at dealing with nuclear waste and things that are important in the real world. It also leads to fantastic technological advances in building the kit to make these observations.” Along with new names, the scientists must propose two-letter symbols for the elements. When IUPAC has received the researchers’ suggestions, they will be put up for public review for five months. That allows scientists and others to raise any objections. In 1996, the symbol Cp was proposed for copernicium, or element 112, but it was swapped to Cn when scientists complained that Cp referred to another substance. To discover the elements, researchers at the three labs slammed lighter nuclei into one another and looked for signature radioactive decays that should come from the new elements. Ununtrium and ununpentium are thought to be metals, while ununseptium could be a metalloid – a material bearing some metallic properties. The fourth element, ununoctium, may be a noble gas, like other group-18 elements, helium, neon and argon. It is hard to know for sure because so few atoms of each element have ever been made. Paul Karol, chair of the IUPAC panel that verified the elements, said: “For now, most of the successes will be used by nuclear theorists to improve their understanding of the structure and stability of these very heavy nuclei as experimenters seek the alleged but highly probable