296 results found.
... of the American Psychiatric Association, a discussant concluded, 'The importance, then, of the Idiot-Savant lies in our inability to explain him; he stands as a landmark of our own ignorance and the phenomenon of the Idiot-Savant exists as a challenge to our capabilities.' In the years that have followed, the inability to explain the idiot savant has not lessened, and the challenge to our capabilities remains undiminished. However, no model of brain function, particularly memory, will be complete until it can account for this rare but spectacular condition, with its islands of mental ability in a sea of mental handicap and disability. "Through the past century, since Down's description of this disorder, the several hundred idiot savants reported in the world literature have shown remarkable similarities within an exceedingly narrow range of abilities, given the many possible skills in the human repertoire. Why do so many idiot savants have the obscure skill of calendar calculating? Why does the triad of retardation, blindness, and musical genius appear with such regularity among them? Why is there a 6:1 male-to-female ratio in this disorder? What accounts for the more common occurrence of the idiot savant among patients with infantile autism than among those with other developmental disabilities?" Other questions that can be framed based on the rest of the paper are: How do some talents arise from injuries? Why do some talents disappear when other, different, skills are learned? Treffert admits to science's complete bafflement over this phenomenon. No wonder, for how can we ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Eyeless Vision Tomatoes see red. And other colors, too! We touched on this subject over a decade ago. (SF#54) Then we described how the use of red plastic mulch greatly improves the yields of tomato plants. More recent research reveals that fruit quality and resistance to pests are also improved. How can this be? Plant leaves, it turns out, contain color sensors -- light-sensitive pigments similar to those it the human retina. Obviously, the plants do not "see," but the pigments provide environmental information. Here's the mechanism: plant leaves reflect infrared light well, so when a tomato plant's pigments detect a lot of infrared, the plant "thinks" that it may be crowded out by competing vegetation. The tomato plant responds aggressively by growing more rapidly. The red plastic mulch between the rows also reflects a lot of infrared light, and it thereby tricks the tomato plant into accelerating its growth. (Raloff, Janet; "When Tomatoes See Red," Science News, 152:376, 1997.) Fire-detecting beetles. The beetle Melanophila acuminata seeks out forests that have just been ravaged by fires so that it can lay its eggs in the nutritious, freshly burnt wood. These insects are capable of detecting fires up to 32 kilometers (20 miles) distant. They do not see the fire with their eyes but instead detect the ...
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... up to cloud level, carried them a few kilometres north, and dropped them on Canning Town and East Ham? .. .. . "On 16 June 1984, a month after the fish falls in London, the owner of a service station near Thirsk in north Yorkshire found winkles and starfish covering the forecourt of his garage and the top of its high canopy. The winkles were salty and many were still alive. Thirsk is 45 kilometres from the sea, and the garage owner thought that this collection of marine life arrived with the torrential thunderstorms during the night. Though proof remains elusive, the winkles and starfish were probably lifted by a waterspout along the east coast and carried aloft for an hour or more within the powerful updrafts of the thunderstorms." Several more anecdotes of a similar nature can be found in this article. (Elsom, Derek; "Catch a Falling Frog," New Scientist, 1988.) Reference. Falls of fish and other anomalous material are cataloged in GWF10 in Tornados, Dark Days. For information on this catalog, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #59, SEP-OCT 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... patterns in a layer of fine particles (only 0.15 mm in diameter) spread on a vibrating surface. At various forcing frequencies, they saw the layer of tiny brass spheres heap up into hexagonal honeycombs, circular piles, and even stranger shapes. (Umbanhower, Paul B., et al; "Localized Excitations in a Vertically Vibrated Granular Layer," Nature, 382: 793, 1996) Comment. Nothing anomalous here, you say? Quite right, but perhaps there is in this experiment an explanation of a long-recognized geological anomaly: The origin of the famed Mima Mounds found scattered by the thousands in various regions of the planet, such as Mima Prairie near Puget Sound, in Washington State. Actually, the demonstration of Umbanhower et al was preceded by a similar experiment back in 1990. In that year, A.W . Berg reported in Geology how he had covered a piece of plywood with a thin layer of fine sand (loess) and subjected the plywood sheet to impacts simulating earthquakes. Lo and behold, the sand rose up in an array of Mima Mound-like heaps. (See: SF#69 and p. 201 in the book Science Frontiers. This book is described here . Umbanhower, a physicist, probably doesn't read Geology , but the results of his team's experiments certainly confirm Berg's simpler experiments and support the idea that quakes molded the Mima Mounds. Patterns of tiny brass spheres created by different forcing frequencies. Were Mima Mounds piled up by quakes. From Science Frontiers #108, ...
