Hi Again,

I forgot to mention - and you probably know this anyway, but corn (maize) is a C4 plant unlike most vegetables which are C3 plants - the C4 pathway produces a distinctive carbon isotope signature that is different from that of C3 plants so that animals that live mostly off of C4 plants can be easily identified. So the isotopic evidence would be in papers referring to C4 pathways.

Lola.

.

At 12:58 PM 1/22/2009, you wrote:

Dear Folks,

I received this message from a colleague who is teaching students about the influence of corn. Do any of you alert readers have a reference at your fingertips that you could recommend for Charlie?

"Next Tuesday Washington College is hosting a viewing of the movie "King
Corn," which is a critique of the use of corn products in our country (see
description below).

One of the most fascinating things I heard about this issue was in one of
your talks: The stable isotope evidence that Europeans coming to the US
experience a shift in their carbon isotope ratios in response to the
corn-heavy diet. Does that data appear in publication anywhere? I would
love to bring that up at the viewing of this movie during the discussion
period."

Marilyn Fogel

Dr. Marilyn L. Fogel

Geophysical Laboratory

Carnegie Institution of Washington

5251 Broad Branch Rd., NW

Washington, DC 20015

Phone (202) 478-8981

Main office (202) 478-8900

FAX (202) 478-8901

Website: http://fogel.gl.ciw.edu/