7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

1/87

1FUTUREART:

LASERS, SKYSCULPTURES,AND-

CYBERFORMSCOMPUTERIAS ENEMY

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

2/87

Cover art for this month's Omni/s a painting by internationallyfamous Gervasio Gatlardo,noted foi his style of extremerealism coupled with a puckishsense ofhumor Gallaido'sexquisite paintings haveedoine-d the covs.-s-of countlessworks of fantasy.4 OMNI

onnruiEDITOR & DESIGN DIRECTOR: BOBGUCCIONEEXECUTIVE EDITOR: BEN BOVAARl D'RFCTOR. "RANK DEVINOMA f-JA:.il.'-.G EDI OR J. A.XDERSON DORMANFICTION EDITOR RGBI-R- SHECKLEYEUROPEAN EDITOR: DR. BERNARD DIXONDIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING: BEVFR : :--' VvARDALIi:xrC..nv; ,:> :-RE'-? ! !. !--i-ii TiWi-i I- P: ! M- fJASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: KATHYASSOCIATE PUBLISHER (INT'L] KEETONFRANCO ROSSELLINI

AGEONTENTS PFIRST WORD Opinion Frank Herbert 6COMMUNICATIONS CiirrssDonden.ee 10FORUM DialogueEARTH Environment K.neih Bro.nr 16LIFE Biomsdicirie Bernard Dixon

2224303235

SPACE Astronomy G. HanyStineFILM/BOOKS The ArtsPEOPLE Names and Faces DiokTeresiUFO UPDATE Report Harry LebelsonCONTINUUM Data BankSTAR POWER Article Jonathan V. PostGIANT ON THE BEACH Fiction John Keefauver 48

52CYBERFORMS Article David Ly'tlelon-SmithTHE LAST JERRY FAGIN SHOW Fiction John Morressy 58NEW SUN Pictorial MiketHdelhart 2WHY DOLPHINS DON'T BITE Ration Theodore Sturgeon

76BO

JAMES RANDI InMw Scot MorrisLAW GIVER PictorialBEYOND EDEN Article Ray Bradbury 88THREE FUTURES Article Robert Melons 92PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST Competition 32

3639

INNOVATIONS New ProductsSTARS Comment Mark R. Chartrand IIIANCIENT SEASHELL Phenomena Robert E. Pelham 42GAMES Diversions Scof MorrisLAST WORD Opinion Cynthia Darnell

il. (212)593-3301. PCi'l-

ri U.S.. A:0: $J.'5i'Stor-arrrn-gsaea:.

;. rf CmrNr-.-vniii,

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

3/87

Before- long it will be at Jeast-a /flatter'of;.'.self-defense to have-your

i :own .computer:. ^ ;,..' youare already being-taken advantage of.by-peoplewho use computei

ant fact aboutfrfatthT

'

>eople late-- rapidly... We want-you'toH'htion on it. .Thai single fact contains trie/;-guehl thai can take the Sting out of your?tirechoe*.. :: .We have said'that people with >;rrrpuiurs arc taking advantage of"you:."are is nod.oubi that your historical rightsoiivecy find freedom nave beer"; vloi-iiod.business fthd government through- ." .'ir use of computers.

i ibe t your life,-'- .' :

.insighi. in -factJhe very nature of this ..-

;.growih-saysthar.gii controls will lag f;-sr. behind computer develop--? ::s. Anyattempt to ban iherri wili only'drive '^computers URdergrcund. -Never !dse :.s.kof the fact thai computers .-'crunch time-':;'!.' :';. '! ..:.,''. .. i ! i

i

keep-up wiinthem, Trre'person'withcomputer can'dartce around you .while you read as i ! you were embeddedinrn..:l; i !.;'ir:.'..1

What can vou do?Get your own computer Learn how tou-Pitlfyoudont iothr the Bill d: /Rightsis'd rh s will ghewayol!he;doc(o:Cq. -:

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

4/87

DrUlRJIBU!

o you know that black holes maysomeday serve as a communi-cations link to the far reaches of

the universe or become launch-pads to boost planet-sized payloads lonearly the speed of light? These and otherintriguing uses are examined in "StarPower for Supersocieties" (page 44), byJonathan V. Post, author of "CyberneticWar"(May1979).Posttakesusonanexciting journey to the very surface of ablack hole to explore the methods bywhich we might harness this powerhouseof theuniverse. As senior engineer insoftware technology for Boeing AerospaceCompany Post is a scientist, author, andeditor who believes "black holes areimportant to any advanced interstellarcivilization." Post writes. "It is possible thatour first evidence of alien life will comefrom the observation of black holes."Post has graduate degrees inmathematics, computer science, andEnglish literature.Science-fiction great Ray Bradburytakes a philosophical view of the spaceshuttle in "Beyond Eden" (page 88). Adescendant ct Lnglish settlers who landedin America in 1630, Bradbury was a giftedchild with a penchant for fantasy andhorror magazines. His classic anthologyThe Martian Chronicles earned him thereputation of being a "brilliant discovery inthe science-fiction field" during the early1950s. Though literary critics still doubtedBradbury's talents, their qualms were sconallayed by the release of Fahrenheit 451

(1953), a frighle-'iirg account of anantiutopian world where the.written wordwas outlawed. A movie based on this novelwas released in 1966 by director FrancoisTruffaut, with less-than-spectacularsuccess. Bradbury's more recent workshave consisted of fantasy novels andtheater and film productions. The Beastfrom 20,000 Fathoms, a 1953 Warner Bros.film, was adapted from his short story "TheFoghorn." A mixture of science fiction,fantasy, and striking flights of imaginationhighlights Bradbury's more popular works,including The illustrated iv!an(-\95-\), TheGolden Apples of the Sun (1953), and/Sing the Body Electric (1969),

Joining Bradbury this month is anothergiant of science fiction , Arthur C. Clarke ,known as the father of the satellite and theseer of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Clarke'sfiction reflects his abiding interest in spacetravel and his belief thai man's destiny liesin the stars. Clarke's memorable novelsinclude The Sands of Mars (1953), Againstthe Fall of Night (1 953), and The Fall ofMoondust (1969). his observations in "LawGiver" (page 80) are introduced byRobert Sheckley. The brilliant paintings ofGervasio Gaila/do ;re provded by Jeffand Frank Lavaty.John Morressy ("The Last Jerry Fagin

Show, " page 58) and John Keefauver("Giant on the Beach," page 48) arerepresented among this month's fiction.Omni senior editor Scot Mom'sinterviewsJames Randi, theater andtelevision personality and master magi-

cian. Randi discusses 'ocks cha; lah fro>the sky, ESR and dowsing. See page 76.

Art born of technology is the subject q"Cyberforms" (page 52). It's a look at hothe tools of technology wires, TVscreens, lasers, and computer termi-nals are molded by the artist's handsexpress the same creative urges as painand stone. Author David Lyttieton-Smithexplains, "Art and technology have averclose connection. Great artists and greatscientists share many ol the samequalities: tenacity, courage, andimagination." A painter by profession,Lyttleton-Smith was a university artteacher in Miami, Florida, for ten years. Iwas there he first learned about thewonders of techno-art and decided toinvestigate it for Omni. "What is the newart? It's a world in which art andtechnology become indistinguishable."Lyttleton-Smith asserts.Robert Malone , former dean of Pratt

Institute, provides a fascinating essay yowon't want to miss. It's entitled "ThreeFutures" (page 92). Malone, author of TheRobot Book (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,1978) and Rocketship (Harper and Row,1977), was editor ol Industrial Designmagazine for over 20 years. Responsiblefor many photcgraph'c exnib'tions, he habeen deeply involved in the visual arts,particularly science-fiction illustrationFrank Herbert , author of the science-

fiction classic Dune, provides a valuablelesson in "getting to know your homecomputer" in First Word (page6).DQ

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

5/87

cDnnruiuaiicMTiarus

lk 86',-Zagreb, Yugos

Feinberg PhenomenonI am writing in regard to an item in theContinuum section, "A Real Feinberg"[January 19801. As any Star Trek fanknows, a feinberg is not a what; a feinbergis a who, specifically Irving Feinberg.Hence, the capital F.

Irving Feinberg was the property masteron Star Trek. A property master buys orrents whatever is needed for a parlicularshow and stores these items uniil they areneeded on the set.The tiny saltshakerlike device used by

Dr. McCoy was one ot a group offuturistic- looxmc: salts-iakers acquired byFeinberg, all of which looked so futuristicthat it was felt that no one in the audiencewould recognize them as saltshakers.They were eventually designated for otheruses and were kept in Dr. McCoy'smedikit. These and other ready-madedevices became known on the set as

. Feinbergers. Devices not already madewere designed and made by Jim Rugg,and ihey became known, of course, asRuggisms.

Shirley A. SunadaMonterey Park, Calif.

Innocence Through IgnoranceAs pointed out in "Computer Threat"LContinuum, December 1979], despite allthe plugs, switches, knobs, and buttons of"higher education," we have adequateproof that the privilege to remain ignorantis man's prime birthright and his only realfreedom, which can never be taken fromhim by any superior force, not even byComputer Omnipotent! Every majorbreakthrough he effects eventually breaksup and leaves man standing as theperpetual bubble blower of the universe.

Rochelle V ckevVista, Calif,

The Human ApeEugene Linden's excellent piece onlanguage-using chimpanzees and gorillas["Talk to the Animals," January 1980]neglected to deal with an important issue:the legal status and rights of higher apes,which iunction more or less as humans.

In my novel Eden II, written mostly in

1972 and suggested by the work of Allenand Beatrice Gardner, I tried to make thepoint fhat the legal concept of "person" inAmerican law should logically coverlanguage-using simians. Surely, Washoeand Koko have shown thai they haveacquired a degree of "humanity" at leastequal to that of many millions of youngchildren. Ergo, the law should accordthem much the same rights as it grants tohuman children. Agreement on thepersonhood of chimpanzees and gorillascould lead to their protection fromextinction and to the developmentof thesimian communities that Linden says Dr.Roger Fouts and Penny Patterson havespoken of. Edd Doerr

Silver Spring. Md.Look EarthwardI suspect that Ben Bova's contention that"the overpowering grandeur of a giantrocket climbing into the sky on billowingtongues of flame is the closest to areligious experience many of us have evercome" [First Word, January 1980] is anaccurate assessment of reality. If it is, I feeldeeply for those who wish to put theirentire hope for fhe future on line with amillion-to-one shot into a distant, emptyspace.

