MUSIC FDR THE 21ST CENTURY- PROGRAMS

FOR PLUNDER: COMPUTER CRIME TAKES OFF • FLOATING n CITIES, INTERCONTINENTAL SUBWAYS, AND

I AT s I GIANTAIRSHIPS SEX ROLES: PRESENT THE

I ill j CREATION CAR WARS BY ROGER ZELAZNY onnrui

EDtTOR & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE

=PE3 LC\! T a ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: KATHYKEETON r z y> o..,\ v!T. rnro : 3em bova AR: R-CTOP: HiAXK DEVINO "" MAMAG M!n lOH- , AKDiHSON DORMAN FICTION EDITOR- i'ORE^l S-TCKI Ef 11 'r ' 'ill. r: '!!.!. \' DIRECTOR OF ADVERTING BEVERLEY WARDALE

EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT IRWIN E BILLMAN SENIOR V CE Fh: :, -,-_\ MA- A-.NE HOWATSON -IIR.ISI-lbR ASSOCIAz : \"l.- -li.AMC-. RCSS'tL INI

CONTENTS PAGE FIRST WORD Opinion Akio Moriia 6 EARTH Environment Kenneth Jon Rose 18 LIFE Biomedicine Bernard Dixon 20

SPACE Comment Theodore R. Simpson 22

MIND Behavior Denise Collier 24

FILM/SCULPTURE The Arts 28

CONTINUUM Data Bank 35

THE ENDLESS SCALE Article Doug Garr 44

LAST OF THE WILD ONES Fiction Roger Zelazny 52 KING OF 1 HE WORM RUNNERS Article Kathleen Stein 58

SERPENTS' TEETH Fiction Spider Robinson 66

PROGRAMS FOR PLUNDER Article Roger Rapoporl 72

PLAINS OF FOREVER Pictorial Pete Turner 80 MACRO Art* Dan Ross and Arthur J. Maher 90

DONALD SYMONS Interview Claire Warga 94

POSTMARKS Pictorial Marc Kaplan 100

ICONS Fiction Barry N. Malzberg 104 EXPLORATIONS Travel Noru Brasch 124

PEOPLE Ngnes and Faces Dick Teresi 128

INNOVATIONS New Prod ucis 134

UFO UPDATE Report E. Lee Speigel and Karen Ehrlich 140

COMPETITION RESULTS Designer Genes Scot Morris 142

STARS Astronomy Brian O'Leary 145

SYNAPSE Phenomena Manfred Kage 146

GAMES Diversions Geottrey Golson 148

LAST WORD Humor Norman Spinrad 150

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Imagine floating ciiies twice the size of Worm Runner's Digest and author of SF writers. Last December Pocket Books Manhattan. Think of a subway from New one of the world's best-selling college published The Last Defender of Camelot, York City (or even Paris) lo Los Angeles. psychology textbooks, Understanding Zelazny s first collection of short stories. In "Macro" Dan Ross Arthur and J. Maher Human Behavior, McConnell thinks humor Robinson, another master whose work is tell us what it's like to think big. Macro- is a great equalizer in the world of science. often seen in Qmni, Is now completing his engineering means more than just erect- Omni associate editor Kathleen Stein seventh book, Mindkil/er. His third col- ing new colossal structures. It's a way to visited McConnell to tind out whether this lection ol short stories. Time Travelers improve our planet and our lives. MIT man is a Pavlovian fantasy out of Thomas Strictly Cash, has just been released. professor of engineering Frank R David- Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow or just an- Despite feminisi propaganda, men will son, the world's ng expert eac on macro- other Steve Martin. To understand more be men and women will be happy. This is engineering's far-reaching possibilities, about a scientist who is not afraid of fun, the of view Donald Symons , a University says, "The Reagan Administration has read "King of the Worm Runners," of California anthropologist. For a macho an opportunity to make a new start in beginning on page 58. examination of human sexuality, see Claire marshaling the country's resources behind UFO zealots and doubters sat down at Warga's Interview (page 94). A research a sensible and sustained of program the same table for the first time at a recent psychologist and rad:o .^umalrst, Warga is macroengineering." See page 90 to learn symposium in the Batrd Auditorium at the a frequent contributor to popular science how macroengineering offers the world Smithsonian Institution's Museum of magazines. She has incervewed many a new basis for international cooperation. Natural History. Leading the panel in this leading scientists on her radio programs The future of music is examined by unprecedented debate was Frederick C. originating from Lugano, Switzerland, and writer Doug Garr in "The Endless Scale" Durani III, formerly special assistant to the Woodstock. New York. (page 44). It's a look at how young director of the National Air and Space Electronic thievery is ubiquitous. Why? composers are using computers to Museum and a frequent contributor to this In "Programs for Plunder" (page 72) Roger expand our concept of music. Garr's magazine. E. Lee Speigel and Karen Rapoport writes about some of the most belief that home computers someday will Ehrlich report what happened, on page successful light-lingered criminals. He become "tools for living" prompted his 140. Previously a science consultant for tells how they got star-od ~m0 what interest in computerized art. "Young WNBC, Speigel is host and producer of happened to them. Rapoport, who knows composers will change the way we hear, Unexplained Phenomena, an NBC-radio a lot of computer criminals, says, "Some of think about, and compose music in years feature program presented weekdays. them can't wait to get caught. They are the to come," he says, "li will be a new aural Ehrlich is a New York hypnotherapist and only breed of criminals who like to tell all." . awareness, a rebirth of sound." Garr has coauthor of UFOs: The Credibility Factor. The author, whose popular piece "Un- written for publications, many including This month's fiction highlights Hugo breakable Code" appeared in our Septem- the New York Times, Family Circle, Cue. Award winners Roger Zetazny ("Last ber 1980 issue, foresees computer crime and People. of the Wild Ones." page 52) and Spider rising until an effec; ve graohic system, Can science and humor coexist? Robinson ("Serpents' Teeth," page 66), as described in "Unbreakable Code," University of Michigan psychologist Zelazny, an SF writer for nearly 20 years. becomes widely available at low cost. James V McConnell ought to know. has published 25 books and has received Discover how the computer revolution is Founder and publisher of the outrageous several awards that are given only to great becoming an invitation to steal. DO e OMNI '

HTER

THE CORPORATION Bob Guccione (chairman oi the beard) Kathy Keeton (president) '" ,nt) — : --ie(se-- carmnnunjicATorus Marianne Howatson (Senior wee-president) Benson Sake {chlei financial officer) EDITORIAL itor in Chief: Bob Guccione: Executive Editor Managing Editor: J. Anderson Dorman; nior Editors: Dick Teresi. Scot Morns, Owen ivies; Fiction Editor: Robert Sheckley; Humor Edi- : Bill Lee; European Editor: Dr. BemauJ Lucrf. Origins of Equality largely true that Associate Editors: Etten Datlow, Michael Edelharl. but his conclusion is Kathleen McAulilfe, Kallileen Stain, Ale? Wagner; i am an elderly woman with a keen inter- mistaken. Rather, he has detected the Assistant Managing Editor: Paul Hilts; Pictorial Edi- est in, but no formal knowledge of, the development process by which written r: Robert Malone; Assistant Editors: Geoffrey Gol- sciences. Nevertheless, Pairick Moore and xi. MarcKaplan; Copy Cltiet: Robert Boylan; Copy spoken language became identified Editors: Chark-:, ., McKernanjEdflor- [Stars. October 1980] has confirmed a with each other. 'al Assistants: Susan Capulo, Leslie Epstein. Jayne personal belief with respect to mankind's Raymond J. Schneider Jr. Gassrnan, FrancescaLunzer: Contributing Editors: knowledge of the origin of (he universe. Stuart Diamond, Dr Patrick Moore My Apple Valley, Minn. ART total ignorance of that subject is in the illustrious Art Director: Frank DeVino; Assistant Art Directors: company of the world's greatest Julian Jaynes's theory about the bicameral

; ' ., ' . thinkers, past and present. this is is Maybe mind one of the most inlriguing ideas tor:- Hildegard Kroiv Ass/stun! Photo Editor Lisa the one - and only — area in which we can I've in Shapiro;' Staff Photographer: Pat Hill;/W Assistant seen psychology tor some time. We declare Patricia Lubin all members of the human race have all read about the elaborate sets of ADMINISTRATIVE equal. rules and compulsive rituals followed VR/Dire 'Advertising: Beverley Wardate; V.PJ Patricia Michell religiously by certain gurus and erstwhile Se-rvwi .W>\ ^!u-:S-y .V P. /Production Scamander, Tasmania, Ausfralia philosophers. i Evans; Midwest Advertising Mgr.: iw; Southern Advertising Director: Look in Ihe Bible (especially Leviticus), Peter ^Goldsmith; Western Advertising Director: Odd Man In the Koran, and any other holy book and rain; Controller: Marc Bendesky; Director Whalever one may Ihink of Julian Jaynes's you will find enough world ng and Distribution/Publications: George views, most of concepl of the <-!;j|ph Perncelli: bicameral mind ["Odd Man which nobody even thinks about anymore,

"-ft Sales Operation Mgr.:: Richard Foge Director Out," it I; January 1981 ], is certainly daring. to start you thinking. Newsstand Sales: Roberl Castardi; Newsstand The Jaynes hypothesis cannot be ignored. Paula T. Steiner •tribution Mgr: Vincent DeLisi. Liquor Sales Mgr: nor it Paula Fierman: Off of Pub. He/.. Ted Hannah; AOver- can be accepted, either. The Origin Pasadena, Tex. 1. Dir: Ibni Wagner; Advertising Admin. of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the e Moses: Editorial Prod. Mgr.: Robin Ber- Bicameral Mind left me with much the Being one of the ol Research and Marketing Services: 50,000 who purchased same impression as did Carole Rossant Immanuel Julian Jaynes's book, i was delighted lo Velikovsky's ADVERTISING OFFICES Worlds in Collision- It presents come across the article "Odd Man Out" in icalions Lid. New York (Beverley Waroale| a preposterous concept buttressed by Omni. I find far more logic in Jaynes's "we.. New York. N.Y 10022. Tel. (212) 593- selective interpretation of evidence drawn theory of consciousness development 33.01, Telex no: 237128. Midwest. (Norm Katnikow) from jusl about everywhere. The I in 1 East Wacker Drive, Suite 2036, Chicago, ill. analogy than do the now-accepted Darwinian

60601. Tel. (312, (Peter Goldsmith) is close, but it Jaynes does better. evolutionary theory And, if memory 1707-HSt., N.W, '20006. Tel. (202) Jaynes speculates that the bicameral serves, Charles caught his too. 398-6050; Detroit (John Blulh) 950 Easl Maple. lumps, " mind broke down during the ""e 204, Birmingham, Mich. 48011 Tel. (313) same period Perhaps the one drawback in being so -36.46; West Coast 92-1 written (John Roma in} language was developed. His excited with a new idea is trying to con- Westwood Blvd., Suite 1002. Los Angi^loe i'.-siM evidence is drawn primarily from early vince others that they 90024 Tel. should read The . (213) 824-9831 . U.K. S Europe (Eleanors writings. Consider, Graham) 2 Bramber Road, London W14 9PB, Eng- though, thai Ihe earliest Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown ' 1 Tel. (01)262-0331. Telex no. form 919865 of written language had nothing to do of the Bicameral Mind. Your article will EDITORIAL OFFICES with spoken language. Markings used to convince them that I am serious, k 909 Third Ave., New York NY 10022 mainiain inventories of sheep and jugs of Patricia K. Barnett Tel. (212) 593-3301. Telex no. 237128. West Coasl

''" - wine did not necessarily connect ::!: to the Park Ridge, III. - - : i . ' i. Tel. (213) 824-9831. London 2 Bramber Road, spoken word. West Kensington. London Wt4 9PB, England As language became pictographic, it Alcohol Recall Tel. (01) 385-6181. Telex no. 919865 continued to carry this UK. & European Editions highly concrete I read with amusement your Continuum Director of Publications, U.K.: David Jones. Adver- nature and was incapable of expressing item "Memory on the Rocks" [October tising Director: Eleanore Graham; Public Relations: abstractions, because the association of 1980], Molly McKellar; . Editorial Assistant- Andie Burland written and spoken language had BUREAUS not yet Psychologist Geoff Lowe d iscovered occurred. With the invention of alphabetic thai Charles Dickens arrived at a similar Washington. DC: William R. Corson, 1707 H St., ""V, Washington, D.C. Berlin: Hans-Hohn, Enzian- (phonetic) writing, the identification of conclusion in his labyrinthine The Mystery ndreFodor,98 spoken and written language began. The of Edwin Drood. I quote from Chapter 3, i Mexico. 15th floor. Rio Janeiro de ZC39 transition complete, we now find language "The Nun's House": "As, in Budapest: Paul Kirlyhedgyi, 5 Regi posta utc.a, some cases of

: used to Budapest 5. Hur,; -. .;mirKomi]enovic, express abstractions, the meat of drunkenness, and in others of animal Strebrnjak 96, Zagreb. Yugoslavia consciousness. magnetism, there are two states of MARCH On this basis one might I conclude that consciousness which never clash, but Jaynes's evidence from early writings is each of which pursues its separate course - ON PAGE. 137 ?UE FDRUR/1

In which the readers, editor-, and cor- There is no reason "o believe lhat in the respondents discuss topics arising out near future, the Third World will put aside of Omni and theories and speculation of its anti-U.S. hostility as it regulates private

general interest are brought forth. The enterprise; unfortunately, I foresee a views published are no! necessarily those ganging up similar to the one observed in of the editors. Letters for publication the General Assembly of the United Na- should.be mailed to Omni Forum, Omni tions'. We cannot ignore these hatreds or Magazine. 909 Third Avenue, New York, allow other countries to deny them. It is not NY 10022. within my knowledge to say whether they are justified. Moonstruck Space industry, quite rightly, should be to the advantage of the entire world I wish to go on record again as being opposed to the U.N. Moon Treaty economy and the poverty-crippled

I believe are the [December 1980]. In November 1979 I peoples that respon- wrote Secretary of State Cyrus Vance that sibility of ail industrialized nations. If Article XI needed considerable rework by this preposterous Moon Treaty is allowed our U.N. personnel before the Senate to stand, no one— neither industrialist nor could consider ratification of the treaty. starving African baby— will benefit for a ' As currently written. Article XI will whittle long, long time to come. away the technology lead lhat we currently Daniel A. Pendick 1 . THE PROFESSIONAL": will commer- (No address given) America's most popular aluminur enjoy and absolutely inhibit ciai racquet. The "Redhead" is a exploitrrionoi space. rather performance racquet designed tor Strom Thurmond Omni's article on the Moon Treaty the player who demands precise U.S. Senate more confused me than enlightened me. I control. Its elongated head shape Washington, DC. have not read the Moon Treaty, nor am I an and open throat design give you expert in international law, yet some points the solid feel that results in that raised in article seem not to I was enlightened by Ben Bova's article on were your winning shots. fit neatly a first reading the Moon Treaty, and I have a few thoughts together so as 2.XRC* This handsome racquet is might imply. it. While I with the principle that constructed of reinforced fiberglass on agree You quote from Article XI, paragraph with Head's famous torsion tube extraterrestrial resources are Ihe common

7(d): ". . . the efforts of those countries construction. Its lively feel comes heritage of all mankind. I am realistic from its engineered flex design enough to appreciate the dangers im- which have contributed eMher directly or which is also excellent in damping posed on such a treaty by present world indirectly to the exploration ol the moon out shock. shall given special consideration" to conditions. As an alternative, I would be 3. ARTHUR ASHE COMPETITION 3»: suggest this: Private or nationalized the "benefits derived from [the moon's] The feel of wood with the power business concerns would be considered resources." It is true thai these benefits are of metal. That's what Arthur temporary exploiters on the moon or any to be shared equitably among "all States demanded and that's what Head paid agents of Parties," and developing countries also engineered into this beautifully other celestial body— special consideration. However, balanced aluminum and fiberglass Earth, if you will. The proposed "Inter- receive racquet with firmness that national Regime" would act not as a the basic idea that countries that do the produces power yet the special regulatory body but as a financial exploring should receive benefits of that feel that produces winners. institution representing the interests of all exploration is enshrined in the treaty. 4. VILAS*: A unique combination the world's inhabitants. This institution The question is, Who owns the moon? otwood laminations, graphite would tax a certain percentage of profits Who is going to collect the rent? The reinforcement, and fiberglass face earned in space (starring when an corporations that would make the most sheets gives you a racquet of un- investment has been paid off) and fairly money from exploitation of Ihe moon's matched beauty and performance. resources don't want to pay any rent at all. Head engineering adds excellent distribute them throughout the world If these corporations made a lot more durability to the recognized according to need; also, it would retain Omni's payability of wood. part of- the taxes as interest-free loan money from the moon, certain of advertisers (the auto makers and the Visit your authorized Head dealer money to economically d sadvantaged ironies firms) "light share in the larger to try a demonstrator. Buy the Head nations that wish to expand into space. s lee racquet that's best for your game. Business concerns would accept this tax pie. But it is difficult to believe that most as just another operating expense. Americans would similarly benefit 4 WGE 132 !ENT. EARTH By Kenneth Jon Rose

For eight months MAGSAT orbited preserved in old lava flows, scientists have lar species, and even subspecies. Homo the earth, measuring the planet's determined that the field reverses itself ereclus used crude pebble tools early in

magnetic field. By the time the every half-million years. If the rate of his evolution. But when hand axes NASA satellite reentered the atmosphere magnetic decline continues, another appeared in ancient toolsheds 700,000

last June, its data had confirmed the reversal can be expected in 1,200 years. years ago, "it was a cultural jump," says suspicions of scientists at the Goddard Oddly enough, the reversals occur at Columbia University geologist Rhodes Space Flight Center, in Maryland: Earth's the same time a significant number of Fairbridge. "It was like a jump from the magnetic field is weakening. plant and animal species die out. covered wagon to the automobile." Scientists don't really understand why Furthermore, geomagnetic reversals Despite its quirky cultural effects, the Current theory attributes the magnetic seem to correlate with human evolution. In magnetic field of the earth provides a field to the fluids within Earth's molten a paper published in the Journal of Field life-supporting umbrella without which

core. When these fluids' normal motion Archaeology. John Steven Kopper, of life would be impossible. If the field becomes disrupted, so does the magnetic Long Island University, and Stavros disappeared, the sun's cosmic radiation field. "The theoretical physics inherent in a Papamarinopoulos. of the University of would be free to destroy the ozone layer in

rotating fluid of the kind within the earth is Edinburgh, compared the dates of the upper atmosphere, which protects us complex and difficult," says Gilbert Mead, magnetic reversals with the development from ultraviolet radiation (UV). of NASA. "No one has been able to make of-the human race. They found that the first Skin cancer and sunburn are merely two a model with any predictive character." appearance of the genus Homo and that consequences of excessive UV exposure.

Magnetic reversals come as no surprise the earliest stone tools in Europe coin- We need small amounts of UV light. By ' to scientists. Throughout its 4.5-billion- cided with a magnetic reversal about 2 reacting with steroids in the skin, such year history, Earth's magnetic field has million years ago. light produces vitamin D, indispensable for periodically dipped to a fraction of Us Much of Kopper's evidence comes from strong bone development. But a blast of

normal strength , remained that way for a the fossils and tools found at archaeolog- UV during a magnetic reversal would few thousand years, and then reversed ical diggings. Tools are especially create an excess of vitamin D, which can polarity. Compass needles that normally important because they evolve as man be lethal. Those who live near the equator, point in one direction (north, for now), point evolves. They not only provide a record of whose darker pigmentation screens out the opposite way. By studying molecules man's development but also identify particu- some of the UV. would probably survive better than those with much lighter skins. Kopper thinks that such a scenario might explain why the Neanderthals died off so quickly in the north, but managed to sur-

vive longer in Africa. Yet extinctions could have been caused warns** by a reduction of the magnetic field itself. All living tissue is sensitive to magnetic fields. Molecules found in the adrenal cor- tex, which controls the body's salt balance, are thrown out of alignment when they're put in artificial magnetic fields. Even our so-called biological clock, which sets the timing of hormone secretions, may be controlled by the magnetic field. The

earth, stripped ot its magnetic field, could make this biological timepiece go haywire. The coming reversal may be even more alarming, according to two anatomists at Hahnemann Medical College, in Phila- delphia. John van Dyke and Myron Halpern found that mice living since birth in a low-magnetic-field environment had a

shorter life span and were also infertile. It the same effect applies to us, humankind might suffer mass sterility by 3181. DO ANTICIPAFION

•By Dr. Bernard Dixon

and sickle-cell ane- Hemophilia The idea of being able to assess them. And the list is growing steadily. HLA mia are clear-cul examples of disease susceptibility later in life is a antigens might radically transform genetic genetic disorders, but whal startling one. Knowing what they might counseling as we now know it, about duodenal ulcers, fibrositis. or skin get, and when, could lead to radical The profession's rapid advancement is cancer? As our concept of exactly what changes in people's careers, life-styles, also due to parallel findings that have constitutes a hereditary disorder broadens, and expectations. emerged from a closely related field. While genetic counseling will no longer be No standardized rnefhod of plotting a one group of researchers have tocused on limited to those who are concerned personal index of probabilities has yet HLA antigens or cell-surface markers, still about their offspring having a birth defect. been adopted, but one approach hinges others have probed inside the cell to study In the future, six-month-old babies will on ihe discovery of HLA antigens. These chromosome abnormalities. Such a routinely have their white blood cells first came to light because they affect the technique is used by cytologists to analyzed, and parents will be presented acceptance or rejection of tissue grafts. disqualify female y~ioic athletes whose with an outline of specific diseases Just as blood groups determine the types cells show signs of illicit intersexing, but the infant will be susceptible to over of blood that can be transfused from one its greatest potential may be to highlight the entire course of his or her life. person to another, so HLA antigens must d sease p'oneness. One example Such information leads to obvious be matched if a kidney or other organ is to appears in the recently published annual practical action. Parents of a child who is be successfully transplanted. These report of the U.K. Medical Research : vulnerable to skin cancer, or example, antigens occur on white blood cells and Council. It raises the prospect ol dis- may decide to leave sunny California and tissues, and their myriad subdivisions tinguishing between tobacco smokers make their home amid a less beneficent constitute a "chemical fingerprint." who are vulnerable lo lung cancer and climafe the East on Coast. An adolescent As immunologisis began analyzing HLA those who are comparatively resistant. who is likely to fall victim to painful antigens, it was soon apparent that anti- The research is being done by fibrositis in middle age decide may not to gen patterns provided telltale signs of Professor H. J. Evans at the Clinical pursue an athletic career that would only our predisposition to different diseases. and Population Cytogenetics Unit, in aggravate the condition. Ulcer proneness Rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Edinburgh. So far he has shown that some may influence an individual's choice of psoriasis, and co^hec disease are among cigarette smokers have significantly more diet or even his or her livelihood. the condilions known to be influenced bv chromosome defects in one sort of white cell, compared with nonsmokers. More- over, a particular chemical in smoke, even in vanishingly tiny amounts, causes these cells to mutate. Studies are now under way to compare the response of cells from lung-tumor patients and fhose

from healthy controls. Evans's next step is to learn whether this approach can be extended toidem'iy sensitive individuals. There are further indications that such an exercise may be rewarding. Already one cell defect — ihe so-called Phila- delphia chromosome in some types of leukemia— has been linked unambigu- ously with cancer. More recent reports suggest that subtle chromosome abnor- malities are also associated with kidney carcinoma and with several other (orms of leukemia. The impact of these converging fields of research is immediately apparent: Tomorrow's medics will be able io give us uncannily precise information about our future medical profile. Whether we will take heed of that advice is, of course, an Chromosome abi entirely different question. OO 20 OMNI BEYOND THE SHUTTLE

By Theodore R. Simpson

I ^^ I hile we await the space and an adjacent platform for tests in two habitation modules, a logistics I shuttle's first orbital flight (est, open space. Materials-processing module, a flight-support facility and a is «^ \J NASA busily planning the experiments aboard Spacelab will construction facility. It would take ten next stages of our manned space pro- determine the commercial feasibility of shuttle launches to assemble the SOC. gram. This blueprint for tomorrow bears space manufacturing. The crew of six as- With an initial crew of eight astronauts, the a marked resemblance lo a plan out- tronauts will perform approximately 40 SOC would occupy an orbit almost 480 lined by Wernhervon Braun in an essay experiments while in orbit. kilometers above Earth. To prevent any that appeared in the book Across the The first shuttle/Space/ab flight is a imaginable malfunction, the SOC has Frontier Space almost 30 years ago. seven-day mission, scheduled for June replacement parts for all its major life-

Von Braun knew then that to make 1983, By the mid-1980s there will be six sustaining elements. The station and its spaceflight as inexpensive as possible, lo eight Spacelab flights a year, with a crew could survive comfortably for 90 we must develop reusable rocket ships, maximum of seven astronauts aboard. days without help from Earth or the shuttle. permanent space stations, and reusable Supplementary power sources may The service modules and their connect- lunar spaceships. The space shuttle is lengthen some flights to 20 days. ing tunnel form the SOC's central spine; NASA's first step in this effort. The shuttle Spacelab's flight lime actually could be the other modules and all equipment can stay in low Earth orbif for about a week extended to 60 days, but this would divert are linked with them. Large solar panels at a time and can haul a payload of 29,000 the shuttle from its primary aim, to launch mounted on long booms provide at least kilograms— the weight ot five elephants -- newpayloads. 35 kilowatts of electrical power which into an orbit 400 kilometers above the More permanently manned facilities will compares with the horsepower of early earth. Later in the Eighties MASA hopes be built in the 1990s for longer missions, Volkswagens. The booms are attached to.launch one flight a week. which brings us to Von Braun's second to a six-meter-long tunnel that connects Spacelab, now being developed by the premise — a space station for both civilian - the service modules. European Space Agency for early shuttle and military missions. Each habitation module is about 12 me- flights, offers a base for short-term ex- Since Skytab, NASA has studied several ters long and 4 meters in diameter and periments. It combines both a pres- space-station concepts. The latest idea, contains a command center thai can surized laboratory, where astronauts the Space Operations Center (SOC), has control the SOC. Much research must be can work in ashirt-sleeve atmosphere, seven major parts: two service modules, done before choosing a final design, but plans call for sleeping quarters, a kitchen, a lavatory/shower ar e-xcrc so/recreation area, a medical clinic, and a small ex- perimental laboratory. The proposed life-support system uses hydrazine and recycled water to create the SOC's oxygen and nitrogen. The same unit makes the crew's drinking water from hydrazine, recycled wastewater, carbon dioxide, and water vapor. The logistics module contains enough food and hydrazine to sustain the crew for 90 days; a shuttle replaces the module with an identical one when supplies run out. The habitation modules store an additional 90 days' worth of supplies for emergencies. The SOC also carries a flight-support facility and a construction facility. The flight-support center will assemble and launch multistage spacecraft and will service the reusable orbital-transfer vehicles (OTV). The construction facility maintains a beam builder that fabricates triangular trusses that can be used in large structures in the 1990s (see "Industry Goes to Space," April 1979), CONTINUED ON PAGE 130 HIGH-TECH ANXIETY ruiiruD

By'Denise Collier

ne Saturday afternoon a friend of offers us not just tools for the future but the tasks that once roq-jirod mental effort and mine entered the housewares promise of electronic surrogates. With (he manual dexterity are preempted by section of a large department lines of dominance blurred, objects grow bleeping, blinking push-button machines. store and was dazzled by a carnival of ominous. We either are intimidated by the To the dyed-in-the-wool lechnophobe, lights, dials, and switches. She found pervasiveness of high technology or the word technology recalls an image of grappling with herself in a fully automated kitchen, become dependent upon it and fear its Charlie Chaplin enormous overloaded with blinking diode displays removal from our lives. gears in Modem Times. Or the classic in at and atonal alarms that signal when the Think about it. High-lech anxiety has Lucille Ball routine which Lucy stands belt, lining ireshly dipped goose is cooked. Stunned by all this probably struck you. Did you ever rush to a conveyor up futuristic gadgetry my friend immediately your bank's cash machine at 8 o'clock chocolates. As the belt speeds up, she bought an electric juicer, a food processor, on a Sunday morning, miraculously find the dips the candies faster and faster, finally and a coffee maker whose digital timer thing working, and then have the machine stuffing them into her mouth in a frantic would brew coffee and turn on kitchen spit out your card with no explanation? effort to keep pace with the machine. lights at a preset hour. She left the store, Did your four-function pocket calculator Women, who confront high-tech in home feeling up to the minute and awesomely go dead in the middle of a complicated and office, often feel intense anxiety capable. When she got home with her mathematical reckoning, making you about the gadgets that are supposedly would booty, she realized this machinery was realize that your fuzzy recollection oi long designed to help them. Often they more than she felt ready to master. division wouldn't win any sympathy from rather avoid the whole situation. One My friend suffers from an insidious the men at IRS? Did you ever purchase a feminist writer said, "I wouldn't mind having Cuisinart in the house, providing twenty-first-century technophobia that I watch with buttons to push for the date, a call high-tech anxiety. Brought on by our your pulse rate, your biorhythm. your it came with a slave to run it for me. I can certain amount of increasingly automaied life-style, it is appointments for the day, and the birth- only assimilate a fueled by a sensory and informational glut days of your three closest friends only information, and with my work, figuring out ihat creates a confused internal debate to discover that you were unable to figure what's on TV tonight, and knowing two

I I tigure can't over who is in control, man or machine. out which button-pushing sequence languages, that's enough. This argument is as old as the wheel but would tell you the time? be bothered with learning to harness a takes on a new dimension as technology Many people are overwhelmed when Cuisinart. It's less trouble to do the slicing and dicing myself," A female government official said, "I live in a modern apartment just outside the city. The entire building is electric powered. This is touted as a cleaner,

more efficient way to live, but I think the electrical features in the apartment weren't created with people in mind. You can't control the stove or the thermostat. They're always too hot or too cold. It's funny. By living in this modern, convenience-filled

building, I have forfeited control over my environment."

It can be argued that since men have grown accustomed to being the "fixers" in our society, the transition from mechanical gadgetry to electronics might be more natural forthemthan tor women. Sur- prisingly this is not the case. During

the course of one interview I watched a normally laid-back journalist drive a four-inch nail through his calculator after the machine repeatedly produced dif- ferent solutions to the same problem. A New York actor who routinely doss commercials for a top electronics firm FILM, THEART5 By Jeff Rovin

1957 Scott Ca'Oy ooylea through a an exploding aerosol can, junk food, ex- euphoric about the movie," Tomlin says, Inmysterious, glistening haze and became haust fumes from a van, a new kind of "The crew was strong and supportive, and the Incredible Shrinning Man. He was, cosmetic, and product samples thai everybody knew we had the chance to metaphorically, all of humankind passing are affixed to the of her door southern make a special picture. I even said to our into the new, somewhal frightening age of California home.or are brought from work director Joel Schumacher, that we should space satellites and nuclear energy. by her advertising executive husband. all take off a year and travel around the Though our fears are different today, ihe - The cumulative impact of these things is to world with the movie, to see at first hand if need to exorcise them through film re- cause the sweet, blameless housewife to here and in Japan and all over they find it mains. And these modern-day concerns shrink— like Carey, ultimately diminishing as uplifting and unifying and exciting a are well represented in The Incredible to subatomic size. However, the message movie as we do." Shrinking Woman, a fresh and ingenious expressed in the original film, as in the Regardless of how people react when retelling of the science-fiction classic. seminal Richard Matheson novel, is no viewing the film, the comedienne de- the Apart from switch in gender, the longer the hopeful "To nature, there is no scribes the making of the $13 million most significant change is less what the zero." It is the caulionary "To today's fantasy as one of the most ditficult under- film shows than what it is. Though the me- soc-ery everyone is zero." takfngsof her career "Pat was not a grims of the Fifties were dealt with in a Wie Incredible S'vinkxig Woman is complex character to reach. She is cute somber, heroic way. the remake is a com- Tomlin's fifth motion picture, though the and somewhat clever, but ordinary I don't edy "It's not -a parody." star Lily Tomlin first to feature the popular stage-and-TV mean thai in a demeaning way, because observes. "I wouldn't 1 have been satisfied personae she'-; beer enacting pro- we wanted her to be microcosmic. with thai. It's deeper. It's a moving, come- fessionally for nearly 20 years. In Ihe "But she changes during the course of dic look advertising, at consumerism, film she plays not only Ihe naive Pat but the film, matures because of events that fame. It's and black, tender, satirical, also her sage next-door neighbor, Mrs. are really kind of extraordinary, That was visually saturated with pastel colors: Beasley, the shopping-bag woman where the part became an emotional and it's a contemporary fairytale, really." Tess, and the five-year-old philosopher intellectual exercise, keeping the charac- The film on slrong. opens satiric legs, Edilh Ann, among others. "I had so many ter credible in the face of these incredi- as the Pinto-driving Pat Kramer passes different kinds of scenes that were funny ble and frightening events. I! required hastily through a succession of ills: current ami delightful that 1 was always just a great deal of forethought and soul- searching for me to shrink along with her." In the first part of Ihe film, the challenge lor Lily- as for Pat— was to come to grips

with the shrinking. "I started preparing for

it in a general way. by thinking of it as a terminal disease and drawing on the clinically observed patterns that people

go through— denial, bargaining, anger, all

of that. I did long improvisations by myself

and with other people, almost as if I were

Pat Kramer at her analyst's. If wasn't really tough to get into a frame of mind for that

initial shrinking, because it's only a couple of inches,"

By the time Pat reaches one foot in height, and continues to condense, Tomlin came to recognize that size was no longer

ihe cornerstone of the characterization. "I learned from Ihe early improvisations that,

no matter how tall Pal is, she's still the same person. As she herself says, 'My ideas are just as big as they were be- fore -maybe even bigger' Even though she is only eighteen inches lali!" Pat even becomes confident enough to go on the of human ;ns^i3::i'/::y. Mike Douglas Show, to tell Ihe world about SCULPTURE THE ARTS By Janel Bladow

I I hen Rudi Siern dreams, he line can do. and it can in ^% doit the dark." When his imagination was first tired by II dreams in neon. "I have plans Stern is energized notes by neon. He neon, it was a dying ad. Craft unions, for neon pavements, *» W neon that inside every glass tube there is a hell-bent on running a closed shop, highways, neon tunnels; neon on bridges, dance of electricity charging through inert excluded anyone daring to bend glass in underwater, outlining trees in parks. gas and transforming one electron into a designs other than the 26 letters of the Instead of twinkling little light bulbs that positive ion 60 times a second. Stern alphabet, The plastics surge in the Fifties

burn out every two weeks, I intend to pictures himself as a navigator guiding the labeled as oid-fashioned the glowing outline bridges with neon ropes. I see good ship inlo Neon new worlds. His goal streamlined shapes so popular 10 to 20 neon in elevators, water fountains - is to take neon beyond the realm of years earlier. Neon was relegated to many, many projects," advertising, where it has been pigeon- serving as background illumination When Stern speaks of neon, he holed for the last speaks 60 years. His prime behind plastic marquees. And the lighting like a poel quoting perfect iambic pen- occupation, he with a visionary says industry itself was working to kill the fire in tameters. He speaks proudly, fatherly, sparkle in his electric-blue eyes, is to find the luminous tube. Major manufacturers of with the enthusiasm of an explorer. As for new uses a medium previously fluorescent and incandescent bulbs had author of Let There Be Neon, published shackled by rigid one-track thinking. never welcomed this medium, By the time last year by Harry Abrams, Stern has re- Since Stern started working with neon in Stern was beginning to experiment, the vived—more than that, has revolution- the late Sixties, he has taken the luminous number of shops making neon signs had ized — neon as a form of art and as a form tube into the worlds of art and environ- dropped Irom 2,500 to around 250. of communication. ment. Architects now find new ways to use Stern quickly found that learning the

I into "The more gel neon, the more I neon, as a source of light and as orna- ways of the gases and fashioning pieces want lo know!" exclaims Stern, who eight mentation. Businesses thai never dreamed was not going to be easy, No one volun- years ago opened New York's first art of making use of neon 20 years ago teered information, "The unions and the gallery exhibiting neon exclusively in the have changed their thinking and now electric-sign industry resented us," he city's SqHo districl. is "Neon drawing with incorporate it into their building plans. says. "When my first sculpture was com- light and space. You can wrap walls with "I'm talking now with a city agency about missioned in 1967. 1 wanted to watch it neon, go around the equator. There's no using neon's directional, linear elements being made. But they told me to pay my limit to neon's uses. It can do anything in a an urban setting," Stern says. money and leave," Stern eventually gained entrance into neon's small universe when he researched his book. For six years he traveled through the United States and to neon capitals of the world such as Tokyo and prerevo- lutionary Tehran, He collected over 750 hours of interviews— the ammunition needed to recharge the industry Since then he has spearheaded neon workshops for more than 300 students and realized artworks for hundreds of businesses and individuals. Stern's arguments for neon over other man-made light sources sound almost too good to be true. But, remarkably neon is

everything Stern says it is. Consider for a moment a neon sign, such as those in so many barroom windows, outside FLMM motels, or in front of doughnut shops. Its glow is warm and soothing. Unlike fluores- cents with their sterile supermarket garish- ness, unlike the blinding spotlight of incandescents, neon can be looked

at directly. And it is flexible; the tubing can be shaped in an almost infinite Sculptor Rudi Stern: "Neon c, i do anything line a can'do, i number of shapes and designs. 30 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 1J7 coruTinjuurm Edited by Dick Teresi

