423 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An invisible information superhighway?The eclectic nature of anomaly research occasionally uncovers connections between diverse areas of research. We recount one such instance here. On one hand is the neurological research of M.A . Persinger, at the Laurentian University, inquiring into the claimed effects of minute electromagnetic signals, such as those observed in the geomagnetic field, upon human consciousness and perception. On the other hand, we have R.G . Jahn's work in the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) program, which looks into the anomalous information transfer between humans and the environment, as claimed to be seen in psychokinesis and remote viewing experiments. The research goals and methodologies differ, and the resulting reports couched in different terminologies, but the similarities are what is really important. Both scientists are exploring unconventional information pathways connecting the human brain (consciousness) and the environment. The pathways are open in both directions. First, we quote the summary from a recent Persinger paper. The jargon may be technical, but one can readily visualize the human brain immersed in a sea of signals -- nominally electromagnetic but possibly of other sorts. "Contemporary neuroscience suggests the existence of fundamental algorithms by which all sensory transduction is translated into an intrinsic, brain-specific code. Direct stimulation of these codes within the human temporal or limbic cortices by applied electromagnetic patterns may require energy levels which are within the range of both geomagnetic activity and contemporary ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Emf fertilizer?In 1986, the U.S . Navy began operating a 90-kilometer-long radio antenna stretching pole-to-pole through a Michigan forest. Broadcasting at only 76 hertz, this long antenna can communicate effectively with submerged submarines. Although the antenna produces electromagnetic fields about the same as those from a large household appliance, some of the trees adjacent to the antenna have enjoyed an unexpected spurt in growth, according to D. Reed and G. Mroz of the Michigan Technological University. "The researchers have been gathering data on the growth of trees since 1985, making measurements at two sites, one near the antenna and the other 50 kilometers away. The results seem to suggest that the electromagnetic field has a subtle influence on the forest. They found that two species of trees, northern red oak and paper birch, do not seem to be influenced by the antenna at all. But red pines near the antenna grew taller than red pines at the distant site, while aspen and red maple grew thicker than their counterparts further off." (Kiernan, Vincent; "Forest Grows Tall on Radio Waves," New Scientist, p. 5, January 14, 1995) Trees are not the only plants affected. Algae in the upper Ford River, where the field is only 10% as strong as that near the antenna, increased chlorophyll production sharply after the antenna started operation. The cause ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Madness And Creativity The observation that creativity and genius are often allied with psychiatric problems is an ancient one. More recently, male writers have been shown to have high rates of mood disorders and alcoholism. Persuing these kinds of correlations further, but with the female sex, A. Ludwig, of the University of Kentucky Medical Center, chose as his "creativity" sample 59 female writers attending a Women Writers Conference. These were compared with 59 non-writers matched in terms of social, demographic, and family factors. Psychiatric problems in both groups were elicited through interviews. As the table below shows, the psychopathological differences between writers and non-writers are large. Diagnosis Writers Non-writers Depression 56% 14% Mania 19 3 Panic attacks 22 5 Eating disorders 12 2 Drug abuse 17 5 Childhood sexual abuse 39 12 It seems that Dryden, back in the 17th century, was correct when he wrote: "Great Wits are sure to Madness near ally'd ." (Anonymous; "Madness and Creativity Revisited," Science, 266:1483, 1994) From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , well-observed denizens of the cosmos. Certainly the media entertains no doubts! Let us take a skeptical look. Does theory require black holes? In 1939, R. Oppenheimer and H. Snyder showed on paper that a massive star could collapse and create a black hole, assuming the correctness of stellar theories and General Relativity. Initially, scientists were skeptical about black holes because of their bizarre properties: They emit no light and inhale unwary starships. Black holes are also singularities, and singularities make scientists nervous. In the black-hole singularity, thousands of stars are swallowed and compressed into an infinitesimally small volume. (Ref. 1) This grates against common sense. The philosophical uneasiness about black holes is worsened by the discovery that they: ". .. threaten the universe with an irreversible loss of information, which seems to contradict other laws of physics." (Ref. 2) Adding to these problems are nagging doubts about General Relativity, which underpins black-hole theory. Recently, some theorists have shown that General Relativity requires that two bodies of approximately equal size not attract one another! (Ref. 2) Despite all these qualms, black holes have become a fixture of astronomy because they promise to explain the incredibly powerful energy sources seen in the cores of galaxies. Do astronomers really observe black holes? The answer is: MAYBE. And even if YES, there are not nearly enough of them to satisfy theory. To illustrate, according to present theory, when stars weighing in at less than three solar masses collapse, they become neutron ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Microbes threaten radiocarbon dating Astronomy Has jupiter flashed before? A POT POURRI OF MARTIAN CUSIOSITIES (AND WE DON'T MEAN "FACES" AND "PYRAMIDS") Biology Anomalous larvae and the burning of heretics When humans were an endangered species Straight from the horse's ear The watchmaker is not blind after all! Geology Weird icicles Giant sea-bed pockmarks Geophysics Anomalous phenomena associated with the 1908 tunguska event How can the moon affect the earth's temperature? Kobe quake jostles the geo- magnetic field Superhail Physics When different universes rub together Another starchy anomaly Unclassified Unidentified object ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Polar-bear bones confound ice-age proponents Given the unquestioning fealty accorded the Ice Ages, it is not especially odd that the information reported below has not received wider circulation. In 1991, construction workers at Tysfjord, Norway, 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, accidentally dug up polarbear bones that were later radiometrically dated as at least 42,000 years old, probably 60,000. R. Lie, a zoologist at the University of Bergen, and other scientists subsequently found the bones of two more polar bears in the area. These were dated as about 20,000 years old. An associated wolf's jaw was pegged at 32,000 years. The problem is that Norway and many other northern circumpolar lands are believed to have been buried under a thick ice cap during the Ice Ages. In particular, northern Norway is thought to have been solidly encased in ice from 80,000 to 10,000 years ago. Polar bears could not have made a living there during this period. Clearly, something is wrong somewhere. (Anonymous; "Polar Bear Bones Cast Doubt on Ice Age Beliefs," Colorado Springs Gazette , August 23, 1993. An Associated Press dispatch. Cr. S. Parker. A COUDI item. COUDI = Collectors of Unusual DataInternational) An associated conundrum. Some authorities have stated that polar bears evolved recentlyonly 10,000 years ago! Polar bear evolution is discussed ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 101: Sep-Oct 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The great exodus Those who believe that the universe is populated by many technically advanced civilizations have long wondered why we earthlings have not been officially invited to join the Intergalactic Federation. Where are those extraterrestrial emissaries anyway? Unfortunately, the extraterrestrial traffic seems to be going at warp speed in the wrong direction. Instead of interstellar spaceships converging on earth full of helpful aliens, everyone (or everything) seems to be fleeing our environs. The proof positive is in all those quasars with high redshifts. In reality, they are not energetic astronomical objects but rather spaceships emitting great power fluxes in our direction from their engines. Earthbound astronomers are really viewing the aft ends of rapidly receding spacecraft. No one ever sees any blueshifted quasars