292 results found.
... is therefore a valuable addition to a collection of scientific literature. William R. Corliss has provided this in the past with his source books of scientific anomalies in several subjects, and now he has provided it for astronomy. He has done an excellent job of collecting and editing a large amount of material, taken in part from scientific journals and in part from scientific reporting in the popular or semi-scientific press." -- "The Mysterious Universe: A Handbook of Astronomical Anomalies", reviwed by Thomas Gold, Cornell University, in Icarus, vol.41, 1980 "An interesting, systematic presentation of unusual weather [. .] This book is recommended for a general audience" -- "Corliss, William R., Tornados, Dark Days, Anomalous Precipitation, and Related Weather Phenomena, Sourcebook Project, 1983.", revieweed in Choice, September 1983 The high level of scholarship and attention to detail can easily be indicated. -- Reviewed by Glenn M. Schmieg, American Journal of Physics 52, 764 (1984) ". .the science is necessarily somewhat speculative, but Corliss's symthesis is based on reputable sources." -- "Corliss, William R. (Compiler). Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights, and Related Luminous Phenomena" reviwed by Joseph M. Moran, Univ. of Wisconsin in Science Books and Films, Sep/Oct 1983 "Before opening the book, I set certain standards that a volume which treads into dangerous grounds like this must meet. The author scrupulously met, or even exceeded those standards ...
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... Science Frontiers Sourcebook Project Strange reports * Bizarre biology * Anomalous archaeology From New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, etc Archaeology Astronomy Biology Geology Geophysics Mathematics Psychology Physics Guides available Biology Catalogs Biology Handbook Archeology Handbook Geophysics Catalogs Geological Catalogs Astronomy Catalogs Astronomy Handbook Science Frontiers Sourcebooks Ordering details Omni Edge Science Winner December 1996 Publishing History 2007: Dark Days, Ice falls, Firestorms and Related Weather Anomalies (Geophysics) 2006: Archeological Anomalies: Graphic Artifacts I 2003: Archeological Anomalies: Small Artifacts 2003: Scientific Anomalies and other Provocative Phenomena 2001: Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in Nature 2001: Ancient Structures (Archeology) 1999: Ancient Infrastructure (Archeology) 1998: Biological Anomalies: Birds 1996: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II: 1995: Biological Anomalies: Mammals I 1994: Science Frontiers, The Book 1994: Biological Anomalies: Humans III 1993: Biological Anomalies: Humans II 1992: Biological Anomalies: Humans I 1991: Inner Earth: A Search for Anomalies (Geological) 1990: Neglected Geological Anomalies 1989: Anomalies in Geology: Physical, Chemical, Biological 1988: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, Submarine Canyons (Geological) 1987: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos 1986: The Sun and Solar System Debris 1985: The Moon and the Planets 1984: Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows (Geophysics) 1983: Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds (Geophysics) 1983: Tornados, Dark days, Anomalous Precipitation (Geophysics) 1982: Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights (Geophysics) 1982: Unfathomed Mind 1981: Incredible life (Biology) 1980: Unknown Earth (Geological) 1979: Mysterious Universe ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 106: Jul-Aug 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Stonehenge in the 1990s: a mainstream view In a recent number of Nature, C. Ruggles reviewed the present status of Stonehenge as mainstream archeologists now see this world-famous monument. oThe construction of Stonehenge began a bit earlier than previously thought: 2950 50 BC. But beneath the present parking area are post holes dated 4,000 years earlier! They are apparently not related to the Stonehenge we know. oThe idea that Stonehenge's bluestones, which originated in the Preseli Mountains of southwest Wales, 200 kilometers distant, were carried to Salisbury Plain by glaciers has been emphatically disproved by geologists. These 4-ton stones were transported by people! This great effort required precocious social organization, communication, and some kind of psychological impetus. oThe sarsens -- those even bigger stones that define Stonehenge in our mind's view -- evoke the same sorts of questions as this issue's eccentric flints: Why? and How? Ruggles writes: "Why it was important to bring stones from so far away is an open question, as is the issue of how people achieved the almost unimaginable feat of hauling the sarsens, weighing 25 tonnes or more, over 30 km from the Marlborough Downs in the north." oNew studies of the other ancient monuments in the vicinity of Stonehenge have revealed that they were not placed at random. Many are visible from Stonehenge. Stonehenge is at the center of a number of ...
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... APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Few Cracks in the Foundations of Mainstream Astronomy The latest issue of the Meta Research Bulletin digests ten recent unsettling astronomical discoveries. From these, we select four for your delectation. New laboratory experiments suggest a slightly non-symmetric behavior of matter and anti-matter that might explain the dominance of matter in the universe. But it creates a new mystery---why this asymmetry should exist. Distant supernovae have a rise time of 10-15 percent faster than nearby type supernovae. This throws doubt on their use as standard candles, and on the interpretation that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Interestingly, the amount of the discrepancy is close to the size of the special relativity time dilation factor, gamma. If the cause of the red shift were something other than velocity, then no time dilation factor would be applicable, and this discrepancy would disappear. Evidence for water on Mercury implies a rapid-acting, exogenic water source, consistent with the exploded planet hypothesis expectations. Reasonable escape rates imply that deuterium on Venus is from a relatively recent water source. (Van Flandern, Tom; "Highlights of the Latest EME," Meta Research Bulletin, 8:64, no. 4, 199. Address: P.O . Box 15186, Chevy Chase, MD 20815) Comment. (1 ) Although humans are obviously partial to symmetry, there is no reason why nature must please us by making matter and antimatter symmetrical. From Science Frontiers # ...
