Nearly 80 years after scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory discovered an extremely rare radioactive element called promethium, a team at the lab published a landmark study on the subject that ...

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. “What is radium and why is it dangerous?” – ...

An international team led by scientists of GSI/FAIR in Darmstadt, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz, succeeded in determining the chemical properties of the ...

After a year of fastidious planning, a microscopic sample of the ultra-rare radioactive element berkelium arrived at a Berkeley Lab. With just 48 hours to experiment before it would become unusable, a ...

A team led by LMU chemist Lena Daumann has demonstrated for the first time that bacteria can use certain radioactive elements to sustain their metabolism. As well as being a useful material in all ...

Bacteria that feed on methanol are able to grow on certain rare earth elements as well as their radioactive relatives. These findings suggest a possible role for such bacteria in the decontamination ...

The periodic table is one of the triumphs of science. Even before certain elements had been discovered, this chart could successfully predict their masses, densities, how they would link up with other ...

Superheavy elements, residing at the extreme end of the periodic table, represent an intriguing domain where relativistic effects and quantum electrodynamics profoundly shape chemical behaviour. The ...

We’ve reached the limit of a very successful way to make new elements in the lab. In new research, scientists unveil a new take on that technology and report its success. The heaviest elements could ...