Super-Heavy... Element 114

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090924163526.htm

This article talks about how a group of scientists from UC Berkeley have officially confirmed the existence of the element 114. This element falls into the group of radioactive elements which decay in a time period that is less than the age of the earth, the "super-heavy" group. This means that there are no naturally occurring traces of them. According to Russian scientists, they were previously able to produce element 114, but it was not officially documented. The Berkeley scientists were able to produce element 114 by using a device known as a Berkeley Gas-filled Separator, or BGS. The BGS is a giant tube that fires a extremely focused beam of ions at another target element. When the elements collide, hopefully they jam together and create an element who's atomic mass is equal to the sum of it's parts. In this case they used Calcium ions and a Plutonium isotope. The significance of this occurrence is that the scientists think that by using this process, they may be able to create elements that fall into the "super-heavy" group that they will be able to maintain for a longer period of time, meaning that they will be able to use these elements for new technologies and various other uses.

Posted by Will Black