From the Archives...
Image of the month: the oldest surviving periodic table wall chart?
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Photo credit: University of St Andrews
This battered paper and canvas poster is thought to be the oldest surviving periodic table wall chart. Found underneath a lecture theatre at St Andrew’s University (UK) in 2014, and featuring just 71 elements, the chart is thought to date from 1885 – just 16 years after Dmitry Mendeleev first published the iconic table. The university shared photos of the restored chart to mark the United Nations-designated “international year of the periodic table.”
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After studying biology at Imperial College London, I got my start in biomedical publishing as a commissioning editor for healthcare journals, and I’ve spent my career covering everything from early-stage research to clinical medicine.