Possibility of wine dating using the natural Pb-210 radioactive isotope.

To control the authenticity of an old wine without opening the bottle, we developed a few years ago a method based on the measurement of the (137)Cs activity. However, for recent vintages, the (137)Cs activity drops to far too low values (most of the time less than 10 mBq/L for a 10-year-old wine) for this method to perform correctly. In this paper we examine the possibility to date wines using the natural radio-element (210)Pb which has a 22-year period.

Evidence of 131I and (134,137)Cs activities in Bordeaux, France due to the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Following the Fukushima nuclear accident, low-background gamma spectrometry measurements were performed with HPGe detectors at the PRISNA platform located at the CENBG laboratory in Bordeaux, France. Different kinds of samples were collected and measured between March 26 and May 14, 2011. The first fission product observed was (131)I with maximum activity values of 2.

Technetium species induced in maize as measured by phosphorimager.

Leaves of plants have the ability to accumulate the long-lived fission product (99)Tc. In the present work, an attempt was made to separate and characterize technetium species formed in maize grown on soil contaminated with Tc(VII)O(4)(-) solution. Data obtained from selective extraction, a Phosphorimager and liquid scintillation were employed.

Two-proton radioactivity of 45Fe.

In an experiment at the SISSI-LISE3 facility of GANIL, the decay of the proton drip line nucleus 45Fe has been studied. Fragment-implantation events have been correlated with radioactive decay events in a 16x16 pixel silicon-strip detector. The decay-energy spectrum of 45Fe implants shows a distinct peak at (1.

Discovery of doubly magic 48Ni.

In an experiment at the SISSI/LISE3 facility of GANIL, we used the projectile fragmentation of a primary 58Ni26+ beam at 74.5 MeV/nucleon with an average current of 3 &mgr;A on a natural nickel target to produce very neutron-deficient isotopes. In a 10-day experiment, 287 42Cr isotopes, 53 45Fe isotopes, 106 49Ni isotopes, and 4 48Ni isotopes were unambiguously identified.