Where Have All the Mustangs Gone? - Why do all the horses in the old photographs I saw at the museums and on the history web sites look nothing at all like the horses on TV shows or movies about Cowboys Indians and Mountain Man Explorers? Are they all new breed horses just playing the real old western horses? Is the breed that they really used back then extinct now? If so - how sad is that? My granddad says the horses back then were half as big and twice as tough as any of the ones we have now. The closest we have today is mustangs but now even they are now just modern breed runaways, throwaways and calls. He said that if we still had those horses we would have the genes that could save the big modern horses from diseases someday. There are groups saving the chickens and cows and even the pigs we had back then. Why didn't they save those horses too?! - Ann Elf

The history of horse breeding is complex to say the least and I can't say that I'm an expert on the subject. However, with some research and some information from some authorities I hope I can answer your question.

No horse in North America today is technically a "wild" horse. All wild horses died off at the end of the last Ice Age, possibly due to climate change or hunting by native peoples. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 1500's they brought horses with them that escaped or were released into the wild (which makes them "feral" animals, not wild). This is the root of the mustang population in North America today. The mustangs of the west quickly grew to be tough animals as they had to survive on limited vegetation and water in a hot climate. This seems to have favored a smaller horse, perhaps because their smaller bodies needed less water and food to survive.

When the Europeans arrived in the west they found that some of the breeds of horses they brought with them were not suited to the harsh climate. They either switched to catching and using the smaller mustangs, or crossbred the horses they brought with them to the mustangs to create new line that had some of the features of each. This means that when you see the smaller horses in the old pictures, you may be looking at tamed mustangs, or a cross between the two lines that resulted in a smaller horse.

Today with less limited resources, people who own horses are able use breeds that have traits which suit the purpose for which the horse is to be used and are not so concerned about how it would survive in the wild. This may be part of the trend to larger horses. Some of the increases in horse size may also be due to the increase in rider size: people are taller and heavier than they were a century ago.

Your Granddad may be right about modern horses being more susceptible to certain illnesses. Whenever a population is heavily inbred, genetic weaknesses can occur.

Mustangs are currently protected under U.S. law. There are a number of separate herds each with unique genetic traits. Many of the herds show a mixed background that includes the original Spanish breeding and later imports from other locations. However, there are a few small herds, such as the Kiger and Cerat, in very isolated locations which have been shown in DNA testing to be almost directly descended from the horses that came over with the Conquistadors. Steps have been taken to preserve these bloodlines as apart of our unique American Heritage.

Moving Target in Space - I understand that the Universe is constantly expanding, which means that we, on Earth, including our solar system, are in a new area of space at any time, constantly moving away. Why is that we never see or encounter anything in the new spaces we pass through? What is the speed of this expansion? Thank you, Victor B.

The expansion of the universe is thought to have started with the "Big Bang" some 11.2 billion to 20 billion years ago. Since all matter and energy in the universe were at one time together in one location, the expansion, or some use the term "inflation," of the universe has the effect of spreading things out so it actually reduces the density of material in the universe overall making things farther apart the longer time goes on. Imagine putting three dots on a balloon with a marker, then blowing air into the balloon. The inflation of the balloon causes the dots move apart.

The rate of expansion looks different based on how far away an object is from you. A galaxy that is a megaparsec (3.2 million light years) away from us moves at a speed of approximately 72 kilometers per second (Kps). A galaxy two megaparsecs away moves at a speed of 144 Kps and so on (If this doesn't make sense, put three dots on a balloon in a row and label them A, B and C, then blow it up. The distance from A to C will increase about twice as fast as that from A to B).

Now on a smaller scale, gravity in the universe does cause material to clump together to form things like stars, solar systems and galaxies. Because of the effects of gravity they stay relatively the same distance from each other in respect to the expansion of the universe. Even so, they are also moving. Our sun, along with billions of other stars in our Milky Way galaxy, rotate around a central point (probably a massive black hole). The speed of rotation varies, with the stars closer to the center going slower and those farther out going faster. The Sun is about 2/3s of the way out from the center and moves at a speed of 250 Kps.

Since the sun is moving along with most of the stars in this area of the galaxy in the same general direction, our distance in respect to these stars doesn't change much. However scientists have recently found evidence of "rebel" stars that seem to be moving either out from the galactic center or in toward it. Our next encounter with such a star will occur in about 1.4 million years from now when Gliese 710 will pass within a light year of us.

To sum it all up, we are always moving, but the distances in space are so vast things only go by us rarely and when they do they are still very far away.

Thai Water Elephant - I saw this being talked about on the web and wondered if you knew anything about this "legend" and cryptid. Have you ever heard of it? I've read volumes of stuff on Cryptozoology, but I've never heard of this one. It is supposedly a "Thai Water Elephant" - Anonymous

I have to admit that this was so obscure I couldn't find anything about it in any of my regular cryptozoological resources. However, snooping around the web I seem to have found out that this creature falls into the same category as the "jackolope:" a quite normal creature in life that has been altered by taxidermy to be something quite unusual in death. In the case of the jackolope, a deceased rabbit is altered by giving it the antlers of a deer.

In the case of the "Thai Water Elephant" it sounds like the perpetrators have started with a shrew. A shrew is a small mouse-like mammal with a long pointed snout, making it already vaguely elephant shaped. The taxidermist does his work removing and adding bones and flesh in different places (for example, apparently the front legs bones below the knees are removed and shaped into the tusks). In the end the hoaxer has something that looks like a tiny elephant. These can then be sold in the tourist trade as novelties. Although several have shown up on Ebay with prices running in the thousands, apparently they can be acquired from street vendors in Burma for a reasonable price.

The story of the water elephant goes back at least to the 1800's. It is said that they spend their lives in the water and that their tusks carry venom that can kill a man (this part of the story might have some basis in fact as the shrew is one of the few mammal that are poisonous). Only experienced hunters are able to capture them, which is why they are so rare and expensive (at least that is how the story is told by the curiosity shop owner that wishes to sell you one). It is not clear whether the story of a water elephant has any place in traditional folklore, or if it was simply invented after the first hoaxer discovered he could turn a dead, worthless shrew into a rare, valuable water elephant and need a story to go along with it.

Will Space Exploration Effect Earth's Orbit? - How much of earth's mass would need to be lost to space by means of man's explorations in order for the orbit of earth to be affected? - Dan S.

This reminds me of story from Douglas Adam's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (the original BBC production, not the recent movie). There was a planet so beautiful that it attracted billions of visitors each year. Soon the government there began to worry about the cumulative effect of erosion as each of these visitors took bits of the planet back home with them on their clothes, etc., so they instituted a law that the net difference between what a visitor ate and secreted while on the planet would be surgically removed from the visitor's body before he left (And, of course from then on it became imperative if you where a tourist there to get a receipt whenever you visited a rest room).

Could we be facing this kind of planetary erosion because we are sending so much stuff out to explore space? Fortunately, of all the terrible things we may be doing to mother earth these days, giving her anorexia by launching space probes and the like is not something we need to be concerned about.

The Earth is big. Really big. On the order of 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. Now that doesn't begin to measure up in size to the Sun or even the planet Jupiter, but from a human point of view it is still pretty gargantuan. What's more our ability to send things into space is terribly puny. Most space probes weigh a few hundred pounds - remember we are only counting the amount of the rocket that makes it into space, not the lower stages that fall back to earth. Even if we launched a probe a day, and each probe weighed a fairly massive one ton, that's only 365 tons a year. What's more, most of that material goes into earth orbit. This means it will, sooner or later, likely fall back to the planet Skylab style. The probes that we send into deep space and never come back, like Viking or Voyager, are actually pretty rare.

So the amount we send into space compared to the size of the planet is, and will be for some time, negligible. But wait, there's more.

As the earth proceeds along its orbital path it operates like a giant vacuum cleaner sucking up dust, meteorites and even the occasional comet or asteroid. This all adds to the earth's mass. Though estimates vary, it seems at least 100 tons of debris is added to Earth's bulk everyday. At this point we are in no way able to even send enough stuff into space to keep up with the incoming material, let alone make planet any lighter.

Just one more note. The planet also loses mass by way of hydrogen escaping from the atmosphere and the decay of radioactive materials. It is hard to say just how large that figure is, however.

