Leptoclinides faeröensis Bjerkan (1905) is a little-known boreal species which has been found only in the Atlantic Ocean (Fig. I). The most northerly record is from a little south of Spitzbergen, the most southerly from 37° 08' N., off the North American coast. It occurs on the coast of Norway and in the Faeroe Islands, but it has not been reported nearer to Plymouth than these two localities. Most records are from deepish waters, though it occurs in the sublittoral zone along the Norwegian coast. It was in this zone, at Looe Island (50' 20' 24“ N., 4 °26' 53” W.) near Plymouth, that we found a specimen of this species growing on a rock about 80 cm. below O.D.—just sufficiently low for it to remain covered by a few centimetres of water at the lowest tide of the year, the equinoctial spring tide.

An outbreak of gastroenteritis followed a meal in a large hotel during which one of the diners vomited. The clinical features of the illness suggested Norwalk-like virus (NLV, small round structured virus) infection, and this was confirmed by electron microscopy and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) of stool samples. Further characterization of the virus by nucleotide sequence analysis of the PCR amplicons revealed identical strains in all the affected individuals. The foods served at the meal could not be demonstrated to be the cause of the outbreak. Analysis of attack rates by dining table showed an inverse relationship with the distance from the person who vomited. No one eating in a separate restaurant reported illness. Transmission from person-to-person or direct contamination of food seems unlikely in this outbreak. However, the findings are consistent with airborne spread of NLV with infection by inhalation with subsequent ingestion of virus particles.

Density of states changes in the valence and conduction band of silicon nanoclusters were monitored using soft x-ray emission and absorption spectroscopy as a function of cluster size. A progressive increase in the valence band edge toward lower energy is found for clusters with decreasing diameters. A similar but smaller shift is observed in the near-edge x-ray absorption data of the silicon nanoclusters.

Near-edge x-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) is used to examine the chemical bonding in boron and boron-nitride films sputter deposited from a fully-dense, pure boron target. Reactive sputtering is used to prepare the boron-nitride and multilayered films. Although the process of sputter deposition often produces films that lack long range order, NEXAFS reveals the distinguishing features of sp2 and sp3 hybridization that are associated with different crystalline structures. The sensitivity of NEXAFS to local order further provides details in bonding modifications that exist in these films.