JULY 1986 $2.50

IN: THE NEXT ERCOMETS«WHALE iltl«JJ;^U:jE THE 7 TH DAY*ARTHUR C TERRESTRIAL LIFE

MYSTERIES ^ OF THE —

onnrui VOL. 8 NO. 10 JULY 1986

EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT: KATHY KEETON EDITOR: PATRICE ADCROFT EDITOR AT LARGE: DICK TERESI GRAPHICS DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINO ART DIRECTOR: AMY SEISSLER

CONTENTS PAGE

EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE First Word Arthur C. Clarke 6

OMNIBUS Contributors 8 COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 10 FORUM Dialogue 12 MYSTERIES OF THE DEEP WHALE SUICIDES Earth Douglas Starr 14

EXPLORATIONS Sea Search Charles R. Pellegrino 20

THE OCEAN INSIDE, WHY GOD RESTED Continuum 27

AMPHIBIOUS MAN Article Bill Lawren 36

SEA DRIFTERS Pictorial Victoria A. Kaharl 52

TITANIC ROBOTS Robert Ballard Douglas Colligan 60 nterview

UNDERWATER COMETS Article James Ehmann 68

LAST WORD Humor Terry Runte 114

STARS Astronomy Marcia Bartusiak 16

BOOKS The Arts Robert Weil 22 SPACE Comment Owen Davies 24

ULTIMATE SPACE QUIZ Article Neil McAleer 42

ROCK GARDEN Fiction Kevin O'Donnell, Jr. 46

METATOUR Pictorial Judith Hooper 74

ANTIMATTER UFOs, etc. 83

GAMES Stone Skipping Scot Morris 102

CRYSTAL LANDSCAPE Phenomena Eric Hilton 110

;. ;-; 0-- On this month's cover hybrid OMiV CliiKN ;r-43~S7r! published monthly in the United Stales ana Canada by -oadway, NewYok NY 1002" J k NY, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send carp, called koi, Japanese 10. Copyright /jrjjs acir 8 : Number © 1986

ti registered trademark of float around a suspended sphere by Omni Publicai I ial Ltd All rights reserved. Tel. (212) 496-6100. OMNI is a Omni %zf Publications International Lid. Printed in the U S A. by Mereditb/Burda Corp. and distributed in the U.S.A.. Canada, U.S. territorfa) in a surreal underworld possessions, and ihe world (excepi the U.K.) by Cur'is Circulation Company, 21 Henderson Drive, West Caldwell, N.J. 07006. of ether. of in Sea Dreams one a 'est Drayton. London, UB7 7QE, England. Entire contents copyrighted. Nothing series of fantasy paintings— may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Any similarity between places or persons ipiions: U.S. , AFO—$24 one was created by Charley Brown and mentioned in the fiction or semifiction and real place: year; Canada and elsewhere—$28 one year. Single copies $2.50 in U.S., AFO, and Canada. Telephone: 1-800-247-5470; in Iowa: It exhibited first in Paris. e^.urn unsolicited matter, and all rights in portions published thereof belongs to a European collector. remain the sole property of Omni Publications International Ltd. Letters sent to Omni or its editors become the property of the magazine. 4 OMNI 3 , : I

Early ; n December 1985 a group of distm- Jupiter, hae its own retinue of mooris.

" guishod astronomers gathered in Clearly, the earth 'was not unique: nor. Colombo, Sri Lanka, under (he auspices perhaps, was She human face. of the international Astronomical Union, the For the last 300 years— not very long in institute of Fundamental Studies, and human history- all educated person! the Arthur Clarke Center to discuss a have known thai our planet is not the only subject that has long fascinated the world in the universe and that its sun is general public but has oecome scienHI- oneoibil

: caily respectable only during the last the seventeenth ana* eighteenth centuries", durtng which European explorers > two decades, i refer of course, to the possibility oi life on other worlds. "discovered" whole cultures that didnft

Mow, this is a fairly new idea in Western even know ihey'd been lost, also prompted lite on other planets. thought in that from Aristotie onward; it speculation about una! our was assumed that Eartn was the center of It seemed only reasonable populated the universe ana that anything beyond it enormous cosmos must be was some vague celestial realm inhabited with other creatures, some of ihenmperhaps only by supernatural beings the sun far more advanced than we &re. The utterly in was obviously a mass of tire, so no one alternative—that we at alone y id as the universe—seemed both depressing wildly megalornanlacal. for the moon, it probably wasn't big and

prove it, way Or the, enough tot many occupants. . . The five But how to one planets visible to the naked eye- other? We children of the Space Age'can Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn- no longer remember how enormous- had been known to mankind since even the sdlat system seemed only a

prehistoric times, and their curious lifetime ago. Now the voyager space preoa : movements had been a cause of much Is heading for its appointment with

speculation. But no one, except a few Neptune, which as recently as 1930; :; eccentric philosophers, had any idea that marked the frontier of the Empire of the

in Sun. That is an impressive achievement! they were all worlds iheir own right .

it of thousands of By Arthur C. Clarke It's an extraordinary iaci thai the hast even so, will be tens had guessed the Cue scale of the universe, years before Voyager can cross the fgulf 4/f seems only reasonable both in time and in space, centuries do the nearest star. have to rely on fortunately, we ao not ;: that our enormous before she West, In Hindu philosophy there are eons and ages long enough to satisfy physical contact to discover whelherl populated cosmos must be any modern cosmotogist, yet until only there is intelligent life elsewhere in the , with other creatures, a dozen generations ago much oi Europe universe. We now assume, almost as a v beiieveo that the world was c reared matter of tact, that any contact is likely to some of them more advanced if around 4000 ti.c (I'm sorry to say that be by radio. But even radio is to verify ;; than we are owing to their misreading of hie Bible, that they are out there, what will they IpOk

I thousands of loolish people still believe : like? suggest you go such nonsense.) and take your choice Nature fries: every, of The turning point in our understanding thing at least once—and has lots : of the universe may be conveniently lime and space for experimenting. »nl: net! took dated a! '600, jus: before Galileo polled Bui I wi'l tell you what they

like. understand the principles, if his first t We now Shakespeare belongs to the century hot the details, of human evolution. We*: :, before the great intellectual revolution, specimens of H sapiens are fherprodoeh "Doubt that ihe stars are fire, Doubt that of thousands of successive throws of ft, ," dice, any ens Of which mighty. . genetic , he wrote, circa the the sun doth move , 1600, He was wrong on both counts. have turned out differently If fheterreilifiai Of course, we know that the sun does experiment started ail over again atlTinue I

still be intelligence |: move, but not in ihe way that Shakespeare Zero, there might :.,

planet, It look like us. imagined. He thought it moved around on this but wouldn't the earth, as common sense seems In the dance of the DNA spirals, ihe

: to indicate, and had no idea how distant-. same partners would never meet again,:

II Elseley wrote 30 years : and just fiow big— it really is. As Loren ago And the stars aren't fire, although for in The Immense Journey: "Nowhere in alt reasons that were not understood until well space or on a thousand worlds will there:. into this century. They are much too hot 1 be men to share our loneliness. There may- power; Fire is a /ow-temperalure phenomenon; it be wisdom: there may be cannot exist in the thermal range of the somewhere across space great insfru-, floating; universe, where no chemicai compounds meets , I . may stare vainly af our are possible and where much of matter cloud wrack, their owners y8arnSrig.,a,s. simmers briskly at several million degrees. we yearn, Nevertheless, in the nature of:; During the seventeenth century the life and in the principles of evolution telescope revealed for anyone who had we have-had our answer Of mien i. eyes to see that the moon provided at elsewhere, and beyond, there will be > least one other example of a world with none fo'evet DO mountains and plains, though not rivers that '; and oceans. The moving points of light Arthur C. Grsk.rs July 20. 2019: A Day in the

were the planets now turned out to have Life ef the Twenty-Firs! Century will he, ', i i J, appreciable discs, and one of them, published b* Mmsniiian in Ocfbeey ; —

ONTRIBUTOR Dnnruii

SEA DRIFTERS

with the creature amounts of water. These comets may #% I hile national attention focuses Ballard, compares himself climatic changes that : from the Black Lagoon, needing to keep help explain drastic I I starry eyes on the exploration returning to caused Earth's ice ages and the extinc- ^J %Jf of space, a few tenacious his gills wet by frequently tion of the dinosaurs. "This is the most scientists have set their sights in the the water. In this month's Interview (page exciting idea in years, and the data opposite direction: to inner space. In fact, 60) the Woods Hole oceanographer interpretation," says Ehmann, ever since Jules Verne wrote 20,000 and geophysicist reviews such personal support the Post-Standard, Leagues Under the Sea, pundits have accomplishments as pioneering undersea a science reporter for the York, newspaper. "It's a speculated that man's next frontier would robotics; discovering hypothermal vents a Syracuse, New revolutionary hypothesis even its propo- be the ocean floor. Today a flood of (small ruptures in the ocean floor); and want to believe." visionary projects has brought the dream locating the remains of the ill-fated Titanic, nents didn't scientists Like travel to the ocean floor, successful of deep-sea living much closer to reality. his most publicized feat. "Most ocean spacefaring requires not only dedication In "The Cities of Neptune" (page 36) have never actually seen the senior but also considerable skill and knowledge. writer Bill Lawren reports on the farsighted depths," says interviewer and Omni prepared are you for living aquanauts who are designing submarine editor Douglas Colligan, whose most How well the stars? To find out, take the habitats. These self-sufficient structures recent book is The Healer Within (E. R among space-aptitude quiz ("Space Visions," elaborate tourist complexes complete Dutton). "Ballard, however, is the real assembled by writer Neil with hotels and discos—will be surrounded Captain Nemo, risking his life to explore page 42) McAleer, whose book, The Omni Space by fields of algae and corrals of fish. virgin territory." will be published by World And Utopian architect Jacques Rougerie Deep within this mysterious world Almanac, 1987. foresees an underwater civilization creatures have traveled for millions of Almanac in early Kevin O'Donnell, where pseudomutant amphibious humans years. Now such robotic devices as Science-fiction author Jr., evokes his own vision of the future will evolve within the marine environment, Ballard's Argo and Alvin are enabling in "Rock Garden" (page 46). In an alien developing their own philosophies and scientists to view the delicate, gelatinous world, protecting an endangered species values. Other researchers are contem- organisms we know as jellyfish. The as difficult as it is on Earth. O'Don- plating outfitting humans with artificial gills pictorial "Sea Drifters" (page 52) offers a can be animals in nell's previous work includes "Marchi- that will allow people to extract oxygen glimpse of these intriguing (June 1980) and the recently from water, their natural environment. ana" Ballard is exploring the dark published novel Cliffs (Berkeley). "I became more enthused about this But while For many, July means a week in the story than any I've ever written," says ocean floor, others are studying space to formation of country or long days at the beach. But Lawren, who is living in Spain, completing and finding new clues the contributor Judith Hooper offers an General Groves and the A-Bomb, to be Earth's oceans. In "Cosmic Comets of Omni writer Ehmann account of one family's summer vacation published by Dodd, Mead. "I now plan to the Sea" (page 68) James through a time warp and into the exotic relocate closer to the Spanish coast so presents a staggering astronomical Dean ("Metatour," diving and theory: Small icy comets may be hurtling worlds of painter Roger I can actively pursue sea where adventure is limited experiment with underwater construction." into Earth's upper atmosphere at the page 74). only by the imagination. DO Yet another marine enthusiast, Robert rate of 20 a minute, releasing enormous IlflllnllBOBGUCCIONE editor & publisher KATHY KEETGN LETTE OViNi PUBLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL LiD :: THE CORPORATION

officer) cannnnuruiCATOfus lasurer)

A Garrulous Defense Universal Scents Peter Garrison's The Osceola High School psychology I am disappointed with column "Scholar Wars" [Space, April classes enjoyed the article "Scentimental

It current, 1986]. Why do articles about the Strategic Journeys" [April 1986]- was Defense Initiative present opinions only informative, and well written. My stu- the future by those who oppose it? The antics of the dents were amazed because for this little- idiots from the University of California at holds such great possibilities Berkeley—two of these professors are understood sense. We had a great time "Scentsability Test" and anx- disgust me. Why , taking the \,'P.;Gre.ohics.Dir.- frank DeViiio; Art quoted by Garrison— aren't some of the teachers from Caltech iously await the results. Herr quoted? The majority of them did not Lee High School sign the silly petition. Osceola The mechanics of the antiballistic Kissimmee, FL Norman: Spec/a/ Assistant to Bob in Lewis missile shield have not yet been deter- research in the I applaud the ongoing ADVERTISING AND MARKETING mined. How can the experts know it once again scientists Marketing Div,: William Manieb; V.PJDir. of will be impossible to construct and will field of olfaction, but rtising: Linda Newman; Sr. V.PJCorp, Dir New that results from laboratory cost trillions? About 20 years ago I went are assuming Development Beverley Wardale;. Assoc. Dir. of something called a tests on frogs and mice are applicable to tyettiSing: Sharon Scott; Northeast Adv. Mgr.: to a demonstration Although it is clear that biochem- ir Southern Adv. I humans. McCord- Sr V.P.Mdwsst and laser beam. I had no idea was witness- Peter Goldsmith: Assoc. Midwest Mgr.:- Bob' ing the beginning of a new technology that ical and genetic factors explain the sense Bloxham; . VP.fWestern Adv. Dir Wendy LA. benefit mankind and be used for of smell in animals, human reactions Janis Drew; Dir. of Adv. Prod.: Ton! Wagner; would Prod. Mgr.;Chariene Smith, Dir. Adv. Admin.:-. a myriad of purposes—from delicate eye are probably learned and culturally influ- S Moses. Offices: New York, '1965 Broadway, scien- operations to industrial steel cutting. enced. I would encourage these York. NY 10023-5965, Tel (212) 496-6100; Garrison's buddies probably would have tists to collaborate with ethnologists in cross-cultural studies on scoffed at the whole idea then and said it establishing would be dangerous and too costly. human olfactory stimulation. We know that They bore me. people see in the same way, but cross- William Boland, Jr. cultural visual experiments show that Nicasio, CA people classify colors very differently. For example, the Navajo use one word to color range. Editors' note: As with other controversial describe a green-blue-purple topics, Omni has endeavored to present Why should people from non-Western both sides of this hotly debated issue. cultures not react differently to certain (See the Robert Jastrow interview, olfactory stimulants? We need an interdis- September 1985, and the July 1984 star- ciplinary approach to this study, wars issue.) Susan Gil lis Hollywood, FL Peaceable Kingdom Thank you for the warm and telling photo- State of S graphic essay "Shared Destinies" in The Great Wall of Texas Society proposes their precious April's issue. There is a lesson in it for all to erect a wall around This is one of us: We are living testimony to the state [Antimatter, April 1986], projects of the interdependence of life on Earth, Perhaps of the most worthwhile

I , Yankee century. I wish only that damn if we put away our use of war, made million or two obsolete by nuclear technology's capacity that I am, had a spare works two to destroy everything, we could ensure to contribute. After all, a border out of the survival of all Earth's creatures. We ways. It might keep the Yankees could adopt the symbiotic mode of our the Lone Star State and contain the might lovely "odd couples"—the angelfish rednecks. If we're really lucky, we or Oilers, and turtle, the starfish and scallop, the never hear again of the Cowboys larval crab and jellyfish. Dalias, or Senator Tower. Barbara R. Morrow Greg Krupey Madison, Wl North Huntington, PADO —

ON THE MEDAL OF LIBER] FORunn

the alliances needed to train the distrust and suspicion between the USSR Forty-one years ago I was among a forge the that can be regarded as number of scientists selected by the young people necessary for the economic and USA nation's Chinese government to come to America and social growth of America.—An Wang the primary cause for each Inc. continuing preparations for war against to learn about management and technol- Founder Wang Labs, the other a war that neither nation wants, ogy. We planned to stay in America — world dreads, a war that only one or two years before returning to The news that I was among the 12 a war that the help our homeland rebuild after the war. naturalized Americans to receive a Medal cannot be won, but if it should come of Liberty on July 3, 1986, was good to pass would destroy our civilization. As it turned out, the Communists seized of futile conferences on arms control of China at about the same time medicine for the surgically patched up Instead heart of this almost eighty-year-old man. reductions in which each nation continues I was completing my doctoral studies thoughts back to the first time to seek a military advantage over the I went in applied physics. I knew would never My

other, I would hope that a new initiative I gazed upon the majestic Statue of live under communism, so I made the United States my adopted home. Liberty more than 65 years ago and the would replace the present dangerous confrontations of the two superpowers in On July 3, at the relighting of the Statue exciting visions it stimulated of a new cooperat- I poverty-stricken countries. By of Liberty, the President will give me a life in a new land. When look at the Statue economically I with those and other medal in recognition of my contributions of Liberty today, think not only of my ing own full life as an American but of all who undeveloped countries against the to computer science. I am profoundly of despair honored by this award. But in a larger came to this land before and after at common enemy poverty and popula- sense the real heroes are the millions of different times from different nations, to that affects one half of the world's other immigrants who came to America build the greatest nation—but one different tion, we may try to build the trust needed

I disarmament. and helped shape a society unigue in its from all others in the world. And also for peace and ultimate era of nuclear diversity and unlimited in its opportunity. cannot help remembering the millions of In this dangerous

it there is an urgent need for My life in both China and America my fellow Jews who did not make and armaments has been inexorably bound to science were burned like garbage by barbaric implementation of a decision that neither and education. As a young boy and members of the nation with the highest communism nor capitalism will conquer level of education culture. the world, and allow each to continue with college student, I knew that the United and States had the world's finest educational The uniquely remarkable feature of the evolutionary changes in progress. system and led the world in scientific becoming a naturalized American is that The most important challenge to mankind innovation. Today, however, America's you not only become a citizen with all now is for the more developed countries, students are reluctant to pursue scientific the accompanying rights and privileges capitalist and communist alike, to develop careers, and our academic institutions but that you also become an American strategies whereby they can work are hard-pressed to keep pace with a member of a nation composed of together in helping the hundreds of millions cannot our nation's ever-increasing need for people from all nations. I could never of desperate poor people who individuals trained in technology. become an Englishman, Frenchman, help themselves, to a point where they

German, Italian, Swede, Russian if I had would be able to help themselves. Let the When 1 was still a boy my teachers nurtured my instinctive attraction to the been naturalized or even born in those USA and USSR wage war together sciences. They were visionaries who countries because the people of those against the miseries of poverty, which are believed that by embracing these disci- nations share a common heritage that is, many things but especially not enough plines, China could regain her place and of necessity must continue to be, food, poor education, the indignity of among the world's great nations. Their different from mine. Bui Americans of unemployment, and no hope for ever excitement was contagious and helped all national origins have built and are achieving the better life that other people engender my lifelong affection for scientific continuing to build a new heritage with enjoy. To meet this challenge, the need is which all Americans can identify And then, not for armies with weapons of destruction endeavor. I believe, therefore, that as a nation and as individuals, we must assist there are the beautiful and remarkable and death but for new kinds of armies. teachers, the teaching profession in its efforts to new hybrids, like my two daughters and They will be composed of attract and retain qualified individuals who grandchildren, who are Jewish-English- agronomists, engineers, architects, specialists, and possess the talent and the will to motivate Scots-lrish-German-Americans. doctors, public-health the young people entrusted to them. With this perception of my great, unique all sorts of specialists who could help

This effort demands coordinated nation of the United States of America I bring the benefits of science and will technology for the creation of the better national leadership —an articulate voice nurture a hope. It is a hope that it be a life can be to define a visionary strategy for American president of the United States who will material and spiritual that to the had right here on Earth.—Albert B. Sabin education. If we rely on the flexibility take the initiative to bring peace oral polio vaccineDQ and creativity that built our nation, we can world by breaking the impasse of justifiable Developer,

12 OMNI WHALE SUICIDES 1- EMW 1 1 By Douglas Starr

which occurs almost like clock- occasionally meander into cool waters i^^ he scene is littered with black, creatures, the shore, then pinch off and bloated bodies swelling in the work, year after year. The phenomenon closer to

Aristotle, it dissolve. Those off-course currents, he Li autumn sun. Biologist Greg Early had haunted who said was stands among them, every so often "without any apparent reason." Modern speculated, might carry squid, a prime for sperm whales. stabbing his flensing knife into a 15-foot biologists have been more persistent, food source pygmy squid might soon pilot whale. Walking as he cuts, the curly- offering theories of their own. Whales that follow the haired biologist slices the length of the One biologist, for instance, found consume the limited supply, finding without abdomen through an inch of white blubber. roundworms in the inner ears of stranded themselves close to the shore "Female," he announces- "She's given dolphins and suggested that the worms food. Strandings would be the result. birth twice." He continues the dissection, had literally destroyed the dolphins' ability Scientists in California, meanwhile, are checking for parasites and examining to navigate. It later turned out, though, advancing another theory: that whales the adrenal glands for scars, a significant that every dolphin has those parasites, follow the path of magnetic minima, areas sign of stress. whether it is stranded or not. Yet another where the earth's magnetic field is at a Just two days before, Early had received theorist suggested that whales, which minimum. The notion grew out of research an emergency call at his lab in Boston's are descended from land-dwelling conducted in the late Seventies, when New England Aquarium. Ninety-four animals, might actually hark back to some the United States Geological Survey to produce detailed whales, it seemed, were wallowing in primordial memory and seek terra firma. used a magnetometer magnetic patterns along the marsh grass off Cape Cod. It was the Unfortunately for the theorist, such a maps of biggest stranding in decades. Arriving at trait would have rendered whales extinct East Coast. Years later Joe Kirschvink and the scene, he waded among the animals, millions of years ago. colleagues at the California Institute of calming the thrashing bodies with merci- In the last couple of years, however, Technology compared whale strandings ful injections. One dying whale twitched, two teams of scientists have gained true to patterns in the earth's magnetic field. slamming its powerful tail into Early's insight into the strandings. At the University Studying official records of stranding right leg and dislocating his knee. of Miami, biologist Dan Odell studied events, they found that in 95 percent of all Now fitted with a cast, Early dissects the Gulf Stream current by looking at cases, whales washed up where the whales, seeking to understand the hundreds of satellite thermal images. He magnetic minima intersected the shore. bizarre suicide of these intelligent noticed that small branches of the current "It's as though somebody had run off a road," says Kirschvink, who adds that his findings support speculation that whales navigate with internal compasses.

