I think its really neat to be able to sit back and consider the years and say to yourself,   " WOW,   What a Grand Adventure My Life Has Been !   If the next fifty years are as intense as the first fifty years of my life   ...     Kaaa——POW ! "   I've witnessed our planet's rapid development of technology close up. I've spent my years working with key industries designing and installing new technology, creating new products. From my perspective, the future is bright with exciting possibilities.

Today, we are being presented with more options than ever. It seems that an endless stream of new discoveries and inventions are presented to us each day. We've demonstrated, what we as a nation are capable of when we put one of our citizens on the moon's surface. The team work involved was tremendous. Our imaginative powers were put to the task of creating the many different devices that were needed for accomplishing the task of getting to the moon and back, with the best technology known at the time. The project brought a open time of discovery and invention. There was large scale dissemination of information.

As soon as something new was discovered, the information was published. New materials were created from Nature's atomic erector set. New ways of doing old tasks were perfected. Our creative urges were being fulfilled with thoughts of being part of a positive, exciting project.

After the moon missions, our society continued to unfold the possibilities of Nature's erector set construction. But, with the atmosphere of the "Cold War" the disseminate of new discoveries was not as open. Companies claimed a right to withhold information regarding new discoveries. Nationally, technology was developed for the sole purpose of creating greater weapons of destruction.

Thankfully, the attitude of openness is returning. The National Labs have been given the mandate to assist with the transfer of technology, developed for the military, into the commercial business sector. Wonderful new worlds of possibilities loom before us. Our ever increasing understanding of the atomic nature of our world has given us the ability to create natural materials in a new way, plus, a whole fascinating tool kit full of new exotic materials. We have learned to enhance biological environments and can increase the growth rate of almost anything we desire. All that is necessary to realize the great benefits available to us is a slight change of outlook. Acknowledging that we are part of global system. That all things are interlinked in one amazing clock–works.

In the past we have introduced materials and manufacturing processes without duly considering the influences that these marvelous things have on our own personal biology and the planetary system of which we are a part. We are now just beginning to understand the incredible disaster we have rained down upon us. We are being poisoned by our water pipes, cookware, china, flaking paint pigments, auto emissions, herbicides, bug sprays, even the dyes we use to color our cloths have the potential to be harmful, especially when mixed in combinations. Happily, just a slight shift in our present conscientious allows an imaginative mind to implement scientific principles. If You allow yourself to view all happenings from the perspective of environments, a remarkable cohesiveness is apparent.

We simply need to move past our symptomatic treatment of sociological and biological issues and address the causal realities. If our approach is only to treat the diseases or their symptoms, the true causes, the real source of the disease may continually go unnoticed. If we can learn to prevent the disease entirely the benefits should be obvious and many.

We can no longer return to the land and live as the original Native Americans or early immigrants. We have burned the bridges of our past culture, through our disruption of the natural balanced echo-system. Fortunately, our technology has given us the wherewithal to not only reverse the effects we have had on our ecology, but to enhance the life force on this planet to an almost unimaginable level. The horn of plenty can easily be made available to everyone, thereby reducing the stresses that promote disharmony.

Life can only flourish in a very narrow range of environmental values. Too cold, too hot is a simple example we all know. The same holds true for air, water and the mineral content of the medium. Very small changes can have very dramatic effects. Some elements need to be controlled in parts per Billion. ( 1 X 10^–9 ). That notation may seem small, but an ounce of iron actually has more than 977,648,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 individual iron atoms in it. So, as Einstein said, "Its all relative." That is ... Related!

The mysteries of nature have been slowly unfolded for me during an incredible journey of discovery. We are all equipped with a marvelous array of senses that go far beyond the presently known six physical senses. One of these is termed by psychologists as the sense of homeostasis. Put simply, the feeling that everything is alright. All systems check 'A' OK !

