Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   4

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100
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
IRIDIUM (IR)
Th
  is element was the clue that cracked one of history’s biggest 
murder cases: What killed the dinosaurs? Turns out the layer of 
sediment laid down 65 million years ago—right on top of all 
the dino skeletons we excavate today—is full of iridium, rare 
on the surface of the Earth but intriguingly common in aster-
oids. Th
 is eff ectively put to rest a host of other extinction theo-
ries, ranging from a nearby supernova dissolving the atmosphere 
to a decrease in brain size, which, yielding very special dino-
saurs, made them more susceptible to predators.
TANTALUM (TA)
Its name was inspired by the mythical Greek Tantalus, who 
was condemned to stand for all eternity with perfect fruit 
growing just out of reach. Tantalum is similarly nonreactive 
and is used widely in making surgical equipment because of 
its immunity to corrosion by bodily fl uids.
RADIUM (RA)
Th
  is element’s soft blue luminescence earned it a name derived 
from the Latin word 
radius
 for “ray,” as in ray of light. For a 
while radium was used to paint glow-in-the-dark instrument 
panels and clock faces until the painters noticed that it seemed 
to kill them. In fact, despite prior warnings from radium dis-
coverer Marie Curie about not putting radioactive things in 
your mouth, the painters continued to shape their tiny brushes 
with their lips. Told you so!
POLONIUM (PO)
So, how many Polacks did it take to discover polonium? Just 
one: native daughter Marie Curie. Th
 e famous scientist 

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named it in 1898 for her then-beleaguered homeland, which 
was tangled in a web of fi ghting among Austria, Russia, and 
Germany. Speaking of tangled webs . . .
08
 Web-Based Trivia: 
Choice Pit Stops on the Information Superhighway
When Ray Tomlinson invented the software that allowed 
computers to send messages to one another in 1971—back 
when the Internet linked computers at just 15 sites—he could 
hardly have realized how signifi cant this new technology 
would be. But unlike other legendary fi rst communications 
(“Mr. Watson, come here; I want you” were Alexander Gra-
ham Bell’s fi rst words over a telephone), Tomlinson says his 
historic fi rst e-mail was “completely forgettable.” (He has, in 
fact, forgotten it.) His best guess: “Qwertyuiop.”
✖  ✖  ✖
Since the fi rst Web browser was disseminated in 1990, the 
number of registered Web sites on the Internet has grown 
exponentially—from  just  16,000  in  1992  to  more  than  50 
million in 2005. Th
  at, of course, explains why it’s become 
harder to fi nd an available domain name that makes any 
sense at all. Despite the many trillions of possible names for 
a Web site (that’s including all combinations of numbers and 
letters up to 22 characters in length), there are only so many 
English words. As of 2000, only about 1,700 one-word Eng-
lish domain names were still available. It’s just this kind of 
unfriendly math that’s given rise to “cybersquatting,” which 
is how Houston businessman Marc Ostrofsky bought the do-
main  “business.com”  for  $150,000  in  1996  and  sold  it  for