Natural rare earth separation process in lab (IMAGE)
Caption
Joseph Cotruvo Jr., associate professor of chemistry at Penn State, is lead author on a paper about the discovery of a new mechanism by which bacteria can select between different rare earth elements, using the ability of a bacterial protein to bind to another unit of itself, or “dimerize,” when it is bound to certain rare earths, but prefer to remain a single unit, or “monomer,” when bound to others.
Credit
Patrick Mansell/Penn State
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CC BY-NC-ND