Boffins lay bare exotic Lara Croft meteorite element ununpentium

Boffins have found fresh evidence for the existence of the new, super-heavy element ununpentium, known to gamers as the element found in meteorites in games like Call of Duty and Tomb Raider. Periodic table up to date in May 2013 The element with atomic number 115 has no official name yet, but its temporary moniker is …

[Anonymous Coward]

Your element interests me

I would like to subscribe to your periodical.

[Phil E Succour]

Re: Your element interests me

>> I would like to subscribe to your periodical.

Put an offer on the table then...

[Richard Taylor 2]

Re: Your element interests me

I'll go for a bid of 119 - that's going to get all of those theorists going (hey work where work comes)

[sorry, what?]

Re: Your element interests me

Strikes me that your interest will wane very quickly since Unobtainium's shelf-life is somewhat limited.

[Fink-Nottle]

Re: Your element interests me

> I would like to subscribe to your periodical.

A few more like you, and you'll have the nucleus of a group.

[Antonymous Coward]

Re: Your element interests me

>I would like to subscribe to your periodical.

Yes, definitely something to keep an ion.

[Ace Rimmer]

Re: Your element interests me

"I would like to subscribe to your periodical"

Appears monthly.

[Danny 14]

Re: Your element interests me

I'll need to red flag that comment.

[S4qFBxkFFg]

Of course, it's really called Elerium.

[Matthew 3]

So the Americans will either be calling it 'ununpentum' or 'elerum' then?

[Euripides Pants]

"So the Americans will either be calling it 'ununpentum' or 'elerum' then?"

No, we will call it 'Gus'. Gus is a nice, friendly, easy to pronounce name.

[Sooty]

If it's not called Elerium, I'll be very dissapointed with the scientific community.

I am dissapointed with el reg though, for mentioning call of duty and tomb raider, but not the classic game that revolvd around it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Seriously guys, did none of you play UFO: Enemy Unkown? Massive geek failure.

[WraithCadmus]

Fortunately this new element will be fairly easy to acquire with practice.

Fire teams and proximity grenades cover the doors, double-tap Blaster Bomb takes out the wall and then the command staff, assault team flies through the hole and flushes out the rest.

Icon: Blaster Bomb demonstration

[Loyal Commenter]

I always preferred to fire the blaster bomb straight up, over the top and down through the roof into the control room.

[BoldMan]

Lol guess which game I'm currently playing :)

Still annoys the **** out of me when an Etheriel takes over one of my team and proceeds to blow the rest away!!

[WraithCadmus]

We all have our own style, because I sent in men I went through the wall to limit the number of sides you were vulnerable from, but the slam-dunk has its charm.

*downloads openxcom*

[defiler]

Cool - if I can't have my Flying Car, I can at least console myself with a Flying Suit.

[thosrtanner]

Srsly? A jpg for text? *shudder*

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with what you're saying, a table/div based approach would take considerably more time than an <img> tag and could easily cause havok with rendering between different browsers, especially on mobile devices when you consider El'Reg's fixed width layout.

Since they have gone with a jpg, a click-through larger image should have been included though.

[Arthur 1]

uhhhh

Or... you know... PNG?

[Anonymous IV]

Copyrighted?

Surely Intel must have copyrighted/trade-marked anything of the format <something>Pentium?

Oh, maybe not - they're not Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Copyrighted?

Perhaps they could placate the corporation by christening the new element Intelium, in their honour?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Copyrighted?

Apple already had the patent cover for this, claiming that the edge of the nucleus had 'rounded corners'...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Copyrighted?

Laugh all you want, but it was Intel, not Apple, who tried to patent a lowercase 'i'

[Ted Treen]

Intriguing...

"... since it's highly unstable and has an extremely short half-life..."

Most of our politicians comply with the first description: now, how do we get them to match the second..?

[Callam McMillan]

Re: Intriguing...

They do match the second, but they start out as such monumental cocks, that even with a short half-life and many years, they're still monumental cocks!

[LaeMing]

Re: How do we get them to match the second..?

