... (Geophysics) 2006: Archeological Anomalies: Graphic Artifacts I 2003: Archeological Anomalies: Small Artifacts 2003: Scientific Anomalies and other Provocative Phenomena 2001: Remarkable Luminous Phenomena in Nature 2001: Ancient Structures (Archeology) 1999: Ancient Infrastructure (Archeology) 1998: Biological Anomalies: Birds 1996: Biological Anomalies: Mammals II: 1995: Biological Anomalies: Mammals I 1994: Science Frontiers, The Book 1994: Biological Anomalies: Humans III 1993: Biological Anomalies: Humans II 1992: Biological Anomalies: Humans I 1991: Inner Earth: A Search for Anomalies (Geological) 1990: Neglected Geological Anomalies 1989: Anomalies in Geology: Physical, Chemical, Biological 1988: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, Submarine Canyons (Geological) 1987: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos 1986: The Sun and Solar System Debris 1985: The Moon and the Planets 1984: Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows (Geophysics) 1983: Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds (Geophysics) 1983: Tornados, Dark days, Anomalous Precipitation (Geophysics) 1982: Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights (Geophysics) 1982: Unfathomed Mind 1981: Incredible life (Biology) 1980: Unknown Earth (Geological) 1979: Mysterious Universe (Astronomy) 1978: Ancient Man (Archeology) 1977: Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenonema Sourcebook Series 1978: Strange Planet E2 1977: Strange Universe A1 1976: Strange Artifact M2 1976: Strange Minds P1 1976: Strange Life B1 1975: Strange Planet E1 1975: Strange Universe A1 1974: Strange Artifact M1 1974: Strange Phenomena G2 1974: Strange Phenomena G1 Home Page The Sourcebook ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 2000 CR105 and Planet X 2000 CR105 is a supercomet some 400 kilometers in diameter. It is one of hundreds of icy TNOs (Trans-Neptunian Objects) that normally populate the Kuiper Belt girdling the solar system just beyond the orbit of Neptune. The problem is that 2000 CR105 is not normal. Its orbit is highly eccentric, with an aphelion 13 times farther out than Neptune's . This massive object (probably mostly ice) takes 3175 years to circle the sun. 2000 CR105 is real; it has been photographed; it is not Mirror Matter; no one blames any terrestrial extinctions on it. Nevertheless, we can and must wonder how its orbit became so badly distorted. Often in past years, whenever astronomers detected cometary orbits gone awry, they invoked Planet X; that is, some undiscovered massive body plying the outer reaches of the solar system. Indeed, there have been several intense and unsuccessful searches for Planet X over the years. (See Chapter AX in The Sun and Solar System Debris.) History seems to be repeating itself with 2000 CR105. Astronomer B. Gladman proposes that 2000 CR105 was forced into its present eccentric orbit by an encounter with a Mars-size Planet X that now orbits the sun at a distance about 15 times that of Neptune. From the standpoint of celestial mechanics, this perturbation of 2000 CR105's orbit is certainly within the realm of possibility. But two associated ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unconsciousness And Its "Zombie Agents"We all harbor so-called "zombie agents" that rapidly and automatically perform actions without our conscious mind being aware of the stimulus and physical response. Normal people experience this in dancing, fencing, etc. Extreme examples include sleepwalkers who can even drive cars and carry out other complex actions without remembering what they have done! Of course, sleepwalking is not a normal condition; nevertheless, rigorous experiments demonstrate that normal people will respond to scary pictures of snakes and spiders even though they are not consciously aware of them. The zombie agent is acting autonomously. Zombie agents are characterized as on-line systems that act at speeds that far outpace conscious reactions. Since the zombie agents incorporated in our unconsciousness work so well, why did consciousness ever evolve? Conscious actions take milliseconds longer to calculate and activate. Consciousness would, therefore, seem to be a bad evolutionary gambit. But, C. Koch and F. Crick may have an answer. They speculate that: It may be because consciousness allows the system to plan future actions, opening up a potentially infinite behavioural repertoire and making explicit memory possible. (Koch, Christof, and Crick, Francis; "The Zombie Within," Nature, 411:893, 2001.) Questions. Could our zombie agents, primitive though they may be, be the source of those flashes of genius that appear out of nowhere, or perhaps ...

