a mirage?September 30, 1986. Edinburgh, Scotland. "Yvonne Westgarth looked out of a north-facing window of her house in south Edinburgh. She was amazed to see a white cylindrical object like a missile travelling westwards just above the roofs of houses opposite (as she thought). She called her husband who also saw the object. Their sketches of what they saw are shown in Fig. l. Although their descriptions differ slightly, they agree that the 'missile' had a black band around its centre. They watched the object for a period of between 0.5 min and 1.5 min (period uncertain). It was first seen almost due north and it disappeared in the west-northwest. No noise was heard." No one else reported seeing the object. A real missile was considered very unlikely. However, the object appeared in the direction of the glide path of the Edinburgh airport, where two aircraft had landed at about the time of the sighting. The witnesses were adamant that the UFO did not look at all like a plane; and that it was much higher in the sky than planes on normal glide paths, which were to be seen just above the horizon between the houses. S. Campbell, who investigated this event, suggests that the Westgarths saw an enlarged distorted mirage of a Boeing 757 landing at Edinburgh. The timing and direction were right ...
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... bypass an article that is introduced as follows: "An analysis of the fossil record reveals some unexpected patterns in the origin of major evolutionary innovations, patterns that presumably reflect the operation of different mechanisms." The most interesting "unexpected pattern" is the gross asymmetry between the diversification of life in the Cambrian explosion (about 440 million years ago) and that following the great endPermian extinction (a little over 200 million years ago). Biological innovation was intense in both instances; both biological explosions burst upon a life-impoverished planet. Many niches were unoccupied. Even so, all existing (and many extinct) phyla arose during the Cambrian explosion and none followed the Permian extinction. ". .. why has this burst of evolutionary invention never again been equaled? Why, in subsequent periods of great evolutionary activity when countless species, genera, and families arose, have there been no new animal body plans produced, no new phyla?" Some evolutionists blame the asymmetry on the different "adaptive space" available in the two periods. "Adaptive space" was almost empty at the beginning of the Cambrian because multicellular organisms had only begun to evolve; whereas after the Permian extinction the surviving species still represented a diverse group with many adaptations. (Just how the amount of "adaptive space" available was communicated to the "mechanism" doing the innovation is not addressed.) Scientists contemplating these matters, however, seem to concur that microevolution, which supposedly gives rise to new species, cannot manage the bigger task of macroevolution, in particular the creation of new phyla at ...
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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 A QUESTIONABLE 200-MILLION-YEAR HIATUS Hiking down into the Grand Canyon of the Colorado is a geological education. As one descends past the beautifully exposed horizontal strata, one also turns back the geological clock in welldefined ticks. That is what the signs along the way say, and that is what all the textbooks proclaim! But when the juncture between the Redwall Limestone and Muav Limestone is reached, a 200million-year gap appears. The sign posted here by the National Park Service reads: An unconformity "Rocks of the Ordovician and Silurian Periods are missing in Grand Canyon. Temple Butte Limestone of Devonian age occurs in scattered pockets. Redwall Limestone rests on these Devonian rocks or on Muav Limestone of much earlier Cambrian Age." This supposed unconformity is puzling for several reasons: The two limestone strata "seem" conformable in most places. Both are nicely horizontal, and there is basically no evidence that 200 million years of erosion and tectonic disturbances separate them. In some places, the two limestone strata intertongue or interfinger, such that by moving vertically one flashed back and forth in 200-million-year jumps. In both limestone strata, one finds layers of the same micaceous shale containing the same fossil tubeworms, suggesting near-simultaneous deposition. In one place, the two limestones clearly grade into one another, with no separation at all. Anyone who walks down the Canyon trails can see that the evidence for a ...
