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 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 , 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— 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. In "Sentries" through low Earth orbit, the winner will underfunded. As a result, many (page 122) writer Leah Wallach describes experience extraordinary views of the dedicated researchers, such as oncologist how the immune system's antibody earth and of majestic dozens sunrises. Bill Regelson, have looked for ways to warriors combat cancer cells; in "Lifelines" Not only is the moon buggy contest our build their own capital to finance their (page 91) Longevity newsletter editor most exciting reader challenge ever, work. And they often rely on philanthropist Susan Ellis describes how man ages and but this month's special section Don Yarborough and others to lend what can be done to stave off the physi- Longevity: an exclusive report— reflects support, according to Texas-born Kathar- cal effects of growing older. the most extensive investigation conducted ine Lowry, who profiles these and other There are different ways of viewing the by Omni writers to date. We sent contrib- determined pioneers in "Death Avengers" future. Stephen King's "The End of the utors zigzagging across the country, (page 84). Omni president Kathy Keeton Whole Mess" (page 72), for example, is a tracking scientists seeking the secret of (First Word, page 6) also strongly urges the tale of good intentions gone awry. It is longer life. Researchers spent hours government to underwrite the work in King's first original story to appear in on the phone in and buried reams of paper. this neglected area of medical science. Omni. On the other hand, Ron Miller's question The we posed again and again: Even, the most optimistic researchers "Days of Future Past" (page 76) recounts extend the Can we maximum human admit that we will remain mortal beings. Is Collier's magazine's two-year campaign lifespan the current 115 years?' beyond there no way to cheat death? In "Souls In the Fifties lo develop the space The convincing answer is yes. Ice: on Cryoscience" (page 116) freelance program's potential. It's an insightful look For millennia human beings have sought journalist Paul Bagne and Omni assistant backward at a magazine's ability to help a magical potion that would prolong editor Nancy Lucas discuss the efforts of influence the future.DO —

LETTERS - cDnjinnuruicATiorus

Out of the Mouths of Babes By the Book

"Cosmic Comets of the Sea'.' [July 1986] I was surprised by Arthur C. Clarke's First

is an intriguing article on an important Word (July 1986]. I have read most of scientific discovery. When Louis Frank his books, and I've come to think of him decided to reveal his findings, he knew he as a person who is not bound by conven- might be considered a "nut" by other tional theory. Yet he stated that we know scientists. But he put his respectability on what other lite forms will not look like:

the line to further. science. "If the terrestrial experiment started all over

I may be only twelve years old, but I again at Time Zero, there might still be

really enjoyed the heated debate and was intelligence on this planet, but it wouldn't impressed by the way Frank defended look like us. In the dance of the DNA

his I arguments. congratulate James spirals, the same partners would never .

Ehmann on a splendid piece and Louis meet again." I don't know why Clarke Frank tor his courage and intelligence. is setting limits on himself. Dave Breusfer Richard Klassen Winnipeg, Man. MBC Studios Winnipeg, Man. Comrades in Arms

I would like to clarify a misconception left Whale Watch by Jerome Clarke's article "Militant The explanations for why whales get Debunkers" [Antimatter, June 1986]. The stranded on land were not exhaustive Committee for the Scientific Invesiigation ["Whale Suicides," Earth. July 1986], of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) Toxic waste, sewage, defoliants, and acid aoes approve ot and cooperate with rain do affect our oceans. Has any scien- many anliparanormal groups. tist considered the obvious? These Although these groups are autonomous, magnificent creatures are probably highly

CSICOP has encouraged their activities intelligent beings and "know" that life in when their aims are similar to ours an excessively polluted environment to examine fairly and objectively the claims is a fate worse than death. aboui the paranormal. CSICOP recog- J- S. Buck nizes such organizations as A-STOR Banff, Alta. REASON, and TUSKS and applauds their efforts. Clarke is incorrect in labeling States of Comfort

them "militant debunkers." I read the article "The Terror of Relaxation" Barry L. Karr [Continuum, July 1986] with particular

Affiliate Coordinator interest because I have supervised and CSICOP taught relaxation techniques for more Buffalo than 25 years. The results have been positive and sometimes nearly miraculous.

Marine Land Rarely have I had an indifferent or

As a marine biology student I appreciated negative response.

your Mysteries of the Deep issue [July I am appalled at the commercial 1986]. The ocean is the next frontier to exploitation of instant procedures used conquer and will provide needed by individuals who don't know what they're resources in the future. It is important for doing. They read a book or purchase the public to "understand what marine devices for measuring the body's response

biologists «re accomplishing today. I and then begin to guide other people especially enjoyed the interview with into the uncharted regions ot inner space. Robert'Ballard. He is one of the pioneers When a teacher administers relaxation in oceanography and should be given methods properly (tie effects are both the recognition he deserves. beneficial and delightful. Chris Pranis Peggy Genova Southhampton, NY Tucson, AZDQ —

DIALOGUE FORUfUl

We are quickly approaching the day needed to be committed to a nursing The term bionics often suggests when we will be able to extend our lives home. An orthopedic surgeon saw that implantable replacements for diseased through artiticial means. Physicians will repairing the knee joints could break organs. This field of medicine really deals replace our hearts, our tendons, even our the vicious cycle of decay and decline. with a range of technology applied to blood vessels, with man-made compo- With two artificial knees, Dr. J is now back better our lives, not just to prolong life. nents. While advances in artificial-organ home— ambulatory, independent, and Many artificial organs—such as the technology are being made every day, do of clear mind. The bionic revolution in heart-lung machine and the artificial the present risks and enormous costs medicine should not be expected to arm—are not even implants. Artificial skin warrant continued research? Wilt science promote longevity but to exlend active life can be a fancy term for certain wound ever improve on what nature has expectancy and to enhance independent dressings. And many artificial organs bestowed? Is the artificial heart a thera- living. If we accept this, much of the the total hip prosthesis, implantable peutic extravagance? We asked these controversy surrounding the use of artificial intraocular lenses— do little lo effect questions ot Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of organs evaporates. longevity. But they greatly improve the the Jarvik-7 heart; and Dr. Pierre Galletti, The notion of organ replacement is lives of the people who use them. is creating artiticial who an pancreas. shocking only to the extent that our culture I am president of a company called

has hot yet assimilated it. As it becomes Symbion—a combination of symbiosis and notion of replacing nonfunctioning The a commonplace we will also appreciate its bionic—a. name we coined to suggest organ with a spare part borrowed from the Jimitations. It makes sense to replace a i.ho bonc-ificial coexistence between animal kingdom (a transplant) or fabri- nonfunctioning part in an otherwise the body and technology. Our goal is to cated through human ingenuity (a pros- working engine. The increasing longevity effectively interface the two. Medical thesis) has been a landmark of medical of mankind makes us appreciate that it technology can do things we never progress in the past few decades, and is not so much life expectancy that counts imagined a century ago, and it will do man-made organs have a definite place in but an active, independent lile. things we haven't yet imagined. But after our lives. Otherwise, why should more Artificial organs and transplants are not years of work on the artificial heart and than 2 million Americans a year receive a a recipe for immortality. They are useful other medical devices, one thing has cardiac pacemaker, hip replacement, inasmuch as they prevent premature become apparent to me: The improvement vascular graft, mammary prosthesis, death or an early loss of body functions. of our health is as important a goal as is plastic lens implant, or any of the less- They will not make us live beyond the Ihe prolongation of life. celebrated devices that are so widely time allotted by our genetic background, Motivation and responsibility for taking used we forget their "bionic" character? but hopefully, they will keep us function- care of ourselves can never be delegated

i am not concerned about a widespread, ing lo the last moment. to a doctor, a nurse, or a computer. misdirected use of the artificial heart. In Pierre Galletti, M.D. Replacement organs may be much better the short time since the pioneering exper- Professor of Medical Science than their diseased counterparts, but iment on Barney Clark, surgeons have Brown University they usually lack the broader capability of concluded that present-day technology is Providence the healthy original. The huge advance not sufficiently advanced to warrant of medical technology is a sloppy excuse extensive use of a permanent prosthesis There is a valuable future in what many for poor individual preventive care. We They rely on the artificial heart as a call bionics,-- We can sustain life, alleviate need much more exercise. We should stop temporary bridge to keep candidates for suffering, and replace at least the overeating and smoking. cardiac transplantation alive while waiting function of most organs. I would take an artificial heart in an for a donor. Common sense, much first size instant if it as The pacemaker was the of a were my only way to live. But I

ethical it into as sense, has turned a portable TV and was wheeled around never want one. I don't smoke, I exercise useful tool for special circumstances, on a cart. Nuclear pacemakers, the size regularly, and I keep trim. Some of us will My landlord in is ninety- of cigarette Providence a a pack, were developed need bionic parts, and I believe it is three-year-old doctor whose ransom and were rapidly made obsolete by more well worth the energy and investment to to age is a painful case of degenerative practical technology: Lithium batteries continue to advance them. Technology joint disease. A few years ago arthrosis in . and microcircuitry shrank them to the size won't save us later, however, if we let both knees brought him to a complete of a stack of a few silver dollars. Modern ourselves go now. So whoever you are, standstill. The pain was so excruciating pacemakers work reliably tor a decade. quit smoking. By the time you need a new that he needed massive doses of analge- The story is the same for a score of heart, despite everything we now know, sics, which in turn depressed his vital other developments in bionics. Usually at least you won't have lung cancer. functions and compromised his - early setbacks with cumbersome devices Robert Jarvik, M.D. independence so profoundly that he are followed by remarkable success. Salt Lake CityDQ

18 | OMNI NUCLEAR REACTORS

By Paul Bagne

the Fifties— the of for days Atoms inherent in the design of Ihe space shuttle." called the SP-100. NASA hopes to test-fly InPeace nuclear engineers — dreamed of After the Challenger explosion and it in 1993, perhaps as a nuclear-electric rocket ships propelled ions, by and launch failures of the Titan, Delta, and propulsion system tor a space tug. coffeepots healed by plutonium. Today Ariane rockets, critics question whether it Research is also under way on a futuristic they dream of nuclear-power planls is safe to send nuclear payloads aloft, reactor that would generate several in space. Solar power will never do: To (NASA has dropped the onboard Centaur million watts of electricity. It will take 10 or obtain the amounts huge of energy needed rocket from future shuttle flights.) To 20 years to develop. for star wars would require solar panels estimate of the amount danger that would Originally designed to tit into the cargo the size of football fields —too easy a ensue if a shuttle carrying an RTG bay for launch on a Centaur rocket into target for enemy forces. And on missions exploded, DOE projected a worst-case a high." safe orbit, the SP-100 will be a to distant planets or for work on the dark scenario: If a small RTG were ruptured compact reactor cooled by liquid metal, side of the moon, there isn't enough during a shuttle launch, 930 square miles "We have looked at all stages of the flight," sunlight. To date, the has around the launch site would be contami- says Jay Boudreau, a nuclear engineer spent $1.4 billion on space reactors— but nated with plutonium, and 386 cases at Los Alamos National Laboratory. "We has launched only a tiny, 500-watt - test of cancer would result. have assured ourselves, in the design, that model that - ran for 43 days and still circles NASA says that the chance of the DOE the reactor can hang together even the earth in a high, "nuclear safe" orbit. actually scenario taking place is one in through reentry of the shuttle in an abort. Nevertheless, the dream refuses to die. 100,000. If an RTG had been aboard the crashing into ihe ocean or into the The Department of Energy (DOE) is exploding Challenger, "it would have ground. And even if it did somehow come presently developing and hoping to test- survived," says James Lombardo of the apart, it's not really that hazardous." fly a reactor powerful enough to run DOE special-appiications division. "You The reason; Reactors will be launched Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) platforms. would have it picked up at the bottom of in a "cold state"— not switched on until And the Mational Commission on Space the ocean." deployed in space. "If you do get an envisions orbital labs and human settle- But an RTG as big as a bus cannot explosion during launch, you're talking ments "from the highlands of the to moon deliver the power required for some SDI about spreading around uranium; that's a the plains of Mars"— of them many systems. So DOE intends to spend $990 minor concern," says Robert Pollard, a powered by atomic reactors. million to build a 300-kilowatt reactor reactor engineer with the Union of The U.S. space program has more Concerned Scientists. "But I worry about experience with anolher, quite different the thing coming back to Earth. Look source of nuclear energy— the radioiso- atthe difficulty the Russians had with the tope thermoelectric generator (RTG). reactor that came screaming back." It's not a reactor but a chunk of plutonium In 1978 the Cosmos 954 reactor fell sealed in a container. As the plutonium from orbit and showered fission products decays, it produces enough heat to over 100,000 square kilometers of north- generate a few hundred watts of electricity. western Canaca. So~o recovered material To power SDI platforms, plans DOE to emitted a lethal dose of 500 roentgens design a larger RTG that will contain per hour. The accident caused a worldwide considerably more plutonium. RTGs furor and cos! millions to clean up. By powered the Apollo lunar-surface experi- comparison, the SP-100, after operating ments and the Voyager missions, and for seven years, would hold roughly 3,000 will power the Galileo mission to Jupiter times the radioactivity of the tiny Russian and the Ulysses mission to the sun. reactor. Until the shuttle disaster these two craft "Our designers assure us that it [the were to be mounted on Centaur rockets SP-100] will stay intact if it comes in," and were scheduled for. separate shuttle Boudreau says. The DOE also suggests launches last May. Their RTGs would that reactors be used only in a nuclear- have contained about 45 pounds of safe orbit, one with a 300-year decay time. plutonium. NASA had assessed the danger "If there were any malfunction or indica- of a launch accident releasing this radio- tion of reentry," Boudreau continues, active element, regarded by many "we would shut it down. That amount of scientists 'as the most toxic substance^ time allows the fission products to decay there is. "The risk should small," be wrote so they do not represent a significant the agency, "due to the high reliability shuttle's future? health hazard to the world population. "DO —

)KS THE

. By Murray Cox

first met horror writer Clive Barker on a Omni: Does it follow, then, that horror is tie-in is sexual. It's about sexual anxiety, cold day in late February. We ale at such a popular phenomenon today sexual na'ivete. and lack of control. I an elegant but oddly deserted restaurant because we feel less and less in control? Omni: Many people have written horror

on New York's Upper West Side, our Barker: It seems to me that the structures slories without the gore. I assume that that total fallen to table nestled close to a roaring fire. I felt kept us from panic have you have deliberately chosen write

as if I'd suddenly stepped into a medieval away. Certainly in what we arrogantly call graphic, gory stories.

castle full of macabre, violent incidents— cultured communities, among sophisti- Barker: Absolutely. I will never apologize a place where the dead never really cated folk, simple notions like redemption for being gross. When people say "stop"

died. The elegance and the desolation. through good deeds or the notion of to me, when people say "don't do that," I

the warmth and the bitter cold, seemed heaven or the possibility of aspiring to a begin to suspect them. I think they're appropriate for an interview with the kind of moral perfection —all these kinds of scared or repressed. When people turn hottest new horror-fiction writer of the issues have gone by the board. We don't their eyes away, invariably it's because

decade. Barker has been called the believe that stuff any longer. Or if we something exists that's just too much for

"future of horror fiction, the new Stephen do believe it, we believe it in an atavistic them. And if something is too much for

King"; and that's a difficult role to fill, but a way. It may be out there somewhere in them, it's important, role he's ready to take on. He's a boyish our system, but we certainly don't have Omni: You have said that most current

thirty-three, with dark, penetrating brown structures or rituals that make it possible horror fiction is old-fashioned. Is Stephen eyes and a very easy manner. But when to keep the darkness at bay. We don't King old-fashioned? Barker talks about horror fiction, he's have a route to redemption. So we have Barker: King is not old-fashioned. He is passionate, as pointedly vivid as the to tind new routes. We have to look for conlemporary because he describes

gruesome tales he tells. other structures. I think good horror fiction a real world. I'd say that old-fashioned

He didn't eat very much. He would put offers alternative structures or, if not horror lacks immediacy. King is a very

down his fork, cock his head lo one a temative structures, surely ways to immediate writer. I aim to be an immediate side, and say, "I'm nol interested in reilluminate the old structures. Peter writer. We want our depictions to appear prelending that old truths have credence Straub's Ghost Story, for example, is in the reader's mind with the clarity of

when they don't." Through much of the actually a reinvestment of an old structure: a movie— that's part of our modernity. I interview he seemed in tlight, high above of femme fatale ghost/transformer. The want my images to be flashing —you the terrain, ready to swoop down on know, wham! wham! wham!—whereas me like a primeval bird ot prey. And then Poe and Lovecrafl create a distance he would sit on the end of his chair, staring between the reader and the image. The intensely into the tape recorder placed experience is safer You're detached.

between us. Omni: I'm not a horror alicionado. 1 read a

Barker's Boohs ot Blood, volumes one, few of your stories, and I had nightmares two, and three, are published by the after reading each one of them.

Berkley Publishing Group. Barker; I think I should apologize.

Omni: You believe that horror writing is a Omni: No; actually I find it quite (ascinating.

seriously undervalued but important One night I dreamed about undergoing

literary genre. What is its importance? eye surgery withou anesthesia. The Barker: Most people think that horror fiction surgeon stood above the operating table,

is not serious art. And that's odd because gowned and gloved, and said lhal he there's always been a heavy emphasis simply was going to make an incision on the horrific in painting, play-mak.ng. and above both my eyes to cut the connecting

literature. It requires much more scrutiny nerves to the eyeballs. I would then be

than it gets. I feel that horror literature able to see better.

is touching upon the big issues time and Barker: Really wonderful, I love that! It's a

time again: death and life after death, beautiful metaphor. I mean, what are sex afler death, insanity, loneliness, you dreaming there? Are you dreaming anxiety. Horror writers are addressing the ' about the possibility of pain making deepest concerns of the human condi- you see better? I've always wanted to do

tion. Horror-fiction is really about control a movie in which angels performed of various kinds— or about being out of surgery on someone without anesthesia. control. Obviously death is !he ultimate There'd be a requiem playing —very moment when we relinquish control. Beware: Clive B^w i'-^r.ri:: ;o leirorize you. calm, very sweet. The patient would be 26 OMNI coming apart, but il would be okay. The our sleep." We don't take shit when we out what the hell happens, but on the way angels would be saying It's okay. Your dream, and when we're writing good I'm going to be appalled," that's wonder-

dream is really interesting. If hold horror fiction, you the we're dreaming.'We don't ful. I want to project images into people's

nasty things at bay, you can't see. I have to tell lies. King describes the world minds, images they wouldn't otherwise mean, your dream is clearly of his readers, about seeing then subverses it. I love accept. It's force-feeding.

And I think horror is about seeing clearly. that. His sensibility is destructive to the Omni: I was watching MTV the other day

I like happy stories, and realiy your dream status quo. He always turns a safe world and thinking about this interview. The was about a revelation. upside down. King's also good with two "events" collided with each other. Omni: Okay. You say you write happy children's perceptions. Children have a MTV's a live show featuring our shadow stories, but your critics say your world is much clearer perception of malice and of selves. The scenes are often violent, nihilistic and bleak. One critic has said: the way the "real" and fhe "unreal" exploitive, and strange. A kaleidoscope of "His characters lead hopeless lives that overlap. Children have an instinctive dream images—which is what I experi- are interesting only by random encounters knowledge that the is world much more enced when I read your stories. with the appallingly powerful evil that complicated than their parents think it is. I Barker: The best videos plug us into rules . his cosmos." do that for adults. The adults are flung ourselves. But so do good movies and Barker: A lot of live into my characters do dull worlds either because they are good theater. That is what the artist is all lives, lives in which a metaphysical confronted with monsters or because about, isn't it? What is unique about is entirely lacking. dimension The super- they're drawn by dreams into a world in MTV is that you can actually sit in front of natural events that interrupt their lives which they are lorced to concede that it iwenty-four hours a day. But I don't may kill them, but their lives are recon- their reality won't bear much scrutiny. In a think these "pictures" are analyzed. I try texted because they see the possibility of sense both King and 1 are saying that to place my images in a structure. I hope the wonderful, the awful, the terrible. It's fhe world as we are taught it is a lie. that at the end of a story you understand

important to if have an image of monsters, Omni: Has William Burroughs influenced why the image was there in the firsf place. you like, as creatures who have great your subject matter? The images that infest our unconscious ambiguity. They're not creatures who come Barker: Well, sexuality is close to the are images that require contexting. The

in and just screw up. I think the most surface in Burroughs's writings we and in my doppelganger appears in Jung; actually it can hope for in the is world that we come pieces. But Burroughs piles image upon appears in Freud, too. It's an incredibly to see how complex our situation is. But image with no apparent concern for common image with a fine historical

lot of horror ficlion returns I'll a to the the narrative line. I us tell you how write tradition. It represents a confrontation with old solutions, instead of offering stories. I new ones. come up with images. I draw another part of oneself. The doppelgang- Omni: Why you use sex so explicitly pictures. I do write pictures down. I say, er story means new things to each in stories? your "Picture." And I wait. Eventually a story generation. The collective unconscious Barker: Oh! So much of this has to do appears around the pictures. I have can be reinvestigated. with the Christian paradigm—a lot of hundreds of pictures, images fhat are Omni: Do you think that we, collectively, Christian crap about the tact that the act waiting for the birth of the narrative. You are closer to the images of the uncon- of creation is sacred and that anything see what I mean? Burroughs doesn't take scious, the shadow stuff?

associated with it should kept under I be a the narrative structure as far as I do. Barker: Our culture's shot through with

veil Basically it's all about fear. It stinks. love writing stories, and I love telling stories. images of great potency all the time.

Omni: il Does strike I you as odd— it strikes don't think Burroughs cares about the We're confronted with images in advertis- me as odd—that both King and Straub story; he's interested in the primacy of the ing, television, movies. They contain came from religiously conservative, image. For me the narrative is the rails great power to convince and to manipulate. fundamentalist backgrounds? King has on which the ghost train rides. You lake the But we don't understand them. We are claimed he still believes. passenger along that [rack with a terrible confronted with potent material, and we're

Barker: I think he is moralislic, inevitability. I but the love il when people say dumb in the face of it. Thai's dangerous,

imagination is not moralistic. I often think to me, "I hate your stuff, but I can't stop much more dangerous than having no of that line, "We are not hypocrites in reading it." If they say, "I have to find imagery af all. We're awake in an uncon- scious sea and drowning. We have to embrace the point where our lives touch the unreal or touch the unconscious. The conscious can encounter the uncon- scious through fiction.

Omni: If your stuff is authentic, then you are constantly dealing with raw, uncon-

scious material. It's got to affect you in the process of writing.

Barker: It does It does. And here the narrative is important. Narrative keeps me from drowning. It's like a rhyme scheme in a poem, the means by which I order

experience. I write very fight plots, though

I try not to make them seem too tight. But in faci, they're meticulously plotted. There are maybe fifty pages of narrative plotting tor the book I'm doing at the

moment, even before I write the first chapter. That doesn't rule out the arbitrary factor that comes along. But in order to weave through your own stuft, you need a

guideline. Otherwise I think you end up like Burroughs. You end up with a collection

ot incredible images like MTV, and it's " lures who have great ambig^iy processed in a way that I don't find ,v, : particularly valid or satisfying. You could that w:ll co e on: o ourselves, even, 'vMapnysics is a philosophy of being,

call it a cut-up kind of process. It's not and say, "The world is greater than you right? Now, I'm very hard on conventional

a process I understand. It are greater implies thai the — than your perspective"? metaphysics. If your daily confessional

unconscious can process its own I write stories in so many different physical at St. is Mary's metaphysics, then I won't

material, which I don't believe. You know locations— cities, deserts, dirty cinemas, be a part of that. But if metaphysics is

that Burroughs implies that if you make broken-down theaters—because revela- actually seeing what your dreams mean, isn't tion too much sense, it useful to you. We can happen anywhere. But don't which it can be, or if metaphysics is

need a combination clone of Dostoyevski run away. Don't get out your cruGifix. It looking at the shuttle going up and trying

and Burroughs. The master is Fellini. means you no harm. And even if it means to work out what happened in those He entices you with just enough narrative. you harm, it will be better ihan living the three seconds—one moment they're there You are led from one scene to another, life you're living. the next and moment they're not. ... I scenes filled with outrageous imagery Omni: Do you think the violence in your surely believe in images of a dying god plucked straight from the unconscious. stories is qualitative''/ c'iffe'cii from the and of the mother impregnated by light. Omni: During Jung's Ihree-year "confron- stick-'em-up, shoot-'em-up or Rambo Tha! is highly charged material. I love

, tation" with the unconscious, which slasher movies' type of violence? Catholic imagery. The image of Christ

reached what I would call near-psychotic Barker; Oh, sure. You can do just about parting his chest to reveal a heart floating proportions, he writes that he would anything to an audience as icng as you put in light with thorns around it—well, that's stand in front of the mirror and say. "My them in a place they've never been potent. A lot of my Catholic friends have is name Carl Jung; I live at blank; my before and they comprehend what has. calendars with Christ exposing the sacred is wife's name blank; [ have blank children." happened to them. We're so locked in heart. It's an extraordinary image. He claims that this reality test, this narra- ourselves. We are victims of our singularity. Omni: But it's an image deadened by tive line, kept him sane. I'm saying, "Look, you may not like this tradition, by repetition, by interpretation.

Barker: It kept the darkness at Yeah! very bay. much, but sure as hell you've never Barker: I agree, but there are ways to The artist is in a sacred position. I've been here before." That is a major part reinvest that image. That's what we must

been telling stories since I thrill, was knee-high of the fictive as far as I'm concerned. try to do, I think. to a duck. It's instinctive tor me to create Sartre said that the only thing we can Omni: You have been quoted as saying narrative I is structures. The world live never know our own death, but 1 can you would rather have monsters glowing in in becomes a story. Do you know what i show you lots of other things—behead- the dark than the silence of empty space. mean? The artist can see the broader ings, disembowelings, boiling oil. That's a Barker: Absolutely. Wouldn't any sensible

context. One's life is part of story that is bit cynical. I know. a But sometimes I feel person? Isn't nothingness the pits?

already I like happening. When see a loved someone who runs a ghost train: "Roll Omni: Well. I wonder. Don't you think that

one cry, I think, How would I describe up! Roll up! You don't have to buy this we are so afraid of that nothingness

(his? / a stuff, if it How wou/d make sentence but you buy there are no limits." I that we will do anything to avoid it?

to is it describe what happening? That can even put on the jacket cover. I promise Barker: Yes, I do. I very much do.

be damaging because it distances you, I you nothing more than blood, sweat, Omni: To talk about the "void"—well, the constantly tell myself that what I experience and more blood. bullshit tends to pile up. Or it's an intellec- will in today one day be the past. I write Omni: Thai's not true. tual exercise. And surely to say that we all my fiction in the past tense. Barker: Well, no, except that that's the seem less able to face silence than

Omni: Your work has been described as barker's line. That's what happens outside our grandmothers or grandfathers were is

having mystical intensity. the train ride. I don't want to say, "I offer a bit worn out. Barker: It's sort of interesting because you blood and metaphysics." Barker: I've tried to define nothingness.

whenever I can, I will take a character into Omni: You have a tendency to be very The villain of my book The Damnation mystery. We live in a barren place. We hard on metaphysics. Why? Game brings the void with him. He brings

live in a barren condition. One of the big Barker: I don't think I'm hard on absence, the fear of sexuality, the fear questions of our is age where to find metaphysics. Well, 1 am. Let's go at this of feeling. He is nothingness personified. revelation. Where do we look for the angel again because this is important. The girl Carys is projected into his mind at one point and has to confront this terrible absence, this terrible nothingness.

The only thing we can hope for is a kind of unity of mind under such circumstances.

And love will do the job. Really, I believe

love will do the job. And I don't mean

sexual love. I mean the chemical attraction of one living creature for another living creature, someone to stroke in the dark. Maybe that nothingness stands for our

deaths. Maybe it stands for the time when

we will be absent. Or maybe it stands for a time when the entire business will be absent, when Big Bang number two

occurs. There were two questions I asked as a kid; What's infinity? You think and

think, but you can't get there because it's impossible to imagine infinity. The other

question I asked was, What was it like before the world began? What was the nothingness out of which the world came?

I think they're the same question. And

that fascinates me. It's the big one. But still,

after death I'd prefer hell to nothing

because in hell I have a chance of talking tried define e to nothingness. Maybe it stands

or sure that Hans Moravec is at least as on the next area ot your biological brain. worry about aging death. As decades "Though you have not lost conscious- pass into centuries you could travel the I'msane as I am, but he certainly brought to mind the classic mad scientist as ness or even your train of thought, your globe and then the solar system and beyond always keeping an eye out for we sat in his fifth-floor office at Carnegie- mind—some would say soul— has been — Mellon University on a dark and stormy removed from the brain and transferred to the latest in robotic bodies into which machine," said. "In a final you could transfer your computer mind. night. It was nearly midnight, and he a Moravec mixed for each of us a bowl of chocolate step your old body is disconnected. The If living forever weren't enough, you milk and Cheerios, with slices of banana computer is installed in a shiny new could live forever several times over copies piled on lop. one, in the style, color, and material of by activating some of your backup yourself Then, with banana-slicing knite in hand, your choice." and sending different versions of

Moravec. the senior research scientist As we sat around Moravec's office I out to see the world. "You could have at Carnegie-Mellon's Mobile Robot asked what would become of the original parallel experiences and merge the Laboratory, outlined for me how he could human body after the downloading. "You memories later," Moravec explained.

if months that followed create a robotic immortality for Everyman, just don't bother waking it up again In the weeks and

Carnegie-Mellon, I a deathless universe in which life would the copying went successfully," he said. my stay at was go on forever. By creating computer "It's so messy. Humans have got so many' intrigued by how many researchers copies of our minds and transferring, or problems that you might just want to seemed to believe downloading would only point ot downloading, this program into robotic leave it retired. You don't take your junker come to pass. The disagree- certainly big consid- bodies. Moravec explained, humans could car out if you've got a new one," ment was when— a survive for centuries. Moravec's idea is the ultimate in life eration to those of us still knocking around "You are in an operating room. A robot insurance: Once one copy of the brain's in mortal bodies. Although some of the

it will to researchers I spoke with at Carnegie- . made, be easy . been brain surgeon is in attendance. . Your contents has skull but not your brain is anesthetized. You make multiple backup copies, and these Mellon, MIT, and Stanford and in Japan are fully conscious. The surgeon opens could be stashed in hiding places around thought that downloading was still gener- your bramcase and peers inside." This is the world, allowing you to embark on ations away, there were others who how 'Moravec described the process in any sort of adventure without having to believed achieving robotic immortality a paper he wrote called "Robots That was imminent and seemed driven by Rove." The robotic surgeon's "attention is private passions never to die. directed at a small clump of about one The significance of the door Moravec is hundred neurons somewhere near the trying to open is not lost on others. Olin surface. Using high -resolution 3-D nuclear- Shivers, a Carnegie-Mellon graduate magnetic- resonance holography, student who works closely with Moravec phased-array radio encephalography, as well as with Allen Newell, one of the and ultrasonic radar, the surgeon deter- founding fathers of artificial intelligence, mines the three-dimensional structure told me, "Moravec wants to design a and chemical makeup of that neural creature, and my professor Newell wants design creature. are all, in clump. It writes a program that models to a We a the behavior of the clump and starts sense, trying to play God." surprised find I Moravec's it running on a small portion of the At MIT was to computer sitting next to you." concept of downloading given considera- That computer sitting next to you in the tion by Marvin Minsky, Donner Professor operating room would in effect be your of Science and another father of artificial new brain. As each area of your brain was intelligence. Minsky is trying to learn analyzed and simulated, the accuracy how the billions of brain cells work together of the simulation would be tested as you to allow a person to think and remember. pressed a button to shift between the If he succeeds, it will be a big step toward area of the brain just copied and the figuring out how to join perhaps billions simulation. When you couldn't tell the of computer circuits together to allow difference-between the original and the a computer to receive the entire contents copy, the surgeon would transfer the of the human mind. simulation of your brain into the new, "If a person is like a machine, once you computerized one and repeat the process D,'3 .'';; :::;:r:cui boatiJS get a wiring diagram of how he works, 3S OMNI N PAGE 160 Jim Henson has achieved extraordinary audience and critical approval from every medium he's had his hand in. Educational TV; Sesame Street. Network TV Trie Muppet Show. Film; a trio of Muppet movies, Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. His insightful imagination, expressed through an enduring cast of creatures, art- fully exposes the very best in people and media alike. "I spent a summer travel- Jim Henson Gives ing through Europe meeting other puppeteers.That was

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MOUNTAIN MANIA

By Owen Davies

bout two years building j^\ ago a group of the observatory in the area is the and roads for the observatory, Ratje says. X-^k astronomers from Steward richness and diversity of the local The area around the observatory would # » Observatory, part of the Uni- ecology. "Mount Graham has one of the be an unspoiled "buffer zone" between the versity of Arizona at Tucson, asked the densest bear populations anywhere siles and the forested area. U.S. Forest Service for permission to build in the country," explains Gerald W. Connors Tucson engineer Paul Pierce, head of an ultramodern observatory on a patch of the U.S. Forest Service. Connors repre- the Coalition for the Preservation of Mount of government- owned land called Mount sents ihe Forest Service at Coronado Graham, is skeptical, lo say the least. Graham. What began as a straightfor- National Forest and heads the learn "When you clear five acres here and ten ward attempt to construct the preeminent working on the environmental-impact acres there, you feel the impact throughout observatory in the United Slates has statement on Mount Graham. "It has a the region," he says. "You disrupt wildlife exploded into a debate in which the needs population of Apache trout, now on the habitats and take away recreation areas far of astronomy are pitted against a strange endangered-species list, and the Mount beyond where you actually build." coalition of activists. Graham red spruce squirrel, which is The proposed observatory has caused Mount Graham is a wooded peak being considered for the list. There is an some surprisingly diverse groups to join located in the Pinaleno range of south- endangered plant species growing on forces. The Defenders of Wildlife, the eastern Arizona. After a lenglhy survey of suggested telescope sites," he says. Tucson Rod and Gun Club, and Ihe sites. Steward Observatory officials Ratje believes the environment would Arizona Arms Association are all part of decided it was the best place for not- be compromised this a new by addition. the coalilion. Pierce himself admits it is an generation of astronomical instruments. "Naturally we would prefer to use whatever odd collection. "People who normally Astronomers make a strong case for the sites are best for astronomical work," he wouldn't give each other the time of day location. Mount Graham has the right says. "But if some of these are ruled are working lo stop this proposed devel- combination of ingredients: still, dry air at out. there are more than enough alterna- opment," he adds.

its peak; an elevation of 11,000 feet, at tives. We can adapt quite a bit. We have "II you strip away the scientific trappings which it is comfortable to work (lack eleven possible telescope sites, of which from this proposal," maintains Paul of oxygen at higher altitudes makes it only iive would be used. Pierce, "you have a standard development difficult to concentrate); and a logging road Only 40 to 60 acres of the area's 3,500 versus conservation issue." University already in place, running partway up acres would be occupied by construction of Arizona officials disagree, saying :he the mountain. "We now know how to build issues are more complex. The area much more powerful instruments than has already been partly developed. any we have, and they are severely Logging operations have ceared trees needed." explains Steward operations from ten square miles on the south side of manager John Ratje. 'And we have lo find the mountain, and on the highest eleva- a new site for these major telescopes. tion of Mount Graham stands a microwave- There are not many left in existing transmission tower operated by the Army. observatories. Kitt Peak is about full, and The real issue may not be environmen- Mauna Kea has only three or four sites tal. The Sierra Club supports neither side. that aren't committed. Other important Basically, the activists object to the observatories are troubled with light restrictions that would come with having pollution. There's just nowhere left to go." an observatory on the mountain. For The dream is lo build 13 astronomical example, no campfires could be lit at night, instruments, including two radio-astronomy and the four-wheeled vehicles that now dishes, across an area of five square travel up and down the logging road miles. The largest telescope would be the could not use their headlights. National New Technology Telescope, a What happens to the mountain will multiple-mirror telescope that would depend, in part, on the contents of an duplicate the seeing power of a mirror 15 environmental-impact statement that was meters across. Eventually, Ratje says, to be completed this fall. It will be there could be five more eight-meter-size- followed by a lew months of public range telescopes— all more powerful hearings, and early next year the U.S. than any in now use. Forest Service will decide whether the completed, Once the entire observatory Mount Graham observatory will fade into complex would spread out in a pattern history as yet another unfulfilled dream of forming a ragged 7. But a complication in View of the stars clouded by controversy. astronomers. DO 42 OMNI MIND SCAN BDDM By .Stephen Robinett

same technology that once brain- research hardware. First, you must of all these The technologies—and it is virtually used to hunt submarines from the distinguish brain function (what a group risk free. It senses magnetic-field patterns air is shedding light on such of brain cells does) from brain anatomy produced by brain cells, locates the neurological disorders as epilepsy, multiple (where cells are located). Most medical field's source, and takes a snapshot every sclerosis and may reveal imaging — someday equipment—X rays, ultrasound, millisecond. "The key to MEG's value is our most secret thoughts. Nerve cells "talk" CAT scans—shows location, not function. mapping and finding. And (he only reason to one another in the brain through For example, while an electroencephalo- to get a map is to find out where normal electrical signals that generate a weak graph (EEG) records information related to brain events occur," explains Jack Beatty, magnetic field, about one billionth the is the way the brain working, it tells almost a physiologist and brain researcher at strength of the earth's. Now surgeons and nothing about where an event occurs UCLA's Human Neurophysiology Labora- brain researchers can monitor magnetic in the brain. tory in Los Angeles. patterns emerging from the human brain Currently, PET (positron emission Consider the simple task of answering with a new computer-based technology tomography) scans can supply information your phone. It rings and the sound called magnetoencephalography (MEG). on both location and function as well as stimulates your eardrum, which sends MEG may affect not only neuroscience details of the body's chemical interactions. impulses to your brain. Your brain pays and medicine but also job-screening PET does, however, carry some degree attention, evaluates, decides on action, practices, the is way equipment designed, of risk. Ftadioactively.tagged glucose and initiates impulses to perform that and even social policy. This technology is injected into or inhaled by the subject, action. Each of these activities produces is relatively easy to use: The subject tracks and PET its progress as it moves a measurable brain event. MEG can either lies down on a bed or sits in a chair. through the brain. The more active a monitor the entire process from stimulus A complicated electrical device, known particular brain location, the more glucose to response. "Our ultimate goal," says

as a neuromagnetometer, it is placed consumes and the brighter its image Dr. Edward Flynn, a physicist using MEG

near the It subject's head. acts as an in the final picture. Bu! PET scans take equipment at Los Alamos National antenna and picks up the magnetic fields pictures in slow motion, which are based Laboratory in New Mexico, "is to produce emerging from the brain. on the roughly 20-minuie half-life of the a four-dimensional picture of the function- To appreciate MEG'S potential requires radioactive tag. ing brain." Or as Beatty puts it, to under- perspective some on other types of MEG equipment combines the benefits stand "the physiology of thought." Both the Air Force and the Navy think

this technology may be helpful in predict- ing job performance. Greg Lewis, a Navy researcher in San Diego, used MEG to scan the brains of 60 Navy security people. Navy supervisors had previously rated these participants according to their job knowledge, performance, and overall reliability The idea was to compare the brain activity of the high achievers with that of the low achievers—to see whether (here was a discernible difference between the two groups. To test their hypothesis, researchers took MEG readings while participants watched a flashing light. Those people earmarked as high performers tended to be consistent in brain function and to have similar readings. Low performers showed little consistency from moment to moment. And the group showed more disparate responses. Lewis hopes to use these data to produce a comparison baseline for future job candidates. Dr. Glen Wilson, an Air Force psycholo- Magnetoencephalography, gist who uses MEG, hopes his studies 44 OMNI CONT ! NUEOONPAGEB2 \ECHANICALZOO EXPLDRMTORJS By Erik Larson

^^^ y the end of the year ihe gorillas Markowitz. who is a biology professor simple neks can help -scattering snacks IG^S at the Milwaukee County Zoo at State University, shies in hard-to-reach places or feeding kvv will be able to watch the midday from the term boredom. An animal that animals at intervals throughout the day. At soaps, switch on a little Bach, and check looks bored by human standards may be the Bronx Zoo in New York an artificial out videotapes of fellow gorillas. By perfectly content, he says. Lions in the tree periodically oozes honey for the bears. pressing a specially constructed device, wild, for example, spend a lot of time Another device there spits live they will be able to select their own either asleep or at rest. He prefers to talk mealworms into an exhibit of sugar gliders, entertainment or simply shut the machine about the behaviors lhat result when members of the marsupial order, provid- off and enjoy the silence. captive animals lose the power to influence ing food and diversion at the same time.

This simian home-enlertainment system their own lives: to forage, hunt, roam, or Likewise, food ligures heavily in is the brainchild of Hal Markowilz, who male freely with members of their own Markowitz's devices. But he adds another for 16 years has been cies gmng similar species. Such animals tend to develop an element: work. He cites studies showing contraptions to ward off a major affliction array of abnormal, repetitive actions that animals will push levers for (heir

among 200 animals—boredom. Marko- known to zoo curators as stereotypical food, even though the same food is avail- witz has designed such boredom fighters behavior. Captive monkeys, for example, able f.'oc in Ihe cage, with no need for as a live-cricket dispenser to bring out may salute— actually raise their paws any effort, His devices also give the the preying instincts of Asian river otters, to iheir foreheads — over and over, like animals a chance to strut their stuff within a mechanical rabbit 10 tempt tigers, privates ai a convention of generals. "We the limits imposed by captivity. and, coming soon, an exhibit lhat will know," he says, "that a human being in Consider Milwaukee's planned polar- enable polar bears to hunt for their meals. captivity suffers most from a sense of bear exhibit. At most zoos, Markowitz 'Animals in captivity are essentially powerlessness: the fact that nothing he says, visitors see the bears behave in ways powerless," says Markowitz, a round, does matters." never encountered in their natural genial man with Burl Ives voice. a "We're For animals food is central to the issue. habitats. "In seventy percent of zoos in trying to give them back as much power as It plays a big role in an animal's day in the world, what kids learn about polar for we can— power, example, to feed the wild and can play an equally large role bears is that they beg," he says. themselves r when they want to instead of in e:ieving the boredom of captivity. When the Milwaukee exhibit is feels when a keeper like it." Zoos, for example, have discovered that completed these polar bears will be able to hunt. From time to time the bears will near digital seal sounds, the polar-bear

lunch bell. They will be able to ignore the sounds or to investigate by prowling

among the rocks in their enclosure. If a bear stcKs ns paw inside a particular pile of rocks, he will interrupt a light beam and, in turn, activate another device that will launch lunch (thawed fish, not live seals) into the exhibit's pool. Markowitz's critics say devices like these can turn animals into Pavlovian automatons, compelled to respond to a given apparatus. They contend his machines are unnatural and can give exhibits a "circus" flavor. Michael Hutchins, a behavioral ecologist now doing an internship at the Bronx Zoo, says Markowitz's machines may even produce behaviors just as abnormal as those created by sheer boredom.

