Sheldon and Leonard rejoice – four new elements added to periodic table

In news that will send Dr Sheldon Cooper and friends into a frenzy, four new elements have been added to the periodic table. The elements - 113, 115, 117 and 118 - complete the seventh row and render all existing scientific textbooks out of date. The last update to the table was in 2011. The new elements were recently approved by US-based The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) which oversees global chemical terminology and measurement.

The chemistry community is eager to see its most cherished table finally being completed down to the seventh row. IUPAC has now initiated the process of formalising names and symbols for these elements.

Prof Jan Reedijk, president of the inorganic chemistry division of IUPAC

Elements 115, 117 and 118 were discovered by scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russian and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The Russian and American research team also made a claim for the discovery of element 113, but a team led by Kosuke Morita from the Riken Institute in Japan was credited with finding it first. This makes it the first element on the periodic table to be discovered in Asia.

Science periodic table