Watch this video for a refresher on VSEPR Theory

The Royal Society of Chemistry has produced podcasts for every element! Enjoy brief stories about the elements that place them in historical context.

http://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/podcast

The New York Times published an article that beautifully illustrates where New York City gets its electrical power. Similar concepts are at play all across the world.

Read the article here.

The magazine Chemical & Engineering News recently ran a feature article on the rapidly changing gemstone market and the role that synthetic diamonds and other gemstones are playing.

http://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i5/synthesized-precious-gems-passing-natural.html

Researchers at Harvard have provided the first experimental demonstration of solid metallic hydrogen. At very high pressures, dihydrogen (H2) is converted to a solid with the properties of an atomic metal, including being reflective.

A popular press summary: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-metallic-hydrogen-theory-reality.html

The original research report in Science magazine: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/01/25/science.aal1579/tab-pdf

This flowchart from the Otterbein symmetry website includes every point group, including some very rare, very high symmetry examples such as I, O, and T_h.

https://symotter.org/assets/flowchart.pdf

Take a timed quiz to broadly test your knowledge of the periodic table!

http://www.sporcle.com/games/sproutcm/Blitzium

You have 3 minutes to answer 30 questions about the periodic table in the format “Can you name the element that…” For example, “… is an actinide.”

There are a few free programs available that allow you to construct your own molecular models on your computer. This is very helpful for visualizing 3D structures, and can be helpful with visualizing symmetry operations.

Avogadro is available for Macs and PCs.

Chem3D is part of the ChemBioDraw Ultra package, for PCs only.

An overview on uranium enrichment

https://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/ur-enrichment.html

Article and video showing just how easy it is to make lead-amine perovskite solar cells, the fastest-growing class of photovoltaics currently under research.

http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i8/Tapping-Solar-Power-Perovskites.html