The patients, almost all of them men, were checked in for alcohol abuse sometime in the late 1960s. One day, instead of the usual therapy for addiction at the time, they were each taken into a quiet room, given varying levels of explanation of what was about to happen (for many of them, none at all), and given a single hit of LSD. The results included euphoria, powerful emotions, and psychological insights that often felt like a new lease on life. A few freaked out, but a little music helped.
Read MorePortfolio
It's major surgery
Originally published in The Arizona Daily Star, 2000.Tate Williams
An average patient for one Northwest Side hospital has gastrointestinal discomfort, needs immediate surgery, has a preference for standing upright and weighs upwards of 1,100 pounds.
Aside from the obvious, what sets Cortaro Equine Hospital apart from every other area clinic is that a case of gut pain sends Dr. Larry Shamis plunging into a couple hundred pounds of intestine to save a patient's life.
Read MoreCryonics firm disputes missing Ted Williams DNA
Originally published in the East Valley Tribune 2003.
Baseball legend Ted Williams' DNA is not missing from a Scottsdale cryonics company, and any damage to his body would be the result of regular procedures related to freezing a corpse for preservation, the company's director said Wednesday.
Carlos Mondragon, director of Alcor Life Extension Foundation, said during a news conference that a Sports Illustrated article claiming Williams' body is in poor condition stems from a disgruntled employee lashing out at the company.
Read MoreStress can fool our memories, study finds
Originally published in The Arizona Daily Star, 2000 Tate Williams
Stress muddles memories, according to a UA study that raises doubts about eyewitness testimony in criminal cases.
Results of a standard word-memory experiment suggest that stress increases the likelihood that people will remember hearing words they actually did not hear. The participants in the study tended to remember the general themes of the words they had heard but confuse the details.
"Be really careful on not depending on the details," said Lynn Nadel, head of the University of Arizona psychology department and co-author of the study with graduate student Jessica Payne.
Read MoreProf reaches for 5th dimension
Originally published in The Arizona Daily Star, 2000. Tate Williams
Three dimensions, most people understand. Height, width and depth.
Add a fourth - time, as in three-dimensional objects moving through time.
But a fifth?
Scientists have thought for years that dimensions exist beyond our perception but assumed they were so far out of reach that further investigation would be futile.
Read MoreA rat's tale
Originally published in The Arizona Daily Star, 2000.
Research scientists are using middens - material encased in ancient rodent urine - to chart thousands of years of climate evolution
Tate Williams
Local researchers have compiled a detailed 22,000-year history of climate change in one of the world's driest deserts by dating fossilized rodent middens.
Scientists from the University of Arizona and the U.S. Geological Survey on Tumamoc Hill examined the middens - clods of vegetation preserved in crystallized rodent urine - along with preserved deposits from dried springs. They used them to create a detailed record of climate change in the hyperarid Atacama Desert in Chile.
Read MoreMission to Jupiter
Originally published in The Arizona Daily Star, 2000.
Tucsonans to lead 2 probes' photo flyby
Tate Williams
Tucson scientists are in charge of capturing images of Jupiter as two robotic spacecraft converge at the planet this month for the first time in history.
As the veteran Galileo spacecraft spends its last years orbiting around Jupiter and the newcomer Cassini spacecraft darts past the giant planet, the two are performing several experiments and snapping thousands of images that will be analyzed by local scientists.
Read MoreCrashing Nader's party
Originally posted on mrchair, 4/6/2004. Fiery Portlanders lined up outside in droves, so passionate about the liberal cause that they would support it to point of sabotaging Democrats in the 04 election. Other fiery Portlanders picketed the first crowd, so passionate about that exact same liberal cause that they would protest their own people to save the Democrats in said election.
Then there were the socialists, the mayoral race stumpers, the Greens, local petitioners, the press, and inside a woman was performing an awful lounge version of “Anarchy in the UK.”
Read MoreJustice
Originally posted on mrchair, 10/29/2007. I had to go to trial over that time I got punched in the face with the snapped off car antenna. I never thought it would come to that, and going to court over the whole stupid event seemed ridiculous. But Sara and I decided that annoyance probably wasn't a good enough reason to shirk civic duty. This guy had been in and out of the system (I picked up this lingo from the time spent with the DA. DA, that stands for District Attorney) for years, and had a felony robbery on his record already. He isn't even homeless. The cops told me he lives in Gresham and comes downtown and fucks with people.
Still, I didn't foresee trial. We had to meet in court early Monday morning, the whole time expecting the guy, Matthew, to plea down and call the whole thing off. He didn't. The attorney prepped us, told us Matthew's attorney would goad us on, and that we should not "take the bait." This is stuff of TV. The night before, Sara had said, "It's not going to be like TV." But lo and behold.
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