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... the following quotation from an 1886 issue of Scientific American, remember that the event described occurred almost a decade before the discoveries of X-rays and radioactivity. Although ball lightning was recognized in 1886, the first UFO flap was still 70 years in the future! The following brief account of a recent strange meteorological occurrence may be of interest to your readers as an addition to the list of electrical eccentricities: During the night of the 24th of October last [1886], which was rainy and tempestuous, a family of nine persons, sleeping in a hut a few leagues from Maracaibo [Venezuela], were awakened by a loud humming noise and a vivid, dazzling light, which brilliantly illuminated the interior of the house. The occupants, completely terror stricken, and believing, as they relate, that the end of the world had come, threw themselves on their knees and commenced to pray, but their devotions were almost immediately interrupted by violent vomitings, and extensive swellings commenced to appear in the upper part of their bodies, this being particularly noticeable about the face and lips. It is to be noted that the brilliant light was not accompanied by a sensation of heat, although there was a smoky appearance and a peculiar smell. The next morning the swellings had subsided, leaving upon the face and body large black blotches. No special pain was felt until the ninth day, when the skin peeled off, and these blotches were transformed into virulent raw sores. The hair of the head fell off upon the side which happened to be underneath when the phenomenon occurred, the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "Uprooting the Tree of Life"Yes, that is the title of a long article in the February 2000 issue of Scientific American. In the Table of Contents, we see words concerning this article that we never thought would be permitted in a mainstream science magazine. After first noting that 10 years ago it was generally agreed that all organisms evolved from a single ancestral cell that existed about 3.5 billion years ago, there comes the assertion that the Tree of Life: "is far more complicated than was believed and may not have had a single root at all." The article proper relates how the Tree of Life has its own evolutionary history. Twenty years ago, scientists had that single ancestral cell splitting into two main trunks: the prokaryotes (bacteria) and the eukaryotes (every-thing else). More recently, a third trunk has been grafted onto the Tree; namely, the archaea (microorganisms that look like bacteria but possess markedly different genes). The archaea favor extreme environments and, curiously, are more closely related to you and me than are the bacteria. But according to this article (by W.F . Doolittle), the triple-trunked Tree of Life is simplistic. One reason for this is that genes, once thought to flow only from parent to progeny, are now known to travel laterally. Species barriers are broken. Genes jump from trunk to trunk, from ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects New Proteins Rewrite Memories A presumptuous article in the New York Times relates how scientists are trying to explain why two people who have viewed the same event recall it very differently years later. One theory goes like this. It seems that every time an old memory is pulled into consciousness, the brain takes it apart, updates it and then makes new proteins in the process of putting the memory back into long-term storage. The fact that new proteins are made means that the memory has been transformed permanently to reflect each person's life experiences---not the memory itself. (Blakesley, Sandra; "Brain-Updating Machinery May Explain False Memories," New York Times, September 19, 2000. Cr. D. Phelps) Ruminations. This all sounds reasonable, but it assumes that memory is stored in a protein medium of some sort. It is hard to imagine how, say, the multiplication table, can be recorded on a protein "hard drive." Are the bits representing the multiplication table encoded in a line of proteins of different types or in their sequence or, perhaps, their three-dimensional configurations? Does anyone really know what our brain's hard drive looks like? Maybe memory is hologrammic. And when a memory is pulled off the mind's hard drive, how is the information conveyed to the central processing unit, assuming there is one? Is it all ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What Sang First?Not WHO, but WHAT! Sophisticated music predates the advent of modern humans by tens or hundreds of million years. Whales and birds filled the ocean and primeval forest with song long before our hominid branch sprouted on the Tree of Life. As a matter of fact, our closest relatives, the great apes, sing not at all. Somewhere in the hominid genome "music" genes reside, unexpressed in the apes, but somehow triggered into activity in the human line. We have learned recently that the Neanderthals manufactured bone flutes as far back at 53,000 years. They may not have been able to speak to one another in words, but they had the language of music. Their music, and ours, may have been entrained in genes inherited from nonhominid ancestors that lived 60 million years ago, but which have been suppressed in primates until Neanderthals and modern humans came along. You may wonder where this argument is taking you. It goes back at least 60 million years to when the cetacea (whales and dolphins) split off from the evolutionary track leading to humans. It may even go back farther to when birds split away from the reptilian line. The music of birds and whales incorporate some of the complexity and sophistication of Beethoven's Fifth. The genes that have led to such musical talents may be ancient indeed, as speculated in the Science article under review. The authors go ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Kisses From Heaven The Hershey kind, that is. And these hailstones really do resemble this favorite candy. There was more than a bagful of them; they came down in a fusillade of millions, as related by A. Wills. A neatly sculpted conical hailstone. One of millions that recently fell in Wales. Were they aerodynamically shaped? During a recent hailstorm in Wales, I was surprised to see that all the hailstones were conical. Each one had an apex angle of about 75 , with a flat or slightly curved base about 4 millimeters across. What caused this? Is this shape common, and is its similarity to an Apollo re-entry capsule coincidental? (Wills, A.; "Hail Capsules," New Scientist, p. 121, March 24, 2001.) Comments. Actually, conical hail is more common than you might think. See GWP in Tornados, Dark Days... for many examples. How conical hail forms in such prodigious quantities and in such geometric perfection in the maelstroms of violent storms is unknown. The morphological similarity to the Apollo reentry vehicle is almost certainly coincidental. Droplets of liquid rock that reenter the earth's atmosphere are molded into buttons, spheres, and other shapes to create tektites. We do not know of any conical tektites. From Science Frontiers #135, MAY-JUN 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Western Oregon Not Firmly Anchored To North America Global Positioning System (GPS) units reveal that western Oregon is rotating clockwise relative to the rest of North America. Part of the state is grinding against Washington. But Oregonians will not get dizzy. The periphery moves only a few millimeters each year. (Anonymous; "In a Spin," New Scientist, p. 25, October 7, 2000. Source cited: Geophysical Research Letters, 27:3117, 2000.) Comment. Western Oregon is probably a "terrane" -- an exotic chunk of real estate that drifted in from somewhere in the Pacific and lodged up against the North American coastline. Nlany such terranes have piled up against western North America in the geological past. But what causes the differential rotation? From Science Frontiers #133, JAN-FEB 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... science (particularly physics) is firmly committed to reductionism and objectivism. Translation: this faction wants no part of parapsychology. In the first letter, A.A . Berezin bravely proclaimed that science needs more rather than less research in parapsychology, citing specifically the work of H. Schmidt and R. Jahn. Further, he maintains that the major science journals should be open to high quality research in parapsychology. He wrote: "One cannot exorcise unorthodox claims by repeating mantras that they are 'pseudoscience.'" A second letter from S. Malin begins by noting that physics has undergone two major paradigm shifts during its history: (1 ) Aristotelian to Newtonian physics; and (2 ) Newtonian to contemporary physics. Additional shifts are likely, and the next one might well involve the relation of consciousness to the physical world. In support of his intuition, he quoted from E. Schroedinger's 1958 book Mind and Matter on the "principle of objectivation." "By this I mean what is also frequently called the 'hypothesis of the real world' around us. I maintain that it amounts to a certain simplification which we adopt in order to master the infinitely intricate problem of nature. Without being aware of it and without being rigorously systematic about it, we exclude the Subject of Cognizance from the domain of nature that we endeavor to understand. We step with our own person back into the part of an onlooker who does not belong to the world, which by this very procedure becomes an objective world. [Our] science... is based on ...
