We have results from the Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectronomy (ICP-MS), but have not yet processed the data. (Click here for a short explanation of what the ICP-MS is). Two things that seem promising, though, are the facts that the Calcium Carbonate was so saturated that the machine couldn't obtain an accurate measurement and aluminum was present in the ossicles. The first thing is unusual due to the fact that the sample size consisted of milligrams (not even grams) of ossicles which, like all bones, contain lots of calcium carbonate, but usually not in such high saturation. Also, the fact that aluminum is embedded in the tiny bones is strange in light of recent findings that aluminum is a neurotoxin that, though abundant in nature, is not an essential element and poses a threat to organisms. However, in an analysis of iridescent fish scales it was found that there were high concentrations of aluminum that might play a part in the scales' light refraction. Since we already found out that the ossicles are specialized for fluorescent light transmission by transmitting green visible light wavelengths, it is possible that aluminum also enhances the ossicles' light enhancing properties.
Since we were unable to get a calcium reading with our previous samples, I'll be sorting and prepping new samples (about 1/10 of the amount we tested last time) for another ICP analysis. Hopefully there won't be a saturation of calcium in these readings since the proportion of Calcium Carbonate is what we compare all the other measurements to in order to create ratios of metals to calcium. (I.e. there are 10 parts Calcium and 1 part Magnesium.) Once that's done we'll have to make sense of all the measurements and numbers and proportions.
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