But, counters Markowitz. animals in the wild face millions of contingencies and deal with them by using jungle smarts and the physiological tools designed by Designs tar captive living: Hal Mai nature. "I'm not saying, Put them in life- 4S OMNI C0^T;VJED0NPAGE83 coruTiruuunn

JUMPSUITS AND LONGEVITY

says her ulti- with and can be un- "Pick a horseshoe," demands the woman who Lunch aim in life is to bring her physiological age down to twenty- settling. Ai a conference on aging, I watch as the gul- mate five maintain it "indefinitely." Out of one of the steel lies in their stroganpff gradually fill and then disappear years and

I withdraw a hefty arc of iron. beneath grainy hills of an MSG-based flavor enhanc- suitcases lining their hotel room. second later, wilh nary a grunt to record the moment, er. A glance plateside lands on a virtual army of tiny vials con- And one into shining pretzel. taining BHT, vitamin C, and other assorted dietary supple- the little lady has twisted that horseshoe a Sandy hasn't done ments—more evidence of the kind of tampering that has launched "That makes 'em sit up," says Durk. "And minules of exercise over the past seven years." the careers ol these famous life extension researchers. Their mis- more than thirty of this boldest of life extension sion? To dance into no-man's-land; that age beyond the limit Come on. But that's the beauty fasting, Durk and bravely staked out by Fanny Thomas, a San Gabriel, , programs. In this age of running, pumping, and painless to living longer. "We're gourmets woman who died in April 19B0. 113 years and 215 days after her Sandy offer a guide scientists," offers Durk as something of birth. Pearson and Shaw, authors of the best-selling book Life and sedentary, type A daily tossing back a blend Extension, are betting their lives on an array of preservatives, an explanation of their penchant for ourselves amino acids, vitamins, and prescription drugs thai they expect of potent chemicals. "What we'retrying to do is protect ourselves." scientific community generally agrees lhat will enable them to live on and on and on. from The demonstrates a remarkable lack of Sheathed in thick silver bracelets and zipped into snug leather Durk and Sandy's research couple has failed to conduct controlled studies, and jumpsuits that set off well- developed, if pale ("We rarely go out- rigor; The predecessors in life exten- side") pecs, Durk and Sandy sport a styie thai seems at odds the majority of Pearson and Shaw's been laboratory animals. with their mass appeal. In the four years since their first cookbook sion experiments of this nature have have earned qualified praise for help- for life extension hit the bookstores, more than 2 million copies Even so, Durk and Sandy have been snatched up. Both aulhors have been regulars on the ing to popularize the growing belief among scientists that it is in. even slow, the aging process. 'At talk showand lecture circuit, expounding on the recipes for stay- possible to intervene and found retard aging and ing young they have concocted from scientific studies. least they're saying that things can be to Richard Cutler of the Na- The stated age of both Pearson and Shaw is forty-two, but they there's something you can do," says conspicu- tional Institute on Aging, in Baltimore. . hair, look . . about that old. Durk's though long and proceeds from their current release, ously abundant, is graying, and Sandy leans blose during our Durk and Sandy hope the will fuel future research interview to compensate for her poor hearing. Nonetheless, in The Life Extension Weight Loss Guide, have other plans that will take them outside the- ten years since they began experimenting with-- various life projects. And they claim that ulti- extension formulations, both researchers believe they have grown their study center. The two researchers—who will suicide, murder, and ac- younger. In fact, they have generously submitted their bodies to mately the only causes of death be And they have landed countless clinical tests that indicate their "true," or biological, age cident—plan to take up drag racing for fun. first Scheduled for release this past summer, may actually fall far short of their forty-two years. their movie roles. playing themselves, "We have Ihe lipid panels of teenagers," boasts Pearson dur- the movie Ratboy features-Durk and Sandy says Durk. ing a recent interview (lipid panels measure fat count). Pearson's "What we like best in life is discovering new things." bit part long, pointed features and slightly hunched frame accentuate Adds Sandy, "Put in there that I'd like to get a as a mad the height advantage he has over his diminutive research asso- scientist someday."—SUSAN ELLIS ciate/wife. Sandy was so often overlooked during interviews in the early days of the Life Extension success that she developed Susan Ellis is the editor of the newsletter Longevity, A Practical Guide a ploy to attract attention—"to make her seem tougher and to the Art and Science ot Staying Young, published by Omni Publica- s Durk. tions International Ltd. in New York City. —

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in space' experiments that don't j People like the way

I were conducted on the they taste then." shuttle," in which astronauts Stan Allen, a research played with such items as associate in the University of a yo-yo and a Slinky to dem- Washington's Fisheries j onstrate the effects of ! zero Department, reasoned that ' gravity (see Games, February to keep oysters plump and 1986). succulent all year, you'd have Says Dunkerly, "We don'! to keep them from reproduc-

, know of any other course ing. To that end he and his being offered on the open colleagues treated freshly j market that's taught interac- ferlilized one-cell j oyster tively like this." eggs with cytochalasin, a —Nancy Lucas chemical derived from a fungus. "Oysters receive one SEXLESS | OYSTERS set of chromosomes from a male and two sets from a It doesn't sound like much female, and they normally kick ' fun for the oysters, but a off the extra set of female

SCHOOL VIA SATELLITE I from thirty to one hundred new, sexless I oyster, devel- chromosomes," Allen ex- thirty I students." The satellite oped by genetic-engineering plains. | "But the chemical ex- Astronaut Christa Mc- broadcasting, he says, techniques, may be a boon posure caused the oyster Auliffe's dream was to teach "came about as a desire to , to seafood lovers who want to egg to hold on to the extra set

a science class in orbit. reach ' teachers not only enjoy the briny bivalves all of chromosomes." The result- Nowearthbound science in Connecticut and the sur- year round. j ing creature | was named a ieachers will have a chance rounding states but virtually Floyd Bagley. vice ! presi- triploid. a non reproducing to enter the Space Age anywhere." Teachers as dent of Hilton Sea Food, mutant oyster. on the ground—with a new far away as the Arctic Circle a Seattle company that The main problem with

training : program developed will have access to the helped sponsor ihe project, growing these sexless crea- by the Talcott Mountain satellite broadcasts, and, explains that oysters nor- tures for commercial sale, Science Center in Avon, adds Dunkerly, the science mally lose their flavor during says Allen, is their high Connecticul. center hopes to include mortality rate. "Only about The program will use a American | overseas schools fen to fifteen percent of communications satellite in future programs. the treated eggs live. Buf 22.300 miles above the Entitled "Shoulders of the those are still pretty good equator to broadcast lectures Giants," the course will enlist odds when you consider that by experts in various fields as instructors such lumi- one female oyster can pro- and allow participants to talk naries as former astronaut duce fifty thousand to one back and torlh across the Alan Bean and star-wars hundred thousand eggs. nation and even the world. proponent Robert Jastrow. Plus, it's not an expensive "The center has been Beginning this fall teachers at process, even when a lot of conducting a program for a institutions possessing them die. It-only takes about number of years, " explains satellite dishes will be able to twenty-five dollars' worth Talcott technical consultant view ihe lecturer on a televi- of chemicals to treat live hun- William Dunkerly, "in which sion screen, then ask ques- dred million eggs." Never- students hear well-known tions using a standard tele- theless, Allen hopes to find presenters talk on their areas phone hookup. Planned methods that will create of expertise. But we feel lesson topics include break- triploids without killing so that we can have a greater throughs in molecular ge- the hot summer months. many in the process. He's impact on American educa- netics and new methods of "When it's warm they start to currently looking into how tion by dealing with teachers, computer storage. develop sperm and eggs, heat or hydrostatic pressure who go back to the class- "One of the lead subjects." and their texture turns all could be used to force room and work with anywhere Dunkerly says, -"is the 'toys mushy, runny, and gooey. oyster eggs to hold on to 52 OMNI (heir extra chromosomes. use telepathy or these other been tentatively identified as According to Bagley, the proposed methods, there a jet of extremely hot gas technology needed to genet- send incredibly long-distance is a good possibility that they that streams out of the galac-

tic center. If that ically engineer triploids is communications. And be- could be used. So it is a can be further well enough developed that cause neutrinos are emitted good idea to begin thinking confirmed, it offers year-round edible oysters by the reactors aboard about them." evidence of a black hole at should be on the market nuclear submarines, a huge But Alun Anderson, Tokyo the center of our galaxy. soon, In fact, the sexless neutrino detectdr might correspondent for the British Says Professor Morris: creatures are already growing conceivably be built to track science journal Nature, "These new structures add to the of curi- in some Hilton Sea Food underwater movements of who has reported on the new growing mosaic oyster beds. "I'm convinced submarines on the opposite committee's work, disagrees ous forms of activity at the Milky Way." this is the biggest thing to side of the world. heartily. core of the believes that the happen to our industry in a The parapsychologist on "The ideas they are looking Morris long time," says Bagley. the ministry's specially ap- into are really farfetched, strange threads are the result —Sherry Baker yet they decide to look for practical applications first, THE JAPANESE before the basic research is MINISTRY OF done," he says. "It's like TELEPATHY announcing that you're going to investigate whether tarot

What will the Japanese card readers can predict the think of next? Does a human behavior of the Russian telephone sound too far- army."— Eric Mishara fetched? Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunica- GALACTIC THREADS tions doesn't think so. The government agency that Astronomers from the oversees the phone and University of California at Los postal systems for the Japa- Angeles and at Columbia nese recently announced University in New York City

it is looking into human have used radio telescopes to telepathy as a new communi- discover two strange new cations medium. structures, origin unknown, The ministry's specially near the center of the Milky appointed eight-member Way. They are unlike any committee, which includes other objects in our galaxy of "interaction of interstellar Japan's foremost parapsy- and would seem to indicate gas and the magnetic field." choiogist as well as bigwigs the presence of a previously They were discovered during from Japan's aerospace undetected phenomenon a random radio-telescope and electronics industries, at the galactic center. search. "Some signposts has already begun discus- The scientists are astron- were missing, which led us to sions on the potential uses not omy professor Mark Morris at take a closer look," he ex- only for mental telepathy UCLA and Farhad Yusef- plains. But right now there is but for gravity waves, the as- Zadeh, a doctoral candidate no explanation that can yet-unproven gravity pat- at Columbia. They report: identify the threads' compo- terns thought to travel almost • One structure consists of sition or origin. While they infinite distances. The com- three threadlike lines, smooth may be unique in our galaxy, mittee will also be seeking radio transmissions, they do have counterparts uses for neutrinos—subatom- pointed committee, Soji each of which stretches more in others, "In our own quiet ic particles thought to have Ootani of Japan's National than 100 light-years in length. galaxy, however," says Morris, no mass, thus enabling them Defense Academy, says, They curve across the north- "this phenomenon was to pass right through the "Although scientifically we are ern center of the Milky Way. unexpected." earth at the speed of light. not at the stage to actually • The other structure has —George Nobbe 53 " " " "

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PLASTIC ENGINES says, "You can also make the ACTIVE BOOKWORMS plastic engine in half the Car engines time, may soon go at about one third the Bookworms, or habitual plastic. cost, through new injection- readers, are often portrayed Already almosl all major molding manufacturing as dull, inactive homebodies. automakers in the United methods. j Studies, though, show just States and abroad have The Polimotor Lola T-616, the opposite, says John bought plastic engines for equipped with a four-cylinder Dessauer, director of the Uni- experiments. version, ran in several Inter- | versity of Scranton's Center The six-cylinder double- national Motor Sports Asso- for Book Research, in Penn- overhead-cam, turbocharged elation Camel GT endurance j sylvania. power plant weighs only races in 1984 1985, j and In surveys by Yankelovich, 202 pounds, about 155 once finishing as high | as Skelly & White and other pounds fine less than stan- third, never worse than sixth. firms, says Dessauer, one dard metal engine. The The V-6 plastic engine is thing was clear: 'Active engine block, cylinder heads, expected to debut in the 1987 readers were active in many piston skirts, connecting Indianapolis 500. other things, such as sports, rods, valve spring retainers, Back in the Seventies TV watching, theatergoing, tappets, timing gears, piston Holtzberg realized that ther- and game playing. pins, intake valve stems, moplastics—notably Torlon, "The significant thing is and scraper rings are all engineering an resin made how many other activities made of plastic. by Amoco Chemicals Com- readers engage in," expfains With a lightweight engine a pany—could figure strongly in Dessauer. "They're not the car can accelerate faster, the design and manufacture retiring wallflower types handle better, move more of internal-comb usfion en- silting at home with the smoothly produce and about gines. Thermoplastic poly- shades drawn, reading." ten decibels less noise. are mers found in ball bear- In addition to other findings, Inventor Matty Holtzberg ol ings, business machines, the center's studies revealed Polimotor Research, Inc., turbine-engine parts, aero- that habitual book readers of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, space electronic connectors, and integrated- circuit proc- like arcade video games. essing equipment. music, and computers more Polimotor plans to turn out than those who don't read ten plastic engines this as much, for more racing tests, Dessauer, who heads the Holtzberg predicts the only book-industry study igine—or some variation center in the nation, says that ereof—will become com- contrary to popular opinion, lerctaily available within baby boomers read more

i years. than their parents do. "They 'It really is the wave of the have better educations future," says Ford design and more books available," engineer Robert Natkin. "By he says.—Allan Maurer the year 2000 piastic engines will be commonplace." "Without bigots, eccentrics, —Robert Brody cranks, and heretics, the world would not progress. " The very purpose of —Frank Gelett Burgess existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold "Already at the origin of the of ourselves with the species, man was equal appalling things that other to what he was destined to _. .„.. .e: About 155 pounds lighter than a people think about us. become. moplastic engine is also ten decibels quieter —Quentin Crisp —Jean Rostand "

and uniquely platypusian atomic particle called the form of biological radar. magnetic monopole, the —Bill Lawren existence of which is neces- sary to make all these grand "Every revolution evaporates theories work. and leaves behind only Now physicist David Cap- the slime of a new lin of Imperial College in " bureaucracy. London has come up with —Franz Kafka what he calls a "candidate monopole event." In the a "It is a fact that man must fail of 1984 Caplin set up control science and detector especially designed occasionally check the to register the passage of a inevitable advance of magnetic monopole: a free- technology. floaling magnetic particle —Thomas Huxley that, with its brethren, pro- duces magnetic current just MAGNETIC MONOPOLE as electrons produce electric current. Such a particle Found (maybe); the elusive would bridge the apparent particle that may tie the gap between electrical and universe together. Ever since magnetic phenomena. physicists started to formu- Because monopoles, if exist at all, are expected late the first GUTs—grand they unification theories that to be extremely rare—"Maybe attempt to find a common one would come by every The platypus is even stranger than previously thought. Besides for the four basic ten thousand years," Caplin laying eggs, this weird mammal tracks its prey electrically. ground brces in ihe universe—they says—the physicist ex- searching relent- pected to find nothing at all. ELECTRIC PLATYPUS "They fit the description," have been Scheich explains: "a nightr for a mysterious sub- Then one day in August 1985 his detector registered At first glance Ihe duckbill active, water-bound animal an abrupt and dramatic platypus looks like a refugee with weak -eyesight that eats jump in magnetic flux—al- from evolution's junk pile. live prey," When Scheich most exactly what theory Neither tish nor fowl, the platy- tested his notion by dropping predicted would have hap- pus is that most anomalous penlight batteries into a pened it a monopole had of animals; an air-breathing pool where five platypuses in fact passed through. mammal that lives underwater were swimming, he found that animals unerringly Even so. Caplin remains and lays eggs. If that weren't the homed cautious about his claims. His enough, it now appears in on the batteries as if they detector, he explains, has that the profile ot the platypus were prey— preferred them, only one channel, and to features yet another startling in fact, to the shrimp they verily the monopoie's exist- eccentricity: The animal were offered simultaneously. ence its passage would have can actually use its ducklike Apparently Ihe platypus's to be recorded simulta- bill to pick up signals from sensing mechanism consists neously by a second channel. weak electric fields. of a series of tiny, nervelike multichanneled detec- Biologist Henning Scheich receptors located in the Huge, tors are now being set up of the Technical University animal's bill. As it swims about at Stanford, FermiLab, and in Darmstadt, West Germany, in search of food, it sweeps IBM's Yorktown Heights had long suspected that its bill back and forth, using it are to pick up the tiny electrical center, "if there mono- "the platypus— in common .. poles to find," Caplin says, with sharks, rays, and some signals that accompany "these should find them." kinds of sturgeon—might nerve impulses in the bodies —Bill Lawren have this electrical sense. of its prey—an idiosyncratic "

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PAIN BL0CK1 closed-circuit TV cameras designed modularly so that and microphones function as another manipulator can

A hormonelikf the eyes and ears. The fix it if it breaks down on the that actually triggi result is the latest in telepres- job." This combination of pain emanating from cuts, ence, an electronic slave traits makes the ASM unique burns, arthritic joints, interna! that can venture into places in all the world, according wounds, and other damaged too hazardous for man to Herndon. body spots has now been Since the late Forties there Dirty jobs like nuclear-fuel identified. And new synthetic have been mechanical reprocessing (wherein us- blockers, drugs tailored to devices called master/slave able material forthe .defense block the action of the pain manipulators to handle industry is extracted from substance bradykinin, are radioactive materials; but spent nuclear fuel) and the currently being developed these, like all stationary in- disposal of nuclear waste are human use. dustrial robots, are limited to right up the ASM's alley, "Bradykinin is the most a fixed position and can Herndon notes. And one day potent pain-producing sub- handle only specific, repeti- a cousin of the ASM will stance known to man," of Baltimore is in the early tive tasks. The ASM, in very likely be working for n eu roph ar macolo g i s t Solo- stages of refining Stewart's contrast, can move around NASA. too. — Judith Hooper on Snyder of Johns Hopkins blockers. A prescription over a large area at the University in Baltimore, pain-prevention cream for bidding of its distant human "Science is the meeting says. "We're talking about a cuts, burns, and arthritis. masters. "It's very dexterous, place of two kinds of poetry: new generation of painkilling Nova vice president Hans very mobile," says Joseph the poetry of thought and drugs acting at the initial Mueller says, could be on the N. Herndon of ORNL's Fuel the poetry of action. site where the pain begins." market in four years, Recycle Division. 'And it is —George Agostinho da Silva Bradykinin normally travels —Eric Mishara in the bloodstream, attached to a so-called precursor ADVANCED molecule. But Snyder and his TELEPRESENCE team of researchers found that when body tissue is How do you fix a broken injured, the bradykinin breaks motor in the radioactive from the precursor and bowels of a nuclear-fuel- attaches to nerve receptors reprocessing plant? Dispose at the site of the injury, trig- of hot nuclear waste or toxic gering pain- chemicals? Repair a satellite But the synthetic blockers, in space? created by biochemist John From the Oak Ridge Na-

Stewart of the University tional Laboratory (ORNL) in of Colorado in Denver, can Oak Ridge, Tennessee, also attach to the nerve comes a brand-new robotic receptors, thereby stopping creature that can do all the bradykinin from doing these things, Called the Ad- so and thus preventing pain. vancedServomanipulator

"The blocker binds very (ASM), it is basically a pair of tightly to the receptor but dexterous mechanical doesn't go on and do the next arms—complete with shoul- important step, which is to ders., elbows, wrists, and produce pain," Stewart grippers— linked electroni- explains. "It is like a key that cally to a human operator in a won't turn -butjust sits in distant control room. The the lock so another key can't operator experiences "feel," get in," Right now Nova or force reflection, through The ASM at wort.- A pair oi mechanical arms—complete with Pharmaceutical Corporation electronic feedback while shoulders, elbows, wrists, and grippers—linked to a human being. 56 OMNI ODD BODIES anatomists Dr. Sue Ann ing to the technique used to tions but had a miserably low Thompson and Dr. Adel Afifi, recall the story. Those who accuracy rating of 8.4 per-

it ("He said; cent. For Dr. Ronald Bergman Bergman scoured 223 medi- did script style remembered The only consolation in all exception is not simply cal journals in four languages then she said") of the this is that the cops did no the rule but a cause. After to compile all variations only 21.4 percent con- worse than a group of stu- two decades of explaining to and their frequency. Doctors tent accurately and intro- Clark used as medical students why parts have sometimes failed to duced a large number of er- dents that control. In the meantime, of their cadavers did not find certain structures, mis- roneous facts. Those who a Clark says, concerned con- match anatomy texts, Berg- taken one for another, and recalled the interrogation as Catalog caused damage because a narrative ("This happened; stables are "streaming down man compiled the I me. They know it's a of Human Variations, a com- they were uninformed or then that happened") intro- to see

inven- I problem," Bill Lawren pendium of the 10,000 regu- misinformed about natural duced fewer plausible — variations. Muscles, for instance, can be split in unusual ways or be absent altogether. Blood vessels can have dozens of exotic patterns, and nerves also wander. Bergman maintains that there is a finite number of variables for any structure. With his second edition just out, he claims to have cataloged 95 percent of

all possibilities. The book is 1,000 pages long. —William Mueller

larly occurring human ana- tomical variations. One person in 6 million, for Judges and juries who example has situs inversus, depend on the testimony of in which the organs are police officers to arrive at turned around. More common a verdict are in for a sad are extra fingers and three surprise. A recent study by a bones in the thumb. And you British psychologist implies can have four, six, or eight that cops' memories for nipples or breasts. facts elicited in interrogation Women with double va- are woefully bad. ginas might seek out men Noel Clark of the University with an extra penis. Extra ribs of Kent at Canterbury wrote occur rarely, whereas third up a fictitious interrogation by kidneys are more common, two police officers of a as are accessory lung lobes, woman who claimed to have spleens, and pancreases. been raped. He showed Missing can be gallbladders, the interrogation to 67 police irises, bones, and ligaments. officers. Then, only five Textbooks omit such minutes later, he asked them phenomena for space rea- to imagine themselves in sons, though physicians court, recalling the content of commonly encounter them in the interrogation for a judge. treatment. So with fellow The results varied accord- "

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its with pictures of them- I taught nurse sharks to retrieve

taken by others. , hoops, nuzzle targets, and :ican girls, however, rarely perform other common

lught back photos of i dolphinlike tasks. themselves. "South American "We wanted to see what males seem to have a lot we could get out of them," more self-esteem than fe- explains the center's Scott males do," Ziller notes. Johnson. Sharks have one • Shy college students take advantage over dolphins: photos of school activities or They don't have to come up buildings rather than people for air "We thought they or themselves. Those not might be helpful in finding so shy take lots of pictures of things on the ocean bottom," Others and ask others to says Johnson.

photograph them. "It's as if Starting with foot-long shy people don't like others to nurse sharks that grew to control their environment, Ihree feet long, the trainers while a less shy person's time used the same techniques is usurped by others," Ziller that worked with dolphins, speculates. "It's worth a teaching them to nudge deeper look." a trainer's fist and to respond • When college students at to buzzers and other electri- the University of Florida cal stimulation. They even and in Poland were asked to fed the fish by hand. "Nurse shoot photographs of what sharks don't have sharp the good life meant to them, biting teeth." Johnson says. | Poles took pictures of "Their teeth crush. Of course, churches, families, and you don't stick your finger schools. Americans shot per- in their mouths." sonal belongings, them- He notes that "those of us selves, and their friends hav- who have been around ing a good time. "It was a sharks weren't too surprised night-and-day difference, at what they could do. Most

A telling photo phenomenon: When people in wheelchairs take Ziller says. 'Americans took people think they're just pictures of others, the subjects seldom look at Ihe photographer much more personal, casual swimming mouths. Actually, pictures. they're brighter than many raphers. Assisted his are really big, fish lot PHOTOFSYCHOLOGV | by "Photographs dumb and a students, Ziller found; ; an ideal nonverbal way of animals."

Photographs provide a i • When people in wheelchairs ol understanding others bet- Johnson and his co-work-

good picture of the people ! take pictures of others, the ter," asserts Ziller, who is ers did discover that sharks who take them as well as subjects seldom look at continuing his research, "They tend to rebel against the | the subjects, says a Univer- the photographer, "Our results also help us see ourselves training. "You could only i do sity of Florida psychology were dramatic," Ziller says. better. They're really like so much with them before professor. "Everyone in the pictures a dream ... a frozen they would get upset and "Photography is like holding looked away. That helps us dream."—Allan Maurer bang at the gate to get back up a mufti faceted mirror understand both Ihe images to their habitat. We'd just thai reveals things about you people in wheelchairs have TRAINED SHARKS use them up." that you never realized," of others and how others And no, Johnson adds, says Robert Ziller, who, for treat (hem." Although sharks are usually there was never any plan to nearly a decade, has been • Both rich and poor Mexican perceived as dim-witted build a kamikaze shark. conducting a worldwide boys, when asked to supply eating machines, trainers at "If we could do that," he study of what photography photos depicting who and Ihe Naval Ocean Systems quips, "I'd move fartherfrom suggests about the photog- what they were, usually came Center in San Diego have the ocean."—Allan Maurer 58 OMNI a

In the twenty-first century antiaging substances will revitalize our skin, our organs—and our genes

BY ANN GIUDICI FETTNER AND PAMELA WEINTRAUB

During Prohibition Mama water and a double handful of and her friends used to cne~'icals that'll kill ya surer'n ride out into the slill-rural hell." Pop's professional bias

area surrounding Atlanta notwithstanding, it's likely that to buy bootleg whiskey (torn some double handlul of Pop Adams. In the Southern chemicals— produced inter- mode they would sit on the nally or consumed in the porch drinking buttermilk course of everyday life—en- while Pop's daddy, who was abled ;he Adams men to sur- one hundred one. tossed a vive in exceptional health and shovel across his shoulder vigor to great old age. and nipped down Ihrough the The search for this double piny woods to disinter some handful of chemicals— fruil jars of white lightning and magic potion to stave off death outwit the Feds. Mama said and postpone the ravages of

the liquor was so raw itd take age— is as old as man The the enamel ofl your teeth. But myth of Shangri-la, for exam- it must have been doing ple, comes from the Greek tale something right because the of the Hyperboreans, who— old men swore by it "We have after living 1,000 years—sim- a little toddy now and then ply plunged into the sea. The through the day. yessiree," promise of gold wasn't the Pops daddy said, a Home Run Spaniards' only quest in the cigarette dangling from his New World: They genuinely mouth. "Good corn likker's the thought they would find the secret to long life; wouldn't Fountain of Youth on the miss a day." shores of Florida. Had the Pop himself had no pa- Span arcs recognized Aztec tience for Mama's shudder as and Inca ritual snake paint- she gagged down the white- ings as symbols of rebirth, corn squeezings and longed though, it would probably for something bottled in bond. have tipped them off: The In- "That government whiskey? dians were looking, too. Why, taint nothing but a little. But now, after millennia of

ELIXIRS OF YOUTH PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAN McCOY frustration, youth elixirs at and has to may be hand. shriveled a three-gram, griz- school cheerleader living a normal life. "I What's more, the dozen or so substances zled clump of cells by the sixth decade of have a beautiful picture of Heather on my

on the horizon stem not from the commer- life scienlists always believed it wall," — had no Goldstein says. 'And I think that what cial aspirations function of a health-food chain or at all. But in 1961 researchers from was true for Heather will be true for the great the twisted imaginings of a crank but from the University of Minnesota removed the majority of the aged. Right now the shriv- a new and profound understanding of how small, pink organ from a group of newborn eled thymus glands of the elderly produce we age. mice. Much lo their surprise the mice failed only small amounts of T cells. Instead of To scientists in the forefront of longevity to grow and then died of overwhelming in- suffering from the acute disease that research, aging is the tragic side effect of fection. The suggestion: that the thymus Heather had, they go into gradual decline. life. The hormones released during pu- gland was crucial to the immune system But for them and for Heather, the solulion berty and as a result ol stress slowly and, quite apart that, erode from to the growth of will be the same. If we can give them Ihe body's organs. The food we eat and the whole organism. enough thymosin to keep the T cell level the air we breathe generate highly reaclive Enter Goldstein, a brilliant young post- high, we should be able to enhance im- free radicals, which make subtle but deadly doctoral student at Albert Einstein College munity ihroughout old age." changes in DNA. And environmental haz- of Medicine in New York. The year was Rejuvenating the immune system with ards, from ordinary sunlight to industrial 1964, and Goldstein was lucky enough to thymosins would add perhaps a dozen toxins, infiltrate the cells, helping to grind be working under the late biochemist years to life by fighting off cancer, arthritis, their to halt. engines a Some scientists have Abraham White. When asked by White to pneumonia, and many other diseases to

" even found compelling evidence for an conduct a needle-in-a-haystack search for which the aged are prey. But Goldstein's aging clock in the brain. As that clock winds a thymus hormone, Goldstein agreed. most recent work, suggesting that the thy-

down, they it say, alters the levels of hor- The thymus and its hormones, Goldstein mosins regulate an aging clock in the brain, mones and other biological substances, eventually learned, control production of should revolutionize the longevity field. slowly lowering the effectiveness of the the white blood cells known as T cells, the According to Goldstein, the idea that the heart, lungs, immune system, and just brain and brawn of the immune system. He thymus regulated more than the immune about everything else that keeps the body system came to him in the mid-Seventies healthy and strong. as a result of a series of experiments done Increased comprehension of the prob- by endocrinologists like Sandra Michaels lems, however, may soon yield what at the State University of New York at amounts to an aging cure. Within the next Binghamton. ^Enzyme drinks decade we might use hormones to bolster Michaels found that removing the thy- our immune systems, viruslike vaccines to will endow us with the ability mus gland in female mice not only de- slow the death of cells, and uric acid lo creased to repair each resistance to infection — a sign of prevent the destruction of our genes. Such impaired immunity— but also distorted the supplements could help us maintain our -new nick in our armor of DNA. ovaries and altered the vaginal opening. health and vigor throughout much of our And synthetic What's more, when Michaels gave the mice current maximum life span of 115 years. thymosin supplements, the conditions were What's more, in the twenty-first century neurohormones will literally corrected. Strange as it seemed, the thy- these potions will be dwarfed by a new, reset the mosins— in addition to the normal array of more potent generation of "longevity pills." sex hormones— aging clock in were affecting sexual de- drinks our brains3 Enzyme will endow us with the abil- velopment, usually under the control of two ity to repair each new nick in our armor of glands at Ihe base of the brain: the hypo- DNA, and synthetic neurohormones will lit- thalamus and the pituitary. erally reset the aging clock in our brains. Goldstein decided to study the relation- Instead of simply keeping us healthier ship between sexual development and the longer, these new drugs will push the out- found that the thymosins work iheir magic thymosins, too. Under normal circum- side of the aging envelope, eventually in- by aiding in the activation of three types of stances, he knew, the hypothalamus se- creasing our life span by dozens of years. T cells: killer cells, which, attack foreign or- cretes hormones that trigger a second pla- The first longevity drugs to reach the ganisms and cancer cells directly; helper toon of substances in the pituitary—the sex market could be the thymosins, a family of cells, which aid in the production of anti- hormones—that take us through puberty hormones produced by the thymus, the bodies; and suppressor cells, which pre- and ultimately make us mature. master gland of the immune system. "The vent the immune system from attacking Goldstein and Robert Rebar, now at immune system is the bubble that protects one's own tissue. "It was obvious," Gold- Northwestern University Medical School, us from a dangerous, hostile environment," stein says, that "any imbalance in the num- found that when they removed the hypo- says biochemist Allan Goldstein, chairman bers of various T cells could lead to poor thalamus and pituitary from mice and kept of the biochemistry department at health. George The further implication: that we them in solution, the glands still released Washington University. 'And Ihe immune could increase a person's immunological the full cascade of hormones— as long as systems of people superheavy are un- response by manipulating the amount of thymosin was added to the solution as well. usually effective. The thymosins play a key thymosins in the blood." Thymosin, it seemed, could trigger the re- role for these people. Our goal is to learn Finally, in the early Seventies. Goldstein lease of hormones in the brain. how. Then we'll put the thymosins into stay- put his theories to the test with a five-year- In subsequent experiments Goldstein healthy pills, to be taken once a day like old girl named Heather, who was suffering learned that thymosins were directly linked vitamin supplements. pill The could add from a condition known as thymic hypo- to other brain systems as well: They could perhaps a years dozen to the maximum plasia. "Her body didn't make enough T stimulate the brain's production of adreno- human life span of one hundred fifteen. But cells," Goldstein explains. "She should have corticotrophic hormone (ACTH), normally

even if it it doesn't, should help us live out weighed sixty to seventy pounds, but she associated with fight-and-flight reactions; in health the years to which we are genet- weighed only twenty-six pounds. She had beta endorphin, the "feel-good" chemical; ically entitled." all sorts of severe infections. In truth, her and prolactin, a growth hormone. Stimu- Twenty-five years ago no one even knew condition was terminal. But five days after lation of ACTH, for instance, caused the what the thymus gland was. Indeed, be- we started her on thymosin, her T cells were adrenal gland to pump out the hormones cause the thymus is first the gland in the- multiplying, her infections had decreased, of stress. Even more interesting, he found, body to atrophy— it weighs 200 to 250 and she was gaining weight," the stress hormones traveled full circle grams at birth, begins to shrink at puberty, Today, Heather is a healthy junior high back to the thymus gland. They shrank the 62 OMNI —

I^^rf* ' lv '-^Mgfcl

gland, turning praduciion of thymosins to maintain a whole complement of char- The first chapter of the DHEA story, and thus release of stress hormones acteristics associated with youth: fertility, though, started more than a decade ago. down. razor-sharp cognitive skills, facile memo- when Temple University cancer re- According to Goldstein, these elaborate ries, fast reflexes, potent wound-healing searcher Arthur Schwartz stumbled upon loops the feedback between thymus and abilities, and even that most intangible of a study of 5,000 women on the British is- the brain are the key to aging itself, 'As we traits, a youthful zest for life. Because these land of Guernsey. The study found that grow older," he says, "there are changes restorative hormones also bathe our skin, those women who eventually developed in -brain chemistry. These changes alter muscles, and bones, these body parts breast cancer had abnormally low levels hormone levels, causing deterioration should retain their youthful structure and of DHEA. It seemed to Schwartz that if low throughout the body. And our studies place appearance as well. levels of DHEA were associated with the the thymosins at the center of this process. "In five to ten years even healthy people presence of cancer, high levels might keep It's even possible that the whole range of will be taking the thymosins on a daily ba- cancer away. brain hormones tails off from optimum lev- sis," Goldstein declares. "Those supple- Schwartz went on to add DHEA and els as soon as the thymus begins to shrink, ments should help to push the average powerful carcinogens to animal cells in before the onset of puberty. The sugges- person's vigorous years upward of eighty culture. The carcinogens alone would have tion is that it's the deterioration of the thy- or ninety simply by boosting the immune resulted in high rates of mutation and cell mus that leads to deterioration of the system. Because we'll also increase the death. But with the addition of DHEA, the brain —and ultimately of the body itself. By level of vital brain hormones, the impact culture continued to grow in perfect health. adding the thymosins back, much of that will probably be greater still." To try to understand these results decay should be set in reverse." While Goldstein wants to reset the aging Schwartz went back to the literature for Goldstein still recalls first that when he clock in the brain with thymosins, other clues. And two things stood out. First of all, developed interest in the field an of aging, substances may also prove to be potent the amount of DHEA in the body was high- his mentor, White, said, Abraham 'Allan, antiaging agents. As it turns out, it might est at age twenty-five or thirty. From that whateveryou do, don't pursue it until you're possible to tap be into the feedback loop point on it decreased until, at age seventy, at least forty-five it's to ruin of because sure aging at any point along the way, And it was at about 5 percent of its peak. your reputation. People will think you're a one of the most promising youth elixirs to Even more interesting, DHEA altered crackpot." Now forty-eight, with the dis- emerge from the brain-thymus feedback metabolism. Excess glucose, Schwartz covery of the thymosins behind him and loop has the jawbreaking name of dehy- explains, is normally stored in the body in pictures of powerful political friends on his droepiandrosterone, or DHEA. One of the the formof fat. But when DHEA was added, office wall, Goldstein can afford to dream: most common steroid substances se- the fat pathway was blocked. The glucose We know for sure that thymosins prime the creted by the adrenal gland, DHEA has re- instead traveled down the only other met- levels of brain hormones involved in repro- cently been shown to protect the thymus abolic pathway available—the energy- duction, growth, and development, he gland, increasing the number of T cells yielding pathway, where it was converted says. Thus should we be able to use them available to fight off infection and disease. to the body's ultimate form of fuel, ATP. 64 OMNI " —

Significant weight loss resulted. beginning: The untreated mice seemed ducing a person's weight." Studies had long shown that low-calorie old. They couldn't move as quickly, and their Many have taken Schwartz's goal to diets prevented some forms of cancer. Now coats were coarse and gray. The DHEA heart. This past summer, when longevity it seemed as if a mysterious cancer pre- mice ran around like pups—and their coats researchers attended the prestigious Gor- ventive, DHEA, acted just like a low-calorie were sleek and black. Says Schwartz, don Conference in the tiny college town of diet, promoting weight loss. Perhaps DHEA "Without a doubt they were aging at a Plymouth, New Hampshire, the big news and low-calorie diets worked in much the slower rate." was that the diet-restriction mechanism same way, Today Schwartz is working with safer, a and the body chemicals that drive it—were If so, Schwartz knew there was a tanta- synthetic analogue of DHEA that he says on the verge of being found. lizing tie-in with aging. Thus far, the only is ten times more potent He still hasn't re- Gathered at the foothills of White Moun- proven means of extending life had been ceived Food and Drug Administration ap- tain, in the solemn lecture halls of the Plym- fasting: Anecdotal evidence came from the proval to test the analogue on humans, but outh State College, the world's top longev- Himalayan Yogis, known for their long lives he expects to receive the go-ahead in a ity researchers were unprepared for the and subsistence diets. And experimental couple of years. And when he does, he weight of evidence that would mount. First evidence came from Cornell University nu- hopes he might see some of the same life German gerontologist Klaus Beyruther re- tritionist Clive McCay, who in 1935 doubled extension effects in people that calorie re- viewed the life cycle of a cell. Ever since the life average span of rats by limiting their striction has in the mice. If animal results published his classic pa- food intake. Not only did other be carried McCay and can over to humans—a distinct per in 1961 it has been known that human researchers eventually use the technique possibility—then the DHEA analogue might cells are mortal: They divide some 60 times to stretch the average life span in a large extend our life spans by as much as 50 over a period of years. Then they suddenly number of mammalian species, the re- percent. In other words, when treated with stop. Beyruther_explained that the amount searchers also found they could increase the supplements a sixty-year-old would, re- of time between each division cycle could what's known as maximum life span—the semble in every respecl the forty-year-old be increased or decreased, depending on age reached by the oldest survivor of a of today. At age one hundred the treated the nutrients present in the petri dish. The population. The implication: Something individual would resemble a healthy per- cells could divide at least 60 times in as basic to the very of mechanism aging had son at sixty-five. little as a year; but it they were virtually been changed. "The goal right now," Schwartz adds, "is starved, the 60 divisions would take three

set to if Schwartz out see that mecha- to understand the mechanism by which times as long. If diet-restricted mice nism, whatever it was, could be affected DHEA seems to promote weight loss and stretched out their life spans because they by DHEA as well. And after eight months longevity. Once we understand what's had less food, perhaps diet-restricted cells he achieved remarkable results, Un- happening during , which did the same. treated mice "were coming down with can- seems to be the same thing that's happen- Also on the agenda was physiologist cer right and left," while those injected with ing when DHEA is consumed, we might Edward Masoro of the University of Texas DHEA had no tumors at all. But the ab- develop a host of DHEA-like substances at San Antonio. When Masoro restricted the or of sence presence cancer was just the that can help us lengthen life—without re- calorie intake of laboratory rats., he ex- tended life spans by 50 percent. Recently, Masoro reported, he had come to suspect that the increase in life span might be due not to a decrease in calories per se but rather to a decrease in a spe- cific component of the diet. To test that no- tion he restricted elements of the everyday

diet, one by one. But it was to no avail. He now believes that diet restriction itself seems to trigger the release of a neuro-

transmitter or hormone, and this, in turn, is

what extends life. "I'm now preparing ex- periments with two guiding principles: What

kind of hormonal change might cause life extension? And how can hormonal re- sponse be modified by calorie restriction? Once we find the answers to these ques- tions, we may be able to home in on the specific biochemical mechanism. Then, and this is a very real possibility, we'll be able to intervene in that mechanism, ac- tually extending life." The mechanism suggested by Masoro.

it turns out, may have been found in what

amounted to the most explosive life exten- sion news in years. Molecular biologists James R. Smith of Baylor Medical College in Houston and Charles K. Lumpkin of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, and their colleagues

said they were zeroing in on a protein that inhibits DMA synthesis in skin cells, literally shutting down the cell.

