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 ...

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 ...

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 ...