Mr. Bova offers some interesting andhelpful suggestions io boost the spaceprogram, but I sense an attitude that is nodifferent from the one that created theneed for us to look to space in thefirstplace: the idea that all we have to do is todrive on toward the unconquered, everexpanding the influence of man. Let'scomplete our efforts to build a sustainablelife here on Earth before we take on therisks thai Bova advocates.There is hope . . . but the challenge has

just begun.David Langford SmithPanama City, Fia

Time and Time Again"Time is just nature's way of keepingeverything from happening at once" wonYolanda Thomas, of Flagstaff, Arizona, anHonorable Mention in your recent Graffiti

2 ON PAGE 138

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

6/87

DIALOGUE

FORunnIn which the readers, editors, andcorrespondents discuss topics arising outof Omni and theories and speculation olgeneral interest are brought iorih. Theviews published are not necessarily thoseof the editors. Letters for publicationshould be mailed to Omni Forum, OmniMagazine, 909 Third Avenue. New York,NY 10022.Gorilla RightsThe research reported in your article "Talkto the Animals" [January 1980] hasdisturbing moral and legal implications.Koko the talking gorilla has a 600-wordvocabulary and an I.Q. well within therange of average human intelligence. Ahuman child with the same capacities hasfundamental rights that are protected bylaw These rights are derived from thechild's rationality. Koko shares theserights, for she shares the rationality that istheir ground. Shouldn't her rights beprotected by law as well?Killing Koko is the moral equivalent ofkilling a five-year-old human child, yet itwould be legal for Koko's keepers tosacrifice Koko in order to dissect herbrain. Nothing prevents them from sellingKoko when she is no longer useful to them.Koko ought to be able to own property,to sue in court for damages, lo beprotected by criminal law. Perhaps thecourts ought to appoint a guardian toprotect Koko's interests and to makecertain that she has a say in whatbecomes of her. If her mental developmentcontinues to keep pace with her age, Kokomay one day want to vote, to marry, andpossibly to worship in the church of herchoice. If so, it would be irrational to denyKoko her civil rights solely because shelacks a human body.Koko asserts that she is a gorilla, not ahuman being. But this very assertiondemonstrates that, morally and legally,there is far less difference than we thought.

Professor Jim StoneDenver, Colo.

Dome HomesI am very interested in the dome-homeconcept [Continuum, September 1979]14 OMNI

and would like to get in touch with theNADHM, in Chicago, or any equivalent inGreat Britain. I have doubls as to whetherplanning permission for a dome would orcould be obtained in this country. TheBritish councils [couniy governing bodies]tend to be very conservative, and adome might not be welcomed in themarket town of Stafford. Gail HydeMoss Pit, Stafford, EnglandStuart Diamond replies: You are one o!about two dozen people who sent lettersasking for further information on geodesicdomes. The National Association of DomeHome Manufacturers is located at 2506Grosse Pointe Road, Evanston, IL 60201.Its phone number is 312-475-7530.Another source that might be of use isSpace Structures International, located at

155 Dupont Street, Plainview, NY 1 1803(telephone: 516-938-0545). It usually doescommercial domes. For residentialdomes, an established firm with a goodreputation is Monterey Domes, P.O. Box55116-W, Riverside. CA 92517 (telephone:714-684-2601).

You also say that the "conservative"English planning commissions might notapprove geodesic homes because of theirdifferent designs. I might counter bypointing out that geodesic domes havetwo traits "conservative" planners usuallylike: reasonable cost and efficiency.

Death on the RangeIn response to Harry Lebelson's article"Death on the Range" [UFO Update,January 1980], I would like to pose ahypothetical explanation for the livestockmutilation-deaths.Suppose that a government "agency"

(such as the miliiary) wanted to monitorthe long-term environmental impact ofsome of its research activities Nevadanuclear explosions or chemical warfareexperiments in Utah, for example. Thiswould be best approached by collectingand examining specimens of soil, water,and plant and animal life from a widearea surrounding the test site. Livestockwould be of particular interest, becausemany farm animals serve as food.

However, the "agency" would not wantto encourage public questioning bypurchasing the animals openly. Thereforea plan is devised; Animals are spot-lighted at night by men using unmarkedhelicopters in secluded areas and aretranquillzed. Specimens of fluids andtissues are then obtained, later to betested for the environmental contaminant.Blood, cerebrospinal fluid, muscle, andvital organs would be appropriatespecimens to examine for the con-taminant. The carcass is then airliftedon a tether and dropped at a spot severalmiles from the site of evisceration.The military is a large, highly organized,disciplined, and well-financed groupthat is notoriously secretive about itsresearch activities especially those thatmight stimulate adverse publicity.Certainly, the military employs expertveterinary surgeons who could perlormthe "mutilations." A few collecting teams ihelicopters could easily cover a very largearea in a relatively short period.The seemingly bizarre circumstancessurrounding the mutilations have led to aclimate of alarm and fear among someindividuals, and the usual rumors ofsupernatural or alien intervention haveensued. This may be exactly what isdesired by the "agency": a diversion ofattention from the facts. It is extreme tosuggest that supranormal forces are atwork in the livestock mutilations when thCONTINUED ON PAGE 134

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

7/87

VELAS VISION

By Kenneth Brower

The old satellite was nearing theend of its career It had beenorbiting the earth tor nine years.A member of the Vela class, it had been

launched in 1970 to help monitor theatmospheric test-ban treaty of 1963. Bynow it had outlived all but two of its sisters.Five Velas had ceased functioning beforeit; the family was dying out.

Vela was a pretty satellite, multifaceted,like one of those silver balls that revolve toscatter flecks of light along the walls of adiscotheque. There was no party, though,out where Vela orbited. For nine years, inabsolute solitude, through the abysmalcold and the radiation storms of space, ithad made its endless rounds. Deserttravelers on high American plateaus,waking in their sleeping bags underspangled skies, had seen it pass fromhorizon to horizon, asteady anddependable beacon that refused tosputter out. The desert travelers had felttheir eyelids grow heavy and had fallenasleep again. Vela's own sensorswere lidless. The satellite did not blink-back. In Nepal, herdsmen had watched ittravel between Himalayan peaks, a newcelestial phenomenon racing over an oldcivilization. The yakherds had wonderedwhat that light was. In the Australian bush,wild dogs had howled up at it as it crossedthe southern constellations.On September 22, 1979, at 3 a.m. SouthAfrican lime, the satellite was watching aregion of southern ocean off the tip ofAfrica, a dark circle 4,800 kilometers indiameter when it saw a double flash. Theintensity patterns were typical of a nuclear.explosion. Vela and its sisters hadrecorded 41 such explosions before, and

.they had always been right inde-pendently corroborated. The only thingpeculiar about this blast, if indeed it was ablast, was its very small yield. No nation

,in the world would admit to having tested alittle bomb, or any other kind of explosivedevice, in the region.What did Vela'see that morning?In the months since the incident,

scientists have-been trying to figure it out.The Institute of Nuclear Science atWellington, New Zealand, reported finding16 OMNI

traces of radioactivity in rainwater twomonths later, which suggested thatsomeone had detonated a bomb in theSouthern Hemisphere. The trouble wasthai the Wellington scientisls afterwardwere unable to duplicate their results.

Vela was equipped with sensorsdesigned to detect the radiation and theelectromagnetic disturbances that follownuclear detonations, but Vela's sensorsfailed to record anything. Vela was left withonly a vision two bright pulses of light.Could the satellite have seen two lightningbolts, down near the black arc of theplanet's horizon? Or two meteors'7 Orsome other natural phenomenon thatcould mimic a nuclear blast? U.S.government scientists are investigatingthese possibilities, but they are puzzled.They point out that Vela's optical sensorshad been calibrated a week before theincident and were rechecked immediatelyafter it. The experts suspect a bomb. The

"S detect a nuclear explosion?

in which things didn'i go according to plaSuspicion fell immediately upon South

Africa. That least loved of nations was theclosest to the site of the flash. South Africpossessed the technological capability tset off such a blast.

While I watched several South Africandiplomats being interviewed on televisionI thought that there was something fishyabout their denials. An intuition like that isworthless as evidence, of course. Suchintuitions, unfortunately, are all theevidence we may ever have about theepisode. The Soulh Africans pointed outthat a Soviet submarine had beentraveling in the area. They suggested thatperhaps the USSR had tested a bombthere, or perhaps Ihe Chinese or theAmericans had. Maybe so. It could, forthat matter, have been almost anyone.The mystery of Vela's vision is its mosttroubling aspect. The small, two-stageflash seen by the satellite drew aninordinate amount of attention from thepublic and the press more attention thanjust another big test in Polynesia wouldhave, when the French were conductingtheir series there: more attention thanmerely another Chinese test at Lop Noror another underground test in Nevada.The world seemed to have sensed, in thevery anonymity of the blast, amomen-tousnessoutof proportion to the yield.The blast, if it was that, was momentous.The proliferation of nuclear weapons is thegreatest peril confronting life on thisplanet.