... Actually, The Russians Were Not The First To Meet The Mummy People In Mortal Combat. The Eskimos Had Faced Them In Their Island-by-island Conquest Of The Aleutians Begun Several Centuries Earlier. Today'S Aleuts Carry A Mixture Of Eskimo And Mummy-people Genes. It Is The Uncertain Origin Of The Mummy People That Intrigues The Most. They Are Thought To Have Arrived In The Aleutians Some 7,000 Years Ago -- but From Where? Helping To Answer This Question Are Thousands Of Their Mummies Unearthed Over The Last 300 Years. Their Bones Resemble Those Of The Ainus Still Surviving In Northern Japan. Like The Ainus, The Mummy People Possessed Some Caucasian Features. In Fact, Some Had Reddish Hair. The Ancient American Article Adds That The Ancient Aleuts Used The Decimal System, Manufactured White Parchment, And Made Fires Using Combustible Sulphur And Sparks Struck From Pyrite. (Pettyjohn, F.s .; "Who Were The Caucasian 'Mummy People' Of Alaska?" Ancient American, No. 39, P. 26, 2001) Comment. For Earlier Speculations About Possible Ainu Incursions Into North America, See Sf#124. We Wonder How Kennewick Man And Those Caucasian Mummies Recently Dug Up In Asia Fit In. When the Russians first arrived in the Aleutian Islands in the mid-Eighteenth Century, they encountered the remnants of a mysterious ethnic group now called the "mummy people." Although these people did mummify their dead-like several other ancient cultures -- they were far from being cadavers when they drove the Russians off the beach of ...

... 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 Asteroid Ponds, Beaches, And Boulders Once considered only dull, nondescript vagabonds of the solar system, asteroids are turning out to be rather mysterious and surprisingly complex bits of celestial real estate. The close-up photos of the asteroid Eros (35-kilometers long) from the spacecraft NEAR-Shoemaker have added two new phenomena to the list of asteroid enigmas. Boulders. Eros is covered with huge boulders -- perhaps a million of them over 8-meters wide. The boulders are likely just accreted solar-system debris; but why are they strewn naked on the surface of Eros instead of being intermixed with other rocky debris? Speculation is that the large boulders were coaxed to the surface preferentially over the eons by seismic vibrations -- said vibrations being caused by multitudinous impacts. This type of jostling action also explains why Brazil nuts greet you when you open a well-travelled can of mixed nuts! Ponds and beaches. The fine debris coating Eros may also have responded to the same vibrations, but in different ways. It sort of "flowed" downhill to form curious flat features resembling ponds. Between the ponds and rough terrain, the fine debris has also built up transition zones that look like beaches. Cormell's J. Veverka isn't betting on any of the proposed theories as yet. He declared: We're facing processes we're not familiar with. I truly don't ...

