Day 3, Europe Cut Off From Asia.

 Baltic Dry Index. 2194 -77 Brent Crude 63.44

Spot Gold 1736

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

Deaths 53,100

Coronavirus Cases 25/03/21 World 125,436,393

Deaths 2,756,768

‘Fog in Channel, Continent Cut Off’.

Victorian newspaper headline.

In the stock casinos, more sign of rising nervousness among the punters. If stocks don’t keep rising to the sky, fuelled by all the central banksters Magic Money Tree cash, what then?

Worse, President Biden seems to have adopted President Trump’s anti-Chinese stock listings policies! Is President Biden becoming President Trump lite? 

Given the Biden illegal immigration fiasco on the USA – Mexico border, is President Biden also becoming President Carter on steroids? Remind me again on how successful the Carter inflation presidency was.

Below, are the nervous punters in the stock casinos aware that Europe has been cut off from Arabia’s oil and Asia’s electronics and toys for three days?

Asian shares wobble in volatile trade as China tech selloff weighs

March 24, 2021  11:48 PM  Updated 3 hours ago  By Stanley White, Katanga Johnson

TOKYO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Asian equities bounced between gains and losses on Thursday as a selloff in Chinese technology shares due to concerns they will be de-listed from U.S. bourses and worries about a semiconductor shortage rattled some investors.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.1%.

Hong Kong shares fell sharply at the open but then trimmed their losses to a 0.18% decline. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Xiaomi Corp, and Tencent Holdings all traded lower. Shares in China rose 0.08%.

Elsewhere, Japanese stocks rose 0.71% and Australian shares rose 0.24% as bargain hunters bought shares of consumer goods, real estate, and financial firms.

U.S. stock futures rose 0.25%.

The U.S. securities regulator is rolling out measures that would kick foreign companies off U.S. stock exchanges if they do not comply with U.S. auditing standards and require them to disclose any government affiliations, which is widely expected to target Chinese companies.

In addition, concerns about extended economic lockdowns in Europe, disruptions to the distribution of coronavirus vaccinations and potential U.S. tax hikes also weighed on investor sentiment.

“Rising interest rates, uncertainty of tax policy, concern over inflation all remain top of mind for investors. However, none of these themes speak to rising appetite for risk,” said Peter Kenny of Kenny’s Commentary LLC and Strategic Board Solutions LLC in Denver.

“We are seeing last year’s big gains underperform the broader market.”

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.01%, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.01%, while the S&P 500 lost 0.55% as optimistic comments by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen failed to ease profit-taking in the tech sector.

---- Investors have focused on the 10-year Treasury yield, pondering if there is room for long-term interest rates to run, said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management.

“We know that the economy is primed to begin to really accelerate in the second quarter,” Kelly said. “But we haven’t seen that acceleration yet so that’s what we’re waiting for.”

The dollar hit a fresh four-month high of $1.1804 per euro on Thursday as extended lockdowns and worries about the pace of vaccinations across Europe hobbled the common currency.

Even Germany’s reversal of a call for a strict lockdown over the Easter period was not able to help the euro.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-markets/asian-shares-wobble-in-volatile-trade-as-china-tech-selloff-weighs-idUSKBN2BG3GY

Chinese tech stocks fall as U.S. SEC begins rollout of law aimed at delisting

March 24, 2021  2:46 PM  By Katanga Johnson, Scott Murdoch

WASHINGTON/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Shares in dual-listed Chinese companies fell sharply on Thursday in Asia after the U.S. securities regulator adopted measures that would kick foreign companies off American stock exchanges if they do not comply with U.S. auditing standards.

The move by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adds to the ongoing and unprecedented regulatory crackdown in China on domestic technology companies, citing concerns that they have built market power that stifles competition.

The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, signed into law by then-President Donald Trump in December, is aimed at removing Chinese companies from U.S. exchanges if they fail to comply with American auditing standards for three years in a row.

The rules also require firms prove to the SEC they are not owned or controlled by an entity of a foreign government and to name any board members who are Chinese Communist Party officials, the SEC said in a statement Wednesday.

The China Securities and Regulatory Commission (CSRC) did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

In Hong Kong, the news prompted a sharp sell-off of the U.S.-listed Chinese companies which have listed on the city’s exchange in the past two years.

Baidu Inc shares - which debuted Tuesday - dropped 10.45% in early Thursday trade, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd slipped 5.3%, JD.Com Inc fell 5% and Netease Inc was down 4.1%.

The falls outpaced a 0.2% decline in the broader Hong Kong Hang Seng Index and a 2.22% fall in the Hang Seng Tech Index.

