Periodic Table Gets 2 New Elements

Still unnamed, numbers 114 and 116 have been approved as chemical elements
By Sarah Whitmire,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 8, 2011 1:08 PM CDT
New Elements, Numbers 114 and 166, Officially Added to Periodic Table
It's a growing family--over the past 250 years, new elements have been added about once every 2.5 years on average.   (Shutterstock)

Two new chemical elements have been officially added to the periodic-table torment of high school kids everywhere. But as-yet-unnamed Nos. 114 and 116 aren’t like their new buddies carbon, gold, or zinc—they were created by slamming two lighter elements together in the hopes they’d stick, said a chair on the elements committee. As a result, 114 and 116 only exist for about a second before falling apart. That brings the total of known elements to 114, because elements 113 and 115 haven't been officially accepted yet, the chairman said.

The committee announced its decision last week, reports the AP. Now, scientists from the collaboration have been invited to submit names for the new elements for approval. For those who slept through chemistry, the numbers in the temporary name refer to the number of protons in the nucleus. New elements have been added to the table every few years for the past 250 years. (More periodic table stories.)

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