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

... Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Does The Earth Breathe?In a superficial sense, the answer is certainly YES. By way of illustration, when a low-pressure area moves in, higher-pressure air residing in deep wells and caves comes rushing out (" exhaling")! Attach a whistle to a likely well and you have a "weather well" that warns of the impending change. The exhalations of large caves (" blowing caves") can be copious and strong; so much so that some aeronautical pioneers tested their airplane models at cave mouths. In a deeper sense, there are new measurements suggesting that the earth's solid crust also contracts by minute amounts in an annual cycle. For example, 50 GPS (Global Positioning System) stations in northeastern Japan detect east-west contractions of the crust of about 50 millimeters/year. The compressions are 15% faster in the fall and 15% slower in the spring. The same rhythmic squeezing has been discerned in a 150-meter tunnel dug into granite bedrock in the same region. To these instrument measurements can be added the strong tendency of some major volcanos to erupt in the fall when the biggest squeeze is on. The analogy of toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube is inescapable here! The cause of these annual "breathing" cycles is uncertain. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Earth's Breathing Lessons," Science, 291:584, 2001.) Comment. In principle, gravity waves could cause miniscule contractions of the crust ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Western Oregon Not Firmly Anchored To North America Global Positioning System (GPS) units reveal that western Oregon is rotating clockwise relative to the rest of North America. Part of the state is grinding against Washington. But Oregonians will not get dizzy. The periphery moves only a few millimeters each year. (Anonymous; "In a Spin," New Scientist, p. 25, October 7, 2000. Source cited: Geophysical Research Letters, 27:3117, 2000.) Comment. Western Oregon is probably a "terrane" -- an exotic chunk of real estate that drifted in from somewhere in the Pacific and lodged up against the North American coastline. Nlany such terranes have piled up against western North America in the geological past. But what causes the differential rotation? From Science Frontiers #133, JAN-FEB 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...

... But out in space, under special conditions, physicists seem to hedge a bit. The groundbreaking experiment was carried out onboard the Mir space station last year as part of the French-Russian Perseus mission. By warming a copper-and sapphire-walled cell filled with a drop of liquid sulfur hexafluoride and one tiny bubble of gaseous sulfur hexafluoride in near-zero gravity, scientists triggered a slight compression of the bubble. That gentle squeeze raised the temperature of the gas above that of the cell walls. For this to happen, heat must have been transferred from the cooler walls to the hotter gas, scientists report in the 1 May Physical Review Letters. This weird phenomenon can be tossed off as a "transient temperature overshoot." The Second Law didn't really apply because the system was not in thermodynamic equilibrium. Also, the Second Law really concerns changes in entropy rather than temperatures. (Sincell, Mark; "Backward Heat Flow Bends the Law a Bit," Science, 288:789, 2000.) 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. ...

... before petering out." A comment by P.J . Herring of the Southampton Oceanography Centre followed. "A quite extraordinary account of phosphorescent wheels occurring in one of the places where they are most often seen. In the 200, or so, cases of this phenomenon reported in the last 100 years, never have so many wheels been described so close together, nor has there been any association with wind change. I am very intrigued but at a complete loss to explain how the wheels were produced." (Greig, N.J .; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 66:62, 1996) Reference. The amazining variety of bioluminescent displays is cataloged in GLW in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. To order, visit: here . This three-wheel system shows the phenomenon more completely. Imagine the whole sea covered with scores of these spinning wheels! These three wheels were seen in the Gulf of Thailand, on April 24, 1953. From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... steady northeast trade winds. Mauna Kea (4201 meters), Mauna Loa (4201 meters), and other Hawaiian peaks penetrate high above trade inversion. Together they create a visible wind wake some 3,000 kilometers long to the west -- many time-greater than any other island wind wakes to be seen on the planet. The effects of these soaring peaks are more than visual. Their wind wake drives an eastward ocean current that, in turn, draws warm water away from the Asian coast 8,000 kilometers distant from Hawaii. Thus, a few island mountains affect the climate of a continent a fifth of the way around the globe! (Xie, Shang-Ping, et al; "Far-Reaching Effects of the Hawaiian Islands on the Pacific Ocean-Atmosphere System," Science, 292:2057, 2001.) Comment. The Hawaiian wind wake is not anomalous but it is surely interesting. 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 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. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 132: NOV-DEC 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Theories that are Hard to Believe Explain Things We Cannot See That "something" we cannot see is that astronomical fudge factor called "dark matter". Astronomers are sure it exists because its presence, though unseen, explains two anomalies: The high circular velocity of the stars and gas in the outer reaches of galaxies. Circular velocities should decrease with distance from the galactic center, just as planet velocities do in the solar system. They don't , so some gravitational force from some unseen mass must counterbalancing centrifugal force (mark that this is presumptious! The "force" need not be gravity.) Observations suggesting that galaxies formed when the universe was less than a billion years old. The gravitational pull of the visible mass is inadequate to cause this clumping so quickly in the history of the universe. Many candidates have been proposed to play the dark-matter role. One of the more popular possibilities is that vast sea of neutrinos pervading the cosmos -- if they really do display just a hint of mass. Two other candidates now on the table are so bizarre that we marvel at the ingenuity of the theorists. One involves exceedingly large particles, the other unbelievably tiny clumps of particles. At the "giant" end of the size spectrum are galaxy-size particles weighing only 10-24 as much as an electron, which is itself by no means large. It would be hard to experimentally distinguish such ...

