In humans, sexual differentiation of the external genitalia is established at 7-12 weeks post conception (wpc). During this period, maintaining the appropriate intrauterine hormone environment is critical. In contrast to other species, this regulation extends to the human fetal adrenal cortex, as evidenced by the virilization that is associated with various forms of congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The mechanism underlying these clinical findings has remained elusive. Here we show that the human fetal adrenal cortex synthesized cortisol much earlier than previously documented, an effect associated with transient expression of the orphan nuclear receptor nerve growth factor IB-like (NGFI-B) and its regulatory target, the steroidogenic enzyme type 2 3b-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (HSD3B2). This cortisol biosynthesis was maximal at 8-9 wpc under the regulation of ACTH. Negative feedback was apparent at the anterior pituitary corticotrophs. ACTH also stimulated the adrenal gland to secrete androstenedione and testosterone. In concert, these data promote a distinctive mechanism for normal human development whereby cortisol production, determined by transient NGFI-B and HSD3B2 expression, provides feedback at the anterior pituitary to modulate androgen biosynthesis and safeguard normal female sexual differentiation.

We have performed transverse-field muon spin relaxation measurements of the Zn-substituted cuprate high-T c superconductors: La 22x Sr x ͑Cu 12y Zn y ͒O 4 and YBa 2 ͑Cu 12y Zn y ͒ 3 O 6.63 . The superconducting carrier density͞effective mass n s ͞m ‫ء‬ ratio at T ! 0 decreases with increasing Zn concentration, in a manner consistent with our "swiss cheese" model in which charge carriers within an area pj 2 ab around each Zn are excluded from the superfluid. We discuss this result in the context of Bose condensation, pair localization, and pair breaking. [S0031-9007(96)02011-X]

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Millimeter waves (30-300 GHz) are starting to be used in next generation high-speed wireless communications. To avoid electromagnetic interference in this wireless communication, finding a suitable electromagnetic wave absorber in the millimeter wave range is an urgent matter. In this work, we prepared a high-performance millimeter wave absorber composed of a series of aluminum-substituted epsilon-iron oxide, epsilon-Al(x)Fe(2-x)O(3), nanomagnets (0 < or = x < or = 0.40) with a particle size between 25 and 50 nm. The materials in this series have an orthorhombic crystal structure in the Pna2(1) space group, which has four nonequivalent Fe sites and Al ion that predominantly occupies the tetrahedral [FeO(4)] site. The field-cooled magnetization curves showed that the T(C) values were 448, 480, and 500 K for x = 0.40, 0.21, and 0, respectively. The magnetization versus external magnetic field showed that the coercive field H(c) values at 300 K were 10.2, 14.9, and 22.5 kOe for x = 0.40, 0.21, and 0, respectively. The millimeter wave absorption properties were measured at room temperature by terahertz time domain spectroscopy. The frequencies of the absorption peaks for x = 0.40, 0.30, 0.21, 0.09, 0.06, and 0 were observed at 112, 125, 145, 162, 172, and 182 GHz, respectively. These absorptions are due to the natural resonance achieved by the large magnetic anisotropies in this series. Such frequencies are the highest ones for magnetic materials. Because aluminum is the third most abundant atom, aluminum-substituted epsilon-iron oxide is very economical, and thus these materials are advantageous for industrial applications.

We present zero-field muon spin relaxation ͑SR͒ measurements of La 1.6Ϫx Nd 0.4 Sr x CuO 4 with xϭ0.125,0.15,0.2; La 1.475 Nd 0.4 Ba 0.125 CuO 4 , La 1.875 Ba 0.125 CuO 4 , and La 1.875 Ba 0.125Ϫy Sr y CuO 4 with y ϭ0.025,0.065. All of the samples with dopant concentrations xϩyр0.15 show similar static magnetic order with coherent precession of the muon spins below T N Ϸ30 K, with a T→0 ordered Cu moment Ϸ0.3 B . The samples with xϭ0.20 show no coherent precession but manifest two distinct relaxation regimes, typical of quasistatic magnetism. We then present transverse-field SR hysteresis measurements of the La 1.45 Nd 0.4 Sr 0.15 CuO 4 and La 1.4 Nd 0.4 Sr 0.2 CuO 4 systems that show a large superconducting response below approximately 7 K and 12 K, respectively. We argue that superconductivity and magnetic order coexist in the xϭ0.15 system.