Book excerpt: Biochemistry of Scandium and Yttrium gathers together existing knowledge about scandium and yttrium from a wide variety of disciplines. Part 1 will present a comparative study of the physical and chemical properties of scandium and yttrium, looking at both their similarities and their differences. (Part 2 will address the biochemical aspects of these two elements, and the various medical and environmental applications.) While these elements are relatively rare in nature, these books will show that they have unusual physical and chemical properties, and a disproportionate number of important applications. Improved analytical techniques have revealed that scandium and yttrium are present throughout living matter, even though only a relatively limited number of species have been analyzed so far. This fact of course has far-ranging implications for biological and environmental concerns. Part 1 also contains a discussion of the interactions of scandium and yttrium with molecules of biological interest, such as organic acids, carbohydrates, proteins, nucleotides, and other biologically active molecules. The major impacts of scandium and yttrium in science, technology, and medicine will be of interest to a wide variety of researchers, including geochemists, inorganic and organic chemists, clinical biochemists, and those specializing in environmental protection. Biochemistry of Scandium and Yttrium, Part 1 and Part 2 will be especially welcome because the last book published on the biochemistry of scandium appeared over 20 years ago, and the only book mentioning the biochemistry of yttrium came out in 1990.