... 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ganymede Magnetic Paradox In December 1995, the Galileo space-craft was injected into orbit around Jupiter, thereby becoming the first known artificial satellite of this giant planet. In the five years that have transpired, Galileo has radioed back voluminous data about Jupiter itself and its four large Calilean satellites. These natural satellites have turned out to be a disparate bunch. Three have iron cores, but Callisto breaks the mold with an unusual core of mixed ice and rock. Europa probably possesses an ocean, and Callisto might also. Only one of Jupiter's large satellites, Ganymede, boasts a magnetic field. In fact, Ganymede is apparently the only satellite in the solar system to display an intrinsic, dipole magnetic field like the earth's . Although Ganymere's magnetic field is like that produced by a permanent bar magnet, its core is much too hot for permanent magnetism. Again like the earth, Ganymede's field is theorized to be generated by the convection of electrically conducting liquid in its core -- a dynamo of sorts. All well and good, but Ganymede is so small that it should have cooled off billions of years ago thereby freezing its metallic core. So then, whence its magnetic field? One way out of this box it to suppose that about a billion years ago Ganymede was circling Jupiter in an orbit that took it much closer to this ponderous planet. Then, Jupiter's powerful gravitational field would have gently kneaded ...

... this sketch of a vessel in the notorious A gulhas Current off the coast of South Africa. (From: Earthquakes. Tides....) Just between 1969 and 1994. 60 supercarriers were lost due to sudden flooding. Of this number, 22 were apparently swallowed by rogue waves. The rogue waves appear unexpectedly. They dwarf all surrounding waves. For a long time, the rogues were said to be just chance additions of two smaller waves. But they are too big and occur too frequently to be statistical flukes. In addition, statiticians have trouble in accounting for the fabled and feared "three sisters" -- three massive waves in succession. Consequently, scientists have retreated to a now-familiar refuge: nonlinear effects. They show mathematically how small perturbations in a physical system can lead to huge consequences -- on paper at least.. (Lawton, Graham; "Monsters of the Deep," New Scientist, p. 28, June 30, 2001.) Comments. Somehow, as insinuated above, blaming monstrous waves on non-linear effects is not very satisfying in our cause-and-effect world. Twenty-two huge vessels swallowed up by giant waves! Yet, we never see notices of such events in the papers! A small tanker oil spill gets much more media attention. 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 political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, ...

... 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 A New Class Of Solar System Objects For decades astronomers have suspected and searched for Planet X, a large body beyond Neptune swinging slowly about the sun and gravitationally perturbing Neptune's orbit. Planet X has never been found, but somewhere out there are some pretty hefty bodies, as described by T. Van Flandern: "The discovery of a second miniplanet beyond Neptune, 1993 FW, augments the discovery of 1992 QB1 last fall. Both objects are believed to be in the 200-300-km-diameter range, with magnitudes between 2324, distances at discovery between 40-45 AU, and low inclinations.... Although the discoverers of these two objects hailed them as the first representatives of the elusive 'Kuiper belt' of comets, other theoreticians have confirmed that the line of reasoning leading to the suggestion of such a belt is spurious. That fact, combined with the absence of any comet-like characteristics in these two new objects, their relative size as compared with any other known comet, and their unusually red coloration, seem to make them the first-discovered members of a new class of solar system bodies. Since the searches leading to their discovery have examined only 1.5 out of tens of thousands of square degrees of sky wherein such objects might be discovered, it seems a reasonable conjecture that thousands of additional similar objects will ultimately be found. In short, it appears at this ...

