100 Million By Year-end? Another Vac Bad Reaction.

Baltic Dry Index. 1296 +23 Brent Crude 51.63

Spot Gold 1870

Coronavirus Cases 02/04/20 World 1,000,000

Deaths 53,100

Coronavirus Cases 17/12/20 World 74,537,459

Deaths 1,655,307

This is the way things are, and the Game has been so successful that, like everything, it will get more and more successful until it stops being successful.

George Goodman, aka Adam Smith, The Money Game. 1968.

In the central bankster funded stock casinos, what’s not to like?

Who knew that to get to stock mania heaven, all you needed was a devastating deadly virus pandemic, putting millions out of employment, rigging interest rates down, in some places into negative interest rates, and for central banksters to find the communist Magic Money Tree forest, unleashing their “no billionaire left behind” era. Perhaps, China should unleash a new pandemic every year!

Below, the casino game goes on.

Stocks loiter at record highs, waiting for Congress; oil jumps

December 17, 2020  12:03 AM  By Tom Westbrook, David Henry

SINGAPORE/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Asian stocks perched near record heights, the dollar languished at two-year lows and oil prices stood at their strongest since March on Thursday, as monetary support and the hope of fiscal stimulus in the United States put traders in a festive mood.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.3% to touch an all-time high. Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.2%, though both fell back to flat while investors waited for U.S. lawmakers to agree on stimulus.

The risk-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars climbed to multi-year tops with the euro not far behind, and U.S. stock futures extended gains from Wednesday.

Brent crude oil futures, a proxy for global energy consumption and growth, rose 0.7% to $51.45 a barrel, the highest level since early March - before over-production fears and virus worries pushed oil prices off a cliff.

“My suspicion is markets are inclined to extend this rally for two reasons,” said Vishnu Varathan, head economist at Mizuho in Singapore, citing U.S. monetary policy support and the good news on the horizon as vaccines roll out globally.

“If new infection numbers don’t go crazy...I think there is some scope for a so-called Santa rally into the end of the year,” he said. “That’s what markets appear to be poised for.”

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell vowed on Wednesday to keep pouring cash in to markets until the U.S. economic recovery is secure.

Bond traders were disappointed he didn’t extend the Fed’s purchase program deeper down the yield curve, and U.S. Treasuries sold off at longer tenors, but everybody else took it as a signal that the bank will have their back.

“The message was clear – the Fed is willing and capable of doing more if needed,” said Kerry Craig, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management in Melbourne.

“The meeting also made clear that rates are highly unlikely to move until bond purchases come to an end. This means the market focus turns to the prospect of a pre-Christmas fiscal package from Congress.”

CHRISTMAS PACKAGE

U.S. lawmakers edged closer to agreement on a $900 billion virus-relief spending package on Wednesday with top Democrats and Republicans sounding more positive than they have in months about getting something done.

The proposal is expected to include $600-$700 stimulus checks and extended unemployment benefits and cannot come soon enough as U.S. COVID-19 infections soar to record levels.

“The market is buying it and the mood music from (Republican Senate leader Mitch) McConnell and others is good,” said Gavin Friend, senior market strategist at National Australia Bank, while adding the package likely to wind up relatively modest.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-markets/stocks-loiter-at-record-highs-waiting-for-congress-oil-jumps-idUKKBN28R001

But out in the real world. See yesterday’s LIR Covid-19 section’s lead article on the Pfizer vaccine.

Health Care Worker Had Serious Allergic Reaction After Pfizer's Covid Vaccine

Noah Weiland, Sharon LaFraniere and Katie Thomas 11 hrs ago

WASHINGTON — A health worker in Alaska had a serious allergic reaction after getting Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday and was hospitalized, according to three people familiar with official reports of the person’s health. The person was still in the hospital on Wednesday morning, under observation.

Government officials were scrambling on Wednesday to learn more about the case. The worker had no history of drug allergies but it was unclear whether he or she suffered from other types of allergies, according to one person familiar with the case.

