ELEMENTS 118 AND 116 have been discovered at Lawrence Berkeley Lab by crashing a beam of krypton atoms into lead atoms. The three detectable atoms of element 118 have nuclei possessing 118 protons and 175 neutrons for a mass total of 293. The new elements are even further along in the Periodic Table than element 114, whose existence was announced back in January 1999 by scientists in Russia (see Update 412), and further into the "island of stability", the supposed nuclear regime in which certain combinations of neutrons and protons lead to a relatively long life. For all that, the atoms of element 118 still decay after less than a millisecond into element 116 plus an alpha particle. Element 116 then promptly decays into element 114 plus another alpha particle. Ken Gregorich (510-486-7860) led the LBL group that discovered the new nuclei. Four of the team members are German nationals, which prompted DOE secretary Bill Richardson to emphasize the continuing value of international scientists working at US national labs. (LBL press release, June 7.)