223 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Iceland And The Iridium Layer The high concentration of iridium between the Cretaceous and Tertiary eras (about 65 million years ago) is widely interpreted as indicating a worldwide catastrophe caused by the impact of a comet or meteor. The increase of iridium concentration over normal levels is much higher in northern latitudes, suggesting that the impact point is in this region. But no impact scar of the proper size and age exists. However, if one looks for scabs rather than scars, one finds that Iceland is formed entirely of volcanic rocks younger than the Cretaceous. To Fred Whipple of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, these facts dovetail nicely. Iceland was form ed by magma welling up from a 100-km hole in the sea floor blasted out by a 10-km meteor. (Anonymous; "The Blow That Gave Birth to Iceland?" New Scientist, 89:740, 1981.) From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Ball Lightning Studies The April 1990 issue of the Journal of Meteorology, some 63 pages of it, presents us with a wonderful compendium of ball lightning observations. It is un-fortunate that we have room for only a few of the many fascinating descriptions. Giant ball lightning. "The following display of ball lightning was observed by an officer at the coastguard station at Fishguard, Dyfed, West Wales, on 8 June 1977. The occurrence was at 0227 GMT, grid reference SM(12)895389. "The ball lightning phenomenon was very large and estimated to be about the size of a bus. It was described as a brilliant, yellow green, transparent ball with a fuzzy outline which descended from the base of a towering cumulus over Garn Fawr Mountains and appeared to 'float' down the hillside. Intense light was emitted for about three seconds before flickering out. Severe static was heard on the radio. The object slowly rotated around a horizontal axis, and seemed to 'bounce' off projections on the ground. It was noticed that cattle and seabirds in the immediate vicinity became disturbed." (Jones, Ian; "Giant Ball Lightning or Plasma Vortex," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 15:178, 1990.) Reference. Eighteen varieties of ball lightning are cataloged in section GLB in Lightning, Auroras. For more infor mation on this book, visit: here . From ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Unexplained Event September 6, 1990, 2029 UT. Horn church, England. "The sky was 'crystal clear' and there was brilliant moonlight, the Moon being 1 day past Full. An object approximately 0.5 -0 .75 the size of the Full Moon, but a dull, mottled red in colour, was observed to cross the sky from west to east in approximately 3 seconds. As it approached the area of the Moon it faded away, giving the impression of being drowned out by the moonlight. Mr. Scarlioli observed the object to be of an irregular shape and says that he could see it 'turning' as it moved along. No trail was left behind the object and there were no 'sparks' normally associated with the fragmentation of a fireball during the ablation process. No sound was heard from this object. There is currently no explanation for this event." (Anonymous; "Unexplained Event 1990 Sep 6, 2029 UT," Meteoros , 20:44, Autumn 1990.) From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When Identical Twins Are Not Identical Past studies of identical twins separated at birth have documented remarkable similarities between them, despite the fact that they were reared under radically different circumstances. Their physical appearances, habits, vocations, health histories, and other factors are often eerily the same. For example, two female identical twins, who had never seen each other, each wore eight rings! The upshot of such investigations is that most of a person's characteristics are genetic in origin; that is, Nature dominates nurture. But what about identical twins who are remarkably different? They can, for instance, differ appreciably in size, intellect, and behavior. In such cases, does nurture dominate nature? No! Identical twins may diverge even in the womb, where one may receive more oxygen and nutrients than the other. One also may be assailed in by viruses, bacteria, or drugs, while the other escapes. Even more drastic is the possi bility that one twin may pick up an extra chromosome soon after the original egg has split. Also, mutations may doom one twin to Down's syndrome or some other genetic affliction, while the other is unscathed. Identical twins may even be of different sex! Of course, such twins are genetically different, but they are still monozygotic (from the same egg). Blood tests will show them to be identical. It used to be thought that the small ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mercury: the impossible planet Mercury, largely hidden in the sun's glare, also conceals beneath its baked, cratered surface: (1 ) far more iron than solar-system theory allows; and (perhaps) (2 ) a dynamo that should not exist. Let us take the excess-iron problem first. Mercury's density is 5.44 (compared to earth's 5.52), so that it very likely contains much iron. Our moon, which resembles Mercury in size and external appearance, only has a density of 3.34, implying an altogether different origin. In the currently accepted theory of solar-system formation, all of the planets and their satellites condensed from a primordial disk of dust sur rounding the just-formed sun. The planets closer to the solar inferno lost more of their easily vaporized constituents due to the sun's heat. The cooler, outer planets were able to retain large amounts of ices. In this scenario, we would expect Mercury to be rich in iron and rocks. This seems to be the case, but it has too iron to fit the theory. Astronomers have tried to save the theory by supposing that a large asteroid sideswiped Mercury tearing off part of its outer layer of lighter rocks, leaving the heavier iron core untouched. The theory doesn't say what happened to the debris from this colossal collision. As for Mercury ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 20: Mar-Apr 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Couple Venusian Curiosities (1 ) Lightning on Venus, as detected by electromagnetic sensors on Pioneer Venus, seems to be concentrated over two major surface features. (2 ) Venus has 10,000 to 100,000 times less water than the earth, which is so much like it in size and other parameters. (Beatty, J. Kelly; "Venus: The Mystery Continues," Sky and Telescope, 63:134, 1982.) From Science Frontiers #20, MAR-APR 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Great Wooden Well Of Kuckhoven While on the subject of ancient hydrological engineering, it is appropriate to mention a remarkable wooden well found in northwest Germany. Over 200 oaken planks have been discovered so far. These are up to 15 centimeters thick and 50 wide. Fairly large oaks had been cut and split with stone axes and then worked into planks. Mortises were cut in some way so that the planks could be joined. It is quite clear that the Neolithic peoples of the region were skilled carpenters. The size of the well, too, is impressive: it was more than 15 meters deep. The tree rings on the planks permitted very accurate dating: 5303 BC -- well over 7000 years ago. (Bahn, Paul G.; "The Great Wooden Well of Kuckhoven," Nature, 354:269, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 22: Jul-Aug 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ball Lightning With Internal Structure September 1981. Berkhamsted, England. "I was resting on my settee listening to music on the Third Programme when there was some interference of a crackling kind. Suddenly, a ball of bright light appeared in front of my radio. It was about the size of a large orange. It was dazzlingly white and gave the appearance of dozens of stick crystals 5.0 mm in length jigging about with a crackling sound. By the time I reached the switch it had disappeared, but a loud burst of thunder broke overhead." (Cook, M.L .; "Ball Lightning Incident in Berkhamsted, 13 September 1981." Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 7:18, 1982.) Reference. For other examples of ball lightning with internal structure, see category GLB13 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. For more information about this book, go to: here . From Science Frontiers #22, JUL-AUG 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Mouse Engineering Shortly after writing in SF#79 about the "Ancient Greek Pyramids" and the Saharan mice that construct small pyramids of pebbles to extract moisture from the air, we serendipitously ran across the following: " Australian Native Mice . The species P. chapmani builds low mounds of pebbles over its burrow systems, and P. hermannsburgensis may use these mounds after they are constructed. The pebbles are of a uniform size and cover a large area, often a meter in diameter. The pebbles are probably collected both by excavation and from the surface. Some local mammalogists believe these are used as dew traps. Since the air around the pebbles warms more rapidly as the sun rises than do the pebbles themselves, dew forms on the pebbles by condensation. As the areas in which these mounds are found are quite dry, except after a heavy rain, these dew traps solve the problem of water shortage. Local farmers use the many pebble mounds for mixing concrete. It is believed that the ancient people of the Mediterranean region used a dew trap method comparable to that of P. chapmani ." (Nowak, Ronald M.; "Australian Native Mice," Walker's Mammals of the World , Baltimore, 1991, p. 820.) Comment. Now we must decide between at least three possibilities. Since the Australian native mice and Saharan mice are many thousands of miles apart, we have: (1 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Chiron: the black sheep of the solar system Charles Kowal discovered the smooth, very dark sphere called Chiron over five years ago. Only a little more is known about it today. Chiron is 300-400 kilometers in diameter -- asteroid-size. But its orbit (aphelion, 18.9 A.U .; perihelion, 8.5 A.U .) is definitely anomalous for asteroids. One would expect to find only comets in this region of the Solar System. To compound the mystery, Chiron's orbit is unstable. This planetoid was originally somewhere else (no one knows where) and was nudged into its present orbit by a major planet. One group of researchers calculates that Saturn could have been the nudger, and that the event might have happened as recently as 1664!! (Lipscomb, R.; "Chiron," Astronomy, 11:62, March 1983.) Comment. Only a minor bit of extrapolation will carry a proponent of catastrophism from a 1664 nudge of a 400-kilometer body to a much more violent Solar System rearrangement sometime during the past 10,000 years. From Science Frontiers #28, JUL-AUG 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 83: Sep-Oct 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Earth's water not imported?That the earth is continuously bombarded by icy minicomets is unpopular in the Court of Science. Even less acceptable is the notion that over the eons these house-sized chunks of ice contributed substantially to our planet's inventory of water. In what will surely be hailed as the death knell of the icy comet theory is the discovery by K. Muehlenbachs, of the University of Alberta, and F. Robert and M Javoy, from the University of Paris, that the water contained in the earth's rocks, both ancient and recent, is isotopically different from the water found in meteorites. Meteoric water is assumed to be isotopically the same as cometary water. Conclusion: comets could not have contributed substantially to our planet's water inventory in the geological past. (Anonymous; "Earth's Water Did Not Come from Comets," New Scientist, p. 19, June 20, 1992.) Comment. Of course, the isotpic measurements have to be weighed against all the data supporting the icy comet theory Icy comets could, after all, be a recent phenomenon. Also, no one has ever actually analyzed a piece of cometary ice; it is simply assumed that it would be similar to meteoric water. From Science Frontiers #83, SEP-OCT 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects THE WOMAN WHO COULDN'T DESCRIBE ANIMALS The astounding complexity of the human brain was underscored recently by a 70-year-old woman, who could describe anything she saw except animals. The woman had an immune-system disorder that had damaged a small portion of her brain's temporal lobe. Her other mental faculties were intact. "The woman could name plants, foods, and inanimate objects and describe them without hesitation. The scientists were impressed that when shown a trellis, not exactly your everyday object, she could correctly name it and describe its cross-hatched geometry. "But when shown a squirrel or a dog, she froze. She couldn't find the right name for either, nor could she describe their size or shape or furry coats. "Her deficit, involving only a tiny portion of her language skills, was amazingly narrow." (Bor, Jonathan; "The Woman Who Couldn't Describe Animals," Baltimore Sun, p. A1, September 7, 1992.) The implications of this strange case were described in Science News: "The peculiar inability of a 70-yearold woman to name animals has led scientists to propose that the brain harbors separate knowledge systems, one visual, the other verbal or language-based, for different categories of living and inanimate things, such as animals and household objects." (Bower, B.; "Clues to the Brain's Knowledge Systems," Science News, 142:148, 1992.) Comment. ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unidentified Phenomena September 17, 1982. South Atlantic Ocean. 2103 GMT on a clear dark night. "The first thing noticed was the formation of a bright patch of white light in the general area between Rasalhague and Alphecca. Gradually a dark eye formed in the centre of the patch in which shortly afterwards a very bright object appeared like a star of magnitude -2 . After one or two seconds this object appeared to undergo a tremendous explosion and became a large bright orange gaseous fireball, which appeared to be hurled earthwards directly down the observer's line of sight, growing constantly larger and larger. One witness described the fireball as resembling rolling orange smoke. The ball then ceased to increase in size, giving the impression that it had stopped. Its orange colour rapidly gave way to rainbow colours which gradually gave way to white and faded in brilliance until all that remained were several patches of luminous white light, although these were impressive in their own right." A similar phenomenon was noted the following night, although the ship was 7 farther south. September 18, 1982. South Atlantic Ocean. From a different ship in the same area as the one above. "The altitude of the first sighting was approximately 24 , level with the planet Jupiter and offset to its right. The six subsequent bursts were above the first, and slightly to the right, leaving a fantail of purple/white lenticular clouds which leaned to the right as shown in the sketch. Although they all ...
