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Video of history of aluminum in our environment link to video

EU and U.S. imports of Russia's main base metal products aluminium and nickel during March-June increased by as much as 70%, official trade data compiled by Reuters from the United Nations Comtrade database show. The total value of EU and U.S. imports of the two metals from March to June were $1.98 billion... Analysts said the United States and Europe have learned lessons after huge disruption on construction, auto and power sectors caused by sanctions imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump on Russian aluminium 2018. Russia's Rusal is the world's largest aluminium producer outside China and accounts for about...

At 563 carats, the Star of India is the world’s largest gem-quality blue star sapphire, and is approximately 2 billion years old. (Image credit: D. Finnin/Copyright AMNH) ================================================================== What does the legendary Star of India — a 563-carat star sapphire the size of a golf ball — have in common with a 35-million-year-old petrified redwood slab; a massive cluster of sword-like crystals that looks like it came from "Game of Thrones;" and a 5-ton (4.5-metric ton) stone pillar that can "sing?" You can see all of them, along with 5,000 other amazing stones, in the newly renovated Mignone Hall of...

Beijing (AFP) – The Covid lockdown this week of a relatively unknown Chinese city sent global prices of aluminium rocketing to a 14-year high. Located near the border with Vietnam, Baise is nicknamed the "aluminium capital of southern China". Home to around 3.5 million people, Baise is a hub for aluminium mining and production. It produces about 2.2 million tonnes of the commodity per year -- more than 80 percent of the output in the resource-rich Guangxi region. Guangxi is China's main alumina-exporting region, shipping out around 500,000 tonnes of the aluminium component per month. China is the world's biggest...

The US and EU have agreed to end a festering dispute over US steel and aluminium tariffs imposed by former president Donald Trump in 2018, removing an irritant in transatlantic relations and averting a spike in EU retaliatory tariffs, US officials have said. Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters on Saturday that the deal would maintain US section 232 tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% aluminium, while allowing “limited volumes” of EU-produced metals into the US duty free.... ...EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis confirmed the deal, writing on Twitter that “we have agreed with US to pause” the trade...

China is the biggest consumer of aluminium in the world and accounts for 60 percent of the global consumption. Interestingly, China is also the biggest producer of the base metal and has been able to manage its aluminium consumption till now. Watch the video to know more.

Fungus that draws gold from its surroundings has been discovered in Western Australia, stunning scientists who say it could signal new deposits. Found near Boddington, south of Perth, the strain of the Fusarium oxysporum fungus attaches gold to its strands by dissolving and precipitating particles from the environment. There may be a biological advantage in doing so, as the gold-coated fungus was found to grow larger and spread faster than those that don’t interact with the precious metal. “Fungi are well-known for playing an essential role in the degradation and recycling of organic material, such as leaves and bark, as...

The Hypatia stone, as it is known, is not only extraterrestrial in origin. It contains micro-mineral compounds not known to occur anywhere on Earth, not found in any other meteorites, and not known to occur anywhere in the Solar System. It's a discovery that raises some questions about the formation of the Solar System. Subsequent analysis revealed that the diamond-filled stone was not from any known comet or meteorite - its combined features were unique among known extraterrestrial materials. One hypothesis proposed that it might be a fragment of comet nucleus, shocked on impact, and another found that it was...

A top political adviser in Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign helped arrange an introduction in 2006 between McCain and a Russian billionaire whose suspected links to anti-democratic and organized-crime figures are so controversial that the U.S. government revoked his visa. Rick Davis, who is now McCain's campaign manager, helped set up the encounter between McCain and Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska in Switzerland during an international economic conference. At the time, Davis was working for a lobbying firm and seeking to do business with the billionaire. There is no evidence that McCain did anything for Deripaska after they met at...

French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire says it's "unacceptable" that Google and Apple unilaterally impose prices and other contractual terms on software developers, and that this is hurting France's startups. Le Maire predicted the tech giants could face sanctions amounting to millions of euros, according to AFP. It’s not the first time the French government clashes with Google. It has repeatedly criticised the company for paying little tax in France by transferring its revenues to a subsidiary in Ireland, where taxes are much lower. Wednesday's move comes amid growing fears of an international trade war pitting the United States against...

