President Trump? President Biden? Or President Pelosi.

Baltic Dry Index. 1296 +02  Brent Crude 42.98

Spot Gold 1951

Coronavirus Cases 21/9/20 World 31,099,532

Deaths 965,493 

'A republic, if you can keep it'

Benjamin Franklin

The big story this week, and in all likelihood until the US election on November 3^rd, until the new Congress gets sworn in on January 3^rd, and the next President sworn in on January 20^th, is just how much is the USA going to change in the next 4 years?

Make no mistake, the USA is about to undergo massive political, social and economic change no matter what the election outcome.

President Trump has promised to announce a new Supreme Court Justice this week to fill the vacancy. The Democrats are acting like spoilt teenagers, outraged at a Republican President following President Clinton’s nomination of extreme left wing Justice Ginsburg. President Trump, will of course nominate a conservative Justice.

Leading Democrats at the weekend have suggested that if he does and the Senate confirms the Justice,and if they win the Senate  and Presidency in November, they will gerrymander the constitution.

Namely, add more left wing Justices to the Supreme Court to get a socialist majority. Make Puerto Rica and Washington D.C. into states, adding 3 or 4 Senators and Congressmen to their Democrat majority. And though they didn’t specifically state this, probably revisiting their calls in 2016-2017 to abolish the Electoral College.

If President Trump’s nominee fails or simply isn’t voted on, any disputed 2020 Presidential election, would end up in front of a Supreme Court that might split 4v4.  If so, that seems to make  for a President Pelosi President, though I’m not sure if she gets to pick the new Vice President or the Congress does.

If President Trump gets elected, but the Republicans lose the Senate, the impeachment process starts all over again.

No Electoral College and the east coast states, plus the west coast states, plus Chicago, get dominate future US elections. A very different socialist, re-distributive, “eat the rich,” future USA lies ahead.

All in all, for now, the USA and the dollar are very far from a safe harbour, politically stable investment destination.

Shares cling to tight ranges as attention shifts to U.S. election, stimulus

September 21, 20201:33 AM

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian shares and most currencies held tight ranges on Monday, as investors awaited developments on U.S. fiscal stimulus and coronavirus vaccines amid a resurgence of infections in Europe.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.1% weaker, though it was not too far from a June 2018 peak at 568.84.

Australia's .AXJO benchmark index slipped 0.5% while New Zealand's stumbled 0.6%. Chinese shares opened in the red with the blue-chip index .CSI300 down 0.3%.

“While the economic recovery continues, momentum is clearly slowing,” Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. financial economist at Oxford Economics wrote in a note.

“The second phase of the recovery will likely be bumpy and fraught with pitfalls,” Bostjancic added.

“The development of the pandemic remains the overriding factor driving the economy, discussions on the fiscal policy, and ultra loose policy by the Fed.”

On Friday, U.S. stocks declined with the Dow .DJI down 0.9%, the S&P 500 .SPX losing 1.1% and Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropping 1.07%. [.N]

The signal from futures was not very optimistic, with the S&P 500 e-minis ESc1 falling 0.1% and pointing to a weak start for Wall Street on Monday.

Japanese markets were closed for a public holiday.

Coronavirus cases have now surpassed 30 million, casting a gloomy pall over prospects of a V-shaped economic recovery.

The biggest threat to global growth is a resurgent pandemic, with analysts fearing growth and inflation could surprise on the downside in the coming year. A lack of material development on U.S. stimulus package is also an overhang, they said.

Adding to worries, European countries from Denmark to Greece announced new restrictions on Friday to curb surging coronavirus infections in some of their largest cities, while Britain was reported to be considering a new national lockdown.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-markets/shares-cling-to-tight-ranges-as-attention-shifts-to-u-s-election-stimulus-idUKKCN26C00H?il=0

World’s Central Banks Adjust to Fed Three-Year Plan: Week Ahead

By Craig Stirling

September 20, 2020, 3:00 AM GMT+1

More than a dozen central banks will this week confront a new reality where monetary policy in the world’s biggest economy is set to stay ultra-loose for the foreseeable future.

