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 ›

As we continue to ponder the core of responsible rationality, it is helpful to ponder a summary of what we have won: I recall, way back, being taught how the seventeen first equations of Boolean Algebra [which can all be verified as equivalence relations through truth tables] were of equally axiomatic status. But then, I got the logic of being infection, and began to see that in fact, from the ontological perspective, identity and its close corollaries are prior: Then, there was that old philosopher who said that truth says of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not. Sometimes, the truth does fit in a nutshell. Here, that truth accurately describes reality. That Read More ›