.Ik

iNEI GENES: tt-T< -ORDER lALj THAT

p2 ;*5v HE ORLD'S BES' /WORST PUNS onnrui NOVEMBER 1985

EDITOR IN CHIEF & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOB GUCCIONE PRESIDENT; KATHY KEETON EDrOR: GURNEY WILLIAMS IN GRAPHCS DIRECTOR -RANK, DEVI NO MANAGING EDITOR: PAUL HILTS ART DIRECTOR: AMY SEISSLER

CONTENTS PAGE

FIRST WORD Opinion Timothy Ferris 4 OMNIBUS Contributors 6 COMMUNICATIONS Coresoondence 10 FORUM Dialogue 12

EARTH Environment Rick Boling 14

MIND Behavior Leah Wallach 18

EXPLORATIONS Travel Jane Bosveid 22

BODY Health Sherry Baker 24

' LIFE Anthropology Steven Schwarlz 26 SPACE Comment Owen Davies 30 STARS Astronomy Sheridan Simon 32 CONTINUUM Data Bank 35

THE ARTRCNAUTS Article Phoebe Hoban 44

SNOW Fiction John Crowley 50

DESIGNER GENES: Article Bill Lawren 56 MADE-TO-ORDER ANIMALS.

STONES THAT SPEAK Article Carole Douglis 62 TO THE FUTURE

A NEW LEAF Pictorial Sandra Sinclair 68

HOW TO PREVENT AIDS Bill Lawren 76 Mathilde Krim

THE MOST PROFOUND CARESS Fiction Julio Cortazar 84

ANTIMATTEH UFOs, etc. 91

COMPETITION Future Etiquette Scot Morris 96

LIGr-T PAINTING Phenomena Eric J. Piitman 124

THE WORLD'S Games Scot Morris 128 BEST/WORST PUNS

LAST WORD Humor John Ficarra :30

Photo illustrator Steven Hunt designed Exploring a Window lot a corporate client to represent states of being. The blue sphere is caught inside the&ox, a closed universe. The red sphere begins to emerge;

the yellow transcends its Hnvis. ' —

| / i . .,,:.' : irih:.: : 1 ! i ngdem two 1 —

:, one eeschbed as "w'h top ihe other black 3 ao-r and white can't mux and "he

III.! !..::!!. 'U II 1,1 io secrecy essem-a ! r o'scf magic isanatfr-

do and ema to science Re::--:, . sreaCERN. 11 : > ' povve-. Whirs mag^c loancc free- nature: Mie- .: ii .. : r . I !

.. : . i fiiri i. ii lijhhe in cry, I ' I iai I :.' i:...

ij i I'h :. rnti : sen h' H i i .....! i imamis .. '/ tire scl candor y and tears. cfieerfu y inlorruptcd the:' vvovK to expeli".

[ ; 1 .Stock magic was rg c y conservative is as c 1 lev

:' 1 , ;; . .in i fi :: r aenans'~'aiic out m ,r ! .; vier.

!."i ' ' " v.'hivo rati i"i : i atio: i of reverse sececy a hols gushing .'.!' ' > .' !' :::. ii ' . \- i I I f I' comma::!! mil -i than i.o mc i iand k v OhU

' . „,: ;•; I i,i. '..! sms) would -ooeat an .:;. i- :i .11 in; , roar instaliatians or She beautiful maiden fan in love wlto Asrhe wp-id becomes !0:oas;ng!y

the cerpuiem merchant who had sponsored m-h Larked, tnis sc:ontl!:c co^r : ol openness

: . . . ||. , i ?. the spell. 'An cirror ot a sing e we'd could : i eroding The snper-

spcii the trick, even kii: the mag cap without pew i . i !.. q- his ever knowing why ii :;'..; v i ,. iv diverted so much

'..!! .'.!;;, |, . :f:s:.lr v ! i, !.„.! i : ,: 'vvran arid ccaoom.o 'escutces ' -.. : : i i'l i nem . r r u II to migl

.! i white magic i ui. -in em r healers astrologer?, and diviners were :tmg inclined to learn from exper.onco and involved in bunding weaoons.

' ton ii ' mi ii i" '.' os ;por: tne oas-so: Miliiary R&D is defendec on Ihe grounds what they iearn.ed. Like scientists they ..that scientific breakthroughs can bo ! ;; 1 I .. ,: i ! :; i ,: trillion dollars WJORD r I \ !:, .expected to result from, say. a cower. worth of star-wars spending. But in d By Timothy Ferris: "Tweivo Expo'imonts with S.oakeskin and practice big defense projects produce

_ Some ol I'rom True'' was the t-ke o- one iifsl-rate science about as cf:e as magic

. speils angels. innovations iB/g defense: y : twelfth- century :rsct. Tne idea was to coniure up The rivum ruies loan to curiently rnosl coveted Py the r itary— projects produce under sand r- rathe wied supernatural power to blucgeon lasers., nuclear oonbs. part'de beams, ano first-rate electronics ranging from nature into submission a pancpiy ot _ .

' 5 science about as Ihe pr^cips dreams of while magic- to computers ic communicators satellites :

' reheve humai suffering and to sustain a we?e not born; rn crash programs aimed'-

^dften^aS' r : sense c:l wonder' in the world— live on :: enhai oing nationai pOvve a.n..:: prestige. , . >> . ,:. magic spells conjure ioday as the reahti' c! ci ice alio '"v.:. i -'.in the impractical arid white 11. i .. : of Maxwell. othor ". ay ore: i tne e; in Greens Emstem ..up angels3 . red bea clothes anvil suspending a pocked mao c ens who sol,-or -t not to ruie the worlo

;,",' tnoir of- ' stem ad is . iccun bed to out to improve undersranding :hfi'i o ...... I ;n: hi To Jonm i is Magics i| i now the wend works nest such reams

'l:> : . '.:. h tne dr. i ;n : lael as they were out the raw material of

i,i: : .:i i hi. i ihe met' voieo-i vaichec power is "to nx-ike ihe m s:ako t a; Jacob fighting in the sky tor two full hours In Broncwski cal ed ''trying to 0:.\- tne corpse

1 ..i :.•. Sopti m; 551 !.. . :,! :e ot science.' physicists' visions of ci.;rvea space ar;o In the centuries imreedlatey preceding

exploding, stars that ran goto ts demise c^agic wso ..:: a:rv

: Bui black magic is sell v-^tn us. loc. It described as mora% neufa The question

lives who r ever oowe- Is valueo over knowl- was ihe use to which p was put- Slack edge idowhe-'e does : :t -ive mere vigor- viagic. with Ms invitations to me dev^. was ously than in Ihe nuo'ear-arms race, a blind said :o oe haemtut: while wrhile piaylc

; . . . > .'ill. !.! ! i I i. I I. with lis el-ort.s lo euro Gisoaso. ought do

science is subordinate to force good. Science today ace sim'iai -ra!

ii : i !.'!. ' 'Vi I ik- Hi 'I I . • choice, can continue In the tradition ot

;

i : i i' . in the efficacy of oowe' avor tho roto vvhit r I niy in

relation o- antique foimuias The deploy sunlight, wdn -rnowlecge as Its goal Or '!

i ' lit fii-Pltl i :.: ': ,i "I " .: car^ desceno deeper into tiro dimly

as being i iai ic n i". na! se in y caverns ol oowor, wcking in secrecy to

i .. | : " . v ; ..i i evei nore opn wayi

' i '"! i.' i . .!.' comparable Nor '! 'I.' ..!. II . nr

are the new :a- ii iai ., im i Ic be judged Thechoic iy i J\ to mptement.

by rheii: -esu ts any mere than sorcerers rt'Ui n :asy see as nig u day- - we or black arid while. Our future may deoend earned by oagios could restore s.gnt to tne upon wnether that old black meoio stil!

i '. 1. . i i '.i i . ii i.i ;: ! 1 has us in its sdoIlDO moon as a cloud of viccming missies, and

'iM ." ii .' i n s si - s- ins :"i ,i\ :: i Vn;oihy Fe ;.'.':" Macros u- toe O'vvorcv, :.i

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in. •' \l : vi. ind to un nd our fortunes ever mo .ines "

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thousand years irom now, to future generations. But there are also border between realky and iLSion," says Two of for writer Sinclair. finely wrought huge monoliths etched with picto- plenty challenges today's researchers. Sandra "These graphs soar over a sage-sludded One of Ihe more publicized modern woes reproductions represent the force of plain in what had been ihe western USA. is acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or millions of years of evolution," Like the pyramids, these stilettos carry AIDS, in this month's Interview (page 76), Bui transmutation of form is not restricted stories no! of pharaohs and gods but o( Dr. Maihilde Krim, director of a new AIDS to the forest. It will soon take place among atomic waste left from an earlier age. laboratory at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, ihe stars. Already, according to "The

If this scenario comes to pass, it won't be in Mew York City, outlines precautions, Artronauts" (page 44), by Phoebe Hoban. an accident. Keeping Ihe human race everyone should take to prevent the spread artist Joe McShane has sent a set of sale from inadvertent contact with radiation of the disease. Krim, perhaps best known computer-operated glass bubbles up with may depend on novel, long-term communi- lor her controversial advocacy of interferon, ihe space shuttle; when heated in zero cation systems that scientists are now was interviewed by writer Bill Lawren. g, these light-bulb -size spheres, filled wiih developing. And in "Stone Sentry," on page If a solution to AIDS still eludes us, another precious- metal filaments, begin to glow, 62, writer Carole Douglis examines one dream, the quest for the chimera, has Says Hoban. a technology columnist for New such system, based on a concept called become real. In "1990s Designer Beasts," York magazine: "I was astonished at the nuclear deep-time communication. (page 56), writer Bill Lawren describes number of artists who have not only given

"Because it will take more than engineering new breeding techniques that will allow us serious thought to launching art into space to protect "our descendants from radioactiv- to meld two distinct animals into one but have actually done something about it. ity." Douglis says, "nuclear planners are amalgamated beasi. Geeps are a mixture The response I got—from people ranging taking a fairly sophisticated look at how to of goats and sheep, Lawren explains. from MIT conceplual types to writers like send messages to the distant future. The Beefalos are a result of the marriage naturalist Annie Dillard—was sensitive, point is to give at least some lifesaving between buffalo and cow. Some scientists articulate, and humanistic. And whether or information a kind of immortality. even suggest combining the genes of not the art works aesthexa ly. r.he attempt

"What really strikes me about the project," an ape and a man. "Many of the emerging to create it is a welcome relief from the

Douglis adds, "is that it demands a lot of hybrids will be a good source of food in usual killer-satellite scenarios." hope; hope that future humans won't inter- the future," Lawren adds, "and all can Finally, two acclaimed fiction authors pret the warnings to be guileful attempts teach us more about the nature of life. have contributed stories about love and loss. to conceal treasure, like the pharaoh's Hybrids may seem like the stuff of fantasy, One of Latin America's foremost storytellers, prophecies of doom to those who disturbed but other creatures of the earth are more the late Julio Cortazar, wrote "The Most the pyramids; hope that no matter what illusory still. In this month's pictorial, "A, New Profound Caress" (page 84), a Kafkaesque history brings, our fundamental institutions Leaf," on page 68, Kjell B. Sandved's fantasy about the inconveniences of and scientific knowledge will persist; and photographs depict leaf mimes—insects sinking slowly into the floor. And John above all, hope that we or our descendants that camouflage themselves by parading as Crowley, author of the novel Little, Big, has won't obliterate the human race before .. twigs, specks- of bark, or the common written "Snow" (page 50), about a man the dangers of nuclear waste disappear." forest leaf. "Their bodies assume shapes trying—with the help of technology— Nuclear storage will present hazards and textures that let them straddle the to recapture memories of a marriage.DO 6 OMNI —

LETTER! connruiuruicATiorus

Turned Off George. Citizens are raising Ihe £260,000 for As a practicing psychiairist for 16 years, I needed to purchase a linear accelerator feel that Ronald K. Siegel's notion of a the center. (Ironically, such a device utilizes problem-free "mind drug" ["Chemical nuclear radiation to treat cancer patients.) Ecstasies." Continuum, August 1985] is Other self-help programs are under way, both medically false and socially dangerous. directed by the Arthur F Bruhn Memorial Human emotions— both pleasant and Foundation. This nonprofit community group unpleasant—are not useless biological is named in memory of the former presi- baggage. They serve essential adaptive dent of Dixie College, in St. George. Bruhn purposes, and coping with them helps was also a victim of leukemia. foster personality development, self-esteem, Slowly but surely momentum is building. and strength of character. Drug-induced, There is a growing sense of self-suffi- artificial states of euphoria—although ciency, providing a bright light in a grim, delightful— erase the need for coping and ongoing story. To the west, in Nevada, the growth. All mental-health practitioners bombs continue to be detonated—under- know the potential for emotional stunting ground—and continue to leak, but the associated with Ihe abuse phenomenon. people here are quietly taking care of the

Siegel's dream drug is impossible aftermath themselves. It is something that we

-because the addiction potential of such a are all proud of. substance cannot be removed simply Elizabeth Wright by molecular manipulation. Compulsive Chairman traits are too common in people today Arthur F Bruhn Memorial Foundation addictions to food and work, for example. St George. UT People have been deceived before. Such drugs as cocaine and Demerol are Drug Bust two recent examples of substances that The so-called radiation pill, or Kl [potassium were thought to be safe and nonaddictive iodide], which protects the thyroid against but have since been proved otherwise. radioactive iodine and which is being Herbert N. Hurwitz, M.D. promoted by some pharmaceutical San Diego companies for distribution to people living near commercial nuclear-power plants

The Decades After [Earth, August 1985], is really a solution

It has been some time now since Omni looking for a problem. published John G. Fuller's chilling article During the accident at Three Mile Island, "The Day We Bombed Utah" [May 1983], in 1979, virtually no radioactive iodine about the deadly aftereffects of wind-borne escaped. After six years of intensive radiation from aboveground nuclear tests research, one conclusion reached is that conducted in Nevada from 1951 to 1962. during a nuclear accident radioactive In the past two years citizens of the Utah iodine would remain within the reactor and towns where the fallout settled have contin- settle, where it would be trapped in the ued to wage their legal battle. They won cooling water. ihe first round in May 1984. when federal Health officials in many countries now judge Bruce Jenkins ruled that fallout from conclude thai aisitrbutha Ki pills to the the tests was the "proximate cause" of public would be hazardous because of the ten cancer deaths. No settlements have risk of misuse and allergic reactions.

been made, and the case is still tied up in Please note that in 31 years of commercial . the courts. While several bills to provide nuclear-power generation there has never compensation and/or research are before been a single death or injury to the public Congress, the residents of the region from radiation. have taken matters into their own hands. Donald C. Winston With support from Intermounlain Health Director of Media Relations Care and Dixie Medical Center, a cancer- Atomic Industrial Forum, Inc. treatment facility is now being built in St. MDOO — 1

DIALOGUE FDRunn

Omni we/comes speculation, theories, of that tribe, that the Fawcett party had contained in the glyphs were used by commentary, dissent, and questions from stayed there for three nights and had then mariners rou< The lost readers in this open forum. Please note proceeded toward a nearby settlement city, then, wasn't built by Atlantean survi- that we cannot return submissions and of Kalapalos Indians. There, Dyott learned vors but by Mediterranean seafarers. that the opinions expressed here are not that Fawcett had been shadowed by The only practical way to search for the necessarily those of the magazine. Aloique's warriors, who—for reasons lost city, I realized, was by examining. This month we present a letter from Rene unknown—eliminated Expedition Fawcett. computer-enhanced satellite images of the Chabbert, of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, Several other unsuccessful attempts Amazon rain forest. Using such images concerning his interest in lost cities of were made to find Fawcett and the lost cities. supplied by General Electric — I found the Amazon rain forest. Chabbert holds The colonel was labeled a "romantic the lost city of 1753, just as it was described degrees in psychology and human relations dreamer, and fool," but my fellow boarder by the Portuguese. Even the river, which and is employed as a technician by the in Spain told me he was a man of indomita- started near the city's main square, was Netzsch Company. ble will and uncommon courage. clearly visible—a key feature mentioned in Fawcett's primary objective had been the letter of 1753. Lost City Found the location of an ancient city he named Z, General Electric wasn't involved in — nor

believed to inhabited was it responsible for the interpretation I believe I have determined the whereabouts which he be by —

' of one of the fabled ancient and lost cities white Indians—descendants of survivors of of the satellite images, but I thank GE of Brazil. My discovery was made using Atlantis. Fawcett's second target was a engineers and technicians for their untiring an old Portuguese document, more recent city named 1753, which was discovered in help and cooperation. accounts of ill-fated expeditions, and that year by Portuguese adventurers In addition to analyzing the images modern infrared satellite images. seeking the lost Muribeca silver mines. A myself, I had them examined by Richard M. of at My quest began in 1956, while I was fabled site of great wealth, the mines were Foose, Hitchcock Professor Geology serving in the U.S. military in West Berlin. It rumored to have been discovered more Amherst College. Foose, a recognized

was there that I read of the exploits of than a century earlier and to have been authority on satellite-photo interpretation, New Zealand adventurer Hugh McCarthy, hidden and forgotten by the natives. confirmed that the images showed patterns who in 1948 found a lost city, which he The Portuguese expedition vanished that appeared to be man-made and not called Ro. On his way back to civilization without a trace in 1754, after having sent the just odd geological formations.

McCarthy contracted a fatal illness and Portuguese viceroy of Bahia a message Having obtained this proof, I wrote in spent his remaining months in the care of a informing him of their discovery. January 1982 to inform the Brazilian friendly Indian tribe. He married the tribal No records exist of Z, but the letter to the ambassador and the scientific attache of

chieftain's daughter, who reportedly sent her viceroy of Bahia exists today as document my work. I received no reply. Since then I husband's diary to the British Museum number 512 in the archives of the National have had the good fortune to talk to a library after McCarthy's death. Unfortunately, Library, in Rio de Janeiro. The letter young Brazilian who will personally deliver of his country's I have been unable to locate this journal. describes buildings, temples, and the a summation my project to

My luck improved during the summer of inscriptions tound on them. The English Ministry of Mines and Energy. I have otfered in to to 1963, when I vacationed in a small town version of the document can be found the take a Brazilian investigating team near Seville, Spain. The only other guest at appendix of the second volume of Sir the lost city, and I hope they will agree. the boarding house I stayed in was a Richard F Burton's Explorations of the Portuguese navigator Pedro Cabral is retired English officer who had served in Highlands of Brazil (Greenwood, 1968). credited with discovering Brazil in 1500.

World War I with the famous British explorer Fascinated by these accounts, I decided feel that Cabral, like Columbus before Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett. to fully investigate the matter. My only him, rediscovered a country known and My acquaintance told me that in 1925 solid source of information was the letter explored during classical times and whose Colonel Fawcett, his eldest son, Jack, and concerning the city called 1753, but that location was lost for centuries following Jack's friend Raleigh Rimell left Cuiaba, document gave no indication as to the city's the Dark Ages. Last year, Aurelio de Abreu,

in Brazil's Mato Grosso state, and headed location. Over the course of 18 years I a Brazilian archaeologist from Sao Paulo,

toward the headwaters of the Xingu River. studied aeronautical charts, and by 1981 I found the lost city of Ingrejil, north of Bahia. The party was searching for legendary lost had identified 13 probable locations for Other sites will no doubt be found, and

cities and was last heard from on May the ancient site. although I may not be the last person to do

29, 1925, at a trading post operated by the The inscriptions on the last page of the so, I believe that I was the first one to find

Bakairi Indian tribe. letter puzzled me. I knew three were in a lost city by using modern satellite Three years later a search party led- by a ancient Greek, but the fourth was an enigma. technology. Commander Dyott arrived at a Nahuqua In the summer of 1981 a well-known trans- Rene Chabbert village and learned from Aloique, the chief lator determined that both of the alphabets Phoenixville, PAOO 12 OMNI THE ECOLOGY OF WAR EARTH By Rick

the nation that wears a cloth it Pity the destruction of its famous cedar forests At the other end of the ecological does not weave . . . eats a bread it to the now-rancid shores of the Mediterra- spectrum, Haber adds, stand the pitiful does not harvest . . . pity the nean, Lebanon is reeling under perhaps the remains of the famous cedar forests, whose nation . . . that boasts not except among its worst ecological disruption suffered by trees have been cut for camouflage and ruins . . . and those whose art is the art of any country in history. firewood. Another, less direct cause of patching and mimicking. "—Kahlil Gibran Once a nation whose staple foods deforestation is the vicious shooting of When Kahlil Gibran, patron saint of included an abundance of fish drawn from birds—a psychological manifestation, says Lebanon, wrote these words he never the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean, Haber, of the anger and frustration accom- imagined that the country he was describing Lebanon, for the first time in its history, panying the war. In the past ten years, would be his own. For like Henry David is now forced to import fish from Syria and he notes, some 400,000 people have been Thoreau, Gibran was first and foremost poet Turkey. According to Haber, the scarcity involved in a "virtual massacre of birds" laureate of the land "Every time I close has resulted from the beleaguered nation's in the skies over Lebanon. As these birds, my eyes," he once said, "I see those valleys inability to enforce laws protecting the including storks, falcons, eagles, and full of magic and dignity and those integrity of its seas. Perhaps the major swallows are killed, he notes, the forests' mountains covered with glory and greatness problems, he notes, are the new preferred tree-eating insects reproduce unchecked. trying to reach the sky," tools ior fishing — dynamite and poison Destruction of the forests, moreover, But according to Lebanese ecologist bait. These illegal techniques allow fisher- has caused soil erosion and diminished the Ricardo Haber, Gibran could never describe men to catch large numbers of fish, notes supply of fresh water. Without forested those magical mountains and valleys Haber, a professor at the American Univer- watersheds, says Haber, much of the topsoil today. "Where would he get his inspiration?" sity of Beirut. But they also destroy the and rainfall just runs into the sea. asks Haber, founder of a conservationist ocean habitat. is The sea further polluted Finally, the disruption of war has also group called The Friends of Nature. "What by solid wastes and chemicals scattered taken its toll on Lebanon's agriculture. Land landscape would he see?" along the rocky beach. "Treatment facilities not destroyed by the negligence ot the Reflected in Habere despair is the were being built," Haber explains, "but feuding Lebanese has been devastated by environmental devastation that has left his can't we construct a plant or regulate an occupying forces, who build trenches once-lush country under an avalanche industry with the Shiites on one side of and burn crops. And lack of government of physical and psychological debris. From town the and Druse on the other." planning has allowed uncontrolled urbani- zation at the expense of fertile plains. For Haber, this is where the war has had the most drastic effect. "To my mind," he

says, "the worst oppression one can inflict on a people is to destroy their agricultural potential and leave them wanting for food." But hope for the Lebanese environment appears to be as elusive as an end to the hostilities. A reversal of the situation would require an enormous cleanup effort

based on cooperation among all citizens, adherence to existing environmental laws, and creation of an environmental body with full political support.

Such far-reaching changes in a country already losing its identity in the violence

among various internal factions may be little more than pipe dreams. For Haber, however, such actions are not just pie-in- the-sky ideas. Unless steps are taken and pressure is brought to bear from the international conservation community, any hope of an ecological reversal may evapo- rate. "We cannot afford the pace and magnitude of the damage," says Haber, "for the point of no return is imminent. "DO HOT-LINE SHAMANS nniruD By Leah Wallach

is a cliche [hat confidences kept from communicate a feeling of, 'Weil, you deserve of the people who receive counseling get il Itfriends and lovers are sometimes shared to suffer.' You have to be open-minded." on the phone." Unlike many hot lines that with strangers. For many, a sympathetic Although few of the people who call use volunteers, EAR employs experienced

voice at the other end of a phone line is the a help line are about to kill themselves, most counselors with higher degrees in such ideal stranger "The telephone allows the are seriously troubled. Hot lines generally fields as psychology, law, social work, caller to remain anonymous and in control," are not set up to help people deal with industrial relations, and finance.

explains Reverend Robert E. Larson, Jr., the smaller problems in life. People are In contrast to nonprofit hot lines, the

director of Contact Teleministries USA, the usually left to tough it out with or without a major service offered by EAR is early inter-

umbrella organization for 100 church- little help from their friends. But if their vention. "Every day we deal with a major affiliated help lines, or hot lines. employers subscribe to EAR (Employee life-threatening situation— everything from Today the hottest hot lines are those kept Advisory Resource), these people can get an employee threatening someone at open 24 hours a day to provide the discon- expert guidance for the most trifling tribula- work, to spouse abuse, to suicide," Robinson

solate and distressed with someone to tion anytime they want it. All they have to says. "But dealing with emergencies is talk to. Most are run by churches, community do is pick up the phone. not our primary service." Most people call groups, and self-help organizations and In 1974 EAR was set up as an in-house EAR about legal problems. Financial are sponsored by publicly supported program for employees of the Control problems are next in frequency, followed institutions — hospitals, universities, and Data Corporation in Minneapolis. By 1977 by problems in relationships, mental health government agencies. But a new kind Control Data made it available as a nation- (especially depression), alcohol and drug of hot line, one that may become more wide service to other corporations. There abuse, and the wide-ranging other, which widespread in the future, is the for-profit are now about 150 EAR subscribers, ranging includes everything from work grievances to system that uses the telephone and from the National Basketball Association the problem of finding a baby-sitter fast computer to deliver counseling. to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. when yours has just called in sick. Most hot-line workers today are volun- "In a nutshell, our program provides When someone calls EAR he is instantly teers. They are trained to be wise strangers immediate access to counseling services hooked into a nationwide network geared as part of 30- to 60-hour courses: half twenty-four hours a day, seven days a to move into action. From 7:00 a.m. to 10:30 classroom work, half role-playing practice .week," EAR director David RoPinson pm. Central Time, the EAR line is answered and on-the-phone training. Almost all explains. 'And by the way, ninety-five percent by a professional. The rest of the time it learn some variant of a technique called is answered by a service that pages a Rogeria'n active listening. Volunteers are told professional who is required to return the to take their cues from callers, expressing call within ten minutes. sympathy ("It sounds like you're under a White most callers get what they need lot of pressure"), helping them to clarify their from the phone counseling, they may also feelings ("You seem frightened as well as be referred to specific individuals in their angry"), and encouraging them to think part of the country. EAR can call up a about their choices ("Is there anything you computerized dataPase listing of community can do to be happier?"). resources and professionals, all checked

One purpose of the training program is out by an EAR evaluator, in cities across the to give those running it the opportunity United States. to screen out unsuitable volunteers. "Most Corporations are happy to pay EAR an people volunteer because they want to annual fee (roughly $15 per employee) help others," explains Robert Leone, director because problems like alcoholism, divorce, of psychology clinics at the United States and depression cost them money in lost International University, in San Diego. "But productivity and higher insurance. The occasionally, they could be in need of employees themselves like this instant, no- help themselves," commitment-required help line.

