Hydrogen isotope biogeochemistry spectroscopic lines for publishable data, Murphy and Urey paired with Ferdinand Brickwedde and distilled a more concentrated pool of heavy hydrogen, known today as deuterium. This work on hydrogen isotopes won Urey the 1934 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Also in 1934, scientists Ernest Rutherford, Mark Oliphant, and Paul Harteck, produced the radioactive isotope tritium by hitting deuterium with high energy nuclei. The deuterium used in the experiment was a generous gift of heavy water from the Berkeley physicist Gilbert N Lewis. Bombarding deuterium produced two previously undetected isotopes, helium-3 and hydrogen-3. Rutherford and his colleagues successfully created tritium, but incorrectly
Heavy water neutrinos, as well as a non-absorbent moderator medium to preserve free neutrons from this reaction, until they can be absorbed by an easily detected neutron-activated isotope. Heavy water is employed as part of a mixture with HO for a common and safe test of mean metabolic rate in humans and animals undergoing their normal activities. Tritium is the active substance in self-powered lighting and controlled nuclear fusion, its other uses including autoradiography and radioactive labeling. It is also used in nuclear weapon design for boosted fission weapons and initiators. Some tritium is created in heavy water moderated reactors when deuterium