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... Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects In The Dark About Dark Matter During our last two-month collecting cycle, four "dark matter" items worth mentioning turned up. A wider search undoubtedly would have netted many more, because dark matter is worrying a lot of astronomers. Observations of visible matter, the only kind we can see directly, suggest that most of the universe is, in fact, composed of dark matter. This conclusion comes mainly from the belief that something unseen (dark matter) is tugging on visible matter, making it do things the laws of motion say it should not do. All visible bodies, therefore, seem to be careening about in a dense cloud of unseen, unknown masses. These might be dark, Jupiter-sized objects, black holes, and/or some exotic forms of matter. We must choose between the reality of dark matter or admit that something is awry with our laws of gravitation and motion when they are applied on a cosmological scale Now, let us examine those four darkmatter items from the recent literature: D. Lin, a University of California astronomer, has shown that the Large Magellanic Cloud that orbits around our own galaxy (the Milky Way) is being torn apart (" cannibalized") by the powerful gravitational pull of a dense cloud of dark matter surrounding the Milky Way. This dismemberment of the Large Magellanic Cloud cannot be explained by the gravitational forces exerted by the stars in our galaxy that we can see. Lin calculates that our halo of dark matter is equivalent to ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Dune Circles Of Sossusvlei The Dead Pan of Sossusvlei lies in the Namibian Desert some 50 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean. It is a 5-hour drive from Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. Geologically, this feature is a clay pan in the flood plain of the Tsauchah River, which flows on the average only once in a decade. Towering above the clay pan are sand dunes that reach 350 meters elevation above the river bed. They are veritable mountains of sand and the tallest dunes in the world. The potential anomaly at Sossusvlei is not the size of the dunes but rather the mysterious circles of grass that grow upon them. All we have to go on is a photograph showing a dozen or so of the circles situated at some unspecified distance from the photographer. Somewhat irregular in shape, the circles seem to be on the order of 100 meters in diameter. No grass at all grows within the rings of thick grass, but outside grow sparse, evenly distributed grass clumps. The writer of the Sossusvlei article labels the circles "unusual phenomena." (Pupkewitz, Tony; "Sossusvlei," Optima , 36:136, 1988. Cr. P.A . Hill. Optima is a South African publication.) Comment. Are these circles akin to the "fairy rings" found in moister climates? Perhaps also pertinent are the clones of creosote bushes which grow outwards in expanding circles, as mentioned in ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tractors of the gods?We are all familiar with the Nazca Lines of South America and the wild theories about the aliens that drew them on the high arid plateaus. ". .. now, new patterns have appeared on some parched ground in remote north-western Australia, a series of spirals, circles and broken wavy lines by the North West Coastal Highway near Roebourne. "Dick Smith noticed them while flying over the area in June 1988. By virtue of their large size they are, like their ancient counterparts, clearly visible only from the air. Dick photographed them and in due course asked me to try to find out what they were. Simple, I thought, they must be for erosion control or some other form of land management." C. Hill inquired at several government agencies to no avail. No one knew anything about them. (Hill, Chris; "Tractors of the Gods?" Australian Geographic , p. 25, July-September 1990. Cr. L.S . Nelson) Comment. We assume that these curious marks have a modern origin, but one cannot be sure. Ground markings survive undisturbed for long periods in such arid regions. Also, many large-scale ground drawings were made in the past by Australian aborigines. See the sketches of them in our handbook: Ancient Man. Ordering details here . From Science Frontiers #92, MAR-APR 1994 . ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Azilian Pebbles Although Bahn's article is primarily about how to spot fake Azilian pebbles, he also provides some fascinating facts about the real ones. Genuine Azilian pebbles seem to have been carefully selected for size and shape. Most are oval or oblong and may be up to 8 centimeters long, 3 centimeters wide, and one centimeter thick. Over a thousand have been found around Europe. They have been considered primitive art, markers for prehistoric games, and possibly early forms of notation. Claude Couraude has analyzed the markings and concluded that particular combinations of signs recur frequently; the same for certain numbers of dots. There are 16 simple types of signs (dots and lines) but only 41 of the many possible combinations have been found. Evidence supports the existence of some sort of 'syntax.' Couraud speculates that some sort of cyclic notation is involved, perhaps lunar in nature, like some of the markings found on bones from the same general period. (Bahn, Paul G.; "How to Spot a Fake Azilian Pebble," Nature, 308:229, 1984.) Reference. Additional information on the Azilian pebbles may be found in our Handbook Ancient Man. To order, visit: here . Typical Azialian pebbles (from Ancient Man) From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mima Mounds In The Kenya Highlands Mima Mounds are rarely reported outside the western United States. But Kenya has them, too. At elevations of 1500-3600 meters on Mt. Kenya, fields of mounds up to 6 meters in diameter and 1.5 meters high have been described. Cox and Gakahu have studied some of these African mounds and find them much like the North American Mima Mounds. They are found well above the range of the rhizomyid mole rat, a rodent similar to the North American pocket gopher in size and behavior. Quantitative measurements indicate the mounds to be constructed from dirt immediately surrounding the mounds. In short, the African mounds and probably those of North America seem to be the products of industrious rodents. (Cox, George W., and Gakahu, Christopher G.; "The Formation of Mima Mounds in the Kenya Highlands: A Test of the Dalquest-Scheffer Hypothesis," Journal of Mammalogy, 65:149, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 92: Mar-Apr 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unidentified Light January 14, 1993. Eastern North Pacific. Aboard the m.v . B.P . Adventure , Panama to Chiba. "At 0235 UTC the phenomenon shown in the sketch was first seen about 15 above the horizon, bearing 265 . It was initially thought to be a downward pointing spotlight from an aircraft: it was bright (nearly white), conical in shape and about 1 high. During further observation the shape slowly enlarged, becoming more bell-shaped with a darker elliptical patch at the bottom. As it increased in size, the shape faded away and moved slowly towards the horizon in a slightly southerly direction before disappearing just above the horizon at 0254, bearing 260 . "The maximum height reached by the shape was about 5 and throughout the observation stars could be seen through it while at one point it was nearly obscured by cloud of which there was 1 okta. The only other bright object nearby was Venus, being slightly higher and to the south, bearing 248 , elevation about 20 . Visibility was excellent as about 10 minutes after the observation a ship was spotted bearing 280 at a distance of 16 n.mile. The observers felt that the shape was too regular to be a cloud and had no real idea of its origins." (Peacock, K.E .; "Unidentified Light," Marine Observer, 64:17, 1994.) From Science Frontiers # ...
