New Elements on Periodic Table get Names

                Time to rewrite the science textbooks: The periodic table has new names for four elements. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the gatekeeper to the periodic table, announced on 8 June the proposed names for elements 113, 115, 117 and 118: nihonium, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson. The new names for the four super-heavy radioactive elements will replace the seventh row’s placeholders of ununtarium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium.

                IUPAC officially recognized the elements in December and gave naming rights to teams of scientists from the US, Russia and Japan, who made the discoveries. The proposed names had to follow IUPAC rules and are available for public review. People have until November to object to the proposals. Nihonium, symbol Nh, was discovered by scientists at the Riken Institute in Japan. They are the first from Asia to earn the right to propose and addition to the table. The name comes from “Nihon,” which is one of the two Japanese words for Japan.

                A trio of research Institutions – the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, in Russia; Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee; and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California – were given the right to propose names for elements 115 and 117. Moscovium, symbol Mc, is named for Moscow, which is near the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.

                Tennessine, symbol Ts, gets its name from the state of Tennessee, where Oak Ridge National Laboratory is. After californium, it is second element named for one of the 50 states. Naming rights for element 118 went to the same Russian researchers and the Americans from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. They selected Oganeson, symbol Og, for Yuri Oganessian, who helped discover several super-heavy elements.