We compute the complete contribution to the stress-energy tensor in the minimal bosonic higher spin theory in D = 4 that is quadratic in the scalar field. We find arbitrarily high derivative terms, and that the total sign of the stress-energy tensor depends on the parity of the scalar field.

We construct a string bit model in the pp-wave background in which fermion doubling produces the correct spectrum of string states. * Also at ITEP, B. Cheremushkinskaya 25, 117259 Moscow, Russia

We calculate the amplitude for a non-excited closed string with nonzero winding number to scatter from a D-string with a near critical E field. We go to the NCOS limit and observe that we get the same result if we adopt another approach put forward by Gomis and Ooguri.