The Ticklish Gene
135
supplied plentiful stresses to their bones. They worked out so hard that
their muscles grew, but decalcification still reached 6.8 percent on the
twelve-week mission.
The Soviets at first claimed to have solved the problem before or dur-
ing the Soyuz 26 mission of 1977—78, in which two cosmonauts orbited
in the Salyut 6 space lab for over three months. Subsequent Soviet space-
persons, who have remained weightless as long as 211 days, reportedly
have showed no ill effects from osteoporosis, and chief Soviet space doc-
tor Oleg Gazenko said it simply leveled off after three months. How-
ever, this claim was later officially withdrawn, and I have a hunch that
the Soviets are working on a way to prevent the condition by simulating
earth-surface fields inside their space stations, a method that perhaps
hasn't yet worked as well as they'd hoped. Andy Bassett has suggested
giving our astronauts strap-on electromagnetic coils designed to approxi-
mate their limb bones' normal gravity stress signals, but so far NASA
has shown no interest.
Unfortunately for earthbound victims of osteoporosis, the copper peg
discovery still hasn't been followed up, even though I published it over
fifteen years ago. Charlie and I wanted to continue in that direction, but
we knew that we couldn't sustain more than one major research effort at
a time. We decided that regenerative growth control was our primary
target, so we reluctantly dropped osteoporosis. Fortified by our new
knowledge that electricity controlled growth in bone, we returned in-
stead to the nerves, taking a closer look at how their currents stimulated
regrowth.
A Surprise in the Blood
1 felt as though the temple curtain had been drawn aside without warn-
ing and I, a goggle-eyed stranger somehow mistaken for an initiate, had
been ushered into the sanctuary to witness the mystery of mysteries. I
saw a phantasmagoria, a living tapestry of forms jeweled in minute
detail. They danced together like guests at a rowdy wedding. They
changed
their
shapes.
Within
themselves
they
juggled
geometrical
shards like the fragments in a kaleidoscope. They sent forth extensions of
themselves like the flares of suns. Yet all their activity was obviously
interrelated; each being's actions were in step with its neighbors'. They
were like bees swarming: They obviously recognised each other and were
communicating avidly, but it was impossible to know what they were
saying. They enacted a pageant whose beauty awed me.