... 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 Is nothing certain anymore?It was discouraging enough to learn that many natural systems, from simple pendulums to our weather, are basically chaotic; that is, tiny changes in the initial conditions upon which predictions are based can lead to highly unpredictable outcomes. Chaotic systems are usually qualitatively predictable but not quantitatively predictable. We have no choice but to live with this chaos; it seems that that's the way the cosmos is constructed! However, it now seems that the situation is even worse than chaotic! Some systems, perhaps most systems, are also indeterminate, meaning that we cannot predict their qualitative behavior either. A simple example is the water swirling down the bathtub drain. This is not only chaotic but it has two qualitative final states: clockwise and counterclockwise. Regardless of which hemisphere you are in, you can change the direction of swirl with negligible effort. Each of the two final states of motion is still quanti tatively unpredictable. Systems that are more complex will possess many different final states, all chaotic. Can nature really be fundamentally chaotic as well as qualitatively uncertain? J.C . Sommerer and E. Ott have mathematically examined a relatively simple system consisting of a single particle moving in a force field, experiencing friction, and being periodically jolted. Besides settling into chaotic motion, this particle may also be forced away to infinity -- two radically different final states. The analysis revealed that for any ...

... slowly -- by what is termed "volume transmission." Volume transmission is like broadcasting radio waves in three dimensions, except that in the brain the radio waves are replaced by the diffusion of chemical signals. L.F . Agnati et al explain: ". .. our experiments have shown that neurons also release chemical signals into the extracellular space that are not necessarily detected by neighboring cells but by cells far away, in the same way hormones released by a gland into the bloodstream can have effects on cells far away. These processes occur on much longer time scales than does synaptic transmission, and they probably play a distinct role, perhaps regulating the brain's responses to synaptic signals. .. .. . "We might speculate that volume transmission is involved in the neuroendocrine system and the central autonomic system. Changes in the activity of the brain during sleep and wakefulness, relative levels of alertness, mood and sensitivity to pain may be highly dependent on volume transmission. Thus, although information regarding to location of pain is carried by the circuitry of the nervous system, the intensity and duration of the pain may be somewhat modulated by the ambient homoral signals. In this respect, acupuncture may also be a phenomenon that is dependent on volume transmission." (Agnati, Luigi F., et al; "Volume Transmission in the Brain," American Scientist, 80:362, 1992.) Questions. (1 ) Is there a connection between volume transmission and the analog transmission of brain signals hypothesized by R.O . Becker (SF#81) ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 89: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Electric Fish Not Backward In Data Processing The incredible sophistication of the brain and nervous system of fish using active electric sensing is evident in the South American fish Eigenmannia . This fish (different from the knife fish above) emits electric pulses at frequencies betwen 250 and 600 per second for electrolocation and communication. M. Kawasaki, at the University of Virginia, has investigated what happens when two of these fish operating on similar frequencies meet. Ordinarily, the fish would jam each other's sensory apparatus and "blind" each other. To circumvent this Eigenmannia has evolved a "jamming avoidance response," in which they both shift their pulse frequencies away from each other. To accomplish this, the fish must be able to detect time disparities between the two sets of signals less than 1 microsecond long. Their individual electroreceptors are not capable of handling such small time differences. Kawasaki has concluded that the jamming avoidance response can come only from highly sophisticated signal processing in the fish's central nervous system. (Kawasaki, Masashi; "Temporal Hyperacuity in the Gymnotiform Electric Fish Eigenmannia ," American Zoologist , 33:86, 1993.) Comment. Echo-locating bats and dolphins also possess sophisticated data processing apparatus for analyzing the echos they receive back from their prey and surroundings. It will be interesting to discover if evolution has come up with similar organic "components" for handling acoustic and electric signals. Further, we know ...

