Anomalous Phenomena: The Para-Pachydermic Explanation “Get your umbrella ready,” said the TV weatherman. “Lots of rain tomorrow.” The next day considerable precipitation fell but not rain. Six inches of snow in the city, twelve inches up in the mountains. Obviously weather forecasting isn’t an exact science. Despite all the data gathered, there could be a tiny bug in the system that throws off the prediction. The chaos butterfly. An analogy that shows how an unknown element or X factor can make the weatherman look like an idiot. Two months before the weatherman predicted rain, a butterfly in China flapped its wings a couple of extra times. This pushed additional air molecules along, a small action that kept building as the days passed, until it turned into a cold air mass that unexpectedly shifted, turning rain into snow. Science itself isn’t an exact science. But there are those who act like it is, resulting in dogma that doesn’t allow any thinking beyond what it considered “no...
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CSI: Crime Sand Investigation A nonfiction book about sand? Surprisingly, it’s very interesting. Sand: The Never Ending Story proves that there is indeed a world of knowledge in a grain of the stuff. The author, Michael Welland, covers the topic not only on this world but beyond, to Mars and one of Saturn’s moons, Titan. But what intrigued me the most was geological forensics, how the properties of a particular sand can be used to determine its origin point, valuable evidence in a criminal investigation. One case involved $3 million worth of gold that turned up missing while being shipped. It was discovered after opening the crates that ordinary sand and iron bars had been switched with the gold. It was suspected that the substitution had been made in Canada but a forensic geologist and policeman determined that the sand originated in another country. Another example of sand forensics involved a pickup truck driven by the murderer. Mud splashed on the truck contained tiny debris f...