Etruscan jewelry
The combination of metals was a basic technique. Essentially, there is no such thing as 24 carat gold jewelry. Massive gold is the most malleable metal. It is almost like wax. In order to have jewelry that can pass the test of time and gravity, the Etruscans had to combine their gold with other metals.
Sharpless epoxidation
Although it is the least reactive metal catalyst for epoxidations, vanadium is highly selective for alkenes with allylic alcohols. Early work done by Sharpless shows its preference for reacting with alkenes with allylic alcohols over more substituted electron dense alkenes. In this case, Vanadium showed reverse regioselectivity from both m-CPBA and the more reactive molybdenum species. Although vanadium is generally less reactive than other metal complexes, in the presence of allylic alcohols, the rate of the reaction is accelerated beyond that of molybdenum, the most reactive metal for epoxidations.