Omni Magazine
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SPECIAL ANNIVE onnrui VOL. 9 NO. 1 EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT: KATHY KEETON EDITOR: PATRICE ADCROFT GRAPHICS DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINO EDITOR AT LARGE: DICK TERESI MANAGING EDITOR: STEVE FOX ART DIRECTOR: AMY SEISSLER CONTENTS PAGE OMNIBUS Contributors 10 COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 14 SPACE Nuclear Reactors Paul Bagne 22 BOOKS Olive Barker Profile Murray Cox 26 STARS Astronomers versus Owen Davies 42 Environmentalists BODY Mind Scan Stephen Robinett 44 EXPLORATIONS Mechanical Zoo Erik Larson 48 LONGEVITY REPORT FIRST WORD Aging Research Kathy Keeton 6 FORUM Bionic Man - Pierre Galletti and 18 Roberl Jarvik. M.D.'s ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE S-jroqate Brains Gram F|ermedal 3B CONTINUUM Life Extenders 51 ELIXIRS OF YOUTH Born-again Genes Ann Giudici Fettner and 60 and Youth Pills Pamela Weintraub BODYSHOP Laser Face-lifts Viva 68 DEATH AVENGERS Immorality Seekers Kaihar ne Lowry 64 LIFELINES Pictorial: Susan Ellis 91 How Man Ages RICHARD CUTLER Interview Pamela Weintraub 108 SOULS ON ICE Cryogenics Psm' Bagne and 116 Nancy Lucas SENTRIES Pictorial Leah Waliach 122 LAST WORD Humor Terry Runte 186 THE END OF THE WHOLE MESS Fiction Stephen King 72 DAYS OF FUTURE PAST P-c:orial. Space Art Ron Miller 76 PIG THIEVES ON PTOLEMY Fiction Leo Daugherty 100 ANTIMATTER UFOs, etc. 131 STAR TECH Tools for Ihe Year 2C0i 167 TRIP TO THE STARS The Great Moon Douglas Colligan 170 Buggy Contest GAMES Wordplay Scot Morris 182 This month's cover is Japanese artist Sachio Yoshida's version o! Sandro Botticelli's famous painting The Birth of Venus. Through the efforts of i. '/.'snticth- century science, the goddess's qualities of eternal youth and beauty may someday belong to all of us. A OMNI . i Throughout' history we've accepted the ' now confronting a maturing Am-eecae inev;tabls process o* aging, fairing prey to sc - :sis .. nature's cruel impose 'o slowly exhaust including hearing, lung function-, reflexes, the once vii.ai io compromise ; /:>. body (he and ur pi /. g< .i ;:s can detei once active brain. Frar;k;y. we've had no lfi i in , essence,:'. ..other-choice'. : Butsoon..we rriaybeable to . a measure of how much ano hew quickly . -trade .the. yi < an mdi\ in i -hat we now face for decades of productive consider thi: : health Art • * n for longer, heai'thie-' lives. 0;he r critical daring scientists has negun to.chafenge. breakfh rouges are sure to follow. Pioneers 'One of life's iTiOst basic tenets- 'ha! al : like Roy Walford, author and professor of -us must die. at UCLA er ..-. iim: m The burden o; finding a cure for the suspected "supergenes" that may control disease called old age weigh;; itheaging heavrv . process. Otho- scientists, wke upon their compoleni shoulders Tnese Ge rgpV brave and visionary -^en ana women Goldstein, are focusing en the thymus are/forced to wage two disimc bines gland, the immune system's master g!and' ':••' one against old age. the nfner ' aga.nsl ' ron;. ogis bel ..e tea! tl yrno insufficient funding The medical estao- sins may protect us iron's the diseases of fiShment, displaying a naivete so typical Of- old age Far mo:e radios; experiments the oro'essloo has long nasi a skeptical under way mvove ransoiauiing brain eye on ;he neib of lie extension ,i. ,,...: ; and r .u--.. , |ihy brain ceils may financial backing Ipr even I. i|t he most be :! i ::" i:H ... ; conservative o ongevity srverbsrs is the ora'n. rejuvenating botm msnd and FIRST hard bought. Unfcriunaiely aging has body. Many oi those therapies wourc be always peon the stepchilu or '"ecica : em research. !n 1985 'tie National Institutes o ; The mosi reaust'C and Immediate goal Heah.n spent $1.1 billion i-i ' UUDRD on cancer t exteiisi' eat: n isio ram to studies. S716 million on :' By Kathy Keeton cardiovascular extend youth..' disorders. Vet the [icnaf msiiiufe on ; strongly believe that one day al! of us Aging, had nririon ;us; $61 in i .:: :.::> . ,. is coffers for Will : ; . ,,. ;u i. j i . it ^Rather than , i research on aging. 'rvee. Tiits philosophy is not new ;o Omni And there's ii:t'e Indication spending millions on studies "ha; sueli reeco's— life extension after a;l. has ' funding will forecasting a bankrupt increase greatly in the ''ulure. been one of Omnf's Ice-nost interests i.i rim : .!,... „ v |, i i i ; gazne rnte founded ex;hl Social Security system,; the 46 years in 1900 io 71 years -u- 1986 for yea-s ago. yb,jr keen interest in this tooieis {'government should toe average American maie- result don latied us advances against disease rahcr :ham to dedcate cut olgnth-annivo;sary ^channel this money into osue to he aging process eso'l. Though these thequest for iiTimeiiaiiiy. longevity advances research have been appreciable, fully It thi .!. , I iol : j $. 