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... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Big Bang As An Illusion That the universe began with the Big Bang is now so ingrained in our thinking that we almost never search for plausible alternatives. Perhaps the Big Bang is just a facade that diverts us from theories that better explain the observed characteristics of the universe. A trio of American and British astron omers (B .J . Carr, J.R . Bond, W.D . Arnett) are exploring the possibility that the cosmos began with a generation of very massive stars rather than the debris of the Big Bang. These huge stars would have had masses 100 or so times that of the sun. By virtue of the much higher pressures and temperatures at their cores, they would have burnt up their fuel inventories much faster than sun-sized stars. Thus they would have burnt themselves out long ago, probably surviving as black holes. Such an ancient generation of massive stars can explain four puzzling features of the universe: (1 ) The amount and character of the background microwave radiation. (2 ) The identity of the "missing mass" needed to hold the universe together (i .e ., the relict black holes). (3 ) The primordial abundance of helium. (4 ) The near-absence of heavy elements in the universe. Although the success of this hypothesis is far from total, it might help wean us away from the Big Bang. (Maddox, John; "Alternatives to the Big Bang," Nature, 308:491, 1984.) Comment. Note that, like ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 34: Jul-Aug 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Are parasites really the masters?All animals harbor parasites; and some parasites even have their own parasites. The usual effect of a parasite upon its host is debilitation, often to the point of death. But parasites have to reproduce, and some settle for the modification of their hosts in ways that improve their chances. Parasites can change the size, color, and even the behavior of their host. The object is usually to encourage a specific predator to eat the host so the parasite can continue its life cycle. A classic example is the lan-cet fluke which infests ants and then sheep. The problem is that sheep don't normally eat ants, giving the flukes a chance to switch vehicles. So, the innovative flukes somehow force the ants to crawl to the tops of plants and lock themselves there with their jaws. The next hungry sheep that comes along has his meal seasoned with ants. The bulk of the present article deals with thorny-headed worms, which are not as endearing as the lancet flukes. These parasites are merely bags of reproductive organs attached to a thorny probiscus, by which they attach themselves to the intestinal walls of vertebrates. Living in a sea of processed nutrients, the worms don't even have a digestive tract. Part of the life cycle of this parasite is spent in arthropods (insects, crustaceans). As with the lancet fluke, the thorny-headed worm ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects From Dust Unto Dust This Biblical assertion may be right on the mark, but in a sense that is slightly different from what is usually meant. The "first" dust may not have been terrestrial dust but interplanetary dust. Let us commence with long-winged U2s cruising at 20 kilometers altitude or more. Collectors coated with silicone oil are deployed. To them stick tiny bits of interplanetary and interstellar debris that have been caught by earth's gravity and are slowly drifting downward in the atmospshere. Some of these micron-sized particles come from asteroid collisions; others from the disintegration of comets. This rain of cosmic matter is not negligible; the earth harvests about 40,000 tons annually from the fertile fields of outer space. "Fertile?" Yes, outer space is a vast biochemical retort. D. Brownlee, R. Walker, and others: ". .. suggest that interplanetary dust has probably carried organic matter to Earth since the early aeons of the solar system. The complexity of the organic molecules found on these particles has fueled the imaginations of many who ponder the role extraterrestrial matter may have played in the prebiological evolution of organic material on the primordial Earth." Beyond these conjectures, several other things about interplanetary dust particles bother scientists: "' What is surprising,' Walker notes, 'and still not understood, is the fact that the organic molecules we see in the dust particles are ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The moon: still partly molten?Our long-time impression has been that our moon is a cold body, solidified eons ago, when its primordial ration of heat radiated away. But the lunar satellite Clementine -- tracked with great precision by lasers on earth -- undulates suspiciously as it orbits the moon. "The overall shape of the orbit traces the broad tidal bulges raised on the moon by Earth and the sun; the size and timing of the bulges depend on the moon's rigidity. The Clementine data show that somewhere, probably deep in its interior, the moon is not quite as rigid as solid rock would be. Most likely, part of the rock is still molten." (Kerr, Richard A.; "Clementine Mines Its First Nuggets on the Moon," Science, 264:1666, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The "inscribed wall" at chatata, tennessee Whence the 200,000 logs of chaco canyon? Astronomy How can some stars be older than the universe itself? Did the universe have a beginning? Solar-system puzzles Biology Fruit dupe Possible survival of giant sloths in south america The early (and persistent) insect catches the bird! Geology The earth's most common topographical feature: abyssal hills The 627-foot water slide between australia and india The age of fire and gravel Geophysics Football-sized snowflakes A LINE IN THE SEA Rubber duckies chase nike shoes across pacific Psychology A MAJOR STUDY OF DOWSING Mentally influencing the structure of water Does the past influence the future? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Flip-flop radio jets?Many radio galaxies and quasars are found to have a double-lobed structure, with one lobe on one side of the nucleus and another diametrically opposite. When examined in detail, these lobes turn out to be quite different in size, shape, and intensity. In particular, very bright regions on one lobe often correspond to gaps or regions of low brightness on the other. So striking are these asymmetries that astronomers think that these huge, tremendously energetic systems are ejecting material first from one side then the other. Somehow, one side of the galaxy or quasar communicates with the other, which may be many light years away, and coordinates a flip-flop action. How and why radio galaxies and quasars should flip-flop is a major mystery. (Anonymous; "Flip-Flop Radio Jets?" Sky and Telescope, 68:506, 1984.) Comment. This flip-flop action immediately recalls the great elliptical galaxies which seem to be shooting out shells of stars first from one end, then the other. From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Solar-system puzzles In the 30-or-so years that space probes have been visiting the solar system's other planets, much has been learned, but there are now more questions than ever. We now pose four of these -- none of them could even have been asked before the space program. Not only is the magnetic axis of Uranus tilted grotesquely away from the planet's axis of rotation, but the latter lies almost in Uranus' orbital plane. Q1. Why are the magnetic fields of Neptune and Uranus tilted at such grotesque angles with the axes of rotation? A1. Probably because of giant impacts. Q2. "Why does Mercury have an iron core twice as massive, relative to its size, as any other rocky planet?" A2. Probably because a giant impact tore off its rocky mantle. Q3. "How can Neptune sustain 1400-kilometer-per-hour winds -- faster than Jupiter's -- when it is so far from the sun, whose heat powers atmospheric circulation?" A3. ?? Q4. "How could Mars -- now more than 50 C below freezing -- have been warm enough in its early days to have water flowing on its surface?" A4. Possibly due to geothermal heat. (Kerr, Richard A.; "The Solar System's New Diversity," Science, 265:1360, 1994.) Reference. A large collection of solar-system anomalies exists in our catalog volume: ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Blindsight Also Occurs In Monkeys Blindsight is an eerie phenomenon. Humans with cortical blindness; that is, they have lost their primary visual cortex through brain