Making Gold - How is gold formed and why does gold turn up on turbine blades? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Regards - Diana

After the big bang the universe consisted of lot of hydrogen and helium. No gold. No lead. In fact, no metals of any kind. It was only when the first generation of stars were born that metals began to form deep within their fusion furnaces. Under the intense pressure and heat caused by the gravity of a star the light hydrogen atoms are fused together to form heavier helium. If the star is of medium size (such as our sun) or larger, the fusion can also create heavier elements including heavy metals like gold and lead. The lighter atoms in a fusion reaction have slightly more mass then the resulting heavier atoms and the mass that is lost is turned into energy according to Einstein's famous formula E=mc2. This energy is what makes a star give off heat and light and is the same process at the heart of a Hydrogen Bomb.

This means that almost everything you see around you - your watch, the computer you're are reading this on, the gold ring you're are wearing, and even yourself - were formed in some distant past in the depth of a star. As the late Dr. Carl Sagan was found of saying, we are all "star stuff."

Eventually this material was scattered about the galaxy and became part of new stars and solar systems. Rocky planets like our own Earth are formed mostly of these heavier materials. Gold is one of the more uncommon metals that was generated in the stars. Although it is scattered widely throughout the planet and can be found almost anywhere, it is almost never concentrated enough to make it worth recovering. For example, it is estimated that a cubic kilometer of sea water contains 6 kilograms of pure gold, but nobody has figured out an economic way of getting at it.

Sometimes by natural processes gold is concentrated into "seams" or "veins" and this is what miners are looking for. Because gold is highly soluble compared to other minerals it is almost always the last to crystallize out as water disappears and the first to dissolve when water returns. This has a concentrating effect. The vein a miner finds is usually the remains of an underground flow of water that carried a highly concentrated solution of gold.

As the water disappeared the material crystallized into nearly pure gold. As to the appearance of gold on turbine blades: I have been unable to find any reference to this, however, since gold is so highly soluble in water, it could be that turbine blades operating a river, or ocean or with steam, could somehow cause the some of the gold in solution to be deposited on the blades. A similar issue happens with copper deposits and certain types of power plants if there is copper present in the water being used. What the mechanism for this effect is I don't know, but perhaps one of our knowledgeable readers can help us out.

Tesla Power - I would like to know what the word Tesla means. I think it has something to do with electricity. - Anonymous

I have a very weird game known as Red Alert. It mentions something called Tesla technology. I only know it has something to do with electricity. I've asked several people and they don't seem to know. - Frank

Nikola Tesla was an inventor who lived about a hundred years ago. He was perhaps the foremost electrical genius of his time. Everybody remembers Edison better, but the truth is that Tesla was probably the smarter man. While he has been forgotten, his inventions are all around us. The AM radio you listen to when driving to work? Tesla. The alternating current (AC) electrical system that you plug things into at your house? Not possible without a host of inventions from Tesla. The fluorescent lighting in your office? Tesla helped develop them. The toy radio controlled boat you play with on Saturdays? Tesla built the first one. He even laid out a design for radar decades before the first one was built.

One his best remembered inventions was the "Tesla Coil." He actually designed a number of different versions of these devices which are used take electricity and increase the frequency and voltage. Tesla had several ideas about how the coil could be used that included radio signals and wireless power transmission. When a Tesla coil is running it can produce impressive electrical show with sparks, and corona discharges. A giant coil built at Tesla's Colorado laboratory was capable of creating sparks 135 feet in length.

As Tesla aged his inventions seem to become less and less practical. One of Tesla's last ideas was a charged particle beam. Such as "death ray," if built, would have been capable of downing airplanes or destroying objects at a distance. Though no death ray was ever built during Tesla's lifetime, both the U.S. and the USSR spent quit a bit of money trying to get it to work during the cold war. For more information check our biography of Nikola Tesla.

Floating Cannonballs - A person in a cannon-ball position (arms and legs tucked in a circle) will sink to the bottom of a swimming pool, but will float effortlessly back to the top when she extends her arms and legs in a vertical position. Are you aware of any objects (the heavier, the better) I can use in an experiment to demonstrate that an object in one position will sink in water, but by merely changing its position (not adding any air), will float back to the top? - Anonymous

I wish I could help you, but the problem is that the position of an object doesn't change its buoyancy. Buoyancy is controlled by the density (that is the mass and volume it takes up) of the object. If the object has a higher density than water, it sinks. If it has a lower density, it floats. These states are called positive and negative buoyancy.

The human body is mostly H2O so it has a density very close to that of water. The amount of air in your lungs usually is enough to tip the balance to above or below. If you cannonball into a pool with your lungs full of air, the initial momentum of the fall will carry to the bottom, but as long as you don't exhale you will rise back up whether you spread your limbs out or not. Usually people like to come back up to the surface face first, however, so they can breath, so they manipulate their arms and legs to bring them up in that position. If you remained in the cannonball orientation you would float back up, but you'd find yourself with your back out of the water and your face below because in that position your lungs, which are filled with air, would be closest to the surface. This position would be very similar to the "dead man's float" or "survival float."

One might try to argue that in the case of an opened topped container, like a boat, position does matter. Obviously a boat if turned on its side will take on water until it sinks. As the water pours into the boat, however, it is displacing, or removing, the air making the boat denser. When enough water is displaced the total boat would have a density greater than water and would sink. This would be the same as pushing the air out of your lungs which would give your body negative buoyancy so you would sink.

Foggy Notion - Why does a hot liquid poured on cold ground produce steam? - Anonymous

First let's note that if the ground is cold, then most likely the air directly above is cold also. This is important to our explanation. When warm water hits the ground it starts to spread out and some of the warmth is transferred to the air immediately above the water. Warm air always holds more moisture than cold air, so this promotes the evaporation of the water. As the warm water vapor rises, however, it soon gets to a layer of air that has not been warmed. As cold air does not hold as much moisture as warm air, some of the water vapor is condensed out as a steam or fog. This is the same effect you get when warm rain hits the cold ground and ground fog forms. It is also similar to the "steam" fog the forms over lakes when cold, dry air sweeps over warm water. The rising water vapor hits and layer of air colder than the layer it was in and condenses out as fog.

High Speed Hijinks - I have several questions concerning the speed of light and the speed of sound that my dad and I were discussing: 1: If you're in a car at night traveling the speed of light and you turn the headlights on will the headlights shine out in front of the car or will they just glow? 2: Let's say me and another guy are in an airplane traveling the speed of sound...one man in front of plane the other in back....the man in the back says hello. Will the man in the front hear him? Or say that both men stick their heads out the airplane (let's say it doesn't snap their heads off)....will the man in the front hear the man in the back if he says hello? Thanks - Shannon

An interesting set of questions! Let's talk about them in reverse order.

First, the men with their heads leaning out the window of the plane going faster than the speed of sound: Sound waves are vibrations that move through a medium. The medium can be almost anything, but it has to exist (sound does not travel through a vacuum like you would find in outer space). Different mediums have different speeds that sound will travel through them. For air at sea level this speed is roughly 12 miles a minute. That's why if you see a flash of lightning (The speed of light is so high we can say that the flash of the light reached you almost instantaneously) and then count three seconds - a twelfth of a minute - till the thunder arrives, you know that the strike occurred about a mile away.

If you made a sound while traveling through a medium faster than the speed of sound for that medium, it will only be heard behind you. A real life example is an airplane traveling faster than the speed of sound. You cannot hear it approach because it is traveling faster than the sound waves it is making. Because it is moving faster than sound, the waves tend to "pile up" on the plane and come off as a powerful shock wave streaming behind the plane. This shock wave is what we call a "sonic boom."

For this reason a man sticking his head outside the back of a plane would not be heard by a man with his head out the front of the plane. They are moving too fast for the sound waves to overtake the front of the plane.

For the two men inside the plane conditions are completely different. In this case, the plane is filled with a medium - air - that is traveling the same velocity as the plane. Since the air is not moving relative to the plane or the men, it's exactly the same as if the plane was parked on the ground. The sound moves from one man to the other (it doesn't matter front to back or back to front) at the speed of sound.

The final one we will tackle is the headlights at the speed of light. Technically we can't get a car, spaceship or any object with mass going at the speed of light. It simply requires more energy than there is available in the universe. However, we can talk about a headlight as it approaches the speed of light and such a situation should shed light your question. Light is unlike sound it that it needs no medium to travel though. That's why we can see stars through the vacuum of space (Before Einstein came out with his Special Theory scientists did speculated that there was a medium needed for light which they called "ether"). Light is special in that it travels through vacuum at a particular speed (about 186,000 miles per second) that that speed does not change no matter how fast the source of the light it traveling. Since there is no medium, the speed of the medium is irrelevant. If a stationary observer were to watch a car speeding by at near 90 percent of the speed of light, they would see the light traveling away from the front of the head lights at just 10 percent faster.