The ideal volunteer, according to Larson If these early signs are indicative, there and Leone, is a good listener who is could be a growing market for EAR-type articulate, can deal calmly with anxious telephone/computer counseling networks people, and can cultivate a nonjudgmental of professionals. Perhaps the shamans attitude. "If a caller says he raped someone of the twenty-first century will be telephone or beat up his child, a hot-line worker may professionals, using the power bestowed have a strong gut reaction of anger or on them by invisible electronic impulses fo disgust," Leone says, "but you can't A cry lor help: The National EAR will listen. counsel disembodied minds.DO BUTTERFLY HOUSE EXPLDRATOfUS By Jane Bosveld

always been obsessed with butter- aftair, and for some species it may never butterfly garden," says Farrell. He and I've written flies," says Clive Farrell, a thirty-nine- be possible. A large blue, for instance, entomologist Miriam Rothschild have year-old amaleur lepidopterist and spends part of its caterpillar life in an ants' a book, which has recently been published businessman, whose London Butterfly nest. In this strange symbiotic relationship, in England, on backyard butterfly gardens. book, they are offering House is the world's largest collection of the ants bring the baby caterpillars into In addition to the live butterflies and moths. their nests and allow them to feed on ant wiidflower seed packets to schools, businesses, and individuals interested in I larvae. In return, the caterpillars exude "It started when I was a schoolboy. meadows. "All sorts caught a caterpillar, put it in a matchbox, a type of honeydew that the ants love. "It growing wiidflower

it its like drug to the ants," says Farrell, of people want to have areas of wildflowers and hatched it. I watched form wings must be a their offspring rather than ordinary lawns," Farrell and dry them. It was a garden tiger moth, "because they allow to be a beautiful thing." He kept on hatching eaten for it." Eventually, the caterpillar explains. "And once wildflowers are there, butterflies and learning about them, often evolves into a butterfly and makes its way the butterflies will come of their own accord. by looking at mounted specimens at local back into the world. It's quite mysterious how they suddenly museums. But then he discovered a Farrell has also built accommodations for appear, but they do." museum exhibit that was to be his inspira- local species, which find the tropical Unfortunately, they suddenly disappear, tion: a small glass container filled with temperatures of the greenhouse oppressive. too. The average butterfly life span is

it large, to three weeks. The helicony butterfly live butterflies. 'As I was looking at them, The area is a screened-in meadow two into sections, with can survive for up to six months primarily occurred to me that I longed to be inside divided each landscaped with the butterflies to observe them more soil and flora that grow naturally in different because it can digest pollen as well as closely," he recalls. Years later, still capti- parts of England. There is a chalky area for nectar. But brevity is the heart of lepidop- vated with that small box, he came up with most English blue butterflies; an acid teran life. For instance, the giant atlas moth, the idea of building a bigger box and heath covered with heather and gorse, which is the size of a bat, has no stomach "letting people walk around among butter- favorites of the silver-studded blue butter- and no tongue. It lives just long enough flies on the wing." flies; and a damp, shady area for the to mate and lay eggs before dying. "It's quite After experimenting with several small speckled wood and orange-tip butterflies. sad," says Farrell. Sadder still to Farrell is backyard butterfly houses and obtaining "What we've done with the British section the inevitable dwindling of numbers during several bans, Farrell's fantasy took shape in is to show people how to build their own the winter months. "That's when you start four public butterfly farms. The London recognizing individuals. It's difficult, then, house, in Syon Park, was the first to open, when they die," he says. followed by ones in Dorset, Scotland, Farrell has done everything possible to and Stratford-on-Avon. The greenhouses tip the scales inside the butterfly house vary in design, but each is landscaped in favor of their survival. Butterflies have with turtle-laden lagoons, small wooden many predators, including most birds and bridges, and an array of plants and other numerous insects that feed on caterpillars food sources (such as rotting fruit) suited to and chrysalides. But in the house, the the tastes of the various species of butter- only birds present are zebra finches, which flies and moths inside: fuzzy milkweed feed exclusively on seeds, and Chinese plants for the monarch butterfly, tor instance. painted quail, which patrol the garden like or tangy mustard plants for the Bn'tish ancient Chinese magistrates, sentencing orange-tip butterfly. uninvited spiders and ants to a quick and Many of the more than 100 species of just demise. butterflies in the London house have been Still, the greatest threats to butterfly sent to Farrell by colleagues around the survival don't come in the form of birds or world. The chrysalides (pupas)—and other insects. "An area of rain forest the sometimes adult butterflies—are carefully size of Wales is being destroyed every year," packed in moist cotton and mailed. After he explains. "That wipes out countless the chrysalides are unpacked, they are butterflies. People must begin to realize

hung in an "emerging" cage, where one by that if butterflies are to survive in the modern one they shed the last remnants of the world, some measures will have to be

caterpillar life and reenter the world as taken to preserve their natural habitats. My winged creatures. hope is that people who see the denizens

Transferring butterflies from their natural of such habitats flying around in all their habitat to the butterfly garden is a tricky slutted with the six-tegged. glory will make that connection. "OO 22 OMNI MERCURY MOUTH THE BDDM By Sherry Baker

diagnosed from a pattern that emerges '" ions o1 Americans naue found gams containing mercury safe because the f^ f^ from case histories, skin patch tests, blood |ij 1 I relief from dental pain with a filling appeared to be inert. Now research- J According to the I U I procedure long Ihoughtto ers at various institutions have found counts, and urine tests. American Dental Association (ADA), fewer be benign — having a tooth filled. And for that mercury can leak from the amalgams. all Americans about nearly a century, dentists have used "silver" "Before, we just looked at dental than 1 percent of — 2 million people are sensitive to metal fillings, a durable, relatively inexpensive amalgams as they sat in the air," says Carl — estimates from Huggins and material made from an alloy. Today's W. Svare, professor of fixed prosthodontics fillings. Bui high million. amalgams contain about 3D percent silver, at the University of Iowa. "But in the mouth, other dentists run as as 80 most outspoken figures in the with small amounts of tin, copper, and these fillings begin to corrode, especially One of the mercury controversy. Huggins says he zinc— plus about 50 percent mercury, one after you chew." more than 500 cases of of the deadliest toxins. Svare's research has shown a correlation has documented medical problems. A growing number of researchers are between the number of amalgams and people with a variety of include fatigue headaches, questioning whether these fillings are sale blood levels of mercury. Mercury volatilized These and multiple sclerosis, angina, allergies, or whether they are indeed leaching their from the surface of fillings, Svare theorizes, epilepsy, disorders. All of these heavy metals into the body, with some reaches the bloodstream after being and immunological their health after Huggins dangerous consequences. absorbed in the lungs. But proving that patients regained their "silver" fillings. The effects of relatively high concentra- "mercury from fillings finds its way into the removed recently founded the nonprofit tions of mercury are well-known. Acute body does not necessarily mean that these Huggins Research Foundation to mercury poisoning can result in kidney amalgams are hazardous to your health. Toxic Element toxicity. "The bottom line is. failure, skin burns, vomiting, and even death. "The potenl a hea".h effects remain study amalgam better Virtually everyone is exposed to some undefined. We just don't know, ai this point, Do people get when you remove their fillings? The answer is yes, eighty level of mercury. It's found in seafoods, what we are oea inc. w-th, says Svare. alcoholic beverages, cigarette smoke, and Despite the lack of definitive laboratory percent of the time." he says. taking out the original fillings, certain medications. There's little informa- evidence, many dentists insist that After teeth with lightly cured tion, however, about the consequences of amalgams are taking a toll on Americans' Huggins repairs the prolonged exposure to low levels of mercu- health. Colorado Springs dentist Hal plastic composites. Emler. associate professor of ry. Until recently, scientists considered amal- Huggins believes mercury toxicity can be Barbara dentistry at Oral Roberts University, says

Huggins is "way out on a limb. He may be right. But you have to back this kind of thing with good scientific research." Emler studied a group of children with no known environmental exposure to mercury. Half of the group had nonmercury fillings placed in their teeth; the other half had "silver" fillings. The first group had no mercury vapor in their breath; the second group did. "These conclusions are preliminary, but I'm very concerned," Emler adds. "I'm a

pediatric dentist, and if I put an amalgam in

a child's tooth. I am giving that child a lifetime of exposure to mercury." According to Emler, mercury toxicity, for

the most part, is slow and insidious. "It

mimics aging —with muscle tremors and . loss of memory." she explains.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to tell how

much mercury is in a person's body.

Toxicologists have been taught that if a person has mercury poisoning, he'll excrete 50 micrograms or more of mercury in his period. Mercury rising, i-irs; dci-iei Wm.'OS. Where wii! it end'' urine during a 24-hour 24 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 111 —

BONES OF CONTENTION

By Steven Schwartz

Sometime in the distant past, in to return home and await rebirth. are an inferior race. An 1896 issue of the "Dreamtime, " superbeings broke The government has moved the universi- Australasian Anthropological Journal, through the crust of a dry, dead ty's collection off campus to a "neutral" for instance, carried an article claiming that

Earth. Part human and part beast, these site until it decides which bones belong to once aborigines pass puberty, "the sutures beings created all humans and animals; they science and which to the aborigines. The of the cranium begin to consolidate, and also caused the sun to shine and the rain move created an uproar in the international the forepart of the brain ceases to develop

to fall. When they had done all this, the scientific community. Anthropologists, as it does in other races." creators turned themselves into sacred aided by universities and museums, In addition, aboriginal graves were rocks, trees, mountains, and rivers, where immediately organized a lobbying sometimes robbed without any scientific

their spirits dwell to this day. campaign. So far, they have managed only purpose at all. One particularly egregious To ihe aborigines of central Australia, this a temporary reprieve. The political media- example occurred with the death of Truger- creation myth forms the heart of their tors called for a 12-month cooling-off period nini, an elderly aboriginal woman who culture. The beings from Dreamtime are during which the collection will be studied died in 1876. Although her skeleton had no their ancestors and gods. When aborigines and various options for its final disposition anthropological value, it was exhumed die, they believe, their souls return to the discussed. Berg, who describes himselt from the earth and displayed at the sacred ground of the gods until the time as a political realist, believes that the most Tasmanian State Museum. Not until 1976

comes to be reborn. If for some reason their significant remains will be preserved. did public protests finally force museum

bodies are not put properly to rest, or if a But it is likely, he believes, that the govern- officials to rebury her bones. burial site is defiled, the souls of the dead ment will permit the burial of a large part Ironically, anthropology has also played cannot be reborn and are doomed to of the collection. an important part in creating more favor- wander the earth in despair. So far, aboriginal leaders have shown able attitudes toward aboriginal culture Nonaboriginal peoples have not always little sympathy for the scientists' point among both whites and aborigines. Although respected ihe beliefs— or burial grounds of view or for their work, an attitude that has the first white colonists considered aborig- of the aborigines. For more than a century more than a little historicaf justification. ines to be Stone Age primitives, cultural remains have been dug up for both anthro- Nineteenth-century anthropologists used artifacts unearthed by anthropologists have pological and strictly prurient reasons. To skulls removed from aboriginal burial shown that the aboriginal way of life was counter this abuse a law was passed in the grounds to support the notion that aborigines particularly well suited to the harsh Australian Australian state of Victoria that may allow environment. The aborigines of the aborigines to reclaim the bones of their eighteenth century, anthropologists have dead. It may also signal the end of physical revealed, not only had thriving commercial anthropology in Australia. networks and medicines, they were also The law, really an amendment to the excellent hunters who probably ate better, Archaeological and Aboriginal Relics and more regularly, than the average Preservation Act, was originally intended to European of the time. prohibit the marketing of human skeletons. Despite these image-enhancing discov- But the legislation was written so broadly eries, aborigines continue to view anthro- that any institution, even a state-run univer- pology as a vestige of colonial exploitation. sity that possesses aboriginal remains, As Wayne Atkinson, an aboriginal-research could be forced to hand over its collection officer in the prehistory department of to aborigine-rights organizations. Victoria's La Trobe University, puts it, "It's Already the collection at the University of the relationship between the two groups that

Melbourne is in jeopardy. Dr. Geoffrey . puts ihem at odds with each other. One Kenney, the museum's curator, has are the studiers; the other, the studied." described the collection, which includes Anthropologists have clearly underesti- 15,000-year-old specimens, as the most mated the resentment of aborigines and important of its type in the world. Neverthe- are now trying to demonstrate the relevance less, Jim Berg, executive officer of the of their research to aboriginal life and Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and a welfare; their science depends on their warden under the new relics act, would like success. In the current climate of confron- to see mosi.of the material returned "home" tation, it is possible that aborigines, in to be reburied. Other aborigine leaders' an attempt to gain control of their cultural with Berg. agree Reburial, they say would heritage, may succeed instead in burying permit the spirits of their dead ancestors much of it forever.DO 26 OMNI —

SPACE TOURISTS

By Owen Davies

with vacation merchants are tapping 100,000 travelers a year by 2025. Los Angeles, has proposed a module in the shuttle Theinto dream: a holiday T C. Swartz, executive director of Society six decks stacked bay so the ultimate optimistic. that passengers could simply walk onboard in space. "Perhaps it is your goal to Expeditions, is even more "We a from catwalks added to the shuttle launch be among the pioneers in space tourism," hope to take at least ten thousand people tower. Each deck carries 12 people, for the brochure reads. "If so, your time has year into space by the year 2000," he two stewards. come." The Seattle-based Society Expedi- says. His itinerary is a 12-hour flight— up,., a total of 70 passengers and seats rotate for landing so that tions, a firm that packages luxury tours of around the earth, and down again. Eventu- The would would be upright at the end of the Amazon, Antarctic, New Guinea, and ally, the company would like to offer three- passengers olher exotic regions, has set a target date day excursions that include "assisting the flight as well as at the start. • years ago, Jordan Taylor, of of October 12. 1992—500 years after space experts and astronauts in conducting Three Dean Columbus discovered the New World scientific experiments." Planet Earth Productions, in North York, a suburb of Toronto, suggested a 60- for its first flight. Key to Swartz's plans is an add-on especially for One analyst has said that the tourism passenger module to be carried in the passenger module designed business could become the largest and shuttle's cargo bay. Society Expeditions has brief tourist flights. Again, the shuttle would just orbit the earth and return. fastest growing industry in space William not announced details of its module, but basically the first formal proposal on the Brown, of the Hudson Institute, the think four designs that have been suggested by Taylor's was tourism that received. But tank founded by the late Herman Kahn, various companies give a good idea of topic of NASA further. delivered a report to NASA called "Space what may be possible: the plan has gone no • • Ventures and Society: A Long-Term Projec- In 1976 Rockwell International, under John Spencer, a Los Angeles-based aerospace consultant, has made a prelimi- tion." In it, he weighed such factors as contract to NASA, designed a module population growth, rising incomes and carrying 50 to 80 passengers in airline-style nary design ior a module based on Space- with 20 leisure time, and falling launch costs to seats, The largest version would have lab. It would have two floors, estimate the number of tourists traveling to required a "stretched" shuttle. The estimated passengers on one and 12 on the other. space each year for the next century. cost was some $200 million, in 1976 Two such modules would fit into the shuttle's Within the next 15 years, he believes, that currency, not counting any modifications cargo bay. design figure could top 800 per year. In the most made to the shuttle. Adapting the existing Spacelab optimistic scenario, the figure could reach • Space Habitation Design Associates, of should cut development costs, according to Steve Durst, publisher of Spacefrme, a daily newsletter that sponsored a study on passenger modules. He says the 1976 Rockwell plan —with a projected price of £200 million —would cost much more

today. 'At this point, it could be as much as five hundred million." he says. "We don't have a cost figure for a module based

oh Spacelab, but il would certainly take less than two years and cost less than the Rockwell design." Swartz offers another suggestion for cutting costs: Design a module constructed from airplane parts. 'A five-hundred-million-

dollar price tag is almost inevitable if you build something from scratch," he says. "Instead, look at the fuselage of a 737 airliner. They are made to operate at forty thousand feet. They're almost in a vacuum anyway

at that altitude. It doesn't take much more

to make it spaceworthy. We are only talking about a twelve-hour flight, so we don't have to worry about where they sleep or how they are going to take a shower," Even with such budget-cutfing n of Cosmic charter: a day trip in space, for the nominal fee of $1 million. price remains a problem. "The cost 30 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE !20 PLANET FANTASX

By Sheridan Simon

sun. Then it would beam down as much f^ f^ y hobby is designing planets. we magically teleported Earth to an orbit a full I Ordinarily this is the sort of around A or B. If we do that, we also know light as nearly 6,000 moons. on B's planet would be an I U I avocation that could get most the distance it should be from the star in Sunrise time people sent to quiet places to recover. order to be the right Earth-like temperature. ambiguous affair. For a short each suns, B, very Fortunately, my cover identity as a mild- Because A is slightly brighter, larger, and year there would be two A and orbits mannered physics professor at a small hotter than our sun, a habitable planet near each other in the sky. If the might go into a institution (Guilford College) in North like ours would have to be farther from A were right, the two stars distant Carolina protects me from such a fate. than we are from our sun. This would mean stellar eclipse, with the more A closer B. Both stars would For the last four years I've been perform- a larger orbit and a year about four months sliding behind the ing a service for science-liction writers. longer than ours. rise and set at nearly the same time. situation of a planet orbiting B would Over the year, A would gradually separate For a modest fee I provide them with The stars would scientifically accurate, custom-designed be a little different. Because B is less from B, and eventually the two planets complete with unexpected environ- massive than our sun and a little cooler be opposite each other in the sky. There ours continual day. As B set, a lesser mental quirks to spur their creative powers. and dimmej as well , a planet like would be a

bringing with it its One of the most popular requests has would have to be closer to B than we are to light, A, would rise, own when both been for descriptions of planets around the our sun. Its orbit and its year would be day. True night would occur only fourth oi the year. Alpha Centauri system. A little more than about seven Earth months long. stars were down, a B's planet would be like our four light-years away, it is the closest star From B's planet, the A star would be the Nights on

long shadows. If the system to our sun and one of the best known. most imposing object in the sky, next to twilight, only without the evolved for this Alpha Centauri is made up of three stars. B itself. Even at its farthest distance away, planet's plants were unearthly conditions The closest to us is Proxima. it is a red the A star would be visible as a.tiny, intensely environment, very light in sky, dwarf and is nearly a tenth of a light-year bright disc, casting as much light as 500 could result. With the added the away from the other two Centauri suns, full moons—bright enough to read by. plants might photosynthesize all the time, of part of the daytime, known simply as A and B, It would be visible even during the planet's instead just as For the sake of simplicity, let's assume day, after B had risen. When A was at its they do here. That could lead to significant that our imaginary habitable planet is very closest point to B, roughly every 80 years, differences in the planet itself. If there photosynthesis, the planet similar to Earth. In other words, suppose it would be so bright it might be perceived as were continual might be richer in oxygen than the earth is. Aside from the local environment of one planet, a particularly intriguing facet of Alpha Centauri is that each star might

have a habitable planet orbiting it. A planet of A would be clearly visible to one of B, after A-set and before A-rise. Similarly. B's planet could be seen from any planets in orbit around A. The two fictitious planets would be solar- system-scale distances apart. Something like a Pioneer or a Voyager probe would

find it easy to carry a message from one star

to another. If the inhabitants of the two planets were intelligent, technologically advanced, and as ambitious as we Earth-

lings are, there might be all sorts of inter- esting possibilities—which is where science leaves off and science fiction begins. HALLEY'S HOT LINE

Dial (202) 653-0258 to get a prerecorded message informing you of the current

whereabouts of Halley's Comet as it passes by, The 24-hour hot line is a service of the U.S. Naval Observatory. DO ,

A slight improvement on perfection.

Technics compact disc players.

Technics compact disc players. And the digital compact disc.

A/hat you hear is notji

But occasionally even the musical perfection of a compact disc can be marred by fingerprints, dust or scratches. So the

: player has improvements like

. zorrection system, designed to

compensate for those imperfections. To l~ —-> that the sound you hear is still completely flawless. You also get sophisticated, convenient controls. Such ^ -"** - —'mming so you can pla'

i of this can be controlicu i.um across the room with Technics wireless remote control.

The digital revolution continues eit Technics. Perfectly Technics The science of sound

' : "," '. : ." .' : . .-... ::[ : : coruTiniuunn

HOW TO BUILD A CREATIVE SCIENTIST

Bi^^^M emember the Sixties? Remember the freewheeling And Bruce Rickborn, a former CCS organic-chemistry profes- ' ,,' schools that era produced know, irrele- R i —you bend sor now at UCSB, took his Creatives out into the field the first day. ^_ vant rules for brilliant oddballs, we are all Leonardos, "We gathered leaves, sap, lichens, and so forth, then went back

I and so on? Presumably, such institutions have all to the lab where I showed them how to isolate, identify, and purify gone the way of tie-dyed shirts and Moby Grape black-light post- the compounds. And within two quarters, these freshmen were as ers, destroyed by Eighties' counterrevolutionary second thoughts. good as juniors and seniors."

Except for one: the College of Creative Studies (CCS), founded The man who spawned this all, the caustic Professor Mudrick, back in 1967 by Marvin Mudrick, the l-hate-phonies University of served as provost of CCS until his still-contested firing of last year. California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) English professor who pi- Mudrick, it seems, had a habit of referring to other educators as oneered student-led seminars, noncompetition [no grades), and "mediocre" and "incompetent." ("Marvin doesn't really mean it," a take -it-any-way-you -want-it curriculum. says one admirer, "he's just practicing his craft.") Regardless of The school's record of distinguished science and mathematics the Mudrick nondiplomacy, potentially hostile UCSB investigators graduates, plus prime gallery artists and trend-setting composers, concluded that his no-grade, no-sequence, nonpunitive, early-re- suggests that despite its quasi-flake title and California location— search approach has produced hundreds of able professionals. is CCS an autonomous part of the Tahiti-like UCSB— it offers far In its 18 years, nearly 85 percent of CCS mathematicians and sci- more than metaphysical motorcycle maintenance. entists have gone on lo graduate school—many to the Harvard- The way "Creatives" are produced by UCSB biologist Ian Boss Princelon-Berkeley-Caltech class of university (which some Cre- is the clearest example of CCS philosophy. "I will often give a sev- atives have written of as being no better than CCS). enteen-year-old freshman an unsolvable problem, like: What is the Headliner graduates include: Mohan Putcha, who published 12 chemistry behind aging? Most scientists agree that humans should professional papers in mathematics journals by the time he was a live to be one hundred and ten, so why don't they? the immune CCS sophomore, and twenty-six-year-old Alex Filippenko, who in system? the nervous system? an X factor? How do you design an 1985 (as a Berkeley astrophysicist) not only published subtle evi- experiment to find out? Why do even the Nobel laureates know so dence that the Milky Way and many other galaxies evolved from little about it? After a few years of that kind of thinking, the student quasars but also discovered an entirely new type o! exploding is ready to in work any lab in the world. I want my students to be star, an oxygen-rich supernova. Then there's Timothy May, Silicon professionally competent biologists by the time they receive their Valley's INTEL genius, who concluded that cosmic rays damage bachelor's degrees—many years before the doctorate—and I don't highly miniaturized microprocessor circuits and who then per- care how they get there," Ross explains. fected new particle-proof designs, and Clovice Lewis, composer David Cannell, professor of physics, adds another wrinkle to the of electronic music whose works were performed by the New Or- CCS method: 'As early the first as meeting or two with a new CCS leans Symphony while he was still a teenager. The College of Cre- student, I might ask that he or she figure out how to measure the ative Studies also lays claim to mathematical analysts of obscure surface tension of water I —and forbid looking it up in the library. South Seas dialects, advisers to French symphony orchestras, and We want to stimulate the kind of originality that the professional adolescent founders of software companies—these are Marvin physicist has to use every day." Mudrick's Creatives. Max L. Weiss, the mathematician who helped design the origi- While CCS has produced fewer than 700 graduates, more than nal CCS curricula and is now its chief academic officer, puts it 300 of them have written testimonial letters endorsing CCS as a another way: the very first I "On tell I day students don't teach unique educational experience. "The CCS annual budget is only content. I teach them the language of math [sets, Peano's postu- about seven hundred thousand dollars," notes biologist Ian Ross. lates for the natural numbers], its art and spirit. CCS is a trade "We've shown we can prod ucea better can of beans cheaper than school, a master- an d-ap prentice shop." any other university."—WILLIAM K. STUCKEY "

conrnruuufui

says. He and psychiatrist HALF A BRAIN their age at school." April Fallon, of the Medical To be sure, there are some College of Pennsylvania, The hallowed seat of our subtle differences between conducted the survey. intellect, that quivering lump the brain-damaged children Participants, when shown of gray matter crowned by and normal youngsters. sketches of bodies that the skull, may not be so Whitaker and Dennis found ranged from skinny to fat, indispensable after all. Some that children lacking the chose the one they thought people can get along fine left cerebral hemisphere, resembled their own body, with only half a brain. usually associated with the one they would like to look Harry Whitaker, research language capability, some- trouble under- like (that is, their ideal body director of the Neuropsychiat- times had weight), and the one most ry Institute, in Fargo, North standing sentences with attractive to the opposite sex. Dakota, and Maureen Dennis, complex grammar. And chil- Men, viewing themselves of the Hospital tor Sick Chil- dren missing the right cere- as perfect, tended to pick the dren, in Toronto, examined bral hemisphere may struggle visual-spatial same body for each selec- school-age youngsters who with difficult tion; but women generally had an entire cerebral hemi- tasks. "But you have to indicated their body was sphere removed shortly be looking for these deficits," heavier than their ideal and after birth because of says Whitaker. "They don't that even their ideal was spreading epileptic seizures show up in ordinary day-to- fuller than men wanted. associated with Sturge- day activities." By contrast, Yet men, when asked to Weber syndrome, a rare con- even the tiniest brain lesion in select the most attractive genital disease. When tested. an adult can lead to total body for the opposite sex, the investigators discovered paralysis or rob the victim of chose a more ample female that these children had language and personal his- form than the women thought normal I.Q.'s. 'Apart from tory. So how can children they liked. And the women having lost fine motor control overcome neurological chose a thinner male than the on one side of their bodies," damage that would be dev- men thought they liked. reports Whitaker. "they seem astating to someone older? 'Although both males and well adjusted. They have "These kids," declares PERFECT MEN, females have a distorted sufficient control of their Whitaker, "are testimony to INSECURE WOMEN view of what the opposite sex movements to get around the tremendous plasticity ot likes," Rozin says, "the males unaided, and they are also in the young nervous system." McAuliffe Men lend to view their own are content because they the appropriate grade for — Kathleen bodies as periect, but fe- think females like them just males, generally dissatisfied the way they are." with themselves, mistakenly The dissatisfaction women believe that men want them feel toward their own bodies, cover-girl thin. Rozin and Fallon suggest, These are the findings of a is likely related to the much recent survey of almost higher incidence of such 500 college students, ac- eating disorders as anorexia cording to the Journal of nervosa and bulimia in Abnormal Psychology. women.— Eric Mishara "Men prefer women con- siderably heavier than women 'Time is a great teacher,

think men like them; so the but unfortunately it kills " women make themselves all its pupils. miserable by shooting for a —Hector Berlioz target that is thinner than the men actually like," psy- "A little inaccuracy saves a chologist Paul Rozin, of the world of explanation. The human brain: Neurological damage that would be devastating University of Pennsylvania, —C. E. Ayres to an adult hardly inlerrupts the mental development ot a child. 36 OMNI "

iqmeyfor BAKING BRICKS better than the material we've eluding ON THE MOON been using." who Lunar dust could be :>* British Microwaves, like those cooked in fewer than five A-bomb nlasts during the generated in a kitchen micro- minutes, he says, perhaps in

; I 'lies ii::sctr;v:i3 iesays, wave oven, could someday big microwave kilns set up "were corductod. almost be used to cook lunar dust on the moon or by a "remotely universally, witliou; regard for into building blocks for operated lunar rover, with a the existence or special the construction of a moon whole bank of microwave

needs of the aboriginal com- base, say researchers at Los generators on it. that drives munities around the sites." Alamos National Laboratory, over the moon's surface, The British government, in New Mexico. heating the lunar dust. The though, claims all 12 of Using' such a kitchen hardened surface could then its Australian A-bomb tests microwave oven, Los Alamos be cut into building blocks were perfectly safe; and research engineers Tom or used as a road." the aborigines, Who have few Meek and Rodger Blake The energy source to

medical records, have found if melted volcanic ash at 2500T generate the microwaves

difficult to prove a height- so that it solidified into a would likely be the sun, Meek ened incidence of deaths and tough, concretelike block. says, with large quantities disease. Volcanic ash—actually of solar panels manufactured But a special commission, the chemical compound al- right on the moon from the appointed—after public kaline basalt— is almost mineral ilmenite, an iron-tita- pressure—by the Australian identical to the lunar dust that nium composite in abun- government, is now investi- covers the moon's surface. dance there. "Solar power gating the matter. Testimony "The basic difference could be converted into has been given by scientists, between the two materials," huge amounts of electricity by the British, by former Meek says, "is that the lunar for making microwaves,"

servicemen who say they dust, because it has been he says, "or whatever else were contaminated while bombarded with high-energy you want "—Eric Mishara participating in the tests, and particles for millions of years, ABORIGINAL FALLOUT by the aborigines them- is highly activated, so we "I love being a writer. What selves. expect it to couple to micro- i can't stand is the On October 15, 1953, say As soon as the findings of wave radiation more effi- paperwork. the aborigines of the Yan- the commission are public, ciently and to work even —Peter de Vries kuntjatjara tribe, a "black mist" Collett says, his aborigine swept across the desolate clients will press their legal Australian outback and grievances accordingly descended upon them, Some with health problems, causing vomiting and skin such as cancer or blindness, rashes and killing vegetation, want financial compensation; At the time the backward others want a cleanup of aborigines believed the event the radioactivity said to con- to be supernatural, They've taminate their tribal lands; since learned that a ten- and many want exhaustive kiloton British A-bomb was medical tests to determine detonated just 100 miles any unknown aftereffects of away that day, at the remote the fallout.— Eric Mishara Emu testing range, "We're now saying the "You can only see a 'thing 'black mist' was a concen- well when you know in trated fallout cloud that advance what is going to proceeded from the bomb happen." Volcanic cinders (shown with coin tor scale) can be melted and site," explains barrister -^John Tyndall baked into tough, concrelelike blocks in microwave ovens. coruTiruuurui

PSYCHIATRIC medical jargon that nobody HARASSING GRIZZLIES IMPOSTOR understood," says Postel, who also sought advice from Wyoming biologists want A twenty-four-year-old legitimate doctors and re- to harass grizzly bears. They West German mailman, who ferred to medical texts to plan to bop the bears with envied the lofty social status compensate for his profes- rubber bullets, zap them with of doctors, forged medical sional inadequacies and lack electric shocks, offend their papers to wangle himself a of medical and psychiatric sensibilities with ghetto job as a psychiatrist, then knowledge. blasters, and subject them to had two dozen patients "He was very thorough in repellents, unpleasant tastes, committed to mental institu- his examinations," Dr. Wolf- and smells. tions before he was exposed gang Wodarg, Posters former It's ail part of a plan to as a fraud. medical chief, says, "and save the big bears' lives by "They didn't catch me on a we were content with his teaching them that humans medical blunder," boasts work." But six months into the are an unpleasant lot, to Gert Postal, the exposed im- job Postel fast his wallet, be avoided at all costs. suspicions were Larry Roop, bear expert postor. "I believe I made and police decisions that were just as aroused when they found with the Wyoming Game and learn that meeting Joe Homo explains is unpleasant. Ulti- good as any of the psychia- it contained two sets of Fish Department, sapiens

1 ' trists'! worked with. conflicting identification. Last that grizzlies presently asso- mately, this information might

Posing as Dr. Clemers December he was convicted i elate humans with food be passed on to other bears Bartholdy, hotshot thirty-year- and sentenced to mere and respond by raiding in the wild so that grizzlies, i other animals, old psychiatrist, Postel was probation, despite a previous : camps and garbage dumps. like big-game fine for posing as a doctor The object of the new study will flee from humans. appointed deputy health I on another occasion. is to alter bear behavior —Charles Rushing officer of Flensburg, West | Germany. He was in charge There is a bright side to by teaching the bears to as- of a team of doctors and the story, however: Of the two sociate humans with pain "Nature is by and large to rendered psychiatric opinions dozen patients Postel institu- and noise. be found out of doors, a to whether patients should tionalized, only two have Dale Strickland, chief location where, it cannot be as j be legally committed to been deemed competent and Wyoming game warden, says argued, there are never institutions. have been released. the idea is to inflict adverse enough comfortable chairs." mental [ — Lebowitz "I used a tot of complicated — Eric Mishara conditioning upon the bears Fran when they encounter hu- mans instead of rewarding "Welcome thy neighbor to them with food. thy fallout shelter. He'll Humans come into contact come in handy if you run with grizzlies around camp- out of food." grounds, dumpsters, or —Dean McLaughlin lodges. Roop says that in the past 15 years grizzly bears "More things are possible in have killed 11 people and a 4-D world than in a 3-D seriously hurt many others. world. To a person in a 4-D Difficult bears and repeat world, the goings-on in a garbage raiders get a death 3-D world looks as flat and sentence. The problem confined as the action on a

facing wildlife managers is movie screen looks to us." how to avoid human-bear —Michael Guillen

', confrontations when you're

I , dealing with an animal that "If had read as many books

has no apparent fear of as other men. I should have | humans. been as ignorant as thay j Biologist Roop hopes that are." Jack Nicholson as a mental patient in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's |

Nest: In Germany, two patients were erroneously committed. i entire bear populations will —Thomas Hoboes OMNI — — "

FINGERPRINTING ized device that identifies able tool in experiments with MICROBES bacteria and other microor- new microorganisms. Each ganisms faster and more unit, which has so far been Ever since Pasteur found accurately than any previous approved for all but hospital penicillin in a bread mold, method. uses, is expected to cost scientists have hoped for the To use the device, called about $40,000. kind of happy accident that the Microbiology ID System, —Douglas Starr can be the mother of inven- you put a sample of unknown tion. A scientist may now cells into a vial and add a "The more worthless the be on the verge of earning a radioactive label. The mixture manuscript, the greater the fortune owing to one such then goes into the electro- fear of plagiarism. accident. phoresis unit, which sepa- - Sir Stanley Unwin It happened to Dr. Robert rates the material into weakly

