... 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 Still Another East-Coast Pre-Clovis Dig In SF#125 , we reported on the Topper pre-Clovis site in South Carolina, where stone tools tentatively dated as 12,000-20,000 years old were excavated. Finds like this challenge the claim that the Americas host no artifacts earlier than 11,500 B.P ., when the Clovis people first traipsed across the Bering Land Bridge. Now, on a sandy rise, called Cactus Hill, some 45 miles south of Richmond, Virginia, archeologists have uncovered another apparently pre-Clovis site. An upper level at Cactus Hill, dated at 10,920 B.P . does contain typical Clovis artifacts. These are warmly received by mainstream archeologists for they support a highly cherished paradigm. But only 6 inches below the Clovis level, the diggers gingerly brushed the dirt off crude projectile points that were clearly not of Clovis manufacture. This level seems to be about 5,000 years older than the Clovis level according to radiometric dating of charcoal. Skeptics suggest that there has been mixing of the sandy soil and that these early dates are suspect. But thermoluminescent dating has confirmed the 5,000-year time gap. Thorough analyses of the soil with its plant and animal re-mains indicated little if any mixing. D. Stanford, from the Smithsonian Institution, asserts that these purported pre-Clovis projectile points resemble those common in Europe in ...

... sawn lumber. G. Craig was the helmsman on the Cape Horn during a powerful storm (winds of Force 9-10, seas running 8 meters high). Even at 4 A.M ., the phosphorescence of the breaking sea made it seem like daylight. At 4:30, Craig saw what he thought was a colossal wave forming. It was so large that the vessel seemed certain to capsize. He thought he was a goner. But, strangely, the "wave" closed with the vessel very slowly and seemed to move independently of the rest of the stormy sea. Craig recalled other strange features of the phenomenon: .. .what I had initially mistaken for wave crests were actually widely-spaced 'geysers', dancing on the upper surface and each rising to a height of about 20 feet. dropping to half of it, then rising again. [See Craig's sketch.] Then, suddenly, when all seemed lost, the wind dropped from a full gale to an eerie calm. The "wave" passed -- gently -- and then the storm resumed. The Cape Horn was drenched, but there had been no shattering of glass nor rending of wood. There was some flooding but no more than usual in very heavy seas. Some of the lumber lashed to the deck had been lost, but, overall, damage was minimal. The seemingly catastropic "wave," topped by the peculiar geysers turned out to be only a hollow threat, and the "wave's " hollowness may be a clue ...

... are filled with glorious color photos resulting from such research. Much-too-neglected is the Amazon Basin. The belief is widespread that there is nothing of great archeological importance there -- just oppressive jungle, biting bugs, and primitive tribes. That there is much of scientific significance hidden under the lush greenery is just now being realized. For example, A.C . Roosevelt has already proven that surpringly advanced cultures did inhabit the Amazon Basin for thousands of years. ( SF#71 ) We are now learning that some of these Amazon peoples were extraordinary earthmovers. Having little stone to work with, they matched the achievements of the Inca in the mountains just to the west with many miles of earthen causeways. Canals just as long were dedicated to fish-farming. Huge mounds rising above the flood plains supported villages. Even the mounds hold mysteries. One of them, named Ibibate, has been described by anthropologist W. Balee as being: .. .as close to a Mayan pyramid as you'll see in South America.... Beneath the forest cover is a 60-foot [18-meter] human-made artifact. Ibibate is only one of many such mounds in the Bolivian Amazon. Called "lomas", they are obviously quite distinct from any Mayan pyramid we know of. Rather, the lomas are enormous islands of pottery sherds mixed with black soil. Hundreds of these mounds prove that a large population once occupied this region of Bolivia called the Llanos de Mojos (Plains of Mojos). Anthropologist C.L . Erickson ...

... 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 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 ...

