Ram Mohan looks at how bismuth — a remarkably harmless element among the toxic heavy metals in the periodic table — has sparked interest in areas varying from medicinal to industrial chemistry.

The position of an element on the periodic table provides information about its properties. The majority of elements are metals and they are found on the left and in the middle of the periodic table.

Many of the pioneers of nuclear physics and chemistry feature in the list of heavy, radioactive ... where they seemed to sit in the periodic table, the elements after number 89, actinium, should ...

It's easy to accuse the scientists who produce new, very heavy elements of being chemistry's train spotters ... Element 114 sits in an island of stability, a position in the periodic table where a ...