Carbon-14 Dating Reveals 5% of Vintage Wines May Be Frauds 336
Carbon dating isn't used only for such academic pursuits as trying to determine the age of the Shroud of Turin, or figure out how old some rocks are. An anonymous reader writes "Up to 5% of fine wines are not from the year the label indicates, according to Australian researchers who have carbon-dated some top dollar wines."
No One Would Notice (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had a $400 wine before (obtained at a decent price and then aged). The difference between a decent $20-$40 wine and a $400 one is minimal relative to the price.
I doubt anyone without a really refined palate would be able to notice. And even if you did, you would probably chalk it up to poor storage or oxidation or something.
Re:No One Would Notice (Score:5, Insightful)
When you see how absurd some of those prices are, it's not surprising that you have people trying to fake it for a quick buck.
Let me take a pro-expensive wine position (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position (Score:5, Informative)
I'm from Argentina. We produce some of the finest wines in the world, specially in Mendoza.
t,
Here, a cheap, average wine that most people drink at home with dinner retails at ~$9 (That is, 9 pesos, or 2.3 Dollars.)
A relatively good wine retails ~$20 (5.2 dollars). At $150 (39 dollars), you can get one of the finest wines you'll ever taste.
The funny thing is, while traveling to the USA, I've recognized bottles that Retail here for ~$35 (9 dollars), with tags of 250 dollars!
So, leaving that aside, yes, you can definitely tell the difference, but it's not all about money. You can definitely tell the difference between any two wines. But, with wine, price is not always = quality. I've tested $200 wines that I didn't like (like the Lamadrid Gran Reserva Malbec) , and $20 (5 dollars) wines that I loved (Like Benjamin Nieto Cabernet Sauvignon)
So, money plays a big role, but there's not a clear relationship between price and quality. It's more of a threshold ... you won't find really good wines very cheap. But above a certain price, there are good and bad wines at a very ample price range
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I love cooking with wine in quite a few different dishes and styles. I always used the cheapo wines I could find, and in southern France (as in, 30 miles from the Spanish border), a cheap wine is something you get between 1 EUR per 750ml bottle and 3-4 EUR per 5 litre box.
When I moved to the UK, the cheapest I could find began at 6-7 GBP. In France, most people drink (or should I say, absorb) 3 EUR bottles. They'll go for a 12 EUR bottle when
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The other reason wine is so cheap in Argentina/France/Spain is that we drink way too much red wine ;)
The only places in the world where I've seen people drinking red wine at a bar at 10 A.M are Buenos Aires, Madrid and Paris.
I've got to hand it to you people the finest Wine, Woman and Cheese are French.
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That's because every time you've seen me in a bar at 10am, I'm still drinking from the night before, and it's a whole lot stronger than wine. :)
Thank god for airport bars, or I'd never survive a trip sane.
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I could never survive to trip without tripping either ;)
And, agreed, the official Airport drink is Johnny Walker, BL
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I've found it looks best when I order for 3 people, and then take the drinks to the table as if I were expecting them. They catch on when all the drinks are gone within a minute or two, and I come back for the next round. Maybe they think I'm just a little crazy. It's usually two shots and a strong mixed drink. Bourbon, Scotch, Whiskey, Rum or Vodka. Whatever they may happen to have that's a decent brand (decent flavor, not necessarily expensive, for the sake of this thread)
Of co
Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't know whether or not it's crap then how on earth can you say that drinking a $1000+ wine is something that you should pay for EVER? It's not a memorable experience if you have to be TOLD that it's a memorable experience. If you can't recognize the difference between a $20 and $1000 wine by yourself then there isn't any damn point in buying the $1000 bottle.
Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position (Score:5, Funny)
It's not a memorable experience if you have to be TOLD that it's a memorable experience.
Some of my most memorable experiences I can't recall at all.
Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position (Score:4, Funny)
Same goes for hookers.
Or so I've heard.
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I'm French and I mostly agree about your quotes... under 3 €, it's everyday wine, good for cooking or drinking over everyday supermarket cheese. Above 3 € I can be confident that it'll be enjoyable, with a nice meal. But then up from 15€, I begin to wonder if it's really worth it, and that's where you really need to know something about it.
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You can see pictures here [santiagoqueirolo.com].
As Argentina, we sell great quality wines f
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Yup, I know. I've been to Peru. Beautiful country, and truly good wines.
But, to be honest, wine is not my favorite Peruvian export, if you know what I mean ;)
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I actually didn't even test the one when I was there, but it was a good line to setup my cocaine joke ;)
Re:Let me take a pro-expensive wine position (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm.