“A lot of investors thought the U.S. and the Biden administration would be more amicable towards China and things would be easier, but this news shows that it is going to be just as tough,” Wealthy Securities managing director Louis Tse said.

More

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-sec-foreigncompanies/chinese-tech-stocks-fall-as-u-s-sec-begins-rollout-of-law-aimed-at-delisting-idUSKBN2BG2AI

Finally, yet more supply strain stress. The Suez canal still remains blocked for a third day. The worldwide semiconductor chip shortage is starting to get serious. Just don’t let on to the nervous punters in the global stock casinos.

Low tide slows work to clear Suez ship blockage; traffic jam builds

March 25, 2021 3:31 AM  By Reuters Staff

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Low tide overnight has slowed efforts to dislodge a 400-metre long, 224,000-tonne container vessel that has choked traffic in both directions along the Suez Canal and created the world’s largest shipping jam.

The Ever Given vessel ran aground diagonally across the single-lane stretch of the southern canal on Tuesday morning after losing the ability to steer amid high winds and a dust storm, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said in a statement.

It is now blocking transit in both directions through one of the world’s busiest shipping channels for goods, oil, grain and other products linking Asia and Europe.

Marine services firm GAC issued a note to clients overnight saying efforts to free the vessel using tug boats continued, but that wind conditions and the sheer size of the vessel “were hindering the operation”.

Ship-tracking software shows that the Ever Given has made only minor changes to its position over the past 24 hours, despite the deployment of several tugs to drag it to deeper water.

Several dozen vessels, including other large container ships, tankers carrying oil and gas, and bulk vessels hauling grain have backed up at either end of the canal to create one of the worst shipping jams seen for years.

Roughly 30% of the world’s shipping container volume transits through the 193 km (120 miles) Suez Canal daily, and about 12% of total global trade of all goods.

Shipping experts say that if the blockage is not likely to be cleared within the next 24-48 hours, some shipping firms may be forced to re-route vessels around the southern tip of Africa, which would add roughly a week to the journey.

More

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-suezcanal-ship/low-tide-slows-work-to-clear-suez-ship-blockage-traffic-jam-builds-idUSKBN2BH0BA

Suez Snarl Seen Halting $9.6 Billion a Day Worth of Ship Traffic

By Aaron Clark

25 March 2021, 04:37 GMT

Lloyd’s List estimates daily traffic through shipping corridor

·         Approximately 185 vessels waiting to transit: shipping data

A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows there’s about $9.6 billion worth of daily marine traffic halted by the massive container vessel that lodged in the Suez Canal earlier this week, blocking transit in both directions.

The figure is based off an assessment by Lloyd’s List that suggests westbound traffic is worth around $5.1 billion a day and eastbound traffic approximately $4.5 billion. The venerable journal concedes that these are “rough calculations,” however. There are about 185 vessels waiting to transit the waterway, data compiled by Bloomberg show, while Lloyd’s estimated 165.

See also: Massive Ship Blocking Suez Canal Paralyzes Trade for Second Day

So far efforts by tugs and diggers to dislodge the Ever Given -- the 400-meter long vessel that became wedged in the canal on Tuesday -- have failed and work to re-float the ship has been suspended until Thursday morning in Egypt, shipping agent Inchcape said, citing the Suez Canal Authority.

More

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-25/suez-snarl-seen-halting-9-6-billion-a-day-worth-of-ship-traffic?srnd=premium-europe

Exclusive: GM further cuts production in North America due to global chip shortage

March 24, 2021 1:06 PM

DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Co extended production cuts in North America on Wednesday due to a worldwide semiconductor chip shortage that has impacted the auto sector.

The U.S. automaker said its Wentzville, Missouri, assembly plant would be idled during the weeks beginning March 29 and April 5. It will extend down time at its plant in Lansing, Michigan, which has been idled since March 15, by two weeks.

The action was factored into GM’s prior forecast that it could shave up to $2 billion off this year’s profit, spokesman David Barnas said. GM did not disclose how much volume would be lost by the move, but said it intended to make up as much lost production as possible later in the year.

The chip shortage came as North American auto plants were shut for two months during the COVID-19 pandemic last year and chip orders were canceled, and as demand surged from the consumer electronics industry as people worked from home and played video games. That’s now left carmakers competing for chips.

Semiconductors are used extensively in cars, including to monitor engine performance, manage steering or automatic windows, and in sensors used in parking and entertainment systems.

Vehicles affected by the GM production cuts include the mid-sized pickup trucks, the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon in Missouri, and the Cadillac CT4 and CT5 and Chevy Camaro cars in Michigan.