damage or disease; can still detect objects and yet be unaware of them. Doesn't sound right, does it? The situation is this: A person, apparently totally blind, can somehow discern the location, form, and size of objects, but they will swear that they "see" nothing at all. In fact, they are blind by all tests. They have blindsight. One explanation of blindsight maintains that the visual cortex has not been totally destroyed, and that functional remnants remain. In scientific terms, blindsight represents "suboptimal functioning of the primary visual cortex." But now, A. Cowey and P. Stoerig report that they have totally removed the primary visual cortex from monkeys' brains. (Something one would not try with humans!) Tests with the visual cortex-less monkeys demonstrated that they possessed blindsight. Therefore, blindsight does not seem to be "suboptimal functioning" of a damaged brain -- at least in monkeys. Blindsight thus remains a mysterious biological function. How do blindsighted humans detect objects of which they are not visually aware? Somehow information about the visual world appears in the brain. (Cowey, Alan, and Stoerig, Petra; "Blindsight in Monkeys," Nature, 373: 247, 1995. Also ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When Humans Were An Endangered Species At one point during the last 400,000 years, the human population worldwide was reduced to only about 10,000 breeding men and women -- the size of a very small town. What caused this population "bottleneck"? Did a population crash engulf the entire globe. If not, who was spared? Such questions arise from a surprising observation: Human DNA is remarkably uniform everywhere humans are found. This hidden genetic uniformity is difficult to believe if one strolls through a cosmopolitan city like New York or Paris. Nevertheless, compared to the DNA of the great apes, whose mutation rates should be close to ours, human genes on the average show far fewer mutations. Human DNA from Tokyo and London is more alike than that from two lowland gorillas occupying the same forest in West Africa. Harvard anthropologist M. Ruvolo has commented: "It is a mystery that none of us can explain." The clear implication is that humans recently squeezed through a population bottleneck, during which many accumulated mutations were wiped out. In a sense, the human race began anew during the last 400,000 years. Unfortunately, DNA analysis cannot say where the very grim reaper came from. (Gibbons, Ann; "The Mystery of Humanity's Missing Mutations," Science, 267:35, 1995.) Comment. The hand that wiped the slate clean, or nearly so ...
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... Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Long-lived bubble in the atmosphere Artist's concept of the many luminous bubbles that floated among observers at Ringstead Bay. August 4, 1984. Winchester, England. H. Curtis gives us a firsthand account of another one of those strange bubble-like phenomena usually associated with electrical atmospheric disturbances. "In August 1984 I had just left work at 5.30 p.m . and was walking along an unfrequented side street as a short cut to get to my bus. The weather was cloudy and sultry, but there had been no reports of thunder in the area that day. I came to a junction in the pavement which led only to car-parking for buildings lying farther back when a bubble about the size of a tennis ball sailed out of this side-way, in a straight line, about the level with my shoulders, at a distance of some five or six feet. I stared at it in amazement, for where could a bubble have come from at such a place and time?" "I was further amazed that it did not disintegrate...While gazing at the bubble it seemed to me that there was a dark band round it, which I interpreted as being a reflection of the tarmac road, although subsequently when experimenting with childrens' bubble mixture I discovered that bubbles never reflect anything so discernible." "The bubble proceeded at its original speed, curving around me, and drifting down the centre of the road in the direction from which I had come ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Horizon-to-Horizon Bioluminescent Bubbling Band June 5, 1995. East China Sea. Aboard the m.v . Tokyo Bay enroute Busan to Kaohsiung. "At 1830 UTC whilst the ship was on a course of 218 at 21.5 knots, what seemed to be hundreds of fishing lights were seen right ahead of the ship and stretching from horizon to horizon. As the ship approached them, it became apparent that the lights were bioluminescence. "The appearance was like large single 'blobs' approximately the size of tennis balls, while at the main concentration the water seemed to be 'bubbling up' in a line stretching to both horizons. When the ship passed through the line, the luminescence gave off such a glare, as bright as daylight, that it was possible to read the identification numbers of the containers on the focsle. The duration of the phenomenon was about 5 minutes or 1.5 n.mile." (Hughan, D.S .; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 66:62, 1996) Comment. P.J . Herring, Southampton Oceanography Centre, called this display "a most unusual account which I am unable to interpret." He opined that the blobs were probably cylindrical colonies of luminous sea squirts, but he could not account for the 1.5 -milewide, horizon-to-horizon bright glare and associated bubbling. Reference. For more ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Deeper Mysteries "The first detailed views of vast stretches of the seafloor in U.S . coastal waters have revealed features so immense and unexpected that they defy the imaginations of the scientists who discovered them." A special sonar device named Gloria is being employed to produce high resolution maps of the seafloor. Apparently previous sonar sounding methods missed startling underwater volcanos, canyons, and immense delta-like deposits. About 170 miles off San Francisco, near a huge volcanic structure, Gloria discovered an underwater canyon comparable in size to the Grand Canyon. No one really knows how it was formed. This great chasm is associated with a delta-like deposit twice the area of Massachusetts. Normally, one expects alluvial fans at the ends of canyons, but in this instance the submarine canyon actually cuts down into the fan. Where such a huge mass of material came from is a mystery rivaling that of the canyon's origin. (Yulsman, Tom; "Mapping the Sea Floor," Science Digest, 93:32, May 1985.) Reference. The geological puzzles presented by submarine canyons are detailed in ETV1 in our Catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. For a description of this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects And They Went Forth And Multiplied Archeologists excavating the ancient city of Hazor, in Israel, have uncovered a handy-size chip made from red clay and engraved with symbols. This 3,000-yearold artifact has turned out to be a multiplication table! (Anonymous; "And in Israel," USA Today , July 30, 1996. Cr. COUD-I ) COUD-I = Collectors of Unusual Data-International. From Science Frontiers #109, JAN-FEB 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 40: Jul-Aug 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What is it? a black hole, of course!Radio-telescope measurements of the compact radio source, churning away in the center of our Galaxy, reveal that it is only 20 AU in diameter at radio wavelengths of l.35 centimeters. This is roughly the size of the solar system inside Saturn's orbit. This tiny radio source is so energetic that there seems no escaping the conclusion that it is a blackhole. No other astronomical object is capable of generating so much energy in so small a volume. Since other galaxies also seem to harbor small, but very powerful radio sources in their centers, astronomers wouldn't be too surprised if all galaxies had black-hole cores. Quasars, in fact, might be galaxies with spectacularly active centers. Would these unseeable black holes be the notorious "missing mass" in the universe? Not likely. The mass of the purported black hole in our Galaxy is only about several million solar masses-- not even close to what is needed. (Maddox, John; "Black Hole at the Galactic Centre," Nature, 315:93, 1985.) Comment. Actually, it would be rather amusing if the problem of the missing mass, which we cannot see, were solved by black holes, which we cannot see either! Reference. Black holes and other cosmological entities are discussed in our Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. to ...
