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... -915554-62-3 . 7 x 10" format Geological Catalogs For a full list of geology subjects, see here . Inner Earth: A Search for Anomalies; A Catalog of Geological Anomalies Sorry, Out of print The focus of this, the eleventh volume in the Catalog of Anomalies, is the earth's interior, which is revealed to us mainly through seismic signals, magnetic variations, and the flow of heat from great depths. Hundreds of kilometers below the surface lurk huge pieces of foundered continental crust and bizarre structures of unknown origin. Typical subjects covered: Anomalous gravity signals * Mid-plate volcanism * Mysterious seismic reflectors * Seismic velocity discontinuities * Deep-focus earthquakes * Incompleteness of the stratgraphic record * Cyclothems and rhythmites * Exotic terranes * Compass anomalies * Earth-current anomalies * Problems of paleomagnetism * Polarity reversals [Picture caption: Model of the earth's interior] View Cart Buy online via PayPal with MC/Visa/Amex 230 pages, hardcover, $18.95, 52 illustrations, 5 indexes 1991, references, LC 90-92347, ISBN 915554-25-9 , 7x10 format. Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, Submarine Canyons; A Catalog of Geological Anomalies Sorry, Out of print Topographical phenomena are the subject of this Catalog. The ups and downs of the earth's surface betray many anomalies. Could continental drift be inferior to the expanding earth hypothesis? Have ocean levels fluctuated wildly down the eons? Typical subjects covered: Carolina Bays and oriented lakes * Large circular structures * Immense craters * Raised beaches * Guyots ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 6 - 10 Oct 2021 - URL: /sourcebk.htm
... by warning against expecting anything profound to emerge from the simple process of collecting anomalies and curiosities. Data collection is, after all, only one part of the scientific process. I have avoided as far as possible the "fun" part of science: theorization. My purpose has been to keep the data base as valuefree as possible. It is this value-free aspect of the Catalog of Anomalies plus the eclectic nature of my search that makes my endeavor not only entertaining but liberating. I will now explain what I mean by "liberating," and why this feature of anomalistics might be scientifically useful. Unless you have been comatose the past several years, you must know that the entire outlook of science is in flux. The words "chaos" and "complexity" are the current buzz words. They betoken, finally, the formal recognition by science that nature is frequently: Unpredictable (as in weather forecasting beyond a few days) Complex (as in any life form) Nonlinear (as in just about all real natural phenomena) Discontinuous (as in saltations in the fossil record) Out-of-equilibrium (as in real economics) Eroding fast are the philosophical foundation stones of the clockwork universe: the idea that nature is in balance, that geological processes are uniformitarian, that life evolved in small, random steps, and that the cosmos is deterministic. My view is that anomaly research, while not science per se, has the potential to destabilize paradigms and accelerate scientific change. Anomalies reveal nature as it really is: complex, chaotic, possibly even ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 24 - 10 Oct 2021 - URL: /thebook.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Real perpetual motion?Physicist R.A . Webb and coworkers magnetically induce electrical currents in tiny gold rings at the University of Maryland. The ring temperatures are low but not in the superconducting range. Magnetic induction of electricity is of course perfectly allowable in physics. What is not theoretically permitted is for tiny currents to persist long after the magnetic field has been turned off. The currents are small, only 10-6 of an ampere; but, they are there, and they shouldn't be. (Lipkin, Richard, and Travis, John; "Electric Currents That Merely Flow," Science News, 149:126, 1996) Comment. If you conceive of electrical currents as mists of palpable electrons circulating around inside those gold rings, the situation does resemble perpetual motion. The referenced item is brief and not forthcoming on such mat ters. Do the currents eventually die out? Will any metal work? Does the phenomenon appear at room temperature? From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 76 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf105/sf105p16.htm
... 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 Lake Michigan's Annual Silt Plume The item on the Caribbean "whitings" in SF#135 brought forth an article from a Chicago newspaper describing a similar phenomenon. Every spring a great plume of silt -- an estimated million tons of it -- is stirred up by winds and currents on Lake Michigan. This plume is easily visible to those who care to brave the bitter weather that time of year. The 125-mile-long chalky plume stretches along the shore from Wisconsin, past Illinois, around the southern tip of the lake, and up along the Michigan shore. The plume lasts several weeks and is easily seen by satellites high overhead. (Kendall, Peter; "Scientists Plumb Mystery of Lake Plume," Chicago Tribune, February 1997 or 1998. Cr. J. Cieciel.) Spring winds and currents stir up a 125-mile-long, chalky plume on Lake Michigan. From Science Frontiers #136, JUL-AUG 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Wrong-Way Phenomena!Electrical currents flowing in opposite directions. How can this be? What about Ohm's Law? This counterintuitive situation was confirmed in a recent issue of Science. Now two teams of researchers have induced millions of electrons to flow simultaneously both ways around a superconducting ring with a non-superconducting notch in it, a gizmo known as a superconducting quantum interference device, or SQUID. This is all pretty weird but it just one more paradoxical phenomenon allowed by quantum mechanics. You see, in quantum mechanics, an object can exist in two or more states at the same time. This is, of course, a statement of fact rather than an explanation appealing to one's common sense -- a common occurrence in the quantum world. (Cho, Advising "Physicists Unveil Schroedinger's SQUID," Science, 287:2395, 2000) Heat flowing from cold to hot. The revered Second Law of Thermodynamics seems to tell us that heat always flows from hot to cold. 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 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 17 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf130/sf130p13.htm
... 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 Curious Phenomena in Venezuala The description of a truly remarkable phenomenon recently appeared on Scientific American's web page. It also surfaced in an article by G.D . Kaswell in the journal Infinite Energy. These re-appearances in the current literature of this well-known anecdote allow us to revisit it here. It is well worth repeating, even though many anomalists have had it in their collections for decades. (In fact we recorded it in 1974 in vol. G1 of Strange Phenomena .) As you read the following quotation from an 1886 issue of Scientific American, remember that the event described occurred almost a decade before the discoveries of X-rays and radioactivity. Although ball lightning was recognized in 1886, the first UFO flap was still 70 years in the future! The following brief account of a recent strange meteorological occurrence may be of interest to your readers as an addition to the list of electrical eccentricities: During the night of the 24th of October last [1886], which was rainy and tempestuous, a family of nine persons, sleeping in a hut a few leagues from Maracaibo [Venezuela], were awakened by a loud humming noise and a vivid, dazzling light, which brilliantly illuminated the interior of the house. The occupants, completely terror stricken, and believing, as they relate, that the end of the world had come, threw themselves on their knees and commenced to pray, but ...
