Approved For Release 2000/08/10 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000100120013-0 BY PATRICK HUYGHE A maverick scientist is shaking up quake predictors by suggesting that solar flares trigger scismic activity. Editor’s note: Much to the consternation of her colleagues, a California scientist believes the sun may trigger such diverse calamities as earthquakes, human illness and arson. Officials charged with earthquake prediction have encouraged her even as scientists scoff, Is this researcher a pioneer in the tradition of Galileo or is she just another overeager soul who has misinterpreted her data to fit her pet theory? Here is her story. After you have read it, decide whether you believe all, parts or none of it. cologists understand the action of plate tectonics perhaps bet- ter than any other aspect of the A earthquake-generating process. The one great mystery that re- mains is knowing precisely when one tec- tonic plate will break free of another and set the Earth’s crust to crumbling. The key to solving that mystery lies in isolat- ing dhe final nudge that upsets the balance of frictional forces locking the edges of the plates together, Biologist Marsha Adams, 38, thinks sbe may have found that key 93 million miles away from the Earth in the hot, tur- bulent atmosphere of the sun. Morcever, Adams, who is at SRE International, a nouprofit California think tank, has data she suys indicate that certain people can sormchow sense the forces that trigger earthquakes before they occur. “i didn’t start out as a sun freak,” says Adams candidly. “But I’ve come to real- ize that almost all variations that occur in biological and physical processes may be the result of fluctuations in solar activity. I have to think very hard to come up with one that isn’t, { suspect that geophysical Biologist Marsha Adams, seen standing on the San Andreas Fault, links solar Aares (top) te health problems as well as quakes. processes—-including volcanoes and weather fronts—-are related to solar activ- ity in some quite comprehensible way.” Adamis’s journey to solar consciousness began a decade ago in a basement labora- tory of the Stanford Medical School, where the young biologist was conducting a study of cardiac stimulants on embryo chick hearts. Once the study was completed, Adams prepared to present her results to the American Heart Association, but just a few weeks before she was to do so, her results reversed themselves. Instead of stimulation, the embryo chick hearts be- gan exhibiting depression. Assuming the experimental setup was at fault, Adams dismantled the entire system and changed the platinum electrodes, the stock solu. | tions and the air tanks. No matter what she did, she couldn’t replicate her results. Soon after, though, for no apparent reason, the experiment began to work again. Although they watched several of these reversals, neither she nor her super- visor could explain what was happening. Having taken into account humidity, temperature and all the other factors that biologists usually control in their experi- ments, Adams was left with only one con- clusion: “The chick embryo results were a clue that somethmg in the environment was profoundly influencing biological Opeaing photograph by Roger Ressmeyer, solar-flare photograph courtesy of NASA Approved For Release 2000/08/10 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000100120013-0 RRS Ao ROR Ms. processes, but at the time T didn’t know where to look for the something.” Adams then began to accumulate other instances of biological variability. In 11,000 cases of measured surgical bleed- ing, for example, she noticed that the measurements of blood loss varied. She screened these cases against a variety of factors in the geophysical environment: cosmic radiation, several measures of geo- magnetic and solar activity and a number of standard weather variables such as barometric pressure, temperature and rel- ative humidity. She found that the bleed- ing anomalies occurred following periods of increased solar activity and preceding large-magnitude earthquakes. The clinical staff at the Women’s Com- munity Clinic in San Jose, where Adams was then research director, wasn’t sur- prised, she says. “They said they could have told me that because everything gocs haywire around there a few days before an earthquake. People in the recovery room showed an increase in emotional disturbances and there was an increase in the number of people vomiting and react- ing to anesthetics. They didn’t have to look at the data to tell when an earth- quake was coming. When I challenged them to predict the next carthquake, they did, and the bleeding data showed the ex- pected anomalies.” 73 hen LAR bg NOFA Al. es SAN er witPo. SEND py tEAM oi a pt netbeans racsmemere, s ee,
