EMISSION SPECTRA EXCITED IN AN ALUMINUM POWDER-OXYGEN FLAME

$^{\ast}$ Laboratory of Molecular Spectroscopy and Infrared Studies, Department of Physics and Astronomy. Research supported, in part, by the U. S. Army Research Office (Durham, N. C.) through a grant to The Ohio State University Research Foundation. $^{\dagger}$ Rokcet Research Laboratory. Research has been supported, in part, by the Hercules Powder Company. Allegany Ballistics Laboratory, Cumberland, Md., through a contract with The Ohio State University Research Foundation.Author Institution: The Ohio State UniversityAluminum in powdered form has been injected by a vibrator-operated feeder mechanism into an oxygen flow to a Bunsen-type burner. The aluminum-oxygen flame is ignited by a gas flame. The design of this burner has been improved to allow continuous operation of the flame. The emission spectra excited in this metal flame have been investigated both in the optical and the infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. From studies made with a prism spectrometer, the infrared spectrum appears to be purely continuous. The intensity of this continuous infrared emission is comparable to the emission from a carbon are. The optical spectra have revealed about 60-70 bands belonging to the $A^{2}\Sigma-X^{2}\Sigma$ transition of the Al O molecule. The usefulness of this flame as a light source for spectroscopic investigations will also be discussed

Melanesians and Polynesians share a unique alpha-thalassemia mutation.

Several genetic markers that provide information on population migrations and affinities have been detected by studies of proteins and cellular antigens in blood. Analysis of DNA polymorphisms promises to yield many further population markers, and we report here the distribution of a new alpha-globin gene deletion (-alpha 3.7 III) detected by a restriction enzyme mapping. This is found frequently in Melanesians and Polynesians but not in five other populations in which alpha-thalassemia is prevalent. We used restriction enzyme haplotype analysis to support a single origin for this mutation and propose that it is a useful population marker. Its geographical distribution supports a route through Island Melanesia for the colonizers of Polynesia