Nexus - 0222 - New Times Magazine-pages

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MEDICAL STUDENTS RE} _T DARWINISM MYSTERY LINES ON THE NULLARBOR MYSTERY LINES ON THE differences between, say, rock and sand are MEDICAL STUDENTS REJECT NULLARBOR greatest at night. During the day, features DARWINISM . series of five long parallel lines of the land are uniformly hot, making them The British medical journal The Lancet have been observed on daytime difficult to identify from thermal images. | has published a survey carried out by pro- satellite images of the Western/ The lines appear to be about 2°C cooler | fessor Roger Short from the department of South Australian border, leaving than the surrounding plain. Physiology at Monash University, Victoria. geologists scratching their heads. The mystery was revealed in Sydney in | ‘The questionnaire was given to over 150 The lines, estimated to be about 400 kilo- late August at a forum on remote sensing. | first year medical students. metres long and 5-15 kilometres wide, Dr Ian Barton, of CSIRO's Division of Twenty-seven per cent of those surveyed were found on images of the Nullarbor Atmospheric Research in Melbourne, said | thought species did not evolve by natural Plain, the vast desert that stretches north the lines were first noticed last month by | selection, i.e., Darwin was wrong. Twenty- from the Great Australian Bight. his colleague, Dr Fred Prata. Barton sent | seven per cent also believed that humans But they are not supposed to be there. the images for analysis to Tapley's group at | could not have evolved from apelike ances- "The Nullarbor is supposed to be a fea- the CSIRO Division of Exploration and | tors, and twenty-one per cent believed God tureless expanse," says Dr Ian Tapley of Mining in Perth. created Eve from Adam's rib. the CSIRO, Australia’s national research Prata was studying images taken by The students then attended eight lectures organisation. "We have no explanation for Europe's remote-sensing satellite, ERS-1l, | on evolutionary theory, were taken on an the lines yet." over 10 days in October 1992. Since this | excursion to meet their ancestors, and Even more puzzling is that the lines discovery, the lines have also been found | asked to write an essay on the topic, appear only during the day. This is odd on thermal images taken on the same days | “Discuss the origin and destiny of the cur- because they have been detected by by a weather satellite operated by the US | rent races of mankind”. All essays support- infrared sensors which produce their best National Oceanic and Atmospheric | ed evolutionary theories. images at night. Infrared radiation gives a Administration. After this, they were surveyed again. measure of temperature—and temperature (Sources: New Scientist, 3 Sept ‘94; CSIRO) | There were no significant changes in the Saat 5 answers to any of the questions. = Thermal image taken in daytime (Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 carmen eecuors April 1994) a3 CONFLICTING DATA ABOUT EXTENT OF ICE AGE " — An American geologist, Christopher g Lines 400 km long ©) | Scotese of the University of Texas, and S-15 km wide . Nisan A comme | | delieves that most glaciers in the ice age of 650 million years ago never got within 30 degrees of the equator. Nullarbor Plain : sh Geologists can track the motion of conti- nents hundreds of millions of years ago because the direction of the Earth's magnet- ic field changes with latimde, and is fixed in the rocks as they solidify. Most geolo- gists believe Africa, North America, Australia and Europe were near the equator during this ice age. Evidence suggests that these continents contained glaciers at this time. Christopher Scotese has been analysing magnetic data collected by Rob Van Der Voo of the University of Michigan, and Chris Powell of the University of 100 km California at Santa Barbara. He came up SRLS) | with a model that puts West Africa and much of Europe near the South Pole, the NEXUS ¢ 57 OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1994