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Abstract: Third generation synchrotrons allowed to perform experiments which had a major impact in the field of environmental science and related disciplines such as mineralogy and cultural heritage. This paper presents some basic concepts on synchrotron radiation and the fundamentals of X-ray absorption fine spectroscopy - XAFS - are introduced and accompaigned with three examples on cultural heritage and mineralogy with the aim to show the opportunities those XAFS techniques provide. The first example is the study lustre ceramics found in an archaeological site in Paterna to elucidate how they were produced, the second example is related to the systematic study of vermillion pigments from across Europe and Asia to target possible useful trace elements involved in their decay, and finally a third example is shown related to the study of a mineralogical problem aiming to understand the speciation and association of Ni in a laterite from Moa Bay (Cuba) where the sorption of Ni on Mn oxyhydroxides is taking place.

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Abstract: Zinc is known to play an important role in many cellular processes, and the levels of zinc are controlled by specific transporters from the ZIP (SLC39A) influx transporter group and the ZnT (SLC30A) efflux transporter group. The distribution of zinc was measured in 59 samples of invasive ductal carcinoma of breast using synchrotron radiation micro probe x-ray fluorescence facilities. The samples were formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue micro arrays (TMAs) enabling a high throughput of samples and allowing us to correlate the distribution of trace metals with tumour cell distribution and, for the first time, important biological variables. The samples were divided into two classes, 34 oestrogen receptor positive (ER+ve) and 25 oestrogen receptor negative (ER-ve) based on quantitative immunohistochemistry assessment. The overall levels of zinc (i.e. in tumour and surrounding tissue) in the ER+ve samples were on average 60% higher than those in the ER-ve samples. The zinc levels were higher in the ER+ve tumour areas compared to the ER-ve tumour areas with the mean levels in the ER+ve samples being approximately 80% higher than the mean ER-ve levels. However, the non-tumour tissue regions of the samples contained on average the same levels of zinc in both types of breast cancers. The relative levels of zinc in tumour areas of the tissue were compared with levels in areas of non-tumour surrounding tissue. There was a significant increase in zinc in the tumour regions of the ER+ve samples compared to the surrounding regions (P < 0.001) and a non-significant increase in the ER-ve samples. When comparing the increase in zinc in the tumour regions expressed as a percentage of the surrounding non-tumour tissue zinc level in the same sample, a significant difference between the ER+ve and ER-ve samples was found (P < 0.01).