By William
James
LONDON
(Reuters) - Britain said on Tuesday it would drop clauses in draft domestic
legislation that breached the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement after it clinched a
deal with the European Union over how to manage the Ireland-Northern Ireland
border.
Michael Gove, one of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s most senior
ministers, announced an “agreement in principle on all issues, in particular
with regard to the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland”.
The deal is separate to wider trade talks, which have yet to find a
solution on how to manage nearly $1 trillion of annual trade between Britain
and the EU, despite having just weeks until temporary arrangements expire.
But the agreement removes what was a major point of contention between
Britain and the EU, with Brussels warning that no wider trade deal would be
possible if London went through with its threat to unpick the exit treaty.
“I hope this may also provide some of the positive momentum necessary to
instil confidence and trust and allow progress in the wider context of the
future relationship negotiations,” Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said
---- Sterling jumped by almost a cent
against the dollar on the news, erasing most of the day’s losses to stand at
$1.3367 at 1330 GMT, and also rose sharply against the euro.”
Tuesday’s deal will ensure that the
Withdrawal Agreement is fully operational as of Jan. 1, European Commission
Vice-President Maros Sefcovic said.
The clauses the would have broken
international law in the UK Internal Market Bill would be removed before it
received final approval, the British government said, and similar provisions
due to be included in an as-yet unpublished taxation bill would also be
deleted.
---- The “Northern Ireland Protocol” was
agreed as part of a divorce accord signed in January to prevent a hard border
between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland, but the specifics of how to
implement it left to agree later.
The protocol keeps the British-run province effectively in the EU’s
customs union and single market for goods after Dec. 31, when the rest of the
United Kingdom fully leaves.
Tuesday’s agreement fills in some of the blanks left by the January
treaty, covering issues such as what export declarations are needed, supply
rules for medicines and food to supermarkets, and the process for border checks
on animals and plants.
Coveney welcomed the news, saying it would provide some certainty.
More
https://uk.reuters.com/article/britain-eu-withdrawal-agreement/uk-drops-threat-to-break-eu-exit-treaty-after-irish-border-agreement-idUKKBN28I1TY
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.
With the Laptev sea ice back to normal
at the end of November I think that it will likely be a normal to slightly
warmer winter ahead for western Europe.
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.
First signs of Thanksgiving
COVID-19 wave emerge By Reid Wilson - 12/08/20 02:12 PM EST
The first signs of a post-Thanksgiving surge in coronavirus
cases are beginning to show up in data released by states across the country in
a troubling prelude of what may become the deadliest month of the pandemic so
far.
Those hints of an uptick in case counts come as the country
faces an already substantial wave of infections that began in the Upper Midwest
and spread to every corner of the map as summer turned to fall and the weather
cooled.
The United States has averaged nearly 200,000 new confirmed
cases a day over the last week, according to The Covid Tracking Project ,
run by a group of independent researchers. More than 2,200 people a day have
died on an average during that period. The number of patients being treated in
hospitals has crested 102,000, the highest levels of the pandemic.
The country still lacks a national testing strategy that
public health experts say is essential to bringing the pandemic under control. President Trump
There are some hopeful signs that the third wave is ebbing
in parts of the Midwest. The number of newly confirmed cases has declined for
two straight weeks in 10 states, including hard-hit Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan
and New Mexico.
But new data shows other states experiencing substantial increases. In
Alabama, where authorities reported about 14,000 new cases a week through
middle and late November, case counts jumped to more than 22,000 in the first
week of December. Georgia’s case counts rose in early December by about 50
percent from its November figures. Florida cases spiked to 65,000 last week, a
substantial increase over its averages last month.
“At this point, we could be just picking up the beginning of the
Thanksgiving surge, but surely in the following week we’re going to see it,”
said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research
and Prevention at the University of Minnesota. “We’re slingshotting this surge
of cases into the holiday season in a way that is truly dangerous.”
More
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/529271-first-signs-of-thanksgiving-covid-19-wave-emerge
Paper-based electrochemical
sensor can detect COVID-19 in less than five minutes Date:
December 7, 2020
Source:
University of Illinois Grainger College of Engineering
Summary:
Researchers have developed a rapid, ultrasensitive test using a paper-based
electrochemical sensor that can detect the presence of the virus in less than
five minutes. It uses a graphene biosensor and is adaptable to other viruses.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the world, testing
remains a key strategy for tracking and containing the virus. Bioengineering
graduate student, Maha Alafeef, has co-developed a rapid, ultrasensitive test
using a paper-based electrochemical sensor that can detect the presence of the
virus in less than five minutes. The team led by professor Dipanjan Pan
reported their findings in ACS Nano .
