Almost all of human culture and economics is structured around a handful of pretty metals that we have arbitrarily assigned value to! 

Follow us on Twitter @SciShowTangents, where we’ll tweet out topics for upcoming episodes and you can ask the science couch questions! 

If you want to learn more about any of our main topics, check out these links:

[Truth or Fail]

Silver nanoparticles

https://jnanobiotechnology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12951-017-0254-9

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-05/osu-elc051418.php

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/embryo-inspired-bandage-17-times-stickier-band-aid

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-02/ez-pnf021419.php

Copper

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK225400/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/copper-toxicity

Platinum

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29632935

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carmendrahl/2017/04/14/why-is-platinum-in-some-chemotherapy-drugs-and-can-we-improve-them/#1a89a88417d4

[Fact Off]

Alchemy and phosphorus:

https://phys.org/news/2019-01-phosphorus-years-discovery-vital-element.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/02/02/465188104/phosphorus-starts-with-pee-in-this-tale-of-scientific-serendipity

Gold vein earthquakes: 

https://www.nature.com/news/earthquakes-make-gold-veins-in-an-instant-1.12615

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/earthquakes-are-basically-gold-factories-4659100/

[Ask the Science Couch]

Nickel allergy/reactivity:

https://www.nickelinstitute.org/about-nickel/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4783936/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3047925/

https://books.google.com/books?id=CpAM1U1efqcC&pg=PA120

Gold allergy/reactivity:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11244133

https://books.google.com/books?id=1mk3lFVtBSQC&pg=PA104

Implant metals:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9440845

[Butt One More Thing]

Metals in poop:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es505329q

https://www.pnas.org/content/112/29/8803.full