Do you know what the most abundant element on Earth really is? You might be surprised to know that the answer depends on ...

Can the rest of the world challenge Beijing’s dominance of high-performance magnets by developing new mining projects?

Some of the most coveted metals on the planet are not just expensive, they are almost unimaginably scarce in Earth's crust ...

Based on their analysis, the team found that a type of asteroid rich in the minerals olivine and spinel could serve as an ...

How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don't yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that led to biology, or when the first primitive life forms appeared.

PRICKLY PEAR line the perimeters of brick-red fields. In a few there are crops, but in many the cactus is the only hint of green. Small children, who should be in school, herd Zebu cattle along dusty ...

Scientists have long been probing the universe to determine how elements came together to form planets and (at least in Earth’s case) gave rise to life. One disconnect was that the universe contained ...

How did we get here? That has to be humanity’s most fundamental question that, so far, has no clear answer. The first step in solving this puzzle is to figure out the origin of life’s ingredients, ...

A new federally funded research project at the University of California, Davis, endeavors to extract valuable components for magnets, lasers and other modern technologies from an unlikely source: ...

Rare earth elements are vital to new technologies and industry but hard to obtain. A new project led by UC Davis and funded by a grant from ARPA-E aims to develop acid-tolerant bacteria that can ...

They’re gorgeous, dazzling, passionately pursued, and worth billions. No, not Hollywood starlets and hunks and the stars of K-Pop. Well, OK, yes – they are gorgeous, dazzling, passionately pursued, ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when reading this story: For more than three decades, scientists have explored ways to leverage certain metal-producing powers of hyperaccumulators, a family of more than 700 ...