271 results found.
... edge. Small flatfish, mainly immature brill, could be seen stranded and flapping in the wet sand. About a minute later, the sea started to return and quickly rose up the beach beyond where the boat had originally been launched. An hour later, the oscillation in sea level was still taking place. I determined that the period was just over three minutes and the amplitude just under one metre, the latter measured with reference to a half-submerged rock. At the time of the event, it was just after low water, there were no wind waves or ground swell, and the sea had a glassy appearance." (Kemp, A.K .; "Anglesey Seiche," Marine Observer, 63: 90, 1993.) Short-period oscillations in tidal records at Puerto Princesa, Palawan, the Philippines Permanent feature. Puerto Princesa, Palawan, the Philippines. The basic phenomenon impinging on this coast was described by F.J . Haight back in the 1920s. Haight plotted the sea oscillation in the accompanying graph. Recent studies of the Puerto Princesa seiches show that the amplitudes of the seiches are greatest every two weeks, indicating they are tied to the astronomical tides. However, they lag the lunar tide by a couple of days. Geophysicists now look to Pearl Bank in the Sulu Sea, some 450 kilometers southeast of Puerto Princesa, where they believe tidal currents create "internal waves" as they hit the shallow bank. These internal waves travel beneath the surface at speeds of only about 8 kilometers/hour, taking about 2 days to ...
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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 Atmospheric Footprints Of Icy Meteors Serendipity triumphs again. From a dayglow experiment aboard NASA's satellite DE-1 (Dynamic Explorer-1 ) comes an unexpected discovery of considerable potential importance. Looking down on the earth, the DE-1 records the light emitted by atmospheric oxygen at altitudes of about 200-300 kilometers -- this is the so-called "dayglow." The experimenters, L. Frank, J. Sigwarth, and J. Craven, all at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, have found that their dayglow images are speckled with transitory dark spots. "According to Sigwarth, each hole expands like a drop of dye spreading out in a glass of water; within about 30 seconds the dayglow intensity drops by about 95 percent over an area of about 3,000 square kilometers. Then, over the next 3.5 minutes, the dayglow intensity increases toward its normal value as the hole grows to an area of about 25,000 km2 ." The Iowa group thinks that the holes or spots are created by meteors hitting the upper atmosphere because the spots follow the same time distribution as meteors. For example, they are more frequent during the well-known meteor showers. The theory is that the dark spots are formed when ice associated with the meteors is turned into water vapor, which reacts with the atmospheric oxygen producing the dayglow, in effect removing temporarily part of the light ...
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... It's a world-turning experiment, a lollapalooza," says John O'M . Bockris, a physical chemist who has researched cold fusion at Texas A&M University in College Station. (R1) According to Dr. Mallove of M.I .T ., another provocative set of experiments are those at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico where Dr. Howard Menlove has repeatedly detected bursts of neutrons, subatomic particles that are a fusion byproduct. (R2) In an interview, [Dr. R.I . Mills] said he had conducted 1,000 experiments with a simple apparatus over the past 18 months and had applied for patents on the process, which differs markedly from the Utah one. He also asserted that he had set a new record for generating heat, saying his apparatus puts out up to 40 times more energy than put in. (R4) (R3) Physicists F.J . Mayer and J.R . Reitz theorize that cold fusion as well as several other riddles of physics can be explained with a hypothetical new particle created through the fleeting union of a proton and electron. (R4) In sum, coldfusion research seems to be rising Phoenix-like after being zapped by most establishment scientists. It will be difficult to overcome the PR campaign orchestrated (by whom?) against cold fusion. However, honest doubts do remain: "It just violates all that we know about nuclear physics," said nuclear chemist J.R . Huizenga. (R1) References R1. Pennist, E. ...
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... residual advance of Mercury's perihelion. The General Theory should also account for the precessions of double-star orbits, but a serious anomaly has been found. The double star DI Herculis has a Newtonian precession rate of 1.93 degrees per century, with another 2.34 added by relativistic effects. With more than 3,000 well-observed orbits of this star system on the books, astronomers come up with only 0.64 degree per century, instead of the 4.27 predicted by theory. Something is obviously awry; and all searches for errors and other influences on the orbit have been negative. (Anonymous; "Double-Star System Defies Relativity," New Scientist, p. 23, August 29, 1985.) Comment. As a matter of record, Newtonian mechanics can account for Mercury's perihelion advance if the sun is actually an oblate spheroid instead of the mathematically perfect sphere usually assumed. Also, the gravitational theory of J. Moffat seems to explain the motions of both Mercury and DI Herculis. From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... attributes of this particular area (halfway between Cahors and Agen) is the dark night skies -- right down to the horizon (I saw constellations low in the southern sky that I'd only seen on star charts). "On the occasion of the six-hour storm (which started about eight thirty in the evening), whenever the rain abated, we went outside and watched. "During a total of approximately 1 hour of watching, I observed phenomena I had never (consciously) seen before. Following ground strikes (probably over the horizon), on at least eight occasions, the ground end of the strike (i .e ., on the horizon) would be glowing for anything up to thirty seconds. "On one particular occasion, my brother was recording the proceedings with a camcorder. I saw a big ground strike followed by a glow on the horizon. I was trying to direct him to that spot, when there was another ground strike 5-10 degrees to the right of the glow; then, maybe a second later, the original glow erupted into a brilliant point of white light that lit up the sky. "I was gratified to find that we had this captured on video, although the glow from the first strike can't really be seen. "Does anyone know what we were seeing here? Has anyone seen either of these phenomena close at hand?" From Science Frontiers #91, JAN-FEB 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... was a cluster of weathered megalithic stones. I was filled with disbelief -- it just couldn't be -- someone was having fun with my senses; Western Europe, yes, but here, in Massachusetts, no. The reality of the scene before me was very difficult to focus on, the parallel with sites I had seen in Scotland and Ireland was astonishing." Thus wrote James P. Whittall, II, when describing a group of standing stones on a mound called Druid Hill, at Lowell, Massachusetts. The mound itself is 112 feet long by 56 feet wide. The stones are separated into two groups as shown. Since the site is near a highly populated area, it has seen some disturbance, and some stones have been moved. There is no historical record of the site's construction; the stones may have been there for centuries. Neither has there been any archeological investigation or site dating. Obviously, much more research must be done before we can get a clear idea as to who the builders were. Despite its close resemblance to European standing-stone complexes, the Lowell cluster could be a recent construction -- an intentional replica of European sites. Note that it is called Druid Hill! Other possible builders might have been American Indians (who are known to have built some stone structures), Iron Age Scandinavians, or Bronze Age wanderers from Europe. (Whittall, James P., II; "A Cluster of Standing Stones on Druid Hill, Lowell, Massachusetts," ESRS Bulletin, 11:19, no. ...
