423 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Solar eclipse affects a pendulum -- again!The period of a Foucault pendulum located at Jassy University, Romania, was carefully monitored during the solar eclipse of February 15, 1961. The pendulum's length was 25.008 meters; its spherical bob weighed 5.5 kilograms. The eclipse commenced at 8h 49m 3s and terminated at 11h 16m 50s. Observations are recorded in the table below left: Time Period (sec) 8:49 10.028 0.004 9:13 10.028 0.004 9:43 10.024 0.004 10:00 10.019 0.004 10:12 10.020 0.004 10:24 10.024 0.004 10:58 10.028 0.004 Effects of a solar eclipse upon a paraconical pendulum. (After M.F .C . Allais). If the above effect of the eclipse on the pendulum period is not strange enough, consider what happened at 10:08, in the chart, above right. "At that moment a surprising fact occurred, the pendulum produced a perturbation by describing an ellipse whose major axis deviated in relation to the initial plane by approximately 15 . The eccentricity of the ellipse was 0.18. At the end of the eclipse the pendulum continued to maintain the elliptical oscillation, but the major axis approached increasingly to its initial plane." (Jeverdan, G ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Gaia on mars?H.L . Helfer, University of Rochester, noting the absence of extensive cratering on the northern plains of Mars, suggests that some 2-3 .5 billion years ago these plains were covered with oceans. These ancient seas, perhaps as much as 700 meters deep, protected the plains from direct impacts. Further, crater density counts for Chryse and the Martian highlands imply that Mars possessed a fairly dense atmosphere until about 1.5 billion years ago. In his Abstract Helfer speculates as follows: "With both early Earth and early Mars having similar atmospheric compositions and not too dissimilar atmospheric structures, it is reasonable to suppose that the warm Martian oceans, like the ancient oceans of Earth, would develop anerobic and aerobic photosynthesizing prokaryotes and structures like stromatolites. Their development might have changed the Martian atmosphere. Their fossils might be found along the fringes of the old oceans, the northern lowland plains." (Helfer, H.L .; "Of Martian Atmospheres, Oceans, and Fossils," Icarus, 87:228, 1990.) Comment. The Gaia influence is seen in the molding of the Martian atmosphere into something more conducive to the development of life. One can also speculate that, if life did develop on Mars, it could have seeded the earth via bits of debris blasted off by meteorite impacts. Several meteorites picked up in Antarctica are thought to have come from Mars ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Strange Blue Pool Found At The Bottom Of Crater Lake "A mysterious, small aqua-blue pool of dense fluid has been discovered at the bottom of Crater Lake. "' It is bizarre, it is remarkable,' said Jack Dymond, who with Robert Collier heads the three-year Crater Lake exploration project. 'I have never seen anything like it,' he said. "The Oregon State University oceanographer said the pool, about 6 feet in depth, is approximately 3 feet wide by 8 feet long. It is near the lush white and orange bacteria mats found last summer." The murky pool of fluid was discovered during a dive in a research submarine. The temperature of the pool was about 4.5 C (40.1 F) which made it 1 C warmer than the surrounding lake water. (Anonymous; "Strange Blue Pool Found in Crater Lake," Sunday Oregonian , August 13, 1989. Cr. R. Byrd) Comment. Some lakes in northern climes still retain ancient seawater in their bottoms. Also, we have the well-publicized African lakes that suddenly overturn, producing clouds of poisonous gases. See our catalog: Anomalies in Geology. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #66, NOV-DEC 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Samurai And The Ainu Findings by American anthropologist C. Loring Brace, University of Michigan, will surely be controversial in race conscious Japan. The eye of the predicted storm will be the Ainu, a "racially different" group of some 18,000 people now living on the northern island of Hokkaido. Pure-blooded Ainu are easy to spot: they have lighter skin, more body hair, and higher-bridged noses than most Japanese. Most Japanese tend to look down on the Ainu. Brace has studied the skeletons of about 1,100 Japanese, Ainu, and other Asian ethnic groups and has concluded that the revered samurai of Japan are actually descendants of the Ainu, not of the Yayoi from whom most modern Japanese are descended. In fact, Brace threw more fuel on the fire with: "Dr. Brace said this interpretation also explains why the facial features of the Japanese ruling class are so often unlike those of typical modern Japanese. The Ainu-related samurai achieved such power and prestige in medieval Japan that they intermarried with royality and nobility, passing on Jomon-Ainu blood in the upper classes, while other Japanese were primarily descended from the Yoyoi." The reactions of Japanese scientists have been muted so. One Japanese anthropologist did say to Brace," I hope you are wrong." The Ainu and their origin have always been rather mysterious, with some people claiming that the Ainu are ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A NEW QUASAR DISTANCE RECORD: A NEW EMBARRASSMENT A quasar has been detected with a redshift of 4.73. If 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 78: Nov-Dec 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fossil Identity Still Up In The Air In 1986, we reported the discovery of bird-like fossils in Texas by S. Chatterjee, a paleontologist at Texas Technical University. Chatterjee was so certain that the fossils (two specimens exist) were primitive birds that he named the species Protoavis texensis (first bird from Texas). During the past five years, the scientific community has chafed while Chatterjee studied his finds and wrote them up. It seems that many paleontologists do not think that Proto-avis is really a bird at all, and Chatter jee has been slow in releasing details. But now his first paper has appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society . Result: Many doubts still remain about the status of Protoavis. A. Feduccia: "Calling this the original bird is irresponsible." (1 ) J.H . Ostrom: "Sad to say, for all its length, little support for the claim is to be found in this paper." (2 ) J. Gauthier: While some of the bones appear bird-like, they also look dinosaurian and could represent a new type of theropod dinosaur. (3 ) For his part, Chjatterjee asserts that Protoavis' skull has 23 features that are fundamentally bird-like, as are the forelimbs, the shoulders, and the hip girdle. "His reconstruction also shows a flexible neck, large brain, binocular vision, and, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Successful Predictions Mean Little In Science Many maverick scientists make the pages of Science Frontiers because they are the ones who deviate from the mainstream. They pursue those Anomalies that the Sourcebook Project filters from the great river of scientific literature. But enough fluvial allusions! The maverick here is, again, H. Alfven. We first met Alfven in SF#59,where we commented on his paper "Memoirs of a Dissident Scientist." Alfven is still a dissident, a scientist who has the temerity to claim that cosmic rays have a local rather than galactic origin. Even more heretical is his assertion that electromagnetic forces have shaped the universe rather than the Big Bang! The subject of this entry is not so much Alfven's conflicts with accepted scientific views, but rather whether correct scientific predictions really influence the scientific 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 ...