Here is a man who glories in breaking the rules, because that is how he rules. Notice, too, that in the middle of this comedy routine, Trump revealed exactly what he was planning to do with respect to North Korea. “By the way,” he told his audience, “a couple days ago they said, ‘We would like to talk,’ and I said, ‘So would we, but you have to de-nuke, you have to de-nuke.’ So let’s see what happens. . . . We will be meeting, and we’ll see if anything positive happens.” Not a single news outlet got the joke...

Aluminium oxynitride or AlON is a ceramic composed of aluminium, oxygen and nitrogen. It is marketed under the name ALON by Surmet Corporation. AlON is optically transparent (≥80%) in the near-ultraviolet, visible and midwave-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is 4 times harder than fused silica glass, 85% as hard as sapphire, and nearly 15% harder than magnesium aluminate spinel. Since it has a cubic spinel structure, it can be fabricated to transparent windows, plates, domes, rods, tubes and other forms using conventional ceramic powder processing techniques. ALON is the hardest polycrystalline transparent ceramic available commercially. Combination of optical...

“A new paper (Crepeaux et al.) by the Gherardi research group in France reports important results on the toxicity and transport of aluminum (Al) adjuvant in mice. This single study is especially valuable because it looked at many outcomes: behavioral effects, immune (microglial) activation in the brain, and Al transport into the brain. The study tested dosages of 200 , 400 and 800 mcg/Kg, injected intramuscularly (IM). The Al adjuvant used was AlOH (brand name Alhydrogel), the most common vaccine adjuvant in use today. It is used in the tetanus, Hep A, Hep B, HiB, pneumococcal, meningococcal, and anthrax vaccines....

Like most common metals, aluminium lacks natural buoyancy. However, with a little rearranging of the metal’s natural molecular structure, one can produce an ultra-light crystalline form of the metal that is actually less dense than water and, as a result, floats upon it. Research conducted by Utah State University Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry professor Alexander Boldyrev and published in the latest issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C has yielded just such a crystalline form using computational modeling. ... According to the research team, the potential for the new aluminium structure is vast, as the metal already features...

I believe AP is link only. If not I apologize.

As a result of China’s flooding the world market with cheap, state-subsidized aluminum and our president’s irrational aversion to fossil fuels, a 127-year-old American industry is in danger of disappearing. This week, the two largest primary aluminum producers in the United States announced curtailment of aluminum production at key smelters across the country. Alcoa announced that it was halting smelting operations at its Intalco Works (583 employees) and Wenatchee plants (428 employees) in Washington state, its Massena West plant in New York (500 employees) and that it was curtailing alumina refining capacity at its Point Comfort facility in Texas. Century...

Imagine a glass window that's tough like armor, a camera lens that doesn't get scratched in a sand storm, or a smart phone that doesn't break when dropped. Except it's not glass, it's a special ceramic called spinel {spin-ELL} that the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has been researching over the last 10 years. "Spinel is actually a mineral, it's magnesium aluminate," says Dr. Jas Sanghera, who leads the research. "The advantage is it's so much tougher, stronger, harder than glass. It provides better protection in more hostile environments—so it can withstand sand and rain erosion." As a more durable...

I've watched the weather here for 50 years; growing up we did not have haze at 30,000 ft for months on end. Every day, it's like being in a greehouse, an obvious light filter prevents the full sunlight from reaching the ground. The past few years they've turned up the haze a lot. Spring - so far only 2 or 3 days above 70. Summers have been very cool. Have not had a really clear day in a long time. Decades ago, had really clear days all the time. What's really annoying is that they think we're so stupid we...

Aluminium ions are stored between layers of graphite when the battery is charged A new rival to the lithium-ion battery has been created that charges in under a minute and still performs almost perfectly after being recharged thousands of times. The new battery is based on aluminium instead of lithium, which should make it both cheaper and safer than their lithium-ion competitors. The U.S. team behind the aluminium-ion battery say that the technology could find its way into the home, help store renewable energy for the power grid and even power vehicles. The aluminium-ion battery is conceptually similar to the...

Stanford University scientists have invented the first high-performance aluminum battery that's fast-charging, long-lasting and inexpensive. Researchers say the new technology offers a safe alternative to many commercial batteries in wide use today. "We have developed a rechargeable aluminum battery that may replace existing storage devices, such as alkaline batteries, which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames," said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. "Our new battery won't catch fire, even if you drill through it." Dai and his colleagues describe their novel aluminum-ion battery in "An ultrafast rechargeable aluminum-ion battery," in...