Platinum group (Pt, Pd, Ru, Rh, Os, Ir)

In the final programme in our Elements series, Justin Rowlatt looks at the rarest and oddest members of the periodic table. Selenium, bismuth, molybdenum, antimony, rhenium, hafnium, zirconium, tellurium, thallium, barium. What are they? And what are they used for?Minor metals me ...  Show more

Why do we value this practically useless metal so highly? And does it bring out the worst in human nature? In a second look at this most coveted of metals, Justin Rowlatt hears both sides of the age-old argument. Swiss investor and gold enthusiast Marc Faber explains why he keeps ...  Show more

Long abandoned metal mines are having a huge impact on rivers across the UK. BBC Inside Science reporter Patrick Hughes visits Cwmystwyth in Wales, where he finds lead, zinc and cadmium seeping into waterways. It’s the costly legacy left after hundreds of years of mining. Roma Ag ...  Show more

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Materialism Podcast! In this episode we cover the most ubiquitous and important engineering material of all time: steel. The story of steel is fascinating and ties into the history of the Industrial Revolution, the birth of capitalism, a ...

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the dawn of the European Iron Age.In around 3000 BC European metalworkers started to make tools and weapons out of bronze. A complex trading network evolved to convey this valuable metal and other goods around the continent. But two millennia l ...  Show more

The Life Scientific zooms in to explore the intricate atomic make-up of metal alloys, with complex crystalline arrangements that can literally make or break structures integral to our everyday lives. Professor Sir Harry Bhadeshia is Professor of Metallurgy at Queen Mary Universit ...  Show more