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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 Now it's greece!The general consensus is that modern humans first emerged in Africa. This assertion was challenged in SF#66, where an origin in southeast Asia was championed. Now, it's Greece! "The immediate ancestors to the human family - the hominids - might have been living in Greece, rather than Afica, some 10 million years ago in the late Miocene, according to the French palaeontologist Luis de Bonis. "In September 1989, de Bonis and George Koufos of the University of Thessaloniki discovered the fossilized face of an ape-like creature, Ourano pithecus, at a site in the Valley of Rain, 40 kilometres northwest of Thessaloniki. Although the fossil has not yet reached the scientific press, de Bonis has publically described it as a possible precursor of the earliest known hominid species, Australopithecus afarensis , from Africa 3.5 million years ago." (Lewin, Roger; "Humans May Have Come from Greece, Not Africa," New Scientist, p. 35, January 27, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #68, MAR-APR 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hypermutation rather than directed mutation?The year 1988 saw a flurry of excitement over the purported discovery of "directed mutation" in the laboratory; that is, mutations of organisms that seemed goal-directed rather than random and independent of environmental pressures. The concept of directed mutation is counter to prevailing biological dogma, and, naturally, this research bore severe scrutiny. Objections and arguments against directed mutation arose, but the original research was never shown to be faulty. New experiments along this line, by B. Hall at the University of Rochester, have supported the original Harvard work and refuted some of the objections that had been leveled. Working with a special strain of Escherichia coli , Hall starved the bacteria of a certain amino acid, (tryptophan) that they usually got from the environment and could not synthesize. In the days that followed, many of the bacteria mutated so that they could synthesize their own tryptophan. Hall concluded: "Mutations that occur more when they're useful than when they're not: That I can document any day, every day, in the laboratory." Rather than assign any "conscious" goal-seeking attributes to the bacteria, Hall prefers to think that the environmental stress induced a state of "hypermutation." In this state all sorts of mu-tations occurred in abundance. Only those that synthesized tryptophan survived the starvation program; even potentially favorable mutations died quickly. ...
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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 Extinction Countdown Some plants may, as described below, have environment-sensitive genes that help them adjust to external pressures. Amphibians and birds do not seem to be so pliable. The worldwide precipitous decline of amphibian populations is alarming. Her-petologists are literally seeing species disappear before their eyes. Here is a typical anecdote: "In 1974, Michael Tyler of the University of Adelaide, Australia, described a newly discovered frog species that broods its young in its stomach. The frog was once so commo 'an agile collector could have picked up 100 in a single night,' Tyler says. By 1980 it had completely disappeared from its habitat (a 100-square-kilometer area in the Conondale Ranges, 100 miles north of Brisbane). It has not been seen since." Similar stories emanate from Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Norway, and elsewhere. Many environmental causes have been proposed, but it is significant that the frogs are also disappearing from nature preserves where environmental pressures are small. D. Wake, a biologist at Berkeley, has remarked: "[ Amphibians] were here when the dinosaurs were here, and [they] survived the age of mammals. If they're checking out now, I think it is significant." In this context, Wake believes that there is a single, global, still-unidentified cause operating. (Barinaga, Marcia; "Where Have All the ...
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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 Krypton-cluster magic numbers Krypton atoms cluster together in stable clumps of 13, 55, 147, 309, 561,... atoms. Ordinarily, krypton, being a noble gas, does not enter into any combinations with other atoms - even other krypton atoms. However, P. Lethbridge and T. Stace, at the University of Sussex, have coaxed krypton atoms to cluster together in large, crystal-like clumps with icosohedral symmetry; that is each clump possesses 20 regular faces. The coaxing occurs when gaseous krypton trickles into a vacuum chamber through a hole only 200 micrometers in diameter. The expansion of the gas cools it so that when krypton atmos collide, relative velocities are low, and the weak Van de Waals forces between the atoms are sufficient to hold the clumps together. So far, clumps of 147 and 309 atoms have been detected with a mass spectrograph. One theory of atomic "pack ing" predicts clumps should have "magic numbers" of 13, 55, 147, 309, 561, 923 .. .. So far, the "magic" has been working! (Baggott, Jim; "Krypton Atoms Cling Together in 'Shells,'" New Scientist, p. 31, March 3, 1990.) Comment. One would anticipate that the smaller clumps of 13 and 55 atoms would be easier to assemble. From Science Frontiers #69, MAY-JUN 1990 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fossil Ufos "Geologists have discovered strange disc-shaped features in slate deposits in California. The features, at Yreka, are between 2 and 7 centimetres across and 2 to 4 millimetres thick; some have centres stained with iron oxides. One geologist, Nancy Lindsley-Griffin of the University of Nebraska, has already dubbed the saucer-shaped features, 'unidentified fossil-like objects.' "Geologists discoverd the UFOs in bedding planes of the slate, formed from ocean bottom that was deposited between 400 and 600 million years ago. The objects are puzzling because they lack the symmetry that fossils of living organisms usually display. They are also too large to be the droppings of any creature alive at the time, and do not look like concretions, such as agates, formed by natural chemical processes. Lindsley-Griffin says they resemble very tiny bicycle wheels, with a central core and an outer rim, but with most of the spokes missing.'" One thought is that these features may be fossil jellyfish. (Anonymous; "Fossil 'UFOs' Mystify the Geologists," New Scientist, p. 43, July 1, 1989.) From Science Frontiers #65, SEP-OCT 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Pi in the mind!" Srinivasan Mahadevan, a graduate student from India at Kansas State University in Manhattan, is trying to become the fourth person to remember the first 100,000 digits to pi, the theoretically infinite computation that measures the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He has already memorized the first 35,000 digits of pi. "Only three cases of such ability to remember have been documented in 200 