that would tell us that visitors are coming to see us! We are thus truly alone in space, perhaps "deserted" is a better word. What did we do wrong? (Duncan, Dave; "What Do They Know?" New Scientist, p. 52. May 13, 1995.) From Science Frontiers #101 Sep-Oct 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... the future?R. Sheldrake's theory of morphic resonance answers this question affirmatively. For example, it predicts that once a chemical compound is synthesized it will be easier to synthesize it again in the future because the compound's "morphogenetic field" will "guide" the chemical processes along paths already established. Can you wonder why mainstream science advised that Sheldrake's book, A New Science of Life , be BURNT! Well, there was a lot of smoke but the theory survives. Nature, in fact, is full of observations, such as parallel evolution, that support the idea of morphic resonance. And in the laboratory, a few brave souls are conducting experiments that seem to confirm the theory more directly. "Using a novel laboratory approach, researchers at Yale University have been able to create a morphogenetic effect after stimulating only 100 subjects. They employed a series of trivial paper-and-pencil tasks (such as "Put an X in any one of the four boxes shown below"). Experimenters tallied how an initial group of 100 students responded to these tasks. Then they forced a second group of 100 students to respond to the tasks in a set manner (" Put an X in the third box below"). Finally, they presented the same tasks to a third group of 100 students, allowing them to complete them, as with the first group, however they wished." Results showed that in one task the third group had been unknowingly influenced by what the second group had been forced to do! This was interpreted ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Major Study Of Dowsing Most evidence for the efficacy of dow-sing is anecdotal. Most evidence for the inefficacy of dowsing comes from carefully controlled field experiments, including such props as buried pipes with and without running water and other juicy targets for the dowser's wand. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising to find that a large study by physicists at the University of Munich supports the reality of dowsing. Here follows part of the abstract from a paper on this work: "We report on the first major scientific program to tackle this intricate problem aiming for, at least, solid proof for either existence or non-existence of the debated phenomenon. Within a period of two years some 100 dowsers have been tested by means of sophisticated experiments, designed and supervised by a very large team of scientists. A statistical analysis of the results revealed a very high level of significance for the existence of a real dowsing phenomenon. "Further geological experiments have been conducted, and are still going on, which aim at the location of underground drinking water. The results turn out to be extremely positive. This leaves hardly any doubt that certain persons are capable of locating position-dependent anomalies by utilizing a new, still unknown mechanism. Various attempts will be described which explain how the reproducible phenomena could be dealt with. In particular, arguments will be discussed which speak in favor of the dominance of a cause-reaction model ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fruit Dupe Hakea trifurcata is a forlorn-looking shrub growing on rocky terrain in Western Australia, where it reaches a height of 2 meters. The fruits of this plant are enjoyed by the white-tailed black cockatoo -- if it can identify them ! Hakea trifurcata , you see, grows fruit that looks like its leaves, and this is very frustrating to the white-tailed black cockatoo: "This shrub according to plant ecologist Byron Lamont of Curtin University of Technology in Perth, exhibits the first known case of self-mimicry in a plant: to avoid losing valuable seeds to predators, it disguises some of its leaves as fruits. Young plants produce only the long, needle-shaped leaves. But mature five-year-old shrubs also grow broad leaves that cluster around the slightly smaller, almost identical-looking green seed-filled fruits." When offered branches stripped of real leaves and bearing just fruits, the cockatoos quickly demolished them. Normal branches bearing both leaves and fruit were attacked at first -- especially the larger leaves. But when the cockatoos found themselves duped a large proportion of the time, they gave up in obvious frustration. (Anonymous; "Fruit Dupes," Discover, 15:16, August 1994.) Comment. An even more amazing case of plant mimicry occurs among Passiflora species, which craft precise copies of the eggs of a butterfly, whose larvae decimate these plants ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Whence the 200,000 logs of chaco canyon?Previously (SF#46), we introduced you to one of the many mysteries of New Mexico's Chaco Canyon; namely, the unknown source of the huge numbers of logs required to roof the many structures in this fantastic complex. (Pueblo Bonito alone contains some 600 rooms!) As many as 200,000 pine and fir trees had to be cut down and transported as much as 50 miles, for no sizable trees grow near Chaco Canyon today. There is no consensus as to where all these trees were felled. S. Durand, an archeologist from Eastern New Mexico University, Portales, has developed a technique for identifying the sources of logs. He tries to match trace elements in the Chaco Canyon logs with those in living trees in today's forests. The different bedrocks underlying the various forests supply different quantities of such trace elements as barium and manganese. Preliminary results suggest that the early building period in Chaco Canyon, circa 900 AD, employed trees from many different sites. During the peak building period a century later, all logs used carried the same concentrations of trace elements and, therefore, probably came from the same forest. Durand's next step is to locate this forest and figure out how the builders of Chaco Canyon, the Anasazi, managed to tote the logs, some weighing 600 pounds, 50 miles or more. (Mestel ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The 536 ad dust-veil event Circa 536 AD, our planet suffered a great geophysical calamity, as proved in tree-ring measurements and human records of the period. Until astronomical catastrophism became more fashionable in recent years, the so-called "dust-veil" event of 536 AD was blamed on a huge volcanic eruption. Work by M.G .L . Baillie now casts doubt upon interpretation. "Now tree-ring data, published by Professor Mike Baillie of Queens University of Belfast, has brought catastrophes almost into modern times. The tree rings show that in the mid 530s -- just about the time civilisation on Earth suffered a sharp setback -- there was a sudden decline in the rate of tree growth which lasted about 15 years. Clearly, something dramatic had happened. "There are two possibilities: a huge volcanic eruption or a collision between the Earth and a solid object: an asteroid or comet. Ice-cores drilled from Greenland show no evidence of large-scale volcanic activity at that time, so Professor Baillie and others now believe a cosmic impact is more likely. The result would have been to throw up a huge veil of dust and debris, cooling the Earth and producing widespread crop failures." (Anonymous; "Raining Death and Dark Ages," London Times, July 27, 1994. Cr. A. Rothovius) In the scientific literature, Baillie has elaborated ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The "kites" or "keyhole" structures of the middle east Thousands of walled structures decorate the deserts and plains of the Middle East. Most are V-shaped terminating in a cul de sac studded with large rock piles. (See illustration.) Most of the wall arms are 300-3 ,000 meters long. They are constructed of basalt rocks from ancient lava flows. Artifacts found nearby suggest ages of at least 7,000 years. Younger, but very similar, structures have been found in Central Asia. A. Betts of the University of Sydney has been exploring these walls and attempting to discern their purpose. The best explanation seems to be that the ancient inhabitants of the region drove herds of wild animals into the wide mouths of the kites and then slaughtered them when they were trapped at the corral-like ends. The worst explanation is that extraterrestrials built them for some unknown purpose! (Anderson, Ian; "Prehistoric Prey Met Death through a Keyhole," New Scientist, p. 15, September 24, 1994.) Comment. Some kite walls extend 30 kilometers (18 miles) and represent a considerable investment of labor. See also: Field, Henry; "Early Man in North Arabia," Natural History, 29:32, 1929. Of course, aliens could have herded ancient humans into the kites. Remember the classic sci-fi story: "To Serve Man ...
