The electron microscope was used to study the biological processes involved in hydrocarbon production. The little desert shrub Guayule (Parthenium argentatum) was selected for study. This shrub can produce hydrocarbons (rubber) in concentrations up to 1/4 of its dry weight. It grows on semi-arid land and has been extensively studied. The potential of Guayule is described in detail. Results of an investigation into the morphology of Guayule at the electron microscope level are given. Experiments, which would allow the biosynthesis of hydrocarbon in Guayule to be followed, were designed. In order to do this, knowledge of the biochemistry of rubber formation was used to select a tracer, mevalonic acid. Mevalonic acid is the precursor of all the terpenoids, a large class of hydrocarbons which includes rubber. It was found that when high enough concentrations of mevalonic acid are administered to seedling Guayule plants, build-ups of metabolized products are found within the chloroplasts of the seedlings. Also, tritium labeled mevalonic acid was used as a precursor, and its metabolic progress was followed by using the technique of electron microscope autoradiography. The results of these experiments also implicated chloroplasts of the Guayule plant in hydrocarbon production. The final task was the development …

High energy runaway electrons in the Oak Ridge tokamak ORMAK have been investigated through measurement of the bremsstrahlung produced when these electrons leave the discharge and strike the limiting aperture of the torus. The experimental results have been interpreted in terms of a classical single-particle model appropriate for collisionless particles in a tokamak, and it has been found that most of the confinement properties of high energy runaways in ORMAK can be understood on this basis. An experiment designed to directly test this model has disclosed an anomalous transport which has been described by a runaway diffusion coefficient D approximately 10/sup 2/ to 10/sup 4/ cm/sup 2//sec appropriate for runaways near the outside of the plasma. A discussion of the possible mechanisms for this anomalous transport is given.