Aware of the fact that certain animals scem to act strangely just prior to earth- quakes, Adams formalized a study that used human subjects to forecast them. She had moved to her present position at SRI International, and her only contact with most of the 25 people who are now participating in the study has been over the telephone. She has taken great pains, in the interest of scientific objectivity, for them not to know one another. “Most of them contacted me because they had themselves recognized that their flu-like symptoms seemed to precede earth- quakes,” says Adams. “Many of those who called would tell me the same story. One said: “You are my last hope before seeing a psychiatrist.” Another said: ‘I feel really weird about this, but you’ve heard about those Chinese studies with animals — re- sponding to earthquakes, haven't-you? Well, I think maybe that happens with people, too.’ They would then go on to describe the symptoms they felt before an earthquake, none of which their physicians could tie to specific illnesses,” Twice each day, the 25 “re- sponsives” who reliably exhibit physiological sensations prior to a quake fill out a chart, noting the pres- ence or absence of such symptoms as fa- tigue, vertigo, chills, headaches, nausea, a ringing in the ears or a flushed sensation, The form also provides spaces for depres- sion and fights with a spouse or work- mates. Once the symptoms reach a peak of in- tensity, the responsives call in on Adams’s hot line and give name, date, time of day, the symptom and its strength. This has allowed her to establish a track record for cach person that tells her how accurate he or she is with regard to large- or small-magnitude quakes, to local versus distant quakes and to the tim- ing of the event. One person, she reports, has only called in four times, but he has been 100 percent on the mark for earth- quakes over magnitude 7 on the Richter scale (8.5 is “devastating”), As a team, the responsives have been accurate be- tween 70 and 80 percent of the time, though Adams has made no attempt to forecast all of the more than 36 earth- quakes of a magnitude 6.5 or greater that A NL Patrick Huyghe, who writes for the New York Times and science magazines worldwide, met with biologist Marsha Adams in San Francisco. occur around the world each year. The forecasts she has made are recorded on a Burroughs computer at SRI that time- stamps each entry. “T sit up and pay attention when they call,” says Adams. “It’s awesome to watch the system work, especially when twelve of the twenty-five people who haven’t contacted you for weeks call within a twenty-four-hour period.” She believes that whatever force is trig- gering these human somatic sensations is probably also responsible for triggering earthquakes and for the well-documented strange behavior of animals preceding those upheavals. Her data suggest that the agent responsible for this and other assorted mischief is an increase in solar activity. February of this year. “She’s been right on target,” says Casper. “When Adams forecasts, the arsonist hits within 72 hours. She’s got it down.” Solar flares, which Adams thinks are the crucial factor in this catalog of disas- ters, are the most spectacular and power- ful of all forms of solar activity. These mammoth tongue-shaped protuberances display temperatures in excess of 20 mil- lion degrees Kelvin and release the energy equivalent of 10 to 100 billion 1-megaton H-bombs, enough power to supply the United States for thousands of years. Flares usually appear in step with the sun-spot cycle, which reaches a maxi- mum every 11 years. At times of solar maximum, when the greatest number of spots appear on the sun, as many as two or three small flares may ap- pear every hour, and one enormous flare may ap- pear each month. But at times of solar mini- mum, weeks may pass without any significant flares. Erupting flares unleash a tidal wave An erupting solar flare sends shock waves rippling through the solar wind and pumps streams of high-energy particles (two horizontal lines) outward. These collide with the Earth’s magnetosphere (shaded area), causing magnetic storms that may affect health. The list of factors Adams claims may be influenced by increases in solar activity is a long one and, unbelievable as it may sound, includes not only earthquakes and periodic human illness but also freak weather conditions, arson, riots, political instability and crime waves. In fact, Ad- ams points out, the Falkland Islands were invaded soon after an increase in solar ac- tivity. Railroad derailments and accidents involving airplanes, buses and ships ap- pear on the list as well. All these events tend to occur in specific time slots within about a week of increases in solar activity. Humans normally begin to react within the first few days after a flare, and the earthquakes in about four days. Adams has already provided several fire forecasts for Andrew Casper, chief of the San Francisco fire department, who has been on the track of an arsonist re- sponsible for more than 30 fires since of radiation, electrical and magnetic fields and high-energy particles into space, part of which enhance what is known as the solar wind. When this solar debris smacks into the Earth’s magnetic field, or magne- tosphere, a wide variety of terrestrial ef- fects occur: aurora borealis, geomagnetic storms, electrical surges in power lines and even in the ground itself. During one such outburst in 1859, telegraph opera- tors found that they could transmit and receive messages without batteries. “What has not been appreciated.” notes Adams, “is just how much biologi- cal responsiveness there is to solar activi- ty. Unfortunately, studies on solar-terres- trial interactions do not show a one-to-one correspondence. So one won- ders if there is not some other factor that might actually be the mechanism that triggers this biological responsiveness. And there is another factor that coincides 4 ScinedRaprovedt Por Release 2000/08/4 0.:.CIA-RDP96-00792R0001001 20013d
