ABSTRACT
This work proposes an explanation for a blood anomaly found in the Turin Shroud (TS). Unlike common human blood which contains significant levels of nitrogen (weight percentages of the order of 10%), TS blood shows levels of nitrogen which are lower than the background noise produced by the measuring instrument (about 1%). It is not easy to find an explanation for this result, but if we refer to the hypothesis formulated by T.J. Phillips who first proposed that neutron radiation had acted on the TS and therefore on the blood analyzed, it is possible to qualitatively understand what may have altered the observed nitrogen levels. The hypothesis of T.J. Phillips proposes that neutrons would have irradiated the TS, changing some of the nitrogen nuclei to different isotopes. In particular, it would have caused nitrogen atoms to be transformed into 14C and so the results of the radiocarbon dating of the TS performed in 1988 would have to be corrected to allow for the corresponding systematic effect hypothesized in that paper.
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