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... the unexplained sometimes include a photograph of a huge marine creature identified as a sea monster. This famous photo is real and so is the monster in it. But this creature is not reptilian; it is really a salp, a colonial tunicate. Tunicates are tiny, primitive marine organisms usually classified as invertebrates. Some species of tunicates have somehow acquired the habit of aggregating in immense numbers to create long, hollow, snake-like tubes called "salpa." Salps may reach lengths of 45 feet, with diameters of 3 feet. No wonder they are falsely identified as sea monsters. Structurally, the tunicates comprising the salp are embedded in a gelatinous wall facing inward. Each possesses a siphon that pumps nutrient-carrying sea water. Working in unison, the tunicates create a surprisingly strong current of sea water through the tube, and the salp becomes jet-propelled. Thus, we have a mobile monster, but no ship-swallowing leviathan. (Griffin, D.J .G ., and Yaldwyn, J.C .; "Giant Colonies of Pelagic Tunicates..," Nature, 226:464, 1970) Slime molds. Moving down life's ladder to even smaller and simpler organisms, some amoebas have a bizarre life cycle that ends as a superorganism called a "slime mold." If you viewed an amoeba through the microscope in biology lab, you know that they are very tiny, very simple, and most certainly not very bright. But given enough food, some species of amoeba divide and keep dividing until they clump together in ...
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... From aircraft and satellites, one can see strong contrasts in the roughness of the ocean surface in the lee of those idyllic islands with their volcanic peaks that poke over 10,000 feet into the Pacific airstreams. These long streaks on the ocean surface are called "wind wakes." The wind wake leeward the Hawaii is spectacular. These islands are swept by 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) ...
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... few meters high. Since Antarctica is often buffeted by fierce winds, one would naturally think that these snow dunes have an aeolian origin like desert sand dunes. This does not seem the be the case. Comparisons made using recently declassified images taken in the 1960s by U.S . military satellites reveal that the snow dunes have not moved in over 30 years! Some-thing besides wind-driven snow must be helping to sculpt these immense stationary patterns. (Tomlin, Sarah; "Vast Snow Dunes Frozen in Time," Nature, 402:860, 1999.) Comment. The fossil "string dunes" of Australia closely resemble the Antarctic snow megadunes in pattern and size, but of course they are composed of sand. "Megaripples" charted by sonar and shaped by water currents on the ocean floors are also comparable. See ETR3 in Carolina Bays for more. From Science Frontiers #128, MAR-APR 2000 . 1997 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Ocean. Aboard the m.v . Oriental Bay , enroute Port Klang to Suez. "At 2230 UTC the vessel was on a course of 269 at 23 knots when a line was observed on the radar at a range of 3 n mile, travelling from northwest to southeast at an estimated speed of 15 knots, as indicated on the sketch. The line was observed to be a wave. "It was about 10 minutes after the first sighting that the vessel passed over the wave, which was approximately 4 m [13 feet] high, and she heeled 5 to port while the autopilot deviated 3 off course. At the time of the event, there was a low swell of 1.0 m from 320 and the sea was 0.5 m from 360 . The current was estimated to be 2.5 knots running to the west." (Talbot, A.P .; "Unusual Wave," Marine Observer, 69:10, 1999.) Comment. The wave could not have been a tsunami because it was travelling too slowly. Tsunamis travel at jet speed and are rarely visible on the deep ocean. Since the wave was solitary and four times the height of the gentle swells, it is unlikely that it was a chance combination of the swells. Most likely it was a surface manifestation of an internal wave that had been reflected from an undersea obstacle like the continental shelf. From Science Frontiers #122, MAR-APR 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ship-swallowers It's happened hundreds of times, and thousands of sailors have lost their lives. The killers are giant, usually solitary, waves that seem to come out of nowhere. These monster walls of water appear in seas that are rough but not fearfully so. Suddenly. a ship will find itself in a deep trough. Then conies a wall of water. 50-100 feet high. (34 meters is the biggest reliable measurement.) The vessel is flooded, perhaps its back is broken. It sinks like a rock without even sending a distress signal. Another ship has been devoured by a rogue wave. Giant solitary waves are usually preceded by deep troughs. as seen in 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 ...
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... . Faith reported on their analysis of 1,666 dream reports. In this large sample, they identified 134 dreams that they deemed anomalous in one way or another. They classified these dreams as follows: In telepathic dream reports, it is the dreamer's impression that the dream correctly identified the thoughts of someone in external reality at the time of the dream. Mutual dreams are those in which the dreamer and someone else report similar dreams on the same night. Clairvoyant dreams concern distant events about which the dreamer had no ordinary way of knowing. In precognitive dreams, information is reported about an event that had not taken place at the time of the dream. A past-life dream concerns past events in which the dreamer participated but with a different identity than characterizes his or her current life. Initiation dreams introduce the dreamer to a new worldview, or to a new mission in life. In visitation dreams, the dreamer is visited by ancestors, spirits, or deities, and is given messages or counsel by them. Lucid, healing, and out-of-body dreams were also deemed anomalous but were not defined in the abstract. In fact, lucid dreams were the most common type of anomalous dream. Out-of-body dreams came next. Precognitive dreams were third in frequency. (Krippner, Stanley, and Faith, Laura; "Anomalous Dreams: A Cross-Cultural Study," Society for Scientific Exploration paper, 2000.) Comments. Lucid dreams are especially vivid and, in addition, under the direct control of the dreamer. Actually ...