With the Federal Reserve’s recent signal that U.S. interest rates should be kept low for at least three years, officials meeting from Sweden to New Zealand have one more assumption on which to base their decision-making, beyond the knowledge that the coronavirus remains untamed.

Central Bank Rate Decisions This Week

That guidance from the Fed incorporates a reimagined policy framework to allow inflation to overshoot after periods of underperformance, a stance that already startled global monetary authorities by weakening the dollar when it was unveiled last month.

While a cheaper U.S. currency, entrenched by low rates, could affect the inflation outlooks of other central banks, few are likely to respond with immediate loosening themselves.

Of the 16 or so decisions scheduled for the next few days, most should show policy on hold at an already easy setting. Colombia and Mexico, both proximate to the U.S., may still each cut their benchmarks.

Click here for what happened last week and below is our wrap of what else is coming up in the global economy.

U.S. and Canada

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell testifies before congressional committees for three straight days -- on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday -- to discuss the response to the coronavirus pandemic. He’ll likely face questions about the broader state of economy and fiscal stimulus.

Weekly data on Thursday will showcase the level of continuing unemployment-benefit claims for the week ended Sept. 12, a key metric in economists’ estimates for the monthly jobs report that’s due Oct. 2. August home sales and durable-goods orders are also coming out.

• For more, read Bloomberg Economics’ full Week Ahead for the U.S.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey will have a chance to clarify the BOE’s surprising comments on preparations for negative rates when he speaks on Tuesday. That same day, U.K. data will shed more light on the damage that the fallout from the pandemic has done to public finances.

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-20/world-s-central-banks-adjust-to-fed-three-year-plan-week-ahead?srnd=premium-europe

Biden blasts Trump plan to push for Supreme Court nominee ahead of election

September 20, 20202:20 PM

PHILADELPHIA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden urged Senate Republicans not to vote on any candidate nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court as the November election nears, calling President Donald Trump’s plan an “exercise of raw political power.”

A second Senate Republican on Sunday voiced objections to Trump’s plan for a quick vote on a replacement to liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday. Such an appointment by the president, if approved by the Senate, would cement a 6-3 conservative majority that could influence American law and life for decades.

“Voters of this country should be heard ... they’re the ones who this Constitution envisions should decide who has the power to make this appointment,” Biden, who leads Trump in national opinion polls, said in Philadelphia. “To jam this nomination through the Senate is just an exercise of raw political power.”

Biden said that if he wins the Nov. 3 election, he should have the chance to nominate the next Supreme Court justice.

---- He reiterated his pledge to nominate an African-American woman to the court, which would be a historic first, if he has the opportunity.

Earlier on Sunday, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she did not support Trump’s plan to move fast on filling the seat, becoming the second of the 53 Republicans in the 100-seat chamber to object publicly following Ginsburg’s death.

On Saturday, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said the presidential election winner should pick the nominee. She is locked in a tight re-election battle, while Murkowski’s current term extends two more years.

Senator Lamar Alexander, another moderate Republican, said in a statement he did not object to a vote, adding: “No one should be surprised that a Republican Senate majority would vote on a Republican president’s Supreme Court nomination, even during a presidential election year.”

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer did not rule out that his party might move in future to end the filibuster, a procedural tactic under which the support of 60 members is required to move to a vote on legislation, if the Republicans went ahead with the nomination.

“We first have to win the majority. ... But if we win the majority, everything is on the table,” he said.

Schumer and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told a joint news conference that putting another conservative on the court would put at risk healthcare and women’s and LGBTQ rights.

---- Trump said on Saturday he would make his nomination this week and named Amy Coney Barrett of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Barbara Lagoa of the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit as possible candidates to fill the vacancy created by Ginsburg, a revered figure among liberals.

---- “I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where supporters chanted: “Fill that seat.”

Trump and McConnell have time to schedule a vote. While elections are on Nov. 3, a new Congress will not be sworn in until Jan. 3, with the winner of the presidential contest inaugurated on Jan. 20.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-court-ginsburg/biden-blasts-trump-plan-to-push-for-supreme-court-nominee-ahead-of-election-idUKKCN26B0IK

Ocasio-Cortez, Schumer Team Up to Fight Trump Supreme Court Pick

By Steven T. Dennis

September 21, 2020, 2:42 AM GMT+1

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer joined forces in Brooklyn on Sunday night to call for a national mobilization against confirming a replacement for the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg before Inauguration Day.