"1 can't say why the whales strand. But 1 can say where the road is." Could either theory explain the giant stranding off Cape Cod? Odetl notes that the Gulf Stream often veers drastically off course in the area of the Cape. But he refuses to speculate on how this affects ^^" - any species but pygmy sperm whales. Kirschvink says the very place where the

: ~Hfe pilot whales became stranded is the minimum. *e»»*2i @&fi^. site of a significant magnetic ^BRAteb~* Both Kirschvink and Odell stress that Jwfe their findings are merely insights into :SwH|HHH| mhH ;' .:. whale strandings, not explanations. Early notes that any explanation has to account for the whales' herding behavior, which in some species is so strong that an entire pod will follow one member ashore. "The strandings result from a dozen factors, maybe half of which we know about," Early says. "Beached whales are like crashed planes—you can't use one Beached whales have long been one of nature s most tragic enigmas. theory to explain them all."DQ 14 OMNI EGASCOPE STARS By Marcia Bartusiak

scene is a familiar one: a line mountaintop. Spaced about 50 to 100 celestial objects that change dramatically The yards apart, all will be coordinated by a over days or weeks. Such a telescope, of radio telescopes stretching to the horizon, with the miles-long computer at a central operations center. for instance, could help astronomers network acting as one giant eye on the With the multiple array, each telescope decide whether quasars—the brilliant universe. Radio astronomy's premier could be equipped with a different cores of newborn galaxies—are truly which, theorists instrument is the Very Large Array in New detector—an infrared spectrometer on powered by black holes, Mexico. Together its 27 dishes have the one, an optical photometer on another, for say, intermittently gobble up matter and resolving power of a single dish 17 miles in example—and could accomplish an spew out fountains of electromagnetic diameter. Until recently such a sight across-the -spectrum observation of a sky energy. "Dwarf novae—binary star was the exclusive domain of radio astron- object in one night. With observing time systems where mass is being transferred are also omy. But by the twenty-first century doled out so sparingly, it now takes three from one star to another— optica] astronomers could have their own or four separate runs with a single leading candidates," says Jones. version of a megascope on the mountain- telescope and up to two years to accom- "Somehow energy is built up during the tops of the American Southwest. plish the same task. transformation and is periodically released With the cost of optical telescopes The multiple array eliminates other in a tremendous explosion." The multiple- will allow astronomers to plummeting, it is conceivable that multi- problems. 'Astronomers are always trying mirror telescope telescope arrangements will become to take the observations made at one observe these transformations by more common at optical observatories. observatory and compare them with data examining different parts of the electro-

"It's an idea that people have had in gathered at a different time with a differ- magnetic spectrum simultaneously. the back of their minds for a very long ent instrument. But the celestial object "With identical detectors on the four time," says University of Minnesota under study is likely to have changed 3.5-meter telescopes," Humphreys adds, astronomer Roberta Humphreys. "But the between observations," Jones says. And "we could also turn the array into the technology was just not there— until now." trying to get two observatories to look equivalent of a giant seven-meter Explains Humphreys's colleague, at the same thing at the same time can be telescope in terms of the amount of light infrared astronomer Terry Jones: an administrative nightmare. that is collected." "Telescope designers are beginning to Being able to make simultaneous In a decade or so it might even be offer optical telescopes that are lighter, use observations is particularly suited to possible to connect the telescopes with less metal, and are easier to put together." either fiberoptics or a series of mirrors For these reasons astronomers can and to operate the entire array as a giant now order a batch of telescopes without a interferometer. By comparing the light loan from Fort Knox. waves received by each telescope, Almost by accident the two Minnesota astronomers could deduce the sizes of astronomers found themselves spear- both stars and quasars. heading a movement to establish the first Right now the multiple-mirror telescope multiscope facility in the United States. is just an idea, but Humphreys and Jones Because available time on the world's hope to convince some starstruck million- largest and best optical telescopes is a aire that their proposal is a bargain. And precious commodity, the astronomy at $20 million to $25 million, it would department at the University of Minnesota be. The consortium would be building hoped to convince two or three other three or four telescopes for roughly the U.S. universities to join in erecting a single same price that one giant telescope 3.5-meter optical/infrared telescope on would have cost a decade ago. Once an appropriately dark mountaintop funded, the array would join an ongoing somewhere in the Southwest. "To our renaissance of new optical-telescope surprise, more than a dozen universities construction that includes the Hubble expressed interest," Humphreys says. Space Telescope and the ten-meter Keck "From that response we knew we weren't Telescope atop the extinct Mauna Kea talking about one telescope, but several." volcano in Hawaii. According to Humphreys and Jones, The project is known only by the matter- a consortium of astronomy departments of-fact name Multiple Telescope Observa- from universities across the country tory. "But whoever comes up with the envisions a cluster of three or four most money," says Jones, "will probably telescopes on an Arizona or New Mexico A bunch of telescopes at bargain rates. be able to call it anything he wants. "OQ 16 OMNI THE ARGOSSEY

By Charles R. Pellegrino

steel compartment onboard Robert Ballard, leader of this expedition, can allow an oceanaut to step out onto the The first used the sophisticated undersea East Pacific Rise or to touch the decks the research vessel Melville was a commotion of activity. robot to confirm that a large sunken ship of the Titanic. The difference between Tapes were being plugged into consoles, in the North Atlantic was indeed the ill- space exploration and deep-sea explora- maps were being made, numbers called fated Titanic. (See Interview, page 60.) tion is that you are always confined to in the out, and data logged. The array of screens At the data-logging station, I leaned your capsule the deep sea. On showed pillars of lava ahead. At the forward in my chair, looking into TV screens moon, if you want to see what is behind turn look. flier's station Earl Young pulled back on that displayed Argo's visions. The dark you, you simply around and On the winch, causing Argo, the small-finned wilderness seemed far more forbidding the ocean floor you have to turn the robot nearly two miles below the Pacific than the moon or Mars. The Eagle space- entire bulk of Alvin around—very carefully little easier: Ocean, to climb its tether. The altimeter craft that took Neil Armstrong and Buzz With Argo, though, it's a only punch a button and switch . to of Tranquility One need clicked up five meters ... six meters . . Aldrin down the Sea angle. still Argo was not at the top of the lava would have imploded long before it to a new camera mound. "It's absolutely huge," said one reached Argo on the East Pacific Rise, a For all of us aboard Melville, the robot crew member. Ten meters. The obstruction long, gentle hill on the floor of the Pacific. In Argo was a giant mental transporter. covered half the monitor screen. And places Eagle's hull was as thin as two Our whole scientific party could descend what were those on top? Crinoids (sea sheets of newspaper. It would crack at a with Argo, seeing and hearing the bottom in In of speaking, lilies). Argo scraped the top of the column. depth of 100 feet. By comparison the real time. a manner One of its cameras glimpsed chips of manned submersible Alvin, the deep- we were leaving our kidneys and lava falling as hundreds of severed crinoid ocean equivalent of the Apollo lunar gallbladders at the surface and, through arms floated through the water. module, has for a crew compartment a Argo's eyes and ears, sending our spirits The screens flickered, and for a moment six-foot-diameter hollow sphere with skin into the new world. they appeared to be on the verge of composed of six-inch-thick titanium. Spreading before us on the Pacific blinking out, but the picture and data At Alvm's maximum depth of two and a range were frozen streams of polished readouts flashed back to normal. Our robot half miles, the total pressure on the crew black glass (obsidian). As Argo moved of the ridge, the was still alive on the bottom of the ocean. compartment is 62,000 tons. No diving suit farther from the center older an It was only Argo's second mission. or airlock has yet been conceived that volcanic glass grew and we saw ever-deepening accumulation of sedi-

ment. The range is swept by a never- ending snowfall of silt from muddy rivers, pollen from the continents, the smoke of dead meteors, and the skeletons of surface-dwelling microbes. Twenty-five miles from the ridge, the "snow" is

700,000 years old. It completely covers the lava formations.

"It gets much deeper toward the conti- nents/' explains Roger Hekinian, one of the French members of the Argo-Rise

team. "The 'snow' is miles deep out there, and everywhere you go in the ocean,

if you drill down far enough through the mud, you will strike lava formations just like the ones we observe on the rise. At the very bottom, all the oceans in all the world are lava." To me this was all a dress rehearsal for deep space. Even in the Argo control room my mind often wandered up from the bottom of the ocean to the stars and Voyager 2. That spacefaring robot was 2 billion miles away; and in only

After the Titanic; the robot submersible Argo being prepared for its second mission. a few weeks it would hurtle past Uranus 20 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 89 THE ARTS By Robert Weii

figure have him die in 2033," says McCullough. the Black Death." | hat if a Christ-like were

1 f% of the Arctic of New Haven, : The inspiration for this futuristic tale Out gloom ; to appear on Earth exactly I 1 j i visit made to circa 2032, emerges Dr. Joshua Christian, W %^ 2,000 years after the birth of came during a McCullough challenges Jesus? How would he arrive? the United States in 1984. She had lived a gentle-spirited savior who future's rudderless govern- Would his birth be the crowning scientific in New Haven, Connecticut, for a dozen this unhappy to affirm achievement of genetic engineers who, years while working as a neurophysiolo- ment. Creed attempts belief that if government by using in-vitro fertilization, create an gist at Yale-New Haven Medical Center, McCullough's is only answer. But "immaculate conception"? Would he (or and she was disturbed by the industrial fails, spirituality man's religion depicts is very untradi- she, perhaps) emerge in more mortal and social decay that had ravaged this the she are not fashion, born to a married housewife with blue-collar city in her five-year absence. "I tional, and her messiah's methods centuries. four other children? Like his biblical saw a town that was obviously dying," those of saviors in prior straw manger, antecedent, would his place of birth be she says. 'Among the things killing it was Hardly the product of a is computerized creation the now politically divided city of Jerusalem the high cost of heating, which was Christian the media-dominated age. or a Midwest town like Kokomo, Indiana? undoubtedly why most of the factories of an electronic, is manufactured by the Most crucial of all, how would we come to had left the area. In fact, it seemed to me This messiah provide recognize this long-awaited savior as that the only major industry left was Yale." Department of the Environment to the man who had come to rescue mankind Drawing upon this apocalyptic vision, spirit in a millennium devoid of all hope direction. Drawing on her own from its dangerous destiny? McCullough created the scenario for and These are questions that Colleen a society that had become so culturally experiences as a media star after the McCullough, the Australian-born writer, desiccated and physically moribund that phenomenal success of The Thorn Birds, in realistic detail poses in A Creed for the Third Millennium the New Haven of 1984 would seem McCullough elaborates larger-than-life (Avon, paperback). "I started to postulate like paradise in comparison. Rejecting how Christian becomes a personality. he becomes a political what would happen if a rather Christ- any scientific theory that a so-called And like man appeared at the dawn of our next greenhouse effect was about to warm the leader who combines the popularity industrial Northeast, McCullough chose accorded to John E Kennedy after his millennium. I thought it would be logical to have a character named Joshua to plunge the area into a new ice age. death with the saintly virtues of Gandhi. Christian born in the year 2000 and to "a reality more unendurable than any since "I'm not sure whether a Joshua Christian is entirely possible," says McCullough,

it "but I think he is. And I've felt that would be the Americans who would produce him rather than any other country." Oddly enough, America has not reacted as enthusiastically to Creed as have other countries. The American people, according to McCullough, did not have to deal with the devastation brought on by

World War II and have difficulty contem- plating a world where groceries and

heating oil could be in short supply "It's been harder for Americans to deal with these themes because they lead the most comfortable lives," she notes. Given the enormous television followings of American preachers like Robert Schuller and Jimmy Swaggart, how far are we from seeing the triptych image of a Jesus-like messiah on a video screen with a seductive MTV beat in the

background? "I think spirituality is always the answer," says McCullough. "Man is a religious animal and needs God. And most religions are not reaching their in the way they once did."OQ If government fails, spirituality is man's only answer, according to author Colleen McCullough. people 22 OMNI COMET COLLECT

By Owen Davies

electrical Four months later the unmanned Orbital early a year before any foreign and equipment for measuring neutral particles. By Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) will meet spacecraft made a first visit fields, ions, and for the first the spacecraft and bring it to the space to Halley's Comet, NASA astro- August 1993, while MSR waits Technicians will remove the m comet to arrive, the instruments will scan station. dynamicist Robert Farquhar finessed astronomers a sidelong collected dust and gas samples to send a low-budget flyby of another visitor, Comet the sun and give to Earth for analysis, outfit the craft with Giacobini-Zinner. (See Stars, October view of its surface. sounding beacon on the mother new collectors, refuel it, and send the 1985.) The feat was even more remarkable A radio will measure the density of electron- probe out again. because he managed to do it with a craft sun's corona. "That will also While the first probe is being prepared used satellite. But that wasn't enough for ics in the because we can the mother craft and the second probe the Goddard Space Flight Center scien- let us test relativity measure how much the sun's gravity bends will have moved behind the sun to collect tist. Now he wants to return and bring bits adds. Einstein had more data and to wait for Comet Honda- of the comet back to Earth. the radio waves," he 1996. predicted that electromagnetic radiation Mrkos-Padjusakova on January 30, If his current scheme flies, his next will in in gravity field. We now The second daughter craft close mission will meet Giacobini-Zinner in 1998. would bend a is on it and collect its samples. The following Called the Multicomet Sample Return know that starlight does, but more work will reach the needed to confirm that it bends as much November the probe (MSR), it will also visit three other comets: pickup point in Earth orbit. D'Arrest, Honda-Mrkos-Padjusakova, as Einstein forecast. the sun By then the probe that met Comet and Temple-2. Farquhar plans to have MSR Once the probes pass beyond rendezvous with D'Arrest will be on its way to rejoin the bring back parts of each of the comets. they will make the first mother mother. It will make its rendezvous with With typical ingenuity Farquhar plans to Comet D'Arrest in July 1995. The electromagnetic Giacobini-Zinner in November 1998 have MSR do more than just collect craft will study the comet's and be back in Earth orbit in 2005. The samples. He also wants the craft to study environment and photograph the head. daughter final part of the relay will be completed the electrical fields around the comets, On July 27, 1995, it will dispatch a the comet, when the second probe, which will leave collect information about the sun, and test craft to fly through the head of Earth orbit in March 1999, flies through Einstein's theory of relativity. where it will collect dust and gas retrieval that is done it will begin Comet Temple-2 and returns for And in the tradition of Farquhar's other samples. Once to Earth orbit. three years later. mission, MSR will be cobbled together the long journey back Barely on the drawing board, MSR is out of existing spacecraft—in this instance winning a few friends. "Almost no a backup spacecraft designed for the already one has heard of it yet," admits Farquhar, Mars Observer mission to be launched in "but those who have seem to like it." the next decade. As Farquhar envisions One of its supporters is Fred Scarf, a comet it, MSR will use three craft: a 1,700-pound specialist at California's TRW, Inc. "It's mother ship (a reworked Mars orbiter) valuable," he says, "because and two 550-pound daughter probes especially practically all these comets swing in close adapted for the mission. The daughters to the sun, where some of the most impor- will take turns flying into the heads of tant processes in a comet's life occur." the comets while the mother keeps its If succeeds, it will produce a distance collecting data and providing MSR series of stunning firsts, which suits guidance for the craft. Farquhar just fine. "The French and the As space science probes go it will be a Soviets are really going to be upstaging bargain, costing about $200 million. "It's in the inner solar system," he says almost perfect," Farquhar says. "Our us "The Soviets plan to land on Phobos contract lets us buy several spacecraft [the innermost moon of Mars], and with only minor modifications. With the there will be a whole series of Soviet budget problems we're all facing, we have Venus landers. The Multicomet Sample to get as much information from each Return one-ups them for a change." one as we can." Farquhar plans to do what he did with According to Farquhar's schedule the his first coup, the International Come- shuttle would carry the probes aloft in Explorer (ICE). "I'll just keep working November 1992. The mother craft would tary on it until someone stops me. It's a lot be equipped with an X-ray telescope, easier to obtain forgiveness around a coronagraph (a special telescope that star. here than it is to get permission. "DO measures the sun's outer atmosphere), Comet: a new scheme to catch a tailing 24 OMNI coruTiruuunn

THE OCEANS INSIDE US

efore there was a cradle of civilization, there were czi, went so far as to write in Thalassa: A Theory of Genitaiity that the oceans, endlessly rocking. We were born in men made love with women only because women's wombs their blue fathoms right along with the porpoises, smelled of herring brine and they were trying to get back to the damselfish, groupers, and painted sea shrimp, primordial sea. Remember that at the wrong moment and life as which devour starfishes' soft bellies. So was all the rest of that we know it will end. kaleidoscopic marvel, life on Earth, which includes such unlikely What it all boils down to is water—hydrogen and oxygen. Mainly cousins as bread mold, polar bears, golden-shouldered para- it's hydrogen, the simplest atom, consisting of nothing but a nu- keets, marine iguanas, and human beings who share an ecosys- cleus and one electron—or one positive charge and one nega- tem and watery beginnings. tive, it you like. The positive charge is 1 ,800 times as massive as the

Odd though it may seem, we have much in common with the negative; the electron, a mere insinuation of matter, its whereabouts iguana. We have the same genetic code. The wardrobe of our iffy (somewhere within a radius of 1.15 angstroms from the nu- cells is identical. Our elements were forged in an early chaos of cleus, a range scientists like to depict as shadow). Who can say the sun. We move because carbon is a molecular wild card that where the electron really travels? You watch it the way you watch bonds easily. We spend a large portion of our lives in an odd a cat run behind a slat fence. I am thinking how hydrogen gave fantasia called sleep. Our earliest versions began in the oceans. rise to everything in the universe: limestone caves sweaty and Just imagine a brand-spanking-new biology. Part of the thrill of cool in the summer, gladioli, ocelots, adenoids, jealousy, bombs, discovering life elsewhere in the universe will be how similar it pulsars, star-nosed moles, pouting, the fetlock stars by which race- makes all life on Earth suddenly appear. There are days when, horses are identified, video games, desire. I'm thinking about the

in an excess of modesty, I slide off the present and remember cosmos before the Big Bang, when the universe was all in one that eons ago we began as fish flopping from pond to pond until place and solid, a hard object in an endless ether, which exploded legs seemed less effort. The rest is history. into a prowling radiant fog of hydrogen and helium, which To some extent, we are here because water freezes to ice, and coalesced into stars—some hot enough in their innards to forge ice floats. Otherwise, the oceans would have frozen solid, and the elements—and into planets—some cool enough to harbor life. no summer would have been able to thaw them, at a time when What a long, dicey journey from that tough, silky ball of hydrogen life trying to develop or just hang on wouldn't have stood a chance. to a sac of chemicals that can contemplate its oceanic origins.

Remember that in winter your roof leaks because a sheet of ice I like to think how even the old-fashioned word fathom comes is trapping a small ocean against the shingles. from an ancient German word, Fathmaz, which means the dis-

We still carry the primordial ocean within us. Our blood is mainly tance between two outstretched arms. So whenever we use this salt water. Ebbing and flowing, our veins mirror the tides. In a word we are, as it were, embracing the ocean itself; and even sense, we are the ocean's way of thinking about itself. When I when we use the word as a verb we are subconsciously paying scuba dive, a human woman with a womb in which eggs lie tribute to depths that we can measure as accurately as we wish coded as roe, I often feel that I am returning to the womb from but whose mysteries continue to charm and elude us. Just the which I sprang. Skin is the thinnest layer between our salt water other day I discovered in a medical textbook what struck me as and the ocean's, our monthly tides and its. No wonder we sit for an amazing fact: that the ions in the muscle of the heart—so- hours on beach towels and in deck chairs, with a patience pow- dium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium—are the same as erful as thick, green glass, and watch the waves rolling without those in seawater. I don't know why that should surprise me. After plot or purpose, as we will be in time. We watch the gulls glide all, the heart is a bivalve, too.—DIANE ACKERMAN overhead like a pair of brackets and the waves run like herds of white mice between the hypnotic tantrums of the surf. Early in Diane Ackerman is a poet, memoirist, and fiction writer whose most the twentieth century a kinky disciple of Freud's, Sandor Feren- recent book, On Extended Wings, is about learning to fly. corunruuunn

"Men who have a really low sperm count might want to try a second ejaculation an hour or so later," suggests the researcher, reproductive endocrinologist Jerome Check, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. "They can try this at home and see what happens." One of Check's patients, a Chernobyl, the seemingly infertile male, When nuclear-power plant accidents strike, such as happened at Three Mile Island and convenient antidote. scrutinized his sperm under conventional wisdom is to drink potassium iodide. Now there may be a more a microscope and discov-

it turned ered that his sperm count had that in the event of a nuclear i Dipping the paw, on the second NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS accident, people drink po- out, was just as effective in increased then documented tassium iodide. But there are blocking the uptake of radio- try. Check j potassium active molecules as adminis- the phenomenon in a study What should you do if you some problems: tering the iodine orally. of 20 supposedly infertile learn there's just been an iodide is a prescription drug, : Miller's team will be testing males. Fourteen of the men, accident at your local nuclear- so it would have to be distrib- procedure on humans it turned out, had a higher power plant? After you finish uted because people don't the shortly—Leah Wallach sperm count on their second panicking, run to the bath- have it lying around; it has a try, at least doubling the room and rub tincture of finite shelf life; and too much concentration. And five of iodine over your paw. is poisonous. their wives subsequently Radioactive iodine is one Two olfrier forms of nonra- became pregnant. of the most dangerous gases dioactive iodine, however, Having sexual intercourse "This defies the standard that can be emitted during are safe and readily available: " a surprised Check a nuclear accident. The tincture of iodine (the stuff a second time, thyroid gland, which uses you put on scraped knees) iodine to make an important and povidone iodine, a metabolism-regulating hor- germicide used extensively mone, can't distinguish in hospitals and on farms. between radioactive and Kenneth Miller, a health regular iodine. So when physicist, and colleagues at University a person is exposed to radio- Pennsylvania State active iodine the gland ab- reasoned that since radioac- sorbs and stores high doses tive iodine can be absorbed of the dangerous substance. through the skin, iodine Thyroid disease can result. from these nonprescription Fortunately, the thyroid preparations can be, too. gland doesn't absorb unlim- To test the idea, the scien- quantities of iodine. lists injected 72 rats with ited I babies but radioactive iodine. One third /s love better the second time around? For men who want Once it has stored all it I have low sperm counts, a second session may bejustthe ticket. needs, excess iodine in the : received no treatment. One third were given potassium body is excreted. That means j initial en- says, "which holds that the a person can prevent his iodide orally. The researchers minutes after the has lot of the counter, may be a cure second ejaculate a thyroid gland from taking up : dipped the hind paw lower concentration than the third (an area for infertility in some men with the radioactive chemical j remaining possible explana- in size to the abnormally low sperm counts, first." One by flooding it with the safe, comparable recent tion for the anomalous result, nonradioactive kind. So human hand) in either tincture according to one scientific study. he theorizes, is that certain officials have recommended of iodine or povidone iodine. 28 OMNI "

men have higher second-try pinging sound common to for this nucleus is light (such sperm counts due to mal- aluminum bats. as the rising sun), it will functioning sperm ducts in But its main advantage, also respond to several the tip of the penis. says Heald, is that the distri- chemical substances/ among "The first time they don't bution of his bat's main them nicotine. A very small get a realty good emptying of core can be adjusted to yield amount of nicotine—equal to the ejaculatory ducts," he a "sweet spot"—that area one cigarette—is enough says, "so they need a second where a ball can be hit with to trigger the nucleus and flush to get all the sperm the greatest force—some start the circadian cycle out."—Eric Mishara four times larger than that of for another day. the wooden bat. Jet lag and certain sleep PLASTIC SATS —George Nobbe disorders are caused by an interruption of the circa- When Abner Doubleday 'We are all captives of the dian rhythm. Traveling across invented the game of base- pictures in our heads— time zones throws your ball more than a century ago, our belief that the world we internal biological clock out the basic ingredient of the experience is the world that of sync. Smoking a cigarette hitter's bat was good old really exists. at the proper time after a Northern ash. Which is why — Walter Lippmann long trip may help to resyn- he wouldn't approve of chronize the circadian rhythm

Jeff Heald, who, if he has his "The notion that science, left and prevent that tired, way, will see the game piayed to itself, is bound to evolve washed-out feeling. with a bat made of graphite- more and more of the truth What's the proper time? reinforced shells of polycar- about the world is another Miller has yet to determine

bonate polybutylene tereph- l illusion, for science can that: "It will depend on thalate resin filled with a \ never exist outside a society, whether a traveler is flying In that society, whether east or west how many cellular urethane foam. I and and plastic. deliberately or time zones crosses." other words: j unconsciously, he its Heald is president of the \ directs course." Miller also cautions that Worth Bat Company in Tulla- —Northrop Frye this isn't necessarily good homa, Tennessee, an outfit that sells so many bats every Will major leaguers ever

year that it ranks with Louis- forsake wood for plastic? ville Slugger, Rawlings, and even McGregor in the club can destroy some 2,000 After years of warning that wonderful world of bats. bats—costing anywhere smoking causes one disease Worth sells more than 1 mil- from $6 to $20 apiece—in the after another, medical sci- lion a year, 95 percent of course of a normal season. ence may have stumbled them to amateur teams ttiat Of course, the commis- onto a beneficial use for the play both hardball and soft- sioner's Office isn't about to cigarette. Smoking may ball. That's where the money okay plastic bats like Worth's, help to prevent jet lag, is in the bat business—in Baseball officialdom doesn't Neurophysiologist Joseph amateur ball. even like aluminum bats, and Miller of the University of

Heald makes a telling while Heald is still trying to California has been studying point for his company's bat get his model accepted, circadian rhythms, those A well-timed smoke could

when he says that Worth's he isn't counting on it. He daily peaks and valleys in our help defeat jet-lag effects. new lightweight, plastic-resin doesn't have to. The market metabolisms. According to model, developed by Gen- is in amateur ball. Miller, these rhythms are news for smokers: "It may be eral Electric Plastics, may sell The Worth bat also elimi- controlled by the suprachias- effective only with nonsmok-

for around $90, but it doesn't nates the sting that some matic nucleus, a small bun- ers. Smokers have built up break. Breakage has been hitters experience in cold dle of cells that sits atop a tolerance for nicotine a costly problem at the weather, and a ball hit by one the optic nerves in the brain. that renders the drug ineffec- big league level, where a doesn't make the annoying While the normal stimulus tive."—NickEngler 29 corunnjuufui

AMONG again, maybe not. All we're not really saying that NYMPHS Then j

NODULES this is an IRD press women are suited to nodule THE from | release. Behind the hype lies mining." Nubile maids mining the a workaday market research It's a brave try. But when seafloor for manganese? report. "This is more futuristic pinned down, Bores herself Bridge players tapping the than most of our work," says admits: "Sometimes our

energy of ocean waves? Mark Pine, who wrote the press releases . . . they're not Compulsive gamblers farm- report. "We're dealing with wrong, but they stretch the ing the sea to support their opportunities that may not truth a little to make it inter- costly habit? Such colonies mature until the year 2020. esting. This is something that it's not could all be in NASA's future, But it's all serious business." could happen, but according to International The study, prosaically happening."—Owen Davies Resource Development titled Offshore and Deep (IRD), a market research firm Ocean Commercial Oppor- MICROWAVE SCALPEL in Norwalk, Connecticut, tunities, projects the growth of that recently looked at the six businesses: seabed A new microwave scalpel future of ocean industries. mining, a possible $3 billion may save patients' spleens "Our staff believes that industry by early in the and possibly their lives. today's space agency soon next century; ocean waste "This is an ordinary scalpel will be expanded to encom- disposal, also set at $3 billion; that has been modified, pass the frontiers of the sea farming, to earn $25 with a small loop antenna deep oceans as well as the billion within 35 years; ocean built into the blade so that it frontiers of space," declares energy conversion, $40 radiates microwave energy," IRD's Suzanne Bores. So billion; desalination, $40 bil- explains the inventor, Leon- make that NAASA—the Na- lion; and offshore oil and ard Taylor, an electrical

tional Aquaspace, Aeronau- gas, $50 billion. It doesn't say engineer at the University of tics, and Space Administra- much about nubile maidens. Maryland in College Park. tion. Bores points out that "We certainly feel that in The spleen is usually New scalpel: The loop antenna stops the bleeding. space and the sea have a lot the long term there might be removed completely when it in common: hostile, airless some actual short-term is injured because surgeons environments plagued by colonies staffed by various are unable to stop its profuse bleeding in the remainder, leaving it functional and isolation and loneliness. homogeneous groups," Pine bleeding, which if allowed thus continue fatal. in place. "There is even a school of maintains. "For example, \ to can be device," Taylor says, thought that these environ- the staffing of oil rigs can Unfortunately, removal of the "This seals tissue ments should be developed easily be defined: They are spleen—a large, spongy "successfully would be by one group of trained run by muscular males. organ located in the abdo- that otherwise astronaut/aquanauts," she There may well be other men that filters harmful bleeding indefinitely." Thus microwave scalpel has adds. "So many of the activi- groups that form because of bacteria from the blood- far the effective on labora- ties and skills are the same." job requirements, though stream—may cause (in a proved small percentage of the tory animals, and the first nation's nearly 30,000 spleen human operation is antici- removals a year) eventual pated shortly. death from infection. The device will sell for microwave energy between $5,000 and $10,000, But the [ Taylor estimates, and is at emitted from the new scal- | from pel, inventor Taylor explains, ij least three years away available for instantly heats the spleen's \ being widely

tissue, clotting blood at the i human surgery. exact moment the incision is — Eric Mishara of removing made. Instead s fence the entire spleen, a surgeon \ "Honesty hath no superior cunning." can cut off just the damaged [ against Will the oceans be awash with luscious maids mining the seafloor? while sealing off —Jonathan Swift Will NASA become NAASA? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. section 30 OMNI by the Soviet Union. Once mous file" on what the rats set up, he says, the stations were doing. ("The CIA,"

would need little fuel to he notes, "has been doing remain in place and could this sort of thing for years.") drift about in what the space Recht found that the range people call halo orbits. And of Norway rats was as exten- they would still be close sive as 20 acres—about to construction supplies such 20 times larger than previ- as the natural resources of ously thought. In fact, so far- the moon, certain asteroids, flung are their territories and the Martian moons. that they sometimes end up Not only that, they might spending nights in little serve as transportation "motels": auxiliary burrows depots from which future dug at the fringes of the space travelers could catch range. (Roof rats, with a range connecting flights to other of only about three acres, destinations in the solar make alternate nests that system, using gravitational function more like rest areas. velocity as slingshots to Recht likes to think of them assist them farther out into as "cafes.") space.—George Nobbe Actually, Recht found, the "motel" burrows are much RXT MOTELS more like exclusive vacation homes. As the rat moves Ever wonder what rats do in and out, his fur deposits when they're on the roam? oils on the burrow walls, and Weil, rest easy: UCLA the distinctive odors of these

If man is to conquer space, says one Los Alamos scientist, biologist Michael Recht has oils are almost as good as he'll need outposts for space voyagers to use as way stations. done your wondering for you. dead bolts—one sniff, and an

Recht fitted miniature intruding rat takes it on the GALACTIC GROCERY the Lunar Base Steering radio transmitters to the necks lam. STORES Committee and a coauthor of of four city-dwelling Norway Is there any social signifi- an earlier report on the rats and nine roof rats, which cance to this research?