As Lumpkin, a specialist on aging tells

it, he began to suspect the existence of "We're going bi-pedal tomorrow. Pass it on, such a protein when he learned that old cells, infected with certain viruses, seemed CONTINUED ON PAGE 126 ) long and obsessively on painting, the story goes, that the onl^

M 6Skin substitutes might be made by mixing artificial skin with ceiis stored in a tissue bank when the patient was young3

n their llesh-and-blood bodies Ihe "We've discovered r; s oc:-.:;ible," he says,

way. The forty- six-year- I old American met "to take a fresh wound before it has had in Rio while I was having some alterations the chance lo grow scar tissue and, by fill- myself was undergoing her fifteenth sur- ing in the wound with artificial skin, to guide gical procedure. One short year later she it in the direction of regrowing the tissue asked if I knew a good surgeon in the USA lhat was there. The artiticial skin biode- because she wanted her bottom redone grades as new cells grow into it." for the third time and her eyes for Ihe fourth. "What about lest-tube skin — cultured the New to De Kooning syndrome, I was skin — the kind Nicholas O'Connor, the just beginning to find more room lor im- plastic surgeon right here in Boston, put

on myself I provement when ran into Gore on those two famous little brothers who Vidal and Paul Newman, and Gore said, were burned over eighty percent of their "You're looking good, but why'd you stop bodies? Why -s artifcal skin belter?" I ask,

It at Ihe neck?" I hadn't been nursing my referring to Ihe skir-cicinq procedure de- daughter Gaby. I told him, I would have lain where loannis Yannas, the inventor of arti- veloped by Howard Green of Harvard right down there on the slab like every- ficial skin, has just told me he's also regen- Medical School and implemented in the body else in Rio and had a total overhaul. erated the sciatic nerve of a rat by sever- brothers' case by O'Connor and Dr. Greg- philosophy," Paul "My volunteered, look- ing it, removing a two -thirds -inch piece, and ory Gallico, another great plastic surgeon ing better than he ever did at thirty, "is to fitting a polymer-filled tube into the gap. from Boston. They took two centimeters of do everything you can do to yourself until But the intense, darling-eyed scientist has skin from the boys' armpits and saved the you can't do any more. Then check out." also nearly to shown me the door of his brothers' lives by reproducing enough of it

After researching this article. I have news clutter-filled rooms at the university be- to cover their entire bodies. for Paul. He may not have to slam that racer cause of the following exchange: "They "Everybody talks about those two boys," into a cement retaining wall when osteo- don't know you in Ihe news office." Yannas complains, "but there are more than porosis takes over. Thanks to a blurring of "That's because I'm not a medical writer. one hundred and twenty patients walking the lines separating biochemistry, physics, I'm an. actress, and when I write, I usually around right now on whom we put our ar- engineering, medicine, and surgery, eter- write kind of quirky things." tificial skin." nal youth may around the corner. "I be am not quirky. My work is not quirky," The artificial skin, as it biodegrades,

I begin at the engineering school oi MIT, he says, in the formal, accented English of stimulates the regeneration oi the dermis the' normative speaker. (the dermis lies under the epidermis). The But the public relations man told artificial Previous page: laser eyelid cosmetic surgery who me skin is actually an arrangement of Yannas has "already by Sachs. This oagf.-, iaockw;:-.^ from lower let!): been burned by the collagen fibers, and it's that arrangement, election micrograph cj young skin; electron 'National Enquirer" convinces him that I'm Yannas says, that makes the difference micrograph ot old, degenerating skin; Yan- on a nonquirky mission, so he consents to between scar tissue and the new skin when

1 1 ;'* nas-Burke artificial skin: Sac/. . tissue day give me 20 minutes of his time. it grows in. The Yannas-Burke skin (Dr. 70 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 136 want to tell you about the end of war, the degeneration of mankind, and the death of the messiah—an epic story, deserving thousands of pages and a whole shelf of

volumes, but you— if there are any of "you" later on to read this —will have to settle for the freeze- dried version. The direct

injection works very fast. I figure I've got somewhere

PAINTING BY RUDOLF HAUSNER forty-five between minutes and two hours, selves and to each other. I saw them 'ranscrbed so :h-ar. :he lagging motor con- depending on my blood type. I think it's A, squabble lots of times, but I never saw them trol no longer became an evaluative factor, should which give me a little more time, but fight. When I was growing up. the only dif- you would have thought you were reading

I'll if be goddamned I can remember for ference 1 saw between my mom and my the work of a bright, if extremely naive, ju- sure. If it turns out to be 0, you could be in playmates' moms was that their moms used nior high school student, Sometimes his for a lot of blank pages, my hypothetical to read or iron or sew or talk on the phone syntax was garbled and his modifiers, friend. I think maybe I better assume the while the soaps played on the tube, and, misplaced; but he had such flaws—which

worsf and I go as fast as can. I'm using the my mom used to run a pocket calculator plague most writers alt their lives— pretty electric typewriter—Bobby's word pro- and write down numbers on big green well under control by age five. cessor is faster but ihe genny's cycle is too sheets ot paper while the soaps played. He developed headaches. My parents irregular to be trusted, 'even with the volt- I was no disappointment to a couple of were afraid he had some sort of physical age regulator. I've only got shot this; people one at with Mensa cards in their wallets. I problem—a brain tumor, perhaps—and

I can't risk ge:ing mcs'. of the way home maintained A and B averages through my took him to a doctor who examined him then seeing the and whole thing go to data public-school career (the idea that either I carefully, listened to him even more care- heaven because of an ohm drop. or my brother might go to a private school fully, and then told my parents there was

is Fornoy. 1 My name Howard was a free- was never even discussed, so far as I nothing wrong wrh Bobby except stress: lance writer. brother. Robori My Fornoy, was know], I also wrote well early, with no effort He was in a stale of extreme frustration be- the messiah. I killed him by shooting him at all. I sold my first magazine piece when cause his hand would not work as well as

his I up with own discovery four hours ago. was twenty— it was on how the Continen- his brain. "You got a kid trying to pass a

called it Calmative. He The A Real Big Mis- tal Army wintered at Valley Forge. I sold it mental kidney stone," the doctor said. "I take might have been a better name, but to an airline magazine for four hundred fifty could prescribe something for his head- what's is can't dollars. I done done and be undone, My dad, whom loved and do love aches, but I think the drug he really needs as the Irish have been saying for centuries deeply, asked me if he could buy that check is a typewriter." So Mom and Dad gave

. . . which proves what assholes they are. from me. He gave me his own personal Bobby an IBM. A year later they gave him

Shit, I can't afford Ihese digressions. a Commodore 64 with a WordStar pro-

After Bobby ci od I covered him with a gram for Christmas, and Bobby's head- quilt, sat at ihe of this window just . . cabin aches stopped . although he really be- north of North Conway, New Hampshire, lieved for the next two or three years that it for some three hours, looking out at the big was Santa Claus who put that word •/ went nothing. Used to be you could see the or- cruncher under the tree. glow of the high-intensity ange arc-so- running after him. Visions Now that I think of it, that was maybe the diums from town, but no more. Now there's I I of his body only other place where beat Bobby; just the White Mountains, looking like dark Santa :rainoc earlier, too. pieces of crepe cut out child. - tumbling off that stupid paper by a I could go on, and will have to, at least a and the pointless stars. ' little, but I'll have to go last. The deadline. . saddie and

I turned on the radio, dialed through four Ah. the deadline. I once read a very funny impaling itself on a tree bands, found one crazy guy, and shut it piece called "The Essential Gone with !he off, I there thinking tell sat of ways to this stood out with Wind" that went like this: " A war?' laughed

1 story. My mind kepi s icing away toward all Scarlett. 'Oh, fiddledeedee! Boom! hideous clarity in my mindJ that nothing. Finally I realized I needed to Charleston was taken! Ashley died! At- get myself off the dime and shoot myself lanta burned! Rhett walked in and then up. Shit, I never could work without a walked out! 'Fiddledeedee,' said Scarlett

deadline. Well, I got one now. through her tears. 1 will think about it to-

morrow, for tomorrow is another day' " I Our parents had. no reason to expect check had ihe from the airline and check laughed heartily over that when I read it; anything other than what they bright got: magazine framed and hung over his desk. now that I'm faced with doing it, it doesn't children. Dad was a history major who had Sweet guy. Of course he and my mother seem quite so funny. But here goes. become a full professor at Hofstra at thirty. both died raving and pissing in their 'A child with an 1,0. immeasurable by Ten years later he was one of six vice ad- pants— like most of .the human race— late any existing test?" smiled India Fornoy to ministrators of the National Archives in last year, but I never stopped loving either her devoted husband. Richard. "Fiddle- Washington, DC. and in line lor the top spot. of them. deedee! We'll provide an atmosphere shit, Good too. Had a whole Chuck Berry I was the sort of child they had every where his intellect— not to mention that of collection, my dad. He filed by day and reason to expect: a good boy who grew his something-less-than-moronic older rocked by night. Mom graduated cum up in an atmosphere of love and confi- brother—can 'grow, And we'll raise them laude from Drew. Business administration. dence, a bright boy who tound a consid- as the normal. all-American boys they by Got Phi a Beta Kappa key she sometimes erable talent and put it to work. gosh are!" Boom! The Fornoy brothers wore on this funky fedora she had. She be- Bobby was different. Bobby wasn't jus! grew up! Howard went to Rutgers, gradu- came a successful CPA in DC, met my dad. bright, he was a bona fide genius. ated cum laude. and settled down to a married him. took in her shingle and when I potty trained two years earlier than Bob; freelance-wriling career! Made a comfort- she became with I pregnant yours truly. that was the only thing in which I ever beat able living! Stepped out with a lot of women came along in 1980. By '84 she doing was him. But I never felt jealous of him; that and went to bed with more than a few of taxes for some ol my dad's associates as would have been like a fairly good high- them! Managed to avoid social diseases a "hobby." By the time Bobby was born in school pitcher feeling jealous of Catfish both sexual ana oha'msco oqical! Bought 1987, she was hand' ng taxes.- investment Hunter or Ron Guidry. After a certain point a Curtis-Mathis TV and a Mitsubishi stereo portfolios, and estate pann'ng for a dozen the comparisons -that cause feelings of system! Wrote home at least once a week! powerful men. I could name them, but-who jealousy simply cease to exist. I've been Published two novels that did pretty well! gives fuck? They're either a dead or dri- there, and I can tell you:- You just stand back "Fiddledeedee," said Howard, "this is the veling idiots by now. and shield your eyes from the flash burns. life for me!" And so it was, at least until the I think she probably made more out of Bobby read at two and began writing at day Bobby showed up with his two glass her "hobby" each year than my dad made "three. His printing was Ihe straggling, boxes, a bee's nest in one and a wasp's at his job, but that never mattered— they ' struggling galvanic constructions of a six nest in the other, Bobby wearing a Mum- were happy with what they were' to them- year-old. . .startling enough in itself; but if ford Phys. Ed. T-shirt inside out in the best 74 OMNI CON - INUL3 ON PAGE 144

—

The vast bulk of the space shut- TEST ORBIT USING RHESUS tle (facing page) sits on the MONKEYS (BELOW LEFT) AND LAB TESTS WITH tiny Johnston Is- launchpad at MEN {BOTTOM) land in the equatorial Pacific PAVED WAY FOR MANNED Ocean. It is a monster rocket SPACEFLIGHT. as high as a 24-story building, ESCAPE PODS (LEFT AND more than 100 feet taller than the BELOW) WERE Statue of Liberty. The 65-foot- PART OF THE SHUTTLE. diameter base houses 51 mas- sive engines, which will lift the 7,000-ton rocket from the earth. As the dawn countdown reaches zero and 5,000 tons of volatile nitric acid and hydra- zine ignite, the shuttle heaves skyward on a mile-long column of flame. The first and second stages separate, parachuting back into the ocean for even- tual recovery and reuse, and the glider-winged, manned third for its fiction, its exposes of the Army Ordnance Guided stage soars into Earth orbit, government corruption, and its Missile Command: Fred Whip- 1,075 miles above the planet. scoops on the latest scientific ple, chairman of astronomy at Here its ten astronauts begin developments. Eventually the Harvard University; Joseph unloading the 36 tons of cargo editors decided to investigate Kaplan, professor of physics at they have ferried into space: the feasibility of space travel in UCLA; Heinz Haber of the U.S. the (then) near future. Air Force Department of Space In 1951 managing editor Gor- Medicine; and the sympo- don Manning decided Collier's sium's general adviser, Willy should hold a symposium on the Ley, an authority on space travel subject. He gathered a team of and rocketry. experts who would dedicate To translate the ideas of Von themselves to exploring the Braun and Ley into the pictures possibility of space travel. shown here, the team chose The team Manning assem- artists Chesley Bonestell, whose bled included Wernher von work had often appeared in Braun, then technical direct"'' of Collier's; Fred Freeman, an- building materials for the great wheel-shaped structure loom- ing close by (inset, page 76). When completed in 1963 the 250-foot-diameter space sta- tion (pages 76 and 77) will house 80 technicians, scien- tists, and astronauts Then the crew begins the next phase of their mission: a manned land- ing on Earth's moon in 1964. This is how our space pro- gram could have evolved if, in 1952, the editors and consul- tants of a magazine called Col- lier's had had their way. One of four top-circulation magazines that flourished in the Forties and the Fifties, Collier's was famous . Once the manned orbital flights were successful the con- struction of the space station would follow. The completion of the station was slated for 1963.

It not only provided a platform for observation of the earth but was the base of operations tor Ihe construction of the fleet of spaceships that would eventu- ally make the trip to the The space-station design has become a classic; a twin- spoked wheel 250 feet in di- ameter and a giant inner-tube- shaped rim 30 teet wide, di- vided into three concentric floors (see the large drawing on pages 76 and 77). The wheel's other Collier's veteran; and rying three rhesus monkeys. technical illustrator Rolf Klep. The 30-foot cone—200 miles During the two-year course oi above Earth—would orbit for 60 the magazine series a lull-scale days. Eventually ii would reen-

' space program was outlined. In ter the atmosphere, incinerat- the opinion of ihe Collier's sym- ing like a meteor. (The monkeys posium the United States could would be, thoughtfully, first have an artificial satellite in or- given a dose of lethal gas.) bit by 1963 and a 50-rnan ex- The preliminaries for manned pedition to the moon by 1964, spaceflight would follow: exten- all supported by a fleet of giani sive physical and psychologi- shuttle rockets and a manned cal testing, the development of rotation used centrifugal force space station. And all at a cost a space suit, special tools, es- to generate gravity. The rim was of only $4 billion! cape pods— every necessary divided into numerous depart- Their first step would be the detail. The authors also speci- ments, including meteorology, launch of a "baby satellite," an fied that women would be in- communications, astronomy, unmanned artificial moon car- cluded from the beginning. and medical research. The sta- tion was also equipped with a minifleet of space taxis for in- traorbital maneuvering. While the magazine's letter columns were filled mostly with enthusiastic comments, the Collier's scenario prompted mixed reactions from others. Time magazine's editors, for example, admonished that an

"oversold public . . , happily- mixing fact and fiction, appar- EARLY ROCKET (RIGHT); ently believes ihat spaceflight is ITS NOSE CONE, just around ihe corner." A BABY SATELLITE (ABOVE RIGHT); AND But the public was right. Col- EARTH TRACKING STATION lier's surely can take some (ABOVE). SPACE- credit for the enthusiastic sup- STATION TRAINING (TOP) port the event received when AND FLIGHT the United States launched its TO ORBIT (FACING PAGE) irst Satellite four years later.DO —

EXPLORATIOnJS BDDM CONTINUED FROM PAGE «S threatening situations, but put them in sit- of the brain's capacity lor work will help to uations where they can use those natural determine a particular person's "boggle abilities," he adds, CompuCrazy point," when a normal brain stops proc- Wild gibbons, for example, spend 70 essing information because it's over- percent of their time foraging for food. loaded. The information could also be in- "That's the beauty of their behavior—the strumental when custom-designing an air fact that they run between Irees, pick the traffic controller's console or an aircraft best fruit, find another tree, goon like that," cockpit. The tool would be made to fit the he says. Yet in captivity, with their large user rather than requiring the user to fit an canines and rapierlike nails, "they typically mprcpe r y ces gned tool. are fed by having food thrown on the floor Medicine ultimately may be the biggest through a slot so they can't get the keeper." beneficiary of current MEG research. Par- In one of his first Portland projects Mar- kinson's disease, chronic pain, manic kowitz devised an apparatus that enabled depression, and schizophrenia could be the zoo's gibbons to obtain food by swing- diagnosed more precisely and thus treated ing between two elevated stations. New more effectively. But epilepsy is the ail- animals learned the technique from the ment for which MEG research may have animals involved in the original experi- the most immediate application. ment, and for the few gibbons who chose Doctors nearly always use EEGs to draw not to participate, food was provided in the maps ol epileptic spikes, the brain cells' usual way. "It's not as if any of this stuff is electromagnetic emissions that indicate forced on them," Markowilz says. "They seizures. EEGs record the brain's electri- choose it themselves." cal signals. Unfortunately, the skull distorts Predators pose a ticklish problem. They. those signals. In a few instances doctors too, get bored. One way to pique their in- have had to drill holes in patients' skulls— terest would be to give them the chance to sometimes as many as 100 holes—to place kill another animal. Zoos, understandably. electrodes close to the brain, and this is a are squeamish about this idea. very risky business. Insects are about the only live food zoos

MEG, on the other hand, uses passive will serve. Markowitz, in fact, once built scanners outside the skull and can reliably three cricket dispensers for an exhibit of deteel and localize the same epileptic Asian river otters at the now defuncl Ma- spikes magnetically—with no distortion. rine World/Africa USA in California. Visitors Indeed, Dr. Giovanni Ricci of Rome's Insti- pressed buttons to determine which dis- tute of Neurosurgery recently used MEG penser would yield the next cricket. No- in three cases to pinpoint epileptic tissue body shed any tears for the insects, al- prior to surgery. though keepers did stage a mock protest People may revive from comas more called the Save the Crickets Movement quickly if stimulated, but finding what stim- and, in fun. picketed an employee party. ulus works best with a particular person Real blood and guts, however, do not go light, sound, touch— presents a problem. over big with first graders on field trips. So With a good brain map and MEG, doctors Markowitz has built exhibits to trick captive could quickly determine which stimuli reach predators into showing off their predatory the brain and then go on to select appro- skills without shedding blood. For a zoo in priate treatment. During the 1973 Arab-Is- Hawaii he designed fake, mechanical prey raeli war, Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, director to attract the zoo's tigers. By scratching a of New York University's Head Trauma Unit, fake tree with a built-in sensor, the tigers noticed that soldiers who could not con- caused a fake rabbit and a fake squirrel to You never know centrate because of head traumas re- pop out of two artificial mounds in the ex- covered more quickly if exposed to sen- hibit (Tigers in the wild often scratch irees who you'll be up against sory stimulation — flashing lights or noise. as a prelude to hunting.) If the tiger caught when you go online At Los Alamos, Ed Flynn is preparing to its prey—that is, swatted it or pounced on extend Ben-Yishay "s work to comatose pa- it—another device would deliver refriger- with CompuServe; tients. Flynn will soon scan children born ated meat to the exhibit. The tigers got ex- in comas, hoping to establish ways of dif- ercise and amusement; zoo visitors got a ferentiating active and comatose areas in chance to see tigers at work. the brain. But therein lies the paradox of the bet- Only hard-hearted Malthusians quibble ter-zoo movement. Zoos seek ever more with improving medicine, but MEG prom- naturalistic environments: yet no zoo, Mar- ises other technological improvements, kowitz contends, really wants to re-create some raising ethical questions. Flynn's Los the wild. "Nobody wants nature in the zoo Alamos group is using MEG to study how because nobody wants to see Bambi die," simple, sounds like ba, da, and ga are he says. "Nobody wants to see the way processed mechanically in the ear. They animals really make their living." hope to apply this knowledge in the area Mgrkowitz believes that his machines CompuServe* of artificial intelligence. Though the. CIA can restore at least some of their lost rights won't discuss its MEG research, MEG of- and powers. "We have an obligation," he fers potential tor a more sophisticated says, "because we have taken those things generation of lie detectors. DO away from them." DQ I — .

indefatigable crusaders for life extension. shrimp special with three white wines. DAVID BROWN "You just aren't used to the seventeen- Yarborough, who's always been a sci- As a twenty-nine-year-old consultant with thousand-foot altitude here in Laramie," ence buff, first got interested in aging re- NASA, David Brown saw his career pros- Smith-Sonneborn said as she mopped my search 'more than a quarter century ago. pects soar when the Eagle landed fevered brow with her lab coat and watched "I'd been reading science journals for smoothly, courtesy of the landing gear he'd me swallow a Coca-Cola whole. years, and the more I read, the more 1 designed for NASA's first lunar module. But Likewise, the week before, California started to notice that we were on the verge this former space engineer turned real es- physicist Richard Hochschild tested my of a scientilic revolution in the aging field," tate magnate turned financier turned en- physiological age with his highly ac- he says. "Every year it seemed as if the ergy-management executive is also a pas- claimed and accurate H-Scan machine. control of aging were'getting to be more sionate life extension philanthropist.

"You actually look young for your age," he and more feasible." "Remember when they said it was utterly kindly offered, along with a Kleenex, when When he launches into a long recitation impossible to land a man on the moon?" the H-Scan's cold computer printout pro- of why he firmly believes that physical sal- he asks. "Now they say it's impossible to nounced me five years my senior. vation is at hand, he both sounds and looks substantially prolong life. Well, we man-

All in all it was a humbling, harrowing like evangelist Billy Graham, except that aged that giant step for mankind, and we odyssey but well worth the effort. The five Yarborough's steel-gray crew cut could can manage this one, too." charismatic leaders profiled here are truly never be "moussed" into a pompadour. Still in the habit of thinking for himself. inspirational revolutionaries, reminders that With a pinbailing speed that leaves a lis- Brown vehemently rejects the prevailing attitude and action can change the course tener breathless, Yarborough ricochets myth that the prospect of death is what of history and alter our view of reality. By from subject to subject: on the govern- gives life meaning. "I disagree," he says normal standards these enthusiastic ad- ment's obligation to save the lives of its quietly, sipping iced tea and ordering vocates of life extension might seem opin- people, on the NIA's (National Institute of mushroom soup and blackened redfish. ionated, hard-headed, egocentric, and Aging) need to spend more on the me- "Unless you're a very religious person, I

single-minded, but who can deny that theirs chanics of aging , on the promise of protein think it's exactly the opposite: Death is what is at least a beautiful obsession? Among makes life not have very much meaning." the most articulate, altruistic activists in the The son of a poor railway postal clerk, field, Ihey confront the fate that most of us Brown is still recovering from his father's deny, refusing to succumb without a fight. sudden death from a pulmonary embolism Meanwhile, those of us who remain as re- several months ago. "Both my parents were '•Most people signed to death as we are to taxes—and very devout Christians," Brown says, men- five years beyond our chronological age don't confront death until they tioning the trip to the Holy Land he sent can only sit back and wish them the very them on, "but I'm afraid I'm more of an ag- have to, but It's best of luck. nostic. I hope God is out there, but I sus- ' hard to understand how a pect he isn't. But even without God's help

it DON YARBOROUGH ' we have within our power to save our- - rational person Striding into the Clear Springs Cafe, a selves," he declares. "What's stopping us, confront it century-old barn turned saloon near New who does aside from a 'critical dearth of funding, is Braunfels, Texas, big, barrel-chested Don wouldn't want the almost universal tendency to deny Yarborough seems the kind of larger-than- death's existence. Most people don't con- to do something about it3 life Texas character all the myths are made front death until they have to, but frankly, of. So is his gunslinger attitude toward it's hard for me to understand how a ra- death. "Death is just like a bounty hunter tional person who does confront it wouldn't or a hired gun out to get you; you can stand want to do something about it." there quaking in your boots or hiding un- Claiming he's far from an ideal execu- der the covers until he finds you, or you engineering, on the heartening advances tive—prone to giving sketchy instructions can try te do something ahead of time to in sophisticated laboratory tools, on the and losing his patience— he delegates save yourself." plethora of biotech companies now much of his energy- management compa-

Yarborough began his career as a law- scrambling to beat down death's door . . ny's business to others and spends an ex- yer with a nine-man Houston firm, then went on and on and on. tensive amount of his own time and money on to amass self-made millions with Finally, taking one deep breath and one advancing the cause of life extension. shrewdly purchased real estate in Houston big gulp, Yarborough concludes his tent- Brown is an original member of the Alli- and along the Austin-San Antonio corridor revival sermon by hazarding a guess that ance for Aging and the founder of the before the big boom fizzled out. With yet a way to cure genetic disease may come Foundation for the Enhancement and Ex- anotherfamity to raise (he's on his third wife as soon as Christmas. Just how long would tension of Life (FEEL), a nonprofit organi-

and sixth child), this backsliding Episco- he like to give himself? "Well, I enjoy life an zation designed to fund research projects palian is understandably loath to give up awful lot, and if it stays as good as it is, I and engender more public interest in the all this prime acreage for an eight- by four- would love to go on another fifty or one control of aging. The money Brown spends foot burial plot. hundred years at least." on this venture is strictly his own, he's care-

Though he keeps abreast of every de- Asked if he personally fears death, Yar- ful to say, not his stockholders'. velopment in the field of aging and has borough pauses thoughtfully and then an- Using the modest, not the royal, "we"

funded life extension research lo a high swers in the second person. "Well, I think throughout our talk, Brown specifies his six-figure tune, some prices are too high to as you get older you get less and less afraid foundation's projects to date. "We've put pay even for the gift of life. of it.-. . . Like everybody else you've just about half our money into research, espe- "I'm bad about exercise. In fact, I'm fat," been programmed to accept that that's cially seed money for various experimental he declares, patting the beer belly under- what's gonna happen, so the program just things. For instance, we gave money to help neath his tennis shirt, which doesn't even takes over and makes you more almost develop accurate physiological biomark- qualify him as paunchy by Texas stan- matter-of-fact about it." ers, since it's impossible to study aging if dards. "I play a little tennis, do some walk- Not that he'd go willingly. "If some doctor you can't measure it." At the same time, he ing, and a lot oftalking," he cracks. "I don't said I had just a year to live, I'd spend most adds, the foundation funded a controver- smoke but do like to eat and drink in mod- of my time doin' everything I could to lick it sial project with University of California at

it eration, and I just hate to diet," he adds before licked me. That just fits my per- Berkeley research scientists Paul Segall unnecessarily, washing down his fried- sonality," he says and Paolo Timiris in the field of , or B6 OMNI —

body freezing. "You know ihe Robert Frosi Foundation for Medical Research. "I also chemical intervention that might increase poem about ending in fire or ice?" he asks. got involved with , who our DNA-iGpair capability might help," he

"Well, give me ice, since it won't be long developed the free-radical theory of aging sums up, "but frankly, fifty-five looks pretty before we'll be able to achieve true hiber- twenty-six years ago; we supported his old to me right now. it's about the seventh nation, ready to be lhawed when whatever work and also Johann Bjorksten's cross- inning of the ball game for me." killed us can be cured." link theory of aging, and we scattered In the meantime he does what he can to Despite receiving the standard tax write- money around in various directions for a save himself. "I avoid liquor, I've never off for nonprofit charities, FEEL is fiscally a lot of years," he sighs, "without what you'd smoked, I've never even gotten married," losing proposition for Brown but one that really call a breakthrough. I'd say most in- he says, laughing, though he has come might reap priceless long-term benefits— vestigators would concede that we still close several times. Though described by in his lifetime. "Like most of my fellow life don't know much about the aging process. friends as tail, thin, robust, and perpetually extensionists, I'm insatiably curious—and "But," he continues, "we do know a lot smiling, with a zip-a-dee-doo-dah cheer- selfish," he says. "I have a very enjoyable more than we did when I got started, and fulness, Glenn has a nasty-sounding cough this life, one in which I can basically go where now we have the tools and the techniques day, as he details his health regimen; Pritikin low-calorie, low-protein, high-car- I want, do what I wanf , and buy what I want. to make cells give up their secrets, and a But there's simply no way, with a normal life more importantly—we have better re- bohydrate diet; a lot of vitamins; and sup- span, to do or experience all that I'd like. searchers with better ideas than ever be- plements like selenium, choline, and sev-

it eral in Besides, I really enjoy being productive— fore. So while may sound contradictory other compounds—though taken and reproductive, too," he adds, pausing to say that I'm far more pessimistic than much smaller amounts than by the fearless to boast about his three grown children. anybody else, I'm also still an optimist." likes of Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw. "We "There must be some kind of a God," he He's more a clear-eyed than a cock- simply don't know the long-term effects of says with a twinkle, "because love and sex eyed opfimist, though. Reminded that sev- those megadoses, and I don't have the are actually good for your health." eral well-respected scientists, including courage to be a guinea pig." he says. Like

As for wanting to live longer: "I want as Roy Walford and Joan Smith-Sonneborn, Yarborough and Brown, Glenn finds it hard

life. "I many years of healthy life as possible. I think now predict the likelihood of major break- to mix hard exercise with the easy the ideal situation would be if everyone throughs in ihe next five to ten years, Glenn do play a lot ot golf and carry my own bag could live as long as they wanted to," he impatiently snaps, "Yes, they do believe and almost jog," he says, "but I probably adds altruistically. "A thousand years that. But on the other hand. I've been hear- get more exercise just going nineteen hours sounds good to me." ing statements like that for a long, long a day like I do." time"—an understandable attitude for a He sadly agrees that his life is more pur- PAUL GLENN man who has been hearing for 30 years poseful than pleasurable. "I spend three For the past 30 years business tycoon that his check is in the mail and has yet to quarters of my iime making money and one Paul Glenn has been the Santa Claus of receive a single dividend. quarter of my time deciding how to give it life extension, donating well over $2 million "It seems logical to me to expect that a away," he says. "Still, making money is fun, of his own money to aging research. Dur- combination of life-style, exercise,. and and so is participating in the creative proc- ing a lengthy conversation from his home CONTINUEDQ! in Scottsdale, Arizona, Glenn is graciously expansive, delivering a lucid assessment of how things stand in the field and where he stands, pausing several limes to vol- unteer a dozen different names and phone numbers that might prove helpful. Despite the reams of factual data Glenn rattled off with computer-printout speed, his feelings are exposed just as fully and expressed with heartfelt candor.

"Being an only child, life had always been

very pleasant; I was treated like a crown prince, essentially, and was exposed to a very rosy view of fhe world. So in my late teens, when I watched my granddad die of cancer, if was shocking to see the tougher side of reality and confront the

presence of death. I resolved then ihat since nothing was more valuable than healthy human life, trying to help extend

human life was the most valuable thing I could do in this world. However," he drolly interjects, "because my dad had brain- washed me into first making money in the business world, I did. But the aging thing stayed on my mind." In 1965, already a.self-made millionaire", Glenn became friends with an early cham- pion for the rights of the aged, Florence Mahoney, best known for ramrodding. the NIA through Congress over Richard Nix- on's vehement objections. She impressed on this young idealist [he critical .import- ance of establishing an organization to serve as a visible, effective power base. Taking her advice, he formed the Glenn- —

The way we age is undergoing a profound transformation. Today's middle-aged

man is the next century's youth LIFELINES BY SUSAN ELLIS

You're probably wondering why better half (left side of body, right the man above looks so strange. side of picture) is what the forty- He is forty years old, but the two year-old man of the twenty-first halves of his body live in different century will look, and feei, like centuries. The right side of his if longevity research is allowed to body (left side of picture) repre- develop its potential. sents the forty-year-old male of Why must we grow old and die? 1986: skin sagging, hairline re- What triggers the settling of ceding, muscles stiffening. But his bones, the shifting of flesh, the PAINTING BY KUNIO HAGIO resculpting of contours? The an- swers are still being worked out by an energetic core of scientific researchers. And from that work a new pattern may emerge, one in which the life span of the hu- man being verges on immortality.

It doesn't occur to the average young man that the aging proc- ess has already begun. But by age twenty-five, he has already shrunk slightly so that by forty- five he will have lost an eighth of an inch in height. He has also grown hairier, but not where it TODAY'S FORTY-YEAR- counts. On the top of his head, an OLD (THIS PAGE, male overload of the hormone CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT): testosterone is short-circuiting THE EYE'S LENS hair growth. His skull is thicken- HARDENS, HINDERING ing, enlarging the head's circum- CLOSE VIEWING; ference about one-quarter inch HAIRS SHRINK; TASTE every ten years. His shoulders are BUDS DECLINE narrowing, and muscle mass is IN NUMBER; CONNECTIVE TISSUE REPLACES yielding to fat— in deference to BODY'S MUSCLE FIBER, muscle fail regener- cells that to CAUSING THE ate and repair themselves. His MUSCLE5 TO STIFFEN; vocal cords have stiffened, pitch- SKIN THINS ing his speaking voice higher. And AND SPREADS, LOSING because the brain takes slightly ELASTICITY AND more time to process information, BAGGING IN MIDSECTION. TWENTY- FIRST- CENTURY MAN: HIGH-TECH FITNESS TESTS WILL HELP OPTIMIZE EXERCISE REGIMENS, CONDITIONING MUSCLES FOR LONGEVITY (ABOVE AND TOP RIGHT); DRUGS WILL PROTECT VISION (MIDDLE LEFT); HORMONE-BASED FORMULAS WILL

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THIEVES

PTOLEMY A TALE OF THE TRIGENTENNIRL BYLEODAUGHERTY

l was the year of [he

Tricentennial; 2076. I was up on Ptolemy, working the traveling bubbledome-carnival circuit with a peripatetic three-card-monte game thai brought in steady money without putting much of a hurt on folks.

I'd been a preacher back on Earth in one of the biggest and most powerful of the

I evangelical TV transnational. I thought was

up-and-coming in the firm, so I was damned surprised to be assigned way the hell oul to Ptolemy to do this straight-out missionary shot for the pioneers. But it was my Call, and

I accepted it with a fighting simulation of a cheerful heart. 1 was ready to drop Earth like a hot potato anyway, just like everybody else you met down there at the time who could get his hands on a Geiger counter: We are. as the saying goes, talking Main Chance here. So I was really about as amazed as anybody else when I up and ran off to follow the circus just ten days after I stepped down

PAINTING BY AUDREY FLACK —

Irom the Goddard onto thai hoi, hard, or- cryotrauma slave case— or, as the slang ferred to in-house as Stepin Fetchit. And

it, "Frank" those serve slave ange ground ot Piolemy. But I had to go. had a —who would meet those Franks— bought to as

AH it took was one good look at the master surface aesthetic criteria, who would work labor for eternity—were Ptolemy- bound. program they'd put together for the pi- tor less than a kid off the street, who would What Argentina did not tell the Com- oneers up there— particularly the nestled worship the person he or she worked for, pany—and, in fact, may not have known, behavioral subroutines conlrolling subject and who could be taught to do a job about since some of these Franks were scraped attitudes toward sex, death, money, and as well as anybody else. (Frank is diminu- off Earth's freeways as early as the 1990"s tive for the that the majority of had, in fact, the work ethic. A very big fix was in, and I name people remember as be- was them to to skill- just figured I couldn't be a part of it and still longing the poor creature invented by been previously programmed be specific live with myself. So since I couldn't get of! Mary Shelley and played by Boris Karloff slaves of various kinds (usually

it consent, Piolemy, all I could do was head out like in the movies.) Not too many folks knew done with the subject's in return any old Huckleberry Finn. then or know it now, but back on Earth in for a guaranteed minimum wage plus ben- first of this after But I found out fast that I was not the only the part the century they had efits—illegal 1997 but not before) and runaway fruit fly on this blazing little Sun- international project in cryogenic medi- that sometimes that ancient circuitry had

Till kisl ball. I quickly ran into the small cadre cine called Freeze Fix. They were using not been even half-assedly yanked out by of painted ladies and smiling-doggie. small- people killed in accidents, car crashes the people who awakened these marginal time con artists that had sprung up like a mostly, as cryogenic-research subjects; citizens years later from their deep, icy beds cheap bouquet of paper wildf lowers on the and they simply fast-froze these bits of into the new servitudinal warmth of Frank- edges of the Company's nearly limitless highway unhappiness until the time when dom. So—when I set myself up to interview bureaucracy. All of these folks had been they could mend them in a manner suffi- potential slaves in my vanilla-scented hotel something else, sometime; but they had cient to make that depressing old blue, flal room on the first day of my vacation, one found out fast in the Ptolemaic outback that line turn into some of your merry little hop- of my main concerns, obviously, was to nail they would have to metamorphose their skip-and-jump vital signs. So when the big any previous enslavement programs that former arts and skills into things that could cryogenics breakthrough came in theThir- might still be in there. For example, you

turn them a fast buck Me, I metamor- wouldn't want a slave for your three-card- phosed a Trinitarian ministry into a little monte shill who'd been previously pro- three-card-monte routine. At the first pang grammed to garrote any inquisitive person asked, "What's going on here?" of hunger, I saw the transformational light, who

it. After interviewing five or six seriously I decided live in and by The Com- and to '•Comac pany tolerated the ladies as a biological fucked-up Franks during all of one typi- necessity, and it tolerated us con artists as was sitting in a huge walnut cally steamy Monday' on Ptolemy, I got dis- that time-honored, necessary distraction couraged and began to despair of finding rocking chair; that has always been called entertain- anybody who'd be really first-rate —who'd ment. But the Company stood still for the in his lap was a squealing, provide smooth, suave, intelligent-seem-

shill, all while being existence of both groups on the sole con- ' half-grown hog ing service as a the dition that it got its fair tithed share from the dominated to hell and gone by a good old with the smooth, translucent slave-mentality that ren- hookers and from us. So, yeah, I was al- neurochip would lowed to live—and to live outside the hid- pinkness of the der him happy only in the total service of a

myself. I eous Company prison— only because I of- perfect master such as stood up, erstwhile piglet still upon him.V fered the workforce a small opportunity to stretched, and strolled out into the white let off a little diversionary steam via a spot fluorescent hall. And I hunkered down and of indulgence in some floating three-card. sort of somnambulistically began dealing

Alas, after two finger-callusing years, the some three-card on the hall carpet. Sure, I trouble inevitably got to be what the trouble was on vacation, but I'd been dealing this

I always gets to be: I couldn't make enough ties, they brought about halt of these peo- game nonstop for two years, and didn't

it money to live. Three-card is like the old shell ple back fasterthan you could say "bioeth- know how to quit. I even did in my sleep. game in that you really need a partner to ical questions of terrifying magnitude." I soon had me a perfect embryonic au- shill it for you. Somebody to talk the rubes But—without the accompanying renais- dience of Iwo or three fat. drugged-out in and keep them in. And somebody good sance in bionics and the sudden appear- Company execs there in the hall, sitting enough at acting to play the capper's role ance of the infamous parting-out busi- around on the thick, periwinkle blue car- on occasion—to pretend to be a mark who nesses on the black market, we would not pet, and they started losing a little money this is beating you at your own game. So I be- have seen Franks in the vast numbers that to me. But there was one dopey-look- gan to plan on getting me one. we did. it happened, however, that the ing guy who was on to it, and he kept win-

it was important to get one quick be- support industries were there. And so ning off me every precious piece of change cause I wanted to make a killing off the Franks by the hundreds of thousands were the suckers lost. I had to cut my losses, so

It I I Tricentennial. was the American way, and soon there too, mostly stumbling around claimed had a phone call to make. I quit everybody else had their hands in the pa- with glazed-out expressions on their faces. dealing and put the cards in my vest pocket triotic pie up -to their eagle-and-flag-tat- Naturally, as you might expect, the first (ever at the ready). And I did all the other tooed forearms on all five of the colonized thought on lots of people's minds was, Let's tiny rituals necessary for folding up my planets and moons, buying low during the jam neurochips into these archaic bas- metaphorical tent and stealing gracefully first half of 2076 and hoping like hell to sell tards' skulls and enslave them and make away— mostly small-talk rituals of grin, nod, high during the actual week of the Fourth. lots of easy cash off of them. There were and harrumph to provide the twin illusions

So I made it my plan to look for a mallea- strict laws against that kind of entrepre- of conlinuity and closure so crucial to the ble apprentice larcenist whilst on my neurship in America, but not in some of the happiness of men in groups. monthlong vacation with Black Johnny other countries that had Franks on ice; and But the dopey-looking guy stayed. He

Walker and Doubledeck Lonely Hearts. I . thus it came to pass that there was this was wearing blue-tinted mirror glasses and needed a blue-eyed, towheaded mis- ugly little chapter— excised, I have no- a pink silk scarf, and he was filing his nails creant possessed of a natural bucolic ticed, from most official histories of Ptol- with a real metal file, albeit a small one. shtick lo play the .confidence-inspiring emy— in which the.Company bought three Dangerous sign, ihat. He smiled an abnor- young American citizen in these little one- "hundred Franks tram Argentina with un- mally twisted smile — a sardonic, knowing all act outrages I was forever writing in my traceable dollars and implanted them with smile, too —as he handed me back the head The ideal shill would, in fact, be a the infamous program the big guns re- money he'd won. "I know how you do it," 102 OMNI "

he said. "Used to deal a little three-card Now. there had always been a thriving anyhow; and nobody wouldn't hear a sin- rn'self," he said. "I'm here for the interview." hog business on Ptolemy. This was be- gle, solitary, squeal. It's all in the way you he also said. "I am Caligula Comae." cause the Company surveys showed that grab hold of 'em and carry 'em afterward."

We went back into my room. I poured a the workers wanted pOrk chops, pork I lit a King Edward cigar, took another drink for Ihis fucked-up Frank— I'd know roasts, ham sandwiches, and BLTs. And long hit of Johnny Walker, and smiled my one of those Frank smiles anywhere—and that finding never varied from day one. most laconic and disingenuous smile. In

for l_ a drink me. "Caligula, how'd you die?" So that meant pigs. But the Company as casual a fashion as could muster, I "Shot" He sort of chuckled and blushed kept its porkers in sufficiently short supply asked Caligula Comae the big one: "That embarrassedly. "Shot with a genuine to keep the prices jacked up, so pig steal- old pig-pilferage program still in there?" twenty-gauge snorgun, in point of fact." ing was a profitable, small-time under- "Naw. They erased that bastard four "Who shot you?" world enterprise. Caligula Comae had been years ago when they made me pink-collar "Hog farmer." shipped up to Ptolemy as part of a five- and put me over in Files." "Why?" Frank deal after he and the four others had "Why're you leaving the Company?" "Caught me pig stealin'. Prettiest little been brought back in Buenos Aires from a 'Just boring as hell there in Files, really. pink'darlin' you ever laid your eyes on." long, cold sleep. As a Frank known to come They told me they'd put me on someplace

"Why were you stealing his pig?" with a powerful slave implant and an else, but I decided to strike out on my own.

Comae lit a Pall Mall, inhaled deeply, and equally powen'u' Fagin p:g-ihief program, You never get anywhere workin' for wages let the blue smoke pour out of him along Caligula was snapped up by a notorious in the free-enterprise system."

with a deep sigh. "Born-again pig thief, hog-ring boss, name of Harry Hopkins, who I looked at him as piercingly as I could. programmed to steal pigs for a stock-rus-— was eventually caught and hung at a Com- "You want to work for me, though," I said. tling outfit out of Greenville, Texas, and pany picnic for running his Fagin ring. The "And you won't even be getting wages ex-

"This was a voluntary programming?" late Mr. Hopkins's Franks were then, of actly. You'll be a damned slave. Again!" I "Oh, yeah, voluntary; hell, yeah," he said course, appropriated by the Company and knew there was nothing he could do about

with a slight grimace. He spoke extremely mostly reprogrammed as office menials. his slave mentality, but I liked him enough

slowly. I could just barely see that his eyes It was a good story. I always loved a to want to warn him. were shut behind his sparkling blue lenses. good story. Caligula Comae downed his drink and

"I mean, my folks were gone and I had to "I was the best pig thief in this venue," looked back out the window, crunching the

have a skill of some kind to survive, and Caligula said, "and I was goddamned ice cubes with-teeth made from God knows they had these specific programs back proud of it." He looked out the window at what. "Workin' tor a man ain't like workin' then — parts of that wild old underground the transparent, gray bubbledome of the for a bureaucracy," he said, "So it would implant master they called Fagin, you circus, with the wind-beaten pennants be a start for me, mister." may've heard of it—which fixed you to do flapping madly atop it in eight bright pastel I felt a real salt tear invade each eye. He lightly felonious thievery o! an ultraspecific hues. "I could lift a shoat out of a pen, from was right in what he said. I had to agree sort for an exacting central taskmaster." He under a porch, up from the trough, day or with his sentiments— and admire [he man grinned. "My sort was stealing pigs." night, even under a full moon, anywhere or who had uttered them.

And so it capne to pass that I decided, in that precise time and place, to invest a

very little money in exchange for what I hoped would be a shitload of slave labor.

At no point in my life prior to the preced-

ing month or so would I have ever taken on

a Frank. I would have thought it immoral and degrading and just categorically evil.

