The upcoming Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission aims to deliver small quantities of Martian rocks to the Earth. Investigating these precious samples requires the development and application of techniques that can extract the greatest amount of high quality data from the minimum sample volume, thereby maximising science return from MSR. Atom probe tomography (APT) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) are two complementary techniques that can obtain nanoscale structural, geochemical and, in the case of atom probe, isotopic information from small sample volumes. Here we describe how both techniques operate, as well as review recent developments in sample preparation protocols. We also outline how APT has been successfully applied to extraterrestrial materials in the recent past. Finally, we describe how we have studied Martian meteorites using TEM and APT in close coordination in order to characterise the products of water/rock interactions in t h e cru st of Ma r s – a k ey sc ie n ce goal of MSR. Our results provide new insights into the Martian hydrosphere and the mechanisms of anhydrous-hydrous mineral replacement. In light of the unique results provided by these tools, APT and TEM should form a crucial part at the culmination of a correlative analytical pipeline for MSR mission materials.
Advances in biotechnology raise regulatory issues that both quantitatively and qualitatively differ from anything that regulators have had to deal with in the past. The Regulatory Challenge of Biotechology, the first book in this series, explored some of the most pressing of these challenges in agricultural and medical biotechnologies. The title of this monograph, EU Regulation of GMOs, might suggest that this second volume in the series represents a highly specialised account of the regulation of genetically modified organisms in the European Union. Indeed, GMO regulation, especially within the foggy institutional context of the European Union, is spectacularly technical and complex, and hence to some extent invites such a specialised account. However, one major argument that Maria Lee forcefully articulates in this volume, is precisely that stalemates in the regulation of GMOs in part are the inevitable result of exclusive reliance on different kinds of specialisation such as scientific risk assessment and patent law, and on European technocracy more generally. It is thefore particularly important that this book, apart from containing a strong argument in favour of public involvement at various stages of the regulatory process, amounts to the kind of accessible and holistic account of current EU policy as regards GMOs that is needed to facilitate such public participation. Although this volume concerns EU law pertaining to GMOs, each chapter is doing justice to the reality that its proper understanding necessitates an appreciation of the institutional and political context from which those legal provisions arise. This is true in respect of risk regulation, labelling, coexistence, and the EU's regime on the patentability of GMOs. Finally, although not so long ago many EU lawyers could perhaps still afford to remain ignorant about WTO law, this certainly no longer applies to those who deal with GMOs. Chapter 6 therefore most appropriately is devoted to the WTO, which operates from a paradigm that is disctinctly different from that of the EU, which is likely to continue to remain a source of conflict for the foreseeable future.
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