Speaking at James Madison High School, which Ginsburg attended, both Democrats used dramatic terms to describe the potential fallout of replacing Ginsburg with a conservative chosen by President Donald Trump.

“We need to make sure that we mobilize on an unprecedented scale,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “This is our entire livelihood that could be shaped by the next 60 or so days,” she said, referring to the period before the Nov. 3 election and the court’s hearing of the case to overturn the Affordable Care Act shortly thereafter.

“Our reproductive rights are on the line. Our labor rights are on the line. Our right to health care is on the line,” she added.

Aside from health care, the two New York lawmakers warned about perils to voting rights, the plight of immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and even the Earth’s climate.

Schumer didn’t rule out increasing the size of the Supreme Court if Trump’s nominee is confirmed.

“Once we win the majority, God willing, everything is on the table,” Schumer said, referring to elections for the Senate. “If we don’t win the majority, these questions are all moot.”

Schumer said 100 years of progress is potentially at stake. He said his own daughter and her wife wondered during Rosh Hashanah dinner if marriage equality might be reversed by a new court.

Both cited Ginsburg’s last wish that the next president pick her successor.

“We’re here because the American people want those rights preserved. We do not want to turn the clock back. And we only need two more senators to say that they will abide by RBG’s wish,” Schumer said.

Two Republicans -- Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine -- have said a nominee shouldn’t be confirmed before the election.

Schumer was also asked if he thought Amy Coney Barrett, an appeals court judge in Chicago considered to be among the people Trump might select, could be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate.

“I hope she can’t. She stands for all the things Ruth Bader Ginsburg was against,” Schumer said. “Someone of that philosophy does not belong on the court and could cement a hard-right conservative court that for a generation could turn the clock back on the rights, the aspirations, the hopes of the majority of American people.”

At the end of the news conference, the two lawmakers extended pleasantries -- Ocasio-Cortez thanked Schumer and wished him a happy anniversary -- and they shared an elbow bump.

There has been some speculation in New York that Ocasio-Cortez might mount a primary challenge to Schumer in 2022. Among those encouraging such talk was Trump himself.

“Actually, that would be a big improvement -- and she would win!” he tweeted in June.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-21/ocasio-cortez-schumer-team-up-to-fight-trump-supreme-court-pick?srnd=premium-europe

United States presidential line of succession

The United States presidential line of succession is the order in which officials of the United States federal government assume the powers and duties of the office of president of the United States if the incumbent president becomes incapacitated, dies, resigns, or is removed from office. The order of succession specifies that the office passes to the vice president; if the vice presidency is simultaneously vacant, or if the vice president is also incapacitated, the powers and duties of the presidency pass to the speaker of the House of Representatives, president pro tempore of the Senate, and then Cabinet secretaries, depending on eligibility.

Presidential succession is referred to multiple times in the U.S. Constitution – Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, as well as the 12th Amendment, 20th Amendment, and 25th Amendment. The vice president is designated as first in the presidential line of succession by the Article II succession clause, which also authorizes Congress to provide for a line of succession beyond the vice president; it has done so on three occasions. The current Presidential Succession Act was adopted in 1947, and last revised in 2006. The 25th Amendment also establishes procedures for filling an intra-term vacancy in the office of the vice president.

The Presidential Succession Act refers specifically to officers beyond the vice president acting as president rather than becoming president when filling a vacancy. The Cabinet currently has 15 members, of which the secretary of state is first in line; the other Cabinet secretaries follow in the order of when their departments (or the department of which their department is the successor) were created. Those heads of department who are constitutionally ineligible to be elected to the presidency are disqualified from assuming the powers and duties of the president through succession, and skipped to the next in line. Since 1789, the vice president has succeeded to the presidency intra-term on nine occasions: eight times due to the incumbent's death, and once due to resignation. No one lower in the line of succession has ever been called upon to act as president.

