A more promising application of 242Cm is to produce 238Pu, a more suitable radioisotope for thermoelectric generators such as in cardiac pacemakers. The alternative routes to 238Pu use the (n,γ) reaction of 237Np, or the deuteron bombardment of uranium, which both always produce 236Pu as an undesired by-product—since the latter decays to 232U with strong gamma emission. Curium is also a common starting material for the production of higher transuranic elements and transactinides. Thus, bombardment of 248Cm with neon (22Ne), magnesium (26Mg), or calcium (48Ca) yielded certain isotopes of seaborgium (265Sg), hassium (269Hs and 270Hs), and livermorium (292Lv, 293Lv, and possibly 294Lv). Californium was discovered when a microgram-sized target of curium-242 was irradiated with 35 MeV alpha particles using the cyclotron at Berkeley: