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•:' I UH

HANOTECHNOtOGY : MOLECULAR MACHINES THAT MIMIC LIFE

ROBERT JARVIK'S THE FIGHT TO FREE

".1 , ANIMALS [•] i L«Kfi l?i!J LAB NEURAL NETS: SOVIET

TO THINK ART onnrui VOL. 9 NO. 2 NOVEMBER 1986

EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT: KATHY KfcETON FjIiOR dAIHC l ADCROFT 3HA-Hir;s JIFLCICR =r'ANK DEVINO EDITOR AT LARGE: DtCK TERESI .V!A,\AG.NG EIJIiOr>- STEVE FOX ART DIRECTOR .AMY SEISSLER

CONTENTS PAGE FIRST WORD Preventing Nr.c:ea: Bernard Lown and 6 War Evgueni Chazov. M.D's

OMNIBUS Contributors 10 COMKAJMCAIIONS

FORUM Reac'ions ;o Coil mum EARTH

STARS Mark oi the Quark Marcia Bar'usia-; EXPLORATIONS

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Owen Davies CONTEST SPACE CONTINUUM

TINYTECH Molecular Machines F'ed Haogood 56 INHUMAN BONDAGE Animal Rights Roberl Weil 64 TATTOOS Fiction Jack Dann 68 SPIDER MADNESS Pictorial: Dava So be I 72 Webbed Feals

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO Medical Qu« Marilyn vos Savanl 80 DR. JARVIK

OUR TOWN Fiction Kim Stanley Robinson 88 ARTISTS OF DETENTE Pictorial: Children's Judith Hooper 96 Space Art

THOMAS T. NOGUCHl Interview Douglas Stein 104

NEURAL CHIPS-. Thinking Computers Erik Larson 112

ANTIMATTER UFOs. etc. 119

STAR TECH Tools lor the Year 2000 151

GAMES New Measurements Scot Morris 166

LAST WORD Hum Virch Coleman 170

The force ol technology—its power, beaut/, and =. cQSII.IASTEn S»nc ability to duplicate, or even improve upon, nature's own miraculous processes—-* shown in this month's cover. work created = The was . .!" o =:. by Dale O'Dell, a Houston-based photographer 4 OMNI Astonishingly, 40 years into the Atomic already exists for our leaders to follow: the ; '':' .': ...... ' limited test bah agreement reached -on ' unforeseen, catastrophic gfobal conse- July 25, 1963, by the United Slates, quences o< nuclear war. ' Nuclear explo- : T ' : i . sions, parflcuiauy ground lif'L bursts, proscribing atmospheric, underwater, enormous quantities of fine soil into the and space testing of nuclear weapons On " atmosphere, causing what : is commonly June 10, !963, President Kennedy- referred . to as nuclear wiriter. In the event announced that the United. States ; would'.:: I that such disasters were to occur, survi- o longer vors of a nuclear winter would face period's

i of extreme cold, wafer shortages, ' and commended the American. leader and perhaps a total lack of food and fuel. staled that in response the USSR would They would also bo exposed to severe discontinue production of strategic radiation, chemical pnisoning of tine bombers, i hree weeks later the Soviets, environment, raging nodical eodernics stopped atmospheric bomb tests.' The ana unprecedented psychological whole process of negotiation had required stresses -all to be ''.''"':: endured under a pall only a matter of weeks. o* pervading, frigid darkness. ' li would be naive to .imagine that' political'" The implications of these findings . are leaders acting atone were solely respon-. : as p'obend as [rev are oisouiefing. stole for this historic achievement. What A firaf strike oy ins Um\ed Slates against energized political leaders and provided Sovie; land-bascc missiles, even without them with the will to act was- the ground-

r ; s(3 iat!or. ' by fne Russians, vvcubi ; make swell wor a public opinion thai had both countries uninhabitable complete ' The reached a crescendo

Phyxk:T,r,i .';;,- Meaningful communication between ,, ; ' ", .- . ;..,'.. .. : .... nations is a- vital first step on the road- in '965. This esszy

NTRIBUTORS annruiB

mythological shepherd operated elsewhere, it would be like The creatures. "Inhuman Bondage" (page 64) Proleus wen! to great lengths to being in two or more places at the same is Omni features editor Robert Weirs guard his omniscience. Seeking time. It's intriguing." exclusive account of the ALF break-in at his advice, querists had to entrap and When think, we the brain's cells talk to the University of Pennsylvania. The most bind him to get an answer. And even then, one another. Or more scientifically, the radical of the animal-rights groups, the Proteus would escape by transforming neurons fire in particular patterns corre- ALF is a tightly organized underground himself into a lion, dragon, tree, or whatever sponding to specific thoughts and network. Gaining members' trust was no served his purpose. Unlike this old Greek, memories. cell These assemblies, or easy task, Weil reports. But during months however, we will probably never be able neural nets, cncone everything we know. of phone conversations and clandestine to willfully metamorphose. But according It's an incredibly sopn s'ica'ed system meetings, they began to tell their story. to some scientists, it is possible lo that computers can't imitate. Or can they? "It was tough battling these people, trying produce objects— from food and clothes In "Neural Chips" (page 112) freelance to keep a reporter's perspective. They lo homes and vehicles that not only writer — Erik Larson reports on the work of wear you down," he says. change form on command but also scientists who are attempting to create Jack Dann's "Tattoos" (page reproduce 68), themselves. thinking computers. Already, neural meanwhile, concerns a Jewish artist using The ability to manufacture such goods, computers can perform some tasks far his talent to free people. Dann's last and to do it on the microscopic level, is more quickly than even the largest digital story for Omni, "The Gods ol Mars" (March known as nanotechnology, and it's going computers. In the future such machines 1985), which he wrote with Gardner to revolutionize our world, according to may guide autonomous robots, identify ozois and Michael Swanwick, Fred was Hapgood's "Tinytech" (page 56). aircraft, and understand human speech. nominated for a Nebula Award by the Taking its cue from nature, the technology "The more we see what computers Science Fiction Writers of America. relies on a computer the size of a single can already do and how far they have to Art comes in a variety of forms. "Spider molecule, This nanocomputer can produce go before they can actually think, the Madness" (page 72) illustrates how such a single object, atom by atom, that then more we can appreciate what humans drugs as LSD affect arachnids' web reproduces. In a month the many progeny can do—and machines can't," Larson patterns. A pharmacologist was looking of one replicating cell-repair machine, says, "I now find myself watching a bird, for ways to delay the weaving process. for example, could thoroughly assess the for example, and marveling at being He was unsuccessful, but his results health of every human. Eventually we able to so easily follow its actions. It would provide an interesting pictorial. will even be able to replicate our minds take a computer hours to figure out that Recently American and Soviet children by simulating every neuron in the brain. bird's movements." created their own art to commemorate

"Would I want a simulation of myself Is all scientific research valid? Some Ihe tenth anniversary of the historic Apollo- running around'?" reflects Hapgood, the believe it's not, particularly when Soyuz space mission. The pictorial "The author of The Evolution of Gender (William defends ess animals are tortured and Artists of Detente" (page 96) features Morrow). "It depends on how we define slaughtered. And committed activists, like their work, which is now touring the country consciousness. If 1 maintained my own the members of the Animal Liberation in a joint U.S.-Soviet exhibit o sense of being while my replicated brain Front (ALF), are determined to save these by Omni.OQ 10 OMNI I mi

BOB G CCIONE KEETQN LETTER! OM» P UB L Isl AL LTD.

David connnnuruicMTiorus

Cure for Violence? of man's ignorance of the Creator. No The notion oi psychological contagion is wonder Jesus said, "The wisdom of man quite intriguing ['A Plague Called Violence," is foolishness with God." August 1986]. But the article perpetuates Mrs. MikeHrabcak the old assumption that media violence Laramie, WY leads to real violence simply as a function ol its presence. The media, however, do Self-Health not exist in a vacuum. Mountains of I've worked as a registered nurse for 15 research have shown that any potential years and often felt discouraged and media effect is tempered, accelerated, even frightened by the attitudes of some nullified, or altered by olher factors. of my colleagues in health-care profes- Imitation of both pro- and anti-social acts sions. I'm very encouraged by Dr. Bernard

does occur, but it is r important only in Siegel's attiiuce iowa :i h s parents [First the context of these other influences. Word, August 1986], It's no surprise that tempers are volatile Although many of us give lip service lo in areas where people have less educa- the importance of the patient's will to tion, little opportunity; where summers live, our actions say the opposite: We don't are hot and people must live without the trust; we occasionally disdain, and luxury of air conditioners. II we could sometimes fear, an individual's determi- eradicate poverty, give everyone a good nation to parl'c.paie in the heanng process. education, a happy home, and a comfort- I'm not talking about the use of copper able life-style, we'd certainly come a lot bracelets or visits to Lourdes but about closer to eradicating violence. exploring a persona a::i*uces and feelings Erica Weintraub Austin in relation to disease and wellness. Institute for Communication Research "The journey of a thousand miles starts

Stanford University with a single step." My hope is that many Stanford, CA health-care professionals will accept and practice the wisdom o! Dr. Siegel. Cosmic Consciousness Perhaps in doing so. we will be making a The visions of a future universe described statement revealing our own vulnerability. by the physicists mentioned in 'After the Mary Lipke Sun Dies" [August 1986] are clever, Madison, Wl informed, and far-reaching. Each scenario, however, is bound by a common factor; Industry Showcase humanity's desire to see its intelligence At the 1986 Summer Consumer Electronics become immortal. Where are we going Show Omni asked attendees to choose and what effect will we have? which products at the eleventh annual If we can stretch our imaginations to Design and Engineering Exhibition showed the accept idea of a universe that is itself the most innovative design and engineer- a sentient organism, Ihen notions like ing skill. Product categories included reincarnation and immorlality can be audio, video, computer, and personal explained by such basic physical realities electiorics. Sony Corporation's KPR- as the carbon cycle and the knowledge 36 x BR rear- projection TV won the video that matter cannot be destroyed. We then award. The audio award went to the wouldn't need lo preserve our egocentric Technics SL-XP8 compact disc player. rofe in the universe. Luma Telecom garnered the personal- Steve Smyth electronics award for a visual telephone. The GAIA Program And PHIS/Magnavox received the home/ Plainsboro, NJ office equipment award for a videowriter Omni also salutes James Riddle, Many scientists do not believe in a creator merchandising manager of Heilig-Meyers, who created man, the earth, or the who won the sweepslaknii ana received universe. 'After the- Sun Dies" is an example a Rado DiaSlar Anatom watch.DO DIALOGUE FDRunn

This month's Forum is devoted to readers' Harold Dengerink had taken into consid- McCrone did not chemically lest the responses So Continuum, one ot Omrit's eration the fact that David Bowie has a particles. He claims he doesn't need to. most popular sections. The articles often tendency to increase one's blood pressure Members of the media champion his

stimulate readers to ask questions, voice in l he first place. cause and give him a forum without their own theories, or just plain disagree. Lisa Villabol scrutinizing his flawed research or his Temple Terrace, FL subjective statements. McCrone refuses No Exil to face the established facts. We were appalled by Leah Wallach's Melanchology Baby Gene Hoyas article "The Terror of Relaxation" [July The image of an infant in the crib with a Lodi, NJ 1986]. To date we have hypnotized computer makes me very uneasy thousands of people and have gotten ["Computer Babies," August 1986], The Sabbatical thousands of others to relax by using our article touts the attributes of the I found "Why God Rested on the Seventh" relaxation tapes. Not one has experi- computer—companionship and stimula- [July 1986] very interesting. I hasten to enced a panic attack as described in tion. The infant can even punch buttons point out, however, that the biblical seventh Wallach's story. to produce "a smiley face or a sad one." day is not Sunday but Saturday and has In discussing your article with students A generation new of human beings been so since time immemorial. This and associates, we have come to the looms on the horizon It will be interesting does not undermine the validity of Dr. conclusion thai there must be an expla- to see how a child accustomed to inspir- Wright's observations on the seven-day nation for the anxiety attacks that were ing his companions by pushing their stress cycle but probably indicates that the described in the story. We think that the buttons will deal with others as an adult. days on which the 17-oxogenic steroids subjects regressed to an early age, Infants are imprinted by their environ- ebb and peak are determined by a long- resulting in a true panic attack. They were ment; and with a computer in the crib to standing pattern of behavior. not prepared for this experience and snuggle up to, the child will likely have Sidney Reiners lost all sense of control. Some of our clients some very peculiar identity problems. That Grand Rapids do experience regression, but we have marvelous facility with computers will a technique, called the patient's be acquired at a great cost. Great Balls of Fire emergency exit, to remove them from this Jim Keller I don't know if Gerard Dijkhuis's specific state The patient raises a finger, and USA theory of ball lightning is correct, but we bring him out of the trance. his attempts to generate ball lightning Patricia D'Encarnacao, M.D. Painting Churches using high currents from a large storage Paul D'Encarnacao, Ph.D. I need to respond to George Nobbe's battery represent an extremely plausible Greg Little, Ed D. article "Painting the Shroud" [August 1986]. and practical approach ["Low-Budget Mid-South Clinic Waller McCrone is neither a physicist Fusion," June 1986], Memphis nor a chemist but a microscopist whose For hundreds of years people of diverse conclusions are based almost entirely educational backgrounds have been Zoo Story on observation. His research has not been studying ball lightning, but the The scientific Washington Park Zoo mentioned in published in peer-reviewed journals. community still doubts its existence, "infrasonic Elephants" [August 1986] He has never responded in detail to the and no one will fund a project to test the is not in the state of Washington but in work casually he dismisses. theory in the lab. In 1983, conversely, Portland, Oregon. It's a terrific zoo. Packy, McCrone's results are challenged by the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel the first elephant born in captivity in the work of two members of the 1978 to the U.S. Department of Energy decided America, lives Ihere. China's revered team John Heller, — a biophysicist, and to spend $4 billion to build a new particle golden monkeys were residents for several Alan Adler, a physical chemist. The test accelerator There is, of course, plenty weeks. There's a penguinery and an results of the Heller-Adler team were of research to support such a quest. authentic Cascade mountain- trail with a in perfect accord with the optical, I would like to see, however, a serious stream where otters and beavers play. spectroscopic, and radiographic analyses attempt made to generate ball lightning in Brian Strong of the shroud image. It is nol a painting, the lab so we can begin to understand Scappoose, OR and the particles observed by McCrone this orphan of plasma physics. I'm a were blood, not iron earth pigment. retired MASA research engineer and would Buoyed McCrone writes off Heller and Adler's be happy to correspond with people After I had finished reading "The Bowie work very simply: "They're wrong. I know interested in ball lightning. Effect" [August 1986], I wondered whether blood when I it see through a micro- Francis J. Stenger Washington State University psychologist scope, and there was no blood." But Kingsville, OHDO 16 OMNI —

TREE SHAKERS EARTH By John J. Berger

determined and roughly clad hired the as group's southwestern repre- Far Irom continuing the fight, the Wil- Tenprotesters were waiting in the sentative. In 1978 he became the derness Society discouraged unhappy gray, predawn light when the con- society's chief lobbyist and moved to activists Irom suing the Forest Service for struction crew appeared on the isolated Washington, DC. At that time, if environ- fear that Congress would react to a court logging road that led to Oregon's North mentalists were to get results and influence case by taking away even the meager Kalmiopsis area. Stately evergreens legislators they believed they had to gains proposed in RARE II. These events fir, incense Douglas cedar, and other use economic arguments, make strategic troubled Foreman deeply. species— make the Kalmiopsis one of the compromises, and set moderate goals. Quitting Washington, he returned in world's most diverse coniferous forests. Extremists, it was said, were shunned by 1979 to New Mexico just about the time, Yet the U.S. Foresl Service planning was to the powerful. Foreman, novice that he the sagebrush rebellion was getting give loggers a green light here. was, went along. under way. This was an effort on the part The V-8 pickup, owned the by Plumley But when the Forest Service's Roadless of private interests to wrest ownership Construction Company, headed toward Area Review and Evaluation II (RARE It) and control of public land from the federal the demonstrators blocking ihe road. The program was unveiled. Foreman was government so the land could be more truck bumped protester Dave Foreman stunned. It proposed to designate as readily put to commercial use. in the chest, knocked him backward, and wilderness only 15 million of the 60 million Foreman found the Bureau ol Land stopped. Foreman stood his ground. acre's of national forest that were still Management and the environmental The pickup truck began to move, roadless pushing and could have been protected. movement irresolute in responding to this Foreman up the hill, increasing its speed By adopting a moderate position, threat to their domain. The environmental until Foreman unable to keep — his Foreman wrote later, "We had lost to the movement, he decided, was too calm balance— fell beneath it. Desperately he timber, mining, and cattle interests on and reasonable. He felt the situation grabbed on to its his legs bumper, every . . point. . The anti environments I side called for anger, even rage, over the harm trailing under the engine. At last the truck had radical, been extreme, emotional. being done to the earth. "It was time," stopped. Just then a deputy sheriff Their arguments had been easily shot full Foreman wrote in The Progressive, "for a arrived and placed him under arrest. of holes. We had been factual, rational. new joker in the deck: a militant, uncom- The truck proceeded on its way, but We had provided more—and better- promising group unafraid to say what Foreman's group, working with local public comment. But we had lost." ." needed to be said. . . activists in three subsequent blockade Resigning from the Wilderness Society. efforts/managed to slow down the road Foreman joined forces with two former construction. That provided time enough Wilderness Society people—Wyoming for the Oregon Natural Resources representative Bart Koehler and educa- Council to file a lawsuit and receive an tional director Susan Morgan— plus injunction to temporarily halt the logging. Friends of the Earth's onetime Wyoming The road has yet to be completed. representative, Howie Wolkie, and former Dave Foreman is one of the founding Yippie activist Mike Roselle. members of Earth Firstl, a radical, grass- in early 1980 they piled into Foreman's roots environmental organization known VW bus and took olf for a wilderness for its unwillingness to compromise on jaunt in Mexico's Pinacate Desert. On the ecological issues. Earth First! members journey they gave birth to Earth First!. are currently trying to save the grizzlies What they created was vastly different and preserve the ecosystem of Yellowstone from this country's established environ- National Park. They also propose that mental organizations. Foreman believed millions of acres of land be set aside as that if Earth First! adopted the conventional wilderness areas. Committed to protecting bureaucratic structure of a large corpora- wilderness and wildlife, they will even tion, the group would inevitably assume risk their lives lor their cause. Their use.of the corporate values it was struggling tactics like nonviolence and guerrilla against. Instead, Earth First! was theater has set them apart from— at and conceived as a movement of autonomous odds with —the larger, older environmen- grass-roots activists. It had no officers, tal groups, like the Wilderness Society, no bylaws, no constitution, no nonprofit tax for which Foreman once worked. status. But the tiny group soon leapt Foreman began by volunteering for the into the headlines with a series of guerrilla- Wilderness Society and was eventually going to acquiesce." theater actions and demonstrations. One of !he group's first such actions United States to meet all of the country's "Earth First! is a handful of adolescent was in Arizona at the Glen Canyon Dam. needs and that destruction of the last people who take a militant approach which traps the Colorado River in Lake enclaves of old-growth forest is unneces- to resolving the question of how much Powell and generates power for Los sary, brutal, and stupid.. "There's all the wilderness we need," says John Benneth, Angeles and Phoenix. Since the dam was timber we need on tree farms and privately western regional manager of the Ameri- built, the river has not run untrammeled owned lands in the Southeast and North- can Forest Council. "They're taking the law through the Grand Canyon, as it had from west," Foreman says. into their own hands. The question can time immemorial. Edward Abbey, novelist In the spring of 1984 Earth First! be resolved without spiking." and champion of the wilderness, was members once again put their bodies on And Max Peterson, chief of the U.S. speaking to a rally at the dam's base on the line. In Oregon's Middle Santiam Forest Service, is more adamant: "Tree April 21, 1981, when Foreman and a couple Wilderness Area they hillside occupied a spiking, in addition to being illegal, is of cohorts, shouting "Earth First!," that was about to be dynamited to a highly dangerous practice that jeopar- suddenly unfurled a 300-foot-long roll of provide rock for surfacing logging roads. dizes the safety of loggers, firewood black plastic from the lop of the dam. Twenty-two members sat on live explo- cutters, and mill workers. We view tree As it unrolled, the spreading plastic created sives to prevent the destruction. spiking as a cowardly act of vandalism the-shocking impression of a giant crack During the past two years Earth First! bordering on terrorism. These unwarranted racing down the face of the dam. has expressed concern for other causes, acts are counterproductive to the cooper- After this first stunt Earth First! began to including the protection of the Yellow- ative efforts of the Forest Service, conser- attract followers. In September 1981 stone grizzlies. "They're down to about vation groups, logging companies, and Foreman and three associates set out on thirty breeding females," says Foreman. firewood cutters." a nationwide "road show" designed to His outspoken criticism of Yellowstone's Foreman is willing to endure criticism demonstrate the threat to the world's rain management has drawn a stern reply because he believes that his blend of forests and timberland. For two and a from Robert Barbee, superintendent of the direct action, rhetoric, and guerrilla theater half months they carried Earth First's park. "I don't know what Dave Foreman is more effective than the methods of message to small towns, colleges, really knows about bears," he says. more conventional environmental groups. churches, and bars in 26 states. "Suddenly this is his cause celebre. He "The Oregon wilderness bill that passed During 1982 Earth First! recruited 500 claims he's going to die for the bear [in 1985] probably had a couple of hundred protesters to demonstrate at the site of and goes through all kinds of gyrations." thousand more acres of wilderness in it a proposed Getty Oil Company road- But Foreman and Earth First! push because of what Oregon direct-action building and gas-drilling operation in on, even though a source of contention protesters have been doing in the past Wyoming's Gros Ventre Range. The Getty has arisen inside and outside ot the couple of years." Foreman says. "By project was eventually halted, at least organization over the practice of taking a moral stand and facing the temporarily, by a court order. "monkeywrenching"—the sabotaging of consequences, we have turned more In California, at the Sally Bell grove of equipment used in wilderness logging people into supporters of preserving old- redwoods in the Sinkyone area of or road building and the spiking of timber. growth forests than any other environ- Humboldt and Mendocino counties, Earth The activists covertly bury metal or mental group has done by issuing press Firstlers in 1983 put themselves between ceramic shafts deep in the trunks of trees releases and making statements." the trees and Georgia-Pacific Company marked for cutting. The spikes do not Gene Coan, assistant conservation workers and their chainsaws by hugging kill the trees, but they can damage director of the Sierra Club, replies, "We the trees. One woman was struck by a expensive sawmill machinery and can do a lot of other things besides issuing falling redwood and was pinned beneath cause chainsaws to buck. Sawmill opera- press releases and making statements. it. She escaped with a broken collarbone. tors now use metal detectors, but We're responsible for the establishment of A last-minute restraining order saved ceramic spikes do not activate the detec- an enormous number of acres of national much of the grove. tors. Spiking trees can thus delay a parks and lorest-wilderness lands." Earth First! contends there is more than timber sale or make it unprofitable. The Earth First! is proposing a 10-million- to enough second-growth timber in the practice has aroused strong emotions. 20-million-acre Great Plains national park and several other enormous wilder- nesses. All told, Earth First! seeks millions of acres ol new wilderness, totaling a third of all the land in the lower 48 states. Earth First! can be seen as either the conscience of today's environmental movement or a lawless bunch of radicals obstructing economic development. For now, Foreman and his followers see the decision to risk injury and death for the sake of the environment as their only choice. Despite their efforts and the work of other environmental groups, the U.S. Forest Service plans to build tens

of thousands of miles of new roads in unprotected, roadless wilderness areas. This would open the land for logging and would effectively deslroy much remaining wilderness. 'At a certain point," Foreman says, "you just have to say, 'I

am not going to acquiesce in this

destruction any longer. If you're going to

destroy life, you're going to do it without

my agreement.' I don't think you can downplay the sacrifices we are going to The mission: to restore the earth. The have to make to save life on the planet."DO 32 OMNI —

MARK OF THE QUARK

By Marcia Bartusiak

ore than 30,000 light-years instruments ^^ ^% as well as with space-based Given these constraints, some physicists 1 I from Earth, in the direction ; I jij of X-ray telescopes. Now with its activity have suggested that these particles are I %J I the constellation detected Cygnus by underground proton-decay lumps of quarks ejected from the star. the Swan, lies one ol the most powerful detectors, theorists are surmising that According to traditional theories, when a X-ray sources in our galaxy: Cygnus X-3. the enigmatic X-ray source is releasing not star explodes, the matter at its core is Astronomers have long assumed that only electromagnetic energy during its compressed into a mass of neutrons. But Cygnus X-3's energetic radiations are the rages but streams of exotic particles, too. under the tremendous pressure of a product of a neutron star an ultradense, — Because muons are too short-lived supernova explosion, a star's core of ten-mile-wide ball left in the aftermath of to survive a the journey from Cygnus X-3 to protons and electrons may be broken into

supernova explosion drawing matter Earth, it — was then concluded that the smaller elements. The result is not a from a normal stellar companion. The two muons were produced by a stream of neutron star but a quark star. complete an orbit around each other, unknown particles from Cygnus colliding Matter drawn off from its stellar say theorists, every 4.8 hours. with either the earth or its atmosphere. companion knocks some quark nuggets The traditional interpretation of the Theorists went through their list of off the quark star (each clump of quarks is star's composition is being challenged by subatomic suspects. The particles couldn't about the size of an atomic nucleus). a group ol audacious physicists neutrinos: who be Since neutrinos are capable The nuggets are thrown out into space at offer as evidence curious some subatomic of whizzing right through the earth, their near light-speed by the quark star's particles picked up by their proton- effect would register all the time, not intense magnetic field. Eventually some of decay detectors. The evidence now just when the star was in sight. The the cygnets, as the unknown particles suggests that the star is a compact globe Minnesota physicists spotted a wave of have come to be known, hit the earth's of more basic subatomic particles muons with their proton-decay detector atmosphere and crust, setting off a quarks. (Quarks are the building blocks at the same time astronomers detected cascade of particles.

of protons neutrons.) If and this is so, bursts of X rays and radio waves coming That's the theory. The evidence, astronomers could be forced to revise their from the star. Whatever the particles however, is inconclusive. Theoretical theories of astrophysics. were, they seemed to travel at virtually the physicist Edward Farhi of the Massachu- The saga of Cygnus X-3 began in of light. speed But high-energy photons setts Institute of Technology is not yet 19B2. Physicists trom the University of can't be subatomic light particles. convinced Cygnus X-3 qualifies as a quark Minnesota and the Argonne National star. Given the proposed properties of Laboratory were studying the decay of quark stars, he believes such an object protons registered by their detector, would have a thin crust of ordinary stellar which was installed in an old Minnesota material, which would prevent any quark iron mine. They were mystified when their lumps from escaping. detector recorded intermittent showers Also, proton-decay groups in Europe of muons (heavy, electronlike particles). and Japan declare they have seen nothing "We puzzled over this and found there at all with their instruments. After months was an order in the madness," says of viewing, Marshak's team was able Minnesota physicist Marvin Marshak. The to trace only a few thousand muons to a showers appeared to be coming from broad region around Cygnus. Of these the general direction of Cygnus X-3. only a small percentage could definitely In 1984 another proton-decay , group, be correlated with Cygnus X-3's 4.8- working in a salt mine near Cleveland, hour orbital period. Marshak himself admits found their muon signal waxed and waned that the evidence remains sparse. every 4.8 hours. "It was as if a lighthouse Even so, the idea of the quark star is were flashing," says Marshak. The Cleve- still very much alive. "People don't like this land group hypothesized that Cygnus X-3 business because it doesn't make sense was influencing the particle flow and in terms of the physics that we know," that more particles were received when says Marshak. "Bui we're operating at the Cygnus X-3 was in full sight and fewer very edge of detectability here, where when it was eclipsed its by companion. things are not nearly as clear-cut as they Cygnus X-3 goes through sporadic appear in textbooks. "DO outbursts of energy that few other objects' in the sky display. Its violent episodes have been detected with radio and infrared Cygnus X-3.' superquark or quack? 26 OMNI ITY OF TOMORROW EXPLDRATIDOIS .By Mary Ellin Barrett and Steve Lerner

fields surrounding the small villages moving sidewalks and monorails as part Since then Subir, Tait, and others have Inof southern India, near-naked of men a transportation system for the 50,000 planted well over a million trees and hack at the earth with short-handled residents who were expected to gravitate established numerous gardens, ponds, hoes while along the dikes women pass to this Utopian enclave. wells, and windbreaks—and in the with their babies hoisted on one It hip and a wasn't long, however, before the process completely changed the jug of water balanced on their heads. harsh realities of southern India cut this landscape of Auroville. Dominated by mud huts, thatch roofs, ambitious and vision down to a more realistic They've also created unusual architec- pots hanging over dung-fueled fires, scale. When the first bus caravan ot ture suited to their needs and the harsh the villages themselves seem places pioneers arrived in 1968 — many of them climate. It is not uncommon to find huts ot overlooked by the industrial— not to long-haired Europeans and Americans woven palm fronds and bamboo next mention the technological revolution wandering through — Asia on a spiritual door to huge concrete structures that look that has swept much of the globe. they quest—what found was an arid, badly a little like visiting spaceships. Auroville's No place on Earth would a more eroded, seem overgrazed, 12-square-mile most spectacular construction project unlikely site for a city of the future. Yet tract of largely nonproductive coastal to date, however, is currently under way. off the main highway, about 100 miles south plateau. "When Auroville started," recalls A giant concrete sphere called Matrimandir of Madras, near the city of Pondicherry, Subir. a large, soft-spoken Frenchman is being erected near a spreading lies Auroville, a community born from who arrived in 1970 after years of banyan tree at the center of Auroville. the philosophy of Indian patriot and spirit- wandering the back roads of India as a Designed'to be the spiritual focus of the ual leader Sri Aurobindo. Since the first barefoot ascetic, "there was nothing here. city, Matrimandir will house a huge settlers arrived in the late Sixties, Auroville It was nearly a desert." meditation hall in its upper hemisphere. It has been endorsed by the United I "When came here in 1971, there wasn't will also contain the world's largest Nations, subsidized by the government of a tree between here and the next village crystal—a glass ball nearly 19 feet in India, and hailed by such luminaries as live hundred meters away." says English- diameter and weighing more than 900 the Dalai Lama, the late Indira Gandhi, and man Michael Tait with obvious satisfaction pounds. When completed, the crystal will Margaret Mead. as he relaxes in front of the wood-and- be suspended from the ceiling of the But this spiritual community is unique tile house that he and his wife, Valerie, built meditation hall and lit with sunlight for another reason: Unlike many Utopian for themselves and their two children. reflected through a series of mirrors. communities ot the past, Auroville The more mundane task of making combines modem technology and science Auroville function on a day-to-day basis is with the spiritual. It unites meditation carried out in some 40 satellite communi- and a cooperative government with com- ties around Matrimandir, where one finds puter processing, New Age architecture, numerous sun-scorched technophiles and the latest in agricultural technology. fiddling with the nuts and bolts of some After Aurobindo died in 1950, disciple alternative-energy contraption. There Mira Richard, a Frenchwoman who came to are already some 20 operational, recycled be called The Mother, carried on his windmills of all varieties within Auroville's teachings and in 1968 founded Auroville precincts —more than in any other area of as an extension of his thoughts. "Earth India. Windmills are important, local needs a place where men can live away residents explain, because the Tamil Nadu from all national rivalries, social conven- power company, which provides the tions, moralities, and contending religions," region with electricity, is plagued by wrote The Mother, "a place where human constant power outages, beings freed from all slavery to the past Jean Pougoult, a small, energetic can devote themselves wholly to the Frenchman who is a former engineer, discovery and practice of the Divine typifies the Auroville technology buff. His Consciousness that is seeking to manifest six-room house has solar panels that [itself], Auroville wants to be this place provide him with enough electricity for his and offers itself to all who aspire to live the lighting and his audio equipment—allow- truth of tomorrow." ing him to listen to what he calls "solar Auroville was originally designed in the music." A biogas generator gives him shape of a spiral nebula, with swirling ' energy to cook and run his refrigerator. greenbelts and residential, industrial, and Despite their remote location and cultural zones Early plans called for Tne yniir.isnea riec'iranon i;aii at Auroville. the ancient Tamil culture in which they 28 OMNI CON"'NUEjON PAGE 94 PSYCHOFASHION nmnjcr

By Gurney Williams III

Psychotherapists put themselves arena for battles over the mind. Therapists reimbursement for having them cast out. on [he couch whenever they who normally soothe their clients take A second reason for the predicted try to define mental illness. In a to the picket lines and turn militant over growth is scientific advancement As current debate over several proposed diagnostic issues. Disorders come and go. biologists delve more deeply into the roots disorders, "new" for instance, it seems Even Sigmund Freud's concept of of psychoses, for example, they may clear what's on the minds of psychologists neurosis was in dropped the original discover different ways to label mental psychiatrists and this year. It's women, DSM-III (1980). And in 1973 APA trustees ills. "What we now call schizophrenia." says Diagnoses that affect women are voted to wipe out almost all references Dr. Robert Spitzer of New York, head of the focus of a controversy over revisions to homosexuality disorder. as a Before the the APA work group that is currently to the highly influential third edition of vote, being gay was considered a psychi- revising DSM-III, "may end up as fifty the Diagnostic and Stalisticai Manual of atric problem. After the vote the disorder different kinds of disorders." Mental Disorders (DSM-III). The board of was relegaled to psychiatry's attic. Other clinicians are frightened at the trustees of the American Psychiatric "It's a matter of fashion," says Dr. John prospect of a major proliferation of new Association (APA) will decide before the Spiegel of Brandeis University, who was disorders over the next couple of decades. end of the year whether to add three president of the APA in 1973, when the It will be impossible for two therapists to new disorders to the official DSM-III roster. debate over homosexuality flared. 'And agree about a diagnosis. Raymond Fowler, One is premenstrual syndrome (PMS), fashions keep changing." Other psychia- a senior research psychologist with the constellation of mood and physiological trists agree that the next full edition of National Computer Systems in changes Washington. coincident with the rhythms of the manual—due in will 1993— probably DC, argues that therapy ought to be the menstrual cycle. The two others list some phantasms no one has yet divorced from the foibles of psychiatric are personality disorders, "self-defeating" dreamed of. The basic DSM set of more fashion. "The danger is that some and "sadistic." Critics (psychologists than 200 disorders will probably burgeon psychological problem that shows up in a are particularly vocal) say the additions between now and the year 2000. first-rate miniseries on TV may shortly aren't based on good science and that One major reason is money. Patients thereafter appear in a diagnostic category their inclusion would actually hurt women. can get insurance payments for treatment because everybody feels like they've It's not the first such flap, nor the last, of disorders the list. on DSM The more got it that week." because the rewriting of DSM provides an psychic demons named, the \ . Fowler suggests an alternative. "I think

we ought to do it the way they do in baseball. A psychiatric condition ought to

survive for fifteen years before it's allowed into the DSM Hall of Fame." But the current controversy shows that

survival of proposed new diagnoses is never assured, even after they're inscribed in the official record book. Critics began debating the proposals months ago. They argued that sadistic personality would become a ready-made defense for wife beaters. Self-defeating personality would stigmatize women trapped in abusive relationships. And elevating PMS to official recognition would perpetuate myths that menstruating women are pathological cases. "It's all a backlash against women trying to become equal," says Lenore Walker, a Denver psychologist. "There's little clinical evidence to support any of the revisions." The drive to revise, she argues, arose because many women seeking therapy in recent years have gone to a growing number of female psycholo- Feminists have engaged psychiatrists in a hot debate o r menses, masocnism. and maur

II see you in Aisle C." says computer thousand words. That will be aimed at Both techniques work well. IBM's voice scientist Lalit Bahl. As he talks a cursor text generation." I recognizer is said to be at least 95 I odeposits his words at the top of a Large-vocabulary speech recognizers percent accurate, while Kurzweil claims screen in front of him. Occasionally it gets work very differently from more limited up to 99 percent accuracy with highly one wrong, then changes it as he contin- models. Small-vocabulary systems rely on skilled users. (In case of error ues to you can speak A first-choice c quickly recorded samples of the way a given either tell the machine to try again or gives way to see. ill is replaced by aisle user pronounces each word. The device simply type in the word.) This doesn't in its second appearance. compares each incoming word with mean, however, that either system will The corrected words are transferred to these "templales" and chooses the recognize 95 percent of the words a final-text window you lower on fhe screen. template that fits best as the word it most would normally use. An errant if has crept in. "That was a likely heard. This works well for small "Even with a tive-thousand-word sniff," Bahl apologizes. "I have a cold." selections of words with distinct sounds vocabulary." says IBM's Bahl, Bahl works "when we wilh the speech-recognition but not for a large vocabulary. let people use the system for actual team at IBM's Thomas J. Watson "The only way you can distinguish dictation, something like seven percent of Research Center in Yorktown Heights, belween words like to, (wo, and too is by the words they use are unknown. A New York. He is showing off the latest their context," Bahl says. IBM's system vocabulary of twenty thousand words version of the group's project—a computer uses a statistical database compiled from reduces that to two percenl. We have very add-on thai can understand spoken some 25 million words ol computer- little hope of improving on that because words. Last year it required three industry letters and memos. When a new a lot of the unknowns mainframe are very specific to computers and several minis, word arrives, the system scans the the user—names of people, places, literally a roomful of hardware. Today, database to learn which words most often and things that they are talking about." thanks to a special-purpose processing follow the last one identified. Kurzweil And in most cases the machines do chip, it fits on two boards inside a PC Al's voicewriter uses half a dozen have to be trained to understand each AT II has a vocabulary of 5,000 words. programs to analyze English synlax. user. For a 5,000-word vocabulary, training If yu tipe lik (hiss, similar devices could identify the words most likely to appear, takes only half an hour— either reading soon take, most of the pain out of word and choose belween them by sound. a text or simply repeating the individual processing and data entry. Instead of words three or four times. For the most beating your thoughts into an obstinate part, then, people cannot just sit down and keyboard, you'll simply talk to your machine start talking. The Kurzweil system can and feed it information. be trained to understand almost anyone Speech-recognition boards have been who picks up the mike, but its error rate around for at least five years, but fheir goes up and its vocabulary drops to 100 vocabularies have been limited to contest words instead of 1,000. lengths—200 words or less. That's fine For these reasons IBM has not yet for controlling a home-built robot, but decided whether to market a voice- writing a letter calls for a choice of several recognition unit. Yet Kurzweil executives thousand words. And that's why at least claim that word-of-mouth computing is two companies have been hard at work already making life easier for some people. developing a "true" voicewriter. IBM's "One of our customers is a doctor, " says model is still a prototype; a commercial Tomasic. "He uses our thousand -word - product is reportedly two years off. But tiny vocabulary voicewriter to dictate radiology Kurzweil Applied Intelligence of reports. He used to dictate his reports Cambridge, Massachusetts, already has and give the tape to a secretary Then he'd a similar device on the market.. Designed get back a typed transcript and find to work with the IBM PC, the $6,500 that it contained errors. It was too much Voicesystem can understand 1,000 words. trouble to get them corrected, so he'd "We've sold more than three hundred often letthe report go through with all the units," reports Michael Tomasic, president mistakes. Now he dictates to his of Kurzweil Al. "Most are used for data computer and fixes any errors himself. entry and similar functions. But before the Now his reports are much more accurate. year is out we will be offering a model Voice recognition, he says, takes all the with a vocabulary of five thousand to ten pain out of it. "DO RACING WITH THE MOON

By Douglas Colligan

: I I e all remember who [he first island;; o -.he Pact c" Pacific ^% South cruise number of occupants it could carry; means ' man on the II moon was, but will be offered for 1987 or 1988 (does of propulsion; top speed; performance *rf \J who remembers the first car not include transportation to and from point capabilities (can it cross crevasses? how on the moon? Known as the Lunar Rover of embarkation). If for any reason the steep a slope can it climb?); material of Vehicie, the "car" was a 462-pound, alternate prize is unavailable or cannot be which it is made. You can assume there will battery-powered Iwo-seater cart with taken by the winner, Omni may award be mining and manufacturing facilities four-wheel drive. Omni is asking its readers $500 as a consolation prize in lieu thereof. on the moon. We know our satellite is rich to design a second moon buggy, built prize The second is a trip for one to in aluminum, iron, titanium, silicon, and just for fun. to compete in the Omni 2000, the U.S. Space Academy (airfare included), oxygen. Any or all of these could be used a course that runs to each of the six the space camp tor adults at the Alabama to construct a vehicle. sites where Apollo astronauts landed. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. Send your entry to Moon Buggy Contest, The grand prize for the contest, During their three-day stay visitors will hear Box 9113, Allston, MA 02134. Entries announced in October, will be one ticket lectures and see movies on spaceflight, received must be by December 31 , 1986. on Project Space Voyage, a low-Earth- get a sample of astronaut training We are not responsible for lost, late, or orbit lour of our plane!, scheduled for that includes simulated weightlessness, misdirected mail. launch in 1992. The tour includes four- participate a and in a simulated shuttle Entries will be judged by a special day briefing at a resort, an 8- to 12-hour flight to the moon. Third prize is a telescope panel, and winners will be determined trip, and then two days' debriefing at from Halley Optical. based on the- following criteria; creativity a resort. Space gear will be provided. This To enter the contest, print your name (25 percent); originality (25 percent); trip is offered by Society Expeditions, and address on a plain piece of paper, and suitability for lunar terrain and environment which will be solely responsible tor deter- include as proof of purchase the words (40 percent); feasibility (10 percent). mining winner's eligibility to participate STAR TECH, cut out from atop page 151. Contest is open only to residents of the in the space voyage. If the grand prize- In 200 words or less (printed or typed United States, except employees (and winner does not meet health/eligibility only) describe your vehicle. No drawings, their families) of Omni Publications Inter- requirements for the trip or declines the please. No models. You must include in national, Ltd., its subsidiaries or affiliates, trip, or if the trip is canceled or delayed, an your description the following characteris- the judges, Society Expeditions, Inc., alternate prize of a two-week "Lost tics of the moon buggy: size; weight; their respective advertising and promotions agencies, and Proaction Marketing, Inc. All federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply. Void where prohibited. Winners will be notified by mail and required to sign an affidavit of eligibility and release within 15 days of notification.