nO a erpapamnanieiiemncnninsessasinseanti » jemiesninssiteeinaeioniainsicehigseeisciiuenepiteineitieiovireatahdindaian Approvéd Fo€Reledwle 2 2090/08/40 : : C(G-RDiF96- ;.0b792600188120013- 0. with solar activity and that is ELF.” ELF is extremely low frequency elec- tromagnetic radiation (3 to 30 hertz), in other words, very long radio waves. ELF is produced naturally in two ways. The first is through solar activity. When the main bulk of particles shot from the sun during a solar flare finally hits the Earth’s magnetic field, it rattles the magneto- sphere the way a hungry chimp might saake a bread box. This Mapping of the magnetosphere generates ELF. ELF is also produced indirectly through a sec- ond channel of propagation—weather fronts. THE ELF FACTOR Adams is currently testing the hypoth- esis that ELF might be the geophysical variable responsible for triggering all kinds of biological and seismic processes. Unfortunately, relatively little work has been done on wavelengths below 100 hertz. But biological processes are known to respond to several frequencies within this range. A somewhat casual German study of 53,000 subjects, for example, seemed to show that people take longer to respond to normal stimuli when they are in the vicinity of ELF waves. Biologists studying ELF have come up with a list of symptoms remarkably similar to those Adams's responsives report. It is also known that the frequency of alpha brain waves (8 hertz) has a geologi- cal parallel in what is catled the Schu- mann Resonance, the frequency at which the length of a radio wave equals the cir- cumference of the Earth. This piece of in- formation set Adams wondering whether ELF might not also help directly trigger earthquakes. Although she doesn’t claim to know just how ELF provides the final nudge that brings on the catastrophe, she does speculate on two possible mecha- nisms: piezoelectricity and magnetostric- tion. Piezoelectricity is a process by which electromagnetic energy is converted to mechanical energy or vice versa, It occurs most notably in crystals, and it is the basis for the quartz watch. The quartz picks up the electromagnetic signal and converts it io a mechanical vibration that is then am- plified. Perhaps the Earth’s crust begins io vibrate through such an effect, says Adams, or through magnetostriction, a process by which certain magnetic mate- rials change shape when they are subject- ed to a magnetic field. When subjected to an oscillating field, such as ELF, a me- chanical motion, or vibration, is pro- duced. Might such a mechanical vibra- tion, set off by ELF at a frequency that resonates with a fault location that has accumulated the most strain, be sufficient to trigger an carthquake? Only further re- search will tell. Adams thinks that responsives act as biological transducers and are quicker at absorbing and integrating information than any current scientific instrument. Eventually, however, she expects to be able to separate the human variable from the forecasts. Within a year or two, de- pending on the availability of funds for proper equipment that will help her cre- ate an accurate model, she hopes to make daily forecasts of earthquake probabili- ties, like a daily weather forecast, using direct measurements of ELF and/or solar activity to supplement the human data. Certainly the most eye-opening aspect of Adams’s current forecasting system is the finding that responsives need not be in the vicinity of an earthquake in order to forecast it. Low-frequency radio waves travel around the world many times with thinimum attenuation because the cavity between the Earth and the ionosphere acts as a vast natural resonator for elec- tromagnetic energies of these wave- lengths. This effect allows responsives in one locale to predict quakes anywhere in the world. “T strongly suspect,” says Adams, “that the information that would allow us ” A painful sunburn or skin cancer are only the most obvious effects of sunlight on human health. The sun may also have the power to alter your moods, your immune system and per- haps even your fertility. Evidence suggests that secretions of melatonin—-a -hormone linked to re- productive function in some ani- mals—-are regulated, in part, by daily cycles of light and dark. MIT endocri- nologist Richard Wurtman and his co- workers have found that humans se- crete more melatonin between 