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Dietary minerals

  • ChromiumThe same element that makes rubies red also makes emeralds green. That element is chromium, first isolated in 1797.
  • NickelNickel the metal is named after a mischievous sprite from German miner folklore.
  • MolybdenumMolybdenum got its name from the Greek word for lead by mistake. For centuries its ores were confused with lead ores.
  • ZincAncient brass makers had no idea they were using zinc. The zinc metal vaporized in copper furnaces before anyone saw it.
  • PotassiumPotassium is a metal soft enough to slice with a kitchen knife. Dropped in water, it bursts into a lilac-colored flame.
  • ChlorideYour stomach needs chloride to make hydrochloric acid. It is also the most abundant anion outside cells.
  • ManganeseIn 1972 the CIA used manganese mining as cover for a secret ship mission.
  • CobaltCobalt got its name from German miners who blamed a goblin. The blue ore gave them no silver.
  • SeleniumA horseradish smell led chemist Berzelius to the element selenium in 1817. He named it after the Moon.
  • VanadiumA mineralogist found vanadium in 1801, then dropped his claim when a French chemist said he was wrong.
  • IronThe earliest iron tools were hammered from rocks that fell from the sky.
  • CalciumPure calcium metal burns skin the moment you touch it. Yet the same element holds your skeleton together.
  • MagnesiumWater makes burning magnesium burn worse. The metal rips water apart, releasing hydrogen gas that feeds the flame.
  • PhosphorusPhosphorus, element number 15, first came to light in Hamburg in 1669, in the hands of an alchemist named Hennig Brand. Brand was chasing the fabled philosopher's stone. His chosen raw material was urine, which carries dissolved phosphates…
  • IodineIodine, the element with atomic number 53, first announced itself as a cloud of violet vapour. A French chemist named Bernard Courtois had poured an excess of sulfuric acid onto the waste left over from processing seaweed ash. The vapour…
  • SodiumSodium, the element with the symbol Na, revealed itself in 1860 from the far corner of a 60 cubic metre room. There the chemists Kirchhoff and Bunsen set off 3 milligrams of sodium chlorate mixed with milk sugar, as far as possible from…
  • BoronBoron, the element with the symbol B and atomic number 5, owes its existence to events far from any laboratory. Stars do not build it in their cores. Instead it arises when cosmic rays break apart larger atoms and when supernovas explode.…
  • SulfurSulfur, the chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16, turned up on Mars in July 2024, and nobody was looking for it. The Curiosity rover drove over a rock and crushed it. Inside the broken stone sat crystals of elemental…
  • SiliconSilicon clings to oxygen so tightly that chemists failed for decades to pull them apart.

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