With millions of Americans expected to be vaccinated by the end of the year, the incident is likely to prompt federal officials to be even more watchful for any sign of serious side effects. The Alaska recipient’s reaction was believed to be similar to the anaphylactic reactions two health workers in Britain experienced after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine last week. Both of them recovered.

Pfizer’s trial in the United States involving more than 40,000 people did not find any serious adverse events caused by the vaccine, although many participants did experience aches, fevers and other side effects. Severe allergic reactions to vaccines are typically linked to the vaccine because of their timing.

A Pfizer representative did not immediately comment on the case.

After the workers in Britain fell ill, authorities there initially warned against giving the vaccines to anyone with a history of severe allergic reactions. They later clarified their concerns, changing the wording from “severe allergic reactions” to specify that the vaccine should not be given to anyone who has ever had an anaphylactic reaction to a food, medicine or vaccine. That type of reaction to a vaccine is “very rare,” they said.

Pfizer officials have said the two British people who had the reaction had a history of severe allergies. One, a 49-year-old woman, had a history of egg allergies. The other, a 40-year-old woman, had a history of allergies to several different medications. Both carried EpiPen-like devices to inject themselves with epinephrine in case of such a reaction.

Pfizer has said that its vaccine does not contain egg ingredients.

The British update also said that a third patient had a “possible allergic reaction,” but did not describe it.

In the United States, federal regulators issued a broad authorization for the vaccine on Friday to adults 16 years and older. Health care providers were warned not to give the vaccine to anyone with a “known history of a severe allergic reaction” to any component of the vaccine, which they said was a standard warning for vaccines.

But because of the British cases, F.D.A. officials have said they would require Pfizer to increase its monitoring for anaphylaxis and submit data on it once the vaccine comes into use. Pfizer also said that the vaccine is recommended to be administered in settings that have access to equipment to manage anaphylaxis. Last weekend, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that people with serious allergies can be safely vaccinated, with close monitoring for 30 minutes after receiving the shot.

Anaphylaxis can be life-threatening, with impaired breathing and drops in blood pressure that usually occur within minutes or even seconds after exposure to a food or medicine, or even a substance like latex to which the person is allergic.

More

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/health-care-worker-had-serious-allergic-reaction-after-pfizer-s-covid-vaccine/ar-BB1bYU3e

In other news, far from the banksters gambling casinos, a harsh reality.

Nearly 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty since the summer

Heather Long, The Washington Post

Dec. 16, 2020Updated: Dec. 16, 2020 6:41 a.m.

The U.S. poverty rate has surged over the past five months, with 7.8 million Americans falling into poverty, the latest indication of how deeply many are struggling after government aid dwindled.

The poverty rate jumped to 11.7 percent in November, up 2.4 percentage points since June, according to new data released Wednesday by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame.

While overall poverty levels are low by historical standards, the increase in poverty this year has been swift. It is the biggest jump in a single year since the government began tracking poverty 60 years ago. It is nearly double the next-largest rise, which occurred in 1979-1980 during the oil crisis, according to James X. Sullivan, a professor at Notre Dame, and Bruce D. Meyer, a professor at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy.

Sullivan and Meyer created a Covid-19 Income and Poverty Dashboard to track how many Americans are falling below the poverty line during this deep recession. The federal poverty line is $26,200 for a family of four.

The economists say the sharp rise in poverty is occurring for two reasons: Millions of people cannot find jobs, and government aid for the unemployed has declined sharply since the summer. The average unemployment payment was more than $900 a week from late March through the end of July, but it fell to about $300 a week in August, making it harder for the unemployed to pay their bills.

---- Congress is debating whether to pass additional stimulus. Many economists and business leaders say more aid is needed as the economic recovery stalls and many families and small businesses struggle to stay afloat.

"There are two ways to counteract this upward trend in poverty: One is a dramatic improvement in the labor market. The other is more support from the federal government. Given the state of the virus, I wouldn't bet on significant improvement in the labor market in the short run," Sullivan said.

