Periodic Table

Russian physicists have for the first time created atoms of the super-heavy element 117, filling a gap in the periodic table and providing further evidence that research is close to reaching a predicted "island of stability" of heavy elements that will persist more than a fraction of a second. The same team at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, had previously reported the production of elements 116 and 118, but the element between them, 117, had proved more difficult and its production eventually required the assistance of American researchers.

Call it Extreme Makeover: Chemistry Edition. That imposing, yellowing chart gracing the walls of every science classroom is about to get an update. The adjustments planned for the Periodic Table of the Elements will more accurately reflect the true nature of 10 kinds of atoms ? carbon, nitrogen and oxygen among them ? that play a key role in such real-world issues as detecting counterfeit food, tracing pollutants in rivers and nailing baseball players sneaking steroids. The Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights at the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has decided the time has come to ensure that the figures listed on the official Table of Standard Atomic Weights properly indicate the variability that exists in nature.

A super-heavy chemical element numbered 112 will soon be officially included in the periodic table, German researchers said. A team in the southwest German city of Darmstadt first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 130-yard-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target. The zinc and lead nuclei fused to form the nucleus of the new element. "The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table," the scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research said in a statement.

Russian physicists have for the first time created atoms of the super-heavy element 117, filling a gap in the periodic table and providing further evidence that research is close to reaching a predicted "island of stability" of heavy elements that will persist more than a fraction of a second. The same team at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, had previously reported the production of elements 116 and 118, but the element between them, 117, had proved more difficult and its production eventually required the assistance of American researchers.

Russian scientists have created element 114 and, true to predictions, it is more stable than those immediately before it in the periodic table, according to a news report in the Jan. 22 Science. Physicists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna shot ions of calcium-48 at plutonium-244 to produce the new element, which has a molecular weight of 289. The new element decays with a half-life of 30 seconds into element 112 which, by contrast, has a half-life of only 28 milliseconds.

A bitter international controversy has broken out over the time-honored right of discoverers to name their finds. These aren't explorers claiming new territory for the homeland. They're an elite cadre of American and European scientists who seek out new elements, the chemical units that make up everything in the universe. The evolving drama involves sex discrimination, geographic illiteracy and political horse-trading.

Call it Extreme Makeover: Chemistry Edition. That imposing, yellowing chart gracing the walls of every science classroom is about to get an update. The adjustments planned for the Periodic Table of the Elements will more accurately reflect the true nature of 10 kinds of atoms ? carbon, nitrogen and oxygen among them ? that play a key role in such real-world issues as detecting counterfeit food, tracing pollutants in rivers and nailing baseball players sneaking steroids. The Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Atomic Weights at the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has decided the time has come to ensure that the figures listed on the official Table of Standard Atomic Weights properly indicate the variability that exists in nature.

Edwin E. Salpeter, 83, an astrophysicist whose work in the "Salpeter-Bethe equation" showed how helium changes to carbon, died of leukemia Tuesday at his home in Ithaca, N.Y., according to Cornell University, where he had been a professor emeritus of physical sciences. Salpeter attended Cornell in 1949 as a postdoctoral student and spent his career there. In 1951, he and Cornell theoretical physicist Hans Bethe, winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize in physics, introduced an equation showing how helium nuclei fuse to form carbon in the interiors of ancient stars.

The roar of approval that greeted the final bows in "Tomfoolery" at the Gem Theatre on opening night Friday was not only rare but well deserved. Wild hurrahs, coming as they did from middle-of-the-road playgoers rather than opera buffs who have a tendency to rave, guarantee that word-of-mouth on this show will be better than it has been for anything the Grove Theatre Co. has done all season. Not that previous offerings, such as the critically underrated "Requiem for a Heavyweight," haven't deserved popularity; nor that its perennial holiday favorite, "A Child's Christmas in Wales," hasn't drawn predictable "oohs" and "aahs."

