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KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii – President Barack Obama and his family are making a rare Sunday trip to church. The Obamas arrived at St. Michael's Chapel .. located on the Marine Corps base where Obama frequently golfs .. The Obamas were seated in the first row of the chapel as a band played "Joy to the World" and parishioners clapped. ..

China thinks it can withhold its exports of obscure but important minerals to get its way with its neighbors. Why it picked the wrong weapon.Last week, the New York Times published a stunning story: China, amid a nasty territorial spat with Japan, had quietly halted shipments of rare-earth minerals to its East Asian neighbor, threatening to escalate a skirmish into a full-blown trade war. China swiftly denied the story, while other journalists rushed to confirm it. The Times reported on Sept. 28 that China, while still not admitting the existence of the ban, may be tacitly lifting it -- but...

"China mines 93 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals, and more than 99 percent of the world’s supply of some of the most prized rare earths .. Japan has been the main buyer of Chinese rare earths for many years, using them for a wide range of industrial purposes, like making glass for solar panels. They are also used in small steering control motors in conventional gasoline-powered cars as well as in motors that help propel hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius. American companies now rely mostly on Japan for magnets and other components using rare earth elements, as...

Backlash over China curb on metal exports China's draconian export curbs on rare earth minerals needed by the rest of the world for frontier technologies is escalating into a serious diplomatic and trade clash with the United States and other leading powers. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor Japan's foreign minister Katsuya Okada issued what amounted to a formal protest at top-level meeting with Chinese officials in Beijing over the weekend, saying the sudden cut-off was "affecting the global production chain". It is the latest sign of rising pressure after angry complaints by companies outside China that rely on this...

Update Aug. 12, 4:15 p.m. ET: The International Meteor Organization reports that hourly rate for Perseid meteors has climbed from the low 20s Tuesday into the 30s on Wednesday and now into the 40s. This represents the number of meteors observable per under perfectly dark skies. While the typical person's actual observation will be lower, the rising rate — fully expected — indicates the peak tonight and Friday morning will indeed be worth viewing, as predicted. — RRB The annual Perseid meteor shower is already putting on an excellent show, and the celestial fireworks have yet to peak. The main...

• According to government, industry, and academic officials, the use of rare earth materials is widespread in defense systems. These include, among others, • precision-guided munitions, • lasers, • communication systems, • radar systems, • avionics, • night vision equipment, and • satellites. • Officials emphasized the significance of the widespread use of commercial-off-the-shelf products in defense systems that include rare earth materials, such as computer hard drives. Objective 2: Rare Earth Materials Are Widely Used and Lack Substitutes Page 27

"Where will we get them? Look at a chart of rare earths production and consumption over the past 50 years, and two trends are immediately clear. The more rare earths the world has consumed, the fewer have been mined here in the United States. In 1985 - before the emergence of the public Internet and in the infancy of the laptop revolution - the U.S. produced half of the world's rare earths supply. By 2000, world production had more than doubled, while the U.S. share dropped below 10 percent. In 2002, U.S. rare earth production dropped to zero, with the...

When Andrew Evans sent us this photo of a rare melanistic penguin that he spotted during his travels, I became intrigued. So I decided to call up Dr. Allan Baker, an ornithologist and professor of Environmental and Evolutionary Studies at the University of Toronto and head of the Department of Natural History at the Royal Ontario Museum, to learn more about melanism in birds. I got him on the line before he had the chance to look at the photos, and suffice it to say he was slightly flabbergasted at what he saw: "Wow. That looks so bizarre I can't...

A sad story out of Virginia, where a 25-year-old woman, who was training to be a Washington Redskins cheerleader, has come down with a rare neurological disorder days after receiving a seasonal flu vaccination. Now she can hardly walk forward without severe contortions or speak normally. But amazingly, she can walk backwards, run forward and speak just fine as long as she's running. The question is, did the flu shot cause this? Watch the story from Inside Edition: VIDEO AT LINK

Rare Artwork by Mount Rushmore Creator For years, it sat as a paperweight in the home of Jeane Funkhouser. In fact, her daughter, Charlene Mitchell, remembers having to dust under it the entire time she was growing up. It turns out she was dusting under what may be worth millions of dollars. For several decades, the Victoria family has been in possession of an extremely rare Steuben Glass George Washington head created by artist Gutzon Borglum, the man behind the Mount Rushmore sculpture. Funkhouser, also an artist, was given the model as a gift from Borglum's son, Lincoln Borglum, in...

