Because C4 plants concentrate more of carbon's heavier isotopes compared with C3 plants, a technique
called stable isotope analysis — which measures the relative concentrations of isotopes in animal bones — can often detect which plants predominate in the diet.
Analysis of the water leaving Venus's atmosphere, however, shows that many of the hydrogen ions are actually a
stable isotope of the element
called deuterium, which consists of a proton and a neutron (rather than just a proton) in its nucleus.