Ununoctium (element 118, symbol Uuo) has been created by a lab in Russia, as part of a joint U.S.-Russia project. They created three atoms of ununoctium-294 by colliding nuclei of californium-249 with nuclei of calcium-48:

I’ve already added it to my classroom periodic table:

Comments:

• The creation of Uuo has been announced before. In 1999, a team of American scientists announced that they had synthesized this element, only to have other scientists pick their evidence apart.
• I haven’t seen this reported on news sites yet; I’m not sure why not. It is on the Wikipedia home page today, with the article on ununoctium giving more details. Being that anyone can edit a Wikipedia article, this left me a little sceptical until I found the news release from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory online.
• The name “ununoctium” is a temporary name meaning 1-1-8. It may take years for a decision to be made on its official name and symbol.

Links:

Webelements page on ununoctium — gives the story of the retracted 1999 creation of ununoctium
Wikipedia article on ununoctium

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory press release

Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia

Grace and Peace