Asbury Park Press from Asbury Park, New Jersey • Page 55

C4 Asbury Park Press Sunday, September 1 2, 1 993 iiafitiiuiss rtTTTi ftrrm I hcnhmnn and inr Dear Mr. President, HTV's effects knowrij only after research in painstaking detail question. When we don't it's a good thing to ask. that big shots do it, too. Thanks for the With all the all the time, wonder how The best way to know something, It's nice to see I Don't yield all power to the Keeper Take the Initiative and chip away at your own computer Illiteracy.

make one big enough to put your head inside of. You'll have such a good time being inside the camera, you'll want to share it with Hillary, At and Tipper. Really. IS 1 Fofl wnh-'ir nail hole A I pf Hole for your head MORE STUFF TO DO: Look at the drawing and notice where the hole for your head is. Cut one in your box.

Peek inside to see if there are light leaks. Seal up all light leaks. Take your box outside and wrap a big towel around your neck. This will keep out light. Now put the box over your head and look at the white paper.

Move around and point the back of the box in different directions. You'll have a real light show inside. Give your friends a turn inside the box. The whole thing is too radical and crunchy to keep for yourself. Sand your question to: Brakman or P.O.

Boi 30177, Kanus City, MO 64112 Get Inside A Camera WHAT YOU NEED: Large cardboard box masking tape -aluminum foil nail white paper large bath towel WHAT TO DO: Find the big box at a supermarket. Tape the white paper inside like in the drawing. Cut a 1-inch-by-1-inch hole in the opposite side of the box and tape a piece of foil over it. Use the nail to punch a hole in the foil. Close the box and tape it all up.

Tape down foil to seal the cracks. It is very important that no light at all get in the box except through the little hole in the foil. Seal all corners and cracks. The darker the box is, the better this experiment works! Nieoce spent all of his money on his WHAT IS GOING ON: You just made a kind of camera. It is called a camera obscura (ob-SCUR-ah).

The images you saw on the paper were upside down. That's how it is in all cameras. In a photographic camera, the white paper would be a piece of film that changes its chemistry when light hits it. In a video camera the white paper would be a device called a CCD which stands for Charged Coupled Device. It turns light into an electrical signal.

The nail hole in the foil is your lens. If you had Al cover it with his come through the follicular dendritic cells and "read" the antigen "library." "It's a holy pilgrimage for every cell," Fox says, recalling the ancient Greek adage that "every drop, of water on earth eventually passes down the Nile." HIV also has a predeliction for folli: cular dendritic cells. It hides among them, ready to pounce upon and infect unsuspecting cells. "About 99 out of every 100 CD49 that get HIV carry the virus silently," said microbiologist Ashley Haase, of the University of Minnesota, who recently invented a genetic technique for counting infected CD4 cells. "So they become viral reservoirs, carrying their cargo all over the body.

"But they are like a volcano," Haases continued, "waiting to erupt with viruses." Only 1 percent of the cells actively make virus, Haases estimates. "But that's about a billion cells, making about a trillion viruses at any given time." HTV inserts itself into these cells-' genes, takes control of the cells and turns them into HIV factories. Whether a person's immune system destroys the AIDS virus in the first place or is deceived into admitting it seems to be dictated by at least two things: the amount of virus pre-sent and the genetics of the person. The National Cancer Institute's Dr. Raoul Benveniste, working with scientists at the Washington Primate Center in Seattle, recently found that monkeys exposed sexually to minute doses of the simian AIDS viruses made an effective immune response," destroying the virus.

When later exposed to large doses the equivalent, perhaps, of a major sexual exposure the animals' immune systems instantly recognized the AIDS virus as an enemy. But if the virus dose was high, the immune systems failed to properly recognize the enemy. At the Bethesda gathering, other monkey researchers reported similar observations. I Some people are born with genetic immune system controls that cannot be fooled by HIV's mimicry, according to researchers from many laboratories, including the Ospedale Santo Raf-faele in Milan, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

Unfortunately, they are a distinct minority of people on the planet. Research in this area is so new that scientists aren't sure how many people carry genes that appear protec. tive, though they have turned up in every racial and ethnic group that has been studied to date. finger, that would be the shutter. A LittLe hitorY World's First Photograph In 1824 a man in France took this picture.

