SEX AND VIOLENCE AMONG THE PRIMATES

SCIENTISTS BATTLE THE

R THE AIR 4«™ onnmiVOL. 15 NO. 8 EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE

PRESIDENT & C.0,0.. KATHY KEETON EDITOR; KEITH FERRELL EXECUTIVE VP/GRAPHICS DIRECTOR: FRANK DEVINO MANAGING EDITOR; CAROLINE DARK SENIOR ART DIRECTOR: DWAYNE FLINCHUM DEPARTMENTS 27 First Word Continuum By Fang Li Zhi and 34 Richard Dicker Ozone Politics Scientists come to the By James P. Hogan aid of their No evidence exists for the imprisoned colleagues ozone hole, in China. says the author. Eminent 6 science-fiction Communications writer Frederik Pohl 8 disagrees. Travel 43 By Wallace Kaufman Heresy! 10 Tfiree Modern Galileos Wtieels By Anthony Liversidge By Steve Nadis The Church doesn't have 12 to persecute Political Science maverick scientists By Tom Dworeizl

Defending Star Wars scientists do It instead. 14 52 Electronic Universe Beyond HIV: Assembling By Gregg Keizer the AIDS Puzzle 18 By Colm Kelleher Earth Startling new researcti By Linda Marsa sheds light on Chiefs against biotechnology how HIV causes AIDS- 20 58 Animals Fiction: Grand Prix By Sieve Nadis By Simon Ings Do elephants ever forget? 62 22 Air Repair Kid Stuff By Owen Davies By Robert K. J. Kiliheffer Engineering solutions to New books show the global warming people behind 69 scientific discoveries. ozone and you'll likely run into all three. 96 We've got heady opinion, provocative commentary, Games bold speculation. An atmospheric,

By Scot Morris as it were, issue. (Art and photo credits, page 94)

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POST-TIENANMEN SQUARE POLITICS: Should scientists engage in human-rights campaigns?

By Fang Li Zhi and Richard Dicker

J^^mid the protests marking es, electric batons had been ap- al scientific meetings will take *^^^the third anniversary of plied to Liu's genitals, place in China, including the 34th m % tlie killings around Tien- The physics community react- Congress of the International Un- anmen Square, the Chinese gov- ed vigorously to this horrifying re- ion of Pure and Applied Chemis- ernment received a petition with port: 360 U.S.-based physicists try and the International Con- the signatures of more than 40 issued a dramatic appeal to the gress of Crystallography Despite prominent American scientists, in- Chinese government calling for claims by the Chinese govern- cluding 11 Nobel laureates. Liu Gang's release. The signato- ment that all students who had "vi- Among them were Linus Pauling, ries included Kurt Gottfried, Nico- olated the law in 1989" have been Hans Bethe, Burton Richter, and laas Bloembergen, and Herman released from prison, Liu Gang Herbert Brown. They were offer- Winick, Another more highly remains in "strict punishment ing their prestige and support to charged arena for this growing hu- regime" at Lingyuan. While ques- Liu Gang, a former physics stu- man-rights activism was the tions about raising prisoner cases dent whose story is galvanizing round of international scientific at these events do arise, past ex- the scientific community in the conferences held in China in perience offers real guidance: 1992. At the 21st International Con- ference on the Physics of Semi- conductors (ICPS-21), which took place in Beijing last August, participants took significant steps to raise human-rights is- sues. One American physicist, Horst Stormer, the initial speaker at the important first plenary ses- the Chinese M'.:- sion, spoke out on behalf of free- DJGker irlijiE.. dom of expression. Two other is direclor ot the Americans, aided by other partic- committee. ipants, circulated a petition to Pre- mier Li Peng, which called for the release of Liu Gang. The petition gathered nearly 75 signatures. A Polish participant, Piotr Bo- guslawski, who dedicated his pa- per to persecuted physicists, lat- er said, "In our case, being from United States and in Europe in Eastern Europe, we had experi- Should scientists be engaging in the way the cases of imprisoned ence We knew that pressure these types of activities?Jhete is dissidents in the former Soviet Un- from the outside worked. Western a longstanding tradition of scien- ion did more than a decade ago. opinion did have an influence for tists undertaking human-rights Liu, who was number 3 on the us. We did not have a moment's campaigns. These are not politi- government's post-Tienanmen hesitation at ICPS-21 ." These ac- cal activities. Rather, they are

Square list of "most wanted" stu- tivities became the main topic in aimed at protecting fundamental dent leaders, was sentenced to the Corridors and at informal eve- human-rights values such as free- six years in prison in February ning meetings. Discussion dom of expression.

1991. He has led several hunger raged over whether it was appro- strikes in prison and has been se- priate to take these actions, and Can scientists mal

tric batons, and punitive solitary . Throughout this summer, anoth- ternational concern. Rather than confinement. According to sourc- er series of significant internation- leading to more abusive treat- —

onn I CDnnnnumicATioms

READERS' WRITES: Science unsullied, of egos .and egalitarianism, and can you hack a bit more off the sides?

Nobody Does II Better perception of science and its relation- Congratulations to Kathleen Stein [Fo- ship to humanity. Acts of aggression, rum, December 1992] for her impres- hoarding and greedy self-interest, hos-

sive record of Interview articles in Om- tility, and even mistrust remind me of

ni I am a long-time subscriber primari- what may have been necessary traits ly because of the Interview articles, No of our distant ancestors. Embry believes

other magazine does it so well. the resulting violence and unproductive

Sharon P. Bailey behavior from such "negative" emotions Rochester, NY may be suppressed by substituting "vio- lent acts with neutral or kind acts," He Hate Those Split Ends makes me wonder what a neutral glob- The article "The Walking Way" [Janu- al community, one without ambition or ary 1993] on bipedal locomotion was in- drive, would be like. Can a community

teresting, but I want to know if anyone exist without the individual? has considered another attribute that is Mark Tyler un que to us and has had a strong in- Denver, CO fluence on our tendency to invent tools: hair on our heads that never On the Battlefront stops growing (for most of us anyway), Your article on cancer [February/March

I can think of no other species of ani- 1993] and alternative therapies omitted n al with hair Ihal grows without stop- a natural substance that has been ping and must be cut to be managea- documented for years: vitamin B-17, ble Has a researcher Investigated tfie otherwise known as laetrile. Laetrile has connection between the need to cut our been shown to act as an extremely ef- h^r and the development of tools? In fective "toxin-toting torpedo," as you re- addition, since we don't wear down our ferred to such substances in your ar- fingernails with quadrupedal travel and ticle. It's widely used by holistic heal- di some point began wearing shoes, we ers in this country in its natural form and probably had an early need for tools to is available in Mexico as an injectable manage nail growth, too, fluid. I,aetrile is naturally prevalent in sub- Susanne dels stances such as the seeds of apples Seattle, WA and apricots, among other things. The FDA, the National Cancer Institute, and Blame Not now Omni have ignored laetrile, IvlcfVlanus I am a scientist who completely dis- John G. agrees with Bryan Appleyard's message Wakefield, MA [First WDrd, February/March 1993], Mr, Appleyard forgot one important thing: When Only a Miracle Will Do Science in itself is nothing except a The Biblical account of the Red Sea part-

game of the mind. It looks like he takes ing when the wind blew [Continuum, Feb- technology for science itself. The import- ruary/March 1993] neither proves nor ant thing about science is what you do disproves believers' versus disbelievers'

with it. I'm disappointed that he carries views on this wonder. The fact that a a message saying "science kills spiri- "strong east wind blew all night" is a nat-

tuality." It's like saying fire kills children ural phenomenon, but the true miracle

so let's get rid of fire —when by acci- is that it occurred when it was needed dent a house burns down. by the Israelites. Most Biblical scholars C. Gilles Lalancette now agree that all of the Old Testament Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada miracles can be explained by natural phenomena except for their timing at Passion and Productivity the moment of need. That's wfiy they Dennis Embry's First Word [December are truly "miracles,"

1 992] approach to "reducing violence" Arnold J. Wolf, D,P,M. a[ pears to be based on an uninformed Houston, TXOa — TRAVEL

THE ELECTRONIC CAMPOUT: High-tech trekking keeps nature intact

By Wallace Kaufman

an irritating paradox. The silicon intenslfier brightens the im- form. Some systems come with It's trekking of nature lovers pos- ages a thousand times. more than one camera, allowing es a threat to the very environ- "There is no other camera like the user to change viewpoints fast- ments thsy endeavor to cele- it," says Steve Etchemendy op- er than a cameraman on foot or brate. Mow, however, technol- erations manager for the Mon- in a safari jeep. ogy—so often a threat to pristine terey Bay Aquarium Research In- The National Park Service's in- wilderness—may actually piay a stitute. Next year, the Institute terpretive Design Center, based

role in preserving it. will place a time-lapse camera on in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, Electronic eavesdropping's the sea floor. Is also creating technological

first frontier was the deep ocean, Aquarium officials note a posi- aids for the ecosystems it man- where access is almost as limited tive change in audiences. Visitors ages. Senior producer Tom

as It Is in outer space. At Califor- usually stand in front of a tank or Klelman combines laser disks, nia's Monterey Bay Aquarium, for display for less than a minute. But camcorders, and computers to example, visitors settle down in they stay with the live link an av- do "thin'gs that were only possi- front of a large video screen and erage of 31 .7 minutes. ble in dreams a few years ago."

share a 3,000-foot dive with sci- On dry land, technology is still To protect campers and hikers

entists exploring deep-sea can- fighting suspicion that it corrupts from wilderness tragedy, guard Ocean views: The yons not far away. our relationship with nature. To the land from abuse, and save In ttie auditorium, an educator overcome the resistance, the tech- the Park Service from visitor law- guides the viewers, commenting nology is establishing a beach- suits, Klelman created a video of of nonterey on the live transmission. When head where we are most willing simulated wilderness experi- Bay AquKlum cap- something unusual comes into to accept help —among things mi- ences foi: Alaska's Denali Nation- lura life al view, he calls up stored footage croscopic and miniature. al Park. Using a touch-screen com- the iiDttom of the from a laser disk. A scientist ap- Using devices known as Bio- puter, viewers choose a range of pears on screen to explain a scanners, visitors at institution's worse-case scenarios, from bear thick fall of marine snow or the sud- such as the Smithsonian's Natu- attacks to river crossings, den arrival of a bizarre hagfish. ral History Museum and the Technology under develop- Not only does the scientists' North Carolina Zoological Park ment in research labs may put fu- camera take a visitor's eye enter the insect world eyeball to ture generations of electronic

where the body cannot go, but it compound eyeball. Created by campers where even ardent wil- can see in darkness what would New Zealand's Optech Interna- derness advocates like Edward leave the human eye blind. Engi- tional, the device places the visi- Abbey and David Brower never neers have modified the camer- tor at simple controls outside a went. Vision researcher, Robert

as for sensitivity to the blue- closet-sized box full of terrariums. Barlow, of Syracuse University's green light of ocean depths us- The viewer chooses which insect institute for Sensory Research, ing technology developed for to visit, focuses a miniature cam- has developed means for moni- submarine infrared periscopes. A era, and the undisturbed insect toring and deciphering the trans- appears on a 20-inch screen. mission from a horseshoe crab's What more do you need to get a eye to its brain and vice versa. @.^__.„, kid's attention than a TV screen He is close to fitting free-roaming and a joystick? crabs with tiny transducers that Opiech is also developing a tap single optic-nerve fibers and

" night-vision system and an under- transmit data on modulated sonar ^,> joy- signals to a video recording sys- ® V-'"" P water Aquascanner whose ^'® stick-driven zoom camera lets the tem. The goal: to see nature as ^ ""^o™" 1 1 m ^ J^^'B^^ "^Jl dry visitor explore shallow pools other beings see it. ^fs4l and their critters. The newest Exploring wilderness with elec- Sm Innovation: the Terra-trakker, tronics and computers may whose weatherproof camera can seem less satisfying to the puhst stand anywhere in a wild habitat- than stalking wildlife across a tan-

Inside a bear- resistant clear Lex- gible landscape, but it's kinder to an Dome or a fiberglass tree both the habitats and the ani-

while the viewer operates it by re- mals. And there is little doubt mote control from a distant plat- what fhey would choose. DQ —

IAJHEEL5

AUTOVISION: The art of driving while watching TV

By Steve Nadis

^^ ^^ illions of cellular from across a room, except don't understand how drivers do I I I I phones have been In- there's no TV and no room. as well as they do, with only one I w I stalled in U.S. cars The natural instinct is to dis- fatality for evety 50 million vehi- with minimal debate over the ef- miss the Idea as sheer lunacy. cle miles traveled. "Once we fects these devices have on driv- Drivers face enough distractions understand that, we'll be better Using a pro- er safety. Similarly, extensive safe- in this wacky world. Do we really equipped to evaluate systems leclor mounted ty research was done prior to the want them watching TV, too? Yet like AutoVision." near the dome introduction of electronic naviga- AutoVision can'i be dismissed so Another panelist. University of light, AuioVision tion systems or HUD (Head-Up easily. Today, 17 states have no Michigan Transportation Re- beams TV im- Display) units, v/hich enable dnv- restrictions against drivers watch- search Institute's Paul Green con- ages to a malcii- ers io monitor speed and other ing TV, The usual option, small curs. "Considering how much boolt-sizeil car functions without removing plug-in units that sit on the dash, time Americans spend in cars mirror lens near their eyes from the road. But just are much more dangerous than typically more than an hour per

AutoVision, because drivers day—it's amazing how little we

have to take their eyes off the know, 1 can give you a detailed road to watch a show. More im- description of how people fly air- portant, vehicle navigation sys- planes but not how they drive a tems are already a reality. An Au- car." Data, for instance, on toVision-type unit performs that where drivers focus their attention

function, displaying traffic informa- and for how long is virtually non-

tion rather than daytime soaps. It existent. In 1991, Green helped may be preferable to the systems draft a new Michigan law permit- used today, computerized maps ting AutoVision and other display mounted below the windshield. systems to be tested on the Schiffman claims AutoVision has roads. Research, using simula- been road tested by more than tions, begun last year at the uni- 400 drivers on more than half a versity indicates that AutoVision- million miles "without a single in- like systems can effectively con- the windshielii. mention the idea of watching tel- cident." He vouches for its safe- vey traffic and navigation informa- Due to an evision while driving a car, and ty on other grounds: A driver can tion to drivers. "We still don't opiical illusion, people go nuts. "Why does only see the picture if he's look- know about the entertainment the ulcture everyone consider this so crazy?" ing straight ahead, "in the place part," Green admits. appears to float asks Jay Schiffman. "Is there God had ordained you ought to The biggest concern is "cog- about a doz- some scientific basis for that be- be looking," Because the TV is on- nitive capture," a term coined by

en feet in front lief? Absolutely not, if it's done us- ly seen with one eye, the driver's Ann Arbor engineering psychol- of the car. ing our patented methodology view of traffic, stoplights, and haz- ogist Daniel Wfeintraub. "If the dis-

and configuration." ards is never blocked. According play is too compelling, a driver Schiffman, an electrical engi- to Schiffman, AutoVision also can might be looking at the right neer from Farmlngton Hills, Ivlich- reduce accidents by keeping peo- place without really paying atten-

igan, has researched car dis- ple alert, "A bored driver is an ac- tion." This issue could affect pro-

plays and TV systems since the cident-prone driver," gramming; It may be safe for driv- late 1960s. A configuration he's In 1989, Schiffman sought the ers to watch dull shows like Wall demonstrated, AutoVision, is be- views of independent experts. Sireet Week in Review, but not su- ing prepared for commercializa- While the panelists stopped perriveting ones like Jeopardy! tion in Europe and the Far East short of endorsing AutoVision, The greatest benefit of Auto-

in about two years. It uses a pro- they agreed that the concept war- Vision, Owens says, may lie in the jector, mounted near the dome ranted further study "Many peo- realm of education, not entertain-

light, which beams TV images to ple assume it would be hazard- ment. "The issues presented by a matchbook-sized mirror lens ous, but that's not necessarily this technology will challenge us near the windshield. Owing to an true," says D. Alfred Owens, an to learn a lot more about driving optical illusion, the picture ap- experimental psychologist at than we know right now. That pears to float above the horizon, Franklin and Marshall College in knowledge, in turn, can help us a dozen feet in front of the car. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. One appraise other technologies that

It's like looking at a 12-inGhTVset problem, he notes, is that we still come down the pipe. "DO — —

POLITICAL SCIEfUCE

STAR WARS: THE NEXT GENERATION Has the time for particle beams arrived after ail?

By Tom Dworetzi<;y

^% ashington's mood and regional conflict. To get in the area of autonomous robots, I I I I right now about Star from here to world federalism, we might also prove important ^» %^ Wars research is to have to develop the technology enough to justify the concept of

bring il down to Earth, Forget the that will put teeth into the loose getting your money's worth from ICBMs and focus more on so- confederation operating under military spending. called theater defense. That the United Nations' blue banner. In fact, Star Wars could well do means building super-PatriotS' That's right, I'm talking about the for robotics what code breaking antimissiles that actually work antiintercontinenlal-ballistic- in the Forties did in the realm of to protect our troops against missile missile blues again. computing—become the driving

SCUD-style World War II vintage I really don't like the idea of force leading to key break-

rockets. Such antimissiles are con- supporting military R&D, but I throughs— especially in the fields structible today with off-the-shelf feel compelled to agree with of machine vision, navigation, components, and they should be those Slrangeloveans who say and logic. For Star Wars to work

developed and deployed. But the time for effective antimissile at all, it must be able to see and slashing the biliion-a-year ad- defenses has arrived. The prob- differentiate real from dummy war- vanced-technology Star Wars lem: Nuclear proliferation is inev- heads, assign interceptors, and itable. Missile technology is grow- make sure they'll get there. And ing more accessible to even the do all that in less than 15 minutes. poorest countries, and the old The problems posed by these

rules no longer apply That is, Mu- challenges extend beyond to- tually Assured Destruction was day's computing capability and based on tlie existence of only sensing technology, so Strategic two major ICBM players— the Defense Initiative researchers are United States and the former developing such exotic devices U.S.S.R^and now we have many as optical computers that use

players. Simply stated, if a nuke light instead of wires to pack lands on Des Moines, we won't much more computing power, necessarily know who to strike and broad-band sensors to "see" back against; thus, we need to de- the spectrum from ultraviolet to in- velop the ability to protect our- frared, using tunneling microsco- selves (and ultimately others) py sensitivity to pick up warheads against the random hit. against the night sky.

Will new and bet- budget to aciiieve this short- It would be nice to think that In the long term, even the Star ter Patriot term goal is a long-term mistake. we'll be able to stop nuclear wan- Wars equipment that has evoked

missiles be able At least that's what I argued nabes from getting their hands on such mockery—beam weapons to Qintect us with my mother, the world feder- weapons of mass destruction. has tremendous civilian potential. in a WDttd ot pro- alist, and, boy, did she bless me But we can't, so a United States This same technology, when har-

it. Ijteraling— out for More money for the mil- Star Wars system is, I have to nessed for peace, could etch com- and Increaslnsly itary just perpetuates the problem say ttie only reasonable {though puter chips with a resolution a galltically of violence, she argued. But regrettable) option. hundred times finer than the

unstable—Third there's violence, and then It might also be the first step ones we make today

World iCBM there's violence, I said to her. toward a global system, one that Packing that much into a small-

players? If we're going to cut down our ihe'United Nations could some- er space, along with advances in

Department of Defense budget day control . The power to extend sensors and optical computing, our ability to project offensive ICBM protection to recalcitrant could actually produce the stuff

strength around the globe, nations {or withdraw it from them) that our robotics dreams are

which I'm in favor of—we must would finally give the world body made of. At the same time, I don't

look at the transitional period be- the serious bargaining clout it so see that Star Wars would make tween the Cold War and a single- desperately needs to bring dip- this corner of the galaxy any

world government. What we've lomatic resolution to many of the more dangerous than it already got now in the wake of the break- bloody tribal and national factions is, considering all those nuclear- down of superpower hegemony that are springing up at the end tipped missiles poised for the

is a nasty brew of high-tech weap- of the imperial millennium. black market. In fact, it might onry mixed in with violent tribal Star Wars spinoffs, especially make our world a little safer, DO — ELECTnomic UmiVERSE

THE BEST OF 1993: A glimpse at tomorrow's electronto fun ^

By Gregg Keizer

Betting on the future is a grownups finally saw the faint tua vn. a set of virtual reality-like job best left to profession- light of adult storylines and situ- goggles you snapped over your als as any fool can see ations. Fueled in part by CDs on eyes for some literal in-your-face simply by pulling down a copy of such systems as Philips' CD-ln- videogame action. last June's "Electronic Universe" leractive machine (Voyeur) and 4. Fish swam; fields got

column. Okay, so I wasn't right all Sega CD {Night Trap), the first of- plowed. Tlie ultimate in screen sav-

the time, But I was close. ferings weren't much, but they do ers, junk-food software, was El- l|^ So, even though the year's but show what's coming. Look for the Fish. Maxis' aquarium in the PC. half gone, I'll give the crystal ball first X-rated game soon. You got to build and breed fish, one more try and post Omni's 8. They built a better mouse- then add tons of accessories Top Ten for 1993. trap. The incredible (Machine, a like plants and a castle for the gup- TOP TEN REASONS WHY hard-to-categorize game that pies, Maxis' other release, 1993 WAS GOOD FOR GAMES: blended arcade action and puz- SimFarm, may not have had the 10. Strike Commander shipped. zle solving, was one cool way to appeal of its urban counterpart, One of last year's predictions waste tons of time in 1993. From SimGity, but for anyone who want- that never happened, Strike Com- Dynamix, part of Sierra, The In- ed to work 1^e land without get-

mander, the high priest of flight credible Machir^e let you assem- ting their hands dirty, it was the

simulators, really did make it out ble Rube Goldbergesque contrap- best thing since someone invent- of the disk duplicator. So, too, did tions to solve increasingly difficult ed Roundup. Wiatthe other no-shows from last yegr, puzzles, Like the board game 3. SNES Ruled. Although a

hiture holds: see- like Buzz Aldrin's Race into "Mousetrap" that it sometimes re- tour through the videogame ing liie world Space and Jordan in Flight The sembled. The Incredible Machine aisle at Toys 'R' Us is like a walk IhriH^Sega'sHr- year's bets for Great, but Really was best when balls rolled and lev- through a ghetto of creativity Ufa VR gog- Late? Interplay's StoneKeep, a ers sprung. how many different ways can you gles, and a few dungeon-crawling simulation, 7, David Letterman went to punch a cartoon character on the nol-SB-sUi- and Spectrum HoloByte's Star CBS. Nothing to do with games, screen, anyway?— the Su- M pjd pel Trek: The Next Generation video- but anytime you put a list in re- per Nintendo picks were a^^ "- triclis—lIKe and computer games. verse order, the guy gets credit. tops in 1993, thanks in part ''^ Elfish 9. Sex sold. Kids may have cor- 6. Call me Bubba, he said. With to such terrific cartridges as Nin- nered the market on video- and a Southerner in the White House, tendo's own Star Fox, a 3-D computer games for years, but it's a good year for Sid Meier's lat- space-flight simulator, and Elec- est simulation. Based on the Civ- tronic Arts' Bulls vs. Blazers and War, this as-yet-unnamed the NBA Playoffs. game (at press time, any- 2. 3D0 rhymed with "Stan- way] lets you replay the war that dards, Mo' and Mo'." Yet anoth-

made PBS famous. If Meier can er CD-based game machine duplicate the phenomenal suc- shoved itself— and its "stand- cess of his last effort, the outstand- ard"—into the home and down de- ing Civilization, this may be the velopers' throats. But the 3D0 game to be played by the Bub- black box, built by Japan and ba Twins, Clinton and Gore. backed by Time-Warner and

5. Jane Fonda not only did the AT&T, actually made it in- Tofnahawk Chop, she played vid- to homes, in part because of its fu- eogames, too. Sega may have ture promise as a superdeluxe ca- slipped behind Nintendo in the ble and movie-on-demand con-

16-bit game department, but its troller. This year games; next year hardware is second to none. The HBO; 1995—the toaster.