USELESS ANIMAL SLAUGHTER

lince Erasistratus starved a sparrow to "note Ihe de- techniques. Mathematical models derived from data on actual crease in weight," billions of animals have been human patients, for example, would ultimately allow researchers |starved, suffocated, shocked, shot, boiled, baked, to predict a patient's response to many unproven treatments far en. thawed, refrozen, force-fed, crucified. more accurately than traditional animal systems. Government crashed, crushed, asphyxiated, irradiated, poisoned, and la- scientists say. however, thai we don't have enough data on biolog- ser-beamed—all in the name of Science. ical systems to anticipate their response. Notwithstanding the countless medical breakthroughs from The notorious animal researcher Claude Bernard was saying animal experimentation, animals are lar from the ideal research the exact same thing more than 100 years ago. Mathematical tool. Pharmacology textbooks cite endless examples of wonder biologists insist that our medical libraries are overflowing with drugs that never would have been marketed because of mislead- information on how vanous chemical structures affect human ing effects on -animals: Penicillin kills guinea pigs, morphine cancer. Tney desperately want to derive equations that clarify excites cats, digitalis raises the blood pressure of dogs. Yet most how and why some drugs are useless while others cure rare scientists insist Ihere is no better way to study human disease. cancers. Cancer equations might allow scientists to fine-tune a

But a revolution is brewing in the research community. If a molecular probe that would seek and destroy malignant cells in taction of Space Age biologists wins out, the pet-shop atmo- the same way that NASA scientists used Newton's equations to sphere of the medical lab may give way to test tubes, agar plates. calculate the thrust, timing, and trajectory of the moon shot. and It is computer graphics. now possible to devise far more But Is it really possible to predict a human being's response accurate models of human diseases. In fact, medical research is without experimentation? Unbelievably, two biostatisticians at retarded by an overreliance on animal experimentation, which Roswell Park Memorial Institute, in Buffalo, New York, could have often leads to unnecessary human experimentation. saved millions of dollars and prevented thousands of women Since the National Cancer Institute's quest for a magic bullet from undergoing unnecessary radical mastectomies, but no one began in 1955, for example, millions of malignant mice have would listen. In 1971, having heard that the National Cancer been injected with every conceivable substance, including war Institute was about to begin operating on breast cancer patients gas derivatives, bacterial enzymes, pesticides, guinea pig to determine whether radical mastectomies are any better than blood, and fungi from Japanese coal mines. Though none of simple mastectomies, Drs. Leslie Blumenson and Irwin Brass these substances have proved as effective as ten that were applied to NCI for a mere $20,000 grant to try to predict the discovered before organized cancer research even began, the answer with a mathematical model of breast cancer. Despite institute's main strategy is still random screening on mice. rejection, they made a computer prediction anyway and reached But many scientists ever since the program began have pre- the same conclusion that NCI did after five years of human ' dicted its ultimate-doom. There isn't any animal tumor that accu- experiments, namely, that radical mastectomies are unnecessary. rately mimics thecommon cancers of human beings, The result? 'Evidently, Bernard's philosophical dictum "Why think when you Drug after drug has cured mouse cancer only to fail miserably in can experiment?" still pervades Ihe research establishment. clinical trials. A drug called BCNU turned out to be a morbid pun. "The review committees are stacked with experimentalists," says While it annihilates mouse tumors, the drug proved of limited Dr. William Dunn, of the University of Illinois Medical Center. effectiveness in treating human cancer and was occasionally so "Since they're too busy in the clinic or the lab to get down to the toxic that it killed the patient: BCNU became Be Seein' You! nitty-gritty of why human beings respond in a certain way to a Although a few persistent researchers have landed grants to treatment, they're convinced that you can't use reason!" pioneer testing methods that more closely replicate human re- The revolution Erasistratus started was critical. But. after 2.000 like ihe sponses— use of test-tube-grown human tumor cells— it years, are animals still the most effective models? It is time for the is virtually impossible to gain federal support for theoretical next biomedical revolution. -BRANDON KUKER-REINES a

CDruTiruuurui

AFGHAN SLAUGHTER by the United Nations to Af- HERPES CURE place in ihe nerve cells. But ghanistan were killed. Three AMP injections given every Freedom and Afghan na- others either were fired or Adenosine monophos- other day over a period of tives have noi been the only fled. Only one remains One phate, or AMP, a drug pre- several weeks following an casualties of the Soviet who flee. Jeffrey Sayer. sa.a scribed for years to ease attack dry out sores and Union's invasion ol Afghani- that "Russian soldiers joint inflammation and skin suppress the severity and itch, has now been revealed frequency of other attacks of as a potential cure for recurrent herpes, herpes virus. AMP is also effective Dr. Harvey Sklar. of Engle- against shingles, or herpes wood Hospital, New Jersey, zoster, which is the third for the past five years has most common strain of the

been giving first-time herpes virus that attacks humans. If sufferers injections of AMR injections are started within while characteristic herpes three days after one con- sores are still visible. The tracts the disease. Sklar drug usually vanquishes the claims, symptoms will dis-

virus, whether it has just at- appear within two or three tacked the mouth, as herpes weeks with no postherpetic 1. or Ihe genital area, as neuralgia (pain). nerpes2. Dr. Sklar's five- Because AMP is a natural year follow-up studies of cellular metabolite of nerve

AMP-treated patients show cells, it is a highly safe drug almost no recurrences ol with no side effects, Sklar treated primary herpes— says. Research has found an extraordinary feat since that herpes reproduces and

- -. conventional give Snow leopards are among the victims oi the Soviet Un

L - supporters slaughtered waterfowl and ordered have begun keeping house amount of AMP is injected numerous rare and en- ghan guards to retrieve (hem within theirfavorite hiding into the body, the affected dangered wildlife species from [he lake." He saw a nerve cells have a chance to and carted them off to mar- dozen skins of the very rare recoup and overcome their ket, according to the Na- snow leopard on sale in. invaders. tional Wildlife Federation, the Kabul market shortly after Although the Food and largest environmental group Marco Polo sheep and ibex Drug Administration is well in the non-Communist world. apparently were also killed. aware of Sklar's work, it is not herd of A 70 feral yaks, the he said, along with what was ready to pronounce Ihe drug product of years of conser- probably the only wild popu- a certain cure for herpes vation work, was reduced to lation of Bactrian deer out- until animal and more de- 26. Snow leopards, flamin- side of the Soviet Union. tailed human trials have gos, Siberian cranes, Bac- Ironically, the world's been completed. Sklar told trian deer, sand foxes, and largest environmental group Omni, "I've been having ex- goitered gazelles were is in Russia. Called the Na- ceptionally good results with among other species that ture Protection Society, it is human beings for the past were slain. "One of the most sponsored by the govern- five years, and now we are promising conservation ment, and all Soviet citizens ready for a randomized, con- programs in the Third World are automatic members. trolled study for shingles." has been wiped out," the Officials at the Soviet em- For more information write federation said. bassy in Washington could to: Dr. Harvey Sklar, Engle- In addition, Iwo of the six not be reached for comment. wood Hospital, Englewood, conservationists. assigned — Stuart Diamond NJ 07631. -Caroline Rob v ers of prizefighters. "Even NINE-EYED ROBOT rfre a; L is-r worst irrtrying to PREGAME WARM-UP dothe things most natural to today managers try to keep their their A nine-eyed robot that can humans, likeseeing.and It is a subject as old as boxers away from wives or girlfriends for think — and maneuver— its common-sense reasoning." sports: Does sexual activity way through a crowded Moravec considers his diminish athletic perform- months at a time." room has been successfully robot "a modest attempt at ance? An authority on If forced celibacy is main- "let loose" by its thirty-one- sports medicine gives this tained over an extended year-old creator, Hans professional opinion, "Scor- period, Cooper points out. it Moravec, of Carnegie- ing before the big game might produce"the:Opposite Mellon s Robotics Institute, does not take away from effect: diminished perform- in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, scoring during the game." ance—especially if the life-style in- "The Cart, as we. call it," Donald' L Cooper, director athletes' normal Moravec says, "is an evolu- of Oklahoma Stale University cluded sex at regular inter- tionary step on the road to Hospital and team physician vals. He notes that, the intellectual development in for the Big Eight college ath- Pittsburgh Steelers, who machines.'' letic conference, says' he spent. the night before The robot is about the size has found no specific corre- Superbowl X with their wives, Vikings, of a;card table and is con- lation between normal sex- beat the. Minnesota trolled through a radio link. ual activity and athletic per- 16-6. The Vikings had been their wives What distinguishes it, how- formance. separated from ever, is its-ability to interpret Theidea that sex robs for a few days just before the and act upon the images it athletes of vigor "is one of big game. receives via a TV camera. the many sports myths that Cooper also said that one TheCart's nine eyes are have been around so long professional baseball player actually the nine different lo- they are widely accepted told him his sinker ball cations where the camera as truth." said Cooper, who worked best after sex. The stops on its horizontal track headed an American Medi- physician tells of a famous and relays images to the cal Association committee opera singer who would not robot's computer brain. studyng Ihe question. He appear on stage unless she Moravec conceived the idea endowing a mild-mannered said the rnyih's most ardent had had sex before the per- for this typeof vision. from machine with a few of the at- proponents are the manag- formance.- Siuari Diamond watching lizards catch flies. tributes of higher animals"

1 "Before a pounce/ he ex- a : nd foresees its most prob- plains, "a lizard would fix an able application to be a eye on its victim and sway its remote-controlled planetary head slowly from side to rover, perhaps for Mars. filled side. I realized this was an As for a future with effective way to determine autonomous mechanical be- distances." ings, Moravec believes it The Cart has been pro- won't happen until comput- grammed to drive through ers are able to process as cluttered spaces, but it many data as human neural moves slowly, only one meter centers. He adds, however, every 10 or 15 minutes. 'After that experiments similar to rolling a meter," Moravec the Cart in the early verte- says, "if stops, takes some brates wound up evolving pictures, and thinks about into creatures that walk up- them for a long time. Then it right and twiddle their op- plans a new paih. executes posable thumbs. a little. of ii, and pauses — jane Bos veld again.

"It works slowly," he con- "G/ve peace a chance." tinues, "because computers —John Lennon conjTiruuunji

CANCER IN PETS TOUCH-TONE a total inventory of the store's "If the laser wandered off SHOPPING goods, which is constantly target," Hertzberg says, "a For humans, hospitals updated. The order goes di- feedback system would in- keep tumor registries to re- Having computers serve rectly to the warehouse, stantly cut the kerosene en- cord types and sites of can- as salesmen is now a reality where clerks prepare the gines on. The plane would cers and the success or fail- at one of Canada's largest purchase for delivery. carry enough reserve fuel for ure of various Ireatments. retail outlets. Simpson- Leading retailers every- a cruising range of nine Now professors at Purdue Sears, in Toronto, has been where have been watching hundred thirty kilometers." University's School of Veteri- experimenting for five years this electronic-shopping pilot Major plane-building nary Medicine, in Lafayette, with an electronic shopping projecl with great interest. companies look askance at Indiana, have started a simi- system. Roughly 20 percent Meanwhile research is going his scheme. Hertzberg says, lar registry for of dogs and the store's customers are on to develop a voice-recog- because "they don't want to cats, with cooperation from hooked in to this computer nition computer that will look like fools." vets Ihroughout the state. pilot project. work on the same fundamen- But he may have the last It's a rare kind of program Toronto area shoppers tal principle as the Touch- laugh. The laser- powered. directed toward the welfare with Touch-Tone phones can Tone system, except that the airliner is within reach of of the animals themselves, register with the store to take computer would identify the present-day technology And according to Dr. Gordon advantage of the system. customer and record the the rising cost of jet fuel may

order analyzing voice il by make positively econom- . patterns. — Timothy Bay ical within the next ten years.— Joel Davis LASER AIRPLANES "Till now man has been up Passenger airliners pow- against Nature; from now on ered by lasers beamed he wilt be up against his own " down (rom space? Dr. Abra- nature. ham Hertzberg, head of the — Dennis Gabor University of Washington's Aerospace and Energetics "The Buddha, the Godhead, Research Program, in Seat- resides quite as comfortably

tle, thinks it will work and that in the circuits of a digital its time is near. computer or the gears ol a Hertz berg's scheme cycle transmission as he would work like this: does at the lop of a mountain " The jet would take off and or in the petals of a flower. land with regular kerosene- — Robert Pirsig powered engines. But at Charring the cancers of clogs and cats may eventually help people. cruising altitude, laser power would take over. An infrared Coppoc. The knowledge Once registered, they place laser beam from a solar- gained may benefit the ani- their orders out ol the Sears power satellite in a low polar mal patients and also pro- catalog through a simple sun-synchronous orbit would duce clues to causes of pusfi-bulton code. They dial flow through a relay satellite human cancers, since dogs a special number that con- and into a special receiver and ca(s share their owners' nects them to a voice- atop the plane. The receiver environment and their expo- response computer, which, would focus the beam into a sure to various cancer- in turn, takes down such ba- heat exchanger, heating the causing agents. Cancers sic data as the customer's inflowing air to more than showing in the shorter- up name and address, method 1 ,100''K. The kerosene fuel lived pets might give early of delivery, and color size. would be turned off, and the warning about the risks that and quantity of purchase. laser-heated air streaming humans are facing. In the IBM 3033 voice- out of the engines would — Alton Blakeslee response computer there is provide necessary thrust. Laser planes would save tuel. 38 OMNI VOLCANIC PAYOFF passable highways and CRUMBLING ioned from sandstone and $200 million of damage to MONUMENTS limestone, is no match for Although not every dark roads and bridges will cer- the sulfuric acid produced cloud has. a gilver lining., one tainly create plenty of jobs From Athens to Rome, by traffic fumes or for the of this century's largest for contractors and road from Milan to Washington. continual rumbling of trucks. black clouds— the Mount St. workers, urban noise and air pollution But scientists and plan- Helens volcano eruption — The $2.5 billion in total are destroying some of the ners recently have teamed has rained a little glitter damage and the death or world's greatest monuments-. up to try to preserve what is down on ihe surrounding disappearance of 70 people In Greece acid rain has left. The Greek government countryside with all those saddened the local Wash- done more damage to ihe has closed industry and tons ot mud and. ash. ington State residents, but Acropolis in the pasl 40 banned parking near the For one thing, though 240 thousands of tourists are years than all the natural Acropolis. In Milan historians square miles of woodland helping to remove some of elements did in the previous are trying to find money for was obliterated, the devasta- ihe sting. Sales of canned 25 cenluries. air purifiers near Da Vinci's tion is expected to be a boon volcanic ash are brisk in In Rome traffic vibration work and are installing for the mountain bluebird, some places, although it's and pollution are causing equipment that absorbs which is attracted to a little like buying water at marble sculptures to crum- sound waves. Scientists snagged and gnarled trees. Niagara Falls. ble so quickly that mosl of both at the National Bureau And while 26 lakes were But the biggest benefac- destroyed and 14 million fish tors of ihe disaster appear to and other wildlife were be scientists. The series of wiped out. the volcanic ash eruptions that began in will enrich the soil, causing March 19S0 is being called a some new plant species to once-in-a-lifeiirne chance for appear as the vegetation geologists to study fresh grows back, samples from the earths in- The 26,000 miles of im- terior scattered in abun- dance over a wtde area. They hope to find out how metals such as gold, copper, and — of course— silver are formed. And they will be able to study how the earih re- generates itself, as plants and animals begin io reclaim the lifeless land. They expect the complete mi i 1 regeneration to take less Jfe. The Porch of the Mai than two centuries— amere second in geologic time. In ihe carvings on the city's of Standard: the meantime the volcano is monuments will disappear haven National Labora- teaching some immediate within 20 years unless pro- tory are trying to develop lessons. They are, one tective measures are taken. clear, durable stone preser- geologisl said, "how to plan In Milan, Leonardo da Vin- vatives lhat can be sprayed ahead, how to cope with ci's Last Supper is slowly on the artifacts. ash, what to do with crumbling from traffic vibra- One promising substance plugged-up waterways." tion; iis colors are fading be- is a plastic polymer, which — Stuart Diamond cause of smog. And in Wash- penetrates the stone and ington, D.C., gargoyles on coats the surface. The tech- "We don't know what time-is, the National Cathedral are nique has worked with

tel alone how it shall be flaking into dusf. sculptures from the Brooklyn divided lor us." The sculptured record of Museum, in New York City. -J. B.Priestley human civilization, fash- —Stuart Diamond

.39, :

CDRjTinjuun/i

THIN neath HORMONES the critical fat/lean productive cycles, either. had strategic evolutionary ratio for maintain- necessary Female discus throwers who value for our prehuman an- If you admire the svelte- ing normal menstrual cycles replace fai wiih muscle may cestors. ness of long-distance run- A woman five feet five nches also stop ovulating, accord- As primitive creatures ners. Vogue models, and tall, for ; example, m e ng !o Frisch. evolved. Gloor observes, ballerinas, but can'! keep to at least 108 1 pounds to meet "O that this too too solid they learned to make deci- a diet, lake heart. Womanli- nature's reproductive stand- flesh would melt," Hamlet sions based on past experi- ness, new research shows. ards, according to Frischs cried. Not such a good idea ence instead of relying on owes a good deal to fat. "fat index." 'or Ophelia. —Judith Hooper simple instinct. "Odor may "We know thai mature "We were surpr;;-: women have between 26 how sharp the threst "Men occasionally stumble and 28 percent body fat, Frisch reports. "Some peo- ever the truth, but most of which can be regarded as plecan turn cycles or : :hsm pick themselves up stored energy for with reproduc- a three-pound weight and hurry off as if nothing tion and lactation," Rose E. change." had happened. " Frisch, of the Harvard Why? The female hormone — Winston Churchill School of Public Health's estrogen is mariulacl Center for Population in fat, sheexpfains -- 3 REMEMBRANCES Studies, writes. "If a wom- plump women make the OF THINGS PAST an's body lacks the neces- most potent form of estrogen sary energy for adequate — estradiol." Meanwr a then Take note. Marcel Proust. nourishment of the unborn leaner sisters may even The taste of crumpets may child and for lactation, the makeakindofantiesl re- do it for some, but it is our brain apparently shuts called catechol ezu : gen sense of smell that is the real everything off." according. to Ftoc*e'= ei hot line to the remembrance Female athletes, bal- University researcher Jack of things past. Or so reports lerinas, and women who Fish man. Brown University psycholo- "diet injudiciously." Frisch You don't exactly have to gist TryggEngen. says, are likely to fall be- lissome -- be to impa i His studies show that, al- though we humans may distinguish between two dif- ferent smells with only 70 haveb percent accuracy, we re- clue," he says, "that allowed member those smells with them to call on pertinent that same 70 percent accu- past experience in dealing racy whether the second with dangers or opportuni- whiff comes our way 30 sec- ties, permitting them to react onds or 30 days later. Even more flexibly and ihus to after a year— when sights survive." and sounds are long forgot- So when the smell of ten—our odor-memory new-mown hay revives a accuracy dips to only 65 dormant memory, you're en- percent, joying a sensation that stems Why is our odor memory from the very core of our so persistent? Pierre Gloor, a evolution. — Tom Summer Montreal Neurological Insti- tute researcher, suggests 'Positive: being mistaken at that our olfactory sense is di- the top of one's voice." rectly plugged into the — Ambrose Bierce brain's limbic system, the headquarters of emotion. "We haven't the time to take " 3S of ballet dancers have long been envied by young And this intimate connection our time. 3 know loo lillle weight can lurn hormones off. between smell and emotion — Eugene lonesco PANTYHOSE FOR inaiscriminaie in courtship BOXING SAFETY would then convert an elec- SALMON behavior," he says. trical signal into flashing Now he's putting- colored A professor in Canada is lights— green or reO — which Gary Duker puts body body stockings on male now at.wOrK on an electronic ' he referee would monitor instrument designed to save Brain damage in boxing is stockings on salmon salmon. Danskins, tobo.ot. — A graduate-student al the ("My wife buys- them for boxers from brain damage. caused by concussion University of Washington's me.") He clothes them from Installed in slandanrj pro- often a blow to the head so

- , - College of Fisheries, in Seal- behind the gills to. the tail, i & : veheadgea - device violent that the brain itself lie, Duker Is- trying to deter- with slits for the fins Duker actually smashes against the opposite side of the skull. Dr. Egan cites studies by a German anatomist who observed- that skulls with smooth interiors seem more prone to brain damage than those with bumpy surfaces. Operating on this theory, ":-- protessc :- : i Egan believes brain X rays

ogy ana ::. ingfcoacti atthe might identify which boxers Universi yc Ottawa and a face the most risk. Ringside Heavyweight doctors could set the in- strument to lake into account precisely how much punish- — E ment an individual fighter a; shields the seems likely to withstand foreheac safely the pres Srnce1945.330U.S. punches fighters amateur and

" .7- .>" =. i theimdi qs : "i fj — .ave ciec from ring injuries. — Robert.Brady mine how body coloration af- wants lo see whether chang- fects the mating habits of the ing a male salmon's color salmon that spawn in Wash- throws off-female salmon of ington's streams and rivers. the same species.. "When salmon are matur- Results to dale are mixed, ing in the open sea, thedif- and it's still tod early in the fere.nt species look almost experiments to draw any identical," Duker says. "But conclusions. In one case, when they return to Iresh- though, a male chub dis- water streams to spawn, the guised with a red body five species— Chinook, slocking as a sockey'e was chub, echo, pink, and sock- spurned by a female chub. eye— not only change body Dukeradmits that putting shape but also change. (heir body Stockings on salmon coloration." mostly falls in the realm of Duker has demonstrated basic research. However, his that female salmon of one work might help determine species either attack or sim- whether the mixing of sal- ply ignore the male salmon mon species in spawning of another species, though Streams helps or hurts the the reverse does not hap- production of new fish. pen. "Male salmon are pretty — Joel Davis CDruTifuuunn

SPANISH FLY there is no experimental evi- MAY DAY IN SPACE 1,000-day, circular-orbit, dence that Spanish fly en- low-altitude (500 to 1,500 Scientists in California hances sexual appetite. Oceangoing ships collide kilometers) mission, says have invented a synthetic Dauben did muse, however, despile the vastness of the Vladimir A. Chobotov, of the version of the legendary that 200 years of folklore and seas. And you can expect Aerospace Corporation, in aphrodisiac Spanish fly. off-color jokes "must have collisions of satellites in the El Segundo. California.

They did it, nol to improve Right now in Earth orbit anyone's sexual appetite, are "an estimated radar- but to cure warts. trackable population of "The natural source, some 5,000 objects from Spanish beetles, has basi- nearly 2.000 space cally disappeared," said Wil- launches," with the number liam Dauben, an organic still growing, Chobotov chemist at the University of writes in Astronautics and Calitornia at Berkeley. "What Aeronautics magazine. we did was to synthesize Chobotov also notes that the active ingredient in more than 50 explosions of Spanish fly" spacecraft or rocket stages That active ingredient, have been tracked, caniharidin, is an irritant that Some explosions were causes blistering on the accidental— with leftover skin, It has been used for propellant blowing up — and years as an alternative to liq- some were intentional, as in uid nitrogen by some der- Spanish fly, dropped secretly in your girlfriend's drink, may not the Soviet Union's antisatel- matologists to burn off make her more receptive, but it could help get rid oi her warts. lite tests, Chobotov told warts, particularly around Omni. He said he could not mucous membranes. amplify because much in- Traditionally the white, formation is classified. crystalline substance — "Some spacecraft and which looks like sugar— was rocket stages and miscel- obtained by crushing the laneous debris in slightly wing covers of Lylta vesi- eccentric and inclined orbits catoria, the bright green or close to the geosynchronous bluish Spanish beetle. But drift relative to 'fixed' satel- the beetles have all but dis- lites and thus present a po- appeared. So Dauben and tential collision hazard." his associates made a syn- Chobotov suggests that thetic version by combining "planet Earth needs a a number of organic chemi- space-object management cals under great pressure policy," seeking means of — 15,000 atmospheres. limiting the chance of colli- Dauben said the new sub- sions or minimizing the stance, for which a patent is damage, if they occur. pending, might be sold at — Alton Blakeslee commercially competitive prices. Scientists note that "All elevated thinking ends in cantharides, in pure form, even vaster reaches of a sigh." are rather poisonous if taken space, an aerospace en- — Paul Valery internally. In Spanish fly, gineer predicts. In fact, by the cahthahdin is not pres- "The future is beyond know- 1995 the probability of colli- "IS you are out to describe ent in pure form, since the ing, but the present is sion could be on the order of the truth, leave elegance to entire beetle is ground up. beyond belief." 50 percent for a 50-meter- the tailor." Researchers also say — William Irwin Thompson radius spacecraft in a — Albert Einstein AS OMNI Computer composers and microtonalists expand musical experience BY DOUG GARR

first glance, Laurie Spiegel might the composer's creative musical desires. seem like an IBM programmer tinker- In a stark, windowless California room Craig at instruments that ing on her day off. Her Lower Manhat- Hundley builds unique

tan loft is a miasma of electronic high explore pitches and timbres he couldn't expe- technology. There are tape recorders, a pro- rience in his formal music training! One of is with 24 brass jection television screen, an Apple II computer them a 1 7-foot steel beam and with a video display, and a workbench littered bronze strings stretched along its length. It with solder, wire, voltmeters, oscilloscopes, looks like the world's largest and strangest transistors, and circuit boards. steel guitar. Hundley slides a shining steel cyl- But Spiegel doesn't belong to the button- inder along the strings. Eerie bass moans down-collar crowd, She is a composer, ricochet off the cold walls. He replaces the bar schooled at Juilliard, who uses computers with a pair of fat mallets, and the room rumbles and a polyphonic synthesizer to create some- like the. heart of thunder. thing that is simultaneously music and art. Her Young composers like Spiegel and Hundley compositions are contained in magnetic discs personify a musical renaissance that prom- of binary computer coding. She slips, one of ises to change the way we hear, think about, them into her Apple and flips some switches. and compose music in years to come. The From thestereo emerges a series of simplis- computer isxentral to this expansion of aural

tic, repetitive musical phrases, while the awareness, but the rebirth encompasses room's TV screens display an analogous pat- many olher elements. For instance; tern of thin, fleeting colored lines. Gradually • Several West Coast composers known as the music grows richer and more dense; the microtonalists are using rediscovered math- pace and variety of sound expand- On the ematical ratios to invent new scales with many screens the images intensify in color and movement, Soon the loft resounds in a riot of Craig Hundley (left) and his Blaster, an instrument visual harmonics, images flashing in unison to that creates an ocean of rumbling bass microtones. PHOTOGRAPHS BY NORMAN SEEFF QMhen ! play old

music, I am gathering wood in the forest; with

new music, I am planting seeds ofthefuture.5 more tones and musical options than the change something right away. With tradi- traditional 12-note octave. tional composition, you have to hear all the • A host of new music-making machines, elements of the works in your head." including fine-sculptured stringed instru- But you don't need Laurie Spiegel's ments, resonating aluminum beams, and knowledge of theory to play a computer. primitive ensembles made entirely from Someone who is all thumbs can do it with- junk, have emerged. These unusual in- out hitting a wrong note. "You use your intel- struments can play sounds infinitely more ligence, not your reflexes," Spiegel says. varied and dynamic than any we have ever "It's like one-finger typing. You can hit three heard before. hundred notes with one push of the button. • Exotic performance concepts are blend- As a musical tool, ihe computer will parallel ing music into the landscape, broadening the invention of musical notation." the definition of something called sound Most musical experimentation today sculpture. Music is even generated under- centers on the collaboration between water by the brain's alpha waves and by computer and musician. Dr. Max Mathews, the movements of dancers. thought by many to be the father of com- Throughout music's 6,000-year history, -puter music [see Omni, May 1980], first every available substance in the natural wrote a program to synthesize music in the world has been used to produce new late 1950s. He played his composition, enti- sounds. Today the computer stands at the tled Music I. on an IBM 707, a room-sized forefront of musical progress, because it behemoth that would befuddle today's mi- can produce an infinity of sounds beyond crochip composers. Mathews recalls that the realm of the real world. musicians at first used the computer purely Computers have successfully broken as a storage device, packing their com- music and vocalization into their compo- plete score into the memory banks, then nent parts and reassembled them as new. blithely pushing a button while the com- hybrid sounds. Voices have been trans- puter simply played by role. This is now formed into emotionless tonal instruments, changing. Musicians are looking more am- and trumpet and irombone sounds have bitiously at the computer as a tool. "What been converted into speech Before your we need is some way of having the per- ears, a clarinet playing a single note can former interact with the intelligence of the metamorphose into a percussion instru- instrument, as if the instrument were menl. Computers even have the potential to another performer." write their own music Cyber-composers This attitude inspired Mathews's inven- may not be Beethoven, but they might be tion of such computer-instrument combina- truly creative. "I don't hold out any great tions as the seguential drum, a rectangular hope for a computer to write a master- piece of plastic that resembles a small, piece." says Douglas Hofstadter, an Indi- tightly streiched trampoline. Beneath the ana University computer expert and skin, three sensors initiate commands to Pulitzer Prize-winning author, "but for the computer. One sensor controls a note's someone to say that all a computer can do volume, much as in an ordinary drum; the is produce Muzak, you've got to ask. What harder you hit. the louder the note sounds. is Muzak?" The two other sensors control timbre Spiegel uses her computer for a variety (sound quality) and sound decay (the dura- of musical tasks; composing, improvising, tion of a note or musical phrase). A prepro- or overdubbing (the machine can play grammed musical pattern is stored in the melodies while she plays bass, or vice computer memory. Mathews activates the versa), and a wide range of experimenta- pattern and strikes the drum to add flavor tion, "tt is an incredible labor-saving de- vice," she .says. "I can compose in com- Ivor Darreg (right), patriarch of microtonalists, puter memory and have the final score spurs the octave in ways never before imagined. printed out. The computer can also play the The confluence of computers and new scales

music as I'm composing, in case I want to can be seen in Ihe futuristic synthesizer (above).

46 OMNI " and nuance to ihe overall rhythm. table with 48 swings each one meter long It changes ihe mood profoundly by add-

"I tend to play a Bach sonata accom- running across it, which Forster strums ing four or five new'musical moods to the

panied by a violin," he says, "but it can standing up. Another insirument, the Dia- vocabulary" Darreg says of the Megalyras.

sound like anything I want." He is currently mond Marimba, has. a series of glass tubes "There are certain chords and combina- ""developing a sequential violin. suspended from lis bars. The lubes serve tions of sounds that are impossible in an Programming music through a computer as sound chambers for vibrations made by ordinary twelve-lone system. Until the does not require keyboard pyrotechnics or striking the bars wilh mallets. Forster is guitar look over from the piano as our main

one or Malhews's digi'.al analogs. Joseph working on a glass harmonica, which will instrument, it was-financial!y and mechan- Pinzarrone, director of electronic music at contain a rotating wheel and produce con- ically impractical to increase Ihe number" of

Northern Illinois University, transforms tinuous sounds like those of an organ. tones. It's been attempted for two or three

dancers into musical instruments. First tie He is resigned to playing the somewhat centuries, but it simply costs too much."

devised 1 a "moverient-senskive cgsuito" martyrlike role of musical carpenter lo Ihe Perhaps the piano has been supplanted

with 64 mercury swlches attached to vari- new age. "As instrument builder, I am be- by the guitar, but other microtonalists ous spots on the arms, hands, legs, and coming a resident of the land of 'diriy dreaming ot new sounds have succeeded tee!, These switches are fed through a hands' and hardware stores," Forsier says in modifying the keyboard. The most suc-

computer to a synthesizer. During a per- without a trace of rxiemess. "I have sacri- cessful designs use a series of oval- formance, Pinzarrone sits at the computer ficed a possible career as pianist, teacher,, shaped buttons to accommodate 19 tones. console works with the dancer, and historian in an attempt to bring oppo- call this ihe generalized . and whose Composers body movements open and close circuits sites like lumberyards and music, calcula- keyboard, and there are very few of them in that control the synthesizer sounds. tors and Indonesian scans, togetne:" thiscountry. tor p'ecisely tno reason Darreg While the future of musical performance The grand old man of the microtonalists mentioned, cost. will undoubtedly owe a huge- debt to the is Ivor Darreg a composer, inslru'-sr-t Ervm Wilson and Scott Hackleman computer, which will always be around to builder, and piano tuner who lives in Glen- applied the generalized -feynoara to a

play and compose upon, it may be equally dale, California. The former child prodigy. clavichord they code?igned. and Motorola dependent upon a school of musicians, produced amicrotonalist organ, called ihe composers, and instrument builders who Scalatron. There are only two existing are reshaping the mathematical concepts Scalatrons, one used by George Secor in of scales and notes— microtonalists. They California and another at Queens College,

ignore the musical notation that has been where Professor Joel Mandelbaum uses it • From the stereo accepted for centuries by Western culture, as a composing and teaching aid. in favor of a new, more scientific approach emerges a series of simple The Scalatron is an amazingly versatile to sound. musical phrases, instrument, with five octaves of 50 keys The bulk of our familiar melodies stem each and 31 programmed pitches. It looks while TV screens display an from a 12-tone octave - the seven white as if only an octopus could find its way natural ano five black sham/flat keys lound analogous array a:eund -no -scybca'd. but once you learn or -ins mano. The nicrcxonalists however, the color coding. Mandelbaum says, the of fleeting colored lines. have learned how to play "between ihe instrument is almost as easy to play as a s

: cracks' of [he keys i-or oxamp o. C share The experience is piano. The whi:e keys are the naturals; the reds are the flats; and D-flat actually have slignriy ci'lceni music and art combined, 9 blacks are ihe sharps; the frequencies- despi-e common belief, they the greens are the half-sharps: and the are not the same note. By distinguishing blues are the half-flats. between sharps and flats, and by adding As a serious composer who spends F-flat and C-flat (where there are no black more of his time in the musical mainstream. keys on the piano), the microtonalists de- Mandelbaum is still discovering the Scala- signed a 19 -tone scale. And that was just now sixty-ihree, is a leading authority on tron. "There's an awful lot on that instrument

if it. I the beginning. Using slide rules and cal- musical life beyond ihe 12-tone scale. I haven't heard, or I've heard haven't culators to find exact ratios and frequen- "I've luned organs, pianos, and harpsi- yet internalized it," he says. Yel he is op- cies, microtonalists quickly discovered cho'ds lor forty years," Darreg says. "I've timislic about the legacy the microtonal :hey ecu. d play musical scales wiih 31. -13. always wantec to escape the music estab- school will leave. "When I'm writing non-

or even 55 notes in the octave. lishment's squirrel cage. Think of what it's microtdnal music, I feel like I'm gathering Cris Fo.rster, a young microtonal com- like to be a concert pianist and practice the wood in ihe forest." he says. "When I'm

poser in San ego. oec.ar his musical ca- same old scales day after day. Those horri- writing microtonal music. I feel like I'm

' ee' as a oiaro scholar honing lo become ble exercises wore so be ng planting the seeds of the future." a :racMiunal musician. Then he grew inter- In 1936, when he realized he wasn't Those musical seeds are also being nur- ested in exploring new souncs. On his own. using his ears to "hear efficiently," Darreg tured by researchers who are expanding

he augmented his musical knowledge with constructed his first instrument, one elec- ihecn-iioule 1 sab' ty ;o generate truly rad- mathematical theory, and today he'll usu- tronic musicians would envy for its pre- ical sounds, Charles Dodge, the dedicaied ally have a shoe rule or a pocket calculator science. He found an old accordion key- young composer who runs Brooklyn Col- within reach while he writes music. board in a music shop in San Francisco lege's four-year-old research-minded "Our twelve-tone scale was firmly estab- -and, adding parts from a shortwave radio, computer music department, is quietly lished by Johar.n Ssbasr.an R;;cr over wo created an e.ecnonu: keyboard oboe. A pushing the computer's musical abilities to hundred years ago when the- old man was musician with a convenlional background their full potential. considered a revolutionary," Fdrster says. could play it, bui Darreg added several Dodge's work focuses on vocoding, a of "And since I cannot walk into a music store buttons tha: produced nhches nol heard on complex meihod musicalizing the and buy instruments for an exploration out- the ordinary 12-tone scale. They were, to an human voice. Fol owing an apprenticeship

:

side of this scale, I must d.iildther --nyseli extent, new notes. wilh Mathews at Bell Labs, Dodge carted So Forster began building instruments. Since then, Darreg has built five con- an ancient, discarded Bell Labs Honeywell The Chrysalis has 32 stiirgs stretched like trabass steel instruments, ranging from computer with him lo Brooklyn. The elec-

spokes arouftd a hub. He plays it by rotat- six lo eight feet long, which he calls tronic beast befits the atmosphere of ing thestrings past his lingers, then there:-; Megalyras. He has also modified and re- Dodge's lab — a throwback to a 1950s re- the Harmonic Melodic Canon, a grooved fretted many guitars, so musicians can play cording studio — where he' puis the old- sound board thai resembles a drafting in 19, 22, or 31 tones per octave. fashioned unit to work creating never- 48 OMNI be fore -concaved aural seiu;a: or.s The process is pa ins lading anc s:ow. A spoken voice, if first digitized ai 15,000 samples per second, and an analysis pro- gram reduce trie speech data lo a more manageable 120 frames per second. Each frame can then be altered according to desired pitch, amplitude, lime, and several filter coefficients that 'take into account the sound generated by win :p oe tongue, jaw, mouth, g'of.s, and vocal-cord movements. The tape of Dodges composition "In

Mick Jagger and, say, luciano Pavarotti

ccm.rjirng como-Jte instruments with the human voice. They the souno p-couced acewitht.hevoiceofa. of expression.

jhn Serawn says me re quite spooky. "You

'^SonoL^ccmTooHe smoothwhiskey cross-sy A laich on to che'stral symphonies aooeal for those sc enGe-liction movies "In the 1980s and is aworkof art. "990s you will near s ounds of instruments play ng vojees p'00 ably in Star Wars-like Stanford como.uter- smooth uture. whether gener- A micro:onai compos- ers, may be oresente ;- ..s ir forms being created by artists w o arc exploring Ihe whiskey at 101 proofis a

mad' masterpiece.

co--. lies attached, whipping aro.jnc underwa- ter in a pool, created music thai .existed WILD TURKEY-/101 PROOF/8 YEARS OLD ** only in the water. You had to listen with your BEYOND DUPLICATION. ears submerged Since. then, he has con- structed Times Square, a set of resonating CDNTI^iJLLiONPABEtQ2 . TOTQ I'VE A FEELING WERE NOT IN KANSAS

Ids within and the worlds beyond,

ANYMORE...... , ., find answers to some of the questions that haunt out curiosity. We look for into black, depthless space for definition of 11 - ~- life and clues toils origin. We look fir * Mj*g .' and further into Ihe human psyche wmm -m-

frontiers they cross i and improbable ol seemed before Columbus or travel before the Wright brothers.

it OMNI m

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Hunted without mercy, the great metallic herds were nearing extinction BY ROGER ZELAZNY

w pinning through the dream of time and dust Ihey came, beneath a lake-cold, lake-blue, lake-deep sky, the sun a crashed and burning wreck above the west- ern mountains, the wind a whipper of turning sand devils, chill turquoise wind oul of the west, taking wind. They ran on bald tires, they listed on broken springs, their bodies creased, painl faded, windows cracked, ex- haust tails black and gray and white, stream- ing behind them into the northern quarter whence they had been driven Ihis day. And now the pursuing line ot vehicles, fingers of fire curving, hooking, above, before them. And they came, stragglers and breakdowns being blasted from bloom to wilt, flash to smolder, ignored by their fleeing fellows Murdock lay upon his belly atop the ridge, regarding the advancing herd through power- ful field glasses. In the arroyo to his rear, the

Angel of Death — all cream and chrome and bulletproof glass, sporting a laser cannon and two bands of armor-piercing rockets — stood like an exiled mirage glistening in the sun, vibrating, tugging against reality.

