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Dark matter, structure, and strings.

In late July, about 150 astronomers gathered at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for a 2-week workshop on "Nearly Normal Galaxies." As the title suggests, the discussion was wide-ranging. Yet two issues stood out: dark matter and the large-scale structure. In itself this was hardly surprising, since these two issues have haunted extragalactic astronomy for nearly a decade. Indeed, they are central to an understanding of how galaxies formed. But some of the most dramatic findings have only been announced this year. Thus, the Santa Cruz workshop came at an especially opportune moment. In the following briefings, Research News draws on the workshop presentations to summarize astronomers' latest thinking on these subjects.