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The most recent addition to The Periodic Table of Videos is a discussion about childhood.

In particular, when our chemists were first introduced to the idea of chemistry.

There were some nice anecdotes.

But the team were also kind enough to contribute pictures of themselves as youngsters.

They were good sports to let me use them and I think it makes the video better.

(Though it took a while to get everyone's pictures sent in from parents across the UK!!!)

DEBBIE KAYS (also the pirate above)

MARTYN POLIAKOFF

PETE LICENCE

ROB STOCKMAN

SAM TANG

STEVE LIDDLE

DARREN WALSH

NEIL BARNES

BRADY HARAN (unfair to spare myself the embarrassment!)

And because I know the mysterious Neil is everyone's favourite, here's an extra picture of him...

And another ones of Dr Liddle cutting loose on the trampoline!

And here's the video itself:

A few people have been in touch about this week's news that CERN folk have trapped anti-Hydrogen for 15 minutes.

They've suggested we do a video for The Periodic Table of Videos and/or Sixty Symbols.

I'm sure we'll be doing plenty more on this type of thing, but the latest news is not terribly advanced from last time we did a video about it.

For those who missed it, here it is:

The latest Sixty Symbols video about tides includes a lucky shot.


I'd left my camera in the backyard for a timelapse shot of the moon moving across the sky.

It was only when reviewing the footage did I find a perfect shot of a plane "flying across" at just the right angle.

As bit of a moon enthusiast, I was quite pleased.

Noticed a bottle drying on a radiator in Professor Poliakoff's office the other day.


That's always a sure sign a new bottle's about to be added to his famous collection.

For those who haven't seen his double-sided collection, I've included a couple of pictures.

Here's the view looking into his office...


Here's the view looking out...


And here's an old video we did for Test Tube about his international bottle collecting...

Britain has played a major role in the discovery of elements.

Yet only one element is named after a place in Britain.

That's right - one!

Compare that with the village of Ytterby, Sweden, which gave its name to four elements - Ytterbium, Yttrium, Erbium and Terbium.

So, where is this lone UK representative on the periodic table?

Step forward Strontian... a tiny village in the western highlands of Scotland.

It was in a lead mine here that a new mineral was found and dubbed "Strontiantite".

Later an undiscovered element was extracted from the mineral and given the name Strontium.

I paid a visit to the village a couple of weeks ago and visited local archivist George Fox.

That allowed us to finally update our Strontium video on The Periodic Table of Videos.

Bibledex is back with a new series.

We've already done a video about every book in the Bible (plus the extra 'Apocrypha' books).

Now we're going to make more focused videos, concentrating on individual verses.

We'll be discussing the history, theology and mystery behind some of the most famous verses, plus looking at some obscure ones.

But to start the series, we've discussed where the verses come from.

As you'll see, they were devised many years after the original texts were written!

Last week The Periodic Table of Videos won an interesting prize.

We were named a SPORE winner by the famous journal/magazine, Science.

SPORE stands for Science Prize for Online Resources in Education.

The "prize" was having an essay published in Science.

I wrote the essay with Professor Martyn Poliakoff.

One may think: "You had to write an essay... Some prize?"



But having an article published in Science is a big deal for scientists.

Some researchers go their entire career without such an honour.

So we were thrilled to have an article published, albeit via an unusual method.

You can find it at this link.

Or click here for the PDF.

It is the second article we've published in a major journal... the other was in Nature Chemistry.

The other members of the Periodic Table of Videos team is Pete Licence, Neil Barnes, Debbie Kays, Steve Liddle, Sam Tang, Rob Stockman and John Moses.

Among numerous other people we owe a special debt of thanks to is Professor Chris Rudd.

And Brigitte Nerlich, with whom we've previously discussed ideas for journal papers.