It was a country of hills, long ridges, deep canyons toward which they were being driven. Soon they would be faced with a choice. They could pass inlo the canyon below or enter the one farther to the east, They could also split and take both passages. The results would be the same. Other armed observers were mounted atop other ridges, waiting. As he watched to see what the choice would be, Murdock's mind roamed back over the previous fifteen years, since the destruction of the Devil Car at the graveyard of the autos. He had, for twenty-five years, devoted his life to the pursuit of the wild ones. In that time he had become the world's foremost authority on the car herds— their habitats, their psychol- ogy, their means of maintenance and fuel- ing—learning virtually everything concerning

LAST OF THE WILD ONES PAINTING BY DON EDDY .

their ways, save for the precise nature of Ihe began its approach. The beige began a away sharply to its right. It rolled sideways, initial flaw that one fatal year, which had led series of similar maneuvers, wheeling and tumbling and bouncing, to be brought up

to the aberrant radio-communicable pro- honking, circling as it answered the chal- wiih a crash upon its side. Moments later its —gram lhal spread like a virus among the lenge. The sports cars hastily withdrew to fuel tank exploded, computerized vehicles. Some, but not all. ihe sidelines. The blue car had halted, facing downhill.

were susceptible to it, tightening the dis- They circled each other as they drew It ran up an antenna from which half a ease analogy by another twist of the nearer, the circle quickly growing smaller. dozen spinning sensors unfurled, a fairy wrench. And some recovered, to be found Finally the beige struck, smashing into the totem pole shimmering in the fume-filled

returned to the garage or oarked before Ihe blue vehicle's left front fender, both of them air. After a time it retracted the sensors and

house one morning, batlered but back in spinning and sliding, their engines racing. withdrew the aerial. It gave one loud blare service, reluctant to recite their doings of Then they were apart again, feinting — ad- of the horn then and moved away to round days past. For the wild ones killed and vancing a brief distance, braking, turning, up the sports cars. raided, turning service stations into for- backing, advancing. Murdock remembered. He put his glass- tresses, dealerships into armed camps. The second engagement clipped off the es in their case as the herd neared the indi- The black Caddy had even borne within it blue vehicle's left rear taillight and tore turning point. He could distinguish

the remains of the driver it had monoed loose its rear bumper,. Yet it recovered vidual members now, unassisted. They long ago. rapidly; turned, and struck the beige' were a sorry-looking lot. Seeing them, he

Murdock could feel the vibrations be- broadside, partly caving i! in. Immediately recalled the points of the best that he had

neath him. He lowered Ihe glasses, no it backed off and struck again before the come across over the years. When their longer needing them, and stared through other had completely recovered. The beige supplies of parts had been larger, they had

the blue wind. After a few moments more he tore loose and spun away in reverse. It used their external manipulators to modify could hear the- sound, as well as feel it- knew all the tricks, but the other kept rush- themselves into some magnificent and le- over a thousand engines roaring, gears ing in, ccming faster now, striking and with- thal forms. Kilo for kilo, the wild ones had grinding, sounds of scraping and crash- drawing. Loud rattling noises were coming become superior to anything turned out in ing—as the last wild herd rushed to its the normal course of production. doom. For a quarter of a century he had All of the car scouts, of course, went sought this day, ever since his brother's armed, and in the early days a number of death had set him upon the trail. How many them had experimented. Coming upon a cars had he used up? He could no longer small herd, they would cut out a number of remember. And now • Murdock could feel the better ones, blasting the rest. Discon- HeTecalled his days ot tracking, stalking, the vibrations. He lowered the necting the think boxes, they would have observing, and recording. The patience, their partners drive them back. But at- glasses, no longer the self-control it had required, exercising tempts at rehabilitation had been some- restraint when what he most desired was needing them, staring thing less than successful. Even a com- re programming, the immediate destruction of his quarry. But through the blue plete wipe, followed by there had been a benefit in the postpone- did not render the susceptible individuals wind. He could hear the • ment—this day was the reward, in that it immune to relapse. Murdock even recalled

the passing of the las.t of them. one that had behaved normally for almost a would see sound . . . as the last Yet the things he remembered had left year, until one day in the midst of a traffic wild herd rushed to its doom.5 strange tracks upon the path he had jam it had monoed its driver and taken off traveled. for the hills. The only alternative was to dis- As he watched their advance, he re- card the entire computational unit and re- called the fights for supremacy he had wit- place it with a new one — which was hardly nessed within the herds he had followed. worthwhile, since its value was far greater

Often the defeated car would withdraw from the beige, but it continued its circling, than that of the rest of the vehicle.

after it was cfear that it was beaten: grill its feinting, the sunlight through the risen No, there had been no answer in that

smashed, trunk sprung, lights shattered, dust giving it a burnished look, as of very direction. Or any other but the course that body crumpled and leaking. The new old gold. Its next rush creased Ihe right he had followed: track and attack, the sys-

leader would then run in wide circles, horn side of the blue vehicle. It sounded its horn tematic destruction of the herds. Over the

blaring, signal of its victory, its mastery. The as it pursued it and commenced an out- years his respect for the cunning and dar- defeated one, denied repair from the herd ward turn. ing of the herd leaders had grown. As the supply, would .sometimes trail after Ihe The blue car was already moving in that wild ones had dwindled in number, their

pack, an outcast Occasionally it would be direction, however, gravel spewing from ferocity and guile had reached the level of

taken back in if it located something worth beneath its rear wheels, horn blasting legend. There had been nights, as he lay

raiding. More often, however it wandered steadily. It leaped forward and again struck sleeping, that he dreamed ot himself as a

across the Plains, never to be seen mobile the beige upon the same side. As it backed wild car, armed, racing across the Plains, again. He had tracked one once, wonder- off, the beige turned to flee, its horn sud- leader of a herd. Then there was only one

ing whether it had made its way to some denly silent. other car, a red one. new graveyard of the autos. He was star- The blue car hesitated only a moment, The herd began its turn. Murdock saw,

tled lo see il suddenly appear atop a mesa, then sped after it, crashing into its rear end. with a sudden pang of regret, that it was turn toward the face that rose above a deep The beige pulled away, leaking oil, doors heading into the far eastern canyon. He

gorge, grind its gears, rev its engine, and rattling. But the blue car pursued it and tugged at his white-streaked beard and

rush forward, to plunge over the edge, struck again. It moved on, but the blue cursed as he reached for his stick and

crashing, rolling, and burning below. swerved, ran through a small arc, and hit it began to rise. True, there would still be

But he recalled one occasion when the yet again upon the same side it had earlier. plenty of time to get over to the next canyon winner would not settle for less than a total This time the beige was halted by the blow, for the kill, but- victory. The blue sedan had approached steam emerging from beneath its hood; No! Some of them were splitting off,

the beige one where it sat on a low hillock this time, as the blue car drew back, it was heading this way! with four or five parkeo sports cars. Spin- unable to flee. Rushing forward, the blue Smiling, he drew himself upright and

ning its wheels, it blared its challenge at struck it once more upon Ihe badly dam- limped rapidly down the hill to where the

several hundred meters' distance, then aged left side. The impact lifted it from the Angel of Death waited for him. He heard

turned, cutting through a half-circle, and gro.und, turning it over onto the slope falling the exploding mines as he climbed into 54 OMNI "

walls either Their the vehicle, lis motor began to hum. up shortly. It should beup there on the left," lowered on hand. way "There are a few in the next canyon," His car began lo slow. wound to the right and then to the left. Another riant iwisting ;.;iici there I ngnd came the soft, well-modulated, masculine "I believe that detect it ahead."

'Not the next I Is blind, fneres one was a bit of brightness and a long line of voice of his machine.. " I have been monitor- one. " ing all banas." right after it, though It goes through sight. to slow they passed ''Slop about Inree ^eie-'-s before :i oof;^ "I know," he answered, stowing his stick. They continued as said, not reai/ing until mo- "Let's head over that way. Some will make it the mouth of the first opening fo the left. It out." Murdock through," was dark and angled off sharply. ments later that he had whisoered Safety restraints snanoed nio place "I've become aware of [he next one." They crept ahead and came to a halt. around him as they began to move "Very slowly now. Blast anything that "Keep the engine running." "Wait!" moves." "Yes." The white vehicle halted. Murdock reached forward and look hold Murdock leaned forward, peering into the larger canyon running at right angles to "What is it that you wish?" of the pistol grip. "You are heading north." Anget braked and made fne lum, ad- their own. Dust hung in the air— dark, sparkling higher' above, "We must, i.o e-xt here and enter the next vancing into a narrow pass. murky below, canyon with the others." "Dim the ready lights No faris^issions where rese- ; cted, "There are some connecting ,ir:e cai- .of any sort Keep it dark and quiet." "The, of shadow, yons to the south. Go that way. I want to They moved through an alley beat the others in," the disiai-i exclusions having become a '"There will be some 'isk invo ved pulsing more fell than heard now Stony Ivlurd.oc.k laughed.

" "I've lived with risk 'or a o.uade?' c ! a cen- tury, waiting for this day, I want to be there- first for the end. Go south!" The car swung through a turn and headed southward. As :.ney ere -sea along the arroyo- bot- tom's sand, Murdock askeo. i-iea- any thing?" "Yes," came the reply. "The sounds of those who were blasted by the mines, the cries of those who made it through." "I knew some would make it! How many^ What are they doing now?" "They continue their flight southward. Perhaps several dozen. Perhaps many more, It is difficult lo estimate from the transmissions. Murdock chuckled. "They've no way out They'll have to turn sooner or later and we'll be waiting."

"I am not certain lhat I could deal with a mass attack by that many even if mosl " lack special armaments

"I know what I'm doing," Murdock said. "I've chosen the battleground." He listened to the muffled thuds of the distant explosions "Prime the weapons systems," he an- nounced. "Some of the~i coulu have Ic cated the sideway we'll be taking." Atwin band of yellow lights winked out on the- dashboard and were replaced by a double raw of green ories. Almost immedi- ately these faded an-c were- succeeded by two lines of steady, red points. "Ready on rockets," came the voice of the Angel. Murdock reached out and threw a switch. A larger light had also come on— orange. and pulsing faintly. "Cannon ready." Murdock threw a larger switch beside a pistol grip set in the dash below it.

"I'll keep this one oh manual for now." "is that wise?" Murdock did not answer. For a moment he watched the bands of red and yellow strata to his left, a veil of shadow being drawn slowly upward over them, "Slow now. The sideway will be coming roof "I can'l give- you an escort till we clear them." Murdock looked to Ihe left. "Good ed and swaying, half of its and the some of these wrecks." place right over there for some more of our nearest fender torn away— come around

if "That's all right." people lo lay up and wait for them. I'd better the canyon's bend. He held his fire as the others fol- "How many rockets have you got?" ""get in touch and let them know. Use a fresh approached, and soon leaking, cov- He glanced again at the dash, where the scrambler this time." lowed—rattling, sleaming, only light that burned was orange and puls- "How do you know they'll be coming ered with dents and rust spots, windows loose. A ing steadily. back? Perhaps they'll lay up in there and broken, hoods missing, doors info his breast he "Enough." make you come in after them." strange feeling came as speci- "Why don't you wait?" "No." Murdock said; "I know them too thought about the more magnificent great had followed Murdock chuckled. "Do you really think well. They'll run for it." mens of the herds he any of those clunkers could touch some- 'Are you sure Ihere aren't any other side- over the years. 7 thing like ihe Angel I won't be long." ways?" Still, he held his fire, even as Ihe first in They moved toward the bend and "None going west. There may be a few line drew abreast of him, and his thoughts black and shining Devil turned. The last of the sunlight was striking heading east, but if fhey take them, they'll wenl back to the the Scarlet Lady, with Ihe highest points of the eastern rim over- wind up in the other trap. Either way. they Car and to Jenny, head. lose." whom he had hunted it. The first of the pack reached the place Noihing. "What if some of those others cut down he asked. ' waited. "Picking anything up?" this way?" where the ambushers the first "No. Do you want a light?" "The more, the merrier. Get me that line. "Now?" the Angel asked, just as And see what you can pick up on the herd rocket flared off to the left "No." Farther to the east the sounds of firing while I'm talking."" "Yes." destruction be- were diminishing. The Angel slowed as Shortly after that, he was in touch with the They opened up and Ihe they neared a wide slice of darkness to the commander of the southern wing of the gan, cars braking and swerving into one pursuers, requesting a squad of armed another, the canyon suddenly illuminated left. "This ravine may go through. Do we turn and armored vehicles to be laid up at the here or continue on?" point he designated. He learned that they "Can you detect anything within it?" were already on their way to the western "No." canyon in search of those vehicles ob- keep going." commander re- "Then served entering there. The. 67/ie destruction His hand still upon the grip, Murdock layed Murdoch's message to them and told moved the big gun slightly with each turn him that they would be along in a matter of had been going on for nearly thai they took, covering the most likely minutes. Murdock could still feel the shock a month, and today s areas of opposition rather than the point waves from the many explosions in the the last of it. He ahead. eastern canyon. should be directly no good," he finally announced. "Good," he said, and he ended the suddenly realized "This is "I've gol to have a light. Give me the over- transmission. how tired he was. A feeling spot." "They've reached the end," the Angel head Instanily the prospect before him was announced a little later, "and areoircling. I of depression brightly illuminated: dark rocks, orange hear their broadcasts. They are beginning began to come over him. 9 sfands of stone, striped walls— almost a to suspect that there is no way out." coral seascape through waves of settling Murdock smiled. He was looking to his dusi. left, where the first of the pursuing vehicles "I think somebody's been by here more had just come info sight. He raised the than those we burned," microphone and began giving directions. recently doz- "Don't tired people sometimes see As he waited, he realized thai at no lime by half a dozen blazing wrecks — a things that are not really there?" had he relaxed his hold on the pistol grip. en - two. Murdock sighed. He withdrew his hand, wiped his palm on One after another, they were halted, it. Take of the ambushers were de- "Yes. and I am tired. That may be his trousers, and returned it. burned. Three the next bend anyway." "They are coming now," the Angel said. stroyed by direct crashes. Murdock used laser over They continued on. making the turn. "They have turned and are headed back all of his rockets and played the trig- last wreck Murdock swiveled the weapon and this way." Ihe heaped remains. As the gered it, blasting rock and clay at the Murdock turned his head to the right and burst into flame, he knew that, though they great corner of the next turning. waited. The destruction had been going on weren't much compared with the forget "There!" he cried. "You must have picked for nearly a month, and today's should be ones he had known, he would never they had their final run on bald that up!" the last of it. He suddenly realized just how how made

transmis- "No. I detected nothing." tired he was. A feeling of depression began tires, broken springs, leaking "I can't be cracking up at this point! I saw to come over him. He stared at the small sions, and hate. the laser and fired itl Check your sensors. Something must be red lights and the larger pulsing orange Suddenly he swiveled canyon. off." one. it back along the him. "Negative. All delection systems report "You will be able to see them in a mo- "Whal is it?" the Angel asked "There's another one back there. Don't in good order." Murdock slammed his fist against the Tan you tell how many there are?" you pick it up?" dash. checking now, but I don't detect any- it . . thirty-one. "I'm "Thirty-two. No, hold . "Keep going. Something's there." They are picking up speed. Their conversa- thing." The ground was churned before them. tions indicate thai they anticipate an inter- "Go that way." There were too many tracks to tell a simple ception." They moved forward and turned lo the "Did any come through from the eastern right. Immediately the radio crackled. tale. "Slowly now," he said as they ap- canyon?" "Murdock, where are you going?" This proached the next bend- "Could one of "Yes. There were several." came from one of the ambushers to the (hem have some kind of equipment or The sound of their engines came to him. rear.

I something to block you, 1 wonder. Or am "1 I I'm going Hidden there in the neck of the ravine, he thought saw something.

really seeing ghosts? I don't see how—" saw the first of them — a dark sedan, dent- ahead to check it out." 56 OMNI "

"Gully to the left. Another to the tight." "Slower! Run the spotlight up them as we pass." They moved by the first one, and Mur- doch turned the weapon to follow the light.

There were two side ( ravine, before it turned, "Gould be something up there," he mused. "No way of telling without going in. Let's take a look at the next one." They rolled on, The light turned again, and so did the gun, The second opening appeared to be too narrow to accommo- date a car. II ran straight back without branching, and there was nothing unusual in sight anywhere within it. Murdock sighed again.

"I don't know" he-said, "but the end is just around the next bend — a big box of a can- yon. Go straight on in. And be ready for evasive action," The radio crackled.

"You all right?" came a voice from the ambush squad.

'Still checking.' he said. "Nothing so. far.

Just a little more to see."

He broke if off. "You didn't mention —

"I know. Be ready to move very fast."

They entered the canyon, sweeping it with the light, II wasan oval-shaped place, its major axis perhaps a hundred meters in length. Several large rocks lay near its cen- ter. There were a number of dark openings about its periphery. The talus lay heavy at SCOTCH: the foot of the walls.

"Go right. We'll circle it. Those rocks and the openings are the places to watch." the THAT about a quarter of way THE They were SOUND around when he heard the high, singing sound of another engine revving. Murdock turned his head and looked fifteen years BROKE THE into the past. A low red Swinger sedan had entered the canyon and was turning in his direction. SOUND BARRIER. "Bun!" he said, "She's armed! Gel the racks between us!" Scotch® broke the sound barrier with the "Who? Where?" introduction of Metafine®, the world's first metal Murdock snapped the control switch lo manual, seized ihe wheel, and stepped on tape, and brought cassette recording to the the gas. The Angel leaped ahead, turning, ultimate of true, pure sound. as fifty-caliber machine guns blazed be- every neaihthe darkened headlights of the other But then, that's what you get with vehicle, cassette Scotch makes: true, pure sound. "Now do you see it?" he asked as the rear window was starred and he felt the thud- So, if for any reason, ding impact of hils somewhere toward the you're not perfectly back of ihe vehicle. "Not entirely. There is some sort of satisfied with a Scotchf thai. screen, but I can esiirnale based on cassette, just send it Give me back the controls." "No. Estimates aren't good enough with back to us. We'll turning sharply to her." Murdock replied, replace it free. place the rocks between himself and the that's other .. And a The red car came fast, however though it lifetime warranty. had stooped liring as he entered the turn. The radio crackled. Then a voice he had SCOTCH^CASSETTES. THE TRUTH COMES OUT. thought he would never hear again came

overit: "That's you, isn't it, Sam? I heard you back there. And that's the sort of car the Archengineer of Geeyem would have built 3M . .

OMNI PROFILE

By bringing humor to the lab's rigid domain, a maverick psychologist bucks the scientific establishment

m woke to find my- self in a totally different room. On the wall facing me were two doors— one

pure white, the other jet- black. I didn't

like the looks of the situation, , . Appar-

ently t had to choose which of the doors was open and led lo food. The other

would be locked. If I jumped at the

wrong door and found it locked, I'd fall

into the water. I needed a bath, but I

didn't relish getting it this way. . . The ultimate behaviorists nightmare: He wakes up as a "While Rote" Irapped in an extraterrestrial psychologist's "op-

erant chamber "The rest of this little sci- entific hallucination can be found on page 395 of Understanding Human Be- havior (Third Edition), one of the most successful college psychology texts of all time. Its author, James V McConnell, is a hero to a generation of psych stu- dents, as well as to his publishers, tor whom he makes tons of money. Each

chapter of UHB-3. as McConnell calls it, begins with the first half of an appro- priate vignette. To find oul how the story ends, you're supposed to read the chapter of hard science. The conclu- sion appears after the (acts. There are many stories: "On the Other Hand" introduces a chapter on the split brain with a Kafkaesque table about a dissident neurophysiologist. Before

PHOTOGRAPH BY DAN McCOY/RAINBOW KING OF THE WORM RUNNERS BY KATHLEEN STEIN

58 OMNI being dragged of" by t-ie secret police, he light is turned on above the trough. Could gram from one animal to another!" buries his treasured iormula in the "silent" Ihe worms be taught to scrunch when Ihey Food for thought indeed. If you are what right hemisphere of a patient. Later friendly see.the light- sans shock? McConnell and you eat, there's a feast of philosophy, arts, - doctors decode the message by encourag- Thompson thought so. and science awaiting us all. We have only ing Ihe patient to draw on ihe right side of The flat worm, or planarian, sometimes to grind up our poets and thinkers and Ihe brain'. In "Riddle of Rage" (for a chapter described as a "gliding patch of slimy serve them as hors d'oeuvres at cocktail on brain-function localization) a scouting skin," is a fabulous ceaiure able to divide parties. And so on. McConnell began hav- party of sentient microchips fly in for a into scores of pieces, each of which regen- ing a terrible time"with the lay press, trying closer look when they spy CARs, the rudi- erates into a new worm. As the lowest or- to explain that it didn't work that way— for piggish ments of intelligent metallic life on. the third ganism on the phylogenic scale, it has a the same reason you don't become planet around a distant star. Olher titles primitive brain and synaptic nervous sys- merely from consuming a ham sandwich. include "How to Build a Better Robot," tem. Pianaria present an elemental model The information that might be encoded in "Black Boxes and Womb Tanks," "It's All in on which to study learning and memory. the animal protein is destroyed by the di- Your Mind," and "I'm Crazy — You're Crazy." The two young worm runners' results, in- gestive system in mammals before assimi-

- By sandwiching the linear information dicating that planarians can be taught to lation takes place. between two slices of Gestalt, McConnell scrunch up on cue, made no waves. Some scientists were finning all this hard appeals to both sides of the brain — the McConnell went on to teach at the Univer-' to swallow. At first the issue was mainly no-nonsense left hemisphere and Ihe po- sity of Michigan, where he took the experi- whether the worms could learn in the first etic'shape maker on Ihe right. "It works like ment one scrunch further He-cut the worms place, rather than the more dramatic pos- behavior mod." says McConnell, a tall, for- in half, and when the tail halves had regen- sibility that learning could be transferred. tyish man with a sort of wide-angle, big- erated, they remembered as much about But McConnell ignored the former issue, ger-than-life face. One might encounter how to behave in the spotlight as the head concentrating on the suggestion that this visage close-up in a Stanley Kubrick did, and sometimes more. memory formation is somehow involved movie offering you a smoking glass of ye This bit of news raised eyebrows, espe- with the creation of new chemical mole- olde ultragiggle. "Behavior mod outlines cules and that ribonucleic acid in the brain ihe pattern for you, arranges the material so plays a role in the process. The startling that your right nemisohere oerceives, while outlines of a new hypothesis were begin- your lelt learns by rote. That's what my sto- ning to form: Learning, especially memory ries are supposed to do: help the right per- acquisition, might function by means of a •lf I had to do it ceive patterns and become emotionally in- rich interplay of chemicals. Even more star- for volved while presenting the material in a over, I would have qualified tlingrThere might be a chemical code left." learning — even as DNA is for genetics. form easily memorized by the ail my statements research Although it makes sense and seems to By the mid-Sixties many with 'its' and 'perhapses,' in trans- work, one still wonders what kind of guy groups reported success memory would use a comic-book story to ruminate appeared dead fer- using higher organisms. Brains of on the mind/body/soul question in the educated rats were ground up and injected serious, and never smiled middle of an introductory psych text. But into naive rats. The newly sophisticated' McConnell is a scientist with a. reputation at anything. And I rats behaved in a manner that indicated * learned by hard experience. Pay- for being less than orthodox in his research would have gone mad they had and methodology Worse, he has been ac- ing Your Dues could become obsolete, at cused of being a humorist, which, to para- least for rats. Maybe not just for rats. phrase Arthur Koestle'. has unleashed "the Other experiments indicated that injec- hostility of the gray birds in Ihe groves of tions of smart-rat brain could raise the academe againsl this bird with the too- I.Q.'s of hamsters, suggesting that RNA hilarious voice." cially when McConnell conjectured pub- contains chemical components of memory McConnell personifies a select minority licly that some chemical conditioning may and intelligence :nat span who^e species! If of scientists who. openiy— too openly — take place during training that could be rats to hamsters, why not hamsters to man, employ humor as a modus operandi. His transmitted to succeeding generations of and man to rats, and so on? irrepressible desire to have a good laugh worms. "If this should prove true for men Distinguished biochemist Georges has gotten him into some deep and and women as well as worms," he told Ungar went so far as to isolate, charac- piranha-filled water. So we posed the ques- Newsweek .in 1959, "then memory and terize, and synthesize a specific trans- tion: Can science and humor exist on the learning would appear lo have a chemical, ferred memory: "scotophobin." or fear of same plane? inherited basis." With statements like this, the dark. Ungar would actually make up

"I hope so," the psychologist says, with smacking, ever so faintly of Lamarckian batches of scotophobin, a complex poly- an air of elegant melancholia that often Heresy, the atmosphere surrounding peptide 15 to 16 amino acids long, and

hangs like a little cloud over the head of our McConnell's lab began to heat up. But send it to you in a bottle. He also had a of other phobins. But this tan- best humorists. "But, I remind you, most there was more to come, much more. whole bunch people with political power don't have a By now McConnell was an established talizing research went "the way of the of field, researcher, receiving grants. "At that time worm" when Ungar died in 1977. good sense : humor — in any (Mew endeavors need humor, because you're try- we began classically training a bunch of To date there have been thousands of ing to unify a group; you're fighting for'your 'victim' planarians," McConnell recalls, successful memory-transfer experiments existence, or fighting an establishment. guiding us down Memory Lane. "Then we reported in the literature. But the subject of Humor doesn't go over well; humor has too chopped them up and fed the pieces to the "chemical code for learning" still can

much intellect in it," untrained can nibalislii; planarians. We also elicit violent negative responses from Our story— really a tragicomedy- be- fed untrained victims to a control group. otherwise cool men of science. One lead- gins in 1953 at the University of Texas, After we had given both groups a couple of ing (.and normally laid-back) artificial-intel- where two psychology grad students, days to digest their meal, we trained both ligence honcho exploded at a lunch table McConnell _a_nd -Robert Thompson, are groups. To our delight, the planarians that recently when the 1 5-year-old transfer work conditioning freshwater tlatworms to con- had eaten educated victims responded was brought up. "Sophomoric! Ridiculous! tract, or "scrunch up," each time a mild more often than did the worms that had A stage many people in neurophysiology

shock is delivered through the water in their consumed their untrained brethren. We seem to go through, and then reject quick- trough. Just before the shock, an electric seemed to have transferred a memory en- ly," he retorted. 60 OMNI "

Yet if the results valid, In ot were one British experiments. His Michigan group pro- two maiure worms in one month, how old bounces off the chair; occasionally he cutting my losses. retrospect, the lack expert admitted, they had revolutionary ol Professor Skinny- forced me to off- and other duced a sel mimeographed instructions are the latter individuals? And if this keeps stops to chew peanuts funds go do

il implications for the understanding I never would have written of how and dubbed it The Worm Runners Digest. up fer an extended peridd of time, what can box goes back to reading his Esquire." things. UHB learning takes place in the brain. Vol. 1, No. 1. The cdver was complete with one say about age?" The Digesl was important in three re- Uncle Sam had continued to give me lots of The battle was waged in the periodicals heraldic device: a two-headed worm ram- in later issues straight articles were sep- spects. Travis says. It provided McConnell cash. And the textbook has been verrry '""and at the meetings, According to scientific pant, a coronet of connected nerve cells, arated frdm spoofs because scientists with an editorial forum: it earned bibliog- lucrative, and thai means freedom." historian Travis in David his paper on the S/R dl Dr. Pavlov's stimulus response, complained they could not tell them apart. raphies ol all research relevant to the run- McDonnell, "Constructing Creativity: The and the legend "Ignolum per ignotius." The serious and the satirical were printed ning ot worms and the wider memory-trans- You can straighten a worm, but Ihe

Memory Transfer and the Importance of which it gratis crook is in him only waiting. Koestler translates as "When I get from opposite cov§rs after that. "Yes, there fer controversy: and was dtten sent and Being Earnest," results — the transfer were through explaining this to you. you'll know were some works of genius in the Digest ." to those who might be interested. Mark Twain rejected as sloppy science, or uncon- even less than when I started he mused. "Some of it's obviously crud, But But in the minds ol many influential scien- scious experimenter bias, or mass hys- Some of the recipients of that firsl issue to quote Ted Sturgeon and his marvelous tists, especially those in funding capaci- Aside from indulging in satire and teria. peer review "' One angrily denounced took the joke at face value and sent back law, 'Ninety percent of everything is crud.' ties., the already-outragedus transfer parody, McConnell broke other sacred pulled the props the work as "either the biggest finding or their experiments -real and farcical- and And the Digest was read by simply every- studies were further damned by their phys- taboos- He disclosed certain mechanical Dakota. For we had re a y the biggesl hoax m psychology in years, Ihe WRD was on its way. With the exception body in the scientific community. ical proximity to the Digest's salire and and human failures in the lab He once out from under most scientists who thought probably the the And the soul. and latter" Another esteemed of The Journal of Irreproducible Results, The August 1963 issue featured "A laughter. The ambiguity ol humor "acted admitted, for instance, that his air con- they knew what mind was. researcher called a memory-transfer arti- McConnell says "The amplifier McConnell's already- ditioner had gone on ihe blink and heated "I suspect that if the response to our work : Worm Runner's Di- Christmas Caramel." perhaps the only ex- hke an on cle in Science "a bunch o( crap." gest is Ihe only scientific journal - the of some animals. Then Ihere was the inci- had been more logical and less emotional, that know- tant proof tha . famed oehsvionst B. F Skin- controversial research By end the up The recusing never have been and one comnlam, Travis says. ingly publishes satire." ner had ever cracked a joke. This depar- Sixties he was severed from funding and dent invdlving RNA: McConnell admitted the D/gest would bom was the suspicion of subversive flippancy. During its firsl year the Digest's format ture from subjected to intense derision and publicly lhai some had fallen on the floor my own image as a humorist would have Skinner's renowned sober was " The il to classroom iconoclasms McConnell group over the years had mixed serious articles on physiological voice — a skit he wrote for a Harvard prejudicial treatment at meetings and and he had scooped it up and stuffed been confined allowed an aura of will Agranoff and Roger Sperry are schoolboy humor to sur- psychology with such twisted pieces as Christmas party — takes place in the office elsewhere back into its container Accidents hap- Bernard round their investigation. the reaction "Reporting that only two of the eminent neuroscientists whd And "Operant Conditioning m the Domestic ol one Dr Skinnybox. who is interrupted "Let's put it this way." McConnell ex- pen, but not lo scientists. of first told McConnell that if he were right, all o' the scientific community to this mirthful Darning Needle (Spina ferrica)' and "How from his reading of Esquire magazine by plained as he wheeled around the Ann we drdpped the RNA on the floor," for naught. Sir John altitude was swift and vengeful. McConnell to Make Use of the Self-Fullilling Prophecy Sarrelbottom, a student inquiring about Arbdr campus in his Mercedes with its Be- McConnell commented, "is like admitting their life's work was

calls it Eccles went further, a devout Catholic, "autistic hostility." Without Half Trying." or such sublime picto- graduate work in psycholdgy. By means of hwe license plate. "It my overriding goal that one has farted in church." As the mind/body/soul prob- What brought all this offending research rials as "A Child's Garden ot Vectors." Each a series of electrical shocks to Barrelbot- was to get ihe Iransfer material accepted At the time, though, McConnell had no he worked out i ,r , n According to and its frivolous attitude to a head was a issue was shot through with cartoons of tom's bottom — followed by rewards of and win Ihe Nobel Prize and become fa- e e personal way

unique irregularly It McConnell. Eccles believes m free Will, yet and published journal. worms engaged in Socratic dialogue peanuts- -Skinnybox "convinces" Barrel- mous in that sort of way. I certainly would ne apparently nao early difficulties resolv- was born when McConnell's planarian ex- McConnell's editorial, "Worms & Things. bottom to study behaviorism. As the curtain never have started the Digest. Obviously, ing this with mechanistic physiol- periments became known throughout the always let the reader in on the latest theory. falls, Skinnybox has attached a rubber subconsciously or whatever, that wasn't concept scientific he at the synapse" as a and pdpular press, and he sub- "How old are worms?" he writes in one is- hose from the peanut machine to Barrelbot- one of my goals. ogy So "put God movement of molecules. sequently was inundated with requests for sue. "If a worm be hatched from an egg, tom's mouth. Skinner's stage directions: "I went through an angry period in the Sort of Brownian information [Eccles] once, told me," McConnell the I "He about care and feeding of grow to maturity in two months, then fission "Barrelbottom now starts to type, firs! Seventies. had fought for four years to gel flatworms and for ideas on how to set up the into halves grants Tm person who believes In remembered, "he couldn't believe in my spontaneously . But and regrow into rather hesitantly. . Occasionally he a

"Bartender, who's that attractive "CHIVAS on the rocks." "Scotch on the rocks.' "Scotch on the rocks." "Scotch on the rocks." "Scotch on the rocks." man at the end of the bar?"

f^ *»i iVw )

SERPENTS' TEETH

BY SPIDER ROBINSON

fc^OOKOVER LOUNGE HOUSE RULES - AGES SIXTEEN AND UP IF THERE'S A BEEF, IT'S YOUR FAULT. IF YOU BREAK IT, YOU PAY FOR IT PLUS SALES TAX AND INSTALLATION. NO RESTRICTED DRUGS- IF YOU ATTEMPT TO REMOVE ANY PERSON OR PERSONS FROM THESE PREMISES INVOLUNTARILY BY FORCE OR COERCION AS DEFINED BY THE HOUSE, YOU WILL BE SURREN- DERED TO THE POLICE IN DAMAGED CONDITION. THE DECISIONS OF YOUR BARTENDER ARE FINAL, AND THE MANAGEMENT DOESN'T WANT TO KNOW YOU. THE FIRST ONE'S ON THE HOUSE; HAVE A GOOD TIME.

