JAAS issue devoted to synchrotron radiation

Issue 6, vol. 23 (2008) of the Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy (JAAS) is devoted to the theme of synchrotron radiation. As guest editors, Professors A. von Bohlen and M. Tolan (Technische Universitat Dortmund, Germany) compiled 1 critical review and 7 regular papers. The title and the first authors are as follows: "Synchrotron radiation induced TXRF", C. Streli et al., 792, "Synchrotron radiation and cultural heritage: combined XANES/XRF study at Mn K-edge of blue, grey or black coloured palaeontological and archaeological bone material", I. Reiche et al., 799, "The barium giant dipole resonance in barite: a study of soft X-ray absorption edges using hard X-rays", C. Sternemann et al., 807, "Non-destructive, depth resolved investigation of corrosion layers of historical glass objects by 3D Micro X-ray fluorescence analysis", B. Kanngieser et al., 814, "Applications of synchrotron-based micro-imaging techniques to the chemical analysis of ancient paintings", M. Cotte et al., 820, "A combination of synchrotron and laboratory X-ray techniques for studying tissue-specific trace level metal distributions in Daphnia magna", B. De Samber et al., 829, "Sodium sulfate heptahydrate: a synchrotron energy-dispersive diffraction study of an elusive metastable hydrated salt", A. Hamilton et al., 840, "Reference-free X-ray spectrometry based on metrology using synchrotron radiation", B. Beckhoff, 845. In the editorial column, the editors point out some very interesting facts on the number of publications in the field of synchrotron radiation applications. They investigated the ISI Web of Science database and found that 1991 was a critical year. The relevant Figure shows a big jump in the number of publications, somewhat resembling an absorption edge. This jump no doubt correlates to the several year delayed big pulses, i.e., the advent of the 3^rd generation sources, ESRF (1994), APS (1996) and SPring-8 (1997).