2 New Elements Sit Down For Dinner @ the Periodic Table

Excerpt from “Two New Elements”

Thanks to Deanna Conners of EarthSky.org for this article

On May 31, 2012, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) approved the addition of flerovium and livermorium to the periodic table of elements.

The two new elements were discovered during collaborative research carried out by scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the United States and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia. An official announcement describing the two new elements will be published in the July 2012 issue of the IUPAC journal, Pure and Applied Chemistry.

Flerovium (atomic symbol Fl) is an element with an atomic number of 114 and an atomic weight of 289. The new element was named after Georgiy N. Flerov (1913 – 1990), a renowned physicist who founded the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia.

Livermorium (atomic symbol Lv) is an element with an atomic number of 116 and an atomic weight of 293. The new element was named in honor of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, USA.

Image Credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Flerovium and livermorium are both synthetic radioactive elements that do not occur naturally on Earth. The scientists were able to create and observe the elements in a laboratory by bombarding curium (96 protons) with calcium ions (20 protons). When curium was combined with calcium, livermorium (116 protons) was produced for a brief moment before it decayed into flerovium and other more stable elements.

Tammy Titan Bloom may happen Thursday June 14 or Friday June 15

  Tammy the Titan will bloom for “her” first time in the next few days at the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory http://greenhouse.ucdavis.edu/conservatory/index.html  (The blooming cycle only lasts about 36 hours)

Will be open till midnight on the night of the bloom June 14 or 15 (the afternoon that it opens and smells the strongest) since the center portion (spadix) will heat up 20deg F warmer than air temperature later that night to emit its odor!!  The best time to see it is after 5pm the day that it opens( and to smell it late that day and into the second day to experience it fully open but not stinky) and till 9pm on the second day (when the flower is fully open).  We’ll only be open on Saturday from 9am-4pm if the bloom opens on Thursday.

Visitation is free but of course we welcome donations and donor prospects!

Pictures from previous blooms can be seen at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/planthead667/collections/72157605648991761/