How to Use isotope in a Sentence

isotope

noun
  • The peaks occur at around the first half-life of that isotope.
    John Timmer, Ars Technica, 8 Nov. 2017
  • Cesium-137 is the last of that deadly trio of isotopes.
    Serhii Plokhy, Time, 26 Apr. 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
  • Lithium isotopes, too, record a sudden change in the ocean that could be the result of seafloor eruptions.
    Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica, 8 Feb. 2018
  • An isotope of silicon, such as silicon-29, does have a spin.
    IEEE Spectrum, 15 June 2024
  • 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
  • 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 isotopes suggest that this cat was one such honored captive.
    Ryan P. Smith, Smithsonian, 19 Mar. 2018
  • 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
  • Analysis of isotopes has been tested as a way to tell if a plant was harvested from the wild.
    The Economist, 19 Oct. 2017
  • 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
  • Helium-3 is a non-radioactive isotope that could be used for power.
    Fox News, 28 Sep. 2019
  • 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
  • Female mice were fed chow containing the isotope, then mated with a male mouse.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 June 2019
  • But Flux points out that the low number of facilities that make this isotope means future shortages are likely.
    Chris Baraniuk, WIRED, 27 Nov. 2024
  • Since canines didn't pursue fish as their primary prey, the preponderance of isotopes in the canine bone signaling salmon presence suggests that humans fed the canine fish.
    Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 4 Dec. 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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