Archive by category | In your element

More on gadolinium

More on gadolinium

Note: Posted on behalf of Pekka Pyykkö, who wrote about gadolinium in our August issue‘s In Your Element article. This post comes in complement to the IYE essay – and is best read after the article. Coincidentally, there is a bit of a connection between Pekka Pyykkö and the discoverer of the rare earths: Pekka’s former position, as Professor of Chemistry, was split off as ‘the parallel chair of chemistry’ in 1908 from Gadolin’s chair of chemistry, which had been established in 1761 at the Royal Academy of Turku (Kungliga Åbo Akademi) in Finland and had been moved to Helsinki in 1828. – Anne.  Read more

The tripartite element

The sign over the entry to the Nobel Institute cyclotron building in Stockholm, now part of Stockholm University. Photo courtesy of Brett Thornton.

Posted on behalf of Brett Thornton and Shawn Burdette. This blog post contains more information and references about the discovery of nobelium, and accompanies the nobelium In Your Element (IYE) article. Though it somewhat stands alone, it is best read after reading the IYE essay.  Read more

In your element round up

Our ‘in your element’ feature is still alive and well, the articles are still freely available online, and the periodic table here is still being updated. Over the last few months a few more squares in that periodic table have been filled in with contributions from several authors.  Read more

In your element catch up

In your element catch up

Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t posted about our ‘In your element’ pieces for a couple of months — this is partly because things have been very busy over at the journal [I know I always say that… but it’s because it’s always true!] and also partly because these articles are now freely available online.  Read more

A letter about ‘Neon behind the signs’

Editor’s note: Earlier this year our ‘In your element’ section featured an article about neon written by Felice Grandinetti from the University of Tuscia (you can also find a write-up here by yours truly). We recently received a letter from Roald Hoffmann from Cornell University, which we are publishing here on the blog, with a reply from Felice Grandinetti. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments section below.  Read more

Lead between the lines

Lead between the lines

Apologies for posting this a little late (again)… In the ‘in your element’ piece from our October issue, Somobrata Acharya from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, recounts the role of lead throughout history. Element 82 has been known for thousands of years, and widely used owing to the fact that it is abundant, easy to extract, malleable and therefore easy to manipulate.  Read more

Chlorine chronicles

© J. N. PITTS JR

I’ve had a rather busy summer, and apologize for not posting earlier about last month’s ‘in your element’ piece. Our before-latest article sees Barbara Finlayson-Pitts from the University of California, Irvine take a look at chlorine. I’m happy to say that this element, which chemists and non-chemists alike are well acquainted with, completes our first family of the periodic table!  Read more