Earthquakes: Water as a lubricant

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — Geophysicists from Potsdam have established a mode of action that can explain the irregular distribution of strong earthquakes at the San Andreas Fault in California. As the science magazine "Nature" reports in its latest issue, the scientists examined the electrical conductivity of the rocks at great depths, which is closely related to the water content within the rocks. From the pattern of electrical conductivity and seismic activity they were able to deduce that rock water acts as a lubricant.

Los Angeles moves toward San Francisco at a pace of about six centimeters per year, because the Pacific plate with Los Angeles is moving northward, parallel to the North American plate which hosts San Francisco. But this is only the average value. In some areas, movement along the fault is almost continuous, while other segments are locked until they shift abruptly several meters against each other releasing energy in strong earthquakes. After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the plates had moved by six meters.

The San Andreas Fault acts like a seam of the Earth, ranging through the entire crust and reaching into the mantle. Geophysicists from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences have succeeded in imaging this interface to great depths and to establish a connection between processes at depth and events at surface. "When examining the image of the electrical conductivity, it becomes clear that rock water from depths of the upper mantle, i.e. between 20 to 40 km, can penetrate the shallow areas of the creeping section of the fault, while these fluids are detained in other areas beneath an impermeable layer," says Dr. Oliver Ritter of the GFZ. "A sliding of the plates is supported, where fluids can rise."

These results suggest that significant differences exist in the mechanical and material properties along the fault at depth. The so-called tremor signals, for instance, appear to be linked to areas underneath the San Andreas Fault, where fluids are trapped. Tremors are low-frequency vibrations that are not associated with rupture processes as they are typical of normal earthquakes. These observations support the idea that fluids play an important role in the onset of earthquakes.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Michael Becken, Oliver Ritter, Paul A. Bedrosian, Ute Weckmann. Correlation between deep fluids, tremor and creep along the central San Andreas fault. Nature, 2011; 480 (7375): 87 DOI: 10.1038/nature10609

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here

Read More

Abrupt permafrost thaw increases climate threat, experts say

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — As the Arctic warms, greenhouse gases will be released from thawing permafrost faster and at significantly higher levels than previous estimates, according to survey results from 41 international scientists published in the Nov. 30 issue of the journal Nature.

Permafrost thaw will release approximately the same amount of carbon as deforestation, say the authors, but the effect on climate will be 2.5 times bigger because emissions include methane, which has a greater effect on warming than carbon dioxide.

The survey, led by University of Florida researcher Edward Schuur and University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student Benjamin Abbott, asked climate experts what percentage of the surface permafrost is likely to thaw, how much carbon will be released and how much of that carbon will be methane. The authors estimate that the amount of carbon released by 2100 will be 1.7 to 5.2 times larger than reported in recent modeling studies, which used a similar warming scenario.

"The larger estimate is due to the inclusion of processes missing from current models and new estimates of the amount of organic carbon stored deep in frozen soils," Abbott said. "There's more organic carbon in northern soils than there is in all living things combined; it's kind of mind boggling."

Northern soils hold around 1,700 billion gigatons of organic carbon, around four times more than all the carbon ever emitted by modern human activity and twice as much as is now in the atmosphere, according to the latest estimate. When permafrost thaws, organic material in the soil decomposes and releases gases such as methane and carbon dioxide.

"In most ecosystems organic matter is concentrated only in the top meter of soils, but when arctic soils freeze and thaw the carbon can work its way many meters down, said Abbott, who studies how carbon is released from collapsed landscapes called thermokarsts -- a process not accounted for in current models. Until recently that deep carbon was not included in soil inventories and it still is not accounted for in most climate models.

"We know about a lot of processes that will affect the fate of arctic carbon, but we don't yet know how to incorporate them into climate models," Abbott said. "We're hoping to identify some of those processes and help the models catch up."

Most large-scale models assume that permafrost warming depends on how much the air above the permafrost is warming. Missing from the models, say the authors, are processes such as the effects of abrupt thawing that can melt an ice wedge, result in collapsed ground and accelerate additional thawing.

"This survey is part of the scientific process, what we think is going to happen in the future, and how we come up with testable hypotheses for future research," Schurr said. "Our survey outlines the additional risk to society caused by thawing of the frozen North and the need to reduce fossil fuel use and deforestation."

By integrating data from previous models with expert predictions the authors hope to provide a frame of reference for scientists studying all aspects of climate change.

"Permafrost carbon release is not going to overshadow fossil fuel emissions as the main driver of climate change" said Schuur, "but it is an important amplifier of climate change."

