NAUTILUS EDUCATION | BETA PRODUCT aos ieee lea tila TSE aaa SN hg Ne ene eh ea ae * - = za is Ee TES ‘ Bes * . <Le ee Wii / Pa Tsan\ \\ . a FS a ’ fats { —) y _ = \ 4, 4 - 3S % SaaS ff - = to. “S ZA) “i ¥ NS — ——. x ¥, SS Y, 2 he SS US Wyre a F WS ——= AS “Fes Yf] aj ik SE. MMA, a . Se Ae > YOM A 7. ¥ NS.“ DW A is —— NS INN SSS” Ss ADS = ; R y? ——— a | AY Caw 4 G S ) 4 i Ge a« ps4 : 4 in Aol re PLS : i i Hike: jee ON i ia e- 3 a ' * ji \ ey fi ed BE ux UK Ki HN An Wy) HN 4 i | ae "igen a ANN doll t FLA ANY Si: Sea ee = COS HR ANO cata nae AN"? wn fay ae EARN ORE See ee CNY), Se a hiaet aioe ORE >: Saye a sue * Wass Se ares tre mgy as © GN ft FOL ik th ‘> Aw wee ee shy” hed a = Os eee ee OY ee" EA EA OR eee Radioactive Carbon-14: Your pearly whites When you smile, the gleam of your teeth obscures a — way into our water supply and meals. If they happen to slight glow from radioactive waste. During the late — disintegrate within your DNA, they can damage your 1950s and early 1960s, atmospheric testing of thermo- genes. And many of them are bound up in your teeth. nuclear weapons scattered so much radioactive car- Unlike most of the atoms in your body, those embed- bon-14 into the atmosphere that rt contaminated vir- ded in your strong, stable tooth enamel have been with tually every ecosystem and human. Several thousand — you ever since you ingested them through your umbili- unstable radiocarbon atoms explode within and among cal cord and your infant feeding. If you were born dur- your cells every second as their unstable nuclei under- ing the early 1960s, you have more nuclear waste in go spontaneous radioactive decay. Some are the natu- your teeth than if you were born later, when soils and ral products of cosmic rays that can turn atmospheric —_ oceans had had time to bury radioactive atoms. In fact, nitrogen into carbon-14, while others result from the — forensic scientists use the proportion of bomb carbon decay of unstable mineral elements that are found in — in t