We’ve Got Two New Elements?

Good news, everyone! Your periodic tables are even more out of date now!

OK, maybe not, but ununquandium and ununhexium, elements 114 and 116, have been declared to have officially been discovered. By “discovered” we mean “created in a lab and lasting less than a second before turning into boring old previously discovered elements”, but, hey, at this end of the periodic table, molecular stability is as fleeting as Andy Dick’s dignity.

They don’t have official names yet: the discoverers, of course, get to name them as long as it’s not something the committee that decides these things think is “weird.” Personally, we hope our suggestions of “vanhalium” and “bonjovium” sneak past the board before they realize what’s happening.

[ via the elementals at 80beats ]

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