Activator, a ring of plastic you 1 , Nintendo still owned the Mar-

stand in, let everyone work off a iners, Now if only we could get So- few extra pounds playing video- ny to buy the Dallas Mavericks games. Kick your leg, and the and Sega to pick up the New Eng- character kicked hers, too. Fit- land Patriots, we'd be able to un- ness cartridges can't be far be- load all the cellar-sucking teams hind. Even funkier was Sega's Vir- on the Japanese. DO — - EARTH

FOOD FIGHT: Burger deluxe, hold the biotech

By Linda Marsa

compromising culinary purity. ly engineered plants will blossom They fear shuffling genes from into a $300-million-a-year busi- plants and animals like a deck of ness by 2002. cards could inadvertently unleash But bottom-line concerns mo- deadly toxins and allergens on un- tivated America's eco-chefs, too, suspecting consumers. At the They worry diners will suffer un- very least, this technology raises expected allergic reactions, ethical, religious, and medical di- which would expose them to pos- etary concerns. sible liability. There's also poten- But agribusiness representa- tial problems for vegetarians. Or- tives dismiss the chefs as "nutri- thodox Jews, Moslems, and Bud- tional neurotics," calling their dhists when animal genes are movement just another example implanted in vegetables. of fuzzy-headed environmental The FDA, however, doesn't un- Chels surprise S houHtledaga M,it eb^ckd p terrorism. And officials at the derstand the outrage. These Chef Rick of the IsIpw York =ky ne n ore FDA, the focal point of this furor, guidelines parallel their "general- Moonen (seated thar ''0 of Ma ihatld i s top chefs wonder, why all the fuss? ly regarded as safe" (G.R.A.S,)

second from gathPFPd at tl e eleaant Wate The opening volley of this bat- policy: Products made from com- left) rariied r ub last J ie o ca ior ra'^tau tle was fired on May 26, 1992, ponents known to be safe don't alarmed colleagues taitsto boyLOtt geietc^ y enqi when then-Vice President Dan need to undergo extensive ap-

to loin the reered foodt. But ti e'^p werei t Quayle announced the new FDA proval procedures. Thus, splicing Pure Food Cam just a bunch of pt blic iy seek g rules on the same day that City genes from foods recognized as paigo, led by foodisb in d snit beuause, as one Hall was honoring 50 of New safe won't change their compo- Jeremy Rilkin (Uilrd reporter scoffed, "genetic jockeys York's premier chefs for their con- sition, and these genes won't be

from left). were riding roughshod over their tributions to tourism, "A reporter considered food additives. gastronomic Eden " These self- asked my opinion about the FDA "All plant breeding involves ge- styled stewards of the earth announcement," says Rick Moon netic manipulation." explains were mad as hell over the U.S. en, executive chef at ihe Water James H. Maryanski, biotechnol-

Food and Drug Administration's Club, "I had no idea this was hap- ogy coordinator for the FDA's Cen-

decision not to test or label al- pening. I was completely taken ter for Food Safety and Applied tered fruits and vegetables. aback." Moonen relayed the in- Nutrition. "The only real difference The response of the men and formation to more than two doz- is these techniques have greater women in while .toques was en alarmed colleagues, power and precision." swift—and surprising in its solidar- indeed, numerous companies, But critics think otherwise, ity. In short order, nearly 2,000 of including Monsanto, Upjohn, Cal- "Though many genetically engi- the nation's culinary superstars gene, and Frito-Lay, are using bi- neered organisms are likely to be

among them Spago's Wolfgang otechnology to produce novel safe, if even a small percentage Puck, Alice Waters of Chez Pan- strains of fruits, vegetables, poul- becomes hazardous, the conse- isse, and the Russian Tea try, fish, and livestock that are re- quences could be catastrophic to Room's Paul Ingenito—joined sistant to diseases, drought, a species or an ecosystem," their fellow chefs in the Pure cold, and herbicides or to en- says Jeremy Rifkin, president of Food Campaign. They plastered hance their ripening, taste, or nu- the Pure Food Campaign and a the boycott's logo, a double he- tritional value. long-time foe of biotechnology

lix with a diagonal red slash, on The first of these high-tech hy- So far, the Pure Food Cam- the walls of their establishments. brids, Calgene's FlavrSavr toma- paign, which is recruiting restau- "We're responsible for what we to —which contains a bacterial rants, grocery stores, disthbutors,

serve our customers," says gene that delays rotting to give it and growers to join the boycott, Wolfgang Puck. "We want to a longer shelf life —will debut seems to have won the first know exactly what's in the food this year. In the pipeline: potatoes round. New York City may enact we buy and what Ihe possible con- with wax-moth genes to retard a mandatory labeling law, and sequences are," bruising, tomatoes with flounder the FDA is reconsidering its orig- America's celebrity chefs say genes to render them frost-resis- inal stance. Ultimately, though, their opposition to so-called tant, and corn altered with firefly this high-tech food fight may be "Frankenfoods" isn't just about genes. Experts predict genetical- settled in the supermarket. OQ ihe country that will never

become a city.

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Do people |)rotect places » nature can live free?

People Do.

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AfUlfVlALS

WHO YOU CALLING DUMBO? Researchers test the elephant's mighty memory By Steve Nadis

looks like child's play. Re- out the correct choice among 20 chickens, monkeys, and human Itsearchers at the Indianapolis pairs of cards, each containing a infants. "One obvious way to Zoo place apples in eight cov- different visual pattern. Tested a solve the problem would be to re- ered pots arranged in a large cir- year later, the elephant per- member the last pot you visited cle. They guide an elephant to formed admirafciiy. and then go to the next one on the center of the circle, turn him Leslie Squier, a psychologist at the right." Dale says, Rats often around, and then challenge him Oregon's Reed College, subject- adopt this strategy, but the ele- to find the apples— one at a ed three female etephants to sim- phants don't. Although certain pat- time. True to the common wis- ilar "visual discrimination" tests in terns have been observed. Dale dom, the elephant rarely forgets 1964, A fire destroyed his origi- cannot discern any grand where he's been before. During nal data, so the researcher re- scheme in the order of pots they the game, he routinely collects sev- peated the tests more than eight select, "Apparently this problem en to eight apples. years later, "The first elephant is so easy for them that they don't Inspired by the old adage, "el- strode right up to the apparatus have to resort to any special strat-

ephants never forget," which without hesitation." notes Hal egy. It's as if they make a mental first in surfaced modern lore ii Markowitz, a zoologist at San Ran- map and check off the places cisco State Universfe wtxj collab- they've been to." He suspects, al- orated with Squier. '"She knew ex- though he can't yet prove, that actly what to do." the animals rely on outdoor land- These results—combined with marks—a barn or a fencepost the observations of zookeepers. to navigate among the pots. trainers, and scientists in the The next step is to make the field—indicate that elephants can task harder—by changing the remember things for a long time. spacing of the pots, by running "But ihey don't tell us anything the tests at more frequent inter- about how they do that," says But- vals, or by interrupting them for ler University psychologist long stretches — until memory Robert Dale, who launched the In- starts to break down. "Those fail-

dianapolis Zoo experiments to ures will tell us more about how shed light on that puzzle a year their memory works than we can ago. "We're trying to identify the learn from watching them perform memory strategy elephants use flawlessly," Dale says. Scientists in the same way, for instance, use a similar technique to im- that people rely on a strategy to prove our understanding of hu- memorize numbers," says Melis- man memory; they study people sa Shyan, a Butler psychologist, with damaged brains to see The Indianapolis team is par- what functions suffer. Intrigued by a long tradition. Investigators ticularly interested In spatial mem- Other research groups are stu- decades oi canmel- have been testing the elephant's ory—that is, how the elephants re- dying elephant cognition and ling anecdaial memory for decades. member the locations they've memory. Among them, Cornell bi- evidence, research- Anecdotal evidence already been to. Observers in Namibia, ologist Bill Langbauer is learning ers are putting suggests that elephants, which for example, have marveled at how elephants process, retain, the elenliant's brain possess the largest brain of any the" ability of desert elephants to and communicate information. power to Hie land animal, are intelligent crea- find watering holes more than One goal: to better define and pro- lesl In time, they tures with impressive memories. 100 miles apart that they haven't tect the animals' habitat, "The bope tbe intoi^ The animals can learn up to 100 visited for months. How do they more we know about how they malion will help commands. After mastering know where to go? feed, find water, and communi- preserve the tricks, circus elephants seem Dale hopes to provide some cate, the more we know about imgeriled species. able to recall them indefinitely, clues with the find-the-apple the size and quality of the pre- Bernhard Rensch carried out tests, at which elephants do very serves we need," Langbauer some of the eariiest laboratory ex- well. The studies mimic "radial says, With the survival of ele- periments at Germany's Munster arm mazes" that scientists have phants in jeopardy worldwide, the Zoo in the 1 950s, He taught a five- used to test the memory of results of such studies will have year-old Indian elephant to single snakes, cockroaches, mice, rats, broad implications indeed. DO —

KID

FINDING THE HUMAN SIDE OF SCIENCE' Wise books show kids the people behind the-test tubes

By Robert K. J, Killheffer

Too often, kids only en- ley launched the "Eyewitness Sci- text provide a vital sense of the counter science as a ence" series (aimed at ages 10 history behind every scientific prin- mass of Jncomprehensi- and up), which places science ciple, from the ideas of the an- bie equations and abstract ideas concepts in colorful personal and cient Greeks and the mystical to be memorized for a test (and historical contexts, in the Matter investigations of the medieval promptly forgotten). Where histo- volume, lessons about crystals, alchemists to the innovations of ry or English classes focus on peo- electricity, and the properties of the scientific revolution. These ple, science seems to have no solids and gases are framed by books are so full of vivid illustra- ties to the human sphere. Sci- the stories of the pioneer scien- tions and intriguing facts, parents ence is not presented as some- tists who blazed the trails, includ- may end up fighting their kids for thing people do, but as some- ing familiar figures like the rev- a chance to look through them. thing that happens to them, an in- olutionary seventeenth-century Volumes on Matter, Force & Mo- human force that can transform chemist Robert Boyle and Antoine tion, Light, and Eiecthcity were the world, but in which humans have no role. Small wonder that fewer and fewer American children are inter- ested in scientific careers. But, with care, parents can counter the antihuman image of science, and there are a number of good, solid, entertaining books availa- ble to help. Last fall, the kids' science- book specialists at Dorling Kinders-

Lavoisier, who was the first to dem- published last fall; in April 1993, onstrate the principle of the con- Dorling Kindersley released Chem- servation of matter, as well as istry, Energy, and Evolution. more obscure personalities, A couple of other series put such as German organic chem- the people back into the science ist Justus von Liebig [1803- with entertaining biographies of in- 1873). In the Force & Motion vol- fluential scientists. Steve Parker's ume, kids can see how closely "Science Discoveries" series scientific inquiry and advance- (HarperCollins, ages 8 to 12) ment are tied to everyday life examines the lives and works of how pulleys, levers, and other sim- such preeminent thinkers as Gali- ple machines were applied to spe- leo, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, cific tasks, how the early study of and Thomas Edison, Though Park- motion was linked to warfare (sol- er's unapologetic championing of diers needed the equations of bal- his scientific heroes over their reli- listics to aim cannonballs more ac- gious opponents won't play well curately), and how studying the in the Bible Belt, these inspiring motion of waves and the wind narratives will show kids how im- can lead to new sources of ener- portant personalities have been

- gy. Photos of antique equipment in the advancement of science, and lively, information-packed and how courageous some scien- KID STUFF

tists have been in the pursuit and year-old) readers: "What's It Like ." defense of their ideas. Likewise, to Be . . which profiles the ca- a series of "Easy Biographies" reers of a doctor, an astronaut, a from Tfoii Associates (ages 9 to veterinarian, and an airline pilot, 11) offers enjoyable portrayals of among others. science pioneers, focusing more Crown's "Face to Face with Sci- on their younger years, showing ence" series (ages 7 to 11) pro- ing him as he follows his mother kids how the things tfiey do as vides a different sort of look at re- and the rest of the herd across youngsters can lead to exciting al scientists at work. In Digging the plain to the swamp, plays and important acfiievements Up Tyrannosaurus Rex, paleontol- with other young elephants, and down the road. They'll see how ogist John R. Horner and science slips away from the adults for a the bright, young Marie Curie, writer Don Lessem take kids on few scary minutes of private ad- with her exceptional memory and a Montana fossil excavation, and venture—ending in an encounter precocious reading skills, faced they follow the fossil hunter's with a squealing warthog. Vivid discrimination (women were not work from the dig to the museum photographs and a clear, engag- allowed to attend college in her labs and finally to the mounting ing text bring kids into the world native Poland at that time) and per- and display of the skeleton. Biol- of real-life, working scientists on sonal tragedies (the early deaths ogist Katharine Payne's Ele- the cutting edges of their fields. of her mother, sister, and hus- phants Calling te\]s how she dis- Other titles include Voyager by band) on the way to winning two covered the subsonic communi- Sally Ride and Tarn O' Shaugh- Nobel Prizes, and how the curi- cation of elephants and how she- nessy and Tiie Search for the ous young Louis Pasteur ob- continues to study the voices and Right Whale by Scott Kraus and served the mysteries of disease behavior of those great beasts. Kenneth Mallory. and food spoilage, forming the Payne focuses on one cute baby Science doesn't go away just

questions as a boy that he elephant she calls Raoul, watch- because it's ignored; if anything,

Hie lives of would later answer as an adult. "If it will be an even more undenia- Galileo you believe in yourself and study ble part of our world in the future. and Marie Curie hard," Louis' father tells him, "any- With the help of books like cai) inspife thing is possible"—encouraging ithese, kids will not only learn kitis 10 iiiirsue advice for young scientists every- their science better, they'll learn science ca- where. Troll's biographies have al- what sorts of careers science of- reer ol their awn; so covered Wilbur and Orville fers and how exciting such work one series WrighL Albert Einstein, Thomas can be. DO (top) stiflwcases Edison, and Elizabeth Blackwell, some of with more to come in —the future. the possitiililies. Another Troll series "A Day in ," the Life of , , (ages 9 to 13)— shows kids some of the opportu- nities open to them in science. Each volume offers an up-close look at a fascinating science- lated occupation, from beekeep- er and forest ranger to marine biologist and veterinarian. Not only will these books in- spire young readers to con- sider science careers, they

j also detail the special re- quirements and duties of each job, so kids will under- stand the dedication and study that are necessary. Troll also publishes a similar se- ries aimed at younger (5- to 8- CDnjTimuunn ARE THE NINJA TURTLES MISINFORMED? They know more about pizza than aerosols. Plus, how bears cross the road, and what may soon be missing from the salad bar

One Saturday morning, r^' ent National Science gnable to concentrate on Teachers Association meet- ing jvhere 50 percent of the I the novel I was reading, clicked on the television fi^achers in attendance admit- only to witness a quartet of ted they were unaware that renaissance terrapins who aerosols are CFC free, the call themselves the "Teen- council produced a 13-min- age Mutant Ninja Turtles" ut« video called "The Ae re- deliver the following "lurtle el Adventure" in order to tip": The ozone layer, which convince schoolchildren shields us from the sun's that aerosols are their deadly radiation, is getting friends. Said one teacher. thinner, and to protect the Its hard to tell my seven- Ninja Tur- earth, we have to stop "us- ypar olds that the tles aren't always right." ing stuff that hurts it, like aer- osol spray cans and foam With all due respect to the hard-shelled heroes, they appear to be as misinformed cups." Silly reptiles, I thought. Aerosols don't contain CFCs do (chiorofiuorocarbons) — not ^ymore. as the rest of us. A 1 991 survey commissioned by New Jer- Recent surveys, however, show that most schoolchildren sey-based Johnson and Sons reports thai while three in ten and more than half of adult Americans think aerosol cans are Americans buy products in pumps rather than aerosol dangerous. That, says the aerosol industry is a myth about cans, they have little idea that refrigerants, car air condition- their product fed mostly by the media which seem unaware ers, solvents, filler material in foam products, and cleaning that aerosols have been free of CFCs for 15 years. agents— particularly for computer circuitry—do release Take, for example, the recurring episode of the G.l. Joe CFCs and are far graver threats to the ozone layer. "By and TV cartoon series titled "Nozone Conspiracy." In this seg- large, the aerosol industry is correct," says University of Cal- ment, evil Cobra plans to destroy the ozone layer by siphon- lfo;nia, Irvine, chemist F Sherwood Rowland who, along ing CFCs from giant aerosol tanks of shaving cream. After with MIT's Mario J, Molina, discovered in 1974thatCFCs are bursting through the protective stratosphere, Cobra intends responsible for the destruction of the earth's ozone layer. to become a trillionaire by selling Nozone skin cream to eve- While the United States accounts for 5 percent of the ryone on Earth for $500 a tube. [Shaving cream didn't use world's population, we produce 30 percent of the 2.4 billion CFCs as a propellant even in the mid 1970s.) tons of ozone-depleting CFCs released into the atmosphere far ban as And then there's the Northern Exposure episode in each year. If the government went so as to CFCs which Ruth^Anne holds up a can of aerosol hair spray in her aerosol propellants and aerosol companies reluctantly leadership that dictates store and refers to it as "ozone-depleting spray" complied, where is the government Even Johnny Carson got on the aerosol-bashing band- policy to the rest of the chemical industry? Many alternatives wagon when he announced In a 1991 monologue that the to CFCs are already available, but what is lacking is corpo- thinning of the ozone layer had been traced to the CFCs in rate commitment to make the switch. An EPA study reports Candice Bergen's hair spray. that a 100-percent reduction of CFCs is necessary just to In the past two years, there have been at least 200 ex- stabilize chemicals already in the atmosphere, and Ftowland amples of what the three-year-old Washington, DC-based says that while the amount of CFCs going into the atmos- Consumer Aerosol Products Council calls "Aerosol/CFC mis- phere is "considerably less" than it was, upper-ozone dam- information"—evidence that most Americans are unaware age is accelerating at a quickened pace. their sav- that CFCs have been banned as aerosol propellants since If the media really want to educate public about 1978 (barring afew government-approved CFC uses such ing our skies, where it's estimated that CFCs will double over as asthma inhalers, which will also be phased out by the the next 50 years, the aerosol industry— the only one required year 2000), In a massive letter-writing campaign, the group to change to safer methods—Is the wrong target. Hair has responded to numerous cartoons, talk shows, educa- spray is not the culprit. Refrigerant leakage (from cars, tional books, television and newspaper stories, and advertise- homes), circuitry-cleaning solvents, cleaning agents, and ments that give aerosols a bad rap. And after attending a blown plastics are.—JUSTINE KAPLAN — "

canjTinjLjunn

Suppose a ship is at sea near cells to convert sunlight into

tne equator. If tl^e captain electricity. The electricity in

I nows the time, he can turn, is fed to an electrolyzer, determine his whereabouts which creates hydrogen and by measuring the position of oxygen from water. The

a few standard stars. But if hydrogen gas then fills the c!ocl< he relies on is off by pressurized fuel tanks that just one second, the captain will power a modified Ford will miscalculate his position Ranger taick. The entire by a quarter mile. operation was scheduled to Seventeen leap seconds begin running early this year,

have been added altogether and it is believed to be the

since 1972. If no one had first state-funded system that bothered to adjust the official uses solar energy to make ^clocks, the atomic time and hydrogen fuel for motor % the rotation time would be 17 vehicles, "Where else can seconds out of whack. And you convert sunlight to

those hapless mariners hydrogen and then use it for //ouid have missed their port transportation?" asks Joe by a good four miles. Norbeck, the center's direc- — Steve Nad is tor and the project's principal investigator. Southern California's TEN BOOKS ON A South Coast Air Quality Management District SHELF CAN BE {SCAQMD) funds the project ARRANGED IN 3,628,000 as part of a broad strategy to DIFFERENT WAYS. improve air quality, "We want to look at things we can do in the next few decades, not JUST WAIT A spinning wheel. Owing to this THE SOLAR- just the next few years," SECOND gradual slowdown, a day in HYDROGEN explains SCAQMD chief the year 2000 will last some CONNECTION scientist Alan Lloyd,

If June 30, 1992, seemed like three milliseconds longer The project will allow a particularly long day, that's than a day back in the good In 1874, Jules Verne Riverside engineering faculty because it was. At midnight, old days of 1900. speculated that clean- and students to conduct the international timekeepers in International timekeepers burning hydrogen might first thorough environmental Paris added an extra second now add a leap second become the fuel of the future. appraisal of hydrogen vehi- to the day, about once every year and a Although dozens of proto- cles while also rating the The addition of this "leap half to keep the clocks type hydrogen vehicles have performance of solar-energy second" keeps the time as synchronized. By 2020, hit the pavement recently, systems in smoggy areas measured by atomic clocks they'll have to insert two leap questions still abound re- with noticeably reduced close to the time as seconds a year. "If we didn't garding the merits and visibility "We know these measured the old-fashioned do this, we'd eventually get practicality of this fuel A systems work in a polluted way: by the earth's rotation. out of synch with sunlight," three-year demonstration environment," Lloyd says,

Periodic adjustments are explains Dennis McCarthy, project conducted by "but we still don't know how needed because the earth's an astronomer at the U.S. the Center for Environmental well they work," rotation is slowing down. The Naval Observatory "It would Research and Technology — Steve Nad is tides—which tug the oceans be dark at noon." at the University of California in one direction while the The second added last at Riverside's College of "If your morals make you planet spins in another June is important not only to Engineehng aims to find dreary, depend create friction, just like perfectionists, but to anyone some answers. on it, they are wrong. brakes gently applied to a who navigates by the stars. The system uses solar —Robert Louis Stevenson a , ,

CRACKING with, and they showed THE SHELL increased attention span and productivity," Gordon says.

