Radioactive tracer such as a cell or tissue, or as a flow tracer to track fluid flow. Radioactive tracers are also used to determine the location of fractures created by hydraulic fracturing in natural gas production. Radioactive tracers form the basis of a variety of imaging systems, such as, PET scans, SPECT scans and technetium scans. Radiocarbon dating uses the naturally occurring carbon-14 isotope as an isotopic label. Isotopes of a chemical element differ only in the mass number. For example, the isotopes of hydrogen can be written as H, H and H, with the mass number at top left. When the
Stable-isotope probing organisms were consuming existing carbohydrates and which were using carbohydrates more recently produced from photosynthesis. When DNA is the biomarker, SIP theoretically can be performed using isotopically labeled C, H, O or N, though C is used most often. Cupples et al. (2007) demonstrated a weaker DNA buoyant density shift in when N- versus C-labeled substrates were used in pure culture, conversely a very strong buoyant density shift was observed when both labels were used. Stable-isotope probing Stable-isotope probing (SIP) is a technique in microbial ecology for tracing fluxes of nutrients in biogeochemical cycling by microorganisms. A substrate is enriched