Mass spectrometry spots forged poems
2018; American Chemical Society; Volume: 96; Issue: 31 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1021/cen-09631-scicon6
ISSN2474-7408
Autores Tópico(s)Science, Research, and Medicine
ResumoOn New Year's Eve, millions around the world sing, "Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne!" Scottish poet Robert Burns, who wrote those lyrics in his adaptation of a folk song, is so famous that his original letters or poems can fetch up to $100,000 in auction. But some collections of his work are littered with forgeries. To help authenticate Burns's manuscripts, researchers in Scotland have now developed a mass spectrometry technique that can spot the differences between the genuine documents and the fakes (Sci. Rep. 2018, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-28810-2). The method could offer a nondestructive means of testing the authenticity of other historical documents. Karl Burgess, a mass spectrometry expert at the University of Glasgow, thought that a technique called direct infusion nanospray mass spectrometry, typically used in proteomics, could produce detailed chemical fingerprints of the manuscripts' inks. Since Burns wrote with different inks than the forgers, the
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