Rare Earth Metals in Your Phones, Laptops and Ipods??

In your cell phones, laptops, ipods there are tiny bits of what scientists call  "rare earth metals". The elements themselves are not really rare just the places they are found so many people are worried that there might not be enough to keep our electronics running. The rare earth metals are the 17 elements found on the bottom of the periodic table. They were first discovered in the 18th century as an oxidized mineral and it took them a while to separate the mineral and find the element. They are silvery, shiny metals that are good conductors of electricity which is probably why they are used in phones and other electronic devices. China currently mines 97% of the supply of "rare earth metals" and once they stopped production of the elements for one month and America wants to find more supply of that element so they do not have to rely on China. Miners have found supplies of the metal in California and in Nebraska. I never knew that there are "rare earth metals " in the some of the things we use daily. We definitely take things for granted when it comes to things like this. So much goes into making electronics and we do not even realize  it. We really need those elements to make our electronics work so I'm hoping they find more of it in America.




http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/news/rare-earths.html

Atomic Weights Have Been Revised

The International Unit of Pure and Applied Chemistry have found new atomic masses for 19 different elements. As technology is advancing the scientists are able to figure out more in depth things about different elements. The 19 elements have either gained or lost weight. The atomic mass was thought to be a stable weight but as they find new sources of the element the ratio between the isotopes change. The latest weight change had been for the elements selenium and molybdenum. Selenium gained .011 atomic mass units and Molybdenum has lost.01 atomic mass units. As technologies increase the periodic table might change drastically. Scientists might find something different that just has to be on the periodic table. Things are changing really quickly!



http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/09/element-weights-redefined

New Element To Join The Periodic Table! (Maybe)

Scientists have found a new element that has 115 protons in it. That is so awesome!! It can fill in the space between the elements that have 114 and 116 which were only found last year. So it is amazing how the scientists where able to find the 115th element, which has not been named yet, in a year. The element was first found 10 years ago by a Russian and an American scientist. But the people who decide what goes in the periodic table said that they had to wait for another scientist to do the same experiment to officially publish the element. A Swedish University, in August, finally announced that they had duplicate the experiment . The scientist said that they also saw the element 113 when they preformed the experiment, which was said to have existed before. They created the element by shooting calcium into a target that contained americium atoms and then the calcium and americium merged at one point and created the element 115 but it fell apart in less than a second. They were able to determine that the element existed from the debris it left and they also took an x-ray while the element was decaying, which showed that element had 115 protons once again. Some of the elements on the periodic table are man made and they are still have not put the 115th element up yet. Why not? Two groups of scientists have already found it so why is it not up yet.? I think that they should just put the element up after all the hard work that people did to find it after 10 years!! what if it gets rejected I would feel so bad. But anyway it is good that they found it. Maybe some day scientists can find an element that has 200 protons, if that is possible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/28/science/made-in-lab-fleeting-element-may-join-periodic-table.html?ref=chemistry&_r=0

Table Salt Turns Blue!

Scientist are closer to finding out how salt gets crystallized when it comes out the water. Scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found a way to alter the electronic structure which is bringing us closer to figuring out how salt crystallizes. NaCl, also known as table salt, it comes out of water it crystallizes and then it shows a blue glow which means that's the electron structure is changing which is not what was believed generally. Scientists say that if any kind of light or luminescence is omitted then there is some change in the electron structure. Also another team of scientists at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center wanted to check to see if the water molecules and ions with the NaCl were what they were expected to be. They used an aqueous solution which is a solution in which water is more dominant. As they did their experiment they found out that the ions where not equal or opposite to each other. The water was acting as an electronic sink because the chloride ions ended up around the water molecules and it created a shell around the sodium and chloride, and the water around the sodium ions is most negative. The final thing is to find out how long the fields, how to create them, and to measure the energy gaps between the excited electronic states. First of all I did not know table salt came straight from the water, and I'm amazed at how much work nature puts in to make it. It is like mind boggling how much we do not understand goes on into making something we use everyday, like table salt. It is so cool how the scientists are so close to figuring out how salt does crystallize. Also I did not know that salt glows blue and that I can glow blue due to the electron changes but it is still amazing.

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-strong-simple-table-salt.html