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... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The urge to replicate: part ii In an earlier issue (SF#46), we related how the morphology of the megabats (the "flying foxes") displays primate overtones. The very idea that bats of any kind could be closely related to humans and apes was quickly dismissed by most zoologists. Flying mammals -- the bats -- evolved only once according to mainstream theory; later the Order Chiroptera (" hand-wings") split into the small, mainly insect-eating microbats and the large, fruit-eating megabats. It was all pretty obvious; how could such complex, specialized animals have evolved twice? But in Science Frontiers, there is ever the "however": "Arnd Schreiber, Doris Erker and Klausdieter Bauer of the University of Heidelberg have looked at the proteins in the blood serum of megabats and primates and found enough in common to suggest a close taxonomic relationship between the two groups. (Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 51:359)" An explanation might be that the similarities between the microbats and megabats represent adaptations to similar environmental niches rather than a common ancestry. (Timson, John; "Did Bats Evolve Twice in History?" New Scientist, p. 16, June 4, 1994.) Comment. Does the black box labelled EVOLUTION contain a special subprogram for converting hands into membaneous wings whenever it seems profitable to do so? Or are we somehow missing a different sort of evolutionary process, perhaps something akin to the "directed evolution" suggested by some experiments with bacteria? ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects It's according to hoyle and wickramasinghe The June 17, 1994 issue of Science did not ignore it. In fact, this conservative journal devoted almost an entire page to a paper presented by Yi-Jehng Kuan and Yanti Miao at the recent Minneapolis meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Students of L. Snyder, at the University of Illinois, Kuan and Miao reported that the amino acid glycine had been detected in a molecular cloud named Sagittarius B2. Glycine has only ten atoms and is the smallest of the 20 amino acids vital to life-as-we-know-it. The Science article supposed that this discovery of extraterrestrial glycine might reignite speculation that earth life might not be unique after all. (Travis, John; "Hints of First Amino Acid outside Solar System," Science, 264:1669, 1994.) Structure of the amino acid glycine What Science did not mention but New Scientist did is that F. Hoyle and C. Wickramasinghe have long predicted that the molecules of life, as well as life itself, would be found in outer space. Now, after much ridicule, they are being vindicated. "It's been a long hard struggle," said Hoyle. Wickramasinghe remarked that the discovery was "no surprise at all." "He believes it is only a matter of time before other amino acids, together with nucleotide bases, the components of nucleic acids that ...
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... along with them. In fact, their water inventories may rival today's surface oceans; they may even have been surface oceans themselves millions of years ago before they descended into the infernal regions. Only a few years ago, all geologists maintained that all water in subducted slabs was squeezed out of the rocks by immense pressure and later reappeared at the surface as volcanic steam. Deep ocean #1 . G. Nolet and A. Zielhuis, Princeton seismologists, report a huge reservoir of water about 900 kilometers under present-day Europe. Some 400-500 million years ago, there was an ocean in this locale. (Zimmer, Carl; "The Ocean Within," Discover, 15:20, October 1994.) Deep ocean #2 . H. Wysession, Washington University, has located a water-rich slab 250 kilometers thick at a depth of 2,700 kilometers under Indonesia. He thinks it might be the subducted floor of the paleo-ocean Tethys that last saw sunlight 250 million years ago. (Redfern, Martin; "Lost Ocean Found Deep in the Earth," New Scientist, p. 16, September 3, 1994.) Reference. Anomalies of the earth's core and mantle are covered in our catalog volume: Inner Earth. Details here . From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Meaden 1990)." References Delgado, P., and Andrews, C.; Circular Evidence , London, 1989. Meaden, G.T .; "The Formation of Circular-Symmetric Crop-Damage Patterns by Atmospheric Vortices," Weather, 44:2 , 1989. Meaden, G.T .; "An Eyewitness Account of Crop Circle Formation," Weather, 45:273, 1990. Noyes, R.; The Crop Circle Enigma , Bath, 1990. Watts, A.; "More Circular Arguments," Weather, 46:181, 1991. (Deardorff, James W.; "Crop Circles: Someone Had to Say It!" Weather, 47: 142, 1992. Deardorff is with the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University.) From Science Frontiers #92, MAR-APR 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The earth has recently been swallowed by a cloud of inter-stellar gas Using cosmic-ray data and stellar spectra gathered by seven satellites, P.C . Frisch, at the University of Chicago, has constructed a cosmic scenario that reminds us of F. Hoyle's science fiction tale, The Black Cloud . According to Frisch, until just a few thousand years ago, the solar system was cruising through interstellar space that was almost devoid of matter. Then, perhaps within historical times, 2,000-8 ,000 years ago, the solar system plunged into an interstellar gas cloud. This cloud is believed to be the remnant of the bubble of matter shot into space perhaps 250,000 years ago by a supernova in the Scorpius-Centaurus region. This tenuous cloud of gas feeds matter into the solar system, some of which interacts with the solar wind and, therefore, affects the geomagnetic field, too. Climate changes may have been caused by entry into this cloud, and very likely the flux of cosmic rays impinging on the earth would have been modulated. (Frisch, Priscella C.; "Morphology and Ionization of the Interstellar Cloud Surrounding the Solar System," Science, 265:1423, 1994. Also: Peterson, I.; "Finding a Place for the Sun in a Cloud," Science News, 146:148, 1994.) Comment. Note that the 2 ...