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... -- his "third" way -- will emerge from the convergence of biology and information science. Genomes, asserts Shapiro, are not really the static "beads on a string" envisioned by the Darwinians. Rather, they are fluid and complex. Genes are now seen as multipurpose elements that turn on and off as required for the survival and well-being of the organism they belong to. In this paradigm-eroding paper (referenced below), Shapiro describes four categories of molecular discoveries that have revised our thinking about how evolution works: (1 ) Genome Organization; (2 ) Cellular-Repair Capabilities; (3 ) Mobile Genetic Elements and Natural Genetic Engineering; and (4 ) Cellular Information Processing. He then writes: The point of this discussion is that our current knowledge of genetic change is fundamentally at variance with neo-Darwinist postulates. We have progressed from the Constant Genome, subject only to random, localized changes at a more or less constant mutation rate, to the Fluid Genome, subject to episodic, massive and non-random reorganizations capable of producing new functional architectures. Inevitably, such a profound advance in awareness of genetic capabilities will dramatically alter our understanding of the evolutionary process. Toward the end, Shapiro approaches, as he logically must, the really crucial point in the Darwinism-Creationism de-bate. Is there guiding intelligence at work in the evolution of life? He cannot answer this question at this time, and neither can science in general. He puts his hope for a definitive answer on the fact that we are now ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Current Treads In The North Pacific We are a bit hestitant about including still another eyebrow-raising item, but the source here is Eos, a weekly publication of the American Geophysical Union, and the story is irresistible! It all began when the container ship Hansa Carrier , enroute from Korea to the U.S ., encountered a fierce storm and lost 21 40-foot-long containers to the sea. "Approximately 80,000 Nike brand shoes were lost overboard on May 27, 1990, in the north Pacific Ocean ( 48 N, 161 W). Six months to a year later, thousands of shoes washed ashore in North America from southern Oregon to the Queen Charlotte Islands...We have gathered beachcomber reports and compared the inferred shoe drift with an oceanographic hindcast model and historical drift bottle returns. This spill-ofopportunity provided a calibration point for the model. Computer runs for 1946-1991 suggested that drift of floatable material across the northeast Pacific Ocean for May 1990-January 1991 was farther south than the mean of forty-five simulations." Route of the floating shoes Well, we can tweak the model a bit; but the authors added a postscript: "As we were finishing this article, we received reports of shoes arriving at the northern end of the Big Island of Hawaii. These shoes appear to have followed the California current southward, and then traveled westward." (Ebbesmeyer ...
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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 The tyranny of the [normal] senses R.O . Becker, author of Cross Currents , has contributed a thought-provoking article on the mechanisms by which humans perceive the cosmos. From the many stimulating ideas he presented, we select his rationale for believing that an electromagnetic basis may exist for the reception and processing of psi signals. A key concept in Becker's scheme is his belief in the presence, in humans and other organisms, of a dual system for receiving and processing information arriving from the environment. The system we are all aware of and which scientists study in depth is the nerve impulse system, which transmits digital signals; i.e ., 0s and 1s. This system connects to all our everyday senses and controls our motor functions. The second system Becker designates as "primitive." It transmits information in analog (continuously varying) form via electrical currents and magnetic fields, rather than as impulses along neurons. This second system is not recognized by mainstream science. Becker advances the notions that: (1 ) Psi-type phenomena are actually handled by the "primitive" analog system; (2 ) The flood of information normally arriving from our sensory organs via the "modern" digital system masks the psi-type signals; and (3 ) These assertions are consistent with the elusive nature of psi phenomena in both everyday experience and the parapsychological laboratories. Becker's ideas also ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Japanese Claim Generates New Heat While most scientists, especially the hotfusionists, have been ridiculing cold fusion as "pathological science," more adverturesome researchers have been forging ahead. The most interesting current results, gleaned from many, are those of A. Takahashi, who is a professor of nuclear engineering at Osaka University. "He says his cold-fusion cell produced excess heat at an average rate of 100 watts for months at a time. That's up to 40 times more power than he was putting into the cell, and more power per unit volume (of palladium) than is generated by a fuel rod in a nuclear reactor. " Takahashi has made several modifications in his cold-fusion cell. Rather than palladium rods, he employs small sheets. In addition, surmising that cold-fusion phenomena might prosper better under transient conditions, he varies cell current. Takahashi, however, measures only a few of the neutrons expected from the usual nuclear fusion reactions. Undaunted, he remarks, "This is a different ballgame, and it could be a different reaction." Indeed, some exotic fusion reactions do generate neutrons. (Freedman, David H.; "A Japanese Claim Generates New Heat," Science, 256:438, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #82, JUL-AUG 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects English Muddles The Brain "A boy who struggles to read English primary-school storybooks yet has no trouble with university physics textbooks in Japanese is challenging current thinking on dyslexia. The 17year-old boy, known as AS, is the first person shown to be dyslexic in one language but not another." AS has English-speaking parents but lives in Japan, where he attends Japanese primary school. He scores poorly in reading English, even lagging behind his Japanese schoolmates, but he understands English like a native. AS is also taught to read the Japanese form of writing called "kanji", in which the symbols carry meaning but have no phonetic value - unlike written English. Curiously, AS reads kanji easily, exhibiting no problems in his visual processing skills. He also does well with the other type of Japanese writing called "kana", where symbols do correspond to certain sounds. Written English is the problem! AS presents psychologists with two enigmas: If, as currently believed, a specific part of the brain is reserved for reading, and a person has trouble with one language, it seems logical that he should have difficulties with all languages. The conventional theory of dyslexia asserts that it is associated with visual processing. If so, AS should find kanji even more troublesome than English. (Motluk, Alison; "Why English Is So Hard on the Brain," New Scientist, p. 14 ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 24 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf105/sf105p13.htm
... 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 The Lures Of Mussels Mussels entrust their larvae to the vagaries of the waters in which they live. How, then, are mussels ever able to colonize rivers, whose currents would always sweep their larvae downstream? A pseudofish with tail, fins, and eye spot displayed by a mussel. "The riverine pioneers ran this roadblock by custom designing their baby mussels to hitchhike on fish. Kneehigh to a pinhead, the larval mussel, or glochidium, is nurtured by the thousands or millions in their mother's gills, and spewed in teeming puffs to the open waters. They cling as benign parasites to passing fish, and take a one- to three-week trip, drawing nutrients through their host's membranes and a free ride to new dwellings. They then drop to the bottom and begin their independent lives, some of which will span a half century or more. "Glochidia that do not hook up with a host fish are doomed. To cover these stakes, the pocketbook mussel and its relatives have evolved a fleshy appendage that flaps in the currents and, to a smallmouth bass, looks like a breakfast minnow. Taking the bait. the duped fish gets doused with glochidia. Another resourceful mussel sends its glochidia out in pulsating little packets resembling worms." (Stolzenburg, William; "The Mussels' Message," Nature Conservancy , p. 17, November/December 1992.) From Science Frontiers ...