The weird part is what the driver of the car would see. From his point of view the light would appear to be speeding away from him at the full speed of light (186,000 mps). How is this possible? Time slows down as you pick up speed. Time would have slowed enough for the driver that when he measures the light speeding away from him it seems to go ten times farther than for the stationary observer, because the clock the driver is using to measure time is going only one tenth as fast.

Suspended Animation - Is it possible to deep-freeze your body (brain, heart, etc. ) and restore your body in a later time? For example a person freezes and wakes up 1,000 years later - Rowell

The idea of cryogenically preserving by a person and thawing them out later - sort of like a frozen dinner - has long been a staple of science fiction, but so far scientists have not figured out how to make it work. The reason is ice. Most of the human body is water and water expands when it freezes. This is the reason the pipes in your house will crack open if they are filled with water and your heater fails in freezing temperatures. The expansion of the water in a human body systems wrecks the delicate structure of cell tissue throughout the body. Scientists have tried to counteract this by mixing substances like glycerol in with body fluids to act as sort of a biological antifreeze, but the results have not yet been fully successful. If such a system could be developed it could, in theory, be used to freeze a human indefinitely.

Another, perhaps more promising approach, to the problem is not to literally "freeze" a person, but to put them into hibernation. Many animals, including bears, hibernate by lowering their body temperature and metabolism. Just recently scientists have demonstrated the ability to put mice into a state of "suspended animation" by having them breath air laced with hydrogen sulfide. While high concentrations of this gas would be fatal, just the right amount seems to put the mice to sleep and their metabolic rates dropped by 90%. They were revived by simply returning the air they were breathing to normal. As metabolism is not stopped with this method, but just slowed, it could not be used to preserve humans indefinitely.

There would be many uses for such a state of suspended animation. Currently trips to other planets in our solar system, or beyond, could take many months or years and the trip would be made much simpler - less food, drink and psychological stress - if the astronauts slept most of the way. The technique could also be used to preserve organs for transplantation or have critical patients hibernate through operations or recovery.

What an insightful and interesting question! I have to say that because I often wondered about that myself, but was too lazy to do the math. Since your question is forcing me to make the calculations, let's get on with it and see what we have.

Centripetal force isn't actually a force at all, but an effect of acceleration. Things in motion like to keep going in a straight line unless something forces them not to do that. In the case of the merry-go-round it's the wooden horse you are clinging to which keeps you from pulled to the outer edge of the ride. In the case of Earth, it's gravity that keeps you on the ground. Logic says that effect of the Earth's gravity should be lessened by the centripetal acceleration that pulls objects away from it. At first this would seem to be a pretty significant factor. After all, the earth spins at about 1000 miles per hour at the equator! Perhaps we would all be squished flat by our planet's gravity if it stopped and the centripetal acceleration disappeared!

A little analysis, however, shows us that such a drastic scenario could not be true. Near the North and South Poles there is almost no spin and explorers have not reported feeling a significant change in their perceived weight. Let's go to the mathematics.

The formula to calculate the effect of the centripetal acceleration on the equator of a sphere is 4 times pi squared times the radius of the sphere divided by the period of rotation squared. When you plug in 6400km for the radius of the Earth and 24 hours (or 86400 seconds) for the rotational period you find the centripetal acceleration throws you away from the Earth at about 0.03 meters per seconds squared. Gravity on Earth is about 10 meters per second squared so if you stopped the planet you would weigh about three tenths of one percent more that when it was moving. So if you weigh 100 pounds, you would weigh about 100.3 on a non-rotating Earth. A one pound object would weigh in at 1.003 pounds. A very tiny difference.

This effect does have an impact on the planet itself, however. The Earth is not perfectly round, but it is slightly fatter along the equator. This is caused by the centripetal acceleration pulling at the middle of the planet.

Ancient carvings or pictures that seem to show modern technological devices, like spacesuits, helmets and rocket ships would seem to be powerful evidence of visits by ancient astronauts or highly technological societies that have since gone missing. However, accepting such speculation as proof requires a jump in logic that is faulty at best. Just because something resembles something else doesn't mean that it is that thing. For example, on the Nazca plains in South America there are a series of lines on the ground that resemble the layout of a modern airport. Does that mean that this is what the makers of the ancient lines were constructing? An examination of the ground in that location shows that is much too soft to have supported any kind of aircraft landing, therefore, despite the resemblance, it was not an airport, though the lines may have some equally fascinating function.

In the same way does a figurine or drawing that resembles a helmeted spaceman mean that this is what the artist intended? Or was he carving a man wearing a mask related to some ancient ritual. Or does the drawing simply have no meaning other that what came from the artist's imagination? We are free to speculate about what ancient astronauts and the like, but we should be aware that their may well be other explanations for what we are seeing.

Galactic Mystery - How long does it take our galaxy to make one rotation - John

Scientists estimate the sun makes its way around the our galaxy once every 250 million years. However, because galaxies are so large (our Milky Way galaxy is estimated to be around 72,000 light years across) and held together only by gravity, the hub spins faster and the outer edges slower. The sun is about two-thirds out from the center of our galaxy.

There is a mystery surrounding the rotation of galaxies. In order to stay in one piece any set of objects (like the stars, planets and gas in a galaxy) that rotates needs to balance the gravity created by its total mass against the speed of the rotation. If the rotation is too fast the gravity will not hold the galaxy together and it will fly apart. If it is too slow the galaxy will collapse on itself. When scientists started measuring the speeds that galaxies rotate they got a surprise. They were rotating way too fast. Often ten times faster than scientists would have expected based on the amount of mass of matter they could see inside the galaxy. The only explanation that seems to make sense is that there is some kind of "dark matter" in galaxies that cannot be seen. While many scientists have formulated theories about what the dark matter could be, nobody has been able to say for sure, which leaves us in the embarrassing situation of not know what the heck most of our universe is really made of!

It depends what you mean by appearing in the fossil record. Certainly the Jurassic seas were filled with all kinds of marine reptiles that if they were alive today would fit the description of a sea serpent (check out http://www.unmuseum.org/searepti.htm). However, these creatures seemed have disappeared about the same time the dinosaurs met their end roughly 65 million years ago. More recently the zeuglodon, a primitive form of whale, might easily be mistaken for a sea serpent if it had been alive today, though it is a mammal, not a reptile. (http://www.unmuseum.org/zeuglodo.htm) In the 19th century an unscrupulous promoter actually cobbled together several zeuglodon skeletons and exhibited them as an extinct sea serpent. Zeuglodons are found in the fossil record as recently 37 million years ago.

Can we find more recent fossil evidence for sea serpent-type creatures? It will be hard. The best place to find ancient sea creature fossils are in ancient sea beds. The geology of the planet changes so slowly that most of the more recent sea beds, where we would expect to find evidence for any sea serpent-like creature that has developed over the last few million years, are still at the bottom of the oceans and inaccessible to us.

Lack of evidence is no proof of existence, of course, so what we have now are simply tantalizing stories like we find in O'Neill's book. Suggestive and intriguing, but until somebody comes up with a well-preserved body, no proof.

A Planet By Any Other Name... - Out of the nine planets in our solar system, eight have names based on Greek and Roman mythology. But what about Earth? What was Earth named in different ancient cultures? – Katie

The word Earth goes back to the Anglo-Saxon word “Erda” or “Erdaz” which means ground or soil. As the word was passed to Old English it became “Eorthe” or “Erthe.” In German it became “Erde.”

Other ancient languages have different words. In Latin it was the word “Terra” (which is still a word used to mean ground and Earth in English today). In Norwegian it is “Jorda,” Icelandic: “Jord” and Greek: “Era.” You could probably make the case that to be consistent we should be calling the Earth “Gaia” which is the name of the Greek goddess who symbolized Mother Earth. Other mother Earth goddesses that might have been appropriate names include the Iroquois name “Etenoha” and the Lakota name “Maka.”

Or course, even today Earth is only our planet name in English. Although English is the international language for professional astronomy other languages use a variety of distinct terms for Earth and the other planets in everyday speech. For a list check out http://www.nineplanets.org/days.html

Scientific Mind Reading - In pure science and logic how do we explain a connection between two people through their minds? - Nicky

The direct communication of information between two minds, sometimes referred to as telepathy (The term was first used in 1882 by psychologist, F.W. Myers), has never been proven in a rigorous scientific experiment. Saying that it has never been proved, however, does not mean that it doesn't exist. If telepathy was a strong and reliable communication channel between minds, proving it exists should be easy. Suppose, however, it only works intermittently and under certain unknown conditions?

