WOODS HOLE: A SCIENTIFIC UTOPIA AND THE ILLUSTRATED A NEW NOVEL BY STEPHEN KING OMNIS 10-POINT PRESIDENTIAL PLATFORM . onnrui

EDITOR & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE EXECUTIVE EDITOR: ART DIRECTOR; FRANK DEVINO MANAGING EDITOR: J. ANDERSON DORMAN FICTION EDITOR: ROBERT SHECKLEY EUROPEAN EDITOR: DR. DIXON : -ICTOR fi= ADVERTISING: BEVE". EY WARDALE EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT IRWIN E. BILLMAN

CONTENTS PAGE

FIRST WORD Opinion Gerard K. O'Neill 6

COMMUNICATIONS Correspondence 10

FORUM Dialogue 12

EARTH Environment James E. Lovelock 18

LIFE Biomedicsne Bernard Dixon 20

- SPACE . — . _ Brian O'Leary 22

MIND Behavior Morion Schatzman 24

'--: -- BOOKS/FILM = 26

UFO UPDATE Report James Gberg 30

CONTINUUM Ii i =:- 35 WINNERS Susan Mazur 44

FIRESTARTER fidwi Stephen King 50

PSYCHOGRAPHICS Aracte Bibi Wein 54

CHILDREN OF POSEIDON - : r Kenneth Jon Rose 58

SIGMUND IN SPACE Refer Barry N Malzberg 68

DUNE GENESIS Arfcfe Frank Hertsert 72

,__ ~_ ._ - - - ;-.-- DUNE ; 76

ARTHUR KANTROWITZ Interview Monte Davis 84

PLATFORM FOR PROGRESS Article i - t I I- -- :ri 88

RARE BIRD Article Arcncrty Wtofif 100

PEOPLE Names and Faces Oc*le

COMPETITION RESULTS Anagrams Sec* Moms 119

EXPLORATIONS Travel Kathleen Stein 121

STARS Astronomy UartR Chartrand III 123

SKY PILOT Phenomena Dan McCoy 126

GAMES Diversions :"- Vgms 128

LAST WORD Opinion 130

Cove' art !c ihia month's Omni is a painting entitled A New Star In Heaven by German artist Ute Osterwald. Collaborating with her wnoe or >n oaf 1 wilfy husband, Hans, U(e has seen jemrticticn and real their art adorn all- the major fcewfKHe-SMODor :arrningdale NY 117; magazines ol Europe. Together, b s\ Des Mnines. Igws they work out of their bwn design studio in Hamburg.

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f% . _ _ _ . = z , ^_. 1| I I artist H. Ft. G/ger won the .^ 3 pro( s of intelligence in "Intelligent Machines" " '--- :~ = ' mm mm Academy Award for out- = " ::e.:"' -a.vA/ng. (October1979). Frenchman Pierre standing visual effects in the Twentieth appeared in our issue. Lacombe, who at the tender age of

Century-Fox motion picture Alien. Though Already the recipient of the 1 979 and thirty-eight began his carc-cr as an artist, highly visible in European circles since 980 Galaxy awards for most outstanding received an award for our cover.

1967, Giger's art was showcased science-fiction publication, Omni has "I was crammed into a small booth at nationally for the "first time in Qmni. The just received the for Foley's Bar with the New York Giants' prizewinning November 1978 cover, a '," George ft ft Martin's spine- offensive team," former fashion model flaunting Medusa, is typical of Giger's tingling tale of a pet owner obsessed with Susan Mazur told Omni. "They invited me genius. The artist's talent has since "feeding time." Marlin has sold more than there for an in-depth discussion of future earned him several other merit awards for 40 pieces of short fiction, several articles, football. Big-as-a-house Gordon King and his Omni illustrations that accompanied and two short-story collections. Naturally, Reggie Van Home told me that after a "Found" (October 1978). "The Ancient the winner of the 1979 for couple of weeks at coach Ray Perkins's Mind at Work" (February 1979). "Galatea most professional editor of a science- training camp they were looking forward to Galante" (), and "Illegal Aliens" fiction publication was our own, modest the day when they could send their clones

(). "Giger's work." Omni's Ben Bova in there to do it tor them." This, month Ms. art director Frank DeVino observed The fifty-eighth annual Art Directors' Mazur takes us through the locker rooms recently, "explores the ideologies and Distinctive Merit Award went to two and the labs for a look at how science is mythologies of the human mind. This pfiotographers, Michael Somaroff for shaping the future of sports. Computers, requires a special kind of vision." "Natural Packages" (November 1978) and Space Age equipment, and new training Giger's is not the only art to win Pete Turner for "Road Song" (October techniques combine to turn losers into recognition through Omni. The Society of 1978), the cover for Omni's premiere "Winners" (page 44). A model for names Illustrators' awards went to Ernst Fuchs for issue. Both Somaroff and Turner are like Geoffrey Beene. Bill Blass, and Diane "Invisible Stripes" (October 1978) and New Yorkers. Somaroff. a photographer Von Furs ten berg, Susan Mazur several De Es Schwertberger for "Zen" (October with a penchant for science magazines, years ago turned to the typewriter. 1978). Fuchs paints in the style of has produced portraitures for many of Beginning as an editorial assistant for "fantastic realism," a genre that originated interview subjects. Turner, Omni's whose Good Housekeeping , she has since in Vienna. Austrian-born Schwertberger expertise is special effects, claims his worked as the environment editor for has received critical acclaim for the stone work is given shape by his personal vision. Popular Mechanics, and her by-line has figures that characterize his art. "I have always been an avid reader of appeared in Ambiance. Gentlemen's editorial Omni's content has also earned ," he fold Omni, "and this Quarterly , and Omni. several noteworthy prizes. Science writer comes through in my work." Stephen King, author of Carrie. The Dennis Overbye was'named the fifly-ninth 1980 The annual Art Directors' Dead Zone, and The Shining , has penned recipient of the American Institute of Award was presented to several Omni a brilliant new chiller, "Firestarter," which Physics journalism award for improving contributors, including former Look we've excerpted exclusively for our public understanding of physics and photographer Dan McCoy for a readers (page 50). DO 8 OMNI 7

LETTERS

Kathy Ke e-president) Irwin E. Billr ,.:-; lent) Anthony J. ( e (secretary-treasurer) anne r-iowatsor. (sewer woo .o.-osidenr) CDnjiruiuaiicMTonjs EDITORIAL Editor in Chief.' Bob Guccione; Executive Editor; iova; Managing Editor: J. Anderson Dorman-. r Editors: Dick Teresi, Scot Morris, Owen s; Fiction Editor: Robert Sneckley; Humor Ert-

ill Lee; European Editor: Dr. Bernard Dixon; Associate Editors: Ellen Datlow Michael Edelhart. Kalhleen Siein; Assfstanf Managing Editor; Paul

i; Assistant Editors: Geoffrey Golson. Richard Technological Cheerleading Jesus (we should be able to tell by the

II!.. McAuliffe. Eric Rosen; Chief Kathleen Copy Referring to 's "Beyond miracles he performs), it will revolutionize R'oberl Boy Ian; Copy Editors: Charles J. Attardi. Eden" in the April [1980] issue, one cannot religion. Imagine the opportunity tor Brian McKernan; Editorial Assistants: Susart Caputo, Francesca Lunzef, Margot Weber; Contrib- help admiring Mr. Bradbury's optimism heresies and schisms with 100 clones of uting Editors: Monte Davis, Stuart Diamond. Robert regarding the space shuttle and its Jesus! Cloning a god makes man a god. ' ' >. Dr. Patrick Moore. Thomas J. O'Hanlon. -off technologies, beneficial to many Hence, this experiment is sure to turn off Durk Pearson, Sandy Shakodus ART aspects of our society. But perhaps he the religionists. An Director. Frank DeVino; Associate Art Director: is guilty of technological cheerleading if Sandy Shakocius Jeffrey Dorman. Assistant Art Director: Margaret he truly believes the spin-offs will reduce, Technology Service Richichi; Photo Editor; Hildegard Kron; Assrsfanf for example, our phone bills. Verdes, Calif. Photo Editor: Lisa Shapiro: Staff Photographer. Pat Art.Assistant: Patricia Lubin It is true that shuttle technologies will ADMINISTRATIVE laciiitate telecommunications and Last Words V.P./Di'eaor of Advertising: Beverley Wardale; VPJ possibly even reduce the cost of providing Your Last Word column [] did a Administrative Services; Jeri Winston; V.P./Prodoclicn these services, but it is equally true that terrible injustice to a good science-fiction Director; John Evans; Midwest Advertising Mgr.: those n Kamikow; Southern Advertising Director; cost reductions will be passed on as movie. Alien . In the article you call the r Goldsmith; Western Advertising Director: dividends to shareholders, not price crew of the shin Nostrcivo ioiotic for not

. i Remain; Controller: Marc Bendesky; Nat reductions to consumers. opening all the hatches to let the creature Marketing Mgr.: Ralph Perricelli; Nal'l Sales Opera- Technology may change, after all, blow at beginning of movie nt Mgr: Richard Fogel; Director of Newsstand but out the the Safes: Robert Castardi; Newsstand Distribution people remain the same. instead of watting until the end. They could

. ntDeLisi; Direct Safes Afgt: JelfGiannone; R. Wardle not have blown the creature into space at Liquor Sales Mgr.: Paula Fierman; Advertising Pro- ' rfion Director: Toni Wagner; Advertising Adminis- Langley, B.C., Canada the beginning because the body of ion Mgr ' Leslie Krell Moses; Editorial Production the ship was far away from any portal. At r: Linda Bogdanoff; Director ot Research and Thanks to the article "Beyond Eden," by the end of the film it was in the small, Marketing Services: Carole Rossant ADVERTISING OFFICES Ray Bradbury. I have been able to shut a one-roomed shuttle, and only then was it n York (Beverley Wardale] Omni Publicarions lot of skeptical mouths about our space close enough to a door to be sucked out

I., 909 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10022. Tel (212) shuttle program. into space. 3-3301. Telex no. 237138. Midwest (Norm It seems like everyone I know who does John Moran nikow) Omni Publications Ltd., 111 East Wacker not understand the purpose of the shuttle Springfield, Va. ve. Suite 2036; Chicago, III. 60601. Tel. (312) 565-0466; Soufh (Pelei Goldsmith) Omni Publica- system has nothing but gripes about our tions Ltd, 1707 St., N.W. Washington. 30006. H DC space program. Articles such as "Beyond We of Battle Creek are sensitive to the Tel. (202) 298-6050; Deiroif Omni Publications Ltd.. 950 East Maple. Suite 304. Birmingham, Mich. Eden" help these small-brained people needs of our community including its 48011. Tel. (313) 646-3646; West Coast (John Ro- understand its actual significance. monsters [Last Word, ]. Aided --'i] Omni Publicalions Lid, 924 Weslwood Blvd.. Tim B.Taylor by the research of a special committee e 1002, Los Angeles, Calif. 90024. Tel. (213) 824-9831. U.K. & Europe (Eleanore Graham) Omni Kennedy Space Center and certain allocated funds, we are Publications Ltd, 68 Upper Berkeley St, Cape Canaveral, Fla. currently constructing a sewer that V1H 7DH, England. Tel. (01) 262-0331. Telex no. promises to be the ultimate in 919865 In His Image subterranean comfort. Certainly a monster EDITORIAL OFFICES A number of investigators are studying the will harbor little desire to prowl our fair city Jew York 909 Third Ave, New York, N.Y. 10022. Tel. (212) 593-3301. Teles no. 23712B. West Coast Shroud of Turin to determine whether it when it can bask in sunken luxury. 924 Westwood Blvd., Suite 1002, Los Angeles. Calif. may have once covered the body of Jesus More cities should adopt this concept of 90024. Tel. (213) 824-9831. London 2 Bramber Road, Christ. I have "peaceful within their West Kensington. London W14 9PB, England. a suggestion that will cut coexistence"

il. (01) 385-6181. Telex no. 919B65 through fhe rhetoric about the Shroud. It incorporated boundaries. We of Battle U.K. & European Editions will be possible in Ihe near future to Creek are proud of the example that we Managing Director: Alan Root Advertising Director: clone human beings. The Russians are setting". Eleanore Graham; Public Relations: Molly McKeltar;

Editorial Assistant: Andie Burland already have an experiment under way in Chuck Asher .

BUREAUS which they intend -to clone a mammoth Battle Creek. Mich. Washington. q.C: William R. Corson, 1707 H St.. (Mammoth Country Safari, anyone?). N.W, Washington, DC. Berlin: Hans-Hohn, Enzian- Cloning is a small technical step from this I must make some correction in the April strasse I, Berlin 45 : Andre Fodor, 96 Rua Mexico. J5th floor, Rio de Janeiro ZC39 achievement. All that would be required to 1980 Last Word. Budapest: Paul Kirlyhedgyi, 5 Regi posta utca, clone the man who was wrapped by the Specifically. I am referring to the part on Hi.!.- Budapest5, r . domir Komijenovic. Shroud is a loose skin cell, of which there \hePunxsutawney Parallelogram. Having Strebrnjak 96, Zagreb, Yugoslavia should be many trapped in the cloth lived in Punxsutawney for a while myself, JULY fibers. If this cloned turns friends - human out to be and having many and relatives . OMNI DIADGUE FDRUfUl

folk deems karate for two or three years can have In which the readers, editors, and smack of slow-witted he this part of the test and, in correspondents discuss topics arising out acceptable for ridicule. Little wonder his trouble with abilities are turned fact, students have been known to miss a of Omni and theories and speculation of offers to prove claimed break and injure themselves. Breaking a general interest are brought forth. The down: Who wants to be the public fool? bone in the hand or foot, while rare, is not views published are not necessarily those The problem lies in the arrogance of What people unknown. The point is. just because Randi of the editors. Letters for publication self-righteous campaigns. if can show how something can be faked , should be mailed to Omni Forum, Omni believe may be foolish or even dangerous, follow that it must be faked. Magazine. 909 Third Avenue, New York, but the right to those beliefs must be pro- does not What bothers us is that Randi's NY 10022. tected. Carl recommends strong public education to inform and affect comments about karate, based on minimal research and sloppy thinking, Support Our Space Program those beliefs. We need to understand the complete lack of college connection between belief and fact. demonstrate such a I am directing this letter to reliability that we can't help wondering if students. Having learned of the death of As Sagan has pointed out, science is his debunking of, say Uri Geller is just as both the Galileo and 's not so much a body of knowledge as a of thinking, The working scientific baseless. We suspect not, but we urge Comet/Tempel II missions and the way Randi to be more careful, or he may do his embarrassing delay of the shuttle -imagination appreciates the quality of cause more harm than good. program — and having seen the space metaphor in the Uncertainly Principle or M. David Siorje program pushed aside by our government the Second Law of Thermodynamics as progression from impossible to Professor Richard A. Brandt on every account— it is about time that well as the four New York, N.Y I pages those of us who support our space possible. find it intriguing that Arthur program, our future, address the issue. away from Ihe Randi interview, C. Congratulations on your interview with the The method ior letting the government Clarke suggests that "when a , . . scientist possible, he is Amazing Randi. He deserves three cheers know how we feel is simple. Begin a says that something is is for his important work of debunking petition at your college, collect signatures, almost certainly right. When he says it wrong." charlatans like Uri Geller. They have and submit them to the proper offices of impossible, he is very probably Richard Currey spawned awhole new generation of the President and Congress; Mex. starry-eyed kids and true believers whose • Adviser to the President on Space Farmington, N. mushy sentimentality and pseudo- Affairs: Benjamin Hubberman, scientific jargon sprout like weeds in Ihe Executive Office Building, Washington, James Randi's story about his "karate" gardens of science. If these DC 20500 demonstration mostly serves to demon- well-tended of the weeds aren't checked, they will choke the • Director of Space Science and strate his lack of understanding beautiful flowers of true science Applications; House Subcommittee: nature of karate and the purpose of board real and mankind has labored so long to Don Fuqua, Room 226. Rayburn Office breaking. We are concerned about the that cultivate. James Randi is one of the good Building, Washington, DC 20515 erroneous and dangerous impression he that gardeners, and he should continue • Director of Science, Technology, and has created — and more concerned bias wielding every spoon he has bent by Space; Senate Subcommittee: Adlai E. he seems to be arguing more from honest trickery rather than by paranormal Stevenson, U.S. Senate, Washington, than from an examination of the facts. science power as he goes about his weeding. DC 20510. One of us (M. David Stone) is a Imrnanuel Chin There are nearly 1,000 colleges and writer and a third dan black belt in Tae studying for New York, N.Y universities in the , with an Kwon Do, which he has been (Richard A. average of 2,000 students per institution. over 13. years. The other April you ran an interview with James We represent a powerful force, and we can Brandt) is a theoretical physicist and a In certain belt. Both of us share Randi the magician. He described change ourfutu re. second dan black procedures used in judging a series of Peter H. Diamandis Randi's skepticism about ESP experiments at Stanford Research Institute Great Neck, N.Y While it is certainly true that almost anything can be faked, the fact remains [SRI]. On the basis of his description, he concludes that the results were "grossly Self-Righteous or Good Gardener? that any black belt in any legitimate style undried dishonest." Having been one of the judges Most of James Randi's comments in can break unprepared, unsawed, example, part of the who carried out the "suspect" procedure, I Omni [Interview, April 1980] seem correct. wood. In our style, for consists of breaking a find that his description and my experi- Yet, as Randirails against the show- test for first dan there. are in no way similar. I was No manship of a Uri Geller, he's busy grand- minimum of three inches. Despite the ence all knows where Randi gets his version standing with his own Uri Awards and the impression that Randi gives, this is not one from. has made this false claim before Randi Challenge. He cites cases that ..that easy. People who have been studying He

12 OMNI .

and has been informed of its inaccuracy, is another explanation possible long-term effects of nuclear tests in the yet he persists in what can only be called not discussed in the article. The flash West by surreptitiously killing and dissect- "gross dishonesty." Before you publish could have been caused by a natural ing privately owned cattle. such near-iibelous attacks against phenomenon similar to the Tunguska While our government loves to do legitimate researchers, made by a circus explosion of 1908 In the UFO Update simple things in complex and expensive magician who feels his craft threatened by column of the issue you ways, it seems unlikely that it would risk reality, you might at least investigate the summarized what was known about the flying a fleet of helicopters at night over claims. 1908 explosion. The article then told of a rough and often mountainous terrain. If Peter Schwartz similar explosion that had taken place Bingham is correct about the govern-

SRI Inlernational over Revelstoke, Canada, in 1965. This ment's intentions, it would be much easier Menlo Park, Calif. blast, in the kiloton range, was directly to dress an intelligence agent in civilian attributed to a meteorite, possibly a chunk clothes and have him purchase the animals James Randi replies: The "slow-wilted from Encke's Comet. as any other cattle buyer does. Another

folk" mentioned are those touted by I suggest that the flash seen by Vela was plan would be to have FDA meat inspec- parapsychologists as miracle workers. another such meteorite. First Vela saw a tors in slaughterhouses collect the needed And a magician who makes a tool olhis double flash, suggesting that the hypothet- parts, which could later be diverted to the helper makes a fool of himself as well. Not ical meteorite was breaking up so that the appropriate government agency. understanding how a trick is done makes different pieces did not explode I have been deeply involved in the no one a fool — except in his own mind. simultaneously. Vela did not detect the investigation of these strange animal

I have never attempted to delete radiation and magnetic disturbances that deaths since 1974, when a series of them people's choices. I agree 100 percent with would have resulted from a nuclear blast. occurred in my home state of Minnesota,

Sagan — and I attempt to supply alter- There have been no repeated indications where the military has never conducted natives to the claptrap that passes as of any radioactive contamination in the nuclear or chemical-warfare experiments. science in She field of the paranormal. If a area and waters that would have been Later this year Manor Books will publish thing is fact, it cannot be "many things to affected by a nuclear blast. How does the the results of my investigations. This book, many people" —if those people are sane. flash compare with the explosion in provisionally entitled The Terror, details

We are being told that 2+2*4, and I Canada? I believe that this possibility many incidents that have been sup- cannot accept this. Also, I have never said should be investigated and, if shown to be pressed by law-enforcement agencies;

it that the things I criticize are impossible; I probable, firm steps should be taken to also offers an explanation of the mutila- have said only that they are unlikely in the curb a menace to mankind. tion mystery that will rock the scientific same way that metealies ana X rays were Ronald A. Berends establishment to its foundations. unlikely. They are now established facts. Buffalo, N.Y Michael D. Albers

Show me evidence and I will accept psi , Minn. along with meteorites and X rays. Technological Intrusion Several karate buffs took exception to "Cesarean Boom" points out the folly of As Time Goes By my reference to board breaking and misplaced technology. More and more The case is no! closed! In the April 1980 interpreted my comments to mean that I women are realizing that their bodies are Games column, your "Clock Problem" implied cheating. No! at all. I simply said capable of handling the "trauma" of states that in 12 hours, the hands of a that board breaking as I have seen it — and childbirth. K. C. Cole is supporting the clock are coincident 1 1 times. You are I've seen a lot of it— is easily done without popular misconception that childbirth is a wrong. Start counting at: (1) 12:00; (2) rigorous training or preparation. Some 260 complicated medical problem. 1 :05; (3) 2:10; (4) 3:15; (5) 4:20; (6) 5:25; requests for the $10,000 offer rules came The fact is, however, most births can (7) 6:30; (8) 7:35; (9) 8:40; (10) 9:45; (11) to my door, and all have been answered. and should be completely natural. Fear is 10:50; (12) 1 1 :55, The next 12 hours would As expected, a certain number of the number one factor in the pain most be started again at 12:00. Take time to pink-crayon-on-a-brown-paper-bag items women endure in labor. A relaxed, warm, consider it. were included. And, I must add, a welcoming atmosphere is a benefit to both Lynn Ericksen satisfying number supporting my point of mother and child. A Cesarean section is a Lockport, III. view. In months to come, I will be testing drastic step that results in medical those who pass the preliminaries, and a complications for the mother and infant. Scot Morris replies; In the introduction to report will be made to Omn] of the results Contrary to Cole's implication that this puzzle, I said it was a great one for

As for Mr. Schwartz, I have no idea Cesarean sections result in more "perfect starting arguments — and I was right. How which of the multitude of experiments at babies," it has been recognized by many can the hands of a clock coincide at 11:55 SRI Mr Schwartz was involved in, since open-minded physicians since the 1930s and again five minutes later at 12:00? the judges usually are not identified — that the best method of delivery is as For the record, here are the times that probably for very good reasons. I have natural a way as possible. Childbirth is as clock hands are coincident, worked out by ample evidence that reports from SRI were natural as copulation. A technological David Cortner, of Johnson City, Tennessee, often misrepresentations. Such data will intrusion would not be necessary if women and George Kelley Jr., of Glade Spring, be reported in my book Flim-flam, due for were encouraged to know what is happen- Virginia, and accurate to the nearest publication in September. As for the threat, ing during labor and delivery. It is a gross hundredth of a second: it cannot apply to my craft, for we con- mismanagement of resources when a (1) 1:05:27. 27; (2) 2:10:54.55; (3) jurers openly — with a few exceptions — completely healthy person is subjected to 3:16:21.82; (4) 4:21:49.09; (5) 5:27:16.36; admit that we are simulating miracles, and unnecessary surgery. The birth of a child (6) 6:32:43.64; (7) 7:38:10.91; we leave the claims of real magic to the is a wonderful thine; "Cesarean Boom" (8) 8:43:38.18; (9) 9:49:05.46; paranormalists and children. makes it sound like a gallstone removal. (10) 10:54:32.73; (11) 12:00:00.00. My claim is not false. Fi. Findlay The clock hands are not coincident at Thunder Bay, Ont., Canada 1:05, as Ms. Ericksen and several other Nuclear or Natural Threat? readers suggest. At 1:00 the little hand In Omni [Earth,. April 1980] you discuss More on Cattle Mutilations points to the "1," but five minutes later

I the "1,"the the flash of light detected by the Vela feel I must respond to Alan K. Bingham's when the big hand points to satellite. As the article states, the experts letter [Forum, April 1980] on the cattle little hand has already moved on one suspect that the flash was caused mutilation mystery. Bingham suggests that twelfth of the way toward the "2," etc. Case by some sort of nuclear device. There the federal government is monitoring the closed. Again. DO 14 OMNI 1NG PLANET EARTH By James E. Lovelock

suggested Gaia, the earth's surface and most of its life forms, Imagine the control deck of a space ship Golding, the novels"., immune from ice cover as ifaoproaches a newfound planetary c-sr:h goddess of the Greeks. It also have been the sun, air, and system. The commander turns lo his needed a collaborator to put some flesh It is possible that of the earth always changed I have chief exobiologisl and asks, "Do any of onto the bare bones of theory. was in- surface Margulis help accident to maintain a constant these planets bear life?" deed fortunate to have Lynn by To have done this for 3.5 billion The C.E. replies confidently, "Planet me to develop Gaia. climate. years, however, stretches credibility. A Three has abundant chemical life, along The evidence for Gaia's existence alternative is that life responded with an atmosphere we can breathe." ranges all the way from astronomy to more likely to by modifying the surface How could the C.E, tell? By using the zoology. Stars in globular cluslers shine changes and atmospheric composition so as to telebioscope, which is able to deteci life more brightly as they age. If our sun has maintain the optimal climate. This is one across tens or even hundreds of millions of done Ihe same, its output of radiant for Gaia. kilometers of space. The device, devel- energy has increased by 25 percent of the arguments . Earth, and Venus are thought to oped under NASA's sponsorship 15 years since life began on Earth. have had very similar compositions at their ago, uses in reflected This raises some questions: Why hasn't origin. might expect, therefore, that a sunlight to determine the contents of a Earth's temperature risen accordingly? We planet interposed between Mars planet's atmosphere. Why aren't we now boiling? The answer is: lifeless average of the two. There's nothing unusual about finding Our climate depends not only on the heat and Venus would be an It atmosphere rich in some surprises when a new invention of the sun but also on the gases of the air would have an reflection emission of carbon dioxide, but with only traces of is used. The telebioscope, or life detec- and on the and sea, oxygen. This imaginary planet would have tor, was no exception. When turned radiation from land and iemperature of the earth evolved into something vastly different around and trained on Earth, it spun off The average it wouldn't it is today. from our present-day Earth, for the astonishing suggestion that life on our has scarcely varied from what affected only the have experienced life's powerful and planet is integrated on a global scale. The ice ages have upper 15 percent continuous manipulation of the entire Earth, as a planet. 1$, alive. relatively unimportant planetary surface. If life can make such An entity as large as a planet and with and lower 15 percent of the planet's enormous changes, it seems perverse to the power to control its own habitat surface, while the regions around the of the deny it the capacity, through Darwinian needed a name to match it. William equator, which include 70 percent evolution, to make them so as to favor its own survival. Life uses the atmosphere of its planet as a convenient, mobile medium for the exchange of its chemical products. Methane and oxygen are present in large quantities in Earth's atmosphere, and from

this alone it would be possible, using the telebioscope, to deduce that life existed on this planet. Yet the great fluxes that these and other gases undergo in relation to the earth's crust suggest that the entire biosphere must be involved in the gas transfers, for inorganic processes simply could not handle the volume of the reactions. Air is not passive, but is a part

of life and its interactions with the planet.

What is the function of a gas such as methane or oxygen in the atmosphere? Ordinarily such a question would rightly be

condemned as teleological. It is the role of science, after all, to study the mech- anisms of nature, not to look for some

purpose or design. But it for the sake of argument we assume that Gaia does exist,

planet is actually alive. then the question is no more illogical than The telebioscope has mrnccJ lj.jj U':e Nanjing =.:jyqe:j'jL that the earth as a CONTINUED FROM PAGE 124 16 OMNI HE!

By Dr. Bernard Dixon

^^ cquired characteristics may be hearing, largely because he bases his they might imprint their patterns on those ^™^fc acquired after all. Certain theory on the fantastic abilities of the cells, telling them the complementary # » abilities developed during immune system. Scientists have long been shape of antibodies to produce), or they a person's lifetime may be passed on battled by the body's skill at generating select antibody-making cells from a to offspring, as claimed by the French antibodies to fight off an almost endless preexisting catalog of possibilities. biologist Jean Lamarck but vigorously barrage of foreign intruders. So when Neither idea seemed remotely repudiated by both early and present-day Steele offers a plausible explanation- believable until about 20 years ago when followers of Charles . even when that explanation invokes another Australian, Sir Macfarlane Burnet, That bold assertion, which clashes Lamarckian evolution — he must be taken apparently solved the enigma. He sug- violently with a central tenet of modern seriously. gested that the mutation and selection we biology, is made by the young immu- The riddle at the center of immunology observe in populations of monkeys, fruit nologist Dr. Ted Steele in his provocative is this: How can we and other animals flies, and bacteria might also work among book, published recently, called Somatic produce an astronomical range of the cells of an individual creature. This Selection and Adaptive Evolution (Williams different antibodies that specifically react generates a wide range of antibody- and , Ltd.}. An Australian, Dr. against not only disease-causing bacteria making capabilities. So when something Steele has worked at the University of and viruses but also novel products of the foreign appears, the appropriate cells are Adelaide, the John Curtin School, in chemical industry? To take an extreme stimulated and their production lines Canberra, , and the Ontario case, we know that a baby, a rabbit, an begin to turn out antibodies of the Cancer Institute, in Toronto, Canada. elephant, or a mouse not yet born will be "nearest fit." He is now in London to continue capable of making antibodies that For a while everyone was satisfied with experimental work that he hopes will specifically neutralize a totally new this explanation. But then biologists began provide overwhelming support for his chemical that has not yet even been to realize that Burnet's theory didn't really controversial views. synthesized. answer the central question of how Many adherents of Lamarckism were There seem to be just two possible immunological diversity appears in the won over by its simplistic appeal, rather mechanisms at work here. Foreign sub- first place. Where does that catalog of than by its scientific underpinnings. Jean stances either instruct cells to fabricate information come from? Henri Fabre was one great writer who particular antibodies (for example, This is where Ted Steele provides a refused to accept that life's beautiful hazardous, brave, but liberating adaptations, in solitary wasps, for explanation. Like everything else in the example, are based on nothing more than body, he points out, the immune system this Darwinian selection of purely random has a genetic basis. Something is in- mutations. But ever since we learned that herited. Could it be that the adaptations the genetic material in germ cells (ova and of one lifetime— the mutations that gen- spermatozoa] is in a sense isolated from erate antibodies to protect that indi- the rest of the body, it has been impossible vidual—might be incorporated into the DNA intellectually to accept Lamarckian passed along to the next generation? evolution. There simply is no route by Steele believes that this is precisely what which acquired behavior can be happens. Cells are selected, as Burnet incorporated in the DNA code of germ suggests, but then the relevant information cells and bequeathed to ensuing in them is transferred into the animal's generalions. DNA. How this occurs, Steele cannot be Why, then, has Steele's book been sure, but one possibility is that a virus endorsed by such noted philosophers of performs the task of inserting the coded science as Arthur Koestler and Sir Karl data. Viruses certainly do transfer genetic Popper and by Nobel Prize-winning instructions among bacteria. Maybe they molecular biologists Dr. Howard Temin and also do it in animals. Sir Peter Medwar? Until now the scientific That is fundamentally a Lamarckian establishment has been unwavering in its proposition. And it has straightforward opposition tQ.Lamarckism. And Ted Steele predictions that can be tested, which is does not go outbf his way to seduce exactly what Steele is doing. After a long potential critics. On the contrary, his book and bitter battle to debunk Lamarckian shows all the blunt brashness of youth. theory, Darwinists may now have to settle Steele has not been damned without a Lamarck: He may have been right alter a for a compromise. OQ 20 OMNI jAT/wi

By Brian O'Leary

n June 30. 1908, a ten-megaton amounts of platinum and iridium, bomb exploded at a height of ien suggesting influxes of extraterrestrial

kilometers above the pine for- material. Some depots oonlaining 30 to bu- I hey are probably no further off. ests of Tunguska, Siberia. Trees toppled '160 times the normal level of iridium date Clearly, there are many close-passing and branches sizzled over an area 60 to an event 65 million years ago— asteroids waiting to be discovered— and

kilometers across. About 1 ,500 reindeer precisely the time of the Cretaceous/ waiting to crash into Earth.

were killed, and a man standing on his Tertiary extinction. It should come as no surprise that porch was knocked flat. Shock waves They suggest that the impact of a ten- Earth-approaching asteroids may be the registered on seismographs the world kilometer asteroid would account for both parents of meteorites that land on Earth. over, and the sound was detected in the extinctions and the iridium. Pulverized Scientists who study changes in asteroidal Europe, thousands of kilometers away. A rock uncovered by the impact would "stay orbits have concluded that nearly all the brilliant fireball flared in broad daylight. in the stratosphere for three to five years ones we've seen will eventually strike The explosion released as. much energy and be distributed worldwide," Alvarez Earth, Venus. Mars, or the moon. Most of as a small hydrogen bomb. reported. "The resulting darkness would these events will occur over the next 10 What caused il? Probably a small comet suppress photosynthesis, and the million years. or an extinct comet-turned-asteraid, The e-xpected biological consequences match How big does a meteor have to be to loose agglomeration o! dust and ice, quite closely the extinction observed in the cause havoc on the scale of the Tunguska probably 60 meters across and weighing pa!ecn:obg cal -ecords." event? How often does this happen? How • 100,000 tons, exploded in midair with a How abundant are these Earth- many lives would be lost, and how much potential for destruction far exceeding approaching asteroids, and how likely are property? Small meteorites are more 1,000 falling Skylabs. we to get hit? We can work out a good common than large ones (more than a ton The fear that this sort of thing will estimate by combining the number and of meteorite dust falls on Earth every occur again has become a mainstay of size of craters on the moon with data on day— not enough to leave any visible formula science fiction. (Have you seen the 50 Earth approaches whose orbits are trace). Which sizes are most likely to be the movie Meteor or the olt-repeated known. There are probably at least dangerous? Should we run for cover? TV movie about a comet that explodes 100,000 such asteroids with diameters Dr. Bruce Murray, director of the 9 over Phoenix ) II is a fact, however, that greater than 100 meters and weights of a Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, such collisions have happened before and , recently called together a that others will occur, not necessarily over number of scientists to examine these uninhabited wastelands. The cataclysmic questions. Though more information is impacts of larger comets, asteroids, and needed to answer them conclusively, the meteorites may even be a major factor in scientists agreed that there is at least a changing Earth's climate and geology and small chance that a meteor fall in our the evolution of living things. lifetime could cause an enormous number The meteor crater near Winslbw, of deaths and destruction amounting to , is an example of asteroid collision billions— maybe even hundreds of

in geologically recent times. The crater billions— of dollars. "It is irresponsible," was caused by the impact, about 22,000 Murray said, "to ignore the hazard of years ago, of an iron-rich asteroid 50 to Earth-crossing asteroids." 100 meters across and weighing several The workshop scientists disagreed on hundred thousand tons. This asteroid, like how often a Tunguska even! might happen many others, might have originated in the because data for objects of that size are asteroid bell between '.he orbits of Mars very scarce. Cometlike bodies that would and Jupiter and was pulled into a new, explode in the atmosphere may be more

unstable, earthward orbit by planetary common than solid bodies. So it is perturbation. possible that we could have ten-megaton Our.even less. frequent, very energetic events every few decades. collisions with Earth-approaching Princeton physicist Ted Taylor specu- asteroids could have had a profound lated on the losses that would result from influence on the evolu:.on ol life. Berkeley the impact of a one-kilometer asteroid — Nobel laureate Louis Alvarez and his an event that befalls Earth every hundred coworkers have found that some'deep-sea thousand years or so. He envisioned limestones contain unexpectedly high Win ar. asteroid oes:'<:y cwiiucih;:! devastation tar greater than we GHOST 8TORx nniruD By Morton Schatzman

stared at the television during 16 pattern reversals was averaged. "I stop paying attention to everything

Ruth I screen. The black-and-white Her visual evoked response pattern had around me. I decide whose apparition

checkerboard pattern on the vanished completely! want to make. I remember what the person screen reversed itself once a second, "You've won!" Peter exclaimed. looks like, as most people do with their Electrodes on Ruth's scalp showed, "What's happened?" Ruth asked. eyes closed, except my eyes are open.

through an oscilloscope, that electrical "Your brain has behaved in the same And I produce the person."

waves from the vision center of Ruth's way it would have if your daughter had Where did Ruth's brain intercept the brain were stimulated each time the actually been sitting on your lap," Peter visual stimuli that she stopped seeing checkerboard reversed itself. Ruth was said. "You've produced the appearance of when the apparitions got in the way? Was experiencing a reaction called the visual a real person." her retina, the light-sensitive surface at the of her eye. registering the stimuli? An evoked response. "But I could have told you that." Ruth back Peter B. C. Fenwick, a London replied. electroretinogram. which measures the of the retina to light, psychiatrist and neurophysiologist, and I "Yes, but your saying so isn't the same electrical response were interested in Ruth's visual evoked as our proving it." showed that Ruth's retina responded response for an unusual reason: She We repeated the experiment several normally to a beam of light shining at her claimed to see apparitions that looked as times. When Ruth said her daughter's eye. When she had an apparition cover real to her as living persons did. These head blocked the checkerboard pattern her eye. the electroretinogram showed no apparitions did not have the insubstantial incompletely, the visual evoked response change. In complete darkness, she had quality of ghosts or dreams. Ruth said they was reduced but not eliminated. Ruth's an apparition turn the light on, and the obstructed herview of things just as real reports of how completely the screen in electroretinogram again showed that no people would. Their feet were literally front ot her was obstructed consistently change had occurred in her brain patterns. on the ground: They walked, stood, and corresponded with how much the That the apparition had not affected the sat on furniture; they never flew or floated oscilloscope showed her visual evoked response of her retina was unsurprising, responses are not controlled by on air, If people talked with Ruth, the response was inhibited. as retinal apparitions would follow the conversation, "It's nice that the electrodes can tell you the brain's cerebral cortex, where sometimes making relevant remarks only what I'm seeing," she said. consciousness and will originate. We now she could hear. When they left a room, "How do you make an apparition?" Peter knew that the blocking of her visual they walked out the door, not through a asked Ruth. evoked response to light had occurred wall. They never simply vanished. after the light had been normally For Ruth, an American mother In her registered by her retina. mid-twenties, the only difference between Next Ruth sat with earphones, listening her apparitions and living persons was to clicks being delivered at a rate of about that no one else saw them. Dr. Fenwick two a second. said she could hear the sounds of and I were trying to see whether an She objective test would corroborate Ruth's footsteps and sometimes of clothes . rustling when an apparition walked and of We asked her to create an apparition doors opening and closing when an between the checkerboard pattern and apparition left a room. She also allegedly her eyes. Ruth had acquired the ability to heard apparitions speak. If a living person produce apparitions at will as a result of and an apparition spoke simultaneously, therapy to eliminate her original terror of she found it difficult to follow what either them. We had taught her to accept and was saying, because she heard the control the images, not repress them. Now sounds ot both at once. The clicks Ruth heard in our test are a r. Fenwick and I wanted to use that control to test the effects of the apparitions standard stimulus for eliciting the auditory on Ruth's brain. evoked response from that part of the.

