Economy
Dogecoin payments to be accepted by this NBA team
The Dallas Mavericks and BitPay have teamed up to allow fans to purchase tickets and merchandise from their online team store with Dogecoin.
The Mavericks are the first merchant of any kind to accept Dogecoin as a form of purchase. Bitcoin has been an acceptable use of payment for tickets and merchandise.
Got Questions About Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 Vaccine? We Have Answers
This week, health care providers began administering the first doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. — the third vaccine authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to help stop the coronavirus pandemic.
That’s welcome news in a country that still faces high levels of circulating virus in most regions, and a demand for vaccine that still far outstrips supply.
Why the World Is Short of Computer Chips, and Why It Matters
Carmakers from Tokyo to Detroit are slashing production. PlayStations are getting harder to find in stores. Even aluminum producers warn of a potential downturn ahead. All have one thing in common: an abrupt and cascading global shortage of semiconductors. Semiconductors, also known as integrated circuits or more commonly just chips, may be the tiniest yet most exacting product ever manufactured on a global scale. That level of cost and difficulty has fostered a growing worldwide dependence on two Asian powerhouses — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. — a reliance exacerbated by the pandemic and rising U.S.-China tensions even before the current deficit. Hundreds of billions will be spent by governments and corporations in a plethora of sectors in coming years on a “chip race” with geopolitical as well as economic implications.
New Battery Tech Could Make Solar Energy Storage Even Cheaper
US-based engineers have joined forces to develop high-voltage reference batteries for behind-the-meter energy storage applications, based on a bipolar technology that uses silicon wafers in traditional lead batteries.
The wafers are similar to those in photovoltaic cells and the idea is that the development becomes a ‘plug and play’ solar-powered energy storage system.
U.S. COVID vaccine supply to be boosted by Merck helping make J&J vaccine
The U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program got a welcome jolt on Tuesday in the news that one of the biggest vaccine makers in the world will help make Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose jab, potentially doubling the supply from what J&J could achieve on its own.
President Joe Biden will announce later Tuesday that Merck & Co. MRK, +1.33% is teaming up with J&J JNJ, +1.98% in an “unprecedented historic step,” his press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a briefing. Biden is scheduled to address the pandemic at an event planned for 4:15 p.m. Eastern with Vice President Kamala Harris also expected to attend.
Energy
WTI stood at $61.50 / barrel when we issued our weekly assessment of EIA oil markets data yesterday. Nevertheless, we stated that, “We might expect WTI at $64 / barrel this time next week, and $65-66 / barrel would not be surprising.” We did not need a week. Less than twenty-four hours later, WTI had surged above $64 / barrel. It could well rise far above this level, and with shocking speed.
At some point, of course, US operators will take the bait. But too late. The Saudi decision to extend the 1 mbpd cut indefinitely can be taken as a declaration of intent — indeed, a thinly veiled declaration of war on the Biden administration — by the Kingdom, and by extension, the rest of the OPEC+ cartel. They are going to keep pushing prices up relentlessly. Pencil in a $10/barrel rise per month. At that pace, oil prices could reach $100/barrel during the course of the summer. That’s the message the Saudis and Russians want to send to the Biden administration: “Look who has the leverage now.”
The Pentagon Successfully Tests Solar Panel In Space
The Pentagon has successfully tested a solar panel in low-earth orbit as a prototype of potential future power-generating systems capturing light from the Sun and beaming it back as energy to earth.
In May 2020, engineers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory launched the Photovoltaic Radio-frequency Antenna Module (PRAM) aboard an Air Force X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, as part of a study into prospective terrestrial use of solar energy captured in space.
Environment
Women on the pill are LESS LIKELY to pick up complex emotional expressions
If you or your partner can’t read your face, pick up on your reactions, or gauge how you are feeling… How can that impact your relationship?
Women on the pill were 10% worse than non-users at recognizing complex emotions and subtle expressions. Frontiers in Neuroscience‘s study compared the phenomenon.
Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf finally calved a large iceberg in February 2021, two years after rifts opened rapidly across the ice and raised concerns about the shelf’s stability.
The break was first detected by GPS equipment on February 26, 2021, and then confirmed the next day with radar images from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1A satellite. On March 1, clouds were sparse enough for the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 to acquire this natural-color image of the new iceberg.
Gold & Silver
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