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... Dyaks [a species of fruit bat] in the net all had visibly swollen breasts that produced milk upon being gently squeezed." No other wild male mammals are known to give milk, although inbred domestic male goats and sheep will -- rarely -- lactate. It is not known if the male bats actually nurse the young. (Angier, Natalie; New York Times, February 24, 1994. Cr. J. Covey. Also: Francis, Charles M., et al; "Lactation in Male Fruit Bats," Nature, 367:691, 1994. Fackelmann, K.A .; Science News, 145:148, 1994.) Comment. In their book Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, G.M . Gould and W.L . Pyle record several cases of human males lactating and even suckling infants. From Science Frontiers #93, MAY-JUN 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ordination. For example, when disturbed by a potential predator, a flock of sheep tends to mass protectively in a group of irregular outline, the group being formed of individual groups of small numbers of sheep. When grazing undisturbed, sheep tend to fan out from a given point, sometimes following a dominant group leader. Progress is usually uncoordinated and ragged. In general, patterns presented by sheep en masse are seen to be haphazard, indeed, generally random in nature. If follows that any suggestion of flocks of sheep forming geometric patterns would appear to be highly improbable, since this would call for group coordination only to be found in such as wolves and wild-dogs. In view of this it would appear that certain exceptional observations made on Sunday 21 August 1988 would be worthy of recording. "Out on an afternoon drive M. Belcher parked his car near the trigonometric survey point on Baildon Moor, near Leeds, in Yorkshire, at approximately 1430 GMT facing northeast. His wife suddenly exclaimed: 'Look at that circle of sheep in that field!' That was Sheep Circle 1 on the plan where 'a hundred or so sheep were in a circular formation, each sheep being more or less equidistant from the next. At the north end of the field some 20 or 30 cows were standing, grazing and chewing cud in the usual haphazard manner. The circular formation of these sheep was so unusual that I thought I was looking at bales of hay set out in the field by the farmer. Indeed, a stoneage stone circle might have been appropriate on this ...
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... the photos showed: "We report the discovery of grooves in Galileo high-resolution images of Gaspra. These features, previously seen only on Mars' satellite Phobos, are most likely related to severe impacts. Grooves on Gaspra occur as linear and pitted depressions, typically 100-200 m wide, 0.8 to 2.5 km long, and 10-20 m deep. Most occur in two major groups, one of which trends approximately parallel to the asteroid's long axis, but is offset by some 15 , the other is approximately perpendicular to this trend. The first of these directions falls along a family of planes which parallel three extensive flat facets identified by Thomas et al. The occurrence of grooves on Gaspra is consistent with other indications (irregular shape, cratering record) that this asteroid has evolved through a violent collisional history." (Veverka, J., et al; "Discovery of Grooves on Gaspra," Icarus, 107:72, 1994.) Comment. The pits along Gaspra's cracks, as on Phobos, suggest the violent expulsion of gases. Where could these gases have come from? "Sandblows" are sometimes formed during terrestrial earthquakes as natural gases and other fluids are squeezed out of the earth's porous outer crust. Could Gaspra harbor primordial methane? If so, is it biogenic or abiogenic? Reference. An entire chapter on the anomalies of asteroids can be found in our catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. Details here . From Science Frontiers #94, JUL-AUG 1994 . 1994 ...
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... Circles," Time, 138:59, September 23, 1991.) Essence of the Science article. The Science piece was written before the Time expose, but it presents several points supporting the existence of a genuine natural phenomenon beneath all the obvious hoaxing. T. Meaden, an English scientist, has personally investigated over 1000 crop circles. He remarks that, before all the media hype, all the corn circles were simple in design -- including plain circles, ringed circles, and circles with small satellite circles nearby. In 1991, Meaden organized Operation Blue Hill, during which 40 researchers watched British crop fields. Significantly, one circle formed in a field they had ringed with automatic alarms, making a hoax very unlikely. All in all, some 1800 crop circles have been recorded, many in other countries, including Japanese rice fields. One doubts that hoaxers could have been this ubiquitous. Further, Y. Ohtsuki, a Japanese scientist, has been able to reproduce some of the characteristic corn-circle patterns by dropping plasma fireballs into a plate dusted with aluminum powder. Even double rings can be created around central circles in this way. So, the simple crop circles could well have reasonable explanations. The gist of the Science article is that interesting science might be done with the crop-circle phenomenon. But will it after the Time broadside? C. Church, professor of aeronautics at Miami University in Ohio, says, "Everyone should be open minded, but I wouldn't want to get a reputation among fellow scientists as working on weird and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Incorruptibility Of The Ganges The Ganges is 2525 kilometers long. Along its course, 27 major towns dump 902 million liters of sewage into it each day. Added to this are all those human bodies consigned to this holy river, called the Ganga by the Indians. Despite this heavy burden of pollutants, the Ganges has for millennia been regarded as incorruptible. How can this be? Several foreigners have recorded the effects of this river's "magical" cleansing properties: Ganges water does not putrefy, even after long periods of storage. River water begins to putrefy when lack of oxygen promotes the growth of anaerobic bacteria, which produce the tell-tale smell of stale water. British physician, C.E . Nelson, observed that Ganga water taken from the Hooghly -- one of its dirtiest mouths -- by ships returning to England remained fresh throughout the voyage. In 1896, the British physician E. Hanbury Hankin reported in the French journal Annales de l'Institut Pasteur that cholera microbes died within three hours in Ganga water, but continued to thrive in distilled water even after 48 hours. A French scientist, Monsieur Herelle, was amazed to find "that only a few feet below the bodies of persons floating in the Ganga who had died of dysentery and cholera, where one would expect millions of germs, there were no germs at all. More recently, D.S . Bhargava, an Indian ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The 1977 "wow" signal Anatomy of a "WOW" signal. Vertical ordinate represents intensity; horizontal axis is frequency in intervals of 10 kilohertz. Time axis runs into the chart with 12-second intervals. Over the years, several large radio astronomy