Unsuppressed (?) hard heavy-quark production

• Indirect measurement via semileptonic open-charm decays: D e± X .

• Within uncertainties, single electron Au+Au central spectra and x-section(*) consistent with Ncoll scaled p+p charm production:

• Strong(*) medium effects on heavy flavor production precluded so far.

• (*) at least as strong as for light-quark mesons.