Autism is among the most "Their parents were very stubborn and tragically pleased, and eighty percent intractable of all develop- of them chose to continue mental neurologic disorders, clomipramine treatments af- resulting in extreme social ter the study was over." withdrawal, communication While he stresses that deficits, and repetitive be- clomipramine "is not going to havior patterns. But now a make autistic kids unautis- psychiatrist from the National tjc," Gordon remains cau- Institute ol Mental Health in tiously optimistic. "Up to Bettiesda, Maryland, reports now," he explains, "nothing making new headway in much has helped with treating autistic children. He autism. But with clomipra- uses a drug called clomi- mine, we did see improve- been pramine, which has Even fungi wither before the onslaught ot modem pollutants. effective in treating obsessive- compulsive disorders. 5ICK PLANTS RUN MUSHROOMING elles and other mushrooms Since 1990, C. T. Gordon TEMPERATURES PROBLEM results not from overzeal- has given clomipramine to 25 FROM 0.1 DEGREES ous collecting but from autistic children and com- CENTIGRADE European mushroom collec- pollutants produced by pared the results with those TO 2 DEGREES CENTI- tors are shaking their heads industry traffic, and mod- from deslpramine— another in dismay at their empty ern agriculture. The wind antidepressant— from a GRADE HIGHER and baskets. The once-abun- disperses the main de- While neither des- THAN THOSE OF PLANTS placebo. dant chanterelle, long structive agents— sulfur di- lpramine nor the placebo had IN HEALIH. GOOD prized by gourmets for its oxide, nitrogen oxides, and much impact, clomipramine delicate scent, and more ammonium —which are brought about significant than 100 other mushrooms then deposited on trees improvement less withdraw- ments in social interaction. — that form "mycorrhiza"— and the forest floor, leading anxiety, fewer Many of the kids definitely al and angry symbiotic relationship with to harmful acidification and ritualistic brightened up and showed outbursts, and less trees—have turned as nitrogen accumulation. behavior. "The children more interest in the people were scarce as lour-leaf clovers. Owing to the lack of US. calmer and easier to deal around them." Bill Lawren — Indeed, Dutch mushroom research in this field, expert Eef Arnolds reports scientists don't yet know i that on average, roughly mushroom populaliorK half as many of these here face a simiiarf^e. But species populate European Arnolds can see "no reaa woodlands today as in why fungi sttould tea^ 1950. Forests in the pollutants any b^ter in Netherlands, Germany and North America ttan n Czechoslovakia have suf- Europe." He emphasEes fered the greatest losses, that the impacE of a dK:rine Arnolds reports. At a major would be feK^t3^ond flie mushroom market in Saar- culinary aiS. "These mush- land, Germany, for exam- rooms provide nutrients ple, chanterelles and other and waier for ffees," he popular mushrooms, called says. "When the mycorrtii- boletus, have nearly zae vanish, fliey can take ~ vanished from sight. with ttiem entire forests." The dearth of chanter- —Kathleen McAuliffe " "

comTimuurui

STRBSS When stress rises above a only white light, and then in cardiac and stroke SPECS safe level, the glasses issue only to treat winter depres- patients. "I've never had a

a discreet warning in the sion. This astounds Frenkel, heart attack, but if 1 have Sc^rsdale, form of a quiet beep or who believes the mind one and am lucky enough to

\iev> York, flashing light. The person ein codes experiences in survive, I'll probably start p'iyL hiRtfist can then slip in a colored specific colors. worrying about the next Richard lens custom designed lo Unlike the dnjgs -frequent- one," he says. "This device

Frenkel recently received a calm the wearer. ly prescribed for high can tip people off if their

paienl for a pair of higli-tech If this approach sounds blood pressure and anxiety stress goes too high." The

specs thai— if ttiey're ever unorthodox, it should, be- colored light has no side glasses, however, would not produced—could make cause Frenkel is the only efiects, Frenkel claims. be restricted to people with Ray" Bans look positiveiy practitioner of "colored-light And because light travels heart and high-blood- retro. Frenkel's glasses therapy" Although colored at 186,282 miles per pressure problems, "Any- monitor a person's stress filters have shown promise second, its effects are felt one concerned about stress levels by measuring skin in boo^itinq the reading '^Hll=' immediately could wear them. HI be temperature, electrical con- of dyslfvc cl Id e md y Fenkel n tally de/eloped wearing a pair myself." ductance, and perspiration. health p fesso asempl y f^e cl sse Gc ol stress — Steve Madis

INFRASTRUCTURE IS GOING TO IF ALL.QF THE STATES THE BEARS WERE THE SIZE OF AWSKA, THE ENTIRE Flohda loses about 40 of its rare black bears to highway AREA OF THE accidents each year. That UNITED STATES COULD has proved reason enough HOLD ONLY for its Department of SIX COMPLETE STATES. Transportation to test an eight-foot precast concrete culvert—essentially, a bear A MANNED SPACECRAFT tunnel—on state road 46, CAN REACH THE north of Orlando. MOON IN LESS TIME Fences along both sides THAN IT TOOK of the road will funnel the A STAGECOACH TO bears into the tunnel, which is advantage of the tunnel. ect, which could cost similar in concept to those John B. Waoding, another $500,000. The cost stems TRAVEL THE placed elsewhere in the state wildlife biologist with the mainly from the major LENGTH OF GREAT to protect the endangered Commission, estimates that highway excavation and BRITAIN. Florida panther. If the bears Florida has between 1 ,000 regrading needed to make use the crossing, wildlife and 1,500 black bears. The the passageway fit flush with biologist Terry Gilbert of the animals get hit by cars and'- the highway surface. Florida Game and Fresh trucks most frequently during ^George Nobbe Water Fish Commission says, what researchers call "the fall the government may build shuffle," the time when "Always laugh when you similar culverts elsewhere in hungry bears are constantly can; it is cheap medicine. bear habitats, including the on the move, trying to —Lord Byron Ocala National Forest and negotiate the perilous net- the Big Cypress Wildlife work of roads that crisscross "Madness is rare in individ- Preserve. TV monitors in the their dwindling habitat. uals—but in groups, first tunnel will help wildlife The Florida government parties, and nations, it is experts determine whether has yet to decide when to the rule. the bears actually take begin the bear-tunnel proj- —Friedrich Nietzsctie conjTimuunn

TO DEFECT IS "and yet they survive TO PERFECT normally in circulation." Up to 40 percent of the Finally, some positive press native populations in Papua for genelic mutation: A New Guinea enjoy the mutant recently identified genetic protein's enhanced protec- defect in some South Pacific tion from malaria. Native islanders makes them im- peoples in Ivlalaysia, the mune to malaria. Philippines, and Indonesia Jiri Paiek, Shih-Chun Lui, also show a strong resist- and their coileagues at St. ance to the disease. Elizabeth's Hospital in Bos- Paiek believes natural ton discovered that a number selection is at work, "This is of peopie from the South an area where malaria is Pacific carry a mutant gene endemic," he says, "People that instructs red blood ceils with this defect had a bettei to produce an abnormal chance of surviving, and the, band-3 protein. This mutant passed it on to succeediny

Eagles have great void v/indnillls

IF THE WORLD'S TOTAL lAHD AREA WERE DIVIDED EAGLES JOUST o Hc e the blades of EQUALLY THE WORLD'S J AMONG WITH WINDMILLS he 00-foot turbines PEOPLE, EACH PERSON WOULD HOLD 8.5 ACRES. a ^1 o e of a threat

Searching for a clean Sdfu it a t e OS, with lethal AT THE EQUATOR, THE EARTH SPINS energy soli roe. some results to ariy quixotic companies have taken a raptor who iilts at such AT A RATE OF MORE THAN 1 ,000 MILES PER HOUR. step forward to the past, a windmiii. relying on wind povjer for U.S. Windpower, the energy. Some 7,000 "w)nd largest of the turbine protein bonds with the cell generations." A more exten- turbines" sit in the foothills operaiors, has embarked membrane, making the walls sive search of the tropics, he east of San Francisco, on an ambitious series ol of the blood cells so stiff that suggests, would probably making it tlie largest experiments to deiermine the malaria parasite cannot reveal other populations with wind-propelled energy cen- liow to create a "compati- penetrate and infect them. ovalocytosis, or rigid red ter in the wor(d. ble coexistence" between "These are the stiffest \ blood cells. Unfortunaieiy, such mod- tuibine and raptor, accord- cells known to sciencp " \ The researchers hope that ern windmiils have not ing to William J, Whalen, a Paiek marvels undertitanding how the proven as environ men tally vice president of the mutant protPin reacts safe as expected albeit in company Trained hawks against maiaria will lead to an unexpected way A and homing pigeons will be tredtment strategies. tV'.'O-year study by the used to iesi whether —Sandy Fritz California Stats Energy high-pitched noises and This Papua New Commission found thai a colors painted on the large number of predatory turbine sails keep birds at a may make him birds, including golden and saie distance. "We hops to malaria bald eagles, turn up dead have data by the end of the in [fe icinity of these summer" Whalen says. But

tjfbiro . The study estimat- for the present, as David dd th i 500 I'aprors were Mesmith of the San

hill^ I in a two-year period Francisco Bay chapter of rtidtha'55percent of them the Sierra Club admits,

h^ i c Hided with wind "liiere are no good safety turbinp.. The birds might measures."—Mark Suniin ir,

THEYCALLTHIS

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destruction by CFCs, though ozone layer as finite is all wrong

incomplete, is robust. 77 — to begin with.?? freiaik Pohl —James P. Hosao

PHOTOGRAPHS B Y GREG VAUGHN —

stop using them now, deaths from skin reminiscent of the things people effects will be devastating. cancer in Ihe United States alone will heaved sighs of relief to get rid of in ihe Now, I'd have to agree that the alter- rise by hundreds of thousands in the 1930s. And the domestic side will be native of seeing the planet seared by next half century. As a result, 80 nations only a small part. The food industry lethal levels of radiation would make a are about to railroad through legislation thai we take for granted depends on re- pretty good justification for whatever to ban one of most beneficial substanc- frigerated warehouses, trucks, and drastic action is necessary to prevent es ever discovered at a cost the public ships. So do supplies of drugs, med- it. The only problem is, there isn't one doesn't seem to comprehend but that icines, and blood. Whole regions of the piece of solid, scientifically validated ev- will be staggering. It could mean hav- sunbelt states have prospered during idence to support the contention. The ing to replace today's refrigeration and the last 40 years because of the better decisions being made are political, driv- air-conditioning equipment with more living and working environments made en by media-friendly pressure groups expensive types running on substitutes possible by air conditioning. And to de- wielding a power over public percep- that are toxic, corrosive, flammable if veloping nations that rely completely on tions that is totally out of proportion to sparked, less efficient, and generally modern food-preservation methods, the any scientific competence they pos- OZONE REALITIES Y^es, Jim, that really is science, live but the ozone layer does not. But process that attacks the atmos- because that's what science Is. the CFCs certainly do get to the phere's ozone layer. Emissions from As the late Richard Feynman ozone layer eventually, because volcanic eruptions, as Hogan points

told us, "Scientific knowledge is a they have nowhere else to go. The out, may well be another— it is likely, body of statements of varying de- quality of chemical inertness which for instance, that the cataclysmic erup- grees of certainty—some most un- makes them useful assures that. tion of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines sure, some nearly sure, but none ab- They are not attacked by ordinary contributed to the ozone losses that solutely cenam." Anytime any scien- chemical reactions; they last indefi- were recently, and unexpectedly, tist offers one of those statements— nitely or until they come across some- found over much of the north tem-

or "theories"— it is the duty of other thing rea//y reactive— something like perate zone of our planet. But it

scientists to try to pick holes in it. the ozone layer. takes a Pi natu bo-si zed eruption to pro- But the theory of ozone destruction Ask a different question: Is there ject serious amounts of ozone-destroy-

by CFCs, though woefully incomplete any evidence that extra UV-B is reach- ing chemicals into the stratosphere. (mostly because few bothered to do ing the surface of the earth and af- Mount Erebus's eruptions are compar-

any research on the subject until fecting living creatures? It looks that atively feeble and unlikely to account

quite recently), is robust. Its predic- way For one thing, biologists have not- for ihe observed .major stratosphehc tions are happening. Something is de- ed that in the Weddell Sea off Antarc- ozone losses in the Antarctic.

stroying Antarctic ozone to unprece- tica the plankton and krill seem to be The CFC reaction, however, has

dented degrees, and it gets worse eve- slowly changing color. Why? Best the- one quite unique quality Thai is, it is ry year. The latest Antarctic ozone ory is that selection is favoring the the only known ozone-destroying proc- hole, measured in September 1992, ones with added protective pigment ess that we human beings have any was the largest ever— up 15 percent in response to increased UV-B, control over. If we are to do anything from the year before to nearly 9 million How about human beings, at all, stopping manufacture of CFCs square miles. though; are they suffering additional and similar synthetic chemicals is ihe Are CFCs doing it? We know that cataracts and skin cancers as a re- only thing we can do.

the reaction occurs, because it's sult? That's harder to measure; a cat- It is true that if we give up the use demonstrated in the laboratory, but aract doesn't come with a label to iden- of CFCs we'll have to scrap and re- Jim Hogan argues that the CFCs are tify its cause, and the normal inci- place almost all our current refriger- too heavy to rise up to the strato- dence of such problems is much ators and air conditioners. Thai's an- sphere. That's disingenuous. The at- larger than ihe expected increases other nonlssue, however, since over mosphere doesn't arrange itself in den- from UV-B— so far—so that even a sta- the next couple of decades, we will

sity layers like a pousse-cafe. if it did, tistical proof is hard to obtain. That's certainly scrap and replace them all there wouldn't be a problem; we true even In Australia, presumably ihe anyway. The only question is wheth- could install some giant vacuum clean- most severely affected inhabited er we replace them with more of the ers in such low spots as Death Val- pari of ihe world— plus ihe fact that same or with systems that don't use ley or the Qattara Depression and Australians for years now have been CFCs. Such systems already exist.

suck all the CFCs right out of the air. urged to practice Slip-Slap-Slop If the consensus of most scientists That doesn't happen, because the ["Slip on a shirt, Slap on a hat. Slop is wrong, and there is, after all, no dan-

atmosphere is continually stirred on some sun blocker"). But they don't ger to the ozone layer, then doing by thunderstorms, by winds, by solar do thai for their pet cats, and at the what that consensus suggests will un- radiation, by its own thermal move- veterinary clinic of ihe Royal Society necessarily cost us all some money ment—and so CFCs will sooner or lat- for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani- and inconvenience, Bui if the scien- er diffuse to everywhere. Because mals in Sydney about 500 cases of tists are right and we do nothing, it they're heavy, they take a while to get feline skin cancer are turning up a will cost us a great deal more mon- to the stratosphere; that's why most year now— a few years ago there ey, a great deal more inconvenience, of the CFCs already manufactured were almost none. and a very great deal of suffering and are still in the troposphere, where we The CFC reaction is not the only human lives.— Frederik Pohl — . —

sess. But when you ask the people who bly "holes" in more sheltered spots what gives this part of the atmosphere do have the competence to know but obviously the surf isn't something its ultraviolet screening ability. scientists who have specialized in the that runsout. Its supply is inexhaustible Its height and thickness are not con- study of atmosphere and ciimate for as long as oceans and shores exist. stant, but "adjust automatically to accom- years— a yery different story emerges. In the same kind of way, ozone is all modate variations in the incoming ultra-

What they're saying, essentially, is the time being created in the upper at- violet flux. When UV is stronger, it pen- that the whoie notion of the ozone ia>^ mosphere^by sunshine, out of oxygen. etrates deeper before being absorbed; er as something fixed and finite, to be A normal molecule of oxygen gas con- with weaker UV, penetration is less. eroded away at a faster or slower rate sists of two oxygen atoms joined togeth- Even if all the ozone were to suddenly like shoe leather, is all wrong to begin er. High-energy ultraviolet radiation', vanish, there would still be 17 to 30 ki- with —it's simply not a depietable re- known as UV-C, can split one of these lometers of hitherto untouched oxygen- source; that even if it were, the proc- molecules apart {a process known as rich atmosphere below, which would be- ess by which CFCs are supposed to de- photodissociation) into two free oxygen come available as a resource for new plete it is highly speculative and has nev- atoms. These can then attach to anoth- ozone creation, and the entire screen- er been observed to take place; and er molecule to form a three-atom spe- ing mechanism would promptly regen- even If it did, the effect would be trivial cies, which is ozone—produced main- erate. As Robert Pease, professor emer- compared to what happens naturally, in ly in the tropics above a 30-kilometer itus of physical climatology at the Uni- short, there's no good reason for believ- altitude where the ultraviolet flux is versity of California at Riverside, says, ing that human activity is having any sig- strongest. The ozone sinks and moves "Ozone in the atmosphere is not in fi- nificant effect at all. poleward to accumulate in lower-level nite supply" In other words, as in the

To see why, let's start with the basics reservoirs extending from 17 to 30 kilom- case of surf with oceans and shores, it and take seashores as an analogy. eters— the so-called ozone "layer." is inexhaustible for as long as sunshine Waves breaking along the coastline con- Ozone is destroyed by chemical re- and air continue to exist. tinually generate a belt of surf. The combination back into normal oxygen If ozone were depleting, UV intensi- surf decomposes again, back into the by reaction with nitrogen dioxide (pro- ty at the earth's surface would be in- ocean from where it came. The two proc- duced in part by high-altitude cosmic creasing. In fact, actual measurements esses are linked: Big waves on stormy rays), through ultraviolet dissociation by show that It has been decreasing—by days create more surf; the more surf the same U'v'-C that creates ozone, and as much as 8 percent in some places there is to decay, the higher the rate at also by a less energetic band known as over the last decade. which it does so. The result is a balance UV-B, which isn't absorbed in the high- Ordinarily, a scientific hypothesis between the rales of creation and de- er regions. Every dissociation of an oxy- that failed in its most elementary pre- struction, Calmer days will see a gen- gen or ozone molecule absorbs an in- diction would be dumped right there. eral thinning of the surf line and possi- coming UV-B photon, and that may be But as Dr. Dixy Lee Ray— former gov- ernor of Washington state, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and a scientist with the-U.S. Bureau of Oceans and the University of Washington — put it: "There are fads in science. Scientists are capable of developing their own strange fixations, just like anyone else." Even though the physics makes

it difficult to see how, the notion of some- thing manmade destroying the ozone lay- er has always fascinated an apocalyp- tic few who have been seeking possi- ble candidates for more than 40 years. According to Hugh Ellsaesser, guest sci- entist at the Atmospheric and Geophys- ical Sciences Division of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory "There has been a small but concerted pro- gram to build the possibility of man de- stroying the ozone layer into a dire threat requiring governmental controls since the time of CIAP [Climatic Impact Assessment Program on the supersonic transport (SST), conducted in the early 1970s]."

in the 1950s, it was A-bomb testing; in the 1960s, the SST; in the 1970s, spacecraft launches and various chem- icals from pesticides to fertilizers All of jtfyein.0gisiiig THi @^0ust these claimed threats to the destruction of the ozone layer were later discredit- ed, and for a while, the controversy died out. Then, in 1985 and 1986, ban- ner headlines blared thai a huge ozone hole had been discovered in the Ant- 9 —

arctic. This, it was proclaimed, con- molecules will still be created for every 750,000 tons of which is chlorine. Twen- firmed the latest version of the threat. CFC molecule that's broken up. Hardly ty times as much comes from the pas- In 1974, two chemists, Rowland and a convincing disaster scenario, is It? sive outgassing of volcanoes. This can Molina at the University of Caiifornia at Ah, but what about the catalytic ef- rise by a factor of ten with a single irvine, hypothesized that ozone might fect, whereby one chlorine atom can large eruption^for example that of Tarn- be attacked by CFCs—which had eat up thousands of ozone molecules? bora in 1815, which pumped a mini- come into widespread use during the Doesn't that change the picture? mum of 21 1 million tons streight into the previous 20 years. Basically, they sug- Not really The catalysis argument de- atmosphere. Where are the records of gested that the same chemical inert- pends on encounters between chlorine all the cataclysmic effects that should ness that makes CFCs noncorrosive, monoxide and free oxygen atoms. But presumably have followed from the con- nontoxic, and ideal as a refrigerant the chances are much higher that a wan- sequent ozone depletion? would enable them to diffuse intact to dering free oxygen atom will find a mol- And on an even greater scale, 300 the upper atmosphere. There, they ecule of normal oxygen rather than one million tons of chlorine are contained in would be dissociated by high-energy ul- of chlorine monoxide. So once again, spray blown off the oceans every year. traviolet and release free atoms of chlo- probability favors ozone creation over A single thunderstorm in the Amazon re- hne. Chlorine will combine with one of ozone destruction. gion can transport 200 million tons of the three oxygen atoms of an ozone mol- At least 192 chemical reactions oc- air per hour into the atmosphere, con- ecule to produce chlorine monoxide cur between substances in the upper taining 3 million tons of water vapor. On and a normal two-molecule oxygen at- stratosphere along with 48 different Iden- average, 44,000 thunderstorms occur om, thereby destroying the ozone mol- tifiable photochemical processes all daily mostly in the tropics. Even if we ecule. The model becomes more insid- linked through complex feedback mech- concede to the depletion theory and al- ious by postulating an additional chain anisms that are only partly understood. low this mechanism to transport CFCs of catalytic reactions via which the chlo- Selecting a few reactions brought also, compared to what gels there nat- rine monoxide can be recycled back in- urally, the whiif of chlorine produced by to free chlorine, hence evoking the spec- all of human industry (and we're only talk- ter of a single chlonne atom running ing about the leakage from It) is a snow- amok in the stratosphere, gobbling up flake in a blizzard. tThere ozone molecules like Pac-Man. Despite all that, isn't it still true that Scary, vivid, sensational; perfect for are fads in science. a hate has appeared in the last ten activists seeking a cause, politicians in years and is getting bigger? What Scientists need of visibility; just what the media rev- about that then? el in. Unfortunately, however, it doesn't are capable of In 1985, a sharp, unpredicted de- the depth fit with a few vital facts. And if you developing cline was reported in mean claim to be talking about science, of ozone over Halley Bay Antarctica. Al- their own strange that's kind of important. though the phenomenon was limited to First, CFCs don't rise in significant fixations, altitudes between 1 2 and 22 kilometers amounts to where they need to be for and the interior of a seasonal circula- just lil^e anyone else. UV-C photons to break them up. Be- tion of the polar jet stream known as the cause ozone absorbs heat directly "polar vortex," it was all that the ozone- from the sun's rays, the stratosphere ex- doomsday pushers needed, Without hibits a reverse temperature structure, waiting for any scientific evaluation or or thermal "inversion"— it gets warmer about in a laboratory and claiming that consensus, they decided that this was with altitude rather than cooler. As this is what happens in the stratosphere the confirmation that the Rowland-Mo-

Robert Ffease points out, "This barner (where it has never been measured) lina conjecture had been waiting for. greatly inhibits vertical air movements might be a way of getting to a prede- The ominous term "ozone hole" was and the interchange of gases across termined conclusion. But it isn't science. coined by a media machine well re- the tropopause [the boundary between But surely it's been demonstrated! hearsed in environmentalist politics, and the lower atmosphere and the strato- Hasn't a thousand times more chlorine anything the scientific community had sphere], including CFCs. In the strato- been measured over the Antarctic to say has been drowned out. sphere, CFC gases decline rapidly and than models say ought to be there? Missing from the press and TV ac- drop to only two percent of surface val- Yes. High concentrations of chlo- counts, for instance, is that an unexpect- ues by thirty kilometers of altitude. At rine—or to be exact, chlorine monoxide. edly low value in the Antarctic winter- the same time, less than two percent of But all chlorine atoms look alike. There spring ozone level was reported by the the UV-C penetrates this deeply." is absolutely nothing to link the ctilorine British scientist Gordon Dobson in Hence the number of CFC splittings is found over the Antarctic with CFCs 1956—when CFCs were barely in use. vastly lower than the ohginal hypothe- from the other end of the world. What In a 40-year history of ozone research sis assumes— for the same reason the purveyors of that story omitted to written in 1968, he notes: "One of the there aren't many marriages between mention was that the measuring station most interesting results , . . which Eskimos and Australian Aborigines: at McMurdo Sound is located 15 kilom- came out of the IGY [International Ge- They don't mix very much. eters downwind from Mount Erebus, an ophysical Yearj was the discovery of

For the UV photons that do make it, active volcano venting 100 to 200 tons the peculiar annual variation of ozone there are about 136 million oxygen mol- of chlorine every day, and that in 1983 at Halley Bay" His first thought was ecules for them to collide with for eve- it averaged 1,000 tons per day that the result might have been due to ry CFC—and every such reaction will cre- Mightn't thai just have more to do with faulty equipment or operator error. But ate ozone, not destroy it. So even if we it than refrigerators in New York or air when such possibilities were eliminated allow the big CFC molecule three conditioners in Atlanta? and the same thing happened the fol- times the chance of a small oxygen mol- World CFC production is currently lowing year, he concluded: "it was ecule of being hit, then 45 million ozone about 1,1 million tons annually clear thai the winter vortex over the 40 OMNI A toast to the glorious legend of Camelot.

