... 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 The Earth Made Mars Different At the June, 2000, meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, R.A . Day presented a paper that: Itemized the many important ways n which Mars differs from the other inner planets and moons; Proposed a mechanism that might lave created these stark differences; and Identified the earth as the most likely perpetrator of this celestial catastrophism. Day's abstract follows: Mars has surface features that are not seen on inner planets or moons. These are hemispheric asymmetries, idiosyncratic surface fracturing, localized vulcanism, altitude differences, chains of pits, and the nature of dry river-like channels. Other features include extensive loss of an early atmosphere and liquid water. There is interest in the lower-altitude northern region, with its surface formed after the period of heavy bombardment, as a possible ocean basin. The evidence for this is very sparse: no river deltas, no river networks, little debris at the ends of the catastrophic flow channels. The surface is consistent with the stripping anticipated by a Roche-limit encounter. The low-density Martian moons appear to be unconsolidated material of higher density; they appear to be from low-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 ...

... 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 The Saguenay Earthquake Lights November 1988-January 1989. Saguenay region of Quebec. During this period, a total of 67 quakes were recorded. The foreshock (November 23) registered 4.8 ; the main shock (November 25), 6.5 mmlg. Many after-shocks followed. During this spate of tremors, 38 unusual luminosities were initially reported from the region, 8 of them before the foreshock, being in effect earthquake precursors. Afterwards, residents were queried for details and additional observations. A total of 46 reports sufficiently detailed for analysis were obtained. These luminous phenomena were classified according to a scheme proposed by F. Montandon in 1948. Montandon's five categories are: Seismic lightning (no thunder); Luminous bands in atmosphere; Globular incandescent masses; Fire tongues, small mobile flames near the ground, like will-o '- the wisps; and Flames emerging from the ground. The globular incandescent masses were by far the most common type of earthquake light during this Canadian "flap." Of these, F. St-Laurent writes: There were twenty-two reports coming from different places. Often they were seen far from the epicenter or when the seismic activity was low or quiet. Some were stationary (in one case, the yellow and orange mass presented a horizontal elongated form), others were seen emerging from the ground, some were very fast-moving near the ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contagious St. Elmo's Fire February 8, 1999. North Sea. Aboard the m.v . Repulse Bay , enroute Rotterdam to hamburg. Whilst the vessel was in the German Bight, in position 53 57' N. 07 08' E, a classic example of St. Elmo's fire was observed at 0230 UT C. A high-pitched buzzing sound was heard on the corner of the bridge wing, and what seemed to be a glow was also present. Observers were able to pick up the static and saw short flame-like 'tufts' of blue and violet appear on the ends of their finger-tips, as if the fingers had ignited. The 'flames' were able to be passed from person to person, and were even placed upon another observer's forehead! There were no electrical storms in the area but there was a mixture of hail and snow falling at the time. Two of the observers experienced strong electrical shocks from each other, and also electric shocks each time snow landed on their skin -- a very peculiar experience! (Byrne, K.; "St. Elmo's Fire," Marine Observer, 70:6 , 2000.) St. Elmo's fire experienced atop pikes Peak in Colorado. (From: Lightning Auroras .. .) From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Hidden 'Gardens'Some of the world's strangest "gardens" appear as green dots on the simmering deserts of the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. These green dots are not your usual oases. Rather, they are springs that once fed long chain-well systems that carried water to villages at their lower ends. Called "qanats," these multimile subterranean structures were invented about 750 B.C . for trans-porting water efficiently in the dry desert climes of the Middle East. Cross section of a typical Iranian qanat. Unlike the exposed spring of the Bahrainian qanat, the water source here is at the bottom of a deep well. (From: Ancient Infrastructure) In our recent catalog, Ancient Infra-structure , we describe the qanats of Iran. (See figure.) Some of these shaft-tunnel structures run for miles and re-present a prodigious amount of labor. How prodigious? In Iran alone there are about 37,500 qanats with an aggregate length of some 100,000 miles! Qanats rank right up there with the Inca roads and the Great Wall of China as wonders of the ancient world. After reading our catalog section on Iranian qanats, E. von Fange informs us that the qanats of Bahrain pose a set of different problems. The Bahrainian qanats are easy to follow across the desert because the access shafts protrude a few feet above the sand. ...