But now I knew more about the American Dream being celebrated by the Tricenten-

HEWEI* nial. I had learned the eternal economic ,n COR W truth that profit is labor. uncompensated

And that central truth, I figured, must mean that uncompensated labor—somebody else's— is the very heart of the American Dream, the real meaning of 1776 and 2076.

So on this day I gleefully, and in high good conscience, took on a Frank: Caligula Comae. On the starry night following that

same day, I went down to the embubbled

circus tents and started running a little three-card in my regular licensed area. In his thespian debut Comae was to play the time-honored role of the capper, the make-

believe mark, in this picayune sting. I had

given him a roll of small counterfeit bills to

bet with, and I had kept another small roll \ of counterfeits in my vest pocket from which ^\%i I'd pay him his supposed winnings. (I didn't

mistrust Comae; it's just that I can't manip-

ulate the cards to lose when I see real money bet. My fingers go on strike.)

I set up my trusty folding table and be-

gan to show ihe rubes how easy it was for them to guess which facedown card was the jack of hearts. These hardworking pas-

toral folk quickly gathered in a thick semi- —.

circle and began to nudge and tease each throwing on my clothes. In a minute I was am, "and read the morning paper before in room. having other into betting —just what I like to see. Comae's He was sitting in a huge a big breakfast followed by five or Well, it was right then and there that walnut rpeking chair, and in his lap was a six cups of coffee to accompany my ritual Comae ought to have clodhoppered up squealing, half-grown Hampshire hog with attack on the triple-crostic crossword puz- and called the turn on the jack for a few the smooth, translucent pinkness of the zle. And the first thing I saw in the next fives and tens, just to get these assembled erstwhile piglet still upon him. Comae was morning's Ptolemy Ptoday was a double- attempting day-shift software workers started. But . . to feed him from a baby bot- column, boldfaced ad right at the bottom no Comae. It was weird: I'd seen him two tle— and, to all appearances, succeeding. center of the front page. Tt said: ..." or three times while doing my warm-up 'Jesus, Comae. I was dumbstruck, FIFTY THOUSAND IPDs REWARD spiel, walking about aimlessly and looking but only just for a second there. Then I I will pay fifty thousand IPDs, no ques- at the sideshow pictures with half a pound started in on him. He had not kept his word. tions asked, for the return of Count Zero of popcorn in his mouth and a cold beer in He had caused me to waste time and lose Interrupt, the famous "Educated Pig from his hand, but he'd never come within a money. He had kept me awake. He had Paris," which strayed or was stolen from hundred feet of my operation. embarrassed me with the night manager. the sideshow tents ot the Ringling Brothers The crowd was moderately enthusiastic; But worst of all, he had backslid, going back and Barnum & Bailey Circus last night. This

into During af'.cr intentionally is I but as I hope to have made clear, trying to piggie lying animal unique and irreplaceable. And make money off three-card without a shill to me about having had his porcine-spe- make special note of the fact that even

on your payroll is like fishing without bait. cific Fagin program erased. I said a lot of though he is the most valuable animal in

things. I outraged. Morally outraged. the world, is far familiar So I closed down the game with only forty- was known he too to be two IPDson the black side of the ledger The poor fucking Frank looked up at me fenced on any of the planets or moons. enough for a carton of cigarettes and a with the eyes of a hound dog that's done —Walter R. Brooks, Business Manager week's worth of chiliburgers —when I'd wrong and knows it. "Please don't be too hoped to make at least four hundred. hard on me," he said in a choked voice. I folded the paper flat, put it into my

I sauntered on home around 11:30 or so, 'And please give me another chance. It's pocket, threw down my napkin, and poured myself a worried nightcap, and sprinted to Comae's room. He was up and in stylish, blue suit. turned in. I lay awake for five minutes or so dressed a dark He was while images of Comae drifted through my feeding Count Zero Interrupt the rest of the mind— images of a dumb Frank with a wad milk and some Oreo cookies. of counterfeit money in his pocket, drifting "Well, well, good morning, all!" I said ^Standing around in the ersatz sawdust amongst the upon entering, in my heartiest and most particle compilers, endorphin parlors, and before him in the dim light, amiable fashion. "So we are up, I see. And interactive holographic strip shows of what Piggie is having his breakfast." Comae I must have at his shoes. I over held was possibly his first real circus. I vowed looked went and like to give him a stern, fatherly lecture first thing 'looked a farmer with a the Count's bottle for him, and I asked, in "What are your, ah, intentions toward Pig- the morning. - wheelbarrow, with gie? Answer that, I was dreaming about Marilyn Monroe me Comae." a pig on it that was tied down and Groucho Marx when I jerked straight The Frank's answer was quick and de- up in bed at the sound of somebody's kid with somebody's cisive. He'd been thinking on it. "I'm going screeching and shrieking in ungodly fash- to crate him up and shuttle-express him to lime-hued decorator sheets.^1 ion. II sounded like the colic to me, prob- my brother Claudius over on Brahe Bay. ably the green-apple colic. I'd been through He'll be good company for my brother while all that in my time. I thought, 111 wail the I'm earning the money to enable us to live loudmouthed little bastard out. But two together as we did as little boys in the hours later he or she was still going strong. twentieth century on Earth."

I Infuriated, I called the desk. true that the program was only partly "He's a mighty fine pig, Comae," said,

In my quietest, most reasonable, most erased, and it's true that the pig passion is scratching him on his tummy.

upper-class voice, I complained. They said still there on certain nights', particularly for "You called him a lot of names last night."

they'd send somebody up. The screaming the fat pink ones. I couldn't help takin' him. "He looks a lot better to me this morn- continued. Fifteen minutes later there came Pig stealing is all I was ever any good at. It ing," I said, "You know, t was raised on a

it I a knock at the door. I got up, threw on my was my goddamned identity. And will be farm, and I'm actually very fond of pigs." robe, and opened it. In a picture-perfect, that way until I am gone into and depro- smiled down at the Count and continued little iridescent black suit, the night man- grammed and then truly reprogrammed. scratching as the Count smiled back. "Tell ager stood before me with his eyes rolled That's why I'm working for you—to get the you what I'm going to do," I said. "I'm going up to the heavens. He said nothing but money to make the dream of getting my- to give you fifty IPDs for him."

made a palms-up gesture as he shrugged self AppleCored a reality." (AppleCore was "I reckon I wouldn't want to sell this shoat, his shoulders and sort of semi-sighed. the only true global deprogrammer in those sir," Comae said quickly. "If it was any other

"Look, buddy," I said to him before he'd days; itwentinto.you at the center of things one, I might."

said a word to me, "I don't care what the and just sort of reamed it all out.) "Why not this one?" I asked, trying to re-

damned brat's parents said. I want you to Again fears crept into my eyes at the main calm. I was suddenly terrified that he get back over there and tell 'em to cram a sentences coming from Comae's mouth. might be onto the Count's true value. grapefruit in its mouth! Is that clear?" Who could not forgive him? Who could not Comae lit his first Pall Mall of the morn- "Sir," said the night manager with a give him another chance? Who could not ing and gazed at the pig's interested, up- practiced, long-suffering air, "that is no act in "furtherance of his nearly impossible turned face. "Because snatching him was child. It is the squealing of the pink pig that dream? the grandest achievement of my life—that's your friend Mr. Comae brought home to his "He was hungry, that's all, "said Comae. why\" His quiet voice trembled. "The truth

if . . room a couple of hours #go. And you are "He'll go back to sleep now." And indeed: is . there ain't a single other man that

uncle or .brother or second cousin to it, I The little porker's eyes were shut, and he could have done it. If there's ever a miracle would much appreciate your shutting up was launched on an ocean of sleep in the that allows me to have a fireside and little its mouth, sir, yourself, if you please." His protecting arms ofthe pigophiliacal Frank. children, I'll sit there beside it and tell 'em , eyes had become narrow slits of flame. He Within five minutes, back in my own bed, how "their daddy toted off a prime pig in had pulled the curtain on his patience act. I was launched on those same calm waters. fronl of a whole circus full of people. And

I I mumbled embarrassed apologies while always get up early, no matter where I maybe my grandchildren, too! And they'll 106 OMNI svigMW used

Bestotte'- Exc. cond- SS\-Sii&r-\ Owner KJt. Switched «> ^WsSafe OUDSWCE «%

24 hour OLD SPICE SOLID keeps guys so dry, they just might switch, mid -stick.

shrugged helplessly. be proud o! me!" Comae turned and looked your own grandcnild. woUd vcu take vol" me. and

Comae," I said, wiping off out his window onto the circus below, his word for a story like that? Huh? I'll give you "Listen to me, glance alone implying the Lilliputian status a hundred IPDs." my brow with the soft maroon hotel towel bathroom. "It's not he attributed to [he big-top workers and Comae looked at me in astonishment. from the Frank's so much audiences so tar beneath him. His voice "C'mon, this pig can't be worth anything a business matter with me as it truly is art, basic became tenser, more silvery. like that to you, mister," he said. "What do honest to God—the highest art of the con- "There was two tents, see, one of 'em you want him for?" He scratched his head philanthropical altruism. Being

I puzzlement. noisseur of pigs that I am, wouldn't feel opening onto the other. I snuck in; and this in the unless plump, pink beauty was on a high plat- "If a man were" to view me cynically," I that I'd done my duty to WORLD

I that Hampshire to collection form, tied with a little red chain. There were said, looking out the window that Comae added my lots of people around, and the fluorescent himself had vacated, "he wouldn't think that and saw to it that his genes, were passed artistic tempera- on. In the spirit of the ethic of pigs as lights were bright enough lo blind you. The I am possessed ot an beneficent befrienders of trick was to catch almost all of 'em with ment. But I am. I'm a collector, a connois- peaceful and IPDs." their eyes lookin' away from the pig and. seur, Comae— and, believe it or not, par- man, I offer you two thousand most importantly, to appear to be an offi- ticularly of pure-blooded pigs. Over on "Mister," said this fellow pork aesthete,

Ball, I've got a hog ranch that con- ."ft ain't the money, It's the sentiment with cial personage. I just reached up, un- Green

1." it, sentimentality hooked his chain, and hustled him the hell tains almost every extant specimen—from me. And yes, damn tite Malaysian to purple-and-black He shook his head and stared at the floor. out of there! And I crawled out from under a Mordred a

the canvas again without him squeakin' as Tasmanian Six-Stripe. This is a blooded pig "Five thousand!" I croaked. fine I'd love to have "Make it fifteen thousand." Comae said much as a mouse. I put him under my coat, and a one. That's why

it." perspiration had broken out on my with a choked-back sob, "and I guess I and I must have passed five hundred peo- The can put this-particular dream behind me. ple before I got out where the streets were forehead, and my mouth was as dry as a wit. In service to the other one! The main one!" dark enough to relax even a millimeter. I hanging judge's

it. "I'd really like to For fifteen thousand IPDs you could have reckon I wouldn't sell him. I'd want my Comae thought on

brother to have him so there'd be a wit- accommodate you," he said, "but I think bought a small, private interplanetary a ness. You can understand that, can't you?" I've got the artistic temperament, too, I may shuttle in those days—and loaded one riot or collector, at that, not some stripped-down piece of This time I successfully fought back any or may 'be a connoisseur

it still a deal for me, so sign of a tear— admittedly with a good but I don't see why it ain't art when you can crap. But was good

1 it. else five I took I said, amount of effort. "Comae, I'm going to give . steal a pig better thar snyocdy on "Done!"

fucking planets. are kind of in- I gave Comae my American Express it to you straight," I said. "That pig can't Shoats a possibly live long enough to use as. an ex- spiration and genius with me, and espe- card, and he called them to verify my credit.

(I barely did it, they merely said a hibit in this fucking fireside frieze of your cially this one. I don't think I'd take a thou- have but distant senility. Your grandchildren will sim- sand IPDs for that animal." He stubbed oul smooth "Certainly, sir" to Comae's query, It life savings.)" ply have to take your word for it. If you were his cigarette in the hotel ashtray, gazed al was a sizable sum: my He CONTINUED ON PAGE 15B 107 Your great-grandchildren may live twice as long as you do, says this eminent longevity researcher. You don't have to rebuild the body or redesign the brain. The secret is just to retune a few key genes irUTERV/IEUU

gray hair, long on one side, covers the expanse extension, "there's not one shred of evidence for any bottleneck Stringy building of his scalp. His face is lined, his hands 'rough-hewn. on the evolution of human longevity. How can we keep His kids, almost grown, just wear him thin. "They mostly new and wonderful machines while we've stayed the same for a need money," he says of the two at expensive universities. "The hundred thousand years? Our first priority must be to control aging and from that all other things will flow." days when I could play with them, nurture them, teach (hem are man's process, lonely gone." Richard Cutler, age fifty, is prey to the inexorable passage Cutler's dream of longevity flowed from the Colorado of time. But like a cancer researcher who charts (he course of his town that was his childhood home. Born a Mormon among Mor- for own malignancy, Cutler, pioneer in the- field of human longevity, mons, he was brought up to think of life as a lesling ground

tempt- . is cursed with the knowledge of truth. His diminishing strength: the reward of heaven beyond. "The Devil was always here the unrelenting onslaught. ot oxygen, hormones, and nutrients. ing you," he explains. "For that reason your best bet was nor to His loss of zest: molecules of herr.oc obin pulsing ever outward stick around too long." Cutler had his doubts, of course, but as intellec- from deregulated neurons in his brain. "I can see the process of a boy whom parents and teachers had pigeonholed as

aging,'.' Cutler says. "I can see it all coming on," tually slow, he didn't feel equipped to protest.

Cutler' accepts the certainty of his own short life and ultimate Cutler, still a teenager, was catapulted out of the oppressive death. But, declares this preeminent advocate of scientific life dominion of his past by an unbelievable, explosive series of

PHOTOGRAPH BY MIKE MITCHELL 3 — —

events. One minute he was a backwoods at Baltimore's quaint European Cafe by each to invest about a quarter of a million boy on his way to vocational school; the Omni senior editor Pamela Weintraub. dollars in what we called the Cutler Heli- next, the brilliant, quirky Cutler found him- copter Corporation. The idea was that I self head of a corporation funded by one Omni: What initially lured" you into life ex- would design a light, cheap craft afford-

g: mil tension research? able to the masses. I had several machin- lionaire sent him through school, "it was Cutler: Disappointment with religion. The ists and welders in a building in Pasadena

I really wild," Cutler reflects. 'Almost like first thing learned was how lucky I was helping to make the helicopters. Once I coming out of a cave." a white male in the right church in the USA. made my millions, I planned to set up my

Cutler eventually found his way to grad- All I had to do was work hard, follow the own laboratory and do aging research. The uate school in biophysics at the University rules, and heavenly immortality would be whole thing was crazy. My parents thought

of Houston and to prestigious posts at the my reward. I was uneasy about that point it was totally wild, and in fact I was lucky to

Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long of view from the start, but I went along. escape with my life. The first time we tested

Island and the University of Texas at Dal- In high school my family moved to Ana- our engine at the Van Nuys Airport, it blew las. All the while, he pursued the question heim, California. I wasn't considered too completely apart. First it tore up the test thai -had gnawed at him ever since his bright. After I took an aptitude test, my stand, then it flew off altogether, wiping out youth: Why do we have to age and die, and guidance counselor suggested I forget several large airplanes. I had constructed

what could be done? college and go to vocational school for a tower from which I conducted the exper-

I . -Approaching the problem with his broad welding. As a senior found my way to the iment—that collapsed, too. I was left dan- and eclectic intelligence, Cutler scruti- machine shop and constructed a helicop- gling by my arms. We were insured by nized anthropology, evolution, compara- ter of unusual design, with engines in the Lloyd's of London, thank heavens.

tive physiology, molecular biology, and tips of the blades. I flew it in my backyard Omni: Were your backers upset? more. And in the interstices of the disci- and created quite a ruckus. There was a Cutler: No, they were delighted. The ex- plines, buried in data from thousands of lot of noise and wind, and with fire stream- periment proved that the engine was really reports, he saw the pattern: No more than ing out of the top, people thought there was powerful. The work went on until eventually six tenths of a percent of all human genes I was contacted by another millionaire who could possibly be involved in the evolution had also read the article in the Santa Ana of longevity. Aging—the field that seemed Bulletin. This man had made his fortune in to require a complete understanding of hydraulic valves, and had recently lost his every organ, system, and cell lype in the son in the Korean War, so he set up a foun- ^Some of our human body— might be reduced io com- dation in his honor. After questioning me mon denominators. And those denomina- greatest scientists and for about half an hour, he told me he'd help

tors me through college. I walked out with five- might be comprehended, harnessed, musicians were a and even changed. Human longevity might thousand-dollar check. Though I never saw be extended not just by 20 years, Cutler exceptionally neotenous. him again, he sent me several thousand declared, but by 200 years or more. People don't dollars a year for five years, until my un-

Cutler's radical theories have thrust him dergraduate education — I majored in realize that being like into the biomedical spotlight, bringing both physics —was complete. songs of praise and scathing attack. Al- a child is Omni: How did you switch from physics though his theories derive from tight, and helicopters to longevity? de- what made them great ductive reasoning, they're just too uncon- Cutler: The helicopter company folded, and

ventional for many mainstream scientists. I began scouring the country for a place to

Many of his colleagues in , al- pursue my true interest, longevity. Finally I ready troubled by the economic burden of found a program in biophysics at the Uni- the infirm aged, are philosophically op- versity of Houston. It was a totally new field posed to his work. He has been accused an explosion. Police and newspapers ar- with two main goals: to reveal the impact of plagiarism. And his two most loyal ben- rived, and a reporter wrote a long story of physical phenomena such as light or X efactors have recently been forced to limit about me in the Sunday edition of the Santa rays on organisms and cells; and to ex- their support. To make up for the loss, his Ana Bulletin. He took me under his wing, plain complex living systems through basic medical technician wife. Edith, works in his and I ended up at a two-year college—the forces or laws, much as physicists try to lab gratis from ten in the morning to four in Electronic Engineering Institute in Engle- explain the universe. Biologists told me that

the afternoon. (Then she goes to her job wood, California. I met some people there aging was too incredibly complex to ever as a paid lab technician from 4:30 to mid- belonging to the Los Angeles Philosophi- understand. You'd first have to understand night.) "I sometimes fee! bad that my wife cal Society and began to think about every system in the body— heart, lung, still has to come in and help me," Cutler things— psychokinesis, levitation, UFOs. I skin, brain —and then alter each one. I declares. "Her presence reminds me that was just nineteen years old, and after my wanted to find some underlying principle I'm struggling. She's there to save the day. Mormon upbringing this was like coming that might control aging no matter what the

Without her I simply couldn't go on." out of a cave I began to question the no- animal, organ, or cell. The time was ripe Despite his troubles Richard Cutler has tion of immortality and realized, in the face Watson and Crick had just discovered the prevailed. He has secured a tenured po- of aging and death, just about every reli- underlying mechanism for heredity in the gion sition at Baltimore's prestigious Gerontol- offered hope of salvation in a world structure of DNA. So I took off for Houston ogy Research Center, part of the National beyond. It just seemed like a cop-ouf. I in my little hot-rod car. For the first time in

Institute on Aging. And though his support even went to UCLA and asked some pro- my life I was heading far from home. has been limited, he has conceived per- fessors what we could do to increase our Omni: What did you do there?

haps the most sweeping theory of human life span, and they said, "Nothing at all. Cutler; I found a way to make all the cells longevity to date. His elegant ideas, rooted The aging process is too complex." That's in a single bacterial culture divide at once

in the ancient axioms of evolution and the when I decided increasing longevity was so that they passed through all the stages driving logic of DNA, may one day yield up something I'd like to attempt. of life literally in synchrony This study made the reward of prolonged life. They may aiso Omni: What was your plan? it possible to map the bacterial genome. point the way toward vast increases in in- Cutler: About that time the accountant at But none of it would have happened if I telligence and creativity, ultimately aiding the electronics institute saw the article in hadn't been taking organic chemistry at the future evolution of man. Richard Culler the Santa Aria Bulletin. He put together a night with this girl named Edith. I'd rarely was interviewed in his office and over lunch group of four millionaires and convinced been out with girls. Always helicopters, you f 10 OMNI — —

know. But now I was kind of lonely, and this up something about his work that most given species could possibly live—to brain girl looked nice, so I asked her out to see everybody missed. He experimented on size and body weigh!. Just knowing the

Wes; Side Story. As it turned out, she was three species: Ihe beagle, with a life span brain and body sizes of any mammal would also real good in chemistry. She turned out of about twenty years; the guinea pig, with enable you to plug into the formula and to be a medical technologist and a superb a life span of eight years; and the mouse, crank out the MLSP bacteria counter. She could just look at cells with a life span of three years. He found Omni: Did he explain the phenomenon? and tell me what they were like! I'm half that the rate of chromosomal aberration Cutler; Because shorter- and longer-lived rate. cell bi- blind, so I could hardly see the cells, but correlated well with the aging Longer- species had essentially the same with her expertise, she just executed the lived species acquired mufations at a ology, Sacher decided longevity-control bacteria-culture concept I'd come up with, slower rate. Thus longevity appeared to-be mechanisms had to reside in the brain. and it worked. We got married three months regulated by factors within the cells. Be- Bigger brains, with their superior process- after that first date, and she's been helping cause the cells making up dog, guinea pig, ing, could better maintain the body. He me ever since. and mouse are extraordinarily similar, this even tried to find a longevity- controlling On the basis of that work and many let- suggested that the cellular differences center in the brain but never did.

fit ters, I finally got a fellowship with Howard contributing to longevity must be simple, Omni: Where did you in?

Curtis of Brookhaven National Laboratory. despite the complexity of the aging proc- Cutler: I reinterpreted his results. Even Curtis was the only American studying ag- ess itself. though different species had essentially the ing from a molecular perspective. He gave Omni: Did you see any other evidence for same biology, I nonetheless thought that me my own lab and assistant— I was in the theory that relatively simple factors were basic biology, not brain size, had the pri- heaven. I decided to devote myself to de- contributing to longevity? mary role. The correlation between brain termining how complex the biology of ag- Cutler: What struck me most was that the size and longevity, I said, was there by vir- ing really was. If it was too complex to un- increase in longevity across species tue of evolution, If larger-brained mam- ravel within the context of twentieth-century seemed to be accompanied by increases mals have longer life spans, it's because a science, I would leave the field. But if I could in intelligence. Humans, for inslance, have longer life span confers an evolutionary find some indication that understanding a particularly long life span. In the wake of advantage to those with sizable brains. Life and perhaps slowing —the aging process that observation, I came across George span and brain size coevolved. longevity, was possible with current knowledge, I Sacher's work. A radiation biologist at Ar- Omni: If the brain doesn't control would devote my life to Ihe quest. gonne National Laboratory, Sacher had what does?

Omni: How did you proceed? dedicaled much of his life to understand- Cutler: I found part of the answer in studies Cutler: Curtis showed that as animals age, ing the biology of longevity. He realized that on speciation—the mechanism by which their chromosomes acquire aberrations. So the larger the brain-to-body-size ratio, the different species form. One of Ihe first he postulated that with increasing age DNA slower a species will age. Sacher even things scientists studying speciation did accumulates mutations that destroy the came up with a formula relating maximum was compare primates that had all pre- basic information used to run a cell. That life span potential [MLSP]—the maximum sumably evolved from a single ancestor

leads to aging. Being right there, I picked number 'of years that an individual of any aboul sixty-five million years ago. They found extraordinary similarities from one group to the next. When researchers com- pared humans, with an MLSP of one hun- dred years, to chimpanzees, with an MLSP of fifty years, they found that ninety-nine percent of the genes were same. Chimp and human livers worked the same. Food and energy metabolism was similar. Studying the two species, from the skele- ton to the muscles to Ihe cells, there are no new structures. So what the heck was the difference? Structures and functions are just ditlerentiated to different degrees. From species to species some genes are ex- pressed more sfrongly than others. And that difference in expression is all you need to create new species. Evolutionary biolo- gists went on to estimate that the one per- cent genetic difference between human and chimp resided in regulatory genes genes that act like switches to turn other genes on and otf. My concept was that slowing the aging process might be ac- complished by altering these few genes. Omni: Armed with evidence that altering life span might not be that complex, you plunged into the longevity field.

1 Cutler: Yes, and I still burn with excitement IM TROUBLE 'HE ¥OOD CHAIN when I think of how it all came together for H;GaUj*/' ¥ me. I'd gotten a job at the University of Texas at Dallas. Edith and I already had

three kids— one right after another. I had

a little Datsun 240 Z, and one day I piled my kids in the back and took off into the desert lor Anaheim. Every so often I'd stop

and write down notes, until I had road maps covered with scribbles. One thing made

CON llNULLi ON PAGE 174 .

restored to its original condition, a new body would be cloned from a STiTlTI? single cell. Voila! One day. the pa- gjB%yMI tient blinks, sits up. tf"fci%i mom jng paper Darwin ft. 11 ml lft_«C Wl mt ^MPbH COR Life Exter .^^wjk ' Mf^ Fullerton, Califo '." icisl, v J M^k.ww 1 someone k TF I I can'be frozen V_J| 1 V J though not trai SCENCE BY PAUL BAGNE AND NANCY LUCAS

covermmslowly. He holds a trouble light of vapor swirling around him to peers inside. liquid , then The nitrogen —at a temperature of -196"C— looks like crystal-clear On the bottom oi a stainless-

; inside the vault are live IB in a polyester-blend pillc

After a long silence Darwin ,

"I get the same kind of feeling when

I look into a hospital room at one I love. With years of re! ws and work ahead of me I try not to 10 ine small number of people get emotional; yet I never lose the feeling that these people are on willing to pay up to $100,000 to freeze their bodies ($30,000 for just the head), cryonicists are the link

fical toots the to immortality. But to most cryo- of molecules into one of the biologists—scientists who study r'~ at low temperatures— cryonici: are targets of criticism and de sion. Some allege the whole field fraudulent; others view cryonicts —

4/ don't think that even the most die-hard critic of cryonics among us would claim that suspended animation will never be possible3

New York Blood Cen- tems, we will keep ter and former presi- working our way up dent of the Society for and up until the final Cryobiology. says, thing we'd be able lo

"Many of our mem- do is preserve human bers take a dim view beings," Fahy adds. ofsome ol the people "What would be hotly in cryonics coming to debated, of course, is our meetings and en- whether we think it's croaching on our desirable." good image in an at- The art and sci- tempt to legitimize ence of freezing body their activities. To us parts are still in their they represent a fringe infancy, though they element." have progressed tre- Rowe challenges mendously over the the cryonicJsis' notion past two decades. that those already fro- Tissue banks now zen will one day be routinely freeze blood thawed to live again. cells, arteries, heart "I think all the people valves, skin, bones, who have been frozen sperm, and even em- so far have had such bryos. Typically, the irreparable damage tissue is first im- [from the freezing mersed in a solution, process] that there is which often contains no scientific evidence glycerol and other that it would ever be agents that protect it possible to reanimate from damage sus- them. "Still, thedream tained during the of cheating death is a freezing process. The seductive one, and tissue is then cooled cryobiologists in their at a controlled rate to own deliberate, quiet the temperature of liq- way have been inch- uid nitrogen, where ing slowly toward the molecular activity time when preserving and hence biological the whole person may activity—halts. With its be possible. aging clock stopped,

Not too long ago a the tissue can stay vi- group of cryobiolo- able for millennia. gists crammed to- Freezing these tis- gether in a small con- sue samples is pri- ference room at the Hilton Hotel in Augusta, the present rate we will have to wait until marily the realm of cryobiologists who have Georgia, for their annual meeting. Particu- the year 2040 before we are preserving a dream of their own: that one day a sur- larly popular was one session on organ kidneys and hearts," he announced. 'And geon could phone a tissue bank and order preservation moderated by a sott-spoken, beyond that—to the year 2060—for bod- up a frozen heart, liver, or kidney or a finger personable biologist named Gregory Fahy. ies." The audience laughed. or arm for one of his patients. With this re- Near the end of the session he asked an- Fahy said later that the slide was meant source and new antirejection techniques, other researcher to provide some "com- to be an insiders' joke but one that con- he could perform transplants at will. mentary." The house lights darkened, and tained a kerne! of truth. "I don't think that Tissue that has been successfully fro-

Ihe screen lit up with what looked like a even the most die-hard critic of cryonics zen can be kept, if not forever, for dec- standard projection graph, it plotted the among us would claim that suspended an- ades. Arthur Rowe knows of tissue-culture success cryobiologists have had preserv- imation will never be possible." he says. In cells stilt viable 22 years after being deep- ing human tissue over the years: sperm and fact, the head of his laboratory— an out- frozen. He himself has used blood that red blood cells in the Fifties, embryos in spoken critic of cryonics—once stated that spent 16 years on ice. Sixties, the and corneas in the Eighties. 'At achieving suspended animation was the "If you don't see any changes in sixteen

ultimate goal of cryobiology. years, I wouldn't expect to see any changes "It's obvious that as we succeed in pre- in double or triple that time," he says. 'Ap-

serving more and more complicated sys- parently it's good indefinitely."

CONTINUED ON PAGE 161 aHBB —a " ——

mones, for example, wounds won't heal. time as nutrients would again abound. ELIXIRS And without sufficient energy the body can't When food becomes plentiful, the protein function at all. found by Cristofalo comes into play. "Once CONTINUED FROM PA> There's a strong correlation, Lumpkin we isolate the neurotransmitter or the pro- to revert to youth. If those old cells were says, between the life span of cells and the teins," says Cutler, "we might use them to damaged in numerous ways, he asked life span of the organism. "On the most enjoy the same antiaging benefits of diet himself, how could a single virus restore basic level," he says, "the eighty-year-old restriction we see in the mouse." them to vitality? It just couldn't. "I began to would be able to heal his wounds as easily A serum that inhibits the senescence think," Lumpkin says, "that the virus simply as if he were fifteen. Theoretically speak- protein might drastically increase the lon- repressed a protein that shut down the cell." ing, if we were to suppress the protein that gevity of our cells, conferring infinitely more Then, in the early Seventies, Lumpkin inhibits DNA synthesis, our cells should be staying power on our organs and the body discovered a paper by pathologists Tom rendered immortal. as a whole. But according to Cutler, the Norwood and George Martin of If all the Uni- the body's organs, including the technique will add decades to life only if versity ot Washington in Seattle. The Se- kidney and the liver, age in analogous ways, supplemented by a third sort of potion attle scientists took young and old cells and he adds, we might be able to surpass the one that prevents genetic damage caused /used them to produce a cell hybrid — current limit of one hundred and fifteen by metabolism, environmental toxins, and single cell body with two nuclei in the cen- years in a sexually mature but youthful state, the sun.

ter. (The cell nucleus contains the genetic our bodies tight and our minds alert. "Once In the forefront of that research is the material, the DNA.) In that single cell, nei- we understand the cellular pathways," short, stiletto-thin Bruce Ames. A bio- ther the old nucleus nor the young nucleus Lumpkin says, "we might even be able to chemist at the University of California at

was able to synthesize DNA. In other words, live three or four hundred years and keep Berkeley, Ames is the controversial re- the fused cell tooK on the characteristics on going from there." searcher who first declared that small of the old cell. The implication: The old nu- Listening to the findings, gerontologist amounts of man-made chemicals cause cleus produced a protein that shut down Richard Cutler of Baltimore's Gerontology cancer by creating mutations in our genes. its own replicative machinery and then In 1984, just as people were embracing traveled through the cell body to squelch the notion that cancer is caused by the tox- the young nucleus as well. ins of our industrialized world, Ames came Lumpkin was so impressed by the work out with an even more radical sentiment. that he went to Seattle to study with Martin. True, man-made chemicals are carcino- 47/ie untreated And it wasn't long betore he'd used Mar- genic, he said. But most cancer-causing tin's findings to help develop a potent the- mice seemed old. Their coats mutations come from the very food that we ory of his own. Working with molecular bi- were coarse and eat and the air that we breathe. Living is ologist Jim Smith, Lumpkin proposed the like being irradiated, he explained. Many existence ol one or more cell proteins that gray. The DHEA mice ran fruits and vegetables produce natural turned synthesis off. DNA around like pups. pesticides that are as mutagenic as man- Last year the two tested their notion in made ones. And the oxygen molecules we Their coats were sleek and the lab. In essence they extracted genetic breathe tend to turn into highly reactive free material from old cells, divided that mate- black. They radicals — particles that scavenge the rial into segments, and injected each seg- body, voraciously consuming were aging at a slower rate.^ bits of DNA ment into a different young cell. Time after and damaging the cells. time, a specific bit of material from the old As far as Ames was concerned, these cell made the young cell age as well. same forces were responsible for aging. The present goal is to isolate and clone The genetic damage they caused was fairly

this genetic material—apparently the gene constant throughout life, he theorized. Al-

that codes for the senescence protein. Research Center suggested that the on/off though DNA was always repairing itself, Once the-gene is found, Lumpkin says, we proteins found by Smith, Lumpkin, and eventually the mutations would mount, re-

can find ways to turn it off. One suggestion Cristofalo were the very substances re- sulting in aging and death. might be a vaccine that instructs the body sponsible for extending the lives of lab mice He found support for his ideas in evolu- to antibodies produce against the protein. placed on restricted diets. Mulling it over tion itself. Indeed, as we evolved from our Another solution would be to override the while in a canoe on Plymouth's placid Lake early primate ancestors to Homo sapiens,

protein with another natural substance Squam, Cutler was reminded of a well- over a period of millions of years, our life one that turns the cells on. understood phenomenon known as heat span basically doubled while our meta- That may soon be possible, thanks to shock response. "When heat becomes bolic rate was cut in half. "Perhaps we lived biochemist Vincent Cristofalo of the Uni- particularly intense, neurotransmitters in the twice as Jong," Ames suggests, "because versity of Pennsylvania and the Wistar In- brain stimulate a set of genes to produce we were producing free radicals and other stitute in Philadelphia. Cristofalo and his a protective protein," he explains. "The natural toxins at half the rate." group have found proteins in the mem- protein literally .cools the animal down, Ames was also aware of new research brane that revive senescent cells. "There's eliminating undue stress." showing we could protect ourselves a definite relationship," Cristofalo says, Dietary restriction might work the same against the oxygen scavengers, at least to "between the balance of cell proteins and way. When the food supply is low, he notes, a degree, with another sort of natural sub- the rate at which organisms age." adult animals can't sustain a fetus or care stance — the an [/oxidants. This group—in- As we get older, he explains, the pro- for their young. In the face of this threat a cluding vitamin E, selenium, beta carotene teins that prevent DNA synthesis become hormone like the one suggested by Ma- (which provides carrots with their orange increasingly common in a larger propor- soro probably switches on a special gene. color], and superoxide dismutase—liter- tion of our cells. As a result cells become The gene, in turn.- probably generates the ally neutralized the free radicals before they less able to respond. Muscles, for in- senescence protein found by Lumpkin and had a chance to destroy DNA. "A major stance, contract more slowly. And the cell Smith. Under normal circumstances that factor in the evolution of increasing life receptors, which normally act as portals protein would be produced only by very span," Ames adds, "might well be an in- for everything from energy molecules to old cells, to trigger death. But in times of crease in the presence of these protective growth hormones, don't always recognize famine they might be switched on tempo- mechanisms against free radicals." the substances they were designed to rarily, delaying development— and the Fascinated by this theory. Ames even process and absorb. Without growth hor- years of reproductive viability— until such discovered another, unlikely 126 OMNI uric acid, long considered nothing but a alarm: Treated mice are more resistant to mighl ti ; it occurs." waste product. "I realized thai at the be- radiation. The extra protection, he adds, Finally, Smith-Sonneborn's experiments ginning of primate evolution, we'd lost the can be easily explained if we assume that indicate that stimulating DNA repair can enzyme that breaks down uric acid. What's excess antioxidants are produced. boost the life span of single-celled para- more, the kidneys pump ninety-five per- If that turns out to be the case, Cutler mecia by 50 percent. "One thing's for sure. cent ot all uric acid back into our blood," says, then such supplements as thymidine When we tap into the mechanism of DNA he says. Thus unlike mice and rats, we have dimers or cyclic GMP might eventually in- repair, we're tapping into a great many of high levels of uric acid circulating through- crease our protection against Iree radi- ihe things that make us age," she says. "If out our bodies. cals, expanding our maximum life span as we can increase repair, we'll help amelio-

If antioxidants like uric acid and super- much as a decade or two. But in the dis- rate any pathology associated with dam- oxide dismutase propelled the evolution of tant future there will be a far more powerful age to our genes." Our immune systems human longevity, then it only makes sense way of fighting off DNA damage—increas- should produce more antibodies, and we that raising their levels would extend life ing the amount of enzyme available to lit- should be less prone to cancer and infec- span even further. The problem with taking erally repair our genes. Working on this tious diseases. We'll reach old age later, such supplements in pill form, however, is technique is cell biologist and paramecia and we might be able to greatly exceed that increasing one antioxidant reduces Ihe expert Joan Smith-Sonneborn of the Uni- the maximum human life span of one hun- levels ol all other antioxidants — unless the versity of Wyoming at Laramie. Someday, dred and fifteen years. total antioxidant load is especially low. Smith-Sonneborn believes, "we'll be able Many experts, of course, doubt ihat we'll

If that load is low, DNA damage mighl to identify and clone the genes that make be able to achieve drastic expansion of pile up more rapidly than normal, and life the dilferenl repair enzymes and transfer human life any time soon. Dr. Edward span would be short. But if we could them into our cells." Schneider, deputy director of the National somehow detect that damage early in life, Right now Smith-Sonneborn is attempt- Institute on Aging, says, "I don't foresee a we would be able to increase antioxidant ing just that with her paramecia. She's magic bullet, an antiaging pill that you could protection. DNA damage would be limited, chopping the paramecia's genome into take to restore youlh. But I do predict lhat and the potential for a normal life span our increased knowledge about the aging would be restored. of different organs will enable us to prevent Already Richard Cutler (see Interview, various body functions from deteriorating. beginning on page 108) is developing a We might be able to restore immune func- longevity kit to do just that. First he screens tion, for insfance, and even prevent short- ^Theoretically patients for high levels of thymidine glycol, term memory loss. In the next decade or a by-product of damaged DNA. "If some- once we suppress the protein so, we might see average life span in- one excretes excessive amounts of thymi- crease from seventy-five to about eighty- that Inhibits DNA dine glycol in the urine." Cutler says, "it's five years for men and ninety years for probable that free-radical damage is synthesis our cells should be women. Perhaps in the next tew years high —and that the antioxidant level is low. rendered immortal. someone will eventually live to be as old as We'll keep adding different antioxidant one hundred and thirty. Barring some un- If we understood the cellular supplements and retesting the urine for foreseen breakthrough, though, I don't think thymidine glycol. When the right combi- pathways, we might be we'll see people living to one hundred fifty nation of supplements has been found, in the near future." able to live 300 or 400 years3 thymidine glycol should be reduced to But a lot of longevity researchers say normal. Then we'll know that the aging is Schneider may be erring on the side of as low as possible and that antioxidant caution. "There's no obvious bottleneck on protection is prime." the extension of life span, " Cutler declares.

Cutler, who takes supplements of beta "Today it seems probable that aging is carotene and vitamin E himself, says that sections and matching each section with caused by hormones and other molecules his current technique may help those who a known repair gene from yeast. When she lhat alter the activity ol genes. We should now age abnormally quickly. But for the rest gets a match she'll know that ihe parame- eventually be able to manipulate those of us other tactics may be suitable. "What cia's repair gene has been found. Then hormones and molecules directly or we've got to do is understand how evolu- she'll transfer cloned versions of the gene through control sites in the brain. The result tion increased our antioxidant level, then into the paramecia cells. "It the repair genes would be a slowing of the aging rate of vir- use the same technique ourselves." do what we think they should," she says. tually every organ and cell."

One of evolution's tricks may have been "the life span of the paramecia will in- The impact would be profound. Once we convincing the cells that extreme genetic crease." We might then use the same tech- fine-tune our engines we'll spend more time damage had occurred. He explains: "When nique to create a gene-repair formula lor in the flush and energy of youlh. Natural you exercise, you burn more oxygen, pro- consumption by man. proteins will make us more vigorous. En- duce more free radicals, and also gener- Yet another formula might pry open our zyme supplement will restore smooth- ate more antioxidant protection. It you could genes, Smith-Sonneborn believes. DNA, ness to our skin and rigor to our bones. trick the cells into thinking that exercise or she explains, is tightly coiled. If we could Hormone additives will add fight to our im- its equivalent was taking place when it relax Ihe coils, the genes would open up, mune system, giving us powerful resist- wasn't, then you might increase the antiox- and we'd get in more repair enzyme. ance to cancer, arthritis, lupus, and the ar- idant levels while free-radical damage One of the most important benefits, ray of infectious" diseases. Viruslike stayed the same." Smith-Sonneborn predicts, would be a vaccines will literally alter our genes, sup- Cutler is currently working on two ways boost -for our immune system: Recent ex- pressing the chemicals that once wore us to trick the cells so that excess antioxidant periments lead her to suggest that some down and made us old. production occurs. In one experiment he's DNA-repair enzymes and the antibody- After we extra:! the secret fuel of old Pop simply injecting mice with thymidine di- building enzymes may be one and the Adams and his hundred-year-old daddy, mers. chemical by-products of damaged same. And, she adds, it's possible that an we'll fulfill the dreams of Ponce de Leon. In DNA. In another he's injecting them with increase in these enzymes will offer a cos- the twenty-first century the Fountain of cyclic GMP, a messenger chemical pro- metic advantage, too. Youth will be here. In one sense, Ponce de duced whenever free-radical damage has "Skin is wrinkled by ultraviolet rays from Leon was born 500 years before his time. occurred. So far, he says, the cyclic GMP the sun," she explains. "What those rays But in another, the answers have always and the dimers seem to be ringing the do is damage DNA. But repair enzymes resided within him and us all. DO 128 OMNI tit's only a matter of time before someone suggests that the F-111 crash was caused by the UFO. 91

Films of UFOs in flight chuted to safety and are rare. Rarer still ate thepfane crashed ma those films that sur- field The time and vive technical scru- dateofthecrash. 9:46 tiny, apparently pro- am. January 11, 1973- viding evidence of "The chances are some unknown object against two highly un- in the sky. usual but unrelated That's why the 20- phenomena occur- second film made by ring in the same area British building sur- at around the same veyor Peter Day has lime," the team de- achieved such celeb- clared in an official rity status in the world written statement of UFOs If was Janu* "The inevitable con- ary 11, 1973, at 9:10 clusion Is that there a.m., on the outskirts of was only one unusual the village of Cud- phenomenon, namely dington. when Day the troubled F-111, and spotted an orange ball it was this which was of light. He just hap- observed and filmed pened to have a super by the witness." Adds 8 camera along in his team coordinator Phil- car and filmed the lips. "The conclusion pulsating object as it seems hard to refute.'' passed over some UFD UPDATE Warrington doesn't treetops about a necessarir. quarter of a mile away (simulated version above, at right). accept that these investigators have a respectar;.

