97 results found.
... 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 The Healing Of Rents In The Natural Order J. Beloff, a prominent researcher in parapsychology has penned a thought-provoking essay in the current Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. The phenomenon that stimulated Beloff's articles was what he called the "decline effect." Parapsychology has ever been plagued by the appearances of seemingly robust psychic phenomena, such as Rhine's initial ESP experiments with Zener cards. These phenomena would excite parapsychologists for several years, even decades, and then fade away. Writing in a historical vein, Beloff put it this way: ". .. it soon transpired that a decline effect, for ESP no less than for PK, could persist across sessions and, ultimately, across an entire career. Nearly all the high-scorers eventually lost their ability. Even Pavel Stepanck, whose 10-year career as an ESP subject earned him a mention in the Guinness Book of Records , eventually ran out of steam. When, after a long break, he was retested recently by Dr Kappers in Amsterdam, he could produce only chance scores. I do not think it was loss of motivation or boredom in his case, as has sometimes been put forward as an explanation for the long-term decline effect, for it was Stepanek's great strength that he was constitutionally incapable of ever being bored! Nor can we take seriously Martin Gardner's attempt to explain how he ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Horse sense?Writing to Weather in connection with an earlier letter regarding the possible stalling of a car due to lightning (SF#90), P.F . Borrows recounted a pertinent incident involving horses and lightning: "I was driving from Aylesbury to High Wycombe via Hampden during a thunderstorm. On an open hillside to the north of the valley, two horses were quietly grazing when suddenly, for no obvious reason, they bolted to the far end of the field. Within about 15 seconds of them moving, there was a lightning strike at the point where they had been standing. How interesting to reflect that more modern means of transport may also be able to detect the highly charged atmospheric state, but appear to be immobilised rather than spurred to self-preservation." (Borrows, P.F .; "Horses Bolt, Spurred by Lightning," Weather, 48:161, 1993.) From Science Frontiers #94, JUL-AUG 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Perfect pitch and sundry syndromes Writing in response to a report in Science by G. Schlaug concerning the brain asymmetry observed in musicians with perfect or absolute pitch* (SF#99), O. Sacks expands the domain of the phenomenon to include other human talents. Sacks says that perfect pitch, though common in musicians, occurs only in about 1 of every 10,000 people. Among the autistic, however, the incidence rises to perhaps 1 in 20. He next moves on to "savants;" that is, individuals with exceptional mathematic, mechanical, musical, and artistic talents, but with serious deficiencies in other human attributes. Calculating prodigies and other "idiot savants" immediately come to mind here. Sachs claims that perfect pitch is is even more common among the savants. In fact, all muscial savants seem to have it. Perfect pitch is also common among those with Williams syndrome, which he defines as: "a -- syndrome which predisposes to hyperacusis and exceptional development of auditory, musical, and verbal skills, combined with striking visual and conceptual deficits." (Sacks, Oliver; "Musical Ability," Science, 268:621, 1995.) * A person with perfect pitch can identify a tone without needing a second tone for comparison. SF#99 = Science Frontiers #99. From Science Frontiers #102 Nov-Dec 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "WEIRD ICICLES" IN A REFRIGERATOR Sketch of the upwardly-growing refrigerator icicle. Birdbaths, it seems, are not essential for the generation of tilted, upwardly growing, crystalline icicles. From St. Louis, C. Masthay writes: "In Science Frontiers 100, p. 2, Jul.-Aug. 1995, you have the article WEIRD ICICLES. Well I've just got to tell you about the icicle in my icecube tray. I went to Connecticut on vacation for 2 weeks the latter half of this June (1995). Sometime during that time the electricity was out for 3 ½ hours. When I opened my refrigerator for a drink, there was a weird stalagmitic icicle with a faint frostiness on the cystalline end. I left it alone for these 2 weeks to watch it recede with my frostfree refrigerator. When I saw your article, I regarded the explanation of a central channel as being inappropriate, for this one had to grow as a normal crystal in the unaccustomed rise in temperature. It too had a tipped angle of perhaps 10 to 15 . What is more is that this is the second time this has happened in a year. How many other refrigerators have done the same? Thus the birdbath crystal is not impossible." (Masthay, Carl; personal communication, July 17, 1995.) Questions. Why are all of these upwardgrowing icicles inclined slightly? Why are they ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 1: September 1977 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology First Writing May Have Been Three-dimensional Ancient Iberian Jars Recovered Off Maine Coast Geology New England Seamounts Once Near Surface Astronomy Four Extragalactic Sources Expand Faster Than Light Biology Australian Mistletoes Mimic Their Hosts Motion Sickness Difficult to Explain in Terms of Evolution Addiction to Placebos Cattle Mutilations Called Episode of Collective Delusion Geophysics Animal Behavior Prior to the Haicheng Earthquake Lightning Superbolts Detected by Satellites ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Psichotomy A great chasm separates the "hard" sciences from parapsychology. In fact, most scientists do not recognize para-psychology as a legitimate science. A recent spate of letters in Physics Today reveals both the depth of the chasm and why it is there. The major letter writers are P.W . Anderson and R.G . Jahn, who work only a few hundred meters apart at Princeton but are light years apart on the matter of parapsychology. The letter writing commenced after Anderson wrote a column in the December 1990 issue of Physics Today entitled "On the Nature of Physical Law." Here he recommended the categorical dismissal of all anomalous observations that might tear apart the fabric of science. Although Anderson did not name Jahn specifically, it was obvious to Jahn that his work was the primary target. Jahn's response was a long letter summarizing the stupendous quantity of data he and his colleagues have amassed on psi effects. "We have in hand several prodigious data bases, acquired over 12 years of continuous, intensive experimentation, that clearly establish the existence, scale and primary correlates of certain anomalous influences of human consciousness on a variety of physical systems and processes. In our Microelectronic Random Binary Generators experiment, 95 selected human operators attempted to shift the output distribution means to either higher or lower values than the chance mean, in accordance with their prerecorded intentions. In 3 850 000 experimental sequences of 200 binary ...