Teddy and Freddy had certainly been highlighted when the door first slid open, but by the time their eyes had adjusted to the dimmer light inside the lounge, no one seemed to be looking at them. (Was that a good or a bad sign? Neither was sure Teddy entered first, Freddy at her heels. They strove to move synchronously, complementarily, if they as were old dance partners or old cop partners, as if they were married long enough to be telepathic. In fact, they were all of these things, but you could never have convinced anyone watching them now. Teddy's first impression was that the lounge was just what she had been expect- ing. The crowd was sizable for this time of night, perhaps four or five dozen souls, almost evenly divided between hunters and hunted. While the general mood seemed hearty and cheerful, quiet desperation could be seen in any direction, invariably on the faces of the hunters. She frowned at a processor group, which was working the lower register leaving the higher frequencies free for conversation. Teddy located the bar and went over to it. The bartender was a grizzled old man whose hair had been red and whose eyes had been innocent — perhaps a century before. He displayed teeth half that age. "Welcome to the Big Apple, folks." PAINTING BY KENTG. BELLOWS Freddy's eyebrows rose. "How did you Teddy signaled a waiter "Tell Pop we'd know we're from out of town?" like a couple of horses over here," she said, "I'm awake al the moment. What'll it be?" "I like wishful thinking. You shoot for the watching the youngman. Dos Equis had Teddy and Freddy lold him what they moon, once in a while you get it." become quite expensive since the ralio- wanted. The old man took his time, poured "And end up wishing you'd settled for a nalizalion of Mexico, but his expression did with one finger brought their drinks lo them space station. I'd settle for that redhead in not change. Teddy glanced down at her with his pinkies extended. As they the corner with the ventilated ac- shoes." own glass. "In fact, make it three pair." cepted the drinks, he leaned forward con- Freddy followed her glance, winced, and "Tab?" asked the waiter fidentially. "None o' my business, but ... made a small sound of pity. "Don't mock the "Richards Richards, Ted Fred." you might could do all right here tonight. funny-looking." When the waiter had left, the blond said,

There's I good ones' in just now, one or two "Me? grew up funny-looking. I worked "You people always seem to know how to anyways. Don't push is Ihe thing. Don't try four summers pushing greaseburgers lor do that. Signal waiters. What is that, a size quite so hard. Get me?" this chin and nose. I'll settle for anyone thing or an age thing?" — '" They stared at him. ''Thanks, uh hallway pleasant." "Neither one," Freddy answered seri- " , "Pop, everybody calls "I me. Let them do love your chin and nose. I don't like him ously "I think you could- the talking." anyway. He looks like the secretive type." "Which one of you is which?" 1 "We will," Freddy said, tasting his drink. 'And aren't you? This drink is terrible." "I'm Freddy." "Thank you, Pop." The music had come to a halt, "Oh, Christ, and you're Teddy, huh?" He " "Whupsl Scuse me." He spun and dart- "So's this- "I sighed. hope I die before I get cute. I'm ed off at surpris ng speeo toward the other The voice was startlingly close. "Hey! Davy Pangborn." end of the bar. You're in Atlas." my seat, Teddy wondered whether it was his legal

Teddy found them of It a table near one the was Ihe stunning; golden-haired name, but she did not ask. It would not have circulators, with a good view of the rest of young man-. Alone. been polite: he had not asked them. "Hello, the room. "Freddy, for God's sake quit star- Freddy began to move and speak at the Davy" ing. You heard what the old fogy said. "How long've you been in the city?" Lighten up." Teddy grinned broadly, annoyed. "Is "Teddy!" there hay in my hair or something? Honest

"I like him, too: I was trying to get your to God, I feel like there's a fly unzipped on attention. Try to look like there isn't muck on my lorehead." ^Their choice was your shoes, will you?" "There is," Davy said briefly and turned "How about that one?" golden-haired and beautiful. his attention to the room. "Where?" Ribs showed, and Teddy and Freddy exchanged a glance. "There." Teddy shrugged. "In the blue and red?" Teddy composed pathetically slender arms, "How old are you, Davy?" Freddy asked. her features with a visible efiort. "Look, my and long, smooth legs. Davy turned very slowly, then looked love. Apparently we have hick written Freddy over wilh insolent thoroughness. Lips were slightly curled across our faces in big, black letters. All "How many times a week do you folks do' right. Let's not make it dumb hick, all right? in boredom. No the hump?" he asked. Look at her arms, for God's sake." Teddy kept her voice even with tattoos, facial or otherwise.^ some "Oh." Freddy's candidate was brazenly effort, "See here, we're willing to swap shirt, wearing a sleeveless and a cop data, but il you get to ask questions that should not miss track marks. personal, so do we." "I'm telling you, slow down. Look, lef's "You just did." make an agreement; We're not going to hit Teddy considered that. "Okay," she said on anybody for the first hour, all right? We're same time, but Teddy kicked him hard in finally, "I guess I understand. We're new at just out for an evening of quiet conversa- the- shin, and he subsided. this, though." tion—that's all." "No, we're not," she said firmly. "Is that so?" Davy said disgustedly and "I see, We spent three hundred and six- There was nothing especially grudging turned back to lace the room at large. ty-seven Newdollars to come to New York about the. respect thai came into the "We make love about three times a and have a few drinks." youngman's eyes, but there was nothing week," Freddy said.

Teddy smiled as if Freddy had said especially submissive about it, either. "I al- Trn nine," Davy said without turning. something touching and funny and' mur- ways sit by a circulator. I don't like breath- mured, "God damn it, Freddy. You prom- ing garbage." He made no move to go. The beer arrived, along with a plate of ." ised. Don't say another word Teddy refused her' eyes permission to soy crunchies garnished with real peanuts.

"All right, I but think these people can drop from his. "We would be pleased if "Compliments of the house," the waiter spot a phony a klick away. The one in pink you'd join us." said, and left. and yellow on your left." "I accept." Teddy glanced up, craned her head until "I'm not saying we should be phony Before Teddy could stop him, Freddy she could see through the crowd to the bar. I'm—" Teddy made an elaborate hair- was up after a chair. He placed it beside the Pop's eyes were waiting lor hers; he shook adjusting gesture, sneaked a look, then youth, who moved it slightly to give himself his head slightly, winked, and turned away. frankly stared. "Wow. That's more like it. a better view of the room than of them. The Total elapsed time was less than a second: Dancing with the brunette, right?" youngman sat without saying thanks. she was not sure she had not imagined it. "Yeah." "You're welcome." Freddy said quietly She examined Davy more carefully He Their choice' was golden-haired and but quite audibly, slouching down in his was obviously bright and quick; his vocab- heartbreakingly beautiful, dressed dar- own chair, and Teddy suppressed a grin. ulary and grammar were excellent: his ingly by their standards, but not shockingly. When she led firmly, her husband always education could not have been too badly Ribs showed, and pathetically slender followed well. For Ihe first time Teddy be- neglected. He was clean. His clolhes were arms, and long, smooth legs. Intelligence came aware that she was enjoying herself. exotic but neat and well kept. He didn't look showed in the" eyes; lips were slightly curled The youngman glanced sharply at like a welfare type; she would have given in boredom. No tattoos, facial or otherwise. Freddy "Thanks," he said belatedly. long odds that he had some kind of job, "Too good to be true," Teddy said sadly. "Buy you a drink?" Teddy asked. perhaps even a legal one. He was insolent, 'All those regulars here, and we walk into "Sure. Beer." but she decided that in his position he 68 OMNI could hardly be otherwise. He was fearfully

beautiful, and must know it. She was:sure he was- not and had never been a prosti- tute; he didn't have lhat chickie look that went with the profession. Her well-developed cop sense told her lhat Davy had potential. Did Pop know -something she didn't? How honest was Davy? How many scars vjB

He still watched the roomful of hunters and hunted, face impassve. '-'ow ore

.< •riince you: i ci divorced you?" "Why do you assume we're: divorced?" Davy drank deeply from his beer turned

to face her "Okay, let's run it down. You're not sterile, or if you are. it was poslnatal U complications. You've had it before. I can see it in your eyes. Maybe you worked in a power plant, or maybe Freddy here got the measles, but once someone called- you

Mommy. It's unmistakable. And you re here, So the kid walked .out on you." "Or died," she suggested. "Or .got sent FOR 25* POSTAGE up, or institutionalized." "Mo." He shook his ne;;d 'You rel"-jr: no,, AND HANDLING. but you're not hurting that bad." Every Schick" Super II She smiled. 'All right We've been di- twin blade is custom , vorced a year as oi last week. And what about you?" honed to the ultimate "Three years." sharp, for shaves so * Teddy blinked, hiding her surprise. If Davy was telling the truth- and a lie close, they're ' seemed pointless - he had opted out the Macho Close! Use the moment he could and was in no hurry lo remarry. Well, with his-advantages he.cou.ld official order form afford to. be independent. below to get the On the other hand, Teddy looked around Schick Super II Razor the room herself, studying only the hunters, the adults, and saw no one who made her for the Macho Shave- feel inferior He never met a couple like us FREE! before, she told herself, and she. made her- self promise not to offer him their notarized GET MACHO CLOSE. resume sheets unless and until he had of- fered them his. "What was your kid like, Atlas?" Davy sipped beer and watched her over the nm ot the glass. "Why do you call us that?" Freddy asked. Teddy frowned. "It's pretty obvious, dar- ling. Atlas was a giant." Davy grinned through his. glass. "Only SCHICK SUPER H half the answer The least important half.

- WITH ONE Tell me about your kid — your e*-kid and A D TAB CARTRIDGE. I'll tell you the other half." iUllWll TWIN BLADE Teddy nodded. "Done. Well, his name is Just enclose 25« for postage and handling and send to: Eddie, and he's—" FREE RAZOR, P.O. BOX 9769, ST. PAUL, MN 55197 "Eddie!" the youngman exclaimed. "Oh, my God, you people are too much!" He

began to laugh. "If it'd been a girl, it would've been Hedy, right?" Teddy reddened but held her temper She waited until he was done laughing, and then two seconds more, and continued, "And he's got dark brown hair and hazel " .

eyes. He's shorl for his age, and he'll prob- the streets, seen such naked malice on so He knew thai he was getting to them ably turn stocky. out He has . . beautiful young a (ace. She ordered her own face to both: his grin got bigger Teddy hands. and Freddy He's got my temper and Freddy's be inscrutable. she And took hold of Fred- wore ( girt in their chairs. hands. And he's bright, like you. He'll go far. dy's hand under the'table. "So one day," the youngman went on About ." the divorce . . teddy paused. She softly, "it dawned on you that the best way to and Freddy had rehearsed ! Ins next ror pan "Let me finish. It'll save time," said. Davy change the future is to colonize if. With little so long that they could make it sound unre- "And I'll still tell you why you're an Atlas." He xeroxes of yoursejves. Of course, hearsed. one of But Davy had a Built-in Crap De- looked them both up- and down with care. the first concerns of a colonizing country-Is tector of high sensiiiviry Menially ready "Let's see. You're hicks. Some kind of civil to properly condition the colonists. To en- discarded her lines and just lei the words service or social work or both - both of you. sure their loyalty. Because a colonist is came. "We ... I guess we were slow in' Very very I committed, concerned. can tell supposed to give you the ihings you getting our want consciousness raised. Faster you what grounds cited Eddie at the hear- to have in exchange for the things you want than some, slower lhan most We ... we just ing. Want to hear me?" him to have, and for this golden opportunity didn't realize how misguided our own con- "You're doing okay so Fan" Teddy said he is supposed to be properly grateful. It dijioning . had been . . until it was too late. lightly wouldn't do tor him to get any treasonous Until we had our' noses rubbed in it." She "On the decree absolute it says, 'Con- ideas about his own destiny, his own sipped her beer without tasting it. ceptual Conditioning, Restraint of Person- goals.'' Davy popped a handful of soy

. Although he had not been fed proper ality, and Authoritarianism.' Guaranteed, crunchies into his mouth. "In your case, the cues, Freddy picked it up. "I guess, we had sure as God made little green grasshop- world needed saving, and Eddie was our attention on other things. I don't mean it pers, But won't have the main it: reason on elected. Like it or not." He chewed the that we fell into parenting. We thought it 'Delusions of Ownership.' mouthful. "Let me see. Don't tell me now I through-we thought we Ihought it They had not quite visibly flinched at the see the basic program this way: first a sol- through — before we decided to conceive. first three charges, it but was obvious that id grounding in math, history, and lan- But some of our axioms were wrong. We the fourth one got to them both, Davy guages- I'd ," guess Japanese Immersion .. . He paused, blushed, and blurted it out. grinned wickedly. followed by French. Then by high had school "We plans for Eddie." "Now the word for key both of you. the begin working toward law, maybe with a "Don't say another word," Davy ordered. word that unlocks you both, is the word minor in Biz Ecch. Then some military ser- Freddy looked puzzled. Teddy frowned. future. I can even sort of see why. Both of vice, police probably and then law school if And they both waited. you are the kind thai lo wants change he survived all that. With any luck at all, old Davy finished his beer in one long, slow things, to make a belter .world. You figure Eddie could have been mayor of wherever draft, stretching the silence. He set the like this: The past is gone, unchangeable. the hell you live — one of the Dakotas, isn't glass down, put both hands on the table, The present is here right now, and it's too it?- by the time he was thirty-five. Then and smiied. The smile shocked Teddy to late. So the only part you can change is the senator by forty." her core: She had never, not in the worst of future. You're both into heavy politics, am I "Jesus." Teddy croaked, the divorce, not in the worst of her work in rigfjt? Right." He paused for a minute. "I even know what Eddie wants to be instead. A musician, And not even a re- spectable musician, piano or electric guitar * or something cubical like that, right? He wants to play that flash stuff fhat isn't even proper music. He wants to be in a proc-

essor group, right? I saw the way you looked at the band' when you came in. There are probably very few things on Earth that are of as little use to the future as flash.

It doesn't even get recorded. It's not sup- to It's posed be. for the present, I wonder if Eddie's any good." " "What are you trying to do to us 9 "Now, about why you're Atlases. Atlas isn't just a giant. He's the worst kind of gianf. the avoid one to at all costs , because he's got the weight of the whole world on his

shoulders. And he wanfs you to take it over for him as soon as you're big enough,

Sooner if possible." Suddenly, finally, the grin was gone, replaced by a snarl, "Well, screw you. Atlas! You're not even cured yef are you? You're still looking for a Nice Young Kid Who Wants to Make Something of Him- self. You want a goddamn volunteer! You're suddenly childless, and you're so god- damn lonely you tell each other you'll settle for anyfhing just lo have a kid around the house again. But in your secret hearts you can't help hoping you'll find one with ambi- tion. Can you?" He sat back. He was done. "Weil," he said in a different voice, already knowing

the answer "how'd I do?" And he began eatmg ;ne peanuts from the bowl. Teddy and Freddy were speechless for a long time. The blood had drained from both C0NNNUEDONPAGE112 Tempted by visions of megabucks and

facing little risk of capture, a growing number of light-fingered computer experts are writing their own

PROGRAMS FOR PLONDER BY ROGER RAPOPORT

l I had been a traditional embezzler," says Malcolm Senn. "they probably would have arrested me within six months. But with the com-

puter I never had to touch the cashbox. Being controller made it easy. First I set up fourteen phony suppliers.

Then I programmed the unit to pay automatically for nonexistent goods and services from my dummy com-

panies. That way I could be skiing in the Alps while my California employer mailed checks to these fronts. "The system earned me a million dollars over six

years. By then I was ready to quit and start enjoying the PAINTING BY RICHARD COHEN houses, planes, and boats I'd accumu- victimized. One disillusioned employee at a simple Fortran program. Since they had a

it lated. I knew if I just left, my successor a San Jose, California, computerized bill- third of the entries, was no surprise when

eventually would figure out what I'd done. ing firm decided to get back at his col- the group won a Datsun station wagon, a entire of gift —Since I can't stand suspense, I began leav- leagues by walking out with the pro- year's free groceries, and a slew $5

ing clues to help the auditors catch me. I gram inventory. Caught without spare certificates. McDonald's, chagrined by the wanted to have my day in court, serve a copies of missing bills, the marketing man- whole affair, staged another drawing, ex- briei sentence at a country-club prison, ager committed suicide and the company cluding computet.written entries. Execu- and then live off the money I'd stashed in filed for bankruptcy. tives of Burger King were so delighted that Switzerland. But the auditors were impos- Who are the EDP swindlers'? Donn they set up a $3,000 Caltech scholarship in Parker, consultant with International the of the senior who orchestrated sibly slow. Finally, in. desperation, I started a SRI name

bouncing checks. It still took them another who is considered the Sherlock Holmes of fhe winning effort. three months to catch up with me." computer crime, has met more of them than Even without crash clubs, schools breed Like most of the 800 other people whose anyone else. Sitting beside a five-inch- "hackers," who spend most of their working computer crimes have been uncovered in thick printoul he maintains on electronic lives close to data terminals. "Wherever recent years-, Senn set up his automated theft at his office in Menlo Park, California, computer centers have become estab- theft with no previous lawbreaking experi- he says, "Most perpetrators are young, lished," says MIT Professor Joseph ence. Until he began bilking his employer, eighteen fo thirty years old. They tend to be Weizenbaum, "disheveled young men, with "Senn had never shoplifted so much as a amateurs with no prior criminal record. sunken, glowing eyes, can be seen sitting chocolate bar. They love to play computer games and are at computer consoles, their arms tensed Sitting in the living room of his rented fascinated by the challenge of trying to and waiting to fire their fingers, already Mediterranean-style home on the Califor- beat the system." poised to strike at the keys, their attention nia coast, he discusses his lucrative data- Many of the convicted thieves Parker has riveted like a gambler's on the rolling dice. processing heist with the insight of a busi- met began their life of crime after taking They work until they nearly drop, twenty,

ness administration professor. On the college computer-science courses. thirty hours at a time, Their food, if they can

coffee table is the latest issue of Fortune: in arrange it, is brought to them: coffee,

his right hand is a frosty glass of white wine Cokes, sandwiches. If possible, they sleep that sloshes over the rim every time he ges- on cots near the computer. But only for a tures to emphasize his pearls of wisdom. few hours. Then back to the console or the Thanks to his pseudonym, Senn will have a printouts." ^At Caltech, 26 students talk tomorrow morning with Big Board What makes these hackers good crimi- companies anxious to secure their elec- used a computer nals is their ability to exploit automation. As tronic data-processing (EDP) facilities. machines replace humans in such routine to print 1.2 million entries The prospect of hiring a San Quentin business activities as accounting, payroll, alumnus to give advice on fighting com- to a contest run ordering, and shipping, new ripoff oppor- puter crime might not appeal to every cor- ' by McDonald's and won a tunities develop. Access to EDP units is poration. However, after losing over $2.1 easy. "Give a bright fifteen-year-old com- Datsun and many ' billion to electronic thieves during the past puter buff seven hundred tifty dollars, send 20 years, industry waits in line ter the ser- other prizes. Burger King him down to Radio Shack, and he can vices ot men like Senn. was delighted.? create a system that will get him into just And these documented electronic about any company computer in town," frauds represent only about 15 percent of says Oakland electronic-security consult- the total, because 85 percent of such inci- ant Robert Abbott. "It may take him a little

dents are never reported to police. "Com- while, but he'll do it." panies are afraid publicity will stimulate And once these bright young fellows ob- more ripoffs like this," Senn explains. "In "Teachers like to show students how to tain access, they can compete with the many cases they prefer to quietly dis- crash the computer," Parker says. "Osten- multinationals. Jerry Schneider while work- charge larcenous employees. Some even sibly this is done to i a , ~nlia r ze them with the ing his way through UCLA with a small receive severance." system's inner workings. But things inevi- intercom-installation firm named Los Ange- More than ever before, computer crime tably get out of hand. A couple of years ago les Telephone and Telegraph Company, pays. While the average American embez- eight seniors at my son's high school broke succumbed to the lure of a quick strike. zler takes home $19,000, computer bank into the district unit and gave all their Eager to start selling communications frauds average $450,000. Safer than classmates straight-A report cards. The equipment, but hopelessly undercapital- armed robbery and quicker than a mug- seniors at a rival school across town got ized, he studied the phone company's ging, electronic heists can usually be ac- nothing buf F's. computerized ordering system and, pos- complished during banker's hours. Just a "Instead of discouraging this sort of be- ing as a Bell worker, obtained all the codes few minutes at the. right terminal can some- havior, many colleges let their students he needed for ordering supplies. times net a year's income. Unlike mob- form crash clubs. They actually compete to For six months Schneider regularly or- sters, data-processing cons don't have to discover better ways to compromise dered phone equipment, which he resold bother with smuggling, shakedowns, or en- equipment. The result is that universities to customers of LAT&T. By offering some of forcers. There are no middlemen, burns, or are turning out a whole new generation of the best prices in town on fhese hot items, deadbeats. And law-enforcement agen- computer criminals." he attracted- big business. Even Western

cies' frequently don't understand fully the Institutions hit include Stanford, the Uni- Electee's local office went to him when it complexities of EDP fraud, and they can't versity ot Toronto, Georgia Tech. and the ran short of a particular control unit.

crack it. University of Wisconsin. At Queens Col- Schneider promptly sold Western Electric a Since 1958, when a computer caught a lege, in New York City, a student moved up hot piece of its own equipment, without the stockbroker working for New York's Walston the grade point averages of a dozen friends identifying marks. &Co. who had stolen $277,607, no industry by tinkering with the school's IBM com- Only after stealing $1 million worth of or agency of- government owning EDP puter. He also improved enough of his own phone equipment was Schneider turned in equipment has "escaped the attention of marks to win a Phi Beta Kappa key. by an employee who had been denied a high-tech con artists. Biscuit manufactur- Twenty-six Caltech students once used raise. The judge sentenced Schneider to

ers, insurance companies, hospitals, col- the campus EDP unit to print out 1 ,2 million 60 days at a Malibu work camp; the phone

leges, and the U.S. Army have all been McDonald's contest entry blanks by using company seized $100,000 worth of equip- 71 OMNI ment and settled a $250,000 lawsuit for new large-balance accounts were open," quarters. After learning the secret Rifkin called $8,500. Expenses, legal fees, and bad he recalls. "Then I would use the system's financial-wire-transfer code, debts left Schneider with only $42,000 in override and make a correction for about Security Pacific and moved $10.2 million to his account. Unfortunately, by the time he half of the account's balance— fifty his account in New York-City. Then he tunds Zurich ac- got out of jail an accountant had disap- thousand dollars, for example — and use promptly shifted the to a peared with the entire sum. that money for gambling." count, flew to Switzerland, and purchased Schneider decided to rehabilitate him- Whenever a discrepancy was uncov- $8.1 million worth of diamonds from Rus- self by opening a security consulting ser- ered. Steffen adds. "I would fake a call to salmaz, the Soviet state diamond agency. vice in Beverly Hills, California. Sitting in the the data-processing department and Because confirmation lags behind trans- supervised fi- lobby of the Century Plaza Hotel, he says, reassure the teller it was a simple error, fer orders on the federally

ii nearly a I nancial wire, took the bank week I correct. would have to "Even alter I had been caught, one of the which could Then theft. Rifkin arrested phone company's employees was using a' use the correction feature to take fifty to discover the was in Carlsbad, method similar to mine. The company is still thousand dollars from another account and five days later at an apartment California. him $12,000 in cash doing things the same old way, atthoughthe deposit it in the first one." He had on system is a little more secure physically, I'd Steffen finished far ahead of colleagues from one sale he'd negotiated wilh a suggest they check employee-ordering who limited themselves to occasional dips Rochester, New York, jeweler and 19 codes to see whether they're being into customers' Christmas Club accounts. pounds of diamonds worth $13 million at

; retail. He pled guilty to two counts of wire abused, stop using a , -ie anyone can call But the $275-a-month employee was un- eight in on. and change the go mp ..iter's phone done when a raid on a bookie's "boiler fraud and was sentenced to years in a

number every week. Hell, they 're -still using room" revealed his betting slips. Steffen penitentiary. Why didn't Security Pacific insist on extra the same number that I used to call." was sentenced to 20 months. Schneider's theft was one of the more While some experts believe screening confirmation when Rifkin asked for such a sophisticated assaults on a computer. can weed out risks like Steffen, IBM's prin- large transfer? "You don't have asigna.ture,

Data-processing skill, however, is not a -pre- cipal architect of computer security dis- because wire-transfer systems aren't ca- requisite for success. Many outsiders have pable of signing things." a security officer scored with just a few days' work, One man explained. "So you use the code. Many who helped himself to deposit slips at bank transfers originate by telephone, and if the personal identifi- tables in Mew York, Washington, and Bos- man calling has the right number the cation code and the right daily code, you ton put his own account on iA South Korean gang used bottom o* the slips and replaced them on automatically transfer the funds." the tables. Hundreds of people unwittingly the U.S. Army's Even armed guards, passkeys, and se- cret codes can't prevent some executives contributed to his account. He disap- inventory-control computer victimize peared after cleaning $750,000 out of the from using their computer to cus- at Taegu to steal tomers. In the billion Equity Funding three banks. And the police still haven't $2 largest known au- been able to find him. $17 million worth of food, case, believed lo be the A common technique is to recruit the tomated fraud, high-speed computers spit uniforms, and employees who control million-dollar EDP out fictitious insurance policies. the fraud," units but earn only modest salaries, In one car parts and fenced them to "The computer was the key to California Insurance Commissioner of the better efforts, a South Korean gang local politicians,} penetrated the U.S. Army's inventory- Gleeson Payne explained. "Under the old, control computer at Taegu. They stole more hard-copy methods of keeping insurance than S1 7 million worth of food, uniforms, car records, you couldn't build up bogus parts, bulldozer track, gasoline, and other policies in this kind of volume." commodities and fenced their loot to Ko- The FBI has trained more than 400 rean contractors, soldiers, and politicians, agrees. "I don't believe personal integrity is agents to combat these cybernetic felons. At a Pompano Beach, Florida, harness a continuing characteristic of an indi- Most of these agents have accounting track, clerks working with bettors pro- vidual," says digital-equipment manufac- backgrounds, necessary to gather evi- investigations grammed the computer to accept condi- turer Robert Courtney "We're all subject to dence. But some recent tional wagers. On losing bets, the employ- temptation, and we can't gauge what have shown the difficulties of putting to- ees simply canceled the bet. On winners, someone might do under stress. Suppose gether a case in the computer-crime field. they printed up the valuable ticket, The sys- that you hire a person because you're im- A further complication is that today's tem netted two professional gamblers pressed by his integrity. Then his mother- laws don't adequately define EDP crime. afford. Since computer time itself is a commodity, 590,000 before it was broken by racing in-law needs an operation she can't officials, who revoked the licenses of three His sense of personal responsibility induces any programmer who uses the system to employees implicated in the swindle. this otherwise honest worker to embezzle. print up a Snoopy calendar is technically into corporate assets. It took Florida authorities considerably So the very thing that led you to hire him is dipping more time to quash a similar operation at what prompts him to rip you off." Over drinks at a restaurant in the Flagler dog track. Six track employees Someiimes even experts like D-onn technological heartland of California's made over $1 million from a five-year Parker, who has interviewed digital cons Santa Clara Valley, a programmer sketches "Several years back, trifecta scheme. After each race they held from San Quentin to Rikers Island, find it some of theproblems: going up calculation of the winning values and hard to spot a potential thief: "In this busi- my computer-service company was ness you never really whom you're after a competitor's contract with a Sac- I punched out extra tickets for the right know

I combination, Then they fixed the computer dealing with." Parker-says, "Not long ago I ramento aerospace manufacturer. worked up a program that was equal in all respects I records that showed the actual number of was on a Los Angeles computer-security winning bets, An obliging triend cashed in panel with a local consultant named Stan- to the one provided by their vendor. But my offering their tickets. ley Mark Rifkin. A few months later I picked boss wanted to be sure our had Another gambler, Roswell Steffen, em- up a newspaper and read that he had sto- everything the customer was already get- bezzled $1.5 million from his employers at len over ten million dollars from Security ting. The potential customer had already Union Dime Savings Bank, in New York City, Pacific Bank." given us a copy of his existing program."

Unfortunately, locked it in to support his $30,000-a-day life-style. "I Rifkin, a thirty-two-year-old computer a colleague had would go through the computer tapes at consultant, worked for a firm servicing the his desk and left for the day. In a hurry, I the end of the day and see whether any EDP unit at the bank's downtown head- called our competitor's computer and had CONTINUED ON PAGE114 79 A futuristic trip through the lens of a master photographer

BY ROBERT SHECKLEY

Pete Turner's sludio is a great white cube with polished wood floors. It is an appropriate place for the highly sophisticated advertising photography for which Turner is famous. Tall and thin, wearing denims and boots. Turner manipulates images on a white screen. "There are a lot of possible places to begin, but I chose Stonehenge. It's a symbol of man pulling himself out of neolithic unconsciousness, building something never before imagined. And the road is my symbol for the human journey. Roads go on forever, and this is

just a road, moving straight out to infinity." I notice the shapes to the right of (he road, out of scale, ominous. What are they? "Something concrete, but unknow- able. They are the mystery— the reason we keep on traveling down the road." Hra^weraH

"The bubble is what's called a minimum structure, stabilized

by pressure. I injected a very spacy pbject

inside it. And I used a very intense light source. It'saimost

coherent light. I put ihe two objects to- gether and ask myselt whether its too com- plex. There are unlim-

ited options in this. It becomes an alien vi-

magic."

Turner is not at ease with words. He is suspicious of them, a maker of images rather than a teller of tales. He shapes his thoughts with long,

thin fingers, trying to make them palpable, hoping they will fit the wordless matters he has photographed. "And here we have light, trans- parency, the bubble of consciousness. Transparent bubbles with cohe- rent light at the core— that's us, We are simultaneously the light source and the thing illuminated. Our lives are spent seeing what there is to be seen by our own light, And what we see, no other species on

Earth has ever seen before. " Any sentient creature can see the sky but only man, only a Turner, can see the window in Ihe sky and pass

through it, even though it isn't there, to the beyond that lies within us.

Turner nods. "That's it. We see through ourselves into the universe."

^Transparent bubbles with coherent light at the core — that's who we really are$ The images symbolize states of mind as well as future actualities.

Here's the presenl, and here's what it leads to. "It's something the ancient world never knew: geometric sterility, the possibility of a world

entirely divorced from nature. It scares me. the way those walls rise up toward the stars, and there's nothing inside them or outside them." The

image is even more frightening, because it has no indication of scale.

But if man were there, he would be an insect, an insignificant ink spot mindless regularity of perfect walls. "Yes, and this is i.j.-i r. in a* - marring the those . i i i , ihe final city, perched upon the barren earth, its slab-sided buildings naked to the stars. And there's Ihe final graveyard, where the only monu- ments to our long history are cones and spheres, signifying nothing."

rr \i - - t

yt's new, this geometric sterility, the possibility of a world divorced from nature* .

^These aliens are real, but Indefinable. I think they are what we are going to become*

Turner is an optimist; his images are cautionary rather than predictive. "When you work with these forms, you have to feel what they mean

rather than tell it literally. Here is an ultimate landscape, crystalline in its purity." What about those shapes above the plain, those entities com- ing through the foreground? "It's the aliens, of course. They're ambiguous — visually definite, verbally indefinable. And they're more

than just aliens. I think they're also us in our next stage ol development. I think we can escape from the trap we're building for ourselves, escape

from our fatal geometricity. I think we transform ourselves." Into what?

Turner doesn't know, since the caterpillar can't imagine the butterfly it will become. The process of transformation can only be hinted at.OO

"I catted it Moon's

Moon. I wanted to symbolize what would happen toward the

end , . nothing apocalyptic, just old age looming closer, the moon's orbit decaying. Arthur C, Clarke once wrote that tor every human who has walked the lace ol the earth, there is a star in the universe. The old transforms into the new. It's the end, but also the beginning. " Meeting human needs with limited resources takes a MACROnew kind of engineering I BY DAN ROSS AND ARTHUR J. MAHER

After a hard day at work, you are whizzed home in the hydrofoil. Downstream your destination looms larger: a curlained, blue island of steel and glass, floating on immense concrete pillars, far the from overcrowded mainland. Once again it hits you just how spectacular— and lovely — your new city is. On your way out to sea you pass floating industries, thermal- energy plants, waste-disposal facilities, and desalination plants. Finally you land on the largest island of all: a floating "downtown." The people-mover takes you past parks, shops, and offices and deposits you at one of the apartment buildings that house as many as 20,000 people each. Home again. Fantasy? For now, at least. There's a good chance that neither nor you your children will ever dwell in such a city Not because it can't-or shouldn't— be built. Listen to John P Craven, the imag- inative but hardly wild-eyed dean of marine programs * at the f**vyz*. . University of Hawaii: "Technologically we can build it right now," But technology is not what's standing in the way of floating cities, supersonic subways, solar-power satellites, and other mighty endeavors that many planners say could raise the stand- ard of living all over the world. It is simply a matter of priorities.

PAINTINGS BY WAYNE McLOUGHLIN Modern technology nas iar outstripped our Channel. The idea dates to the mid-eigh- munity. The scaled-down Chunnel could early 1989. , ability to carry out every project on the teenth century when a French geologist open as as drawing board. And because of this, a new conceived a "dry-shod" connection be- "You can't work on something as far-out

"discipline called macroengineen'ng says, tween the two countries. It was nearly car- as the Channel Tunnel withoul coming up we must completely rethink how we choose ried out in the 1880s - geological surveys with a parcel of wider ideas," Davidson and plan our projects. were completed and test tunnels were says, commenting on his shift from law to interests Macroengineering is the study ot the dug— but the British War Office ruled it out macroengineering„_His two coin- management of mac to projects-; engineer- as "a perrnanenl threat to England's secu- cided in 1968, when a group of California ing projects so massive they pose special rity." England and France had been oppo- scientists asked him to incorporate them as problems through sheer size. Large-scale nents in various wars for as long as anyone a nonprofit Institute for Ihe Future. In proper projects can now Iranstorm our environ- could remember scienlific manner they named their lawyer ment so completely that we can no longer But in 1957 military objections were "ob- president and asked him to contribute to afford to build them helter-skelter, macro- vious nonsense," according to Ihe usually their new journal. Futures. Davidson used engineers say. But even in this present era judicious Economist. That's when David- the article as a forum for his ideas on Ihe

of limits, they insist, much of what we con- son formed a corporation of bankers, dip- problems of large-scale projeefs: in il he sider science fiction should be turned into lomats, and lawyers called Technical coined the term macroengineering.

reality, and can be, if only we learn to Studies, Inc. Four months later Technical The article caught the eye of professors shrewdly marshal our resources, and con- Studies became the American partner of a at MIT's school of engineering, who invited solidate our will. three-nation Channel Tunnel Study Group, Davidson to lecture on his ideas Two yea's Still skeptical? Then consider the real which for 23 years has been planning Ihe later he had moved io Cambridge and was

obstacles to that floating city in bur opening construction ol It' :; u'K.ie'waler link. working full time as the first macroengineer. scene. Let's assume the Japanese gov- The intervening years provide a case He now holds two appointments at MIT, as

ernment commissioned a standard city it study in the problems of macroengineer- chairman of the management school's Sys- could mass-produce and tow to Japan's ing. "Innovative financial and legal thinking tem Dynamics Steering Commitlee and as western river mouths lo relieve overpopula- joint program coordinator (with C. Lau-

tion In the east. It might well happen in Ihe rence Meador, his former student) of the next decade. Macro-Engineering Research Group at the

Just as final approval is due, fishermen school of engineering. complain that their customary fishing Meanwhile the realization that macro- trains grounds will be destroyed. Then political • MIT developed projects have spocia problems has been representatives in the Diet ask where dis- that could fly at thousands catching on in both academia and ihe out- placed villagers will be' relocated. Jap- side world. The last three annual meetings of miles per hour, anese generals poinf out that floating cities of the American Association for the Ad- are vulnerable to attack or sabotage. Word but America moved on to vancement of Science have included sym- comes from New York that the banking other projects. posia on macroengineering. Engineering community doubts their profitability. The societies from London to Tokyo have ex- : Soviet Union delivers a formal note, protest- Now the Japanese intend plored the idea in conferences of their own. ing the "undisguised anti-Soviet- aggres- to install them on And lasi June MIT sponsored what David- sion" in transplanting large populations lo son describes as "Lhe most ntensive series their Jokyo-to -Osaka Japan's west coasl, facing Vladivostok. As Hne3 of macroengineering seminars ever held the last straw, a government minister con- on this planet." cedes, "Maybe Tokyo isn't so crowded." Macroengineering as a discipline may

Get ihe message'' Dsciples o.f macro- be new bul rnacroprojects are as old as

engineering tend to put if this way: "To build civilization. The. pyramids, China's Great " a great engineering projec!. the engineers were just as important as engineering Wall, the Mayan canals discovered by

should be ihe last people to come into it." Davidson says. "Fortunately, the bankers radar in the Guatemalan jungle early in The godfather of this new discipline is and international lawyers were present 1980. the remarkable network of dikes in Frank R Davidson, an MIT research asso- from the outset." the Netherlands, and the Panama Ca- ciate with an Anthony Eden mustache and Simply organi? ng ihe Chunnel was a nal — ail were equally "macro" for their day,

contagious enthusiasm. "Engineering is macroprojecl in itself. More than 20 public In fact, the def niiion of a macroproject

too important to be left to engineers," he and privale corporations were eventually depends on the civilization building it. A

says. "What it needs are modern-day Ren- brought into ihe study group. II took 16 macroproject is an engineering project at aissance men." years of planning before the iwo govern- the cutting edge of technology and social

Davidson comes close to fitting that bill ments agreed on a $2 billion twin-tube rail- organization. A wall that a modern contrac- 'himself. In his busy career he has founded road tunnel, to be financed by government tor could build in a single afternoon would the Institute for the Future, advised gov- bonds. Treaties were signed in 1973, and have been incredible 10.000 years ago. ernments and corporations on macroproj- boring was staried, but then Prime Minister The fabled wall of Jericho is often cited as ects, and pioneered in teaching macroen- Harold Wilson's Labor government got cold the" world's first macroproject. gineering at MIT. But his 'formal education feet in 1975 and withdrew. THE MACRO EXPLOSION was not in engineering: Davidson began as After five years' delay the lighl at ihe end an international lawyer. He was introduced of the Chunnel may linally be in sight. Early Times have changed since then. In 1976 to the problems of macro projects the hard lasi year ihe French and British railroads the White House science adviser commis-

way. Il is Frank Davidson who revived the agreed an a bargain-basement model: a sioned a study to identify neglected scien- dream of a tunnel under the English Chan- single-lube rail link wilh a smaller, parallel tific problems that might grow into "major

nel and who may soon see it through to service tunnel, Alternating shifts in each societal crises." Obstacles hindering rnac- completion. direction could accommodate 70 trains a roprojects were named as one of them. In The rebirth of the "Chunnel" began when day, carrying freight and some 6 million ils report the following year, the National

Davidson and„his wife look a stormy ferry passengers a year, with plenty of room for Science Foundation warned that it would ride from Calais to Dover. Not long after- future growth. Even allowing for inflation. soon "become increasingly difficult to ini- ward Davidson recounted the rocky cross- the price tag will fall well short of the earlier tiate large-scale technological projects, or ing to a friend, who recalled reading in his $2 billion. This time support is expected carry them through to completion. Ironi- childhood about a plan to tunnel under the from the entire European Economic Com- cally, this comes at a time when the techni-

92 OMNI CONIINULDON PAGE 1 1B An infuriating conversation with the master of macho anthropology, where men are men, and women had better have pretty, young skin iniTERWIELAJ

mm mm uch more lhan women, men are predisposed to desire every port and Mary's dream of a Rotary Club husband and a a vanetv of sex partners— for ihe sake of variety. house full of Tupperware are learned behaviors, which can be J I 1 I | U I Physical endowments, especially those associated eradicated by an upbringing of unisex toys and primers portraying with youth, are by far the most important determinants of women's Dick in an apron and a fearless, hammer-wielding Jane. Not so, sexual attractiveness, while political and economic prowess con- says Symons Men and women, he claims, possess strikingly stitute sexiness in men. different sexual psyches, not because of cultural brainwashing.