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... big plane coming straight at me, and there's also an overpass right where I am. My initial reaction is that it's going to crash on and that I'm in trouble and instead a split second passes in which I realize that I'm going under it, under the overpass, and the plane will go right over me and crash somewhere behind me. And I realize in that time that it will crash on the freeway and that a lot of people will die and that I, I just want to keep driving north and not look back [brief laughter], is my reaction." Elizabeth told her husband of her dream in the morning. The actual plane crash occurred a few weeks later just where she had been in her dream. Many similar, confirmed reports are presented by Stowell in her study. (Stowell, Mary S.; "Precognitive Dreams: A Phenomenological Study. Part I. Methodology and Sample Cases," American Society for Psychical Research, Journal, 91:163, 1997.) Comments. The literature of parapsychology is immense; the above report is just a tiny sample of what's available. There are scores of parapsychology journals and thousands of books at the Library of Congress. However, we almost never see any mention of all these immense labors in Science, Nature, or even the more adventuresome New Scientist. Why? Mainly because logical positivism, which rules the thinking of mainstream scientists, insists that the only acceptable observations are those that can be experienced by all persons. And we don ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wyoming: is old faithful a strange attractor?" Eruptions of Old Faithful Geyser are generally perceived as extremely regular events, with variation of eruptive interval being attributed to random noise. The governing equations for such a hydrothermal system are highly non-linear, therefore it is reasonable to assume that such systems are capable of operating in regines that display chaotic behavior. Three-dimensional state-space reconstruction of eruption time data provides strong evidence of a strange attractor quite similar to the Rossler attractor. Establishing the system as chaotic indicates that while one can predict eruptive intervals in the short term, long term predictions regarding Old Faithful's eruptive behavior are impossible, no matter how carefully and accurately the system is modeled. The mean eruptive interval of Old Faithful has changed over time. This is consistent with the behavior of a chaotic system, which by definition must be nonstationary in the mean. Seismic activity is believed to be a perturbation shifting Old Faithful into a new chaotic state with a different shape to the strange attractor. A simple non-linear dynamic model of geyser behavior is proposed that leads to chaotic behavior and is consistent with the observations of eruption interval data for Old Faithful." (Nicholl, Michael, et al; "Is Old Faithful a Strange Attractor?" Eos, 71:466, 1990.) Comment. "Strange attractor" is a specialized term employed in chaos analysis. So, Old Faithful is ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 120: Nov-Dec 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Are ufo abductions akin to ndes?Hard-core UFO researchers will probably reject S.W . Twemlow's associating UFO abductions with NDEs (Near-Death Experiences). Here is an abstract of his 1994 paper published in the Journal of Near-Death Studies. "This article proposes an integrated psychodynamic perspective to account in part for a variety of similarities between near-death experiences and UFO abductions. The psychodynamic psychology of these experiences implies that their "realness" is mainly a function of that psychology, rather than primarily of an objectifiable external reality. Clinical and research examples highlight the theoretical and practical usefulness of this model." (Twemlow, Stuart W.; "Misidentified Flying Objects? An Integrated Psychodynamic Perspective on Near-Death Experiences and UFO Abductions," Journal of Near-Death Studies, 12:205, 1994. As abstracted in: Exceptional Human Experience , 14:261, 1996. Address of the latter: 414 Rockledge Road, New Bern, NC 28562.) Comments. If one prunes away the psychological verbiage, Twemlow seems to be saying that in the minds of the percipients, NDEs and UFO abduction experiences are pretty much the same; that is, both phenomena are mental and not physical. However, in the same issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies, K. Basterfield asserts that physical evidence exists for UFO abductions but that there is none for NDEs! Apparently ...
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... board Cuna writing is ideographic. Today's average Cuna Indian can usually identify each ideogram as a bird, plant, or some other object. However, to those skilled in Cuna writing, each ideogram actually represents a phrase of about 8-10 words. The symbols thus have mnemonic value. Each wooden tablet is actually read from the lower right corner to the left. The next line up reads left to right, in socalled "boustrophedon" style. The tablets are usually songs for healing, histories, etc. In these features and general appearance, Cuna writing resembles the "writing" found on the "talking boards" of Easter Island, which in turn seem to have affinities with the ancient script of the Indus Valley in India. To a diffusionist, these affinities or similarities can only mean that pre-Columbian contacts may have occurred between ancient India, Easter Island, and Panama! Such precocious voyages are not considered possible by mainstream archeologists. (Carter, George F., and Case, James; "On Cuna Writing," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Papers , 20:232, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #83, SEP-OCT 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... shapes for each operator. Related experiments were carried out with a Random Mechanical Cascade (RMC). In this device 9,000 3/4 -inch polystyrene spheres cascaded down through an array of 330 nylon pegs into 19 bins. According to chance a Gaussian distribution of spheres should be found in the bins. The operators were asked to mentally try and skew the distribution to the right or left, or construct a baseline, as with the REG. Once again, there was statistically significant evidence of a mental influence. Jahn's group also engaged in remoteviewing experiments, in which subjective factors were suppressed as far as possible. An excerpt from the report's Abstract summarizes this phase of the work nicely: "Quantitative analysis of a large data base of remote perception experiments reveals similar departures from chance expectation of the degree of target information acquired by anomalous means. Digital scoring techniques based on a spectrum of 30 binary descriptors, applied to all targets and perceptions in the experimental pool, consistently indicate acquisition of substantial topical and impressionistic information about remote geographical locations inaccessible by known sensory channels." In some trials, the percipient was asked to describe the remote scene even before the location was selected or visited! (Jahn, R.C ., et al; "Engineering Anomalies Research," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1:21, 1987.) Cumulative deviations from chance for higher numbers of counts (PK +), lower numbers (PK-), and baseline (BL). The low probabilities obtained from more than 250,000 trials are very ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 123: May-Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Moonstone In Orbit?A chunk of "something" about 50 meters across plays tag with the earth as it circles the sun. Discovered February 10, 1999 by an automated, asteroid-hunting telescope in New Mexico, the object's official name is 1999 CG9. Its orbit is nearly circular and 9 million kilometers farther away from the sun than the earth. Its year is 1.09 earth years. "The object's orbit is extremely unusual. Comets and asteroids that cross the earth's orbit normally have eccentric orbits. There is only one asteroid-like object, called 1991 VG, that has an similar orbit to that of earth. When it was discovered eight years ago, astronomers thought it might be a spacecraft that had escaped the earth's gravity." However, newly discovered 1999 CG9 is much too large to be a wayward piece of space hardware. The best guess is that it is a piece of the moon that was knocked off by an impacting asteroid. (Hecht, Jeff; "Chip off the Moon," New Scientist, p. 13, February 27, 1999.) Comment. Might it not be a chip off the earth itself? Or perhaps space hardware from somewhere else?! From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... that is, fill their journal contributions with numbers; that their data is more sound than fossiliferous strata. But their crucial assumption of constant DNA divergence in time may be their undoing. References Ref. 1. Anonymous; "Deflating the Biological Big Bang," Science News, 150: 335, 1996. Ref. 2. Perlman, David; "Origin of Animals -- 1.2 Billion Years Ago," San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 1996. Cr. J. Covey. Ref. 3. Wray, Gregory A., et al; "Molecular Evidence for Deep Precambrian Divergences among Metazoan Phyla," Science, 274:568, 1996. Homology vs. DNA. Until the molecular biologists recently arrived on the scene, evolutionary family trees were based upon similarities in appearance; that is, homology. Animals that look alike must be closely related. But molecular biologists have discovered that some animals that seem identical to the eye differ significantly in their DNA complements. Thus, the Pacific skinks may undermine homology. Inhabiting many, far-separated Pacific islands, these small lizards all look pretty much alike externally. For many years, biologists assumed that they all belonged to the same species. Recently, scalpels in hand, they found that the skink innards differed enough to define two species: Emioa cyanura and Emioa impar . Next, the molecular biologists got into the act. They discovered that the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the Guam and Kosrae skinks differed by an amazing 6%, even though both skinks were E. cyanura . Even worse ...