Galactic grocery stores possibility of establishing an prefer the more suburban "Certainly," says Recht. "It stocked with rocket fuel, international research center environs of ivy vines and kept me from doing a lot water, oxygen, building ma- on the moon. bougainvillea bushes. After of extra teaching, and who terials, and hospital supplies Keaton's newest report monitoring their movements knows what damage I would for use by future space pinpoints two locations, for a month or more, Recht have done in the class- pioneers could be a reality in called Lagrange equilibrium had what he calls an "enor- room?"— Bill Lawren fewer than 40 years, accord- points. The first, L1, is about ing to a nuclear physicist 1 million miles away, where at the Los Alamos National the earth's gravitational Laboratory in New Mexico. pull just about balances that Paul Keaton, in a report to of the sun. L2 is 300,000 the National Commission miles out, where Earth's pull on Space, says, "The out- roughly equals that of our posts, like an oasis, would be moon. a haven for space voyagers" According to Keaton, if we who settle bases as near began the developmental as our own moon and as dis- process in 1997, we could tant as Mars or beyond. have prototypes in position by Farfetched? Not really, 2007, the fiftieth anniversary One of Recht's roof rats, fitted with radio transmitter, being n claims Keaton, a founder of of the first Sputnik launch These particular animals prefer creating their own "cafes." "

canjTiruuurm

during relaxation.

THE TERROR | ©F RELAXATION Barlow believes these people are alarmed by phys- Relaxing may be hazard- iological sensations associ- ous to your mental health. ated with relaxation—tingly "We were relaxing a hands, for example, and woman whom we had hooked changes in breathing. They up to an apparatus that feel they are losing control or measures heart rate, muscle becoming depersonalized. temperature, and finger Hence, panic. They can work temperature," explains Dr. through the panic easily, Bar- David Barlow, director of the low says, by practicing the Phobia and Anxiety Disor- relaxation exercises with the ders Clinic of the State Uni- help of a trained supervisor. versity of New York at Albany. But what about the thou- "She was doing very nicely sands of people who turn to and beginning to relax. Then, self-help books, courses, much to our, and certainly and tapes that teach relaxa- to her, surprise, she had tion? 'A lot of people send a massive panic attack: full- away for tapes, play them at While no actual link between marijuana use and disease has been unadulterated terror. home, panic, and come shown, immunological tests have produced some troubling results. blown, Her heart rate doubled in into the clinic thinking they're

ill," Barlow says. Although no actual link a minute." mentally When second patient "One woman spent four hun- between marijuana use and j a dred dollars on mail-order Frequent marijuana smok- disease has been shown, had the same response, Bariow and colleagues tapes and couldn't even get ers may be at increased the two researchers' findings back and found that through the first one. She risk from viruses, foreign not only cast a shadow looked anxiety came to us and said, 'I can't bacteria, and disease, warn across the frequent recrea- sharply increased come to the clinic regularly researchers at the University tional use of marijuana full and 1 can't afford the of Illinois in Chicago. but raise doubts about the program, but can you just When THC, or tetrahydro- medical advisability of using get me to the point where I cannabinol, the psychoactive marijuana and its chemical can get through my ingredient in marijuana, components, known as tapes?' "—Leah Wallach was placed into human blood cannabinoids, to prevent samples, researchers David nausea in patients undergo- "Science is no illusion. But it Ou and Mark Wiederhold ing chemotherapy for cancer would be an illusion to noticed blood-cell changes and to treat increased eye suppose that we could get that could suppress the pressure associated with anywhere else what it cannot ability of the body's immune glaucoma. give us." system to combat disease. "Possibly a slight modifica- —Sigmund Freud What they observed were tion in the structure of the decreased numbers of cannabinoid molecule," Ou, "Budget: a mathematical proteins, called receptors, on a pathologist, says, "would of one's is to conlirmation the outer membrane of : be all that required suspicions." disease-fighting white blood ! preserve the drug's useful — A. Latimer purposes, while decreasing was often reported by clini- A. cells. Without the receptors, I Wiederhold undesirable effects." cians as a side effect of immunologist | relaxation therapy. Thomas "If I could control the medium says, the white blood cells —Eric Mishara Borkovec of Pennsylvania of American motion pictures, I ean't identify or interact with State University noted that as would need nothing else in other substances and thus I "Jesus said love one another. to convert the entire didn't say love the whole many as 54 percent of his order might not be able to coordi- ] He patients reported anxiety world to Communism. nate counterattacks against ! world." percent, — Joseph Stalin invader diseases. —Mother Teresa during meditation; 30 i touch her,' " Dr. Marta Airala, partment of Agriculture Dull believes the same pediatrician at Albion (USDA) have developed a technique can be adapted to ; a ; Hospital, light meter that "read" the test other fruits and vegeta- | Community says of can Ciji's young mother. "She sweetness of onions and bles as well. 'A portable

it for minutes, possibly of other fruits and meter in a supermarket could | would do a few but then she would stop." vegetables. analyze fruits and vegetables Airala had been thinking of "We found that by using to find out what carbohy- using a pouch to help moth- near-infrared light and special drates and nutrients they ers of preemies reestablish filters we could measure contain," says Dull. "It would intimacy with their infants the dry matter in onions, be like the labels on canned by constant physical contact. which is related to their and frozen foods." V:: ' : x liHl - Ciji sweetness," chemist onion meter is avail- Bt tMfiM-. : seemed the ideal candi- says The date to test the idea. Gerald D. Dull of the USDAs able through the Varex Airala prepared a cotton Agricultural Research Ser- Corporation in Rockville, gown with a preemie-size vice. Dull and engineer Maryland. So far its primary pocket positioned over the Gerald S. Birth have been users have been onion j together growers breeders, i chest so the baby would rest working at the and who

i on the left side, near the agency's Russell Research use it to select quality onions beating heart. Ciji's mother Center in Atlanta since 1973. for replanting. "Previous

Preemie pouch: Taking a : began carrying her baby Their goal is to rely on an selection methods involved mothering tip from kangaroos. in the pouch whenever she instrument, rather than taste boring out a section of the

in the hospital. and sight, to analyze fruits. ! onion," explains Dull. This is ; was

BABY IN A POUCH Ciji thrived on the human A silver-colored aluminum ! destructive and slow, while

i contact. Her emotional, box about a foot long and the light meter can sample an j

A frail baby girl born in a physical, and neurological two feet deep, the onion i onion a second. | Michigan hospital 12 weeks improvement was dramatic. meter works because the skin What's next? Dull and Birth |

prematurely grew fat and I Her appetite increased; of an onion is translucent; have developed a meter feisty removed from the she gained weight; and she in fact, about 1 percent nat measures the sweetness when i isolette and carried around alert and demand- ; became in a kangaroolike pouch. ing. After ten days of the j Ciji, 1 pound 12 ounces at pouch treatment she was birth, plump home. had to be separated ! enough to go from her mother and placed Airala, a native of South in a neonata! intensive- America, got the idea for the | care unit. Premature babies l pouch by observing women like Ciji often have to be in traditional cultures, who | taken from their mothers and often carry their babies next | sustained by machines to their bodies. "Human until they develop sufficiently ! mothers have been carrying

to handle life beyond the ; their infants close to them- These procedures selves in a variety of positions womb. |

save infants who might I for thousands of years," otherwise die but also disrupt I she says. "The pouch is just About 1 percent of the light directed at an onion passes the normal process of infant- another application of the right through it, which is why a sweetness meter can be built. mother bonding. In Ciji'S same principle." case, as in many premature —Leah Wallach of light directed at an onion of papayas based on the births, the mother, just six- passes right through it. In the amount of the pigment caro- teen, wasn't very interested in SWEETNESS MITER box, devices on either side tene they contain. They her newborn child. The of the onion measure the hope to expand present postbirth separation had Consumers soon may find amount of light transmitted. technology so that they can prevented the mother from sweetness labels on the Once collected, this informa- measure the sugar in canta- bonding with Ciji. "I would onions in supermarkets. tion is fed into a computer loupes, melons, and even say, 'Pick her up, hold her, Scientists with the U.S. De- that analyzes the onion. potatoes.—Lisa Werner corunruuurui

WHY GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH

Ever wonder why it seems so natural to spend your Sundays doing absolutely nothing? A British physician and university researcher provides a medical explana-

' tion: The human body, says Verna Wright, professor of rheumatoiogy at the Uni- versity of Leeds, safeguards itself from undue stress by taking Sundays off. "The brain," says Wright, "is an amazing computer that God has programmed to need one day's rest in seven." Wright set out to test his assertion by monitoring the urinary levels of a group of hormones found in an average working man. Known as 17-oxogenic steroids, these hormones are break- down products of the adrenal gland, and high volumes often occur in association with stress. After measuring the steroid levels for Gibraltar: Ever since the days of the ancient Romans man has dreamt of building a bridge to link man's The Rock with the mainland. Now a Swiss engineer has come up with a carbon-reinforced plan. months, Wright concluded that "there was a weekly for of these chemicals. PLASTIC BRIDGE through the Straits that it already lab-testing CFRP rhythm would be impossible to sink strength and hopes to per- The lowest levels," he says, The bridging of the Straits the concrete towers neces- suade Swiss or German "were on Sunday." of Gibraltar has been a sary to support a conven- authorities to take a first step Small wonder, Wright dream of man since the days tional steel suspension by using the fibers to replace adds, that every attempt by of the ancient Romans. Now bridge. But cables of carbon steel cables in existing industrial society to extend eight or that dream is being revived fiber reinforced plastic bridges. Once the fibers are the work week to on the drafting table of a (CFRP)—a sophisticated proved and a suitable an- even ten days has failed. He Swiss engineer who wants to material used in the con- choring system developed, recalls one of his own stu- ignored his advice link Europe and Africa with struction of airplanes and he will make a formal pro- dents who a bridge constructed of thoroughbred racing bicy- posal to the governments of and spent all of one Sunday relentlessly for a space-age plastic. cles—would, says Meier, be Spain and Morocco. Given studying could do The problem up to now, light enough and, more an all clear, Meier thinks, the Monday exam, then explains Urs Meier, head of important, strong enough to bridge could be a reality nothing but fill the exam with endless repetitions the Department of Building suspend the nine-mile bridge by the turn of the century. paper of his name. "We ignore Materials at the Federal without having to anchor it — Bill Lawren own con- Laboratories for Materials to an unwieldy tower. the Sabbath," Wright cludes, "at our peril. We keep and Testing near Zurich, is Meier is the first to admit "Nothing you can't spell will it inestimable bene- that the Mediterranean is that such a bridge could ever work." at our is —Will Rogers fit."— Bill Lawren so deep where it flows not be built today. But he 34 OMNI ^27/ —

representing the labors one-year-old Frenchman with wavy, salt- communities, independent of the surface different habitats, terrestrial governments by a of 17 countries, were built. bleached hair, and eyes that are alarm- but bound to standout was Jacques Cousteau's se- ingly blue. During the interview in the series of treaties and commercial agree- A vision is of a "subma- ries of three experiments in which a total of houseboat's living quarters—dominated by ments. His ultimate small, 2,500- 13 aquanauts and one parrot built fish pens, an enormous globe of an aquarium in which rine civilization," a series of marine environment, and re- people can, and often do, swim alongside citizen underwater villages scattered studied the shelves and tucked corded their physical and psychological the fish — he talked of his vision of a sub- across the continental planet. reactions over the course of 59 days spent marine civilization. into coral reefs all over the : is of the world- on the ocean floor. Another outstanding ef- On Rougerie s drafting table is the nu- Rougerie one member fort was the American Tektite II habitat, in cleus of his dream, an underwater village. wide network of visionary aquanauts who the bonds of the surface which some of the 53 aquanauts lived for Its center is a marketplace — a cone- want to escape shaped building. Rougerie sees this as an and realize the grand and ancient vision of a month at a time. By the mid-Seventies the flurry of exper- underwater version of the traditional Euro- living full-time beneath the sea. These iments with underwater living ended, but pean plaza, the center of small-town social aquatic pioneers—scientists, divers, ar- businessmen are designing and the aquanauts had made their point: Man and economic life. Within its busy con- chitects, — devel- could live and work successfully in fixed fines, explains Rougerie, villagers could living in underwater habitats and underwater habitats with surprisingly few exchange gossip, "buy a new pet octopus, oping equipment that will extend the du- rival that adverse effects. Medical problems in most or pick up some day labor from the people ration of man's stay underwater to most hanging around/' of underwater mammals. cases were minor— the common Psychologi- Clustered around the center are under- They are even tinkering with man him- being nagging ear infections. problems were minor as well. After a water family farms, consisting of a farm- self. For many of them the goal is nothing cal three- five-day adjustment period in- house; a round, flying-saucer-like main less than the creation of an underwater to volving sleeplessness and mild depres- building; and Plexiglas anchored to the civilization. And its citizens will be mem- man," sion, most aquanauts settled comfortably ocean floor by a complex system of steel bers of a new species: "amphibious contentedly into their environment. The cables. Near each single-family dwelling and stresses of confinement were more than there are sheds, garages, pens of fish, and balanced by a spirit of adventure. In fact, fields of such underwater crops as kelp. All Tektite aquanauts James Miller and Ian homes are made of concrete resin molded Koblick wrote that "people who have into graceful shapes. Each farm is con- '•The next clashed previously on the surface often get nected to the rest of the village by a series along well while on the seafloor," of tubular, water-filled streets through which step is to create a human Rougerie hopes to offer others this ex- residents swim. They feature frequent signs whose body and perience, and unlike many visionaries, he to help undersea commuters find their way. are to life in a has done more than dream about it. In the Doorways to the various buildings are in mind adapted early Seventies he designed and built a the bottoms of the structures because un- suboceanic city, submarine habitat, Galithee, large enough derwater it requires much less energy to a true underwater man— people for as long as three move vertically than horizontally. to hold five at depths of up to 60 meters. In Rougerie has thought through all the de- what Rougerie months would 1980 several Japanese aquanauts lived tails. The interiors of all the buildings caiis a pseudomutant.J it subsequently bought by the be rounded, with no right angles or cor- there, was government and put on display ners to trap dirt and harbor infection-caus- Japanese in Rougene-designed marine pavilion in ing microorganisms. As further precau- a followed in 1981 by tions against microbes, residents would Osaka. Galithee was Hippocampe, a smaller underwater habi- take daily baths in ultraviolet light and physiolo- thrice-daily antiseptic showers. Colors says Rougerie, "a pseudomutant free to tat where Rougerie and French lived for three weeks. used inside would be dark, allowing the evolve in an underwater environment. gist Bernard Gardette "I Rougerie has also built Aquabubbles eye to wander easily to the large windows "Even as a child," he explains, always laboratories that and not be "captured" inside by whites or had the dream of living under the sea. As . small mobile underwater to submarine chil- I adven- he has used assemble pastels. Moreover, all lighting would be dif- I grew up saw that the two great several varieties of fuse. ("Point lighting tends to make people tures of this century are the conquest of dren's villages—and his pro- aggressive," according to Rougerie.) space and the conquest of the submarine partially submerged vehicles. And un- The suboceanic citizens would have a environment. Right now men are able to spectus is overflowing with designs for restaurants, farms, universities. staple diet based on domesticated fish and dive down and look at the fauna for only an derwater technology to build submarine vil- kelp. ("I've got recipes for thirty different hour or so, then they have to come back "The archi- lages already exists," Rougerie says. Once kinds of seafood salad," Rougerie says.) It up to the boat. This is stupid. As an this would be supplemented by meats and tect I'm trying to create structures so that started, it will not take long for dream reality. For the most part the grains imported from the surface. Seafloor men can live underwater." to become crops would be exported "up" to waiting The dream of living underwater is at least village structures would use the same technologies applied to other deep-sea vessels. Air would be piped in from the sur- as old as the pearl divers of Babylon, who, habitats. some experimenters have al- face, at least until artificial gills were per- some 5,000 years ago, tried to extend their But ingenious alternatives. Ar- fected. Nonbiodegradable refuse would be four-minute bottom time by breathing ready devised chitecturally even more freewheeling than sealed in containers and floated to the sur- through hollow reeds. When Jacques Rougerie himself is German-born archi- face for disposal by oceangoing garbage Cousteau invented the Aqualung in the late

if tect Wolf Hilbertz. He has used a process craft. The considerable power needed to Forties, that dream became a promising, electrolytic accretion to actually grow pressurize the interiors of houses and op- distant, reality. By the Sixties it seemed called structures. His inspiration for the erate desalination plants would be fur- within reach at last. In 1962 a fifty-six-year- submarine attempts in nished by an ingenious geothermal gen- old inventor named Edwin Link helped in- technique came from German electric current to erator that uses the different water augurate the Undersea Age when he spent the early 1900s to use "I read about temperatures found layered through the eight hours submerged off the coast of the extract gold from seawater.

Apparently it worked, and I ocean's depths. French Riviera inside a one-man aluminum that as a boy. out that just about every pos- Rougerie sees his villages as eventually cylinder. Link's success emboldened oth- soon found material can be found dis- forming a loose federation of undersea ers, and over the next 15 years at least 65 sible building 38 OMNI in will "very oped. Perhaps the spectacular ad- solved in seawater. So when I became an Innerspace, Koblick's words, be most luxurious, like a fancy yacht or customized vance is the hemosponge, an artificial gill architect I decided to try to build like na- ture did, using natural processes and airplane" and will feature a swimming pool that works like a fish's, extracting oxygen available materials," says Hilbertz. whose bottom opens right into the sea. directly from seawater. In the mid-Seven- During the Seventies Hilbertz adapted Even at $250 per person per night, reser- ties marine biologists Joseph and Celia the technology by attaching a cathode and vations "are already booked way ahead," Bonaventura, husband and wife codirec- University's Marine Biology anode to chicken wire and submerging it Koblick says. lors of Duke in the ocean. When he passed an electric Innerspace represents a step in devel- Center, decided to mimic the breathing current through the wire he found that dis- oping an underwater culture, but prepar- apparatus of the fish. Whereas the human solved matter in the seawater formed a ing for a submarine society where people transfers the oxygen he uses from a gas solid structure. Over the next decade he will become residents and not just tourists (air) to a liquid (blood), the fish transfers tinkered with the technology until he de- is a more complex undertaking. Rougerie oxygen from one liquid (water) to another that, Bonaventu- veloped a strong, lightweight building ma- feels it requires a special sort of individual (blood). To duplicate the that terial he dubbed Seacrete. He has since to maintain the balance and harmony nec- ras needed a porous material could used Seacrete to build artificial reefs off St. essary to sustain an underwater civiliza- retain water and be permeated with a sub- extract the oxygen and Croix and is now "accreting" a large spiral tion. In the peopling of underwater towns stance that could structure the size of a room in Galveston he foresees an exploratory stage in which retain it for transfer to a container, where it available for breathing. Bay. Although he calls it a piece of con- aquanauts, "like astronauts, will have to be would be

little people are in extremely After several trials they found a special ceptual art, he says it moves us a supermen— who closer to growing not only underwater good physical condition and extremely polyurethane that acted as their sponge. habitats but startlingly elegant, reeflike strong psychologically." Later, he thinks, the Knowing that blood hemoglobin can with- submarine cities. first generation of pioneers could be joined draw oxygen from water, Joseph Bona- Others have already begun to explore by people who, though still in good physi- ventura experimented first with his own the possibility of opening the seafloor to a cal and psychological shape, would be blood and then with fish blood before fi- new generation of aquanauts. Ian Koblick, chosen mostly for specific skills. nally finding success using heme, an ox- a veteran of the Tektite projects who has Realizing this dream would not take long, ygen-fixing substance extracted from spent more than two months in submarine Rougerie says. "Given the money, a village sheep blood. To free the oxygen from the container, the habitats, is taking a first step. He has refur- could be constructed in two or three years." heme for transfer to a Bon- bished the La Chalupa habitat that he de- The project would involve building several aventuras devised a system that uses an signed and tested in the early Seventies villages and then using them as living ex- electronic charge. most advanced hemo- and has outfitted it as a submarine resort periments, watching the physical and psy- Right now the liter of ox- hotel. Renamed the Innerspace Resort, it chological reactions of the people sent to sponge can deliver one quarter liters is moored on the seafloor off Key Largo. live there. ygen per minute, far less than the two Florida, and will be accommodating un- The technology to extend man's ability per minute a diver needs. But, says Jo- dersea tourists this summer. The six-guest to keep up with the fish is being devel- seph Bonaventura, it won't take a techno- logical —breakthrough to increase oxygen output "just some engineering, some tinkering." Already the Bonaventuras are

thinking big. They believe it is possible to build a sponge that can meet all the oxy- gen needs of a submarine community of up to 150 people. The next step — one that is vital, says Rougerie— is to create a human whose body and mind are adapted to life in a sub- oceanic town. In other words, create a fully realized underwater man. Duke University researcher Johannes Kylstra has at- tempted just that by trying to transform man from an air breather to a liquid breather. During the Seventies and early Eighties he experimented with filling the lungs of mice, rats, and dogs with a saline solution satu- rated with oxygen. The animals breathed as long as 43 minutes with no adverse af- tereffects. Encouraged, Kylstra filled one lung of a human subject with a similar so- lution and was gratified to get the same results. The man breathed comfortably for 47 minutes and suffered no aftereffects once his lung was drained. Since then Kylstra has experimented with more promising solutions called fluorocar- bon emulsions, which do a more efficient job of retaining oxygen. Although Kylstra sees the technique as limited to such emergency applications as escape from submarines, aquanaut James Miller thinks

it could someday be used for routine div- ing operations as well. One can imagine some future submarine citizen filling his lungs with the appropriate solution and

CONTINUED ON PAGE 88 Are you ready to go aloft? Test your acumen in

BY NEIL McALEER

are you for the rigors c u ,._. "'v fit are both your . . „, 1U «. , U1JI y for fife aboard a space station? Do you have the proverbial "right stuff" that will enable you to adapt easily to life on the high frontier? Omni, working in conjunction wit team of space experts, has devis«« PHOTOGRAPHS BY MiCHELTCHEREVKOFF this quiz to test your space aptitude. 2. Your Apollo spacecraft is on a flight to days. The U.S. record is just over 84 Most of the test questions are devised to the moon. About 100,000 miles out an days for the last Skylab crew. Such long simulate actual conditions that you might oxygen tank explodes and cripples flights cause the human body to lose likely encounter while in space orbit. Sev- several critical systems in the com- calcium, and as a result bones weaken. eral of these are patterned after crisis sit- mand ship. How do you return to Earth? How will such bone deterioration be c uations that did, in fact, occur in the last 25 a. turn the spacecraft 180 and fire the avoided on a ten-month manned jour- 9 years, but are presented in a simulation main engines ney to Mars format. Do you know, for example, how to b. execute a series of midcourse ma- a. the crew will take calcium supple- rendezvous with a space station or how to neuvers that put you on a rendez- ments retrieve a satellite that has gone astray? vous trajectory with Earth b. strenuous exercise for two hours a You may not be a NASA astronaut, but your c. continue on your trajectory and loop day will reverse the problem general space aptitude will suggest around the moon before heading c. artificial gravity on the spaceship will whether or not you can act decisively and back to Earth halt the calcium loss logically inside the pressure suit. d. jettison the damaged service mod- 6. You are commanding a Gemini space- Most of the 25 questions test your basic ule and return to Earth in the lunar craft mission and have rendezvoused space abilities, but a few history and trivia excursion module and docked with an Agena vehicle to questions have also been added to gauge 3. Do astronauts dream more, less, or test these techniques. Suddenly the your sense of the past. After answering all about the same during flight than when combined spacecraft begin to spin out the questions, refer to the Quiz Scorecard they are earthbound? of control, and you must act quickly. How on page 92 and tally your total number of a. much more d. slightly less do you save the mission? (More than correct responses. b. slightly more e. about the one answer is acceptable.)