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... 1996. O'Riain, M. Justin, et al; "A Dispersive Morph in the Naked Mole-Rat," Nature, 380:619, 1996) Comment. Of course, the naked-mole-rat colony, even when thought of as a "superorganism," cannot perceive the future consequences of inbreeding. The invention of a "dispersive morph," according to evolutionists, has to come from a sequence of random mutations that over time create a special individual, specially fuelled and with abnormal proclivities. Those mole-rat colonies not favored with this sequence of mutations were (are?) eliminated by natural selection. This all seems a lot to ask of a random process. Reference. To learn more about naked mole-rats and some of their close relatives, see our catalogs: Biological Anomalies: Mammals I and II. These books are described here . Naked mole-rat colonies are highly cooperative. Here, an excavating team digs a tunnel using an endless-chain technique. Mole rats below move backwards pushing dirt back and out. They return by crawling forward over the backs of the dirt-pushers. (See BMB25 in Mammals I.) From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... time, researchers have found complex organic molecules on the Earth that came from outside the Solar System. American scientists say tiny sooty grains extracted from meteorites contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from interstellar dust clouds." This article continues with an acknowledgement that F. Hoyle did predict way back in the 1950s that some of earth's organic matter came from outer space. And that he was roundly scoffed at. Next, more evidence is presented suggesting that the universe is full of the basic ingredients of life: Recently, the spectrum of the amino acid glycine was detected near the center of our galaxy. (Hecht, Jeff; "Stardust Brought Down to Earth," New Scientist, p. 17, March 23, 1996) Cross reference. IN SF#101, we related how PAHs were found in meteorite ALH84001, which was picked up in the Antarctic, and which is believed to have originated on Mars. From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... gravity aggregation of that part of the Martian debris that went into orbit as a short-lived ring. A Roche-limit encounter is invoked as a reasonable hypothesis to explain these features. Earth, Mars' nearest planetary neighbor, may have provided that encounter. The Roche limit is 2.9 Earth radii. The Roche limit is that distance within which Mars would begin to be torn apart by the gravitational pull of nearby Earth. (Day, Richard A.; "A Roche-Limit Encounter Explains Martian Features," Society for Scientific Exploration paper, 2000.) Comment. Anomalists with long memories will see immediately that Day's theory is displaced Velikovskyism. Velikovsky had Venus straying close to Earth in recent times to account for historical and geological evidence of terrestrial catastrophism. Another related theory claims that the earth's moon was created when Mars dealt earth a glancing blow -- a reversal of Day's scenario. Obviously, both cannot be correct. From Science Frontiers #131, SEP-OCT 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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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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... 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 Has Human Evolution Been Directed by Bacteria?With considerable fanfare, a multinational team of scientists has announced that the mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) "squeezed" from a 29,000-year-old Neanderthal skeleton found in the northern Caucasus differs by 3.48% from the mtDNA of a 40,000-year-old Neanderthal skeleton from (fittingly) Germany's Neander Valley. Furthermore, both mtDNA samples differ from that of modern humans by a substantial 7%. These two innocent-appearing, widely publicized numbers have far-reaching implications: Modern humans and Neanderthals are only very distantly related, and they certainly never interbred, as suggested in many recent, popular articles; and Since neither Neanderthal mtDNA sample is closer to that of modern Europeans than it is any other modern human population, the so-called "multiregional" theory of human evolution and dispersion is unlikely to be correct. Thus, the out-of-Africa theory is favored;. These data and their implications stimulate several observations and comments; only one of which is mentioned in the references given below. F.H . Smith, an anthropologist from Northern Illinois University and a supporter of the multiregional theory, opines that 30,000-40,000 years ago the mtDNA of the early humans, who were mixing it up with the Neanderthals, was certainly very different from what it is today. Since mtDNA mutates rapidly, ...
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... the never-ending, ever-acrimonious "dialog of the deaf" between the Darwinists and the Creationists, we are perpetually exposed to their extreme, non-negotiable positions. The Darwinists insist upon their one-gene/one-protein genome in which random mutations slowly accumulate and adapt living things to the changing environment. The Creationists only accept a one-time, supernatural creation of "kinds" plus minor adaptations (" microevolution"). J.A . Shapiro, a professor at the University of Chicago, is searching for a "third way," a scientific, non-Darwinian way. Shapiro maintains that five decades of genetic and molecular-biology research have transformed our vision of life. Ile compares the conceptual changes to those accompanying the transition from classical physics to relativity and quantum mechanics. This new theory of evolution -- his "third" way -- will emerge from the convergence of biology and information science. Genomes, asserts Shapiro, are not really the static "beads on a string" envisioned by the Darwinians. Rather, they are fluid and complex. Genes are now seen as multipurpose elements that turn on and off as required for the survival and well-being of the organism they belong to. In this paradigm-eroding paper (referenced below), Shapiro describes four categories of molecular discoveries that have revised our thinking about how evolution works: (1 ) Genome Organization; (2 ) Cellular-Repair Capabilities; (3 ) Mobile Genetic Elements and Natural Genetic Engineering; and (4 ) Cellular Information Processing. He then ...
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... more "ray centers." Thus, the Nazca Plain seems to be a 3-page book: biomorphs, geoglyphs, and spoked ray-centers. They all overlap. It's all a gigantic Rorschach test; and different observers see different things! A Nazca biomorph (monkey with spiral tail) overlain by an abstract, unexplained geoglyph. See Book Supplement for still another Nazca figure. Of course, there are doodles on this 400-square-mile canvas that don't fit on any of the three pages. We'll have to ignore them for now. The archeoastronomers first tried to read something meaningful into the Nazca lines, but they were disappointed. Computer analyses revealed no significant connections with the rising and settings of heavenly bodies. Next, some tried to relate the biomorphs to the celestial sphere. Did a terrestrial bird figure point toward a bird-like grouping of stars? A few earth-sky bird connections are interesting in this regard, but generally the idea that the Nazca lines are a terrestrial zodiac has not panned out well. The geo-speculators have had more success. There are many "water" connections. The geoglyphs were drawn at the time of a great drought. The geoglyphs are often colocated with groups of subterranean aqueducts called "puquios," which were constructed during the drought. The "ray centers" are usually located near water sources. The trapezoids are generally oriented parallel to the flow of surface water. Seashells and ceremonial drinking vessels have been excavated near the trapezoids, suggesting water-connected rituals. Fossil footpaths ...
