s of recently accepted papers Deuterium fractionation and the degree of ionization in the R Coronae Australis molecular cloud core I.M. Anderson, P. Caselli, L.K. Haikala, J. Harju 1 Observatory, P.O. Box 14, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland 2 Watson Wyatt Partners, 86 Station Road,Redhill, Surrey RH1 1PL, England 3 Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125 Firenze, Italy 4 Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope, European Southern Observatory, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19, Chile E-mail contact: jorma.harju@astro.helsinki.fi The fractionation of D and C in HCO was investigated in the R Coronae Australis molecular cloud core. The distributions of HCO and DCO were found to be morphologically similar but their column density maxima were found to lie in different locations. The HCO/HCO abundance ratio was found to vary little from 10 within the mapped region, in excellent agreement with the CO/CO abundance ratios derived earlier towards the cloud by Harjunpää & Mattila (1996). This corroborates the close relationship between HCO and CO predicted by the chemistry models. The DCO/HCO abundance ratio ranges from 0.006 to 0.04, being lowest towards two locations near the embedded infrared source IRS 7 where the kinetic temperature, as derived from methyl acetylene (CH3CCH) observations, is somewhat elevated. The variation of the degree of deuterium fractionation within the core is due to an increase in the kinetic temperature near the cluster of newly born stars. This temperature rise results in two effects: Firstly, the reaction H2D → H3 becomes faster; and secondly, an intensified desorption from grain surfaces increases the abundance of neutral atoms and molecules in the gas phase leading to the destruction of H3 and H2D + ions. Both processes decrease the DCO/HCO abundance ratio. Far from the active region the derived abundances of neutral species indicate the presence of depletion onto grain surfaces. The observations suggest furthermore that the fractional electron abundance, χ(e−), is lowest in the dense clump near IRS 7. This region also exhibits a low degree of gas phase depletion. In fact, increased fractional abundances of neutral species such as atomic oxygen and CO lead to a decrease in the [H3 ]/[HCO ] abundance ratio which is directly proportional to χ(e−). Accepted by Astron. Astrophys. Discovery of an Extremely Young Accreting Protostar in Taurus P. André, F. Motte and A. Bacmann 1 CEA/DSM/DAPNIA, Service d’Astrophysique, C.E. Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France 2 Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, D-53121 Bonn, Germany E-mail contact: pandre@cea.fr We report the discovery of a new, very young accreting Class 0 protostar in the southern part of the Taurus molecular cloud. This object, designated by IRAM 04191+1522, coincides with a cold (T ∼ 12 K) dust continuum condensation found at 1.3 mm with the IRAM 30 m telescope ∼ 1’ south-west of the Class I infrared source IRAS 04191+1523. Although IRAM 04191+1522 was not seen by IRAS, it is associated with a weak 3.6 cm VLA radio continuum source, a highly collimated CO bipolar outflow, and 60–850 μm emission detected by ISOPHOT and SCUBA. Molecular