Periodic Table of Death and Mystery

Zirconium is a silvery, heat‑resistant metal, first identified as an element in 1789 and later prized for use in nuclear reactors, turbines, and spacecraft. Today, its ceramic form— zirconium dioxide, or zirconia—is used to make strong, tooth‑colored dental implants instead of hippo ivory or human “Waterloo teeth,” a twist on this 250th Independence Day George Washington could never have imagined....

Tantalum : In 1965, a Dutch medical student drilled a hole in his own skull chasing a “higher” consciousness. In World War II, neurosurgeons drilled into the already shattered heads of soldiers for a higher purpose—to make their lives worth living. Inside those wounded skulls, they slid in a strange, almost untouchable metal named for one of Zeus’s worst sons: Tantalus. In this episode, we follow...

Potassium is necessary for life because it’s necessary for cellular function. Our cells are literally built on the electric charge that occurs with the movement of potassium (+ charge) across cell membranes. Simplified, yes, but the ingestion of too much potassium can kill. We know that bananas contain excellent levels of potassium . Can you put yourself in danger by eating too many bananas? This...

In this episode, we’re going “back to the salt mines”—literally. From Roman salarium and Egyptian natron to a Louisiana lake that suddenly drained itself into a salt dome, we’re talking sodium , salt, and how one triangulation error nearly swallowed an entire drilling operation—and 55 miners—with it.

If you played baseball or softball as a kid after the mid-1970s, you most likely swung an aluminum bat in the on-deck circle. And if you play now in an intramural city league trying to relive the glory days of your youth (don’t deny it), you will step up to the plate with a scandium -aluminum alloy bat. So, it’s not a mystery how you pulled a muscle hot-footing it to second on that very obvious si...

Is this title deliberately provocative? Maybe. After all, sex sells, hubba-hubba. The origin stories for the name “Red Light District” are wrapped in myth and mystery. From a Dodge City saloon, to old West railroad brakemen who hung the red signal lights outside the home of the women they visited during a stop. And what about oysters and dive bars? Well, that’s probably the most salacious story of...

Boron equals boring? Maybe, but it’s ubiquitous and is literally the backbone element of hundreds of other chemicals in use today—from bleach to rocket fuel. You only thought that it was about the 20-mule team out of Death Valley days? Well, take a seat by the cracker barrel and I’ll tell you a tale...

Phosphorus , which means "light bringer” in Greek, is the “morning star” god of the planet Venus. Mass manufacturing of friction matches using phosphorous ramped up after the 1830s, and factory-manufactured matches were literally made by hand—thousands and thousands per day—the tips dipped into a chemical soup of sulfur and antimony, baked to dry, and finally coated in white phosphorus for th...

In this episode of the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery, we will initially immerse ourselves in 12th-century urine (sorry), then “hops” (beer will be involved) forward to 1669 and the Alchemist, Hennig Brant, who was searching for the philosopher’s stone using urine from a biergarten, and accidentally discovered the element phosphorus (P) , which he THOUGHT was the philosopher’s stone because i...

A long-ago family history. Whispers about a man who was also a monster—not the serial-killer kind. But the explosive at-the-drop-of-the-hat temper kind whose wife probably took the brunt of his rage. Then he dies after accidentally consuming a toxic Sulfur -containing chemical that just happened to be in the medicine cabinet at a time when poisoning was an easy way to commit murder.

Rhenium is one of the rarest elements on earth with a very, very high melting point which makes it perfect to strengthen metals used in high heat situation, like jet engines. The problem is that certain fashion choices like capes can get the wearer into difficulties near Rhenium -infused spinning turbines of aircraft engines. Right, Stratogirl?

