How to Use isotope in a Sentence

isotope

noun
  • Cesium-137 is the last of that deadly trio of isotopes.
    Serhii Plokhy, Time, 26 Apr. 2018
  • Inhaling even a dust speck of one of those isotopes can be dangerous.
    Vince Beiser, WIRED, 26 Apr. 2018
  • The microbes will consume these extra-heavy stable isotopes and pass them through the food web from one species to the next.
    Amina Khan, latimes.com, 20 Apr. 2018
  • On top of this, some of them contain layers of volcanic ash that can be dated from radioactive isotopes within.
    The Economist, 19 Apr. 2018
  • One sign of industrial civilization may have to do with isotopes of elements such as carbon.
    Charles Q. Choi, Washington Post, 21 Apr. 2018
  • The particles grab on to ions of cesium, strontium, and other dangerous isotopes in the water, making room for them by spitting out sodium.
    Vince Beiser, WIRED, 27 Apr. 2018
  • The filters, however, don’t catch tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen.
    Vince Beiser, WIRED, 27 Apr. 2018
  • Scientists have added radar info to seismic data, isotope measurements and optical imagery to study covert nuclear tests.
    Christopher Intagliata, Scientific American, 14 May 2018
  • For years, the NCAA has acted like professionalism is worse than isotope poisoning.
    Sally Jenkins, chicagotribune.com, 2 May 2018
  • 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
  • This sodium-39 was the most massive isotope of sodium known to exist.
    Wired, 22 Nov. 2019
  • An isotope of silicon, such as silicon-29, does have a spin.
    IEEE Spectrum, 15 June 2024
  • Once the isotopes were prepared and the cyclotron was running, the process became a waiting game.
    Max Springer, Scientific American, 24 July 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 most common isotope, carbon-12, is also the lightest.
    Kate Baggaley, Popular Science, 21 Aug. 2020
  • The closest isotope matches were for West Africa and Europe.
    Marta Musso, WIRED, 5 July 2024
  • 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
  • So, the researchers focused on a single type of proxy: the ratio of oxygen isotopes found in the shells of sea organisms.
    John Timmer, Ars Technica, 20 Sep. 2024
  • Harmful isotopes were carried by the winds as far as Ireland within a week.
    The Economist, 4 June 2019
  • Testing components include using isotope ratio mass spectometry on samples from farms, gins, yarn spinners and manufacturing mills.
    Jennifer Bringle, Sourcing Journal, 11 Sep. 2024
  • At the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, scientists produce new isotopes by accelerating stable isotopes to about half the speed of light and smashing them at a target.
    Artemis Spyrou, Discover Magazine, 9 Oct. 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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