![\"Ramsay_nchem.1825-i1\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/files\/2013\/12\/Ramsay_nchem.1825-i1.jpg\" "\\"Ramsay_nchem.1825-i1\\"")
<\/a>{credit}\u00a9 THE PRINT COLLECTOR\/ALAMY{\/credit}<\/p><\/div>\n
After the New Year, we might stop posting about them altogether and let you go to the articles directly \u2014 but we’ll continue to update the periodic table here<\/a>. And before that happens, let me share with you a few snippets from our three most recent elements.<\/p>\n In our November issue<\/a>, science writer John Emsley<\/a> took a detailed look at just how essential manganese is for life. Because the body human needs so little of it (a person contains on average of 12 mg) this only came to our attention in the 1950s, but manganese is present in many enzymes. It is the manganese superoxide dismutase, for example, that protects cells against the superoxide radical O2<\/sub>\u2212<\/sup> (through dismutation into oxygen and hydrogen peroxide). Read the article<\/a> to find out how manganese also turned up at the bottom of the sea.<\/p>\n In the December<\/a> piece<\/a>, geochemist Joel Blum<\/a> from the University of Michigan<\/a>, who works on understanding mercury\u2019s behaviour in the environment, discussed why he fell under its spell. The metal that is liquid at room temperature, and particularly dense, has long captivated chemists and before them alchemists. Yet it is notoriously dangerous: mercury is a neurotoxin in most of its form, toxic by ingestion, inhalation and through the skin, both through chronic or acute exposure. It is mercury poisoning that caused hatters to develop dementia, owing to a step in the process of making felt hats that used a mercuric nitrate solution (Hg(NO3<\/sub>)2<\/sub>\u00b72H2<\/sub>O) \u2014 their erratic behaviour led to the phrase \u2018mad as a hatter\u2019. The risks of mercury exposure were recognized at the end of the 19th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n And the January<\/a> article<\/a>, which went live earlier this week, saw Markku R\u00e4s\u00e4nen<\/a> from the University of Helsinki<\/a> reminisce about making the first neutral argon compound, HArF, in 1999 \u2014 also just before Christmas \u2014 \u00a0together with Mika Pettersson and Jan Lundell (now both professors in the University of Jyv\u00e4skyl\u00e4<\/a>) and Leonid Khriachtchev (in the R\u00e4s\u00e4nen group). Argon and the other noble gases have shown over the past several years that they can indeed form compounds, including hydrides. To what extent? We don\u2019t know for sure yet. Theoretists and experimentalists, to your computers and benches!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some of you may have noticed that I haven\u2019t posted about our \u2018In your element\u2019 pieces for a couple of months \u2014 this is partly because things have been very busy over at the journal [I know I always say that\u2026 but it\u2019s because it\u2019s always true!] and also partly because these articles are now freely available online. Read more<\/a> Continue reading