Mainz,  August 24,  2000.

Press release--Oxygen-17 rejoins the table of the isotopes--


The otherwise so stable isotope community was in a state of turmoil by
Oxygen-17's unexpected move back into the table of the isotopes. "I regret
my intemperance over the last decades, but one must understand that my
celestial position, achieved by Clayton's discovery of my subtle anomaly in
meteorites, was crashed down suddenly by one single scientific paper. "I
simply could not bear the down to earth, …or atmosphere, fact that any
college kid could increase my abundance disproportionate to my exact mass
difference with brother 18O, by blasting sparks through oxygen" After a
small interruption, Oxygen-17 continued saying "with Mark Thiemens'
experiment I felt I had lost all significance I had" "I was not a
nucleosynthetic factor anymore".

Asked if Mark's flirtations with Mars had helped to overcome his trauma,
Oxygen -17 returned the famous question "whose trauma?" "Anyway, I was
lucky that Mauersberger went to great height to prove that my inflated
presence in ozone was a beautiful fact of Nature" "I now am a sort of
stratospheric thermometer" "But, the ensuing accusation that I had infected
all stratospheric CO2 came as a serious set back in my healing process; I
had a relapse and I felt for some time the leper of the skies" "I know Mark
did not mean to hurt me again, but still....  "Yet, I suddenly gained
self-confidence again after Boaz Luz showed my strong biogenic
connection.." "I feel more at ease on earth now, and the holy water
standard keeps track of me". "At the advice of my analyst I now often sing
my favourite-I did it my way- you know"

After the press conference emotional scenes took place between 17O, 16O and
18O. Ozone was spontaneously formed at a reaction speed exactly forecasted
by Mauersberger's careful experiments... Mauersberger exclaimed "I have
waited a long time for this glorious moment"  On this cheerful occasion
Boaz Luz promised to measure 17O very accurately wherever and whenever he
could, even in the dead sea. Michael Bender offered to check all available
ice cores for 17O. Carl Brenninkmeijer declared that the acronym MIF shall
no longer stand for Mass Independent Fractionation, or even Missing
Information on Fractionation, but simply should mean " a More Interesting
Fractionation"

Yet, questioned by a journalist, Oxygen-17 refrained from divulging why
exactly the oxygen isotopes behave the strange way they do. "I rather leave
that to all those clever science guys and girls…!" it grinned, upon which
"You bet !" Kristy Boering said.

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Dr. Carl Brenninkmeijer               e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Max Planck Institute for Chemistry    phone : +49-6131-305-453
P.O. Box 3060 55020 Mainz             fax   : +49-6131-305-436
(Deliveries:  J. Becherweg 27  55128 Mainz)

-> home-page of the Brenninkmeijer group
-> home-page of the project CARIBIC
http://www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de

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