It didn't take long for the film to come to the attention of he says. "But we studied the film under consider the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA). The seg- nlficatlon, and at no point was an aircraft de ment, the group announced, was both "genuine and puz- Day, who says he has filmed many an aircraft, is even less zling." A later examination by UFO-photography specialist pleased with the BUFORA report "I would be quite happy

Peter Warrington, in conjunction with the Kodak-UK Labo- if someone could tell me what I filmed that day

I aircraft ratories at Hemel Hempstead, backed up the BUFORA con- "but I don't believe filmed an A dozen other people, clusion. "There has been no trickery," Warrington declared. Including a schoolteacher and several schoolchildren, also

And Peter Sutherst, technical- information consultant (or Ko- saw the UFO. They were closer to the Object than I was, and " dak-UK. agreed. "Whatever the film shows," he said, "It is a their descriptions tally with what is on Ihe film real object In the sky." The controversy over the Day film will continue to rage, Just recently, though, BUFORA asked a team headed by and it's only a matter of time before someone suggests that ufologisf Ken Phillips to investigate the film again. The new the F-111 crash was caused by the UFO. But to serious UFO finding: The ob|ect In the film was a U.S. Air Force F-111 jet investigators the concern is that yet another prime case has presumably ablaze. The jet had taken off from nearby Upper been thrown into doubt. The hunt is still on for a piece of film Heyford Air Force Base, developed a malfunction, and cir- that defies rational solution. After nearly 40 years its failure cled the area for 40 minutes to use up fuel, Before the pilot to arrive of fers little solace lo those who champion the exist- could make an emergency landing, though, the crew para- ence Of UFOs.^JENNY RANDLES Healing through prayer promise held out by many world religions Now a. col- lection of such wonders has been amassed by physi- cian Rex Gardner of Sunder- land Disirict Hospital In Great Britain Tne most notable of Gard- ner's seven reported cases concerns a parishioner in Monkwearmouth, England, who suffered from a large, ul cerated varicose vein in her leg. When she decided to ask her church to pray

for her, a general praclifioner people who had been pres- almost immediately. warned that even if the leg enl not been available for Skeptics are quick to point were miraculously healed, the interrogation." out that spontaneous remis- scar would require skin Another case concerns a sions occur all the time, grafting. Nonetheless, Gard- little boy who was slowly so cases such as these can ner says, the ulcer healed succumbing to an infection in hardly be called miraculous. the day after the prayer lungs. Long-term arrti- According to physiologist meeting, and grafting was itie treatment failed to work, Gordon Stein of Santa Mon- not required id the boy's condition grew ica. California, "Gardner "This story is so bizarre," irogressively worse. His has chosen his cases poorly says Gardner, "that it would doctors at the Royal Victoria it he wishes to document not have been included had I Infirmary at Newcastle upon miraculous cures. The body's not been one of the doctors Tyne gave up all hope, but immune system could con- who examined the patient's his mother took him to a ceivably cure any of the leg at the next monthly prayer prayer service. To his doctors' conditions he presented A meeting and had all the amazement, he recovered better test would have been a 132 OMNI "

case of a regenerated ampu- tated limb. eye. or ear. which the immune system cannot regrow." you wear designer jeans Dr. Gardner disagrees. and dine on raw fish at Hes not sure, he says, that his sushi bars, then we suggest cases represent "proof of you consider another fave religious miracles. But, rave: designer tombstones he adds, "the adjective mh Monument designer Eu- raculous is permissible as gene Rosenbioom of St. convenient shorthand for Louis has already designed an otherwise almost inexplic- a guitarist's tombstone in able healing that occurs the shape oi a six-fool-tall after prayer to God." guitar, a jazz pianist's tomb- —D. Scott Rogo stone with a bas-relief of the deceased seated at a 'Once upon a time there was piano, and a trucker's tomb- magic " stone that has a dump truck —Arthur M. Young lutting Irom its face Some- what more bizarre is a tomb- of mouse skins in there," Sigford says, ex- stone (not designed by Recently 73 people, from plaining lhat rodents are fed Rosenbioom) that is carved elementary-school kids to to snakes on display at the with a re-creation of the

senior citizens, paid a dollar center. "So we figured that if deceased's fatal motorcycle each to take the latestmouse- we taught something like crack-up. rug course offered at Ihe taxidermy, we'd have an ad- "Tombstones are just like city-sponsored nature center. ditional use for Ihose same clothing and hairdos: They Ann Sigford, center manager, carcasses." run in cycles." Rosenbioom thinks the popularity of the The purpose of Ihe mouse- says. "Today many people program stems from curiosity. rug course, Sigford points are trying to personalize their

"People wonder what it's out, is threefold First, partici- expressions of respect, like fo actually skin an ani- pants learn about skinning. affection, and regard for their mal," she says, "And some Next the anatomy of the loved one who is gone by are attracted to this because skinned body is explained creating a monument that

II is, frankly, a little offbeat" "Then," says Sigford, "we talk really Illustrates what his in- Would-be mouse-rug about how things die and terests and accomplishments makers aren't forced to catch how life goes on from one liv- were here on Earth." their own raw material lor ing thing to another. We The price of a Oes

the course. They are provided illustrate this by watching two tombstone, if done ii They lack the elegance of with frozen mice bought at bull snakes eat Ihe little th ree-di mensional bas- Oriental rugs and the plush^ local pet stores. "People are skinned mice relief, Rosenbioom says, is ness of wall-to-wall carpet- always amazed that there At the end of the class typically double thai ol the ing. They're too small, meas- are actually places where you mouse-rug enthusiasts flatten average $1,200 monumenL uring just a couple ot inches can buy a bag full of frozen, out the freshly removed —Eric Mishara across, to be of much use dead mice," Sigford notes. mouse skins and pin them on except in a dollhouse. But a "But you can. It's just like corrugated cardboard "Scientitically speaking, the lot of people in the Minneap- buying a frozen chicken." squares. What do they do only thing different about olis suburb of Richfield jusl In fact, the original idea of with these creations? "Kids life and death is that death don't care—because for five making rugs out of mice keep them in their rooms," lasts a lot.longer," years hundreds of them came after Wood Lake Nafure Sigford says, 'And I know of —Terry Southern have been signing up at the Center personnel took a a few people who have Wood Lake Nature Center long, hard look in their freezer, received mouse rugs as "Too far east is west." to learn how to mate rugs out "We had a lot of dead mice gifts."—Sherry Baker Narrated in broadcast style by Weaver and KABC

-. a lighter, radio announcer Bill Jenkins, ihe dally reports feature il about it When he thought the Air Force was "eyewitness accounts" of covering up UFO crashes, he sightings, contacts, and for went to court demanding II abductions, One series, hand over the bodies of UFO instance, featured "verbatim crews Later he advertised conversations" between in Army and Air Force news- Swiss farmer Eduard Billy papers for whistle-blowers Meier and his friend Semjase. the story, who allegedly hails from a planet in Pleiades star Now it seems that taking the on the military could cost cluster, Another report fea- Bryant his job For the past tured a recording of the 28 years Bryant has worked "actual voice" of an extrater- as a writer and editor for restrial flying over South the Pentagon He's currently Africa two years ago. "Qualify information con- senior associate ed I ARNEWS, a news service for cerning factual UFO cases the Army But since he ran has never before been avail- his ads, he says, his bosses able in this easy-access have been trying to drive way, " says Shepherd, the line's executive director.

One aci in particular started "Each month we cover six to the trouble- It charged that seven phenomenal cases Army medics had per- which we investigate our- formed secret autopsies on iirst class." Adding insult to rating reversed, Army officials selves, along with other re- the crew ot a crashed saucer injury, he says, his supervi- decline to comment while ports from all over ihe world."

30 years earlier. Then It sors have given him an the action is pending For an additional fee of asked witnesses to come (or- unsatisfactory job rating. —Owen Davies $1,25, he adds, the UFO/

i aid in a lawsuit "It's an old technique." he Contact Newsline will send that would make sue records concludes. "You find excuses callers Iranscripis of the daily iiragedand reluc- to make someone look bad messages, copies of full tantto give the a^ - You put pressure on him Want the latest news on investigative reports (com- ment what he called "unde- until he really does screw up contact with E.T.'s, inside plete with photos), and even served credibility," Captain And then you fire him The stories on UFO sightings, and a monthly newsletter. James Pasierb ban only reason they've attacked scientific venfication of alien "Governments have 'tried publication in the Peterson my competence is to teach visits to Earth? to keep the UFO phenome- Air Forca Base newspaper, me a lesson, Dial (213) 976-UFOS. You'll non In the loony bins," says Bryant protested the decision "Cm worried about my be hooked Into the UFO/ Weaver, Ihe hotline's pro- and even plans to take the career, to say the least," Contact Newsline And for ducer. "What we're trying to

Air Force to court, Bryant says. "But if they think the phce of a phone call, do is affecl Ihe average Bui that is not the end of ihis has mellowed me, they're you'll hear a different three- person, to take the fear out of this it "Until this happened, I dead wrong. The issue now minute recorded report each aliens coming to planet, was acting chiel of rny section has gone beyond UFOs, day. The brainchild of Los Extraterrestrials are here, whenever the military chief It's whether you can work for Angeles businessman Paul and they've been here, and

Bryant says "l the government and still Shepherd, thirty-one, and this information can't be assigned projects, reviewed have the right to cm musician Rusty Weaver, swept under the carpet for- stories, even wrote my own Bryant has filed a formal twenly-seven, the UFO/Con- ever. Besides," he says,

if editorials Now I just write grievance with the Army tact Newsline is the first "even you don't believe in is what they give me I even chief for public affairs, trying dial-a-message line of its kind UFOs, this number fun have to report 10 a sergeant to get his unsatisfactory in the United States- to call,"—A.J.S. Rayl — —

radiation damage or wrinkled skin. This fu- looks bleak. But on the seventh floor in a ture skin will exactly mimic real skin, with tiny, windowless cubicle, Frederick Silver as many "appendages" of skin as possi- is anything but that. Speaking with the kind CUNIINl.ll lirnOMPWr 'i ble. Il will probably be accomplished by ot accent that calls an idea an "idear," he John Burke collaborated wilh Yannas), as mixing artificial skin with the patient's own grins a rubbery grin, pushes his horn-

ii's called, is made of collagen thai comes epithelial cells, which will come from a bank rimmed glasses down onto a face that looks from cowhide and of glycosaminoglycans of cells stored away when the patient was about twenty-two, whips a little, clear-plas-

(small sugar molecules that are linked to- young. Whatever goes wrong later— from tic bag out of his pocket.-and tells me I can gether). These are taken from the cartilage accident to disease to old age—can then touch the skin — but only through the plas- of cows or sharks. be corrected, removed, or regenerated. tic. "If I let everybody touch it, I won't have "How is your skin different from Freder- The solutions for wrinkled skin at the any more left." he explains. ick Silver's skin a( Ruigers?" present time—dermabrasion or peeling Floating in what appears to be a saline "He was one of my students." are less than perfect. And although peel- solution is a white, porous pad that looks

is more effective than dermabrasion, it like several woven layers of plastic gauze. "Oh. Then I might as well not bother ing

seeing him." depletes the skin of a lot of color. Better to I squeeze through the plastic, and the "skin" back. takes out another bag. "It's up to you. I don't know how his skin scrape off the wrinkled epidermis and re- bounces He differs from our skin. We're working with the surface the face with skin cloned from the "A collagen fiber," he says, "which will worst cases— cases in which the skin has futuristic frozen-cell bank. eventually be used for an artificial tendon."

been lost down to the muscle and we can Thinking about a friend who went to a I can barely locate it. Finally I spot a thin, instruct that muscle lo grow new skin." "back-street peeling parlor" in Miami and whiter hair floating in the solution. "The PR man said you might one day be couldn't close her eyes tor three years, my Though he was coinventor ot the MIT able to grow new breast tissue—after a De Kooning complex resurfaces. skin, Silver complains that it has certain

"I lines lip," I disadvantages. questions the neces- mastectomy, for example," I say, while ac- have these above my say. He tually thinking of Gore Vidal's "why did you "What would, you do if it were your lace? sity of the glycosaminoglycans because stop at the neck?" comment. they're water soluble and "the minute any- biological fluids, "I cannot speculate on that," Yannas says one touches they're stiffly. "The future lies in looking at wounds washed out of the artificial skin. Why have

as bioreactors, which, if properly in- them there?", he asks me. "It just confuses structed and controlled, will not give you a the issue. And you have to get them from 6 We're working scar but a higher- o/aae product—regen- shark cartilage, and how available is shark

erated tissue." with the worst cases— cartilage?" I remind him that Yannas says "A higher-grade product than the one you you can get them from anything: cow car- cases in which. tilage, for example. had before?" I ask, ever hopetul of a better

complexion and bigger tits, with no risk of 'the skin has been lost down "You can." he agrees, "but go down to

the breast-uno an: sea' capsules that plas- ' the butcher and say, 'How about some cow , to the muscle tic surgeons call coconuts. cartilage?' and he'll say, 'Sure. Here are the and we can, in fact, "No. A higher-grade product than scar." bones. You cut it off.' " The main ingredi- "Why couldn't O'Connor and Gallico instruct that ent, collagen, on the other hand, is easy to

have used your skin? It would have been get, thanks to slaughterhouses. And the muscle to grow new skin.^ so much fasterand easier." leather industry strips the collagen layer

"I do not know. It may not have been from the rest of the hide anyway and would

available." rather sell it than throw it out. "And you don't

Across the Charles River, in a basement have to do a lot with it once you get it. The

oftice of the great labyrinth that is Boston's second problem with the MIT skin is that

Brigham and Women's Hospital, Nicholas Dermabrasion or peeling?" they've cross-linked it with glutaraldehyde, O'Connor is gulping down a paslrami "Neither," O'Connor answers. an agent that can be cytotoxic."

sandwich and some coleslaw, his head "How do you think my nose came out? I The whole point of the artificial dermis,

strategically angled over the wastebasket had it shortened and the bump shaved in says Silver, is to replace the skin and "con- he has moved between his chair and his Rio." tour out" the wound. When you have a

desk. A lanky, genial, good-looking Irish- "Let's see the profile." I turn, giving him wound, your cells move in and lay down man with a shock of prematurely white hair, my bad side. something called granulation tissue, which O'Connor says he couldn't use the Yan- "It's a nice, straight nose. He did a nice is followed by scar tissue. The presence of

nas-Burke skin on the burned brothers job. Bui turn toward me." I turn again "See, the collagen matrix (or artificial skin) ap-

because MIT wasn't making it then. Now in this light you can notice little squiggles parently tricks your own cells into skipping

it's available on a controlled FDA trial basis on the bridge. That's why you should al- the granulation process; and when fibro- at nine centers around the country. "But ways powder your nose." blast cells (responsible for connective tis- are matrix, don't you can't just. . . gerit," says O'Connor. Yet Laughing at the advice I've been given sue) inserted into the you

he concedes that even though it always by one of the country's top plastic sur- have to wait the three to seven days it would

grows to epidermal thickness, cultured geons, I phone Yannas and tell him I forgot normally take for them to move into the skin— an extremely thin, transparent layer to take a look ai his anrioial skin. "You can't wound and begin making new tissue. looking like Jell-0 that hasn't quite jelled expect me to respond immediately to a To explain contouring out he shows me

might be more durable in the long run over sudden request like that," he complains. "I photographs of a deep skin ulcer that has a layer of the Yannas-Burke artificial skin. have a seminar in ten minutes." been filled in and is shrinking as a result of

"Too bad they couldn't have worked "Oh, never mind. I'll look at the Rutgers applying the artificial skin. One still needs

twenty-four hours a day at the lab to make skin when I get back. It's closer anyway." a graft over that, he says; otherwise, one is some for you." "Do not take their skin for our skin," Yan- still open to infection and loss of water and

it "I it. In other it's essential O'Connor shrugs, passes off, doesn't nas warns. have not seen I do not know heat. words, "to keep

want to get into a discussion of scientific, how it compares." the inside in and the outside out." commercial, clinical cooperation. The Set amid a lonely, sun-blanched land- "The liberated man sees that the skin

"main thing in the future." says O'Connor, scape reminiscent of architectural render- may just as well be regarded as what joins will be an acceptable skin substitute for ings, Rutgers University's modernistic us to our environment as what separates

burn patients, trauma victims, people with Robert Wood Johnson Medical School us from it," said the late hippie Buddhist 13S OMNI —

convert Alan Walts. I listen in amazement be able to make a cream to go: rid of brown her a basic course in cell biology." to Silver's of explanation the piezoelectric- spots, or a substance that' will let you -tan "It's not so good," Sara says. "It was ity ol bone and collagen —wherein me- without^ sunbathing. This research, they trypsinized yesterday." Trypsin suspends chanical energy or stress becomes elec- hope, will lead to a melanoma cure- the cells and separates them. trical energy—and to his theory that While explaining all this, Eisinger is ab- "Then show her some fibroblasts, Olga," perhaps "the organized collagen fibers sentmindedly running a hand back and she says to another blond, blue-eyed within the scaffolding of the matrix are de- forth over a spot on her forearm. "I've heard Czech, "In one case we put fibroblasts into veloping an electrical surlace pattern on that some scientists use themselves as the collagen matrix without epidermal cells, the cells which new are orienting." guinea pigs," I say. avidly examining her and the epidermal cells grew in anyway." I

I the plastic imagine surgery patient of arm for signs of discoloration. "Could it be look through the microscope and see the future, lying on an- operating table out that you're doing the same thing?" beautiful Persian arrangements of normal in a field: her own electromagnetic cur- "No, no, no! Don't you dare suggest a fibroblasts, arrangements that are crying rents hooked up to the earth's; nol only her thing like that It isn't true," she insists, to be painted. Then I see— to quote Olga skin but also her bone, muscle, cartilage, clasping her hands together on her lap. "particularly vicious," spindle-shaped, and other tissue joined even further with "Here," I tell her. "Look at my arm. I've cancerous fibroblasts, shaped that way to

the environment. I think of the Hindu belief got a really dark brown spot right there." penetrate more easily. They look like a dis- that one is taking in prana or "life force" "Oh," she sighs, "if only you were a pig! orderly house and disturb me the way an with every breath and that it can be inten- That one would be particularly useful tor overdose of TV sound, or Times Square sified. Is prana composed, then, of elec- experimentation." after dark, does— an assault on the space tromagnetic currents'? When Shiva in the 'Just slather me with the stuff anyway," I between my eyes. Gazing at some pig- Bhagavad Gits says, "This body, O sun of beg, after which I give her a blow-by-blow ment cells they've managed to isolate, I say, Kunti, is the field," does he mean the elec- account of some of my recent surgical ex- "Oh, yes, the greenish-yellow spots." tromagnetic field? Is the agricultural field periences in Rio. to convince her of my "No, brown." "Greenish-yellow," I insist. separate from the electromagnetic field, or bravery when it comes to beauty. "She must be color-blind," Sara says. are they one and the same? "No, she's an artist," Eisinger says. O'Connor tells me that fulure surgery will "Here, look at this beautiful green," I say. be like an episode from Star Trek: "They "It's at about two o'clock." got 'Under a machine, a- light came oh, a Magdalena looks through the micro- laser zapped out, and they got up and scope. "That's not the color of the cell, " she 6/ imagine the walked away healed." I imagine chins and says, disgusted. "That's a light refraction." noses rearranged, breasts augmented, plastic surgery patient, her Then Magdalena shows me a photo- and thighs thinned without knives, needles, electromagnetic graph of a young black boy afflicted with anesthesia, or implants. And I realize Dick a rare disease that causes the skin to peel ' Tracy was right when he said, "He who currents hooked up to the off. Skin grafts didn't lake well, so they cul- controls magnetism controls fhe world." earth's—not only tured his skin. But skin grown in a test tube

Nevertheless, Silver has insisted I go to lacks pigment, so the boy's lace is a mot- skin but muscle, cartilage, Memorial Sloan-Keltering Cancer Center tled white and "black, a dramatic illustration to see Magdalena Eisinger, "who knows and other tissue of the importance ol Eisinger's work. No more lhan anybody else in the country matter the colors, however, the "after" photo joined to her environment.^ about the black magic of growing cells." shows a dramatic improvement over the

When I follow his recommendation Eis- raw, bleeding tissue that covered the en- inger laughs that "Fred Silver's trying to tire middle section in the "before" photo. brainwash you with electromagnetism, but Feeling incredibly blessed to have normal I'm going to brainwash you with the growth skin, I leave after promising to come back factor, instead." The ebullient, blue-eyed "Don't tell me how old you are," she or- to witness an operation on one of the ex- blond who is of the skin cellular head biol- ders. "Let me guess. If I didn't know you perimental pigs housed on the third floor. laboratory ogy at Sloan-Ketlering left had all that work done, I'd say thirty-five." "Don't forget," Eisinger reminds me at the Prague for Vienna in 1968 for a week's va- "Forty-seven," I answer. elevator, "to give Yannas credit." cation with her husband, two daughters, "Then you should never tell anybody "Magdalena Eisinger did the pioneering and two suitcases Berause of the Rus- you've had surgery. You look so good, why work. She was the first one to grow epithe- sian invasion of Czechoslovakia, they got spoil it?" lial cells," Yannas says when I check with on a plane for New York instead of return- "You use yourself as a guinea pig in him about the damn glycosaminoglycans, ing home. first thing The she asks me is, medicine," I explain. "I use myself as a explaining that Silver claims they disap- "What is Yannas like?" guinea pig in journalism." pear upon contact with bodily fluids. "Stern." Laughing but denying any self-experi- "That is his opinion," She counters, "You have to give him mentation, she takes me down the corri- "What about the cytotoxicity of glutaral- credit for being the first and for sticking to dor. It's five, past but everybody's still dehyde?" I ask, interrupting his response it tor so many before years he got results."' working with the thousands of plastic jars to scream "Stop it!" at my daughter Gaby, Eisinger and her staff are working with and bottles containing red liguid (red to who is babbling in my ear. melanocytes, the pigment-making cells show pH changes) and various combina- "If Gaby is bothering you," he begins responsible for tanning, brown spots, tions of skin cells—with and without fibro- again, "and you get another little girl to play freckles, and the deadly skin cancer mel- blasts, ." cancerous and noncancerous, pig- with her. . anoma. They've isolated the cells' growth mented and nonpigmented. Some are "I've got another little girl." factor. Shun-lchiro Ogata, a young Japa- growing on Fred Silver's collagen ma- "Ten, then. She'll be busy in the next nese researcher, is purifying it now in a trices, and some are growing on the bot- room—tied up—and she won't be jabber- ol glass maze jars, machines, and tubes tles' bare plastic walls. ing at you. Thai's what happens to the glu- he designed himself. all stand We back to "Oh, Sara," Eisinger says to the young taraldehyde. It ties up the collagen fibers, admire the aesthetics of the arrangement. Israeli working on immunology (the skin is bonds with them. And having done that, Once Eisinger and colleagues purify the the most allergic qrgan: a transplant from it's spent itself and lost its toxicity. Any free growth factor, they can figure out how to one person to another lasts only a few glutaraldehyde that might remain is washed reproduce the pigment-producing cells days), "do you have that wonderful flask of out for twenty-four hours, and the water is and to stop the cells' growth. Then they'll cells, fhe pigment-producing cells? Give tested with a special glutaraldehyde-de- tecting agent. This is very important. Other wan* to get rid of the bump, he'll have to "I don't see why not, though you'd need ." scientists should not . . break the bone, as Pitanguy should have a much stronger current. But the trouble .," "This competition among scientists. . done. Then we both decide the bridge is with doing it to thighs or suctioning it out of t

I sigh, eager to express solidarity with any- too wide. He punches some black dots into thighs is that you have all that skin left over one who uses my beloved child as a sci- the video profile to thin the bridge, short- it. and something has to be done with I only entific metaphor. ens the tip, changes the nostril, and adds do head and neck work."

"Competition is " fill not all destructive, Yan- some white dots to out the upper lip, all Since I survived the eye-fat evaporation,

I nas responds. "The one hundred twenty- at my suggestion. look like one of my I decide to watch a "nose-augmentation two people treated with artificial skin who younger sisters now, the one who married video, using Sachs's other invention: tissue are well are, to some extent, the result of my last fiance, the sister, to quote Pitanguy, ciay. First I'm shown the collagen: a white, competition." "born with a ten-thousand-dollar nose." P!ay-Doh-like substance being mixed in a In Manhattan's world of cosmetic sur- "This is not a surgical tale. Doctor; it's a bowl with the patient's own blood. (Re-

competitive field I gery—an even more than Freudian one," tell him on my way out the minds me of my mother during World War II pure science — I visit the charming, per- door, clutching a Polaroid of the altered kneading a red bead into while lard to make petually smiling Dr. Robert Cucin in his profile. Back home my fifteen-year-old yellow margarine.) The resulting dark red marble-lined town house. After a discus- daughter. Alexandra, studies it and says, material is put into a syringe and inserted sion of various types of face-lifts and re- "Mom, you don't look like Aunt Marybeth under the skin into the patient's nose, where constructive surgery, he gets down to here; you look like a fish!" the skin has been lifted off the bone. The business: playing with his computer im- "Nonsense!" says the young, equally way the flaccid nose is manipulated asfhe aging machine; poking dots into profiles to charming Michael Evan Sachs in his posh tissue clay is sculpted makes the patient slim them down; adding and subtracting Manhattan office after a pretty and very look like a corpse dragged out of the fridge theoretical bone, cartilage, and tissue. Fi- pregnant black recepfionist wearing a on Quincy. nally satisfied that my own froze n-on-the- jumpsuit shows me in. "I can raze that "How long does it last?" screen image is as good as he can get it, bump down in ten minutes right here in my "So far we've had a maximum sixteen he says, "Well, what would you like to have percent resorption in five years. Beyond done?" that, it's too soon to tell. But actual bone "Can you do anything about my bulging and other materials resorb even more." windpipe?" "What about the sliced coral Kenneth "No." Salyer uses in Houston?" I ask. "The new '•Once Eisinger "Can you make my lip turn up?" bone grows into the coral holes, and the "Unfortunately not." purifies pigment-growth coral biodegrades."

"Well, then . . . what needs doing?" 'Anything hard will do that," Sachs says. factor, she may "How about some implants on your Whether growing new bone cells or new cheekbones?" deveiop a cream that gets skin, the structure of the inserted material

' Having heard all my life how well I was is the key. The reason Zyderm collagen im- - rid of brown going to age because of my high cheek- plants don't last beyond 18 months when spots, or a substance that bones, I panic. "My God! Are my cheek- used in filling. facial lines is that each arti- bones disintegrating already?" He swivels allows you to ficial molecule is hollow. When new cells around and takes a look at my actual f lesh- form on the collagen molecule's smooth, tan without sunbathing.^1 and-blood face. spherical surface, they eventually de-

"Well." he concedes, "maybe not, How grade it and tumble into the empty space, about this area?" Busy with a stylus, he whose volume is greater than that of the takes a tuck in my left eyelid, which unbe- now-degraded surface. Hence there aren't to knownst him had been tucked by Ivo enough new cells to fill up the wrinkle. Pitanguy, the famous plastic surgeon from office. [Finesse sculpting rhinoplasty, he Fred Silver showed me his solution: a jar Brazil, 12 months earlier. He raises the calls it.] I never heard anything crazier than filled with collagen beads that looked like eyebrow. There's virtually no difference, breaking the bone!" I think of Silver's wish lavender couscous ("That's just so you can however, between the two eyes, since the for the future: that clinicians and research- see them," he says about the color). The image he's, playing with is already char- ers would communicate and share infor- beads are structured like sponge or coral acterized by the startled-doe look of my mation and results more closely. so that new cells begin to proliferate from almost too-wide-open thanks eyes, to my 'Are you squeamish?" Sachs asks. I re- deep within the center of each molecule altered lids. Sensing something amiss, he late that upon graduating from college. and spread outward. Once the artificial gets up, walks I over to me, and lakes a where majored in fine art, I took a job with beads have biodegraded, you have a filled- closer look. "Have you ever in your life had a scientist at Harvard Medical School. in surface. Silver, unfortunately rejected my surgery on your eyelids?" he asks. When he showed me how to slit open a guinea pig offer to lest the beads. Be-

When I the truth, explains admit he that rat's vein and insert a plastic tube, I fainted. cause he's not a physician, he explains, he I'm so fair-skinned there's been no scar- "Can you sit through a video of my fat- can't inject it. ring, so it was impossible to tell. Making a evaporation technique?" "Micro is the key here," says San Fran- mental note to thank Pitanguy for a scar- "I can try," I answer. cisco's Dr. Samuel Stegman of the Ameri-

I free face, tell Cucin that since I had my In realistic color a Chien Andatou-iype can Society for Dermatologic Surgery nose bump removed, I've acquired a new image flicks on: a knife approaching an about experimental microlipoinjection, a one, probably from Gaby bouncing on my eyeball. But instead of the eye, the skin un- technique that suctions fat from one part bed a after few months my surgery and derneath is slit open to reveal a yellow pad of the body and injects it into another. It is slamming her hard little skull right into the of fat embedded in a triangle of raw. bloody widely used in France and Switzerland but newly razed bridge. He erases my face and tissue. A needle is inserted into the pad, is not considered a standard procedure in gets me to sit tor a profile. the cauterized fat suddenly sizzles away the United States. "By injecting less than

I look like a hideous crone. I "My God. and evaporates, and I don't even feel faint. three'cubic centimeters of teeny-tiny fat never realized how ugly my chin is," I com- "Why is that better than cutting?" globules through a nineteen-gauge needle . plain. "ForgeHhe nose; it's the chin that "By cutting ygu either nick some of the and not injuring them in the process and wants attention." After he whittles away at" tissue or you don't get all the fat. This way by spreading them out enough in an area

the chin, I decide now that the chin looks you get it all and no bleeding." that has fat anyway, you get them to grow, good, the nose looks if bad. He says f really "Can you do it to thighs?" giving you something that's feasible," he 140 OMNI "

explains. "This is still in (he let-me-try stage. ability to translate hand, eye, and heart, lation surgery did it only to please herself. It's not in the l'm-ready-to-give-you-the- Viva, is very exciting — it's a unity." Not a husband or lover gave a lig what her right-iormula stage. Microlipoinjection is Simon puts two books in my lap: Long- breasts looked like!" (LaterSimon, recant- autograft: the patient is his or her own do- Term Results in Plastic £nd Reconstructive ing a bit, says that he was referring to a

nor, so there won't be any allergies. It's Surgery, edited by Robert M. Goldwyn, and Johns Hopkins study ol 60 women who had simple to harvest and simple to do—an The Principles and Art of Plastic Surgery, undergone breast-enlargement surgery. office procedure. It's too early to tell how by Sir Harold Gillies and Ralph Millard, Jr. None had done so to please a man.)

long it lasts, but the word on this one is, "Millard's one of the most important people "How about face-lifts?" I ask. "Why do Follow closely. Crow's-feel are too fine; for in the field of cleft-lip surgery," Simon ex- you sometimes do Ihem over again after

them, use co.laoen. sparingly. You and I plains, and also, according to my friend eighteen months?" are the same age. I've got a thin face, and from the back-street peeling parlor in "If you read my article in Bob Goldwyn's I've looked in the mirror and said, 'Well, Miami, one of the experts on face peeling. book, you'll understand that in face-lifts the

when is it gonna be time?' I open this latter volume at random and skin stretches, and I point out why." "You know the hollow between the top of read: "In face-lifting, avoid the young Briefly, the collagen fibers—which do not

the cheekbone and the eyeball?" I ask, en- woman who has little to gain. Yet there is a have elastic properties and are oriented in couraged lo really get into the De Kooning state in a woman's facial ptosis [drooping] a squiggly, random fash ion—straigh ten into

syndrome. when it is better to lift or relift than wait until parallel structures after a face-lift. Mean-

"I know exactly what you're talking about, too late. A beautitul woman is worth pre- while, the skin's elastic network, which is

and I do it there. Zyplast and maybe a little serving, and should be kept youthful while incapable of regeneration, stretches and,

microlipoinjection. Zyplast goes under the she is still young enough to enjoy it." with age, becomes like a worn-out girdle.

skin to build il up at about the same level I close the book after glimpsing some Horrified at the thought of my straight-

that silicone is put in. It's sort of a gel. I've pictures of a couple of World War II vets ened-out collagen and the worn-out girdle

done many of the studies for the Collagen whose faces, from the upper lip down, are that was once my elastic network, I rush Corporation, and I've used Zyplast for three abstract masses of bloody tissue. Now I do home and track Pitanguy by phone in St. years now. Whereas collagen may disin- Tropez, where he's "staring out to sea at a tegrate between six and eighteen months, boat that doesn't seem to move." After a Zyplast may disintegrate between twelve brief sortie into philosophy ("The passage and twenty months. Microlipoinjection is for between maturity and old age can be tiny little puff-ups. For the laugh lines, the eased by the right direction between soul ^Microlipoinjection hollows of the cheeks, and some of the and body"), he tells me that the "right di- forehead furrows — no creases but deep is for tiny little puff-ups, rection" of the pull between the tragus (the furrows. I'm also looking into a sonic fat bump on the cartilage where the front of for laugh lines, dissolver so I can go under the skin with a the ear joins the cheek) and the Darwin ' needle and sculpt." says Stegman. and some forehead furrows. tubercle (the bump on the back of the ear "No cuts, no stitches, no scars—just a I'm also looking opposite the tragus) is one of three things blast ot sound, right?" responsible for the long-lasting effects that into a sonic fat dissolver to "Right." characterize his face-lifts and the nondis- 'Anything new with the breasts? Can you go under the skin ruption of collagen fibers. ("Impossible," move the fat up a few feet? Say, from the Pull with a needle and sculpt$ says Cucin.) without overstretching the thighs to the tits?" skin, Pitanguy continues. The other two are "No. Everything's gotta be in the bag." a proper amount of undermining, or sep- (Wrong. A Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, aration ol the skin from the muscle, which Mel Bircoll, has been moving nonbag fat includes liposuction of the fat under the chin up into breasts in amounts of 130 cubic (with an instrument that separates skin from centimeters for the past 21 months, too feel faint. Taking a deep breath, I say, "Well, musclewhetherornotyou suction fat), and

tell if will soon to there be resorption.) Doctor, just last year I had my eyes, neck, treatment of the SMAS plaiysma. (SfvlAS In a reassuringly old-fashioned office in nose, and face done in Rio." stands for the superficial muscular apo- New York, Bernard Simon, seventy-four, "You did!" he exclaims, shocked. neurotic system, which envelops the ." consulting surgeon, prolessor emeritus of "I suppose I didn't really need it. . . deeper platysma. The platysma, accord- plastic surgery at Mount Sinai, and the last "I was going to say. You have the kind of ing to Gray's Anatomy, is a broad, thin plane surviving plastic surgeon of those who face and figure lhat when you're eighty, of muscular fibers that extends from the worked on the "Hiroshima maidens," greets you're going to look like Katharine Hep- face to the clavicle and produces wrinkling me with, 'Anybody who touches your face burn. When a beautiful woman, an already of the skin's surface, depression of the jaw. should be drummed out of the profession, attractive woman like yourself, has sur- and a drawing down of the mouth, "being prevented from communication with any- gery, in her exuberance she looks at the one of the chief agents in the expression body, put in a cell, the door slammed shut surgeon and says, 'Oh, Doctor, aren't you of melancholy") and never opened again. You're absolutely wonderful, you're a genius.' and these "Do you cut through the SMAS pla- stunning, for God's sake." When I tell him dumb SOBs believe it. They don't realize tysma?" about computer imaging and fat evapo- they're just doing what they've been trained "You resection it. No one cuts through it ration, he says, "You've been keeping some to do. Just as any abdominal surgeon of anymore. 1 was always against cutting pretty raunchy company. any competence lakes out your appendix, through because it distorts the expres- ." if "Ifsas Picasso or Michelangelo would your gallbladder, your . . sion," says Pitanguy. have had to use a computer," he says. "You "But Doctor, what can I do about my "Maybe Pitanguy gets a distortion when 7 know the story about Giotto and the pope, breasts Between my two children, I'm he cuts through it, but we don't, "claims Dr. don't you? The pope's representatives embarrassed to'admit, I've been nursing Val Lambrose, an associate of Bruce Con- came up to Giotto like a search committee for a total of six years." nell, the Santa Ana, California, surgeon who for a university to see whether he was a "Why are you apologizing?" brought Thod Skood's SMAS platysma artist good enough to do some things for "My father said I was going to turn Gaby technique from Scandinavia to this coun- the Vatican. .. And'Giotto took a piece of pa- „ into a lesbian." try. Lambrose also says that the literature per and, with a flourish, drew a circle and "Oh, balls! Don't let your daddy con you. on traditional breast implants above the said, 'They'll it.' skill.. understand His was Anyway, I have literature to prove that every pectoral muscle claims 30 to 40 percent such that he didn't need a compass. The single, woman who's had breast-augmen- scarring, but with his technique of implant- m OMNI ing underneath ihe muscle, only 10 per- under lension.) cent of his patients fal victim to the "co- "To augment the breasts," Sachs contin- conut syndrome." Furthermore, after Con- ues, "we'll call them up on the screen, nell realized that "when people look at you, redesign Ihem. rond the electromagnet c ray they concentrate on the triangle between will cause the molecules in the lactating tis- mad-scientist tradition, on Ihe verge of de- your eyebrows and your upper lip," he re- sue and the muscles to increase, the skin stroying human intellect and just as happy fined the brow-lift, a procedure thai had to stretch," as. a clam at high tide. fallen into disrepute. Connell cuts through When I talk to Silver later, he points out the muscle at the hairline, thus avoiding that an electromagnetic ray is a laser and Guys like my brother Bobby only come cutting away any hair or lengthening the what it does is emit a •high-intensity light along once every two or three generations, brow. that an electric field. has and magnetic The I think— guys like Newton, Einstein, Da

I ponder the proposition. "I thought no- ray causes evaporation of the atoms by Vinci, maybe Edison. They all seem to have body did that anymore because it pre- pulling the electrons away trom it. But the one thing in common: They are like huge vents one from lifting one's eyebrows." patient would have to be immobile be- compasses tha- swing aimlessly for a long "Some doctors mighl go: lhat result, but cause movement can change the coordi- time, searching for some true north and we don't," also re- nates, says Lambrose, who so a surgeon would have to contour then homing in on it with fearful force, Be- veals that with the "deep, strong pull" he the surgery table and attach the patient's fore that happens, such guys are apt to get and Connell give to the severed SMAS pla- body to it with vacuum cups. And if she up to some weird shit, and Bobby was no tysma, their results "can only be. described did move, the laser would shut off. exception. When he was eight and I was miraculous." as "Will we be sorry we played God?" I ask fifteen, he came to me and said he had Looking for someth ng oven more mirac- O'Connor when he talks about research- invented an airplane. By then I knew Bobby ulous, I phone Sachs and ask for a more ers working on DNA that can be inserted too well to just say "Bullshit" and kick him detailed futurslio plastic surgery scenario into cells give better and Gan them ability out of my room. I went out to the garage, than the one O'Connor gave me—the CAT to repair themselves. where there was this weird plywood con- scan with the laser beam. "Oh, yeah," he says, "but we've been traption sitting on his American Flyer red

"Okay," Sachs says, "let's say we're sorry we played God all along. With every wagon. It looked a little like a fighter plane, gonna do a nose job and a face-lift and major advance there are prices to pay. The but the wings were raked forward instead we're not gonna use a laser; we're gonna magnificent theories of Einstein, for in- of back. He had mounted the saddle from an electromagnetic use ray." stance, led to atomic bombs." his rocking horse on the middle of it with

"Why not a breast augmentation and an "What about it?" I ask Eismger. "Will we bolls. There was a lever on the side. There at ass and thigh reduction the same time? have a board of laymen and scientists lo was no motor. He said it was a glider. He not lay Why her right down on that table make future decisions—the way we should wanted me to. push him down Carrigan's the way Pitanguy does and do it all in one have had before Ihe nuclear-arms race and Hill, which was the steepest grade in DCs fell swoop?" I suggest. power plants got out of hand?" Grant Park— there was a cement path First "Why not? Okay. her doctor gives "We_have that already in Japan," says down the middle of it for old folks. That, hersite-specific pills a coupla days ahead. he^ assistant. Ogata, "more resl'ielions than Bobby said, would be his runway. One to the bone, muscle, cartilage, and here." you do "Bobby," I said, "you got this puppy's skin. She'll go into a CAT-scan-type room "But it would make sense they worry wings on backward."

lie instead it and down, but of a CAT scan about more in Japan," I say. "They've "No," he said. "This is the way they're she'll have a nuclear magnetic resonance the to suffer from been ones most the mag- supposed to be. I saw something on Wild unit. Instead of X rays it uses the intrinsic nificent theories of Einstein." Kingdom about hawks. They dive down on radiation that's given off by her own cells, Ogata nods and smiles. He wants to their prey and then reverse their wings to take a photograph." continue what Eisinger calls "a philosoph- coming up. They're double-jointed, see? fluid, "As the developing so to speak?" ical discussion," but time is short. So he Yoi..- get better lit! this way." "Right. Well have a hologram image, and gets back to the thousands of plastic bot- "Then why isn't the Air Force building " we'll computer. We'll call her tles 9 ;: have a up nose containing red fluid and various skin them this way I askeo. o sstuliy unaware on the computer. With a pen I'll draw the cells, carrying on simultaneously in at least that both America anci vie Soviet Union had changes I want to make, and the computer two of the three fields Bernard Simon calls plans lor such forward-wing fighter planes will analyze that picture—the bone, carti- the keys lo the plastic surgery of the tuture: on their drawing boards. lage, subcutaneous tissues—and will see technical innovations, immunology, and Bobby just shrugged. We went over to what needs to be reduced and in what way. regeneration. Even today, however, with Carrigan's Hill, and he climbed into the

! we'll i Then make a new hologram. The ma- these e ds far tro-r: ponec:ed. movies. TV, rocking-horse saddle arc grpped the le- chine she's in will emit a certain electro- beaches, resta.i'ani;, ana health clubs are ver. "Push me hard" he said. His eyes were magnetic radiation just like TV waves. To fast becoming populated of the — by armies dancing with that crazed light I knew so reduce the bone in that area, an energy surgically altered. I watch them parade by well— Christ, his. eyes used to light up that beam will trigger the molecules from the and think of the of Queen Miami Beach, an way in hiscradle sometimes. But I swear chemical that is already in there from the eighty-yea' old who managed —with ex- to God, I never would have pushed him pill she's taken. Same way with the skin. ercise, diet, and plastic to surgery— the I ap- down cement path as hard as did if I This little machine will spray a sort of invis- pear no older than thirty-five. She and her thought the thing would actually work. ible paint on the skin. The paint will react thirty-year-old lover spent their time with her But I didn't know, and I gave him one hell with the chemical that's already lodging children. One day her body was found with of a shove. He went Toewneeling down the there; the electromagnetic and ray will turn a note reading: "I couldn't stand it any- hill, whooping like a cowboy just off a trail

the reaction, I on chemical remove some more; looked thirty-five but inside I fell like drive and headed into town for a few cold molecules, tighten the skin." eighty, and I just couldn't keep up. My in- beers. An old lady had to jump out of his

(According to Silver, with whom I imme- sides didn't match my outsides. Sorry." way, and he just missed an old guy in a diately double-check, this might be pos- Once we get to the point where our in- walker. Halfway down he pulled the han- sible if a small amount of molecules, "invis- sides outsides, we'll really 1 match our be in dle, and 1 watched, w e'e eyed and gape- ible'to the naked eye," were removed. The trouble. Then maybe we can indulge our jawed, as his splintery oiywcocf plane sep- replacements in growing would have a De Kooning complexes mocTnitoly. lo Ihe arated from the wagon. At first it only hov- tighter alignment because the normal point where the big dealer upstairs never ered inches above it, and for a second it healing is lay response to down fibers un- has to come down and take our bodies off looked like it was going to settle back. Then der tension; a wrinkle in fabric is removed the easel. DO there was a gust of wind, and Bobby's 144 OMNI "

plane took off ke someone had it on an invisible cable. The American Flyer wagon ran off the concrete path and into some bushes. All of a sudden Bobby was ten

feet in the air, then twenty, then fifty. He went gliding over Grant Park on a steep- ening, upward plane, whooping cheerily.

