When it comes to the elements of the Universe, every one of them has its own unique story. Hydrogen and helium were created in the earliest stages of the Big Bang; light elements like carbon and ...

The story of the fifteenth element began in Hamburg, in 1669. The unsuccessful glassblower and alchemist Hennig Brandt was trying to find the philosopher’s stone, a mythical substance that could turn ...

Everything we can see and touch, and quite a lot that we can’t as well, is made of tiny particles called atoms. Some substances, like particles of this iron, contain only one kind of atom. Iron is an ...

On a stage in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization headquarters in Paris, Yuri Oganessian holds a microphone in one hand and a small remote control in the other. Over ...

At the far end of the periodic table is a realm where nothing is quite as it should be. The elements here, starting at atomic number 104 (rutherfordium), have never been found in nature. In fact, they ...

The journey of the elements starts in the earliest moments of the Big Bang, when our universe was only a few seconds to a few minutes old. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...

In Frank Herbert’s space opera Dune, a precious natural substance called spice melange grants people the ability to navigate vast expanses of the cosmos to build an intergalactic civilization. In real ...

Seventeen elements of the periodic table have taken on outsize importance because of their use in smartphones, electric vehicles, medical devices, and other technologies. They’re valued for their ...