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12328-eVRfi-20 South Pols was maintained late into the ed, nor any mention that the Pinatubo find some "natural" level that shouldn't spring and that tliis kept the ozone val- volcano was active at the time. Yet al- be deviated from in all this is like trying ues low. When it suddenly broke up in most as if on cue, the U.S. Senate to define sea level in a typhoon. November, both the ozone values and passed an amendment only two days Skin cancer Is increasing, neverthe- the stratosphere temperatures sudden- later calling for an accelerated phase- less. Something must be causing it. ly rose." A year after that, in 1958, a sim- out of CFCs. (it's interesting to note An increasing rate of UV-induced ilar drop was reported by French sci- that NASA's budget was under review skin cancer means that-more people entists at the Antarctic obsen/atory at at the time. After getting its increase, are receiving more exposure than they

Dumont d'Urville— larger than that caus- NASA has since conceded that per- ought to. It doesn't follow that the inten- all ing the hysteria today. haps the fears were premature.) sity of ultraviolet is increasing as it These measurements were on the But apart from all that, yes, world would If ozone were being depleted. (In edge of observational capability, espe- mean-total ozone declined about 5 per- fact, it's decreasing, as we saw earli- cially in an environment such as the Ant- cent from 1979 to 1986. So what? er.) Other considerations explain the arctic, and most scientists regarded From 1962 to 1979 it increased by S'/a facts far better, such as that sun wor- them with caution. After the 1985 "dis- percent. And since 1986, it has been ship has become a fad among light- covery," NASA reanalyzed its satellite increasing again (although that part's skinned people only In the last couple data and found that it had been routine- left out of the story the public gets). On of generations, or the migrations in com- ly throwing out low Antarctic ozone read- shorter time scales, it changes natural- paratively recent times of peoples into ings as "unreliable." ly all the time and from place to place, habitats for which they aren't adapted; The real cause is slowly being unrav- hence surface ultraviolet intensity is not for instance, the white population of Aus- eled, and while some correlation is evi- constant and never was. It varies with tralia. {Native Australians have experi- dent with volcanic eruptions and sun- latitude — for instance, how far north or enced no skin-cancer increase.) spot cycles, the dominant factor ap- south from the equator you are —with Deaths from drowning increase as pears to be the extreme Antarctic winter you get nearer the equator— not be- conditions, as Dobson originally suspect- cause the water becomes more lethal ed. The poleward transportation of but because human behavior changes: ozone from its primary creation zones Not many people go swimming in the ever iResearch the tropics does not penetrate in- Arctic. Nevertheless, when it comes to to the polar vortex, where chemical de- proposals to explore the skin cancer, the National Academy of pletion can't be replaced because of other side Sciences [NAS] has decided that only the lack of sunshine. Note that this is a variation of UV matters. And from the localized minimum relative to the sur- of things are turned down, measured ozone thinning from poles to rounding high-latitude reservoir regions, while equator and the change in zenith an- where global ozone is thickest. As gle of the sun they determined that a doomsayers line up for Hugh Ellsaesser observes, "The ozone 1-percent decrease in ozone equates hole . . . leadsonly to spring values of grants to a 2-percent rise in skin cancer. ultraviolet flux over Antarctica ... a fac- How you make a disaster scenario running into the millions.? tor of two less than those experienced out of this, according to Ellsaesser, is every summer in North Dakota." to ignore the decline in surface UV ac- But isn't it getting bigger every tually measured over the last 15 years, year? And aren't ttie latest readings ignore the reversal that shows ozone to sliowing depletion elsewhere, too? the seasons, and with solar activity. And have been increasing again since 1986,

in , April, 1991 EPA Administrator Wil- it does so in amounts that are far great- and extend the 1979-1986 slope as if Reilly liam announced that the ozone lay- er than those causing all the fuss. it were going to continue for the next er over. North America was thinning The whole doomsday case boils 40 years. Then, take the above formu- twice as fast as expected and pro- down to claiming that if something isn't la as established fact and apply it to the duced the figures for soaring deaths done to curb CFCs, ultraviolet radiation entire U.S. population. Witness: Accord- from skin cancer. This was based on will increase by 10 percent over the ing to the MAS report (1975), approxi- readings from NASA's Nimbus-7 satel- next 20 years. But from the poles to the mately 600,000 new cases of skin can- lite. I talked to Dr. S. Fred Singer of the equator. It increases naturally by a whop- cer occur annually So, by the above, Washington-based Science and Environ- ping factor of 50, or 5,000 percent, an^^ a 1-percent ozone decrease gives mental Policy Project, who developed way!—equivalent to 1 percent for every 12,000 more skin cancers. Projecting the principle of UV backscatter thai the six miles. Or to put it another way, a fam- the 5-percent ozone swing from the ear- ozone monitoring instrument aboard Nim- ily moving from New York to Philadel- ly 1 980s through the next four decades bus-7 employs. "You simply cannot phia would experience the same in- gives 25 percent, hence a 50-perceni tell from one sunspot cycle," was his crease as is predicted by the worst- rise in skin cancer, which works out at comment. "The data are too noisy. Sci- case depletion scenarios. Alternatively, 300,000 new cases in the year 2030 entists need at least one more cycle of they could live 1 ,500 feet higher in ele- A.D., or 7.5 million ever the full period. satellite observations before Ihey can vation— say, by moving to their summer Since the mortality rate is around 2.5 per- establish a trend." In other words, the cabin in the Catskills. cent, this gives the EPA's "200,000 ex- trend exists in the eye of the determined Superposed on this is a minimum 25- tra deaths in the United Slates alone." beholder, not in any facts he beholds. percent swing from summer to winter, Voila: instant catastrophe. 1 February 992 saw a repeat perform- and on top of that, a 1 0- to 1 2-year pat- As if this weren't flaky enough, it's pos- ance when a NASA research aircraft de- tern that follows the sunspot cycle. Fi- sible that the lethal variety of skin can- tected high values of chlorine monox- nally, there are irregular fluctuations cer has little to do with UV exposure, ide in the northern stratosphere. Not of caused by the effects of volcanic erup- anyway. The cancers that are caused CFCs; nor was there any evidence that tions, electrical storms, and the like on by radiation are recognizable by their ozone itself was actually being deplet- atmospheric chemistry. Expecting to correlation with latitude and length of ex- 42 OMNI CONTINUED0NPAGE91 HERESY! r Modern /Galileos

ANTHONY LIVERSIDGE —

Last autumn, at last, the science are turning a deaf believes he delayed its Catholic Church confessed. ear to potential break- progress by 25 years. Yet The New York Times' throughs in cancer, heart even as research piles up to frontpage headline read: disease, AIDS, and the suggest Pauling is correct,

"After 350 Years, Vatican global energy crisis. Even if the medical establishment

Says Galileo Was Right: it they're wrong, their claims has scoffed and blocked

Moves." Following a 13-year that a heretic in science, publication of his theories in investigation by an expert however well qualified, can't a top journal. panei of scientists, theolo- gain a fair hearing if he or The Proceedings of the gians, and historians, Pope she threatens the status National Academy is the

John Paui il was prepared quo often seem justified. publication of the most to correct the record. Take Linus Pauling, the exclusive club in science. in 1632, Gaiileo wrote best known of these Pauling, a member since that he had evidence that iconoclasts. He's a house- the Thirties, was first the earth moves around the hold name as a world- prevented from publishing sun rather than vice versa. famous scientist and talk- an article in it on vitamin C He shouid not, today's Pope show author of a popular and colds 20 years ago. now acknowledges, have book on diet. How to Live The editor was adamant, been hauled before a Longer and Feel Better. although Pauling objected tribunal, threatened with Pauling remains the only that he was curbing a right torture, forced to recant, person in the universe to ail members had to publish banned from pubiicaiion, have won two unshared in the Proceedings without and banished for the rest of fJobel prizes: for Chemistry prior review by colleagues. his life to his country estate. in 1954 and the Nobel A new rule was speedily

As the Church panel now Peace prize in 1962 for cooked up, clearly to confirms, Galiieo was right his crusade against nuclear justify blocking Pauling. All on the money ail the time. weapons. James D. articles that might be "of Stale news for most of us. Watson, the decoder of significant potential harm Moreover, the story of a DNA, joins many other to the public welfare" would great scientist battling top scientists in calling now be reviewed before established religion seems Pauling "the greatest of publication. Under this rule, irrelevant to the modern all chemists." Pauling's theory of how world—or is it? Pauling is hale and hearty taking vitamin C helps Some leading scientists at 92. His cheeks are rosy prevent heart trouble was claim that the repression of and his twinkling blue eyes also rejected in 1991, There Galileo's ideas only fore- clear and sharp. He seems was grave danger, the shadowed the politics they the very picture of health editors felt, that the public have to contend with today despite a brief bout with might be influenced by They insist that another prostate cancer last year, the authority of the Proceed- church has established now under control, he ings to challenge their itself, a more insidious claims. The only sign of age doctors' advice. enemy to truth seeking than is a quaver in his voice. Censored by the Proceed- the Catholic Church of old. Pauling can brief journalists ings, Pauling published in a This time the church from memory on his latest friendly journal, quoting shutting out new ideas as work, quoting a slew of Galileo: "Venly just as heresy and blocking the facts and dates without serpents close their ears, so march of truth is the missing a beat. do men close their eyes to scientific establishment. What Pauling is asked the truth."

The modern iconoclasts about most often is his A recent review from aren't New Age freaks, favorite theory: that vitamin Finland of all studies done homeopaths, or astrologers C in large doses not only so far backs Pauling on outsiders typically hostile to wards off colds, but also vitamin C and colds, and scientists who scorn them. the major afflictions of evidence now seems over- They rank among the most Western man—heart dis- whelming that vitamins C distinguished and pro- ease and cancer. and E do have value in ductive men and women in The spry Pauling seems a preventing cancer. A big American science and living testimonial to his own study by Dr. James Enstrom include Nobel laureates. advice He stirs a whopping from UCLA reported recent- They are, you might say, the 18 grams of vitamin C into ly that large daily doses of "modern Galileos," his orange juice every day, vitamin G cut heart disease

If they're right, the Popes he says. But how about the deaths by nearly half in men and Cardinals of modern prostate cancer? Pauling and one-fourth in women, 44 OMNI adding more than five years are needed to prevent death rate of mothers in his

to life expeciancy. It seems scurvy larger doses hospital ward from 16 ihat vitamin C works this might be beneficial, too. percent to less than 2 magic by stabilizing cholest- "Authorities who have percent. Semmelweis, only erol at optimum levels and lectured on nutrition the equivalent of an intern,

also by preventing it from to students for fifty years was hounded out of Vienna liardening in the arteries. saying higher doses by his superiors. After None of this has made of, vitamins have no value applying the same regimen life much easier for Pauling. don't want to say'lhey with stril

nature of chemical bonds in vitamins out of hand. Berkeley is another Semmel-

metals and alloys, the field Pauling's frustration is weis if not a Pasteur. An that won him the Nobel. typical of science in establishment heretic, One reviewer suggested general, judging from the Duesberg has run into a the money "would be better long list of latter-day wall of rejection by scien-

spent on creative young Galileos who have been first tists in his field, by the investigators, less fixed in trashed and then vindicat- medical profession, and by

their ways." Another ac- ed. The most famous is the media. One reason is

cused him ol "fiddling with German meteorologist A. L. that his most sensational the numbers ... to come Wegener whose 1912 theo- claims involve the highly out with the right answer" in ry of continental drift met politicized field of AIDS. his grant application. Paul- with generalized hostility Unlike Semmelweis, howev- ing answered that the and rejection. Wegener er, Duesberg has long been reviewer was ignorant of eventually gave up the very prominent in his field.

one of his (Pauling's) own struggle, complaining of He Is 'a virologist who

discoveries 55 years earlier. scientists' "partiality" to the specializes in retroviruses, The four other reviewers reigning paradigm, and the group of microbes to were complimentary and pursued other goals. Fifty which the Human Immu- recommended funding, but years later, mechanisms of nodeficiency Virus (HIV) that wasn't enough. plate tectonics and seafloor belongs HIV is the virus "If a scientist tries spreading were.detected, almost universally thought something original, he will and he's now admired as a to cause AIDS. have trouble getting grants revolutionary thinker. While he's never studied

and getting papers pub- But some of the blindest HIV in the lab, Duesberg's lished," says Pauling phi- fanaticism in favor of the credentials to inspect the

losophically. "Most say I received wisdom seems to evidence for this dogma have been right so often in come in medicine. Louis seem impeccable. The

the past, I am probably right Pasteur won honors, wealth, 55-year-old professor has

about vitamin C, too. I don't and fame for proving that belonged to the exclusive have any trouble with them. microbes cause disease National Academy since It's the physicians who don't and ferment beer, but only 1986 for achievements

have open minds. There is a after weathehng public which Include being the first

real bias on the part of the attaci^s from his fhends in to decode the genes of medical establishment the French Academy. retroviruses. He also Iden-

about megavitamins." The most blatant case of tifted the first of the Their prejudices exist, he medical blinl

Although the field is Duesberg turned to the if any of their own evidence fashionable and well fund- Proceedings of tlte National to contradict his more ed, Duesberg himself has Academy to press his case. than 600 references to renounced any belief that Among many reasons for published evidence. "The such oncogenes have ever skepticism, he argued response is unscientific, caused cancer in humans. thai the actual virus was biased, and discriminatory"

"There is no evidence or virtually absent from the he says. "It violates proof that a gene of a cell bodies of AIDS patients, academic freedom and the ever caused cancer," even those who were dying founding phnciple of the Duesberg says flatly "Not of the disease. Moreover, Academy, to evaluate and one. The only proven lab work failed to show disseminate knowledge."

oncogenes are carried by that HIV would kill the The leading HIV propo- rare animal retroviruses immune system's T cells, nents seem to have trouble

and, fortunately, are very the loss of which is the in genuinely answering unstable." Even the possi- hallmark of AIDS. He Duesberg. Robert Gallo of bility is "frankly very noted thai predictions of the National Cancer Insti-

Implausible, A true cellular s in AIDS cases tute was expected to reply

cancer gene would be have consistently failed to Duesberg in the Proceed-

found In each of the 100 to come true In the ings, but in three years has trillion cells in the human United States, especially never done so, Gallo body, and we wouldn't be for heterosexuals. eventually dismissed

viable organisms. One To date, he's published Duesberg in his au-

would be activated far too two articles, some 15,000 tobiography, a forum in

often for us to live as long words, in that prestigious which, skeptics pointed out,

as we do." journal, and it's been an he was safe from his own Already distinctly unpopu- uphill battle all the way The peer review. Luc Monta- lar for this view, Duesberg editors of the Proceedings gnier, the discoverer of HIV, became a pariah when he enlisted' a phalanx of likewise promised the edi- turned to AIDS. Attracted by special reviewers—26 at tors of a French journal to the rise in funding going to last count— to criticize his answer Duesberg, but AIDS research; Duesberg three submissions. None" never delivered. visited the library to could identify a single Since the major media

examine the data behind uncorrectable flaw in fact or inevitably follow the party

the belief that AIDS is an logic, as the editors line of their scientific

Infectious disease caused acknowledged, only a sources in dismissing by HIV. He reached a difference of opinion. Duesberg, his views have startling conclusion and Nonetheless, this year the won only limited coverage

published It in Cancer Proceedings refused publica- compared with the flood of

Research, a leading journal, tion of his third paper in the news and opinion articles in 1987. HIV was not the series, "The Fiole of Drugs and government ads and cause of AIDS, in his In AIDS," Duesberg was TV films that drum the

judgment', and the evidence forced to publish it in a official message home. indicated that AIDS was not French journal. Behind the scenes, howev- infectious. The symptoms, Naturally, Pauling was er, Duesberg has gained he concluded, were caused used as a precedent for scientific support, Nobel by drugs, disease, and censoring Duesberg, with Prize winner Walter Gilbert other conventional assaults the Proceedings editors of Harvard, one of the most

on the immune system. invoking the principle of respected names in U.S. His retrovirology col- protecting the public from biology, agrees that leagues at first refused to his logic. Members are Duesberg's arguments are argue, claiming that such normally free— since they strong and as yet unrefuted. doubt was absurd. A are all leading scientists, by "I would not be surprised," smattering of press cover- definition — to publish what- he says, "If there were age forced a response, ever they wish, as long as another cause of AIDS and

however, and Science they run it by one even that HIV is not featured a limited, four- knowledgeable colleague involved." More than a

page debate between who is not a coauthor. hundred other biomedical

Duesberg and his detrac- To Duesberg, it seemed researchers around the tors in 1988. Each side was obvious. The enlisted world have joined the Group allowed a statement and reviewers freely used for the Scientific Re- rebuttal, but further argu- blanket statements to damn appraisal of the HIV/AIDS 48 OMNI ' "

Hypothesis, which is publishing its own fused to allow Gold floor time, calling new idea, while the old idea is automat- newsletter, Rethinking AIDS. his analysis "crazy." Later, the same ically defended and any conflicting ev- In a sizable book with the same title. man began a paper with these words: idence simply brushed aside? Gold published by Macmillan Free Press in "It is now generally considered that pul- blamed a scientific "herd instinct," March, professor and MacArttiur fellow sars are rotating neutron stars"l where safety and prosperity lie in run- Robert Root- Bernstein of fvlichigan Still hotly debated is Gold's long- ning with the pack. This phenomenon Stale University in East Lansing also ar- running theory of the origin of petrole- is magnified, Gold argues, by the peer- gues that scientists must lool< beyond um, which turns conventional wisdom review system. When as many as sev- HIV for other causes of AIDS. Root- inside out. Every school text tells us en respected colleagues turn thumbs Bernstein indicates that the spread of that oil and gas are produced biologi- up or down on grant applications or on hasn't AIDS followed the HIV-only mod- cally the residue of plant life eons ago, articles for publication, herd decisions el and that medical history shows myri- crushed and fermented, so to speak, in are virtually guaranteed. "It is virtually ad AIDS look-alike cases without HIV the interior of the earth. Gold says this impossible to depart from the herd and Infection. Luc [Vlontagnler, Even the Pas- is quite wrong. The origins of oil and continue to have support." Once a teurTesearcher who discovered the gas are purely geological and not bio- herd view becomes entrenched, says "AIDS virus" now says that is logical, HIV harm- he says. Oil and gas were Gold, it becomes almost impossible to less by itself and has identified a cell- formed as the planets cooled and dislodge, as it becomes harder and hard- wall-missing bacterium called a myco- should be found far outside the normal er for anyone to admit that a mistake plasma as the essential cofactor. locations of drilling. might have been made. [vieanwhile, Duesberg has lost his ex- Fellow scientists and en- petroleum Gold quotes Tolstoy: "Most men . . . ceptional $300,000-a-year Special Inves- gineers greet his ideas with rage and can seldom accept even the simplest tigator Grant from the National Institutes spite, he says, "People shake their and most obvious truth if it obliges of Health (NIH), one of a handful award- fists at me!" he reports, "And the ven- them to admit the falsity of conclusions ed to the most distinguished scientists which they have delighted in explaining in the United States. Ironically, the re- to colleagues, which they have proud- cipients were specifically urged to use ly taught to others, and which they the award to "ask creative questions" have woven thread by thread into the and "venture into territory." iThere's new The ten- fabhc of their lives." There is also lazi- member review panel who turned always the possibility that ness, Gold notes. "Staying with the down the renewal mostly included sci- the new herd needs no justification: 'Doesn't eve- entists making a living off theories rybody believe that?' Duesberg is undermining. With the idea, like most inspirations Ray Erikson, a distinguished Harvard help of a letter from his local congress- in science, biologist, says the public should under- man, Duesberg has succeeded in get- stand that "scientists protect their turf is wrong, The issue is ting the NIH to reopen the case, like everybody else." But "the quality of Duesberg Is more provocative than one of data Is what matters nowadays. People Pauling in explaining his treatment. He fairness and prejudice.? expect clean, crisp data, and when suggests that the ruling is paradigm con- they see it, they can flip-flop very fast." solidated by patronage. "People natu- James Watson, now director of the rally reject a challenge to orthodoxy," Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory on he says. "They always did. But the Long Island, agrees. He points to Bar- scale is larger than ever. The orthodoxy om —you tiave no ideal It's incrediblel bara McClintock, Her Nobel Prize-win- never had billion $4 [of annual AIDS ex- If they could, they would burn me at the ning theory of "jumping genes"— penditure) in their court and a terminat- stake, like Savonarola," the monk who genes that move from site to site on the ed grant in the otherl" The huge inflow briefly held sway over fifteenth-century chromosome—was so at odds with con- of funds has resulted in "totalitarian sci- Florence. To Gold, the evidence is ob- ventional wisdom when she first ence," he "I says. am not aware of any- vious. "You find methane and ethane on workeditout in the Thirties that she de- thing in history so entrenched," Titan and Pluto," he says, and it ema- layed its professional publication for ten Another example of a modern Gali- nates from comets. "It is ludicrous to years. After a wait of 30 years, the diffi- leo where there's a great deal at stake say this is bioiogically generated!" cult theory says Watson, had been IS Thomas Gold, the Cornell cosmolo- Acrimony arises because the major- "shown to be true by new types of evi- gist. His original ideas have been over- ity in the field have "built an enormous dence which was overwhelming, and opposed throughout his career, despite construct and they cannot conceive no one could doubt it," McClintock a tendency to prove valid. that It is wrong," Gold says. "They died recently a heroine of science, the For his master's thesis. Gold worked have added on a huge edifice of sup- New York Times quoting one scientist the theory on of hearing, proposing the plementary notions to hold their theory who called her "the most important fig- idea that the inner ear generates its own together." That tendency has been not- ure there is in biology" tone. The ridicule of medical specialists ed since the Ptolemaic astronomers, Watson agrees that scientists may forced him from the field. Thirty-six who developed ever-more sophisticat- have a built-in prejudice against new ide- years later, he was the guest of honor ed mathematics to hold back the here- as that challenge the status quo. at a conference of cochlea specialists. sy of Copernicus in 1543 that the earth "There is always some of that." But the Studies found one family emitting orbited the sun, not the other way real reason, to Watson's mind, why Paul- sound from their ears loud enough to around. Only Galileo and his telescopes ing and Duesberg still hit a wall of in- be heard without instruments. finally demolished their defense. difference, is lack of "convincing evi- Gold was also the first to interpret Gold tried to explain this scientific dence. People still get colds and can- pulsars as rotating neutron stars. boneheadedness m a paper called cer when they take vitamin C. Then it When pulsars were found, the organizer Inertia "The of Scientific Thought." Why, becomes, 'Has it made the cold less se- of the first conference on the objects re- he asked, is all criticism reserved for the vere?' I take vitamin C myself to make 50 OMNI my wife happy, and I still get colds, but

if Likowise, "Pe- I don't know as manyl" ter [Duesberg] hasn't come up with ary smoking gun. You can give all the rca to sons [for doubt] , but most of us tsnd believe the simpleminded interpreta tion.'' Duesberg responds that this g nores the evidence that nearly all AIDS victims are involved with drugs n one way or another. Gold is now pursuing his own inefu table evidence in a Swedish oil v\pII where he reports finding methane at lev- els equaling those of good Oklahoma producers. If he's right, those who have stood in his way will have much to answer for. His theories promise a huge boost to global petroleum re- serves, since oil and gas will be found far beyond the usual drilling sites.

With so much at stake, if there's even an outside chance that a reputable her- etic is right, the public interest demands open-minded assessment, however crit- ical. Anything less may let policy mak- ers pour billions into wrong solutions. Sci- ence is not a democracy. One bright Galileo can be right and ten thousand traditionalists wrong. Could lawyers sort out the disputes? They're outsiders trained in logical argument, after all. One law professor, Phillip E. Johnson of Ihe University of California at Berkeley, wrote a book recently, Darwin on Tria!. which cheek- ily did just that—came in and castigat- ed Danwin's theory of evolution as the unproven saored cow of biology. But even Johnson thinks review panels of lawyers would be a bad idea. "Exter- nal regulation would be too cumber- some. Scientists just have to learn to develop a cultural resistance to a few dogmatic voices cutting off lines of in- quiry." Thomas Geld suggests that a panel of top scientists outside the field would do the job. Duesberg, like many, says that divorc- ing funding from reigning theories could help. "Take the huge sources of income away and make science small and honest again," he suggests. "You can't expect millionaires to ask unortho-

dox questions, if I had a company pay- ing me millions for counseling on HI'v',

I should probably be silent, too. Pover- ty makes you honest." Short of these changes, a modern Galileo, as Pauling says, must simpiv wait. He quotes Max Planok, the Ger man who won the Nobel Prize in 1918 for quantum theory: "Important scien tific Innovation rarely makes Its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiar with the idea from the beginning DQ ^. v^.Mm In the last decade, the virus has become the most studied infectious agent in history. BEYOND Hl\^ ASSEMBLING THE AIDS PUZZLE

Almost a decade ago, Roberl Gallo from the National Insti- tutes of Health and, independ- ently, Luc (Vlontagnier from the Insiitut Pasteur in Pans an- nounced that a virus, which Images of invasion subsequently became known The Dausalive as HIV, was associated with the agent of AIDS— panoply of exotic syndromes Human Immune and rare diseases collectively "progeny" bud from deficiency Virus known as AIDS. As we know (HIV]—measures the cell wall, now, AIDS is an immunodefi- killing the host 1QD 10 120 nano ciency syndrome, which means mslers m diameter cell. A few of the the immune system is no long- players: Larry 0. (top) A com er capable of protecting a per Arthur of Program puter generated son from infection or disease Resources, a image of HIV Hence, people readily succumb subcontractor lor the (above) created on to fungal, bacterial, and viral Cray Nahonal Cancer a Super infections. Inshtute (top); Dani Computer HTLV III The immune system is a mo- mlocted lympho Boiognesi [left) bile, trillion-cell network that Center for cytes (right) The virus ot the flows through the body in the IS retro- AIDS Research (in orange) is HIV a blood and in the lymphatic sys buddmg from the virus—lis genetic at Duke; Luc tems- It's composed of many program Is Montagnier, Insiitut plasma membrane different types of cells, each held In fINA, trans- Pasteur, Paris, with different functions. Two of lates Into DNA discoverer of the BY COLM KELLEHER Inside the T4 cell, virus (lower left). and then inlil- Enhancel transmission An imecled irates the cell's

transmission eioctronmicrograoh T cell (lett) typically own DNA, Once electron mlcro- ot AIDS >lws has a tumpv activated, the gianholtne DanlGles Wear lett) appearance. The viral DNA and its HTLV III

Itar lelll strloken T4-i(m- virus panicles

and talse-color nhocyte, the are in the process while eiood cell of hudding 01 the immune away from the coil svslem AIDS membrane. destroys. — —

Are we now nearly at the point at which some of the many enigmas are yielding to scrutiny?

thought carry copies of the virus especially in the tonsils and the lymph glands (which are under the arms and in the neck and groin) —the enigma remains. How does this small packet of genet- ic information cause such devas- tation to so many cells? There has always been a gap in under- standing between the properties

of the virus as observed in the lab- oratory and the actual, clinical course of AIDS. Today, this gap has been highlighted by the dis- ihe mos! important rus causes the disease. Billions covery of a small but growing num- types are B lympho- ot dollars have been spent. Dur- ber of people who come down cytes and T lympho- ing the press conference at with the symptoms of AIDS but cytes, B lymphocytes which was announced the discov- who clearly have no trace of HIV

make the antibodies ery of the virus by Gallo's labora- in their bodies. /hich can bind to and tory, officials from the department Montagnier, the discoverer of mrnobilJze such foreign of Health and Human Services the virus, has devoted much threats as bacteria and confidently predicted that a vac- thought to this question and has viruses that enter tine body cine against the virus would be come up with a controversial an- T lymphocytes, on the oth- available within a few years. In swer. He thinks HIV might have er hand, can only recog- hindsight, that optimism was pre- at least one accomplice— an im- nize foreign molecules mature. Monetheless, in the last portant cofactor in the develop- when they're on the out- decade, the virus has become " ment of AIDS— a microorganism sides of cells. In AIDS, a the most studied infectious agent called mycoplasma. He suggest- subset of a person's T in all of history. ed that mycoplasma and HIV

cells, which are called "helper The last two or three years, might cooperate in killing T cells-

