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Periodic Table Table
Ed Pegg Jr writes "Theo Gray, a co-creator of Mathematica, was originally a chemist. Needing a conference table, he created a Periodic Table using a variety of woods." It seems Theo is missing some elements for the table, in case you have any spare europium (in a proper container, of course) lying about. This isn't Theo's first piece of furniture. It looks like he has left a few spots for new elements, and it is nicely modular, in the event an element is found not to exist.
Honestly, uranium, like any other element with a half-life in the billions of years really isn't all that dangerous, except in large quantities. He could put a small sample in, especially if he wrapped it with lead.
Interestingly enough, when I ran Uranium through dict, it came up with an entry from the 1913 Webster's dictionary discussing how a yellow oxide was used to tint glass (with the fluorescence an added bonus), and a black oxide used for porcelain. While that wasn't such a great idea, it shows how uranium isn't an instant kill; there are probably people still alive who used glass or porcelain with uranium in it.
That seriously depends on the construction techniques. An understanding of the way wood moves according to humidity and temperature changes can greatly aid a woodworker in engineering a piece of furniture that will last, regardless of the materials used. In this case, it appears that most of the various different type wood pieces used in his table are free to move around much like little cabinet doors that contain a gap to allow for wood movement. The one thing that concerns me about the design is the checkerboard pattern of drilled-out blocks that he uses for the tabletop. Because the pieces are so large, I'm not sure if the opposing shear forces wouldn't eventually force the blocks to separate.
This guy seems to have a set of tools that most professional woodworkers would love to have, including that nice little Wood-Mizer sawmill and an enormous shop. But the thing that makes me wonder about how accomplished a woodworker he is comes when you take notice of the time-stamps on the pictures. On 11-18-2000, there is a picture of him milling a log, presumably the one that he is going to use for the table. Then *two* days later, he is cutting and laying out pieces for the project! As most woodworkers know, this is a serious no-no, as freshly milled wood often needs many months of curing time. Even kiln-dried wood (which some regard as inferior), needs at least a week or so to adjust to the humidity conditions of a shop before you start working with it.
I'm not sure which time stamps you're looking at, but actually the log was cut over a year before being worked, and it was dried at least semi-properly. Also, that log was maple used only for the noble gas element tiles, not for the body of the table. The body of the table is walnut that was sawn in 1993 and actually kiln dried twice at the yard before I got it at auction. (Oh and by the way, the Wood-Mizer isn't mine, but I wish it were....)