While staring at the pattern. Ruth brain involved in hearing. Peter and I imagined an apparition of her seven-year- wanted to learn whether an apparition old daughter, Heather, sitting on her lap. could inhibit auditory response, too. "Her head is in front of my eyes," Ruth "Could you have your daughter turn down the volume control on the machine said, "and I see the part in her hair and her pigtails. She's blocking out the screen." producing ihe clicks to the point where you The electrical activity of Ruth's brain can't hear them?" Peter asked. He showed.

24 OMNI D ON PAGE 1 1(3 THE ARTS By Robert Siiverberg

ne of the least likely despondent librarian will aomii. mosl gleams on .he booksn elf like some stories in science- fiction books printed in the twentieth century are imposing nineteenth-century collected publishing is a small company not going to survive very far into the works. And eacn :itle 'S accompanied by a that puts its books out in editions of a few twenty-first. The chemicals that are used lengthy and searching introduction by a hundred copies, doesn't bother in modern papermaking processes well-known scholar or author. Among those distributing thern to bookstores, and guarantee that treasured first-edition who have done such essays for Gregg are prefers to issue— at prices ranging up to Heinleins, Asimovs, and Bradburys are Michael Bishop, . Joe $35— novels long available in paperback. going to self-destruct in another genera- Haldeman, Barry Malzberg, Michael Since.1975. Gregg Press has released tion or two and that those paperback Moorcock, and Norman Spinrad. several hundred books by . Sturgeon, van Vogt, and Leiber classics, The Gregg program was born in 1972, , , Robert A. however carefully tended, will perish when Thomas Beeler invited New York , Isaac , Roger Zelazny, of natural causes long before the first editor and book collector David G. and almost any other first-rank SF writer human explorers land on Mars. But Gregg Hartwell to act as consultant for a line of you can name. As quality science fiction — almost alone in contemporary SF pub- hardcover reprints of SF slandbys. becomes more apoealhgly collectible, lishing—uses high-quality, acid-free Hartwell, a formidable wheeler-dealer this modest publishing house is enjoying paper thai will save its titles from the doom whose inexhaus: bie energies have made steady profits and overwhelming critical that awaits other books. Even such him perhaps the single most powerful and acclaim from writers and editors. obscure SF works as William N, Harben's influential figure in contemporary science Headquartered in Boston, tiny Gregg The Land of the Changing Sun and fiction, threw himself into the project with Press belongs to the multitentacled Charles Romyn Dake's A Strange characteristic gusto, but behind-lhe- empire of International Telephone and Discovery are assured immortality by scenes complications delayed the first Telegraph Corporation - a fact Gregg Gregg Press reprints. series of 20 Gregg Press titles for nearly does not work hard to publicize. Some 20 Gregg tickles auihors, ib'arians. and three years. Since then, titles have to 30 books a year appear under the book buyers with elegant buckram appeared in annual bursts. From the Gregg imprint. Though Gregg pays next bindings of uniform design, stamped in beginning Hartwell's coeditor has been to nothing for publication rights— $250 red and . A group of Gregg titles — rare-book dealer Lloyd Currey (in the early

is a lypical advance for a famous novel— most a 'e issued without du^ jackets- years they were assisted by Richard Gid wrilers who draw 50 limes as much from Powers, of the City University of New York). paperback companies are eager to have The original emphasis of the Gregg Gregg reprint their books. series was scholarly, austere, almost "For an aulhor to see his work trans- rarefied. The first 20 books included 9 muted from temporary little paper editions virtually forgotten nineteenth-century into splendid, strong, and durable works, some equally unfamiliar early- editions," says novelist Philip K. Dick, "is twentieth-century ones, and hardly the dream of a lifetime. Seeing the superb anything by modern masters of the genre. Gregg Press editions of my novels and Much of the newer material already had story collections gives me the impression one hardcover incarnation and was merely for the benefit that whal I have done amounts to more being brought around again than a temporary bubble thai one day will of librarians looking to replace worn-out pop into oblivion. These matched editions editions of out-of-print books (Walter are the pride of my bookshelf, and would Miller's A Caniicio tor Lsibowiiz, for or Ola' Stadia-dor's To the of be even had I not been the author." instance, End , whose seven-volume Time), But also on the first list was Bester's Witch World series has been Gregg's top The Stats My Destination, which qualifies

seller al $50 per set, says, "Certainly l am for anybody's top-ten ranking and which very proud and pleased that my titles have had never been published in the United

been gathered into well-designed and States in hardcover before. Gradually it that here was a uniform sets, and l very much appreciate dawned on collectors the chance to have my work appear under genuine first American hardcover the Gregg imprint." edition— available only in some 250 Gregg's editions provide an ego trip for copies. The books were snapped up. authors that goes far beyond putting old "We haven't ceased republishing early paperbacks between hard covers. As any classics," Hartwell says, "but we've

) ON PAGE 116 26 OMNI Fill/ THE MR" By Jonathan Rosenbaum

;, Speculating on what movies of ihe cm those oic corners. Their overall rate of Space," Kowns-

"Once inside a ma I. shoppers have few an even mo'osjoi".(.-r""a uj no"' a te Michael Herr'sD/'spafc/ies and Joseph decisions to make," the magazine Dollars represented by what we watch at home, Comae s Hear! o: Darkness in the & Sense recently noted. "Corners are kept on video equipment. bookstore, the Doors as well as Wagner in to a minimum so the customers will flow The advent of cable TV and closed- the record shop, and roast beef along with along from store to store-, propelled, as the circuit home video brings home viewing plain rice in the fast-food outlets. developers say, by 'retail energy.' " It's a and mall viewing together in a number of Similarly, a 10 will get you Penthouse description that "is seve'.sl -ecent movie striking ways. In recent years the U.S. and Holiday at the newsstand, Dudley blockbusters— and others we can expect Court has twice ruled, in Moore and Julie Andrews in the swanky * to see in the future. separate cases, thai malls are no( public nightclub, and. trom the chain department By contrast, the movie houses that places where citizens can freely store, a telescope ;nat you can take home traditionally cropped up near the centers congregate, express their views, or hand to spy on your neighbors. If we stay at of towns— public gathering places, not out leaflets. One mall expert, William home and tape ourselves instead, then unlike the municipal squares they were Severini Kowinski, has shrewdly labeled play our images hack on giant screens, often adjacent to— are quickly becoming them the- feudal castles of contemporary ihe overall ambience might not be all that ncs-algic emb cms of ano-.her era. America. ditterent. This nvgrt nolo -o account for Shopping malls, meanwhile, are "By keeping weather out and keeping the strange fact that malls and homes are sprouting virtually everywhere— mainly, it itself always in the present— if not in the fast beginning to resemble each other, in seems, on the outskirts of towns-, away future- a mail aspires to create timeless looks as well as functions. From one point of view, the meals recently featured at McDonald's hamburger franchises can be seen as a plausible extension of consumer pocket power collaborating closely with shopping-mall marketing strategies. Both movies and malls today are all-inclusive entities 'ha: lend lo imoose a certain

ibilities here become virtually infinite. ve read Ihe book ." ads used to crow, see the movie!" In the future. Ihey

succession, "You've seen the movie, now read the book," "You've read the book, now eat the meat " and You ve digested the meal, now go on to the T-shull" Thanks to convenient one-stop shop- ping, no fuss, no bother. Before we know

it, Big Mac may turn out to be Big Brother, and Star Wars, Part 6 a solitary video game that we project on our own retinas - down in Ihe vsitey of 'vtozak ar.d h:i:io':ng : aviiiFaiion there. whether we leave ihe house or not. DO Wfim

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the past few months, grocery wildest in the world, and in practice the auras, faith healing, and altering the Forshoppers across the United regime appears to tolerate this as a safety speed of wristwatches held in his hands. States have been titillated by valve for ideological dissent. Two physicists are also active in the banner headlines in the National Enquirer. The reigning czar of the Russian USSR's UFO cult: Vladimir Azhazha and "Crippled UFO Orbits Earth." one ufologists is Feliks Zigel. an astronomy Sergey Bozhich, whose specialty seems proclaims. "First UFO to Inflict Damage on lecturer at the Aviation Institute. to be embellishing foreign UFO reports originals. a City," 'Aliens on the Moon when We Zigel has written popular books and and fobbing them off as Russian Landed," "UFO Base on Saturn Moon," articles on UFOs, on a Soviet "bigfoot" in Reports from these Russian enthu- others announce. the Caucasus Mountains, and on similar siasts—Western newsmen are delighted The mainstream UFO movement has topics. He is also the reputed author of a to find Russians willing to talk on the record had the good sense to ignore these two-volume UFO "lecture" now circulating about anything— are considered sensational claims (while often trusting the in the underground [samizoa!) 'iterature. highly cr ologists sources on other matters), but the public The cast includes some other when they appear in UFO magazines nay well be wondering just what is going interesting — even bizarre— characters. and newsletters. They are written up n. Few people realize that these Science-fiction author Aleksandr in the National Enquirer by the Russians' contact Russian-speaking i :eadlines can be traced from the Kazantsev is one. An "ancient-astronaut" American man. i-nquirer's editorial offices in Floridato enthusiast who predates Von Daniken, he Gris (pronounced Gree), r suburban Los Angeles, and then across claims that "God" is a case of mistaken of Los Angeles. G is is an editor for the halt a world— to Moscow! identity that originated with alien tabloid and coauthor of several books UFOs are a sensitive topic in the Soviet cosmonauts— a notion encouraged in dealing with UFOs and parapsychology. Union. Such sensational headlines would official antirel gious propaganda. Gris seems to quote the Russians with never be printed there. The government Aleksey Zolotov, a provincial university substantial accuracy, but he takes liberties officially denies alien visitations and professor, enthusiastically touts the idea with reality. Instead of identifying his blames such tales— with some that the Tunguska explosion in 1908 was a sources as a small coterie of obscure justice— on "Western yellow journalism." spaceship crash. He has vowed not to enthusiasts, he turns them into "top The Soviet public, however eagerly shave his Tolsxyar, ceard until the world Russian scientists" and "leading Russian devours UFO rumors that rank among the admits he's right. Zolotov is also into body physicists." Check the indexes to the world's scientific literature, however These men's names are notably absent, though tens of thousands of genuine Soviet scientists are listed. Their UFO stories are as questionable as their credentials. Take, for example, the flying-saucer attack on the city of Petrozavodsk on Sepie~ bet 29, 1977, "First UFO to Inflict Damage on a City," the

National Enquirer bannered it on April 18, 1978. Within hours after the story broke in

the West, it had been solved; The jellyfish-shaped "UFO" was really the sunlit exhaust trails from the predawn launch of a spy satellite at a.secret space center nearby. The Russian populace could never be given that explanation, of course, and UFO buffs in the USSR rushed to embrace

it the case. 'As far as I am concerned, was a spaceship from outer space, carrying out reconnaissance," said Kazantsev. Zolotov declared, "In my opinion, the object was a typical flying saucer. The available reports left no doubt whatsoever

A purpc'iecl alien era!! Si rJ during a peak of UFO activity about that in my mind."

30 OMNI Zigel agreed. "Without a doubt." he Vladimir V Miui.lir. ot the Academy of Phenomena Research Organiza pher said, "it had all the features." And Azhazha Sciences' Ionospheric Physics Laboratory Haines believes the UFO was more specific: "In my opinion, what His job ostensibly is to catalog incoming must be studiea scienlit caliy, and he was seen over Petrozavodsk was either a reports' and coordinate-Soviet research. reported one of his most fascinating UFO, a carrier of high intelligence with He spends much of his time trying to reas- experiments, a study of UFO perception, task. at special seminar presented by the crew and passengers, or it was a field of sure the Russian public — a hopeless a energy created by such a UFO." The case of the Petrozavodsk UFO has American Institute of Aeronautics and

The tale of the phanlom alien satellite boon especially drfiou '. for Dr. Miguii-r He Astronautics. The experiment was a Haines asked witnesses ("Crippled UFO Orbits Earth," , denies that it could have been a "true simple one: UFO 1979) seems to have been simple UFO," but state security regulations torbid to sketch what they had seen and plagiarism. Bozhich claimed to have him to announce that it was a Soviet compared the results with UFO drawings spotted fragmenls of an alien spacecraft military spaceship. Poor Migulin is left with by peorjle who had never seen one. circling high above our planet, a derelict nothing but scientific mumbo jumbo Oddly enough, impartial judges couldn't that blew up exactly 23 years ago last about geomagnetic disturbances and tell the sketches apart. Drawings trom the Decembers. Unfortunately, Bozhich was chemiluminescent smog. The staid two groups had the same general obviously quoting from an American scientist is caught in a UFO-KGB crossfire features, and those from people who had scientist's article, which in January 1969 that cannot end happily for him. never seen a UFO contained just as much suggested that a natural moonlet had To understand the Russian UFO scene, "information" and detail as eyewitness broken up and left debris in orbit. When we must apprecare how small the cast renderings. another American scientist pointed out the of characters really is. Russian names are "The similarity of the drawings." Haines paper— Bozhich hadn't mentioned it-the spelled so oddly — and are so often believes, "suggests that these partici- of a National Enquirer proclaimed that it misspelled by the American press— that pants hold a stereotypec image what corroborated the Russian story. few people even try to read them. Hence, UFO is supposed to look like. Almost The Apollo UFO fable ("Aliens on the repeated quotations give the false everyone has seen a photograph or Moon when We Landed," September 11, drawing of a UFO at some time, and the 1979) went through several meta- memory strongly influences subsequent morphoses across the world. Azhazha drawings." was the main source for the National But shouldn't someone who has actually Enquirer Story of a NASA cover-up; seen a UFO be able to give more details mSoviet observatories somehow he neglected to mention that his about their appearance than people who think tale of astronauts secretly photographing had monitored have seen only a picture? You'd so. brings interesting possibility: flying saucers on the moon was derived This up an aiien radio signals, and from a French book by Maurice Chatelain, A UFO skeptic could reasonably suggest published here as Our Ancestors Came radar used to that there is no way any preconceived image of a UFO could overwhelm the from Outer Space in 1978. track ascending UFOs details from a sighting unless the That book, in turn, was based on faked added had pinpointed of preconceived "space photos" released in 1974 by the UFO is largely made up Cosmic Brotherhood Associates, a fringe their origin: , images rathe than external data. In other the witness's mind UFO cult in Japan. The pictures were words, something cues of Saturn.3 a moon to convincing details from forged in order to illustrate an originally conjure up Canadian hoax, which was so transparent memory. The result would be a truly sighting appear- that most UFO groups in North America Imaginary UFO whose ance, honestly reported, had nothing at ail rejected it in 1969, with the form of the original stimulus. Each of. the participants in this fraud to do ambiguity can be added his own personal to acnes lo the impression that 'an entire generation of Haines hopes that this

' preoanng recognition charts story. The result was a family of top Russian scientists is lak rig tu'ni resolved by derivatives-, which the National Enquirer testifying to the reality of UFOs. showing varied UFO shapes and sizes, presented as independent, reliable, Remember that the tabloids are only Witnesses coulu r.hen select from the mutually corrobcativu accounts. recycling the same handful of obscure charts to compose the image they recall Bozhich" s reached a new Russian UFO enthusiasts next time much as a crime witness builds a picture of criminal police identification extreme in the- rros; recent story, "UFO the headlines scream about another the with a Base on Saturn Moon," published Earth-shaking revelation from Moscow. kit. But if their perceptions of the UFO have already short-circuited, such a November 13, 1979. According to this tale, Chances are, we'll have seen those names been Soviet observatories had monitored alien somewhere before. scientific approach may still be worthless. saying," radio signals. Their origin had been "It should go without Haines pinpointed, he added, by radar that had Back on this side of the Iron Curtain: concludes, "that more research is needed tracked the direction of ascending UFOs; Drawings of UFOs reported over the last on the basic perceptual processes," Such years almost an infinife variety. research should go a long way toward toward Salu m . One of the major 30 show confirmations was the trajectory of the Either each UFO pilot has his own cus- demonstrating whether or not many UFOs mind" after all. Petrozavodsk UFO— the one that turns out tomizing kit, or the UFOs, in the words of are "all in the pity if the research eventually to have been a spy satellite. ufologist Robert Sheaffer, "are made of The is, Cynics saw that Bozhich's claims were Silly Putty." proves that something is there, it will in all probability rather than accelerate either limed to cash in on the spectacular Or maybe the hundreds o( UFO impede of UFOs by success of America's Pioneer Saturn sketches on hand don't really show what the process of the acceptance Tms is the probe or were a reacT-on lo the suggestion the witnesses saw, That's the suspicion Laditional science. oecause that Russian radio interference had of Dr. Richard F Haines, a research new theories will most likely be scrambled NASA's data on Titan, Saturn's scientist at the NASA Ames Research championed by those ufologists already largest moon and the alleged site of the Center, near San Francisco. Haines, badly discredited by too many UFO base. TheThore gullible UFO buffs author of Observing UFOs (Nelson-Hall, endorsements of what subsequently did not. Chicago, 1978), is a specialist in visual turned outto be hoaxes. They would be Standing opposite the USSR's UFO perception and ascientific consultant for right only by accident, not by their own rumor factory is a lone Soviet official, Dr. the Center for UFO Studies and the Aerial merit. OO

32 OMNI coruTiruuunn

.ATION MADNESI

would you feel if you heard that a federal agency, moved and no traces ol any agency nearby that couid have done Howa district attorney, a state government, and a U.S. the deeds. Lack of animal tracks, carcasses drained of blood, senator had banded together to finance a serious and weird lights in the sky have been hallmarks of these reporls. 9 study into the reality of Santa Claus And what if the But Rommel blew these ang es away by looking carefully into study concluded that Santa Claus doesn't exist, and then the 24 classic cases. First, he said, the precision of the alterations senator condemned the investigation? was greatly exaggerated. The edges of the wounds showed Well, something very similar has just happened. The Law distinct teeth marks, and desiccation had smoothed the areas Enforcement Assistance Administration and of New over. One rancher, intent on retaining his notions about a super- L Mexico recently spent 550,000 in an attempt to clear up the normal cause, told Rommel that "if coyotes did that, they did it* controversy over cattle mutilations. As reported in Omn/'s Janu- with knives." Rommel countered, "I say that if surgeons did it, ary 1980 UFO Update, this phenomenon involves reports that, they did it with their teeth." since 1975, extraterrestrial beings $Sm UFOs, witches, CIA He found tracks aplenty, of common predators and scaveng- agents, or other strange types have been surgically removing the ers. Droppings from coyotes and buzzards, which are known to rectums, eyes, ears, tongues, and genitals from more than 7,000 consume the soft parts of dead animals as well as to tear into the cattle across the country. To get to the bottom of these serious body cavities to get at the internal organs, were in evidence. The matters, the Feds and New Mexico, urged on by no less an bloodlessness of the corpses was attributable to the normal

: authority than that state "s Senator Harrison Schmiit. came up with process of pooling of bocy uios resulting from gravity, he said. the fifty grand and, under the auspices of the district attorney's Blood congeals in the lower parts, or it is consumed by scaveng- office in Santa Fe, hired ex-FBI agent Kenneth Rommel to scurry ers as a normal process. over the countryside examining deceased cows. One mutifation, he noted, was touted as UFO-related due to Like any good cop, Rommel has discovered' the identity of the accompanying strange nocturnal glows. Newspapers failed to perpetrators: For the most part, they are coyotes, buzzards, mention that the aurora borealis that nighl had been exception- mice, flies, ants, and other scavengers. The mutilations. Rommel ally bright. Another report contained the startling claim that a says, were "caused by and totally consistent with, what, one mutilated steer's legs were broken as a result of a drop from would expect to find with normal predation. scavenger activity, some airborne craft. Romme! suggested that either the legs had and decomposition." He further said, "I have not found one been healed in some mysterious fashion by the time he got to the credible source that differs from this opinion, nor has one piece steer, or they had not been broken in the first place. of hard evidence been presented that would cause me to alter But Senator Schmitt remains unconvinced. While Rommel has this opinion." Rommel went on to explain that mutilation madness recommended that no further public funds be spent on the has been promoted by a "good deal of very creative writing" in matter, Schmitt said, "I do not think it [the investigation J can be the media, taken as a definitive study." He rejected Rommel's finding thai Immediately following the report, the Albuquerque Journal there was false information in official reports from law officers. compared Rommel to Richard Nixon, describing both as former Schmitt prefers to wait for the results from a forthcoming FBI federal employees who "subscribe and give currency to the probe being conducted separately from Rommel's investigation. ." fiction that the news media can, or do, manufacture news. . . So the door has been left open for even more reports of "mutila- Still, the cattle-mutilation notion has been very much the product tions." But true believers should consider one final question. As of careless acceptance of sensationalists reports from unreli- Ken Rommel asked reporters when he showed them a grisly able and biased .sources. Advocates of UFO invasion and other photo of one less-than-precise operation in which predators had theories have piled idiocy on hyperbole to present a bizarre torn out the genital region of a steer, "How'dyou like that surgeon picture ot-cattle in lonely areas with soft parts "surgically" re- doing a vasectomy on you?"—JAMES RAND! coruTiniuurui

HOTDOGGER OR "The people who eat hot MAKING DRUGS will pul different charges on

HAMBURGER? dogs usually grab it and go," IN SPACE different particles in the

he said. "Hamburger eaters stream, separating it into dif- When you go out for a take more time. They're bet- Now there's yet another ferent components by the quick lunch, prefer do you ter-dressed executive types, potential spin-off from the lime it reaches the top of the ho! dogs or hamburgers? A used to making deci- U.S. space program, and chamber." Brooklyn psychiatrist re- sions— well done, rare, it's a big one: a cure for Earth's gravity prevents cently completed a study ketchup or mustard ..." diabetes. the electrophoresis process that suggests the choice you The sixty-six-year-old The McDonnell Douglas from functioning effectively make may reveal some as- psychiatrist said there's an Astronautics Company has on the ground; in space, just signed an agreement Richman notes, the process with NASA to use the space should be highly effective— shuttle to explore the pos- and profitable. sibility of manufacturing new The potential products drugs in space. Specifically, Douglas is looking at include McDonnell Douglas wants to proteins like the anti hemo- test continuous-flow elec- philiac factor, for "bleeders," trophoresis, a process that and cells like the beta cells can work effectively oniy in a that produce insulin. "If this gravity-free environment. process can isolate beta NASA will supply free cells in quantity," Richman space aboard the shuttle as suggests, "they could then early as 1983. Douglas and be implanted in diabetics." an unnamed pharmaceutical The beta cells would then firm will make a device to produce insulin for them. be tested in orbit, which has The result: not just a treat- the potential to produce ment but an actual cure for large, pure quantities of en- diabetes. zymes, cells, and phar- — Joel Davis maceuticals. (While the pharmaceutical Hol-dog eater A risychini'is! describes this type as aggressi company outgoing, ambitious, with obvious psychosexuai overtones. involved is officially uniden- tified, the business weekly pects of your personality. obvious"psychosexual" Barron's has identified it Dr. LeoWoilman, a psy- aspect to eating a hot dog: as Johnson and Johnson, chiatrist, conducted the "The phailic symbolism, the the baby powder people.) study as a result of earlier way a person holds it, deli- Dave Richman, of research he did in 1976 for a cately or forcefully, the rela- McDonnell Douglas, says book on obesity and dieting. tionship to masturbation, his company has already "I got caught up in the sub- and so on. But I didn't get built several prototypes of ject of food preferences and into that much." the device, which will be a did this study just for fun," Dr. One fast-food chain lost rectangular chamber 15 cen-

Wollman said. interest in the study, and timeters wide, 1 .2 meters The study of 3,000 per- Wollman has decided not to long, and only 0.79 millime- sons concludes thai hot-dog publish the results, but he ter thick. eaters tend to be "outgoing, still believes it has "commer- 'A buffering fluid of mostly aggressive, ambitious ex- cial value to advertisers." water will flow slowly upward troverts," while hamburger — Allan Maurer through the chamber," fanciers are "quieter, intro- Richman explains, "while an verted, more-conservative "Be careful about reading electric field is laid across its types." Wollman describes health books. You might die width. A single stream of hamburger eaters as a bit on of a misprint." sample fluid is then intro- the "whimpy" side. —Mark Twain duced, and the electric field 36 OMNI BIO-SLIMMING about what regulates body UNDERWATER Navy model, lifted a sub- weight," Dr. Porte says. TRAFFIC JAMS merged hydrogen bomb The role of the hormone When a person's weight 869 meters from the sea bot- insulin in regulating blood- rises above normal, insulin First, cars choked the tom off the coast of Spain in sugar levels isone known in- levels in the blood increase. highways. Next spacecraft 1966, timately by every diabetic. This eventually increases the cluttered theexosphere. The National Oceano- (Mow a group of researchers insulin level in the cerebro- Mow remote-controlled ma- graphic and Atmospheric at the University of Wash- spinal fluid surrounding the chines are creeping along Administration says there ington Health Sciences Cen- brain. Insulin receptors in the the ocean floor in growing are about 300 ROVs, a more ter, in Seattle, may have brain detect that rise and tell numbers. than tenfold increase in five found a new role for insulin, the weight-regulating mech- one that affects everyone: It anism, and the person feels may be the long-sought- less desire to eat. Weight after weight-regulation trig- drops back to normal. ger in the human brain. Can all this help fat Drs. Stephen Woods and people? Possibly. "This

Daniel Porte, Jr., along with might be manipulated in a graduate students David therapeutic sense," Porte McKay and Elizabeth Loiter, notes, adding that obesity is have completed afour-year often a symptom of other study using baboons that problems. shows that increased levels McKay suggests that an of insulin in the brain cause artificial (orm of insulin might the animals to eat less. That, someday be introduced they say, means there's a into the brain fluid of some weight-regulating system in overweight people, trigger- the brain that uses insulin as ing the weight-regulating the trigger. system into making them eat "We now know something less.— J. D

In the last five years years. Experts say those unmanned, remotely numbers could dramatically operated vehicles (ROVs) increase with expanded have proliferated. Offshore offshore exploration. While oil and gas drilling and the seas are large, most of potential large-scale seabed the craft would be concen- mining have led companies trated in areas of high com- in many nations to make mercial value. Result: traffic. sophisticated machines that —Stuart Diamond can maneuver in areas too risky lor divers or manned Development of a Project underwater craft. 1. Enthusiasm A Japanese ROV creeps 2. Disillusionment along the sea floor like a 3. Panic mechanical crab, digging 4. Search for the guilty party trenches and laying cable. 5. Punishment of the A British ROV inspects innocent party deep-water welds in offshore 6. Fame and honor for the oil-rig supports, One of nonparticipants the earliest ROVs, a U.S. —Anonymous coruTiruuurm

FiREWHEEL li i ar.idir.ion, a small satel- WOMEN AT ZERO G astronaut applicants. lite, designed by scientists Women astronauts prefer a For afew minutes this at the University of California A merger of the women's bra that offers light control summer a moon will at Berkeley, wiH fly through movement and the space with siretch to accommo- light up the night sky. Slightly the cloud and measure both program is raising some date zero-g effects and the larger than our real moon, the energy changes in the interesting dilemmas and rougher launch and land- this artificial green one will barium and the flow of plas- uncertainties. Because of ings. Girdles are io be left actually be a big cloud of mas (hot ionized gases), the space shuttle, which will back on Earth. They restrict barium. Valuable information about carry both men and women and alter blood flow in the Part of an international ho! plasmas may be gath- aboard, NASA is reexam- experiment called Firewheel, ered, but the green moon is ining some of its routine the green moon will material- essentially an exploratory, operations. ize when a European satel- fact-finding effort and only one For example, research lite scatters canisters of pari of a larger experiment indicates that the shifting of barium gas 56,000 kilome- coordinated by Germany's blood and fluid balance dur- ters above the equator. As Max Planck Institute for ing menstruation, withouf the canisters explode, Extraterrestrial Physics. the tug of Earth's gravity, the sun's rays will begin The exact date for this could cause some con- ionizing the gas, turning it astrophysical sky show is cern, according to Jerri a pale green. dependent on weather con- Brown, of the Johnson

It will be the first time sci- ditions, but when it happens, Space Center, in Houston. entists can directly observe if should be visible across N;o one yet knows, Mrs. magnetic field lines in this the entire United States Brown says, whether the area of the earth's mag- shortly after sunset. body can deliver the netosphere. The barium, like — JaneBosveld mensirual flow to the cervix the aurora borealis closer to by contractions alone, or Earth, will literally paint the "Time is the longest distance whether a tampon can " magnetic lines, making them b.etwBen two places. adequately absorb the flow. visible. —Tennessee Williams However, Mrs. Brown, who has analyzed a wide range Long hair and girdlt of female human factors, concludes, "No major gray ty-f?ee environment. been Removal of leg and underarm hair-is basically cultural. Female respond- ents could tolerate seven ids a days of hair growth, allhough closer attention io women's half would call for shaving bodies in the design of provisions on a 30-day space vehicles: Body size, mission. posture, reach, and par- Long, flowing hair may be ticularly strength needed out of place on space treks:

to operate equipment and It might get caught in scien- hatch doors call for new tific equipment or air locks. criteria when mixed space Long hair has a tendency to

teams fly. float free in zero g. as it does How about accessories for in a swimming pool. Madam's orbital boudoir? — Leonard David Leisure bras are in, while girdles are out. "The trouble with some This is one of several self-made men is that Ihey

Scer^r.; ; ;

blades are stiff. When the Rapid Transit (BART) and the a little bit. It thinks it should It's a beautiful, sunny day sunlight is blocked, the Washington, DC, Metro ex- be asleep, for golf and you're no! doing metabolism slows and the pose people up to 160 "I've done about all I can badly, considering your grass "relaxes." Unsup- kilometers away to "mag- to measure the fields here handicap. You're on the ported, the ball rolls into the netic smog." and point out that they're

green in three, if cup. else rail and you And someone buys The third of such sys- present. I haven't had much sink the putt, you'll break the drinks. — Nick Engler tems, says Fraser-, success in interesting any- your record. Better yet, it you acts as a huge antenna that one to monitor the effects.

REUSABLE FILM broadcasts ultra-low- But I think it should be a frequency radiation from priority concern. The Wash- Thanks to the soaring 10 Hz to 0.001 Hz. "I don't ington Metro system is price of silver, a key ingre- know that your brain can dis- similar to BART, and we have dient in many photographic tinguish between what BART all those important people processes, the price of film is putting in your head and there exposed to this."— A.M.

and photochemicalshas the signals it is producing it-

taken quantum leaps in re- self," says Fraser-Smith. "Since I do not foresee that cent months. "Studies have shown atomic energy is to be a However, help for is shut- human reaction time great boon for a long time, I terbugs may be arriving from longer when people are ex- have to say that for the the USSR. According to an posed to 0.2 Hz fields, of present it is a menace.

article in Sower Weekly, which BART is a strong Perhaps it is well that it scientists at Kishinev Uni- source. The Russians have shouidbe. Itmay versity, in Moldavia, have done a lot of work on this and intimidate the human race developed a reusable pho- speak of these ultra-low fre- into bringing order into its tographic film. quencies as 'biologically ac- international affairs, which, • The film is tive.' new made from They may make people without the pressure of fear, it thin layers of thermoplastic. feel drowsy and produce would not do." This plastic becomes light- slight changes in the blood. I -Albert Einstein, 1945 sensitive when an electric sink the putt, someone else current is passed through it. has to buy the drinks when You snap the picture with the you get to the clubhouse. current on, then wait for a

You give the ball a tap. It negative to develop. If you rolls straight for the cup, don't like the picture, simply then stops, teetering on the heat the thermoplastic to very edge. Your buddies remove the image and shoot begin to snicker. You smile it again. — N.E. and hold up your hand to indicate the shot is not over. MAGNETIC SMOG You position yourself so that your body shades the ball High-speed trains may from the sun. Fifteen sec- be subjecting their passen- onds go by. Thirty. After a gers, and others, to subtle minute there is a little move- behavior effects and even ment at the hole and the ball causing them to fall asleep drops into the cup, Among those affected are

What happened? Perched our leaders in Washington, if on the edge of the hole, a Stanford University re- there is nothing holding the searcher is correct. golf ball back but a few Radio scientist Anthony blades of grass. In the direct Fraser-Smith has discovered BART: The highly charged third rail can act as a gigantic antenna. sunlight the metabolism of that such train systems as slowing down people's reaction time and even putting them to slee. "

coruTinjuunn

POLLUTION BANK and newly discovered heavy in nuclear science, trying to the scientists beamed metals and toxic chemicals. find out how the nuclei of argon-40 and neon-20 In a small Maryland "This would produce a better atoms are held together. isotopes, stripped of elec- laboratory a few dozen scientific basis for public The team of chemists trons in order to accelerate samples of frozen liver tissue policy questions and also had certain advantages over them, at bismuth metal foil presage a new era in the help find out whether their medieval predeces- targets. environmental laws are sors. They had a giant atom Morrissey reported that, doing any good," says Gail , BEVALAC (Billion although no new and un- , of the National Electron Volt Synchrotron/ known isotopes of gold were Bureau of Standards (NBS). Linear Accelerator), at the observed, improve- NBS scientists early this University of California's ments in experimental tech- year began a five-year pilot Lawrence Berkeley Labora- niques might produce some. program, funded largely tory and they used bismuth The actual transmutation of by the U.S. Environmental instead of lead, which of bismuth to gold was de- Protection Agency. The course had been preferred scribed by Morrissey as NBS's Maryland lab will in olden times. "trivial." house about 30,000 "Bismuth is, atomically Equipment costing more samples from four groups: speaking, nearer to gold," than $15 million would be re- liver, because it stores said Dr. Morrissey. "Like quired to produce less than pollutants; or wheat rye, gold, it has only one isotope one billionth of one cent's which are staples of the that is stable against radio- worth of gold. "This obvi- American diet; oysters or activity And bismuth has ously is not a cost-effective mussels, which concentrate only three more protons in its way to make gold." he con- marine pollutants; and nucleus than gold." Morris- cluded. — Phyllis Wollman lichens or moss, which sey said he was "pretty sure" concentrate airborne his team would succeed. "Problems worthy at attack/ pollutants. In three experiments, Prove their worth by hitting Tissue samples are frozen using from 4,8 billion up to back. D to -190 C. Scientists hope 25.2 billion electron volts. —Piet Hein to develop techniques to store the samples up to 100 study of pollution. They are years.— S.D the start of what is hoped will be a national bank of living THE MIDAS TOUCH tissue, to be compared over time to pinpoint environ- Nuclear physicists have mental changes. turned the dream of al- Until now, toxic-chemical chemists into reality. They concentrations in living have changed base metal tissue have been recorded into gold. But there's a on paper. But, as better catch: You need $15 million detection methods uncover worth of equipment. new chemicals, there is no Actually, Dr. David J. way to find out whether— or Morrissey and his col- how much— their levels have leagues weren't trying to changed: The original beat the high prices of the samples no longer exist. international gold market The national bank would when they bombarded enable scientists to go back bismuth with large, highly to older, frozen samples and charged atomic nuclei directly compare tissues in traveling close to the speed different geographic of light. They were simply The BEVALAC: Machinery costing more than St 5 million is required regions, both for existing carrying out basic research to produce less than one billionth of one cent's worth otgold. oo omni " " "

LAST LEAF Other U.S. flora in danger pital and funded by the and volumes, and can even of feeling the last rays of NASA Ames Research be programmed to stockpile Endangered species of sunlight on their chlorophyll Center, both in California, complete sentences and animals have acquired include Texas wild rice, the the device features a com- phrases for later use. An ex- hordes of protectors in Virginia round-leaf birch, the puter word processor and a pert operator can iurn out, recent years. There are Hawaiian wild broad bean, speech synthesizer impromptu, as many as 30 dozens of organizations the furbish lousewort, and willing to fight for bald the Contra Costa wallflower. eagles or snail darters. Buf Ironically, yet another plant

what about endangered about to die off is the Santa plants? Barbara liveforever. Literally hundreds of plant -J.D. species stand in imminent danger of losing their last "Human beings are members leaf. Unfortunately, there's of the only species lhat pos- little publicity for this side sesses the capability to of the endangered-spe- interfere with its own growth, cies problem. —Fritz Perls For example, a recent Oregon Slate University TALKING WHEELCHAIR study indicales lhat almost 400 plant species in that Victims of cerebral palsy state alone are in danger of or stroke and other disabled extinction. And in Arizona, persons who cannot speak

Colorado, New Mexico, clearly, if at all, now have a Texas, and Utah, 21 species helpful new gadget; a talking of cactus are being uproot- wheelchair. ed to the point of extinction Developed at Stanford by collectors and dealers. University's Children's Hos- Equipped with a word processor, a computer, ana' a voice out ot an SF movie, the talking wheelchair gives speech to .

