Japanese researchers took a break from constructing robot exoskeletons for kids and new and scary ways to incorporate your nonexistent anime girlfriend into your life to design an alloy with properties similar to palladium.
Palla-what, you may be asking, or simply wondering why the Japanese recreated a terrible music venue in Worcester, Massachusetts. It’s a rare-earth element mostly used in electronics. Since it’s scarce, that means it’s worth a lot, $800 per troy ounce at current market prices, and the Japanese dislike relying on the war-torn nations that generally provide the stuff for a steady supply.
Hence, they used nanotechnology to make it. Rhodium and silver were reduced to their atoms, and given heated alcohol to combine at the atomic level.
Man, we’ve got to try that heated alcohol, we haven’t combined at the atomic level in weeks.
[ via the minglers at SlashGear ]