11 P.M. and 7 4.M. Further, Alfred Lewy, a re- search psychiatrist at the Oregon Health Sciences University, and his colleagues have recently shown that bright artificial light and sunlight turn off this melatonin secretion. These re- sponses are thought to be mediated by visible light (part of the sun’s spec- trum), which acts on photoreceptors in the eye. Lewy has found that some blind people have different melatonin- secretion rhythms than people with normal sight. Although in some animals melato- nin inhibits ovulation and causes adult gonads to regress under certain condi- tions, evidence for a link between light and fertility in humans has so far been indirect. One four-year study reported fo determine location can be found in the symptoms themselves. What secms to be happening is that even a person who has the same symptoms over and over may have additional symptoms that appear to be location dependent. For instance, Pve noticed that the flushed sensation and chills seem to be prevalent for earth- quakes that are to occur within a two- hundred-mile radius of San Francisco Bay. The timing of the calls may also pro- vide location clues. Looking at track re- cords, I’ve noticed that for some individ- uals, if the quake doesn’t occur within a day of their call, the probability of the dis- , turbance being local decreases.” The theory’s potential applications probably played a large part in capturing the public’s attention when news of her work leaked to the press last September. California’s Governor Jerry Brown was intrigued enough to call her, and subse- quently Adams was invited to describe her work before a hearing on earthquake prediction and preparedness held by the state’s Assembly Committee on Govern- mental Operations. The committee gave her a courteous reception and wished to Continued on page 103 that most women in north Finland conceived during the summers, when there are about 20 hours of sunlight a day. And an Italian study showed that in spring teenage girls had a 10 times greater secretion of a hormone that af- fects the ovaries than they did in au- tumn—presumably in response to the influence of increasing versus decreas- ing daylight. Some people who suffer from manic depression, a mood disorder, are ab- normally sensitive to light; Lewy and his co-workers discovered that some sufferers stop secreting melatonin at a lower-than-average light intensity. But whether the hormone directly affects mood or is just a marker for other bio- chemical changes going on inside the body is not known. Other evidence indicates that the sun’s ultraviolet light impairs the hu- man immune system by causing ab- normalities, at least temporarily, in white blood cells. Work with animal cells at Harvard Medical School has demonstrated that exposure to ultravi- olet rays prevents the proper function- ing of cells involved in fighting infec- tion and, at the same time, stimulates suppressor cells, which normally turn off the immune system. ~Madeline Chinnici Approved For Release 2000/08/10 : CIA-RDP96-00792R000100120013-0
Continued from page 75 be app..ou of further progress in her re- search, The U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Office of Earthquake Studies in Menlo Park, California, also gave her an oppor- tunity fo present her work, but the major- | ity of its scientists apparently felt that the evidence she presented was not persuasive enough to warrant funding by the USGS. iC. Barry Raleigh, a geophysicist with the USGS ut the time, however, indicates that they encouraged her to pursue her work. '  Pealing with a subject of such scope in- volves risks, and Adams’s theory has in- vited its share of criticism, much of it fram geologists. “E never saw pulled to- i gether the kind of critical evidence re- | quired to make a hypothesis like that be even marginally acceptable,” says Ra- leigh, currently director of the Lamont- | Doherty Geological Observatory, who | has been outspoken in his criticism of her | work. “The idea is interesting, but it was nal backed up to my satisfaction by an adequate body of objective data that could allow you to decide if there was anything to it or not. Probably the weak- est link in her work is that there is no rea- sonable physical model that might ex- i plan the phenamenon. But there is obviously something in the idea that has her convinced.” | PREMATURE EXPOSURE | Adams regrets the premature publicity she has received. It has forced her to pre- ; sent her work through the media, without ! fast having the results presented ina sei- entific journal and, even more important, without first having completed a rigerous analysis of all her data. | ven ia its formative stage, however, » Adams is clearly excited by the theory. “Here is a variable that we are not aware 1 af and yet is present and influencing all / uur fives,” she says. “YT think everyone may be sensitive to it to some degree. It’s ' just that people are not aware of what to ' look for. It's a matter of exposure, recog- / nition and awareness. Unfortunately, I think that right now we