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Berkeley Lab to lead US hunt for element 120 after breakdown of collaboration with Russia (www.chemistryworld.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is setting its sights on creating element 120 as part of a new US effort to discover the first elements in row eight of the periodic table. The move follows the breakdown of the US–Russian partnership, which had previously discovered the five heaviest elements, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just to add, some also theorize that new elements may turn out to be stable, sort of the reverse of how f-block elements are a bunch of unstable elements in the middle of more stable [d-block] ones. If that is indeed the case, we may find a lot more candidates to work with in, say, materials science.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

materials science.

Translation: military applications.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But also literally everything around us? Of my friends who went into materials sci/eng, two work in civil/commercial aerospace and one went to semiconductor.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago

So you're saying we could weaponise a stapler. Message received.