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... . This analysis suggests that the ceiling pictographs record the use of sky transits of the sun, Venus, or the constellation Orion as wet season/dry season calendric markers. Wall pictographs show the sun on the mountainous horizon, below which is the earth filled with symbols of plants and animals, among these stand shamans calling down the life-giving rain from the god(s ) of the sky. I also explore the possibility that one of the ceiling pictographs is a record of the appearance of the Crab supernova in the sky in A.D . 1054." (Mountjoy, Joseph B.; "An Interpretation of the Pictographs at La Pena Pintada, Jalisco, Mexico," American Antiquity, 47:110, 1982.) Reference. Petroglyphs and other forms of ancient writing are covered in our Handbook: Ancient Man. Ordering data at: here . From Science Frontiers #20, MAR-APR 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... society at large. In a revealing but demystifying study of 502 residents of Winnipeg, C.A . Ross and S. Joshi found: (1 ) That so-called paranormal experiences are very common indeed, with 65.7 % of the interviewees reporting having had them. The most common were deja vu (54.6 %) , precognitive dreams (17.8 %) , and mental telepathy (15.6 %) . Many reported experiencing more than one of the 13 different types of paranormal phenomena included in the survey. But do survey statistics prove that such paranormal phenomena are truly objective? The real nature of paranormal experiences, according to Ross and Joshi, lies in the close ties these paranormal phenomena have with dissociative phenomena (i .e ., automatic writing), hypnotic phenomena, and childhood traumas. They theorize: "A model is proposed in which paranormal experiences are conceptualized as an aspect of normal dissociation. Like dissociation in general, paranormal experiences can be triggered by trauma, especially childhood physical or sexual abuse. Such experiences discriminate individuals with childhood trauma histories from those without at high levels of significance." (Ross, Colin A., and Joshi, Shaun; Paranormal Experiences in the General Population," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 180:357, 1992.) Comment. Perhaps psychiatrists Ross and Joshi hold that those experiencing paranormal phenomena are "treatable." Clearly, they think that the whole of the paranormal is subjective. On a different tack, one must ask why humans are subject to paranormal experiences at ...
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... rocks were locked into a huge ice sheet resting -- almost floating -- on slippery mud. Sustained winds blowing over the large areas of ice generated enough horizontal force to propel the ice sheets with their cargos of rocks. Measurements showed that some of these ice sheets had to be at least 850 x 500 m (about 100 acres!) in extent. That's big, to be sure, but hardly anomalous. (Reid, John B., Jr., et al; "Sliding Rocks at the Racetrack, Death Valley: What Makes Them Move?" Geology , 23: 819, 1995) Comment. If scientists would spend as much effort on marine light wheels and UFOs as they do on sliding rocks, we anomalists wouldn't have so much to write about. It's all a question of what is "academically respectable." Reference. Sliding rocks at Racetrack Playa and other localities are cataloged at ESM11 on Neglected Geological Anoma lies . For a description of this book, visit here . Two of the parallel tracks of rocks on Racetrack Playa. The parallelism suggests that the rocks were embedded in the same ice sheet. From Science Frontiers #109, JAN-FEB 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... years. If these early Brazilians came over the Bering Land Bridge, they must have left even earlier traces in North America. In fact, there are two hotly debated North American sites that seem to be very much older than the one in Brazil; namely, the Calico site in California; and a spot along the Old Crow River in the Yukon. Thousands of stone artifacts, apparently showing signs of being shaped by humans, have been recovered at Calico over the past two decades. The Calico artifacts are usually contemptuously dismissed as naturally fractured chert flakes. But at the other end of the belief spectrum (Don't laugh, much of science is just as much of a belief system as religion!) are those who see a long human history at Calico. B. Bower writes: "Two periods of human occupation have been dated at Calico. From about 15,000 to 20,000 years ago the area was inhabited by what [R .D .] Simpson suggests was a huntinggathering people with more sophisticated tools, including stones flaked on both sides. In deeper layers estimated to be at least 200,000 years old are the simpler flakes of people, she says, who probably gathered plants and other foods." Much farther north, along the Yukon's Old Crow River, nearly 10,000 horse-and mammoth-bone artifacts have been picked up and dug out of the river banks. W.N . Irving, from the University of Toronto, claims that the last five seasons of archeological research have uncovered a 'bone industry ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The insects' revenge Plants may fool some insects with their mimicry and deter others with toxic chemicals, but the insects have their tricks, too, as seen in the following item from Science: "Many mandibulate insects that feed on milkweeds, or other latex-producing plants, cut leaf veins before feeding distal to the cuts. Vein cutting blocks latex flow to intended feeding sites and can be viewed as an insect counteradaptation to the plants' defensive secretion." (Dussord, David E., and Eisner, Thomas; "Vein-Cutting Behavior: Insect Counterploy to the Latex Defense of Plants," Science, 237:898, 1987.) Comment. Right now, even as we write this, the plants are evolving counterploys -- high-voltage veins perhaps! But this may not work. See the final item in this section. From Science Frontiers #54, NOV-DEC 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . He mused: "Are these whimsicalities of chance, or the suggestive effects of the name, as Stekel seems to suggest, or are they 'meaningful coincidences'?" Jung never answered his own question. The British New Scientist, in its "Feedback" column, has since tackled this enigmatic phenomenon many times. Nominative determinism was introduced first in 1994, when it was remarked that a paper on incontinence in the British Journal of Urology was authored by J.W . Splatt and D. Weedon! New Scientist readers added many more examples, proving just how powerful this psychological force really is. "The head of planning for British Airways is Rod Muddle...Frances Crook is the director of the Howard League for Penal Reform...S .M . Breedlove writes on sexual dimorphism for the Journal of Neuroscience...The US Heritage Foundation's senior researcher on children in foster care is Patrick Fagan...etc. ad infinitum." (From New Scientist "Feedback" columns of April 20 and June 22, 1996) Tik-tok, was the most famous thinking machine in the Land of Oz. But is Tik-tok the only robot in the picture? Perhaps there are three! From Science Frontiers #108, NOV-DEC 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... to Lake Malawi. While the Lake Victoria cichlids seem to have evolved a profusion of species in a space of about 12,500 years, those cichlids in Lake Malawi may have done the same in only a century or two. T. Goldschmidt advances this evenmore-abbreviated time scale in his book Darwin's Dreampond . In it, he discusses how the water level of Lake Malawi fell more than 120 meters during the 1800s -- an exceptionally dry period in Africa. Today, the Lake is again high and once more host to isolated rocky islands, each with its own unique complement of cichlid fish; each island has species found nowhere else in the lake. Where did all these species come from, considering that their little islands were bone dry just a century ago? Goldschmidt writes: "Cichlids that inhabited these exposed rocks would have suffocated, unless they had already left for wetter climes. Yet today, species that do not exist anywhere else can be found near almost every rocky island. From an orthodox point of view, the most plausible explanation for this is quite surprising: many color forms as well as biological species developed over a period of less than two hundred years." This is certainly explosive speciation -- real biological punctuation! But, perhaps as water levels fell, the original cichlids found refuges in surviving pools and then repopulated the lake when the waters rose. But is it reasonable to believe that they all sorted themselves out so perfectly that many species are found nowhere else in the lake? The probability seems high that cichlid speciation has been very ...
