{"id":226023,"date":"2025-11-27T09:04:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T15:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/rare-earth-element-crystals-found-forming-in-a-plant-for-the-first-time"},"modified":"2025-11-27T09:04:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T15:04:28","slug":"rare-earth-element-crystals-found-forming-in-a-plant-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/rare-earth-element-crystals-found-forming-in-a-plant-for-the-first-time","title":{"rendered":"Rare Earth Element Crystals Found Forming in a Plant For The First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/rare-earth-element-crystals-found-forming-in-a-plant-for-the-first-time.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists have just discovered an incredible superpower hidden away in the tissues of the fern <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inaturalist.org\/taxa\/345928-Blechnum-orientale\"><em>Blechnum orientale<\/em><\/a>, a plant that can collect and store <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rare-earth_element\">rare earth elements<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The findings could lead to a more sustainable way of gathering mineral resources that we are increasingly reliant upon.<\/p>\n<p>There are 17 rare earth elements in total, and these metallic materials are now deeply embedded in all kinds of tech \u2013 from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/the-largest-and-most-powerful-wind-turbine-ever-built-is-now-operational\">wind turbines<\/a> and computers, to broadband cables and medical instruments. They\u2019re not actually that rare, but they are difficult and expensive to extract from the Earth\u2019s crust in a useful form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have just discovered an incredible superpower hidden away in the tissues of the fern Blechnum orientale, a plant that can collect and store rare earth elements. The findings could lead to a more sustainable way of gathering mineral resources that we are increasingly reliant upon. There are 17 rare earth elements in total, and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}