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... were no more than a type of natural rock formation." P. Andrews, the author of this article likened the regular jointing of the "wall" to neatly hexagonal prisms seen in many basalt flows. He supplied two photographs of the "wall." One was like the photo in SF#107 and showed regular joints; the second, from the same outcrop, displayed angled fractures and joints that certainly do not look like the work of humans. (Andrews, Philip; "New Zealand: Recent Ash, Ancient Wall," Geology Today , p. 136, July-August 1996. Cr. R.E . Molnar) Comments. If we receive counter-arguments from proponents of the wall's artificiality, we will add them to this dossier. A similar situation occurs with the more-famous Bimini "walls" or "roads." We have personally seen beach-rock deposits so regularly jointed that they seem man-made. From Science Frontiers #110, MAR-APR 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... -Columbiana is the title of a new journal focussing upon evidence for preColumbian contacts between the Old and New Worlds. Except for the Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, such early visitations are denied by mainstream archeology. Yet, there are hints everywhere that both the Atlantic and Pacific were crossed frequently before Columbus set sail. One class of pre-Columbiana consists of linguistic, artistic, literary, and fossil evidence that distinctive New World plants were known in the Orient well before 1492. C.L . Johannessen, a geographer at the University of Oregon, demonstrates in a long article that both India and China knew and exploited a surprisingly wide range of American plants. For example, many carvings in Indian temples depict maize, which originated in the New World. A similar situation prevails for the sunflower and a many-seeded New World fruit called "annonas." Sunflowers and maize are also prodigious seed producers, suggesting that these three plants were valued as fertility symbols and may not have been consumed as food. The pre-Columbian Pacific was a twoway conduit for plants and even a few animals. For example, the Old World contributed black-boned chickens, cotton, and coconuts to the New World. As for China, Johannessen has gathered evidence for early Chinadestined Pacific crossings of maize, sunflowers, a squash, chili peppers, sweet potatoes, the yambean, and grain amaranths. Most startling, though, has been the discovery of New World peanuts at two Neolithic sites in eastern China. The associated dates are astounding: 2,400 BC ...
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... -Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Dr. internet You can order books, airplane tickets, and a host of other products and services over the Internet. Soon, perhaps, you will also be able to order and actually acquire medicines without leaving your cozy computer chair. This would be a great boon to shut-ins and PC potatoes. J. Benveniste, a French researcher, claims that he has developed a way to transmit the essence of homeopathic remedies electronically. He states that homeopathic solutions emit characteristic electromagnetic "signatures." These signatures, he continues, can be detected by a copper coil surrounding a beaker containing the solution. By digitizing these electromagnetic signatures, he plans to transmit them over the Internet to similar coil-surrounded beakers containing pure water. The signals are picked up by the pure water and the medicine's signature conferred. Presto! The medicine has been conveyed as surely as by a Startrek Transporter beam. Skeptics will have none of this on three counts: Homeopathy is of no value. It relies upon highly dilute solutions of substances that in large doses cause the symptoms of diseases. This makes no sense to most scientists. Homeopathic medicines are so dilute that no molecules of the active substances exist in most solutions. How can nothing generate a characteristic signal? Even if the active substance were present in the solution, how could it generate an electromagnetic signature? Nobel laureate B. Josephson has challenged Benveniste to participate in a randomized, double-blind test. (Jaroff, ...
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... Act Ii The final issue of New Scientist for 1996 carried an article entitled "Death Knell for Martian Life." Was all that media hype for naught? What will NASA do now? Wait! Another putative Martian rock may save the day. Picked up in Antarctica in 1974, meteorite EETA 79001 weighs 7.9 kilograms and is superficially unimpressive. Inside, though, researchers I.P . Wright and C.T . Pillinger found a surprising quantity of organic compounds -- actually 1.5 parts per thousand by mass. This fraction is so large that terrestrial contamination seems remote. Furthermore, the organic component contains 4% more carbon-12 (relative to carbon-13) than the adjacent carbonate minerals. This is strong evidence that the organics had a biological origin. Similar tests on the media-hyped Martian meteorite ALH 84001 yielded the same carbon ratios. Pillinger remarked: "These results offer the strongest support yet for the hypothesis that life once existed on the planet." So far so good, but EETA 79001 conveys two additional facts -- both very tantalizing: (1 ) This meteorite was blasted off the Martian surface only about 500,000 years ago; and (2 ) It probably came from a different hemisphere than ALH 84001. From all this, a somewhat shaky conclusion: Life on Mars existed not only recently (and perhaps is still present) but was (or is) widespread on the planet! (Anonymous; "Life on Mars: Part Two," Sky and Telescope, 93:12, January 1997. Anonymous ...
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... . P. Huyghe, D. Stacy, R.M . Westrum) Abstracts of all the scientific papers presented at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union appeared in Eos. Here are excerpts from one of them: "Since the installation of a six-station microearthquake network in the Moodus, Connecticut, area in 1979, four extensive microearthquake swarms of several months duration each, all accompanied by main shocks of Mc greater than 2, have been recorded. All of the swarms have occurred at shallow depths (less than 2.3 km) and have been concentrated primarily in one small source volume... The 1986 swarm was characterized by a number of small bursts of activity culminated by the largest event near the end of the swarm. The 1987 swarm behaved in a very similar temporal manner to that of the 1986 swarm with one strong difference in that the largest event was the first one in 1987...the shallow depths of all the earthquakes there, the small lateral dimensions of the active source volume and the lack of a fault to which the earthquakes can be ascribed make it difficult to argue that this swarm activity indicates the possibility of a large earthquake at the locality." (Ebel, John E.; "Comparisons of the 1981, 1982, 1986 and 1987 Swarms at Moodus, Connecticut," Eos, 69:495, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... and Pizzarello, Sandra; "Enantiomeric Excesses in Meteoritic Amino Acids," Science, 275:951, 1997. Also: Peterson, I.; "Left-Handed Excess in Meteorite Molecules," Science News, 151:118, 1997. Note that left-handed amino acids in the Murchison meteorite were also reported in the early 1980s: Kerr, Richard A.; "Odd Amino Acids in a Meteorite," Science, 216:972, 1982.) Comments. This discovery of a tilted universe means that we cannot confirm Martian life with spacecraft instruments that test for an excess of left-handed amino acids. Human philosophers, from the ancient Greeks to the present, like to think the universe is in balance, that equality reigns, yin and yang, and similar presumptions. But, let's face it: our particular universe is lopsided. Of course, our universe may be balanced by another one far away, where everything, including its intelligent life forms, are made from right-handed amino acids -- chemically speaking, a mirror image of our universe. Balance could thus be preserved at that scale. From Science Frontiers #111, MAY-JUN 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Arboreal Internets Over a half century ago, Yale scientist H.S . Burr was inserting electrodes into trees to measure how voltage differences varied during the day and lunar month. Y. Miwa, at Waseda University in Tokyo, has gone more than one step farther. He and his coworkers have placed electrodes in the trunks of trees - 250 trees at a time - and measured the voltage differences every 2 seconds. They have discerned intriguing synchrony. "Miwa and his colleages studied primeval forests in Japan's Shizuoka and Nigata Prefectures, recording signals for two days at a time. In each forest, there were several groups of between 20 and 50 trees showing a similar pattern of changes in their potentials, each of which contained about half a dozen species. Neighboring trees were the most likely to be synchronized, but the groups did not have rigid boundaries. The membership of the groups was also not fixed: between the first and second days of recording, individual trees 'joined' and 'dropped out'." Miwa advances the idea that the trees must somehow be communicating with each other to achieve this synchrony. Botanists, though, suspect that environmental conditions force this coordinated behavior. Miwa will next remove a few members from each group to see if his arbicides are noticed by the neighbors. (Endo, Shinichi; "Japan's Ancient Trees Whisper Their Secrets," New Scientist, p. 19, May 13, 1995) Cross ...
