Sheffield University’s WebElements guru Mark Winter alerted us to a recent BBC Radio 4 [link dead] series touching on Periodic Tales told by members of the cast of long-lived rural radio soap The Archers…
- Krypton: Hedli Nicklaus on the Superman element, krypton
- Helium: Brian Perkins dramatises the effects of Helium
- Silver: Trevor Harrison finds some unusual properties of Silver
- Cobalt: Nicklaus takes on the goblin element of cobalt
- Selenium: Carole Boyd unearths selenium
- Oxygen: Perkins bravely dramatises the effects of oxygen
- Arsenic: Charlotte Green takes on the deadly history of arsenic
- Mercury: Boyd reflects on mercury, the poisonous liquid metal
- Iodine: Green on the discovery of iodine’s essential place in brain development
- Nickel: Harrison reveals that the space station Mir is largely made of nickel.
It seems a little more worthy than recent efforts to connect and elements and celebrities, which I mentioned recently, despite the fact that they got radio soap stars to do the task, but presumably has the same conceptual origins of getting chemistry a better name, which can only be a good thing.