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 ]




It’s curtains for Tony Stark.
You need a science writer. Rhodium and Silver are elements. Breaking them down to their atoms is meaningless.
And is not even a good way to write about elements and atoms…
Hey… no fair… the Palladium is an awesome venue!
So, wait, let me get this straight … the japs are mashing together the atom before and the atom after palladium, then they feed the individual atoms Flaming Dr. Peppers and an alloy with similar properties to palladium pops out … ? If that’s true – and not just another distraction so the japs can make a go of Pearl Harbor again – then this technology is amazing … protons aren’t easy (or cheap) to move around..
turbodog, to take a quick walkies and read without trying to be a jerk. “Reduced to their atoms” is reasonable (for the layperson) if you have a pile of atoms that aren’t forming bonds with each other as opposed to, say, solid ingots of both. If you’re smart enough to know they’re elements, you should be smart enough to grasp the context and this isn’t a science blog, why would you expect precision? Be glad they spelled “Palladium” correctly.
main stage palladium sucks! so much echo and reverb
i don’t really get the point of this article, and i mean no offense with that. for someone interested in science, this article gives almost no useful information regarding the technique and the chemistry behind the idea. for someone reading for amusement, it’s just “japanese scientists are making a useful alloy used in electronics,” which i can’t imagine non-science-minded folk find meaningful.
again, not to offend, but why write this article and not give more information?