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It should not surprise anyone that this Outline contains about 6,000 entries, all of which remain unexplained to my satisfaction, or which, at the very least, I find curious and engaging. My main objectives with this volume are these:

• The compilation of a list of scientific phenomena worthy of further attention and research
• The presentation of a "first look" a the entire spectrum of what I have found anomalous, provocative, and exciting in science
• The provision, via a menu-type index, of a guide to my many already published Catalogs and Handbooks of anomalies and curiosities.

Major Paradigms Targeted

Anomalies exist only when they challenge paradigms and hypotheses. It is unavoidable, therefore, that some paradigms, widely considered to be fact, will be contradicted by many of the phenomena listed in this Outline. For example, the following paradigms that presently dominate scientific thinking are her considered to be at risk:

• The expanding universe
• The Big Bang origin of the universe
• Neo-Darwinism (specifically, evolution via random mutation and natural selection)
• That genomes are the complete blueprint for lifeforms
• Plate tectonics/continental drift
• Special and General Relativity

• Aurora-like phenomena
• Ball Lightning
• Diffuse Electrical Discharge Phenomena
• Lightning Anomalies
• Low-Level Meteor-Like Luminous Phenomena
• Nocturnal Lights
• Marine Phosphorescent Displays

"The primary intent of this book is entertainment.  Do not look for profundities!  All I claim here is an edited collection of naturally occurring anomalies and curiosities that I have winnowed mainly from scientific journals and magazines published between 1976 and 1993.  With this eclectic sampling I hope to demonstrate that nature is amusing, beguiling, sometimes bizarre, and, most important liberating.  "Liberating?"  Yes!  If there is anything profound between these covers, it is the influence of anomalies on the stability of stifling scientific paradigms." - From the Preface

"If you have any interest in the unusual side of the physical world, you just HAVE to have this book! Dr. William Corliss has spent decades creating the "Sourcebook Project", a vast, multi-volume compilation of reports of unexplained phenomena taken from the pages of professional scientific literature. SCIENCE FRONTIERS is a sort of 'sampler,' it is the distilled cream of Dr. Corliss' bi-monthly anomalies newsletter, featuring hundreds and hundreds of illustrated mini-articles, all organized into chapters: Archeology, Astronomy, Biology, Geology, Geophysics, Psychology, Chemistry, Physics, Math, Esoterica. Lewis Thomas said: "We do not understand much of anything, from the "big bang," all the way down to the particles in the atoms of a bacterial cell. We have a wilderness of mystery to make our way through in the centuries ahead." This book is an excellent demonstration of the wisdom in those words." Amazon customer