It not returned within 15 days an alternate winner may be selected. Winners agree to the use of their names and likenesses for publicity purposes without further con-pensalion. Prizes are not transferable, assignable, or redeemable for cash. No substitution for prizes other than as stated. No duplicate major-prize winners. Taxes and transportation to grand-prize site are winner's responsibility. All entries received will be reviewed and the finalists submitted to our panel of judges, which includes Apollo 15 lunar module commander James Irwin, Gerard K. O'Neill, Isaac Asimov, James M. Sis- son, Richard Petty, Mario Andretti, Leonard Nimoy, Tom Brokaw, Billy Dee Williams, Edsel Ford, Shirley Muldowney, Chuck Yeager. Neil McAleer, and T. C, Swartz. the racket Hies. president of Society Expeditions.OO STRESS IN ORBIT

By Eleanor Smith

Long-duration space travel is here; control agreed to a lighter schedule. members. To determine whether the the Soviets have already staffed To prevent such a problem from recur- candidates have the right stuff to withstand four stations and have stayed ring, NASA psychologists are helping the rigors of long-term space travel, a

as long as eight months in space. For its to select, train, and take psychological care small group of cosmonauts lives in a pari, NASA plans to permanently staff of space-station crews. With the excep- sealed laboratory in Siberia. Given short

its space station by the mid-Nineties. Eight tion of Skyiab, most previous spaceflights supplies, they are then left to sort things to 12 people will spend three months at were relatively short. So NASA focused out among themselves—sometimes a time in the cramped, noisy quarters on the technological challenges of putting for as long as a year. of the station, a Tinker toy-like module about man into orbit, getting him to the moon, In preparing tor the U.S. space station, the size of a mobile home. Astronauts or building a reusable spacecraft. They NASA won't be doing such rigorous will be far away from loved ones and will gave short shrift to the psychological and testing/training. (No one would volunteer.) lack such luxuries as being able to shower sociological factors involved in space But agency psychologists and psychia-

or even eat when they choose. Those travel. The original seven Mercury astro- trists will be involved in crew selection. onboard may suffer boredom, anxiety, nauts encouraged this attitude. Fed After an astronaut is evaluated in terms of depression, loneliness, or even worse, up" with all the testing and poking they experience and technical qualifications, "unless we're very carelul about it," says were forced to endure in their training, the his or her psychological stability and Yvonne Clearwater, director of the Habit- crew reportedly told NASA there were personality type will then be measured. ability Research Group at the NASA/ two things they would not tolerate: rectal Once the unstable astronauts have been

Ames Research Center's Space Human thermometers and psychologists. weeded out, psychologists will try to Factors Office. Today, however, things are different. balance personality types within each The problems are all too real, In 1974, The agency is beginning to acknowledge crew and, where necessary, match about midway through the third Skyiab what the Soviets have understood for personality type to a mission's goals, mission, crew members became so years. Their candidates for the cosmonaut "The 'explorer' type, the pioneer who

hostile to ground control for overworking corps undergo extensive tests to needs a lot of stimulation, is excellent them that they simply went on strike. measure their psychological fitness for to send into space for dangerous missions They stopped working and did what they space travel and personality tests to and high-stimulus environments, which pleased for an entire day until mission measure their compatibility with other crew the space station will be at first," explains Dr. Patricia Santy, a NASA flight surgeon and psychiatrist. "Most of the original Mercury astronauts were explorers. But as the station becomes more routine, you'll need a mix of types." Because compatibility is crucial to the success of an extended mission, NASA w'i ce looking at a candidate's ability to get along with fellow crew members. H. Clayton Foushee, a social psychologist at NASA/Ames Research Center, has been studying how a crew's work perform-

ance is alfected by how its members communicate and how they incorporate new members into the ranks. Foushee's research on aviation crews found, for example, that teams whose members had worked together just prior to a mission performed more effectively than those whose members had not. Santy and Foushee agree that the best way to prepare space-station inhabitants

tor life in space is to train each crew as a unit. That way, says Santy. you can teach the whole group how to solve

Coping with Hie . iesomoon o! space; Eartb-lo-orbit help lines and rubber-rc problems on Earth, which makes the crew 42 OMNI CON i INUlD on page 102 ABSOLUT HARING. — —

cofUTimuunn

BARE BREASTS FOR SCIENCE

were never scrutinized subject assumed a prone position on a cloth-cov- The photographs of Jupiter's moons which were repeatedly photo- Theered sheet of plywood. A rectangle was cut out of as meticulously as these torsos, digitized from the front and from the one end of the plywood, allowing each breast to be graphed, measured, and expiration." With the aid of film positioned into either a 1-1 or 2-1 glass beaker, de- side, at "full inspiration" and "full analyzers, Hewlett-Packard digitizers, and programmable cal- . of water was placed pending on breast size. . .A known volume culators, "chest width and depth dimensions," "nipple separation in each beaker prior to the subject assuming the standardized location of the nipple in relation to a constant position. The subject then positioned her breasts in each beaker and lift," and "the ." spatial reference" were calculated. Breast volume was meas- and assumed the standardized position. . . with ingenious application of Archimedes' principle- What is this? The Story of 0. as told to the American Associa- ured an in beakers and measuring water dis- tion for the Advancement ot Science? The kinky journals of Ar- basically, dunking them the curvature of the rib cage, it chimedes? Those of us with lurid minds read on, half expecting placement—although "due to the outer margins of the breast." adenouement something like: Pinioned in the device, her flushed was not possible to include quantify very precisely any change that bosom heaving, Pauline begged to know the purpose of these "We made sure to physiologist Jack Wilmore, the humiliations. But the scientist, whose squalid lab coat barely might occur," notes exercise scientist. "You just can't take these things lightly." In concealed his lubricious desires, dismissed her plea with a sneer. study's chief after all the dunking and digitizing, the correlation coef- "Audacious little trollop I How dare you question the eminent doc- any case, ficients, the intricate diagrams of breasts with textbook-style tor! Zees ees a double-blind study, and ze subjects must know and arrows designating the "horizontal distance from nipple to nip- nothing—nothing! if you do not follow the protocol, we shall be concluded; "This study has demonstrated forced to resort to more severe parameters!" ple," the researchers development program with this specific device . But no, the following paragraph delivers nothing of the sort. that the 3-wk bust size, shape, or volume." Instead, we're informed that 'Anthropometric measurements were does not alter breast Senator William Proxmire to nominate the study taken according to the procedures of Behkne and Wilmore" and Before you write award, consider that it was commissioned that "whenever there was a greater than 1 percent difference in for a Golden Fleece Service, which for two decades replicate girth measurements or more than 1.0mm difference in by our own United Slates Postal Jack Feather, the folks who replicate skinfold measurements, a third measurement was ob- had been trying to nail Eileen and inches-off-your-waist- ." ourselves mired in "Alterations in brought you Mark Eden as well as various tained. . , In short, we find recently) the Cambridge Breast Morphology Consequent to a 21-Day Bust Developer Pro- and-thighs-type products and (more any good scientific data on the gizmos, gram," an article that appeared in the journal Medicine and Sci- Diet. In the absence of mail-order entrepreneurs were able to elude the ence in Sports and Exercise last year and is about as titillating however, the authorities trusting women continued to fork over their money as the warranty for a household appliance. while turning into Dolly Partons. Finally, the Postal Ser- The authors, six obviously fastidious scientists from the Exer- in the hopes of Investigations Division contracted Wilmore etal. to cise and Sport Sciences Laboratory of the University of Arizona vice's Special scientific study of the bust enlarger. at Tucson, spent a year and a half evaluating the efficacy of the do a thorough, findings gave the postal authorities the ammunition they Mark Eden Mark II bust developer, a mail-order device familiar The to Ziebarth, an attorney with the Con- to readers of romance magazines. They recruited 17 college- needed, according Tom Postal Service law depart- age women {and 17 control subjects) and paid them $200 apiece sumer Protection Department of the were slapped with a $1.1 million fine and to exercise with the device daily in unbuttoned, sleeveless blouses ment. The Feathers of the mail-order bust-enlarging trade. "I that exposed their breasts. (This was to conform with the manu- persuaded to get out "this sent a chilling message to the advice that "it's very important that you look down at think," says Ziebarth, has facturer's HOOPER your breasts while you go through your program.") people who sell this junk."

cofUTifuuurui

FOG IN SPACE

Space -station astronauts will be able to enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables, thanks

to a fog system that will pro- vide crops with moisture and nutrients—with no need for soil. Tom Mee, a cloud physicist and president of Mee Indus- tries, a California firm, has created the Cloud Fog Sys- tem, which protects citrus plants from frost, and green- houses from heat, by blan- keting them with fog. Mee's creation, a dish- washer-size console, controls a network of nozzles that shoot droplets of water so tiny they stay suspended in the

"r, creating actual fog. In space, crops surrounded by the fog will grow with their H . jv. ... roots suspended so that they'll get such nutrients as nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus without soil, too heavy an item to carry in a > ! spaceship. Irrigation on Earth involves soil and huge contraptions. In space ii may be accomplished with a For the first of the crops, dishwasher-size console that shoots up clouds of tog. Most important, no soil wilt be repaired. astrofarmers will take along water and nutrients, but CONTRACEPTIVE in Melbourne. The active III Hi —MMMilMll l>ll III '.I II ultimately they'll be able to BULLETS ingredient is a synthetic vaq- human use waste, which has cine that, in effect, immu- ItPff* *^ all of the nutrients and most They shoot, kangaroos. nizes the animals against their of the water that the crops will don't they? Yes, in Australia own reproductive hormones. need. Because craps use they certainly do—thousands Last year the scientist tested •-• only about one fiftieth of the every year—trying, without the procedure on 18 kanga- •V tB "" water they take in, their much success, to control the roos, using an air gun to > f*;£

.

. growers will be able to con- animals' rampant population shoot them with the vaccine- ' dense moisture from the cold growth. But if imm urologist coated bullets. In every *;Jj>& side of the space station to Ted Stelmasiak his way, has case the size of the animals' Wilt marauding marsupials face be used for fog. "Nothing they'll soon be shooting sex organs was reduced a new kind of bullet? is in wasted space," says kangaroos with a new kind of and fheir sexual behavior, all Mee. —Franceses Lunzer bullet: a nonlethal, polymer but eliminated. so, he is confident that the missile coated with a contra- So far the Australian gov- bullet, which stings bui does " The vitality and energies of ceptive vaccine. ernment has been slow not so much as induce the imagination do not Stelmasiak developed the on the uptake, "they're inter- bleeding, will eventually be operate a! will; they are bullet' and the procedure ested," Stelmasiak says, accepted. 'After all," he says, fountains, not machinery. in his laboratory at the Victo- "but they're not so keen on "it's certainly better than D. ria — G. James department of agriculture supporting research." Even killing them."— Bill Lawren 4B OMNI "

ing the amounts of an essen- But it's when talk turns to Both of the pollutants are the amazing secretions in the widely blamed as the cause tia! building block of plant leech's saliva that Sawyer's of extensive environmental growth—the gas carbon eyes gleam. He has shown degradation. Colorless ozone dioxkte—that the trees and during that two powerful enzymes in is a gaseous by-product of crops absorbed leech saliva, hirudin and automotive and industrial the course of the experiment. hementin, can prevent and exhaust; acid rain isan off- The degree of absorption actually break down blood shoot of coal-fired smoke- in all of the species dimin- with increased expo- clots—and so have vast ished potential in the treatment of Under artificially controlled sure to ozone. But the acid heart disease. Another conditions, forestry research- rain, regardless of the expo- enzyme, orgelase, shows ers Robert Amundson and sure level, caused no reduc- great promise as a cure for Peter Reich of Cornell Uni- tion in absorption whatso- glaucoma, a common form of versity in Ithaca. New York, ever. Thus the two researchers were able to blindness among adults; it ; exposed four tree species attacks and destroys the conclude that only the ozone produced the stunting effect LEECH SALIVA buildup of jelly behind the eye that causes the disease. on trees. "The levels of ozone 'Just take two leeches and And at Utah State University. ranged from low concentra- see me in the morning" was leeches are helping tions in clean air to high a pretty common prescrip- researchers learn more concentrations comparable tion back in 1830. More than about Parkinson's' disease^ to those in the Los Angeles 150 years later, doctors are "We haven't even started to basin," Amundson points just starting to realize leeches tap the vast potential for out, "and with every increase could hold a cure for many medicine ye!," says Saw- the amount of ozone a modern-day malady. yer,—John Cooke in there was increased negative In tact, forty-three-year-old zoologist Roy Sawyer, who "The scientist who finds effect. Why was the acid rain first got attached to leeches in hypotheses must build over found to have no negative the boyhood swimming them a grand edifice that Amundson believes holes of his native South Car- can contain them." impact? this is probably because olina and is now the world's —Jean Piagei acid rain attacks trees in a foremost authority on the little subtle way, by destroy- suckers, declares, "The more ing the nutrient balance of secretions from leeches will the forest soil. be to heart-related diseases "One implication of our what penicillin was to- infec- work." says Amundson, tious diseases," research shoufd be Single-handedly he has "is (hat done on long-term soil acidi- dragged the water worms and its effects." back from the brink of extinc- fication Eric Mishara tion. They were declared — an endangered species in at teal culprit behind stunted "Men go abroad to wonder 1983, but he has more than . .. : but a new study suggests that the the height ol mountains, at 30,000 corralled on the growth (like that seen in Vermont, above) may be ozone. the huge waves of the sea, at world's first leech farm, ap- courses of the propriately called Biopharm, THE THREAT OF OZONE and three crop species to the long later ex- rivers, at the vast compass of in Wales. Already his leeches ozone. Then they the ocean, at the circular are flown to plastic surgeons Ozone pollution in the air, posed jusi the trees to the rain. motion of the stars; and they all over the world to restore not acid rain, may' be. the acid stunting of pass by themselves without healthy circulation in patients real culprit behind stunted The actual wondering." with skin grafts and reat- tree growth, according to growth in the seven species —Saint Augustine tached limbs. a recent 12-week experiment. was measured by determin- —

CDfUTirUUURJl

LAWYER DISEASE

A Yale University scientist has named yet another hazard of twentieth-century

life: jurisgenic disease. Jurisgenic disease, ac- cording to biophysicist Harold J. Morowilz, is illness caused by lawyers or the law. The typical victim has been injured on the job or under circumstances leading to litigation. He wants to get well.

But his lawyer's job is to maximize the cash settle- ment. The attorney may there- fore subtly encourage his client to maximize his symp- toms of pain and disability. "We are not discussing the deliberately dishonest attor- ney or the malingering 'vic- tim.' " Morowitz says. "We are dealing with the average citizen represented by a law- yer of median honesty, trying to do his best." Cocaine and accoutrements; Coke causes a buildup of dopamine and a feeling of euphoria. Now a Unfortunately, the body new drug eases withdrawal by binding to sites in the brain that dopamine normally occupies. and mind are so intercon-

COCAINE ANTIDOTE knew that in the short term long-term coke addicts had cocaine affects a substance elevated levels of prolactin

Trying to get l he cocaine in the brain called dopamine, in some cases high enough monkey off your back isn't which affects coordination to develop small breasts. easy if you're hooked. Addicts and mood. Dopamine is That meant that long-term experience a depression excreted by one nerve, trig- addicts had generally low and craving that only coke gers the next nerve, and levels of dopamine, causing seems to cure. Now doctors is reabsorbed by the first. the symptoms of withdrawal. in New Jersey have discov- Cocaine temporarily blocks To treat these ered that a drug called the reabsorption, causing Dackis and Gold u: bromocriptine can relieve the an accumulation of dopamine mocriptine, which withdrawal symptoms. In and a feeling of euphoria to the sites in the bn the process they've learned Dackis and Gold looked at dopamine normally oc< something new about the what happens in long-term The results: Two patients addiction itself. coke addicts by focusing on who were given bromocrip- The doctors, Charles A. prolactin, a hormone that tine reported "striking and Dackis and Mark S. Gold of controls breast development consistent relief" from with- the Fair Oaks Hospital in and milk production. Prolac- drawal and cravings. nected that the client may re- Summit, New Jersey, discov- tin is -found in men as well The doctors are now spond with a real increase ered the treatment while as women, although it's kept testing 40 patients to see in symptoms and suffering or researching the nature of at low levels in males by how consistently bromocrip- may tail to respond to treat- cocaine addiction, They dopamine. They found that tine works:—Douglas Starr ment altogether. "In short," 50 OMNI the country each year through says Morowitz, "the patient is negotiations between quickly a victim of jurisgenic private American organ buyers disease and suffers far more doctors in Ku- pain and disability than would and England, be expected from the de- wait, Turkey, Japan, and elsewhere. The reporters, gree of injury." Mary Pat Flaherty and An- Public awareness is the Schneider, also uncov- key to preventing jurisgenic drew ered transplant favoritism. disease, says Morowitz, At one Pittsburgh hospital, for who first described the phe- example, wealthy foreign nomenon in his recent book Mayonnaise and the Origin of patients, paying an average the going rate Life (Scribner's). In cases of four limes transplant surgery, jumped of posttraumatic pain and for of who disability, physicians should ahead Americans waiting for years, inform their patients about had been identified jurisgenic disease, since few The Press team instances of coercion people will consciously many donor deals, including choose illness over health In in loan ex- addition, lawyers and social a Tokyo shark who workers need to be aware of acts kidneys from tardy the possibility of the illness. customers. —Carol Oeppe In India, where cadaver transplants are shunned, slum dwellers run ads in newspa- pers, offering kidneys for $7,000 apiece. Many a

__ wealthy buyer travels to Two years ago at London's j in- close below) is in great America for the surgery, Heathrow Airport, a customs | The human kidney (seen up, above and paid ; 10,000-patient waiting list . . troducing the donor service dog, trained to. sniff demand for transplantation by a . as a "cousin" to duck the new new ones. Last year some law here that prohibits traf- 7,000 transplanis were per- ficking in human organs. formed here, while another The reporters say most il- 10^000 people remained legal practices would end

on waiting lists— and on di- if more kidneys were avail- alysis, three times a week able. According to their sur- for at least three hours a day. vey of 185 kidney-trans plan- The kidney's special tation centers, only about

biology creates its own black 10 to 12 percent of stunned market: Everybody has two families in hospital emer- kidneys, although one is gency rooms are asked to usually enough, enabling ihe donate their loved one's or- desperate to sell one for gans. And yet, of those asked. profit. But the 31 -year-old fully 85 percent say yes. miracle of kidney transplanta- —Dava Sobel it ordinary Amencsn at;?m, you may find . . . but you're an that wealthy foreign patients get first crack at available organs. tion is now embroiled in international scandals, ac- "God created man, and him sufficiently out drugs, began barking at routinely being shipped to cording to a major investiga- finding not I England. tion by the Pittsburgh Press. alone, gave him a companion coolers that contained hu- | solitude to kidneys make strange The Press articles re- to make him feel his man kidneys. Unbeknownst j exports, since thousands of vealed that several hundred more." authorities on either side of | kidneys apparently leave —Paul Valery the ocean, U.S. kidneys were I Americans are waiting for 51 COnJTIfUUURJl

at the entrances to their diet— inhibited the activation homes. According to Sucha- of receptors for the steroid nek and Colin, they are, in progesterone, Since similar effect, rearranging entire A chemical commoniy , steroid receptors are thought ocean sediment layers, which used to strengthen steel may i to be involved in the devel- affects the neighboring someday help lortify women : opment of breast cancer, plants and animals on Eniwe- against the ravages of breast Thompson says, "On that I tok and Bikini because what cancer. That's the tantalizing scrap of evidence we de- are they dredging up from the suggestion of anew study cided to take a look." ocean floor is legacy a best at the University ol New Thompson first injected 50 left buried. Hampshire rats with a chemical known Says Suchanek, whose Nutritionist Henry Thomp- to cause breast cancer. lagoon tests in the Marshalls son had been intrigued- by Seven days later he began followed those of the Depart- feeding half the rats an

ment of Energy (DOE): "First- . experimental diet supple- we took core- samples ol mented with minute amounts The callianassid ghost the lagoon floor down to two of vanadium. After six months shrimp is an innocuous little meters, almost eighty centi- of constant monitoring, it marine creature barely 2.5 meters lower than most of the was found that the vanadium- inches long. Its greatest previous DOE tests. We fed rats showed 37 percent

pleasure in life is to burrow in found high It fewer- tumors, than the control . the labyrinthine lagoons ol tonium 239 ant 2-10. animals and that they re- the South Pacific, where mained cancer free on the it has turned up an ominous In tr. an effort average of 66 percent longer. legacy of the 43 nuciear- about the ghos Although "pleasantly weapons tests the United he and Colin pi surprised" by these initial States conducted at the results, Thompson remains Eniwetok and Bikini atolls cautious, noting that practi- between 1948 and 1958. cally nothing is known about The radionuclides churned the role of vanadium in the up by the elusive'— if persist- ent—shrimp could affect the food chain of the Marshall Islanders, especially the 400 to 500 who nave returned to Eniwetok, according to marine biologist Thomas Su- chanek oi the University of California at Davis and re- searcher Patrick Colin of the Motupore Research Sta- tion in Papua, Mew Guinea,

It seems the ghost shrimp systematically store the larger sand grains, coral, and the ample of one of usual shell rubble deep jldest structural inside their burrow chambers, forms, according to an emi- pumping the finer grains to nent Canadian scientist. the surface of the lagoon away, r where teams of divers epo ;s tnadiu "The mathematical formu floors. These shrimp bulldoze will try to make a prognosis .element used exten- for a geodesic dome, as at the rate of five pounds for the Marshalls, however sively in steel manufacturing perceived by Fuller and evs of sand per square meter per bleak it may be. that apparently constitutes by Euclid as far as -I know, day, leaving conical heaps —George Nobbe a tiny fraction of the human is followed exactly in the 52 OMNI —

For years doctors have observed that people who consume such foreign mate- rials as hair and persimmon seeds (popular in the Middle East) lend to lose their appe-

tite. Out of this concept conies the latest antidote to obesity: the gastric bubble. "Our patients are losing weight, no doubt about that," says gasiroenterologist Dr. Charles Friedlander of New York Gastric Bubble Medical Associates, a private clinic

in New York City that admin- isters the Garren-Edwards gastric bubble. Manufactured by Edwards Laboratories of Irvine, California, the device

is a small, cylindrical plastic

balloon that is inserted in the stomach, inflated to three and a half inches, and left there for four months. By pressing on the stomach walls, the bubble tricks the : ;cr,\j be fox nerve receptors into the illusion of satiety. "When our skeleton of radiolaria, a type "But it is mathematically. patients start to eat," Fried- of tropical sea plankton." impossible to construct lander reports, "they fill notes F-J.R. "Max" Taylor, an a sphere .entirely of hexagons. up real quick." oceanographer and evolu- You have id tit in a pentagon So- far the New York ciinic tionist at Vancouver's Univer- or two-" Taylor explains. "Aftej " has treated some 18 patients, sity of British Columbia my first visit to the-EXPO all of whom are "morbidly "Radiolaria were around dome, I was glancing thrc obese" or have medical throughout the whole period an 1888 book on radiolaria problems as a result of their in which fossils were by Ernst Haeckel, a master extra pounds "This is for formed— about six hundred evolutionist wh people who have failed million years' ago." artist and Germany on other programs," Fried- r i of Darwi The g e odes lc/ rad i ol a an supporter lander says. form is derived from a. Sphere diolaria drawings gastroenterology installs composed basically of geodesia. right down to the A the bubble through a tube hexagons, in turn composed pentagons." called an endoscope in of triangles. Also found in Radiolaria are one of a half-hour procedure requir- the honeycomb and other millions of types of protists, a ing no surgery and only a natural structures, the domes separate "kingdom of life" scien- mild sedative. were Fuller's tavorite symbols that includes amoebas, of the principal protist International For further information of power and economy protozoa, diatoms, and other tific society, the' contact Edwards Laborato- the maximum amount of single-celledorganisms. Society for Evolutionary ries, 17221 Red Hill. Irvine, CA strength from the minimum Taylor was a coiounder, with Protistology. Judith Hooper amount of structural material. microbiologist Lynn Margulis. -William K.Stuckey 92714.— 53 s

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SUPERCOMPUTER columniike wall supports and ATTACKS QUARK the terrazzo floors with white THEORY marble chips used to form lines, we thought we had dis- Researchers at IBM's covered a building from Thomas J. Watson Research Greek or Roman times," Center in Yorktown Heights, Braidwood recalls. Carbon New York, are now complet- dating, however, established ing work on the GF-1 1 , a that the structure was close supercomputer that could to 10,000 years old. "This make or break quantum is startling because we had chromodynamic theory. no idea that people of this Quantum chromodynamic time—so soon after the great (QCD) proposes that neu- change to a food-producing trons and protons are made way of life—were already up ot quarks and antiquarks beginning to develop a com- bound together by a chromo- plicated set of cultural pat- electric field similar to the terns involving what appear to way the nucleus and elec- be community buildings." trons of an atom are bound by Braidwood points out that an electromagnetic field. previously, buildings exca- To win acceptance a new vated from this time in history theory in physics must first have been simple, rectilinear account for all the known houses with several rooms, facts about the phenomenon "But in Cayonu. we found it seeks to explain. If Ein- a large, single-room building stein's theory oi gravity, for with intricate designs, indi- example, hadn't explained the cating that the building orbital motions ot the planets was definitely not a home." as well as Newton's theories, As the expedition uncov- physicists would have dis- cal purposes was impossi- ered more structures, the missed it without a second ble," Tilak Agerwala, director mystery of the Turkish village thought. o! symbolic and numeric deepened. On the floor of The mass of the proton is processing at iUe center, ex- Long before the pyramids one building the archaeolo- known; it is one of the estab- plains, "and we're bringing of Egypt were built and gists found a slab of lime- lished facts it about subatomic into the realm of possibility." some 4.000 years before the stone with a life-size human particles. Since QCD equa- Calculating the mass of earliest known urban civiliza- face carved in relief upon tions can predict the mass of the proton from princi- tion QCD developed in Sumeria, it, And in a small, stone- the proton, it would be sim- ples is the only thing the inhabitants of Cayonfj, a floored room in a nearby ple to test the theory by GF-11 is currently set upto village in what is now south- building they discovered a solving the equations and do, which is one of the rea- eastern Turkey, were building collection of more than seeing if they yield the right sons it can work so quickly. sophisticated community 70 human skulls. The skulls test answer. The has never The new computer will buildings complete with pol- had been sliced off at the been done because the most get to work on the QCD ished floors and pilasters. neck, and many were powerful computers in exist- problem next year. Around That discovery was re- charred. "Exactly what was ence would need 100 years EO 12 months later it will have a cently announced by Robert going on here, we don't all the do calculations. The sum for the mass of the J. Braidwood, a professor know," Braidwood says. "But GF-11, an array of proces- 576 proton—and the fate of at the University of Chicago's it is quite clear something sors working in parallel, will quarks may be decided. "If Oriental Institute, who di- special was going on, and trrsolve be able the problem the prediction is wrong," rected the expedition of ar- there is speculation that in a year. "We're using spe- Agerwala says, "then quan- chaeologists that uncovered this was the site of some cial computing power to take tum chromodynamic theory one acre of the village. strange death rites." a problem that for all practi- is incorrect."—t- Leah Wallach "When we first saw the — Sherry Baker over his paying attention to them. We decided it x glimmers " face, giving him the *mmmmm m winter of 1985, to a series l one ot the him. in the nanotechnology— control. His r sa und MITs of MIT lectures on building incredibly caused some critics to say his bent for :, where the intense, highly designing and science fiction is extreme. But when Fry instead of the 100-plus elements known to structures would work. "One would begin heard in the him speak somber MIT audi- man. And living creatures make little use by designing the desired object on a com- torium frigid that January evening, he of the direct current associated with wires puter," he said. The computer terminal glimpsed a visionary whose ideas electronics. would and Whatever electrical sys- would be connected to one of several tril- catapult us, remarkably changed, into the tems they do use seem easy to improve lion nanomachines, each perhaps as large twenly-first cenfury. on. (Copper wire, for example, is 40 million as a bacterium. That first tiny machine Speaking before dozens of MIT stu- times more conductive than neural tissue.) would take on the shape dictated by the dents and professors, Drexler explained In light of all this, Drexier said, combin- computer and then communicate the de- that the term nanotechnology is derived ing engineering concepts with the preci- sign to the machines surrounding it. "Each from the word nanometer — a billionth of a sion, durability, and blinding speed of mol- nanomachine might be connected to ad- meter, or about ten times the diameter of a ecules would revolutionize civilization. jacent units through twitch cables just an hydrogen atom. Nanotechnology is simply Suppose, for instance, that nanoengineers atom thick," Drexler proposed. "These ca- built the technology on atomic scale. built rotary hammers just a few molecules bles could twitch a billion times a second, These days, Drexler said, long. machines and We might use them to hit carbon at- propagating the design through millions of products with are constructed quadrillions oms at just the right angle with just the right nanounits in no time at all." of atoms at a whack. The clothing we wear, force— like a pool player putting a ball in Finally, Drexler proposed the controlling the jet planes we fly, the even minuscule the pocket— so that they formed diamond force behind all of nanotechnology: the integrated circuits that drive our com- rods. Both man and nature now make dia- nanocomputer itself. The nanocomputer, puters are all thrown together in crude ap- monds in the imperfect form of lumps and Drexler said, would work by clamping and proximations of the absolute perfection grains. But perfectly regular, tight-knit dia- unclamping one-atom-wide rods. Memory achieved in the molecular realm. Indeed, mond fibers would be ten times stronger would be stored in long molecules. The at first glance the notion of building ma- than steel for each unit of weight, and their presence or absence of certain chemical chines as fine-tuned as, say, a water mol- importance for the construction and aero- "side groups" along these atoms would ecule or a strip of DIMA seems implausible. space industries would be incalculable. "To represent the elements of a binary code. But this, Drexler declared, is exactly how Such a machine, he thought, would have most things on Earth are made. Almost the power of the largest contemporary every ounce of the huge weight of biomass mainframe but would run about 100 times that covers plane! is our made of cells, and faster and occupy a thousandth the vol- cells work by building structures one atom ume of a body cell. It would provide the 4/n the or molecule at a time. We fight off disease, intelligence for the nanomachines. for instance, when our immune system worst-case scenario of Sitting in the audience. Fry was drawn generates hundreds of different and won- the gray-goo to Drexler's sweeping vision. He was cap- drously complex molecules known as an- tivated less by the Twilight Zone aspects tibodies. If nature can do it, why can't we? problem lethal, damaged of the talk than by the engineering chal- "The first assumption of nanotechnology," nanomachines lenge itself. "The point," he now says, "was Drexler insisted, "is that we can. Humans to see just how large a fraction of contem- will reproduce to infinity, will soon be able to manipulate molecules porary engineering techniques might work as deftly as the living cell does." in and life the molecular domain. All I had been Indeed, according to Drexler, an ob- thinking about was computers, and this on the earth will vious application end? of nanotechnology is "the seemed like an excuse to go beyond. So cell-repair machine," which would drasti- when I heard about Drexler's workshop in cally extend our life spans and improve our the north woods, I decided to go." general health. The remarkable devices But despite Fry's desire to immerse him- "would enter tissues, identifying and de- self in the nitty-gritty of the technology, stroying bacteria, viruses, cells, cancer mention just one application," Drexler said, Drexler had an agenda of his own. The dif- parasifes, blood clots, and deposits on "space shuttles woven from these fibers ference was, Drexler had been thinking bacterial walls." Once injected into the cells, would be so lightweight that the price of about nanotechnology for years. the devices would subject DNA to error- space travel would sink to that of air travel Drexler dates his interest in molecular checking tests far more exhaustive than in general." engineering back to 1976, when, as a those now imposed the itself. by body They A whole range of molecularly perfect graduate student in engineering (What sort could then repair whatever errors or materials from plastics to metals would of engineering? "Oh, generic engineer-

they If anomalies might find. we wanted to render sfructures lighter, stronger, and ing." he says), he decided to see what replace a scar (laid cell-re- down betore more durable than ever thought possible. might be involved in building a biochemi- pair machines had been invented) with But nanotechnology wouldn't just lead to cal computer. A biochemical computer

fresh tissue, Drexler added, it might be better structures; it would also change our would have to be built molecule by mole- possible to do that, too. "Cell-repair ma- notion of just what a structure is. cule, so Drexler took a few textbooks on chines," Drexler told his audience, "can be "The members .of many species of so- molecular biology out of the MIT library. viewed as an upgrade of the biological cial insects —the army ants, for instance- Such texts are written by research sci- processes already at work today." sometimes group by the thousands to form entists — organic chemists, molecular bi- But nanotechnology would not only im- artifacts like bridges and chambers and ologists, geneticists—whose goal is to un- prove the upon immune chemicals and insulating blankets," Drexler explained. derstand how the cell works. Drexler, as an DNA-repair laid enzymes down by nature. "These artifacts then serve the purposes engineer, and a generic engineer at that, It would go biology. beyond of the colony as a whole. It is possible to was impressed instead by the engineering Consider, Drexier said, liny frac- what a imagine, given this model, a material com- versatility of the molecular realm. Atoms al- tion of the range of engineering ideas nat- posed of very large numbers of mobile ways perform to specifications. One atom ural selection has chosen to adopt. The units that could form any shape with any can rotate around another for the lifetime wheel, to pick a really basic example, hardly given color or texture: a raincoat, a book- of the universe without showing wear. They appears anywhere; neither do toothed case, a bathtub, a bicycle. These mobile don't rust, rot, get dirty or wet, or indeed gears, the block and tackle, or the screw units would hold a. particular shape until ever require any sort of maintenance. You Natural selection and cam. based the you told them what to turn into next." can use them over a very wide range of structure of life on just four elements —hy- Drexler even came up with the mecha- combinations, circumstances, and time drogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon— nism through which such chameleon spans without altering their properties in 58 OMNI the least. The atomic constituents of a mol- "In 1976 this struck me as an awesome form? In theory a consumer could buy a ecule will clasp each other with the exact revelation. I'd found engineer's heaven." few hundred pounds of the stuff, and that

same degree of force forever, assuming Drexjer's visionary gift, his ability to would be it; all he'd need to buy thereafter they are not blasted apart by a cosmic ray. fathom the unimaginable in a leap of psy- would be designs (probably encoded in Further, atoms seem to want to make che and faith, blew him righf out of his doc- nanocomputer software) for his material to things; they snap together like Tinkertoys toral program and into his current career. make. How would our economy deal with in highly defined, very stable struclures. Today, while supporting himself as a com- that? Our status hierarchy? How many of For a lot of molecular structures, once tab munications consultant in Palo Alto, Cali- our ideas about interior "space have to do A and slot B get anywhere in each other's fornia, he spends his free time publicizing with the need to maintain objects, like neighborhood, they will pounce and cou- nanotechnology's benefits and warning of chairs, so that even while unused they are ple automatically. And the smaller things its risks. He is essentially a combination conveniently at hand? With a universal ma- faster get, the they move, both because Johnny Appleseed and Paul Revere, The terial, existence is defined by use: Some- the accelerating impulse takes less time to MIT lecture that had intrigued Fry was de- thing not being used, like a room with no travel from one edge to the other and be- livered by the Appleseed side of Drexler— one in it, will not need to be fhere at all.

cause as parts shrink, they're better at re- the fervent optimist spreading news of And that's just the beginning. There is, sisting stress. A lever a few thousand at- technical fruits to come. The recent New for example, the horrifying instance in which oms long, for instance, should be able to Hampshire retreat, convened to warn of damaged nanomachines go awry. Drexler

. wave back and forth 50 million times a nanotechnology's dangers, was led by a calls these flawed machines "the gray goo." second without snapping. And the energy Cassandra, by Drexler/Revere. In the worst-case scenario of the gray-goo

required would be minute. "He took a large sheet of paper," Dave problem, lethal nanomachines will repro- Finally, when you build something atom Forrest, an MIT graduate sludent in mate- duce to infinity, and life on Earth will end. by atom, you can build it right. Practically rials science, remembers, "and asked us To truly understand the gray-goo prob- everything in our world, the macroworld, is to list fields of endeavor. Which we did: lem, Drexler adds, we must comprehend shot through with impurities, dislocations, fashion, food, sculpture, architecture, war, one of nanotechnology's greatest chal- gaps, and cracks. When you get to specify communicafions, transportation, mining, lenges: gearing up for mass production in the location of every atom, everything you religion, music, art, poetry, friendship, ed- the first place. Whatever nanotechnology's build is just as good—just as strong, just ucation, property righfs, and on and on. other advantages, it's obvious that just a as flexible—as theory allows. And the po- Then he asked us which of the things on single cycle of a molecular process does

tential applications are limitless. If you work this list would not be affected by nanotech- an incredibly small amount of work. Filling on that level you can build anything, be- nology. Virtually everything we had named a glass of water at the rate of one water cause all anything is, ultimately, is just a was going to get changed, usually a lot." molecule a second, for instance, would take particular arrangement of atoms. For instance, what are the likely social more than a billion years. This might seem 'Atoms and molecules are ihe ultimate and economic consequences of construc- like a strong argument against nanotech- building components," Drexler now says. tion material that can take on any shape or nology, but the problem can be dealt with: —