36 past and I fiave percent of people ever l.ne age of sixty- fun, | 1 five suffer f'om a leas- on.; chronic do so agam Bur the icoere: gcvemrnent degenerative dness. Too cost is stagger- must now take ,p th . an: fha o on ;c ing both ipr individuals ana tcr society. long eft to concerned private citizens The United Slates spent $837 odie-n Only the 'ederai government can supply heai^h on care in 198«. One Third of 'his money ano resources on the scale that wen' io care tor ;he eioeny Medicare and mands. ' ! .i b he :le Spent n .;! . .. on I ac Th.s month we begin ;-;.. proves one In ihe ;i,-, i ,.! yea- 2000 the elderly veil •I'tiii - .', need nui i i „:;ek. more ib-ee nmes i years of health and productivity: a rer'iabre, Nearly 1980 2 mbi-on wd live in nursing readable sourer, of nelp-u : information homes, up from 1.2 million six years for the layman "his month Longevity is in ago. av we' i spenc S200 bibon a yew ocrn. GuiUed by a bo 1 heaiih ror ; on care the aceo I we so entists. our monthly newsletter wb continue on out present path, how interview i wu we pro inen rest u m i -i -or! cope, both in economic anc social their discover es. and toil you how to ease . <, . <, ,° term., .;. t i .. i, i u- "i the effects of age. "he rows from today's ' '" ; 'he it pop ilabom .seo sixfv' i low biochemists, plastic surgeons arid geron- will we function when a ia'ge percentage fologists s thai you car. stretch out those of out Ivm people are ,: i on pensions''' ,' jo.iir.. wiilfeii you how It's c-sar that politicians hi are nd to the The right to a long and hoanhy life should nee : be available to ai people. ;i sbculd be millions of del ys or; sludi; fore-: tin i as fundamehtat as the ight io =r ee speech. bankrupt b'ocai Securry system. :hey Only through !ne suslalnerl en'orts of should channel fiirs money mre longevity scientisis with adeeuare ntnds and limitless : rescamh, that so peop e, even at the vision can such a rigf;; be ensured.CXl age o; ens hundreo and order, would oe able to lead Vf-iling ' ves wltn bcaies Kathy Keefo.n's Woman of Tomorrow will > ' are slit; nioloGycany in and minds [hat' be Pleased by Si Main's Piess this continue to thi'S: for xiicwleege. rrittnih in paperiK-ick. as we// as in seven hs act as o'e-'oe eid'iicns. Kcelon is ine president ! 'he 'I,/ :.',:.,: ::! i -QfOmhi. — — CONTRIBUTORS onnruii part ^^\ s of the 1971 Apollo 15 youth. It seemed a fruitless endeavor cryonicists —those technicians who mission, #^^* astronauts James Irwin until now. In "Elixirs of Youth" (page 60) preserve a corpse in liquid nitrogen in # » and David Scott toured the writer Ann Giudici Fettner and Omni hopes of reviving it at a later time If some moon in Rover, the first car to roam the senior editor Pamela Weintraub report on insects, shrimp, and other creatures lunar surface. Fifteen years later, as part hormones that will bolster our immune can do it naturally, they say, it should be of Omni's special eighth-anniversary viruslike systems, vaccines that slow cell equally possible for humans. "I had issue, readers have the chance to design death, and even uric acid to prevent guys attempt to recruit me for the process." the next lunar vehicle, built to the destruction compete of our genes. By 2086 Bagne remarks. "But I'm still unable to in imaginary an road race called the there may also be life extension pills and reconcile their relationships with their ("Racing Omni 2000 with the Moon," page enzyme drinks to aid in DNA repair. clients. They talk about this loving rapport 170). The entries, will moreover, be 'After all our investigation for this story," during life, especially in the final days judged by an illustrious panel of experts, Weintraub says, "I'm convinced there before deanimation. Then they turn around including Irwin, Mario Andretti, and are very real possibilities to increase life and nonchalantly decapitate the person, Leonard Nimoy. The grand prize: passage expectancy by at least another fifteen saving just the head, which they say on Society Expeditions' Project Space years. And I'll certainly be the first in line will eventually regenerate another body." Voyage, a journey that's literally for out of this the supplements that will do just that." The human body and its regenerative world. 8- During an to 12-hour ride Research on aging, however, is greatly powers are miraculous.