"Currently, we are experiencing a once-in-a-century life-changing
event," said Alafeef. "We are responding to this global need from a
holistic approach by developing multidisciplinary tools for early detection and
diagnosis and treatment for SARS-CoV-2."
There are two broad categories of COVID-19 tests on the market. The
first category uses reverse transcriptase real-time polymerase chain reaction
(RT-PCR) and nucleic acid hybridization strategies to identify viral RNA.
Current FDA-approved diagnostic tests use this technique. Some drawbacks
include the amount of time it takes to complete the test, the need for
specialized personnel and the availability of equipment and reagents.
The second category of tests focuses on the detection of antibodies.
However, there could be a delay of a few days to a few weeks after a person has
been exposed to the virus for them to produce detectable antibodies.
In recent years, researchers have had some success with creating
point-of-care biosensors using 2D nanomaterials such as graphene to detect
diseases. The main advantages of graphene-based biosensors are their
sensitivity, low cost of production and rapid detection turnaround. "The
discovery of graphene opened up a new era of sensor development due to its
properties. Graphene exhibits unique mechanical and electrochemical properties
that make it ideal for the development of sensitive electrochemical
sensors," said Alafeef. The team created a graphene-based electrochemical
biosensor with an electrical read-out setup to selectively detect the presence
of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material.
---- The
team tested the performance of this sensor by using COVID-19 positive and
negative samples. The sensor showed a significant increase in the voltage of
positive samples compared to the negative ones and confirmed the presence of
viral genetic material in less than five minutes. Furthermore, the sensor was
able to differentiate viral RNA loads in these samples. Viral load is an
important quantitative indicator of the progress of infection and a challenge
to measure using existing diagnostic methods.
This platform has far-reaching applications due to its portability and
low cost. The sensor, when integrated with microcontrollers and LED screens or
with a smartphone via Bluetooth or wifi, could be used at the point-of-care in
a doctor's office or even at home. Beyond COVID-19, the research team also
foresees the system to be adaptable for the detection of many different
diseases.
More
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201207153928.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29
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 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. Is converting sunlight to usable cheap AC or DC
energy mankind’s future from the 21st century onwards.
Using a Protective Carbon Shell
to Improve "Clean" Methanol Fuel Cells Written by AZoMDec 7 2020
Because of the many environmental problems caused
by the use of fossil fuels, many scientists worldwide are focused on finding
efficient alternatives.
Though high hopes have been placed on hydrogen fuel cells,
the reality is that transporting, storing, and using pure hydrogen comes with a
huge added cost, making this process challenging with current technology.
In contrast, methanol (CH 3 O 3 ), a type of
alcohol, does not require cold storage, has a higher energy density, and is
easier and safer to transport. Thus, a transition into a methanol-based economy
is a more realistic goal.
However, producing electricity from methanol at room
temperature requires a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC); a device that, so far,
offers subpar performance.
One of the main problems in DMFCs is the undesired
"methanol oxidation" reaction, which occurs during methanol
crossover," that is, when it passes from the anode to the cathode.
This reaction results in the degradation of the platinum
(Pt) catalyst that is essential for the cell's operation. Although certain
strategies to mitigate this problem have been proposed, so far none has been
good enough owing to cost or stability issues.
Fortunately, in a recent study published in ACS Applied
Materials & Interfaces , a team of scientists from Korea has come up
with a creative and effective solution. They fabricated--through a relatively
simple procedure--a catalyst made of Pt nanoparticles encapsulated within a
carbon shell.
This shell forms an almost impenetrable carbon network with
small openings caused by nitrogen defects. While oxygen, one of the main
reactants in DMFCs, can reach the Pt catalyst through these "holes,"
methanol molecules are too big to pass through.
"The carbon shell acts as a molecular sieve and
provides selectivity toward the desired reactants, which can actually reach the
catalyst sites. This prevents the undesirable reaction of the Pt cores," explains Professor Oh Joong Kwon from Incheon National University,
Korea, who led the study.
More
https://www.azom.com/news.aspx?newsID=55131
“Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.”
Edmund Burke.
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