MOLECULES HAVE BEEN FORMED WITHIN A BOSE EINSTEIN CONDENSATE (BEC). First physicists at the University of Texas create a condensate of rubidium atoms in a trap. Then diatomic molecules (dimers) are formed by getting two nearby Rb atoms first to absorb a photon together and then to emit a second photon. This photo-association process eaves the Rb2 dimer essentially at rest, with an equivalent temperature of about 100 nK; "...perhaps the coldest molecules in the universe," says Paul Julienne of NIST (Science News, 12 Feb /pnu/2000/). The stillness makes possible high precision spectroscopy of the molecules, at a level at least 10,000 times more accurate than for previous experiments in laser-cooled gases. This high resolution allowed the group to measure a molecule condensate interaction for the first time. With further work, this technique could lead to the formation of a molecular BEC, the researchers say. (Wynar et al., Science, 11 Feb /pnu/2000/.)