Ask this chemist about creating new elements

Ever wonder how scientists create new elements, add them to the periodic table or why they’re even interested in super heavy elements?

Dawn Shaughnessy, Lawrence Livermore’s principal investigator for the Heavy Element Group, will field questions from the public on the popular social media site Reddit from 10 a.m. to noon PST on Friday, Jan. 8.

Shaughnessy is part of an international collaboration that has added six elements to the periodic table (113, 114, 115, 116, 117 and 118), including three of the four new elements that were confirmed this past month by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

Her research interests include the study of the nuclear and chemical properties of actinides, transactinides and superheavy elements; fission properties; target preparation and radiochemical separation techniques; rapid heavy element atom-at-a-time chemistry; and the behavior of radioactive contaminants in the environment.

How to participate

See the "AMA" (Ask Me Anything) event that is posted on the Reddit Science page. Anyone with a Reddit account will be able to post questions, which Shaughnessy will answer from 10 a.m. to noon PST.