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Trade War?
Pretty much, not. Tariffs simply bringing people together. "Dow set to surge as fears of impending trade war ease ..."
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Back to the Permian
From Bloomberg Business via social media:
Chevron, the world’s third-largest publicly traded oil producer, is spending $3.3 billion this year in the Permian and an additional $1 billion in other shale basins. Its expansion will bolster U.S. oil output, which already exceeds 10 million barrels a day, surpassing the record set in 1970. The growth in U.S. oil production from shale is helping vault America into the lofty ranks of the globe’s premier -producers—Russia and Saudi Arabia—and could derail OPEC’s plans to lift crude prices.
Chevron is no newcomer to the Permian. The story of the Scharbauer SE71 well in Midland County, which when completed will extend about 9,000 feet down and then almost 2 miles sideways, began more than 75 years ago. In 1888, Texas & Pacific Railway Co. went belly-up and bondholders seized some of the lands the state had granted to the railroad. By the 1920s, drillers were tapping gushers in the region; one of those, Texaco, began snapping up control of former railroad rights of way, including, in 1962, the former railway acreage rights belonging to TXL Oil Corp. When Chevron bought Texaco in 2001, it inherited a treasure trove of untapped Permian riches.
Today, Chevron controls 2.2 million acres of Permian rock, an area the size of Yellowstone National Park. Even better, it pays little or no royalties on 80 percent of its holdings, boosting its profitability. (Typically, explorers must pay landowners 10 percent to 25 percent royalties.)
Much more at the link. Many, many story lines in that article.
In stark contrast to Chevron’s inherited Permian position, rival Exxon Mobil Corp. paid about $6 billion for drilling rights in the region last year, after making its entrance into shale through the $35 billion purchase of XTO Energy Inc. in 2010. And Royal Dutch Shell Plc spent $1.9 billion in 2012 to build its Permian position.
Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, travel, or relationship decisions based on anything you read here or think you may have read here.
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Back To Polio
Jonas Salk: A Life, Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs, c. 2015.
Chapter 8: The Chosen -- the first charge --
tally the number of different types of poliovirus
Battle plans against polio begin; Harry Weaver's round table in 1948.
The Typing Group (as in typing the strains of polio).
Four scientists in the trenches:
- Louis Gebhardt, University of Utah
- Herbert Wenner, University of Kansas
- John Kessel, University of Southern California (my alma mater)
- Jonas Salk
- Albert Sabin
- David Bodian
- Thomas Francis
March of Dimes plays huge role.
Salk's team:
- Salk hires a former army officer, Byron Bennett, as his research assistant
- decorated for his work controlling typhus during the war
- at Walter Reed Army Hospital -- demonstrated skill in field testing
- Salk hires a senior research associate, Julius Youngner, a microbiologist
- bacteriologist James Lewis brought experience from the drug-manufacturing world
- four more research assistants
- Brunhilde strain (Type 1)
- Lansin straing (Type 2)
- Salk chose Sabin's method of serum neuralization to type the virus
- third strain identified from Los Angeles: Leon strain
- 1950: animosity between Sabin and Salk on how to test for different strains
- 1949: John Enders, Thomas Weller, Frederick Robbins -- succeeded -- Nobel Prize (all three)
1951: typing polio had been completed
- of 196 strains tested, 161, Type 1; 20, Type 2; 15, Type 3 -- cost, 20,000 monkeys and $1.3 million
Influenza vaccine: while working on polio, also working on influenza at Fort Dix
But eventually turned to polio as sole attention.
Chapter 9: Ready to Run -- developing the vaccine
the 1934 debacle: trials between Brodie's inactivated virus and Komer's attentuated live virus
between 1934 and 1951: no polio progress
to being the vaccine process, had to pick best strains
- Type 1: the Mahoney strain (Thomas Francis, patient in Ohio)
- Type 2: the MEF-1 strain (soldier, Middle East Forces)
- Type 3: Saukett strain (Jimmy Sarkett, Municipal Hospital where Salk had worked)
- [Why the HeLa (Henrietta Lacks) controversy is bogus.]
Chapter 10: Research Sub Rosa -- time to test the Salk vaccine on human subjects
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