CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080026-6

Approved For Release 2001/03/26 : CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080026-6
monkeys may react to the same sound
quite differently.
The vervets are not absolutely consist-
ent about what intruder triggers an alarm
call, so the scientists in the field kept track
of the "mistakes." They found that the
adult monkeys seldom err, juveniles err
more frequently and infants err most fre-
quently of all. The juveniles, for instance,
give the eagle call on occasion at the sight
of an innocuous bird such as a stork or a
spoonbill. Infants carry their caution even
further; one gave the eagle alarm at the
sight of an airborne leaf.
'Although they make mistakes, there is
an order to the errors," Marler says. The
young monkeys, for instance, may give an
eagle call at the sight of a pigeon, but they
never mistakenly give the eagle call in re-
sponse to a leopard. "It's as though they
have a generally preordained mechanism,
which specifies that the eagle alarm call
should be given to something that may be
defined as 'moving up above' of a certain
size and with a certain trajectory," he pro-
poses. Initially for the young monkey,
many stimuli satisfy that requirement.
Gradually, however, the animals' percep-
tion becomes more discriminating, like
children sharpening their semantic sense,
Marler says. .
Marler suggests that these animal
studies offer a glimmer of hope for ex-
perimental elucidation of the process by
which a child brings "innate knowledge" to
the task of developing understanding. "We
blind ourselves to the prospect of new
discoveries if we insist on treating animals
as though they were automata. The
knowledge they have of companions and
their surroundings is probably as intricate
and complex as our own, though with an
emphasis that is unique to each species,"
Marler says. In other work Marler observes
among songbirds a complex mix of innate
tendency, imitation, modification and in-
vention (see p. 362). In discussion at the .
recent meeting in Atlanta of the Society for
Neuroscience, James L. Gould of Prince-
ton University challenged the idea that
complexity of a behavior necessarily im-
plies cognition. He says that what appears
to be animal awareness and intentions
may just be preordained, preprogrammed
learning routines combined with scien-
tists' ignorance of how complicated such
programs can get. His work with bees
(SN:11/17/79, p. 342) indicates that appar-
ently complicated feats of communication
can be described by simple rules that
could be genetically determined.
Donald R. Griffin of Rockefeller Univer-
sity emphasizes the importance of gather-
ing information about whether nonhuman
animals have intentions or are aware of
themselves in relation to their surround-
ings. "A cognitive ethology can thus hope
to illuminate the fundamental dimensions
and which, in their most versatile manifes-
tations, are the sources of our most pro-
Fluoride: Prevents
caries longer
Tooth decay may not be the most seri-
ous or painful health problem in the
United States, but is probably the most
common and certainly the most enduring.
Most - but not all - dental researchers
consider fluoridation the most effective
means of preventing dental caries (SN:
9/1/79, p. 152). Now, in the most recent
follow-up of a clinical study started in
1969, it looks as if fluoride's protective ef-
fects continue after treatment with fluo-
ride tablets ceases. A year and a half after
treatments were discontinued, the chil-
dren in the Wayne County, North Carolina
Public Health Service study who had re-
ceived one or two fluoride tablets daily for
six school years had fewer dental caries
than those who had received a flavored
placebo tablet. Both during and after
treatment, the fluoride group had between
32 and 35 percent fewer caries than the
control group.
The study - conducted by William S.
Driscoll, Stanley B. Heifetz and Janet A.
Brunelle of the National Institute of Dental
Research -started in 1969 when the 1,064
children were in first or second grade.
After the original check-up, they were re-
examined at intervals of 30 months, 55
months and six years. Following the six-
year check-up, the fluoride/placebo
treatments were stopped. Then in 1977,
after one and a half treatment-free years,
354 children who had also been checked
after six years were re-examined. This ex-
amination showed that " ... cariostatic
[anti-caries] benefits continue to be ap-
parent for both [one and two] tablet
treatment procedures at the end of seven
and one half years .... Thus, the caries pre-
ventive benefit did not diminish as a result
of discontinuing such treatment."
The study examined not only the pro-
tective effects of fluoride tablets, but also
looked at the cost-effectiveness of using
the treatment on large numbers of chil-
dren. Overall, the fluoride treatments cost
about $25 per child for six school years
and - if the post-treatment period is in-
cluded - prevented 3.65 "decayed, miss-
ing or filled" tooth surfaces from occurring
in each child during seven and a half years.
