Chemist's contributions worth their weight in gold

Three decades ago, China had to exchange 5 tons of gold for 1 ton of rare-earth metals, essential elements it needed for the materials industry.

That was until Xu Guangxian, a professor at Peking University and member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), came up with a novel way to extract and process the metals.

His idea helped slice their cost of production to less than the price of pork.