If SouthAfrica does not yet have thebomb and observers of these mattersthink it highly unlikely that it doesn'tthenit could soon have one. Through 1976,South Africa had received more than 50kilograms of enriched uranium from theUnited States. In some of that uranium,destined for the Safari reactor, the U-235had been enriched to 90 percent and waseasily convertible for use in weapons. Didall of it really go to the Safari reactor'7

India already has the bomb. Indianscientists assembled it from materials andknow-how borrowed from U.S. andCO.'.'1l.\UEDONPAGEt29

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

8/87

By Dr. Bernard Dixon

Thanks to smallpox vaccine, afeared and vile maladywaspurged from the planet about a

year ago. Today microbiologists are vyingwith one another to predict the nextvaccine that will have such a spectaculareffect on human well-being. Immunizationagainst measles, perhaps? Theoreticallythat disease could also be eradicated. Areally potent influenza shot? One formalaria? Or one tor the common cold?My guess is that a quite differentvaccine will make the headlines during the1980s. This decade will see theintroduction of a vaccine to combat what isprobably man's most common disease:tooth decay. The Western world is nowbeing ravaged by a massive epidemic ofdental caries, even among young children.Fluoridation and avoiding sticky candiescan help; however, inducing immunitywould be a tremendous advance.What is the basis of this prediction? Two

batches of caries vaccine already exist.They were prepared in London, at Guy'sHospital and at the Royal College ofSurgeons, and they have been stunningly

effective in preventing tooth decay inmonkeys. But unsolved technical andethical problems will have to beconfronted before the gap is bridgedbetween the lower animals and man.Despite much pain, discomfort, andanxiety, caries is not a dangerous disease;we must make sure that the vaccine is safebefore we use it in humans.Like smallpox or influenza, cariesdevelops because of infection. It iscaused by bacteria that colonize thesurface of teeth, thriving within whiteplaque, which adheres to the enamel.From experiments with both germ-free andinfected animals, we know that only twoconditions are necessary for decay tobegin. First, the food must contain sucroseor some other carbohydrate. Second, abacterium known as Streptococcusmutans must be present. By fermentingcarbohydrate, the bacterium produces anacid strong enough to erode enamel andbegin the process of decay.Armed with this intormation, we shouldbe within reach of a vaccine againstcaries. As with other microbes, it should

*te**'Z

Warning to dentists: A vaccine may soon eliminate cavities like the one above, magnified 100 times.

be possible to change S. mutans so thattriggers antibody production wheninjected but no longer causes disease.The only snag is that teeth seem to be"outside" the body, shielded fromantibodies present in the bloodstream.Over the past decade, however, we havefound that a fluid rich in antibodies seepthrough the crevices between teeth andgums. This discovery has greatly boostehopes that immunization can preventdecay. Indeed, early findings suggest thstrategy is highly feasible.

Professor Bertram Cohen and hiscolleagues at the Royal College ofSurgeons have raised irus monkeys on adiet rich in fermentable carbohydrateand injected them with a vaccine basedon S. mutans. The monkeys remain freedecay as much as nine years after beingtreated. At Guy's Hospital, ProfessorThomas Lehner and his team havereported equally promising results withrhesus monkeys. Because the structureand development of these animals' teethand their vulnerability to decay, are verylike those of human teeth, the prospectsfor success in man look excellent.

Until recently, one major hypotheticaldifficulty remained. As far as our immunesystem is concerned, some componentsof streptococci closi vn mole someparts of the human heart. That is whyrheumatic fever arises. Following a sorethroat caused by these bacteria,antibodies generated to repel the invadeoccasionally attack heart muscle insteadThe possibility that this might happen witS. mutans vaccine worries scientists,

Professor Cohen's group has nowdiscovered that the component ofS. mutans that reacts against heartmuscle is not needed for the vaccine towork. Efforts are being madeto purifyvaccine containing only those parts of thbacterium that confer protection and nonthat could do harm.The cost of caries in treatment, pain,

loss of teeth, and lost time in industry andeducation is incalculable. The prospectits prevention is one of the most welcomeand unexpected dividends of sciencefrom the Seventies.00

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

9/87

POWER ORBITER/G. Harry Stine

I f% e can totally eliminate the! . I lenergy crunch if we get busy%J *J in the 1980s and work theengineering bugs out of Dr. Peter Glaser'sSolar Power Satellite (SPS).The concept calls for large solar

collectors located 36,290 kilometersabove the earth's equator; ingeosynchronous orbit. Using photovoltaicor thermal converters, the SPS couldgenerate up to ten gigawatfs (10 billionwatts) of electricity from the constantsunlight of space. It then converts thissolar-generated electricity into amicrowave beam, which transmits theenergy to a large rectifying antenna - a"rectenna" on Earth. Alterna lively, a laserbeam might be used.An SPS would be big- nearly 13kilometers long by 5 kilometers wide. Therectenna on the ground would cover 16 by24 kilometers. Its function is to convertspace power lo the local frequency andvollage, then switch it onto the existingelectric-power grid.There seems to be no technical,economic, health, or environmental reasonwhy an SPS system can't be our cleanestand safest source of electrical power. "Thesolar-power satellite is probably the mostenvironmentally acceptable power-generating concept we've studied," said along-range planner for one of the iargeutility companies.The power-transmission beam

whichever type is finally chosen will havesuch low energy density that it.wouldn'teven heat water, much less cook a birdthat happened to fly through it. We are nottalking about ihe microwave energydensity of a household oven or the sort ofscience-fiction laser cannons of Star Wars.Microwaves will transmit the requiredenergy withoul harming the earlh'satmosphere or causing environmentaldamage. This has been checked out intests at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, inPasadena, California, and with the bigradio telescope dish at Arecibo, Puerto Rico.The SPS concept is more than some

far-out dream. The requisite technologyeither is onTiand or can be achieved with alittle more refinement. The Department of22 OMNI

Energy has completed a series ofpreliminary studies on the SPS system andis now funding in-depth examinations ofspecific engineering requirements. Youcan get copies of the completed studiesby writing to the U.S. Department ofEnergy, Office of Energy Research,Satellite Power System Project Office,Washington, DC 20585.Wha! remains is to check out criticalitems in space, using the shuttle to help

solve such engineering problems as howto build large structures in space andkeep them pointed at the sun withouttwisting them out of shape. After all, evenin 2ero gravity one moves a structure 100meters thick and 65 square kilometers ona side gently and slowly, lest it crumple likea sheet of paper.

Expensive? Yes, but so is an .equivalentcoal-burning power plant on Earth.Preliminary estimates by several groupsindicate that an SPS can be built for aboutthe same cosi as a coal-fired plant about2,000 per kilowatt. The cost of electricpower from an SPS system delivered to ahome has been estimated from 7 mils per

Sciai iKMC Our hay :c, energy abidance'*

kilowar.noui lo27 mils oe r kiiowatt-hour inother words, comparable to, oslightly less than, today's electric rates.costs the same, or even nearly the samelo do it in space as on the ground, itshould be done in space because thisgenerates a considerable spinoff; the SConnection.

First, an SPS sysfem uses a renewablenergy source; the sun. A coal plantbuilt on Earth at the same cost within 25years may face ^owdowns because ofcoal allocations. And the coal plant willpour tons of radioactive carbon-14 into tatmosphere, releasing far more radiatiothan has ever leaked from any nuclearreactor.

It's [rue that at current rates ofconsumption we have enough coal in thUnited States afone to last 2 million yearsbul this ignores world needs. As coalexporters, we could look forward to seeiihe last of this resource by the year 2250Humankind requires a more permanentenergy supply And coal and other fossilfuels are far more precious as chemicalfeedstocks that can be recycled than asfuels that cannot. Once they've gone upthe stack as combustion products, we'vlost them forever.

To make the SPS system work, we musbuild at least two generating stations inspace every year so that we can begin tshift to the SPS system as our demand felectric power increases between 1990and 2010. In 1975 the total electric-powecapacity in this country was 228gigawatts; by the year 2000, the demandwill rise to 940 gigawatts. But by the yea2000, if we get the SPS program in gear,there could be at least 26 satellitescarrying more than one fourth of the loadBy the year 2020, there would be morethan 100 SPS units on line, and they woulthen be carrying the bulk of our electricabase load.

Building an SPS system will requirespace transportation capable of carryinpeople and cargo into space atreasonable prices S22 per kilogram orless. This would allow us to do other thinin space: take on lots of space research,improve communications facilities, andCOWPMUEDON PAGE 126

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

10/87

FILM

THE ARTSBy Jeff RovinTechnology s the answer, the onlyanswer to many problems our

nation faces. I don't knowwhether science-fiction films can conveythat to a mass audience, but using thegenre to sharpen this point is somethingthat's very, very close to me."The speaker is Robert Wise, renowned

director of such films as Somebody UpThere Likes Me (1956), l-Vesi Side Story(1960), The Sound of Music (1965), andThe Sand Pebbles (1966). For the first timein over a year the soft-spoken tilmmakerwas at ease. He had just spent 16 monthsdirecting the motion picture Star Trek, aliterate SF epic that opened to the largestbox-office grosses in the history of film.The movie's success is doubly

rewarding to Wise: He brought the twenty-third century to the screen in the faceof countless production problemsamong them, shooting without a completedscript and the dismissal of the picture'soriginal special-effects team. And the filmmay be said to represent the most pro-vocative approach to technology thatthe cinema has seen since 2001: A Space

Odyssey, creating; worksday environmentin space while smj taneously showing howlittle we really know about the universe.

'Achieving that kind of texture is noteasy." Wise explains, "because the studiosdon't have a real concept of sciencefiction. If they have a thrust in anydirection, it is for adventure and actionrather than anything strongly pointedtoward the scientific or the technological. Ihave always atter~pr.ee :o oe moreauthentic than that and, if possible, morecerebral, creating suspense by appealingto the mind."

If Wise achieved this goal in Star Trek, itshould come as no surprise. He hadpreviously directed one of the handful ofbona fide SF classics. The Day the EarthStood Still (1951), starring Michael Rennieas the peacemongering alien Klaatu, andhad skillfully translated The AndromedaStrain from novel to film .(1971). Hissuccess, though, is attributable to the wayhe approaches any project. "The vehicleis never as important as the story," hedeclares. 'Although you work in the modethat tells your tale and makes your points

Starsfiip Enterprise24 OMNI

n Star re

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

11/87

the preproc.Liciiop -csc-srch oersonallyand whenever possible hires experis towork with him on the set. On TheAndromeda Strain

,accuracy was ensured

by the constant input ot technicians fromthe Jet Propulsion Laboratory, UCLA,and TRW NASA scientist Jesco von Putt-kamer and astronaut Russell Schweikartwere on hand for Star Trek."One must consult the authorities, and I

don't understand when this isn't done.Sure, there are times when you are forcedto say. 'Okay it's going to take too long todevelop this or that completely true to life,'or 'To do it that way is just not effective ascinema.' Still, you try to keep the instancesof violating scientific accuracy to aminimum.