Siiman, of St. Bartholomew's radioactive bands. Then it "When you wake up in the Hospital, in London. Siiman goes to a special radiation morning and nothing hurts, was doing electrophoresis counter, where a computer you can be sure you're a process-in which proteins matches the bands to any of dead." are separated into bands on scores of microorganisms. —Herbert Achternbusch The heart of the machine a gel by an electrical The whole process takes a is a 16-bit microcomputer, charge—when he noticed few hours. With conventional TALKING DRYER coupled with an off-the-shelf some bands he had never means, it might lake a week. voice-recognition and syn- seen before. The experiment "It has applications in "Wake up, dryer!" Donald thesizer package. Vander was ruined. He had acciden- hospitals, the food industry Vander Molen blithely shouts Molen connected the system tally his pro- . . contaminated . anywhere you need in his lab at the Whirlpool to microphones, speakers, teins with bacteria. But when to identify a source of infec- Corporation. and electronic circuitry within he looked again he noticed tion," says Lynn Nye, of the "Hi. I am ready," the dryer the dryer. Then he modified remarkable. something Each Automated Microbiology responds, and the front the software to accept only bacterium made its Corporation, own Systems the San door pops open. Vander two-word initial commands pattern of bands, patterns as Diego firm that produces Molen deposits his wash. with two-second pauses unique as fingerprints. It the system. could also be "Please check lint filter," the between the words. "We did The result after two years used lo fingerprint new forms dryer reminds him. Vander that," he explains, "to prevent of development: a computer- of biotechnology—an invalu- Molen closes the door. the dryer from responding "Please select drying to random talk." cycle." Vander Molen replies The result is a recently obediently, "Permanent patented system that Vander

press. " And in a few seconds' Molen says works without the cybernetic dryer begins a hitch. But Whirlpool has no to spin. plans to produce the talking This laboratory prototype dryer because early market is part of the appliance research shows the public

maker's practice of seeing won't buy it. how new technologies could "Most people feel self- make household chores conscious talking to a ma- easier. The effort has pro- chine," says Vander Molen, duced some practical results, "and not many want the from dryers that sense mois- machine to talk back." ture lo refrigerators that —Douglas Starr carefully monitor their internal temperatures. Now Whirl- "Newton became not so pool may have produced the much the name ot a man as ultimate in home aids: a the name of an infallible "Fingerprint" of a bacterium: Dr. Silman's process results in clothes dryer that listens, world outlook." pattern that resembles a supermarket' bar code. talks, and obeys. —J.W.N. Sullivan CDOiTiaiuurui

DRUG CLOCK orders, only to get sicker. CAP is outfitted with a tiny Forgot to take your medi- sensor based on the minia- cine on time? A solid-state ture microprocessor-con- microelectronic timepiece, trolled electronics of a typical built into (he cap of a stan- digital watch—with a special dard pharmaceutical vial, can twist. An electrical contact help you remember. The snaked through a partition in newly patented device, called the timepiece touches a CAP (Compliance Aid for conductive membrane only Pharmaceuticals), is a reus- when the cap is secured able digital clock with liquid- to the vial, creating an electri- crystal display to show the cal short circuit that stops precise time, am or pm, and the clock display from ad- day of week the container vancing (although the clock was last opened. itself, of course, continues George Sums and Mends pull oil a heist: One expert claims "It's a reminder system," keeping time). that increasing numbers o! senior citizens are turning to crime. says its inventor, Bart Zoitan, Patients can take the a Lederle Laboratories device to the pharmacist to SENIOR MUGGERS as inflation clobbers their senior research engineer. be placed on prescription [ixed incomes, and with the "Every time the cap is re- containers. CAP can also be A scene in a recent movie, feeling that the criminal- moved, the time displayed rigged with an alarm to in which George Bums, in justice system is not very automatically catches up signal when the next drug his twilight years, wears responsive to older Ameri- to the correct time ol day. That dosage is due. Zoitan has al- a Groucho Marx mash and cans, they will take the law time then remains on display ready sold several thousand robs a bank, may be art into their own hands and after the cap goes back units, is negotiating with anticipating life. So says Ste- strike back at the system." on the vial." various manufacturers for ven Egger, lorty- three, an In fact, as inflation shreds CAP is designed to keep licensing rights, and expects ex-cop and doctoral fellow in their Social Security, pen- patients on schedule with CAP to come onto the market criminal justice at Sam Hous- sion, and savings checks, prescription medications The soon for about eight dollars. ton State University, in Hunts- senior citizens may turn invention is aimed especially — Robert Brody ville, Texas. He speculates predatory to survive, he at the elderly, infirm, and that we may be in for a senior- speculates. chronically ill, many of whom citizen crime wave. To back his contention, are on multiple medications

The elderly may still be Egger points to the ballooning hard to keep track of. well behaved today, Egger numbers of older (over fifty- "Compliance with drug says, but because of poverty five-year-old) adults arrested regimens is a major problem, and (ear they're likely io for such crimes as shoplift- much greater than the public become a sizable criminal ing, in Miami and Tampa. realizes." says Zoitan. A group in coming years. Does this mean we can national survey showed that By 2000, there will be more expect to meet granny in her about 40 percent of the tfian 30 million Americans tennis shoes in a dark alley? 1.4 billion prescriptions filled over sixty-five, he points out. "I am not saying that they annually for Americans are Reduced incomes will proba- will be necessarily mugging not taken in accordance with bly have changed their people I'm saying we are proper dosage schedules. attitudes for the worse. He going to have older offenders Result: Consumers waste says fearful senior citizens will perpetrating violent crimes money on drugs never taken, fight back against shabby of a vigilante nature or, like pharmacists and drug manu- government treatment and Bernhard Goetz, lashing out facturers lose revenues on victimization by muggers and at people who look as if prescriptions never refilled, confidence men, fhey are preying on older and physicians must unnec- "I hesitate to use the word citizens." essarily attend to patients vigilante. But I project that —Anthony Liversidge who deviated from medical 40 OMNI BEAUTY VERSUS that can be overcome. "If BRAINS you're not so attractive that you have a very active social There's good news for life," says McCullers, "you

nerds, creeps, and four-eyed may fill in the time by working grinds: A new study by a harder on your schoolwork." pair of university psycholo- — Bill Lawren gists shows once and for all that beauty and brains "The temperature of our don't necessarily go together. atmosphere decides that no In fact, say John McCullers, liquid carbon shall be of Oklahoma State University, found on that face of the and James D. Moran IN, of earth; but we do not Virginia Polytechnic Institute, suppose that the form of less attractive people tend the diamond has been to score higher on at least one gradually achieved by a Thump of the wild: The Puerto Rican white-lipped frog chases away standard intelligence test process of selection." other males and propositions the females by banging the ground. than do the belles and beaus —William Bateson of the ball.

THUMPING FROGS ground, and with special McCullers and Moran "I suppose you coutd never "geophones" heard the re- selected yearbook photos of prove to the mind of the A previously unknown form sultant ground vibrations. 320 students (160 of each most ingenious mollusk that of animal communication, They reported their findings sex] at a high school in such a creature as a whale thumping the ground, has in the journal Science. central Oklahoma. Students was possible." been discovered by two The male frogs thump, at another school then se- —Ralph Waldo Emerson California scientists. Nahns explains, because at lected the 40 most attractive The male white-lipped night-the rain forest is filled and the 40 least attractive "Personally I'm interested in frag, indigenous to Puerto with many noisy animal faces. When McCullers and history, but not in the past. Rico, ihumps its throat pouch sounds. "The background Moran subsequently com- I'm interested in the next against the ground each noise in the air is very, very pared the scores of the two twenty-four hours." time il calls out. Resultant high," he says, "but in the groups on the American —W. H. Auden ground vibrations are de- ground it's very, very low. So College Test, they found that tected up to 12 feet away by these white-lipped frogs the plain students had out- other white-lipped frogs. have exploited the ground as scored the pretty by an "This frog is the world's an open channel of commu- average of about 7,5 points. most sensitive vertebrate with nication." McCullers admits to being respect to detecting sub- The male frogs, Narins surprised by the findings.

strate vibrations," says Peter says, probably thump to-, "In previous social-psychol- Narins, University of Califor- chase away malesand to ogy studies," he says, "at- nia at Los Angeles biologist attract females tractive people were judged and sensory physiologist. "Females," he says, "use to be more intelligent. We Narins, during a research Ihe thumping sounds as thought there might be a self- expedition in a Puerto Rican a kind of seismic epicenter to fulfilling prophecy at work, rain forest, first noticed the which they can localize." that people who were judged white-lipped frogs' acute — Eric Mishara unattractive might take on skittishness in response to some of the baggage of that vibrations from his lightest "As long as there are judgment and see them- footstep. Upon observing the postmen, Hie will have zest." selves as less intelligent as frogs more closely, he and —William James well," thus winding up with fellow researcher Edwin lower scores. Lewis, of the University of "Think of death as a pie in The two psychologists California at Berkeley, the saw the face from God." conclude that physical unat- Beauty isn't always the key male frogs thumping the -^Jerry Belson tractiveness is a handicap to high college test scores. .

coruTinjuurm

SCIENCE-FICTION 3. A former folksinger and QUIZ NO. 6 composer who invented a crazy, wonderful saloon. Some science-fiction 4. A novelist famous for writers sfarted their careers dragons and, earlier, for with a bang, a story that a starship that could sing immediately attracted the grand opera. attention of the readers. 5. A plasma physicist at Others began more modestly, the University of California at with stories that are pretty Irvine whose award-winning much forgotten today. (And novel became the trademark some, like me, started with a for a publisher's line of sci- ence-fiction books. novel that I wish everyone would forget about!) —Ben Bova Given below are brief ANSWERS descriptions ot five of the top sunn authors in science fiction E96L 'uorpy aouaios ue Asejuej today. Can you tell who they P jOSuizsOBift „'u|-pueis„ are and what the titles of am 'pjojueg Ajo69JO their very f rst published short g 'sn/d uoitoy stories were? Give yourself C56L JeqopO aouaps „'93ey em \o Luop extra credit if you know when auuy and where each story was -Bay,, 'A&ijjeoow f ^Jenjqej 'joiy originally published. EZ6I. aouaiosiuoiWJ aouaps 1 of American WATER BEDS FOR stir-crazy and kill their babies, The "dean fio/euy „'saA3 eu,) ujwa Ano ANIMALS a common problem that science fiction," famous au.i„ 'uosuiqoy jepids £ afflicts cage-confined zoo for his Future History series '6E6t LPJBW 'sawojs Animals at the San Diego animals. and for novels ranging from Buizbujv ,,'eiseA Jjo pauooj Zoo have been sleeping Among the animals using tales of an alien Invasion -e^,, 'Aoujisy oeesi -g on trendy, comfortable, the beds, Phillips says, are of Earth to the tribulations of uotpy souaps Gutpunoisv heated water beds. small lizards (which sleep on a man bedeviled by God. p enssi 6£6i- ^Ml ui ,,'euii "These beds are exactly minibeds measuring two 2. "The good doctor" who W -ajD,, sem Ajois peusiiqnd the same as human water feet by six inches each), is known for his robots and ' jsjji s,ui3]uiaH V usqoy L beds," says zoo research monkeys, wild dogs, leop- solid scientific foundations. physiologist John Andy Phil- ards, jaguars, and the giant lips, the developer of the 250-pound Komodo dragon water beds, "except the mat- lizard (which sleeps on an tresses are made of one- eight-by-eight-foot model). eighth-inch-thick aluminum "The standard-size bed we so that the animals can't use," Phillips says, "is two puncture them." and a half by four feet." The water beds, he ex- To order a water bed for plains, appeal to the animals your animal, write to: General as secure nesting spots. Manager, San Diego Zoo, So pregnant females give Box 551, San Diego, Califor- birth to their offspring on the nia 92112.— Eric Mishara beds, which give off heat that keeps the fragile new- "When insects take over the born from catching cold and world we hope they will succumbing to hypothermia.' remember, with gratitude, And because the adult how we took them along on females feel so secure on the all our picnics." Imaginary dragon: Creatures such as this, as well as opera water beds, they don't go —Bill Vaughn singing starships, helped make one novelist's reputation. 42 OMNI They 're making art out of space and creating a renaissance of lofty proportions THE ARTRONAUTS

mms "

'•A new age of artistic expression, potentially more cosmic than any before, has begunl

however, has plans lo change that. As Chel Jezlerskl, an artisl who has done paintings of space events for NASA, says,-"lt is time that those who can best communicate the wonders of spaceflight to the rest of the hu- man race be allowed to do so." NASA also knows that the creative arts

may be able to excite public interest. And that could well mean the dif- ference between a well-funded space program and substantial cut- backs. As the saying goes, "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." Already the agency's "Get Away Specials" (GAS) project has sparked the interest of numerous artists, who envision new forms. McShane's sculpture, for example, was designed to capture "outer space" inside a glass bubble. "The sculpture," says McShane, "is not the glass but the outer space contained within. This is my personal exploration of space. McShane's sculpture is a series of battery-operated, computer-con-

Launches and landings of the space shuttles have inspired many paintings, including Robert McCall's Threshold (above), which shows the takeoff ot the shuttle Challenger, and '- Alfred McAdams's Space Port (top left), a pictorial fantasy of the launch of the Columbia. B. E. Johnson depicts a worker examining the shuttie after touch- down (top right). And Attila Hejja reveals the drama

of the first nighttime shuttle launch (right). —

trolled glass bubbles, each containing elec- with a similar mission has recently been es- trical filaments coated with gold, silver, .and tablished.) Even late-night comic David Let- platinum. When heated, the filaments de- stacked up," Davis says, and will shimmer ter man was intrigued by the possibilities of posited a thin lining of precious metals in- in the 'atmosphere :usi.a tract on of a second the shuttle: He worked out a comedy skit in orbit, side the globes. The largest bubble was tit- before disappearing. that he wanted to tape involving a ted with a metal valve that automatically Davis is also working out the details for number of sight gags. In one routine a little shuttle opened during the shuttle's flight. "This work, another GAS payload, called Light Flight. He green man was to appear at the win- officials the with its own' onboard computer and power recently created an Earth-based artwork in dow. Although NASA thought supply, processed and created itself in or- which lasers and machine tools were in- gags were funny, they didn't feel they were structed control—to carve sim- appropriate for the cockpit. Letterman's bit," says McShane, "but I see that as an — by remote extension of my eye and hand, a modern- ple runes on the faces of boulders. (Davis mission was turned down. "Still, we're day tool on the cutting edge of technology." was 1,000 miles from the site and controlled pleased as punch that people are as ex- McShane may have been the first to see the machines through a telephone hookup.) cited as we are about space," says Maull. his project get off the ground, but already His goal is to design similar "crawlers" that Lowry Burgess, a Cambridge, Massa- some half-dozen other artists have booked would be capable oi imprinting patterns on chusetts-based conceptual artist affiliated GAS payloads. Since 1976 the GAS pro- lunar seas and the deserts of Mars. with MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Stud- gram has been available on a first-come, first- Not every artist interested in exploring the ies, is the first artist to sign on the new pro- served basis to anyone in the free world who possibilities of space has the desire or abil- gram—and to have his "nonscientific" proj- wants to put an experiment aboard the shut- ity to satisfy NASAs science requirements. ect approved. Surely Burgess's slightly tle. The shuttle is designed as a cargo car- In fact, the agency has received so many wacky and convoluted Boundless Aperture

rier for all sorts of payloads and .has proved unusual proposals that last year it created piece must have been the ultimate litmus test to be a successful commercial venture for the "nonscientific payload program" to field for the nuts-and-bolts-oriented NASA staff. NASA. The agency has signed on 606 GAS the increasing number of unconventional "They couldn't make heads or tails of it," says payloads submitted by everyone from sci- experiments proposed by artists and other Maull, who helped explain the proposal in ence students to foreign governments. So simpler (if still rather obscure) terms. far, 39 have flown. Burgess's work (accepted but not yet Artists who want to launch a GAS payload scheduled) is a five-inch cube made of must provide NASA with a down payment bronze-tinted t ran;; parent qiass, which con- and a description of their experiment. Reg- tains water distilled from 18 of the world's Davis is a ulations demand that the experiment cannot rivers, including the Nile, the Amazon, the pose a danger to the astronauts or shuttle motorcycie aficionado Ganges, and the Mississippi. Dissolved or suspended in the water will be minute quan- equipment; it must be self-contained and who sold self-powered and cannot require the astro- tities of each of the elements in the periodic nauts to perform more than three on and his Hariey-Davidson to table or a substitute for those too dangerous Also within the water will be a three off operations. The project must also finance an to include. satisfy NASA's umbrella definition of a "sci- second smaller cube filled with "holograms art and science project that entific" experiment, which means essentially of nothingness. " (Burgess plans to make the by exposire, 'ilm to laser light but that it must attempt to perform some basic he wanted holograms scientific research. without bouncing the light off an object. This to into orbit3 NASA carry the If the project meets the requirements, the will create a blank hologram.) When

artist is assigned a payload number and project has returned to Earth, it will be given a NASA Payload Experimenter Hand- embedded in a gigantic piece of petrified book as well as a list of other GAS partici- sycamore and placed near an ancient, sandy pants. The $3,000 fee buys the basic GAS pond close to both Walden Pond and the payload, a 2.5-cubic-foot canister that can "nonscientists." "Of course, the shuttle's pri- artist's home in Lincoln, Massachusetts. carry up to 60 pounds. A 100-pound canis- mary purpose is for research, defense/and Burgess, a professor of art at Massachu-

ter is available for $5,000; a 200-pound one economic development," says Tony Maull, a setts College of Art, in Boston, thinks the costs $10,000. member of NASAs payload-evaluation com- message of his piece is clear: It is a plea for

NASA had problems at first with the idea mittee. "But if we have leftover room on- peace. "Art can play a big part in taking a

that artwork could qualify as basic science. board, it makes good sense to make it avail- shot at star wars," he says. But artist Joe Davis, a fellow at MIT's Center able for other purposes, including art." The GAS program, though, is only one for Advanced Visual Studies, helped con- The "nonscientific payload" is like a first- form of artistic expression. NASAs own elite artists to vince the agency that it was possible to de- class seat on the shuttle: It costs more cor'p of space has been lobbying sign a piece of art that doubled as scientific $1,500 a pound plus a $1,000 processing send an artist up with the shuttle. Most of research. Davis, who is a motorcycle aficio- fee— but you don't have to prove the project NASAs artists express no interest in the GAS nado, sold his Harley-Davidson to finance has scientific value. The only restrictions: The program. Some couldn't even comprehend

an art and science project he wanted NASA payload cannot be ejected into orbit, and it the concept of sending unaccompanied art to take into orbit. After bombarding the cannot be dangerous, vulgar, or purely for objects into space. But they do see a need

agency with proposals and visits, he was fi- promotional purposes. (NASA has already for artistic interpretation of the space expe- nally given the go-ahead. been burned once: In 1971 Dutch artist Paul rience. "Why should we be chained to the

Davis's payload is called NewWave Ruby Van Hoeydonck sent a small figurine to the launchpad?" -laments Chet Jezierski, who Falls, after the famous Tennessee tourist at- moon on Apollo 15. Called the Fallen Astro- painted his first space work at the age of

traction, and is designed to produce artifi- naut, it was reproduced and sold in quantity fifteen and gave it to John Glenn in a Wash- cial auroras. Davis plans to trigger this ce- on Earth as the "First Art on the Moon.") ington ceremony in 1962. "We are not just lestial light show with an electron gun,- 'a "We've. gotten some wild requests," Maull another special-interest group seeking a power supply, a sequencer, and cameras, reports. A Detroit carmaker, for instance, junket at the taxpayers' expense." packed in a $10,000 GAS canister. When wanted to use the. shuttle to send its latest jndeed, artists have been employed by

the electron gun fires, it will send streams of model into space as an advertising ploy. An- NASA since 1962 to record the history of electrons spiraling along the earth's mag- other request came from a group that sug- space exploration. Over the years, the corp's netic field and info the atmosphere. As the gested using the shuttle to ferry mortal re- participants have ranged from Robert electrons encounter atmospheric gases of mains, or funerary ashes, to a peaceful McCall, whose space murals decorate the

sufficient density, those gases will ionize and resting orbit. (A commercial rocket venture Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum,, in 48 OMNI CONTINUED ON PAGE 74 —

her first husband an immensely rich and (fron Georgie's description) a liked best about that marriage strangely weepy guy, who anyway; but the Wasp

had got it for her. Or for himself, actually, of course, SNOW to be the benef iciar about the size of a wasp of the largest kind, beauty, aware that he affects women pro- The Park's'representaiive was solicitous and and it had the same fazy and mindless flight. foundly and more or less instantly but doesn't made sure I understood how to go about And of course it really was a bug, not of the know why; thinks he is being listened to and accessing Georgie, but I wasn't listening. I insect kind but of the surveillance kind. And understood, that his soul, is being seen, when am only a child of my time, I suppose. Every- so its name fit all around: one of those bits all that's being seen is long-lashed eyes and thing about death, the fact of it, the fate of of accidental poetry the world strong, generates a square, tanned wrist turning in a the remains, and the situation of the living without thinking. Death, where is thy sting? lovely gesture, stubbing out a cigarette. faced with it, seems grotesque to me, em-

Georgie ignored it, it but was hard to avoid; Confusing. By I the time ligured out why I barrassing, useless. And everything done you had to be a little careful around it; it fal- had for so long been indulged and cared for about it only makes it more grotesque, more lowed Georgie at variable distance, listened a and to, I de- why was interesting, I wasn't useless: Someone I loved is dead; let me pending on her motions the and numbers of as interesting as I had been. At aboui the therefore dress in clown's clothes, talk back- other people her, the level around of light, I I same time realized wasn't a writer at all. wards, and buy expensive machinery to and the tone of her voice. And there was Georgie's investment stopped looking as make up for it. I went back to L.A.

always the danger might shut it in you a door good to her, and my calculation had ceased A year or more later, the contents of some or knock it down with a tennis racket. to add up; only by thai time I had come, pretty safe-deposit boxes of Georgie's arrived from It Cost a fortune (if you count the unexpectedly, access to love Georgie a lot, and she the lawyer's: some bonds and such stutl and and the perpetual-care contract, all pre- just as unexpectedly had come to love and a small steel case, velvet lined, that con- paid), and though it wasn't really fragile, it need me too, as much as she needed any- tained a key, a key deeply notched on both made you nervous. body. We never really parted, even though sides and headed with smooth plastic, like It wasn't recording all the time. There had when she died I hadn't seen her for years. the key to an expensive car. to be a certain amount of light, though not Phone calls, at dawn or four a.m. because

much. Darkness shut it off. And then some- she never, for all her travel, really grasped Why did I go to The Park that first time'? times it would get lost. Once when we hadn't that the world turns and cocktail hour travels Mostly because I had forgotten about it:

seen it hovering around for a time, I it, opened around with She was a crazy, wasteful. Getting that key in the mail was like coming

a closet door, it flew out, unchanged. It and across a pile of old snapshots you hadn't went off looking for her, humming softly. It cared to look at when they were new but must have been shut in there for days. which after they have aged come to contain Eventually it ran out, or down. A lot could the past, as they did not contain the present.

go wrong, I suppose, with circuits that small, I was curious.

controlling that many functions. It ended up '•She cherished I understood very well that The Park and spending a lot of time bumping gently things and lost them and its access concept were very probably only against the bedroom ceiling, over and over, forgot them: another cruel joke on the rich, preserving like a winter tly. Then one day the maid swept the illusion that they can buy what can't be it out from under the bureau, husk. a By that things, days, people. She bought, like the cryonics fad of thirty years time it had transmitted at least eight thou- had fun, though, ago. Once in Ibiza, Georgie and I met a Ger- sand hours (eight thousand was the mini- man couple who also had a contract with mum guarantee) of Georgie: of her days and I had fun with her. and The Park; their Wasp hovered over them like hours, her in comings and her goings out. That was her a Paraclete and made them self-conscious her speech and motion, her living self—all in the extreme— talent and her destiny^ they seemed to be con- on file, taking next to up no room, at The stantly rehearsing the eternal show being Park. And then, when the time came, you stored up for their descendants. Their deaths could go there, to The Park, a say on Sunday had taken over their lives, as though they afternoon; and in quiet landscaped sur- were pharaohs. Did they, Georgie won- roundings (as The Park described it) you dered, exclude the Wasp from their bed- would find her personal resting chamber; happy without woman, a trace oi malice or room? Or did its presence there stir them to and there, in privacy, through the miracle of permanence or ambition in her — easily greater efforts, proofs of undying love and modern information storage and retrieval pleased and easily bored .and strangely se- admirable vigor for the unborn to see? systems, you could access her; her alive, her rene despite the hectic pace she kept up. No, death wasn't to be cheated that way. as she was in every way, never changing or She cherished things and lost them and for- any more than by pyramids, by masses said growing any older, fresher (as The Park's got them: things, days, people. She had fun, in perpetuity. It wasn't Georgie saved from brochure said) than in ever memory green. though, and I had fun with her; that was her death that I would find. But there were eight talent and her destiny, not always an easy thousand hours of her life with me, genuine

I married Georgie for her money, the same one. Once, hung over in a New York hotel, hours, stored there more carefully than they reason she married her first, the one who watching a sudden snowfall out the im- could be in my porous memory; Georgie took out The Park's contract for her. She mense window, she said to me, "Charlie, I'm hadn't 'excluded the Wasp from her bed- married me, I think, for my looks; she always going to die of fun." room, our bedroom, and she who had never had a taste for looks in men. I wanted to write. And she did. Snow-foiling in Austria, she performed for anybody could not have con- I made a calculation that more women than was among the first to get one of those snow ceived of performing for it. And there would men make, and decided that to be sup- leopards, silent beasts as fast as speed- be me, too, undoubtedly, caught uninten- ported and paid for by a rich wife would give boats. Alfredo called me in California to tell tionally by the Wasp's attention: Out of those me freedom to do so, to "develop." The cal- me, but with the distance and his accent and thousands of hours there would be hun- culation worked out no better for me than it his eagerness to tell me he wasn't to blame, dreds of myself, and myself had just then does for most women it. 1 who make carried I never grasped the details. I was still her begun to be problematic to me, something a typewriter and a case of miscellaneous husband, her closest relative, heir to the little that had to be figured out, something about paper from Ibiza to Gstaad to Bali to Lon- she still had, and beneficiary, too, of The which evidence had to be gathered and don, and typed on beaches, and learned to Park's access concept. Fortunately, The weighed. I was thirty-eight years old. ski. Georgie liked me in ski clothes. Park's services included collecting her from That summer, then, I borrowed a Highway that those looks Now are all but gone, I the morgue, in Gstaad and installing her in Access Permit (the old HAPpy cards of those can look back on. myself as a young hunk her chamber at The Park's California unit. days) from a county lawyer I knew and drove and see that I was in' a way a rarity, a type Beyond signing papers and taking delivery the coast highway up to where The Park was, that you run into often among women, far when arrived Georgie by freight airship at at the end of a pretty beach road, all alone less among men, the beauty unaware of his Van Nuys, there nothing was for me to do. above the sea. It looked from the outside like 52 OMNI the screen, the best, most peaceful kind of Italian coun- communed with their dead as I was about one said. The someone crossed said: try cemetery, a low stucco wall topped with to do, that the dead were murmuring to them a brown blur, naked. It was me. Georgie urns, amid cypresses, an arched gate in the beneath the stream of Muzak; that they wept Oh, look, hummingbirds. rapt, the center. A small brass plaque on the gate; to see and hear, as I might, but I could hear She watched them, and Wasp her cropped blond head, rapt please use your key The gate opened, not nothing. I turned my key in its slot, and the crept close to turned to a square of shaded tombstones but onto screen lit up. The dim lights dimmed further, too, and I watched her watch. She away, rested her the balustrade. a ramped corridor going down: The ceme- and the Muzak ceased. I pushed access, elbows on tery wall was an illusion, the works were un- obviously the next step. No doubt all these I couldn't remember this day. How should I?

derground. Silence, or nameless Muzak-like procedures had been explained to me long One of hundreds, of thousands. . . . She wearing her silence; solitude — either the necessary ago at the dock when Georgie in her alumi- looked out to the bright sea, partly open, technicians were discreetly hidden or none num box was being off-loaded, and I hadn't sleepwalking face, mouth and were needed. Certainly the access concept listened. And on the screen she turned to absently stroked her breast with her oiled glitter the flow- turned out to be simplicity itself, in operation look at me—only not at me, though I started hand. An iridescent among watched ers the hummingbird. anyway. Even I, who am an idiot about infor- and drew breath—at the Wasp that was felt mation technology, could tell that. The Wasp her. She was in mid-sentence, mid-gesture. Without really knowing what I did— I for was-genuine state-of-the-art stuff, but what Where? When? Or put it on the same card hungry, suddenly, hungry for pastness,

we mourners got was as ordinary as home with the others, she said, turning away. more— I touched the reset bar. The balcony movies, as old letters tied up in ribbon. Someone said something, Georgie an- in Ibiza vanished, the screen glowed emp-

A display screen near the entrance told swered, and stood up, the Wasp panning tily. I touched access. murmur; then me down which corridor to find Georgie, and and moving erratically with her, like an am- At iirst there was darkness, a from before the my key let me into a small screening room ateur with a home-video camera. A white a dark back moved away where there was a moderate-size TV moni- room, sunlight, wicker, Ibiza. Georgie wore Wasp's eye, and a dim scene of people re- people, or the tor, two comfortable chairs, and dark walls a cotton blouse, open; from a table she solved itself. Jump. Other of chocolate-brown carpeting. The sweet- picked up lotion, poured some on her hand, same people, a party? Jump. Apparently the sad Muzak. Georgie herself was evidently and rubbed it across her freckled breast- Wasp was turning itself on and off according wherever somewhere in the vicinity, in the wall or un- bone, the meaningless conversation about to the changes in light levels here, der the floor, they weren't specific about the putting something on a card went on, here was. Georgie in a dark dress having

her cigarette lit: brief flare of the lighter. She charnel-house aspect of the place. In the ceased. I watched the room, wondering what into. said, Thanks. Jump. A foyer or hotel lounge. control panel before the TV were a keyhole year, what season I had stumbled jerkily for among for my key and two bars: access and reset Georgie pulled off her shirt—her small round Paris? The Wasp sought her large, childlike nipples, people coming and going; it couldn't make I sat, feeling foolish and a little afraid, too, breasts tipped with made more uncomfortable by being so de- child's breasts she still had at forty, shook a movie, establishing shots, cutaways— it liberately soothed by neutral furnishings and delicately. And she went out onto the bal- could only doggedly follow Georgie, like a following, blinded sun, jealous husband, seeing nothing else. This sober tools. I imagined, around me, down cony, the Wasp by

other corridors, in other chambers, others adjusting, if you want to do it that way, some- was frustrating. I pushed reset, access. Georgie brushed her teeth, somewhere, somewhen.