A unique ten-line Aramaic inscription on the side of a stone cup commonly used for ritual purity during Second Temple times was recently uncovered during archaeological excavations on Jerusalem's Mount Zion, The Jerusalem Post learned on Wednesday. Inscriptions of this kind are extremely rare and only a handful have been found in scientific excavations made within the city.

A rare collection of British-made Supersound guitars has been found in the basement of a house in the U.K., according to a report from the BBC. The Supersound brand of guitars resulted from a collaboration between noted British luthiers Jim Burns and Alan Wootton during the late 1950s. Burns, of course, went on to produce guitars played by such notable musicians as Queen’s Brian May, Andy Bell of Oasis, and others. The collection of 12 Supersound guitars appears to be one of the most definitive – and important – examples of a fairly undocumented period of British guitar-making history. “In...

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Archeologists have uncovered carved stucco panels depicting cosmic monsters, gods and serpents in Guatemala's northern jungle that are the oldest known depictions of a famous Mayan creation myth. The newly discovered panels, both 26 feet long and stacked on top of each other, were created around 300 BC and show scenes from the core Mayan mythology, the Popol Vuh. It took investigators three months to uncover the carvings while excavating El Mirador, the biggest ancient Mayan city in the world, the site's head researcher, Richard Hansen, said on Wednesday. The Maya built soaring temples and elaborate...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A rare reptile with lineage dating back to the dinosaur age has been found nesting on the New Zealand mainland for the first time in about 200 years, officials said Friday. Four leathery, white eggs from an indigenous tuatara were found by staff at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in the capital, Wellington, during routine maintenance work Friday, conservation manager Rouen Epson said. "The nest was uncovered by accident and is the first concrete proof we have that our tuatara are breeding," Epson said. "It suggests that there may be other nests in the sanctuary we don't...

Some 300 rare and valuable books confiscated from Iraq's Jewish community by Saddam Hussein's regime have been secretly spirited into Israel, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday. The books include a 1487 commentary on the biblical Book of Job and another volume of biblical prophets printed in Venice in 1617, the Haaretz daily said. The volumes are part of a massive collection of books confiscated by the secret police of the executed Iraqi dictator and stored in security installations in the Iraqi capital until the US-led invasion of 2003. Many volumes were damaged during the bombing of government buildings in...

Skull returns to final rest place The skull is believed to be that of a woman in her 50s A rare 2,000-year-old Roman skull has been returned to the cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales where it was discovered by divers in 1996. Archaeologists were called in after cave divers unearthed human bones in what is believed to be one of the most important cave discoveries ever made. The skull dates to the 2nd Century and is that of a local woman in her 50s. It was stored at Sheffield University for carbon-dating and recently returned to the cave, which has...

This is an extremely rare creature, has very large ears and has been captured on camera in its native habitat for the first time.

Rare cave inscriptions By Gamini Mahadura A cave with rare ancient inscriptions dating back to more than 10000 years has reportedly been discovered at Badungala in the PS division of Yakkalamulla in Galle. Archaeology officials say that the inscriptions date back to the Endera yugaya or the era when animals were domesticated. They say similar cave inscriptions had been so far discovered in Alauwa, Ambilikanda and Mawanella. This is the first time that such a find has been reported from the South.

Astronomers Capture Rare Video Of Meteor Falling To Earth; Hunt For Meteorite ScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2008) — Astronomers from The University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, have captured rare video of a meteor falling to Earth. The Physics and Astronomy Department at Western has a network of all-sky cameras in Southern Ontario that scan the sky monitoring for meteors. Associate Professor Peter Brown, who specializes in the study of meteors and meteorites, says that Wednesday evening (March 5) at 10:59 p.m. EST these cameras captured video of a large fireball and the department has also received a number of...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A rare and threatened species of tiny frog has been found breeding in a New Zealand animal park, meaning its future may now be more secure, researchers said Monday. The 13 finger nail-sized Maud Island froglets were discovered clinging to the backs of full-grown male frogs at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary in the capital Wellington, said researcher Kerri Lukis. The frogs are normally found only on two islands in the Malborough Sounds region of New Zealand's South Island. "Maud Island frogs have never been found breeding" before, even on their home island, said Lukis, a masters...