Back in the fall of '71', I was unconsciously heading into my usual winter slow down. The dramatic loss of energy was usually accompanied by frustration in my level of performance and often resulted in a cycle of depression. The idea occurred to me that I always seemed to have more energy when there was green growing things around. So I planted some bean seeds and watched them sprout. Their tiny leaves growing ever larger. Each day the little leaves would lift themselves up and track the sun, actually follow the sun across the sky. And then one day the little bean plants took sick and soon died. So I planted some more seeds and went out and bought some plant food and fed them really good, and guess what ? These plants died in less time than the first group.

Now, this was a real problem for me, because ever since I was five our family had a large garden of over an acre and it was very productive. I had never had an issue with things not growing. We had good river bottom land and we were able to obtain very large quantities of organic substances to mix into it.

The fact that I had two plantings die on me was just the kind of mystery that I needed to perk up my mind a little.

About this time the first Whole Earth Catalog was making its rounds and I noticed this little section on Hydroponics. Names and addresses for additional information was included so I sent several letters asking for information and headed off to the library. I found several good books on the subject and proceeded to acquire the needed materials to grow some plants hydroponically. I decided that the tomato plant would be best suited for my studies. I started some seeds and headed off to a chemical supply company to see if I could obtain some small quantities of pure, water soluble salts. We rummaged through some dusty old shelves in back and soon I had amassed the salts listed in a government pamphlet that had arrived in the mail. It didn't take long until I had an impressive tomato garden growing in my window.

One day, Gillian, our resident six year old, was playing in the back yard when a rather large Black Labrador wandered into the yard. Somehow, Gillian managed to grasp the dog's collar and he backed out of it. Upon inspecting the collar, I discovered the name, Smokey, and a phone number. I called the number and gave our address.

Later that evening, an elderly gentleman, Paul Ottmann, knocked on our back door. He thanked us for returning the collar and then noticed the tomato plants growing in the window. He lit up with a big smile and said, "Did you know that there is a hydroponic green house just a couple of blocks West of here?" I responded that I hadn't lived in the area long and had no knowledge of it. He gave me the address of his shop and told me to stop by some evening and he would show it to me. I promised to accept his invitation and bid him good night.

A few days later I stopped by his "shop" and discovered that it was an incredible multi–million dollar metal working facility. All around intermixed with incredible machine tools were racing cars and various industrial machines that were being designed and fabricated. He greeted me and after a few moments of chat he reached for a set of keys on a shelf and we headed off out the back door, down the rail road tracks, and into the back door of another building a couple of hundred yards away. And there in the basement of this factory, full of machines that Paul had created, was this wonderful hydroponic research garden.

A few days later I received a surprise visit from Paul and the plant manager from Nitragin Sales, the company that we had visited. They had come to see my hydroponic tomatoes.

The next day, I receive a phone call from Paul asking if I could respond promptly to a problem over at Nitragen. They had just called him regarding one of the machines that he had built and he had determined that the problem was electrical. Since that was my specially he thought that I should run over. It took me about fifteen minutes to resolve the problem and I didn't even want to bill them for the call. I used the opportunity to learn more about the operation of the plant and the uses of its products.

In the following weeks, I received more calls from Nitragin. Mostly just little things that only took me a few minutes to fix. These little visits allowed me to become friends with a number of the people there and I slowly made my way into the laboratory where the research was being done.

The company was started in 1896 and was the first to commercially grow and sell nitrogen fixing bacteria. The relationship between plant and bacteria is very specific so, research is constantly being performed to find the best bacteria for each new hi-bred. A hydroponic solution is prepared that is lacking in nitrogen and the effects of each bacteria strain is determined through chemical analysis.

The people at Nitragin freely shared information with me, about lighting, chemistry, and the problems encountered when one endeavors to take an idea from the lab and make it work in the field. I learned how to better adjust the trace elements in my hydroculture formula and what to watch for when adding elements to an organic soil garden.

Then I decided to scale up my own research project. My mother's brother had a sheet metal shop, so I bent myself a little 6 X 6 tray shape, 10 feet long, out of sheet metal and then took it to my brother's Canoe factory and fabricated 10 – 20 foot sections of fiberglass tray. I went over to Paul's "shop" and welded up some simple "H" stands, sandblasted them, primed them and painted them black. I had the good fortune to be able to buy a small "close out inventory" of drip irrigation thingies. And with all this, together with a recycled water tank and a couple of recycled wash machines, I was able to create a nifty little hydroculture operation.