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... rapidly, like ripples created by a stone thrown into the still waters of a pond. The wheel diameters ranged from ten feet to more than 600 feet. "' Each wheel would last for a couple of minutes, continually flashing,' Newton recalls. Successive flashes came less than a second apart and glowed a pale green. Newton noticed that the centers of the wheels appeared to travel along with the ship; those on the beam seemed to remain there until they faded and were replaced by a new pattern." (Huyghe, Patrick; "Wheels of Light; Sea of Fire," Oceans, 20:20, December 1987.) Comment. The most anomalous aspect of the observation is the apparent above-the-water position of the luminescence. There have been several similar reports down the years; and they combine to cast doubt on the bioluminescene-origin theory. So wedded are the theorists to the idea that bioluminescence is the only possible source of light that these above-the-water observations are denied. Sounds familiar! Also seen in the Gulf of Oman (from a different vessel) were three sets of expanding rings, one of which was elliptical. From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... space here. Every once in a while, though, we see something UFOish worth passing along. The one below is from 1957, and the observer was a famous astronomer, Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto. Tombaugh was an avid skywatcher as well as an acute telescopic observer. He was very familiar with atmospheric phenomena. His experience belies the common assertion of UFO skeptics that "professional astronomers never see UFOs." An Unusual Aerial Phenomenon by Clyde W. Tombaugh I saw the object about eleven o'clock one night in August, 1949, from the backyard of my home in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I happened to be looking at zenith, admiring the beautiful transparent sky of stars, when I suddenly spied a geometrical group of faint bluish-green rectangles of light similar to the "Lubbock lights". My wife and her mother were sitting in the yard with me and they saw them also. The group moved south-southeasterly, the individual rectangles became foreshortened, their space of formation smaller, (at first about one degree across) and their intensity duller, fading from view at about 35 degrees above the horizon. Total time of visibility was about three seconds. I was too flabbergasted to count the number of rectangles of light, or to note some other features I wondered about later. There was no sound. I have done thousands of hours of night sky watching, but never saw a sight as strange as this. The rectangles of light were of low luminosity; had there been a full moon in the sky, I am sure ...
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... existence of gas hydrates (methane hydrate, for example). Plumes of gas bubbles have also been detected where gas hydrates have been tectonically disturbed. There are even craters on Baikal's deep bottom where gas hydrates have erupted explosively. (De Batist, Marc, et al; "Tectonically Induced Gas-Hydrate Destabilization and Gas Venting in Lake Baikal, Siberia," Eos, 80:F502, 1999.) Comments. Baikal's gas-explosion craters resemble those on the floor of the North Sea. There, the sudden releases of gases are thought to cause the famous "mist-pouffers" or "fog-guns" heard around the shores of the North Sea. The Barisal Guns (India) and Guns of the Seneca (New York State) probably have similar origins. (GSD1 in Earthquakes, Tides... ) Someone should be listening for "Baikal Guns." See also: BOG BREATH . From Science Frontiers #130, JUL-AUG 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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... , 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 they release plumes of flammable gases which probably give rise to the many observations of will-o '- the-wisps in marshy areas. Why these gas clouds are luminous remains mysterious. (GLN1 in Lightning, Auroras ) Similar biogenic gases cause the mist-pouffers mentioned in the foregoing item. Obviously, the energy releases in will-o '- the-wisps are less powerful. From Science Frontiers #130, JUL-AUG 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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... a paper that began with this paragraph: "Polarized electromagnetic radiation propagating across the Universe has its plane of polarization rotated by the Faraday effect. We report findings of an additional rotation, remaining after Faraday rotation is extracted, which may represent evidence for cosmological anisotropy on a vast scale." (Ref. 1) Most inflammatory was their claim that the plane of polarization of the radio waves rotated more along a particular direction [axis?]; specifically, along a line connecting the constellations Aquila and Sextans. (Ref. 2) Only a few days after the NodlandRalston paper was published, it was blasted in Science. The major complaint was that their data were old and incomplete, since they derived mainly from observations made prior to 1980. (Ref. 3) Indeed, a similar study using more recent measurements but fewer radiation sources seems to refute the NodlandRalston claim of a preferred direction in the cosmos. (Ref. 4) Nodland and Ralston disagree with the charges and the implications of the other study. It will be a while before this is all sorted out. The paradigm that Nodland and Ralston are challenging is deeply entrenched and of great philosophical import. (There's nothing "special" in the cosmos, especially humans!) References Ref. 1. Nodland, Borge, and Ralston, John P.; "Indication of Anisotropy in Electromagnetic Propagation over Cosmological Distances," Physical Review Letters, 78:3043, 1997. Cr. K. Partain. Ref. 2. Cowen, R.; "Does the Cosmos Have a Direction? ...