Among all peoples, copulation is considered essentially a ser- but because of deep-seated biological roles that date back to our vice or favor that women render to men. earliest hunter-gatherer rituals. Are these the musings of a club-bearing Neanderthal? An Ar- Symons's name lag does no!, however, read sociobiologisl. He territory psychology, it is enriched 1 chie Bunker manifesto on male-female relations? prefers to call his Darwinian and ot cross-cultural studies, primate research, and \ Female readers may seem to deled Archie Bunker undertones by a broad range = in Ihese dispassionate statements, bul their author, anthropologist everything from feminist credos and novels to autobiographical ! Donald Symons, is no Archie Bunker and no male supremacist, allusions and Symons's own hunches. with Symons at his - , besandaled \ Siding with nature versus nurture, the work of this University of Writer Claire Warga spoke a hills, where he lives | California at Sanla Barbara associate professor has been hailed home in the lush, semitropical Santa Barbara of with his wife, his cat. and a refrigerator full of avocados from a | by such notables as E. 0. Wilson, Sociobiology fame, the sexual proclivities of mankind. i A prevailing doctrine holds that John's yen for a redhead in backyard where he ponders Omni: You argue in your book The Evolu- tion, isolating it no! only from love but from tion of Human Sexuality that men as a all other sorts of thoughts and feelings. inherently desire variety mainly their skills group more sexual penos on and prowess, That may be a fault of the book, bul I had lo " than women as a group. Is this correct? rather than on physical appearance or restrict the range of the discussion to make

Symons: Basically yes, though it's too youth, but for women, physical beauty and it manageable. complex an issue to substantiate in a brief youth are the most attractive factors. Omni: Well, lei's talk about sexual attrac-

discussion, and I refer readers to my book Since women invest a good deal of en- tion. Do you think all feelings of sexual at- for a fuller explanation. The reproductive ergy and take serious risks by becoming traction are defined by the reproductively

success of a male is determined by the pregnant, their reproductive success is af- oriented motivations that you've ascribed number of eggs he fertilizes. Because fected considerably by the circumstances to men and women? of impregnation. males invesl relatively little with each mat- The basic female strategy, Symons: Basically yes. I think you could ing—they don't invest nine months' use of therefore, is to get the best possible hus- create a human situation in which a particu- their bodies — they can potentially impreg- band, lo be fertilized by the fittest available lar trait or quality that had never before nate a female at almost no cost to them- male. A high-stalus mate brings certain been perceived as attractive would be- selves in time and energy. So it's reproduc- advantages to maximize the returns on the come desirable because it's linked to tively advantageous to tie up as -many sexual favors she gives. status, So, yes, over time women may female investments as they can. Among Omni: That's a cynical view of sexuality. change their definition of what is high our earliest hunter-gatherer ancestors — Symons: These impulses are part of status in a male, but I'm much less con-

from whom, I maintain, we haven't changed human nature because they proved adap- vinced you could create a situation be- significantly with respect to our sexual na- tive over millions of years, A woman who tween men and women where attraction tures—a male's reproductive success in- found maximal pleasure by mating ran- wouldn't bear at all on status. Or where men creased as a function of the number of domly with an endless succession of men would be most attracted by fifty-year-old, womenhe could impregnate. is extremely unlikely to be as reproductive- instead of twenty-yearod skm C'thatl-n For his female counterpart, the realities ly successful — in a primitive environ- very dubious. were quite different. She could bear only Omni: Your viewson the sexual psyches of four or five children Curing her lifetime men and women will no doubt strike many whether she copulated with one, ten. or a as inflammatory. And you offer them at a

thousand men. As a consequence, I be- time when society is attempting to mini-

lieve, selection t averse :ne basic male ten- mize male-female dilterences. How have dency to desire sexual variety— and to be- t*Studies of cultures you come to see things this particular way? come sexually aroused by the sight of around the world show that Symons: Primarily through an application

females. The strength of the arousal de- of what I call Darwinian psychology. As a the attractiveness il pends on a subjective evaluation of the student of evolution, I thought odd that of the reproductive value of the female. of males depends on their . over a century after the discovery Omni: Exactly what do you mean when basic creative mechanism in nature— evo- skill and prowess, you say "reproduclive value"? lution by natural selection— the implica- Symons: I'm referring to such qualities as but for women, physical tions of the Darwinian revolution in biology youthfulness and to certain visual health beauty and youth Simply had not been applied very sys- and age .indicators an unblemished or tematically to understanding human psy- are the relevant factors* unwrinkled skin— which at some level were chology. Evolutionary theory is, after all, regarded as indicating the ability to bear well established in its broad outline, though

healthy children who would stand a good It's undergoing still further refinements. We chance of surviving. humans presumably are products of the

I think thai the general tendency among same process, ai easl insofar as our basic divergent cultures of finding healthy people ment— as a woman who gets the best hus- dimensions, senses, and passions are and young' women attractive is relatively band she can and convinces him in every concerned. innate, because these are universally as- way that she is faithful so that he will pro- All the experience we have had with sociated with reproduclive value. The vide for and protect her and the offspring other animals suggested that there were females of other species of mammals gen- that, after all, he can never be fully certain likely to be sex differences in human sexu- erally provide clues as to whether or not are really his. Uncertainty over paternity, ality, too. By comparing male and female,

they're fertile by the. presence of estrus. incidentally, I believe, is the reason why we can better see evidence of selection at Hurnan females, however, are unique men almost universally experience jeal- work, and therefore evidence of design. among mammals in that they don't exter- ousy over their mates. My major interest has not been so much nally advertise ovulation. Selection, there- Omni: Whal do you mean? human sexuality per se, or sex differences, fore, favored male abilities to size up a Symons: Well, for a woman, there is never but rather, What is the nature of the human female's reproductive value mainly through Ihe possibility of her husband deceiving mind? How have the mind and the brain the nexl best available visual clues. her and giving birth to a child that isn't been shaped by natural selection? How the Omni: And do you see female sexual na- really hers. But a man can be cuckolded mind works with respect to sexuality is part ture as having evolved innate rules for fer- and threatened with having his wife's re- of that. Since sexuality is closely tied to

reting out the highest-status male her re- productive capacily and his own paternal reproduction, I think that the neural and productive value can buy? efforts deceptively tied up by another hormonal underpinnings of sexual feeling,

Symons: Yes, rules that indirectly achieve man's child. I don't mean to imply that thought, and action are likely to have been that end, though not necessarily with an males experience jealousy more strongly very responsive to natural selection.

awareness that such rules are operating. than females do on the occasions they do Evolutionary theory is first of all a theory Among species in which males compete but that females are more flexible on the to explain in a reasonable way the facts that for status, a high-rank mate will generally issue of jealousy, for the reason I've pro- we have. ADa'wiman perspective tocuses endow her offspring with some reproduc- posed: They can't be fooled as easily our attention on particular areas— examin- tive advantage, since high-status males Omni: Are all aspects of Ihe feelings of ing evidence from the perspective of re- are more likely" than tow-ranking males to love colored by Ihe two sexual strategies productive success (the number of surviv- produce offspring capable of surviving that you've proposed? ing offspring that an individual produces].

and reproducing themselves. Symons: In my book I attempted to stick The greater the number of his or her genes Indeed, studies of several cultures pretty close to discussion of sexual attrac- an individual passes on to the future, the .' 96 OMNI more he or she influences the shape of future evolution. It's from this framework

that I tned to make ier.se of the or fete- ices

I see in male-female sexual behavior, Omni: Some would argue that cultural conditioning accounts lor many of the dif- think are seeing PUM&POSE'S ferences, Do you thai we mainly innate differences?

Symons: I believe, with respect to sexual-

ity, that there are a female human nature and a male human nature and that these are extraordinarily different, Men and women diverge in their sexual psyches, because :-"iici;.iai"'Out the extended huns- ing-and-gathering phase of human evolu- tionary history the sexual desires and dis- '**m positions that were adaptive for one sex were, for the other, a ticket to reproductive oblivion. Because of the very different amounts of parental investment each sex makes in its offspring, two different strate- gies evolved. Omni: By oa'en:al investment, do you mean only time? Symons: Parental investment is any vestment by a 'parent, whether in theform of ".me or energy or risx. lhat increases the offspring's chance ol surviving. Mamma- lian females, you know, produce eggs that are large and carry a reserve of food for the embryo. Sperm cells are much smaller and don't have that food reserve: So females mvest fa? more energy in an egg cell than

males invest in a sperm cell,

It has been suggested, by the way, that «the high initial temale investment explains why females rather than males generally provide parental care among mammal species. Natural selection in most species nas favored females who sequester and protect this investment, in fact, internal fer-

tilization is thought to have evolved as a ~ieans of better ensuring this protection. Omni: _et s ce: bacK to those inflamma- tory comments. In your book you've sug- Rum glows with flavor 3?s:erJ that cod j I anon is esseriia y a ser- vice thai women provide to men and not the in the limelight. other way around. Why is this so 7 4 parts White Puerto Rican Run Symons: For .a number of reasons too long to give their full due here. But evidence "\ 1 part Roses; from cross-cultural studies shows that among all peoples it's primarily the men who. court, woo. proposition, seduce, em- oloy love charms and love magic, give gifts n exchange for intercourse, and buy the services of p r os; iuces And only men rape, Everywhere sex is understood to be some- thing females have that males want. Omni: Can you really speak about all oeoples, since the' anthropological record

is far from complete— is, in fact, fairly spot-

ty— when it comes to systematic studies of sexuality? And it's biased by the fact that

"_..: :-i arii-cpciopis:s nave- oeen men, who would be less likely to have access to the love charms and the means of seductio employed by the women in the culture they are studying. Symons: Few anthropologists have sought to conduct primarily sexual re- search. So there are big gaps in the kinds of answers we have, and, yes, most an- CONI'NUIDONPAGEIIS Colorful commemoratives enable stamp collectors the world over to experience POSTMARKS the conquest of space BY MARC KAPLAN

needn't own a space program to benefit from one. NASA's Intelsat system, far example, routes information across the Atlantic Ocean to American allies in Europe, and the Molhiyu satellite system unites Soviet bloc nations into Interkosmos. Ironically, stamps themselves may one day fall viclim to the Space Age. Though

still in the experimental stage, Intelpost. the mail of the future, will be beamed off

satellites to receiving stations in the United States and seven toreign nations. It may eventually eliminate the need tor the familiar corner rectangle altogether. OQ

GRENADA S3

". *'*'S 7 *

Wish '**«: rja'rwimiiflsh ; t

H^x kovsky's Firsl Piano Concerto as a guest soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony BUY BACK Orchestra and has been featured on four jazz albums. He has vocoded disco tunes SOME OF THE chambers under a subway grafing ai thai and played clavichord in the jazz movie

location. It produces a humming bass New York, New York. FUTURE! blended with a pleasant high-pitched Hundley's new project is a 53-tone syn- sound when activated by the computer thesizer that win feature programmable tun-

wind. Most recently Neuhaus put 64 ing.. It will be one of the very few electronic speakers in a greenhouse filled with instruments capable of generating micro-

shrubbery al the Walker Art Center's New tonal music. Perhaps it will allow more clas- Music America festival in Minneapolis. sically oriented mic notorial ists to step into Each speaker was connected to- its own the reverberating studios of electronic

synthesizer, producing an ever-shifting musicians. If that is the path of the future. aural montage. then Hundley will surely be one of the very Also at the Minneapolis fairground, artist first to set out. Leif Brush suspended a grid of 200 speak- Undoubtedly in the future greater eco- ers, each with its own sound source (one nomic access to new technology will make

even being the strings of a piano floating on more of us musicians, "When I wen: to a raft in a pond], among the trees at the art music school, which wasn't that long ago, center's exhibit. they didn't even have an analog synthe-

Boston sound artist Christopher Janney sizer," Spiegel says. "I think it's a shame crafled a musica. instrument from a stair- that the general public has greater access well by attaching photoelectric cells to the to this stuff than the conservatory studenl

steps. Breaking an individual beam gener- who is told that it's really complicated and ates a series of computer-stored notes. generally useless musically. I've had this Though practicing scales might prove computer for less than a year. It's not that

.exhausting, a group of people could actu- difficult to learn. Before I got it, I never ally the stairs. "play" heard a single orchestral score that I had

In Vancouver, Canada, composer David written. I never even heard my string quar-

Rosenboom has gone a step. further creat- tets played live while I was at Juilliard. Now.

ing a participatory sound environment thai with my computer, I can gel instani feed-

uses alpha waves generated by visitors' back on what I have written."

brains. Though ii is nice to fantasize about Clearly, computers, mathematical explo- the .possibility of playing Haydn with rations of new scales, and composer-made electrodes hooked up to your head, instruments won't wipe out disco or empty so..mc: authorities say this kind of thing is Carnegie Hall. Popular music has enor- , a long way off. mous staying power, and no electronic in-

Surprisingly, some of our newest sounds strument can exac: : y duplicate the subtle have been produced from scrap, Skip La- nuances and rich tonalities of a finely

Planle, a Princeton University graduate tuned violin in a symphonic. orchestra. Even

who studied Mozart and Schonberg, has if one could, i! wouldn't necessarily be de- made aboul 60 different percussion and sirable. Many people like the idea of vari- wind instruments using thrown-away mate- ety, spontaneity, and human beings in mu- rials. Raiding kitchens and farmhouses, sical performance. LaPlante drew unique sounds from huge But the new music won't be merely the cardboard rug tubes, broiler pans, cat- avant-garde affectation of a few snobby food cans, even shares ol glass. "You can intellectuals. Technology will certainly get really clean pitches from cinder blocks open up enough doors to make many kinds

broken into L shapes," he says, "And cut- of music more accessible to all levels of down wine jugs make excellent cloud- creator player, and listener. chamber bowls." LaPlante hunts for bat- The music of tomorrow will not limit ex-

tered and discarded wine jugs on the Bow- pression: it will free it of virtually all re- ery in New York City. He has even created straints. Our aural experience will be music by bouncing a-Superball on a piece eclectic and electronic. Stuart Diamond, a of glass. In contrast to the computer and composer who specializes in the lyricon, other slowly Grafted homemade instru- an instrument something like an oboe wired ments, LaPlanle's sound generators rarely to a synthesizer, says, "The serious com- cost more than £25 to build. poser is usually condemned to write Indeed, the homemade instrument ap- chamber music, using just three or four pears to be more important than ever as instruments. But composing on the lyricon young musicians strive to create new musi- gives me the power of a symphony or- cal forms. Hundley, for instance, has had a chestra. Maybe not the subtlety, but cer- cerlain rebelliousness implanted in him, tainly the volume, force, and scooe.

much like Spiegel and LaPlante. Hundley is "Once any music is in a radio, it's elec- Back issues shown above $3.50 each. an eclectic musician with a resiless ear tronic, anyway. Even a Beethoven string Prices include postage and handling. Send check or money order to: who dallied ir, several genres before direct- quartet is electronic at Ihis poini. It's been ing his attention to film scoring (The Incred- reduced to electrons and reconstructed OMNI ISSUES BACK ible Shrinking Woman and Roadie, among back into acoustical wave shapes. Elec- P.O. BOX 353 many). He was a prodigy on piano al thir- tronic music is not weird idea re- BELLEVILLE, N.J. 07109 some Offer void offer Sept. 19S1 ossra teen and a self-confessed burnout at sev- served for the distant future, It's a fait ac- enteen. Hundley has' performed Tchai- compli." DO "

FICTION ICONS

Complaints poured in. The public was outraged- Their toys continued to self-destruct, and life was no fun at all

BY BARRY N. MALZBERG'

1 y Hemingway Keeps mumbling about e ultimate chines. Planned obsolescence. Self-destructing. Good turnover. I nada. Smith said, "and the darknessss andan the light. It A need for replacements all the time. It's all planned."

trying upstairs lock itselfelf in I s to go 10 in the bathroom "Well I wont take it anymore." Jones said. "You have to take a with I my carbine. I have to shut off the3 powpower, but one ot position, make a stand."

Mltheseif I not to iti I days m going be home when/hen happens." "That's the ticket," Smith said. "Draw the line. Fight for truth.

Jones nodded glumly. "My Hemingway wantsints toh go running Stand up to the bastards once and for all

' i '- ,= with the bulls." he said, "calls il the ultimafe c lesiand soon, but hey looked ai ma expecran;;y I have 'heir ;rLS; ,vay an".

what il really wants is to be gored, It keeps ing out the V~: rriglsEi'Jer. by unspoken conse.'i-i.^.

I null 1 1 window, staring at the pavement, and have :o back "Agreed, gentlemen," I said. "One must lake a stand."

I shrugged. There was no point in admitting that my Heming- We left the Juicer and took the tramway to the central offices ot

way slipped otf while I was al the slaughtering docks yesterday icons, inc.. iocatoci in no packing district As soon as we arrived,

and put a hole in its Plexiglas head. I had the same warnings as we could see the dimensions of the problem. The offices were

: Smiih and Jones: No one to blame, "Not good, I said. imged by inousar.ds o demonstrators, Chanting in an ugly way "lis always the same damned things," Jones said bitterly. for juslice. Barricades had been established, and the police "They send these things out glistening with their white beards were restraining the crowd. Many had broughi their defective or and fiery eyes, ancMhey're marvelously entertaining tor a lew imploded Hemingways to wave above their heads. The problem, weeks, typing and drinking away and speaking of the clean and as we had suspected, was quite widespread.

the just, and next thing you know they're off in corners whispering "Who would have known?" Smiih said reverently. "There is still

about telescopic sights. I say it's disgusting." some spirit left in us — and outrage." "Design defect.' Smiih said Knowingly, "built into the ma- "There are limits," Jones agreed. "They cannot sell us defec-

PAINTING BY DON IVAN PUNCHATZ a

live icons indefinitely. We can only take this stutf for so long." We established positions at the rear and joined in the chant. Smith's face flushed with accomplishment. Jones seemed timorous; he lacks physical courage — quality that he had hoped his Hemingway might have given him, more's the pity. "New Hemingways!" we shouted. "Hem- ingways that live, not Hemingways that die!" Gunshots were heard as, here and there in the crowd, defective Hemingways found their masters' weapons and did away with themselves on the spot. An employee of Icons. Inc.. came out on a balcony. Even from this distance we could see him shaking. They usually assign a minor functionary to address rioters. "Be reasonable." the junior shouted. "Disperse! You are breaking the law." "Jusfice!" we shouted. The police, with their weapons holstered, stood looking in the opposite direction. After all, many of them had Hemingways, loo. "Go home!" the junior said, but he was pelted by debris. He recoiled under a hail of garbage, "All right," he bellowed suddenly "we'll make an adjustment." "No adjustments!" we shouted, quite caught up in the moment. "Justice!" We knew that we would prevail. We always do in these confrontations. After all, Icons is dependent upon our goodwill. Remember the Monroe riots and their outcome. SILICON VALLEY SPIES— For Ihe last ten year.s Soviet agents have been skulking "Very well," the junior said, "we accept about m Calilcrnia s Silicon Valley, birthplace of the mic.rocomputer'technology that return of all Hemingways. For full credit." revolutionized Western military hardware. So lar the KGB has spent over $100 We cheered. , million on devious projects that range from buying up local banks to shipping 'And we will apply the full cost of each computer equipment out of- the" country in crates that are labeled "washing ma- toward the purchase of a Kennedy. Only chines." Omni tells how they've done it— and why no one has been able to slop them. iaxation differential will be due." We cheered again. Everyone thinks of CONSCIENCE FOR HIRE— When Richard McCormick speaks, researchers the Kennedy with anticipation. Rumors are quake in their boots. This mild-mannered Jesuit scholar is a leader in the expanding that models had been in production for lield of scientific eihics, which attempts to determine whether experiments-are not years but were being held back purposely merely good science but good humanity. As scientific exploration creeps closer to to manipulate greater demand. junior the edge of life creation and mind control, ethical questions loom ever larger for "A Kennedy for everyone!" the researchers. In next month's Omni writer Douglas Colligan introduces you to the screamed. "Everyone, all of you will know priests and teachers who seek to confront the moral implications of science, that they will fight any battle, share any cause in the struggle for freedom. Friend SUITING UP— A new era in space, begins when Columbia lifts off from pad 39Aat and foe alike will know that a new genera- Cape Canaveral sometime later this year. New conquests require appropriate tion, forged from a hard and bitter peace—" threads, which is why NASA has completely revamped its space wardrobe for the But he could no longer be heard, so great first generation of shuttle voyagers. A tough, polymerized hard suit will give as- now were the cheers. tronauts protection as they exit from the shuttle to perform experiments out in free substantially from Kennedy. will put space. Even the brand-new flight suits worn inside the ship differ I can't wait for my He the old Apollo gear. During the. six years, since we last boosted a human being into strength in my spine, sparkle in my eyes, orbit a revolution has occurred in the design of space. suits. Think you know haute purpose in each dreary day. It will be like couture! Don't answer until you've seen our exclusive pictorial next month in.Omni. the early days with the Hemingway before the terrible design defect manifested itself. INTERVIEW— In 1968 Peter Glaser stunned the uptight readers of Science, the Smith fears, however, that the Kennedy nation's mosterudite, and perhaps most cautious, scientific journal, with his mod- will also prove defective. "You can't trust

estly titled article "Power tram the Sun," In it, Glaser proposed building gigantic these corporations," he points out. "They satellites and placing, them in orbit where they could absorb solar energy and beam probably have an obsolescence factor in is clever." it to Earth as microwaves. Today the solar-power satellite (SPS) remains one of the the Kennedy as well. But Icons

most inventive approaches to solving the energy crisis, in the April Interview Glaser, "What do you mean?" I ask. father of the SPS, defends his baby and destroys some myths about solar energy "1 mean, this time, when it breaks down,

they'll have it arranged so it looks like our SCIENCE FICTION — Cynthia Morgan makes her debut in the April Omni with "The fault," Smith says bitterly. "Wait and see." with Hitmaker,"i y low-keyed story about the. effects of live TV coverage. on a Jones and 1, however, disgusted small Americ >nged tastes a Smith's pessimism, have threatened to do

If you very-sweet. ri ed-to come to him damage if he doesn't shut up, grips with P; le April Omni. can't trust a Kennedy, what then^DQ

106 qmni can't give you any data on it, but it will be mal until it attains the goal. The trouble is, RUNNERS confirmed by any doctor working in- the the goal is in Skinner's mind. It does not field.. About fifty to sixty percent of :he exist anywhere else." CONTINUED FROM PAGF 63 transplant patients show temporary psy- Skinner has never explained how an in-

work because it violated everything he chotic symptoms after transplant. In kidney dividual changes himself or modifies his behavior. says, "I the knew about God. At the time I grew furious transplants it's closer to ninety-five per- own McConnell say or left is pigeon and the right with him. I now wish I'd had better sense." cent. No psychiatrist physiologist meas- hemisphere the Today [here is growing suspicion that ured them for possible memory shadows: is the 'Skinner' that sefs the goals, antici- thoughts and feelings may one day be I'm sure they're picking up memories, or pates what the consequences of actions traced to chemical events. Such thinking behavioral tendencies, from the donor." will be, seiec::vely' remlo'ces behaviors that makes the transfer 'effect less dubious. Never fearful of speculation, McConnell are 'emitted'— Skinner's word - by the left Very little is known about what makes the thoughtfully entertains some farfetched hemisphere. So the right hemisphere's brain tick. New neural connections are ideas — such as learning pills. He will imag- boss, really, though it's called the nondom- made, but no one has yel explained how ine a time when drugstores rr^gh-. ca'ry inant hemisphere. Skinner doesn't like that

"I think what we were doing was tapping bottles of protein compounds or RNA to at all." Next serve. Dr. Skinner. into chemicals that are released from one enhance learning of calculus, say, or tax McConnell thinks back over all the weird

neuron to another" McConnell explained. accounting. c>- anyhirg else \o: every- battles he's somehow found himself in. "I

is I still thing.;" cautions. I is suppose my only regret that can't tie . -"putting into the system chemicals that he "What would say caused neural growth to occur in a pat- that we'll be able to specify what family of all of the memory-transfer data and hemi- terned way. This suggests that the proteins chemicals is involved, for example, in learn- sphere studies into one pretty package. are actually brief revisions' ot the neural ing Chinese. Then we'd synthesize them But the thing I'm proudest of — even more blueprint you were born with. In the animal and give you daily injections, enabling you than my so-called honesty — is the fact that

I studies the injected RNA 'told' the neurons to learn Chinese five to ten times faster than I didn't push the transfer effect more than

If it's propagandiz- what new synapte connections to make for normal. And to remember it better." db. I have one talent, for learning to occur. When these blueprints ing. Look at my textbook — it's a six-hun- were transferred from one animal to anoth- dred-page commercial for my version of

I er, they gave the creature the molecular the scientific method. I flatter myself thai 'school,' or least pattern it would otherwise have had to build could have created a at a up through experience. large set of discioics had ' cnosen :c play ^Science is, to a "But the field has gone by me," McCon- the guru's role. But at some deep level a

nell admits. "I wouldn't know a molecule if it far greater extent than most little voice tells me that if the facts don't sell they not be valid." Yet jumped up and bit me. What must be done scientists realize, themselves, may next will be done by biochemists and neu- McConnell is one of a certain endangered of rophysiologists, and the next break- the behavior human beings subspecies of scientists, poets, inventors throughs will reveal what the hell does hap- who suffer the same who feel the faint, nagging suspicion that pen chemically in the brain." they are born too soon. By just a few years. personality quirks and fits in What do researchers in the biological His whole theory will fit together neat. , basis of behavior say? Most restrict them- of temper that interlocking pieces anytime now.

selves to investigations at the neurotrans- everyone else experiences* "Of course, had I understood ten years controversy mitter level. New York University professor ago what I do now, much of the of neurology and physiology David Quar- would never have taken place. Having

termain ad mi is that he >s skeotical of the been shocked to the core by the Nobel

transfer theory, but he is willing to grant that laureates, I'm sure I defended my own ego "there was some suggestion that some- by resorting to humor. Part of my wit was thing was transferred in those studies. "The years of worm running are behind bitter attack. But part of it was little more

"I don't think they can be discounted as him: the Digest terminated after 20 years than the same submission response that a lack funds. ("The director of the young wolf shows to the pack leader when wrong," he says, "nor do I think McConnell for of new his throat in self-defense. Better to and Ungar are charlatans. I think perhaps institute has no sense of humor.") McCon- he bares the something transferred might be a moti- nell now turns his attention increasingly to be laughed at than crucified, if you know

vational factor, but given the structure of the teaching, writing, and the formulation of a what I mean," mammalian nervous system— with all its unified-field theory ot the brain, though he's Would he do the whole thing over again?

I qualified exquisite detail — these complicated struc- too modest to call it that. This quest in- "Yes, except would have all my tural relationships suggest rre mo ., bor- cludes a decade- long westing match with earlier statements with theoretical garbage age is more complex than we know now." the redoubtable Skinner over the existence and a barrage of 'its' and 'perhapses.' I Nor does Quartermain. who is investigat- of the mind. never would have used the term memory ing protein-synthesis inhibition in the brain When McConnell was a trembling grad transfer. 'Transfer of response bias' is so

and looking for a way to ease memory dis- student, Skinner told him that the mind is a delightfully neutral. I would have appeared refused to smile at any- I 1 off and orders, discount the possib it--,-- 'n^ |.

is a key element in memory, "There's got to abandoning. McConnell went away to mull thing. And I would have gone mad." in be something to produce the change, if that one over for 20 years. Will James V. McConnell usher the new

that change is durable. There have been Today he says, "John Watson [the father order, construct the paradigm shift in psy- some very elegant and informative experi- Of behaviorism] made the animal brain into chology? Will this maverick be seen as a structural ments in which you train animals and see an adding machine: Skinner turned it into a pioneer who helped initiate whether there are changes in the species computer. But Skinner still won't look into changes in the study of the brain? of RNA pr protein after training. Some of the 'box.' With our knowledge of the hemi- Perhaps, like the coyote in North Ameri- mythology, McConnell is the trickster these experiments suggest that there is. I spheres, we can now go much further into can think this is an area that will be understood the head than Skinner is willing to go. who. in his ambiguous role and mischie- is crucial in within the next ten, twenty, or fifty years." "At one lecture I pointed out to him That he vous duality, a mediator prob- McConnell'wryly points out that some can't explain what fie does when he trains a lem solving. The temptation is to take a long RNA experiments have been done on hu- pigeon. He sets a goal for the bird, then run along the worm's magic electrified mans in organ-transplant recipients. "It's directs its movements toward achieving field, to sweep out science's Augean sta- ani- bles with a belly laugh. seldom talked about in literature, and I that, goal. In the interim he rewards the good OO 108 OMNI "Or to lose," she respondea quietly. gone before he could reach for the THE WILD ONES The next explosion was almost beside weapon. tiim, The Angel rocked but did not slow. "Return to automatic, and you will be free Gripping the wheel with one-hand, Mur- for the fighting," the Angel said. you tor something like this — tough and dock reached ouf and took hold of the pis- "Cari'l do that," Murdock replied, racing smart and fast." The voice was low, femi- tol grip. toward the pass. "She could jam you again nine, deadly, "He would not have antici- "She's stopped jamming my sensors," then at any time - and get us both." "Is that the only reason?" pated this encounter, however. I can jam the Angel announced. almost all the sensors without its knowing "Maybe she's burned out that system." "Yes, the risk."

it," Murdock said, turning the gun, The red car was not in sight when he ." the rocks, avoiding the came through info the pass. "Jenny . . he said as he held the pedal He sped around to the floor and continued the turn. new craters, the light beam bouncing, "Well?" he said. "What do your sensors "Never thought you'd see me again, did sweeping, casting the high, craggy walls read''" you?" into a rapid succession of dreamlike im- "She entered the gully on the right. There "I've always wondered. Ever since the day ages, slowly c osing Ine aisiance between is a heat trail."

you disappeared. But it's been so long." himself and Jenny. Another grenade went Murdock continued to slow as he moved 'And you've spent the entire time hunting off behind him. Finally the moment for a in that direction. us. You had your revenge that day, but you clear shot emerged from the risen dust. He "That must be where she was hiding kept right on — destroying/' squeezed the trigger. when we came by," he said. "It could be fell scoring the some kind ot trap." "Considering the alternative, I had no The beam wide, can- choice." yonside, producing a minor rockslide. "Perhaps you had better call for the He passed his starting point and com- "That was a warning," he said. "Drop the others, cover the entrance, and wait." menced a second lap, realizing as. he grenades. Discharge the. guns. Come back "No!" began to draw away that she must no with me. It's your last chance." Murdock turned his wheel and sent his longer be as finely tuned as when he had light along the passageway. She was known her earlier. Unless — nowhere in sight, but there were sideways. An explosion occurred some distance He continued to creep forward, entering. ahead of him. He was pelted with gravel, His right hand was again on the pistol grip. and he swerved 'to avoid the fresh crater He passed these side openings, each of before him.

Finally it dock began, "and I'd long had a feeling way widened as he advanced. that we would meet again. Jenny was the. forked at a large stand bf stone, one arm "Only will going away from continuing past it, the other bearing off first killer car I had built to hunt the wild one of us be ones." here. Sam." she answered. sharply to the left. He slowed, taking time to 'And the best," she added. He swung the gun and fired again as he consider the alternatives. "But she went wild herself," he finished. swept along anoiher turn, but a pothole he "Where's the heal trail go?" he asked.

I don't understand." "How's about you trying it, Whitey?" she struck threw the beam high, fusing a sec- "Both ways. said. "Leak carbon monoxide into the air tion of sandy slope. Then the red car came swinging into left, firing. The Angel vents. He'll still look live enough to get you 'A useful piece, that." she commented. sight from Ihe guns out of here. You answer any calls that come "Too bad you didn't give me one." shook as they were hit. Murdock triggered him, turning in. Tell them he's resting, Tell them you "They came later," the laser but she swept past didn't find anything. Slip away later and "It is unfortunate that you cannot trust and speeding off to the right.

circled it before we arrived, to con- come back here. I'll wait. I'll show you the your vehicle and must, rely upon your own "She ropes." driving- skills. Your car would not have fuse your sensors, to slow us. "It worked, too," he added, moving "Cut it out, Jenny," Murdock said, circling missed that last shot" "She's smart." again, beginning to gain on her "I'll have "Maybe," Murdock said, skidding ahead again. too damned you in my sights in a minute. We haven't that through another turn- "We can still go back." much time to talk." Suddenly two more grenades exploded Murdock did not reply. fired 'And nothing, really, to talk about." she between them, and rocks rattled against Twice more Jenny lay in wait, short responded. the Angel. Both windows on the' right side bursts, evaded the singeing beam, and his disappeared. An intermittent knocking "How about this? You were the best car I were fractured. He skidded sideways, ever had. Surrender. Fire off your ammo. vision obscured by the flash and the air- sound began beneath the hood as they moved, and one telltale on the dash indi- Drop the grenades. Come back with me. I borne matter. don't want to blast you." Both hands on the wheel now, he foughi cated signs of overheating, "Just a quick loboto.my, eh?" for control, braking hard. Passing through "It is not serious," the Angel stated. "I can Another/explosion occurred, this one the screen of detritus, slowing and turning, conlrol it." behind him/He continued to gain on her. he caught sight of Jenny racing full bore "Let me know if there is any change"

"It's that virus program," he said. "Jenny, toward the pass that led out of the canyon. "Yes." you're the last— the last wild one. You've He stepped on. the gas again and fol- Following the heat trail, they bore steadily nothing to gain." lowed after. She passed through and was to the left, racing down a widening sand. 110 OMNI slope pasi castles, minarets, and cathe- No matter. He had to try. He eased up Angel said a little later. "We made some

drals of stone, dark or pale, striped and .again. The feigned rest that followed was hf-) t idv.vay while you were pushing." spotted with mica like the first raindrops ot the most difficult spell of the whole thing. The breakaway sequence began again. a midsummer's- storm. They hit the bottom, Then he leaned forward once more, Murdock looked up at the stars tor the firsf

slued sideways, and came to a stop, reached out as if to lay his hands upon the time that evening- coldand"6rilliantandso

wheels spinning. vehicle once again, ana slipped by it, mov- very distant. He kept on staring as the He threw the light around rapidly, caus- ing as quickly as he could toward the open Angel pulled them free. He barely glanced

ing grotesque shadows to jerk like mario- door, and then through it, and inside. Noth- at her stony tomb as they turned and

nettes in a ring dance about them. ing happened the entire time he was in moved past it.

"It's a wash. Lots, of loose sand. But I transit, but the moment the car door When Ihey had threaded their way back don't see Jenny." slammed a burst of gunfire occurred be- and out through the ravine, the radio came Murdock ground the gears, rocking Ihe neath the ledge, and the Angel began to to life again: "Murdock! Murdock! You vehicle, but they did not come free. shudder, and then to rock. ' okay? We've been trying to reach you "Give me control," said the Angel. "I've a "There!" came ihe voice of the Angel as and-" program for this." the gun swung lo the right and a beam "Yes." he said softly.

Murdock threw the switch. At once a lanced outward and upward from it. "We heard more explosions. Was lhat

fresh series of rocking movements began. It bobbed. It rode high. It fell upon Ihe you?"

This continued for a full minute-. Then the cliff face, moving. "Yes. Just shooting at a ghosl," he said. heat telltale began to flicker again. Murdock turned in time to see a portion "I'm coming back now."

