This is an ABC podcast.

A quick warning, this episode touches on the topic of suicide. Take care while listening.

That's fizzing, okay. Now it's smoking while fizzing?

I'm standing in a chemistry lab at Sydney University and I'm watching a small pea-sized

chunk of metal slowly disappear in a bowl of water.

It's bubbling away and it's moving around the surface of the water.

Yeah.

Just going to see if...

Like a Pac-Man.

It is a little bit like a Pac-Man.

Okay, so now it's just disappeared.

Our little pebble is completely gone, I think?

It's not banished. It's reacted. Right, okay. More accurate.

The substance we've made react, not disappear, is the lightest metal on Earth. It's got its origins

at the very beginnings of our universe, and it's taken in the form of a pill by thousands

of Australians every day. Oh, and it can be flammable, so stand back. So that was a relatively

small amount. If we had like a much bigger chunk, would we see like an explosion or what would

happen? I've never seen an explosion, because I'm a really super safe chemist, but if we had a really

large piece, it would react much more vigorously, produce much more hydrogen, and yet it

could set on fire.

That, by the way, is Associate Professor of Chemistry, Dr. Alice Motion.

And this mystery medal we're talking about, it's lithium. So lithium is one of the three elements that were first created in the Big Bang.

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