His name was Joseph Niepce. The picture is hard to see. It's a photo of a rooftop. You Can see other rooftops as well. It was taken from an attic window.

People were not impressed, and the new invention flopped. camera experiments and died flat broke. cameras stuck in your face guess you'd have to these things work. learn about cameras is to Beakman Place is dying out you need to know the language. It's usedj internationally on ships and can be useful in distress situations during bad weather conditions, the Coast Guard's Morgan said.

The last official Morse message Morgan got was during Hurricane Andrew. Then Andrew blew down the Coast Guard's antenna that monitors that Morse frequency. It has never been put back up. Yet, Morgan won't let the language die. "It's going to be needed again," he said.

"I can see it being used." For the week ending September 10, 1993 Big Cats i A mountain lion spread ter ror in a Mexico City neighborhood before beina caD- tured by firefighters following a two-hour chase. The animal didn't injure anyone but terrified residents as it growled and leapt about. In South Africa, a male lion apparently seeking to start his own pride has been prowling residential areas for almost two months. The lion, which probably escaped from Kruger National Park or adjoining game reserves in eastern South Africa, has been spotted repeatedly since July in a tourist region 216 miles east of Johannesburg. Locusts I The Pakistan Army launched an aerial and ground assault against swarms of locusts that were chomping their way through the cotton and sugarcane fields of the Cholistan desert region.

Officials say the Not every person's Immune system can be fooled by the Invasion of HIV, which mimics friendly molecules. By LAURIE GARRETT NEWSDAY The new scenario for how the human immunodeficiency virus affects the body at every step grows from research of exquisite detail. Here is an outline of the findings, based on research from dozens of laboratories around the world. Although many different types of HIV strains may be in an infected person's body, only weak strains can be passed sexually, according to work by Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Laboratory in New York City.

Once in the body, the virus mutates to form more lethal strains capable of doing the damage described below. The virus enters a cell or the bloodstream as a sphere, its surface bristling with 216 knobs made of a viral protein called gpl20, according to microscope work done by Hans Gelderb-lom of the Robert Koch Institut in Berlin. Those proteins, clustered in groups of three called trimers, allow the viruses to enter the targeted human cells and take control. Interspersed among the 72 trimer knobs are some 300 other protrusions made of proteins that mimic crucial molecules of the immune system. These send false signals that initiate the immune system's first steps toward chaos.

If the person exposed to HIV is lucky, his largest immune system cells, the macrophages, recognize the HIV viruses for the dangerous invaders they are and destroy them. But the virus's mimicry molecules can fool the macrophages. Deceived into believing the viruses are friendly, the macrophages assist the invaders, carrying them to any of hundreds of lymph nodes in the body. Cecil Fox, a cellular biologist, likens the thumbnail-sized lymph nodes to oil filters in automobiles. "All the garbage in the immune system goes in, and only the desired products are supposed to get out." All the body's cells specialized components of the immune system also circulate through the lymph nodes.

It's the job of cells, particularly those designated CD4 cells, to remember all potentially dangerous antigens and alert the rest of the immune system if such invaders appear. To remember the antigens, cells must By Steve Newman swarms, which have been sweeping into Pakistan's Sind and Punjab provinces from India since early July, were the worst in nearly two decades. Clouds of locusts in the Philippines, bred near the slopes of. Mt. Pinatubo, have spread across wide areas of Zambales, where more than 250 acres of rice fields were destroyed.

