Nature: Rare earths—17 chemically similar elements most often used in high-tech electronics—are notoriously difficult to obtain in a useable form, and it is estimated that China produces about 98% of the global supply. In response to China’s recent limits on rare-earth exports, Japan and Vietnam have formed a partnership to develop technologies to increase the efficiency of extracting and processing the materials. Japan, the second largest consumer of rare-earth elements behind China, is concerned that the decreased global supply will harm its tech-heavy economy. Its efforts to find alternative supply sources include expanding its global mining efforts and recycling rare-earth elements from used electronics.