Question: what is tantalum?

Monique Henson answered on 10 Nov 2015:

That’s a good question! I’m surprised no one else had asked that yet. I’ll be honest – I didn’t know for sure. I had an idea of what it might be, so I looked it up to check.

It’s an element (a metal in fact) that’s used in electronics, surgical tools and medical implants. From what I’ve read, it seems one of the most useful things about it is that it doesn’t do much. It doesn’t react with that many things and it isn’t really affected by bodily fluids, making it useful both in the lab and in medicine.