The periodic table, read by a business desk.
Elements treats the periodic table as a business story: gold is argued over as an asset, thorium is weighed as a nuclear fuel, and arsenic is traced through a wood preservative and contaminated wells. Justin Rowlatt reports from the field, and lab demonstrations show what the elements actually do.
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Elements is a BBC series made by the Business Daily team, and Justin Rowlatt calls the approach 'elemental economics'. Each programme studies a single element, or sometimes a whole family. Titles such as 'Gold (Au)', 'Thorium (Th)', 'Arsenic (As)' and 'Uranium (U)' carry the chemical symbol like a label on a sample jar, and 'Platinum group (Pt, Pd, Ru, Rh, Os, Ir)' covers six rare metals at once. What ties them together is value: who wants the substance, what it does for them, and what it costs. Gold is the clearest case. That programme sets the view that gold is a decorative metal with little industrial use against a defence of it as a stable asset class. The defence points to companies that went bankrupt after 1929 and to property made worthless by revolution. A guest living in Chiang Mai explains why it makes sense to keep some gold at home instead of somewhere like Switzerland. Thorium brings in the energy economy. It is presented as nuclear power without the nuclear waste, then tested against a critic who calls the liquid fuel thorium reactor the most proliferation-prone design for countries without bomb-usable material. India, which has perhaps a third of the world's thorium but little uranium, is the case study, and the Indian nuclear physicist Anil Kakodkar is heard on it. Arsenic moves from the poisoners of history books and detective novels to a wood preservative, with a visit to a Forest Research Institute test yard full of wooden poles dating from 1944. It then turns to contaminated wells and what has been called the largest mass poisoning in history. The chemistry doesn't depend on reporting alone. In the platinum group programme, Professor Andrea Seller of University College London shows platinum making ethanol burn faster and faster, a loop compared to what happens inside a car exhaust catalyst. Liz Rowsell, head of research and development at Johnson Matthey, is also heard there. Elsewhere, selenium pellets that look almost like air gun pellets lead to an account of photocopier drums and of quantum dots whose colour depends on particle size. The history of names gets room too: thorium goes back to the Norse god Thor by way of Jöns Jakob Berzelius. The tone is curious and lightly playful, including a quiz challenge to spot songs with gold in the title. One programme, 'Obscure Elements', introduces itself as the last ever Elements programme, so this is a finished run. For a first listen, the gold debate shows the economic angle at its sharpest, and the platinum group programme shows the lab work at its best.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes science tied to money and real-world consequences, and who wants to hear why gold, thorium or arsenic matter outside the classroom. Also a good fit for anyone who enjoys a lab demonstration described clearly enough to picture.
What sets it apart: It treats each element as an economic and human story as well as a chemical one. Field reporting and arguments over investment sit beside bench demonstrations described as they happen.
A close look at chemical elements, the basic building blocks of the universe. Where do we get them, what do we use them for and how do they fit into our economy?
One arsenic-treated hut, still standing after 80 years, can change how you look at the periodic table.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A vivid farewell tour through the periodic table's stranger corners, from star-marked antimony to glowing selenium quantum dots.
Business Daily's final Elements programme treats the periodic table as a cabinet of curiosities, with the obscure materials given the attention usually reserved for bigger scientific stories.
A lively gold episode that moves from inert chemistry and locust jewellery to financial dread and a playlist challenge.
Gold enters as a strange elemental contradiction: chemically aloof, limited in practical use, and still able to command deep cultural and financial attention.
Thorium's promise is weighed against the engineering, proliferation, and infrastructure needed to make it useful.
Thorium lands here as both a tantalizing scientific possibility and an industrial inheritance. Andrea Saila follows the element from its name, drawn from the Norse god Thor, into the harder world of energy systems and national planning.
A Royston lab visit makes platinum group chemistry tangible, from ethanol combustion to car exhaust catalysts.
Platinum group metals are treated as working chemistry, not showroom luxuries, as a visit to Johnson Matthey's autocatalyst technology centre in Royston turns six rare metals into practical reactions.
A clear field report on arsenic's double life as durable preservative and devastating contaminant.
Arsenic is treated here as a material with two lives: the notorious white powder of murder stories, and the practical preservative used to protect timber.
Research made practical, patient, and public.
Chemistry with the footnotes left in.
Chemistry, queerness and grad school, told by the chemists
Bench-level chromatography questions, answered in full.
Hafnium shortages after Fukushima left a 50-ton world supply and a few-hundred-dollar rod in a cupboard.
Bandana Tiwari says gold is "the biggest transaction" in rural India and that people are "literally weighed in gold."
Elements' thorium episode on Business Daily opens at King's Cross, where Andrea Saila links the element to 19th-century industrial lighting and to claims about 21st-century nuclear power.
Andrea Seller shows platinum gauze that makes ethanol burn on the metal surface, then “pops” and glows again.
Bangladesh's tube wells were meant to stop diarrhea, but arsenic exposure still affects about 20 million people.
This episode explores the most dangerous element in the periodic table, discussing its properties and economic impact.
This episode explores the deadly history and surprising economic uses of plutonium and other radioactive elements.
This episode explores the role of silicon, the main ingredient of sand, in the high-tech revolution and questions whether that revolution is over.
This episode explores the economic significance of chemical elements, their sources, uses, and role in the global economy.