phosphorus

I came back to my computer to find that many of my fellow Sciblings have recently taken up issues of resource depletion from various interesting perspectives - doing my work for me, I guess ;-). It isn't exactly news to most of us that we've been using just about every resource on the planet far too casually, but it is interesting to see them tied together. At Starts With a Bang, Ethan Siegel takes up issues raised by Helium's scarcity and the fact that our use of it to make children's toys may seriously imperil future research capacities. At Dr. Isis's blog, she builds on this by exploring…

When purified, it glows with an unearthly light. You can't go "chemical free" and try to escape it. It's part of our bones and it forms the backbone of our DNA. A tool for good, a tool of war, essential for gardening, and infamous as a pesticide; phosphorus is truly an amazing element. Amazing too, are the stories about it's discovery and our history with using it. Many of the stories in The 13th Element by John Emsley (2000, John Wiley & Sons), from the alchemist's bench to the murderer's kitchen, are well-suited to reading on a Halloween eve. From the nightmare inspiring stories…