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... so noxious a smell that everything perished where it diffused its baleful infuence. Its effect were severely felt by the cattle to whom it communicated a contagious distemper, by which many of them died. It made its appearance regularly every night, always rising at the same place, nor did it stop its course either by rain or storms. It was sometimes visible by day, but it was very remarkable that it never did any damage except in the night. The flames were in no way violent, but its continuance at last consumed everything that opposed it. Those few scientists who have mused over this curious old account have concluded that the "fiery exhalations" resulted from the spontaneous ignition of marsh gas; that is, the flames were will-o '- the-wisps, albeit relatively powerful ones. Will-o '- the-wisp theory states that marsh gas (mostly methane) also contains phosphane and traces of diphosphane (P2H4). The latter gas reacts spontaneously with air and ignites the methane, creating weak blue flames. The New Scientist article mentioned a parallel modern occurrence that is new to us and worth recording here. In 1997, a dramatic series of spontaneous fires burst forth in the town of Moirans-en-Montagne located in the Jura mountains of France. No details were presented although emanations of natural gas were suspected. (Pentecost, Allan; "From the Deep," New Scientist, p. 89, August 26, 2000.) Comments. We classify will-o '- the-wisps along with other nocturnal lights in ...
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... (Pavlov, Pavel, et al; "Human Presence in the European Arctic Nearly 40,000 Years ago," Nature, 413:64,2001. Wilford, John Noble; "New Evidence of Early Humans Unearthed in Russia's North," New York Times, September 6, 2001. Cr. D. Phelps) Comment. A nearly ice-free Arctic some 40,000 years ago might have permitted human diffusion into the New World, but so far we have seen nothing this early. It is likely that the Southern Hemisphere was also freer of ice during this period. Although humans had gained Australia by this time, we know of no good evidence that they used Antarctica and the islands of the Southern Ocean to reach the New World. But see a related item under GEOLOGY. From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... proteins according to genome blueprints is altered by chemical groups that attach themselves to strands of DNA. Methyl groups, for example, can completely silence genes. Scientists are strugglingto understand just how epigenetic factors affect inheritance and the creation of new species. There is much more to biology than DNA and genes. The genome is complex enough, but the proteome adds still another layer of complexity, and epigenetic spoons stir the pot further. (Ezzell, Carol; "Beyond the Human Genome," Scientific American, 283:64. July 2000. Anonymous; "Some Baseless Speculations," The Economist, p. 83, May 27, 2000. Cr. J. Cieciel. Note the pun in the second title!) Comment. Let us look down the scale of complexity to the relatively small number of chemical elements, and even further down to electrons and protons, perhaps as far as quarks, gluons, etc. Is it reasonable to suppose that within these supposed elementary particles there exists the potential for the unfolding of the million-member proteome? Are electrons and protons fraught with such immense potential? Can or must the apparently simple properties of the elementary particles lead to the flowering of human beings? Or even to more complex entities? (White, Robb; "Armadillos, and Dangerous," Natural History, 109:86, July-August 2000.) From Science Frontiers #131, SEP-OCT 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of ...
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... although it is easy to fabricate several survival-of-the-fittest scenarios. The "how" part of the mystery is particularly hard to grasp in neo-Darwinian terms because the complex pigments that confer spectral sensitivity upon the cones represent remarkable, complex chemical syntheses. Also mysterious is the apparent loss of color vision in 14 species of toothed whales and seals. (Only 14 species were examined; there may be more.) These particular whales and seals lack the blue-sensitive cones, even though they are descended from mammals with bichromatic vision (hippos and otters, respectively). This deficiency is doubly perplexing: Sensitivity to blue light is highly desirable in the ocean environment because it is blue light that penetrates seawater well. The loss occurred in two mammalian lineages not particularly closely related on the evolution charts. In other words, they were probably not random, unlucky mutations; rather, something more profound. Neo-Darwinists are quick to explain that these afflicted species may have originally frequented shallow waters where sensitivity blue light was not so important. This capability dwindled away like the power of sight in some blind cave creatures. It never returned. (Chin, Gilbert, ed.; " Color-Blindness in Whales," Science, 292:399, 2001. Hecht, Jeff; "Blind to the Big Blue," New Scientist, p. 14, April 28, 2001.) Sperm whales are usually classed with the toothed whales and presumably are blue-colorblind, but there is no sunlight of any kind in the kilometer-deep waters where ...
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... -beep-beep. This number sense is apparently hardwired in a specific part of the human brain and the brains of a few other animals that have been tested (monkeys and rats). (Baiter, Michael; "What Makes the Mind Dance and Count?" Science, 292:1635, 2001.) Comment. Superficially, distinguishing between strings of beeps would appear to be a trivial phenomenon. Not so! The general number sense defined by Dehaene would seem to have significant survival value, say, as in assessing threats or hunting opportunities. We can, therefore, conceive a neo-Darwinian evolutionary scenario here. But when it comes to the number sense at Einstein's level, we fail to detect any survival value in the ability to develop the abstruse equations of relativity until, say, the advent of tenured positions in universities. From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Toppling-Penguin Theory Overturned In SF#133, we related how Antarctic penguins are reputed to become disoriented by watching overflying aircraft. These tales insist that the birds get so dizzy that they topple over backwards. This makes penguins appear rather stupid, when in truth they are being very smart. Penguins, like most animals, are counter-shaded, dark on the back, light below. When the penguins are swimming, avian predators have difficulty seeing them against the dark sea. Marine predators below tend to lose their white bellies when seen against the bright sky. But when the penguins waddle across the white snow, the avian predators can spot them easily. Unless, of course, the penguins are clever enough to flop over on their backs exposing only their white tummies. Since they perceive aircraft as threats, they topple backwards intentionally. Pretty smart of them! (Browyer, Adrian; "White Out," New Scientist, p. 54, December 16, 2000.) Comment. More seriously, an outstanding exception to the countershading rule is Africa's ratel or honey-badger. It is white on top, dark on its belly. But like its cousin, North America's wolverine, the ratel is so strong and fierce that even lions avoid it. It doesn't need camouflage. From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of ...
