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Periodic Table Gets a New, Unnamed Element

koavf writes "More than a decade after experiments first produced a single atom of 'super-heavy' element 112, a team of German scientists has been credited with its discovery, but it has yet to be named. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has temporarily named the element ununbium, as 'ununbi' means 'one one two' in Latin; but the team now has the task of proposing its official name." Slashdotium? Taconium? Man, I shoulda gone into science so I could have named something sweet that kids have to memorize in classes.

2 of 461 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting Fact by Lord+Byron+II · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The natural abbreviation for Plutonium is Pl, which was free since Platinum uses Pt. One of the discoverers, Glenn Seaborg, thought it would be funny to submit it with the abbreviation Pu. He figured the joke would be noticed and the abbreviation changed, but it never happened.

  2. assuming a trend by spyrochaete · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Due to the atomic number 112 I recommend Fibonaccium, after the Fibonacci sequence which adds the 2 preceding numbers to find the next in sequence.