Test puts pedal to heavy metal

From Tampa, at a meeting of the American Physical Society

FICKLE NICKEL. Decays of nickel ions in this 4.5-meter-diameter cyclotron—shown from the inside and open—suggest that supernovas manufacture heavy elements faster than predicted. B. Mitcham/Michigan State University

Cosmic atom factories crank out gold and other heavy elements faster than scientists had suspected. So say physicists who have made the first measurement ever of the half-life of the isotope nickel-78.