I understood, after one or two more of these terrible leaps. Access was random. There was no way lo dial up a year, a day, a scene. The Park had supplied no program, none: the eight thousand hours weren't filed

at all; they were a jumble, like a lunatic's

memory, like a deck of shuffled cards. I had

supposed, without thinking about it, that they

would begin at the beginning and go on till they reached the end. Why didn't they?

I also understood something else, If ac-

cess was truly random, if I truly had no con- forever trol, then I had lost as good as those

scenes I had seen. Odds were on the order of eight Ihousand to one (more? far more?

probabilities are opaque to me) that I would never light on them again by pressing this

bar. I .felt a pang of loss for that afternoon in

Ibiza. It was doubly gone now. I sat before the empty screen, afraid to touch access

again, afraid of what I would lose.

I shut down the machine (the light level in the room rose, the Muzak poured softly back in) and went out into the halls, back to the

display screen in the entranceway. The list of names slowly, greenly, rolled over like the

list of departing flights at an airport; Code numbers were missing from beside many, indicating perhaps that they weren't yet in residence, only awaited. In the Ds, three-— names, and director—hidden among them as though he were only another of the dead. this project, I've "After spending 2.8 billion dollars and eight years on it A chamber number. I went to find and went were trying lind out." torgotten what the hell we to in. The director looked more like a janitor or a night watchman, the semiretired type you

CQNT N'UED ON P«3E 9fl Science is tinkering with the roster of species, creating a utiiitarian stable of hybrid animals BYBILLLAWREN

takes only a glance to see Iisomething eerie about Oliver. There's the quizzical face, the protruding nose, the small, soft chin, and prominent ears; the head, strikingly bald; and the

upright, splay-footed stroll. Indeed, though Oliver has the long arms and hairy coat of a chimpanzee, standing there sipping his RC, he looks like a back-alley denizen on Hill Street Blues. And therein lies the fascination: 'There's no scientific reason." says his owner, primatologist and animal (rainer Ken De Croo, "why you couldn't have a chimp- human hybrid. The chimp is genetically much more related to man than he is to other apes. In fact, the first chimps taken out of the wild were reared on milk." De Croo is quick to point out that there is no scientific evidence for a human component to Oliver's physical eccentricities. No one has yet studied his blood proteins comprehensively enough to establish his true nature and origins. Oh, there was the Japanese actress who olfered to "lay" with Oliver, as a sort of ultimate test, says De Croo, "But what would that prove? There's nothing unusual about humans copulating with animals; they've been doing it all through history."

Whether Oliver is truly a hybrid mixture of man and ape (De Croo prefers to see him as a chimp with an interesting mutation), he is a striking symbol of a quest that has intrigued mankind since the dawn of time: the search for the chimera, for the melding of two disparate animals into one

PAINTING BY BRALDT BRALDS '•The quest for the chimera began hundreds of thousands of years ago, when man began to domesticate wild animals!

could travel well in either hot or cold climate. In Indonesia, colonizing Indian sailors in- terbred zebu cattle with native Banteng oxen to produce the Madura, which became not only one of the world's oldest and most use-

ful cattle breeds but undoubtedly the fast- est. (Madura cattle can run as fast as the average horse. In fact, the island of Madura

is still the site of what may be the world's only annual cow races.)

There is little record of further hybrid ex- perimentation in farm animals until the late nineteenth century, by which time the torch seems to have passed from Europe and Asia

to the United States. There it came to rest in the hands of an unlikely crusader by the name of C. E. "Beefalo" Jones. A South- western rancher and renowned buffalo hunter who, by his own admission, had killed thousands of North American bison, Jones ultimately grew intrigued by the hardiness of his prey. From 1885 to the first decade of the twentieth century, he dedicated himself to the creation of the beefalo, a hybrid of cow and bison that, he thought, would become

a "race of -cattle equal, if not superior, to all ruminants heretofore' known." beast. Never completely satisfied with the Jones never succeeded. But his work in- gifts of nature, man has subjected the roster spired a latter-day quester— Montana ol species to a seemingly endless series of rancher Jim Burnett—to try his hand. In 1958, tinkering, creating hybrid combinations of intent on succeeding where Jones had failed, everything from horse and donkey to lion and Burnett pastured a bison bull with 100 of his later, after disheart- tiger. And now, given receni developments best cows. Four years a stillbirths, in genetics and embryo transfer, the future ening series of failures and Bur- may hold not only an exciting menagerie ol nett was finally presented with his first live hybrid animals but also a collection of en- hybrid calves. In the ensuing 20-odd years, tirely new species built one gene at a time. Burnett and other enterprising breeders have The quest for the chimera may have had built up a lively trade in beefalo, complete all its beginnings hundreds of thousands of with shows, contests, and auctions, su- years ago, when man first began to domes- pervised by a national breeding association ticate wild animals. Kurt Benirschke, re- based in Louisville. search director of the San Diego Zoo and Today, with the beefalo taking its place in an acknowledged expert on hybridization, the American commercial marketplace, the thinks that the earliest efforts may have fo- restless search for the chimera continues. A cused on dogs. recent series of experiments at Utah State domestic "I imagine," he says, "that at some point course, was nothing less than the indomita- University successfully crossed early man found some wolf cubs, raised them ble mule, one of hybridization's most spec- sheep—which are easy to handle but whose stories. the first colt meat is palatable only when the animals are on the bottle or the equivalenf , and domes- tacular success As mule ticated them. Then he may have migrated grew to maturity, its human "engineer" must young—with such temperamental but de- somewhere else where the wild dogs or have seen that-.the animal combined the best cidedly tastier wild varieties as the American wolves looked different to him. He may have traits of both its progenitors: the strength and bighorn, the European mouflon, and the captured and interbred them with his do- size of the horse combined with the pa- Middle Eastern argali. mesticated dogs out of necessity—to keep tience, surefootedness, and remarkable In Israel, researchers at the University of the population going when there were no stamina of the donkey. From that point on, Tel Aviv have hybridized the hardy but ine- breeders available— or out of pure curiosity, the man with the mule had an ongoing ad- dible Sinai desert goat with the tenderer ibex, to see what the offspring would look like." vantage over his fellow farmer, and Ihe no- producing an ideal desert livestock animal Thousands ol years later, this same curi- tion of hybrid vigor, or heterosis, was born. called the ya-ez. In Australia, University of osity led some enterprising farmer in Asia The obvious advantage of heterosis, so Monash animal physiologist Roger Short is hybrids Minor to see what would happen if he in- beautifully embodied in the mule, inspired conducting experiments with be- terbred a donkey and a horse. The result, of generations of farmer-breeders to carry on tween wild and domestic geese, hoping to the quest, In the Middle East the one- create a breed with the tract ability of the do- mestic bird and the rapid growth character- A combination of a bison and a cow, called the- humped desert dromedary was crossed with beetalo, is s/ic.vr. a* ;op ieti. Center column: a his mountain cousin, the two-humped Bac- istics of its wild cousins. comiputer-generaied hybrid o! a lion and a lamb. trian camel, to produce a pack animal that Undoubtedly one of the most interesting

58 OMNI to a fer- Delhi, India, when a circus unveiled an un- recent experiments involves a unique part- searchers have been unable breed precedented new animal act. The perform- nership between Texas A&M animal genet- tile male, the rare and treasured sine qua new species. Looking into ers included not only the expert trainers and icist Nat Kieffer and his longtime neighbor, non of a viable but three hybrid in the problem, Kieffer has recently found that a group of lions and tigers rancher Bert Wheeler. It all started back offspring, complete with short, lionlike manes 1974, when Wheeler— a multimillionaire his hybrid bulls have lowered levels of tes- "mixing the and the dark brown stripes of a tiger. The landowner with a gambler's smile and a tosterone. 'Apparently!" he notes, something hormonally male parent, an Indian lion, had been cap- penchant tor exotic animals—acquired a genomes renders forest, the only region if animals are not pro- tured earlier in the Gir 1,400-pound Banteng bull named Buddy. amiss. It seems as the in Asia where lions still survive in the wild. Thinking there was absolutely no possibility ducing enough hormone to precipitate the of The circus managers immediately caged him of interbreeding, Wheeler decided to have production sperm." Kieffer now believes, is re- with a mature tigress, whom the proud leo the bull pastured with a group oi Charolais The solution, frus- genes. If the steadfastly ignored. Only after three cattle on asection of his 10,000-acre spread ducing the percent of Banteng species, he explains, it trating years did a mating finally take place. near Easterly, Texas. animal is mostly one Months later, the circus celebrated the birth The next spring Wheeler's ranch man- may begin to exhibit the "hormonal purity of that end, of three hybrid ligers. ager noticed a group of calves whose iaces the normal, domestic male." Toward Intrigued by the ligers, the Calcutta Zoo were remarkably free of the flies that clus- he has recently begun to back-cross hybrid decided to take the experiment one step fur- tered so gleefully on the faces of the other heifers with male Banteng. ther. Zoo staff first cattle, Knowing that crossed a female In- resistance to insects dian lion with a male and parasites was a tiger, producing a hy- salient trait of the Ban- brid tigon. Then they teng, the manager put decided to cross a fe- two and two together: male tiger and a male The calves must have liger, a union that en- been the product of gendered a second- the Charolais cattle generation hybrid and Buddy, the Ban- dubbed, not surpris- teng. The manager ingly, the litigon. informed Wheeler, The male litigon, who in turn called his named Cubanacan, is old friend Kieffer. now a living testament "Wheeler was very to the doctrine of hy- excited," Kieffer re- brid vigor. In fact, he calls. "He thought he is so much bigger and might have a viable more ornery than his new breed with com- parents, confesses mercial potential." zoo director A. K. Das, Kieffer tended to that he has been "too agree. Heknewthatin uncooperative to addition to its resist- weigh." Das is con- ance to parasites, the sidering having future Banteng grew fast and liligons released in In- gave lean, flavorful dian wildlife sanctu- meat without requir- aries, where, given ing much feed other answering machines, the new Toshiba won't give their obvious genetic than pure pasture. In Unlike other silent treatment. It says nice things like "No message," or "Three endowments, they those days of oil em- you the Our remote feature lets you play back, would have an excel- bargoes and escalat- messages. Monday 8:15 pm.." change messages from anywhere. Press a button, lent chance of com- ing feed costs, these skip, repeat or even

always give you the time i nTOUchwithTomorr™ peting successfully traits looked espe- and Toshiba will 5ee, it's even more dependable enough to become a cially attractive. of day. TOSHIBA than yourfriends. new— albeit entirely Over the next ten , J", "^'JL'""™ human -engineered— years, Kieffer and species. Wheeler set out to Despite the Cal- breed a herd of site of the chi- crosses between Banteng and various "We found some viable sperm in (he male cutta breeders' success, the mera quest is increasingly passing from breeds of domestic cattle, artificially insem- hybrids that were one fourth Banteng and zoos which are now more interested in inating the cows with Buddy's semen. one eighth Banteng," he explains, "but we — to call the preserving existing species than in creating Today a. herd of about 100 Banteng cows didn't find enough of these sperm finally reach ones to scientific laboratories. There ruminates over Wheeler's sprawling ranch, animals fertile. I really hope we'll new — researchers are using sophisticated new sharing space with an exotic assortment of that point when the Banteng component is hybridization techniques to probe some of imported wildebeests, Asian deer, and Af- one sixteenth." mysterious secrets of reproduction rican gazelles. Ongoing measurements of From the ya-ez to the Banteng, all these the more England's Cambridge University, the Banteng cows have shown that Kieffer farm-oriented experiments have had a com- itself. At animal scientist Steen Willadsen is conduct- and Wheeler were essentially right: Though mon goal: the production of hybrid animals a program that he hopes will slightly lighter than domestic cattle, the 'Hy- that would be bigger, work harder, or taste ing massive on the organization and early de- brids—which have the slanted eyes of the better than their parents. But while farmers shed light mammalian embryos. Banteng combined with the coloring of var- and agriculturalists pursue these practical ve opment of are carrying on the chi- ' As part of that effort, graduate student ious domestic breeds—give meat that is just objectives, others Carole Fehilly recently embarked on a novel as tasty as .standard beef but with signifi- mera quest out of pure scientific curiosity. of experiment. First she removed the inner cantly less fat. One of the" most spectacular products of a of sheep ova. She But a crucial problem remains: The re- this impulse surfaced a while back in New membranes number — — — then replaced those membranes with blas- probably remain somewhat difficult to con- some 80 percent bigger than the norm. Ob- tomeres—the firsi group of preembryonic trol. Perhaps more promising is a recent and viously, the transferred genes had taken hold cells formed after the fertilization of an egg unusual collaboration among American ge- of the cellular machinery and begun to churn from goats. These "hybrid ova" combined to neticists, whose work may ultimately enable out proteins of their own. form composite embryos, which were cul- us to construct new superanimals, gene by Since that experiment, which was re- tured through the first stages of develop- desirable gene. ported late in 1982, Brinster and Evans have ment and later implanted in the wombs of The goal of the collaboration, which in- created giant mice with growth-hormone female goats. volves researchers from the University of genes from no Jess a mammal than Homo After five months of suspenseful waiting, Washington, the University of Pennsylvania, sapiens. Although his own goals are limited the researchers performed a cesarean sec- and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, to the scientific investigation of the recom- tion on the first of the pioneering parents. in La Jolla, California, has been nothing less bination process, Evans nonelheless sees a When the kid was extracted, Willadsen re- than interspecific gene transfer: the expres- broad and glowing practical future for this calls, "we could tell immediately that there sion of one animal's characteristics in the radical new form of trait- by-trait, gene-by- was something very strange going on. The body of another. Specifically, the research- gene hybridization. kid had patches of goat hair in some places ers wanted to see whether growth-hormone "This technique," he says, "could be in- and patches of wool in others. It looked like genes from the rat could be transferred lo credibly powerful in manipulating traits that a combination of sheep and goat." Blood- and expressed in ordinary laboratory mice. are under the control of a single gene. For protein tests soon example, you could confirmed what sci- increase milk produc- entists had observed tion by manipulating with their own eyes: the gene for the pitui- The kid was in fact a tary hormone prolac- chimera, a living, tin. Fat and muscle bleating incorporation deposition could be of two entirely differ- controlled by manip- ent animal species. ulating the gene for Inevitably, this spec- growth hormone, tacular amalgam was which could be used dubbed the geep. to make. say. a leaner Encouraged by this animal. In fact," he resounding success, says, "if you could Willadsen went on to identify hormones that attempt an even more were responsible for radical experiment. tranquillity, you could Using similar meth- possibly even pro- ods, he combined duce an animal that embryos from even was more docile." more disparate spe- In secret experi- cies: the sheep and ments around the the cow. When im- country, agricultural planted in sheep companies and re- mothers, some of the search laboratories hybrid embryos did are applying these indeed develop to gene-hybridization term, and a few of techniques to the ulti- those resulted in live mate undertaking births. Willadsen says the for . search ... _u've got to hand it to Toshiba for creating the KT-4085. It's the per-

:' that all the babies born : 'i but p.5cks a full auto-reverse cassette recorder with Dolby'B NR, fect beast. "I know of so far look at first &uiit-in AM'/FM stereo tuner, detachable stereo mikes, plus a 3-band no domestic animals

: graphic ecuaiizer. t "> touch ™,r,Tom™. glance- like normal csneven record off that are in fact grow- lambs. "But in a few its%w.n radio. In fact, this tiny Toshiba TOSH I BA ing larger because of is really tremendous. MMDoihyLib* b**,..^,,.,, ; -. ;i-,-:.,^»™d.i^K Ni0j«6 cases," he notes, this approach." Evans "they've blocks shown says, "but it is being of cowlike coloring. attempted, and it's a white sheep, for ex- only a matter of time." ample, whose embryo was coupled with a In other words, would genes for rat hor- San Diego's Benirschke agrees. "In an- black cow, produced a lamb with black mones make mice grow? other ten to twenty years," he says, "we'll spots." Recent laboratory tests have shown First, Salk's Ronald Evans isolated and know where the genetic qualities we want that while the blood proteins taken from these cloned the gene itself. Then, using a mouse are located on the animal's chromosomes, animals were all decidedly sheeplike, other DNA sequence known as a promoter, which and we'll be able to introduce the genes that bodily tissues have in fact been a definite acts as a sort of trigger for genetic activity, will make for better animals." combination of sheep and cow. Ralph Brinster, of the University of Pennsyl- The prospects are exciting indeed. Imag-

Compared to the gross hit-or-miss breed- vania, and Richard Paimiter, of the Univer- ine, for example, a barnyard full of low-fat

' ing techniques that have been used in the slty of Washington, fused the promoter se- cows, edible ewes, and sweetheart stal- past, Willadsen's represent methods a clear quence to the rat growth-hormone genes. lions. Imagine the Secretariat of the future: a - breakthrough in the direction of precision and The "hybridized" genes were then injected 70-mile-per-hour thoroughbred, turbo- elegance. But even if his work does lead to into 170 mouse eggs. boosted with the speed genes of a cheetah. the production of hybrid animals with attrac- When the mice were born, it was quickly Picture an experiment that is already the tive combinations of traits — a sheep, say, obvious that the experiment had been a subject of serious discussion: the hybridi- whose meal retains the lifelong tenderness smashing success: The young mice grew zation of animal and plant genes to produce of beef—the process itself is still subject to three times taster than their unaltered sib- meat bushes and cheese trees. ene recombination and will lings, one. and grew to be a veritable giant, For that matter, picture Oliver. . . .DO Millennia from now, humans will hear our warning, conveyed in the cold language of the STONE SENTRY BY CAROLE DOUGLIS

The year is 4085. Temporary stor- On a broad, sage- age pools in place studded plain in if at the nation's 93 what had been the I operational com- western United H mercial nuclear- States ol America, ' I power plants house i

256 monoliths ,.., .. nearly 11,000 tons stake out 32- ."""%,' o1 spent (ue! await- a t£00 . square-mile rec- ing permanent tangle. Inside are dozens ol artificial disposal. Facilities in Idaho, South hills, each ringed by more towering Carolina, and Washington State col- monuments. Pictographs and Old Era lectively shelter more than 85 million writings etched into these huge stone gallons of high-level defense wastes slabs warn of danger and demand that in temporary containers, one of which people not dig into the mounds. The has leaked part of its lethal contents monoliths and their messages date into the ground. from the time, two millennia ago, when Once the waste is entombed for humans were still obtaining energy eternity, how do we warn future gen-

from splitting atoms and developing erations of its potential danger? Signs weapons by processing plutonium. rust, documents crumble, buildings Within the bounds of the giant slabs, fall, languages change, places are beneath the hillocks, acres of radio- forgotten. Ten thousand years ago, active earth have been turned to black small groups of nomads were just be- glass, and tanks containing millions of ginning to learn agriculture. Life 10,000 gallons of deadly radioactive sludge years into the future may be radically lie in earthen crypts. different from what we know today. Local residents shun the area, be- How do we communicate with hu- lieving it to be cursed, but outsiders mans who may have little concept of consider the enormous memorial one the world of 1985 and its symbols? of the wonders ol the Old Era; hover- If the recommendations of contrac- crafts bring eager tourists daily. The tors sponsored by the U.S. Depart- monuments' builders wished these ment of Energy (DoE) become reality, stones to "speak" for at least another 300 generations of our descendants 8,000 years, while the lethal and mu- will hear our message, spoken in the tagenic substances they warn of silent language of monoliths. slowly exhaust themselves. The unprecedented challenge of

, Radioactive waste has been piling radioactive-waste disposal has often up since the dawn of the nuclear age. stimulated unconventional proposals. five decades ago. Some nuclear Although experts have suggested that waste, called low level, takes up to 300 nuclear waste be shot into the ocean years tor most of its radioactivity to floor or launched on a perpetual jour- decay. But the most potent remains, ney into deep space, the National high-level wastes that include the Waste Policy Act, signed into law in spent fuel from power plants, could 1983, has committed the United States stay radioactively "hot"—more poten- to a land-based storage method on tially toxic than naturally occurring our own continent. Spent fuel from uranium ore —up to 3 million years. commercial nuclear reactors has been

PAINTINGS BY ERIC PAETZ slated for permanent burial in tombs mined a DoE spokesperson, "The basic finding is terials that were already a few thousand years built last deep into rock or salt formations. About that means do exist for communicating old, so I knew that things can be to 70,000 tons of wasle would be shrouded in across generations." long periods," Kaplan says. "It's a question steel canisters, then sealed in a catacomb Federal law now requires nuclear-waste of trying to analyze ancient monuments and of tunnels bored half a mile or more under specialists to implement, after waste reposi- incorporate the features that work into a the surface of the earth. The repository would tories close, warning systems of the type the contemporary marking system." sprawl over 2,000 subterranean acres. The task force originally investigated, which in- Kaplan tried to pry the secrets of longev- first commercial burial ground, to be se- clude monoliths and written warnings. So ity from a few monuments aged 1,000 to lected in 1987, will likely be in Washington researchers at the University of Washington 5,000 years. These included Egyptian pyr- Wall of China, State, Nevada, or Texas. It is scheduled to and at Indiana University and nuclear plan- amids, the Acropolis, the Great Ohio, Stone- open in 1998 and shut— ostensibly for ners involved with the Hanford reservation the Serpent Mound of and eternity— around the year 2080, when the are working out the details of the DoE's rec- henge. Each teaches lessons about monu- time. facility will have filled to capacity. ommendations. They are continuing to re- ments that were meant to defy The Some high-level military waste, created fine techniques lor "deep-time" communi- pyramids, for instance, have lasted 5,000 primarily by processing plutonium for nu- cation— sending explanations and requests years partly because the material they were clear bombs, is scheduled for deep burial into the almost inconceivable future. built from, stone, was not valuable enough

in New Mexico. But under a controversial new Some of the suggestions made by the to be carted away in great quantities. But, proposal yet to be approved by the govern- original task force proved impractical. One Kaplan says, "The monument alone is not ment, some of the longest-lived wastes may recommendation was to drench the waste enough to provide meaning for later gener- be solidified in place where they are now with a long-term stench. "I considered the ations. You must have written records, too." stored or have leaked into the soil, at the possibility of a 'skunk on the highway' sign," Literature contemporary with the pyramids, federally owned Hanford Nuclear Reserva- says Thomas A. Sebeok, chairman of the translated into later languages, clues histo- tion in southeastern Washington State. There, Research Center for Language and Semiot- rians in about the purpose of these monu- radioactive materials would be covered with ic Studies at Indiana University. "But no skunk ments and who built them. a mere 20 feet of soil and stones. Twentieth-century historians also know the

Controversy still rages over where long- purpose of the 2.400-year-old Acropolis be- lived nuclear waste may best be buried. But cause of documents composed in ancient Athens, not of the buildings them- if all goes as planners hope, a combination because of natural and man-made barriers will see to selves. Acid rain has severely damaged the

millions o! people could eat contaminated in principle, it couldn't be used to transmit indicates that if future peoples think the

salt. Perhaps more ominously, critics con- other types of information, too. Maybe a markers are important, they may attend to

tend that there is no guarantee that under- thousand years from now you could use mi- upkeep. Again, literature related the pur- ground water flows will not shift and carry to crosurgery to encode warnings about nu- pose of the Great Wall through invasions and the surface some of the radioactivity that will clear substances into genes." changes of government to the present day.

likely leak from the canisters. If wastes are The DoE found that the most viable plan Impressive as the survival of the wall and its solidified in topsoil, radioactive materials was a long-lasting marker system at nu- recorded history is, the two millennia that they would be relatively close to the surface from clear-disposal areas, coupled with in-depth span are but a fraction of the time that high- the beginning. information that would be easily available off level nuclear waste will remain hazardous. As a first step in preventing humans from site. But researchers could find no prece- The ancient Serpent Mound of Ohio pro- disturbing a nuclear-waste repository, the dent for trying to contact members of civili- vides an example of what not to do, Kaplan DoE set up the Human Interference Task zations of the distant future. says. The Serpent Mound, a 1,254-foot-long Force in 1980. In effect, the goal of the com- Nevertheless, the distant past unexpect- earthwork, looks like a snake uncoiling. There mittee, assembled by privately owned Bat- edly yielded the most promising prospects. is an oval shape near its open mouth, and telle Memorial Institute (which was the prime Maureen F Kaplan, archaeologist, waste- the mound can best be seen from the sky.

contractor), was to determine how to influ- management expert, and statistician at Experts speculate that it may have been a ence people across a vast chasm of time^- Analysis and Inference Inc., near Boston, religious symbol. But no one really knows

people with unknown language, culture, and was a consultant to the DoE panel. She re- what it meant to its creators because no

interests. To that end fhe panel commis- cently helped planners at Rockwell Hanford documentation about it exists. "It leaves us sioned reports from experts in assorted Operations, one of the DoE's contractors, in the dark; the Serpent Mound shows that fields ranging from linguistics to archaeol- devise a scheme for issuing an eternal earthworks do survive, but that's about the

;:,.'.:. , '; it," ., . i'iv io materials science. warning about the dangers of shallowly bur- best you can say for Kaplan adds. The task force, mission accomplished, dis- ied, long-lived radioactive waste. Based on lessons from antiquity, Kaplan

banded in 1984. According to Ginger King, 'As an archaeologist, I'd worked with ma- derived a basic formula for a deep time coM'WFrjONPAGEios LEAF

53 gBhviWaait had to survive by staying out of i/es, sprout the way of their natural ene- wings and legs, and fly away on mies. F at birth with shapes and texture them straddle the border be! yandilli

growth of the Southern Hemisphere. The verisimilitude achieved by the: •**«

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inq, its expression is not. The p

HIbilily of evolution from the saga of the peppered moths of EnqlanrJ. For cen- MffiSSBaB;

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When the Indus rial R Bvolution = made its debut in the nglisl midlands during the ninetee ith ce tury. (he peppered moth berj an to

I moths no longer blended with their surroundings. Deprived of

tion, they suddenly became fair game for hungry birds. But certain individuals of Ihe spe-

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, the birch trees revested t< their earlier, lighter response, the delii colored strain of £_„.._

turned and once again *„.„ v ... :„ tt,„ i=— ii«t, itfysJde.OO J^tSSHP small, hand-held vacuum would suck up ex- ing more technologically oriented," he wrote. ARTRONAUTS cess liquid or dirty water. Jezierski says that "The interaction between sound and the new the automated pressurized painting station technology can lead to artistic and scientific would ,be attached to the manned maneu- breakthroughs." artists, Washington, to famous innovators like Rob- vering unit, the astronaut's rocket pack, for In contrast to the gung-ho visual in their ert Rauschenberg, who has created at least extravehicular work. He's done everything writers have not contacted NASA. But 38 works about space. He even contributed but build a working prototype. NASAs prior- replies to Pridgeon's questionnaire, they that it- to a piece o! art that was carried to the moon ities, however, are scientific, not artistic; Je- make a cogent argument language communi- by the Apollo 12 mission. Called Moon Mu- zierski's proposal was turned down. self may be the best medium for the cating the magic of space. "Writers interpret seum, it was a small ceramic tile on which Literary artists and musicians also see Rauschenberg drew a straight line; Andy importance of experiencing space for-them- the world to their readers," wrote science- Warhol drew a penis; Ciaes Oldenburg drew selves. In 1983 James Pridgeon, a Seattle- fiction author Ursula LeGuin, "The chance to the image of Mickey Mouse; and John based sculptor, circulated a questionnaire participate firsthand in the space program Chamberlain, Forrest Myers, and David among 3,000 artists, writers, musicians, and means the chance to interpret and under- frontier of life that has been Novros all drew geometric designs, other members of the art community, can- stand a modern all People are out- But for NASA art director Bob Schulman vassing their interest in an artisi-in-space closed to but the experts. screen, inside it and his cadre of artists, the most important program on the manned space station. side the rocket on the TV works of art will be produced when an artist Shortly before the survey went out, Senator when they read about it." makes the ascent into space. "I'm quite dis- William Proxmire, of Wisconsin, gave a Science-tiction star Isaac Asimov be- appointed that a teacher is the next cate- Golden Fleece award to NASA for its foray lieves that the chance to experience space firsthand also help artists— especially gory in the Flight Participant program," he into the arts. He said thai the agency's plans may their says. "NASA's next step should be to send were a waste ot money. Still, Pridgeon's science-fiction writers — to develop the an artist with an ease! up there." questionnaire drew responses from more craft. "Science-fiction writers have kept Toward that end, Jezierski submitted a than 600 artists, including Doris Lessing, dream of spaceflight alive tor the general comprehensive proposal to NASA officials Isaac Asimov, Ken Kesey, and composer public through all the years when politicians outlining the role of artist as mission spe- Steve Reich. and serious scientists have not given a explains. spaceflight be- cialist. As part of the proposal. Jezierski de- One of f he most positive responses came damn," he "When signed a special zero-g palette and an ex- from avant-garde jazz composer Ornette comes a common experience it will provide travehicular painting station that would allow Coleman, whose soon-to-be-released "Skies writers with new niches, new knowledge, and an artist to paint within the confines of the of America" album features a photograph of new plots." skeptical, shuffle or actually be tethered out in space. the Columbia shuttle, which he says served Author David Slavitt was more Velcro tabs would restrain brushes, pens, as inspiration for the album's music. Cole- however. The idea of sending writers into and pencils; an enclosed mixing area would man believes that the dramatically different space, he writes, "suggests that NASA is prevent tubed paints from squirting ran- environment of space will influence the either in desperate need ot public support it out domly into the zero-g environment; and a course of modern music. "Music is becom- and tunding or that has money coming

of its ears that it would rather spend stupidly than return unspent to Congress." Slavitt could think of only one sensible way the space program could benefit the arts: 'All people who write or paint or dance or com- 1 f^ if HAS (?E£W SAID pose badly might well be sent up into space and left there," he writes. C OF 1WE ARTISTS fIJUf! fOR But Annie Dillard, author of the best-sell- COLOR WIT THE PAINTING ing book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, places more / importance on space-bound writers. They fhie h L.rre.muy &wv off could, she believes, become NASAs best (jAWXAT-fWE WeVKER, publicists. 'As long as NASA depends on the public for support, it would do well to keep the public interested in the romance of

space," she explains. "It is the romance, the adventure, the beauty, the novelty of using

space that appeals to people. But it would be silly to send up a ballet dancer, abstract painter, or composer. Any feelings that artis- jp«> tic work could arouse would be based on fact, not on private, vaguely expressed feel-

ings. We all want to know what space is like.