More

https://www.greenwichtime.com/business/article/Nearly-8-million-Americans-have-fallen-into-15807427.php

U.S. airlines closing in on new government assistance package

December 17, 2020  5:49 AM  By David Shepardson, Tracy Rucinski

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. airlines are on the brink of receiving a four-month extension of a government assistance program that is expected to provide another $17 billion to fund payroll costs, congressional aides told Reuters.

A roughly $900 billion coronavirus relief bill still under negotiation would allocate $17 billion to airlines and allow them to bring back more than 32,000 workers furloughed in October, after a prior six-month $25 billion measure expired on Sept. 30.

A final deal on the $900 billion relief package could be reached as early as Thursday morning in the United States.

Airline workers would be paid retroactive to Dec. 1 and airlines would have to resume flying to some routes they stopped operating after the aid package expired, congressional aides briefed on the talks told Reuters. Airline workers could not be furloughed through March 31 as a condition of the assistance.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-airlines/u-s-airlines-closing-in-on-new-government-assistance-package-idUKKBN28R0H7

In other news, the outgoing Trump government starts a new fiat currency fight.

U.S. Treasury labels Switzerland, Vietnam as currency manipulators

December 16, 2020 1:37 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury labeled Switzerland and Vietnam as currency manipulators on Wednesday and added three new names to a watch list of countries it suspects of taking measures to devalue their currencies against the dollar.

In what may be one of the final broadsides to international trading partners delivered by the departing administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, the Treasury said that through June 2020 both Switzerland and Vietnam had intervened in currency markets to prevent effective balance of payments adjustments.

Furthermore, in its semi-annual currency manipulation report, the Treasury said Vietnam had acted to gain “unfair competitive advantage in international trade as well.”

Foreign exchange analysts had broadly anticipated the U.S. Treasury designation for the two countries.

The action comes as the global coronavirus pandemic skews trade flows and widens U.S. deficits with trading partners, an irritant to Trump, who won office four years ago partly on a promise to close the U.S. trade gap.

To be labeled a manipulator, countries must at least have a $20 billion-plus bilateral trade surplus with the United States, foreign currency intervention exceeding 2% of gross domestic product and a global current account surplus exceeding 2% of GDP.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-currency-manipulation/u-s-treasury-labels-switzerland-vietnam-as-currency-manipulators-idUKKBN28Q1SF

Swiss cenbank to press ahead with FX interventions despite U.S. manipulation tag

December 16, 2020  2:02 PM  By John Revill

ZURICH (Reuters) -The Swiss National Bank rejected accusations of currency manipulation by the United States on Wednesday, saying the label would not deter it from acting aggressively on forex markets.

---- “The SNB’s monetary policy approach remains unchanged by the report,” the Swiss central bank said in a statement. “In light of the economic situation and the fact that the Swiss franc is still highly valued, the SNB remains willing to intervene more strongly in the foreign exchange market.”

It added that its interventions were not intended to gain unfair trading advantage for Swiss exporters or massage balance of payments figures.

“Foreign exchange market interventions are necessary in Switzerland’s monetary policy to ensure appropriate monetary conditions and therefore price stability,” the SNB said.

The SNB has stepped up interventions this year, spending 90 billion Swiss francs ($101.72 billion) in the first half to rein in the franc, but the central bank has argued this is to prevent the “highly valued” currency from triggering deflation.

Officials from the Swiss government and the SNB are in contact with U.S. counterparts to explain the situation, the SNB added.

The central bank is due to give its latest monetary policy update on Thursday, where it is expected to reiterate its commitment to negative interest rates and currency market interventions.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-currency-manipulation-swiss/swiss-cenbank-to-press-ahead-with-fx-interventions-despite-u-s-manipulation-tag-idUKKBN28Q1VC

Winter Watch.

From around mid-October, the northern hemisphere snow cover usually rapidly expands, while the Arctic ice gradually expands back towards its winter maximum.