... 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 There are More Pyramids in Sudan than All of Egypt The kingdom of Cush (or Kush) flourished south of Egypt along the Nile from the Eighth Century B.C . to the Fourth Century A.D . Here the rulers of Cush built some 228 pyramids, three times as many as the Pharaohs managed to pile up! We rarely hear or see anything of these strange, steeply pointed structures. They are usually less than 100 feet high and not as impressive and mysterious as those farther north beyond the Aswan Dam. The Sudanese pyramids are smaller, steeper, and more recent than those to the north in Egypt. The Cushite kingdom's passion for pyramids was probably acquired in the Eighth Century B.C ., when it actually ruled Egypt for a few years until the Assyrians pushed its armies back south in 671 B.C . With them, the Cushites took the pyramid idea, Egyptian art forms, and hieroglyphics. They liked pyramids so well that the Cushite rulers kept on building them until the kingdom's demise in 350 A.D . -- some 2,000 years after the Egyptians had abandoned this form of architecture altogether. There is nothing in the Cush pyramids that can be called anomalous. It's just so surprising to learn there are so many of them and that they are so neglected in the TV documentaries. The Cush empire did leave us one enigma: an alphabetical ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects From Nature's Atelier One of geology's more fascinating mysteries concerns the formation of concretions. Concretions are structures within rock that differ in form and/or composition from the matrix. Often, they form around an impurity of some sort, say, a tiny fossil. If concretions were all nicely spherical or crystalline in shape, we might be able to explain them as we do with the oyster's pearl and winter's snow-flake. Unfortunately for the theorists, concretions usually come in bizarre shapes -- shapes an avant garde sculptor might appreciate. Not only do concretions come in weird geometries but they may be replicated in prodigious numbers, like the famous Kimmeridge "coal money." Additionally, some flint concretions are arrayed in thick chalk beds in amazingly regular three-dimensional arrays that tax the ingenuity of any theorist. To illustrate the extremes of nature's inorganic-chemical imagination, we now provide some illustrations from a recent two-part article in Rocks & Minerals and one of our catalog volumes. (Dietrich, R.V .; "Carbonate Concretions,' Rocks & Minerals, 74:266 and 74:335, 1999. ESA3 in Neglected Geological Anomalies.) Carbonate concretions (" imatra stones") from Finland. Virtually identical concretions occur in the Connecticut River Valley. Vertical lines of flint concretions in chalk cliffs near Norfolk, England. Presumably the 3-dimensional array ...