More

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_line_of_succession

Finally, shipping. An unseen growing supply chain crisis gets bigger and worse with each passing month. Which jurisdiction will be the first to lodge modern slavery charges?

Worst Shipping Crisis in Decades Puts Lives and Trade at Risk

With 300,000 workers stranded on merchant ships, Bloomberg found dozens of labor violations that threaten seafarers’ safety, as well as the global supply chain.

Published: September 17, 2020, 10:00 PM | Updated: September 18, 2020, 11:35 AM

On July 25, the Unison Jasper pulled into the Australian port of Newcastle carrying 31,000 tons of alumina bound for one of the country’s largest smelters. The ship had traveled around the world in the seven months since the pandemic began, but in Australia, authorities found a problem serious enough to detain the vessel.

Seven of the 22-person crew had been on the ship for 14 months, beyond the end-date of their contracts and in breach of international maritime law, regulators and union officials said. They were owed $64,000 in back pay, and there wasn’t enough fresh food. There was also no valid plan to get them home to their families in Myanmar. They wanted off. 

I’ve been on the sea for 14 months,” one of the sailors said in a video interview with an organizer for the International Transport Workers’ Federation, a union that represents seafarers. “We are actually very tired. I want to go home.”

Ratified by more than 80 countries, the Maritime Labour Convention isn’t mere guidance—the agreement sets minimum working conditions for seafarers that underpin the insurance policies and global contracts that govern the transport of basically everything. But the ongoing pandemic has shattered the norms of this highly fragmented industry, and with countries wary of relaxing port and border restrictions, violations of worker protections have become common. Nearly 20% of the world’s 1.6 million seafarers are stranded at sea and, like those on the Unison Jasper, at the mercy of employers and shifting quarantine requirements to get them home. 

In conversations with Bloomberg reporters, more than 40 seafarers on nearly as many ships described deteriorating conditions. Most asked for anonymity given the fragility of their situations. About half didn’t have current contracts and some said they hadn’t been paid in more than two months, meeting International Labour Organization's definition of forced labor. Overtime pay, they said, was inconsistent, if their extra hours were logged at all. Most haven’t left their ships in months after coronavirus outbreaks tied to cruise liners and merchant ships put an end to shore leave. Seafarers with abscessed teeth haven’t been able to get dental care, and others say they’ve received stitches from crewmates in lieu of off-shore medical attention. On one ship, the captain died of a heart attack, and the crew stored his corpse in the freezer for nearly two weeks before it found a port that would repatriate the body.

----Many companies have rerouted ships and chartered flights to facilitate crew changes, and still some 300,000 seafarers are overdue for relief—a number that grows as the pandemic drags on. The crisis has begun to reach shipping investors including global asset manager Fidelity International Ltd., American insurance giant Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., asset manager Oaktree Capital Group LLC and finance titan JPMorgan Chase & Co. If it isn’t resolved soon, analysts say, it threatens to ripple up the supply chain, affecting commodities companies like Cargill Inc. and Glencore Plc. and retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc., just in time for the holiday shopping season.  

More.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-pandemic-shipping-labor-violations/?srnd=premium-europe

But as fragile as America's federal edifice was at the time of the founding, there was much in the culture and environment that contributed to a national consensus and cohesion: a common language; a solid belief in the principles of English common law and constitutionalism; a widespread commitment (albeit in diverse forms) to the Protestant religion; a shared revolutionary experience; and, perhaps most important, an economic environment which promised most free, white Americans if not great wealth, at least an independent sufficiency.

https://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/historical-documents/perspectives-on-the-constitution-a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it

 

Covid-19 Corner                       

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

U.S. Nears 200,000 Dead; Denmark to Aid Business: Virus Update

Bloomberg News

September 20, 2020, 11:11 PM GMT+1 Updated on September 21, 2020, 6:48 AM GMT+1

U.S. deaths related to Covid-19 approached 200,000 and the nation’s new cases rose in line with a one-week average. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said he expects the U.S. to experience “at least one more cycle” of the virus in the fall and winter.

U.K. Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty is set to warn on Monday that the U.K. is at a “critical point” while Denmark’s government is offering help to restaurants and bars hurt by new Covid-19 restrictions.

