A new face of nuclear medicine; Other materials may be able to take the place of isotopes (SP, July 4). These "other materials" are also radioisotopes, not substitutes for them.
The difference is that they are produced in cyclotrons rather than in nuclear reactors. In fact, the first technetium-99m (the favoured isotope mentioned) was produced in a cyclotron about 12 years before the first reactor was built.