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... temperatures.) A somewhat politically incorrect observation appears in this article. However, the news that the Antarctic Peninsula's ice shelves may have come and gone at least once since the end of the last ice age, about 11,000 years ago, suggests that people may not be fully to blame for the disappearance now underway. Supporting foregoing evidence are studies of Antarctic lake sediments and ancient abandoned penguin rookeries. Everything points to a warmer, more humid Antarctica between 2,500 and 4,000 years ago. (Perkins, S.; "Antarctic Sediments Muddy Climate Debate," Science News, 160: 150, 2001.) Comment. The warmer Antarctic just portrayed might explain those old maps, such as that of Piri Re'is, that seem to depict a relatively ice-free Antartica. The more daring of us might postulate sea commerce between South America, southern Africa, and Australasia during those halcyon days! From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... , a pregnant woman's body responds to varying temperatures, changing amounts of sunlight, seasonal foods, and varying physical activity during the year. Such effects can be felt in utero, too. Many of the multitudinous studies looking into the season-of-birth correlations are very specialized and employ small samples. For example, English professional soccer players in the 1991-1992 season were twice as likely to have been born September through November. Mental traits are also influenced by season-ofbirth. More medical students are born April through June than can be explained by chance. Best of all (for us) is the following correlation: Perhaps the most unusual seasonal effect is found amongst scientists who support revolutionary theories. It seems that academics who were quick to support controversial theories such as relativity and evolution tended to he born between October and April. (Thomas, Jens; "Like a Virgo," New Scientist, p. 56, December 25, 1999.) Comment. So, there is a season for iconoclasts and anomalists! However, we (the editorial "we") bucked the trend. Could we have been born (unknowingly) in the Southern Hemisphere? From Science Frontiers #133, JAN-FEB 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . ...
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... summarized by quoting from the author's own conclusions. Plate tectonics -- the reigning paradigm in the earth sciences -- faces some very severe and apparently fatal problems. Far from being a simple, elegant, all-embracing global theory, it is confronted with a multitude of observational anomalies and has had to be patched up with a complex variety of ad hoc modifications and auxiliary hypotheses. The existence of deep continental roots and the absence of a continuous, global asthenosphere to "lubricate" plate motions has rendered the classical model of plate movements untenable. There is no consensus on the thickness of the "plates" and no certainty as to the forces responsible for their supposed movement. The hypotheses of large-scale continental movements, seafloor spreading, and subduction , as well as the relative youth of the oceanic crust are contradicted by a substantial volume of data. Evidence for significant amounts of submerged continental crust in the present-day oceans provides another major challenge to plate tectonics. (Pratt, David ; "Plate Tectonics: A Paradigm under Threat ," Journal of Scientific Exploration," 14:307, 2000.) Definition. Asthenosphere = upper mantle, a hot, fluid layer of rock. Two kinds of marine magnetic anomalies: (Top) Idealized stripes straddling a rift valley. (Bottom) Actual magnetic anomalies in the North Atlantic. Quite a difference between theory and reality From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . ...
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... sizes and shapes of these invaders are neatly adapted to the mouths and cavities of each host. It is possible, but not easy, to explain how these remarkable physiological and behavioral transformations were initiated and perfected via random mutations and natural selection. (Gudger, E.W .; "Fishes That Live in the Mouths or Gill Cavities of Other Fishes," Scientific Monthly, 24:556, 1927.) A fish living within a fish. The shapes and sizes of such symbionts and parasites have evolved to fit their unusual niches. E.W . Gudger (see above) collected all sorts of piscine anomalies. He would have been delighted to learn of a really bizarre type of parasitism involving the spotted rose snapper (and probably other species) and a parasitic isopod (a relative of crabs and lobsters). The isopod first invades the mouth of the host fish and then consumes its tongue. It then hooks itself into the place where the tongue used to be and, being about the same size and shape of the consumed tongue, becomes in effect its replacement. The isopod afterward helps the host fish to hold its prey as if it were the real tongue. Its reward consists of tidbits from the fish's meal. (Zimmer, Carl; "Attack and Counter-attack," Natural History, 109:44, September 2000.) From Science Frontiers #132, NOV-DEC 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence ...
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... ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Meteoric "dust bunnies"All around the world, watching through the long nights, is a band of dedicated meteor observers -- mainly amateur astroomers. Collectively, they record many meteor showers and fireballs; all quite respectable astronomical objects. But sometimes fuzzy, rapidly moving luminosities appear, as in the following paragraph written by J.S . Gallagher: "Diffuse luminous objects moving at angular velocities similar to those of meteors were observed during over 200 hours of meteor watching in 1991. They fell in three broad categories: arcs, patches, and 'meteors' similar in appearance to comet comas. Though I at first dismissed the possibility of their being related to meteors, I reconsidered this relation after eliminating other possible causes such as reflections from aircraft lights and tricks of vision. Their meteor-like behavior suggested that perhaps these events might be caused by clouds of exceedingly small meteoroids, visible only because of their numbers and compact grouping. Because such a formation would be unlikely to be maintained long in space, it appeared necessary that the particles involved must have maintained some weak physical contact until just prior to becoming visible. Perhaps some type of 'cosmic dust bunny,' disrupted by air resistance, might be the cause of these events." These moving patches of light also resemble the "auroral meteors" cataloged under GLA3 in Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. Physically, they might be related to the small, icy comets postulated by ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anomalous Optical Events In The Upper Atmosphere A photodiode was recently lofted to high altitudes (over 400 kilometers) in an experiment to measure the optical power of lightning. During the 10-minute flight, more than 500 lightning-related events were recorded over that part of the globe visible from the rocket's altitude. "Among these is a class of about 23 events all having an anomalous signature, with obvious clustering of optical impulses or continuous emissions, and resulting durations of several hundred milliseconds. Such durations are much longer than typical for lightning-related events recorded at the rocket, which are more frequent overall. Every anomalous optical event (AOE) was accompanied by broadband VLF signals of a distinctive character...In considering possible sources above 30 km we find that the AOEs do not seem to resemble other natural optical phenomena, such as meteors which burn up well above 30 km in the mid-latitude atmosphere." (Li, Ya Qi, et al; "Anomalous Optical Events Detected by Rocket-Borne Sensor in the WIPP Campaign," Journal of Geo physical Research, 96:1315, 1991. Cr. C. Rush.) Comment. Apparently these anomalous "flashes" have not yet been detected from the ground. The implication is that there are many more high-altitude electrical discharges than scientists expect or can account for. From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Einstein Questioned Aberration: The apparent angular displacement of the position of a celestial body in the direction of motion of the observer, caused by the combination of the velocity of the observer and the