antennas have listened for "intelligent" radio signals from outer space. The acronym SETI is customarily applied to such searches; SETI standing for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. There have been a few exciting false alarms during these listening periods, but most could be attributed to known natural radio sources or manmade interference. All in all, it has been rather disappointing to those who are sure someone else is out there. The major exception in the SETI record was the so-called "WOW" (like Egad!) signal picked up in 1977 by a radio telescope at Ohio State University, in Columbus. The bandwidth of the sig nal was narrower than those of most natural sources; there was also some evidence of periodic and drifting features. The signal never recurred, nor could it be correlated with any manmade or natural radio sources. (Eberhart, Jonathan; "Listening for ET," Science News, 135:296, 1989.) Comment. We can only speculate as to what alien intelligence might mean. Then, too, aliens have probably progressed far beyond primitive radio communication! From Science Frontiers #64, JUL-AUG 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... years ago .. ., one of us (R .E .L .) noticed an anomalous alignment of oblong rimmed depressions (4 km x 1 km) on the otherwise featureless farmland of the Pampas of Argentina. We argue here, from sample analysis and by analogy with laboratory experiments, that these structures resulted from lowangle impact and ricochet of a chondritic body originally 150-300 m in diameter." There are ten gouges in all, strung out along 50 kilometers. The scars are young, perhaps only a few thousand years old, well within the time of human habitation. Schultz and Lianza also found pieces of meteoritic rock and glassy fragments of impact melt. (Schultz, Peter H., and Lianza, Ruben E.; "Recent Grazing Impacts on the Earth Recorded in the Rio Cuarto Crater Field, Argentina," Nature, 355:234, 1992. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Meteorite Hopscotched across Argentina," Science News, 141:55, 1992.) Comments. Note the similarities to the much more numerous Carolina Bays. See ETB1 in our catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, Submarine Canyons. For ordering information, see: here . More recently, doubts have been raised concerning the meteoric origin of these scars. From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 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 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. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Trees talk in w-waves We quote below from as Associated Press dispatch: "Grants Pass, Ore. (AP) - Physicist Ed Wagner says he has found evidence that trees talk to each other in a language he calls W-waves. "If you chop into a tree, you can see that adjacent trees put out an electrical pulse," said Wagner. "This indicates that they communicated directly." "Explaining the phenomenon, Wagner pointed to a blip on a strip chart recording of the electrical pulse. "It put out a tremendous cry of alarm," he said. "The adjacent trees put out smaller ones." .. .. . "People have known there was communication between trees for several years, but they've explained it by the chemicals trees produce," Wagner said. "But I think the real communication is much quicker and more dramatic than that," he said. "These trees know within a few seconds what is happening. This is an automatic response." "Wagner has measured the speed of W-waves at about 3 feet per second through the air. "They travel much too slowly for electrical waves," he said. "They seem to be an altogether different entity. That's what makes them so intriguing. They don't seem to be electromagnetic waves at all." (Anonymous; "Physicist Says Blip ...
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... spectrum, its luminosity evolution, and precursory neutrino burst all indicate a Type-II supernova. Unfortunately, its ultraviolet spectrum is that of a Type-I supernova. Also anomalous are its high rate of evolution and low luminosity (only magnitude 4.5 instead of the predicted 2 +. Japanese apparatus located in a deep mine near Kamioka detected a burst of neutrinos about 22 hours before 1987A flared into the visible spectrum. This fits Type-II supernova theory, but the Mont Blanc equipment detected a neutrino burst just 4.6 hours before the flare-up. Which detector is correct; and why didn't both detectors register both bursts, if such there were? At the moment, some scientists think that the Mont Blanc event was spurious in view of previous unexplained bursts recorded there. (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "The Supernova 1987A Shows a Mint of Its Own -- and a Burst of Neutrinos," Science, 235:1322, 1987.) Reference. See AOF5 in our catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos, for more supernova anomalies. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #51, MAY-JUN 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Monarchs slighted -- sorry!Contrary to the report in SF#49, at least one tagged monarch butterfly has been found among the wintering colonies in Mexico. In early 1976, a tagged individual from Chaska, Minnesota, was indeed found among a huge cluster in Mexico. Also, a few butterflies tagged in the northern states have turned up in Texas, well on their way to Mexico. (Urquhart, Fred A.; "Found at Last: The Monarch's Winter Home," National Geographic Magazine, August 1976. Cr. B. Ickes) Comment. So, it seems that A.M . Wenner, the University of California researcher, will have to correct his records and perhaps modify his theory. From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... also in Africa, and migrated into Europe about 1 million years ago. Homo sapiens, "our" species, appeared about 500,000 years ago in "archaic" form, to be succeeded by "modern" Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago. Obviously, a 2.5 -million-year date for Homo erectus in Europe undermines this scenario. (There seems to be no evidence that Homo habilis ever made it to Europe.) (Ackerman, Sandra; "European History Gets Even Older," Science, 246:28, 1989.) Comment. It should be pointed out that revised dates, new skeletal material, and additional contoversial sites are constantly appearing in the literature. The history of the hominid lineage is in flux. Reference. The human fossil record is changing rapidly as new discoveries come to the fore. Our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans III contains an entire chapter on anomalous fossils. For details on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 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 New Kinds Of Matter Turns Up In Cosmic Rays "Japanese physicists claim to have found evidence of 'strange matter' in cosmic rays. Their detectors have recorded two separate events, each of which can be explained by the arrival of a particle with a charge 14 times as great as the charge on a proton, and a mass 170 times the proton's mass. No atomic nucleus -- made of protons and neutrons -- exists that matches this description, but these properties are precisely in the range predicted for so-called