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Brazil Has the World's Second-Largest Rare Earth Reserves. It Still Can't Process Them.
SCIENCE

Brazil Has the World's Second-Largest Rare Earth Reserves. It Still Can't Process Them.

Brazil sits on 21 million tonnes of rare earth elements — the metals behind every EV motor, wind turbine, and smartphone — second only to China. A $2.8 billion acquisition just put its only operating mine in American hands. But the science needed to turn raw ore into a finished magnet is still missing, and that gap is exactly what Brazilian researchers are racing to close.

By Clara Mendes|5 hours ago
Brazil Built the World's First Single-Dose Dengue Vaccine. Now Comes the Hard Part.

Brazil Built the World's First Single-Dose Dengue Vaccine. Now Comes the Hard Part.

After a 2024 epidemic that infected 6.4 million Brazilians, the Butantan Institute is rolling out a vaccine sixteen years in the making — one shot, all four dengue strains, developed almost entirely on Brazilian soil. Early results are striking: cases are down 94% so far this year. But monitoring the vaccine in millions of real-world arms is now revealing things a decade of clinical trials couldn't.

By Fernanda Souza|15 hours ago