The unique properties of synchroton radiation including its broad spectrum extending from the infrared to the hard-X-ray region, its high degree of collimation and its polarization make it a powerful tool for a very wide range of applications. Initially it was mainly used to carry out experiments in classical fields like atomic and molecular physics, solid-state physics, chemistry, radiometry and so on. Nowadays it is widely used in many other fields like biophysics, biochemistry, macromolecular crystallography, microtomography, X-ray microscopy, X-ray holography, X-ray lithography, micro engineering and nano fabrication, surface science, material studies, trace and ultra-trace element analysis, medical applications and so on. New-generation storage rings have been and are being built dedicated to these kinds of applications. Also in the biological and medical fields very important results have been obtained. This book contains some of the most important and outstanding topics in the field of radiology, biocrystallography, time-resolved X-ray footprinting of DNA-protein reactions, X-ray microscopy of living biological systems and perspectives of LIGA processes in the realization of microapparata for medical purposes.

Radiocarbon dating covers the most recent span of geo-archaeological time, back to c.55,000 years BP. The list of applications and disciplines it can be used for is wide-ranging and burgeoning. It is used widely in dating aspects of the Earth's environmental, oceanographic and atmospheric systems. It is used as a tracer in investigating residence times of carbon in soils, rivers, oceans and lakes, and to document the movements of oceanic water and its circulation and exchange with the atmosphere. It is also used in aerosol science, and is crucial to studies of Earth's changing climate. This wide relevance of the 14C isotope means that one must be something of a polymath to understand, and it was for this reason that in 1981 the first '14C and Archaeology' Symposium was held. Its aim: to provide a wider forum for studies of prehistoric chronology than would normally be allowed at the Radiocarbon conferences. The 4th Symposium was held in Oxford in April 2002, and the proceedings that follow comprise thirty-one papers, covering archaeological dating research from the Altai to Antarctica, and from the Palaeolithic to the Medieval.