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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Calendar calculating by "idiot savants"M.J .A . Howe and J. Smith have reported on an extensive study of calendar-calculating by individuals with otherwise subnormal intelligence. It is very clear that these so-called "idiot savants" use a variety of mental techniques, all rather different from rote memory, such as employed by memorizers of pi. First, we present Howe-and-Smith's abstract; then, a particularly interesting specific case. "A number of mentally handicapped individuals are able to solve difficult calendar date problems such as specifying the day of the week for a particular date, sometimes over spans of more than 100 years. These individuals are self-taught and do not follow procedures at all similar to the usual, published, algorithms. An investigation of one individual revealed that he retained considerable information about the structure of days in particular months, probably as visual images. His skill closely depended on the extent and form of his knowledge of calendars, and his errors were often a consequence of lack of knowledge about a particular time period. Mentally retarded individuals who perform calendar date feats are often socially withdrawn and devote considerable periods of time to calendar dates. The most capable calendar-date calculators are usually individuals who have a strong interest in calendars as such." Although some calendar calculators may use visual imagery - perhaps something like eidetic imagery - at least one calendar calculator was blind from birth. Example. "One of the few serious attempts that have been made to understand the ...
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... 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 Anomalous Dreams At the 2000 annual meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, S. Krippner and L. Faith reported on their analysis of 1,666 dream reports. In this large sample, they identified 134 dreams that they deemed anomalous in one way or another. They classified these dreams as follows: In telepathic dream reports, it is the dreamer's impression that the dream correctly identified the thoughts of someone in external reality at the time of the dream. Mutual dreams are those in which the dreamer and someone else report similar dreams on the same night. Clairvoyant dreams concern distant events about which the dreamer had no ordinary way of knowing. In precognitive dreams, information is reported about an event that had not taken place at the time of the dream. A past-life dream concerns past events in which the dreamer participated but with a different identity than characterizes his or her current life. Initiation dreams introduce the dreamer to a new worldview, or to a new mission in life. In visitation dreams, the dreamer is visited by ancestors, spirits, or deities, and is given messages or counsel by them. Lucid, healing, and out-of-body dreams were also deemed anomalous but were not defined in the abstract. In fact, lucid dreams were the most common type of anomalous dream. Out-of-body dreams came next. Precognitive dreams were third in frequency. (Krippner, ...
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... , and they last 2-5 minutes. High levels of physical and emotional activity during the preceding day can encourage lucid dreaming. When lucid dreaming occurs, there are pauses in breathing, brief changes in heart rate, and changes in the skin's electric potential. There is even a recipe for triggering lucid dreaming. If you awake from a normal dream in the early morning, wake up fully but don't forget the dream. Read a bit or walk about, then lie down to sleep again. Imagine yourself asleep and dreaming, rehearsing the dream from which you awoke, and remind yourself: "Next time I'm dreaming, I want to remember I'm dreaming." Lucid dreaming, it seems, is not an isolated phenomenon. There are strong similarities between lucid dreaming and out-of-the-body experiences and even the experiences of UFO abductees. S. Blackmore remarks: "In all these experiences, it seems as though the perceptual world has been replaced by another world, built from the imagination, a hallucinatory replica." Some people enjoy their lucid dreams; but others fear them and report that objects in this false world are surrounded by a "strong diabolical light." (Blackmore, Susan; "Dreams That Do What They're Told," New Scientist, p. 48, January 6, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 1+ 1 1+ 1+ 1+ 1+ 1 The number 4 has only five partitions. Check it out. Historically, ordinary mortals saw no patterns in the number of partitions possessed by the parade of numbers until Ramanujan came along. He had in front of him a list of the number of partitions for each of the first 200 integers. They ranged from one (for 1) to 3,972,999,029,388 (for 200). [That of a computer is itself worthy of mention!] Here is the order that Ramanujan perceived: Starting with 5, the number of partitions for every seventh integer is a multiple of 7, and starting with 6, the number of partitions for every 11th integer is a multiple of 11. Moreover, similar relationships occur where the interval between the chosen integers is a power of 5, 7, or 11 or a product of these powers. Ramanujan was able to prove that these curious patterns also hold for all higher numbers beyond 200. Ramanujan's discovery came as quite a surprise to the world of mathematics, as did the strange roles of the three adjacent prime numbers 5, 7, and 11. Recently, though, K. Ono has gone beyond Ramanujan and proved that there are really an infinite number of relationships like the three found by Ramanujan. (Peterson, Ivars; "The Power of Partitions," Science News, 157:396, 2000.) From Science Frontiers #132, NOV-DEC 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When Like Charges Attract The above title implies that a basic law of physics has been overturned. Indeed, a commentary in Nature by C.A . Murray begins as follows: "Larsen and Grier, on page 230 of this issue [Ref. 2], show that two similarly charged polymer spheres suspended in water can attract each other when they are several diameters apart. This surprising result casts some light on a tricky theoretical many-body problem that has been swept under the rug for a century, and it has implications for colloids in nature and in industrial processes." (Ref. 1) Exactly what happens is not yet clear. This counter-intuitive phenomenon occurs in a many-body situation, where screening charges are established between the like-charged spheres. Although Coulomb's Law states that like charges repel one another, the presence of screening particles complicates the picture, as do the van der Waals dipole interactions. The microscopic situation may be murky, but there is no doubt on the macroscopic level that unexpected attractive forces are operating. For example, when sub-microscopic, electrically charged latex spheres are suspended in water, one would expect a homogeneous colloidal soup. Instead, the tiny, charged spheres pull themselves together in patchy, but ordered arrays. These metastable groupings of spheres are called "crystallites." Theorists are not certain what is going on. References Ref. 1. Murray ...
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... : Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Hunt For The Magnetoreceptor When magnetite particles were found in organisms from bacteria to bats, it was assumed that here was the long sought magnetoreceptor which animals used for magnetic navigation. But so far, biologists do not have the slightest notion how such magnetite particles can be turned into a "magnetic sense," which sends the brain information on the direction of the geomagnetic field or, perhaps, draws a magnetic map of sorts. A completely different sort of magnetreceptor is now under investigation, one that humans may also unknowingly possess. It utilizes special photoreceptors that employ an electron-spin resonance process which is modulated by the geomagnetic field. Some of our very sensitive magnetometers use similar phenomena. The biological version of such a receptor would be connected to the brain, as the eye is, and send signals as to the direction of the earth's magnetic field. Sounds interesting, but is there any basis for thinking such a sophisticated gadget could have evolved? It seems that some experiments with newts by J.B . Phillips and S.C . Borland support the idea. The newts were first trained to orient themselves in a certain direction with respect to the geomagnetic field. "When tested under one of four artificial field alignments (magnetic north at geographic north, east, south or west), the newts kept their training directions constant relative to the magnetic rather than the geographic system of reference, but they selected different angles with respect to the magnetic ...