years. One of these people became insane when he became unable to forget anything and his reasoning processes drowned in a flood of facts." (Anonymous; "Student's Memory Wins Bets," San Mateo Times, June 2, 1989. Cr. J. Covey) From Science Frontiers #65, SEP-OCT 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 66: Nov-Dec 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Doubts About Two Ritually Recited Theories Do you think humans originated in Africa? We have heard for so long now that modern humans got their start in Africa. (This assertion is as hackneyed as: "Life began in a warm little pond"!) There is, of course, some evidence for the African claim. Studies of genetic material and the fossil record are suggestive, although the latter includes the Middle East as a possible birthplace. Other data, however, put the "founding group" of modern humans in Southeast Asia. The iconoclast here is C.G . Turner, II, an anthropologist at Arizona State University. He has analyzed secondary dental traits (number of roots, bumps, etc.) of 12,000 individuals from around the world - both ancient and modern. Turner believes that the "great web of humanity" originated in Southeast Asia. Since then, two large populations, each recognizable by their dental features, have evolved.: (1 ) northeast Asians and the ancient residents of the Americas; and (2 ) southeast Asians, Europeans, ancient Australians, and Africans. Also of note is the close resemblance between native Australians and Africans. (Bower, B.; "Asian Human Origin Theory Gets New Teeth," Science News, 136:100, 1989.) Did the eruption of Thera do in the Minoans? According to popular archeolo-gical doctrine, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Whence the x-ray background?A persistent problem needling astronomers has been the diffuse X-ray background radiation; that is, that flux of X-rays that pervades the universe but which seems to come from no place in particular. Distant quasars are thought to contribute some of this diffuse X-ray flux but, even with recent quasar discoveries, there are just not enough of them to account for the X-rays observed. To make matters worse, quasar X- ray spectra do not match that of the X-ray background either, particularly at very short wavelengths. Superimposed on the general X-ray background are discrete X-ray sources separated by extended blobs of X-ray emitting material. If these blobs are really clumps of clumps of quasars too close to be separated by our instruments, the Big Bang model is at risk, for it cannot account for large, organized assemblages of quasars. (Powell, Corey S.; "X -Ray Riddle," Scientific American, 264:26, March 1991.) From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Subterranean "circles"As if we didn't have enough problems with crop circles on the earth's surface, it now seems that whatever agency (or "entity") that is responsible for them also plies its craft underground! "Sets of concentric rings, similar to those found last summer in British wheat fields, have been discovered in a Japanese subway tunnel. .. .. . "Many sets of concentric rings were found drawn in dust that accumulated on the ground and walls inside the tube. The metro versions of the mystery circles are much smaller -- up to 8 centimeters in diameter -- than the British ones, the largest of which measures scores of meters." Y. Otsuki, a professor of physics at Waseda University, discovered the rings and believes that plasma generated in the air creates them. Subway tunnels, he says, create conditions similar to those in the plasma generators he uses in his fireball research. A photo of the rings accompanying the article shows six neatly-formed, concentric rings around a central crude circle. (Anonymous; "' Mystery Circle' Found in Tunnel," Asahi Evening News (Tokyo), April 5, 1991. Cr. Y. Matsumura via L. Farish) Speculations. Apparently, plasmoids can be of any size: crop circles may be 100 feet in diameter of just a foot or two, and now we may have centimeter-sized expressions of plasmoid activity in the unexpected locale of the subway tunnel! Building upon these observations, it is not ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Grand Lake Stream Enigma A little over a year ago, we reported on W. Elliott's discovery of a small, stone-covered cist in eastern Washington County, Maine. This cist contained several stone artifacts bearing remarkable symbols, writing, and portrayals of a man and a slain animal. Naturally, mainstream archeologists look askance when amateur archeologists come across such anomalous materials. Happily in this instance, a professional archeologist, J.B . Petersen, Director of the University of Maine's Archaeological Laboratory, took an interest in the site near Grand Lake Stream. After careful study of the site and its artifacts, he has prepared a preliminary report. Petersen's report is accompanied by many photos and sketches made during his excavations. On p. 000 we reproduce a photo of the amulet with its strange epigraphy. Now, we add a sketch of the "elongated hafted ground biface, with human figure." Over 13 inches long, this artifact depicts a trousered, bearded man of European countenance, who is missing one arm and a foot. Petersen asserts that the artifacts have no affinities with American Indian artifacts: rather they have a European flavor. What can one make out of all this? Petersen is only able to state: "Although the site is undoubtedly human-made, its function, antiquity and cultural attribution cannot be precisely specified on the basis of the unique characteristics of both the ...
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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 Duesberg Revisited P. Duesberg is a molecular biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. He contends that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is not the cause of AIDS and is, instead, a harmless "passenger" in the bodies of AIDS victims. Naturally, this stance is controversial, and just as naturally we have had cause to mention Duesberg before. Duesberg is back in the news again because his iconoclastic views were prominently featured in a TV documen tary entitled "The AIDS Catch" seen in Britain in June. The scientific community was furious, claiming that the documentary was one-sided and selective. Further, it was maintained that Duesberg's arguments have been completely refuted. Briefly, Duesberg believes that AIDS is not an infectious disease because: Too few T-lymphocytes in the peripheral blood are infected to cause the disease; HIV carriers without symptoms exist; and HIV in pure form doesn't seem to induce Aids in humans or animals. Rather, says Duesberg, AIDS is a collection of symptoms arising from such factors as the repeated use of intravenous drugs and malnutrition. Mainstream researchers think that Duesberg is wrong on (1 ); that (2 ) is irrevelant, since asymptomatic carriers of typhoid and cholera exist; and that (3 ) may be incorrect, since SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) does induce simian AIDS in monkeys. (Weiss, Robin A., and Jaffe, ...
