By Dr Justine Butler, VIVA!HEALTH
Until 1817, no one knew that selenium existed. But that year, Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius discovered a mineral similar to the element tellurium, which had been discovered in 1782 and named after the Latin word for earth ‘tellus’. Berzelius kept the celestial theme going and named his new discovery selenium, after ‘selene’, the Greek name for the moon.