are culturally bi- » ased against this particular variable.” While many of Adams's colleagues re- main skeptical about her work, her notion ' that the sun has a profound effect on our lives would certainly have come as no sur- | | prise to Uncle Joe Cannon, the venerable | Speaker of the U.S. House of Representa- tives between 1903 and 1911. During a | debate on appropriations for solar re- | search, it was Unele Joe who argued: “Tverything hangs upon the sun, sir, and ' if ought to be investigated.” oH Do vou want to knaw more about how the sun affects us? See next monti's Science Digest story about the exciting research on ihe solar wind’s role in the aurora borealis. Continued from page 88 effect—the character of the original gene pool. If the first ancestors did not have a particular genetic disease, then it is un- likely to appear in their descendants. “These communities are microcosms, living laboratories of what can happen from generations of inbreeding,” says Dr. Martin Greenberg, head of pediatrics at a hospital near the Ridge. Although no one has done any clinical studies on the Ridge, such as those that have been done on the Amish (see page 87), the families there reveal and talk about problems that Greenberg says may be hereditary. “From what IT have seen and what [am aware of, there are some abnormalitics that seem to be related to disorders of the bone, connective tissues and joints. Also apparent in some of the families is an in- creased incidence cf neurological prob- lems, ranging from strokes and seizures to cases of mental retardation.” FEAR OF INBREEDING The severity of the punishments often given to those who have violated taboos against incest would seem to refleet a very profound fear of inbreeding. It is hardly surprising that the sporadic and often sudden appearance of physical or mental illness among children of consanguineous marriages is seized on as the ultimate jus- tification for such taboos. The problematic history of incest and the simultaneous fragility and strength of human evolution are only a few of the di- lemmas one faces in trying to understand the meaning of communities like the Ridge. How can you separate the social and medical effects of inbreeding? Tn judging the medical effects of inbreeding, how certain can we be about the mature of the original gene pool? How can we decide which society is more advanced: the community that tol- erates and cares for the sick and the old in the normal run of family fife or the one that puts them away in institutions? Greenberg had listened for years to tales of violence and mental disturbance on the Ridge. Finally, he went up to see for himself. “What is striking about these people,” he says, “is not so much their genelic problems. Rather, it's the whole area of social interaction, their tolerance and caring, the interdependence, the ac- ceptance, the charity, the openness of their loves and their hates.” In spite of its anarchies and contradic- lions, occasional ugliness and the laby- rinth of legends, there are lessons to be learned on the Ridge. ‘Nature,’ wrote William Harvey in 1657, justifying his in- terest in rare diseases, “is nowhere accus- tomed more openly to display her secret mysteries than in cases where she shows traces of her workings apart from the beaten path.” a Sy AME TF EARTHQUAKE S.se 2i6bNd @LHXs-RDP96-00792Rodd1 bd thos fs O ND IN ETERNITY The Ancients Called {it COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS Must man dice to release his tuner con- sciousness’ Can we experience momentary flights of the soul--—that is, become one with the aniverse and receive an intlux of great understanding? The shackles of the bedy-—-its earthly limitations-——can be thrown off and man’s mind can be atinaed to the Infinite Wisdom for a flash of a second. During this brief interval intuitive knowledge, great inspira- tion and a new vision of our life’s mission are had. Some call this great experience a psychic phenomenon, But the ancients knew it and taught it as Cosate Consciousness—- the merging of man's mind with the Uni- versal Intelligence. Let This Free Book Explain This is vot a religious doctrine, but the application of staple, natural laws which give man an insight into the great Cosmic plan. They make possible a source of great joy, strength and a regeneration of man's personal powers. Write to the Rosicrucians, an age-old brotherhood of understanding, for a free copy of the book, “The Mastery of Life.” It will tell you how, in the pri- vacy of your own home, you may indulge in these mysteries of life known to the ancients. Address: Scribe DYB wr a ‘ She ‘Rosicrucians SAN JOSE (AMORC) CALIF, 95191 U.S.A, SEND THIS COUPON Please Include Your Zip Code FN re ie eee me etree See om me Sad Sa PONE RO iat iy | Scribe DYB i | The ROSICRUCIANS (AMORC) | San Jose, California $5191 U.S.A. I | Please send me the free book, The Mastery | of Life, which explains how I may learn to | | use my faculdes and powers of mind. j | name. va ce | | Address. 0 | Ca eo | I Stare. condi Code. tL i