So, it's like beer, cigars, women, clothes, and cars. You often get what you pay for, but if you try a bit, you'll find that you can save a lot of money while getting a lot more.
Nothing to see here, folks.
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You sir, need to be modded up. :)
I agree totally. For a while, I was around a cigar smoking crowd. The smoked Cubans. I'd smoke them occasionally, but found some really great cigars just as good for $6/ea. While I won't say every one was a winner, it's a lot more satisfying to experience what's out there, rather than be told "You must do this, because it's the best, because it's the most expensive."
If I drank my alcohol, dated women, wore clothes, and drove c
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If cost != quality, why do your examples cite what like and don't like? Your likes != quality.
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Totally agreed. It's not my intention to start a flame war here, but Argentinian wines are far superior to any Chilean wine you'll ever taste. One of the finest Chile has is El Gato Negro, and is nothing compared to even cheap Argentinian wines like Lopez or Norton clasico.
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Can't help it dude. We are like cats and mouses.
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That $200 price was in Argentinian Pesos (52 dollars), That's a reserve 2004 I was talking about from the wine club, so, a little more expensive than the other younger wines under of the same label. Benjamin Nieto is exported, but under a different label (can't remember the name right now)
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Non-expensive wines (Score:3, Insightful)
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We have wine nearly every day. There's no need to spend more than $100 and there's plenty of wines under $60. I'm talking wine store not restaurant. The number of wines that I've had over $200 that I've went wow this is amazing is pretty much zero. There were a handful of wines in the $100-$200 and those wines are at that price because they got high ratings which drove them up. Before that they were sub $100. I've spoken to numerous winemakers and quite a number of them say we have to have a >$100
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Diminishing returns applies to most products though. Cars, computers, mobile phones, food, houses, clothing... And audio equipment. Most people can't appreciate the quality and faithful sound reproduction of a good audio system, which is a shame because if more people could, then more people would buy better equipment, and consequently, the really expensive stuff wouldn't be as expensive as it is.
Like with wine, I believe that most people would be able to hear the difference between the cheap $0.05 shit tha
Re:No One Would Notice (Score:5, Funny)
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And what's the difference between a Grange and a Mouton Rothschild? Very subtle differences in pallete flavour etc, but quite a bit of price difference. $1107 for a 2000 vintage, (one of the best since 1986).
Seriously. You show me
Re:No One Would Notice (Score:5, Insightful)
The refined palate is the key, and while some people definitely have it, most people don't taste nearly enough wine to develop it (and I mean sip-spit, not sip-sip-sip).
For most people a $400 bottle of wine is nothing more than a status symbol, they'd probably enjoy a less complicated $20 wine a hell of a lot more.
Note: personally, I can barely remember which types of wines I like, let alone get all snobbish on age and vinyard.
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If I spend that much on wine I'm not going to spit it out. That's just crazy talk right there!
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Spitting is only for when you are tasting several varieties and are trying not to get drunk before bottle #14.
Re:No One Would Notice (Score:5, Funny)
$400 dollar wine is much like gold plated ethernet cables. Only less so.
You must be referring to Monster Wine (Score:2)
You must be referring to Monster Wine. Uh oh......
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$400 dollar wine is much like gold plated ethernet cables. Only less so.
Gold plated wine is absolutely exquisite
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Gold plated wine is absolutely exquisite
No idea about wine, but here's vodka [wikipedia.org].
Re:No One Would Notice (Score:5, Insightful)
While it certainly isn't a linear relationship to price, or indeed certain, I have had a lot of very expensive wine which I am more than happy to pay for because I can taste the difference.
I can find a $15 I like and drink, a $30 a love and drink a lot, and a $70 I savour and purely enjoy. The >$300 bottles I've had (not paid for by me, I'm a young professional supporting a student wife!), are usually better than the lot - just not (say) 10 times better than the $30 bottle.
To translate into geekspeak: a top of the line i7 processor might cost 10 times what a midrange 775pin would cost, but doesn't perform the same as 10 of the cheaper processor. Indeed, the majority of users (i.e. browsing & word processing) may not notice the difference.
But some people who are into their computers will definitely notice the difference, and will pay the extra.
I know the metaphor isn't perfect, but you get the gist.
All of that being said - aging wine can be a bit of pot luck unless the conditions are perfect.
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Hogwash. Tasting the difference between two wines is often very easy. A preference for the more expensive wine might well be induced by knowledge of which wine is supposedly the finer.
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I've had a $400 wine before (obtained at a decent price and then aged).
Well, that's your problem. It tastes much better when you pay $400 for it upfront!
