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It's All About the Ununpentium
spitefulcrow writes "The New York Times is reporting that elements 113 and 115 have been created by a joint team of Russian and American scientists. The temporary names are ununtrium and ununpentium until the experiment has been duplicated and verified in another lab. According to the article, speculation has been made that 'Rather than being round, nuclei in that region and beyond could contain bubbles and have strange doughnut-like shapes'."
This is like the 3rd time we've heard this, and again the article says "pending verification" from other labs' experiment. I wish they'd hold off on the story until it really is verified independently, and we can all bask in the glory of the new elements... :)
As other posters have said, the point is that we learn more about the nucleus - we find out exactly what the half-lives of these nuclei are, etc. This info could have applications to reactors, weapons, energy sources, etc. But the main point is that we know more about the universe. And one never knows where applications will come from. Sometimes a seemingly pointless discovery has a lot of real-world consequences - superconductors, for example, have revolutionized sensor technology for medical scanners and such (though we still don't have them for power lines). Other times, the big result is the spinoffs you come up with along the way - the internet was invented as a way to coordinate particle physics experiments.
If it takes millions of dollars (in electricity bills) just to make a few atoms of Element 155, I don't think it will be a new energy source.
Take the case of a neutron star--it's made of extremely dense nuclear matter. As elements get heavier and heavier, they become better approximations of the environment of a neutron star.