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 ...

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 ...

If you were to take every element in the periodic table and order them by how abundant they are in the Universe, you'd find something a little bit surprising. The most common element is hydrogen, ...

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 ...

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 ...

Barbara McClintock is often portrayed as an insular character. However, she was in fact a well-recognized figure by the time she discovered transposable elements. During her doctoral and post-doctoral ...

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 ...