One of the things I most enjoyed writing Periodic Tales was having the chance to do some simple chemistry experiments that we never did at school. I was amazed and delighted when they actually worked. Here's some video of me making iodine from seawater 

 This is what one reviewer said:

‘so gut geschrieben ... dass Ich es nicht aus der Hand legen konnte’.

I think we all know what that means!

And it’s just been short-listed for best science book of the year in Austria.

 I'll be giving a lunchtime lecture at the Royal Society in London on 2 March. Lots of the elements' discoveries were announced here. In the space of three years in the 1800s alone, six new elements made their debut, including Humphry Davy's potassium and sodium.

But are fellows of the Royal Society aware of how deeply woven into the cultural fabric of our lives the elements are, I wonder? Do they know that sodium features in the novels of J. G. Ballard, Rose Tremain and Tom Wolfe, for example? The reasons for its appearance is intimately connected with the element's fundamental chemical and physical properties.

 I spoke about Periodic Tales at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, with magnificent assistance from Colin Pulham, professor of chemistry, specializing in drugs and explosives (!), at Edinburgh University. We looked at the three elements discovered in the city, including strontium, the only chemical element named after a place in the UK, and punctuated it all with rainbow flames, bangs and smells. The Scottish Review of Books called it all ‘fiercely entertaining’, see here.

‘Elements’ is a stimulating journey through the periodic table for all ages. The venue is Dublin’s exciting new Science Gallery. The exhibition microsite is here.

One gallery is devoted to ‘portraits’ of some of the elements most important to us, from a blinking sodium street lamp to a mercury garden pool (the Moors of Spain were fond of these – not to be recommended now). In another gallery, visitors can discover the exact amount of every element in their own body, while in a third we have gathered artists’ and scientists’ alternative versions of the periodic table. The Science Gallery has huge windows on to the street, which we are using to display a changing ‘Element of the Day’ for the duration of the show, with contributions brought by the visiting public.