a feature unique to this isotope. In excited states, a nuclei's protons or neutrons have higher than normal energy levels. Although energetically possible, the radioactive decay of this excited ...

In recent years, some large physics experiments worldwide have been trying to gather evidence of a nuclear process known as ...

Stable isotopes do not decay into other elements. In contrast, radioactive isotopes (e.g., 14C) are unstable and will decay into other elements. The less abundant stable isotope(s) of an element have ...

Certain isotopes are unstable and undergo a process of radioactive decay, slowly and steadily transforming, molecule by molecule, into a different isotope. This rate of decay is constant for a ...

giving off radiation and changing into a different isotope. The rate at which nuclei decay is constant. Half-life describes the interval of time during which half of the original atoms decay.

Some commonly used dating methods are summarized in Table 1. The rate of decay for many radioactive isotopes has been measured and does not change over time. Thus, each radioactive isotope has ...

Misha lived her whole life in zoos, but this elephant’s teeth are now helping scientists reconstruct wildlife migrations.

First developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby, the technique is based on the decay of the carbon-14 isotope. Radiocarbon dating has been used for historical studies ...

The half life of a radioactive isotope is the time taken for it to decay to half of its original amount of radioactivity. The specific activity is the activity per unit mass of a particular ...

Stable isotopes are alternative forms of elements with different molecular weights that are found naturally and do not decay radioactively. Stable isotope analysis of elements such as carbon ...

Chinese researchers have built the country's first nuclear battery using carbon-14, a rare isotope of carbon, which can run 100 years or even more.

Scientists used strontium isotopes in Misha the elephant’s teeth to track her movements, revealing a method to study ancient ...