... 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 G: The Embarrassing Constant Of Nature Of the four fundamental forces of nature, gravity was the first to be discovered. Even the Neanderthals knew of it! That's hardly surprising; it's everywhere. Unfortunately, we don't know much more about it than the Neanderthals. Though it seems powerful when you trip and fall, gravity is the weakest of the fundamental four. In a helium nucleus, the force of repulsion between two protons is 1040 times the gravitational attraction between them. Weak though it may be, gravity controls the trajectory of a baseball, the motion of the planets, and the shape of our Galaxy. Physicists describe gravitation with Newton's Law of Gravitation, which incorporates the Gravitational Constant G. Here's where the embarrassment arises. Many other constants of nature, such as the charge on the electron, are known to eight significant figures. We only know G to three. What's worse, modern attempts to refine the measurement of G come up with wildly different answers. Torsion-pendulum experiments in the U.S ., Germany, and New Zealand are far apart in their G-measurements. And physicists are perplexed -- to put it mildly. Of course, G is hard to measure. Seismic waves from ocean surf hundreds of miles away can affect the experiments. If a colleague a few offices away brings in some boxes of books for his ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 120: Nov-Dec 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bye-bye Mercury, and Maybe Mars During the 1950s, the campaign of mainstream science to discredit Velikovsky assured the public that the solar system was the epitome of stability -- wayward planets were impossible. Then along came chaos theory which implied that the flight of a butterfly in Brazil could, in principle, affect weather in Canada. In effect, a slight change in initial conditions could, in the fullness of time, have very large effects. Now, it is generally admitted that the solar system is chaotic after all. Each planet is subject to the tiny, butterfly-like gravitational tugs of the other planets, especially Jupiter. Given enough time, these gravitational nuances can result in the ejection of a planet from the solar system -- and may already have done so in the past! Mercury and Mars are the most vulnerable on a billion-year time scale. In the case of Mercury, its orbit will become more and more elliptical according to computer simulations. Eventually a close gravitational encounter with Venus is possible. This could send Mercury careening off into deep space. The probability of this happening is only 1 in a 1000 over 5 billion years, but it is not zero. Mars might likewise be ejected by a passing nudge from earth. However, this encounter could go the other way. Depending upon the celestial dynamics of the encounter, Mars might gravitationally fling earth out into the Galaxy, and ...

... 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 The bermuda triangle is still spooky The London Times is a very reputable paper, so we must assume the following story is accurate. It may have a sensible explanation, but it is generic Bermuda Triangle material. "A Royal Navy frigate found a yacht abandoned and adrift in the Bermuda Triangle. Crew from the HMS London , who boarded the 50ft German ketch Ruth in the mid-Atlantic last week were baffled to find clothes and personal belongings lying around, and even an open book on a bunk." The HMS London crew cleaned up the vessel and made minor repairs, but it was otherwise shipshape. They learned that the boat belonged to a German couple hoping to sail around the world. Evidence indicated that the yacht had been adrift for all of 10 months. Repairs made, the Royal Navy crew headed for Puerto Rico, but the Bermuda Triangle did not release its grip. The new crew encountered huge storms, their navigation equipment failed, as did the engine. Using sails, the crew persevered. Now the final twist of the tale. "Once out of the Bermuda Triangle, the equipment started working again, and the crew arrived safely in Puerto Rico to rejoin HMS London on July 12." (Foreign staff; "Abandoned Yacht Found Adrift in Bermuda Triangle," London Times, July 16, 1997. Cr. A.C .A . Silk.) Comment. Could the missing German ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 111: May-Jun 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tobacco And Cocaine In Ancient Egypt The current newsletter of the New England Antiquities Research Association has flagged an important anomaly that appeared on a 1997 TV program. "In January [1997] the Discovery Channel broadcast a program stating that cocaine and tobacco had been found in Egyptian mummies known to be at least 3,000 years old. Tests used modern forensic methods and were repeated many times under carefully controlled conditions. Since coca and tobacco are not known to have grown anywhere other than the Americas, the evidence points to trade routes across the Pacific or Atlantic in those remote times. The program seemed to favor a Pacific crossing and then delivery via the Silk Route. Watch for a rebroadcast." This news item continued with a reference to Dr. Balabanov's supporting tests on bodies from China, Germany and Austria, spanning the years 3,700 BC to 1100 AD. These bodies contained incredibly high percentages of nicotine. (Ross, Priscilla; NEARA Transit, 9:5 , Spring 1997.) Comment. In SF#7 /48, back in 1978, we reported that the mummy of Rameses II contained anomalous traces of nicotine. From Science Frontiers #111, MAY-JUN 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Icy minicomets caught by a satellite camera?A geophysicist really risks his or her reputation if he or she suggests that the earth is bombarded each by 20 house-size, icy minicomets. Well, L. Frank, University of Iowa, did just that in 1986. He was duly pilloried for his trouble. But, at the 1997 spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Frank presented new data to back up his previous assertions. The most startling of his new evidence came from a camera aboard a NASA satellite. Time-lapse photos imaged two objects streaking into the atmosphere over Poland and Germany. Frank identified these as clouds of water molecules from disrupted icy minicomets. The clouds had expanded from the house-size minicomets to clouds 3550 miles wide, weighing 20-40 tons. Frank thinks the minicomets come from a cloud of such objects orbiting the sun from earth out to Jupiter and beyond. Why don't they evaporate in the sunlight and near-vacuum of outer space? Perhaps, thought Frank, they are protected by a thin coating of carbon. (Roylance, Frank D.; "Space Snowballs Theory Gains Credence," Baltimore Sun, May 29, 1997. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Is Earth Pelted by Space Snowballs?" Science News, 151:332, 1997. Thanks to all who sent in clippings. There are too many to mention here. Frank' ...