quark nuggets, which physicists believe may be made of a type of material dubbed strange matter." (Gribbin, John; "New Kind of Matter Turns Up in Cosmic Rays," New Scientist, p. 22, November 10, 1990.) The original report appeared in Physical Review Letters , 65:2094, 1990. In it, the Japanese scientists describe their balloon-borne equipment, proving that one does not need fancy spacecraft to make important discoveries. The key feature of the quark nugget is its very high mass-to-charge ratio. Where do quark nuggets come from? The theoreticians surmise that they may be created when neutron stars collide or, perhaps, they are left over from the hypothetical Big Bang. From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... any significant quantities were hydrogen and helium. Yet, we observe stars today with various amounts of the heavier elements. How did the present stars, which are divided into Populations I and II, ever acquire their heavier elements? By thermonuclear synthesis, of course. The primordial hydrogen and helium condensed into primitive stars, now labelled Population III, where the first heavier elements were synthesized. The "ashes" of the Population-III stars provided the makings of the later stars with their heavier elements. However, no matter how hard astronomers have looked, no Population-III stars seem to be left anywhere -- not even far out in the universe, which we see in terms of light billions of years old. A vital "transititional form" is missing in astronomy's fossil record! (Maran, Stephen P.; "Stellar Old- Timers," Natural History, 96:80, February 1987.) From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... -Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Evidence For A Giant Pleistocene Sea Wave On the Hawaiian island of Lanai, limestone-bearing gravel blankets the coastal slopes. Called the Hulopoe Gravel, it now reaches a height of 326 meters above sea level. Taking into account the 1000,000-year age of the gravel and the slow subsidence of the Hawaiian Islands, the deposit probably reached 380 meters when it was first formed. The big question is how it got deposited at such great heights. Highsea stands are rejected by the authors in favor of a single episode of catastrophic waves about 100,000 years ago. Earthquake-generated tidal waves are considered unlikely because of the great heights involved. (The highest tsunami ever recorded in historical times reach ed only 17 meters above sea level.) A great meteor impact or submarine volcanic explosion are good possibilities, but the authors favor a giant submarine landslide on the Hawaiian Ridge, noting that in 1958 a similar event off Alaska produced a wave that reached 524 meters above sea level. (Moore, James G., and Moore, George W.; "Deposit from a Giant Wave on the Island of Lanai, Hawaii, Science, 226:1312, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 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 Saturn's latest burp In late September, 1990, a large white spot appeared on Saturn. Soon, this blemish spread into an oval 21,000 kilometers in length. By early November, it had developed into a planet-encircling band. Apparently, Saturn had "burped," expelling hot gases from its interior. [Saturn emits 50% more heat than it absorbs from the sun.] So far, this is not too beguiling to the anomalist. But now it seems that other white spots, not as large, have been recorded in 1876, 1903, 1933, and 1960. Could the white-spot phenomenon be periodic--like a percolator? More food for thought is found in Saturn's orbital period around the sun: 29.4 years -- not too different from the potential "burp" cycle! (Anonymous; "New White Spot on Saturn Grows, Changes," Science News, 138:325, 1990. Also: Brown, William; "Giant Bubble of Gas Rises through Saturn's Atmosphere," New Scientist, p. 22, October 20, 1990.) Reference. Historical observations of white spots on Saturn are covered in our handbook: Mysterious Universe. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... observed something strange -- even after all hoaxes and misinterpretations of natural phenomena have been culled out. Most of those who are willing to accept UFOs as valid phenomenon think they are real hardware piloted by extraterrestrials. J. Vallee, a computer scientist and prolific writer on the subject, demurs, and he gives five reasons why: "( 1 ) Unexplained close encounters are far more numerous than required for any physical survey of the earth; (2 ) The humanoid body structure of the alleged 'aliens' is not likely to have originated on another planet and is not biologically adapted to space travel; (3 ) The reported behavior in thousands of abduction reports contradicts the hypothesis of genetic or scientific experimentation on humans by an advanced race; (4 ) The extension of the phenomenon throughout recorded history demonstrates that UFOs are not a contemporary phenomenon; and (5 ) The apparent ability of UFOs to manipulate space and time suggests radically different and richer alternatives." If not extraterrestrial hardware, what are the UFOs? Vallee has three suggestions: (1 ) they are "earth lights" a la P. Devereux; that is, an unappreciated terrestrial phenomenon that impresses mental images on the minds of observers; (2 ) They are artifacts of a "control system" operated by a nonhuman intelligence or, perhaps, a Gaia like manifestation of supernature (of which we are a tiny part) that is trying to modify our behavior; and (3 ) They are apparitions caused by entities ma nipulating space and time; viz,. time travellers from our own past and ...
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... of polar drift. Mainstream geophysicists could not believe the 3 /day figure because it implied incredibly rapid changes in the flow of those molten materials within the earth that supposedly generate the geomagnetic field. The Steens Mountain data were "tabled"; that is, dismissed. The three researchers, though, continued their labors at Steens Mountain and have now offered additional, even more impressive data. They now find that the geomagnetic field probably shifted as much as 6 in a single day. Their work has been carried forward so professionally and meticulously that other scientists are finding their conclusions harder and harder to dismiss. Instead, the search is on for explanations of the rapid field changes. Three possibilities have been advanced -- all of them unpalatable to geophysicists: The Steens Mountain rocks are not faithful recorders of the main geomagnetic field. Should this be actually so, the whole field of paleomagnetism, including plate tectonics, is undermined, for it depends upon similar measurements. The earth's molten core can change rapidly, at least in some regions, in response to forces still unrecognized. This, of course, is not really a satisfying "explanation." The dynamo theory of the origin of the geomagnetic field is incorrect. (Coe, R.S ., et al; "New Evidence for Extraordinarily Rapid Change of the Geomagnetic Field during a Reversal," Nature, 374:687, 1995. Merrill, Ronald T.; "Principle of Least Astonishment," Nature, 374:674, 1995.) Reference. More puzzles of the geomagnetic field are provided ...