... this upon our readers, even if we understood it. Two games played with coins illustrate the effect. One game employs a weighted coin such that the probability of winning is much less than 50%. If played alone, your capital decreases steadily in a rather smooth curve, with a small win now and then but many small losses. The second game requires two weighted coins and is also a losing proposition by itself. Here, though, the graph of your assets vs. the number of games played is a sawtooth. There are sharp increases and downturns, but with an average downward trend. Switching between the two games in a random manner has the effect of locking in a win before the next loss comes along. It's a ratchet effect. Your overall capital will rise, at least it does according to the equations, though your intuition cannot help but doubt it. No wonder this Is called Parrondo's paradox! (Harmer, Gregory P., and Abbott, Derek; "Losing Strategies Can Win by Farrondo's Paradox," Nature, 402:864, 1999. Anonymous; "Losing to Win," Science News, 157:47, 2000.) From Science Frontiers #128, MAR-APR 2000 . 1997 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 ...

... the year 1694 and it continued about the space of eight months. It was a livid vapour, or fiery exhalation which seemed to arise from the sea on the borders of Caernarvonshire. It made its first appearance on the side of a bay, a little after sunset, and from thence spread itself in the most gradual manner, until it had set all the houses in the neighbourhood on fire. Not only the ricks of hay, corn, and other forts of grain were destroyed, but also the vegetables in the gardens, for it had 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 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 131: SEP-OCT 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Mega-Megalith A reader of our most recent catalog volume, Ancient Infrastructure , informs us that in our rambles through the archeological literature we somehow missed the "mother of all megaliths." The sketch portrays the Tombs of the Genii, as they appeared circa 1876. These towering standing stones were -- and perhaps still are -- located on the Kora River in what was Soviet Turkestan, Siberia. When you learn of their sizes, you'll realize that these lithic monsters must still be there, because modern machinery would be taxed to nudge them. The largest of these standing stones rises 75 feet above ground level and probably penetrates 12 feet below. Its weight is in the neighborhood of 3,800 tons! This is more than 10 times the weight of Er Grah, the largest standing stone in Brittany and more than twice the size of the massive Trilithon still languishing in its quarry at Baalbek, Lebanon. This latter stone is routinely claimed to be the largest dressed monolith in the world. It isn't ! While the Siberian monolith is probably more recent than the Baalbek stone and not as finely finished, it is an unparalleled example of stone quarrying, transportation, and erection. The stones of the Great Pyramid and those Easter Island statues are puny in comparison. Who erected these giant megaliths and how did they wrestle them into place? (Howard, John Eliot; "The Early Dawn of ...

... May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Mouse Engineering Shortly after writing in SF#79 about the "Ancient Greek Pyramids" and the Saharan mice that construct small pyramids of pebbles to extract moisture from the air, we serendipitously ran across the following: " Australian Native Mice . The species P. chapmani builds low mounds of pebbles over its burrow systems, and P. hermannsburgensis may use these mounds after they are constructed. The pebbles are of a uniform size and cover a large area, often a meter in diameter. The pebbles are probably collected both by excavation and from the surface. Some local mammalogists believe these are used as dew traps. Since the air around the pebbles warms more rapidly as the sun rises than do the pebbles themselves, dew forms on the pebbles by condensation. As the areas in which these mounds are found are quite dry, except after a heavy rain, these dew traps solve the problem of water shortage. Local farmers use the many pebble mounds for mixing concrete. It is believed that the ancient people of the Mediterranean region used a dew trap method comparable to that of P. chapmani ." (Nowak, Ronald M.; "Australian Native Mice," Walker's Mammals of the World , Baltimore, 1991, p. 820.) Comment. Now we must decide between at least three possibilities. Since the Australian native mice and Saharan mice are many thousands of miles apart, we have: (1 ) independent mouse inventions; (2 ) ...

... There is always the possibility that those mysterious Cro-Magnons, who seem to have appeared out of nowhere, got to western Europe ahead of schedule. They are probably the artists who made those 31,000-year-old cave paintings at Grotte Chauvet in southern France. Even though of slighter build and smaller brains, the Cro-Magnons are thought to have quickly replaced the Neandertals. Complicating the picture is 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 ...

... 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 ...

