Ethanimidic acids appear as intermediates in the dissociation of a radical formed by femtosecond electron transfer to the stable cation formed by O-protonation of N-methylacetamide, Fig. shows formation of the (E,Z ) conformer. The objective of the study was to investigate simpler models of the process known as electron capture dissociation with implications for research into medical aspects of ageing, radiation damage and oxidative stress. eV. The comparable values obtained here for the lowest conformer are 149 kJ mol -1 and 9.39 eV -clearly not a valid comparison.