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... to each different wasp species. From such examples, it is apparent that the genome of an organism somehow perceives stresses and reacts to them -- often in completely unanticipated ways. The stresses may be mechanical, thermal, chemical; in fact, almost anything. McClintock's conclusion is: ". .. that stress, and the genome's reaction to it may underlie many formations of new species." (McClintock, Barbara; "The Significance of Responses of the Genome to Challenge," Science, 226:792, 1984.) Comment. The implications here are broad and deep. Evolution can be driven by external stresses. The new species thus produced may differ substantially from the original organism, eliminating the need to look for "missing links" in the fossil record. What "hope-ful monsters" are latent in our human genome, awaiting only the right stresses to manifest themselves? And is the genomes's malleability reversible; that is, can extinct species be recovered when the engendering stresses are removed? From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Remarkable Specimen Of Ancient Man In August 1984, Alan Walker, from Johns Hopkins, discovered near Lake Turkana, in Kenya, most of the skeleton of a 12year-old boy, which is estimated to be 1.6 million years old. Classified as a specimen of Homo erectus, the boy was 5 feet 5 inches tall and would probably have grown to 6 feet at maturity. Until this find, our supposed ancestors were generally thought to be small and puny; but here is a strapping fellow, looking much like a modern human, although his skull and jawbone resemble those of a Neanderthal. (Joyce, Christoper; "Now Pekin Man Turns Up in Kenya," New Scientist, p.8 , October 25, 1984.) Reference. Anomalies in the hominid fossil record are cataloged in Chapter BHE in Biological Anomalies: Humans III. Details on this book here . From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... "jerked" in 1969; that is, it suddenly accelerated its westward drift. The earth's core, which through dynamo action reputedly generates the magnetic field we detect at the surface, apparently does not keep pace with the outer crust. It is this sluggishness that produces the observed westward drift of the magnetic field of about 1 meter per hour. While most geophysicists acknowledge that something significant happened to the core in 1969, the geographical extent of the "jerk" is unclear. The acceleration of the field was clearcut in Europe but obscure or undetectable over much of North America. If the jerk was geographically limited, the core perturbation probably was, too. The earth's core may, in fact, eddy and swirl like the planet's atmosphere. Going over past records, geophysicists think they have spotted another jerk in 1912; only that time the field decelerated. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Magnetic 'Jerk" Gaining Wider Acceptance," Science, 225:1135, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . Mammals then seem more closely related to birds than reptiles, for example, as expressed in the illustration. A key connecting character here is mutual warmbloodedness. The shifting of a few lines in a cladogram may seem trivial to the nonbiologist, but saying that man is more closely related to a chicken than a lizard is pretty controversial stuff to the conservative evolutionist. DNA analysis supports the contention that humans are more closely related to birds than reptiles. Paleontological evidence, however, supports the opposite view. The fight rages on. (Benton, Mike; "Is a Dog More Like a Lizard or a Chicken?" New Scientist, p. 18, August 16, 1984.) Comment. It all seems to boil down to morphology in the end. Which is a more faithful record of the development of life through the long eons, the phenotype (what the organism looks like) or the genotype (what the DNA looks like)? This may be a dangerous simplification. Why? Because life just may be shaped by more than DNA. Standard evolution cladogram (left). Cladogram based only on characters (right). The numbers are millions of years before present. From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... abundant fossil evidence of so-called "archaic" Homo sapiens in Europe commencing some 500,000 years ago. Did these archaic versions of modern humans evolve into Neandertals before the Cro-Magnons (modern humans) arrived on the scene? Some paleoanthropologists now believe so. Just the other day it was generally thought that Homo erectus rather than "archaic" Homo sapiens gave rise to the Neandertals. (Hublin, Jean-Jacques; "The First Europeans," Archaeology, 49:36, January/ February 1996) Comment. We, too, are confused. Don't take these human evolutionary family trees too seriously. They change with each new "find," and these seem to come several times each year. Reference. Human evolution, as seen in the fossil record, is covered in section BHE in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans III. Ordering information here . How a Neanderal was pictured in an 1873 issue of Harper's Weekly. No senstive, caring, loquacious man he! From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... (Monastersky, R.; "Cometary Controversy Caught on Film," Science News, 133:340, 1988. See also: Hecht, Jeff; "Snowballs from Space 'Filled Earth's Oceans'," New Scientist, p. 38, May 12, 1988.) Comment. Now all this does not mean that Frank's hypothesis is proven in the eyes of all scientists. Far from it, there is too much at stake; namely, our whole view of the small-scale structure of the solar system and, even more important, the heretical notion that the earth's oceans have slowly filled with extraterrestrial water. It has not been an easy two years for Frank. His reputation has been at risk. Huyghe hinted at this when he recorded Frank's reactions to the new photographic evidence: "Looking at the data, seeing those streaks, has made a lot of people's hearts stop," says Frank. He is thrilled at this result, but he dreads what will follow. "For the past two years I paid the price for being wrong. Now I'll pay an equal price for being right. After all, you can't just tip the scientific world askew and expect everyone to cheer." From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... is not contested today. What is a hot issue on Iceland is whether today's inhabitants are predominantly Irish or Norse. The pro-Irish faction maintains that most Iceland settlers were Irish wives and slaves installed there by the Norse. The scientific basis for this claim is the distribution of blood types; specifically, types A and AB. In Iceland these two types are present in 19% of the populace. In Norway the figure is 30%, while Ireland weighs in with 18% -- matching modern Icelanders very closely. Modern Norse match other northern Europeans in this respect, not the Icelanders. Somewhat smugly, the pro-Irish faction notes that in Viking days the Irish had the highest literacy rate in northern Europe. And of all the Norse colonies, only the Icelanders recorded their history (the "sagas"). Ergo, the Irish exerted a strong influence in Iceland more than a millennium ago. Possibly, say the anthropologists, but small pox may have skewed the Iceland population figures. People with blood types A and AB are much more susceptible to small pox. The six devastating Icelandic small pox epidemics between 577 and 1061 would have hit Norse settlers harder than the Irish the Norse had brought along with them, thereby boosting the fraction of Irish in the modern Iceland populace. Whatever the scientific explanations, today's Icelanders are thronging to Ireland on shopping and drinking trips! They know where they came from! (MacKenzie, Debora; "Icelanders Argue over their Ancestors," New Scientist, p. 10, June 1, 1996) From ...