Each day Ihe biosphere, the aggregate of tivity. Crime could be eliminated entirely biological processes on the planet, makes and you don't have to be an anarchist to hundreds of thousands of tons of biomass. see what a mixed blessing that would be. Every gram is tooled out by molecular The nature of war, Drexler asserted. manufacturing. would change as well. Nations might try to Two strategies allow mass production to steal one another's rare atoms, the only occur. The first strategy is hierarchical mass valuable resource left to fight over, by de- production: the mass production of facto- ploying huge fleets of concentrators ries, which then mass-produce products. through the soil. The targeted nations would An example of this is the body's ability to presumably resist by building nanotech HOW produce millions of cellular-energy facto- defense systems extending hundreds of ries known as mitochondria, which, over miles down into the earth, leading to great the course of a lifetime, generate molecu- battles deep in the lithosphere. IT lar fuels that help the body work. "We came up with a huge list of things," The second strategy— the hydrogen says Kevin Nelson, a Boston-area science bomb of production technologies — is educator who participated in the New known as replication. In the process of Hampshire retreat. "The villains included WORKS replication, molecules (such as DNA) are insidious saboteur bacteria that would in- With traffic radar and Rashid VRSS both trans- programmed to assemble themselves and, fect the industries of competing nations, mitting on the same frequency (24.150 GHz), ultimately, to reproduce. If a nanofaucet fhat making them slightly less efficient or more normal receiver technology can't tell one from released only one molecule of waler a sec- prone to breakdown; billions of replica! no. the other. Even when you scrutinize K band with a digital spectrum analyzer, ond could also replicate every 30 minutes, flesh-eating locusts spreading over a bat- the two signals look alike figure 1). Drexler calculates, it and its progeny would tlefield; and behavior- "odii cation units that We needed a difference, even a subtle one, fill a cup in less than two days and all the would spread through the air, pass through the electronic equivalent of a human fingerprint earth's oceans in less than three. the skin, and migrate to the brain." Magnifying the scale 100 times was the key According to Drexler, most nanotech- But perhaps the most frightening aspect (Figure 2). The Bashid signal then looks like two facilities will nology manufacturing come of nanotechnology was the gray goo. Sup- separate traffic radars spaced slightly apart in with replicability bundled in. This has sev- pose a little imperfection — perhaps a frequency, each being switched on and off several eral consequences. And over the three bug—were introduced by a terrorist at the thousand times a second. days of the retreat—walking under the great time of manufacture. Such tampering could Resisting the easy answer pine forest, talking over eggs at breakfast, cause nanomachines to multiply until they knowing this "fingerprint," it would have murmuring at night from one mattress to had destroyed everything on Earth. been possible—although not easy—to design a the next—the young engineers and pro- "Nanoplants with leaves as efficient as so- Rash Id -recognizer circuit, and have it disable the grammers worked them out. lar cells, could outcompete real plants. detector's warning section whenever it spotted a Replicative cell-repair machines could crowding the biosphere with an inedible Rash id, Only one problem. With this system, you generate enough. units in a month to as- foliage," Drexler said. "Tough, omnivorous wouldn't get a sess the health of every cell of every hu- nanobacteria could outcompete real bac- j warning if radar j man alive. Replicative space probes, nib- teria, reducing the biosphere to dust in a bling on asteroids and sunlight, would allow matter of days." ing in the same us to explore systematically every star sys- "The people on this retreat were sober, vicinity as the tem in the galaxy, Replicative waste pro- sensible, and competent," Nelson says. "To Rashid. Statisti- cessors, diffusing through the earth's crust see them all agree that this stuff was going cally this would and oceans, could search out every toxic- to happen, that these problems had to be a rare situation, But oi engine waste site and garbage dump in the world dealt with, was a powerful experience. It and detoxify anything remotely poisonous made it seem real." to any living thing, Replicative "miners" At the end of the three days Fry put it could inspect every cubic centimeter of the best. "Eric," he said, "this is a terrible thing When the going gets lough . The task then became monumental. We planet. And replicative nano-vacuum you've done, bringing us up here, telling us couldn't rely on a circuit that would c s-egard cleaners, programmed to gobble mole- about all this. Now we have to do some- two K band signals close together, because trey cules of carbon dioxide, could thing it." —in just a about . might be two radars. We couldn't ignore rapidly few weeks— reverse the global warming What they did, of course, was form the switched K band signals, Because that wouic Di- trend that C0 will cause, Nanotechnology Study Group at MIT, 3 The minish protection on pulsec rasar (tj-e KRU) anc Replication would also lower the cost of dozen or so members of the society spon- "instant-on," manufacturing to almost nothing. A civili- sor lectures, maintain an archive of re- A whole new deal zation that decided to buy one nanofamv search materials, and meet twice a month The correct answer requires some arstty a device that could assemble any specific Id prepare for the nanorevolution to come. amazing "signal process ng: to ^se re engi- neering term. The technlcues are tec complex food [Beluga caviar, pumpernickel bread, And if Drexler's timetable is correct, that to go into here, but as an ana.ogy e! fhe sj- potatoes Anna] out of sunlight, water, air, revolution will be here soon. "We should phlstleaticn, Imagine going to a family reunion and dirt—would find thrown in at no extra make the transition to the nanotechnolog- with 4.3 million attendees, and being able to find cost enough food to feed everyone on or ical era in just twenty years, "he says, "plus your brother in about a tenth of a second. off the planet. That is fine as far as elimi- or minus ten," Easy to say, but so hard to accomplish that nating hunger goes. "But how on earth," We are, as an industrial society, just be- our AFR (Alternating Frequency Rejection) cir- Drexler the worrier asked, "could our eco- ginning to see benefits from such molec- cuitry couldn't ce an add on. It had to be inte- nomic system adjust to a manufacturing . ular technologies as genetic engineering grated into the basic detection scheme, which technology that destroyed the cost struc- and protein design, he says. Each new ad- means extensive circuitry changes. And more paperwork for our patent department, ture of whatever it made?" vance takes us closer to nanotechnologys He had concerns about the political goals: miniaturization and the ability to build ramifications, too. "Nanotechnology," he things in the molecular realm. said, "would lead to surveillance technol- Drexler is confident that progress will ogy par excellence." Tiny snoopers could accelerate as each successful step down follow us everywhere, even perch in our allows the construction of tools, especially brains and look for suspicious neuron ac- research tools, to facilitate the next. "Faster

62 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 102 The untold story of a

. midnight raid that doomed a lab and sent reverberations through the scientific community

Station lay idle, twohours removed Unionfrom the din of the morning rush hour, and the absence of commuiers

made me feel conspicuous. 1 paused across from a (lower shop,

and its proprietor eyed me curiously as she rearranged her bunches of forsythias, carnations, and miniature red roses. Pacing nervously around the panel of public pay

phones, I glanced at my watch and hoped attention of that I had not attracled Ihe the patrolman standing nearby. The call was already about 30 minutes late in coming, from and I wondered— having journeyed

New York to Washington— if my contacts had decided for some inexplicable reason to abort our scheduled rendezvous.

At last one of the phones jangled, as if receiver. with a purpose I grabbed the "Take the Red Line to Bethesda. Get off there. Then go past Ihe top of the escalator to the bus depot, where you'll be met." the mans

voice instructed. -

It was to be our Ihird and final meeting, the culmination of a six-month investigation into the activities of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a highly secretive, tightly organized network of about 100 animal- rights activists whose break-ins at scientific laboratories have made them Ihe target of numerous police and grand-jury inquiries throughout the country. During months of telephone conversations and correspond- trust ence, I had been able to win the and confidence of this group of laboratory saboteurs. This had been no easy task. Other journalists had violated their pledges

BY ROBERT WEIL

NHUMAN BONDAGE PAINTINGS BY MARSHALL ARISMAN "

to keep sources' names confidential and distinguished universities and powerful oftheASPCAor ihe Humane Society. Their had created a paranoia among the mem- government institutions in the country. mission was less to provide shelters for bers that still lingered. As eager as the ALF Without the slimiest wft ning ihe Toyota stray dogs or neutering for young cats than was to generate publicity for the plight of took a sharp left and jolted to a halt in the to create Ihe ground swell for a national abused laboratory animals, its members parking lot of a church in downtown Be- reform movement. had to be extremely cautious, so fearful thesda. Alex ordered me to open my pants. At the radical end of the spectrum has were they of arrest. Gradually, though, the I obediently placed my keys, coins, and emerged the ALR its anonymous mem- on ihe of his car. to sTich illegal ALF came to realize that I was neither a wristwatch nooc removed bers trained commit acts as plant of the FBI nor a dishonest reporter my belt, and unfastened the snaps of my break-ins to further their cause. The men and thai my announced objective— of tell- gray-flannel trousers. He removed a black and women of the ALF many of whom ing the story of the ALF's celebrated 1984 metal detector from his bag and, in the trained in England, seem generally well Memorial Day break-in at the University of shade under a cluster of trees, searched versed in self-defense and bring enough Pennsylvania's Experiment Head Injury for any radio transmitters and other wired burglary equipment to any given "job" to

Laboratory—was indeed legitimate. equipment that I might have concealed on rival even the most sophisticated second- The Red Line train hurtling toward Be- my body. There was a prescribed proce- story man. Over the last several years ALF thesda was crowded with schoolchildren dure to follow, and despite having dealt with raiders have broken into approximately a on their way to the National Zoo, and I stood me previously, Alex and ihe ALF members dozen scientific laboratories in the United anxiously in iheir midst. Despite the Irust could afford no chances. States, leaving a trail of destruction esti-

I that had developed between my contacts passed inspection, so Alex and I mated in the millions and' a psychological into his to that instilled and me, an uneasiness remained. I had hopped Toyota and sped along legacy has fear among thou- checked my belt and shoes carefully that a Holiday Inn, where ihe two of us, seated sands of scientists throughout the country. morning, choosing ihe ilems from my closet in an Art Deco hotel room, awaited the that suggested the least offensive display afternoon arrival of a mysterious caller. Were it not for her blue rubber mask and of leather. There have always been people sym- the red bandanna covering her hair, she There was always the disquieting feel- could have been out buying groceries, so

ordinary her I felt in- ing that I was being scrutinized and ob- was appearance. served, as if I were a predator wandering stantly at ease in Valerie's (not her real too close lo a nest of newborn birds, "If you name] presence, even though I knew noth- try anything, we know where you live," one ing about this hooded woman's past. She

At the Bethesda bus depot a blind man equipment I might with the ALF Her intelligence was more than harnessed his seeing-eye golden re- have concealed on my body3 evident, her patience, remarkable, as she triever. Was he a plant, there to observe described lor more than six hours the role in raid at that I had come by myself? For more than she had played the the University 45 minutes the buses belched their way of Pennsylvania's Head Injury Laboratory. through the underground tunnel, and with The weather report, she seemed to re- each passing moment my frustration grew. member, had called for temperatures in the Despite the April chill a young woman wore pathetic to the burdens of farm and labo- seventies for the Memorial Day weekend a' pair of -yellow hot pants and thrust vigor- ratory animals. Since the latter part of the of 1984. It would be an ideal spring eve- ously to the tunes of her Sony Walkman. A eighteenth century, animal-welfare groups ning, neither too warm nor loo cold for an cop car circled by, its driver more diverted have periodically "Icurished. iheir popular- overnight excursion. Valerie had, in faci, by the gyrations and the revealing shorts ity often a barometer of the social up- been counting the days until Saturday, May than by the recording equipment in my heaval of an age. But in contrast io Ihe Anti- 26. A comrade in the ALF had contacted leather briefcase. God damn it, where Viviseciionist League and other historical her one week earlier, inquiring whether she where they? It was already past noon. Were societies, the an ma r ghls movement that would be free during the holiday weekend. they trying to make me feel like an animal emerged in England in the early 1970's "I was really pleased something was going

on the lam? contained a political message not found in to happen," Valerie recalls. "If I hadn't been

At last, well over two hours after my ar- earlier groups, a philosophy fundamen- free, I would have canceled whatever I was rival in Washington, a beat-up Toyota pulled tally different from those of animal-welfare doing lo become available." up behind a convoy of buses. Alex Pa- movements that had preceded it. Unbeknownst to Valerie, her close friend checo waved from a distance. A charis- Both in Great Britain and in the United and fellow ALF member Mary (not her real matic twenty-seven-year-old, he is co- States, where a national animal-rights name) received a visit at about the same founder and chairperson ot People for the movement formed around 1980. advo- time. Someone came to her house and Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and- cates argued thai animals should have in- asked about her availability for the upcom- was instrumental in establishing my liai- alenalnie, even cons'iti.tonaliy protected ing weekend. At first Mary though! that the sons with the more clandestine ALF For rights akin to those of human beings. This visit was strictly social, "but it went from a the last six months he had played Virgil to is not to suggest that activists felt that ani- casual conversation into 'I would like to talk my Dante, guiding me into an intriguing mals were entitled :o dlizimship or voting to you aboui another job, one that we would underworld inhabited by zealots and crim- privileges; raiher, ihey believed that West- be faming for immediately' inals, whose secretive activities defied po- ern society must alter its perception of an- Although Mary was always excited about lice detection, whose real identities were imals and Ihat legislators must ultimately the prospect of going on new raids, her often not known to other members, and ban all scienlivc experimentation on living situation was more complicated. There whose passionate opposition to animal ex- creatures. The leaders of such groups as were the two children to worry about. What perimentation had brought them into legal PETA, with its 180,000 members, were not would they think if she vanished over a hol- and social conflict with some of the most so much interested h augmenting the work iday weekend? She could not say yes im-

66 OMNI CON r MAID ON PAGE 124' Demonic images "agSte"" can hide a multitude of sins WTOOS BYJACKDANN

-Siri\iS X never Mew(he ange/s till our pas- sion dies.—Decker For the past tew years we'd been going to a small (air. which wasn't really much more than a road show, in Trout Creek, a small village near Walton in upstate New York. The (air was always held in late September. when the nights were chilly and the leaves had turned red and orange and dandelion yellow. We were in the foothills of the Catskills. We drove past the Cannonsville Reservoir, which provides drink- ing water for New York Cily. My wife. Laura, re- marked that this was as close to dry as she'd ever seen the reservoir; she had

a»3S PAINTING BY H.R.G1GER grown up in this part of the country and sumed to be from the city—wore long- bat—from Friday night until sundown on knew it intimately. My son Ben, who is four- sleeved shirts or tailored jackets, including Saturday— a man who loved to stay up all teen, didn't seem to notice anything. He the women. There was also a stout woman night and talk and drink beer and smoke was listening to hard-rock music through who looked to be in her seventies. She had strong cigars. His wife's name was Ruth, the headphones of his portable radio/cas- gray hair pulled back into a tight bun, and and she was a highly paid medical-text-

sette player. Then we were on the fair- she wore a dark, pleated dress. I couldn't book illustrator. They had both lived in Is- grounds, driving through a field of parked help but think that she should be at home rael for some time and came from Chi- cars. Ben had the headphones off and was in some Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, cago. But the man standing before me was

excited. I felt a surge of freedom and hap- sitting with friends in front of her apartment ethereal looking, as if he were made out of

piness. I wanted to ride the rides and lose building, instead of standing here in the ectoplasm instead of flesh and blood. God

myself in the arcades and exhibitions; I dust before a tattoo parlor. forbid he should be Nathan Rivlin.

wanted crowds and the noise and smells I was transfixed. What had brought all Yet I couldn't keep myself from shouting,

of the midway. I wanted to forget my job these people to the boonies? Who the hell "Nate? Nate, is it you?"

and my recent heart attack. knew, maybe they were all from here. But I He looked around, and when he saw me,

I We met Laura's family in the church tent. couldn't believe that for a minute. And a pained grin passed across his face. I

Then Laura and her mom and sister went wondered if they were all tattooed. stepped toward him through the crowd.

to look at saddles, for her sister showed I walked over to them to hear snatches "What the hell is all this?" I asked him after

horses, and Laura's dad and Ben and I of conversation and to investigate the tat- we embraced.

walked in the other direction. As we walked too parlor, which wasn't a tent, as were most "What should it be? It's a business," he past concession stands and through the of the other concessions, but a small, said. Just then he seemed like the old Na-

arcade of shooting galleries, antique- modern mobile home with the words tarot than I remembered. He had an impish face, wooden-horse-race games, slots, and TATTOO STUDIO. ORIGINAL DESIGNS, EXPERT a mobile face capable of great expression.

topp I e-the-mi Ik-bottle games, hawkers cover-ups painted across the side in large "Not what I'd expect, though," I said. I shouted and gesticulated at us. We waited letters with red serifs through the stems. could see that his arms and neck were for Ben to lose his change at the shooting scarred; tiny, whitish welts crisscrossed his gallery and the loop toss, and we went into shaved skin. Perhaps he had some sort of

the fun house, which was mostly blind al- a skin rash, I told myself, but that didn't

leys and a few tarnished distorting mirrors. seem right to me. I was certain that Nathan Then we walked by the tents of the freak had deliberately made those hairline scars. ^Something show; the Palace of Wonders with the orig- But why . . . ? "Nate, what the hell hap-

inal Lobster-Man, Velda the Half Lady, and seemed to be passing out of pened to you?" I asked. "You just disap- "The Most Unusual Case in Medical His- peared off the face of the earth. And Ruth, her, a dark, palpable tory: Babies Born Chest to Chest." too. How is Ruth?" spirit. I its "Come on," Dad said, "let's go inside and could feel presence. Nathan looked away from me, as if I had see the freaks." And Nathan looked opened a recent wound. The stout, older

"Nah," I said. "Places like this depress woman who was standing a few feet away somehow different, ravaged, me. I don't feel right about staring at them." from us tried to.get Nathan's attention. "Ex-

"That's how they make their money," Dad as if he were being cuse me, but could I please talk to you?" said. "Keeps 'em off social services." she asked, a trace of a foreign accent in defined by this woman's past.V I wasn't going to get into that with him. hervoice. "It's very important. "She looked

"Well, then Benny and me'll go in," Dad agitated and tired, and I noticed dark said. "If that's all right with you." shadows under her eyes. But Nathan didn't

It wasn't, but I wasn't going to argue, so seem to hear her. "It's a long story," he said

I reached into my pocket to give Ben some to me, "and I don't think you'd want to hear

money. Dad just shook his head and paid Then the door opened, and a heavyset man it." He seemed suddenly cold and distant.

the woman sitting in a chair outside the tent. with a bald head and a full, black beard "Of course I would," I insisted.

"I'll meet you back here in about ten min- walked out. Everyone, including the yup- "Excuse me, please," interrupted the

' utes, I said, glad to get away by myself. pies, was admiring him. His entire head was older woman. "I've come a long way to see

I walked through the crowds, enjoying tattooed in a Japanese design of a flaming you," she said to Nathan, "and you've been ."

the rattle and shake of the concession- dragon; the dragon's head was high on his talking to everyone else but me. . . aires, all trying to grab a buck; the filthy but forehead, and a stream of flame reached Nathan tried to ignore her, but she brightly painted oil canvases; the sweet down to the bridge of his nose. The dragon stepped right up to him and took his arm.

smell of cotton candy; the peppery smell was beautifully executed. How the hell He jerked away as if he'd been shocked. I of potatoes frying; and the coarse shout- could someonedisfigure his face like that? saw the faded, tattooed numbers just

I I .?" ing of the kids. bought some trench fries, wondered. Behind the dragon man was above her wrist. "Please . . she asked. which were all the more delicious because a man of about five feet six wearing a clean 'Are you here for a cover-up?" Nathan

I wasn't allowed to have them. Two girls bul bloodied white T-shirt. He had brown, asked her, glancing down at her arm.

smiled as they passed me. God damn if curly hair, whiclr-was long overdue to be "No," she said. "It wouldn't do any good." this wasn't like being sixteen again. cut; a rather large nose; and a full mouth. "You shouldn't be here," Nathan said

Then something caught my eye. He looked very familiar, yet I couldn't place gently. "You should be home."

I saw a group that looked completely out him. This man was emaciated, as if he had "I know you can help me."

of place. Bikers, punkers, and well-dressed, given up nourishment for some cultish re- Nathan nodded, as if accepting the in-

yuppie-looking types were standing ligious reason. Even his long, well-formed evitable. "I'll talk to you for a moment, but

around a tattoo parlor talking. The long- hands looked skeletal, the veins standing that's all," he said to her. "That's all." Then haired bikers flaunted their tattoos by out like blue tattoos. he looked up at me, smiled wanly, and led

wearing cutoff jean jackets to expose their Then I remembered. He looked like Na- the woman into his trailer.

arms and chests; the women who rode with than Rivlin, an artist I had not seen in sev- them had taken off their jackets and had eral years. A dear friend I had lost touch "You thinkin' about getting a tattoo?" Dad delicate tattoo wristlets and red and or- with. This man looked like Nathan, but he asked, catching me staring at the trailer.

ange butterflies and flowers worked into •looked all wrong. I remembered Nathan as Ben was looking around at the punkers, their arms or between their breasts. In con- filled out and full of life, an Orthodox Jew sizing them up. He had persuaded his trast, most of the yuppies—whom I as- who wouldn't answer the phone on Shab- mother to let him have a "rattail" when he 70 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 132 _

He drugs them with LSD, shoots them with lasers, amputates a leg or two, and rockets them into space — all to see what webbed feats they'll accomplish MADNESS BY DAVA SOBEL

Invisible in the early serendipitous discov- morning light, the web ery he made some 40 snares prey with its years ago pushed him gummy threads and from human-subject holds the struggling studies into a lifelong victim just long association with spi- enough (or the spider ders. Over the years to leap down from he has drugged them, hiding, bite with her confined them, shol poisonous langs, and them with laser beams, then Iwirl and bundle attached weights to the catch into a bean- their bodies, depleted shaped mummy. their silk glands with a The wide catching motor, amputated a zone of the web is rav- leg or two to see what aged in the battle. And would happen to their Ihe spider, climbing webs, and sent them out with her prize, to outer space— all in manglesthetopofthe the interest of sci- web into a ladder of ence. He is one of a of broken rungs. But it small minority peo- doesn't matter. She will build a new web ple that actually likes spiders. "They are tomorrow. First she'll dismantle this one not much loved," he concedes. Nor are they little is known piecemeal, rolling il in pie-shaped seg- much studied. Even now. so ments toward the center until just a bit of about them that any enterprising high- scaffolding remains. Then she'll eat the school student who sets his mind to it can that has rubble and weave it back to perieciion in probably discover something 20 to 30 minutes' time in the morning, never been known before. But give her tonight a drop of LSD or a Witt began working with spiders as a modicum of mescaline, and the web that fluke in 1948, when a colleague at the Uni- is her hallmark and her survival will change. versity of Tubingen in West Germany was For (he spider, through the building of her trying to film the cross spider. Araneus dia- web, reacts to all the drugs that alter the dametus, in the act of web construction. It minds of men: Hashish compresses the was proving impossible to make the movie oval web into a wheel. Amphetamines because the spider would take her cue her oval with make it smaller. Cafteine shatters the or- from nature— spinning web derly pattern of the threads. Scopolamine the change in light and the rise in temper- forces the spider to work in zigzags in- ature that came at sunup. The movie cam- stead of in circles. And too much Valium era was useless in the dawn light, and ar- induces her to give up web building alto- tificial light stopped the spider cold. Could gether— a passive invitation to death. Dr. Witt, with his vast knowledge of phar- These spider drug diaries are the work macology, administer somesort of chemical of M.D./pharmacologist Peter N. Witt. A that would delay the building of the web un- «

til the light was right for making the movie'' Witt originally thought that he could, but his attempt was a failure. The spiders never once changed their schedule. Worse, the stunning symmetry of their webs disintegrated in the drops that they drank trom his syringe. "Being interested in drugs and seeing that the spiders reacted to the

drugs, I pursued that," he recalls. LSD was a new excitement then, and

Will had tried it himself. "Every God-fearing pharmacologist took a bit of LSD and watched what happened, and we enjoyed ourselves tremen- dously, writing long protocols about what we saw, what we heard. ..." The experiences were internal ones, of course; and the accounts of the experiences, highly subjective. The spiders, on the other hand, wove

their "hallucinations" into webs and hung them up for all to see. These were intricate landscapes, with literally hundreds of different proportions

Right; web spun by spider with two legs amputated. Above: two unusual views ol silk-emitting spinnerets, located at rear ot spider's body. Previous pages: cross spider seen up close (big photo) end in a normal web (small photo).

^Evef'y drug put its signature on the web. You could tell which drug the spider had taken.V —

^Hashish compresses the web into a wheel; caffeine shatters the pattern of the threads^

that could be changed under the influence of drugs. (The photographs of "altered" webs shown on these pages were taken by Witt himself.) In this boom era of pharmacology, as antidepressants and tranquiliz- ers were developed, along with new hallucinatory drugs. Witt tried each newcomer on spiders. Every drug put its signature on the webs. This was so characteristic that with a little practice, you could tell which drug the spider had taken just by looking at the web. What's more, after with- drawal of the drug, the spider immediately turned back to normal.

Says Witt, "This is what every pharmacologist dreams about in a test

to have it both ways: You can add the effect, then take it away."

It was Witt's hope that the spider test would eventually find its most practical and important application in the laboratories of pharmaceutical companies. Spiders could be used to screen new drugs for toxicity.

Lett: web ot a caffeine doned spider Below left: web spun by spider that ran our of the web. Below right: golden garden spider web. The pattern ot the web's structure says VJ:!! inspired ine children's story Chai oUe's Web. ^Aboard Skylab the webs appeared to be 20 percent thinner, probably

because of the spiders' - perceptions of their own weightlessness.^

"Here you have an animal Nor do the siblings see [technically, a spider is nol one another. Hundreds of insect], an and you don't eggs hatch at a time, the really mind if one or two die. spiderlings scatter, and

I do mind, of course, but in when they begin to build ," general . . webs several weeks later, Spiders could also be they work alone. The webs used, he says, to set dosage are shaped, at least in part, ranges and to lest wide as- by genetically acquired be- sortments of slightly varying havioral (raits. drug molecules to deter- The drive to build is so mine which ones have the strong that the spider spins wanted action without the almost daily in the labora- unwanted side effects. Witt tory, even if she is fed a fly has advised drug compa- every 24 hours. And while nies, "but what they actually the webs of these kept spi- did in their labs — secretly, ders seem normal, the ani- so to speak— I don't know." mals take food from their The silk thread spun from keepers and don't respond the spider's entrails is as to vibrations of insects elastic as nylon, as strong as trapped in their nets. steel. No one has been able The drive to build is so to its duplicate superior strong that it persists in spi- qualities in a man-made fi- ders confined in glass tubes ber. Inside the glands lhat soon after hatching and kept produce the miracle fiber, the there for months— almost silk is a fluid. It travels from their entire lives. Immedi- the glands through long, ately upon release, Witt dis- narrow ducts, where it covered, they will build changes, although no one These postcaptivity webs knows how, before emerg- are normal in all respects ing as solid thread from except size, They remain openings called spinnerets comparatively small for a at the rear ol the spider's week or so. Seeing this, Witt body. One kind ol thread wondered whether the spi- forms the outer frame and ders were inhibited by the the spokelike-radii. The silk stress of confinement or by the spider uses to fashion the a short silk supply in the network is coated with glue, glands. Maybe the stimula- It is indisputable lhat the spider "knows" the amount of silk in her tion of emptying the glands in web construction was the key to glands and plans accordingly. She builds the web from the outside building up more silk for the next attempt. in, and when she is through, her glands are empty. If her supply is Wilt answered the question by artific ally emptying their glands. low, she makes the whole web smaller. She never runs out in the He had noticed how spiders, when knocked off a partially built middle. Her first webs are small but perfect. Since the behavior is web, didn't fall but spun out a guy line on which they could raise instinctive, it requires no experience. But Witt, with the help of var- or lower themselves. So he figured he could attach a spider's thread ious colleagues, has shown, through an ingenious series of ex- to the axle of a small motor and wind it out until the gland was periments he conducted on cross spiders, that the creature's be- empty. When he tried this — technique on the spiders reared in havior is both personal and flexible. tubes "pulling" them for 20 to 30 minutes on two successive days No two cross spiders, lor example, build exactly Ihe same web. before release—they had. as much silk as the spiders that were Although the differences defy naked-eye detection, computer born tree, and Iheir webs were just as big. analysis reveals lhat each spider has an individual pattern and Challenging the spider in another way—making her suddenly that the webs of siblings are more similar than those of unrelated heavier by putting a lead weight on her back—yielded webs with spiders. If these were human works, Witt says, you could say that thicker threads. When he put an impediment in the open frame Ihe children were imitating their parents. But spiders never see where she was used to building, she found a way to build around one another. The female dies shortly after lays her it. If she eggs. The he tore the web, she repaired it. When he amputated first one male builds webs for a while early on but soon stops building, leg and then two, she could still operate. eating, stops stops growing. In the end he is half the female's size, "That's how flexible the system is," Witt says admiringly. "It isn't and how he lives out his days is anybody's guess. programmed so stupidly lhat eight minus one, and Ihe whole thing collapses. Lots of spiders lose a leg or two when birds attack." '$ spinnerets in action. Years ago, when a physicist friend of his became one of the first ON PAGE 116 Can you predict the future of medicine? Compare your views with THE WORLDACCORDING TO DRJARVIK BY MARILYN VOS SAVANT

The most explosive news in the for a human heart, received — as medical history of our decade is an implant— the bionic creation of still beating in the chest of a young this forty-year-old scientist, until a mother in Tucson, Arizona, now in human transplant was found. Four-

excellent condition after more than teen are still alive today.

six months on the Jarvik heart, de- When Omni began its search for signed by Robert Jarvik, one of an authority to offer predictions on America's lop medical visionaries. the future of medicine, Jarvik A physician of Ihe future, Jarvik seemed an ideal choice. Followirig catapulted surgery into the Space Arthur C. Clarke, Chuck Yeager, Age when his Jarvik-7 artificial and Peter Ueberroth, he is the heart was implanted in Barney fourth in a continuing series of sci- Clark in December 1982, To date entific and visionary thinkers whose 19 patients in the terminal stages predictions are presented in test- of heart failure, who could not wait like format to Omni readers, In tak-

-..'./^'.^/./^.,;.^; ing this quiz, circle the answers that you 7. In 1995 which of the following groups will and predispositions in the unborn child. As think Jarvik gave. Your objective is not to routinely undergo mandatory urine tests to head of a fetal-ethics committee, what pro- come up with right or wrong answers but monitor illegal drug use? (Choose as many cedures of genetic engineering would you to assess the world's medical destiny in the as apply.) say are permissible, assuming the risks are way that an inventor like Jarvik does. a. high-school students negligible? (Choose as many as apply.) On page 84 you will find Jarvik's an- b. schoolteachers a. altering the genes [hat would bring on swers. Count how many times your re- c. professional athletes baldness sponses match the doctor's to determine d. airline pilots b. changing the height of a fetus by five how perceptive your own vision of medi- e. federal government employees inches cine in the next century really is. f. none of the above c. manipulafing a chromosome to prevent a predisposition to schizophrenia 1. A household diagnostic computer sits 8. In the year 2025 what psychiatric disor- d. reversing a predisposition toward dia- on a shelf in a medicine cabinet in the year ders will be controlled by drugs or thera- betes 2000. What will it be capable of doing? peutic methods that are unknown today? e. using hormones to alter an unwanted (Choose as many answers as apply.) (Choose as many as apply.) sexual predisposition a. diagnosing a. several dozen conditions on chronic anxiety f. improving the potential I.Q. of a fetus the basis of symptoms entered b. certain kinds of depression b. advising what sort of home treatment c. schizophrenia 13. When will an effective vaccine for some would be appropriate for a diagnosed d. autism forms of the common cold be developed? condition e. none of the above a. in 5 years d. 25 years

c. sending information on a patient's con- b. 10 years e. never dition to a central data bank, which will 9. Research and development of implant- c. 20 years then send appropriate medication able bionic analogs of the following organs d. regulating drug dosage based on the are currently underway. Which of these will 14. Which one of the following holds the updating of information regarding the greatest hope for medical progress within patient's condition the next century? a. pharmacology 2. Research over the next 15 years in space b. psychiatry and the neurosciences medicine will focus mainly on (choose as c. immunology iThe year is many as apply) d. genetic engineering a. nutrition and physical conditioning in 2010. As head of a fetal- e. artificial organs prolonged space habitation ethics committee, b. treatment for vertigo 15. Will the United States have socialized c. first aid for trauma in zero g what procedures of genetic medicine by the year 2025? d. emergency surgery in space engineering would a. yes b. no e. childbirth in space you say are permissible, 16. On December 3, 1967, the world's firsi 3. setting is The an urban province of China assuming that heart transplant was performed, in South at the beginning of the next century. What Africa. Forty years later, in 2007, what is the risks are negligible?^ one form of birth control will most couples likely to be the most common form of heart- be practicing? replacement surgery? a. new rhythm techniques that will deter- a. a human heart used to replace another mine the precise time of ovulation human one b. conventional prophylactic measures, b. a primate heart used to replace a hu- such as diaphragms and condoms be widely used 50 years from now? man one c. sterilization (Choose as many as apply.) c. an artificial, or bionic, heart used to re- d. birth-control pills for women a. pancreas e. kidney place a human one e. multiyear steroid implants for women b. ear f. liver d. sophisticated diagnostic and medical f. birth-control pills for men c. womb g. eye therapy will render heart-transplant sur- d. lung h. heart gery unnecessary 4. When will the first human be cloned?

a. by 2000 d. by 2300 10. Which one of the following methods 17. Smallpox has now been virtually eradi- b. by 2100 e. after 2300 holds the most hope for significantly re- cated worldwide. Which of these other dis-

c. by 2200 f. never ducing cancer deaths? eases will- also be gone by the year 2000? a. eliminating environmental carcinogens (Choose as many as apply.) 5. It has become increasingly clear that b. combined drug and radiation therapy a. herpes blood is in short supply. How will the United c. new surgical methods b. leprosy States deal with the growing crisis? d. new drugs produced by genetic engi- c. hepatitis (Choose as many as apply.) neering d. lung cancer a. public education will reverse the trend e. Alzheimer's disease b. patients will store their own blood prior 11. The drugstore of the next century will f. none of the above to surgery hold far more fascination than the candy c. artificial blood products will be substi- shop of the past. Which of the following are 18. When can we expect to see a vaccine tuted likely to be in common use by then? that will prevent AIDS? d. of lasers will use lessen the need for in- (Choose as many as apply.) a. 1990 c. 2000 vasive surgery a. memory-enhancing drugs b. 1995 d. beyond 2000 b. intelligence -boosting drugs 6. When will the average life expectancy in c. life-extension drugs 19. Already scientists can determine the the United States exceed 100 years? d. none of the above sex of an eight-celled embryo. If frozen- a. 2000 d. after 2100 embryo banks become commonplace b. 2050 e. never is 12. The year 2010, and scientists are ca- throughout the world in 15 years and if par- c. 2100 pable of- genetically altering specific traits ents gain the right to choose the sex of their 82 OMNI . f

27. Over the last five years the population offspring, what will be the ratio of male to 23. What process holds out the most hope of laboratory chimpanzees has vastly de- female embryos lying in deep storage? for regeneration of limbs? release creased. Given the increasing restrictions a. 50/50 c. 90/10 a controlled drug electrical stimulation on chimpanzee importation, how will med- b. 75/25 d. 25/75 b. continue their c. grafts of fetal tissue ical researchers be able to 20. Who should own the rights to new, ge- d. tissue cloning a. chimps will be more easily bred in cap- netically engineered life forms? will artificial begin appre- tivity, ensuring a sufficiently large labo- a. no one 24. When organs increase the average life span ot ratory population b. the scientist or company that discovers ciably to such as baboons and them the United States population? b. other primates, monkeys, will be used instead of chim- c. the government a. now panzees d. all governments b.2000 on c. 2010 c. medical research will be performed humans more often than has been cus- 21 What would a twenty-first-century phy- d. not in the foreseeable future tomary in the past sician consider the one greatest medical e. never changing methods of investigation will breakthrough of the twentieth century? d. animal will the number one health make it less necessary to use a. discovery of endorphins, the brain's nat- 25. What be subjects ural opiates problem in the United States in 2000? for the b. antibiotics a. inadequate health care poor population 28. Shortly after a brief detention in a psy- c. polio vaccine b. problems of an aging addiction, and vener- chiatric ward, a homeless man is released d. interferon c. alcoholism, drug and promptly slashes two people to death e. body scans, including X-ray, CAT. and Will the psychiatrist of PET scans d. cancer in a psychotic rage. diagnose illness and pre- e. heart disease 2025 be able to f. heart transplants - vent similar incidents through definitive t. s s i ve h ea lth ca re costs g. artificial body parts exce chemical diagnostic tests 7 h. DNA engineering a. b. no 26. If a surgeon's yearly malpractice insur- yes $100,000, 22 To date, the longest an artificial-heart ance is between $80,000 and 29. The first bionic development to expand patient has lived has been 21 months. With how much will it be in 2000? the capabilities ot the human body rather major advances anticipated in this field a $50,000 than to replace damaged or diseased or- within the next decade, how many years b. $150,000 gans will be might the average artificial-heart-trans- c. $250,000 or more longer a. artificial supplemental limbs plant patient expect to live in the year 2000? d. malpractice lawsuits will no be b. night-vision contact lenses a. 1 to 3 years c. 5 to 10 years permitted insure surgeons c. a muscle-to-computer interface b. 3 to 5 years d. 11 or more e. the government will d. a nerve-to -computer interface

30. Scientists in the Soviet Union have al- ready successfully attached second heads to dogs, which have subsequently lived like the mythological beast Cerberus. Will such head transplants ever be considered ethi- cal on humans? a. yes b. no c. maybe /HIGHER hiw ) ^r. ALimE/viotfEir; JARVIK'S PICKS ( Dr. Jarvik's answers are given below so that you can compare your responses with UofHE LEFT// his. Are you ready to scrub up next to the ^ on his next foray into the op- good doctor erating room? 1.a. b, c, d 2. a, c 3.c 4. b

5. a, b, c 6. d 7. c (Other groups will be encouraged but not required to undergo testing.) 8. a, b (Cures for various forms of schizo- phrenia will occur sometime later in the next century.) 9. a, b, g.h 10. d 11. c 12. a, b.c, d,e,f 13. d 14. d 15. b 16. c 17, 18 19. a 20. b 21 b 22. b 23. c 24. d 25. b 26. b AAfe» 27 b 28. b 29.0

30. Pat yourselt on the back if you knew (or hoped) this question was a joke.DO FICTION

In an ivory tower above the city, these artists' models are created just for the pleasure of the idle rich om own BY KIM STANLEY ROBINSON

Tunisia. There in I found my friend Desmond greenery of Kean at the northeast corner the shimmery circle of glass of the penthouse viewing ter- was a jumble of wood and race, assembling a telescope thatch in a rice paddy, pale with which to look at the world browns on light green. 'Amaz-

belaw. He put his eye to the ing," I said.

lens, the picture of concen- I directed the telescope to trated absorption. the north. On certain days, as explained to How often i had found him Desmond once like this in recentmonths! It me, when the temperature made me shiver a little; this gradients layer the atmos- new obsession of his—so phere in the right way, light is much more intense than the curved through the air (and tell handmade clocks or the me how that works!) so that we stuffed birds or the geometric can see farther over the hori- proofs—seemed to me a se- zon than usual. This was one rious malady. of those strange days, and in Clearing my throat did the lens wavered a black dot. nothing to get his attention, so resting on top of a silver pin the horizon. ~ 1 ventured to say, "Desmond, that stuck up over 4» you're wanted inside." The black dot was Rome; the "Look at this," he replied. silver pin was the top of the holds 'Uust look at it!" I put my eye graceful spire that the u to his device. Eternal City aloft. My heart

I have never understood leapt to know thai I gazed from how looking through two Carthage to Rome,

pieces of curved glass can "It's beautiful," I said. bring distanl sights closer; "No, no," Desmond ex- angrily. "Look down! doesn't the same amount of claimed . light hit the first lens as would Look what's below!"

hit a plain circle of glass? And I did as he directed, even

if so, what then could possibly leaning a tiny bit over the rail- be done to that amount of light ing to do so. Our new Car-

within two lenses lo make it thage has a spire of its own, reveal so much more? Mysti- one every bit the equal of lush or of other of fied, I looked down at the Rome's that any

PAINTING BY RALLE . —"

the greal cities of the world. The spire seems a good year," I said. "I already see mond's new, morbid interest in the world seemed to the naked eye a silver rope, a three or four pieces of merit." below—sour grapes. But Desmond had thread, a strand of gossamer. But through "Obscene fravesties," said Desmond. always been interested in things no one

it the telescope I saw the massy base of the "Now, now, isn't all that bad. Some im- else cared about— rediscovering little sci- spire, a concrete block like an immense, itation of last year but no more than usual." entific truths and the like—and to me it was blind fortress. We walked down the hall to see how my clear that his fascination was simply the re-

"Stunning,"- 1 said. entry had been placed. Like Desmond be- sult of his old-fashioned outlook and of what

"Mo!" He seized the spyglass from me. fore he quit sculpting, I was chiefly inter- his telescope had newly revealed to him. "Look af the people camped there on the ested in finding and isolating moments of No, his and Cleo's was a more fundamen- base! Look what they're doing!" dance that revealed, by themselves, airthe tal hatred, a clash of contrary natures.