... 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 Alien Meteors Meteors or shooting stars are usually considered to be small fragments that have been broken off the asteroids plying orbits between Mars and Jupiter. If this belief is correct, meteors darting into the earth's upper atmosphere would have speeds less than 260,000 kilometers per hour. Any objects with significantly higher velocities must come outside the solar system. It has, therefore, been unsettling to find that quite a few meteors hit our atmosphere at speeds much higher than 260,000 km/hr. Radar measurements of 160,000 meteors by A. Taylor and colleagues, at a New Zealand site, found that about 1% (1500 meteors) struck the atmosphere with velocities greater than 350,000 km/hr. These speedsters must come from beyond the solar system. The question arising is: Whence all this interstellar debris? One hint comes from the fact that the aliens appear to come from the direction in which the sun and its family of planets are traveling through interstellar space. Evidently, this interstellar medium is far from a vacuum; it is strewn with flotsam and jetsam -- but from what smashed planets, moons, and asteroids? (Samson, Alan; "Radar Traps Visitors from Outer Space," Dominion Sun Times (Wellington), April 25, 1993. (Cr. P. Hassall) From Science Frontiers #90, NOV-DEC 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Math's mystery In extolling J. Barrow's new book, Pi in the Sky , T. Siegfried first reiterates a point made in past issues of SF, namely, that mathematics is a logical system and that we have no right to expect it is correspond structurely with a physical system. In other words, math and nature are fundamentally different entities. Nevertheless, as Barrow stated in a recent interview: "If we were just inventing mathematics from our everyday experience, we would find that it would work really rather well in those areas from which that intuition was gained. But we find almost the opposite...It works most powerfully and persuasively in areas that are farthest removed from the everyday experience that has led to it." Mathematics, for example, leads to verities in quantum mechanics far outside the realm of daily experience. Why is this so? The puzzle deepens when one discovers that there are different kinds of math based upon different forms of logic (as in Euclidian and non-Euclidian geometries). Some brands of mathematics mirror reality better than others. Why? In trying to dispose of these "whys," both matematicians and scientists fall back on the anthropic principle with all its unsatisfying tautological overtones: ". .. the universe is the way it is because that's the way it has to be for anybody to be around to study it. And perhaps math works ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cosmic Snowballs And Magnetic Asteroids The genesis of a cosmic "dust bunny". The nebulous meteor of July 29, 1970, as observed over Dover, England. The great diversity of the debris swirling around the solar system is making life difficult for scientists trying to reconstruct solar-system history. At the high end of the density spectrum, we now have an asteroid that seems to be mostly metal (probably iron). This is the asteroid Gaspra, some 13 kilometers across, that the Galileo spacecraft encountered in August 1992 on its way to Jupiter. Scientists had not expected Galileo's magnetometer to flicker as it passed Gaspra at a distance of 1600 kilometers -- but it did. In fact, considering the inverse square law and Gaspra's small size, it was a magnetic wallop. Thus, Gaspra is the first known magnetic asteroid; and it is probably mostly metal. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Magnetic Ripple Hints Gaspra Is Metallic," Science, 259: 176, 1993.) At the low end of the density spectrum, we now find that Pluto's moon, Charon, and some of Saturn's moons have very low densities (1 .2 -1 .4 ), meaning they are probably mostly water ice. Such density figures come from direct observation of these objects' volumes combined with mass estimates from their orbital dynamics. (Crosswell, Ken; " ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why Intelligent Life Needs Giant Planets The two giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are 318 and 95 times more massive than the earth, respectively. Being so weighty they strongly perturb the orbits of comets, deflecting many away from the inner solar system, where we reside. Calculations by G. Wetherill, at the Carnegie Institution, reveal that if Jupiter and Saturn were only 15 times the mass of the earth, the earth would have been devastated every 100,000 years by giant comets, instead of about every 100,000,000 years, as indicated by the geological record. Under such intense bombardment, it would probably have been difficult for advanced life forms to develop. (Croswell, Ken; "Why Intelligent Life Needs Giant Planets," New Scientist, p. 18, October 24, 1992.) Comment. Reasonable as the foregoing assertion sounds, we do not really know what stimulates the development of new life forms. Actually, the fossil record reveals that some biological "radiations" occurred soon after great geological upheavals. That the Jupiter-Saturn "shield" was and is not completely effective is indicated by the heavy debris traffic mentioned above. From Science Frontiers #85, JAN-FEB 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... . He points out that: "People all over the world are getting AIDS without being exposed to or infected with HIV." Root-Bernstein continues with: "The implications of this revelation are truly astounding. Essentially there are only three possibilities. The HIV may really be there, but everyone has missed it. This is un-likely, since many of the researchers reporting HIV-negative cases of AIDS are the top HIV experts in the world. Another possibility is that there is a new virus that everyone has missed. This is again unlikely given the huge amount of retroviral research that has been performed in the past decade on AIDS patients. Finally, these may be the cases that demonstrate that AIDS can be produced by the types of synergistic, multifactorial assaults on the immune system that Joseph Sonnabend and I have been proposing for years." Although most AIDS researchers are still wedded to the theory that HIV is the sole and only cause of AIDS, cracks in the stonewalling are beginning to appear. In fact, C.A . Thomas, Jr., formerly a Professor of Biochemistry at Harvard, has organized the Group for the Scientific Reassessment of the HIV/ AIDS Hypothesis. (Root-Bernstein, Robert S.; "Rethinking AIDS," Frontier Perspectives , 3:11, Fall 1992.) Comment. If Duesberg and Root-Bernstein are correct, overzealous defense of the HIV paradigm may have cost billions in misdirected research! Reference. AIDS and HIV phenomena are cataloged in BHH14-BHH22 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans II. ...

