Transfermium Element Names Finally Settled

After two years of controversy, the names of elements 
104-109 have finally been accepted by nuclear scientists and 
certified by the International Union of Pure and Applied 
Chemistry (IUPAC).

The delay over the names was causedpartly by rival claims to 
priority; the pertinent experiments rendered  mere handfuls of 
atoms. It was also partly due to the capriciousness of the 
IUPAC committee assigned to certifying the names who rejected
the names submitted by the discoverers (Seaborgium was initially 
rejected because Glenn Seaborg had had the bad grace to not be 
dead yet; some names were kept but assigned ot different elements, etc).

We will all now have to memorize the following additions to the
Periodic Table: 

Element  Name          Symbol
Number
104      Rutherfordium   Rf
105      Dubnium         Db
106      Seaborgium      Sg
107      Bohrium         Bh
108      Hassium         Hs
109      Meitnerium      Mt  

(The New York Times, 4 March 1997.)