Last week, Physical Review Letters accepted an article from Russian and American Scientists regarding the synthesis of ununseptium (literally meaning 117). Colliding calcium (isotope-20) and berkelium (isotope-97), the scientists have managed to synthesize six atoms of element 117.
According to nature,
analysis of the new element suggests theories about these super-heavy elements becoming more stable as they get heavier may be correct. This so-called “island of stability” might mean that some of these elements could hang around long enough to be actually studied, rather than vanishing nearly as soon as they’re created.
The New York Times states:
In recent years, scientists have created several new elements at the Dubna accelerator, called a cyclotron, by smacking calcium into targets containing heavier radioactive elements that are rich in neutrons — a technique developed by Dr. Oganessian.