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Edward A. G. Schuur, Benjamin Abbott. Climate change: High risk of permafrost thaw. Nature, 2011; 480 (7375): 32 DOI: 10.1038/480032a

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here

Read More

Archaeologists find new evidence of animals being introduced to prehistoric Caribbean

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2011) — An archaeological research team from North Carolina State University, the University of Washington and University of Florida has found one of the most diverse collections of prehistoric non-native animal remains in the Caribbean, on the tiny island of Carriacou. The find contributes to our understanding of culture in the region before the arrival of Columbus, and suggests Carriacou may have been more important than previously thought.

The researchers found evidence of five species that were introduced to Carriacou from South America between 1,000 and 1,400 years ago. Only one of these species, the opossum, can still be found on the island. The other species were pig-like peccaries, armadillos, guinea pigs and small rodents called agoutis.

Researchers think the animals were used as sources of food. The scarcity of the remains, and the few sites where they were found, indicate that the animals were not for daily consumption. "We suspect that they may have been foods eaten by people of high status, or used in ritual events," says Dr. Scott Fitzpatrick, an associate professor of anthropology at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research.

"Looking for patterning in the distribution of animal remains in relation to where ritual artifacts and houses are found will help to test this idea," said Christina Giovas, lead author and a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington.

The team, which also included Ph.D. student Michelle LeFebvre of the University of Florida, found the animal remains at two different sites on the island, and used carbon dating techniques to determine their age. The opossum and agouti were the most common, with the latter remains reflecting the longest presence, running from A.D. 600 to 1400. The guinea pig remains had the shortest possible time-frame, running from A.D. 985 to 1030.

These dates are consistent with similar findings on other Caribbean islands. However, while these species have been found on other islands, it is incredibly rare for one island to have remains from all of these species. Guinea pigs, for example, were previously unknown in this part of the Caribbean. The diversity is particularly surprising, given that Carriacou is one of the smallest settled islands in the Caribbean, though the number of remains is still not that large -- a pattern seen on other islands as well.

This combination of small geographical area and robust prehistoric animal diversity, along with evidence for artifact trade with other islands and South America, suggests that Carriacou may have had some significance in the pre-Columbian Caribbean as a nexus of interaction between island communities.

The animal remains are also significant because they were found in archaeological digs at well-documented prehistoric villages -- and the remains themselves were dated, as opposed to just the materials (such as charcoal) found near the remains.

"The fact that the dates established by radiocarbon dating are consistent with the dates of associated materials from the villages means the chronology is well established," says Fitzpatrick, who has been doing research on Carriacou since 2003. "In the future we'd like to expand one of the lesser excavated sites to get more information on how common these species may have been, which could shed light on the ecological impact and social importance of these species prehistorically."

The paper, "New records for prehistoric introduction of Neotropical mammals to the West Indies: evidence from Carriacou, Lesser Antilles," is published online in the Journal of Biogeography and was co-authored by Fitzpatrick, Giovas and LeFebvre. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, NC State, the University of Washington and the University of Florida.

NC State's Department of Sociology and Anthropology is part of the university's College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by North Carolina State University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Christina M. Giovas, Michelle J. LeFebvre, Scott M. Fitzpatrick. New records for prehistoric introduction of Neotropical mammals to the West Indies: evidence from Carriacou, Lesser Antilles. Journal of Biogeography, 2011; DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2011.02630.x

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here

Read More

Magnetic pole reversal happens all the (geologic) time

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — Scientists understand that Earth's magnetic field has flipped its polarity many times over the millennia. In other words, if you were alive about 800,000 years ago, and facing what we call north with a magnetic compass in your hand, the needle would point to 'south.' This is because a magnetic compass is calibrated based on Earth's poles. The N-S markings of a compass would be 180 degrees wrong if the polarity of today's magnetic field were reversed. Many doomsday theorists have tried to take this natural geological occurrence and suggest it could lead to Earth's destruction. But would there be any dramatic effects? The answer, from the geologic and fossil records we have from hundreds of past magnetic polarity reversals, seems to be 'no.'

Reversals are the rule, not the exception. Earth has settled in the last 20 million years into a pattern of a pole reversal about every 200,000 to 300,000 years, although it has been more than twice that long since the last reversal. A reversal happens over hundreds or thousands of years, and it is not exactly a clean back flip. Magnetic fields morph and push and pull at one another, with multiple poles emerging at odd latitudes throughout the process. Scientists estimate reversals have happened at least hundreds of times over the past three billion years. And while reversals have happened more frequently in "recent" years, when dinosaurs walked Earth a reversal was more likely to happen only about every one million years.