A panel of cells," are the hardest hit. Some however, have witnessed an ex- something like sending in two hit experts itiscuss AIDS patients literally have no plosion of unexpected results: men rather than one to do the Uie latest helper cells. Without T helper HIV may not act alone in killing T job. Mycoplasmas— small, single- disGoveries (lop). cells, the immune network is in- cells; most of the AIDS vaccina- celled, primitive organisms that A human HTLV- capable of distinguishing what is tion strategies have yielded.nega- lack cell walls—have been isolat-

lli cell (mlifdie). foreign from what is a normal five and confusing conclusions; ed from many normal human tis- The orange and part of the body. This means HIV can superbly mimic certain sues. They also are used regular-

light-blue snake- that viruses, bacteria, and fungi key molecules in the immune sys- ly in many laboratories to grow

like leaiures can run rampant in the person. tem; the outside of the virus car- cells in test tubes or tissue cul- (ahovel represent Current WDrld Health Organiza- ries parts of the outside of human ture. Until now, mycoplasmas

the compo- tion projections estimate that by cells with it; AIDS may be a dis- have been associated with diseas- nenls for replica- the year 2000, as many as 40 mil- ease in which the immune system es such as walking pneumonia,

llon: genetic lion people worldwide will be turns on itself and destroys itself arthritis, and some spontaneous information In the infected with HIV of which an un- the virus is just the first trigger. abortions, but not with fatal dis- form ol RNA known percentage will eventual- What follows is the story of how eases. Montagnier's results con- and (he enzvme ly die of AIDS. this new picture of AIDS has re- firm work done earlier by Shyh- reverse tran- Gallo and Montagnier's an- cently 'unfolded. Chlng Lo, a scientist at the scriptase which nouncements set the world After the first flush of excite- Armed Forces Institute of Pathol- transcribes ablaze with optimism. In the in- ment following the discovery, one ogy in Washington, DC. So far, viral RNA Inlo DtlA. tervening decade, the scientific of the questions that surfaced the rest of the scientific commu- community has gathered evi- was. Why are there so few virally nity has been hesitant about Lo dence that not only is HIV asso- infected cells present at any one and Montagnier's findings. Many

ciated with AIDS, but that it time in the blood of an AIDS pa- suspect that the two scientists are causes AIDS. Based on this prem- tient? Although recently with the simply looking at mycoplasmas ise, medical research has mobi- aid of powerful new molecular that grow naturally in nearly ev- lized its vast resources to unrav- tools researchers have shown ery laboratory cell culture and el the mechanism by which the vi- that more cells than initially have nothing whatsoever to do 54 OMMI —

with AIDS. Monlagnier, however, de- cause he claims that HIV itself Isn't ne- wrote, "Our results, if confirmed, may

fends his theory and has recently cessarily doing the damage; it just hap- reveal another unique property of immu- launched a new foundation in Paris, to- pens to have a shape that provokes a nodeficiency viruses which requires ex- gether with Frederico Mayor, ." general di- strong self-destructive response from planation. . . The unique property rector of UNESCO, to help scientists ex- the immune system. But these data are Stott alludes to is that you don't neces- ploring new research ideas. only mildly surprising compared to sarily need the virus to induce an Im- Another conundrum surrounding some unexpected results that have mune response against'it—human AIDS is that large amounts of circulat- emerged in the last couple of years cells without the virus will do the thck. ing antibodies against HIV are routine- from HIV vaccine research. Stott's findings with monkeys seem ly found in the blood of AIDS patients. The idea behind HIV vaccination is eerily similar to the Hoffman-Kion dis- This baffles scientists. If the infected io fool the immune system into mount- covery with mice which showed that son can easily make so many antibod- ing a response against HIV without ac- injecting cells alone actually provoked

ies against the virus, why is this not suf- tually injecting a patient with it, which, an immune response against HIV even

ficient to stop it dead in its tracks? If the of course, might raise difficult ethical is- though HIV wasn't present. This protec- antibodies are doing what they should sues. Instead, most vaccine research- tion-by-cells-alone phenomenon has be doing and blocking HIV in an infect- ers inject only part of a virus (like the now been verified by many research- ed person, then why does the person outside coat) or a killed virus to provoke ers even though they aren't sure how come down with AIDS? an immune response. The hope is that the protection is working. Something

In 1988, Geoffrey Hoffmann from the in the future, when the immune system strange is going on.

University of British Columbia proposed sees the real virus, it will remember to Dani Bolognesi from the Center for

a very novel solution to this puzzle. Sup- act, and, if all goes well, will eliminate AIDS Research at Duke University in pose, he argued, that the virus had a it. So far, however, things have not North Carolina thinks that maybe the vi- similar shape to some very important gone according to this basic plan. rus can grab other cellular proteins'

components of the immune system and such as MHC when it's growing In the that the antiviral antibodies, which same cells, and that the protection were made after HIV infection, were ac- which he, Siott, and others see in mon- tually directed against the immune sys- keys is from an. immune response to tem as well as the virus. Then the im- ^Current MHC proteins rather than one against mune system would begin attacking World Health Organization viral proteins. and destroying itself. In other words, What exactly are these MHC protein projections Hoffmann was predicting that AIDS was molecules that, according to Hoff- actually an autoimmune disease. (The estimate that by the year mann and Bolognesi, seem to be so idea that AIDS is an autoimmune dis- 2000, as closely tied in with AIDS? MHC stands ease was first proposed by a group of tor major histocompatibility complex. many as 40 million French researchers and two American people The molecules are on the outside of eve- scientists in 1986.) worldwide ry cell in the body and are major sign- To back up his theory that the virus posts to the immune system for defining will be infected with HIV.9 might mimic important immune mole- \he cellular self-identity for each individ- cules, he and his colleague Tracy Kion ual, (In immunology, any protein or cell

reported thai when mice were injected that's manufactured by itself is defined

with cells from another mouse, the re- as having "self-identity") It's critical cipient mice made antibodies against In 1991 , E. J. Stott from the National that the immune system of a person be HIV—even though these mice had nev- Institute for Biological Standards and able to distinguish anything that's part er been exposed to H[V There was no Control in Hertfordshire, England, report- of its own body from anything that's for- virus whatsoever in his experiments, yet ed that during his attempts to vacclnale eign. Othenjvise, the system might at- the immune system of the mice, which macaque monkeys, he injected the an- tack and destroy a perfectly innocent

had been' injected with normal cells imals with a monkey equivalent of HIV part of one's own body believing it to from other mice, reacted as //they had that had been grown in human cells. be a virus or some other foreign entity been injected with HIV To Hoffmann, Not too surprising, the monkeys be- Everyone has different MHC proteins on this meant that HIV must be mimicl

" 56 OMNI COrjTINUED ON PAGE SB ' iction By Simon D. Ings t

llusuallons By Vem Dufford

"1000 hp on this circuit? Madness." —NiU Lauda

1 — "

The sea is off-white, banded by blue painting of Seurafs Baigneurs. all but expired, "Formula Zero has re- wave-shadow. A line of clotted yet, cioud And A glamour surrounds kindled our infamy," I explained, "rJew lies between it and the cobalt sky of La Danseuses Nouvelles. Us dances play cars. New regulations. They want to re-

Rochelle, Angfeie tail^s bui I'm not lis- out strange, deconstructed stories, and kindle the old magic, It's plastic. Pack- tening, I'm building sand castles, act their warped yet familiar roles with aged. Our sponsors twist incidents in-

I lie down In front of ihe model and an Inhuman grace. Their performances to publicity gimmicks, it sells ratings," pick away the square and the Boulen- whisper of the world as the Programme "It does not anger you?"

grlns with a fingernail, I little press my wants to it. are the I it shape They dream shrugged. "If did not, would I be finger at a slant Into the model to Indl- in its pure state— a glimpse of an end, here?" The claw broke and the gutted cale the tunnel through to the harbor. uncompromised by violent means. corpse soft-landed in a pillow of saffron

The finishing touch: I trail sand between After the show Angela and 1 make rice. It was her turn to smile. my fingers along the edge of the cliff love. It is iove with a fluid rhythm. She pushed aside her plate, lifted her to make the concrete wall Frasange de- There is a sweet, shared violence to it, PC onto the table, licked her fingers molished last year when his throttle Angele gasps and clutches at me, the and typed. She read: "Cool, rational, sel- jarfimed at kph. 600 bed, anything; I gaze into her widening dom angered,— seldom sulks when dis- The Monaco Grand Prix is fifteen eyes. There, in the wet blankness of the appointed " She gave me a cool

I days away. pupil, can see them. I gaze closer, clos- glance. "Bisexual, last cruised In Gron- Angfele peels off her shirt and heads er— Angele's tongue flicks at my chin Ingen four years ago, in '42 had a

for I the water want to join her. The af- and I catch it in my lips, my teeth, suck short relationship with hypertext writer, ternoon has steam-ironed my face and at it like a baby put to the breast. male, in London, long-standing corre- my shirt is dripping sweat. I want to Danseuses Nouvelles— missionaries spondence with lesbian activists—in Se- dive into sea so cold it churns the gut, from the land of strong women — are attle, New York, Brisbane, Porto but I can't risk getting sea water in my dancing in her eyes. She turned the screen round for me jacks this close to a race. to see. "Hardly the stuff of blackmail," It's sunset. turns The haze brown and I said, rotten before Angele reaches the div- Catharine tutted, "Of course not. ing tiers. When she falls her silhouette What would be the point? Publish and 4She held is as sharp and black as the wave shad- be Damned'—that would be your atti- ows, a black slash piercing a hyphen- the orange carcass of her tude, no?" ated surface, I think of trajectories, Gs "It has been for a long tirne. But Hav- latest and vectors, fire masks, halogens, ers has a way of buying off the papers wheel jacks and robots, flags like bun- victim between finger and before things like that get too far," ting and visors filled with drunken thumb and "You must be quite a headache for kangi. her; a 'new man' at pole position." twirled it its The jack behind my anus is itching. by claw, "Ivlaureen Havers is old." I said. "Be- We walk back to town through the ar- I treated cause she's old, 'She's a legend. If a leg- cades to the market. A man is hosing end runs a company it has an interest her to a bitter smile,? the forecourt with seawater. The gutters in creating subsidiary legends appro- are full of tabloids and endive. priate legends." We get a room above a cafe with a "So she puts you in the closet," view of the market roof. We fetch our "I'm glad of the privacy If I were Don from luggage the station, thing I Angele puts The remember most about Cathar- Juan, I wouldn't get any privacy at all. her PC at the foot of the bed, pulls out ine is the way she ate Dublin Bay She'd make sure of it." the IBGN lead and crawls about the prawns. She broke their backs with ca- Catharine stroked her chin, "Is she floor cursing. We miss the first five min- sual, sadistic gestures. When her red an evil woman?" utes of "Danseuses Mouvelles." flicked the tongue back white pus with- "She is sad," I replied, "She lost her They came from Dijon a year ago in them, she put me in mind of a cat. son to Formula Libre in Brazil. Her en- and they're top of the TVP ratings. This was six months ago, in Quimper, gineers built a car that cornered too

They dance to Salieri and Skinny Pup- 1 don't know how she got my number. well for him. The Interlagos circuit py, to De Machaut and The Crucial She told me quite openly who It was curves the wrong way round, fHe Bridging Group. They are a women- she worked for, and since the Program- wasn't properly prepared for the extra only company and espouse the politics me had never to my knowledge G-strain." of the Programme Pour Femmes Fer- worked with men, I was intrigued at her Catharine waved her hand dismissive- m6es— the Agenda for Expressionless invitation. Perhaps It was naive of me, ly, "I'm not Interested in technicalities," Women. Last ihe parlia- year French "They say racing drivers talk more I looked at her a long time then said, ment, outraged atrocities of less by the and do about sex than men in any "He was still burning when I pulled him Aout '34, placed a media ban on the other sport." Sh^ held the orange car- out. His visor had melted into his Programme, The Amazons of the Sor- cass of her latest victim between finger face." She pursed her lips. She even bonne and the Academie Julienne are and thumb and twirled it by its claw had the decency to blush. 'Tm sorry" silenced now, but Danseuses Nou- over her plate, I treated her to a bitter "Formula Libre is just what it says," velles, pieces are the of smile. whose product The playboy reputation, and its I went on. Ignoring her apology "a free- their rrfore sober semiotic researches, sarcastic flip side, is one we no longer for-all, a freak-show for fast cars. But For- have never been more popular. deserve. There is no Baron von Trips mula One was outdated, and good new Few have forgotten or forgiven the on the circuit now, no Count Godin de designers were turning to 'Libre rather sack of the Sacre Coeur, the on-stage Beaufort, no Ines' Ireland, no Lance Re- than be straight-jacketed. Havers built emasculation of Bim Bam's drummer ventlow. Everything has become too up Formula Zero to codify some of lib- and lead guitarist, of the siege the Jeu competitive- and commercial. Indeed, re's better ideas. She made it, and dom- de Paume or the siluationist over- by the nineties the playboy image had inated it, and now, because she's old,

60 OMNI COMTINUED ON PAGE 83 Liberty Science Center. Where Science = Fun. Encounter a surprising new world of invention and wonder at Liberty Science Center. D^With over 250 hands-on science and technology exhibits, and the world's largest OMNIMAX*' theater, it's all just a stone's throw from the Stotue of liberty. c^Liberty Science

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%^\n emerging technologies restore wiiat pollution lias talcen away?

The large, oval- shaped, mauve area at left 15 the ozone hole, which stretches from the South Pole to the tip of South America, at top. Right, top, a scientist checks a steel vessel with cells for sampling ozone depleting pollutants Right,

bottom, IS the sort of weather bal- loon used to measure atmospher- ic ozone and related pollutants.

climate. And, they add, chemicals to patch up the ozone eral Motors. "You really need something more." hole caused by industrial and consumer release of That's where geoengineering comes in. At its simplest, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) may be the only way to pre- geoengineering offers to reforest more than 28 million hec- vent the entry of harsh solar rays and the extra skin can- tares— about 17,500 square miles— of marginal U.S. farm- cers that would result. land, so trees can absorb the carbon dioxide that indus-

If the idea of changing the biosphere sounds risky, re- try and consumers give off. More spectacular proposals spectable scientists nonetheless are taking it seriously. Rob include lofting vast mirrors into space to reflect excess sun- Coppock, who recently directed a National Academy of light away from the planet and thus avoid global warm- Sciences (NAS) study of geoengineering for the U.S. Con- ing; deploying naval guns, rockets, or balloons to carry gress, says, "We were skeptical at first, but many ideas dust or soot into the stratosphere as a planetary sunshade; seemed both feasible and cost effective." fertilizing the ocean to promote the growth of algae that In fact, perusal of the NAS report reveals much to would absorb carbon dioxide; and dumping hydrocarbons choose from. Some of the 59 so-called mitigation strate- into the Antarctic stratosphere to react with CFCs before gies were as simple as painting roofs white to cut down they can destroy the ozone layer. on heat absorption or improving the efficiency of lights As it turns out, say the experts, space-based options and water heaters to cut demand for electricity from coal- can be dismissed out of hand. The price of orbiting mir- fired generators, "Just getting every household in the rors would be as far out of this world as the reflectors them-

United States to replace three incandescent bulbs with selves. If each mirror were 100 million square meters high-efficiency fluorescents would cut residential energy about 39 square miles— it would take 55,000 of them to demand in half," Coppock, now with the World Resourc- counteract the world's output of greenhouse gasses. To es Institute notes. offset only U.S. emissions, 110 mirrors would be required. But according to former NASA Administrator Robert But at space-shuttle prices, the tab for putting them up

Frosch, who wrote most of the geoengineering report, would come to at least $120 billion, not counting the re- these inexpensive options won't be adequate. "If you did flectors themselves. Even by Washington standards, all the relatively cheap options, they would reduce the ef- space reflectors seem expensive. fect of greenhouse gasses by no more than forty percent The obvious alternative is what Frosch calls a "space and perhaps as little as twenty percent," notes Frosch, parasol," an orbiting dust cloud to screen out incoming now vice president for environmental compliance at Gen- sunlight. Ideally the dust particles should be small so that a few tons of tfiem can cover ttie mate Change. Burning fossil fuels dust, so naval artiliery, at only $10 to

largest possible area, keeping launch throws sulfate particles into the air, fil- $30 per kilogram, seems the best

costs to a minimum. But the solar wind tehng out sunlight much like volcanic choice. At that pnce. it would cost less quickly sweeps tiny particles back into dust. Atmospheric chemist Robert than $1 per ton of CO^ to prevent glob-

the planet's atmosphere. And if the par- Charlson of the University of Washing- al warming. Ifwemustshopforgeoengi- ticles are large enough to remain in or- ton in Seattle calculates that pollution neering strategies, this is the bargain bit, the price of putting them there cools the northern hemisphere down to basement. soars out of sight. the tune of one watt of solar energy per A fourth Frosch idea is to use According to the report, some terrestrh square meter, countecacting about 40 planes and boats to give off pollutants al options for geoengineehng may be percent of the global warming caused that would, in turn, counteract the ef- more economic, to say the least. One by the greenhouse effect. fects of global warming. For instance, category, flippantly dubbed "pollution Pure dust at very high altitudes in the geoengineers could detune the engines pro bono," is the ultimate quick-and- stratosphere, according to NAS calcu- of commercial aircraft flying higher

dirty answer to global warming: Just lations, would be even more effective than 30,000 feet so that 1 percent of add some soot, dust, or sulfuric acid to at counteracting the greenhouse effect. their fuel gets spewed out as soot. At the stratosphere and make a sunshade A single kilogram offsets 400 tons of that altitude, Frosch explains, particu- H//f/iouf paying for space launches. It's COg in the air, according to the NAS cal- lates remain in the air for only 83 days,

not as outlandish as it sounds^Mt. Pl- culations. At that rate, 20 million kilo- on" average, compared with two to natubo did just that in 1991. Since grams would eliminate any warming three years for stratospheric dust. So then, according to the National Ocean- due to U.S. greenhouse emissions. The the sun screen must be renewed more

ic and Atmospheric Administration, the atmosphere already receives between often. But the price is lower— it would planet has cooled about 1.5 degrees, 1 and 3 billion tons of dust each year, cost just a penny a year to offset the

and the temperature seems likely to dip most of it from natural sources, so the damage of a ton of COj. another half degree or so— four times amount to be added seems likely to Similar results would come from burn- more than enough to reverse all the glob- prove harmless. ing sulfur on ships steaming back and al warming believed to have occurred The MAS report suggests three forth across the South Pacific, sending since the last century. ways to distribute the dust; Launch it a sulfur-dioxide aerosol into the lower In fact, acid pollution spewed into the with rockets like the surplus Nike Ori- atmosphere. Water would condense on

lower atmosphere by factory smoke- on, lift It with the helium balloons now the sulfur-dioxide droplets, creating ar- stacks may already shield much of used to carry scientific payloads, or tificial clouds. And according to several

North America and Europe from global shoot it into the stratosphere with na- studies, it would take only a 4-percent warming, according to the United Na- val guns. Rockets and balloons would increase in cloud cover over the oceans tions Intergovernmental Panel on Cli- cost from S80 to $100 per kilogram of to offset the warming caused by a dou- bling of atmospheric CO^. Again, the cost seems reasonable, as geoengi-

neering plans go. It would take an esti- mated 6 million tons per year of sulfur to produce the desired clouds. Assum- ing that a single ship can burn 100 tons per day, then 200 ships at sea 300

days per year would do the trick. If the ships cost $100 million each, plus

$10,000 per day to operate, it would cost a dollar per ton of COj to eliminate the greenhouse effect. That's an attrac- tive price, even compared with the cheapest energy-saving strategies. Predictably, all these schemes came under attack as soon as they were announced. Chief among the orlt- ics is Seattle's Robert Charlson, whose work helped inspire this line of geoengi- neering in the first place. "Some peo- ple have misinterpreted our findings," he declares. Using sulfates or dust to counteract global warming "is an unwork- able proposition. You would have to have a designer sulfate and disthbute

it in just the right fashion. It's impossible to get that level of control."

Even if you could, he adds, "it still wouldn't solve the problem. The goal isn't just to avoid a slight increase in av- erage global temperature, but to avoid climatic changes— droughts or flooding where we're not prepared for them. Greenhouse gases trap heat both night and day, but sulfates or dust would screen it out only during the day. is planting trees in Guatemala on the the- than half the size of the United States. You might get the average temperature ory tfiat they'll soak up as much CO^ as Then again, not all crops require to balance, but you'd alter the day- their Connecticut power plant emits. land. At the Electric Power Research In- night temperature difference. In princi- The real goal, however, is not just to stitute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, California, en- ple, that might render whole portions of grow trees, but to substitute blomass en- gineer Dwain F Spencer is designing ttie planet uninhabitable." ergy for petroleum. Oil constantly pulls giant kelp farms to produce biomass en-

In light of these objections, geoengi- carbon from deep in the ground where ergy under tbe sea. Eventually, they

neers fiave come up with less conten- it's been locked away fortens of millions could cover some 7 million square

tious ways of fighting global warming. of years and spews it into the atmos- miles of the ocean's surface. "Each In fact, the only plan that virtually no one phere. In contrast, blomass emits no farm would produce about eighteen mil- argues with is to stop cutting down more carbon dioxide than the plants ab- lion cubic feet of methane per day," trees. In nature, trees are an important sorbed from the air in the first place. In Spencer reports. "It would take twenti^ sink for COg. Wood is about half car- theory, switching to blomass energy five hundred of Ihem to equal U.S. pro- bon, and trees absorb carbon dioxide coufd halt the increase in global 002- duction of natural gas." very efficiently until they mature; in According to biologist David Hall of Geoengineers interested in the some species, this fast-growing period King's College of the University of Lon- ocean have also been exploring anoth- can last 40 to 50 years. And when don, in fact, the strategies of reforesta- er option —absorbing excess COj with burned or allowed to rot, trees are a ma- tion, increased energy efficiency, and the equivalent of an ocean rain forest, jor source of COg, methane, and other conversion to biomass wherever pos- the huge quantities of marine algae greenhouse gases. Some ecologists esti- sible could cut COg emissions in half in that can be cultivated in the sea. The mate that protecting just one forest, the about 60 years. idea was first spawned by biologist

Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve in Costa Ri- Unfortunately, it takes a lot of bio- John Martin of California's Moss Land- ca's Corcovado National Park, will mass, mostly in the form of trees, to ing Marine Laboratory. Martin's plan save 8.7 million metric tons of carbon make a difference; that's why some- was born of a mystery that has puzzled over the next ten years. thing as simple as planting trees is marine biologists for years. In parts of Take the next step, planting new called geoengineering in the first the Pacific, the water is rich in nutrients trees, and the Johnny Appleseed op- place. Hall himself estimates that offset- like nitrogen and phosphorous, yet mi-— tion becomes a form of geoengineering ting just 5.4 billion tons per year of car- croscopic plants—phytoplankton as well A few U.S. utility companies are bon generated by fossil fuels might re- grow poorly It isn't that the water is too already creating forests in order to off- quire as much as 600 million hectares cold or the light insufficient. The limiting

set the COj produced by their coal- of biomass plantations^which would factor, it turns out, is iron. Whenever Mar- fired generators. For example. Applied encompass an area equal to 40 per- tin and colleagues fertilized water from Energy Ser^'ices of Arlington, Virginia, cent of the world's cropland, or more CONTINUED ON PAGE 92

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I NVENTION TUESDAYS Disnouery TUESDAYS 9pmet/ T 9:30PMrT/PT —

imXERV/lEUU The primal dramatist: He sees the script of human evolution vividly played out by the great apes.

