Free Republic

MADISON – Aaron Rodgers has faced some of the most ferocious defensive linemen the National Football League has ever unleashed on professional football fields. The Green Bay Packers quarterback has passed his way to the top of his game, becoming among the most accurate, respected and highest paid players in NFL history. Now, Rodgers is taking on a much more brutal enemy: The murderous warlords of the Democratic Republic of Congo in command of a civil conflict that has claimed more than 3 million lives. Green Bay’s QB has signed up as a celebrity front man for Raise Hope for...

A simple visit to an obscure factory by Chinese President Xi on Monday is all it took to raise the specter that China could be contemplating cutting off supply of critical materials to the U.S. and potentially crippling large swathes of its industries. Also, fueled by political innuendo in Xi’s recent call for a new “Long March” in reference to a key founding tenet of the Chinese Communist Party, speculators are growing increasingly wary of Chinese export restrictions to the U.S., including rare earth minerals. As the world’s largest producer, the Middle Kingdom has a vice-like grip on rare earths...

Researchers have found a deposit of rare-earth minerals off the coast of Japan that could supply the world for centuries, according to a new study. The study, published in the journal Nature on Tuesday, says the deposit contains 16 million tons of the valuable metals. Rare-earth minerals are used in everything from smartphone batteries to electric vehicles. By definition, these minerals contain one or more of 17 metallic rare-earth elements (for those familiar with the periodic table, those are on the second row from the bottom).

The rare earth metal is the 53rd naturally occurring element to possess the property An old element just learned a new trick under pressure. When cooled and squeezed very hard, the soft metallic element europium turns into a superconductor, allowing electrons to flow unfettered by resistance, a study appearing May 13 in Physical Review Letters shows. The results make europium the 53rd of the 92 naturally occurring elements to possess superconductivity, which, if harnessed, could make for more efficient energy transfer. Europium, a rare earth metal with a silver color, is strongly magnetic at everyday temperatures and pressure. Study coauthor...