Point Of Discovery

We’re celebrating the 150th anniversary of the periodic table. Join us as we tour the cosmos, from the microscopic to the telescopic, with four scientists studying the role of four elements—zinc, oxygen, palladium and gold—in life, the universe and everything. Emily Que is a chemist who helped capture, for the first time on video, zinc fireworks that burst from an egg when it’s fertilized by sperm. Astronomer Michael Endl is searching for chemical signs of life in the atmospheres of exoplanets. Kate Biberdorf (a.k.a. Kate the Chemist) found new ways to speed up chemical reactions using palladium. And physicist Aaron Zimmerman explains why the gold in your jewelry was probably forged in an ultraviolent explosion billions of years ago. Watch zinc-spark fireworks: https://cns.utexas.edu/news/when-sperm-meets-egg-zinc-fireworks-on-display Listen to our interview with Kate the Chemist on a previous Point of Discovery podcast: https://soundcloud.com/point-of-discovery/fun-with-chemistry See a periodic table showing