1. You are commander of the space sta- c. much less same a. fire the maneuvering thrusters while

tion that is orbiting the earth at an alti- 4. About half of all astronauts experience still docked tude of 250 nautical miles (about 300 spacesickness during the first few days b. undockfromtheAgenaandthenfire statute miles). Why did NASA choose of flight. What can you do before liftoff the,thrusters such a low orbit? to avoid the undesirable symptoms? c. undock and deactivate the thruster

a. the Pentagon required it for military a. spend pref light training time on the system reconnaissance parallel swing d. undock and activate the reentry b. space shuttle payload limits dic- b. follow a restricted preflight diet -Control system tated the orbit altitude c. take medication 7. As a mission specialist on a shuttle flight, c. the orbit was required for Earth-re- d. spend time in the Prophylactic you are responsible for operating the source programs Adaptive Trainer robot arm. After deploying a satellite,

d. there is less space junk in this orbit e. nothing the arm freezes and won't respond to

and less risk of damage to the pres- 5. The Russians still hold the world's space control-panel commands. But the arm surized modules endurance record, which stands at 237 must be clear of the cargo bay doors so they can be closed for a safe reentry. What do you do? a. use the manual backup system by cranking the arm in b. go on an EVA mission and use tools to disconnect the arm at its elbow

c. amputate the arm by activating an attached explosive package d. close the cargo bay doors and force the robot arm inside 8. By 2010 commercial space ventures will gross more than $50 billion annually in revenues. You are on a business trip to orbit. What type of spacecraft will fly you there? (More than one answer is ac- ceptable.) a. a second-generation shuttle with all solid-fuel rocket boosters b. a single-stage-to-orbit scramjet

c. a hypersonic, oxygen-breathing spaceplane d. the British HOTOL

e. the French Hermes 9. You are commanding a moon landing mission and are just 50 feet above the surface when you see a dangerous boulder field that threatens the moon- ship. You take over manually and search for another landing site, but you have

only 40 seconds of fuel left. What do you do?

a. land within 40 seconds

b. land within 20 seconds; if not down

in that time, abort the landing and start the ascent engines

c. depend on your reserve fuel supply and land within 60 seconds CONTINUED ON PAGE 90 LivirgotQi -loon i p iTptv $> n

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scattered round about him broke the twi- an empire skeptical of claims to paranor- so the rebel raiders would depart empty- get to the Imperial Space light gloom. Star-pricked shadows mal talent, he had to keep it his secret- Were handed; word

it, of instability Force at Shin Edo on Mars; then hold the shrouded all the rest of the rocky surface. he even to hint of the reek

till reinforcements arrived. If Passing his gauntleted hand through a would foul his life and all his works. poachers off with they ever did. The Celestial Equity Rebel- cold flame, he murmured to its propagator: It did give him something in common lion for than four years and . more a medium-size rock, gray and sharp endangered species, though. . . had raged his gauntlet showed no signs of cooling down. The edged, its surface shot with a thousand He moved to wipe eyes. His in his ears rebels' demands for immediate exploita- flecks of pyrite. Under that pale sun it crashed into his helmet, leaving

It tion of all resources had proved popular. seemed to bristle with argument; he called a ringing that took a long time to quiet. back to that choir in the gar- They controlled two tin-can cities at the L5 it The Lawyer. Its crystalline core would brought him position, most of Africa and South Amer- fetch a billion in the Celestial Equity terri- den beneath the unblinking stars. ica, and sizable chunks of the more devel- tories on Earth. In the planet's more civi- And stirred the knowledge gained over vibration continents. lized realms, possession of that core would two years in space. Item: heavy oped small asteroids display Their unceasing attempts to put more earn one life imprisonment. in the rock. Item: most of the ISF tied The Lawyer did not murmur back, but no seismic activity. Item: odds against me- ships into space kept high. Item: eighty- up in near-Earth orbit. Beyond Mars, the digital readout on the receiver said it teor strike prohibitively Celestial prospectors—poach- poachers outnumbered ISF ships six to still sang to itself at about 30.7 megahertz, five Equity this sector of belt at last one. Even Shin Edo, the sprawling HQ on its reedy voice racing through a short, ers— operating in ten billion dollars' worth of Mars that directed all ISF forces in the outer snappy sine wave. Livingston wondered if report. Item: system, ran eighty percent under strength. its tune had lyrics, and if it did, what they gems at my feet. Beethoven or a He tongued the intercom switch, "Wat- "Watson-san!" meant. Did he confront a " "Hai, Livmgston-san? bluebird? He ached to learn. son-san!" "I a sled out here, quick!" He doubted that he would have the time. "Hai, Livingston-san?" need sigh of relief. At "Hai [click]. Dispatched." An expert in endangered species, he had He gave an inaudible While he waited for the self-propelled won the invitation to conduct the first ex- over the lip of the crater, he haustive, nondestructive study of the as- sled to skitter crouched by the nearest liverock, the teroid belt's mysterious life forms because proud, gnarled one he called The Abbot. he had fought so tenaciously for Yellow- He grasped it. Yes, maybe a hundred kilos, stone's grizzlies—and his odds then had bFire have to muscle around, been a hundred times better. bitch of a mass to the autosled Abruptly the asteroid shuddered. Taken scorched his right ankle, then but the low g would help, and kit crowbar. He could move surprise, he almost lost his balance- He tool boasted a by faded to frost. it. Afterward he could apologize for upset- yelped and grabbed at nothingness. Dust In of his its dignity shaken from the crater wall glittered in the A metal ring the leg ting Rocking back on his heels, he scanned blue-green auras, hung in microjewel suit contracted eleven companions. The larg- motes, drifted slowly to the ground. Tee- The Abbot's on his calf; arterialblood them, Crown Prince, massed tering on one foot, he waited for gravity to est of The maybe half what The Abbot did, though it find and take him. Before it did, a chill wind froze in midair, stood straighter and taller. The Lawyer, hissing "Miko Tomi- 1 swept through him, to the drifting slowly ground.^ The sled muri." He caught his breath. The wind twenty kilos—twenty-five, tops. kilos; he could swung about to throw "Kitano Habishi" at would haul up to six hundred transport all of them in one trip. him. Somewhere in his soul two places probably unlike the days of Project Grizzly, he once filled came vacant again. And those he la- Like a well-anesthetized amputee, he would get no argument from praise, either, but who knew loss but not pain. Not yet. Now a sick least the base computer had survived. bored to save. No since a certainty washed through him: His guard- "What's going on?" expected that? In the seven years exploration team ians, his constant companions for the last "Syntax error, Livingston-san." Sony Steel Corporation two. years— his friends — had died. He 'Ah—" He tried to remember what Ha- had discovered and named the liverocks, in to Terran scientists had established a mere knew it beyond a doubt. And he wanted bishi, the laconic dabbler haiku, used " four facts about the aliens: They broadcast not to know it. Eyes squeezed shut, face say. —Ah. status report." twisted toward a shadow-draped crater "Shin Matsumoto Base at present unin- steady sine waves in the high megahertz, : in wondrous au- wall, he said, 'No, they're fine, they're in the habited- Life-support systems functioning they wrapped themselves [click] Hangar, Tunnel ras, they added perhaps a centigram a hangar!"—as if by rejecting the knowl- in all areas except doing all edge he could reverse reality He could not. Two beyond hundred-meter door [click]. All year to their mass— and stopped if they Eighteen times that bitter wind had blown readings nominal in all areas except [click] three when shattered. He wondered through him. Eighteen times he had learned Hangar, Tunnel Two beyond hundred-me- would even notice being moved. that the one so named had died moments ter door, where surviving monitors report "Watson-san!" before. Always someone close, a dear dangerous levels of radioactivity [click]." "Hai, Livingston-san?" friend or a brother or a parent. Of course the poachers had hit the "What's going on up there?" their ship the two Im- "Syntax error, Livingston-san." It came rarely, then, because he had no hangar first. Without more than an average complement of peo- perial Marines could barely defend Shin He shook his head in frustration. A civil- ian volunteer, with multiple degrees in bi- ple special to him. And it came more Matsumoto Base against an unarmed ore wrenchingly because already the comple- carrier—certainly not against a tough, fast ology, forestry, and wildlife management, ment had dwindled. Belt Breaker that could zing a nuke into a he knew nothing about the battle comput-— He wished he knew the source of his trash basket from twenty kiloclicks. er's operating system. "Look, Wat his left foot. sensitivity or at least the name of one other And of course the fates would make To- Dust plumed a meter from immediately, dove, heedless person who bore its curse. But he could mimuri and Habishi choose that morning Reacting he of risk, the nearest boulder. So only feel its impact. Save for Irish folktales to overhaul a balky attitude jet. behind layer of his suit. of banshees and the occasional story of a Again he stood among the liverocks, maybe he tore the outer bullet hole in the twin aware of his sibling's danger or de- washed in their auras, tingling with their in- He could patch that. But a harder to mise, he had never encountered anything audible, immutable music. He knew ex- head, now, that was somewhat of the Belt. akin to what was happening to him. And in actly what he had to do: hide the treasures patch out there in the vacuum 48 OMNI " —

an idea The boulder loomed over him, bleakly Livingston chuckled, inordinately He clapped his gloved hands as struck. "Watson-san!" obsidian. Hunkering down under sniper fire pleased with his luck. Three meters high, was second nature to him. He had nearing the peak of his arc, the burning "Hai, Livingston-san?" list our viable options for dealing emerged intact from a dozen firefights at rebel leveled his weapon and let loose a "Please Yellowstone. He wished he were back wild burst. Now Livingston laughed aloud. with the poacher."

Program Arrow . . . [click]." there—the International Park Service had In his panic, the other had clearly forgotten "[Click] of bullets He had no idea what Program Arrow en- given him an automatic rifle, not merely a about recoil. The downspray tailed. could ask, of course. He signal pistol. "Watson-san!" boosted him like a rocket. He— or maybe He Anyone would murder a "Hai, Livingston-san?" she—was tumbling heels over head back- shrugged. who alien to sell its soul to bankroll an up- "There's a poacher here shooting at me!" ward, away from the crater. living "Watson-san!" rising deserved whatever he— or she . . "Ah so, desu. . Recorded." got. "Then do it." "Recorded?!" The bellow rang in his ears. "Hai, Livingston-san?" Livingston-san." "For God's sake, Watson-san, would you "Do your screens detect that poacher?" "Syntax error, stared off at the distant give me some help?" "Hai." "Oh, shit." He be a thousand ways to "Hai! Running Program Heads-Up." "Can we capture him?'' stars. There had to tell to run a program. If he had Across the inner face of his transparent "[Click] Remote Servo Number Seven- a computer in turn. ... sighed. He helmet sprawled the crater as seen from teen reports total destruction of fighter ship. to try each way He [click] is viable option [click]." had no other choice. "Okay how about this: above. He groaned. A lot of good it would Capture not Run Program Arrow." do him to get a bird's-eye view of his at- "Damn." He had spent cumulative "Password of the day?" tacker advancing across the battlefield. But months studying calligraphy with the deft "Ryoan-ji." then a second bullet kicked dust centi- Tomimuri; why had he not asked for in- "Running [click]." meters from his hand. At least the map struction on the care and use of Watson- flashed beyond the crater rim would help him find something solid to put san? Surely the damn machine could do Harsh light debris that as a surface-to-air missile hit the poacher. between himself and that rifle. He squinted something. Crouching by the He did not need to ask Watson about the at the twelve tiny bubbles of green light, hoio of the SAM destroying the mentally rotating them until he picked out glare. The President's 'copter had made it famous. his own figure, a broad-shouldered hump wriggled in his gul. He had of aluminum behind a coal-black outcrop- Queasmess sworn himself to life, not death. And yet the ping . That glint of metal just above the cra- ^Stranded rebel helped nuke Tomimuri and Ha- ter rim would mark the rebel. had Pyrite-flecked splinters flew. "No!" on a chunk of rock spinning bishi. Those who live by the blast. . . . executed. Livingston. "No!" The Abbot's Watson said, "Program Arrow screamed so far from aura dissolved. Slaughtered, the liverock Run terminated." face. "Interesting choice of collapsed into a pile of rubble. The Crown the sun a candle could cast He made a Watson-san." Prince's aural fringes brushed the mound a sharper shadow, words, error, Livingston-san." of gray gravel and flashed brilliantly where "Syntax he never wanted to see the Watson-san." they touched the exposed crystalline core. "I need some help, Livingston peeked around the edge of rock garden again, "[click] Detail nature of inquiry and this program will attempt to provide appropri- his shelter. In theory, a liverock The Ab- but he marched on anyway* ate structure [click]." bot's size would have a core ... he gasped. command poachers?" Not softball size, oh no. Junk another the- 'Are there other "You request status report on un- ory. More like a bowling ball. And dammit, must authorized personnel, specifying either ra- the poacher had spotted it, too. of volume of space to be investigated What the hell kind of people would fi- dius to nance a revolution by eradicating an alien had been The Abbot, he gently brushed or physical object demarcating space ignored." species? Not even the grizzly killers at Yel- chips of rock away from the crystalline core. be investigated from space to be lowstone had tried to cloak greed in me- Flawless, a single massive jewel, it shim- "Okay, do it." Livingston-san." taphysical pap about claiming a fair share mered in the shadows. "Syntax error,

it He kicked a pebble in frus- of heaven's largess. They had been blunt: If the poachers could carry to Celestial "Dammit!" tration. As he began to somersault back- "I can get half a mill for the skin, jack. A full Equity territory, the rebel government would over.the crater last." purchase it with dollars, then sell it sur- ward, the pebble soared up mill if I c'n make 'em believe it's the CE — feeble sunlight, then Celestial Equity, though "God has reptitiously for good, hard Imperial cur- rim. It twinkled in the disappeared. "Status report, unauthorized given us the tools to help ourselves, and if rency. They would have no problem find- we do not use whatever tools we need, God ing buyers. As generations of museum personnel, urn, maximum range?" point seven five times ten to. will hold us accountable." He could not un- thieves had established, a market tor irre- "At three derstand their shortsightedness, their dis- placeable works of art always exists. three meters, on twenty-three-minute regard for their descendants. More of the core came into view, refract- equatorial orbit, one AMC-Renault recon- Another bullet sparked off the patch of ing more and more of the surviving live- naissance vehicle, model RC-808X, fully regis- bare stone before him; he found himself rocks' auras. Colors roiled in its depths and equipped, of Imperial Space Force fac- tration, five humans aboard." waiting for the whine of the ricochet and pulsed in near-tangible waves from its — cursed his own foolishness. He drew his ets. The very soul of the now-dead rock, it He blinked. "An Imper "At five point seven times ten to six me- flare pistol. At that range it would do the made him understand why people would

it ters, on eighteen-hour intercept trajectory other no harm, but maybe it would dazzle kill —and die— to own it. And made him Base, Honda-Moi him. Or her. Impossible to tell, given the more determined than ever that no one with Shin Matsumoto one Belt bulkiness of space suits. would. On that, at least, he was in com- interplanetary vehicle, model Breaker, He crouched, aimed at a slight upward plete accord with the Empire. Only barbar- fully equipped, of uncertain registration, angle, and squeezed the trigger just as the ians rape beauty for quick reward. three humans aboard." Confused, Livingston sat on a smooth poacher reached the crater floor. It occurred to him that if he came through peered into the ebony A second later, the one in the silvery suit the attack alive, an autopsy of the core black boulder and there an ISF recon.ship slapped at the fire on his chest and lifted would offer an invaluable look at the alien's sky. Somewhere up Imperial Forces backward off the ground as he took the nervous system. Assuming he could de- orbited the asteroid. The troops to spare . they had no flare's velocity for his own. vise a means of autopsying crystal. . . had claimed 50 OMNI CONTINUEDONPAGE93 SEA DRIFTERS BY VICTORIA A. KAHARL

With domes of a thousand colors and shapes, gelatinous animals float through the waters of every ocean on Earth. Some can outstretch a bus or whale; others can fit into a baby's shoe. Most familiar are the jellyfish, such as the disk jelly (above) and the varied medusae (top row and at left), all members of the phylum Coelenterata. New species of jellyfish are constantly being discovered. "We really don't know at this stage how many gelatinous animals there are down there to collect," says biological ocean- quintessential ocean dwellers. "The jelly animals are going to teli us more than most ani- m ^ls about the about the ctenophores, or comb open ocean," rbison says. "They are well jellies [top], named for their cilia, so suited to their environment." which are aligned like the teeth The fi on a comb. They are the hard- rst jellyfish Harbison collected /hile exploring the ocean in est to collect because they are the manned submersible Alvin so delicate." Such conventional was sampling gear as nets may tear unknown to science. He and his associate Larry Madin spotted the jellies' fragile bodies. And the mostly some species, even when cap- transparent mass from small porthole. It tured gently by hand in jars, im- a was about four inches long, with a plode as the pressure changes . bright, during the forced .ascent from cherry-red stomach. They

watched as it gracefully the deep sea to the surface. pumped f through Like other jellyfish (above, the dark water. "We were about a quarter center, and far right), the comb of a mile below the surface off jellies have been traversing the the coast of York in oceans for at least 400 million New one of the most studied in years; and for the handful of areas the whole world," oceanographers who are study- says Harbison. "And, bango! Here ing the organisms, they are the was this animal no one had seen before. We saw ninety-three i i of them o iust one c ve it: sppr , . scientists discover they when descend the ocean depths are even more exotic "The deeper we go," says Madin, "the more we see the big monst phores [left] that are fifty or sixty feet long." Harbison and Maain nave made about 1,600 dives using scuba gear and another 50 in submersibles. Neither mode is ideal. Scuba diving limits them to only a couple of hours' dive time a day, and submersibles are expensive and often unavailable. "I can't tell you how crude our tools are," Harbi- son says. "The only jellies we see are slow moving and can't get away quickly. That's why we see them. The faster ones probably run from us." A submarine like the one Jules Verne imagined would eliminate the frustration for marine observers. "As I recall it," Madin says, "Captain Nemo's submarine had a nicely appointed Victorian salon and a large picture window looking out onto the sea. That would be ideal/'DO The underwater explorer who discovered superhot springs pulsing from the ocean floor and who located the

wreck of the Titanic is sending his robot to swim through the "unsinkable" liner resting 13,000 feet beneath the sea IRJTERV/IEUU

I eing on a research ship is the same as being a prisoner the inside of the earth. He helped develop such undersea robotic of war—with the added risk of drowning," says Robert exploring equipment as Angus (for Acoustically Navigated Geo- I f Ballard with his characteristic wise-guy grin. And he logical Underwater Survey) and its successor, Argo. Both are should know. He has done his share ot time on. and in the oceans, deep-sea sleds that can be loaded with cameras and pulled pursuing his fascination with the submerged two thirds of the along the ocean floor. Last fall Ballard accomplished his most planet we can't see. In his voyages to the depths the forty-three- publicized feat: He located the Titanic, which he described as year-old oceanographer/geophysicist and senior scientist with lying "in thirteen thousand feet of water on a gently sloping, al- the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has shown that there pine-looking countryside, overlooking a small canyon." is a lot at the bottom of the sea worth the risk. Ballard's fascination, some might say obsession, with the sea Even to those who know nothing about oceanography. Bal- goes back to his childhood days in San Diego, where in the lard's achievements are impressive. He participated in the first Fifties he swam, scuba dived, and surfed off the California coast. expedition to examine the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a mammoth un- When he was a teenager he attended a summer program at the dersea mountain range; he discovered superhot water springs, Scripps Institute of Oceanography that galvanized his interest in called hydrothermal vents, on the ocean floor, and found there a ocean studies, and from then on he plotted his career for the weird zoo of undersea life thriving on chemicals belched from seas. After getting an undergraduate degree in chemistry and PHOTOGRAPH BY WAYNE EASTEP a

bWhat we do know is that the deep sea is as complicated as any iandmass. The biggest mountain, the deepest valley are under the sea3

near the Galapagos Islands, making what some have classified the most important oceanographic discovery of the century. Yet what Ballard and his crew saw some 9,000 feet down when they clicked on Al- vin's lights was totally unexpected: an ex-

otic bestiary of sea life, creatures that de- pended not on photosynthesis—sunlight for support in the food chain— but on che- mosynthesis. Deriving their energy from chemical reactions, the undersea fauna had evolved a way of thriving in the hydro- gen sulfide-rich, superheated water. Vent areas were carpeted with bacteria. Swarming around the thermal vents, like wildlife around desert oases, were blind crabs as white as snow, gigantic tube worms with blood-red tips, red clams a foot long, mammoth glowing jellyfishlike crea- tures Ballard called "dandelions." In 1979 he found similar vents off the coast of Baja California: "black smokers"—superheated geology at the University of California at vents belching seawater so saturated with Santa Barbara, he applied to Scripps for minerals from the earth's interior that the graduate work but was turned down. He water looks like black smoke.

. moved to Hawaii, where he pursued his In September 1985 Ballard towed his master's degree at the University of Ha- deep-sea robot submersibles Angus— waii. (In 1974 he received his Ph.D. in ma- boxy underwater sea sled equipped with rine geology and geophysics from the Uni- still cameras—and Argo—a newer, sleeker, versity ot Rhode Island.) To support himself finned vehicle carrying video cameras- he taught porpoises at Sea Life Park in over an anonymous patch of the ocean floor

Honolulu. In 1966 Ballard, as a brand-new in the North Atlantic and became the first

Navy ensign, was assigned as a liaison of- to see the Titanic since it sank in 1912. The ficer to the Woods Hole Oceanographic discovery of the legendary luxury liner sig- Institution on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, molten interior. His fascination with plate naled the dawn of a new era—when ma- He's been there ever since. tectonics and his reputation as a skilled chines, not humans, are sent to the ocean At Woods Hole Ballard began making undersea scientist qualified him as a mem- floor. Eventually Argo will be paired with a dive after dive in what was then a new un- ber of a 1974 expedition, Project FAMOUS smaller but more mobile offspring, Jason, dersea vehicle, Alvin. Built as a research (French American Mid-Ocean Undersea an ovoid, self-propelled, remote-con- vessel for the Navy, Alvin is a rninisub ca- Study), to explore the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, trolled robot with two pincer arms and

pable of diving to depths of 13,000 feet. a 40,000-mile-long undersea seam run- stereo vision that feeds back what its cam- (Conventional submarines can go down ning around the planet. He was one of the era sees to its human operator. (Ballard

only 1,000 feet.) A three-person crew, first humans to peer into the cracks where calls it the Argo-Jason system because "I

working within the protection of a titanium the molten interior of the earth seeps up to thought I'd go for the Golden Fleece Award sphere designed to resist the crushing the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and right off the top.") pressures of the deep, collects samples pushes the massive plates farther apart. The allure of machines would be ob-

from the ocean floor with a remote-con- The FAMOUS dives, some nearly two miles vious to anyone whose working life con- trolled robot arm. With his dives Ballard down, produced the first graphic evidence sists of deep-ocean dives. Humans cram helped elevate Alvin from a technological that tears in the skin of the earth allow hot themselves into a titanium sphere and work

curiosity to a major oceanographic tool. lava to squeeze out from the interior and for hours in the chilly depths. It takes two Ballard stayed on at Woods Hole after add to the seafloor. hours to get to the ocean floor and two his Navy discharge and became intrigued Continuing his deep-sea exploration in hours to get back, Ballard once explained, by the then controversial theory of plate Alvin, Ballard helped lead an expedition to and "when you get done with a dive, you tectonics, the idea that the earth's crust is the bottom of the Pacific near the Galapa- are beat, you've got a headache that won't actually 12 distinct pieces floating on a gos Islands in search of another geophys- quit, you're exhausted."

ical feature. In the Sixties scientists had It can be dangerous work as well. When that there Robot's-eye view of the Titanic: the ship's bow, predicted would be vents in the Ballard was diving in the French submers- Pacific floor, with anchor chain, capstan, and winch still in springs of superheated sea- ible Archimede on the FAMOUS expedi- place (top); and the forward deck (below). The water flowing up from the bottom. In 1977 tion, an electrical fire broke out in the crew

crew's quarters lie just beneath this section. his expedition found them, as suspected, compartment after it had reached the 62 OMNI ocean floor. The Archimede filled wifh ac- for finding hydrothermal vents. We tested cess to American minds and purse strings.

rid smoke, and like trapped astronauts, it, and it worked. We found the vents! In Everyone's mind is very busy. Just full of

Ballard and the French scientists with him the long, long term, when I evaluate my- Charlie's Angels or NFL football or "I might had to make the long ascent back to the self, I'm going to think more highly about get mugged." And we've got to compete surface breathing the emergency oxygen writing that paper than about finding the for attention. Scientists have to get off their supplies and wearing scuba-diving masks Titanic. It was harder to do. [pause] ivory towers and go to the public.

it I to protect their eyes from the fumes. So it's Omni: Is true that over an eight-million- don't know if I can ever beat space, but

no surprise that he has been working to- year cycle the equivalent of the entire ocean I'm sure going to give it a run for its money. ward his ideal of telepresence, sending goes down into the vents and returns? They've got such an advantage with that machines down instead of humans. Ballard: It's true. That wasn't my calcula- view. What a shot! But if they find an intel- Extroverted and articulate, he has tion. That was John Edmond's calculation. ligent being, a smart worm, somewhere, sometimes been criticized by his less- When most people think of the hydrologic then all bets are off. The most important gifted colleagues for being such a high- cycle [by which water is cycled up from thing that has come out of the space pro- profile scientist. Yet others characterize him the oceans into the atmosphere, down to gram is the view it gave us of Earth: a as a driven perfectionist. Despite his aca- the land, and back to the oceans] they beautiful emerald suspended in a black- demic credentials and considerable ac- imagine that the lowest point it reaches is veivet void of nothingness. It also popped

It complishments, he hardly fits the mold of the oceans. It's not. also goes inside the what I call the Superman balloon. What was the tenured professor. When Omni senior earth and out. There's also a hydrothermal that myth? That there was this planet called editor Douglas Colligan caught up with cycle [by which the ocean is warmed and Krypton and they mucked it up and acci-

Ballard one brisk spring morning, it was chemically changed] at work. And I'm glad dentally blew it up. Superman escaped and

between research trips at Woods Hole. His that I was able to put other minds in a po- came to Earth. The idea is that we're all cavernous office hasjustahintofthe man: sition to know that. going to be like Superman—we're going an eight-by-ten photo of him wearing a tux- Omni: Before you went down did you have to muck it up and run someplace else, the edo and shaking President Reagan's hand, a concrete image of these vents? other planets. We're going to swim in the an Aivin sticker, and a paper cup that had canals of Mars; when I was a little kid Mars traveled unprotected to the seafloor and had canals, and there were always beau- as a result been compressed to the size of tiful women on Venus and you could grow a shot glass. Ballard radiated almost inex- tomatoes on Mercury, and all this bull. But haustible energy. Between sips from his what did the space program show us? That Ql don't know can of Coke (Classic), he seemed to be in the smaller planets, Mars and Venus, are constant motion. After discussing the more if I can ever beat space— like the moon: barren, hot, no canals, no cosmic quests of his life, Ballard and Col- tomatoes, no pretty girls. And the larger I'm sure ligan careened around local roads in a planets— Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Nep- pickup truck in search of the right-size going to give it a run for its tune—you can't even land on. There's no

Sheetrock for the farmhouse Ballard is ren- land. You go into a big red spot. You know money. But if ovating. (A segment of this interview was no one ever said the following: If you go to they find conducted by Charles Pellegrino aboard a smart worm Jupiter you can't stand up. The gravita- the research vessel Melville.) somewhere, tional forces will glue you to the planet.