mounted on a wheelchair. words a minute. Users lug a switch or Six patients tested the de- shift a joystick or peck at a vice for a week. An elderly typewriter keyboard — de- stroke victim, who otherwise pending on how well they wrote what she wanted to can move — to string to- say on note pads, talked gether words and sentences over the telephone — via the on a video screen. Then they prosthesis— with her family. activate a mechanical voice A young woman with a to deliver the digital mes- neurological disease, con- sage in a monotone like the tracted three months after computer HAL's in the movie bearing a son, was able to 2001. speak to that son, now five,

The device could confer for the first time. Her first artificial speech on the 1.5 words: "Kevin, put your million Americans— such as pajamas on right now! deaf-mutes— who cannot — Robert Brody speak understandably. The computer stores 925 "'Not quite proved' in widely used words, follows mathematics is like 'not quite Includedin the long list at endangered plants are 21 species ot 600 grammatical rules, talks pregnant' in biology. cactus, which are being uprooted lo extinction by collectors. at varying speeds, pitches, —Howard Pattee coruTiruuurm

PLIGHT OF THE PANDA visil Sichuan (Szechwan) die several years ago, the coon, only recently have sci- Province, one ot three prov- carcasses of at least 140 entists come to think the An eminent American sci- inces where pandas live. starved pandas have been giant panda is related to the entist is rushing io China to According tbSchaller, found. How pandas man- bear. — Barbara Ford equip that country's giant surprisingly little is known aged to survive previous pandas with radios. His ob- about the giant panda, a bamboo failures isn't known, "it has to do with: Are we but they may have done so good painters, good 7 because they had a wider sculptors, great poets' 1 range. In the Pleistocene, or mean, all the things that we Ice Age, pandas were found really venerate and honor in in many parts of China and our country and are patriotic also in Burma. Their range about. In that sense, this may have been wider in his- new knowledge has all to do

toric time, too. with honor and country, but It The giant panda, which has nothing to do directly can grow up to two meters in with defending our country

length and weigh as much except to help make it worth as 140 kilograms, is an ani- mal with no close genetic — Robert R. Wilson, relatives. Its closest relative director of Fermilab, is the red panda, a small, in response to Senator cat-sized creature of a dif- John Pastore, who had ferent genus that lives in var- asked how nuclear ious parts of Asia. Previously accelerators contribute to

believed to be a kind of rac- national defense. 1

ject is to keep the species black-and-white relative of alive. the bear "The first thing to The giant panda, one of do is find out where they are the world's most popular and how many there are, "he animals and the national said. After that, he added, symbol of China, is the focus free-ranging pandas may be of a newly formed commit- titled with small radios that tee of Chinese and Western enable researchers to track scientists. In recent years and study the animals with- pandas, which probably do out seeing them. Without not number more than 1 ,000, radios, it would be difficult to have been starving to death observe individual pandas because of a mass die-off of repeaiedly because they live bamboo, a major compo- in mountains with densely nent of their diet. forested lower slopes. The American delegation The die-off of bamboo that to the committee will be is affecting giant pandas headed by George B. Schal- apparently occurs about ler, director of the New York once every 100 years. The Looking tike a scene ouirj Aruv>. o: :l t- -_,-'- ive ~r-,\-. a~"-'--:o:i Zoological-Society's Center plants bear seed before they sodium tank for the Clinch River Breeder Pe^'j:-' ;.'..'>.=;; ,'• .'. -:: for Field Biology and die, the Con- but seedlings take down a road to its storage site in Memphis, Tennessee. The Clinch servation. He will be the first several years to malure. River plant will use three such sodium tanks, the largest ever built in Westerner since the 1930s to Since the bamboo began to the United States (each holds 310,000 liters} for a breeder reactor. 4? OMNI l

Sports' emerging heroes reach pjnnacies of power through science

BY SUSAN MAZUR

knifes into the waler. Heinstantly bringing his body to the pertect position for speed. The movement comes naturally to him now alter hours at practice under calibrated computer control. Reaching forward for his first stroke, he gauges the depth of his kick. The computer said he kicked too deeply. Now he is careful to execute the movement perfectly. His stroke enters the waler at the optimum angle. His arms pump easily against the pressure he experienced hundreds of times in the computer weight room. Straining to match the com- puter's perfection, he knows he is moving faster than anyone thought possible. "Computer training transcends mere strength, freeing a swimmer to achieve his full potential." says Robert Schleihauf, who trains £We can surpass ail physical . Computer training enables us to see movement beyond human perception. 9

swimmers on a computer sociology, and medi- system al Teachers Col- cine." according to Dr. lege. Columbia Univer- Marvin Clein, of the sity. "With the computer Human Performance we can evaluate each ol Laboratory, in .

a swimmer's movements "Already," declares Dr. and eliminate all the tiny Jakow Bielski, a psy- (laws that the swimmer chologist at City Univer- doesn't notice and the sity of New York, "it is coach can't see. Even common today among Olympic-caliber swim- athletes, regardless of mers can improve their class, to assume that times significantly performance is about through our computer twenty percent physical training techniques." and eighty percent men- Schleihauf uses a tal. This understanding computer system de- alone typifies a new kind vised by Dr. Gideon of emerging athlete, one Ariel, the tormer Israeli who stands much re- discus hurler, who is now moved from the inher- director of computer ently physical athlete of sciences and mechan- time not so far past." ics for the U.S. Olympic Dr. Bielski points to the Committee. "The human mental edge that lifted eye cannot quantify the American hockey human movement." he team over the physically says. "The important superior team sent by things in performance— the timing, the rel- screen. The stick figure simulates a full se- the USSR in last winter's Olympic Games ative speeds of dozens of limb and body quence of athletic movements, which can as an example of the power ol behaviorism segments, the changes in center of grav- be frozen at any point tor observation. in athletics. "However, the real impact of ity—all must be measured, weighed, and Ariel uses this setup to determine an this shift to a more mental, systematic ap- compared scientifically to be of any use." athlete's center of gravity, , acceler- proach to sports," Bielski says, "is yet to be The future of sport, says Dr. Irv Dardik, of ation, direction, angle of attack, and force. seen. The future athlete will implement the Council Medicine, " on Sports rests in the It gives him a fixed image of the relationship behavior-control advancements so that hands of science. Coaches will become of every part ol an athlete's body to every even spontaneity will be controlled." scientists. Computers, behaviorism, bio- other part at all stages ol movement, allow- Right now scientists are looking for ways mechanics, and genetics will help create ing the tiniest flaws in technique to be to assist athletes in eliminating mental perfectly tuned athletes. New tools will studied and corrected without guesswork. blocks and integrating the workings of their usher in an age in which human percep- "When a swimmer is working out," he minds and muscles. Dr. Richard O'Brien, of tions are too limited to train human bodies. says, "the coach can't tell whether his hand Hofstra University, in New York, is using "How can the human eye tell whether an motion produces the most thrust, whether hypnosis and relaxation techniques to help athlete has turned his shoulder a degree his starting dive is as effective as possible, athletes conquer suppressed fears. Dr. too far to the left or stopped a centimeter whether the angle of his arm entry gener- O'Brien worked with boxer Duane Bobick. short when releasing the ball?" Ariel asks. ates the least resistance. We study the who had the disastrous habit of "freezing "In fact, it can't. But the computer can eval- athlete in the gym. We test him in flumes up in the first round." O'Brien, employing uate many elements at once." with stress pulleys attached so that we can hypnosis, discovered a seething caldron of Ariel's better-than-human eye begins gauge the force generated by many differ- fears and insecurities that paralyzed the with a camera that shoots an athlete's mo- ent movements. We create a pattern fighter in the ring. He took Bobick through a tion at up to 10,000 frames a second. These through the computer of the best possible treatment of 20-minute tension-relaxation high-speed images are projected onto a series of motions. This we compare with the sessions. First, he'd tell the fighter to tense screen over an array of 20,000 extremely swimmer's performance in the pool. Only his muscles, then to relax them. Next he'd sensitive microphones. A special sonic then can the coach know exactly where the go on to internalized routines, with Bobick pen is used to trace the athlete's position in swimmer is working to best advantage and relaxing himself by concentrating on sooth- each photo frame. Microphones pick up where he isn't. Before the advent of com- ing thoughts. Finally. Bobick grew so adept the signals and relay them to a computer puters, coaches were merely guessing," at willing himself to relax that he overcame that animates a stick figure on a video The emerging science of sport will work his first-round handicap completely with athletes' minds as well as with their Dr. Clein is working on systems to im- Golf swings and other movements can reach per- bodies. It encompasses programs from prove athletes' "muscle memory" He be- fection with computer techniques (above), but broad social schemes to minute manipula- lieves the athlete rises or falls on a kind of sweat and desire, as shown by boxer Chuck Wep- tions of behavior. It is "a holistic approach. intelligence that Clein calls fluid. O'Brien, a ner are (teft), essential lor athletic excellence. utilizing psychology as well as physiology, zealous supporter of Clein's ideas, says. "There are no sports that I know of where The next frontier, envisioned by Ariel, will on the Cybex, comparing body strength you are really cognilively involved. There be three-dimensional computer simula- from session lo session until he's matched

are no thinking sports. Sports are fluid mo- tions of athletic motion Not exactly holo- his base line. Then we know he's fit, Then tion, muscle memory. The proper response grams, these images will be 3-D views pro- he can play." has to come from muscle memory because jected on a two-dimensional screen. Like According to Saunders, Cybex is doubly

Lord help you if you try to think about any- computer-generated engineering per- beneficial: It offers physical advantages of thing athletic." Clein probes the body for its spectives, they will give the illusion of swift, controlled training and the confi- information storage-and-retrieval potential three-dimensionality dence of mind that ene's training is doing

much as a neurologist probes the nerves. "By using a hologram, you'd really see what it's supposed to do. Clein links athletes to a host of measuring the figure in 3-D, utilizing optical prisms and "In the case of Hollis Copeland [of the systems with electrodes, noting the range things like that," Ariel says. 'And we will see Knicks]," Saunders says, "we used the

ot muscle-nerve responses as Ihe aihletes that in the near future, no question about it. Cybex to increase the strength of certain make athletic choices. You'll be able to step right into a hologram muscles while we rehabilitated his slightly Bielski takes a slightly difierent position. to simulate the movements of an Olympic injured ligaments. We used knee flexions "The ability to switch from the fluid state champion. We are working on that now." and extensions at slow speed both to build to the cognitive and vice versa is where the Ariel's work may represent sports' next up the old injury and to make a new injury real power lies." he says. "This is what sep- destination, but quite a few trainers and less likely. Later we compared his left leg to arates the supple, successful Roger Stau- athletes haven't gotten there yet. They pre- his right leg in terms of strength and then bach-type athlete from the stiff Duane fer training techniques that, while new, looked at the original base line. Hollis saw Bobick-type. The power of switching marks aren't asfar out as prancing stick figures. his chart and was satisfied that he was the great performer. The ability to alter the The most popular among these is the okay to play The fact that an athlete can game plan by quick-thinking strategy, as Cybex machine, a spin-off from Sky lab that see his own readout from the Cybex is well as by recalling a learned repertoire of hrjs -found wide acceptance with profes- another important feature of the machine techniques. To follow rushes of confidence sional baske-:"J3'i and fooiball teams. and of the athlete';; healing process." with the knowledge of when to stop and Some sports diehards still stick with the

ask, 'What am I doing? What is my oppo- most modesl advance in training gear, the nent doing? What is going on in this situa- Nautilus, a contraption thai links the com- tion?' Ail without ever losing sight of the mon types of weightlifting movements into

point, successful performance." a single unit. The athlete can perform all his Even the physical side of sports science QThe willingness exercises in one place without fear of will have a positive mental impact on to use new technologies dropping weights and without the need for athletes. New training systems that achieve spotters to lift and lower barbells. and ideas represents better conditioning for athletes also gener- "I don't believe in anything but the ate enormous confidence because of their the coming wave in coaching Nautilus," says boxing manager Dave Wolf.

scientific precision and efficiency. The ath- "I am aware of other sorts of machines, but that many believe letes are not simply in better shape, they the Nautilus is the only one I'll use." know they're in better shape, and so they will soon bridge the gap One reason why some athletes lag be- perform withouf worry. between scientific hind in using new training methods, Saun- Ariel's Wilson-Ariel 4000, which the Dal- ders thinks, is that they feel like human needs and athletic habits^1 las Cowboys will use this season, actually guinea pigs, under the thumb of jargon- puts the computer in charge of the player's babbling scientists who don't really care training. Ariel's unit monitors hydraulic liits about their problems. If information from that function like barbells, except that their scientific testing could be made more intel- pressure can be fine-tuned to maximize a ligible to athletes, Saunders believes, more player's workout. A physical profile cas- The Cybex uses a technique called would use it. "It is, after all, not the com- sette is made for each athlete, relating his isokinetics, which means that the harder puter that does the work." he notes, "but the strengths, weaknesses, body peculiarities, you push, the more resistance you meet, people who interpret the information. And and fitness goals. The computer uses this like running your hand through water. The that information could really help athletes,

profile to adjust the pressure, speed, and Skylab astronauts used the device to keep or it could just help some doctor publish duration of the 4000's drills. It can, for in- limber in their confined space. Now earth- articles in journals that few people would stance, help an athlete build up a postsur- bound athletes have found it an adaptable understand." gical knee by presenting it with the most and effective conditioning tool. Some athletes' skepticism about new appropriate amount of pressure each day, Bob Reese, trainer of the New York Jets, methods has hardened into downright dis- while keeping the other leg trom going soft uses the Cybex as pari of his predraft phys- belief. "I just don't believe Ariel's system is by challenging it with the full training ical to determine an athlete's range of joint possible," states Mike O'Shea, owner of the weight. This individual programming, Ariel motion and muscle strength. By pinpoint- New York Specs TrMinirq institute. Kayaker asserts, cuts down on training time, gives ing gaps in muscle strength — such as Steve Kelly, one of O'Shea's athletes, adds, the athlete confidence in his training regi- morethan a 10 percent strength difference "I think it's hog wash. Most of the findings in men, and allows coaches to train each part between legs — the Cybex can weed out my event could have been deduced by of an athlete's body lo absolute specifica- injury-prone players and train their weak simply watching movement with the naked tions for his particular task. muscles into playable form. eye." Ariel counters that Kelly and other "The 4000 gives you a lol more informa- Mike Saunders, trainer and physical kayakers didn't work with the computer tion," Ariel says, "and it tells you how you're therapist for the New York Knicks, lauds the long enough to obtain significant results. progressing. It will let you know if you're Cybex's flexibility and precision. "We can Others point out that, no matter how ef- lazy or if you should try harder. It'll even set it for revolutions per minute or degrees fective new training machines may be, they remind youif you haven't paid your gym per second, and an athlete can work out at still can't overcome the enormous influence dues lor the month." all various speeds. We can calculate how of mental states on sports figures. In some The Hilton hotel chain, Ariel claims, is many foot-pounds of torque are produced cases, in fact, the machines can be men- thinking about-putting 4000's in all its by a muscle group, What's important is to tally devastating for an athlete. health clubs so that travelers can get per- get a base line that serves as the compari- Consider bike racer Paul Deem, who fect workouts through their computer cas- son level of an athlete's basic health or won a Pan-American Games gold medal settes, no matter where they may be. injury. If he is injured, we can work him out while still a teen-ager, then captured an

48 OMNI CON1.NL., EL)ONPAGE91 VODKA&PC5E5

Vodka smooths out in the limelight. 4 parts Vodka,! part Rose's!

%•„-.

"•n

Rose's Lime Juice* *The Famous Gimlet Maker. She really was a nice little girl, but she sure knew how to burn a guy up

BY STEPHEN KING

I'm tired," the lit- now and these cross streets He had gone into the bank at Daddy,tle girl in [he green were both darker and less noon because his radar had pants and the red populated, but that was what been alerted — that funny- blouse said fretfully. he was afraid of. hunch feeling that they were "Can't we stop?" His arm was getting tired, getting close again. There was "Not yet, honey." and he switched Charlie to the in the bank, and he and

He was a big, broad- other one. He snatched Charlie could run on it if they shouldered man in a worn and another look behind, and the had to. And wasn't that funny? scuffed-laaking corduroy green car was still there, still Andrew McGee no longer had jacket and nondescripi brown pacing them, about half a an account at the Chemical Al- twill slacks. He and the little girl block behind, There were two lied Bank of New York, not per- were holding hands and walk- men in the front seat and, he sonal checking, not business ing up Third Avenue in New thought, a third in the back. checking, not savings. They

York City, walking fasl, almost What do we do now? had all 1 disappeared into thin running. He looked back over- Mo money. That was maybe air, and that was when he knew his shoulder, and the green car the biggest problem, after the they really meant to bring the was still there, crawling along actual fact of the men in the hammer down this time. Had slowly in the curbside lane. green car. You couldn't do any- all of that really been only five "Please, Daddy Please." thing with no money in New and a half hours ago? He looked at her and saw York. People with no money But maybe there was a tickle how pale her face was. There disappeared in New York, They left. Just one little tickle. It had were dark circles under her dropped into the sidewalks, been nearly a week since the eyes. He picked her up and set never to be seen again. last time — that presuicidal her in the crook of his arm, but He looked back over his man at Confidence Associates he didn't know how long he shoulder and saw the green who had come to the regular could go on like this. He was car was a little closer, and the Thursday night counseling tired, too, and Charlie was no nervous sweat began to run session and then begun to talk lightweight anymore. down his back and his arms a with an eerie calmness about

It was five-thirty in the after- little faster. If they knew how how Ernest Hemingway had noon, and Third Avenue was little of the push he actually committed suicide, And on the clogged. They were crossing had left, they might try to take streets in the upper Sixties him right here and now Par! one of a two-part excerpt.

PAINTING BY GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN "

way out. his arm casually around the pre- wanted nothing Io do wi:h them. One of the the same moment his stomach seemed to sulcidal man's shoulders, Andy had given two men took a walkie-talkie from his belt lake on weight and 'his bowels locked in put him a push. Now, bitterly, he hoped It had and began to speak into it. Then they were sick, gripping agony. He an unsteady wondered whether been worth it. Because it looked very much gone. hand tohis'face and he or die. For that as if he and Charlie were going io be the 'That black guy," the driver said, was going to throw up ... ones to pay "whaddy do? Rob a liquor store or some- one moment he wanted to die, as he al- One little tickle, he prayed. That's all, thin', you think?" ways did when he overused it. "

God, just one little tickle. Enough to get me "I don't know," Andy said, trying to think "Gee, mister. I don't know — and Charlie out of this jam. how to go on with this, how to get the most Which meant he thought it must be trou- They were coming- up on Seventieth out of this cabdTver for the least push. Had ble with the law. Slreet. The light was against them. Traffic they got the cab's license number? He- "The deal goes only if you don'l mention lasi was pouring across and pedestrians were would have to assume they had. But they it to my little gi'l." Andy said. "The iwo building up at the corner in a temporary wouldn't want to go tot he city or state cops, weeks she's been with me. She has to be bottleneck. And suddenly he knew this was and they would be Surprised and scram- back with her mother tomorrow morning." where the men in the green car would take bling for a while at least. "Visitation rights." the cabbie said. "I

it." them. Alive if they could, of course, but if it "They're all a bunch of junkies, the blacks know all about

tell I'll "I fly her up," looked like trouble . . . well, they had prob- in this city," the driver said. "Don't me. was supposed to ably been briefed on Charlie, too. tell you." "To Albany? Probably Ozark, am I right?" "< Maybe Ihey don'! even want us alive Charlie was going to sleep. Andy took off Rig nr. Now I scared to death of flying. anymore. Maybe they've decided to just his corduroy jacket, folded it, and slipped it I know how crazy that sounds, but it's true. her this time maintain the status quo. What do you do under her head He had oec unto feel a thin Usually I drive back up. but my with a faulty equation? Erase it horn the hope. If he could play this right, it might ex-wife started in on me. and ... I don't board. possiby work. know." In fact. Andy didn't knew. He had He would have to try for that tickle. There "I've changed my mind," Andy said. made the story up on the spur of the mo- was just nothing else. ment, and now it seemed to be headed

They reached the waiting pedestrians at straight down a blind alley. Most ot il was the corner. Across the way, dont walk held pure exhaustion. steady and seemingly eternal. He looked "Five hundred bucks to skip a plane back. The green car had stopped, The ride." the driver mused. going to give curbside doors opened, and two men in 4/'m "It's worth it to me," Andy said, and he business suits got out. They were young you a five-hundred-dollar bill gave one last little shove. In a very quiet and smooth-cheeked. They looked con- voice, speaking almost into the cabbie's to take me and my siderably fresher than Andy McGee felt. ear, he added, "And it ought to be worth it He began elbowing his way through the daughter to Albany. Okay?" to you." clog of pedestrians, his eyes searching "Listen," the driver said in a dreamy Andy stuck the bill frantically for a vacant cab. voice. "I ain't turnin' down no five hundred hand, "Hey, man—" into the cabbie's and dollars. Don't tell me. HI tell you." "he' 'For Christ's sake, fella!" as the cabbie looked "Okay," Andy said. sebi ng oack. "Please, mister, you're stepping on my cabciriver -,vas satisfied. He wasn't wonder-

" at it, Andy pushed . . . hard. 9 dog- ing about Andy's half-baked story. He Then Andy saw a vacant cab. wasn't wondering what a seven-year-old "Taxi! Taxi!" he yelled, flagging madly girl was doing visiting her f.aiher for two with his free hand. weeks in Oclober with school in. He wasn't fact that of Behind him, the two men dropped all wondering about the neither pretense and ran. "Take us to Albany, please." them had so much as an overnight bag. He The taxi pulled over. "Where?"' The driver stared at him in the wasn't worried about anything He hao

"Hold it!" one of the men yelled. "Police! rear-view mirror "Man. I can't take a fare to been pushed. Police!" Albany. You out of your mind?" Now Andy would pay the price. A woman near the back of the crowd at Andy pulled out his wallet, which con- Andy sal with his head back and his eyes the corner screamed, and then people tained a single dollar bill. He thanked God closed The headache was coming, com- riderfess began to scatter. that this was nol one of those cabs with a ing, as inexorable as a black Andy opened the cab's back door and bulletproof partition and no way to contact horse in a funeral parade. He could hear of in his temples: handed Charlie in. He dived in after her. the driver except through a money slot. the hoofbeals that horse

"LaGuardia! Step on it." he said Open contact always made it easier to Thud ... thud .. . thud. ihe run. Charlie. He was "Hold it, cabbie. Police!" push. He had been unable to figure ouf On He and The cabdriver turned his head toward whether that was a psychological thing or thirty-fou 1 years old. Until last year he had of English at Harrison the voice, and Andy pushed— very gently. not, and right now it was immaterial. been an instructor Harrison A dagger of pain was pfanled squarely in "I'm going to give you a five-hundred- State College, in Ohio. was a the center of his forehead and then quickly dollar bill," Andy said quietly, "to take me sleepy little college town. Good old Harri- withdrawn, leaving a vague locus of pain, and my daughter to Albany. Okay?" son, the very heart of mid-America. Good — like a morning headache— the kind you gel "Jeeesus, mister old Andrew McGee, line, upstanding from sleeping on your neck. Andy stuck the bill into the cabbie's young man. "They're after that black guy in the hand, and as the cabbie looked down at it, Thud, thud, thud. Riderless black horse on. on. coming on — checkered cap," he said to the cabbie. Andy pushed . . . and pushed hard. For a coming coming and

"Right," the driver said, pulling serenely terrible second he was afraid it wasn't behold, a black horse. away from the curb. They moved along going to work, that there was simply noth- Andy slept. East Seventieth. ing left, and ho nao' scraped the bottom of And remembered. Andy looked back. The two men were the barrel when he had made the driver see standing alone at the curb. The rest of the the nonexistent black man in the check- The man in cnarge of Ihe experiment was pedestrians who had been waiting to cross ered cap. Dr. Wanless. He was fat and balding and Then the leehng came- as always, ac- had at least one rather bizarre habil. : . , .1 companied by that sleel dagger ot pain. At "We're going to gjve each of you twelve . young ladies and gentlemen an injection," he said, shredding a cigarette into the ashiray in front of him. His small, pink fin- gers plucked at the thin cigaretle paper, spilling out neat little cones of golden- brown tobacco. "Six of these injections will be water. Six of them will be water mixed with a tiny amount of chemical compound that we call Lot Six. The exact nature of this compound is classified, but it is essentially a hypnotic and mild hallucinogenic, Thus, you understand that the compound will be administered by the double-blind method, which is to say, neither you nor we will know until later who has gotten a clear dose and who has not. The dozen ot you will be under close for forty-eight hours fol- lowing the injection." Andy had been put onto the experiment by Quincey Tremont, the fellow he had roomed with in college. Quincey knew that Andy's financial situal.on was precarious. "How would you feel about a quick two hundred?" Quincey asked. Andy brushed long, dark hair away from his green eyes and grinned. "Which men's

room do I set up my concession in?" "No, It's a psych experiment," Quincey said. "Being run by the Mad Doctor, though. Be warned." "Who he?" "Him Wanless. Tonto. big medicine man in-um psych department." "Why do they call him the Mad Doctor?" "Well," Quincey answered, "he's a rat man and a Skinner man both. A behaviorisf The behaviorists are not exactly being overwhelmed with love these days." "Oh." Andy said, mystified.

"Also, he wears very thick little rimless glasses, which make him look quite a bit like the guy who shrank the people in Dr. MRS. MARY BOBO is the most special Cyclops. You ever see that movie?" Andy, who was a late-show addict, had person in Lynchburg, Tennessee. This July, indeed seen it, and he felt on safer ground, but he wasn't sure he wanted to participate" she's more special than ever. in any experiments run by a professor who was classified as (a) a rat man and (b) a Mrs. Bobo has run the boarding house in town Mad Doctor. "They're not trying to shrink people, are since 1908. And though she's never served a they?" he asked. Quincey laughed heartily. "No, that's drop of whiskey in it, she's been a friend of our strictly for the special-effects people who work on the B horror pictures," he said. distillery every one of those "The psych department has been testing a series of low-grade hallucinogens. They're years. This year, Miss Mary working with the U.S. Intelligence Service." "CIA?" Andy asked. will be 99 years old. Every- "Not CIA. DIA, or NSA," Quincey said. "Lower profile than any of them, Have you one at the distillery will be ever heard of an outfit called the Shop?" sending her card. If you're "Maybe in a Sunday supplement." a I

Quincey lit his pipe. "These things work a friend of Jack Daniel's, in about the same way all across the board," he said. "Psychology, chemistry, we hope you might like physics, biology . , . even the sociology boys get some of the folding green. Certain to send her one too. programs are subsidized by the govern- ment. What does our intelligence branch hallucinogens? want with low-grade Who Tennessee Whiskey 90 - Distilled and Bottled by Jack Daniel Distillery, knows? I don't. You don't. Probably they Lem Motlow, Prop. Inc., Rente 1, Lynchburg (Pop. 361). Tennessee 37352 don't, either. But the reporis look good in Placed in the National Register ot Historic Places by the United States Government. CONTINUED ON PAGE 105 To sell the American Dream, Madison Avenue charts new frontiers in consumer science

I essages, nearly 2,000 a day, batter uproar, the content of advertising is increas-

I the average aduft. About twice as ingly determined by the findings of scientists. many as we received ten years age. Specialists in a broad range of scientific dis-

I If you don't believe it, when you get ciplines are probing our attitudes, our bodies, M up tomorrow, start counting. How and our minds to discover how best to sell us many commercials do you hear on the radio? the American Dream. How many billboards do you pass on the way Marketing research has always centered on to work? How many messages grab you as you one basic question: What does the consumer pass the newsstand? And you haven't even want? That focus is now deepening; the con- opened up your mail yet. Or visited a store. Or sumer mind is being dissected to discover turned on the TV what makes it tick. Ever more sensitive meas- Two thousand messages a day! Word mes- ures have been designed to penetrate the sages. Picture messages. Populated by re- censors in our brains and to tap social values flections of ourselves— of who we think we are, and thinking modes we seldom verbalize. or who we'd like to be. Delivered by messen- Advertising-campaign strategies In the gers (Joe DiMaggio, 0. J. Simpson, Farrah Eighties will reflect the discoveries of laborato-

Fawcett — name your favorites) whom it has ry-based researchers who, in many instances, been determined — and there are statistics to are learning more about the consumer than prove it— we credit with being on the inside the consumer knows about himself. track to the truth. No one claim's he can scientifically predict We all know that ads don't just spring full- or produce "a purchasing response," but blown from the brows of agency "creatives." many are trying. Dr, Sidney Weinstein. a But most of us remain unaware that, as the neurophysiologist, is one of the most re- noise of competing messages swells to an spected scientists known to be working with PSYCHOGRAPHICS BY BIBI WEIN adverlisers today. Dr. Weinsiein claims his "I don't know what people were consum- and- packaging must be considered. is the only commercial laboratory that per- ing before these studies began in the late Psychophysicist Howard Moskowitz uses forms sophisticated brain wave analyses; Sixties, but now they are consuming lei- computer modeling to create a quick, mar- others moonlight out of university and gov- sure," Stannard reports. ketable formula from these intangibles. ernment facilities. "Blue-collar home's are chock-full of the An associate of Weston Group, Inc.. "By determining the proportion of beta latest gadgets. Some of these gadgets are Moskowitz describes himself as a sensory waves to alpha waves that a person regis- very fancy. In upper-class homes we're see- engineer. Basically, he creates the best ters while viewing an advertisement," ing such luxuries as the two-hundred -dollar possible consumer products by systemat- Weinstein explains, "one can measure the tennis racket. It's not going to make their ically varying several ingredients, getting degree to which the individual has been game any better People- arc buying wishes reactions from consumer test panels, and 'activated'— presumably in the direction of and promises. Selling the technical as- developing equations that modify the in- purchasing the product." Weinstein pects of the quality racket would be less gredients to suit the consumers' reactions. monitors his subjects on an EEG oscillo- effective than selling 'the smasher.' Yet "What we come up with is an actual per- scope, which measures both beta activity what we keep hearing in our data is that fect recipe, which we weigh against costs. and the comparative intensity of left- and people want to return to a simpler life." We then calculate how much we lose in right-cerebral-hemisphere response. The Burnett data also corroborate some- consumer acceptance by making the Right-brain activity indicates a response to thing other observers have noted: We are product cheaper for the manufacturer or by images and shapes; left-brain action de- now more interested in consuming experi- making it more expensive for the. con- notes attention to verbal concepts. With ences than in consuming things. That's one sumer." Moskowitz can formulate a sham- such data, Weinstein begins to shape a reason why life-style research, costly and poo with "the optimum amount of perfume" discover sensory profile of how a consumer responds to var- involved as il may be, is now being used in or, for that matter, the ious elements of an advertisement. some form by about 50 percent of market- properties of the best shampoo for a par- Which elements are working? Who is the ers. To sell merchandise as experience is a ticular life-style target, He can also test its

r best spokesman for the product? Which of complex proposition; more than ever be- image and packaging for :i ^!-:esl "accept- several suggested themes is best? Should ance." The cost of such a program is con- siderably less than "rolling out" real prod- I advertise on radio or TV or in print, and in selected targets in the what order? Do I need 60 seconds, or will ucts for sampling by 30 do. at about two thirds the cost? Wein- real world — and results come far faster. stein has found that, in some instances, ten "Product qualities," says Jack Lewis. 47?)e same principles that seconds — cheaper still — is most effective. president of Weston Group and formerly an Among Weinstein's clients are all three Moskowitz used to executive at Procter & Gamble, "are de- television networks, a dozen advertising fined by the consumer as she or he per- come up with the ideal agencies, and manufacturers of packaged ceives them, not by me sitting here in my foods, beverages, cosmetics, cars, and potato chip are office. The traditional test-marketing proc- appliances. Most clients remain publicly now being refined by ess takes years. With computers we can do nameless because they swear Weinstein to it in months." secrecy, although he can't understand why. commercial science Sensory engineering currently has When asked to appear on the popular TV to optimize the image of greater impact in advertising than brain • show 20/20, Weinstein sought permission wave studies because it is more supple political candidates3 to air commercials for which he had pro- and detailed. Up until now brain wave vided research. He was perplexed when a studies have indicated only "activation" major agency declined. "A thirty-second and "interest." but more details from the spot on 20/20 probably goes for one oscilloscopes lie just over the horizon. hundred twenty thousand dollars, and they Weinstein feels their use will grow be- turned down a chance to get one free." fore, advertisers need to know what we cause they fulfill a fundamental need of Brain wave studies, whose potential in think, what we actually want to do with our advertisers. advertising has barely surfaced, deal with time, and how, in detail, the fragments of "If people have nothing to hide, you can immediate physiological response. Other, our culture differ from one another. trust your interview data. You don't need more elaborate consumer profiles are de- To this end, life-style research "sorts us brain waves," he says. "But if there is any rived from existing methods that, when into piles," as Seymour Banks, media question of morality, the chances are. combined with modern science, produce vice-president of Leo Burnett, puts it. "But you're not going to get the Irulh." People minutely detailed evaluations. no one has yet arrived at definitive psycho- have all sorts of attitudes that they cannot Psychographic studies, also known as graphic types. We divide up very different- communicate verbally, but these nonethe- attitudinal* research or the study of life-style ly, depending on who is dividing us and for less dominate their behavior. and values, query our activities, interests, what purpose. Broad stereotypes— the To expose nonverbal signals, Dr. Wein- and opinions in lengthy precoded ques- happy housewife, the organization man, stein isolates a brain wave that occurs tionnaires that are administered to the pleasure-seeking man, and so within 300 milliseconds of a stimulus. thousands of people and are then sub- on — may be sufficient. Or we can be bro- Called the Cortical Evoked Potential, the jected to statistical analyses. Inherent in ken down into very small but profitable technique may soon register the full range this approach is the assumption that if you segments to target specific products." of human emotions. "Feelings," he says, ask enough innocuous questions in Product-specific psychographics are "may be reflected in the electrical impulses enough different ways, basic feelings will designed to measure the appeal of a dog of the brain, not- in the sense that there's a become clear. food that costs more than any current love wave or a hate wave, but in a more The most ambitious psychographic brand or the potential for a metropolitan general, connotative sense. We could tell study carried out so far is probably the Leo daily in the suburbs. Soap manufacturers you on a scale of one to five whether a brain Burnett life-style study completed in the fall may seek "a market opportunity" for still wave is positive, slightly positive, neutral, of 1979. Nearly 4,000 questionnaires— 120 another soap, to be targeted at people who slightly negative, or negative. It's compli- pages for women, 70 for men — were are dissatisfied with available brands. cated, and it would be very expensive, but hand-delivered. There was a 35 percent Establishing a market for a new product we could do it." return. "A mountain of data," sighs Burnett's is not an easy job. To arouse the con- The scientist likes to cite a rejected study

Charles Stannard, whose job it was to make sumer's interest, everything from a pro- as evidence that his work is more accurate sense of it all. duct's color, texture, and smell to its price than traditional research. "A year or so ago 55 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 96 * ._ ,T' . ',.^V ^>-'*f^tr SUf- JL ilW

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! il 6*^75^ il you go there, it is set technological colony devoted amid quaint New England Ihe marine environment But sand modern buildings at perhaps even more than that, Fitting place by the sea Woods Hole is a technological called Woods Hole. community of Ihe future. Like some Hollywood set. the Wilh ils white-painted sides d. wooden cottages blistering from Ihe sun and Ihe

I lo the village, the sail air. the house on School """i Slreel is an obvious tip-off. Al-

though il may look like any other iaaftftam shades and rocking chairs. Instead, there one scientist said, "this is:he place to be." are computers. The fluorescent-lit interior is Walk into Fishmonger's Cafe, the focal crammed with them. restaurant- near the -drawbridge overlook- A bearded college type is reading a list ing the channel that, connects Eel Pond of numbers to his associate sitting beside with Great Harbor. Go past the hippies in the squat Sigma 7. The statistics, gathered their torn and granny dresses seated to compare the makeup of fish populations by the "doorway and you begin to under- with the efforts of fishermen on the Georges stand that Woods Hole, more than a re- Bank off the coast of Nantucket Island, 'search institute, is a state of mind. could well predict the types and sizes of The man wearing a red, short-sleeved his fish available for food in the years ahead. shirt and tan shorts is casually talking to Another program digests dala taken over friends about the effects of chlorine on lar- ihe past 30 years to plot the relationship val fish, There is a rumble of laughter in one with between changes in the temperature of the corner. A group of men and women sea's surface and shorl-term climale fluc- some sort of exotic marine animal printed tuations. What finally emerges is a clearer in ink on the backs of their shirts are chat- understanding of the overall climatological ting about the last fish tow in the Pacific. picture. Nearby a third program formulates "You counted how many isopods in that data aboul the different layers of the earth's stomach?" somebody at the counter interior— information that could prove in- shouts. A man with' fluffy white hair puts valuable to the fledgling science of earth- down his avoca;do-and-Muenster quake prediction. sandwich, leans over to a woman sitting Like the Computer Center. Woods Hole is nearby, and says, "Your sections of; the a strange mix of ultramodern science and perikaryon .were lovely," He., accidentally familiar, down-home surroundings. Yelthat drops his napkin to' the floor, Instead of kind of luxation might be the vogue ofthe mayonnaise smudges, thereare light pen- future, and this waterside village could be cil'scribblings of a complex molecule. The importance of Fishmonger's Cafe to leading the way. , Woods Hole's deceptiveness lies in its the Woods Hole community was evident a personality,. Politically a part of the town of year and a half ago when the landlady Falmouth, the village serves as a summer found that. the restaurant was permitting free resort for the affluent and as a port for the people who had no money to eat there ferryboats that travel to the islands of and work off the price of the meal after- Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, imme- wards; She closed the place' .down. Imme- diately to the . diately the residents raised enough money world. Hole is to pay off the restaurant's debt and bought , To the rest of the Woods synonymous with science of the Olympian a new Fishmonger's Cafe across the street. opposite Fishmongers, squeezed kind -so much so that it has been called Just the mecca of marine science by its admir- against muddy, boat-stuffed Eel Pond, ers. The opportunity to study at this center stands the Marine Biological Laboratory old, is as sought after by most scientists and (MBL). This cluster of concrete and graduate students as is tenure at the Insti- tute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, or Ocean biologist Joel Goldman inspects phyto- membership in Washington. DCs Cosmos plankton cultures { upper left 1; fish samples analysis (right!. Club. "If you ve got fo study the ocean," netted in salt marsh lor pollution

