Can you make your name, or any other word come to that, from element symbols? Find out using this script: Viren.org

The BBC is airing some "periodic tales" on Radio 4. Familiar Radio 4 voices introduce elements from the Periodic Table and the unique roles they play in human existence - with a little help from the irreverent Tom Lehrer. Go here to listen in on these ten elements:

• Krypton: Heidli Nicklaus on the Superman element, krypton
• Helium: Brian Perkins dramatises the effects of Helium
• Silver: Trevor Harrison (Eddie Grundy in the Archers) finds some unusual properties of Silver
• Cobalt: Hedli Nicklaus (Cathy Perks) takes on the goblin element of cobalt
• Selenium: Carole Boyd (The Archers' Linda Snell) unearths selenium
• Oxygen: Brian Perkins bravely dramatises the effects of oxygen
• Arsenic: Charlotte Green takes on the deadly history of arsenic
• Mercury: Carole Boyd (Linda Snell) reflects on mercury, the poisonous liquid metal
• Iodine: Charlotte Green on the discovery of iodine's essential place in brain development
• Nickel: Trevor Harrison reveals that the space station Mir is largely made of nickel

That old truism about mixing oil and water can apply to water and water, according to researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington State.

Read about his and more in the latest issue of Reactive Reports chemistry news

Nobel laureate Richard Smalley, the Rice University professor who helped discover buckyballs (buckminsterfullerene, C₆₀, the football (soccer) ball shaped form of carbon, died at the age of 62. Richard Smalley shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Sir Harold Kroto (Sussex) and Robert Curl (also Rice) for the identification of the new form of carbon known as buckminsterfullerene because of its similarity to Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes. Further information: Nanotubes and Buckyballs and Smalley Research Group.

Nickel gallium sulfide (NiGa₂S₄) behaves as a highly unusual "liquid" magnetic material at near absolute zero, according to Japanese and US researchers. Read David Bradley's spin on the work in his chemistry news column.

NMR can track the movement of a platinum complex during its reaction with an organic compound as the metal atoms casually stroll around the reactant's carbon rings, according to Milko van der Boom of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel and colleagues. The direct observation of this "ring-walking" could have implications for understanding the catalysis of organic transformations by platinum and other metals. Read on in the latest issue of Resonants, the NMR news magazine written by science writer David Bradley.

Acetaldehyde may be the main culprit behind hangovers, according to new research from Japan.

Alcohol consumption is an integral part of many cultures, but many East Asians suffer the mother of all hangovers every time they drink because they have a mutant of the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase-2 (ALDH2). The mutant cannot metabolise acetaldhyde and so this toxic compound hangs around cause the worst morning after the night before for many East Asians almost every time. Read the full story in David Bradley's Reactive Reports chemistry news.

Science writer David Bradley describes how UK chemist Prasanna "AP" de Silva and his team at Queens University Belfast have wrapped up their work in microscopic bubbles, logically speaking. The result could ultimately lead us to a molecular computer. Read his write up in the latest edition of chemistry magazine Reactive Reports.

A pincer-like grip on metal surfaces could make a century old class of compounds useful in developing twenty-first Century sensor technology, according to US scientists. You can read the full story via David Bradley's physical sciences webzine, Spotlight.

Cooking with highly unsaturated oils and especially re-using oils can lead to high levels of a toxic compound hydroxy-trans-2-nonenal (HNE) in the food, according to US researchers. David Bradley reports on this and more in the latest issue of the chemistry webzine Reactive Reports.