But we want to learn what it is like from someone trained to communicate." Those chosen as the first space commu- nicators may do more to enlarge our con- cept of the universe than have all the earth- bound artists of the past. At the least, their presence will add depth to the space pro-

gram. "If we don't go into space with all of our faculties, with the cognitive, intuitive part sasfcfct of our mind as well as the hard-edged, an- alytical part," explains Joe McShane, "we will

be going into space as halt a species. If we

don't make full use of our intellect and psy- che, we'll end up polluting space the way we've polluted Earth. "DO Mm

This brilliant researcher and spokeswoman for interferon reveals some sober and hard-won truths about AIDS, the power politics of cancer, and the place of women in today's science

/.fl^W* •-.'. inJTERV/IEUU

one in Late spring night 1948, after everyone in the lab had protein whose research history rivals the political career of Win- gone home, the twenty-two-year-old graduate student sat ston Churchill in about-faces and melodramatic ups and downs. down at one of the world's first electron microscopes to Discovered in 1957 by virologists Alick Isaacs and Jean Linden- resume the search that had consumed her attention tor weeks, As mann, interferon was known to be produced by cells in response sparks danced like lightning between the machine's insulators, to a wide variety of viral infections, including mumps, herpes, and she focused the the scope on contents of a frog's egg. Moving in the common cold. And it was known to have antiviral properties. systematic, millionth-of-an-inch increments, she scanned for hours, Krim and interferon first joined company in the early Seventies, finally shifting to a new area of the preparation. Suddenly a set of when the Swiss-born researcher was investigating cancer-caus- perfect double threads jumped into view— for the first time in his- ing viruses at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute for tory, neat bundles of DNA molecule had become accessible to the Cancer Research. She had been following interferon since the human eye. "I looked af them in ecstasy," recalls Mathilde Galland Sixties, when early animal studies had indicated that interferon

Krim. "I knew I was hooked on science for the rest of my .life." could also suppress tumor growth.

It fortuitous addiction. was a Since that time Krim's work has In 1974 Swedish physician Hans Strander announced that in- traveled across an impressively broad spectrum of microbiology: terferon might have halted the recurrence of disease in a number from the genetics of frogs' eggs to the virology of cancer and the of patients suffering from a highly malignant bone cancer. At this immunology of AIDS. But perhaps Krim's best- known—and most news, Krim, never one to suppress her enthusiasm, leapt to the controversial— work is her research with interferon, the- "antiviral foreground, pressing to establish an interferon laboratory at Sloan-

PHOTOGRAPH BY MALCOLM KIRK . . —

after sup- if their tumors recurred. Well, a few years Kettering and battling the National Institutes the expression of certain genes and trial, it suddenly expression of others. It changes Strander began his became of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer In- presses the cells resistant to apparent that this darn disease had stitute (NCI) to support interferon research cell functions and makes for unknown rea- For all these reasons, in- changed. More recently, at labs around the country, various'infections. miracle molecule. From a sub- sons, the rate of recurrence became less But interferon and Krim's advocacy of it terferon is a powerful and specific you would than that of twenty years earlier. This invali- soon became mired in controversy. Requir- stance this really luck. results in the clinic. Well, dated the control and was bad ing a laborious isolation process from hu- expect miraculous miracles. Because in So Strander had to deyelop a new contem- man blood cells, the substance was prohib- we haven't yet seen trial is still going is always a yin and a yang porary control group. The itively expensive: up to $500 for a single biology there an action, on, and it's holding up. They have fewer re- injection. Reports of noxious side effects effect and countereffecl. There is interferon. to suppress that currences in patients treated with began to mount: chills, fever, and loss of ap- plus a feedback mechanism interferons really useful, we But the circumstances of the earlier trial left petite. Preliminary results in some of the action. To make really their action by suppressing a bad taste, and his results are not cancer trials at first were equivocal and gen- must enhance effects. considered solid evidence as yet. erally disappointing. Worse, the findings of feedback interested Omni: Were there other scientific objections Strander's landmark study were questioned Omni: Why did you first become to interferon? and ultimately discredited. Public confi- in interferon? to- One quasi-scientific argument in- In 1970, 1 spent six months putting Krim: dence in interferon's promise waned. The Krim: research for a volved evidence from work in animals. It soon drug was held up by many as anoiher ex- gether a report on cancer led to realize that became clear that most mouse tumors are ample of a miracle cure turned mirage. For Senate panel. My work me cell induced by— or at least carry—viral parti- herenthusiasm.Krim herself was excoriated interferon is a substance that can inhibit of tumors, and cles. We could see the particles in the elec- by scientists, including at least one former growth, reduce the growth is an anti- modify some properties of the immune sys- tron microscope. Since interferon

it works in mice because Well, it struck as being viral, people said Interferon had in fact not disappeared; it tem in animals. me involved as tumor-inducing I viruses are was being studied quietly and laboriously. the wave of the future. decided right then agents, but it won't work in humans because In 1980, a! the University of Zurich, Charles in human tumors viruses are not involved. Weissman managed to assemble the inter- Then there was the objection that interferons feron molecule by genetic engineering, are species specific. Mice interferons work pointing the way toward "biological facto- only on mice; human beings need human ries" to manufacture the substance at af- '•The rate of interferons. The human animal is five thou- fordable prices. Krim and ofher research- sand times larger than a mouse, so you need ers, meanwhile, continued to experiment with AIDS infection is much faster five thousand times as much interferon. So interferon, patiently accumulating the evi- rate than the you would need expensive tissue-culture dence necessary for FDA approval. And develop the systems producing enormous amounts of most recently, interferon has indeed been of people who human interferon, which you then had to pu- found effective in the treatment of some • disease. Maybe rify and bottle. So before we could produce forms of cancer—and other diseases. one million produc- next year, instead of it cheaply by genetic engineering, As she' waged her campaign for inter- ing interferon for clinical trials was very ex- feron, Krim turned her energies in other di- people infected, Still, if spending five million dollars investigate rela- pensive. rections. She continues to million.^1 it is going to be ten accelerate cancer treatment by ten years, tionships between viruses and cancer and will not it is well worth it. But bureaucrats are has become increasingly prominent, both as known for their daring. research Scientist and public spokeswoman Omni: Why did you push so hard for inter- in the struggle against AIDS. Krim recently feron in the face of all these objections? resigned from Sloan- Kettering to launch a we Krim; By the late Sixties we already knew new AIDS laboratory at New York's St. to go into that field because although obtain an antitumor effect, we needed Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital. knew very little at the time about interferons, that to big would come. much less pure interferon protein than the I push Now fifty-nine, with her thick blond hair was certain that a scientists initially skeptical amount of any chemotherapeutic drug that drawn up in an elegant bun, Krim looks as Omni: Why were could produce a similar effect. Convinced much a classically trained musician or op- about interferon? believed that bi- .that interferon was the most effective anti- era diva as a laboratory biologist. Married to Krim: First of all, nobody a

tumor agent known, I couldn't understand Orion Pictures chief executive Arthur Krim, ological substance whose structure was as moving into clinical trials on she commutes between her home on Man- ordinary and unimpressive as this little pro- why we weren't antitumor agent. humans. hattan's Upper East Side, her lab, the nearby tein could be an effective it all Omni: It's been charged that in promoting AIDS Medical Foundation (of which she is Only one study, Strander's, showed in against tumors. interferon you used your personal charm and the chairman), and public appearances likelihood to be effective so impressive, political skills to influence public opinion and around the country. Frequent Omni contrib- Omni: If Strander's study was the opinion of the funding agencies. utor Bill.Lawren first caught up with Krim while why was it discredited?

everything I could. Why Strander really unlucky. He was Krim: Sure. I used she was still operating out of a cracker-box Krim: was osteogenic sar- not? But let me tell you what happened. You office at Sloan-Kettering, with the sounds ol studying the bone tumor strikes know, the politics of science are fascinat- Manhattan's traffic-choked First Avenue in coma, a highly malignant tumor that depressing but fascinating. In the background. young people otherwise in good health. The ing—a little diseased limbs are usually amputated im- those days interferon research was sup- so, tumors reappear ported by the National Institute for Allergy Omni: Some of interferon's critics call it a mediately,, but even eighty percent of and Infectious Diseases [NIAID]. But they "wonder drug in search of a disease." Do elsewhere within a year in research only on the antiviral you agree? the cases. Strander took past amputees and supported

if the properties of interferon, never anything that Krim: Interferon is a remarkable sub- gave them interferon every day to see could be suppressed. had to do with antitumor properties. So I tried stance—very ordinary in chemical compo- tumors' recurrence. found fewer re- to interest the National Cancer Institute [NCI], sition but fantastically active, as active as the After eighteen months he patients than in the telling them that interferon does two differ- most potent hormones. As little as one mol- currences in the treated j in- ent things and thai the NIAID was looking ecule of interferon per cell can elicit a meas control group. "But this control group amputated only at antiviral effects. The NIAID people urable effect. This is amazing. And inter- cluded people who had been their then followed to see didn't like it. They considered interferon feron does very important things. It induces twenty years before and 78 OMNI were probably going to die of their disease. thing, and why should the NCI get mixed up of- Then there's laryngeal papilloma, a benign in it? Well, the NCI was sympathetic and tumor, probably due to a virus, occurring in fered me twelve thousand dollars to support in ef- the larynx, usually children between the a little workshop on interferon's antitumor ages ot four and ten. It's rare but dreadful fects. But my little workshop turned out to because it's like a wart that continues grow- be a tremendous meeting. There was a fer- ing, The tumor grows inexorably and, by ment at that meeting. It was absolutely cat- completely blocking the breathing tract, suf- alytic. Ultimately the NCI decided it should focates the child. Many treatments have support basic research on interferon. been tried, but nothing worked until Stran- Omni: Even so, your critics imply that you der gave these children interferon. It takes were acting irresponsibly as a scientist. all several weeks of inoculations, several times Krim: History will judge. I had compared a week, but slowly these laryngeal papil- the approaches to cancer treatment that loma tumors stop growing and finally re- were extant in those days, and I had come gress. This really is miraculous. to the conclusion that interferon was at least Omni: Hasn't there been some research on as good as any other avenue we had and, interferon and the common cold? in the long run, probably better. I wanted the Krim: Yes. We now know that interferon is people at the NCI to see the evidence and effective in preventing the common cold. You come to their own conclusions. can't spend a whole winter sniffing inter- Omni: Has interferon shown significant re- feron, so people will Lake it io avoid contam- sults in cancer treatment? ination when someone in their family is sick Krim: Certainly. First of all, alpha interferon or when they have the first symptoms of a is highly effective in most people with a form cold. Interferon will probably not stop the of cancer called hairy-cell leukemia. You give symptoms immediately, but colds will last them interferon alone, at moderate doses, three, not eight, days. and the leukemia cells disappear. It will un- Omni: What's currently going on in your lab doubtedly be the standard treatment from in regard to interferon? now on. There are several categories of lym- g| Krim: One of the most interesting things is phoma [tumors of the lymph nodes], each

our study of synthetic interferon. I mean responding differently to different treat- chemical synthesis of the whole molecule. ments. We can now say that while interferon This has always been theoretically possible alone is not as effective as some combina- but practically difficult because the inter- tions of drugs, it's at least as effective in feron molecule is relatively large, and so far treating lymphomas as any single drug. Also, only the smaller peptides have been made studies with myelogenous leukemia indicate synthetically. Well, the champ of this work is interferon is eifective. And soon interferon 1984 Nobel laureate R. Bruce Mernfield. He'd will be approved by the FDA for the treat- worked with Mrs. Mernfield on this for three ment of melanoma. There the rate of re- years —synthesizing little pieces, assaying sponse is only fifteen to seventeen percent, them for activity, and then putting two little which is rather dismal, but at least as good pieces together. He had almost assembled as the response to other treatments. the entire molecule and still hadn't gotten Omni: How does interferon work as an anti- any biological activity. But one day. all of a sud- tumor agent? den, he added a piece, and there it was: an Krim: We can't make up our minds. Inter- antiviral etfect and a cell-growth inhibition. feron is capable of doing all sorts of things So this showed that the synthetic molecule to cells. In the case of hairy-cell leukemia, really behaved like natural interferon. The the interferon probably induces a differen- Merrifields plan to modify these molecules. tiation in the leukemic cells so that they can They substitute certain amino acids to try to grow and die following a normal life cycle establish the correlation between the com- instead of growing indefinitely. Lack of inter- position of the molecule and its functions. feron seems to be the single factor prevent- This will eventually tell us which parts of the ing those ceils from differentiating and func- molecule are important regarding the anti- tioning properly. But it may be that in this one viral and other effects. cancer, interferon is the missing factor. We Omni: What role do you envision for inter- now believe that for other tumors, a combi- feron in the future? nation of interferon activities is relevant: the Krim: It will be the standard treatment for reduction of the tumor cells' growth rate, the hairy-cell leukemia and will have a place in induction of antigens that target the tumor many cancer therapies. Interferon is the best cells for destruction by the host's own im- potential antiviral drug because it has activ- mune system, the activation of dormant en- ity against all viruses and has little toxicity. It zymes, and the enhancement of the activity produces side effects, but they're all revers- of the immune system's T cells [defender ible by stopping treatment or reducible by cells] and natural killer cells that can selec- lowering the dose. tively kill tumor cells. Omni: Do you blame the media for interfer- Omni: Has interferon also been shown to be on's bad image? effective against viral diseases? Krim: No. I'll give you an example of how Krim: Amazingly, there's been little experi- BE'A-PA'RT^GFW: things sometimes happen. Last year the mentation with interferon as an antiviral agent AIDS Medical Foundation organized a sem- in humans. In some work on chronic active inar for science writers to alert the interferon "was found effective in as. press to ,. hepatitis call 1-800-238-4373. b send Canadian Club anywhere in the U.S., Void'where prohibitt possible approaches to treatment. We many as forty percent of the patients. These wanted to mention antiviral substances. people had been diseased tor years and One. 80 OMNI a

point, four percent. But in families where called HPA-23, was being studied in Paris, outside the current risk groups? is one person has been infected, the inci- so we brought the researcher over. During Krim: One always hears that the risk groups dence triples among people who presum- his address he said: "This is no! a miracle remain the same—gay men, intravenous hemophiliacs and the ably have no sexual relations with the in- drug; we don't know anything about it in drug abusers, and — remains very small. Of fected person. Superficially, this looks like AIDS." The press behaved responsibly. I proportion ol "others" of Since evidence of casual transmission, but the de- didn't see one article saying HPA-23 is a cure course, "others" means the rest us. has dou- gree of intimacy in African families may be for AIDS. Nevertheless, letters streamed in 1981 the number of AIDS cases of cases in the quite different than that of American fami- from people saying, "I want to go to Paris for bled every year; the number For example, African mothers often chew treatment." We now get hundreds of calls a "others" group also doubles annually. What lies. for their babies and then feed it to them month, and the researcher tells us he's going that says is that the "others" are no mpre re- food crazy over there with desperate people call- sistant to AIDS than the people in the "at risk" prec hewed. in Omni: What are some possible treatments? ing him. One person committed suicide groups. The number of cases the "others" Right now we have absolutely no med- when the researcher didn't return his call. group is now actually the same as it was Krim: years ago. ical handle on this disease. The AIDS virus, The researcher's duty is to continue his work among the "at risk" groups three especially worri- HTLV-3, is a retrovirus, and it's the first dis- and not spend all his time on the phone being And it's growing! What's that drug users are ease-causing retrovirus we know of in hu- a psychotherapist. But he has to do it. He some is intravenous form mans besides HTLV-1 , which causes a now answers every phone call and letter. largely heterosexual, and the fact that they leukemia. HTLV-3 kills cells of the immune Omni: Many novelists have written scenar- use drugs doesn't keep them from having of for example, are system. Because it is a retrovirus, HTLV-3 ios for apocalypse by virus. Do you think sex. Many prostitutes, are drug users. integrates itself into human chromosomes. AIDS is a candidate? prostitutes because they it's very ditficutt to imagine how to eradi- Krim: That's not so outlandish. Right now Well, they continue to practice their profes- So If we're course, tend to be cate it from the body once it's there. there's nothing stopping it. The Centers for sion. And of teenagers able to suppress its multipli- Disease Control now says that by the end of very promiscuous these days, and this puts lucky, we'll be someone cation and keep it at bay. 1986 there will be lorty thousand cases in them at a higher risk of meeting Omni: Don't any treatments look promising? the United States and that there are already who's infected. It's really frightening. casually, Krim: Maybe in two or three years we'll de- one million people infected with the AIDS vi- Omni: Can AIDS be transmitted velop an effective antiviral regime. Also, three rus. Who knows how many of those one mil- without sex? certain believe it re- researchers say they have detected lion people will come down with the dis- Krim: We don't think so: We neutralizing antibodies [proteins that neu- it quires the exchange of blood or bodily fluids ease—maybe all of them. Meanwhile, inter- tralize viruses] in people infected with HTLV- continues to spread. The rate of infection is that usually occurs during sexual that make it impossible for the virus to infect obviously much faster than the rate that peo- course. Some evidence from Africa, where 3 they're right, because originated, cells. I hope to God ple actually develop the disease. Maybe next the disease is thought to have of that will eventually lead to a vaccine. But even year, instead of one million people infected, looks bad superficially. The incidence having antibodies to the virus, so, developing a vaccine won't be easy. it's going to be ten million. people there infected at some Omni: What are some possible cofactors in Omni: What are the chances of it spreading meaning they've been developing AIDS? Krim: Several viruses are suspected. In people with some forms of hepatitis, DNA from the hepatitis virus has been found in theirTcells. This suggests that both the hep-

atitis virus and the HTLV-3 virus [which at- tacks T cells] can invade the same kinds of cells. The Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis and at least one kind of lym- phoma, invades the immune system's B ceils [that search out, identify, and bind with for- eign molecules] and then can be passed on to the T cells. Then CMV [cytomegalovirus],

which is known to bring onimmune deficien-

cies, is suspected. Recently Lawrence Drew at Mount Zion Hospital, in San Francisco, found that about fifty percent of homosexual men who had recent CMV infections also had the kind of abnormal ratio among their T cells sometimes seen in AIDS patients. The prob-

lem is that it's a chicken-or-egg question.

We don't know if these viruses make people

more susceptible to AIDS or if it's the re- verse. The only way we'll be able to tell is to find people without AIDS antibodies but with these other viral infections. We can then see

if they will subsequently have a higher rate of infection by the HTLV-3 virus. Omni: The FDA recently approved HPA-23

for experimental use. Does it still seem promising as a possible treatment? Krim: HPA-23 is a strange substance— synthetic drug containing tungsten and an- timony that seems to be toxic to some vi- ruses, including retroviruses. It's been stud- ied extensively in animals and also in the vitally caused human-brain illness, Creutz- ::ONTlN.J-EDONPAGE116 \

^1

Bjaaawa caressed but now that he had to go around buried up like that with their children, but the rest of his two thousand years of virtue, he

all of Buenos Aires her without stopping until it was time to get to his elbows it seemed incredible that his family, his colleagues, and perfectly, parents and sisters didn't see what was saw him and acted like it was nothing. He dressed; this strategy succeeded illogical, his love did not seem to notice that he happening and do something about it. It's thought, logically, that it was all and and times. true that so far he had not had the slightest the rigorous consequence of this was a brass kept himself at a distance between hat wouldn't difficulty moving around, and while that was plaque on Serrano Street and a doctor who He stopped wearing a so he the strangest thing, what disturbed him the examined his tongue and legs, xylophoned have to hang it up at the office; he managed modify- most was that his parents and sisters didn't him with his little rubber mallet, and chatted to find a solution to every problem, sank, but realize that he was going around buried up about the hair on his back. On the examining ing them in measure as he when his elbows he felt that he to his elbows. One day, crossing the patio, table all was normal, but when he got up it the earth reached the all his resources and would he felt that his feet were pushing something was the same story; he mentioned this to had exhausted soft, like cotton. Looking closely, he discov- doctor. With a condescending air the man have to ask for help. for faking ered that his shoelaces lay barely above the of science leaned down to feel his ankles He then stayed in bed a week, flu; get his mother to give ground. At first he was so dumbfounded that below the ground; the floor must have be- the he managed to sisters he was speechless, unable to say anything come transparent and intangible for him be- him her undivided attention and his television at foot of his to the others, afraid that he would sink away cause not only did he explore his tendons to position the the of bed. bathroom was just a few steps altogether and wondering if the patio had and toes but he also tickled the bottoms The meted from being washed, for his mother his feet. Then he asked him to be seated away, but to be safe he got up only when no to his lungs; he one was near. After these days when the bed, washed it every morning and even some- again and listened heart and

like lifeboat, afloat, it seemed less times in the afternoon. But in a moment he was a very expensive doctor, and he had to a kept him likely than ever that his father, if he entered grew bold enough to lift a foot and take a use up a good half hour before delivering a fail notice that he rose step, carefully; all went well, except that he prescription of sedatives and the classic ad- unexpectedly, could to that again sank up to his shoelaces. He took sev- vice of a temporary change of scene. above the floor only from chest up and climb eral more steps, then shrugged and went to After that there was nothing he could do to get his toothbrush glass he had to That is he the corner to buy La Razon because he on the bidet or the toilet seat. why in when he knew someone was wanted to read a film review. stayed bed his re- Since he was not one to make a fuss, he going to visit and why he telephoned sometimes gradually got used to walking around this assurances to his fiancee. He system of way, but several days later his shoelaces imagined, childish fantasy, a com- disappeared, and one Sunday he could no

that it would be almost had to stand on tiptoes to kiss herwhen they it was with his hands, and he saw that the able to get up and parted in the street, and he felt that in so floor had risen to midthigh. Nonetheless, he pleasant to sink only up to his waist. he couldn't doing he sank a bit deeper still, slid more still could not detect any sign of surprise in The next day he had to find out, easily down; that is why he decided to kiss his parents or his sisters, even though he stay away from work forever. Sure enough, exaggeration; the her as little as possible and limited himself had been watching them for a long time the dream had been an his mouth, there just to little terms of endearment she seemed to trying to catch.. them in some flagrantly hyp- earth didn't enter was noticed find disconcerting. He decided that his fi- ocritical expression. Once he felt that one of that cottony contact that he had at ancee must be pretty dumb to put up with his sisters bent over a little to render the cold the beginning; the only important change such treatment. As for his sisters who had kiss on the cheek that they exchanged on was that his eyes were looking out almost at never loved him, they had a unique oppor- waking, and he thought that they had dis- ground level; he discovered a spittoon quite tunity to humiliate him since he- no longer covered the truth and were attempting not close to him, his red slippers, and a little rose above their shoulders, and yet they to betray anything. But no, he still had to go cockroach that looked at him with an atten- continued to treat him with that cordial irony on stretching up a little more each morning tion that his sisters and his fiancee had never that they had always considered so spiritual. until the ground reached his knees, where- given him. To brush his teeth, to shave, were He never much wondered at the blindness upon he said something about the stupidity arduous operations; to have to pull himself of his parents because they had always been of these buccal greetings that were just up by his arms onto the bidet, then the sink, primitive vestiges, and limited himself to a exhausted him. His family breakfasted to- smile and a greeting. With his fiancee he re- gether, but since his chair had rungs he could Excerpted trom Around the Day in Eighty Worlds,.. sorted to more .drastic measures: ar- climb up and get on his seat very quickly. by Julio Gorta.z;:< [raasiD'ea by Thomas Chas- He hotel there, His sisters were reading Clarin with the con- te, 'isten- ranged to take her to a and hav- sen, Published by North Point Press. ing won in twenty minutes a battle against centration appropriate to such a patriotic 86 OMNI impression that his fiancee was waiting; in morning paper, but his mother looked at him lect his wits in time, and before he knew what set meeting for any case, the left shoe was turned in a little, for a moment and pronounced him a bit pale he was doing he had up a usual street corner, after which they while the other supported her weight; in a from all his days in bed and lack of fresh air. six at the depending there was a change, the right shoe At which his father said to her that he was could go to a movie or the hotel moment under turned out and the left was set more heavily the same as ever and that she would ruin on how they telt. He stuck his head hear himself on the ground. "It's been quite hot all day!" the boy by spoiling him. Everyone was in a the pillow and slept; he couldn't he said, to open the conversation. His fian- good mood because the new government crying in his sleep. nothing, and perhaps that is why, had announced salary increases and pen- At a quarter to six he dressed himself, cee said waiting for a reply as banal as his comment, sion adjustments. "Buy yourself some new seated on the corner of his bed and, taking noticed the silence: the roar of the street, clothes," his mother advised him. "You will advantage of a moment when there was no he his the clack of shoes on the pavement, and surely be able to buy on credit now that sal- one around, crossed the patio, keeping then, suddenly, nothing. He waited a little aries are going up." His sisters had already distance from the sleeping cat. When he got worry that all the longer, and the green shoes advanced decided lo replace the refrigerator and the to the streel he began to slightly and then waited again; the heels were television. He occupied himself with these shoes that were passing at eye level would first yards he made worn his poor fiancee did not make a lot bits of news and trivial observations, so when step on him. The hundred — of money. waited and, wishing he could everyone got up to work he thought he was a series of zigzags, especially to avoid the He the dangerous be- do something to express his affection, he back in his prenightmare state, having grown women's shoes, most stroked the more worn of the heels, the one accustomed to sinking only to his waist; cause of their spike heels and pointed foes. on the left shoe, with two fingers. His fiancee 'suddenly he saw his father's shoes quite Then he realized that he could proceed and he got to did not move, as if she continued absurdly close in front of him: They grazed his head without all these precautions, wait for his arrival. It must have been the and went out to the patio. He hid under the the street corner before his fiancee did. He to to try to make silence thai gave him the impression of time table to avoid the sandals of one of his sis- had a stiff neck from looking up of the pas- being drawn out, interminably. With an al- ters who was taking up the tablecloth and out something besides the shoes became so most unbearable pain, he raised his head tried to calm himself. "You dropped some- sersby, and finally the crimp Fortu- once more to look at the face of his fiancee, thing?" his mother asked. "My cigarettes," painful that he stopped looking up. quite but all he saw was her heels, this time at he replied, staying as far as possible from nately, he knew all his fiancee's shoes such a distance that he no longer noticed the sandals and slippers that circled the ta- well for having so often helped her take them green shoes ap- their imperfections. He raised an arm, then ble. In the yard there were ants, geranium off, so when he saw her another, trying to caress those heels that leaves, and a piece of glass that nearly cut proaching all he had to do was smile and to her spoke so poignantly of his poor fiancee's life; his cheek; he quickly reentered the house listen attentively in order to respond he managed to touch them with his left hand, and climbed into bed just as the telephone greeting as naturally as possible. Bui this his fiancee said nothing, which was but already his right hand could not reach rang. It was his fiancee, who asked if he was evening unlike her; the green shoes remained them, and then neither could. And so she still feeling better and if they could get to- quite that he couldn't col- fixed not far from his eyes, and he got the went on waiting. DO . gether. He was so upset tThe identity of the donor is so guarded that even his money is invisible.^

Last summer news- ual ufologists, too. papers reported that Consider the plighl of J. Allen Hynek's Cen- Jenny Randies, Bren- ter for UFO Studies da Buller, and Dot received $2 million Street, three English- from an anonymous women who began donor. But according investigating a Suf- to John Timmerman, folk. England. UFO the center's treasur- landing —one they er. "The identity of claim is confirmed by the benefactor is so an official document closely guarded that describing lights, even the money has depressions in the been invisible." That's ground, and low-level too bad. he adds, radiation. because "I would Thinking that they enjoy having a few were on the verge of dollars available to a breakthrough, the expand activities." three tried to go to the "What happened to press. Randies, di- the bucks''" has long rector of Investiga- been the plaintive la- tions for BUFORA. the ment of ufology. Even British UFO Research the most powerful Association, at- UFO group ever, the tempted to interest her National Investiga- LFDUPO/TTE publisher in a book on tions Committee on the sighting. But. Ran- Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), which once boasted 5.000 dues- dies notes. "The idea was rejected flat, on the grounds that paying members, eventually expired from a lack of funds. if the events at Suffolk had actually occurred, then they would Founded in 1956 by retired Marine major Donald E. Keyhoe. be common knowledge." NICAP members once included Rear Admiral Delmar S Eventually the triumvirate contracted with Neville Spear- Fahrney and Vice Admiral R. H. Hillenkoetter, the first direc- man, a small publisher specializing In occult books. But while tor of the Central Intelligence Agency By 1970. though, the advance for Sky Crash; A Cosmic Conspiracy was small, NICAP was essentially defunct, embroiled in financial diffi- the investigation was costly. Since Spearman's publicity culties and rumors of CIA intrigue. budget was hardly adequate, Randies held her own press Other organizations are following suit. Jim and Carol Lor- conference in October 1984. No national media turned up. enzen. founders of the Aerial Phenomena Research Orga- And when she later issued a two-page summary of the con- nization (APflO), have just announced the cessation of their ference, no one responded. newsletter. Carol Lorenzen says the reason is her ailing Efforts to sell the book In the United States met with even health, but rumor has it that funds aren't flowing too well, less success. According to Randies, 21 American publish- either. The Maryland-based Fund for UFO Research also ers have turned down the manuscript, including Prentice- teeters on the brink of extinction; during the first quarter of Hall, the most likely choice. last year it posted a loss of $1,800, attributed mainly to a Meanwhile, Street's telephone has been disconnected mailing seeking increased funding after bills went unpaid, Butler has retired from the field, and The dilemma extends down through the ranks of individ- Randies has had to sell her home.—DENNIS STACY machines. "Chalk it up," says too. Kieffer says. 'Jack one Steinhart official, "to Horkheimer, head of the one of the charms of living by Miami Space and Transit the' bay."—Bill Lawren Planetarium, is bringing down some professional-quality telescopes for people who wani a close-up view of The last time Halley's the comet And the city has Comet came by. people agreed to set up blackout thought the sky was falling. areas along the southern This time, Florida business- beaches so that slreet lights

men hope it will rain money. will not interfere with viewing A. recent article In Sky and photography"

and Tefescope picked the If Ihe weather cooperates,

Florida Keys as one of the and Kieffer says it almost nation's best places from always does, the town ex- engineers thought they were which to view the comet So pects to rake in $20 million to closing m on an explanation Key Wests mayor has $30 million—perhaps more— But a detailed acoustic named Ihe resort "Official during ihe 32-day event. Twenty years ago, pop "profile" of the sound showed Halley's Comet Capital. USA' For more information, call 294- singers Joe and Eddie that it had nothing In com- and scheduled a Halley's (305) 296-7144 or evoked the sounds of the mon wilh Ihe typical frequen- Cornel Festival between 9922, or send a self-ad-