... 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 Listening for the Unhearable They rolled around with a soundless sound like softly bruised silk; They poured into the bowl of the sky with the gentle flow of milk. So wrote R.W . Service, the poet of the Arctic realms, about the eerie voices of the auroras. The low-frequency sound of the aurora is barely detectable by human ears. It is "felt" more than heard, as Service expressed so eloquently. Some skeptics have maintained that these ethereal sounds do not really exist, but modern instruments confirm that pressure waves are definitely produced in the atmosphere as the auroras weave and dance in the sky. Most auroral sound is in the infrasound range, which begins at the lower limit of human hearing -- about 20 Hertz. Just enough sound energy seeps over the 20-Hz limit to be heard by sensitive human ears during periods of intense activity. Another natural infrasound, weak but continuous, is the "voice of the sea." These sound waves, called "microbaroms," have periods in the 5-7 second range (0 .20-0 .14 Hz), well below the range of human ears. Such low-frequency sounds travel great distances with little attenuation. It is thought, therefore, that the "voice of the sea" is an extended source -- perhaps the collective acoustical signature of all the storms from all the world's oceans. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Were The First Americans Australians?Ask this question in a college class in archeology and you'll surely receive an "F "! Everyone knows that the first inhabitants of the New World filtered across the Bering Land Bridge and eventually worked their way all the way down to the tip of South America. Perhaps so, perhaps no. Conceivably some venturesome Australian seafarers could have island-hopped across the South Pacific or taken a polar route (as the Vikings did in the north) when the world was warmer. Radical as this notion seems, three classes of evidence hint that Australians may have set foot on South American shores more than 10,000 years ago. Human fossils. As revealed in SF#118, an 11,500-year-old human skull found in Brazil possesses features of South Sea Islanders rather than Asians. Stone artifacts. Scrapers and other simple stone artifacts from Los Toldos Cave in Patagonia, dated as 12,000 years old, are suspiciously similar to late-Pleistocene tools in Australia. (Ref. 1) Cave paintings. At Los Toldos and especially another Patagonian site called Estancia La Maria, there is distinctive artwork virtually identical to some from Australia. Specifically, this artwork consists of "hand negatives" (silhouettes of the artists' hands) and spiral and circular drawings composed of little spots. (Ref. 1) Additionally, a remarkable and entirely distinct form of Australian art ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fiery Exhalations In Wales 1693-1694. Harlech, Wales. The older literature presents several accounts of the strange luminous and incendiary phenomena which we now attend to. The following excerpt is from a 1790 gazetteer, as reprinted in New Scientist. A remarkable phenomenon was seen near this town [Harlech] in 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 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mirror Matter May Matter Mirror Matter, if it exists, would be difficult to detect because it does not emit radiation to betray its presence. It interacts with Normal Matter (us and our instruments) only through its gravitational pull. The Mirror-Matter concept has been around since the 1950s because physicists needed (and still need) "something" that balances the universe -- which if you haven't noticed is asymmetrical. To illustrate this cosmic "deformity," note that Normal-Matter neutrinos always spin in the same direction, when half should spin one way and half the other way if the universe is symmetrical. However, the existence of Mirror-Matter neutrinos spinning the other way would redress things, making the universe "perfect" -- at least as far as human aesthetics are concerned. (Other entities might yearn for asymmetry, who knows?) Anyway, Mirror Matter is defined as being palpable and could also be that "missing mass" or "dark matter" that astronomers need to explain why spinning galaxies do not fly apart. Mirror Matter could also account for some mysterious terrestrial phenomena such as that unaccountable lack of a significant crater in Siberia, where the 1908 Tunguska blast leveled a huge forest but hardly disturbed the ground. Recently, Mirror Matter has been invoked to explain the ups and downs of terrestrial biodiversity. R. Foot and Z. Silagadze propose that the 26-millionyear periodicity ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Stealth Catastrophe Recently, as geologists reckon time -- only 800,000 years ago -- Australia, Southeast Asia, and the eastern Indian Ocean were bombarded by untold numbers of small, oddly shaped stones called "tektites." New finds of tektites have expanded the strewn field of these Australasian tektites to include part of China. It now appears that about 30% of the earth's area was subjected to this stony bombardment. It is inescapable that the Australasian-tektite fall was a major event in the earth's history. But where are other signs of this great catastrophe? The present consensus holds that the Australasian tektites originated when a large celestial body slammed into our planet somewhere in Southeast Asia. The energy of the impact splashed droplets of molten rock into the atmosphere, where they were shaped aerodynamically and then fell as tektites. The extent of the immense Australasian-tektite strewn field implies a hard-to-miss crater about 100 kilometers in diameter. Yet, despite the geological recency of the event and despite much geological surveying, no convincing crater has been discovered. (SF#115) So, we have abundant evidence of a terrestrial event encompassing much of the planet but no "smoking crater"! The mystery deepens when one realizes that whatever cataclysm sent the Australian tektites aloft may have been comparable in magnitude to the impact that extinguished the dinosaurs (and other fauna) some 65 million years ...

... 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 The Midi-Chlorians are with Us!Whoops! We meant to write "mitochondria" in that title. In the movie Star Wars, Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn explains the origin of the supernatural powers possessed by Jedi knights. It arises, he says, from microscopic lifeforms called chlorians" that dwell within all living cells and reveal the will of the Force. Mitochondria are popularly seen as mere powerhouses within cells, with little influence on the organisms they inhabit. They are, it is believed, just the distant progeny of bacteria that invaded complex cells hundreds of millions of years ago. With only 37 genes in their arsenal, human mitochondria would not seem to pose any threat to humanity. After all, we have about 100,000 genes per cell. Of course, mitochondria do evolve separately from us, and this is a bit disconcerting. Could they be more than mere symbionts? The midi-chlorians of the Jedi knights were "good guys", but our mitochondria sometimes seem to be working for an insidious alien Force. There is good evidence that they: Selected which of your mother's germ cells matured to produce you; Have decided your odds of living to be 100; and May influence your being afflicted with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's , as well as rarer disorders. The first item (or "force") is the most ...