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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 Rhythms In Rhythm "We are currently living in the last quarter-century of the fifth 500-year cycle, which began with the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century. All the harmonies we hear today were developed in this last cycle." So begins the final section of a recent reprinting of W.D . Allen's sweeping 1951 overview of the human fascination with music. But what's this about a 500-year cycle in music? It turns out that not only is there a 500-year pulse in musical creativity, but nested within the long swings are 100-year subcycles! Allen's article, as it appeared originally in the Journal of Human Ecology (1 :1 , 1951), ran 41 pages. We can hit only a few high notes here. And, since we are concerned mainly with anomalies, we shall concentrate on this unexpected periodicity in musical creativity. Allen describes how musical theorists have proposed both supernatural and evolutionary explanations for this periodicity, which commenced some 2,500 years ago with the Ancient Greeks. He is not convinced by either class of explanations. Instead, Allen has been beguiled by the long-period tones of environmental cycles: "Now we have knowledge of a constantly operating cyclic factor in our cosmos, scientifically based on a mass of inductive evidence that goes beyond recorded history into the tree-ring records from centuries B.C . For ...
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... 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 Cloud Plumes Natural But Still A Bit Anomalous During the mid-1980s, satellites photographed strange cloud plumes that stretched hundreds of kilometers downwind of some nothern islands, especially Bennett Island, in the Soviet Arctic. Some wondered if perhaps the Soviets were conducting tests of some new type of weapon in these remote locations. With the end of the Cold War, flights of instrumented aircraft over the islands were permitted. Data from these flights support the idea that the mystery cloud plumes are formed by air currents passing over the islands. In other words, they are only orographic or mountaincaused clouds, like those sometimes seen over the Rockies. But puzzles persist: Why are the plumes so long? Why do they form at such high altitudes -- more than 3 kilometers above the tops of the relatively small mountains on the islands? (Monastersky, R.; "Mountains Give Rise to Perplexing Plumes," Science News, 141:422, 1992. Also: Fett, Robert W.; "Major Cloud Plumes in the Arctic and Their Relation to Fronts and Ice Movements," Monthly Weather Review , 120: 925, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of the Bells," Readers Digest , p. 185, April 1992. Cr. J.B . Dotson.) Comment. Note the correlation of the sound with the green portion of the aurora. July 29, 1990. On Coll Island in Centennial Lake, 120 kilometers west of Ottawa. Watching an auroral display, L.R . Morris heard the sound of the aurora: "It was a faint but distant windlike sound; which, by process of elimination, could not be accounted for by any phenomenon other than the aurora." (Anonymous; "Auroral Sounds," Sky & Telescope , 83:105, January 1992. Cr. D. Snowhook.) Comment. Auroras have been heard for centuries, but they "shouldn't be." Current theory restricts auroral activity to altitudes above 50 miles, where a fair vacuum prevails, and sound generation and propagation are impossible. One explanation for auroral sounds is that intense electromagnetic waves created by the auroras sweep through the observer's brain and are rendered as sound (electrophonic sound). But perhaps some auroras reach down lower into the atmosphere than theory allows. See GSH3 in our catalog: Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... American Studies at the University of California-Davis. The title above is, in fact, the title of Forbes' forthcoming book. Forbes recently gave a talk on his thesis in Berkeley, and the evidence below is based on a newspaper account of his talk. The account began with: "It is a common perception, and one which is taught in most history classes, that the Europeans 'discovered' America. Some scholars, however, postulate that it may be quite the opposite: Native Americans went across the Atlantic and 'found' their European counterparts first." Now for the claimed evidence: Carribean people were the Polynesians of the Americas. Excellent mariners, they built sophisticated sailing vessels 80-feet long, carrying up to 80 people. With the favorable winds and currents, they had the capabilities of reaching Europe. There are tales of "redmen" arriving on the west coast of Portugal during the Middle Ages. Columbus himself, during a visit to Ireland, noted the presence of people resembling North Americans. Columbus also made notes on Indians in canoes wrecked off the coast of Germany in 1410. Inuits (Eskimos) are said to have landed in the Orkneys, off Scotland. Old Inuit harpoon heads have been dug up in Ireland and Scotland. (Kluepfel, Brian; "Native Americans May Have Found Europe, Says Scholar," Berkeley Voice , January 28, 1993. Cr. P.F . Young. Comment. Obviously, stronger evidence will be required to convince most archeologists. And what about all the purported claims for early contacts ...
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... had a glassy appearance." (Kemp, A.K .; "Anglesey Seiche," Marine Observer, 63: 90, 1993.) Short-period oscillations in tidal records at Puerto Princesa, Palawan, the Philippines Permanent feature. Puerto Princesa, Palawan, the Philippines. The basic phenomenon impinging on this coast was described by F.J . Haight back in the 1920s. Haight plotted the sea oscillation in the accompanying graph. Recent studies of the Puerto Princesa seiches show that the amplitudes of the seiches are greatest every two weeks, indicating they are tied to the astronomical tides. However, they lag the lunar tide by a couple of days. Geophysicists now look to Pearl Bank in the Sulu Sea, some 450 kilometers southeast of Puerto Princesa, where they believe tidal currents create "internal waves" as they hit the shallow bank. These internal waves travel beneath the surface at speeds of only about 8 kilometers/hour, taking about 2 days to reach Puerto Princesa. Here, they surge against the land, causing the observed seiches. (Giese, Graham S., and Chapman, David C.; "Coastal Seiches," Oceanus , 36:38, Spring 1993.) Reference. Our catalog Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds contains an entire chapter on anomalous wave phenomena. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Trofimenko of the Minsk Department of the Astronomical-Geodesical Society of the USSR believes that all cosmic bodies, including the Sun and the Earth, are riddled with "mini" black holes left over from the big bang. Though much smaller than atoms. such black holes would each contain as much mass as a mountain, up to about 2 x 1020 grams. "Trofimenko originally suggested that energy radiated by these mini black holes could make hot spots that produce volcanic outbursts. Now he has investigated the way in which such objects, by orbiting about the Earth's core, would distort the gravitational field at the surface of our planet." Each time a mini black hole passes beneath a spot on the surface, there would be a "gravitoimpulse" too short to be detected by current instrumentation but sufficient to trigger earthquakes. (Anonymous; "Baby Black Holes Blamed for Earthquakes," New Scientist, p. 18, September 19. 1992.) From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... .2 million to 8 million years can be derived at the 95% confidence level. Further consideration indicates that we are unlikely to colonize the Galaxy, and that we are likely to have a higher population than the median for intelligent species." Why won't we colonize the Galaxy? Not because we are not able to, Gott says, but because "living things do not usually live up to their maximum potential." Also of interest here is Gott's assessment of SETI (our Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Will our big radio telescopes pick up intelligent murmurings arriving from outer space? Gott's calculations are very pessimistic here: "Thus, we do not expect to see a Dyson sphere civilization within our Galaxy, or a Karadashev type III civilization within the current observable horizon." (Gott, J. Richard, III; "Implications of the Copernican Principle for Our Future Prospects." Nature, 363:315, 1993.) *A line from Stephen Spender's poem: From All These Events, from the Slump, from the War, from the Boom . Comment. But perhaps the Copernican Principle, Darwinism, or some other of Gott's assumptions are in error. From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 15.5 million years ago. The scientific "instruments" here are the cooling lava flows. As they solidify from the outside in, a process taking about 2 weeks for a 2meter-thick flow, the lava is magnetized in the direction of the field prevailing at the moment of solidification. We would thus have a 2-week continuous record of the behavior of the earth's field. Ordinarily, we would not expect to see very much change in 2 weeks; even a reversing field is thought to take thousands of years to complete its flip-flop. However, at Steens Mountain, when the field reversed 15.5 million years ago, the lava flows suggest that the field's axis was rotating 3-8 per day -- incredibly fast according to current thinking, in fact a thousand times faster than expected. The conundrum (one might call it a scientific impasse) arises because the flowing electrically conducting fluids that supposedly constitute the earth's dynamo would have to flow at speeds of several kilometers/hour. No one has ever contemplated molten rock moving at such speeds in the core! (Appenzeller, Tim; "A Conundrum at Steens Mountain," Science, 255:31, 1992. Lewin, Roger; "Earth's Field Flips Flipping Fast," New Scientist, p. 26, January 25, 1992.) Could it be that the prevailing dynamo theory is incorrect? To make matters more interesting, it now seems that the paths taken by the reversing poles follow similar routes with each flip-flop. ...
