Latest Isotopes Stories

WAYNE, Pa. and WEST CHESTER, Pa., April 11, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- VitaminSpice (OTCBB: VTMS) (German WKN: AOYE4L) (www.vitaminspice.net) and Clean Age Minerals, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Daleco Resources, Inc. (OTCBB: DLOV) (www.DalecoResources.com) have executed a definitive agreement to work together to produce products based on Clinoptilolite, a naturally occurring mineral in the Zeolite family with unique abilities to remove toxins including heavy metals and radiation from solids,...

ST. LOUIS, April 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sigma-Aldrich® (Nasdaq: SIAL) announced today that it has signed an agreement with New Mexico Highlands University through its licensee, Highlands Stable Isotope Corp. (HSI), to exclusively distribute a novel set of patented stable isotope labeled synthetic reagents (www.sigma-aldrich.com/sinext). Under the terms of the agreement, HSI, a leader in the synthesis of amino acids, natural products, monomers for the materials science industry and...

Isotope analysis provides accurate informationThe analysis of carbon and oxygen isotopes embedded in tree rings may shed new light on past climate events in the Mackenzie Delta region of northern Canada.Scientists have long looked at the width of tree rings to estimate temperature levels of past years. Larger rings indicate more tree growth in a season, which translates into warmer summer temperatures. But the analysis of carbon and oxygen isotopes in tree rings can also provide accurate data...

The Earth has experienced many turning points over its 4.5-billion-year history, such as periods of extreme temperature changes, asteroids and the arrival and disappearance of various life forms.  But one of the most monumental events was the Cambrian-era explosion of life some 540 million years ago, when complex, multi-cellular life burst out all over the planet.Scientists point to this critical period as leading to life as we know it today, although its precise causes were not completely...

Freshwater fish are a major part of the diet of many peoples around the world, but it has been unclear when fish became a significant part of the year-round diet for early humans. Chemical analysis of the protein collagen, using ratios of the isotopes of nitrogen and sulphur in particular, can show whether such fish consumption was an occasional treat or part of the staple diet.The isotopic analysis of the diet of one of the earliest modern humans in Asia, the 40,000 year old skeleton from...

Isotopes, the atomic clues used to solve crimes, date ancient artifacts and identify chemicalsWhether it's the summer grass that tickles your feet or the red Bordeaux smacking on your palette, nearly every part of the world around you carries special chemical markers. These markers, called isotopes, can tell scientists where the molecules that compose a substance are from, where they traveled, and what happened to them along the way. But doing these analyses has been complex and costly. Now,...

U.S. and British scientists have determined nickel might be a useful isotopic marker to trace the origins of single cell organisms that produce methane. Our data suggest significant potential in nickel stable isotopes for identifying and quantifying methanogenesis on the early Earth, said Vyllinniskii Cameron, a recent Penn State graduate and now a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Bristol. Little is known about the actual timing of the evolution of methane producing organisms or...

Sedimentary rocks created more than 2.4 billion years ago sometimes have an unusual sulfur isotope composition thought to be caused by the action of ultra violet light on volcanically produced sulfur dioxide in an oxygen poor atmosphere. Now a team of geochemists can show an alternative origin for this isotopic composition that may point to an early, oxygen-rich atmosphere."The significance of this finding is that an abnormal isotope fractionation (of sulfur) may not be linked to the...

Unraveling the origins of agriculture in different regions around the globe has been a challenge for archeologists. Now researchers writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences report finding evidence of early human experiments with grain cultivation in East Asia. They gathered this information from an unlikely source"•dog and pig bones.The dog and pig bones, as well as bones of other animals analyzed in the study, come from an archaeological site in a region of northwest...

SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Picarro, Inc. has partnered with O.I. Corporation, d.b.a. O.I. Analytical, (Nasdaq: OICO) to develop a turnkey analyzer to measure total organic carbon (TOC) as well as the carbon stable isotope ratio (delta-13C). The iTOC-CRDS works directly with solids, liquids, sludges and slurries, and will be formally launched at the Pittcon(R) 2009 technical conference and exhibition (March 8-13, Chicago, IL). The iTOC-CRDS is an integrated, small and...