Senior Research Specialist Radiocarbon dating of a very large African baobab [1] In this study we investigated the belief of South African bushmen that the giant baobab trees of that region could live well in excess of 1000 years. Unfortunately, one of the largest of these specimens, Grootboom, in Namibia, fell victim to a still mysterious disease in 2004 and then died and fell in 2005. Samples were taken from the fallen trunks of the mammoth tree and dated at our facility. Three of the samples exceeded 1000 years of age, making baobabs the oldest known flowering, non-coniferous, angiosperm trees in existence. Further research on other still living baobabs is underway. [1] Patrut, A., K.F. von Reden, D.A. Lowy, A.H. Alberts, J.W. Pohlman, R. Wittmann, Carbon nanotube foils for electron stripping in tandem accelerators [2] Enid Sichel and I are investigating the possibility of using carbon nanotubes as stripper foils in tandem accelerators. We have done preliminary tests, resulting in a paper [2] and a patent application that is now pending with the US Patent Office. [2] von Reden, K.F., M. Zhang, M. Meigs, E. Sichel, S. Fang, R. Baughman, Carbon Last updated: July 25, 2011 | ||||||||||||||
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