Millions of tons of pyro-clastic materials spewed by the volcano provided a fertile breeding ground for the insects. Earthquakes The Indian subcontinent was rattled by several sep arate tremors from the northern Himalayas to southwestern India. The strongest registered was widely felt along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Earth movements were also felt in Mexico's Chiapas State, Baja California, the Indonesian island of Flo-res, Guam, and eastern parts of the San Francisco Bay Area. y-m Send an SOS: By SETH BORENSTEIN FORT LAUDERDALE SUN-SENTINEL The news made Jean Fitzgerald feel old and reminded Manny Pa-pandreas that death is inevitable.

An old friend, Morse code, is fading from existence. It's time to send out an SOS: (dot-dot-dot) (dash-dash-dash) (dot-dot-dot). The language, which ushered in the era of wireless communication decades before the Pony Express, flourished during the naval battles of World War II. It is now the Latin of the electronic era. The U.S.

Coast Guard last month I very office or school has one: the Keeper of the Technology. I The very words send shudders down the spines of lesser human beings. The Keeper is the only person within a 50-mile radius who can get the printer to work, push the right buttons to get a 3-D pie chart, or change messages on the voice mail system. You ran hrihp them, plead with them, shower them with compliments, but you can't avoid them if you want to stay up and running. I.GREC PHELAN Forget about using threats to get them to fix your problem.

At the slightest provocation, the Keeper will let you know who is the boss: Your computer screen will go blank, mysteriously coming to life only after you get down on your knees and apologize. But who is this person who has so much control over our lives, the savior we desperately need to get our work done, the jerk we despise for ignoring us or making us feel stupid? Despite popular misconceptions and stereotypes, Keepers aren't pimply, pocket protector-wearing nerds, or even anti-social shut-ins. They come from all walks of life, and are not easily recognizable in public places. Not only are they normal, everyday people; they might not even be particularly fond of technology. All it takes is some manager to come in and plop a hefty manual down on someone's desk: "Read this!" the boss commands.

"You're now the office expert." Within days, a metamorphosis takes place. Your mild-mannered colleague, who was virtually unknown before the technological revolution, is transformed into a dictator who controls the computer network. But why? What could cause such a speedy corruption of an otherwise nice, normal person? It's the power. The Keeper can see the outbreak of hysteria when he plans a vacation, or the incessant groveling. Even top executives have turned into doting grandmothers in a Keeper's presence: "You want a bigger office? Sure, I'll give you a bigger office.

A raise? Why not? A few extra days to hand in the report? Why not give it to me and I'll finish it? It will give you more time to play Tetris on your PC. Oh, by the way, can you please install my new Lotus-123? I'll give you a chocolate bar." Is this technology's Dark Ages? It's as if we were technically illiterate peasants cowering before our digital robber baron, who is an expert at keeping us dependent and stupid. Do you tiunk the Keeper wants us to read the manual, or install our own software? Should you expect a Keeper to give up the slightest ounce of his power? No way! He loves whispering doubts in our ears, making us believe that we are truly incompetent. "Yeah, you're right," he says, "fixing the printer is impossible, UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. There's a manual, sure, but it's impossible to read, UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING." We are easily brainwashed.

Listen to the thoughts running through your head the next time you have a problem: This computer is incomprehensible, I'm stupid, and the Keeper knows these things. He's much smarter than I am, so I just have to wait. I know there's a manual and I'm an educated individual, but this technology stuff is just too hard. I've never been good at it. It's useless to try, UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

If only we didn't give in so easily. The Keeper has all that power because we give it up so readily. Storm the castle! Look up something in the manual. Try installing your own hard disk or learning a dozen spreadsheet macros. Give it a shot.

You'll be helping everyone around you by making them feel they can do it on their own. You'll be an inspiration. That's something a Keeper is never going to do. Greg Phelan, Fair Haven, is a technology specialist working in software design and computer education. He holds a masters degree in computer science.