It's been a rough week. A few days ago, at UCLA's Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, 6-year-old Jani toppled a food cart and was confined to her room. She slammed her head against the floor, opening a bloody cut that sent her into hysterics. Later, she kicked the hospital therapy dog. Jani normally likes animals. But most of her animal friends -- cats, rats, dogs and birds -- are phantoms that only she can see. January Schofield has schizophrenia. Potent psychiatric drugs -- in doses that would stagger most adults -- seem to skip off her. She is among the rarest of the rare: a child seemingly born mentally ill. She suffers from delusions, hallucinations and paroxysms of rage so severe that not even her parents feel safe.

There's a new element officially in town and its name is copernicium, after the 16th-century Polish scientist Nicholas Copernicus. It is element 112 and its symbol is Cn. Copernicium, a heavier relative of zinc, cadmium and mercury, was first seen in 1996 by researchers at the Society for Heavy Ions Research in Darmstadt, Germany, after they bombarded a lead target with zinc ions. It took the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which regulates nomenclature, nearly 14 years to resolve disputes between the Germans and American researchers over who was first to produce the new element, but the agency reported in the March issue of the journal Pure and Applied Chemistry that the Germans had priority and are thus entitled to propose a name.

A super-heavy chemical element numbered 112 will soon be officially included in the periodic table, German researchers said. A team in the southwest German city of Darmstadt first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 130-yard-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target. The zinc and lead nuclei fused to form the nucleus of the new element. "The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table," the scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research said in a statement.

Edwin E. Salpeter, 83, an astrophysicist whose work in the "Salpeter-Bethe equation" showed how helium changes to carbon, died of leukemia Tuesday at his home in Ithaca, N.Y., according to Cornell University, where he had been a professor emeritus of physical sciences. Salpeter attended Cornell in 1949 as a postdoctoral student and spent his career there. In 1951, he and Cornell theoretical physicist Hans Bethe, winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize in physics, introduced an equation showing how helium nuclei fuse to form carbon in the interiors of ancient stars.

Russian scientists have created element 114 and, true to predictions, it is more stable than those immediately before it in the periodic table, according to a news report in the Jan. 22 Science. Physicists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna shot ions of calcium-48 at plutonium-244 to produce the new element, which has a molecular weight of 289. The new element decays with a half-life of 30 seconds into element 112 which, by contrast, has a half-life of only 28 milliseconds.

The name Acoustic Alchemy proved (again) a half-truth Thursday at the Galaxy Concert Theatre. Guitarists Greg Carmichael and Nick Webb play acoustic instruments, and the blend of their sounds does make for an almost magic melding. But other facets of the four-piece band are neither acoustic nor magical. If this seems like petty quibbling over semantics, well, it is. The truth is that Acoustic Alchemy has tightened and toughened its sound over the course of eight albums.

A bitter international controversy has broken out over the time-honored right of discoverers to name their finds. These aren't explorers claiming new territory for the homeland. They're an elite cadre of American and European scientists who seek out new elements, the chemical units that make up everything in the universe. The evolving drama involves sex discrimination, geographic illiteracy and political horse-trading.

There's a new element officially in town and its name is copernicium, after the 16th-century Polish scientist Nicholas Copernicus. It is element 112 and its symbol is Cn. Copernicium, a heavier relative of zinc, cadmium and mercury, was first seen in 1996 by researchers at the Society for Heavy Ions Research in Darmstadt, Germany, after they bombarded a lead target with zinc ions. It took the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which regulates nomenclature, nearly 14 years to resolve disputes between the Germans and American researchers over who was first to produce the new element, but the agency reported in the March issue of the journal Pure and Applied Chemistry that the Germans had priority and are thus entitled to propose a name.

How many different arts events are available to cap any given summer night in Los Angeles? Trying to calculate this is like chasing the elusive last numeral in the pi equation, or investigating just how many different unused endings were conceived for "Sliver": One begins to feel like a novice astronomer confronted by the sheer magnitude.