Over simplified, a rapid expansion of both, especially if early, can be a sign of a harsher than normal arriving northern hemisphere winter. Perhaps more so in 2020-2021 as we’re in the low of the ending sunspot cycle, which possibly also influenced this year’s record Atlantic hurricane season.

Update: we seem to have started new sunspot cycle 25 this month, though it’s unlikely to affect 2020-2021s coming winter.

Northern Eur-Asia turned snowy fast in mid-October.  The Arctic sea ice expansion was slow, and from a very low level at the end of September, but with the vastly expanded snow cover, sea ice formation sped up.

The Laptev Sea ice was back to normal at the end of November.  The failure of the Kara Sea ice to return to normal, leads me to bet on a warmer western European winter ahead.

Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

https://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_asiaeurope.gif

Covid-19 Corner                       

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

U.S. vaccine campaign grows as COVID-19 kills 3,000-plus Americans daily

December 16, 2020 1:48 PM  Updated 2 hours ago 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday widened its network for administering COVID-19 vaccines to doctors and nurses on the frontlines of a pandemic killing more than 3,000 Americans a day, even as a major storm threatened to slow progress on the East Coast.

While medical professionals at a growing number of hospitals rolled up their sleeves, lawmakers on Capitol Hill said they were nearing a long-elusive bipartisan deal on $900 billion in economic relief to pandemic-hit U.S. workers and businesses.

The aid package, to be attached to a massive spending bill that must pass by Friday to avert a federal shutdown, was not expected to include COVID-relief funds for state and local governments, as Democrats wanted, or protections for companies from pandemic-related lawsuits, as sought by Republicans.

Rollout of the first tranche of 2.9 million doses of a newly authorized vaccine from Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech SE was in its third full day, with shipments headed to 66 more distribution hubs nationwide.

A second vaccine from Moderna Inc could win emergency-use approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week.

Express delivery companies FedEx and United Parcel Service, sharing a leading role in vaccine shipments, said they were monitoring potential impacts of heavy ice and snow that began to disrupt transport along the Eastern Seaboard.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-usa/u-s-vaccine-campaign-grows-as-covid-19-kills-3000-plus-americans-daily-idUKKBN28Q1TO?il=0

Some vaccine doses kept too cold, Pfizer having manufacturing issues, U.S. officials say

December 16, 2020 4:07 PM  By Carl O’Donnell, Rebecca Spalding

(Reuters) - The first days of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout have seen unexpected hitches including some vaccines being stored at excessively cold temperatures and Pfizer reporting potential challenges in its vaccine production, U.S. officials said on a Wednesday press call.

At least two trays of COVID-19 vaccine doses delivered in California needed to be replaced after their storage temperatures dipped below minus 80 Celsius (minus 112 Fahrenheit), U.S. Army General Gustave Perna said on the call. Pfizer’s vaccines, made with partner BioNTech SE, are supposed to be kept at around minus 70C.

Officials are investigating whether storing the vaccines at excessively cold temperatures poses a safety or efficacy risk, he said.

Pfizer also has reported some production issues, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said.

“We will ensure that by whatever mechanism, that we provide them full support to ensure that they can produce for the American people,” Azar said.

Pfizer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but its Chief Executive Albert Bourla told CNBC earlier this week the company was asking the U.S. government to use the Defense Production Act to relieve some “critical supply limitations,” particularly in some components. He did not provide further details.

Officials did not outline what the specific manufacturing challenges were.

More

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-pfizer-vaccine/some-vaccine-doses-kept-too-cold-pfizer-having-manufacturing-issues-u-s-officials-say-idUKKBN28Q2BM

Tokyo says COVID-19 strain on hospitals severe, raises alert to highest

December 17, 2020  5:03 AM

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Japanese capital of Tokyo said on Thursday the strain on its medical system from the COVID-19 pandemic was severe, raising its alert level to the highest of four stages as the number of cases spiked to a record high.

At a coronavirus monitoring committee meeting attended by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, a health official said it had become difficult to balance the care of COVID-19 patients with regular ones as hospital beds filled up, assigning a “red” alert for medical preparedness for the first time.