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... their dignity to investigate. But the mysterious moving rocks on Racetrack Playa in Death Valley have lured them out of their ivied halls. We quote from the abstract of a report seen in the mainstream journal Geology . "Sharply angular boulders as large as 320 kg [700 pounds] sit on the Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, California; trails leading to them indicate that the rocks have moved large distances. The process has never been witnessed. Although high winds and a wetted surface seem necessary, controversy persists about the need for other conditions, especially ice sheets. On the basis of experiments with a wetted Racetrack surface (soft mud about 3 cm deep), we find the effective coefficient of friction to be surprisingly high, about 0.8 . Movement by wind alone of moderate-sized (20 kg) rocks with cubic shape requires sustained winds close to the ground of about 80 m/s (about 180 mph). Larger flat-lying rocks require much higher winds." The authors of this paper, J.B . Reid, Jr., et al, precisely mapped a large number of the enigmatic tracks. Their maps revealed many "mated pairs" of rocks, whose curving tracks matched near their origins to within a few centimeters, even though the tracks were separated by up to 830 meters (over 0.5 mile!). Apparently these mated rocks were locked into a huge ice sheet resting -- almost floating -- on slippery mud. Sustained winds blowing over the large areas of ice generated enough horizontal force to propel the ice ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Origin Of The Moon Debated In October of 1984, the Conference on the Origin of the Moon convenved in Kona, HI. The clear favorite among the four contending hypotheses was the earth-impact scenario, which may be stated as follows: "Near the end of the Earth's accretion, after its core had formed and while the growing planet was still molten, an object at least the size of Mars smashed into it at an oblique angle. The cataclysm put large quantities of vaporized or partially vaporized impactor and Earth into orbit. The primitive Moon formed from that material." Conferees turned thumbs down on the theory that the moon was captured by the earth. Still not ruled out are the double-planet hypothesis (earth and moon accreted in their present configuration) and the fission-from-earth theory. (Taylor, G. Jeffrey; "Lunar Origin Meeting Favors Impact Theory," Geotimes, 30:16, April 1985.) Reference. See SF#37 for more details on all four theories mentioned above. From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 114: Nov-Dec 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects About As Anomalous As Mounds Can Get The title refers to a circle of 11 earthen mounds located new Monroe, Louisiana; the Watson Break site. Local residents have known about the mounds for years, but archeologists weren't attracted to them until clear-cutting of the trees in the 1970s made the size and novelty of Watson Break all too obvious. Just how anomalous is Watson Break? Archeologist V. Steponaitis, from the University of North Carolina, opined: "It's rare that archaeologists ever find something that so totally changes our picture of what happened in the past, as is true for this case." On what does Steponaitis base such a powerful statement? Watson Break is dated at 5,0005,400 BP (Before Present), some three millennia before the well-known Moundbuilders started piling up earthen structures from the Mississippi Valley to New York State. In other words, the site is anomalously early. Indications are that Watson Break was built by hunter-gatherers, but no one really knows much about them; there's an aura of mystery here. Watson Break consists of 11 mounds -- some as high as a two-story house -- connected by a peculiar circular ridge 280 meters in diameter. The back-breaking labor required to collect and pile up all this dirt is incompatible with the life style of mobile bands of hunter-gatherers. The purpose of the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 43: Jan-Feb 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Return Of The Tasmanian Tiger "In March 1982, a park ranger in northwestern Tasmania awoke in the dead of night. From force of habit, he scanned the woods, his spotlight punching through black walls of rain. And there in the beam was one of the strangest creatures he had ever seen. About the size and shape of a dog, it was covered with stripes that ran from its shoulders across its back to its thick, rigid, tail. "The animal stood still as the startled ranger counted the stripes, then it nonchalantly gave an enormous jaw-stretching yawn. But when the ranger reached for his camera, the creature faded into the undergrowth, leaving nothing but a rank smell. It also left a trail of excitement, for the bizarre beast looked exactly like a Tasmanian tiger -- also called a thylacine or Tasmanian wolf -- an animal thought to have been extinct nearly 50 years ago." Hundreds of people claim they have spotted the Tasmanian tiger since the last captive died in 1936, but we have no good photos or other "proofs." Mediaman Ted Turner has offered a prize of $100,000 for "verifiable evidence" that the Tasmanian tiger still lives. Consequently, the Tasmanian wilds are being combed diligently and automatic cameras, triggered by infrared beams, are being set up in likely spots. (Bunk, Steve; "Just How Extinct Is Tasmania's ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 114: Nov-Dec 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects It can't be true because it violates our ideas!This was the collective opinion of many atmospheric scientists when a satellite experiment found approximately 50% more water vapor at an altitude of 75 kilometers than well-established theory predicted. That was back in 1991. Now, a second satellite experiment of different design has confirmed the existence of this "excess" water vapor. Most geophysicists are perplexed, to say the least. Not L. Frank, though, because these experiments are in line with his theory that the upper atmosphere is continuously pelted by house-size, fluffy, icy comets -- some 20 each minute. (SF#112) Frank asserts: "When you get that excess of water vapor up there, it just can't come from the Earth. It must come from space." Even so, other geophysicists are reluctant to accept Frank's icy comets -- that would be too much "crow" to eat! One point levied against Frank's icy comets is that they would introduce more than three times the amount of water vapor actually measured. M. Summers, a theoretician at the Naval Research Laboratory, summed up mainstream opinion: "There's definitely something very unusual going on in the mesosphere that we don't understand at all, but I'm not even close to saying this supports the small-comet hypothesis." (Kerr, ...