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... summer solstice sunset, also a feature of some ancient European structures, but hardly of any concern to a New England farmer. The Upton chamber seems to be associated with linear arrays of stones and stone cairns on nearby Pratt Hill. These alignments have obvious astronomical significance. In fact, based upon changes in the setting positions of several stars (due to precession), Mavor and Dix believe the whole complex dates back to 700-750 AD. They conclude: "Of all the enigmatic structures that we have seen in America, the Upton chamber stands out as one that could have been built under the influence of Irish monks in the 8th century." (Mavor, James W., Jr., and Dix, Byron E.; "Earth, Stones. and Sky: Universality and Continuity in American Cosmology," NEARA Journal, 29:91, 1995. NEARA = New England Antiquities Research Association) From Science Frontiers #103, JAN-FEB 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of Caucasians. Some even have blonde hair! Some 113 such corpses have already been excavated at Qizilchoqa, one of four sites discovered so far. It is clear that we are dealing with permanent settlements and not merely a few lost Europeans. "Besides the riddle of their identity, there is also the question of what these fair-haired people were doing in a remote desert oasis. Probably never wealthy enough to own chariots, they nevertheless had wagons and well-tailored clothes. Were they mere goat and sheep farmers? Or did they profit from or even control prehistoric trade along the route that later became the Silk Road? If so, they probably helped spread the first wheels and certain metal-working skills into China." V. Mair, a professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania, has been spearheading the research on these mummies for the U.S . He asserts that, contrary to the general belief, there was a substantial two-way, east-west flow of ideas and inventions beginning at least 3,000-4 ,000 years ago. (Hadingham, Ivan; "The Mummies of Xinjiang," Discover, 15:68, April 1994.) From Science Frontiers #95, SEP-OCT 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... studies of fossil bryozoans and snails. Some of these painstaking dissections of the fossil record were carried out by scientists initially committed to Darwinian gradualism. Even these researchers have been forced to acknowledge that much biological evolution proceeds not in minute steps but by large jumps or saltations. Such abrupt speciation is tough enough to explain, but even more daunting are those species untouched by change over millions, even hundreds of millions of years. Indeed, the major characteristic of the fossil record and, therefore, earth life as a whole, has been stasis rather than speciation, despite all manner of asteroid impacts and climatic traumas. Nevertheless, many biologists think that species are somehow frozen in time by environmental forces that keep them from straying from their little niches. This being so, paleontologist D. Jablonski, University of Chicago, asks: If stability is the rule, how do you get large-scale shifts in morphology? How do you get from funny little Mesozoic mammals to horses and whales? From Archaeopteryx to hummingbirds? (Kerr, Richard A.; "Did Darwin Get It All Right?" Science, 267:1421, 1995) Comments. (1 ) The reality of sudden saltations in the fossil record or "punctuated equilibrium" implies that those unfound transitional fossils beloved by the gradualists are truly missing. (2 ) The higher the taxonomic level, the more silent the fossil record. There are few clues as to how the major divisions of life (the phylla) originated. From Science Frontiers #99, MAY-JUN 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A PICTURE SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS Darwinism in archeology! Hidden messages in genesis? Astronomy Wrong-way stars in spiral galaxies It Biology Arboreal internets Mixed-up people Oxygen deprivation at high altitudes and the enhancement of reproduction ecstas in advanced mammalian species The nether universe of life Geology Eight little craters all in a row The karoo: the greatest vertebrate graveard Geophysics Possible nocturnal tornado lit up b electrical discharges Another milk sea Psychology English muddles the brain Learning under anaesthesia If it doesn't work, kick it! Physics Real perpetual motion? Is matter infinitel divisible? Unclassified American anomalophobia ...
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... , it would clearly indicate Precolumbian contact with the New World. However, careful study of a copy of the Tapestry has failed to find this typically New World bird anywhere. (Sørensen, Erik Ringdal; personal communication, November 2, 1995) That crystal skull in the British Museum. Considered a first-class anomaly, this compelling artifact is carved out of hard crystalline quartz. It is said to exert an eerie effect on its viewers. Some say it was carved by the Atlanteans, but the Aztecs are generally credited with this amazing job of manufacture. The big puzzle is: How could the Aztecs have done it without modern lapidary tools -- the skull is so smooth and perfect? Well, maybe the Aztecs didn't carve it! A. Rankin, of Kingston University, has examined the tiny trails made by fluid inclusions in the quartz matrix. He finds that they are characteristic of Brazilian quartz. In fact, there seem to be no suitable sources of massive quartz crystals anywhere in Mexico; and the Aztecs do not appear to have made any incursions into Brazil. Even worse, British Museum experts have now found small cuts made by steel tools on the insides of the teeth. The skull, they suggest, is actually modern and carved with a jeweler's wheel. (Hawkes, Nigel; "Famous Aztec Skull Is Thought to Be a Fake," London Times, September 30, 1995. Cr. A.C .A . Silk) From Science Frontiers #103, JAN-FEB 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. ...
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... mountain in order to get a panorama of the surrounding country. We could see some areas that had been swept down by some great force, trees twisted off some 25 feet above the ground. We tried to enter one of these areas but the bush was in such a tangle that we had to give it up." (Ref. 3) Photographs accompanying the articles confirm some of the devastation. 1995. Northeastern Brazil. "Scientists in Brazil's northeastern state of Piaui are baffled by a crater that was punched into the tropical rain forest shortly after witnesses reported seeing a bright light streak across the sky. Researchers are uncertain whether the crater, 16 feet wide and 32 feet deep, was left by a meteorite or a piece of a comet. Physicist Paulo Frota of the University of Piaui believes it was caused by a block of ice from a comet because the surrounding vegetation is not burned and the crater's rim is not raised." (Ref. 4) References Ref. 1. Bailey, Mark E., et al; "The 1930 August 13 'Brazilian Tunguska' Event," Observatory, 115:250, 1995. Ref. 2. Chown, Marcus; "Did Falling Comet Cause Rumble in the Jungle?" New Scientist, p. 12, November 11, 1995. Ref. 3. Kroff, Serge A., et al; "Tornado or Meteor Crash?" The Sky, 3:8 , September 1939. Ref. 4. Anonymous; "Crater Mystery," Anchorage Daily News, October 1 ...
