Beijing and Washington seem to have entered a tit-for-tat competition on trade. Late last year, the Biden administration placed restrictions on the export to China of equipment for the manufacture of advanced semiconductors and at the same time announced subsidies for the domestic manufacture of semiconductors. Washington even got Japan and the Netherlands to join…

Commentary In the latest break between China and the United States, Beijing imposed export controls on gallium and germanium. The two minerals, which Beijing plans to restrict starting Aug. 1, are critical to high-tech products like ultra-fast computer chips, electric vehicles, radar, night vision devices, missile defense, fiber optics, LEDs, and satellite imagery. China produces…

Australian researchers from three universities, Flinders, Swinbourne, and RMIT, have developed a way to give medical devices or implant surfaces antimicrobial powers to protect against infection. The team engineered a new surface coating by combining gallium liquid with hydroxyapetite to create a novel compound with long-term antibacterial properties. According to a Flinders University release on…