As I intensified my study into hydroponics, I uncovered other elements that were discovered by researchers but not listed in the government pamphlet. As each new atom was verified, I would rush off to my chemical supplier. Soon I had accounted for 18 atoms involved in this planetary life cycle. Shortly though, the pattern of new discoveries plateau. Most of the agricultural community had for the most part concluded that there were eighteen atoms needed for healthy plants. If anyone of these atoms is missing, there are noticeable physical changes, some quite dramatic, in the growth and appearance of the plants. There were a couple of other atoms that some researchers called growth promoters, but non-essential, like selenium for instance. We know today, that none of us could move a single muscle without selenium, since it is part of an enzyme that makes ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate), the equivalent of gasoline for our body's cells.

A nagging question occurred to me. Could healthy humans possibly require more than 18 elements? More than 64 different atoms have been found in plants, basically, some of everything in the growth medium. However, just because an atom is present, doesn't mean that the atom is serving a useful purpose. In fact, some atoms like aluminum, have a very negative effect on the growth process.

I set up an experiment as a general test to determine if more than 18 atoms were needed. My experiments to date had used sand or gravel as a rooting medium for the plants. It was very possible that the plants could be extracting elements from their rooting medium. So, I set up two plastic pots, one filled with sand and the other with vermiculite and used a dilute hydroculture solution instead of water for my little test plants. It didn't take long to notice a rather large difference in the size and general appearance of the plants. It was most obvious that the plants were indeed extracting some very beneficial nutrients from the sand medium.

It was clear that the next stage of the experiment was going to take a bit of work. The workings of cells would need to be unfolded. An understanding of chemical processes on the level of proteins, enzymes and amino acids was clearly indicated. Each part of the human body would need to mapped out in terms of its atomic structure. The needs and speeds of the various enzymatic systems would need to be calculated and the hydroculture solution rebalanced each time a new atom was added.

In the last twenty years, I have added 11 additional atoms to the list of elements required for a healthy life cycle and I suspect that there are a few more yet to be documented. As we develop test equipment with ever greater sensitivity, I'm confident that we will acquire additional understanding of the subtlety of the life processes found on this planet.

About this time, I encountered some incredible photographs of the earth taken from the surface of the moon. From that vantage point, it was possible to photograph the "electrostatic aura" around our planet that is created by the action of sunlight passing through the atmosphere. The dramatic change from day to night once again aroused my curiosity. Could this dynamic, cyclic change in electrical energy affect the growth of plants? I had come across a curious reference in one book I had found at the library. The researcher noted that, "for what ever reason, plants seem to grow better in metal containers, than wooden ones."

The possibility that the difference in growth could be due to electrical effects crossed my mind.

I designed an experiment that I felt would high–light the negative. I took two identical potted plants and put them in a stable environment. One was placed on an iron plate and a wire screen about 2 square feet, was placed about six inches above the top of the pot. A power source outputting a short, sixty per second, 800 volt pulse was connected across the iron plate and wire screen. The idea was to block the normal, natural effects of the earth's electrostatic field. The results were dramatic ! The plants in the artificial field were severely stunted. There could be no doubt that there was an electrical effect involved in the growth of plants.

In the Secret Lives of Plants, I read of an experiment where two identical plants were placed inside two wooden boxes located in a basement. A metal plate of several square feet was mounted on the roof of the building. Another metal plate was fastened to the top, of one of the wooden boxes. An insulated wire (underground electric fence wire works) connected the two plates. The plant inside the box with the plate remained green while the other plant turned yellow and died. This experiment too, suggests that the earth's electrostatic field plays a role in the growth of plants.

