CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: SCIENCE INVENTS NEW SOURCE OF FLOATING ANXIETY

First they cloned the sheep, now they're making frogs float.

Those wacky British scientists are at it again.

Actually, this time around,they had help from the Dutch.

Must be that European Union thing at work.

At any rate, physicists from the University of Nijmegen (I think that stands for "Home of the Floating Amphibians" in Dutch) and Nottingham University teamed up to make amphibians float using a magnetic field 1 million times stronger than the Earth's.

The magnetic field had to be that strong in order to distort the orbits of the electrons in the frog's atomic structure.

So far, the scientists have successfully levitated frogs, plants, sandwiches, fish and grasshoppers.

Two questions: Did the layers of the sandwiches stay together, or did the lettuce and tomato float off in opposite directions; and can't grasshoppers fly already?

In case you're worried about the frog -- and I was -- scientists report it showed no signs of distress after its flight, which took place inside a magnetic cylinder.

If someone had tinkered with the orbits of my electrons, I'd sue, but maybe the experience of flying -- as opposed to settling for one good, long hop -- was worth the potential side effects.

So. We have the technology. How do we use it?

Obviously the immediately practical applications include spot delivery of deli lunches -- and one would assume, pizzas -- and plagues of locusts.

Puts a whole new spin on free-floating anxiety. Why bomb a nation when you could turn them into a mass of bumbling neurotics?

And anything can be floated.

The trick is "perfectly feasible" as long as the magnetic field generated is large enough, said one of the physicists involved in the experiment.

Hey, isn't that how they're always saving the Enterprise on Star Trek?

Or is that how Luke, Leia and company destroyed the Death Star?

Theoretically, if you could generate a field large enough, you could float a person. Or a skydiving team. Or even an invasion force.

You could float in a whole mess of clones and overrun entire continents.

Of course, the aftermath could get a little confusing, since everyone will look alike, but the military will figure it out.

At any rate, once the magnetic field thing's licked, man could fly -- without the aid of propellers, jet engines or controlled substances.

Now that I've entered my third decade, I find the idea of defying gravity extremely gratifying.

Maybe scientists could find a way to establish extremely localized magnetic fields to "float" only certain portions of a person.

It could make plastic surgery obsolete.

Not to mention the Wonderbra.

Peggy O'Farrell is a copy editor for the Southeast Missourian.