Test for dating ivory devised

Forensic experts have developed an unusual way of dating elephant tusks in a bid to stop the illegal trade of ivory.

Only the sale of ivory from before 1947 is permitted in the EU but there is no accurate method of telling it from modern ivory.

Now a scientist at Edinburgh Zoo has come up with the test which measures the amount of the isotope carbon 14, which rose in the atmosphere in the 1950s because of nuclear weapons testing.

If an ivory sample has a high level of it then it came from an animal alive after the introduction of nuclear testing in the 1950s and is therefore illegal.

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