The number of positive cases in Tokyo on Thursday surged to a daily record of more than 800, public broadcaster NHK said, surpassing the previous record of 678 reached a day earlier.

The metropolis a month ago raised its coronavirus alert for new infections - a separate category - to the highest level. It had kept its alert for medical preparedness at the second-highest level at the time, indicating a need to boost hospital capacity but a notch below critical conditions.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-japan/tokyo-says-covid-19-strain-on-hospitals-severe-raises-alert-to-highest-idUKKBN28R0FX?il=0

WHO says Beijing welcomes COVID-19 investigators trip to China

December 17, 2020  3:37 AM  By John Geddie

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Beijing will welcome an international team of COVID-19 investigators due to travel to China in January, said the World Health Organization (WHO), which is leading the mission.

China has strongly opposed calls for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, saying such calls are anti-China, but has been open to a WHO-led investigation.

However, it was unclear whether the WHO investigators will travel to the city of Wuhan where the virus was first detected, with discussions on the itinerary ongoing.

“WHO continues to contact China and to discuss the international team and the places they visit,” Babatunde Olowokure, the WHO’s regional emergencies director in the Western Pacific, told a news conference on Thursday.

“Our understanding at this time is that China is welcoming the international team and their visit...This is anticipated, as far as we are aware, to happen in early January,” he said.

On Wednesday, a WHO member and diplomats told Reuters the mission was expected to go to China in the first week of January to investigate the origins of the virus.

The United States, which has accused China of having hidden the outbreak’s extent, has called for a “transparent” WHO-led investigation and criticised its terms, which allowed Chinese scientists to do the first phase of preliminary research.

Chinese state media have suggested the virus existed abroad before it was discovered in Wuhan, citing its presence on imported frozen food packaging and scientific papers claiming it had been circulating in Europe last year.

Olowokure said the exact timing of the trip would depend on “obtaining the results of some other tests that are being carried out initially”, without giving further details.

Referring to the ongoing discussions with China over the trip, Olowokure said: “These are of course important for us, and to get an overall picture of how the investigation will go.”

More than 72.92 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 1,641,733 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-asia-who/who-says-beijing-welcomes-covid-19-investigators-trip-to-china-idUKKBN28R0C2?il=0

Scientists outraged by Peter Daszak leading enquiry into possible Covid lab leak

Published: 23 September 2020

Expressions of outrage and incredulity have greeted the announcement that Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, has been chosen to lead a Task Force that will examine the possibility that Covid-19 could have emerged from a lab, as part of an investigation into the origins of the virus.

Daszak has promised to undertake the investigation “with an open mind”. But this is hard to imagine, given his previous dismissals of suggestions that SARS-CoV-2 could have leaked from a lab as “preposterous”, “baseless”, “crackpot”, “conspiracy theories” and “pure baloney”.

Misinformation super-spreader

Daszak’s investigation forms part of the work of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission – a body launched in July to look at the handling of the pandemic and “offer practical solutions”. In a statement, the Commission said it was “extremely important that the research into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 should proceed … in a scientific and objective way that is unhindered by geopolitical agendas and misinformation”.

But Daszak himself is considered a misinformation super-spreader by critics like Rutgers University microbiologist Richard Ebright, who has accused him of lying “on a Trumpian scale”, and the evolutionary theorist Bret Weinstein who has labelled him “Patient Zero for misinformation” on the origins of Covid-19.

A 100-million-dollar-plus conflict of interest

There is also the issue of conflicts of interest. Although Daszak declared in The Lancet that he has “no competing interests” on Covid-19, and likewise told the Washington Post he has “no conflicts of interest”, Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute, points out that he is a “long-time friend, collaborator and funder of the Shi lab” – the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) lab led by Shi Zhengli that is most often identified as the probable source of any lab leak.

