Our beautiful blue ball is home to a plethora of rare materials. Some are more commonly
known, while other’s seem to have been ripped straight from the pages of sci-fi novels.
Here are 12 of the rarest materials, that we know
of, on earth. #12 Rhinoceros Horn .Traditionally used in
Chinese medicine, but because modern medicine has deemed it useless, the Rhinoceros Horn
has become a status symbol of wealth and power. Made of hair and Keratin, the same materials
that make up human nails, the Rhino horn is little more valuable than your toe nail clippings,
but because of the Rhino’s fast approach to extinction and the unfaltering cruelty
of poachers and buyers alike, poached Rhino horns are sold for around $120 per gram on
the black-market. The near annihilation of a species just to feed the greed and egos
of the elite. #11 Saffron Many people are unaware that some
spices are considered “precious” and can cost as
much as the rarest of metals. Saffron is the pinnacle of said spices. Costing as much as
$500.00 an ounce, this sweet and bitter spice is famous in traditional Italian, French,
and Indian cuisine. Besides its, what some would call, intoxicating flavor, much like
Truffle is described, Saffron is jam-packed with antioxidants and carotenoids. Interestingly
enough, what makes this spice rare isn’t the quantity grown on the earth, but how its
produced. Each flower only produces 3 to 4 threadlike stigmas - the part of the flower
that becomes saffron -- and each is harvested, as it was in the ancient days, by hand. #10
Rhodium This silvery-white metal is cherished for its reflective and anti-corrosion properties
as well as being a chemically inert transition metal. Almost 85% of the Rhodium produced
is used as a catalyst in an automobile’s three-way catalytic converter. The rest is
divvied between such products as lights, mirrors, and jewelry. The price for Rhodium is always
in fluctuation but is currently nestling in at around $1,570 per troy ounce. That’s
around $300 more than the price of gold even in its current inflated state. #9 Osmium
Wearing the crown for the Densest Naturally Occurring Element, Osmium is a blue-white
and hard metal found within the Platinum group. Another -- heavier -- crown it bears is that
of the “Least Abundant ‘Stable’ Element” within the earth’s crust. It has an even
number on the periodic table which states, according to the OddoHarkins rule, its more
abundant in space than it is on earth. It is mainly produced, however, from the wastes
of nickel refining. Osmium is never used in its pure state due to its oxide’s extreme
volatility and toxicity, and can be found in only a few products: Needles, instrument
pivots, fountain pen tips, and electrical contacts. Though no where near the worth of
some other elements on the list, Osmium falls in around $400 per try ounce -- far from cheap.
#8 Plutonium I’m sure you’ve heard its name dropped in a ridiculous amount of movies
in which some cliche terrorist group has stolen a cache of it with the intent to build a bomb
that the hero must miraculously diffuse in the last three seconds of its timer. Partly
true in that it is used in the creation of nuclear bombs, Plutonium has a plethora of
other, more beneficial, uses such as an energy source for spacecraft and even as a power
source for pace makers -- one that reduces the risk repeated, surgical intrusion. Costing
around $4,000 per gram, I can assure you, Plutonium, besides its heavy radioactivity
and heavy metal toxicity, is not as easy to come by as the movies make it seem.
3. #7 Tritium Also known as Hydrogen-3, Tritium, a gas,
is a radio luminescent, radioactive isotope. For general use, it is used in beta-lights,
or self-powered lighting, that is found in gun sights, watch faces, street signs, and
many other products that glow its recognizable neon hue. For not-so-general use, it is used
in the creation of nuclear fission and nuclear weapons. Remember that next time you want
to show off your glow-in-the-dark shirt. More environmentally conscious, Tritium can also
be used to trace physical, biological, and chemical paths amongst the oceans’ currents.
As a result, we have been able to learn their circulation and ventilation. Costing a whopping
$30,000 per gram, it’s safe to say this won’t be a material sold out of your local
super store. #6 Diamond ) The most famous of all...and
infamous... Without having to be said, Diamonds are rare
beauties to behold. Each their own little Mona Lisas, capturing and contorting light
and expelling it back in wide and unique color. Though the price ranges by the clarity rating,
the average diamond is worth $55,000 per gram. Despite its popularity and impregnation into
our society due to the status it grants to those who wear them, and that we HAVE made
large strides in the reduction of conflict free sourcing, “blooddiamond” mining remains
a current problem... Even one blood-diamond is too many. #5 Painite
)With only a few hundred of these stones in existence today, Painite, until recently,
was the world’s rarest gemstone. Diamonds are common compared to the likes of this stone.
First discovered in the 1950’s by British Mineralogist Arthur C.D. Pain, it wasn’t
until recently, shortly after 2005, that we had any more than 25 stones at any given time.
For more than fifty years the exotic, reddish-orange beauty of a gemstone -- costing nearly $60k
per carat, eluded the grasp of mankind. Even after the discovery of a new repository in
Myanmar, Painite remains one of the rarest gemstones in existence.
#4 Red Diamonds Yes, they are diamonds, but most are unaware
diamonds come in a variety of colors, each rarer than the last. From least to rarest,
the colors of diamond are yellow, brown, colorless, blue, green, black, pink, orange, purple and
red. Because Red diamonds are so rare, the cost
varies from stone to stone. The largest and most wellknown Red-Diamond is called the Moussaieff
Red Diamond and is worth around 7 million dollars. #3 Astatine
Astatine is the rarest natural element on earth. In its natural state, Astatine has
a half-life of 8 hrs., So even if someone were to discover some, and managed to spot
it with their naked eye, half of it would be unusable at the day’s end. It is named
after the Greek word Astatos, or unstable, for this very reason.
So how does one use an element with such instability and life-span? Well, you create it, which
is exactly what scientists do. To date only .05 micrograms have ever been created. That’s
.00000005 grams. It is used primarily for medical purposes: cancer treatments and as
a radioactive tracer. #2 Californium Named after the university
in which it was first synthesized, Californium is a radioactive,
man made element first discovered in 1950 by colliding curium with alpha particles in
a particle accelerator, or a a byproduct within nuclear reactors. Costing nearly $30,000,000
per gram -- yes you heard right -- Californium remains one of the most expensive elements
on the planet due to the difficulty of and quantity produced.
Since 1950, only eight grams have been synthesized. Because of its rarity -- not to mention radioactivity
-- you could guess its applications would be slim and you’d be right. It’s used
primarily as a neutron catalyst for startups of nuclear reactors, but can also be found
in medical treatments targeting cervical and brain cancers when ordinary radiation therapy
is found ineffective. #1 Anti Matter Theorized to be the fuel for future spacecraft
that can traverse the stars (Yea, Star Trek was right), Antimatter is the single most
expensive material on earth. Costing nearly 25 million to produce a milligram of positrons
(that’s 62.5 trillion per gram) Anti-Matter is still a sci-fi story amount of time away
from being produced on a level required for space travel. As out of reach financially
the production of anti-matter is, it is fractions smaller when compared to labor required. If
we were to try and produce anti-matter today, with the pinnacle of technology at our disposal,
it would still take the equivalent of the entire human race working for an entire year
without delay to produce a single gram. What do you think? Have we come close to discovering
all resources in the earths crust and the vastness of space, or have we just begun to
delve into the potential our mysterious world and universe has to offer?
Drop a line below and let us know what you think.