I went running after fiim, screaming for him to come down, visions ol his body tum- bling off that stupid rocking-horse saddle and impaling itself on a tree or one of the SEE park's many statues standing out with hid- the fht amazing pictures of one of eous clarity in my head. I did nof Just imag-

ine funeral; I world's most sophisticated VCRs—the my brother's attended it. new Canon VR-HF720. With advanced "BOBBY!" I shrieked. "COMEDOWN!" "WHEEEEEEEE!" Bobby screamed features like its remarkable HQ back, his voice faint but clearly ecstatic. '{High -Quality) video system for sharper Startled chess players. Frisbee throwers, images and more natural colors, and book readers, lovers, and joggers stopped convenient on-screen display of program- whatever they were doing to watch. "BOBBY. THERE'S NO SEAT BELT ON ming, the VR-HF720 is sure to give you

THAT FUCKING THING!" I screamed, It a truly memorable ^%~*%£\-+-m f~> was the firsf time I ever used thai particular viewing experience.^-'C* i I word, so far as I can remember. Aecu -Vision'" "Til be all right ..." he was screaming

at the top of his lungs, but I could barely

hear him. I went running down Carngans

Hill, shrieking all the way. I don't have the

slightest memory of just what I was yelling,

but the next day I could not speak above

a whisper. I do remember passing a young

fellow in a neat three-piece suil standing by the statue of Eleanor Roosevelt at the

foot of the hill. He looked at me and said conversationally. "Tell you what, my friend,

I 'm having one hell of an acid flashback.

I remember that odd, misshapen shadow gliding across fhe green floor of the park, JOHN-DAVID ASKS: rising and rippling as it crossed over park benches, litter baskets, and the upturned

IsYour Brain, faces of the watching people. I remember

chasing it. I remember how my mother's Your Success Worth $295. face crumpled and how she started to cry

when I told her that Bobby's plane, which Beyond Subliminal™ Thpes had no business flying in the first place, turned upside down in a sudden eddy of "BRAIN-MIND-EXMNSION"™ "ELIMINATE SELF-SABOTAGE" fmshec • Relationships • SelfEsteem wind and that Bobby ms short but ...OR EVEN $1,400? • ShortTfcrm Memory • Sen & Inner Self brilliant career splatfered all over D Street. Only you car decide how val- • Money & Career Way things turned out, it would have An intensive, uable your brain is or how much no-llolds-barred. 4T;,r« CuiiinJiii- Se; $U'5 In?* ski. Ctm-plor-: ?: i2i?.. been belter for everyone if it had turned you invest in becoming success- ful and happy. out that way. Instead. Bobby banked back lange. AS: toes srs djgildily ma^.tr Learning easily, expanding Carrigan's Hill, holding nonchal- 1 toward '.' ; '" .'.' ..I'.! .i"i, . " " iiii: i i ' ,' : ' your brain, eliminating subcon- -1' v'- ' i = '' antly on to the tail of his plane to from eries that certain tones and f= :;'!'- f,-', keep i . r tm ";.".. m i'-'. s ious belief systems that block "' sounds iii differei'.t frequencies Neun.si-;ence=. falling off the damned thing, and brought ; jur happiness and success is allow these tapes to 'speak' di- _,,, _,, _„_ now becoming a science, a tech- it down toward the pond at the center of nology. Grant Park. He went air-sliding iive feet over In the fo'elvonl of thai. science it, then four . . . and then he was dragging The result: you have the latest i.neuroscience.i is a series of tapes Nat~1-800-4-DR-JQHN f his sneakers in the water, sending back twin and total immersion seminars leehnuk'Sv ! i expanding your tisi-ssis) developed by John-David, Ph.D. b'T-in- mind and eliminatm; Call -800-624-9779 white wakes, scaring the usually compla- .•fl:-s;ih..itage. Are free demonstratioh tape Released to the public only 16 you worth it? cent (and overfed) ducks into honking in- months ago, after 20 years re- dignant flurries before him, laughing his search, the results are being Immersion Intensive . cheerful laugh. He came down on the far called "a generation beyond mere ,-,1. Wn-Tirii n Ja"=. Total motivation tapes," side, exactly between two park benches TaiX-i art 5195 to $495. Semi- that snapped off the wings of his plane. nars 11,400. You decide. Bobby New out of the saddle, thumped his Bypass Your Resistance head, and started to bawl.

Whereas mere motivation That was life with Bobby. tapes are only two levels, these i'.! Not that everything was :nat spectacu- are mega-subliminal. These tapes :'.' .' i. lar— in fact, I don't think anything (at least are 7 leveled r>r — tracked 3 hear- !'" :,.. .; ..:.. i. able bv left brain, 4 unhearable until Calmative) was quite that spec- Checks payable to and mail to; John-David Learning Institute The by right brain — bypassing your M-il Impala In i1h|Q310456 tacular. But life with Bobby was a constant boggle. By age nine he was attending —

quantum-physics and advanced-algebra classes at Georgetown University. One day he blanked out every radio and TV on our street—and the surrounding four blocks with his own voice; he had found an old portable TV in the attic and turned it into a wide-band radio broadcasting station. One old black-and-white Zenith, twelve feet of hi-fi flex, a coat hanger mounied on the roof peak of our house, and presto! For about two hours all four blocks of Georgetown

could receive was WBOB . . . which hap- pened to be my brother, reading some of the incredibleiound of one of the my short stories, telling moron jokes, and world's most sophisticated VCRs—the new explaining thai the high sultur content in Canon VR-HF720. It has multi-channel TV baked beans was the reason our dad for stereo bilingual broadcasts tarted so much in church every Sunday sound and morning. "But he gets most ot 'em off prefly and a 90dB dynamic range for breathtaking quiet." Bobby told his audience of roughly hi-fi stereo performance. For more informa- thousand, "or sometimes he holds the three tion and the Canon Video dealer nearest yoi: real bangers until it's time for the hymns." cjffl 1-800-343-4300, A My dad, who was less than happy about f> all this, ended up paying a seventy-five- extension 233. dollar fine and taking it out of Bobby's al- Etcu-Visioh" lowance for the next year. Life with Bobby, oh, yeah . . . and look here, I'm crying. Is it honest sentiment, I wonder, or the onset?

The former. I think—Christ knows how much I loved him —buf 1 think I better try to hurry up a little just the same. Bobby had graduated high school, for all practical purposes, by the age of ten. HOKHS But he never got a B.A. or B.S., let alone any advanced degree. It was that big, powerful compass in his head, swinging Canon U.S.A., Inc., One Canon around and around, looking tor some true north to point at. He went through a phys- ics period and a shorter period when he was nutty for chemistry ... but in the end, ^ Bobby was too impatient with mathemat- m ics for either of those fields to hold him. He could do it, but it—and ultimately all so- called hard science— bored him. By the time he was fifteen, it was archaeology- he combed the rocky White Mountain foothills in the area around our summer place in North Conway, building a history of the Indians who had lived there. But that passed, too; He began to read history and anthropology. When he was sixteen my folks gave their reluctant ap- proval when Bobby requested that he be allowed to accompany a party of New England anthropologists on an expedition into South America. He came back five months later with the first real tan of his life; he was also an inch taller, fifteen pounds lighter, and much quieter. He was still cheerful enough, or could be, but his little- boy exuberance—sometimes infectious, sometimes wearisome, but always there- was gone. He had grown up. And for the first time I remember him talking about the"

I news. . . how bad it was. mean. That was 2003, the year a PLO splinter group called Sons of the Jihad set off a squirt bomb in London, polluting sixty percent of it for the DRINK FOR TASTE, NOT TRENDS. DOSEQUIS next seventy years and making the rest of Ask for the smooth, amber taste of Dos Equis. It's not it extremely unhealthy for people who ever a dark, but has mote flavor than pale beers. A taste planned to have children (or to live past the that towers above the trends. age of fifty without developing some sort of cancer, for that matter). The year after, . —"

we tried to blockade the Philippines alter I stepped back in a hurry. Bobby sel that a wasps' r.est ever approaches any- the Cedeno administration accepted a down the big paper bag he was carrying thing closely resembling 'normal,' Howie.

"small group" of Red Chinese advisers (fif- and unslung his shoulder bag. Then he Wasps are societal insects, like bees and teen thousand of them, according to our carefully brought the glass boxes out of the ants. But unlike bees, which are almost spy satellites) and only backed down when bag. There was a beehive in one, a wasps' sane, and ants, which have occasional it became clear that a) the Chinese weren't nest in the other. The bees were already schizoid lapses, wasps are lunatics." He kidding about emptying the holes if we settling down and going back to whatever smiled. "Like people." He took the top off didn't pull back; and b) the American peo- business bees have, but the wasps were the glass box contain ng '.he beehive. ple weren't all that crazy about committing clearly unhappy about the whole thing. "Tell you what, Bobby," I said. I was smil-

I mass suicide over the Philippine islands. "Okay, Bobby," I said. looked at Jiim ing, but the smile felt much too wide. "Put

it That was the same year some other group and grinned. I couldn't seem to stop grin- the top back on and just tell me about the Mr. of crazy motherfuckers—Albanians, I ning. "What are you up to this time?" what do you say? Save Wizard think—tried to air-spray the AIDS virus over He unzipped the tote bag and brought demonstration for later. I mean, my land- West . out a mayonnaise jar that was half filled lord's a real pussycat, but the super's this This sort of stuff depressed everybody, with a clear liquid. big bulldyke who smokes Odie Perode ci- ?" — but it depressed the shit out of Bobby. "See this he said. gars and has thirty pounds on me. She

if "Why are people so goddamn mean?" "Yeah. Looks like water." "You'll like this." Booby sac as I hadn't he asked me one day. We were in North "It is, with two important differences; It spoken at all — a habit as familiar to me as

Conway, it was late August, and most of came from an artesian well in La Plata, a his. Ten-Fingers Method of Hair Grooming. our stuff was already in boxes and suit- little town forty miles east of Waco, and be- He was never impolite but often totally ab- cases ... the place had that sad, deserted fore I turned it into this concentrated form. sorbed. And could 1 stop him? Aw shit, no. look it got just before we all went our sep- there was five gallons of it. I've got a reg- It was too good to have him back. I mean, arate ways. For me it meant back to The ular little distillery running down there, I think I knew even then that something was

Rut; for Bobby it meant Waco, Texas, of all Howie." He was grinning, and now the.grin going to go totally wrong, but when I was places ... he had spent the summer read- with Bobby lor more than five minutes, he ing sociology and geology texts —how's just hypnotized me. He was Lucy holding that for a crazy salad?— and said he the football arc promising r-e this time for wanted to run a couple of experiments sure, and I .was Charlie Brown, rushing down there. He said it in a casual way, but down the field to kick it. "In fact, you've iThat was 2003, probably seen it done before they show I saw my mother looking at him with a pe- — culiar, thoughtful scrutiny in the last couple the year a PLO splinter pictures ol it in magazines from time to time of weeks we were all together. Neither Dad or in TV wildli'c docurren:ar es. It's nothing group called Sons very special, but got set of nor I suspected, but I think my mom knew people have a

' that Bobby's compass needle had finally of the Jihad had set off a prejudices about bees." stopped swinging and started pointing. squirt bomb And the weird thing was, he was right— it "Why?" I asked. "I'm supposed to an- I had seen before. in polluting sixty swer that?" London, He stuck his hand mo the oox between "Someone better. Pretty soon, too." percent of it the hive and the glass. In less than fifteen "Because that's the way people are built." seconds his hand had acquired a living, for the next seventy years.^1

"That's bullshit. I don't believe it. Even black and yellow glove. that double-X- chromosome stuff turned out It brought back an instant of total recall: to be bullshit in the end." sitting in front of the TV, wearing footy pa- "Because of economic pressures." jamas and clutching my Paddington bear, "Also bullshit. The only people who really maybe half an hour before bedtime (and want to fight are relatively well-off. And the broadened "Water's all it is, but It's the surely years before Bobby was born], people they want to fight are also relatively goddamnedest popskull the human race watch'pg with mingled horror, disgust, and well-off. Poor folks are too busy looking for has ever seen, just the same." fascination as some beekeeper allowed something to eat." "I don't have '.no slighter, idea what you're bees to cover his entire lace. They had

sort of executioner's at first, "Original .sin," I said. talking about." formed a hood

"Well," he said, "maybe that's it. I won't "I know you don't. But you will. You know and then he had brushed them into a gro- say it isn't. But what's the instrument?" what, Howie?" tesque, living beard- then "I'm not following you," I said. "What?" Bobby winced suddenly, sharply,

"It's the water," Bobby said moodily. "If the idiotic human race can just man- grinned. "Say what?" age to hold itself together for another six "One of 'em stung me," he said. "They're

"The water. Something in the water." months, it'll hold itself together for all time." still a little upset from the trip. 1 hooked a

He looked at me, He held up the mayonnaise jar, and one ride with the local insurance lady from La "Or something that isn't," magnified Bobb.y-eye stared at me through Plata to Waco— she's got an old Piper

it flew People's irom there." The next day Bobby went off to Waco. I with huge solemnity. "This is the big one." Cub—and didn't see him again until he showed up at he said. "The cure for the worst disease to "I think you ought to get your hand out my apartment wearing the inside-out which Homo sapiens falls prey." of there," I said . kept 'waiting for some of

I' Mumford shirt and carrying the two glass "Cancer?" them to fly out— could imagine chasing boxes. That was three years later. "Nope," Bobby said. "War. Where's your them around with a rolled-up magazine for "Hi, Howie," he said, stepping in and bathroom? My back teeth are floating," hours after he bopped out, bringing them giving me a swat on the back as if it had When he came back he had not. only down one by one, like escapees from some

been three days instead of three years. turned the Mumford T-shirt right side out, old prison movie. But none of them had . . .

"Bobby!" I yelled, and threw both arms he had combed his hair—nor had his at least so far. around him in a bear hug. Hard angles bit method of doing this changed, I saw. "Relax, Howie. You ever see a bee sting of it?" into my chest, and I heard an angry hive Bobby just held his head under the faucet a flower? Or even hear hum. for a while, then raked his lingers through "You don't look like a flower." "I'm glad to see you, too," Bobby said, his long, coarsely blond shag. He looked He laughed. "Shit, you think bees know "but you better go easy. You're upsetting at the two glass boxes and pronounced what a flower looks like? Uh-uh! No way, the natives," the bees and wasps back to normal. "Not man! They don't know what a flower looks 146 OMNI 1 I

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like any than or I then more you know what a the curse was just this: He made us In that period he read my piece on art cloud sounds like. They know I'm sweet like wasps instead of bees. Shit, Howie, forgery . . . although it was already twenty

because I excrete sucrose dioxin in my what are you doing?" pages long.

sweat . . . along with at least still thirty-seven "Hdld and I'll get it out. If you want to "Okay," he said, putting the pages down. other dioxins." make a lot of big gestures, I'll wait," "That's pretty good, man. You ought to read

He paused thoughtfully. 'Although I must "Okay," he said, and after that he held up on how Jay Gould furnished the parlor

confess I to, was careful uh, sweeten my- relatively still while I extracted the stinger. car of his private train with fake Manets self up a little tonight. Ate of "Bees are nature's a box choco- kamikaze pilots, Bow- shit, that's a riot— but it's good. Watch." late-covered cherries on the plane—" Wow. Look in that glass box; you'll see the Before I really knew what he was up to— "Oh, Bobby, Jesus!" two stung who me lying dead at the. bot- I was musing on how much Gould might " and had a couple of tom. Their stingers are — MallowCremes barbed, like fish- have paid for the fake Manets— he had re- in the taxi coming here." hooks. They slide in easy. When they pull moved the cover ot the glass box contain- He reached in with his other hand and out, they disembowel themselves." ing the wasps' nest carefully to brush began the bees off. I saw "Gross," I said, dropping the second 'Uesus, Bobby, quit it!" I yelled. him wince once more just before he got the stinger in the ashtray. "Same old wimp," Bobby laughed and last of them off and eased my mind con- "It makes them particular, though." pulled the nest, which was dull gray and siderably replacing the lid "I by on the glass bet." about the size of a bowling ball, out of the

box. I saw a red swelling on of his "Wasps, on the other each hand, have smooth box. He held it in his hands. Wasps Hew hands: one in the of the lelt stingers. cup palm, an- They can belt you all they like. out and lit on his arms, his cheeks, his fore- other high up on the right, near what the They use up the poison by the third or fourth head. landed One on my forearm. I slapped palmists call the of shot, Bracelets Fortune. He'd but they can go right on making holes it, it fell and dead to the carpet. I was

I if been stung, but saw well enough whal they like . . . and usually they do. Espe- scared — I mean, really scared. he'd set out to show me: What like cially looked wall wasps. The kind I've got over "Don't kill em," Bobby said. "You might at least four hundred bees had investi- there, You gotta sedate 'em. Stuff called as well be machine-gunning babies. gated him. Only two had stung. They're harmless, for Christ's sake. That's He took a pair of tweezers out of his jeans the point." He tossed the nest from hand pocket and went over to my desk. He to hand like an overgrown softball. He moved the pile of manuscripts and trained it lobbed in.the air. I watched, horrified, as my Tensor lamp on the place where, the bBobby wasps cruised the living room of my apart- pages had been—fiddling with it until it ment like lighter planes. formed a tiny, hard spotlight on the wood. set down the big paper bag Bobby lowered the nest carefully back "Writin anything good, Bow-Wow?" he he was carrying into the box and sat down on my couch. asked casually, and I felt the hair stir on the He patted the place next to him, and I went back of my neck. When was the last lime and unslung his shoulder bag. over, nearly hypnotized. They were every- he'd called me Bow-Wow? When he was He carefully brought where: on the rug, the ceiling, the drapes. four? Six? He was working carefully on his ' Half a dozen of them were crawling across left out the glass boxes. There hand with the tweezers. I saw him ex- the screen of my Curiis-Mathis. tract a tiny something that looked a little was a wasps' nest Before I could sit down, he brushed away like nostril a hair and place it in my ashtray. a couple that were on the sofa cushion in one, a beehive In the other3 "Piece on art forgery for Vanity Fair. where my ass was aimed. They flew away Bobby, what in hell this are you up to time?" quickly. They were all flying easily, crawl- "You want to pull the other one for me?" ing, moving fast. There was nothing he asked, offering me the tweezers, his drugged about their behavior. But as right hand, and an apologetic smile. "I keep Bobby talked, they gradually found their thinking if I'm so goddamn smart I ought Noxon. It must give 'em a hell of a hang- way back to their spit-paper home, crawled to be ambidextrous, but left over my hand has because they wake up madder than over it, and eventually disappeared inside still got an I.Q. of about six." ever," He looked at me somberly, and for again through the hole in the top. Same old Bobby. first the time I saw the dark brown wheels "I wasn't the first one to get interested in

I sat down beside him, took the of twee- weariness under his eyes and realized Waco," he said. "It just happens to be the zers, and pulled the stinger bee out of the my kid brother was tired, almost tired to biggest town in the funny little nonviolent red swelling near what in his case should death, maybe.- section of what is, per capita, the most vi- have called the Bracelets been ol Doom; "That's why people go on fighting, Bow- olent state in the Union. Texans love to shoot and while I did it he told me about the dif- Wow. On and on on. got smooth and We each other, Howie— I mean, it's like a state ference between bees and wasps, the dif- stingers. Nowwatch this." hobby. Half the male population goes ference between the water in La Plata and He got up, went over to his tote bag, around armed. Saturday night in the Fort the water in York, New and how, goddamn! rummaged in it, and came up with an Worth bars is like a shooting gallery where everything going was to be all right with eyedropper. He opened the mayonnaise you get to plonk away at drunks instead of his water little and a help from me. jar, put the dropper in, and drew up a tiny clay ducks. There are more NRA-card car-

oh, shit, I And ended up running at the bubble of his distilled Texas water. riers than there are Methodists. Not that football while my laughing, wildly intelli- When he took it over to the glass box Texas is the only place where people shoot gent brother held it one last time. with the wasps' nest inside, I saw the top each other or carve each other up with "Bees don't sting unless they have to, on this one was different—there was a tiny, straight razors or stick their kids in the oven because it kills them," Bobby said matter- plastic slide piece set into the top. With the if they cry too long, you understand, but of-factly. "You remember that time in North wasps, he was taking no chances. they sure do like their firearms." Conway when you said we kept killing each He squeezed-the bulb. black Two drops "Except in Waco," I said. other of original because sin?" of water fell onto the nest, making a mo- "Oh, they like 'em there, too," he said. "Yes. Hold still." mentary dark spot that disappeared al- "It's just that they use 'em on each other a "Well, if there Is such a thing, if there's a most at once, "Give it about three min- hell of a lot less often." God who could simultaneously love us utes," he said, enough to serve us His own Son on a cross "What— and send us all on a rocket sled to hell just "No questions," he said. "You'll see. Three because one stupid bitch bit a bad apple, minutes." utes, but it's been almost an hour already. 150 OMNI —

That happens to me sometimes when I'm nity of fifteen thousand, twenty-four per- the dog that didn't bark." Bobby shifted running at white-hol speed, but I can't al- cent of which are people ot mixed blood restlessly and cracked his knuckles.

low myself to be seduced into these spe- commonly called Indios. There's a moc- 'Jesus, lhateitwhenyoudothat," I said. cifics. I feel as well as ever— no noticeable casin factory, a couple of Utile motor courts, He smiled. "Sorry. Bow-Wow. Anyway, we drying of the membranes in the throat, no a couple of scrub farms. That's it for work. started geological tests, then microscopic

I groping for words, and as I glance back For play there's four bars, a couple of dance analysis of the water. didn't expect a hell over what I've done, I see only the normal halls where you can hear any kind of music of a lot; everyone in the area has got a well,

typos and strikeovers. But I can't kid my- you want as long as it sounds like George and they get their water tested to make sure self. I've got to hurry up. "Fiddledeedee," Jones, two drive-ins, and a bowling alley." they're not drinking borax or something. It said Scarlett, and all of that. He paused and added, "There's also a still. there had been something readily appar-

The nonviolent atmosphere of the Waco I didn't know anybody made whiskey that ent, it would have turned up a long time

area had been noticed and investigated good outside of Tennessee." . ago. So we went on to submicroscopy, and before, mostly by sociologists. Bobby said In short (and it is now too late to be any- that was when we started to turn up some that when you fed enough statistical data thing else). La Plata should have been a goddamn weird stuff." on. Waco and similar areas into a com- fertile breeding ground for the sort of ca- "What kind of weird stuff?" puter— population density, mean age, sual violence you can read about in the "Breaks in chains of atoms, subdynamic mean economic level, mean educational police-blotter section of the local news- electrical fluctuations, and some sort of level, and dozens of other numbers—you paper. Should have been, but wasn't. There unidentified protein. Water ain't really ^0. got back a whopper of an anomaly. Schol- had been only one murder in La Plata dur- you know— not when you add in the sul- arly papers are rarely jocular, but even so, ing the five years previous to my brother's fides, iron, God knows what else happens several of the better than fifty Bobby read arrival, two cases of assault, no rapes, no to be in the aquifer of a given region. But on the subject suggested ironically that reported incidents of child abuse. There La Plata water—you'd have to give it a string maybe it was "something in the water." had been a number of armed robberies, of letters like the ones after a professor

"I decided that maybe it was time to take but they had all been committed by tran- emeritus's name." His eyes gleamed. "Bui the joke seriously," Bobby said. "After all, the protein was the most interesting thing, there's something in the water of a lot of Bow-Wow. So far as we know it's only found t places that prevents tooth decay. It's called in one other place: the human brain." fluoride."

He went to Waco accompanied by a trio Uh-oh. It just arrived, between one swal- stuck of research assistants—two of these were 4He low and the next; the throat dryness. Not sociology grad students, the other a lull his hand in the box between much as yet but enough for me to break professor of geology who was on sabbat- away and get a glass of ice water. I've got the hive and the ical. Within six months Bobby and the so- maybe forty minutes left. And oh, Jesus, ciology guys had constructed a computer glass, in seconds his hand there's so much I want to tell! About the program that Bobby called the world's only ' had acquired a wasps' nests they found with wasps that seismographic picture of a calmquake. He wouldn't sting; about the fender bender living black and yellow glove. had a slightly rumpled printout in his tote. Bobby and on'e.of his assistants saw where

He gave it to me. I was looking at a series Suddenly he the two drivers — both male, both drunk, of forty concentric rings with a diameter of and both about twenty-lour (sociological winced sharply, then grinned.^ six miles each. Waco was in the eighth, bull moose, in other words)— got out, shook ninth, and tenth rings. hands, and exchanged driver's licenses "Now look at this," he said, and put a and insurance information amicably. Well

transparent overlay on the printout. More , . .oneofthem had insurance information; rings; but in each one there was a number. the other had no insurance at all. And of Fortieth ring: 471. Thirty-ninth: 420. Thirty- sients ... as the murder and one of the course, the guy without the insurance had eighth: 418. And so on. In a couple of places assaults had been. The local sheriff was a clearly been at tault and had sustained the numbers went up instead of down, but fat old Republican gent with a pretty fair about five hundred dollars' less damage. only in a couple (and only by a little). Rodney Dangerfield imitation and what But here's this other guy, clapping him on

"What are they?" Bobby believed to be the preliminary the back and saying they can work it out. "Each number represents the incidence symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. His only Bobby talked for hours—more hours of violent crime in that particular circle," deputy was his nephew. Bobby told me than I have. But the upshot and the result Bobby said. "Murder, rape, assault and that he bore an uncanny resemblance to were both the same: the stuff in the may- battery, even acts of vandalism. The com- Barney Fife on the old Andy Griffith show. puter assigns a number by a formula that "Put those two guys in a Pennsylvania "We've got our own still in La Plata now," takes the population density into account." town similar to La Plata in every way but he said. "This is the stuff we're brewing, He tapped the twenty-seventh circle, which the geographical," Bobby said, "and they Howie, pacifist white lightning. The aquiter held the number 204, with his finger. would have been out on their asses fifteen under thai area oi ioxas is deep but amaz-

"There's less than nine hundred people in years ago. But in La Plata they're gonna ingly large; it's like this incredible Lake Vic-

this . . whole area, for instance. The number go on until they die . which they'll prob- toria driven into the porous sediment that indicates three or four cases of spouse ably do in their sleep." overlays the Moho. The water is potent, but

abuse, a couple of barroom brawls, an act "What did you do?" I asked. we've been able to make the stuff I squirted of animal cruelty—some senile farmer got "Well, for the first week or so after we got on the wasps even more potent. We've got pissed at a pig and hit him with a shovel our statistical shit together, we just sort of damn near six thousand gallons now in and one involuntary manslaughter." sat around and stared at each other," these big steel tanks. By the end of the

At the center of Bobby's calmquake was Bobby said. "I mean, we were prepared year we'll have fourteen thousand. By next

it the town of La Plata. To call a sleepy little for something, but nothing like this. I mean, June we'll have thirty thousand. But it's not town seems more than fair. The numerical Waco doesn't prepare you for La Plata." enough. We need more, we need it faster value assigned to La Plata was zero. He tapped the readout and the overlay, . . . and then we need to transport it."

it is,-'' for- I "So here Bobby said, leaning and saw what he meant. The numbers in "Transport it where?" I asked him. ward and rubbing his long hands together the last seven or eight circles dropped off "Borneo, to start with." nervously. "Here's this weird little sage- radically: 83, 81, 70, 63, 40, 21, 5, 0. I thought either I had lost my mind or of brush Garden Eden. Here's a commu- "It was the classic Holmes situation of misheard him. I really did. 152 OMNI . " " —

"Look, Bow-Wow . . . sorry. Howie." He over he earl- I war-; people to go out in "The world," Bobby said, and then was scrumming through his tote bag again. La Plata wafer when it rains— and it's going stopped. His throat worked. I saw he was brought lot He out a number of aerial photo- to rain a alter Gulandio goes bang. I struggling with tears. "The world needs graphs and over to to drink handed them me. "You want them the La Plata water that heroic measures, man. I don't know about

tucking it see? You see how perfect is? It's falls in their reservoirs. I want them to wash long-ierm effects, and there's no iime to as if God suddenly busied through with their hair in it, bathe in it, soak their contact study them because there's no long-term something like And now we lenses in it. I to bring you a want whores douche in it," prospect. Maybe—we can cure the whole special bulletin! This is your last chance. "Bobby," I said, knowing he was not, mess. Or maybe assholes! And now we return you to Wheel "you're crazy." He shrugged, tried to smile, and looked of Fortune.' Or something like that." He gave me a crooked, tired grid. It at me with shining eyes from which two

"I don't get you," I said. "And I have no wasn't until then fhat I saw how tired my single tears slowly tracked. idea what I'm looking at" Of course I did; brother was, how badly he needed a pace "Or maybe we're giving heroin to a pa- it was an island — not Borneo itself but an to sleep, to vacation from himself a while. tient with terminal cancer. Either way. it's an island lying to the west of Borneo identified "I ain't crazy," he said. "You wani to see end to the whole mess." He spread out his as Gulandio with a mountain in mid- crazy?Turn on . . . — the CNN, B — Howie. You'll hands, palms up, so I could see the stings. dle and a lol of muddy little villages lying see crazy, in living color." "Help me, Bow-Wow. Please help me."

on ifs lower slopes. I I What meant was that But didn't need to turn on Cable News So I helped him. So we fucked up. l-didn't I looking know what was for. to know what Bobby was talking about. The I don't give a shit. "The mountain has the same name as Indians and ihe Pakistanis were poised on We killed all the plants, but at least we the island," he said. "Gutandio. In the local the brink. The Russians and the Chinese, saved the greernouse Something will grow patois it means grace, or fate, or destiny, ditto. Half of Alrica was starving; the other there again someday. I hope. or take your pick. But Duke Rogers says half was on fire. There had been bordei Are you reading this? it's really the biggest time bomb on Earth skirmishes along the entire Tex-Mex bor-

. . . and it's wired to go off by October of der in the last five years, since Mexico wenl My gears are starting to get a little sticky. next year. Probably earlier." For the firs! time in years I'm having to think about what I'm doing. Should have hurried The crazy thing's this: The story's only more at the start. crazy if you try to tell it in a speed rap.

is which whal I'm trying to do now. Bobby Well, of course we did it; distilled the ^ItjUSt wanted me to help him raise somewhere water, flew it in, transported it to Gulandio, between six hundred thousand and a mil- arrived, between one swallow built a cog railway up the side of the vol- lion and a half dollars to do fhe following; cano, and dropped over twelve and the next: the thousand first, -to synthesize fifty to seventy thousand five-gallon containers of La Plata water gallons of what he called the high-test; throat dryness. Not much as the brain-buster version — into the murky, second, to airlift all of this water to Borneo, yet but enough for misty depths of the volcano's caldera. We which had landing facilities (you could land did all of this in just eighl months. It didn't me to break away and get a a hang glider on Gulandio, but that was cost-six hundred thousand dollars or a mil-

all); it about third, to ship over to Gulandio; glass of Ice water, lion and a half; it cost over four million, still fourth, to truck it up the slope of the vol- less than a quarter of one percent of what I've got maybe forty minutes3 cano, which had been dormant (save for a America spenf on defense that year. You few puffs in 1938) since 1804, and then to want to know how we razed it? I'd telt you

it the drop down muddy tube of fhe volca- if I had more thyme, bul my head's falling no's caldera. Duke Rogers was actually apart so never mine. I raised most of it my- Paul John Rogers, the geology professor. self if it matters to you. Some by hoof and He claimed that Gulandio was going to do Communist, and people had started call- some by croof. Tell you the truth, I didn'f

than just erupt; he it more that ing the Tijuana crossing I it claimed was point in California know could do muself until I did. But we going to explode, as Krakatoa had done in Little Berlin because of the wall. The saber did it, and somehow the world held to- the nineteenth century, creaiing a bang thai rattling had become a din. On the last day gether and that volcano—whatever its would the Hiroshima look make bomb like of Ihe old year the Scientists for Nuclear name wuz, I can't remember and there iz- a stick of dynamite and the squirt bomb Responsibility had set their black clock to zunt time to go back over the manu- that three depopulated quarters of London fifteen seconds before midnight. script— it blue just when it was spo Wait like a kid's firecracker. The debris from the "Bobby, let's suppose it could be done

Krakatoa blowup. Bobby told me, had lit- and everything went according to sched- Okay.. A little better. Dilantin. Bobby had erally encircled the globe; the observed ule. don't the siightesl idea it. You have what Heart's beating like crazy but I can think results had formed an important part of the the long-term effects might be." again. The volcano — Gulandio, by God group's nuclear-winter Sagan theory. For He started to. say something, and I blue just when Dook Rogers said it would. ' three months afterward sunsets and sun- waved it away. Everylhing when skihi and for a while rises half a world away had been gro- "Don't even suggest that you do, be- everyone's attention turned away from tesquely colorful as a result of the ash cause you don't! You've had time to find whatever and toward the skies. And bim- whirling around in both the Jetstream and this caimquake of yours and isolate fhe deedle-eee, said Scarlett! fhe Van Allen currents, which lie forty miles cause, I'll give you that. But do you remem- It happened pretty fast like sex and 7 below the Van Allen bell. There had been ber thalidomide Or that nifty little acne checks and special effex and everybody global changes in climate that lasted five stopper that caused cancer and heart at- got healthy again. I mean wait years, and nipa palms, which previously tacks in thirty-year-olds? Or the AIDS vac- Jesus please let me finish this. had only grown in eastern Africa Mi- cine in and 1994? I mean that everybody stood down. cronesia, suddenly showed up in both "Bobby?" Everybody started to got a liltle purs per-

South and North America. "It stopped the disease, but it turned all spective on the situation. The wurld started

"The North American nipas all died be- the test subjects into epileptics." to get like the wasps in Bobbys nest the fore the turn of the century," Bobby said, . "Bobby?" — one he showed me where they didn't stink "but they're aiive and well below the equa- "Then there was too much. There was three yerz like an In-

tor. . Krakatoa seeded them there, Howie . "Bobby?" . - dian sumer. People getting together like in

the I way want to seed La Plata water all I stopped and looked at him. that old Youn ntcmon 154 OMNI — —

everybody get together rite now, as in a stepping-stone to understanding how

Shop-Riie where mom look me when I wuz AVENGERS DNA repair works. From this she hopes that in the babby seal and wt we can someday intervene genetically in the human aging process. More Dilantin. Big blast. Feel like my esses ol medical research. I'm never gonna Proving that real women do pump their

heart is coming out thru my ears. But if I win the Nobel prize, but it one of my sci- own gas, Smith-Sonneborn fills up her Jeep concentrate every bit of my force, my— entists does, I'll certainly get a vicarious at a self-serve and heads for her favorite

thrill out of it and feel that I've made some retreat in Medicine Bow National Forest, 20

It was like an Indian summer. Three sort of contribution." miles outside Laramie. Vedawoo ("earth- years. Bobby went on with his resurch. La Meanwhile, he's deeply frustrated that so born spirits"), once a sacred place of the

Plata. Sociological background, etc. You many of his wealthy peers, all ot whom Cheyenne, is still an evocative oasis of im- remember the local sheriff? Fat old Repub- would like to live longer, are settling in- possibly balanced boulders and pine trees lican with a good Henny Youngblood imi- stead for secondhand immortality—leav- dispersing a fragrance as heady as in- tashun? How Bobby said he had the pre- ing monuments to themselves in the form cense. It's impossible in such a place not limminary simptoms of Rodney's disease? ol hospital wings and college funds and to believe in something, and Smith-Son- concentrate asshole libraries engraved with the same name neborn does. "I'm not a practicing Catho-

Wasn't just him; turned out like there was they'll have on their tombstone. "I tell them, lic," she says, "but I do believe in God, a a lot of that going around in that part of Uust give one percent of your money to re- caring if perplexing God. There might even

it Texas. All's Hallows disease is what I meen. search; just wildcat and maybe we'll strike be a heaven and hell in the classical sense.

For three yerz me and Bobby were down the magic wishing well.' But they tend to not that I really want to leave my future up there. Created a new program. New graft be fatalistic about it. They somehow feel to Saint Peter. Besides, my life-force is so of cirkles. I saw what was happen and there's a 'they' out there that's doing their instinctively strong that no other state of carrle back here. Bobby and his to asist- best to solve the problem—whoever 'they' being really appeals to me. I guess the ants stayed on. One shot hiself Boby said are —and they refuse to understand that component that drives me the most is a when he showed up here. they are the 'they,' that it's we who are the wonder for the universe and a curiosity for

Wait one more blast 'they' " he says, delivering one last impas- life. I can't imagine anything more satisfy- sioned plea to reason. ing than feeding that curiosity." All right. Last time. Heart beating so fast Going to .work each day is never a grind

I can hardly breeve. The new grafp, the last JOAN SMITH-SONNEBORN for her. though she admits two things would graph, really only whammed you when it Her father died of a heart attack when make her life happier: One is having her was laid over the calmquake graft. The she was three; her much-adored mother, two sons with her (they're now away at col- calmquake grafp showed acts of vilence 17 years later. The resulting pain and guilt lege); the other, she grins, is getting "a mil- going down as you approached La Place caused Joan Smith-Sonneborn to decide lion dollars" to fund her work. "The interest in the muddle; the Alzheimer's graft graph against going into medicine; instead, she alone could keep my lab work going for- ghowed incidence of premature seenullity decided to learn things doctors didn't yet ever." she sighs. going up as you approached La Place. know about preventing the age-related Nondefensive and candid as only a well- Peeple there were geting very silly very diseases that orphaned her. loved daughter can be, Smith-Sonneborn young bul bubby wasn't there long enough Now fifty, Smith-Sonneborn has done cheerfully admits that another driving force to see it or even how dogs got silly very work with one-celled paramecia that's a is her personal aversion to and terror of yung altho he remebered something later giant positive step in that direction. In 1971 growing old and dying: her fear of losing if I had time to tell you. We didn't take any she heard about research showing that her looks, her strength, her intellectual water but botled three years and wor big paramecia— unlike most life forms acuity, her self. But even more intrinsic than long sleekers in the ran. so no war and seemed virtually immune to X-ray dam- that, she says, is the conviction, instilled by when everybobby started to get seely we age. She decided to find out why. Postu- her mother and the Irish Catholic Church, din and I came back here because he my lating that some form of repair was in- that one should use one's God-given gifts brother I cant remember what his name volved, she began a series of experiments to make a contribution, to give something

Bobby in which she induced DNA damage in Par- back in return. "I really want to help hu- Bobby made me sick what he had dun amecium cells with ultraviolet radiation, manity," she says simply. only when he come here tongit crying I sed then photore activated them to help erase

Bobby I lov you Bobby sed I'm sorry that damage. This form of first aid, she dis- BILL REGELSON

Bowwow Ime sorry I died it the world the covered, did much more than that. Not only Oncologist and researcher Bill Regel- hole world ful of foals and dumbbels and I did the cells recover, they lived substan- son, author of a two-volume text called In- sed better-fouls and bells than a big black tially longer than the never-damaged cells tervention in the Aging Process and cur-

sinder in sp.az and he cryed and I cryed in her control group. Nature, she thought, rently a professor of medicine at the

Bobby I lov you and he sed will you give was such an efficient housekeeper that the Medical College of Virginia, tends to be- me some wadder and I sed yez and he excess repair enzymes induced by the lieve in some kind of afterlife because, as

said wil yu ride it down and I sed yez an I treatment cleaned up past as well as cur- he puts it, "I've seen occasional patients think I did but its if I cant remember I see rent damage, in effect reversing the aging dying of cancer, having incredible dia- wurds but dntnowhat they meen bt luzed process by some mysterious, delicate bal- logues with people on the other side." to no ance of DNA damage and repair. Not that Regelson, who also admits to The implications for human cells were an innate excess of curiosity, is in any hurry

I have a Bobby his nayme is bruther and inescapable. If some way could be found to check out this hunch firsthand.

