Time  magazine this morning had this article:   What are the Five Strongest Earthquakes Ever Recorded? #6 was, of course, that massive Russian Kamchatka earthquake of 8.8 magnitude just experienced at 8:25AM local time on July 30.  Amazingly enough, there was only one death, but this was a woman in Japan while evacuating.  So there was none caused by the earthquake itself.   There was another 8.8 earthquake,  Chile in 2010 , which killed around 600, including 25 still missing.  So there is a tie for #6.  I happened to be in Amsterdam, Netherlands that day, but still wrote an article for the Huffington Post entitled  Hawaii Tsunami?   You can click on that link to read the whole article, but I will provide a beginning here: I'm on an around the world odyssey, which you can follow through my   HuffPost postings . Well, my most exciting day is happening right in front of me watching the 8.8 Chile earthquake cataclysm on ...

The  Vera C. Rubin Observatory  atop Cerro Pachón in Chile recently experienced first light last night, and released the above photo. But before focusing on that new telescope, the latest summary of what is occurring in the Israel and USA vs Iran War, where controlled orchestration seems to be the mode of operation. Iran did "take revenge" at Trump's attack on its nuclear facilities by lobbing a few missiles into U.S.'s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar . However, Iran first alerted Qatar that this was coming, with a sense that we are not at war with you, but only hate America.  Sort of Trump saying we are not at war with Iran, but only its nuclear facilities.  There were no casualties at the U.S. base. Of course, Qatar informed the U.S., so the ten missiles were all intercepted and destroyed in the air. It seems that Iran had to satisfy it's people, so on TV exaggerated the magnitude of its attack. There are more than 50,000 American troops scattered throughout the Midd...

I yesterday posted on the 17 rare earth materials.  So let me expand the discussion to another element,   lithium , which is especially crucial for electric vehicles and batteries.  I begin with an introduction to lithium. It is the lightest metal with an atomic number of 3, and was originally created like hydrogen and helium at the time of the Big Bang. First isolated in 1855. Is a shiny, silvery metal at room temperature with a melting point of 357 F, and can be cut with scissors. Lithium powder or dust can spontaneously ignite. Lithium floats in water and forms lithium hydroxide and hydrogen, which typically burst into a red flame. Between 2008 and 2018 the annual production rose from 25,400 to 85,000 tons.  Demand will more than double by 2024. Most of this element is used for batteries, but also for the glass and ceramics industry. In 2010 77% of all lithium went to glass and ceramics. In 2020 71% of lithium was for batteries. Note that the correct name is ...