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... had no beginning and was, therefore, infinitely old. Originally, they hypothesized that, as the universe expanded, new matter was continuously created, and thus the density of matter stayed about constant in time. This Steady State Universe was kicked around for a while but ultimately consigned to the cosmological wastebasket. Now, the idea is being revived as the prevailing Big Bang Universe runs into problems, which have been documented perhaps too thoroughly in past issues of SF. The revised steady state model has jettisoned the idea of continuous creation in favor of many discrete "creation events," which will doubtless be called "little bangs." They also fill space with small metallic needles which absorb microwaves and reemit the uniform microwave background. The new theory needs more work, but Hoyle and his colleagues write in the June 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal: "This paper is not intended to give a finished view of cosmology. It is intended rather to open the door to a new view which at present is blocked by a fixation with big bang cosmology." (Crosswell, Ken; "Return of the Steady State Universe," New Scientist, p. 14, February 27, 1993.) Reference. A substantial portion of our catalog volume Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos is devoted to questioning the Big Bang. Details here . From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... collected over many years, deserves to be checked out." While Gauquelin has concentrated on sports champions, he has found similar effects for other vocations. Musicians, for example, have a negative Mars Effect. (Obviously, violinists should not compete in the broad jump!) Scientists are positive with Saturn; actors are positive with Jupiter. And so on. (Gauquelin, Michel; "Is There a Mars Effect?" Journal of Scientific Exploration, 2:29, 1988.) Comment. In the indented quotation above, Abell could not imagine a "mechanism" for the Mars Effect. Yet, Mars and the other planets are drawn to the sun by gravitation, which is just as "mechanismless" as are the other actionat-a -distance forces. We can write an equation for gravitational force, and perhaps because of this and long familiarity, we feel comfortable with gravitation. But is it any less spooky than the Mars Effect? Reference. The "Mars Effect" and related phenomena are covered in BHB27-BHB30 in our catalog: Biological Anomalies: Humans I. Details about this book may be found at: here . From Science Frontiers #61, JAN-FEB 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... that the terrestrial deep subsurface is a habitat of great biological diversity and activity that does not decrease significantly with increasing depth. "The enormous diversity of the microbiological communities in deep terrestrial sediments is most striking. The organisms vary widely in structure and function, and they are capable of transforming a variety of organic and inorganic compounds. Regardless of the depth sampled, the microorganisms were able to perform the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, manganese, iron, and phosphorous. Although the organisms were not of the same physiological types, each niche contained a basic cast of microbiological players capable of these nutrient transformations. Such versatility is surprising, and contrary to traditional thinking in soil microbiology, because the deep subsurface is presumably a nutrientlimited environment where photosynthesis and photosynthates are not abundant." The scientists writing this article speculate that similar microorganisms could well be prospering far below the Martian surface, where they are sheltered from radiation and the cruel surface environment. (Fliermans, Carl B., and Balkwill, David L.; "Microbial Life in Deep Terrestrial Subsurfaces," Bio Science , 39: 370, 1989.) From Science Frontiers #65, SEP-OCT 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... shocks followed. During this spate of tremors, 38 unusual luminosities were initially reported from the region, 8 of them before the foreshock, being in effect earthquake precursors. Afterwards, residents were queried for details and additional observations. A total of 46 reports sufficiently detailed for analysis were obtained. These luminous phenomena were classified according to a scheme proposed by F. Montandon in 1948. Montandon's five categories are: Seismic lightning (no thunder); Luminous bands in atmosphere; Globular incandescent masses; Fire tongues, small mobile flames near the ground, like will-o '- the wisps; and Flames emerging from the ground. The globular incandescent masses were by far the most common type of earthquake light during this Canadian "flap." Of these, F. St-Laurent writes: There were twenty-two reports coming from different places. Often they were seen far from the epicenter or when the seismic activity was low or quiet. Some were stationary (in one case, the yellow and orange mass presented a horizontal elongated form), others were seen emerging from the ground, some were very fast-moving near the ground, one was seen attached to a luminous band -- all as described by Montandon. (St-Laurent, F.; "The Saguenay, Quebec, Earthquake Lights of November 1988-January 1989," Seismological Research Letters, 71:160, 2000. Cr. J. Derr) From Science Frontiers #130, JUL-AUG 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy ...