All this was very interesting, but, I was facing a more pressing problem. The chemistry I was using was very expensive, I needed to develop a system to recover my mineral salts. Super pure salts are needed to do the research work because none of the test equipment available was sensitive enough to measure parts per billion, when there is a large grouping of different atoms. Very pure water and very pure salts were needed to consistently produce the exacting mixtures that are necessary for hydroponic research. Fortunately, it doesn't take high tech devices to re– use the ex–hydroponic salts to grow food for the table. Mother Nature's finest, the organic garden is the perfect choice. At least that's what I started out thinking.

First, I recycled a pair of large wash machine tubs to recycle my hydroponic organics. Next, I readied an old aquarium with it's heater. I took two gallon bottles and filled them with a mixture of horse manure and water. I took a gallon pickle jar, filled it with water and inverted it in the aquarium. This was to be used to collect the methane gas that would be given off by the bacterial action. I plumbed the bottles into the jar and ran an outlet line to a Bunsen burner. In a couple of days I had burnable gas being produced by the project.

About this time, my home town, Winona Minn. installed a new waste water treatment plant for the city. My brother's Fiberglass company was contracted to do some on site work, so, one day I coaxed him to give me a little close–up look-see tour. I checked all the plumbing and took note of the basic operating setup. I also obtained a sample of the anaerobic digester's solid output. It was gray and powdery, heavily loaded with Hot Lime (Calcium Carbonate).

I heard that Racine Wisconsin also had a modern waste water treatment plant that used anaerobic Digesters. I call them up and they said "sure come on down ...". So, I and two friends set off on an adventure that to many would have seemed "Weird" at least.

The Racine water treatment plant was an ambitious one for the time. The plant was engineered to be powered from the natural gas being produced in the anaerobic Digesters. The gas was burned in internal combustion engines and the power used to compress air for use in a series of large aerobic Digesters used to process suspended organics that didn't filter out in the settling tanks. The waste heat from the engines was used to heat the anaerobic Digesters and the building. There was only one problem there wasn't enough organics in the waste water. The city pass an ordinance requiring all new homes to be equipped with garbage disposals, but even that hasn't brought in enough organic matter to power the plant. We received a very detailed tour of the facility. I felt quite qualified to run the place by the time we left. Every switch and valve was carefully explained. It was a most complete tour.

I decided to play with some numbers. I calculated that the average suburban home could efficiently and handsomely be powered by 60,000 BTUs of energy an hour. Converting that into pounds of grass and compost, I came up with 20 pounds an hour. That's 480 pounds a day. Plants may be good solar collectors, but that is a mighty big lawn. It became clear that a single home system didn't make sense.

There was another serious issue with what was being removed from the bottom of the anaerobic Digesters. The material was a fine powder, and wasn't very easy to work with. The usual method of broadcasting the material on the field would result in one very large cloud of dust and if a strong wind was to come along before a soaking rain much of the material would be carried off by the wind. Some process is required to make the material more workable.

About this time my home town, Winona, Minn., decided to undertake an interesting project. At one time Winona was for all practical purposes, an island in the Mississippi River. Over the years in the process of dredging the main navigation channel, the southern "back water" channel had been isolated from the river. As a result a shallow lake was formed that acted as a settling pond for a water shed that extended up away from the river. A number of species of fish would come in from the river and use the lake or its water shed creek for spawning. One of the species was Carp, a bottom feeding fish. As a result, the silty bottom of the lake was constantly being stirred up producing dark muddy water. This not only made the lake less than desirable for swimming, but also prevented light from penetrating to any considerable depth. The result was the lake was very low in oxygen especially when the water warmed in the summer. This caused fish to die off and a state of purification. In other words the lake stank!

Various schemes had been tried in the past, dredging the lake to make it deeper and sweep netting of the carp. The results were short lived and had a serious side effect. Now that light was able to penetrate to a deeper depth and aided by fertilizer run–off from farms, the lake became a huge mass of weeds and algae. With new Carp coming in from the river things really got bad. The lake was turning into a swamp.