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... 4 degrees, and the central angle of the V was about 150 degrees. It was first visible about 20 degrees above the western horizon and disappeared at about that altitude in the east. The disappearance was gradual, probably as a result of atmospheric extinction. Since the group was in view for approximately two minutes, the mean angular velocity must have been a bit more than one degree per second. All these estimates are approximate of course. No noise was heard during the observation." Noel added that the lights maintained a rigid V-formation. He ruled out birds as the source of the phenomenon. (Noel, F.; "Unidentified Atmospheric Phenomena Observed by an Astronomer," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 7:439, 1993. Journal address: ERL 306, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4055.) From Science Frontiers #92, MAR-APR 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... We hear a lot about the endless steppes of Asia and the immensity of the Sahara, but who writes about the earth's dominant geomorphological feature? The abyssal hills are left out of the textbooks because so little is known about them. They are hidden under 3 kilometers of water. Individual abyssal hills rise 100-2 ,000 meters from the ocean floor; they are about 7-15 kilometers across; their lengths are not well known. We know them mainly from fathometer readings. If we could see them visually, they would probably look like the Appalachians from an airplane; that is, wash-board-like. Although heavily draped with pelagic sediments, the abyssal hills are believed to have been shaped by faulting and volcanic activity. K. MacDonald and coworkers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, now believe that both processes are involved: "On the basis of data obtained last January on a series of dives along the East Pacific Rise (EPR), a ridge that runs off the coast of Central and South America, researchers theorize that the linear ridges of abyssal hills, which decorate the ocean floor somewhat like ribs on a washboard, are formed by an interplay between both volcanic eruptions and faulting action." (Anonymous; "Geologists Offer New Theory on Origin of Abyssal Hills," Eos, 75:234, 1994. Background source: Fairbridge, Rhodes W., ed.,; The Encyclopedia of Oceanography , New York, 1966.) Comment. But why would 60-70% of the earth's surface be ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 99: May-Jun 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Biological precursors of the 1995 kobe earthquake The Japanese are meticulous observers of animals. Many keep birds, insects, fish, etc. as pets. When scientists at the Osaka City University asked for reports of unusual animal behavior around the time of the great January 17 quake, over 1,200 people in the Kobe-Osaka area came forth with anecdotes. Some typical pre-quake observations were: Doves flying into walls. Caged birds (Chinese hawk-cuckoos) flying against the sides of their cages. Fish rising to the surface in great numbers. At the port of Shioya, "millions" of gizzard shad turned the surface of the water into silver. Captive stag beetles and turtles emerging from hibernation. And strangest of all, silkworms and fish in ponds orienting themselves in the same directions. (Minami, Shigehiko; "Creatures Went a Bit Batty, Maybe Knew Quake Was Coming," Asahi Evening News, February 25, 1995. Cr. N. Masuya) Cross reference. Many luminous phenomena were also seen. For descriptions of so-called "earthquake lights" refer to GLD8 in our catalog Lightning, Auroras, etc. It is listed here . From Science Frontiers #99, MAY-JUN 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... you can find it experimentally. One amusing though tedious method would require throwing a short, straight twig onto parallel lines drawn in the beach sand. You will be able to compute pi from: pi = 2lN/dH, where l = the length of the twig, which must be less than d, separation of the parallel lines. N = the number of throws. H = the number of times the twig crosses one of the lines. One famous performance of this experiment was by M. Lazzarini in 1901. He reported that in 3408 throws he got 1808 intersections, leading to: pi = 3.1415929 Actually, the final digit should be a 6. Thus, Lazzarini measured pi to a few parts in 10 million. Recently, L. Badger, Weber State University, concluded that Lazzarini probably never actually performed his experiment. His results were just too good -- too fortuitous! If the number of hits had been 1807 or 1809, pi would have been wrong by 1 part in 2,000. As it turns out, a Chinese mathematician of the 5th Century pointed out that 355/113 = 3.1415929. It is very suspicious that Lazzarini's 3408 = 355 x 16, and 1808 = 113 x 16. Badger thinks that Lazzarini's experiment was only a "thought" experiment based on the ratio 355/113. (Maddox, John; "False Calculation of Pi by Experiment," Nature, 370:323, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Microbes Threaten Radiocarbon Dating In the 1980s, skeptics had a lot of fun debunking the Shroud of Turin, the supposed burial cloth wrapped around Christ. Their glee was unbounded when radiocarbon dating "proved" that the shroud could not be older than 700 years. The skeptics may have been too quick to celebrate, because the samples that were sent to the radiocarbon lab may not have been wholly cloth. The reality of our biosphere is that virtually everything is permeated with microbes and their products. S.J . Mattingly and L.A . Garza-Valdes, of the University of Texas at San Antonio, have been studying "biogenic varnishes" for years. These plastic-like coatings are produced by bacteria and fungi. Sure enough, microscopic examination of a few linen fibers from the Shroud of Turin show that they, too, are coated with such varnishes. These biogenic varnishes may introduce carbon that has been recently fixed from the atmosphere and thus make the sample's age appear younger than it really is. (Travis, John; "Microbes Muddle Shroud of Turin's Age," Science News, 147:346, 1995.) Comment. More than the Shroud is at stake here. Bacteria contaminate just about everything, including wood and bone from archeological sites. Bacteria may, therefore, "rejuvenate" samples sent in for radiocarbon dating. The importance of this phenomenon is still unclear. Cross reference ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 96: Nov-Dec 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Curious String Of Coincidences The journal Nature is not the place where one usually finds mention of bizarre coincidences. Nature's nature is supposed to be exclusively rational -- completely dedicated to a cause-and-effect universe. Yet, there it was: A letter from A. Scott calling attention to the fact that three fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacted Jupiter almost precisely 25 years after three crucial events in the Apollo-11 moon landing mission. Fact #1 . Comet fragment 1 impacted the same day as the Apollo-11 launch, but 25 years later. Fact #2 . The largest comet fragment hit Jupiter 25 years to the minute after the actual landing. Fact #3 . The final comet fragment hit almost precisely 25 years after lift-off from the lunar surface. "So the start, climax and end of the series of impacts coincided exactly with the start, climax and end (in the sense of departure from the Moon) of the Apollo-11 mission to the Moon." (Scott, Andrew; "Strange But True," Nature, 371:97, 1994.) Comment. Truly, nature works in mysterious ways. Are these incredible coincidences a transcendental beckoning, like the monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey ? Wait a minute, it was no other than Arthur C. Clarke, who first pointed out Fact #2 above. And what ...
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... knew that Puerto Rican white-lipped frogs use vibrations to communicate amongst themselves. The Malaysian tree frog can now be added to the list of substrate vibrators. The female will sit on a reed or small sapling and tap out a "come-hither" message with her toes. The message goes forth in minute seismic waves. The males detect these vibrations and proceed, sometimes in great numbers, to the source of the vibrations, and the species is thereby perpetuated. (Mestel, Rosie; "Courting Tree Frogs Make the Earth Move," New Scientist, p. 8, December 10, 1994.) Leaf-cutting ants. Leaf-cutting ants neatly excise penny-size pieces of leaves and tote them back to their fungus gardens. J. Tautz and colleagues, University of Wurtzburg, noted that the ants chirped as they sliced at the leaves with their jaws. With a little instrumentation, they discovered that during each chirp both ant and leaf vibrated at about 1,000 hertz. The vibration apparently rigidizes soft leaf tissues and makes them easier to cut. The same principle is used by biologists when they slice soft material for microscope examination. The leaf-cutting ants apparently invented the Vibratome millions of years ago. (Tautz, Jurgen, et al; "Use of a Sound-Based Vibratome by Leaf-Cutting Ants," Science, 267:84, 1995.) Comment. It is rather amazing that ants, viewed by most animal behaviorists as mere automatons, could parlay small random mutations into such a technically sophisticated technique. From Science ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Molecular clock places humans in new world 22,000-29,000 bp This is welcome news for anomalists who have been searching for a way to demolish the 12,000-BP (years Before Present) barrier erected across the Bering Land Bridge by the archeological establishment. But don't uncork the champagne yet, because molecular clocks are not like Big Ben. Here's what has happened: A. Torroni and some colleagues at Emory University have analyzed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of members of seven linguistically related tribes in Central America called the "Chibcha speakers." Assuming that the homogeneous group separated from the other Amerind tribes 8,000-10,000 years ago, the Emory group found that their mtDNA had mutated at the rate of 2.3 -2 .9 % per million years. (Note: this works out to 0.0022-0 .0029% per thousand years -- a very small amount to measure accurately!) Next Torroni et al measured the mtDNA of 18 other tribes throughout the Americas and, using the mutation rate just mentioned, computed how long ago these peoples had diverged from a common ancestor. The result: 22,000-29,000 years ago. The Emory study was published in the February 1, 1994, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . All this is very well, but suppose that the tribes had ...