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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 High-Flying Catfish Anomalies crop up in out-of-the-way places and unusual publications. A radio amateur (Dave, K1WHS) noticed that his 432-MHz beam was higher tha normal. Checking his tall antenna, he saw something dangling from the horizontal elements. It turned out to be a good-sized, desiccated catfish. Dave's antenna is 60 feet high and miles from any lake or stream. (Anonymous; QST , p. 21, February 1998. Cr. L.M . Nash) From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Disorder Here Produces Order There Physicists use the word "entropy" to describe the well-observed tendency of the universe to run down; that is, become more disorderly. In some situations, though, the increase in disorder (entropy) in one part of the universe can create order elsewhere. For example, if you add tiny plastic spheres of two sizes to salty water, you will not get a uniform mixture. Instead the larger spheres will pack together into tightly ordered crystaline shapes (representing more order) while the smaller spheres become more disordered. It is like watching cream unstir itself from coffee. It smacks of magic, but it is all within the laws of thermodynamics. This strange "force" exerted by entropy may explain some puzzling biological phenomena, such as the expulsion of nuclei from mammalian red blood cells before they enter the bloodstream as sacks of hemoglobin. The idea being that the increasing entropy of the proliferating hemoglobin molecules (analogous to the smaller spheres) is maximized when the nuclei (large spheres) are squeezed out of the cells altogether. (Kestenbaum, David; "Gentle Force of Entropy Bridges Disciplines," Science, 279:1849, 1998.) Comments. The red-blood-cell example presented in the article is on shaky ground, because while mammalian red blood cells do lack nuclei those of birds and reptiles retain theirs. (See BMC6 in Mammals II .) In ...
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... excavated untold millions of basketfuls of soil which they piled up in impressive mounds. Flat-topped Monk's Mound at Cahokia, Illinois, rivals the Great Pyramid in volume. A casual observer of this huge earthen structure could only conclude that such immense labor was undertaken for some social imperative, such as worship or sacrifice. Perhaps this was the case in North America, but deep in the South Pacific, just east of Fiji, on the islands of Tonga, native peoples scraped large mounds of earth for what seems to be a frivolous purpose: pigeon-snaring ! But bear in mind that carnivory on these romantic Pacific islands was difficult because large game animals were nonexistent. Captured enemies helped solve the protein problem, but pigeons were much more common, and some species were good-sized and delicious. So much so that eventually only island royalty was allowed to catch and eat them. Pigeon poachers were whipped or executed (and maybe eaten?) In fact, pigeon snaring became a royal sport. To this end, starting at least a thousand years ago, the king's loyal subjects grubbed up the thin island soil and piled it up into high mounds. Tonga's pigeon-snaring mounds did not compete with Monk's Mound sizewise, being at most 115 feet in diameter and perhaps 15 feet high. But that's still a lot of dirt. On the tops of the mounds were smaller, beehive-shaped mounds with vertical slits in them large enough to conceal a human. From these blinds, the king and princes would swing nets ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Continent Lost In The Pacific Ocean Our title is also the English title of a book published recently in Japan. The subtitle quoted below implies that we are not discussing the supposed lost continent of Mu. "Riddle of the Submarine Ruins in the Ryukyu Islands" Rather, the underwater site is that introduced in SF#118 and located southwest of Okinawa. It is hardly the size of a continent. The book's author is Masaaki Kimura, and he has filled his book with stunning underwater photographs and diagrams of this "lost continent." Unfortunately, except for a Contents page, which is in English, the rest of the book is in Japanese. We'll have to settle for the Contents page, which is rather revealing. Human Beings under the Sea The Submarine Ruins Discovered Were the Ryukyu Islands a Continent? Discovery of a Civilization Lost in the Sea An Ancient Civilization in Southernmost Japan A Continent Lost in the Pacific Ocean Submersion of the Land and Tectonics of the Earth Hypotheses for the Land Lost in the Pacific Ocean A Utopia Sunk in the Pacific Ocean Pretty inflammatory stuff, so much so that we must be wary indeed! One of the drawings in our photocopy is good enough to reproduce here. The immediate impression, as with many of the underwater photographs, is that surely this structure is artificial. But we must remember that Nature has her playful moods and has deposited simulacra everywhere, perhaps even ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Arkansas Tsunami Deposit?Yes, Arkansas is hundreds of kilometers from any ocean. Could a tsunami ever reach Little Rock, or even 120 kilometers northeast of Little Rock where, atop a 76-meter (250-foot) hill are perched giant blocks of sandstone. These blocks range up to 7.6 meters (25 feet) in size and weigh many tons. No native rocks in the area match them. The Ice Age glaciers never reached Arkansas, so they can't be glacial erratics. Where did they come from? One clue is the presence of glauconite in the sandstone. Glauconite is common in marine rocks, so suspicion points toward the Gulf of Mexico. Geologist G. Patterson, University of Memphis, thinks that the huge chunks of sandstone came from coastal Louisiana and were carried some 650 kilometers (400 miles) inland by the giant tsunami raised by the asteroid or comet that smashed into the Yucatan to close out the Cretaceous. That, of course, was when the dinosaurs were forced into oblivion. But could the tsunami really have transported such huge rocks 650 kilometers? (Falk, Dan; "Washed Up," New Scientist, p. 26, November 7, 1998.) Comments. Tsunami debris from the end-Cretaceous impact has been found along the Gulf Coast and on some Caribbean islands. In northeastern Mexico, geologists have found a debris layer 3-meters thick that ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Another Luminous Aerial Bubble September 1943. On a ship in the South Atlantic enroute from South Africa to Brazil. "During the voyage, a multicolored object about the size of a basketball appeared and the ship changed course to parallel the course of the object. The object was in view for about 20 minutes, moved slowly across the water at a height of 5 feet, and finally disappeared. It looked like a glass ball and appeared to have a membrane enclosing it. Its motion was from the NW to SE and it was seen sometime between 3:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon sometime in September 1943. The color was at times orange and yellow, sometimes green, blue, and red. The sky was overcast and the object was on the starboard side of the ship as it moved towards the NW. The ship's crew, consisting of about 20 men, saw the event and concluded that it might be a 'fireball.'" Original observation by Charles L. Reifenhler. (Seal, James; personal communication, June 25, 1986.) Comment. For more accounts of Lumi-nouw Aerial Bubbles, see category GLD7 in Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights. This catalog is described here . August 17, 1876. Numerous, luminous, multicolored, bubble-like spheres observed at Ringstead Bay, England. Thousands of the iridescent spheres engulfed observers. This account (Catlog # ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ghost Galaxies "Small ghost galaxies, devoid of stars but harboring dense clumps of invisible matter, may outnumber the entire population of luminous galaxies in the universe." If ghost galaxies contain no stars at all, how do we know they are there? By extrapolation! In recent years, astronomers have been able to detect dwarf galaxies lit by just a few luminous stars. These faint, miniscule galaxies are kept from flying apart by the gravitational pull of invisible dark matter. In fact, the density of dark matter in dwarf galaxies is a hundred times that in our bright, normal-size Milky Way. Further, the more dwarfish and dimmer a galaxy, the denser its dark matter and the more of them there are in the universe. Now for the promised extrapolation. J. Kormendy and K.C . Freeman take things one step further, concluding that the universe is flooded with sub-dwarf galaxies that are thick with dark matter, and without enough luminous stars for us to see them in our telescopes. These ghost galaxies are only 1/10,000 as massive as the bright galaxies like the Milky Way but much more common. (Cowen, R.; "Tiny Galaxies Have Hearts of Darkness," Science News, 155:38, 1999.) Comments. If the universe if awash in ghost galaxies, why don't we bump into them occasionally? Maybe we have! Another ...