In Asia, Indonesia’s capital is adding thousands of beds to house patients as its health system struggles with record infections and South Korea plans to tighten social distancing rules for the nation’s upcoming holidays even as cases fall.

Key Developments:

• Global Tracker: Cases top 30.8 million; deaths exceed 958,400
• Virtual UN is latest blow to New York City’s battered economy
• Fewer people are dying of Covid as doctors gain practice, drugs improve
• A rash of infections on trading floors threatens Wall Street’s return to work
• Threat of a lethal autumn looms in Europe after Covid-19 reprieve

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-20/u-s-set-to-breach-200-000-dead-with-cases-steady-virus-update?srnd=coronavirus

Seoul schools resume in-person classes as South Korea coronavirus cases dip

September 21, 20204:50 AM

SEOUL (Reuters) - Schools in the South Korean capital Seoul and nearby areas resumed in-person classes for the first time in almost a month on Monday after daily coronavirus cases dropped to the lowest levels since mid-August.

Students returned to schools under a hybrid schedule of in-person and online classes to limit the number of people at schools at any given time. Students will attend in-person classes once or twice a week.

South Korea managed to contain the virus and avoid a full lockdown earlier this year, but infections at a church and political rally in August sparked the country’s largest outbreak forcing authorities to impose social distancing curbs. Many schools closed on Aug. 26, though high school seniors facing a key test were allowed to continue in-person classes.

Authorities on Sunday, meanwhile, extended phase 2 social distancing for a week until Sept. 27, which limits indoor gatherings to below 50 and outdoor to less than 100.

They said they would impose stricter restrictions on Sept. 28, ahead of the three-day Chuseok holiday when people traditionally reunite with families.

“We are not at a stage to let our guard down yet,” health ministry official Yoon Tae-ho told a briefing.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported 70 new cases as of midnight Sunday, the lowest daily increase since the middle of August.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-southkorea/seoul-schools-resume-in-person-classes-as-south-korea-coronavirus-cases-dip-idUKKCN26C0AI?il=0

Australia's COVID-19 hotspot reports lowest daily rise in infections since June

Today 11:21 am JST

SYDNEY

Australia's coronavirus hotspot of Victoria reported on Monday its lowest daily rise in infections in three months, although state Premier Daniel Andrews said there were no plans yet to ease restrictions sooner than expected.

Victoria, Australia's second-most populous state and home to a quarter of its 25 million people, reported 11 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the smallest one-day jump since June 16. It also reported two deaths due to the virus.

"This is not just a good day. This is a great day," Andrews told reporters in the Victorian capital, Melbourne.

But the premier said his government would not accelerate a timetable for easing restrictions, which were imposed after daily case numbers topped 700 in early August.

"The formal position is clear," Andrews said.

"If circumstances change, if we find ourselves ahead of schedule, not for one day, but in a manifest sense, common sense always guides us," he added.

Melbourne has been under one of the toughest lockdowns, including nightly curfews, but the state government has said it will let construction sites, manufacturing plants, warehouses and childcare facilities in the capital reopen on Sept 28 if the average number of cases over two weeks is below 50.

The average in Melbourne is now below 35.

The bulk of all restrictions in Victoria will be lifted in late October if the two-week average for the state is below 5, a target that has been criticized by Prime Minister Scott Morrison as too punitive and costly to the country's economy.

Australia has recorded its first recession in 30 years, while effective unemployment is still to top 13%, as virus-related restrictions paralyzed business activity.

More

https://japantoday.com/category/world/update-2-australia%27s-covid-19-hotspot-reports-lowest-daily-rise-in-infections-since-june

UK at critical point in COVID pandemic, top medical adviser says

September 20, 202010:05 PM

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is at a critical point in the COVID-19 pandemic and faces a very challenging winter, one of the government’s top medical advisers will warn at a public briefing on Monday.

Cases in Britain are on the increase in what Prime Minister Boris Johnson has labelled a second wave of the virus, with large areas of the country subject to restrictions on social freedom and London expected to be next in line.

