China’s Chokehold on This Obscure Mineral Threatens the West’s Militaries
www.nytimes.com
China produces the entire world’s supply of samarium, a rare earth metal that the United States and its allies need to rebuild inventories of fighter jets, missiles and other hardware.
  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    6 days ago

    Discovered in 1879 by French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, samarium was named after the mineral samarskite from which it was isolated.

    Samarium has no swagger. The chemist should have named it after himself. Boisbaudran is missing from the periodic table.