[Throwing his arms out spread-eagle, tilt- then aii bets are off$ Omni: How much do we know about the ing his chair back as if pinned to Jupiter's deep sea today? surface, he talks through gritted teeth.]

Ballard: Fragmented knowledge. We know "This sure is great! "You'd have to be Super- more about the surface of the moon, of man to go to Jupiter if it had a surface. some distant planet. What we do know is Omni: Well, there's an ocean on Uranus. that the deep sea is as complicated as any Ballard: We didn't know what we were Ballard: Big deal. Borrring. The point is, landmass. The biggest mountain, the looking for. We were totally surprised. We Earth is the prettiest of all. The earth is a deepest valley are under the sea. Did you had an abstract idea that there would be a living, breathing thing, a giant organism. know that there are more active volcanoes crack and warm water coming out of it, like We live on it in a potentially parasitic, ter- underwater than above on the land? Did a spring. But then to walk into Disneyland! minal situation. We could kill the host, blow you know that? Most people don't know You know that movie Losf Continent, where it up, pollute it. We almost did that. Thank that. The mid-ocean ridge is the planet's they go down the throat of a volcano? Well, God it's got resilience! largest geologic feature. If you walked up it's the same damned movie relived with- Omni: You think being a public scientist so to the average person on the street and out the dinosaurs. There may as well have early might explain the antagonism?

asked, "What's the largest single geologic been dinosaurs romping around down Ballard: I guess I was disrespectful and, feature on the earth?" he might say, "Oh, it there for all the impact it had on me. paradoxically, radical—since I'm an eco- must be the Rockies." A pretty good guess, Omni: And there were no biologists who nomic conservative. As for us taking but it isn't. They could fit in a small corner went along with you? chances, I'm about as conservative as of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Twenty-three Ballard: No. That was funny. That was funny. Genghis Khan. I'm very experimental. But

percent of the earth's total surface is They didn't think we'd find anything biolog- I like rules of conduct, gentlemanly rules of wrapped up in this mountain range. Peo- ically important! We had to use bottles of conduct. Yet I'm also less bridled by con- ple should not be unaware of the largest vodka and bourbon to pickle what we vention. I've got a good dose of cowboy in

Isn't I feature on the earth, but they are. that found. We raided the ship's hospital and me; mean, a freer spirit, I haven't been sort of sad? That speaks a lot about our were quickly out of all the alcohol there. So broken. My grandfather was marshal of ability to transmit information. we were using booze. Wichita, Kansas. He was shot to death in Omni: What's the significance of finding the Omni: Must have been a kind of dry trip, a gunfight in 1920 by a kid, a nineteen-year- hydrothermal vents? Ballard: We didn't care. We were on our old kid, evidently on drugs. He killed my

Ballard: Hydrothermal vents helped ex- own high. I like to say that the ocean's bot- grandfather and his two deputies. Bang plain the chemistry of the ocean. I'm really tom is more interesting than the moon's be- bang bang. Shot my grandfather dead in excited that I was able to place a mind like hind. People aren't aware of this. What are his tracks. And my father was a cowboy. John Edmond's [an MIT geochemist] in the we going to do about it? In the first place He punched cows in Montana. My grand- right spot. Also, Jean Francheteau [of the we've got to have a better PR. office than mother died when my father was twelve,

University of Paris] and I generated a model NASA's got. We're in competition for ac- and he was orphaned out to kin who were 64 OMNI homesteaders. He was passed around and going down to pick up dimes from the rather as a part of our human experience frontier. of from homestead to homestead. He even- bottom of a pool. When I trained dolphins of exploring, as a practical Most from the ocean. It's not tually escaped through his intelligence, I just about lived in the water. our oxygen comes going off to become a test-flight engineer Training dolphins was very strange. I will from trees; we don't get our oxygen from

breathe it from plankton. I just before World War II. He was a guy be- carry it with me for the rest of my life. For redwoods, we hind the "right stuff." He eventually be- almost two years while in graduate school love redwoods, but c'rnon, tell the truth

I to I don't kill came head of the Minuteman missile pro- I worked at Sea Life Park. The trainers per- here! And so want make sure

shows, which is I the ocean. It's pretty hard to hold my breath. gram for North American Aviation. I grew formed public where dives in up in an aerospace family, and our house learned about speaking in front of people. Omni: After making hundreds of was a meeting ground for engineers. The We also trained dolphins to work in the open manned submersibles, what made you fe- into robotics and telepresence? earliest waking moments of my life were ocean. I worked with Ho, a very young move Ballard: ever eliminate the ex- the Muroc Air Base, the Mojave Desert, the male. I really got into that animal on a hu- You won't first Ad- level. I worked with her citement of making your few dives. first jet planes streaking overhead. I always man-to-porpoise wondered what happened to Muroc. Then around the clock, eight hours a day in the renaline is flowing—there's a sense of hu-

I That just a few years ago someone said to me, water, working on a purely personal level. man peril, of "what am doing here?" "You dumb idiot, Muroc is Edwards, Ed- The animal reached a point where love be- Wow! So people will probably want to go wards Air Force Base." came the motivating tool in the training. down forever. But after you've done it a lot, it's still all excited on certain My family came from England in the sev- Forget the fish, it was really affection and gone. You get eventually it's like profes- enteen hundreds. By the eighteen hun- caring. I literally loved that animal like a hu- occasions, but

dreds they were in Kansas, and they kept man would love a human. sional football—your knees start to go. I for going west. I'm the first Ballard to have With porpoises your primary communi- don't get that big a thrill, and diving me

is contact. You're looking has almost gotten to the hobby stage. I come back. But I really didn't; I just went cations loop eye

trying you could take anything . . . going underwater. Why the heck am I here on at one another: They're to commu- guess Park it's Cape Cod? It's because of Woods Hole. nicate and you're trying to understand. to Yellowstone every day— a beautiful drive in and out of the park, but Woods Hole doesn't belong here. It be-

longs in California. It's wide open, a frontier I've stopped looking out the window. involvement with Aivin was very in- town— oceanography is a frontier. My

Omni: Where did your interest in the ocean tense from 1967, when I first got here as a begin? naval pfficer, through Project FAMOUS,

'•The empty which' big milestone. It was a very, Ballard: We lived in San Diego when it was was a very risky project that turned out to be ex- a little town on the ocean. San Diego Bay lifeboat davits— to me that was tremely successful. By 1974 we got on a was all a marsh, with bat rays leaping out the symbolism roll, and things started just clicking off: the of the water. I used to walk along the beach. You never knew what was going to wash of the Titanic. That's what discovery of the hydrothermal vents in '77, up: Japanese glass-ball floats from a dis- those people who the discovery of black smokers in 79. There tant shore, shells—and always the rhythm was a real momentum that developed that's died saw as they came up '79 of the ocean. When you're a messed-up still going. But I got off the train in after brains out. little kid and nothing seems to be consist- to the deck thirteen years of just diving my

ent, you could go to the ocean and count I went to Stanford for a sabbatical, plus looking for lifeboats. GonelV on that wave coming in. The ocean has a I was up for tenure. It's just brutal. Your force of rhythm and a tremendous energy whole life is on the line. So I sat there and

let's I tenure. I but generally expresses it in a gentle way: said: "Okay, say get Am going a tide, a wave, the water coming in and back to Woods Hole and crawl back into a hitting the beach. submarine for the rest of my life?" And the

Omni: When did you realize you'd rather What a strange feeling to look into another bottom line was: No, I was not. I have noth-

be in the ocean than on it? creature's eyes and see affection. It was ing against the submarine—this is where I

If find myself pitted against myself in the me- Ballard: When I decided not to get on the like meeting a Martian. we're ever going

I surfboard but to stay in the waves as a to communicate with extraterrestrial spe- dia, that I hate submarines. I don't. love 1 start 'em. It's like you left and got married, body-surfer. I grew up in the surfer days: cies, we ought to with porpoises. They home

I "Surfer Stomp," "Rendezvous Ballroom," are highly developed— I won't say intelli- so you must hate your mother. No, love

I too. I love Bruce Brown's Endless Summer—great gent, I'll just say highly developed —crea- my mother, but love my wife

It movie. Getting the tan. You didn't peel. tures that don't have any arms, legs, writ- manned submersibles, and I love Aivin. Nothing was worse than blotching. I'd go ten language, or tools. I've always wanted has a special spot in my heart. But that to Huntington Beach lifeguard station to reach a point in my life where I could doesn't mean we can't evolve. And that

number three. The biggest surf along the have a dolphin or a pair live with me. I love evolution is clearly toward robotic vehicle coast was at Huntington Beach. Big roll- building, and someday I'm gonna have a systems. There's so much exciting technology in ers. I used to bodysurf through the pilings. house where they can swim through—you

That was a trip, but it was nuts. You could know, canals through the house. the nonmarine world that I'm just now trying

get torn to shreds by the barnacles on the Omni: Your undersea explorations have re- to lay my hands on. I need fiberoptic cable. positioning [being able to hold a pilings.' I never got interested in a surf- vealed many mineral deposits on the ocean Dynamic position in the water] is do- board —you were decoupled from the floor. Will it be feasible to extract them? craft in a fixed

able, I money. Also high-resolu- I need ocean. love water. I take two showers a Ballard: It's not economical. We're closing but in the middle of tion television. We must implement tech- day. I feel like the creature from the Black down copper mines Mon- Lagoon. I've got to keep my gills wet. tana. The metals market is really de- nology from the nonmarine marketplace

I it into system that Omni: Did it all come together when you pressed, and I don't see it improving. don't and turn an operational

first went down in a submersible? look at the ocean as a way of feeding the can go out and do battle in the deep. Argo

it did a marvelous job on the Titanic. If I can Ballard: No. I scuba dived a tremendous world or supplying with raw materials. We amount before, and diving in a submarine have a farm crisis because we can't sell bring Argo-Jason online, and Jason fol-

was anticlimactic. It's so safe an eighty-five- our grain. We could give the grain away, lows its schedule and is fully operational in

still rid it of about three years, I'll be happy. year-old could do it. I went through the and we couldn't get of because at evolution of trying to be comfortable un- transportation costs. I don't look to the Omni: How did your lab Woods Hole be- resources but a leader in underwater robotics? derwater. I started by holding my breath ocean as a source of food or come 66 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 79 —

A radical theory explains Earth's enigmas

COMETS OF THE SEA

BY JAMES EHMANN

AIt the edge of the atmosphere, where stars shine on in perpetual blackness and ice clouds haunt the shimmering poles, oceans hurtle earthward at Mach 20. These future seas, pri- mordial balls of ice and snow, are coming in this second, caught by the gravitational pull of the third planet from the sun. A typical sphere, or icy comet, in the swarm is unimpressive by cosmic standards, not much larger than your living room. But what the objects lack in size they make up for in number. They arrive in fleet strength— perhaps 20 comets a minute, 1,200 an hour. 28,000 each day— and they have done so day after day since the birth of the pianet. 4.5 billion years ago. The comets do not reach the earth's surface intact. A combina- tion of disrupters— gravitational stress, the sun's radiation, and the ram force of atmospheric drag shatters the fragile bodies be- tween 900 and 1,500 miles up. Each frozen sphere quietly goes pffft, like a soap bubble in a hurri- cane, releasing 100 tons of mois- PAINTINGS BY DON DIXON — —

WEac/7 black hole appeared suddenly, remained in the image for a few minutes, then disappeared.^ ture to the scattering winds. sible science. You just can't The ice particles eventually reject the idea out of hand." reach the surface as rain or And James Van Allen, snow at a planetwide rate of whose Earth-encircling belts about one ten thousandth of of charged particles pro- an inch per year: almost ex- duce phenomena like the actly enough, over geologic aurora borealis, supports time, to create the rivers, Frank as well. "I'm very per- lakes, and seas as we know suaded by Frank's data," he them today. says. "There's no reason to interpretation is im- That's the proposition— in think his possible; it's just a question a cometsheil, as it were. If it's correct'— and a renowned of whether or not it's true." team of researchers at the Indeed, friends and ene- mies alike agree that Frank, University of Iowa says it is- then the implications are forty-seven, is a highly me- staggering. The rain of com- ticulous researcher who the conservative in ets, says astrophysicist Louis tends to Frank, head of the Iowa his science, his life-style, and group, could explain large his dress. He is, they add, an numbers of geophysical unlikely harbinger of radical mysteries. For instance, per- change. With his casual haps ice ages occurred sweaters of muted gray and when relatively more comets brown and an open, even- 'arrived, forming global ice clouds of suffi- through volcanic vents and cooled to form featured grin, he seems as down-home cient thickness to shield the planet from the lakes, rivers, and seas. Arid, the theo- American as the expansive Iowa plains. sunlight. And perhaps that shield caused rists add, the planet's water is slowly evap- Unpretentious and irrepressible when it climatic changes drastic enough to ac- orating, rising through the atmosphere and comes to his work, he drives to the lab in count for the known mass extinctions of escaping to space. a pickup truck and empties the office trash. entire families, including the dinosaurs. The But Frank says no. Water arrived not from Students walking through the halls, in icy comets might even provide a soft-land- below, he says, but from above, trickling in fact, have mistaken Frank for the university ing mechanism for organic molecules, since the dawn of time. And its volume is handyman. But those who bother to inves- lending new credence to the long-stand- slowly increasing. Homo sapiens is now, tigate soon discover that impression is ing suggestion that life on Earth arrived and always has been, fishing in, bathing wrong. Back in 1981, after years of work, from space. Some exobiologists studying in, cooking with, and drinking matter of ex- Frank and colleague John Craven, forty- the findings say the particularly complex traterrestrial origin. five, completed an extraordinary task molecules that might be stored in comet It goes without saying that many estab- development of the optical system for a water could account for sudden scourges, lished scientists are unconvinced. "It's a satellite called Dynamics Explorer I (DE I), from the bubonic plague to AIDS. bit fantastical," says Thomas Donahue, thefirst craft capable of photographing the And the dramatic impact of the icy com- professor of atmospheric sciences at the upper atmosphere of our planet. ets is not confined to Earth. Comets could University of Michigan. "I have any number When their satellite was boosted into have delivered water to the now-icy crusts of problems with it." space, Frank and Craven hoped to gather of moons orbiting Jupiter and Uranus. The The researchers expected no less. "I straightforward pictures of the atmos- electrical activity wifhin. polar caps of Mars may be comet ice; and can't say I blame the critics," Frank says, phere and the the mysterious Martian canals may have "If somebody hit me with an idea like this, Frank was especially excited about cap- been cut by running comet water during I'd be shocked. All of a sudden it's like we're turing the dazzling auroral lights, pro- the periodic Martian spring. living on a different planet. If the comet the- duced when solar wind, trapped by the field, flows into the at- If the Iowa team is correct, the textbooks ory is correct and water comes from space, earth's magnetic will have to be rewritten and a dozen sci- a whole generation of scientists in a dozen mosphere above the poles. Thus the sci- ences revamped as a major tenet of mod- fields will have been working from geo- entists had equipped DE I with three cam- the visible ern geology is put forest. Today most sci- physical assumptions that just aren't true." eras—two that captured light in entists think that all Earth's water was here Supporters of the proposal are willing to range and one that captured ultraviolet rays at the time of creation, in the form of vapor attempt the intellectual adjustment, how- normally invisible to the human eye. And at the planet's molten core. During the ever. Alex Dessler, editor of the journal much to their delight, the images sent back earth's planet's fiery first half billion years, the the- Geophysical Research Letters and direc- were spectacular. Pictures of the ory goes, water vapor was blown up tor of the space science lab at NASAs Mar- atmosphere in visible and ultraviolet wave- shall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Al- lengths soon began to appear in maga- When photographed with an ultraviolet cam- abama, thinks Frank's comet theory is "the zines and textbooks. And Frank was asked era, the atmosphere should have formed an exciting in than a dec- to show his slides around the world. unbroken expanse of orange. But the Earth- most new idea more all the hoopla, though, there was scape (above) photographed at the Univer- ade. Frank is a very senior, very respected Despite in the ul- sity of Iowa was broken by pinpricks of black. guy in the field, and he does very respon- a problem. When photographed —

traviolet and color-enhanced by computer, about the holes," he says, "but not me. phere, heating molecular oxygen at lower

it the atmosphere above the dayside of the When you're as conservative as I am and altitudes and causing to rise in the form earth —the side illuminated by the sun you turn up data that go against all your of giant gas clouds. "But the meteor you'd should have formed a bright orange knowledge, you do everything possible to need for so large a gas cloud would be screen. But instead of a blanket of pure, show that it's some sort of spurious effect." big, one hundred kilograms or so, and we're piercing color, the scientists glimpsed an He decided on two more tests. First he talking about twenty of them per minute," orange Earthscape broken by dozens of gathered radar records of meteoric dust says Frank. "Now, if these were meteors, pinpricks of black. Each black hole ap- trails entering the atmosphere over the past they'd be impacting all over the place all peared suddenly, remained for a few min- ten years. Then he compared the motion the time, and we'd all be living in caves." utes, and then disappeared. of this known debris to the motion of the Frank and his team eventually "went elusive black holes. Much of the meteoric through all the abundant molecules to see "Whenever I lectured," Frank now says, enough "someone in the audience was sure to say, dust, Frank says, tends to orbit the sun even which ones absorbed a broad 'Gee, what are those black spots on the more rapidly than the earth does. Thus it range of wavelengths to appear black. dayside of the earth?' And my response essentially catches up to the earth, enter- Water," Frank says, "was the only reason- from the west. "If the able candidate." was always, 'It must be some sort of elec- ing the atmosphere That's Frank started thinking about tronic noise or interference.' It was a rea- black holes resulted from mere noise," when "you would expect their pat- comets, the galactic shuttles of H 0. He sonable response, and I got by that way." Frank adds, 2 form holes miles wide, That is, at least for a while. In 1982 John terns to be random. But we found the black calculated that to 30 Sigwarth, an undergraduate student work- spots traveling in patterns identical to those the ice balls would have to be 30 or 40 feet ing with Frank, was scrutinizing the images of the meteoric particles. That wasn't the in diameter and full of enough fluffy snow in upper atmosphere. for gravity waves, ripples in the atmos- result I was looking for. Once again the dis- to create clouds the phere that sometimes follow the brighten- turbing implication was that the objects The appearance and disappearance of the ing of auroras. But the computer program were real." holes would then be explained. The hole

designed to analyze the pictures stuttered If so, Frank reasoned in his final experi- would appear when the cloud formed and would disappear as the moisture dis- and burped when it scanned the holes. So one day late in 1982 the ianky student persed to the atmosphere below. Frank also that the comets left the brightly lit computer room on the suggested sixth floor of Van Allen Hall and de- might come from the Oort cloud of comets, scended to Frank's second-floor grotto. The a circle of debris formed during the crea- ^Perhaps the ice office was fairly dark, with most of the light tion of the solar system and lying about one coming from small, low-hanging fixtures ages occurred when comets light-year from Earth. When nudged by the their circular beams straight galaxy's ever-changing gravitational stress, that directed formed clouds thick spill out into orbit down, as if through holes in acave. Desks the ice spheres and go were piled high with books and papers, enough to shield the planet near the sun in the ecliptic plane shared planets. In theory, Nep- glaciers of data ready to spill over onto the from sunlight. The by eight of the nine floor. But one small desk was clear for new tune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and resulting dark and cold may Earth business—whatever could fit between the should take the cometary bombard- unfiled slides and the Diet Pepsi can, the have caused the ment. Venus and Mercury should receive Agfa loupe and the pack of True 100's. considerably fewer hits because the heat extinction of the dinosaurs.^ And the student with holes in his data of the sun would vaporize most comets be-

put his findings there. "I went in and asked, fore they arrived.

'How can we get rid of this stuff?' " recalls "I looked at every planet, trying to get

Sigwarth, who, like Frank, thought the spots rid of this interpretation, and I just couldn't resulted from a transmission problem. do it," Frank says. The baffling spokes be- Frank was so busy working on the au- ment, he would see the holes from another tween the rings of Saturn, for example, are rora, the solar wind, and his collection of perspective as well. Up until 1984 he'd been thought to be electrical discharges, but no vintage cars that he wished he could sweep imaging the holes as they seemingly fell one has proposed a mechanism for trig-

1 the problem away. But in order to use his against the bright orange screen of the gering them. "These comets are perfect data he had to pinpoint the glitch. earth. Now he turned the eye of his ultra- for that," Frank says. 'They pass through "The search," Frank now says, "went on violet camera outward, into the hydrogen one ring, lift the dust, and rush to the next."

for years. First we tried to see if we were cloud that forms the fringe of the earth's The astronomical data also suggest the picking up extraneous signals—from an- atmosphere, the last gaseous ring before comets may have a role in such events as other satellite, from lightning, or from a ra- the utter vacuum of space. ice ages and the extinction of the dino- dio source on Earth. When we could locate To the eye of the ultraviolet camera, Frank saurs. Frank explains: It takes the solar no extraneous noise, we began to ask says, "that cloud of hydrogen is like a dense system about 250 million years to pass from whether the pixels [individual electronic morning fog." And as he focused his lens one spiral arm of the Milky Way to the next.

dots, thousands of which make up each into that fog, he saw dozens of "big black And as it proceeds, the galactic forces may satellite image] were being transmitted discs" coming toward him, faintly at first but shift, causing the rate of cometary impact

properly from the spacecraft. And as it growing larger and darker with time. "These to change. When increased forces shake turned out, that question was easy to an- black spots emerged from the cover of hy- out an especially large number of comets, swer. The pixels in the ultraviolet camera drogen," he says, "much like the head- we would see a giant global cloud thrust- of on DE I were controlled by two sets of elec- lights of a car emerge from fog. ing the earth into years darkness and

tronics, each operating half the pixels. The "It was at that point, late in 1985," Frank cold. As it turns out, Frank adds, the ice

I in our sets took turns. And each set showed us says, "that I ended my search for noise. ages seem to occur sync with pas- the same holes. We could either assume was obviously observing something start- sage through the spiral arms, about once that both sets were bad in exactly the same ing above the atmosphere and falling in." every 250 million years. way, which was almost an electronic im- The next step, of course, was identifying By the beginning of 1986 the team of possibility, or we could conclude that the the looming black discs, objects that Frank Frank, Sigwarth, and Craven had their data holes were real." estimated to be roughly 30 miles across. A in order, their theories formulated. The pa- Though that interpretation was staring number of explanations were quickly con- pers were written and ready to go. But the

Frank in the face, he desperately wanted ceived and rejected. For example, per- thought of actually publishing the work filled

to prove it untrue. "Sigwarth was excited haps meteors were hitting the atmos- the group with dread. "In deciding to pub- 72 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 108 Everything you do or think instantly alters the landscape

:«T"' vp "" r ::> ^.

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'iff ^s^v ''/*

f V, V' ME1AT0UR BY JUDITH HOOPER

DPearest Folks, Hello from the Subterranean Homesick Motor Court, where, as the brochure says, "Dreams are reality, and reality is a dream." Originally we planned to take the Airstream to Disney- world, but Don saw this ad for

Timewarp Tours and figured it would be educational for the kids, so here we are! The weather is however you hap- pen to be feeling at the time, like everything else around here.