More

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gm-semiconductors-exclusive/exclusive-gm-further-cuts-production-in-north-america-due-to-global-chip-shortage-idUSKBN2BG1WS

 

Global Factories Pay Higher Prices as Surge Strains Supplies

Manufacturers report lengthening waiting times for needed supplies, and hire workers to clear their own backlogs

March 24, 2021 7:05 am ET

A surge in factory output is testing already strained global supply chains, raising prices of raw materials and other inputs at the fastest pace in a decade as manufacturers and their customers are forced to wait longer for their goods to arrive.

The recovery in global factory output from a pandemic-driven collapse started in May, and output had returned to its pre-lockdown level by December, faster than many had expected, including manufacturers themselves.

But with output continuing to rise above pre-pandemic levels, manufacturers in most countries report lengthening delivery times for raw materials and other inputs, as well as increasing backlogs of work they themselves have yet to complete, and a sharp pickup in input prices.

In Germany, one of the world’s manufacturing powerhouses, one of a number of surveys carried out by data firm IHS Markit recorded the sharpest increase in output since the series began in 1996. That is good news for the European economy, which continues to be held back by rising infections and a faltering vaccination campaign.

Over the past six months, Europe’s economy has moved at two speeds. While manufacturing has expanded at an increasingly rapid pace, activity in the larger services sector has declined. Overall, from October to February there was a contraction in output that likely saw the eurozone slide into recession during the final quarter of last year and the first quarter of this.

But to the surprise of most economists, that changed in March, with manufacturing proving so strong that another decline in services wasn’t enough to prevent a return to overall growth. However, that return to growth may not be sustained, since both France and Germany have imposed new restrictions on consumers and businesses in recent weeks and there are few signs of an imminent pickup in vaccinations.

----For much of the rest of the global economy, the recovery is less lopsided. But in most places, manufacturers have rebounded more strongly than service providers, reflecting the fact that most goods can be consumed with relatively little risk of infection, while a range of services led by hospitality and entertainment remain risky.

In Australia, manufacturers reported the sharpest rise in import prices in the survey’s history, and attributed that to bottlenecks in their supply chains. Across the eurozone, factory managers reported the fastest rise in input prices in a decade, and reported the longest waiting times for inputs to be delivered in the survey’s 23-year history. In particular, German manufacturers highlighted lengthening waiting times for supply from Asia.

----According to a separate survey released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, manufacturers in its district reported a jump in delivery times during March, and face the longest wait in the survey’s 25-year history.

More

https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-factories-pay-higher-prices-as-surge-strains-supplies-11616583929?mod=mhp

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain.

Covid-19 Corner                       

This section will continue until it becomes unneeded.

Covid deaths on the rise again globally amid warning 'worst yet to come' for some countries

Jennifer Rigby 17 hrs ago

Covid-19 deaths have started to rise again around the world as the third wave of the virus takes hold amid warnings that - for some countries - the “worst is yet to come”. 

The resurgence of the pandemic, after a sustained lull earlier this year, is being driven by particularly horrifying numbers in parts of the world like Brazil. 

The country reported 3,000 daily deaths on Tuesday and is close to reaching 300,000 deaths in total from the virus, a toll surpassed only by the United States. 

“We are close to or facing a catastrophe,” a bulletin from the Brazilian medical research institution, Fiocruz, read last week, adding that intensive care occupancy is above 90 per cent across half of its 26 states. The country’s health system is “living through the worst collapse in history”, it added.

Brazil’s leader President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly played down the threat of coronavirus, and a televised address on the country’s deadliest day so far was reportedly greeted with screams of “liar” and “murderer” in the country’s biggest cities. 

And while Brazil is currently the epicentre of the latest resurgence of coronavirus, the picture is worrying in a number of other regions, according to the World Health Organization’s weekly epidemiological report.  

After six weeks of declining numbers of fatalities, the death rate rose by three per cent globally in the last seven days, to 60,414 in total. 

Cases have been rising since the beginning of March, and this rise continued in the past week, too, WHO said, with just under 3.3 million new cases reported. 

There was a “marked increase” in cases reported from South-East Asia, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific regions, the WHO added, and there are “concerning trends” in some countries in the African and Americas regions too. 

Given the unequal roll-out of vaccinations around the globe, the ongoing impact of new, more transmissible variants of the virus, and reluctance in many countries to shut down entirely once again, cases and death rates are likely to continue to climb. 

Already, the only region to see a decline in new deaths last week was the Western Pacific, where deaths fell by nearly a third on the previous seven days. 

The picture within regions remains uneven, however, with declining cases and deaths in badly-hit countries including the UK and the United States, both of which have undertaken speedy vaccination drives.  