velocity of light. ( McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms ) An Abstract. Stellar aberration, discovered nearly three centuries ago by Bradley, was immediately recognized as a phenomenon owing to the velocity of the earth in its orbit around the sun. Einstein provided an explanation of aberration in his famous 1905 paper using his new relativity theory, and his explanation remains essentially without modification in many modern textbooks. Herein, we show that his explanation is very much in disagreement with measurement. (Hayden, Howard C.; paper to be published in Galilean Electrodynamics , vol. 4, no. 5, 1993.) A Comment. The essence of Prof. Hayden's main argument is that, if stellar aberration depended on the relative velocity between source and observer (as Einstein maintained), then each component of a spectroscopic binary star would have drastically different stellar aberration, contrary to observation. (Van Flandern, Tom; Meta Research Bulletin, 2:29, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Subjects Cloud Plumes Natural But Still A Bit Anomalous During the mid-1980s, satellites photographed strange cloud plumes that stretched hundreds of kilometers downwind of some nothern islands, especially Bennett Island, in the Soviet Arctic. Some wondered if perhaps the Soviets were conducting tests of some new type of weapon in these remote locations. With the end of the Cold War, flights of instrumented aircraft over the islands were permitted. Data from these flights support the idea that the mystery cloud plumes are formed by air currents passing over the islands. In other words, they are only orographic or mountaincaused clouds, like those sometimes seen over the Rockies. But puzzles persist: Why are the plumes so long? Why do they form at such high altitudes -- more than 3 kilometers above the tops of the relatively small mountains on the islands? (Monastersky, R.; "Mountains Give Rise to Perplexing Plumes," Science News, 141:422, 1992. Also: Fett, Robert W.; "Major Cloud Plumes in the Arctic and Their Relation to Fronts and Ice Movements," Monthly Weather Review , 120: 925, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... have also found surprisingly high correlations between solar activity and psychiatric illnesses. "Numbers of first admissions per month for a single psychiatric unit, from 1977 to 1987, were examined for 1829 psychiatric inpatients to assess whether this measure was correlated with 10 parameters of geophysical activity. Four statistically significant values were 0.197 with level of solar radioflux at 2800 MHz in the corresponding month, -0 .274 with sudden magnetic disturbances of the ionosphere, -0 .216 with the index of geomagnetic activity, and -0 .262 with the number of hours of positive ionization of the ionosphere in the corresponding month. Percentages of variance accounted for were very small." Quite understandably, these investigators concluded: "How to interpret properly associations of solar activity with human behaviors is yet impossible. The relative indifference of behavioral scientists to this question may reflect lack of an adequate theoretical framework relating to the question and the phenomenon." (Raps, Avi, et al; "Geophysical Variables and Behavior: LXIX. Solar Activity and Admission of Psychiatric Inpatients," Perceptual and Motor Skills , 74:449, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Warm, wet, fertile mars Mars may not be orbited by huge artificial satellites of alien provenance, but its geological history is looking more and more as if could have supported or perhaps still does support life. "A large number of anomalous landforms on Mars can be attributed to glaciation, including the action of ice and meltwater. Glacial landscapes are concentrated south of lat -33 and in the Northern Plains suggesting vast Austral and Boreal ice sheets. Crater densities on the glaciated terrains indicate that the final glacial epoch occurred late in Martian history. Thus, Mars may have had a relatively warm, moist climate and dense atmosphere much later than previously believed." (Kargel, Jeffrey S., and Strom, Robert G.; "Ancient Glaciation on Mars," Geology, 20:3 , 1992.) If Mars was warm and wet not too long ago, as implied above, perhaps life did gain a foothold there through either independent invention or, perhaps, through seeding by template-carrying comets or meteorites. P.J . Boston et al have investigated one possible Martian ecosystem: "We have reexamined the question of extant microbial life on Mars in light of the most recent information about the planet and recently discovered nonphotosynthetic ecosystems on Earth -- deep sea hydrothermal vent communities and deep subsurface aquifer communities. On Mars, protected subsurface niches associated with hydrothermal activity could have continued to support life even after surface conditions ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Puzzling Winds The Amazon jungle seems to be receiving more than its share of natural calamities. Remember the meteor-devastated swaths and strange "crater" reported in SF#103? Well, here's another phenomenon that may or may not be related. "Scientists studying weather patterns in the Amazon Basin have detected extremely powerful, sudden bursts of wind over the rainforest. The winds, which appear to be associated with thunderstorms in the northwest part of Brazil, blow downward with tremendous force. Satellite photos indicate that a single episode demolished 10 square miles of jungle in only 20 minutes." (Anonymous; INFO Journal, no. 74, p. 39, Winter 1996. INFO = International Fortean Organization. Source cited: Alexandria Journal, June 30, 1995) From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Nether Universe Of Life Bacteria well-adapted to high temperatures have been brought up from oil wells thousands of miles apart. All indications are that these bacteria are indigenous to the wells; that is, not introduced by the drilling fluids. What is most interesting is the fact that these bacteria are all closely related despite their remoteness from each other. They not only look and behave alike, but they also share 98.2 % of their 16S ribosomal RNA sequences. M. Magot asks what an anomalist would ask. "For example, where are these bacteria from? How did they succeed in colonizing these habitats?...Are these microorganisms directly descended from bacteria that were trapped during the formation of the oil, or accompanied its migration through tens to hundreds of millions of years? Did they arrive in the oil field later as a consequence of aquifer activity? What is their mode of maintenance and development in their environment?" (Magot, Michel; "Similar Bacteria in Remote Oil Fields," Nature, 379:681, 1996) Comment. Bacteria have also been extracted from mineral-charged fluids circulating in drill holes over 12 kilo meters deep and also in deep aquifers. There must be an unexplored universe of life thriving not only beneath our feet but also - quite possibly - beneath the forbidding surface of Mars. Reference. Examples of life thriving at great depths in the earth may be found ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hidden messages in genesis?Some can find cryptic meanings in the works of Nostradamus, others see messages in crop circles. Forget those sources! A better one has been around for millennia. Three researchers at the Jerusalem College of Technology and the Hebrew University have analyzed the text of Genesis using an analytical technique that can only be called "inspired". "By treating the text as an unbroken string of letters, and selecting sequences of equally spaced letters, three mathematicians discovered 300 hidden pairs of Hebrew words with related meanings in close proximity to one another. Some of the words involved people who lived and events that occurred long after the Torah was written. "The odds of the words occurring by chance? Less than one in 50 quadrillion, according to an article by Jeffrey Satinover in the October issue of Bible Review ." Satinover is a psychiatrist and lecturer on the relationship between science and religion. He commented: "I guess the bottom line is, if the research holds up and no flaw is found in the methodology, then I think the implication is clear that the authorship of Genesis is not human." Unsettling though the implications are to mainstream science, the research has made it past the usual critical hurdles into two scientific journals: Statistical Science and Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Scientists familiar with the work can only say that, "Something weird seems to be happening." We certainly agree! ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Acoustics Of Rock Art S. Waller has visited rock art sites in Europe, North America, and Australia. Standing well back from the painted walls, he claps or creates percussion sounds, and records the echos bouncing back. A casual observer might be tempted to call 911. It turns out, though, that rock art seems to be placed intentionally where echos are not only unusually loud but are also related to the pictured subject matter. Where hooved animals are depicted, one easily evokes echos of a running herd. If a person is drawn, the echos of voices seem to emanate from the picture itself! "At open air sites with paintings, Waller found that echos reverberate on average at a level 8 decibels above the level of the background. At sites without art the average was 3 decibels. In deep caves such as Lascaux and Font-de-Gaume in France, echos in painted chambers produce sound levels of between 23 and 31 decibels. Deep cave walls painted with cats produce sounds from about 1 to 7 decibels. In contrast, surfaces without paint are 'totally flat'." What did the ancient artists have against cats? (Dayton, Leigh; "Rock Art Evokes Beastly Echos of the Past," New Scientist, p. 14, November 28, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Electronic Channeling Those ubiquitous solar-powered calculators may be the latest mechanism by which other "intelligences" are trying to communicate with us. Here is how this novel information channel works. You put your solar-powered calculator (a cheap one will do) in your desk drawer and close it. When you again open the drawer and light hits the calculator, a number, perhaps a letter, or even an unrecognized symbol may appear. What's going on here? What do these "messages" mean? C. Bentley, in a letter to the New Scientist, related how his calculator most frequently flashes the number 5, but many other numbers may also appear. His calculator works perfectly after he has disposed of the gratuitous information. Something must be generating these strange data. In his final paragraph, Bentley muses: "It has occurred to me that perhaps someone or something is trying to communicate but I fear that if this is the case the message has so far eluded me. The numbers don't work on pools either." (Bentley, Chris; "Dark Secret," New Scientist, p. 52, October 10, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #85, JAN-FEB 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 87: May-Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Calculating prodigies, gnats, and smart weapons In a thought-provoking letter to New Scientist, J. Margolis commences with the observation that calculating prodigies (idiot savants), who are often also mentally retarded, can easily and almost instantaneously recognize 20-digit prime numbers! Gifted mathematicians with so-called photographic memories cannot perform such mental feats using known methods for identifying primes. What do the calculating prodigies know that the rest of us do not? Better algorithms; that is, calculating methods? Margolis expands on this: "All this suggests some relatively simple, subconscious algorithms which have not, as yet, been explicitly formulated. Research in this direction might well result in new mathematical insights. "It need not be surprising that mathematical insight is more fundamental than language. Even a primitive animal brain is 'wired" to perform exceedingly complex computations essential for survival in an unpredictable environment. The latest 'smart' weapons are rudimentary compared with a humble gnat. Mathematics could be a by-product of these functions. Language is a comparatively recent evolutionary innovation and it is quite possible that conscious manipulation of abstract symbols has not caught up with an innate ability to perceive quantitative relationships." (Margolis, Joel; "What Gnats Know," New Scientist, p. 58, January 30, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the Milky Way) is being torn apart (" cannibalized") by the powerful gravitational pull of a dense cloud of dark matter surrounding the Milky Way. This dismemberment of the Large Magellanic Cloud cannot be explained by the gravitational forces exerted by the stars in our galaxy that we can see. Lin calculates that our halo of dark matter is equivalent to 600-800 billion solar masses, compared to the only 100 billion solar masses of visible matter. (Flam, Faye; "Spinning in the Dark," Science, 260:1593, 1993. Also: Anonymous; "' Dark Matter' Is Observed 'Cannibalizing' a Galaxy," Baltimore Sun, p. 8A, June 8, 1993.) The dark matter surrounding a galaxy will, according to the Theory of Relativity, act as a gravitational lens that will deflect light rays passing near it. This dark matter, acting like a telescope, should increase the number of quasars counted in the sky near galactic clusters. Such larger quasar counts are indeed observed, but these increases are much larger than expected. The implication is that there is much more dark matter in the universe than previously thought. (Cowen, Ron; "Quasar Count Poses Dark-Matter Puzzle," Science News, 143:397, 1993.) Finally, dark matter is forcing scientists to reexamine the Equivalence Principle, which asserts that gravitational mass (as in Newton's Law of Gravitation) is identical to inertial mass (as in Newton's Force = Mass X Acceleration). In terrestrial experiments, the two ...
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... Antipodal Hotspot Pairs Hotspots are isolated areas of the earth's crust where there is an unusually large amount of basaltic volcano activity. At present, over 120 hotspots are recognized by geophysicists -- and they are not distributed randomly about the globe. In fact, many seem to be diametrically opposite one another, as described by M.R . Rampino: "The observed number of antipodal hotspot pairs depends on the maximum allowable deviation from exact antipodality, At a maximum deviation of 700 km, 26% to 37% of hotspots form antipodal pairs in the published lists examined here, significantly more than would be expected from the general hotspot distribution. Two possible mechanisms that might create such a distribution include: (1 ) symmetry in the generation of mantle plumes; and (2 ) melting related to antipodal focusing of seismic energy from large-body impacts." (Rampino, Michael R.; "Antipodal Hotspot Pairs on the Earth," Geophysical Research Letters, 19:2011, 1992.) Similar Phenomenon. On the moon, the magcons (magnetic concentrations) seem to be located diametrically opposite large lunar impact basins. See ALZ3 in The Moon and the Planets. This catalog volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... and 20 long. Its surface brightness is the same as that of Phobos. The sides of the PMO are perfectly parallel; it is rounded at both ends; the end towards Phobos narrows slightly; the other end seems to have a slight protrusion. Since the PMO does not appear to have a metallic surface and displays no antennas or other indicators of artificiality, it is reasonable to ask whether it might be some natural phenomenon. One possibility is that the PMO image is only a "trailed moonlet;" that is, the smeared image of a small piece of debris also in orbit about Mars but moving at a slightly different velocity from that of the spacecraft and Phobos. Since the exposure time of the last photo was 8 seconds, a smeared image due to the PMO's relative motion is reasonable. (Anonymous; "Mystery Object Encountered by Russian Phobos Spacecraft," Meta Research Bulletin, 1:1 , March 15, 1992. This new newsletter, edited by astronomer T. Van Flandern, focusses on astronomical anomalies. Address: P.O . Box 15186, Chevy Chase, MD 20815.) From Science Frontiers #82, JUL-AUG 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... phenomena which characterize eusociality: overlapping generations, cooperative brood care and division into reproductive and sterile (unfertilized) castes. Each colony contains one fertilized and five or so unfertilized adult females, the job of the second group being to deal with predators and to extend and maintain the galleries." (Anonymous; "Sociable Beetles," Nature, 356:111, 1992.) Comment. Eusociality is somewhat of a puzzle in evolutionary theory because one must ask how the phenomenon arises, when