It became obvious that for the lake to become a asset for the city a complete echo management program was needed. A community was formed and working with one of the collages, a strategy was created. An underwater electric fence was placed at the outlet of the lake to prevent fish from going back and forth between the river and the lake. Then a poison was used to kill the fish and parasites. Three large aerators were installed in the lake to help maintain the oxygen level. Because the lake was very shallow, this was particularly important in the winter when the lake froze. This technique produced areas of open water where the fish could sun themselves as well as maintaining the oxygen level. "Soil conservation" measures were implemented on the water shed to reduce the influx of silt and fertilizers. Then the lake was stocked with several species of desirable fish and fishing peers were set up for fishermen.

Lastly, there was the issue of the weeds that always will grow in a shallow healthy lake. The weeds needed to be harvested and disposed of in some way. Since, in essence, the weeds were solar collectors and were removing minerals from the water and silt, the idea that they could be used as a commercial resource, seemed a reasonable possibility.

I set up an experiment in a 21 liter bottle using a culture of lake weeds. Once again in a few days I was producing good quantities of high grade methane gas. Everything was working nicely until I had a moment of creative madness. I had some leftover pea soup and I wondered what effect it would have on methane production. Here let me say, at this point, my experiment was in my basement.

I had read about some "foaming problems" that several experimenters had encountered, But !, ... Well, I had foam all over the place. All my pipes, my gas accumulator, everything was loaded with foam, and the smell ...? Well, this was a good demonstration of what can happen in a small unit. The culture medium is very easily upset by any change that is too rapid or the introduction of even the smallest amount of oxygen.

Additional testing of lake weeds and a combination of leaves and grass clippings proved to be most successful. The resultant after the digestion cycle was complete proved to be of excellent quality for use as a soil enhancement since the fiber content was still in tact. The quality was such that I suspect that it would make an excellent material to use to make "Grow Blocks" or "Peat Pots". Such items are an effective way of adding fiber to the soil near the top where it is most effective for retaining moisture and channels for oxygen to penetrate the soil.

I determined that there was sufficient excess capacity in Winona's anaerobic Digesters to accommodate the weed harvest from the lake and with the addition of the weed fiber, the output from the Digesters would then be of commercial quality. I also found a nearby industry that was willing to buy the surplus methane. The next step was to set up for selling the fertilizer. For that an analyses of the content was needed. Although the material was rich in many factors that make up a good organic fertilizer, it was also rich in heavy metals, lead and cadmium in particular and dioxins, plus PBCs. This meant simply, that instead of having a saleable product that could offset the cost of operating the waste water treatment plant, we had instead a large quantity of hazardous waste that would require additional tax money to dispose of properly and legally. This is a perfect example of how a few can ruin something wonderful for the many. The problem isn't the lake weeds, they are being hauled away by several farmers, the contamination is coming from the water system pipes and various commercial establishments.

The time had come to use my hydroponic compost. I decided to set up a test plot to see if I would get better results from this compost than I did from my standard compost of leaves and grass, or from a section of garden where I had mixed in three pickup loads of peat that I had obtained from Nitragen's peat mine in Waukesha. I should have better anticipated the actual results but what occurred was a surprise to me.

When I first started developing my hydroponic formula, I had used a dry leaf analyses of a corn plant, which was the only plant that I had encountered at the time, that was close to a tomato plant. Then over the coarse of several years, I slowly fined tuned the different salts to produce the type of plant and fruit that I wanted. Early efforts had produced a series of plants that were showing signs of deficiency. I was startled to see the same deficiencies in the plants that were growing in the hydroponic compost. This pointed out to me the major drawback of organic gardens. One needs to start out with the perfect balance of nutrients in the soil and then you have to return the elements you have removed in the form of your biological waste products. Otherwise, you need to know exactly what was removed in terms of its elemental make-up and then apply a biologically compatible soil enhancement.

