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Editor
I want to join with other members of SAS and offer my congratulations to David Wasion on his discovery of this remarkable evidence of pre-Clovis humans in North America. What might b
e less apparent to SAS members is that this is a very, very big deal in the study of prehistoric human habitations in North America.
For many years, a fierce debate has raged between those who believed Clovis culture represented the first humans in the Americas, and those who believed in an earlier presence. For some archaeologists and anthropologists the "Clovis First" position has hardened into dogma, despite many tantalizing and suggestive bits of evidence discovered on a regular basis. However, the evidence used to fix and pinpoint the presence of prehistoric humans can be maddeningly slippery and always in the case of possible pre-Clovis finds seems to grow fuzzy as it is scrutinized more closely. More recently, the Meadowcroft site in Pennsylvania has been cited as a possible pre-Clovis site although the oldest radiocarbon dates have proven difficult to reconcile.
So the discovery of bones securely dated to pre-Clovis occupation showing unmistakable signs of butchering by humans could lead to rewriting what we know of prehistoric America. Again, congratulations to Mr. Wasion and to The Citizen Scientist for their work in seeing to it that this intrepid amateur was given the credit that is his due.
Sincerely,
Sheldon Greaves, Ph.D.
Greetings to Everyone at SAS,
Once again the SAS conference was both inspirational and informative. I
really enjoyed myself and wish for another conference to happen soon.
Since this is our third such event, I am now more comfortable and enjoy
meeting the new attendees as well as the past acquaintances. I
particularly liked people giving me ideas about how to handle my research
and their support. I appreciate that I do not have to choose among
presentations and hope that if we get more presenters we will extend the
conference. So, congratulations to everyone on the SAS staff for
another successful conference.
Regards,
Bill Appleby
Fellow SAS Member
Forrest,
It looks as if this evening will be clear, and if you haven't seen Comet
Machholz yet this might be a good night to spot it. Di and I saw it this
past Friday night and again last night, even through thin clouds!
It's about magnitude 3.5. While not very bright, it's large (about as
large as the full moon) and its distinct blue color really stands out
against the night sky. We saw it last night around 8:30, and it's almost
at the zenith of the sky, near the Pleiades. It's so far up overhead
that Di and lay on our backs in our driveway to see it! It made a great
sight in my 11 x 80 binoculars, with a nice blue tail pointing to the
west.
Harry L. Helms
Co-founder, LLH Technology Publishing
Now part of the Elsevier Science Book Group
Did any readers capture a nice photograph of Comet Machholz? If so, please send your best shot to "Backscatter" together with details about the photo and the circumstances. Thanks very much. Editor.
Forrest,
I really enjoyed reading William H. Appleby's Hindenberg article in
TCS (Airship Hindenburg: Experimental study of the involvement of the outer covering paint (dope) in the disastrous final fire, The Citizen Scientist, 17 December 2004). While reading the article, several additional points to research came
to mind.
One thought was that perhaps the modern dope had some sort of fire
retardant added. This might have caused the experiment to show a slower
burning rate than the actual airship. I tried to check this out on the web.
I am not 100% sure, but it looks like the dopes used in the experiment were
made to a military specification (mil spec). I looked up the spec for the nitrate dope
(MIL-D-5553A). This spec, last updated in 1950 and now obsolete, does not
appear to list a retardant. It would be a good idea to look into this
further.
Another idea is that there are standard flammability tests for fabrics and
such. It would be useful to see how these standard tests are performed and
see how the doped fabrics compare to the standard tests.
Aluminum powder- and nitrate-doped fabric was used extensively for
aircraft coverings for quite sometime. In fact, butyrate
dope is still used with polyester fabrics for aircraft coverings. It would
be informative to look into the safety history of these coated fabrics.
I ran across one web mention of cellulose nitrate being not allowed as a
plastic in toys, but the nitrate paint was allowed.