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... geoglyphs from Peru. The scale at the lower left represents 10 meters. The vertical double line is not a geoglyph but rather the azimuth heading 280-degrees. It is hard to imagine how such underground drawings could be used for rituals. "For example, several areas that contain crosscrossing lines and figures similar to those of Nazca have recently been studied on the central coast [of Peru] between the FortalezaPativilca and Rimac valleys. Additional lines have been reported for Viru Valley, on the north coast, and for the Zana Valley, over 1,000 km to the north of Nazca. Interestingly, most coastal ground drawings that can be dated tentatively, either by associated ceramic remains and sites or by their similarity to diagnostic pottery motifs, fall in the earlier part of the Early Intermediate period (ca. 350 B.C . to A.D . 650) - i.e ., to a time following the establishment of irrigation agriculture as the primary subsistence focus, but prior to the rise of state societies. .. .. . "As is well known, several studies have been conducted that involved mapping and computer analysis of the Nazca lines to examine the hypothesis that they were related to astronomical phenomena. This theory is now discounted, at least as it applies to the great majority of the lines which do not appear to have been oriented toward the sky. More recent studies dealing with the lines have provided convincing arguments. primarily through comparison with lines currently in use on the Bolivian altiplano, that they were constructed as part of elaborate ritual ceremonies related ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 62: Mar-Apr 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Recent Martian Rivers Erode Alba Patera Most of the Martian surface is thought to be more than 3.8 billion years old. This portion is densely cratered from a period pf heavy meteorite bombardment. It is also carved by many channels that are thought to have been cut in ancient times by flowing water, water which quickly escaped into space or combined chemically with Martian minerals. The present atmosphere of Mars, in consequence, contains little water vapor. But some of the Martian landscape, notably Alba Patera, raises questions about the above scenario. The anomalous characteristic of Alba Patera is its relative smoothness and scarcity of impact craters. This Martian real estate is believed to be 2 billion years younger than the rest of the planet. Even so, it, too, is marked by "fluvial" features that resemble stream beds. Question #1 . How did Alba Patera get smoothed out or "reworked"? In other words, what happened to the ancient craters that must have pocked its surface, as they do everywhere else? Question #2 . Where did the water come from to cut Alba Patera's stream beds if all of the Martian water disappeared 2 billion years earlier? One line of thought maintains that "fluvial" does not mean "pluvial," and that Martian water has come from below rather than as rain from the atmosphere. Both fluvial episodes, in this view, occurred when something caused the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More confusion at the k-t boundary Just a few years ago, many scientists, especially physicists and astronomers, considered the Book of Science to be closed in the matter of what happened at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K -T ) boundary, 65 million years ago, and why the dinosaurs met their end. It was declared, rather imperiously, that a large asteroid had impacted the earth, causing much physical and biological devastation. Many scientific papers are still being written on this singular period in the earth's history, and the situation is no longer so clear-cut. We select for brief review four papers, each with a different perspective. Occurrence of stishovite. Stishovite, a dense phase of silica, is widely accepted as an indicator of terrestrial impact events. It is not found at volcanic sites. Now, J.F . McHone et al report its existence at the K-T boundary, at Raton, New Mexico. (McHone, John F., et al; "Stishovite at the CretaceousTertiary Boundary, Raton, New Mexico," Science, 243:1182, 1989.) A plus for the pro-impact side. The impact of an asteroid can initiate basaltic flooding and trap formation. Evidence of a global fire. Soot appears at the K-T boundary at many sites, but where did it come from? Chemical analyses of these soots show an enhanced concentration ...
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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 The Uncertainty Of Knowledge "Human beings of all societies in all periods of history believe that their ideas on the nature of the real world are the most secure, and that their ideas on religion, ethics and justice are the most enlightened. Like us, they think that final knowledge is at last within reach. Like us, they pity the people in earlier ages for not knowing the true facts. Unfailingly, human beings pity their ancestors for being so ignorant and forget that their descendants will pity them for the same reason." E. Harrison, who penned the above, sees knowledge as perpetually uncertain and always changing. Scientists will always be surprised, he says, and scientific laws are never final. He concludes: "I feel liberated by this philosophy. I find comfort in the thought that the creative mind fashions the world in which we live. For it means that the mind and reality are more profound than we normally suppose." (Harrison, Edward; "The Uncertainty of Knowledge," New Scientist, p. 78, September 24, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Maize In Ancient India Conventional wisdom is clear on two accounts: Maize originated in the New World. There were no cultural, maizebearing contacts between the New and Old Worlds in the lengthy period between the (hypothetical) dash across the Bering Land Bridge circa the waning of the (hypothetical) Ice Ages and the (hypothetical) Viking incursions into North American waters. But C.L . Johannessen is certain that the ancient Indians (that is those in India) were enjoying corn-on-the-cob at least as early as the Twelfth Century BC. He writes: "Goddesses and gods in sculptuted soapstone friezes in Hoysala temples of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries BC near Mysore, India, hold in their hands representations of maize ears. There are more than 63 of these large ears at Somnanthpur, and maize is represented at three other temples I have visited. "In the Hoysala tradition, worshippers must have used maize as a golden-coloured and many-seeded fertility symbol in their religious rites. That the ears are modelled on maize is shown by the ear length-todiameter ratio, the ear sizes in relation to parts of the human figures, and the wide variation of anatomical detail in the carvings that all belong to maize: the ears have either parallel, highly tapered or bulging sides, their tips are pointed, and their axes may be straight or warped, depending on the moisture at the time ...