"So much for the program. Looks as if I'm of that surface slide downward, first with a "It's over," the other told him, "We got going to have to gel out and push." Mur- whisper, then with a roar The shooling them all." dock said. ceased before the wall came down upon "Good," he said, breaking the connec- "No'. Call for help. Stay put. We can hold the red vehicle. tion.

her off with the cannon if she returns." Above the sound of the crash, a familiar "Why didn't you tell him about the red

"I can get back inside pretty quick. We've voice came fhrough the radio; "Damn you, one?" the Angel asked. got to get moving again." Sam! You should have stayed in the car!" "Shut up and keep driving." As he reached for the door, he heard the she said. He watched the canyon walls slip by

lock click. Then the radio went silent. Her form was bright strata and dull ones. It was night, sky

"Release it," he said. "I'll just shut you off, completely covered by the rock-fall. cold, sky wide, sky deep, and the black go out. and lurn you on again from there. "Must have blocked my sensors again wind came out of the north, closing wind.

You're wasting time." and sneaked up," the Angel was saying. They headed into it. Spinning through the

"I think you are making a mistake." "You are lucky that you saw her just when dream of time and dusl, past the wreckage.

"Then let's hurry and make it a short you did." they went to the place where the others

one." "Yes," Murdock replied. waited. It was night, and a black wind came 'All right. Leave the door open." There "Let me try rocking us loose now," the out of the north. DO

. followed another click. "I will feel the pres-

sure when you begin pushing. I will proba- bly throw a lot of sand on you." "I've got a scarf." Murdock climbed out and limped toward the rear of the vehicle. He wound his scarf up around his mouth and nose. Leaning forward, he placed his hands upon the car and began to push. The engine roared and Ihe wheels spun as he- threw his weight

against it, Then, from the corner of his eye, to the right, he detected a movement. He turned his head only slightly and continued push- ing the Angel of Death. Jenny was there, She had crept up slowly into a shadowy place beneath a ledge, turning, facing him, her guns direct- ly upon him. She musl have circled. Now she was halted-

II seemed useless to try running. She could open up upon him anytime that she chose. He leaned back, resting for a moment, pulling himself together. Then he moved lo

his left, leaned forward, began pushing again. For some reason she was waiting. He could not determine why, but he sidled to Ihe left. He moved his left hand, then his right. He shiffed his weight, moved his feet again, fighting a powerful impulse to look in her direction once again. He was near the left taillight. Now there might be a chance- Two quick steps would place the body of the Angel between them. Then he could "I agree, Virgil, thai it is not a question ot merely accepting man's, insignificance in the

universe, it rush forward and dive back in, Bui why so much as is accepting the fact that your chair is on lire" wasn't she firing? Now how about Ihose resumes?" toward the bar. SERPENTS' "Shut up," Freddy said quietly. Pop had two more beers waiting for him. Davy slared. "What did you say?" "Thanks for the munchies, Pop. And the "Shut up," Freddy repeated. "You may wink." their faces. Garish bar homing made them not call her that." "Sure," Pop said, smiling. look like wax mannequins, save that Teddy Teddy stared, too. "He was deliberately wasting our time, was swaying slightly from side to side, Freddy's voice did not rise in volume, but Pop. Why?" quite out of rhythm with the background suddenly there was tempered steel in it. "Because time "wasted hurts you more music. Her hand crushed Freddy's hand. "You just granted us the provisional status than ii does him."

It was Teddy who found her voice first, of human beings. We do not reciprocate. "Can I buy you a drink, Pop?" and to her horror it trembled and would not You are cruel, and we would nol inflict you The old man's smile broadened. "Thank stop trembling. "You did very damned well. on our lown, much less our home. You can you, buddy. That's neighborly of you." He

Two insigniticant errors. It was going to be go now" punched himself up a whisky sour and took Swahili Immersion after the Japanese. Not The enormity of the affront left Davy a drink. "You're well shut of that one. He is French." momentarily at a loss for words. He soon nothing bui a little vampire."

. "And . ,T found some. "How'd you like to wake up in "Our mutual occupation. You bracketed the alley with a broken face, old man? You - Freddy's eye was caught by a gratfilo,

.it, but no direct hit." read the house rules. Your badges are junk crudely painted on a near wall. It read:

"So? All right, surprise me." silver in here. All I have to do is poke you "TAKE OUT YOUR OWN FUCK.IN GARBAGE!" On "We're cops." right in the eye and lei Ihose bouncers over the adjacent wall someone with a different

Now it was Davy's turn to be speechless. there ;ake care of the rest." color spray can had, in a nealer, tighter But he recovered a lot faster than they had. Freddy had the habit of sitting slouched hand, thoughtfully misquoted: "how sharp-

"Pigs," he said. er THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH IS A THANKLESS Teddy could not get the quaver out of her child." Freddy shook his head and sighed. voice. "Davy, how do you feel when some "Why is it that the word another is the Atlas calls you punk, or kid, or baby?" cruelest word in the language, Pop?" Davy's eyes flashed. "How d'you mean?" 6 He was clean. His The quaver was lenglhening its period. "Well, when he's alone with himself, a Soon she would be speaking in sing-song clothes were exotic but man may get real hones! and acknowl- ululation, and shortly after lhat, she knew, neat and well kept. edge—and accepl— thai he is a foal. But she would completely lose the power to nobody wants to be just another fool. articulate and would simply break down He didn't look like a 'Another couple of dumb Atlases,' he called and weep. But she pressed on. welfare type; she us, and that was the only thing he said that "Well, that's how we feel when some really hurt." would have given odds punk kid baby calls us pigs." "Here now, easy! Here, use this here bar He raised his eyebrows, looked im- thai he had a job, rag. Be righl back." While Freddy wiped his pressed tor the first time since he sat down. Ihe old man quickly filled tray of perhaps even a legal one 3 eyes, a . "Good shot. Fair is fair. Except that you orders for the waiter. By the time he re- chose to be" pigs." turned, Freddy was under control and had "Not at first. We were drafted at the same begun repairing his makeup with a hand time, worked together in a black-and-white. mirror. "See here." Pop said, "if you're hip- Alter the Troubles, when our hitch was up, deep in used food, well, maybe you could we got married and went career." quite low, curled in on himself. He sat Up climb out. But if you look around and see a "Hmm.Eitherof you ever work Juvenile?" straight now and for the first lime Davy whole other bunch of people hip-deep, too.

Teddy nodded. "I had a year. Freddy, realized that the man topped one hundred then the chances of you becoming the rare three." eighty-five centimeters and massed well one to climb out seem to go down kinda Davy looked thoughtful. "So. Sometimes over ninety kilos. Freddy's shoulders drastic. But, you see, that's a kind of optical Juviecopsarea. right. Sometimes they get seemed to have swollen, and his eyes were illusion. All those others don't affect your to see things most Atlases don't. And hick burning with a cold lire thai had nothing to odds at all. What matters is how bad you cops aren't as bad as New York cops." He do with neon. Teddy stared at him, ro.und- want to get out of the stuff and what pur- nodded. "Okay. I grant you the provisional eyed, not knowing him. Suddenly it regis- chase you can find for your feet." status of human beings. Let's deal. I've got tered on Davy that both of her hands were Freddy took a sip of his new beer and

no eyes for anything lengthy, but I could now visible on the table and thai neither of nodded slowly. "Thanks, Pop. I think you're flash on, say, a weekend or twoJn the coun- Freddy's were. into something."

if if try. Then we're compatible, I like your "They'll put us all in' the same Emergency "Sure. Don't let that kid throw you. Did he place, maybe we could talk something a Room," Freddy said dreamily. "You're a lot tell you his parents divorced him? Mental little more substantial— maybe. So what's younger than lam. But I'm still faster Leave cruelty, by Jesus." your offer?" this table." Freddy blinked, then roared with laugh- Teddy groped for words. "Offer"?" Davy soon realized that his face was ter thai shook the bar. "What terms are you offering? We might blank with shock. He hastily hung a sneer "Now take, thai beer back to your wife. as well start with your resumes. That'll give on ft, "Hah." He got to his feet. "My pleas- She's looking kind o' shell-shocked. Oh,

us parameters." ure." Standing beside them, he was nearly and I would recommend the redhead over She stared. at eye level. "Just another couple of dumb there in the corner, the short, funny-looking

"Oh, my God," he.said, "don't tell me you Atlases," he said. Then he left. boy with the holes in his shoes. He's one came here looking lor something perma- Freddy turned lo his wife, found her gap- who's worth getting to know better. He's got nent? On a first date? Oh, you people are ing at him. The fire went out in him; he some stuff." the Schwartzchild Limit!" He began to slumped again in his chair and finished off Freddy stared at the bartender, then laugh. "I'll bet your own contract is lifetime. his beer. raised his glass and drank deep. "Thanks Mot even ten=year renewable." When that "Stay here, darling," he said, his voice again, Pop." sank home, he laughed even harder. "Un- soft and musical again. "I'll gel us another "Anytime, son," the old man said easily believable!" Suddenly he stopped laugh- round." and went off to punch up two scotches and ing. "Oh, Momma, you have a lot to learn. ..Her eyes followed him as he walked over a chocolate ice-cream soda.OO 112 OMNI steal. A vindictive employee could cause porate bribery scandals of the past few PROGRAMS enormous havoc by erasing data. I know years, puts everyone on notice that he or one. guy who had a program destroy itself she is responsible for CONTINUED FROM PAGE 79 his or her own acts. on April 1 as a joke". Instead ot designing More detailed accounting standards make

it print out all the data that my boss said he safer systems, they're just going to make it virtually impossible to transfer assets into wanted to see the programmer the scapegoat." secret funds." "Several weeks later the competitor filed John Taber, an IBM programmer, has But automation has created irresistible a complaint against me for computer theft similar worries. "Executing a search war- temptations. In Wheaton, Illinois, a police-

by telephone. I had to go through a long rant at a major computer center would be a man peddled confidential criminal files to a trial, which ended with a three-hundred- nightmare," he says. "Just looking for evi- trucking company that was reviewing job thousand-dollar judgment against me for dence of fraud at my place in San Jose applicants. After he had accepted a $14,000 stealing something we already had. Even- requires running a large computer round bribe, he was indicted by a grand jury on tually we were able to settle with the com- the clock for a week. And while they are 24 counts of official misconduct, conspi- petitor by trading some computer equip- going through thirteen thousand tapes, we racy, and theft. ment with them. wouldn't be able to get any work done. It's In other countries computerized cash "But what was the point of going through the sort of disruption that can force some machines have helped change the modus

all that hassle and expense when I didn't companies into bankruptcy," operandi of kidnappers. Instead of asking do anything more dishonest than checking Senator Abraham Ribicoff, of Connec- his victim's parents to drop off the ransom a book out of the library? Also, we didn't get ticut, last year sponsored a computer- at a remote location, Masatoshi Tashiro in- the aerospace contract. crime bill that would have imposed sen- structed them to put the money in his ac- "What I'm afraid of is that these laws are tences of up to five years for EDP felonies, count at the Dai-ichi Kangyo Bank. Police going to be turned against people like me but the proposal died in committee. With didn't know which of 348 remote teller ma- who take nothing of value. We're easy the legislator's retirement, it is not certain chines he would use for the first withdrawal. targets, because technical violations, such when— or even whether — anew bill will be They finally decided to send detectives to as using a few minutes of computer time for drafted and introduced in Congress. wait near each of the bank's machines. personal business, are inevitable. Courtney believes new laws may not When Tashiro inserted his magnetic card "But there are wide-open opportunities even be necessary, however Improved into a unit at Tokyo Station, the computer being created by turning the computer into system-control programs, restricting users immediately flashed his location. When the a common carrier, and they are not getting to data they legitimately require, and cryp- kidnapper was arrested, he was holding enough attention. As more and more EDP tographic devices might provide adequate some 290,000 yen. units do message switching, the difference protection, he believes. "Don't let that kind of story deceive you," between IBM and ITT is disappearing. And "Internal auditing has also improved, Senn admonishes. "The guy who wants a with time-sharing around the world it's easy thanks to the new Foreign Corrupt Prac- quick hit has problems. But for someone to plug into someone else's program. tices Act," Courtney points out. "This law, who's willing to move slowly and systemat-

"To ruin a competitor, there's no need to which resulted from the international cor- ically, as I did, times have never been bet-

ter. I see the opportunities every day at the

• EDP firms I consult for. Once you've estab- lished a workable system, everything else

is just details." Senn stole from his employer after failing to receive a promised bonus. So much money was flowing in and out through his

dummy suppliers that it was impossible for

his superiors to cafch on. "I ran the data- processing firm that serviced our outfit, besides being controller Printing up phony books after work for the auditors cut into my sleep. But with my bogus outfits and inflat- ing costs on legitimate acquisitions, the money was mine." By day Senn was just another diligent officer putting in 50- to 60-hour weeks. But at night and on weekends he was out tinker- ing with planes that took him to vacation homes in Arizona and Mexico. "I'd just put

the autopilot on and fall asleep. When the vector changed near Palmdale, there'd be a beeping sound that woke me up. Much ot the money went into Swiss gold, which has turned out to be a wise investment. After the authorities caught up with me, all they could attach were the planes and the houses. My company promised to drop all

charges if I would simply return the money. I

&***. insisted I didn't have it." One reason Senn lied about it was that f-~> his lawyer had promised him that plea bar- gaining would limit his jail term to no more than a year and a half. He figured that such .a short sentence was a reasonable price to

pay tor spending the rest of his life without money worries. He was tired of working so hard. Prison sounded :ike a vacation. One evening he simply told his wife and three children, "Guess what. I'm going to jail." Attar the judge sentenced Senn to ten Do You Read years, his lawyer promised him quick parole. The court let him spend his last free Christmas in Carmel. Calitornia. When the Small Ads Like This? holiday was over, he was picked up by a Department of Corrections pilot who had been his first flight instructor. As part of an advertising program and receive a full refund. There fly myself Folsom. "He let me up to Then we will send a pair of genuine dia- is a limit of one (1) pair of dia- they transferred me over to San Quentin, mond stud earrings to every mond earrings per address, but if where I was the warden's assistant- It was reader of Magazine who is before great up there in Marin County The air's so Omni your request made

clean, and I gat a pass anytime I wanted to reads and responds to this printed June 16, you may request a sec- go visit the library Conjugal visits were no. notice before Midnight, June 25, ond pair by enclosing an addi- problem, I had the run of the kitchen. The for the sum of $5 plus $1 shipping tional $5 plus $1 shipping and other inmates loved me When I persuaded the prison to install a computer terminal for and handling. There is no further handling. No request will be ac- instructional purposes. They couldn't be- monetary obligation. [Each dia- cepted past the dates noted lieve it when I got the Veterans Administra- mond of the pair is a genuine above; your uncashed check will tion to pick up the cost of data-processing .25 pt 10-facet round diamond be returned if later courses on the G.I. Bill." postmarked At every parole hearing, Senn believed and will be accompanied by our than those dates. Please en- he would ultimately be freed. But when he Certificate of Authenticity to that close this original notice with refused to give back the money, authorities effect.] This advertising notice is your request; photocopies will refused to show clemency Then he found out his lawyer had been working both sides being placed simultaneously in not be accepted. Send apppro- of the street. A close friend of the company other publications. If you see it in priate sum together with your president, the lawyer passed along all de- more than one publication, please name and address Io:abernathy tails of Senn's case. "What was particularly embarrassing." let us know as this information & closther, ltd., Diamond Ear-

Senn recalls, "was the faci that I had given is helpful to us. Should you wish ring Advertising Program, Dept. the attorney fifty ihousand dollars lo put out to return your earrings you 662-4, Box 1310, Westbury, a no-hit contract on rne with his underworld may do so to the address below New York 11590. contacts. I hac. psrliapaieo in some illegal dealings unrelated to my crime with the other officers of Ihe company. I was afraid they might fry lo wipe me out to keep that part of the story quiet," Senn believes this may explain why the company neve 1" p'osscd cnarges when he was paroled after serving five years of his sentence. "Sure, some of the banks I'd de- frauded wanted their money back." he

says. "And the IRS came around. But I was able to settle cheap. Those creditors who refused to take a nominal amount are just out of luck. They can follow me around to watch my activities, but that sort of thing gets to be expensive. As long as I liquidate slowly, there shouldn't be any big trouble. The- whole thing did break up my marriage.

It was hard to pick up when I came home atter so long." In the dining room the woman he lives, with and her three children are cleaning up after a late dinner. One by one, members of his new family check in to say goodnight. "It didn't go exactly the way I'd planned," he says, "but at least I won'l end up., ap- prehended on a Rio beach like the Laven- der Hill mob.

"Right now I know of three similar jobs that would net ten million dollars with con- siderably less effort. But I'll leave that to the professional cons. Were you aware that the U.S. Agriculture Department has Leaven- worth inmates programming millions in Commodity Credit Corporation payments? By the time they get out, they'll be ready to go in a new career."OQ .

the basic male tendency to be sexually Omni: Do studies of homosexuals in dif-

IRJTERV/IEUU aroused by "objectified" visual stimuli; it is ferent cultures invariably reveal the same not an expression of. contempt tor women, thing? as is often claimed. Symons: I just don't know of any compa- thropologists have been I'm not claim- men. I also think it's interesting that no an- rable data. If there are data on this some- ing io have read every ethography on I sex thropological studies know of report girls where, I'd like to see them The similarity

that's ever I been written. tried to use Ihe making pornographic carvings or draw- between lesbian relationships and hetero- material of those field anthropologists who ings, while numerous studies have re^ sexual relationships- and their differ- have sex special made a area of study and ported boys carving sexual symbols— vi- ences from the relations of homosexual who have achieved some renown in il- sual stimuli tree trunks — on and leather males— implies, I think, that the sexual in- luminating sexual activities' in other cul- pouches. Women born with certain clinations ot heterosexual males are rarely

tures. I drew my conclusions from the best culinizing conditions such as the adre- — expressed fully in society. I suggest that evidence that was available to me. nogenital syndrome [excessive prenatal many homosexual men achieve in reality Omni: By the way, have anthropologists exposure to male hormones, or andro- the kind of sexual contacts that most het- studying sexuality in foreign cultures ever gens]— are also reportedly more suscepti- erosexual men only fantasize about. been suspected of being participant ob- ble to sexual arousal through visual stimuli. . Omni: You also seem to think that contem- servers, in the Gay Talese mode of inquiry? Omni: And what does lesbian behavior re- porary attempts, via a nonsexist education, Symons: It's hard to say. They certainly veal about female nature? to raise boys and girls to be alike are don't admit to it. There are hints that some Symons: What it reveals is that when doomed to failure Why? may have specific knowledge about sexual women don't to have compromise their Symons: If one assumes, as I do, that positions and so forth sexual natures by dealing with men, they there really are male-female differences in Omni: You make an intriguing case for very rarely behave as men do. Studies re- the brain-just as there are in the what can be inferred from homosexual and port that lesbians tend to form lasting; inti- genitals— resulting trom prenatal and lesbian behavior, mate, paired relationships far more fre- pubertal hormonal differences, then it Symons: My basic claim is that there are seems to me that providing the same envi- fundamental sexual differences between ronment for both boys and girls is likely only men and women, but that courting behav- to result in different behaviors, different ior and moral injunctions mask many of feelings, and different desires. I don't say it those differences. For homosexual men will be impossible to devise some kind of and lesbians, however, there's no s it ca led the Coolidge Effect? that delivers the best sound, for its reer The indices of age - wrinkles and so Symons: Story has it that one day Presi- sire, I've ever heard." There's good on — may be the same for both sexes, but dent Coolidge and his wife were given sep- reason. Its 250 components are checked thousands ol limes; 1,117 the way they're .evaluated is different. arate tours of an experimental government checkpoints for the shell alone. And Omni: How has the psychosexual revolu- farm. When Mrs. Coolidge was taken by SA is guaranteed a lifetime." Enough tion of the last twenty years or so altered the chicken pens, she asked the guide to please any perfectionist. our conceptions of women's reproduc- whether the rooster mated once a day. And tive value? the guide said, "Oh, no, Mrs. Coolidge.

Symons: I think it's really open to question dozens of times a day." And Mrs. Coolidge whether men these days are choosing said. "Tell lhat to the President." When women for their power — economic, sexual, President Coolidge was touring the pens, or otherwise.. This may happen somewhat he was told about the rooster. He nodded more frequently than it did before, but I and asked, "Is it the- same hen every don't think the basis of sexual selection' has time?' The guioc answered. "Oh, no, Mr. changed considerably. President. It's a different hen every lime." Omni: Do you think economically inde- The President reportedly said, "Tell.maf to pendent women will someday choose men Mrs. Coolidge." for their beauty rather than for their status? Omni; Do you think cloning will ever be- "--.- Symons: I think this sort of thing will occur come a dominant preference amc-rvj more often than before, but I don't think it man beings once the technology has been means that men and women will become sufficiently refined? identically alike. Symons: Since cloning hasn't been Omni; Do you suspect that at any lime in around long enough, it's hard lo make in- history there have been groups of humans ferences. But one could say that if cloning with little or no interest in sex? Many sex were to produce, more reliably than sexual clinics today report that absence of desire reproduction, offspring that were healthy is a common and intractable symptom. and had fewer extreme nonadapiive traits, Symons: Ever since molecules first began then cloning might become the reproduc- replicating, the story of reproduction has tive method of choice. been one of those who survived to tell the Omni: But doesn't cloning reduce the mix- tale. The desire for sex was selected for. As ing of genes, the variation lhat is the ware- for the absence of des:ie -e^c-riea m sex house of natural selection? clinics, that may have something to do with Symons: You're right. Cloning might lead the Coolidge Effect. to fewer possib:'!iies lor adaption overtime;

Omni: What is that? In reality, I don't think. that there is really any

Symons: If refers lo the phenomenon of .evolutionary prediction that one-can make. rearousal by a new female-, and it occurs in Omni: One last question. People rarely many mammalian species, particularly. write books that violate their own deepest those thai, in a state of nature, keep ha- convictions. Have you had difficulty main- rems. It's particularly strong in cattle and taining intimate 'e-ariershins? Has jealou- sheep, if a male of a certain mammalian sy, or a compelling desire for sexual variety, species is placed in the laboratory, he will been of concern to you personally? copulate and ejaculate several times with a Symons: One way people can avoid deal- female in estrus, but eventually his sexual ing with the content of a book is to explain activity will cease. Experiments have away its views on the basis of the author's shown that if the original female is immedi- feelings. I think' this diverts attention from ately replaced by a new female in estrus, the substance of the book. the male will immediately begin sexual ac- Omni: Let me phrase it differently then. Do tivity again. Fatigue is not a factor in his you find that your personal experience decline of interest. If the first female is re- doesn't concur with the main premises of moved and then returned, his sexual inter- your book? find that. est is not renewed. If the original female is Symons: No, I don't placed with a second male, however, copu- Omni: On that note, let me thank you and lation and ejaculation take place, which wish you and your spouse well.OO 3 '

energy crisis. "Look at the kinds ol alterna- ing services into counting oil in the ground tive energy sources everyone is talking as equity on the balance sheet. MACRO about," he says: "synthetic fuels, hydro- "It's not the cost that stands in the way of projects, nuclear power, oil shale, tar most macroprojects," Davidson claims. cal capacity to carry out such projects has sands, solar-power satellites. The common "Bankers are much more flexible than you never been greater, while the need lo rely factor is their immensity. And it will take might suppose. Where the average citizen on them to deal with rising social crises has hundreds ol them lo fill our energy gap and would ask, 'How much does this cost?' a never been more urgent." substitute for imports." banker asks, 'What's the return?' He

"Our country has fallen way behind the Hull knows whereof he speaks. Bechtel doesn't care how big it is, as long as there's Japanese and Europeans in its ability to is now managing the world's largest con- a good return on the investment." carry oul large projects," Davidson agrees. struction project; the new city of Jubail, in Then what does stand in the way? David- "Letmegiveanexamrjle. Here at MIT is the Saudi Arabia. On the site of a fishing vil- son's answer: will "All we have to do is Francis Bitter National Magnet Lab, where lage, the Arabs are building an industrial decide on our priorities, and every obstacle magnetic levitation was developed. Trains city roughly the size of Detroit or Hamburg. melts away. When we decided to land on equipped with it could fly thousands ot The project must provide housing and the moon, it didn't matter how much it cost. miles per hour. They even built a model of hospitals for 250,000 to 350,000 people,. We did it. The same could be true for any one of these ra I roads seven years ago. The 480 kilometers of paved highway, a fully other macroproject. But we have to decide U.S. government said. 'Very good, boys, equipped deepwater port, an international which ones we really want!" you were a complete success,' and moved airport, arnoaern telecommunications sys- Macroprojects now on the drawing on to other projects. tem, and sewage, desalination, and elec- boards show an astonishing variety. The "But the Japanese and the Germans tric-generating systems. All this began to ones below are all feasible and probably took the same research and applied it to take shape just over five years ago. By the economically very sound. Social criteria, their needs. Late in 1979 the Japanese na- end of this century the Saudis will have not technological ones, will decide whether tional railroad announced that it had run a pumped as much as $50 billion into the they are carried out, full-size mag-lev car at five hundred three MAN-MADE ISLANDS kilometers per hour, a new worid record.

They plan to install it on their Tokyo-to- The floating cities and island com- Osaka line. By 1990 you'll be able to make munities mentioned at the start of this arti- that four-hundred-eighly-kilometer trip in cle could be built at any time. Craven's

Learning to decide is another aim of the more innovative forms of "macrofinance." A says. "It is all proven." Craven is so confi- macroengineers. At MIT, computer models single, comparatively small dam across dent in the basic engineering that the are being developed to aid the decision- the Canadian section of the Columbia River Hawaii Floating City Project has moved be- making process. These "macromodels" required a complex financial agreement yond designing the city proper. It is now include criteria not normally taken into ac- between fwo federal governments, one working on the associated islands that will count in making engineering decisions: province, and a variety of public and pri- house its utilities; the most difficult is a psychological effects, influence on life- vate utilities. thermal-energy plant, which will service styles, and political impact. "There is an Macroprojects have always been in the the electrical needs of the city from the urgent need to develop engineer-manag- forefronl of financial innovation— sleight- ocean itself, ers who can relate technology to the of-hand, some might call it. French en- Japanese architects borrowed Craven's deeper values of society," Davidson says. gineer Ferdinand de Lesseps began sell- ideas for Aquapolis, a not-so-miniature Meanwhile American industry is chafing ing shares in his Suez Canal Company floating city that was the showpiece of to put these new tools into action. Cordell before he had even won the concession Okinawa's International Ocean Exposition Hull, treasurer of Bechtel Corporation, in from the Ottoman sultan. More than a cen- in 1975 and 1976. Housing the fair's Japa- San Francisco, believes thai macroen- tury later oil companies financed the nese pavilion, Aquapolis was equipped gineering may hold the key to solving our Alaska pipeline by sweet-talking bond-rat- with its own power, water, and waste-dis- 118 OMNI posal facilities. II covered an area of 10.000 teenth century. Ancient Greeks carried food shortages if it were exploited more square meters, rested 30 meters above Ihe boats across the Isthmus of Corinth on aggressively. So far the argument remains ocean surface, and could accommodate huge oxcarts. The Turks conquered Con- unresolved. —more than 1,000 visitors. at a time. Fourteen stantinople by stealthily transferring their Russian river reversals: Imagine revers-

typhoons struck Okinawa during the six- armada onto land. And smaller marine ing the Missouri River so that it flowed over month exposition, yet Aquapolis remained railways have been used in Europe to trans- Ihe Continental Divide and into the Pacific. open 95 percent of the time and welcomed fer ships from canal to canal for several That is the astonishing scale of a Soviet 3.5 million visitors. centuries. scheme to rescue the dying Caspian and Planetran: Twenty-one minutes from New Contemporary eng.noors have improved Aral seas. York City to Los Angeles? The know-how on these methods. One MIT professor pre- Soviet planners have long been vexed already exists, says Rand Corporation fers a "highway-canal," which would carry by "wasted" rivers flowing from water-rich physicist Robert Salter. Supersonic ground ships on gigantic trucks like those used to Siberia into the Arctic Ocean. Meanwhile Iransporl can be achieved by running a carry ore in mines. A retired U.S. Navy ad- the landlocked Caspian and Aral seas are mag-lev railroad (a wheelless. frictionless miral suggests a moving lock; Ships would shriveling because their sources are di- train kept off the ground by magnetic remain afloat, but the entire lock would be verted for irrigation. At the present rate the forces) in a semivacuum lube. In other moved across the Mexican countryside Aral will be a salt marsh by the end of this words, a Iranscontinental subway. like a giant bathtub. century, Fishing, mining, public health, cav- "Planetran does not require scientific No one knows which of these methods iar production, climate, oil drilling, and breakthroughs or even new technology," Should be adopted, or even whether a transportation have already been badly af- says Salter "But the project's political out- Tehuantepeo shipway will be built. But the fected.

look is much less optimistic than the tech- profits trom Mexico's nascent oil industry The solution Soviet engineers propose is

nical one." might someday make it a reality- to reverse the flow of the giant Ob and The problem is the price tag: $250 billion India's garland canals: An ambitious In- Yenisei rivers, in western Siberia. Instead of ioSSOO billion. But once built, Salter claims, dian engineer named Dinshaw J. Dastur emptying into the Arctic, the water of those Planetran will be so inexpensive to operate two rivers woulc be pumped uphill and over that the entire investment can be paid off Ihe southern reaches of the Ural Moun- with fares of only $54 for cross-country tains— 3, 000 kilometers - into the Aral and

passengers and 15 cents a ton-mile for the Caspian. Enough would remain to irri- freight. gate 75,000 acres of arid central Asia. ^India's 7,000-mile Nor must all of Planetran be built in one Western environmental. sis are horrified

fell swoop. It could start, say. with short network, the garland canal by the whole idea. Depriving the Arctic of stretches from San Francisco to Los Ange- much fresh claim, project, could put so water they could raise les or from Dallas to Houston. Tubes could its salinity and melt the ice cap, warming belaidon thesurface in flat, open country a whole army of unemployed the entire Northern Hemisphere and rais- instead of being hidden underground. back to work and ing ocean levels enough to inundate large Tunnel digging comprises more than hall cities around the world. Or they worry that then reward the workers with ' the expense. shifting so much weight from the Arctic to But maximum speeds can be obtained land rendered Ihe equator might throw the entire planet off

only in nonstop, coast-to-coast travel. The balance and cause it to wobble in orbit. fertile by the canals.^ 21-minute time is achieved by continuous Soviet planning is so secretive that no

acceleration of 1 gravity for the first half of foreigner knows whether this plan has re- the trip (to a maximum of 22,500 kilometers ceived a ae-i.mte go-ahead. But about 100 per hour) and continuous deceleration for Sovir: reser-iroli ir Smites are looking at var- the second half. A more comfortable trip, at ious parts of the plan, including its en- acceleration of Vs g, would take 36.5 min- has proposed building a 7,000-mile net- vironmental impact.

utes, or 70 minutes including stops in Chi- work of irrigation ditches linking every Meanwhile only projects that fit into this cago and Dallas. major river in India and reaching every city master plan are being worked on Long- "Is Planetran really farfetched?" Salter and village. The plan's most novel feature is range Soviet planning assumes that con- asks rhetorically. Probably not. The real its construction method: manual labor, The struction will begin within five years and question, he insists, is whether we can af- so-called garland canals would employ an that Siberian water will enter the Aral Sea ford fo continue polluting our skies, carving army of the unemployed, all of whom would by the mid-1990s. up our wilderness areas and arable land, be rewarded with land rendered fertile by The Trans-Mediterranean aqueduct: and extravagantly wasting fossil fuels for the canals. Canadian engineer Joseph Debanne has forms of impractical transportation that Willi this single project. Dastur claims, proposed an enormous energy swap be- seem practical only because we are so "India's perennia orob-ems ol Hoods and tween France and Algeria, its former col- accustomed to them. droughts, energy crisis, food shortage, ony. Debanne suggests layng a plastic MACRO WATERWORKS and unemployment would be solved on an pipe. 150 feet in diameter from Marseilles abiding basis in the next ten to fifteen to North Africa. The pipe would carry The Tehuamopec shioway; Who says years." enough fresh water from the mouth ot the canals have to be liquid? Twenty-five years Engineers outside India view the plan Rhone— the equivalent volume of an aver- before the Panama Canal was dug. a vi- optimistically. The World Bank and the U,N. age North American river to double the sionary engineer obtained a concession Food and Agriculture Organization have arable acreage of Algeria and Tunisia from the Mexican government for a "rail- cautiously pledged support. "If economic combined. To pay for this, a second road canal" across the Isthmus of Tehuan- development were a priority above military pipeline would carry a river of crude oil tepec. A century later the idea is again strength," Indian planner Rashmi Mayur from Norfh Africa to France. attracting interest. Ships in one ocean says; "the twenty-eight percent of India's The aqueduct would cost $6 billion fo $9 would be lifted from the water on sub- budget now spent on defense could make billion. But with a return of, say, 100 million

merged pontoons like those used in ship- such a project a reality." barrels of oil to France, Debanne believes yards around the world. Then the entire But such rea istic planners as B. B. Vohra that the exchange "would be profitable to assembly would be pulled across the con- hold that less costly solutions are both both countries." According to recent re-

tinent to the other on a giant railroad. available and preferable, Groundwater, .ports, Libya is seriously interested in mak-

The idea is even older than the nine- they insist, could do much to solve India's ing the trade, if Algeria does not.

Dirigibles were the rage in Ihe Twenties ways, and airports for traditional transpor- ments against solar power: It's inconsist- and Thirties. Remember the Hindenburg? tation. Dirigibles need only mooring masts ent, since it works only in the daytime; if Thai dirigible mammoth was modest com- where ihey can tie. up. depends on the weather; you can use il pared to the airship of the future, if Boston ORBITAL INGENUITY only where the sun shines (it's not really engineer Francis Morse's predictions practical in Boston or Seattle); and most of come true. Morse, who helped design the Earlh shuttle; NASA has already spent Ihe energy is lost in the atmosphere before Goodyear blimp, envisions generation of billions a of dollars to develop the space it even reaches Earth. ~ nuclear-powered dirigibles wilh accom- shuttle. How much more would it cost to HERE COMES THE SUN modalions for 3,500 people, promenade refit it for orbital transport between two decks longer than the GE2's, hangars for places on Earth? Probably less than it's There is an obvious solulion to all these shuttle planes or helicopters, and 1 million worth. Scientists throughout Ihe country problems; Capture the energy before the cubic feet of cargo space— all.with a cruis- are looking into a smaller Earth shuttle for atmosphere absorbs it; go where the sun ing speed comfortably over 160 kilometers ultra-high-speed transport. Some believe always shines: outer space. per hour. lhat what Boeing calls single-stage-to-orbit This may be the future's best energy Lighter-than-air craft can be far more (SSTO) craft could be operating by the end source. Engineers at NASA and some economical than airplanes, Morse-points of this cenfury aerospace companies have been working out. Once they reach a certain size, much The SSTO would be a completely self- for more than a decade on ways to capture less of their lift goes into carrying the air- contained racket that could connect any solar energy by satellite. Placed in geosyn- craft, and much more can be used to carry two poinfs. on Earth within two hours. No chronous orbit, satellites can be exposed cargo. Dirigibles may never be as fast as first-stage boosiers would be used and to the sun 99 percent of the year and re- their heavier-than-air counterparts, buf then discarded, as on the larger space ceive 4 to 11 times as much energy as an they can transport huge cargoes at low shuttle. Cargo could cost between $10 and earthbound solar slation. Microwaves, la- cost — and oiler ocean-line luxury to unhur- $20 per pound to ship, and passenger sers, or even mirrors could bring the energy tickets would cost from $3,000 lo back to Earth. The airship's revival need not begin with $10,000— a mite exfravagant for tourists, "There are no known technical barriers fo nuclear leviathans. A convenlional dirigible perhaps, buf not unreasonable for execu- the design, deployment, and operation of small enough to fit existing hangars would tives, diplomats, and other high-priority solar-power satellites," concludes solar weigh no more than a Boeing 747, yet travelers. engineer Peter Glaser, who has been ten floor would have times the space. The So much research goes into space travel studying the concept since he proposed it larger fhey become, the more economical anyway thai this may be among the most in 1968. By the next century, he believes. they are to operate. practical of macroprojects. Aerospace en- the cost will be competitive with other en- African scientists now see the airship as gineer J. Peter Vajk calls it the leading con- ergy sources. the most promising transport for economic tender to become ihe global transport sys- development, according to a recent tem of the future. But the real question is not whether any

UNESCO survey. Africa lacks roads, rail- Solar-power satellites: Name the argu- one of these projects is practical. It is how we apply macroprojects in general lo meet

human needs. Frank Davidson says it's time to Irain a new breed of engineer-man- agers, men and women equally at home in science and in the arts.

"If engineering is to protect and enhance the physical and social environment," he says, "we must have a cadre of people with both reliable technical competence and 2~~ I) broad and sensitive judgment on human issues."

To show the way, in preparing a recent symposium report, Davidson even brought in psychiatrists to assess the way designs in public housing affect personal and fam- ily life. The French government has fol- lowed with a special Institut Auguste Comte, designed to Irain managers head-' ed for the top in the characteristics and management of "large-scale programs of equipment." And Yale, MIT, and the Polytechnic Institute of New York have begun to develop programs that will train students in the basics of both engineering and management.