Golden Gate with their hit tune cies emitted by such sus- March 13 and April 13. dressed, stamped envelope "San Francisco Bay Blues" pect machinery as sewage "The Giotto probe will pass to DTS Productions. Inc.. Well, contemporary San pumps or electronic vibrators within three hundred miles 1010 Truman Avenue, Key Fran ci sc an s—particular ly attached to sailboat hulls of the comet on March thir- West, FL 33040. those who live in bayside as a form of barnacle pre- teenth, an ideal time lor —Owen Davies houseboats—are hearing a vention. 'That," says Hubach viewing in North America," new and far more bothersome engineer Jim Coe, "really says freelance writer and "Perhaps if we threatened " sound: a mysterious under- had us scratching our heads promoter Townsend Kieffer, the rats with unemployment, water hum that, according to Enter a San Francisco who thought of the festival. they might press the lever " one houseboater, sounds State University ichthyologist "By coincidence, the Island for benzodiazepines, like "the buzzing of an electric with a new theory The hum Club International, the most —Dr. Roger Brown razor, only ten times louder." might be the mating call popular club in the area, Tales of the San Francisco of a small lish known as the throws a party on the thir- Bay Hum, which have been plainfin midshipman. Follow- teenth of every month, This is " circulating for years among ing up, officials at nearby a big party town the houseboat community, Steinhart Aquarium have Key West, Kieffer adds is eventually reached the ears of captured a few midshipmen going all oul to make this houseboat owner and and are now hoping to gel one of the biggest parties acoustical engineer Frank them comfortable enough in ever There will be masked Hubach, Curious about holding tanks so they'll mate balls, Mr. and Miss Halley the origin of Ihe strange buzz, and emil their cry—which Physique contests, and tennis Hubach sent a group of his could then be compared nationally sponsored : associates paddling around with Hubacb's recordings and golf tournaments. Special the bay in a plastic dinghy, Houseboat owners are interest groups are getting making tape recordings wilh skeptical, The sound, they special attention: There an underwater microphone. think, is much too loud to will be "cometcades" for When these surveys eventu- be attributed to a biological owners of motor homes, a ally turned up an acoustic source. In Ihe meantime, yacht llotllla with water taxis "hot spot" some 30 feet they're fighting the mystery for boaters, and a Halley offshore from Sausallto hum with everything from fly-in for private pilots. houseboat moorings, the earplugs to white-noise There is a serious side, — — " " :

and vacations to travel across gone into an area asking the United States in his about UFOs and been told Last fall, a middle-aged "investigative mobile unit" (a there weren't any— bul woman came Into the emer- pickup truck), tracking down that there was a giai- gency room at Charity Hos- such mysterious reports. a pond nearby. Now thai pital, in New Orleans, com- Director of the Institute of kind of information might be plaining of ear discomfort. Fortean Studies, Coleman ignored by other investiga- "They hurt, like is something insists, "What I study Is tors, but not by me."

moving and scratching scientific, although it is be- Could there be logical, around in there," she told yond what science accepts scientific solutions to the doctors. One ol his favorite cases mysteries Coleman delves No wonder. When resident involves a creature spotted In into? According to John Cote, physician Kevin O'Toole Dover. Massachusetts, in executive directdr of CSICOP peered inside with a lighted the late Seventies. In three (Committee for the Sc instrument, he discovered separate incidents during a Investigation Of Cla~ two roaches—one living 25-hour period, four teenag- ihe Paranormal). 'Jusi be- in each ear "They were regu- climb into people's ears as ers claimed to have seen cause there are reports lar-size roaches, Ihe kind they sleep. 'A lot of people a small, gnomelike figure with ol things that people dont you might see scurrying don't know they are in there, a watermelon-shaped head, understand doesn't mean thai around the kitchen," O'Toole But ear canals are pretty glowing red eyes, and long, they can't be understood recalls. sensitive, and the bugs can spindly limbs. Coleman, within the realms ot - He killed one bug by cause painful sensations who dubbed the thing the and must be given pa squirting it with mineral oil as they buzz and flip their Dover Demon, quickly arrived mal explanatidns People until it suffocated; then wings."—Sherry Baker at the scene to interview who make these claims he it dug out of Ihe ear. But to the youths His conclusion? in such profusion." says Cote. get rtd of the second varmint, "From this world to the next; The witnesses were telling the "who list such a hodge- tried he something new tram utility to creation." truth And as Coleman con- podge of the expla 1 " r zapping it with the anesthetic —Emile Durkheim tinued to research the report, udiGe thecal lidocaine. he discovered that Cree those isolated reports that

'The roach - exited the ear Indians had legends de- really do need senc _ canal at a convulsive rate scribing similar creatures of speed and attempted to "little people with round Undaunted by s.c escape across the floor," America is a lot more than heads, no noses long, cism, Coleman coi' OToole reports. A fast-acting spacious skies and amber spidery legs." Coleman •.eird and intern, however, made sure waves of grain. According to labels the Dover Demon case mysterious. One current in- the creature would never Loren Coleman's recent "disturbing and bizarre." terest, for example, is the "gill again make its home in a hu- books, Mysterious America When an area of the coun- men." who, he says, look man. it He squashed under and Curious Encounters try begins to report strange curiously like the title charac- his shoe (Faber & Fader), the country incidents, Coleman says ter in The Creature from According to O'Toole, who is teeming with the weird he usually finds that investi- the Black Lagoon is chief resident in emer- and unexplained—giant gation points to a history —Sherry Baker gency medicine at the Uni- panthers that saunter through of strange phenomena for versity of Pittsburgh, roach- towns and then disappear; example, a sighting of a "The theory of reincarnation infested ears are nothing gigantic birds capable of Bigfoot will often accompany is a turning point in the new, 'At Charity Hospital, carrying children off in their sightings ot UFOs. history of man where I participating was in a claws; dinosaurlike monsters "I take a holistic approach, —Friedrich Nietzsche trauma training program, lurking in lakes; phantom, unlike a lot of UFO investiga- we found that problem almost sinister clowns, and more. tors, cryptozoologists, or , "Life after death, when every day, particularly in For the past 25 years, even geomagnetic special- experienced properly from people from lower socioeco- Coleman, who is a child-wel- ists, who tend to have narrow the outset, is so challenging nomic groups." fare researcher at the Univer- perspectives when they that life on Earth is nothing Afnjght, he explains, sity of Southern Maine by look into mysterious phenom- in comparison." roaches and other insects day, has used his weekends ena," Coleman says. "I've —Susy Smith 93 —

which meets monthly at the therapist. He also met the trol ot the body While it is California at biographer of Japanese well-known that each of University of psycho- Irvine, reports a female pa- Dennis Dallison's troubles admiral Isoroku Yamamoto these egos will be tient who had to undergo began during childhood, "Every time he talked about logically distinct, It now looks though they might surgery. "The anesthetic when nls parents and teach- Yamamoto," Dallison pro- as be biologically separate as well. worked on a few— but not on ers viewed him as retarded. claims, "my stomach flipped, the majority of personali- Because he had trouble and my past-life teacher Dr. Bennett Braun, of the — Society for ties," according to Dr. Donald absorbing things, he tended encouraged me to learn International the Study of Multiple Person- Schafer, the founder of the to agree with them more One day I looked at a Chicago, for instance, group These problematic But all that changed, photo of Yamamoto speaking ality, in personalities later offered the Dallison says, when the Army to a class of naval officers, has documented cases in which the patient's alternating surgeon a totally accurate sent him to Japan '•Some- and suddenly I was seeing presented description of the operation thing about Japan woke through his eyes, talking personalities different brain waves, pain and complained of the pain me up," Dalllson explains. "I to them myself Since then, rates of healing, Several other patients stud- taught myself Japanese in memories of that life have thresholds, histories. But ied by the group needed a few months and spoke come back constantly I have and epileptic different eyeglass prescrip- the guilt I one of his most amazing It constantly.'' learned to lace patient tions for their various alternat- Alter his discharge, the earned as Yamamoto, leading cases concerns a personalities ing personalities once-slow Dallison breezed men to kill and be killed whose several with exception were Since multiple personality through college and picked And for the first time, I am in one — considered a rare disorder, up two master's degrees. control." allergic to citrus juice. is "If this personality ate an some experts remain skepti- Ye! his malaise deepened, It is a strange tale, but "There have been more and only one escape seemed nothing new for parapsychol- orange and remained in cal. control of the body for a suffi- cases of the disorder re- to offer itself. Without know- ogist Emily Williams Cook, cient period of time to digest ported in the last ten years ing quite why, he says, "I of the University of Virginia, studied reincarna- and metabolize the orange, than in the history of the studied everything I could who has Dr. Martin ill effects experi- world," asserts find about life on other tion for seven years. She no would be Orne, a prominent expert on planets, reincarnation, and believes that some people enced by the system," he "Conversely, if hypnosis Since hypnosis the human spirit," do "recall" lives they may explains. soon, is used to diagnose and treat Daltison's studies primed once have lived But she he switched control too suspect cases of multiple him for what he now views as doubts that Dallison is one of a rash would often result." psychiatrists personality, Orne believes the turning point of his life: them "We get a lot ol cases Other study- that therapists might be watching a David Susskind like this," she says. "It's hard ing multiple-personality findings creating cases through interview with Ruth Norman, to be sure the memories cases report similar bogus suggestion during their of the Unarius Foundation, are not just things people For instance, the Multiple Group. probings.—D. Scott Rogo in El Cajon. California. Known have read or heard bul do not Personality Study to her followers as the Arch- consciously recall. angel Unel, Norman claims "We look at past-life therapy to be in contact with aliens with great skepticism," Cook promoting universal peace. At adds. "These groups tend one point Norman told Suss- to promote fantasy in gullible kind she had lived as Socra- people. I can't think of a tes. case that's come out of them "When she said that," that's been valuable or

Dallison reports, "I saw her convincing."— Owen Davies change into Socrates, Greek

robes and all. I almost fell

out of my chair I started studying her books and later Multiple personality is a moved to Ei Cajon to study mysterious syndrome that at the center.'' splinters the mind. The person There, Dallison began to is left with several partial see a past-life regression personalities that vie for con- 94 OMNI The Omni Etiquette Book: Results of Competition #35 CDn/lPETITIDRJ

By Scot Morris

pickup line at an extrater- Last December we called for entries in The For the discriminating Iv'oilock: Eloi sleaks An appropriate constellation?" Omni Etiquette Book. No matler how should never be eaten with the lingers, restrial bar: "What's your eaten separately. —Shirley E, Ferriola, Alsip, IL wondrous life in the future might be, we The fingers may be Veber, Pleasanl, said, you will still be expected to mind your —Patricia J. Mount SC sleep with your own clone. The manners. Even at a gala dance on Mars, Never polite 'iciior r ter will never results, whether good, bad, or otherwise, you still won't wear a formal space suit with The science w you from sleeping with brown shoes. Some things just aren't say, "I told you so." will discourage Hills, NJ anyone else. done— ever. We gave examples of proper —Carol Svec. Far R. Gasparini. Soulh Plamfield. NJ wording for a space birth announcement —Edwin and of what not lo say at a lunar eclipse. And When you're at a genetic-mutations labora- at a solar eclipse: "I can't acting on an idea suggested by Charles tory, never casually reier to someone as What not to say see a thing. The moon is in the way." Attardi, we asked readers to supply more being "all thumbs." Steven Storms, Las Cruces, NM good manners for the next millennium. —Ernie Peters, Rocklin, CA — We promised a grand prize of a one-week to say to Gerard O'Neill at the cruise for two to the Caribbean and 51,000 "Invitation to supernova explosion: "BYO What nol for Island One: "Great cash; and a one-year Omni subscription bottle- of sunguard (Number 15 recom- christening party

the way . . . what's that and S50 cash to each of ten runners-up. In mended)." party, Gerry, By addition, 200 special prizes were awarded: — Denise DeWaele, Oak Park. Ml hissing sound?" Delmar Smith Stone, Jr., copies of The Omni Future Almanac (an — FL £8.95 paperback published by World What not to say at a publication parly for Fort Walton Beach, Almanac). We can print only a few of these Isaac Asimov's thousandth book: "Congrat- illustrated What not to say to your lunar tour guide: 200 special-mention winners here, but all ulations. I really enjoyed The fix these prizes have been awarded. Man. It's one of my favorites." "When are they ever going to And now, with your kind permission, our —Richard Naiden, Cleveland potholes?" — Marcia DeMille, Virginia Beach, VA mos t proper winners. SPECIAL MENTION GRANQ. PRIZE; CRUISE AND $1,000 emergency, 1. It is bad manners to say Gesupdheitf In case of beam up women visitor tells you his name. and children first. It is bad manners to awaken someone by when an alien Adcock, Vacaville, CA abruptly turning the gravity back on. 2. It is bad etiquette to bring tartar sauce —Wyman —John Huotari, Zimmerman, MN along on a hunt for the Loch Ness monster. 3. When tour'nc cave oa-niogs, il is a You shouldn't askUri Gellerto repair the RUNNERS-UP: $50 AND SUBSCRIPTION serious breach oi etiquette lo render any of dents in your car bumper or fender. V. Irving, TX Never be fashionably late to a solar eclipse. Ihem anatomically correct. — Richard Wagner, —Kay Rios and Mary Roberts, —John Huotari, Zimmerman, MN send a hologram Fort Collins, CO It is considered taGky to Event: Time -Travelers' Convention of yourself on your blind date. Barbara Denver Never shout "Vacuum!" in a crowded lunar Out: "How old are you?" — Radwan, movie dome. In: "When are you from?" Herbert that Dune — Lochlon H, Johnston, Mendham, NJ —Marshall T. Baker, Corona, CA Do not suggest to Frank should be subtitled "A Spice Odyssey." Len Elliott. Auburn, What not to say at an artificial-heart What not lo say to a recent brain-transplant — WA convention: "Check your briefcase, sir?" patient: "I miss you." Tile-X is an appropriate gilt — Robert Anderson, Champaign. IL — Larry Tusick, Westlake, OH A magnum of to bring lo a space-shu:fie eunch party.

antigravity it Terry L. Stawar, DeLand, FL Zero-g Wedding Reception; It is the bride's When dancing in an ballroom, — responsibility to provide the protective doesn't matler who leads. of while on headgear for the bouquet toss. —Christine Gilinsky, San Jose, CA Never inquire a woman's weight —Gerald C, Greenwood, Chicago Jupiter. What not to say to your spouse (who stayed —Dick Steinman, Sarasota, FL

During spaceirave! it will be improper to on Earth), when n.Hurnna Irom a near Ball use a salad straw to drink the main course light-speed trip to Alpha Centauri: "Your Reptilian guests at Omra's Intergalactic on five-star shuttles. hair looks nice with that touch of gray." are not required to wear tails. —Bill Burns, Wellsboro, PA ' —F, R. Folkerth, Dallas —Ben Gottlieb, McLean, VA 96 OMNI were haggling over Georgie's effects. "That domness saved past lives from being

seems stupid, if you'll pardon me." searched in any systematic way. And no SNOW "Oh no, oh no," he said. "You've read your doubt saved The Park from being in the rec- CONTINUED FROM PAGE 54 literature? You've read all your literature?" ords business and at the wrong end of a lot ." to the whole eight often see caretaking little-visited places. He "Well, to tell the truth. . of suits. "You'd have watch

if wore a brown smock like a monk's robe and "It's all just as described," the director said, thousand hours," I said, "and even you looking for there'd was making coffee in a corner of his small "I can promise.you that. If there's any prob- found what you were be ." it. would have by." office, out of which little business seemed to lem at all. . . no way to replay It gone even I It slide the past as "if I sit would into random be done. He looked up startled, caught out, "Do you mind," I said, down?" smiled. afraid of me and my you watched it, like that afternoon in Ibiza, when I entered. He seemed so mourner, possibly grief that party in Paris. Lost. He smiled and nod- "Sorry," I said, "but I don't think I under- complaint, of me as

stand this system right." crazed and unable to grasp the simple limits ded. I smiled and nodded. 'A problem?" he said. "Shouldn't be a of his responsibilities to me, that he needed "I'll tell you something," he said, "They

problem." He looked at me a little wide-eyed soothing himself. "I'm sure everything's fine," didn't predict that. The randomness. It was effect, effect of the storage proc- I an and shy, hoping not to be called on for any- said. "I just don't think I understand. I'm a side thing difficult. "Equipment's all working?" kind of dumb about these things." ess. Just luck." His grin turned down, his Sure." regretfully brows knitted seriously. "See, we're storing "I don't know," I said. "It doesn't seem that "Sure. Sure. He put away here at the level. have to go I molecular We it could be." I described what I thought had his coffee makings and sat behind his desk,

' learned about The Park's access concept. lacing his fingers together like a consultant. that small, for space problems. I mean your

of the eight-thousand-hour guarantee. If we had "That can't be right, can it?" I said. "That ac- "People get a lot of satisfaction out

..." if or conventional, much room cess is totally random , access here," he said, "a lot of comfort, gone tape how

it If concept He was nodding, still wide-eyed, paying they take it in the right spirit." He tried a smile. would take up? the access lot of went vapor close attention. I wondered what qualifications he had had caught on. A room. So we this part trap and endless tracking. Size of my "Is it?" I asked. to show to get job. "The random

It's all in the literature." looked "Is it what?" Now, it's all in the literature. There's the legal thumbnail. He

"Random." aspect—you're not a lawyer are you, no. no, at me strangely. I had a sudden intense sen-

I being fooled, tricked, that "Oh, yes, Yes, sure. If everything's in sure, no offense. You see, the material here sation that was working order." isn't for anything, except, well, except for the man before me in his smock was no ex- the stuff were pert, nolechnician; he was a charlatan, or I could think of nothing to say for a mo- communing. But suppose ment, watching him nod reassuringly. Then, programmed, searchable. Suppose there maybe a madman impersonating a director taxes or inheritance or and not belonging here at all. It raised the "Why?" I asked. "I mean why is there no way was a problem about ran- at all to, to organize, to have some kind of so on. There could be subpoenas, lawyers hair on my neck and passed. "So the saying. "It was an effect organized access to the material?" I had be- all over the place, destroying the memorial domness," he was gun to feel that sense of grotesque foolish- concept completely." of going molecular. Brownian movement. All

lift the tracking for mi- ness in the presence of death, as though I I really hadn't thought of that. Built-in ran- you do is endless a crosecond and you get a rearrangement at the molecular level. We don't randomize. The

molecules do it for us."

I remembered Brownian movement, just barely, from physics class. The random

movement of molecules, the teacher said; it has a mathematical description, it's like the movement of dust motes you see swimming in a shaft of sunlight, like the swirl of snow-

flakes in a glass paperweight that shows a

cottage being snowed on. "I see," I said. "I

guess I see." "Is there," he said, "any other problem?"

He said it as though there might be some

other problem and that he knew what it might

be and that he hoped I didn't have it. "You understand the system, key lock, two bars, ." ACCESS, BESET. . .

"I understand," I said. "I understand now." "Communing," he said, standing, re-

lieved, sure I would be gone soon. "I under-

stand. It takes a while to relax into the com- muning concept."

"Yes," I said. "It does."

I wouldn't learn what I had come to learn, whatever that was. The Wasp had not been good at storage after all, no, no better than my young soul had been. Days and weeks

had been missed by its tiny eye. It hadn't

seen well, and in what it had seen it had been no more able to distinguish the just-as- well-forgotten from the unforgettable than my own eye had been. No better and no worse—the same. And yet, and yet—she stood up in Ibiza and dressed her breasts with lotion, and

spoke to me: OK look, hummingbirds. I had forgotten, and the Wasp had not; and I

owned once again whal I hadn't known I had lost, hadn't known was precious to me.

The sun was setting when I left The Park, the sa!in sea foaming softly, randomly around the rocks.

I had spent my life waiting for something,

not knowing what, not even knowing I waited.

still Killing lime. I was waiting. But what I had been waiting lor had already occurred and was past.

It was two years, nearly, since Georgie had died; two years until, for the first and last time,

I wept for her—for her and for myself,

Of course I went back. After a lot of work and correctly placed dollars, I netted a

HAPpy card of my own, I had time to spare, like a lot of people then, and oflen on empty afternoons (never on Sunday) I would get out onto the unpatched and weed-grown freeway and glide up the coast. The Park was always open. I relaxed into the a muning concept. Mow, after some hundreds of hours spent there underground, now, when I have long ceased lo go Ihrough those doors (I have

lost my key, I think; anyway I don't know

where to look for it), I know that the solitude

I fell myself to be in was real. The watchers

around me, the listeners I sensed in other chambers, were mostly my imagination. There was rarely anyone there.

These tombs were as neglected as any ! tombs anywhere usually are. Either the living did not care to attend much on the dead— when have they ever?- or the hopeful buy- ers of the contracts had come to discover the flaw in the access concept—as I discov- ered it, in the end. access, and she takes dresses one by one from her closet, and holds Ihem against her body, and studies the effect in a lail mirror, and puts them back again. She had a funny face, which she never made except when looking at herself in the mirror, a face made _ for no one but herself, that was actually quite uniike her. The mirror Georgie. RESET. access. By a bizarre coincidence here she is looking in another mirror. I think the Wasp could be confused by mirrors. She turns away, the Wasp adjusts; there is someone asleep, tangled in bedclothes on a big hotel bed, morning, a room-service cart. Oh, the COMFORTEGGNOG 3 Algonquin: myself. Winter. Snow is falling 6 eggs. A cup sugar. 2 cups whipped cream. 1 cup cream, outside the tall window. She searches her 1 cup milk. 2 cups Southern Comfort. Ground nutmeg. Chill the handbag, takes out a small vial, swallows a ' eggs and liquid ingredients. Separate egg whites from yolks. pill with coffee, holding Ihe cup by its body Beat yolks. Continue beating and add sugar Stir in whipped and not its handle. I stir, show a tousled head of hair. Conversation — unintelligible. Gray cream, cream, milk and Southern Comfort. Beat egg whites whitish room, snow light, color degraded. and fold in. Dust with nutmeg and chill. Makes 10 5-oz. servings.

Would I now (1 thought, watching us) reach out for her? Would linthenexthourtakeher, To make Easy Comfort E ggnog, chill a cup of Southern Comfort or she me, push aside the bedclothes, open and a quart of dairy eggnog. Beat together in a punch bowl her pale pajamas? She goes into the John, and dust with nutmeg. Serves 10, For a single serving, combine shuts the door. The Wasp watches stupidly, 1 oz. of chilled Southern Comfort with 4 oz. of dairy eggnog excluded, transmitting the door. reset, finally. in a short glass. Dust with nutmeg.

But what (!' would wonder) if I had been 7 For a free copy of Southern Comfort's patient, what if I had watched and waited newest recipe guide,

Time, it turns out, takes an unconsciona- please write to: Southern Comfort Recipe Booklet, Depr. AD, Post Office Box 1080, Louisville, KY 40201. definition is getting ACCESS. BESET. ACCESS. ble time. The waste, the footless waste— it's the director. 'And the A gray plaza of herringbone-laid stones, no spectator sport. Whatever fun there is in softer." director said. "That's really gray, clicking palms. She turns up the collar sitting idly looking at nothing and tasting your "Oh sure," the explain that of her sweater, narrowing her eyes in a stern own being for a whole afternoon, there is no in the literature. We have to carefully. That this might be a problem." wind. Buys magazines at a kiosk: Vogue, fun in replaying it. The waiting is excruciat- "I thought Harper's, La Moda. Cold, she says to the monitor?" I asked. ing. How often, in five years, in eight thou- "It isn't just my monitor." kiosk girl. Frio. The young man I was takes sand hours of daylight or lamplight, might it was probably only the they_walk back along the beach, we have coupled, how much time ex- "No, no, not really, no," he said. He gave her arm; ! gotten to be friendly over which is deserted and strung with cast pended in lovemaking? A hundred hours, me coffee. We d being afraid of seaweed, washed by a dirty sea. Winter in two hundred? Odds were not high of my the months. I think, as well as Ibiza. talk, but the Wasp can't hear, the coming on such a scene: darkness swal- me, he was glad I came around now and We here, sea's sound confuses it; it seems bored by lowed most of them, and the others were lost then; at least one of the living came least using the services. "There's its duties and lags behind us. in the interstices ot endless hours spent one at was occur." RESET shopping, reading, on planes and in cars, a slight degeneration that does

1 access. The Algonquin, terribly familiar, asleep, apart. Hopeless. "Everything seems to be getting gray." morning, winter. She turns away from the access. She has turned on a bedside His face had shifted into intense concern,

snowy window, I am in bed, and for a mo- lamp. Alone. She hunts amid the Kleenex and no belittling this problem. "Mm-hm, mm-hm, be- watching this I felt suspended magazines on the bedside table, finds a see, at the molecular level where we're at, ment

mirrors, endlessly. I had there is degeneration. It's just in the physics. tween two refiedoc .watch, looks at it dully, turns it right side up,

this before; I had lived it once and re- It randomizes a little over time. So you lose— seen looks again, and puts it down, Cold. She of what you've got, membered it once, and remembered the burrows in the blankets, yawning, staring, you don't lose a minute little memory, and here it was again, or could it then puts out a hand for the phone but only but you lose a little definition. A color. but another morning, a similar it levels off." be nothing rests her hand on it, thinking. Thinking at four But morning. There were far more than one like a.m. She withdraws her hand, shivers a child's "It does?" prom- this, in this place. But no; she turns from the deep, sleepy shiver, and shuts off the light. "We think it does. Sure it does, we vial of pills, picks that it will." window, she gets out her A bad dream. In an instant it's morning, ise it does. We predict the coffee cup by its body: I had seen dawn; the Wasp slept, too. She sleeps "But you don't know." up this moment before, not months before, soundly, unmoving, only the top of her blond "Well, well you see we've only been in this

is new. weeks before, here in this chamber. I had head showing out of the quilt— and will no business a short while. This concept couldn't know." still come upon the same scene twice. doubt sleep so for hours, watched over more There were things we He

al the same time What are the odds of it, I wondered, what attentively, more fixedly, than any peeping looked at me, but seemed are the odds of coming upon the same min- Tom could ever have watched over her. to have forgotten me. Tired. He seemed to utes again, these minutes. RESET. have grown coloi less himself lately, old, los- bedclothes. I within the ACCESS. ing definition. "You might start getting some stir

hear, this time, what I snow," said softly. I leaned forward to I he "I can't hear as well as did at first," 1 told would say; it was something like but fun any- way, or something. Fun, she says, laughing, harrowed, the degraded sound a ghost's twittering. Char-

lie, someday I'm going to die oi tun.

She lakes her pill. The Wasp follows her to the John, and is shut out. heart, Why am t here? I thought, and my was beating hard and slow. What am I here for? What? RESET ACCESS. Silvered icy streets, New York, Fifth Ave- nue. She is climbing, shouting from a cab's dark interior: Just don't shout at me, she

shouts at someone; her mother I never met,

a dragon. She is out and hurrying away down the sleety street with her bundles, the Wasp

at her shoulder. I could reach out and touch her shoulder and make her turn and follow me but. Walking away, lost in the colorless press of traffic and people, impossible to discern within the softened snowy image.

Something was very wrong.

Georgie hated winter, she escaped it most of the time we were together, about the first of the year beginning to long for the sun that had gone elsewhere; Austria was all right for a few weeks, the toy villages and sugar snow and bright, sleek skiers were not really the winter she feared, though even in fire-

warmed chalets it was hard to get her naked without gooseflesh and shudders from some draft only she could feel. We were chaste in

winter. So Georgie escaped it: Antigua and Bali and two months in Ibiza when the al- "

monds blossomed, li false, old, in was continual of people long ago, the Choose her Exquisite* flavorless spring all winter long. ing fun; eating ice cream; swimming in bath- How ofien could snow have fallen when ing suits; riding in convertibles. Fifty years diamond with confidence the Wasp was watching her? ago. Eighty years ago."

Not often; countable times, times I could He opened his empty drawer again, found in its beauty and value

count up myself if I could remember as the a toothpick, and began to use It.

Wasp could. Not often. Not always. "So I accessed the earliest stuff.

"There's a problem," I said to the director. Speeches. More speeches. But I found a

"It's peaked out, has it?" he said. "That scene here and there— people in the street, definition problem?" fur coats, window-shopping, traffic. Old S2.499.90

I 'Actually," said, "it's gotten worse." people, I mean they were yourrg then, but mcsat He was sitting behind his desk, arms people of the past; they have these pinched spread wide across his chair's back, and a kind of laces, you get to know them. Sad, a $79.90 Matching band false, pinkish flush to his cheeks like under- little. On city streets, hurrying, holding their taker's makeup. Drinking. hats. Cities were sort of black then, in film; "Hasn't peaked out, huh?" he said. black cars in the streets, black derby hats.

"That's I it not the problem," said. "The Stone. Well, wasn't what they wanted. I $1499.90 problem is the access. It's not random like found summer for them, color summer, but Bridal set said. new. you They wanted old. I kept looking back. I

"Molecular level," he said, "It's kept looking. I in the did. The further back I went, WmCamtTW

physics." the more 1 saw these pinched faces, black

"You don't understand. It's not getting more cars, black streets of stone. Snow. There isn't random. It's getting less random. Its getting any summer there." selective. It's freezing up." With slow gravity he rose and found a "No, no, no," he said dreamily. 'Access is bottle two coffee brown and cups. He $3 799.90 ; .3«q^ random. isn't all Life fun, sloppily. ' summer and you poured "So it's not your reception," KfWr^.re Price S5,550 life know. Into each some rajn must fall." he said. "Film takes longer, I guess, but it's lCarat ." J|^S

I sputtered, trying to explain. "But but . , in the physics. All in the physics. A word to S279.90 ""\j "You know," he said, "I've been thinking of the wise is sufficient" 'Ri=iai.-nce. S45Q gelting out of access." He pulled open a The liquor was harsh, a cold distillate of Price

drawer in the desk before him; it made an past sunlight. I wanted to go, get out, not

empty sound. He stared within it dully for a look back. I would not stay watching until

moment and shut it. "The Park's been good there was only snow. for me, but I'm just not used to this. Used to "So I'm getting out of access," the director be you thought you could render a service. said. "Let the dead bury the dead, right? Let you know? Well, hell, you know, you've had the dead bury the dead." fun, what do you care?"