60 omni red-brick buildings attracts top-notch mass cultures of algae. Potential uses, northwestern Ai.'antk: is gathered at this biologists the way Switzerland attracts Goldman thinks, could be anything from facility, everyth ng hair Ihe effects of pollu- skiers. At last count, some 30 Nobel protein-packed seaburgers to the devel- tion on fish larvae to the size and life his- laureates and a few National Medal of Sci- opment of an important energy -source: tories offish in a particular area. Jon Gib- ence winners had passed through its por- harvesting and lerrnentmn algae to make son is the information officer at the facility tals. Selrnan Waksman, the man who dis- methane. and is rather proud of the Fisheries' record, covered a cure for tuberculosis, worked at Like the MBL, Woods Hole Oceano- Besides being the first fisheries research MBL. So did Ivan Pavlov, the Russian graphic is not without its alumni. Many sci- lab established inlhe world, the Fisheries physiologist who conditioned dogs to entists serve there on one advisory board was the leader in fostering international drool; so did James Watson, one of the after another. Robert A. Frosch, for exam- cooperation in oceanographic research. researchers who broke the ONA code. And ple, left a position at WHOI to become the Gibson says, "We had the first bilateral

you can still see eighty-six-year-old Albert director of NASA. agreement with the for study- von Szent-Gyorgyi strolling around the Science at Woods Hole actually began ing the world's oceans."

place in jacket and dungarees. with Spencer Fullerton Baird, an assistant That kind of record has put the Fisheries Szent-Gyorgyi, who won the 1937 Nobel secretary to the Smithsonian Institution, in one of the best positions to view the fate Prize for his discovery of vitamin C and the who went to the Cape looking for a place to of the oceans and of the fishing industry Albert Lasker Award for the first practical study population changes among food Because of the increased costs of energy,

"explanation of heart-muscle contraction, is fishes. Impressed with the little village, he Gibson sees a revolution occurring in

still raising eyebrows for his controversial established the country's first government marine commerce and management within work on the "bioelectronic" theory of marine laboratory, in 1875. For Baird. the the next 20 or 30 years. "It will cost more for

cancer. The eminent scientist has been tin- area was ideal. Not only was it the nexus other nations to come to this country and kering in his small lab in MBL's Lillie Build- between warm currents of the Gulf Stream fish," he says. "Foreign fishing in our waters ing with the idea that cancer begins when and cold waters of the Labrador Current, will almost certainly decline."

something goes haywire witn the electrons but it was free from the contamination of This is good news for the U.S. fishing within the cell, not with the larger molecules industry. But Gibson envisions an even themselves, which has been the main brighter future when sophisticated com- thrust of cancer research. To a great major- puter tracking and sampling systems will ity of cancer researchers, Szent-Gyorgyi's transform the oceans into vast aquatic theory doesn't hold up, chiefly because no supermarkets, ready to be fished in the it If a creature solid evidence has yet been advanced to most efficient and environmentally sound support his claim. But the Nobel laureate with three legs landed In way. "Even now we have estimates of all of doesn't seem discouraged. People have the village of the major fish stocks in the northwest Atlan- always been skeptical of his theories, until tic Ocean," Gibson declares. "11 seems Woods Hole and wanted they're proved correct. possible that these estimates will become Theories are a specialty at the Capt'n lab space, as more accurate as our technical knowhow Ki.dd, a tavern nearby, which serves the increases." long as Its science was same communal purpose as Fishmonger's Hidden in Ihe tree-choked section of the * but for a younger qeni= r stion of scientists. reproducible, village, just a mile up the road, is still the Geological The decor— old, faded life preservers on nobody would cam.? another institution, U.S. the walls and shark jaws close to the Survey. There scientists study the structure register— is typically touristy. The conver- ot rocks on the bottom of the ocean, pro- sations are not. ducing information that has been used by During the summer the bar is usually various companies to locate oil and natural jammed with college vacationers trom gas deposits on the eastern coast of the Falmouth resort beaches who listen to the river effluent. The combined effect creates United States. USGS assistant branch blaring jukebox while down ng a few beers. a huge diversity of marine forms that furnish chief Bill Green says that this process is not But dispersed among this sea of singles, ample specimens for study. as easy as it sounds. "There's no tool yet bibulous jokesters, and other beach per- What was once a peaceful community of that will allow you to directly determine sons are pockets of researchers, fisher- farmers and ishormen gradually filled with whether there is oil or gas in a rock. Some- men, and students, discussing some of the academicians, a special breed of people body has to go out and drill the holes." things textbooks haven't gotten around to as dedicated to their work as they were to When four separate, powerful institu- printing. their surroundings. This zeal provided the tions, each with its own mandate, end up Farther up the street sits the Woods Hole glue that kept the scientists together. Such living in an area, only the size of a football Oceanographic Institution (workers here camaraderie might have disturbed the es- stadium, there's bound to be a little push- ing in tact, like to call It wrioo-ee, after its initials, tablished locals, but the relationship was and shoving. Quarrels have, WHOI). Behind the staid brick walls various pleasantly symbiotic. Some of the older re- flared up between rnese lac lities because departments divide up the seas like one searchers remember a st'O'y about a young of something as insignificant as a parking great tub of cheese. Here biologists study reporter who came to the village to ask the space. But for the most part the bickering is the effects of pollution on the sea bottom fishermen how they liked having all the sci- almost brotherly. This relationship may be and do research on how sewage can be entists around. One replied, "Used to be the reason why certain flare-ups haven't used productively by salt marshes. that when we caught a dogfish shark, we'd been more, serious. Gibson explains, "It's Chemists learn why various elements move just have to throw 'em back in the water. important for us to have the scientists of through the ocean and how radioactive Now we sell 'em." WHO! and MBL around for peer review. And particles are distributed in the water. The large Victorian structure where Baird we, in turn, can provide them with peer Geologists and geophysicist.s examine once worked has long since been torn review by saying how practical or how logi- continental drift. down. In its place, pushed against the wa- cal something they're doing is. We com- Joel Goldman, at WHOI's department of ter's edge at the corner of Water and Al- plement each other very well." biological oceanography, is investigating batross streets, is a blocky laboratory Wha1 do the scientists of Woods Hole do r,:•; i'"o e;it!ir-,g plants of the ocean, called called the Northeast Fisheries Center of the with their time when they're not busy dis- phytoplankton, subsist in their enyiron- National Marine Fisheries Service. Local secting the world's oceans? Many spend rveni By regulaling certain things like residents, though,, simply call it the their off hours sailing, or fishing with lures temperature, Goldman is able to "form" Fisheries. Key information about fish in the scientifically selected for their effective-- 52 OMNI scientific institu- ri9ss. Others are cooks or musicians. If Woods Hole's new elite think that they quite dependent on the Goldman likes ID spend his time in the gar- have staked out a Utopia for the future, they tions," says shop owner Bill Banks. "Not den near his home, where his algae-grow- may be deluding themselves. The scien- fully dependent, but enough so that if they ing techniques are applied to tomatoes tists at Woods Hole compose only a small moved away, there'd be hell to pay." Township's 21 .000 res- Nevertheless, with all of its political influ- and beans. "Whatever knowledge I have minority of Falmouth of based on my job," he says, "is transferred idents. Wait for the drawbridge, separating ence, the village takes little advantage it. to my outdoors activities." the mainland from the village, to raise its "There have been times, though," Banks This kind ot attitude saturates this town gray belly and see the rust in Woods Hole's adds, "when they wished they could have." like the warm salt air blowing oft the ocean. sh'nhg armor. There are other problems. Every summer School of Sci- It's seen in the plays, in the Scottish and On the underside of the bridge, sprayed since 1913, the Woods Hole ballet dancing, in the drawings displayed in orange paint, are the words get out of ence program has been a thorn in Fal- the unusual by the artists' guild. But perhaps it's best OUR HOLE; TOURISTS GO HOME. The work of mouth's side. Perhaps most seen in the interpersonal relationships juveniles. The paint is faded as if it had school of its kind inthe country, the classes among people who live at Woods Hole. As been there for a long time. It is the most stress learning by observation, Designed of is not so at other seaside communities, un- blatant sign that something is wrong. But if for children between the ages seven and orthodox behavior is accepted as casually the signals are obvious, the causes, some fifteen, the school occasionally holds as the tide. One scientist said, "If a creature researchers say, are not. classes at nearby ponds and beaches. The for with three legs landed in the village and A few years ago Emperor Hirohito of teachers are chosen by the mothers, not wanted lab space, as long as its science Japan planned an unofficial visit to the vil- the amount of educational experience they was reproducible, nobody would care," lage to discuss his field of marine biology have, but for how well they know their sub- is perhaps Nothing shows this more clearly than the with a scientist at WHOI. Apparently, ject and can teach it, The school yearly Woods Hole May Festival and its though, Falmouth got wind of the visit and the one nonscience building in Woods Hole closer together, notorious Black Dog Contest. In any other arranged for the emperor to iour a few of the that acts to bring families village such a contest might generate as more historical spots in the area, one of making this science-based community much excitement as the Dewey decimal them being the home of Katharine Lee warm and human. system. But not in Woods Hole. The object, Bates, writer of the song 'America the The courses are college-level stuff, not is or- of course, is to choose the best-looking Beautiful." When Emperor Hirohito arrived, watered-down electives. Ornithology dog, the ugliest dog, or anything lying in he skipped through Falmouth proper and nithology and not bird watching. There is beiween. The unusual part ot the contest is drove directly to Woods Hole. That day has also entomology, vertebrate zoology, ecol- that most of the contestants are not black not been forgotten by the folk of Falmouth. ogy, and biological illustration. Without the dogs. In fact, cats have been entered, not Part of the problem lies with Woods pressures ot grades or tests, the children to mention ducks with black ears, invisible Hole's international clout— a fact the town learn the scientific, names of the specimens black dogs on leashes, and even people, fathers are quick to realize. But also, being they pick up on field trips, write reports, the same people who have discovered how the major employer on the Cape. Woods and have class discussions about what the weld works. Hole has economic clout. "Falmouth is they've found. But they are not child pro- teges plucked from genetically controlled test-tube environments. They are normal kids, and some of these children come from neighboring towns, but most of them are the children of scientists. The tensions and hidden jealousies these children are exposed to when they enter the mainly middle-class, blue-collar Falmouth school system are understand- able, One biologist remembers when the students in a class at a Falmouth school were told to bring in pictures of animals they thought were unusual. Two Woods Hole students brought in the real thing: a specimen taken from a mile below the ocean's surface. Another investigator re- calls wrestling with a particularly difficult problem his son brought to him from class.

His solution: "I just sent him to the fellow down the hall. He did the original work the chapter was based upon." The exposure to science comes natu- rally to the members of the scientific colony,

but it tends to alienate the rest of the popu-

lation. If Woods Hole has proved anything.

it has demonstrated that scientific ivory towers do turn yellow and that they have a weak side that can't always be defended. No human-built technological colony will be perfect. Even Woods Hole is not without its share of divorce, alcoholism, and ten- sion between neighbors. "We have our problems as everyone else does." said one Woods Hole researcher, "That's the one "Would you folks prefer the American plan, the Europei thing that our science may never be able to the Amoebic Dysentery plan?" solve. Unfortunately," he added, "human frailties come with the species. "DO Freud had to solve the problem - or he'd shrink the disorder of a constellation, a smudge of strictest orders to comply with Freud's pro- could encircle us at any moment." stars. Here in the late twenty-fifth century cedures. The administrators cannot control "How long have you feltthis way?" Freud

it, the captain stalks out. space exploration is not routine; the Whip- the fate of the mission, but they can abort essays mildly as perty VI is on a dangerous mission to the tearing the ship apart 'at the touch of a Freud sighs and stubs his cigar on the desk hitherto-unprobed Vegans. The view of the light-year-distant incendiary beam. The and then stares at his diploma for a while. universe from a distance ot so many light- captain knows this. He sits across from Then he summons the navigator. years trom Vienna is astonishing. Freud Freud, his hands on his knees, and while The navigator shows considerably less would not have dreamed that such things staring at him earnestly, his eyes slowly ig- effect than the captain"but, after some gen- were possible. Furthermore, he would not nite under Freud's gaze. "We're going to tle probing, discloses that his mother is have dreamed that as technology ad- take over those Vegans," he saysr un- aboard the ship, stowed away in one of the vanced, the common neuroses would pre- prompted. "You know that, of course." ventilators and whispering thoughts to him vail. Of course, that was foolish. The pain, "Of course," Freud says sympathetically. of the most disgusting nature. He has al- the schism, the older ironies would prevail. "They're a green humanoid race, primi- ways hated and teared his mother, and that This crew exhibits symptoms that would not tive but with the potential for technological is why he enlisted in the service. But she have -astonished anyone at a routine Tues- advance. They're hostile and barbaric. will not leave him alone — he was a fool to day presentation. We're going to wipethem out while we still think that he could escape. Freud dismiss- es him and turns to the hydroponics en- Freud shrugs. He reaches inside his vest have time. 1 have plans," the captain says bitterly that he, too, is pocket for a cigar and match, lights the shakily. "I have enormous plans." gineer, who tells him cigar with a flourish, watches smoke whisk "Of course you do," Freud says. He puffs already affected virally with an insidious into the ventilators as he turns in the cor- on the cigar with what he hopes resembles disease, which the captain has been seed- ridor and then returns to the small cubicle a gesture of serenity. "Why do you feel you ing into the units. Machine or otherwise, that the administrators have given him as must destroy the Vegans?" Freud is as doomed as the rest, but at least office space. The desk is littered with pa- "Because otherwise in a generation he can try to keep up his strength. She pers, the wall with diplomas. Freud feels they'll have spaceships and atomic de- offers him some celery. After she leaves, he right at home. Within Iheir limits the admin- gnaws it meditatively and talks to some istrators have done everything possible to selected members of the crew. They be- grant him credibility and a sense of do- lieve the officers to be quite mad; in self- defense they have turned to bestial prac- main. If he is unable to cope, he knows they last finds profes- will only blame him more. Well, he thinks, tices. Here at Freud some 6The last time I had an sional they are impressed that well, what they decide will be done. I will be respect— administrators would send another fa- shrunken again and replaced in the dream assignment was in the early the mous psychoanalyst as reconstruct to su- It will many centuries before I cube. be twenty-second century: receive another assignmenl. But then perintend their voyage. They hope that he better than Adler and Jung, who again I will have no knowledge, and there- the madman on Venus who does worked together and succeeded- only in fore my entrapment will be In their estima- - thought he was a boring them with lectures in the assembly tion, not mine. The last time I had an as- threatened to cut signment was In the early twenty-second vine and hall on mass consciousness until the ad- century: the madman on Venus who off the dome respirators. ministrators, displeased, dwindled them thought he was a vine and threatened to and said that they would send a true prac- I didn't handle that too well3 titioner, doctor, in their place. cut off the dome respirators. I didn't handle a medical their that too well and got derricked lor cen- Freud sends the crew on way and lights another cigar. The symptoms turies. But here I am again and none the are extraordinary, yet there is worse for it. Their sanctions exclude me. evinced This thought impels him toward his next enough consistency in the syndrome for ," have lied act, which is to use the communicator on vices and will destroy us the captain says. him to infer that the administrators his desk to contact the captain and sum- "Don't worry, I'm completely in control. I'm a to him: Everyone on this ship has gone mon him to his office. Of all the technologi- highly trained man." mad, and this is probably a consequence cal wonders of this time, the communicator Freud has read the capsule reports pre- of the mission Itself. Long probes— their propinqui- is a simple instrument, reminiscent of the pared by the administrators. Of course stress, isolation, boredom, and crews, telephone of his era. Freud wonders idly there are no Vegans at all; there are three ty—must tend to break down the for not whether they have given him this to make silicon-based planets circling an arid star. The administrators have called him him feel at home or whether the twenty-fifth In five centuries of space probes, life has because of special circumstances but be- is simply a century less sophisticated than never been found on these planets. "I know cause of ordinary circumstances. What "Still, they him to is to patch over matters the slick and dangerous twenty-second, you're trained," Freud says. I have a want do mission conclude. which he remembers so vividly. He also question, if I might ask it." in order that the may thinks, while waiting for the captain, of his "Please ask it," the captain says There has been much difficulty and ex- cruel to old rivals Adler and Jung. hoarsely. "I am prepared to deal with any pense; it would be wasteful and Doubtless that miserable pair have al- questions." abort the mission so close to its end. ready been summoned and failed on this "That's an important quality, to be sure. Freud stands, neatens his desk margin- corridor his case. There is grim satisfaction in knowing Now, what if it happened to be," Freud says ally, and returns to the and pac- this. But he would have hoped to have been gently, "that there are no Vegans?" ing. The welter of constellation now stuns reconstructed more often. Two jobs in the "There are Vegans. Several hundred mil- and discommodes. Freud adjusts the twenty-first, three in the twenty-second be- lion of them. I'm going to wipe them out." angle of the windows so that he can evade early-twentieth- fore that disaster on Venus, and now this. "Yes, yes, but what if there aren't? Just to them. Space, for an

is overwhelming; it must Not good. Not good at all. speculate—" century Viennese, effect the custodians Well, there is nothing to be done about "You're just like the rest of them," the have less of an upon twenty-fifth, but several months in that. Here he is. and here the responsibility captain says, his face mottling, "You of the for the mission reposes. The captain enters damned toy, you reconstruct. You're just this environment would undo anyone, he his cabin, a slender, ashen-faced man, like the rest. Don't humor me. I'm going to thinks. The administrators have obviously tried to routinize the missions just as with dressed in fatigues but wearing a full dress save the universe. Now I have to get back to the reconstructions they have routinized a cap. His aspect is impatient but restrained. my bridge. I must^prepare for the deadly immortality. But in neither case Like all on board, he has been given the cancer-causing Vegan probes, which qualified CONTINUED ON PAGE 98 70 OMNI ESSAY

A celebrated author relives the inspiration that gave birth to his epic tale of power and paradox

D" une began with a concept whose mostly unfieshed im- ages took shape across about six years of research and one and a- halt years of writing. The story was all in my head until

it appeared on paper as I typed' it out.

How did it evolve?

I conceived of a long novel , the whole trilogy as one book about the messianic convulsions that periodically overtake us. Demagogues, fanatics, con-game artists, the innocent and the not-so-

innocent bystanders — all were to have a part in the drama. This grows from my theory that .superheroes are disastrous

for humankind. Even if we find a real hero (whatever— orwhoever— that may be), eventually fallible mortals take over the power structure that always comes into being around such a leader. Personal observation has convinced me that in the power arena of politics/ economics and in their logical conse- quence, war, people tend to give over every decision-making capacity to any leader, who can wrap himself in the

myth fabric of the society. Hitler did it.

Churchill did it. Franklin Roosevelt did it.

Stalin did it. Mussolini did it.

My favorite examples are John F. Kennedy and George Patton. Both fitted themselves into the flamboyant Camelot pattern, consciously assuming bigger- than-life appearance. But the most casual observation reveals that neither was bigger than life. Each had- our common human ailment— clay feet. This, then, was one of my themes for Dune: Don't give over all ot your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those people may ap-

PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN SEEFF DUNE GENESIS BY FRANK HERBERT revalua- that , one of the world's pear to be. Beneath the hero's facade you Out of all this came a profound original concepts. In the begin- foremost wildlife artists and illustrators, had will find a human being who makes human tion of my as anyone to fall been living in my head with the same im- mistakes. Enormous problems arise when ning .1 was just as ready People find it difficult to believe that human mistakes are made on the grand into step, to seek out the guilty and to ages. prior to his and I had no consultations scale available to a . punish the sinners, even to become a John painting of the Dune illustrations, which fol- And sometimes you run into another leader. Nothing, I felt, would give me more

I assure you that the paint- problem- gratification than riding the steed of yellow low this essay. into crusade, doing the book ings were a wonderful surprise to me. It is demonstrable that power structures journalism The Sardaukar appear like the weath- tend to attract people who want power for that would right the old wrongs. questions. ered stones of Dune. The Baron's paunch the sake of power and that a significant Reevaluation raised haunting evolution, ordeevolution, could absorb a world. The ornithopters are proportion of sucfi people are imbal- I now believe that society insects preying on the land. The sand- anced— in a word, insane. never ends short of death, that no are Earth shipworms grown mon- That was the beginning: Heroes are has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, worms strous. Stilgar glares out at us with the painful, superheroes are a catastrophe. that all humans are not created equal. In create menace of a warlock. The mistakes of superheroes involve too fact, I believe attempts to some create a morass of What especially pleases me is to see the many ot us in disaster. abstract equalization the equalizers. interwoven themes, the fuguelike relation- I that It's the systems inemseves that see as injustices on opportunity are ships of images that exactly replay the way dangerous. Systematic is a deadly word. Equal justice and equal took shape. Systems originate with human creators. ideals we should seek, but we should rec- Dune ideals As in an Escher lithograph, I involved with people who employ them. Systems ognize that humans administer Ihe myself with recurrent themes that turn to lake over and grind on and on. They are like and that humans do not have equal ability. paradox. The central paradox concerns I ap- a flood tide that picks up everything in its Reevaluation taught me caution. the human vision of time. What about Paul's path. How do they originate? proached the problem with trepidalion. standards, gift of prescience— the Presbyterian fixa- All of this encapsulates the stuff of high Certainly, by the loosest of our tion? For the Delphic Oracle to perform, it drama, of entertainment— and I'm in the must tangle itself in a web of predestina- entertainment business first. It's all right' to tion. Yet predestination negates surprises include a pot of message, but that's not the and, in fact, sets up a mathematically en- key ingredient of wide readership. Yes, closed universe whose limits are always there are analogs in Dune, of today's £You want absolute inconsistent, always encountering the un- events— corruption and bribery in the provable. It's like a koan, a Zen mind highest places, whole police forces lost to prediction? Then you want Cretan Epimenides say- organized crime, regulatory agencies you breaker It's like the only today, and Cretans are liars." taken over by the people they are. sup- ing, "AH You are the Each limiting, descriptive step, you take posed to regulate. The scarce water of reject tomorrow. drives your vision outward into a larger uni- Dune is an exact analog of oil scarcity. - ultimate conservative. verse, which is contained in still a larger CHOAM is OPEC. You are trying to hold back universe ad infinitum, and in the smaller, But that was only the beginning. universes ad infinitum. No matter how finely While this concept was still fresh in my movement in an time and space, each tiny Oregon, to write/a you subdivide I Florence, mind. went to infinitely universe.^ changing division contains infinity. magazine article about a U.S. Department But this could imply that you can cut of Agriculture project there. The USDA was across linear time, open it like a ripe fruit, seeking ways to control coastal (and other) consequential connections, You written several and see sand dunes. I had already could be prescient, predict accurately. pieces about ecological matters, but my Predestination and paradox once more. superhero concept filled me with a concern there were plenty of visible targets, a guilty op- The flaw must lie in our methods of de- that ecology might be the next banner for plethora of blind fanaticism and social networks demagogues and would-be heroes, for the portunism at which to aim painful barbs. scription, in languages, in meaning, in moral structures, and in power seekers and others ready to find an But how did we get this way? What of philosophies and religions — all of which "adrenalin high" in the launching of a new makes a Nixon? What part do the meek implicit limits where no limits exist. crusade. play in creating the powerful? If a leader convey mistakes will Paul Muad'Dib, after all, says this time after Our society, after all, operates on guilt, cannot admit mistakes, these time throughout Dune. which often serves only to obscure its real be hidden. Who says our leaders must be Do you want absolute prediction? workings and to prevent obvious solutions. perfect? Where do they learn this? is Then you want only today, and you reject An adrenalin high can be just as .addictive Enter the fugue. In music, the fugue tomorrow. You are the ultimate conserva- as any other kind of high. usually based on a single theme that is trying to hold back movement Ecology encompasses a real concern, played many different ways. Sometimes tive. You are in an infinitely changing universe. however, and the Florence project fed my there are free voices that do fanciful The verb to be does make idiots of us all, interest in how we inflict ourselves upon our dances around the interplay. There can be other themes and shape of a secondary themes and contrasts in har- Of course there are planet. I could begin to see the the mo- tugal interplays in Dune and throughout the global problem, no part of it separated from mony, rhythm, and melody. From trilogy. Dune Messiah performs a classic any other— social ecology, political ecol- ment when a single voice introduces the inversion of theme. Children of Dune ex- ogy, economic ecology. primary theme, however, the whole is pands the number of themes interplaying. I It's an open-ended list. woven into a single fabric. in (his ecolog- refuse, however, to provide furlher answers Even after all of the research and writing. What were my instruments to this complex mixture. That fits the pattern in religions, psychoan- ical fugue? Images, conflicts, 'things thai I find fresh nuances fugue: You find your own solutions. alyse theories, linguistics, econor-.ics ohi turn upon themselves and become some- of the Don't look to me as your leader. losophy, theories of history, geology, an- thing quite different, myth figures and Caution is indeed indicated, but not the thropology, giant research, soil chemistry, strange creatures from the depths of our that prevents all movement. Hang and the metalanguages of pheromones. A common heritage, products of our techno- terror desires, and loose. And when someone asks whether new field of study rises out of this like a logical evolution, our human

you're starting a new cult, do what I do: Run rising from a witch's caldron: the psy- our human fears. chology of planetary societies. ,.ybu can imagine my surprise to learn like hell. DO 74 OMNI '

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DUNE

Here the moon is your friend, the sun your enemy ,, BY FRANK HERBERT

Arrakis —Dune —Desert Planet. A wasleland where nothing lives

except the spice and sandworms . . . Arrakis has special prob- lems — Storms build up across six or seven thousand kilome-

ters of flatlands , , , blow up to seven hundred kilometers an hour ... the pressures all . . ^9^HI of thirst around you. . Shelter means a hollow of out the wind and hidden from view. . . . The spice ... is

unique ... it cannot be made ... it must be mined on Arrakis. PAINTINGS BY JOHN SCHOENHERR 7? X £A basso voice rumbled. "The

biggest mantrap in history, ts it not a great

thing that I, the Baron, do?9

B^|k

The . . soldier . . Sardaukar . fanatics . lough, strong, ferocious men ... from the Emperor's prison plane!. Sardaukar do not

. . they submit . carry coils of shigawire in their hair . , . strong enough to garrote a man. Top; The Baron was grossly and im- mensely fat — All the fat was sustained by portable suspensors harnessed to his flesh ... his feet wouldn't carry more than fifty ... of his two hundred kilos, Above: The name, Arrakeen, had a good sound, filled with tradition. The arched ceilings stood two

stories . . with great . crossbeams shipped , . . across space at huge cost — And this was a smaller city, easier ... to defend. ..

Acrossthe sand, a giant worm — a maker— would hear and come

to the thumper's drumming. When it came irom the southeast . . Paul realized he had never seen a maker this large ... he waited

. on the sand outside its line of approach. ... The wild maker . loomed almost on him ... the wave lifted his feet ... he steadied sighted leaned in. He felt . along them, . his hooks, himself . lifted them bite and pull.... Paul found himself riding upright atop the worm. He fell exultant, like an emperor surveying his world... .He

spoke lo Stilgar. "Then, I am a sandrider, Stil?" "You are a sand- rider this day," replied Stilgar. Right; A roll of ball lightning

bounced away from the wall "The shield ... is down!" . .

it 'thopters dived oul of the night ... in a hissing wedge. - . . And

was to the Arrakeen governor's mansion, the old Residency . . that they escorted Paul Muad'Dib on the evening of his victory.

leader of men*; $AII you must do is call the maker and ride him. Go, so you may travel the sand as a .

iOut of the haze came sandworms, a massed wall of them, each with troops of Fremen riding to the attack.^

A silver-gray curve broached from the desert, sending rivers of sand and dust cascading all around, It lifted higher, resolved into

, a giant questing mouth . . . some eighty meters in diameter , crystal teeth with the curved shape ot crysknives glinting around

. . . the rim . . the bellows breath of cinnamon, subtle aldehydes acids. Above: A tall man in a mottled burnoose stepped in front of Jessica. His -mouth baffle was thrown aside for clear speech,

, revealing a heavy beard ... but face and eyes , . hidden in the overhang of his hood. "If you're fugitives from Harkonnens," he said, "you're welcome with us. I am StiFgar,... the Fremen," CO A physicist who helped to master shock waves argues that society needs better ways to deal with future

shock , , , while it still can inJTERV/IElAJ

ahead has always Looking come naturally to Arthur Kan- From 1955 until recently he directed the Avco Everett Research trowilz. As a twenty-five-year-old technician, he wrestled Laboratory, in Massachusetts, which produced reentry vehicles for with the problems of containing hot plasma in a toroidal ballistic missiles and the space program. Other projects included magnetic field, the key to many fusion-power schemes. It doesn't research on gas lasers and magnetohydrodynamic generators, sound futuristic in a world where several dozen experimental fu- which can extract electrical power directly and efficiently from a sion devices have been developed from his humble beginnings. stream of hot gas. Working with his brother Adrian, a surgeon, he but Kantrowitz was doing it in 1938, when the basic physics of applied fluid mechanics to develop artificial heart valves. nuclear fusion in siars had just become clear. This early work with In the mid-1960s Kantrowitz proposed a new institution, the

high-temperature gases has shaped much of Kantrowitz's career Science Court, which he hoped would enable government offi- i and has kept him at the cutting edge of science, cials to base their decisions on the best possible technical judg- After studying physics at Columbia University, Kantrowitz went ments, arrived at through a public-adversary proceeding. "Case

, to Langley Field. Virginia, to study plasmas for the National Advi- managers" would argue opposing views on such issues as reactor ; sory Committee for Aeronautics, which would later become NASA. safety and genetic engineering before impartial judges. As World WaYll drew to close, to Cornell ; a he moved to teach the Today, as a professor at Dartmouth and MIT. Kantrowitz con- engineering physics of supersonic flight. His research j group there tinues to insist that society needs new ways to come to grips with developed new ways to create and study shock waves similar to science and technology. Omni contributing editor Monte Davis the ones that batter an airplane breaking the sound barrier. asked him how one new idea, the Science Court, is faring, that for the OTA, I was on a panel Omni: In the years since you first pro- As then posed the Science Court, we've seen the included Daniel De Simone, who was It billed as a molecular biologists' Asiiomar meeting on OTA's deputy director. was recombinant DNA, the establishment of the debate on the Science Court proposal, but

it. said that if a Office of Technology Assessment [OTA], he completely endorsed He and Three Mile Island and the subsequent Science Court were attached to OTA, giv- for arriving at public inquiry. Do you think existing institu- ing it a credible procedure could really begin tions or ad hoc groups are making the Sci- scientific facts, then OTA ence Court unnecessary? to deal with controversial issues. with the exist- The problem that no one has really faced Kantrowitz: I will be satisfied judgment up to is the myth of the "unprejudiced ex- ing institutions when I see expert said, ex- regain a measure of credibility. As long as pert." As Warren Weaver once interested in X, laymen, or scientists with sensationalist perts are men "intensively and tendencies, such as Barry Commoner, often with lifelong dedication to X, with a recognizably fanatic have as much credibility as real experts, I sometimes on X ... quite say we lack something. When uninformed concentration of interest if you want to statements are taken more seriously than clearly, just the lads to ask statements made by experts, we move into know whether X is a good idea." then should we look for a dangerous fulure with a sea of misintor- Omni: Where malion around us. CGL,nts r experts? to For that, I think we have be Omni: What is the proper role of expert Kantrowitz: critical estab- judgment? grateful to those I call the lishment—the Ralph Naders, Rachel Car- Kantrowitz: It's a limited rale, but a vital Commoners, even Jane Fon- one; to make what Karl Popper calls falsifi- sons, Barry stature able statements, the kind of statements das, who have achieved so visible a are inspired to that are at risk because they stand or fall that many young people • Scientists with the evidence. emulate them, people who oppose, must confess their Among scientists there's one rule that You've got to find strongly as you don'l get away with violating: You must say, nuclear-power plants as advocate them, ignorance frankly confess your uncertainty and your the establishment experts and people who have spent as many years to peers because ignorance. You must say, "I've done this much and no more; my results have this studying the subject. One such person is physics professor if they don't, margin of error; and I'm still ignorant about Henry Kendall, an MIT who has been central to the scientific basis they get stepped this, that, and the other." You also give a through his prescription so that others can reproduce of the antinuclear movement outside Scien- on. But your results in detail. work with the Union of Concerned

if tists. To have Kendall and Norman Ras- the community many Now scientists do all this because they don't, they get stepped on by their peers, at mussen, for example, cross-examining Science Court proceeding of them no conferences or in ihe proiessional journals. each other in a other ionger feet bound Bui when a scientist goes outside the before the public, each knowing the long community of his peers, he's no longer will pursue every assertion enough the bottom of the by this ruie bound by this "frankness" rule. People and hard enough to get to matter - that would bring to public debate of frankness.? don't hold him to it. and in fact with a little scientists sensationalism he can get a reputation ad- the same care and candor that dressing national audiences that aren't use in communicating with each other. have said that adver- equipped to evaluate his position critically. Omni: Some people sary proceedings may work in law courts I submit that scientific ethics should be science. extended to the public arena. In the Sci- but that they don't belong in Informally all the ence Court, one would have to answer the Kantrowitz: They go on scientists questions of expert adversaries in public. time within science, but for many bloody to do it in public. Omni: Where do existing institutions that it would be just too objectivity" can't tackle Ihe issues of science and public pol- They say that "scientific

pressure; I say that what icy go wrong? survive under that of aristoc- Kantrowitz: "Both the OTA and the National can't survive are the remnants part of the profes- Academy of Sciences [NAS] have ap- racy that are so deep a the straight goods, pointed expert committees to study these sion. "I'll give you it's my duty as an intellectual aris- issues. But, it's very easy to appoint a "vec- because

I be cross-examined. tored" committee that will give you pre- tocrat. don't need to anything but the truth." cisely the answer you want. I'm not going to say people only for so The NAS traditionally stressed that the. Well, that can delude long. pretense that a scientist's public public was to believe what it said, not be- The controversial issue can be cause it understood how scientific judg- assertions on a ments were reached, but because the NAS taken at face value is as thin as the em- clothes. was an elite institution. And they've tried peror's new very hard to appoint balanced committees, Omni: Name an issue that you'd take on as in a Court. because they take their noblesse oblige a case manager Science construction of a mag- seriously. Their committee on nuclear and Kantrowitz; The

plant. I assert alternative energy systems struggled for netohydrodynamic-power it not that I know would years to resolve a deep cleavage in values that we should — work, but that it's promising enough to be that was apparent the day it was ap- worthwhile. Department of Energy has pointed, precisely because it was an hon- The shouldn't; they'll est attempt at balance. taken the position that we CO:\-:NULUONPAGE spend seventy million dollars or more a year on the idea, but they won't start build- JBL'snewL112. ing a pilot plant for at least five years, Lower, higher, faster, flatter. maybe ten. I would like to advance my ar- guments and have a chance to cross- Introducing the L112. The result tion Dividing Network enables of years examine the people who've been advising ot research at the the L1 12 to deliver transients ! ssainc oi. gedfansdLJcer with startling the DOE. I wouldn't have all the answers; immediacy. engineering. frequently I'd have to say, "I don't know, but Flatter. The flat frequency- Lower. The L112's Symmetrical I'll consult with my sources response measurements of the and come r -eii.' 'jf!orr:st y '2" woofer deliv- back." L1 12 duality this speaker as ers rne .a,'-; notes of music with the most accurate bookshelf Omni: It extremely low sounds challenging, but could it distortion. performer we've tested. offer the same satisfaction as being Barry Higher. A new Dome Radiator Listen to musical reproduction was developed ihrougi- fie use Commoner, for example, analyzing the en- m at technology's leading edge. lass-- .xiiograshy You'll hear har- ergy problem in terms of thermodynamic At your JBL dealer. mor-cs yoL've never hea'a teb.--; efficiency for , the New Yorker audience? Faster. JBL's new Kantrowitz: And showing how thermody- High Resolu- namics leads to socialism? No. I'm ad- UBL First with vocating a more disciplined procedure. As the pros. long as Commoner's viewpoint is winning, he's not going to want to submit to cross- examination. The winners never do. You remember the controversy in Cam- bridge over recombinant-DNA research at

Harvard? I was at a New Year's Eve party there when the battle was on, and a molecular biologist— a leader of the- pro- research group— came up to me and said, "You Know, Arthur, we don't need a Science Court for this. We're winning." That's why the procedure must be man- dated, just as ordinary civil and criminal proceedings are mandated, although the strong don't need them. Omni: Any other examples? Kantrowitz: There was the debate over mass screening for breast cancer. Dr. John Bailar, of the National Cancer Institute, was convinced that mass X rays were doing questions of health and safety involved still struggling with the appointment mech- more harm than good, but he got nowhere with high-voltage lines, a Science Court anism, which has to provide a degree of trying to persuade the National College of was suggested, and with help from the immunity from the interests of the Estab- Radiology. So he threatened to convene a Ford Foundation and the National Science lishment. Science Court, and new guidelines ior Foundation we got the process started. Omni: Have you been able to do anything screening were issued. Unfortunately, the farmers' groups didn't as a teacher that might foster the growth of In that case the guidelines came out of want the questions limited to scientific mat- that cadre?

what are called ' consensus procedures, ters, and the utility decided it just Kantrowitz: would as Last spring I taught an exper- which are now well established at the soon not have the health and safety ques- imental course on technology and society National Institutes of Health. These proce- tions thrashed in out public. It's almost a at Dartmouth. It attracted mostly liberal arts dures are public, both sides are repre- conditioned reflex for industrial public-rela- and social science students, and I'm sented, and there's no attempt to pretend tions people to say, "Let's not dignify the pleased to say that their ears were open. there's no controversy, but generally there's subject by discussion and the aggravate We got a dialogue started that I thought no cross-examination, again it controversy: because sooner or later the public will was effective, and they seemed to agree. doesn't fit the aristocratic tradition of the turn to something else and we'll go about We assigned each other required reading. medical profession. our business." It pays for a corporation to Some advocated technology and some at- Omni: But then neither do malpractice deal with issues thai way, but it doesn't pay tacked it: critics like Ivan lllich and Theo- suits. for society. dore Roszak. All of us came out of it with a Kantrowitz: And even lawyers are having Omni: Margaret Mead spoke in favor of better understanding than the kind that to get used to those! your idea a few years ago. saying, "We comes from confrontation. Another case involved a utility's proposal need institution. a new ... In many cases Maybe some of them, if they decide to to build a high-voltage power line from the institutions we have are not only unsatis- campaign against nuclear-power plants, somewhere in Norfh Dakota to Minne- factory, they involve a prostitution of sci- will do it by learning enough to really ques- apolis. It went through all the state EPA ence and a prostitution of the decision- tion the builders' assertions instead of by procedures and got all the necessary making process." How would you go about climbing over the fence. And maybe, if approvals— except from the farmers, who creating a Science Court whose personnel there's a Science Court, some of them will didn't want it, They started a protest aren't indebted to existing interests 9 decide that's where they should be work- movement, complete with rifles in their Kantrowitz: As Mead saw, what we need is ing. pickup trucks. The utility had gone through a cadre of people who are devoted to the Omni: Even the best procedures can't get all the formalities, and so they sent out con- new institution and who will try their around the lact that we have to make policy struction crews with rifles in their pickup damnedest to increase its credibility. They decisions in many cases before all the trucks. Governor Rudolph Perpich [of Min- should be primarily concerned not with any necessary evidence is in. And in some nesota] sent out state troopers to keep issue the before Science Court but simply cases it's impossible to prove that there will them apart and contacted the American with finding the most competent and cred- be no ill effects from, say, microwave power Arbitration Association. Because of the ible people to serve as case managers. I'm transmission. What can we do about that?