"But who knows? Star Wars was a hugehit and a wonderfully entertaining film, andpeople seem to accept a picture that putsRaquel Welch in a submarine (FantasticVoyage]. In fact, if you'll look down throughthe years at the popular films, more ofthose hit the audience in the gut instead ofin the head. Maybe I'm the one who'swrong. Maybe one must be a modifiedpuristi tainted a little bit."

Yet, in spite of Wise's support ofscience, there is one aspect of progressihat troubles the silver-haired man, "It hasnothing to do with the hardware, be it anuclear-power plant or a Skylab. I don'tblame one scientist for anything that's everbeen invented. Rather, I'm troubled by ourmanagerial ability, which leaves much tobe desired."A case in point, Wise says, is television.He attributes a large share of the decay inour society's aesthetics and imagination,and hence the generally poor quality ofmovie fare, to what we see on television."It's a popular feeling in Hollywood thatbecause of what audiences are exposedto on the tube they won't sit still formotion pictures that are maybe "a little

slower, but effective and truthful deliveriesof things, as against movies that areovercharged and forced along at anaccelerated pace. There is probably agreat'deal of truth in that. Because of TVwe're fidgety and jumpy Television givesus instant gratification: We can flip to thisor turn' to that or snap to something elserather than sit with something thoughtful."Wise feels that the film industry, at least,

is now at a crossroads. He sees film fareimproving over the next few years, withmore sophisticated science-fictionpictures a hallmark of this new direction.

"I don't think we're experiencing justanother cycle of science-fiction films rightnow," he says. "Science has become sucha large part of our lives. It's real andever-present. There may be a wave of SFup and down, but I think it has come intoits own as a staple, like the Western.Actually, we may see the Western filmsupplanted entirely by science fiction.That is the past; SF is the future. SF is thefrontier now."Asked why upcoming works of SF will

differ from the pop-culture special-effectsfests we've had in recent years. Wise citescost, particularly the cost of the specialeffects. "The effects are improving all thetime, and we're able to do more and moreand do it better as the years go along. Butwith the new technology and the additionof computers, it's also getting very, veryexpensive. Special effects made up halfthe budget of Star Trek [the film cost asiaggering 43 million |. So you can't justkeep making films where the primary goalis for your special effects ic- outdo thoseof the other guys.

"But it may be a blessing in disguise, forwhile you will always have the problem ofmass appeal, the studios will be lookingmore and more at the foreground, at thequafity of the scnpts. rather than al thedressing and the background. As a result.

Star Trek space scooter: SF m26 OMNI

supplant Westerns. Robert Wise believes.

I think we can anticipate pictures wherethe characters and stories are better andmore true to life and the treatment ofscience is more honest and realistic."As much as rising costs will change thecontent of movies. Wise points out thatthey will also influence the way movies arshot. "Motion pictures, as we know them,will probably always-exist, because of theconvenience and effectiveness of theirexhibition. There will be ongoingimprovements in the fidelity of the audioand the depth of field of certain of thelenses."Bui the big change we'll see is in theuse of videotape for moviemaking, It'scertainly more versatile, looser, and freerto use. You can erase what you don't wantand double up on cameras. You can alsodo a lot of your special effects right in thecamera, while you're shooting, which ismarvelous. Economically, it will be very,very helpful to us. The big question rightnow is quality, And so far we just don'thave a one-to-one transfer from tape tofilm that gets anywhere close to the onehundred percent resolution that isnecessary. They're working on it, and I'msure it's just around the corner."Looking slightly further ahead, Wisesees holograms playing a role in themedia. "Perhaps it will one day bepossible for an actor to play a part in NewYork and have his image transmitted to asound stage in Hollywood. I suppose it'salso conceivable that we'll be viewingholograms instead of two-dimensional TVdown the line."

With his feet firmly planted in the art ofscience, what does Wise hope to do nextAsked whether he would be interested inscience-fiction musical (The Sound otMoons is suggested), he winces andsmiles. "I don't think so, "What he islooking forward to is "something smallerthan Star Trek, something very humanisticihat cea:c exc usiveiy w : lh oeople.- "But I suppose it would be nice," headds wistfully "to sit down and devise astory in which we project ourselves fifty,seventy-five, or one hundred years fromnow, using what we now know to bepossible energy sources, and illustratehow these can indeed be the energy of nonecessarily a half century from now, butten years from now. Make a point ofshowing how they're applied, underliningwith the message that technology mustcontinue to advance and improve if we areto survive. It would be rewarding todevelop a story that would embrace that."

However, Wise says that it's best to keepthese ideas in mind whenever he reads aproperty, instead of trying to evolve ascript to present these ideas. "You can'tjust preach in film, because an A' for effortisn't enough. If you put two years of yourlife into a picture, you want it to succeed."

In an industry populated by fast-buckartists and filmmakers more preoccupiedwith style than content. Wise hassucceeded eloquently with the future. DO

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

12/87

THE ARTSBy Spider Robinson^^ ^^ ost of the arls have some kind

J; I of annual awards program.I fcrf I Few. unfortunately, have morethan one kind.Annual awards encourage an artist to

strive for excellence even though tripepays just as well, and they provide a kindof consumer guide for an audience facedwith the harsh reality of Sturgeon's- Law("Ninety^percent of everything is crap").Clearly, il is to everyone's advantage tohang some sort of flag on the good stuff;this gives it a longer shelf life.

But who decides?Usually the professionals. The theoryseems to be that a professional is uniquely

qualified to know good stuff when he orshe sees it. Going on the evidence to date,I cannot grant this theory even the statusof an approximafion. Yet consider IheOscars, Emmys. Tonys, Grammys, Obies,and the rest. The people enfranchisedto define the year's best are either all of theworking and retired professionals, or asmall core group thereof, or, in a fewrare cases (such as critics' awards forbooks), an elite in group of interestednonpractitioners.

However, is popular opinion any morereliable"? Is The Other Side of Midnightreally a better book than The WantingofLevine? Is Norman Mailer really a betterwriter than John McPhee?

In science fiction there are several setsof annual awards. When the smoke hascleared, everybody has had a vote.Including you. if you're interested enoughto bother. Let's look at the awards forscience fiction and fantasyNEBULASThe Nebulas are science fiction's

analog of the Oscars et a!., voted by activeand associate members of the ScienceFiction Writers of America. Thisorganization consists of approximately500 active SF writers. Despite its name,SFWA is not restricted to Americans mydirectory lists well over a dozen Britishmembers, several from Canada, Australia,Ireland, West Germany, and France, andindividual members from Mexico,Jamaica, Argentina. Sweden, Greece,28 OMNI

Hungary and Sri Lanka. Editors,anthologists, reviewers, artists, and evenagents are accepted into SFWA. but onlyas affiliate members. The "active orassociate" clause in the Nebula franchisemeans "writers only."The Nebula nomination and voting

procedures have been changed as oftenas underwear, but since 1974 things haverun pretty much like so: Over the course ofa year any member can recommend agiven short story (under 7,500 words),novelette (7.500 -17,500 words), novella(17,500-40,000), novel (over 40,000), ordramatic presentation for a Nebula.Eventuallya committee edits the pile ofrecommendations down to a final ballot,almost invariably on the basis of mostrecommendations received, anddistributes this list to the eligible voters.An outside party tallies the votes by the'Australian ballot" syslern. and the winnersare announced at an annual banquetceremony, which alternates between theEast and the West coasts. Since 1974 aGrandmaster Nebula has aiso been

:. but used, spsccshir,.

awarded for lifetime contributions to SF;the first winner was Robert A. Heinlein,The actual Nebula awards are strikinglbeautiful artifacts. The traditional designis a heavy plastic block about 10centimeters square by about 20centimeters high. The bottom quarter is ablack pedestal with a frontal inscription;the rest is transparent. Embedded thereiis a beautiful quartz crystal, about the sizand shape of a fist ax, and over this thereis a silver-glitter spiral nebula, slantedtoward the viewer. They are quiteexpensive as trophies go, and I don't knoany other as impressive-looking. For alltheir heft, they are fragile: I'm told RogerZelazny once took one from anair-conditioned room into a hot day andhad it shatter in his hands.Could a Nebula vote be unfairly influ-enced? Well, I have heard grumbles no,

let's be candid, I've heard outrightaccusations but frankly I don't see howcould be done very effectively. You can'tvery well put pressure on a majority of 500people (surely not SF writers, an orneryand dangerous bunch), and bribing themall is simply cost-ineffective. As foroccasional complaints of back-pattingand logrolling, I can only report that whenwon my Nebula, I was not a member ofSFWA (a condition I have since corrected}and was personally acquainted with fewethan a tenth of the membership. No, theNebulas represent an honesi consensusof opinion opinion well worth listening toHUGOS ~

Here is where SF is virtually unique.Barring Ihe All-Star Game and the NovaScotia fiddle championships, I know of noother art form where the customers get tovote. Except, of course, through theindirect vote expressed in dollars(however, if you buy a book and end upbitterly regretting it. you cannot unspendthose dollars). But SF fandom gives everybibliophile on Earth the opportunity toreward his or her favorites and to tell thenice publishers what they like.

Every year on Labor Day weekend aWorld Science Fiction Convention isconvened somewhere on the planet (thereCONTINUED ON PAGE 130

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

13/87

:res and whispers' By Dick Teres!