... years ago? Nevertheless, there they are: (1 ) rude human tools; and (2 ) a possible human palm print. Mainstream archeologists are stonewalling again; there must be some mistake! (Appenzeller, Tim; " A High Five from the First New World Settlers?" Science, 255:920, 1992.) Scene: Inside Amerind cells. DNA analyses of the mitochondria present in the cells of North American Indian populations indicate that the Eskimo-Aleut and Nadene populations arrived about 7,500 years ago. The more geographically widespread Amerind population, however, seems to be descended from two separate influxes; the first about 30,000 years ago, the second about 10,000 years ago. D. Wallace, from Emory University, surmises that the sharply defined rise of the Clovis culture, conventionally dated from 12,000 years ago, may have resulted from the second Amerind immigration. (Lewin, Roger; "Mitochondria Tell the Tale of Migrations to America," New Scientist, p. 16, February 22, 1992.) Comment. The 30,000-year date, however, is consistent with MacNeish's discoveries at the Orogrande Cave. Hang in there archeology anomalists, the 12,000year paradigm is melting in the warm spring sun! Scene: In the Bluefish Caves in the northern Yukon. "Arctic caves in the northern Yukon have yielded apparent bone tools carved 24,000 years ago, more than 13,000 years earlier than the earliest confirmed human habitation of the Americas, a Canadian archeologist [R .E ...

... 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 Europe's mystery people The researches of R. Frank, a scholar at the University of Iowa, suggest that the Basques were far-advanced in navigational skills and other aspects of technology long before the rise of the Roman Empire. The Basques, she believes, are the last remnants of the megalith builders, who left behind dolmens, standing stones, and other rock structures all across Europe and perhaps even in eastern North America. Two facts set the Basque peoples apart from the other Europeans who have dominated the continent the past 3,000 years: (1 ) The Basque language is distinctly different; and (2 ) The Basques have the highest recorded level of Rh-negative blood (roughly twice that of most Europeans), as well as substantially lower levels of Type B blood and a higher incidence of Type O blood. Some probable technological feats of the Basques or their ancestors are: Stonehenge and similar megalithic structures oA unique system of measurement based on the number 7 instead of 10, 12, or 60 Regular visits to North America long before Columbus to fish and to trade for beaver skins. Recently unearthed British customs records show large Basque imports of beaver pelts from 1380-1433. The invention of a sophisticated navigational device called an "abacus." (No relation to the common abacus.) (Haddingham, Evan; "Europe's Mystery People," World Monitor , p. 34, ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Solar activity, your mother's birth year, and your longevity "According to two scientists who stumbled on a startling statistical association -- though not necessarily a causeeffect relationship -- your life span may depend on the number of sunspots that appeared in the year your mother was born. "They found that if the sun was at a maximum in its 11-year cycle (during which the number of sunspots rises and falls), children of mothers born at that time would die an average of two to three years sooner than if their mothers had been born during the sunspot minimum." Before dismissing this fascinating correlation as "nut science," consider that the study was conducted by two established scientists at Michigan State University, B. Rosenberg and D.A . Juckett. Their report was published in the March 1993 issue of the mainstream journal Radiation Research . Furthermore, in two English studies of longevity. the same periodicity was remarked. Although the population sample in the Michigan State work was small (7552), the phenomenon appears sufficiently robust to admit to the columns of Science Frontiers! (In truth we covet bizarreness as much as robustness!) But what possible causal link might connect one's longevity with one's mother's date of birth? Rosenberg and Juckett point to the fact that when a woman is born all of her eggs are already formed. Later, they will mature and ...

