Vanadium

Day two of orientation was slightly more sedated, but it was still pretty overwhelming. I learned a lot more about the fellows today through a great exercise about something that could not be guessed from looking at us. The group contains an avid motorcyclist, a musician, and a "collage-er" among others. While I debated a few "mysteries" about myself, I finally decided to mention the blog! I expected people to ask me about the fun facts but unfortunately they didn't (I'm kind of bummed).

We received some pretty amazing tools for teaching today: a touch screen video camera and a MacBook Pro (don't let my dear sweet little Mac know - it'll be crushed). Though we have to return them to the University after four years, I am so excited to have them! It's amazing how fast a computer that is brand new goes. However, I remain loyal to little Mac who I am currently typing on :)

Off to Detroit tomorrow!


So I realized after the scandium post that we are moving into territories of elements that I haven't even heard about. For less common elements, I'll try to include a section about where these elements are found. After all, we both need to learn something cool from this blog!

Common Occurrences: Vanadium can be found in steel alloys which are used to make tools. You probably have vanadium at home if you own pliers or wrenches. If you're a super fancy craftsperson or carpenter and own router or cordless drill bits, those have vanadium too.

Fun Fact: Some animals have vanadium in their red blood cells instead of iron. This makes their blood red, blue, or green!