9 arvard Universily: Four Mh1 hundred students watch as a slide is projected of a large silver-bacl

Irven DeVore is in his natural habitat, explaining the facts and implications of human evolution to a highly appreciative crowd of Harvard undergraduates. Of course, DeVcre doesn't always please the crowd. There are times when throuCjh .neglect or profound intrapsychic disconnect or whatever—DeVore fumbles and fails, and Harvard's fickle undergraduates turn from adoration to scorn, filling the lecture hall with loud sounds of hissing. In this situation, on the way out of the hall,

DeVore will stroke his chin and declare to his retinue of teaching assistants, "Another case of casting false pearls before real swine." Now it's their turn tc laugh. By God, nothing fazes this man, and by implication, nothing should faze them either. Teaching human evolution is a little like juggling: The more topics you keep in the air, the better the show. By this criterion, Irv DeVcre puts on a good show, indeed. A master of pnmate behavior, he has 20 years of field experience studying human hunters and gatherers. He routinely keeps up with the latest work in paleontology and archaeology as well as "

neurobiology and psycholo- DeVore's conversion to gy. And' unique among sociobiology was about as anthropologists of his genera- pleasant as "Saul's on the

tion, he has mastered the road to Tarsus." At its new research in soctoblology. conclusion, DeVore stood Born and raised in rural firmly on his own, but his Texas," DeVore did under- relationship with Washburn graduate worl< at the was ruptured, his reputation

University of Texas, Pursuing as a political liberal at risk. his doctorate in American For him, the separation Indian archaeology at the between humans and other University of Chicago, in the creatures—between biology late Fifties, he fell under the and social sciences—was sway of Sherwood Washburn, forever eradicated. a noted anthropologist with As befits a person of his the wit at that time to study intelligence and warmth, baboons instead of humans, DeVore has attracted a in his doctoral study on the swarm of outstanding stu- social life of East African dents who now populate baboons, DeVore discovered major universities throughout a central hierarchy among the United States and the adult males In a troop. beyond. Perhaps those who Harvard's Peabedy Musevm; DeVnre Several support each other in give him greatest pride are recently curofad an exhibit interactions with males out- the women, some of whom featuring his pfaeles af Kalahari bwshmets. side the hierarchy, so victory (such as Sarah Hrdy at the between two males is often University of California at contingent on the behavior of Davis and Barbara Smuts at in their 'wars' differ a third baboon. This was the the University of (ylichigan) significantly frorri the first clearly demonstrated are defining a feminism firmly S0CI0B10L0®¥: raiding by human case of reciprocal altruism rooted In evolutionary biology.

"It has brought about a males from tribal seen outside our own iviarried to Nancy Similes, revolution in under- kinship units on males species; each male tending who runs Anthro Photo, standing how evolution in an adjoining ter- to solicit for support a male DeVore is the father of two has sliaped behavior. ritory, where the intent who had recently solicited children and grandfather to At heart is the IS to secure larger land him, DeVore's research was three more. Now silver haired demonstration thai nat- resources and capture part of the new wave in himself and busy with a ure! selection is most females and young." primatology in which social thousand and one commit- accurately seen from relations in monl^eys and ments, DeVore sat down for the 'point of view' of apes are scrupulously stud- this interview in his spacious the individual and the ied in the wild to gain per- office at Harvard's Peabody gene father than a To understand culture- spective On human evolution. Museum of Anthropology process operating on less, stripped-down DeVore's embrace of — Robert L. Trivers a group or species. animal societies as primate behavior soon led Editor's note: Bob Trivers, We can now analyze a way of thinl<;ing him to evolutionary theory. the DeVore teaching assis- with some rigor com- about Individuals In This had a shattering effect tant "lurking in the shadows, plex behaviors such social groups In on his relationship with is now an eminent sociobiolo- terms. mentor and friend Sherry glst Professor of biology at truism, parental care, Washburn. Washburn was the University of California at mate choice, and used to thinl

employed by chimps send expeditions!" individual genetic advantage. I l

stretch across Europe, Asia, and Afri- unlikely that australopithectnes could states, and societies over which they ca and cover the iast 5 miilion years. have been pair-bonding. hold dominion, that are not polygynous. The riew finds are so rich thai we can Omni: Can we assume that the upright, High-status males almost always have now argue about the fine detaiis of hu- tool-using hominid adaptation was so numerous wives, and lowest-status man evolution. successful that it swept all other crea- have none. Clearly, culture makes a

Omni: You and I l^now there's no "miss- tures before it? huge difference. ing link." So what do we have? DeVore: Exactlyl Only a few years ago, In a few societies, polyandry— sev- DeVore: There never was a "creature" when fossil finds were scarce and dat- eral men, usually brothers, married to between ourselves and the chimpan- ing methods poor, it was perfectly fea- the same woman— predominates. Oth- zee. Chimps and hominids have had 5 sible to squeeze all forms into a single er matrilineal societies trace kin rela- to 6 million years of independent evo- line, from a primitive ancestor right tions through women. The bond be- lution. We stand in reiation to chimps through to modern l-lomo sapiens. In ret- tween husband and wife is often weak, as, say, second cousins who are de- rospect, we shouldn't be surprised sexual infidelity high, and divorce easy. scended from common great-grandpar- that the later hominids coexisted Such societies commonly rely on a broth- ents. Meverlheless, when you examine One of the most perplexing problems er/sister household. The male authority the remains of the earliest austraiopithe- is the Neanderthals. Until recently, we figure is not the father, but the mother's cines Australopithecus afarensis. thought of them as a genetic popula- brother: the uncle. Child rearing is not "Lucy" and her kin^—you're looking at tion isolated by the continental ice entrusted to a male-female bond a creature 3 to 4 million years old that sheets in Western Europe. Now, Ofer based on sexual interests between hus- comes amazingiy close to combining hu- Bar-Yosef [Harvard] and colleagues band and wife, but is organized around man and ape traits. have clear evidence from caves in Is- the more stable brother-sister unit. Hus- These early australopiihecines had rael that Neanderthals and Homo sapi- band/fathers may come and go, but the clearly adapted to bipedal walking, yet ens lived contemporaneously—some- underlying stability of the domestic unit neither the pelvis nor the feet are fully is not jeopardized by the shifting sexu- modern. The arms are long and "ape- al interests of the parents. like," the fingers and toes long and Omni: Haven't you just described a curved. This suggests they were still world of male chauvinist fantasy, first reaction spending a lot of time in the trees or 6My where males "of strength and status they had only very recenliy evolved in- to the new theories of give vent to their basest sexual appe- to upright walkers. Both could be true. sociobiology was tites and reproductive drivps. Add to this that they had ape-sized DeVore: That is the judgment of most brains and the males had much longer to dismiss them. But after people in our society, and it's heavily canines than females, and you have a six months, my reinforced by church, state, and cultur- creature that is a mosaic of ape and hu- al values. But in most cultures, women previous view of the world man traits. Someday we'll find an earli- would be furious if a law were passed er and even more apelike hominid, but crashed. Almost that decreed they could not become afarensis is already so close in time and the second, third, or sixth wife of a overnight I was converted. body form to the great apes, we can al- wealthy high-status male when the al- most predict what a creature that is ternative was a monogamous union even closer to the division of apes and with a poor, low-status male. hominids will look like. Omni: Why might a woman join a polygy- Omni: Can you describe how our ape times in adjacent caves— for about nous household? ancestors behaved? 100,000 years. Both used comparative- DeVore: Polygyny seems more frequent DeVore: Not really but one colleague ly simple Mousterian tools, based on in the tropics and in sections highest in has postulated that the evolutionary suc- flakes struck from rock cores. parasites. This makes sense if the cess of the early hominids is based on Cro-Magnon l-lomo sapiens, best polygynous male has better genes. the factlhat males and females were known from Western Europe, emerged Where parasite load [variations in mor- pair-bonding, and males heavily invest- only 35,000 years ago. About 20,000 tality and fecundity due to parasites] is ed in their offspring. I think the chance years ago. Homo sapiens emerged tri- higlier, people will emphasize parasite- that this was true is near zero. umphant with the complex, late-Paleo- resistant genes in choice of mates at Early australopitheclnes showed too lithic tool kit: harpoons, needles, the expense of parental investment. much physical dimorphism between the knives, arrow points, and so on. Poor Omni: What criteria might humans use sexes. Estimates of the greater size of old Neanderthal sticks to Mousterian to select tor such genes? afarensis males over females range tools for 100,000 years and goes kaput DeVore: That's the questJonI In other from 1 .5 to 1 .8 depending on what you about33,000yearsago. At the very lat- species, especially birds and lizards, measure. There is no living mammal est stage, on the threshold of domina- bright coloration and complex song re- and certainly no living primate in tion by Homo sapiens, two exceeding- veal absence of parasites, but except which such a big difference in male/ ly similar species are coexisting. for song and dance—which may in- female size has led to pair-bonding or Omni: Are humans pair-bonding? deed be better developed among trop- significant male investment in offspring. DeVore: In the West, we assume the ical peoples—we know of no trait obvi- Looking only at relative body weights, "natural condition" is monogamy, with ously evolved to reveal parasite load In male to female, of the apes and our- significant investment in offspring by hus- humans. David Buss and colleagues selves, we find the foltowing; gibbons band/father. But a worldwide sample of find thai parasite load correlates with em- are 1:1; we are T2:1: chimpanzees are over 1,500 human cultures strongly ar- phasis on physical attractiveness in 1.4:1; gorillas 2:1; and orangutans gues that the vast majority either encour- mate choice. Where average parasite 2.3:1. Only the gibbons, who are phys- age or at least tolerate polygyny— sev- load is higher, people pay more atten- ically monomorphic, are monogamous, eral women married to a single man. I tion {or at least claim to) to physical beau- pair-bonding apes. So it's exceedingly know of no society outside nation- ty in choosing a mate in contrast to fi- 72 OMNI delity and wealth. Even in a society ing that grows out of the fear that what- man nature, most anthropologists, so- with a relatively modest parasite load ever is biological must be "natural and ciologists, and psychologists accepted such as ours, we know from vast expe- good"—hence, a scientific justification the received cultural values that exhort rience that physical beauty is an Import- foralloftheevilin the world. This is non-- individuals toward altruistic behavior as ant factor throughout our lives, sense: Diphtheria and typhoid are "nat- the behavioral norm — as truth. I now Omni: But what is physical beauty? ural"; vaccines against diseases are "cul- see individuals exhorting each other to DeVore: Symmetrical faces seem to be tural," Ninety-nine percent of all species behave altruistically while privately be- especially pleasing to other humans. Ju- in the fossil record have either gone ex- having selfishly Certain politicians and dith Langois has shown that when a se- tinct or evolved into forms so different televangelists come immediately to ries of real faces is computer averaged, they cannot be referred' to their an- mind. On the other hand, many of the people prefer the averaged faces. And cestors. Natural selection is a terrible most enduring cultural and religious val- averaging mai

Parasites are likely to be a major tists" had been suborned by their infor- DeVore: It certainly did But after near-

cause of asymmetry in the body, since mants While a few—^especiallv econo- ly a decade working through what I mi- in parasites typically have localized ef- mists^ie^nqnizpd splfFh inntivp'^ liu liallv saw as contradictions I came lo fects, and where these interfere with de- velopment, they'll lead to asymmetries. As so often happens in nature, male- male competition and female choice ap- pear to go hand in hand. Asymmetries will also make it less likely that males will succeed in aggressive encounters Get with other males. It's greatly satisfying to see symmetry reemerge as a central concept of evolutionary biology, not in From some abstract way, but In a concrete form that links detection of parasite dam- Neck age with physical beauty. Omni: You were a social anthropolo- A Conservative Hieiapy, gist, and many social scientists sound-; Comprehensiveiy Applied ly rejected sociobiology. What led you The Bad Mechne combines the most to be an early advocate of this theory? effectii e ways to attam relief trom hack DeVore; That's a planted question if I and ned pain into one easv to use, safe ever heard one! As you know very unif designed to help you return to well, it was you who sat at my kitchen nonnal, pam tree life And it feels good, table night after night and patiently ex- even it ou hurt. plained the intellectual revolution being J How The Back Machine "Works; brought ^out by William , Hamilton, • Massage - Soft rollers massage musdes, G. C. Williams, and John Ivlaynard- inaeasing rirculation, redudng musde spasm Smith. Within a few years, your own con- tension and stress. tributions were to transform the field. • Stretching - Musdes are passively stietdied, These new theories ran contrary lo al- inaeasing Hexibility and redudng pain. most everything I'd learned, and my Traction - Mild fraction restores spine length and first reaction was to utterly dismiss pliability, relieving disc pressure. them. But after about six months, my pre-

• MobiJiMfwii -Restoration of movement I vious view of the world crashed, and al- promotes ahgtunent of the spine. most overnight I was converted, Five Years of Clinical Use Omni: Converted? Tested for over five years by doctors, physical thera- DeVore: Yes. This theory is so funda- pists, and chiropractors, The Back Machine has Seen mental that you can't accept just little proven safe, effective, and comfortable. pieces of it. rejecting portions you don't 60-Day Home Trial like. It's all or nothing. Sociobiology was We're so confident youll expenence immediately attacked by the left as a relief from back and neck gene-driven theory of biological reduc- pain that we offer Tlie tionism. Since we saw it as the current Back Machine witii an culmination of the Darwinian synthesis, unconditional

I found this quite ironic. Darwin's origi- money back guarantee. nal work was attacked by the Establish- ment of England and America as be- Call or V^rite ing "radical," and now the logical syn- Today For FREE Back Technologies thesis of Dara/in and modern genetics BROCHURE AND VIDEO 52^5 West Lasino Road •Everell, WA. 93204 was being attacked as "conservative," 1-800-433-5599 I^«)0-433-5599 The critics of sociobiology suc- © 1992 Back Technologies, Inc. cumbed to a form of fallacious reason- —

see that most social science was tends to be far more flamboyant and the husband. This new work may force based on "group-selection thinking": male reproductive success tends to even you biologists to enlarge your un- that because humans are a social spe- vary more than females'. Yet my female derstanding of sexual selection.

cies, individuals must suborn their self- graduate students knew in their guts Omni: How is that, In/? ish motivations for the good of the this could not be the whole story; they DeVore; You see sexual selection as group. This logic is both compelling began to educate themselves and me. consisting usually only of male-male com- and human6^ "If we do not hang togeth- Together we worked through the reali- petition and female choice. But Smuts' er, we shall surely hang separately." Un- ty of male-female relations in animal and work calls attention to male coercion of fortunately, every attempt to model human societies. Perh&ps I'm proudest female sexuality as an evolutionary group benefit, as opposed to individual of the fact that these bright young won^- force. Male coercion limits female

benefit, has failed. Since we are the en, confronted with fundamental theo- choice, but it may also force costs on first species sentient enough to recog- ry in biology, are able to reconcile so- females, causing them to pursue a

nize the Inexorable and avi^ul implica- cial and feminist concerns with it. less profitable life than without the co- tions of natural selection, we are the Omni: Can you give me an example? ercion. Male sexual coercion uses the first to have opportunities lo ameliorate DeVore: Male domination of women cost, or threat of cost, to manipulate the

the process. But as I look about me, I as measured by the grievous statistics female. If 10 to 30 percent of the off- see the vast majority of humans follow- on murder, rape, spousal assault, and spring in each generation are lost to ing the ancient, selfish, and ultimately Infant killing, and myriad lesser costs male reproductive coercion, we're deal- destructive dictates of natural selection, Is unquestionably a major problem in hu- ing with a major evolutionary force.

Omni: Why did social theory refuse to man society. What has been in doubt A common theme is turning up all acknowledge biology for so long? is how recent a phenomenon this over the animal world; Females may be DeVore: The relationship between biol- might be. Barbara Smuts' review sug- forced to buy into a degree of domina-

ogy and social theory has a sad histo- gests it is not recent at all. A general tion and abuse by one male to protect ry. For more than a century biologists herself from worse abuse by others. have put forth deterministic theories This may be the fly-in-the-ointment of about human social behavior. Almost all sexual selection, In the Eighties, many had a hidden agenda—some variation of us came to imagine a world where

I look about on the "master race." So social scien- 4As female choice often ruled for female tists have quite rightly rejected such the- me, I see the vast majority benefit. Male-male competition would ories forcefully. the other the On hand, evolve under female control, as I used of humans major social theorists turned to biology to say, like a giant tournament designed for the underpinnings of their theories, following the ancient to reveal to choosing females the fittest Marx even wrote to Da™/in asking if he selfish, and genes for future progeny could dedicate Das Kapilal to him. Male coercion takes the system down- ultimately destructive While biology .has moved forward rap- hill, subverts female choice to choos- idly, attempts by social theorists to hard- dictates ing the lesser of two evils, limiting fe- en and biologize their theories have male choice to become an offshoot of of natural seiection.9 served them ill in every instance, Small male coercion. The only challenge to fe- wonder that many colleagues, thrice male choice as an overriding force for burned, feel they must slay the dragon female gain is that male coercion may on sociobiology force the female Into a relatively narrow Critics from social science and phi- pattern of male coercion of female sex- choice—which male can best help pre- losophy must now argue that humans uality exists in many primates. Male ag- vent molestation by others. are not part of the natural world. Anthro- gression toward females commonly ris- Omni: What is most cogent about field pologists have argued that natural se- es as the females become more sexu- studies of monkeys and apes? lection and other biological processes ally attractive, because dominant males DeVore: We've only begun to throw off brought'hominids to the threshold of seek to prevent female sexual congress the straitjackel of theories that tended modern humanity, but then culture with other males, some of whom may to "decorticate" our subjects. We have took over entirely. Such an argument is be preferred by the female. Forced cop- a fundamentally similar brain to the pri- fatally flawed. Those characteristics ulations, infanticide, aggression toward mates and perceive our worid the way that have become incorporated into the and murder of females occur through- they do. Today, we realize social human genome were incorporated be- out primates but with very different fre- groups of primates are rich tapestries cause they increased Inclusive fitness quencies in different species. of individual strategies, coalition forma- and so were adaptively patterned. To Female vulnerability may depend tions, friendships, and social memories. assert anything else is to maintain that strongly on the existence or nonexist- Omni: Social memones? somehow a large number of innate char- ence of female kin and/or friends who DeVore: In highly specialized species acteristics, ones that did not correlate can provide support. Gorilla females, for like baboons and chimpanzees, individ- with fitness, displaced those that were example, live in one-male units without uals have strong expectations that a fa- more fit. Advocates of this position adultfemale relatives to help them. The vor done for a fellow group member must explain how evolutionary process- male Is twice their size. They are very will be returned in the future. If this re- es systematically produced maladap- vulnerable. If there's no support avail- turned favor is not forthcoming, we see tive trails! able, the female may need to seek pro- a reaction ranging from a subtle distanc- Omni: Are you still being attacked by tection from a single male in exchange ing of the relationship to an explosion feminists? for more or less exclusive sexual of righteous indignation. Because we DeVore: Oh yes, but not much an^^ rights. This logic. Smuts suggests, is at are so like them, we probably can in- more. At first, our investigations were work in our species. In many societies, terpret the chimpanzee expectation of largely devoted to analyzing strategies marriage protects a woman from rape "fair play" with considerable accuracy of male reproduction —mate behavior by outside males while legalizing it by Many of us now feel similar behaviors 74 OMNI ' ;

AmTimATTER

merits of Stonehenge and the patterns in Britain's cereal crops part of the same orgy of circular construction?

Beginning some 5,000 years ; space," with the spi England's Stone and Bronze Agein senting the vagina of Mother Earth

[Habitants indulged in an orgy o f cir id the flattened surrounding a cuiar construction, erecting n10 rt than 900 stone rings and anothe 30,000 to 40,000 earthen round bar rows. Many of the rock ring;;, which Stonehenge is but the 1bes known example, served as solar ant e slightly off-center lunar calendars, while the barr nw! were typically used as burial sites But why the fixation on circula forms? And even more puzzling I ral pi ' slightly off-center in an elliptical egi tects weren't being cryptic, in other shape when a true circle wouli iply replicating found in nature. _j ^„ Meaden's theory that crop circles ence Meaden, seems coi jpplied the template for Stonehenge

L "I suggest some were built square- similar structures has met with skepticism fruin some archaeologists and cerealogists. "It's nothing jthor of The Goddess of the Stones but a wild guess," says John Michelt, hir for students of dent of British antiquities and editor of ft

lar patterns appearing in Brit; il, The Cerealogist :ade alone, more than 2,000 u. )rey Burl, England's foremost authority on mysterious circles have cropped up worldwide, stone circles, concedes the idea is "superficially in-

ovenwhelming majority appearing in the ar- teresting," t'lt he doubts it will ever hold water. "For -"*-' " ' '"" 1 and west of Lor "cultivated crops were on hand All of the more com tograms. are undoubtedly the product of ing, claims Meaden. Others, he theorizes, are caused by tiny, electrically charged whirlwinds. Ac- cording to Meaden, such vortexes can glow visibly at tronomically aligned. "I ^ „^ night and could conceivably be responsible for many incidence to the alignment of stars and deliberate hu- ' ' —"" *'"'" UFO reports and related phenomena. If Meaden is man activity rather than to any aft correct, these vortexes might have resulted in UFO ys Burl ordinary monuments like Meaden, whose new book, The Stonehenge So- ^..^,.a^ „ les as well. lution, concentrates chiefly on the construction of For one thing. Meaden argues, the predominant re- Stonehenge, didn't create the situation but maintains '-'--' "" "' '- " explain it." In fact, says Mead- :one circles in the first millenni- 10 one thought of making rings

1, it was a period of the earliest timber circles, which unfortunately did not survive." —DENNIS STACY . "

AmTifmATTER

totally awake as time stopped and the mer

before my eyes. . . A strange giddiness suf- f^— fused — '-"— - Alkon book, Memory's Voice (HarperCollins)- Alkon's tale is typical of tfie sense of euphoha. He saw accounts of 8 million a "kind of light against a Americans who claim to blue background," p-" have had near-death haps owing to anoxi

lack of oxygen to t Oxygen deprivation, Alkon es, might have heading laboratories at triggered the firing of I both the National Institutes of Health and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachu- setts, Alkon is in a unique

sense of relief and release reviewing ail of what you

rhe feeling, he says, was 'marvelously pleasant." ilHiiiWiiiiiiiviiJ valuable lesson fi journey to the pi

's helpf

ndon all effort. lei go. And you don't have to t I ' " " ( Nadis a

ABDUCTION SURVEY I Vegas

a recent Roper Poll of 6,000 Americans. Accord- ing to the poll, an astounding 2 percent of Ihie adult population, or some 3.7 million people, may be abductees. even if they don't quite know it HOTLINE TO HE&VgN primary goal was strength- the heavenly kind, ^ During the 1992 presiden- ening connections with you can call Tapestry's tial campaign, a group of guardian angels through hotline at 1-800-28- "angelologists" worked qui- 'creative offerings" to the ANGEL. For interested etly behind the scenes. ligher world. An even callers, Martin-Kuri will "We weren't trying to bigger, Second American even consult, at a cost of influence the election," Conference on Angels, will $1 00 per hour, over the be held in Boston this phone. One client, who June. "It will focus on the had a history of exploiting specific tasks angels want other people, for instance the new president had a us to do," Martin-Kuri was encouraged by his rapport with Uhel, th( savs. A orocer may act guardian angel to give ur archangel of our nati nicer to his customers. A that way of life. The man elevated to that lofty post lolitician may try to unite now works tor the in 1988- Marti n-Kuri says spiritual concepts with homeless, Martin-Kuri she and her associates at jragmafic goals." claims. Another client— Tapestry—a Falmouth, According to Martin- woman living what Martin Massachusetts, firm devot-

fit..... also ike aliens," which have home was urged to d paralyzed, I anqeis—nave worked — iMiiJLtgh the air, experi- recently invaded the become more sociable. A enced a time loss of an angel turf. Rather, few years later, says or more, seen Tapestry deals with the Martin-Kuri, she was give ;ual balls of light in a good, old-fashioned a large Victorian home

