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