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... resonance at a frequency between 95 and 120 Hz (wavelength about 3m). Despite major differences in chamber shapes and sizes, the resonant modal patterns all featured strong antinodes at the outer walls, with appropriately configured nodes and antinodes interspersed toward the central source. In some cases, internal and exterior rock drawings resembled these acoustical patterns. Since the resonant frequencies are well within the adult male voice range, one may speculate that some forms of human chanting, enhanced by the cavity resonance, were invoked for ritual purpose." In a few cases, it appeared that some of the standing stones had beeen intentionally positioned to enhance the chamber's acoustical properties. (Jahn, Robert G., et al; "Acoustical Resonances of Assorted Ancient Structures," Technical Report PEAR 95002 , Princeton University, March 1995. Devereux, Paul, et al; "Acoustical Properties of Ancient Ceremonial Sites," Journal of Scientific Exploration, 9:438, 1995.) Comment. Apparently, humans living over 5,000 years ago were rather sophisticated in their ability to manipulate sound to impress audiences. This talent has not been lost; for example, rock music! *We will cross-reference SF items with both issue number (# 00) and page number (/ 00) in the book Science Frontiers, which collects the first 86 issues of SF. For orders of the latter, see: here . From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Accelerating Universe Many laymen are uncomfortable with the idea that the entire universe originated at an infinitesimal point and is now expanding away from this cosmic navel. Many astronomers are equally disturbed by the recent discovery that all these fleeing stars and galaxies are not being reined in by the force of gravity. In fact, observations of distant supernovas indicate that this exodus of matter is actually speeding up. Some universal repulsive force, it seems, is operating on very large scales of distance. From an unknown somewhere energy is being added to all constituents of the cosmos. The universe is more than a cloud of debris flying away from the Big Bang's Ground Zero. Somewhere, perhaps beyond the ken of our primitive instruments, is a fount of energy of which we know nothing. All this is a serious challenge to our understanding of space, time, and matter. Cosmologists are now appealing to quantum mechanical "shimmers," to "X -matter," and to a property called "quintessence." (Glanz, James; "Exploding Stars Point to a Universal Repulsive Force," Science, 279:651, 1998. Also: Glanz, James; "Astronomers See a Cosmic Antigravity Force at Work," Science, 279:1298, 1998.) Comment. When theorists toss around terms like "X -matter" and "quintessence," you can be sure that the basic laws of the universe ...
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... 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 The End Of The Old-Model Universe That cosmology is in flux is apparent in the following sentence found in Nature: " The standard ideas of the 1980s about the shape and history of the Universe have now been abandoned -- and cosmologists are now taking seriously the possibility that the Universe is pervaded by some sort of vacuum energy, whose origin is not at all understood." Does this mean that the Big Bang, the mainstay of the astronomy we were taught in school, is now being cast aside? After all, the Big Bang does model fairly well three important observations: The apparent expansion of the universe; The 3 K microwave background; and The abundances of the light nuclei. But try as they may, cosmologists have not been able to coax the Big Bang model to explain the large-scale lumpiness and structure of the galaxies and galaxy clusters. One problem with the Big Bang is that it has too many free parameters -- too much theoretical slack. Many cosmologists are now looking for a better model. This better model, to use the words of P. Coles, should be more "exciting" and "stranger," something "perhaps not even based on General Relativity." (Coles, Peter; "The End of the Old Model Universe," Nature, 393:741, 1998.) Questions. Isn't cosmology already already "strange" enough? Since when ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Old Galaxy In A Young Part Of The Universe As the Hubble Space Telscope has probed ever farther toward the supposed edge of the universe, it has discerned. as expected, many youthful-looking galaxies. Since such deep-viewing telescopes are thought to be looking far back into time as well as space, youthful galaxies are not only expected but demanded by the Big-Bang/expanding universe theory. Unfortunately for theory, these telescopes have also identified a handful of apparently very old galaxies cavorting amidst the youthful ones! "The problem, if conventional cosmological models are correct, is that galaxies that old and that far away simply should not be there. The observation tightens the thumbscrews on the Einstein-de Sitter cosmological model, and offers evidence that at least some galaxies formed at very early epochs, within a billion years after the Big Bang." (Kennicutt, Robert C., Jr.; "An Old Galaxy in a Young Universe," Nature, 381:555, 1996) Comment. A similar age discrepancy has been claimed for some galaxies that seem to harbor stars older than the universe itself! (SF#97) Reference. The subject of galaxy distribution is covered in Chapter AWO in the Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. For a description of the book, visit here . From Science Frontiers #107, SEP-OCT 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Crystalline Universe Cosmologists think in the large. Billions of stars are nothing to them. The megaparsec (3 ,528,000 light years) is but a hop, skip, and jump. A pressing question for these cosmologists searching for the really big picture is whether there is any order in the distribution of galaxies, galactic clusters, and superclusters. The scale of organization of the universe is of critical importance because it is a measure of state of the cosmos when hydrogen atoms first condensed from the seething sea of ions following the Big Bang. The prevailing expectation has been that galactic clusters and superclusters should be distributed at random; that is, no order prevails at that scale. Recent redshift measurements, however, hint more and more forcefully that the huge superclusters of galaxies are almost as neatly arranged as the atoms in a crystal. A recent paper in Nature by J. Einasto et al puts a number on the spacing of the superclusters: "Here, using a new compilation of available data on galaxy clusters, we present evidence for a quasi-regular three-dimensional network of rich superclusters and voids, with the regions of high density separated by "120 Mpc [megaparsecs]. If this reflects the distribution of all matter (luminous and dark), then there must exist some hitherto unknown process that produces regular structure on large scales." (Einasto, J., et al; "A 120 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Too Much Order In The Early Cosmos Astronomers are becoming accustomed to the idea that many nearby galaxies are concentrated in spherical shells separated from one another by about 400 million light years. This onion-skin geometry is inferred from the fact that galactic red shifts cluster around specific values; that is, they are quantized. Since red shifts are held to be proportional to distance in the expanding universe paradigm: Voila! We have shells! This evidence of nearby cosmic order does not seriously disturb cosmologists, because in the nearby galaxies we are seeing that portion of the universe that is billions of years old. In other words, nearby there has been enough time for some degree of order to have evolved out of the primordial chaos of the Big Bang. Now though, "deep" surveys of galaxies, looking much farther back in time, still show clustered red shifts -- not the expected increasing chaos required by theory. Although the surveys are