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... they determined that the sharks' main purpose was not pro-creation, although some mating did occur. Mainly, the hammerheads just idled away the daylight hours. At dusk, they disappeared. Klimley et al next implanted some sharks with transmitters and followed them at night. This was their feeding time, they swam 10-15 miles to deep waters where they gorged on squid. At daybreak, they were back drifting around Espiritu Santo. Apparently, the mountain was just a place to rest. But how did the hammerheads find their way back so unerringly? Furthermore, by tracking the tagged fish, the researchers found the sharks often precisely followed the same paths in what seemed a featureless ocean. How did they do it? It was quickly ruled out that they were following specific ocean currents or the bottom topography. The hammerheads seemed to possess some sort of unrecognized navigation sense. Suspecting they might be sensing the geomagnetic field, Klimley began towing a magne tometer behind the boat. Sure enough, the hammerheads were following paths coincident with lines of high magnetic gradient. And Espiritu Santo itself turned out to be a sort of magnetic beacon from which radiated these magnetic "paths" that the hammerheads followed so exactly. Now the question became: How do hammerheads -- and perhaps other animals -- sense such exceedingly small changes in the geomagnetic field? Some birds and mammals do have small particles of magnetite in their bodies, but no one knows how they might be incorporated into a sensory organ. On the other hand, hammerheads and many other sharks are extraordinarily sensitive to electrical ...
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... , fatal arcing can occur from the ground at a considerable distance from the power lines. This has happened often in our country [the U.S .] , in rural areas where public utilities have quietly exceeded the capacity of their lines. The resulting discharges can easily electrocute livestock over mile from the 'leaky' H/T lines. I would wager that the Hungarian utility agencies are guilty of the same practice. Personally, I suspect that this unfortunate young man may have been electrocuted through his own urine! The 'blue light' witnessed by the victim's wife may have been St. Elmo's Fire -- an ungrounded luminous corona visible around the victim in the humid, pre-thunderstorm conditions. The hole in his heel and tennis shoe indicate where the current finally grounded itself." Wernikoff goes on to tell of a case in Canada where a man washing up at an outdoor table, 100 yards from overhead power lines, was electrocuted when he emptied the basin onto the ground. He, too, had a hole burned through the heel of his boot! (Wernikoff, Sheldon L.; "The 'Hungarian Spontaneous Combustion' Case -- Another Explanation," Journal of Meteorology, U.K ., 17:22, 1992.) Reference. Our catalog Biological Anomalies: Humans II contains a long entry (BHC7) on SHC and its evaluation by scientists. To order this book, see: here . From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... its tail? Creationist geologists studied the Lompoc deposit and put a different slant on the story but not on its ending. "Contrary to some reports that have circulated, the 80-90 ft (24-27 m) long fossilised baleen whale found in April 1976 in an inclined position in a diatomite unit in the Miguelito Mine at Lompoc, California, was not buried while 'standing on its tail'. An onsite investigation has revealed that the diatomite unit which entombed the whale is also inclined at the same angle, the whale having been buried in the diatomite unit while both were in the horizontal position, and subsequent earth movements having tilted both. Nevertheless, this whale fossil still bears testimony to its catastrophic burial, and thus the catastrophic deposition of the enclosing diatomite. "The current uniformitarian (slow and gradual) model for diatomite deposition, as seen in the Guaymas Basin of the Gulf of California, is not capable of explaining the purity of the Lompoc diatomite...the deposition rate is too slow to avoid corrosion and scavenging of the bones. both of which are absent from the Lompoc whale bones." (Snelling, Andrew A.; "The Whale Fossil in Diatomite, Lompoc, California," CEN Technical Journal, 9:244, 1995. This is an Australian creationist journal.) Comment. The Lompoc whale fossil does suggest very rapid deposition, but it does not prove that 4.5 billion years of geological history can be compressed into the requisite 6,000 years! Reference. The Lompoc deposit and many others like it are ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 76: Jul-Aug 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Underground Current Electrifies Australia A weak electrical current wends its way for some 6000 kilometers along fracture zones in some of Australia's sedimentary basins. Located some 15-45 kilometers below the surface, the current begins at the continental shelf in Western Australia, runs southward into South Australia, and then loops northward, exiting in the Gulf of Carpentaria near Birdsville, Queensland. The current's path has a width varying between 50 and 200 kilometers. It seems to be flowing in alkaline fluids contained in the broken edges where ancient tectonic plates collided to create the continent. The current is weak and is induced by the earth's changing magnetic field. (Anonymous; "Underground Current Electrifies Australia," New Scientist, p. 10, March 10, 1991.) Comment. Modern Australia is spotted in the center of a huge tectonic plate. From Science Frontiers #76, JUL-AUG 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of wind pushed the Marques down on its starboard side. At the same instant 'a freakish wave of incredible force and size,' as Sefton later described it, slammed the ship broadside, pushing its masts farther beneath the surging water. A second wave pounded the ship as it went down. The Marques filled with water and sank in less than one minute. Most of the crew were trapped as they slept below deck. Only Sefton and eight shipmates survive." Accounts such as that above are part of sea lore. Waves 50-100 feet high have been frequently reported over the years. Most often, they are encountered in rough seas, but some walls of water have smashed ships in relatively calm waters. A tanker encountering a steep-sided giant wave in the Aguhlas Current of the African coast. Until recently, oceanographers were confident that any unusually large wave was just the chance addition of two smaller waves. Now, a consensus is emerging that at least two other factors are important: seabed topography and ocean currents. To illustrate, perhaps the most dangerous stretch of water in the world lies off southeast Africa, where the fast (8 feet/second) Agulhas Current often runs into storm waves surging up from Antarctica. The African continental shelf is so shaped that it funnels the current directly into the storm waves. Immense, steep-fronted waves have broken many a ship here. In sum, the old statistical theory about the origin of rogue waves has been jettisoned, but a new approach is still in the formative stages. (Brown, Joseph ...