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... , a fireball about four inches in diameter appeared on the fuselage in front of the crew's cockpit. It disappeared with a deafening noise, but reemerged several seconds later in the passenger's lounge, after piercing in an uncanny way through the air-tight metal wall. The fireball slowly flew about the heads of the stunned passengers. In the tail section of the airliner it divided into two glowing crescents which then joined together again and left the plane almost noiselessly." Upon landing back at Sochi, holes were discovered in the fuselage fore and aft. (Anonymous; "Tass Says Lightning Ball Entered Soviet Airliner," Associated Press Dispatch, Moscow, January 13, 1984. Cr. M.A . Lohr) Comment. Several examples of ball lightning dividing are on record in the Catalog of Anomalies, but recombination is an extremely rare event. See Chapter GLB in our Catalog: Lightning, Auroras. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . 18, July 20, 1996. The basic paper is: Song, Xiadong, and Richards, Paul G.; "Seismological Evidence for Differential Rotation of the Earth"s Inner Core," Nature, 382:221, 1996) Comments. Awesome as this gigantic natural electric motor may be, it doesn't challenge any paradigms; in fact, it reinforces current notions concerning the origin of the geomagnetic field. The anomalist, however, inevitably asks questions and makes iconoclastic connections. Why couldn't this planet-size piece of rotating machinery actually be a generator rather than a motor? The kinetic energy of the faster-spinning inner core might actually create the geomagnetic field. What happens when the geomagnetic field reverses, as it has often done according to the magnetostratigraphic record? Does the earth's motor go into reverse? If the inner core can slip relative to the crust and mantle, why cannot the crust-plus-mantle slip, too -- perhaps catastrophically? Pole-shift proponents will like this idea! *Title idea from A. Rand's Atlas Shrugged . Of course, Rand's hero was talking about a different kind of motor. From Science Frontiers #108, NOV-DEC 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ; periods of black-shale deposition (' anoxic events') occur during lengthy periods without magnetic reversals (' quiet periods'). My assembly of published work indicates a remote connection between quiet periods and anoxic events and suggests its form: Magnetic quiet periods coincide with fast seafloor spreading. During these periods, buoyant spreading ridges displace seawater into broad shelves, thus decreasing earth's albedo and causing global warming. Temperature gradients, and thus density gradients, from pole to equator decrease in surface waters, and the deep ocean currents of oxygenated polar waters wane. Oxygen minimum zones intensify and widen; anoxic conditions throughout entire basins are indicated by black shales deposited in the deep sea. These relations thus suggest that the earth's interior processes and its climates are related and their status recorded by both magnetic polarity and anoxic event chronologies of the earth." (Force, Eric R.; "A Relation among Geomagnetic Reversals, Seafloor Spreading Rate, Paleoclimate, and Black Shales," Eos, 65:18, 1984.) Comment. But what stopped and restarted the magnetic reversals and other concurrent processes? Strangely enough, the quiet, anoxic periods do not seem to coincide with biological extinctions! From Science Frontiers #32, MAR-APR 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 27: May-Jun 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hushing Up The Guadeloupe Skeleton Just offshore of Guadeloupe, in the West Indies, lies a kilometer-long formation of extremely hard limestone dated as Miocene, or about 25 million years old. Nothing surprising so far! However, history records that in the late 1700s many human skeletons -- all indistinguishable from modern humans -- were excavated from this limestone. One of the quarried specimens, ensconced in a 2-ton slab, was shipped to the British Museum. It arrived in 1812 and was placed on public display. With the ascendance of Darwinism, the fossil skeleton was quietly spirited away to the basement. The discovery of these human remains has been well-documented in the scientific literature. Here is another pertinent geological fact: the limestone formation in question is situated 2-3 meters below a 1-million-year-old coral reef. If the limestone is truly 25 million years old, the human evolutionary timetable is grossly in error. Even if this is not the case, and the bones are merely 1 million years old or so, as required by the coral reef; then, fully modern humans lived in the New World long before the Bering Land Bridge went into service. The only way a serious geological or archeological anomaly can be avoided is to predicate that the limestone formation was really laid down in the last 10,000-20,000 years -- something like that doesn't ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 113: Sep-Oct 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Atlantic Wave Heights Increasing We have touched on this subject before. (SF#84/279) We now have more precise data. Wave-height measurements at the Seven Stone Light Vessel, anchored in the northeastern Atlantic, show that wave heights have increased 2.4 centimeters/year during the period 1960-1985. This is not a trivial amount. At this rate, waves a century from now would be 2.4 meters (about 8 feet) higher. Many existing coastal structures will be smashed to bits. All this is over and above any effects from rising sea levels. The records from the Seven Stone Light Vessel are corroborated by an analysis of more then 20,000 wave charts of the North Atlantic drawn between 1960 and 1988. It therefore seems clear that something unusual is going on in the North Atlantic. One would suspect increased winds, but velocities measured at Seven Stone have remained constant while wave heights rose. It is concluded that the bigger waves are not generated by local winds; rather, they are swells that have been created thousands of miles away. The cause of these larger swells now affecting the entire North Atlantic is not known. The authors of this paper are forced to conclude with: "It should be noted that so far it has not been possible to attribute the observed change to either an anthropogenic cause or to natural climate variability on decadal time scales." (Bouws ...
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... Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Dream Invention We never thought that Bell Labs would rely on a dream of one of its engineers to invent a new device! In 1940, when Nazi armies were victorious everywhere, D.B . Parkinson was designing a carded potentiometer for civilian telephones. One night, he dreamed he was on the Continent close to an Allied artillery piece. The remarkable thing about this gun was that every shell it fired it nailed a German plane. Parkinson expanded on this part of his dream: "After three or four shots one of the men in the crew smiled at me and beckoned me to come closer to the gun. When I drew near he pointed to the exposed end of the left trunnion. Mounted there was the control potentiometer of my level recorder. There was no mistaking it. It was the identical item." Bell Lab engineers quickly saw how Parkinson's potentiometer could be applied to antiaircraft gun control. The M9 gun director was the practical result of Parkinson's dream. In one week in August of 1944, the M9's were credited with destroying 89 of 91 V-1 buzz bombs launched from the Antwerp area toward England. (Schindler, George; "Dreaming of Victory," New Scientist, p. 53, May 31, 1997.) Comment. Alert readers will have noted that this anecdote contradicts the claim that dreams are always retrospective. From Science Frontiers #113, SEP-OCT 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 PERIODIC EXTINCTIONS AND EXPLOSIONS IN TERRESTRIAL LIFE Claims of a 26-million-year periodicity in biological extinctions have been given wide publicity recently. One theory has it that periodic comet showers have created this regular pulse beat in the history of life. A recent issue of Science presents the results of an analysis of the ups and downs of 20,000 marine genera -- that is, percent extinctions over a period of 600 million years, as revealed by the fossil record. The graph of ten groups of 1000 genera shows at least two things: (1 ) strong hints of periodicity; and (2 ) suggestions that extinctions, whatever they really are, "cut across functional, physiological, and ecological lines." The plotters of these graphs, D. Raup and G. Boyajian, claim that whatever the mechanism, "major pulses of extinction result from geographically pervasive environmental disturbances." What besides powerful, external physical forces (read "comets and asteroids") could affect such wide ranges of marine organisms? (Lewin, Roger; "Pattern and Process in Extinctions," Science, 241:26, 1988.) Comment . This all sounds so reasonable that one must wonder why it is given space in Science Frontier. The reason is that we have a suspicion that it is all too easy, too simplistic. Could something more subtle be at work? After all, we really know next to nothing ...
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... spookiness is seen in "tunneling" phenomena, such as that mentioned in AR#3 , where a Mozart symphony zipped through a barrier at 4.7 times the speed of light. Physicists do acknowledge these counter-intuitive quantummechanics effects, but they are not comfortable with them. Some, on the other hand, embrace them. The late physicist H. Pagels maintained that quantum mechanics is a sort of "code" that ties together everything in the cosmos. He explained all this in his book The Cosmic Code . (Ref. 3) References Ref. 1. Watson, Andrew; "Quantum Spookiness Wins, Einstein Loses in Photon Test," Science, 277:481, 1997. Ref. 2. Buchanan, Mark; "Light's Spooky Connections Set Distance Record," New Scientist, p. 16, June 28, 1997. Ref. 3. Browne, Malcolm W.; "Far Apart, 2 Particles Respond Faster Than Light," New York Times, July 22, 1997. Cr. M. Colpitts.) Comments. "Spookiness" is in the mind of the percipient. We don't usually think of gravity as spooky, but just what does draw two masses together? All action-ata-distance forces are spooky. Everybody is into "codes" these days, as if Nature herself (or God) is not speaking out directly and plainly. We have, for example: The Message of the Sphinx (G . Hancock and R. Bauval); The Bible Code (M . Drosin) ...