... 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 Complexity And Mount Improbable In principle, the combination of random mutation and natural selection can account for any level of biological complexity you wish to have explained. R. Dawkins' Mount Improbable is never too high to scale with this Darwinistic mechanism -- if given enough time, of course. At times though, we have to wonder if there is not a cog railway or something similar to aid organisms as they ascend this Mount. Such thoughts arose when reading C. Koch's Nature article on neurons and their networks. Neurons are cells with three principal components: the cell body, the axons, and the dendrites. These cells and the networks underlie all of our perceptions, actions, and memories. The ways in which they store and process information has turned out to be much more complex and dynamic than previously supposed. Neural networks are so intricate that Koch was impelled to conclude his review of current research with this paragraph: "As always, we are left with a feeling of awe for the amazing complexity found in nature. Loops within loops across many temporal and spatial scales. And one has the distinct feeling that we have not yet revealed every layer of the onion. Computation can also be implemented biochemically -- raising the fascinating possibility that the elaborate regulatory network of proteins, second messengers and other signalling molecules in the neuron carry out specific computations not only at the cellular but also at the molecular level. ...

... You guessed it: Mars! What possible connection could there be between this purported cataclysm and the "face on Mars"? The connecting thread is very weak but so beguiling that we must mention it. T. Van Flandern has proposed eight tests for the artificiality of the "face" and its associated "pyramids," "city," etc. One is the three-dimensionality of the "face." Another is the "fractal" test, which is useful in distinguishing between artificiality and naturalness. The "face" readily passes four of the eight tests. A fifth test (bilateral symmetry) cannot be decided until we get more pictures. But failure looms on the last three tests (location, orientation, cultural purpose), unless Mars is sent back to the time when it was a satellite of the as-yet-unexploded planet. Then -- a couple billion years ago -- the "face" would have been smack on the equator of Mars-to-be, gazing downward perpetually upon the doomed planet. The "face" thus had a cultural purpose, a sort of cosmic "Big Brother." Carrying these thoughts to their logical conclusion, the inhabitants of the planet had colonized their "moon" and built those controversial "structures." (Van Flandern, Tom; "New Evidence of Artificiality at Cydonia on Mars," Meta Research Bulletin, 6:1 , 1997. Journal address: P.O . Box 15186, Chevy Chase, MD 20815.) Comment. We cannot resist adding two more thoughts ...

