We have demonstrated Zeeman slowing and capture of neutral 225 Ra and 226 Ra atoms in a magneto-optical trap. The intercombination transition 1 S0→ 3 P1 is the only quasi-cycling transition in radium and was used for laser-cooling and trapping. Repumping along the 3 D1→ 1 P1 transition extended the lifetime of the trap from milliseconds to seconds. Room-temperature blackbody radiation was demonstrated to provide repumping from the metastable 3 P0 level. We measured the isotope shift and hyperfine splittings on the 3 D1→ 1 P1 transition with the laser-cooled atoms, and set a limit on the lifetime of the 3 D1 level based on the measured blackbody repumping rate. Laser-cooled and trapped radium is an attractive system for studying fundamental symmetries.PACS numbers: 32.80. Pj, 24.80.+y, 32.80.Ys, 44.40.+a, 32.10.Fn Radium is an alkaline-earth element with no stable isotopes, and as a result has eluded detailed spectroscopic studies. Recent calculations have suggested that radium, due to its nuclear and atomic properties, is an excellent candidate for next generation fundamental symmetry tests. The observation of a permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) in an atom, molecule, or the neutron would signal the long sought-after violation of timereversal symmetry (T -violation, or CP -violation through the CP T theorem) in a composite particle. Currently, the most stringent limits on T -violating interactions in the nucleus are set by experiments that determined the atomic EDM of 199 Hg to be < 2.1 × 10 −28 e cm [1]. Both collective [2] and mean-field [3] calculations have predicted that radium isotopes which are characterized by nuclear octupole deformation are two to three orders of magnitude more sensitive to T -violating interactions in the nucleus than 199 Hg [4,5]. 225 Ra is a particularly promising candidate for an EDM search because it has a relatively long half-life (t 1/2 = 14.9 days) and it has nuclear spin I = 1/2 (like 199 Hg), which eliminates potential systematic electric quadrupole shifts in EDM measurements. In addition to the atomic EDM, atomic parity violation effects are also enhanced by a few orders of magnitude in radium due to the near degeneracy between the parity-odd 3 P 1 level and the parity-even 3 D 2 level [6,7], which are believed to be only 5 cm −1 apart [8]. Conventional atomic-beam or vapor-cell approaches to these EDM or parity-violation measurements are precluded because of the scarcity and low vapor pressure of radium, respectively. Instead, a measurement on atoms laser-cooled and confined in a far-off resonant optical dipole trap or lattice offers a promising path [9].In this Letter, we report on the first realization of lasercooling and trapping of 225 Ra and 226 Ra (t 1/2 =1600 yr, I=0). This is the heaviest and only the second element with no stable isotopes (after francium [10]) laser-trapped to date. Radium is unique among alkaline-earth elements in that the weak, intercombination transition 1 S 0 → 3 P 1 is the only quasi-cycling transition suitable for laser-cooling and tra...