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... 118: Jul-Aug 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Phosphorescent Rings And Wheels October 13, 1996. Arabian Gulf. Aboard the tanker Arabiyah . Expanding phosphorescent rings were observed emanating from a single point. These rings were equally spaced and expanded outwards for about 500 meters before disappearing. Rings with spoke systems also formed, rotating clockwise. The observers had the distinct impression that the rings were above the sea surface. We have reported on so many of these light wheels in the past 22 years that we have skimped on the details in favor of the comments made by P. Herring of the Southampton Oceanography Centre. "This is a fascinating account of the most spectacular (and rare) bioluminescent phenomenon known (I have a record of some 250 reports in the last 100 years). These wheels/rings occur in relatively shallow water and are most frequently encountered in the Arabian Gulf and Bay of Bengal. The is no agreed cause, though some scientists have suggested seismic disturbances on the sea floor may be responsible." (Kent, D.R .; "Phosphorescent Wheels," Marine Observer, 67:192, 1997.) Comment. The frequent impression that these marine phosphorescent phenomena occur above the water surface is always puzzling because the bioluminescent organisms supposedly responsible are below the surface. From Science Frontiers #118, JUL-AUG 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... were asked to select the most attractive characteristics. In disfavor were: short shins, short legs, bowed legs, large and pointed canines, gums showing above the teeth, short thumbs, long palms, curved fingers, jutting jaws, short necks. These are all primitive features still seen in apes and monkeys. Favored were: tallness, long legs, slim waists, long necks, curved red lips, large eyes, square shoulders, straight teeth, straight fingers, smooth and hairless skin, nonsloping foreheads, flat abdomens. These are all features "derived" during evolutionary history. A look at a photograph of a Barbie doll, which accompanied the article, proves that Barbie epitomizes these favored characteristics. Apparently, human males have been selecting their mates for these traits. The fossil record indicates this Barbie trend over millions of years. In effect, humans are selectively breeding themselves with Barbie as a goal for women. Interestingly, dolls with more of the primitive traits have never been able to compete with Barbie in the marketplace. (Magro, Albert M.; "Why Barbie is Perceived as Beautiful," Perceptual and Motor Skills , 85:363, 1997.) Comments. The article did not mention bosoms or buttocks. Nor were males considered. It follows, though, that men must be evolving in the direction of Ken, Barbie's well-known boy friend. From Science Frontiers #118, JUL-AUG 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 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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... this pyramid excitement was precipitated by Rex Gilroy, an amateur Australian archeologist. Well, Gilroy is at it again. This time he claims to have evidence of ancient Chinese visits to Australia -- long before the Dutch explorers and Captain Cook. Although our Australian contacts have warned us about Gilroy, and his "pyramid" evidence has been debunked, his latest data should at least be laid open for inspection, with caveats attached of course. Since China is much closer to Australia than Egypt, and the way is paved with handy islands, early Chinese contacts would not be as anomalous at Egyptian-built pyramids. Gilroy's latest claims are: (1 ) A carved stone head unearthed near Milton, NSW, seems to represent a Chinese goddess. (2 ) An old Chinese record, Atlas of Foreign Countries, describes the north coast of a great land to the south inhabited by pygmies, evidence for which has been found in Queensland. (3 ) A 6th. Century copper Chinese scroll includes a crude map of Australia. A 2000-year-old vase also seems to show another crude map of this island continent. (4 ) In 1948, fragments of Ming porcelain were dug up on Winchelsea Island. Some 35 years ago, a jade Buddah was unearthed near Cooktown, Queensland. As these data as legitimate and convincing as Gilroy claims? We will await further communications from Down Under. (Gilroy, Rex; "Were the Chinese First to Discover Australia?" Australasian Post, May 1, 1986. Cr. A.L . Jones. ...
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... thoughts evoked a richly provocative group of letters, some of which were published in the March 1982 issue of Physics Today along with a closely related article by Ornstein. Ornstein tackled the problem of estimating the probability that intelligent life would evolve on other planets from a biologist's perspective. Whereas some physical scientists have set this probability at about 1.0 , Ornstein inclines toward 10-9 , believing that intelligent life is probably unique to the earth. But concludes Ornstein, the 15 separate developments of eyes among disparate terrestrial organisms may infer some unrecognized directing factor in evolution that would force him to revise his estimate upwards drastically. On the other hand, those 15 eyes might indicate a common, but still undiscovered, eye-possessing ancestor far back along evolution's track. The fossil record might be mute on this matter because eyes are soft tissues that are rarely preserved or perhaps because many eyes were jettisoned because the organisms didn't need them, as cave dwellers are wont to do with surprising rapidity. Some of the letters responding to Tipler questioned whether an intelligent civilization would be stupid enough to build self-reproducing von Neumann machines for galactic exploration. Wouldn't it be far more fun to go in person rather than by proxy? And, some pointed out, von Neumann machines would be ravenous consumers of energy and materials and might turn on man as an unnecessary competitor. Machines are not immutable. Space radiation and other environmental factors might alter computer programs and memories to drastically affect the behavior and objectives of such machines. Actually, as one letter writer observed ...
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... belches of gas and oil. Up on the surface, a platform designated Eugene Island 330 began producing about 15,000 barrels of oil per day in the early 1970s. By 1989, the flow had dwindled to 4,000 barrels per day. Then, suddenly, production zoomed to 13,000 barrels. In addition, estimated reserves rocketed from 60 to 400 million barrels. Even more anomalous is the discovery that the geological age of today's oil is quite different from that recovered 10 years ago. What's going on under the Gulf of Mexico? It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the oil reservoir at Eugene Island is rapidly refilling itself from "some continuous source miles below the earth's surface." In support of this surmise, analysis of seismic records revealed a deep fault which "was gushing oil like a garden hose." The deep-seated oil source at Eugene Island strongly supports T. Gold's theory about The Deep Hot Biosphere . Gold holds: "that oil is actually a renewable, primordial syrup continually manufactured by the earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs." The apparent deep-seated oil source at Eugene Island and Gold's ideas make petroleum engineers wonder about a similar situation at the seemingly inexhaustible oil fields of the Middle East. "The Middle East has more than doubled its reserves in the past 20 years, despite half a century of intense exploitation ...