“The trend in the UK is heading in the wrong direction and we are at a critical point in the pandemic,” England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty is expected to say in an address set for 1000 GMT on Monday.

“We are looking at the data to see how to manage the spread of the virus ahead of a very challenging winter period.”

More than 40,000 people in Britain have died within 28 days of testing positive for COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic in March, the highest number in Europe.

New cases fell rapidly due to an unprecedented three-month national lockdown, but have risen as the shuttered economy, schools and offices reopened.

---- The warning from Whitty is expected to foreshadow a national address by Johnson later in the week, although this has not been confirmed by ministers.

Health minister Matt Hancock on Sunday warned the country was at a tipping point, saying that people must follow rules on self-isolating or face the imposition of further lockdown measures. The government announced large fines for non-compliance.

Hancock has refused to rule out another national lockdown - something which Johnson has said would have disastrous consequences for the economy - and said officials were meeting to decide how best to handle the rising cases in London.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-briefing/uk-at-critical-point-in-covid-pandemic-top-medical-adviser-says-idUKKCN26B0X3

Next, some vaccine links kindly sent along from a LIR reader in Canada. The links come from a most informative update from Stanford Hospital in California.

World Health Organization - Landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/draft-landscape-of-covid-19-candidate-vaccines

NY Times Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/science/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker.html

Stanford Website. https://racetoacure.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/132

Regulatory Focus COVID-19 vaccine tracker. https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker

Some useful Covid links.

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource centre

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Rt Covid-19

https://rt.live/

Covid19info.live

https://wuflu.live/

 

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC energy mankind’s future from the 21^st century onwards.

New on/off functionality for fast, sensitive, ultra-small technologies

Date: September 15, 2020

Source: Osaka University

Summary: Researchers have developed an ultra-small actuator that can be turned on and off in a fraction of a millisecond and exhibits nanometer-scale position control. This actuator is unparalleled in modern technologies, and will be useful in robotics, medicine, and many other advanced applications.

How do you turn on and off an ultra-small component in advanced technologies? You need an actuator, a device that transmits an input such as electricity into physical motion. However, actuators in small-scale technologies to date have critical limitations. For example, if it's difficult to integrate the actuator into semiconductor electronics, real-world applications of the technology will be limited. An actuator design that operates quickly, has precise on/off control, and is compatible with modern electronics would be immensely useful.

In a study recently published in Nano Letters, a team including researchers from Osaka University has developed such an actuator. Its sensitivity, fast on/off response, and nanometer-scale precision are unparalleled.

The researchers' actuator is based on vanadium oxide crystals. Many current technologies use a property of vanadium oxide known as the phase transition to cause out-of-plane bending motions within small-scale devices. For example, such actuators are useful in ultra-small mirrors. Using the phase transition to cause in-plane bending is far more difficult, but would be useful, for example, in ultra-small grippers in medicine.

"At 68°C, vanadium oxide undergoes a sharp monoclinic to rutile phase transition that's useful in microscale technologies," explains co-author Teruo Kanki. "We used a chevron-type (sawtooth) device geometry to amplify in-plane bending of the crystal, and open up new applications."

Using a two-step protocol, the researchers fabricated a fifteen-micrometer-long vanadium oxide crystal attached by a series of ten-micrometer arms to a fixed frame. By means of a phase transition caused by a readily attainable stimulus -- a 10°C temperature change -- the crystal moves 225 nanometers in-plane. The expansion behavior is highly reproducible, over thousands of cycles and several months.

"We also moved the actuator in-plane in response to a laser beam," says Nicola Manca and Luca Pelligrino, co-authors. "The on/off response time was a fraction of a millisecond near the phase transition temperature, with little change at other temperatures, which makes our actuators the most advanced in the world."

Small-scale technologies such as advanced implanted drug delivery devices wouldn't work without the ability to rapidly turn them on and off. The underlying principle of the researchers' actuator -- a reversible phase transition for on/off, in-plane motion -- will dramatically expand the utility of many modern technologies. The researchers expect that the accuracy and speed of their actuator will be especially useful to micro-robotics.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200915110003.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

US Politics Betting Odds

https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.”

Ronald Reagan