Imagine an alien world with oceans of liquid metal. If such a world exists, metallic elements are likely the sources of the dissolved materials and particles in these oceans. Everything would be made ...

Rare earth elements (REEs) are a group of 17 metallic elements essential in many modern technologies. Despite their name, they are not actually rare, but they are difficult to extract and refine. In ...

For life to develop on a planet, certain chemical elements are needed in sufficient quantities. Phosphorus and nitrogen are essential. Phosphorus is vital for the formation of DNA and RNA, which store ...

In its purest form, iron is neither exceptionally strong nor hard - in fact, a block of pure iron could be cut with a knife. The addition of carbon and the removal of oxygen are what give iron-based ...

SINCE the discovery of the transuranic elements, a consistent method of naming the newly discovered metallic elements has been adopted. All these new elements have been given names ending in “-ium”.