1, or found puzzling angels described in the and used it to entertain 5 on their bodies. Old Testament and other and help people interact According to UFO buff 'good books." on "a higher spiritual Bob Bigelow, the Las For more information of Diane."—Steve Nadis Emory, 1 watched a male r cause the greatly enlarged areas of the inJTERVIElAJ licit a female. She came forward eager- human brain that facilitate information CONTINUED r-ROM p; ly to embrace him in the face-to-face po- processing and the subtle use of the vo- sition, which he refused, trying to turn cal apparatus are simply not large in exist in other primates, such as ba- her around for dorsal/ventral inter- chimpanzees. It's remarkable that boons, less like us in gestures and oth- course. Finally, she accepted inter- chimps have progressed as far as er methods of expressing behavior. course "doggy style" but immediately they have toward linguistic communica- Omni: Can behaviors in the living aftera/ard insisted on a second copu- tion, and most of the earlier studies are great apes be used to help understand lation in the face-to-face position. This now viewed with considerable skepti- human evolution? struck me as a chimpanzee version of cism. We are just beginning to appre- DeVore: Recently we've discovered be- the film Quest for Fire, which in any ciate the complexity and subtlety of the havior in chimpanzees no responsible case should have been called Quest for chimpanzee mind and behavior and

scientist would have imputed to our hom- the Missionary Position. that it's an anthropocentric pretense to inid ancestors even a decade ago, Omni: These chimpanzee behaviors insist that they meet a human measure, Jahe Goodall's study sites at Gombe suggest a social organization and ad- to communicate in a modern language. and Toshisada Nishida's site in the aptation we assume our ancestors led. Omni: Why have you become involved mountains of Tanzania indicate that But the most distinctive human charac- in dolphin studies? chimps use tools and that males will teristic is missing: language. DeVore: There's a strong temptation to occasionally surround and kill young DeVore: Language has led to a human test the principles of behavioral ecology

animals. At Gombe, it was not clear adaptation in which we view our clos- on a species that's been separated whether males were actually hunting est relatives, the chimps, across a nar- from land vertebrates by 50 million

or simply aggregated in an area and row but deep chasm. Nonetheless, I years. The opportunity came when a fortuitously captured a small animal. In see no reason to suppose anything group of dolphins at Monkey Mia, the Tai Forest of the Ivory Coast, as Shark Bay, Vutestern Australia, sought hu- reported by Christophe and Hedwige man contact over a number of years. Boesch, it's clear the hunt Is highly Nine or ten come in daily to interact organized. Female chimps in the Tai For- with humans in ankle-deep water. est are expert tool makers, using a va- 6The bonobos' Dolphin and' whales studies have suf- riety of hardwoods to crack different copulations struck me as a fered because one normally only has a kinds of nuts. They systematically chimpanzee few weeks a year to observe their be- cache rare stones, fetching them havior; then they're off at sea. This dol- when a hard-nut tree is in fruit. version of Quest for Fire, phin population remains throughout Omni: There's a division of labor be- which in their lives at Monkey Mia. We observe tween males and females? them day after day as if watching a should've DeVore: Yes, and this until recently has any case been troop of baboons. We've identified been considered a hallmark of the hu- called Quest more than 200 individuals. Dolphins ap- man economic system. One of my fa- pear to have a social organization re- for the Missionary Position.^ vorite anecdotes from this study con- markably like chimpanzees'. Coalitions cerns two males seen gathering large of males patrol areas within which fe- quantities of hard nuts. They brought males and young have individual forag- them to an old female who was sitting ing zones. There's a dominance hierar- at the foot of a tree with cracking like modern language preceded by any chy within each male subgroup. Two stones. The males dumped the nuts in- appreciable period of time the appear- gangs will merge for an hour or so, but to her lap and waited patiently while she ance of Homo sapiens. Although many when they divide again, the member- eracked-the nuts for all three of them. colleagues would disagree with me, I ship will not have changed. Watching

The so-called pygmy chimp or bono- consider it an open question whether them from a boat, I felt I was seeing a bo lives' in such a remote region in Neanderthals had what we'd call a "mod- marine version of West Side Story. Zaire that studying them in the wild has ern language." Omni: You've invested heavily in your proven frustrating. Frans de Waal and Omni: Are you suggesting a protolan- students rather than do fundamental re- his colleagues at Emory report that guage, or prelanguage period? search yourself. Any regrets? male bonobos in captivity regularly ex- DeVore: Unfortunately, every language DeVore: Early on I realized there were change food for sexual intercourse today is equally modern in that it follows at least a hundred questions about the with females. Bonobos may be the sex- the same basic linguistic, principles. nature of behavior I'd like to investigate iest of all primates. Bonobo females One can imagine from studies of lan- and that with the best will in the world,

mate through the menstrual cycle, dur- guage acquisition in children, a stage I might make it through four or five. So

ing pregnancy, and lactation. Female with stripped-down and simplified linguis- I made a strategic decision to guide bonobos frequently bond with each oth- tic ability— a fevi* nouns, a few "opera- graduate students toward questions I er by what observers call "G/G rub- tor" words as action words—would felt important. This was painful, be- bing," bringing their genital areas to have benefited the rapid evolution of cause my happiest days were watch- bear and rubbing vigorously with obvi- traits in the human line without coming ing baboons go into their trees at ous mutual pleasure. close to a modern language. dusk, and sitting around the campfire Female bonobos also seem to pre- Omni: What about the great apes that with bushmen or Efe Pygmies. Although fer copulation in the ventral/ventral po- have been taught to "speak"? I had numerous regrets in my thirties sition, whereas males apparently do DeVore: Like everyone, I've been in- and forties, looking back as I approach not. clitoris in The the female bonobo thgued by the various labs that have my sixties, I feel I made the right deci- is positioned much more toward the taught American sign language to sion. My best efforts were spent for oth- front than in the common chimpanzee. chimps and- gorillas. I've always had se- ers to carry out fieldwork in areas I One afternoon-at the captive colony at rious doubts about the enterprise, be- could never achieve in one lifetime. DO 80 OMNI © ARTCUMINGS

I

I-f genius ' Immorfcality

(5 tKe abiljt/ is withtn -to express -bhe -famiio;^ m/ in an unfamiliar way "

rebuilt her. Nanotech CNS upgrades GRAND saved her from spending the rest of her CONTINUED FROM PAGE 60 life in a wheelchair."

I nodded. "And some." Helene is a

It dominates her." good dancer. Still. I thought about it. "And she is hated, is she not?" '41. In '42 Helene and Danseuses "Havers' constructors spend haif went on TV. Quick work, "Programme' their time back-stabbing eacliotlier, but money?" I asked. I knew rushing the there's no real power to be had till she Sao Paulo .technique cost a great deal. goes. But that's not what you meant, "We look after our owii," Catharine is it?" replied. "So does Havers. Doesn't she?" A smile played about her tips, The jack behind my arse itched. "louche." There's a lot of bad blood between We catch a train to Nice, It's out of re- the Programme Pour Femmes Ferm6es cession now, It even boasts a sand and Maureen Havers. When she was beach (imported) and a few working pub- young and cared nothing about cars, lic telephones—which Is more than

Maureen revived Psyche et Po, Anto- could be said of it before. inette Fouque's 1972 outfit which dom- We eat at Le Safari. Angele is pissed inated the French women's liberation off and she won't tell me why. I'd show movement into the eighties — alt red her the town, God knows I have suffi- jumpsuits and internecine foulness and cient plastic in my wallet, but hers is right- right-wing religious overtones. eous anger, not to be bought off. The Programme grew up at the We haven't been together long. same time Maureen was wiring Psyche Catharine gave her to me— a contact et Pa's corpse to the lightning conduc- and Woman Friday^— not two months tor. Ensuing battles levelled the tactical back, I find it hard to predict her gulf between the two movements till the moods. Maybe it was Catharine's idea main differences were intellectual she sleeps with me; maybe she's got ones. Psyche et Po read Lacan; the Pro- tired of playing the whore. It's not a gramme read Levi-Strauss. Psyche et thought I want to go to bed with so I try Po were crypto-Capitalist; the Program- to get her talking. me were Structuralist. Psyche et Po Like an idiot 1 mention the Program- played the system, the Programme de- me, She screws up her face like she's constructed it. s\fallowed something fatty, "I've no

The Programme won, but it was a time for that," she snaps. "It's just play

Pyhrric victory. Without intending it, to them. Can't you just see them wank- they became not unlike Psyche et Po: ing off to the press reports after one of an elite with no popular support. their sadistic little outings?" Catharine drained her wine glass. "They're pointing up the language of

"Ms. Havers is not our prime concern. repression," I say, all the while wonder- I don't suppose she— will like what we ing at my own arrogance. Angele have in mind but " She shrugged, doesn't know these kinds of words. "What do you know of the language of She's an Arab street kid who was kick- dance?" The link between Danseuses ed once too often to stay lying down, Nouvelles and the Programme wasn't not a semiotics graduate, "They're target- known then. I was thrown. I muttered ing metagrammatio— nodes in the cultur- something vague about semiotics and al matrix looked like an idiot. She told me about Her look is enough to shut me up.

Danseuses; it was an honor- Some "Don't talk to me about language!" weeks passed before La Monde got the She's the first woman I've met growls tipoff, when she's angry "What do i care that

"Are they the revolution?" i asked. this word and this color and this dress "A small part." mark the boundaries of chauvinism?

I toyed with my food. "Top ratings What comfort is that to the mother with eight weeks running. Smail?" a husband who beats her? Or the rape She was siient for some while, star- victi'm or the dyke or the pensioner? Go ing at me. I'd touched something import- tell your good news to every lacerated ant. "Since when did the man without clit in Africa then look me in the eye and a television read TV small print?" say this is worth the money!"

I had to smile. "I don't," t assured She slams her hand down on the ta- her. "My manager does, Danseuses ble, lifts it, and there's a tiny gold wa- pushed my profile out of prime time fer winking at me like the promise of El last week. PTV wouldn't negotiate." Dorado from the marble tabletop.

Catharine nodded. "Danseuses' danc- I pick it up and weigh It gingerly in er/choreographer is Helena Ritenour. In my hand. It's a ROM wafer—a packet

'41 she had an accident with a heavy .of hardwired information. It slips into the goods vehicle. Surgeons in Sao Paulo port between my shoulders—the same " I

it kind of port they fitted to Helene I want to tell her what she wants to ad]ust. Then, but too late for to make

Ritenour, know. I want to tell her about Sao a difference, it occurs to you— all thai

It's strange how Angfele can read me Paulo, and what they did to me. And expensive tech, just to get you toilet

so well, even in anger. She leans over why. I want to tell her if hurt like hell. trained again? Of course not. and strokes my hand with dark fingers. She is asleep. At least when the Programme paid "Do you want to talk about It?" The Grand Prix is six days away. for Heiene they let her be her own

I or the pro- I don't, but it's tine only way can boss— so popular science thank her for tacitly forgiving me. Maureen Havers honestly believed she grams tell us. She uses an expert sys-

"It was bad," I say. "I slid off the was doing me a favoi;. No one spends tem, writing her prize-winning solo ctio- track sideways— the near side of the eight figures sterling on one man with- reography direct to a ROM cartridge. monocoque took the Impact. The out some feeling behind it. She could Me? I get fresh ROMs sent me every whole thing failed in tension at the rear have left me in a wheelchair. It wasn't month from Achebi, where they analy-

It bulkhead. The engine and avionics her fault I was in that state, after all— se my race data. helps me drive bet- went one way, the rear wheels the oth- was the one who crashed, instead, she ter. Only they went one stage further, er. The heat exchanger was torn off. saved me. After a fashion. They built me a second jack, behind

I I The steering column broke.—All the un- I remember how proud she was my arse. When strap myself in, hot- It; I derbelly ceramics sheared when Dr. Jacobs demonstrated the lum- wire myself to the car, I don't drive

it. "I didn't— mean the car," bar jack. I swear she made eyes at it. become "So " Something misfires inside me As far as she was concerned then, I This has its consequences. My body and the old anger is back. "Papers was just the meal it plugged into. is a corporate concern. It has no solid

I it have back Issues." Did I resent that? Not at the time. boundaries. In short, is a whore.

She starts back like I'd slapped her. was still in shock from the accident. I One of Formula Zero's damn few driver. "That wasn't fair, I'm not a ghoul. I still couldn't quite get my head round rules states: one car, one Hav-

I that didn't mean the accident, anyway. I the fact could walk again —walk with ers got round — they saved my meant the treatment. How you got bet- a spine shot In five places. spine and In return have turned me in- ter. What it did to you." She rubs her Imagine you're lying there with a hos- to a databus, a way of loading the ag- face with her hands. "I want to know pital bed your only future. Then they gregate wisdom of Achebi's Research cartridges Into back. Institute into racing car; you. What am I to you? A friend or a plug ROM your On s a smart mes- whore?" Maybe this playboy bullshit is them are programs which teach your senger with a spine full of—what? Soft- not rubbing off on me because I really don't brain how to access and control a ware? Limpware? Wetware? Why a know. Sorry is the best answer I can whole new nervous system. You can new term altogether? Slime. come up with. We sleep in the same walk again, even shit when you want to. bed but we don't touch. It's a miracle^and it takes a while to The Casino is fashioned in flamboyant — —

style wjlh towers at the corners and, sil- "It's all right now," I say. ting on the roof, great bronze angels, Angeie turns on the light. She looks picked out by floodlighting which ex- at me and she is afraid. tends into the Boulengrins. Angeie and Inside me, something flexes,

I walk among the cacti. She is scared.

Maybe It's the race. More likely it's be- FormulaZeroisa race for cars, not driv-

ing undercover, working for terrorists. ers. It is a vicious testing bed for crack-

I wonder how much they're paying her pot ideas, the way Formula One used

she has no respect or lil

"Do you think that wafer will kill you?" time. Formula Zero was conceived i "Maybe." Is this her job —to frighten the nineties as a way round the rule me? Test my nerve? She may be right. book and into the twenty-first century Xandria Products To have the world's best speed driver Anyway crashes are good for business. die twirling In flames through the bijou My eyes are full of lignocaine. Under- you've been reluctant to purchase

houses of Monte Carlo lids count off the seconds. I tense my Ifsensual products through the maO, No. Accidents themselves have arse and spool the rsvcounter into the we would hke to offer you three

their own phallic semiology. No sport on red, just out of my line of focus. I pop things that might change your mind. Earth so quickly forgets its widows. the clench plate into my mouth and 1. guarantee your privacy. Grand Prix's finest take Death as their bite down. The throttle glows green. We Everything we ship is plainly and se- bride. Whisper their names in awe, De- blink. The visor snaps down. It's made curely wrapped. All transactions are pailler. Villeneuve, Willy Mairesse. of Kevlar A projector micropored to my strictly confidential, and we never seil, I do not think the Programme will kill head beams eight external views onto rent or trade any names. me. Perhaps I lack the cruelty to credit the inner surface of the visor then set-

such deception. Perhaps, if I were a tles for center-forward. 2. We guarantee your satisfaction.

woman, I could be that cruel. Perhaps Eight seconds. If a product is unsatisfactory simply {I look at Angdie, the stoop of her shoul- At minus seven point two seconds return it for replacement or refund. ders, her tired eyes, the way she twitch- the car handshakes the processor be- es her fingers through hsr hair)— per- hind my lumbar jack. Point nought 3. We guarantee that the product you

haps I would have to be, to survive. nought one seconds into the race the choose will keep giving you pleasure. We return to the Hotel de Paris. We handshake Is complete and all this Should it malfunction, simply return it have a suite overlooking the Casino. To- touch-and-blink gear takes second fid- to us for a replacement. morrow Angdie will sit on our balcony; dle to Achebi's direct-feed wizardry she will see the cars as they stream in- Four seconds. What is the Xandria Collection? to the square and snake down the hill. Engine status icons mesh and flow it is a very spedal collection of sensual Perhaps she will think of me. behind my eyes. products, including the finest and most We watch Danseuses Nouvelles. Zero. effective products from, around the There are only five dancers in the com- I'm in a different place, A green hill- world. It is designed for both the timid pany, including Helene. I count while I side. The track is a smooth black noth- and the bold. For anyone who has ever watch— if I didn't know better, I would ing under my wheels, swirling round the wished there could be som.ething more

say there were twenty-three. This is the hill. I follow it with cybernetic eyes. Gen- to their sensual pleasures. heart of Danseuses' enduring novelty. try in the Ferrari is a blue proximity-

The way they dance alters their appear- danger icon on my left near-side. He The Xandria Gold Collection ... a trib-

ance. They toy with the semiology of cuts me up on the first corner. I'll use ute to closeness and communication. movement, with their audience's stereo- him as a pacemaker. I'm so far ahead Celebrate the possibilities for pleasure typic racial and social expectations. of the league table I'd be happy to let we each have within us. Send for the

They move in a way we expect certain him win. But if I don't pass the post Xandria Collection Gold Edition Cata- kinds of people to move, and they be- first, sits then Catharine's meme-bomb logue. It is priced atjust $4.00, which is

those people. The eye is tricked in me, waiting for It come the next victory. on- applied in full to your first order. by the conditioned expectations of the ly triggers If I'm race champion. A kind Write today. You have absolutely brain. The Government are outraged by of sick fascination Is driving me. That nothing to lose. And an entirely new the Programme's violent acts. But I sus- and a hope that the Programme's at- pect they fear this quiei revolution far tack on thie machismo-oriented Grand world of enjoyment to gain. more. They can handle terrorism. Prix might dovetail with myown wish for But seduction? vengeance on Maureen Havers. I The Xandria Collection. Depi. OM0693 I

The credits spool and I undress. I sit My tires are the sort that go soft and

cross-legged on the bed. Angfele push- adhesive in the heat of acceleration. I es the wafer into my back. have five laps advantage over the op-

It does not take long for the head- position, five laps glued to the road, be- clear. ache to Two green circles ap- fore they lose their tack and I slip into pear, one above the other, center-vi- something more hard-wearing. sion. In an eyeblink they are gone. There's the sea— a grey graphic noth-

They are the first and last I will see of ing. My eyes spool white prediction

It will the Programme's system. perform curves and hazard warnings. I take Gen- its acts regardless. I will have no op- try on the skid in a maneuver that short- portunity to intervene. ens my tire life by a lap. I feel the dlf- v —! —

ference, the loss of traction. I'm pick- my own —In front of a billion couch ing up sensory information from every potatoes? stressed member of the vehicle, direct- Some of Angele's special anger

ly, through my spine. 1 am the car flows through my veins and into the car.

and the car is feeling queasy. At the pit It feeis good and dangerous, like the

robots tend me, probing and swopping Grand Prix I remember. The difference

and inflating the things that make up is, back then I /

wheels feel tight and warm, hugged it. I'm an athlete with a steel body, a mid- near to buckling by fresh, high-pressure dle distance runner doubling speed on

tires. I scream away from the pit. The the last five laps. Longines people send me a stop time My arrogance is rewarded. and ETF. They're counting me down for The car starts falling apart. the World Record— a special etherlink It's not anything you can see. Even

tells me how I'm doing. The real dan- though they're wired up my back, I near- ger now is the back-markers don't ly miss the signs— ticks and prickles have the decency to pull in for me. and a hot metal taste in the back of my They do not like me, because Havers throat. I'm an athlete, pushing my body

and Achebi have made me far too and doing it damage and before long good. With me around, no one else can my knees are crumbling, my toes are hope to get near the championship. burning away my lungs are full of acid

By next season, I reckon FISA will phlegm. I'm screaming cybernetic ag-

rule against my kind of driving for the ony into my helmet as ! come in sight Healthscope good of the sport. Then I'm back to the of the prize pack, They are jockeying clench-plate and dataskin and honest for position with all the cumbersome 93 dangerous driving. And in another twen- grace of whales. My scream becomes ^ ty years Formula Zero will have ac- a roar. I think of the horror dozing fitful- \Jet your Healthscope creted its own four-inch-thick Yellow ly in my spine, I think of the hurt behind Book and the whole process will start Angdie's eyes, and every hurtful stupid-

tiom i\ at Id renowned over again, A new breed of Formula Lib- ity under the sun—and I hurl myself for- re. From Sao Paulo, maybe. ward. Danger icons spill blood behind astrologer, Joanna My shoulder blades itch. There's my lids. something strange in my nervous sys- Four and Three concede with grace Marline Woolfolk, tem. I wonder what it does. and let me past, I run tandem with 2 Something dreadful happens. place —Ashid in the Bugatti. I know best 'celling author of I'm tearing towards the tunnel (look from old he's no gentleman. We hug The Only Astrology Book no hands) when there's the most appall- wheel-space through the square.

ing jolt. The gearbox tears its guts out Data chitters through me. I take

You'll Ever Need and my ribs try streining themselves hold of the wheel. I want to be ready.

through the crash-webbing. I round the If this goes wrong it might crash my sys- (Scaihoraugh Housed bend along the harbor road and my tems. The wheel recognises my grip neck isn't up to the G-strain. and unlocks, shaking me boisterously

CALL I slide into the pit and nausea over- like an over-friendly scrum half,

takes me. The car realizes I'm going to I watch the odds-window, turn the '(AAA (\f(m(\M throw up. The helmet snaps open and car in, Ashid jerks sideways and back the clench plate grows hot to make me and already I'm wheeling past him. Our

spit it out. I throw up over the side of back wheels kiss and make up, then I'm the car, A valet trolley wheels over and running for pole, Martineau leads and

scrubs off the mess, revealing a he is Havers' Number Two, If I can get smeared ELF deca!. within five lengths of him he'll slow My whole body burns green fire. down like a good boy and let me win.

Every nerve sings with power. All of a sudden I have a pacemaker nnd Jiscoxet thi-^he'^t Achebi's unmistakeable.Go signal. I to get me there,

scrabble under my seat for the clench I leave Gentry behind at number cvlcbttal sf/jfe'!J/i s to plate, lis taste of sour saliva is nause- three. 'Why Gentry—why not Ashid? The leviLahze war hod ating and I wonder idly if I'm going to Bugatti is still sound, my icons tell me be sick again oh the circuit. My helmet which is good because even a kiss can /.e.im to inttn'-fts and slams itself down and the graphics send an unlucky car tumbling— so may- blink on. It only takes a moment to be- be Ashid's nerve's gone, 'cause he's

preserx e voui come a car again. But this time it's dif- more than a match for this prick. I think

ferent. This time, I'm way down the Geniry must have popped a piil, hngevitv by us/nt; I field and will be lucky io be placed. I let him come alongside. know he

This time — the first lime this season — rides with a clear visor so I let go the the secrets of the zodia< will have to race. wheel and wave to piss him off.

I am compelled. What atrocity have Then I change gear. Woro\er Touih torn, photic nnh

they given me to perform? Will 1 karate Time for my 550 kph Sunday drive. Sponsored by Puic €nt , Bo\ Ibh tiolivwood. C^ ^HXi78 the neck of the President of FOCA? Longines send regrets. The record is

Will I tear Maureen's eyes out— or safe. But my mind's on something — I TOWARD else. Martineau is tootling towards the THE line. I'd ride a dignified Inalf-length INFIN[TE Px-pet'^X'pe^ience^ tke /yew aliead of him only Gentry's been driv- PENTHOUSE ONLINE^'' ing like a madman behind me for the past two minutes and • State-of-the-Art I'm too hyped to VGA/SVGA, slow down.