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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Unified Theory Of Geophysics It takes a lot of nerve to propose a theory that can unite such a fragmented field as geophysics. H.R . Shaw makes a try in his new book: Craters, Cosmos, and Chronicles: A New Theory of the Earth . Shaw's ideas have recently been reviewed in Science News and our item is based on that article. Shaw contends that cosmic projectiles -- asteroids and comets -- have controlled almost all features of the earth's evolution. For example: Impacts have determined the positions of the continents. They have controlled the geomagnetic field. They have created volcanoes and massive basalt flows. They have caused mass extinctions. Of course, for two centuries, other catastrophists have proposed similar dire consequences of giant impacts. But Shaw does introduce three ideas that are worth recording here. Large impact craters occur in swaths. Although this has been suggested before, Shaw has mapped out several swaths where large craters of about the same age are located. His "K -T swath" includes the Chicxulub crater (Yucatan), the Manson crater (Iowa), the Avak crater (Alaska), and three more in Russia -- all of which were gouged out about the time of the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K -T ) boundary. Shaw has plotted several other swaths of different ages. The application of chaos theory to solar system debris. Shaw hypothesizes that nonlinear gravitational effects channel asteroids and comets into the inner solar system in intermittent bursts. The bursts are then ...
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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 Unlocking Hidden Talents Dementia is a devastating illness. The brain deteriorates slowly. Sometimes, though, it seems like the illness strips away barriers and reveals hidden or suppressed talents, as seen in the two dementia patients described below. One 53-year-old man, a car stereo installer with a 10th-grade education and no prior interest in art, suddenly began painting. At first, he drew simple still lifes of vases and bridges. But his work became increasingly sophisticated. Eventually, he was painting Indians, churches and haciendas recalled from distant memories of his youth. Similarly, a 51-year-old housewife who had never had artistic training took up painting. She initially created unsophisticated images of rivers, ponds and rural settings; later, elaborate and sometimes eccentric versions of the works of great masters. Unfortunately, such new-found talents are short-lived. They, too, deteriorate. (Stein, Rob; "Patients' New Gift Paints Clearer Image of Disease," The Brain in the News, p. 7, October 30, 1998. Cr. J. Cieciel) Comment. This peeling away of mental barriers suggests that we all have hidden or suppressed capabilities. Perhaps, some day, we will know how to unlock these in normal people. It is pertinent here that in idiot savants these mental barriers are also somehow removed to expose remarkable mathematical talents, such as calendar calculating ...
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... relativity predicts a precession of 4.27 /century, but for DI Herculis the rate is only 1.05 /century. This does not sound like a figure large enough to get excited about, but it deeply troubles astronomers. D. Popper, an astronomer at UCLA, says: "The observations are pretty clear. I don't think there's any question there's a discrepancy and, frankly, it is an important one and it's unresolved." Accentuating the challenge to general relativity is the discovery that a second eclipsing binary, AC Camelopardalis, also violates general relativity in the same way. It seems that wherever gravitational fields are extremely strong and space-time, therefore, highly distorted, general relativity fails. Ironically, it was a very similar sort of astronomical observation that helped make general relativity a pillar of the scientific edifice early in the 20th. century. The orbit of Mercury precesses a bit faster than Newtonian physics predicts. The application of Einstein's general relativity corrected the calculation of Mercury's rate of precession by just the right amount. Now we may need a new theory to correct Einstein -- at least where time-space is sharply bent! (Naeye, Robert; "Was Einstein Wrong?" Astronomy, 23:54, November 1995) From Science Frontiers #103, JAN-FEB 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... from above, at an angle of 90 degrees to the surface." Six Swiss holes have been reported from the environs of Lake Geneva. The two largest are at Begnins (December 17, 1982; 18 feet across, 24.5 feet deep) and Confignon (February 3/4 , 1990; 33 feet across, 40 feet deep). Obviously, we are not dealing with minor earth-moving operations here. (Anonymous; "The Gruyerization of Switzerland," The Cerealogist , no. 3, p. 26, Spring 1991. The Cerealogist is a British publication focussing on the crop-circle phenomenon.) Comment. Could the "force" flattening the crop circles also gouge out cookiecutter holes and the Swiss cavernous pits? Additional information on the Swiss excavations and similar events is certainly required. Anomalists know from experience that for every strange phenomenon there exists a hoaxer anxious to reproduce it. Reference. Cookie-cutter holes have been cataloged in ETB7 in our catalog on topographical anomalies: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... contain up to a million bacteria and ten times as many virus particles. Also in this brew are, on the average, 1.000 protozoans and 100 phytoplankton. It's a microscopic metropolis, about the size of a sugar cube, and one in which you may never wish to swim again! The polysaccharides and proteins that comprise most of the thin goo are not alive, although the bacteria are. Just how this thin goo and its multitudinous inhabitants evolved has not been explained. Which came first, the goo or the bacteria? Being devoid of life's spark, the goo cannot evolve, or can it? (LaFee, Scott; "Meet Me at the Goo," New Scientist, p. 44, November 25, 2000.) Comment. Do similar microcosms thrive in freshwater lakes, in aquifer pores, the atmosphere? Don't shrug, even the atmosphere has its microstructure and is laden with bacteria, spores, viruses, etc. From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 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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... them obviously distasteful -- in order to medicate themselves for diseases and parasites. What also seems likely, according to K. Strier, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is that some monkeys regulate their fertility by the judicious consumption of certain plants. Going even farther, K. Glander, Duke University, suggests that howler monkeys control the sex of their offspring through their diets. Glander divides howler monkey females into three groups. In the first are the high-ranking females that predominantly produce male offspring. This 'male-offspring' strategy favors these females because the males they produce tend to become dominant adults that will pass on more of the females' genes than would female offspring, who are limited in the number of infants they can engender in comparison to the males. Similar optimization strategies, according to Glander, induce middleranking females to produce mainly female progeny, and low-ranking females to birth almost all males. These howler monkeys seem to control the sex of their offspring pharmologically by selecting certain plants to eat. These plants, in turn, control the electrical conditions in the females' reproductive tracts to either attract or repel sperm carrying the male Y-chromosomes, which are thought to carry different electrical charges than the X-carrying sperm! (Lewin, Roger; "What Monkeys Chew to Choose Their Children's Sex," New Scientist, p. 15, February 22, 1992. Also: Gibbons, Ann; "Plants of the Apes," Science, 255:921, 1992.) Comments. It will take much more ...
