Physicists have filled in some longtime blank spaces on the periodic table, calculating electron affinities of the lanthanides, a series of 15 elements known as rare earths. Physicists at Michigan ...

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Although the Periodic Table of Elements is an impressive achievement of human understanding, scientists ...

Conceptual art shows the rare earth element promethium in a vial surrounded by an organic ligand. ORNL scientists have discovered hidden features of promethium, opening a pathway for research into ...

An illustration shows a variety of bacterial shapes in a petri dish consuming various lanthanide metals. Credit: Yang H. Ku/C&EN/Shutterstock You can smell the Solfatara volcanic crater long before ...

Last week, we explored the evolution of the periodic table, with all its elements in order. Now that we’re well-organized, let’s dive into the reasoning. * The table is generally sorted by the number ...

THE rare-earth elements, or lanthanides, comprise the 15 elements in the periodic table with atomic numbers 57-71. Often included with the lanthanides are scandium (atomic number 21) and yttrium ...

What do magnets, smartphones and medical imaging devices have in common? They all depend on rare earth elements called lanthanides, which are vital for modern technology. Yet, separating these ...

One of the greatest challenges facing the future of clean nuclear energy is scientists’ ability to recover heavy metals from nuclear waste, such as lanthanides and actinides. A new computational tool ...