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... Each underwent a crisis of vocation and religious out-look, and in both instances the critical event was a single episode that could be characterized as convulsive. Saul became the apostle Paul. His blinding conversion on the road to Damascus transformed the zealous advocate of Jewish tradition into the equally persevering Christian preacher and martyr. Swedenborg's conversion occurred at age 56, in 1744, when he was troubled by dreams, heard strong winds, felt a powerful trembling, and was thrown from his bed. During the following weeks his sense of contrition and desire for righteousness approximated the spirit of penthos described by orthodox contemplatives. Subsequently, he discovered his visionary ability to communicate with spirits and devoted his remaining days to visiting the spirit world where he gathered information sufficient to establish a new religion and to write the several books composing the Arcana Coelestia. After analyzing Swedenborg's visions and trance states, D.T . Bradford suggests that he only had had a "vascular .anomaly in the posterior area of the left cerebral hemisphere." (Bradford, David T.; "Neuropsychology of Swedenborg's Visions," Perceptual and Motor Skills, 88:377, 1999.) Comment. Must we accept that all epiphanies, revelations, and transcendental experiences are pathological? Strokes of genius will be next! Normality is very, very important. From Science Frontiers #130, JUL-AUG 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, ...
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... Less than one in 50 quadrillion, according to an article by Jeffrey Satinover in the October issue of Bible Review ." Satinover is a psychiatrist and lecturer on the relationship between science and religion. He commented: "I guess the bottom line is, if the research holds up and no flaw is found in the methodology, then I think the implication is clear that the authorship of Genesis is not human." Unsettling though the implications are to mainstream science, the research has made it past the usual critical hurdles into two scientific journals: Statistical Science and Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Scientists familiar with the work can only say that, "Something weird seems to be happening." We certainly agree! (Briggs, David; "Researchers: Word Patterns in Genesis Suggest Divine Writing," Chillicothe Gazette , October 28, 1995. Cr. J. Fry via COUD-I . COUD-I = Collectors of Unusual Data-International. The Gazette item was based on an Associated Press release.) From Science Frontiers #105, MAY-JUN 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... alidade while watching sunrise or sunset throughout the year. Were the bronze rivets, found nearby, the remains of the alidade? Markings exist on the plaque which indicate that the 16-month calendar was in use. Guide lines exist for inserting the intercalary leap day. Eight additional lines can be identified as indicating moonrise and moonset at the equinoxes' standstills. Using actual horizon altitudes at Stonehenge and azimuths shown by the lozenge, calculation shows that the average discrepancy of the solar lines is 0.36 days and that it was made about 1600 BC. "Was this ceremonially buried gold artifact a copy of a more robust working calendar, or was it the original master copy? "The lozenge was a means whereby observed angular measurements could be recorded and subsequently retrieved years later without recourse to writing. It was essentially a textbook for making the calendar, a reference encyclopedia." (Thom, A.S .; "The Bush Barrow Gold Lozenge: Is It a Solar and Lunar Calendar for Stonehenge?" Louisiana Mounds Society Newsletter, no. 37, February 14, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #74, MAR-APR 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... in no case will the injuries prove fatal. (Signed: Warner Cowgill, U.S . Consulate, Maracaibo, Venezuela, November 17, 1886.) (Cowgill, Warner; "Curious Phenomenonin Venezuala, Scientific American, 55:389, 1886.) The article in Infinite Energy discusses in some depth the reality of ball lightning, the similarities to modern UFO reports, the reliability of anecdotes, and, especially, the nature of the physiological effects, which resemble, in some aspects, radiation sickness resulting from exposure to intense X-rays or nuclear devices. It is also interesting that this anecdote, long-consigned to "fringe" publications, has now been resurrected in digital form by Scientific American, which is an establishment publication if there ever was one. Kaswell writes to this point as follows: My purpose was (in part) to show that mainstream scientists in main-stream publications like Scientific American evaluate the largely anecdotal evidence for the relatively non-controversial ball lightning by a different and more lenient standard than that they reserve for the highly controversial UFO reports. The Maracaibo case illustrates this beautifully, precisely because the report has aspects similar to both phenomena. (Kaswell, Gordon David; "Phenomenon in Venezuela: A Documented Case of Unexplained Radiation Exposure," Infinite Energy, 6:33, no. 32, 2000. Journal address: P.O . Box 2816, Concord, NH 03302-2816.) Comment. The conversion of science archives to digital form so that they can be accessed on the Web is shallow time- ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Most Mysterious Manuscript Forget the Kensington Stone and Easter Island's "talking boards," the so-called Voynich Manuscript is claimed to be the most mysterious writing on the planet. This 234-page, handwritten, parchment-book is in a class by itself. One's attention is first caught by page after page of truly strange depictions of plants, astronomical maps, and even crude human figures. Then, there's the boldly written script that annotates the drawings -- copiously on occasion. Superficially the Voynich Manuscript looks like a medieval herbarium combined with an astronomer's musings. The words look as if you could read them easily, but you cannot. No one has been able to, except for the interpretation of a few plant labels. The words represent no known language, yet statistical tests confirm that a real language was used. "Real" but uncrackable after much labor by leading cryptographers. The plants look like species you might find in your backyard and nearby fields. Botanists, though, assure us that most do not exist in nature. The copious plant labels in that unreadable language are of no help. Astronomical drawings and zodiacs fill some pages. Hope rises when we see a zodiac beginning with Pisces but fades when Scorpius turns out to be a lizard. Cancer is represented by two lobsters; Gemini by a man and woman. Superficially, the manuscript seems so readable and ...
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... , Brown, Velikovsky, and more recent catastrophists. Employing a wide span of data from complex top theory to ancient legend, Warlow suggests that the earth has undergone many violent catastrophes, some of them within the time of man. Flood legends, geomagnetic reversals, tektites, paleoclimatology, salinity crises, and other familiar standbys of the catastrophists force P. Warlow to examine the stability of the earth in the presence of astronomical collisions and near-collisions. He shows that the earth rotates slowly and that, even with the stabilizing equatorial bulge, our planet is rather sensitive to outside forces. It is, he says, like a tippe top or magic top; a 8,000-mile-diameter top that turns over repeatedly in response to external influences. Did not the ancient Egyptians write that the sun once rose in the west? Are there not massive faunal extinctions? Have not stray solar-system bodies left scars on all the inner planets? (Warlow, P.; "Geomagnetic Reversals," Journal of Physics,11:2107, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #6 , February 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Barry Fell, however, considers them obvious Iberic letters. His translation of the Arabic: Top: A vegetable garden. Cession of land, a conveyance of property. Side: Cession of land, a conveyance of property. (Henson, B. Bart, and Fell, Barry; "Inscribed Rocks in South Central Alabama," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications, 11:235, no. 274, 1983.) Comment. The large number of North American sites with enigmatic marks documented by the Epigraphic Society elicits several questions: Are the sites and artifacts genuine? In view of the large number discovered at various times, in various places, by different people; some would certainly seem to be legitimate. Are the markings really ancient Ogam, Libyan, and similar brands of old writing? Admittedly, some grooves and scratches on small stones may have been created by random processes, but others, like the extensive series in West Virginia reported in SF#27, must be manmade. Comparisons with similar Old World inscriptions suggest that again the answer must be "yes." Were there really ancient Celts, Romans, Arabs, Egyptians, and other peoples in North America well before Columbus? The large number of old inscriptions would argue for a "yes," but one must also wonder what these old explorers or colonists did except carve symbols on rocks. Where are the expected artifacts, such as pottery, campsites, etc.? Certainly, the conventional archeological literature, which we survey, is devoid of any references to such artifacts. The data recorded above are ...
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... , we find the digits 2718281, the first seven digits of e, the base of natural logarithms. Then at decimal 52,638 there is 14142135, the first eight digits of the square root of 2. But all these discoveries are hardly profound, for they could occur by chance -- nothing really "transcendental" so far. A more astounding discovery is that: 22(pi)4 = 2143 A few multiplications, and the 10 million-plus decimals of pi have vanished. (Can this remarkable relationship mirror some as yet undiscovered facet of physical reality?) While it is difficult to squeeze the meaning of the universe out of pi's 10 million-plus decimals, one has to admit that pi is everywhere. To grasp the insidiousness of this number, write the alphabet out beginning with J, as follows: J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I Now cross out all those letters with right-left symmetry, such as M, O, etc. The remaining letters are in five groups, with populations of (you guessed it) 3, 1, 4, 1, 6. Surely this must mean something! (Gardner, Martin; "Slicing Pi into Millions," Discover, 6:50, January 1985.) From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... of this article, does not buy this reasoning. General Relativity, he says, has been shown to be valid so far only in weak gravitational fields, not in the very powerful gravitational fields of an X-ray star. ". .. we presume that Einstein's theory correctly describes strong gravity when we argue that certain X-ray stars are black holes, yet, at the same time, these alleged black holes are the acid test of Einstein's theory of strong gravity." (McClintock, Jeffrey; "Do Black Holes Exist?" Sky and Telescope, 75:30, 1988.) Comment. The long history of science teaches us that all theories are eventually displaced by more accurate, more all-inclusive formulations. Unfortunately, this makes textbook writing difficult. From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did charles darwin become a christian?It has long been claimed by some Christians that Charles Darwin, who helped lay the intellectual foundations of secular humanism, reembraced Chris tianity as he neared death. A central figure in this tale is a Lady Hope, who supposedly visited Darwin in the months before he died. What is the basis for the Lady Hope story; and what do Darwin's own writings reveal about his religious beliefs? Alas, Darwin's return to the fold seems an apochryphal tale. W.H . Rusch, Sr., and J.W . Klotz, well-known scientific creationists, have prepared a 38page historical study of the question -- quoting at length from Darwin himself. They conclude about Darwin: "He had made the human mind his authority, and it led him from orthodoxy to theism to agnosticism. Indeed it appears he might well be characterized as an atheist, a doubter of the very existence of God. His caution, however, and his recognition of the impossibility from a scientific standpoint of proving a negative led him to characterize himself as an agnostic which he says he is content to remain." (Rusch, Wilbert H., Sr., and Klotz, John W.; " Did Charles Darwin Become a Christian? " Emmett L. Williams, ed., Norcross, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . ...
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... .) Lanzarote, on the other hand, is one of the Canary Islands. Here, too, one finds a submerged, Bimini-like row of apparently man-made blocks of stones. Some 22 meters down, the blocks are arranged in a sort of staircase, as shown in the figure. The steps, however, are 40-cm high, too big a step for humans. Is this structure a submerged pier, an altar, or something else. No one knows. Possibly relevant is a statuette, stylistically Olmec, which was also found in Lanzarote waters. (Bajocco, Alf; "Lanzarote: un Nouveau Bimini?" Kadath , no. 66, p. 6, Winter 1987.) Comment. The name, Kadath , incidentally comes from the writings of H.P . Lovecraft, a mostly forgotten, highly imaginative American writer. Kadath was Lovecrafts' great city of the ancients. Reference. Ancient Man, mentioned above, is described here . Alignments of blocks in 22 meteres of water off Lanzarote. (Left) Front view showing stepped arrangement. From Science Frontiers #58, JUL-AUG 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , does everyone keep the verses straight? Biologists Linda Guinee and Katharine Payne have been looking into the matter, and they have come up with an intriguing possibility. It seems that humpbacks, like humans, use rhyme." Guinee and Payne suspect that whales rhyme because they have detected particular subphrases turning up in the same position in adjacent themes. (Cowley, Geoffrey; "Rap Songs from the Deep," Newsweek, p. 63, March 20, 1989. Cr. J. Covey) Comment. This is all wonderfully fascinating, but why do whales rhyme at all, or sing such long complex songs? Biologists fall back on that hackneyed old theory that it has something to do with mating and/or dominance displays. Next, we'll hear that human poets write poems only to improve their chances of breeding and passing their genes on to their progeny! Reference. Whale "communication" is the subject of BMT8 in our catalog: Biologi cal Anomalies: Mammals I. Details here . From Science Frontiers #64, JUL-AUG 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Halton C. Arp. .. .If, after examining the statistics yourself and understanding the evidence, you are unconvinced, so be it. Remember, if the conventional view is correct, all of these apparent juxtapositions must be accidental. Above all, do not be swayed by the views of the authorities, be they Dan