In the classic mind reading experiment a sender attempts to transmit information using only his brain to a "receiver." The information might be in the form of shapes on a series of cards or colors or letters or numbers. If the receiver can repeatedly and consistently predict the information with greater success than one would expect by chance, then it might be considered evidence of telepathy. Complicating the issue, however, are subjects that try to "cheat" on the experiment by collaborating with sender or somehow obtaining the information by non-telepathic means. In theory it would seem easy to design an experiment that would eliminate cheating, but researchers have been fooled time and time again by clever fakers.

Entertainers often claim they can read minds, or predict the future, but their successes are much less impressive when put to a rigorous test. One of the leading entertainment "mind readers" of the last fifty years, The Amazing Kreskin, cheerfully admits that he has no supernatural powers. "I'm basically a thought reader, with no special psychic powers," he told Gallery Magazine in an interview. Kreskin tries to use his own natural ability to tune into people. He listens carefully to their voices and looks into their eyes and facial expressions for clues to what they are thinking.

If we could prove telepathy exists, it would explain some of the stranger incidents people have experienced. A phone rings and you know exactly who it is calling. A child is in an accident, and the mother knows immediately something bad has happened though she is miles away. Without a rigorous scientific test, however, it is difficult for a scientist not to chalk these antidotal stories up to coincidence.

Even though there is no proof that telepathy exists, it has not prevented some people from speculating how it might work. Nobel laureate, Cambridge physicist Brian Josephson, has suggested that if telepathy really works it may be because psychics and telepaths are able to direct random energy at sub-atomic levels for their own purposes. He's written that developments in information and quantum theories "may lead to an explanation of processes still not understood within conventional science, such as telepathy."

Ghost Ship - A few years ago off the coast of Japan, a wrecked ship was found. No country seemed to own that battered ship. Is this ship supposedly returned to us by the Bermuda Triangle? If so, what happened to the crew and contents? - Debidatta

Without a name for the ship it's hard to pin down which incident you might be talking about. I suspect you might be referring to the Mitsu, which was found abandoned off the coast of Taiwan in 2003. The Mitsu was found drifting by the Taiwanese Coast Guard with no crew on board. There were several days of confusion until the ship was identified as a Japanese fishing vessel which had been abandoned by its crew two months before when it developed mechanical problems.

"Ghost" ships are not as uncommon as you might suppose. Along the Asian Coast piracy is a continuing problem with ships being hijacked, then repainted and given a new identity. If the ship later develops problems, the pirates may just decide to abandoned it rather than risk raising the suspicions of the authorities by taking it into a port. If the ship is later found adrift with a fake registry it can appear that the ship came out of nowhere.

If you are going to subscribe to the supernatural theory, a ship found near Japan would most likely be not be associated with the Bermuda Triangle, which is in the Atlantic, but the "Devil's Sea" which is a kind of Bermuda triangle of the Pacific Ocean.

Hard Disc for the Brain - I was thinking about this and I'm not sure if it is possible in the near future. My question is, is it possible to download your memory and transfer it to a hard drive and if possible, vice versa. I was wondering, if they know where the brain stores its memories then they could copy these impulses and translate it to a hard drive. This will benefit people who suffered from long term memory loss due to accidents. So is this possible? -Rowell

Scientists don't know as nearly as much they would like about the human brain. What they do know, however, is that not organized in the same way as your home computer. Despite their seeming complexity, most computers are just fancy, programmable adding machines. Brains are far more complex, and at this point, more mysterious.

Most computers are organized with their memory components separate from their computation elements. The machine's memory can be thought of as simply millions of little mailboxes. Each mailbox is capable of storing a number- or "byte" - between 0 and 255 (Computers store larger numbers by stringing several mailboxes together. It stores letters by giving each letter a number code). When a computer wants to do an operation like addition, part of it called the accumulator fetches the number out of the mailbox, and adds it with another number, then puts it back in a mailbox.

In the human brain memory and processing are not separated in the same way. Memory and processing seem to be mixed together. Both seem to depend on the strength of connections between nerves cells called synapses. Engineers have built computers based on this "neural net" model, but they are not, as yet, in wide-spread use. Because memory and processing are not separated, researchers have a hard time even agreeing on how much memory (in terms of computer bytes) the human brain holds. One group reported in 2003 in an article in the journal Brain and Mind, that the capacity was around 10 to the power of 8,432 based on the number of neurons times the number of connections. This is more capacity than every computer ever made added together. Another scientist, Thomas Landauer of Bell Communications Research, has estimated the size based on the functional capacity of the brain - that is based on how much information people actually remember from minute-to-minute or day-to-day. When this technique is used the number comes up to just a few hundred megabytes - the size of a small hard disc.

In either case, we don't have any idea yet about how you would unload or load stored information into a human brain making any storage solution irrelevant. There are some technical ways to assist people with memory problems, however. Companies are working on button sized devices a person could wear and record everything they hear and see during there entire lifetime. Engineers are looking at ways to make this mass of information retrievable in a form that people can actually use. These solutions are technically feasible in the near future, but the privacy considerations of having our whole life recorded are still a concern for many people.

The "Divine Proportion," sometimes referred to as the "golden ratio" or "golden mean," is Phi, which is derived as a part of what's known as the Fibonacci Series of numbers. The Fibonacci series comes from the expression (1+n½) / 2. Phi is the 5th in the series and is unique in that Phi - 1 = 1 / Phi. Phi has the approximate value of 1.618, but like the number Pi, is irrational and goes on forever. One of the more interesting properties that comes from using Phi as a ratio is that if you have line A and you section it into pieces B and C, if A = Phi x B, then B = Phi x C.

From the time of the ancient Greeks people have noticed that Phi and the Fibonacci Series keep showing up in the natural world. For example, the average of the mean orbital distances of each successive planet in our solar system, in relation to the planet before it approximates Phi. Also the Cassini divisions ( empty spaces) in the rings of Saturn appear at two Phi points. The frequencies of musical notes in the western scale are based on the Fibonacci series. The spiral shape of the Nautilus shell is also based on Phi and the polygon derived from it known as the "golden rectangle."

This ratio also shows up in man made creations. It was used in Egyptian pyramids. If you look at the credit card in your wallet the ratio of the width to height is approximately that of Phi.

Renaissance painters such as Leonardo da Vinci realized that this ratio was aesthetically pleasing and a valuable tool for an artist. For example, the length of the arm to that of the forearm and hand is approximately the golden ratio. It also appears in the proportions of the human face. Artists used this property to make sure that the people in their pictures had the right sized arms, hands, fingers, etc.

These ratios are approximately Phi, however. In the real world everyone is unique and nobody will have those exact measurements (My arm to forearm/hand ratio is 1.8. Interestingly enough if you average my ratio with the letter writer's ratio the results is 1.685, very close to Phi).

Mystery Spots - I saw a show about strange science and on this show they briefly mentioned a cabin where bottles roll up hill and water runs up. I am looking for more information on this cabin, I believe they said it was in Oregon but I am not certain.- Anonymous

The place your thinking about is called the Oregon Vortex and it is among a number of sites around the U.S. that claim to feature supernatural phenomena including water running uphill, balls rolling uphill, shifts in the size of objects, etc. (Another similar place is The Mystery Spot just outside Santa Cruz, California). Each claims some "force" is at work making things behave strangely. In all cases these are actually optical illusions. This activity occurs in a location that for some reason the usual cues that we use to tell what is horizontal are missing or wrong. Both of the places I mentioned are wooded and you cannot really see the horizon very well. Also some shift in the ground has caused the trees to not grow straight up, but at an angle. Even with your inner ear giving you signals about what straight up and down the visual signals can overwhelm them. Therefore we think water is running uphill, when actually it is running down.

Much of the illusion at these places are natural, but some of it has been augmented by the owners. In any case, it is an interesting effect and don't hesitate to check one of these places if you get the chance. Just don't believe there hype about some strange supernatural force. For more information check out their websites and an article written by magician and debunker The Great Randi.

http://www.oregonvortex.com

http://www.mysteryspot.com/

http://www.randi.org/jr/101003.html

Secret Government Storage - I was watching Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Holy Grail, and in the end of the movie it shows the grail being tucked away into a giant, anonymous warehouse. I'm not interested in the grail but I am curious if you know where the government might tuck something interesting away. Who would be responsible for that sort of duty? - Anonymous

The motion picture you are probably thinking of is Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's the Ark which is put in the warehouse in that movie, not the Grail (The Holy Grail is the object of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the third movie in the series. At the end of the picture the Grail falls down a crack in the ground during an earthquake and disappears). In the first movie the Ark is boxed up and hidden in a huge warehouse stacked with thousand of other crates. By the way, the warehouse pictured never existed, but is actually a very realistic matte painting. The figure of the man, the cart and the crate containing the Ark were filmed separately and then put into the image.