Public health experts said that the numbers showed that the worst of Covid-19 is far from behind us globally. 

Professor Adam Kucharski, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, tweeted the following on Wednesday, accompanied by a graph of Brazil’s rapidly escalating daily death toll: “The worst of the pandemic is likely over in a (relatively small) number of places, but in others, there are troubling signs it’s yet to come.” 

India, the eastern Mediterranean and much of east and Central Europe are also posting worrying numbers, the WHO said.   

The picture in parts of South Asia is worsening particularly rapidly, the data shows.

Last week, Bangladesh posted an 86 per cent rise in the number of new deaths, with 141 new fatalities. Deaths in India also rose by 35 per cent, to 1,148 new Covid-19 deaths in the last seven days.

Other countries including Jordan, Italy and Poland also saw dramatic rises in the numbers of Covid-19 deaths last week. 

In total, there have been more than 122 million coronavirus cases and at least 2.7 million deaths since the pandemic began. 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/covid-deaths-on-the-rise-again-globally-amid-warning-worst-yet-to-come-for-some-countries/ar-BB1eURko

Emerging evidence links COVID-19 with tinnitus and hearing problems

By Rich Haridy  March 23, 2021

A new systematic review investigating published research on the relationship between COVID-19 and hearing problems is suggesting a number of audio-vestibular symptoms can be associated with the disease. The review found hearing loss, tinnitus and vertigo can all be associated with COVID-19 and the researchers are currently conducting a year-long study to better understand the long-term effects of the disease on hearing.

Kevin Munro and Ibrahim Almufarrij, audiologists from the University of Manchester, first conducted a rapid systematic review into the links between COVID-19 and hearing problems last year. The rapid review looked at the first few months of research and case reports emerging in the early days of the pandemic.

The initial review found audio-vestibular symptoms were rarely reported in early COVID-19 cases, but the researchers did note it was potentially too soon to uncover hearing problems that may only arise over longer periods of time. Now, a year later, the researchers have updated their systematic review finding multiple cases of hearing problems have now been reported.

The new systematic review encompasses 28 case reports and 28 cross-sectional studies. A pooled data analysis revealed 7.6 percent of COVID-19 cases report hearing loss, 7.2 percent report vertigo and 14.8 percent report

Both Munro and Almufarrij are clear in noting the evidence evaluated in their latest review is based on anecdotal reports and self-reported symptoms. So it is not at all clear if this burgeoning association is causally connected.

“It is important not to diagnose audio-vestibular symptoms where they do not exist or where they are coincidental, given the high rates of COVID-19 in the population,” notes Munro in a recent piece for The Conversation. “However, the findings of the review might simply reflect the start of our understanding of this emergent health condition.”

Tinnitus, for example, is a symptom increasingly linked to long COVID. As well as patients reporting COVID-19 exacerbating their pre-existing tinnitus, some believe the disease could initiate the appearance of tinnitus.

Munro suggests tinnitus is a condition that can appear for a number of reasons, from actual ear damage caused by noise or infection, to psychological triggers such as stress and anxiety. So although there may be reasonable hypotheses demonstrating how SARS-CoV-2 could directly damage one’s hearing, he says the current evidence is not of a good enough quality to prove causality.

“It is possible the virus attacks and damages the auditory system,” suggests Munro. “On the other hand, the mental and emotional stress of the pandemic may be the trigger. But we need to be careful when interpreting these findings as it’s not always clear if studies are reporting existing or new symptoms. What is lacking are good-quality studies that compare tinnitus in people with and without COVID-19.”

Hoping to fill that gap in the knowledge, a year-long study is underway tracking COVID-19 patients after discharge from hospital. Munro is leading the study and hopes the work will offer robust insight into the relationship between hearing problems and COVID-19.

The new study was published in the International Journal of Audiology.

https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/covid19-tinnitus-hearing-loss-coronavirus-study-manchester/

The Latest: Pakistan orders doses of Chinese-made vaccines

By The Associated Press  March 24, 2021

ISLAMABAD-- Pakistan’s top health official said Wednesday his country will purchase 1 million doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine and 60,000 doses of the vaccine made by Chinese company CanSino Biologics.

Faisal Sultan, a special assistant to the prime minister, said on Twitter that an order has been placed for the purchase of Chinese-made vaccines which will be delivered to Pakistan within days.

The purchases will be in addition to 1.5 million doses of vaccine which China is donating to Pakistan in phases.

Without giving more details, Sultan said Pakistan will also receive several million doses of vaccines in April.

Pakistan is currently facing a third wave of coronavirus infections.

