I'm a Scientist

Thallium is a chemical element with the symbol Tl and has the atomic number 81. It is greyish-white in colour which dulls when it is exposed to air. At room temperature, it is soft enough that you can cut it with a knife, like butter. Unlike butter, it’s highly toxic and the use of thallium in rat and ant killers was banned in the 1970s after lots of people were accidentally poisoned. One of the symptoms of thallium poisoning is hair loss, and it is so easily absorbed into the skin that if you hold it in your hands it can cause you to lose your fingernails!

This is a general science zone, with a mix of scientists from different backgrounds. You will meet a scientist who helps people make safe and healthy food choices, someone who creates brain cells to find out about how to help people with Alzheimer’s disease and a physicist who looks at black holes crashing together and eating stars. There is also a scientist who tests drugs to help people live longer, and one who studies how mitochondria, an important part of the cell, works.