As most of us rang in the changes for 2016, so did a group of international chemists who introduced four new elements to the periodic table in January. The new elements, which are all highly radioactive and are literally gone before they appear, were presented to the world by scientific researchers from the US, Japan and Russia, and they represent the first additions to the periodic table in nearly five years.

The elements were finally verified by IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) – the international body which oversees the terminology and nomenclature of chemicals – as the New Year fireworks were in full flow. The organisation’s verification was the culmination of 12 years’ worth of painstaking data analysis on each element and, as a direct result, it rendered every known science book completely defunct.

The names of these new kids on the block aren’t particularly pretty: ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium. These tongue-twisters are Latin placeholders which reflect the number of protons in each nucleus and, therefore, their atomic numbers: 113, 115, 117 and 118. So now there’s a further task for the boffins who discovered these short-lived neighbours to come up with suitably formal names so school children around the world don’t go cross-eyed! According to the IUPAC, a new element can be named after a country or place, a mineral, something mythological or a scientist (usually the one who found it).

The official verification means it’s the first time an Asian country has had the chance to name an element in the periodic table, as discovery of element 113 was credited by the IUPAC to a team from the Riken Institute in Japan. A joint US-Russian team from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna has been attributed with finding the other three elements.

Of course, it’s reasonable to assume that forensic scientists will not have to worry about elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 anytime soon. But the periodic table and the forensic chemist have been comfortable bedfellows for many years now.

Some 90% of forensic chemists work in laboratories associated with either a police department, forensic science lab or medical examiner's office. On any given day, forensic chemists will be applying knowledge from their chemistry, biology and genetics studies in order to analyse criminal evidence such as DNA found on a suspect’s or victim’s body or directly from the crime scene. As part of their job, forensic chemists need to apply a qualitative examination of evidence using a variety of techniques such as microscopy and analytical toxicology that looks for evidence in body fluids. Mass spectrometry is also a favourite technique as it often provides the strongest evidence to secure a conviction in court. 

Basically, there’s a boat load of crime that would not have been solved without an intimate knowledge of the periodic table and the elements therein. However, the newly-discovered elements won’t hang around long enough to be used as evidence sadly. But, just in case, forensics had better brush up on their Latin!