... of the most obstinate skeptics. The "jury" was "in," and the Clovis culture was "out," at least as being the first New World culture. Naturally, some still-skeptical archeologists bristled at the suggestion that a "jury" could decide for them. [But isn't that the way science always works?] Regardless, the once formidable 12,000year barrier now seems to have been officially breached. The Monte Verde dates imply either: The Bering land bridge, thousands of miles to the north, was crossed a few millennia before 12,500 BP, or The Monte Verde people arrived by some other route, perhaps by ship! (Wilford, John Noble; "Human Presence in Americas Is Pushed Back a Millennium," New York Times, February 11, 1997. Cr. M. Colpitts. Also: Meltzer, David J.; "Monte Verde and the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas," Science, 276:754, 1997.) Comment. Two delicious ironies emerge from this archeological turning point: The "We knew it all along" phase of the paradigm shift has appeared. K. Butzer, University of Texas, said that Monte Verde has been "uncontroversial" for some time. But it was only in 1990 that the "Clovis Police" insisted that the 12,000-year barrier be moved back to 11,500 years. (SF#72/22) T. Dillehay, champion of the antiquity of Monte Verde, is one of the main critics of N. Guidon ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects You May Become What You Eat When we scarf down a hamburger, we ingest bovine DNA. The textbooks say that this alien DNA is destroyed during digestion. Otherwise, it might "somehow" be incorporated into our own DNA, leading in time to our acquisition of some bovine characteristics! You'll recall that cannibals thought to acquire the virtues of their slain enemies by grabbing a bite or two! But this all sounds pretty farfetched, doesn't it? Maybe not. When W. Doerfler and R. Schubbert, at the University of Cologne, fed the bacterial virus M13 to a mouse, snippets of the M13's genes turned up in cells taken from the mouse's intestines, spleen, liver, and white blood cells. Most of the alien DNA was eventually rejected, but some was probably retained. In any event, alien DNA in food seems to make its way to and survive for a time in the cells of the eater. (Cohen, Philip; "Can DNA in Food Find Its Way into Cells?" New Scientist, p. 14, January 4, 1997.) Comment. We are only half-kidding when we ask if food consumption could affect the evolution of a species. After all, our cells already harbor mitochondria, which are generally admitted to have originally been free bacteria that were "consumed" by animal cells. The process even has a name ...

... also found in archeology.) B. Brailsford, of Kaimanawa Wall fame (SF#107), now asserts that the Maoris were preceded by the Waitaha -- a claim echoed by others. But Brailsford goes a step further by stating that the Waitaha really comprised three disparate groups of people: (a ) the Moriori, who were of giant stature and superb gardeners; (b ) the Urukehu, a fair-skinned group known also as Starwalkers for their knowledge of the heavens; and (c ) the Kiritea or Stone People from Asia. Finally, stated sans reference, is the fact that in 1996 rock carvings 14,000 years old were found along a 49-kilometer stretch of the Amazon. (Paterson, Kimberly; "Pushing History Back beyond Our 'Real Time'," Auckland Sunday Star-Times , April 19, 1998. Cr. T. Brown) From Science Frontiers #118, JUL-AUG 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... , to independently verify Jaytee's talent. After all, Austrian television companies have little scientific standing. Wiseman and Smith conducted four experiments in all based on a protocol designed to satisfy the inevitable scientific critics. For example, "success" had to be carefully defined, because Jaytee frequently ran out to the porch when other people, dogs, and cars went by the house, and sometimes for no obvious reason at all. In addition, Wiseman and Smith had to be sure that Jaytee was not just responding to Smart's routine, and that there were no sensory cues from Smart (visual, acoustic, or smell) or from the observers left behind to monitor Jaytee who might know when Smart was expected to return. There were several other precautions including random selection of event timing. As in many psi experiments, psychic effects disappeared when the severe protocols was applied. Jaytee failed four times to accurately detect when Smart began her homeward journey. But what about the Austrian results? Wiseman and Smith requested copies of their footage for scientific evaluation. Eventually, they were informed that the tapes had been lost! (Wiseman, Richard, and Smith, Matthew; "Can Animals Detect When Their Owners Are Returning Home?" British Journal of Psychology, 89:453, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... when does the scientific value of a skeleton outweigh native tradition? Ironically, the Umatilla Indians scoff at the idea of Asian diffusion across the Bering Strait. They claim that they have always lived in the Pacific Northwest! (Ref. 4) Comment. Perhaps pertinent are the Caucasian mummies recently discovered in China (SF#95) and, even more recently, 3,000-year-old graves uncovered at Baifu, just north of Beijing. These graves have yielded skeletons and artifacts with Caucasian characteristics. (Ref. 5) References Ref. 1. Anonymous; "Indian Bones," Earth Changes Report , November 1996. Cr. S.M . Johnson. Ref. 2. Egan, Timothy; "Tribe Stops Study of Bones That Challenge History," New York Times, September 30, 1996. Cr. M. Colpitts. Ref. 3. Gibbons, Ann; "DNA Enters Dust Up over Bones," Science, 274: 172, 1996. Ref. 4. Lemonick, Michael D.; "Bones of Contention," Time, 148:81, October 14, 1996. Ref. 5. Bower, B.; "Early Cross-Cultural Ties Arise in China," Science News, 150:245, 1996. Reference. Many enigmatic human skeletons have been discovered in North America. See our Handbook Ancient Man. Information on ordering this book here . From Science Frontiers #109, JAN-FEB 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... . Remember how the Yokohama crows placed stones on the train tracks and dropped others on houses? Well, this stone-dropping must have some adaptive value in the evolution of birds, because sparrows have also inherited the trait. E.C . Jaeger recounted this anecdote in a 1951 number of The Condor : "During my high school days at West Point, Nebraska, my father was a merchant occupying a building of two stories with a long pebble-covered, tarred roof sloping to the rear. Forming a short walkway behind the rear entrance were two sloping doors, which, when opened up, admitted entry to the basement stairway. Over a period of several days in mid-May of 1903, I noticed many small pebbles scattered about on these doors. I also heard from time to time the sound of small objects falling on the doors. Efforts to find the pebble-droppers were of no avail until one day when I happened to approach the rear of the building from the alley. My position some fifty feet from the building now permitted me to see several House Sparrows ( Passer domesticus ) bringing small stones to the edge of the roof and dropping them. As each pebble was dropped the bird involved turned its head to one side, apparently the better to listen to it and watch it as it struck the door. It may have been a sort of bird pastime; it certainly was an activity of no evident value." (Jaeger, Edmund; "Pebble-Dropping by House Sparrows," The Condor , 53:207, 1951.) ...