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... 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Concentrated Source Of Lightning In Cloud July 21, 1985. Strait of Malacca. m.v . Staffordshire . "Between 2000 GMT and 2200 GMT whilst the vessel was transiting the Strait of Malacca in a southeasterly direction, the following phenomenon was observed. "For several hours lightning had been seen ahead of the vessel. As we approached, it appeared to take on several forms, the most interesting of which is shown in the sketch. It had the appearance of a central point of light with ragged streaks radiating from the centre in a mainly horizontal direction. At no time did this lightning reach the sea surface. This type was observed about ten times during the period of observation..." (Thomas, C.O .; "Lightning," Marine Observer, 56:116, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... basalt flooding; (4 ) Great biological extinctions occur in consequence; and (5 ) The terrestrial magnetic field reverses in step. Now, if scientists could show that all of these phenomena occur at the same frequency and are roughly in phase, it would constitute one of science's most important syntheses. The stratigraphic record and the estimated ages of meteor craters certainly hint at such synchrony. Recently, two more papers have appeared which support the above scenario. First, M.R . Rampino and R.B . Stothers show that during the past 250 million years, eleven episodes of basalt flooding have occurred with an average cycle time of 32 million years. Second, J. Negi maintains that the earth's magnetic record boasts a similar string of disturbances, with an average period of 33 million years. (Anonymous; "Regular Reversals in Earth's Magnetic Field A Fluke?" New Scientist, p. 32, August 25, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... early Brazilians came over the Bering Land Bridge, they must have left even earlier traces in North America. In fact, there are two hotly debated North American sites that seem to be very much older than the one in Brazil; namely, the Calico site in California; and a spot along the Old Crow River in the Yukon. Thousands of stone artifacts, apparently showing signs of being shaped by humans, have been recovered at Calico over the past two decades. The Calico artifacts are usually contemptuously dismissed as naturally fractured chert flakes. But at the other end of the belief spectrum (Don't laugh, much of science is just as much of a belief system as religion!) are those who see a long human history at Calico. B. Bower writes: "Two periods of human occupation have been dated at Calico. From about 15,000 to 20,000 years ago the area was inhabited by what [R .D .] Simpson suggests was a huntinggathering people with more sophisticated tools, including stones flaked on both sides. In deeper layers estimated to be at least 200,000 years old are the simpler flakes of people, she says, who probably gathered plants and other foods." Much farther north, along the Yukon's Old Crow River, nearly 10,000 horse-and mammoth-bone artifacts have been picked up and dug out of the river banks. W.N . Irving, from the University of Toronto, claims that the last five seasons of archeological research have uncovered a 'bone industry' of extremely great ...
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... from H.J . Melosh; "Recent evidence that the SNC meteorites originated on Mars raises the question of whether large impacts on Earth may eject rocks that could fall on Mars (or other planets in the Solar System) and, if so whether they might contain spores or some sort of viable microorganisms that would have the opportunity to colonize Mars." After some computations Melosh concludes: "It seems likely that the impacts that produced craters on Earth that are greater than 100 km in diameter would each have ejected millions of tons of near-surface rocks carrying viable microorganisms into interplanetary space, much in the form of boulders large enough to shield those organisms from ultraviolet radiation, low-energy cosmic rays, and even galactic cosmic rays. Under such circumstances spores might remain viable for long periods of time." (Melosh, H.J .; "The Rocky Road to Panspermia," Nature, 332:687, 1988.) Comment. Next we need a reasonable mechanism that spreads life through interstellar space. Light pressure, that's it; and the idea is over a century old! Incidentally, SNC is short for Shergottites, Nakhalites, Chassignites; all rare classes of meteorites. From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... instances where flakes more than 5 centimeters (2 inches) in diameter have been observed. Of these, we have already cataloged six in GWP2, in Tornados, Dark Days, Anomalous Precipita tion, including the prize of the lot: the 15-inch snowflakes that parachuted down on Fort Keough, Montana, on January 28, 1887. Five of Pike's cases that we did not catalog have diameters of "only" 5 or 6 centimeters. The sixth uncataloged observation would certainly have been