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
[Fact Off]
Alchemy and phosphorus:
https://phys.org/news/2019-01-phosphorus-years-discovery-vital-element.html
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: