How to Use isotope in a Sentence

isotope

noun
Definition of isotopenext
  • The team measured isotopes in quartz to date the soil to 1.4 million years old.
    — Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Mar. 2024
  • These isotopes were dated to the same era, around 1.7 to 3.2 million years ago.
    — Christian Thorsberg, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 June 2024
  • This was the first case of an isotope with two different half-lives.
    — Artemis Spyrou, The Conversation, 24 May 2022
  • The day of remembrance is, in its own way, an isotope of that openness.
    — Sarah Scoles, Scientific American, 27 Jan. 2022
  • But that’s where a radioactive isotope called carbon-14 may be able to help.
    — Daniel Oberhaus, Wired, 31 Aug. 2020
  • An isotope of silicon, such as silicon-29, does have a spin.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 15 June 2024
  • By matching the isotope profiles in the tusk with the isotopes in the current landscape, the researchers could track where the mammoth ate over the years.
    — Sara Harrison, Wired, 12 Aug. 2021
  • After the tusk was cut in half, the scientists used a laser to knock off specks along the length of it for isotope analysis.
    — New York Times, 12 Aug. 2021
  • The isotopes analyzed were mostly from young goats and pigs.
    — Elizabeth Rayne, Ars Technica, 6 July 2024
  • Many of the above radioactive isotopes were released into the ocean at the time of the disaster in 2011—and some traveled.
    — Chris Baraniuk, WIRED, 18 July 2023
  • In the isotope lab, the scientists found the fingerprints of water that nourished the plants for thousands of years.
    — Ned Rozell, Anchorage Daily News, 26 Sep. 2020
  • The team also used ancient DNA from 25 of the bones to refine the results of their isotope analysis.
    — Zach Zorich, Discover Magazine, 10 Feb. 2021
  • The second was the fraction of oxygen that was from a specific isotope (18O).
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 11 Aug. 2022
  • When analyzing the samples, the team found that the soils were highly depleted of the isotope carbon-13.
    — Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 18 Jan. 2022
  • Meanwhile Wooller and his colleagues were looking at the strontium and other isotopes in Kik’s tusk.
    — Richard Grant, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Oct. 2023
  • The oxygen isotope ratios of the samples go through three distinct phases.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 11 Aug. 2022
  • To find the answer, the researchers turned to mass spectrometry, a technique that can measure the mass of atomic isotopes.
    — Saugat Bolakhe, Quanta Magazine, 17 July 2023
  • Her goal is to create maps using a variety of isotopes.
    — Maddie Bender, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Jan. 2024
  • Tritium, a second isotope of the same material, may be there as well.
    — Kat Friedrich, Popular Mechanics, 13 Sep. 2022
  • Two snippets of feathers were cut, too, to assist with isotope studies.
    — Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4 Dec. 2021
  • Jones urged Musk to watch out for radioactive isotopes being slipped into his food.
    — Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 11 Dec. 2023
  • Although the world has changed considerably since woolly mammoths roamed, the unique isotope ratios in Alaskan rocks and soil have more or less stayed the same.
    — Sara Harrison, Wired, 12 Aug. 2021
  • The ratios of these isotopes can be a fingerprint for a marine location, as the ratios vary from place to place, and over time in ocean water.
    — Byelizabeth Pennisi, science.org, 27 Feb. 2023
  • Nature does not provide a simple way of creating the isotope carbon-12 and the elements above it.
    — Paul Halpern, Scientific American, 18 Aug. 2021
  • The team analyzed strontium isotope ratios in bones of three humans, a horse, a dog and a possible pig buried at Heath Wood.
    — Margaret Osborne, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Feb. 2023
  • The isotopes stick to those materials and the water flows on, a little cleaner than before.
    — Chris Baraniuk, WIRED, 18 July 2023
  • All uranium is radioactive, and each isotope has its own unique half-life.
    — Kathryn Higley, The Conversation, 16 June 2023
  • The carbon isotope ratios in the paddlefish bones also match up with this pattern.
    — Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 Feb. 2022
  • But it’s been predicted that some isotopes of these elements might have just the right number of neutrons to balance the whole thing out, stabilizing it for minutes or even days.
    — Michael Irving, New Atlas, 25 July 2024
  • Carbon has two stable isotopes, ¹²C and ¹³C, whose weights are slightly different from one another.
    — Sachiko Amari, Discover Magazine, 9 Aug. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'isotope.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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