10 Uses for Mostly Useless Chemical Elements

As the name would suggest, the transuranics are those elements with atomic numbers higher than that of uranium, and are typically synthesized in a lab. While neptunium through curium have their places, mostly in nuclear power, berkelium starts a sea of relative uselessness. The elements beginning with einsteinium and going up, in fact, have never been spotted in nature. Most have half-lives of a minute or even fractions of a second, which factors into their not-so-abundant nature.

Uses: Physicists believe that there may be an "island of stability" above these elements with comparatively prolonged half-lives. You know, if we could manage to make the darn things. To that end, creating and studying the transuranics in the lab is a step toward one day perhaps finding even heavier elements.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/10-uses-for-mostly-useless-chemical-elements?src=rss

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