Curated category
Dietary minerals
- ChromiumChromium, element number 24 on the periodic table, carries a name borrowed from the ancient Greek word for color. That origin is no accident.
- NickelNickel, element 28 on the periodic table, takes its name from a mischievous sprite of German miner mythology. In the ore mountains of medieval Germany…
- MolybdenumMolybdenum carries a name that is, in a sense, a mistake. It comes from the Ancient Greek word molybdos, meaning lead, because for centuries its dark ores…
- ZincZinc is the only metal that appears in every single enzyme class in the human body. That one fact hints at how deeply this element is woven into the fabric…
- PotassiumPotassium is a metal that can be sliced with a kitchen knife. Drop a piece into water and it bursts into a lilac-colored flame.
- ChlorideChloride is in every glass of seawater, every cell in your body, and the salt you shake onto your food. At a concentration of 19,400 milligrams per liter, it…
- ManganeseManganese, the chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25, sits quietly inside almost every can of soda and every batch of stainless steel, yet…
- CobaltCobalt sits at atomic number 27 on the periodic table, but its story begins not in a laboratory, but in a German silver mine where frustrated miners blamed a…
- SeleniumSelenium sits at atomic number 34 on the periodic table, but it refuses to behave like a single, predictable substance. Depending on how it cools, it can…
- VanadiumVanadium sits at atomic number 23 on the periodic table, carrying the symbol V and a history that spans two centuries of false starts, stolen credit, and…
- IronIron sits in the periodic table as element 26, symbol Fe, a metal of the first transition series and group 8. By mass it is the most common element on the…
- CalciumCalcium surrounds us in ways most people never think about. Symbol Ca, atomic number 20, it makes up roughly 3% of the Earth's crust, making it the fifth…
- MagnesiumBurning magnesium reaches a temperature of roughly 3,100 degrees Celsius, and it throws off a brilliant white light rich in ultraviolet wavelengths.