... 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Terraforming Mars The concept of terraforming a planet is an old standby of science fiction; it is the process by which a technologically advanced race manipulates the surface and atmosphere of an uninhabitable planet so that it becomes inhabitable. We humans know to our dismay that we have the capacity to modify the earth's environment, but could we perhaps exercise better judgment and terraform Mars? C.P . McKay et al have looked into this possibility: "From our analysis, one could propose the following sequence of events: production of CFCs (or other greenhouse gases) starts on Mars and the surface temperature warms up by about 20 K. The regolith and polar caps release their CO2 and the pressure rises to 100 mbar. One of two things could then happen. If there were large regolith and polar CO2 reservoirs, the pressure would continue to rise on its own. If these were absent, the CO2 pressure would stabilize, and additional CO2 would have to be released from carbonate minerals. At this point (perhaps between 100 and 105 years) Mars may be suitable for plants. If there was a mechanism for sequestering the reduced carbon, these plants could slowly transform the CO2 to produce an O2-rich atmosphere in perhaps 100,000 years. If sufficient N2 could also be released from putative soil deposits, and the CO2 level kept low enough, then a human- breathable atmosphere could be produced. (McKay, Christopher P., et al; "Making Mars Habitable ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 78: Nov-Dec 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lunar Rainbow And Unexplained White Arc April 12, 1990. North Atlantic. Aboard the m.v . Canterbury Star. From left to right: normal secondary lunar rainbow (white). Normal primary bow (colored), anomalous secondary bow (white). "At 0004 UTC a bright, white arc was seen on the starboard bow and was quickly identified as a lunar rainbow. The moon was one day after its full phase and was just rising; it had little colouration but was unusually bright. A faint, secondary bow became visible outside the main bow at 0010 while the latter, at the same time, began to show colouring; it was possible to see a bluish reddish-orrange colour on the outside, merging into yellow, then to a bluish colour on the inside edge. See sketch. Unfortunately, measurement of the width of these bands was not possible as they were not clear enough. During this time, the outer secondary bow together with a third, inner bow remained faint and were white in colour; the inner secondary bow being nearly too faint to see." Comments from an expert in meteorological optics remarked that the radii of the primary and outer secondary bows were less than the theoretical values. He dismissed the inner secondary bow as a misinterpretation, since "theory predicts no such inner secondary bow." (Jackson, C.; "Rainbow," Marine Observer, 61: ...

... 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 Ancient greek pyramids?Yes, the ancient Greeks had their pyramids, too, only they had a very practical purpose: They were water-catchers. They had learned that piles of porous rocks could, in desert climes, capture and condense surprisingly large quantities of water. Take, for example, the 13 pyramids of loose limestone rocks that the Greeks constructed some 2500 years ago at Theodosia in the Crimea: "The pyramids averaged nearly 40 feet high and were placed on hills around the city. As wind moved air through the heaps of stone, the day's cycle of rising and falling temperatures caused moisture to condense, run down, and feed a network of clay pipes. "One archaeologist calculated a water flow of 14,400 gallons per pyramid per day, based on the size of the clay pipes leading from each device." Weren't the ancient Greeks clever? But perhaps they had observed how some mice in the Sahara pile small heaps of rocks in front of their burrows and lick the condensed moisture off in the morning. Possibly we should have classified this item under "Biology"! (Dietrich, Bill; "Water from Stones: Greeks Found a Way," Arizona Republic , p. AA1, December 22, 1991. Cr. T.W . Colvin.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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 Piney Pitstop Of The Paranormal Evidently trying to inject some joy into our country's financial capital, the Wall Street Journal recently printed a story on Spook Hill, Lake Wales, Florida. Spook Hill is one of several spots in the U.S . where gravity seems to be defied. "Sue Robertson motors her maroon Ford Tempo to the white line painted across Fifth Street, shifted into neutral and slowly rolls backward up Spook Hill. "' Eerie, weird, and definitely strange," she says, finally easing to a stop near the top of the rise. "Hers is the same amazed reaction expressed by most tourists who discover this piney pitstop of the paranormal, 50 miles south of Orlando. On a typical Saturday, up to 30 cars an hour line up at the top of the hill for their turn to drive down to the white line and drift back up." Not only cars roll up the hill. Farmers had to stop planting oranges in the area because visitors pulled them off the trees so they could watch them roll uphill. Skateboarders and cyclists also feel the pull of gravity in the wrong direction. Scientists who deign to investigate sites like Spook Hill usually end up by claiming them to be merely optical illusions. "If it's an optical illusion at work here, it's an odd one; a reporter applying a carpenter's level at about the hill's ...

