Massive Lithium Supply Found in the USA

Sizes and types of large, known lithium deposits. Image: Benson et al, Science Advances 9, 35 (2023)

Scientists have discovered a huge deposit of lithium – a metal used in batteries – in a volcanic crater along the Nevada-Oregon border. The deposit lies in the southern portion of McDermitt Caldera at Thacker Pass and is larger than the previous record holder in Bolivia. It could entirely change the global market and geopolitics of lithium, which is a major ingredient in the batteries used in electric vehicles. The lithium is found in a rare clay mineral that was formed by a combination of volcanic and hydrothermal processes. However, the mining project faces opposition from Native Americans who consider the area sacred and historical. Paper here, summary here.

This week's episode of Science News covers the possibly first evidence for life on an exoplanet, with some caveats, chaos at the centre of the Milky Way, earthquake lights, and more! 

NASA to Recover Largest Space Sample Ever on September 24

Image Credit: NASA

This coming Sunday, September 24, 2023, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will return an asteroid sample to Earth. It contains 250 grams of rocky material collected from the surface of asteroid Bennu in 2020, and is the largest such sample ever collected. The spacecraft itself will not return – it will just release the sample and head out to a new mission to asteroid Aphonis. Once released, NASA estimates that the capsule will take four hours to hit the Earth’s atmosphere. A heat shield will keep the capsule safe as it plummets. At the last step of the journey, two parachutes will deploy to slow down the descent and make for a safe landing on a military range. Read more from NASA blogs here and watch a video about the process here.

Mathematician Cracks Möbius Band Puzzle

Image: David Benbennick / Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA 3.0

A Möbius strip (or band or loop) is a one-sided surface. You can make it yourself by taking a strip of paper, half twisting, and then attaching one end of the strip to the other to form a twisted loop. What’s the shortest paper strip that will work?Mathematicians have tried to answer this question since 1977. Now, Richard Schwartz of Brown University has proposed an elegant solution to the problem. In his paper, he demonstrates a proof that the aspect ratio (ratio between the length and width of the strip) must be greater than √3, or around 1.73. His next goal is to figure out how short a Möbius band can be if it is twisted three times instead of once. Paper here, more here.

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I had a debate with Michio Kaku, Max Tegmark, and Juan Maldacena about the role of beauty in physics, which is now available on YouTube.

In this week’s video I look at the difficulties with asynchronous communication and talk about what parasocial relationships are.

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