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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 Nanobes Get used to this term! Of course you know about microbes. Well, nanobes are also life forms but so much smaller than microbes that they deserve the prefix "nano" (for 10-9 ) rather than "micro" (for 10-6 ). The smallest recognized bacteria, Myco plasma , lack cell walls and fall in the size range 150-200 nanometers. Nanobes are much smaller: 20-150 nanometers. But are nanobes really alive? A drill core recently extracted from a stratum of sandstone 3 kilometers deep off the coast of Western Australia was found to be infected with miniscule filamentous structures. P. Uwins and her colleagues at the University of Queensland believe these structures (" nanobes") are alive. They appear to grow and have cell walls. But skeptics assert that some lifeless chemical structures also grow. Others suspect contamination of the sample as it was raised to the surface and handled. Published photos of the nanobes look very much like the structures in the Martian meteorite ALH84001, which are claimed to be fossilized extraterrestrial bacteria. (SF#116) (Dayton, Leigh; "Tiny Wonders," New Scientist, p. 13, March 27, 1999.) Comment. R.L . Folk claims that so-called "nannobacteria" (100-400 nanometers) are ubiquitous on the earth. Few biologists believe that life forms can be this small, and ...
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... 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Few Cracks in the Foundations of Mainstream Astronomy The latest issue of the Meta Research Bulletin digests ten recent unsettling astronomical discoveries. From these, we select four for your delectation. New laboratory experiments suggest a slightly non-symmetric behavior of matter and anti-matter that might explain the dominance of matter in the universe. But it creates a new mystery---why this asymmetry should exist. Distant supernovae have a rise time of 10-15 percent faster than nearby type supernovae. This throws doubt on their use as standard candles, and on the interpretation that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. Interestingly, the amount of the discrepancy is close to the size of the special relativity time dilation factor, gamma. If the cause of the red shift were something other than velocity, then no time dilation factor would be applicable, and this discrepancy would disappear. Evidence for water on Mercury implies a rapid-acting, exogenic water source, consistent with the exploded planet hypothesis expectations. Reasonable escape rates imply that deuterium on Venus is from a relatively recent water source. (Van Flandern, Tom; "Highlights of the Latest EME," Meta Research Bulletin, 8:64, no. 4, 199. Address: P.O . Box 15186, Chevy Chase, MD 20815) Comment. (1 ) Although humans are obviously partial to symmetry, there is no reason why nature must please us by making matter and antimatter symmetrical. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 49: Jan-Feb 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery Plumes And Clouds Over Soviet Territory Following the famous mystery cloud of April 9, 1984 (SF#38), the authors of the original article in Science collected additional observations and now have this to say: "Our conclusion is that original estimated positions were in error. Additional data, primarily from Van den Berg, place the event between the Kuriles and Sakhalin. The altitude of the center of the halo at the maximum observed size is estimated to have been greater than 200 miles, and the diameter of the halo is estimated to have been at least 380 miles. It seems unlikely that a groundbased explosion could produce this kind of effect. It is surprising to us that no official data have been provided by government agencies and that such a significant observation from a region of demonstrated military sensitivity was, and still remains, a mystery." (McKenna, Daniel L., and Walker, Daniel A.; "Mystery Cloud: Additional Observations," Science, 234:412, 1986.) Evidently the mystery cloud mentioned above is only one in a long series: "Large icy clouds, similar to plumes of gas that rise over volcanoes, have appeared over islands along the coast of the Soviet Union during the past several years, baffling experts, who cannot explain what they are or what causes them. "The clouds dissipate in a few hours vanishing as mysteriously as they appear. "Among the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Giant Fish Reported In China "In August, 1985, both AP and UPI wired dispatches from Beijing, People's Republic of China, reporting the discovery of enormous red fish in a remote lake in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of northwestern China. The report, originating with the Xin-hua News Agency, quoted Professor Xiang Ligai, of the biology department of Xinjiang University, as stating: 'The mystery of monsters in Lake Hanas has been solved.' The fish, he stated, were a giant species of salmon reaching a size of over 30 feet." The ISC Newsletter originally declined to relay the AP/UPI stories without confirmation by more responsible Chinese sources. Then, in April of 1986, the official Chinese Magazine China Reconstructs, presented a short article on the subject, which included additional information. For example, large nets have been destroyed and horses going down to the lake to drink have disappeared! (Anonymous; "Giant Fish Reported in China," ISC Newsletter, 5:7 , Autumn 1986. ISC = International Society of Cryptozoology.) From Science Frontiers #51, MAY-JUN 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Don't Stomp on Ball Lightning!Mid-December 1991. Brixham, Devon. Two young men aged about 22/23, Mr. Andrew Clark and friend, were inside Mr. Clark's cottage when a storm of lightning and thunder began. Suddenly, an orange fuzzy airborne blob, the size of a football but not perfectly spherical, came through the wall -- so it was said -- and hovered at a low level. His friend lept on to a settee; Andrew Clark jumped on to the lightning ball. This burnt the plastic sole of one of his training shoes and melted a hole some 50 to 70 mm across. The lightning ball was disrupted and "a part of it" went sideways and burnt out the transformer of his C.B . radio (to which was attached a radio mast fixed on the roof outside). The total duration of the event had been about five seconds. Andrew's foot was quite badly burned and he had to go to the doctor for treatment. (Anonymous; "Ball Lightning at Brixham in 1991," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 26:22, 2001.) From Science Frontiers #135, MAY-JUN 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, ...
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