worth including if we had known about it: March 24, 1888. Shirenewton, England. "Snowstorm with extraordinary flakes, some were 3 3/4 in. in diameter, yet only in. thick, falling like plates. The storm lasted only 2 minutes but in this short period the ground was covered 2 in. deep." The quotation is from British Rainfall, 1988, as requoted by Pike. In all cases, huge snowflakes are really aggregations of many thousands of individual flakes. Observers have thought that the big flakes attract individual flakes. (Pike, W.S .; "Unusually-Large Snowflakes," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 13:3 , 1988.) Comment. Could electrostatic forces be involved? Reference. The catalog Tornados, Dark Days, mentioned above, is described here . Snowflakes 38cm in diameter fall in Montana. (From Tornados, Dark Days, etc). From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... present. Here we present results obtained from a wide range of Chinese pottery, spanning the interval from 4000 BC to the present, indicating that the field behaviour was more complex. The intensity was high between 1500 and 1000 BC and again in the first half of the first millennium AD. Comparison with results reported for Western Asia, Egypt and Crete suggests that these high values are due to non-dipole disturbances in the geomagnetic field, consistent with long-term records of the cosmogenic radioisotopes 14C and 10Be." (Quing-Yun, Wei, et al; "Geomagnetic Intensity as Evaluated from Ancient Chinese Pottery," Nature, 328:330, 1987.) Comment. This article stimulates three questions: What caused the geomagnetic changes; could some be of internal origin? Are periods of reduced magnetic fields associated with cultural changes? The graph, for example, reveals a dip during the flowering of Greek civilization. Could such ambient magnetic changes have an effect on human imagination, as reported in laboratory test?. See SF#53. Ratios of ancient geomagnetic field intensity to present intensity versus date. Data from China. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... not drift westward like the general field. (Ref. 2) "Core-spot pairs" of magnetic intensity seem to move westward and poleward. In the southern hemisphere, they originate under the Indian Ocean and drift under South Africa into the southern Atlantic. This motion reminds one of sunspot motion, except that sun-spots move equatorward. There may be a connection here. (Ref. 2) The general decrease in the earth's magnetic field over the past few centuries may be due to intensifying core spots, which are magnetized in a sense opposite that of the main field. (Ref. 2) Large, deep earthquakes in 1983 and 1984 produced slow, wavelike changes in the local gravitational field at the surface, as measured by new superconducting gravity meters. The periods were 13-15 hours. (Ref. 2) Gravity and magnetism measurements from satellites show strong, coincident anomalies in the Indian Ocean (3 N 81 E). In fact the whole ocean surface is depressed in this region. To explain these overlapping anomalies, geophysicists suggest that a "valley" 5-10 kilometers deep exists at the coremantle boundary. (Ref. 3) References Ref. 1. Dziewonski, Adam M., and Woodhouse, John H.; "Global Images of the Earth's Interior," Science, 236:37, 1987. Ref. 2. Weisburd, Stefi; "The Inner Earth Is Coming Out," Science News, 131:222, 1987. Ref. 3. "Satellites See Valleys in the Earth' ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chaotic Dynamics In The Solar System The following abstract appeared in a 1988 issue of Eos, a weekly publication of the American Geophysical Union. "Newton's equations have chaotic solutions as well as regular solutions. The solar system is generally perceived as evolving with clockwork regularity, yet there are several physical situations in the solar system where chaotic solutions of Newton's equations play an important role. There are physical examples of both chaotic rotation and chaotic orbital evolution. "Saturn's satellite Hyperion is currently tumbling chaotically, its rotation and spin axis orientation undergo significant irregular variations on a time scale of only a couple of orbit periods. Many other satellites in the solar system have had chaotic rotations in the past. It is not possible to tidally evolve into a synchronous rotation without passing through a chaotic zone. For irregularly shaped satellites this chaotic zone is attitude-unstable and chaotic tumbling ensues. This episode of chaotic tumbling probably lasts on the order of the tidal despinning timescale. For example, the Martian satellites Phobos and Deimos tumbled before they were captured into synchronous rotation for a time interval on the order of 10 million years and 100 million years, respectively. This episode of chaotic tumbling could have had a significant effect on the orbital histories of these satellites." Theis abstract continues, naming as other candidates for chaotic histories: some of the asteroids, Miranda (a satellite of Uranus), and the planet Pluto. ...
