Scientists have carried out ground-breaking experiments to investigate the atomic structure of astatine (atomic number 85), the rarest naturally occurring element on Earth. Through experiments ...

“I ask you,” the email to C&EN read, “is astatine more like a halogen or like a metal? This question awakens the inorganic chemist in everyone.” Whether or not you feel the same enthusiasm as the ...

Thirty years after bismuth emitting a proton was detected and measured in 1996, an international collaboration led by researchers at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, detected and measured the ...

Astatine is the rarest element on Earth; only approximately 25 grams occur naturally on the planet at any given time. Its existence was predicted in the 1800s, but was finally discovered about 70 ...

Excerpted from A Tale of 7 Elements, by Eric Scerri. Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press, June 2013. The story surrounding element 85 is one of the most complex and interesting among ...