At one point I decided to set up a organic greenhouse experiment. The structure was approximately 15 X 24 feet with insulated panels extending four feet into the ground. Fifty feet of ¾ inch plastic pipe was snaked across the bottom of the unit before the organic medium was introduced. Also, since I knew oxygen was needed for healthy root growth, I laid in several perforated lines hooked into a manifold. The snake was hooked to a water coil near the top of the green house through a small circulating pump and a fan was installed on the coil. The system was controlled by a thermostat. Experiments have shown that within limits, plants grow better when their roots are warmer than their shoots. The results were impressive. My tomato plants reached a length of over twenty five feet. However, the most impressive aspect of the experiment was the results gained from my ability to introduce air more than one meter below the surface. Plants display visual symptoms regarding the state of their health which is a reflection of their ability to extract the minerals they need from the growth medium. Since plants only can absorb inorganic ions, in an organic garden, they are totally dependent of the activity of bacteria and other organisms in the medium. After the plants had been growing for a couple of weeks, I noticed a yellowing of the growing tips. This indicated that the plants were experiencing difficulties obtaining needed ions. At this point, I connected the perforated manifold to the exhaust port of a vacuum cleaner and operated it for about twenty minutes. The next morning when I checked the plants, they were all dark green. Just that fast, overnight, a major change had taken place. This project clearly demonstrated the importance of having a well aerated growth medium.

Hydroponics has progressed since the 1930's. Commercial green houses can handle 1100 plants in a space only 26 X 126 feet. With only the most basic consideration of the plant's environmental needs, marketable tomatoes are produced only 90 days after the seedlings are transplanted. An inexpensive operation like his one can produce over 80,000 pounds of tomatoes a year. Hydroponic's versatility allows one to fine tune the growth medium to the specific needs of the plant of your choice.

There is little doubt in my mind that a properly managed organic garden has the best overall advantages. However, what ever system is used, the science of growth remains the same. Plants only absorb inorganic ions and they have optimum temperature cycles for roots and shoots. They also require both oxygen and carbon dioxide in the proper amounts both for proper leaf growth as well as for proper root growth. Studies have discovered that plant roots will only penetrate the rooting medium as deeply as the soil can breath. The root zone must be supplied with oxygen for both proper root growth and the micro-organisms that provide the water soluble elements for the plants to feed on.

As the biological processes developed on this planet, they removed carbon from our primitive atmosphere and released oxygen. The early earth atmosphere had virtually no molecular oxygen in it. When the organisms died, the carbon compounds that they contained remained in solid form to form first, organic soil, then peat and later coal and oil. As the result, the atmosphere gradually accumulated enough molecular oxygen to support animal life. The oxygen not only provided the basis for aerobic life processes, but also, as anyone who works with spectrometers knows, molecular oxygen (O₂) absorbs ultraviolet radiation in the 179–182 nanometers region. Without this filtering effect of oxygen and also water vapor, the sun's powerful ultraviolet wavelengths would break apart the chemical bonds that make biological life and much of our chemical technology possible. Since life processes operate in very narrow ranges, it should make perfect sense that digging up all the world's deposits of coal and oil and burning them will quickly bring about unwanted effects. Happily, with today's technology, there are ways of achieving our desired purposes without burning the resources. In today's view, coal and oil are worth more as feed stock for new advanced materials, making it seem crazy to burn them as energy fuels.

Back in the early sixties, while I was studying engineering in collage, I worked for an advanced material company as an electrician. Among the special materials that we manufactured was what is now called graphite fiber which we sold to the government for $800.00 a pound back when gold was selling for $560.00. We also made the material for re–entry heat shields for missiles, the material for space suits, plus many different materials for advanced electronic devices. Today, that super strong graphite fiber can be obtained for about $20.00 a pound and is used for many different products.

Today's standards make those materials seem primitive by comparison. In Albuquerque New Mexico, the National Science Foundation, Sandia National Lab, Los Almos National Lab and the University of New Mexico, working with private companies have set up a special facility for developing new materials. I had the opportunity to do some research there in the early 90's when they first began operations. Advanced ceramics, special thin films, memory metals, new insulators, and more are being perfected. Crystalline ceramic fibers which are much stronger than the graphite fiber and able to withstand temperatures above 1600 degrees centigrade have been perfected. Made from natural gas and sand this type of material can be used to replace resources that are becoming scarce. We also grew new forms of Cadmium fibers that promise to improve battery technology.