Weedman, Allan Sandage, Maarten Schmidt, Chip Arp, or myself. We are fallible, too, and some of us (ask the others!) have axes to grind." (Burbidge, Geoffrey; "Quasars in the Balance," Mercury , 17:136, 1988.) Comment. Burbidge, a professor of physics at the University of California at San Diego, has had a long and dis tinguished career in science. He can write and get articles like the one above published. How many young, aspiring astronomers would dare? Reference. The book mentioned above, Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos; is described here . From Science Frontiers #65, SEP-OCT 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... erosion and fell off cliffs to be smashed upon impact below. Gravity and not the human hand broke the quartz into pieces that just happen to look like prehistoric tools. F. Parenti, a coworker of Guidon, has tried to exorcise the geofact argument, which is used wherever tools are "too old", by showing that the 595 pieces of quartz have characteristics quite unlike those created by natural flaking. The doubters are unswayed. You see, despite Parenti's analysis, there remains a minute chance that a falling rock will fracture into pieces, one of which will look human-made. Maybe only one falling rock in 10,000 will fracture "unnaturally;" make it one in 10,000,000; it doesn't matter. Anthropologist D. Meltzer writes: "Of course, no matter how rare the chances, given sufficient time and raw material - Pedra Furada had plenty of both - nature can magnify even the slimmest odds to the point where geofacts occur in detectable frequencies." In this argument, you see how our title "Darwinism in Archeology" came to be. Random events (rock falls or mutations) plus a sorting mechanism (human selection or natural selection) can produce geofacts or new species. This sort of explanatory mechanism can, in principle, explain just about anything! (Meltzer, David; "Stones of Contention," New Scientist, p. 31, June 24, 1995.) R. Dennell and L. Hurcombe, two archeologists faced with the geofact problem at their Pakistan dig, tried to ...
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... and they will walk around in never decreasing circles until they die from exhaustion. But a colony of a million army ants is a sophisticated "super-organism." The colony carries out its legendary raids and can even keep nest temperatures constant to within a degree. An army ant colony seems en dowed with an intelligence far beyond that of any individual ant. N.R .Franks speculates thus: "It seems that intelligence, natural or artificial, is an emergent property of collective communication. Human con-sciousness itself may be an epiphenomenon of extraordinary processing power. Although experts prefer to avoid simplistic definitions of intelligence, it seems clear that all intelligence involves the rational manipulation of symbolic information. This is exactly what happens when army ants pass information from individual to individual through the 'writing' and 'reading' of symbols, often in the form of chemical messengers or trail pheromones, which act as stimuli for changing behavior patterns." During its 20-day stationary phase, an army ant colony scatters about 14 foraging raids directed 123 apart. The heavy line indicates the colony's path during the nomadic phase. In the body of his article, Franks describes two remarkable capabilities of an army ant colony: time-keeping and navigation. The outward manisfestation of time-keeping is in the precise timing of the colony's nomadic phase of 15 days (during which larvae are growing) and the 20-day stationary phase (during which pupae develop). The queen's egg-laying also conforms with this schedule. Raids into the rain forest ...
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... Frontiers would be easy or even compatible with your world view! Furthermore, archeology is more than shards and arrowheads. Today's physicists enjoy speculating about Theories of Everything, but they really don't nean everything ! They just mean physics and cosmology. Some 5,000 years ago, the Sumerians constructed a remarkable Theory of Everything based upon music, a base-60 number system, and symmetry concepts. These Sumerians didn't have supercomputers but they were able to incorporate into their theory much more than physics and cosmology. Below, E.G . McClain provides some insight into ancient Sumerian thinking: "In ancient Mesopotania,music, mathematics, art, science, religion, and poetic fantasy were fused. Around 3000 B.C ., the Sumerians simultaneously developed cuneiform writing, in which they recorded their pantheon, and a base-60 number system. Their gods were assigned numbers that encoded the primary ratios of music, with the gods' functions corresponding to their numbers in acoustical theory. Thus the Sumerians created an extensive tonal/arithmetical model for the cosmos. In this far-reaching allegory, the physical world is known by analogy, and the gods give divinity not only to natural forces but also to a 'supernatural,' intuitive understanding of mathematical patterns and psychological forces." To understand the role of musical theory in modeling the cosmos, one must realize that it involves: "the definition of intervals, the distance between pitches, by ratios of integers or counting numbers." For the ancient Sumerians music was a tool that helped them ...
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... 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 did he write? From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... That is the way physical laws are tested. In the currently popular form of cosmology, by contrast, the physical laws are regarded as already known and an explanation of the later situation is sought by guessing at parameters appropriate to the initial state. We think this approach does not merit the high esteem that cosmologists commonly accord it." We have neither the space nor the expertise to lay out before you the details of the new Burbidge-Hoyle-Narlikar cosmology. Suffice that it involves black holes residing in galactic centers performing as "minicreation" centers, thereby replacing the one-time Big Bang creation event. The aspect of the new theory that amazes the most is the acceptance of the Arp heresy: that some quasars possess intrinsic red shifts not associated with the expanding universe. They write: "Nonetheless, observations over many years have accumulated good statistical evidence that many high-redshift quasars are physically associated with galaxies with very much smaller redshifts." So, at least some prominent scientists accept Arp's conclusions. (Burbidge, Geoffry, et al; "A Different Approach to Cosmology," Physics Today, 52:38, April 1999.) Comment. "Minicreation events"? Creation is creation, whether the events are big or small! From Science Frontiers #124, JUL-AUG 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Preadaptive Evolution "Preadaptive evolution" is a remarkable concept. Basically, it asserts that in some -- possibly many -- mutations, a useful response to an evolutionary challenge is "naturally" accompanied by useful responses to challenges that have not yet been posed to the life form in question. This prescience verges on the miraculous to the uninitiated, but mainstream biologists seem content to write the phenomenon off as merely good fortune -- like hitting two jackpots in a row on the same slot machine. A good example of preadaptation occurs when bacteria are cultured in the presence of an antibiotic. Within a few weeks, they have evolved a resistance to that particular antibiotic. This well-known phenomenon is easily explained by evolution. However, often the newly evolved (or "adapted") bacteria are also resistant to several other antibiotics that work by different mechanisms. All of the multiple gene changes needed for the several different defense mechanisms are controlled by a single site on the same chromosome. (Levy, Stuart B.; The Antibiotic Paradox , New York, 1992, p. 99. Cr. A. Mebane.) Comments. How can bacteria prepare defenses against antibiotics they have not been exposed to? Luck, prescience, or some unrecognized mechanism? In his Ever Since Darwin , S.J . Gould acknowledges that "preadaptation implies prescience although in actuality it means just the opposite! His explanation of "preadaptation ...