CONTINUED OH PAGE 112 57 TO

[III 1 1 1 ll Burdened by overregulation, budget cuts, and PLATFORMred tape. American science needs a FOR PROGRESS BY DANIELS GREENBERG

^^r ift through ihe tons of rhetoric pro- duced in this year's presidential campaign and you'll find hardly a topic that the candidates haven't buried under accusations, warnings, and unlikely promises. Infla- tion, taxes, and foreign a:tairs; defense, energy, and welfare; agricultural policy. Social Security, health care, urban affairs, and civil rights-the candidates have covered them, and the press has attacked them with aggressive questions and commentary. Yet there is something missing. The federal government overwhelmingly dominates science ,-i-ic technology in this country. More than any other factor, federal policies. priorities, and administrative frameworks condition our quest for new knowledge and its applications. So why is it that not one of the candidates has made any s gnfficant statement about science policy?

If recent presidential campaigns are any guide, we may eventually hear a few kind words about the mdisoensabie contributions of science and technology and the imporlance of keeping our scientific community strong. But when it comes to party

piaitorms. it takes heroic scholarship- and some imagination - ;u cistmauish Repub- lican Irom Democrat on scientific matters. For example, in the 1972 campaign, when Nixon-versus-McGovern offered a clear choice on many issues, the Washington correspondent of Britain's Nature accurately observed that "there are no large differences between the science policies of the parlies. Ihe rhetoric is the same— both platforms call for science to be used for the ." public . . good. The statements that candidates have uttered for professional scien- tific journals in several recent campaigns have been virtually interchangeable. This is

PAINTING BY RICHARD HESS just as true of their speeches while they tant than those monumental ligures sug- Congress often puts its own imprint on his court voters who live near big research gest. Most industrial firms carefully choose designs, what comes out of the legislative facilities. research opportunities that offer a rea- process generally bears a strong re- California Governor Jerry Brown stands sonably rapid payoff-' five years is a rule Of semblance to what the President fed into it. out as a bit of an exception— but no more thumb for many companies. Therefore, in- Since Congress tends to deal with R&D than that— because during his brief and dustrial research concentrates on near- matters through tunding agencies and unfruitful primary campaign he did speak term, profit-making sure shots. leaves the day-to-day details :o the agency fervently in favor of space .activities and A lot of important research takes far chiefs, the President's choices for those solar energy and against nuclear power. longer than five years, however, and even key jobs, and the po- icy di'ectives he gives But regardless of what Brown chose to dis- then does not necessarily yield marketable them, are at the heart of American science cuss, he was generally dismissed as a results. In our heavily taxed economy indi- and technology. He appoints the chiefs of political eccentric. His abbreviated 1980 vidual philanthropy and foundations count NASA, the National Science Foundation, campaign does not upset the rule that elec- for less and less. State governments put the Departmenlot Energy, the Environmen-

tive politicking consistently ignores sci- little money into research. So the federal tal Pro-.octior Administrator., and the ence and technology government concentrates its R&D money Department of Defense— which by itself What's peculiar about this neglect is that on longer-term, more speculative research. performs and contracts tor as much re- few activities on the national scene are so The National Science Foundation re- search as all Ihe rest of the government

. tightly bound to Washington's money, pow- ports that the federal government finances combined. In the long run the research de- er, and influence as science and technol- about 70 percent of all basic research in cisions made by these organizations have ogy are. They probably rank just behind the the United States. It's the only source of immense political consequences. Any military services in their dependence on funds for the nation's high-energy particle doubters should consider Ihe influence of the federal purse. In other fields, this prox- accelerators and interplanetary research. nuclear weapons and intercontinental mis- imity stirs heartfelt passions. Federal money has financed the work of siles on international relations or the

Out of the $60 billion or so that's being most of our Nobel laureates. Without it. strength we derive from our science-based spent this year on research and develop- many of the most dynamic fields of con- ag'.cUtural productivity. ment in this country, about $35 billion temporary research, among them molecu- The President's handpicked White comes directly from the U.S. Treasury lar biology, solid-state physics, and nuclear House science adviser occupies the single routed through a score of government fusion, would be far less developed. Simply most influential position in the government agencies to university laboratories, indus- put: Washington pays the biggest part of science hierarchy, working closely with the

trial research organizations, the govern- the bill tor American science. President's chief manager of government ment's own big network of research The prime mover in getting money for spending, the director of the Office of Man- facilities, and a few other places. Money science is the Presidenl of the United agement! and Budget. The science adviser put up by industry accounts for most of the States. It's the Presidenl who tells Con- also serves as Ihe administration's chief remaining S25 billion. gress what the country should be doing spokesman for R&D before Congress, the Government money is even more impor- about science and technology. Thouyn research protessions and the public, He represents the United Slates at the

policymaking levels of international scien- ,

tific collaboration— a booming field involv- ing dozens of major R&D compacts between this nation and other nations. Presidents set the pace for govern- ment-supported science even more direct-

ly, both in pork-barrel politics and in enlist- ing science and technology to solve the nation's many problems. Consider the fol owing. Fiscally conser- vative Dwight Eisenhower reacted a big, expensive, and ambitious space program, John F Kennedy, eagc to project an image of national vigor and technological su- premacy, reversed Eisenhower's policy and began the Apollo moon-landing program — the greatest technological en- terprise in man's history Lyndon Johnson, a graduate of South- west Texas State College, brought to the White House his mistrust of elite eastern and. California universities and decreed a "spread the wealth" program. One result;- The then-biggeL-apdiTdo- accelerator facil-

ity in the world, the $240 million Fern-.; Na- tional Accelerator Laboratory, was con-

structed in Baiavia, Illinois— not where its California designers expected. Richard Nixon, suspicious of the Eastern Establishment and its many influential sci- ence aoviSC-rs n goveT'.me'il. sharply reduced federal spending for scientific training, thereby precipitating a cc-cline ir the number of graduates in many disci- plines Niron launched an ill-conceived political "waron cancer" as a ploy, draining . PAGE 114 graduating a': age four, youngsters often do not conf'cnt scientific training and coach- "Most cassettes ,ing again until high school. Earlier athletic conditioning and selec- unprecedented three are afraid of me." U.S. national cham- tion would create a generation of injury- pionships. Before the 1978 -StevieWonder- Nationals, resistant athletes, a greater contribution to Deem and other participants went through sports than anything else science has pro- a sophisticated battery of A lot of cassette makers have proba- evaluations and vided so far. Dr. John Marshall, who was the bly considered asking tests. The testers told 5tevie's opinion Deem that his chief sports doctor for 's about their performance. But he's such oxygen-intake levels, a vital measurement schools and numerous professional teams a perfectionist, they may have been for a biker, simply didn't to measure up until he died in a plane crash this spring, world class standards. Although his body said. "Despite all the advances, we sports Not TDK. TDK SA's Super Avilyn hadn't changed a whit, Deem never won a physicians and surgeons |ust haven't cre- magnetic particle revolutionized high major competition after that scientific bias cassette music. No rock is pro- ated anything new in terms of concepts. foo hot to handle. Classical music all . noun cement. The precise technological keeps of What we do are merely things that have its dynamic range. Jazz sizzfes evaluation made it psychically without impossible been done for at least a couple hundred a hiss. There's headroom for all the for him to compete at the top of his sport. years. We refine them. We polish them. We challenge and drama of music. Still, those in the profession believe, the improve the technical aspect. But the same For Stevie, "It's a littfe music machine benefits of the new ideas and technologies injuries occurred twenty-five years ago that that delivers the best sound, for its far ouiweigh their drawbacks, As coaches we see today. Not all physicians appreciate size, I've ever heard," There's good become more familiar with biomechanical that. We can't really say we've made prog- reason. Its 250 components are evaluation, the gap between scientific checked thousands of times; 1 ,117 ress until we weed out these recurring in- needs and athletic habits will narrow. checkpoints for the shell alone. And Roger juries We need to prepare the young for SA is Counsil, coach of Olympic gymnasf Kurt guaranteed a lifetime.' Enough to please Thomas, notes, any perfectionist. "Coaches have grown in Already the concept of careful cultivation their ability to analyze kfK evv„i the mechanics of and so er.: jr c alh eic-s has made ser.01,5 sport, This allows us to teach greater diffi- strides in professional ranks. Today's pro is culty with greater safety. We have coaches a far different creature from his predeces- more competent today than there have ever sors because he has been crafted differ- been. The training methods for coaches ently by his environment. have changed; they now emphasize "He's taller, quicker, stronger." says John biomechanics and computer analysis. As Mazur. defensive coordinator for the New coaches become more familiar with sports York Jets. "He's had better programs when science, they'll be to better able get young, better foods, more opportunities for athletes to understand and it." use , weightlifting. Even a few years ago weights O'Shea. however, feels scientist- were taboo- Nautilus, the whole bit," coaches can have only limited influence on Bill Hampton, the Jets' equipment man- sports unless there's a societywide system ager, says, "Fifteen years ago a twenty- that encourages athletic development. "I eight-inch waist was unheard of. They were think the Olympic Committee needs to get all thirty-four to forty-two inches. Today kids down to earth, profiling youngsters at an are perfect specimens -six-feet three, two early age. as the East Germans do. instead hundred forty-five pounds, thirty-four-inch of working with computers and athletes I waist. don't know whether it's nature or just after the afhletes have already achieved a that the new " generation wants to be able i.o successful style of performance. I'd like to fit into their Jordache jeans or what." see Bruce Jenner cartoons for kids." This change in athletes isn't so much the In San Francisco psychologist Joan result of improvement in the human spe- Barnes is taking a first small step in this cies as it is in techniques of selection and direction. Her Kindergym is loosely mod- preparation. "Evolution witl change things, eled on the East German system of scientif- but that lakes hundreds of thousands of ically stimulating athletic achievement from years to occur," Dr. Marshall said. "For one earliest childhood on. A "noncompetitive, tiny change in a bone or for one little liga- free-form play environment," Kindergym ment to migrate from one place to anoth- takes children from three months to four e.r- these go way beyond practical plan- years, accompanied by a parent, and ning strategies. So the changes we see "guides them through development of body and spatial awareness, eye-hand Marshall cited football as an example. A coordination, locomotor skills, and gross few decades ago teams had 32 players, and fine muscle development." Children who played on both offense and defense. run, jump, climb, and crawl around at their Today each position is highly specialized, own pace to lively music. They work out and each athlete is tailor-made for his task. with brightly colored, toddler-size equip- Marshall explained how improved methods ment made of aluminum, molded plastic, of selection helped to bring these changes and wood, They can choose from various about. gym gear, such as tunnels, tumbling mats, "Now you have a one-hundred-seventy- stacks of inner tubes, walk-up slides, tram- five-pound defensive back who has great polines, ramps, balance, beams, bars, hands and plays a lot of sports very well. beds, scooters, and silk parachutes. Then you have a two-hundred-seventy- The probtem with this kind ol ea.-ly devel- five-pound offensive lineman who doesn't opment is system that the young athletes have the quickness, but he has bulk and a must retire their numbers so soon. There lot of momentum You have widely diver- aren't adequate follow-up programs. After gent athletes on the same team. Wo seiect players now for specific criteria. We look for ever since the developine'il of the hang head-on crash would bother both players weight, size, forty-yard speed, vertical glider in the 1950s, has played a significant involved, but the new helmefs allow huge jump, muscle-fiber type, upper-body role in improving athletic equipment. linemen to slam their heads recklessly into strength, lower-body strength, and more. If A report by astronaut James A. Lovell, Jr., the ribs and spines of halfbacks and wide a player has just a few things to do excep- in Aviation, Space and Environmental receivers. Hampton likens the situation to a tionally well, his performance ought to be Medicine magazine, for example, lists Volkswagen getting juiced by a Cadillac. better." lightweight sportsman's blankets and Fortunately, no such problems have aris- Despiie this specialization, an athlete jackets, sleeping bags, and ski parkas en with NASA foam-iined shoes. Tennis star still can overcome body limitations and made from "the aluminized plastic origi- Jimmy Connors and the New York Knicks succeed in a sport through sheer determi- nally devised to keep cryogenic fluids cold have found that the plastic, which molds to nation and talent. Danny Padilla, for exam- in space" as among the benefits accruing the exact shape of the wearer's foot and re- ple, is a world class body builder at the to sports from space exploration. The which doesn't slide against the skin., has improbable dimensions of five feet two and port also mentions rechargeable heated reduced footaches and injuries and has weighing 180 pounds. In New York last year gloves and ski boots, light composite ma- made them better performers. Padilla used style and what he calls "the terials for golf clubs and fishing rods, and Beyond all the prosaic advances in train- most symmetrical body in the world" fo antifog compounds that keep diving masks ing, attitude, selection, and equipment lies beat out the brawny behemoths. as clear as they once kept spacecraft a realm of possibilities about the zenith of " The point is that optimum curves of per- windshields. sports science: creation of a perfect ath- formance and body type are based on A new silicon plastic foam from NASA lete through genetic manipulation and specific ideas about what and how an that takes the shape of impressed objects drugs. The current controversy over im- athlete should perform. A new idea relating but returns to its original contour after even proving athletic performance through to performance can create a wholly differ- 90 percent compression is being used for anabolic steroids is only a small-time indi- ent concept of the "perfect athlete" for a football headgear. Looking forward, enor- cation of the kinds of manipulations that particular eveni. A good example is the mous possibilities loom for NASA's recently may lie ahead. invention of the Fosbury Flop for high patented portable breathing system. De- Steroids are hormonal compounds be- effects jumpers, which shifted the emphasis from signed for zero-g use, it reconditions air lieved to increase irairna's and an light, muscular leapers to loose, angular using lithium oxide in a sealed system. athlete's aggression if taken in huge, sus- types with lean, aerodynamic lines. Even The success of these NASA develop- tained doses. After the East German fe- all in with all the advantages of computer selec- ments has caused some never-before- male athletes trounced comers the tion, athletics remains a subjective, dreamed-of problems. In football, for 1968 Olympics, amid rampant rumors that dynamic science. example, the foam-lined helmets have they had stuffed themselves with steroids, Apart from training and selection, sci- proved so effective at protecting the the practice caught on with athletes every- ence has helped athletes by improving wearer that players have begun using their where, The reason is fundamental: The their playing equipment. The. space pro- heads as battering rams against oppo- athletes believe the compounds will better gram, which has been a sports innovator nents. With older helmets, the impact of a their performances. "By taking anabolic steroids," writes Dr. H. Howald. "one hopes for improved pro- > tein synthesis in the body and consequent-

ly muscle growth, such as would not be possible Ihrough physical training alone, no matter how intense." The expanding popularity of steroids raises some concern that the Summer Olympics in Moscow, with or without the Americans, may prove to be a competition among drug companies. The glamour at- tached to winning and tne ure of big money from commercial endorsements are attract- ing athletes even down to the high-school level toward steroids; Dr. Gabe Mirkin, in his Sportsmedicine

Book , admits. "So pervasive has the prac- tice become that professional, college, and even high-school football coaches routinely dispense steroids." Jan Sieffer, who trains Olympics-bound gymnasts, claims that some members of the wrestling and swimming teams.at Rut- gers University, in New Jersey, used ste- roids a few years ago when he was there. Ariel, who was at the 1976 Summer Olym- pics in Montreal, says, "If you were in the weight events, you wouldn't even make the

trials if you weren't taking steroids. In the shot put the ditference between those on

steroids and those not was as if one group was putting sixteen-pound shots and the other was putting tody-pound shots." Both Ariel and Dardik are convinced the use of steroids is widespread in the United

States. Then, it may be asked, why hasn't the phenomenon been investigated by.

92 OMNI medical authorities? Why aren't there Such possibilmes lie ~ar in ;he future, ac- players, such as guard Doug Van Horn of studies about the best uses ot this poten- cording to Dr. Norton Zinder, a geneticist at the New York Giants, look forward to the tially dangerous drug? Rockefeller University, in New York City. Dr day "when I cansendmycloneintodoitfor "There are a couple ol reasons why," Zinder notes, though, lhai "while these me."

Dardik says. "The main one is an interna- things are impossible to do physically to- "That, of course, is .science fiction," says tional law about experimenting with hu- day, they can be thought about. This is ac- Dr John Rainer, chief of psychiatric re- mans, It is necessary for someone to give tually what frighiens those people who like search, medical .genetics. a [ New York Gonsent now, but the critical point is that to get frightened, that we can even think State Psychiatric Institute, in New York City. even with consent, the work must be jus- about such things. You can't say we won't "But will it ever be possible to actually take tified. Can it be justified to see whether you be able to do it someday, in fact, most an athlete, take his cell, lake a fertilized can improve an athlete's performance people say sooner or later we will. But you ovum, take out the nucleus, and replace it by using drugs? The only real justification can't put a time on it." with the nucleus from the athlete's cell to for using drugs is for medical purposes, Now geneticisls can identify a few spe- grow into an exact duplicate of the athlete? and here you're giving an athlete anabolic cific genes and have the basic technology It's not around the corner, not twenty-five or steroids, potentially harming him, just so he for transferring a specific gene from one fifty years, but maybe in a hundred years. can win medals or break records. How can cell to another. But that doesn't help much After all, if you can send a man to the moon, you justify that? There were studies in the with sports, Zinder explains. "You don't ex- I suppose you can clone a human being." "past, but they've stopped." pect there's a single gene thai says make While we wail for cloned and gene-

The outcry against the drugs — which me an eye or make me a knee. And even if spliced champions to appear, we can carry the potential for later hearl and liver there were, within our genetic maferial warm ourselves with the knowledge that ailments, among a host of other ills— has there are millions of genes. How in blazes present methods, and those just ahead, led some to consider the possibility of ob- do we find out which one in that million is will continue to produce ever-improving taining similar results through genetics. 'the one for [he eye?" levels of athletic achievement. For the mo-

Drugs, after all, are merely an artificial Hail-seriously Zinder advocates an ap- ment our athletes' genes will remain un- means to shift hormone levels set by the proach to genetic athletic creation that will changed, but science's impact on all as- genes in the firs! place. If you could manip- bring results far sooner: "Selective breed- pects of sports will bring their' perfor- ulate the genes, you could create a ing. If it works for sheep, goats, and cows, mances ever closer to the ultimate those pumped-up athlete without the bad side it'll work for humans, and in a few genera- genes allow their bodies to attain. effects of drug use, and without raising tions we'll have a lot more athletes. Unfor- "I've learned there is no such thing any- ethical questions. tunately, this requires a tyrant if it is to suc- longer as a physical limit," Counsil says. This has deepened into a question of ceed. The farmer is tyrant to his bulls and "Its the nature of the human animal fo im-

when science will be able to produce cows. Freedom versus efficiency. It may be prove constantly. What I thought were limits enough genetic control to engineer the ge- paradoxical, but it's the choice we have." have now been passed. It there is an end to netically perfect athlete, each trait selected A new choice for maintaining high ath- what we can do, it's not within my com- to provide ultimate performance." letic levels may be cloning. Even football prehension." OO ,

enormous implications for lowering the cost the right hemisphere. evr;n when there is a of an advertising campaign." lot of verbal content. For example, in some PSYCHOGRAPHICS Why do people respond so negatively? oftheG.E. commercials Edison tells stories ;;OM'i\ijtC:-=Fr:-f.i ('*.;; l • "It's very competitive," says Hillebrandt. "I that produce a right-brain response only. a nelwork gave me film clips of twenty-live think a lot of people are extremely jealous Krugman attributes :his to the vivid pictures potential guest stars tor a prime-time that someone could come up with hard evoked by the text; "The switch was thrown on in Buffalo." show— people like Peter Frampton, Cher. data like that and have it make sense." in Niagara. The lights came first Stories that more -equally engaged both Johnny Cash. I played this stuff for one Since brain wave research was sides of the brain dealt with ideas. hundred people, and it turned out that for applied to advertising, its major corporate the men Cher was number one and for the supporter has been Dr. Herbert Kcugman, In one commercial the mention of Edi- women Cher was number three. Very, very manager of corporate public-opinion re- son's deafness produced a sudden switch Electric 1969. from right brain to left. Krugman interprets high. I reported this and they said, 'No, we search at General since startle mechanism, suggest- don't buy it. We ran focus groups, and the Today Dr. Krugman is one of the few people the cause as a women think she's atrarnp; she wears see- publicly theorizing on the subject. What he ing that the element of surprise sets off through blouses; she's in and out of bed finds interesting in current research is its speculation or a chain of ideas rather than with men. They won't tune her in.' ability to identify- which medium "creates image-related associations.

It especially provocative "I said, 'Oh, no?' They said, 'We have thinking and which creates imagery with- was that the

if final images of all the commercials pro- verbatims!' I said, 'I don't care you have out thought." blood types. What these women are telling Weinstein's NeuroCommunications duced a right-brain response even though in- you is that they are nice ladies, that they Laboratory recently tested a series of some contained words while others don't wear transparent brassieres or what- G.E.'s corporate commercials for Krug- cluded print superimposed over video, ever. That doesn't mean they're not going to man. A corporate commercial doesn't at- Krugman speculates that the left brain was watch.' But the network ignored the study, tempt to sell a product; its purpose is to not activated because the words were not and a couple of months later a rival network develop an imago and generate good feel- being read but viewed as part of the pic- put on a special called Cher and ings about the company. This series fea- ture. In any case, Krugman concludes that words are being processed as and it did fantastically well." tured Thomas A. Edison, portrayed by a the not Not everyone is impressed by Wein- well-known actor in a variety of brief enter- ideas and that their thought content is nil. stein's success. Ina Hillebrandt, director of tainments. Wei nsto narc his staff analyzed Many possible uses exist for such infor- Hillebrandt Consultants, Inc., says, "The the degree of left- or right-hemisphere ac- mation, If an advertiser is trying to sell on advertising community's reaction was very tivity that each five-second segmentof the the basis of mood, life-style, or emotional or re- evokes. subconscious response, arousing the left negative. I personally found Weinstein's commercial off cognitive search interesting, particularly as it applies Their findings emphasized the separa- brain and setting a process the to the medium you select. If the left brain tion of images and ideas, wnich supper rs would be a mistake. Should campaign responds better to radio than to TV and the the hypothesis that much of our response be designed to appeal to logic, such right brain responds to radio, too, there afe to both advert sing and television occurs in right-brain material as strong music or mood-evoking imagery n- ghl interfere. mulate the sde;-il granola arc already being lemonade with scidives tastes natural, ability "The of viewers to show high refined by Dr. Moskowitz and others lor fu- that's what we'll give her. Lemon flavor is right-brain response lo TV print ture and adver- use in packaging pclnca candidates. lemon flavor, whether you gel it from a tree tising. " Krugman wrote in a 1979 Broad- But even if psychophysics and politics or from an artist flavorist. The constituents casting editorial, "suggests that, in contrast never merge in the real world, the recipes are differenl, but what is perceived as to teaching, the of unique power the media Moskowitz is punching up on his .console lemon flavor /"s lemon flavor. That's reality. is to shape the content of people's imagery, loday will certainly affect the taste and con- "Nobody's saying you have to use this in that particular and way determine their tent of the food we'll eat tomorrow, as well as indiscriminately. If the consumer wants a behavior and their views." the images through which we are encour- potato chip with something unhealthy in it,

If you want to shape the it. content of aged to buy you don't have to put it in. Bui we're more people's imagery, however, you must first Moskowitz has already proved that than just quantifying the American Dream. have access to the their raw materials— brand awareness and packaging affect We're telling people how to manufacture it fundamental beliefs today and, more im- our perceptions of a product's reality. Sen- better, faster, and cheaper." portant still, what they'll be thinking tomor- sory characteristics are modified differ- But why do we need a better potato chip row The best documentation of how at- ently for different products. A chocolate anyway? Aren't the ones we've got good ' titudes have changed among different bar may seem sweeter to the panelist who enough? segments of the population comes from doesn't know the brand than to one who Out of approximately 54.000 active psychographic studies, especially those peeled off the wrapper. Or a panelist may grocery items, the average supermarket spanning a decade or more. All marketers perceive a sauce as "more Italian" when can stock only 8,000 at any given time. Yet agree that the biggest rewards go to those she's seen the label than when it comes the number of brands, items, and sizes who can cut through the mountains of data from an unmarked can. steadily increases. It's not because there is and spot a trend picking up momentum. One of the eeriest things Moskowitz does a real demand for a better potato chip, but ' Indeed, a capacity for "visionary thought" is to make mathematically tangible such oecause oissa: s'ac: on arc z '_".; '.;--•: or "crystal balling" is considered a qualifi- intangible qualities as "Italianness," "old- vague, yearnings forihe new and improved cation for the field. entering fashioned flavor," and "natural taste." It have been programmed into us. "It's very difficult to tell the difference doesn't disturb Moskowitz that some prod- Unfortunaiely, most of us adopt the unar- between a trend and a tad," says Barbara ucts tested for naturalness got higher rat- ticulated fictions with which the messages Caplan, of pollsters Yankelovich, Skelly ings in an artificial version lhan with a rec- of advertising saturate us daily. Our striving and White. "Sometimes we call it, some- pe using only natural ngredients. to make real those unattainable desires times we don't." Dr Caplan, who tracks "What we're doing is finding out what the becomes focused on things, even when more than 40 trends in the Monitor analysis, consumer considers natural and convert- we perceive them as impulses toward ex- estimates that "we have a lot of historical ing that into ingredients," he says. "We are perience. As Stannard put it, people are material on where people have been mov- transforming product wishes into product buying a dream with the $200 tennis rack- ing, what their priorities are, how they feel formulations, If the consumer wants 'a nat- el. And it isn't going to improve their playing about themselves, raising kids, spending ural taste,' and if the consumer feels one bit. DO money, saving money, how they feel about work and leisure, how they view the future with the present compared and the past. 7 computique Eg computique eg computique

. . . And we analyze the data in terms of

what it means for our clients— General n Texas Instruments Motors, for instance." --electronic calculators THE HP-85! Our commitment to the "natural," still a trend, but one on the wane, was "called" by

Monitor, Caplan says, long before it be- came obvious in the press. "And after ignor- ing physical appearance lor a long time. signs began appearing in the data pointing 73 95 Trie HP-85 it . „.. to a renewed interest in personal looks. 5995 BASIC a"quaqs cotc.:=- Then it was confirmed in the market- „'„, complete witfi keyboard place—apparel sales shot up along with jewelry and signature clothing. When you do this long enough," she explains, "you 4D0 449 ' 95 me Computer 99/4 develop antennae, and you JR can say, 'Hey, ;..,)* on: boo 799.95 .'" y 699.95 Sl\, this one really fits ' S1 *« TER "™" AGINATION MACHINE . . 595.00 ATARI' Social psychologist William D. , now J ai _r 49.95 a vice-president at Needham, Harper and f^nppte computer 16K memo CASIO 27.91 Steers, believes that successful markeling ^^^M G!00 NEW EXECUTIVE 9995 is 95 percent intuition and 5 percent hard CHESSCHES! 34.95 CHALLENGERCHALLENGE data. Nonetheless, Dr. Wells cautions 89-95 ,„,„ r. against relying on antennae loo much: ALSO:UII)T|1Canon._ Sell command R "Fifty percent of the trends that are said to ssssasTem jmohh .... 39.95 x^ «^ffiMair be occurring are not occurring at all. Many things that appear to be trends affect a very small part of the population. For instance, interest in Zen doubled in two years— from two percent to four percent. So what?" WRITE OR CALL FOR FREE CATALOG If any of this research is going to change our world — and probably all of it will— the most subtle.and profound changes could m computique come from the perceptual engineering 11 SOUTH HARBOR BOULEVARD. S going on at firms like the Weston Group. CALL TOLL FREE (800)854-0 The psychophysics principles used to for- PROFESSIONAL DISCOUNTS you saying this outrageous thing?" members of the Whipperly Vi crew sit un- "Because you have pushed limits, you easily, staring at him, waiting for •him to SIGMUND have, violated circumstances, you have speak. Freud stands on the Plexiglas CONTINUED FROM PAGE 70 misunderstood the human spirit itself, you stage, swaying unevenly in the wafting, of the ventilators. lias it really worked. Three centuries in a have lied your way through the circumfer- odorous breezes

I cube, Freud thinks bitterly. Three. centuries. ence of the planet, but you cannot do it "All of you should know who I am. am They should have allowed his corpse to among the stars," Freud says, and so on Sigmund Freud, a famous Viennese medi- commingle with the earth undisturbed; and so forth and on and on. He permits cal doctor and stuctent of the human mind they should have left him with the less himself a raving monologue of two minutes who has been reconstructed to help you noted of his time; they should have spared in which he accuses the administrators of .with your difficulties on this Vegan probe. I solution your him this difficult and humiliating afterlife. all the technological barbarities he can call have come to give you the to What they need aboard the Whipperly VI is to mind and then says that he has found a problems." not a doctor but a priest. Freud can offer one-time, stopgap solution to the problem They stare at. him. The hydroponics en-. them no solutions; he can, at best, take that can never be used again but that he gineer puts down her gun, folds her hands them further into their unspeaking, resis- will invoke for the sake of all Ihose on board in her lap, and looks at him luminously. The tant hearts, of which outrage who cannot discern their right hand from captain giggles, then subsides. "Ah, then," repel the Vegans. has been transformed into insanity. It is not their left and also much cattle. Freud says, "you must •the Vegan cancer probes that the captain "What is that?" the same administrator Caution will not do it. Circumspection will administrators will I it. lies of the tears; it is himself. If he were to be shown says weakly, "We have no cattle on board. not do The that, he would die. don't understand. Explain yourself before not do it. Only your own courage and integ- This line of thinking, however, gives you're dwindled on the spot." rity will accomplish this." Freud an idea. He returns once more to his "You won'tdwindle me," Freud says. "You Chairs shift. The captain applauds fer- "Understand me," Freud says, nod- cubicle and uses the communicator to don't dare do it; I'm your last hope. If you vently. "the administrators have lied to summon all officers and crew to an shut me down, you know the mission is ding at him, lied to you. emergency meeting in the lounge in ten finished, and you can't deal with that. So you. They have always Space- minutes. Then he uses the special device you're going to let me go ahead. And after- flight is not the routine transference of are human cargo. Space itself is not the ocean, he has been shown and speaks to the ad- wards I don't care what you do. You probe is not a nineteenth- ministrators. "I want to tell you," he says, monstrous yet unconvinced of your mon- and a star battleship. is not the Azores! "that your twenty-fifth century is finished. strosity. That is the centrality of your evil." century Vega Conditions are terrible. Monsters Your deep-space probes are finished, and It is a good statement, a clean, high venti- new and curtains of Every- your Vegan mission is done." lation. Feeling as triumphant as the captain lurk through the space. "Why is that?" one administrator says preparing his crew for dangerous probes, thing is changed." gratefully, "every- flatly "Aren't little florid?" Freud shuts down the communicator, "Yes," the captain says you being a "

I tell them — "1 am telling you the truth." leaves his cubicle, and descends to the thing is changed. tried to to tell them," Freud says "Why is that the truth? On what basis are brightly decorated lounge, where forty "It's too late sharply. "You must act. You will land on Vega and advance upon the Vegans' cities

and kill every single one of them. Until Ihen

you will remain quiet and you will plan. I will see each of you individually to tell you what role you will play in the conquest. For the moment, thank you and bless you all." He bows. The applause begins It swerves toward him in thick, deepening

waves. Freud is humbled. Tears come. It has not been this way for a long time, since the Academy as a matter of lac!, and then there were the jeers and abuse of some rivalrous colleagues. He basks in the applause. Even a reconstruct can be per- mitted vanity. Finally, he bows and stumbles from the stage, then moves up the ramp into the darkened corridors above. Pacing, he adjusts the viewscreens so that he can stare again at the dark con- stellations—which he no longer fears. Freud thinks that in this maddened circum- stance, almost six full centuries from Vienna, he has found some qualified answer to

his problems. It is possible to say that his final moments are happy or at least as hap- py as a scientist of the mind may make them. But they come, as do the emotions

of all the others, to a startling termination. The mission is aborted. Not by the administrators. For Freud, these men of steel and power now have only the greatest respect. But by the Vegan space probes, which do not bring cancer (the captain, like many insane, was intellectually damaged), but the fire. DQ ANNOUNCING THE BEST OF annrui SCIENCE FICTION Storied vistas of time and .space unfold as THE BEST OF OMNI SCIENCE FICTION journeys to atomic microworlds and the infinite star fields of the universe. As the nexus between today's specula- tion and tomorrow's reality, science fiction provides multiple en- tries into a future of unlimited possioi'tes Ho r c" E ;on expores the nature of time and timelessness. foretells the in- vasion of silicon eaters. Robert Sheckley spins a tale of new

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THE BEST OF THE BEST OF OMNI SCIENCE FICTION OMNI SOCIETY PO. BOX 906 FARMINGDALE, N.Y 11737 SCIENCE FICTION Enclosed is my check or money order for copies of The Best of Omni Science Fiction @ $3.50 U.S. S3.75 FeeiTLBHLfUE. Canadian, plus $1,50 postage and handling per order. For United Kingdom, send £2.75 per order (inclusive of post- age and handling] to: Omni Society, 2 Bramber Road, London, Wl4. ^^^•^ J4 Burt Rutan designs do-it-yourself dreams come true RARE BIRD TEXT & PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANTHONY WOLFF

It doesn't take an expert hwhh|^b I^HBHBHHHB^fl to see that Burt Rutan designs the most beautiful light planes in the sky, sleek and elegant incarna- tions of the fantasies

that fly in kids' daydreams and science fiction. By comparison, even the very latest models from the big names— Piper, Cessna. Beech, and the rest- look like warmBd-over

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'" one model from another. ': . ,

If they Were merely

beautiful, Rutan's planes W^^^Kf ' JB& would be aeronautical trivia; they wouldn't matter. According to the numbers, however, Rutan's planes not ^E " ^^1 only look better than the '" : ^^B^^^H^HB • ^^B rest of the light-plane flock;

they fly better, too. They climb and cruise faster,

carry heavier payloads «- -.-. /»*«' farther on a gallon of gas. ^k ^H ^» «ri- and to ^^^^ cost less buy and to maintain. And for all their radical beauty, hotshot

performance, : and economy, ^^^^ - -~^l they are inherently safer than conventional designs. In the fast-expanding world of light-plane aviation. Rutan is famous for almost single-handedly pushing the State of the art into the future. He is a peerless peer

1 ^^ W*M Top: Rutan toys with his ^r live- sealer twin Defiant. Right: The 100 hp VariEze, Rutan's paradigm, cruises on lour wings at 195 mph. ^^, T^g«

100 OMNI in the Experimental Aircraft Association, whose members design, build, and fly their own planes At the EAA's annual midsum- ing down the runway. mer fly-in at Oshkosh, , three of The hand-stenciled sign on the door Rutan's planes — beginning with the Var- proclaims rutan aircraft factory, bul fhe

iViggen, followed by the VariEze and then building is a corrugated metal prefab right the Quickie — won the Best Design award out of fhe catalog, with an attached hangar in their debut years. In 1979 a VariEze was not much bigger t-han a suburban garage. voted Grand Champion among some 1,500 The entire permanent staff can go for a ride airplanes. together in Rutan's five-sealer Defiant with In flying competition, lasi December a a seat to spare. Older brother Dick, re- Long-EZ, the VariEze's brand-new big cently retired from 20 years as an Air Force brother, established a National Aeronau- fighter pilot, is the outfit's chief mechanic tics Association world closed-course dis- and troubleshooter, test pilot, precision- tance record for its class. Piloted by Burt's flying instructor, wing commander, and big brother, Dick, the Rutan plane covered Burl's alter ego. 4,800.30 miles nonstop, emphatically Within Rutan's small world, collaboration eclipsing the twenty-year-old mark of is instinctively close and informal, with 2,955.39 miles. plenty of banter and inside jokes, but Rutan's fecund genius for coming up nonetheless intense and single-minded. with new ideas that fly has been recog- Airplanes in general, and Rutan airplanes nized by NASA, which asked him to test the in particular, are a shared obsession; no

theory that at transsonic speeds it is possi- one seems to have much time for anything ble, even preferable, for a plane to fly with else. Rutan's two marriages failed at least one wing swept forward and the olher in part, he admits, because of his neglect; back. Rutan's AD-1 is currently frying its his wives were not airplanes. pivoting wing at Edwards Air Force Base, in He chafes at all kinds of distractions, California. Meanwhile, in a wind tunnel at even at his growing celebrity and the threat

