The heaviest element on earth is uranium, which has the atomic number 92 in the periodic table. Although superheavy elements up to number 118 have been produced artificially, their atomic nuclei rapidly decay. A subtle quantum effect means that even heavier atomic nuclei above element 120 could exist for years, however. Physicists have been searching for this hypothetical "island of stability" for a long time. An international team that includes Klaus Blaum’s group at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, has now taken a further crucial step in the right direction.

In a spectacular precision experiment at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, the cooperating team has been able to determine the strength of the shell stability in heavy nuclei with 152 neutrons for the first time. A breakthrough in the understanding of the physics of atomic nuclei.

E. Minaya Ramirez, D. Ackermann, K. Blaum, M. Block, C. Droese, Ch. E. Düllmann, M. Dworschak, M. Eibach, S. Eliseev, E. Haettner, F. Herfurth, F. P. Heßberger, S. Hofmann, J. Ketelaer, G. Marx, M. Mazzocco, D. Nesterenko, Yu. N. Novikov, W. R. Plaß, D. Rodríguez, C. Scheidenberger, L. Schweikhard, P. G. Thirolf, and C. Weber: Direct Mapping of Nuclear Shell Effects in the Heaviest Elements, In: Science Express, August 09, 2012, DOI:10.1126/science.1225636: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1225636

Researchers at the Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Gorgan, Iran, managed to fabricate oriented strand boards (OSB) from low quality paulownia wood by using nanoclay and nanosilica.

Ayoub Salari, Taghi Tabarsa, Abolghasem Khazaeian, Ahmadreza Saraeian: Improving some of applied properties of oriented strand board (OSB) made from underutilized low quality paulownia (Paulownia fortunie) wood employing nano-SiO2, In: Industrial Crops and Products, Volume 42, March 2013, Pages 1-9, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2012.05.010

Prof. Dr. Sherif El-Safty, a Principal Researcher of the Materials Recycling Design Group (Group Leader: Dr. Kohmei Halada), Research Center for Strategic Materials, National Institute for Mate- rials Science, Japan, developed a nanomaterial which enables simple detection and removal of arsenic from drinking water. The nanomaterial is a further developed for heavy metal ion sensors for lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), etc. and adsorbent materials, which Dr. El-Safty developed previously for a rare metal adsorption/recovery materials such as cobalt (Co), palladium (Pd), etc. and radioactive element adsorbents for cesium (Cs), strontium (Sr), etc. As a Principal Researcher whom he originally livid at the Middle East, where a clean water is particularly precious, Dr. El-Safty devoted himself to the development of this material in order to save the world’s drinking water.

In the developed technology, the inner walls of nanoporous substances, namely a high order mesoporous (HOM) structures, are densely packed with