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Physics professor Joe Hamilton poses by his license plate 117 TN outside his office at Vanderbilt University. Hamilton picked the numbers and letters for the plate while he and a team was working on the discovery of a new element named tennessine after Tennessee. Tennessine, element 117, was given the abbreviation Ts rather than Tn in the periodic table of the elements.
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Periodic table elements named for Moscow, Japan, Tennessee

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Periodic table elements named for Moscow, Japan, Tennessee

NEW YORK — You’ll soon see four new names on the periodic table of the elements, including three that honor Moscow, Japan and Tennessee.

The names are among four recommended Wednesday by an international scientific group. The fourth is named for a Russian scientist.

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which rules on chemical element names, presented its proposal for public review. The names had been submitted by the element discoverers.

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The four elements, known now by their numbers, completed the seventh row of the periodic table when the chemistry organization verified their discoveries last December.

Tennessee is the second U.S. state to be recognized with an element; California was the first. Element names can come from places, mythology, names of scientists or traits of the element. Other examples: americium, einsteinium and titanium.

Joining more familiar element names such as hydrogen, carbon and lead are:

— moscovium (mah-SKOH‘-vee-um), symbol Mc, for element 115, and tennessine (TEH‘-neh-seen), symbol Ts, for element 117. The discovery team is from the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

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Vanderbilt physics professor Joseph Hamilton, who played a role in the discoveries, proposed naming an element for Tennessee. He had hoped to use the symbol Tn, but it had been used in the past and couldn’t be reassigned to the new element.

— oganesson (OH‘-gah-NEH‘-sun), symbol Og, for element 118. The name honors Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian.

— nihonium (nee-HOH‘-nee-um), symbol Nh, for element 113. The element was discovered in Japan, and Nihon is one way to say the country’s name in Japanese. It’s the first element to be discovered in an Asian country.

The public comment period will end Nov. 8.

First Published June 8, 2016, 11:02 p.m.

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Physics professor Joe Hamilton poses by his license plate 117 TN outside his office at Vanderbilt University. Hamilton picked the numbers and letters for the plate while he and a team was working on the discovery of a new element named tennessine after Tennessee. Tennessine, element 117, was given the abbreviation Ts rather than Tn in the periodic table of the elements.  (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
An entry on the periodic table of the elements filled in and autographed by physics professors Joe Hamilton and A.V. Ramayya is displayed at Vanderbilt University  (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Physics professor Joe Hamilton talks about the element that he and a team has discovered during an interview in his memorabilia-filled office at Vanderbilt University today.  (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
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