We reported on the discovery of the new superheavy element 112 last month, and invited you to suggest some possible names it could take on for its adoption into the periodic table, but Sigurd Hofmann's team from the Centre for Heavy Ion Research decided to come up with their own name for the element they discovered: Copernicium (Cp).

Officially, the name still needs to be approved by the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry, but it stands a good chance, following their suggestion that element names should ideally be named "after a mythological concept or character (including an astronomical object), a mineral, or similar substance, a place or geographical region, a property of the element, or a scientist," and end in "-ium".

Copernicus is considered the father of modern astronomy, thanks to his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium ("On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres"), which argued that Earth was not the center of the universe but, instead, orbited around the sun, published in 1543, the same year that he died at the age of 70.

Copernicus gets his place on the periodic table [New Scientist]

The new element, created by a team at the German GSI Centre for Heavy Ion Research in 1996 by fusing atoms of zinc and lead, has finally been approved for addition to the periodic table by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, following successful independent verification of the experiment that created it. The only problem is, the new element (which has an atomic number of 112, making it the one of the heaviest elements in existence) doesn't have a name yet - something that the 21 person GSI team is planning to change in the next few weeks. Team lead Sigurd Hoffman has some idea of where to get the name, at least:

I think we will try to find somebody who makes some big contribution to the thinking of mankind and who has had cultural influence.

We've come up with a better idea: Why not call it vibranium, just for the comic geeks in the science world to smile knowingly at? Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments below, if you can come up with something better.

First new element for five years makes periodic table [New Scientist]

With over a hundred videos to choose from, there are going to be plenty of highlights to choose from. Make sure you hit the explosive vids (as noted above), as well as Mercury and Helium — no bangs there, but with Hg, Peter License talks about how he used to "play football (soccer) with it with our fingers back in school. We don't do that now because we care about our safety."

Take some time and noodle around through this awesome treasure trove of video chemistry, and whenever you find Peter License (he of the cackling) with a matchstick in his hand, you know a ball of fire is soon to follow. That's usually spliced in with Martyn Poliakoff soothingly delivering interesting tidbits about whatever element you're watching.

Source: The Periodic Table of Videos, via Creative Synthesis