{"id":209122,"date":"2025-03-19T09:17:45","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T14:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/new-heavy-metal-molecule-could-reveal-what-goes-on-inside-nuclear-waste"},"modified":"2025-03-19T09:17:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T14:17:45","slug":"new-heavy-metal-molecule-could-reveal-what-goes-on-inside-nuclear-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/new-heavy-metal-molecule-could-reveal-what-goes-on-inside-nuclear-waste","title":{"rendered":"New Heavy Metal Molecule Could Reveal What Goes on Inside Nuclear Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-heavy-metal-molecule-could-reveal-what-goes-on-inside-nuclear-waste.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Since it was first synthesized in a post-WW2 American lab in 1949, berkelium has been a rebel of the periodic table, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/a-mysterious-element-on-the-outskirts-of-the-periodic-table-is-breaking-quantum-mechanics\">defying quantum mechanics<\/a> and taking on an <a href=\"https:\/\/newscenter.lbl.gov\/2017\/04\/10\/berkelium-iv-4-positive-charges\/\">extra positive charge<\/a> that its relatives would never.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a team of scientists from berkelium\u2019s alma mater, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has wrangled the elusive element into a rare partnership with carbon that will enable them to study it in more detail.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to challenges involved in producing and safely containing the heavy element, few chemists have had the privilege of dealing with berkelium. Just one gram of the stuff can cost a boggling <a href=\"https:\/\/foundry.lbl.gov\/2021\/03\/01\/berkelium-californium\/\">US$27 million<\/a>. For this experiment, just 0.3 milligrams of berkelium-249 was required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since it was first synthesized in a post-WW2 American lab in 1949, berkelium has been a rebel of the periodic table, defying quantum mechanics and taking on an extra positive charge that its relatives would never. Now, a team of scientists from berkelium\u2019s alma mater, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has wrangled the elusive element into [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,873,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-nuclear-energy","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}