Christians have Christmas and Jewshave Yom Kippur and scientistshave the annual meeting of the

American Association for theAdvancement of Science (AAAS). If's thepsychosocial event of the year in thescientific community, and this pastJanuary some 5,000 scienlists went to SanFrancisco to deliver papers, talk shop,and dodge the waler balloons from aneighboring Shriners' convention. The1980 meeting did not match in pure hatredthe 1978 edition, at which anti-sociobiology protesters drenched E. O.Wilson with a pail of water, nor did itequal the ridiculousness of the 1975meeting, during which Cieve Backsterannounced that his yogurt could talk. Stillit had its moments . .It was Pearl Harbor all over again asSimon Rama, keynote speaker,distinguished scientist, and (mostimportant) director of "a company calledTRW" bemoaned the loss of America'stechnological leadership to Japan. It was

Ca'a/cnrf's warning: '''.VsV.'tose out ba::-es "

30 OMNI

to be a leitmotiv of the meeting, as theengineer types constantly raised thespecter of aggressive Orientals strafingour domestic markets with their Sonysand Toyotas. Ramo announced that "ourtechnological slip is showing," and herevealed some of the culprits behind themess. American workers. Wages are risingat 8 percent a year while productivity isincreasing by only 1.5 percent, he said,and the difference is inflation. The cure?Bigger and better profits. Ramo is the "R"in TRW and AAAS members applaudedhis speech politely.

"Most scienlists today are employed bythe military-industrial complex," com-mented Boston peoia'.ncian HelenCaldicott the following day. "That'swhere the money is."For a man opposed to the nuclear-armsrace, MIT professor Henry Kendall has thedamnedest collection of hydrogen-bombphotographs, all in glorious color At apanel entitled "Ending the Nuclear ArmsRace," Kendall showed us one oddlybeautiful explosion after another "Blast;ten megatons. Producing a Ihree-thousand-ioot-diameter crater threehundred feet deep," he deadpanned whileprojecting a towering mushroom cloud onthe auditorium screen. Then, with abrilliant red explosion as a backdrop, herecited the numbers expected to die ofradiation burns. Perhaps in honor of theSoviet invasion of Afghanistan ihat week,Kendall revealed a U.S. "targetingstrategy" for Moscow; 46 200-kilotonground bursts aimed at three-mileintervals in a neat grid across the city. Ifanything, Kendall went out of his way toappear cold and uninvolved in the deadlyinformation he was relaying. And panelmoderator Linus Pauling was almostwhimsical about the whole affair. He jokedthat the best our military could do inspeculating on the most efficient targetingstrategies for destroying the UnitedStates was a kill rate of 80 percent of thepopulation. "It turns out that lobbingwarheads over at random from Russia,"said Pauling, "would kill more thanninety-two percent."

Ramo: "Our lecinGiogtcci! r,i:p ..-; showing."More passionate was Helen Caldicott, ofChildren's Hospital Medical Center inBoston, speaking on the medical hazardof nuclear arms. As a doctor, she said, swill face a dilemma. One must stay in abomb shelter two weeks to be safe.Should she remain inside or go out andhelp the "burned and mutilated," knowinit probably means death? There will beno drugs, no painkillers, she noted,because pharmaceutical stockpiles aretargeted areas. Physicist Philip Morrisonreiterated his view that the United Statesoverarmed (we're producing "three newH-bombs a day," according to Caldicott)and that the defense budget could besliced by 42 percent without sacrificingnational security. Caldicott called uponwomen to use their political clout over 5percent of the vote to put an end to thenuclear-arms buildup. One of the fewwomen to speak at the AAAS. Caldicottclaimed that all men in the NorthernHemisphere carry plutonium in theirtesticles because of bomb tests. "If wewomen don't end the weapons race."Caldicott said, "we'll lose our babies."

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

14/87

Up in North Beach, San Francisco'sskin-and-sin district, the women wereoffered another alternative. On a Fridaynight, as a group of scientists and theirwives made their way past nightclubsadvertising "Live Man-and-Woman SexActs," a sidewalk barker threw his pitch atthe men: "We have the most disgusting actin town," he yelled with pride. And, gettingno response, he diverted his attention totheir wives: "Watch somebody else do ilfor a change," he said. "Take a load offyour backs."

On the energy front, it was gloom allaround. The consensus of a roundtable onEnergy in the '80s was thai we arereaching an "energy hiatus." (Translation.We're running out.) Daniel Yergin, ofHarvard, aporopr ete'y entitled his talk"The Vindicaiion of Chicken Little." Hepredicted a likely war over the drying up ofoil supplies. But hope came from asurprising source: Barry Commoner,normally a prophet of doom, but latelymentioned as a third-party presidential

Calvin and his peirolaum-produelng plants

candidate, sa d we cou.c end gas lines"probably next year or the year after."Commoner's solution s to switch majorcroplands from soybeans lo sugarbeets,which could be made into alcohol to bemixed with gasoline. Melvin Calvin, of theUniversity of California at Berkeley, had amore direct plan; Get plants tomanufacture our petroleum for us. Manyplants, such asEuphorbia lalhyris , are richin hydrocarbonlike ma^ria.s that can berefined into fuel, and Calvin envisionshuge petroleum plantations yielding tenbarrels of oil per acre per year. "Onelandmass the size of Arizona,"said Calvin,"will supply ten percent of America's oil .

- needs." And he's not even running forpresident.

Jesus Christ made one of His rareappearances before the AAAS. That's whosome people believe is capturedphotographically on the Turin Shroud,anyway. Joseph Accetta spoke of the LosAlamos team's recent trip to Italy toexamine the relic. Their conclusion: Theydon't know whose picture is on the shroudor how il was made. But a man behind mewhispered, "It's a miracle!" The Shroudseminarwas not for the faint of heart, asAccetta explained some of the grisliermedical realities of crucifixion, Romanstyle. Example: Only four fingers of eachhand are shown on the shroud, aconvincing detail, says Accetta, becausedriving nails through a man's wristscauses the thumbs to retract. Accetta,who, when he isn't examining religiousrelics, works for the weapons laboratory atKirtland Air Force Base, admitted that theAmerican team was funded mostly by asingle philanthropist. He wouldn't revealthe man's name, but he said he is aRoman Catholic.Linus Pauling, at one point nonplussed bythe timidity of his antinuclear audience,sighed, "We need the students of the1960s again." The site for the meeting wasat least well chosen. San Franciscoretains vestiges of the social upheaval ofthe 1960s, though the evidence is largelyfossilized. Taped to the cash register in

poet Lawrence Foninghotn s City LightsBookstore is an old gift certificate madeout to Bob Zimmerman/Dylan from rockimpresario Bill Graham. And you can stillbuy posters of rock-protest band CountryJoe and the Fish ("And it's one, two. three,what're we fightin' for?/Don't ask me, Idon't give a damn/Next stop is Vietnam").It was in the 1960s when I last interviewedKenneth Boulding, outgoing president ofthe AAAS. He was railing against LyndonJohnson and the war then, and doing itwith some style and wit. The fire wasmissing this year as he delivered thepresidential lecture. He told the scientistsnot to falsify their experiments, because"the only thing thai can cause you to beexpelled from the scientific community isto tell lies." It wasn't the kind of speechguaranteed to offend anyone. PerhapsBoulding best summed up the lessons ofthis year's meeting when he departedfrom his notes to poke fun at himself. "Ialways tell my students," he said, "that thepurpose of education is to transmitinformation from decrepit old men todecrepit young men."OQ

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

15/87

IOSE ENCOUNTER

UFD UPDATEBy Harry Lebelsonfiled as the "UFO Event of the

I Year" it promised and I quote9 the brochure "to weave apattern of mind-boggling events into anemotion-shattering conclusion." Promised,but never delivered. UFO 79 offered thesame old cliches to an audience longfamiliar with the pros and cons of ufology.There would be no revelations about1979's most important UFO discoveries,investigations, or conclusions.My own doubts about this Novemberconference, held in San Diego,crystallized when someone named WalterH. Andrus, international director of theMutual UFO Network, digressedon "A New Look at the UFO EntityEvidence." We were told that four types ofaliens are looking in on us: dwarflikehumanoids, human-appearing beingscomparable in size to ourselves,animallike creatures, and robots. Eachcategory possesses the followingcharacteristics; head, body, two arms, twolegs, and appendages (known to us ashands and feet). Though the similarity wasnot immediately apparent, these de-scriptions reminded me of some bizarresculptures I had looked at earlier in thefoyer of the Point Loma Royal Inn.

"The real purpose of a conference of thiskind is to get people from the scientificcommunity together who can exchangepersonal information and data," saidJames A. Harder, professor of civilengineering at the University of Californiaat Berkeley But where were ihe scientists?The absence of two key speakers, bothscientists, suggested that the conferencewasintrouble. Yetthe promotionalmaterial claimed otherwise. After all, therewere artifacts galore, automatic writing,and enough occult phenomena to attractany scientist.A hot rumor at the conference hinted,that recent analyses of metal fragmentsrelating to a celebrated case were sostartling that Carl Sagan himself asked tosee them. The astronomer, the story went,told researchers not to reveal their findingsto "those UFO huts," but to present thembefore a legitimate panel of scientists forgenuine verification. When asked about32 OMNI

'his re dent, however Sagan stated,"Nothing ever happened. I never metthese people, and in fact I've nevereven heard of them." Similar distortionscompound the doubts that alreadysurround UFOs.

Later on in the conference Dr. R. LeoSprinkle, psychologist and professorof counseling services at the University ofWyoming, was introduced at the podium.Dr. Sprinkle spent the next 40 minutesboring everyone with an elaborate analysisof what he called emerging patterns ofUFO activity. It all seemed redundant so Iexcused myself to get a cup of coffee,hoping that the remainder of theconference would offer something new. Iwandered down the foyer past a display ofalien models, one of which bore a strikingresemblance to a certain UFO skeptic.

I later bumped into nuclear physicistand UFO proponent Stanton FreidmanSlightly miffed, he spoke candidly aboutthe symposium. "I think the organization ofthis conference leaves a lot to be desired,"he declared. "It's poorly attended, sloppyin preparation, and three of the speakers

n the layer, a familiar face at UFO 79.

tailed to show up," UFO 79 was thebrainchild of Hal Starr, a veteran promoter,UFO researcher, reporter, and lecturer.