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There is a wine worth paying extra for - where you can definitely feel the difference - and it's icewine [wikipedia.org].
But then, that doesn't reach the $400+ territory, either, so your point still stands.
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Those people, however, are the rare exception. The very very rare exception.
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Yep absolutely. There's a sweet spot in that 20-30 dollar range where you're getting 80% of the quality of a top wine for 10% of the price. Bit like buying computer hardware really :)
Alternate Headline (Score:5, Funny)
The finer things in life. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The finer things in life. (Score:4, Funny)
Old Enough? (Score:3, Insightful)
As I understand it, carbon dating doesn't work well for young items. Are vintage wines old enough for accurate carbon dating?
Re:Old Enough? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Old Enough? (Score:5, Informative)
here's the biology reference: http://www.pnas.org/content/103/33/12564.long [pnas.org]
these guys pioneered the tech for use in biology, but then it was popularly applied to wines.
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GP isn't completely wrong though. Tritiated thymidine [wikipedia.org] was commonly used to label cells which were actively taking up DNA and were therefore proliferating. BrdU is more commonly used today. Both are somewhat more convenient than utilizing nuclear bomb tests.
I find the article very interesting given the history of adult neurogenesis. Pasko Rakic, who communicated the paper, was initially very skeptical of those results:
At the time, the new technique of labelling a cell with thymidine to determine the birth date of neurons was used in newborns, since adult animals were not thought to create new neurons. But Altman decided to try the technique with adults. He published several papers in the most reputable scientific journals, claiming that new neurons are formed in the brains of adult rats, cats, and guinea pigs–a discovery that Nottebohm later made with canaries. Because the techniques Altman used were primitive, however, they were open to reasonable doubt. It was a classic example of a discovery made ahead of its time. At first, Altman was ignored, then he was ridiculed, and finally, after failing to receive tenure at M.I.T., he moved to Purdue. With no recognition, he was quickly forgotten. The field almost dried up. A decade later, Michael Kaplan, a researcher at Boston University and later at the University of New Mexico, used an electron microscope to supply more compelling evidence that several parts of the adult brain, including the cortex, also produced neurons. He, too, met resistance from researchers who did not find his work convincing. ("Those may look like neurons in New Mexico,'' Kaplan remembers Rakic saying at the time. "But they don't in New Haven.") Kaplan had published his findings in important journals and even suggested a novel way to test the phenomenon in humans, but he, too, was ignored, and he left the field.
source [michaelspecter.com]
Rakic has admitted he was wrong, and I think his criticisms weren't unfounded.
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No, some brief Googling along with the second page of the article confirms hist statements.
Re:Old Enough? (Score:5, Funny)
I saw that episode of White Collar too! ;)
Excellent work. (Score:5, Funny)
Some days I'm proud to be an Australian.
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I'm going to have to try this with beer. For science, of course.
Re:Excellent work. (Score:5, Funny)
Whoosh
Fixed that for you.
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Pauline only drinks beer or cask wine. /explanation
More accuracy (Score:2, Funny)
Ya know, they'd get way more accuracy measuring these fine wines age if they used oxygen depleted gold plated monster cables on their equipment...
Dammit (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary writer fails basic science. Carbon dating isn't used, and can't be used for dating rocks. Various forms of radiometric dating can be used, but carbon dating? Hell no. In the words of Youtube's creationism debunker Potholer54 [youtube.com], "because there's no f-ing carbon in it!".
Re:Dammit (Score:5, Informative)
There are plenty of rocks that contain carbon. Good examples include limestone, marble, coal, and oil shale. The problem isn't lack of carbon. The problem is that the half life of 14C is very short compared to the age of most rocks, so there isn't enough radiocarbon left to date.
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What would you call coal? Or diamond? Or graphite? A fluid?
Carbon dating isn't used for coal because it's typically far older than the roughly 50,000 years carbon dating is usable for, and because for most of it the source of carbon may be far, far older, rather than containing C14 released into the biosphere, especially via the atmosphere, from radioactive decay. It's not not because there's "no carbon".
The mishandling of C14 claims used by creationists is its own amusing topic: please don't confuse the tw
Bad headline, hollow story (Score:2, Informative)
From TFA:
The researchers think carbon-dating fine wines could help nip in the bud the growing practice of vintage fraud.
According to the study, wine experts have estimated that up to 5% of fine wines sold today are not all they are cracked up to be on the label or in the price tag.
Nothing about the researchers estimating that 5%: that's made up by the "wine experts". (They should know.)
