The periodic table of elements, populated with these seemingly staid collection of numbers and letters, make up the very building blocks of the universe. At its heart are these remarkable stories of material oddities, instructive follies, elemental greed, and partisan obsession. There are stories of politics, money, war, assassination attempts, rushes for gold, about the stardust origins of the elements; about the compounds they make and what they mean to human history.

This month, on Eureka, Umapagan Ampikaipakan and author Sam Kean, take a deep dive into the periodic table of elements and explore some of these remarkable stories.

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