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... along the northern portion of the island, a long gravitywave pattern is established downwind, on the lee side. The cases collected by Matson show sharp boundaries conforming to the contour of this glacial barrier." The Matson reference is Science News, March 28, 1987, p. 204. (Parmenter-Holt, Frances C.; "Plumes and Peaks," Science News, 131:403, 1987.) Comment. Parmenter-Holt could well be correct in some cases, for wave-like orographic clouds often form in the lee of mountain ranges, such as the Rockies. Some of the plumes, however, extend for 175 kilometers, as described above. This is pretty long for a glacial ridge. Then, too, one should inquire whether such plumes occur near similar ridges in northern climes and not just over Soviet territory. From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... new figure for the duration of the Pennsylvanian has already cast doubt on the origin of the famous Pennsylvanian cyclothems (repetitive strata) in North America. It had been thought that these seemingly cyclic deposits were correlated with sea level changes forced by variations in the earth's orbit (the Milankovitch periods). With this substantial compression of Pennsylvan-ian time, this correlation falls apart. The cyclothems, which are of impressive area and thickness, now seem to have been created by some other, still unrecognized phenomenon. (Klein, George deV.; "Pennsylvanian Time Scales and Cycle Periods," Geology , 18:455, 1990.) Comment. Even worse, perhaps, is the fuzziness conferred on the entire geological time scale by this compression of the Pennsylvanian and the possibility of similar revisions for other periods. From Science Frontiers #71, SEP-OCT 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... was posed in the September 6 issue of New Scientist. "My wife and I saw a puzzling sight in October 1994, in the Mekong River near Nongkhai, Thailand, during a full moon, in the evening. Lights appeared under the water for a few hundred metres along the Mekong River. They rose from the bottom of the river and floated to the surface, then shot like missiles into the sky and out of sight. They were the size of beach balls, and many flew out of the water every few minutes, surfacing about 10 metres apart. I am told that this happens every year at the same time. Locals say it is caused by a serpent releasing her eggs. Does anyone know of this phenomenon?" A. Pentecost answered. He noted first the similarity of the Mekong phenomenon to the will-o '- the-wisp or ignis fatuus. The usual explanation of ignis fatuus blames the spontaneous combustion of marsh gas. However, the Mekong lights are initially seen under the water where there would not be enough oxygen to support combustion. Pentecost suggested instead phosphorescent bacteria or the "cold flame" of phosphorus vapor which might form through diphosphane decomposition. (Pentecost, Allan, et al; "Mekong Mystery," New Scientist, p. 96, September 6, 1997.) References. The Mekong phenomenon may be allied with the many examples of luminous aerial bubbles. See SF#102 and a good collection of them in category GLD7 in our Catalog Lightning, Auroras. From Science Frontiers #114, NOV-DEC 1997 . ...
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... 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, September 1992. Cr. A. Rothovius.) From Science Frontiers #85, JAN-FEB 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Stele With Unknown Glyphs Found Near Vera Cruz A basalt stele found submerged in the Acula River, 40 miles southeast of Vera Cruz, Mexico, is "the most important stele found in America to date," says F.W . Capitaine, Director of the Jalapa Museum of Anthropology. The stele is 7.8 feet high, weighs 4 tons, and is adorned with 16 columns of glyphs. "The Vera Cruz stele has the same enumeration symbols used by the Mayas -- small circles and bars -- which enabled Mr. Winfield to identify two dates among the hieroglyphics: May 22, 143, and July 13, 156. "The remaining glyphs probably record events between those dates. Although there are 20 glyph types similar to the ones used by the Mayas, 100 more are new. The stone carries a total of 600 glyphs." Winfield hopes that the newly found stele will help explain what happened during the transition between Olmec and Maya cultures. He thinks it possible that the stele is the product of a previously unrecognized civilization. (Anonymous; "Inscribed Stone May Hold Secrets of Mexican Culture," Baltimore Sun, June 8, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #59, SEP-OCT 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects DID THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS SAIL UP THE MISSISSIPPI?No one has found chariot wheels or pyramids attributable to the ancient Egyptians in the Lower Mississippi Valley, nor are their hieroglyphics carved on the rocks in that area. However, there are striking correspondences between the languages of ancient Egypt and those of the Indians that inhabited the areas around Louisiana about the time of Christ! B. Fell, the main pillar of the Epigraphic Society, has stated that the language of the Atakapas, and to a lesser extent those of the Tunica and Chitimacha tribes, are unique in the sense that they seem to be related to no known languages. But there are affinities with Nile Valley languages. In fact, the similarities involve just those words one would associate with Egyptian trading communities of 2,000 years ago. As would be expected, most archeologists will have none of this. "Where are the coins, the buildings, the piers?" they ask. Countering such criticism, W. Rudersdorf notes that no artifacts have ever been found from Coronado's expedition, only 450 years ago, when thousands of Spanish soldiers marched across the South. (Anonymous; "Professor Believes Egyptians Sailed Mississippi, Left Culture," Northwest Florida Daily News, December 27, 1991. Cr. R. Reid via L. Farish. Also see: Fell, Barry; Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers , 19:35, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #82, JUL-AUG 1992 . 1992- ...