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... Jolly." The Australian Sceptics suspect pranksters. (Anonymous; "More Circles," New Scientist, p. 23, August 11, 1990.) An article in a Perth newspaper puts the number of wheat circles in Victoria at 400, as of July 9. That's a lot of work for hoaxers! It is also said that the soil in the rings is "magnetically altered," whatever that means. (Anonymous; "Outback Martian Rings Riddle," Perth Daily News, July 9, 1990. Cr. P. Norman via L. Farish) Plasma vortex picked up by radar. "Japanese and British meteorologists are investigating a link between a fastmoving object crossing the Pacific and the mysterious appearance of crop circles in English fields. "A ship from Tokyo University's Ocean Research Institute was in the Pacific when its radar equipment located a large object travelling more than four times the speed of sound. The radar discounted it as an aircraft because of its size, 400 metres across, and it sped northwards. "The Japanese scientists identified the object as a plasma vortex, caused by freak weather. The phenomenon is similar to ball lightning and believed to be generated by 'mini-tornadoes' of electrically-charged air. "Plasma vortices can be luminous at night. 'They are often mistaken for UFOs,' says Dr Terence Meaden, director of the Oxford-based Tornado and Storm Research Organization." (Spicer, Andi; "Clue to mystery of Circles," London Observer, May 20, 1990. Cr. T ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 73: Jan-Feb 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Killer Trees That Talk Among Themselves "Acacia trees pass on an 'alarm signal' to other trees when antelope browse on their leaves, according to a zoologist from Pretoria University. Wouter Van Hoven says that acacias nibbled by antelope produce leaf tannin in quantities lethal to the brows ers, and emit ethylene into the air which can travel up to 50 yards. The ethylene warns other trees of impending danger, which then step up their own production of leaf tannin within just five to ten minutes." (Hughes, Sylvia; "Antelope Activate the Acacia's Alarm System," New Scientist, p. 19, September 29, 1990.) Free-ranging antelope can always find unwarned acacias with low levels of tannin to browse on, but on some South African game ranges, they are forced to consume high tannin leaves. Too much tannin inactivates the antelopes' liver enzymes, and they die in about two weeks. Hundreds may perish in a very dry season. (Vincent, Catherine; "Les Arbres Communiquent entre Eux," Le Monde , p. 11, September 14, 1990. Cr. C. Mauge) From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... "WOW" signal. Vertical ordinate represents intensity; horizontal axis is frequency in intervals of 10 kilohertz. Time axis runs into the chart with 12-second intervals. Over the years, several large radio astronomy antennas have listened for "intelligent" radio signals from outer space. The acronym SETI is customarily applied to such searches; SETI standing for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. There have been a few exciting false alarms during these listening periods, but most could be attributed to known natural radio sources or manmade interference. All in all, it has been rather disappointing to those who are sure someone else is out there. The major exception in the SETI record was the so-called "WOW" (like Egad!) signal picked up in 1977 by a radio telescope at Ohio State University, in Columbus. The bandwidth of the sig nal was narrower than those of most natural sources; there was also some evidence of periodic and drifting features. The signal never recurred, nor could it be correlated with any manmade or natural radio sources. (Eberhart, Jonathan; "Listening for ET," Science News, 135:296, 1989.) Comment. We can only speculate as to what alien intelligence might mean. Then, too, aliens have probably progressed far beyond primitive radio communication! From Science Frontiers #64, JUL-AUG 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... s day they were mostly gone. First, Hubbard's general description of the "garden beds": "The so-called 'Garden Beds' were found in the valleys of the St. Joseph and Grand Rivers, where they occupied the most fertile of the prairie land and burr-oak plains, principally in the counties of St. Joseph, Cass and Kalamazoo. "They consisted of raised patches of ground, separated by sunken paths, and were generally arranged in plats or blocks of parallel beds. These varied in dimensions, being from five to sixteen feet in width, in length from twelve to more than one hundred feet, and in height from six to eighteen inches. "The tough sod of the prairie had preserved very sharply all the outlines. According to universal testimony, these beds were laid out and fashioned with skill, order and symetry which distinguished them from the ordinary operations of agriculture, and were combined with some peculiar features that belong to no recognized system of horticultural art." Type 8. Wheel-shaped plats. Width of beds, 6-20 feet; paths, 1 foot; length, 14-20 feet. Hubbard recognized eight types of beds. Two of these are illustrated and described right. Hubbard gave no figure for the total extent of the beds. Individual plats ran from 20 to 300 acres. Considering that they stretched for miles through three counties, we are certainly talking about thousands of acres. Hubbard stated that the usual pottery, arrowheads, spear points, and related artifacts seemed to be absent from the ...
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... 9.8 % The sun 0.2 % The total mass of the Oort Cloud is estimated to be roughly that of Saturn. The recent flyby of Halley's Comet created this dilemma. It was discovered that Halley was a chunk containing 140 cubic miles of ice - much larger than anticipated for this "typical" comet. If the estimated 2 trillion comets are, on the average, Halley's size, the Oort Cloud is a thousand times more massive than previously thought. This, combined with estimates of Oort Cloud distance and angular velocity leads to the almost ridiculous distribution of solar-system angular momentum tabulated above. This will keep the theorists busy for a while. (Asimov, Isaac; Frontiers: New Discoveries about Man and His Planet, Outer Space and the Universe , New York, 1989, p. 270. Cr. C. Ginenthal) Comment. Perhaps the Oort Cloud isn't there after all. Or, if it is, it isn't rotating as rapidly as thought. In any case, the accepted theory of solarsystem formation is in trouble. Reference. Details concerning our catalog The Sun and Solar System Debris may be found here . From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Significantly, one circle formed in a field they had ringed with automatic alarms, making a hoax very unlikely. All in all, some 1800 crop circles have been recorded, many in other countries, including Japanese rice fields. One doubts that hoaxers could have been this ubiquitous. Further, Y. Ohtsuki, a Japanese scientist, has been able to reproduce some of the characteristic corn-circle patterns by dropping plasma fireballs into a plate dusted with aluminum powder. Even double rings can be created around central circles in this way. So, the simple crop circles could well have reasonable explanations. The gist of the Science article is that interesting science might be done with the crop-circle phenomenon. But will it after the Time broadside? C. Church, professor of aeronautics at Miami University in Ohio, says, "Everyone should be open minded, but I wouldn't want to get a reputation among fellow scientists as working on weird and off-beat things." (Anderson, Alun; "Britain's Crop Circles: Reaping by Whirlwind?" Science, 253:961, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #78, NOV-DEC 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... to artificial life. "Julius Rebek, Tjama Tjivikua and Pablo Ballester of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say that their compound, an amino adenosine triacid ester (AATE), acts as a "template" which combines molecular fragments to make a copy of the original compound. This process is very similar to that used by DNA. The difference is that the biological copying usually needs an enzyme to make it work." (Emsley, John; "Artificial Molecule Shows 'Sign of Life,'" New Scientist, p. 38, April 28, 1990.) Comment. No one can say that replication is a "spontaneous" property of inorganic matter. It is truly remarkable that base matter is intrinsically self-organizing and replicating. We know! It is all because the universe just happens to be anthropic. From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... seem to have about twice the mass of the "normal" cluster members, and they appear to be only about one-fifth as old as their compatriots. The motions of the blue stragglers are consistent with those of bona fide cluster members, implying that they are not interlopers or foreground objects. Several explanations have been suggested to explain the presence of blue stragglers. One thought is that they harbor asteroid-size black holes at their cores. So far, all of the profferred explanations have serious flaws. (Fogg, Martyn J.; "Blue Straggler Stars: A Cosmic Anomaly," The Explorer, 6:4 , Spring 1990.) Socket stars. "A picture book hardly seems a likely source of an astronomical discovery, especially in a world where mysteries of the universe usually tumble from sophisticated electronic instruments attached to huge telescopes. Nevertheless, while recently paging through Exploring the Southern Sky , by G. Madsen and R. West, Walter A. Feibelman (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) recognized something that had caught his attention decades before. High-resolution photographs of nebulae show large numbers of faint stars surrounded by circular or oval 'empty' regions, giving the impression that the stars are sitting in 'sockets,' a few arc seconds across, swept free of nebulosity." Feibelman rules out photographic effects, such as halation, but has no ready explanation for socket stars. M.W . Castelez (Allegheny Observatory) has added to the mystery by pointing out that many socket stars show excess infrared emission. He considers this strong evidence ...
