Unashamedly geeky

bq. Question: Picasso pioneered what short-lived but influential form of art? Answer: Copper, Bismuth, Samarium

So the biologists among us must all have played the “What words can you find in the human|rat|frog|wombat genome?” game. Some of us might even have looked for our own names (which is fine as long as we’re not, for example ‘Bob’ or ‘Jenny’ — you may blame Margaret Dayhoff for this terrible oversight).

But the chemists, potentially, have much more fun. With over a hundred chemical symbols to choose from, the possibilities are maybe not endless, but certainly fascinating.

As a FOReTaSTe, consider

The longest word you can spell with chemical symbols is […] “NoNRePReSeNTaTiONaLiSmS.” . . . The longest obscure word […] is “hypothalamicohypophyseal,” which can be spelled 8 different ways with chemical symbols.

Hours of fun for all the family.