The Michigan Daily
Vol. LXXXVI, No. 14-S Ann Arbor, Michigan-Saturday, May 22, 1976 Ten Cents Twelve Pages
Regents approve DNA
research, MSA funding

Negative
check-off
plan OK'fd
By MIKE NORTON
The University Board of Re-
gents approved yesterday a sys-
tem whereby students who de-
cide not to support the Michigan
Student Assembly (MSA) will
he exempt from paying the 75
cent student government fee,
beginning September 19.
Under the new arrangement,
students not wishing to pay the
MSA fee may sign a check-off
card during registration indicat-
ing that desire. Students who do
not sign cards will be charged
as they are now.
THE SYSTEM is similar to
one already in use by the Public
See NEW, Page 4

'U' to prepare for
study immediately
By MIKE NORTON
A bitter five-month debate came to an end yester-
day when the University Board of Regents voted to per-
mit recombinant DNA research to be carried on here.
In a six to one vote, with one member absent, the
Regents approved the highly-contested report of Com-
mittee B, the University Committee to Recommend Policy
for the Molecular Genetics and Oncology Program. The
Committee's report, issued in March, recommended that
research on recombinant DNA be allowed, "so long as it
is submitted to appropriate controls."
"RECOMBINANT DNA research" is concerned with
the combination of genetic material from different or-
ganisms to form new and otherwise impossible genetic
patterns. Supporters of the research have stressed the
medical and scientific advantages it could bring, while
its critics have warned of possible ecological catastro-
phes if the altered organisms were to escape from re-
See REGENTS, Page 4

The Regents

The Windmobile: Like driving on air

By STU McCONNELL
You won't see it in the front row of
this year's Indianapolis 500, but don't be
surprised several years from now if
when Tony hluman shouts "Gentlemen,
start your engines" the only sound is a
click and a mild swoosh.
The Amick-SanWind Windmobile, de-
signed by James I. Amick of Ann Ar-
bor, is intended as an alternative to the
roaring, fuel guzzling passenger cars
which dominate the present auto mar-
ket. It runs exclusively on wind and the
electric power that wind generates.
AMICK AND his three sons - James,
Richard and Doug -- built and tested
the prototype of the Windmobile on
roads and airport runways around Ann
Arbor. Looking somewhat like a cigar
sitting under a croquet wicket, the wind
car is eight feet high; eight feet wide
and 11/a feet long. The test prototype's
one seat is actually more or a cockpit,
but the Amicks plan to modify the de-
sign to fit several people for road use.
Amick, a land sailing enthusiast and
former University Engineering profes-
sor designed the Windmobile's prede-
cessor, the Land Sailor, in 1971 and test-
ed it at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah
in 1973. "Most people at the Sail Club
were skeptical", Amick recalls, but the
vehicle reached speeds of 60 miles per
hour. Even after the car was adapted
for road use with an electric battery it
See RIDING, Page 10

Dnily Photo by STtV KAGAN
JOINING THE SOLAR SURREY AND the garbage-powered sedan in the alternative energy car field cames the Amick-
SunWind Windmobile. The sleek wind car cannot fly -- it is the kiwi of automobiles. But it can do 50 m.p.h. powered
solely by the wind, which was enough to cause stares from passing motorists when Michael Amick took the vehicle
out for a test run on Bonisteel Boulevard.