Who keeps secret government stuff is dependent on which agency of the government acquired the secret. Despite people's idea that the government is one big monolithic agency it is actually made up of many smaller agencies who often don't share information very well. In Raiders it appears that the "government officials" shown are probably part of a military intelligence unit under the control of the Army. If that was the case, they could store the secret object at any number of warehouses at any number of military bases depending on which unit might have been studying the object. If the military considered the ark a weapon it might have taken it to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, in Maryland, to test its capabilities. During W.W.II any secret weapon captured from the enemy would have been there where it could be compared with United States military hardware. After testing was done the object would probably find it's way to the Aberdeen Ordnance Museum, though it could not be put in the public display until it was declassified.

Most of the branches of government have museums associated with them where they can store and display historic items they own once they are done with them. For example, the National Security Agency, which deals with breaking and making codes and cyphers, has a museum near its headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, where you can view former secret devices like a German Enigma coding machine from W.W.II. The museum is a great place to visit and is free.

The Aberdeen Ordnance Museum is also free and well worth a stop if you are traveling through that part of Maryland. It contains guns, bombs, shells, artillery and rockets. There is even a tank that resembles the one featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which brings us full circle.

The Longest Day? - I was told that the story in the Bible, Exodus I believe, about Moses' two sons holding his arms up to continue the daylight because God told Moses that as long as his arms remained raised he would continue the day, could be proven.- Chris M.

The scripture about the extended day comes from the 10th Chapter of Joshua. For nearly 60 years some variation of the story that scientists have found a "missing day" while doing astronomical calculations has been circulated. Unfortunately this story, along with a variation that appeared in the 60's (referencing NASA) is an urban legend. The first known use of this myth was a chapter in a 1936 book Harmony of Science and Scripture written by Harry Rimmer. Rimmer referred to two eminent scientist of the day, Sir Edwin Ball and Prof. C.A. Totten who supposedly had written that evidence for a extra day had been discovered, but nobody can find anything in their writings about this subject.

This story got a boost in the 1970's when a man named Howard Hill published an updated version in his book How to Live Like a King's Kid. The Hill version makes references to NASA using computers to calculate the future position of planets, but having to insert an extra 24 hours to account for a missing day. Hill retold the story numerous times to various audiences and it was later published in several newspapers. As with the earlier Rimmer story, there is no evidence that the account is actually true. None of the facts can be verified. The story got new life again just a few years ago when people started e-mailing it around the internet.

The story itself doesn't really make sense. Any computer program figuring the position of the sun and planets in the past or future would make use of current orbital positions to work forward or backward and find the locations. There is no way for the computer to know that some time would be "missing."

For more on the history of this urban legend check out:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/rr1999/r&r9902b.htm

and

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970325g.html

The Chupacabra - A few days ago, I saw a show about the Chupacabra, and now I'm really interested. Are there any websites on it? Pictures? What is it? Thanks if you can help - Katy

The Chupacabra (which means "goat sucker") is supposedly a creature that lives in parts of Mexico, South America and on some Caribbean Islands. It got its name in Puerto Rico in 1975 when some dead goats were discovered with puncture marks in their necks and their bodies drained of blood. While the authorities credited the animals death's to wild dogs or a panther, others beleive it was the work of this mysterious creature.

Starting in the 1990's there have been various reports of the creature killing animals across much of Latin American and even a few alleged cases in the southern United States. A small group of people claim to have seen the creature, though their descriptions vary widely. Most reports agree the the creature is bi-petal (walks on two feet) and ranges from three to five feet tall and has big fangs. A rough hair covers the body. Some people also report wings, while others say it hops like a kangaroo. Supposedly a few people have gotten pictures of Chupacabras, but almost all of them have been shown to be frauds.

The Chupacabra is sort of the Big Foot of Latin America: Many reports, but no scientific evidence.

For a skeptical look at the Chupacabra, check out: http://skepdic.com/chupa.html

For a detailed history of the phenomen, goto http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa042202a.htm

For a tougue-in-cheek look at the creature click on: http://www.elchupacabra.com/index.html

The Snouters - I was recently told the story of the snouters. How did this story get started and why haven't I heard of these thing before? - Eve

The Snouters, also known as Rhinogrades, were the invention of Gerolf Steiner a professor of zoology at the University of Heidelberg. Steiner was looking for a way to teach his students about evolution, so he decided to invent a completely fictional order of mammals. All of his creations used their noses in some way to survive. For example, some of the creatures used their noses to walk, others to jump from danger, others to catch food.

Steiner was apparently inspired by the 19th century writer Christian Morgenstern who wrote a short poem about an animal, the nasobame, that walked upon its nose.

In 1957 Steiner put his creations into a book, The Snouters: Form and Life of the Rhinogrades, which was published in German. The work, credited to the fictional scientist Harald Stumpke, included detailed information about the animals including sketches and illustrations. In addition to being a teaching tool, the book was a parody of similar academic texts used at the time.

According to the book the Snouters had been discovered by a Swedish naturalist who was ship wrecked on the Hi-yi-yi Islands in the Pacific Ocean in 1941. To explain why the Snouter are no longer around today, Steiner came up with the story that only island on which they lived was accidentally destroyed as the result of an atomic bomb test. Dr. Stumpke supposedly perished in the same mishap.

The book has been so popular with biologists and students, that it as been reprinted a number of times in different languages and still used in some college and high-school biology courses. The book is currently available in paperback from Amazon.com for $12.95.

Ichthyosaurs - I saw a program this week about "sea monsters". They mentioned the Berlin-Ichthyosaur Park in Nevada, not too far from Reno, and recounted a wild story about it that is the subject of my letter:

The program said that old local Native American legends told of "BIG fish" living in a nearby lake, possibly Walker Lake, about 4,000 years ago. Then came the wild part: somebody has theorized that a meteorite blew the fish out of the lake and their bodies were strewn for miles around, including the preserve at Berlin, Nevada. As I watched this, I was saying "What the?" to myself, because even if these ichthyosaurs had been alive 4,000 years ago (which would be big news), their remains would not have fossilized since then. What was this program talking about? - Courtney

I tried to track this story down without success, perhaps because nobody will admit to coming up with such a silly tale. There are certainly Indian legends about a super sized creature living in Walker Lake (in fact most large lakes have some kind of story about a monster living in them) and these rumors persist even today. The supposed animal has even been given a name ("Cecil").

The idea that an ichthyosaur might have been blown from Walker Lake to the location of the park is clearly preposterous. The distance is over a hundred miles. A meteorite large enough to propel a whale-sized animal that distance would also create an explosion with dynamics similar to that of an H-bomb. Anything organic, including ichthyosaurs, in the immediate area would have been vaporized. Also there is no evidence of such a meteor hitting the Walker Lake area in the last 4,000 years.

Coral Castle Mystery - Has there been any progress on the theory that the builder of the Coral Castle in Florida was able to move large stones without heavy equipment? - Thanks, Mike

Edward Leedskalnin, a Latvian immigrant, who moved to Florida in 1918 spent most of his life carving a fantastic castle-like building out of huge blocks of coral. There is a mystery about how he was able to shape and move these blocks which weighed as much as 30 tons by himself without the help of heavy machinery (Leedskalnin didn't even own a car). Leedskalnin, who said the castle was a tribute to a lost love, did all the work at night and was very secretive about his methods. Over a period of over 20 years he cut and positioned over 1,000 tons of coral.

Some people credit his feat to supernatural power, or the understanding of an alternative energy source (Leedskalnin wrote several booklets on his theories of electricity and magnetism). When asked about the construction, however, he replied that he simply understood the laws of weight and leverage. "I have discovered the secrets of the pyramids. I have found out how the Egyptians and the ancient builders in Peru, Yucatan, and Asia, with only primitive tools, raised and set in place blocks of stone weighing many tons."

Some engineers think he just used simple machines (levers, wedges, screws, tackle) and applied them expertly to get the job done. In any case, we may never know for sure as Leedskalnin seems to have taken his secret to the grave when he died in 1951 at the age of 64. The site is now a tourist attraction. For more information go to http://www.coralcastle.com

The Kecksburg Incident - I watched a show recently about the Kecksburg Incident. Can I have more info on it? - Tiara

Some people call the Kecksburg the "Roswell of Pennsylvania." On December 9th, 1965, some residents in the area saw a flaming object zoom across the sky and supposedly crash nearby. A few even claim that they saw the object, a cone-like thing 10 feet long and shaped like an acorn, sitting on the ground. Some of those same people claim a pair of men in trench coats (MIB?) confiscated the thing.