incomplete, astronomers are discomfited by this early lumpiness. Their theories say that there was not enough time for galaxies to organize themselves into sheets, shells, and skeins. If further "deep" probings of the cosmos confirm this redshift clustering, we may need a new evolutionary scenario. Good bye Big Bang and expanding universe! (Vogel, Gretchen; "Goodness, Gracious, Great Walls Afar," Science, 274:343, 1996. Vergano, D.; "New ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 118: Jul-Aug 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Day The Laws Of Physics Changed Well, maybe there weren't such things as "days" as we now know them back when the universe was very young. In fact, "time" then might have been different from "time" now. This sounds like so much physics-speak; but, seriously, during the birth pangs of the universe, there seems to have been what cosmologists call a "phase change," a mysterious moment when the laws of physics suddenly became more complex. You can reasonably ask: "How can supposedly immutable physical laws change?" The answer seems to be that anything can happen when something is being made from nothing! This apparent plasticity in the laws governing the cosmos is suggested by observations of how galaxies in the early universe were distributed. The standard theory for the origin of the universe predicts that clumps of galaxies of all sizes were created early on. This is not what a survey by S. Sarkar et al, at the University of Oxford, found. A split second after the Big Bang, galaxies were organized in structures about 300-million light years across. The standard model of particle physics cannot account for this preferred size. The theorists' recourse is a phase change, a point in time when the warp and woof of the universe changed; that is, change the rules until they fit. (Chown, Marcus; "In the ...
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... life, and they are also slightly left-handed. For some unfathomed reason, chemical and biological evolution both tilt to the left! (Bada, Jeffrey L.; "Extraterrestrial Handedness?" Science, 275:942, 1997. Cronin, John R., and Pizzarello, Sandra; "Enantiomeric Excesses in Meteoritic Amino Acids," Science, 275:951, 1997. Also: Peterson, I.; "Left-Handed Excess in Meteorite Molecules," Science News, 151:118, 1997. Note that left-handed amino acids in the Murchison meteorite were also reported in the early 1980s: Kerr, Richard A.; "Odd Amino Acids in a Meteorite," Science, 216:972, 1982.) Comments. This discovery of a tilted universe means that we cannot confirm Martian life with spacecraft instruments that test for an excess of left-handed amino acids. Human philosophers, from the ancient Greeks to the present, like to think the universe is in balance, that equality reigns, yin and yang, and similar presumptions. But, let's face it: our particular universe is lopsided. Of course, our universe may be balanced by another one far away, where everything, including its intelligent life forms, are made from right-handed amino acids -- chemically speaking, a mirror image of our universe. Balance could thus be preserved at that scale. From Science Frontiers #111, MAY-JUN 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 115: Jan-Feb 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Why did life take a left turn?Life-as-we-know-it is left-handed; that is, our amino acid molecules are levorotatory rather than the mirror-image dextrorotatory versions. Because humans "expect" symmetry in nature, it is taken for granted that everything else in the universe is split equally between leftand right-handed molecules. Earth life is just a fluke -- or is it? On September 28, 1969, organic-rich stones fell in Victoria, Australia. This was the Murchison meteorite, and it may carry a message. Over a decade ago, M.H . Engel and B. Nagy reported that the organic molecules in the Murchison meteorite were not split 50:50 between left- and right-handed versions. So contrary to expectations was this finding that most scientists assumed that the analysis was contaminated by terrestrial organic molecules. Now, M.H . Engel and S.A . Macko have refined the analytical techniques and apparently avoided any taint of contamination. Their conclusion: the Murchison amino acids still lean to the left. From all this arise several intriguing possibilities: Life on earth started split evenly between left- and right-handed amino acids, but was nudged to the left by the influx of organic-laden meteorites like the Murchison. Terrestrial life actually originated elsewhere in the universe where much matter is left-handed, including life, if ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Disorder Here Produces Order There Physicists use the word "entropy" to describe the well-observed tendency of the universe to run down; that is, become more disorderly. In some situations, though, the increase in disorder (entropy) in one part of the universe can create order elsewhere. For example, if you add tiny plastic spheres of two sizes to salty water, you will not get a uniform mixture. Instead the larger spheres will pack together into tightly ordered crystaline shapes (representing more order) while the smaller spheres become more disordered. It is like watching cream unstir itself from coffee. It smacks of magic, but it is all within the laws of thermodynamics. This strange "force" exerted by entropy may explain some puzzling biological phenomena, such as the expulsion of nuclei from mammalian red blood cells before they enter the bloodstream as sacks of hemoglobin. The idea being that the increasing entropy of the proliferating hemoglobin molecules (analogous to the smaller spheres) is maximized when the nuclei (large spheres) are squeezed out of the cells altogether. (Kestenbaum, David; "Gentle Force of Entropy Bridges Disciplines," Science, 279:1849, 1998.) Comments. The red-blood-cell example presented in the article is on shaky ground, because while mammalian red blood cells do lack nuclei those of birds and reptiles retain theirs. (See BMC6 in Mammals II .) In ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ten Myths Of Science We have at hand a lengthy paper bearing the above title. It is copyrighted with ominous warnings about quotations. So, we will paraphrase a lot. The significance of the article is so great that we dare to quote the first sentence: "This article addresses and attempts to refute several of the most widespread and enduring misconceptions held by students regarding the enterprise of science." We now paraphrase the ten myths of science, as recognized by W. McComas of the School of Education, University of Southern California. McComas analyzes each "myth" in depth, explaining why it is not a "truth." Myth 1. Hypotheses turn into theories which eventually become enshrined as laws. Myth 2. Hypotheses are really only educated guesses. Myth 3. There exists a scientific method that is general and universal. Myth 4. Certainty results when facts are accumulated and analyzed. Myth 5. The scientific method leads to absolute truth. Myth 6. Science is less creative than it is procedural. Myth 7. All questions posed by the universe can be answered via the scientific method. Myth 8. High objectivity is the hallmark of science. Myth 9. Scientific knowledge is based mainly on experiment. Myth 10. Scientists always review and check the work of their colleagues. (McComas, William; "Ten Myths of Science: Reexamining What We Think We Know...," School Science ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "PLANETARY VISIONS" DURING NDEs (Top) Global nuclear arsenal in thousands of warheads. (Bottom) number of peace-keeping missions. It is difficult to move from the universe of hard objective facts into the shadowy world of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). Nevertheless, NDEs have elements of consistency across a wide spectrum of percipients. Mainstream scientists always explain NDEs in reductionist terms: they are merely the consequence of physiological