Elsewhere, a new thin film solar cell is being developed that is 80% efficient. A one horse power motor will soon be operated from a solar collector of only one square meter.

I have worked on a new method of purifying water that is remarkably simple and super efficient. I have developed microwave technology for the casting industry that reduces air pollution from the process by 95% and uses only 10% of the energy of the old process. We have new technology for removing exhaust emissions, new materials for light bulb filaments and cutting tools. New lubricants are being created, diamond fiber promises to produce tires that will last the life of your car, reducing the problem of disposing of the old tires. A new improved method for recycling tires and the like into fuel oil and boiler gas has recently been scaled up and is under going pre-production testing.

The seeds of a new technological future are being readied by talented and innovative people. However, seeds need to be planted and cared for lovingly. Hundreds of millions of dollars spent by our tax payers on sophisticated research is being handed over to other nations because no one in this country wants to setup factories in the U.S. to produce the new products. We paid for the knowledge, but we will benefit little from it, unless attitudes change. A new source of energy will become available soon and the future is looking for young minds that are good at putting scientific puzzles together. However, young minds need support, tools, financing and encouragement if society is to benefit from their talents.

Engineering today is the art of creating shapes with composites. Most of the restrictions of the past have been overcome through the properties of our new generation of building materials. Our new homes can be hurricane poof and tornado resistant. Shape is no real limitation. Living spaces can be constructed to fully enhance health and creativity.

By taking an overview of all the research that has been performed in this country, we can gain an understanding of the biological world of which we are a part. This knowledge can allow us to tune our environment to enhance our surroundings to benefit both us and the other life forms that occupy our domain.

One of the most important aspects of our environment that we can control is lighting. In recent years, numerous studies have shown that not only plants, but apparently all animals including humans have biological cycles that are controlled by light. Perhaps the most surprising aspects of the studies is the fact that certain colors and intensities are needed to control these biological rhythms. Plants need specific frequencies of red and blue to perform photosynthesis and are greatly inhibited by ultraviolet. A single pain of window glass used as an ultraviolet filter has been shown to greatly increase the growth rate of many plants. Plants can be prevented from going to seed for years by keeping them in a constant artificial light environment. Some plants, during the early stages of their growth cycle, can be kept in constant light. Others, especially during the later reproductive part of their cycle must have a dark cycle.

Bears and humans, among others, will go into a hibernation cycle if there is insufficient blue light of a minimum intensity. Some people are more strongly affected for some reason than others. These people are said to be affected by what is called the SAD syndrome ( Seasonally Affected Disorder ), but I prefer to call it the "Tendency To Hibernate" ( TTH ). We all have this mechanism in our Pituitary that produces a hormone, Melatonin, in the absence of bright blue light. This hormone is involved in the healing process and also is responsible for regulating our metabolism, and our awake and sleep cycles. If an excess quality of this hormone builds up in our system, our mental and physical processes slow down and we have a tendency to sleep a lot. Personally I find the experience analogous to having my mind perform like a "Cray Computer" in the summer and an old style "Turbo XT PC" in the winter. The solution is to supply bright blue-green light of the type produced by daylight or Full Spectrum Bulbs. The timing of when the light is needed, varies from person to person and varies with intensity. The results produced for myself and others are nothing short of a miracle. "In my book", a hour of light has more worth than a pot of coffee.

Plant growth too can be accelerated by extending the hours of lighting. Plants too, need special colors of light to perform their role of releasing oxygen. They need a narrow band of red and a narrow band of blue. Current research is focusing on tuning bulbs and emitters to emit light strongly at desired frequencies and not at others. This means that we are creating lighting equipment that is much more efficient at doing the job at hand. The Fun, the convenience, the health benefits of having a few large plants in a small convenient location is exciting.

The importance of light was known to me before I left for New Mexico. Also, I had developed an interest in growing exotic crystals in the late sixties. So when I heard about a retired Los Almos researcher, Dr. John V. Milewski, who was growing crystal fibers for use as a light bulb filament, I set out to meet him.

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