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The worldwide distribution of blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) has not prevented this species from becoming endangered due to twentieth century whaling. In Australia there are two known feeding aggregations of blue whales, which most likely are the pygmy subspecies (B. m. brevicauda). It is unknown whether individuals from these feeding aggregations belong to one breeding stock, or multiple breeding stocks that either share or occupy separate feeding grounds. This was investigated using ten microsatellite loci and mitochondrial DNA control region sequences (N = 110). Both sets of markers revealed no significant genetic structure, suggesting that these whales are likely to belong to the same breeding stock.

This article examines the role that Arthur von Hippel played in magnetism work in the 1950s.Von Hippel understood that the ferrimagnetic insulators represented by the ferrospinels, magnetoplumbites, and ferrogarnets were critical for the high-frequency technology that was being developed after World War II. At the Laboratory for Insulation Research at MIT, he and his students concentrated on the response of these materials to electric and magnetic excitations over a wide frequency range that extended, with gaps, from dc to the ultraviolet. For magnetic studies, he used microwave frequencies to obtain resonance and relaxation data that could be interpreted because the magnetic spins are relatively loosely coupled to their surroundings. He supplemented these resonance studies with classical magnetometer, transport, and x-ray diffraction measurements on single-crystal samples in order to obtain fundamental information that would aid in the design of materials for technical applications.

Titanium precision castings have not kept pace with technical design requirements for demanding applications, such as the aerospace industry; advances in increased size capability have been offset by a lack of advances in metallurgical integrity and dimensional tolerances. Hence, there is a strong need for improvement in the casting process. Taramm has developed a process that combines cold-crucible induction melting and centrifugal pouring to produce viable castings.

The phase diagram of La2-xSrxCuO4 is interpreted. From the virial theorem, it is argued that the cross-over from localized to itinerant electronic behavior in the range 0 < x < 0.3 is characterized by fluctuations between two equilibrium Cu-O bond lengths. Cooperative local fluctuations give rise to one-hole correlation bags of 5 to 6 copper centers on the underdoped side, to strong-correlation fluctuations in an itinerant-electron matrix on the overdoped side. Spinodal phase segregation between an antiferromagnetic, insulating parent phase and the superconductive phase occurs in the underdoped compositions, between the superconductive phase and the metallic overdoped phase on the other side of the phase diagram. Ordering of the fluctuations into a travelling bipolaronic charge-density/spin-density wave of composition x ≈?1/6 yields heavy fermions of symmetry (x2− y2) coexisting with light electrons; the high-temperature superconductive pairs are condensed out from the heavy fermions.