cosmic rays in the upper troposphere (9000 meters to 15000 meters) initiate the followingnuclear chemical reaction: 1n + 14n => 14c + 1h. previous research has shown a strong effect of latitude onthe abundance of neutrons from cosmic rays. however, to date, there has been little exploration of therelationship between the latitude effect for cosmic-ray neutrons and latitudinal variations of stab...

The application of stable isotope analysis (SIA) has become a standard scientific approach in Agricultural and Ecological researches and, more in general, in several disciplines such as biology, botany, zoology, organic chemistry, climatology, and nutrition. The main objectives of this paper are (1) to provide a simple definition of stable isotopes and (2) to illustrate analytical measurement m...

Mass spectrometry has served as a major tool for the discipline of proteomics to catalogue proteins in an unprecedented scale. With chemical and metabolic techniques for stable isotope labeling developed over the past decade, it is now routinely used as a method for relative quantification to provide valuable information on alteration of protein abundance in a proteome-wide scale. More recently...

bentonite deposits of economic interest are widespread in tashtab mountains (khur), east of isfahan province, iran. several bentonite deposits have been developed in this area as a result of eocene volcanic alteration. these deposits are classified as khur bentonite horizon. xrd analyses reveal that alteration products consist of na-montmorillonite, kaolinite, quartz, calcite, and crystobalite....

Stable isotope labeling is a standard technique for tracing material transfer in molecular, ecological and biogeochemical studies. The main assumption in this approach is that the enrichment with a heavy isotope has no effect on the organism metabolism and growth, which is not consistent with current theoretical and empirical knowledge on kinetic isotope effects. Here, we demonstrate profound c...

Eastern boundary currents are often described as 'wasp-waist' ecosystems in which one or few mid-level forage species support a high diversity of larger predators that are highly susceptible to fluctuations in prey biomass. The assumption of wasp-waist control has not been empirically tested in all such ecosystems. This study used stable isotope analysis to test the hypothesis of wasp-waist con...

it is very important to determine the stable nitrogen isotope ratio for the nitrogenous substances in aerosols and the geochemistry behavior of stable nitrate ion isotopes in aerosols in order to elucidate the chemical and physical functions of clouds. hence, aerosol field sampling was conducted in the skies offshore from malibu beach and santa barbara, california, u.s.a. on 16 and 18 july 2009...

For over a century, a Neogene fossil mammal fauna has been known in the Irrawaddy Formation in central Myanmar. Unfortunately, the lack of accurately located fossiliferous sites and the absence of hominoid fossils have impeded paleontological studies. Here we describe the first hominoid found in Myanmar together with a Hipparion (s.l.) associated mammal fauna from Irrawaddy Formation deposits d...

To document the evolution of the early cryosphere, stable isotope analyses were conducted on the planktonic and benthic foraminifers from Ocean Drilling Program Site 1218. We generated two parallel 54m-long records at 10-cm resolution and thus produced a standard Pacific stable isotope reference curve for the 26.4to 30.0-Ma interval within the Oligocene. These data are necessary to document the...

In this editorial, we provide a brief introduction and summarize the 10 research articles included in this Special Issue on Applications of stable isotope analysis in mammalian ecology. The first three articles report correction and discrimination factors that can be used to more accurately estimate the diets of extinct and extant mammals using stable isotope analysis. The remaining seven appli...