VADER Mie OR Gone se cae pL a esac a Everyone knows about the kind of elec- tric current provided by utility compa- ties. Less familiar are the currents manu- factured by nature's own powerhouse. j Charged particles from the sun set off os- | cillations in the Earth’s magnetic field at the eclges of the atmosphere. These pulses | in turn induce electric currents on the Earth. John R. Booker, a geophysicist at the . University of Washington, was studying the structure of the western seacoast when he came across an immense current, one far too strong to be caused solely by local phenomena. In early 1980, he and co-worker Gerard Heasel traced the cur- rent along a line that runs coughly south- east from Tacoma, Washington, to the Columbia River. i An electric current will usually flow | more easily through water than through i land, but rack that holds water ia its | | pores tends to be highly conductive. | Booker discovered that his current flows | 1 | 1 i along a thin wedge of porous sedimentary rock squeezed between older, denser con- tinental crust to the east and ocean crust 4 being pushed in from the west. Booker belicves the current is induced STRALT OF GEORGIA 7 Srhalr oF Oe PUAN JHE FUCA” c ‘ ‘ f Lo ‘ gohan j eee) ET i 2 f OREGON Pacific FOSEGICHETS Nee 2 Digest October I982 iat LER En IE One We c/n ane thn tren he TR Seat A A IRIE SMEARS VENISON 3A PBS CRED SSA OT Nd EME INANE NATURE’S HIDDEN POWER LINE in the Pacifie and travels down between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland. Then, prevented by a milder incoming current from following the path of least resistance back to the ocean, it continues south dawn Puget Sound, where it leaks into the continental mass. The current’s path coincides with a seis- nik fault, und scientists hope that map- ping it will provide information about the region’s geological structure that can help them evaluate carthquike hazards. Although the current fiows along at a powerful rate, local residents won't be able to plug their toasters inte their back- yards. The rack veins high conductivity, says Booker, makes it impossible for the energy to be concentrated and tapped. 2 A CAMEL CAN SURVIVE in the desert not because its hump. stored... water, but because it stores fat, As the fat is broken down, hydrogen i is” given off. This mingles with oxygen inhaled by the animal and cre+ ates~-you guessed it—water, 1 : t j : } | L.. MUASERED ROENDAR § PSUMATED ROURDARY oy, MRNAS MONTANA a Hy >) . IDAHO 1 A naturally occurring electric current flowy through a nals of p porous rack in the Northwest, coincident with a seismic fault. By mapping the current’s path, may Sd FOF. a? (aas the S380 0108? ne CURY ROPSE:tio7 . | 5k KM TS WORLD SPACE CAPITAL RISES IN BALTIMORE Beginning in early 1985, the world’s | capital of astronomy will not be a wind- swept mountain in California, a voleanc in Hawaii or event a huge telescope in the | Soviet Union. It will be a five-story build- ing in downtown Baltimore. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STSD, now being built at Johns Hopkins University, will be the final destination for data transmitted from the Space Tele- scope, an orbiting observatory that praj- ect scientists say will sce objects 50 times fainier and 7 times farther away than cas be detected by the largest Earth-based telescopes. Once the Space Telescope is placed into orbit by the space shuttle and begins ils observations, a crew about 80 strong will Operate the STSI around the clock. As one scientist’s experintent ends, another's will begin, and by the end of onc year it is estimated that the facility will have ‘ost- ed more “than 150 visiting astronomers from around the world. Data and pictures from the Space Tele- scope will first be transmitted to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Green- belt, Maryland, where the craft's ground , systems are located, and then relayed to the STSPs on-line observation area. As the data become public, after about 4 year, they will also be sent to a European Space Agency facility now under con- struction in Munich. : “Calculations suggest that the Space Telescope will be able to see any Jupiter- size planets orbiting Sun-like stars as far away as ten light-years-—possibly twenty to thirty,” says project acientist C. R. O'Dell. There are 11 stars within ten light-years of the Sun, 76 more within a radius of twenty light-years. Tf all goes according to blueprints, as- tronomers at the STSI will carry out the renaissance of optical astronomy in pleas- ant surroundings. “The Institute is being built. into the side of a hill in a very wood- ed section. It’s a nice rural setting within a city,” says chief facility manager H. Tames Lyall. The building will include a library, data archives, a 200-seat lecture hall, a skylit lobby, a terrace cafeteria and office space for support staff and visiting acientists, The STS1 is being built under the acgis = of AURA (Association of Universities far Research in Astronomy), a NASA-fund- ed consortium that proposed the institute. lt already operates three ground-based