In the first part of this talk, we will discuss a novel method to generate high pressures using a modified diamond with a laser drilled hole.  When force is applied to diamond anvils, it  causes the metallic gasket to plastically deform into the hole and pressurize the sample similar to the way a piston pressurizes a cylinder. This enables us to push the sample outside of the gasket plane which will aid experiments such as x-ray absorption where signal is collected perpendicular to the exciting beam and thus requires x-rays to penetrate the confining gasket.  It will also aid the study of NMR at high pressure which is challenging because the confining metallic gasket chokes RF signals to and from the sample.  

     In the second part of this talk, we will discuss a method to enhance x-ray induced damage of biological materials by mixing them with select metals.  Irradiating the mixture with x-rays tuned at the K-edge and L-edge of select metals we found dramatic enhancement of the damage rate of uracil via photoelectron production from the metals by the x-rays.  It is our hope to use this method for selective destruction of cancerous and other abnormal cells as well as possible denaturing of viruses.