And then there was Li

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From the origins of the universe, though batteries, glass and grease to influencing the working of our brains, neuroscientist Sophie Scott tracks the incredible power of lithium.

It's 200 years ago this year that lithium was first isolated and named, but this, the lightest of all metals, had been used as a drug for centuries before.

From the industrial revolution it proves its worth as a key ingredient in glass and grease, and as the major component in lithium ion batteries it powers every smartphone on the planet.

In mental health lithium has proved one of the most effective treatments. And its use to treat physical ailments is now making a comeback.

We explore how the chemistry of lithium links all these apparently unrelated uses together.

Main Image: Lights from mobile phones in Bucharest on February, 2017. Credit: ANDREI PUNGOVSCHI / AFP / Getty Images )

Transcript

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1:15.4	slash podcasts. Once they realized that lithium citrate is a mood stabilizing drug.
1:35.0	The reason we got interested in lithium being delivered from a glass is there was some
1:46.3	anecdotal evidence of people who were taking lithium as a drug orally that their knees got better.
1:53.0	And I had no idea that they would put as much computing capacity as we did in the ballroom in the 1950s into your shirt pocket
2:06.5	and be able to use the battery to power it and have a wireless revolution.
	...

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