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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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 48: Nov-Dec 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An 11-minute binary 4U1820-30 is an X-ray binary star located in the heart of the globular cluster NGC 6624. Its claim to fame is a very short period of rotation -- only 685 seconds. In just a shade over 11 minutes, a neutron star orbits a white dwarf, according to present thinking. The orbit diameter is only 1/7 the radius of our sun, which implies the stars themselves are also small. 4U1820-30 is the shortest-period binary ever found -- so short that astronomers are looking for other explanations. Another curious fact mentioned in this item is that X-ray binaries are much more common in globular clusters than elsewhere in the universe. What is so different about globular clusters? (King, A.R ., and Watson, M.G .; "The Shortest Period Binary Star," Nature, 323:105, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #48, NOV-DEC 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 49: Jan-Feb 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Halley's confounding fireworks "Serendipitous discovery in science so often comes as a surprise, even when it might reasonably be expected. Such was the case with Comet Halley in the wake of an observation program that dwarfed all preceding efforts. The surprises included sudden outbursts in the presumably steady vaporization of its icy nucleus and a periodic, complex pulsation of the comet's brightness. Whether this pulsation reflects the rotation of the nucleus, or some still unimagined phenomenon became a controversial focus of the recent meeting on the Exploration of Halley's Comet in Heidelberg." Some of the data presented and some of the attendees at this conference supported a rotational period of 2.2 days; others favored 7.4 days; a few liked a 2.2 -day period with a 7.4 -day wobble superimposed. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Halley's Confounding Fireworks," Science, 234:1196, 1986. Also: Campbell, Philip; "How Fast Does Halley Spin?" Nature, 324:213, 1986.) Halley's fireworks (visible outbursts) have also stimulated comet model-making. The latest is an icy-glue construction of sorts. See the accompanying figure and the accurate but not-particularlyenlightening caption. (Gombosi, Tamas I., and Houpis, Harry L.F .; "An Icy-Glue Model of Cometary Nuclei," Nature ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Squirrels As Measures Of Geological Time Over a century ago, when the truth of biological evolution via natural selection was hotly debated, the proponents of Darwinism were delighted when the geologists presented them with almost endless periods of time in which evolution could progress in small steps from species to species. Now, in a strange turn-about, a creationist writer is using evolutionary theory to infer a very short history for the formation where geologists want a good deal of time. We quote from the conclusion of J.R . Meyer: "If any group of animals were ever going to undergo significant degrees of evolution from parent stock and obtain resultant speciation, surely the Kaibab squirrel would be one of the more likely candidates. Supposedly isolated from their neighbors for hundreds of thousands of generations over a period of at least several million years, and significantly violating virtually every restriction of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for the non-evolving population, these organisms, even by creationist standards, should have undergone significant and detectable changes. In reality all they show are moderate changes, primarily in two coat color characteristics for part of their population. To make things even worse, this species is known to have a highly variable coat-color polymorphism throughout its range. Thus, even the differences displayed appear to be easily accounted for by several mutations and a slight change in gene frequency for one or two loci, all occurring in a limited period of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 41: Sep-Oct 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anatomy Of A Magnetic Field Reversal "A highly detailed record of both the direction and intensity of the Earth's magnetic field as it reverses has been obtained from a Miocene volcanic sequence. The transitional field is low in intensity and is typically non-axisymmetric. Geomagnetic impulses corresponding to astonishingly high rates of change of the field sometimes occur, suggesting that liquid velocity within the Earth's core increases during geomagnetic reversals." The time period required for the field to reverse was about 4500 years, as measured at Steens Mountain, Oregon. There were three periods of very rapid change (impulses), which hint at radical changes in the core. The average magnetic field at the earth's surface decreased to 20% of normal during the reversal. (Prevot, Michel, et al; "How the Geomagnetic Field Vector Reverses Polarity," Nature, 316:230, 1985.) Comment. The illustration reveals that the reversal was far from a clean 180 flip; there was much meandering. Just what was happening in the core during the reversal is a mystery. When the magnetic field dropped to low levels, flux of cosmic rays and other radiation at the earth's surface probably increased drastically. Terrestrial life might have been adversely affected. The Steene Mountains directional record. The numbers refer to the samples used from the volcanic sequence, in order of increasing age. Dotted lines represent field directions in the ...
