Scientists Discover New Heavy-Metal Molecule 'Berkelocene' | Hacker News Reader

Scientists Discover New Heavy-Metal Molecule 'Berkelocene'

newscenter.lbl.gov

130 pointsgmays47 comments

This sounds like it would merit inclusion in Derek Lowe's "Things I won't work with":

“Only a few facilities around the world can protect both the compound and the worker while managing the combined hazards of a highly radioactive material that reacts vigorously with the oxygen and moisture in air,” said Polly Arnold, a co-corresponding author on the paper.

How fast does it evaporate in a vacuum?

249Bk half-life is 330 days.

A solid kilogram of it would be a lot of decays in a small area. It would heat up close to its melting point before glowing brightly enough in infrared to shed the heat as quickly as it's generated.

It's a very hard question, borderline impossible with the current technology [1], but if you allow me to handwave and lie and lie even more:

It's a very heavy molecule.

The top "bread" of the sandwich has 14 Carbons and a few undraw Hydrogen, I guess 16. So the weight is 12×14+16×1 =184

Double that for the other "bread".

The "meatball" in the center is Berkelium 247.

So the total weight is 184+184+247=615.

Assuming the Berkelium is totaly covered, the exterior part is similar to Hydrocarbons in oil. There are many, so let's try to pick the correct one.

Each Carbon usually has two Hydrogen, so the weight is 14×num_C, so the number of Carbons in a fake equivalent is 615/14~=44.

Hydrocarbons in gasoline have like 6-10 Carbons, diesel has like 12-20. Parafin wax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraffin_wax has 20-40 Carbons per molecule.

So this molecule is closer to heavy parafin wax.

Double bonds are also important, and this molecule has a lot of them, but my handwaving is not strong enough to deal with it.

> How fast does it evaporate in a vacuum?

I guess it will take forever.

[1] Edit: without a sample, you can probably measure it in the lab with a big enough sample.

Probably not that long, uranocene (a comparatively heavy molecule of similar structure) apparently has an appreciable vapor pressure of 10^-3 torr or so at 200C.

Weight does matter of course, but intermolecular bonding/affinity is generally the more important consideration.

Yes, I agree, but ...

> Probably not that long, uranocene (a comparatively heavy molecule of similar structure) apparently has an appreciable vapor pressure of 10^-3 torr or so at 200C.

200°C(392°F) is hotter than boiling cooking oil (it's a hot oven to cook, but far from red hot)

vapor pressure of water at 0°C(32°F) is 5 torr

i.e. almost frozen water has 5000x the vapor pressure of very hot uranocele.

Let's replace "forever" with "extremely slowly".

> Weight does matter of course, but intermolecular bonding/affinity is generally the more important consideration.

I agree, so I choose a non-polar material to compare. (i.e. petrol instead of water). Probably petrol and parafin are very saturated and linear, and both change the properties of the molecules a lot. I'd better have choose something with more double bounds, but I don't have a very good example at hand.

It's like they decided flourine wasn't dangerous enough, so they made it radioactive too!

I'm always amazed by these islands of stability:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability#/media/F...

I'm fascinated by the island of instability at 5. There are no stable elements with 5 baryons.

That one has cosmic significance (so I understand); that island is what choked off big bang nucleosynthesis from continuing beyond helium. The universe would be unrecognizable if there were a stable He-5 or Li-5.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis#Heavy... ("Big Bang nucleosynthesis produced very few nuclei of elements heavier than lithium due to a bottleneck: the absence of a stable nucleus with 8 or 5 nucleons...")

This will be my band name. Dibs on that name!

Is it at least going to be a heavy metal band?

Must be, anything else would be unbefitting.

Whenever they appear they'll suck up all the oxygen in the room.

Explosively!

