♪ O chemistry, o chemistry, the study of all matter ♫

America's worst radioactive accident isn't Three Mile Island, and the Nazi nuclear physicist wasn't assassinated by the famous baseball player.

Sometimes we need a quiet moment in order to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Sure, thorium could provide practically limitless clean energy, but then we couldn't build weapons of mass destruction.

We all know that radioactive rocks glow in the dark, except they actually don't, except for when they actually do.

Out of all the characters who encounter radium in this episode, the only one to emerge unscathed is the guy who comes face-to-face with Satan.

You don't have to have a degree to do science, but it helps.

You know something's amiss when you set off the radiation alarms while walking in to the nuclear power plant. Featured above: A caption for the featured image. Show Notes This is one of those episodes I only got out the door late on Sunday night, so please excuse the mess around here until I can clean things up a bit!   Episode Script Radon is one of the noble gases; thus, its valence shell is full and it's nearly entirely unreactive. But that doesn't make it safe....

The story of astatine takes us to Alabama, Dacca, Romania, Vienna, and California, but definitely not Switzerland.

Sadly, it's no longer possible to purchase this lethally radioactive element for fifteen cents and a cereal boxtop.

The periodic table shows the natural patterns and trends among the elements. Bismuth does not abide.

We just can't seem to stop chasing the sweet, sweet taste of element 82.

In which we learn how reading mystery novels might very well save a life.

Even if you hate tuna, have flawless teeth, and only use digital thermometers, humans have historically not been shy about getting a mouthful of mercury.

All other metals step aside, because today we deal with the king of elements.

Sometimes, being set in stone isn't permanent enough.

Alvarez noticed a great disturbance in the rocks, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

This entire episode serves as cautionary advice to anyone seeking to add osmium to their element collection.

Witness an incredible, unbreakable bond between two who couldn't be more alike. We'll also learn about a married couple.

All right, everybody settle down. Welcome to the weekly meeting of the National Association Of W Lovers.   Show Notes More to come later, but for now: Portugal was neutral during World War 2, which was a difficult position to maintain. They were afraid that Germany might invade, especially after the fall of Paris, or even that they might be subject to a proxy war via Spain. Portugal also had a huge supply of tungsten, basically a monopoly, and the metal was in high...

Once more, the periodic table drags us to hell -- this time by way of ancient Greece.

The science suggests hafnium can't be used to create a gamma ray bomb, but that won't stop the U.S. government from trying.

Let us ensure we remember the lanthanide series before we leave it behind once and for all.

When Johann Bottger failed to turn lead into gold, porcelain made a pretty good consolation prize.