He was mad. For an instant I heard the . I didn't go back. I never went back, though

dead around me; I tasted on my tongue the the highways opened again and The Park stale air of underground. isn't far from the town I've settled in. Settled: $1,499.90

"I remember," he said, tilting back in his the right word. It restores your balance, in Bndalset "Reference Price S2.450 chair and looking elsewhere, "many years the end, even in a funny way your cheerful-

ago, I got into access. Only we didn't call it ness, when you come to know, without re-

that then. What I did was, I worked for a grets, that the best thing that's going to hap-

stock-footage house. It was going out of pen in your life has already happened. And

s'ili business, like they all did, like this place here I nave some summer left to me. is to do, shouldn't going say that, but you I think there are two different kinds of

didn't it. it hear Anyway, was a big ware- memory, and only one kind gets worse as I

house with steel shelves for miles, filled with get older: the kind where, by an effort of will, "Kcie:eiiLtpik:=»,:Eji Li-rL'rT-.iin.ihcnorru;; r;r.ri pri-Ic li3its.lo:i film cans, film cans filled with old plastic film, you can reconstruct your first car or your se- i 1 ii dirdiamond Film of kind. you know? every And movie rial number or the name and figure of your \cwdiy- [ci5n.?.:('i:ipi:'^iLi ::i ;:.:" -Ldy celling priir.

people, if they old 1 1 wanted of past high .'' . scenes school physics Mr. in 1 " I' ' ' teacher— a Holm, "i' I . ,11 time in their movies, would call up and ask a gray suit, a bearded guy, skinny, about for what they wanted, find me this, find me thirty. The other kind doesn't worsen; if any- that. And we had everything, every kind of thing it grows more intense. The sleepwalk- scene, but you know what the hardest thing ing kind, the kind you stumble into as into to find was? Just ordinary scenes of daily rooms with secret doors and suddenly find life. I mean people just doing things and liv- yourself sitting not on your front porch but in ing their lives. You know what we did have? a classroom. You can't at first think where or

Speeches. People giving speeches. Like when, and a bearded, smiling man is turning presidents. You could have hours of in his hand a glass paperweight, inside which speeches, but not just people, whatchacall- a little cottage stands in a swirl of snow. it, ." oh, washing clothes, sitting in a park . . There is no access to Georgie, except that

"It might just be the reception," I said. now and then, unpredictably, when I'm sit- "Somehow." ting on the porch or pushing a grocery cart He looked at me for a long moment as or standing at the sink, a memory of that kind though I had just arrived. 'Anyway," he said will visit me, vivid and startling, like a hyp- at last, turning away again, "I was there notist's snap of fingers. awhile learning the ropes. And producers Or 'like that funny experience you some- called and'said, "Get me this, get me that." times have, on the point of sleep, of hearing And one producer was making a film, some your name called softly and distinctly by film of the past, and he wanted old scenes, someone who is not there.DQ © ART CUMINGS

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marker. Such a monument would have to In- clude massive, hard-to-remove compo- nents made of such low-value materials as earth or stone—more of them than appear needed at the outset—and written records. Now hear this! Kaplan found many of these elements in England's Stonehenge. Stonehenge is ob- Introducing the new Canon vious from both the air and ground. Its de- sign features a circle within a circle. Mounds video system that gives you brilliant of dirt surround concentric rings of mono- liths, which are built around a central altar. sound and brilliant pictures.

' While it has survived as long as the pyra-

mids, its form "is far more efficient for delin- It's time to share the pleasures of home video with eating an area than a pyramid is," Kaplan your ears, With this handsome new home video system explains. "Because of the multiple compo- from Canon you can enter the age of hi-fi stereo video. nents, you can still afford to lose some ol the markers. About a third of the stones are The VR-HF600 is a state-of-the-art recorder that will missing, yet there is no debate about its give you Canon-quality pictures, world famous for bright- plan." Kaplan also observed that many of ness and clarity. And with its advanced audio features, the monoliths are too big —up to 24 feet you'll hear the kind of precise, brilliant sound that rivals high —to be attractive for hauling away. One the finest audio systems. -.'*, weak point in the site's chances for perpet- ual survival: Because records contempo- Add' the Canon MS-10 multi-channel TV sound rary with its construction do not exist, no one adapter urn] you can enjoy stereo television: And, with knows who built Stonehenge or why. the Canon SP-IO sound dimension processor and your Working from these ancient guides, Kap- own stereo, you can recreate theater-quality; concert-hall lan and colleagues, under contract from the sound right at home. DoE, composed what might be dubbed the Nuclear Stonehenge plan for marking geo- Share the pleasures of home video with both your logical repositories. In a presumably remote eyes and ears. Give look a .^B^m * a j-w » .,- locale, on "as useless a piece of real estate and listen to the new Canon El%91 as possible," as Kaplan it, puts the perime- home video system. ter of the 2,000-acre underground reposi- Accu-Visioir tory would be marked with up to 30 mono- ;i quality. liths, each looming about two stories high. The markers, fashioned of one piece for du- rability, would be carved from some of the toughest wind- and water-resistant mate- rials known probably — granite or basalt, if large enough slabs can be found. Or they could be molded Irom durable, man-made industrial ceramics. They might narrow slightly to a rounded top to form a shape that reduces wind resistance and sheds rain to retard weathering. The unusual shape would also be impractical for a would-be recycler to build with. Warnings and danger symbols would be inscribed on them as part of the effort to make up for the original Sione- henge's major failing. While this circle of oversize sentries would be unmistakable from the ground, they would resemble little more than pinpoints from the air. So inside their bounds, engineers might construct an earthwork from the backfill left after digging the repository. The earthwork, shaped like a colossal hazardous-waste symbol 300 fee! wide, would be at least six feet high, its top paved with crushed stone or asphalt. Like the Great Wall, it could be viewed from airplane and satellite; infrared sensors and even certain types ol radar de- tectors would perceive its surface texture.

Monument constructors might pack it with magnetized sand so that other types of ar- tificial sensing devices would also spot it. Near the middle of the earthwork would stand the central monument: another ring of I LIVE ON JULY 13, 1985, THE WORLD STOOD STILL. AID And listened to the biggest musical event in history—the LIVE AID concert to end world ^M ^^k hunger. ^> In this country alone, over 45 million people broadcast over ABC I tuned in to the 16-hour ^^ Radio Network. People listened, and gave their support by pledging millions of dollars. ABC Radio Network is proud to have been a part of this historic event. All of us have made a difference. Thanks, world.

ABC RADIO NETWORKS : ,

RADIO STATIONS THAT CARRIED THI ABC LIVE AID BROADCAST TO AMERICA

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: WMGM-FM-AtlanficCitY, KJ WBEN-FM -Buffalo, NY '.. i-TM Paso, TX PA' WQQQ-FM-Easton, : KJYO-FM-Oklahoma City, OK WXQR-FM -Jacksonville, NC : KOME-FM-San Jose/San Fraridsco,CA :; : KCRC-AM-Enid/OK WZYC-FM -Newport, NG . \ Francisco, KYUU-FM-San CA WZZU-FM-Raleigh, NC KLUC-FM-Las Vegas, NV • ": "'>-.. WXKS-FM- Boston, MA, - WRDU-FM-Saleigh, NC ;' KMBQ-FM-Shreveport, LA WBCN-FM-Bosto^ ' MA ; WPRO-FM -Providence, Rl WGFB-FM^Piattsburgh. NY WEIM-AM-Fitchburg, MA ... WRNF-FM-WhitehaU. MI WXTY^fl-Ticonderoga. NY"'"' WHE8-AM- Portsmouth, NH WBCH-FM- Hastings, MI WMMQ-FM-Lansing, MI

WCNL-FM-Newport. NH . WMC-FM- Memphis. TN .WIBA-FM-Madison, WI WHYT-FM-Detroit. MI KCPX-FM-Salt Lake City, UT WZEE-EM-Madison, WI WRIF-FM- Detroit, MI WLRS-FM- Louisville, KY WZAT-FM-Savannah, GA

KTXQ-FM-Dailas, TX . WIEL-AM-EHzabethiown, KY WTCQ-FM-Vidalia. GA KDSQ-FM-Denison, TX WNGR-FM- Norfolk, VA KRDC-FM-Brownsville. TX KLIS-FM-Palestine, TX WQXA-FM-York, PA WTYX-FM -Jackson, MS WRQX-FM-Washington, D.C. ' WTUE-FM-Dayton, OH WBAM-FM-Montgomery AL WAVA-FM-Washington. D.C. WSQV-FM-jersey Shore, PA KWIC-FM-Beaumont, TX WZYQ-FM- Fredericksburg. VA WPYX-FM -Albany NY KATS-FM -Yakima, WA KSRR-FM-Houston. TX WYLR-FM-GIens Falls, NY KTDi-AM-Pendleton, OR WGCL-FM-Cleveland, OH WBEC-FM-Pittsfield, MA WOMP-FM -Wheeling. WV WYDD-FM-Pittsburgh, PA KMOD-FM-Tulsa, OK KOZZ-FM-Reno, NV KLIZ-FM-Btainerd. MN WRXL-FM-Richmond-Petersburg, VA KNIN-FM-Wichita Falls, TX WSHE-FM-Miami. FL WWWV-FM- Charlottesville. VA KHSN-AM-Coos Bay OR WKLS-FM-Atlanta. GA KSCB-FM-Liberal, KS KRLB-FM- Lubbock, TX KSHE-FM-St. Louis, MO KQQF-FM-Coffeyville, KS KFMX-FM- Lubbock, TX WRBQ-FM -Tampa, FL WIOG-FM-Saginaw, MI WIFC-FM-Wausau. WI WYNF-FM-Tampa, FL WFXZ-FM-Pinconning, MI KFMF-FM-Chico. CA KIMN-AM- Denver, CO WYGO-FM-Corbin. KY KISR-FM-Ft, Smith. AR KQSK-FM-Chadron, NEB WIMZ-FM-Knoxville.-TN KZOQ-FM-Missoula, MT KQZR-FM-Craig, CO WTKX-FM-Pensacola, FL KBBZ-FM-Kalispell, MT KRAL-FM- Rawlins, WY KRKE-FM-Albuquerque, NM WHSL-FM -Wilmington, NC KVMT-FM-Vail, CO KRWN-FM-Farmington, NM WGUY-FM-Bangor, ME KJOY-AM-Stockton, CA KLVF-FM-Las Vegas, NM WRCK-FM-Utica-Rome, NY KDJK-FM-Oakdale, CA KRNO-FM-Des Moines, IA WOUR-FM-Utica-Rome. NY WBSB-FM- Baltimore, MD WAQX A/F-Syracuse, NY KTYL-FM-Tyler, TX WIYY-FM-Baltimore, MD WKAU A/F-Appleton. WI KOLL-FM -Gillette, WY WAMD-AM-Aberdeen. MD WGLQ-FM-Escanaba, MI WJDQ-FM- Meridian, MS WCCC-FM-Hartford, CT WLRW-FM-Champaign-Urbana, IL KHLA-FM-Westlake, LA WHCN-FM-Hartford, CT WMJQ-FM -Rochester. NY WRUF-FM-GainesviHe, FL KFYI-AM- Phoenix. AZ KEZO-FM-Omaha, NE WQID-FM-Biloxi, MS KZZZ-FM- Kingman, AZ KGRS-FM -Burlington, IA KFBQ-FM -Cheyenne, WY KKRZ-FM- Portland, OR KNJY-FM- Clinton, IA WAIN A/F-Columbia, KY WZPL-FM- Indianapolis, IN WXLP-FM- Davenport, IA KIXY-FM-San Angelo, TX WFBQ-FM-Indianapolis, IN WKQQ-FM- Lexington, KY WQCM-FM-Hageretown, MD XTRA-FM-San Diego, CA WFMI-FM- Lexington, KY KQMQ-FM -Honolulu, HI WSKS-FM- Cincinnati. OH KCNB-FM -Waterloo, IA KLHI-FM-Lahaina, HI KKKX-FM- Ottawa, KS WFRD-FM- Hanover, ME KSUP-FM -Juneau, AK KCBW-FM-Sedalia, MO WGLU-FM -Johnstown, PA three or four monoliths, 21 feet high and Buy Coleco Sectaurs Warriors weighing 20D tons each. They would sur- round several stone vaults containing de- where tailed information about the site but whose from a toy store five-ton lids would inhibit casual investiga- tion. Kaplan proposed placing a central vault you will get good service beneath a tumulus, a hillock simulating an ancient burial mourid, where it would be without fighting a wan protected from the freeze-thaw cycle. The first site-specific plan for nuclear deep-time communication is now on the When you shop with drawing boards at the Hanford Nuclear Res- at Haniord is to design us, we'll give you good ervation. The task possible markers not for waste lodged half prices, sen/ice, good a mile underground, but for extremely long- a good selection, lived contamination just 13 to 18 feet below about a 32-square- and a convenient the surface. Scattered mile area in the interior of Hanford are 70 location in shopping malls acres where earthen or gravel "cribs" store across the country. When you're some of the long-lived waste, or where it has leaked or been drained into the soil. looking for Coleco Sectaurs Mel Adams, group manager for environ- Warriors, come see us. mental technology at Rockwell International, presents some of the options for cleanup ol And bring your little these lethal areas: "We can either exhume warriors along. the radiation from the site and place it in a deep geological repository or we can leave

it in place. The way it looks now, we expect the risk to workers, as well as the cost, to be

lower ii we leave it in place." A final decision

KA1 may be years away. If the contamination is would TOY STORES allowed to stay where it is, engineers

cap it with an 18-foot-high barrier of earth and stone. Before the barrier is built, though, the ra- Buy Hasbro Transformers dioactive soil that's close to the surface must be dealt with. Under one plan the contami- nated earth would be literally melted and from a toy store that turned into dark, obsidianlike glass. High- voltage electrodes placed in the ground would vitrify up to 800 metric tons of earth shopping soil's temperature transforms at a time by elevating the to as high as 2000°C. Since the contamina- fun. tion would then be locked in the structure of into a glass block, engineers say that the radia- tion would be highly resistant to leaching but remain hazardous nonetheless. When you shop with us, we'll give If this form of shallow burial becomes a good service, good prices, a you reality, future generations could easily dig good selection, and a convenient through the barrier and find themselves in location in shopping malls direct contact with radiation. "We're propos- across the country, when ing to ring the whole thirty-two-square-mile sites with an early- you're looking for Hasbro area containing "hese warning system of monoliths," Adams ex- Transformers, come to the toy plains. "They would say, essentially, no tres- store that transforms passing," Inside the boundary might be doz- shopping into fun. ens of barrier mounds, each overshadowed by four obelisks inscribed with more explicit warnings and information. As an added warning method, Hanlord's atomic memorial would offer surprises un- derground. Archaeologist Kaplan has rec- ommended scattering small discs, much like kkAbe archaeological dig, potsherds at an TOY STORES throughout the earthen barriers. Anyone who dug into the mounds would chance upon some of these yellow and magenta plates, with markings matching those on the mono- liths. One side of each disc would feature a warning symbol and the words do not dig here, hazardous waste below. The other side would display a pictograph, yet to be —

perfected, admonishing finders not to grow A symbol's explanatory powers are lim- to know the code. Our alphabei, for in- deep-rooted craps. The reason: Long roots ited, so experts agree that an integral part stance, consists solely of symbols. To create could reach into the contaminated area and of nuclear memorial design would be more a tongue that resists time erosion, we need draw radiation up into the edible portions of descriptive messages. But languages to reverse the historical trend and build iconic the plant; anyone who then ate the plant change rapidly. "Lexicostatistics studies principles back into the message. "You can would be ingesting radioacfivity, too, and risk show that nineteen percent of a language's see examples of icons in the signs ai air- illness or death. 'basic' words change every thousand years ports and hospitals today, but warning mes- Made of stoneware or porcelain, the and that more unusual terms change even sages would be more narrative, more com- markers portraying this danger are ex- faster," says research anthropologist David plex," Givens says. pected to outlive clay pottery, which lasts B. Givens, of the American Anthropological For a demonstration of Ihe power of pic- 7,000 io 8,000 years. Their prospective Association, in Washington, DC. At lhat rate tographs, Givens suggests a trip to a comic- size—five to six inches in diameter—was readers 5,000 years hence would under- book archive: "Take an early Henry car- also inspired by archaeology: Larger pot- stand just better than half our common vo- toon—Ihe kind with no words, If's quite clear. sherds generally break. cabulary, and "English" speakers in 10,000 Any child can follow the story—maybe even But what will prevent the markers from be- years would recognize only about 12 per- kids from different cultures." coming a popular collector's item for future cent of our everyday words. "If anything," A warning cartoon proposed by the DoE's amateur archaeologists or perhaps ending Givens continues, "we can expect more panel of experts is a sequence of frames up on the shelves of indicafing thai when local entrepreneurs? confainers buried in "It's true they can be- the ground are punc- come interesting sou- tured, their substance venirs," Adams says. WHICH CAME FIRST? could leak into the "When a shipment THE BEEFEATER'OR THE BEEFEATER? water, be taken up into was brought here for the roots of crops, and testing, everybody eaten by people. The wanted But I think one. ^fHjjj^ An American recently last frame shows sev- we will have dis- "'• iS-vil asked a Beefeater- eral people, one of charged our respon- one of the guardians of them collapsed on the sibilify if we've warned ground and holding the historic Tower of people." his or her abdomen. London—"Are you The trick to a suc- "There is no doubt," related to London's famous Beefeater Gin?" cessful atomic me- Givens adds, "lhat we "Actually," the Yeoman replied, "It's a morial, of course, is to can make a message bit the other way around. Beefeater gin is find a way for inani- thai will work." related to us. After all, we've been around mate objects to com- The key to such for 900 years-even it municate a clear and longer ihan has." piclographic narra- The Yeoman is correct. It was due to urgent caution, rather tion is to make it as than simply to exist the long association of the Beefeater clear and as free of and possibly inspire Guards with English culture and tradition culture-related detail fortieth-century ar- lhat |ames Burrough named his excellent as possible, Anofher chaeologists to poke gin after them early in the 19th century. challenge, one that around. Making sure So the uniformed Beefeater did come Givens is currently re- that future peoples get before the bottled one. searching, is how fo the right message But Beefeater* is so superb a gin, per- guide ihe viewer's eye fakes a special sort of in haps the Yeoman would not mind if the appropriate di- communication. things had been the other way around. rection. If someone A principle of mon- reads the cartoon umental architecture backward, obviously that must also be used Ihe message will be for deep-time com- garbled. Although our munication is redun- BEEFEATER* GIN own left-to-right, top- dancy: sending the The Crown Jewel of England,' down reading order same signal numer- has historically been ous ways. "The more the most common, fu- redundancy in the ture peoples will no! system," says Indiana Universily's Sebeok, rapid change in the future because of the necessarily read in that order. Ancient Hii-

"the less margin for error and the safer it is." explosion of technical terms that are enter- tiies wrote their hieroglyphics in a zigzag:

The basic, warning of danger and the com- ing our vocabulary." right to left, then left to right, f hen right to left. mand not to dig in the area can be conveyed To learn to talk a timeless language, sci- Pre-Columbian Mexicans wrote from the by a warning symbol, a written message, and entists again listened to the past. "There are bottom up; Crow Indian messages read in a pictures, each engraved on the monoliths. huge numbers of chiseled records all over spiral from ihe inside out. Even today many

The written message can also be repeated the world, going back thousands of years," languages read right to left. Givens sug- in a number of languages. Givens. says. The earliesi protowritings gests using footprints or tally dois—one dot The DoE panel recommended that the pictographs and early hieroglyphics usually in the first frame, two in the second, and so warning into ihe emblem carved obelisks etched into earth, sand, or rock—are the forth —to indicate the sequence of action in repeat those on [tie vaults and the shape of easiest to interpret because they are based a Nuclear Stonehenge picture-lext. the earthwork. It would best be a common," on "iconic" principles. The iconic signal looks There comes a limit, though, to ihe detail infer nation ally accepted emblem, such as like what it signifies—a stick figure, for in- that cartoons can transmit, so despite their the cloverlike symbol that currently signals stance, or the moon or sun. mortality, verbal messages are planned to the presence of radiation, or a new symbol As written languages develop, however, supplement the warning emblem and pic- designed to be used wherever biohazard- they employ fewer icons and more "sym- tures emblazoned on the obelisks. For a ous waste may be located. bols"— messages' for which the reader has deep geologic memorial, caution- siohaz- —

ardous waste buried here would be etched Sebeok says, "and leaches some of the ra- of and up toward the high up. on three sides oi each monolith, in diation out the cavern sophisti- the six.official languages o! the Uniied Na- surface. Then nobody will need at it: You have to tions. Closer to eye level more iniormation cated technology to get would be noted, including the depth that ra- worry about a peasant with a shovel." nour- dioactive wastes are buried and the area they While Sebeok's system of taboos cover underground. The few central obe- ished by myths and rituals verges on an other specialists argue for lisks would bear extended multilingual in- "atomic religion," maintain that scriptions identifying the waste and explain- a purely factual approach. They although local folklore may spring up, public ing why contact with it should be avoided. straightforward on- The inscriptions at Hanford's interior mono- education coupled with information would be a more credible TELEPATHIC liths would be similar. site deterrent to interference. MMUN1CATI0N In an effort to defy the metamorphosis of fear is nonsense. The language, markers would also transmit a fi- "Trying to inculcate camps out nal request that future spectators "relay" the first time that a boy-scout troop the myth is de- stone's messages or retranslate them every there and nothing happens, Weitzberg, senior few hundred years into current tongues. stroyed," says Abraham At a deep geologic repository, engrav- executive consultant at NUS Corporation, in ings on the giant central stones would also Gaithersburg, Maryland, and member of the teach people direct the curious to the central vault. There DoE task force. "You need to high school. And then they would find hundreds of pages of tech- about these issues in off in the nical data about radiation and the radioac- whatever folklore develops will start Givens, "Humans are tive waste caged underground: text and right direclion." Adds than mathematical calculations, maps, and dia- more willing to go along with what's true fear even be Behind Your grams. Since these volumes will probably what's frightening. Using might disappear, Nuclear Stonehenge planners counterproductive because people might Conscious Mind envision widely distributing such information dare one another to violate the taboo." physical grandeur of to archives and data banks around the world. But given the sheer scheme, the mono- WHY LIMIT YOURSELF to But the interplay of stone and message, the Nuclear Stonehenge certain to inspire awe, religious or and archive still leaves a vital gap, ac- liths seem five senses? There is a greater site although human inter- cording to Sebeok. "What we need," he says, otherwise. And some world of realization behind your self-perpetuating group ference researchers say the monuments these "is a self-selected, outer self. Impressions of publicity, others of men and women who would be in charge should not receive much extrasensory powers occasion- their tourist attractions. of 'the monuments and the information." Sci- imagine becoming strange feeling Stonehenge, ally arise. The entists 'and social scientists, they would pass "I'd bill it as a modern-day intui- monument, to of impending danger— an on their custodianship through each gener- as the world's longest-lasting people to visit," Givens says. "You tive hunch— receiving another's ation, independent oi whatever government encourage kinds of information unspoken thought— these indi- there may be. Sebeok has dubbed such a could even carve other about the history of our species cate unused potentialities. group an atomic priesthood but says the there— adding that and make it an open-air museum." Attract- They are natural phenomena. term has been misunderstood, commission would convey the ing people to the monument would remind To understand, develop, and atomic meaning equally well. them that what lies beneath is dangerous. direct them can transform your These specialists would repair the monu- The cost of warning the future will not be They pro- whole personality. if the DoE, the Hanford ments in case of vandalism or natural dis- cheap: approved by greater insight and per- will probably cost taxpayers vide aster and would also see to it that future li- memorial alone sonal achievement. braries maintain information about the tens of millions of dollars. According to Ad- each monolith could FREE BOOK nuclear grave sites. Information-retrieval ams, the price tag of radically. People may amount to $100,000, and several hundred The Rosicrucians, a worldwide systems may change the data they need from "Dick are contemplated. Yet the total comes to a organization (not a re- someday get cultural several-billion-dol- Tracy-type watches," as Sebeok puts it, fraction of the projected ligion) have the facts about waste which could give out a message in re- lar expense of actually interring the extrasensory powers. A your sponse to a code the wearer would punch permanently in the ground. The Mastery of Life interference experts advocate the free book in, or perhaps from miniprocessors that might Human on moral rather tells how you may share this be implanted directly into the human brain. Nuclear Stonehenge project practical knowledge. Use cou- Whatever form future libraries or computers than' economic grounds. The gravity of ra- health is such that pon or write to Scribe KDG take, "this information would have to be up- dioactive waste's threat to tumble, our lit- dated and incorporated into futuristic library after our grandest buildings technology by the committee," Sebeok says. erature turns into lessons in a "dead" lan- of our country is SB ROSICRUCIANS But the elite lhat Sebeok envisions would guage, and the very name (AMORC) also have a more controversial objective: lost to all but scholars, nuclear waste will still 95191 U.S.A. San Jose, California scaring people away irom the memorials. have the power to cause genetic mutations will be immor- They might circulate legends of danger, en- and to kill. Perhaps our age "sprite ~KDG talized by silhouettes of stone guarding a The ROSICRUCIANS lAMORC) courage performance of rituals near the site, poison. San Jose. California 95191 U.S.A. and possibly threaten supernatural retribu- subterranean legacy of in field, very tion for ignoring the obelisk's warnings. Se- And yet, say some the those beok does not advocate such techniques silhouettes may prove a hopeful sign for hu- ever bothered to 'for an educated audience but rather for manity, "No earlier culture people who can't read. There's always the warn the future about dangers," Kaplan says. genera- possibility, he says, that there will be illiterate "I would like to think that when this responsibility for the waste and for segments of the population, especially if civ- tion takes

generations, it will mark the ilization as we know it is wiped out. "Sup- alerting future L_l": pose an underground river changes course," coming of age of human responsibility."DO BDDM CONTINUED FROM PAGE ?4 Buy Coleco Sectaurs Warriors Now it is being proposed thai those with very low amounts in the urine may be the from a toy store where most severely poisoned, says toxicologist Alvin Bronstein, of the Rocky Mountain Poi- son Center, in Denver. you will get good service

'They may not get it out of fheir systems. It defies measurement," he adds. without fighting a wan Results from a recent test conducted by David Eggleston, of the University of South- When you shop with ern California, suggest that a link may exist '" between amalgams and suppression of the us, we'll give you good i.mmune system. service, good prices, Frequency of T cells, the white blood cells that regulate the type and intensity of all im- a good selection, mune responses, rarely varies by more than and a convenient 4 percent in an eight-week period. Yet when location in shopping malls fillings were removed, Eggleston found that the percentage ot T lymphocytes rose dra- across the country. When you're matically. Eggleston believes his findings looking for Coleco Sectaurs warrant further investigation. At a July 1984 conference sponsored by Warriors, come see us. the federal National Institute of Dental Re- And bring your little search, the official summary of the proceed- warriors along. ings concluded that there was no docu- mented evidence for discontinuing the use of dental amalgams. But participants recommended that fur- ther research be conducted in several areas. KA1 Among these were studies on the effects of mercury on T lymphocytes and research to TOY STORES see whether a relationship exists between birth defects and maternal exposure to amalgams. The report also called for re- search to determine the number of U.S. citi- zens with an allergy to mercury. The ADA maintains that "silver" fillings are Buy Hasbro's safe. "There's no documentation that proves amalgams are really harmful," says R L. Fan. of the ADA's Council on Dental Materials. G.I.Joe "That's the same as saying they are safe." But critics of the ADA'S stand argue that while more research is needed, amalgams have not been proved harmless. from a toy store you'l "I have over three hundred scientific ref- erences on mercury toxicity," says Atlanta dentist Ron Dressier. "And I can no longer, feel like saluting. in good conscience, put those things [mer- cury fillings] in people's mouths. "OQ When you shop with us, well give you good service, good prices, a good selec- CREDITS tion, and a convenient location in Pays Portrait shols by Randy Mayor: page 14,

.1 , shopping page18,'.r ,HV .| ,. ,!! ,., r'6:-l malls across the country. Socn-j-ek; page 26, lar Mc*ay.: Ga~rn;= So when you're page 0, C;:-si--o- page 32, Moiris Bra/: j.jlle-ii: ace 36 : looking for G.I. Joe, Jea! Davis: page 36 botrem, ,,. page come fo'the toy store page 38 Bottom, that will treat you asgi 3S lop. ..J- >;,,;.: pane 33 ' i . i * .1 ! |... ; page so nice you'll want t .:CI oage41 bottom, APnVide World: page 4i top, ( "ha to salute them. » ! ;.i Corsr..-t..:.T page 42 bottom, i..'-ov t pages 44-47, A. --rw-rk -;,-s3y >' NA=A page

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Buy Mattel's What noi to say at the publication party for Isaac Asimov's thousandth book: "How many of them can yo.u get in Cliff's Notes?" Masters of the Universe® —Gregory Nicoil, Atlanta a toy store that's What not to say at a'Halley's Comet watch: from it "This is spectacular. I hope they do more often." a master of good service. —Gregory Nicoil, Atlanta. GA

Never smile when you ask Carl Sagan how When you shop with us, we'll give you many hamburgers McDonald's will sell by prices, a good good service, good the year 2100. selection, and a convenient —John E. Stith. Colorado Springs location in shopping forwarding (or malls across the country. Time travelers should leave a date with the postmaster. When you're looking for receding) Matters Masters of the Be sure to wear clean underwear prior to the toy Universe;" come to cryogenic suspended animation. store thofs a master of Louisville KY j — Leif Rustebakke, : nonri service. What to serve at a computer hardware exhibition: t

What not to do before buying a used space cruiser: Kick the ihrusters and siam the hatches. Kff — Douglas Ikeler, Guilford, NH

TOY STORES Congratulation wishes on the arrival of a new clone in the family: "Happy birthday two you." —George Taylor, Montgomery. AL

How to find your Mars vacation: What not to say on "Which way to the canals?" Parker Brothers Clue —Kim Alan Pederson, Iowa City. IA

It is considered rude to rest one's Waldos on VCR Games withoi the table. —John Gordos and Geofl Bishell, being a Athens, OH Amy VanAllenbelt, adviser to The Omni Etiquette Book, recommends: "The chef at detective. an intergalactic banquet welcoming Earth

1 should not say to our delegation, 'May I serve lots of Clue We have lots and you?' VCR Games (and other toys, —Charles Underbill, Burlington, VT too), and we'll give you good Never ask your Mercurial girlfriend how old

service, and a convenient loca- she is or remind her parents that the drinking age on Jupiter is two. tion in shopping malls across — Pat Portfolio, Huntington Beach, CA the country. If you want a Parker Brothers Clue VCR / Introductions to aliens: Shake only the proffered appendage. Never take the initia- Game, take this clue -5 tive by shaking just any appendage. and shop with us. m —Diane Cala, Salem, NH