Langley, in Virginia, NASA is testing radi- of Hike a latter-day brother, a big-lime success. When aviation buffs cal Rutan design for a big agricultural crop and Rutan fans drop in at , he is invents airplanes Rutan duster, dubbed Predator. likely to hide in the back room. Phone calls obsessively and almost aioneV Almost as extraordinary as what Rutan from would-be financial angels go unan- does is the way he does if. Like a latter-day swered. Normally friendly, he tells a jour- Wright brother, he invents airplanes obses- nalist who has promised him color pages in sively and almost alone, collaborating only a national magazine, "Every second I'm sit- with a small cell of family and friends. Eight ting here with you is a second I'm not out years ago, seeking solitude and low rent, there testing my airplanes." Rutan set up shop on his own at Mojave He won't even divert time or energy to Airport, a derelict, World War II surplus manufacture airplanes from his own de- training field on the edge of the desert, 100 miles over the mountains from Los Ange- Lett; The prototype Defiant leads a VariEze ana a

les. At Mojave, Rutan's futuristic flyers VariViggen- Rutan's tirst, ail-wood design-in share the concrete apron with obsolete tight tormation over the Mojave Desert. Above: A hulks that have made their last landing on 240-pound Quickie rests lightly under the wing the way to the Scrap heap. On some days of an earthbound Air Force behemoth. signs, nor will he lease the designs to other lighter, more efficient, and cheaper. His manufacturers, tor tear they will make protoiype Defiant, a five-passenger twin, compromises. Instead, he supports his re- for example, has only 60 percent of the search and development by selling plans drag-inducing "wetted skin area" of ordi- to do-it-yourselfers who are so hell-bent on nary light twins, and 1,000 pounds less having Rutan airplanes that they build them weight to carry around. at home in their garages and family rooms. More important, the canard makes Ru- In just three years, plans for the two-seater tan's planes virtually-stall-proof. An ordi- VariEze, Rutan's most popular design, nary plane stalls— loses its lifi— when its have been bought by more than 4,200-flight wing meets the wind at foo steep an angle, smooth, laminar flow of air over enthusiasts. Of the first 1 00 to gel their Ezes causing the into the air Rutan proudly points out. at the top surface of the wing to break away least 10 are professional airline pilots, who and become turbulent. The plane drops, presumably know a sweet airplane. out of control, until the angle between wing Rutan, now thirty-seven, slarted design- and wind is corrected orthe aircraft hits the ing airplanes as a boy in California's San ground, whichever comes first, Joaquin Valley, winning local and state Rutan eliminates the danger of a stall by prizes for hot, sophisticated, radio- mounting his canard wing at a slightly onnrui controlled models. He soloed for his pilot's greater angle of incidence to ihe relative license when he was sixteen, got a degree wind than the main wing. If his plane gets in aeronautical engineering from California nose high, therefore, the canard ap-

Polytechnic Siate University, in San Luis proaches its stalling angle while the main Obispo, and went to work for the U.S. Air wing is still flying strongly. As soon as the Force as a civilian test-flight engineer. canard begins to lose lift, the plane's nose „, .f. r At the time, the Air Force's newest fighter, drops gently back to a safe attitude, restor- the F:4 Phantom, was plagued by a myste- ing the canard to a flying angle. The main rious, lethal tendency to spin out of confrol wing never has a chance to stall at all. The and crash. More than 40 pilots were killed in pilot can cruise with the stick pulled all the such crashes, and some very expensive way back: The plane will fly comfortably, hardware was lost, causing the Pentagon bobbing its nose gently as the canard tries considerable embarrassment. Riding in to stall and recovers automatically. After the backseat on dozens of test flights, doing their best to make a VariEze do its Rutan figured out the problem and the worst, two NASA test pilots reported offi- proper compensating procedure. Then he cially that the plane is "virtually immune to wentaround the world to retrain every F-4 stall-spin accidents," with pilot. The F-4 is still a mainstay of the Air The VariEze appeared in 1976 Force's fighter arsenal, another Rutan innovation; large, vertical During seven years with the Air Force fins on the main wingtips. Called Whitcomb and two years spent designing planes for a winglets, after their inventor, the. fins had kit maker, Rutan was already developing already been tested on wind-tunnel mod- onnrui his firsi full-scale airplane. The VariViggen, els by NASA, but Rutan was the first to use a spruce-and-plywood two-seater he in- them on a practical plane. Winglets are troduced to the homebuilders in 1974. is most effective on high-speed designs, but the direct descendant of a model he had even on the 185 mph VariEze they "unwind built at Cat Poly nine years earlier. The Vig- the tip vortex," smoothing out the wingtip gen signaled the debuts of Rutan as a turbulence that limits the lifting efficiency of full-fledged designer and of the unusual conventional wings. In effect, the smoother secondary, forward wing that has become flow of air over the Eze's outer wing gives the distinctive Rutan feature on all his sub- the plane the benefit of increased wing- sequent designs. The stubby extra wing is spread— and lift— without the proportional called a canard, the French word tor duck, cost in structural weight and drag, resulting

possibly because it gives an airplane the in a 6 percent fuel saving. long-necked look of a bird in flight. The winglets do double duty, acting also Canard is also apt in its other sense of as vertical stabilizers in place of the con- hoax, todesigna:c a false wing. Earlier de- ventional airplane's upright tail. As a result, signers, beginning with the Wrights, used the VariEze has extraordinary directional above issues are still avail- the canard not as a true wing but as a stability. It can be flown hands off even in able at $3.00 each including horizontal stabilizer, sometimes with a turbulent air, and it tends to return to the handling. List postage and movable control surface, or elevator, much straight and level from a banked attitude the issues you've missed and like the horizontal tai component of a con- without prompting from the pilot. Neverthe- need, enclose your check or ventional airplane, On the VariViggen, less, the plane balances so delicately on into turn money order along with your however Rutan used the canard as a fully the air that it can be banked a by name and addres aerodynamic wing, sharing the lifiing load no more than a shifl of the pilot's weigh! in to OMNI Back Issues, RO. Box with the larger, swept-back main wing in ihe the narrow cockpit. For the VariEze Rutan also developeu a 903, Farmingdale, N.Y.11737. rear, By suspending the aircraft between plane an fore and aft surfaces instead of balancing it novel construction that makes the Offer void after February, 1981. on a single wing amidships in the orthodox easy one for people to construct at home. fashion, he gained two big advantages. Instead of the conventional plane's skin of able to eliminate ihe elon- riveted sheei metal over a skeleton of ribs We'll rush you the r First, he was fuselage that serves conventional and spars, Rutan built the Eze of seamless of tomorrow that were on gated planes mainly as an arm to hold the tail fiberglass saturated with epoxy resin, laid sale yesterday. surfaces, As a result, Rutan's planes are up in a six-layer sandwich over a solid core

J PAGE 116 G .

She was very pretty indeed, and Andy de- cided FIRESTARTER her legs had been worth waiting for. . They were more than good; they were spec- tacular. closed committees come budget-renewal "Oh, there you are," she said, smiling. time. They have their pets in every depart- "Here I am. I'm Andy, Andy McGee." ment. At Harrison, Wanless is their pet in "I'm Vicky Tom linson. And a little nervous the psych department." about this. Andy. What if I go on a bad trip or ' The admnistration doesn't mind?" something?" "Don't be naive, boy. my What's good for "This sounds like pretty mild stuff. And Wanless is good for the Harrison psychol- even if it is acid, well ... lab acid is different ogy department, which next year will have from the stuff you get on the street, or so I've its very own building. No more slumming heard. Very smooth, very mellow, and ad- with those sociology types. And what's ministered under very calm circum- good for is for psych good Harrison State stances. They'll probably pipe in Cream or College. And tor Ohio. And all that." Jefferson Airplane," Andy surmised. "Do you think it's safe?" "Do you know much about LSD?" she "They don't test it on student volunteers if asked with a little, cornerwise grin, which it isn't safe," Quincey replied. "If they have- he liked very much. JACK DANIEL'S slightest even the question ri-ey cost i: or "Very little," he admitted. "I tried it twice., BELLE rats and then on convicts, You OF LINCOLN CAP can be sure once two years ago. once last year_ In.some that what they're putting into you has been Back around the turn of the century, Mr. Jack ways it made me feel better It cleaned out put into roughly three hundred be- Daniels created a special "Belle of Lincoln people my head. At least, that's what it felt like. fore you. whose Whiskey" for his lady friends. Following his reactions have been care- Afterward a lot of old crud just to seemed example, the folks ai the Distillery I fully monitored." and came be gone. But I wouldn't want to make a up with this special cap lor ladies everywhere. "I don't like this business about the habit of if. steady I don't like feeling so out The patch is a colorful red. gold and silver. CIA-" of control of myself. Can I buy you a Coke?" The cap itself has a black twill cotton front and "The Shop." 'All right," she agreed, and they walked a while nylon mesh back. Its adjustable, so the "What's difference?" Andy asked over to the Student Union together. one si2e fits all. My S6.50 price includes morosely He looked at Quincey's poster of He ended up buying her two Cokes, and postage and handling. Richard Nixon standing in front of a they spent the afternoon together. That crunched-up used car. Nixon Express, Visa or Master Charge, including all was grinning, evening they had a few beers together at a and a stubby V for victory poked up out of local hangout. It lumed out that she and her each clenched fist. (Tennessee resident add 6% sales tax.) For a Andy could still barely boyfriend, George, had come to a parting color ;atalog full of old Tennessee items and Jack Daniel's believe the man had been elected Presi- of the ways, and she wasn't sure exactly memorabilia, send Si. 00 io above address. , dent less than a year ago. how to handle it He had absolutely forbid-

"Well. I thought maybe you could use the den her to take part in the Wanless experi- two hundred dollars, that's all." ment. For that precise reason she had gone "Why are they paying so much?" Andy ahead and signed the release form, and asked suspiciously. she was now determined to go through with | FREE KIT Quincey threw up his hands. "Andy, this is it even though she was a little scared. the government's treat! Can't you under- tells how to stand that?" The G.A. looped a piece of rubber A week later he had received letter take better a around Andy's arm just above the elbow i telling him he had been accepted and ask- and said. "Make a fist." Andy did. The vein ing for his photographs.! signature on a release form. popped up obligingly. He looked away, feel- "Please bring the signed to H Our hit provides all the facts on McGraw- I form Room 100, ing a little ill. Two hundred dollars or not, he j 6." Hill's Jason Gearneigh Hall, on May innovative, new Photography Work- . had no urge to watch the injection, ™ J He .went back over his answers the shop. The workshop that creates a personal on Vicky was on the next cot, dressed in .a H release form, with upward the tip of his Bic. sleeveless white blouse and dove-gray dialogue between yourself and our profes- H That was when someone tapped him on Ihe slacks. She offered him a strained smile. sional photographers while you develop your H shoulder and a girl's voice, sweel and He thought again what beautiful auburn skills at your own pace io the convenience I. slightly husky, asked, "Could I borrow that if hair she had, how well it went with herdireel of your home. i you're done with it? Mine just went dry." blue eyes , . . then ihe prick of pain, fol- Don't delay. The kit is free and there "Sure," he said, I turning to hand it to her lowed by dull heat, in his arm. Pretty is no obligation. Just call operator #203 girl. Tall, Light auburn hair marvel- "There." the G.A. said comfortingly. at 800-648-5600 ously clear complexion, |m Nevada call 300- | wearing a "There, yourself," Andy said. He was not 992-5710), powder-blue sweater and a short skirl. comforted. or mail this coupoo to McGraw Good legs. Noslockings. Hill Photography Workshop, 3939 Wiscoi Casual appraisal They were in Room 70 of Jason Gear- of the fulure wife. neigh Hall, upstairs. A dozen cots had Avenue, N.W., Washingtoo, D.C. 2001 He handed her his pen, and she smiled been trucked in, courtesy of the college i her thanks. I The overhead lights made infirmary, and the twelve volunteers were copper glints in her hair, which had been lying propped up on nonallergenic foam iijjs casually tied back with a wide white ribbon, I pillows, earning their money. Dr. Wanless M»» as she bent over her form again gave none of the injections himself, but he He took his form up to the graduate assist- was walking up and down between the cots I at the front of the room. "Thank you." the with a word for everyone, and a little frosty G.A. said, as programmed as Robbie the smile. We'll star/ to shrink anytime now. i I Robot. "Room Seventy, Saturday morning, Andy thought morbidly. nine o'clock. Please be on time," The graduate assistant was.doing some- She came i out three or four minutes later. thing else I how Ripping sound o- cloth a few notebooks and a text unde' 'ler arm. Andy looked. No, it wasn't cloth; il was ,

Wanless was running in slomo. The eyes tape. He was taping the hypo against An- "Thank you," she said. "Whal a nice ot the kid the cot now looked like de- dy's arm. The needle was sticking into the compliment." Had she said that? Orhad he on poached eggs, Andy noted clinically. bulging vein. Better not to look; imagined it? flated He glanced over at Vicky again instead. Grasping the last shreds of his mind, he Yes, indeedy. distilled Then the white coals were all gathered "How you doin', kid?" said, "I think I crapped out on the the cot, and you couldn't see the 'Okay." water, Vicky." around

fellow anymore. Directly behind him : a Dr. Wanless had arrived. He stood be- She said placidly, "Me, too." chart hung down. It sTiowedthe quadrants tween them, looking first at Vicky and then "Nice, isn't it?" of the human brain, Andy looked at this with at Andy. "Nice," she agreed dreamily. crying. interest for a while. Verrry in-der- "You feel some slight pain, yes?" He had Somewhere someone was great rose resting, as Arte Johnson said on Laugh-In. no accent ot any kind, least of all an Ameri- Babbling hysterically. The sound and bloody hand rose out of the huddle of can regional one, but he constructed his fell in interesting cycles. After whal seemed A his white coats, like the hand of a drowning words in a way Andy associated with Eng- like eons of contemplation, Andy turned It was man. The fingers were streaked with gore, lish learned as a second language. head to see what was going on. sh r ot tissue hung from them. The "Pressure," Vicky said. "Slight pressure." interesting. Everything had become inter- and eds Everything seemed to be in slow hand smacked the chart, leaving a blood- "Yes? It will pass." He smiled benevo- esting. campus stain in the shape of a large comma. The lently down at Andy In his white lab coat he motion. Slomo, as the avant-garde in his columns, in chart rattled up on its roller with a loud seemed very tall. His glasses seemed very film critic always wrote snapping sound. small. The small and thetall. this film, as in others, Antonioni achieves with Then the cot lifted (it was still impos- Andy asked, "When do we shrink?" some of his most spectacular efiecis was interest- sible to see the boy who had clawed his C". Wanless continued to smile. "Do you his use of slomo footage. What an " clever It the sound of a eyes out) and was carried from the room. feel you will shrink7 ing, really word! had minutes (hours? years?) "Shhhhrrrrrink," Andy said, grinning snake slipping out of a refrigerator: slomo. A few days? assistants were run- later one of ihe grad asHisianls came ovs- foolishly. Something was happening to him. Several of the grad that lo Andy's cot examined his needle, and By God, he was getting high. He was get- ning in slomo toward one of ihe cots blackboard in then injected some more of its contents into ting off. had been placed near the on the cot ap- Andy's mind. "Everything will be fine," Wanless said, Room 70. The young fellow feeling, guy?" the G,A. asked, and he smiled more widely. He passed on. peared- to be doing something to his eyes. "How you definitely doing something to but of course he wasn't a G.A. He wasn't a Andy could look at the needle now. It didn't Yes, he was student, none of them were. For one thing, bother him now. I'm a pine tree, he thought. his eyes, because his f -igers were hooked into and he seemed to be clawing his this guy looked about thirty-five, and that See my beautiful needles . He laughed. them was a little long in the tooth for a graduate Vicky was smiling at him. God, she is eyeballs out of his head. His hands were gushing student. And lor another thing, this guy beautiful! He wanted to tell her how beauti- hooked into claws, and blood was in slomo. The worked for the Shop. Andy suddenly knew ful she was, how her hair was like copper from his eyes. It was gushing it. It absurd, but he knew it. And the set aflame. needle flapped from his arm in slomo. was

. man's name was .

Andy groped tor it, and he got it. The man's name was Ralph Baxter, He smiled. Ralph Baxter. Good deal.

"I feel okay,'' he said. "How's that olher fellow?" "What other fella's that, Andy?" "The one who clawed his eyes out." Andy said serenely. Baxter smiled and patted Andy's hand. "Pretty visual stuff, huh, guy?"

No. -eally." Vicky said. "I saw it, too." 'You think you did." Ihe G.A. who was not a G.A. said. "You just shared the same illu- sion. There was a guy over there- by the board who had a muscular reaction ... something like a Charley horse. No clawed eyes. No blood." He started away again.

Andy said, "My man, il is impossible to share the same illusion without some prior consultation." He felt immensely clever. The logic was impeccable, inarguable. He had old Ralph Baxter by ihe shorts. Ralph smiled back, undaunted. "With

this drug, it's very possible," he said. "I'll be back in a bit, okay?" "Okay, Ralph," Andy said. Ralph paused and came back toward where Andy lay on his cot. He came back in slomo. He looked thoughtfully down at Andy. Andy grinned back, a wide, foolish, drugged-outgrin. Gotyou there. Ralph, old son. Got you right by the proverbial shorts. Suddenly a wealth of information about Ralph Baxter flooded in on him. tons of stuff: He was thirty-live, tie had been with

106 OMNI .

the Shop for six years, before thai he'd Vicky smiled uncertainly back. She asked from the speakers in the ceiling, and that been with the FBI for two years, he had — him what was wrong. He told her he didn't was nice ... much nicer than thinking He had 'killed four people during his ca- know, probably nothing. about charley horses and leaking eyeballs. reer, three men and one woman. And he (but we're not talking — her mouth's not had violated the woman alter she was moving) How much of it had been real, how much hallucination? Twelve years of off-and-on dead. She had been an A. P. stringer, and (it's not?) she had known about — (vicky? is that you?) thought had nol answered thai question for At poinfobjects seemed to That part wasn't clear. And it didn't mat- [is it telepathy, andy? is it?) Andy. one had if an invisible wind ter. Suddenly Andy didn't want to know The He didn't know. It was something. He let fly through the room as grin faded from his lips. Ralph Baxter was his eyes slip closed. were blowing — paper cups, towels, a cuff, a hail of still looking down at him, and. Andy was Are those really grad assistants? She blood-pressure deadly pens swept by a black paranoia that he remem- asked him, troubled. They don't look the and pencils. At another point, sometime

it (or it really earlier? There bered from his two previous LSD trips . . same. Is the drug, Andy? later had been

still I no linear sequence), one of the but this was deeper and much more I don't know, he said, eyes closed. was just frightening. He had no idea how he could don't know who they are. What happened test subjects had gone into a muscular sei- know such things about Ralph Baxter— or to that boy? The" one they took away? He zure followed by cardiac arrest— or so it There had frantic ef- how he had known his name at all— but if opened his eyes again and looked at her, had seemed. been he told Ralph that he knew, he was terribly but Vicky was shaking her head. She didn't forts to restore him using mouth-to-mouth, of afraid that he might disappear from Room remember. Andy was surprised and dis- resuscitation, followed by a shot some- cavity, fi- 70 of Jason Gearneigh with the same swift- mayed to find that he hardly remembered thing directly into the chest and high ness as the boy who had clawed out his himself. It seemed to have happened years nally a machine that made a whine he, that attached to thick eyes. Or maybe all of that really had been a ago, Got a charley horse, hadn't and had two black cups all. — wires. seemed to remember- one of hallucination; it didn't seem real at all now guy? A muscular twitch, that's He Andy assistants" roaring, "Zap himl Ralph was still looking at him. Little by Clawed his eyes out. the "grad

it Oh, give them me, you fuckhead!" little he began to smile. "See?" he said But what did matter, really? to slept, dozing softly. "With Lot Six, all kinds of funky things Hand rising out of the. huddle of white At another point he had happen." coats like the hand of a drowning man. in and out of a twilight consciousness. in to Vicky, and they told each oth- He left. Andy let out a slow sigh of relief. But it happened a long time ago. Like He spoke told other He looked over at Vicky, and she was look- the twelfth century. er about themselves. They each don't usu- ing back at him, her eyes wide and fright- Bloody hand. Striking the chart. The things that a man and a woman ened. She's getting my emotions, he chart rattling up on its roller with a snapping ally tell each other until they've known each other for years things a man and woman thought. Like a radio. Take it easy on her! sound. — Remember, she's tripping, whatever else Better to drift. Vicky was looking troubled often never tell, not even in the dark mar- riage after of being together. this weird shit is! again. bed decades He smiled at her, and after a moment Suddenly music began to flood down But did they speak?

"Ever have the kind of day when you sally forth from the cave convinced that, at the very least, you'll invent the wheel and instead get trampled by a dinosaur?" .

That Andy never knew. said. The bad men were coming, and

Time had stopped, but somehow it Daddy was hurt. When he got hurt like this, passed THE NEWSLETTER anyway. it got hard for him to think, He had to lie down and have as much quiet as he could. The taxi let them off at Albany Airport. He had to sleep until the pain went away. FOR GROWN-UP KIDS They went in, the little girl in the green pants And the bad men might be coming -the and the red blouse, the big man with the men from the Shop, the men who wanted to shaggy hair and the slumped shoulders. pick Daddy apart and see what made him It was ten past midnight. The lobby of the work, and to see whether he could be used, terminal building had been given over to made to do bad things. && the early-morning people: servicemen at She saw a paper shopping bag sticking f «" the end of their leaves, harhed-looking out of the top of a trash basket, and she ,;ji riding herd women on scratchy, up-too-late took it. A little way farther down the con- children, businessmen with pouches ot course she came' to what she was looking weariness under their eyes, cruising kids in for: a row of pay phones. big boots and long hair, some of them with Charlie stood' looking at them, and she packs on their backs, a couple with cased was afraid . She was afraid because Daddy tennis rackets. The loudspeaker system had told her again and again that she

announced arrivals and it departures . and shouldn't . do . since earliest childhood it -,r**fl*** paged people like some omnipotent voice had been the Bad Thing. She couldn't al- in a dream. ways control the Bad Thing. She might hurt New products almost always Andy and Charlie sat side by side at herself, or someone else, or lots of people. look nice, but they desks with TVs bolted to them. The time often dis- appoint—either "Daddy, do I have to?" Charlie asked (oh mommy i'm sorry the hurt the ban- because they again. She was on the verge are overpriced, of tears. dages She screams she screamed i made don't live up "Honey. I'm up," said. used he "We have my mommy scream and i never will again to promised levels of perfor- no money. We can't stay here." . . . . . never . because it is a BAD THING) mance, are shoddify con- "Those bad men are coming?" she in the kitchen when she was little ... but it structed, or are fraudulently asked, and her voice dropped to a whisper. hurt too much to think of that. It was a Bad promoted. "I don't know," Thud, thud, thud in his Thing because, when you let it go, it went brain. Not a riderless black horse Now you can avoid dis- anymore; . . . everywhere. And that was scary. appointment with now it was sacks filled with sharp scraps of There were other things. The push, for GADGET, iron being dropped a monthly newsletter on him from afifth-story instance— that's what Daddy called it, the that window. "We have to assume they are." push. But she could push a lot harder than separates the bargains from

"How could I get money?" Daddy, and she never got headaches af- the bombs. He hesitated and then said, terwards, "You . know" But sometimes, afterwards . Hundreds of new products The tears began trickling down her there were fires. are marketed every cheeks. week. "It's not right. It's not right to steal." The word for the Bad Thing clanged in GADGET looks them over, "I know it," he said. "But it's not right for her mind as she stood nervously looking at them to then fets you know which are keep coming at us, either I ex- the telephone booths: pyrokinesis. "Never interesting, plained it . . to you, Charlie. Oral least I tried." mind that," Daddy had told her when they unique . and, "About little bad and big bad?" were still in that small upstate most important, which are "Yes. Lesser and greater evil." town and thinking like fools that they were worth your money. No other "Does your head really hurt?" safe, "You're a firestarter, honey. Just one source continuously reviews "It's pretty bad," Andy said. There was no great big Zippo lighter." And then it had so many new products. use telling her that in an hour, or possibly seemed funny and she had giggled, but Find out what works and two, it would be so bad he would no longer now it didn't seem funny at all. what doesn't, be able to think coherently No use frighten- The other reason why she wasn't sup- before you ing her worse than she already was. No use posed to push was that THEY might find spend your money. Subscribe telling her that he didn't to think they were out— the bad men from the Shop, "I don't GADGET. going to get away this time. think they know about you now," Daddy had Send order to: "I'll try," she said, and she got out of GADGET, 116 W. the told her, "and I don't want them to find out. 14th, NYC, NY 10011. chair. "Poor Daddy," she said, and she Your push isn't exactly like mine, honey. You kissed him. S15EH1 Year S25Z2 Years can't make people . . . well, change their Enclosed Is a check or money order. He closed his eyes. minds, can you?" Bill: _ American Express _Diner'sClub ." Little girl in green stretch pants . aster and a red "Noooo . _M Charge rayon blouse. Shoulder-length blond hair. "But you can make things move. And if Up too late, apparently by herselt. She was they ever began to see a pattern, and con- Account Number in of one the few places where a little girl by nect that pattern to you, we'd be in even herself could go unremarked after mid- worse trouble than we are now" Expiration Date InterBank No. (MC Only) night. She passed people, but no one really And it was stealing, and stealing was saw her, If she had been crying', a security also a Bad Thing. guard mighft have come over to ask her Never mind. Daddy's head was hurting Please mail GADGET to: whether she was lost, if she knew which him. and they had to get to a quiet, warm airline her mommy and daddy were tick- place before it got too bad for him to think at Name eted on, what their names were, so they all. Charlie moved forward. could be paged. But she wasn't crying, Three booths from the end, a young man Address and if she looked as she knew where she in a military uniform was sitting on the little

" - was going. sfool with the door open and with his legs City She didn't, exactly, but she had a pretty poking out. He was talking fast. fair idea of what she looking for. was They "Sally look. I understand how you feel, but needed money, that was what Daddy had I can explain everything. Absolutely. I know , .

back, Sally ... but if you'll just let me—" He looked up, gles bars. And when he came would like a big ripe apple herself, ripe saw the little girl looking at him, and yanked be RJ1IRJD his legs in and pulled the circular door and ready to fall. None of that don't-you- CONTINUED FROM ?l closed, all in one motion, like a turtle pull- have-any-respect-for-me stuff went down the control knob, and she signaled that ing into its shell. Having a fight with his with Delgardo, of Marathon, . Ruth if apparition of her daughter had turned girlfriend, Charlie thought. Probably stood Sally Bradford was going to put out, and the her up. I'd never let a guy stand me up. she really believed that crap about him hav- down the volume. rest still heard the Echoing loudspeaker. Rat of fear in the ing had a vasectomy, it served her right. Although the of us Ruth's auditory back of her mind, gnawing. All .the faces And then let her go running to her hick clicks, at that moment disappeared! were strange (aces. She felt lonely and very schoolteacher brother if she wanted to. evoked response Peter. small, grief-sick over her mother even now. Eddie Delgardo would be driving an army "That's a winner!" cried child This was stealing, but what did that matter? supply truck in West Berlin. He would be— "I knew I'd done it," Ruth said. "As a

school, I used to turn off the teacher's They had stolen her mother's life. Eddie's half-resentful, half-pleasant at her She slipped into the phone booth al the chain of daydreams was broken by a voice so that when she talked, I'd see end, her shopping bag crackling. She took strange feeling of warmth-coming from his lips moving and not hear her speaking. I also remember watching my mother's the phone off the hook and pretended she feet; it was as if the floor had suddenly hearing a word she was talking — hello, Grampa, yes. Daddy heated up ten degrees. And accompany- mouth move and not but not completely was saying. She'd say to me. 'Repeat what "and I just got in, we're fine— and looked out ing this was a strange

burning, I've said,' but I couldn't." through the glass to see whether anyone unfamiliar smell . . .not something just block her vi- was being nosey. No one was. The only but something singeing, maybe? How had Ruth managed to person near was a black woman getting He opened his eyes, and the first thing he sual and. auditory evoked responses? Dr

I probably flight insurance from a machine, and her saw was that little girl who had been cruis- Fenwick and concluded she her back was to Charlie. ing around over by the phone booths, a had an unusually keen ability to focus shutting out Charlie looked at the pay phone and little girl seven or eight years old, looking attention on one image while carrying a everything else around her. suddenly shoved it. really ragged out. Now she was results showed that when Ruth was A little grunt of effort escaped her, and big paper bag, carrying it by the bottom as Our hearing an apparition, her brain she bit down on her lower lip, liking the way if it were full of groceries or something. seeing and it would perceiving a live thing . were reacted as when it squeezed under her teeth. No, there was But his feet, that was the They

hot. person. I recalled a teacher of mine once no pain involved. It felt good to shove no longer warm. They were never creates just one in- things, and that was another Ihing that Eddie looked down and screamed, saying. "Nature concluded there scared her. Suppose she got to like this "Godamighty-Jeeesus!" stance of anything," and dangerous thing. His shoes were on fire. must be whose. brains have She shoved again, very lightly, and sud- Eddie leaped to his feet. Heads turned. similar capabilities. experiences oc- denly a tide of coins poured out of the coin Some woman saw what was happening How frequently do such yelled in alarm. Two security guards cur? The best information comes from a return . She tried to get her bag under them and 1889 1892 but by the time she did, most of the quar- who had been noodling with an Allegheny census conducted between and Psychical ters and nickels and dimes had spewed Airline's ticket clerk looked over to see what by a committee ol [he Society lor in England, which asked 17,000 onto Ihe floor. She bent over and swept as was going on. Research question; much as she could into the. bag, glancing None of which meant doodly-squat to people to answer Yes or No to this again and again out the window. Eddie Delgardo. Thoughts of Sally Brad- "Have you ever, when believing yourself io impres- Thenshe went on to the next booth. The ford and his revenge of love upon her were be completely awake, had a vivid seeing or borne touched by a living serviceman was still talking in the next the furthest things from his mind. His army sion of oijjeci or ot hearing a booth up the line. He had opened the door issue shoes were burning merrily. The cuffs being or-an inanimate voice, impression, so far as you again and was smoking. "Sal, honest to o.f his dress greens were catching. He was which an external if sprinting across the concourse, trailing could discover, was not due to Christ, I did! Just ask your brother you " don't believe me! He'll — smoke, as if shot from a catapult. The physical cause?" Charlie slippedthe door shut, cutting off women's room was closer, and Eddie, About one in ten answered Yes. Some such the slightly whining sound of his voice. She whose sense of seif-prese'vation was ex- respondents reported more than one of was only seven, but she knew a snow job quisitely defined, hit the door straight-arm experience. In the Report of the Census when she heard one. She looked at the and ran inside without hesitation. Hallucinations, the researchers argued persuasively that the respondents com- phone, and a moment later it gave up its A young woman was Coming out of one the statistical change. This time she. had the bag posi- of the stalls, her skirt tucked up to her waist, posed a fair sample and thai lioned perfectly and the coins cascaded to ahd she was adjusting her underalls. She proportion answering Yes would be 10 per- population. the bottom with a little jingling sound. saw Eddie, the human torch, and let out a cent for the general The serviceman was gone when she scream that the bathroom's tiled walls Under what circumstances do appari- occur? one knows, came out, and Charlie went into his booth. magnified enormously. Tnere was a babble tional experiences No evidence in Ruth's case The seal was still warm and the air smelled of "What was that?" and "What's going on?" but there is some into trances, nastily of cigarette smoke :n spite of the fan. from the few other .occupied stalls. Eddie that she tended to slip un- likely More money rattled into her bag, and she caught the pay toilet door before it could aware, and in those trances was to went on to the next one. swing back all the way and latch. He hallucinate. Eddie Delgardo sat in a hard, plastic grabbed both sides of the stall at the top The story of Ruth suggests the possibility contour chair, looking up at the ceiling and and hoisted himself feet first into the toilet. that a symptom such as her vivid hallucina- smoking. Bitch, he was thinking. She'll There was a hissing sound and a remark- tions can best be seen as expressing an think twice about keeping her goddamn able billow of steam. unrecognized talent, not a handicap. tegs closed next lime. Eddie this and Eddie The two security guards burst in. Perhaps various mental and even physical

it. cried, manifestations of capabilities that and Eddie I never want to see you Hold you in there!" one ofthem disorders are again and Eddie how could you be so He had drawn his gun. "Come out of there that patients could learn to exploit. DQ crew-ull. But^he had changed her mind with your hands laced on top of your head I" Morton Schalzman Is an American psychiatrist about the 61d-l-hever-want-tc-see-you- "You mind waiting until I put my feet out?" .y'!o .'7t::s arc: p'aciicos " Lender: H:r? oxne:'- again bit. He was on thirty-day leave, and Eddie Delgardo snarled. OO detailed in his book- now he was going to New York City, the Big ences with apparitions are Apple, to see ne sights ano lour the sin- !o be conduct ea noxt month. The Story ol Ruth. no OMNI )

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OMNI MAGAZINE. The key to unleashing an irresist- ible force. Solar Flares. Hydrogen Fusion. Red Giants. Black Holes. Science fiction becoming science fact. A fantastic look at the creations of men and nature. An insight into a tomorrow that is our every destiny.

Print clearly please. Rates ior U.S., APO. FPO, and U.K., Can- ada and elsewhere add $6 'o U S subscipi yn rate. Payment must Dnnrui acco | np rj off s!pe sue Oner vc c:\-rlei December 31. 1980. 00780 The magazine of tomorrow. On sate today. recombinant-DNA plague than consider tionary, while many people- today associate IfUTERV/IEUU how public-health technology and biology it with governments, industry, and weap- after ons. Take the laser, whose applications CONTINUED FROM P* have -eliminated one real plague another. you've been exploring for a long time: Most

Kantrowitz: Uncertainty is nothing new. The roots of the antitechnological at- of the R and D on lasers now seems to have in military We've always lived with it. What is new is titude go deep. You can see them clearly overtones. that now the uncertainty is phrased in sci- Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Kantrowitz: That's because we've backed entific language so that people who don't where there's a polemic against the con- off from the other possibilities. If we had the mind crossing a busy street have to decide straint imposed by the fact that 2x2=4. atmosphere of adventurous technology whether they want to share in a .007 proba- Dostoevsky had had some engineering today that we had fifteen years ago, we'd

bility of six cancer deaths in a population of training in his youth in St. Petersburg, and I be taking very seriously the other opportu- a hundred thousand or whatever. Still, the can imagine the cut-and-dried, 2x2=4 nities presented by high-powered lasers, plea for absolute certainty— a certainty view of science that he got— and rebelled especially laser propulsion. I'm no more propulsion; I'm human beings can never have— is a plea against. It's a rebellion I fully understand than an advocate for laser for a death sentence. You just can't live that and endorse, but it's a rebellion against a not qualified to judge it against all the other way. phony, lossilized, dead version of science, options. But it has at least a good chance of The same is true of irreversibility: We're not the living process that has led us to. being overwhelmingly superior for certain

' often told that we're about to let a genie out non-Euclidean geometries much stranger applications. of the bottle, open Pandora's box, and so than 2 x 2 = 5! Consider the proposal that we dispose of forth. We've always lived with irreversibility, Omni: Wasn't Dostoevsky's contemporary nuclear waste by shooting it into the sun. To too. You couldn't have reversed the discov- Marx optimistic about science and do that, let's say you'd insist on no more in billion that the proc- ery of fire. technology? than one chance a the waste Omni: Change is so rapid, today that many Kantrowitz: Very much so. If Marx could ess would fail and spread people tend to idealize the past, to think hear some of the antitechnological state- around. You might get it by running two thousand tests, that we lived in perfect ecological harmony ments made by his ideological heirs in the series of one hundred up until the Industrial Revolution. Western world, he'd be shocked. There's each, the first series launching dummy series with Kantrowitz; It's a persistent myth, from no reason why politics should make one payloads into orbit, the second Genesis to Jean-Jacques Rousseau: the antitechnological; instead, they should a reentry vehicle to make sure that even if would not psychology of Eden. And its counterpart is make one concerned with the democratic the process aborted, the wastes an imagination of disaster. There's a book governance of technology. It's no use pre- escape. by a British antitechnologist called A tending we can live in the twentieth and How expensive would such a test pro- Thousand Disasters, all of them since twenty-first centuries without a vigorously gram be? Not very, if you had laser propul- technology, sion. I'm pretty sure you couldn't afford it World War 1 1. To me, a disaster is something advancing reliable like that war itself, or the Black Death. Yet Omni: Maybe the difference is that Marx with rockets, even if they were many people would rather imagine some was" still able to see science as revolu- enough. Omni: Your MIT colleague Henry Koim has suggested that the same nuclear-waste disposal scheme could be carried out using an electromagnetic launcher. It would send telephone-pole-sized waste capsules up through the atmosphere so fast that their casing would blaze like a meteor. After calculating the power needs and costs involved, Kolm concluded that "it might well be a very reasonable thing to

do." Somehow I have the feeling that it's not going to be easy to convince people of that.

