Number 164 (Story #1), February 10, 1994 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein THE DISCOVERY OF ELEMENT 106 HAS BEEN CONFIRMED. First discovered at the LBL HILAC machine in 1974, element 106 has gone unnamed because of priority disputes with Russian scientists. In 1992, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) finally gave credit for discovery to the LBL group, but a separate protocol in 1976 suggested that the naming of the element should await a confirmation experiment. Such a measurement has only now been made. Scientists using the LBL 88-inch Cyclotron bombarded Cf-249 atoms with O- 18 ions, forming element 106 (atomic weight 263), which decayed with a lifetime of 0.9 sec. into Rf-259 plus an alpha particle. (UPCOMING ARTICLE: K.E. Gregorich et al., Physical Review Letters.)