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... . The electric power went out. The kitchen clock froze at 3.30 PM. Mr Shelhamer saw three wisps of smoke rise from his parking area. He noticed a strange smell in the air. A pickup truck, parked near the house, was covered with dirt. Two of its tyres were flat, and the hubcaps were lying on the ground. Strange trenches and tracks had appeared in the surface of the parking area. These trenches led Mr Shelhamer to a hickory tree, about 20m from the house. On it a 10cm scar had appeared, spiralling up the trunk toward the sky. A few minutes earlier it had begun to rain, and all this was the result of the lightning strike. "Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of this lightning strike was the way the currents flowing from the hickory tree along the surface of the ground apparently leapt out of the ground in places to pass through the automobiles parked in the parking area. Two of the trenches that radiated from the tree ended at an automobile, but reappeared at the opposite side or end of that automobile, where they either terminated in a crater, or continued tracking on. One of these trenches tracked through two automobiles that were parked side by side." (Jonasson, H.H ., et al; "Unusual Effects of a Lightning Ground Strike," Weather, 44:366, 1989.) Comment. Electrical currents are supposed to follow the path of least resistance. How did all three vehicles in the parking area end up on paths of least resistance? Some of the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crop Circle Craze Continues Trying to maintain our sanity during the current crop-circle flap, we have adhered closely to reports in the conservative Journal of Meteorology, U.K . But don't imagine that wilder accounts are not surfacing in the newspapers. Two accounts should suffice. Australia. "Three frightened farmers believe a gigantic UFO landed last week on their Victorian wheat property. "A pattern of five perfect circles - in which unbroken wheat stalks swirl anticlockwise - have been found on the 9000- hectare farm, West Park, run by Max and Nancee Jolly and their son Stuart, 29. "The startling discovery comes only weeks after the family's 700 sheep were panicked by a huge yellow object pulsating above the paddocks in western Victoria's Mallee region." (Pickney, John; "Sheep Panicked by Eerie Light in Fields," Melbourne Truth, December 16, 1989. Cr. P. Norman via L. Farish) Canada. "Argyle, Man. - There's a mystery on Ray Crawford's land and stumped investigators say anything from bizarre weather phenomena to visitors from outer space could have put it there. "Sometime in the past year, an almost perfect circle was gouged out of a remote patch of the elderly cattle farmer's property, 30 kilometres north of Winnipeg, on the edge of the rockstrewn scrub and bush that comprise the region between Lake Manitoba and ...
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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 Nature Communicates In Mysterious Ways Most of us will recall that the wings of butterflies and moths sometimes display eyespots, which, according to current thinking, are designed to startle potential predators. Perhaps so, but butterfly and moth wings can convey a wide range of "signals." K.B . Sandved, a nature photographer, has also found remarkable renditions of all the letters in the English alphabet (one at a time, of course) on the wings of these insects. In fact, he has accomplished this several times over using different species. He has found all the Arabic numerals, too, as well as ampersands, question marks -- you name it! Although Greek pi and capital omega have turned up, butterflies and maths are clearly trying to impress people who utilize the Roman alphabet. After all, it is difficult enough to evolve an ampersand; generating Chinese characters would strain credulity too much. (Amato, Ivan; "Insect Inscriptions," Science News, 137: 376, 1990.) Comments. Incidentally, of what survival value are these wing symbols? Obviously, the butterflies and moths have not got their act completely together as yet. Words and phrases will come soon, we are certain. Look at the eggplants for example. They have specialized in Arabic. It has recently been reported in British newspapers and on BBC Radio 4 that when the Kassam family sliced up an eggplant, ...
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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. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Megawalls Across The Cosmos "The universe is crossed by at least 13 vast 'walls' of galaxies, separated by about 420 million light years, according to a team of British and American researchers. The walls seem to be spaced in a very regular way that current theories of the origin of the universe cannot explain." "Walls" of galaxies emerge when galaxy separation distance is plotted against the number of galaxies possessing specific separation distances. (128 million parsecs = 420 million light years). The astronomers have collected observations of galaxy redshifts along a linear "borehole" through the universe 7 billion light years long centered on the earth. If the redshifts are assumed to be measures of distance (as mainstream thinking demands), one gets the clumping effect seen in the accompanying illustration. (Henbest, Nigel; "Galaxies Form 'Megawalls' across Space," New Scientist, p. 37, March 19, 1990.) Comment. Not mentioned in the above article are the papers by W.G . Tifft on quantized redshifts. (See SF#50, for example.) It will be interesting to learn if "boreholes" pointed in other directions will encounter the same megawalls. If they do, the earth will be enclosed by shells of galaxies, much as some elliptical galaxies are surrounded by shells of stars. Wouldn't it be hilarious if the earth were at the center of these concentric ...
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... Project Sourcebook Subjects Astronomers up against the "great wall"" For more than a decade now, astronomers have been haunted by a sense that the universe is controlled by forces they don't understand. And now comes a striking confirmation: 'The Great Wall.'" The Great Wall is the largest known structure in the universe at present, having superceded sundry superclusters and clusters of superclusters. The Wall is a "thin" (15 million-light-year) sheet of galaxies 500 million light years long by 200 wide; and it may extend even farther. It is emplaced some 200-300 million light years from earth. It helps outline contiguaous parts of vast "bubbles" of nearly empty space. Both the Wall and the adjacent voids are just too large for current theories to deal with. All popular theories have great difficulties in accounting for such large inhomogeneities. To illustrate an important observable -- the 2.7 K cosmic background radiation -- which is usually described as the afterglow of the Big Bang, ar gues for a very smooth, uniform distribution of galaxies. Great Walls are definitely anomalous. M.J . Geller, codiscoverer of the Great Wall with J.P . Huchra, remarked: "My view is that there is something fundamentally wrong in our approach to understanding such large-scale structure -- some key piece of the puzzle that we're missing." (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "Astronomers Go Up against the Great Wall," Science, 246:885, 1989.) Also: Geller ...