The.kids are having a ball in the Cave of Random Mutations, but Don seems to be going through a mid-life crisis—wearing his old Woodstock clothes and saying he needs "space" to "tran- scend the mind-body contin- uum," whatever that is. I was so upset I started crying, and my tears turned into icy under- ground streams. The tour direc- ^Oceans are the result of lovesick medieval tears.^

tor explained that every strong emotion remains in the universe forever, and that the oceans are the result of lovesick tears shed in the thirteenth century. Tuesday we visited the Land

of Pure Reason, where there is no water, and rocks are the most

intelligent life forms. I said, "Gee,

I wonder if there's any seafood on the menu here," and sud- denly these strange fish mate- rialized. You have to be careful because everything you do or think changes the landscape. Jimmy spat out his bubble gum,

and it turned into a disgusting thing. The next day we pic- nicked at the Top o' the World, skated on the Mirror of Eternity, and met God. Wish you were here here.—ShirleyDO © Roger Dean, 1964-1975. Paint- ings by Roger Dean from Views, republished by Paper Tiger. THE LAZARE be disappointed because you're not going DIAMOND" inJTERV/IEUU to have the freedom of vision, freedom of CONTINUED FROM PAGE 66 movement of your mind. Omni: Marvin Minsky at MIT has talked

Ballard: Marine science didn't have a tal- about workers wearing telepresence re-

ent base. It was not going to make an Argo- mote-control jackets, exoskeletons, and in Jason on its own, so i started hiring peo- doing work remote areas of space. portion ple. I didn't know how I was going to pay Ballard: Well, would you give up a

for them, but I figured talent sells itself. You of your life to go to the moon? Of course. know: Get the right people together and Would you drop twenty years to make one trip Nope. don't worry. I went to MIT, to the Man Ma- round somewhere? One day we chine Lab, and met this graduate student, will do most of our traveling in telepres- Dana [Dr. Dana Yoerger, an assistant sci- ence. We'll choose to be humanly present

entist at Woods Hole and a specialist in only on vacations. I do not enjoy sitting on Airport for hours artificial intelligence], I went after him like the runway at Logan two

it. aheadhunter. I wooed him, did everything because some jerk didn't plow And we're to rid of jerks. With to- possible— I infected him with my dream. not going get those Now he's hooked. And he's the long-term day's telepresence you're just looking at a expert. He's Jason! The crowd downstairs guy yelling into a tin can on a string, right, is a breeder reactor—they feed them- compared to where the technology can go. selves. Two years ago the breeder reactor Telepresence will simply give us further

began, and it's already gone critical. These freedom. Look at the window of time in

is really It's very guys are so talented I feel embarrassed which the body perfect. being in the same room with them, short. We're going to live to be one hun-

Omni: How long will it take before Argo- dred, one hundred twenty. Our bodies are Jason is in full swing? going to be hanging in there as best they

Ballard: It's going to take me five to ten can, but they're not going to be able to

years to fully develop my vision of it, I see climb Mount Everest at ninety. Your mind Argo-Jason as an inseparable couple. can. No longer will we look at our bodies They'll go down together. Jason is in the as a prison for our minds. The epic journey garage [inside Argo], and when Argo sees is part of human development in literature, something interesting Jason goes out. Argo in exploration, and in everyday life. The stays up above the site and looks at the journey's goal is to attain a truth, a new

big picture; it's the eye in the sky And knowledge; so unless it is brought back there's Jason—the dope on the rope, as and shared, the journey isn't complete. The

the disrespectful call it. But that guy isn't telepresence technology makes it possi-

going to be that dumb that long. ble for others to tune it in. Why not make Omni: Won't Jason have 3-D vision or people feel good? There are so many something like the "foveal hat," which in- things that are going wrong. The Titanic

corporates two small television screens into was a nice piece of good news, and I think

a helmet the operator wears? the world reacted to it in that way. Ballard: Oh, yeah. People go ape over stuff Omni: Were you engaged in a test run of like that. We're going to use a TV monitor, the Argo when you found the Titanic?

so the actual stereo part will be a limited Ballard: It was an unofficial search. It was

thing. It will be mostly high-resolution color the biggest unofficial thing that's hap- TV. Basically we have become a society pened for a while. We chose the Titanic

conditioned to having the world come to because it was fairly doable. Although most

us through TV monitors. Look at Star Trek: people don't think of it, the Titanic is not far

What is it? A big monitor. One minute it away— only about eight hundred miles due I he Lazai'e Diamonds brilliance goe: shows some alien talking to you; the next east of Woods Hole. We were coming home beyond what meets the eye. Gut to idea you're looking at the galaxy through all sorts from the Azores, so it was directly in the

of changes. path of our cruise. I was going to stop

table fire, beauty Omni: If I were coming up now in this field, somewhere between the Azores and right in and I was told that my version of a dive Woods Hole, and the Titanic was would be sitting in a room looking at a TV the middle. So that was no sweat.

monitor, it would be kind of a letdown. I didn't expect the Titanic to hit me emo- out quality diamond engagement Ballard: Well, perhaps we'll put you in the tionally The ship itself had such an impact. expert, the hne jeweler i

chamber, squeeze your head, and bounce I had researched the disaster in intricate he Lazare Diamond. you down— let you have your Wow—and detail to find it. And suddenly there it was! then get you up here with the rest of us to A disaster partially put to rest seventy-three,

work. It will be like in the Antarctic: "What seventy-four years ago came roaring back do you mean, I'm going to be in a Winne- into the present like a freight train, There

bago the whole time! I want to go out.'' Fine. were the empty lifeboat davits hanging Put him out in the deep freeze for thirty- there with no boats. To me that was the seven seconds and bring him back in the symbolism of the Titanic—the empty life- Winnebago. boat davits. They were what all the people In long term manned submersibles who died saw as they were looking for a For the name of a the are doomed; it's inevitable. Diving will be- lifeboat—empty davits. To come up finally, fine jeweler in your area, come an anticlimactic thing because we'll particularly from the second or third class, call 1-800-543-8800 Ext. 283 be able to move you around mentally. In to the boat deck and find all the lifeboats

ten years you'll be making simulated dives, gone. Gone! And there it was in the pic-

and when I put you in a submarine you'll ture. We came over the top of that with Argo, Setting the standard fo — THE MISSING ETNX.

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It the literally crawled out from underneath and saw the picture, and Bang!—\\ was like another. It was really a tough job. was myself on the operator's shoulder a sock to my stomach. most physically grueling and technically draped and got Omni: You had a memorial service shortly challenging thing I've ever done. And the and made that run with Angus pictures. During all that we were get- after the discovery. final factor was that I had gotten to know those the outside world and we Ballard: Yes, we went up this big excite- that ship in the abstract. ting badgered by 77- You're dead on your feet, ment spike and then just plummeted into Omni: You must know more about the were not done. interview, you're built it. but they want their and an emotional trough! Amazing, amazing. I tanic than those who are being told by the management on the felt schizophrenic. Two human beings were Ballard: No, some Titanic buffs much interviews as you can. out there. There was this good profes- better schooled. My research focused on beach to do as many were it's facts that would help me locate it as op- After we finished the lowering, we sional— I like being good at something; life trying clear the area because our taxi- gratifying to make the right call, to be in- posed to exactly how many boilers or to meter had expired and everyone was stinctively right—and that guy was really jackets it had. There are people who can cab

fundamentalist quotes anxious to get home. I did the interview with having a ball. He was at his peak. And there . rattle that off like a

it in the radio room. As I looked was this other human who" kept getting in from the New Testament. They know Brokaw

porthole 1 could see the ship the way, who kept getting emotional. chapter and verse. I never got involved in through the

gotten under way. I don't recall what You feel let down after pursuing some- lore that didn't tell me where the ship was. had

asked, but I started los- I question Brokaw thing for so long. The star is gone. All my Still, I didn't realize how much had ab-

limit. ing it. eyes were swelling up. We were sorbed. I was stretched to the We My life I have erected stars on the horizon and

leaving, I hadn't said good-bye. Like moved toward each in this five- to ten-year really pushed the envelope that trip. I'd do and last time you got to see your grand- I times. the journey. It's my epic journey. And it's al- it again, but couldn't do it that many father. feeling of remorse for having I That I I just recovering. don't know ways a disappointment when I arrive: The mean, am

all. improperly bid adieu. I got choked up and star is gone. This journey was ten years, what happened to October at In De-

talk. I to get back to the fantail I had ten years! The other, more important factor cember I went to sea; ran away. And Jan- couldn't peace. , . . feeling again. and make my was that it was physically very tough. The uary I'm just now human the Titanic get Titanic did not yield easily. We were almost Omni: You mentioned that while doing a We hope to return to and plan to sit on the deck ready to concede defeat. Once we found radio interview with Tom Brokaw on NBC, inside of it soon. We send the robot, Ja- the ship, we worked around the clock. The you were emotionally overwhelmed. with the submarine and all hell son, down the main staircase and the whole Titanic was war with no one getting hurt. Ballard: 1 was fatigued, and was aft of the ship. The ship's cut com- People were dropping not from bullets but breaking loose. I had to get the final low- end cross section of a from fatigue. But they were out of action ering of Angus under way. You know those pletely in half, You see a when you needed them. And you stepped beautiful pictures of the Titanic? They were six-story building, the grand ballroom being skylight. The grand over them and kept the battle going. You taken in the final four hours of the expedi- under the forward in staircase takes you down into the first-class kept saying to yourself, "Is there another tion. 1 slept under the table the lab as accommodations. This expedition must not hour left in me?" And then another hour and they prepared for the final lowering, and 80 OMNI seem ghoulish. The Titanic is a tomb; it's the first pyramid of the deep. There are many others. Man's history is recorded in the deep sea, particularly the Mediterra-

nean. I am after the Mediterranean. You could start almost anywhere. There history

goes back beyond us writing it down—ever since a guy could float a log.

Take a dart and throw it at the board. It's like shooting trout in a barrel. In 255 b.c. the Roman fleet defeated the Carthagini- ans off the coast of Cape Bon, but the Ro- mans themselves lost the greater battle to Neptune. Of three hundred sixty-four ships that put to sea, only eighty survived the storm. Casualties were set at twenty-five thousand mariners, seventy thousand oarsmen— fifteen percent of Italy's able- bodied men. And that's all in just one site around this area between Malta, Sicily,

Tunisia, and the tip of the boot. It's doable,

and it just might be my next star on the

horizon. I've got to have a star. If you can

do it in a year, it isn't worth doing; if you

can do it in five years, it's marginal. Omni: What are your new goals7

Ballard: Multiple stars. I want to continue to use Argo-Jason to explore the mid-ocean

ridge and the Arctic. I am gravitating more

toward the Arctic basin. I want to continue projects like the Titanic but focus primarily

on marine archaeology. I want to work closely with the Navy in terrane warfare [making strategic use of undersea ter-

rane]. And I want to continue the devel- opment of deep-submergence technol-

ogy. That's enough. So I need to pick a star for each of those worlds. Omni: Who are you? Ballard: I am an explorer who's a geologist. An Outpouring I'm an explorer who loves the ocean. And I'm an explorer who loves technology. To Excellence. I I Of be an explorer had to be a scientist. love

science. I love the pursuit of anything, and the pursuit of truth is very noble. Mother Join the world's finest rum Nature is a much nicer individual than the in the quest to regain average human. If you pursue a truth hard the America's Cup. enough, you're going to learn things. You may not bump into that truth; you may find Send your tax-deductible donation another one. The pursuit of the truth is a to the U.S. Yacht Racing Union, P.O. Box game. I think of science like the game Que, 803921, Houston, Texas 77280-3821. in which the butler did it in the library with For major credit card donations, call the candlestick. And the game is, Can you 1-800-543-1300. figure out the truth with the minimal amount of information? For donations of $10.00 or more will beautiful I also think truths are inevitable. If the we send you a "Regain

apple hadn't fallen on Newton's head, it the Cup" poster. would have fallen on someone else's a year Please remember to include later. What a scientist or a person pursuing $2.00 for postage and handling. ; truth does is precipitate something earlier With your help, we will than it would normally happen. He accel- soon join in a victory toast *>*&$?, erates it. He's a true catalyst. A catalyst with Mount Gay, fXa$ precipitates a reaction but is not con-

's finest . sumed in the reaction. I'm a catalyst that the world rum 'W' doesn't necessarily care whether my cat- \m iNTGAY alytic properties are used in science, in MOUNT GAY RUM V commercial areas, in the military, any- EXCELLENCE SINCE 1809 where. I don't want to be known as a sci-

entist. I have nothing against it, but it's not my world. Recently the question was asked,

your - What do you want on tombstone? Ex- : hum" .,:.: -.; .. ;.;: -:- -.;. ;, plorer. That's I want. what DO '1986. Imported by "21" Brands, Inc., N.Y

. ..;.:.'

& '.--WESt INDIES.'Xy' i>

' \ • ,•:„-/, 3 "

^This past May, in the wake of Haliey's Comet, renowned ufologist

J, Allen Hynek passed away

frauds. Hynek man- Back in 1910, when J. Allen Hynek was five aged to define the days old, his father UFO and character- took him up on the roof ize the UFO witness. of their home to view He also traveled the glowing trail of around the world in- Haliey's Comet. Later, vestigating cases, as chairman of the as- And to describe con- tronomy department tact between humans at Northwestern Uni- and aliens, he even versity, he told his coined the .phrase close encounters of classes, "I hope I get the third kind. to see it again before Despite his efforts I go out." He did just that this winter, when Hynek was never able Haliey's blazed across to explain the UFO. He the Northern Hemi- didn't believe intelli- sphere for the first gent life could literally time in 76 years. But traverse the vastness this past May, in the of physical space, Nor comet's wake, Hynek did he accept the no- died of a brain tumor. tion that saucers were A lifetime framed by merely illusions. He fi- visions of the great nally suggested that comet seems appro- UFOs were part of a priate for the man UFD UPDATE parallel reality, "ap- who pioneered the pearing spontane- scientific study of the. unidentified flying object, or UFO. ously within a limited area and then disappearing tea When Hynek started his career in the Forties, he pro- universe or dimension without a trace duced rigorous papers on supernovas and established a This otherworldly theory, put forth m Hyneks last years, dozen major observatories around the world, So it makes encouraged already skeptical colleagues and even some sense that when the Air Force asked him to explain hun- supporters to dismiss his case. His troubles were com- dreds of UFO reports, he told them saucers were a fad. pounded when an anonymous benefactor promised to en- Hynek the skeptic ultimately agreed to help the Air Force dow a million-dollar UFO center in Scottsdale, Arizona. Hy- defuse some of the public panic, signing on as a consultant nek left his longtime home in Evanston to start the facility, to the notorious Project Blue Book. For the next 16 years he only to find that the offer had been withdrawn. had access to a vast amount of data on UFOs. And even- Yet such struggles seem the price that must be paid by tually his view began to change. "You can't keep discounting those who challenge our mundane notions of reality, tran- reports from engineers and pilots," he said, "I realized that scending the bounds of time and space. In his finest mo- if one took their reports seriously, patterns emerged." ments Hynek saw the limits of twentieth-century science-

From the Sixties on it was those patterns that Hynek en- he spoke of twenty-first-century science, thirtieth-century deavored to explain. His obsession resulted, in 1972, in the science, and beyond, Our foremost ufologist also loved the Center for UFO Studies in Evanston, Illinois. A small opera- romance of the UFO. "I imagine myself in front of the fire- tion funded by friends, the center produced respectable place," he once said, "entertaining friends not with ghost papers in a field replete with misguided enthusiasts and stories but with one interesting UFO tale after the next." 83 "

'FRIENDLY SKIES

Though Daedalus tried to fly like a bird, aviators since the Wright brothers have been more interested in keeping as far from feathered fliers as possible. "The big- gest concern is ingestion of birds into the engine, which if the birds are big enough can result in engine failures, broken turbine blades, and the like," explains Dr. Bernard Loeb, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board's aviation engineering division. "I'm not sure how many crashes are caused by bird strikes, but they are not rare." Now Tokyo-based All-

Nippon Airways thinks it has the solution to this dangerous problem: The airline is paint- ing large eyes on the tur- bines of its 43 Boeing 727's and 747's in the hope that nature's aviators will mistake the planes for huge preda- tors and fly the other way. The black-and-white eye- cons are known as "double- offset spinner markings," reports Sugi Uchi, All-Nip- pon's New York representa- tive. "We have been studying them since 1984 and tested were idling, and all I saw was a blur, it's not going to be them on a 747 last year. I do not have statistics to prove clearer at top speed. that they are effective in 'Just the same, the principle preventing accidents, but it's isn't bad. It might help to worth trying." The paint job give the turbines some kind costs only $40, he notes, of special identification while bird strikes cost some that the birds can learn to $600,000 a year in repairs- recognize and stay away Will the novel technique from. Offhand I'd say that work? Mike Harrison, bird- strobe lights are a lot more strike: specialist for the Fed- likely to work than painted-on eral Aviation Administration, eyes."—Owen Davies chuckles. "I've seen the marking on only one air- "Virgins go mad in the end. plane," he says. "The engines —James Joyce OMNI " "

epidemic? "He destroyed all potential human carriers of A virulent epidemic spread the disease by executing primarily by sexual contact them," Gwilt explains. "That's may sound like AIDS, a a course of action that would disease unique to the latter be unacceptable today." part of the twentieth century. According to Gwilt, the Bi-

But according to. British ble is loaded with descrip- chemist John Gwilt, who has tions of human ills, from heart studied medical references attacks and epilepsy to hy- in the Bible for over a decade, pothermia and sudden infant the ancient Israelites may death syndrome. The Bible have suffered an AIDS- reports not only on current like plague of their own. diseases, he adds, but on a Gwilt, who is a vice presi- few that have yet to befall dent of the New York-based humankind, "in Zechariah, for

Sterling Drug Inc., points example, it says, Their out that a deadly, sexually flesh shall rot while they stand transmitted disease is de- on their feet, their eyes shall rot in their sockets, and their tongues shall rot in their notoriety for suggesting that

mouths,' " Gwilt states. urine might enhance his "That strongly suggests When Morarji Desai be- clients' health. a nuclear-plant meltdown came India's prime minister in Urine has also been used or a nuclear war." 1975, people were shocked to cleanse skin. Another —Sherry Baker to learn that he drank his own man from Yorkshire, for in- urine—straight. But the news stance, recently told Stead "He would dream perhaps didn't rattie Jennifer Stead that his grandmother "washed

once a week that it had ail of Leeds, England, who has her face with urine, then been a dream, been studying the folk uses demanded a kiss from us be- —Thomas Pynchon of urine for years. The. act fore we left for school." The of drinking urine is common rinse seemed to work, adds "I have often wished to not only in India, says Stead, Stead, since the man could become an insect but could but also in the West. In fact, remember nary a wrinkle never attain my desire. during the Twenties a York- on his grandma's face. —Fyodor Dostoyevski shire herbalist gained some And English housewives have historically used urine to scribed in the Bible in the bleach aprons, remove twenty-fifth chapter of Num- linen stains, and wash clothes. bers. "The Israelites had "Women would trample bare- been partying with' Moabite foot on clothes in tubs of religious prostitutes, and they urine," she says, "then rinse

became very ill and began the lot in a stream." dying," Gwilt says. Although Urine has even been used the 24,000 deaths mentioned ' in weddings. One Yorkshire in this account may not be sexton scrubbed his church accurate (Gwilt suspects that steps with urine before the transcribers inadvertently ceremony, says Stead. And increased the figure from the technique proved a great 2,400), the plague clearly success, since "the church represented a very serious steps in the photos came threat to the Israelites. up lovely and white." How did Moses stop the —Ivor Smuilen dye and the headaches that recycled and used in small, cost her powers, and he portable reactors that require ordered the jury not to con- refueling only once every sider them. After deliberating 20 years. Such reactors, for an hour, the jury awarded moreover, would free home- Haimes $986,465.75. owners from community

"It's a bizarre case," says power companies.

the hospital's lawyer, Richard In pursuit of that goal, the Galli. "The jury must have veteran of 35 years in the taken her psychic claims into nuclear industry receives consideration." $100 a day, plus expenses, Since then Galli has filed from the John Birch Society's

an appeal. But Lieberman is American Opinion Speakers certain that Haimes wili win. Bureau to travel around

After all, he says, "My client the country. He's also a con- was clearly a bona fide sultant for E- J. Crosby and psychic."— Douglas Starr Associates, a Richland, Washington, company that wants to purchase all the spent fuel in the United - Nuclear engineer Galen States. Winsor has a dramatic way of But NRC's Robert Alex- getting attention: He eats ander doubts that Winsor has uranium oxide, What's more, been completely unaffected

he insists it's harmless. by his unusual diet and would auras," says her lawyer, Joel "Regular physical exams not suggest that anyone

Lieberman. But her head- indicate the radioactive ura- else try it. Among other ef- A Philadelphia jury has aches make the readings too nium has had no deleterious fects, Alexander points out, awarded a psychic nearly $1 painful "It has destroyed effect on my body," he says. radioactive uranium can million for a medical proce- her practice completely." "But it does make me radio- damage the kidneys, killing dure that she claims ruined During the trial, members active, and according to most of the cells. "You'll never her psychic ability, of the New Jersey and Penn- government regulations I'd know it until disease strikes," Judith Richardson Haimes sylvania crime commissions have to be buried three says the chief of radiation had a thriving practice as testified that Haimes's abili- thousand feet deep," risk. "Even a doctor wouldn't a psychic consultant until ties had helped them locate Winsor's unusual diet, know because seventy- 1976, when she went to bodies and solve crimes. however, isn't mere idiosyn- five percent of the kidney can

Temple University Hospital A doctor testified that she had crasy. It is part of his cam- be destroyed and still pass for a CAT scan. She had psychically diagnosed ill- paign to convince the public a kidney-function test." been suffering from recurrent nesses. Haimes testified that that the Nuclear Regulatory Winsor disagrees. "The tumors for years, and her the CAT scan had cost her Commission (NRC) and truth is, if you haven't been doctor thought she should more than just her business: the federal energy cartel are thermally burned by radioac- have a more thorough exam. Her son was in a car acci- sabotaging the development tive material you really don't As part of the procedure dent that she failed to predict. of nuclear energy. "The have a problem," he says. she was injected with an io- The defense had planned cost of electrical energy is "And I guarantee you, there dine-based dye. She suf- to present magician James ten times what it would be if are no people anywhere with fered a short-term allergic re- Randi, among others, to the government's nuclear enough of it in their bodies action of headaches and show that Haimes's psychic regulations were removed," to harm them." He plans vomiting. She also had hives powers were not real. But he argues. The so-called to continue demonstrating

for a month , Worse, she before they could do it the nuclear waste, he adds, is "a the harmless effects of says, she continued to have judge had had enough, commodity almost equal uranium until the government headaches so severe that He ruled that Haimes's law- to the national debt." Instead stops burying and wasting they interfered with her yers had failed to show a of burying the spent fuel, valuable spent fuel. psychic ability. "She reads legal relationship between the Winsor believes it should be — Kevin McKii time hunting for food underwater. Over the ized in the emergence of an aquatic ape. CITIES next several million years evolution incor- Morgan is the first to admit that the the- porated the physical capabilities neces- ory is held by a distinct minority of scien- CONTINUED FROM PAGE 40 sary to sustain a partially aquatic life-style. tists, and it will remain that way until some- diving outside to swim happily for hours, When the seas receded, the australopithe- one finds some 2-million- to 5-million-year- unencumbered by hardware of any kind. cines returned to the savanna and even- old australopithecine fossils in the Danakil Once man has settled on the seafloor, tually passed their genetic endowment Alps. And even the most enthusiastic pro- nature may take up where technology along to Homo sapiens. ponents of the aquatic-ape theory would leaves off. There is already a tantalizing This theory was originally drawn out by admit that for the moment there are phys- suggestion that the evolution of man's German biologist Max Westenhofer and iological problems that make it impossible ancestors included a long aquatic phase, British marine biologist Sir Alistair Hardy for contemporary man to become a fully holding out the possibility that latent within and later developed by Welsh writer-re- aquatic creature. At depths greater than Homo sapiens is the genetic raw material searcher Elaine Morgan in her book The 48 feet nitrogen builds up in the blood- that could engender a sea-dwelling spe- Aquatic Ape. It has been offered to ex- stream, producing the well-known "rapture cies, Homo aquaticus. plain a number of curious quirks of the hu- of the deep," which can fatally disorient a

Some of the clues may lie in the Danakil man anatomy. These include our relative diver. The human body tends to retain car- Alps, a particularly forbidding stretch in the hairlessness and well-developed layer of bon dioxide, which can cause blackouts, backlands of Ethiopia where a series of subcutaneous fat. (Both, the theory goes, even death by asphyxiation. Ascending too craggy, almost lunar mountains rises 4,000 are of little value in most terrestrial environ- rapidly from the depths can bring on the feet out of a lava and basalt desert. With ments but are of value in water. Less hair bends, a painful and sometimes fatal re- scrub growth clinging like an afterthought means less water resistance and faster action to rapid decompression. And dal- to the few cracks in the rock where mois- swimming speed, and the layer of fat offers lying too long in cold water can induce hy- ture can linger, it is the unlikeliest of set- protection from the cold.) The curiously low pothermia and fatigue. tings for the emergence of what one set of placement of the larynx, a potential dis- But the idea that man may be physiolog- theorists has taken to calling the aquatic advantage on land because it can impede ically equipped for at least a part-time un- ape. Sometime between 2 million and 5 breathing and swallowing, allows man both derwater existence refuses to go away. It million years ago advancing seas en- to close down his airway and to hold his is well-known, for example, that when hu- croached upon the Danakil Alps and all breath and swallow food while sub- man babies are immersed early and fre- but isolated them in a swampy marshland. merged. These features, argues Morgan, quently for short stays underwater, they In this region, some believe, lived a small are rare among land mammals—virtually adapt quickly and happily. In the Soviet group of australopithecines—the upright unique to primates—-but are found routine- Union and among the Tupis-Guaranis of apes widely regarded as man's distant ly among such aquatic mammals as seals, Brazil, babies are delivered underwater ancestor. Separated from their savanna sea lions, and dolphins. Their origin, she and gently trained to swim immediately food sources, they survived the only way thinks, can best be explained by an aquatic after the umbilical cord is cut. In other'parts they could: by spending more and more phase in human evolution that was real- of the world, the pearl divers of Japan and Korea and the Barua of New Guinea rou- tinely dive to depths of 40 feet. Given a few million years of submarine civilization, evolution might produce-a new ' - •- ^s. ;,...,..,,, &n-i . T^v race of Homo aquaticus. Such a man might o d+t /"l3M ' Xi O ^/»' WU^^« y l^ o m^ have the inborn ability to extract oxygen +B , I ^f^5-'JXQ-i5'i«+>^os[76X ll.bA/x|(vrs-K>iX7-fefc<")>^&v.nyx'?o' c >c from seawater and to shed carbon dioxide and nitrogen from his body. According to Belgian physician and researcher Mark Verhaegen, a proponent of the aquatic-ape theory, man's neurophysiology might be transformed to function better in a liquid

atmosphere: It would change to make such an aquatic species more at ease in the water. His vision would be diminished, but his hearing would be more acute. Most

startling is Verhaegen's image of how the human form might change shape to ac- commodate the hydrodynamics needed to move swiftly and gracefully through the water: Legs would be reduced and slightly atrophied, but the feet would be broader; J " V »«»x-cli- V3TTTT X 9.* Z*(yj and the body would be practically hairless X XFs fx V/V , wXi but equipped with more subcutaneous fat. ^x^ t ^ ^ ^^^^ ^V&xv / "In other words," he concludes, "more like a seal or a dolphin."