changes taking place in the dying person's brain. Parapsychologists are more open-minded. They wonder if being near death breaks down a barrier separating the everyday, objective world from a spiritual one. If their intuition is correct, there is the thought that, by breaching this barrier during NDEs, the percipients might transcend our usual confines of time and space. At these moments, "planetary visions" beyond the moment might occur; that is, prophecy! Before chucking this issue of SF, "hard" scientists should recognize that the foregoing surmise can be tested, not as rigorously as measuring the electron's charge, but still a test of sorts. K. Ring has collected testimonies of these so-called "planetary visions" from individuals who had been clinically dead for more than 10 minutes, but who were subsequently revived (obviously!). Typical of Ring's collected testimonies was this from a 17-year-old NDE percipient: "I was informed ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is life a transitory phenomenon?We don't mean just life on earth, where it has hung on for a couple billion years, but life anywhere in the universe. Many cosmologists advance the socalled Anthropic Principle, which states that the physical constants of nature are honed to just the right values to make life possible. If the charge on the electron were a little less or the properties of carbon a bit different, life could not exist. The Anthropic Principle seems to imply that the universe was designed for earth life. But "design" is a bad word these days. It is redolent of purpose and a supernatural being. Suppose, though, that the Anthropic Principle is correct but only in our part of the cosmos and only for a little while. If the constants of nature are not really constant, life could be just a transitory phenomenon, flaring up here and there wherever conditions are ripe and the Anthropic Principle reigns. The cosmos as-a -whole might be lurching toward other goals or, perhaps, toward nowhere in particular. Enough philosophy! A team of Australian astronomers, led by J.K . Webb, has been trying to determine if the famous fine-structure constant of physics has really remained constant throughout the 12-billion years or so of the universe's history. The fine-structure constant is dimensionless and almost exactly equal to 1/137. (Why 137 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "A FANTASTIC RESULT!"That's what Princeton astronomer N. Bahcall said of the discovery that the very early universe was already partitioned by colossal walls of galaxies hundreds of millions of light years long. That walls of galaxies exist is not a new idea, but finding that they existed shortly after the Big Bang is highly disconcerting to most astronomers. How did these walls form so early? Why hasn't the force of gravity modified the basic structure of the cosmos over the billions of years that followed the Big Bang? The astronomical quandry is this: If the very early universe looks pretty much the same as today's universe, the implication is that mass, the source of gravitational sculpting, is scarce. But this is at odds with the cosmic expansion rate which implies a much higher density of matter. (Appenzeller, Tim; "Ancient Galaxy Walls Go up; Will Theories Tumble Down?" Science, 276:36, 1997.) Comment. The existence of galaxy walls, like so many astronomical constructs, depends upon the assumption that the red shifts of galaxies are proportional to their recessional velocities and, additionally, their distances and ages. So much rides on this one assumption. The same situation prevails in biology, where everything is founded on the assumption that random mutations and natural selection can together generate any degree of complexity, sophistication, and innovation seen in nature. The history of ...
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... 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 Life On Different Scales In SF#110, we introduced the possibility of nannobacteria: life forms that are smaller than 0.4 micron, perhaps even as small as 0.01 micron. Nannobacteria are not completely accepted as bona fide organisms. However, electron microscopes are imaging "somethings" that are very tiny and ubiquitous. We now shift speculation to life forms much larger than blue whales or even that 2,000-meter-wide box huckleberry mentioned in SF#82/170. In fact, we will transcend even Gaia; that is, earth-asanorganism (SF#56/339); and ask whether entire universes might be alive in the sense that they are governed by natural selection, can transmit hereditary information, and adapt themselves to new situations. The evidence for such large-scale living systems or super-superorganisms is widely pooh-poohed by biologists because it does not meet their definition of life; i.e ., metabolism, reproduction, etc. But perhaps they are missing something by thinking too small. In this vein, M.G . Bjomerud has opined: ". .. there is no reason to expect that super-organisms would meet criteria based on observations of individual organisms. Isn't it time to consider the possibility that the boundary between life and non-life may be diffuse, non-stationary over time, and dependent on scale?" ( ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 114: Nov-Dec 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A RECIPE FOR WEIGHTLESSNESS?Take fifty rings of a superconducting ceramic, 27.5 centimeters in diameter, and stack them one above the other. Chill rings to -334 F. Spin rings at 3,000 rpm. You now have an antigravity machine; any object positioned above or below the rings will be weightless! This recipe is based on a claim by Finnish scientist E.E . Podkletnov at the Tampere University of Technology. Podkletnov discovered this amazing effect when researching superconducting materials, However, he used only a single ring, which resulted in a 2% weight reduction. Since antigravity effects are probably additive, it seems reasonable that fifty rings will create a 100% weight reduction. Obviously, more than fifty rings will be required to launch spacecraft from earth! Sure, it's a wild claim, but NASA is checking it out at the University of Alabama in a project headed by N. Li. (Holden, Constance; "NASA's Fling with Antigravity," Science, 274:183, 1996. Also: Port, Otis; "Take That, Isaac Newton," Business Week , p. 42, September 30, 1996. Cr. E. Murphy.) Comment. Facetiousness aside, it is pertinent to add here that physicist P.M .S . Blackett once seriously hypothesized that a magnetic field is generated by a rotating mass, such as the sun. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 114: Nov-Dec 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Quantum mechanics is definitely spooky "I cannot seriously believe in [the quantum theory] because it cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance." (Ref. 1) So Einstein wrote Max Born in March 1947. Well, even Einstein could have been wrong! "It's getting even spookier out there. Particles can be strangely connected over at least ten kilometres, according to results from physicists in Geneva. Using pairs of "entangled" photons, Nicolas Gisin and his colleagues from the University of Geneva have shown that the measurement of one particle will instantaneously determine the state of the other." (Ref. 2) This particular spooky aspect of quantum mechanics was demonstrated 15 years ago over a distance of just a few meters. Many physicists had expected (probably "hoped") that this "mysterious link" between separated particles would weaken with distance. But this quantum-mechanics effect does not conform to "common-sense" expectations! Now it seems that one particle of an "entangled pair" knows instantaneously what its mate is doing, possibly even if it is located on the other side of the universe. More quantum-mechanics spookiness is seen in "tunneling" phenomena, such as that mentioned in AR#3 , where a Mozart symphony zipped through a barrier at 4.7 times the speed of ...
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