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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 Extinction Discounted "A computer analysis has left little doubt that the supposedly extinct Tasmanian tiger or wolf still exists in remote areas of Australia's island state." The thylacine (or Tasmanian wolf or tiger) has been reported repeatedly in recently years. The last captive specimen of the marsupial tiger or thylacine died in a Tasmanian zoo in 1936. No living specimen has been verified since, but sporadic reports persist in Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. H. Nix, of the Australian National University's Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, has a computer program based upon detailed descriptions of climatic, topographic, and environmental factors that identifies areas where a particular animal or plant could flourish. Nix gathered the environmen tal requirements of the thylacine from records of where they had been shot and trapped in the past. This plus the computer program allowed Nix to identify prime thylacine territory. Compar-ing this information with the best sightings over the past 60 years, Nix found perfect agreement. In other words, post-extinction reports of thylacines come from just those areas where one would expect them to! (Anonymous; "Computers Help to Hunt the Tasmanian Tiger," New Scientist, p. 24, March 10, 1990.) Comment. This all sounds a bit tauto logical; that is, like "circular reasoning"! Reference. The possible late survival of the thylacine is covered in BMD12 in our ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Terrestrial Riddle The ancient Egyptians apparently built the enigmatic Sphinx by first excavating a limestone formation and then clearing away the debris to expose a huge stone block over 240 feet long and 66 feet high. From this, they carved a lion with a human head out of the soft natural rock. Once the soft limestone was exposed, the rain and atmosphere began to erode it. R.M . Schoch, a Boston University geologist, studying the weathering patterns on the Sphinx, found signs of water action up to 8 feet deep in the front and sides of the colossal statue. Other structures in the vicinity, made from the same limestone, supposedly at the same time (about 2500 BC), do not display such deep erosion. Based upon the depth of the weathering, Schoch dates the Sphinx at 5000-7000 BC -- much older than the mainstream date of 2500 BC. In fact, Schoch opines that work on the Sphinx could have begun as early as 10,000 BC. Egyptologists, of course, will have none of this. C. Redmount, a Univerisity of California archeologist specializing in Egyptian artifacts, said, "There's just no way that could be true." Some non-establishment archeologists, such as A. West, have long maintained that the Sphinx is much older than 2500 BC. Supporting the claims of much earlier dates is the massive stone wall and tower of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 79: Jan-Feb 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Deeply-buried life West-to-east profile of the Florida-Bahamas carbonate platform. Deep in the Gulf of Mexico, along the edge of the great carbonate platform that breaks the surface as Florida and the Bahamas, thrives a diverse community of animals that does not depend upon the sun for energy. Instead, they feast on carbohydrates provided by symbiotic bacteria. Since there are no ocean-floor vents spewing mutrients and hot water in the area, scientists have wondered where these bacteria obtain the methane and sulfides that nourish them. C.S . Martens and C.K . Paull, of the University of North Carolina, propose that bacteria living miles down within the carbonate platform generate the methane and sulfides as they consume organic matter buried long ago in the limestone. These excreted, energy rich gases and fluids seep upward and outward, sustaining biological communities along the edge of the platform. (Monastersky, R.; "Buried Rock, Bacteria Yield Deep-Sea Feast," Science News, 140:103, 1991.) Comment. (1 ) Looking far back in time, the sun was, of course, the energy source, because it helped create the buried organic matter. (2 ) However, there is always the possibility that the methane seeping out of the earth is abiogenic. See BLACK GOLD -- AGAIN under Geology . (3 ) How deeply into the crust has life penetrated ...
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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 Psi Effects In The Sacrifice Of Marine Algae It is safe to say that mainstream science will categorically reject the results of the experiments reported below. The reason is simple: no known mechanism exists for ESP -- in this instance, the anomalous transfer of information between isolated life forms. Experimental setup for measuring the activity of marine algae. Two scientists at the University of Delaware have designed an experiment that measures the activity of marine algae in a seawater culture. By passing a laser beam through the culture and thence to a photomultiplier tube, they can, utilizing the Doppler shift, measure the collective activity of the cells. (See figure.) Various experiments were run by the Delaware researchers, but their second series in particular seems worth reporting. "A second series of experiments used the sacrifice of clones as a distant stimulus. The data appear to show that the marine alga Tetraselmis suecica reacts dramatically to the sacrifice of cells in a physically isolated aliquot of the same culture if the experimenters are aware of the moment of sacrifice, and excited by the novelty of the experiment. In sharp contrast, only marginally significant results were obtained when the same experiment was run entirely automatically, with the time of the sacrifice defined by random number selection, and the experiment activated by computer command in an empty laboratory." (Pleass, C.M ., and Dey, N. Dean; "Conditions That Appear to Favor Extrasensory ...
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... too beguiling to the anomalist. But now it seems that other white spots, not as large, have been recorded in 1876, 1903, 1933, and 1960. Could the white-spot phenomenon be periodic--like a percolator? More food for thought is found in Saturn's orbital period around the sun: 29.4 years -- not too different from the potential "burp" cycle! (Anonymous; "New White Spot on Saturn Grows, Changes," Science News, 138:325, 1990. Also: Brown, William; "Giant Bubble of Gas Rises through Saturn's Atmosphere," New Scientist, p. 22, October 20, 1990.) Reference. Historical observations of white spots on Saturn are covered in our handbook: Mysterious Universe. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #73, JAN-FEB 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cold Fusion Update We gingerly approached the topic of cold fusion in SF#63. Sure enough, a lot has happened in the past two months. For one thing, a panel of physicists got together and "voted" down cold fusion almost unanimously. This authoritative declaration seemed to be the beginning of the end for cold fusion - good riddance to those impertinent electrochemists! At the end of May, scientists assembled at Santa Fe for a Workshop on Cold Fusion Phenomena. Most thought this would be the coup de grace for cold fusion. Not so! More and more researchers reported either anomalous heat production or anomalous emission of neutrons from experiments based on the cold fusion results of Pons and Fleischmann at the University of Utah. Curiously, no one seemed able to get heat and neutrons at the same time and in the amounts Pons and Fleischmann had reported. We cannot go into all the experiments here. The upshot seems to be that cold fusion is not dead at all. In fact, a lot of people now believe that cold fusion actually does take place in palladium and titanium electrodes. Why, no one is sure. Nor is anyone able to explain the anomalous heat generation. Some think that two separate and distinct phenomena are being observed. One unbelievable anomaly has fissioned into two more-believable anomalies! Tune in next issue for the latest. Con't believe anything until things cool down a bit. (Pool, Robert; "Cold Fusion: End of Act I, ...