I looked through the glass where he had grace of the whole act. This year I had Now Desmond stared at Cleo's new aimed it. Smoky fires, huts of cardboard, stopped a pair of ballet dancers at the end statue. It is undeniable that Cleo is a su- ribs perfectly delineated under taut, brown of a pas de deux, the ballerina just off the perb artist, especially in facial expres-

skin. . . . "See," Desmond hissed. "There, base of the display as her partner firmly sions, those utterly complex projections of where the bonfires are set. They keep the but delicately returned her to the boards. unique emotional states; and this work dis- fires going for days, then pour water on the How long I had worked with the breeders played her usual brilliance in that most dif- concrele—to crack it, do you see?" to get ectogenes with these lean dancers' ficult medium. It was a solo piece: A red-

bodies! I I saw, there in the curved glass surface; How many hours had spent pro- haired young woman looked back over one it was just as he had said. gramming their unconscious education, shoulder with an expression of intense vul-

"At that pace it will take them ten thou- and training and choreographing them in nerability and confusion, pierced by a sand years," Desmond said bitterly. their brief waking hoursl And then at the sharp melancholy. It was exquisite.

I I stood back from the railing. "Please, end, how very often had had them dance Something in the sight of it snapped

Desmond. The world has gotten itself into on the tableau base and stopped them in some final restraint in Desmond Kean: I saw

a sorry stale, and it's very distressing, but the force field before I caught them in the it happen. Pity, disgust: His lip curled, and what can any one person do?" he said loudly, "How did you do it, Cleo?

He took the telescope, looked through it What did you do to her in your little bubble

again. Forawhile I thought he wouldn'f an- world to get that expression out of her?" swer. But fhen he said hesitantly, "I . . . I'm Now, this "was a quesiion one simply not so sure, friend Roarick. It's a good didn'f ask. Each artist's arcology was his QAII the question, isn't it? But I feel that someone or her own sovereign ground, a physical with knowledge, with expertise, could make tableaux were covered, but projection of the artist's creative uncon- a bit of a difference. Heal the sick or . . scious, an entirely private cosmos. What soon the sheets give advice about agricultural practices. one did to one's material Ihere was one's I've been studying up on that pretty hard. were raised, ail at once. The own business, and everyone was trusted They're wrecking their soil. Or ... or just human form was to adhere to the code of ethics regarding put one more shoulder to Ihe wheel. Add the ectogenes. But the truth is, no one had revealed in all its variety and one more hand to tend the fire. ... I don't forgotten the unfortunate Arthur Magister, know. Do we ever know, until we act?" beauty, frozen in who had exhibited increasingly slrange and

"But, Desmond," I said, "do you mean morbid statues over a period of years, place yet pulsing with life$ down there?" ending the series with one of a maiden who He looked up at me. "Of course." had on her face such an expression of hor-

I shivered again. Up at our altiiude the ror that no one could bear to look at it. air stays pretty chilly all the time, even in Though the rule of privacy was main-

the sun. "Come back inside, Desmond," I tained, there were, of course, questions

1 i : ! said, feejing sorry for him. These obses- ,i . i i :. .: , i No* n muttered: How had he created such a sions. . . . "The exhibition is about to open, sculpture stood before us like the epitome statue? No one would ever have found out, and if you're not there for it, Cleo will press of all that is graceful in the human spirit though, if Arthur himself had not blown out

for the full set of sanctions." at a proper angle to the viewers, I was one whole wall oi his arcology with explo- "Now, there's something to fear," he said pleased to see, and under tolerable light- sives, killing himself in the process. Many nastily. ing, too. On the two faces were expres- of us were working at the time, including "Come on inside. Don't give Cleo the sions that said that for these two, nofhing Desmond and me; and we had hurried from chance. You can return here another day." existed but dance; and in this case it was ourarcologies, there on the floor below the

With a grimace he put the telescope in almost literally true. Yes, il was satisfactory. penthouse, to investigate the blast. We the big duffel bag, picked it up, and fol- Desmond only shook his head. "You don't found several decapitated ectogenes in lowed me in. understand. The miserable world below, Arthur's sculpting chamber, and it was as- Inside ihe glass wall, jacaranda trees our fine art above, they are parts of —the sumed that the ectogene in his statue had showered the gianf, curved greenhouse- same whole! We can't keep doing this been forced to witness their demise. Alter gallery with purple flowers. All the tableaux "Desmond!" cried Cleo, flowing through this distasteful discovery a few of us wrote of the exhibit were still covered by saffron the sculptors and their guests. Her smile up a code of behavior that forbade any sheets, but soon after we entered, the was wide, her eyes bright with malice. physical violence to the ectogenes, and all sheets were raised, all at once. The human' "Come see my latest, dear absent one!" agreed to abide by it. Nothing, however, form was revealed in all its variety and Desmond followed her, his face so blank enforced these rules; [he arcologies were beauty, frozen in place yet still pulsing with of expression fhat all his thoughts showed still completely closed domains, as every- life. I noted a man loping, a pair of women clear. A whole crew followed us discreetly, one wished them to be. In the city's tight fighting, a diver launched in air, four drunks for Desmond and Cleo's antipathy was tangle of law and social obligaiion these playing cards, a couple stopped forever at legendary. How it had started, none re- private spaces were necessary.

orgasm. I felt the familiar opening-night membered, although some said ihey had So it was a sensitive issue; and when

quiver ot excitement, caused partly by the once been lovers. If so, it was before I knew Desmond asked Cleo his brazen question, force fields of the tableaux as they kept the them. Others said' Desmond hated Cleo for with its dark implication, she blanched, then living ectogenes stopped in place, but her success in the sculpture competitions, reddened with anger. Disdainfully (though mostly by rapture, by a physical response and some of the more sharp-tongued gos- I sensed she was afraid, too), she refused to art and natural beauty. "At first glance it sips said that this envy explained Des- to reply. Desmond stared fiercely at us all; 90 OMNI '

I it dusk), were he an ectogene I would have stopped having shared most of them, and hurried house-gallery, where (as was now him at just that instant. to them through the uncrowded, vaguely if the artists inside could have seen through

"Little gods," he snarled, and left Parisian ' boulevards of the penthouse's their own reflections, they would have

That would cost him, in reputation if not northern quarter. My first try was the bro- looked right at him. in actual sanctions. But the rest of us forgot ken planetaria near the baths; I opened the He and the redhead were standing next his distemper, relieved that we could now door with the key we had quietly repro- to Desmond's telescope, their elbows on begin the exhibit's opening reception in duced years before. An indiscretion, for the railing as they looked over the edge earnest. Down at the drink tables cham- Desmond and the young ectogene were side by side. Desmond had his duffel bag pagne corks were already bringing down making love on the dais in the middle. of at his feet. Something in their stance kept a fresh shower of jacaranda blooms. the chamber— Desmond on his back, the me from emerging from the shadows. They

It was just a few hours later, when the woman straddling him, arched as if all the looked as though they had just finished the

reception was a riotous party, that I heard energy of the great spire were flowing up most casual and intimate of conversa- the news, passed from group to group in- into her. He was breaking all the taboos tions—a talk about trivial, inessential things, stantly, that someone had broken the locks this night. Immediately I shut the door but the kind of talk lovers have together after on the tableaux' force fields (this was sup- given the situation, saw fit to pound loudly years of companionship. Such calmness, posed to be impossible) and turned them on it. "Desmond! It's Roarick! They saw you such resignation ... I could only watch off, letting most of the statues go free. And with the girl. You've got to leave!" what seemed to me then an unbreakable, il was while we rushed to that far end of the Silence. What to do in such a situation? eternal tableau.

I at greenhouse-gallery that I heard that Des- had no precedent. After a good thirty Desmond sighed and turned to look mond Kean had been seen leaving the seconds had passed I opened the door her. He took a red curl of her hair between gallery with Cleo's redheaded ectogene. again. No Desmond, no girl. his fingers, watched the gold in it gleam in

Utter scandal. This would cost Des- 1, however, was one of those who, with a band across the middle of the curl. mond more than money; they would exile Desmond, had first discovered the other The woman pointed. "What's all that him to some tedious sector of the city, to exit from the planetaria, and I hurried to the down there?" scrub walls with robots or teach children central ball of optical fibers that even he Dusky world below, long since in night; or the like. They would make him pay in could not fix and pulled up the trapdoor vast, dark Africa, the foliage like black fur,

it. along the sparking with the sooty flares of a thou- time. And Cleol I groaned; he would never beside Down the stairs and live to see the end of her wrath. passageway into one of the penthouse's sand bonfires, little pricks of light like yel-

Well, a friend can only do so much, but other infrastructures I ran. Despite my low stars. "That's the world," Desmond said, while the rest were rounding up and paci- knowledge of Desmond's ways and my voice tightened to a burr. "I suppose you

it. fying the disoriented ectogenes (which in- anxious thoroughness, I did not find him don't know a thing about Around those live cluded, alas, my two dancers, who were until I thought of the place that should have fires are people. They are slaves; they yours, almost." I the north- lives than huddled in each other's arms), I went in occurred to me first. returned to even worse search of Desmond, to warn him that he east corner of the viewing terrace, right But his words didn't appear to touch the of away and lifted an had been seen. I knew his haunts well, there outside the glass wall the green- woman. She turned empty glass left on the railing. On her face

was an expression so . . . lost— a sudden

echo of her expression as a statue—that I shivered in the cold wind. She didn't have the slightest idea what was going on.

"Damn," she said. "I wish I'd remem- bered to bring another drink." A conversation from another world re-

sumed here. I saw Desmond Kean's face

then, and I know that I did right to interrupt

at that moment. "Desmond!" I rushed for- ward and grasped his arm. "There's no time; you really must get to one of our pri-

vate rooms and hide! I can't imagine what sort of sentence they might hand down for this sort of thing!"

A long moment: I shudder to think of the tableau we three made. The world is a cruel sculptor. "All right," Desmond said at last. "Here, Roarick, take her and get her out of here." He bent over to fumble in his bag. "They'll

put her down after all this if they catch her."

"But— but where should I go?"

"You know this city as well as I! Try the gallery's service elevator and get on the underfloor—you know," he insisted, and yet he was about to give me further directions when the far greenhouse door burst open and a whole mob poured out. We were -^fe^^- forced to run for it; I took the woman by the hand and sprinted for the closer green-

house door. The last I saw of Desmond Kean, he was climbing over the railing. My

God, I thought, he's going to kit! himself' "Go ahead and laugh, but he's made some amazing discoveries." But then I saw the purposefully rectangu- lar package strapped to his back.DQ EXPLORATIONS New Age technology and a modified ver- tion ot how the wealth should be divided. sion of urban planning. "We've tried communism and capitalism." CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28 Threeyears ago, however, a serious po- says Subir, who runs a store in Pondi- find themselves embedded, Aurovillians litical crisis arose that threafened the very cherry, "and they've both proved failures." are also making the long leap into the existence of Auroville. It pitted the execu- Currently those like Subir who are en- Computer Age, assembling imported tives of Ihe Sri Aurobindo ashram in Pon- gaged in activities fhat generate income components and selling them throughout dicherry, who control much of Auroville's skim what they require for their own needs India. This cottage industry, which has 100 finances, against Aurovillians who live on and for the business off the top and donate people on the payroll, turns over $2 million Ihe land. Ashram officials contended that any surplus to a common kitty that goes to a year for the town and employs many they own Auroville and should have the fi- support those whose jobs don't bring in young people from neighboring villages. nal say over what happens there, while set- rupees. All Aurovillians who don't have But modern technology is just a tool for tlers claimed that Auroville is an interna- outside sources of income are provided the real mission of Auroville. "The leading tional community that belongs to the world. with a subsistence diet, shelter, and an al- edge here is in community dynamics," says Relations between Aurovillians and ash- lowance of $12 a month for incidentals.

Bill Sullivan, a former seminarian, film- ramites deteriorated so much (there were In the end, however, Aurovillians are most maker, and teacher from California who has even a few death threats) that the govern- proud of the ongoing educational process been in Auroville since 1974. "You can have ment of India opened a police station at and the freedom to experiment. Talk with the best solar-energy system in the world, Auroville and appointed an adminislrator. any settler at length and eventually he or and if everyone is still fighting with each While a legal contest continues, some she will come around to telling you that "I'm other nothing has been gained." possibility exists that a land trust may be working on myself." In this respect they are Auroville has no mayor or clique of lead- created to establish a legal base for an in- perhaps most true to the spirit of Sri Auro- ers. Governed by a "consensus decision- dependent Auroville. bindo. He believed that the human race making process," Aurovillians tend to make "We're an experiment, not an example," was on the edge of a new stage in evolu- most of their decisions within working Aurovillians point out in explaining the con- tion and that a radical change in conscious- groups that meet about each project. At flicts in their budding Utopia. Others see ness would eventually occur, moving hu- times a major conflict surfaces when one the irony of their situation. "While The manity to the next rung of the evolutionary working group finds the activities of an- Mother was alive everything worked ladder. But before this could happen, Au- other to be inconsistent with its vision of smoothly because she controlled both the robindo argued, individuals would have to Auroville. These disputes have to be ironed ashram and Auroville," Sullivan explains. transcend the age-old division between the out in one of the weekly pour tous, com- "But after she died, in 1973, the children spiritual and material worlds. That is why munity-wide meetings. To date, most of started squabbling among themselves." The Mother created Auroville. "But," ad- these confrontations have been between In addition to the questions of who owns mits Michael Taii, "none of us know whether radical environmentalists at one end of the Auroville and how it is run, settlers have this experiment is going to end up as a spectrum and people more interested in been struggling with the perennial ques- Utopian city or slowly fall apart. "OQ When the children of the two superpowers were asked to forecast our future in space, this is what they saw THE ARTISTS OF DETENTE BY JUDITH HOOPER

^^pace explorers float in a luminous Milky Way, where large, ringed planets are slrewn among the bright pin- points of the stars. Cosmonauts and astro- nauts leave their craft to exchange warm greetings in the cold void of space. This imaginary universe, created by children, seems to radiate a vast sense of peace. The drawings are part of a traveling art exhibit entitled 'American and Soviet Chil-

. dren's Images of Space." The exhibit is co- sponsored by Omni and CONNECT/US- USSR, a nonprofit organization that pro- motes projects encouraging cultural and educational exchanges between the two superpowers. Invitations to participate in the exhibit were sent to schools throughout the Soviet Union and the United States. The show commemorates the tenth anni- versary of the historic Apollo-Soyuz mission, when an American and a Soviet spacecraft made a rendezvous in Earth orbit. The show opened at the Children's Theater of Moscow last year and began its United States ku n Washington, DC, this past summer.

The exhibit is dedicated to the memory of Samantha Smith, the ten-year-otd Maine schoolgirl who was invited to Russia after she wrote to Yuri Andropov asking him to

work harder for international peace. It is a particularly fitting tribute As Alice Johnson, administrative director of the Samantna Smith Foundation, explains: "We felt that art was the mos! vital way to cut through some of those self-imposed walls we have here on Earth: the paper walls of bureaucracy and the cause children's drawings are expressions of imaginary walls ol national borders." how they see the world and what's really im- Fred Rogers, the creator and host of Mister porlant in their lives. This exhibit provides the Rogers' Neighborhood, also thinks that there most natural way in the world to help make a is a lot we can learn from these children. "I bridge between nations— letting our children often use art in my work with children be- show us qualities we all have in common." —

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Each child whose art was selected re- "Deke" Slayton, one of the crew members on ceived a letter— in English and Russian the Apollo-Soyuz mission. "Most ol these kids signed by three aslronauts and three cos- weren't even born when I Mew that mission." monauts, congratulating the young artist, he points out with some amazement. Their en- Someone who found the message o( the thusiasm for what that mission represents, he exhibit particularly encouraging was Donald says, should be a message for us aii.OQ seems far off. Physics just starts to get weird at those scales," TINYTECH A recent review of Drexler's book in The New York Times states that "it is one thing handle almost any kind of computers will solve [he engineering and to refit a single protein and quite another better able to design problems required io build even to get millions of different types working difficulty that might arise in space. in isolated groups smaller, and therefore faster, machines. together. If biology is indeed any measure, "What you see these inability to hostility overtly," They'll also be able to simulate more com- it will be a long time before scientists get is the express plex molecular configurations, aiding ad- nanotechnology humming. Consider that, says NASAs Santy. Because their very sur- on coordinated effort, vances in biotechnology. And advances in while the earliest living cells probably had vival depends team will to their feel- biotechnology will generate tools and en- proteins much like some of our own, only crew members have keep zyme probes that help researchers to un- after about two billion years of evolutionary ings of hostility "underground," Even so, derstand and build ever more elaborate trial and error did such nanomachines they may find indirect ways to express molecular systems," he says. gather themselves into anything as com- hostility by getting sick, for example. have Much of the replication technology, he plex as a nerve." Aware of these hazards, the Soviets build in safety valves. They some- adds, is already in place. The molecular While many establishment scientists are tried to analysis on a cosmo- mechanisms installed in plants and ani- low-key about Drexler's work, a group of times run a voice monitor stress levels mals might at lirst be used as major ma- younger devotees has taken his message naut's transmission to chine components. Genetically engi- and hit the ground running. Conrad through his speech patterns. During pe- neered bacteria could be used lo make Schneiker, a futurist and programmer at the riods of tension, ground crews may beam change the work even more sophisticated components. In University of Arizona, for instance, dreams up soothing music, chat another approach high-precision fabrica- of the day we combine nanotochnology schedule, or ask a family member in to with of cosmonauts, tion tools can make the parts required to with artiticial intelligence. "Computers are one the mental-health profes- build smaller high-precision fabrication already much faster than the human brain," NASA will have a sional constantly available for its crews to tools; and that cycle could be repeated he says, "and nanocomputers will be faster million high- talk to. "Not onboard necessarily al- again and again. It's even possible that still. If you were to take a such — through minuscule needle-tip sensors, already speed machines, which is a small popu- though I wouldn't mind going—but their or an" audio link," says Santy. If a used to "feel" surfaces at atomic resolu- lation as far as nanotechnology goes, a video hour member lost control or became dis- tion, can be adapted to assemble or cleave thinking capacity would exceed in one crew also want to molecular machines directly. that of allthe scientists whohaveever lived." ruptive, the commander might professional about "There's an important difference be- The members of the Nanotechnology consult the earthbound options he has. If the space-station tween the line of advance and the line ot Study Group at MIT have voyaged out even what there is could deter- sight," Drexler says. "The line of sight is the larther. After a speaker has been heard, doctor (provided one) suffering from an most direct way of seeing that a destina- new business disposed of, and the pizzas mine the person was not (such as a brain tion exists. The line of advance is the path devoured, Fry, Kevin Nelson, Dave Forrest, underlying medical cause tumor), the problem might be treated on- we will actually follow in crossing what may and the others sit back and take the long could receive Earth- be a rugged, uncharted stretch. When we view. Imagine, they say, what our bodies board. The individual psychotherapy or be given a arrive and how we get there will depend might be like if they'd been built right. Pro- to-space

it psychoactive drug. third choice, re- on the underbrush and the lay of the land." tein is fine as far as it goes, but goes no A disruptive individuals, His line of sight remarkably clear, Drex- distance at all. Everything —temperature, served for the most physical restraint, says Santy, "in ler has begun to map the outback of nano- tensile stress, moisture, atmospheric pres- might be terrain. While supporting himself with var- sure, ambient radiation intensity—has to be an airlock, perhaps." prevent any psychiat- ious consultancies and research affiliations, just so or the stuff will start to unravel, and NASA is trying to first place. the cost he has been lecturing at forums as diverse even-then its useful life is short. A creature ric problem in the With estimated to as Mensa conferences. Naval Research built out of protein can live (without artificial of each crew member's labor per hour, the price Lab workshops, and meetings of the L-5 aids) in only a fraction of .natural environ- be as high as $80,000 mental breakdown in Society. He has written a few articles, and ments, and not tor long even in those. We of just one having a Doubleday has recently published his book cannot live unaided in volcanoes, on the space would be, both literally and figura- Engines of Creation. bottom of the oceans, or in deep space. tively, astronomical. DO

"1 feel it's important for people to think Our brains are limited as well. One nerve about what will happen when nanotech- cell communicates with a second through CREDITS

nology exists," he says, "to rethink their a surge of chemicals. Whatever the advan- Cover. Cii-s or.k. Inc/Dale O'Doil; ' 10 top left, h. R Glc t; page 10 bottom of this it is necessarily slow, in that light." tages system, .... ':.. worldview d Sochurek: page ir i have things been going? "Pretty dependent on the diffusion of molecules How -: -.-M IV:::.r:.i ye2 cou ' "; ! ': , well," he says. 'A lot of people have been through the gap between the cells. Sup- 'un-ftfcCo; |i, Pierre Alan*; page <(.! .- 34, I Ik; dfellowrtbung Artists; this pose natural selection could have drawn coming around saying makes sense." U.S Bii!!la:y iditions), Iwasaki; Distinguished people, too. Freeman Dy- on a more modern signal-propagation page 38 (all Iher editions), Qoitfr pis: page 4S bot- ' " son of the Institute for Advanced Study in technology, like optical fibers; maybe to- Princeton, New Jersey, says that "if nature day we would all think hundreds of times

does this, we should be able to do it, too." faster than we do. And suppose our mus- e 50 bottom, Oga And roboticist Marvin Minsky, Donner Pro- cles were made of diamond fibers; and our Spiegel; pug at MIT, says, "Nanotech- bones, of steel. Sooner or later, they say, :..- fessor of Science and bottom, i :«:! Li ;.vv;-,, jsge 53 lop, Manfred could have more effect on our ma- we are going to transcend the flesh. Dave p.-isf M. Dagos 56, 57, Pay nology '!•:: '.-.'. .: ;>. '. ;r . Cprr.pt IB i:3f terial existence than the replacement of Lindburgh of the study group has likened Publishing C npariy Lid. page 72. a 73, -i.-.-iNi Dchu.ek; page 74, Dav d s'char"f %igef£ metals cements, that step to crawling out of the ocean all sticks and stones by and :.' rate pages 76, 77, Hoi arri Suchurek: page and the harnessing of electricity." over again. That analogy, other members Pi.u..-ii-i. . pages 96 IO 101, CONNEC"lJ5-USSU it if any- is, 1 Others have responded— appropri- say, is the best we have; but ii 120 top, etlus KanusJpnolo caution. When Drex- thing, conservative. DO ately, perhaps^-with SSS I Davis: page 121 center, botto !t1£.ftttWm*reK e:pageK2.Bryjje ler laid out his design for a nanocomputer Bond: page 151, Ker GocpS!- Mi.- I:' '-:'..:-. at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center just Join us online this month, when !".£ discus:-; !c». S i Ijnt page 152 Bottom.

, Mitchell Funk, page 153 right, Howard recently, computer scientist Dan Russell nanotechnology win ihe experts in the Omni Sochurek; page 153 hottom, Mitchc 1 Funk.

said, "I found the theory plausible, But it Forum on the CompuServe information Service. 102 OMNI If the dead could speak, they'd talk to this man, the real-life Quincy, the Hollywood coroner who brought rigorous science into the death chambers of stars from Marilyn Monroe to John Belushi irUTERV/IEUU

B*^J ernoving Ihe key and ended in murder But the I ^^^ turning Ihe knob in burglar was hungry, so he had I ^^^ one quick motion, he a bite to eat before leaving steps soundlessly into the We found distinct teeth marks dark room "I love to enter Ihe in the cheese!" crime scene from the kitchen," The enthusiastic speaker is he announces. "People's Thomas T. Noguchi. renowned minute-to-minute movements medical detective and forensic are registered here. I routinely scientist. Bom in Japan in open the refrigerator to get 1927, he arrived in the United people's life-styles: the type of States when he was twenty- food they like, where they five and already an M.D. buy. how much they pay. how Noguchi made headlines in they wrap. In one homicide 1 1962 when he performed investigated, the homeowner the autopsy on Marilyn Monroe. relumed early, surprising He had been a member of Ihe burglar, so the burglary the Los Angeles medical PHOTOGRAPHS BY DOUGLAS KIRKLAND examiner's office a scant year when he got ing vital clues, invariably leaves the body the nod to conduct the star's autopsy, unexamined until autopsy. Noguchi, al- superseding his senior colleagues be- ways the iconoclast, is a proponent of the cause he alone was board certified in both spot test of the corpse at the scene. Evi- clinical and anatomic pathology. The pub- dence, he notes, can be everything —but

lic and Noguchi's peers were impressed rarely is it self-evident. Recognition of pat- with the meticulous quality of his exami- terns overrules "mindless collecting of lab

nation. Eyebailing virtually every square samples " An abstract painter, he envi- millimeter of Monroe's skin, Noguchi failed sions his task as "the reconstruction of a to find a single injection mark. Combining sequence of events, integrating every- his evaluation of Monroe's internal organs thing down to the minutest detail"—an in- with lab tests for drug residues, he issued trinsically artistic obsession. his often contested verdict: suicide by In the Seventies Noguchi began to ap- ingestion of massive quantities of Nembu- pear with ever-increasing regularity on ra-

tal and chloral hydrate. dio and TV. It wasn't enough to appear as Monroe's demise seemed to prophesy an expert witness in courthouses across the Sixties as a decade of drug excess. the country, presenting startling new forms Deputy Medical Examiner Noguchi, skilled of evidence to skeptical judges and wide- in toxicological procedure and instrumen- eyed juries. Noguchi seemed compelled tation, rose rapidly, becoming L.A.'s sec- to report his findings — to spell out scenar- ond chief medical examiner in 1967. ios in all their intimate detail—to the public. Scarcely half a year after his appointment, Critics felt he was more than just an exu- scientist acting a cheerleader for £ Forensic Robert F Kennedy was assassinated. Re- berant as membering the bunglings by government his profession. Pejoratively billed as "Cor- investigation is like doctors in the John Kennedy autopsy. No- oner to the Stars" and "The Celebrity Cor- guchi promised himself: Wo Dallas this lime. oner." Noguchi was accused of basking in moviemaking in He devised an unprecedented ballistics a rather tarnished limelight and of literally reverse. We arrive after test to pinpoint the distance of the gun trying to "steal the last scene" from Holly- muzzle from the senator's head and con- wood greats of two decades, the last scene firmed it with intrared photography of hair But as a scientist-doctor, Noguchi be- and from the evidence, shavings from around the fatal wound. In lieves, the chief medical examiner is a doing so, he refuted dozens of eyewitness public servant who must answer to his real roll the projector reports of the event that suggested the constituency—the living. Given the preva- backward, frame by frame, chilling possibility that Sirhan Sirhan may lence of media hype, the distortion and not have'been the sole gunman. fabrication of evidence in police and FBI to the titled If the RFK autopsy greatly expanded the crime labs, and the willful misrepresenta- notion of what constitutes relevant physi- tion of this evidence in court, the coroner

cal evidence, the 1969 Sharon Tate-La- is the watchdog for the quality of life in the Bianca investigation showed the ultimate community. Autopsy, says Noguchi, is "the value of "the psychological autopsy," or ultimate means of quality control for all character profile, in tracing an assailant. medical care." Also, abuse of children and Rejecting the police hypothesis that the the elderly, rapes and drownings, defec- bloody mass murder was a drug-related tive appliances, unsafe work conditions, vendetta, Noguchi called in veteran psy- environmental and food pollution, insur- chiatrist Frederick Hacker. Hacker's de- ance scams all fall within his jurisdiction.

tailed portrait of the killer fit Charles Man- That responsibility to the public ended son to a tee. in 1982, when he was forced to quit the

In 1969 Noguchi was fired for going over medical examiner's office. It was not the the head of County Administrative Officer public's disapproval of his alleged "public- Lin Hollinger to get increased funding. After ity-hound shenanigans" or "mismanage-

several months of heated debate he was ment of his office" that did him in. It was reinstated at a Civil Service Commission primarily money and the bureaucratic mind: hearing. Throughout the Seventies he The ghost of Proposition 13 had cast an waged an uphill battle to modernize his of- ever-lengthening shadow over all public-

fice and extend the range of its operations. works funding. And finally, Noguchi's all- He realized that he needed more than jus! too-graphic reconstruction of William Hol- increased manpower. Unexplained homi- den's last violent, solitary moments gave cides in LA. doubled and finally quadru- the county supervisors the excuse they pled in the Seventies; and although drug- needed. Meeting in closed session, they

overdose deaths peaked from 1970 to demanded his resignahon (Still numb from 1972, the sheer number of drugs in use, the news, Noguchi called up his office and especially homemade designer hallucino- was told John Belushi had died. Never one gens.- began to multiply. to wait on protocol, he went to examine the The Forensic Science Center opened in body of the dead comedian,) 1972, equipped with state-of-the-art au- During the months that followed. Nogu- topsy facilities and drug-testing, ballistics, chi instigated a civil-service hearing and and tissue-evaluation equipment. And No- —solidly endorsed by police, co-workers, guchi was among the first big-city medical and forensic leaders —won recommenda- examiners to put together a staff of spe- tion for reinstatement in February 1983. cially trained crime-scene experts. Nonetheless, 13 days later the Civil Ser- Death weds the body to the crime scene. vice Commission voted to override the de- And tradition, wary of unwittingly destroy- cision; Noguchi was fired. —

Despite an unsuccessful appeal, he is of an image—show prints or Impressions strument: It can tell me a lot about the cause anything but bitter. As a full professor of of an object contacting the body. Suppose of death. Generally a heart weighs about pathology at Loma Linda University, the a person has lain on a coin— it's maybe three hundred fifty grams, so if I find one

University of Southern California, and the two or three minutes after we move the weighing seven hundred grams, I know University of California at Los Angeles body that lividity changes. The exact only certain conditions could have caused School of Medicine, Noguchi is presently markings of the coin, like the configura- this—such as hypertension, arterioscle- instructing interns, residents of pathology, tions of the face, will be clearly apparent. rosis, and certain lung diseases. After a and postgraduate physicians in anatomic Omni: Is Alphonse Bertillon's technique drowning lungs often weigh between eighl and forensic pathology. He coauthored applied today? hundred and nine hundred grams, whereas Coroner, a best-selling account of his most Noguchi: Yes. Beriillon believed that a normal lung weighs about three hundred spectacular cases, and its sequel. Coro- everyone is built differently. He realized that grams. If a lung weighs more than a thou- ner af Large, in which he Interprets noto- by measuring specific body features you sand grams, there must either be a tumor rious and controversial court cases out- could individualize criminals so they or pneumonia. side his own jurisdiction and unravels couldn't disguise themselves. Fingerprint- Chronic drug use changes organ weight. forensic puzzles from history. Today he ing, however, replaced his method, Bertil- Narcotic addicts' lungs are heavy be- hasn't quite decided whether his third book lonage, so those techniques were pretty cause the injected junk contains additives. will be a study of the terrorist mind or an much forgotten. I, however, brought Bertil- The lymph nodes around the heart enlarge

"investigation of death by stabbing, con- lon into the twentieth century when I used and contain crystals— mostly talc, some- centrating on wounds and weaponry." the same techniques in the case of Elmer times fibers. Talc, like asbestos, scars the Noguchi was interviewed on four suc- McCurdy. There was a dummy hanging at lungs. Many lymph glands, the spleen, and cessive evenings at home in Pasadena by the Six Million DollarMan shooting location the liver are unusually enlarged because writer Douglas Stein. Finishing after 10:00 at Nu-Pikefun house in Long Beach, Cali- these organs are struggling to break down pm. on Saturday, the two drove off to cele- fornia. Some suggested the dummy was a and detoxify drugs. Drugs are hard, too, brate at one of Noguchi's favorite restau- mummy made of McCurdy, the notorious on endocrine glands, Often the adrenal rants. The Plum Tree, in Chinatown. Before glands, whose work increases with stress, taking their order, the waitress said, "Dr. show gross changes. Chronic drug use Noguchi, you are the second celebrity here also causes a wasting of the gonads. tonight. The first was Superman." Omni: Why your persistent fascination with the wound itself? chose to Omni: What does your approach entail? Q begin Noguchi: My interest in wounds and bruises Noguchi: The medical examiner begins by the RFK autopsy from the toe ties into the cause -and -effect relationship. visiting the crime or death scene to see for What caused the bruise and how long it's to make sure I himself the circumstances surrounding the been in existence help to identify the as- ' incident. Then he directs his investigators didn't overlook anything. I sailant. It used to be a simple distinction to interview witnesses and colled evi- ' didn't want to be between a recent or old bruise, but now dence— including the clothing of the de- we are recognizing more characteristics, injury alone. ceased. He supervises the documentation influenced by from which we .can learn a great deal. A of the event with layer- by- layer photogra- I was then bruise with scratches or abrasions not only impression of the but also phy. Specimens are taken for lexicological under very great pressure3 yields an object study. But more important, after the au- gives the direction and force of the appli- topsy is performed and data assembled, cation. Did the person fall, or was he struck he should address himself to the traditional by the object? "five W's" What was the cause of death? Bruises have a whole spectrum of color

Where did it happen? When il happened changes. The fresh bruise is usually pur- time of death —connects both to the se- Oklahoma-Kansas railroad bandit, killed plish, the classic black-and-blue —with quence of events and the reason why it in a shoot-out in 1911. Because bones don'l swelling. After a day or two it moves to pur- happened. The last IV, of course, is who— shrink after death and we had a picture of plish red, then reddish brown to light brown, the person responsible. McCurdy at the time of death, we were able and then yellow. Before turning yellow it

Generally,. a medical examiner does not to superimpose it onto an X ray of the often takes on a greenish hue. The cycle address these issues. He thinks that as a dummy. The skeletons lined up exactly, and usually takes two weeks, although a deep-

scientist, he needn't worry about them. I the identification was positive. seated bruise can take longer to resolve. think that's wrong! Only when you look from This technique can go both ways: Fo- Histamine and serotonin are the first chem- the standpoint of a lawyer, judge, or detec- 'I I'. :::!; icals to appear upon injury. We hope to de- tive will you be able lo interpret evidence. struct the contours of a face almost from fine these changes more in terms of hourly Omni: What instruments do you use to in- the skull. Perhaps you've seen the movie intervals by using the electron microscope vestigate a crime scene? Gorky Park, where the Soviet forensic sci- and sophisticated analyses that target cer- Noguchi: Many tools are such everyday entist puis the muscles and flesh back on tain chemicals and enzymes. items as the magnifying glass, six-power the girl's skull? It's a difficult procedure but Omni: We've arrived at the classic di- binoculars, and surgical forceps. Less well- useful in tracing missing persons. lemma: Did the wound happen before, known are ultraviolet devices for detection We tend to be preoccupied with the dead after, or at the moment of death?

of such fluorescent materials as lipstick and body, but I suggest lhai the body, or its Noguchi: That's always a great challenge. semen, and infrared for objects that retain surroundings, be examined last. Much evi- If it happened before death, the wound heat Portable X rays are used to see dence is actually staring back at you, but should show some tissue reaction, whether through walls, uncovering hidden bullets it may not be on the corpse. People often bleeding or first signs of healing. After

and other crime clues. ignore the ceiling, one area I always look death a bruise doesn't occur because

it, Occasionally I take a small lab to the to for clues. Spattered blood may be on there's no blood pressure to cause swell- scene. The great dilemma is whether to for instance. We've often found drugs ing. A knife wound after death, where the move the body or to examine it on the spot. stashed behind acoustic tiles. Sometimes skin is cut and subcutaneous tissue is ex- The degree oHividity, or discoloration, of tiles are replaced .to conceal bullet holes. posed, has a pale yellow appearance— the body is helpful in estimating how long Omni: Once in (he autopsy room, what tools without bloodstains. it may have been in a particular position. do you use? The couple of seconds around death is Lividity will pick up an almost Xerox copy Noguchi: Of course, the scale is a vital in- known as the perimortem. Blood pressure 108 OMNI is sufficiently down, so tissue reactions are debris that is invisible to the eye. (GCMS). It analyzes drugs down to the vague. The heart is no longer functioning, A man is shot, for example, and the bul- molecule and is essential to differentiate are various hallucinogens. could, say, dis- but blood is still fluid. If I give a severe blow lets go completely through him and lost. You by hand, muscles contract. Sometimes a How do we trace the gun? Okay, we excise tinguish between a billionth of a gram of blow at this stage will create the appear- the entry and exit wounds and place sec- LSD and PCP with it. ance of a bruise, but the swelling is often tions under the SEM. Because any object Omni: Have death rates for drugs changed lacking; there's skin and tissue breakage, passing through living skin leaves a tiny throughout the twentieth century? but you get only a leakage rather than a trace, we learn the composition of the bul- Noguchi: Drug addiction is, sadly, a con- hemorrhage, as when blood is actively let. Bullets are all different: A Colt is differ- stant in modern culture. Only the specific pumped into the wound. ent from a Remington. And there is the res- drugs change. Prior to World War II, bar-

It's often nerve-racking to deal with these idue of the bullet casing: When a gun is biturates and heroin predominated. Dur- phenomena—whether the person is still fired the pin strikes the primer, which ex- ing the Fifties amphetamines and other alive or just dead. But it helps in establish- plodes into gas, which pushes the bullet stimulants gained popularity. In 1966 and ing a sequence of events. Many times a into the barrel. The SEM can tell the type 1967 there was a heroin-overdose crisis, person facing an assailant is shot in front of casing— usually a copper-zinc combi- largely centered on returning Vietnam-vet and then, realizing the need to escape, nation. From a casing composition that's addicts. The period from 1966 to 1972 had turns and runs. He then receives several marred with barrel scrapings, we can often the highest incidence of drug-related more shots all over. The first shot shows a get back to the specific gun. deaths, mostly due to heroin. Other lethal typical full-blown antemortem [before- But that's not good enough for me. What drugs were barbiturates, methaqualone, death] reaction. But when the victim is shot about the primer? It's usually a combina- Darvon, and a combination of prescription through the heart, the blood pressure drops tion of lead, antimony, or bismuth . The bul- drugs. Today cocaine and phencycli- quickly, so tissue reaction is reduced, tell- let carries the primer material into the dine—PCP— are really endemic to L.A. ing us enough to establish the sequence wound. Primers vary from batch to batch. and San Francisco. of wounds. So somewhere in the wound track, usually PCP came on the scene rather sud- Omni: Rigor mortis is one of the ullimale denly. Unlike cocaine and heroin, it can be cliches of bad horror movies. What's really manufactured in a garage. You don't need going on? a degree in chemistry. Even today most Noguchi: Rigor generally develops after PCP busts-are made when the garage ex- about an hour and almost always in a de- plodes, the fire department rushes in, and ^There is this Dick scending order. The jaw and neck stiffen we find huge, clandestine laboratories. in the first, then the shoulders and upper arms, Tracy concept of the retina Generally the hot-water heater is ga- rage. The PCP process requires ether ex- followed by the fingers; and the legs are as a photographic last. Full rigor takes ten to twelve hours to traction, and ether is a heavy substance complete. This gradually lessens, and film: I see you, my murderer; that stays on the ground. All of a sudden, twenty-four to thirty-six hours after death, boom—the whole building is aflame, but should I die, usually no rigidity is seen. When rigor mor- Omni: It's said that PCP triggers violence.