Also Wednesday, Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood said the government is ordering the closure of schools in the capital, Islamabad and in several high-risk cities until April 11.

Pakistan has reported 637,042 virus cases and 13,965 deaths from coronavirus since last year.

https://apnews.com/article/pakistan-islamabad-coronavirus-pandemic-africa-china-465784cd5d3a075686252c2c5072c9a3

India health officials identify double mutant COVID-19 variant

March 24, 2021 / 5:27 AM

March 24 (UPI) -- India's ministry of health announced Wednesday officials have discovered a new variant of the COVID-19 virus with two mutations as well as hundreds other infections caused by other known variants of concern first found in Britain, South Africa and Brazil.

"Though VOCs and a new double mutant variant have been found in India, these have not been detected in numbers sufficient to either establish or direct relationship or explain the rapid increase in cases in some states," the ministry said in a statement. "Genomic sequencing and epidemiological studies are continuing to further analyze the situation."

The double mutant variant was discovered in samples from western Maharashtra state, it said, explaining the mutations "confer immune escape and increased infectivity."

These mutations have been found in between 15-20% of samples and do not match any previously cataloged variants of concern, it said.

The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics discovered the variant as it has been conducting genomic sequencing and analysis of COVID-19 samples since it was founded on Dec. 25.

Since then, it has discovered 771 variants of concern from among fewer than 11,000 samples shared by states.

Of the variants, the sequencing identified 736 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first discovered in Britain, 34 cases of the South African B.1.351 variant and one case of the Brazilian P.1 variant, it said.

The discovery of the double mutant variant was announced as the the ministry reported 47,262 infections diagnosed in the past 24 hours, the highest number since nearly 48,000 cases were reported on Nov. 11. The increase is a continuing trend from a low of about 12,000 cases a day in early February.

India has the third most infections in the world at 11.7 million behind only Brazil with 12.1 million and the United States with 29.9 million, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

More

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/03/24/India-health-officials-identify-double-mutant-COVID-19-variant/7761616574591/

 

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/

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.

Moiré effect: How to twist material properties

Date:  March 23, 2021

Source:  Vienna University of Technology

Summary:  2D materials like graphene have revolutionized materials science. Now a new interesting option has been added to this field of research: Two thin material layers can be stacked and twisted by a certain angle. This leads to a Moiré-effect and changes the properties of the material.

The discovery of the material graphene, which consists of only one layer of carbon atoms, was the starting signal for a global race: Today, so-called "2D materials" are produced, made of different types of atoms. Atomically thin layers that often have very special material properties not found in conventional, thicker materials.

Now another chapter is being added to this field of research: If two such 2D layers are stacked at the right angle, even more new possibilities arise. The way in which the atoms of the two layers interact creates intricate geometric patterns, and these patterns have a decisive impact on the material properties, as a research team from TU Wien and the University of Texas (Austin) has now been able to show. Phonons -- the lattice vibrations of the atoms -- are significantly influenced by the angle at which the two material layers are placed on top of each other. Thus, with tiny rotations of such a layer, one can significantly change the material properties.

The Moiré Effect

The basic idea can be tried out at home with two fly screen sheets -- or with any other regular meshes that can be placed on top of each other: If both grids are perfectly congruent on top of each other, you can hardly tell from above whether it is one or two grids. The regularity of the structure has not changed.

But if you now turn one of the grids by a small angle, there are places where the gridpoints of the meshes roughly match, and other places where they do not. This way, interesting patterns emerge -- that is the well-known moiré effect.

"You can do exactly the same thing with the atomic lattices of two material layers," says Dr. Lukas Linhart from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at TU Wien. The remarkable thing is that this can dramatically change certain material properties -- for example, graphene becomes a superconductor if two layers of this material are combined in the right way.

"We studied layers of molybdenum disulphide, which, along with graphene, is probably one of the most important 2D materials," says Prof Florian Libisch, who led the project at TU Wien. "If you put two layers of this material on top of each other, so-called Van der Waals forces occur between the atoms of these two layers. These are relatively weak forces, but they are strong enough to completely change the behaviour of the entire system."

In elaborate computer simulations, the research team analysed the quantum mechanical state of the new bilayer structure caused by these weak additional forces, and how this affects the vibrations of the atoms in the two layers.

----The material-physical Moiré effect thus makes the already rich research field of 2D materials even richer -- and increases the chances of continuing to find new layered materials with previously unattainable properties and enables the use of 2D materials as an experimental platform for quite fundamental properties of solids.

More

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210323131238.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmatter_energy%2Fgraphene+%28Graphene+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded.

Mark Twain.

Happily, I am in the more crowded group.