When you see the periodic table, what comes to mind? The pieces on a Scrabble board? Maybe you think about your high school chemistry class. Maybe you think of the colorful table plastered on the wall ...

The news broke that a railroad car, loaded with pure sodium, had just derailed and was spilling its contents. A television reporter called me for an explanation of why firefighters were not allowed to ...

Recognize these rows and columns? You may remember a detail or two about this mighty table’s organization from a long-ago chemistry class. Elements are ordered according to their number of protons, or ...