Everything we can see and touch, and quite a lot that we can’t as well, is made of tiny particles called atoms. Some substances, like particles of this iron, contain only one kind of atom. Iron is an ...

A chemical bond between a superheavy element and a carbon atom has been established for the first time. This research opens new vistas for studying the effects of Einstein's relativity on the ...

Chemical reactions occur when elements or compounds combine and create new compounds. Elements are substances that contain only one type of atom and are represented by unique symbols on the periodic ...

Scientists have found the first case of an ionic crystal consisting of just one chemical element -- boron. This is the densest and hardest known phase of this element. The new phase turned out to be a ...

Chemists achieve synthetic feat with radioactive promethium for the first time. “It’s a tour de force,” says Polly Arnold, a chemist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, ...

A Popular Science columnist has transformed the prosaic periodic table into a drop-dead gorgeous coffee-table book. Each of the first 100 elements gets a stunning spread with a brief bio, including ...

Creating a superheavy element is no easy feat. It's the equivalent of firing six trillion bullets a second at a needle in a haystack, hoping the bullet and needle somehow fuse together, then catching ...

Helium, the most noble of the noble gases, long thought to be completely inert and thus too standoffish to bond with other atoms, recently surprised chemists by forming chemical compounds after all.

If you have ever taken a prescription medicine, driven a car or drunk tap water, you likely have been exposed to chlorine. The element is also used in organic chemistry processes — for example, as an ...