Think of bismuth as the Cinderella of the periodic table. Because it is surrounded by its toxic stepsiblings—the elements lead, tin, antimony, tellurium, and polonium—chemists often overlook bismuth ...

Bismuth sits in a funny spot on the periodic table, at the turning point of what I call "poisoner's corridor." It cleaves the periodic table into two sets of dangerous elements. To the left of and ...

Ram Mohan looks at how bismuth — a remarkably harmless element among the toxic heavy metals in the periodic table — has sparked interest in areas varying from medicinal to industrial chemistry. The ...

This week's element is bismuth, which is represented by the symbol Bi and the atomic number 83. Known since ancient times, bismuth is one of the first 10 metals discovered by humans, although it ...

An oddball superconductor is the first of its kind — and if scientists are lucky, its discovery may lead to others. At a frigid temperature 5 ten-thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, bismuth ...