Pockets are actually a European invention found as far back as the 5000-year-old Neolithic mummy, Otzi, in the Alps. Yet there is an ELEPHANT in the Strontium elemental image that accompanies this podcast. It turns out pockets, Strontium , and elephants are linked by a fashion trend that ended ~1400 years ago. And this connection opened another mystery to be solved…

They are all retired now, some for years, this group of men. Yet because of their long-standing friendship and interests, they still meet Friday nights at the local pub for a pint and to reminisce about the good old days. All that excitement. The adulation of their criminal peers. How ‘bout one more caper for old time’s sake? One that would net them millions of dollars in gold, silver, precious st...

Platinum . “Rare, pure, eternal.” And expensive. A jeweler’s slogan that perfectly describes this periodic table element. Perfect for coins—or so you’d think. But platinum is actually too hard and rare. It is used for wedding rings because it doesn’t wear away as easily as silver and gold. Which brings us back to those jewelers and to a heist that netted everything but the kitchen sink—including a...

What started out as the search for the origin of the police slang, “ copper ” ( Copper badges?), ended up as a poignant reminder of historical pain and resilience of enslaved people during a Charleston, South Carolina archaeological dig.

Research about Titanium dioxide and a lawsuit over the candy Skittles turned out to be less than tongue-in-cheek cute. Instead, let’s stamp a disclaimer warning right up front: the information extracted from extensive reading on this topic is … concerning. Or is it?

This podcast will the introduce 4-inch-long cockroaches, giant millipedes up to 8 feet long, and dragonflies the size of pigeons of the Carboniferous era (323 to 299 million years ago) and ask the question: Why were bugs so BIG 300 million years ago? The answer in no small part is because of  oxygen (O) , the 8th element of the periodic table and one most life on earth can’t live without.

In Paris, at the Institut du Radium , Madame Marie Curie, looked over graduates of the class of 1929 and selected the top student, Marguerite Perey (who was only 19 years old), to come and work as her technician. Perey discovered and named Francium , and, like her mentor before her, became a beacon for women in science everywhere. 

In part one of the  beryllium  (Be) story, you learned that four atomic cores were created for the Manhattan Project, but only three were detonated. The fourth core, nicknamed Rufus, continued to be used in further research … until it killed two careless scientists who mishandled the beryllium tamper. That’s when its name was changed to the Demon Core. 

This podcast was initially inspired by the 2023 movie, Oppenheimer , and the Manhattan Project which means it has a New Mexico connection (Yay!). Because, while the use of a Beryllium tamper saved the lives of numerous scientists working with radioactive materials at Los Alamos, mistakes could be fatal (Boo!).

With the rise of variable renewable energy like solar and wind, the term “variable” became an immediate problem. Solar creates electricity when the sun shines, but at night? Back to electrical generation with fossil fuels. When the wind blows there’s power, but when it doesn’t, coal and gas fill in the gaps. Thus began a concerted push for a new generation of batteries for use during downtimes. Wa...

Sometimes the Periodic Table of Death and Mystery comes very close to home. She was from a prominent family in her small, insular town, and he worked as the manager at a brothel. She was eighteen when they met and he was thirty-six and married. She became pregnant with his child before he was shot, dead from the lead of a bullet fired in anger. His name was José Ramirez, but everyone called him Jo...

Green obsidian—a stone as transparent as glass with iron and chromium impurities that create its rare color—was considered a luxury trade good in pre- and post-Columbian Central American culture. Archaeologists have found green obsidian hundreds to thousands of miles away from its origin. For example, it was discovered in a ritual cremation in Belize and in Mayan temples. So why was it found in th...

Some formsof chromium are incredibly toxic. Just ask Hinkley, California. Others are in your daily multivitamin because chromium plays an important role in sugar metabolism and mood improvement. So, what happens if a person doesn’t get enough chromium in their diet and does it really have a link to gummy bears?

In 1975, an obscure Iron ore ship disappeared under the waters of Lake Superior, but the tale of its last voyage became immortalized in 1976 by the singer Gordon Lightfoot as The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald . It’s a heartfelt ballad that transports the listener into the gales of November and leaves them aching for the Fitz’s lost crew.