... -thorium dates are accurate.] Use of the newly corrected radiocarbon scale has pushed the peak of the Ice Ages back from 18,000 BP to 21,000 BP. But there is more. The same article in Science, without saying how he came up with the number, has Bard fixing the strength of the earth's magnetic field at only half its present level 20,000 years ago. This is most interest-ing because over the last 400 years of direct measurements, the geomagnetic field has been steadily decreasing! When and why was there a peak in the intensity of the geomagnetic field? Back to Fairbanks, who also used his coral data to estimate changes in global sea level versus time. About 12,000 BP, he states, sea level was rising ten times faster than today due to melt water from the polar ice caps. This amounts to 2.5 to 4 meters per century. ". .. perhaps fast enough to prompt legends of a Great Flood"! (Kerr, Richard A.; "From One Coral Many Findings Blossom," Science, 248: 1314, 1990.) Comment. It is exceedingly rare to find a scientist musing that there really might have been a Flood. From Science Frontiers #71, SEP-OCT 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chaos Below "In a dive on the submersible Alvin just west of the Mariana trench, scientists discovered a cache of unusual features, including chimneys spewing out mineral-laden cold water on top of submerged mountains that rise 2,500 meters from the seafloor. While volcanic eruptions form most sea-mounts, these mountains consist of a nonvolcanic rock called serpentinite, and oceanographers are not entirely sure how the serpentinite mountains formed." The theory of plate tectonics has the Pacific plate diving under the Philippine plate along the Mariana trench. It may be that water trapped in the downgoing crust leaks out, rises, and serpentinizes the crust above. This altered rock, being lighter than that surrounding it, may slowly rise through it, eventually forming undersea mountains. (Monastersky, Richard; "Novel Mountains and Chimneys in the Sea," Science News, 134:333, 1988.) Comment. This all sounds pretty speculative, but those mountains had to come from somewhere. Perhaps the serpentinite mountains are just one manifestation of a larger phenomenon: the chaotic slithering and popping up and down of crustal material. The following is from New Scientist: "Geophysicists in California and Illinois say that they have found the Earth's "missing" crust by analyzing shock waves from earthquakes to determine the chemical composition of the Earth's interior. If the researchers are correct, then the view of the interior of the Earth that scientists ...

... Of Vortices In Britain Of late, the cereal fields of Britain have been visited by a phenomenon which flattens the crops in nicely geometric circles, rings, and even patterns of circles. The meteorologists attribute these circles to unseen vortices in the atmos phere; more radical speculators invoke UFOs and mysterious Russian weapons. Pertinent to the explanation of this phenomenon are recent sightings of vapor vortices in regions where crop circles are common. While no one has yet seen these vortices gouging out circles, these visual manifestations betoken strong circular winds in the proper locations. Here follows a recent account: "Looking across the field of winter wheat to the east..., he suddenly noticed at a distance of 80 metres... what he took to be a large puff of white 'bonfire smoke' rising to 15 feet (5m) maximum height. The outer part of this 'smoke' column was scarcely rotating but the middle part, which was too thick to see through, was spinning rapidly. In a couple of seconds the effect had ended; the spinning central column had gone and the residual 'smoke' or cloud of fog drifted gently in the prevailing light north-east wind towards the southwest and dissolved after going several yards. He used the word smoke out of convenience but said that the effect was more likely caused by water vapour, cloud droplets or fog. He further emphasized the swiftness of the appearance and disappearance of the phenomenon. It had arrived suddenly like 'smoke from a distant cannon' or just as if 'a smoke-filled or fog-filled ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anomalous Geographical Distribution Of Diabetes Mellitus The incidence of diabetes mellitus among children varies dramatically with geography. For children under 15, it is only 1.7 per 100,000 in Japan but rises to 29.5 in Finland. Within the States, it is 9.4 per 100,000 in San Diego and peaks at 20.8 in Rochester, Minnesota. Children of European descent in New Zea land contract it three times as often as Maori children. U.S . whites get the disease more frequently than blacks and Hispanics. "Causes of these 'extraordinary' distribution differences remain unknown .. .. Both genetic and environmental factors appear necessary for the disease." (Eron, C.; "Cold Facts on Diabetes," Science News, 134:117, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #60, NOV-DEC 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... case, the role of anomalies in scientific research will be underscored. Be that as it may, a genie has been uncorked. Both cold fusion and the re-cent excitement over high-temperature superconductivity demonstrate that a largely unexplored universe exists in the electrochemistry of the solid state. Favorite theories lie in shambles; faces are very red; the most elite of our scientific institutions were caught with blinders on! Beyond these amusements, the practical import for energy production is enormous, and who know what else will eventuate? But what about science itself? First, cold fusion will doubtless generate a brand new crop of anomalies which we are only able to guess at now. Pertinent to our effort to catalog anomalies, it is possible that cold fusion may be occurring deep in the earth giving rise not only to heat but the upwelling flux of helium-3 , now called "primordial" perhaps in error. The icy planets Jupiter and Saturn generate heat, too, and may also be cold fusion reactors! Even the sun, which is undeniably hot (at least on the surface!), may be fusing light elements in ways we have yet to grasp in our stellar models. After all, no one has yet explained that deficit in solar neutrinos! There will be egg on a lot of faces if our notions of stellar energy generation are widly in error. We may be overreacting here; but we predict with confidence that the future will bring a good many scientific papers that begin with those all-toofamiliar words, "We now know that..." ...

