Flerovium

Flerovium was the first element made by the hot-fusion route that Dubna perfected — calcium-48 on a plutonium target — and it opened the road to everything from 114 to 118. It is also one of the few superheavies whose chemistry has actually been probed: gas chromatography experiments on a handful of atoms found flerovium adsorbing on gold far more weakly than lead would, closer to the behaviour of a volatile, nearly noble species, which is what relativistic theory predicts when the 7p₁/₂ subshell is filled and closed. The results are consistent but rest on very few atoms, so calling it a post-transition metal would be overreach; the category is left unknown. It is named for Georgy Flerov, who founded the Dubna laboratory.