I And as pass the line I realize: I'm 2400/9600 bps Service! no different, I too am wedded to dan- Near real-time picture ger, which "is a longer name for death. display Achebi made me fast, yes, but they al- • Photo E-Mail so made me safe. I don't hate Maureen • Havers, National Discount or what she did to me. I hate Achebi for Shopping Services protecting me. I hate tlie doc- tors for • No 9600 baud repairing me, I hate myself. I'm surcharge! like all the others. A lite-hating thing— a phallus-cocoon finding new • PetPoints'^'^ Awards ways to Program die. Why else did I let the Programme infect me? What have I done to myself? • Low monthly and Whisper their names. Depailler. Vllle- connect fees! neuve, Willy Malresse. Exciting news! Pentfiouse introduces an Me. My helmet snaps up on a view e that's easier—and more of a hundred thousand cheering would- 5. Called PENTHOUSE be suicides. I smile and wave; the sun EXPAND YOUR ONLINE, Ihis new service features 9600 and the wind dry my tears, bps capability and "real-time" graphics— LEVEL I pull the jack out and adjust my OF almost instantaneous online viewing of flight pants and get out of the car. piiotos and E-Mail with picture-attach CONSCIOUSNESS Next stop the champagne. 'lility. Send a message. ..and a photo.. .at aie same timei Maureen Havers is up on the podi- 1 you let it rise above its present bonds. um. She smile iccess Chat, E-MaiL has a like death and I Inspiration and Intuiiion are nol just Penthouse Letters, Penthouse envy it. A nude girl hands the cham- me haphazard events. You are an infinite Photos. ..plus special Navigation and pagne magnum,. It's very hot here. part of the Universal Cosmic intelligence. Help areas. New areas are being added are It My hands shaking. gets dark. You can draw, at will, upon this Intelli- contjnuojsly. Navigate anywhere using a I look up at the sun, puzzled. gence for seemingly miraculous results. rrwuse or Tab key. A blood-spot on my retina, receding This Cosmic Intelligence flows through The Penthouse photos you'll find on you. It is the very vital force of life. It is PENTHOUSE ONLINE are the same noJsijpernatural; itisa natural phenome- 1 quality seen every month in non. Learn to reach Ihouse Our unique speed-view I wake up in my hotel room, Catharine for this higher level of is sitting your consciousness and avail yourself system lets you browse in 256-color by the bed. I look round. of its intuitive enlightenment. VGA fhen download the photos you Angele's not there. "Is it over?" sh le^pp to That's right. View BEFORE Catharine smiles, "It's over," Free lu download. Booklet "Did I do—what did I do?" Thpre more! Keep up These statements are not idle fantasy. to date on "Rest first." national and world events, the financial They are made by the Rosicrucian "Nol" I sit up in bed arid it feels like market entertainment news and Order, AMORC, a worldwide cultural I just shoved in my head a mincer, I mors; Thinking about travel? See our organization. For centuries, it has made take a deep breath. "Show DISCOUNT TRAVEL SERVICE me now." its dynamic teachings available to thou- area And don't miss our DISCOUNT She lights up Angele's PC, sands of men and women who are serious

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It's terrible. I don't whether you receive valuable PetPoints for every know to laugh THE ROSICRUCIAN ORDER dollar you spend. Redeem PetPoints for or throw myself out the window. 1-800-882-6672 Penthouse bail caps, T-shirts, can Whe.ait's over my voice is high with hys- coolers, key rings , and more. Or use teria. "How—did you —how could you — them to purchase sought-after Penthouse didn't I Scribe OMC — " I force myself to stop. videos. trade Rosicrucian Order, AMORC books and Or points for free Tears of rage heat my cheeks online time. It's your choice! 1342 Naglee Avenue, "You didn't. Do, Anything. Look mged with major San Jose, CA 95191-0001 a again." modem manufacturer, USRobotics, to My eyes are drawrt to the screen. oiler a deluxe. 9600 bps da(a/fa/ modem, with custom Penthouse Key She is right. I don't c/o anything, but insignia, lor under $300 by the end of it I'm shaking afresh with disgust and self-loathing To order your membership kit and fascinat- can 1-800-289-7368. ed revulsion. It's worse than the act itself could ever be. The power of — —"

— "I can't believe 1 did that didn't do

I'm babbling again. I turn to Catharine. all, try in- Angdie must tiave toid her I like Irish. ruses. After how could you to She's pouring me a tumbier tull, duce a specific immune response

"You didn't. Our wafer did. it took yoj liced that AIDS shares a striking num- against HIV if you could induce a re- through a very special dance. Helene's ber of similarities with GVHD, AIDS pa- sponse without the virus? Many people been working on it for months." tients and GVHD patients frequently ex- in the field were at a loss., Bolognesi, " "A dance hibit skin lesions— scaly psoriasislike however, is intrigued by the possibility "Yes." She hands me the tumbler, skin. Both groups share frequent inles-_ of designing a vaccine against HIV by striking- first injecting bits of I drink it down in one, "A repulsive tinal diseases, and even more a person with nor- with proteins dance." When I calm down she sits be- ly, a strong susceplibility to infection by mal cells with MHC or side me and says, "The Grand Prix. A different viruses, bacteria, and fungi. like it. He thinks that once a person's phailocentric institution, wouldn't you The trouble was, for almost a decade, immune system is primed with a cock- say? But will men ever be able to draw researchers couldn't fit AIDS and tail of MHC molecules, the person will that kind of strength from it, now its GVHD into the same conceptual pic- be protected against HIV through im- figurehead has lampooned it so ably ture, classifying AIDS as a viral disease mune responses directed against so cleverly?' and GVHD as a transplantation reac- these targets that are carried by the in- My eyes widen with shock. "Oh, you tion. By the early 1990s, however, the fecting viruses and cells. bitch." The truth clicks home. "I'll nev- similarities between AIDS and GVHD But transfusing somebody with for- er race again." had too many obvious parallels, a rea- eign bits of cells is a bit risky, and the She shrugs. She is prepared for my son which prompted Hoffmann to pro- procedure is a long way from the origi- his theory that the of nal intention of designing a specific vac- reaction. I feel vivisected. pose shape HIV "There are other ways to drive," she is similar to MHO and therefore pro- cine directed against HIV, "We are get- says "When Havers sacks you, as she vokes the immune system into destroy- ting transfused all the time with foreign surely must, we have other games for ing itself. And the common link between cells, and maybe the risks of transplan- you lo play Networks, Security systems. AIDS and GVHD was MHO. But if Bol- tation reaction were not as great as we Stock exchanges." ognesi and others in the vaccination thought," Bolognesi says. And Hoff- discovery of mim- Through a veil of shock I sense the field are correct, HIV may not be just mann's hew HIV can ic important molecules suoh as potential behind her words. I glimpse mimicking MHC antigens as Hoffmann immune the power that is mine as a servant of suggests. The virus may actually be MHC underlines how extraordinarily clev- the Programme, the riches my skills and grabbing the molecules from every er the virus is. This tiny packet of ge- times my lumbar jack might yet yield— for me, cell it infects. netio information — about 500,000 and for the women of Brazil, Africa, the Strong confirmatory evidence for smaller than our own allocation of genetic whole twisted world. these predictions came in December information —is able to utterly turn the systems: by fool- But. "How will 1 ever show my face 1992 from a group led by Larry Arthur tables on our immune again?" of Program Resources, a subcontrac- ing it, by evading every attempt of the "Which face?" She gets off the bed tor of the National Cancer Institute in system to neutralize it, and finally, by and walks over to unplug the IBCM Maryland. Arthur examined highly puri- turning the immune network back on it- lead and as she walks her legs grow fied HIV preparations thai had been self in a self-destructive frenzy stocky, her hair lengthens, her skin grown in human cells and found huge The late Albert Sabin won wide- grows dark and when she turns to me, amounts of MHC and other related pro- spread acclaim and numerous honors her mouth is more full, her forehead teins studded in the viral coat. Surpris- for his work in designing the polio vac- less pronounced, her cheeks have ingly he found that MHC molecules ac- cine in the Forties and Fifties In Sep- swollen a little— and Angfele smiles. It tually outnumber the viral-coat protein tember 1992, he wrote a groundbreak- is beautiful. molecules on each virus by about two ing—and blunt— article in the prestig- "Everything has its place in the ma- to one. In other words, the outside of ious scientifio journal, the Proceedings trix of signification," Angele says, in a HIV carries a mixture of its own proteins of the National Academy of Sciences,

it in said thai the approaches voice I do not recognise. "You claim no and MHC molecules from the cells which he prejudice, no chauvinism —yet a ges- last infected. Since the immune system being presently used in the worldwide ture, a turn of the head, a way of low- of the infected person is trying io dis- search for a vaccine against HIV were ering the eyelids, all of that plays on tinguish the virus from its own cells, futile. Sabin, a microbiologist whose re- your stereotypic view of things. See how such a mixture on HIV would be incred- search spanned six decades, said the white bitch becomes the dusky ibly confusing for the immune network. that most of the AIDS vaccines currently whore." Arthur's astonishing results mean the being developed are aimed at neutral- against inject- izing injected HIV that lies outside "Oh no," I murmur, "Not now. Not an^^ major immune response an against cellular of cells in the blood. more." I slip off the bed and walk clum- ed HIV might be MHC sily toward Angele and hold her in hu- and its cohorts rather than against HIV According to Sabin, injecting mon- mility and run my hand over her back. itself. It represents a beautiful vindica- keys with HIV, or its monkey equivalent, original results that SIV, is artificial. In the real world of I feel for the first time the ROM port be- tion of Stott's — some- tween her shoulder blades. Her dis- thing on the outside of normal cells can AIDS, most circulating copies of HIV are guise hid that, too, till now. What a clev- provoke the same kind of immune re- safely tucked away inside cells and, er dance Helene has written for her! sponse as HIV, even when no virus is hence, are protected against any im- My heart jolts up into my mouth. present— and of Bolognesi's findings. mune responses Trying to develop a "Heiene?' The observation that you could in- vaccine against a "cell-free" virus is "Hello." Her tongue is hot on my duce the same response in the immune doomed to failure, Sabin said. Hun- cheek. She laughs, and the sound is a response regardless of whether you dreds of millions if not billions of dollars

it in false . premise, promise. peace , , , riches . . used HIV or just the cells in which had have been invested a contended, with the premise being . major setback he revolution . . DO grown seemed to be a BS OMNI "

that the AIDS virus could be targeted tem. These arguments notwithstanding, them. Once the T cells are really low, as if it weren't hiding safely inside the both of these eminent scientists agreed then a person Is exposed to all sorts of infected person's cells. Because of that the Search for an AIDS vaccine has Infections. In 1993, the novel ideas this false premise, "the vaccine field Is so far been fraught with unexpected that HIV carries iVlHC molecules with It, filled with distortions," he said, Bologne- complications and barriers. that It mimics the immune system, that sl disagrees. "I don't think its dooms- The implications of Bolognesi's and it fools the immune system, that AIDS day as Sabin suggested, but Sabin Arthur's worl<, however, do hold prom- might possibly be an auteimmune dis- raised some very important issues ise for future vaccine design, For exam- ease, have prompted the question, about the virus's sites of immunity." ple, there's probably ro sense in say- "What actually causes AIDS?" Are we In the article, Sabin contends that a ing that the virus is something foreign nearly at the point at which some of the major port of HIV's entry into the body that a person's immune system can be many enigmas are yielding to scrutiny? is via the anus and rectum and that it's primed to kill. It appears unobtrusively Montagnier's tantalizing data take important to test whether a vaccine can In our bodies, adopts MHC proteins some of the limelight off HIV and Intro- eliminate the virus from the mucosal from the cells in which it grows, and be- duce another actor on stage, ivlycoplas- ceils that line the wall of the rectum. comes hidden inside our cells. It dis- ma may be important, but many more

Very few studies have focused on de- plays IvIHC molecules as if It were part experiments need to be done to dem- signing HIV vaccines for these cells Ac- of the immune system, but at the same onstrate the fact, Hoffmann's experi- cording to Sabin, a vaccine that's effec- time, It fools the Immune networl< into ments and hypotheses suggest that HIV tive In the blood will be useless in the killing itself. The poei William Butler mimics MHC and provokes a strong per- mucosal cells of the rectum where the Yeats posed the famous question, turbation of the immune network, protection Is really needed. By the "How can we l

-yv \ujeiix^

"Weil, here goes nothing. OMNI IE CAPSULES posure to the sun and are relatively eas- ily treated. The malignant melanoma form, wtiicli does kill, affects places lii<6 the soles of the feet as well as ex- posed areas, and there is more of ii in CABLB Sweden than in Spain. U So, what's going on? What are pub- licly funded CONVERTERS institutions that claim to be spealith, "gospel out?), falu're outside cross-country skiing! Everyone who knows anything stands Ji^llg Best of aU... to gain. The public will end up paying it's from NordicTrackl through the nose, as always, but the pub- lic is unorganized and .uninformed." 30-day in-home trial /I o r d i c sport Good science will be the victim, too, '" N^.^o, of course. But science has a way of win- ning in the end. Today's superstitions For a FREE Video and BFOchura, can a Please send me a kee brochure can spread a million times faster than AlMBfceeVHSvideoiape anything dreamed of by the doom proph- 1-800-445-223119 ets in days of old. But the same tech- HMEl nologies which make that possible can also prove equally effective in putting them speedily to rest. DO - Dnnrui ennPDRiunn AIR REPAIR STOP SWEAT CABLE BOXES one of these regions with iron, the phyto- plankton bloomed. So, to cure global 6 WEEKS BELOW WHOLESALE warming, Martin suggested,:just fertil- Drionic* is an incredibly ize the ocean with iron, and sit bacl< more effective way to while the plankton grow and absorb combat excess sweat — - DESCRAMBLERS COg from the air above. without chemicals. Elec- tronic treatment gives 6 In fact, Martin says this ma/ have hap- TBI-3 SUPER 7 weeks dryness. Reusable pened naturally some 18,000 years ago TB-2 or 3 FTB-2 or 3 — safe & effective say 10 at the beginning of the last ice age OAK N-12 SP-200D (PIONEERS) medical books. »^c=.™., when evidence points to far more dust SB-2or3 HAMLiN^ MLD1200 Send for free information and three times more phytoplankton -COMBINATION UNITS- than today. None of this proves that plankton were fertilized by the excess JERROLD^ : DRX-DIC, DRZ-DIC, dust and caused planetwide cooling, Tocom 5503 circumstantial evidence, sci- but as many SCI-ATLANTA» : SA-a536 + , SA-8S55, entists find it pretty convincing. SA-e580, SA-8590

While no one knows what set off the SYLVANIA^ : 4040-3 DIC-Ch 2 or 3 change, doing it artifcially would be pret- PIONEER*) :BA-6110 ty simple. According to a study by the CABLE TV DESCRAAIBLEBiS ZENITH^ : ST-Series National Research Council, 270 ships, OAK^^ : RTC-56-Ch 2 or 3, M35B Coitverter^ & A: each emitting iron dust over a distance STOPKENTINC!! - CONVERTERS W/REMOTES - of 240 miles a day for ten months per SAVE MOINEY! OlS'?) YOUR EQI^IPIVIKNT year, could fertilize 18 million square .All Major Briimt Names • LowMt Price*; miles of ocean. As a result, according FREE 30 Day Trial • FBEE CATALOG Add-CtoCaUea.. 1-800-334-8475^ to the NBC, the scheme could eliminate as much as 25 percent of ail 00^ from the atmosphere at a cost of $10 billion to $110 billion per year. As plans to halt greenhouse warm- one sounds cheap and ing go, this CALL FOR A CATALOG NOW easy. But as with other blueprints for geoengineering, critics abound. Accord- THE 800-800-4582 ing to geologist Jorge Sarmiento of INTRODUCING Princeton University, by the time the OMNI EMPORIUM plan is up and running, say a hundred OMNI now offers direct markelers a years from now, atmospheric carbon di- producl stiowcase custom tailored to oxide would be so elevated that the their special advertising needs. amount marine algae could remove Reaching nearly 4 million readers, tfie would fall from 25 percent to something "OMNI EMPORIUM" will consist of like 10 percent. What's more, the side small space classified ads. effects might be unacceptable. Krill Display rates: digesting marine algae would ultimate- $700for2-1/8"X1'ad ly die and drop to the ocean floor, form- to $1,950 for 1/6 ad ing in carbon deposits. The deposits, An offset film positive [RRED, 120 line turn, would be digested by bacteria, a screen) is requested. If necessary, process that requires oxygen, Sarmien- OMNI will provide creative assistance to believes so much oxygen would be to advertisers at an additional cost. Payment must accompany all ad consumed thai It would create a dead orders and must be in the form of a zone through much of the southern check, bank check or money order. ocean. The bacteria would also release Please enclose a sample of your nitrous oxide and methane, greenhouse product or catalog with your ad, as INVENTORS! gases far more powerful than COg itself. well as your street address and phone NordicTrack, America's fastest Martin, however, says Sarmiento's es- number, otheniVise your ad will growling fitness equipment company, timate may be unduly harsh. "Some be returned. All ads are subject to seeks patentable ideas for fitness phytoplankton also produce dimethyl sul- acceptance by OMNI, Deadline for equipment and for Healthy the materials is the 1 st of the second fide," he points out. "That stimulates Kitchen™ {healthy cooking made month preceeding the issue date. treated cloud formation, which should add to easy) product line. Inquiries For further detaEJB writs: confidentially. Each idea gets indi- the cooling effect." OIUtNl EMPORIUM vidual attention and response with- With luck, well know more by the end 1965 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10023 in 10 days, with royalty revenue of the year. Though the American So- possible. We treat inventors rightl ciety of Limnology and Oceanography Maria Manaseri Write: Weston Cutter, NordicTrack, (ASLO) remains skeptical about iron fer- Phone/Fax: 104 Peavey Road, Chaska, MN tilization for global warming, it has en- 516-757-9562 5531 8. or call 1 -800-967-21 1 3. dorsed a small-scale test to confirm 92 OMNI aruimi ennpoRiunn

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1430 Miner St. Suite 522 Des Plaines, IL 60011 B 1-800-542-9425 m iron's role in theoc ed in the real world. "TTiere are so many grant proposal is approved, Martin complications thai we wouldn't dare to FIRST iiopes this coming autumn to fertiiize an suggest -actually doing it," Cicerone la- area 50 to 100 square kiiometers ments. "The propane must be spread about 400 miies south of the Galapa- through the air very uniformly, and we ment, this kind of attention almost al- gos Isiands. Any iarge phytoplankton have no idea how to do it. If you get too ways has a positive effect, and it bol- bloom should be visibie from tho new little hydrocarbon. It actually makes sters nonimprisoned colleagues as SEAWiFS satellite scheduled for ozone depletion worse." well. In the words of Dr, Boguslawski, iaunch ttiis August. And on-site moni- So far, only one alternative has sur- one of the Polish participants at ICPS- toring should reveal a lot about iron's faced—in the form of a Star Wars- 21 , "It is important that the scientists in effect Oh the atmosphere—enough, per- style attack on CFCs. According to these repressive countries feel that haps, to recommend the fertilization tech- Princeton University physicist Thomas they have some support. In Poland, we nique to future generations hoping for Stix, infrared laser light, tuned to the felt as if someone were with us. If you any means of lowering terrestrial tem- right frequency, can zap CFC mole- are alone, then you are lost." peratures even a bit. cules, selectively breaking them apart But global warming Isn't the only and stopping them in their tracks while Wilt this activity jeopardize future con- problem facing geoengineers. The oth- leaving the rest of the atmosphere un- ferences and Ciiinese coileagues who er pressing Issue is the hole in the scathed. The lasers, working from the host the events? The Chinese leader- ozone layer created by industrial and surface of the earth, Stix adds, ship has much to gain by hosting scientif- consumer use of chemicals called chlo- wouldn't even be polluting. In fact, ic conferences, in addition to enhanc- rofluorocarbons, or CFCs. Some scien- with the deployment of the lasers, vir- ing China's access to scientific knowl- tists believe ultraviolet light leal

great-grandchildren v^fould still have to the field of geoengineering stands. Vir- ognized the contribution the internation- cope Vifith them. tually all would-be geoengineers con- al scientific community made in secur- One possible answer comes from at- cede that a painless cure for global ing their freedom by use of these mospheric scientist Richard Turco of warming or ozone depletion remains same methods at meetings sponsored the University of "California at Los An- closer to hope than reality. The blue- by the former Soviet government. Gov- geles and his colleague Ralph Cicerone prints for an engineered atmosphere ernments tend to respond to human-

of the University of California at Irvine. need far more fine-tuning if they're to rights pressure when it suits their Inter- sci- CFCs do not destroy ozone directly, the be pragmatically implemented, il ests. Because China urgently seeks researchers point out Instead, they pro- they're to work, entific exchanges, visiting scientists are vide chlorine that reacts with other chem- "We've heard a lot of ideas, many of in an excellent position to sound the icals when the sun stril^es them duhng them preposterous," Irvine's Cicerone call for improvements In Beijing's human- the polar spring. The products of concludes. "A lot of our colleagues hghts practices. DO those reactions are what do the dam- feel it's dangerous even .to talk about So what we need is something to some of these things because it rein- age. CREDITS blocl< formation of the ozone-destroying forces the view that there's nothing to Cover: Chris Moore; page 2, top: Greg or we can jusf come up with compounds. Ethane propane could worry about; Vaughn: page 2, bottom: Prof. Luc Montagnier/ do the job, they suggest, by reacting a technological fix. And there's no Photo Researchers; page 4: Peter Liepke; pageB:Monterey Bay Aquarium; page 10:G[II with chlorine atoms that play a key role doubt that for global warming or the BasignacyGamma Liaison; page 14: Veronite in ozone hole or whatever problem we're the process. Teuber, page 18: Bill Bitchell: page 20: Jamas In theory, the plan is simple. Just use talking about, society should deal with Balog; page 27: Sinclair Stammers/Photo Re- searchers; 38: Glen Wfexlec; page 29, top: several hundred airplanes to pour the root causes. page Photo Researchers; page 29, bottom: Andy Lev- environ- 50,000 tons of ethane or propane into "And yet," he adds, "these in/Photo Researchers; page 30, top: Serge the Antarctic air during the months- mental problems are getting bad BiuOs; page 30, middle: Builaty Lomeo/The Im- age Bank; page 30, bottom: Ted Levin/Photo long night. Give it a month or two for enough that we rfiay be forced to consid- Researchers; page 32, )op: The Image Bank; er of with them in the wind to mix the gas uniformly. And other ways dealing page 32, bottom: Peter and Georgina Bowater/ when sunlight returns to the Pole in the future." When that future arrives— The Image Bank; page 43, top; Culmr Pictures; page 43, bottom, pages 44 and 46: Christopher late September— nothing will happen. and it may not be too far off—many pun- Springman; page 4B: Lee Melen; pages 52- of the The CFCs will still be there, of course, dits say the blue-sky concepts 53: HIV Virus/Photo Researchers; page 53, lop: so the treatment must be repeated ev- geoengineers will come out of the the- Peter Liepke; page 53, middle; Duke Universi- page 53, bottom: Henner Prefi; page 54, top: ery year. But in other respects, the at- oretical closet to be developed and re- [y: Peter Liepte; page 54, middle and bottom: Pho- will Ultimately, it is the vision of mosphere be no more polluted fined. to Researchers; pages 62-63: Photo Research-

than It was at the beginning. geoengineering, radical as It seems, ers; page 64: Photo Researchers, page 75: Rob Researchers; page 76: Steinar Of course, even Turco and Cicerone that may one day be utilized to avert an Atkins/Photo Lund, page 77: Scaia/Art Resource; page 96; lot of nightmarish pro- admit the concept needs a more ecological disaster Inspired by Martin Gardner- Ken Kno\«^ton USA

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A GATHERING FOR GARDNER: Puzzle, magic, and math devotees pay homage to the man who inspired them

By Scot Morris

Illusion maker Harry Eng "James Dalgety Metagrob- launched his slow paper ologist, Manmead, Eng- airplane off the railing of the land." The word means ihirty-fourfh floor of the "puzzle enthusiast." Atlanta Marriott Marquis Best book inscription, in hotel, and it circled tor more Max Maven's Book of than three minutes before Fortunetelling (Prentice- landing on the lobby floor. Hall, 1992): ^'TRUTH LIES

Magician Michael Weber HERE . . . —Max Maven." shot a rubber band off his Best line overheard on a finger in the hotel foyer, and crowded elevator, from magician Randi: it rolled back to him from James more than 25 feet away. And "Isn't this a great hotel? The towels are so nice and I, using an Orvis Ritz-

Cracker Thrower, sailed a fluffy— the last time I was standard Nabisco disc more here, I could hardly get my than 150 feet from the suitcase closed!" Atrium Caf6 up to the Favorite memory: On third-floor balcony on the Thursday night, Rodgers opposite side of the lobby. looped a pencil on a chain through Persi Diaconis' It was quite a weekend: Atlanta hosted "A Gathering buttonhole. The magician mathematician for Gardner"— Martin Gard- and Harvard ner, best known as the remembered this gag from Mathematical Games colum- childhood but couldn't nist in Scientific American remember or figure out how for 25 years, and the man to get it off. On Friday he who has probably interested stiil had the pencil hanging more people in mathematics from his jacket, and 1 asked and science than anyone him if he wanted a hint on else alive, how to get it off. "No," he The event came about said, "I don't mind wearing because the Atlanta Interna- it. It's like a badge that I've tional Museum of Art and invitations, and six weeks performed Frere Jacques, been here." Design was launching a later, nearly 100 of Gard- simultaneously humming one Incidentally, many people three-month show on puz- ner's friends from all over part and whistling the other. don't know that Gardner is a zles, and Tom Rodgers. an the world had agreed to And mathematician Ronald revered magic creator; Atlanta businessman and come. They hailed from Graham delivered letters of unfortunately he never puzzle collector, invited three main fields: mathemat- appreciation from both the performs, Martin Gardner Gardner to be the honored ics, puzzles, and magic. American Mathematical So- Presents, published in guest at the show's Two journalists—Will Shortz, ciety and the Mathematical March, is a hardcover opening. Ordinarily, Gard- editor of Games magazine, Association of America, collection of all of Gardner's first are I consider magic articles since his ner, 78, would have refused. and I —tagged along. Here what His wife, Charlotte, won't fly At Saturday night's din- the best of the test: contribution to The Sphinx in and Gardner doesn't like to ner, Ken Knowlton unveiled Ses( paper-and-pencii puz- 1930 when he was 16 years go anywhere without her. a portrait of Gardner made zle, from Mel Stover of old, It's available for $50, from: But Atlanta is a daylight from six complete sets ol Winnipeg, Manitoba, postpaid, Richard drive away from Gardner's double-nine dominoes Canada; He writes Kaufman, 8385 16th Street, Silver Spring. Mar^^ 1 #124, home in Hendersonville, (above). The original is - I I and asks, -Can North Carolina, so he poster sized, and Gardner's you move the minus sign to land 20910. decided to attend. face only becomes visible make this equal nine-fifty?" Once Gardner was when the portrait is viewed {The answer is below.) ANSWER booked, Rodgers sent out from 30 feet away Scott Kim Best business card: I TO I (ten to ten)DO 96 OMNI