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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 Fractals, fractals everywhere Anyone who follows the popular scientific literature knows that fractals are now "in." Commonly employed to "explain" patterns in nature, fractals are, from a simplistic viewpoint, mathematical ways to predict the development of a growing structure, be it a crystalline mass, a plant, or the universe-as-a -whole. Yes, the universe-as-a -whole, the clouds of stars and clusters of galaxies, may be mimicked by cellular automata (i .e ., fractals). Imagine the universe as a cubical lattice, and start in one corner, adding one layer of cubes after another. Galaxy distribution could be simulated by using a rule telling us which of the added cubical cells had galaxies in them and which did not. "The rule actually used supposes that the question whether each point in a newly added layer will (or will not) be occupied by a galaxy is mostly determined by the occupancy of the five nearest neighbors in the previous layer, but for good measure, there is a random variable to introduce an element of white noise to the system. To make the process a little more interesting, the determination whether a new site is occupied depends on whether a number characteristic of that site, and calculated by simple arithmetic from the corresponding number for the five nearest neighbors in the preceeding layer, exceeds an arbitrarily chosen number." Comparing this ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Has the second law been repealed?" From the largest to the smallest scales, the universe is evolving. Matter, in the form of galaxies, is undergoing a colossal expansion. Gas, condensed into stars, is radiating thermonuclear energy out across an infall of matter, drawn by gravity. The simplest of chemical reactions and the most complex of biological activities are occurring on the surface of the earth in a state far from equilibrium; they are heated by the sun and cooled by the vacuum of space. This pervasive cosmic imbalance is the driving force in producing an environment conducive to the formation of structure and complexity." This sweeping statement seems to apply to the entire universe. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, however, insists that, on the average, for the entire universe, the above paragraph cannot be true. The article introduced by this unqualified assertion about the evolution of the universe is really about self-organizing chemical reactions. We classify it under biology because the authors imply that some biological phenomena are self-organizing. The famous Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction is used as the prime example of chemical self-organization. First, one takes a shallow dish filled with a solution of bromate ions in a highly acidic medium. Here's what happens: "A dish, thinly spread with a lightly colored liquid, sits quietly for a moment after its preparation. The liquid is then suddenly swept by a spontaneous ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Astronomical Paradox Just a few years ago, most astronomers would have predicted that, as they examined larger and larger volumes of the universe, they would find more and more homogeneity. The Big Bang Theory predicts this; and it is seconded by the isotropy of the microwave background radiation. The mapping of the universe, however, has actually turned up all manner of galactic clusters, superclusters, and great skeins of superclusters strung across the heavens. Instead of a puree of matter, there is more and more structure the farther we peer into space. R.B . Tully, at the University of Ha waii, now charts a billion-light-year structure that he calls the Pisces-Cetus complex. This aggregation of galaxies includes us (the Milky Way), our Local Supercluster, and many neighboring superclusters. In actuality, the PiscesCetus complex is not a continuous structure. Rather, it is defined by a plane -- one containing a host of superclusters as well as voids. The problem posed for theorists is that they can suggest no way in which such a far flung manifestation of order could have evolved in the time available since the Big Bang. (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe Gets Larger-- Maybe," Science, 238:804, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How Genius Gets Nipped In The Bud At once amusing and tragic, the article bearing the above title treats the reader to the musings of a university researcher who has a brilliant new idea -- or so it seems to him. At first he is ready to rush to the literature and check out the idea's originality and feasibility. But wait, this groundwork will take considerable time, and the idea may turn out to be old hat. Is it all worth the risk? Will the university support research on this new untried idea? This would be unlikely since funds are thin, the idea is not part of the overall research plan, and worse yet, an enemy sits on the research fund committee. Getting external funds is impossible unless one can show that your university has enough confidence in the idea to support it financially. A way out is to publish the idea at a conference in hopes of raising interest and money. Hold it, the referees will ask why a few obvious points have not been checked out in the lab. "Suddenly you realize that there is a far more serious problem. The current scientific system is based on the assumption that there is no such thing as a radically new idea. Each new paper is required to climb on the back of a plethora of earlier published papers, and does little more than add another layer of gloss to the cited references. Genuinely new ideas no ...
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... far removed from our ideas of what a normal galaxy should look like. There could be more of these things that haven't been discovered yet.'" (Anonymous; "Massive, Dark Galaxy Found in Void," Astronomy, 15:75, September 1987.) The same discovery is dealt with, in a more technical way, in Nature. A revealing paragraph from the Nature article follows: "Although Malin 1 could be a unique case there is in fact a significant body of circumstantial evidence to suggest otherwise. Our present knowledge of the galaxy population is so biased by a single insidious selection effect that it is entirely possible that Malin 1 is just the first example of a class of such low-surface-brightness giant galaxies that forms a significant constituent of the universe." The "selection effect" mentioned is a consequence of the very bright sky that confronts astronomers. Astronomical interest and instrumentation have focussed on those astronomical objects that are bright. In truth, the universe may be full of "icebergs and crouching giants." (Disney, Michael, and Phillipps, Steven; "Icebergs and Crouching Giants," Nature, 329:203, 1987.) Comment. Since astronomers have built their models of galaxies, galactic distribution, and the evolution of the universe on an unrepresentative portion of the actual cosmos, we may be in for some major changes in our overall view of the universe and its beginning -- if it actually had one. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Directed Mutation Dear reader, things have a way of working out serially. For several months, we have had in our possession a paper from Nature, by J. Cairns, of Harvard, plus some passionate correspondence stimulated by the paper. Now that the circle-forming sheep have provided a good introduction, we will jump into the fray, too. Basically Cairns (in Nature) and B. H. Hall (in Genetics ) say that organisms can respond to environmental stresses by reorganizing their genes in a purposeful way. Such "directed mutation" shifts the course of evolution in a nonrandom way. Such a conclusion was like waving a red flag in front of the evolutionists. R. May, at the University of Oxford, complained, "The work is so flawed, I am reluctant to comment." On the other side, a University of Maryland geneticust, S. Benson, comments, "Many people have had such observations, but they have problems getting them published." Our template in this discussion is an article by A.S . Moffat in American Scientist. She says, "The stakes in this dispute are high, indeed. If directed mutations are real, the explanations of evolutionary biology that depend on random events must be thrown out. This would have broad implications. For example, directed mutation would shatter the belief that organisms are related to some ancestor if they share traits. Instead, they may simply share exposure to the same environmental cues. Also, different ...