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American Chemical Society Press Release [acs.org]
The scientists used a highly-sensitive analytical device called an accelerator mass spectrometer to determine the C-14 levels in the alcohol components of 20 Australian red wines with vintages from 1958 to 1997 and then compared these measurements to the radioactivity levels of known atmospheric samples.
None of the articles I googled actually says if they found any fakes in their sample size of 20.
And as usual with lazy reporting, it seems like most the articles are 95% based on that American Chemical Society press release.
misleading summary (Score:4, Informative)
According to the study, wine experts have estimated that up to 5% of fine wines sold today are not all they are cracked up to be on the label or in the price tag
The carbon dating didn't find 5% of wines are frauds. A bunch of "wine experts" they talked to said it.
Also, it's not based off the age of the carbon in the wine; it's based off the percentage of radioactive carbon from nuclear tests. Unless they have a precise idea of exactly how much radioactive carbon ended up where after each test, the whole thing is a load of crap.
BS Article (Score:4, Interesting)
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Absolutely. Wine is definitely nothing like Whiskey or Beer. You can get a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label at mostly the same price anywhere in the world, and at any point in time, and it'll taste mostly the same. You can't say the same about wines, even when they have the same label.
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Yeah buddy, actually that's what the article is all about, that they can narrow it down to a single vintage with C-14... Doesn't actually say they found 5% of the wine was fake. Shocking that the title would be inaccurate and a poster wouldn't have RTFA on Slashdot, huh? ;)
Welcome to the new world (Score:2)
Today almost everything is adulterated - from Spanish and Greek olive oil (which is often either not virgin (cold-pressed) or not even olive), to milk and everything in between. Think that "100% pure Mysore Sandalwood" is actually from Mysore, or 100% pure - or even Sandalwood? Considering that Mysore Sandalwood has been illegal to harvest fr a number of years... and that Sandalwood is one of the most often adulterated essential oils... and that the great majority of people could not distinguish a 100% from
Not much data (Score:5, Interesting)
That story doesn't leave much to go on, it's pretty low information content. However, it should be noted that a vintage wine [answers.com] can contain up to 15% of its grapes from another year. That would obviously skew any carbon dating results.
'Sideways': Everything you need to know bout wine (Score:4, Funny)
2. Delicate grapes on a vine can be a metaphor for your life / personality, or something.
3. If anyone orders Merlot, leave.
Re:'Sideways': Everything you need to know bout wi (Score:4, Funny)
4. Always order Merlot. Everyone else leaves, more wine for you!
They've been doing this for years, actually. (Score:5, Informative)
The Australian researcher quoted in the story was co-author of a paper involving forensic use of C-14 dating of wines published in 2004:
U. Zoppi, Z. Skopec, J. Skopec, G. Jones, D. Fink, Q. Hua, G. Jacobsen, C. Tuniz, A. Williams, Forensic applications of 14C bomb-pulse dating, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, Volumes 223-224, Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, August 2004, Pages 770-775, ISSN 0168-583X, DOI: 10.1016/j.nimb.2004.04.143.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TJN-4CDWMNK-F/2/b2a003d44396872bd06d5c80443167cd)
and I'm nearly certain I saw published research in the 1990s using C-14 dating to establish wine adulteration, but as it's 3:40 in the morning insomniac me is not going to run down the reference
Lack of details, other sources of carbon... (Score:3, Insightful)
When I read the article I came up with over a dozen questions, none of which were adequately explained. Thus:
Other sources of carbon in the batch- You've got oak, the toasting process, blending of different types of oak/wines, reuse of barrels, different toasted barrels, different types of oak in the barrel, the possibility of a really old oak barrel (neutral) used for fermentation and combination of items such as StaVin's Oak Cubes or Oak Staves, (two different sources of carbon)...
Oak is aged anywhere from 2-3 years before toasting. Toasted oak could be years different than what the year of the vintage is. Oak Trees are significant sources of variability. (Toasting oak releases sugars and flavours into the wine).
Chaptalization is another source- sometimes wines are started with diluted or various mixes of sugar and water to strengthen the yeast growth. You have a grape must that is a little low in sugar- so add more sugar. Where did it come from? Who knows. Probably not beet sugar, if you know what I mean.
Say you have a stuck fermentation- you take some wine out, dilute it, add more sugar, wine, repeat- eventually bringing up the level until the yeast are strong enough to take back over.
Finally, you have blends. To the best of my knowledge a blended wine doesn't have to state the year or can state the year of the major component - depending on the laws of the region.
All in all... not the best article.
Re:-1 wine snobs (Score:5, Funny)
"Can you guess what wine it is?"