Years ago I had a screwdriver with a cellulose nitrate handle. While
working on an electronics project, the screwdriver rolled under my soldering
iron. The heat from the iron caused the screwdriver handle to burst into
flames. This caused a bit of excitement. I tried to carry the burning tool
by its blade to somewhere I could put out the fire, but the flames came back at my
hand. So I dropped the screwdriver and put out the fire by stomping on it. The
point here is that even though the doped fabric did not burn too quickly, it
is possible that it could be easily ignited by some heat source and
cause a fire. An interesting experiment would be to look into flash point
testing of fabrics and do a test on the samples to see at what temperature
they combust.
Jim Hannon
Jim,
I thank you for your kind words.
With any experiment that replicates procedures done by someone else
(especially in history) there is always a chance that there was a factor
that was significantly different. In this case, I think that my samples
were close enough to the real thing to provide a reasonably close test.
Two other papers have information inline with my results
(http://spot.colorado.edu/%7Edziadeck/zf/LZ129fire2005jan12.pdf and http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/zf/LZ129fire.pdf).
For instance,
cellulose acetate butyrate and cellulose nitrate movie film burned at a
similar rate. Also, the burning of a piece of the actual Hindenburg cover
burned at a similar rate. Nevertheless, I have sent a letter to the company that provided the doping
paint requesting the
composition of the paint . I will send the answer to "Backscatter" as soon as it arrives. It is
always good practice to read the references in a paper to get the total
picture, especially since the supporting reference to my paper was online.
Yours and the experiences of others prove that the use of cellulose acetate
butyrate, rather than cellulose nitrate, on the Hindenburg was a prudent
decision.
Regards,
Bill Appleby
Editor:
As a relatively new arrival to the SAS web site (presently a nonmember),
I have enjoyed reading the projects undertaken by "amateur" scientists
in basements and home workshops. I'm currently looking for a local group
which I might join, because I share many of the interests covered in the The Citizen Scientist.
The discussion in "Backscatter" about contrails with strange
behavior caught my eye ["Shawn Carlson and his daughter Katherine report a very unusual contrail," 3 December 2004
]. Although I doubt that my remarks are
profound or unique I offer the following (and please forgive me if I am
stating the obvious).
As an avocational commercial pilot and retired flight instructor, one of
the things stressed in early pilot training is the danger of the powerful
wing tip vortices generated by large aircraft. These vortices (referred
to as wake turbulence) are especially dangerous to small general aviation
airplanes when encountered close to the ground during landing and
takeoff; they are strong enough to flip a small plane on its back. They
trail any airplane producing lift and last for some time after the
airplane has moved on. Might not the action of these vortices be
responsible for much of the observed behavior of those Rhode Island contrails? The
sine wave undulations might be as a result of the high altitude mixing of
two air masses moving in different directions if the contrail was located
at or near the interface of those two air masses. Two air masses having
different dew points might also explain the disappearing contrails (as
the differing air masses were mixed by the wing tip vortices). It might
be interesting to see what weather systems and wind patterns were in that
area at the time of the contrail observation, something that is probably
available from government weather sources.
A good source of information on wake turbulence may be found at:
http://www.asy.faa.gov/safety_products/WakeAC.html.
Thanks for listening.
Sincerely,
Len Kastner
Macungie, Pennsylvania
Dear Forrest,
I've come one step closer to my proposed winter flounder study.
Remember, I told readers in "Field Notes" that I would try to get a job in a
restaurant or food store so I could make a count of flounders per day, so I can
participate in aquiculture study.
So far I've seen about the same number of winter flounders that I usually see every
year. Whether I am seeing Pleuronectes plueronectis, or the local variety (the one
that overwinters in bays, not the oceans), I don't know. Usually the winter
flounders are very small, but sometimes they are large. I average seeing around ten
flounders to be sold. The price of flounder has remained stable throughout the
last ten years.
During the l980's when the bay hibernating species first became scarce, the price rose from four dollars a pound to seven. But that was long
in coming.