Reminds me of a scene from the Royle Family (British show) where Anthony is managing a new band. When asked the name of the band he responds "Exit. That way, wherever we play, the name is always up in lights"

It's a confusing name to me though. Berkelocene feels like something geologists and anthropologists should know about, marked by a layer of sediment comprised mostly of hemp, LSD blotters, and decomposing concert posters.

One lonely berkelium ion, bereft of four electrons, and yet it is happy. Until an oxygen molecule comes along...

First meme about Berkelocene.

Kudos to the scientists for working out how to work with this element.

But I have to say, as a speaker of a post-colonial English dialect with strong British English roots...

...calling the element berkelium is either very innocent Berkley pride, or they knew what they were doing...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/berk

I'm going to with the former! Especially since "berk" still comes from "Berkeley".

I’m not sure which Berkeley you’re thinking of, but I’m pretty sure it’s named after the one located at:

    Lr Bk National Laboratory,
    Bk, Cf
    Am

Four elements in a single address is an insane flex

YTbErYb, Sc?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ytterby ("Ytterby is the single richest source of elemental discoveries in the world; the chemical elements yttrium (Y), terbium (Tb), erbium (Er), and ytterbium (Yb) are all named after Ytterby")

YTbErYb, Sc

You could *almost* squeeze in a seventh, as Holmium is named after the city of Stockholm; and the city Ytterby is in the greater Stockholm area, in Sweden. Sadly, Ytterby doesn't seem to be contained in any political division with a proper name containing "Stockholm". So, that doesn't work. (Though Ytterby is in a geographic region called the "Stockholm archipelago").

He/she forgot Na for National.

Except all of the elements in the address above were at least partially discovered at that address or by teams with connections to that lab. Although usually it is a joint discovery with at least one other lab.

Na is a bit older than those labs.

Berkeley Lawrence elements: https://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/new-elements-h...

Lawrence Livermore elements: https://www.llnl.gov/article/41866/lawrence-livermore-credit...

Well, given the difficulties working with this highly radioactive element...

Not many people are aware that Berk is a piece of Cockney rhyming slang, although perhaps more now that it's listed on that Wiktionary entry.

Berkeley Hunt => C..

My grandmother used to use it all the time; she'd be horrified. Its meaning has diverged significantly from its origin.

> Not many people are aware that Berk is a piece of Cockney rhyming slang,

I'd say at least the ~70M population of the uk would know it. Probably quite a few outside also

In my childhood in New Zealand I remember berk used to mean plonker/fool.

Wiktionary says:

  berk (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth) a fool, a prat, a twit, etc. Although the term remains in fairly wide use, its specific origin and meaning in rhyming slang is less well known, lessening its vulgarity. Synonyms see fool and idiot.

In the AU / NZ domain the Burke and Wills expedition of 1860-61 helped, fairly or unfairly, cement the association of 'Burke' with foolish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Wills_expedition

Midwest United States we used to use the word Berk interchangeably with times we would use the word asshole.

I never really understood why, but now that I understand it's rhyming slang I'm even more confused as to why we did that.

Which part of the midwest?

Middle of Iowa. Why?

Interesting, I wonder how localized it is?

As for why, because I've never heard the term and am also from the area.

Ah. I assume it was super local. We used to travel to Nebraska and/or Illinois quite a bit to see family, and they never said it.

Interesting! I enjoy local vernacular. But the way I read your original message was more like declaring a midwest generalized usage, which may not have been your intent.

I've never once heard the word "berk" used in the UK.

Not the case at all. I'd say, of those people who are familiar with the word, fewer than 5% are aware of its origins.

Moss used it in IT Crowd. That’s where I heard it first, and then looked up the origin.

Uh, organometallic molecule? I was raised on the X-Files, I know the Black Oil when I see it.

So… what do you use this molecule for?

learning

is this gonna open some kind of cool new way to extract actinides and lanthanides (i.e., rare earths) from the ground?

VCs talk about deep tech and then they don't jump on stuff like this!

Does it go to 11?

Someone out there is definitely naming their band "berkolocene" right now.

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