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... Relativity, is a vital part of the general scientific outlook. How shaky is the Big Bang? L.M . Krauss of Yale, admits that all cosmological theories are "tenuous." He adds: "There are a lot of fundamental assumptions we base our model on that may be wrong." A leading Big-Bang basher in H. Arp, of whom we have written frequently in SF. We will therefore not pursue his sort of bashing any further here. It is sufficient to say that Arp's doubts about the red-shift/distance relationship continue to receive support through observations of the heavens and in the lab. The other Big-Bang basher featured in Scientific American is H. Alfven, a Nobel-Prize winner in physics. Alfven postulates a universe dominated by electromagnetic forces, which he believes to be more important in shaping the cosmos than gravitation. His electromagnetic theory disallows any universe smaller than 1/10 the diameter of our present universe, thus excluding the Big Bang's point origin. Electromagnetic forces can account for all types of galaxies without resorting to the infamous "missing mass." Alfven can even account for the cosmic microwave background. Furthermore, Alfven's theories are supported by observations of solar-system plasma and magnetic fields. NASA's T.E . Eastman allows: "There is a revolution brewing in applying this knowledge to astrophysics." (Horgan, John; "Big-Bang Bashers," Scientific American, 257:22, September 1987.) Reference. Many more doubts about the ...
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... experiments in which subjects have been called upon to estimate the direction of the point of origin of a journey. This note extends such work by describing an experiment which showed that blindfolded humans, deprived of environmental cues, also have an ability to estimate accurately the direction of their place of residence within a town, even when driven around that town in such a way as to render them unable to identify where they are. The experiment throws into question the explanation usually offered for the existence of an innate sense of direction, namely, its value to the species, in an evolutionary sense, in facilitating a return to the starting point of exploratory journeys." A fascinating facet of this experiment does not appear in the above Summary . All of the subjects in the study first assembled at the University of New England (in Armidale, NSW, Australia) and were there blindfolded and driven in a circuitous route 19.4 kilometers long to a spot 5.2 kilometers from the University. The sun had set and audible cues were suppressed. Very frew of the 35 subjects could guess the direction of the University, the spot from which the journey began. Thus, this experiment does not really support that which is said to be "well established" in the Summary . On the other hand, the subjects were uncannily accurate in "guessing" the directions of their homes -- a fact duly reported in the Summary . What kind of sense could be involved in such a capability? (Walmsley, D.J ., and Epps, W.R .; " ...
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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 Cold Fusion And Anomalies "I think the physicists have suddenly discovered electrochemistry," said A.J . Bard, from the University of Texas. Ironically, the "cold fusion" experiments making headlines these days are small, simple, and cheap. In contrast, the "hot fusion" physicists have spent some 30 billion dollars since 1951 on huge, complex machines. We don't yet know the specific thoughts and observations that led the Utah electrochemists to cold fusion, but we hope they were anomalous observations of some sort, such as the detection of unexpected neutrons from electrochemical experiments. If such turns out to be the case, the role of anomalies in scientific research will be underscored. Be that as it may, a genie has been uncorked. Both cold fusion and the re-cent excitement over high-temperature superconductivity demonstrate that a largely unexplored universe exists in the electrochemistry of the solid state. Favorite theories lie in shambles; faces are very red; the most elite of our scientific institutions were caught with blinders on! Beyond these amusements, the practical import for energy production is enormous, and who know what else will eventuate? But what about science itself? First, cold fusion will doubtless generate a brand new crop of anomalies which we are only able to guess at now. Pertinent to our effort to catalog anomalies, it is possible that cold fusion may be occurring deep in the earth giving rise ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The new holism -- but is it whole enough?In the short space of two weeks, the New Scientist printed two articles that confront the obvious complexity of nature. Not only is this complexity persistent under the attack of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but it seems to actually increase with time. Do formative or guiding principles exist that science does not take into account? The two articles have very different answers. The creative cosmos. "Most people accept without question that the physical world is coherent and harmonious. Yet according to the traditional scientific picture, the Universe is just a random collection of particles with blind forces acting upon them. There is, then a deep mystery as to how a seemingly directionless assembly of passive entities conspire to produce the elaborate structure and complex organisation found in nature." The author of this introductory paragraph, P. Davies, asks, as we all do, "What is the origin of this creative power?" In groping for an answer, he presents first a common example of "blind" organization: the hexagonal convection cells in a pan of heated water. Using for a stepping stone the cooperative action of atoms in a laser, he leaps to the development of an embryo from a single strand of DNA! All such systems are "open"; that is, energy can flow in and out. They are also nonlinear, which means that chaotic, unpredictable action ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ubiquity Of Sea Serpents Public interest is usually focussed (by the media) upon the supposed monsters in Loch Ness, Lake Champlain, the Chesapeake Bay, etc. Actually, an immense body of sea serpent reports also exists. B. Heuvelmans collected many of these in his 1965 classic In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents. P.H . LeBlond, a professor at the University of British Columbia, is extending Heuvelman's work, concentrating on the thousand miles of Pacific Coast between Alaska and Oregon. Since 1812, there have been 53 sightings of sea serpents or other unidentified animals along this narrow strip of ocean. Some of these are very impressive. Take this one for example: "In January 1984 a mechanical engineer named J.N . Thompson from Bellingham, Washington, was fishing for Chinook salmon from his kayak on the Spanish Banks about three-quarters of a mile off Vancouver, British Columbia, when an animal surface between 100 and 200 feet away. It appeared to be about 18-20 feet long and about two feet wide, with a 'whitish-tan throat and lower front' body. It had stubby horns like those of a giraffe, large (' twelve to fifteen inches long') floppy ears, and a 'somewhat pointed black snout.' The creature appeared to Thompson to be 'uniquely streamlined for aquatic life,' and to swim 'very efficiently and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery Glow On The Sea Floor "Marine scientists have discovered two thermal vents on the seabed that glow in the dark. A group of researchers, led by oceanographers from the University of Washington, detected faint light during an expedition to the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The ridge and the vents, 300 km off the coast of British Columbia, follow an underwater fault formed by the junction of the Juan de Fuca and the Pacific tectonic plates...John Delaney, leader of the expedition, described the glow as a 'flame-like light' that seems to emanate from the super-heated water emerging from the thermal vents, 2200 meters below the surface...'The source of the light is