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Is there any dead carbon, like perhaps in the teeth? Have never heard of it being done, but would be neat.
by iguy 7y ago
Is there any dead carbon, like perhaps in the teeth? Have never heard of it being done, but would be neat.
- hobofan 7y agoTeeth mostly consist of hydroxyapatite, which doesn't contain any carbon. Not 100% sure, but for someone that just died, you might be able to do it with their brain, as brain cells are hardly ever renewed. For a living human I don't think there is any way that's non-invasive.
- garmaine 7y agoThat thing about brain cells not regenerating is a myth, btw.
- hobofan 7y agoCould you provide a source for that? I recently tried to read up on the topic and everything I found stated that brain/nervous cells are generally barely regenerated and can stay with you your whole life. Granted, most articles trace back to this source[0] from 1967, but if newer information exists, they've done a really bad job at spreading it. [0]: https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?&id=101940 https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?&id=101940
- 3JPLW 7y agoApparently it is possible to do radiocarbon dating on tooth enamel. Enamel contains 0.4% carbon and is indeed frozen at time of development. Unfortunately, we're limited to post-nuclear testing because without the atmospheric diffusion C14 has very low precision due to the half-life of 5730 years. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2957015/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2957015/ https://www.nature.com/articles/437333a https://www.nature.com/articles/437333a
- iguy 7y agoThanks! That's interesting, to use the post-nuclear curve as a modern clock, instead of using C14's half life for an ancient clock. For a given tooth they seem to assume all enamel was from one date, during childhood.