"Chateu Latour 1986?"
"Nooooo! 1985!!!"
"Damn! So close!!!"
I mean, you don't exactly hear winos on the street going...
"Yes, fantastic vintage!" "About four O'Clock!"
"Goes well with the carcass of KFC, from bin number four..."
Re:-1 wine snobs (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, my. There was a hysterically funny sketch on Carol Burnett, decades about an alcoholic wine expert who was lured into a final tasting match against another expert. His opponent's failing description included the type of wine, the year, the winery, and the name of the girl who stomped the grapes. But he got the name of the girl wrong.
The alcoholic's winning description was "Isss g-o-o-d".
Re:-3.14 Reference Snobs (Score:5, Insightful)
So has Monty Python, and it's probably still in the top 10 references on slashdot...
Re:-3.14 Reference Snobs (Score:5, Funny)
So has Monty Python, and it's probably still in the top 10 references on slashdot...
No it isn't
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It was in reruns, at least when I was a kid. I can't say that I remember any of it though. :)
some [imdb.com] shows [wikipedia.org] stick with us though, but some more [tinypic.com] my speed [imdb.com] and still haunt my dreams [xanapus.com]. :)
So? (Score:3, Insightful)
What is this, Logan's Run? Just because something is over 30 doesn't mean it's not relevant.
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No, but you do have geeks who sit around forums and hunt for screen shots from obscure old 80s games to try and make each other guess them.
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Actually, my wife and I make our own wine. We compare with other neighbors that do- and sometimes the 'vintages' are expressed in single digits- representing the number of WEEKS it's aged.
(And not all homemade wine is crap. I follow the same processes the big wineries do- even down to a sub-micron filter for clarification and stabilization. I use the same chemicals, same oaks, etc. My wines tend to be very good)...
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Beat me to it. Not useful for rocks unless they're very young. And that claim was made all the worse by linking to an article about rocks hundreds of millions of years old.
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The other problem is that C14 dating is only valid for organic matter. It's not valid for coal deposits because trace radioactive elements screw things up and make the rocks appear far younger than they are. This is one thing young earth creationists capitalize on....
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It's useless for coal because coal is typically more than 10 half-lives of C14 old. The longest estimates for C14 accuracy seem to range up to 60,000 years (mentioned over on Wikipedia).
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Erm, sorry -- just checked the article again, and it was about rocks mulitple *billions* of years old. They were dated by neodymium-samarium dating [wikipedia.org]
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He mentioned that the last time the French tested a nuke in the pacific (?)
Why the question mark there? FYI, France is notorious for its love of nukes. [wikipedia.org]
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> very wild results unless its properly calibrated with something found nearby
> that can be historically verified.
You must have misunderstood something. Of course it has to be calibrated, but it doesn't need any historical context.
> He mentioned that the last time the French tested a nuke in the pacific (?) that
> messed up calibrations worldwide and they had to redo all their calibation data sets.
Yes, you
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I would be astonished if anywhere near 5% of Caterpillar heavy equipment sold in the United States was fake.
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I said in every market. Not in every brand.
Now, take the whole market of heavy equipment, not just cat, read the specs for all of them, and you'll surely find that at least 5% of those products don't match the promised specs.
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5% of cars sold in the US are fraudulent? (Score:2)
No seriously, who is selling counterfeit cars in the US?
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Ah Crap!, again?
Ok, this wines weren't counterfeit either.
They were (supposedly) wines saying to have certain qualities they didn't have.
It's normal to get a bottle saying to be a 1985 reserve that is actually a 2002 bottle. Still a very good wine, just cheaper and not that rare.
Now, how many cars promise to get certain amount of miles per galon, and km until you need a service, and don't actually get nearly even close?
That's a close enough analogy.
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The folks dating wines use several other isotopes, too. Also, I don't think in this instance they're looking to date to specific years so much as prove that because of the range a particular vintage shows in testing, it can't possibly come from a particular year.
Even if I might not be able to give you an exact year it is, but I can easily prove a whole bunch of years that it isn't. If a bottle says it's from the court of Louis XIV, but the analysis shows it's from the 1920s, that's a big deal.
Also, we hav
Re:Carbon dating is not accurate by century let al (Score:5, Informative)
There are alternate radiocarbon techniques that are much more accurate. Nuclear weapons testing resulted in a big spike in atmospheric carbon-14 levels globally, which is dropping rapidly since the test ban treaty. Biologists have been using these techniques for determining cell ages for a couple years.
More info can be found here [pnas.org]
Re:Carbon dating is not accurate by century let al (Score:5, Informative)