In ancient Egypt and Medieval Europe, silver was often more valuable than gold

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Cadmium is a soft metal which is easily cut with a knife

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When it is bent, indium emits a high-pitched 'cry'

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When a bar of tin is bent, a crackling sound known as the tin cry can be heard

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Antimony is a poor conductor of heat and electricity

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In air, tellurium burns with a greenish-blue flames, forming the dioxide

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Kelp was the main source of natural iodine in the 18th and 19th centuries

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If inhaled, xenon can cause a person's voice to deepen

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Cesium was the first element discovered using a spectroscope

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At low doses, barium acts as a muscle stimulant

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Lanthanum is the most reactive of the rare earth metals

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Seawater contains 1.5 parts per trillion of cerium

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Praseodymium is usually stored under a light mineral oil or sealed in glass

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Most of the world's neodymium is mined in China

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Promethium is the only lanthanide that has no stable isotopes

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Samarium metal can be produced by reducing the oxide with lanthanum

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Europium is the most reactive rare earth element

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Gadolinium has the highest neutron cross-section among any stable nuclides

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Terbium is soft enough to be cut with a knife

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Naturally occurring dysprosium is composed of 7 isotopes

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Holmium has the highest magnetic strength of any naturally occurring element

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The highest concentration of erbium in humans is in the bones

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Thulium ore occurs most commonly in China

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Ytterbium is recovered commercially from monazite sand

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Lutetium was the last natural rare earth element to be discovered

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In powdered form, hafnium is pyrophoric and can ignite spontaneously in air

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Tantalum occurs principally in the mineral columbite-tantalite

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The chemical symbol, W, comes from the original name of the element, Wolfram

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Chile has the world's largest rhenium reserves

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Osmium is the least abundant stable element in the Earth's crust

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Iridium is the most corrosion-resistant metal known

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Platinum exists in higher abundances on the Moon and in meteorites

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India is the world's largest single consumer of gold

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Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature

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Agatha Christie made use of thallium's toxicity in her novel The Pale Horse

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Pencil leads in wooden pencils have never been made from lead

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Bismuth has unusually high electrical resistance for a metal

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Polonium is obtained by irradiating bismuth with high-energy neutrons or protons

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Astatine is preferentially concentrated in the thyroid gland

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Upon condensation, radon glows because of the intense radiation it produces

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Francium was the last element discovered in nature, rather than by synthesis

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Radium imparts a carmine red color to a flame

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Actinium glows in the dark with a pale blue light

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Thorium fuel research is continuing in several countries including the USA and India

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Protactinium is one of the rarest and most expensive naturally occurring elements

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Uranium-235 was the first isotope that was found to be fissile

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Neptunium is obtained as a by-product from nuclear reactors

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The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945 had a plutonium core

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Americium often enters landfills from discarded smoke detectors

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Curium accumulates in the bones, lungs and liver, where it promotes cancer

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