Our bones contain chemical information about our diet, our behavior, and even our geographic origin. With the right tools, scientists can decode that information to learn about the past lives behind skeletal remains, such as those shown here. Christine France of the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute uses stable isotope ratio analysis to help anthropologists answer questions about possible 18th-century pirates and more. 

That act of desperation would have happened in Jamestown, Virginia, during the “starving time,” a period over the winter of 1609 to 1610 when drought, hostile relations with nearby Native Americans, and a lost supply ship wiped out most of the colony. Some writings from that time allude to cannibalism among the colonists, but there had never been physical evidence that it had occurred. That is, until 2012, when archaeologists uncovered the remains of a 14-year-old girl who would come to be known as Jane. And whose bones told a grisly story. Read more.

Unlike traditional nuclear methods of generating isotopes for medical imaging, the new particle accelerator at South Campus can generate a wider range of isotopes without producing nuclear waste.

The particle accelerator, known as a cyclotron, can produce enough isotopes for 1,000 diagnostic procedures a day – enough for both Calgary and Edmonton. John Wilson, the facility’s manager said the technology may soon replace nuclear reactors in providing medical isotopes for major cities across Canada.

“We’re the first to show that it can be produced to this quantity,” Wilson said.

More than 70 percent of the world’s diagnostic imaging is done using technetium-99m, a radioactive tracer. When fused with a drug or other molecule, its passage through the body can then be monitored using gamma cameras. Read more.

For years, scientists have been working to understand stellar explosions, also called supernovae, and how they affect everything in their surroundings, including planets. The question has also led many to wonder if the explosions that occurred several million years ago were close enough to trigger mass-extinction events. The exact answer, obviously, remains a mystery, but a new research sheds some light on how these explosions might have affected life on Earth.

The supernovae in question are those that occurred approximately 2.5 and 8 million years ago at a distance ranging between 160 and 320 light years away from Earth. Though previous studies suggest explosions were way beyond the so-called "kill-zone" for a planet, astrophysicist Brian Thomas, the lead author of the latest work, thinks the events might have had a staggering effect on our planet’s atmosphere, which might have had long-term repercussions on all forms of life on Earth. Read more.

Oxygen and carbon isotopes from herbivore teeth have previously been used as paleoenvironmental proxies. However, their use in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) remains rare. Here, we present the results of analysis of sequential sub-samples from second and third molars of wild and non-wild deer from Georgia, United States in order to assess their application in humid subtropical climates. In wild deer, enamel carbonate δ18O corresponds broadly to the recorded precipitation δ18O over the 10-month period of tooth formation, capturing the rainfall seasonality across the physiogeographic regions of the state.

Non-wild deer show significantly lower values compared to both measured and modeled δ18O precipitation. While δ13C in tooth enamel carbonate appears to reflect diet, it does not reflect seasonality in either population. The δ13C and δ15N from bone collagen values suggest that diet and source of drinking water influence the potential of white tailed deer tooth enamel carbonate to record the δ18O seasonality in the study area; therefore, special attention on the provenance of deer are necessary for obtaining accurate paleoclimate reconstruction. Read more.