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 1. Battle Is joined over gamma Bursts 
  -How far away is the explosions that 1/day send a burst of gamma rays to earth?
  -Generated by a halo of superdense neutron stars.
  -Neutron stars are so tiny they are invisible even at close range.
       but their enormous gravity might be enough to generate a pulse of 
       gamma rays if a chunk of matter fell to their surface and exploded.
   
 
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 2. From Microwave Anisotropies to Cosmology 
  -Fluctuation in the termperature of the cosmic microwave background
   have now been detected over a wide range of angular scales, and a 
   consistent picture seems to be emerging.  This article describes
   some of the implications for cosmology.  Analysis of all of
   the published detections suggests the existence of a peak on degree
   scales with a height 2.4 to 10 times the amplitude of the power
   spectrum at large angular scales.  This result confirms an early
   prediction, implies that he universe did in fact recombine, and    
   limits theories of structure formation.  Illustrative examples
   show how comparison of the microwave background data and the large-scale
   structure data will be a potentially powerful means of answering fundamental questions
   about the universe

 
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 3. Aligned Carbon Nanotube Films : Production and Optical and Electronic Properties.  
  -Carbon nanotube material can now be produced in macroscopic quantities.  However, the raw material has a disordered structure, which restricts investigations of both the properties and applications of the nanotubes.  The tubes can be aligned either parallel
or perpendicular to the surface, as verified by scanning electron microscopy.  The parallel aligned surfaces are birefringent, reflecting differences in the dielectric function along and normal to the tubes.
The electrical resistivities are anisotropic as well, being smaller along the tubes than perpendicular to them, because of corresponding differences in the electronic transport properties.

 
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 4.  Phonons Localized at step edges: a route to understanding forces at extended surface defects.  
  -Inelastic helium atom scattering has been used to measure the phonons on a stepped metallic crystalline surface, Ni(977).  When the scattering plane is oriented parallel to the step edges and perpendicular to the terraces, two branches of step - induced phonons are observed.  These branches are identified as transversely polarized, step-localized modes that propagate along the step edge.  Analysis reveals significant anisotropy in the force field near the step edge, with all forces
near the step edge being substantially smaller than in the bulk.  Such measurements provide valuable information on metallic bonding and interface stability near extended surface defects.

--fin