Science AMA Series: I'm Dawn Shaughnessy, from the Heavy Element Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; I synthesize superheavy elements, and I helped put 6 elements on the periodic table so far. AMA!

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Hello, Reddit. I’m Dawn Shaughnessy, principal investigator for the Heavy Element Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Just last week, our group was credited with the discovery of elements 115, 117 and 118 by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

This discovery brings the total to six new elements reported by the Dubna-Livermore team (113, 114, 115, 116, 117, and 118, the heaviest element to date), all of which we synthesized as part of a collaboration with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. One of those elements, 116, was actually named Livermorium, after our laboratory and the California town we’re in.

Anyways, I’d love to answer any questions you have about how we create superheavy elements, why we create them, and anything else that’s on your mind. Ask me anything!

Here’s an NPR story about our recent discovery: http://ift.tt/1Z19Ayg

Here’s my bio: http://ift.tt/1TJk4kq

I'll be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions, Ask Me Anything!

">Science AMA Series: I'm Dawn Shaughnessy, from the Heavy Element Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; I synthesize superheavy elements, and I helped put 6 elements on the periodic table so far. AMA!