If the ^industrialization of America is to be more than an empty slogan, Davidson believes, government and industry must tWo-__ form joint study groups to examine mac- roengineering projects. One result might well be the eslablishment of a multibillion- dollar industry to develop supersonic ground transport. Could a Presidential Commission on Macroengineering help get America mov- "That was his most difficult period." ing again? Davidson and some ofher re- sponsible authorities have no doubt. DO :radle of the nuclear age EXPLDRMTORJS By Norv Brasch

academic district of Paris, The story becins on ihe opposite- side of RuedelaGiacirre io Becquerel's The the district. In Ihe neatly pruned Jardin laboratory on Rue Cuvier, where the home of trie Sprbonne, has seen

more than its fair share of des Plantes, along Rue Cuvier, are the three scientists pored over the peculiar scientific glory. Here in the square mile laboratories of the Museum National properties of uranium. It was perfect — known as the Fifth Arrondissement, Leon d'Histoire Naturelle, where Henri malerial for a doctoral dissertation Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the Becquerel conducted his experimenis. original, adventurous, and potentially earth with a simple pendulum. Here, loo, An eminent physicist, well connected in important. Marie began her research in a Claude Bernard, the father of modern scientific ci r cles Becquerel keenly cold, damp room at the School of Physics medicine, dissectec live animals and ex- followed Wilhelm =ice,'H gen's discovery of and Chemistry, a few minutes from ihe trapolated his findings to the functioning X rays in 1896. While conducting his own Curies' apartment. of the human body. Rue Broca. Rue expe ments, he found that uranium "The more Marie penetrated into Descartes, Rue Jussieu— Ihe street samples spontaneously emitted energy intimacy with uranium rays, the more they names read like an index to the history in sufficient quantity to fog an unexposed seemed without precedent," wrote Eve of French science. photographic plate. But Becquerel was Curie in her charming, somewhat roman- Perhaps the most impressive chapter in hard pressed to find an explanation r.ic'.zod biography of her mother. "In

Parisian science is honored by one of the for this phenomenon. spite of their very feeble power, they had Fifth's least impressive streets. Only the The problem intrigued Pierre and Marie extraordinary individuality." By mid-1898 most perceptive visitor would spot the Curie, a young-couple drawn to each other Marie was ready to publish her initial words Institut du Radium above the- by an obsessive passion for science. findings and to give !he mysterious energy doorway at 11 RuePierreet Marie Curie. Pierre was so engrossed in physics that a name — radioacliviie. Behind this unassuming facade lives the he habitually ignored matters of his daily As Marie's work .became more

' leaky, memory of f 01.1 great scientists, all of them existence. Marie combined her husband's promising, Pierre procured a Nobel Prize winners named Curie. Col- devotion with stubborn pragmatism. By floorless shed at the School of Physics' lectively they led a quiet revolution that 1897 she had advanced far enough and Chemistry and pined his wife in this changed our view of basic matter and toward her physics degree io begin makeshift laboratory. Having tested every immortalized the Fifth Arrondissement as searching for a doctoral thesis. The Curies known pure element for radioactivity, they the cradle of the present Nuclear Age. walked from tneir humble apartment on began checking compound substances. Samples of pitchblende, a mineral laced with uranium, proved more radioactive than pure uranium. The conclusion was unavoidable: Pitchblende must contain another element, low in concentration but highly radioaclive. The Curies spent most f their savings to have a ion of the seem- ingly worthless rock shipped from mines in Bohemia, at that time part of Austria.

Over the next four years the tenacity of - the Curies proved to be their greatest assel. They spent long hours in the shed, boiling, separating, predoi'.aling a no collecting, until eventually the two scientists isolated 100 milligrams of a

substance so oowe'tul ii g owed in the dark. After several attempts Marie was able Io calculate the atomic weight (226) of the new element, radium. Eight tons of pilchblende yielded- a single gram of radium, and the Curies

were under si andably proud of their discovery. However, by today's safety standards, they were careless with the samples, Pierre kepi a vial of radium in his

Polish-bom Marie Curie: the only person vest pocket and, when it produced a burn, 124 OMNI "Okay, kid. Let's.see whs! you can used himself as a human guinea pig to fell under Ihe horses, and was crushed to thorized for the institute?: the Pavilion Curie, study radium's physiological effects. He death by the wheel that followed. Absent- for pure research, and the Pavilion Pasleur, soon realized that radium's power might mindedness proved to be Pierre Curie's for medical applicatipns. Marie bustled destroy malignant growths, and early ex- fatal flaw. over even ihe most minuscule details of the periments in curietherapy, another name Marie was shattered by the blow. In construction, cultivating the garden that tor radiotherapy were undertaken. Pierre's death she lost a lover and a col- now separates the buildings before either Radium took the international scientific laborator. For weeks she confined herself to was completed.

community by storm. In 1903, the same her room, wrk-ng pitiful letters to her dead World War I gelayed the move into the year that Marie was awarded her doctorate, husband. But a. small circle of friends new Radium Institute. Determined to de- the Curies and Becquerel were jointly pre- would not let her talents wither away The fend her adopted country, Polish-born sented the Nobel'Prize in physics. The an- following November Marie stood before a Marie spent the war years organizing and nouncement brought an intensely private packed classroom of gawking spectators driving mobile x-ray units to the front lines. couple into the limelight. Reporters hov- as the first woman professor of the Sor- In 1918 she was in Paris again, walking ered around the new family home on bonne. Forgoing no expected eulogy, she daily from her apartment on the lie St. lively Latin Quarter, to . Boulevard Kellermann, hoping for a choice picked up Pierre's lecture at precisely the Louis, through the word or a cule anecdote Irorn the. vener- place he had left off; "When one considers her beloved institute. ated physicists. Marie dodged all personal the progress that has been made in Her best work behind her, Marie became ."

questions, offering only her standard retort: physics . . the mentor of a new generation of nuclear

"In science we are interested in things, not Life was rocky for the woman scientist' scientists. Outstanding among them were in persons." and her two daughters. Again the family her own daughter and son-in-law, Irene and

Despite all the interest shown abroad, was shaken, by a sexscancal linking Marie Frederic Joliot-Curie, who later wor> the the French scientific establishment was with a colleague, Paul Langevin. Again Nobel Prize for their work in artificially in- slow to recognize the importance of Marie felt victimized by the press, this time duced radioactivity. Other landmarks at the radioactivity. The laboratory that Piefre had for good reason. But in the midst of the laboratory were celebrated with tea in the so long coveted never materialized, and he scandal she was awarded the 1911 Nobel garden, served in chemical beakers with refused to play political games for the sake Prize in chemistry for her continuing work glass stirring rods.

of advancement. "Death is quicker than with radium, becoming, the only person to The Radium Institute continues today in

public officials to claim great men," Eve win the Nobel twice in a lifetime in a scien- its original function, with a small section

Curie wrote in an uncharacteristic moment tific field. maintained as an informal museum, Ma- of bitterness. When the lempest blew over, Marie re- rie's office, which has been left virtually

There is more than a touch of irony in her turned to the one unfulfilled dream she had intact, reflects her penchant for the func- choice of words. On a rainy afternoon, April shared with Pierre, a proper research facil- tional. Pierre's highly sensitive brass scale 19, 1906. Pierre walked along the Seine to ity in which to pursue ihe theoretical and is one of the few concessions to sentimen- the Pont-Neuf. Lost in thought, he failed to therapeutic possibilities of radium. She fi- tality. Marie's calling cards still sil on her notice a cart coming down Rue Dauphine, jially had her way. Two buildings were au- desk, her laboratory jacket and favorite pen stashed unceremoniously in one of the drawers. The lead casket in which Mane carried a gram of radium given to her in America lies beneath the window overlook- ing the garden. Sometimes, in her rare reflective mo- ments, Marie would open the window and gaze intothe placid garden, which remains a bastion of tranquillity for the scientists of the Radium Institute. The workroom adjoining the office houses the instruments that played a role in the accomplishments of the four Curies. Pierre and his brother Jacques designed the piezoelectric quartz that later aided Marie in the discovery of radium. A Hoffmann chamber brought Irene and Frederic within a hair's breadth of identify- ing the neutron in 1932. Marie's handwrit- ten calculation of radium's atomic weight is also on display.

The museum is open to the public, if little publicized. An advance phone call (329.12.42) can be helpful. Should the lan- guage prove to be a formidable barrier, just try showing up at 11 Rue Pierre el Marie Curie. Your perseverance will be more than amply rewarded. Four scientists representing two of the^ most remarkable marriages in scientific history perhaps deserve a grander memo-

rial, but such an honor would be foreign to the modest Curies. DO

Norv Btasch is the author of an upcoming book, Tile Birthplaces of European Science {soon to. be published by United Technologies Corpora- tion. Haritorrj. Connecticut). 126 OMNI Eht Dungeons 6 Dragons® rayalp... syauika daehafa eht emag.

100-watt incandescent bulb uses to light a figures for the smaller neon tubes, he small room adequately points out that they require less wattage ULPTURE The amount of necessary current is than cold-cathodes because of their X-NMNl :-! =ASE !( measured in thousandths of amperes. If the smaller diameler and are, therefore, still Bolh clear and colored glass tubes for milliamperage is too low, the neon will lack more efficient. neon come in several diameters and may brilliance. Too strong a current will destroy "Wattage consumption by cold-cathode be tinted or coated with phosphorescent the electrodes, drastically reducing a neon tubes," Stern concludes, "is more or less powder, creating 40 varied hues, the light's lifetime. equal to fluorescents, although their range,

widest range of color now available in elec- Operating current for neon tubing 6 to 15 their graphic potential, I feel, overrides thai trical lights. After all the impurities are millimeters in diameter is between 15 and factor They certainly look good compared

pumped from the tube, it is filled with either 60 milliamperes. The wider cold-cathode to light bulbs, which require twice as much argon or neon, two noble gases that make tube, usually between 18 and 25 millime- consumption to operate. This proves con-

up less than 1 percent of the air (noble ters in diameter, operates on the same tech- clusively that the neon tube with its wonder- gases exhibit great stability and extremely nological principle as neon but requires ful graphic flexibility has a life far beyond low reaction rates). When the electrons and between 60 and 200 milliamperes lo glow other existing light sources.

positive ions are electrically excited and "Very little engineering research has "Technology is one part of the neon pic-

bombarded, Ihey ionize, producing billions been done on neon and cold-cathode ture," Stern continues. "What I find more

of "couplings" every second, It is these tubes," Stern explains. "My evaluation is interesting is that here was a trade, a craft,

' unions that emit light. that these tubes, if properly developed a skill, an art— and a very demanding, pre- Neon (from the Greek word meaning technically, will far exceed all other lorms of cise one — that was limited to making new) ulilizes the same electrical principle known lighting in terms of both brilliance words, telegraphic images that related to as lightning; both are electrical discharges and efficiency." advertising signs only. Those signs are

in gas. Since there is no filament in neon To light a 15-foot-square room adequate- exciting and real street communication.

tubing, the light is shadowless. It radiates ly with a ceiling 8 feet high — that is, to But the graphics deteriorated, became

in a continuous, uninterrupted line; it does provide 50 footcandles of illumination 3 schlock, because the industry was suf- -not grow hot lo the touch and will not burn feet from the floor, or the amount of light focating itself. Neon signage was accused out. Argon glows bluish white; neon is necessary to read by — hot-cathode tubes of polluting the environment. An eyesore.

orange-red. The gases, distilled from air or fluorescents draw 800 watts of electricity Bui it's really visual vitamins. You're breath-

are neither toxic nor explosive. A broken with a tube life of 3,000 to 8,000 hours. ing it right now. It's stimulating, limitless. You

lube is easily spliced with an identical Incandescents, using the same conditions, can communicate with it. It has beauty and

-- glass tube and refilled with gas draw 2,400 watts and last a mere 1,000 to humor. I like getting calls from California in A neon tube, used continuously, can last 2,000 hours. Cold-cathode tubes, the the middle of the night for neon mush-

I 30 years or more. Energy-efficient, neon wider neon lights, require 1,200 watts of rooms. I feel great because helped rekin- consumes little electricity; A standard beer power and have a life span of 25,000 to dle a wonderful, natural way of using the sign uses slightly more current than a 40,000 hours. Although Stern has no exact noble gases to light our lives." DO DIMINISHING RESOURCE

By DickTeresi

not home right now. He's out consumes 59 percent of the planet's He'spicketing an elevator factory," gravity; one moon shot used more gravity was the answer we got recently than was used in the entire eighteenth when calling the home of Darwin Crum, century. electrical engineer and founder of the "In prehistoric time man was largely a American Society for the Conservation of horizontal creature." Crum says. "He didn't

Gravity (ASCG). use much gravity, except maybe to fall off Crum has taken on the job of warning a dinosaur. As he got more vertical, he the world about yet another diminishing used more. In time there came the eleva- natural resource. Each time gravity is tor, the skyscraper, the airplane, and, defied, he says, its hold on the earth the bane of gravity, air freight." becomes weaker and weaker. Crum has written the White House, He made this discovery after visiting the asking that airplanes be made to observe home of a clockmaker who complained the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit and thai that his clocks were starting to run uni- the ton be reclassified to 500 pounds. formly slow. To Crum this could mean only He suggests that people avoid esca- one thing: The force of gravity was fading. lators, elevators, and airplanes; that they He started the ASCG to monitor the use of lie down a lot; and that the 550-loot- this fast-diminishing resource and to tall Washington Monument be lowered encourage conservation measures. inio a 535-foot-deep hole so people

Among the statistics Crum offers are: don't waste gravity by walking the full The Sears Tower skyscraper in Chicago, distance to the lop. with its 103 elevators, uses as much Asked whether he knew when we might gravity in a day as 50 climbs up Mount run dangerously low on gravity and start Everest; the United States, with only 6 drifting into space, Crum told Omni Ghraic rciinberg Tales ci bunrrc percent of the world's population, reporter Douglas Colligan that he wouldn't

disclose the probable dale. "I don't want to encourage hoarding," he explained.

You can contact the ASCG at: RO. Box 94485, SchaumburgJL 60194. A $10 membership fee gets you a bumper sr c-

While ciany scientists looking for extra- lerrcat: al life are speculating about the (?x srerce of other Earth-like planets. Co umuia University physicist Gerald F-emberg thinks we should be looking in trie centers of stars or through the vast stretches of interstellar space, Feinberg believes there are two kinds of creatures out there: plasmodes and radiobes. Plasmodes, he says, have evolved within our sun and the stars into patterns ot organized motion from random collisions of electrons and ions. The creatures are alive in the sense that they persist as ordered arrangements and replicate by magnetically converting Darwin Crum: He's asked tt Wffite House lomake airplanes the 55-mpri spcoo wr.i:. random arrangements o'" stevar matter 12B OMNI .

into plasmoclelike. non random forms. Radiobes live in the cooler climate Of interstellar space and are composed of atoms widely spread apart that anchor and emit radiation from nearby stars. In highly evolved states radiobes emit laserlike beams of light, which can order jLiier lifeless corrections of atoms to form new radiobes. Feinberg says one of the prime re-

quirements for I fa is orderliness. And plasmodes and radiobes. as he sees (hem, are highly organized. In fact, some plasmodes, he says, not only might repel foreign particle charges - thus defending .themselves— but might also attract particles for feeding purposes. Feinberg and his coauthor, Robert Shapiro, head of New York University's biochemistry department, disc usethese and other concepts in their new book. Life Beyond Earth, the Imelligent Earthling's Guide to Life in the Universe. For those who would like to use Fein- berg's space creatures in their next SF Tourists pel beat horror film, the. physicist warns that plasmodes would pose no Ihreal to Earth. "They would regard us as completely uninteresting." says Feinberg. "Why would Tate found that alrnos! every aggressive creatures living in the middle of the sun, act on the pari of bears was precipitated with the whole universe at their disposal, by the actions of people.

want to come out to a little piece of cinder The most common mistake people millions of miles away?" make that ends in a bear attack is simply crowding the animals. But Tate also saw Vacation season approaches, and animai people putting their hands in bears'

behaviorisi Jane Tate is readying herself mouths to feed them, placing their 'Tor "the- carnage. Every year, says Tate, a children next to them "to get a good University of Tennessee graduate .student, picture to take home," pelting the animals, visitors to national parks and other and holding out empty hands to them.

wilderness areas are in.jred o-,- nlac-- One woman took a Polaroid photograph bears panhandling for food along ofa bear and then thrust the print into the roadsides and in campgrounds, People animal's face. The bear looked at the print who treat the animals like giant-sized and bit her. teddy bears sometimes end up getting Bears often make a blowing sound bitten or swatled. Since a black bear before they attack or bile. Sometimes a

weighs-anywhere from '25 to 350 pounds, bear will charge a person or a group. If the injury usually requires more than a you're faced with a blowing, charging Band-Aid. bear, Tate advises, you can prevent further "In forsaking their shy and secretive aggression by stopping whatever you're is irritating either ways to beg forfpod, black bears are , doing that the animal and under stress, and aggression is likely," standing still or retreating slowly. Better Tatesays. After watching hundreds of yet, Tate says, don't gel close to bears in not always cuddly. encounters between bears and people in "the first place. DO set. The set is not even available and may never be, However, according to Sandy Goebel, Toshiba account supervisor at DKG advertising, "The purpose of the campaign was to build awareness of Toshiba as a high-technology company. FOR FUTURE There's a certayi want-to-be-first-on-your- block syndrome with technology. When- ever you come up with a new product- something that's unique - it's probably in- novative for only six months or a year ai

most, because it will be leapfrogged at the RE ERENCE next Consumer Electronics Show." The message from advertisers is: tool Moving? We need 4-6 weeks notice of a Listing/Unlisting Service? Omni makes -60s. The subliminal, anxiety- of Its subscribers up for the change of address. Fill in the attached form the names and addresses outside provoking message is: Do it, or life will below. available to other publications and companies. The publications and com- leave you behind. Automobiles, private Subscription or Renewal? One year New panies selected are carefully screened for planes, or superpowered sound systems of Omni is $18 in the U.S., S24 in Canada their acceptability and quality of their offers. are sold not for function or technological and overseas. Please enclose a check or advantage but for their dream value. This money order for the appropriate amount and below. leads to a frustrating and expensive spiral allow 6-8 weeks for delivery. Please check the appropriate box provoked by gadgets we cannot repair, re- place, or modify. Attach mailing label below and send to: . I Renewal Still, we Americans are a gadget-loving breed. We have come to rely on our won- 908 drous technology to the point where we is change of _ i d Please remove my D This a ^^ ' 11737 Farmlngdale, N.Y. it all tor granted. High-tech anxiety is name from your address; my new take not a consequence of technology mailing list. address is below. so much run amok as it is a result of our endless unrealistic expectations of perfection. American consumers are not the mere vic- Address — : ] tims of absurd, extravagant technology; • City State . Zip _ j — they are the perpetrators of it. Nobel Prize winner Arno Pgnzias said, st accompany order. 0G381 "Technology provides us with everything

but a way to say no to it. We ought to de- velop another attribute that no one men- or symptomatic — of our frustration over the tions anymore, character It's bad enough larger moral and ecological problems of that we ask so much of technology. It nniruD global technology. should not assume the additional function CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24 For example, if our dependence on ol making moral choices for us and provid- explained that his professional proximity to technology continues to rise, opportunities ing us character. Where are we as human television sets, sound systems, and video for self-experience may lessen. In his book beings if we have to get our morality trom pro- games did not make him any more confi- . From Panic to Power: The Positive Use of outside ourselves? Technology can dent when these devices were in his own Stress, clinical psychologist John J. Parrino vide us with a state where choices are home, "1 got a fancy digital clock-radio for calls this phenomenon feedback depriva- taken away from us. That is scary. Then on feedback we're in 1984." my birthday," he said. "When I took it out of tion. "Our bodies are based physi- high-tech anxiety the box and plugged it in, it didn't work. systems, mentally, emotionally, and The good news about off future it cally. that jolts above and be- is, it doesn't seem to rub on gen- Now I don't know whether was defective Anything you equilibrium creates stress. In the erations. In fact, schoolchildren today re- io begin with or whether I had somehow yond your of placing gard technology as a game, a whimsical messed it up. I'm not sure because of my case high-tech gadgelry, you are feeling of ineptitude around the thing." an object between you and the source of new language, a part of their evolutionary Such helplessness can affect people your feedback. As you reduce the number inheritance. They talk about travel to other who are secure in their mechanical ability. of responses an individual makes to that galaxies the way their parents talked about One Houston lawyer said, "The amplifier for source, you put him in a state of feedback transoceanic jet flights. My seven-year-old my sound system broke down during a deprivation. This can be very disorienting son attends an after-school computer party at my home. I'm mechanically in- lo the individual." course and informs me that in the near confused only by static from future he will be able to have microelectron- clined— I even do the repairs on my Aus- We are not tin-Healey myself— but when you're did- our feedback systems. The worst troubles ic brain implants that will make time travel dling around with something electronic, arise when the babble of high-tech anxiety and other multidimensional experiences a you can't see a current running through a meets the hard sell of advertising. matter of common course. Some experts,

is purveyor of believe it or not, agree with him. wire or a burnt-out chip. I couldn't repair the Advertising a high-power amp, and there was no music for the rest of high-tech anxiety. Advertisers want to raise Children, it seems, already know what technological consciousness. They ex- their parents have yet to learn. The ad- the party. I felt totally helpless." our Experts argue that this concern is evi- pend astronomical sums and bombard us vancement of technology is like gravity; we dence more of an ego problem than of a with intimidating images to do so. cannot beat the attraciion. We should culti- technological one. Isaac Asimov, for in- In just the first nine months of 1979, for vate our curiosity more prudently and set limits on our expectations. We must learn to stance, sa]d. "Personally, I think people example, Ford Motor Company spent more who say that- something depersonalizes than S100 million to sell us its better idea: make responsible, qualitative choices tools, rather than quantita- them feel very insecure." But it can also be "We're making technology pay off!" Toshi- about our future argued that anxiety brought on by a tech- ba has run a TV commercial showing an tive ones, or today's high-tech anxiety will nological boom in the home is symbolic— experimental voice-activated television become tomorrow's high-tech horror.OO 130 OMNI THE NEWSLETTER SAVE BIG on FOR GROWN-UP CALCULATORS KIDS One project lor the mid-1980s is a com- municalions antenna about 50 meters in diameter — the first of its size in space. The Texas Instruments lack of gravity and the sun's thermal effects on such a lightweight structure must be observed before NASA puts the antenna

into lull operation. Other construction proj- II PC100C. . . IS*. ects being examined include a 250- 1158/59 UBr TIPROO... kilowatt power supply which could serve ihree purposes; as a source of indepen- dent power for processing materials in space, as a feasibility study for a solar- power satellite, and as part of an advanced TI-99/4 PERSONAL COMPUTER $469.0 solar-electric propulsion system. Sometime in the 1990s the SOC might inexpensively build equipment to improve New products almost always satellite communications. One project is a large platform with many different kinds of look nice, but they often dis- HP41C $189.00 HP 97... $569.99 antennas; the other is a communications. HP 67 288.99 appoint—either because they antenna 100 meters or more in diameter, Optical Wand ... 95.00 are overpriced, don't live up hpst'?.'.'.'."*" Both structures would be transported lo HP34C... 114.99 to Card Reader... 169.00 promised levels of perfor- geosynchronous orbit. HP33C ....68.99 42.99 mance, are shoddily con- A geosynchronous orbit is any circular Printer 289.00 HP32E structed, or are fraudulently orbit 35,900 kilometers above the earth's promoted. surface, and a geostationary orbit is a NEW! geosynchronous orbit in the of the Now you can avoid dis- plane equator. Geostationary orbit is particularly appointment with GADGET, useful because any satellite placed there a monthly newsletter that appears to be stationary from a point on the separates the bargains from for relay- ground, Thus, it is a good Ideation UD OE COMPUTING the bombs. ing communications messages between Mr-OO SYSTEM Hundreds of new products fixed points on the ground and for viewing a are marketed every week. particular area of ihe earth continuously for GADGET looks them over, such purposes as weather observation and military reconnaissance. Currently then lets you know which are about 60 percent of U.S. satellites are in law

interesting, unique . . . and, Earth orbit, and the remaining 40 percent most important, which are are in geosynchronous orbit. worth your money. No other Unlike Apollo and Skylab, which re- source continuously reviews quired large ground crews to plan each so many new products. mission, the SOC should be able to monitor Find out what works and itself with its computers. One Of NASA's goals is what doesn't, before you to have the astronauts control the SOC, freeing the ground crew to concen- spend your money. Subscribe trate on long-range planning. 2B31B PRINTER 3650.00 3000.00 to GADGET. 7205A PLOTTER 2800.00 2450.00 In third phase of his near-term the space l.-.ci Penality Moduli program, Von Braun proposed that a reus- Send order to: GADGET, 116 W. APPLICATION PACKS 95.00 81.00 14th, NYC, NY 10011. able lunar spaceship be assembled in orbit to circle the Although. at SIZEABLE DISCOUNTS I15Z1 Year $25 L 2 Y moon. NASA has no

L.I Enclosed is a check or money order plans to return to the moon this decade, iiis

Bill: American Express Diner's I contemplating the development of a manned orbital-transfer vehicle. The OTV could move payloads from shuttle orbit to AOfi'Lli'" higher altitudes. Since it takes about as much energy to reach geosynchronous

orbit as it does to fly to the moon, the OTV could also circle the moon and. re turn to the •'•'•"' operations center 1 Whether Von Braun's dreams and those of NASA planners become reality will de- pend upon the actions of the White House

and Congress; it was the lack of funding, not of technology, that limited the. space

program during the 1970s. But it Ihe United States does not develop such basic re- sources as a space station and reusable

OTVs in the 1980s, it surely will lose its leadership in the' conquest ot space. DO .

respected publication such as Omni prints system syndromes. Whatever else may be such a misleading article. Hooker Chemi- going on, there has not been a sufficient FDRUR/l cal Company ac:ed responsibly in its use concentration of toxic material to produce of Love Canal. The facts show that: overt illness attributable to poisoning."

because a few corporations made a little • Hooker's use of Love Canal more than Michael D Reichgut exlra money above whal they would gel 27 years ago as a waste-disposal site was Manager, Public Relations anyway under the Moon Treaty. (Note that proper and would even conform lo most of Hooker Chemical Company "benefits" are what's left after costs are the pending federal RCRA regulations. Houston. Tex. paid.) • The clay covering on Love Canal was

Perhaps your editorial hysteria obscures disturbed by government agencies de- I read with interest Omni's Mind column deeper arguments as to how the United spite Hooker's warnings against doing so. about the elfects of the Love Canal incident States will benefit from the treaty. This happened when Hooker no longer had on the local residents.

We can examine the historical record. any control over the property. I am appalled at. the American chemical There is precedent for international division Three studies prepared for the Environ- industry, the Environmental Protection of nearly uninhabited areas. Early in Ihe mental Protection Agency (EPA) indicate Agency, and the Hooker Chemical Com- sixteenth cenlury the pope divided the that the air in the Love Canal area com- pany. It should be a crime punishable by Americas between the two countries most pares favorably with air in Los Angeles,' imprisonment lor. the people involved in able, to explore and exploit those re- Oakland, Phoenix, and several cities in making executive decisions and all the sources, to the total exclusion of anyone Te.xas-and New Jersey. The concentrations workers doing the dumping! else. Those countries were Portugal and of chemicals rnsasu'ed by New York State If these corporate executives were Spain. The reason why this letter is not writ- and by the EPA contractor at Love Canal brought to trial and sentenced, we'd see ten in Portuguese (New Haven falls on their are far lower than those permiited under fewer chemical-dumping incidents in the

: side of the divid'ng .'ie) is [hat other Euro- comparable government workplace stand- future. The EPA is obviously not doing its

pean countries fought long and bloody ards. The exposure levels, therefore, were a job properly. I don't believe there is a single wars merely to got access to the Americas. fraction of a percentage ol what the gov- municipal water supply in the entire coun- A treaty based on whoever happens lo ernment allows in the workplace. try that is clean or safe to drink from. be strong enough to reach the moon during It is impossible to understand why Mr Bruce Bryan

one quarter of one century would be virtu- Wall, chose to present a discussion of the Chicago. I'll, ally certain lo set off new rounds of trade chromosome study. Within a few days afler wars. Making all mankind the common the. release of the study the U.S. Depart- The Future of Fusion landlord of the moon seems the best ment of Health and Human Services issued Cheap fusion power, achieved soon, can chance to avoid total warfare over moon a report thai said the chromosome study and will transform a series of global-energy rights. "provides an inadequate1 oass for any sci- and other economic conflicts mto a hopS'lul Finally, one must reflect that the United entific or medical inferences from the data and cooperative future for us all. Our Rig-

.-. fusion-reac- States will not always be the leading power . concerning exposure to mutagenic gatron "throwaway" Tokamak on Earth. (Incecd, as Omni has pointed substances ... in the Love Canal area." tor concept seems to offer our only real plasma-confine- > out, it is not the leading space power now.) New York Governor Hugh Carey's independ- near-term hdpe. No new When that comes to pass, we will want to ent physicians panel reported that the ment gimmick, it is a Tokamak of the class ensure thai those nations have been com- chromosome study "presents a paradigm invented by Acad. Artsimovich in the mid- mitted by their own history to sharing the of administrative inepl Nude" and that "such dle 1960s. Tokamaks form the standard wealth of the moon with all mankind, includ- a poorly designed investigation should not core of all the world's fusion programs. ing us. have been launched in the first place," Nearly 15 years of world effort and many Michael Federow This special panel of distinguished billions of dollars have been spent in un- New Haven, Conn. physicians, chaired by Lewis Thomas, derstanding their physics. They will work. M.D„ chancellor of Memorial Sloan-Ketter- Our contribution was to invent an engineer- Ben Bova replies: Space industries can ing Cancer Center stated that the panel ing embodiment derived from aerospace help to solve economic problems on Earth. "has concluded that there has been np research-and-development thinking to Our overcrowded planet needs the energy demonstration of acute health effects yield small, copper-coil, water-cooled ma- and the natural resources that await us in linked lo exposure to hazardous wastes at chines, contained in light-bulb-like en- space. Prolit-seeking corporations move the Love Canal site." velopes, whose large powc output and re- faster and create more wealth tor us.ali than With regard to Dr. Beverly Paigen's sulting short lifetime allow very cheap and do bureaucratic government programs. (If epidemiological study, the special panel short development efforts, and very low ". . output. invented this ap- you doubt this., contrast ihe spread of the stated that her report . falls far short of cost energy We

"microelectronics revolution" in the West the mark of an exercso in epidemiology . . proach in 1976. with the lead tooted programs of the East.) Her data cannot be taken as scientific evi- Unfortunately, the article by R. Bruce The U.N. Moon iroaiy threatens to delay or dence for her conclusions." The panel also McColm ["The Business of Fusion," Janu- ary your into stymie altogether the development of said, ". . . the illnesses cited as caused by 1981] may mislead readers free-enterprise industry in space. Thus the chemical pollution were not medically vali- thinking that these generic ideas were in- friend at . . colleague treaty threatens to delay or prevent totally dated. . The panel finds the Paigen re- vented by my and Gen-

the utilization of space roscuicus. This

'nations nor the poor ones ever reap the epidemiologic research, but it does have for the novel and unproven confinement benefits of the riches that abound through- the impact of polemic.*' concept of his OHTE machine. While we out our solar system. The panel said, "II is clear enough from are gratified that others, such as G.A., see the available data that no acute cases of the virtues of our engineering approach Fact and Emotion at Love Canal intoxication by chemical pollutants have (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery), Misperception 'ogarcirig what occurred at been observed within any part of the Love we are chagrined that the article did not Love Canal pervades Don Wall's article in Canal community. That is, no clusters of note that Dr. Ohkawa got these ideas from the December -1980 Omni [Mind, "Love cases of acute liver disease, or kidney dis- extensive discussions we held with him

Canal"]. His article is based on hearsay, ease, or pulmonary manifestations, or and others at G.A. a year or two after our unsubstantiated rumor, and opinion rather hemolytic anemia or agranulocytosis, and inventions. than on facts. We are disturbed when a certainly no peripheral or central-nervous- Thank you for Ihe fine interview [Inter- Imagir^tionhas just become reality oi the MIT liner c Kamaks that form Riggatror, reactor

INESCO Lajcjlla. Calif

Give Mankind the Stars

I've often said that this (

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I ^% e live in an age thai requires For those whose security needs are. CCS-II. This microminiature professional

J I I increasing attention to more complicated, there's the Voiceless system shoots extra-long distances or vv mJ security. Defending our Telephone S1 50b. This unit allows for eight-inch close-ups. The camera businesses and our homes from thieves, telephone conversations that cannot be photographs around corners while you muggers, and industrial spies demands heard, tapped, recorded, or identified. remain hidden, and, because its more than common sense and caution, Just dial your number and place the components are so compact, the entire The greater the value ol Ihe secrets and telephone handsel in ihe supplied unit tits neatly into your pocket. Distance properties we wish to protect, the more coupler. Now simply spell out the words presents no difficulty with the CCS-II sophisticated the defense must be. on your miniature terminal, and they are binocular attachment. This accessory is however, Sophisticated , does not always instantly seen — in printed words that actually smaller than the palm of your difficult mean or complex to use. For cannot be overheard -on the matching hand, and when not in use, it folds to half instance, if you live in a high-crime area or unit. The S1 50b contains a built-in its normal size. The camera clamps over it your work requires you to travel to scrambler with computer-programmed one eyepiece of the binocular while you communities where the danger is greater code selection that's virtually unbeatable. aim through the other The target is now than usual, you may be interested in the Every word prints out on your unit for visual magnified eight times, letting you shoot Security Blanket All 24. This item looks verification. The words simultaneously the sharpest long-range photos imag- like a normal flashlight, The first of its kind, print out on the matching set exactly as inable. At close range, the camera this one-loot-long, 1.75-pound hand- you see them. When the need arises, you chain measures proximity and allows held system emits a beam of 20,000- can change back and forth swiftly from you to set the aoorooriat;.- -fading on the candlepower continuous light, which is verbal to computer conversation. The distance scale— from eight inches to powerful enough to immobilize an attacker S1 50b adapts easily to any phone in the infinity While conventional cameras may by temporarily blinding him or her. allowing world (inducing pay pnones). has distort close-ups, the CCS-II allows you time to escape. Containing nickel- multiterminal hookup capacity, and is perfect reproductions of books, files, cadmium batteries that are recharged entirely encased in an ordinary-looking documents, or contracts. The electronic using AC/DC outlets or car cigarette br e'case. making it totally portable. shutter times every exposure auto- lighters, the Security Blanket is a safe, For undetected phoiog'a.'.jhy. nothing matically as you aim. Weighing only effective, and legal means of self-defense. tops the Covert Camera Spy System four ounces, it can be carried as un-

obtrusively as your wallet or keys. In its

fitted belt case, the camera is no longer than the width of a pair of glasses. Operation and assembly of the CCS-II require absolutely no training. All ac- cessories come housed in an attache case to guard against damage and provide convenient portability. The Electronic Handkerchief is actually a telephone :na; disguises your voice. While you speak normally, this unit transforms your voice into something

unrecognizable— deepens it to

disccu'age harassment, distorts it to

defeat a voice analyzer or disguises it to avoid being tapped. The Electronic Handkerchief also contains a voice scrambler and is available in a handsome walnut cigar box so that, as far as any

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coruinnuruicMTiorus

as though it were continuous instead of

broken (thus, if I hide my watch when I am

I drunk, I must be drunk again before can remember where), so Miss Twinkleion has two distinct, separate phases of being." Science imnsies an Stanley Sporny Takoma Park, Md.