Kantrowitz: The reason it seems unrea- sonable has nothing to do with the idea's technical promise, but rather with the fact that technical expertise has lost credibility. I'm not certain that my idea is a good one— or that Kolm's is— but I'm certain that we can't go on with a situation in which technical issues are settled by prejudice rather than critical examination. So Kolm's proposal, my proposal, should be exam- ined by expert adversaries who know as much as we do about lasers, launching and reentry dynamics, and so on. Such a cross-examination could be thoroughly scientific, while at the same time showing a decent respect for the way society at large resolves its conflicts. better to I wish I knew of a way proceed, that but I don't. I've heard the suggestion we should mediate these issues, trying to achieve a placid atmosphere in which people will give and take. The trouble is that in mediated negotiations each side

gives a little bit in ways that will hurt its cause least. You don't know thai society's best interests are served by those com- promises, because the procedure is inar- ticulate. You don't your aruioji know why opponent ruEXT gave in on this point rather than on that one.

1 don't want a consensus at ail costs; I want to know the facts. Omni: So you trust the revelatory power ot arguments aimed at victory more than that of negoliations?

Kantrowitz: Exactly. I respect the power of the adversary procedure to bring out what Oliver Wendell called the "inarticu-

late major premise." These premises are alf around us in issues of science and technology, and they are exactly what the Science Court is intended to unearth.

Omni: How much luck have you had in per- suading other scientists to back the idea?

Kantrowitz: I set out some time ago to per- suade two good friends of mine, Hans Bethe and Edward Teller, that the Science Court was needed. You can't find two people more dedicated to their own sepa- rate versions of what's good for the United States, whether they're in agreement, as on nuclear energy, or on opposite sides, as on disarmament.

I running When was the Everett lab, I had a custom of dining with Hans once a

month or so, and I kept urging the idea on

him, At first he found it difficult to accept because he had devoted himself so much to using his scientific prestige for good in the world. Afler a while, though, perhaps because of the growth of antinuclear-power sentiment, he came to see that he needed the court. SOVIETS IN SPACE— Did you know that the Russians are developing a space Edward well, Edward is a delightful — shuttle of their own? That their killer satellites will soon be able to knock out our person, it's very but hard to get him to listen orbiters? That they have a new generation of space stations nearly ready for use?

to you. I hadn't been able to make an im- Neither did NASA. Preoccupied with , Afghanistan, and other trouble spots, our pression on him in many private conversa- intelligence community has forgotten that the Soviets take space developmenl very

tions, but I didn't give up, invited Then he seriously. Aerospace writer Craig Covaull remembers, however. His startling ac- me to give talk at a the Livermore Labora- count of Russia's determined move into orbit appears in next month's Omni.

tory [in California], and I agreed, on the condition that he would introduce me to the THE ELECTRONIC CHURCH-Praise the Lord and don't change the channel! audience. That way he'd have to stay and Evangelical Christianity has taken to the airwaves in a powerfully persuasive, Space listen. 1 went on for an hour about the Sci- Age style. Millions of dollars and the attitudes of 100 million Americans are con- ence Court, after that and he was per- trolled by the slickly produced, satellite-borne programs of the new video suaded. preachers, who reach more believers than churches ever did. Will ministers of the I'd also like very much to persuade Philip future put the word of Nielsen before the Word of God? Find out in August's Omni, Morrison of the importance of the Science Court, He'll agree it's a good idea; he'll sign ISOLATION TANKS — Is rummaging around in of the soul good for

letter or petition for it, a But to bring his you? Follow writer John Gorman as he enters the soft, black world of the isolation

power to and I bear— mean not his influ- tank, where humans tloat sightless and weightless to confront their inner selves. For ence, but his hie iectual power— on this some the tank is like a womb, for others a tomb. For American astronauts it matter (which to my mind is as important as simulated the emptiness of space. Scientists feel isolation tanks may represent an the disarmament issues he's working on) important new treatment for stress and anxiety Next month Omni reveals why this would be wonderful. ultimate development in sensory deprivation may help you cope with tomorrow Omni: Do you ever get discouraged about

the prospects of success? It's been more URBAN ILLUMINATIONS- In August Omni shows how today's urban landscape is than fifteen years since you began, and converted into stunning, articulate light art of the future. Photographer Dudley Gray certainly there are many more public is- and light sculptor Joe Strand combine their creative talents to transform buildings, involving sues science and technology, but bridges, and statuary into chains of light and geometric metaphor. Using Klieg progress is still slow. lights, rather than bricks and mortar, Gray/Strand create memorable cityseapes of Kantrowitz: No, I'm not at all discouraged. color and light. Tomorrow can become, by their technological devices, reality today. The need for innovative ways of managing technology keeps growing — and it seems SCIENCE FICTION — The exciting conclusion of a two-part excerpt from Stephen to that me more and more people are willing King's novel Firesiarier highlights our August selection. Also appearing will be a to tackle that problem, whether through the short story by William Kotzwinkle, an author not usually associated with science Science Court or some other mechanism. fiction; "The Curio Shop" is a delightful exception. Omni's fiction editor, Robert Omni: Thank you, Dr. Kantrowitz. DO Sheckley, invites readers to share a pleasant future in "The Future Lost," cancer— received any notice, during the and technology arc tnoi- ".Nations with the PLATFORM election campaigns that preceded their government. We've spelled out these is- unveiling. Why? sues in detail, and to each we've appended CONTINUED FHOM PAGE 90 One major cause is the illusion of "ex- a brief plank. We hope Ihe following Omni money from other fields of biomedical re- pertism," the belief that scientific and tech- Science Platform will encourage a long- Search. Then, without warning, he abol- nical issues are so complex that ordinary overdue, discussion of these issues by the ished the White House science office, con- people can't intelligently judge them. contenders for the-presidency: tending that his presidency didn't require Closely connected is the feeling that scien- • Unpredictable, frequently inexplicable, on-board science advice. tific issues are different, thai ihey should be fluctuations in government support are a , warned that Nixon's budget decided according to objective technical continuing plague on science and cuts— compounded by inflation — had left criteria rather than by the horse swapping technology. Research orojects often take American science in a shaky condition, of conventional politics. years to complete, but the government sets sought big budget boosts each year to re- In a practical sense, however, it almos budgets from year to year, buifeted by build the iinancial health of basic research. doesn't matter why virtually all candidates congressional elections every two years

Ford, in collaboration with Congress, also for our highest elective office choose to and a race for the White House every four. reestablished the White House science of- avoid science and technology. Their negli- Abrupt financial ups and downs emerge fice, thus restoring science's influence in gence, whatever its cause, is too costly to from this erratic process to jeopardize or presidential circles. science and to the nation by and large. derail vauaole -esearch. came to office undecided Omni believes the voters must compel the In late March a sudden cutting about whether he wanted a science ad- candidates to face up to these issues. We decreefr n P.-=;-;- neNa- viser at all. Three months went by before he don't expect candidates to work out the tional Science Foundation into such turmoil filled the post. Yet after this slow beginning day-to-day management oi h&D. But on the that letters oifering feliowsh os to 70 prom- he has carried on Ford's budget policies for major issues of priorities, social values, ising graduate stucents wore yanked from science and has also acted to establish scope of resources, and the responsibility the mail room minutes before they were to closer links between R&D in industry and of government to assist financially strapped go out. Though mathematics is central to all academe. universities and their research programs, the sciences, government support for this From Eisenhower through Carter, these we strongly believe that the candidates field has actually declined in purchasing science-related actions all had major im- must be explicit. power over the past decade. Support lor pacts, both on the scientific community We've spent the past three months con- engineering — which is heavily dependent and on the application of science and sulting with key figures in science and poli- on math— went up. technology to such international concerns tics and examining the voluminous records It is impossible to these shifts to any as regional economic development, health, of congressional committees and other ralional process, national needs, or cir- and education. Yet none of these steps- public bodies. From this inquiry we've dis- cumstances in the disciplines. Between including such vast endeavors as the tilled what we believe are the ten most im- centralized planning and what now borders moon-landing program and the war on portant issues in contemporary science on chaos, we must find a middle area. Our platiorm plank; To avoid disruptive and wasteful fluctuations in government support for R&D, supporting agencies should be funded more than o.ne year at a time. They, in turn, must commit themselves

to support projects until work is complete. • Red tape, under the bureaucratic ban- FOR FUTURE ner of strict accountability for government funds, has grown far beyond any need,

Paperwork requirements make it nearly impossible for scientists to revise their plans as they gain new knowledge after submitting their research proposals; any REFERENCE ma;or revision must be approved by the Moving? We need 4-6 weeks notice ol a Listing/Unlisting Service? Omni makes Harold Agnew. former chief of the Los change ot address. Fill in the attached form the names and addresses of its subscribers Alamos Scientific Laboratory, in New below. available to other publications and outside companies. The publications and com- Mexico, expressed the feelings of many New Subscription or Renewal? One year panies selected are carefully screened for researchers several years ago when he of Omni is S18 in the U.S., $24 in Canada their acceptability and quality of their otters. saia. 'Tne ever-increasing bureaucracy, and overseas. Please enclose a check or composed of managers who require more money order for the appropriate amount and and more detail. usTifi cation, and guaran- allow 6-8 weeks for delivery. Please check the appropriate box below. teed schedules, will in the noi-too-distant future completely eradicate our nation's to: DNew Renewal Attach mailing label below and send i | world position in research and technology."

i Subscription Omni Our platform plank: Drastically reduce P.O. Box 906 the paperwork that ihe federal government i Please remove my a This is a change of Farmingdale, N.Y. 11737 requires of the scientific community. name from your address; my new I • the ol most of our address is below. Universities, home basic research, have stopped growing and again tor years. This Name _ will not expand many ] has sharply limited opportunities for young Address _ ] researchers to begin their scientific ca- 1 P.ity ' - State Zip reers. The National Research Council (NRC) estimates that the shortage of open- Payment must accompany order. oc7ao | ings is relatively small; perhaps only 600 ' more positions a year for the next 15 to 20 years would be needed io maintain a struments now force us to reequip much of healthy flow of young Ph.D.'s into the American science. We must accept the universities. fact that a few targe, scientific facilities are The council has a modest prescription more effective than many small ones. for the problem, a long-term program of Our plank: platform Government agen- might imagine: enormous tioal wavesjs bai- Research Excellence Awards cies should designed to fund national centers for espe- tering shorelines, climate changess that launch the careers of promising young sci- cially expensive equipment and regional would wipe out major food-growing areas, entists whose opportunities are now limited centers for less costly facilities. and countless thousands of squaree kilo- by the dearth of academic openings. The • Solar energy could contribute much to meters leveled and burned. Civilization total cost would be only £381 million over solving the nation's energy dilemma. Once we know ft might cease to exist. A hydro- the next 20 years.' the equipmeni has been built, it is pollu- gen-bomb war might not be much more Our platform plank: The federal govern- tion-free, immune to foreign disruption, re- harmful. ment, in its interest, own should fund a pro- newable, and versatile, Though funds for In studies of nuclear-power-plant safety, gram similar to the NRC's proposal for the solar research have increased markedly in where the probability of a catastrophic duration ot the current slowdown in aca- recent years, this technology has not been accident is very low. the severity of con- demic hiring. pursued with the intensity and resources it sequences is usually held to demand ex- • Tight budgets have made the American clearly warrants. traordinary preventive measures, Regard- scientific community very cautious in re- Our platform plank: The federal govern- less of which side of the nuclear-power cent years. Doctoral sfudents seek out ment must promote solar energy in all pos- issue we are on, most of us agree that mak- low-risk research topics long sible because ways, from supporting basic research ing existing plants as safe as possible is proiecfs blind and alleys can sabotage a to developing solar technologies and creat- well worth the cost. By similar logic. Taylor career before it begins. This conservatism ing lax incentives for their installation. suggested that £1 billion spent to prevent extends to the agencies that support re- • Research related to national security an asteroid fall may be justified by the. tril- search; the bureaucrats in charge don't performed by the Defense Department, lion dollars of cleanup such a disaster want to risk having supported far-out NASA, a and the Department of Energy con- would require— if the damage could' be project that falls on its face. sumes more than half of all government healed at all. Scientists, however, have made some of research funds. In past decades spin-offs So what can we do to prevent an asteroid their most notable advances by bucking of this research have helped feed the civil- cataclysm? The answer is. Be prepared to the tide, by not playing it safe. What's- ian economy. Commercial aviation, solid- divert an asteroid. We would need to de- needed, then, is explicit that recognition state physics, and materials science all velop a system that could alter the path of long-shot research is important and must benefited significantly from defense fund- an asteroid away from Earth, given only a be backed by the money to support it. ing. Recently, however, military research lew :.:l,-:;ys notice {though we might have Our plattorm plank: To stimulate creative and civilian needs have had relatively little more warning if the asteroid's orbit were research, each federal agency must set to do with each other. Military-research already known). Rockets might do it, or aside 1 or 2 percent of its basic research managers, hard pressed to stay within their precisely directed thermonuclear explo- budget tor innovative projects outside the budgets, have made little effort to spread sions. Remember, we are now talking about bureaucratic mainstream. their technologies to the civilian economy. serious, undrarnatic engineering. • The federal government has made the Our platform plank: Stimulating the na- Indeed, these are the same kinds of sys- scientific community entirely tional too depend- economy should rank among the top tems we'd use to import asteroidal re- ent on Washington's whims. We need to priorities of the national-security research sources. They have already been studied diversify the support of science. Our best effort. Programs should be devised to en- as a way to reduce the limits to growth here chance to enlist private may be industry, sure that findings of potential value swiftly on Earth, build permanent space settle- which once performed basic re- enter other much sectors of the economy. ments, and construct the ships in which we search and heavily supported science in .• Science and technology have done could explore the solar system and uni- the universities. much to solve the problems of developing verse beyond. One more 'eason has been Our platform plank: Devise tax incentives nations, especially in areas of public added to open up what I call the fertile that encourage industry to spend more for health, agricultural productivity, industri- stars: That ounce of protection that might scientific research. alization, and education. Yet the United avert the destruction of civilization itseff • Abrupt budget cuts and policy shifts Nations Conference on Science and Tech- might grow out of the technology neces- have crippled the r space program, The nology for Development, held in August sa y lo retrieve asteroids. need to siphon funds from other projects to 1979 in Vienna, showed that science could All too often we do the right things, such compensate for delays in the space shuttle do far more to ease hunger and pov- as acting to improve the human condition. project has worsened an already-serious erty. The United States pledged at that only for reasons as questionable as the fear situation. research is Space now at an conference to establish a 'osearch institute of an improbable cataclysm In our irra- all-time low. Understandably, researchers to collaborate with developing nations. tionally ordered world, the threat of anoiher and their organizations have little interest in Congress has blocked the idea, however. Tunguska— this one in a populated area- staking their futures on our moribund platform Our plank: Science and tech- may be what it will take to spur the worlds space effort. Their reluctance is accelerat- nology are an integral part of our efforts to governments to action. ing the loss of our space capabilities. aid the economies of developing nations. About 2 billion years ago. probably be- What's needed is a firm policy that com- We must strongly support any effort to fore life appeared on Earth, a fair-sized as- bines growth and predictability. focus American research on this goal. teroid crashed into the plains of Ontario. Our platform plank: The importance of There you have it: the Omni Science Plat- not far from the mining town of Sudbury. It's space for our national security and general form. We ask the candidates to examine a mining town because about half of the well-being dictates that we expand the these issues and invite them to incorporate worlds nickel comes from the large, circu- space program, assure it long-term sup- our planks into their own platforms. At the lar crater formed by the impact. Geologists port, and insulate it against disruptive very least, each candidate must explain disagree aboui whether this rich cache of changes in its budget. just what he will do to. help science fill its nickel and iron is literally extraterrestrial or • In era of an slow growth or no growth, the vital role as the wellspring of our nation's whether the impact simply excavated the nation cannot" afford to distribute its scien- intellectual and economic vigor. Our next subsurface ore. We may unwittingly have tific resources according to pork-barrel President must come to grips with these been mining a fertile star already. politics. Yet the of aging existing iacilities issues. We have the right to know whal sci- Whether or not we go to the asteroids. and the development ol new scientific in- ence policies we are voting for DO they'll come to us. Will we be ready?DO totype Defiant easily outperforms the best RARE BIRD conventional light twins. Compared to Grumman's new Cougar, for example, a Defiant climbs and cruises 20 percent faster, rate of definitely of rigid plastic foam. The builder simply with a maximum climb 2,000 shifted our focus toward doing carves the core from foam blocks with a hot feet per minute and a top cruising speed of first hardcover editions of modern about 200 mph. Carrying five adults and scionce-ficiion novels." The second Gregg wire, trims it with a kitchen knife, and

Delianl can 1 ,500 miles on a series, 30 titles released in 1976, reflects smooths il wiih sandpaper. The fiberglass baggage, a go of Harwell's intention with books by Brian is cut from rolls with ordinary scissors, like tankful of fuel, more than twice Ihe range W dress fabric, and the epoxy resin goes on the Cougar with only four passengers. Aldiss {), Samuel R. Delany with a paintbrush. Rutan figures that a production version of {Babel-17), Leiber (), Moor- Rufan estimates that an ordinarily his plane could befactory-builttoday to sell cock (The Final Programme). talented builder can put a VariEze together for about $70,000, well below the prices of (}— all first hardcover from scratch in a year of weekends— a total conventional light twins. editions. Along with these came David loo, conventional twin can Russen's Iter Lunare. of 1703, Stanley of fewer than 1 ,000 man-hours. A complete For safety, no set of plans and instructions, originally $95, touch the Defiant- Like the single-engine Waterloo's 1898 Armageddon, and other can now be had for about $200 from the Eze, the Defiant is inherently extremely esoterica, but the pattern was already evi- Rutan Aircraft Factory. The raw materials slable, stall-proof, and responsive, thanks dent in the earlier series. specialized in for the airframe and the essential prefabri- to its canard and winglets. In addition, on More recently Gregg has the cated parts cost about $5,000. With a re- his very first twin Rutan completely elimi- multivolume sets by popular authors — that leature orthodox book built, 85 hp Continental engine and a nated the inherent safety problem of all only Gregg titles series was the wooden propeller, the total cost of the Eze conventional twin-engine configurations. jackets. The Witch World beloved comes to about $7,500, give or take $1 ,000, With engines mounted symmetrically on first of these, followed by Leiber's no more than the price of a modest au- the wings, the conventional twin thai loses Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories, in six vol- tomobile. For his investment of time and power from one eng ne suddenly becomes umes, Asimov's little-known David Starr Norton money, the happy homebuilder gets a vi- underpowered and wickedly unbalanced. space-adventure series, another Though sionary flyer that will cruise at close to 200 Even under ideal conditions it takes superb set, and a big Anderson package. facsimile mph for 750 miles or more and get about 35 piloting to keep the crippled plane in Ihe air the mainstay of the line is these out-of-print miles lo a gallon of gasoline. For about the and under control. If the power loss occurs reprints of paperbacks and same money, the brand-new Long-EZ has right after liftoff, however— and stalistics hardcovers, there have been occasional four feet more wingspread, carries more show it usually does— when Ihe plane has original books as well: anthologies of fuel and payload, takes up to a 115 hp only a thin cushion of altitude and a narrow nineteenth-century treasures, a volume engine, and will fly 1,700 miles in about nine margin o! airspeed, the odds become hard dealing with the making of the 1950 Hein- hours without coming down for gas. to beat. The pilot, as pilots say, buys the lein movie Destination: Moon, and an An- The solo flier who wants the most for [he runway, derson collection. least might go for Rutan's Quickie. De- "The things that a pilot has to do in a Hartwell and Currey have a long list of signed, built, and tested during a few conventional twin," Rutan says, "there titles that they plan to reprint at the present or a year. project just months in the summer and fall of 1977, the aren't even knobs for on this airplane." In- pace of 20 30 One Winston Quickie was inspired by a two-cylinder, stead of putting the Defianl's Iwin 160 hp launched is a reissue of the famed four-stroke engine weighing 104 pounds Lycomings on the wings, Rutan mounted Science Fiction Series of juvenile novels and developing 16 horsepower, intended them "in line" along the central axis, one that delighted young readers a generation for light machinery and garden tractors. To pulling the plane by the nose, the other ago. A Heinlein series is being developed

If one rights available, and more Nor- make it fly, Rutan had to mount the engine in pushing from behind the rear seat. as become an airplane of extraordinary lightness, engine conks out, therefore, the pilot does ton books are slated. With hundreds of ti- aerodynamic efficiency, and economy. He not have to wrestle with an asymmetrical tles available or in preparation. Gregg is had no excess horsepower to spend on thrust that is trying to wrench the plane out one of the busiest SF publishers. any- unnecessary weight or drag. of the air. But the editions remain minuscule, copies, with the Rutan's solution is a single-seat, single- Rutan's five-passenger twin weighs no where from 300 to 1,250 engine, foam-and-fiberglass airplane that more than conventional single-engine average print run at about 500. Many of weighs 240 pounds, engine and all. The planes powered by ihe same Lycoming Gregg's titles sell out at once and become reis- Quickie can be picked up by the tail and engine. Even on half-power, the Defiant can instant collector's items, These are The wheeled around on its landing gear as eas- continue its takeoff, climb, and even turn, sued in small additional printings. esoteric items are slower to move; ily as a shopping cart; yet it will carry a without any emergency procedures. more useful load of pilot and fuel egual to its own Rutan's next step will be lo translate the however, unlike bigger houses, Gregg can empty weight, cruise at 125 mph with its handcralted Defiant prototype into a pro- tolerate sales of only one or two copies a improved engine, and go 80 miles on a duction airplane that can be factory-built. month of an obscure title, and only a couple gallon of gasoline. He is ultimately resigned to turning Ihe de- of Gregg editions go out of print, The Quickie was hardly airborne when sign over to be manufactured by someone And so the books march serenely from Rutan sold his interest in the project to his else, or by some new company, diluting his the .press— Trie Worlds of Fritz Leiber, 22 introduction by partners to devote himself to a much more control. "I wanf to keep the plane for myself short stories with an Fantasies ot Har- ambitious airplane: a five-passenger, twin- for a while, as long as I can," he says wist- Leiber's son. Justin; The engine version of the VariEze, aptly named fully. He will settle for absolute control of the lan Filison, with introductions by Ellison The Defiant. The Defiant for the first time puts Defiant until it has been certified for com- and Moorcock; and Robert Sheckley's Rutan in competition with the big names in mercial production by the Federal Aviation Tenth Victim (inflated, for its movie version, small planes for the very richest part of the Administration. Then the design,- down to from Sheckley's original title of "Seventh booming general-aviation market. the last detail, will be frozen in regulatory Victim"), and much more, in sturdy, luscious Press old sci- "We had one idea," Rutan says. "To make ice. Anyone who meddles with it will have to buckram. "Gregg is where a twin-engine plane that would be high- deal witfrthe Feds.OO ence fiction goes to die," one cynical performance, "low-cost, and safe. Those writer— himself represented by several said. right this three qualities had never been combined in Information and t>.'ao.-; fc Bur! Rutan's airplanes Gregg titles-has But now ol the a single airplane before." Inheriting all the am available fronr Rulan Aircraft. Factory, Build- odd company looks like one most VariEze's aerodynamic virtues, the pro- ing 13. Mojave Airport. Mojave, CA 93501. vigorous of SF publishing houses. DO ne OMNI FUZZ BUSTER!

By Dick Teresi

Throughout most of March and Time passed. For reasons unclear at the expert witnesses, writers such as Frank April a! [he U.S. district court in time, ABC dropped the "Brillo" project. Herbert {Dune'). Norman Spinrad (The Iron Los Angeles. Ben Bova, Omni's Other than natural disappointment, neither Dream), and (When executive edilor. and , the writer thought much of this event. Tele- Harlle Was One), and even critics and well-known wriler of speculative fiction, vision networks frequently drop projects academics such as David N. Samuelson were engaged in litigation against at the ABC various stages of development. Then, and George Guffey. An ironic twist to the television network and Paramount Pictures early in 1976, ABC aired a show, produced trial came when Guffey, a Renaissance for copyright infringerrtent by Paramount and starring Ernest literature scholar who testified for the ln 1969 Bova Ellison and wrote a short Borgnine, called Future Cop. a police pilot defendants, attributed much of his story together called "Brillo," partnering a partnering a veteran street cop with an expertise in analyzing science-fiction veteran street cop with a man-sized, experimental robot, in this case a teieplays to an essay he read by Harlan fireplug-shaped experimental robot. The humanoid robot portrayed by an actor Ellison, one of the plaintiffs. piece was published the following year in Bova and Ellison sued for copyright Unfortunately for the jurors, many of the Analog magazine. The "Brillo" name infringement. Almost four years later, they trial's more colorful moments occurred comes from off a play the robot/cop idea. got their day in court. outside their hearing. During a colloquy Late-Sixties police were occasionally Aside from the immediate legal issues, between the plaintiffs' counsel and the called fuzz; the robot metal. was Metal the case poreniially has significance court concerning whether a witness could fuzz hence, — "Brillo." Needless to say, for science- fiction writers. Essentially, testily that Future Cop was not science both writers have apologized frequently for what Bova and Ellison were trying to fiction because androids are already the bad pun. protect was the milieu of their story, the among us now. Judge Albert Stevens But nol tor the story. Both of thorn background world it creates. Unlike stories conceded that he would certainly like to thought it had potential as a TV series. with a contemporary or historical setting, hear someone testify to the belief that Ellison, who had worked in TV tor 15 years, stories set in the future rely for much of there are people who arc walking about was approached by an independent their effect on the creation of extensively with "electronic gizzards." His Honor, by production company, which presented detailed backgrounds. the way, is an inventor himself and holder Bova and Ellison's idea to net- ABC The Because of the special aspect of the of several patents. He considers his work ordered a teleplay. So far, so good. case, much of the testimony was given by best invention the "Tipsy Fence." By day it's a partition dividing off one area of

a backyard from another; by nigh: it tips down horizontally to become the world's longest bar.

The bon mot award for the trial has to be shared by Ellison and John , the chief defense counsel for ABC/Paramount, During a lunch break Ellison and Davies found themselves on opposite sides of the square adjacent to Olvera Street, in the heart of the Chicano barrio. Ellison, seeing Davies, thrust out an accusing arm and shouted. "Stop that man! He's the one who tried to assassinate Cesar Chavez!" Later Ellison apologized for his joke. Davies was unflustered, saying the remark in no way offended him. Indeed, he claimed sev- eral people in the neighborhood had asked for his autograph. The verdict? For the plaintiffs— S337.000, roughly half compensatory damages and naif punitive damages. Notwithstanding the case's legal significance, Ellison, speaking with uncharacteristic understatement, found Hm:-,n EHiSor; oijisirje his own significance to the outcome: "This

117 I

there Sturgeon: Well, Siar Trek for one. That was is a landmark decision in support of the and patients. Even here may be a

nostalgic for I of the TV integrity of the primacy of inlerest of a wriler connection. Liebowitz described his love so me. wrote two physi- ["Shore Leave" and "Amok in his material. The invidious and meretri- junkies as being typically bright and episodes it a nostalgic trip for The cious practice of outright theft in the film cally attractive. And an inordinate number Time"]. So was me, finally wasn't quite industry has been struck a heroic blow. The of these women, he says, work in the pub- movie as it. was made the [Roddenberry] wanted it clear message here is for writers who care lishing industry. way Gene originally. He had to make com- about their work to fight." What does he do for them? Since these to be [The preceding report was filed by our patients do not respond to antidepressant promises. If it had been exactly like the TV correspondent Stephen Bobinett, at the drugs, Liebowitz treats them with psycho- series, only the Trekkies would have under-

it, if it been completely dif- trial in Los Angeles.] therapy and a class of drugs" called stood and had monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which in- ferent, there would have been no continuity Poor Edward Teller. Everyone seems out to hibit the breakdown- of phenylethyiamine. at all. serious Omni: What about Siar Wars? get him. In his famous "I was the only victim These drugs have one rather Sturgeon: it. It completely con- of Three Mile Island" advertisement of a drawback, however, as a love medication: Loved was year ago, the nuclear physicist and father They prevent some women from attaining sistent— completely consistent. of the H-bomb told how he was done in by orgasm. Omni: And Close Encounters? Sturgeon: and downright an actress. Dr. Teller explained that on May Dumb. Dumb stupid. 11 inconsistencies all through it. 7, 1979, a few weeks after the Three Mile After attending the annual sci- had completely awful. Island accident, he was in Washington, ence-fiction convention in Seattle. Wash- The Black Hole was done any movie scripts? D.C.. to "refute some of the propaganda ington, recently, writer Omni: Have you I've approached many that Ralph Nader, Jane Fonda, ,and their dropped down to Olympia, the state capi- Sturgeon: been

I I really want kind are spewing to the news media in their tal, to give a talk at the local library. He took times, but haven't done much. Hollywood scene. attempt to frighten people away from nu- a few minutes to chat with Omni be- to stay out of that Getting the real world, what clear power." Teller, seventy-one years old forehand about change, movies, religion, Omni: back to current will major changes for at the time, said he was working 20 hours a the future, and Sturgeon's Law. trends cause future? day and the strain was loo much for him. Omni: Is science fiction changing? us in the things, mainly. first is The following day he suffered a heart at- Sturgeon: It's changed a lot. and still is. It's Sturgeon: Two The which is changing the tack. "You might say," Teller wrote in a full- moving away from the nuts-and-bolts types microelectronics, to inner face of the world. It will cause the death of page ad in the Wall Street Journal, "that I of stories, from outer space space, example. People will be able was the only one- whose health was af- Science fiction is people, and their motiva- freeways, for their work, their fected by that reactor near Harrisburg. No. tions are important. That's what makes to stay at home and do research, their schooling — everything — that would be wrong. It was not the reactor. good fiction. about people like Jerry through computer terminals. They won't It was Jane. Fonda." Omni: And what anymore. The other Ms. Fonda, as far as we know, was never' Pournelle and Larry Niven? They've written have to go anywhere

1 think will see less ritual, but apprehended, or charged, for committing fine hard- science fiction, and still do. sepa- thing is that we swinging, this crime. rately and together. more religion. The pendulum is this is pretty serious for the* Then, last February, while Teller was giv- Sturgeon: Oh, sure. They're very good. No you see, And

it. argu- I think we're seeing that be- ing a speech at UCLA, a man with the doubt about I certainly have no- churches. But already. unlikely name of Jerry Rubin — no relation ments with them, or they with me— except ginning to happen to the radical leader of the late Sixties— hit perhaps over my politics. Omni: And overall? all, things will get worse the scientist in the face with a cream pie. Omni: How so? Sturgeon: Over While Teller was not injured, this time he Sturgeon: Well, you know Jerry's been de- before they get better. We may find our- the had his revenge. Rubin was immediately scribed as beinq somawhat to the right of selves marching in step, wearing same or arrested and later convicted of battery. He Genghis Khan. clothes, maybe for a thousand years so, faces a possible six-month jail sentence Omni: Do you have any favorites among the But that will end. connected with Stur- and a £500 fine. recent spate of SF movies? Omni: You are forever geon's Law— that "ninety percent of every- thing is with Michael R. Liebowitz, of the New York State crap." How did you come up particular Psychiatric Institute, has been deluged that? Was there a moment when with phone calls ever since the New York you actually thought it up? Times reported that he has found a chemi- Sturgeon: [laughing] Oh. yesl I was at an cal connection between chocolate and SF convention sometime in the 1950s, and I to panel with some love. Liebowitz likened the giddy response was scheduled be on a to talk SF literature and of being in love to "an amphetamine high." other people about this the panel He says the crash that follows breakup so forth. And one guy on — really remember who it he was "is much like amphetamine withdrawal." don't was— around collecting books, and he When in love, according to Liebowitz. your going brain produces an amphetaminelike took them up to his room and spent the chemical called phenylethyiamine. And entire night going through them. The next here he when studying a group of women he called morning the panel convened, and "love junkies"— people who habitually get comes with all these books, and little slips through them. Well, he involved in hopeless love affairs— he found of paper stuck all that many binged on chocolate when proceeded to take about half an hour to they these affairs went sour. And what chemi- read the passages he'd marked. And cal does chocolate have plenty of? were the most Goa-awfui nings you've ever Phenylethyiamine. heard. Terrible! Just terrible! People were Since the story broke, Liebowitz's phone rolling on the floor. And when he linished, said, "Mr. Sturgeon, hasn't stopped ringing. Reporters from all he turned to me and

kinds of publications, from Newsweek to ninety percent of all this SF is crap." And I the National Enquirer, want to interview just looked at him and replied, "Well, ninety

did I him. Publishers want him to write books. percent of everything is crap." Little Love patients want his help. Publishers Theodore Sturgeon: Tells how his law w know that it would become a law DQ

113 OMNI What got me to write this ANAGRAM? Something A MAG RAN CDfUlPETITORJ By 'Scot Morris

ur eleventh Competition, an- and LM OK. Prefer moon to Tang. GRAND PRIZE WINNER (SfOO) nounced in January, asked for — RobertG. Westmoreland. Ozark. Ala. anagrams. Readers made it look U.S. Space Shuttle Program- easy, readily outdoing our first attempts. Support us: Telegram cash! Watson and Crick— Cracks DNA to win. What impressed us most was how, from a — Brad V. Brase, Fresno, Calif. — ThomasD. Ingolia. San Francisco, Calif.; single starting point, they found such and Shari Lydy, Mt. Zion. III. diverse rearrangements. Consider the RUNNERS-UP(S25) messages that competitors found in the ^^^ Clint Eastwood — Old West action. letters of Three Mile Island: Learn mid the Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson (Mobel —George Landis, Visalia, Calif. lies (Charles ft. Jamison, Elyria, Ohio; Prize winners) — Am and Rob win neat Anderson, Doug Dayton, Ohio), It is prizes. Space Age Man Notion— Peace among renamed Hell (Lars Beck, Loveland, Ohio), —Ron Nielsen. Stevensvllle, Mich. nations. I'm in lead shelter {Bruce A. Martin, —Doreen Michael. Langley B.C.. Canada Northville, Mich.), Learn! Heed limits! Tenor Luciano Pavarotti — Top vocal Titan (Dee O/son, Park Ridge, III.), Steam ride in in our era. Western Union— No unsent wire. Hell (Stephen Dudzik. Maplewood, N.J.), — ftocco Mattera, Brooklyn, NY. —Rochelle Vickey. Vista. Calif. Lies hid near-melt (Dick Jacobs, Chicago, ill.), and All die in the REMs (Kevin New Year's Resolution— Only we aren't The National Aeronautics and Space Westerlund, San Rafael, Calif.). serious. Administration— Main actions; to dash on Repetitions were inevitable. The most —Jim Hanson, Broomtield, Colo. and initiate iunar/star peace. common were these: Outer Space- —Dave Schindler, . Md. Peace tours, Escape tour; Solar Energy Slot Machines— Cash lost in em. — Years longer; — —Richard Skelenar, East Hartford, Conn. Stephen Sondheim — He opens the minds! That great charmer; Astronomer— Moon —Jon Rider, Santa Monica. Calif. starer; and Halley's Comet— Shall come Dmitri I. Mendeleev— I'm element divider. From yet. nearly a hundred tries at Albert — Lynne Rittmanic, San Francisco, Calif. Star Trek the Motion Picture — Rocket ship Einstein, the best repeats included: Ten team return to it. elite brains; lines are it!; Bent and Best in Many a Sad Heart Can Whisper My — D. Clementz, Flint, Mich. relatin' E. John D. Roth, of Minneapolis, Prayer— A Merry Christmas and a Happy this had to say about the Ayatollah New Year. Statue of Liberty— Built to stay free.

Ak! I Khomeini: hate ihe holy oil man! — Robert T. Wainwright, New Rochelle, N.Y. —Mark Howard, Los Angelas Calif. Others, dropping the definite article. transposed Ayatollah Khomeini to: I make Widespread Livestock Mutilations— Robert W Bunsen — Best burner now. hay on oil halt; and Hail, hail to a monkey. "Visited animal, slew, took tripe, cuds." —Herb Martinson. Wheaton. Ma. A few anagrams looked so good that we — E. M. Gonzales, Eagle Pass, Tex. suspect they were not original: From E. von Daniken UFO Theory- O, invent Madam — Came radium; Elias Howe IM NO anagrammist, but IM ON to a pretty one hokey fraud.

(inventor of the I sewing machine)— sew a good one I thought up ON Ml own. —Jimmy , Lubbock, Tex. hole; I Voltaire— love art; and Ernest Isaac Asimov— ,4s; vac/amos. Spanish for Rutherford— of truths. Renderer "Thus we become empty." Chariots of the Gods?— It's good for the

AJso, as we have come to expect, many I NO Ml anagram is not a description of cash. readers tried to butter up the judge. Mr. The Asimov's works, but it is the best I —J. Sriea, Bordenlown, N.J. Anagram anagram at the top of this page could do for the MONI. came from Arthur Lander, of San -John D. Boatright, Oxnard, Calif. Piet Mondrian— I paint modern. Francisco. Others: Omni Magazine —F.J, Healy, Port Coquitlam, B.C., Canada became O, amazing mine, and Gaze in, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau — I'm mon ami! in Games Omni was transposed retired at rule until time is propere. Mother Theresa— Rest at her home. to I'm goin' . Games by Scot Morris — Barb McGeein, London, Ont., Canada —Jack Liskin, Venice. Calif. became My score's most, I brag. Several found the preference magazine of Star Trek the Movie— Is the TV rot remake. Leonard HONORABLE MENTION Nimoy— Read only Omni. ^^^ — WalterRoss. Charlottesville, Va. All in all. a surprisingly good assort- One Small Step for'a Man, One Giant Leap ment. Congratulations to all. for Mankind— NASA RA.: "All is fine. Men Einstein's General Theory of Relativity —

Great lone traveler to infinity? Yes, he is! Henry Cavendish Canny HH deviser. — Grant Stroup, Bend, Ore. — Henry D. Schreiber, Lexington, va.

