UA is home to world's only radiocarbon journal

The world's only radiocarbon research journal resides here at the University of Arizona.

The Radiocarbon Journal publishes the results of carbon-14 research performed by some of UA's departments, as well as research from all over the world.

"Our goal is to really advance knowledge as much as possible, to share that knowledge with other sciences and to build on it," said Renee Kra, managing editor for the Radiocarbon Journal.

The journal's articles have represented fields such as archeology, chemistry, climate and environmental studies, dendrochronology (tree-ring research), paleobotany, and physics and soil science.

"Radiocarbon research has a lot of 'tracer' applications," said David Sewell, assistant editor of the journal.

Sewell said the journal recently featured an example of radiocarbon use in biomedical research. The study focused on nicotine and whether or not it was a carcinogen.

Scientists fed laboratory rats a solution of carbon-14-tagged nicotine, which allowed them to "trace" the effects of nicotine in the rats' bodies.

The rats' livers were dissected to determine the levels of nicotine bound to their DNA. The binding is believed to be a forerunner to cancer, Sewell said.

Scientists are able to determine the age of specific materials by measuring the amount of carbon-14 present in a sample. Carbon-14, an unsteady radioactive element, occurs naturally in the environment.

Knowing the amount of carbon-14 in the sample, scientists use an equation based on a known rate of decay to determine the sample's age. Radiocarbon research has many applications, including dating of materials and biomedical research, according to the journal's World Wide Web site.

Kra said recent applications of carbon-14 research at the UA includes dating the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Shroud of Turin, as well as determining the age of samples in the Tree-Ring Laboratory on campus.

The February issue of the journal featured the use of the Accelerator Mass Spectrometer, a technique developed in 1977.

AMS directly measures smaller sized samples faster than the previous methods, Kra said. The UA has its own AMS lab, located in the Physical and Atmospheric Sciences building.

Before developing AMS, scientists used a Liquid Scintillation Spectrometer. With LSS, scientists first had to dissolve the samples in a benzene solution before passing the test sample through the spectrometer. The LSS counts the number of particles the radiocarbon in a sample emits by "bouncing" a light off of them.

Kra said the Radiocarbon Journal began as an archive for all radiocarbon dates in 1959 at Yale University as a supplement for the American Journal of Science.

The journal came to UA in 1989. UA also has its own radiocarbon facilities and several departments rely on carbon-14 research, making it a good home for the journal.

The journal has since grown to include articles about dating and other related research. It now releases special issues on radiocarbon research-related conferences and themes, such as the nicotine study.

"We've been experimenting with online publication," Sewell said. He added funding will be difficult to obtain since professional societies like the National Science Foundation do not fund journals.

Sewell said the UA Main Library will informally determine the cost of digitizing back issues.

"It's (the collection of back issues) too massive to be handled," Sewell said.

"Everybody wishes it (a digital database of the journal) existed," said Kimberly Elliott, assistant editor. "But it's too big to put together."

Elliott said the Radiocarbon Journal has been around for so long, "it's pretty much cornered the market." That is why it is the only carbon-14 research journal in the world, she said.

Kra said the most important thing to remember is how far the journal has come since moving to UA. She added the journal has the support of the whole geosciences department at UA as well as other research departments who rely on the radiocarbon facilities.

"We have people to work with," Kra said. "Areas the Radiocarbon Journal covers are areas UA specializes in."