Ununpentium

Ununpentium is the temporary name of a synthetic superheavy element in the periodic table that has the temporary symbol Uup and has the atomic number 115. It is an extremely radioactive element; its most stable known isotope, ununpentium-289, has a half-life of only 220 milliseconds. It is also known as eka-bismuth or simply element 115. Ununpentium was first created in 2003 by a team composed of Russian scientists at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, and American scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In December 2015, it was recognized as a new element by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). About 100 atoms of ununpentium have been observed to date, all of which have been shown to have mass numbers from 287 to 290.

In the periodic table, it is a p-block transactinide element. It is a member of the 7th period and is placed in group 15 as the heaviest pnictogen, although it has not been confirmed to behave as the heavier homologue to the pnictogen bismuth. Ununpentium is calculated to have some similar properties to its lighter homologues, nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth, although it should also show several major differences from them.

Ulster Unionist Party

The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is one of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland. It governed Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972 and was supported by most unionist voters throughout the conflict known as the Troubles. The party is led by Mike Nesbitt.

Since 1999, the UUP has lost support among Northern Ireland's unionists to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in successive elections at all levels of government.

In 2009, the party entered an electoral alliance with the Conservative Party and the two parties fielded joint candidates for elections to the House of Commons and the European Parliament as Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force (UCUNF).

At the 2015 general election, the party won two seats in the House of Commons, Fermanagh and South Tyrone and South Antrim.

History

1880s to 1921

The Ulster Unionist Party traces its formal existence back to the foundation of the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905. Before that, however, there had been a less formally organised Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA) since the late 19th century, usually dominated by unionists from Ulster. Modern organised unionism properly emerged after William Ewart Gladstone's introduction in 1886 of the first of three Home Rule Bills in response to demands by the Irish Parliamentary Party. The IUA was an alliance of Irish Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, the latter having split from the Liberal Party over the issue of home rule. It was the merger of these two parties in 1912 that gave rise to the current name of the Conservative and Unionist Party, to which the UUP was formally linked (to varying degrees) until 1985.