... Subjects Mutant Molecules Fight For For Survival Under ASTRONOMY, we saw how universes might mutate and evolve. Shifting dimensions by just a few-score orders of magnitude, from the cosmological to the molecular, we find that molecules, too, may mutate and evolve. A group of scientists at MIT, led by J, Rebek, believes that it has discovered the chemical equivalent of biological evolution. This is the same team that claimed the synthesis of the first self-replicating molecule in 1990. "Now the same chemists have carried out experiments with two more selfreplicating molecules, and discovered that they can cooperate, catalysing each other's formation. Furthermore, when one of the molecules is exposed to ultraviolet light and is 'mutated', it becomes 'aggressive' and takes over the system. According to Rebek and his colleagues, this is evidence that evolution can be modelled at the molecular level." (Emsley, John; "How 'Mutant' Molecules Fight for Survival," New Scientist, p. 22, February 29, 1992.) Comment. We wonder if the "passive" molecules are "uphappy" about being bullied in this way! From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... , abrupt changes in sea-floor spreading, ocean-anoxic and blackshale events and the largest evaporite deposits) have been synthesized (with estimated errors). These events show evidence for a statistically significant periodic component with an underlying periodicity, formally equal to 26.6 Myr, and a recent maximum, close to the present time. The cycle may not be strictly periodic, but a periodicity of 30 Myr is robust to probable errors in dating of the geologic events." The obvious question is: What could cause a 30-million-year periodicity? Internally, the earth's innards might be periodic, possibly in terms of plume eruption, mineral phase changes, core convection, etc. Externally, comets and asteroids are cyclic. Rampino and Caldeira point out that the solar system crosses the heavily populated plane of the Galaxy every 30 million years. (Rampino, Michael R., and Caldeira, Ken; "Major Episodes of Geologic Change: Correlations, Time Structure and Possible Causes," Earth and Planetary Sci ence Letters , 114:215, 1993.) Reference. We catalog crater periodicity in ETC4 in Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. This catalog described here . From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...