. that image would remain, tis subsides, it is usually in this same de- Noguchi: More than any other drug—and scending order, with the jaw becoming like an electronic self-inflicted, too. For example, at five-thirty loose, the neck supple, and finally the leg one morning, while people were waiting for impulse, to be recaptured.^ relaxing— almost like magic. This top-to- the bus, a nude man was seen fighting with bottom order was a mystery for several a telephone pole. Then he began fighting centuries, but now we understand why. with the police and eventually suffered

After death oxygen is no longer supplied multiple gunshot wounds. But before that to muscles through blood circulation. The he managed to pull apart some Smith & resulting lactic-acid buildup causes mus- at entry and exit, these signs of primer, Wesson handcuffs. We were amazed when cle fibers to become swollen and coagu- casing, and bullet are dropped. There are we found they had not been defective; we lated, thus stiffer and stiffer. Why the de- all kinds of "fingerprints." One of my favor- subjected an identical pair to an engineer- scending order? Because muscle fiber is ites is the wound itself and its contents. ing stress test. It took over five hundred very short in the jaw, a little longer in the Omni: What about the transmission elec- pounds per square inch to break them. neck, and longest in the leg. When mus- tron microscope [TEM]? Sure enough, he'd broken his wrist in the

cles loosen, it's because tissues decay and Noguchi: The TEM is toxicological, not bal- process but felt no pain. Many studies have

the smallest fibers break down first. listic. It projects images of tissue cross failed to explain this PCP reaction. Omni: With the creation of the Forensic sections up to powers of a half million. We Another case; Another naked man went Science Center, you were a pioneer in us- can see molecules, viruses, and can visu- up to-his room on the second floor of an ing high-tech equipment for analysis. alize the damage done to cells in poison apartment building and jumped out of the

Noguchi: Decades ago we used only a cases. I have seen a revolution in drug- building, saying he was flying like a bird.

large magnifying glass to study wounds. testing analysis. When I joined this office He landed, got up, and then climbed to the breaking And we stilt use it. But in the last ten years in 1960, we depended mostly on paper third tloor and leaped, this time a we've begun to use sophisticated instru- chromatography. We could distinguish leg. Then he went up to the fourth floor and ments long available to other scientific Nembutal from Seconal this way. Next jumped farther, unfortunately landing on a fields. The scanning electron microscope came the ultraviolet [UV] spectrometer. This fence. He suffered major injuries and died. [SEM] is indeed our top weapon against uses a UV beam to project drugs, almost This sort of horrible incident is fairly typical: criminals. My department was the first in like curves on a graph. Various drugs show Once simply will not do for the person on the country to purchase the SEM with an different degrees of absorption on a UV hallucinogens.

energy-dispersive spectrometer. The SEM beam. Barbiturates such as Nembutal and Omni: With Monroe, wasn't it a question o! magnifies up to a hundred thousand times. Seconal are absorbed in a similar area. Gas suicide versus murder: whether the fatal The energy-dispersive spectrometer de- chromatography, which specifically iso- drugs were swallowed or injected? termines the. .com position of the particles lates each drug, was available but not fully Noguchi: The autopsy found a large amount magnified by the SEM and identifies the used in 1962, when Monroe died. Today of Nembutal and chloral hydrate, but the proportions of the various elements. Today our most powerful, definitive instrument is case wasn't typical because the stomach

the L.A. medical examiner's office-uses a a gas chromatograph hooked into a mass was empty. I did not see any residue, al- third -gene ration SEM to analyze wound spectrometer with a computer system though the stomach and gastric lining were 110 OMNI CONTINULDON PAGE 156 changes and distorted examples in a cry. Schmeltzer. (Not can build things that do medical di- won't contuse them, his real name but close in spirit.) Just agnoses and chess and interpret nu- Soon these networks could give

Schmeltzer. Like the night that we clear magnetic resonance spectra- us sophistic ' marched on his dorm room, chanl- grams," says Scott E. Fahlman, a n . ing "Schmeltzer, Schmeltzer, senior research scientist at Carnegie and speech-recognition and synthe- meltzer.'' Once, we leaned a Mellon University. "Bui we can't build sis systems that can handle reaf hu-

l can filled with water against his something that has the common man talk, Bronx accents and all. They uvui so that when he opened it the sense ot a five-year-old or the sen- may even guide unmanned, auton- can would fall in and flood his room, sorimotor capabilities of a rat." omous robots over the Martian land- When his cat disappeared the word Fahlman and a growing group of 9 spread that even the cat could not physicists, biologists, psychologists, ture machines, like human brains, will stand him and had committed sui- cide by leaping out the back window ing now on a wholly new kind of they'll particle might settle into a dimple on the and do that simple human task no ma- have to go through, but only one can pass surface. He calls his compuling units chine can yet handle— recognize the hu- at a time. "Each car may be very fast," he sticky there, neurons and the connections befween man tace. says, "but if you have a big truck in them, synapses. The work is now moving from simulation you're stuck." as One way to picture the system short of to real hardware, attracting money from the Neural networks, however, operate — complex, abstract physics Navy, the Defense Advanced Research though they had thousands of tiny tunnels. knowing a lot of imagine the topography Projects Agency, and NASA, Bell Labora- This finely grained and massively parallel and math— is to Francisco, with its many steep hills: tories and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory approach to computing gives computers of San .for and Nob, Telegraph, Russian. Now, suppose a are building the first neural chips, and TRW a brainlike tolerance fuzzy facts neural asso- skydiver, wearing roller skates, parachutes Inc., the huge electronics and defense vague instructions. For nets, cakewalk. of into town and lands on a slope of Nob Hill. concern, is already selling a commercial ciative memory is a "Some "neurocomputer" designed specifically as the general properties you get in these Naturally he'll roll downhill. gen- The first place where he slops rolling is a tool to speed simulations. systems are strikingly like some of the a stable state, one of many stable states in "In the long run what we're after is real, eral properties we see in neurobiology," city. Wherever the skydiver landed on humanlike intelligence," says Camegie- says John J. Hopfield, a biologist and the Cal- that slope, he would always roll to that first Mellon's Fahlman. "If you stand back and physicist who splits his time between to build valley, that particular stable state. If the look at brains, you know there's an answer tech and Bell Labs. "You don't have from the very na- skydiver landed on the far side of Russian in there somewhere." them in; they're just there Hill, he'd roll to another stable state, an- The brain is a daunting model. "At the ture of the theory." networks other valley. hardware level the brain and computer are Scientists had studied neural Each valley is a memory. The many vastly different," says Christof Koch, pro- in the Fifties and Sixties, when a simple computing units and the varying strengths lessor of neural systems and computation network, the perception, drew research- drew screaming of their interconnections determine where at Caltech. "The brain has chemicals. It's ers the way the Beatles the couldn't deliver and how deep those valleys, or memories, exceedingly plastic. II you look at a neuron girls. But perceptron are. Now, suppose you have 100 long-lost and then you look at it two weeks later, it friends in San Francisco and you're looking has changed its shape. It's constantly for one, a guy named Harry. Each friend bathed in different solutions. It's very flabby, has a different height, weight, age, hair not at all exact. If you do one experiment color, and so forth. Hopfield's equations set on one neuron and then you do it ten min-

'- Harry and each of the other 99 friends others. A single Purkinje cell, a high-level talk, Bronx accents at the .bottom of different valleys. If neuron, can have 90,000 synapses, the stand and all. They may even guide can remember only that Harry has blue gaps over which neurons transmit signals. you eyes and brown hair, you will wind up high When we remember, see, hear, or think, our autonomous robots seem on the slope of his valley. If you remember brains do immense calculations and over the Martian landscape.^ more about him, you will wind up lower. But to do them all at once in a great parallel each case you will eventually wind up at rush of computation. Whole fields of neu- in fhe bottom with Harry. rons join the effort. That's associative memory. You know a This diffuse architecture endows the little about Harry, and that's enough to bring brain with incredible resilience. A single In Marvin Minsky, out the whole memory of Harry. Each com- drunken binge can kill off 100,000 neu- on its promises. 1969 puting unit knows a little bit about what the is hangover. The MIT's artificial-intelligence czar, and coau- rons—yet all we get a elegant, al- other units are doing. This spreads the brain's connectedness also gives us as- thor Seymour Papert wrote an memories through the system, giving it a sociative memory, the ability to link one most gleeful mathematical critique of the of the re- brainlike resilience. If a few units are de- memory to another: to see Schmeltzer and perceptron and killed off most stroyed, the system still functions. It may, remember his suicidal cat. Perhaps the search. A few scientists continued work on however, show signs of machine senility, a best example of associative memory at modeling the brain's neural ensembles, but property as graceful degradation. work takes place every weekday night on many others followed Minsky and com- known Destroy a few circuits in a personal com- Wheel of Fortune, America's most popular pany into what is now known as traditional other hand, and you have TV game show. Contestants try to guess artificial intelligence. puter, on the with nothing but an expensive repair bill. phrases, sayings, titles, and names from Hopfield brought networks back a published his own There's a trade-off, however. While just a few letters. Last night, for example, vengeance. In 1982 he brainlike talents come naturally to neural one contestant guessed the name Telly elegant bit of mathematics, and it switched val- if networks, precision does not. The first Savalas after seeing only 7 of the 12 letters on minds around the country. Until then, electrical engineer what ley you settle into need not be the lowest, in the actor's name. She won a cedar chest, you asked an most stable point. If you roll down Nob Hill, an end table, and an umbrella tree and said, would happen if you connected hundreds unifs to one another and then you might come to stop at Chinatown in- "I couldn't be happier." A computer would of computing on to Ihe Financial have gone home broke. turned the thing on, the engineer would stead of rolling down solving problems this means that Computers do things step-by-step and have laughed and walked away. It was in- District. In you'd wind up a neural network may come up with a good do them very, very fast. But if one of the tuitive —everyone knew oscillating system. But answer but not necessarily the very best steps is missing, the fastest chips in the with a useless, wildly one. But then, this too is a very human trait. world can't help. Computers get stuck at Hopfield showed it could be done simply, Hopfield's theory looks good on paper. the Von Neumann bottleneck, named neatly. Hopfield proved that a network of It works even better in silicon. Most neural somewhat unfairly after John von Neu- interconnected units would operate by the networks are still software simulations run mann, the mathematician who set out the same mathematical rules as a particle roll- on powerful, conventional machines. But basic principles of modern computing. ing around on a sticky surface. He found at Bell Labs, Larry Jackel and Richard Caltech's Koch likens the bottleneck to a that the circuit would- settle into a series of the the Howard have taken Hopfield's theories and traffic jam at a tunnel. Thousands of cars stable energy states much way 114 OMNI tested them in prototype circuits. Their first tice" what features the animals have in chip, built this year, had 22 "neurons" and common and what sets them apart. The

It stored four short names machine will need most of one night to build SPIDER "synapses." 484 CONTINUED FROM FAGE 78 and acted as a small associative memory. these representations and by morning will to work with lasers, Witt enlisted him to If they typed in ic, it gave them rich. Trivial be subtle enough to "know" that a bobcat and house cat have much in common but perform laser surgery on spiders, hoping . . . and extraordinary: The system worked exactly as Hopfield's simulations had pre- are nonetheless different creatures. to discover precisely^ which nerve areas dicted. "The big difference between this In experiments with an earlier network controlled different aspects of the web. Spiders brains, or rather, ac- and a simulation is that a simulation takes Rumelhart found that the network had de- have huge about one second," says Jackel. "This veloped its own internal representation to cumulations of hundreds of thousands of very large cells in one enormous takes a millionth of a second " They are distinguish plants as a group from animals nerve first, mass in the cephalothorax. now testing their latest chip. It has 512 neu- as a group. This was a surprise at even rons and half a million interconnections. to him. "The hidden units develop an inter- "We shot around for a long, long time, How do you program a system with that nal representation, their own representa- but the evaluation process was very com- much complexity? tion," Rumelhart says. "They do this them- plicated. You have to take your animal,

in, it build webs, then Answer: Maybe you don't have to. A brain selves." Once, he trained a network to learn shoot your beam let You that for doesn't need a whole new program to en- the past tenses of verbs and found it made photograph those webs. do able a New Yorker to drive in Los Angeles the same kinds of mistakes that children years and amass hundreds of webs and of animals. Then you lake every on a first visit. So you build a system that have been shown to make. "The fact that it hundreds

have shot dissect it to can learn, program itself, or at least change mimics the way people do it makes me animal that you and slices of the brain and find out its circuitry to adjust to changing informa- think I'm on the right track, not only about get exact on. re- tion. Meural networks show promise here, the nature of the brain but also the nature where the damage is. And so The

I had hoped but in the process they hint at a tantalizing of mind," Rumelhart says. sults we got were not what a central paradox about intelligent machines. But his networks still need an explicit for. But there is a space— body system that seems In an office at the Institute for Cognitive teacher. David Zipser, a colleague of Ru- in the central nervous — func- Science of the University of California. San melhart's, is studying a system that, through essential in the coordination of all the Diego(UCSD), asimulated neural network a complicated trick of mathematics, learns tions that have to do with web building. Whenever we hit that, we got great de- is learning about animals. It is studying a in much the same way but doesn't need so struction of building." list of 55 creatures and a set of descriptive didactic a teacher. He does his research web experiment that Witt devised he was traits and trying to devise its own way of on UCSD's Cray computer, one of the One to observe firsthand. This was the representing these animals so that it can world's largest machines, housed in a glar- unable of building in zero that sent tell them apart in the future. A large com- ing white building at the opposite end of study web g Sky- puter monitor offers the only hint that the the campus. He is trying to devise a neur- two cross spiders into space aboard lab. fact that the spiders built at all, system is hard at work. On the screen a allike .network capable of recognizing real, The interesting cursor jags across a matrix of numbers, continuous human speech among differ- says Witt, is probably the most spiders adjusted to the ab- pausing now and then to deposit a black ent speakers. No machine can do it—yet. finding. The sence of gravity in a matter of days and square over a number and then to erase it Zipser is concentrating now on a tough only obvious distortion on some later pass. David Rumelhart, the set of problems, teaching the system to built webs whose network's creator and acting director of the distinguish between three sets of difficult was the lack of up/down asymmetry in the oval shape. threads of the webs ap- institute, prefers to call it a neurallike or sounds: ba, da, ga; bi, di, gi; bu, du, gu. The neural-inspired network. "The basic oper- For existing speech -recognition machines peared to be about 20 percent thinner in the spiders' ating principles are supposed to be the programmers list the phonemes, or indi- space, probably because of perceptions of their own weightlessness. same as we find in brains or the same to a vidual sounds, the machines are sup- on, however, the webs first approximation, "he says. "But we don't posed to recognize. But continuous As the weeks wore spiders imagine that the actual numbers of units speech doesn't as readily break down into became highly irregular, while the are the same, nor that the exact nature of distinct phonemes, Zipser says, so he's suffered from and finally died of thirst and tried feed the inputs or the outputs is the same." letting his system come up with its own way starvation (The astronauts to scraps in the webs, He has set the system so that one input of distinguishing sounds. It may choose them by placing meat out the offerings.) unit represents one animal. When the ma- phonemes: it may choose something else but the spiders kicked chine has finished learning, he wants to be altogether. "We are not biasing our system Although these animals were young, their the of old spi- able to turn on the bobcat unit, for in- in any way," he says Already the network final webs resembled webs stance, and have the network turn on an has made a discovery about sound. ders, built just before death. Retired for six years now, appropriate set of descriptive features at Say ba. It comes out as one sheeplike from research in Knightdale, North the output end. There are 34 output units, bleat. In fact, it is a more complex sound, Witt lives on a farm and each represents some characteristic with many frequency components. Using Carolina, and no longer keeps his stacks of animals. standard techniques Zipser breaks down of old library racks inhabited by hundreds Rumelhart teaches the system by pro- the sound into these components and pro- of spiders. He could capitalize on his knowledge ot the animals like some other gramming it with a set oi target values, or duces a sonogram—an abstract "picture" will spider lovers he has known. He could roll correct answers. If the machine answers of the sound. Two different people say

their sell it to the optical in- with an incorrect set of characteristics, it very different ba's, as will a single speaker out thread and cross hairs in instruments will send back signals telling the various who says ba drunk and then says it sober. dustry for use as interconnected units that they've made a When Zipser presented his network with like sextants. He could raise spiders tor all mistake, a process Rumelhart calls back 20 such differing sonograms, the network those clever high-school students who al- propagation (The black squares depos- learned to recognize each as representing ways want to start science projects in the are spiders avail- ited by the cursor indicate when these er- ba. Then Zipser tossed it a few ringers, ba'i spring, when there no not to. His only con- ror messages are being passed, or prop- it hadn't heard before. It recognized them able. But he chooses agated, back.) The network then 90 percent of the time, a good score. tact with spiders now is through his photos strengthens Jhe connections that move the The surprise came in the way the net- and memories; and it is purely aesthetic.

. . . tired system toward" the correct answer and work represented the sounds. It chose the "The web is just you never get intricate, weakens those that don't. vowel sound as one characteristic for of looking at it. It's so beautiful, so slight irregularities, which At the heart of the network is a set of comparison, but it did not do the same for so regular—with "hidden units." In effect, these units "no- the- consonant There was no "one sound/ are, naturally, the essence of beauty."DO ne OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 1M " : ,

^He's seeking out some of the strangest works

ever to (oil off the printing presses here on Earth.**

George Eberhart saucers and aliens m doesn't particularly warehouses. believe in aliens from The bibliography is space. But if they ex- Strong on historical isted, they'd certainly arcana as well The approve of him Even earliest entry is a 1534 mere Earthlings will be work by Pope Pius II. overwhelmed by Eber- who mentions a "curi- hart's monumental ous meteor"—an ob- book, entitled UFOs ject that would today and the Extraterrestri- be called a UFO. Even al Contact Movement the Nazis get into the (Scarecrow Press) acl. The most horrific This two-volume bib- entry might be UFOs: liography on UFOs Nazi Secret Weapon?, contains more than a 1974 book whose 15,600 entries cover- authors have political ing 36 countries and sympathies on the far 451 years. right. They claim thai During the day, some Nazis, at leas!, Eberhart works for escaped to the center the American Library of the earth, where Association as the they piloted a Luft- editor of its College & waffe of flying sau- Research Libraries cers and plotted the News. But on eve- UFDUFOTTE ultimate triumph d the nings and weekends "master race." this thirty-six-year-old Chicagoan pursues an interest he's But Ihe strangest material, according to Eberhar had since age twelve, when he read aboul a Venusian in the duced by a worldwide network of confactees, who California desert: He's seeking some of the slFangest works carry messages from the extraterrestrials. ever to roll off the printing presses here on Earth 'These books are full ot interminable, devastating Eberhart's book lists Cecil Michael's Round Trip in Hell in messages and rambling theological tirades," Ebert a Flying Saucer (1955), chronicling Ihe ultimate close en- dares, "but the authors do mean well counter. It includes a reference to Hollow Earth Apocalypse Despite all the nonsense, Eberhart adds, "thete - Asimov's Warning, which in writer Florida Benton deciphers solid residue of mystery in the literature of UFOs - the secret message encoded in all ot Isaac Asimov's writ- that's only iive percent of all Ihe cases ir ings: The earth is a hollow haven for flying saucers, and the an astounding number of real UFOs." poles are about to shift. It describes record albums like Mu- Most people who ask him lo recommeno a UFO book, sic From Another Planet, which contains tunes supposedly however, are more concerned with read" taught to New Jersey sign painter Howard Monger by a friend scary or just plain bizarre. from Saturn (Eberhart thinks the collection sounds more like "There's certainly no shortage of tha;

"Muzak from 1955 ") And it even documents the first UFO eludes. "If I've learned anything at ali Iron - movie, a grade-Z thriller called The Flying Saucer, which, that anything can get printed although otherwise forgotten, is the source of still-raging ru- > because it represents an amazing asoe mors that the United States government has stasried crashed the world. —JEROME CLARK Though we may newer know whether she lived in the Garden of Eden wilh a fellow named Adam, a recent study traces modern-day humans to a single ancestor: a woman who inhabited the African savanna some 200,000 years ago According to University of California a! Berkeley biochemist Mark Stoneking, the theory is based on a study of DNA from the mito- chondria, the cellular factories that turn food into energy. Stoneking made maps of the mitochondrial DNA which is passed on only by Ihe female of the species, in 147 individuals. Then, to deter- mine when the common ancestor lived, he estimated the mutation rate of the

DNA and traced it backward in time. He found that all 147 of his subjects would have had identical mitochon- drial DNA between 140,000 and 280,000 years ago. The probable starting point the African plains. These data are consistent wilh the observations of biochemisl Douglass C, Wal- lace of Emory University. But Wallace wonders whether Stonekmg's interpretation is correct, According to Wallace, Stoneking may have gath- extinction very rapidly ered evidence for a single Stoneking, nowever. points mitochondrial DNA lineage. to the basic evolutionary When Jesus of Nazareth But Wallace doesn't feel theory that Homo sapiens was crucified around a.d. 30, this proves there was a single descended from a single even Pontius Pilate was female ancestor "Because ancestor. "If you believe in a surprised that he died after mitochondrial DNA is passed single origin of life, then it just a few hours on the cross. on only by the femate." he all has to come back to one That fact has caused some says, "it will be lost whenever ancestor," he says. "The people to argue that crucifix- all offspring of a particular only question, then is when ion didn't really kill Jesus. family are male. Thus mater- and where that ancestor And if he didn't die on the nal lineages actually go to lived."—flick Doling cross, they add, it would be ' " . " ' ;

possibfe to accour would have resulted in severe later, supposedly miraculous, blood loss." resurrection. But after study-

ing historical writings, Mayo were thrown to the ground Clinic pathologist William before being nailed to !he Edwards says he has come cross, 'Thai would have up with a likely medical reopened Jer, scenario- Not only did Jesus wounds, increasing blood die on the cross, he most loss " Edwards say likely succumbed to either being nailed to the cardiac arrest or asphyxiation the weight of his body would Edwards points out that have im mobilized hi even before Jesus was cies, making breathing arrested, stress had probably difficult and shallow affected his physical state. If all this weren't enough, it

The disciple Luke, i was customary for a soldier stance, reported that Jesus's to pierce the crucified with a sweat resembled blood. spear. But Edwards believes "That," says Edwards, "de- that Jesus died before the scribes a rare condition Roman soldier stabbed him called hematidrosis, some- "His exhaustion, blood loss, times Induced by i and preshock state could emotional states." have led to arrhythmias and Following his arrest Jesus congestive heart failure," suffered more trauma His hesays. "I personally lean followers abandoned him, his toward the idea that Interfer- accusers flogged him and ence with breathing caused his death. been so persistent, n The important thing, Ed- that local novelist and wards adds, is not how Jesus OnU.S. Highway rian Katie Letcher L - died but whether he died Greenbrier County. Virginia, eidedtolean Andtheassumptujr . .ive of Zona Heas- for herself Lyle por« did not expire on the cross is old newspapers anri - at odds with the modern lame She allegedly rase from records and even inEe medical evidence we [foe dead to reveal her mur- cumulated.— Sherry Baker

spat on him, and he was deprived of food, water, and sleep And. Edwards adds, even times ttie beating Jesus received just prior to crucifixion was idsome blacksmith probably severe. 'The Ro- shady past that ln- mans used iron-studded r Be theft and two leather thongs to beat their narriages (one to a prisoners," Edwards says. woman who died mysteri- "Since Jesus's skin was ously), Trout married Zona in already sensitive because of late 1896. Three months hematidrosis, the beating later his new bride was found "

never saw the faith nealers in dead in their home person "I was a skeptic Her doctor labeled the their and I went to one of ser- death natural, caused by "an vices as a lark," recalls everlasting lainr But, Lyle Marilyn Holland of Jackson- points out, "records show that ville. "But when Willard local townspeople weren't said concentrate on some- so sure There were rumors to one you might know who that the head seemed unusu-

had a special need, I thought ally floppy and that Trout about my husband When 1 stayed too close to his wife at got-home, he had a new gold her wake, as though he didn't " filling in his mouth want anyone to examine How exactly does this her loo carefully." alchemy work? Soon Zona's mother was dental 'Everything in the universe, telling neighbors that her including our bodies, is dead daughter had returned made up of atoms," Willard from the grave to accuse dins "Theatoms Trout of murder. But. Lyle can be manipulated, and concludes, "it wasn't the w^en you get into the right ghost that convicted Trout rip with God, you Instead, there was over- have a great source of power whelming circumstantial evi- your disposal." dence, including an autopsy al But magician James Randi, report that Zona died ot a a member of The Committee broken neck." for the Scientific Investigation In fact, Lyle is convinced of Claims of the Paranormal, thai the ghost was a hoax, "i has another point of view. Her strongest evidence he adds, received of healing teeth in 1984. "Fuller has been repeatedly is a small article she discov- "Sometimes it happens in challenged by our committee ered in the Greenbrier Inde- any one of his pendent. Dated January Cavities supernaturally three seconds Hundreos to submit to proper examination people actually watch the ! cases 28, 1897, the same day the filled with porcelain Broken ot consistently refused paper reported Zona's death, teeth instantly crowned. fillings grow before their , and has 1 "And to so," Randi says, "if the story describes an Aus- Raw gums healed in a pain- eyes," Fuller explains do

it weeks is going to put crowns tralian who made up a story less flash sometimes takes God Jack- made of gold or porcelain in about a ghost of his own, To those who diead the JoAnn Dunaway of somebody's mouth, why "That story could have dentist's chair, this may sound sonville. Florida, for instance, - doesn't restore the original given Zona's mother the idea like the ultimate dream But says she experienced a He after the Fatal- ' tooth? After all, He made to invent Zona's ghost in according to Willard and dental miracle the original, didn't He?" order to catch Trout— a man Margaret Fuller, a husband- ka, Florida, couple prayed —Sherry Baker she had long disliked," and-wife faith-healing team and Willard laid hands on her. Lyle concludes. specializing in dentistry, "i got the prettiest gold —Sherry Baker they've helped 40,000 people crown you ever saw, in the "Mealing is a living process. over the last 26 years. twinkling of an eye," she greatly under the influence 'And over the next cou- ol mental conditions. It has "Even a stopped clock is It all started one night in says. that the , often been found right twice a day." I960 when Willard Fuller, then ple of days I received a 1 received in —Polish proverb a Baptist minisler, was "filled porcelain crown and a new same wound

l well in the with me Holy Spirit." Shortly silver filling. An old amalgam battle will do soldiers that have beaten, "For three days-atter death, afterward, Fuller noticed, even turned to gold." ' that would prove fatal in hair and fingernails continue whenever he prayed for peo^ Dental miracles have been attributed to the Fullers' those that have just been to grow, but phone calls pie, dental problems of

the per- , defeated" taper off." every description were su- ministry even when Wendell Holmes —Johnny Carson pernalurally healed. His wife. son who received the filling —Oliver 122 OMNI —

:,,' . .i at the University of Pennsylvania. INHUMAN BONDAGE like those of anyone about to commit her As the briefing session continued, it be- first crime, betrayed a neophyte's concern. came clear that there would be one devia- CONTINUED FROM PAGE 68 The group was to total five, and the last tion. This time, research animals would not mediately but had to confer with her hus- two participants, both males, had traveled be the primary target. The Head Injury band. When he came home from work tram outside the Philadelphia area. The first Laboratory, according to its leaders, had around six they- retired to the back porch, man was a law student who, like Valerie's been used to furnish information on brain where, over beers, they discussed the untried guest, was slated to have only a trauma and irreversible brain damage. But merits of the case. Her daughter had been supporting role in the raid. the laboratory, located in the bowels ot the invited away for the weekend anyway. Their The second gentleman was of a differ- building, housed none of the primates son would just stay with his father. They ent caliber—a veteran of the ALF and a whose skulls had often been fractured by would have to cancel their plans to attend coleader of the team. Valerie was espe- Dr. Gennarelli and his research associ- a party, but this would be no problem. cially eager lo see the Hacker {not his real ates. The monkeys, whose physiological

Valerie, in contrast, had fewer concerns. nickname), as he was known. He had be- responses had been measured as their She Was more free (o do as she pleased. come an old, trustworthy friend she had heads were compressed by a hydraulic Her live-in boyfriend knew of her clandes- come to rely on for wisdom and leadership jack, were apparently quartered else- tine activities and was highly supportive. in their joint endeavors. One of the elder where, but an inside informant had aierfed She was more worried about another statesmen of the organization, the Hacker the group to its real grail — a cache of sev- member of the family. "I have an oid dog, was a man approaching sixty, an avuncu- eral dozen videotapes, stored in the base- lar sort regarded kindly by the office, that graphically illustrated the a mixed shepherd, and I had to make sure who was ment that all her needs were met. Butsincellive younger women. As a survivor of the Nazi gruesome nature of the clinic's work. concentration 'As much as everybody would have liked with somebody, there was nothing else I camps, he had witnessed unimaginable cruelty toward in his to have taken the baboons," Valerie said, had to do but make sure that I had grocer- humans ies in the apartment." youth; and as the owner of a family grocery "clearly it made more sense to remove the But the night before the mission Valerie tapes because they were the evidence that became more anxious. She had come could be used to stop the suffering of many down with a severe cold and feared that more animals in the future. And in all prob- she might be contagious to any primates ability there was going to be an opportu- (not the humans) she might encounter on nity for only one entry." 477?e Hacker was the raid. She tried to calm her nerves by Having familiarized themselves with the walking the dog and then paying a few a concentration camp survivor University of Pennsylvania campus set- ting, the group listened as the Enguardant bills. Shortly before going to bed she tele- and had seen phoned her parents to say hello. delineated their separate responsibilities. The next morning Valerie ate a vegetar- unimaginable cruelty toward Three people were actually to enter the complex, while the two newcomers would ian breakfast of soy sausages and toast. It humans. Later he had been a long, restless night, so she was wait, parked outside. A second-story win- had developed a revulsion at more than eager to proceed. She dressed dow above one of the building's quadran- with care, choosing a pair of work pants, a the treatment gles had been left open, apparently by the same informant. This was vital in order to dark blue jacket, and tan hiking boots of slaughterhouse animals3 the kind of nondescript outfit a guard or circumvent the electronic security system maintenance worker might wear. Before that had been set up to prevent burglaries leaving the apartment she removed her of a more common nature. But could this ring, an old family heirloom that her aunt informant be trusted? Would the window had given her, and then said good-bye to really be open? Or would the police be her faithful shepherd. business and butcher shop in this country, waiting instead? No one was entirely cer- The safe house, a term once used by the he had developed only in middle age an tain, and the paranoia grew greater in in- abolitionists in their fight against slavery, abiding revulsion at the treatment of verse proportion to the waning hour. None- was situated on the outskirts of Philadel- slaughterhouse animals. theless, everyone knew the job involved phia. Located near the Main Line, the sub- The actual briefing at the safe house detinite risks, which all the participants urban house was isolated by a long drive- lasted about five. or six hours. The group of were clearly willing to take. way and had apparently been hospitably five sat on a couch and listened intently to Valerie, Mary, and their three colleagues abandoned by its owners for the duration a person officially known to them as the were each required to carry about $100 in of the Memorial Day weekend. The large Enguardant, a behind-the-scenes ALF di- bail money, and the Hacker was entrusted living room and dining room, even the well- rector who provided them with explicit in- with a larger amount—$1,000 in cash. This stocked kitchen provided a comfortable structions. Their target was to be the Head larger sum was to be used as hush money venue for a reunion of sorts. Injury Laboratory in the Anatomy-Chemis- in case the trespassers met up with a guard Despite the gravity of the occasion—the try Building at the University of Pennsyl- on his rounds. At last, after many hours of planning of a" major break-in— the emo- vania "We had detailed drawings and a deliberations, the Enguardant finished the tions at this safe house ran high. Mary model of the building that we were able to elaborate briefing. Sequestered for the du- warmly embraced Valerie. The two women examine thoroughly," Mary recalled about ration of Saturday in the safe house, all five were good friends. They had participated the planning session. Valerie remembered were forbidden to make any phone calls to in raids in the past and had even trained more gruesome images. She had known their loved ones. Instead, the group anx- together with ALF leaders in England. Mary only by hearsay about the work conducted iously passed away the remaining time by was relieved to know that someone as ca- by Dr. Thomas Gennarelli, then head of the playing Monopoly, in which going to jail was pable, intelligent, and lough under pres- subbasement primate laboratory But there only a game. sure as Valerie would be the de facto leader on the table lay a photograph of a rhesus The black van emerged later that night of the job. monkey in a tank with its head being from the winding driveway of the safe

On this occasion Valerie had brought slammed into a machine. Other support house. It was headed for downtown Phila- along a newcomer, a woman in her thirties .material was provided, including a recent delphia with a cargo of five humans and a who, ironically, held a job in the health tield. clipping from the Toronto Globe that out- ladder placed in the back. "It was shortly Unlike either Mary or Valerie, for her -the lined the nature ol the scientific research before midnight," Mary remembered. "We Memorial Day caper would be a rite of that was being conducted in his laboratory drove up and down the main street, look- 124 OMNI —

prehended while leaving the premises, they ing at the building and its doors from var- ductwork by the same inside confederate. would be bet- ious sides, trying not to look conspicuous." "We were prepared to break in to the of- felt that even half a treasure ter than none. At first everything went quite smoothly. fice," she- recalled, but the key was (here. first returning the van "there im- The informant had been reliable, after all. "Once we got through the door, there Upon to was relief, exhilaration," Mary re- Finding the window ajar, the Hacker scaled was a bit of a stir. All the lights were on in mense an

"I Everybody was the ladder and climbed into a second-floor the lab. Right in front of us there was a cur- membered. was ecstatic. Hacker I happy," Valerie added. The had office. He had with him the group's walkie- tain and a cubicle, and thought, Oh, my so return the parking lot with- talkie, necessary for communication with God, this is a night watchman, and nothing been able to to

it problem. sus- the two comrades who remained by the can be done. But it turned out that was out the slightest No one had build- van. Valerie and Mary quickly followed him just a little room that fed into a larger one, pected that he had broken into the ing illegally, exited like a inside, entering an office. The trio snaked where the device—the big hydraulic jack and he had leaving the night shift. cautiously through the corridors, proceed- was kept, Even though it was the week- maintenance worker celebratory champagne would ing, like escaping convicts, in single-file end, there was blood on instruments, on But the fashion around one corner at a time. bandages on the table, and on skullcaps have to wait. There was still the final es- after all Then terror struck. The Hacker was sur- that were put on the monkeys' heads." cape. Would the van be stopped sent I their in Mary was prised as he walked down the hall. Mary Did Valerie feel like vomiting? "No, felt efforts? Just case, on foot. hidden the tapes I ahead She had had not even left the office she had just angry. had been around things like that in the inside of her khaki jacket. climbed into when Valerie told her the cat- before. I felt somewhat frustrated but knew pockets black astrophic news. The leader of their expe- we had to get our primary business—that Apprehensively, she waited for the street corner beyond the perim- dition had accidentally bumped into an- of securing the tapes—out of the way. van on a other man, perhaps a student or a faculty "At the end of the big room was an untidy eter of the complex. member, and was forced to leave the office, where a metal cabinet had been left Strangely, Valerie was unable to savor triumph. As the car with building with this other person. "My heart open. It was really dirty, like a government the moment of her its through the slums of I stolen left me," Valerie recalled. The two women office in a basement somewhere. saw tapes sped were stranded without any communicating Philadelphia, she was confronted by the wandering, equipment to reach the outside or any sighl of dozens of homeless still out at two-thirty in substantial funds to bribe a guard. people. They were Like Valerie, Mary was terribly fright- the morning. Her indignation at the treat- of animals extended to all ened. "My initial thought was, This is hor- ment abused 477?e hydraulic species, even—much to my surprise— to rible, but it was just for a flash. My next "I of anger about thought was that we should count our jack was kept in the larger humans. had a real sense whal was happening in the streets and that losses and then carry on." Valerie wanted room. There was really be going to these to proceed as well. "The problem," she the money should were excited, and then, un- said, "is that you can't wait too long be- blood on instruments, on the people. We so expectedly, we were seeing the other side cause the guard will be making his rounds bandages left on the Philadelphia in reality. Here was the and you have to do your job fairly quickly." of table, and on the skullcaps The subterranean basement of the United States, the richest country on the of earth, and these people did not building was like a modern reincarnation that were put face the have the wherewithal to find shelter." of a cinematic underworld— an outtake the heads.^ on monkeys' raid had from Metropolis, Fritz Lang's vision of fu- The planners of the weekend seen to every minor detail, The organiza- ture life below the ground. The Head Injury flawless. At Laboratory was easy to identify, Valerie re- tional structure of the ALF was membered. "There was a dirty old stair- the safe house coconspirators were stand- the tapes. video way that led into the subbasement. They ing by, ready lo copy Four definitely didn't want anybody to enter the some old shoes on the floor. He [Dr. Gen- machines had been set up in advance. All they duplicating the lab. The door was made of metal and had narelli] kept no pictures on the wall. He was weekend would be kind of to playboy. He was sort material, 30 separate sets of tapes in all, to a strip painted on it with a big, red lightning known be a the as well bolt and a warning that read, electrical of the fancy-dressing, Italian-lover type." be mailed later on to media as hazard, do not enter. So we knew we were Wearing white surgical gloves, Valerie other organizations. two there was finally a in the right place. and Mary ransacked the laboratory. What- For the women incredibly "The lab was right next to the boiler room, ever mess the researchers had left on Fri- moment of relief. Mary was bottle of Miller beer at and even though this was the dead of night day, they would find a much bigger one on thirsty. She drank a there were loud noises from the shaft. The Monday. Boxes of all sorts were opened 3:00 a.m. "It felt very good to be able to sit pistons kept kicking on and off with the and rifled. File papers of interest to the or- down. It was now a matter of wrapping up ends. My job was done, and the ma- heating and cooling system. It was impos- ganization were removed. The computer loose sible to whisper to Mary or even to hear was turned on, and Mary sprayed iodine jor responsibility was in other people's myself. So the two of us just hid ourselves in its disk drives-; Test lubes found in the hands," she said. But forgoing sleep, the and waited. We could not have heard foot- sink were smashed The video equipment group continued to catalog the tapes back through the night, The highlight, Valerie re- steps if anyone had been coming down that Gennarelli had used to play into that room," scenes from key experiments was de- called, was finding one segment in which researcher commented, "Let's hope the "I was really shocked at how dismal it stroyed. And the dozens of tapes, many of a was," Mary added. "This was definitely not them detailing explicit torture, became the ant i vivisect ion ists never get hold of this." heading off to Valerie's apart- a space for animals. If you have any un- raiders' bounty. In fact, anything that would Before derstanding of them, you know how sen- have aided the researchers in doing their ment the two burglars had a final errand to sitive they are to things that are strange. To business was summarily destroyed in the run. Armed with a complete set of tapes, have brought an animal down here would course of the 45-minute assault. Valerie, like the morning milkman on his run, porch have made for an awful experience, even Once Valerie and Mary were finished personally delivered them to the front building for a well-socialized dog that had been they divided up the tapes. Mary took about of the PETA headquarters. The of then located in Tacoma Park on the taken everywhere by its owners." , half of them. She would take them out was After a tense 15-minute wait, Valerie the building, and the others would be left Washington-Maryland border. "I put them looked for an office key that was supposed in an outside corridor to be mailed later on. Ihere, and then Alex [Pacheco] was con- after the to have been taped in the air-conditioning In the event that the women might be ap- tacted." It was Alex who, viewing 126 OMNI stolen material, gave the purloined tapes their name. He had previously read a com- ment Dr. Gennarelli had made in 1984 to a Toronto Globe reporter. The University of Pennsylvania scientist could not under-

stand all the "unnecessary tuss" that had been made about his laboratory. And so the tapes, Alex determined, would be called Unnecessary Fuss.

