Archeo-cell biology: carbon dating is not just for pots and dinosaurs.

ABSTRACT

Defining the life span of specific human cell populations is limited by our inability to mark the exact time when cells are born in a way that can be detected over many years. In this issue of Cell, Spalding et al. (2005) describe a clever strategy for retrospectively birth dating human cells in vivo, based on their incorporation of 14C during a peak in atmospheric levels of this isotope resulting from above-ground nuclear arms testing in the 1950s.