This means that it cost about $7 to prevent
each decay, compared with the $10 to $20
it costs to have a decayed tooth filled.
Dean justifies
psychic research
Many respectable scientists, from Ein-
stein on down, have speculated on the
credibility of so-called "psychic"
phenomena and on how they can be
studied scientifically. Generally such ef-
forts to legitimize this study have been
thwarted by the obvious presence of char-
latans and fools among reputed psychics
and by open hostility from the scientific
community at large. Perhaps worst of all,
few new theoretical or experimental ap-
proaches to the subject have been gen-
erated.
Now a fresh set of "psi" experiments
involving sophisticated technology has
been designed by Princeton University's
dean of Engineering and Applied Science,
Robert G. Jahn, and his co-workers. Al-
though Jahn is not yet ready to publish any
conclusive results, he has offered some
thoughts on a theoretical approach to
psychic phenomena and has concluded
that "once the overburden of illegitimate
activity and irresponsible criticism is re-
moved, there is sufficient residue of valid
evidence to justify continued research."
Jahn, best known for his pioneering
work with plasma discharges, summarized
his two-year experience with psychic re-
search during a recent science writers'
meeting in Palo Alto.
TIME
BASE
CALIBRATION
PK
CALIBRATION "
BASE
CALIBRATION
PK
CALIBRATION
Chart produced by physical changes in a
Fabry-Perot interferometer clearly shows
different effects when a subject just relaxed
(base) or tried to influence the instrument
through psychokinesis (PK).
experiments, results of which can be
scrutinized but not clearly interpreted.
What the Princeton researchers have tried
to do is design experiments in which the
of those att Approved For Release 2001/03/26 "CIA RDP96-00787R00020008002616to statis-
the collec-
tion of anecdotes of spontaneous events,
which tend to be spectacular but unverifi-
fical analysis.
The work started when an undergradu-
ate, Carol K. Curry. asked Jahn to supervise

NASA back into
data processing skills. The researchers
began with some simple extrasensory
power levels." But, he adds, "this band has
been inadequately explored, and technol-
per_ ption exerciseApproved For RebeldesatoB 180E 26 : CIA-RDP96-00787R00020008002646
we were indeed capable of generating ef-
fects to study" -then moved on to design-
ing equipment to measure psychokinesis
- a palpable disturbance of a physical
system by thought alone.
The psychokinesis experiments illus-
trate well why such research can be both
tantalizing and frustrating. Rather than try
to reproduce spectacular, "macroscopic"
effects, such as spinning a compass with-
:ut touching it (which has been reported
: ; poorly documented studies), Jahn and
Curry concentrated on easily observed
"microscopic" phenomena. In one exper-
ient, a subject was to raise the tempera-
: re of a thermistor by a few thousandths
a degree. In another, the goal was to
change the separation of two mirrors in a
fabry-Perot interferometer by a hundred-
thousandth of a centimeter. The observa-
tions were specific and even dramatic.
Subjects did, indeed, seem capable at
times of raising the thermistor tempera-
ture or changing the optical pathlength of
the interferometer at will. But neither ex-
periment was fully "reproducible" in the .
scientifically accepted sense: The effects
varied unpredictably from person to per-
son and from day to day. Because of this
unpredictability, Jahn prefers to call the
results of work so far "tutorial" rather than
technically conclusive. That is, they
should be used as models for more exten-
sive research rather than as any sort of
"proof" of the validity of psychic
phenomena. Nevertheless, analysis of
these experiments has offered two impor-
tant insights that can be further tested in
future research.
First, the ability to produce measurable
psychic effects appears to be trainable.
Neither Jahn nor Curry was aware of any
initial psychic ability and both got better
as they went along. An important element
in such training appears to be feedback
that is "visible and attractive," Jahn says.
Second, Jahn speculates that psychic
phenomena may have an inherently statis-
tical nature. If so, theories dealing with
such phenomena are likely to involve
abstruse concepts related to the for-
malism of quantum mechanics or statisti-
cal mechanics, rather than some easily
grasped intuitive explanation. In particu-
lar, psychokinesis appears to involve a re-
duction of entropy - a statistical measure
of disorder-and the equivalence of phys-
ical "information" and energy.