Morse Code "You don't think about what you're doing, and it comes out on the fingertips of the typewriter," Papandreas said. "It's automatic." Decades have passed, but Morse fans still can't get the dots and dashes they call them "dits and dahs" out of their systems. "I love to listen to the dits and dahs, sit back in an easy chair and read it off, just like you and I are talking," Papandreas said. "You never forget it. It's hie swimming and sex." There are still uses for Morse.

If you want an advanced ham license, Tropical Storms The most destructive typhoon to strike southern and western Japan in 50 years unleashed waves of flash flooding and mud slides across Kyushu, Shikoku, and western Honshu island. Typhoon Yancy left more than 40 people dead, eight bridges washed out, and scores of roads impassable. Zola, the third storm of tropical origins to hit Japan within 10 days, brought gusty winds and high surf to the southeastern shore of Honshu. Bands of moisture from passing tropical storm Jova triggered heavy flooding in the northwest Mexican state of Durango. The worst inundations were in the capital, where 1 ,500 people in 20 neighborhoods had to be evacuated from their flooded homes.

Tropical storm Floyd formed east of the Bahamas and Lidia developed off Mexico. Hurricane Kenneth passed over the open waters of the Pacific south of Baja California. Drought Another dismal monsoon season in southeast India has left Madras State parched. Eighty percent of the capital's residents have not received water through their taps for months and the Madras municipal reservoir is nearly empty. Fresh water supplies are being shipped into the area by trains, trucks, and even air tankers.

UV Record Ultraviolet radiation over southern Canada rose to the extreme range 1 0 times this summer, the first time any such readings have occurred since the national UV index was established in 1992. Environment Canada scientist Jim Kerr announced that the high radiation levels resulted from record summertime ozone losses over the country. (ipWosfoc, (Russia)? Antarctica shut down a special Morse channel and this month plans to stop teaching it to radio operators. Boy Scouts no longer have to be prepared to translate Morse code to become Eagle Scouts. "It's the inevitable," said Papan-dreas, of Lake Worth, who taught Morse to military recruits and ham radio buffs from 1941 until 1983.

"It's like death." Fitzgerald, of Fort Lauderdale, a retired U.S. Navy captain, also was philosophical. "I love to see the progress that's being made in technology, and I go with it," he said. "But there was something elegant about Morse code." Tom Morgan, a Coast Guard communications officer in Miami, doesn't use Morse at work. He does at home, where he is a ham radio operator.

"I hate to see it go away in the commercial world," Morgan said. "Progress marches on." The 153-year-old Morse code has become almost obsolete. Of the 53,000 distress calls to the U.S. Coast Guard last year, only a dozen used Morse code, Coast Guard spokesman Rich Muller said. With the push of a button, automated telex systems in most ships can now give a distress call with the ship's name, location, and crew and passenger size.

"The technology nowadays just allows so much more information to be sent with much more reliability at a higher rate of speed," Muller said. "It doesn't have the mystique of the Morse code." Morse aficionados recall the heyday of Morse, and exaggerated stories flow as fast as an expert code operator's typewriter keys. Papandreas was like that. During World War he was proficient enough that he could smoke a cigar, transcribe Morse Code and listen to a baseball game over the radio at the same time, he said. Food Ban Charges of animal cruelty have sparked a potential trade war between France and Switzerland.

Bern plans to ban French foie gras (fattened duck liver), claiming that the force-feeding necessary to produce it is cruel. Paris responded with a threat to ban Swiss chocolate, claiming the Swiss mistreat their cows' udders. Henri Emmanuelli, chairman of the regional council in Landers, said the same pressure (or suction) is applied to Swiss udders by milking machines as is inflicted on French ducks' gizzards by electric force-' feeding. French force-feeding methods are illegal in Switzerland. Last year, the Swiss Migro supermarket chain stopped selling foie gras after animal-rights activists complained to the chain about the alleged ani-' mal cruelty.

1 Additional Sources: U.S. Climate Analysis Center, U.S. Earthquake Information Center, and the Worid Meteorological Organization..