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Published online 17 October 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news061016-4

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Heaviest element made - again

Russian-US team claims to have created element 118

For the second time in seven years, researchers say they have made the heaviest chemical element ever — the exotically titled ununoctium, or element 118.

In 1999, physicist Victor Ninov, then working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, claimed to have created element 1181; the team retracted its results two years later amid accusations of falsified data, which Ninov denied.

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