An ad hoc committee of the university
has established a charter for Jahn's work
on psychic phenomena to proceed and he
has brought in developmental psycholo-
gist Brenda Dunne to work full time on the
program. In an interview Dunne said that a
growing number of reputable scientists
are becoming active in psychic research,
but that "the field as a whole is struggling
for recognition as a legitimate science."
NASA
RCA Satcom III: Due soon, but then what?
Satellite communications, more inti-
mately woven into contemporary life than
perhaps any other aspect of Space Age
technology, owes much of its solid footing
to years of research and development by
the National Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration, which was ultimately able to
pass on most of the effort to private indus-
try as a self-sustaining enterprise. In 1973,
prompted by tight budgets, NASA virtually
dropped its R and D program in the field.
Now NASA is back in the game, with a
five-year program "aimed at retaining U.S.
world leadership in satellite communica-
tions research and technology."
Several factors have contributed to the
restored effort: Early in 1977, a special
committee of the National Research
Council's Space Applications Board
strongly recommended just such action
(SN: 4/9/77, p. 231). A year later, President
Jimmy Carter's reorganization plans pro-
duced the National Telecommunications
and Information Administration, charged
in part with easing the way for NASA com-
munications experiments into commer-
cial use. Further support came from vari-
ous federal agencies and industries in the
form of responses to a questionnaire from
the White House's Office of Science and
Technology Policy. The satellite-allocated
portions of the communications spectrum
have become increasingly crowded, and,
NASA points out, the U.S. is facing more
foreign technology competition.
The new NASA effort, based at the agen-
cy's Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, is
concentrated on the high-frequency, 20-
to-30-gigahertz portion of the spectrum
known as the Ka band. Lower frequencies
are fast approaching saturation, and, says
NASA's Donald K. Dement, "this Ka-band
allocation is the last potential opportunity
for significant new capacity to be devel-
in the United States." The agency will be
studying multi-beam antennas, on-board
signal-switching and other technologies,
but there is far more to the satellite com-
munications problem than the opening of
additional frequencies.
As the SAB committee's report empha-
sized, there are many potential satellite
communications users who are too small
or widely scattered to form a feasible
commercial market. The Ka band is
primarily relevant to large-scale, wide-
band traffic, while the small users often
can use narrow-band, lower-frequency
equipment - which is also less costly.
Some of NASA's new technologies will be
applicable there, but much of the small-
user activity is being studied amid a
thicket of other agencies and organi-
zations. The matter is thorny - and far
from solved.
Lasker Awards:
DNA and the brain
The 1979 Albert Lasker Basic Medical
Research Awards were presented to three
scientists whose basic research has po-
tential for clinical as well as laboratory
use. Roger W. Sperry of the California Insti-
tute of Technology received a $15,000
award for his investigations into the work-
ings of the brain's hemispheres, and Walter
Gilbert of Harvard University and Freder-
ick Sanger of the Laboratory of Molecular
Biology in Cambridge, England shared
another $15,000 for their independent de-
velopment of new methods of rapid
sequencing of DNA.
In 1953, Sperry developed the technique
of "split brain" research, in which he se-
vered the bundle of nerve fibers that con-
nects the two halves of the brain. He dis-
covered that the two hemispheres func-
tion independently in this situation; the
right brain does not know what the left
brain is learning. Sperry found that the two
halves of the brain govern two sets of ac-
tivities; there is no one "dominant" hemi-
sphere for all mental processes.
The second Basic Research Award was
presented jointly to Sanger and Gilbert (a
1949 Westinghouse Science Talent Search
winner); whose rapid sequencing tech-
niques will allow molecular biologists to
discover the sequence of DNA compo-
nents in a few days, instead of months.
Gilbert's method uses chemical reagents
to break the DNA molecules into frag-
ments, and Sanger's employs an enzy-
matic reaction in its sequencing proce-
dure.
The Lasker Special Public Service
Award was presented to Sir John Wilson,
President of the International Agency for
the Prevention of Blindness.
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NOVEMBER 24, 1979
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