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NEW YORK CITY -- Two new, though short-lived, elements have been added to the periodic table that so many remember from their school days. As now unnamed, they are known by the unofficial handles ununquadim and ununhexium.
There are only 92 elements stable enough to occur naturally, and the other 22 have been synthesized in labs across the world, including 114 and 116.
They were created by a joint team of scientists from Dubna, Russia and Lawrence Livermore, Calif. The team has also attempted to claim the creation of elements 113, 115, and 118.
However, the widely unknown group of scientists charged with determining the official existence of a new element only recognized 114 and 116.
This body, called the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, advocates for chemists around the world and promotes chemistry research, as well as recognizes elements, codified names of elements and chemical structures.
The chemical properties of these new elements is not well known as yet, because the life span of both of them is less than a second. This makes a robust analysis of their chemistry difficult.
However, research from 2007 indicates that 114 may have properties much like a noble gas, such as helium or neon, because of relativistic effects which are more pronounced in such "superheavy" elements. Element 116 is speculated to behave more like oxygen, sulfur, and selenium.