... trials, mostly in the search for psychokinetic effects on the behavior of a wide variety of mechanical, electrical, and other types of machines. Jahn and Dunne assert that the results of those experiments clearly show the effects of the pre-stated intentions of the machine operators. In other words, mind can affect matter -- as in the distribution of spheres cascading down a peg board. We now list some of the other salient features of the immense corpus of PEAR experimental results: The scale and character of the results are rather insensitive to the type of random devices (machines) employed. Operator learning and experience have no effect on performance. Operators may exert their "intentions" on the machine hours or days before the machine is run and still produce results similar to "on-time" machine operation. The distance between operator and machine has no effect on the results. (Jahn, Robert G., and Dunne, Brenda J.; "Science of the Subjective," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 11:201, 1997.) Comment. That PEAR results are unaffected by by the timing and distance of the operator attempting to affect the behavior of the machine is somewhat troublesome to many scientists, but not inconsistent with some predictions of quantum mechanics. Much more serious to objective science is the implication that a scientist performing an experiment can subjectively (consciously or unconsciously) affect his results, as in the psychokinetic control of a meter reading or an electronic data processor. If such things can happen, one scientist could not replicate the experiment of another scientist. ...

... 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 Earthquake Weather Folklore reserves the term "earthquake weather" for the sultry, ominously uneasy period said to precede large earthquakes. Scientists have generally belittled suggestions that weather could have anything to do with the ponderous forces unleashed during a quake. Despite such authoritative pronouncements, many Californians, who have ample experience with seismic events, insist that quakes and weather are somehow connected. They may be right -- at least some of the time. In the five years following the 7.3 Landers earthquake of June 28, 1992, the frequency of smaller quakes has peaked reliably every September. However, before the Landers event, no such pattern is evident. One thought is that the average atmospheric pressure, which is lower in the summer months, reduces the downward pressure on the earth's crust enough to allow easier slippage along fault lines. This sounds reasonable, but why did this effect not occur before the Landers quake? The answer given is that perhaps the Landers event "sensitized" nearby faults! (Monastersky, R.; "California Shakes Most Often in September," Science News, 152:373, 1997.) Since the Landers event, Earthquakes in the weestern U.S . have been following an annual cycle. From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Riddles of the sphinx And they went forth and multiplied Kennewick man: a 9300-ear-old caucasian skeleton in north america? Astronomy Lunar landslide lights Greenwich late time Too much order in the early cosmos Biology Biology lite Biology heavy Geology Wind-driven ice sheets in death valley The nodoroc Geophysics Rogue wave smashes the queen elizabeth ii Unclassified The return of the monolith Indeterminacy in computers ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 119: Sep-Oct 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mapping With A Song The songs of the humpback whale are complex and eerily melodic. Only the male humpbacks sing, and then only during the mating season. In contrast, the songs of blue whales are exceedingly dull. They consist of only five notes repeated in various combinations. Since both sexes sing most of the year, the songs of the blue whale probably have nothing to do with reproduction. Then, why do they sing? A clue to the purpose of the blue whales' songs is found in their precision timing. One note is sung every 128 seconds. Furthermore, these notes (sound pulses) carry for hundreds of kilometers. C. Clark, a Cornell scientist, believes these notes are really sonar pulses used for fixing a whale's location. Echoes returned from distant seamounts, continental shelves, and other undersea topography enable the whales to map their positions within the wide ocean basins as they wander far and wide. (Hecht, Jeff; "Rhythm of Blues Charts the Ocean Depths," New Scientist, p. 19, June 20, 1998.) Comment. Short -range sonar is widely used by bats, Oilbirds, Edible-nest Swifts, and, of course, dolphins. As far as we know, the blue whale is the only animal employing sonar for longrange mapping. However, some birds seem to use distant infrasound sources (ocean surf, wind flowing over mountain ranges ...

