New, heavy transuranium isotopes

In this report, we offer our most recent results concerning the decay properties for five new isotopes of Md, No, Lr, and for 258mMd. In additions to these successful experiments, we have also conducted searches for 263[105], 264[105], 272[109], and superheavy elements from bombardments of 254Es with heavy ions. 2 An exciting finding in the course of this work is a new fission phenomenon, which we have termed ''bidmodal fission''. This is described in a subsequent section. The final part summarizes our conclusions based on the unexpectedly long half-lives and surprising fission properties of the heaviest nuclei. 27 refs., 19 figs