In fact, Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance has helped finance both the WIV’s bat coronavirus surveillance and its bat coronavirus gain-of-function research (research aimed at making a virus more infective), with the help of multi-million dollar grants from the US government. This, of course, means Daszak’s own activities are material to the subject he is investigating: the origins of a bat-derived coronavirus pandemic that broke out in the very city to which he helped lab workers bring bat coronaviruses for storage, analysis and experimentation.

More

https://www.gmwatch.org/en/news/latest-news/19538-scientists-outraged-by-peter-daszak-leading-enquiry-into-possible-covid-lab-leak

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 other 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/

Centers for Disease Control Coronavirus

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

The Spectator Covid-19 data tracker (UK)

https://data.spectator.co.uk/city/national

 

Technology Update.

With events happening fast in the development of solar power and graphene, I’ve added this section. Updates as they get reported.

'Magic' angle graphene and the creation of unexpected topological quantum states

Date:  December 14, 2020

Source:  Princeton University

Summary:  Electrons inhabit a strange and topsy-turvy world. These infinitesimally small particles have never ceased to amaze and mystify despite the more than a century that scientists have studied them. Now, in an even more amazing twist, physicists have discovered that, under certain conditions, interacting electrons can create what are called 'topological quantum states.' This finding has implications for many technological fields of study, especially information technology.

Topological states of matter are particularly intriguing classes of quantum phenomena. Their study combines quantum physics with topology, which is the branch of theoretical mathematics that studies geometric properties that can be deformed but not intrinsically changed. Topological quantum states first came to the public's attention in 2016 when three scientists -- Princeton's Duncan Haldane, who is Princeton's Thomas D. Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics and Sherman Fairchild University Professor of Physics, together with David Thouless and Michael Kosterlitz -- were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in uncovering the role of topology in electronic materials.

"The last decade has seen quite a lot of excitement about new topological quantum states of electrons," said Ali Yazdani, the Class of 1909 Professor of Physics at Princeton and the senior author of the study. "Most of what we have uncovered in the last decade has been focused on how electrons get these topological properties, without thinking about them interacting with one another."

But by using a material known as magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, Yazdani and his team were able to explore how interacting electrons can give rise to rise to surprising phases of matter.

The remarkable properties of graphene were discovered two years ago when Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and his team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used it to induce superconductivity -- a state in which electrons flow freely without any resistance. The discovery was immediately recognized as a new material platform for exploring unusual quantum phenomena.

Yazdani and his fellow researchers were intrigued by this discovery and set out to further explore the intricacies of superconductivity.

But what they discovered led them down a different and untrodden path.

"This was a wonderful detour that came out of nowhere," said Kevin Nuckolls, the lead author of the paper and a graduate student in physics. "It was totally unexpected, and something we noticed that was going to be important."

----They found that the magic-angle graphene changed how electrons moved on the graphene sheet. "It creates a condition which forces the electrons to be at the same energy," said Yazdani. "We call this a 'flat band.'"

When electrons have the same energy -- are in a flat band material -- they interact with each other very strongly. "This interplay can make electrons do many exotic things," Yazdani said.

One of these "exotic" things, the researchers discovered, was the creation of unexpected and spontaneous topological states.

"This twisting of the graphene creates the right conditions to create a very strong interaction between electrons," Yazdani explained. "And this interaction unexpectedly favors electrons to organize themselves into a series of topological quantum states."

Specifically, they discovered that the interaction between electrons creates what are called topological insulators. These are unique devices that act as insulators in their interiors, which means that the electrons inside are not free to move around and therefore do not conduct electricity. However, the electrons on the edges are free to move around, meaning they are conductive. Moreover, because of the special properties of topology, the electrons flowing along the edges are not hampered by any defects or deformations. They flow continuously and effectively circumvent the constraints -- such as minute imperfections in a material's surface -- that typically impede the movement of electrons

More

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201214123455.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

“Beyond this, the problem is universal. It is that governments are now held responsible for the welfare of the people. The aspirations of the people can outrun their ability to pay for them, and nobody has yet found a way to create answers to the aspirations out of thin air.”

George Goodman, aka Adam Smith, The Money Game. 1968.