Beryllium - sweet and precious, but deadly

You'll find beryllium in precious jewels and a space telescope mirror, but just don't inhale the dust - all in episode 11 of Elemental, with AUT's Professor Allan Blackman.

Beryllium is a very light metal (atomic number 4, symbol Be), found at the top of the periodic table.

It's colourless, but in combination with other chemicals you'll find it on jewel-encrusted rings and necklaces in the form of emeralds, beryls and aquamarines.

It tastes sweet but it's poisonous (so don't eat it or inhale the dust).

And Professor Allan Blackman from AUT says that beryllium is being used to create the massive mirrors that will be part of the upcoming James Webb space telescope.

We are exploring the periodic table alphabetically and so far we have looked at all the As: actinium, aluminium, americium, antimony, argon, arsenic and astatine.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details