Element 115 Confirmed

Chemists in Sweden have replicated a ten-year-old Russian experiment and positively confirmed the existence of a new element with atomic number 115, informally referred to by the unofficial name ununpentium but to be formally named later by a committee from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

Triple-Bonded Boron

Scientists have created a crystal composed of the first stable triple chemical bond between two boron atoms, a bond previously only possible for two other nonmetal elements of carbon and nitrogen.

Names for New Elements

Names and symbols for three new elements added to the periodic table -- elements 110, 111 and 112, named darmstadtium (Ds), roentgenium (Rg) and copernicium (Cn), respectively -- have been officially approved by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP).

Two New Elements Added

Scientists from the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) have officially added newly discovered elements 114 and 116 to the periodic table after a three-year review.

New Elements Added to Table

After a three-year review, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has added two new elements to the periodic table, temporarily designated only by their unofficial names of ununquadium (Uuq, 114) and ununhexium (Uuh, 116).

Element 117 Discovered

Russian and American scientists have created a mere six atoms of a new heavy element with atomic number 117, for now named "ununseptium" and awaiting confirmation from other laboratories.

Element 114 Confirmed

A group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have confirmed the production of two isotopes of the new superheavy element 114 ten years after a Russian team first produced the new man-made element.

New Element Named Copernicum

Discovered 13 years ago, the 112th element has been formally named Coperniucum (Cp) after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and officially added to the periodic table.

New Form of Elemental Boron Discovered

Researchers at Stony Brook University have discovered a new phase of elemental boron, created in the laboratory under extremely high pressures.

The new phase of boron is stable at high temperatures and at pressures as great as 100,000 times atmospheric pressure. The atomic structure of this phase consists of two substructures stacked together, with a matrix of 12 spherical boron atoms that includes two-atom "dumbbell" pairs. The two substructures form ionic bonds, the first time this type of bond has been observed in structures consisting of only one element.

Developed independently in two different laboratories in 2004, scientists were unable to determine how or why this phase was created. Computational analysis using a specially developed algorithm allowed researchers to encode the crystal structure and allow the program to find the optimal arrangement, thus confirming the properties of the newly discovered material.

Three phases of boron were previously known, with some uncertainty about its naturally stable form. This fourth phase is not as hard as diamond but has better heat-resistant properties, which may lend itself to industrial applications.

This research was published online in the January 28th edition of Nature.

Source: New York Times