... Project Sourcebook Subjects Ten Strikes Against The Big Bang T. Van Flandern, editor of the Meta Re search Bulletin, has compiled a list of Big-Bang problems -- and it is not a short list. Can the Big-Bang paradigm be that shaky? Like Evolution and Relativity, the Big Bang is usually paraded as a proven, undeniable fact. It isn't . Static-universe models fit the data better than expanding-universe models. The microwave "background" makes more sense as the limiting temperature of space heated by starlight than as the remnant of a fireball. Element-abundance predictions using the Big Bang require too many adjustable parameters to make them work. The universe has too much largescale structure (interspersed "walls" and voids) to form in a time as short as 10-20 billion years. The average luminosity of quasars must decrease in just the right way so that their mean apparent brightness is the same at all redshifts, which is exceedingly unlikely. The ages of globular clusters appear older than the universe. The local streaming motions of galaxies are too high for a finite universe that is supposed to be everywhere uniform. Invisible dark matter of an unknown but non-baryonic nature must be the dominant ingredient of the entire universe. The most distant galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field show insufficient evidence of evolution, with some of them apparently having higher redshifts (z = 6-7 ) than the faintest quasars. If the open universe we see today is extrapolated back near the beginning, the ratio of the actual density of matter ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The mosier mounds El nino -- bueno? The black pyramids Astronomy Our lucky star Ghost galaxies Is a singularity worse than a spinning cosmos? Biology Are we running on martian time? Another skin shedder A GENETIC DISCONNECT Another sucker Geology The earth hums more loudly in the afternoons Geophysics Bizarre phsiological effects of lightning Unusual wave Psychology Exceptional human experiences A FEW POTENTIAL EHEs Unclassified A REALLY MEANINGFUL COINCIDENCE Ach du lieber himmel Now we know why! ...

... White Streak From A Tv Set 1975. Walsall, West Midlands, U.K . N. Boynton and his mother were watching TV, when: "In the run up to an approaching daytime thunderstorm when the air was 'heavy', and while watching television, a streak of whitish light approximately four inches (100 mm) thick came from the direction of the television straight into the body of the room at about head height between where my mother and I were sitting. "It lasted for a fraction of a second. There was an accompanying crackling sound, with the television flickering and buzzing for a second or two. There was no evidence of damage to the television or anything else in the room. We were unaware of whether there was a lightning strike outside at the time." The streak passed between Boynton and his mother, seated about 4 feet apart, and seemed directed toward the door of the room. (Boynton, Neil; "White Streak from the Direction of a TV Set Prior to a Thunderstorm," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 21:348, 1996. Journal address: 54 Frome Road, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, ENGLAND BA15 1LD) From Science Frontiers #111, MAY-JUN 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... two-headed snakes, six-legged calves, and the like. Sometimes biological machinery sputters a bit and freaks (terata) result, just as Detroit assembly lines turn out lemons once in a while. Occasionally, though, we come across a defect so rare and curious that we must pass it along. So, here is the Summary of a serious scientific paper, along with a sketch, that satisfies our Fortean urge. "A Burmese family with congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa [excessive hairiness] had an eventful history in the nineteenth century. The earlier members of this family were employed at the court of Ava, but the later ones spent their lives in show business, being widely exhibited for money in the 1800s. Their extraordinary hairiness attracted much curiosity, and they were photographed several times. The hairy Burmese are the only example of a fourgeneration pedigree of congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa, which is consistent with an autosomal dominant mode of inheritance. There is good evidence that, when members of this family were hairy, their dentition was also deficient." (Bondeson, J., and Miles, A.E .W .; "The Hairy Family of Burma: A Four Generation Pedigree of Congenital Hypertrichosis Lanuginosa," Royal Society of Medicine, Journal, 89:403, 1996. Cr. A.C .A . Silk) Reference. Excessively hairy people are cataloged at BHA26 in our Biological Anomalies: Humans I. For additional information on this book, visit here . Hairy 31-year-old Burmese woman with her 14-month-old son, ...

