Within the HarvestPlus program there are many collaborators currently using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy to measure Fe and Zn in their target crops. In India, five HarvestPlus wheat collaborators have laboratories that conduct this analysis and their throughput has increased significantly. The benefits of using XRF are its ease of use, minimal sample preparation and high throughput ana...

One of the latest developments in X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis (XRF) is 3D micro-XRF by means of two confocally aligned X-ray optics. Fig. 1 sketches the principle of this type of experimental setup. The foci of two X-ray optics, one in the excitation channel and the other in the detection channel, overlap and define a probing volume. This is typically demonstrated by scanning through the probin...

The term 'X-ray fluorescence analysis' (XRF) refers to the measurement of characteristic fluorescent emission resulting from the deexcitation of inner shell vacancies produced in the sample by means of a suitable source of radiation. For a particular energy (wavelength) of fluorescent light emitted by a sample, the number of photons per unit time (generally referred to as peak intensity or coun...

A pluridisciplinary approach was used to define iodine immobilization mechanisms by biocarbonates in a natural marine carbonate-bearing clayey formation. For this purpose, different techniques of observation (optical microscope, scanning electron microscope (SEM), cathodoluminescence (CL)) and of analyses (infrared spectrometry (IR), electron microprobe (EPMA), spatially resolved synchrotron-ba...

Mineralized tissues accumulate elements that play crucial roles in animal health. Although elemental content of bone, blood and teeth of human and some animal species have been characterized, data for many others are lacking, as well as species comparisons. Here we describe the distribution of elements in horn (Bovidae), antler (Cervidae), teeth and bone (humerus) across a number of species det...

It has been recently demonstrated that the internal jugular vein may exhibit abnormalities classified as truncular venous malformations (TVMs). The investigation of possible morphological and biochemical anomalies at jugular tissue level could help to better understand the link between brain venous drainage and neurodegenerative disorders, recently found associated with jugular TVMs. To this en...