Our six-hour marathon interview ended

less cordially than it had begun. I was ter- ribly eager to learn about the Hacker and

his Holocaust past. I hoped that he would provide me with a psychological profile and that he would be available for a meeting

sometime in the future. Valerie thought that this couid be arranged. But she insisted, to my great discomlort, upon comparing cruelties infficteo or an rnals with the crimes waged against humans at Dachau and Bergen-Belsen.

"If you could only look into their eyes, then you'd see the validity of the compari- son. And if [Josef] Mengele had looked into the eyes of his victims, he wouldn't have done what he did. When Gennarelli looks at his animals, he sees no reflection that says here is an individual. But Mengele's and Gennarelli's victims all felt pain; they were all afraid of what was happening."

I resisted her logic. Tears welled in my eyes, tears telt not for her laboratory ani- mals but for the grandmother Rosa I never knew, for my aunts Sophie and Ida—the latter two gassed at Auschwitz—all three victims of Hitler's madness. This was the invidious comparison Valerie was trying to make me accept. My grandmother was on a much higher evolutionary plane than one WOODSMEN DROP IN from all around of Valerie's rabbits or baboons. "You cannot equate the murder of hu- Tennessee carrying loads of hard maple for mans with experiments on animals. Hu- mans are wholly different," I insisted. Jack Daniel's. .This statement infuriated her. Like a bird of prey she swooped down on me, repeat- It has to be hard sugar maple taken from high edly attacking my logic.

I retaliated. 'Are you the Simon Wiesen- ground. Our gateman will direct it to the thal of the animal world?" "TheALFi" Valerie replied, "has the un- rickyard where it's split, stacked and burned into fortunate job of trying to pry open the door to let ordinary people see what it is that charcoal. And nothing smooths out whiskey researchers are so afraid of us finding out. We are the underground, the French Re- like this hard maple charcoal does. Of course, sistance, in many ways." At last we let the sensitive issue drop. none of these woodsmen Curious about Valerie's background and her psychological motivations, I asked a work regular hours. So you more personal question: "Do you think that your work with animals has supplanted a never know when they'll desire to have children?" The woman—who seemed to be approaching forty, who had drop in. But after a sip of saved dozens of dogs, rabbits, and pi- geons from laboratory torture— paused Jack Daniel's, you'll know briefly in thought. why we're always glad to "No, I have never wanted to have chil- dren. It is one of the first things that I knew see them. in life." Valerie's answer seemed much too

rehearsed." and I persisted, "But are your animals not a replacement for the children that you never had?" CHARCOAL MELLOWED FOR SMOOTHNESS

"As a woman I feel in some ways that my having, been v : c;imized by other maternal instinct goes toward those ani- mates crawling away in pain from operat- members ing tables. Besides such manifest cruel- raids, quickly rallied around the Penn re- mals that 1 care for. But I made a decision ties, the .tapes also presented a highly searchers. Dr. James Wyngaarden, direc- a long time ago that it wasn't right to have researchers tor of NIH, defended the clinic, describing a child, that this wasn't the time to bring unflattering portrait of the themselves, at work in a filthy laboratory it in a UPI news wire as "one of the best children into the world. I also believe in in James Watson, population control very much." environment. Mary had been right; this was laboratories the world." no place where animals would want to be. codiscoverer of the DNA helix, later stated, Despite Valerie's rhetoric I sensed that is debate now as to what is the the woman behind the blue rubber mask Among other research infractions, the "There a wasting time had been psychologically brutalized by her technicians wore no masks during sur- right of a mouse. Why are we cigarettes in Washington with taking seriously this past. She came across as too strident and gical procedures and smoked

operations. business? . . . This is complete and abso- pained a person, and her militancy in many during primate University of ways appeared a rebellion locked in a very Despite the evidence, the Unsatisfied with the response from uni- high gear. Was her work with animals an Pennsylvania quickly came to the defense Dr. versity officials, the ALF staged a second attempt to expiate the sins of a previous of the vandalized laboratory. Thomas University of raid on the Philadelphia campus. Again life? 'Perhaps Valerie's profound empathy Langfitt, chairman of the Valerie participated. On July 26, 1984, a for the baboons of Gennarelli's laboratory Pennsylvania Hospital's Department of of thieves broke into the School of came from her special ability to commune Neurosurgery and one of the chief inves- group Veterinary Medicine, taking with them a with these tortured creatures. Like her tigators at the Head Injury Laboratory, re- of three cats, two comrade the Hacker, she had witnessed jected charges that the animals had been menagerie consisting dogs, eight laboratory pigeons. unimaginable cruelties in her youth, she treated inhumanely. He stated that the staff and quickly before, the animal- volunteered. Her concentration camp lay of the clinic had followed the guidelines Just as as of rights publicity machines sprang into ac- thousands of miles from the furnaces of established by the National Institutes to Pittsburgh tion. spokesperson who identified her- Auschwitz, in an unnamed Third World Health (NIH), Speaking the A Lauren informed the Associated country where her family had lived as part Post-Gazette at the end of May 1984, Dr. self as Press of the raid. PETA brochures were of the colonial upper class. Was it E. M. quick to follow. In describing the break-in, Forster's India? She wouldn't comment, but article written by PETA conjured up im- the oppression that she remembered was an of Rambo-like rescuers, driven to il- now an indelible part of her adult identity. ages legal means to save America's forgotten "I came from a very well-to-do family," 6/f Josef Mengele strays. The same story covered the "liber- Valerie said, "and I was raised to turn a ation" in great detail, charging that the three blind eye to those people who had noth- had looked into the eyes of stolen cats, whom they had named Geral- ing. Until my twenties I just took it for his victims, he Ethel, and Alice, "had wires im- granted that everyone had such privilege. dine, wouldn't have done what he planted into their skulls that went through "But as uncomfortable as I was with my into ' their heads, down their throats, and I previous life, I am still trapped in what have did. And when their stomachs." The animal-rights group learned with animals. I would still rather be Gennarelli looks at his also alleged that one of the cats, the in Switzerland skiing down the mountain "beautiful tortoise-shell shorthair," Ethel, slopes or sitting in a chalet— oblivious to animals, he sees no was pregnant, and that Jasmine, a mixed all other things. I really would. But once you individual.^ reflection of an "depressed and have discovered what you feel moved by, retriever, had become during her captivity. The dog you can no longer change your ways." dehydrated" had, however, adjusted well to a new home Finally, after six grueling hours of inves- "adoring" the "affection and com- tigative questions and details, we were both and was panionship" of her liberated life. extremely tired. Valerie had revealed much Challenging such assertions, the univer- of what she knew about the Head Injury Langfitt said, "The animals are anesthe- that the animals had been break-in. She had not gone as far as blow- tized and feel no pain." Gennarelli also de- sity maintained under proper research conditions and ing her own cover but had disclosed per- fended the program vehemently following kept thetl had destroyed vital medical haps too much about herself. Quietly she the break-in. Both scientists maintained that that the information that would have been of value went into the bathroom and removed her medical research had been dealt a cata- Dr. Robert R. Mar- mask. Keeping up my own end of the bar- strophic blow by the theft of the material to animals and humans. and that their scientific investigations into shak, dean of the School of Veterinary gain, I retreated to a corner of the hotel the baboon and, ultimately, the human Medicine and a highly regarded figure in room so that I wouldn't see her face. She how national veterinary community, stated slipped into a tan jacket and a pair of brain respond to traumatic injury had been the in PETA oi the glasses that she had left behind on the jeopardized by the raid. Langfitt stated fur- that "the descriptions News pigeons, stolen from the vanity and was off, with a good-bye and ther in a UP! report that the clinic had "set cats, and dogs nothing more. the stage tor finding new treatments" to deal school . . . [were] outrageously false." with severe injuries. "They lied about the condition of the The videotapes stolen from the sub- Press interest mounted as the contro- cats," Marshak charged. And "the second ot study basement office of Dr, Gennarelli proved versy swirled. Several members of the ALF dog, Jasmine, was the subject a improving surgical techniques to aid in to be highly controversial. Thirty-two of in disguise, spoke briefly to reporters. The on them, containing approximately 60 hours New York Times carried an investigative ear drainage. The eyelids of one eye were together during surgery, of footage, had been taken in all. An anon- article on the nascent animal-rights move- sutured because ymous female caller telephoned the office ment"on its-front page, while the Cable a slight injury was incurred to the nerve controls the blinking reflex. The dog's of UPI in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, News Network aired portions of the video- that alerting the agency to the Memorial Day cassettes. Other television stations, in- eye was sutured on the day ol the break- in, claimed the dog's eye had theft. The press soon learned that the im- cluding the ABC network, refused to but PETA removed, which not true." ages contained in Unnecessary Fuss were broadcast the material, heeding the warn- been was staunchly defended the quite grisly The film revealed, among other ings of University of Pennsylvania officials While Marshak things, pictures of pistons being thrust that the tapes had been obtained illegally. research at his own veterinary school, he the through the heads of baboons, animal Given such coverage, doubts emerged was less supportive oi the activities at part oi the brains attached to twisted wires encased as to whether the lab would continue. But Head Injury Laboratory, then maintained that "ani- by metal helmets, and unanesthetized pri- the scientific establishment, many of its medical school. He 138 OMNI . "

its members from expo- grant infuriated the activists, who vowed to mal experimentation is really necessary that had shielded again prevailed, yielding the take more militant action. What good were because any drug or procedure thai will sure had a veritable "smoking gun," as be used on humans has to be proved safe grand jury nothing but a mountain of the tapes-— they saw it— if no one was willing to take on animals first." But had he been in- worthless documents. They felt that the time formed about the nature of Gennarelli's Today a Philadelphia attorney in private corrective measures? again, to take the law into studies 7 "No, we weren't aware," the dean practice, Rendell remembers the case had come, once differently than the animal-rights their own hands. insisted. How did he feel once he had been somewhat activists. "We tried to get voluntary com- Hanging a banner thaf read animal con- told? "I don't think I want to comment on a central office it." pliance from these people, but they fought centration camp from that. I don't know enough about every step of the way. These people building of NIH, more than 100 activists If Marshak, given the fact that he pre- us various animal-rights organizations sided over a different school, had not been were funny; they weren't like the Berri- from stormed NIH, one of the country's most informed about the conditions at the labo- gans," Rendell 'observes. "They weren't consequences, to be ar- prestigious government science institu- ratory, then who should have known? Could willing to take the their tions. They demanded that the leaders of the entire university administration have ig- rested and prosecuted and make confi- NIH immediately withdraw their financial nored the situation for 14 years? case in court. They didn't have the of the Injury institution. They Valerie rejected the assertion that the dence in their convictions. There's no backing Head remain on the premises until their dean had no knowledge of the lab's con- question they broke the law, but they could vowed to said, 'Yes, demands were met. While President Rea- ditions. "Ethically Marshak was bound to have gotten up in court and we is gan was convalescing after a polyp oper- know what was happening to the animals broke the law, but this why.' called jury nullification, ation at Bethesda Naval Hospital, directly on that campus, but he chose not to care," "There's a thing defend- across the street, the protesters munched Valerie maintained. "There are sixty thou- where the jury has the right to find evidence. on a vegetarian diet of bean sprouts and sand animals that are ground up in labs on ants not guilty regardless of the both worlds, grains, awaiting word from NIH officials. that campus every twelve months, and But the ALF wanted the best of sit- its point, but it The protesters, who had begun their Marshak has never lifted a fingerto reduce the group wanted to make in gaily on Monday, were growing weary or alleviate any of the pain in one of his by midweek. Many of them feared that ar- animals," Valerie said. "I've been inside his rest and jail were imminent. The outcome vet school, I've seen what he runs, and he seemed bleak indeed, but the knowledge is a Nazi of the first caliber." that Gennarelli was continuing with his ex- The Head Injury case was a story that 67r?e theft periments provided the motivation for them defied an ending. In late September 1984, their action. Alex Pacheco attempted to show Unnec- had destroyed vital medical to continue Stubborn as the animal extremists were, essary Fuss at an approved congressional information about directors of NIH seemed equally re- viewing, but pressure—which Pacheco at- the ' animats calcitrant. In response to the sit-in, the au- tributed to NIH and USDA—forced the both and humans. thorities ordered that the besieged build- screening to be canceled. A few days later Besides that, ing be cordoned off. Power and ventilation PETA invited the press to Philadelphia, "the descriptions of the cats, were blocked, as were normal access where the tape was fully aired. This special routes that would have enabled the dem- viewing elicited the interest of more than pigeons, and dogs precarious month nine peo- onstrators to receive food. A jusf reporters. Later that were false," Marshak charged.^ seesaw battle ensued. In order to survive ple were subpoenaed to appear before a from day to day, the protesters hoisted federal grand jury in Philadelphia. Its jurors blankets and meals that had been left by had been convened to investigate the first supporters in baskets on the ground. raid and to seek indictments. Among oth- their care packages were raised pulley- ers, Pacheco and Ingrid Newkirk, cofoun- These style by hand to eighth-floor offices, where der with Pacheco of PETA, were sum- didn't want to suffer the consequences. the activists had bivouacked themselves. moned to court. The D.A., according to The momentum that the animal-rights end in sight the demonstrators Pacheco, was going to "pull everybody in movement had gained from the raids car- With no to sang music to cheer themselves, rewriting until he found out what had happened." ried over into 1985. In contrast Rendell, jury stalemate some classic American protest songs to That fall the Philadelphia district attor- the group viewed the grand gave Julia Ward ney who spearheaded the investigation as a major triumph. Nonetheless, leaders suit the occasion. They Battle Hymn of the Republic" was Edward Rendell. A highly ambitious of the movement, including Valerie and Pa- Howe's "The a post-Civil War interpretation, singing, politician, he would subsequently make an checo, were frustrated bytheir inability to the glory of the clos- unsuccessful bid for the governor's seat. close down the Head Injury Laboratory. "Our eyes have seen appropria- ing of the labs/ We will pester Gennarelli till "Rend ell's political ambitions clouded his Appearing before a Senate driving cabs." Likewise, Peter, ethics," Valerie later charged. "They should tions subcommittee in April 1985, Pacheco they end up folk ballad have had him prosecuting Gennarelli, but vehemently attacked NIH for its financial Paul, and Mary's classic Sixties drastically to "if I Had a Hammer" was just as in Pennsylvania the university can be the support of laboratories that continued it "If I had a song, I'd sing tor strongest political ally [of a candidate], so perform cruel and unnecessary experi- transformed. all animals. stated that "NIH has the animals, I'd sing it for the creatures, he needed their alumni. It was clear that ments on He over this land" were the new lyrics that were they were just desperate, that there was a history of funding research projects that while the group rewrote other nothing they really could put their finger on," are conducted in a slovenly manner and adopted. And compositions spanning a century Valerie said. 'And so they were trying ha- that, although re-funded year after year, musical leaders impor- rassment and fishing expeditions." produce no documentable benefits for hu- of American history, its Heckler, then secretary of But despite the best efforts of men like mans." Challenging the contention that the tuned Margaret Un- Rendell, the university could not recover animals felt no' pain, Pacheco told the health and human services, to view fully necessary Fuss and to withdraw Gennar- its stolen property, and the prosecutors hearing that many of the baboons were funding. failed to make any headway. Several of the conscious "during and after the infliction of elli's the of "The Battle Hymn of animal activists, including Pacheco. took severe brain damage." True to words Republic," the activists would not be the Fifth Amendment. Since none of the In spite of such testimony, Gennarelli re- the July 18, 1985, 13 months after witnesses would talk, the investigation was ceived in June 1985 a new grant of moved. On Pennsylvania stymied. The ALF sanctum simply could $500,000 from NIH. The money would en- the initial raid at the campus, larger group had in- not be penetrated. The shroud of secrecy able him to keep his clinic in the black. The 77 hours after the 130 OMNI " "

vaded the NIH offices, Secretary Heckler imals themselves m such instances as the development of a vaccine for parvoviral ordered the suspension of all federal fund- TATTOOS afflicts dogs. "Without such ing for the Head Injury clinic. enteritis, which CONTINUtU FROM PAGE 70

The protesters had trouble containing experiments . . . millions of dogs through- suffered and went for his last haircut. It was just a small their joy. They hugged one another wildly out the world might have Nonetheless, the clump of hair that down in the back, in celebration. The facility, they believed, died," Marshak says. hung

it appearance of rebel- would finally be shut down after 14 years. dean admits that "these animal-righis peo- but gave him the Although Heckler had viewed portions of ple have done a great deal of good by liousness; the real thing would be here soon punkers the stolen tapes, she claimed that this had forcing the research establishment to clean enough. He turned his back to the groups, which with their orange hair long, bleached- not been a factor in her decision. Rather, up its act, but the militant and probably to exhibit his she spoke of "serious concerns" about the .have as their aim the elimination of all ani- white rattails, own.

for you," I said, lying, care that the primates had been receiving mal research, are not being realistic." "Nan, just wailing Dr. frying ignore feelings of loss and at the Pennsylvania facility. Two years after the ALFs foray into to my basement, the depression. Seeing Nathan had unnerved Dr. James Wyngaarden, the head of Gennarelli's subterranean

I if Nathan's wasting had NIH, changed his opinion in the aftermath case continues to reverberate. Gennarelli me. felt old, as of Heckler's decision. No longer was the has consistently refused to discuss the become my own. Head Injury clinic one of the top laborato- matter with the press and has declined an treating hu- spent the rest of the at the fair, ries "in the world," as he had suggested interview with Omni. He is now We day Dad's, the previous year. Responding to pressure man patients for brain-trauma injuries in had dinner at Mom and watched imposed by a top Reagan administration Philadelphia. But given its so-called happy TV, and left at about eleven. We were all

exhausted. I hadn't said anything to Laura official, Wyngaarden charged that the vid- ending, the raid has become something of

seeing Nathan. I would eotapes "indicate a material failure to com- a milestone in the history of the animal- about knew she

I want her up- ply with the Public Health Service policy rights movement, the stuff of which revo- want to see him, and didn't

activists set; at least that's what I told myself. for the care and use of laboratory animals." lutionary legends are made. The actually to previously Ben tell asleep in the backseat. Laura Two weeks later, in the wake of this new were able take on a

it watched out for deer while I drove, as my policy. MIH officials cut off funding for ani- unapproachable bureaucracy and make night vision is poor. should be the one mal research at two other institutions in respond, but given their need for total se- She

it hurts legs to sit—she Maryland and California. The momentum crecy, the participants have not become to drive, but her has arthritis. Most of the time her legs are was just beginning to build. Leading offi- public heroes. So fearful was the Hacker far as possible in the foot cials at scientific establishments through- of exposure that he declined, perhaps as stretched out as

all well. I fought Ihe numbing hypnosis of the out the country were finally taking a sober a response to his haunted past, inter-

all, mile felt like ten. I kept thinking look at researchers' experiments and lab- views with the press. He had, after been road. Every oratory environments. NIH issued new incarcerated once before and could not risk about Nathan—how he looked, what he guidelines, effective as of January 1986, another arrest. Mary was slightly more had become. governing animal research and visited forthcoming. Hidden behind a mask, she "David, what's the matter?" Laura asked "You're several institutions without notice. In the spoke in a Bethesda hotel room. It was the when we were about halfway home. summer of 1986 inspectors from the Be- first time ever that this mother of two had so guiet tonight. Is anything wrong?" thesda center were slated to make prear- talked to the press. She trembled occa- "No, I'm just tired," I said, lying. Seeing shocked and depressed me. ranged visits at oiher animal laboratories sionally as she recounted the details of the Nathan had throughout the country. raid. Only Valerie, her political rhetoric in But there was a selfish edge to my feel-

It I looked in one The effect that animal-rights groups like tow and her camouflage outfit a symbol of ings. was as fhough had

fun house; I PETA and the ALF have had over the last her defiance, seemed totally at ease as she of the distorting mirrors in the few years has been substantial. Through described her seminal role in the animal- had seen something of myself in Nathan. lurching out of a particularly hundreds of stories in newspapers and on rights movement. Ben yelped, forward, hug- television, they have launched an ethical While the Heckler decree in July 1985 bad nightmare. He leaned debate and created a public awareness was uplifting, the success of the Memorial ging the back of the front seat, and asked that simply did not exist on the same level Day raid was also underscored by a family us if we were home yet.

epi- "We've got a ways to go," I said. "Sit back, in the past. This ripple effect has been car- story that Mary chose to recount. The ried beyond scientific laboratories. A host sode she described occurred several days you'll fall asleep." back here." of other facilities — including slaughter- after the initial raid in 1984. "I'm cold temperature I had houses, fur companies, and cosmetics "After the news broke, my daughter said, turned up the heat; the concerns—have been targeted for con- 'Mom, did you hear about what happened dropped at least fifteen degrees since the gave sumer boycotts, raids, and peaceful pro- at the University of Pennsylvania?' afternoon. "The freak show probably tests by the lobbyists. The activists see their Mary's heart fluttered a bit. She was you nightmares; it always did me." mission as just beginning. fearful thai her daughter knew. "What did "That's not it." Ben insisted. Leading scientists, while respecting you hear?" the mother replied. "I don't know what's wrong with your no busi- many of the goals of the movement, point "She said she had seen a picture of a grandfather," Laura said. "He had out that the animal cause can be taken to primate that had had its head in sutures. ness taking you in there. He should have dangerous extremes. They charge that She described this device that snaps their his head examined." nothing to many of the leaders of animal organiza- brains, and then she said, 'Isn't that the "I told you," Ben- said, "it had tions are fanatics whose fight to ban all an- worst thing you have ever heard of, Mom?' do with that."

it to talk about it?" I asked, imal experimentation will ultimately impede And I agreed that was pretty awful. She "You want medical research on humans. Without the asked mewhether the animals could feel "No," Ben said, but he didn't sit back in kept his face just us. existence, for example, of laboratory chim- the pain. I told her that they had, in fact, not his seat; he behind sit said "If we panzees, scientists would be unable to been given any" proper anesthetic and that "You should back,"— Laura carry out their research on hepatitis and they were very much aware and conscious got into an accident said. silence for AIDS, since only these primates, in addi- and that it was a horrible thing. "Okay," Ben There was tion to humans, appear to be able to con- "What was rewarding to me was thai she a minute, and then he said, "You know who tract these diseases. Dean Marshak insists was so pleased- that somebody had done I dreamed about?" that his school's animal subjects have been something to stop it. And she said, 'Mommy, "Who?" I asked. used not only to further our understanding you don't think they will ever do that again, "Uncle Nathan."

I automatically looking of human diseases but also to help the an- do you?' And I said, 'I hope not.' "DO straightened up, 132 OMNI the sort to getting tattoo, although that made a static-y, electric noise, and began I knocked on the door. Nathan didn't be a seem surprised to see me; he welcomed probably didn't mean a thing. Anyone could tattooing her wrist. I watched him work; he senators, didn't to said. me inside. It was warm in the trailer, close, have hidden tattoos: old ladies, seem have heard a word she and Nathan was wearing a Sixties' hippie- presidents. Didn't Barry Goldwater brag He looked tense and bit his lip, as if it were style white gauze shirt; the sleeves were that he had two dots tattooed on his hand his own wrist that was being tattooed. "I long and the cuffs buttoned, hiding the to represent the bite of a snake? knew Mengele," the woman continued. "Do

"I'll in few minutes," Nathan you know who he was?" she asked Na- I done scars I had seen yesterday. Again felt a be a shock at seeing him so gaunt, at seeing said to me. "Sit down. Would you like a than. Nathan didn't answer. "Of course you

If nice-looking I think. you're do," said. such the webbed scars on his neck. Was I re- drink? I've got some beer, she "He was a turning to my friend's out of morbid curi- hungry, I've got soup oh the stove." Nathan man. Kept his hair very neat, clipped his vegetarian; to mustache, and he had blue eyes. Like the osity to see what he had become? I felt was a he always used make start sky. in was gray, guilty and ashamed. Why hadn't 1 sought the same miso soup, which he'd when Everything else the camp every morning. the sky would get black from the fur- out Nathan before this? If I had been a bet- he got up in the morning, and

"If don't mind, I'll just sit," I said, and naces, like the world was turned upside ter friend, I probably would have. you to talk while Walking into his studio was like stepping I sat down on an old green Art Deco couch. down." She continued Nathan into his paintings, which covered most of The living room was made up of the couch, worked, but she grimaced from the pain. the available wall space. Nathan was two slat-back chairs, and a television set I tried to imagine what she might have known for working on large canvases, and on a battered oak desk. The kitchenette looked like when she was young and in the

It have been Auschwitz, I some of his best work was in here—paint- behind Nathan's work area had a stove, a camp. would refrigerator, and table attached to surmised, if Mengele was there. ings I had seen in progress years ago. On small a the wall opposite the door was a painting the wall. And indeed, I could smell the fa- But why was a Jew getting a tattoo? of a nude man weaving a cat's cradle. The miliar aroma of Nathan's soup. Perhaps she wasn't Jewish. light was directed from behind, highlight- "David, this is Mrs. Stramm," Nathan said, And then I noticed that Nathan's wrist was ing the shoulders and arms and the large, and he seemed to be drawn toward me, bleeding. Tiny beads of blood soaked peasant hands. The features oi the face through his long-sleeved shirt, which was were blurred but unmistakably Nathan's. like a blotter.— "Nathan " I said as I reflexively stood Beside it was a huge painting of three cir- cus people, two jugglers standing beside up. But Nathan looked at me sharply and awoman. Behind them, in large red letters, shook his head, indicating that I should stay 4He looked We'll talk was the word circus. The faces were or- where I was. "It's all right, David.

it later." dinary and disturbing, perhaps because ill, as if he had absorbed the about

that. There was another painting on the I sat back down and watched them, of sickness of his wall where Nathan had set up his tattoo mesmerized. studio. A self-portrait. Nathan wearing a patrons, taking their poison into Mrs. Stramm stopped talking; she

shirt, and apron and ' seemed calmer now. There was only the blue worker's hat, red - himself and giving standing beside a laboratory skeleton. And sound of the machine and the background into back life. He was turning a noise of the fair. The air seemed heavier in there were many paintings I had never seen: a whole series of tattoo paintings, ghost or a shadow. the darkness, almost smothering. "Yester- which at first glance looked to be nonrep- day you told me that you came here to see Not even his tattoos had coior^ resentational, until the designs of figures me to find out about your husband," Na- on flesh came into focus. There were sev- than said to her. "You lied to me, didn't you?" eral paintings of gypsies. One in particular "I had to know if he was alive. He was seemed to be staring directly at me over strong; he could have survived. I left mes- tarot cards, which were laid out on a table sages through the agencies for him when

Italy. I strewn wilh glasses. There was another away from Mrs. Stramm, who looked ner- I was in couldn't stand to go back to

I painting of an old man being carried from vous. I wanted to talk with him . . . connect Germany. thought to go to South Amer-

I Paulo." his deathbed by a sad-faced demon. Na- with him , . . find the man I used to know. ica; had friends in Sao than had a luminous technique, an exe- "Mr. Tarot," the woman said, "I'm ready "You came to America to cut yourself off cution like that of the old masters. Between now; you can go ahead." from the past," Nathan said in a low voice. the paintings, and covering every avail- Nathan sat down in the chair beside her "You knew your husband had died. I can feel that you buried him ... in your heart. able space, was flash — not the flash that I and switched on a goosenecked lamp, had seen outside but detailed, colored de- which produced an intense white light. The But you couldn't bury everything. The tat- signs and drawings of men and animals flash and paintings in the room lost their too is changing. Do you want me to stop? and mythical beasts, as grotesque as any- fire and brilliance as the darkness in the I have covered the numbers."

gain substance. I couldn't what design he had made. thing by Goya. I was staring into my own trailer seemed to see nightmares. The bluish light that comes just "Do you think you can help me?" she Her wrist was bleeding, though. . .as was before dark suffused the trailer, and the asked. "Do youthink it will work?" his. Then she began to cry and suddenly shadows seemed to become more con- "If you wish to believe in it," Nathan said. seemed angry. But she was directing her crete than the walls or paintings. He picked up his electrical tattoo machine, pain and anger at herself.

it, then her wrist, Nathan stopped working but made no The older woman I had seen on Sunday examined and examined was back. She was sitting in Nathan's stu- where the concentration-camp tattoo had move to comfort her. When Mrs. Stramm's dio in what looked like a variation of a den- faded into seven smudgy blue marks. crying subsided and she regained control

said, "I tist chair. Beside the chair were a cabinet "You know, when I got these numbers at of her breathing, she murdered my and. a sink with a high, elongated faucet, the camp, it was a doctor who put them infant. I had help from another, who thought life." sur- the kind usually seen in examination rooms. on. He was a prisoner, like I was. He didn't she was saving my She seemed Pigments, dyes, paper towels, napkins, have a machine like yours. He worked for prised at her own words. bandages, charcoal for stencils, needle Dr. Mengele." She looked away- from Na- "Do you want me to stop?" Nathan asked tubes, and bottles of soap and alcohol were than while she spoke, just as many people again, but his voice was gentle. think; you're the tattoo- neatly displayed beside an autoclave. 1 was look away from a nurse about to stick a "You do what you i surprised to see this woman in the chair, syringe in their vein. But she seemed to ist." Nathan began again. Mrs. Stramm

it just nerves. continued talking, though she still looked even though I knew she had been desper- need to talk. Perhaps was ate to see Nathan. But she just didn't seem Nathan turned on his instrument, which away from the machine. But she talked in 136 OMNI .

that nothing could be done sensed that something else was happen- a low voice now. I had to lean forward !o me. She told me hear her. My eyes were fixed on Nathan's for my baby. And after they had finished ing between them. Something seemed to wrist; the dots of blood had connected into their experiment and killed my son, then I be passing out of her, a dark, palpable

I in the room. a large, bright stain on his shirt cuff. would be killed also; it was the way it was spirit. could feel its presence par- somehow different, "I was only seventeen," Mrs. Stramm done. Dr. Mengele killed all surviving And Nathan looked

comparison. more defined. It the light tram the lamp, continued. 'Just married and pregnant. I ents and healthy siblings for was had my baby in the camp, and Dr. Men- My only hope, she said, was to kill my baby no doubt, but some kind of exchange 'naturally' taking pTace. Stolid, solid gele delivered it himself. It wasn't so bad myself. If my baby died before seemed to be his experiment, then he Mrs. Stramm looked softer, as if lighter, I began in the hospital. I was taken care of as if Mengele in- were in a hospital in Berlin. Everything was might let me live. I remember thinking to while Nathan looked as ravaged as an

if that it only I could save ternee. It was as he were becoming de- nice, clean. I even pretended that what was myself was the way going on outside the hospital in the camp, my baby from the agony of a terrible death fined by this woman's past. of When Nathan was finished he put his in- in the ovens, wasn't true. When I had the at the hands Mengele. cabinet taped I strument the and baby— his name was Stefan— everything "So I suffocated my baby. pinched his down on was perfect. Dr. Mengele was very careful nose and held his mouth shut while my some gauze over his own bleeding wrist. at his work on Mrs. when he cut the cord, and another doctor friend held us both and cried for us. I re- Then he just stared where assisted him, a Jewish doctor from the member that very well. Dr. Mengele learned Stramm. I couldn'l see the tattoo from camp. Ach!" she said, flinching; she looked of my baby's death and came to the bar- I was sitting, so I stood up and walked over. down at her wrist, where Nathan was work- racks himself. He said he was very sorry; "Is it all right if I take a look?" I asked, but me; neither one ing, but she didn't say a word about the and, you know, 1 believed him. I took com- neither one answered blood soaking through his shirtsleeve. She fort from the man who had made me kill seemed to notice me. lifelike in a way I to kill The tattoo was beautiful, seemed to accept it as part of the process. my child. should have begged him

I not thought possible for a marking on Nathan must have told her what to expect. me. But I said nothing." had He stopped and refilled his instrument. "What could you have done?" Nathan the flesh. It was the cherubic face of an asked. "Your child would have died no angel with thin, curly hair. One of the num- "But then I was sent to a barracks, which shading for the was filthy but not terribly crowded," she matter what. You saved yourself; that was bers had now become the continued. "There were other children in all you could do under the circumstances." angel's fine, straight nose. Surrounding the feathered that there, mutilated. One set of twins had been "Is that how you would have felt if you face were dark, wings impossible fig- sewn together, back to back, arm to arm; were me?" crossed each other— an beautiful one. and they smelled terrible. They were an ex- "No," Nathan said, and a sad smile ap- ure, but a hauntingly sad and tor instant inappropriate The eyes seemed to be looking upward periment, of course. I knew that my baby peared an — an response, yet somehow telling. and outward, as if contemplating a high and I were going to be an experiment. station of The numbers were lost There was a woman in the barracks look- .Mrs. Stramm stopped talking and closed paradise. blue-blackness of lifting wings. This ing after us. She couldn't do much but her eyes. It was as if she and Nathan were in the

I looked familiar, which was not sur- watch the children die. She felt sorry for praying' together. 1 could feel that, and figure prising, as Nathan had studied the work of

the masters. 1 remembered a Madonna, attributed to the Renaissance artist Loren- zo di Credi, that had two angels with wings such as those on the tattoo. But the tat- tooed wings were so dark they reminded me of death; and they were bleeding, an

incongruous testament to life.

I thought about Nathan's bleeding wrist

and wondered. . .

"It's beautiful," Mrs. Stramm said, star-

ing at her tattoo. "It's the right face; it's the

way his face would have looked . . . had he lived." Then she stood up abruptly. Na- than sat where he was; he looked ex-

hausted, which was how I suddenly felt.

"I must put a gauze wrap over it," Na- than said. "No, [wish to look at him," "Can you see the old numbers?"

"No," she said at first, then, "Yes, I can see them." "Good," Nathan said.

She stood before Nathan, -and I could now see that she had once been beautiful; big-boned, proud, full-bodied, with a strong chin and regal face. Her fine, gray hair had probably been blond, as her eyebrows were light. And she looked relieved, re-

leased. I couldn't help but think that she seemed now like a woman who had just given birth. The strain was gone. She no longer seemed gravid with the burden of sorrow. But the heaviness had of trouble to "It just seems like an awful lot g not disappeared from the room, for I through to neuter two cats." could feel the psychic closeness of grief

like stale, humid air. Nathan looked wasted L 1

the sharp, cleansing, focused light.

"Would you mind if I looked at your tat- POOR ART? too?" Mrs. Stramm asked. "I'm sorry," Nathan said. Mrs. Stramm nodded, then picked up her handbag and took out her checkbook. "Will you accept three hundred dollars?"

"No, I cannot. Consider it paid." She started to argue, but Nathan turned away from her. "Thank you," she said, and walked to the door, Nathan didn't answer. He turned on the overhead light; the sudden change from darkness to light un- nerved me.

"Tell me what the hell's going on," I said. "Why did your wrist start bleeding when you were tattooing that woman?"

"It's part of the process," Nathan said vaguely. "Do you want coffee?" he asked, changing the subject—Nathan had a way THE SWORD OFHWSCHEi from "COMET" of talking any subject, peeling away from Mimas) around (Saturn by Cilj ^^ 3nd fi^ Qruyan layers as if conversation were an onion; he

eschewed directness. Perhaps it was his rabbinical heritage. At any rate, he wasn't

going to tell me anything until he was ready.

