Virtually every stable isotope lab has a little mascot
sitting on top of the mass spectrometer magnet, and we're no exception.
These are the three wise monkeys from Nikko, Japan (hear no evil, speak
no evil, see no evil). However, as there are three of them, we like
to think that they're helping with our analyses, as one monkey counts the
ions of beam 44 as they whiz past, the second monkey counts the ions of
beam 45, and the third monkey counts the ions of beam 46. After the
analysis is completed, they calculate the isotopic composition of the sample
on their fingers and toes, and pass the information along to the computer.