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... French specialist of dreams, asks the question: Why do cosmonauts never dream about space? Why do they dream only about the Earth? "According to psychologists, the 'day residue' in dreams is rather important. Half of all dreams allude to events of the preceding day; 89% allude to events of the last 120 days. The older the event, the lower the odds that it will reappear during the night. When people wear colored glasses, they begin very quickly to dream in the same color. People who make a complete change of life; for example, by travelling to a faraway place; do not begin to dream about this new place for weeks or months. A Bassari from Senegal, who was resident in Paris for two extended stays, was asked to write down his dreams. Surprisingly, 88% of his dreams occurred in Africa and only 6% in France. This experiment and others like it are discussed at length in the book, but explanations are lacking. Do we really understand anything about dreams? (Jouvet, Michel, and Gessain, Monique; Le Grenier des Reves , Paris, 1997. Cr. C. Marecaille) From Science Frontiers #113, SEP-OCT 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... relativity and quantum mechanics. This new theory of evolution -- his "third" way -- will emerge from the convergence of biology and information science. Genomes, asserts Shapiro, are not really the static "beads on a string" envisioned by the Darwinians. Rather, they are fluid and complex. Genes are now seen as multipurpose elements that turn on and off as required for the survival and well-being of the organism they belong to. In this paradigm-eroding paper (referenced below), Shapiro describes four categories of molecular discoveries that have revised our thinking about how evolution works: (1 ) Genome Organization; (2 ) Cellular-Repair Capabilities; (3 ) Mobile Genetic Elements and Natural Genetic Engineering; and (4 ) Cellular Information Processing. He then writes: The point of this discussion is that our current knowledge of genetic change is fundamentally at variance with neo-Darwinist postulates. We have progressed from the Constant Genome, subject only to random, localized changes at a more or less constant mutation rate, to the Fluid Genome, subject to episodic, massive and non-random reorganizations capable of producing new functional architectures. Inevitably, such a profound advance in awareness of genetic capabilities will dramatically alter our understanding of the evolutionary process. Toward the end, Shapiro approaches, as he logically must, the really crucial point in the Darwinism-Creationism de-bate. Is there guiding intelligence at work in the evolution of life? He cannot answer this question at this time, and neither can science in general. He puts his hope for ...
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... All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Crayfish Communication It always comes as a surprise when we find supposedly primitive organisms employing our highly technical concepts; for example, the jamming-avoidance techniques of electric fish (SF#89). Still another potential example has been advanced: The lowly crayfish is now thought to enlist some of our sophisticated information theory. Crayfish often live in noisy environments, where one would expect acoustical information transmission would be degraded. This would be true enough if linear information theory applied, but some, perhaps all, real situations are nonlinear. In such instances, information flow can actually be enhanced by the presence of optimized random noise. Stochastic resonance (SR) is the term applied in such cases of nonlinear statistical dynamics. J.K . Douglass et al write: "Although SR has recently been demonstrated in several artificial physical systems, it may also occur naturally, and an intriguing possibility is that biological systems have evolved the capability to exploit SR by optimizing endogenous sources of noise. Sensory systems are an obvious place to look for SR, as they excel at detecting weak signals in a noisy environment. Here we demonstrate SR using external noise applied to crayfish mechanoreceptor cells. Our results show that individual neurons can provide a physiological substrate for SR in sensory systems." Put more simply, the crayfish nervous system has the potential for cashing in on SR in noisy environments. However, the authors also remark that humans, too, accordingly to psychological experiments, seem to harness SR in the perception of ambiguous figures in noisy situations. (Douglass, ...
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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 Eco-Darwinism: Diffuse Individuals Epigenetic phenomena -- those phenomena beyond the pale of DNA -- are seen in "diffuse individuals" such as fungi, where it is difficult to separate individual units of life. To illustrate, some fungi may be 1,000 years old and extend for 35 acres (15 hectares) and yet possess a single, still unmodified genome. In his review of A. Rayner's new book Degrees of Freedom: Living in Dynamic Boundaries , T. Wakeford writes: "So, like the World Wide Web, a fungal network is decentralized. There is no central region capable of exerting control over the rest of the network. Rayner's own work suggests that the growth patterns of fungal filaments are forged as much by the environment that they encounter as by their genes. He believes that epigenetics, the process whereby opportunities in an organism's surroundings dictate which genes are expressed, is the norm in microorganisms. Genetic determinism is thus turned on its head." (Wakeford, Tom; "We Are the Fungus," New Scientist, p. 49, May 10, 1997.) Comment. Looking at the above situation from an information viewpoint, as one must these days, it seems that the environment can somehow "interpret" genes as the situation demands. In other words, genes are not "single-message" information carriers, but can be " ...
