科学美国人60秒 SSS 用碳同位素验证威士忌的真假（在线收听）

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Eliene Augenbraun.

这里是科学美国人――60秒科学系列，我是艾琳·奥根布劳恩。

"It came to our attention a few years ago that there were fraudulent whiskeys on the market."

“市场上存在假威士忌，这在几年前引起了我们的注意。”

Gordon Cook of the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Center.

苏格兰大学环境研究中心的戈登·库克说到。

"Scotch whiskey is Scotland's product, and we felt that being a radiocarbon laboratory in Scotland, we should take a lead on this."

“苏格兰威士忌是苏格兰的产品，作为苏格兰的放射性碳实验室，我们应该带头研究这个问题。”

Scotch whiskey is made from barley, which absorbs carbon dioxide from the air as it grows. Most of the carbon is carbon-12. But a small percentage is the radioactive isotope carbon-14, which decays at a constant, known rate— and has therefore long been used to "carbon-date" biological samples.

苏格兰威士忌由大麦制成，而大麦在生长过程中会吸收空气中的二氧化碳。其中大部分碳是碳12。而放射性同位素碳14只占一小部分，它以一种已知的恒定速率衰变，因此长期以来一直被用于生物样品的“碳素年龄测定”。

"Then, in the early 1950s, we had the start of the atmospheric weapons test, and these produce carbon-14. By 1960, you were twice the natural level. And '63—there was a test ban treaty, so '63 was the maximum. Since then, the level in the atmosphere has decreased as the radiocarbon goes into the biota and the oceans."

“之后在上世纪50年代初，我们开始进行太空武器测试，这会产生碳14。到1960年，大气中的碳14含量为自然水平的两倍。但1963年出台了禁止试验条约，因此碳14含量在该年达到最大值。从那以后，随着放射性碳进入生物区和海洋，大气中的碳14含量逐渐下降。”

So unusually high levels of carbon-14 are associated with barley grown during the years when nuclear testing was widespread.

因此，碳14水平异常高与在核试验扩散年代生长的大麦有关。

There's obviously a lot of money in whiskey. And some classics get bought not as imbibements but as investments. Last October, a 60-year-old 1926 bottle was auctioned off for $1.9 million.

显然，威士忌中有大量金钱。一些经典威士忌被购买并不是为了饮用，而是为了投资。去年10月，一瓶有1926年生产的60年威士忌以190万美元的价格被拍卖。

To make sure that the stuff inside bottles of Scotch whiskey matches what's on the labels, Cook and his colleagues looked at levels of the carbon-14 in the drink. They calibrated levels of the radioactive variant of carbon in more than 200 different single-malt Scotch whiskey samples of known ages. The researchers then compared those levels to eight whiskeys claiming to have been bottled from 1847 to 1978.

为了确保苏格兰威士忌酒瓶中的物质与标签相符，库克和同事查看了酒中的碳14含量。他们校准了200多种已知年份的单一麦芽苏格兰威士忌样品中的放射性碳变种水平。之后，研究人员将这些含量与声称于1847年到1978年间装瓶的8种威士忌进行了比较。

"We haven't found any whiskeys purported to be from the 19th century that are genuine."

“就这些声称产于19世纪的威士忌而言，我们尚未发现任何一瓶是真货。”

Because those allegedly 19th-century bottles contained material clearly produced during the nuclear-testing era. The study is in the journal Radiocarbon.

因为那些声称是19世纪的酒瓶里，明显含有产于核试验时期的物质。这项研究发表在《放射性碳》期刊上。

Cook hopes these verification techniques will help keep the whiskey business true to the words of Robert Burns: "Here's a bottle and an honest friend."

库克希望这些验证技术能帮助威士忌酒厂忠于罗伯特·伯恩斯的名言：“这是一个瓶子和一位诚实的朋友。”

For Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Eliene Augenbraun.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是艾琳·奥根布劳恩。