4 Rare Earth Elements That Will Only Get More Important

Sir William Crookes, a 19th century British chemist, once wrote that, "rare earth elements perplex us in our researches, baffle us in our speculations and haunt us in our very dreams." These weren't easy elements to isolate or to understand, and so there was a very long lag time between the discovery of the rare earths, and the discovery of practical uses for them. It didn't help that individual rare earth elements don't occur by their lonesome—they travel in packs. To get one, you have to mine all of them. Europium was the first isolated, high purity rare earth element to enter the public marketplace, in 1967, as a source of the color red in TV sets. At the time, rare earth mining wasn't even a twinkle in China's eye. Today, europium is still used as a phosphor, but as cathode ray tube TVs go the way of the dodo, it's more likely to turn up in white LED-based lights, which could someday be an energy efficient replacement for both incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs.

Secrets of the first practical artificial leaf A detailed description of development of the first practical artificial leaf -- a milestone in the drive for sustainable energy that mimics the process, photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert water and sunlight into energy -- appears in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research. The article notes that unlike earlier devices, which used costly ingredients, the new device is made from inexpensive materials and employs low-cost engineering and manufacturing processes. Daniel G. Nocera points out that the artificial leaf responds to the vision of a famous Italian chemist who, in 1912, predicted that scientists one day would uncover the "guarded secret of plants." The most important of those, Nocera says, is the process that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. To make these devices more widely available, Nocera replaced the platinum catalyst that produces hydrogen gas with a less-expensive nickel-molybdenum-zinc compound.

BOINC malariacontrol - Linguistic Team International Wiki From Linguistic Team International Wiki Return to BOINC Project Gateway The Project! The malariacontrol.net project is an application that makes use of network computing for stochastic modelling of the clinical epidemiology and natural history of Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Click here for more information. . Drug treatments and vaccines may have effects on outcomes that are more complex than the effects on primary infections in the non-immune host. The introduction of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) for malaria control has been accompanied by extensive debate about possible long-term effects. An epidemiologic model for the effects of an intervention program must consider the dependence between events in different individuals. Swiss Tropical Institute has developed new models to make quantitative predictions of the potential impact of vaccination against P. falciparum malaria. To learn more and find out what other simulations they use, click here How to join the Project! Download BOINC

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Through the Wormhole All episodes from Through the Wormhole series gathered in one place. Hosted by Morgan Freeman, Through the Wormhole will explore the deepest mysteries of existence - the questions that have puzzled mankind for eternity. What are we made of? What was there before the beginning? Now, science has evolved to the point where hard facts and evidence may be able to provide us with answers instead of philosophical theories. Click on the links bellow to watch the documentary episodes: Season 1 Is There A Creator? The Riddle of Black Holes. Is Time Travel Possible? What Happened Before the Beginning? How Did We Get Here? Are We Alone? What Are We Made Of? Beyond The Darkness. Season 2 Is there Life after Death? Is There an Edge to the Universe? Does Time Exist? Are There More Than Three Dimensions? Is there a Sixth Sense? Are There Parallel Universes? How Does the Universe Work? Can We Travel Faster Than Light? Can We Live Forever? What Do Aliens Look Like?