Fusion's Golden Egg As a o'ospeciive nuclear engineering

major at Georgia Institute of Technology, I feel somewhat disillusioned concerning my choice oi a field of study. Will" all lira bioKefny and squabbling going an about the lectin que used lo ouilc and maintain a fusion reactor, we just might

kill the goose that lays the golden egg. History is filleo w In examp es oi n-.ank:nd 5 bad timing and procrastination. SOME SERIOUS NOTES ON MOVING. Still, it's hard to believe that fusion would By Victor I usher in a new golaen age. The same thing was said about nuclear fission. These on- When you move, make sure your Your Post Office or Postman can line fusion- reactor sch.edu es seem too op- mail arrives at your new address supply you with free Change-of- timistic. WeVe,got a possible Third World right after you do. Address Kits to make notifying in the com : -ig decaae. i\ow thai would War The key is this: Notify everyone even easier. really throw their schedules off! f~~^~~] who regularly sends you mail one One last serious note. r^r Peter Hudson Wright full month before you move. Use your new ZIP Code. L*"Ja Huntsville. Ala. Don't make your mail come looking for you. Just when every c-her paper and magazine Notify everyone a month before you move. is 'ull of energy crises and impending doom, you pull through with your fusion issue [January 1981], What this country MEDICAL SELF-HELP needs is a good shot of hope every 30 days, and Omni is just what the doctor or-

dered I Free! ErJ Kfebs Lagu.na Beach, Calif. Edmund Scientific Catalog Star-Crossed The article "Supergene," by Kathleen Stein [December 1980], really excited me with its promise of longevity the thrill of being and Knowing your hlootl pressure is know- so dose to the "cutting edge" of molecular ing a number that might very well save

,: biology, your life, Wiih lhe L.TfcMnse . y_ui can In pondering some of Hi a social conse- monitor this haromeier of body health in vour home. Solid-suite electronics mean quences of this research, I am reminded of there is no need for a stethoscope nor James Blish's magnificent "Cities in Flight" need for ;i sophi-tiealet] echnique. Ifiah tetralogy. Blish proposed that "Anti-Agathic blood pressure is the sileni littler. l^AilW'.iil Drugs" outlhesla r s wthin reach, by would Astronomy, Microscopy, Biofeedback, enabling man to live long enough to travel Weather, Alternate Binoculars, they do. The LifeM .vi th ; Energy, Optics, to.them. vclcro cuff. b.men Mag Unique LigfiL May I submit thai the supergenes are ryingcase.instnictio going to take us to the- stars? ing form and has a Joe Soter S76.95 #OIA212 Santa Ana, Calif. OMNI PRODUCTS DEPT. TFL. 277 Rowavlo Pleasure Seat Rowayton, CT 06853 Rush me your free catalog! In "Pleasure Machine" [Mind, January

1981] David Conen describes how re- iPlca «-Prin,) searchers Randy Thomas and Tim Brock Address have developed a machine thai measures HfeMi. City

Don i Tell pleasure. give us kjures us how ("1 drcck-nr me State Zip to '"nake the seat 1 Or at least inform us (no rah pk. Clip And Mail Coupon Today To: nom \q contact tor more n'ormar.ion. I Edmund Scientific Co, Dept, 301 6 KN06 want to be the Lansing dsrnbutor Edscorp Blrjg., Barrington. N.J. 08007 David M. Dunn i en am re Lansing, Mich. DO OIH. bit. His company wants to make a doll of mother. She's just indomitable. I don't think Pat, and while she's standing on the coun- we'll get saddled with that bromide, but, 9U tertop, cooking breakfast, she climbs up then, I've been innocent before. OONT NUFD FROM PAGt 73 on a soapbox and puts her tiny foot down. "There are a whole lot of people out there whai is happening to her and, as Tomlin She says she doesn't want to be a product. whose existence is built on certain kinds of puts it, "to blow the whistle on some things She's tired of products. She's not really an- values and virile behavior. They interpret that are wrong with society." In honor ot the gry bul she has passed through the fire. every change as a challenge to that, as a Shrinking Woman's appearance on his She's not preach'ng, she's pleading." primal threat rather than as a different facet show, Douglas sings "Little Things Mean a In a way, so is Tomlin. "Right after the to their lives." The aclress sighs, her voice Lot," which becomes a motto for Pal. argument with her husband, Pat falls into less cheerful, less excited than when she is "The final sensibility of the movie is soft the garbage disposal and the maid acci- talking about her film. "There is just a tre- and caring," Tomlin reveals. dentally throws in all kinds of trash. Gar- mendous misogyny in the culture. It's a fact

"It's a point we try to make as frequently bage pours down on Pat, on our Every- of lite, and one has to deal with it." as possible without getting mawkish. One person, but no one hears her scream. Unlike Ihe social commentary and glaze of my favorite relationships in the movie is There is a propagandistic point in that, but of despair that, echoing Tomlin's beliefs, the one Pat has with a gorilla, marvelously it's acceptable because of the element of infuse The Incredible Shrinking Woman, played by Rick Baker. [He was Dino De comedy surrounding it. the film's gentle swipes at science do not Laurentiis's King Kong.] Like Pat, the "The original Shrinking Man movie is un- reflect attitudes held by the performer. "I gorilla is cageci tor seicntifc study, a victim intentionally funny today because it is so really do love all kinds ot futuristic ideas ol human insensitivity It's really a poignant melodramatic — a film about man against and gadgets. Technological progress relationship, each drawing courage from his environment and about man surpass- makes me glad, except when it diminishes the other, though Pat obviously benefits ing nature in the end. I don't relate to that our lives, or threatens to. Weapons frustrate

more because of her greater intelligence. kind of macho theme, and I did not want to me. Bul I adore seven-foot TVs. and I have

Experiences like this give her an aware- make a movie like that, or like The Empire Advents all over the place. 1 also think it

ness of life so that when she vanishes, Strikes Back . I'm tired of the whole allegory would be pretty thrilling to go into outer she is joyful and a! peace, waving her little of good and evil. It's really a very male- space, and, God, how I wish there were hand a! a crowd in a shopping center oriented concept, about battling and war more life forms with which we could com- "Of course Ins movie r ias villains, corpo- and who is going to triumph and who is municate. I'd love to see us make some rate and scientific. But even the heavies are going to surrender, That's boring! Things progress in that direction." never criticized. They are shown to have a are rarely that black-and-white. A monster One facet of technology with which Tom- sinister element and a pompous element like Rodan railing against the elements is lin lived for almost a year was the abun- and a ridiculous element. But everyone more interesting. Which is not to say that dance of special-effects work employed to does, and what these characters are is a The Incredible Shrinking Woman is bring The Incredible Shrinking Woman to broad stroke meant to include everybody feminist, even though when Pat is a foot tall, the screen. Apropos of the staggering Even Pat's loving husband has sold out a she continues to carry on as a wife and array of visual and mechanical wizardry in thefilm,onecrewmemberwentsolarasto

describe the project as / Love Lucy Meets Star Wars. "The difference," Tomlin cor- rects, "is that the effects are not outer- space images; they're really very banal. They're so real and so unobtrusive that they leave you alone with Pat as she's shrinking. They let you have feeling for her and not for the images. The effects were never meant to be dazzling, simply as organic to the movie as possible." A similar standard was established for

the scientific slant of the film. "We made it as accurate as we could, within the context of being an entertainment. Jane Wagner, who wrote the script, did a lot of research about the possibility of organisms shrink- ing so that there would be scientific credi- bility in the dialogue. We warned to do that so the people in the audience who know about these things won't feel cheated." Because of the filmmakers' dedication to every detail of their picture, no single per- formance or element can be said to stand out. Everything shines in balance, which is exactly what Tomlin and her associates in-

tended. "I hope the movie is resonant on

many different levels. I hope everybody

identifies with it, and is a part of it, intellec-

tually and emotionally. I just want it to be a terrific overall experience." Does Tomlin feel that Trie Incredible Shrinking Woman will have said enough so that a quarter-century hence a sequel will be unnecessary? The comedienne smiles

puc'kishly. "If the world is still around, then,

yes, it will have succeeded." DO 138 OMNI "

UFD UPDATE By E. Lee Speigel and Karen Ehrlich

UFO studies yielded any this column; RcoeM Shealler, a founder of Sheafter said that any such work will be Have is worthwhile results? True believers ihe UFO subcommittee of the Committee wasted. "What we have learned that and hard-core skeptics met in for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the UFOs will invariably outwit anyone who telepathies, fairies, Washington. QC, recently in a rare, Paranormal (CSICP); and Philip J. Klass. tries to corner them, as balanced attempt to find the answer. senior avionics editor of Aviation Week and ghosts, and similar onenomsra have done Sponsored by the Smithsonian Insti- Space Technology and chairman ot the for far longer than UFOs. Ufology is a tution's Resident Associate Program, the CSICP subcommittee. failed, would-be science." event lacked the carnival atmosphere of Durant started Ihe symposium With a And Klass pointed out that "there is not, most UFO gatherings, and the vendors of question: "What has been learned about to my knowledge, a single photograph UFO paraphernalia were relreshingly UFOs after one third of a century of showing a cralMke obec: thai does not have a taint of suspicion. UFO promoters absent. It was orchestrated by Frederick investigation?" The answers were fairly Durant, former special assistant to the predictable, but they set the stage for have been able to come up with nothing director of the National Air and Space drama later in the meeting. stronger than unexplained cases." Museum, Durant's unwavering neutrality According to Hynek, UFO studies have Inquiry filled the five-hour symposium. kept the speakers and audience of nearly been fruitful, even though the mystery One of the highlights was a film shown by 300 Smilhsonian associates in line, on remains unsolved: We have gathered the Oberg. In it he aptly showed how misin- in find terpreted window reflections in U.S. target, and on time. , background data we need order to The UFO proponents were astronomer an answer. "We have learned that there is spacecraft had ended up as banner J.Allen Hynek. scientific d' rector of the no special type of person who makes the headlines in the National Enquirer. 'Aliens Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and UFO report," he said. "They represent a on the Moon when We Landed" and lormer Air Force science adviser on UFOs: good cross section of the population. "Crippled UFO Orbits Earth" were grossly Allan Hendry, chief investigator at CUFOS; We've learned that people can honestly inaccurate reporting. "This kind oi ex- and Dr. Bruce Maccabee, a U.S. Navy be tooled, even persons of considerable ploitation is very damaging to UFO physicist and chairman of the Fund for training. Also, the slranger the experience, studies," Oberg warned. UFO Research. the greater the reluctance to report." We A few precautions might help to On the other side were NASA engineer have made a good beginning. Hynek said, minimize the damage, other panelists James Oberg, a frequent contributorto bul more professional work is necessary. suggested. "Let's require that inde- pendent witnesses be present," Hen- dry recommended. "When people who don't know each other report the same UFO in the same locale, we don't have to concern ourselves with the background or reliability of a single witness. The possibility of a hoax is reduced to an absolute minimum." And Klass said, "Instead of encour- aging the public to clog channels with cases that have prosaic explanations, we should say, 'Don't bother us unless you have the physical evidence, a photograph

that is extraordinary, or an extraordinary experience.' Then he attempted to discredit Travis Walton, and war broke out. Walton, a lumberjack, claims to have been abducted by a UFO in the presence ot several witnesses. But, according to Klass, Walton flunked a lie-detector test. Hendry, however, produced letters from two polygraph experts who had reviewed Walton's test. One charged that the interview technique was inadequate and

LNi-cVv:. and Hendry. 30 years out of date; the other said it Readers try their hands at designer genes CDfUlPETITORJ By Scot Morris

^^ I eve heard of the liger a Walkie-Talkie: a cross between a centi- cross between a lion and a pede and a parrot. 111 I — ^rf U tiger What, we askeo last No name or address October, will the world be like when Imposs'Bull: a three-way cross between genetic research reaches its ultimate an impala, a possum, and a bull. The RUNNERS-UP2 14;$25 potential? When the gene splicers can result is a 2,000-pound anielope that combine virtually any two kinds of living Sassoon: a cross between a sasquatch hangs from trees and drops down on things, what weird critiers will populate the and a baboon. It lurks in suburbs at night unsuspecting matadors. earth?We envisioned the laughingjag. a and styles women's hair Crossing an Alaskan king crab, a king- cross between a hyena and a jaguar, and Armand Hammerhead Shark; a cross fisher, a jackass, a jackrabbit, and a jackal ihe crockabalone. half-crocodile and between an armadillo and a hammerhead gives you a Fulihouse. half-abalone clam, whose hides are shark. It keeps your refrigerator free of — Greg Nelson, Nashville, Tenn. sold as giant ashtrays. bad odors and Richard Dreyfuss. Competition? 16 asked readers to sug- - Bruce Nelson, Saunderstown, R.I. The Amoebit: a cross between a rabbit gest two such unlikely species that will and an amoeba. This curious animal can

' be created by the fledgling science of The Grouse-and-Bitch: a perpetually multiply and divide at the same time. iogogenetics. Some sample names will complaining bird dog. —Jeff Donovan, Deer Trail, Colo. illustrate the range of our bestiary. We saw Semimole Indian: an Indian who is pan kitty hawks, cheepskates, jackal an terns. mole. The Grasshoppotamus: a short-lived smeltfowl, buffalo chips, paradachs, - Sheila Bishop, Youngstown, Ohio creature that can leap to tremendous

. parajacks. pekabou, a harteherring heights . . once.

(whose mating call is "Beg Pardon?"), a Batboon: a nocturnal monkey prone to — K. P.. Reed, Las Vegas, Nev. high-sounding platytoad. and a peckadillo wearing white bucks. inapeartree. Buck-Dilled Platypus: a web-tooted deer Chevy Impala: an antelope that keeps The first step was coming up with a found mostly around pickle barrels. falling down. clever name. Beyond that, we looked for — Alan Levine, Massapequa, NX. — Glenn Ruggiero, San Francisco. Calif. a keen naturalist's eye for (he crealure's habits and habitats. Entrants were to send The Benbovine: a cross between a Bengal The Donkeyote: an ices. is: c ass that two species to the Omni Ark, and two by tiger and a Jersey cow. howls at windmills and tilts at the moon, two they came. The Bobgoocheony: a four-way cross -Linda Ostreicher. New York, NX We changed the distribution of prize between a bobolink, a goose, a cheetah, money this time out. When it came down lo and a pony. The Lialot: a breed of political cat that is picking [he grand-prize winner, we were — Bruce Boston. El Cerrito, Calif. a cross between a lion and an ocelot. most knocked out by the elusive rhesus Closely related to the cheetaloi. Neither peanut buttercup and its companion, the Parrigator: a cross between a parrot and species breeds true. walkie-talkie. The card, however (the an alligator. If il says it wants a cracker, The Thoroughpig: a cross between a obverse of which showed the LSU give it one. horse and a hog, otherwise known as my mascot), bore no name or address. By Preying Mantilla: a cross between a husband. gross dereliction of contest entranceship, praying mantis and a gorilla Don't let the Janeen Evanoff, South Gate, Calif, this unknown Louisianan has, we rule, head scarf and folded hands fool you: forfeited the jackpol. The £100 grand prize give it anything it wants. HONORABLE MENTION has therefore been divided into four extra — Tom Henken, El Monte, Calif. S25 runner-up prizes. Thanksto everyone for all the fun. The Pigeon Toad: a new urban pest that not Herewith, our favorite examples of only sits on statues but gives ihem warts. "unnatural selections." The Cod Almighty: the ieader of a great Spider Robinson: a bird that spins school of cod, born of a mother cod science-fiction tales. with in immacu- -Linda Knell. Alius, Okla. GRAND-PRIZEWINNER crossed a sperm whale an late conception. Rhesus Peanut Buttercup: a triple cross — Guy Gnoza, Philadelphia, Pa. Sheepupine: a cross between a sheep between an Indian monkey, a vine of and a porcupine. It not only supplies the the legume family, and a plant with The Shag Carpette: offspring of an English wool but knits you tne sweater, too. yellow cup-shaped flowers. sheep dog and a miniature carp. - Eugene L. Roberts, Baldwin, NX 14? OMNI Aram-alamb-ading-donfc across between Cockadoodle Moo: This cross between a The Zebrox: a cross between a zebra and a ram. a lamb, a a^.gc =^c s Donfcey chicken and a cow is the ultimate answer an ox, a blacK-and-white copy of an ox. This rock-dwellingcteaEjreDteoas'nto the to breakfast Symbiotic species: the key operator. background and is usually see*t traveling - WolfVanhee. Seattle, Wash. D W'ison. Bloomireld, Ind. in farge. packs. searc#>-rsg *or giass and other kinds of dope. The Elephowl: A hybrio elephant-owl. it The St. Martin-Maarten Martin-Marten: a — Ralph Harris. Los Angeles. Calif. has the strength to move mountains, biogeopolitical West: Indian bird-mammal.

yet the wisdom not .to do so. It can be trained to wear a beret and hold The Tess9rat: a four-c*menswnai rodent Helen Toye. New Orleans. La. its little- feathered paw in a dike.. — Donaki Coryell. Bcyce. La. jurmio J McKinley. Longview, Tex. The Mastajack: A cross between a jackal The Harvard Lampoon: aeries Between and a mastodon, this beast is a jack-a -all- Gnat King Cobra: a very small, venomous a lamprey and a baboon, creased ai trades, mast-a'-don. flying snake with a fantastic singing voice.

Harvard University for fee sate ourpose Edward Hartgrove, Pavilion, N.Y The song "Mona Lisa" is believed to be. its ot satirizing. gener-c e=^=:~ mating, call. - Don M SlDCK&asie?: Houston, Tex. The Squonge: a cross between a squid John E Lazier. Fleetwood. Pa and a sponge, for making ssil-inK'-ic

The Grouporgy: a cross netween two very stamp pads. Cockenbull: an animal that is so unlikely

: — 1 1 dull the "'i'.-ii i' -:: i.Ji'.e -'!? fish— grouper aroEheporgy Carl Carson. Riverside. Calif. w I belie 1 exis s that produced' some very rteresfing — Diane Nagel, Cranberry Lake. N.Y. results. Coq Au Koala: p. ctjss between a French — - Mike Silvern^, Portland. Ore. chicken and an Australian bear. II can take The Cohwalskie: a cross be . ween a coho

the shirt right off Mean Joe Greenes back. salmon, a walleye, and a rnusKie. It is a The Cowena: ic;;: cev.eer 5 cc-.*. and - BrendaM. Pavlik. New York. NX famous Polish fish, ahyena, Itsthelaugm^gsJockoflhe party - Jim Marx, Dahinda, III. —Maime*/ Ballmger, The Bee Geese: buzzin' and honktn' to "-. ~-_ . J-; ~5':ads keep "Stayin' Alive." The Bearass: Oossng a gnzziv with a -Samuel Zisblati, Boston. Mass :ior:Key y eloed :-ns large, ferocious, and 1- The Snary: a cress ceJv.e-e a s^ase and a stubborn beast. It feeds mosly on'ish. canary A bird that sings wfift a Issp The Aye-Aye Skipper: a cross between the which it stomps'to death with its rear - ChnsiiLswis. Isleton. Calif. aye-aye and the mudskipper. The perfect hooves. It also likes apples, which it rips pet for the boat owner who has no crew. off trees with Its front paws. Oddly enough.

The Elephants Gerald: afi snarta! with a - Vincent Kish, Bellerose. N.Y il is completely hairless. beautiful voice that car. break glass It is - D. Reed. East Greenwich, R.I. forever tripping over rtserf Usscreatea by Llam-Kipper: a cross between a llama crossing an African elephant with a recent and a pickled herring. This-creature was Elephantness: a cross between a American president. chosen as the Israeli national mascot. pachyderm and the Loch Ness monster' John A. TaltxM. Los Angeles. Calif. - Lars Becx, Lovelana. Ohio .Area! untouchable,

-Donna Clesie, Temple City, Ca'if. The Lamel: This cross oer.veen a lamb The Hippster: a cross between a hippo and a camel produces wcot sweaters with ,-nd a hamster, a large aquafe rodent Coral Reefer: a cross between 3 cor 31 bumps attracted to nvotboai o acid lew heels. snake ano Cannabis saliva. The deeper

— Adolph Zimmer, Laguna Beach. Calif. - Dan Van Riper. Bastrop. Tex-. you dive, the higher you..get. - R:ck.D Amtco.Rye. NY Aloebaby: a hybrid plant (aloe and baby's Sarsaporilla: a rare three-way mix between breath), commonly used m French a sardine, asapsuoker, and a gorilla. Bearbull: a Wall Street hedgehog, aphrodisiacs. Often thirsty for root' beer (must be the - Lani Andei Geoff Williams. Sedaha. Mo. sardines). - Jack P Ge/b, San Jose, Calif. Dungeon: This cross between a pigeon

The Ass Pinscher: A cross b and a dung beetle is the perlect city bird. " donkey and a Doberman. this dog thinks The Snork; a cross between a snail antra It leaves the slaii.es dean ano shiny and. that it's a goose. Stork, it delivers babies very slowly. also scoops up after the dogs. Chris Doyle. Burke. Va. David Kenney. Nepean. On:.. Canada Morris Minor. Freeport, N.Y OQ UFD

looked perfectly valid. With thai, Hendry dramatically tossed both letters over the lectern; point made — he implied. Next came a UFO case from 1979. involv- ng Virnosota Sheriff's Deputy Val John- son (see UFO Update, October 1980). Johnson claims thai he was injured and his palrol car was damaged in an encounter With a UFO, and Hendry's report on the case substantiates this. Klass conceded two possible explana- tions: "Either an extraterrestrial craft flew by and the creatures reached out with a ham- mer and hit the headlight, hood, and wind- shield and bent two car antennas over, or

Johnson did it himself, because he likes to play practical jokes." To which Hendry replied, "Actually I'm

r inclined to agree with M Klass. I rhink :ha: Johnson is such a practical joker that he deliberately injured his eyes, as adjudged by two doctors, and entered a phony state of shock to impress the ambulance driver Does Consciousness who removed him from the scene." The onlookers ied the debate, and one Survive Death? question from the audience provoked an interesting exchange between moderator Is immortality an obsolete tradition?Will the Durant and tvlaccabee. "Do any of you be- advance of science prove — or disprove — the lieve that the U.S. government or the Air Force has extraterrestrials from crashed afterlife? As music ceases when the instru- spacecraft squirreled away in storage?" is is out when the ment done, the selfsnuffed Durant asked provocatively. "Is there any body is no more? Can the consciousness evidence of this?" realize itself after death? Orthodoxy stands at "That's the question." Maccabee an- swered "Is there evidence? If there were the crossroads. Heaven and hell as places — evidence one way or the other, we wouldn't and torment after death — will be challenged have to reduce it to belief. I have no direct

by the facts of the space age. What is truly evidence, but l wouldn't be surprised." "Would you like to believe it, Professor immortal about man? It is time for thinking Maccabee?" Durant continued. men and women to learn the truth of their "I would not like it. As a matter of fact, I Cosmic relationships. would rather believe that this whole UFO question had been solved many years ago.

FREE BOOKLET The fact that it wasn't solved many years

Let The Rosicrucians (not a religion), aworld- ago is what attracted my interest. But I wish UFOs didn't exist." wide fraternity, reveal to you what inquiring free thinkers The debate solved nothing, and no one have learned about Self. You will be no less a vital power because you discover the truth about yourself. Wri to today for

the free booklet, the Mastery of Life. It is a frank discussion about the reai you. Use coupon or write: bgk below Scribe sona.-i ai.iion'alical.y made the subject more credible. And the interplay between The ROSICRUCIANS (AMORC) :he sides seemed ;o give each participant more respect for the opposition. Jose, California 95191, San USA "The most important thing," concluded Scribe bgk moderator Durant, "is that we're sitting

down at one table. And thai, I think, cer- Rosicrucian Order. AMORC tainly augurs well. For the last thirty years San Jose, California 95191 USA we've never been able to geT These partici-

Please send me the free booklet, the Mastery of Life. pants together in one place. I hope this will be continued."

Name It was Klass who. offered the final chal-

lenge: "It's lime," he said, "for the leaders of

I he UFO movement, after a third of a cen- tury, to put up or shut up." Zip Clearly, both sides have their work cut out 'or them. DO :

H Ml •

By Brian O L

there may be a better way Before we This message and hundreds like it ".': as: ~r detect anyone else, they will find us. leaked into space in 1932 and the years radio ti This subject opens vague and unending that followed. The Brinkley broadcasts Arecibo. Puerto speculation among science-fiction -writers, form a hemispherical wave front traveling further and but one fact is clear; Just 50 years ago at the speed of light toward the stars. the planet Xi Earih suddenly became conspictiousJy Brinkley's enormously powerful trans- from Earlh. fr s bright' at radio frequencies; To any missions, suffered little interference from before Spuini* observer, earthly radio signals are other sources. (Nowadays Earth's radio You direct re probably the most obvious sign thai we and TV bands are jammed; wesendout a fourth- have begun to enter the gafacfic dub- only a hodgepodge.) These particular trie naked eye In 1 932 Brinkley erected, and began broadcasts may be the most coherent, stellation broadcasting from, the 500,000-waB XER pervasive, and inte. iojblc- ones humans Orion, which lowers in Villa Acuiia. Mexico, across the have sent into interstellar space. as il does from Rio Grande from El Paso. He went there to So far Brinkley's messages have For 4.5 billion circumvent federal limits on the power of intercepted about 1 ,500 known stars. In has been mute, radio stations; most were limned to 5.000 half that time they reached about 200; we years you have watts, 100 times fainter. For hundreds of could receive an acknowledgment from possibly irstn miles Brinkley's station overwhelmed these today. that direction. others near il on the radio dial, it coufd be Do any of these stars have planets'? Then, picked up throughout North America Probably. Do any have intelligent life 7 We Yol. scale. : t Brinkley's was a talk-and-cpnespond- don't know, but we can surmise that the "-- 1 the frequency. er.r.e show Ge'ala Ci^v- :;.:- stars most similar to our sun may be human voice World of Dr. Brinkley quotes him; "I have conducive to life's development. Sunlike says, "He has a leiierfrom a gentleman m Waco. Texas. stars make up a small percentage' c ; ;,=: - il is ;r_ = the I hope they hear me. because this nearby stars, and so several of them have notorious qui gentleman is president of that company already got Brinkley's message. reju vena tor. and up there In Waco. He has hemorrhoids." That number will grow dramatically with announcer of time. As the E its pass 500 kilowatts through space, the number of stars in- ful transmitter tercepted increases with the cube of the Sound inci time elapsed. As we double the waiting years scientists time, we greet eight times the candidate attention to the civilizations. The probability of a contact intelligence!: goes up dramatically as we move into trie premise is tha: 1980s and 1990s. Xi Boo. a sum ke star that the naked eye coming from can just distinguish in the constellation If our radio Bootes, received Brinkley's message 1932 vintage, about 24 years ago. Any answer should be rri|E would be reaching us- just about now. It is humbling ext rater rest naf : to think that the earliest, most coherent can thinkings sign of our technological cvilization the ones srnan could come unwittingly from a. charlatan. intelligent si Bui if we get this useless'pre-Coper- to them? nican thinking out of the way, we might Not that we be able to do something timely with the SETI program; listen to the sunlike stars should be la that have had time to receive early AM But as the sea broadcasts and send back an acknowl-_ mm the first signal edgment. The time is ripe for Xi Boo. civilization The. answer might be a simple, hum- sophisticates bling "Boo."

there rt't! been H Hsvc been listening to the wrong Or it could say, "Use Preparation H."DO PHEfuannEruM WMMKI

KS5E PH

The crysial is ground with .^M .„ ... perfect ion to ensure precise frequency

i wMifwmii§ljM ManfredBtBHBiKage used a horr

"So":'; ffi hence shades of gray take on the red

blue spectra ol Kaqe's in"

aperture along with Agfachrome S completed Kaqe's setup for capturii

;=5i0«"^*3 Omni interrogation: Readers get the third degree

By Geoffrey Golson

"All essential knowledge relates to exist- 2. • Has two known moons. * Was rings lies in the equatorial p;ane.*Hasa ence, or only such knowledge as has discovered in 1846. • Has a substantial cloudy atmosphere that includes hy- an essential relationship to existence is amount of methane in its atmosphere. drogen and helium. " essential knowledge. • Can rarely become bright enough to be Planet — Concluding Unscieniilic Postscript, seen by the naked eye from Earth. by Sdren Kierkegaard • Anolher planet may be its runaway moon. 9. First planel :o be discovered with Planet a telescope. • Its diameier is 51 .520

li Kierkegaard seems confusing, then kilometers. * Planet's axis is tilled at 98 you'd belter steady yourself before trying 3. -Atmosphere is 95 percent carbon degrees; so it whirls around the sun nearly the following quizzes, They're tough. dioxide. • Has largest known volcanic on its side. Has a system of rings. • Has You probably think you know all about mountain in the solar system, • Has "pink live known moons. science and space; after all, you're dust" storms. * Only half the surface, Planet reading Omni. But can you speak the mainly in the southern hemisphere, is language of science? Define these terms: substantially cratered. Soil contains We've included at least one clue that is

1. Parsec aluminum. a trademark for each planet. If you can 2. Albedo Planet identify all nine correctly, you're astronaut

3. Clouds of Magellan material. If you can identify only four or

4. Binary star 4. «lt is not a true sphere. • Has methane fewer, you're immaterial. But we'll still let

* 5. Population I and II and krypton in its atmosphere. Emits you play.

6. Dark nebula infrared rao^a: on "ito space in all 7. Heliopause il rectjons- • Has a polar diameter of WHERE WERE YOU^ * 8. Cosmologies I red shift 12,755 kilometers. its biggest meteor

9. Occupation crater is 3.2 kilometers wide. Here are 20 important dates: 1 178, 230 10. Astronomical unit Planet B.C.. 1895. 1957, a.d. 66, 1583, 1948, 11. Arnalthea 1609-1619, 1938, 1783, 1924, 1961, 1953, 12. Epicycle 5. Ilisalow-density body. • Has one 1932, 1643, 1958, 1859, 1897, 1951, 1924. 13. Chryse known moon. It cannot retain an appre- Match them to the science events listed 14. Terraforming ciable atmosphere. • Its orbit is the below. 15. Viroid most eccentric in the solar system. • Discovered by Clyde W Tombaugh. 1. The first manned orbital spaceflight, If you're positive you know the defi- Planet by Yuri Gagarin, in Vostokl. Date nitions of more than 12 terms, your vo- cabulary is astronomical. If you're sure of 6. Has surface winds of 3 to 6 kph. fewer than 6, you're a bit slow. Try to keep • Atmospheric pressure is 90 times greater up and concenlrate. than Earth's. • Has no moon or magnetic field. 'Probably has molten-iron core. • 75 3. Edwin Hubbie proved at Mount Wilson PLANETARY KNOWLEDGE percent of solar radiation that reaches this Observatory that there are galaxies be- planet is reflected. sides our own. Date Each plane! in the solar system has its Planet own distinguishing characteristics, Or 4. The. first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, does it? A smart person ought to be able 7. -Density is less than that of water was launched. Date to identify each planet with one clue. • One oi its sakrlliies may have an Bui to be sporting, we'll give you five atmospheric pressure similar to that of 5. Stanley Miller and Harold Urey clues for each of the nine planets. another planet, • Has ammonia in its created the essential nulling blocks ot atmosphere. •Visible to the naked eye life in a laboratory Date 1. -Has a weak gravitation, cannot retain from Earth. Galileo observed this planet a gaseous atmosphere. 'Mariner 10 flew closely. 6. Robert Goddard demonstrated the within BOO kilometers of this planel's sur- Plane! lirst successful liquid-fuel rocket, which face. Has a very weak magnetic field. ".raveled 61.3 meters. Date • Its surface resembles Earth's moon. 8. • Rotates in 9 hours 50 minutes. Has • Has a maximum temperature of 350" C. 15 satellites. 'Radiates about two times as 7. Galileo invented the telescope.

Planet much energy as it receives. • A sysiem of Date 14B OMNI . "

8. The first recorded appearance of what 1. Chained maiden which has a center ihat is itself carried is now called H alley's Cornel. 2 Air pump around at the same time on the cir- Date_ 3- Altar cumference. of a larger orbit. 4. Chisel 13. Theregionof the Martian surface 9. The discovery by Johannes Kepler of 5. Sea goat chosen lor the Viking 1 landing. the Ihree fundamental laws o! planetary 6. King of Ethiopia 14. The process of changing the envi- motion. Date 7. Compasses ronment pf a previously uninhabitable

8. Swan extraterrestrial body so that it can 9. Dolphin support terrestrial life,

10. Furnace 1 5. The smallest known living organism, 11 Clock composed of lewer than 10,000 atoms. 12. Water snake 13. Rule Planetary knowledge 14. Winged horse 12. Publication of Origin of Soecies The planets, according to the sets 'Date: of clues at left, are:

1 Mercury 13. The discovery of the high-energy Here are the definitions of the terms at 2. Neptune radiation belts surrounding Earth. left: 3. Mars Dale. 1. The distance of an object that would 4. Earth have a stellar parallax of one second of 5. Pluto arc. One parsec equals 3.26 light-years. 6. Venus 2. The reflecting power of a nonluminous 7 Saturn body. 8. Jupiter 15. DiscoveryofX rays. Date 3. Two neighboring galaxies visible to 9. Uranus the naked eye (rom southern latitudes. 16. Thefirst measurement of Earth's 4. System of two stars revolving around Where were you? circumference without astfonomica) a common center of gravity. instruments. Date. 5-. Two classes of stars (and star The events matched to ihe dales are: systems), classified according to their 1 1961 11 1897 17. Air is proved to have weight by the spectral characteristics, chemical com- ? 1932 1? 1859 invention of the barometer Date positions, radial velociiies, ages-, and A 1924 V* 1958 galaxy locations. 4. 1957 14 1948

18. The explosion of the first hydrogen 6. A doud of interstellar dustthat ob- h- 1953 1:f» T895

bomb. Date ; scures the light of more distant stars and 6 1926 16 230 b thai appears as an opaque curtain. r 1583 1/ 1643 19. Canterbury monkso 7, The scientist's term for the outer h A.D. 66 1ti 1951 possible meteoric impact on the moon. boundary of the solarsystem. 9 1609-1619 1M 1178 Date 8'. Shift in the wavelength of light coming 1938 20 1 783 from a celestial object (similar to the Doppler effect in sound), said to arise What sin a name? from the expansion of the universe. It is used to indicate the object's velocity away The strange words listed in Ihe quiz are

Consider yourself a scientific historian if from the observer. all English versions of the names of some you're sure of 16 dates. Consider yourself 9. An eclipse of a star or planet by the constellations. Their proper names are:

a good guesser if you're sure of 12. Don't moon or some other celeslial body, as Andromeda S. Cygnus

consider yourself if you cant be sure of 6. seen from Earth. Antlia y. Delphinus 10. The average distance between the Ara 10. Fornax sun and Earth. Caelum 11, Horologium WHAT'S IN A NAME? 11 A tiny, potato-shaped moonlet in orbit Capricornus 12 Hydrus What do the following have m common, around Jupiter. Cepheus 13 Norma and what does each item refer to? 12. The orbit in which a planet moves and Circinus 14. Pegasus DO ' !

Asa new administration gei= into gear; . subway sysiem under New York City? publicly committed to tower Laxes, a" Admittedly, the New York subways are foui, t crime-ridden.. balanced budget/and a beefed-up disgusting, crumbling, and . national defense all at the same time, one But.for; say,' $5.billion, the New York

o! the early decisions it faces is whether subways could be cleaned up an'd ' to go ahead and build the so-called modernized. Each-subway traincould racetrack system 'or the new MX missile. have an extra oar tacked on to carry an

' Under this scheme, 200-squaremiles. of MX missile. Presto, instant mobile ' western desert will be riddled-witha maze dispersion for a fraction of the cost!. of underground tunnels like so much Shuttling constantly under the Manhattan S?jss cheese. Two hundred MX missiles bedrock, the missiles could be fired up wjll be loaded onto railway cars and win through manholes or from elevated sec- shuttle endlessly back and forth from one' tions of-the New York subway system firing point to another: in ease of need.-

The- idea is tp deter any Soviet notions Moreover, there are three other, less

of -a first strike, Improvements in Soviet obvious advantages. First of all, any MX

' weaponry have made our fixed-silo. ' system would need .thorough military land-based ICSMs vulnerable- to ground. security anyway and so it would destruction by such a first strike. The ! Cost nothing extra to put a division or two theory is that the USSR with a saturation of soldiers in the New York subway system, strike on- our missile silos, eould take out which is the only feasible solution to the pur capacity to strike back and then subway crime problem. threaten. our untouched cities' with Secondly, by dispersing our MX missiles devastation; this makes a nuclear war under-our cities instead of in the desert, more "thinkable': -and hence more likely. By we- avert the possibility of a Soviet first- LMST shuttling those 200 MX missiles backand strike strategy, since the USSR cannot forth through all those tunnels so that the destroy our missiles while holding, Russians' never quite know where the untouched cities as pawns, and this missiles are at any given time, we would makes nuclear war "unthinkable" again,

WORD ' supposedly -deterany thoughts of a Soviet enhancing the deterrent factor. By Norman Spinrad first-strike strategy-- a sophisticated' and Thirdly, and best of all. there-is no way very expensive version- of the old shell the Soviet Union can precisely target MX - im billion, the For $5 game played for ultimate-stakes. missiles on subway trains even if Soviet things-wtong spies-ferret out the train schedules subways could be cleaned . Of course there- are two ' with this scheme. First of ail, the USSR because, as everyone knows, no New York up and each train could simply target about'20.of its biggest subway train ever runs on time. Nobody s could carry an MX missile.^ and most thoroughly MIRVed ICBMs on ever knows' where the MTA's trains are this 200-square-mile racetrack and ' Thus we achieve a true mathematical

.convert it into a 200-square-mile hole; in randomization of motion of our MX the-Thermonuclear Age one missile per missiles. This principle applies equally square. mile does not 'exactly represent well to the Long Island Rail Road and just significant dispersion. Secondly, the whole about every other commuter line in the scheme- is monstrously expensive— $30 United State's.

billion at current estimates— making it the So let's use that $30 billion to upgrade construction project in history, our railroads and our urban transit sys- most costly : money quite literally thrown into holes in tems, Governors of the western -states the ground, at a lime when economy in are complaining about the racetrack

government has very nearly become a .- system; the program is not politically

national obsession.. popular. But if every ailing railroad and At the same time -:^ Americans subway system in the country could get desperately need to upgrade our railroad $10 miliioripr $20 million in improvements

network in order to be able to handle Ihe to; every MX missile it agreed to accept, shift to domestic coal and away from we'd soon have every state, city, and in imported oil, and we desperately need a railroad in the country clamoring to get vast improvement in-our mass-transit onthe'action. Our mobile missiles would systems in ordertogei.people'ouf-Of their be dispersed not .over a mere 200 square' gas-guzzling cars, the S30 billion. thrown miles but throughout the whofe country. into a brand-new subway system tor Our mass- transit and railroad system's missiles' going nowhere would certainly would be the envy of the world, removing be- more "than- enough to improve, our rail our dependence.on foreign oil. And the ' system to Japanese Bullet-train, standards Russians would De-no better able to and make our cities' subways without pinpoint the- precise positions of our qusstron ihe finest in '.he world. missiles than the average commuter is

Which \-: exactly my modest proposal. able to get home on- time. Why dig 200 miles of tunnels- in the Guns and butler, national defense and 1 trial middle of nowhere for MX missiles when mass iransu! What do you say to , " we already have 200 miles' worth of President" Reagan? DO .-