Image of the week - What’s Uub?

At the University of Nottingham, UK, researchers have created an up-to-the-minute Periodic Table that contains videos about each element and its creation. They even have the latest addition, with the tentative symbol “Uub.” Image courtesy University of Nottingham

There may soon be an addition to the periodic table: the “super-heavy” element 112, created by a team of German scientists at the Society for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, who used a linear particle accelerator to fire a beam of zinc ions at a target of lead atoms.

Nuclei of the two elements merged to form the nucleus of the highly unstable new element.

Its discovery had to be independently verified; so far only four atoms have ever been observed — but it has now been recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

The researchers have yet to come up with a name for their find, which is necessary for it to be  formally added to the table.

According to the science section of the BBC, a front-runner for the name of the new element is ununbium, from the Latin for the numeral “one one two.”

But people are still speculating on potential names.