... in Central and South America! Lake Victoria, however, is a very young lake, and all of these cichlid fishes are endemic. Therefore, they must have evolved rather rapidly. Recent seismic surveys of Lake Victoria and piston cores from its deepest parts by T.C . Johnson et al have surprised everyone: Lake Victoria was completely dry 12,400 years ago. Nor were there deeper "satellite" lakes that could have served as refuges for Lake Victoria's biota during extreme droughts. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the present-day 300+ species of cichlid fishes all evolved in less than 12,400 years. This being so, can random mutations -- the accepted source of evolutionary novelty -- have generated so many new species in such a short time? That would be one new species every 40 years or so on the average. (Johnson, Thomas C., et al; "Late Pleistocene Desiccation of Lake Victoria and Rapid Evolution of Cichlid Fishes," Science, 273:1091, 1996) Comments. Of course, hybridization may have accelerated the evolution of the 300+ species. Perhaps "adaptive" or "purposeful" evolution might have sped up the process, but this latter concept -- assuming it exists at all -- is not at all understood and highly controversial. (For more on adaptive evolution, see: SF#100, SF#96, SF#64, and pp. 180-181 in Science Frontiers (the book). This book is described at here . As Lake Victoria ...

... , it began eons ago: The shapes of pine cones, starfish geometry, and other dimensions of living things incorporate the Golden Section. The questions we address here are: (1 ) Did Mozart consciously make use of this ratio, 0.618, in his music? (2 ) Why is the Golden Section esthetically pleasing? It is not well known that Mozart was fascinated by mathematics as well as music. He even jotted down equations in the margins of some of his compositions. Chances are excellent that he knew of the Golden Section and its reputation for conferring elegance on structures -- even musical compositions. J.F . Putz, a mathematician, has measured some of Mozart's works. Mozart's piano sonatas were convenient targets, because in Mozart's time they were customarily divided into two parts: (1 ) Exposition; and (2 ) Development and Recapitulation. Sure enough, the first movement of Mozart's Sonata No. 1 in C Major consists of 100 measures that are divided into the customary two parts; 38 in the first, 62 in the second. This ratio 38/62 (0 .613) is as close as one can get to 0.618 in a composition of 100 measures. The second movement of this sonata is also divided according to the Golden Section, but the third movement is not. Many other Mozart piano sonatas seem to employ the Golden section, but some deviate considerably. So Putz could not really claim that Mozart consciously used the Golden Section to "improve" his music (Question ...

... Beach at San Gregorio, south of San Francisco, several years ago. I was walking on fairly wet sand, just above the tide line. As I stepped, the sand around my feet lit up with small bright dots of phosphorescence. I would not have said that the color was blue, but it could have been like blue-white, like the star Rigel. I found that if I stepped hard or stamped my foot, the lights flashed brighter and the lit area went out farther from my foot. I could see the movement expanding out. After a stamp or two, they did not light up as much. I assumed that this was caused by some organism that lit up when it felt pressure, and 'wore out' after it had done this a few times -- a refractory period probably occurred." (Hastings, Arthur; personal communication, March 21, 1996) Comment. This is probably a pressureinduced biological phenomenon, but we have no idea what kind of organism produces the lights. Footsteps do produce a rapidly expanding pressure wave on damp sand, which whitens the sand as it moves outward. But we have never seen any luminosity on our Atlantic beaches, even on dark nights. From Science Frontiers #107, SEP-OCT 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... the fact that it is decreasing according to the inverse of distance from the sun rather than the inverse square. Is it a non-solar force? Is it "new" physics? Or maybe just an artifact of the spacecraft and ground-based equipment? The fact that four spacecraft feel its tugging suggests the force is real. But the motions of the distant planets do not seem to be affected by it. So, everyone is perplexed. (Schilling, Govert; "Spacecraft Motions Puzzle Astronomers," Science, 281:1581, 1998. Seife, Charles; "If the Force Is with Them...," New Scientist, p. 4, September 12, 1998. Browne, Malcolm; "After Study, Mystery Force Remains One," New York Times, September 17, 1998. Cr. M. Colpitts.) From Science Frontiers #120, NOV-DEC 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...