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Fragmentation of hunting bullets observed with synchrotron radiation: Lighting up the source of a lesser-known lead exposure pathway
Bullet fragments have been previously observed in the remains and edible portions of big game animals that were harvested using rifles. The fragmentation issue has attracted attention because traditional hunting bullets are more than 70% lead, which is toxic to humans and scavengers in the ecosystem...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9401160/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36001533 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271987 |
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author | Leontowich, Adam F. G. Panahifar, Arash Ostrowski, Ryan |
author_facet | Leontowich, Adam F. G. Panahifar, Arash Ostrowski, Ryan |
author_sort | Leontowich, Adam F. G. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Bullet fragments have been previously observed in the remains and edible portions of big game animals that were harvested using rifles. The fragmentation issue has attracted attention because traditional hunting bullets are more than 70% lead, which is toxic to humans and scavengers in the ecosystem. We prepared gunshot wounds in ballistic gelatin blocks, and then applied synchrotron X-ray imaging technology to the bullet fragmentation process for the first time. The K edge subtraction (KES) imaging method allowed a clear separation of lead in an image from false positives, including the other major bullet component, copper, and non-lead objects such as bone fragments. The superior brightness of synchrotron radiation was also harnessed to resolve thousands of embedded sub-10 μm fragments, a size range not previously observed using commonly applied X-ray imaging modalities. The results challenge the current understanding of the maximum extent that fragments may be distributed, and the effectiveness of imaging methods used to screen wild game donations at food banks for lead bullet fragments. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9401160 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-94011602022-08-25 Fragmentation of hunting bullets observed with synchrotron radiation: Lighting up the source of a lesser-known lead exposure pathway Leontowich, Adam F. G. Panahifar, Arash Ostrowski, Ryan PLoS One Research Article Bullet fragments have been previously observed in the remains and edible portions of big game animals that were harvested using rifles. The fragmentation issue has attracted attention because traditional hunting bullets are more than 70% lead, which is toxic to humans and scavengers in the ecosystem. We prepared gunshot wounds in ballistic gelatin blocks, and then applied synchrotron X-ray imaging technology to the bullet fragmentation process for the first time. The K edge subtraction (KES) imaging method allowed a clear separation of lead in an image from false positives, including the other major bullet component, copper, and non-lead objects such as bone fragments. The superior brightness of synchrotron radiation was also harnessed to resolve thousands of embedded sub-10 μm fragments, a size range not previously observed using commonly applied X-ray imaging modalities. The results challenge the current understanding of the maximum extent that fragments may be distributed, and the effectiveness of imaging methods used to screen wild game donations at food banks for lead bullet fragments. Public Library of Science 2022-08-24 /pmc/articles/PMC9401160/ /pubmed/36001533 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271987 Text en © 2022 Leontowich et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Leontowich, Adam F. G. Panahifar, Arash Ostrowski, Ryan Fragmentation of hunting bullets observed with synchrotron radiation: Lighting up the source of a lesser-known lead exposure pathway |
title | Fragmentation of hunting bullets observed with synchrotron radiation: Lighting up the source of a lesser-known lead exposure pathway |
title_full | Fragmentation of hunting bullets observed with synchrotron radiation: Lighting up the source of a lesser-known lead exposure pathway |
title_fullStr | Fragmentation of hunting bullets observed with synchrotron radiation: Lighting up the source of a lesser-known lead exposure pathway |
title_full_unstemmed | Fragmentation of hunting bullets observed with synchrotron radiation: Lighting up the source of a lesser-known lead exposure pathway |
title_short | Fragmentation of hunting bullets observed with synchrotron radiation: Lighting up the source of a lesser-known lead exposure pathway |
title_sort | fragmentation of hunting bullets observed with synchrotron radiation: lighting up the source of a lesser-known lead exposure pathway |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9401160/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36001533 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271987 |
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