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 ...

In a discovery shaped by more than a decade of steady, incremental effort rather than a dramatic breakthrough, scientists demonstrated that great ideas flourish when paired with patience. (Nanowerk ...

A team of scientists was recently able to observe how promethium forms chemical bonds when placed in an aqueous solution. Proving a hypothesis can be exciting, but witnessing something that has never ...

The lanthanide elements’ 4f electron orbitals are notoriously shy and retiring, and they were long thought to be unwilling partners in chemical bonding. Now chemists have brought out a surprising ...

UV-Visible-NIR microspectroscopy brings together high spatial resolution of microscopy and the spectral analysis capabilities of spectroscopy, encompassing the ultraviolet (UV), visible and ...

Bruce Ravel is shown at the Beamline for Materials Measurement. Despite its rarity, promethium has a few interesting applications, including manufacturing specialized glow-in-the-dark paint, radiation ...