Day 108: Gadolinium

Clockwise from left: Swedish chemist Johan Gadolin, indirect namesake of gadolinium (from SnappyGoat); a brownish lump of gadolinium (from Wikimedia Commons); gadolinium as it appears in the periodic table. Is it me or are quite a lot of rare earth metals coming in these posts at the moment? Here we have gadolinium, another quite malleable

Day 107: Lanthanum

Clockwise from left: lanthanum is used in the carbon lighting for cinema projectors (from Wikimedia Commons), a small lump of lanthanum (from Wikimedia Commons), lanthanum as it appears in the periodic table. Today we have the element that lends its name to the lanthanide series-lanthanum. The lanthanide series are 14 elements with similar properties that

Day 106: Lithium

Clockwise from left: a lump of lithium submerged in oil (from Wikimedia Commons), rechargeable lithium ion batteries are one of the most common in laptops and mobile phones (from Wikimedia Commons), lithium as it appears in the periodic table. Another very light element with lithium today. In fact, lithium is the lightest element that is

Day 105: Sulphur

Clockwise from left: a big lump of sulphur (from Wikimedia Commons), sulphur as it appears in the periodic table, sulphur is behind what keeps your hair strong (from Pixabay). I’m actually a little behind the times with the old British way of spelling sulfur with a “ph”. The official spelling of the yellow element was

Day 104: Hydrogen

Clockwise from left: some incredibly cold (under -252.87°C) liquid hydrogen (from Wikimedia Commons), the Hindenburg zeppelin was infamously full of flammable hydrogen gas (from Picryl), hydrogen as it appears on the periodic table. It is strange that it took 104 posts to get to the smallest and lightest element in the periodic table, but hey

Day 103: Vanadium

Clockwise from left: some shards of vanadium (from Wikimedia Commons), vanadium as it appears on the periodic table, piston rods often use vanadium steel due to its toughness (from Pikist). I always like to find the most tenuous connections between element etymology, so for vanadium I will say that in a way it was named

Day 102: Molybdenum

Clockwise from left: a gleaming lump of molybdenum (from Wikimedia Commons), human teeth enamel is found in teeth enamel and is thought to help prevent decay (from Wikimedia Commons), molybdenum as it appears in the periodic table. I don’t think we’ve had an element straight up named after another element yet have we? Protactinium has

Day 101: Tellurium

Clockwise from left: a very round lump of tellurium (from Wikimedia Commons); the Earth, or Tellus as it is known in Latin (from Pixabay); tellurium as it appears on the periodic table. Today’s element, tellurium, is an example of what’s called a metalloid. The metalloids are a bunch of elements that have a lot of

Day 100: Oxygen

Clockwise from left: a huge vat of liquid oxygen at the Cape Canaveral rocket launch site (from Wikimedia Commons); a diagram of the respiratory tract and lungs, whereby oxygen can get into our bloodstreams (from Pixabay); oxygen as it appears on the periodic table. It’s the big 100! And what better way to celebrate the

Day 99: Tennessine

Left: the state of Tennessee, namesake of the penultimate element. Right: tennessine as it appears in the periodic table. Here we have the final element in group 17, and the penultimate element confirmed to date: tennessine (once again accompanied by that red underline showing the word hasn’t been around long). Along with californium, tennessine is