Taking The Temperature Of A Dinosaur

A team of researchers led by Robert Eagle, a biologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, found that rare, heavy isotopes of carbon-13 and oxygen-18 clump together differently depending on temperature.

“It’s basic thermodynamics: At warmer temperatures, you get a more random distribution of these isotopes with less clumping,” Eagle said. “As temperature decreases things slow down and you begin to see more bonding.”

When this bonding takes place within an organism, such as in the formation of the mineral apatite to form tooth enamel, the pattern of bonds preserves a record of the animal’s body temperature, within a few degrees.