The deadly, life-giving and transient elements that make up group 15 of the periodic table

When you see the periodic table, what comes to mind? The pieces on a scrabble board? Maybe you think about your high school chemistry class. Maybe you think of the colorful table plastered on the wall of a lecture hall in college. Maybe you remember your favorite teacher setting something on fire in the front of the classroom. I am an assistant professor of chemistry at University of Richmond and when I hear the phrase “the periodic table,” I think about life.