"This whole thing seems to be a bigpublic-relations setup organized by Starrand an independent film outfit for thepurpose of putting together a package forpossible sale to national television,"Freidman continued. "I have nothingagainst this attitude if it's made implicit inthe advertising promoting the event. In thiparticular case that wasn't so."

Indeed, as Freidman implied, peoplespent S145 for a two-day symposiumon UFOs and deserved more professionalpreparation than they received.

After lunch, one of the few highlights ofthe conference surfaced when Alan Holt,astrophysicist training supervisor atNASA, spoke on "Field ResonancePropulsion." Holt suggested it may bepossible to develop a spacecraft capableof carrying a team of explorers to anotherstellar system by the year 2000. Usingphysical theories that he hopes willeventually be accepted by mainstreamphysicists, Holt described the interactionbetween magnetic and electrical fieldsand the theory of space-time curvature asit ^elates to gravitational propulsion.Although Holt's paper was wellarticulated, its substance was beyond thegrasp of most of those assembled. Theirreactions ranged from indiscreet yawningto broad indifference. I found most of thematerial incomprehensible in spite ofHolt's efforts to ensure clarity throughvisual aids,

"I wanted to give this research broaderexposure but was disappointed by thelack of scientific inquiry in a number of thepapers presented here," Holt told me later."I expected a more scientifically motivatedsession and was appalled by the overalltone of the conference."

To sum up UFO 79: All the paperspresented seemed to cry out for thescientific community to accept UFOs. Yetdespite the efforts of people like Holt,rational scientific inquiry had clearly takena backseat to promotion by those UFOgroupies who sell the notion of visitationsby alien beings.DO

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

16/87

When there is swimmingat the Sea of 'lranquility

. m .-. Jantzen will be there.M ." -

''"-* ;.;'"-' v ':' .* m ^^ ^,' .jjHn -**. M if

f ' IB ,:;iB vm ;, - -*1 ^

^L^DBv "F HUB 'HB 1^; "'W -^^^SS^

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

17/87

CDQJTinjuuruiREDUCING THE X-RAY HAZARD

Two years ago Barbara Askins, a NASA chemist workingat the Marshall Space Flight Center, in Alabama, in-vented a process that could restore the image of abadly underexposed astronomical photograph. The

process, called autoradiographic image intensification, won herthe 1978 Inventor ot the Year Award.

Since then scientists have realized that her invention could beused to restore old, faded black-and-white photographs; fur-thermore, it could be used to enhance the image of underdevel-oped x-ray radiographs, thereby minimizing the x-ray dose apatient has to receive to obtain a clear image.

With Three Mile Island fever sweeping the nation, Askins'sinvention woyld seem welcome news. Yet, so far, it has receivedless than favorable comments from the one group that could helpit reach the public: the medical communityThe complexity ot the process itself is partly to blame. The

invention involves soaking the underexposed negative in a solu-tion of radioactive thiourea sulfur-35. The sulfur binds with thesilver in the film and emits bursts of radioactive particles ontoanother film overlying the first. Thus, the image in the underde-veloped film is transferred and enhanced on this second film,later to be made into a black-and-white print.By itself, the radioactive material is relatively harmless. It emits

only beta particles, effective in producing an image on film, thatcan be stopped by a thin piece of cardboard. It also has a half-lifeof 88 days and therefore disintegrates rather quicklyThe problem lies in both its cost and time. One 8" x 10"

photograph, for example, may require several hours to be re-stored and may cost a minimum of S20. The process also re-quires a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license. "That in itself,"the inventor admits, "stops a lot of people from using it."

For its advocates, though, the process has an important sell-ing point. The amount of exposure can be decreased to a veryiow level. Askins found that even in a film receiving only 1.5percent of normal exposure six stops below normal the faintimage could still be brought back almost entirely with the proc-ess, This was enough to send many scientists scurrying insearch of new applications.

At the University of Alabama-Birmingham, Kerry Akridge hasbeen using the process to restore the images of eighty-year-old

photos faded with age, and this spring, with a grant from NASA,Akridge and his colleagues are starting the National NuclearImage Enhancement Center for Autoradiographic Development,a lab where they hope to develop and refine Askins's invention,eventually using the facility to enhance the photographs sentfrom archives and the public. Akridge, who originally thought ofthe idea, has other applications in mind, too. "We've experi-mented with the same process on some old nitrite negatives-old films that a lot of archives had before Kodak came out with thesafety negative. So there's no reason why it shouldn't work onthem." The FBI, Akridge says, is interested in the invention.Having recently developed a fingerprinting process that can takefingerprintsfrom curved surfaces such as bodies the bureauwants to use the invention to enhance its investigative success.The biomedical field has found a home for the process, too.

Yutaka Kobayashi, manager of New England Nuclear's LiquidScintillations Laboratory in Boston, says that the invention canreduce the. time it takes to extract inlormation from radioactivecultures. Samples that are radio-labeled with a very weak emittermay require months before the images are dark enough to beseen on film. "But," Kobayashi says, by using Askins's invention,"you can reduce the time by a factor often." Already the processhas been used in both DNA and cancer research.

Yet the most controversial application has been in themedical-health field. Using the invention, a patient has to receiveonly 10 percent of the x-ray radiation to get a clear image on afixed radiograph. Most physicians, however, agree thai othermethods already in use do the same thing. But the real advan-tage of the process, Askins says, is that a patient doesn't have tobe reexposed to the same X ray it the radiograph turns out to beunderdeveloped. There is no reshooting.

Despite this, most doctors are leery ol the method. The reasonfor this, says Kobayashi, is the time involved. "The medical pro-fession is impatient. Doctors want instant data."

Bui that, too, may change. Azuwuiki Owunwanne, who hasbeen working at Strong Memorial Hospital in New York to improveAskins's invention, thinks that by automating the system andclearing away some of the bugs, he can drastically reduce thetime. If the medical community can be convinced of its worth, itmight be on the market in five years. -KENNETH JON ROSE

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

18/87

CDruTiruuuruiCOMPUTING SUICIDESA computer may have

saved a man's life recentlywhen officials at the Univer-sity of Wisconsin Medical

physicians themselves areoften reluctant to broach thesubject of suicide or don'tknow how to analyze the re-sponses.

In fact, when physicians,

Manabout tojump from Empire Stale Building: A study indicates com-puters can predict potential suicides betterthan professionalscan.School's clinic learned that apatient who was about to bereleased after treatment fordepression had a gun, bul-lets, and a precise suicideplan. Though some 80 per-cent of self-inflicted deathsresult from depression, theclinic therapists failed todiscover the patient's intentuntil a computer, pro-grammed by a professor ofpreventive medicine and bypsychiatrist John Greist,predicted he would try totake his life.A preliminary study by thetwo has shown that theircomputer was usually a bet-ter forecaster of stormythoughts than trained M.D'swere. Though many patientswant to bare their darkestsecrets to their doctors, the36 OMNI

and other healthprofessionals tried to predictwhich of 63 patients in Dr.Greist's study would attemptsuicide, the therapists failedto identify any of the threewho would try within 48hours, whilethe computerpicked all of them. When thestudy was expanded tothree months, 91 percent ofthe subjects who actually at-tempted suicide had beengiven better-than-evenchances of doing so by thecomputer, compared to a 16-percent score by the pro-fessionals.Befween 25,000 and

50,000 suicides are reportedeach year in this country,and Greist says the victimsusually had visited their doc-tors recently. Furthermore,

he found that clinicians andnurses were typically betterpredictors than their better-trained colleagues.Though the medical pro-

fession has been slow to ac-cept his method, Greisthopes that the program willsee wider use. At least 1 ,000institutions in this countryhave computers that canhandle it, and the 40-minuteinterview costs only $1 .50 incomputer time.And for those of you won-

dering how the computerfigured out that the Wiscon-sin patient had a gun itsimply asked the man, "Doyou have a gun?" Stephen R. DujackGALLOPING GLACIERS

Most glaciers move soslowly their progress is invis-ible to the naked eye.Most but not all. Varie-gated Glacier, near Yakutat,Alaska, flows so fast you can

actually see it move, It'scalled a galloping glacier,and Dr. Charles Raymond, ofthe University of Washing-ton, wants to find out why itmoves so rapidly.

"There are about twohundred of these glaciers inNorth America," says Dr.Raymond, "and they moveas fast as three hundred feeta day." Raymond and his col-leagues are studying Var-iegated Glacier to find outwhat causes its sudden, gal-loping surges and how itsgeometry changes duringfhese sudden dashes.

Variegated Glacier, on thewestern slopes of the St.Elias Mountains, was pickedbecause its geometry issimple, it is small, and it isnot subject to sudden inter-nal temperature oscillations,

"This particular glacierlast went into a surge in1974," Raymond reports."Now we are expecting it tostart galloping again withinthe next five years,"The project is a long-term

one. By beginning to studythe glacier now, Raymondsays, the team can build upa profile of its changes be-fore, during, and after it gal-lops.

There are practical rea-sons for studying gallopingglaciers, too. Some of themlie near the Alaskan oil pipe-line. If one of them startedcharging toward the pipe-line, it could cause ecologi-cal disaster There'd be noth-ing to stop it. Joel Davis"One of our problems is try-ing to figure out which way isup and which way is down." John Young

(from Apollo 10,1

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

19/87

MAN'S BEST GOOSESojourn in Dumbarton,

Scotland, and you might getto see 70 geese at the localdistillery guarding 115 mil-lion liters of whisky worthabout 900 million. If youtrespassed there, youwould be greeted byhonking, hissing, andperhaps a bite from thisweb-footed alarm system.

