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Chemist discovers new information about elemental boron Dalhousie chemistry researcher and Royal Society of Canada Fellow Dr. Mary Anne White led a team of researchers to new discoveries about boron (B), the fifth element in the periodic table. White's research, recently published in the highly regarded German chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, discovered which form of boron stable at room temperature. Before this work, it was unknown. Additionally, boron stands out among other elements because atoms in its stable form were found to be disorderly. Atomic positions in the stable structures of every other element are completely known and ordered in some way. "Boron's stable structure has disorder, and that was surprising to learn. Nature likes things more orderly," explains White, a professor with Dalhousie's Faculty of Science. "It is especially surprising that the disordered form remains stable at very low temperatures, where matter tends to become more