Ethical sourcing of materials for modern technology

13-Nov-2017 - Researchers from the Camborne School of Mines have identified methods to predict the environmental and social cost of resourcing new deposits of rare earth minerals used in the production of mobile phones, wind turbines and electric vehicles. The team are pioneering techniques to develop the ...

Bacteria with Midas touch for efficient gold processing

03-May-2017 - Special 'nugget-producing' bacteria may hold the key to more efficient processing of gold ore, mine tailings and recycled electronics, as well as aid in exploration for new deposits, University of Adelaide research has shown. For more than 10 years, University of Adelaide researchers have been ...

CT scan of Earth links deep mantle plumes with volcanic hotspots

Scans prove that plumes of hot rock anchored at core-mantle boundary rise to form island chains

04-Sep-2015 - Seismologists have produced for the first time a sharp, three-dimensional scan of Earth's interior that conclusively connects plumes of hot rock rising through the mantle with surface hotspots that generate volcanic island chains like Hawaii, Samoa and Iceland. Essentially a computed tomography, ...

University of Tennessee professor researches rare rock with 30,000 diamonds

Researcher examined a rare rock using a giant X-ray machine to study the diamonds and their relationships with associated materials

07-Jan-2015 - Diamonds are beautiful and enigmatic. Though chemical reactions that create the highly coveted sparkles still remain a mystery, a professor from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is studying a rare rock covered in diamonds that may hold clues to the gem's origins. The golf-ball sized chunk ...

How does dolomite form?

Scientists in Kiel show the influence of marine bacteria on mineral formation

12-Jun-2012 - Not only in the Dolomites, but throughout the world dolomite is quite common. More than 90 percent of dolomite is made up of the mineral dolomite. It was first described scientifically in the 18th century. But who would have thought that the formation of this mineral is still not fully ...

Going underground to monitor carbon dioxide

08-Jun-2010 - A technique originally, applied to monitor the flow of contaminants into shallow groundwater supplies, has been repurposed to monitor carbon dioxide pumped deep underground for storage. Electric Resistance Tomography (ERT) has been installed to track where a plume of injected CO2 moves ...

X-rays reveal chemical link between birds and dinosaurs

14-May-2010 - Researchers have found that a 150 million year old "dinobird" fossil, long thought to contain nothing but fossilized bone and rock, has been hiding remnants of the animal's original chemistry. Using the bright X-ray beam of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, located at the Department ...

UMBRELLA against heavy metals

Microbiologist at Jena University coordinates new EU research collaboration

07-Sep-2009 - "Please take" - as simple as following a recipe in a cook book, soils containing heavy metals could be remediated in the future: Depending on the kind of contamination and the conditions on the site in question, the best remediation recipe can be put together - that is the goal of a recently ...

Fitting pieces for biosensors

15-Apr-2009 - Research and industry are increasingly exploiting the potential of aptamers. As well as their application in research, medical diagnosis and treatment, aptamers are also interesting as a basis for biosensors for use in environmental analysis because their characteristics enable them to identify ...

Scientists determine strength of 'liquid smoke'

31-Jul-2008 - Researchers have created a 3D image of a material referred to as "liquid smoke." Aerogel, also known as liquid smoke or "San Francisco fog," is an open-cell polymer with pores smaller than 50 nanometers in diameter. For the first time, Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley scientists have ...