... be used for rituals. "For example, several areas that contain crosscrossing lines and figures similar to those of Nazca have recently been studied on the central coast [of Peru] between the FortalezaPativilca and Rimac valleys. Additional lines have been reported for Viru Valley, on the north coast, and for the Zana Valley, over 1,000 km to the north of Nazca. Interestingly, most coastal ground drawings that can be dated tentatively, either by associated ceramic remains and sites or by their similarity to diagnostic pottery motifs, fall in the earlier part of the Early Intermediate period (ca. 350 B.C . to A.D . 650) - i.e ., to a time following the establishment of irrigation agriculture as the primary subsistence focus, but prior to the rise of state societies. .. .. . "As is well known, several studies have been conducted that involved mapping and computer analysis of the Nazca lines to examine the hypothesis that they were related to astronomical phenomena. This theory is now discounted, at least as it applies to the great majority of the lines which do not appear to have been oriented toward the sky. More recent studies dealing with the lines have provided convincing arguments. primarily through comparison with lines currently in use on the Bolivian altiplano, that they were constructed as part of elaborate ritual ceremonies related to agricultural fertility." (Wilson, David J.; "Desert Ground Drawings in the Lower Santa Valley, North Coast of Peru," American Antiquity," 53:794, 1988.) Comment. ...

... species. We now quote the lead sentences from her discussions of the next two candidates: "An incipient neospecies of Drosophila may have developed in Theodosius Dobzhansky's laboratory sometime between 1958 and 1963 in a strain of D. paulistorum...." "A probable instance of a naturally emerging plant species was discovered on both sides of Highway 205 at a single locality 25.5 miles south of Burns, Harney County, Oregon...." We have inserted underlining beneath the two words that greatly weaken the paper. In short, the biologists are not really sure that speciation occurred in these two cases. The reasons for doubt are also presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of allopolyploidy in plants, in which the chromosomes of a sterile hybrid are doubled, giving rise to a fertile variety. Allopolyploidy has been observed in primroses, tobacco, cotton, and other plants. And that's it; two questionable examples and allopolyploidy. (Callaghan, Catherine A.; "Instances of Observed Speciation," American Biology Teacher , 49:34, January 1987.) From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... and Sakhalin. The altitude of the center of the halo at the maximum observed size is estimated to have been greater than 200 miles, and the diameter of the halo is estimated to have been at least 380 miles. It seems unlikely that a groundbased explosion could produce this kind of effect. It is surprising to us that no official data have been provided by government agencies and that such a significant observation from a region of demonstrated military sensitivity was, and still remains, a mystery." (McKenna, Daniel L., and Walker, Daniel A.; "Mystery Cloud: Additional Observations," Science, 234:412, 1986.) Evidently the mystery cloud mentioned above is only one in a long series: "Large icy clouds, similar to plumes of gas that rise over volcanoes, have appeared over islands along the coast of the Soviet Union during the past several years, baffling experts, who cannot explain what they are or what causes them. "The clouds dissipate in a few hours vanishing as mysteriously as they appear. "Among the plumes are a series of massive clouds that during the past four years have periodically swelled over Novaya Zemlya, the Arctic island long used by the Soviets for nuclear weapons tests. "However, there appears to be no correlation between the clouds and known Soviet tests, which are usually detected by Western governments. Further, non-governmental scientists said the 200-mile-long plumes appear to be many times larger than the largest conceivable nuclear explosion could produce." A NOAA satellite detected a large plume coming from ...