  Many experimental features of the electronic specific heat and entropy of
high Tc cuprates in the normal state, including the nontrivial temperature
dependence of the specific heat coefficient and negative intercept of the
extrapolated entropy to T=0 for underdoped cuprates, are reproduced using the
spin-charge gauge approach to the t-J model. The entropy turns out to be
basically due to fermionic excitations, but with a temperature dependence of
the specific heat coefficient controlled by fluctuations of a gauge field
coupling them to gapful bosonic excitations. In particular the negative
intercept of the extrapolated entropy at T=0 in the pseudogap ``phase'' is
attributed to the scalar component of the gauge field, which implements the
local no-double occupancy constraint.
