Four new elements added to periodic table

Scientists in Japan, Russia and the US praised for finding super-heavy elements which fill out final row

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(Image credit: AXEL SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

The periodic table of elements has four new entries, meaning its seventh row has finally been completed. The new elements were discovered by chemists in Japan and a joint US-Russian mission.

The four additions - which have the atomic numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118 - have been temporarily named ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium. The scientists will now be allowed to come up with something more poetic.

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