Although Rougerie is sanguine about the idea that we had an aquatic forebear in our evolutionary past or that there may be a newly evolved aquatic human in our future, he does not discount the possibilities. How profoundly man transforms himself into a

creature of the seas is a matter future gen- erations will have to decide. As a Jules Verne quotation hanging on Rougerie's wall declares: anything that one man can IMAGINE, ANOTHER MAN CAN REALIZE. DO —

EXPLDRATOrUS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20 and Miranda at 20 miles per second, a speed that made our one-mile-per-hour traverse of the rise seem ludicrous by comparison. (But, oh, to be able to study Miranda in such detail!) Ballard and the others knew me well enough to guess where my mind was. My habit of thinking about space while at the same time look- ing at the bottom of the ocean was not as strange as it seemed at first. Indeed, Bal- lard was largely responsible for it. Years ago Jesse Stoff (a physician at Leonard Hospital in Great Barrington,

Massachusetts) and I came up with models suggesting that underground streams once existed inside asteroids and that actual oceans might now exist inside certain icy moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and

Neptune. I remember asking Jesse early in 1979 what the hypothetical beasties in those oceans could be eating. On what do you base a food chain inside a world, where there is no sunlight, where chlorophyll the molecule that sustains life on this planet—cannot possibly function? Jesse was ready for me. He had stacks of papers from Ballard, whose team had just made one of the biological discoveries of the century. Protruding from the bottom like or- gan pipes, hot springs on the East Pacific Rise were spouting continuous jets of sul- fide-laden water. Bacteria living near the springs were slowly burning, or oxidizing, hydrogen sulfide and using it as a source of energy. Around the springs the ocean floor had become an oasis, supporting dense communities of clams, mussels, :e jack Daniel's Lynch! limpets, and crabs, with the bacteria form- ing the base of the food chain. One spe- cies of worm grew 12 feet long and lived AFTER A DAY'S WORK in Jack Daniel's in clusters of thousands. The worms, how- ever, did not feed on the bacteria but were Country, folks unwind with checkers and lemonade. themselves carbohydrate-producing or- ganisms, the only animals on Earth known Our oldtime distillery is located here in Lynchburg, to synthesize their own food, like plants. They had no stomachs, no digestive sys- Tennessee, a country town that's legally dry. So tem at all. Not even a mouth. Ballard had found creatures that drew even folks who make Jack Daniel's whiskey—like life from sulfides instead of sunlight. Hav- aren't allowed ing seen them, Jesse and I thought im- Bill Durm and Foote Scott here— mediately of the stony, claylike meteorites we had been studying. They were chock- to buy a single drop! It's an unusual law, that's full of sulfides. And lo, the moon next door never to Europa, was spewing mountains of the for sure. But we've stuff, so it was reasonable to expect lite- complained about it much. sustaining sulfides in Europa and in still other ice worlds waiting to be discovered. You see, as long as the "What is the most you can hope to find out there," asked Ballard, "when Voyager law lets us go on making flies past Uranus next month?" whiskey "Oceans," I said. Jack Daniel's, we don't f l 'And what is the most you can hope to see in those oceans, assuming they exist, mind going someplace and assuming you can breakthrough miles of ice, and assuming anyone is ever willing else to order it. to give you a budget to explore them?"

"Sulfide oases; life; even fishlike things." "Then look down here," he said. "We al- CHARCOAL MELLOWED FOR SMOOTHNESS ready have what you want."DO Which of the following vacations can water on space shuttle flights is VISIONS you choose? (More than one answer is dumped overboard. When the space acceptable.) station becomes operational and as CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4A a. a flight to the national monument at many as eight crew members have 90- 10. You are a member of the engineering the Sea of Tranquility day tours of duty, how will human team designing the space station, and b. luxury accommodations and zero- wastes be handled? (More than one you know that there will be eight crew gravity recreation at the orbiting answer is acceptable.) members during the first few years of High Hilton a. they will be dehydrated and operation. How many bathrooms will c. a circumnavigation of the earth- dumped overboard you plan for the crew quarters? moon system b. they will be returned to Earth in the

a. 8 c. 3 d. an African wildlife safari space shuttle b. 4 d. 2 e. atrip to Disneyspace c. they will be used as fertilizer in the 11. Some experts believe that the first 13. Astronauts do not snore in weightless- green module sexual encounter between a man and ness. Why is this? d. liquids will be purified, recycled, a woman in space will occur before a. their breathing during sleep is shal- and added to the water supply the year 2000. Newton's laws of mo- low and slow, and there is not e. solids will be freeze-dried and used

tion, of course, still apply in weight- enough air to vibrate the uvula as reaction propellant for the space

lessness: Every action is opposed by b. cabin atmosphere is oxygen rich, station thrusters an equal and opposite reaction. But and the tissue does not vibrate 16. During preflight training at the John- given the unique conditions of weight- c. weightlessness causes the soft son Space Center your sensory re- lessness, how will couples be able to palate to float sponses are tested under many con- prevent themselves from physically 14. You are finally spacebound after years ditions and are found to be normal. You flying away from each other during ro- of training. During the first few hours in understand, however, that some of your mantic interludes? (More than one an- orbit your body adapts to weightless- senses become severely limited dur-

swer is acceptable.) ness in many ways. One important ing spaceflight. Which senses? (More

a. they will wear an elastic sex belt to change occurs in your circulatory sys- than one answer is acceptable.) hold themselves together tem, and a major shift in blood occurs. a. hearing d. taste b. robotic arms will be employed to To where does the blood shift? b. sight e. touch help couples remain united a. from the legs and arms to the mid- c. smell

c. enclosures with adjustable walls will section, including the genitals 17. You become taller during spaceflight, be built in the space station b. from the lower part of the body to a. true b. false d. no one knows for sure the upper torso and head 18. Time is big money in space, and lei-

12. It is 2020, and space tourism is avail- c. from the head and neck to the heart sure time is therefore at a premium. able and affordable for many people. 15. The Apollo astronauts left their body When astronauts do have a chance to You are planning a two-week vacation. wastes on the lunar surface. Waste relax after their busy workdays, what are their favorite activities? (More than

one answer is acceptable.)

a. conversation in the galley b. weightless acrobatics

c. Earth watching d. reading

e. playing cards

f . dart games played with Velcro- tipped darts

19. It has been said that your heart goes on vacation during spaceflight be-

cause it doesn't have to work as hard

as it does under gravity. In 1998 you are on a space station tour of duty that lasts for 90 days. What is the best ex- ercise to keep your cardiovascular system in good shape? a. zero-g jogging with feet held by elastic bungee cords b. treadmill exercise c. spending time in the lower-body negative pressure tank d. sex

e. pedaling a bicycle ergometer 20. During the Apollo voyages to the moon, the return trip to Earth was faster than the moon-bound trajectory. Why? a. there was no longer a reason to conserve fuel, and the rocket burn was longer for the return trip b. the returning spacecraft was much lighter after the moon expeditions c. the gravitational influences were different d. exposure to solar radiation be- came more hazardous during the trans-Earth trajectory 21. Because a conventional shower can- show that REM sleep decreases not possibly work in zero g, how will slightly during spaceflight.) GARDEN the space station astronauts keep 4. e 5. c CONTINUED FROM PAGE 50 clean during their three-month mis- 6. c, d. Give yourself half a point for each sions in space? correct response. but Tomimuri and Habishi. Why then had a. they will use prepacked and treated 7. c the ship come? Why did the computer

washcloths and towelettes on a 8. b, c, d. Give yourself a third of a point consider it unauthorized? daily basis for each correct response. "Watson-san?"

b. they will use personal, hand-held 9. a 10. d "Hai, Livingston-san?"

water dispenser/vacuums that 11. a, b, c, d. Give yourself a quarter of a "I need some more help." wash, lather, rinse, and collect the point for each correct response. "[Click] Detail nature of inquiry, and this wash water 12. b, c, d, e. Give yourself a quarter of a program will attempt to provide appropri- c. they will use showers that force the point for each correct response. ate command structure [click]."

water downward with airflow 13. c 14. b "I want to know what that ISF ship is doing d. they will use large bath bubbles 15. b, d. Give yourself half a point for each up there, for one thing." filled with water, with watertight col- correct response. "You must request backtrace and ex- lars to keep their heads clear 16. c, d (Redistribution of the body's blood trapolative report, specifying vessel in 22. The Skylab space station of the early volume in zero g congests the head question by either name or location and

Seventies had onboard the first space and sinuses and degrades smell and establishing commencement and termi- food freezer, which stowed such gus- taste.) Give yourself half a point for nation dates." tatory delights as ice cream and prime each correct response. "Okay, Watson-san, give me a back- ribs. The space station will have an 17. a (Body height increases because of trace and an extrapolative report on the " even larger food freezer to provide as- spinal lengthening caused by addi- ISF ship now in, urn—" what'd it say"? — tronauts with a wide selection of fresh- tional fluid between the discs.) twenty-three-minute equatorial orbit around

frozen foods and prepared meals. 18. b, c. Give yourself half a point for each this asteroid, commencing, urn, when it left

What will be the most popular entree correct response. its last port of call and terminating in twenty- among the following? 19. b 20. c 21. c four hours." a. surf and turf, with hot butter 22. c (Spicy space foods taste best be- "[Click] Ankai Maru departed Shin Edo b. chicken and rice cause the head is stuffed up, and taste eighteen November2021 on three-year re- c. shrimp creole and smell are adversely affected.) connaissance mission of asteroid belt, with d. vegetable casserole 23. b 24, b primary focus on distribution and density 23. Why did NASA managers decide that 25. b (Designers will incorporate ad- of Celestial Equity liverock prospectors, space station astronauts should fly vanced recycling systems.) and secondary focus on identifying and locating ninety percent probable liverock three-month-long missions? SPACE APTITUDE a. because serious bone deteriora- gardens. Twenty-two February 2023 Ankai tion occurs after this period Tally your points and find out which cat- Maru encountered flotilla of seven fully b. because they had no data from a egory applies to you. equipped Belt Breakers; brief engage- longer manned spaceflight 0-6: Earthbound. Very probably you love ment broached hull integrity of Ankai Maru c. because cardiovascular irregulari- quizzes more than you love the manned [click]. Three of seven crew members died

ties increase dramatically after 100 spaceflight program. If your aptitude for fi- in battle. Four survivors placed in medi-

days in weightlessness nance is better than your aptitude for freeze by boarding party and remain in d. because they wanted to offer more space, you could become an earthbound medi-freeze as hostages against Imperial flight opportunities to a greater financial analyst of future commercial ac- Space Force missiles." number of astronauts tivities on the high frontier, but you'll have Livingston shuddered. Medi-freeze sus- 24. Many scenarios for future exploration to learn a lot more about space first. pended metabolic activity successfully for of the solar system exist both within and 7-12: Looking Skyward. You take personal periods up to two years, but that poor crew

outside NASA. After a manned Mars pride in our space accomplishments and had slept in ice for going on seven years

expedition, what will be the most likely want to know more. If you did well with the already. "Watson-san!" destination for a manned space mis- practical landing, maneuvering, and repair "Hai, Livingston-san!" sion in the twenty-first century? questions, you could be spacebound by "What are the survivors' chances of a. Jupiter's icy moon Europa the turn of the century. emerging undamaged from medi-freeze?" b. the asteroid belt 13-18: Space Station Bound. Your space 'Average probability of permanent skin c. Saturn's atmosphere-cloaked moon aptitude and knowledge are above aver- damage, 0.857; probability of permanent Titan age. You realize that our destiny as a spe- organ damage, excluding brain and spinal

d. None. Mars will keep us busy for at cies is inextricably bound to our future cord, 0.739; probability of permanent bone least 100 years spacefaring accomplishments. And you damage, 0.644; probability of permanent 25. A space station crew of eight will use agree with the Russian space pioneer brain and/or central nervous system dam- some 44,000 pounds of water every Konstantin Tsioikovsky, who wrote, "This age, 0.579. Average probability of emerg-

year, and the costs of supplying this Earth is the cradle of mankind; but man- ing undamaged is 0.006."

water will be tremendous. The space kind cannot stay in the cradle forever." The He would be doing them a favor if he

shuttle will have to make at least one space station beckons you, and if it is your ordered Watson-san to run Program Arrow

dedicated water-supply flight a year. goal to serve on the high frontier before the on their ship. If they were anything like

a. true b. false end of this century, you will be there. Tomimuri and Habishi. . . .

19-25: Commander the Frontier. If Once, late of an evening, as Tomimuri's OMNI QUIZSCORECARD on High you scored at the top end of this range, you magic brush inscribed Habishi's latest Here are the answers. Give yourself a may already be an astronaut or at least a haiku on a bolt of pure white silk, unleash- point for each matching answer (or frac- candidate at the Johnson Space Center. ing the thought in space as well as in time, tions of a point where indicated). Then find You have demonstrated an extraordinary they spoke of the inevitable. Tomimuri had your Omni Future Quotient. Are you ready knowledge ot space and a practical apti- said, "The way of the warrior leads always for Earth orbit or a trip to Mars? tude for carrying out its activities. You are to death. All the sweeter, then, the life en

1. b 2. c one of a chosen few with the "right stuff" to route. What I fear is not the road's end but 3. d (Sleep studies of the Skylab missions become a spacefaring leader.DO its shoulder—to know the way without 92 OMNI being able to walk it is more frightening

than any other thought I can imagine." Habishi had frowned into his tea, then pursed his lips and said, "Yes, that is the way of the way." Looking up again, Livingston quartered the sky with his gaze. They orbited less than four kilometers high; he should be able to spot them, unless they were on the other

side of the asteroid. . . . "Living ston-san?" "Yes, Watson-san?" "You interrupted this program's report on Ankai Maru. Should this program continue or terminate?" He waved a weary hand in the direction of Shin Matsumoto Base. "Let me just ask

a few questions: First of all, I thought you were supposed to warn us if anything came within a thousand kilometers of the base." "Ah so, but Ankai Maru pulsed proper ISF IDs and informed this program she carried high-ranking ISF officials desirous of conducting surprise inspection of Shin Matsumoto Base. Such information caused Override Subroutine to prevent initiation of Incoming Warning Program." "Uh-huh." He nodded glumly to himself.

"Was it the Ankai Maru that bombed the hangar?" "Hai." "Does she have more bombs?" "Hai." The hijacked ISF ship carried four" of her original crew. Bombs enough to blast Liv~ ingston-san and Watson-san outside Ju- piter's orbit. And someone willing to use those bombs. Someone willing to kill the eleven surviving liverocks for the cash their gem-souls would bring. "Watson-san!" "Hai, Livingston-san?" "Run Program Arrow on the Ankai Maru." "[click] Apologies, Livingston-san, but authority insufficient." "What the hell does that mean?" "Only commissioned ISF officer at staff level or above or individual appropriately authorized by CinCBelt can orderthis pro- gram to jeopardize ISF lives."

"You . . . you refuse to shoot down the Ankai Maru?"

"This program is unable to run Program Arrow except on command of sufficiently authorized individual." Yes, yes, he could see that, though he wished he did not have to. Watson had not dug in its metaphorical heels. Watson was paralyzed. Somewhere in its program a statement or two, aware of Livingston's lack of rank, had evaluated a conditional ine- quality and then disabled the launch rou- tine for the surface-to-air missiles. For the first time since leaving the Uni- versity of Oregon, Livingston wished he had devoted less of his life to saving the helpless victims of technology and more of it to mastering the technology itself. Fluency in computer programming would sure come in handy. Back to the original plan, then. Load the liverocks aboard the sled—whenever it " ,

showed up, which it ought to any minute now— hide them, get some sort of weapon from the base, and hold off the poachers ENTER until reinforcements arrived. COMB: "Oh, no." He sank to his knees, oblivious THE CANON to the hard, cold stone beneath them. "Watson-san!" E-X-P-A-N-D-A-B-L-E PHOTO "Hal, Livingston-san?" LEATHER BRIEFCASES "Have you notified Mars HQ— uh, Shin CONTEST, WIN AN Edo Command—yet?" "No, Watson-san, order to broadcast has not been issued." ADVENTURE

"Well, do it, dammit!" "Syntax error, Livingston-san." ON THE He clenched his teeth. "Watson-san. Notify ISF Headquarters at Shin Edo on SALMON RIVER! Mars that two shiploads of poachers have Enter Canon's "LIFE IN AMERICA" attacked, killing Habishi-san and Torni- muri-san, as well as destroying the fighter. Photo Contest and you could win Request assistance ASAR" one of four exciting trips for two "Syntax error, Livingston-san." down the Middle Fork of Idaho's "Oh, Jesus Christ, Watson-san, you know Salmon River, including round-trip what I want to do, would you please just help me out here?" airfare, accommodations for six "[click click] You must request Program TWO cases at ONE low nights, seven days (4 night, 5 day 1 Midnight Scream, details provided from this price! IS //' long Unsnap four river trip), ground transportation, e-x-p-a-n-d-a-b-l-e case program's memory banks." straps for and 16%" banker's food and provisions while on the 1 Va inch of He sighed. "Watson-san! Run Program case. Black or burgundy. extra depth! in spending money plus Midnight Scream, provide details from your river, S500 memory banks." NOW buy at a LOW Closeout Price a waterproof Canon Aqua Snappy "Password of the day?" because of a manufacturer's overstock! AS-6 camera and an 8" x 10" Ansel lining and "Ryoan-ji." Both cases have rich suede-like generous pockets for organizing contents. Adams Special Edition Print! "Running." Also, COMBINATION LOCKS to protect encourage you to get your 'And where's that sled?" We damn your confidential material. Don't miss this shoot "[click] Commencing climb of outer cra- extraordinary chance to save! camera out right now and to ter wall. ETA your position six minutes thirty you've taken Large Case. It's 13&" H x 1§W W x AVi" D, win! Or, enter a photo

plus or minus forty-five seconds." if seconds and easily expands an extra 1 W in depth recently. But be sure to enter! 'All right. Thank you." He settled into the you need extra room. Bonus Banker's There are 376 prizes in all, worth shadow of a boulder to minimize the Case. Perfect for meetings where you need only a few documents. 11" H x 16Yz" W x chance that his suit would reflect light. over $50,000! 2Vj" D. Choose burgundy or black leather. Six minutes. Long enough to grab a $ snack. He pressed the controls, and a tube Compare At 229.00 Your $1.00 Entry Fee slipped into his mouth. is contribution to the God, what he would give for a steak and Liquidation Price a

For Set of . . *69 a beer. He hated suitfood. Seaweed mush TWO Wilderness Society's washed down with brackish water sucked Ansel Adams Collection from an opaque tube. Although maybe he should be grateful for the tube's opacity. Credit card customers c 24 hours Our overall theme is "Life in America." All water probably brown. The was 35mm SLR owners (any brand) may compete in three Grumbling to himself, he looked around. subject categories: PEOPLE (94 prizes), PLACES (94 And mellowed. Eleven auras shone bright Toll-Free: 1-800-328-0609 prizes) and SPORTS (94 prizes). There will be a and complex and alluring. He shook his separate 35mm competition for non-SLR owners (any brand), with 94 prizes and an open subject category. head. Mozarts or mockingbirds, it didn't A $1.00 contribution to the Wilderness Society's matter. For the chance to study liverocks, C.O.M.B. Direct Marketing Corp. Item H-1330 14605 28th Ave. N. /Minneapolis, MN 55441-3397 Ansel Adams Collection is your entry fee. Canon will for the chance to someday comprehend Send Leather Briefcase(s) indicated below at $69 per set match your dollar if your entry was taken with a plus $5.75 per set for shipping, handling. (Minnesota their songs, he would live in the damn suit Canon camera. 5" x 7" color prints made from residents add 6% sales tax. Sorry, no C.O.D. orders.} if die in it, protect need be. And to them. Send Burgundy, Item H-1 330-3280-021 (Set of 2) original 35mm negatives or transparencies taken A flicker of motion caught his eye. About Send Black, Item H-1 330-3280-01 3 (Set oi 2) after August 1st, 1985, are eligible. All entries must My check or money order is enclosed. (No ix-jiays in be received by September 1st, 1986. Complete rules to rise T'Sl'.-lCl'ifi"*.: time the sled arrived. He began and ::- l. regulations are provided on the official entry squatted down again immediately. Charge: VISA- MasterCards- American Express and Acct No Exp_^ form available at your authorized Canon dealer The Ankai Maru came in fast and level. PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY or by writing to: PHOTO CONTEST, Canon U.S.A. It spat a rocket that leapt ahead of the ship Inc., One Canon Plaza, Lake Success, N.Y. 11042. to dive into the outside wall of the crater. Requests must be received by August 1st, 1986. The stone beneath Livingston quivered. He Limit: one request per envelope. Open to U.S. blinked, and the recon ship vanished be- residents, 16 years of age or older. Void in Vermont and where prohibited by law. Contest closes hind his back. His earphones crackled. September 1st, 1986. "Livingston-san!" "Yes, Watson-san?" "Sled destroyed. Should this program COMB Direct Marketing Corp. dispatch replacement?" Authorized Liquidator "You might as well, Watson-san, al- 14605 28th Avenue North Canon — Minneapolis, Minnesota 55441-3397 though I don't © ART CUM1N0S

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O.K. Big (juy \ m? jrjk

Everyone likes to be needed

#> — —

He never saw the ship itself. The rocket, though, ah, that he saw. It lanced toward the center of the crater as adrenaline THE RICHER TASTE slowed his time sense to a crawl. Long and lean, the missile wore a painted shark grin and stenciled lettering that read fragmen- OF MYERS'S ALWAYS tation. The warhead, striking, would splat- ter shrapnel throughout the crater. He COMES THROUGH. twisted all the way around. I'm supposed to get a gun and defend my rocks! Hot bits of jagged metal would scythe down the liverocks, killing them, baring their crystalline souls to the stars. He dove over the top of the boulder in search of shelter. I'm supposed to fight off the poachers, not— Light flashed behind him. Upside down, head and torso behind the boulder, he waited to touch the ground. He would have a few minutes before the Ankai Maru landed, minutes he could use to Fire scorched his right ankle, then faded to frost. He gasped as his suit lost pres- sure. A metal ring built into the leg of his suit contracted on his calf and tightened instantly. The spurt of arterial blood froze in mid- air and drifted slowly, oh so slowly, to the ground. He blacked out before his helmet rang on rock— but not before knowing he had failed. Again.

The voice murmured in his ears like muted surf: "Livingston-san." ." "Ye . . . e . . . ss. . . "Wake up now, Livingston-san."

"Wat. . .son?" "Hai." He blinked his eyes open. He lay on his back in his own bunk at Shin Matsumoto Base. There was something strange about that, but he could not put his finger on it. He sat up slowly. Yes, he had to be at Shin Matsumoto Base. He had left Yellowstone two years ago, rode the shuttle to Shin Edo via L5, linked up with Tomimuri, gazed ap- preciatively at pictures of the smiling ma- rine's nieces, and

CREDITS

; :s. Page 8 left, Dr. Ne l R. Swan'oerg; page 8 center left, - i-a: \\; page 8 center right, Don Dixon; page 8 center,

Reqer DeLV page S rigli i i page 14, !kjq \e 15 ,er- s.:y of Minnesota; page 20, Will am Lang s/ Woods Hole

i !: n; ;. i.e. i 24, Helmut Wirnrner; page 28 top, Jim Anderson/Black Slar; page 28 bottom, Colby Caranicas; page 29 top,

ii i v.,." he !". :, 30 bottom, Movie 3:ii: Arcnvcs: e 30 iop Univc-'svy Pa9 :

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31 bottom, Tony Recht, Ph.D.; page 32, Olqa 3c ece . page 33 top loUom, Oca ..... • :,'. .! . archers; page '".: -f 52, D- Me i Sv, a nee re; page 53 top left, Langdon B Ouerir and Robin M. Ross; page 53 top center. L R page 53

' ! I : . v.-' top right, i_ani ; Cuech n , . 53 bottom, <;: Dr Ncii =f Sv.'ancc.'g: page 54 top, Jc-fi

Roirnan; page 54 bottom, L. P Iv'adm.'Wtod:; I Isle

..'.'.*:' ', ; 54 center, _angdO'" 3 0.,e:i- arc koI;:i:- M Pecs, page 55 fop, - :> Nc- It your Daiquiris taste like you torpor the nun.

Swanberg; page 55 bottom, -arigrion d. C...e;'.i sr"i :: "ict: "i

' .' i : vl M psg. 56, . i n Q ic: :dss; Its Jeep, ! re not mixing with Myers s Original uark. page 57, Langdon B. Q..e r arc .i.;;:r M !-"-.o; .: p^;;e you 52, En cry Kr sioh'S Nanc'ia 1 Ge-cgraoiVc See evc'ccui- tecy or vVocciE Hole Ccea~og-aoh : c Institution; page 70, delicious Jamaican taste always comes through...... i .... , /. „ i i

i /in i !; : ;!.!!. . rep.blshec av :J, apor ' ->w Avr-ilable n vie United States from B. Dalton Bookseller; page 84. i-vi i r-ngs MIX AWAY. Beltnanr Archive; TASTE 86 left and bottom, "he page 86 MYERS'S.THE WONT right, Mara Qua:;!: page 37, '.-r :y.h fi:;.-i-.:;:i.-vV:;odl n Carnp; page 102, Vittorio Sartor.