In the United States about1 million geese weed fieldsof com, cotton, potatoes,strawberries, and othercrops. A pair ofgeese canclear an entire acre of grassand weeds, leaving the cashcrop untouched.The goose, It turns out, ri-

vals the dog as man's bestfriend. Immortalized in TheGift of Birds

, a collection ofessays published recentlyby the National Wildlife Fed-eration, the goose evenlays claim to saving a civili-zation. In the second century

agaggle of geese honkeda Roman garrison awakeone night as hostile soldiersapproached a strategic hillin Rome. The Romans'watchdogs had beenquieted by food the enemythrew to them.Many naturalists believethat the goose, domesti-

cated for 4,000 years, haslost fewer of its originalcharacteristics than anyother tamed bird or mammal.Besides its watchdogcharacteristics, the gooseprovides ieathers for bedsand quilts, fat for butter andointment, eggs for breakfast,and meat for dinner. Cer-tainly it bests the dog in thatregard.How about an endearinggoose siory? The book citesthe tale of a gander leadingits aged, blind mistress tochurch "every Sunday by tak-

| ing the hem of her dress inj its bill. The bird-clipped the

iery during worship. Thebook says that whoevercoined the term "as silly as agoose" obviously neverspent any time withgeese. Stuart Diamond"We may as well go to themoori, but that's not very far.The greatest distancewe have to cover still lieswithin us," Charles de GaulleINSTANT DEMOCRACYAn electronic device de-

signed to speed up busi-ness meetings may one dayrevolutionize the democraticprocess. Called Consensor,it's the brainchild of formerIBM executive W W Sim-mons, who was looking for amethod that would allowbusinessmen to expresstheir opinions anonymouslyand quickly in executive

is goose; This majestic species provides leathers for quilts,lat lor butter, meat tor dinner and makes an effective security device.

So he invented Consensor,which consists ol a televisionmonitor and individual termi-nals, one per voter. Eachterminal has two dials. Oneis graded on a scale of to10, allowing the voter toselect a degree of approval.The second dial registers in-tensity: how strongly thevoter feels about the impor-tance of the issue. Or it canbe set to register the voter'sdegree of expertise on thematter. Companies alreadyusing Consensor (Exxon,Avon, Chase Manhattan, andAT&T) report lime savings inmeetings between 30 and50 percent.

But the device's real futuremay lie in politics. With a vot-ing terminal hooked intocable TV and connected to a

central information desk, wecould express our opinionsand how strongly we feltabout them instantly on anyIssue. (A modified, statewideexperiment using Consensor

Consensor video displayregisters approval and intensity.was conducted in Alaskalast fall.) Voter apathy couldbe a thing of the past, andCongress would be in con-stant touch with the voice ofthe people or at leas! withthe television-watchingpeople. John AnthonyWest"It is easier to accept themessage of the stars thanthe message ot the salt des-ert, The Stars speak of man'sinsignificance in the longeternity of time; the desertsspeak of his insignificancefight now.

"

Edwin Way Teale"There is something fascinat-ing about science. One getssuch wholesale returns ofconjecture out of such triflinginvestments of fact." Mark Twain

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

20/87

conjTiruuuruiCOMPUTERIZEDBACKPACKINGBackpacking a la com-

puter? The purists may beoutraged by the idea, but it

tion.and altitude gain ofeach trail.The hiking paths in thesystem so far are located ir

the Mount Baker/Sno-qualmie and Olympic na-

Backpacker hikes over Sloan Peak in Washington Stale's CascadeMountains: Custom-made hiking paths available now via computer.could prove to be a boonboth to them and to thecasual hiker.The University ot Washing-

ton, with the Institute lorGovernmental ResearchfIGB) and the Urban DataProject, is compiling a com-puterized data base of morethan 600 hiking trails inWashington State. IGR staff-er Ruth Ittner, project coor-dinator, says the results willbe made available to thegeneral public as early asthis summer

"Right now we have infor-mation on 418 U.S. ForestService trails entered intothe computer," Ittner reports,"with 50 to 100 items of in-formation on each." Thai in-formation includes suchthings as the length, loca-38 OMNI

tional forests. Trails in theMount Rainier. Olympic, andNorth Cascades nationalparks will also be included,along with those in stateparks.Beginning this summer.

prospective hikers can getinstant, up-to-date data onthe trails by contacting theJoint Forest Service/ParkService Information Cenlerin Seattle. With the computersystem, a hiker can find justthe kind of trail to suit him.her, or the little kids, just byspecifying the type of trailwanted.And the possibility exists,Ittner adds, that the informa-tion will someday be avail-able on terminals located inyour favorite sporting-goodsstore J.Q

CESAREAN BOOMIn the midst of the "natural

childbirth revolution," moreand more babies continue tobe bom by the most unnatu-ral method of all: CesareanHigh-technology hospitals

consistently deliver 20 to 25percent of all babies byCesarean. And it's not un-common for the rate to soaras high as 35 or even 40percent for a single month.Now the National Institutes ofHealth (NIH) are investigat-ing the reasons behind thehigh rate of Cesareans.Why so many? NIH re-searchers say the Cesareanboom may be only the tip ofa technological iceberg thatthreatens to sink the Back-to-Nature movement forgood. Even natural-child-birth mothers today areroutinely chemically in-duced, electronically moni-tored, and intravenously fed.

Cesarean delivery: Tip of themedico-technological iceberg.

Their babies are checked forgenetic defects by samplingamniotic fluid; their picturesare taken with ultrasound.And there's more on thehorizon. The NIH are cur-rently conducting researchinto what initiates laborso that doctors can stall a pre-mature baby or hastenthe delivery of one who'soverdue. A whole new fieldof "fetal medicine" maymakeit possible not only to detectabnormalities in utero butalso to correct them.

"It has the potential formaking a tremendous im-pact on society." said oneNIH spokesman. "It's mind-boggling."Some doctors say the high

Cesarean rate and attendanttechnology are simply a re-sponse to parental pressurefor perfect babies. Oneobstetrician from a certainwell-known university put itthis way: 'A baby who is bornnaturally might come outsmart enough to be presi-dent of the United States,but he wouldn't make presi-dent of Harvard."

-K.C.Cole"/ once wanted to makesmall talk with a physicist byasking, 'What's new inphysics?' but then I remem-bered I don't know what's oldin physics."

Isaac Bashevis Singer"We are always the sameage inside." Gertrude Stein"Ninety percent of the workdone in this country is doneby people who don't feet

Theodore Roosevelt

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

21/87

SPACE ODDITIESTwo British satellites, eachnamed Ariel, are giving sci-

entists here on Earth morethan they bargained for inthe way of some bizarre dis-coveries made white whiz-zing around the globe.The first satellite, Ariel 5,

has spotted what the spaceexperts call a large "in-homogeneity," better knownas a blob, out in space,about 10 billion light-yearsaway.

Writing in Nature mag-azine, two British astron-omers, Andy Fabian, ofCambridge University, andRobert Warwick, of LeicesterUniversity, say that what's in-triguing about this blob isthat its gravity is drawingEarth and, for that matter, thewhole galaxy slowly toward it.

It's not particularlydense slightly more than 1percent denser than theuniverse. But it is huge,

about 3 billion light-yearsacross is their best guess.

While astronomers areworking to explain thisenigma, other space expertsare puzzling over a kind ofBermuda Triangle in outerspace. Another satellite,Ariel 6, has this weird prob-lem every time it passes overBritish Columbia or the Cas-pian Sea on a sunny day: Itturns itself off.Nature reports that two of

the satellite's three high-volt-age.supplies click off when itpasses these points on theglobe. What is very peculiaris that the third supply nevergoes off.

To add to the mystery, sci-entists on Earth found theycan immunize Ariel 6 againstthese shutoffs if they beamthe main command signal toit just before it passes overthese spots.The leading contender as

the cause of these odddoings, according to Nature,

is "a space variant of theBermuda Triangle legend." Douglas Colligan"Sometimes I think we'realone. Sometimes I thinkwe're not. in either case, thethought is quite staggering.

"

R. Buckminster FullerA HEALTHY TAN?

For some time doctorshave warned that a tan is notas healthy as it looks, but thenew fad ot getting year-round tans in parlors usingultraviolet-light booths hasthem particularly worried.The indoor-tanning craze

began in Searcy, Arkansas,when Tantrific Sun, Inc.,opened a small parlor in Au-gust 1978 that proved sosuccessful the ownersbegan a franchise operation.Other companies enteredthe market under suchnames as Tantastic, Tanique.and Sumtan. and the in-door-tanning parlors are nowfound nationwide.

All of the tanning salonswork on the same basicprinciples. After a cus-tomer's skin type and tan-ning sensitivity are analyzed,often by computer, he or shesteps into an individualshower-sized booth linedwith medium-wave ultravioletlight bulbs. The customerstays anywhere from 30seconds to 15 minutes overthe course of 20 visits.Though fees vary, $35 isabout average for 20 visits.While doctors are still de-

bating whether skin damagefrom ultraviolet light iscumulatively effected or istriggered by burning, theAmerican Society of Der-

matologists recently issueda strongly worded statementwarning that cosmetic tan-ning intheseboothsisneither a safe nor an innocu-ous procedure.J!> ' ' '

'

9Indoor-tanning parlor; Now skindamage, winter or summer.Dr, John Epstein, profes-sor of dermatoiogy at theUniversity of California atSan Francisco, says, "Wewant to educate the public tthe fact that a tan is not ahealthy thing, because itdamages skin cells, includ-ing the genetic material,membranes, andproteins." Allan D. Maurer"Space is to place aseternity is to time."Joseph Joubert"Let your soul stand cooland composed before a mil-lion universes." Wait Whitman"There's a hell at a good uni-verse next door; let's go."

e. e. cummings

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

22/87

coruTiruuurmSCENT OF SEXA human sex pheromonemay finally have been iso-

lated by a team of scientistsworking at Warwick Univer-

make them receptive to arti-ficial insemination. Doddsurprisingly identified Iwopheromone-type com-pounds similar to the boar'sin human sweat. The scien-

The sexpheromone from the boar has already been isolated and syn-thesized. Now it appearshumans willbe getting the i

n England. The key to aman's sexual attraction, ac-cording to the research ofchemisi George H. Dodd,may lie in his sweat.

It has long been knownthat animals affect oneanother's behavior includ-ing their sexual behavior-through (he secretion ofpheromones: chemical,odorous substances.Until now the search for apheromone in humans hascome up with nothing.

But Dodd and his groupwere recently given a clue tothe type of compound tolook for by an animal fewmen, or women, identifywith the.boar.