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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 The Missing Sunspot Peak The following is also an abstract from the publication Cycles. "An analysis of the mean annual sunspot numbers is made with particular emphasis on cycles have periodicities near 21 years. The results are compared not only with the original sunspot data but also with long-term geomagnetic and economic data. It is concluded that the '11-year' solar cycle periodicity increased during the 19th century, during which time there were only 8 peaks when 9 might have been expected. Doubt is cast on the reality of a 22-year sunspot cycle during the past three centuries, and the likelihood is shown that the reliable 21.2 -year sunspot cycle is also the Hale magnetic cycle and that several of its harmonics are present in the economic data." (Robbins, Roger W.; "The Case of the Missing Sunspot Peak," Cycles, 36:53, 1985.) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the Brittany coast, C.-T . Le Roux discovered carvings that had long been concealed. The carvings and the rock itself fit perfectly with the capstone of the Table des Marchands, another famous megalithic monument some 4 kilometers away. Stimulated by this discovery, a third capstone on another monument nearby was found to fit like a jigsaw puzzle piece. The combined result is a huge stela 14 meters high, 3.7 meters wide, and 0.8 meter thick. The total stela would weight about 100 tons. It is decorated on one side with animals (bovids) and other devices. Apparently, this stela once stood near the even larger stela called Grand Menhir Brise or 'er-Grah.' The Grand Menhir Brise is also broken into pieces. Evidently, the period of megalithic tomb building, which probably began about 5,200 BP was preceded by a period when giant, decorated stelae were erected. These stelae were later pulled down and broken up for use in constructing tombs. The civilization that raised the stelae is not well-understood; and one wonders why such impressive monuments were torn down and their engravings concealed. Incidentally, the stela chunk found at Gavrinis weighs about 20 tons and was transported over 4 kilometers across several watercourses. (Bahn, Paul G.; "Megalithic Recycling in Brittany," Nature, 314:671, 1985.) Reconstruction of a decorated stela from capstones on megalithic tombs in Brittany. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Forbidden Matter When a hot mixture of aluminum and manganese, iron or chromium is squirted onto a spinning water-cooled copper wheel, the molten metal freezes into a thin, metallic ribbon. If it is cooled too fast, a metallic glass results; cooled too slowly, it forms normal metal crystals. But when conditions are just right, icosahedral crystals cluster together in nodules a few microns in size. These icosahedral crystals are not normal in the sense that they have five-fold symmetry. In fact, to a crystallographer, these crystals are the equivalent to ESP in psychology. All the rules of crystallography insist that icosahedral crystals should not exist. One scientist reacted in this way: "All my training has been with the assumption that crystals are periodic. Now, almost everything has to be reexamined." Actually, the icosahedral crystals are "quasi-periodic"; that is, they are completely regular only over small distances. Nevertheless, there are hints that these materials that should not exist have remarkable structural and electronic properties. (Peterson, Ivars; "The Fivefold Way for Crystals," Science News, 127:188, 1985.) Two-dimensionsal quasiperiodic geometry (Penrose tiling) with five-fold symmetry formerly thought to be impossible in nature. The tricontahedron with 30 faces is the basis of three-dimensional quasiperiodic structures with five-fold symmetry. From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 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 Peace And Sunspots We quote the abstract of an article that appeared in the journal Cycles: "Periods of international peace were found to occur in nearly regular cycles of 11 years by Edward Dewey in 1957 by analyzing the earlier data of Raymond Wheeler. In this paper the phase relationship between sunspot cycles and international battles was investigated. It was found that peaceful periods ended 7 out of 11 times within two years prior to sunspot peaks. The probability of this occurring by chance is less than .008. "Geomagnetic storms are postulated as the triggering event since: Geomagnetic storms are known to occur with greater frequency and intensity near sunspot peaks; and Geomagnetic storms have been found by other researchers to be associated with increased frequency of accidents, illness, psychiatric hospital admissions, and crimes." (Payne, Buryl; "Cycles of Peace, Sunspots, and Geomagnetic Activity," Cycles, 35:101, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Northwest indian tradition of a large-scale sea inundation Science, quite wisely, places little value on legend and tradition. The authors of this article stess the pitfalls of using data handed down verbally from generation to generation. With these caveats, they reproduce an Indian tradition originally set down by Judge James Swan back in 1888: "' A long time ago,' said my informant, 'but not at a very remote period, the water of the Pacific flowed through what is now the swamp and prairie between Waatch village and Neeah Bay, making an island of Cape Flattery. The water suddenly receded leaving Neeah Bay perfectly dry. It was four days reaching the lowest ebb, and then rose again without any waves or breakers, till it had submerged the Cape, and in fact the whole country, excepting the tops of the mountains at Clyoquot. The water on its rise became very warm, and as it came up to the houses, those who had canoes put their effects into them, and floated off with the current, which set very strongly to the north.'" The authors of the present article wonder if the above could be an account of a massive tsunami! They admit that the 4-day recession is inconsistent with tsunami action and that the warm water is hard-to-explain. The height reached by the inundation -- some 400 meters -- is also incredible. (Heaton ...
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