"By clicking on the image above, you'll be able to explore:

*The history of the Periodic Table in just 2 minutes
*How certain elements changed the course of history
*How the different parts of our planet are made up of the same elemental building blocks
*Where different elements occur, and what places they get their names from
*Which elements make up the human body
*The elements that are vital, and dangerous, to human life"

From indium touchscreens to hafnium-equipped moonships, the nether regions of the periodic table underpin modern technology – but supplies are getting scarce

Two new elements have been added to the periodic table after a three-year review by the governing bodies of chemistry and physics.

In honour of the International Year of Chemistry, Dimensions takes a peek behind recent changes to the periodic table — that marvel of simplicity and scientific achievement that represents the building blocks of chemistry.

The Periodic Table of Videos is a collaboration between the University of Nottingham's School of Chemistry and video journalist Brady Haran.

We initially made videos about all 118 elements.

Starting today, I'll be posting on a different element each weekday (the blog will run through early August), starting with the racy history of an element we've known about for hundreds of years, antimony, and ending on an element we've only just discovered, the provisionally named ununseptium. I'll be covering many topics—explaining how the table works, relaying stories both funny and tragic, and analyzing current events through the lens of the table and its elements. Above all, I hope to convey the unexpected joys of the most diverse and colorful tool in all of science.

For the past month, Sam Kean has been blogging the periodic table for Slate, in conjunction with his new book The Disappearing Spoon. The blog explored the history and science behind 25 different elements, from antimony to yttrium. But one question has been left unaddressed: What the heck do these elements look like? Some elements, of course are part of our daily lives: We all know what gold and iron look like. But could you pick bismuth out of a lineup? Francium? Tungsten? Click the launch module to see photographs of the elements Kean has discussed in his Slate blog.

Hover over an element and get basic info.

Whisper it, but the periodic table does not exist even in the way that the Tube map exists, representing the actual position of the stations on the ground. But the table traps the elements it represents in a kind of prison and stops us seeing them for themselves.

At readings of my new book, Periodic Tales, parents have come up to me afterwards and told me their child is having “to do the periodic table”, and how can they help?

Here’s how: get them thinking about the individual elements instead. After all, the periodic table is only a checklist of what is truly elemental. Mendeleev’s table shows how the properties of each are similar, but this tends to obscure their uniqueness. What is more, each element is linked to our lives in unique and often unexpected ways. We know them through our human culture, how they have been woven into our objects and stories, not by entering the privileged space of a laboratory.

Although Dmitri Mendeleev is often considered the "father" of the periodic table, the work of many scientists contributed to its present form.

Funny song about the elements in the periodic table.

"One way to wear the periodic table is to break down your own body into its constituent elements."