By Cristóbal Vila NATURE BY NUMBERS from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo. Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

This video summarises a direct, molten salt based electro-reduction process for metals, especially Titanium: (Titanium, of course, is a rather abundant but hard to win “super-metal.” See Wiki here for a more detailed summary. The process extends to other metals and of course turns on having abundant electrical energy.) Let me add an illustration of the electrolytic cell: . . . with a broader overview, 2004: . . . nb here on universality, pardon the resolution, red — already in kg q’ties by 2004, blue achieved, grey, suitable . . . observe esp. not only Fe, Al etc but Si, Ge, Ga [not As though], W [= Tungsten, aka Wolfram], U, Th, Pu, as well as the rare earths that Read More ›

As I have mentioned before, an “aglet” is that little plastic sheath at the end of a shoestring.  And here at UD, our budget is so small we say we get by on an “aglet budget.” We would have to have a lot more money to say we are getting by on a shoestring budget. Which brings me to our annual holiday fundraising drive.  If you have benefited from our News Desk’s tireless chasing of the latest ID-related happenings, or KF’s in-depth analysis of the fundamentals, or gpuccio’s scientific insights, or any of our other UD features, please consider a donation to help fund our efforts.  The Donate button is there on the right of the homepage under the search Read More ›