Bath High School Lima, OH – Scientists believe that they have created one of the missing elements on the periodic table, element 113. Element 113 is an atom that has 113 protons, meaning it must be created in a laboratory because it cannot be found in a natural environment. To create element 113, they had to collide zinc nuclei into a very thin layer of bismuth. Once created, it quickly decayed into different smaller elements such as 111 to 109 to 107 to 105 to 103 and finally to element 101. Some elements that are bigger than element 113 were created in the past couple of years. One example would be element 118, which is temporarily named ununoctium. It was discovered by a team of American and German scientists at Berkeley. All of the elements, with the exception of element 113, have been created by scientists in America, Russia or Germany. This will be Japan’s first element on the periodic table. Japan’s scientists at RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science have been working on this experiment for nine years. The lead researcher in this experiment, Kosuke Morita, said, “I would like to thank all the researchers and staff involved in this momentous result, who persevered with the belief that one day 113 would be ours. For our next challenge, we look to the uncharted territory of element 119 and beyond.” Morita also said that a weight has been lifted from their shoulders. I would like to congratulate them on their most recent discovery and wish them luck in their future element creations.   Original post on hsj.org →   Comments on reddit.com →