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As my fellow science blogger and periodic table enthusiast Allison Loudermilk is out on maternity leave, I’ll have to be the one to blog about the latest development in the bagging and tagging of elements. We have a new one, folks — a super heavy, man-made metal with the temporary title of 112 or “ununbium,” which is Latin for 1-1-2.

In short, the new element is a synthetic fusing of zinc and lead nuclei, thus boasting their combined atomic weights (30 + 82 = 112).

The last officially named element was roentgenium (Rg) at position 111 in 2004, but we’ve known about 112 for roughly 13 years. According to an article in New Scientist, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has just now decided the element meets the conditions for official recognition. Talk about a tough club to get into.

As for naming the new element, the honor will fall to a team at the GSI Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany. Thus far, GSI leader Sigurd Hoffman has indicated that they’ll likely go the traditional route of naming the element after an important individual. So we probably won’t see a repeat of the controversies surrounding fruit fly researchers naming key genes such things as “I’m Not Dead Yet,” “Cheap Date” and “Groucho Marx.” Seriously, read more about the genetic naming controversy here. Not everyone has a sense of humor about science.

Reading about all this, I can’t help but be reminded of this fantastically nonsensical “Table of Transitional Elements” from the amazing BBC science spoof “Look Around You.”

Who can tell me the atomic weights for fool’s gold (FAu), light (Lt) and goofinium (Gu)?

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