it requires some individuals to forswear reproduction and thus give up the chance to pass their genes directly on to progeny. Explanations of such extreme altruism generally state that the nonbreeders are really helping to pass some (or even all) of their genes on by supporting the colony, for they are usually closely related to the breeding female. From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Male Dolphin Kills Man Male dolphins definitely prefer human females. In fact, a recent incident at a Sao Paulo, Brazil, beach reveals an antagonism toward human males. A wild, resident male dolphin, noted for his friendliness toward women swimmers, attacked two human males, who were evidently considered to be romantic competitors. One of the men died from internal hemorrhaging after being butted by the dolphin. The other man received a broken rib. (Anonymous; "Dolphin Prefers Women, Kills Male Playmate," Washington Times, December 11, 1994. Cr. S. Parker. COUDI item. COUDI = Collectors of Unusual DataInternational.) Comment. Obviously, dolphins are not always as friendly as Flipper. In fact, a recent TV documentary related how a female snorkeler was seized (gently) by a male false killer whale (a type of dolphin) and dragged down 100 feet before being released unhurt though nearly drowned. For additional discussions of the humananimal interface, see Biological Anomalies: Humans III. To order, see: here . From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... orbit. Planet X has never been found, but somewhere out there are some pretty hefty bodies, as described by T. Van Flandern: "The discovery of a second miniplanet beyond Neptune, 1993 FW, augments the discovery of 1992 QB1 last fall. Both objects are believed to be in the 200-300-km-diameter range, with magnitudes between 2324, distances at discovery between 40-45 AU, and low inclinations.... Although the discoverers of these two objects hailed them as the first representatives of the elusive 'Kuiper belt' of comets, other theoreticians have confirmed that the line of reasoning leading to the suggestion of such a belt is spurious. That fact, combined with the absence of any comet-like characteristics in these two new objects, their relative size as compared with any other known comet, and their unusually red coloration, seem to make them the first-discovered members of a new class of solar system bodies. Since the searches leading to their discovery have examined only 1.5 out of tens of thousands of square degrees of sky wherein such objects might be discovered, it seems a reasonable conjecture that thousands of additional similar objects will ultimately be found. In short, it appears at this early stage that the solar system may have a second asteroid belt beyond Neptune." (Van Flandern, T.; Meta Research Bulletin, 2:13. June 15, 1933.) Comment. Did this new class of objects once comprise Planet X? If there are truly thousands of such bodies with diameters of 200- ...
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... and somehow locates its dinner in muddy water even though it has poor eyesight. Although some fish possess electrical sensors, they are uncommon in mammals. Half way around the planet, another strange creature, also classified with the mammals, frequents muddy waters looking for the same sort of prey favored by the star-nosed mole. The Australian platypus also has weak vision and employs search techniques similar to those of the mole. Instead of sensor-bearing tentacles on its prow, the platypus has a duck-like bill loaded with electrical sensors. (Gould, Edwin, et al; "Function of the Star in the Star-Nosed Mole, Condylura Crista ," Journal of Mammalogy, 74:108, 1993.) Comment. Curious, isn't it. that such distantly related animals evolve similar organs and hunting strategies when confronted with like environments? This is called "parallel evolution;" but naming the process does not tell us how nature accomplishes it. Chance mutations and natural selection? Theoretically possible, but not always convincing. Nature must still be withholding some secret from us! Reference. Electrosensitivity in mammals is rare, but we have cataloged several instances in BMO8 in our catalog: Bio logical Anomalies: Mammals II. For more information, visit here . From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... it seems that that's the way the cosmos is constructed! However, it now seems that the situation is even worse than chaotic! Some systems, perhaps most systems, are also indeterminate, meaning that we cannot predict their qualitative behavior either. A simple example is the water swirling down the bathtub drain. This is not only chaotic but it has two qualitative final states: clockwise and counterclockwise. Regardless of which hemisphere you are in, you can change the direction of swirl with negligible effort. Each of the two final states of motion is still quanti tatively unpredictable. Systems that are more complex will possess many different final states, all chaotic. Can nature really be fundamentally chaotic as well as qualitatively uncertain? J.C . Sommerer and E. Ott have mathematically examined a relatively simple system consisting of a single particle moving in a force field, experiencing friction, and being periodically jolted. Besides settling into chaotic motion, this particle may also be forced away to infinity -- two radically different final states. The analysis revealed that for any set of initial conditions leading to the first type of behavior, there was an infinite number of slightly different initial conditions that would lead to the second type of behavior. In other words, systems that we have long thought to be deterministic, like the motions of the planets, may be not only chaotic but indeterminate. Since Sommerer and Ott found their indeterminate system easily, we must face the possibility that the future behavior of just about everything is beyond our capability to predict, even with our best instruments and computers. ...
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... dark and rounded particles, many of which are spheroidal. This debris layer (BIT-58) extends parallel to the stratigraphy of the ice established from the tephra bands, and thus apparently marks a single depositional event. Several kilograms of ice from two sites along this band were subsequently collected and melted, yielding a few grams of sediment for further study." Microscopic examination and microprobe analysis led to the following conclusions: "Although direct evidence of an extraterrestrial origin for this debris layer (such as the presence of cosmogenic 10 Be and 26Al) has not yet been obtained, the available data strongly suggest that this sediment originated as meteoritic spallation debris. This debris is distinct from other Antarctic 'cosmic dust' collections by virtue of its uniform, recognizable, ordinary chondrite composition and the consistent relation shown between grain size and texture. The BIT-58 layer probably originated from a single transient event, the passage and/or impact of a single large meteorite over the East Antarctic icesheet." (Harvey, R.P . et al; "A Meteoritic Event Layer in Antarctic Ice," Meteoritics, 30:517, 1995) Comment. The Petrozavodsk Phenomenon under ASTRONOMY might well have left a layer like this. The 1908 Tunguska Event (Siberian Meteor) undoubtedly did. (SF#102) From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unidentified Light Strange optical phenomenon seen off the coast of Trinidad in 1991. January 13, 1991. Caribbean Sea. Aboard the m.v . Trinidad and Tobago . "At 0210 UTC whilst the ship was proceeding eastwards along the north coast of Trinidad, a relatively bright patch was noticed in the almost cloudless sky and was thought to be a cluster of stars. Its bearing was approximately 300 at an elevation of about 50 , and closer inspection through binoculars revealed a rather strange phenomenon, as shown in the sketch. "The bright patch was a perfect circle of a bright, light-blue colour and was transparent as stars could be seen through it. There was also a trail from the circle which looked like the track a disc would describe if it moved through an arc. This trail was also of light-blue colouration but was not nearly so bright as the circle. The entire phenomenon dissipated after about five minutes." (Knight, M.; "Unidentified Light," Marine Observer, 62:22, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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