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... a bit more oblate, then a bit more prolate, as illustrated. The amplitudes of these deformations are small, just a centimeter or so after big quakes. The tone or frequency of the quivers is just a few millihertz, which translates to periods ranging from 3-54 minutes. We doubt that the telestomping elephants mentioned under BIOLOGY can detect these quiverings. That the earth does indeed "ring" is old news. Geophysicist A.E .H . Love mentioned the possibility in 1911. It is also recognized that large earthquakes can set the earth to ringing (" quivering" is better). What is news is the discovery by N. Suda et al that our planet rings even when no major quakes are occurring, and no one yet knows why. Suda et al write: "The observed "background" free oscillations represent some unknown dynamic process of Earth." Suda and his colleagues detected these oscillations using a superconducting gravimeter, which they installed in a seismically-quiet place: Antarctica. The favorite explanation for the background oscillations is turbulence in the earth's atmosphere. Ocean tides and currents are also on the list as potential "bell-ringers." [El Ninos were not mentioned!] (Suda, Naoki, et al; "Earth's Background Free Oscillations," Science, 279: 2089, 1998. Also: Kanamori, Hiroo; "Shaking without Quaking," Science, 279:2063, 1998.) From Science Frontiers #118, JUL-AUG 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cricket Coordination In the August 31, 1991, issue of Science News, there appeared an item on the famous synchronously flashing fireflies of Southeast Asia. W. Clements, writing in response to the firefly story, asserts that Indian crickets chirping in unison are much more impressive. He wrote: "I once rode on the back of a truck at night along mountain roads in India. There the crickets sound out quite loudly. The sound swells and diminishes with a persistent beat. As we drove along mile after mile, there was not the tiniest perceptible change in the rhythm. In other words, the insects we listened to at any point were modulating their sound at exactly the same frequency, if not phase, maintained by their contemporaries many miles back. Considering the vast areas that must be represented wherever it occurs, the phenomenon must involve unimaginable millions of insects all acting in concert. This is vastly more impressive than the spectacle of fireflies performing together in a single tree." Picture, if you will, millions, perhaps billions, of crickets all moving their limbs together in unison over many square miles! (Clements, Warner; "Flashy Displays," Science News, 140:323, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 The earth's most common topographical feature: abyssal hills Typical depth profiles revealing the dimensions of the abyssal hills; the earth's most common but least understood terrain. All of the continents put together do not cover even half the area occupied by the abyssal hills, which dominate 60-70% of our planet's surface. 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 ...
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... arranged in a spherical halo about our solar system in the vicinity of the postulated Oort Cloud of comets? If this were so, they would not have to be nearly as powerful as they would in the neutronstar model. If the gamma-ray bursters really do lurk just at the fringes of the solar system, they must, given their power and small size, be objects completely new to astronomy. (Schwarzschild; Bertram; "Compton Observatory Data Deepen the Gamma Ray Burster Mystery," Physics Today, 45:21, February 1992.) Comment. Historically speaking, the gamma-ray bursters were discovered accidentally by satellites launched to detect surreptitious tests of nuclear weapons. Wouldn't it be ironical if our satellites are really monitoring artificial phenomena, generated by battles we can only write science fiction stories about? Reference. Refer to AOF29 in our Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos for gamma-ray "bursters." Details here . From Science Frontiers #83, SEP-OCT 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 139: Jan-Feb 2002 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Confusion That'S Hard To Cut Through D.A . Stocks in SF#137 described how his Egyptian workers were able to cut through granite with copper saws with the addition of a little abrasive sand. Sure, it was slow, hard work, but it could be done. Stocks' experiments squelched the various speculations about the ancient Egyptians possessing superhard tools or being able to soften stone. However, C. Ginenthal writes that H. Garland and C.O . Bannister attempted to saw through granite back in the 1920s using essentially the same method employed by Stocks -- but without success. Garland and Bannister wrote a book on their experiments, from which Ginenthal has provided the following quotation: A consideration of the [copper and abrasive cutting] process would seem to give support to the idea that a copper-emery [or other abrasive material] process might have been used by the first Egyptians, but the author [Garland] has proved by experiment the impossibility of cutting granite or diorite by any similar means to these. But the use of emery powder anointed with oil or turpentine, no measurable progress could be made in the stone whilst the edge of the copper blade wore away and was rendered useless, the bottom and sides of the groove being coated with particles of copper. (Garland, H., and Bannister, C.O .; Ancient Egyptian Metallurgy, London, 1927, p. ...
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... waste produced by the Olko natural nuclear reactors in Gabon, Africa. It hasn't changed since then. The spectra of distant quasars 7 billion years old also signaled no change. But more-distant and, therefore, supposedly older, gas clouds have suggested that a slightly smaller fine-structure constant held sway then. No known experimental error can account for this difference. "If confirmed, would Webb's findings eventually be explained by a deeper theory, vindicating physicists' faith in a uniform nature? Or would they mean that we live in a frighteningly arbitrary and variegated cosmos, where huge swathes of space abide by alien principles?" (Musser, George; "Inconstant Constants," Scientific American, 279:24, November 1998.) Comment. Even as we write, some distant part of the cosmos may be coming into estrus for life-as-we-do-not-knowit. See SF#34 for "Already, now, we are forgotten on those stellar shores." From Science Frontiers #121, JAN-FEB 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... museums. Many bear striking designs, like that of the heron shown below. For too many years, archeologists have considered these designs to be only designs. But with more discerning examination, bolstered by knowledge of ancient Old World alphabets, it now appears that these seals incorporate many letters from Libyan, Iberian, Punic, and other alphabets. Since many of the Mexican sellos date back to 1200 BC, the implication is that Old World-New World contacts occurred long before the Christian era. But, asks G.F . Carter in his long article on the sellos, if the ancient peoples of Mexico and Central America did absorb Old World symbols, "Why was the alphabet not developed instead of the clumsy hieroglyphics?" (Carter, George F.; "Mexican Sellos : Writing in America, or the Growth of an Idea?" Epigraphic Society, Occasional Papers , 19:159, 1990.) Comment. Hieroglyphics do appear clumsy to us, but perhaps it is because we do not fully appreciate them. There may be nuances of shape and rendition that convey more than the bare translation of the glyph, just as a sonnet is more than the sum of its words. From Science Frontiers #76, JUL-AUG 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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