Periodic Table Gets Four New Elements Finally Filling The Seventh Row... Let The Naming Begin

LIVERMORE (CBS SF) - Scientists, chemistry students, laboratories... toss out your periodic tables. They are officially out-of-date with the discovery and assignment of four new elements with atomic numbers, finally filling out the table's seventh row.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry made the announcement in the last days of 2015. This century-old organization of scientists from around the world has the last word when it comes to chemical science.

"The chemistry community is eager to see its most cherished table finally being completed down to the seventh row," said Professor Jan Reedijk president of the Inorganic Chemistry Division of the IUPAC in a press release.

Meet elements Uut 113, Uup 115, Uus 117 and Uuo 118.

These are just temporary names. Scientists at the Bay Area's Lawrence Livermore National Lab helped discover three of the four, and have been invited to propose their permanent names and symbols.

The elements can be named after a mythological concept, a mineral, a place or country, a property, or a scientist. It's a months-long process involving scientific and public review, before a name and two-letter symbol is finalized and placed on the table.

Actually, the Bay Area already has a namesake on the revered chart. In 2011, Lawrence Livermore proposed the winning name for element 116 -- Livermorium -- after the lab's East Bay locale.

According to the IUPAC, these new elements are not found in nature. They were man-made. They quickly decay into unknown isotopes of slightly lighter elements.

If these synthetic elements don't really exist, why not name one of them for mythological abstract personification of 'perishing' and 'decay' -- Phthisis? Or would that be... phthisisium?

Let the naming begin.

CBSSF.com writer, producer Jan Mabry is also executive producer and host of The Bronze Report. She lives in Northern California. Follow her on Twitter @janmabr.