You Will Not Read This Story Anywhere Else

One has to assume that the Hariri investigation has been covered to death, and there's not a great deal of original things to say about it. Well, here's one of those few remaining original things -- above-ground nuclear weapons-testing conducted by the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and '60s may be helping investigators learn more about the identity of the suicide bomber responsible for Hariri's death.

Yup, you read that right. You see, the 8th Brammertz Commission report stated that they had conducted "orthodontic" analyses of the suicide bomber. In layman's terms, they had one of his teeth.

Now here's where it gets cool. Before 1955, when the first above-ground nuclear test was conducted, the amount of radioactive carbon-14, commonly known as radiocarbon, in the air was relatively stable. Nuclear weapons tests over the next decade or so caused the amount of atmospheric radiocarbon to skyrocket. The radiocarbon quickly spread evenly over the atmosphere.

The radiocarbon enters plants through photosynthesis, and then enters humans' bodies through an individual's consumption of plants, or animals that have eaten the plants. Before the age of 12, when the enamel on a person's teeth formed, the radiocarbon then gets lodged in the teeth. The enamel then forms over it, locking the radiocarbon in.

I know that it seems that we've left the Hariri investigation -- and Lebanese politics in general -- far behind. But here's where it connects: scientists can compare the amount of radiocarbon in a tooth with the measured amount of atmospheric radiocarbon in certain years. That way, they can pinpoint the age of the tooth's owner with impressive accuracy. This could be how the Brammertz Commission determined that the suicide bomber was between 20 and 25 years old.

So it's not the most important aspect of the Hariri investigation -- but it may be the coolest. A National Geographic article on this scientific technique can be found here. And if this sort of thing interests you, read a larger article I wrote titled CSI: Beirut.