— At a sand war. Gulf Oil Company O, go fill up my can. Ra'dioactive Wastes — Avoid tears, acl — Tim Rasmussen, Boise, Idaho wise! —Paula Grossman, Hagersten, Sweden —Julie Cohen, Upper Moniclair, NJ. Moshe Dayan — He's a dynamo. Nuclear Radiation— I race to ruin a land. —DavidS. Cohen. Upper Moniclair, N.J. That's One Small Step for a Man- NASA —Bhil Meyer, Vermillion, S.D, tramples the moon flats. Lars Beck, Loveland, Ohio

Neil A. — Alien. Los Angeles. California— So. refill a Serge Botsaris. Wayland, Mass. Rensselaer, ind. gasoline can. -Kyler Laird. —R. Kemalyan, North Hollywood, Calif. Watergate — We get a rat.

-Lauren H. Smith II, , Pa. —Nick Bozovsky, Cicero, III.

Tennessee Williams— I sell sweet sin, Amen. Make Peace Not War— Two keep man a An old-ager ran. —Dorothy Smith, Miami, Fla. race. Waiden — Don Wells, Houston. Tex.; —Barry and Ken Grier. Tampa, Fla. Whonnock.B.C, Canada

Marcello Mastroianni - I'll star on Roma Alexander Graham Bell — Ma Bell rang. Alex heard. — Peter Stratis, Freudians Ids are fun. Richard Nixon - Nix an Richard. Scarborough, Ont.. Canada -Chris Hyman, Manchester, Mo. — Peter Esposito, Rochester, N.) Harlan Ellison- 1? A snarl"? Hell, no! Williams Pocateilo, Idaho Television Sel- I've one. Let's sit. —Karen — Charles Wells, Houston, Tex. Hypochondriac's Useful Ailment— "No Omni Magazine's Games- Some

"Sir," cures, health is painful." Sir Isaac — I wasn't a once. Doc— my —John F Hill, Knoxville. Tenn. — Desiree Webster, Warrensburg, Mo.

THIS ASTEROID CONTROLLED BY THE 5PACE AUTHORITY Space Set NOT FOR SALE ters; NO COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT FREE SEARCH ZONE An Endangered Species_ 1LJTICAL ASYLUM FORBIDDEN \ETTLERS\NO HOMESTEADING An International regime declares the Moci NO SPITTING asteroids and planets off limits to space KEEP OFF THE ROCKS settlers? The plot of a science-fiction movie? DON'T PROVOKE THE ALIEN5 Nd, it would be a consequence of a treaty the U.S. and 46 other nations recently negotiated. This treaty, the "Agreement Governing the Activi- ties of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies," would; —impose, effectively, an indefinite moratorium on the commercial development of nonterrestPlal

— impose a monolithic Earth- 1 regime on the Moon and celestial be —effectively prohibit individual s from owning real property —prohibit individuals in space from obtaining poli- tical asylum or changing nationality "W^dgrt't haveil&wprry a'b outthgseJo\ ks gettingjoose^ — open vehicles, installations and habitats to search by any Earth government or the in- *L-5 Society ternational space regime 1 1620 N.Park Tucson, AZ85719 If it weren't for the efforts of Omni (see Andy j Dorman's editorial in the November '79 issue] and YES! I want to ensure individual freedom and opportunity for e^ sryone in space. Society, this treaty would have already been the L-5 I To help shape our future, enclosed is my donation of: signed intD law, and the endless frontier would have |nS25 DS50 DS100 Other closed before it was opened. with in this historic battle to Please join us today \ Mr/Ms . preserve our right to pioneer space. Send us your

I Ad d r-sss , check for"E625. £50, SI 00, whatever you can afford, today. With your help, the endless frontier will remain kCity State Zip open for all of us. 'Please make out your check to the L-5 Society. Contributions £ This Ad priowdEd as a public service by Omni (deductible within the framework of the law. » will send first-class mail news updates on the treaty to all donor: MAQAZiNE. We WONDERLAND: EXPLORMTIOrUS By Kathleen Stein

p r Coral reefs are the oldest eco- 3:ate a k. Visitors to the park find a 'Bccgniticn tnat Vcliowsione, Yosemite, systems on Earth. Their imprint modesl lerrain: 2,290 acres of upland and other unique natural sites have a etched the mud and sand 700 that includes 60 ca-^psiles. bathhouses, special beauty that is all too fragile. Many million years ago. By [he beginning of the boat docks, and a swimming area. What is such areas now are both protected from Devonian Period — when Europe and not immediately apparent is the rest of the people and open to them. Underwater Africa were still approaching each park: 178 square nautical miles of parks are an extension of this interest in other— the coral structures of the world's mangrove swamps, grass beds, preserving natural wonderlands. seas were much the same as they are now blue-green seas, and reefs. Pennekamp Pennekamp is a case in point. In 1957, Yet coral reefs are as delicate and is the world's first underwater park, a at a biological conference on natural vulnerable to human intrusion as anything sanctuary for marine life and a fantastic resources in south Florida. Dr. else Earth. the on Now, at tag end of the sea garden where land life can explore, the Voss, of the Marine Institute .of the twentieth century, divers who visit the great ecosystem beneath the waves, University o: Miami, described the reefs face the recurring paradox of our Underwater (u/w) parks are the latest damage occurring on the outer reefs and time: can truly How we know something in natural recreation areas. Besides the depletion of marine life there. Since the when the act of observing alters the thing Pennekamp, which opened in 1962, there Thirties, the sea-life novelty trade had being observed? are now at least seven other u/w parks in been booming. Great mounds of queen Same say that a well-dived reef site is the United States and Canada and two conchs had become trademarks of the already on its way to extinction. However National Marine Sanctuaries (one "tourist trap." (They have since been that rule is being changed, in some areas bordering on Pennekamp, the other oft exhausted in the keys.) And with the at least. These most venerable of animal Cape Hatteras, ). Many shells, coral was offered. The supply of the colonies are being protected through a more sites may soon be designated as graceful white branches could never growing number of new underwater preserves or controlled diving areas. satisfy the demand. Collectors descended parks and preserves. The invention of scuba apparatus .on the reef in everything from dinghies to On U.S. Highway 1, running through Key helped pave the way for u/w parks. Scuba barges and, with the aid of crowbars and Largo, the first and largest of the Florida provided a tab ica new pcrceplion of the hoists, began to rip the reels apart. keys, an unobtrusive sign announces the sea and its inhabitants. The discovery Commercial shell operations turned them' entrance to John Pennekamp Coral Reet parallels the late-nineteenth-century upside down tor rare specimens. Early scuba divers prowled the area with spear guns ready to pick off everything that swam through the pellucid walers. In 1959 control of the ocean floor to the three-mile limit was signed over to the Florida Board of Parks and Historic Monuments; the area beyond went to the National Marine Sanctuaries in 1960. The

new preserve was named in honor of Miami Herald editor John Pennekamp, a long! me champion of conservation. Eflorts to protect these waters have paid o!f. Today Pennekamp is home to more than 50 species of coral and 560 species ot aquatic life.

The Caribbean Sea is an ideal location for u/w parks, and there are two in the U.S. Virgin Islands: a snorkeler's trail at Buck Island, off St. Croix, and another at Trunk Bay, St. John. Both sites are overused, but many less-dived acres of park waters around St. John are also managed by the U.S. National Park Service, and they support a diverse and fascinating complex of coral reefs. While visiting the e housing projects systems tor a plethora of marine life. island, stay at the "ecologically sound" Ivlaho Bay Camps and explore the myriad the prey's body and paralyze it with toxins. coral's tissue until only a white skeleton lagoons and bays thai support, the reefs A coral's body has only one opening. The remains. If the water is polluted or if its light fringing the island. closed end forms the base of the polyp. is obscured, the coral dies. For scuba divers, the wreck of the Royal Each' individual polyp secretes lime (cal- The inhabitants of the reef are as in- Mail Sleamer Rhone (portions of the movie cium carbonite), which builds up story after terdependent as the citizens of a city. When The Deep were filmed around this wreck) story of cup-shaped exoskeleton. Over mil- coral dies, marine life must migrate or provides a ghostly 80-foot dive. RMS lennia the minutiae grow into coral cities starve. Dead coral structures, like aban- Rhone sank in a hurricane off Tortola. hundreds of kilometers long. doned buildings, decay into rubble, in- British Virgin Islands, in 1867, and in the Corals pump out an amazing ten grams fested by parasites and algae.

ensuing century it has undergone a sea of lime per square meter of polyp surface a There should be a sign above the en- change into something rich and strange. day. This requirestremendous amounts of trances to all u/w parks: flip lightly, all ye Tho Rhone, a diver's treasure-trove, now energy; The polyp's metabolic rate is al- who dive here. When exploring submarine supports abundant fish life and a spectrum most three times that of a human at rest. For wildernesses, observe simple precautions. of colored coral and sponge— all of which this activity, corals need continuously mov- Don't spearfish. Don't souvenir-hunt. Learn

are protected by the Islands government. ing water that is well lit and rich in oxygen the basic ecology of the area. Practice div- Glide in between the 20-foot columns that, and nutrients. ing skills; a good diver won't kick up sand like the ribs of a dead mythic beast, are the Polyp love; Coral can propagate asexu- or need to stand on coral. Dive with experi- ally cell division and sexually fusion enced divers, and select trips to reefs that . sole remains of the ship's superstructure. by by Or tunnel through the hull into the bulk- of male and female germ lines. A few corals have had a chance to recover from the last heads and cabins, and imagine that the are hermaphroditic. Eggs may be fertilized visitors. Don't wear suntan lotions. Act re- glittering morphine vials of The Deep are within or without the body, and after hatch- sponsibly; the reef may be the most fragile A'3'ting for you. ing, the larvae are transported over long ecosystem on Earth as well as the most For the best coral display, though, try distances by waves and currents. Once beautiful. Pennekamp's morning snorkel trip to Gre- they find a suitable support — usually IN TRANSIT

cian Rocks. It was stormy the day I went out. and the visibility was 50 feet, murky by Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. Key

local standards. But for me it was an alter- Largo. Florida. Open all year. Visibility 10 to nate universe. Spread out in aquavision 100 feet. were huge stands of elkhorn, pillar, brain, Buck Island U/W Park. St. Croix, U.S. ^Spread out in aquavision and savage fire coral. Animals bloomed Virgin Islands. Features a snorkelers' trail. like plants, and plants seemed to crawl were huge stands Visibility 100 feet plus. around like animals. Edmunds U/W Park, on Puget Sound. of elkhorn, pillar, brain, A word of warning; Reef fever is endemic Edmunds, Washington. A sunken drydock to reef diving. Before long you will develop and savage fire and wrecked tugboat have become the seedbed for a rich variety of marine life. an insatiable curiosity; you'll need to know coral. Animals bloomed everything about coral. Visibility 5 to 100 feet. like plants, and The secret life of the polyp; Coral reefs Point Lobos State Reserve. Carmel, , are entire housing projects and welfare sys- plants seemed to crawl California. An ecological preserve, Poinl tems (or marine life. Their "bureaucracies" Lobos has been called "the greatest meet- around tike animals.^ support a larger number of plant and ani- ing of land and water on Earth." Owing to its mal species than any other. In fringing reefs popularity, however, ten buddy teams are such as St. John's or a barrier reef such as allowed to dive at one time. Get there early Pennekamp's may live filamentous algae, Visibility 30 to 60 feet. corals, fans, sponges, sea anemones, San Diego- La Jolla U/W Park. La Jolla. truncates, mollusks. crustaceans, and a another reef or a wreck— they affix them- California. Also very popular, it features a pleihora of fish. All the tropical breeds selves and metamorphose into polyps. A rocky bottom with sandstone ledges and abound. Butterfly, angel, trigger, and par- living reef is basically a veneer growing a abundant sea life. Thirty yards out is La rotfish, wrasse, grouper, and barra- few millimeters per year atop a complex Jolla Submarine Canyon, which should be cuda- all find shelter, food, and oxygen in topography of superimposed skeletons- reserved for experienced divers. Visibility the reefs' mazes. the deserted shells left behind by genera- 15 to 60 feet. Reels are sand factories. Fish munching tions of tiny master builders. Catatina U/W Park. Casino Point, Santa on coral generate an estimated 2.5 tons of Reefs form rigid palisades, self-repairing Cataiina island. California. A protected sand per acre every year, creating a breakwaters that shelter land against area, monitoring kelp and abalone growth. healthy environment for the thousands of storms. The coral's porous structure and Visibility 40 to 60 feet. species that cannot live without a sandy massive interweaving of buttresses and Five Fathom Park, near Georgian Bay, seabed and humans who crave white channels dissipate wave energy and allow Ontario. Canada. A mecca for wreck beaches on which to saute themselves. the flow of sediment that would otherwise divers. Fierce storms have claimed numer-

The adult coral is a simple, sessile (not suffocate it. ous vessels there. Visibility 10 to 60 feet. free to move about) filter feeder whose The Florida Key reefs, existing precari- RMS Rhone. Salt Cay, British Virgin Is- tubular body is attached to a seabed, a ously at the northernmost edge of their lands. Visibility 100 feet plus. rock, or another coral. A single coral polyp, climatic range, are subject to stresses far There are- at least two other underwater never larger than a pinhead, consists of beyond those that afflict Caribbean reefs. parks in the works: Julia Pfeiffer-Burns nothing but a mouth and a digestive tract. Surviving thousands of years, they have State Park at Monterey. California, and

A fish fishes, and so does coral. At sun- built and shaped the Florida peninsula. If Palos Verdes near Los Angeles. And the set corals extrude from their stony cups tiny they die. much of the Sunshine State could United States has designated two other arms that wave drifting plankton and mi- bo swept away. Marine Sanctuaries; ihe one at Pen- croscopic crustaceans into their mouths. The worst threat to reefs is human inter- nekamp. and The Monitor Marine Sanctu- Corals also poison. The tentacles of many vention. Divers must learn that breaking off ary off Cape Hatteras. the location of the polyps are equipped with complicated a branch is lethal. Such seemingly insignif- wreck of the Civil War ironclad. Its remains trapping and shooting devices. These icant damage as abrasion invites invasion were discovered in 1973. and regulations special stinging cells, called nematocysts. by deadly forms of algae. Some infections concerning this site are stringent since sci- expel tightly wound missiles that penetrate spread at incredible rales, stripping the entists have just begun research DO 122 OMNI /MarkR.Chartrand III

sun," Chicago astronomer bright as the surrounding The surface, and so Near the sunspots are areas of in- E. N. Parker declared, "is an they appear dark, almost black, by creased activity, including solar flares. obstinate reminder thai while contrast. These dark areas are called Flares, about 8,000 kilometers above the we may possess all the basic differential sunspots. Some of the sunspots are surface, are regions that suddenly burst equations of classical and quantum considerably larger than the earth. forth with enormous amounts of radiation physics, the rich variety of solutions to Every eleventh year, roughly the number and high-energy particles. A single flare those equations extends far beyond of spots on the sun reaches a peak, along can release the energy of 10 trillion present knowledge and imagination." with other solar phenomena. The level of hydrogen bombs, raising temperatures to Last February a Thor 3910 rocket roared activity varies from peak to peak. The tens of millions of degrees— hotter than skyward from Cape Canaveral, carrying a most active period ever known came in the center of the sun itself. All this 2,100-kilogram satellite whose purpose is 1957 and 1958, just at the beginning of the happens in only a few minutes. to determine just which of those solutions Space before Age and any solar-ob- The instruments aboard the SMM will are correct. serving satellites were available. Up to monitor regions of the sun where flares are Called the Solar Maximum Mission lhat time, the only way to examine the sun expected, fifteen times a day the data (SMM), this remarkable spacecraft is the free from the interfering atmosphere will be radioed to the flight operations office of a new species of modular, was with rocket probes, which could ob- at the Goddard Space Flight Center, in retrievable satellite, repairable in orbit, serve for only a few minutes at the top of suburban Maryland. Within hours most of with new communications links to Earth. the flight. first solar The telescope went the information will be available to mis- Actually costing less than its original into orbit in 1962. The- next solar peak did sion controllers. Terrestrial observatories budget— about 36 cents for each U.S. notoccuruntil 1968 and 1969— and a will also coordinate some of their citizen, spread over several years— the fairly minor peak it was. observing time with the spacecraft. satellite heralds a new understanding of This year is another peak period, and During the year-long program— it is Star Number One. judging from the buildup it looks as if we likely to be extended— this coordinated The SMM is designed with two main will see the second-greatest level of assault on the secrets of solar activity will purposes: to study the three-dimensional activity since the existence of sunspots reveal where in the sun's atmosphere the details of the violent events called solar was discovered. And this time the flares begin , how they propagate, and flares and to measure with extreme astronomers are going to be prepared. which— if any— of our models of the sun's accuracy the total energy output of the magnetic activity are correct. star we depend on for our lives. The SMM itself is the first satellite In the past few years some astronomers designed to use the multimission bus, a have begun lo have questions about the kind of stock basic unit that can supply sun, which was long thought to be a power, attitude control, data handling, and relatively simple fusion reactor and communications for many types of space extremely stable. Studies of solar missions. It is designed to be repaired in neutrinos have found far fewer particles orbit if necessary. than the sun should emit; does this mean The SMM is also designed to be its fusion fires have gone out? The sun is retrieved from orbit and brought back to shrinking; could its heat be derived from Earth. This is the first fulfillment of the gravitational energy? Now a few scientists space shuttle's promise. Barring further have begun to suspect that the sun is slips in the shuttle's schedule, the SMM is slightly variable in energy output. Even a due to be caught and returned in 0.2 percent change would have great December 1982- by the second flight of consequences for us on Earth. The SMM Shuttle 099, dubbed Challenger. will be able to measure the sun's energy to At a planning meeting for the mission an accuracy of 0.1 percent. reported in the journal Physics Today, Dr. For reasons still unknown, the sun has a Parker evidently saw our attempts to magnetic field that occasionally bunches understand the universe as a sort of divine up in knots where the magnetic field comedy: "The sun, then," he said, "is our lines protrude through the surface. This Vergil, acting as guide through level after produces areas where the temperature is level ... as we look more closely into the only about 4,000° C, cooler than the usu- inferno." al surface temperature of 6,000° C. These But he's not abandoning all hope of an cooler areas are only about a third as Solar Max will send its data by relay satellite. eventual solution. DO a, spits/Spilz b, sun/son EARTH EAfUl i, check/Czech-

j, throe/throw asking the funct'onolhemociobin or insulin f, knit/nit in our blood. Questions about the function 1: HOMONYMS QUIZ of parts and components are proper when QUIZ 3: HOMOGRAPHS We deal with operating cybernetic sys- tems, such as life. 1-h, lead Why is there 21 percent oxygen in the air? d, conflict If there were 25 percent, the probability of i, wound fires would be so great that all standing e, defect vegetation would be consumed in a series of vast conflagrations inevitably ignited by lightning. Like all chemically reactive gases, oxygen appears to exist in the right proportions for the continuation of life. Most of the evidence for Gaia is of this kind, circumstantial at best. Its existence cannot be proved, but we can still consider QUIZ 4: ANAGRAMS the consequences of its presence. From a Gaian point of view, humankind's b, Poles/slope most disturbing act is the destruction of Ci the'mo/mother : natural habitats, which house the proc- h, Nepal/plane esses that regulate Earth's climate and e, lapse/pales chemistry. The most likely sites for these i, Lunar/ulnar control systems are the muds of the conti- j, General/enlarge nental shelves, estuaries, wetlands, and f, space/paces perhaps the tropical-forest ecosystems. a, clam/calm If we are all— from the lowliest microor- c, priest/stripe ganism to the largest whale— a part of d, ether/there Gaia, then we are all potentially important to its well-being. Therefore, the ecologists who deplore the elimination of a species are not merely appealing to our sentiment. They are warning us, often without knowing * It, about a blind and dangerous tinkering

with the mechanism of the world. It is not enough just to regret the extinction of a of smallpox virus. When BUBBLE MACHINE whale, or even the we delete one of these from Gaia's catalog, we may have destroyed part of ourselves. QUIZ 2: HOMOPHONES We are also a part of Gaia. Perhaps now we can understand why the 1-e, time/thyme sight of a natural landscape brings us such plane/plain 2-c, pleasure: It is our reward for leaving the 3-d, brake/break earth undisturbed. Conversely, the pain we 4-g. hole/whole feel at the sight of human suffering or an skull/scull 5-h, urban ghetto is Gaia's punishment for our letting the environment degrade. We may have evolved together with Gaia, interacting and regulating our environ-

ment. It may also be that we, as a species, have a role in the global network of informa-

tion exchange. If we can use all of our pow- ers to save humankind, we would also be ACKNOWLEDGMENT saving Gaia. The consequences of our presence are Appreciation is due lo several people for mostly a matter of scale. We manipulate help in setting the record straight about entire geographic regions to feed our- Dr. Charles Drew (Games, page 128). I am selves; what would happen if we farmed indebted to Eric Lipes, science teacher at the entire planet, thereby destroying the Charles Drew Intermediate School, in bulk of our regulating systems? In the past New York City, for first calling the error to we might have thought that we had won the my attention; to Anna Dembner, of Red battle over nature, but today the fallacies of Dembner Enterprises, New York, for point- that argument are apparent. Gaia would be ing out parallels with the story of Bessie so stifled by global farming that we would Smith's death; and to Warren Jackson, of soon discover that Spaceship Earth was Gannett Westchester Newspapers, and not a living planet, but a prison hu!k_ We Dr. Raymond Polin. of St. John's Univer- would be slaves forever, attempting in vain sity, in New York, for helping to put me in to regulate and maintain the optimal envi- STEEL MAZE touch with Dr. John R'. Ford. Thanks. Dd ronment that Gaia so freely provides. OO CDruinnuruicMTiDRJs that's six of one, half a dozen of the other. The painting is simply perfect for the story CONTINUED FROM PI- and proves that the artist really understood

(here now, I found il disheartening thai a what he was dealing with, though his in- Spelling error in the name of the town could terpretation was surreal.

have slipped by your researchers. I am not David A. Drake speaking of Punxsutawney (which is not Hill, N.C. easy to spell; some natives of the (own even

call it Punxsy). but of Cloe, as it is correctly I've read the February [1980] issue of Omni spelled. from stem to stern and have sent off a The most shocking part of !he article, check today for our own subscription, re- however, was not the spelling error but the solving never to be without the magazine siatement. "No one with a grasp of reality, again. One of the most stunning things in as we know ii, would build a road between the February issue was Fred Durant's

Punxsutawney and Chloe." Now. I admit piece on Chesley- and his art, that neither Punxsutawney nor Cloe is a with the beautifully reproduced examples growing metropolis, but a road between of Bonesiell's paintings. I've seen some of them is imperative to the mass of journalists these in the original, I think, at the Smithson-

who flock to Punxsutawney on February 2 ian's Air and Space Museum, and I have each year. You see, Punxsy is the home of seen some reproductions elsewhere, but the world-renowned weaiher- forecasting as published in Omni they are surely pairof Phil and Phyllis Groundhog. If it were breathtaking. not for the roads between Punxsutawney, G. Edward Pendray

Cloe. Big Run, McGees Mills, and all the Founding Member other small towns of the area, journalists American Interplanetary Society Can we know from New York, Washington, D.C., and other Jamesburg, N.J. cities could not observe the great event when Phil and Phyllis come out of their den Cosmic Rip-off our past lives? to see their shadows. Saying that "the sun is a second- or third- Does personality survive death? Sharon Keller generation star" [Space. ] Do experiences of past lives cling Fort Collins, Colo. made me think we've been victims of a grand cosmic swindle. They gave us a to our consciousness— as the Best of Omni used solar system! scent of a flower lingers on? This is a note of appreciation for your Best Juan Aburto There are mistakes you could of Omni Science Fiction, It has to be the San Jose. Mexico avoid — things you could do dif- most enjoyable fiction collection and one of ferently — if you could be cer- the best I have ever read. The choice of Inverted tain. Have you felt strangely stories was fantastic! The photograph on page 39 [Continuum, unlike yourself—more like some- I am a regular fan of Omni, and I never May 1980] of a prebiotic synthesis reactor one else —with different inclina- miss an issue. Next to the ficlion and the is inverted. tions and personality? Do new Games pages, I love your cartoons. The eventual creation of life in such a places faces famiiifiv? Congratulations that your fame is situation will give rise to organisms with and seem spreading. May your ideas and printer's ink their heads and backsides interchanged. FREE BOOK never dry up! and I, for one, see no compelling need for not let Barbra Bolt another governmental body. Populus iam- Do hypocrisy and preju- dice deny the truth Gallinburg. Tenn. dudum defutatus est. (I grant William you about

Proxmire a conditional pardon, even if it yourself. Reincarnation is just Thank you for both the superb graphics does make monkeys grit their teeth.) one of the many subjects dealt and the fiction contained in the Best of Alan M. Schwartz with in the Rosicrucian teach-

Omni Science Fiction . Savoring the articles Costa Mesa, Calif.OO ings. You can live more fully, that I have read in Omni was well worth masterfully, if you use your Cos- twice the price of the issue. mic powers and faculties. Write Lawrence D Grim, Jr. PHOTO CREDITS the Rosicrucians (not a religion) Ft. Meade, Md. Art pag BS, c itfp sy of Somersel Inp to s Limited Irom s Jo Minis V alk r Black Scotch adve Ise nent for a free copy of the book, "The Graphics Mastery of Life." scribe: ZBW Q\>- W,E WMent

I find your magazine quite fascinating. But £££ 0o ;SS/ what really blew my mind was the cover of Page S, F USSMjE B " 3fie ROSICRUCIANS your May [1980] issue. That picture is beau- rtM 3t!*p»giK^ G TcoZ- (AMORC) :;'! pag 22, Ge yChandler;page24 tiful! I must have stared at it for an hour. ~ San Jose, California 95191 U.S.A. Patti Bruggen Grgcs Green Bay Wis. sc^ Z.B.W. 7 right, Flip Son j The HOSICRUCIANS (AMORC) San Jose, California 95191 U.S.A. I was greatly taken by the art accompany- .©i975/.=r\->lnRo-, Please send me a complimentary ing "Men Like Us" [May 1980]. I liked it for '"- ;:-. copy of £ ational Bureau of St V £iSu book "THE MASTERY its own sake, bui the association was even OF LIFE." Bhai k/PI hers; page 41 rlghl more impressive. There is no way the artist ©Audrey Topp.og; could have known that the initial scene of the story was suggested by a vignette from id, Bronze Record; Hieronymus Bosch's Lasf Judgment. The :..- 18,JoelDav.s;pagi art hy. was perhaps a little closer in feeling to pagsm . page 130, QranlPn ra0 the younger Brueghels than to Bosch, but iSM6& Wh »

BBw III

twi

l*l!»,>«ks Mazes, match-'em-ups, and the truth about Dr. Drew

By Scot Morris

Adding some color to our pages this 5 Sweet smoke e. Broken part included the following item and answer: 1 "13 responsible for month are the unique drawings of Larry 6 Authentic f. A peso The man Evans. Evans's mazes are unequaled tor 7 Infirm person g. Wield a baton developing blood banks died when their beauty symmetry, graphic design, 8 -Group-owned h. Heavy metal a hospital refused to admit him for transfusion black. and three-dimensional quality, His latest .Suggest, hint i. Colled a because he was "Answer: True. Charles Drew, a pioneer booK \s3-D Maze Art, available from 10 .Deportment j. Void Troubador Press (San Francisco). of blood-plasma research and the originator of the idea of a national blood

, , died after an auto accident when _N. S, & John Paul a. Serene bank, . READER ORIGINAL _Kind of nuclear b. Incline a so-called white hospital in Burlington, The following set of quizzes was sent to —Katmandu land c. Chevron North Carolina, refused to admit him transfusion because of the color us by Al B. Perlman, of Forest-Hills, New -Hiatus d. Not here for a blood of his skin. year was 1950." York, In each, match a numbered item in __Kin.d of module e. Turns white The rates Wrong! This story, we have learned, is the left column with a lettered item in —Mills or Motors f. Activity it has been told and the. right column. What's the basis for _Most of g. Hubbard pure fiction, though tact. It is a matching? That's the puzzle. There are —Bivalve h. Wright idea retold countless times as favorite anecdote of Dick Gregory's, and four principles — different, but related- —Clergyman i. Re: forearm . it appears in William Loren Katz's one for each quiz. If you can't figure them —Heavens j. Blowup of Eyewitness: The Negro in American out, there's a big hint in the center the &C 4 H 10O next page. History (Pitman, 1967), in Philip T Drotning's Black Heroes in Our Nation's THE TRUTH ABOUT DR. DREW History (Cowles, 1 969), and several other QUIZ 1 introduced our black history texts. 1 .Armstrong's turi a. Ameche role In Games in January we is John R, 2 ——Farmer's show b. Disfigures WiVes' Tale Quiz with prophetic words: "The story a myth," says Dr. Medical Center, in 3 Saturn satellite c. So-so "Who knows where wives' tales start? Ford, director of Ford should know: in 4 Loci d.Wipe a table Whether they are true or not, they are San Diego. Ford He was Drew's life 30 years 5 Organic medium e. Flash the tush believed, repeated, followed." That quiz the car crash that took ago. Drew was driving three other black 6 Viking sits here f. Fly catcher doctors to conference in Tuskegee. 7 Lozenge g. Curmudgeon a in the backseat, 8 —Ship's time unit h. Arts study Alabama; Ford was directly behind Drew "Charlie fell asleep. 9 Turn a handle i. Antler tips The car hit a curb, swerved, and rolled 10 Intergalactic j. Cockneys do over. neck was broken, and his stuff it to aitches Drew's chest was crushed by the car." QUIZ 2 Did Drew get proper medical attention? all received the very best of care," 1 Fourth dimension a. Natator Mark "We started treating 2 Two-dimensional b. Seth, to Eve Ford told me. "The doctors Saturday morning, 3 Car stopper c. Sans beauty us immediately on a patients lined 4 Black & outasight d. Take five during their busy time, with 5 Brain housing e. Herb up for X rays." a transfusion? "It wasn't 6 Expectorates f. Kind of wit Did Drew get superior 7 Nearest star g. Entire indicated. He had a vena-caval getting 8 Verify h. Propel a boat syndrome— blood was blocked back to his heart from his brain and upper 9 Emotional pang i. Bratislavan extremities. To give him a transfusion 10 Grow together j. To lose deliberately would have killed him sooner. Even the most heroic efforts couldn't have saved efforts were QUIZ 3 him. I can truthfully say that no in treatment of Dr. Drew and, 1 First "paragraph a. Infuriate spared the fact that 2 Antagonism b. Fowl house contrary to popular myth, the he in any limit the 3 Injury c. Close friend BUBBLE MACHINE: Follow the bubbles was a Negro did not way 4 Desert a cause d. Collide through the pipes. Don't tetany escape. care that was given to him."

12B OMNI How did such a myth get started? Ford Charles Drew's death will finally be put to teristics: (1 ) an eight-line poem in which blames poor reporting by the minority rest, but we are not optimistic. Journalists the fourth and eighth lines rhymeand press of the Fifties, but he is being too won't quickly abandon a widely cross- each of which has four syllables; (2) all kind. Someone made the story up, referenced tale that "should be true" for other lines are double dactyls: six probably for political purposes. The locale the sake of a neat moral lesson. For our syllables with stresses on the first and part, we are pleased to help remove the fourth (DAH-dah-dah-DAH-dah-dah): (3) 30-year stigma that has unjustly followed the first line of the poem must be a double the doctors at that Burlington, North dactylic nonsense line ("Higgledy Pig- Carolina, hospital. gledy" will always do); (4) the second line must be a double dactylic name {e.g., Senator Kennedy. Jesus of Nazareth, BIG HINT Ludwig van Beethoven); (5) finally, some- The four match-up quizzes on the where in the poem, preferably in the last opposite page are all based on word stanza, and ideally in the seventh line, there relationships. Here are the principles, in must be at least one double dactylic line alphabetical order, not necessarily in the that is only one word (e.g., hetero- same sequence as the quizzes. sexual, extemporaneous, steatopygia). • Anagrams. In one quiz, the words , defined have the same letters but in a All entries become the property of Omni. different order, e.g., trace and cater. None will be returned. Entries must be • Homographs. Another set designates postmarked by August 15, 1980 words that have identical spellings but (September 1 for postmarks outside different meanings and, often, different the United States). The first-prize winner pronunciations, e.g., does can be female will receives 100. Runners-up (2 through deeroraform of the verb do. 10) will each receive $25. Send to: Omni • Homonyms . These words are the same Competition #14; 909 Third Avenue, in sound and spelling but different in New York. NY 10022. DO meaning. Lock can be a device to secure

STEEL MAZE: Crawl from arrow to arrow a door, or it can be a tuft of hair inside the steel tubes. Don't let the Homophones. The words inthis quiz reflections fool you. have identical pronunciations but different spellings, e.g., mind and mined. and the climate of ihe times made the tale Answers on page 124. plausible, and people wanted to believe in another horrible example of white COMPETITION #14; DOUBLE DACTYLS~ people's inhumanity. Curiously, an almost identical tale sur- HiggledyPiggledy. rounds the death of black blues queen Sir Isaac Asimov Bessie Smith after a Mississippi auto Wrote many volumes of accident in 1937. It is widely believed that Erudite stuff: she to death outside a white hospital that had refused to treat her. Though the Black holes to limericks. whole truth will probably never be known, Incontrovertible it is certain she did not die this way. (See I think that he's written Bessie, by Chris Albertson, Stein and Day, Still not enough, 1 972.) Nevertheless, the' familiar account was used by Edward Albee in the plot of If there is any rhyme form as addictive his 1 960 play The Death of Bessie Smith as the limerick, it is the double dactyl. As and is popularly accepted as true. defined by Anthony Hecht and John "History." Napoleon reputedly said, "is Hollander in their book Jiggery Pokery: A a fable agreed upon." We hope that in Compendium of Double Dactyls PINBALL: Walk from pinbait to pinball. You setting this record straight, the fable of (Atheneum), the form has these charac- are stopped where the blue areas touch. It happened around the lime of World practical for a counterfeiter; counter- lost art. War I. The director of research for feiting would become a Standard Oil was told, "There's all this The economy would be boosted in a

goo left over when we refine oil. It's terrible number of ways. Lead would become

stuff. It ruins the landscape, and covering extremely valuable. Even the collection

it with dirt only gets the dirt gooey. Find plates in a church" would have to be made

something to do with it." of lead (or gold). Bank vaults would have So he created the plastics industry. to be lead lined, and the coins would have He turned useless, offensive goo into to be separated by dampers. Styles of wealth. He was not the first in history to do clothing would be affected. Every purse, so. Consider oil itselt: useless, oftensive and one pocket in every pair of pants, in goo, until it was needed to lubricate would need to be shielded lead. Even

machinery, and later to fuel it. Consider so, the concept of "money burning a hole some of the horrid substances that go into in your pocket" would take on an entirely cosmetics: mud, organic goop of all kinds, new meaning. and stuff that comes out of a sick whale's Gold might still be the mark of wealth. head. Consider sturgeon caviar: American Gold blocks radiation as easily as lead. It

fishermen are still throwing it away! And would be used to shield the wealthy from the Japanese consider cheese to be what their money

it always started out to be: sour milk. The profession of tax collector would Now plans for the disposal of expended carry its own well-deserved penalty. So nuclear fuel involve such strategies as: would certain other professions. An Arab

* Diluting and burying it. oil sheik would still grow obscenely rich,

Pouring it into old, abandoned oil wells. but at least we could count on his

The Russians tell us that it ought to be spending it as fast as it comes in, lest it go safe, after all, the oil stayed there for up in a fireball. A crooked politician would WJDRD millions of years. We may question their have to take bribes by credit card, making sincerity; the depleted oil wells they use it easier to convict him. A bank robber By Larry Niven tor this purpose are all located in . would be conspicuous, staggering up to The Pournelle method. The No Nukes the teller's window in his heavy, <*The concept of money types tell us that stretches of American lead-shielded clothing. The successful desert have already been rendered pickpocket would also stand out in a burning a hole in useless for thousands of years because crowd — a thick, lead-lined glove would be your pocket would take thermonuclear bombs were tested there. a dead giveaway but without it, he couid on new meaning* Let us take them at their word. Cart the be identified by the condition of his hands. nuclear wastes out into a patch of cratered Society might even have to revive an

desert. Put several miles of fence around it ancient practice, amputating the felon's

and signs on the fence: if you cross this hand as a therapeutic measure before it FENCE, YOU WILL DIE. kills him. Granted, there will be people willing to Foreign aid to Third World countries

cross the fence. Think of it as evolution could be delivered by !CBM. in action. Average human intelligence Is this just another crazy Utopian goes up by a fraction of a percent. scheme? Or could the American people • Drop the radioactive wastes, stored in be brought to accept the radioactive canisters, into the seabed folds where the standard as money? Perhaps we could.

continental plates are sliding under one It's got to be better than watching green another. The radioactives would go back paper approach its intrinsic value. The into the magma from which they came. cost of making and printing a dollar bill, Each of these solutions gets rid of the which used to be 1.5 cents, is rising

stuff, but at some expense, and no profit. inexorably toward $1 . (If we could count

What the world needs now is another on its stopping there ... but it costs the genius. We need a way to turn radioactive same to print a twenty.] wastes into wealth. At least the radioactive money would intrinsic value. What we have been And I believe I know the way. have

Make coins out of it. calling nuclear waste, our descendants Radioactive money has certain obvious may well refer to as fuel. It is dangerous

precisely because it undergoes fission,

A healthy economy depends on money because it delivers power. Unfortunately,

circulating fas;. Make it radioactive and the stuff doesn'i last "thousands of years." fuel is it will certainly circulate. In 600 years the expended no more

Verifying the genuineness of money radioactive than the ore from which it was would become easy. Geiger counters, like originally obtained. pocket calculators before them, would Dropping radioactives into the sea is become both tiny and cheap because of wasteful. We can ensure that they will still mass production. You would hear their be around when the earth's oil and coal rapid clicking at every ticket window. A and plutonium have been used up, by particle accelerator is too expensive to be turning them into money now. 00

130 OMNI