Was the object an alien artifact? Was it a piece of Russian space junk? Did it ever exist at all?

Conventional wisdom suggests that the flaming object was a meteorite that came down nowhere near Kecksburg. Using photographs showing the object's smoke trail two scientists, Von Del Chamberlain and David J. Krause of the Abrams Planetarium, calculated that the thing, which was visible across several states, disappeared from the sky 15 miles southeast of Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

Despite this, as with the Roswell Incident, there are many people who believe something strange happened at Kecksburg that day, and just as many people who believe nothing happened. To decide for yourself try these websites:

http://www.alien-ufo-pictures.com/kecksburg_ufo_crash.html

http://www.debunker.com/Kecksburg.html

Climate and the Dinosaurs - What if instead of an ice age the climate were to become tropical as it was during the reign of the dinosaurs. Could it be possible for them to somehow return? ...If the conditions - the environment - was recreated could nature again somehow produce those awesome beasts? - John

Certainly there seems to be a direct link between climate and the characteristics of the animal life. Probably the best example comes from the ice ages. The climate then seems to have promoted mammals of extraordinary size: Mammoths larger than the biggest elephants alive today, a rhino 16 foot high and weighing 20 tons and a ten foot tall gorilla are just a few examples. Having said that, even if conditions went back to how it was during the heyday of the dinosaurs, we might not see the return of dinosaur-like creatures. The dinosaurs flourished in a period before mammals were widespread. It might be that competition from these warm-blooded animals might keep large reptiles from developing again in some future tropical age.

One more matter to consider - it's hard to predict if dinosaurs-like creatures might return under certain conditions because scientists are still arguing about what made the dinosaurs disappear in the first place!

For a humorous look at this idea check out: www.bandersnatch.com/global.htm

Face on Mars - One night I saw a show saying that they found a face mounded on Mars. Is that true, and if so how much information do they have on it? - Rachel.

In 1976 the Viking Mars Orbiter captured an image of a Martian surface feature that resembled a human face. NASA released a picture of it figuring it would get people's attention focused on the space program. Soon some people were suggesting it was some kind of "alien artifact" perhaps similar to the giant drawings found on the Naza plain in Peru. Subsequent photographs have been taken of the area in the 90's by the Mars Global Surveyor probe. These pictures taken under different lighting conditions, angles and resolutions seem to show that the object is a natural hill or ridge, and it's resemblance to a face is only a coincidence.

For more information check out: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast24may_1.htm

Bird Migration - I have got a question. I was studying about migratory birds and was wondering how can they find the right direction? Do they use the sixth sense? Thank you Sincerely - Deepesh S.

If you list the ability to sense Earth's magnetic fields with your brain as a sixth sense, I guess you could say that they do. Homing pigeons use this technique. It's a bit like have a built in compass. To prove this is how they navigate scientists put little hats on the pigeons heads with attached magnets designed to confuse the natural magnetic field and the birds flew off in the wrong direction.

Other species use different methods. Some birds navigate by using the sunset and stars. Buntings put in a room with an artificial sky projected on the ceiling will head one way with a fall star projection and the opposite with a spring star projection. Geese use landmarks to do their migration and must learn the route the first time they fly it with their parents. Because of their dependence on seeing the ground geese can get easily confused in fog and land in unexpected places.

It is likely that some species use a combination of the above methods. There may also be methods used by birds to navigate that science has not yet discovered.

Colder at Dawn? - Why does the temperature always drop a few more degrees after the sun comes up? - Christine

I don't know if anybody has done actual research on this, but the experts I consulted thought the following was the case (assuming conditions were not changing due to storms or cold fronts moving in or out):

The sun, by it's radiation, provides most of the warmth on the Earth. The air and ground get warmer and warmer as they gain energy from the sun while it is up. After the sun sets, the temperature of the air and ground drop rapidly as they give up the energy they accumulated during the day. This continues throughout the night with the air cooling rapidly and the ground more slowly. At dawn the sun is back up, but for the first couple hours it is so low on the horizon, and it's sunlight so indirect, that it has little effect on the ground, and the air near the ground, which continue to lose energy and get cooler. Eventually the energy the ground is getting from the sun becomes more than the energy it is giving up and the temperature starts to rise.

Other effects, such as the evaporation of dew or frost, also contribute to the ground and the air near it remaining cold during the first few hours after dawn.

Daytime Moon - My little girl keeps asking me why she can still see the moon during the day. My ignorance of the subject prevents me from telling her. Can you help? Thank you, Sue A.

This is just one of those questions that begs for a diagram, so after you read the text, click here. As you are probably aware the moon orbits the Earth roughly once a month. The Earth, in turn rotates once every twenty-four hours. The side that faces the sun is in daylight, the side away from the sun is in night.

Since the moon moves around the Earth it can be overhead in the sky anytime of the day or night depending on where it is in its orbit. Because the moon is lit by reflected sunlight it will, in general, be more "full" and brighter in the night sky and less "full" and dimmer (and therefore less noticeable) in the day sky. When the moon is very close to the position of the sun in the sky it may not be visible at all.

We associate the moon with the night because without the sun around it is the brightest thing in the sky. When it is up in the day it tends to get washed out and we don't often notice it.

A gizzard is a muscular pouch in the digestive system that allows birds and certain invertebrates to grind food down without using teeth. Usually the animal swallows small stones or grit to do the grinding. We know some dinosaurs had gizzards because we've found their gizzard stones within their fossilized remains.

Spiders have lungs, but they aren't like ours. Some spiders have a trachea (a kind of tube) that does the job of breathing, others have "book-lungs." A few species of spiders have both.

As for "daddy-long-legs," well, there are several animals with that name, but since we are talking about spiders I'll assume we are talking about daddy long-leg spiders (of which there are several species). Like all spiders they don't need a gizzard because they don't eat solid food. They kill their prey, liquefy them, then suck them dry. As spiders they would also have either the book-lung, trachea or both.

There's also a creature known as a "harvestman" that has the common name "daddy longlegs." These look like spiders, but are not. I have to admit I'm not sure how their digestive system works, so if there are any readers out there who are experts on these animals, drop us a line.

The Wall or the Car? - In her book "Brain Building" Marilyn Vos Savant says that when two cars collide head on, with each car traveling at 50 MPH, the effect on each car is the same as if it had hit a stone wall at 50 MPH. I can't believe this. It seems to me the effect should be that of a 100 MPH collision - Thomas

This is a longtime favorite of physics teachers and it has two answers. In the "ideal" situation that Ms. Savant is talking about each of the cars has a certain amount of kinetic energy as they move (let's call this value E). If they cars are identical in every way (speed, mass, shape) and they do a perfect head-on collision the total energy involved will be 2 times E or 2E. Since there are two cars the energy will be divided in half and each one will be subjected to one E of kinetic energy which will deform the vehicles turning them into something that looks like a two-ton metal accordion.

If we are dealing with one car hitting a wall then we will have one E of kinetic energy before the accident (The wall has no energy, it's not moving). If the wall is absolutely rigid and does not absorb any of the energy of the impact then again there will be one E of energy to deform one car.

This is why safety crash tests simulating head-on collisions are done by launching a car into a rigid barrier. It is a good simulation of a head-on collision, but only requires one vehicle.

If this seems unintuitive try it at home (not with cars, use tennis balls). Roll them at each other and when they hit note how far do they bounce back. Now roll one at the same speed toward a immovable object (like a brick). Did it bounce back the same distance? It should have it you gave it the same initial speed.

The second solution involves what happens in a non-ideal situation. Very rarely in the real world would a car hit a totally immovable barrier. If the barrier absorbed some of the energy less would left over to damage the car. Also if two cars hit it is unlikely that they would be identical in speed and shape or be aligned perfectly head on. They would tend to bounce off each other and penetrate each other as well as spin off at an angle and these actions would absorb energy. For these reasons in it would be hard to say which accident would result in more damage to the car in a real life situation.

Acoustic Shadows - What is an acoustic shadow and how does it work? - Lisa

An acoustic shadow occurs when sound that would normally be heard is blocked. This can happen because the sound is absorbed by some material, or refracted when it meets a warm or rapidly moving layer of air. The refraction can not only bounce the sound away from a location but it can also direct it to another location where it would not normally carry. In these ways an acoustic shadow is to sound what a mirage is to light.

