What Are Credible Anomalies and Mysteries in Science?

[Ivan Seeking]

Cold Fusion lives again?
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=169157

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Regarding the so called transient lunar phenomena [post 17 of this thread]:

Strange, bright flashes observed on the moon for centuries and often dismissed as the lunar equivalent of UFOs may in fact be emissions of volcanic gas. A researcher says he has reviewed the evidence for so-called lunar transients and found them to occur only in areas of the moon that belch radon gas, suggesting that the flashes could be the result of dust stirred up by such emissions—possibly volcanic in origin.

"A lot of people think that this is just craziness—this is up there with UFOs," says astrophysicist Arlin Crotts of Columbia University. "But no, this is real science. And it's something people should have done 30 years ago." Other experts, although intrigued, are not yet convinced of transients or Crotts's proposed explanation. [continued]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanId=sa003&articleId=699CE1CC-E7F2-99DF-3F7ED3707CAE0277

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The Bloop

The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=211268

 

[baywax]

Stonehenge revisited (by shovel)

This could turn up some new clues.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080331/ap_on_re_eu/britain_stonehenge_dig

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Love Waves
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=231769

The Hope Diamond Glow
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=233196

 

[bassplayer142]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121087447348895873.html?mod=yhoofront

This is a brand new article that says they may have solved at least part of the Pioneer anomaly. Any more news on this?quote

"After six years of work, the researchers expect to finish restoring the last data files next month. Based on a partial analysis, Dr. Turyshev reported in April at a meeting of the American Physical Society in St. Louis that at least 30% of the force can be attributed to heat radiating from the probe. "The rest is unknown," he said."

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome

...The surreal deaths of more than 100 healthy adults in the U.S., primarily in Minnesota, are perhaps the most mysterious of all. Since 1977, more than a hundred Southeast Asian immigrants in the U.S., primarily ethnic Hmong from Laos, have died from a mysterious disorder known as Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome, according to reports by the U.S. Center for Disease Control. The victims were mostly men in their 30s or older, who were apparently in good health when they died in their sleep for no apparent reason.

"The victim has no known antecedent illnesses, and there are no factors that might precipitate cardiac arrest," the Cambridge History of Disease notes. "At autopsy, no cause of death can be identified in the heart, lung or brain. Postmortem toxicologic screening tests reveal no poisons." ...

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=2035968#post2035968

 

[turbo]

Credible anomalies:

Zwickey discovered in the 1930's that clusters of galaxies had redshift distributions so high that the clusters should have long ago torn themselves apart, if GR was correct.

Vera Rubin discovered a couple of decades later that the rotational curves of galaxies were too flat to have been explained by GR.


Consensus is that GR must be right, and so far, we have invocations of Dark Matter on two widely-different observational scales to "fix" the differences between observations and theory. More recently, we have Dark Matter invoked in cosmology to explain how matter accreted so soon after recombination to form objects that we see at z>6 and even some very out-there theories about how dark-matter annihilation in the early universe could have powered PopIII stars and metallized the early universe.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The migration of the Monarch Butterfly
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=288269

 

[ibcnunabit]

This appears to be the sacred plain where broken links go to die. : /

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You are welcome to provide updated links.

 

[Chronos]

Wow, quite a basket! Some of these have long since been debunked, others not to my knowledge. I have my work cut out for me. Thanks for the cites, Ivan! You always come up with curious stuff.

 

[Garth]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121087447348895873.html?mod=yhoofront

This is a brand new article that says they may have solved at least part of the Pioneer anomaly. Any more news on this?quote

"After six years of work, the researchers expect to finish restoring the last data files next month. Based on a partial analysis, Dr. Turyshev reported in April at a meeting of the American Physical Society in St. Louis that at least 30% of the force can be attributed to heat radiating from the probe. "The rest is unknown," he said."

The PA is a blue shift interpreted as a sunwards acceleration of (8.74±1.33)×10⁻¹⁰ms⁻², if 30% can be explained by normal physics that would leave an anomalous equivalent acceleration of (6.12±0.93)×10⁻¹⁰ms⁻².

Note cH (an acceleration equivalent to a cosmological clock drift) is equal to: 7.2×10⁻¹⁰ms⁻².

Garth

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Wow, quite a basket! Some of these have long since been debunked, others not to my knowledge. I have my work cut out for me. Thanks for the cites, Ivan! You always come up with curious stuff.

If you see anything that has been "debunked" [...more appropriately perhaps, "explained". Everything was vetted before it was posted here. Nothing should be "debunkable"], and this is not indicated in the associated link, please let me know. Note that I always try to provide a link to the respective PF discussion, if one exists.

There were some papers linked from the archives, way back when, that are no longer appropriate, but I think most of that was cleaned up.