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... but not the quartz. Nevertheless, granite will yield slowly to the abrasive, as do the copper tools themselves. In 1999, D.A . Stocks tested the efficacy of copper saws and drills on the granite in the Aswan quarries 500 miles up the Nile. The copper saw in his test was 1.8 meters long, 15 centimeters in depth, and 6 millimeters thick. Stocks experimented with both wet and dry sand and smooth and notched saws. In one test, workmen cut a slot 3 centimeters deep and 95 centimeters long in14 hours. It was slow work, but the ancient Egyptians had plenty of time and manpower. In the same experiment, the copper saw blade was ground down 7.5 millimeters. Overall, dry sand with a smooth blade worked best. Similar tests with a tubular copper drill were also successful. (Stocks, Denys A.; "Testing Ancient Egyptian Granite-Working Methods in Aswan, Upper Egypt," Antiquity, 75:89, 2001.) Comment. Stocks did not confront a potential stone-working anomaly identified by C. Dunn in his The Giza Pyramid. It seems that the drill marks on the sides of the sarcophagus in the King's Chamber imply that the soft copper Egyptian drills apparently advanced about 500 times faster than possible with the toughest modern drills! There is something amiss here. From Science Frontiers #137, SEP-OCT 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and ...
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... was slow, hard work, but it could be done. Stocks' experiments squelched the various speculations about the ancient Egyptians possessing superhard tools or being able to soften stone. However, C. Ginenthal writes that H. Garland and C.O . Bannister attempted to saw through granite back in the 1920s using essentially the same method employed by Stocks -- but without success. Garland and Bannister wrote a book on their experiments, from which Ginenthal has provided the following quotation: A consideration of the [copper and abrasive cutting] process would seem to give support to the idea that a copper-emery [or other abrasive material] process might have been used by the first Egyptians, but the author [Garland] has proved by experiment the impossibility of cutting granite or diorite by any similar means to these. But the use of emery powder anointed with oil or turpentine, no measurable progress could be made in the stone whilst the edge of the copper blade wore away and was rendered useless, the bottom and sides of the groove being coated with particles of copper. (Garland, H., and Bannister, C.O .; Ancient Egyptian Metallurgy, London, 1927, p. 95. (Cr. C. Ginenthal.) Comment. Garland seemed wedded to emery as the abrasive. We wonder if he tried the silica sand that seemed to work for Stocks. Perhaps he did not try hard enough. In his new book Sticks, Stones, & Shadows, M. Isler mentions Stocks' experiments and adds that successful results were also obtained by R ...
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... extends down much further. The hard rocks and strata of earth's crust -- seemingly sterile and inert -- are continuously being transformed by bacteria and other life forms. In fact, it was easy to find three examples of such processes from the literature collected from the past two months. Although the discoveries reported below may seem dull to anomalists ued to more exciting fare, it may well be that life from "inner space" has been and will be more important to humankind than life from "outer space," as implied in third item! Bacteria and placer gold. "Lacelike networks of micrometresize filiform gold associated with Alaskan placer gold particles are interpreted as low-temperature pseudomorphs of a Pedomicrobium -like budding bacterium. Submicron reproductive structures (hyphae) and other morphological features similar to those of Pedomicrobium occur as three-dimensional facsimiles in highpurity gold in and on placer gold particles from Lillian Creek, Alaska." In short, bacteria help create placer gold deposits. The author believes that bacterioform gold is widespread. (Watterson, John R.; "Preliminary Evidence for the Involvement of Budding Bacteria in the Origin of Alaskan Placer Gold," Geology , 20:315, 1992.) Microorganisms and iron deposits. At least 500 million years ago, filamentous bacteria and/or fungi were already playing vital roles in the deposition of iron from hydrothermal fluids. Abundant microbial filaments indicative of biological activity are found in the Cambrian ironstones in Australia's Thalanga deposit. (Duhig, Nathan C., et al; "Microbial Involvement in the Formation of Cambrian ...
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... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tunguska: An Inside Job?Virtually all speculation about the 1908 Tunguska Event assumes an external cause: a meteor, a comet, an asteroid, or even the accidental explosion of an alien spaceship. A recent meeting of Tunguska experts in Russia looked down rather than up for Tunguska's initiating phenomenon. In this open-minded review, two little-publicized but highly pertinent Tunguska observations were discussed. The catastrophe had five centers of destruction rather than one. At the Tunguska site are many large root stumps, not yet rotted away, that cannot be linked to any pits associated with their origin. These stumps were apparently blown out of the ground and hurled dozens of meters from where they stood prior to the Event. Next to be considered were the unappreciated similarities between the Tunguska Event and the 1883 explosion of Krakatoa. The four bright nights in Europe and western Asia, straddling 30 June 1908, are remimiscent of the 1883 Krakatoa outburst, they ask for transient scatterers in the upper atmosphere, above 500 km, at heights which only methane and hydrogen are light enough to reach in sufficient quantity. Fast-rising natural gas has been repeatedly detected in recent years, in the form of "mystery clouds"---by airplane pilots---and indirectly as pockmarks on 6% of the sea floor. In other words, Tunguska might well have been---not an extraterrestrial impact---but a simultaneous outburst and detonation of natural gas from five closely spaced vents. The report continues with pro-andcon discussions, ...
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... 2001 528 references, LC 00-092706 ISBN 0-915554-35-6 , 7 x 10 Archeological Anomalies: Small Artifacts Sorry: Out of Print. No longer available. Bone artifacts: Anomalous early bone tools; Bone artifacts of uncertain affiliation; Pre-Clovis bone tools in the New World; Anomalous association of animal bones with ancient human presence; Artificially worked animal bones of great age; Grooved, punctured, Pounded human bones; Evidence of ancient skull surgery (trepanation); Scratched and smashed bones: The cannibalism signature; Exotic mummies Cloth artifacts: Viking cloth in the High North American Arctic; Diffusion of dyed, patterned textile technology; The early selective breeding of colored cotton in the New World; Stone-Age clothing surprisingly modern; Llama wool indicates selective breeding; Similarity of Chinese and Aztec plumagery; Woven cloth in North American mounds; A woven mat encased in salt; The uncertain origin of the image on the Shroud of Turin. Geological artifacts: Megamiddens -- Giant Bronze-Age waste deposits; Fossil food; Unexplained ground disturbances; Apparent metal tool marks on coalified or petrified wood; Fossilized human-like footprints in ancient rocks; Ancient human handprints; Anomalous Hominid-built hearths and fire areas; Metal artifacts: Low-tech metal artifacts; Familiar metal artifacts claimed to have been found embedded in geologically old rocks; Heavily mineralized, familiar metal artifacts not embedded in bedrook; Enigmatic, artificial-appearing metallic objects found in ancient rocks. Pottery artifacts: Pottery that is anomalous in geographical location and/or age; Enigmatic ceramic artifacts. ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 6 - 10 Oct 2021 - URL: /sourcebk.htm