A time traveler should never yell "Duckl " at Ford's Theater. KA1 —Christopher Krajoi, Park Ridge, IL STORES You are not expected to take a gift when TOY invited to a meteor shower, — GaryTutt, Duncanville. TXDd contagious than people having an early in- imiTERV/IEUU fection before clinical symptoms appear. cells of patients CONTINUED FROM PAGE 82 Because so many T AIDS are already largely destroyed, they're ac- HTLV-3 virus. feldt-Jakob disease. Those tests show it to tually carrying less of the is discriminating against be not so toxic that it kills people. In Creutz- Nothing solved by feldi-Jakob disease the subjective impres- AIDS patients or throwing them out of apart- sion of the clinicians was that patients were ments or jobs. Quite-the contrary; this would improved after HPA-23. Because of these give the public an entirely talse sense of re- impressions, they decided to try HPA-23 in assurance. The public should also know that AIDS patients. A thirteen-year-old boy had under certain conditions, mainly sexual in- the virus before being given HPA-23, but after tercourse, the infection is transmissible, and This very day, isn't (here of course, treatment the virus couldn't be isolated. So that women can get it. In women, health of the offspring is also jeopard- someone, somewhere, with it was felt that the drug was promising, and the in other patients. In some of ized. Newborn babies come down with AIDS whom you'd like to share a gift it was tested have the full- these the virus seemed to have gone away. even if the mother does not of champagne, wine, or spirits When they discontinued the treatment, how- blown disease but only HTLV-3 infection. In- with a wide assortment of ever, the virus reappeared within a few fants lack a mature immune system, so they virus. The to prevent quality foods and accessories? weeks. So now HPA-23 is being tested in a can't fight off the way longer course of treatment this disease is to avoid the transmission of Thanks to 800 SPIRITS*, you Omni: Doesn't interferon show some prom- HTLV-3 between people. This can be ac- ex- never have to worry about ise in treating early AIDS? complished by having sex without the change of bodily fluid from person to per- sending whomever, whatever, Krim: It's certainly logical to think so, be- the Phil cause interferon is active against retrovi- son. Last year I was invited on whenever, ever again. tried ruses. In fact, it's been shown in the test tube Donahue show and to get the message determined to tell people to to inhibit the HTLV-3 virus. We should have across. 1 was extensive trials of interferon in people with wear condoms. At the last minute, in front of

I and early infection, to measure the extent to which the TV camera, got embarrassed mumbling. Donahue said to me: I So it can control viral multiplication. doubt it started to wear will cure people with early AIDS, because "You want to say that people have Simply call I shouted; "Yes, yes, yes!" even though it may suppress the expression rubbers." And the toll-free of the virus, once the interferon is withdrawn, Safety can also be increased through intercourse, of certain 1-800-BETHERI the virus will be expressed again. But inter- use, during sexual feron could possibly delay the emergence preparations containing a germicidal sub- (1-800-2384373) rap- of full-blown AIDS or make it less severe. stance, specifically nonoxynol-9. which (void where prohibited) Omni: Could the government do more to idly kills HTLV-3. Avoiding casual sexual en- promote AIDS research? counters and limiting the number of one's Krim: The federal government under Presi- sexual partners may be effective protection, [Nonoxynol-9 is a component of some OMNI dent Reagan has not used all the money ap- too. propriated by Congress lor research on female contraceptive gels that are available AIDS. They have funded only certain areas, at drugstores.] TIME CAPSULES mostly concerned with the causes of AIDS. Omni: Do you subscribe to the surveillance Olher ways of controlling the disease have theory, namely, that the immune system po- not been encouraged, primarily public ed- lices the body and routinely shoots down ucation —the only means we now have—and cancer cells as they are forming? don't I must, even though we treatment. It is terrible to see people invari- Krim: think one ably dying, while we. are not trying hard have clear evidence for it. We know that the abnormal enough to treat them. It's also appalling to body has systems that eliminate hear our Secretary of Health and Human cells, not only cancer cells, but also virus- Services, Margaret Heckler, address an in- infecied and old cells that have outlived their ternational meeting last April and say, in ef- usefulness. Experimental evidence shows fect, that we must find an answer to this dis- that natural killer cells and macrophages future [cells engulf, and digest cel- Now the magazine of the ease before it reaches the heterosexual that surround, can be kept for the future. Store your community. Never mind the people who al- lular debris] can recognize and kill cancer issues of OMNI in a new whether they survey all ready have it. What an embarrassment. cells. We don't know Custom Bound Library Case made Omni: Will Rock Hudson's tragic illness ulti- cancer cells or just search for specific cel- of black simulated leather. It's extraor- mately have a positive impact on the cam- lular defects. But it would be really built to last, and it will keep 12 issues paign against AIDS? dinary it we can show that they can recog- in mint condition indefinitely. in test tube and not in Krim: Yes. It should send a message to the nize tumor cells the The spine is embossed with a gold organism. OMNI logo, and in each case public that this is not a disease that strikes the the connection between viruses there is gold transfer for recording sleazy people. The public may finally realize Omni: Has the date. thai AIDS hits people who are beloved and and cancer been clearly established? who make great contributions to society. Krim: In my mind it was established long ago. Send your check or Omni: What information should the public Certain viruses are capable of inducing tu- money order (S6.95 each; mors in humans. Not always necessary, they 3 for S2Q; 6 for $36) know about AIDS? which precancerous postpoid. USA orders only. Foreign Krim: The public ought to get the message can be a vehicle by orders (add S2.5D for that there's no need to panic at the thought chromosomal changes can occur. postage and handling per case) of having AIDS patients around us— in our Omni: Can't life-style, as well as viruses, be Case, to: OMNI Library cities, buses, theaters, and restaurants. This seen as a cause of cancer? P.O. Box 5120; Philadelphia, PA 19141. life-style is, first, because of the lack of evidence for Krim: No. no. This emphasis on and exaggerated. 01 course we should Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. contagion by casual contact, and second, nutrition is because AIDS patients are actually less have a balanced diet—we should eat fiber Krim: a society, we have not yet decided and not too much fat—and of course we Krim: In the future a cancer patient will come As the importance of science and the price should exercise and breathe clean air. But in and we will take cells from his tumor and determined we're willing to pay for it. We're not perform- the belief that any one conventional food study them in vitro. When we've cells ing like a company, where it would be estab- either causes or eliminates cancer is ridicu- the properties of these particular cancer to lished policy that some definite percentage lous. Cancer is due toafundamental biolog- from a patient, we'll be able custom-de- natural that will of profit is reinvested in research. Because ical reality: We have chromosomes and sign a cocktail of substances our support is appropriated by Congress genes that need to. undergo chemical put things back on the right track—change never know how much we'll changes, genetic expression must be reg- the surface properties of the cancer cells, each year, we kill have to work with next year. It has become ulated, and occasionally something goes stop them from growing, or them. being so difficult to survive as a scientist that some wrong. We will always have cancer; preven- Omni: Is the pie for cancer research people have even become dishonest. A few tion will never be complete. So we must work sliced properly? years ago a researcher applied to my foun- at treatments. Krim: No. I would put more emphasis on investigate a new ap- Omni: Suppose people could be trained to basic biological research. We appear to dation for a grant to proach in the reversal of a certain immuno- visualize very specific cells? spend lots of money on frivolities and su- logical abnormality. A very original idea. We Krim: You mean by using the mind as a sort perficialities, on things of little fundamental gave him a grant, but he needed more of shooting range to hit a particular target? importance. A few years ago, an enormous get people money. So he went to the N1H for support, This idea is ridiculous and actually belittling amount of money was spent to early of lung and his application was peer-reviewed by to people who die of cancer. It's like telling to spit on slides to detect signs other scientists. turned him down. Just them: "Well, you're not able to control your cancer. But what was the result? When you They

operated. But did a few days ago, I attended a meeting on a own body, and this is why you're dying." detected something, you you really prolong lives by doing earlier op- report from the lab of one of these scientists Those people want to live, I assure you. 7 No. You worried the people sick, on exactly the same approach. This person Omni: Is it naive to think that there might be erations' the sat on the committee that reviewed and re- a single cure for cancer? gave them years of misery, and in end major de- jected the original application. Because the Krim: Of course. Cancer is not one disease; you couldn't prolong their lives. A fect of the national cancer program is that idea was very original it's hard to believe that it is a hundred diseases. Even cancer cells it very it coincidence. from the same kind of tissue have different those in charge of any program find was a What about the status of women in properties from individual to individual. Al- difficult to cut off funding for things not proven Omni:

it changed since you most every cancer patient has his own indi- useful. Each of these programs generates a science? How has started out? vidual variety of the disease. Even growth, constituency of people who develop exper- Switzerland, so- for the program Krim: When I was starting in which is supposed to be the common de- tise and become advocates

living it. it's ciety generally thought women going into nominator in cancer, is controlled by differ- because they make a at And very were forsaking their normal way of ent mechanisms. The breakdown in anyone difficult to cut them out. science particularly the fed- life, that they were rare exceptions, a little of these mechanisms can lead to the uncon- Omni: Should society— sci- bizarre. People used to think female scien- trolled growth that we call cancer. eral government— contribute more to 7 tists were either destined to become spin- Omni: How will cancer be treated ence than it does? sters or that they were amateurs, spoiled girls wasting our time. We were given a very hard

time. Today it's quite different. Many women Buy Selchow & Righter's going into science believe that they can make a career and still have a family life.

Back then I had serious doubts that I could Trivial Pursuit do both. Those doubts still persist. I often

anything I do, that think that I am not good at neither my work nor the care ot my family is

from a toy store being done properly. I have an almost con- stant feeling of guilt. Male colleagues don't

understand it. Even my husband doesn't. He that's always has been very good about letting me work, but he thinks that because he doesn't com- plain, there's no problem. You see? But there

pursuing excellence. is: The problem is that I feel guilty, I have not come across many overtly discriminatory When you shop with us, we'll give you attitudes in male scientists. The wrong atti-

I service, good prices, o good selection, tude is in me: I suffer from insecurity, and and a convenient location in shop- think. most women do. ping malls across the country Omni: Do you think there are advantages to When you're looking for being a female scientist? Krim: In a way, yes. There are certain things Trivial Pursuit?' that women are (or were) taught by tradi- come to the j»j tion—knitting, embroidering, cooking, tak- toy store «Rr ing care of babies—that are very good where taking training for science. We have nimble fingers; core of you is we are good at delicate work. We are atten- really o big tive, conscientious, pay attention to detail. thing. Our aesthetic sense is better developed. All this helps, I'm convinced. In today's system there is less f of science, I think, at the top difference between men and women be- krWsee cause those of both sexes who are different TOY STORES have already been eliminated. At the top all have learned to play the same game. And it is a bit of a con gamelDQ O'Keefe AND THE CASE OF THE GREAT FALLS

Or, the lengths to which a man will go in the saloons of Canada they are 50 But here is an American obsessed with to quench a thirst inspired by the possessive of O'Keefe they don't Sike one idea: getting enough of O'Keefe's singular taste of the true Canadian. to see it travel very far from home. True Canadian taste back home with him.

Steadfast in his mission, he plotted, And none too soon! his plan was tie entrusted his body and his booty to he planned, he schemed. Me stashed discovered, his treasured find was in a leaky barrel, fie and his precious his prize and prepared for Right. jeopardy. There was no time to lose. O'Keefe were on their perilous way.

Me would soon be beyond the reach of Me had eluded the Mounties, but his hot only was his journey's end in sight,

those who would stop him: free to enjoy flight was turning to fright, fie faced but perhaps the end of it all. "Oh no," the clean Canadian flavor of O'Keefe. new dangers with nowhere to turn. he cried, "it can't end like this!"

Would he survive, safe and sound as Me did! Putting the single surviving And there is. Because O'Keefe, the ever? Even more, would he ever again bottle of O'Keefe to his lips, he thought 5aloon Beer of Canada, is now available c".' -,.-, mjoynninu IheIhp sincjuidr«-,:>v\ . m tasteI. nf fYKeoFe? "TJ-iaro m. ,cti,n ^-.^: — ...— ." :_ _ . ..^i.. . a _. ..u. _ . i r- of O'Keefe? "There must be an easier way." in many of the best places in the U.5. O'Keefe* THE SALOOH BEER OF CANADA. O'Keefe Ale. Imported by Century Importers, Baltimore, Maryland . "

taking just one person into space on the dol- shuttle is going to be about one million lars." Swartz believes. "Even at that, we ex- pect that three hundred people per year will want to make the ttfp. But we want to take thousands of people into space each year. For that, eventually we will have to get the price down to fifty thousand dollars." The other obstacle to space tourism is NASA. According to Peter Eaton, NASAs di- rector of policy and plans for commercial development, a firm called Orbital Adven- tures, of Bellevue. Washington, has already applied to carry tourists in a passenger module. The firm was rejected and appears to have abandoned the project. "They wanted to fly large numbers of peo- ESPIONAGE ple on many shuttle missions each year," Eaton explains. "The numbers have to be high to hold the price down. Unfortunately, if you have four orbiters and project your traffic make Washington and rate into the next decade, you cannot that long-term commitment and still meet Moscow other responsibilities." Those other responsibilities would in- and Havana devising escape procedures for PARADISE London clude IX feasible to re- East versus West emergency situations. It's crew safely, but plans for An island paradise that offers move a small evacuating a number of untrained passen- Jr\ you total relaxation plus the The Third World War gers have not been worked out. thrill of discovery. Stroll Sabotage and to is that tourism would "What it boils down fishing for pristine beaches. Go concludes. "We Infiltration not be our top priority," Eaton the big ones. Sun yourself by our have to meet ihe needs of national security, scuba in waters renowned pool or Crap shoots and science, and commercial projects that are tropical for the splendor of their Double-dealing leveraging jobs and high-technology indus- fish. On Forbes Magazine's tries of the future. All these things have higher Laucala Island, all the choices Missions and Escapes priorities than such public-affairs-type activ- are yours. ities as tourism." Ciphers and Satellites Yet the folks at Society Expeditions are fUST FOR A FEW . . BUT undaunted. "In the long run, we would like ' Fiji Spies and Moles Forbes loves its private to buy two shuttles of our own." Swartz says. island, and we think you will, too. Traitors and Heros "We might even have our own launch pad. So we've put out the welcome We hope for one launch per week. Fast-paced, Subtle "We mat, but only for a few at a time. And the shuttles need not be NASAs. to several people who We'll take up to 12 guests, for 7 Sometimes brutally have already talked have designed space vehicles," Swartz nights and 8 days. Cost is $1,650 adds. "We believe that we will be able to raise per person, which includes 4 blunt the seed capital necessary for a private days of tropical fishing plus all Past, Present and passenger vehicle." Although he can give lodging and a round-trip meals, no details, a cleverly designed launcher, he and Nadi Future flight between Laucala believes, could be less costly ihan the Rock- International Airport (on the Fact and Fiction well passenger module. mainislandi. It's the "in" place to Despite the protests and reservations of proba- go, away from the cold, the traf- the people at NASA, the agency will take large groups to space. fic, the noise, the hassle. Service bly find a way to Spacetime's Steve Durst believes it will. with a smile and no tipping. At least "I have a missionary's conviction thai the For information please write: espionage shuttle should and will be used for passen- Douglas, Forbes Magazine, Noel gers as a prime function," he says. "That's York, 10011 60 Fifth Ave., New NY the one area that nobody can compete with.

or call 212/620-2461. Ariane competes with it for putting satellites For a one year subscription [6 Issues) oui, and so do expendable launch vehicles. send your check/money order, The Russians and the Chinese are in the payable to "Leo 1 1 Publications, Ltd," market now, but nobody can take people up for -315 in U.S. funds [S17 in Canada, the way we can. S20 foreign) to: ESPIONAGE Magazine, "There are one hundred million Ameri- Department 50, POB 9874, Wilmington, who know that it's our shuttle," he adds, DE 19899. cans "and they want to go."DO PHEfUDnJlEnJM

image rendered by .

Victoria, British Columbia. "Color is among the most important stimuli we have," Pittman says. "The stained-glass windows of

sunlight would pour u congregation, promoting feelings w. u „ j and wonder." Pitlman's desire to use the purest possih'

painting, Pittman uses crystals to

and then manipulate the spectral colors in sunshine, refracting them directly onto

photographic plates. This light painting is part of a series Pittman made in the rarefied atmosphere atop Hawaii's 13,796-foot- high Mauna Kea volcano, the site of four vatories. There, far from

"communicate an experience of energy." OO In search of the perfect pun

By Scot Morris

Hanging is too good lor a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted. —Fred Allen

When someone asked Henry Erskine if the pun is the lowest form of wit, he replied,

"It is, and- therefore the foundation of all wit." Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in a lecture on Shakespeare, said thai punning "may be the lowest, but at all events is the most harmless kind of wit, because, it never excites envy." The- Cliche is that puns are an- inferior f0fm form of wit because, they rely merely on an accideni of language father than on a creative play'with ideas, Puns-depend on -=— "5 i sound. They capitalize on the fact that iJ™ t two distinct words have identical or similar pronunciations. The punster notices this and draws the two-meanings together in one utterance. Puns remind you thai words are one thing, and things are another: Iflro "The fact that people and trees and elephants and cars all have trunks just proves thai there are more things than there are words." > " for the perfect pun But there are champions of punning. 'Ciaanhness h; Godliness, by Doug Webb. Enter Competition #38 Edgar Allan Poe said, "Of puns it has been interchangeably, but some said that those who most dislike them are multiple meanings into few words can often used York purists make distinctions. Patrick Hughes Ihose who are least able io utter them." The bring out' classic examples. The New and Paul Hammond, in Upon the Pun, sentiment is shared by Oscar Levant; 'A Times ran an article on the people who performance iake great pains to draw the line. A pun, pun is Ihe lowest form of humor—when you use stopwatches to record track-and-field athletes and gave it ihey say, rests on two different words don't think of il first." times of sound. When James Boswell suggested that this headline: these are the souls that or phrases thai have ihe same Samuel Johnson disliked puns because he time men's tries. The New York Daily News A few examples; Follow the Lieder. pedeslrians battling winter Oedipus Wrecks. The excitement at the- couldn't make them, Johnson replied, "If I ran a picture of in the cily appended this caption: circus is in tents. Toast: "Here's cham- were punished for every pun I shed, there and pagne io our real, friends and real pain to would not be left a puny shed of my punnish MANY ARE COLD-BU.T FEW ARE FROZEN. The friends." Martina Navratilova's head." Oliver Wendell Holmes was a same paper once ran a classic headline over our sham Unjted States: "shamefaced relapser," according to Walter a photo' of Mayor Ed Koch and Governor request on defecting to the in cache Czechs?" Redfern in Puns. On the one. hand Holmes Hugh Carey, who had spent ihe weekend "Do you Hughes and Hammond, made puns (as a physician he -once said that meetings discussing how to raise, funds According to is sentences, built on two he was grateful for small fevers]; on the for the New York City transit system, Early the pun two happen to sound alike. When it other hand he was outspoken in criticizing Monday morning they held a news. confer- words that writer must decide them. "People that make puns are like ence to announce the "rejuvenation" of appears in print the spell out and which to wanion boys, that put coppers on the railroad the transit system. The News writer must which of the two to When the two pronunciations tracks. They amuse themselves and other have though! the situation was too good to leave implied. in aren't exactly alike but just children, but their little trick may upsel a be true. The headline over the photo: sick- question call if paronomasia. freight train of conversation for the sake of transits GLORIOUS MONDAY. similar, some authors a Chili today, hot a battered witticism." Mexican weather report: FINE POINTS Newspaper headline writers are notorious tamale. Birth of a Notion. There is a vas children. punsiers. The need for a quick, catchy A pun. A play on words. A double deferens between children and no in basement of the DuPont Plaza summary of a story and for collapsing. entendre. A paronomasia. The terms are A bar the 128 OMNI — — .

Hotel, in Miami, was reportedly called Latin a name. Atthe.elbowendofth'is bone call tha;onooi I he best puns ever, a clean Chez. When. 'Armageddon sick of it." said is theulnar nerve, which, when bumped, "triple" with three dilterent words.

. A.'Heinlein. Robert sends.a peculiar twinge o- lic.khng pa^n up Along these lines, there

stole It dog came by and the show. What's hat. was so named, according lo the Perelman later told a fnei'O tha: "il .vas

worse than raining cats and dogs? Hailing Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, because a case-of the tail dogging :he wag." [axis. An architect. in prison complained it has no nap. But ro- the bos; pun over we would have that the walls were- not built to scale. The play to cite the story of Focus Ranch Three .CRITICS' CHOICES on words- works equally-well in speech or brothers started a cattle ranch in Texas but '- in print; the pun depends on sound-. is ; 'What the best pun. ever? As you might couldn't di.-:, is; /-M :ah it They cabled Finally, the. double entendre is said to be expect-, authorities don't agree. Arl Moger. their father tor an idea and he suggested play words,- a on one meaning of which author .of The Complete Pun Book, says his Foe i bo ethe ays is lewd; Did you hear about the sleepy bride own' favorite pun'is a Burma Shave sign meet. Both Isaac Asimov and the editor

who couldn't stay awake lor- a second? . he. saw along a roadside in about 1953: of Word Ways. A Ross Eckler, called this

You need leather . balls to play rugby. PEDRO 'JVALKf.D— RACK HOVE. DY GOLLY HI!: their- favorite pun of ail time. Asked to pick a of is One aspect. the distinction that a BRISTLY CHIN -WAS HOT TO- MOLLY. second- favorite. Asimov chose this; In a play is often on words translatable from one Wil lard- Espy, author of-An Almanac of conversato' ", :<.\ m- uabitanre of ancient language to another, whereas a pun usually Words at Play and many other books on Media in Petsia uouigeS. Kaufman is not. A 'Frenchman boasted: he could wordplay, told us that his favorite pun was reportedly opined, "One man's' Medeis- come up with an instant pun on any subject. one Richard Hugr He another man's Person " When someone Someone proposed- the king. He replied: .described a cat that was so smart it first asked "A.'O voi, shah"" Kaufman replied. "The king is not a subject." The wit comes ate cheese and then breathed down mouse "Sultanly!" through _ as well in translation to English. holes'—with baited breath. COMPETITION #38: PUN FUN. Cicero' said of a farmer who had plowedup John O-osb-e. editor ot (fit: Pundit, a the 'field where his father was buried, "This mo; Can anyone beat Focus Ranch? We're is truly to cultivate a father's memory." Here puns in the. media (30 Standish Avenue, setting Inal Omi): readers Have some

' the translation from-Latin to English works Toronto, Qnt., M4W3B1), says his favorite or gina; ideas (or puns olays on words, or quite well. is the story of the iirst Queen Elizabeth, any other forma ot wo-rcotsy oiscussed

" These line distinctions are not widely on a state visit to London. Greeted- by'the. earlier We're lookng : or the perfect pun, used. For most'purposes ' — ours included Lord Mayor with "Hail to the Queen." she and we H award an Lmc-'son Video cassette the term' pun is used- in the wider sense glared at him and supposedly said, "How Reco'der iVhS to-mat) to the grand prize- is to and meant include Hughes and dare you hail while lam reigning." winner and $25 each to nine runnors- Hammond's play on words. William Safire, author of 'the "On. Lan- up. A! ten will gel one-year Omni subscrip- In spite of Its critics the pun has a distin- guage" column in The New YorkTimes tions. We're not looking for joke punch guished history. The Catholic Church is Magazine, reported a story of people who lines (Rudolph the Red knows rain. Gear: founded on- a pun. Jesus punned in Matthew were trying to remove spilled oil from Pardon tb, Roy. is that the cat that chewed 8,-18. when he said, "Thou art Peter, and seagulls.- The conservationists claimed that your new shoos";. And we're not looking

upon this roCk I will build my church." they lelt no tern unstoned. Frankly, we for new entries n Owni's Fractured Diction- In Greek, perras.is the name for Peter and don't get it, but Safire thought this was ary (alimony bounty on the mutiny;- drive- also for T rock (it's the root of petrify—to among the best of recent puns. Tnis on:'y in theater: wall to wai: cui-potting) hose turn to stone). When- General Sir Charles goes to show how subjective a pundit's are comnolilions lor another :irne. Wha- we Napier defeated Indian' the province of opinion is. For our money we prefer this, want is more bullion! wordolay of the :ype Sind'in 1843, he sent to London a message reported by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool- exemplified above. Sonc one entry -only,

ot one Latin word Peccavi. The .. members Ald Acid Test, an- account of the drugged- please, on a oos'.card (ora card in an of the. foreign office classically — educated out commune headed by Ken Kesey. At envelope), to Omni Competition #38, 1965 all— understood exactly what he meant: the end of the drive- leading from the Broadway, New Yo>K NY 10023-6965 "I have sinned..'". commune to the main road, attached to a postmarked by December 15. 1935. .All Some punshave entered the language. tree by the intersection there was this entries become -ho property of Omni; none

. The upper arm bone is called- the humerus, sign: vo left "urn unstoned. We'd have to will be returned. DO .

eornpleie bust, this story has No* sr.ai the space si-Lit: es O.XumO/a and rneni was a f footnote. NASA estimates that Challenge; are blasting o i arc: returning ar^ interesting

'.: - 1 1 Tupperware to Earth with son-e regularity: ire punl'c ai f until the awareness of and mte'est in. the space container should remain in orbit

1 ;; gone on record ' year 2016. Tuppe'ware has grogi am has ones lain I'. i ..<;

; ;:', : -hei to NASA ai Ki he country that the ! : n assure . oi e no; he pntainer hftoft'sa.na it 'ied ' ' .the astronauts will still be fresh : ." i . by. one :v .. :: Ew of cii'ders ;:•" Deai Abby arc the obituaries. wtu-m it is bornec ;o e:-' 1 .:: For these ei us whoso inie-ess in the EXPERIMENT TOYS 'H MAS-

: .1 I" (! ! .; I .! i I.':!!" I" O 'I'M compiled the foiiowing calcn-up puce !o .Operation toys 'fl' NASA is a prime example J : . , : obiec; tne experiment was :c _c soneo- the . !.. c: > The o experiments -hat have been conducted [rate various aspects ot w... :'nt e by OLff astronauts, bv li:ming astronauts acho-HCS;': EXPERIMENT PA6-"200. Medlca: o- playing with, a number of ci-ferer: .::-.=

.-.:" : researchers have iorig :hocri;:ed that exiting The carter part ol tne excenme'.i without .hitch. Film of the astronauts h< ' coLr'i ao o: isny sne oil a in :he-7er;r-g oe'^'-free waking the ceg" ana "going arcunc with greater purity : :/• : en-, tne vvoild' with tneir vo-yos aopeared a

to I: the carets- ;st this thee: y tne networks was ahc

i i by attempting iu-rna""iu-acti.,reona khooi we.it; shut of';' i i s slaio :•< '. ,. : . ,i in , I toe pa nailer ir.

fheexpsi the other two :!. i !

i-'v. -oco'Siing to me sfvp's teg i argurnen; LAST Friday night, at 11:08 EST Ground -'! i ; i . .:/. i' ;i ! Control's irsl indicat en that sorneihrng v/as . i i

.'.-i-ei- andesi on lyLarvr, amiss earner at 3:48 a '.' .wvhe.n monitoring one players pece

,; 1 . i 1 n! iyei pica .1'. 'oci oi . UUDRD :. '.:; lor the black k.ng's i hotel renl I id |OR: ItSid : :.:!. ): ii! s-a-qe '.By John Ficarra unauthorized spacewaik. Wtien asked to .- wivon nad lipateo c^er a oxo:a:i- his actons, he reo ieo: the board " :., " out 'rear'wf'lo. at me oi^ess game an : mThe object of this shoes . , . beer. He man passed -:'o_''-c-: began t>e!wcen lie othe' two experiment was simple: to Repeated aremots to con-fact ins remaining crew aooard tne snuii-e provec as: y?.-j[-j about wnetherv.hTe oou.'d use determine the exact buttle' com- a o£- '.v..o or jail npEE card to move the threatened to sound that a Tupperware munications ocee:- out o- checfr. Brack of the Beatles' song 'Helter S^eiie- counter with the move "Knight takes Little container makes when .-. ;>.. i, emanating ; cib-ei i Scottte Dog. Checkmate!" -burped In an atmosphere- somewhere onbosfc the soaceerah. Finally, Mission Control had to intervene. thetr ,'. At 4:32 a v EST. the ri:ghf director at and prefer the astronauts to put away : free environment 5 . declared the a draw. NASA o'dced ii e experiment hailed and toys. Houston games tne space sh.ullie returned fc Earth oncer although hard feelings lingered for the- remote yu-canoe Pom ground centre- remaining orbits. Adiouch 'he Percooan'cxoeumeni EXPERIMENT M~U H .as

dismissed as 'mcompieie.' PA6--1?00 what mis program *s all about. ' Mlsson

, , , , first servicing a broken ' lli ' MTV ma-^eo tne o' wa . no; n.;' its o'lt: Unco ag, n the

' , '!' :..i ' television sa'eiiifc in outer space 'i! o 'i : astronauts trained in TV satellite i i w sb.eto recalcuia , Itahi o ~wo ![ :, and instead of iouchng down at Edward? A !!; ! 'i

: '!:.. i .Force Base, tacshuttie anoed dime::-,- at ,: !u i.ni rr thoy

1 ' > ' ;; tne Betty t-erd Henabiiiiaiion Comer :n tap.. as ! no irs -no tne

1 ' Bui. ruck prepared to- ' li oroo'e-n-. no They I 'I ar'.c b'ing EXPERIMENT 92WKTU i'he object of :'c ow standard \ASA proceoure U'l this experiment, one oi the li-s: to be n ,| .: it; , :e 03' underwritten commercially, was simple: to But :r:e commaneer o; tne missoin hac

i: Ordering the astronauts io : : ' : two :. anotner idea. I, : i- . .h.Tr l 'I shutt.e's ware container -riaKos when it is b jj fisocl in giand" back, he activated the an atmosphero-ttee environment remote control arm and using its precise Although the p-ocedure was meticulously controls ssued wtra nan

: ret described as a snarp tnwack' to "ho

: parties or- Earti:. NASAaom.ts m --in 0"m side or- the mult:m:: :on-doi:ar satellite, it

r.i '..:,>.": : i. : i air. ., .: i i :. .o ca i im ex pen me to io awry. When the astronanr tra nod to oo the nad a single p'oolern smoe Once again

' i ,i.;.!i opened th mi.. iy ocors science lriurr.phs.DO the Tupperware oonlamor s 'poed oat ol his hands and dnlled oil nto space Evenuial:y

it sottied into a siov; oruii around Earth Vyhiie the bu r Dlng aspect o' the exoe/;-