Rare earth elements are hard to get and hard to recycle, but a flash of intuition led Rice University scientists toward a possible solution.
Materials Science
Feb 9, 2022
6
1884
Machines and electronic devices often generate waste heat that is difficult to utilize. If electricity could be generated from this waste heat, it would offer a means for a clean and sustainable power production: Such a technology ...
Nanophysics
Jan 18, 2022
1
211
Global animal, bird and fish populations have plummeted more than two-thirds in less than 50 years due to rampant over-consumption, experts said Thursday in a stark warning to save nature in order to save ourselves.
Ecology
Sep 10, 2020
3
1503
They stranded Christopher Columbus in Jamaica. They brought down the Spanish Armada. They sent San Francisco's piers crumbling into the sea.
Plants & Animals
May 20, 2020
0
351
More than five billion of the estimated 16 billion mobile phones possessed worldwide will likely be discarded or stashed away in 2022, experts said Thursday, calling for more recycling of the often hazardous materials they ...
Environment
Oct 13, 2022
4
671
Thermoelectric power generators that make electrical power from waste heat would be a useful tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if it weren't for a most vexing problem: The need to make electrical contacts to their hot ...
Materials Science
May 26, 2021
3
1191
A new method improves the extraction and separation of rare earth elements—a group of 17 elements critical for technologies such as smart phones and electric car batteries—from unconventional sources. New research led ...
Materials Science
Oct 8, 2021
5
2179
Bernard Bigot, a French scientist leading a vast international effort to demonstrate that nuclear fusion can be a viable source of energy, has died. He was 72.
Plasma Physics
May 15, 2022
4
1006
People will recycle if they can make money doing so. In places where cash is offered for cans and bottles, metal and glass recycling has been a great success. Sadly, the incentives have been weaker for recycling plastic. ...
Materials Science
Jan 11, 2021
1
280
Jeri Fry was six years old when she toured the uranium mill outside town where her dad worked.
Environment
Oct 26, 2023
0
53
