• Carbon Dating of Cave Art - Mass Spectrometry dates prehistoric cave paintings in southern France...


• On the Nose - MS shows mice prefer to mate with partners that express different MHC genes...


• Special Delivery - A mass spectrometer is delivered to the international space station...


• Molecular Hitchhiking on a Comet - Mass spectrometry shows molecules can survive an impact with Earth...


• Mass Spectrometry Unearths Mexico's Maize - Accelerator MS provides evidence of early agriculture in Mexico...


• Mass of the Universe -Scientists may finally have a reliable estimate of the mass of the universe...


• Airport Security - Ion mobility mass spectrometry to detect narcotics at airports...


• MS at the Olympics - Mass spectrometry keeps the athletes honest...


• more past features...

• Ion Formula by Mol. Weight
• Isotope Pattern Calculator
• Mass Loss Calculator
• Periodic e-Table

• EMBL Peptide Search - protein ID from peptide mass and sequence data
• FindMod - post-translational modifications by peptide mass
• GlycanMass - oligosaccharide mass from structure
• GlycoMod - oligosaccharide structures from mass
• GlycoSuiteDB - search database with oligosaccharide mass
• Javascript Protein Digest - peptide digest masses
• Javascipt Fragment Ion Generator for peptides
• Mascot Search - peptide mass and sequence tools
• Mowse - protein identification from peptide MS data
• Protein Prospector - mass spectra interpretation tools
• PROWL - identification of proteins from MS data

 

In Deep Water

Iron (Fe) is one of the most abundant elements on Earth and plays an important role in many biological functions. In seawater, the isotopic abundance of iron is effected by climate changes and these variations have widespread implications on the well being of marine life.

Scientists at the University of Oxford have used inductively-coupled plasma source mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to study the isotopic composition of iron in deep sea crusts collected from the San Pablo sea mount in the North Atlantic ocean. This crust is estimated to grow at a rate of 1.6 mm every million years.

Iron isotope compositions were measured relative to a reference standard as a function of depth. When plotted as a time series, the isotope fraction shows small variations between two to six million years ago, but show much large variations within the past two million years. This variation is interpreted to reflect changes in North Atlantic sea water during the time in which the crusts grew.

But what has caused the variation in iron isotope compositions in more recent times ? The close correlation between variations in the isotopes of lead (Pb), an element not utilized biologically, suggests that their is no biologically induced cause. Further studies are proposed by the authors to investigate the mechanisms for this phenomenon.

Read the full article in Science, Vol. 287, 2000-2002 (2000).

 

• European Mass Spectrom.
• Intl. J. of Mass Spectrom.
• J. American Society of MS
• J. Mass Spectrometry
• J. MS Society of Japan
• Mass Spectrometry Reviews
• Rapid Communications in MS

• Analyst
• Analytical Chemistry
• Nature
• New Scientist
• Science
• Scientific American

• Beilstein Abstracts
• ChemWeb
• Current Contents - ISI
• PubMed - NCBI
• PubScience - DOE

• Africa
• Asia
• Australia / NZ
• Canada
• Europe
• Mexico / Carribean
• South America
• USA