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Lithium (Li) is a relatively rare element on Earth, present in virtually all rocks—lithos is Greek for stone, after all. It’s been used by the medical community since around the late 1940s to prevent and treat mental health issues like mania, bipolar disorders, and impulse control problems (1, 2). But its calming effect on the brain has been known since antiquity. Water from Georgia’s Lithia Springs was used medicinally for centuries by Native Americans (3), and did you know the soda pop 7-Up was originally formulated with lithium citrate as an antidepressant (4), which was fortuitous since it was patented …

Silver (Ag) bullets, French Werewolves, and the Periodic table of Death. That April day in 1764 Gévaudan, France, was one where winds swept mares tail clouds through a powder blue sky. The girl in the field—for she was only 15—hummed and dreamed as she ambled through her milch-cows, oblivious of the beast that stalked her in the dense copse of trees. But the two bulls in the herd knew caught its scent. When the reddish-gray beast leapt for the girl’s throat, they charged it, protecting their harem and the shrieking teen (1). Hysterical, she relayed to the villagers the beast’s …

The death certificate is hard to read, so let me help. After, Was there anautopsy? yes. Was there an inquest? yes, Section 23 says: If death was due to external causes, fill in also the following:(Check) XXXXXXXXX—Homicide? Date of injury Oct. 6, 1936Where did the injury occur? Santa Rosa, N.M.Manner of injury: Shot with pistolNature of injury: Bullet wound through both lungs Like I said, lead poisoning. Cowboy-style. And I am being deliberately flippant?Yes. Because I know this story, and I don’t care for this man, Jose “Joe”Ramirez.On the death certificate, it says that Ramirez had been in Santa Rosa, …