Tag: Boron

Jul 09 2012

Pique the Geek (Elements) 20120708: Boron – Widely Used and Uncommon

If you follow this series closely, you will remember that the last element that we covered was lithium, and so the next one should be beryllium.  However, I wrote about beryllium recently and so you can just follow the link.

Last week I wrote about fireworks safety, and my piece was prescient and unfortunately evidently not read by some unfortunate youths in Arkansas.  My friend, who often comments here using the handle justasabeverage, sent me the newspaper article by email the other day that covers the topic after the fold.

Jun 13 2011

Pique the Geek 20110612: Boron, Essential and Uncommon

Boron, the chemical element with an atomic number (Z) = 5, is an uncommon element.  The reason is that there is no really easy way for stars to make it except through going supernova.  A more technical way of saying this is that stellar nucleosynthesis is not a viable pathway to produce boron.  As a matter of fact, it is the least common very light element except for lithium.

Tonight we shall look into some of the properties and uses of boron, as suggested by Kossack shrike Friday evening during comments on Popular Culture.  The interest that shrike has in some new medical uses for boron, and we shall go into some detail near the end of the piece.