Nuclear reactor physics
Modern deposits of uranium contain only up to ~0.7% U (and ~99.3% U), which is not enough to sustain a chain reaction moderated by ordinary water. But U has a much shorter half-life (700 million years) than U (4.5 billion years), so in the distant past the percentage of U was much higher. About two billion years ago, a water-saturated uranium deposit (in what is now the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa) underwent a naturally occurring chain reaction that was moderated by groundwater and, presumably, controlled by the negative void coefficient as the water boiled from the heat of the reaction. Uranium from the Oklo mine is about 50% depleted compared to other locations: it is only about 0.3% to 0.7% U; and the ore contains traces of stable daughters of long-decayed fission products.Fermi age theory
Nihonium
All nihonium isotopes are unstable and radioactive; the heavier nihonium isotopes are more stable than the lighter ones, as they are closer to the centre of the island. The most stable known nihonium isotope, Nh, is also the heaviest; it has a half-life of 8 seconds. The isotope Nh, as well as the unconfirmed Nh and Nh, have also been reported to have half-lives of over a second. The isotopes Nh and Nh have half-lives of 1 and 0.1 seconds respectively. The remaining two isotopes have half-lives between 0.1 and 100 milliseconds: Nh has a half-life of 70 milliseconds, and Nh, the lightest known nihonium isotope, is also the shortest-lived, with a half-life of 1.4 milliseconds. This rapid increase in the half-lives near the closed neutron shell at "N" = 184 is seen in roentgenium, copernicium, and nihonium (elements 111 through 113), where each extra neutron so far multiplies the half-life by a factor of 5 to 20.