Sediment cores taken from deep ocean floors can tell scientists about magnetic polarity shifts, providing a direct link between magnetic field activity and the fossil record. Earth's magnetic field determines the magnetization of lava as it is laid down on the ocean floor on either side of the Mid-Atlantic Rift where the North American and European continental plates are spreading apart. As the lava solidifies, it creates a record of the orientation of past magnetic fields much like a tape recorder records sound. The last time that Earth's poles flipped in a major reversal was about 780,000 years ago, in what scientists call the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal. The fossil record shows no drastic changes in plant or animal life. Deep ocean sediment cores from this period also indicate no changes in glacial activity, based on the amount of oxygen isotopes in the cores. This is also proof that a polarity reversal would not affect the rotation axis of Earth, as the planet's rotation axis tilt has a significant effect on climate and glaciation and any change would be evident in the glacial record.

Earth's polarity is not a constant. Unlike a classic bar magnet, or the decorative magnets on your refrigerator, the matter governing Earth's magnetic field moves around. Geophysicists are pretty sure that the reason Earth has a magnetic field is because its solid iron core is surrounded by a fluid ocean of hot, liquid metal. This process can also be modeled with supercomputers. Ours is, without hyperbole, a dynamic planet. The flow of liquid iron in Earth's core creates electric currents, which in turn create the magnetic field. So while parts of Earth's outer core are too deep for scientists to measure directly, we can infer movement in the core by observing changes in the magnetic field. The magnetic north pole has been creeping northward -- by more than 600 miles (1,100 km) -- since the early 19th century, when explorers first located it precisely. It is moving faster now, actually, as scientists estimate the pole is migrating northward about 40 miles per year, as opposed to about 10 miles per year in the early 20th century.

Another doomsday hypothesis about a geomagnetic flip plays up fears about incoming solar activity. This suggestion mistakenly assumes that a pole reversal would momentarily leave Earth without the magnetic field that protects us from solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun. But, while Earth's magnetic field can indeed weaken and strengthen over time, there is no indication that it has ever disappeared completely. A weaker field would certainly lead to a small increase in solar radiation on Earth -- as well as a beautiful display of aurora at lower latitudes -- but nothing deadly. Moreover, even with a weakened magnetic field, Earth's thick atmosphere also offers protection against the sun's incoming particles.

The science shows that magnetic pole reversal is -- in terms of geologic time scales -- a common occurrence that happens gradually over millennia. While the conditions that cause polarity reversals are not entirely predictable -- the north pole's movement could subtly change direction, for instance -- there is nothing in the millions of years of geologic record to suggest that any of the 2012 doomsday scenarios connected to a pole reversal should be taken seriously. A reversal might, however, be good business for magnetic compass manufacturers.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here

Read More

Fully printed carbon nanotube transistor circuits for displays

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) — Since the invention of liquid crystal displays in the mid-1960s, display electronics have undergone rapid transformation. Recently developed organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have shown several advantages over LCDs, including their light weight, flexibility, wide viewing angles, improved brightness, high power efficiency and quick response.

OLED-based displays are now used in cell phones, digital cameras and other portable devices. But developing a lower-cost method for mass-producing such displays has been complicated by the difficulties of incorporating thin-film transistors that use amorphous silicon and polysilicon into the production process.

Now, researchers from Aneeve Nanotechnologies, a startup company at UCLA's on-campus technology incubator at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), have used low-cost ink-jet printing to fabricate the first circuits composed of fully printed back-gated and top-gated carbon nanotube-based electronics for use with OLED displays. 

The startup includes collaborators from the departments of materials science and electrical engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and the department of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California.

In this innovative study, the team made carbon nanotube thin-film transistors with high mobility and a high on-off ratio, completely based on ink-jet printing. They demonstrated the first fully printed single-pixel OLED control circuits, and their fully printed thin-film circuits showed significant performance advantages over traditional organic-based printed electronics.

"This is the first practical demonstration of carbon nanotube-based printed circuits for display backplane applications," said Kos Galatsis, an associate adjunct professor of materials science at UCLA Engineering and a co-founder of Aneeve. "We have demonstrated carbon nanotubes' viable candidacy as a competing technology alongside amorphous silicon and metal-oxide semiconductor solution as a low-cost and scalable backplane option."

This distinct process utilizes an ink-jet printing method that eliminates the need for expensive vacuum equipment and lends itself to scalable manufacturing and roll-to-roll printing. The team solved many material integration problems, developed new cleaning processes and created new methods for negotiating nano-based ink solutions.