Acoustic shadows played significant roles in several Civil War battles. Because there was no radio communication between a commander and his forward units in the 19th century, commanders often depended on what they heard of the battle to tell them what was going on up at the front. If an acoustic shadow existed it could alter what the commander heard and ultimately what decisions he made. It is said that sounds from the Battle of Gettysburg could not be heard just ten miles away, but were heard clearly in Pittsburgh 150 miles away.

There is at least one book on the subject of acoustic shadows and their effect on the War Between the States. Check your local library for Civil War Acoustic Shadows by Charles D. Ross.

Plato's Atlantis - To my understanding Plato was the only one whoever actually saw Atlantis and wrote about it. Why hasn't anyone else from his time had any knowledge of it? What was he really trying to prove by writing the book? - Tina

Plato's first book is a discussion of ideas about government and personal conduct which he expressed through characters in a narrative. One of Plato's characters talks about hearing about Atlantis from a Egyptian priest. It is unknown if Plato himself got the story from a priest or if he simply made up the whole thing as a literary mechanism for discussing government. It is certain that if Plato did think Atlantis really existed it wasn't because he'd seen it himself. Plato places the destruction of the city and the associated continent at about 9,000 years before his own time.

Allegedly the US Navy ship Eldridge was involved in an incident that would later become known as the "Philadelphia Experiment." According to the story the ship was docked at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during 1943 and an attempt was made to employ a technology to make the ship invisible. In the story the experiment turns out to be a disaster when members of the crew wind up embedded in bulkheads or going insane.

In reality there is no evidence that the Eldridge was involved in any kind of experiment in 1943, though a different ship, USS Timmerman, was involved in an experiment to degauss ships and get rid of their magnetic field. A ship without a magnetic field might be less prone to attract mines and torpedoes. This experiment produced some electrical discharges, but did not render the ship invisible.

Even though there is no real evidence that the story is true it didn't stop Hollywood from producing two science-fiction films about the subject. The "The Philadelphia Experiment" was released in 1984 and it's sequel, "The Philadelphia Experiment II" in 1993.

Dendrochronology - Will you tell me which time "periods" carbon dating applies to and which dendrochronology applies to? I'm thinking dendro- only works ice age forward and carbon dating present-ice age, but I don't know. Thanks if you can!! - Elise

Dendrochronology is the science of using tree rings to date past events. As we all learned in 6th grade science, you can examine the cross-section, or core, of a tree and see how old the tree is by counting the "growth rings" it lays down each year. Since the characteristics of each year (wet vs. dry) can be seen though the width of the each ring, the tree can show us a unique pattern of the climate over time and it is possible to match that pattern of the living tree against that of a tree that was cut down. For example, we can tell when a house was built by comparing the growth rings of wood used in construction against that of a living tree.

The climatic pattern can be extended back past the age of any living tree by finding trees that are dead, but still standing. By looking for an overlapping climate pattern between the dead and living trees the death year of the dead tree can be established. By using this technique on the long-lived bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California a pattern can be established as far back as 9,000 years. Note this only is valid for a particular region as other regions will have different climatic patterns.

Carbon-14 dating is another method of establishing dates. Carbon-14 is a slightly radioactive isotope of carbon absorbed by living things from the air. When that living thing dies it no longer absorbs the carbon-14 and the carbon-14 slowly begins to decay. By knowing how long it takes the carbon-14 to decay and comparing it with the Carbon-12, which is also absorbed by the creature, but is stable and does not decay, a estimation of how long the thing has been dead can be made. Because the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has varied over time it is less accurate then dendrochronology. Dendrochronology has been used to "calibrate" the Carbon-14 process, though, making it fairly accurate back to 9,000 years. The further you go back, however, the less accurate your estimate will be. Carbon-14 hits its limit at about 50,000 to 60,000 years in the past. Beyond that other methods are necessary.

The last great "Ice Age" started around a million years ago. There have been been a series of warming and cooling periods within that with a cold-dry peak around 700,000 years ago. Around 30,000 years ago a major cold period began, ending 10,000 years ago. Many scientists think that we are simply in a respite between major ice advances, and have not really left the Ice Age at all.

Mothman - I just saw the movie Mothman Prophecies and it enticed me to do a little research on what exactly the Mothman is. I was very enlightened on how the Mothman was explained on the movie by the paranormal expert, but I was wondering where some other sightings on the Mothman are and what they were. Thanks. - Anonymous

In 1966 and 1967 almost one-hundred people allegedly sighted a strange batlike creature in the vicinity Point Pleasent, West Virginia. The suppsed creature was dubbed "The Mothman" after a villain on the Batman television series. Before or after that flap very few reports of the Mothman occured.

Four people reported a Mothman-like figure and a UFO near Kent, England in November of 1963. In 1989 reports of "vampire birds" sounding something like the the Mothman were reported in Puerto Rico. In November of 1995 serveral people said they encounted a "giant bat" near the El Yunque Rain Forest also in Puerto Rico.

The Face of King Tut - Its said that there are methods of putting together a sculpture or "mask" of what an Egyptian looked like. Is this true? If so, has this method been used to recreate a possible image of what the young King Tutankhamen might have looked like? If it has been used is there a website or place that I can see a picture of this? -Lori

Dr Robin Richards, facial-reconstruction expert from the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering University College London, has recreated Tut's face by using CAT scans of X-rays of the mummy to create a 3D representation of the King's skull in a computer. From there digital skin and other features can be laid on top of the skull. The method is very similar to that used by forensic experts for reconstructing a face from a skull found in connection with a crime. The digital image was later made into a sculpture for the UK Science Museum. For a more complete explanation of the process and some pictures, check out these links:

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/tutankhamun/

http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/CBC/2002/10/01/tut_mask021001

Mars Orbits - How does one calculate that Mars is closer to Earth than it has been for 60,000 years? - Paul Kalmen

The first step to knowing the position of the planets is to observe them in the sky and work out their orbits. Much of the grunt work for this was done in 16th century by Tycho Brahe though many nights of staring at the sky. Tycho thought that planet orbits must be circular but he couldn't get his theory to jive with his observations. Johannes Kepler took Tycho's data and realized that the planets orbits must be slightly elliptical. With this Kepler was able to come up with his Laws of Planetary Motion.

The laws basically state how the planets move though space based on attraction by gravity to the sun and each other. Put the laws into a computer and you can then use them to predict the relationship of the planets to each other at any future or past time, though accuracy starts to break down as you move further away from the present period. Still, in the history of the solar system 60,000 years is a fairly short period, so the estimated positions of the planets should be pretty accurate.

Supporters of Velikovsky's theories might argue that the planets have been moving around the solar system out of their orbits in recent history, but most scientists don't think there's any evidence to support his hypothesis.

Exploding Lungs and Spaceships - The human body is very tough and could easily survive the vacuum of space, so why couldn't you use a breathing apparatus [like a Scuba]? If you're saying that molecules would become unfixed and simply explode, as in your quoting NASA saying your lungs would explode, then why don't space ships that are filled with air simply explode? I realize metal is in some ways stronger than the human body, but likewise in other ways, like resiliency and dexterity, the human body is tougher than metal. - James

Your right that much of the human body is tough, but the lungs are relatively fragile. Certainly not near the strength of a spaceship hull. Scuba divers have been dealing with these issues for years.

The atmosphere of our planet at sea level pushes against us with the force of about 14.7 pounds per square inch (PSI). Ideally a spaceship would be pressurized the same, but NASA has used lower cabin pressures (around 5psi) during spaceflights (To do this you have to increase the percent of oxygen in the air so the astronauts can breath normally. This is increases the risk of fire, though. The three astronauts that died on the launch pad in 1965 were victims of a flash fire which was partly the result of using a cabin environment with a near 100% oxygen level).

Let's look at an ideal spaceship that would contain 14.7psi. Can metal stand that kind of pressure? A typical scuba tank can withstand more than 3000 psi! Remember a spaceship cabin is just a big tank of air. Even the thin-walled propane tank on your gas grill can safely contain a pressure of 325psi - more than 21 times the pressure needed on our ideal spaceship.

Now how about the human lung? Again we will go back to scuba divers. As you go down into the water the pressure becomes greater at a much faster rate than it does as you move down through air. The only way divers can breath underwater is by using air pressurized the same level as the water around them. For this reason divers must be very carefully to breath normally as they ascend. If they hold their breath they could rupture a lung because the air in the lung expands as they go upward. It has been shown that a lung can rupture if the diver is holding his breath and ascends as little as 4 feet. That's an increase of only 1.7psi. Much less than even the 5 to 14.7psi of a spaceship cabin and certainly much less than a metal hull of a spaceship can stand.

