Short answers, pulled from the story.
Stanley Gerald Thompson, Kenneth Street Jr., Albert Ghiorso, and Glenn T. Seaborg discovered californium on the 9th of February 1950 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. They announced their discovery to the world on the 17th of March 1950 after creating about 5,000 atoms inside a cyclotron machine.
Californium exists as a silvery-white metal that vaporizes when exposed to vacuum conditions above 900 degrees Celsius. Below 51 Kelvin the metal acts like a magnet through ferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic properties while it enters an antiferromagnetic state between 48 and 66 Kelvin.
Only two facilities in the world currently produce californium-252 for commercial use including Oak Ridge National Laboratory which manufactures approximately 0.25 grams annually. The Research Institute of Atomic Reactors in Dimitrovgrad, Russia produces about 0.025 grams each year by irradiating curium isotopes with neutrons.
Californium-252 emits 139 million neutrons per microgram every minute allowing it to start up nuclear reactors that would otherwise remain dormant. Medical teams use portable sources to treat certain cervical and brain cancers while industrial applications include detecting corrosion in aircraft components or finding water layers in oil wells.
Researchers used californium-249 to create oganesson at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia in October 2006. Lawrencium was also first created in 1961 by bombarding californium with boron nuclei to demonstrate how microgram amounts serve as building blocks for heavier transuranic elements.