... 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 Attention, Pupils!The following questions appeared in the December 11, 1999, issue of the New Scientist: Why do some animals have a non-circular pupil? Cats and some snakes have a vertical shape yet horses and goats have a horizontal one. What is the reason behind the differences and, more importantly, how do the different shapes affect how animals actually see things? The answer for the vertical slit is that it improves an animal's focus in the direction perpendicular to the slit. Thus, cats and snakes hunting close to the ground can better detect their prey over a wide horizontal field. But how about the horses, goats and other grazing animals that must keep their eyes open for predators across a wide horizon? Pupils with horizontal slits would seem to defeat this purpose. Ah, but when they lower their heads to graze, their vertical pupils become horizontal. Simple! (Anonymous; "Eye to Eye," New Scientist, p. 85, December 11, 1999.) Comments. But puzzles remain, otherwise we wouldn't address this subject. (1 ) Some snakes have round pupils (as in the illustration) having apparently been subjected to different environmental forces; (2 ) Of all the 9,000+ species of birds, only the skimmers own pupils with vertical slits. You would expect ground-feeding birds like robins and larks to also have them; ( ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Anomalous Antiquity of Some Landforms All over the planet, but particularly in Australia, there exist great expanses of land surface that fossils and radiometric dating tell us are tens of millions of years old. This doesn't seem very serious until we learn that, given today's erosion rates, these landforms should be deeply eroded or, more likely, completely erased by the forces of nature. This paradox has long been used by Creationists to challenge geological dating methods. Mainstream geologists do recognize the paradox but have had scant success in resolving it. For example, geologist C.H . Crickmay wrote: Again, one finds all over the world, even high above and far distant from existing waterways, smooth-surfaced and level ground -- including everything from small terraces to broad, flat plains -- much of it still bearing intact a carpet of stream alluvium. Such lands were carved and carpeted, evidently, by running water, even though they are now in places where no stream could possibly run... What is remarkable about them is the perfection with which they have out-lasted the attack of "denudation" for all the time that has passed since they lay at stream level. (The Work of the River, New York, 1974) This paradox of uneroded ancient landforms remains as obdurate as the landforms themselves. (Oard, Michael J.; "Antiquity of Landforms: Objective Evidence ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When The Antarctic Was Warm The analyses of ocean-floor sediments deposited recently by melting Antarctic ice sheets reveal that these ice sheets are only about 2,000 years old. The evidence is in the rocky debris scraped up from inland Antarctica and then transported out to sea, where it drops to the sea floor as the ice melts. The grains of rock settle into the ocean sediments which contain biological debris that can be carbon-dated. (Marine life beneath the ice sheets is surprisingly abundant and varied despite the near-freezing 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 ...

... 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 ...

... 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 Facing Up To Divebombers When spring arrives Down Under, the black-backed magpies divebomb everything that moves in the vicinity of their nests. No one is spared: kids, cats, politicians, and even ornithologists are fair targets. But the solution is simple: "The National Parks and Wildlife Service reminds blitzkrieged Aussies that the birds are less likely to attack if they believe they are being watched. So the chic and the sensible don hats with sunglasses propped on top -- facing backwards, of course." (Anonymous; New Scientist, p. 84, February 24, 1996) Comment. The same solution has been adopted by Indians who work in tiger country. They wear human face masks on the backs of their heads. Tigers don't like to be watched either. From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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 Ichthyometers Measure Pollution At the Centre International de l'Eau de Nancy, French scientists are putting the South American fish Apteronotus albifrons to work. This electric fish alters its self-generated electrical pulses as its aqueous environment changes. "Generally, when the fish is cruising around, it emits a continuous series of low-amplitude electric pulses at 1000 Hertz. But the researchers found that when the fish were exposed to certain pollutants in their holding tanks, the frequency and form of the electrical signals changed in characteristic ways that could be measured consistently. The electric fish, which are particularly responsive to potassium cyanide, phenols, and trichloroethylene, are soon expected to begin charging their way through French drinking-water treatment facilities." (Anonymous; "Zapping through Pollution," BioScience, 46:312, 1996) From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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 Heart-Stoppers Galapagos marine iguana The marine iguanas of the Galapagos are remarkable in their unlizard-like ability to forage for vegetation and other tidbits underwater. These iguanas make good eating, and they are at risk along the rocky shores of the Galapagos. But the marine iguanas have special card to play when approached by sharks armed with their supersensitive hearing. The iguanas voluntarily stop their hearts from beating. Otherwise, sharks as far away as 3-4 meters can home in on their heartbeats. Amazingly, marine iguanas can survive up to 45 minutes without functioning hearts. This represents a remarkable evolutionary adaptation in the perpetual warfare between prey and predators. But, to the west across the Pacific, in Indonesia, another reptile, the fear-some Komodo dragon, can also voluntarily stop its heart. Komodo dragons have no sharks to fear. In fact, they are the top predators on the islands they inhabit, dining on deer and, rarely, a human or two. Was this a purposeful adaptation? If so, to what threat? (Knight. Jonathan; "King of Hearts," New Scientist, p. 51, November 20, 1999.) 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 ...

... 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 Rochester Residents See Mirage Of Canadian Shore 65 Miles Distant May 16, 1921. Rochester, NY. On this day, many citizens climbed to the roofs of tall buildings to view a splendid mirage of the Canadian shore located 65 miles north of the city. The weather was very clear, and the mirage rested high in the northern sky. The colors were a deep blue and near-black, the uneven shoreline being distinctly depicted against the cloudless sky. An occasional forest appeared darker than the regular line of the mirage and indicated that the shore line displayed was several hundred miles in extent. The mirage disappeared about 4 PM. (Anonymous; "Rochester Sees A Remarkable Mirage of Canadian Shore, 65 Miles Away," New York Times, May 17, 1921. Cr. M. Piechota.) Comment. This mirage is notable for its clarity and distance. An even more remarkable mirage of the same type appears in our catalog Rare Halos, Mirages. In this instance, a mirage of the Snaefells Jokull, an Icelandic peak, was seen from a schooner 335-350 miles distant. Details in GEM2. 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. ...

... 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 ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Psichotomy A great chasm separates the "hard" sciences from parapsychology. In fact, most scientists do not recognize para-psychology as a legitimate science. A recent spate of letters in Physics Today reveals both the depth of the chasm and why it is there. The major letter writers are P.W . Anderson and R.G . Jahn, who work only a few hundred meters apart at Princeton but are light years apart on the matter of parapsychology. The letter writing commenced after Anderson wrote a column in the December 1990 issue of Physics Today entitled "On the Nature of Physical Law." Here he recommended the categorical dismissal of all anomalous observations that might tear apart the fabric of science. Although Anderson did not name Jahn specifically, it was obvious to Jahn that his work was the primary target. Jahn's response was a long letter summarizing the stupendous quantity of data he and his colleagues have amassed on psi effects. "We have in hand several prodigious data bases, acquired over 12 years of continuous, intensive experimentation, that clearly establish the existence, scale and primary correlates of certain anomalous influences of human consciousness on a variety of physical systems and processes. In our Microelectronic Random Binary Generators experiment, 95 selected human operators attempted to shift the output distribution means to either higher or lower values than the chance mean, in accordance with their prerecorded intentions. In 3 850 000 experimental sequences of 200 binary ...

... 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 Fossil Feathers Fly A. Feduccia's cartoon of the bug-catching phase of bird evolution Our alliterative title is apt on two counts: (1 ) Recent research on the famous Archaeopteryx fossils suggest that this animal could indeed fly and was arboreal rather than terrestrial; and (2 ) The paleontologists and ornithologists are still fighting (sometimes emotionally) over how Archaeopteryx fossils should be interpreted. The scientific acrimony centers on whether this ancient bird really evolved from small theropod dinosaurs. Prevailing theory has it that these dinosaurs first evolved feathers to keep warm and then used their feathered "arms" to help capture insects, and so on, with some aimless flapping, to the attainment of true flight. A rival, officially frownedupon theory has it that birds evolved from tree-dwelling reptiles that evolved feathers to break their falls while jumping from branch to branch! [Somehow, neither theory strikes a realistic chord. Why couldn't feathers have evolved solely for the purpose of flight? Answer: because evolutionists cannot countenance purpose in nature. WRC] One reconstruction of Archaeopteryx. There is a remarkable superficial resemblance to the living South American hoatzin. Young hoatzin even sport claws on their wings. Anyway, the latest fusillade in the Archaeopteryx wars was fired by A. Feduccia in Science. Feduccia demonstrated that the claws of Archaeopteryx are sharp and curved like those of modern arboreal birds and quite unlike either terrestrial birds or theropod dinosaurs. In ...

... 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! ...

... 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 Japanese Claim Generates New Heat While most scientists, especially the hotfusionists, have been ridiculing cold fusion as "pathological science," more adverturesome researchers have been forging ahead. The most interesting current results, gleaned from many, are those of A. Takahashi, who is a professor of nuclear engineering at Osaka University. "He says his cold-fusion cell produced excess heat at an average rate of 100 watts for months at a time. That's up to 40 times more power than he was putting into the cell, and more power per unit volume (of palladium) than is generated by a fuel rod in a nuclear reactor. " Takahashi has made several modifications in his cold-fusion cell. Rather than palladium rods, he employs small sheets. In addition, surmising that cold-fusion phenomena might prosper better under transient conditions, he varies cell current. Takahashi, however, measures only a few of the neutrons expected from the usual nuclear fusion reactions. Undaunted, he remarks, "This is a different ballgame, and it could be a different reaction." Indeed, some exotic fusion reactions do generate neutrons. (Freedman, David H.; "A Japanese Claim Generates New Heat," Science, 256:438, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #82, JUL-AUG 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...