Actually it was a power source for early WOMD.
More seriously, I’m with Chronos & scr4 on this. If you want mysteries, suscribe to New Scientist magazine, you’ll be turned on to a couple of new ones every week.
I have a # of Wm Corliss’ books, I think of him more as a compiler of unexplained items rather than paranormal stuff.
Wow, who needs Fortean Times (which is 99% crap IMNSHO).
Nanobes are a modern mystery.
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/nanobes/nanoimages.html
Not yet into the domain of pop-science, but very exciting and [reverb]mysterious[/reverb].
Not sure if these are critters, but they reproduce. Some experts say they are alive, others disagree, saying they are too small to contain DNA.
Also interesting and exciting and mysterious and sexy: dark matter and junk DNA.
It was called “Magnetic Flip”, and was shown on Channel 4.
Julie
Perhaps the Codex Seraphinianus of its time?
That’s not true. At least the so called “spontaneous human combustion” has been explained quite nicely by the “wick theory.” AFAIK they have conducted a number of experiments with animal carcasses with satisfactory results.
[I skimmed through the thread and it looks like nobody has made a reply to this. Sorry if somebody did already.]
Actually, L. Sprauge DeCamp, in his book, The Ancient Engineers, covers these batteries. He suggested that electroplating was invented, but it was never used for anything further.
It’s an interesting concept, and I could quite understand it.
IIRC, there are many areas in the UK that are also subject to strange lights. I can remember a few years ago a program on unexplained phenomena covering it. There was an incident where a whole valley in the Peak District lit up like it was daylight, during the night, warranting a call out to the local Mountain Rescue, after residents of the valley feared a plane had crashed.
I’ve heard of several explanations, but most seem to revolve around methane escaping from local peat marshes.
Min min lights - Latest theory is light internally reflected in a layer of air over the horizon. Source is usually a fire, planets, headlights or houselights.
Here’s a link confirming that my recollection of the account is pretty accurate:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/Members/ad.johnson/text/bl.htm
(First paragraph, about Derbyshire).
I’ve seen a debunking show about this…a camera team was sent out to the exact spot where one of the vantage points was shot, only the camera team set up during broad daylight. The two tapes were superimposed, and the lights were clearly seen to drift behind a mountain in the background.
It has been proposed that a military figter plane…most likely an A-10 Warthog… was on a training mission and practiced an evasive maneuver by banking left and ejecting a series of flares used to decoy heat seeking missles.
Save your breath. I lived in Joplin, Missouri for seven years, and made several expiditions to see the Hornet Spook Light. I saw it exactly once.
Forgive my anthropomorphizing, but the HSL is, er, temperamental.
And FTR, it was pretty cool. 
Oliver Sacks is good. However, Newton’s Madness is just as good a read if you’re looking for interesting neurology cases. Its by Harold Klawans. He also wrote “Why Michael couldn’t hit”, which is not quite as good but still worth a try.
If you want some interesting Inventor stories, Try "Strange Brains and Genius" by Clifford Pickover. He is the same guy that writes the Brain Boggler column for discover magazine.
Finally, more of a weird, recent scientific finding than anything else, but it was shows just in this past year that people with so called "perfect pitch" in music (I know nothing about music, but I think this means they hear a pitch or sound and can perfectly recreate it on the first try, or something like that) are just born with the ability. You can get very good at it with practice, apparently, but the ability to do it perfectly is something you either do or don't have when you're born. So they say now, at least. Sorry, I'd have to search for a reference.How about posting an account of it in MPSIMS? I’d love to read it.
Una
I just love it when the gremlins leave the scientific community scratching their heads…
OK.
There seem to be many stories of domestic dogs who get lost, and winduptravelling extremely long distances, finally showing up at their owner’shomes months later. Are these stories credible? I recall reading of one such a mutt, who actually was lost by the owner on a camping trip. the dog travelled hundreds ofmiles and arrived at his home months later. My question: how could an animal find his way across mountians, and miles ofunfamiliar territory? I had a dog who got lost two streets awy, and she couldn’tfind her way home!
Yes, they’re credible, there was a report of one a few months ago in the British press. A few months ago, a dog fell overboard whilst on its owner’s yacht in the English Channel. The owner thought it had drowned after discovering the dog missing. He returned home a few hours later.
The following day, the dog had returned home. To do this, it must have swam the 30 miles necessary to the coast, another 30 miles up a large river, onto the beach and through a town back. IIRC, there were some eyewitness reports of the dog leaving the water on the shore, too.