!:;; < r'i' ! AVi;; VVSRS^R'JM.SOF'R.V' !\'(VK:: .^\;';ViM:':^ <; C i \>MM> i SO\ HA VO .^i^ "Unh." He sank back. Now he remem-

GIANT bered. . . . Then he frowned. His bare right The Rio Grande foot and ankle looked fine. He wiggled his HEAVY DUTY toes thoughtfully. He could have sworn . . . a dream? No. Not with those two hollows INFLATABLE BOATS Cutthroat Trout in his heart. The samurai of Shin Matsu- moto Base were dead. As the alien singers 2 MAN $38 are biting had to be. " Watson -s an?" He forced himself to rise 3 MAN $50 and reach for his clothes. at Forbes "Hai, Livingston-san?" 4 MAN $65 : 'You did a good job on my right foot." Call Free "Medi-freeze and autodoc programs ran The Next 30 Days Before Midnight For Magazine's at one hundred percent efficiency, Living- As part of an advertising test. Dunlap Boat Mfg. will 7 ston-san." send any of the above size boats to anyone who reads He stopped. "You froze me?" and responds lo this test before the next 30 days. 400-square-mile Each Boat Lot No. (Z-26 PVC) is constructed of tough "Apologies for insufficient consultation, high density fabric (resistant to abrasions, sunlight, Livingston-san, but circumstances seemed salt & oil), electronically welded embossed seams, Trinchera Ranch to require hasty initiation of Program Last nylon safety line grommeted all around, heavy duty oar locks, 3 separate air chambers for extra saiety (4 Survivor. Your condition indicated need for air chambers in 4-man), self-locking safety valves, regeneration; medi-freeze essential for bow lifting & towing handle and are recommended for in the Colorado successful completion. Is there pain?" marine, ocean and iresh water recreation, camping, fishing or a family fun boat. Each boat will be accom- "No." He lifted his left foot off the floor, panied with a LIFETIME guarantee that it must per- Rockies-and bounced lightly on the toes of his right foot, form 100% or it will be replaced free. Add $7 handling and shook his head in wonderment. "None & crating for each boat requested. Dunlap Boa! Mfg.

I pays all shipping. If your order is received within the at all. . . . How long was out for?" next ten days you will receive FREE a combined you're invited to "Eighteen months, Livingston-san." hand/foot inflator/ deflator bellows style pump lor It took while to digest that. "Wh—why each boat requested. Should you wish to return your a boat you may do so for a refund. Any letter post- try your luck. so long?" marked after 30 days will be returned. LIMIT three "Rebels attempted to occupy Shin Mat- (3) boats per address, no exceptions. Send appro- sumoto Base. This program permitted them priate sum together with your name and address to; Boat Dept. #900-8. Dur'iao Boa! Mfg.. 2940 W. Pico to enter, to remove suits, and to gather in for service Blvd.. Los Angeles. CA 90006. Or fastest dining room. Then this program executed from any -part of the country call 1-800-824-9988 for explosive decompression of dining room. Boat Dept. #960-B (Calif, residents call collect 213-735-9363), before midnight seven days a week. Tactics achieved mam objective but ex- Have credit card ready. hausted air supply. To manufacture re- placement air and to bring base up to Cotton Expressions T-Shirts standard pressure required more time than Only *8. 00 each - Hens S. tl, L, R XL did foot regeneration. This program com- SO* Cotton / SCft Polyester that Livingston-san would rather re- Hiracle by Sidney Harris puted main in suspension than live in suit for six- teen months. This program requests

verification or denial of its calculation." He stood for a moment in silence. "Veri- fied," he said softly. "Did you get them all?" "Hai." 'And justwhere did you learn that 'explo-

1 sive decompression trick?" "Program Last Survivor installed sub- sequent to Celestial Equity capture and subordination of Ankai Maru." Startled, he straightened up. "Their ships! ;." Nile of the rarest sporting Are they still here?"

! fish in the U.S., the Rio 'Apologies, Livingston-san. Acting un- Grande Cutthroat Trout, der orders from Shin Edo, this program --' - as well as the Yellowstone placed remote servos on board, each with Cutthroat, Rainbow and Brook instructions to pilot ships to Mars." Trouts are all native to our rl "What? He slapped an open palm streams and waiting for dedi- against the bulkhead. "You sent them back cated and amateur anglers to 7 " without me? You left me marooned here hook-up with 'em at the Forbes "Hai. Shin Edo requested that you fulfill Trinchera in Southern Colorado. terms of your contract with Imperial Space For full details on how you can Forces. Said contract does not expire for spend a few spectacular days eighteen more months." (maybe bring a favorite client?) — "But . . . but " Helpless with aston- in this magnificent setting, call: ished rage, he stormed through the base Fishing Manager to the lock, found his suit— scuffed and

- dulled except for one shiny new boot—and Please send for Free catalog IL, residents please add 7 Forbes Trinchera swept out onto the surface. specify style fi Fort Garland, CO 81133 He could not believe it. The poachers Cotton Expressions Ranch W3/.V9- S?63 had killed his guards, destroyed their ship, 832 ». Junior Terrace Dept. 0M1 Chicago, IL 60613 Dealer inquire and murdered the liverocks— but the ISF

98 OMNI wanted him to stay on. Punishment. He had failed, and this was his punishment. It hardly mattered that he had never signed on as a soldier. The mil- itary mind in ail its low cunning had de- cided that since he had not stopped the rebels—never mind that the military's own regulations had prevented him from doing so —he should have plenty .of time to pon- der his failure. Like eighteen months. Stranded on a chunk of rock spinning so far out from the sun that a candle would cast a sharper shadow. He would go nuts. He found himself striding up the crater wall and almost turned back. He wanted never to see the damn rock garden again. But he marched on anyway. He had re- turned to Yellowstone; he might as well view the site of this disaster. It would give him brood food for the next year and a haif. And maybe he could find his lost foot. What a souvenir that would make, huh? Maybe if he brought it back, nailed it to the wall, and made ritual obeisance to it, Watson would report that he had gone irrevocably in- sane, and Shin Edo would send a ship to retrieve him. Ah, there was a thought. He had gone over the top and halfway down the interior wail when he slammed to a halt. A thousand tongues of green flame DRINK FORTASTE,NOTTRENDS. DOSEQUS lapped the crater floor. A thousand minia- ture auras lit up the shadows. A thousand voices trilled sine songs in the megahertz. 'Uesus, Mary, and Joseph!" His knees buckled; his legs gave way. Slowly, oh so slowly, he dropped to a sitting position. The iiverocks lived! But how? And so many— The shards. They held the life force. or He had always thought the lived, WHOLE V2 cores BRAIN? building stony shells of protection around Only you can decide how valuable your brain is or how much you invest in becoming successful and happy. themselves. Clearly he had mistaken the Learning easily, expanding your brain, eliminating sub- pearl for the oyster. Never had he felt so conscious belief systems that block your happiness and good about a mistake before. success is now becoming a science, a technology. "Livingston-sanl" in the forefront of that science (neuroscience) is a series of mega-subliminal tapes and total immersion seminars "Yes, Watson-san?" developed by John-David, Ph.D. Released to the public "Now you have seen, and perhaps only 14 months ago, after 20 years research, the results understood." are being called "a generation beyond mere motivation tapes," and "a major breakthrough in effortless learning," "Perhaps. ..." With genuine affection, plus "a seminar that will lead us into the 21st century." he said, "Thank you Watson-san." : Tapes are S195 and S295. Seminars $1,400. You decide.

'Ah . . . you are welcome, Livingston-san. Mega-Subliminal Tapes Shin Edo advises Livingston-san that BRAIN-MIND EXPANSION™ ELIMINATE SELF-SABOTAGE™ CinCBelt has conferred upon him unlim- • Long Term Memory • Concentration • Relationships • Sex & Inner Self • Short Term • • • Career ited authority to initiate Program Arrow." Memory Eliminating Self Sabotage Self Esteem Money G 4 Tapes, Complete Set $195. An intensive, no-holds -barred, 8 tape set "Better late than never," he said dryly. Complete Set $295. 'And this program reports detecting, at These are mega-subliminal, whereas mere motivation tapes are only two levels. These nine point two times ten to eight meters, on tapes are 7 leveled or tracked — 3 hearable by left brain and4unhearablebyrightbrain — bypassing your resistance to positive change. Playable on any stereo, these tapes 'speak' intercept trajectory with Shin Matsumoto ,directly to predesignated areas of your brain/mind. Base, one Honda-Moi interplanetary vehi- NATL 1-800-4-DR-JOHN FREE INFO. KIT CAL 1-800-624-9779 cle. Distance too great to ascertain ETA, OR SAVE TIME, CISE TOLL-FREE TO PLACE YOUR ORDER NOW model, equipment, or crew size." , WHOLE-BRAIN LEARNING^ He pushed himself to his feet and looked INTENTION: Total mastery of the brain/mind. 5 days Total Immersion Intensive™, 24 hours a day (even while sleeping), limited to 28 students. State of the art technology in effortless outward, though it was far too early to see " learning and eliminating self-sabotage. First class residential included. $1,400. Visa/MC/Am. anything. "Celestial 7 Equity poachers Exp. /checks accepted. "So this program assumes, Livingston- San Francisco: Sept. 18-22, 1986 San Diego: July 3-7, 1986 (sold out) san." Michigan; June 12-16, 1986 North Carolina: November 6-10, 1986 Nurses CEG 50 Hours. Accredited /Natl Assoc, on Accelerated Learning, Certified /Intl. Inst, on Neurosciences With one last, fond gaze at the nursery below him, he turned and made his way Certification Seminar: Be Certified in teaching accelerated learning. Learn about brain-damage re-education, making subliminal tapes. Residential 12-day Aug. 6-17, 1986. California, back up the slope. "This time we'll be ready " Checks payable to and mail to: John-David Learning Institute for them, won't we, Watson-san? 2740 Roosevelt St. (Main Campus), Carlsbad, CA 92008 (619) 434-3572 Bid "Hai, Livingston-san. Hai!"DO —

Science comes to stone skipping EAnriE By Scot Morris

You throw a flat stone across calm water and it skips. As universal and timeless as this experience is, you would think that scientists by now would have settled the question of why a skipping stone behaves as it does. They haven't. In fact, the physics involved is about as complex as anything imaginable for a simple thrown projectile. Consider that factors involved include aerodynamic lift, hydro- dynamic planing, solid-liquid interaction, turbulent and laminar flow in fluid motion, surface tension on the water, surface texture on the stone, gyroscopic motion and precession, the stone's shape and distribution of mass around its center, the angle of incidence of the throw, plus all the "ordinary" laws affecting motion velocity, friction, inertia, linear momentum, and angular momentum. In 1958 Scientific American's Amateur Scientist column published a letter from Ernest Hunter Wright, a former head of the English department at Columbia University. Wright had noticed that when he skipped a stone along the hard sand at water's edge, it left a trail of alternating short hops of about four inches and long bounces of several feet. Scandal in stone skipping: Will man-made stones Skip-On and Orbiter (foreground) outskip artificial stones will ruin the sport. This was in marked contrast to the way Lake Michigan naturals, in background? Purists say a stone skips across water, with leaps treasure" (early 1700's). A of relatively uniform length. Wright asked it lifts out and makes a long hop. drake away a inflammatory implication is his physicist friends at Columbia why But why does it skip at all? James S. secondary activity of stone skipping is this should be, but none could give him Trefil asked and answered the question in that the whole an answer. "With the luck of a layman," he the August 1985 issue of Smithsonian a foolish waste of time.

theoretical Armed with such ideas I returned to my wrote, "I have had the novel experience magazine: "Can a modern to attend the of seeing several of the men who have physicist, armed with the biggest and home state last summer plucked the heart out of the atom's mystery fastest number-crunching computer, tell International Stone-Skipping Champion- the Lake Superior scratch their heads in vain for the solution you exactly how and why a stone skips? ships, sponsored by In word, no." State College Stone-Skipping and of a problem which I now submit to a a wider audience." Gerplunking Club, held annually since HISTORY AND RECORDS (pronounced Over the next decade Scientific Ameri- 1968 on Michigan's Mackinac can received more than 10,000 letters Written records of this gentlemanly art "Mackinaw") Island every Fourth of July.

It here, in 1932, that Navy on the subject. Finally, in 1968 editor C. L. go back at least to 1583, the earliest was Stong published a follow-up. Part of the reference in the Oxford English Dictionary commander E. M. Tellefson set the first Guinness question was answered. On sand each to ducks and drakes: "A kind of sport or modern record of 17 skips. The say that this record was "skip" was in fact two—the stone struck play with an oister shell or stone throwne records people

it in 1957 by one Carl Weinholdt first with its trailing edge, then tipped over into the water, and making circles yer taken away Copenhagen Bay with a 21-smutter to strike with its leading edge a few sinke, etc. It is called a ducke and a on Danish word for stone skipping), but inches away, then took its long flight of drake, and a halfepenie cake." The English (the

it same Mackinac several feet and repeated the cycle. term duck and drake quickly came to that returned to these with reckless squander- Island shores on July 4, 1975, when When a stone hits water, it planes along, be synonymous of Troy, Michigan, recorded building a crest of water in front, then ing, throwing things away: "to duck and Warren Klope 102 OMNI " —

an official 24-skipper. Lafer, the 24 mark will be a rightward arc, like a right-handed Mackinac tournament directors banned was tied by Glenn Loy, Jr., of Flint and slice in golf. the stone from future competition lest John S. Kolar of Birmingham, Michigan. The choice of stone is important. It its artificiality ruin the sport. This seems Guinness has recognized since 1975 should be flat and ovoid but not so wafer- rather high-handed from an organization the record of 24 skips, consisting of like as to be affected by the wind. A that includes in its mock-serious rules uplinks and 14 pitty-pats. (These are too-light stone can be taken by the wind, the regulation that all "off-island stones" technical terms describing the first clean fly off at too great an angle, and in brought to the tournament must be "boiled skips at the head of a run and the fast technical terms "plonk out." The size and by the tournament vet," and whose tradi- series at the end, just before final shape should fit the conformation of tional opening ceremony begins with sinkdown.) the index finger and thumb, with the round, the announcement: "Let he who is without Frisbee the first stone. As a participating journalist, I paid my smooth side on the bottom. Thus there cast 50-cent fee and entered the contest. is such a thing as a stone that is naturally The Skip-On stone was designed by for right-handed throw. Glovak of Dearborn, Michigan. I was curious how the skips would be meant a Dan He experimented with several sizes, "officially" counted, especially at the end NEW CHAMP: AGE SEVENTY-ONE of a run, when the pitty-pats seem to weights, and angles of curvature on the blur into one another in a smooth hydro- After last year's event we learned that outer rim before settling on an optimum "introductory stone." 'A really planing action. I had already set aside the stone skipping already had a new size for an skilled thrower might want stone that six stones I would use in my official set champion, Arthur Ring, who skipped a a

is larger, heavier, possibly with a of six "chukkers." But I asked one judge to stone 29 times on Guerneville, California's and count a preliminary throw to explain the Russian River in August 1984. Ring says, smoother surface. We think that the sandy stability procedure. I hauled off and gave my best "I've been throwing clamshells and stuff texture of the stone adds

Michigan sidearm—and got a solid ever since I was five years old." Now keeping it oriented in much the same way series of plinks, then a nice set of pitty- seventy-one, Ring was bell captain at San as the dimples on a golf ball do. pats. "Nineteen," he said, then proceeded Francisco's famous Saint Francis Hotel "In an ideal, controlled environment," to explain how, after long experience in for 15 years. Glovak told us, "I think that skips of over judging, he was able to reliably track The Russian River event, sponsored by forty could be well within reason." The those last critical skips. Skip 'n' Rock, Box 323, Rio Nido, Califor- problem is that the product was a financial On my six official chukkers my best nia 95471, has several advantages over the flop. No one seemed willing to pay five throw went only 10 skips, but the winning Mackinac Island contest. For one thing dollars for a box of 20 stones and then just throw of the day, by John Kolar, was it is possible to station observers along the throw them away. "That's a marketing

only 15 skips. Thus I had the regret of "if riverbank so that they get a close look hurdle we still haven't cleared," Glovak

only" I had counted that first throw and at those last, critical pitty-pats. But this says. "People do it with shotgun shells or

the comfort that I had been beaten by an opens a new controversy: The water golf balls, but this somehow seems established champion. This is a genuine is moving, constantly approaching the different." Indeed, buying and using such skill. Kolar and Loy have been tied as thrower. This is like throwing off the bow a product would be to "duck and drake world champions since 1977 and have of a boat as it speeds across a calm lake. away" your money. consistently scored as winners or finalists The net effect is as if you had added a On the other hand George Washington, every year since. few miles per hour to the speed of your who skipped a whole dollar across the Kolar and Loy taught me several points throwing arm. We insist that the Guinness Potomac, might have been an eager on form. You should stand as close to people recognize two categories for customer. Unfortunately, the Skip-On stone the edge of the water as possible. Some ducks and drakes: 1) ordinary pond, lake, isn't on the market now. (The stones at smutters like to stand knee-deep in the or ocean water; and 2) upriver or speed- left are shown with the curved "hull" side water, but others say this isn't necessary. augmented water. down. The dimples on top are a manufac- The sidearm throw, with feet spread, turing artifact and don't contribute to the THE MAN-MADE SKIPPIN' STONE shoulders square, and a proper follow- skipping action.) through, is most popular. Add as much Controversy of another sort raged at A competing artificial stone, called the spin as possible for gyroscopic stability. If the 1977 Mackinac Island tournament. The Orbiter World-Class Stone Skipper, has there are waves, one must "play" them previous year a man-made stone, the found some success by being marketed and skip through the troughs. The way the Skip-On Skippin' Stone, was introduced through gift catalogs. Of course, there's waves are breaking can favor either and thrown on a few trial runs. The stone is no telling if the stones are really being right-handed or left-handed throws. On a made of sand and a water-soluble binder, used as skippers. Purchasers may instead calm lake a right-handed throw will spin so after a few months underwater it use them as paperweights, backgammon clockwise, and the path of the stone disintegrates into fine sand. In 77 the tiles, or conversation openers. DQ 103 ADVERTISEMENT

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ancient environment devoid of oxygen. this enormous influx of water," he asks, "why "The comets release oxygen when they aren't researchers finding a compatible rate COSMIC COMETS impact the earth," says Frank, "so they give of escape of hydrogen from the upper at- CONTINUED FROM PAGE 72 not from Sagan the oxygen without having to have mosphere? If oceans were here the start, why do we have sedimentary fos- of personal tur- life to produce it." lish I went through a lot billion years? Where is it too: "This way you sils dating back 3.8 moil," Frank explains. "The findings would Dessler put neatly, the way, if life along with it the the water on Venus? And by affect so many fields, from the origin of life can get oxygen and — both at once." comets are coming in at this extraordinary and the origin of the oceans to canals on chicken and the egg, Chang, rate, where exactly is the ocean on Mars? first reaction of On the other hand, Sherwood Mars. And 1 knew that the for Frank," chief of planetary science at Ames, finds "I have a very high respect everyone would be, 'It's impossible.' The it is Donahue. "But his idea violates some the notion "outrageous. 1 don't think says implications were so enormous I risked questions of how life very basic atmospheric constraints." being treated like—well, almost like a nut." productive to take the location Earth, Frank does not agree. "We're not losing Frank spent six weeks weighing the al- arose from one plausible — he explains, "because the water know it exists—and shift them to hydrogen," ternatives. "I sat in my office each night where we implausible one." molecules don't rise high enough to be until about two in the morning pacing the an criticism of the Iowa separated into their component parts of floor or just reading books," he says. "I'm The most vehement group, though, comes from the University hydrogen and oxygen." He also does not reclusive by nature. 1 love doing science, water needed for the photogra- of Michigan, where atmospheric physicist know how much was and I didn't want reporters, voiced some spe- sedimentary deposits formed 3.8 billion phers, publicity, interrupting the solitude of Thomas Donahue has unreasonable," he cific concerns. "If the earth is experiencing years ago. "But it's not my creative hours in the lab. But I also thought of all the scientists from Coperni- cus to Einstein who'd come forward with seemingly outlandish but revolutionary re-

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: t-ansiixcci. Sitting there, bound to a crude wooden. Ciiuraeau «as mornenlairly "Eats very beautiful, is eel not"" he 5 chair "by leather straps 1 began to question

l-n In I smiled and nodded agreement. the career choice ; had made so many

I operatic years before. As an environmental activist the old days, when was with jn-d 1- had dedicated my lite to saving whales they and listen to trie tapes ol whales and from extinction. I was convinced sri it looked wonder what sir were as intelligent as people. Mow . tortured ry for help' an alert as though I was going to be 7 lover's serenade? Surely and killed for thai belief lo danger' a creatures. But the man before me didn't seem these were divine off the whale song; menacing at all. His forehead was wrought Jacques turned switch ffow tire air i with permanent lines of sincerity. His ana threw another clicks ar face was weathered and worn. His nose filled with a dazzling array of beeps. "Digital encodaig," he explain . . Cousleau. was large. He was . Jacques

we transfer zeez sounds to a I "I used to be like you, you know "When digilal master, ali sorts of patterns sta Jacques said. "I was one of zee original '53 re complex zan even Save Zee Whalers back in I used paused to let that sink in. I French." Ho to hold fund-raisers. I used to marche. then "But if you've already encoded I was very big in zee whale movement." "it should iHis voice vo'ces digitally," I blurted, b : His laugh was reassuring

translate it ail into.hu! lulled and soothed me. He ottered me simple master to know what whak some Brie language! To actually are saving! lo learn iiorn their vasi "Then one day i was kidnapped by hare i i brought to zees torehe seoi II ^es organ in

1 " Chair." He purity o f their wisdom The straps on room. I sat iozat very me. shrugged. "Mpwil am, comme on dit. a my chair could barely contain Jacques turned of! the clicking anc i wnaifi uaier. n final the third and swii inisn I before paused Suddenly I realized the reason why hear zees?' had been brought hero. Jacques was 'Are you sure you want to hint asked. I begged to tomtit dot 3y Terry Runte going to try to deprogram me I braced he

: time. "Homeu myself for the worst. He smiled, saciy Ifus

good." i hen hi iYou know what Jacaues began to pace the room. zees pes for your own turned on the machine. "Mors, i know what you aie [Unking You ocean animal is endangered? All I remember is that ono of the vo are thinking 1 am crazee. You think whales Kntl the 1'iiy, are an endangered species, Rractieally sounded like Tony Danza hey! VVhoooya u/anna do? '..on (hat extinct. Right'?" "So, uh. "Gee. I dunno. Whsdaya wanna dc I nodded my head! ^a ea ol I o,i 'u; r "Think for a moment. Have you ever • "I dunno. Ja watch \¥:c:*

" t 'Are ya kiddirf? Every time i piuggi Vhe i VI a : the last time you seen a whale handbag' Have you lever shock," i horrible I in my Trinitron got,a saw Scj~ihe eaten at a restaurant that served whale? ^ UJ IWIv mind was reefng These whale nave ncyc i Krill' bumper sticker?*} whale. Have you?" were as Intelligent as- people. They'! w in absoiir idiots. I strained at my straps I admlttoo that I had not. "What do they use whale 'or anyway? ' hqrrof while they exchanged their - Unless you know people who light their crude comments. tins ills you wouldn't bo'love. wiz whale -oil lamps, I am -stumped. "She had . houses

taikirf dorsal -city . "You know what ocean animal eas I mean! we are cutting of* endangered right now?" he asked. "The Jacques fumed of i the tape, Have you tiny, defenseless plankton Eat whales- the whales in mid-sentence -tike to hear the oat When was zee last lime you saw a had enough, or would you

• f abbut!'astro!og/Y" t save rue kbili. bumper sticker? tape whore tney aik

I rtad'blacked out. "And let me ask you something," he dian't 'answer

- ,1 ''continued. "Did you over-wonder about zee yfcn/c? Just think-»-zoe world's 'I've been withitha. organization for a Jits greatest ocean liner on a maiden voyage

' really are. .a'nd'its experienced captain bashes the deep" for what they As they're getting what . r ogi al to for the whalers, well foypne you? That zee captain would decide to they deserve. Overpopulation, kriti. '' thing. And they're running out of pla ' ~ee i u- | grate'ul that I guess we should an be i "zeisizedf Deiayyarre)? Does hot iTiaW • live, in their watery world in - - - whales own eet?" ! I -sense, -does » " purs, ruining,our dopttaji = ''o_isoniho | cannot invade I Jacqucsdr mini r

' ys! oufdf theater chair in front ot him, "I want you to consider parties and crowding should always remem- just . openings. And we ; 'zee possibility zatrnaybeei— maybee--zal ceberg was pooshed." ber trie motto otihe I.W.H.O iinfoniationa! "They i Halo's Organization)! I Whale i t time; -felt a- I ,:, 'dm on tritair own. It's twlnge of doubt. IJacques walked over to crawled into the ocean on

' - keep them lhe:e."DO the up to you to ; i: the cjofripufer bank thai covered threw a switch. reei-td-reek I farwait and A tape recorder began to spin, and tire :1btryRlin!e's views on IwlWisoiie eased or) agonizingly beautiful research and have >- in do cuff) I fraqrrt filled with the mmMM'iio '- ' i Iris < ' a JiOfn n ia t Even reden! by son j of the humpback whale; ,, ;