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Science Vol 268 #5209 21, April 1995


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A Molecular Approach to Cancer

Mechanism Studies - How a substance triggers cellular changes , forming DNA adducts, increasing cell proliferation, perturbing intercellular communication Pharmacokinetics/Pharmacodynamics - How a substance is absorbed, distributed, and metabolized in the body. Structure-activity relationship analysis - How an agent's molecular size, shape and electrical properties might influence its toxicity New animal models - Carcinogenicity tests in transgenic mice and medaka fish +

Orientational and Magnetic Ordering of Buckyballs in TDAE-C60

Spin ordering in the low-temperature magnetic phase is directly linked to the orientation ordering of C60 moleculres in organically doped fullerene derivatives. Electron-spin resonance and alternating current susceptometry measurements on tetrakis (dimethylamino)ethylene-C60 (TDAE-C60) (Curie temperature Tc=16K) show a direct coupling between spin and merohedral degrees of freedom. This coupling was experimentally demonstrated by showing that ordering the spins in the magnetic phase imprints a merohedral order on the solid or, conversely, that merohedrally ordering the C60 moleculres influences the spin order at low temperature. The merohedral disorder gives rise to a distribution of pi-electron exchange interactions between spins on neighboring C60 molecules, suggesting a microscopic origin for the observed spin-glass behavior of the magnetic state. +

Dwarfs and Dim Galaxies Mark Limits of Knowledge

"At home in the early universE" -Uniform gas cooling from temperature of millions of degrees (early universe) -1. Cosmic background radiation, dates from point at which universe had cooled enough to become transparent 2. Cosmic abundance of helium which traces element-forming processes in the hot gas. -Before 1st millisecond? uncertain. Maybe drastic growth spurt (inflation) high-energy quantum cosmology. -Also 1st million years - "Awash in Dim Galaxies" -To explain how individual galaxies move within galaxy clusters requires gravitational pull of 10x more matter than can be seen in stars/galaxies (dark matter) -Astronomers may have overlooked at many as half of the galaxies in the known universe! because they are dim galaxies. -Using multiple mirror telescope & 305m radio dish Telltale Dwarfs -By measuring temperature of cluster's white dwarfs, evidence that stellar cinders have been cooling longer than accepted age of the cluster. So standard way to model way stars evolve in error. -Est. age by checking brightness and colors of stars vs stellar evolution models, predict how these should change over time. -More direct check cluster's dimmest white dwarfs. Since they no longer produce energy, cool @ steady rate. -Since oldest dwarfs in a cluster are the cinders of stars that burned only briefly afterit formed, their age is a good proxy for the age of the cluster. -But cool white dwarfs are by nature hard to see -> Hubble Space Telescope. -NGC2477 white dwarf stars dervied age of 1.25bil years. That's more than twice the gae calculated based on stellar evolution models. -Also other clusters placed at age of 12 bil years. Greater than recent estimates of the age of the universe as a whole! -Based on universe expansion -> ext of universe = 8bil years. --fin