Ununpentium

Ununpentium (think un-un-pentium) is the provisional name of element 115, whose discovery was claimed by Russian and American scientists in 2003.  Before such a discovery is accepted and the new element is allowed to be named, an independent research group has to verify the discovery.

I was interested to notice this article the other day, whose headline says that such independent verification now exists.  But I was really disappointed by the actual article which has almost no scientific details.

A little searching led me to this press release from the University of Lund in Sweden  http://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=24890&news_item=6082 whose researchers did the work. The release at least tells us that the new element is made by bombarding a film of americium (atomic number 95) with calcium ions (atomic number 20) and that the "fingerprint" observed are characteristic frequencies of x-rays emitted when the short lived ununpentium nuclei undergo alpha decay. The actual journal article is published in Physical Review Letters.

But the same search took me here http://www.beyondweird.com/element115.html and how can I not be happy to find a site describing "Element 115, the key to understanding how the ultra-secret "Black World" has created aircraft capable of manipulating gravity and space/time..." (More seriously, my point in mentioning this is to remind you that web sites have to be evaluated critically and that not all web sites are credible.)

Posted by Michael Fuson
Element 115, the key to understanding how the ultra-secret "Black World" has created aircraft capable of manipulating gravity and space/timeE
Element 115, the key to understanding how the ultra-secret "Black World" has created aircraft capable of manipulating gravity and space/timeElement 115, the key to understanding how the ultra-secret "Black World" has created aircraft capable of manipulating gravity and space/time, has been identified, and the recent discovery of element 118, which decayedlement 115, the key to understanding how the ultra-secret "Black World" has created aircraft capable of manipulating gravity and space/time, has been identified, and the recent discovery of element 118, which decayedElement 115, the key to understanding how the ultra-secret "Black World" has created aircraft capable of manipulating gravity and space/time, has been identified, and the recent discovery of element 118, which decayed