I nodded, and he took a bag of ground coffee out of his freezer and dripped a pot

in the Melitta. As we sat down at the table

I felt an overwhelming lassitude come over featured in SKY &. TELESCOPE ] CUMULO-NIMBUS me. My shoulder began to ache ... to

throb. I worried that this might be the onset

of anolher heart attack (I try notto pay at- tention to my hypochondria, but those

still flash through my mind, no TUCSON, HZ 85740-7197 thoughts it matter how rational I try to be). Surely

was muscular, I told myself: I had been

. An outstanding watch value: on land, at sea, and underwater .. wrestling with my son last night I needed

to start swimming again at the Y I was out

Navigator™ Watch of shape, and right now I felt more like sixty- Now, with new ratcheted safety two than forty-two. After a while the coffee $AG95* cleared my head a bit it was a very, very bezel, and still only ^*±i?— — blend, Pico, I think but the atmos- 'But read the ad for an even better deal! strong — still I'.' dive. Navi- inside the trailer was oppressive, . this vvl:U:!i in work, to play. swim and The phere i iiltTii-accuiate even with the overhead light turned on. It

: liny mcr- if the was as I could fee/ shadows. airvtcU.'Ilsiitnildlbisratifvi^hU'iiiOiahirL-'t-frjivviiijniC'd here yesterday," I ' "I saw Mrs. Stramm v.oi.h i 1 1 'iumit r i i

' i.i viriv l h in Nathan. "She seems [ Ddispl It.iji dual said, trying to lead LCD display shows lime continuously — in 12-hr. or Jewish; strange that she should be getting 24-hr. mode. Push the button -ind vou display day and a tattoo. Though maybe not so strange, date. There is a subtl lai m md a switch she came to a Jewish tattooisi." I able hourly time signal the stopwatch/chronograph since reads to 1/100 sees, and has "interrupt" and 'Tap" modes. forced a iaugh and tried not to stare at the A light switch illuminates the display. thin webbing of scars on his neck. e':,.:cuied in black The Navij&iO'" Wi-nviiv, '.iin/iei'waiei than you had litical reasons. Her family was caught will neier scrakh. planned. The crvslrJ is ''mi.iorjl i;l.ass'—ii ing Jews." We import these nut "It's odd that she'd come to you for a quantities

I said. "She ivatcli '.-120 tattoo to cover up her numbers," .hi L..ji.iio^ liouw-s i iffer the idenrir.il for or more. v; But here is an could have had surgery. You'd hardly be

&).W, ,>?iJ it-SIl send youa able to tell they'd ever been there." FREE wtStourcowplwientS.l!See liuaiom absolutely "That's not why she came." !..'! ... : ."

"Nathan. . . [:.-,].. ,:iT ~n;v[i.:E, h-,\-. i ; order "Most of the people just want tattoos," TOLL FREE (800) 431-9003 Nathan said. He seemed slightly defen- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week sive, and then he sighed and said, "But Please give order *1015B671. If vou prefer, mail

sometimes I get people like Mrs. Stramm. diets or i-iiiti iiu!hi.>:-izaiion.:ri.Je-.p::v-iliLirida!e. We need daytime phmic- for a'J (rd.---.3iiii issumj; l:ur;k Word gets around, word of mouth. Some-

''• l-- .1 iiv 1 1' ii : - "l l i.hnutthis for 1 1. !•.... i. i times I can sense things, see things about

' ;,. iim. . I people when I'm tattooing. It's something .Ai;;.:..'... 5(1.95 lor three "uld sales lax for CA deliv- ery. You have ?0-dayre',u:r, and i.in,-.y?dr'.v.:Li-i:iny. like automatic writing, maybe. Then the tat- too takes on a life of its own. and some- times it changes the person 1 tattoo."

"This whole thing ... it seems com-

pletely crazy," I said, remembering his paintings, the large canvases of circus people, carny people. He had made his reputation with those melancholy, poi- gnant oil paintings. He had traveled, fol- lowed the carnies. Ruth didn't seem to mind. She was independent and used to travel quite a bit by herself also; she was fond of taking grueling, long day trips. Like

Nathan, she was full of energy. [ remember that Nathan had been drawn to tattooing through circus people. He visited tattoo studios and used them for his settings. The paintings he produced then were haunted; and he became interested in the idea of living art, the relationship of art to society, the numinous, symbolic quality of primitive

art. It was only nafural that he'd want to try tattooing, which he did. He had even tat- tooed himself—a tiny raven that seemed to be forever nestled in his palm. But that had been a phase, and once he had had his big New York show, he went on to paint ordinary people; and his paintings were selling at more than five thousand dollars

apiece. I remembered ribbing him for tat-

tooing himself. I had told him he couldn't be buried in a Jewish cemetery. He had said that he had already bought his plot. Money talks.

"How's Ruth?" I asked, afraid of what he would tell me. He would never be here, he

would never look like this, if everything was all right between them. Peppermint Sfrowberry Roof Seer Apple Licorice 48-90 Proof Liqueurs- Hiram Watte' Incorporated, Formmgfon Hills, Ml® 1986 "She's dead," he whispered, and he took a sip of his coffee.

"What?" I asked, shocked. "How?" "Cancer, as she was always afraid of." The pain in my shoulder became worse, JOHN-DAVID ASKS: and I started to sweat It seemed to be get- ting warmer. Is Your Brain, "How could all this happen without Laura Your Success Worth $295. or me knowing about it?" I asked. "I just can't believe it." BeyondSubliminal™ Tapes "Ruth went back to Connecticut fo stay with her parents." "BRAIN-MJND-EXPANSION"™ "ELIMINATE SELF-SABOTAGE" "Why?" ... OR EVEN $1,400? "David," Nathan said, "I knew she had Only you can decide how val- yfiCareer cancer, uable you ! brain is or how much tsive. no- holds-barred, even when she wenf in for tests 4 Tapes, Complete you invest in becoming jiKeess- 5i it. Complete SaS29S.

all out negative. I and they turned kept ful and happy. resistance to positive change, am tapes a dreaming about it, and I could it burn- Learning easily, expanding see nd i,, ,E Add to this John- David 's.discov- /i ? your brain, eliminating subcon- \ t .J ing inside her. I I thought was going eries that certain (ones and scious belief systems that block Laming '6n crazy. ... I probably was. I couldn't stand sounds at different frequencies Neures-:ifr, t-=i your happiness and success is iili'.'W' the si topes !o 'speak' di- it. I couldn't be near her. I couldn't help her. now becoming ascience, a tech- rectly to predesignoii'Ll areas of nology. I couldn't I started do anything. So travel- your brain/mind. In the forefront of thai science ing, into culture. got back the tattoo The The result: ineuj-oscience! is a series of tapes you have the latest Nat 1-300-4-DR-JOHN paintings were selling, especially the tat- and total immersion seminars technology for expanding your ttn-ssts) developed by John-David, brain -mind .'n:d eliminating Can-800-624-9779 too stuff— I did a lot of closeup work; you Ph.D. Released to the public onlv 16 self-sabotage. Are you worth it? free demonstrator mpe it wouldn't even know was tattoos I was months ago, after 20 years re- painting so I stayed away." — search, the results are being WHOLE-BRAIN LEARNING" Jati. iu k-~;.,'m;na 5 tavslblil Immersion , 'And she died without you?" I asked, in- called "a generation heyond mere — credulous. rrviilvjtion :anes." i»w Taper, arei!95 to S495. Semi- « . . ™ "In Stamford. . The dreams got worse. If a»— — Suiss nars $1,400. You decide. |i.«..u...n,» »; ,j.H,™ got so I couldn't even talk to her over the ? n „, s»D Bypass Your Resistance IMdM tt phone. I could see what was happening Whereas mere motivation inside her, I I and was helpless. And was a 'apes are only two levels, these V'.it^ V'!-: ->!„;:».... it are tapes 1 coward. I'm paying for now." mega-subliminal. These [tiumti'-.v.y.- !- Ir .. Iy3fl FeafcPcrfoirrtiaiice -Nov. 23-23 lSii-6- Eliminate * are 7 — leveled or tracked Shear- ', i. u,<, , ..,..,! SelfSalotagp , ,v. ..! ,r„| 1 "What do you mean?" I asked. God damn |„ysS495. «C able by left brain, 4 unhearable i ViiCA.-: ri-,-:;%. He didn'l answer " — —

riding fabu- I woke up on his couch. My head was "Tell me about the scars on your neck He was followed by cherubs and your arms." lous beasts, some of which were the skel- pounding, but l was breathing naturally, evenly shoulder and chest no 'And my chest, everywhere," Nathan etons of'horses and dogs and goats with My arm and

longer although I felt a needlelike feathery wings . . . wings such as Nathan ached, confessed. "It started when I ran away; myself. had tattooed on Mrs. Stramm. But the fig- burning over my heart. Reflexively I when I left Ruth I started tattooing

spot I feli the tear- ink." ure of Nathan was running away. His face, touched the where had I used the tattoo gun but no which had always seemed askew—a large ing pain and found it had_been bandaged. "Why?" I asked. nose, deep-set, engaging eyes, tousled "What the hell's this?" I asked Nathan, who 'At first I guess I did it as practice, but

beside me. Although I could It hair; the combination of.features that made was sitting then it became a sort of punishment. was Puck, the very Em- make out the scars on his neck, I could no I him look like a seedy painful. I was painting without pigments.

friendliness was longer find the outlines of the tattoos I had was inflicting my own punishment. Some- bodiment of generous — pig- seen, nor could I make out the brilliant if rendered formally. His nose was straight times I can see the tattoos, as they were

it ments that I had imagined or hallucinated. paintings. Cm a map of what I've done to and long rather than crooked, as was in

I felt panic. his narrow and tilted "Why do I have a bandage on?" my wife, to my family. Then around that time real life; and eyes were other people rather than wide and roundish; and his "Do you remember what happened?" he I could into I discovered see Nathan looked ill. Even more and sort of draw their lives differently. Most mouth, which in real life was full, even now, asked. line. In his hands Na- wasted. His face was shiny with sweat. But people I'd just give a tattoo; good work- was drawn as a mere it comfort- sometimes even great work. But every than was carrying Ruth's heart and other it wasn't warm in here now; was while child riding a skeleton Peg- able. Yet when Mrs. Stramm was sitting for once in a while I'd see something when I organs, a her tattoo, it had been stifling. I had felt the if asus was waving a thighbone. was working. I could see someone was The colors were like an explosion, and closeness of dead air like claustrophobia. sick; I could see what was wrong with him.

I having heart living with the tattoos filled my entire field of vision; "Christ, I thought was a I was going the carny route and

I fell." some gypsies. A woman, a friend of mine, and then the pain took me, wrapped itself attack. I blacked out. heart at- " around chest. My heart "I caught you. You did have a saw my 'talent' —he laughed when he said like a snake my — tack." that "and helped me develop it. That's

"Then why the hell am l here instead of when I started bleeding when I worked. As

in a hospital?" I asked, remembering how my friend used to tell me, 'Everything has it felt to be completely helpless in the a price.' whirring draining emergency room, with machines I looked at Nathan. His life was 6/ caught one making ticking and just-audible beep- away. He was turning into a ghost or a and noises as they monitored vital signs. shadow. Not even his tattoos had color. My last glimpse of the walls and ing "It could have been very bad," Nathan was aching. I just couldn't ig- whole arm ceiling, all pulsing, said, ignoring my question. nore it. And it was so close in the trailer that

I I doing here?" asked "I've got to get air," coalescing into one grand "Then what am I couldn't breathe. some

again. I sat up. This was all wrong. God I felt I myself to get up. as I said as forced tattoo all around

damn it, it was wrong. I felt a rush in my I felt if I hadn't slept in days. Then a burning me; and I followed those inky head, and the headache became sharp in my neck and a stabbing pain in my chest. Nathan, stand- paths and then withdrew back into dull pain. I tried to shout to who was pigment looked shocked, who was "I took care of it," he said. ing up, who into grayness, then darkness.^ coming toward me. "How?' "How do you feel?" But I couldn't move; I was as leaden as

headache, that's all," I said. "And it "I have a a statue. I could only see Nathan, and

I want to know what you did on my chest." was as if he were lit by a Tensor lamp. The They'll "Don't worry, I didn't use pigment. pigments of living tattoos glowed under his to echoing in let you into a Jewish cemetery," Nathan shirt and resolved themselves like paint- was pounding. It seemed be ings under a stage scrim. He was a living, a huge hall. The burning in my chest in- said, smiling.

"I want to know what you did." I started radiant landscape of scenes and figures, creased, and I felt myself screaming, even pull off the gauze, but he stopped me. if it soundless. I felt my to terrestrial and heavenly and demonic. I might have been ft heal for a few days. Change fee could see a grotesque caricature of Mrs. entire being straining in fright, and then the "Let all." Fainting, falling, I caught bandage. That's Stramm's tattoo on Nathan's wrist. It was a colors dimmed.

hell am I supposed to lei howling, tortured, winged child. Most of the one last glimpse of the walls and ceiling, "And what the other tattoos expressed the ugly, minor sins all pulsing, glowing, coalescing into one Laura?" I asked. "That you're alive." of people Nathan had tattooed, but there grand tattoo, which was all around me; and

it if I sloughed inky paths into I felt weak, yet was as had were also figures of Nathan and Ruth. All I followed those pigment something heavy and deadening. of Ruth's faces were Madonna-like, but grayness and then darkness. I though! of off

I just out the door. Nathan was rendered perfectly and terri- Laura and Ben, and I felt an overwhelming And walked shivering, for the I didn't After I was outside bly; he was a monster portrayed in entirely sense of sorrowtor Nathan. For once — unseasonably cofcj human terms, a vision of greed and cow- seem to matter, and my sense of rushing weather had turned

good-bye. I I not said ardice and hardness. sadness became a universe in which I was I realized that had

if in daze. Yet I could natban But there was a central tattoo on Na- suspended. had left as a around back. This whole night was I it that and go than's chest that looked like a Durer en- I thought was dying; but seemed tomor- eternity to think, crazy, I told myself. I'd come back graving —such was the sureness and del- it would take an eternity, an out . . . and try to fine icacy of the work. Ruth lay upon the ground to worry back over my life, to relive it once row and apologize amid grasses and plants and flowers, more, but from a higher perspective, from what had really happened. it to snow, a I and began which seemed surreal in their juxtaposi- an aerial view. But then I felt a pressure, as drove home, freakish wet, heavy snow that turned tion. She had opened her arms, as if beg- ifl were underwater and a faraway explo- everything bluish-white, luminescent. Vy ging for Nathan—who was depicted also sion had fomented a strong current. I was felt to itch under the bandage. to return. Her qhest and stomach and neck being pulled away, jostled; and I the chest began were bleeding, and one could look into the tearing of pain and saw bright light and after twelve. Lajra cavities of the open wounds. And march- heard an electrical sparking, a sawing. And I didn't get home until large as a conti- was worried and anxious. We both sa: ing away, descending under one nipple of I saw Nathan's face, as chars - Nathan's chest, was the figure of Nathan. nent, gazing down upon me. down to talk in the upholstered 142 OMNi front of the fireplace in the living room, fac- ing each other; that was where we always Handle Pressing Matters sat when we were arguing or working out problems. Normally, we'd sit on the sofa In Minutes. and chat and watch the fire. Laura had a (ire crackling in the fireplace, and the ruddy WithThe Sunbeam SteamValet light from the fire flickered in our large, white-carpeted living room, Laura wore a Garment Steamer. robe with large cuffs on the sleeves, and her thick, black hair was long and shiny,

still damp from a shower. Her small face was tight, as she was upset: and she wore her glasses, another giveaway that she was going to get to the bottom of this. She al- most never wore her glasses, and the len- ses were scratched from being tossed here and there and being banged about in var- ious drawers; she only used them when she had to "focus her thoughts." white 1 looked a sight: My once-starched

shirt was wrinkled and grimy, and I smelled rancid, the particular odor of nervous sweat. My trousers were dirty, especially floor; at the knees, where I had fallen lo the of my and I had somehow torn out the hem story, right pant leg. I told Laura the whole

from the time I had seen Nathan Sunday until tonight. At first she seemed relieved

that i had been with Nathan—she had never been entirely sure of me, and I'm

certain she thought I'd had a rendezvous with some twenty -two -year-old reception-

ist or perhaps the woman who played the

French horn in the orchestra (I had once made a remark about her to Laura). But

she was more upset than I had expected

when I told her that Ruth had died. We were o friends, certainly, although I was much cioserto Nathan than she was to Ruth.

We moved over to the couch, and I held fixed her until she stopped crying, I got up, us both a drink, and finished the story. "How could you let him tattoo your skin?" Laura asked; and then, exposing what she was really thinking about, she said in a

whisper. "I can't believe Ruth's gone. We were good friends; you didn't know that, did you7'

| Atter a I said. "I IntroducingThe guess I didn't," pause didn't let Nathan tattoo me. I told you, I was

PerfectTravel Companion unconscious. I'd had an attack or some-

if believed I know Laura really On-the-road wrinkles are one less thing." don't that. She had been a nurse for fifteen years. """-""henyoutravelwiththenew I "Well: let me take a look at what's under shirt; with the gauze." I let her unbutton my : from Sunbeam.This com- h one quick motion she tore the gauze a-.: a-. ' convenience heats up in less than crisscross- V I the pact Looking down, just saw '5 seconds. Penetrating, wrinkle-removing ings and curlicues and random lines That were thin, raised welts over my heart. of Steam button makes feam from our Shot "What ihe hell did he do to you? This i stubborn wrinkles fall out easilyThe whole area could get infected. Who knows even clean? You could iWet from Sunbeam.The quickest if his needle was get hepatitis, or AIDS, considering the kir.os way 10 handle pressing matters. of people who go in for tattoos."

"No, he kept everything clean," 1 said, "Did he have an autoclave?" she asked.

"Yes, I think he did."

Laura went to the downs:ars ::v. . Makes It Easy and came back with Betadine and a c : ea- bandage. Her fuzzy blue bathrobe was felt myself becoming BfeSSe slightly open, and I m excited. She was a tiny woman, smal- Tfe® Artefe © ART CUMINGS

Not another abstraction/

I hate abstractions

Did you see- his expression when he realized

I don't do abstractions ? " — —

boned and delicate-featured yet big- hear the demon angels shouting and than's features — his crooked nose and full busted, which I liked. When we first lived snarling and waving pieces of bone as they moulh—had spread his wings, and his together, before we married, she was ex- rode atop unicorns and skeleton dragons perfect infant hands held out RutIVs heart tremely in bed, shy even though she'd al- flapping canvas-skinned pterodactyl to me. Staring, I leaned on the white por- ready married before; she been yet I life, if soon wings. Then Nathan saw me, and he celain sink. felt asurging of as I were became aggressive, open, and frank; and stopped. He looked as skeletal as the being given a gift, and then the living im-

to my astonishment I found that / creatures him, if had grown around as his life and age of the laltoo died. I shivered, naked in more conservative. fat musculature and had been worn away, the cold bathroom. I could feel the chill

I touched her breasts as she cleaned leaving nothing but bones to be buried. passing through the ill-fitting storms on the the tattoo.— or more precisely, the welts- He smiled at me and gave me Ruth's dormer windows. It was as if the chill were for he It used no pigment. The Betadine and heart. was warm and still beating. I could passing right through me, as if I had been the touch of her hands felt cool on my chest. fee! the blood clotting in my hand. opened up wide.

"Can you anything I make out of this?" she woke up with a jolt. I was shaking and And I knew that Nalhan was in trouble. asked, meaning the marks Nathan had sweating. Although I had turned, up the The thought came to me like a shock of

I but couldn't anything thermostat before it made. looked make going to bed, was cold cold water. But I could feel Nathan's pres-

more of them than I in out she could. wanted the bedroom. Laura was fumed away ence, and I suddenly felt pain shoot through to look at Ihe marks closely in the mirror, from me, moving restlessly, her legs raised my chest, concentrating in the tattoo; and

but excited, I Laura had become as was, toward her chest in a semifetal position. All then I felt a great sadness, an oceanic grief.

love lights it and we started making on the couch. the were off, and as was a moonlii I dressed quickly and drove back to Trout

She was on top of me, we still had our night, the snow reflected a wan light; Creek. The fairgrounds were well lit but de- clothes on. and we were kissing each other everything in the room looked shadowy serted. It had stopped snowing. The lights so hard that we ground our teeth. I pressed I felt blue. And my heart pumping fasi. were on in Nathan's trailer. I knocked on myself inside her. Our lovemaking was ur- I got up and went into the bathroom. Two the door, but there was no answer. The door

cleansing. It as if large gent and was we had dormer windows over the lub to my was unlocked, as I had left it, and I walked recovered something, and I felt my heart left let in the dim light of a streetlamp near in. Nathan was dead on the floor. His shirt beating, clear strong. and After we came the southern corner of the house. I looked was open and his chest was bleeding

lay together, still in and locked intimate, she the mirror at my chest and could see my he had the same tattoo I did. But his face

', "Poor Nathan tattoo. The lines were etched in blue, as if was calm, his demons finally exorcised. I my body were snow reflecting moonlight. picked him up, carried him to the couch,

I I I that night. could it I dreamed about him see a heart; was luminescent. and kissed him good-bye. As I left, I could dreamed of the tattoo I had seen on his saw an angel wrapped in deathly wings, feel his strength and sadness and love chest, the parade of demons and fabulous an angel such as the one Nathan had put pumping inside me. The wind blew againsi creatures. I was inside his tattoo, watching on Mrs. Stramm's wrisl to heal her; but this my face, drying my tears ... it was the cold him walking off with Ruth's heart. I could angel, who seemed to have some of Na- fluttering of angels' wings. DO

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STMR TECH

ACCESSING THE FUTURE

PACIFIC bathroom in the middle ol the night and leaves the toilet SPACEPORT seat in the up position, thus You're riding an elevator rendering the toilet a watery up the tower at the Cape. It trap for the unsuspecting, glides to a stop. You're now sleep-befogged wife who a breathtaking 150 teet follows. "A lot of women," above a broad expanse of claims inventor Greg Janek, beach, with a commanding "don't check the seat when view of the ocean. Excite- ihey go to the bathroom in ment mounts as you're the middle of the night. They guided across a platform fall in, get wet, and blame and into a space shuttle. An their husbands." astronaut assists you in tak- Janek, who swears with a ing your place in the pas- straight face that his own senger compartment and marriage was seriously completes your briefing. compromised by this prob- the Then countdown be- 'lem, has come up with a toi- gins, proceeding smoothly let seat that helps prevent toward ignition. It's your first marital discord in the bath- trip aboard the shuttle, and room. The seat rests on a you're not quite sure just special hinge that contains what to expect. a hydraulic locking device. But the Cape is not Cape When the seat is raised to the Canaveral; and the ocean is up position, the lock gradu- not the Atlantic. You've just ally "bleeds out." returning been safely buckled into the seat to harmless hori- your seat in the space shut- plete with shuttle and orbit- hurricanes from outer space. zontally in about two min- tle Athena, an advanced ing space station. Visitors will A flight simulator will enable utes. (Men following men to simulator version ot the old "blast off" for a 30-minute visitors to make low orbital the John should therefore NASA shuttles; and what ride to the space station— passes by the moon. wait three minutes for safe- you're about to experience 150-room luxury'hotel lo- The theme park will focus ty's sake, as the seat does is the awesome power of a cated beneath the launch on near-future develop- not ease itself down but falls liftoff created by realistic pad—and tour a simulated ments so they will be realis- with an unannounced bang.) simulations combined with extraterrestrial environment. tic and approachable. Carr Janek's market research special effects. "The best way to teach adds. "Our kids will surely be has shown that as many as The first of a new genera- about the future is through apart of that future." one third of American of tion high-tech theme parks direct participation," says —Connie Zweig households would buy this promises to turn today's astronomer Charlie Carr of marriage saver. In fact, he quickly outmoded entertain- SRE Development, f under of Access: Open to the public says, his first publicity ment centers into sophisti- the $60 million spaceport. brought a cascade of re- cated sensory-learning en- "Everything will be authen- sponses from enthusiastic vironments. Pacific Space- tic." In the hub of the space FIRST women. "They all wanted to port in Southern California, station people may grow know where they could get just one hour north of down- crystals in a weightless en- FEMINIST one," Janek says, "and they town Los Angeles, will fea- vironment or take part in sat- TOILET didn't even ask the price." ture direct participation in the ellite, manufacturing and re- Finally, there's something — Bill Lawren latest breakthroughs in pair by assisting robotic on the market designed to aerospace technology. devices. They' may become combat what its inventor Access/ The price, by the Scheduled to open in pjanetary weather, man- calls "one of the nation's most way, is $49.50. Available in 1989, the spaceport will of- agers by using simulated, dastardly domestic prob- six colors from Jandex. Inc., fer a simulated twenty-first- satellite-powered micro- lems." That's the unthinking 4666 State Route 235 North, century launch site, com- wave beams to dissipate husband who goes to the Conover, OH 45317. STMR TECH

ACCESSING THE FUTURE

programs, and other fection control at the CDC, mated motion. Matsushita, cational entertainment. THROWAWAY who cites telephones as Philips, and Sony lead in ar- for CV units will include out- PHONES major culprits because they riving at the standard the On the software puts for video and audio, When hospital patients are extremely difficult to dis- hardware. end Warner and Polygram making it possible to display pick up the telephone, they infect and may carry up to have established a venture the visuals on a TV set and do more than reach out and 100 bacterial colonies. The Record Group reproduce the sound on touch someone. They also —Gregg Levoy called to come up with pro- speakers through an ampli- leave germs on the receiver (TRG) plans to in- fier or receiver. Using a key- other pa- Access: Mini-Phones Inc., gramming. TRG that can infect consumers Midland, TX 79702. troduce 100 titles, including pad or mouse, tients. Now hospitals have a Box 914, 915-563-6888. music videos, games, edu- will also be able to take part new way to fight this spread Telephone: in disc-based games and of infection and to save instructional programs. money at the same time: — Mariorie Costello disposable telephones. The cheap ($5 to $15), Access: Available in 1987. prepackaged, presanitized, plastic phones, from Mini- Phones Inc. ot Midland, VIDEOTAPES Texas, are given or sold to DEATH patients upon arrival and OF What is it like todie? Have either go home with them— some among us been they're guaranteed for a granted a preview? year— or are thrown out. On a short videotape Our Lady of the Lake Re- called Personal Accounts of gional Medical Center in Near-Death Experiences, .Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was Connecticut psychologist losing nearly 530,000 a year Kenneth Ring interviews four in damaged or stolen apparently ordinary people phones before becoming the who claim to have crossed country's first hospital to over into death— and re- switch to the disposable va- turned to tell about it, riety, which it now sells at Their reports contain $8.75 apiece to 1,300 pa- some striking similarities: a tients a month. Several CD MATES sense that they had died a dozen hospitals now use the separation from the physical phones, and most of them WITH MTV body, and a feeling of pro- are pleased. The digital compact disc found peace. Most report Our Lady of the Lake (CD) and music video have being enveloped by an saves thousands of dollars a helped revive the record unearthly light that feels, as year and curtails one form business. With soaring CD growing pop- one woman puts it. m of nosocomial (in-hospital) sales and the a mother's hug to a smal infections. Each year 2 mil- ularity of MTV and music child. lion American hospital pa- videos, consumer-electron- None of the subjects nS tients contract such infec- ics and record" companies hot port anything fearful or ce- tions, from staph and strep are planning to unite two monic, and each implies tnar to urinary-tract infections, musical acts by introducing he or she no longer has a and 20,000 to 30,000 of a compact disc format fear of death. them die, according to a known as compact video "I was in tremendous pan study by the Centers for Dis- (CV), which will be capable from the hemorrhaging a" ease Control (CDC) in At- of. producing digital-quality was terribly frightened" a lanta. One third of these audio with pictures. thirty-nine-year-old public- deaths are preventable, says Initially, CVwill include only ani- school supervisor says tf£- Linaa Brooks, director of in- still images and some 152 OMNI " .

etly. The doctor declared him space, after all. . . clinically SPACE LIQUID dead for 60 sec- Fortunately, there's now a - "

onds. "Then I felt myself be- CONDOM product for lovers in orbit. CRYSSTALS gin to slip away, while trying As far as we know, no hu- The Mentor condom, manu- FOR DIETERS lo hold on. 1 wanted to say mans have yet love in made factured by the Mentor Cor- Now there's a little tool to good-bye to my wife. space. When passion does poration of Minneapolis, isn't help dieters distinguish be-

"Suddenly I was im- occur under zero-gravity actually designed for extra- tween mental and metabolic mersed in a bright, light conditions, will there be terrestrial affairs; but it does hunger, to alert weight- and felt a peace greater than special personal-hygiene boast a special self-adhe- watchers to the evils of ner-

I had ever . . . known. From problems along with sive band that adheres vous eating. that perspective, lite Earlh on the thrills. Liquids float in tightly to the penis and pre- The five-dollar credit- seems like a brief instant." vents the familiar hazards of card-size Diet Card uses Ihe Ring, who works full-time leakage or slipping. (This same technology— liquid researching near-death ex- technology comes out of crystals —that made possi- periences, believes they Mentor's background in ble Ihe mood rings of a few open a window onto another male-incontinence prod- years back. Press your world. People who are ucts.) Its watertight seal pre- thumb against a tempera- granled ihe view, he says, vents "the exchange of bod- ture-sensitive patch on the can help others who fear ily fluids"—and therefore card for ten seconds, and death. Connie Zweig — pregnancy and sexually the device tells you whether transmitted diseases —and Access; 24-minute The it's said to stay on even after videotape, produced by An- the user loses his erection. drew Silver for WGBH-Bos- The condom also comes ton, is available for rental with a special "applicafor (S60/two in days) half-inch or hood," resembling a small :e-quarter-inch format rocket, to protect the ultra- from the education depart- thin latex from tearing while ment of the American Jour- it is being put on. nal of Nursing Company, That the packaging sug- 1-600-621-7018 (In Illinois: gests a feminine-hygiene 312-828-1146). product is not accidental, for this is the first condom aimed at a female market. "We you're really hungry. If you found that thirty to fifty per- are simply nervous rather

cent of condoms are pur- than ineiabolically in need of chased by women," says Al food, the patch will turn a Mannino, vice president of darker color (from red to health-care products at green through blue), indi- Mentor. "Women say, 'Don't cating tension. This is your give me a box with a couple cue to put off that snack until

engaged in the act. I want you're really hungry. The

something I can take to the card has a "craving rating" checkout line without being corresponding to the color embarrassed.' patch— the darker the color, —Judith Hooper the more intense the ner- vous craving. Access: The new-age — Gregg Levoy condom hit the national mar- ket in August of this year. In Access: American Lead-

years io come, perhaps it will ership Group, Inc., 1163 As- prevent the conception of the bury Avenue, Ocean City, NJ i first space love child. 08226. • ONTHETWELFTHDAY

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I OMNI MAGAZINE I RO. Box 3026, Harlan, la. 51593 I C In oddition, send me a subscription I D Each additional gift just $21.95. Check enclosed L"i Money order end TO: Bill I Nome : me DVisa I Address ___ D MasterCard-Interbank # Acct.# _ Exp, _ date . . Credit-card holders call toll-lree: 1- 800-228-2028 Ext. 11. Nebraska resi- I FROM: (You must complete this section) dents call: 1-800-642-8300 Ext. 11 I Name . : __ I Address influenced by the injury alone. I was nia, started sliding. It happened to contain to be pressure. The more the pres- irUTERVIEUU over a hundred bodies that floated first under great I become, and that across the street, then into the yards and sure, the more steadfast CONTINUED FROM Pf- style medical detective should have. into the living rooms of houses and the is a a senator had three gunshot of the supermarket. It was a tragic The much reddened. Bui this is standard (or doorway his right staff ascertain who had wounds a head wound behind barbiturate abuse. And this was not the first scene. My tried to — through the right armpit. To calling a county lawyer. I ear and two time we'd seen an empty stomach. Like jurisdiction by reconstruct a scenario of the shooting, the I the first said, "Forget it, I am going." was the liver, it gets used to handling the drug gunshotwoundtothe head wouldn't tell us small intes- on the scene to represent a governmental and passes it quickly into the public works' much, except how close the assailant may agency, and I ordered the tine. Because I couldn't find needle marks, have been. We must remember the body drugs swallowed. heavy bulldozers in. Those bodies posed 1 believe the were still especially hazard. moved. is constantly moving, with arms Monroe's liver actually had a level of a health So we persons drowned changing position. When you examine a stored barbiturates three lo iour times that The Verdugo Hills had I to "had been buried soaking body, it's in a horizontal state, so had of her blood. Yet her blood level was high in a flood and These bodies changed to physically and mentally. place his body in enough— equivalent to about forty or fifty wet in caskets. consistency that resists an upright position to interpret the wound of regular-strength sleeping pills. an almost soaplike capsules penetrates corpses looked more like hor- configurations. When a bullet For the average person, ten to fifteen are decay. The round hole. than ordinary corpses. the skin, it generally leaves a potentially lethal. ror-movie ghouls called, happens when a But the wound to the senator's armpit was Omni: Even so, doesn't thai show that Adipocere, as it's and highly alka- not round. To make it round, I had to move someone, maybe her therapist or nurse, for combination of moisture forward after rais- with fat tissue and solidifies the arm fifteen degrees instance, injected her with these drugs? line soil reacts to that to ing it to ninety degrees. I had do Noguchi: This challenge has been made— into a soaplike consistency. sys- understand the relation of the bullet corri- tell. Omni: You say an investigator must be and even today I don't think we can detached. But you often do dor within the body to the body's move- Some speculate that she may have been tematic and ment. The senator's head wound came injected in a difficult-to-detect area like the from a back-to-front direction; the second scalp. wound was on the side, and the third was Omni: What about that bruise on her hip slightly shifted, indicating he was turning that you find so mysterious? Could that clockwise. From this reenactment it's have been a cover tor a needle track? QMost murders probable that the head wound was the first Noguchi: What does that bruise mean? 1 one, and RFK raised his arm after it in a don't know! Your idea is interesting. With are committed by amateurs. protective reaction. The sequence of shots skin an injection you have only minute is There hasn't been absolutely established, but breakage, and of course, after some hours in that's opinion. shortly no university degree my it starts healing. When death occurs We know that the three gunshot wounds after the injection, as with John Belushi, the to commit how staff con- were at close range. I had my breakage of the skin is still visible, and by murder. There is no standard struct a likeness of Kennedy's head and squeezing the skin you can see the blood ears to this model, which was test. attach pig come out. But in Monroe's case I could not And covered with cloth to absorb gunpowder. find a needle mark on the bruised area. easily practiced you cannot We hoped to create identical powder tat- Omni: You note that her therapist used to tooings iound at the edge of the right ear inject her. He saw her the day before. Would by using the suspected weapon and by that give the track time to heal? shooting from various distances into the I think she re- Noguchi: I would think so. right mastoid. Moving away by distances ceived an injection from him twenty-four conflict? of an inch, only when the muzzle was three her death. There are many spontaneous spot tests. Is there a hours prior to one inch right in but stay re- inches behind the mastoid, around that an agency Noguchi: I say, 'Jump mysteries. I re commended I the like to think behind the edge of the ear, did get such as a grand jury or D.A.'s office re- mote." That's me in particular. I'd actual death-shoi conflict but a wise choice. In one exact duplicate of the open the case. it's not a supermar- powder tattoo. We also did infrared pho- Omni: Why are we so obsessed with how case a lady kidnapped from a bits of hair taken dead in a field tography and X rays of the Monroe died? ket outside L.A. was found another county or from around the wound. This determined Noguchi: Perhaps this case keeps return- in L.A. Was she killed in spread and confirmed the pig walking through the field, I saw the powder ing because she was one of the last su- here? After looked like, well, she'd been ear test. perstars and in many ways an American the body. She the grand jury. through When I testified before oi our concern and dumped. By examining her body dream. But I think most the deputy D.A. said, "You mean three I could tell whether clothing, I thought inquiry is really about her relation to the her "No, three inches." And he been shot and brought by truck, since feet?" I said, Kennedy brothers. It's this amazing dou- she'd through said, "If you made a mistake, you can still with those figures, who there were tire treads. By cutting ble involvement not it." Bui I said [laughs], "I'm evaluating the wound, I con- change were as charismatic as she— both of whom her dress and and going to change it." were assassinated. cluded that she'd been shot right there, investigjiion assailant had to get out of the truck to Omni: What made the RFK Omni: In many instances, whether it be after the execution-type such a prototype for future political deaths? Robert Kennedy or John Be- shoot her— it was an the death of complete. us to catch Noguchi: It was exceptionally you've shown yourself to be a man shooting. His footprints allowed lushi, The ex- do the autopsy, those and there were official observers. who doesn't wait on protocol. Isn't this le- him. If I'd waited to have disappeared. amination of his clothing, especially the re- gally as well as politically risky? prints would autopsied Robert Ken- moval of bits of hair for testing prior tc h s Noguchi: Yes, but the coroner just hasn't Omni: When you typical. To reenact at the toe. Is this a "ceil- surgery, was not then active enough in handling death in- nedy, you began been shooting *-e procedure applied to the body? the sequence of events of his vestigations at the scene. Traditionally, a ing-down" with needed expert examination from many Exactly. I am very concerned number of no-man's-lands exist. Police Noguchi: This greatly expanded our no- getting too close to the dead body—one agencies. don't move in, coroner doesn't move in. tion of relevant physical evidence. overall grasp. I chose to be- Who's going to take over'' For example, may lose the scientists diffecrom the autopsy from the toe to make Omni: How do forensic after a torrential rain the whole topsoil of gin RFK scientists? I didn't want other sure I didn't overlook anything. the old cemetery in Verdugo Hills, Califor- 159 OMNI —

Noguchi: The public expects unusual per- respected the iale Keith Simpson [famous disagreed on sonalities, but we are temperamentally British coroner], though we big including Marilyn Mon- similar to lab researchers. Yet medical de- several cases, empty stomach showed tectives are congenial and able to work roe. He thought the and murdered. It was just closely with police, juries, and lawyers. Also she was injected

where I forensic leaders never give up—we work the opposite with Roberto Calvi, was murdered. at a case even though many years may go thought he Would you go into that 1981 case? by. Gallows humor, or better, morgue hu- Omni: Noguchi: Calvi was a very respected top mor, is a safety valve •for us. Because of Vatican. rose to promi- the pressure of being surrounded by dead banker for the He connec- bodies and death scenes, we tend to see nence through special political including Micheie Sindona and his matters in a different vein. tions, Weeks before Calvi Omni: Do you see forensic science and underworld associates. dollars disap- c'e:ect:on as an art form? died, four hundred million shortly is unique. peared, He fled to London and Noguchi: I do. I think my style thereafter was found hanging at Black- Each step is a new experience. If someone Thames about seven will first to break friar's Bridge on the is to break tradition. I be the alive eleven oil a.m. He was last seen about it. My interest in art morphology— paint- before. Calvi's clolhes were ing and sketching— subconsciously helps rm. the night armpits, meaning he was me. The pathologist should recognize pat- wet up to the submerged in water at one time or anof her. terns as a visual art. At the dealh scene I two-fifty but when probably see the same things colleagues High tide was about AM, found at seven, it was almost or detectives see. I'm not only seeing; I'm the body was lo hang himself, recognizing and putting factors together. low tide. If he were trying into the wafer first? He There's this different energy and inten- why would he jump was genuinely hanged he had the clas- sity— a sympathy, a burning desire to put — sic signature of hanging in terms of neck it ail together into a more understandable language. The deceased is speaking to you abrasions, coroner's inquest, Simpson, through forensic evidence that is glaring at At the first conducted the initial autopsy, said that you, But few recognize it. who suicide hanging. But at the Omni: Your style seems to balance an it was a typical questioned by the Eastern receptivity with American asser- second inquest, when attorney for Calvi's family, he admitted he tive ness. Calvi Part of the couldn't be absolutely ceriain whether Noguchi: I try to reconcile them. hanged by some- unique combination, perhaps, comes from hanged himself or was