Bombarding them with high-speed lead particles is the traditional way!

(Don't try this at home, kids!)

[RobHib]

RussAmericonium perhaps?

So what will this eventually be? RussAmericonium perhaps?

With valuable research dollars at a premium, seems to me that unless someone can predict with at least some degree of certainty that Islands of Stability actually do exist in these never-never regions then it's a bit of a waste of time.

Elements that don't exist long enough to even determine their chemical properties aren't really much practical use of (except to those with excessively large research budgets).

[J.G.Harston]

Re: RussAmericonium perhaps?

"Elements that don't exist long enough to even determine their chemical properties aren't really much practical use of (except to those with excessively large research budgets)."

Their use is as stepping stones to the next elements and on towards the next Island of Stability.

[RobHib]

Re: RussAmericonium perhaps?

"next Island of Stability" Next? Where? Unless you mean H, He and up.

Damn long steps too, it's ~50 years since such stability was first predicted and the prediction isn't an iota better.

[Yag]

Re: RussAmericonium perhaps?

Let's call it Snowdenium.

[Crisp]

Element 115

You can't really run an X-COM operation without it!

[envmod]

lazar

this is the element supposedly powering the flying discs secretly kept at the S4 facility. something to do with the amplification of the gravity A wave apparently.

[dorsetknob]

I'm currently researching the Element Unobtainum but am having difficulty getting research funds.

Unobtainum when used in AMD Processors would when used as a quad gate manufacturing process would result in CPU's that can run at 15Ghz+ at room temp and would output (not consume ) about 70w

Just enough for a raspberry pi to be self powered

[Black Rat]

Meanwhile back at the lab..

No! we are not going to call it Roswellium

[eJ2095]

I found another element

Its called "Boo"

The element of surprise.....

Will get my coat ;-0

[C 18]

Re: I found another element

>The element of surprise.....

It's okay Chuck has your back on that joke...

[R W Rodway]

Soon we shall be able to synthesis Naquadah. And then we can make stargates!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can it be true ...

... that I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of purest Green?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Can it be true ...

It's more of a splat...

[SeanEllis]

Although it sounds small, a 200ms half-life for something this heavy is actually quite long. As J.G.Harston points out, this is one of the little reefs around the "island of stability" that is expected to exist at even higher atomic weights.

[proto-robbie]

Handy for fly fishing too.

[Destroy All Monsters]

> expected to exist

For some values of "expected", I reckon.

[Anonymous Coward]

Element 119 is the item popular in UFOlogy, and only one with a very large nucleus, all these elements produced in labs are very light variations, and you need to remember this when talking about the decay and usability of a heavy element created in a lab.

There are a number of scientists who believe in the possibility of more stable elements, but they would have to be forged in some very specific environments, usefulness of them? who knows

[Greggles]

Of course, everybody knows the best environment for creating exotic and useful materials is to forge them in the heart of a dying star, so we'll just have to set up shop next to one of those and we'll be set!

[I ain't Spartacus]

Why?

Why can't it be called Playmonautium - in honour of our drowned hero.

[Anonymous C0ward]

Sorry, I just saw "bare Lara Croft"

You need to stop doing that with your headlines.

[Tom 7]

Re: Sorry, I just saw "bare Lara Croft"

I hadn't seen that - can we call it tissuenium now please?

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Were are DOOOMED when they find

element 666 of course

[BlueGreen]

ununpentium

atomic number 114.99999999373164 then...

[John Brown (no body)]

The element is unlikely to prove very useful...

...though, since it's highly unstable and has an extremely short half-life – under 200 milliseconds.

The half life just means you have to buy it in bulk. And take very careful note of the "Use by" date.

[Trevor 3]

Cost of research....

I can't afford ununPentium

I'll happily buy some cheap ununCeleron though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uup?

I particularly liked the talking dog.

Squirrel

[Nym]

Short question

What was that element "Penthousium"? I heard it was supposed to be extremely hard.

*my apologies

[cordwainer 1]

They should call it Ponderous man...

Really Ponderous.