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... "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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... community's acceptance of theories. This, after all, is what science is all about. It turns out that Alfven has made many correct scientific predictions. (He even shared a Nobel Prize in 1970.) But, as S.G . Brush has related in a detailed article in Eos, being correct is not the same as being accepted. "According to some scientists and philosophers of science, a theory is or should be judged by its ability to make successful predictions. This paper examines a case from the history of recent science - the research of Hannes Alfven and his colleagues on space plasma phenomena - in order to see whether scientists actually follow this policy. Tests of five pre-dictions are considered: magnetohydrodynamic waves, field-alligned (' Birkeland') currents, critical ionization velocity and the existance of planetary rings, electrostatic double layers, and partial corotation. It is found that the success or failure of these predictions had essentially no effect on the acceptance of Alfven's theories, even though concepts such as 'Alfven waves' have become firmly entrenched in space physics. Perhaps the importance of predictions in science has been exaggerated; if a theory is not acceptable to the scientific community, it may not gain any credit from successful predictions." Brush concludes that the continuing resistance to Alfven's work is due to the widely held opinion that his theory is not plausible; that is, it does not conform to the dominant paradigm. (Brush, Stephen G.; "Prediction and Theory Evaluation," Eos, 71:19 ...
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... this redshift is interpreted as a measure of the quasar's distance (Who would risk his reputation by suggesting otherwise?), it is 14 or billion light years away. If the Big Bang is assumed (Who would risk..etc?), this quasar is only about a billion light years from the edge of the universe. Its age, then, is only a billion years. But this stripling of a quasar appears perfectly "normal" with no signs of youth! Its spectrum indicates that even at this young age, the elements were present in the same abundances found in older quasars. And, of course, at this quasar's core there must be a billion-solar-mass black hole (Who would risk..etc.?). Current theory is hardpressed to explain this very rapid evolution of a "normal" quasar with its immense black hole. (Peterson, I.; "Quasar Illuminates the Most Distant Past," Science News, 136: 340, 1989.) Comment. Could it be that our fanatically held ideas about redshifts, black holes, and Big Bangs are wrong? You bet it could! Reference. The redshift controversy the the anomalies that create it are cataloged in: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Mesoamerica only 2500 years ago. Even so, trans-Pacific voyages 2500 years ago are definitely not part of acceptable archeology. Anthropologist P. Tolstoy, swimming against the mainstream, has surveyed the manufacturing technology of both bark paper and ordinary paper on a worldwide basis. He identified some 300 variable features in the process, 140 uses of the final products, and 100 specific details of bark beaters. Tolstoy concluded: "All this points to the direct transfer of technology from Southeast Asia to Mesoamerica, apparently by a sea voyage that took place about 2500 years ago." Tolstoy rejects the tapa (bark cloth) of Polynesia as a credible link between Southeast Asian and Mesoamerican barkpaper making. The technology transfer was not island-to-island but direct! Invoking Kon Tiki and the prevailing currents and winds, he postulates a 2500-year-old voyage swinging north of Hawaii along an islandless route to Mesoamerica. (Tolstoy, Paul; "Paper Route," Natural History, 100:6 , June 1991.) From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Grone and M. Sher, the universe-as-a -whole may undergo a phase change. Such an event has already happened once and it may again. Approximately 10-10 seconds after the Big Bang, the force laws changed discontinuously as the universe cooled. Some models of the cosmos predict that another such phase change may occur when photons suddenly acquire mass. Grone and Sher have sketched the effects on terrestrial civilization: "The most dramatic effect would be the elimination of all static electric and magnetic fields over a range greater than 1 cm, and the elimination of all electromagnetic radiation with frequencies smaller than a few hundred gigahertz. We have shown that there would be relatively little impact on atomic structure and on solar radiation. The absence of electrostatic fields would force a redesign of current power plants (to use smaller solenoids); the absence of radio and television waves would force a much greater use of cables. The elimination of solar and geomagnetic fields would have a significant meteorological impact. The potential ly most devastating effect could be on the propagation of neural impulse along motor neurons; it appears that the effects might be small, but they do depend on the precise value of the photon mass." Crone and Sher conclude that the effect would be devastating to humanity but probably not fatal. (Crone, Mary M., and Sher, Marc; "The Environmental Impact of Vacuum Decay," American Journal of Physics, 59:25, 1991.) Comment. No TV; now that is fatal! From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ants Like Amps Those pesky fire ants that plague man and beast alike in the southern states have a curious weakness: they dote on electrical equipment. They don't eat it; they just "like" it! Why, nobody knows. They invade a wide variety of outdoor electrical devices: airport runway lights, stoplight control boxes, household electrical meters, etc. In particular, they favor relays, where they congregate in masses, interfering with current flow and damaging circuitry. The phenomenon is made stranger by the fire ants' complete abandonment of their usual search for food and water (and ankles). They starve in droves and clog up everything. It's a mothand-candle story. Searching for the fatal attractor, researchers have already eliminated magnetic fields, vibrations, and ozone emissions. Apparently, the fire ants "see" something we can't and are smitten by it. (Weiss, Rick; "Ants Get a Transforming Charge," Science News, 136:412, 1989.) From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Huge Underground Electrical Circuit "Geophysicists from the Department of Earth Sciences and the Bureau of Mineral Resources have discovered part of a huge underground circuit near Broken Hill (Australia), which contains electric currents of more than a million amps. "The currents are spread too thinly for power production, but their existence helps account for problems experienced generally in interpreting the magnetic data used to produce geological maps. "The circuit was found using a sensor which detects fluctuating electric fields in the earth's crust. These are created in response to electrical events, such as thunderstorms and the movement of dissolved salts in artesian water." (" Scientists Discover Huge Underground Circuit," Monash Review, p. 10, December 1986, Cr. R.E . Molnar, The Monash Review is an Australian publication.) Comment. Could it be that a portion of the earth's "permanent" magnetic field is likewise generated by internal electrical currents? Are the ponderously moving internal convection cells and widely accepted dynamo effect really necessary? In other words, could our planet be a huge natural battery based upon geochemical differences? Reference. Earth-current anomalies are cataloged under EZC5 in Inner Earth. Book details here . From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 63: May-Jun 