I theen I am dun riding and I have a bocks to induce such overly conscientious repair "I'm sixty years old. I'm not afraid to die," of to put this into thats Bobby sd full quiyet in human DNA, it might be possible not he protests, "but I don't want to be a victim air to last milyun yrz goin If a so gudbo Im to only to prevent the onset of age-related either, I'm gonna die, I want to fall apart

i it stob gadbo bobby love you wuz nt yor diseases, such as the cancer that killed her like the one-hoss shay. I want to fall apart fait i love you forgiv yu mother, but also possibly even to reverse making mad love to somebody, in full com- love yu that damage. mand and control of all my faculties," sined (forthe-wurld), Now a professor of zoology and physi- Regelson, brought up in the Jewish faith, ology at the University of Wyoming in Lar- is also quite orthodox in terms of his de-

amie, Smith-Sonneborn, far from resting on votion to his family. "My mother is eighty 7 those remarkable laurels, is using them as a great lady— but she's suffering from ar- Ihrilis and vertigo. I'm at an age where I'm gelson got together with Yarborough, also sports the highest levels of vitamin E losing my aunts and uncles and seeing my Glenn, California senator Alan Cranston, and beta carotene, the free-radical scav- colleagues suffering, and it's damn frus- and Dan Perry (a former Cranston aide) engers probably responsible for these trating because 1 think control of aging is and formed FIBER (Fund for Integrative higher repair rates. "Now, you can call this feasible, probably if in the next few years, Biomedical Research), which "I headed up Regelson's theory because this is a mix- only the proper resources are given to it. I to stimulate research on the biology of ag- ture of concepts," he says. "But I'm con- think I to it. know how do We've discovered ing by raising necessary seed money to vinced that if we-can get our bodies to ab- the death hormone, we know how to con- fund various studies, organizing work- sorb and use more vitamin E, instead of trol it, but we need a couple hundred thou- shops and conferences, acting catalyti- pissing out the excess as we now do, we sand to get going on this. I can't wait thirty cally to stimulate the field and identify areas can repair our cells even more effectively. more years for some graduate that student to require forward movement." And so I'm supporting research to see if solve the problem!" he declares, his im- Like many good ideas, he sighs, "we manipulating levels of calcium can affect passioned words tumbling out at an auc- folded due to lack of tunds. Also, Senator the maximum concentration of antioxi- tioneer's breakneck pace, even at this nor- Cranston was the strong voice we needed, dants (including E) inside a cell and alter mally laid-back midnight hour. and when he got sidetracked running for the pattern of senescence." Nor does he expect the NIA or the med- President he kind of lost interest," he adds. Regelson intends to get the money he ical establishment to come to the rescue. "Right now everyone's caught up with needs by becoming a multimillionaire him- "They tend to see aging as a random col- this overblown vitamin-supplementation self. Like Glenn and Brown he's currently lection of degenerative diseases instead faddism, believing that taking this pill or that involved in potentially lucrative research ot a distinct syndrome that allows those pill will make a difference— but there's and development ventures. "We've now got diseases to come in. If you delay aging, simply no data to support that," he says. our own company called VIGOR [Virginia you delay the disease," declares Regel- (Regelson does, however, take vitamin E, Institute of Graduate Organized Re- son, a man given to unqualified opinions selenium, magnesium, pyridoxine, and Q- search]," he says. "Our first producl is who, he admits, gets "in trouble for being 10.) "Then you've got hucksters like Pear- phospholipase-A2, a chemical inhibitor that a lateral thinker and for bridging disci- son and Shaw," he continues, "who are might help alleviate inflammatory diseases plines." It you get out ol your field, explains pushing things like arginine and BHT, which like arthritis. We're also working on a hear- this man of medicine turned man ol sci- might be harmful." ing aid, about to be tested, and a hair- ence, "people get at you, but this is Regelson is convinced will mad the difference growth factor. What I intend to do is use the kind of thing I do and do very well," he ultimately come creativity through painstaking labo- my and that of the people I work concludes, shoving false modesty aside. ratory work. Currently, he's most intrigued with to get new products into the market- It was Don Yarborough, whom Regelson with free-radical repair. Homo sapiens, the place [hat will bring in the money I need. calls a kindred spirit, who first got Regel- longest-lived mammal, not only has a We've got good ideas and a good organi- son interested in doing something about higher scavenging system repairing free- zation, so I'm gonna succeed with that and the dearth of aging research. In 1979 Re- radical damage) than other creatures, but the rest will follow."DO ("Thank God!" echoed Johnson.) "The basic Clever Hans routine. At a signal from

Count is safely at court and receiving." me the pig would tap his hoof in front of the PIG THIEVES ring jack I pulled out the newspaper and showed facedown care cove :he of hearts

it to them. It was my sole remaining ges- in three-card monte. He would always be

flashed the card across the talk hole, and ture. But I knew that all was lost. After a. right. The assembled crowd would laugh the deal was struck. Comae had enough certain age you always know, and applaud, and I'd quickly shout, "By

"I folks, if a piece of the merest pork money to start a new life. I had Count Zero already saw that, Mr. Brooks." said God, Interrupt, redeemable for a fast thirty-five- Johnson. "I knew it was some sort of joke can follow the jack cf hears and nail him. thousand-IPD profit. It would be a classic, or other piece of minor unpleasantness, so then I must perforce believe that any of you textbook instance of buying low and sell- I didn't tell you about if earlier. I didn't want can effortlessly do ihe same." Ho hum and

sir," I ing high. It was an outright steal. to spoil your meditation session, I you bet. (Later, had him neurochipped

"I'll just convey him into my own room," mean, this sniveling, genuflecting little and hardwired by some guys who owed hatchet written all over him. favor. to where could deal I said, "and lock him up till after breakfast." man had Frank me a Got him he fucking monte, in fact: but that's an- I took the Count by the hind leg, and he "Thank you, Johnson," murmured Wal- the let -out a squeal like the circus's antique ter R. Brooks with a voice that sounded other story.) steam calliope beneath [he fingers ol the trained in the art of sounding sepulchral. It was a hot, bright day when Caligula Phantom of ihe Opera or someone like him. Both men turned to me in unison, giving Comae glided up beside me silently in a

"Let me tote him for you," said Comae. the illusion of spinning on their heels like silver Chrysler Airstream minichopper. I He picked up the beast under his right arm, menacing terpschorear ".rouoers. And they could feel his smile upon' the pig and.me. holding his snout gently in his left palm, were suddenly frowning at me in that mock although he said not a word. He had not and packed him into my room like a sleep- way thai people do in ballets. Their coats aged, of course. In fact, corrective facial ing baby. It was poetry in motion. even billowed a bit in what seemed a stage cosmetigrafts made him look even younger Ptol- I call I'd him on Insidethirty minutes I had lashed the pig breeze. "Go quickly, and won't the than on the two days known onto a borrowed hotel cart with two shred- police," said Walter R. Brooks. "You ob- emy. He was wearing a weightless white ded sheets, had rushed him down to the suit and holding three long-stemmed red ground floor, and had raced with him roses in one hand and a Pall Mall in the squealing his head off through the scarlet- other. He was at home in the world. tinted passages leading to Kepler City's "Hello, mister," he said from the rear seat,

I where he sat alone. I recognized the circus sector. found the main administra- (tComac tive tent and was told by the usual officious chauffeur as little bootlicking Johnson, for- little prick that Walter R. Brooks was inside, looked out his window onto merly in the service of Walter R. Brooks,

I "Hello, Caligula," said. I felt, as they doing his morning meditation. I knew he say the circus beiow, in literature, all passion spent. would want to be interrupted, so I said it that was was urgent. This news was carried inside, his glance alone implying the Saying hello was a civility I could spare. of and I heard a rather suave voice muffledly Lilliputian status Three minutes silence followed, soft grunts. reply. "Certainly, certainly." Suddenly, I was punctuated by hog he attributed to the big-top is, I lie standing before him. I must have looked "See, the thing had to to you about like a farmer with a wheelbarrow, A wheel- workers, and his my orog ramming." barrow with a pig on it that was tied down "Why?" (Did I really care enough to ask?) voice became tenser, silvery^ with lime-hued decorator sheets. "Because my true programming was

"Are you Walter R. Brooks?" I asked. profit-dissimulation programming, not pig- at steadily. "I swear it to you that I am," he replied. specific Fagin." He looked me

"Well, I've got it for you, sir." He could possibly have won my confi- "Specify, specify. Are you the enriched dence. Possibly. "I was programmed to do

it mister." his gerbils for the As'aiic ov'hon or the alfalfa viously do not have the Count. And while what I did to you, He lowered for the Sacred White Buffalo?" looks as if you may have been conned by eyes. "I'm sorry."

I! instantaneously clear. "Neither," I said. "Sir, I have got Count somebody yourself lately, you are ob- JBsus. was How

:- Zero Interrupt." viously running some feeble, outmoded could I have been so stupid arc : ;. "Is this a kidnapping? How much do you con on us at the same time. Get out!" seeing the truth? This Frank had been la- want?" He looked at me as if I were vermin. I turned and started lor the door, breath- ser reamed from pituitary to paterae wBh "Are you armed?" he asked. "No? Well, ing a bit easier at walking one more time in the nefarious Buy High & Sell Low pro- that's something. Johnson, get in here!" my life out of something that could have gram: the infamous, cynical parody ol

A nervous little man displaying five or six been the screaming Bad. The police sound business practice that had nearly

cross-purpose facial lies ran in. Johnson, I weren't there. I hadn't been stomped. I was toppled that whole house of cards catted presumed. The darkness was closing not going to the Company's prison. My the Company up on Ptolemy four years be- around me, but I said the next of the sen- sudden financial ruin seemed secondary fore my arrival. But how had he survived? tences I'd rehearsed on the run: "I found in importance^barely. But then Walter R. They thought they'd caught all the Fra-ks

Count Zero Interrupt rooting up the syn- Brooks spoke behind me: "I believe, sir, that with those total-con nervous-system pro- thetic truffles in my truffle bed this morn- you may be forgetting something?" grams. They'd all been publicly hanged ing, and I've, ah, come for the reward." It would seem incredible that anyone and burned, too.

Walter R. Brooks sprang up, grabbed could forget a half-grown, pink Hampshire "I got away because 1 am deeply beSev-

Johnson with one hand and me with the hog lashed with green sheet hppings to able," Caligula Comae said. "I can mate a other, and ran with us in tow, literally drag- what was. essentially a three-wheeled grown man cry, no matter how powerM ging us behind him in the dust as he raced room-service cart. Non? his own an.icor programming An; r = across the midway and into one of the believability is in me. It is not program- sideshow tents. There before us was an ..The Tricentennial had come and gone. ming. It is in me, mister. In here!" He hi his elephantine, jet-black pig with a bejeweled Seven years later I was working the down- chest hard with both hands as he sad t lavender ribbon around his neck, lying on town street's of New Laredo over on Green His blue eyes cut through me. His ^ace some hay and eating carrot after carrot (hat Ball with the ancient pig partner I called flushed in passion.

gnarled Pink. first of a pleasant, man in faded overalls Shocking At I'd trained him to cap I felt the tiniest tears begin to torn n was feeding him. and shill—arts that basically only require my left eye, and I brushed it away witi re "Thank God!" bellowed Walter R. Brooks. of a crjtter suf'.ciert intelligence to do your back of my hand. DO 153 OMNI —

irUTELUGEnJCE computer architecture, one that's compa- NEW PRODUCTS rable to the human brain. (Hillis's connec- CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3B tion machine doesn't have one large cen- Those little yellow notepads with the press- you can make copies," Minsky told me. tral processing unit as other computers do on, peel-off glue made life a lot easier for Although Minsky doesn't think he'll live but a network of 64,000 small units office workers. Now several companies are long enough to download (he's fifty-seven roughly analogous in concept, if not in size, offering software that brings the same Person- now), he would consider it, "I think it would to the brain's network of 40 billion neuronal convenience to computer users. be a great thing to do," he said. "I've spent processing units.) ics Corporation's Smart Notes and Micro are two of the best a long time learning things, and I'd hate to "I've added up the things I want to do in Logic's Tornado Notes

life, Both are see it all go away." my and it's about fifteen hundred years' electronic notebooks. programs Minsky also said he would have no worth of stuff," Hillis, now twenty-eight, told "RAM-resident": They hide in your com- qualms about waving good-bye to his hu- me one day as we stood out on the sixth- puter's memory while you use another pro- man body and taking up residence within floor sun deck of the Thinking Machines gram, waiting for you to hit the "hot" key a robot. "Why not avoid getting sick and building. "I enjoy having a body as much that calls them to life. When you do, a small things like that?" he asked. "It's hard to see as anyone else does, but if it's a choice blank page pops onto the screen, letting anything against it. I think people will get between downloading into a computer you jot down a stray idea. What makes ted up with bodies after a while. Then you'll even one that's stuck in a room some- these programs more than pint-size word have another population problem; You'll place—and still being able to think versus processors is a "glue" that binds your note on, just have all the people of the past, as well as just dying, I would certainly take that op- to the file you were working where the new ones." portunity to think." you were working —without changing the Another believer is Danny Hillis, one of Gerald J. Sussman, a thirty-six-year-old file itself. The next time you edit that manu- Minsky's Ph.D. students and the founding MIT professor and a computer hacker of script, spreadsheet, or database with the scientist of Thinking Machines, a Gam- historic proportions, expressed similar notepad program in memory, the note will bridge-based company that is trying to sentiments. "Everyone would like to be im- pop up where you recorded it. So ff, say,

create the kind of computer that might mortal. I don't think the time is quite right, you aren't sure you'll remember how you someday receive the contents of a brain. but it's close. I'm afraid, unfortunately, that got the number you're putting into a During my research several computer sci- I'm in the last generation to die." spreadsheet, the notepad program can be entists would point to Hillis's connection . "Do you really think that we're that close''" used to remind you. Both programs mitt machine as an example of a new order ol I asked. with the IBM PC and compatibles. (Smart "Yes," he answered, which reminded me Notes is available for S79.95 from Persorv Copyright © 1986 by Grant Fjermedal. To be of something Moravec had written not too ics Corporation, 2352 Main Street. Con- published in November by Macmillan Publish-- is ava- ing Company, cxc.erptst! Mi!h permission from long ago: "We are on a threshold of a cord, MA 01742; Tornado Notes The Tomorrow Makers: A Brave New World of change in the universe comparable to the able from Micro Logic Corporation. Box Living Brain Machines, by Grant Fjermedal. transition from nonlife to life." 174, Hackensack, MJ 07602.)DO 160 OMNI " —

Cryobiologists have had some success freezing other body paris. Scientists have frozen and ihawed the islets of Langer- hans, Ihe parts of ihe pancreas that pro- duce insulin. Again, when surgeons learn to control hostile immune reactions, they hope to use these frozen parts as surgical cures for diabetics. But Ireezing more complex body parts is difficult. So far no whole adult organ animal or human—has been frozen and successfully revived for clinical use. As ice crystals form, cells dehydrate and shrink.

When the water expands as ice crystals, il pops open vessels and lears up cell struc- tures. When thawed, the organ is so badly

damaged it is useless. To complicale the problem, nol all freezing methods work lor all tissues; and even within the same organ different cells may require different rates of freezing and thawing, as well as different solutions, lo survive. The best sound you can hear For ihe presenf. most researchers are trying to extend the brief shelf life of organs next to Carnegie Hall. harvesied from donors. Getting Ihe organs Toshiba's new CD player makes concert quality sound portable. isn't easy; getting them in time is even more Yet, hooked up to your stereo system it's a top of the line home CD player difficult. "Of the livers and hearts thai are Offering 1 6 program random memory, 3 beam laser pick up, even available for donation," Fahy says, "ninety a wireless remote. Toshiba's XR-P9 is the ii^c^^Ton.™*, percent are thrown into Ihe wastebasket. complete, portable CD player. Outside of You've got to get the organ to Ihe recipient TOSHIBA a concert hall nothing sounds better. k™.»a ,..ir,E..b» ™,„ e .nj

perfusion fluid and a technique he hopes • finest materials: chrome-plated stee' to have ready by late 1987. The method frame, cushioned footpads extends the shelf life ot a liver from six hours • engineered for vigorous long-term use to 24. He wants to refine the technique to the buy even more time for other organs. "If we Look for SERVICE... had more time," he says, "we could set up • prompt shipment to your home or office networks for efficient liver and heart har- • no assembly required vesting, and every patient who needed a • thirty-day home trial, two year warranty heart or a liver could get one. >Hfret

'. questions Gregory Fahy's hope is lo extend the shelf life indefinitely. "Twenty-four hours is a start, " he says, "but if you could preserve Look for the NAME... the liver and other organs in nitrogen when an organ donor dies and you don't have a recipient lor his organs^ you could just take them out and send them organ -P. to the bank." '/tness faster think the Jitne m. Most cryobiologists break- through in preserving organs will come -800-328-8995 Irom Fahy's work. Considered a rising star TOLL FREE: t in his field, .he has been working at the In Minnesota: 1-612-474-0992 transplant laboratory at the American Red Cross in Bethesda, Maryland.. In his ex- periments with segments of animal kid- neys, he has gotten the tissue to solidify without ice crystals forming. Buy Hasbro's Fahy has spent years in the laboratory laking pieces of rabbit kidneys, immersing them in various cryoprotectants, freezing GJJoe and thawing them al different rates, and then studying the damage under a micro- scope. Recently he's found an alternative from a toy store you'll to freezing. By infusing high levels of pro- tective agents into the organ slices, fie gets them lo vitrify— to cool and solidify—into a like feel saluting. glassy slate without forming ice crystals. It

is a little like the way Jell-0 changes from a liquid to a solid in the refrigerator. When will he do the same with human

kidneys? "It's impossible to say. It might be

in two years. It might be never. I just hope the day of cryopreserved organs will nol remain a dream lorever." An easier candidate for the long-term organ bank might be the heart, according to both Fahy and David Pegg, a longtime researcher with the cryobiology group at Cambridge University. Pegg mentions an us, we'll good service, prices, When you shop with give yen good experiment in which the hearts of rats were a good selection, and a convenient location in shopping m;dis across the frozen and af;er thawing managed to beat

country. So when you're looking for G.I. Joe, come to the toy store that will weakly for a shorl while. "So a cryobank filled with body parts is not exactly the stuff treat you so nice you'll want to salute them. of science fiction," he concludes. "It could happen one day." Already cryobiologists are pushing for clearinghouses of frozen tissues. Arthur KAl Rowe says that over the next five years tis- TOY STORES sue banks will move toward centralized distribution of .all the commonly preserved items— like blood components, skin, and corneas. The society's journal carries an ad recruiting a cyoo-oogist to help set up a generic tissue bank in Atlanta. Buy Hasbro Transformers For the present. Rowe and other old- guard cryobiologists see little point in even from a toy store that attempting to freeze more complex parts like the head. Not only is the technology lacking, says Rowe, so is the incentive. transforms shopping "Brain transplants would have to evolve before it'd be worthwhile," he says. As for

' freezing the body, he points out scientists into fun. have already done the equivalent by freez- ing an embryo. Here is a potential human being, suspended in time for decades be-

fore being brought to life. Cryonicists, however, remain hopeful that full-grown bodies can be Irozen. They pant to natural examples of suspended anima- lion. Creatures like some Alaskan beetles and Antarctic mites survive temperatures as low as - 8fTC thanks to built-in supplies of glycerol, a type of antifreeze. And recent findings indicate that certain amphibians like spring peepers and gray tree frogs routinely spend the winter in a state closer When you shop with us, we'll give you good service, good prices, to death than hibernation. Their body tem- peratures drop to — 6°C, and their hearts a good selection, and a convenient location in shopping mails across the stop beating; but with the warmth of the country. When you're looking for Hasbro Transformers, come to the toy spring sun they revive and go hopping oft store that transforms shopping into fun. Biologists have discovered that more than a third of the frogs' bodies actually freeze solid and— in spite of this — avoid damage SEE from ice crystals. KAY frogs [freeze], "When the go down so do TOY STORES their kidneys, livers, and lungs. And if or- gans can freeze solid in frogs, the same 162 OMNI a - .

should bs true- in 'iirnans." says physiolo- to the Prince cl Peace I3apl s: Church and gist Paul Segall, a research associate at across the street from Bud's Auto Wreck- GIANT the University of California a! Berkeley. For ing. Segall is both a customer and an offi- the past several years he and colleague rer of Trans-Time. HEAVY DUTY Harold "Frosty" Waitz. a biophysicist. have Inside the building four tanks stand on INFLATABLE BOATS been trying to find the secret of sus- end. They resemble eight foot-tall thermos pended animation. bottles and contain a total of six "patients." "They were put in first," says Trans- 2 MAN $38 In a series of experiments with golden head hamsters done overlhe last few years, sci- Time president Art Quaife, broaching a entists anesthetized ihe animals and then subject most Gryonicists shun._ "If for any 3 MAN $50 capsule s:ar(s packed them in ice io lower their temper- reason a caking liquid ni- 4 MAN $65 atures. At 12°C, Segall put the hamsters on trogen, (he last thing to go is the head." It a respirator as the animals' temperatures is something to worry about. Of an esti- l\ C Before Midnight For The ext 30 Days continued to drop toward C. which is mated 45 cadavers frozen over the last As part of an a dvertising lesi, Dunlap Boat Mfg. wil where ice begins to form. Gradually, he seventeen years, at least 30 have melted. anyone who reads says, he replaced the hamsters' blood with In the middle of the warehouse stands a and responds ihe next 30 days :ach Boa! Lol >to.(Z-26PVC)isc snsttucted of tougr cryoprotectant fluid. They were kept in this huge, ten-patient tank, readied tor the day ilgh density f iric (resistant to >rasions, sunlight state for several hours and revived after when enough of Trans-Time's clients start ..;':;;. their blood was transferred back. dying. Whole bodies will be placed in ;,:,.,!> . s grommeled all round, heavy duty safety "They don't look great, but they are con- sleeping bags, packed in Sfyrofoam-lined (4 ig safely valves, metal boxes, and lowered into the tanks, scious and moving," says Waitz. "What we lifting a towing handle and, Hi;, did to those hamsters is very similar to what "When I die, I want to goin there," says cccanand fresh water recreation, damping, fishing or a family fun boal. Each boat will be accom we did to that dog six months ago." Waitz Segall. gesturing toward the tanks. ' id with a LIFETIME guarantee that it must per admits that if the six customers al- points to the mutt frisking around at his feet. He 100% or il will be replaced free. AddS7 handling He is named Miles, after the character ready in tanks were thawed today, "there iting for each boat requested. Dunlap Soar Mlg. ' pays all shipping. If your ordei ' ac-it-.-Gii -'.in ins Woody Allen portrays in Sleeper, his film would be a lot of damage." But he also be- en days you will receive FREE a combined lieves of their about a frozen human who awakens in ihe thai the genetic material bod- 'foot inflatory deflator bellows style pump for next century Miles appca's nealthy and in ies is intact. "I can't tell you those guys are each boat requested. Should you wish to return yo ' ' j may do so for a refund. Any letter po good spirits. Segall and Waitz are working going to get up and walk around someday, after 30 days will be returned. LIMIT tiro we're going thaw them with the with a veterinarian at the University of Cal- but to ; per address, no exceptions. Send appi ifornia at Davis. They hope to chill a pri- knowledge of the laie twenty-first century." im together with your name and address t #208-0, of Scat Dept. Dunlap Boat Mfg., 2940 W. Pi' mate to the ice point and try to revive it. Mike Darwin has had a glimpse what 1 Angeles, CA 90006. Orfor fastest servi- of twenty-first-century cryonicists will see. The most exciting possibility his work, He iart of the country call 1-800-824-9986 f Segall says, is not raising the dead but its pulls out what looks like .a family photo al- Boat Dept. #208-C (Calif, residents call colls 21 3-735-9363), before midnight seven days a wet applications in surgery and space medi- bum. Inside are pictures of two headless card ready. cine. Lowering a body temperature to the bodies. The patients' trust funds could" not ice point offers the hope of bloodless sur- support the costs of whole-body storage, gery. As an example of things to come', so he removed the heads and kept them doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in frozen. He then performed autopsies on Maryland cooled a patient to 19°C and by- the bodies to check for damage. PASCIMnNG" passed blood around the heari. The pa- The snapshots of one male and one fe- tient was "down" for some 40 minutes with male body are a ghastly off-white; but they the heart stopped. This provided the sur- look pretty fresh considering they've been Yoga was devel- geon with a bloodless field to work in. pro- dead six years. Darwin points out photos oped milleniums tected the patient from bleeding to death. showing damage done to various body ago as a practical, and made it possible lor the surgeon to parts by freezing. "Here's a lung almost split scientific means remove a tumor slrarg irg one of ihe heart's in half." He turns to the next page. "Here's for realizing the major blood vessels. a better view ol the heart; that's ihe aorta highest potentials These hypothermia techniques could fractured." of human con- provide short-term suspended animation He closes the album. "Given this, you sciousness. Auto- biography ol a Yogi, Ihe fascinating life for extraterrestrial medical emergencies, might say these guys are lunatics to be story of Paramahansa Yogananda, explains suggests Segall. Suppose flight surgeons freezing someone, but these fractures the universal principles underlying this yogic miss a little black mole on the left arm of hardly disturb me. We knew we'd have to science and shows their relevance in our an astronaut sent on a mission beyond the go in and make repairs inside ihe cells." nuclear age. A deeply probing Dock that of- asteroid belt. "On ihe way home the phy- Compared with that task, he argues, it will fers unique insights to understanding both sician onboard examines it and says, be easy to fix broken organs in the future. the universe and ourselves, Autobiography

That's melanoma, and if you don't get him So he continues his work. of a Yogi is widely regarded as a classic in back, home quickly, you can kiss him A "suspension team" stands af the ready its field and has been used as a text in over goodbye.' What you could do [to stop the night and day to travel to dying ALCOR 130 colleges and universities. rare cancerous growth] is bring him down to members Io prepare them lor freezing. "A account"— NEW YORK times

l minus ten Centigrade and leave him there Their most recent case occurred in the Paper, 604 pages. 52 photos S4. 50 for five months, like the frogs." winter of 1985. Darwin and colleague Jerry Segall claims that mainstream cryobiol- Leaf learned that a member named "Mary" WV> Self-Realization Fellowship ogists have "emotional problems" with his was only- days away from "deanimation." \M,I 388D San Rafael Ave., Dept. oil *~Tp Los Angeles, California 90065 work because it only encourages- cryoni- They flew at once to Madison. Wisconsin, cists. What may disturb conservative cry- where they stayed at Mary's hospital bed- obio.ogists most is what's engraved on his side for three days and nighis.

Medic Alert bracelet. It instructs anyone ". "Quite sensibly she elected to have finding-- him dead to call — collect— medication and IV support withdrawn," re- cryonics company, Trans-Time Inc. The call calls Darwin. i=i..jt to his su-pnse she go: will be answered in a cinderblock ware- better. "She joked about it and apologized

: house in Dakar id. Ca: ioni&. If is next door for not dying on schedule." Tfe® Avtsgt © ARTCUMINGS Your work ha© a character How do you

all it s own "\„^ j nage * ? \m

_^OBfcfc>- At 2:48 in the morning, Mary deani- mated. Within minutes Darwin and Leaf coupled her to a heart-lung machine and rushed her to a nearby mortuary, where they began perfusion and cooling. They washed out her blood and replaced it with fluids they'd used in recent dog experi- ments, then they packed her in ice for shipment to California. Back at his office in Fullerton. Darwin told ALCOR members who'd come to help with Mary's suspension thai deanimation had been difficult. "I was with her at the end. holding her hand and comforting her," he says. After pertusing her brain with cry- oprotectants, they sawed off her head.

They cooled il slowly, On Valentine Day it was placed in the aluminum "neuro con- tainer," Over the next 12 days Mary was chilled to -196°C as her head was grad- ually lowered into the liquid nitrogen. "There's a poem we like to quote," says cryobiologist Greg Fahy: freeze "I really think that I could My mother-in-law with the greatest of ease. The only thought that gives me pause

Is what will happen when she thaws." "Anybody frozen with the current tech- nology is going to have a tremendous amount of injury done to him," he warns. "The cyoncists recognize that. The big difference between cryonicists and cry- biofogtSEs is the estimates of future repair capabilities. Cryonicists tend to be opti- mistic. In reality we don't know how it will turn out. We don't know enough' to evalu- ate the prospects for revival." One very basic problem with the cryon- icists is that "they are starting with people Tennessee already dead," says Arthur Rowe. Preserv- AT A COOKOUT in Lynchburg, ing living humans at some twilight level be- you'll most surely sip some Lynchburg Lemonade. tween life and death may be more feasible, says Fahy. As a hypothetical example he mentions Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 in which It's a country concoction that takes its name the'voyagers are chilled —ano later fatal y warmed by a psychoiic computer, Hal. He from the Tennessee town where our whiskey admits the scene in which they are killed Daniel's over makes him uneasy "because one is so is made. You pour one part Jack helpless in that state." Tiple Sec and Sweet Fahy points out that the astronauts are ice with a like amount of e not frozen so. id— h

.Still, some of the very biologists who to live. signed this statement have So much faith in the future of their science they've 'paid to have their bodies frozen in li.quid nitro- CHARCOAL MELLOWED FOR SMOOTHNESS gen when they die. DO STARoTECH

ACCESSING THE FUTURE

ments from a phoio disoiay We are on the verge of a of outfits, then steps into a new millennium. We will need booth the size of new tools for this new age. darkened a dressing room. As he Omni is therefore launching in front of a full-length Star Tech as a means of pre- stands reflecting only his senting tools for the year mirror salesperson feeds 2000. But this new column head, a information on his measure- will contain more than just products and hardware. We ments and clothes size into the machine. Computer pro- will introduce you to "soft jections of photographs tools": new workshops, ser- the vices, courses, software, reflect a two-dimensional excursions, books, innova- torso, wearing one of the the mirror, tive technologies, even new outfits, onto be- head. techniques for mind expan- low the shopper's like standing be- sion. Often tools on the cut- It's a bit of ting edge are not so readily hind the cutouts he-men county fair, and sirr available, so in each story we at the have included an access larly. you get only a frontal mirror. re- guide for readers who want view with the Each flection can changed al- a head start on the future. Tell be us what you think. most instantly, allowing as many as 80 outfits to be "tried on" in less than ten

VCR'S THAT minutes. Accuracy of fit is 90 CAN READ to 99 percent. "It's the twenty-first-cen- Videocassette recorders scans a bar code printed and numbers printed to an tury way of clothes shop- boasts Bruno Lan- (VCRs) still have one major alongside conventional TV industry-established stan- ping," sing, president of Fashion consumer problem: It is text listings, the channel and dard.— Marjorie Costello cumbersome to program start-and-stop-time infor- Access: Not yet available Systems Corporation of New York-City, dis- them to record off the air. mation is sent automatically on the market; prototypes the American Mirror, in- Ironically, the technology to the VCR's tuner/timer. are currently being tested by tributor of Magic that could move the VCR Here in America, however. Blaupunkt, in Hildesheim. vented last year by French- Bourdier. programming process light- VCR marketers have shown West Germany. man Jean-Claude

i the years ahead is as near as the little interest in light-pen pro- The r supermarket checkout gramming. A major reason United States late last year MAGIC chain of 25 counter. Right now many is their reluctance to stir up at L. S. Ayres, a stores use optical scanning broadcasters by introduc- MIRROR department stores in soared. devices to read bar codes ing a feature that would Midwest. Sales One line c" soortswear. Leslie Fay, on products from canned make it easier to record pro- For anyone who hates percent in one peas to magazines. This grams off the air. trying on clothes and for jumped 867 store same technology can be In Europe the challenge salespeople who hate pick- month, according to applied to TV listings. has been to persuade ing up clothes after them, publicist Bob Wilson. Levoy Tests conducted in Eu- newspaper and magazine there isnow a machine thai —Gregg rope, for example, are using publishers to include bar obviates the need for both. Access; Magic Mirror is this fall VCRs equipped with "light codes in their TV listings. Called the Magic Mirror, ft scheduled to appear pens and optical decoders Current efforts under way in allows shoppers to see how in major department stores around to read TV-show information optical character recogni- clothes and accessories and specialty shops Distributed by contained in bar codes. In tion technology, .however, would look without actually the country. Blaupunkt's VPS—Video ' may soon eliminatethe need trying them on. Fashion Systems Corpora- Programming System—for for the bar codes. The light Here's how it works: A lion, New York, NY. Phone: instance, as the light pen pen would simply scan words customer chooses gar- (212)750-0101. 167 STARoSTECH

ACCESSING THE FUTURE

"The extension can be de- CALL provide the evidence," Fos- LOW- signed and built by any ter says. The code number BUDGET electronic hobbyist within a TRACER could cause both the called numbers SNOOPING few days, "Van Eck says. and the calling to Donn Parker, a computer- By the end of the century, be automatically transferred telephone users plagued to a central office or to a po- Want to ferret out a com- security specialist with SRI by nuisance lice s:ation. "As we looked at pany's deepest secrets? All International, agrees that it's almost any kind of technology," Foster ex- you need are an old TV, a possible. "I've just spent call will have quick re- the preset number plains, "we realized we had good antenna with an am- most of the morning worry- course— a that traces even the lightest the capability to do this," al- plifier, and $15 worth of spare ing about that problem," he though he admits it may take electronic parts. comments. "I don't think it's breather. a number of years to refine According to Dutch com- the system. puter-security expert Wim of the wrinkles that van Eck, a computer termi- One must still be ironed out is the nal acts like a radio, broad- method of billing for this ser- casting whatever appears on vice, which should go a long the screen. "Eavesdropping way toward cutting down on on a video display is possi-

obscene, threatening , or just ble at a distance of several plain annoying calls. Pre- hundred meters." he says. sumably, says Foster, pre- "All you ^^ need is a rogs".e r ed customers could arrange to pay either on a montnly-fee basis or by the individual trace (no more than $5 to $10 each), de- pending on the number of nuisance calls received. —George Nobbe Access; Through AT&T, probably by the late 1990's. SUBLIMINAL

and-white TV, a directional as important yet as Van Eck So says Robert W. Foster, SOFTWARE antenna, and an antenna believes. It's not quite as who recently patented 'the self-help business has amplifier." easy as he implies. But this system, along with Rosanna The subliminal stimulation Just park a van across the is going to get much more M. Lottes and Grant E. used in audi ocas series, street from your targel, aim troublesome as more peo- Swinehart, all stafl members for years videotapes, and even wall- your antenna into the right ple learn how it's done. Any at AT&T's Bell Laboratories use your office, and whatever you securities broker would give facility in Naperville, Illinois. paper. Now you can want to know should even- his right arm to lay hands on According to Foster, the computer. software package tually appear on your TV. The a major company's quar- telephone customer could With a Sugges- only problem: Your TV won't terly reports. And govern- take advantage of software called Subliminal tions and Self Hypnosis for be in step with tile terminal, ment economic indicators equipment in the company's Your Computer, compli- and the picture will crawl are extremely sensitive." switching network by dialing Life Insti- around your screen like a Now, let's see. What is the a three-digit code that would ments of the New coded cable program. But a address of the Federal Re- produce a printed record of tute in .Santa Cruz, Califor- users can "black box" that feeds the serve Board? Does Paul the nuisance call, including nia, computer self-help mes- proper synchronizing sig- Volcker keep a terminal in his its point of origin and the punch in any desired and have it nals into your TV can relieve 'office?—Owen Davies number to which it was sage Cash trelessly all but in- the problem. That's where Access: All parts avail- made. "You would file your and visibly across the top of the the junk transistors come in. able of; the shelf. complaint, and AT&T would 168 OMNI terminal while ihey work. WIRELESS ~he subliminal mes- sage— one thai bypasses WIZARDRY the censors of the con- scious mind—will flash at in- Tired of wires? We need tervals of one thirtieth of a them to hook up ourTV sets, second, allowing you to re- VCRs, and stereos, but Ihey ceive nearly 30,000 favor- are a nuisance. The next

e flashes in an eight-hour trend in the electronics rev- day. Any one-tine message olution? Wireless hookups. can be programmed in Electronics entrepreneur (Ihouyi you need an IBM PC John Nady is in the van- or compatible machine), guard of this movement, whether you want to lose having invented a wireless weight, quit smoking, im- guitar and .microphone for prove your memory, or stop performers. Nady, called the biting your nails. "wizard of wireless," uses Joel Amkraut, president of radio frequency (RF) signals New Life, which is primarily to link up equipment. But the

" i ihe self-help cassette Federal Communications business, calls his $75 soft- Commission limits the use of ware "effortless self-im- RF in the home because of

active toy panda designed by the Audec Corporation of transmissions. Saddle Brook. New Jersey. Last year, however, the Beneath its tur the ursine FCC did relax some of its interlocutor boasts two rules on RF use. This change computer chips that convert

made it possible for Nady's analog speech sounds to a

company to introduce its first digital format, store ihe for- wireless stereo speaker sys- mat, and activate the stored

tem. If more rules are re- format upon recognizing a laxed, we may soon em- word. After purchase the provement. It's a puritan brace a truly wireless bear can be programmed to ethic that you have to suffer future.— Marjohe Costello identify its young owner's to improve. You don't. Let the Access.- Wireless speak- voice and respond to five set computer do the work." ers are available from Nady questions. While studies indicate that Systems, 1145 Sixty-fifth Because voice recogni- subliminal stimulation works, Street, Oakland. CA 94608. tion is "speaker dependent."

Amkraut admits there is a if the- child's mother should dark side to it. It is possible. VOICE- address Sing-Sing, she he says, for an unscrupu- might be met with a baffled lous employer to program an INTERACTIVE "Sorry" or "Please respond." nployee's terminal with TEDDY BEAR Presumably this trait would : sei -servng messages ("Mr. be popular with many a five-

Smith, you are perfectly sat- Little girl: I love you. year-old.—Judith Hooper isfied with your present sal- Teddy bear; I love you, too. Access: At present Sing- ary's—Gregg Levoy Girl: Do you want to play? Sing is sold ($79.95) only by Access: Software avail- Teddy: Yes, let's have fun. catalog, from the INTV Cor- able from New Life Institute, This is a dialogue be- poration. 21535 Hawthorne Box 2390, Santa Cruz, CA tween a child and Sing-Sing, Boulevard, Suite 223, Tor- 95063-2390. an 18-inch-high, voice-inter- rance, CA 90503. Dream up the vehicle that will win the RACING Omni 2000 Moon Rally, and win yourself WITH THE a trip that is right out of this world MOON BY DOUGLAS COLLIGAN

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of [he six sites where astronauts We've all heard about the Mrs! man on landed as part of the Apollo program. [he moon, [he first words spoken on Mapped on the photo at left, the route [he moon, the first step, and so on. But covers around 2,600 miles as the who remembers the first car on the rocket flies. A lough course, it cuts moon? Known as Ihe Lunar Rover Ve- through both ihe flat lowlands and the hicle (LRV), or simply Rover, [he "car" rugged highlands of the moon. was a 462-pound, batlery-powered The race begins and ends at Tran- Iwo-seater cart wi!h [our-wheel drive. quillity Base, the site of the first moon It sported joystick controls, like the landing Racers cross Armstrong Flais original horseless carriages. Astro- on the Sea of Tranquillity, round "Buzz's nauts Jack Irwin and David Scott look Bend," and traverse [he Sea ol Seren- Rover for its first spin as part of the ity; ihen Ihey drive along the Apen- 1971 Apollo 15 mission. nine Mountains, across the Ocean of The vehicle was no Ferrari; it had a Storms, heading soulhward along "Ir- top speed of 11 miles an hour (a lunar win's Alley," and finally norihward lo record that still stands) ll also had a ihe checkered Hag. tendency to fishtail at high speeds— ' Omni is asking its readers to design around 10 miles an hour. Designed lor a second moon buggy, a recreational the rugged lunar landscape, it could vehicle lhat could compeie in Ihis cross crevasses more than two feet contest in 2086. wide and climb slopes of 25° The four Here are some facts you should tires, made of steel mesh, had a life know about local driving conditions; expectancy of 112 miles. Thanks to • There is no atmosphere lo speak of Rover, two learns of astronauts were on the moon: It's practically a vac- able to explore miles of moonscape uum. Therefore, standard internal- and collect invaluable samples Ihal combustion engines will not work. Thai they brought back to Earth. leaves electric motors, solar power, We are asking Omni readers to think nuciear power, rocket power, even about what the next wheeled vehicle rubber-band power— anything lhat on the moon should be. Unlike ihe doesn't require oxygen. Rover it would be built strictly for fun, • The gravity on the moon is one sixth to competein the Omni 2000. a course thai of Earth, vehicles need less ' so that would lake the lunar racers to each CONTINUED ON PAGE 184 —

already possess the basic genetic makeup by comparing brain size to body weight.

Well, I his formula for a whole I checked IRJTERWIEUU for a life span of four hundred years. out range of species, from recently evolved CONTINUED FROM fi* couldn't wait to test these ideas. Omni: How could you prove that notion? primates to the opossum, which has been around in its present form for millions of sense, then another, and I knew I was onto Cutler: One way was through a technique evolutionary biology: To years. This doggone formula seemed to something. Aging rate, I reasoned, varied commonly used in from species to species, but the process learn how many genes determine a char- work across the board. I didn't see why it of aging was the same. No matter what the acteristic, you ask how long it took the shouldn't work for completely extinct spe-

I litera- species, once aging set in, everything characteristic to evolve. If, for instance, a cies as well. So went back to the eyes, ears, reflexes, muscles—seemed to hundred thousand genes are involved in ture, digging up the anthropologists' go more or less at once. Every tissue of the human longevity, a longer life span would measurements of fossils. They had calcu- lated the brain size of pri- body, in essence, was run by the same ag- take longer to evolve than if two hundred and body weight ing clock. Comparative physiology sug- genes were involved. That's just the way mate species as they'd evolved over mil-

lions of years. I discovered that longevity gested some common master gene of evolution works. I needed to learn human regulation, altered slightly among species. longevity had actually evolved. generally increased during primate evolu- To increase longevity we didn't need to in- Omni: You'd have to measure the life span tion, butai different rates, depending upon

lineage, it squirrel monkey, ape, or vent new body processes or genes. It had of extinct species—and they're already the be the rate to be a small number of control genes turn- extinct! baboon. But for hominid lineage, ing the volume, the quantity of certain lon- Cutler: George Sacher had the key when kept going up faster and faster Ihe closer gevity biochemicals, up or down. We might he showed that you could calculate MLSP you got to modern man. The line on my graph went almost straight up. For the last few million years longevity could only

change at that pace if it involved no more than six tenths of a percent of the entire genome, roughly six hundred genes. Omni: Then longevity is evolving still?

Cutler: Not at all. Evolution of longevity, like the evolution of brain size, has come to a

total halt. I found that Neanderthal men, for instance, had longer MLSPs than Homo sapiens. Researchers also found the re- mains of hominids with superbrains and. according to my calculations, superlong lite spans. They probably looked like men from

Mars, but the trait didn't prevail.