still unclear,' said Joe Cann, a geologist from the University of Newcastle in Britain. The scientists suspect that the water itself is glowing." The water temperature is so high -- 350 C -- that bioluminescence is unlikely. The presence of the glow does, however, imply that photosynthesis is still possible in these sunless depths. Life forms do congregate around these vents. A curious shrimp found in the area where the glow was noted is eyeless but does possess photoreceptors on its back! (Dayton, Sylvia; "The Underwater Light Fantastic," New Scientist, p. 32, August 25, 1988. Also: Anonymous; "Mystery Glow Emanates from Ocean Bottom," Albuquerque Tribune ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wandering Molluscs "How could a mollusc which lived all its adult life cemented fast to the seabed in shallow water occur thousands of kilometers apart in the Arabian Gulf and the Caribbean? Almost identical forms of the extinct bivalve Torreites sanchezi have been found in rocks from the Caribbean and the Gulf. Peter Skelton of the Open University and Paul Wright of the University of Bristol suggest that the larval stage of the bivalve must have 'island hopped.'" The two researchers rule out convergent evolution and note that the two seas were never any closer together. They suppose that in Cretaceous times there was an equatorial current that swept the larval forms long distances. (Anonymous; "Wandering Molluscs," New Scientist, p. 33, October 15, 1987.) Comment. The same situation prevails for other species, such as some of the amphipods and the unique life forms dependent on seafloor vents. From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 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 Small Icy Comets And Cosmic Gaia L.A . Frank and his associates at the University of Iowa have speculated that the earth is continuously and copiously bombarded by small, icy comets. Not just a few now and then, but a steady rain so intense that over geological time some major geological consequences must ensue. (See SF#44.) Some observers commented that surely these scientists have thrown away their careers by suggesting something so ridiculous. But the data are there -- in the form of dark spots on satellite images of the earth's dayglow -- and late results continue to support this far-out interpretation, ridiculous or not. "The mass of these objects is estimated at about 108 gm each, and the total flux is about 107 small comets per year. If this flux is representative of the average flux over geologic time, then the water influx is sufficient to fill the Earth's oceans. The fluxes of these objects are also large for all the planets outside the orbit of Earth. Considerations of thermal stability imply that the fluxes of comets that impact Venus are considerably less. The outer giant planets may be significantly heated relative to solar insolation by the small-comet impacts. For example, the total energy input due both to solar insolation and comet impacts may be similar for Uranus and Neptune. Thus it is possible that the temperatures of these two planets are similar, even though ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 58: Jul-Aug 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bacteria One dictionary's definition: "Widely distributed group of microscopic, one-celled vegetable organisms..." As a matter of fact, the nearly universal image of a bacterium is that of a simple, single-cell organism. But: "That view is now being challenged. Investigators are finding that in many ways an individual bacterium is more analogous to a component cell of a multicellular organism than it is to a free-living, autonomous organism. Bacteria form complex communities, hunt prey in groups and secrete chemical trails for the directed movement of thousands of individuals." J.A . Shapiro, author of the preceding quote, attributes the simplistic picture of bacteria to medical bacteriology, in which disease-causing bacteria are classically identified by isolating single cells, growing cultures from them, and then showing that they cause the disease in question. In the microscopic real world, bacteria virtually always live in colonies, which possess collective properties quite different and much more impressive than those of the single-cell-in-a -dish! That old human urge for reductionism has led us astray again. Shapiro seeks to remove the blinders of reductionism in a wonderful article in the June, 1988, issue of Scientific Amer can . We have room here to mention only the Myxobacteria, many of which never exist as single cells in nature. Even those that do are "social" in the sense that ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Forests Frozen In Time Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian Arctic is only 700 miles south of the present North Pole. Little grows there today, but there is on these icy shores the remnant of a forest that flourished 45 million years ago, according to conventional geological dating of the strata. A University of Saskatchewan scientist, J. Bassinger, has been studying the 15-20 layers of stumps, some with diameters of 3 feet, and logs up to 30 feet long. Even rather blackish leaves survive in the soil. This once lush forest boasted trees like dawn redwoods and water firs; being analogous to Florida's Cypress Swamp in the Everglades. So excellent is the preservation of the forest that its wood cuts as if it were recent lumber and burns readily. (Howse, John; "Forestry Frozen in Time," Maclean's Magazine, p. 55, September 8, 1986. Cr. B. Ickes) Comment. Question 1: Even if the earth was warmer 45 million years ago, could a tropical-type forest survive the nearly six months of total darkness at Axel Heiberg Island? Question 2: Can wood be preserved so well for so long? In the postulated warmer climate, there must have been many chemical and biological agents to promote rotting. Also relevant is the discovery, reported below, that wood that floats and burns with ease has been found in Antarctica. This Antarctic ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cometary scars on the moon?More information has surfaced on the enigmatic lunar swirl markings (Category ALE5 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. These whitish blotches are not only visually incongruous, being obviously different from the debris spla shes around craters, but they also exhibit curious magnetic properties. J.F . Bell and B.R . Hawke, of the University of Hawaii, have acquired near-infrared spectra of the swirl designated Reiner Gamma. They report that the composition of the swirl material does not match the crater ejecta; and, also, that a previously undetected reddish halo surrounds the swirl. Best guess at present: The swirls are the scars of comets -- probably less than 100 million years old. (Anonymous; "Cometary Scars on the Moon," Sky and Telescope, 75:11, 1988.) Comment. Does nearby earth also bear cometary scars? Some think that the 1908 Tunguska Event was a cometary impact. (See ETC2 in our catalog: Caro lina Bays, Mima Mounds .) Also see the the item below under GEOLOGY about comets and the earth's oceans. Reference. Both catalog volumes mentioned above are described here . From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 51: May-Jun 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Shake No Quake January 30, 1987. Much of southern California was beset by a shaking phenomenon that stimulated scores of tele phone calls to newspapers, universities, and government facilities. The shaken areas included Long Beach, Pasadena, the San Gabriel Valley, Buena Park, San Pedro, Fullerton, and Newport Beach. Caltech's Seismological Laboratory, at Pasadena, insisted that no seismic activity had been detected. The FAA rulled out sonic booms; the Navy said its ships were not engaged in target practice, and the National Weather Service exonerated weather phenomena. No one seems to know what happened. (Tessel, Harry; "Southland Rattled, But This Mysterious Shake Is No Quake," Long Beach Press-Telegram , January 31, 1987. Cr. L. Farish) From Science Frontiers #51, MAY-JUN 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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