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Life Currents In Space A few of the hundreds of meteorites picked up in the Antarctic wastes have chemical properties consistent with a Martian origin. Calculations, too, support the notion that a large meteoric impact could propel bits of the Martian surface into space where, statistically speaking, a tiny fraction would be captured by the earth's gravitational field. Some of these would fall to earth; others would remain in orbit. Now, the reverse scenario has been investigated numerically. S.A . Phinney and colleagues at the University of Arizona have calculated what would happen to small chunks of the earth's crust if a large meteor impact excavated a 60milewide crater. "Phinney's group used a computer to calculate where 1,000 particles would go if ejected from Earth in random directions, moving about 2.5 kilometers per second faster than the minimum speed necessary to escape. Of the 1,000 hypothetical particles, 291 hit Venus and 165 returned to Earth; 20 went to Mercury, 17 to Mars, 14 to Jupiter and 1 to Saturn. Another 492 left the solar system completely, primarily due to gravitational close encounters with either Jupiter or Mercury that 'slingshot' them on their way." (Eberhart, Jonathan; "Have Earth Rocks Gone to Mars?" Science News, 135:191, 1989.) Comment. One implication from the preceding analysis is that terrestrial bacteria and spores could well ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 61: Jan-Feb 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Interproximal Grooving Of Teeth The following illustration appeared recently in a respected science journal. No, it was not a dentistry journal, nor was it an ad for a new toothpaste. It was Current Anthropology. It seems that some human and near-human skeletons possess teeth with the peculiar grooves shown in the sketch. The skeleton-age range is huge: 1.84 million years to comparatively modern bones 10,000 years old. These teeth are found on several continents. Some archeologists say simply that ancient humans just picked their teeth a lot in order to remove trapped food particles. But the grooves do not seem to be correlated with dental-decay problems. This fact has led to the so- called "cultural" theory, which holds that the picking of teeth was just another bad human habit, probably a sort of stereotype behavior having nothing to do with food caught between the teeth. (Formicola, Vincenzo; "Interproximal Grooving of Teeth: Additional Evidence and Interpretation," Current Anthropology , 29:663, 1988. Also: Anonymous; "Ancient Tooth Grooves: Take Your Pick," Science News , 134:237, 1988.) Comment. Could tooth-picking have been a religious rite? Are there cave drawings showing humans picking their teeth? Well, you can see from the Science News title that this publication also had fun with this item. Yet, the geographical and temporal reach ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 300,000-YEAR-OLD SITE IN BRAZIL "Central, Brazil -- Archaeologists excavating a cave in Brazil's remote northeastern backlands say that they have found evidence that man has lived in the New World for at least 300,000 years. "If confirmed, it would be the first proof of pre-Neanderthal man in the Americas and a severe blow to current theories that the first humans came here from Asia during the last Ice Age, only about 35,000 years ago. "The scientists also report that they have discovered what may be the world's oldest astronomical observatory. .. .. . "The signs of man were found in a cave called Toca da Esperanca (Grotto of Hope), deep in the black limestone cliffs of the Serra Negra mountains, 1,100 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro. "The site caught the interest of the scientific community after archaeologist Maria Beltrao reported finding a stone implement and the cut bones of an extinct species of horse in the dig last year. "The bones were so old that they could not be dated by carbon-14, which can measure about 40,000 years. The Weak Radiation Laboratory in France tested them by a more sensitive uraniumthorium method, and came back with a staggering date of 300,000 years. .. .. . "A cave called Grotto of the Cosmos at nearby Xique-Xique contained ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What Heats The Earth The currently popular model of the earth has its heat generated by the radioactive decay of uranium and other elements. Some of these decay reactions produce helium -- so-called radiogenic helium. But, as the following excerpt asserts, the amount of helium actually detected is way out of line with the measured heat flow. "The present rate of mantle heat loss, however, is out of equilibrium with the rate of helium loss -- too large by about a factor of 20. Either radiogenic helium is accumulated in the mantle while heat escapes or current models for the bulk chemistry of Earth are in error and much of the terrestrial heat loss is nonradiogenic." (Oxburgh, E. Ronald and O'Nions, R. Keith; "Helium Loss, Tectonics and the Terrestrial Heat Budget," Science, 237: 1583, 1987.) Comment. Such data encourage the thought that a portion of the earth's heat may be generated electrically -- we live on a colossal, spherical, electrical hotplate! Who said science was dull? From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Complexities Of The Inner Earth So many new and startling facts about the inner earth are emerging from current magnetic, seismic, and gravitic researth that a little list is in order. Bear in mind when going down the list that most of these features would have been considered absurd only a decade or two ago. The earth's solid inner core, which "floats" inside the liquid core, is not spherical. Rather, it is anisotropic with its axis of symmetry aligned with the earth's axis of rotation. (Ref. 1 below) "The CMB (core-mantle boundary) is the most dramatic discontinuity in the earth's internal structure in terms of the physical and chemical properties as well as the time scale of the processes that take place on either side of it. Its shape, if different from that predicted by the hydrostatic equilibrium theory, may contain information important to our understanding of geodynamic processes in the mantle or the geomagnetic field generated in the outer core." (Ref. 1, and also item #7 below) The earth's magnetic field possesses four lobes which remain fixed relative to the earth's surface, as demonstrated by 300 years of data. These lobes do not drift westward like the general field. (Ref. 2) "Core-spot pairs" of magnetic intensity seem to move westward and poleward. In the southern hemisphere, they originate under ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects On The Trail Of The Fifth Force Well publicized lately has been the modern reanalysis of the old Eotvos balance experiments. Some think they show the presence of that famous "fifth force" which is supposed, according to some theories, to modify Newton's Law of Gravitation, and become measurable at distances of about 100 to 1000 meters. The Eotvos results may also be explicable in terms of laboratory air currents. But the fifth force may be showing up in geophysical experiments. "One of the most comprehensive geophysical experiments so far has been conducted by Frank Stacey at University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and his colleagues. Working in two metal mines, the researchers have measured a gravitational constant that is 0.7 percent greater than that measured in the laboratory -- suggesting the presence of a fifth force." (Weisburd, Stefi; "Geophysics on the Fifth Force's Trail," Science News, 131: 6, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #50, MAR-APR 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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