Pig breeders in Englanduse a synthesized boarpheromone spray on sows to40 OMNI

list then isolated and syn-thesized one of these, acompound called alpha an-drostenol, a chemical relatedto sex hormones. Purified, itsmelled tantalizingly of san-dalwood.

Next Dodd anointed agroup of men with alpha an-drostenol, and anothergroup was left unanointed,as a control group. Men andwomen were asked to evalu-ate both groups, and the pre-liminary results, as reportedin Wew Scientist, showedthat women consistently as-sessed the pheromonewearers higher, while mendowngraded them.The female response is

easy to explain. The male re-jection is more prob-lematical, but it may be a

form of aggressive reaction:Boars are made aggressiveby other boars producing anandrostenollike pheromone.Perfume makers help fund

Dodd's research, and so anaftershave lotion incorporat-ing alpha androstenol or aderivative may reach themarketplace soon. Kathleen Slein"All the signs suggest thatlite exists on Mars, but wecan't find any bodies. "

Gerald SotfenFEATHER BOMBSOne of the stranger inter-

ludes in biological-warfareexperimentation has justcome to light: In the 1950s,according to recently de-classified military docu-ments, Upstate New Yorkwas used as a testingground for a new weaponthe poisoned turkey feather.

In a formerly Top Secretreport entitled "Feathers asCarriers of Biological War-fare Agents," army scientistsatCamp Detrick, in Maryland,described their efforts to killoff oat plants using birdfeathers dusted with cereal-rust spores, The paperswere obtained by AmericanCitizens for Honesty in Gov-ernment, an organizationsponsored by the Church ofScientology,There were two experi-

ments with bird feathers. Inone, pigeons were dustedwith rust spores and re-leased to fly over pre-selected areas in the VirginIslands.

In the second set of exper-iments, "washed, fluffedwhite turkey feathers of a

uniform size" were dustedwith spores of Pucciniagraminis avenae . an oat-plant fungus, and then weredropped from the air on whatis now Camp Drum , near Wa-tertown, New York, wheresome target plots of oatswere growing.The beauty of the turkey

feathers, the report noted,was that they contain"numerous barbs and hook-lets," which hold the spores.The result of the feather

bombing? The scientistsfound feathers could carryenough spores "to initiate acereal-rust epidemic."Elsewhere in the same reportthey aiso observe, "It ap-pears that feathers alonecould be used as carriers ofBW [biological warfare] ma-terials." DC.'There is a coherent plan inthe universe, though I don'tknow what it's a plan for.

"

Fred Hoyle

Documents prove there's noshortage of turkeys in U.S. Army,

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

23/87

LOU GEHRIG'SDISEASEA new clinic has been es-

tablished for persons suffer-ing from a strange and

menial faculties. Over theyears it has taken an impres-sive string of victims: EzzardCharles the boxer, jazzmusician Charlie Mingus,and Henry A. Wallace.

deadly muscular diseasecalled ALS (amyotrophiclateral sclerosis). Located atMount Sinai Hospital, in NewYork City, the clinic helpsthose with ALS make themost of their losing strugglewith the disease.

Also known as LouGehrig's disease, after one.of its better-known victims,ALS is a progressiveneuromuscular decay of thebody. Its victims are typicallyin the prime of their lives(aged thirty to sixty) whenthey start sensing a weak-ness in the hands and armsand have trouble swallowingor speaking.Once it surfaces, ALS killsits victim in a couple ofyears, though the crippledpatient always retains his

from amyotrophic lateral sclerosisJ39: No curs andm treatment.Vice-President underFranklin Roosevelt. Britishastrophysicist StephenHawking currently suffersfrom ALS.The disease has no cure

or effective treatment, anddoctors are still baffled as toits causes. According to ALSresearcher Dr. Barry Aranson,chairman of the University ofChicago's department of neu-rology, the evidence indicatesALS is inherited in about5 to 10 percent of all casesand that in others the causemay be a slow virus or somebuilt-in metabolic deficiency.

In the meantime, accord-ing to Rochelle Moss, of theNational ALS Foundation,ALS sufferers have been ig-nored. "The problem has al-ways been that if you're dis-

covered to have ALS, thedoctor just tells you to gohome and die," she says.The clinic, she hopes, will

offer some alternative to this.For more information aboutthe clinic, write to the Na-tional ALS Foundation, Inc.,1S5 Madison Avenue. NewYork, NY 10016. DC.THE LORD'S ENERGYSo you think you've got

energy problems? ConsiderManhattan's St. Patrick's Ca-thedral, with 36-meter-highceilings and cold stonewalls. Or the myriadsynagogues, churches, andother places of worship inthe world where single-panestained-glass windows letthe heai escape.Following the maxim"God helps those who helpthemselves," clergymenhave been embarking ontheir own energy-efficiencyprogram. St. Patrick's hasinstalled clock thermostatsand extra light switches to il-luminate only the area in use,About 1 percent of the na-tion's 3,500 synagogues nowhave energy-efficiency pro-grams, and another 40percent plan them, saysRabbi David Saperstein,chairman of the InterfaithCoalition on Energy.Clergymen from dozens of

denominations met withPresident Carter and U.S.energy officials earlier thisyear to plan their energycampaigns. "There is defi-nitely a theological basis forsaving energy," says MarkTalisman, director of theCouncil of Jewish Agencies.He notes that the Bible in-structs the faithful not to

waste the earth's resources.Among them, of course, areoil and natural gas.Places of worship also

waste a lot of energy be-cause they are fully occu-pied for only a small partof the week but are heatedand cooled continually Thechurchmen hope that thenew-found energy con-sciousness will result in sav-ings that can be used forreligious missions.Only a handful of religious

centers have solar panels.But one stands out for mixingenergy and theology. Overthe altar at Temple Emanuel, 'in Lowell, Massachusetts, isa solar-powered EternalLight. With two six-volt bat-teries for storage, it hasn'tflickered in 13 months ofusage S.D"The eternal silence of theseinfinite spaces frightens

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

24/87

coruTiruuurmTURTLE TURMOILA new kind of shrimp net

being tested by the U.S.Marine Fisheries Servicemay help save some of the

face of the sand are run overby off-road vehicles. Onceaboveground, both greenand loggerhead hatchiingstend to crawl toward thebrightest area, which today

Female turtle, having just nested, treks back to the sea. Tracks makeit easy forpoachers to find turtle nesls and steal eggs.endangered sea turtles inour waters. The net, whichwas described at a recent in-ternational conference heldin Washington, D.C., has apanel at the mouth thatkeeps out turtles while allow-ing shrimp to slip by.The sea turtles inU.S.

waters that could benefitfrom the new net are the log-gerhead, green, hawksbill,and leatherback varieties.All are endangered.The loggerhead and

green nest along our south-eastern coast, where theyface additional problems. InFlorida, according to Rut-gers University biology pro-fessor Davirj .Ehrenfeld, aconference participant,newly hatched green turtlesresting just below the sur-42 OMNI

is more often a highwayratherthanthesea. Heapsof crushed hatchiings areseen on highways.Of seven species of sea

turtle in the world, six areimperiled. Outside theUnited States, which nowprovides sea turtles com-plete protection, they facesuch hazards as egg poach-ing, exploitation for meat,and a thriving trade in "tor-toiseshell" items. (Tortoise-shell is the shell of thehawksbill.) The mostthreatened species. Kemp'sridley, has only about 1.000females left. A few hopefulnotes were sounded at theconference, including aplan for a marine park offNicaragua to shelter thegreen turtle. Barbara Ford

MILK-CRAZEDHOODLUMSImagine a gang of milk-

crazed teen-age hoodlumsterrorizing your block. Lac-tose addicts, wholesome-looking as Pat Boone, steal-ing cars and mugging oldladies. Shades of AClockwork Orange

Well, it might not be quitelike that, but a Seattle, Wash-ington, study suggests thathard-core milk drinking andjuvenile delinquency gohand in hand.

Alexander Schauss andClifford Simonson, of CityCollege, Seattle, discoveredthat hundreds of chronicjuvenile offenders drank anaverage of 12 to 15 eight-ounce glasses of milk a day.That's twice the amount con-sumed by the study's con-trols, youngsters with behav-ior problems but no run-inswith the law.

"It's the last thing on Earthwe expected," Schauss, apsychologist, says. Junkfood and sugar were morelikely culprits, but the law-breakers ate less junk food,and only slightly more sugar,than the controls did.So what's wrong with

milk at least in largeamounts? Schauss s pettheory is that the preserva-tives BHA and BHT impairbehavior Judith HooperEARTH DAY RETURNS

Like a summons to ahigh-school reunion, the an-nouncement of a secondEarth Day April 22,1980 reminds us howyoung we were.

Earth Day 70 was a stu-

dents' event, a nationwidechain of campus teach-ins ata time when the environmentwas regarded as a preciousconcern of the middle class.Yet environmental aware-ness did spill over into soci-ety in general, bringing theClean Air Act, the CleanWater Act, and the ever-growing fear that we maywell be making the earth un-inhabitable.

Earth Day '80 starts with apublic already well ac-quainted with environmentalproblems. The observancewill involve conferences,seminars, and street fairsabout alternative technologyand agriculture, energy is-sues, and community or-ganization. Coming as itdoes about a year afterThree Mile Island, threats ofdamage to the ozone layer,and talk of runaway green-house effects, Earth Day '80seems eminently rele-vant.Anne Klein

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

25/87

An awesome source of perfectenergy lies at-the core of our galaxy

STAR POWER FOR SUPERS0CIET1ESapw&H'M

MilitfifiiK

yellow hot, bibEverything solid n

msm

7/27/2019 OMNI April 1980

26/87

nearly the speed of lighi. Here is a timemachine that can fling us a million light-years into the future.

Steering clear of the accretion disk, wehurtle through a veil of glowing hydrogenand neon. Moments later a clear view of thegiant black hole emerges. We have waiteda long time for this moment. The nameblack hole, coined by John ArchibaldWheeler in 1969, compels us to hold ourrising expectations in check. Have wecome thousands of light-years just to lookat a big black ballot nothing? Or w