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Washington,
D.C. - Citing a need to develop new revenue sources
for large-scale scientific projects like the superconducting
semicollider and a manned mission to Mars, the
National Science Foundation today announced that
it will begin to sell naming rights to the elements
of the Periodic Table, which will hereafter be
referred to as the Nokia Periodic Table of the
Elements.
 The
naming rights for the first element (formerly
known as hydrogen) were sold to the ExxonMobil
Corporation for an amount rumored to be in excess
of $1.7 billion. The new element, Exxonmobilium
(EX), has an atomic weight of 1 and is the most
plentiful element in the universe.
"We're
pleased as punch that the first element will carry
the corporate logo of ExxonMobil," said Murray
Hottenheimer, Director of Communications for ExxonMobil.
"Like our company, Exxonmobilium is found
worldwide and it's environmentally friendly, because
when you burn Exxonmobilium the byproduct is water.
Cheap abundant energy and clean drinking water.
That's what ExxonMobil is all about."
The
Oxygen Network was poised to purchase the naming
rights to the eighth element, oxygen (O), but
financial difficulties have forced it to drop
out of the running. The City of Los Angeles was
going to step in, but lawyers for the National
Science Foundation squashed that deal when the
point was made that if Los Angeles purchased the
naming rights to oxygen, the scientific formula
for water would then be EX2LAX and would thereby
cause problems with trademark infringement. Fortunately,
however, The Gap had the next highest bid; so
as of midnight, November 30, 2002 the element
formerly known as oxygen will hereafter be called
Gapdnum (G).
DC
Comics has also purchased the naming rights to
element 36, krypton, which will now be known as
kryptonite, with its first and second isotopes
called red kryptonite and green kryptonite respectively.
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