For active-matrix OLED applications, the printed carbon nanotube transistors will be fully integrated with OLED arrays, the researchers said. The encapsulation technology developed for OLEDs will also keep the carbon nanotube transistors well protected, as the organics in OLEDs are very sensitive to oxygen and moisture.

The technology incubator at the CNSI was established two years ago to nurture early-stage research and to help speed the commercial translation of technologies developed at UCLA. Aneeve Nanotechnologies LLC has been conducting proof-of-concept work at the tech incubator with the mission of developing superior, low-cost, high-performance electronics using nanotechnology solutions that bridge the gap between emerging and traditional platforms.

The research was published this month in the journal Nano Letters.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Los Angeles.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Pochiang Chen, Yue Fu, Radnoosh Aminirad, Chuan Wang, Jialu Zhang, Kang Wang, Kosmas Galatsis, Chongwu Zhou. Fully Printed Separated Carbon Nanotube Thin Film Transistor Circuits and Its Application in Organic Light Emitting Diode Control. Nano Letters, 2011; : 111122151948003 DOI: 10.1021/nl202765b

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here

Read More

Cancer cells' DNA repair disrupted to increase radiation sensitivity

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2011) — Shortening end caps on chromosomes in human cervical cancer cells disrupts DNA repair signaling, increases the cells' sensitivity to radiation treatment and kills them more quickly, according to a study in Cancer Prevention Research.

Researchers would to like see their laboratory findings -- published in the journal's Dec. 5 print edition -- lead to safer, more effective combination therapies for hard-to-treat pediatric brain cancers like medulloblastoma and high-grade gliomas. To this end, they are starting laboratory tests on brain cancer cells.

"Children with pediatric brain cancers don't have very many options because progress to find new treatments has been limited the last 30 years," said Rachid Drissi, PhD, principal investigator on the study and a researcher in the Division of Oncology at Cincinnati Children's. "The ability to make cancer cells more sensitive to radiation could allow physicians to use lower radiation doses to lessen side effects. Too many children with brain cancer can develop disabilities or die from treatment."

Before treating cells with ionizing radiation, the researchers blocked an enzyme called telomerase, found in over 90 percent of cancer cells but barely detectable in most normal human cells. In cancer cells, telomerase helps maintain the length of caps on the ends of chromosomes called telomeres. This helps cancer cells replicate indefinitely, grow and spread, Drissi said.

Unraveling DNA stability

Found on chromosomes in both cancerous and normal cells, telomeres are analogous to plastic caps that keep shoestring ends from unraveling. Telomeres help preserve DNA stability in cells by containing genetic miscues. This helps explain why cells with maintained or long telomeres appear to be more resistant to radiation.

In normal cells lacking the telomerase enzyme, telomeres get shorter each time cells divide. They continue doing so until normal cells stop dividing, reaching a condition called senescence. If this first cell-cycle "stop sign" is bypassed, cells continue dividing until telomeres become critically short and reach a second stopping point, when most cells die. In rare instances, cells bypass this second "stop sign" and survive. This survival is often associated with telomerase activation and the onset of cancer.

This was the basis for experiments Drissi and his colleagues conducted to compare the radiation sensitivity and survivability of cells based on telomere length. They also monitored DNA repair responses in the cells by looking for specific biochemical signs that indicate whether the repair systems are working.

The tests involved normal human foreskin cells -- called fibroblasts -- and human cervical carcinoma cells. They exposed the cells to ionizing radiation and analyzed DNA repair responses as telomeres became progressively shorter. In the cervical cancer cells, researchers blocked the telomerase enzyme before radiation treatment to induce progressively shorter telomeres.

Both late-stage noncancerous cells with shorter telomeres, and cancer cells with induced shorter telomeres, were more radiosensitive and died more quickly, according to the study.

Among cancer cells with maintained telomere length, close to 10 percent receiving the maximum dose of ionizing radiation used in the study (8 Gy, or Gray Units) survived the treatment. None of the cancer cells with the shortest telomeres survived that exposure.

Researchers said the cancer cells became more radiosensitive because material inside the chromosomes -- called chromatin -- compacted as telomeres became shorter. Compacted chromatin then disrupted the biochemical signaling of a protein called ATM (ataxiatelangeietasia mutated).

ATM is a master regulator of DNA repair and cell division. It sends signals to activate other biochemical targets (H2AX, SMC1, NBS1 and p53) that help direct DNA repair and preserve genetic stability. In telomere-shortened cancer cells, the compacted chromatin inhibited ATM signaling to all of the chromatin-bound targets tested in the study. This disrupted DNA repair responses and increased radiation sensitivity.

