#ChemMovieCarnival: Act Three

Click here for Part 1 and Part 2

The directors are directing, the editors editing, the key grips gripping, supporting actors supporting, and the best boy...well, whatever he does, he's doing!

17. John of It's the Rheo Thing recaps the extra-fun chemical err....duplicity, in a movie by the same name. Honestly, this might be the first silicone-meets-Hollywood post that doesn't revolve around typical body modifications (it's a hair gel, folks). Bonus points for an accurate assessment of acting talents.
Film: Duplicity

18. For a post where she's (allegedly) avoiding discussing chemistry (or physics!), Renee really captures the teen angst vs. science teacher influence angle. Not to dis Jena Malone, but antiseptics are more than just fancy soap.
Film: Donnie Darko

19. Chemically Cultured primes our minds to the existence of hardtofindium, dalekanium, dilithium, and the new vogue fake element, unobtainum. Tom, I'd really like a copy of that poster!
Films: Avatar, Star Trek, Star Wars, The Core

20. Smells like three things in this post: burning thermite, methylamine, and the start of #RealTimeChem week! At Chemistry Blog, Mark lets the sparks fly, but doesn't seem to have perfected Walter White's lock-picking technique yet.
TV Show: Breaking Bad

21. New blog alert! Tien, of Must Love Science, covers the *cough* physics *cough* of a well-loved SciFi epic. Simulated gravity? There must be an extra-large chunk of dark matter outside each ship, no?
TV Show: Battlestar Galactica

22. Next, another Chemistry Blog stalwart discusses chemistry moments cropping up in his favorite crime drama. Azmanam's doppelganger (Dr. Spencer Reid) encounters some interesting cases, like that one where the bad guy dunks his victims in methanol to preserve their scent. (Bleargh!).
Also, plywood!
TV Show: Criminal Minds

23. Curt wrote this excellent entry, and he writes a pretty good blog, too: Minglingken, Mixing Knowledge. In this post, we have Russell Crowe, a good-guy whistleblowing biochemist, up against the wall of Big Tobacco. I never knew coumarin was used in cigarettes...
Movie: The Insider

Honorable Mentions: Vittorio and Gavin Armstrong sent along these "science-y" pictures from various forensic TV shows:

Assuredly not poly(vinyl acetate)
Show: Dexter

Hey, look, it's nitrogen! At least it's not chicken soup this time...
Show: NCIS

Want to play along? There's still time! Email me at seearroh_AT_gmail, or tweet (@seearroh)

Update 4/22/13 - Added minglingken entry; assigned authorship to Curt (thanks!)

Welcome, Akirium?

Researchers at RIKEN in Japan announced today that they had most likely synthesized a few atoms of Ununtrium, or Element 113. Despite previous detections of the element by both RIKEN and a Russian group, further investigation by various international scientific agencies did not award naming rights to either party.

It'll never happen, but I can dream...
c. Katsuhiro Otomo

Now, I'm neither a physicist nor a nuclear chemist, so I'll leave explaining of atomic decay patterns to Phillip Broadwith over at Chemistry World. But I do love a good periodic table naming story, so I kinda hope that the Japanese group wins out. Not to disparage Russian nuclear research - it's top-notch - but they've named a few already (Dubnium, Flerovium), and most of the rest have come from Europe, the U.S., or come up through antiquity.

So, what would a Japanese-discovered element be called? Researchers at RIKEN have suggested some fairly bland entries: "rikenium," or "japonium," reflecting tradition in naming the new element after its place of discovery (wouldn't that second one be "nipponium?"). Names can also honor the researcher, which here might mean "Moritum."

Of course, I like to dream about names just slightly further afield. Akira, one of the more successful manga and a cultural touchstone, would make an excellent eponym: "Akirium."

Readers, what would you name a new element, if you had the chance?

Update, 9/27/12 - Readers from the Twitterverse suggest a few more candidates: "Nintendium," "Friday13eon," "Sonyicum," "Unlukium," and "Sushinium."