It never ascertained whether my Buddhist upbringing. In Japan death is one else. was hanging suicide or homicide, and very close and friendly. It's common for the the was jury rendered an open verdict, mean- family to have a miniature temple in Ihe liv- the couldn't decide either. ing room, where the children are expected ing they OMNI grandparents re- Omni: Didn't you suggest that he could to greet deceased by immobilized, but not killed, by porting the day's activities. Just before ex- have been traceable after a few hours? TIME CAPSULES amination, although most of my staff doesn't a drug not short to re- Noguchi: There are many compounds notice it, I take a very moment public interesl, I'm reluctant spect the deceased. "Let the deceased which, in the that were difficult to trace. Now speak for himself" is one of my favorite to name— paihol- we can find most of them with the GCMS. expressions. I repeat it to resident to cross- listen deeply. provided we have computer data ogists. I listen, not just look— findings. More than two Bits of evidence are like words. By putting compare with our compounds have been studied the evidence together you compose a thousand comparison. But some sentence. The series of sentences be- and are available for analyzed, so even comes the statement of the deceased— haven't been moiecularly the GCMS can't fathom the secret there. I Now the magazmeof the future can the deceased is the best witness. suggested ihat Calvi was injected with a be kept tor the future. Store your is- Forensic investigation is like moviemak- strong-muscle relaxant extremely difficult sues of OMNI in a new Custom ing but in reverse. We arrive just after the of black Bound Library Case made last scene of the cowboy movie—after the to trace. last, metabo- simulated leather. It's built to cowboys have been surrounded by the Some hallucinogens, you see, it will 1 2 issues in mint con- the original compound and keep American Indians. Did the Union soldiers lize so quickly that dition indefinitely. The spine is em- Because more and come to the rescue or not? From the avail- cannot be established. with gold OMNI logo, and bossed a scene more drugs have half-lives of thirty min- transfer able evidence—fragments of the last in each case there is a gold concentrated fighting—we try to make each frame, utes or less, our effort is now for recording the date. of the whole on finding the metabolites that linger tot Send your check or then the one before, and finally the longer times. These can be pulled from the money order (58.95 each: movie. We kind of roll the projector back- 3 for 324.95; 6 for $45.95) urine, kidney, or liver, depending on the ward—io the title. postpaid. USA orders only. Foreign drugs, especially antidepres- Omni: Is the media notion of the "battle of drug. Some orders (add 32.50 for sants and stimulants, have special affini- postage and handling per case] the forensic titans" in court testimony hype ties for brain nerve cells. to OMNI MAGAZINE or reality? many cases with JESSE JONES INDUSTRIES Noguchi:- We aren't so emotional. We ac- Omni: You've considered 499 East Erie Avenue and fabrications in the cept different opinions. Sometimes we are missed evidence Philadelphia, PA.19134 and military investi- on the same side of the case, sometimes lab. Are police, FBI, To expedite your order over under- gators often corrupt and incompetent? S15CALLTO.I FREE: l-S00-w2-53;sfl on opposite sides. And we clearly but in wit- Noguchi: I hope this isn't common, and Charge to AX, VISA, MC, or DC siand that if you are a "professional the major cases we find it often, These PA RESIDED ADD 6% SALES TAX ness," your career will go badly. I greatly

158 OMNI problem continues. Hol- agencies have a tremendous stake in con- why the LA. drug lywood has created a kind of artificial all- victing an individual — a mission to accom- or-none attitude. This is the entertainment plish. And bungling and distortion of evi- world, and competition is es- dence have become more critical in the capital of the pecially intense. With a hit film or record last twenty years because juries have great prestige, glamour, wealth— grown to rely on forensic evidence as the comes terrible pressure to sustain yourself. prime basis for decision. They used to rely and describe your invention, on confession, circumstantial evidence, Omni: Could you eyewitness testimony. Thai was before fo- the negative knife cast? Noguchi: Knife wounds are frustrating be- A very special rensic science entered the picture. cause there seem to be no identifying it, judicial system with its guide to what As I see the —

I we imperfections— has actually stimulated characteristics. But thought maybe the exciting world knife from its wound, like we development of forensic science. Theatri- could trace a of computer and gun from its bullet hole. When the knife cal display has its place in court, but over- do a electronics kit- reaches a solid organ like the liver, kidney, all, painstaking evidence-presentation building can heart, or occasionally the brain, there's an seems to be winning the well-publicized for you. opportunity to make a negative do cases. Jack Ruby, the murderer of Lee excellent fill wound with a ra- Harvey Oswald, was represented by Mel- cast. We can the stab informative Heathkit Catalog shows dioactive medium such as barium sul- The vin Belli, a very powerful, dramatic attor- prod- ,ore than 450 exciting electronic phate and X-ray it. The X ray gives you the ney, And the results were not as good as enter- ucts that will challenge, instruct, and knife, but it's essentially a two- expected. Even F Lee Bailey has had some shape of the n you. You'll find countless kits that you best law- dimensional picture— not really good and recent failings. Some of today's n build and enjoy, from computers materials, I researched many yers are not colorful but very, very system- enough. robots to color like dental fillings, and found they all try to plug all holes, make a case things tv's and a variety ol atic. They were too lightweight. None showed the de- home products. watertight. The styles of the scientist and

until I metal contain- tail I wanted, found a And each the lawyer begin to converge. When sci- called Wood's metal, which by our years of ence enters the courtroom, theatrical dis- ing mercury, and liquefies at the temperature of boiling water. experience play exits. syringe, jr promise, You inject it into the stab wound by Omni: Why is it that eyewitness accounts solidifies within five minutes. When are often distorted? and it you've got a three-D copy Noguchi: The human brain has a remark- you pull it out, Sometimes the tip of the knife able selectivity and subjectivity. Let's say of the knife. bone, and the tiniest bit breaks off. you see this beautiful South Pacific beach. reaches fingerprint. So you take a photograph but later are dis- That tip is like a fingerprinting be superseded by appointed: You are looking at reality, and it Omni: Will more foolproof techniques? is not nearly as beautiful as your remem- Crime detection will continue to bered image. Well, testimony is very sub- Noguchi: fascinating to me, jective—people being influenced by their use common sense. Most though, is the DNA probe, which I'm con- likings, past experience, and sounds. Peo- templating developing within a few years ple see a crime in a split second, so their rapists. [DNA memories are highly imprecise. They may as a means of identifying synthetic fragments of DNA that pick up a certain area, totally forgetting probes are pinpoint the precise location of a spe- others. Putting all eyewitness accounts to- can cific gene or detect a faulty gene on an gether, I'd say the repeated statements are chromosomes.] If you had the probably the most reliable. individual's could obtain the Omni: Are crime patterns and percent- semen, with the probe you chromosomes—unique as fingerprints. ages in LA. different from those of other is an exciting instrument major cities? The DNA probe genetic abnormalities. Noguchi: L.A. County had fifty-five thou- for understanding could go from the DNA probe sand people die in 1985; of those, we in- Maybe we of the combination of vestigated about seventeen thousand. to an understanding an individual to murder and Suicide victims totaled about fifteen hun- genes that lead a fusion of genetic and psycholog- dred: traffic accidents were slightly under rape— how far we can I don't know fifteen hundred, Other accidents were ical profiles. two we'll have around one thousand. About eighteen go, but within a decade or individuali- hundred were homicide victims. The re- a method tor enzyme-protein of the identification process. maining ten thousand to eleven thousand zation as part the day when we do neu- I see were certified as death by natural causes. hope to rochemical studies of the deceased. Pro- The drug scene in L.A. is quite different of adrenaline, norepinephrine, sero- from other cities'. LA. now leads in the files us much about the heavy use of stimulants, and we are now tonin may tell person. We've concerned about designer drugs that tend psychology of the dead conducting "psychological" autop- to begin as at-home chemistry operations, been years let's add neu- catch on, then move east. Constantly sies for twenty-live — of the spinal fluid changing the design of the drug has been rochemical investigation a means of circumventing the law. This is and brain tissue. an absolutely futuristic a sortof chemical serial murder—Jack the Arid there is This idea—like something out of Dick Tracy. Ripper in chemical form. The drug de- the retina as a photo- signer keeps moving; when the authorities is the concept of murderer, but film: I see you, my enact a law making a specific substance graphic would remain! This I die, that image illegal, he simply jumps into other areas. should image" as an elec- And there are certain unique reasons idea is scary—the "last ,

all production. I provided the tronic impulse that may be recaptured. In dorse the assigning two of my dep- computerized tomography we can rotate technical help by nninjD the cast, and the first four hours of the CAT machine for an image of the brain. uties to were shot in our office. The pre- further, we could key in an image the series Going therapists accurate, though highly dra- counseling centers, these new from the visual center of the occipital area. sentation is being com- are able to treat such problems as marital it matized, with many episodes far-out, but I don't want to throw This is less or more real cases. I've often violence more rapidly and expen- away completely. posites of two Quincy sively than male psychiatrists. The new need a whole battery of electronic joked that the only difference is that We part of an at- hour, while it takes categories, she says, are biomedical engineers. They would solves the crime in one and the psy- it tempt to win back busiriRs:-- lost to months. I like Quincy because compute the forces causing such injuries us many attendant long, my concept of going beyond the chiatrist's couch, with its as bruises, contusions, and bone frac- expands into the psyche. traditional responsibility of the medical ex- costly Freudian forays tures. The applications are widespread: believe have the In the face of critics like Walker, psychi- aminer, which I firmly we from the understanding ot such incidents atrists last summer offered several com- the Challenger disaster to the specific right to do. as disorders would not be As a painter, haven't you tried to ren- promises. The new dynamics of a boxing-arena death. There Omni: given official status. Instead, they'd be of der the essence of your experience? is also an important thermal application artistic listed in an appendix to DSM, a reference engineering: Rate of body Noguchi: I'm interested in giving biomedical of pro- the crime scene. Most guide that includes a classification cooling could be used to indicate time of representation to task force com- perceive the body as still and posed disorders. The like to develop the soft- people dead death. I would also dark green, or pletely dropped a fourth new designation small enough to store the colors of death as gray, ware for a computer sex- and use in- that would have covered men who are I see intense energy of the background data for evaluat- black. much of rape, con- colors— mostly red, orange—warm ually aroused by fantasies at a crime scene. 1 tense ing possible evidence legal in rein- ceding that it could have become a colors. I've been asked if I believe don't want to wait days or weeks for lab At urging of gay ac- literal terms of past lives and shield for rapists. the into a warehouse of carnation. In I want to tap reports. vestigial ref- concept of the sepa- tivists they edited out the last, I don't, but the information based on similar cases, similar such, death erences to homosexuality. And they made spot tests right ration of the spirit from the body at weapons, so I can make in the names of the pro- real to me. several changes away. One cannot, and should not have to, is very disorders. Self-defeating personal- Why is the perfect crime so difficult posed remember the details of all cases in the Omni: ity, for example, was originally called mas- past. Say I'm looking at a head injury and lo execute? chooses the most ochistic personality disorder. The official specific harpoon shape, one with Noguchi: A killer usually it shows a henceforth the method, one that ties into his name for PMS would be like to know what instru- comfortable a bit of a tail. I'd periluteal phase dys- upbringing. You just cannot intellectually tongue-numbing ment causes this wound. So I'd compare sophisticated murder without phoric disorder. imprint of an unknown instrument to coniure up a this of the new name, background. Most killers are conform- The chief advantage those of many thousands of other available the Latinos or according to Spitzer, was again a matter weapons. ists—whether the small knife for fashion. "It doesn't invoke im- sword, with its symbolic message, for of current Omni: What do you think will be the role of the menstruation," he says. And "mas- the samurai. And then, it's impossible for a ages of the forensic scientist in the future? because leave a house with ab- ochism drives people up the wall Noguchi: Comprehensive medical-legal person to enter and often lo refer only to women who solutely trace: There is always an ex- it's taken investigation will become an integral part no are abused in marriage." change—oil, soil, fiber, it takes a really system. 1 also expect of the criminal-justice other issues. this well. And dis- But Spitzer stood firm on applied more to aid the sharp intellect to handle our work will be the revi- very great problem He says Walker's allegation that of rape and nonfatal child posing of the body is a living —victims psychiatrists to special transportation. Time tends sions were an attempt by abuse, the injured factory workers in work- requiring are boost sagging income is "absurd." Women convict requiring to be a problem, since most crimes man-disability cases, the short- theoretically entering crisis-counseling centers for committed in a hurry. I can medical care in prison. Or suppose a bul- term therapy probably never would have murder, but I don't think lodged near the spinal cord, and the create a very clean let is psychiatrists anyway. it wrong; gone to it. First, I know is I could actually do assailant is awaiting trial. Because the bul- Walker now says she is pleased at the I know and second, I get nervous because let cannot be removed, its striations cannot detected. deletion of the last references to homosex- directly to those of the gun so much about how it can be be compared of the pro- most murders are committed by uality and at the withdrawal barrel. Techniques do exist to identify this You see, disorder. "But it's a sham that amateurs. There is no university degree in posed rape bullet while it's still in the victim's body, but to pull the wool over murder. There is no stan- the APA is trying has not stepped in to imple- how to commit our profession a dif- cannot easily practice. everyone's eyes by claiming there's ment them. dard test. And you ference between the appendix and the medical examiner should master a Omni: Please continue. The predicts that disor- case. [Pause] Well, okay. regular volume." She specific curriculum. The days when any- Noguchi: I rest my ders relegated to the appendix in this edi- are still committed by a per- with experience in handling dead Most crimes one upgraded in the future. The known to have something to gain, es- tion will be bodies can join the coroner's office should son From mo- name changes, she says, are "cosmetic- University of Southern Cal- pecially revenge, by the killing. be passe. The to think It's the arrogance of psychiatrists lead- tive comes lead. Many unsolved murders ifornia hopes to establish a program contro- if change the names, the are those where the killer seems to have that they ing to a Ph.D. in forensic medicine by 1987. versy will go away. In any form they will be death should be contin- no personal connection to the victim—the And the subject of women." senseless killing is very difficult. pejorative to uously talked about in more honest terms. nameless, other alterations before tre however, murderer will soon There may be eulo I believe, some The American tradition of whitewash : board of trustees votes next month on start to use very sophisticated, remote in- APA gies, of letting sleeping dogs lie, of not very reluctant to the final revisions. death, is injurious struments. Of course, I'm writing anything about currents not-appropriate for me to In the middle of these swirling There are lessons to be learned say just what. It's to the living. beleaguered Dr. Spitzer by step, how you can com- of fashion, the from death. And because these death describe, step But his doctor said it murder. And I've been broke out in a rash. events are repeated over and over again, mit the perfect. had nothing to do with trendy syndromes understand them. asked many, many times. [Pause] One we must strive to personality disor- simulate a natural event, like or (mumble, mumble) Omni: What do you think of Quincy! Was could maybe it's just something I picked where in fact the heart at- ders. "He says the TV show really modeled on you? a heart attack, up in the garden," Spitzer says.DO Noguchi: Jack Klugman asked me to en- tack was induced. . . .DO 162 OMNI ADVEfrrsNy^NT

J&B PRESENTS THE TELEPHONE CRYPT

In wartime and in peace, phone dial, with each number larity (predictability) of English men have sought io find ways standing far of three one letters: in context, there is one and only to send messages in private, one solution. to conceal their meanings, 2 = ABC B. = MNO from those who might be eager a -DEF 7 = = PRS to intercept them. 8430722304706680 4 = GHI a. = TUV To make the meaning per- i -JKL 9- = WXY fectly clear, the translation 25929708608430943810 unambiguous, usually each For our purposes we'll use letter is represented by one the numeral "1" to indicate 6670843022885308608430 specific "0" symbol in decoding. punctuation marks and for The 26 letters in the alphabet spaces between words. Now, 7876641288084281708430 translate to 26 different letters the message has some built-in in the code. But it is possible to ambiguity. The number "8" 9290860238101326660 use far fewer symbols in the could stand for a T, a U, or a V. code and still get the meaning 786966 The"4"could be a G,an H,ot an 7. across in context. Does that ambiguity make In the code below, the mes- the message indecipherable? Look for the solution to this puz- sage was spelled out on a tele- Not at all. Because of the regu- zle next month in Omni.

u O KJ More holes through cards and Competition #42. drastic measures

By Scot Mcr':S

Omni readers continue 'o anwe us ast June we revived the cfassic challenge How car, yoj cut a hoe in a three oy hvc inch card big enough to put yout head through? Any Kid who has read the backs ot cereal boxes or watched W/ Wizard Knows the answer Ifs number 1 at right. solution ir. that column we panted a new ;o 'he pu/z c (number 2) by Cra c Horwich ot i.auderhiH Florida [Norwich's stepfather ncidehially is Jackie tne f rst ariornate Gieascr ) Wo ha.lod it as solution to a century-old classic Tner •he ma>l started coming in. Wnen it was Clone we h;id seer, over a onzen complete y dfrferont, brand-new ways of dona the trick! in ^orw oh s so.ulion there is on.y one 001-it where the outer rim o' the care .irea bisecteo is out. Tnci the one used s by one continuous internal cut Many readers constructed spiraling ano this theme. zig/aqg r ,j variations on Ac'i.a'ly the numt>cr ol solutions turns out to be infinite Just oraw ar-y ma/e. no natter how complex, as ong as the start ano Snish pom's are connected Wayne Yung from Edmonton Alberta sort number 3 and George Sterpka seni the starourst (number 4)— uxamp.es ol ttie range ol poss b« solutions The problem s. most o' them would be &-. ^.ji-c-'-j »*-•*<** classic ih^'i a M«J U-q c- uc* ?- >"» WW C .. very di'i'CL" to cut whereas the Cut H KK WW its pattern !,. 6) new <3 4), ana Down's simpte toW arid version requires jus! a s-' ole fold am a tew -new" way (2), new »>W ot Sudbury scissor snips Thang V Doan said " 'ake the rope 1 ne solutions'' the student some very complex then measure the ongth ot the " 0-iiar.c showed that barometer out on a sunny oay measure answer, according to the teacher was i me internal patters could emerge fts shaoow. atmospheric the heigh! and length of iwice before cutting to use the variation in card were folded buiid ng ; shadow, and then pressure from tne grnund to the roo'. measure the (numbers b anc 6) s>mo:e proportion." i no the height oy a The student a«jueo 'ha*, his answer ' the protes- I'd have to accept mat too " LATT.RAL THINKING was ust as accurate as tne processor's said, stroking his bearo Any oltiersT (j'ver a second chance to answer sor oi creative thinking we He was This 's tne * no tne sta»s. ~arkrg eii barometer qucsten. provided that his answer 'Cir^b fro-n Omni readers it the have corns* to expect the wall you go. Or lie the Knowledge o' physics lengths on as story, ongmateu showed some reminds us of a classic drop it student barometer to the end ot a string are several ways. ' the Alexander Caiandra professor o' There by and et i: swing as a could throw tne barometer over over the eoge ',;r. verity in St sa'd. "You ohys-cs a' Washington t me the duration ol its swing of the buying ano time its fall pendulum [jhys-cs student CO"'plamed tnal the edge I cms A and determine values for g at street level Then use the formula S-V^af- to calculate he shouldn't have tailed an exam " In onnciple. and at the ton ot the bu Wmg 'Hnw you calculate tho iho height of 'he building quest on co shou'c be able lc measure the lierght The professor agreed lha! his answer you ol lali buiiding, using a barom- height a of tne bu Iding fro"i these o fterences. was perfectly val c and was curious eter?" 1 he student answered Tethe i* ynu allow me lc use psychology rope to know -he student's other possible barcn-eter to a long rope, throw the tne or economics. I would go to ground, answers 'There are much simpler over the edge until i! touches the

16i> OWNI " 4 —

basement of tho bunding 'ir o ine super- you 'e riding or trao;! or a. ra 'ton: na;ks COMPETITOR #4? intendent, arc say 'Sir I have -his very (39 feel org; you can 'reasuro your f.no barometer hco. III give wmen to yOL spceu .n miles per nour by counting the Send Omm a postcard with no mofu i* you'll tell now tall this building is:' number of rail clicks every 26.6 seconds. than two original ways—serious or silly l 'tie story illustrates the lost art of lateral While these examples illustrate unusual to measure something. tri iking or, put more simply, the ability ways to measure ordinary matters, other • "If Rolaids consumes forty-seven times 'u ook at things in new ways. truly forms The are less serious The millihelen, its weight, and you ate five pounds, ccative mind isn't limited by habitual for example, measures the amount of would you be completely absorbed?" modes of thinking. How creative are beauty you? necessary to launch one ship- — Michael Davis One way to get out of a cognitive rut using is Helen of Troy as the paradigm: • 'Alpo dog food costs thirty-eight cents a to 'ry to find new ways to things. of female measure beauty. can. That's more than two dollars and r I o example, do you know how to use Solomon Golomb in Johns Hopkins fifty cents in dog dollars."— Gary Muledeer ar ordinary watch as a compass? Point Magazine decided that if • micro-means "It was so cold il was all the way down the hour hand directly toward the sun, and one millionth (10- 6 " ) and mega- means a to Celsius — Father Guido Sarducci look at the s ,J angle formed between the . million (10 then 10 ), microphones would The grand prize-winner will receive a no jr hand and the 12. line bisecting 6 A this equal one megaphone Similarly, 10 Casio 2000 pocket color television. Nine arcje points directly south. bicycles equal 21 two megacycles, and TO runners-up will each get $25, and all Now it's your turn to answer picolos our make one gigalo. ten will receive the usual one-year variation on the barometer problem: How QUIZ: Follow Golomb's "Megamean- subscription. Send your card, postmarked dc you use a watch that doesn't work to ings" to their logical conclusions and find by December 15, 1986, to Omni Competi- ne o you tell the time? Don't peek the following yet equivalents: 1. 10 millipedes tion #42, 1965 Broadway, New York, NY a: our six answers, which appear right. 2. 10^ at 2 x militaries = 1 binary, or 4 10023-5965. All entries become the what? FROM LIGHT-INCH TO 3. 2,000 mockingbirds 4, 10 cards property of Omni -and will not be returned. MILLIHELEN 6 5. ys lavatory 6. 10- fish 7. 5 holocausts ANSWERS in The Ultimate Split of the Second 8, 453.6 graham crackers 9. What unit did Isaac Asimov wrote, "Occasionally, I get Golomb propose for measuring the The stopped-walch problem: 1, Put the an idea for something new in science; not amount of suspense in a mystery novel? watch jn your pocket; pretend it's a gun, necessarily something important, of 10. If journey a of 1,000 miles begins and threaten to shoot anyone who won't course, but new, anyway." with He then a single step, where does a walk of tell you the time. described a new way to measure half- one mile begin? 2. Set the watch at 12 noon, place yourself lives of subatomic particles, for example, LOWEST DENOMINATORS in the middle of a time zone, poke a using such minute units as the xi-zero: stick in the ground, and put the walch on one ten billionth (10-'°)of a second. In Science Made Stupid (Houghton top. When the shadow of the stick is at Asimov's "new idea" was to visualize Mifflin Company) humorist/illustrator Tom its shortest, the watch is correct. split seconds using such terms as the Weller proposes hilarious a new way to 3. Stare at the watch. When it's too dark light-mile (the time it takes light to travel a measure earthquakes. It's called the to see the watch anymore, it's nighttime. mile, or about 1/186,000 second) and Rictus Scale. 4. Take the watch to your telephone the light-kilometer (about 1 /3GO.O0O MAGNITUDE OBSERVED EFFECTS and use the winding stem to dial 976-1616 second). He defined the "ultimate split of (or whatever the local number is for "lime"). the second" as the iight-fermi, the time 0-3 Small articles in local papers 5. Slap the watch against your thigh as required for a ray of light to travel from one 3-5 Lead story on local news;- you count "ONE thousand, TWO thousand end of a proton to the other—the time mentioned on network ," news THREE thousand. . . required for the fastest known motion to 5-6.5 Lead story on network news; 6. Pound the watch against the wait of cover the smallest tangible distance. wire-service photos appear in your apartment until you hear someone Creative thinkers have also devised "newspapers nationally; gover- yell, "Hey! Cut the racket! It's ways to measure temperature by listening nor visits scene o'clock in the morning!" to crickets and to calculate a train's speed 6:5-75 Network correspondents sent Megameanings: 1. centipede 2. from the rate of its rail clicks. Crickets to scene; president visits seminaries (The enlightenment generated chirp at a- rate that is directly proportional area; commemorative T-shirts by a seminary is measured in luminaries:) to the temperature. By counting the appear 3. 2 kilomockingbirds 4. 1 dekacards number of chirps every 15 seconds and 7.5 up Covers of weekly newsmaga- 5. 1 demijohn 6. 1 microfiche 7. 1 Pentecost adding 40, you can calculate the temper- zines; network specials, "instant 8. 1 pound cake.9. The mysterious ature within two degrees Fahrenheit. If books" appear whod unit 10. Milwaukee.00 predicts that by the Nineties most com- puters will be half serial, half neural, and CHIPS so well blended we won't be able to tell the !";ntinuiOFF difference. Users need both, he says. "If you're an astronaut you don't want a neural one tloreonant" feature Instead, it built Its network computing your orbit to Mars de- own characteristic for what could be de- may not arrive scribed as the bridge between the b and cause ycu about TRW s next- . that doesn't He won't say much Ihr. "ft as a fare k a feafure generation neural nel system. The ma- have a name, one in ba and ga, a different paid ' IV, is hush-hush stuff, '.' chine, the Mark ,,.,.- „. bl and Zfpsa says "Now, that's b the Pentagon's Defense Advanced a discovery," ** y Projects Agency. Now unOergo- These are big surprises from little net- Research and debugging, the system can works What abouf a few decades down ing testing with 250,000 processing future neural networks, un- handle networks i te road when elements and 5.5 million interconnections, less unseated by a new technology, will be won't discuss what the military plans to far more sobhisticated. mbro brainlike? He Carnedie-Mellon's Fahlman describes the dd with it, are obvious reasons for the paradox- "It'sconceivablethatwe'llunder- But there interest So much of wha sol- Pentagon's i stand the basic architecture because we exactly diers do well and machines do poorly in- built it but that we still won't know and volves pattern recognition-identifying an flow it's internally representing time Whence comes the silent \ Hying level or upside space and shoes and ships and sealing aircraft whether it's Intuition and Inspira- between a from within? with ddwn. knowing the difference it may be that we'll wind up mechanistic wax So tion are not merely a frigate and a destroyer. Networks are good an intelligent machine, and we still won't subconscious. At- can process of the than know at pattern recognition because they know how it works any better we tunement of the mind is not limit- out distdrtion-they can ro down the how the brain works." «er ed to communication with other valley no matter where Such inscrutable machines are a Ibng hill to the. correct orderly, humans. If the Cosmos is they land on the slope. Networks may yield way off But current networks are already then it is conscious, if it is con- autonomous weapons sys- showing they can dd real work. unmanned, This Cos- scious, it is intelligent. terns that could travel behind enemy lines Nestor Inc., a start-up company in Prov- mic Intelligence need not be just along hostile borders, idence Rhode Island, will probably be the or of ideas an occasional sudden flash Deft pattern recognition is especially to matket a neural net machine. Nes- conscious mind. You can first detection o into the two Brown University important in radar and sonar canunlock tor founded by call it forthat will—you planes, missiles, and ships. Naoil Dhvsicists Charles Elbaum and Ndbel lau- enemy and be the radar it when most needed— Farhat. a University df Pennsylvania reate Leon Cooper, went public in 1983 and enlightenment it recipient of the optics' specialist, is currently studying expects to Oegin selling its lira product this and provides. networks can help produce year a "forms-entry" neural network pro- how neural near-optical-quality radar jmages^ t Have You Had These gram that can read hand-printed letters of lab at Penn he first makes de- Experiences? the alphabet and learn the idiosyncrasies cratt. In his using prototype can run tailed images df scale-model aircraft, • That strange, inexplicable of anyone's style. A radar waves instead of full-sized BM'S AT personal computer. millimeter views he can produce a Scofield, manager of systems de- radar. With many • The mysterious familiarity of a Chris can replace a com- sinogram of the aircraft: in effect, that air- place never visited previously. sign, says the machine craft's fingerprint or signature. puter keyboard for certain applications. An • impelling urge to act in a The Farhat shows me one such image, r insurance agent, he says, could use it to withdut B-52-not |ust a blip but the bomber, en- fill out his policy lorms by hand ra- This FREE Book and all. He needed 128 different Accept having to use his keybbard to jump a com- gines views to get this image. That takes time. These are no weird phenomena. OUter cursor from bbx to box, line to line. A dar wants to dawdle with a bomber They are the working of a power digitizing pad-a conventional sensing And nd one that lies behind your conscious device— under the paper would tell the heading his way may be neural mind. The powers await your cemputer what shapes the agent printed The sdlution, says Farhat, networks and their associative memories, on the form and the networkwould decide gath- With lust a few glances by the radar, The Rosicrudans, a worldwide, which letters the shapes represented "The ering, say, 20 percent df a targets srno- nonprofit organization (not a reli- system establishes its bwn rules," says can rec- to gram, his experimental system gion), can repeal these things to Scofield "It determines what it needs ognize the bomber. The glance provides you. Write for a free copy of The discriminate between patterns," the sys- Artificial enough mfotmation to convince Master? of Life. It tells how you At TBW Inc 's Rancho Carmel that the aircraft is a B-52. The system may receive this useful knowledge Intelligence Center, north of San Diego, torn then retrieves from its memory the com- for study and use in the privacy of RoOert Hecht-Nielsen and colleagues have a plate image of the scale model, made ear- your home. Write to: Scrihe KDY built the Mark III "neurocompuler." the lab. "What we ve dorre here is S53 000 high-speed network simulator de- lier in l-ar- Scribe KDY trivial, the simplicity of it. says sioned to speed up network research. The almost Order, Ro.>ic;ucian AMORC hat. "Everything is done by the network, cpmpany is currently marketing the ma- San Jose, CA 95191, U.S.A. net scientists see future chine as a research and design tool. Many neural Please send me a free copy of The Mas- guiding autonomous vehicles that Hecht-Nielsen is a believer. Neural nets, netwerks interested. ter} of Life. 1 am sincerely can probe space, perhaps even travel the he says will allow cheaper speech-rec- - - Mars, Such systems would Name. ognition and synthesis systems, and these surface of Address _ oi their own to cope with the un- , ,,nds" will turn up in less expensive products. "T expected. Suppose, for example, a Mars not prediciing that toasters will have them— set out from its mother craft and but they might. Certainly computers will. probe headed straight for the edge of a mile-deep That will probably be the ubiquitous inter- canyon. Control from Earth is impossible. argB face between humans and computers." He It would take hours for a visual image lo sion. "You can take the whole world's sup- purpose, say Rich Howard and Larry reach mission control and for mission con- ply of supercomputers . and you can't do Jackel of Bell Labs. In electronics, they ar- trol to flash back, turn right, you idiot. By the visual processing of the brain," says gue, small has always meant "computing the time ihe probe received the direction, Caltech's Carver Mead, an expert on power," and the smaller the circuit com- it would be in pieces on the canyon floor. semiconductor design. He has built a ponents got, the more computers could do. Says Carnegie-Mellon's Fahlman: "NASA neural chip thai functions like tiny a piece Conventional devices have been made that wants machines that can go out Far and of the human retina. "We've been strug- are as small as they can get. "The things behave sensibly without getting them- gling with the retina, a very simple struc- we're making are a hundred atoms across," selves clobbered; machines that can wan- ture by neural standards. It's-nard to get says Howard, who, like Jackel, is an expert der around on Mars, look under rocks, and right." As he learns more about the brain, in microcircuitry "You can't go another fac- not mess up anything lhat might be a cac- he says, he feels more humbled. "The brain tor of ten down because it's biology then. tus—because it might be Ihe only cactus," is just orders of magnitude beyond what We're sitting here grubbing around below If neural networks fulfill the highest hopes anyone could have conceived. II contin- the end of Ihe process. And now we have of the neural network scientists, they will ues to recede even as we get closer to it." to look for something different because it's become the building blocks of higher forms But researchers feel say they they're on going to stop there. That's the attraction of of artificial cognition —artificial inspiration, the right track. Neural net systems learn, this. I! smells right It's another direction to creativity, and imagination. How far off such they associate, they generalize— all prop- go. It's the only really new direction we can machines are depends in part on how you erties of the human brain. Even if they don't think of going."00 define, for example, inspiration. Neural lead lo true thinking machines, artificial networks can generalize and make asso- neural networks are already serving a vital Next month: computers that daydre ciations. "That's in part what inspiration presumably comes from or what new ideas come from in real thought," says Hopfield. Truly creative machines, he says, may

exhibit some other, equally human, it un-

anticipated, characteristics: "There is going to be a real question as to the extent to which people are willing to tolerate deviant behavior [from their computers] in order to get possibly brilliant answers to prob- lems," he says. "Suppose you turn the ma-

chine on in the morning and give it a prob-

lem, it and says, you know, i really Gont

FEEL LIKE WORKING ON THAT PROBLEM TODAY. . Are you going to tolerate lhat?"

It conjures up nice images: music syn: thesizers with the temperament of divas. Computer-graphics systems that won't print unless the light is right. Word proces- sors with writer's block. But can neural nets really do it, or are they the next obsolete technology, the next discredited theory? Networks seem to explain features of the mind, and they seem to be nudging com- puters toward human thought. Bui no one There's something inside every pair of our binoculars that's also inside every knows whether camera we neural networks come any- make: advanced optics. Each precisely designed lens and prism is a where close to working the way the brain's product of Minolta's 57 years of technological experience. From our t own .neural ensembles operate. Indeed, ar i Pocket models to our waterproof styles, Minolta artificial neural net theory occupies a pe- offers rugged, quick-focus- ing binoculars that culiar can magnify a subject up to 18 times ^^^ position; Some researchers use it to its size. And each pai,- is backed by a 25 year warranty. figure out how men think; others use it to There's just one t e make computers think more like men. And ableto overlook. Binocularscrafted by Minolta are much MINOITA both groups caution that the iviiimwlim research may more affordable than you'd expect. - simply lead to a dead end. MINOLTA BINOCULARS. BECAUSE EVERY DETAIL COUNTS.

"Sometimes I wonder if [neural net- ONLY FROM THE MIND works] are really telling us something or OF MINOLTA whether we are getting convinced be- cause we want to get convinced," says An- ilkumar P Thakoor. a scientist at the Jet

Propulsion Laboratory who is helping build neural circuits that may one day guide un- manned space probes. One critic, Tomaso Poggio, professor of computational vision at MIT, calls neural net research a fad. He says artificial neural nets are too simplified, too unlike real neurons and neural arrays. The new research reminds him of the per- ceptron days, he says. "I think these things are like epidemics of influenza—they come every twenty years."

Through it all, the brain stands out as defiantly awesome as ever. Consider vi- ' ; . . ' r

• ^Theydotnejob," Mann said, "butyou For the first time in his 20-year career, Dr.

I spot a bad Harold Mann was nervous. have to buy the best. can a-partiOJ.IarSy delicate one a mile away' . This had been

' ' . one day to the next he never job. Thepatlent had be' n ravaged by a From kind of work he will be called runaway corn picker in a tragic farm knows what "Probably my toughest accident Mori experts would have written' upon'' to perform. assignment was the time, a lady called and tins case oif, content to restore the victim tree. She life asked me to neuter her oak to some semblance ol a carbon-based .....;.:... -- form. But not Harold Mann. trees off the lawn." As he unwound: the last yard of gauze trig the other : a success? bandage, he remembered his rash assur- Was the procedure "Sure. Where do you think I goi these ances to the middle-aged' couple waiting oaK bookends?" in the next room The words seemed Mann has never turned down a job and to echo in his brain:

' dollars. has never lost a: patient— although he ! can do it all for five thousand ' .' Persona! check9 No problem." has come close,- sycamores "I once separated Siamese But wait. There had been another almost as hard to do as it is to promise. Something about restoring the It was particularly difficult because patient, about putting his own reputation on say. it was one tree had the heart, and the other one the Sine. It was too late to worry, about the sap." -..- ,. that now. The last bandage was about to had Later that dav Mann had a meeting come on. whose elm needed a sap "They planted her. in the front yard," with a woman transfus : on and another meeting with Mann said later as he lit a hand-rolled root ' w': icse maple needed a cigarette and relaxed in.his office "One a man LAST .''. his head sadly as he pedicure He shook oithe best jobs I ever did. Replaceda could be . problems coupieoi missing branches-arid gave the noted how these avoided wi th: a little preventive care. whole thing a bark lift and. a leaf trans- UUORD not. limited to a frees His Interest is plant. You'd never know'the sapling He says he is concerned about k By Mitch.'Coleman suffered a corn-picker attack. exterior. going on. "beneath the bark," in me Welcome tc the world o! Dr. Harold what's llvi'ng'tree. To him his patients ^Mann pioneered the field Mann cosmetic tree surgeon. heart of the are more than just a few cords of wood Formerly a- S 20- an -hour gardener. of cosmetic and this business is all about. Mann pioneeroo the Held of cosmetic and "it s what lifo.'We should cherish our trees. reconstructive tree surgery. reconstructive tree surgery just two years It's about Thcvke living, beautiful things-.. But.try ago. Now tie commands as mud"! as . ... He now commands . retting that to a runaway farm implement $15,000 for treatments as trunk tucks, such : 'thousands of dollars for "Trees are like people, Mann contin- bark lilts, teat weaving, and knothole jobs. suffer- when exposed to the trunk tucks, bark "feu may be beautiful;" Mann said. ued.'.' -They wouldn't, sit our in the sue "You may have a beautiful house and a elements. We i'lifts, knothole jobs. ^ and ; ail long in one-hundred-degree oeauiiful car, out what does It a; mean if day heat or stand naked in a blizzard. But we ...ol: have uglv trees'"" It's not right Ideally, . our trees to. Apparently; thousands of people agree. expeci be kept Inside, nice Eachdayanxious iree owners call Manns .ahapovtreeshouid repaid comfy, sheltered from: the elements Beverly Hills office begging. him :o and "Ol course ltd die, but life is full of and restore their trees to a youth and .

. . trade-offs." t known ''or decades, Mann stubbed out his last cigarette ol 'tin this day and age there's just no and slipped on his jacket "it's reason for a iroe to tie unaitraeiive/' Mann the day madhouse around here." he -.?. c said. And why shouldn't a free took its- oeon a with papers, files be&t? When it'boks .good, itfeeisgood. loading his briefcase and a pair of pruning shears. "It'll be ".It -breaks my heart to see a. stand relax. to get home and ' ot beautiful trees when there In the middle gooo wonder Just then a car norn sounded from the is one ugly duckling I nave to narking lot. and Mann peeked throng what kind ot psychological trauma. that free the blinds to see a familiar station wage- is suffering because, well, trees can be idling by the. curb, in the front seat a so-cruel..'- Ohebf'Manrvs.sp'ec'ialties: nineA/eaf-olci boy stuck his arm out the is making old trees young again, and he waved to his father. I saw 3 has developed a variety ol methods to window and green, leafy branch flop up and cow: suit the prob-em. "Receding leatiine" No Russell," Mann said. "He's real . problem. can do a leaf weave or. tor "My son his accident." He ilete transplant pounced back -rom briefcase shut. "Did/the work using leaves from the more heavily snapped the I:'.. As a iiJS'L resort I might " Mann bounced down the stairs and use a tree toupee ' car. As the vehicle pu ':- The tree ;oupee-, no explained, is a mat hopped into the away, single leaf fluttered out tne ot leaves and branches ingeniously a window and settled on the- pavemen: woven in the Philippines and flown to the Russell was waving good-bye.OQ United States in refrigerated cargo planes. Each toupee is carefully placed Chicago ?T;nix:K:r -v- over the bare soot in a 'tree's foliage Mild: Coleman is a and nailed down to stay on in high winds.