Mark Thiemens is Dean of the Division of Physical Sciences and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego, and works on studies of the physical chemistry of mass independent isotope effects and their observation in nature. Here is an interview with Dr. Thiemens, posted by Anne Pichon in TheScepticalChymist. Read more here.

At a cost estimated at about $141 million, 220 pounds of helium-3 is the kind of high-value, low-volume mineral that makes mining in space for resources to be used on Earth economically viable.

 Helium-3, a lightweight isotope of the familiar helium gas, is found on Earth but in such limited quantities it could not be used as fuel for nuclear fusion. But it is available on the moon and is often cited as one of the most promising resource discoveries in space so far.   Transporting a high-value, low-volume mineral back to Earth for use here represents the next stage of mining in space … Read more here.

They almost gave up! Then scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory got the break they needed. The discovery of the signature of radioactive isotope plutonium-239 may lead to more effective use and storage of nuclear waste.

Devoted fans can wait hours on the red carpet to get their favourite movie star’s autograph, but that’s nothing compared to acquiring the signature of plutonium-239. After 50 years of trying, physicists have finally managed to analyse the fissile isotope using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. This could potentially allow them to develop improved methods for storing waste from nuclear power plants. Read more here: Plutonium signature captured after 50 years of trying – physics-math – 17 May 2012 – New Scientist.

Ever heard of the Gaia hypothesis? Researchers use isotopes of sulphur to further the idea that the earth is a living organism.

Researchers have discovered new evidence that may back the famous Gaia hypothesis of Earth as a living organism.   The new finding could allow scientists to unlock heretofore hidden interactions between ocean organisms, atmosphere, and land – interactions that might provide proof supporting this theory.   The Gaia hypothesis – first articulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1970s – holds that Earth’s physical and biological processes are inextricably connected to form a self-regulating, essentially sentient, system.  Read more here.

Here are some additional stories on the topic:

Wired Science / Science Daily / Daily Mail / GlobeNewswire

Steven Emslie takes core samples of sediments in January at Cape Royds, Ross Island, not far from McMurdo Station in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Photo by Tao Huang

Steven Emslie, professor of biology and marine biology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, has been traveling to Antarctica since 1992 to study penguins. These birds and their habitat leave a well-preserved record of their quality of life and diet.

Emslie spends up to five months at a time in the Antarctic sampling tissue, feathers and blood from Adelie, Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins that live in the Antarctic Peninsula and southern regions of the continent.

Emslie then performs stable isotope analysis (examining the amount of carbon and nitrogen that organisms absorb through food) to uncover a record of the penguins’ diet.  Read more here.

Molybdenum-99, a radioactive isotope commonly used for cancer screening, has been in short supply — and has long needed a producer in the U. S. 

The radioisotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) is a commonly used radiomarker for cancer diagnostics and life science research, but it’s in short supply and there are no American manufacturers of the material. Producing Mo-99 involves bombarding highly enriched uranium (U-235) with an intense beam of neutrons, which normally means you’ll need a nuclear reactor and have to answer to authorities that deter nuclear weapon proliferation to make the stuff. Last year the Canadian government gave $15 million to the Canadian Light Source, a 2.9 GeV synchrotron facility, to develop a method of using X-rays to manufacture molybdenum-99.

Following up on their own $4.6 million investment last year in NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes to do the same, America’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has partnered with the Morgridge Institute for Research at the University of Wisconsin to build an $85 million facility that will use an accelerator to generate Mo-99.  Read more here.

Two Alfred University professors will receive a combined total of $1.72 million for research through the Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP) of the federal Department of Energy. Both projects aim to find solutions for safe disposal of nuclear wastes that are critical to treating legacy defense wastes as well as managing wastes in nuclear power generation.

S. K. Sundaram, Inamori Professor of Materials Science in the Kazuo Inamori School of Engineering at Alfred University, will receive $840,000 for “Alternative High-Performance Ceramic Waste Forms.” Co-investigator on the project is Scott Misture, also an Inamori Professor of Materials Science at Alfred. Collaborators are Kevin Fox, a 2000 alumnus of Alfred University, and Kyle Brinkman. Both work at Savannah River National Laboratory, Aiken, SC.

Nathan Mellott, an assistant professor of Materials Science, will receive $880,000 for “Surface Layer-Bulk Glass Interface Evolution with Aqueous Corrosion.” Misture is a collaborator with Mellott; other collaborators are Joseph Ryan, who is a 1998 alumnus of Alfred University now working at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, and Glenn Waychunas of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA.

Read more here …

The race to extend the periodic table continues

One of the first inklings that chemistry has an underlying pattern was the discovery, early in the 19th century, of lithium, sodium and potassium—known collectively as the alkali metals. Though different from each other they have strangely similar properties. This was one of the observations that led a German chemist called Johann Döbereiner to wonder if all chemical elements came in families.   It took decades to tease out the truth of Döbereiner’s conjecture, and thus to construct the periodic table—in which the alkali metals form the first column. And it took decades more to explain why the table works (it is to do with the way electrons organise themselves in orbit around atomic nuclei). But it is a fitting tribute to Döbereiner’s insight that, if all goes well, some time in the next few months will bring the creation of a new alkali metal, element number 119, by his countryman Christoph Düllmann of the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt. With that addition the table will do something which has never happened before. It will grow a new row.  Read more here.

Megan Smolenyak, genealogy expert and author of Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing and Who Do You Think You Are?, includes isotopic analysis of teeth in her research to help identify Civil War-era remains

Who doesn’t love a good history mystery? You don’t have to be a Civil War buff to be fascinated with the attempt to identify the two skeletons found in the turret of the USS Monitor when it was raised from the ocean floor a decade ago. Launched in Brooklyn in January 1862 and lost in a storm off the coast of North Carolina on the last day of that same year, the famed ironclad’s entire functioning existence played out exactly 150 years ago. It’s this special anniversary that has focused attention on efforts to give a name to each of the two sailors whose remains were recovered, and with the approach of Memorial Day, now seems a fitting time to delve into this mystery.  Read more here.

County agencies also participate

FORT CAMPBELL, KY. — Fort Campbell first-responders and security officials, as well as off-post agencies from Montgomery County and Hopkinsville, were tested on Thursday with a scenario involving a radioactive “dirty bomb” incident.

A number of Fort Campbell soldiers also took part playing the role of casualties, using make-up simulating burns, cuts and abrasions that added to the realism of the exercise.

The annual Emergency Management and Antiterrorism event simulated the detonation of a remote-controlled device involving approximately 20 immediate area casualties.

Spokesman Jay Fangman explained that a dirty bomb using a material like Cesium-137 – a strongly radioactive isotope – is primarily dangerous when inhaled.   Read more here.