Testing brain cancer cells

The researchers are now testing their findings in cells from hard-to-treat pediatric brain tumors. These tests begin as Drissi's laboratory also leads correlative cancer biology studies of tumor samples from a current clinical trial. The trial is evaluating telomere shortening as a stand-alone therapy for pediatric cancer.

Managed through the National Institutes of Health's Children's Oncology Group (COG), the multi-institutional Phase 1 trial is testing the safety and tumor response capabilities of the drug Imetelstat, which blocks telomerase in cancer cells. Drissi serves on the clinical trial committee along with Maryam Fouladi, MD, MSc, and medical director of Neuro-Oncology at Cincinnati Children's. She leads the medical center's clinical participation in the trial.

Drissi and Fouladi are starting preparatory work to develop, and seek approvals for, a possible clinical trial to test telomere shortening and radiation treatment as a safer, more effective treatment for pediatric brain tumors.

Funding support for the current study in Cancer Prevention Research -- published by the American Society for Cancer Research -- came from the National Institutes of Health, the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Also collaborating were researchers from Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and from St. Jude. Funding support for the Drissi lab's correlative studies on the COG clinical trial comes from CancerFree Kids Pediatric Cancer Research Alliance and from Children's Cancer Research Fund.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

R. Drissi, J. Wu, Y. Hu, C. A. Bockhold, J. S. Dome. Telomere shortening alters the kinetics of the DNA damage response after ionizing radiation in human cells. Cancer Prevention Research, 2011; DOI: 10.1158/1940-6207.CAPR-11-0069

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here

Read More

Scientists propose new names for elements 114 and 116

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2011) — The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) have recommended new proposed names for elements 114 and 116, the latest heavy elements to be added to the periodic table.

Scientists of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)-Dubna collaboration proposed the names as Flerovium for element 114 and Livermorium for element 116.

In June 2011, the IUPAC officially accepted elements 114 and 116 as the heaviest elements, more than 10 years after scientists from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and Lawrence Livermore chemists discovered them.

Flerovium (atomic symbol Fl) was chosen to honor Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, where superheavy elements, including element 114, were synthesized. Georgiy N. Flerov (1913-1990) was a renowned physicist who discovered the spontaneous fission of uranium and was a pioneer in heavy-ion physics. He is the founder of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. In 1991, the laboratory was named after Flerov -- Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions (FLNR).

Livermorium (atomic symbol Lv) was chosen to honor Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the city of Livermore, Calif. A group of researchers from the Laboratory, along with scientists at the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, participated in the work carried out in Dubna on the synthesis of superheavy elements, including element 116. (Lawrencium -- Element 103 -- was already named for LLNL's founder E.O. Lawrence.)

In 1989, Flerov and Ken Hulet (1926-2010) of LLNL established collaboration between scientists at LLNL and scientists at FLNR; one of the results of this long-standing collaboration was the synthesis of elements 114 and 116.

"Proposing these names for the elements honors not only the individual contributions of scientists from these laboratories to the fields of nuclear science, heavy element research, and superheavy element research, but also the phenomenal cooperation and collaboration that has occurred between scientists at these two locations," said Bill Goldstein, associate director of LLNL's Physical and Life Sciences Directorate.

LLNL scientists Ken Moody, Dawn Shaughnessy, Jackie Kenneally and Mark Stoyer were critical members of the team along with a team of retired LLNL scientists including John Wild, Ron Lougheed and Jerry Landrum. Former LLNL scientists Nancy Stoyer, Carola Gregorich, Jerry Landrum, Joshua Patin and Philip Wilk also were on the team. The research was supported by LLNL Laboratory Research and Development funds (LDRD).

Scientists at LLNL have been involved in heavy element research since the Laboratory's inception in 1952 and have been collaborators in the discovery of six elements -- 113,114,115,116,117 and 118.

Livermore also has been at the forefront of investigations into other areas related to nuclear science such as cross-section measurements, nuclear theory, radiochemical diagnostics of laser-induced reactions, separations chemistry including rapid automated aqueous separations, actinide chemistry, heavy-element target fabrication, and nuclear forensics.

The creation of elements 116 and 114 involved smashing calcium ions (with 20 protons each) into a curium target (96 protons) to create element 116. Element 116 decayed almost immediately into element 114. The scientists also created element 114 separately by replacing curium with a plutonium target (94 protons).

The creation of elements 114 and 116 generate hope that the team is on its way to the "island of stability," an area of the periodic table in which new heavy elements would be stable or last long enough for applications to be found.

The new names were submitted to the IUPAC in late October and now remain in the public domain. The new names will not be official until about five months from now when the public comment period is over.

Recommend this story on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:

Other bookmarking and sharing tools:

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

View the original article here

Read More