As of 2022, Canada has the most planned critical mineral mines

View a list of 50 minerals critical to US economic and national security

Most of the US's supply of critical minerals depends on countries that have historically competed with it, which has raised concerns in Washington. These minerals are needed for green technologies to meet greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.

Critical mineral production may lift impoverished regions out of poverty

Mineral wealth can provide public revenue and economic livelihoods to those in mining regions. However, poor management and lack of oversight can cause human rights abuses, environmental degradation, and significant greenhouse gas emissions.

Weird ways critical minerals are being mined

Critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and graphite are economically crucial non-fuel resources subject to supply chain risks. To diversify production, scientists developed odd ways to harvest them. This article breaks down the weirdest approaches, including extracting minerals from seawater using algae, phytomining plants, and asteroids.

As of 2025, China has been awarded the most deep-sea mining contracts by the ISA

The International Seabed Authority—established by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—grants 15-year contracts for governments and private companies to legally search for minerals and test seabed mining technologies. China is already the global leader in the processing and refining of critical minerals.

As of 2022, China has the largest reserve of rare earth elements

At 37.9% of estimated global reserves, China possesses twice the amount of REEs as Vietnam, the next closest nation. REEs, or lanthanides, are a set of 17 elements on the periodic table, which, alongside scandium and yttrium, share similar chemical properties that make them difficult to separate from within ores.

Beyond critical minerals, copper is emerging as a bottleneck to clean energy

Copper remains invaluable for the transmission of electricity needed in energy infrastructure projects, with 90% of the average circuit board made of the element. However, limited smelting capacity and low ore quality amid increasing demands are stressing global supplies.

The world's biggest silver producers, mapped

Mexico, with its deep history of silver mining, is the dominant leader in silver production, with over 200 million ounces (as of 2023), with China and Peru in second and third place. The precious metal is increasingly important for the electronics industry, and its price is expected to keep rising. See a chart of the biggest silver miners here.

The widespread need for rechargeable batteries has fueled surging lithium demand

As of 2025, the average person uses 27 times more mined lithium than they did in the 1990s, with the US ranking second globally in consumption despite producing less than 1% of global supply. However, potential alternative materials and boom-and-bust cycles have challenged the profitability of mines and future demand for the mineral.

As of 2025, the US and Qatar dominate global helium production

The US's 42.6% share includes helium imported from Canada and refined within the states. Geopolitical conflicts can cause supply disruptions that impact several advanced technologies, including semiconductor manufacturing, aerospace systems, and medical imaging.

View a map of the distribution of mineral resources on the seafloor

Polymetallic nodules are found in regions near the middle of the Pacific Ocean, along the eastern coast of South America, and along the western coast of Africa, while cobalt-rich crusts span significant portions of the Pacific tropics east of the Philippines. Polymetallic sulfide deposits occur at tectonic plate boundaries, including areas within national jurisdictions.

A look at the Kidd Creek Mine in Canada, which houses the world's oldest isolated water

The mine sits on the Precambrian Canadian Shield—an ocean floor dating back 2.7 billion years. Exhibiting a musty smell, the water is 10 times saltier than seawater and offers insights into Earth's ancient seabed.

As of 2024, about 77% of the world's gold reserves have been mined

About 216 million metric tons—about 0.4% of the Great Pyramid of Giza's volume—have been extracted and used primarily for jewelry. The remaining reserves are estimated based on chemical analysis of rock samples extrapolated to the entire mass of Earth's crust.

Visual Capitalist shows the top 50 countries by central bank reserves

As of 2024, China, Japan, and the United States held the top three spots in terms of the value of their respective central bank reserves.

4-minute overview of gold mining in the Amazon rainforest

A 2022 NBC news investigation of gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. Much of the $3B in illegal gold is trafficked to the US every year.

About 10% of the world's crude oil and 32% of its natural gas is reached via fracking

Most of the world's shale oil resources—which are recoverable via fracking—are found in Russia, the US, China, Argentina, and Libya. The majority of equivalent shale gas resources are found in China, Argentina, Algeria, the US, Canada, and Mexico.

Explore a map of data centers worldwide

As of February 2026, the US has more data centers (over 4,000) than the next 15 countries combined, thanks to years of investment by cloud service providers and technology companies. The next largest data center footprints come from the UK and Germany, with about 500 facilities each, followed by China with about 370.

The majority of the world's sovereign wealth funds are controlled by nations in Asia and the Middle East

Norway operates the world's single largest sovereign wealth fund, but Asian and Middle Eastern countries operate the rest of the top 10 largest SWFs. The Middle East alone accounts for more than $5T of the world's entire sovereign wealth.

There's a bitcoin mine in remote Zambia

In Zambia, a small hydropower plant draws water to power a town of 15,000 people—and a bitcoin mine. A shipping container containing 120 computers mining bitcoin—solving complex calculations to win the reward of several bitcoin—was set up near the plant to use its cheap electricity, and share its revenue.

Canada is the largest foreign buyer of California wine

Tariffs have impacted the wine industry in Canada significantly, given that California winemakers are responsible of 80% of the country's wine supply.

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

China reports the highest prevalence of hearing loss and South Africa reports the lowest

This conclusion comes from research published in 2025 that analyzed self-reported hearing loss and hearing aid use from long-term studies that covered 28 countries. Its findings included that the countries with the greatest prevalence of hearing loss (China, South Korea, Mexico, and Brazil) also had the lowest levels of hearing aid use.

Nobel Prizes in science have heavily favored male, North American, and European scientists

Most science laureates come from established academic institutions, and limited outreach and nomination rules have biased against researchers from low- and middle-income countries. As of 2024, China ranks among the world’s top scientific contributors, but has only won 10 Nobel Prizes in the sciences.

Billionaires are racing to space to control future markets

Although different companies have described focuses ranging from luxury tourism to Martian space colonies, all are building infrastructure to capitalize on the shift away from government-only control and betting big on reusability and scale. By securing public contracts and subsidies, they aim to develop strategic partnerships toward dominance in low Earth orbit.

National Geographic's list of best places to visit in 2023

National Geographic has released its latest Best of the World list with 25 must-see destinations for 2023 from Alberta, Canada, to Busan, South Korea.

Countries tried to curb plastic waste, but the US keeps shipping more

Data show that American exporters continue to ship plastic waste overseas, often to poorer countries, even though most of the world has agreed to not accept it.

Many countries remained neutral after Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, few nations outside the West imposed sanctions on Moscow. Major powers such as China, India, Brazil, and Turkey remained neutral, underscoring global divisions over how to confront Russian aggression.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

The 2026 Ebola outbreak is hampered by a lack of vaccine against the species of the virus, heightening the need for rapid tests to aid in disease control.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day