How the accelerator mass spectrometer works - Ian Clark, University of Ottawa 

Hi Chris, here is a bit more information about the AMS. This particular lab is at the University of Ottawa. Our organization (Canada Foundation for Innovation) has contributed at least $9 million in infrastructure funding to get the lab up and running. I'm not sure what it costs to run on a regular basis, though I know they have at least one regular technician on site who helped build it and who maintains it. It is indeed massive, weighing in at 44 tonnes! www.ams.uottawa.ca/ Homepage of the lab itself. It has info about who built the machine and what isotopes it can analyze. www.innovation.ca/en/ResearchInAction/OutcomeStory/Nosmallfeat An article about researcher Jack Cornett who studies tiny traces of rare atoms in the field of environmental health. soundcloud.com/innovation-ca/tracing-contaminants-in-the-earth Podcast from researcher Ian Clark (who narrated this video) where he explains how he uses the AMS; for what purpose. Hope this helps answer some of your questions!

I believe ICP-MS can't distinguish carbon 14 from nitrogen 14. Carbon 14 is present at parts-per-trillion levels; there's too much nitrogen.

Glad you liked it!

Hi Jared, yes, all of those things can be used to carbon date. Here's a podcast that can answer some of your questions. soundcloud.com/innovation-ca/tracing-contaminants-in-the-earth

In clinical research, they can tag a research drug with carbon-14, and after administering it to a subject, they’ll draw the subject’s blood at various time points after dose to run it though an AMS to get an extremely precise count that they can use to build their drug concentration vs time curves as well as determine bioavailability.