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... 19: Jan-Feb 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Species Stability Is A Real Problem The reader should refer to the following item for the basic paleontological facts discussed by Williamson. The biological implications of the mollusc lineages drawn up by Willianson are rather profound. In the present item, Williamson complains that scientists and critics have focussed primarily upon his claim that his mollusc lineages support the punctuated evolution model (which they do) but avoid his main point: namely, that the lineages are static over very long periods of time. They do not change slowly, bit by morphological bit, into new species as an evolutionist would expect. Instead, they remain un-changed until they become extinct. This striking aspect of the fossil record is not predicted by neo-Darwinism -- and there is the rub! (Williamson, Peter G.; "Morphological Stasis and Developmental Constraint: Real Problems for Neo-Darwinism," Nature, 294:214, 1981.) Comment. In neo-Darwinism, evolution unfolds by small accumulated changes, the causes of which may be chemicals in the environment, nuclear radiation, and other "stresses." Neo-Darwinism goes hand-in-hand with geological Uniformitarianism, both of which are favored philosophically by scientists because slow change is more amenable to scientific explanation. The large sidewise steps of punctuated evolution are difficult to explain in terms of known "forces." In this context, the radical concepts of directed panspermia and the impact of viruses on evolution may be ...
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... Note the geometrical symmetry of the spectacular corona. The TLP Myth. There is a long history of Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLPs). Almost as soon as the telescope was invented, observers began seeing flashes of light, color changes, and other luminous phenomena on the moon. Reddish glows around the rims of the craters Aristarchus and Alphonsus have long been accepted as objective scientific observations. The most popular explanation of these color phenomena involves the eruption of gases around the craters. In 1964, in an attempt to better understand TLPs, NASA organized a network of amateur lunar observers with communication links to the Corralitos Observatory in New Mexico. Corralitos possessed a 5-inch reflector equipped with color filters which could checkout network sightings. In almost 3,000 hours of surveillance, no color phenomena were recorded using the Corralitos instruments -- even when the network reported a colored TLP in progress. Are all TLPs therefore illusory? The NASA program certainly suggested that TLPs might be subjective phenomena, perhaps something like the colored coronas observed during solar eclipses. TLPs are still reported nevertheless. And there are also recognized phenomena that might account for TLPs. One such phenomenon is prismatic dispersion in the earth's atmosphere. On the moon's surface, thermoluminescence is a possibility, as is the fluorescence of lunar soils being bombarded by solar wind. Even so, the gist of this S&T article can be seen in the following sentence: "It is far easier to believe that misinterpretations of mundane atmospheric and instrumental effects are responsible." In other words TLPs, like anomalous coronas, ...
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... himself turns out to be a hummer. "By coincidence, I happen to be blessed, or cursed, with good low-frequency hearing. For several years now, I have intermittently heard a curious low-frequency sound coming from a deep below the high ground around my home in Hampstead Heath in London. Most of the time it is swamped by other noises, because human hearing adjusts sensitivity to compensate for background noise. The noise is an intermittent rumble, like a very distant generator, or the compressor for a pneumatic drill, coming on and off load. Most people cannot hear it at all. I usually hear it only in the still of night." Fox applied considerable effort in trying to find the source of the sound to no avail. The hum has been recorded and analyzed. It peaks at about 48 Hertz, and thus seems unrelated to the British 50-Hertz power mains. (Fox, Barry; "Things That Go Buzz in the Night," New Scientist, p. 72, October 8, 1987.) Reference. Other natural hums are described in GSH5 in our catalog: Earthquakes, Tides. Details on this book are available here . From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bog Breath Yes, bogs do breathe albeit rather erratically. The slow heaving of their surfaces is a poorly understood phenomenon as the following abstract demonstrates. The surfaces of bogs and fens in northeastern Minnesota may rise and fall by as much as 36 cm in a single day. This phenomenon, known as Mooratmung, or bog breathing, has been traditionally attributed to changes in water storage. However, the surface deformations recorded by static GPS [Global Positioning System] stations on bog and fen sites within the Red Lake peatland are more frequent and out of phase with precipitation events. These vertical fluctuations instead appear to be related to a complex interplay among climate, hydrology, and microbial gas-production. Climate-driven re-charge on bogs, for example, stimulates the production of biogenic gases by advecting root exudates deep into the peat profiles. Seasonal droughts, however, favor the formation of transient confining layers that trap biogenic gases into discrete pockets... Bog breathing may therefore be a surface manifestation of the accumulation and release of greenhouse gases in peat deposits. (Glaser, Paul H. et al; "Bog Breathing: the Curious Interplay of Climate, Ground-water, and Greenhouse Gases in Boreal Peatlands," Eos, 80:F47, 1999.) Spontaneously igniting, biogenic gases are found in many marshy places. These eruptions were observed on an English mud flat in 1902. Comment. When bogs breathe ...
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... type of damage. After touching down the tornado uprooted a large oak tree, 15 metres high, in Lawn Road (luckily the residents of the house were away on a holiday). The tornado proceeded to rip tiles off several roofs, demolished completely several greenhouses, and next scorched a 4-metre section of gable on the south side of a house in Forest Street (number 9). The gable section was scorched so badly that the gable had already been repainted when I called, although the evidence could still be seen." (Matthews, Peter; "Lightning inside a Tornado?" Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 10:375, 1985.) July 1, 1952. Nottingham, England. Unusual features of a spectacular thunderstorm. Some recently reviewed records of a great thunderstorm mention two interesting anomalies: Hailstones 2 inches long shaped like cigarettes Three successive balls of lightning corkscrewing down from the sky. (Meaden, George T.; "Cigarette-Shaped Hailstones and Spiral Descent of Ball Lightning," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 10:332, 1985.) Reference. The foregoing anomalies are discussed in our Catalog of Anomalies. See GWT2 in Tornados, Dark Days for tornado burning and dehydration and GWP for oddly shaped hailstones in the same volume. Ball lightning is cataloged in GLB in Lightning, Auroras. Both books are described more fully here . The funnel of the 1955 tornado at Blackwell, Oklahoma, was lit up like a neon tube. Cloud-to-earth electrical currents could be the cuase of ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 14 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf045/sf045p19.htm
