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Washington's attempts to strike a bilateral deal with Japan on trade in motor-cars are probably illegal and are certainly a threat to efforts to create a more level playing-field.
Discrepancies in environmental budgets of dioxin-like compounds may be explained by emissions from accidents involving chlorinated organic chemicals. This source may have important implications for regulation inventories.
A heroic investigation at Berkeley has shown that mica of good quality can be used to search for evidence of one possible component of the missing mass required to close the Universe; none has been found so far.
The worldwide registration by a pharmaceutical company of the word taxol as a trademark suggests that procedures for registering such marks needs to be tightened.
Highlights this month include a strategy to contain arterial damage, a new gene predisposing to obesity, insight into the role of calcium in the blood clotting cascade and the 'reading-head' activity of DNA-binding proteins.