Quote (article)

A team of Russian and American scientists has discovered a new element that has long stood as a missing link among the heaviest bits of atomic matter ever produced. The element, still nameless, appears to point the way toward a brew of still more massive elements with chemical properties no one can predict.

The team produced six atoms of the element by smashing together isotopes of calcium and a radioactive element called berkelium in a particle accelerator about 75 miles north of Moscow on the Volga River, according to a paper that has been accepted for publication at the journal Physical Review Letters.

Data collected by the team seem to support what theorists have long suspected but so far failed to prove: that as newly created elements become heavier and heavier they will eventually become much more stable and longer-lived than the fleeting bits of artificially produced matter seen so far.

Quote (Lights_Warrior @ Apr 6 2010 11:17pm)

yay, another element to remember for chemistry class
lol

Quote (Nordon @ Apr 7 2010 03:26am)

It will take time for it to get into the classroom. It's not even named yet. Funny thing is, the creation of all those new elements and filling up the table isn't taking chemistry anywhere, as it is.

Quote (NYT)

Elements with briefer lifetimes
As researchers have artificially created heavier and heavier elements, those elements have had briefer and briefer lifetimes — the time it takes for unstable elements to decay by processes like spontaneous fission of the nucleus. Then, as the elements got still heavier, the lifetimes started climbing again, said Joseph Hamilton, a physicist at Vanderbilt on the team.

The reason may be that the elements are approaching a theorized “island of stability” at still higher masses, where the lifetimes could go from fractions of a second to days or even years, Dr. Hamilton said. He added that each new discovery was a crucial step toward that unknown region.

Quote (Nordon @ 7 Apr 2010 03:26)

It will take time for it to get into the classroom. It's not even named yet. Funny thing is, the creation of all those new elements and filling up the table isn't taking chemistry anywhere, as it is.

Quote (Nordon @ 7 Apr 2010 03:26)

It will take time for it to get into the classroom. It's not even named yet. Funny thing is, the creation of all those new elements and filling up the table isn't taking chemistry anywhere, as it is.