I want to see the bay hibernators or Pleuronectics communis. They seem to be
mostly Pleronectes plueronectes, or the flounder that migrates to sea (see my
Scolelepis squamata study). Polychaete worms are one of their major food sources
as they migrate out the inlets during late fall. Pleuronectes communis stays
all winter in the Bays. I know they are there but only in very pocketed regions,
canals with a strong current at the mouth. Usually you can catch them in late
fall near the mouths of creeks where there is a deep hole. Those deep holes are hard
to find. Therefore, I think they may be adapting by staying hidden so well in the
winter.
The other question I was going to answer in my proposed flat-fish study was
if they have the ability to change to a different diet, such as grass shrimp that are abundant in more shallow, open areas of the bay. The
best reported catches of winter flounder (P. communis) are around the Robert
Moses Bridge, where currents are very fast, but there are no deep pockets.
Grass shrimp are more abundant there than Polychaetes.
A new question to be answered is if there is a relationship between the two
populations of flounders. Are there cooperative associations? Does one flounder
spend time feeding on Polychaetes while another ingests grass shrimp? When
conditions change, do the feeding behaviors reverse?
Happy Holidays to everyone at SAS.
Sincerely yours,
James W. Farr
For more about James Farr's studies in the waters off Long Island, New York,, enter his name into our search engine. Editor.
Forrest,
This devil's cigar [Chorioactis geaster; see http://groundtruthinvestigations.com/photography/flora/fungi/dev_cigar.html] is the star-shaped fruiting body of a fungus appearing along a trail to the river through the upland rim rock, live oak-Ashe juniper-cedar elm woods in a nature preserve/wildlife management area above the Blanco River near Fischer Store Road, Hays County, Texas. It was found and photographed on 3 January 2005.... Mike Lyday, a botanist and water quality specialist with the city of Austin, Texas,
reported that in all the years he's been in the field around Austin (I think he
lives in Dripping Springs) he's never seen Chorioactis geaster.
Tim Jones
Thanks for this important report.
Yours is the first report to my knowledge of a devil's cigar (Chorioactis geaster) in Hays County, Texas. Together with my observations in neighboring Guadalupe County, Texas, this adds two counties to the previous five.
The only other place C. geaster is found is Kyushu, Japan. The photos on your web site are excellent. I've given talks on this spectacular fungus at the Texas Academy of Science and the 2005 Citizen Science Conference and am writing a paper with some new information. Editor.
I am unsure of the following item's relevance to The Citizen Scientist,
but perhaps it's of use to SAS members in general.
Last year I discovered a company called Cynmar Scientific
(http://www.cynmar.com/) that sold through mail-order scientific
equipment and supplies, including chemical glassware and chemicals in
small quantity. I was delighted. For some time I had been looking for
a good chemical supplier for some small-scale analytical work
I've been doing (http://tomlinson.imap-mail.com/science/chemistry.html)
and for patination of bronze castings. I filled out a small order,
figuring that I could always add to it later when I had more money.
I was unpleasantly surprised, then, to find out that Cynmar no longer
sells chemicals to individuals. A note on their web site says that, as
of 1 January 2005, they are no longer "able" to sell chemicals to the
public. The use of the word "able" suggests some external constraint.
Has some new law come into effect?
Sincerely yours,
Ernest Tomlinson
http://www.etomlinson.com/
Can anyone answer Ernest's question? Please reply to "Backscatter." Editor.
Editor,
Good morning from Greece
I would like to ask you if you have any ideas about holograms.
We want to find out if we can have a 3D holographic replica of an object 1.5 m high and 1 m wide.
If you don’t know and can assist me with a site, please do it.
Thanks in advance.
John Kapitsakis
SPEG consulting
Can anyone help John? Editor.
A Question of Time
Dear Editor,
If I perceive time as the awareness (by observation or otherwise) of relative changes, is this consistent with the space-time continuum concept?
If this question is of interest, I will appreciate your reader’s comments.
Sincerely,
Farris Mitchell Sr.
fmsr@starband.net  |
