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Radioactive carbon in human teeth – thanks to nuclear bomb testing

The Radioactive Clock In Your Teeth – Forbes.com Jonathan Fahey, 05.21.10, How bomb testing in the 1950s is helping scientists determine a person’s age.“……….They had discovered that a bygone era of world political history had made it possible to date unidentified human remains more precisely than other forensic methods. Aboveground testing of nuclear bombs in the 1950s and early 1960s created elevated levels of radioactive carbon that soon became incorporated into all living things.

Those elevated levels of radiocarbon were tracked carefully, and they began to drop off quickly after a test ban treaty was signed in 1963.The effect was to create a clock that investigators can now use to determine the age of victims of crimes or natural disasters, for example. In a paper published this month in the journal Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, Buchholz, Spalding and their colleagues showed that after examining 44 teeth from 41 people they could determine ages within about two years–far better than more common methods like looking at patterns of wear and the changes that proteins in the teeth undergo as people age……
aboveground nuclear testing that started in 1955 released torrents of high-energy neutrons into the atmosphere. The neutrons smashed into nitrogen and created much more carbon 14 than normal. That carbon quickly hooked up with oxygen in the air, creating carbon dioxide, and spread relatively evenly around the globe…..

While our flesh gets replenished as cells die and are replaced, the enamel of our teeth is made only once, and at very specific times in our lives……
The carbon Jane Doe used to make her teeth in 1968 looks to Buchholz quite different from the carbon John Doe used to make his in 1972. “It turns out measuring the [carbon 14] is a better chronometer for determining a date of birth than anything used in forensic science,” says Buchholz.

The Radioactive Clock In Your Teeth – Forbes.com

May 24, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, environment | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, nuclear technology, nuclear weapons, radiation, radioactive