Tritium ordinary hydrogen, but they do fuse the small minority of deuterium nuclei. Like the other isotopes of hydrogen, tritium is difficult to confine. Rubber, plastic, and some kinds of steel are all somewhat permeable. This has raised concerns that if tritium were used in large quantities, in particular for fusion reactors, it may contribute to radioactive contamination, although its short half-life should prevent significant long-term accumulation in the atmosphere. The high levels of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing that took place prior to the enactment of the Partial Test Ban Treaty proved to be unexpectedly useful to oceanographers. The high levels
Radioactive tracer selective affinity for particular sites in the human body. An extensive list of radioactive tracers used in hydraulic fracturing can be found below. In metabolism research, Tritium and C-labeled glucose are commonly used in glucose clamps to measure rates of glucose uptake, fatty acid synthesis, and other metabolic processes. While radioactive tracers are sometimes still used in human studies, stable isotope tracers such as C are more commonly used in current human clamp studies. Radioactive tracers are also used to study lipoprotein metabolism in humans and experimental animals. In medicine, tracers are applied in a number of tests, such as