UN Sanctions, Finding Drug Cheats and the Hinxton Mill Turbine

Hinxton Mill

Hats off to the US for being able to get China and Russia on board for a unanimous vote for sanctions against North Korea in response to its continued ballistic missile tests. Are we seeing a 'Good Cop - Bad Cop' scenario having been played out with Rex Tillerson and Donald trump in the respective roles? Whether North Korea will listen before it has an ICBM capable of reaching mainland US is another matter.

Some of the media have jumped on to Vince Cable's remarks in his Mail on Sunday article this weekend. Calling the over 65's who believed in Brexit at any cost as "Self declared martyrs" who had "comprehensively shafted the young," as they have "the last word about Brexit, imposing a world view coloured by nostalgia for an imperial past on a younger generation much more comfortable with modern Europe." He also went on to say "To describe such masochism as 'martyrdom' is dangerous. We haven't yet heard about 'Brexit jihadis' but there is an undercurrent of violence in the language which is troubling. We have already had the most fervent of Brexiteers, Nigel Farage, warning of civil unrest if the 'will of the people' is frustrated."

Strong language indeed, which has gleefully been picked up and taken out of context.

The fact that the much anticipated fairy-tale ending of Usain Bolt's sporting career was shattered by Justin Gatlin winning this weekend's 100 m race was met with boos at the 2017 World Athletics Championships. It didn't help that Justin had twice served bans from athletics for testing positive for performance enhancing compounds, testosterone being the last, back in 2006. It made me wonder how you test for a misused compound when the body produces the same hormone naturally.

Testing can be done in two stages, using urine samples. Two naturally produced compounds are isolated from the urine, testosterone and epitestosterone. The ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone is measured using a method called gas chromatography, followed by mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Generally this ratio is less than 4:1. if someone takes testosterone or testosterone precursors, this alters the ration to greater than 4:1.

The sample is then subjected to another test called the Carbon Isotope Ration (CIR). This test is based on the fact that testosterone is a carbon based compound that will contain a natural ratio of two carbon isotopes - the common Carbon 12 and the rarer Carbon 13. This C12/C13 ratio is characteristic for you and influenced by what you eat and where you live. Artificially made testosterone, has a different C12/C13 ratio.

The anti-doping testers look at the C12/C13 ratio in your body's testosterone and epitestosterone. If the C12/C13 ratio in the testosterone is more than 3% different to that in your epitestosterone, it suggests that your have taken performance enhancing synthetic testosterone.

To be sure that this is a real result, the anti-doping testers also check your other urine samples. Nowadays sportspeople are tested so regularly and sometimes at random, that there is a good record of their usual testosterone and other hormone levels.

I gleaned all this information and more from three useful sites and papers:

1. Testosterone, Carbon Isotopes, and Floyd Landis by Derek Lowe http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2006/08/01/testosterone_carbon_isotopes_and_floyd_landis
2. Confounding factors and genetic polymorphism in the evaluation of individual steroid profiling by Tiia Kuuranne et al http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/48/10/848
3. Detection of testosterone administration based on the carbon isotope ratio profiling of endogenous steroids: international reference populations of professional soccer players by E Strahm et al https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2784500/

This afternoon, Jane and I visited Hinxton Mill on one of its open days. This working water mill was restored and is managed by the CambridgePPF volunteers. I was intrigued by the fact that it was not driven by a large waterwheel but rather, by a turbine. By the late 1800's large wooden waterwheels were replaced by the much more efficient water turbines, that could convert up to 90% of water's energy into kinetic energy, driving the mill's main rotating shaft. Whilst flour milling was bening demonstrated, unfortunately, they could not sell milled flour for human consumption - it went off for use as cattle feed instead. The location was suitably idyllic for a walk around. We then made our way back home through Duxford and The Shelfords.