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Nuclear Bombs Expose Fake Wines

Here are two seemingly unrelated facts. One: from the late 1940s through 1963, we tested atomic bombs in the atmosphere. Two: wine lovers are sometimes duped into spending exorbitant amounts for fake vintage bottles that weren't from the year they were supposedly grown.

这里有两件看上去毫无关联的事。一，从20世纪40年代晚期至1963年，我们在大气中测试了原子弹。二，酒类爱好者们经常被骗，买了大量生产年份造假的酒。

But Graham Jones at Australia's University of Adelaide thought he could use bomb information against counterfeit wines. [He talked about his research at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco.] Carbon dating works by comparing the amount of carbon 14, which is a less common and less stable form of carbon, to the more abundant carbon 12.

可澳大利亚阿德雷德大学的格雷汉姆·琼斯认为他可以用原子弹来打击假酒。（他在旧金山举办的美国化学协会会议上谈到了自己的研究。）碳纪年是通过比较碳十四（碳的一种较不常见、不稳定的形式）与数量更多的碳十二的量进行测定的。

For thousands of years, the ratio between the two has been the same. But those two decades of atomic bomb tests increased the C-14 in the atmosphere. And as growing grapes absorb carbon dioxide, they take in trace amounts of the heavier carbon isotope—which eventually show up in the wine.

几千年来这两种物质的数量都是一样的，可人类进行原子弹测试的二十年大气中碳十四的含量增加了。生长中的葡萄会吸收二氧化碳，也就会吸收微量质量更重的碳同位素，这种吸收最终会在酒中表现出来。

The research team checked C-14 levels in 20 Australian red wines with vintages from 1958 to 1997. They compared the wine's C-14 to C-14 in atmospheric samples from the same years. And found a direct match—C-14 levels could give away the vintage year for each wine.

研究小组测定了二十瓶澳大利亚红酒的碳十四含量，其生产日期为从1958至1997年不等。他们将酒中的碳十四含量与生产年份大气样品中的含量进行比较，发现两者有着直接联系——碳十四含量完全可以透露每瓶酒的年份。

So beware wine scammers. Because even at the atomic level, in vino veritas.

所以造假酒的人注意了哦，即使是原子也会酒后吐真言的。

 

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