I calculated that hominid longevity in- creased an astounding fourteen years over the last hundred thousand years. But about fifty thousand years ago the rate at which

longevity increased fell to zero because of the specific way we evolved. Our ances- tors lived in small, traveling communities generally led by a single chief with supe- rior traits. Because he passed on more of his genes than anyone else, these were the

ones that took. If another individual, with yet more potent traits, arrived on the scene, he would take over, and his genes would

propel evolution further still. With the ad- vent of civilization, these traveling bands disintegrated; because everyone had a more or less equal chance to reproduce, selection for superior traits, including in- creased longevity, stopped. Another factor that probably played a role is a process known as neoteny. Neoteny means the retention into adulthood of early developmental features. Individuals take on increasingly childlike features— greater brain-to-body ratio, larger eyes, sparser hair. The larger brain necessitates a longer period for learning, so neotenous species spend more time in childhood; develop-

ment is essentially stretched out so that every phase of the life cycle expands. As generations passed, individuals simply became increasingly neotenous until eventually we had modern man. A normal adult Homo sapiens has the same brain- to-body ratio as a baby chimp. He takes twice as long as the chimp to reach ado- lescence, spends twice as much time in — the prime of adulthood, and takes twice as benefited evolution by killing off the old to The Mysteries long to die. make room for the new. Proponents of this After a while, though, our physiology idea suggested a Disneyland explanation forced the of neoteny for the death of animals in the wild: rab- of Mind process to a halt: We As simply reached the point where il was im- bits grow old, crippled, and weak, wolves

possible to give birth to more neotenous, kill them off. But that's not the way it is at larger-brained children without warping the all. There aren't enough enfeebled rabbits female's pelvis, totally destroying her gait, tor all the wolves. Instead, wolves kill healthy and impeding her ability to walk. With in- rabbits in a mostly random kind of way. Most creasing neoteny impossible, (he evolution rabbits are killed by natural predators while of longevity stopped. very young. No wild animal lives long Omni: What a sweeping theory. What was enough to get old. The problem in nature the response? has never been that animals live too long

Cutler: It thrust me into the blackest period it's quite the opposite—to stay alive to a of my career. It was 1975, and the Pro- decent reproductive age. So there 'd never ceedings of the National Academy of Sci- be any pressure to evolve a hormone pro- ences sent my paper to George Sacher for moting aging and death. review. He claimed I'd stolen all the ideas Omni: You reject the dogma that aging is

from him and rejected it. I found that in- genetically programmed into all individu- credible because I'd been communicating als for the good of the species? with him all along. We even co-organized Cutler: That's right. So let's consider the THE TWO WORLDS a meeting three months prior to this in which other alternative: Aging is the by-product WE LIVE IN I'd presented a paper on the same data. of normal metabolic and biochemical

And his only comment at the time had been processes necessary for survival. Look at Man is not just an isolated entity on "fascinating." The academy decided to the hormones we produce at puberty. Earth. He is also of a greater world— ike publish my paper anyway but asked me to When scientists castrated Pacific coast Cosmos. The forces that create galaxies acknowledge that Sacher had arrived at salmon, they found that the fish, never pro- and island universes also flow through man's being. The similar data independently. But Sacher was ducing sex hormones or reaching sexual human body and its vital phenomenon Life— are of r.hc same bitter and acrimonious and even formed maturity, lived about twice as long. You — spectrum of energy of which all creation his own clique of supporters. Before he must become sexually mature to survive, consists. The universe i s you beca use you died, in 1982, he wrote one last chapter but there's a price to pay. Other examples are one of its myriad forms of existence. claiming everything I ever did as his own. are the highly reactive particles, free radi- Stripping away the mystery of these The matter has not been resolved, and cals, you produce in metabolizing oxygen. (Josmic forces within von increases the people still say, "Cutler stole the data be- You have to breathe in order to function, personal reality of the Self. There is no cause he had trouble getting grants." Or, but you pay a price —free radicals that adventure greater than the exploration of Self. "He did It because he was too ambitious." damage DNA. In nature, where most crea- Being accused of that was terribly upset- - tures are killed by predators and other This Free Book ting. It hounds me. It diminishes everything hazards, the harmful aspects of these The Rosicrucians, a worldwide cul- I've done. But I try to follow my wife's ad- processes never come into play, because tural organization, have shown thou- vice: 'Uust keep going. Just continue. Peo- animals simply do not live long enough. But sands of men and women how to ration- ple will see where the ideas are coming for humans living in the civilized world, ally explore their inner world of Self. A from." these by-products cause aging. Because vast psychic realm lies just beyond your I had political problems everywhere, but our basic biochemistry is virtually identical conscious mind. It is a link with your I was finally put in touch with Don Yarbor- to that of the chimp, we must have better potential creativity and attainment. Not ough, a philanthropist who was interested ways of coping with the same toxic by- magic, not fantasy, but a revelation of in aging research. He and his friends ended products, agents of DNA damage, aging, the fullness of your being. Write today for up supporting me. Don eventually intro- and death. a free copy of the Mastery of Life. It tells duced me to another philanthropist, named Omni: How does DNA damage, per se, re- how you can learn and use more of what Paul Glenn, who helped me pay the salary sult in aging? you are. of a lab technician. This money was what Cutler: Through a process called dysdil- scientists call soft, but at least I was gen- ferentiation, which is essentially develop- The Rosicrucians are; erating enough of it to keep myself and my ment in reverse. We all start from a single • Not a religion research going. A year after the Sacher fu- fertilized egg that develops by dividing and • Non-political ror, I left Dallas for what I thought would be differentiating so that many difterent types a better opportunity—my current, tenured of cells emerge. We have blood, brain, • Non-profit job at the Gerontology Research Center, muscle cells, and so on. Free radicals pro- USE THIS COUPON part of the National Institute on Aging. duced in a cell can alter the proper differ- Omni: So things improved? entiated state of the cell. For instance, brain

Cutler: Not at all. I'd been here for just a cells have been found to produce hemo- few months when the man who hired me globin, a protein previously produced only left. As new man on the block with these by blood cells. As the brain cells continue far-out ideas, I received little support. But to produce hemoglobin, the brain be- Yarborough and Glenn supplied money for comes just a bit less efficient. And other technicians. And my wife is still here sup- parts of the body undergo this process as plying her expert services. well; kidney cells may begin to function a

Omni: Despite difficulties, you kept on? . bit like liver cells, for instance, and stom- Cutler: Yes, and my first goal was to figure ach cells begin to produce proteins previ- out what actually causes aging. There were ously specific to the intestines. After a while two points of view. The more popular no- you can't run the four-minute mile. Small tion was that we had aging genes that pro- and subtle departures from the optimum grammed the production of a death hor- state occur over time, and very little change mone— because aging and death is required to account for the aging proc- ess. My theory is that free radicals, along at sea, and underwater . . . An outstanding watch value: on land, with other active chemicals, make the dys- Navigator Watch dilferentiation occur. Thus the mecha- nisms that keep a cell in its proper slate of new ratcheted safety differentiation might be (he very ones that Now, with sGiArta** bezel, and still only 4y— determine the longevity of an animal. *Bul re.ad the ad for an even better dual! If Iree radicals cause aging, then some ivatL.li swim and dive. ]"he Navi- ear LliLs to work, to play, lo species live longer because they have yit-jr-' Wiiici} k powered by ' sophi:-ti-..atod, ultra-accurate better ways of fighting them off. So you'd :.ipanese quaii.7 movement :hat is powe:-::d by 3 tiny mer- longer-lived species to have higher cury ct'll. I; should last al leas: ;* months Lxfee. you need expect

'.,' i ''.". !( ' i i oi.' oi.il :'!,!. . i i analc.;:, i ii in ."I ill' us levels of antioxidants, substances that dual capability, anil LCD dispiav. 11 give* you time the neutralize free radicals. Finding higher lev- LCD display shows time continuously — in 12-hr. or els of protective antioxidants in the tissue 24-hr. mode". Push the button and vou display day and longer-lived species would the acid date. There is a subtle . oi. [nsisieni alarm and a switch- of be

able hourly time signal i ho stopwatch /chronograph test of this idea. Thai's what I set out to do. reads to l-'liiii sees, and lias "iofcTupr aod "lap" modes. Omni: What antioxidant did you look at?

A light switch illuminates I he display. Cutler: I chose superoxide dismutase The Nnvi^i!:-'!'" 'Air;;'; in totailv e.xe-CLited in black

1 1 ' role is to protect i ' ii only known i.' . [SOD], whose metal, incli . mi. s water-

proof to loC tt The new, exclusive ratcheted sate-tv bezel against free radicals. It's present in all

staying imdti'. t \itcT longer :han you had preoenls vou nvm creatures from bacteria to man, and it's re- olanned. Thc;-ystai is "nuncio jdas.s— it will never scratch. quired for survival. We tested humans, We import these outstanding '.'.'siohes directly in large chimpanzees, gorillas, rhesus monkeys, quantities and arc able to oiler ih-cm tor a;st ^4''.

."et ihf identic,,: natch !"o: SI2I.1 or more, and a few short-lived' species, including

.,,:,: ,,.:;;..", a i! .! Bui here is an ;i ccxi r esaJel ;i guinea pigs and mice. We found a beauti- oven better do.:i\\ Dry tiro for WM m ui uv'H *.';uiw.utn ful linear correlation: Longer-lived species third out! nbschitrf'tt i-RhT, -i"lh on' compiimimti. kike had more SOD to protect against a given . .. ';!.-:>:;. in o. ! iter while it is available. quantity of free radicals than did shorter- [PUiASibV SrRYlCF. ORDER Note: Rjr quantity orders (100+) with your compa-

:-. !.. I, : .i 1 1 543-6571) ny logo on the J M Gerard at (415) lived species. When I repeated the exper- TOLL FREE (800) 431-9003 24 hours a day, 7 days a week iment for other antioxidants, including vi-

Please give order #10158577. If you prefer, m tamin E, beta carotene, and uric acid, the check or card authori/.vaon ana i:\pi ra tier, date. V correlation held lirm. What's so nice is that need daytime phone for al! orders and issuing ba these findings fit into the control-gene the- for charge orders. We cannot ship without this formation. UPS /insurance: $5.95 for one Navigali haverhills ory. Just turn up the production of antioxi- Rim-Ci, Sft.95 for three. Add sales ta* for CA del dants, which all species have, and longev- ery. You have 30 -day return and one year ivarran ity increases.

Omni: Could I slow my aging by consum- ing some antioxidants?

Cutler: Not if you're already at the optimum level for your species. In lhat case raising Buy the Atari the level of one antioxidant will probably lower the tevel of all others. That makes

good biological sense— if life span is im- Video Game Systems portant to the evolutionary success of an animal, it won't be manipulated in a trivial way. tt's going to have a set point of regu- good service lation, like temperature. And like where just body

body temperature, it will stay constant un- is not a game. der a wide range of conditions. So the hu- man MLSP is at most one hundred and ten years, no matter what the nationality, life- style, and nutrients consumed.

Omni: But tl there's an optimum set point for humanity at large, certainly whole groups of people fall below.

Cutler Indeed they do. If antioxidants play a role in lite span, perhaps some individu- als live longer than others because they just happen to have higher set points. An- AATARi; tioxidant protection might vary within our species, just like eye color or height.

The first spinoff of all my research will be ; and great selection, all as close as a technique for diagnosis. People with ab- you're Kay-Bee Toy Store. When normally low levels of antioxidants might [stems and cartridges, remember the age abnormally last: with my technique to a system. they'll bediagnosed, and supplements will boost their antioxidants until the optimum level is reached, We're developing a battery of assays to 1-800-824-7888 ask (, determine how much antioxidant protec- tion you've actually got. For example, we DRES analyze urine samples for thymidine gly- col, a by-product of DNA damage. When- ever a piece ol DNA is damaged, thymi- with a placebo. ~ncn we irradiated both OMNI dine glycol is removed. Because the mol- groups of mice with X rays for twenty days. ecule is, stable, it's never degraded but X rays, of course, produce stress, damage simply finds its way into the urine. Knowing DNA. After a couple of weeks all the con- TIME CAPSULES how much thymidine glycol you're peeing, trol mice were dead, but most of the thy- midine-dimer mice were still alive. The thy- I can calculate your total body DNA dam- age load, midine-dimer mice ended up living about twice long. This strategy seems to have Omni: Trie more thymidine glycol I excrete, as worked, but we can't for sure until more the more DNA damage I have? say Cutler: Yes. The solution is to prevent; as studies are done. much of that damage as possible. And Omni: It this work pans out, could people

that's what our assays will do. If urine anal- perhaps inject themselves with thymidine ysis shows you have high rates of DNA dimers. trick their cells, and live longer?

I'll Cutler; It's not likely. A better idea is to ac- damage, take blood tests. I might find, h cm the magazine of the future con for instance, lhat you have trouble absorb- tually understand the mechanism, the cen- kept for the future. Store your is- be ing vitamin E. The solution might be as tral controlling factor. One possible factor sues of OMNI in a new Custom simple as doubling your consumption of triggering the genes that produce antioxi- Bound Library Case made of black '.hat vitamin. You'll come back in two weeks, dants is a messenger chemical known as simulated leather. It's built to last,

and if lack of vitamin E was the major prob- cyclic GMP When I injected cyclic GMP and It will keep 12 issues in mint con- then signs of excessive into mice, it protected them against radia- dition indefinitely. The spine is em- lem, DNA damage bossed with a gold OMNI logo, and in your urine sample should be gone. Peo- tion. Such experiments suggest that we in each case there is a gold transfer ple could come to us early in their life, be- might be able to artificially enhance our for recording the date, fore signs of aging appear, and we might levels ot protection without having to over- Send your check or be able to readjust their system tor a longer, haul the body as a whole. We could well money order ($8.95 each; more normal lite span. see pharmaceutical agents that intervene 3forS24.95;6forS45.95) increase our at the normal set points, actually expand- postpaid. USA orders only. Foreign Omni: Can we MLSP beyond orders {add £2,50 for one hundred and ten years? ing the MLSP. postage ar.u he idling per case) Cutler: The next step is trying to increase Omni: How many years do you think we MAGAZINE to OMNI the net levels ot antioxidant protection in might gain through such therapy? JESSE JONES INDUSTRIES our cells: to change the set point to a higher Cutler: It's hard to say. though the increase 499 East Erie Avenue Philadelphia, PA. 191 34 level. Evolution itself continually increased would probably not be radical because this To expedite your order over the primate set point for longevity by in- technique imitates just part of the evolu- S15CALI iOLLFREF 1 -i;00- 972-5858 creasing the production o! protective sub- tionary process. To double or triple human Charge to AX, VISA, MC, or DC and stances. We have to understand the evo- longevity, we'd probably have to rely on PA RESIDENTS ADD 6% SALES TAX lutionary process and push it still further. neoteny iise'f 3y slowing ai! stages of de- Many diflcrcy. strategics have evolved velopment and delaying production of sex to decrease "he poss.oie aging efiects of hormones, we'd retain more of our fetal and free radicals. One might try, for example, early-childhood features into adult lite. to trick cells into thinking they were under Neoteny as a mechanism for increasing more than they really were. longevity doesn't demand the develop- When you exercise you burn more oxy- ment of new morphological forms, only the gen, produce more free radicals, and also adjustment of the overall rate of the genetic

generate more anfoxican: protection. II you program. Neoteny is an example of how a could trick the cells into thinking exercise few regulatory genes can efiect vast

was taking place when it wasn't, then you changes in overall morphology. might increase production of more antiox- A neotenous version of Homo sapiens, idant while free-radical levels stayed the with an MLSP of perhaps two hundred

same. The question is, What's the mecha- years, would be slightly taller and heavier nism by which the body recognizes that than ourselves. But the head and the brain

it's under oxidative stress? A particularly would be twice as large. The individual exciting possibility is the existence of a might reach sexual maturity at thirty, and

central coordinating lactor. If it exists, one that thirty- year-old would be proportioned

could identify and manipulate it without just like an eight-year-old Homo sapiens. complex genetic engineering. But the most fascinating characteristic of Omni: Have you narrowed in on this so- this Homo futurus might be the retention called factor? Have you ever tried to trick into adulthood of childlike behavioral char- the cells yourself? acteristics. Homo sapiens already retains Cutler: We embarked upon such a pro- into later life some of the infantile traits of gram years ago. We started from a simple animals— curiosity, playfulness, the ability fact: Damaged DNA, one result of oxida- to learn. The new species will retain even tive stress. procLCCs mo'oculcs known as more behavioral traits from the human thymidine dimers. When the DNA is re- childhood, such as the ability to learn spo- paired, the dimers are removed, and you ken and mathematical languages and the can detect their presence in the blood. The intense urge to explore. Some of our great- more dimers you "find, the more DNA dam- est scientists and musicians, from Einstein age has occurred. We injected these di- to Mozart, appear to have been exception- mers into mice, hoping their presence ally neotenous People always say, "He may would cause the cells to think the damage be a great scientist, but he's like a child." was extreme and- to respond with excess They don't realize that perhaps being like production of antioxidants and other pro- a child is what made him great. tective substances We nad two groups of Omni: You've set your distant sights on the mice: one injected with dimers, the other creation of lbs suoeireolcnous race? 170 OMNI Handle Pressing Matters In Minutes. WithThe Sunbeam SteamValet Garment Steamer.

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I'tHhSunbcjtiiAf'plutticci; iviipiiny. uais survived much beyond thirty, with plane. In fact, you might just hole up at

people dying of infectious disease and all home. You could build redundancy into ihe various, random natural hazards. The your system, even isolate your brain in the

death of an individual depended not on equivalent of an iron vault and have it com-

how old he was but rather whether or not municate with your body electronically. If he happened to get caught. Civilization the body were destroyed, well, that could eliminaied many of these hazards, sub- always be cloned or reproduced. RARE stantially reducing the random component Omni: What about you? On the cutting BLENDWBEOIWWHISKY of survival. Suddenly people had a more edge ot life extension research, you have TbTCHr uniform life span, limited by aging itself. various options for increasing your own

The preserve of aged people in our so- longevity. At fifty, do you ever consider in- ciety today is an artifact of civilization. Se- jecting yourself with thymidine dimers, nior citizens and the problems of caring for cyclic GMR or anything else?

them are not natural to our species. Many Cutler: Not yet; I'm afraid of it. These sub-

people claim that increasing life span, in- stances could turn out to be dangerous. cluding a longer period of decline, would My father will be eighty this December and is only make the problem more extreme. But concerned about his aging, but I can't

my studies show just the opposite to be help him. I myself simply take vitamin E and true. Conferring even five or ten years ot beta-carotene capsules after every meal, extra, healthy life on, say, a scientist or en- hoping to reduce the possible mutagenic SCOTCH OF RARE CHARACTER

gineer would be an economic boon to so- effects of food. I try to avoid particularly

ciety. Even more important, while random strenuous exercise. Though I know that the

hazard has been drastically reduced, it still cardiovascular system can benefit from Here is the solution to last month's exists. People die via plane and car crashes such exercise, I'm afraid that the gain may &B puzzle. every day. li people had the biological po- be more than ofiset by the extra oxygen J tential to live for six hundred years, accord- metabolism and increased free-radical ing to insurance company statistics, there's production. Right now there just isn't much 1 1 1 2 1 3 | | almost a one hundred percent chance of we can do to extend life beyond the cur- B meeting an accidental death. So with ran- rent MLSR 1 1 9 4 ll | dom hazards remaining as they are today Omni: Doesn't it bother you that you your-

no one would worry about the problems of self might miss out on the increased life 2 1 8 4 5 3 aging. We'd have returned to a society of span you're helping to create and might | H youth. The closer society gets to that six- die of natural causes at seventy or eighty? 4 8 1 o 1 hundred-year life I span, the less old age Cutler: Sure, feel real bad about it. I'm like 1 we'll have. a person who studies cancer and sud- 4 7 4 4 Omni: Why is six hundred years the opti- denly discovers he has cancer himself. He mum human life span? can do a self-diagnosis, make charts of it, 4 3 9 5 6 2 Cutler: There isn't a shred of evidence for watch it grow. That's what I've been doing | H any real bottleneck on the evolution of lon- in watching myself develop all the changes 6 6 7 i 3 5 gevity. But there's a practical limit: A six- of age. But I also feel good because I'm H hundred-year-old would have to wait ninety contributing toward the ultimate extension years to become sexually mature. of human life span. That's my replacement ANSWERS ACROSS: Omni: I'd wait thousands of years if it meant for immortality. Also, let's say you could live I. 54 50 4- 8-1 = 111 I could live forever. two hundred years. Then you'd feel bad + 3. - = 215 Cutler: But these longer-lived versions of because a six-hundred-year life span was 2130 10 man would probably be intelligent enough just around the corner. Those with a'six- 6. 1984 *6 = 11904 8. 24 x (90 I) = 2184 to come up with novel approaches to life hundred-year life span would feel bad + = extension. After we'd tripled or quadru- knowing that just a few generations later, 10. 63-10 53 pled our life span by enhancing mecha- they could have lived forever. That might 11. 42 + 6 = 48 nisms used during the natural increase of be the worst feeling of all. 12. 61-51 = 10 13. = longevity, new means for increasing life The important thing is that people in (6x8)-5 43 span would evolve. In that instance you're general are becoming increasingly dissat- 14. 16 x 2 x 9 x 13 = 3744 = talking about life spans of thousands of isfied with short life spans. Most politicians 16. 666 x 66 43956 18. 29 x 21 = years. I can imagine the removal of all in- and scientists are still resistant to the idea 667 = ternal organs, from the liver to the spleen, of life extension. But historically, most rad- 19. 1927-1492 435 because they generate toxic by-products. ical scientific movemenls started this way. There'd be no need for a digestive system, You have''a few investigators who are con- ANSWERS DOWN: only a mechanical heart to pump fluid sidered wild. They undertake a lot of hard- 1. 76 + 50 + 6 = 112 through a "body," You'd "eat" a predi- ships to produce some key experiments, x 11 x Q = 1188 gested medium full of all the critical nu- triggering the interest of the general sci- . 16 + 2 + 8 + i = 29 trients and vitamins. Ultimately, because entific community to go at it in a more care- I3l3x 8 = 10504 biological tissue can last just so long, you ful way. Despite politics, I believe that hu- 7 x 7 x 7= S45 might eliminate the biological components mans will want to increase their natural life 2156 - 154 = 14 for virtually everything but your brain. The span. We already have the hypotheses as '. 1024 x 14 = 14536 brain itself would be enhanced by antioxi- to how this might be done. Around the year . 42 x (11 + 11 + 10+ 101 dants and periodic transplants of new, 2000 some researcher may finally use ge- = 1764 healthy cells. But with life span extending netic engineering to double the life span of >. (75 x 6) -4 = 446 beyond .six hundred years, you'll start to a mouse. That will be the breakthrough. (14 x 5) - 2 = 35 see increasing anxiety over the possibility will stop " People and say, This isn't quack- 17x25 = 425 of accidental death. People would start ery. This is real." Thousands of scientists '. 48 + 49 = 97 trying to avoid accidents at anycost. You'd might ultimately get involved. And that's drop that sports car. Give up travel by when the bulk of the work will bedone.DO —'

Memorial to the highest-paid writer

By Scot Morris

• Who is the highest-paid writer of all Shift each letter of steeds forward one time? The Guinness people once said it place in the alphabet and you get another was Ernest Hemingway, who in 1960 word, tuffet. A three-letter shift turns received $30,000 from Sports Illustrated cold into frog. • for a 2,000-word article on bullfighting Queueing contains !ive straight vowels. a rate of $15 per word Ashleigh Brilliant, That's still not as many as Pofoooooooo, who writes epigrams and sells them a British racehorse born in 1773. on postcards, in 1981 got $5,000 for 12 QUESTION 2a. How was this unusual words in a TV ad: "I may not be totally horse's name pronounced? perfecl, but parts of me are excellent," QUESTION 2b. Borgmann also posed which works out to $416.66 per word. this question: Of all finite numbers ever Coincidental^, the ad was for Sports Illus- named, from 1 to 1 centillion, which trated. Brilliant recently told us that he number comes first alphabetically? thinks he should get the title as highest- QUESTION 2c. What do the answers to the ciicle: a classic word square. priced writer, but in its latest edition these two questions have in common with Squaring Guinness cites a woman in Minneapolis this issue of Omni? agent for on who in 1958 won $500 a month for life in a As a result of , Borgmann's Language "25 words or less" contest for Plymouth Scientific American called Borgmann Vacation but never actually met him. cars. By 1984, they say, her earnings had "the country's leading authority on Neither did , who was passed $6,000 per word. wordplay." Time described him more responsible for getting Borgmann the job But since, as Guinness admits, "No simply as a "a stark raving logomaniac." as founding editor of , a quar- known anthology includes Mrs. Schnei- The book caught the attention of terly journal of recreational linguistics, der's deathless prose," and apparently Standard Oil of New Jersey executives, in 1968. Nor did Howard Bergerson, who even Plymouth never used her slogan, we who were searching for a new company took over as editor for a year (1969) of would agree with Brilliant that she isn't a name. They brought in Borgmann, Mario and remained a close friend Borgmann's published writer, Pei, and other authorities on language. to the end (by telephone and letter only). Well, we have another candidate for the The final choice was EXXON, a Borgmann And neither did A. Ross Eckler, who award: Dmilri Borgmann, who once was word that he guaranteed "means has edited Word Ways since 1970. paid $10,000 for a single word. absolutely nothing." "When he was in the mood," Eckler "I had a page of conditions to meet," tells me, "Dmitri could turn out well-written STARK RAVING LQGOMANIAC Borgmann said. "The name could be articles at the rate of three or four a week. is In 1965 Borgmann published Language no more than six letters. It had to have the As a consequence, even though he

on Vacation, a book that set the overtones of a big company as well as dead, I have enough material to generate memorial issues, in February standards for a field he called : scientific and chemical overtones. . And two more the systematic study of wordplay, or since the company had operations 1987 and February 1988." (Subscriptions: recreational linguistics, or the science of worldwide, the name couldn't be nasty in $14 a year from Word Ways, Spring Valley Morristown, NJ 07960.) words. In it Borgmann pointed with delight Swahili or any. other language." Road, at such treasures as Borgmann's fee for delivering EXXON Borgmann delighted in taking a subject Subbookkeeper. The only word in the was $10,000, a rate of $2,000 per letter. and writing about it so thoroughly that English language that contains four That, we think, makes him the unqualified there was simply nothing more to say successive pairs of letters. highest-paid writer of all time, and we about it. In a recent article on shortest • Tnennially. A word in which the odd and petition the Guinness people to make the he started with the and worked the even letters spell other words: Unify appropriate corrections. up. Each letter of the alphabet is a , he said, but four are also and renal. LOGOLOGY'S LOSS /, • Typewriter. The longest English word ' words in their own right—A, O, and X. you can type in the top-letter row of a Borgmann died last December 7 at his (O is the poetic exclamation, and X means typewriter. The longest middle-row word home in Dayton, Washington. He was to mark with an X). "The last of these little is flagfails. QUESTION 1. What are fifty-eight years old. We have tried to find words makes me a uncomfortable," aftercataracts and Johnny-jump-up? out what we could about this man, but Borgmann wrote, "because it is spelled • The English aye and the French oui are as a. publicity recluse he makes J. D. without a vowel." synonyms, yet they have no letters jn Salinger look like Jerry Falwell. • Five letters. An interesting example at (hailing common and together comprise all six Joseph fvladachy. editor of the Journal this length is SOHOS shouts used possible vowels. of Recreational Mathematics, acted as by huntsmen). Like its shorter compan- 182 OMNI — . —

which he said was ruining logology by showing up as a solid word in its spelling?

taking the crealivity out of it. 9. Sixty-one is the English spelling of a As an example, consider presidential number with no repeated letters. It has anagrams (Borgmann himself made eight. What number is spelled with the the pages of Newsweek just before the maximum number of letters without a 1964 election with a pair of anagrams of repeat? What is the largest number that is Lyndon Baines Johnson. One could spelled without repeated letters?

be used if hewon: No ninny, he's on job, 10. The word square was the prototype of

lads; the other if he lost: Ha, nod on, the crossword puzzle. An example of jobless ninny.) Recently a computer was "squaring the circle" is on page 182. programmed to find anagrams of Ronald There are six different words here. 12 Wilson Reagan. The best it found was In a double word square-there are No, darlings, no ERA law. Borgmann was the verticals and horizontals are different. delighted to point out thai the computer In the RACISM and SCRAPE puzzles

missed insane Anglo warlord, a human- at left, can you fill in the missing letters? generated Reaganagram. 11. Kangaroo Words. You can take a word Another computer was programmed to like indolent and cross out some letters

find transposals. These are letter to reduce il to idle, a word that means the rearrangements, such as medical/decimal, same thing. Similarly, you can transform harmonicas/maraschino, or Aristotelian! exists io is, and transgression to sin.

retaliations. For the letters aeginrst it The starting word contains a synonym, found five: astringe, ganister, gantries, the letters of which are in the proper granites, and ingrates. Borgmann, who order. Such words are known as kangaroo was willing to accept such things as words, since they're analogous to the names of people who might exist, had animals that carry their young in a pouch. previously written an article with sixty-five (Ironically, though Borgmann hated transposals of the same eight letters, computers, this is a perfect game for

from angrie st to Tangiers. word -processing computers because it requires you to strike oul letters without TRY THIS BORGMANN QUIZ rearranging what's left.) What's in the As our final tribute fo the founder of pouches of the 15 kangaroo words below?

logology, we offer this quiz. 1 Pasteurized 9. Calumnies 2. Exhilaration 10. ion, NOON, it is a iour-way palindrome QUESTION 3. Tangier is another accept- Chocolate

3. 1 1 . Encourage (lhat is. il also works forward and backward able name lor that seaport in Morocco, Illuminated 4.' 12. Destruction when turned upside down). it has something in common with the Catacomb • Seven. Reviver, top spot, race car. wordsyob, polish, and nice. What is it? 5. Satisfied 13. Masculine • Eight. Apollo, PA, a borough near Pitts- 4. Borgmann once anagrammed his 6. Deliberate 14. Instructor burgh,, and Snellen's test for visual acuity. full name'in two ways, complimentary and ?. Precipitation 15. Regulate • Nine. Rep. Pepper. That's Representa- derogatory, to depend on how history 8. Myself tive Claude Pepper, of course, who has would judge him grand mind, mortal 12. Concealed Cardinals. It's easyto hide been a Florida congressman since 1963. fibre, and damn mad boring trifler. What the numberter? in English words: tendon • Eleven. Detartrated (separated from, was 's middle name? and steno are easy; lateness and fastening or free of, tartaric acid). This, Borgmann 5. What is the only English word that ends are even better because they change said, is simply "the finest palindrome in the letters mt? the pronunciation. Try to conceal the the English language has to offer." 6. With one exception the name of each other ten cardinal numbers the best way letter of alphabet rhymes with some you can, then compare your list with CROSSWORDS AND COMPUTERS the English word or words. Thus W rhymes with Borgmann's. Easiest are one, two, eight, Borgmann lamented two influences on trouble you. What is the exception? and nine. For the others, the best yet logology. First was the crossword puzzle, 7. What do the words ideality and oxyopia found are obscure words and far-out, invented in 1913, which diminished inter- have in common? hyphenated coinages. For example, offerings est in "more intellectual word recreations" 8. Chewed contains two pronouns, he Borgmann's best hidden-zero such as palindromes, anagrams, and and we What six-letter word, a noun, were prize-robbing and maze-roaming, - word squares. Second was the computer, contains five different pronouns, each Answers appear on page 184. DO A

test, Box 9113, Allston, MA 02134. Entries THE MOON musl be received by December 31, 1986. are' not for lost, late, or mis- BMnriES We responsible directed mail power to travel across the moonscape. A Entries will be judged by a special panel, 1, Aitercataracts is the longest word lhat lighter vehicle is also tricky to control. The and winners will be determined based on you can type using only the left hand; car will have lo be fairly stable. Race over Ihe following criteria; creativity (25 per- Johnny-jump-up (a variety ol pansy) is Ihe originality percent), suitability for a hill too quickly, and both driver and ve- cent); (25 longest right-hand word. hicle may take off without notice. lunar terrain and environment (40 percenl); 2a. Potatoes = "Pot plus eight o's." 2b. The • The landscape itself is like a desert; the feasibility (10 percent). first alphabetical word is eight. 2c. This is- weather, brutal. Temperatures can run as Contest is open only to residents of the sue marks Omni's eighth anniversary. high as 230°F at high noon on the moon's United States, except employees (and their 3. All the words change their pronunciation equator and plummet to - 290" at night. families) ol Omni Publications Interna- when lowercased or capitalized. We are primarily interested in seeing tional, Ltd., its subsidiaries o' affiliates, the 4. Alfred what kind of imaginative and ingenious de- judges, Society Expeditions, Inc., their re- 5. Dreamt signs Omni readers can dream up. What spective advertising and promotions 6.H do you see as the ultimate recreational ve- agencies, and Proaction Marketing, Inc. All 7. Both are examples of "most syllables with hicle for the moon? federal, state, and local laws and regula- fewest letters." The rarer word oxyopia gets The grand prize for the most ingenious tions apply. Void where prohibited. five syllables out ol seven letters. and feasible vehicle will be one ticket on Winners will be notified by mail and will 8. Ushers—us. she, he, her, and hers Project Space Voyage, a low Earth orbit be required to sign an affidavit of eligibility 9a. Five thousand 9b. Five thousand tour of our planet, scheduled for launch in and release within 15 days of date of noti- 10. 1992. The tour includes a four-day briefing fication. If not returned within 15 days an at a resort, an 8- to 12-hour trip, and then alternate winner may be selected. Winners two days' debriefing at a resort. Space gear agree to the use of their names and like- will be provided. This trip is offered by So- nesses for publicity purposes without ad- ciety Expeditions, which will be solely re- ditional compensation, Prizes are not sponsible for determining winner's eligibil- transferable, assignable, or redeemable for for ity to participate in the space voyage. If the cash. No substitution prizes other than grand prize-winner does not meet health/ as stated. No duplicate major-prize win- eligibility requirements for the trip or de- ners. Taxes and transportation to grand- 11. 1. Pure 2. Elation 3. Lit 4. Tomb 5. Sated site winner's responsibility. 6. 7. Rain 8. 9. Lies 10. Cocoa clines the trip, or if the trip is canceled or prize are Debate Me delayed, an alternate prize of a two-week For names of winners send a stamped, 11. Urge 12. Ruin 13. Male 14. Tutor 15. Rule

"Lost Islands of the Pacific" South Pacific sel I -addressed envelope to Omni Moon 12. One. It's easy, as in money or droned. Driftwood network work. Three. cruise will be offered for 1987 or 1988 (does Buggy Winner, 1965 Broadway, New York, Two. and not include transportation to and from point NY 10023-5965 by June 30, 1987. Borgmann found North Reef Island in Ihe entries will reviewed and ol Bengal and coined forth-reeling and of embarkation). If for any reason the alter- All received be Bay half-ours nate prize is unavailable or cannot be taken the finalists submitted to our panel of path-reentering. Four. How aboul by the winner, Omni may award $500 as a judges, who will vote on the winning con- and Baltourism? Five. Most difficult. The half-lvehan consolation prize in lieu thereof. cept. Our panel includes best offered are the contrived • Six. can't bel- The second prize is a trip for one to the Colonel James Irwin, USAF (Ret.), Apollo and Sufi-venerating. We do United States Space Academy (airfare in- 15 mission commander ter than quasi-xenophobia. Can you? cluded), the space camp for adults at the • Gerard K. O'Neill, professor of physics at Seven. Abuse-venting, house-ventilating. Alabama Space and Rocket Center in Princeton University and originator ol Ihe Eight. Easy, with heighten and freighter. Huntsville. During their three-day stay, vis- idea of orbiting space colonies Nine. It's in uninervate and Apennines • fact itors will hear lectures and see movies on Isaac Asimov, noted author ot science (mountains on the moon).OQ spaceilight and get a sample of astronaut and fiction training that includes simulated weight- • James M. Sisson, the NASA engineer who CREDITS lessness, flighv-ltosli'iy a real astronaut's jet headed the learn thai des'gned Rover ;:.- NASA . participation in • Richard Petty, seven-time winner of the pack, and a simulated Stat page 26, '.'-..: shuttle flight to the moon. Third prize is a Daytona 500 ge34, U> telescope from Halley Optical. • Mario Andrelti, Indianapolis 500 champ :::.] lei; -J I l,il Vterkcv.it? page 52 top, To enter the contest, print your name and • Leonard Nimoy, better known as Mr. page 52 bottom, Oly:i Simsj-jS; . page 53

I : e 9ht c r ' e fNR ;A page S4 top, in- Spock of Star Trek ' ™ |V° ° address on a plain piece of paper and Rf .?c? ,"." • clude as proof of purchase the word STAR- Tom Brokaw, anchorman of NBC Nightly po'a- i page l°P 167. In News and former candidate lor NASAs TECH, cut out from atop page 200 s. page 56 bot- words or less (printed or typed only) de- Journalist in Space program ii. in i, Science >ir..-e Hie,:, i :s ,-.vii"--.cr:; pag • I Billy Williams, actor portrayed ' , . .:..,. i'.-;:: scribe your vehicle. No drawings, please. Dee who yi page 58, "i i IcA'vJ d bottom left. models. You must include in your de- Lando Calrission in The Empire Strikes No 1 pi 70 right, -h- scription the following characteristics of the Back, and a graduate of the National -:; moon buggy: size; weight; number of oc- Academy of Design Space Art; pages ?(• to w.'\ page 78, i-si r -±=- • K.m page 79, Fred nso-ror page B0 top, it propul- Edsel Ford, son of Henry Ford II and scion cupanls could carry; means of man. page 80 cento -..,-,, sion; lop speed, performance capabilities of the Ford family age 80 bottom righP%,n 6 e Art. page 81, • (can it cross crevasses? how large? how Shirley Muldowney, the first woman to be- page 118. Ji- ..-< 122 to 125, E ll C Lenw: nations! hot -roe champion pages steep a slope can it climb?); material of come a a "'/:';'! -J? 9f • 11 -.wiV page 132 left, Bo which it is made. You can assume there will Chuck Yeager, Mr. Right Stuff himself be mining and manufacturing facilities on • Neil McAleer, author of The Omni Space rich the moon. We know our satellite is in Almanac right, Breck R '.en in-.iis'Anm, page 133 I?.*-..: aluminum, iron, titanium, silicon, and oxy- • T C. Swartz, director of Project Space '-!'/,-. IJi:-.-.!.pa9si67,?-:".vcr. -:.. uage Hj.-i; page 168 right. kVnsi c-,.:-.:-v<,- page 169 top, - gen. Any or all of these could be used to Voyage and founder of Society Expedi- Pi-:": i-iy-i page 169 center, Knt:ri 169 Bottom. construct a vehicle. tions, Society Expeditions Travel Com- Send your entry lo Moon Buggy Con- pany, and American Space CorporationCO 184 OMNI . '

The bounce his .teenager. I long ior the comfort of old age,"

Carter claims. "I want to do all the old- knuckles one. more time. . .,

"Look, squrt. you'-e holdmg up the fine. peopio things I see-on TV, like sitting on You gonna show me some proper I.D., the porch, drinking old-fashioned lemonade

. or yelling at the neighborhood kids when or do I haita age you with my knuckles?" Bud Carter sighs as he digs tor its tney walk ou my arc- wort :: oe set myseli lot. wallet one more'kme. He produces s. in my ways. I want to repeat a yellowed docu'neni -lowered with a dozen "Old age." he sighs, "is wasted on iiheeiderlyi" overlapping government seals,' wittya . rotogravure photograph. The photo, Bui what about the jovs v ou;r though iaciod and cracked over the 'ticys of youthi" he says li-te me - "; decades, is the mirror image of Carter's canta iken rsge; he 'wisi boyish face. 'Remember-how much you hated being

' : ''What ihe heU is ih-s supposed to be"?" .nineteen? The pressure s cut incredible! > the bouncer bellows. Every true a ire-ray i" iasbu;

if. time 'Ti's a draft card, son.'' Carter replies. along, ycu nave to buy Every "Don't you boys have any respect tor there's a new dance step, you have to 'y a veteran around this loin'?" learn it. You catch-

' The bouncer, who's never scon a draft phrase thai comes down the pike and then

' i. later I don't ' ''',! ' :''. forget t sir: know ! i\ . i I 'i ! two weeks ca'eir.hy, funow-ng his eyebrows. what >wen:y-!hree sk/odoo means learn "it don't say nothing about Vietnam Scientists had hoped we could here," he says. mere horn his century or" knowledge; .But

r claims there is mi any tiling to learn. Bud rolis nis eyes i' p-eps or the Carl e

•nev table "Thats because Irs horn the i u. ., torch .use o KrtuW-

LAST : . - : . : .. .i i Spanish American War. you :diot Carte- ooge. ' ne .u.u. admits.

' ! |. .!, .:. I iV'Cd Idy is shchput a record 32 feet cut ol the Wit I j :: UUDRD bar. As ho dusts him sell oh. ho gathers war. Bu; most of if only up Me other i.D.s "he bounce* ec:ed - is the kind of stuff that mailers when " Terry Runte teenager. oouhj i no most By : his autogyro pilot s license, his passen- ysu're a You All . ii In of iocer Beat. ger pigeon hunting perml n i hei of back .ssues im! want to do all. perrr-i; from :ho temtcry of New Mexico. have to show for my century on this 'olanot old-people things Bud Carter is a dozen closets lull of oui-o'-daie -the : ihe wood's cmy immorta 1 man. .clothes and

yiseeonTV. did I tell the secret of Carter >.s at the center of a legal bathe Tsrnrt Bui you tor eternal life? To start each day w;lh a big. :::/ want-to tie set in my ways. that has been raging in courtrooms of iru;i- flavored 'lakes." ihiC a >' id* hi 'i i where eve" big Powi my I want to repeat else is exercising and dieting to siay Cane cocks his head and servers the '> II.. ;.'...;, f !. ii; :. i. miiini::.' : myself a Sot Qld age young. Bull has been fighting So have ,-?" hnmsek surgically aged. children each- Saturday morning for : is wasted We catch up with him on the sheets of decades "Tney to luuuuuuuuuilllliii of

. :, .„ iron theelderly3; c , .,., ..:. i-ze , where he hikes rus daily walks, SUGAR ; h'mi for autographs. Then we I firs; are ask just like old people do. ' Wren

irnmo; it like the continue our walk realized I was tai. seemec Carter prepares lor next monies greatest lining In the world, ' Carter says. As "But Ive boon nineteen lor one hundred surgery woico wd ihliili his lifelong cream infirm four years now and li's really siarting o^ becoming a doddering, geezer to wear thin You try living -or a century with -knave to ask hi:-; T mere were anything he a major aone problem." 'enjoyed about ho-nc eternally young. No one is actually sure why Carter's He causes or 1 ihe euro and smiles :o

1 with fond . his face : ir. himself ciowno

is a malfunction ol his cental nervous memories. We star! to cross the street. "' system— ihe result of having been struck always hao a great love life." Carter

:, .. : :. .!. . ; , I i I in the nead by llyhiiring dur.no a John ..li:M : 'u

' ' " pick-up in over a century ' I ultm.are line, Philip Sousa ui i liter Si ! oks SO he > his story thai ho is mmor'tal because of dales. II nasoi failed m ;

he starts cacti day with a good breakfast, the most significant -now edge i can

which ; nolucies a heaping bowitui of passon to you.' He pauses io md

f'uii-iavorec Sugar Frosiod Rakers, 'vies! iiX.ll 'i '. .'' ' : = r

experts, however, believe tne latter claim eyes and say . sten's horn a lucrative endorsement Carter's voice Is cut oh by inc horn of a deai he signed with Keiiogg in 1957, taxi. There's a flash of yellow a Ihud,

> I ,,; Whatever tne cause of his ate-nat youth, and a limp Peoy \-.es Ihe i ac As

!. ," r > : '..v..'i ' '.i toward him can see hi od- wi he; a etc no :

California ir and age line a movie vampire Bud by surgically s'imuieling the pituitary Carter one honored twenty- throe vears ':':' giai mi' i hcnr'n ics ojd,is.deadatlast.CG fhey can accelerate Carter to his natural age of one hundred fwenty-lhreo years. "Even though i'm physically ohy a