Another question that I have , why is it that Freedom Ridge in Nevada (10 miles from the area 51 facility) was closed in 1995? - Krista

Foo fighters are what WW II aircraft crews called the unexplained glowing balls that seemed to follow their planes. At first they thought they might be some sort of enemy weapon, but they never attacked and after the war the Allies found out that the Germans had been seeing them too. There has never been a good explanation for what these objects were. For an full discussion of the foo fighters of WWII, click here.

Since what you saw occurred in 1995 it might be hard to classify it as "foo fighters" in the technical sense, but you could probably list it as a UFO (unidentified flying object). Whether it is explainable or not by natural or man-made phenomena depends on exactly what you saw.

As for Freedom Ridge, the government closed it because it gave the public too close a look at the facility at Groom Lake were secret military weapons are tested. Some people claim this is because the government is hiding crashed flying saucers there, but more likely it is because it could be used by foreign agents to gain information on sensistive aircraft or weapons systems under construction.

Tikaboo Peak is one of the few places where the secret base at Area 51 can still be viewed. The peak is about 25 miles from the facility. As far as I am aware it is still accessible, though Freedom Ridge, another popular location for viewing the base (only 10 miles away) has been closed since 1995. I have not made the pilgrimage myself, but I understand you can do it in a few hours. You need to take the kind of precautions, however, necessary when entering any wilderness area (maps, extra water, first aid kit, etc.). Expect a difficult hike. For a couple accounts of trips to Tikaboo Peak check these pages:

http://astro4.ast.vill.edu/66/tp.htm

http://www.angelfire.com/nv/dreamland51/tikaboo.html

If you plan to go, consider buying the Area 51 Viewer's Guide by Glenn Campbell. It's available at: http://www.aliensonearth.com/catalog/detail/0617/0617T727883.html. I believe it also contains Mr. Campbell's email address and you can check with him on current conditions in the area. Also local guides can be hired in nearby Rachel, Nevada.

For those of us just too lazy to make the hike we can check out the pictures at: http://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/panorama_0901.html to see what we are missing.

The story of Kasai Rex supposedly starts in 1932. A Swedish plantation owner, John Johnson, and his servant were traveling though deepest, darkest Africa (the Kasai Valley to exact) when they ran nearly into a rhinoceros. As they were trying to sneak past it, a huge 40-foot long lizard-like creature bounded out of the jungle and leapt upon the rhino. The servant fled while Johnson promptly fainted.

When he awoke the creature was still feeding on the now dead rhino. "It was reddish in coloration, with brackish-colored stripes..." Johnson reported. "It had a long snout and numerous teeth."

Johnson concluded it was a Tyrannosaurus, but other people have suggested the description more fits a Tarbosaurus.

Most cryptozoologists are highly skeptical of the Kasai Rex story and there is no evidence that a John Johnson even existed. A photograph exists of this supposed incident, though most people agree that it is most certainly a hoax. For a view of the photo check: http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/megaraptor/Otherstrangeness.htm and scroll toward the bottom of the page.

Though the story of Kasai Rex is generally agreed to be a false, stories of other African dinosaurs seem to be on slightly firmer ground. For the story of mok'ele-mbembe click here.

Bermuda Triangle -I have heard a lot of stories and legends saying that the many planes and boats have disappeared or have had strange sightings when passing through the Bermuda Triangle. Is there really something mysterious or is it just a place on earth were electric equipment does not work (e.g an electric/magnetic field)? - Anonymous

Over the years various scientists and laymen have speculated about the possibility of this region of the ocean, laying just to the east of the Florida coast, having some special properties that causes problems with compasses and radio transmissions. Nobody had proved that it has. In fact, the evidence seems to suggest that there is very little mysterious about the region at all. A survey of Coast Guard records show that no more ships and planes are lost in the "Bermuda Triangle" that any other location given the amount of traffic through the area. Though the loss of a flight of five Avenger planes in 1947 is the most spectacular story associated with the location (see www.unmuseum.org/triangle.htm), it is most likely that the flight's leader just got confused by certain landmarks and that led to the planes tragic disappearances.

The comet theory is very similar to the another theory described on our page and attributed to Christopher Chyba, of NASA, Paul Thomas, of the University of Wisconsin, and Kevin Zahnle, of NASA. These three scientists suggest a stony meteorite was to blame and its explosion before hitting the ground is the reason there is tremendous damage to the area with no apparent impact crater. As much as both of these theories seem to fit the facts now, its important to remember that science is not a one-step-and-you-immediately-get-the-answer operation. Many theories, including asteroids, comets, mini-black holes, antimatter and even alien spaceships were forwarded by serious scientists before an explanation that seemed fit the facts, in this almost century-long puzzle, was found.

The Jersey Devil, a legendary creature that supposedly has haunted Southern New Jersey for hundreds of years, clearly has its roots in folklore that give it a demonic connection. One of the most popular stories about the creation of the creature involves the Shrouds household of Leeds Point, New Jersey. One version has Mrs. Shrouds wishing her next child to be born a devil (perhaps because it was her 13th child). She then gives birth to a deformed creature with wings. Another involves a young girl in the household having the child of a British soldier during the Revolutionary War. The townspeople curse the girl and her offspring, which is then born as a devil. There are alternate versions of the tale giving the birthplace as Burlington or Estellville, but in every case it is clear that the creature is somehow linked with the devil and the forces of evil. Humans don't, through any natural set of circumstances, give birth to creatures that can fly and live two-hundred years.

It is also clear that the story of the Jersey Devil, despite numerous sighting though the years, belongs in the world of the occult and myth and not in the world of science.

Some researchers suggest that Akhenaten and some of his children suffered from Marfan's Syndrome. This is a hereditary disease first described by a French doctor named Antione B. Marfan. Marfan noticed that some of his patients had especially long fingers and skeletal abnormalities sometimes including elongated skulls.

Alternatively others have argued that these images are just an expressionistic art style that was popular at the time. Even people who were not related to the Pharaoh at all are often shown with a least a few of these strange characteristics. But is this a case of wanting to copy an art style, or wanting to copy the Pharaoh himself?

If the mummy of Akhenaten can be located (it has never been found) a simple DNA test would tell us if he suffered from the rare disease and solve the mystery. It may also be possible to test this theory by checking the mummies of close relatives, but as far as I am aware this has not be done.

I suspect that the creature you are referring to has as much in common with the Jackolope (SOE Feb, 03) as it does with a fish. The name of the creature is Garadiavolo which apparently translates to "Devil Fish." In 1974, Alfredo Garcia Garamendi, a teacher in Puerto Rico, claimed he'd captured two of these animals after titanic battles with them. One was supposedly stolen by secret agents, but the other Garamendi kept in an a tank of water where it could be viewed by the public. Later the second fish supposedly disappeared in an explosion.

Despite Garamendi's claims, the animal is a hoax. The creature is apparently is constructed by cutting open the interior of a bat fish or guitar fish, then cutting the fins to make arm and legs. The creature is then sold on the tourist market along the Mexican coast and throughout the Caribbean Islands.

For pictures and more information on this subject click here. You may want to use a translation site, however, as the page is in Spanish.

The 1999 version of the Mummy story took a lot from the original 1932 version of the film starring Boris Karloff. In that classic flick Imhotep, played by Karloff, attempts to revive his dead girlfriend after she is killed (in this version she is the Pharaoh's daughter, not his mistress) by using the forbidden Book of Thoth. He is caught and sentenced to be mummified alive. Thousands of years later when a museum expedition finds Imhotep's mummy he is accidentally brought back to life by the reading of the Book of Thoth. He then proceeds to romance the heroine of the film who is a reincarnation of his dead girlfriend.

The writers of the 1932 film used lots of bits and pieces of Egyptian history and stories in the script. The name "Imhotep" was the name of a famous Egyptian architect and physician. Imhotep is also credited with designing the first step pyramid.

The Egyptians did have some stories about mummies rising from the dead. One involves the magician Khamwas who steals the forbidden Book of Throth which is guarded by the mummy of Naneferkaptah. Khamwas and Naneferkapth square off over a game of senet (an ancient Egyptian board game) to see who will get the scroll. The mummy wins, but Khamwas uses a magic trick to escape with the book anyway.

The romance portion of The Mummy script is probably borrowed from the story The Ring of Thoth written by Arthur Conan Doyle (the inventor of Sherlock Holmes).

You are referring to the controversial work of Dr. Gunther von Hagens. Von Hagens considers himself not an artist, but an anatomist with a sense of aesthetics. He uses "plastination" (a metho