Sam Kean : (5)

" Unlike uranium, plutonium was created in an American lab in 1940, but scientists soon realized that it could produce even wilder chain reactions and even bigger explosions. In fact, fearing another country would create it, too, the American government went to great lengths to keep even the existence of plutonium a secret. " - Sam Kean

" Polonium is, frankly, pretty useless, and no country in the world except Russia bothered to refine it by the late 2000s. " - Sam Kean

" Despite the disreputable company it keeps, bismuth is harmless. In fact, it’s medicinal: Doctors prescribe it to soothe ulcers, and it’s the ‘bis’ in hot-pink Pepto-Bismol. Overall, it seems like the most out-of-place element on the periodic table, a gentleman among scoundrels. " - Sam Kean

" X-rays revealed that some people were born without a corpus callosum, and they seemed just fine. " - Sam Kean

" All human beings are, in fact, born with dozens of mutations their parents lacked, and a few of those mutations could well be lethal if we didn’t have two copies of every gene, so one can pick up the slack if the other malfunctions. " - Sam Kean