Metal News
There has been some news on the gold and silver front. Interesting developments will be worth keeping an eye on. As usual I was looking for a much larger pull back in Au and Ag but they seem to be holding tight. Here are some items:
Judge Sides With GATA, Orders Fed To Present Her With Its Classified Gold Records For Private Review
I will wait to see if this really happens, but this is huge news (one way or the other).
One from Jesse:
Massive Silver Withdrawals From The Comex
Another item to keep tabs on.
Kid Dynamite has a good post on PSLV and the trading premium behind it (why?):
Silver Irony - PSLV, SLV
And of course how long was it going to be (5 minutes, a day?) until this type of thing gets ink:
Arizona Shooter’s Obsession with Returning to the Gold Standard
To be 100% fair to Mr. Mark Thoma (who I disagree with on things economic all the time, but he is a brilliant guy) he was asked to give some background on this angle by CBS Moneywatch. Still, will talk of a gold standard be outlawed next?
I am a long term bull and holder of physical gold and silver and I still believe in them long term. Short term I want to see some resolution in ugly price action (especially silver) before jumping in for more.
Are All New Life Forms about to be Discovered?
I have written about Lake Vostok a few times. From the Wiki entry:
Lake Vostok is the largest of more than 140 subglacial lakes found under the surface of Antarctica. It is located beneath Russia's Vostok Station, 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) under the surface of the central East Antarctic ice sheet. It is 250 kilometres (160 mi) long by 50 kilometres (31 mi) wide at its widest point, thus similar in size to Lake Ontario, and is divided into two deep basins by a ridge.So this lake has been sealed off from the rest of the world for a LONG time, it is supersaturated with Oxygen, and under enormous pressure. Any microbes living there will be sure to have evolved insane anti-oxidant systems and enzymes that work in unknown ways. Why is this a big deal?
Again, natural products. Many of the best drugs (and almost all antibiotics) are natural products found to be made by plants, bacteria, fungi, etc. Here we have an untapped realm where all kinds of things are possible. This also fits in with my desire for a Pharmaceutical company to get into seawater bacteria screens for natural products. I had the chance to work at a small firm that used DNA isolated from sea soil samples (yes, there is tons of DNA in soil!) for expression studies to find new antibiotics. It was a great time. I love Pulse Field Electrophoresis.
Fellow blogger Kid Dynamite asked a bit ago why I do not spend more time going into Pharmaceuticlas/Biotech as it is my specialty after all. The reason is that I work for a top 3 Mega Pharmaceutical company and I never wanted my blogging to get entwined with my real life work. My company works with all kinds of firms and is aggressive in acquisitions so it often becomes hard to discuss various companies. I don't know about Wall Street, but the Biotech/Pharma world is very small. I had the luxury of working at a up and coming biotech in the golden years (1998-2002) of biotech and from that I know very well people in many areas in high positions spread across the industry. Legal, business, research, you name it and I probably know someone who holds that spot at many biotech/pharma firms. Of course I am always available via the email on the left to discuss generally anything a reader may want to know more about, or offer my own understanding of a company's leads or technology. Now you know.
Did You Know?
The best and most tested theorem on how the Moon came to be is that a Mars sized body collided with and early Earth. Here is some more to start:
Clouds Made of Rock Vapor Once Rained Magma on Ancient Earth
Nifty!
Have a good night.
