Science & Environment
How Trump policies may boost, and burden, energy stocks and crude oil
The shadow of a laser beam appears as a horizontal line against the blue background
Abrahao et al. (2024)
Light normally makes other objects cast shadows – but with a little help from a ruby, a beam of laser light can cast a shadow of its own.
When two laser beams interact, they don’t clash together like lightsabers in Star Wars, says Raphael Abrahao at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. In real life, they will simply pass through each other. Abrahao and his colleagues, however, found a way for one laser beam to block another – and make its shadow appear.
The crucial ingredient was a ruby cube. The researchers hit this cube with a beam of green laser light while illuminating it with a blue laser from the side. As the green light passed through the ruby atoms, it changed their properties in a peculiar way that then affected how they reacted to the blue light.
Instead of letting the blue laser pass through them, the atoms affected by the green light now blocked the blue light, which created a shadow shaped exactly like the green laser beam. Remarkably, the researchers could project the blue light on a screen and see this “shadow of a laser” with the naked eye.
Abrahao says he and his colleagues had a long discussion of whether what they created really qualified as a shadow. Because it moved when they moved the green laser beam, they could see it without any special equipment and they managed to project it onto commonplace objects, like a marker, they ultimately decided in the affirmative.
Historically, understanding shadows has been crucial for understanding what light can do and how we can use it, he says, and this experiment adds an unexpected technique into scientists’ light-manipulation toolbox.
Tomás Chlouba at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany says the experiment uses known processes to create a striking visual demonstration of how materials can help control light. The ruby’s interactions with the laser, for instance, are similar to those of materials used in laser eye surgeries, which must be able to respond to laser light by blocking it if it gets dangerously intense.
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Astronomy and particle physics are no longer seen as vital by the US establishment, so funding has fallen. But our work creates a sense of wonder, and wonder matters, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
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Crude oil futures rose slightly on Thursday, with the U.S. benchmark trading around $69 per barrel, though the market outlook remains bearish.
Global crude supplies are expected to outstrip demand by more than 1 million barrels per day next year led by robust growth in the U.S., according to the International Energy Agency’s monthly market report.
Here are today’s energy prices by 8:07 a.m. ET:
- West Texas Intermediate December contract: $68.92 per barrel, up 49 cents, or 0.7%. Year to date, U.S. crude oil is down more than 3%.
- Brent January contract: $72.78 per barrel, up 50 cents, or 0.7%. Year to date, the global benchmark is down more than 5%.
- RBOB Gasoline December contract: $1.9711 per gallon, up 0.3%. Year to date, gasoline has fallen nearly 6%.
- Natural Gas December contract: $2.966 per thousand cubic feet, down 0.6%. Year to date, gas has gained nearly 18%.
UBS slashed its price forecast for global benchmark Brent to $80 per barrel from $87 previously on weakening demand in China, the world’s largest crude importer.
OPEC on Monday cut its demand growth forecast for the fourth month in a row earlier this week.
U.S. crude oil has shed about 4% and Brent is down 3.5% since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential as the dollar has surged. A stronger U.S. dollar can depress oil demand among buyers that hold other currencies.
Science & Environment
Scientists say they’ve discovered the world’s biggest coral, so huge it was mistaken for a shipwreck
Scientists say they have found the world’s largest coral near the Pacific’s Solomon Islands, announcing Thursday a major discovery “pulsing with life and color.” The coral is so immense that researchers sailing the crystal waters of the Solomon archipelago initially thought they’d stumbled across a hulking shipwreck.
“Just when we think there is nothing left to discover on planet Earth, we find a massive coral made of nearly one billion little polyps, pulsing with life and color,” marine ecologist Enric Sala said.
The standalone structure, formed from a “complex network” of tiny coral polyps, has likely been growing for 300 years or more, the researchers said.
At about 111 feet wide and 104 feet long, the team said the “mega coral” was three times bigger than the previous record holder — a coral dubbed “Big Momma” in American Samoa. The massive coral is not a coral reef, structures that can be far larger but are comprised of many distinct coral colonies, they explained.
“While Big Momma looked like a huge scoop of ice cream plopped down on the reef, this newly discovered coral is as if the ice cream started to melt, spreading forever along the seafloor,” said lead scientist Molly Timmers.
It’s longer than a blue whale and thought to be “so colossal” that it could be seen from space.
The coral was discovered at the southeastern tip of the Solomon Islands, in an area known as the Three Sisters. It was spotted by a National Geographic team embarking on a scientific expedition in the region.
Hotter and more acidic oceans have drained the life from corals in many of the region’s tropical waters, a process called bleaching, including Australia’s famed Great Barrier Reef. But this latest discovery offered a small glimmer of hope, the research team said.
“While the nearby shallow reefs were degraded due to warmer seas, witnessing this large healthy coral oasis in slightly deeper waters is a beacon of hope,” said coral scientist Eric Brown.
The lush rainforests and pristine waters of the Solomon Islands have long been celebrated for their ecological diversity. Wildlife observations made in the area in the 1920s helped prove a key part of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
“There is so much to learn about the richness of marine life and the ocean ecosystem, but this finding opens doors of knowledge,” said top Solomon Islands official Collin Beck. “More scientific research is needed to better understand our rich biodiversity and our planet.”
The discovery was announced as representatives from around the world meet in Baku, Azerbaijan for the COP29 United Nations summit on climate change.
The Solomon Islands national climate minister, Trevor Manemahaga, told CBS News’ partner network BBC News at the summit that his nation was proud to be the home of the massive, newly discovered coral.
“We want the world to know, that this is a special place, and it needs to be protected,” he told the BBC. “We rely mostly on marine resources for economic survival, so coral is very, very important.”
Small, low-lying island nations such as the Solomons are among the most vulnerable to the increasing effects of climate change and sea-level rise.
Science & Environment
Our lone oil-and-gas stock strikes 2 smart deals — plus, AMD sharpens its AI focus
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street.
Buy now, pay later firms like Klarna and Block’s Afterpay could be about to face tougher rules in the U.K.
Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Klarna, which is known for its popular “buy now, pay later” business, announced Wednesday it has filed initial public offering documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Swedish payments company said in a statement that the number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. The timing of the listing is also subject to market conditions.
Analysts recently valued the company in the $15 billion range. At its peak during the pandemic-led surge in fintech stocks, the company had a valuation of $46 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
But Klarna took an 85% haircut in its most recent primary fundraising round, in 2022, when the firm raised money on a valuation of $6.7 billion.
Next to SoftBank, Klarna’s roster of shareholders also includes major names in venture capital, including Sequoia Capital and London-based firm Atomico.
Klarna’s CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, previously told CNBC in an interview that unfavorable rules in Europe on employee stock options could risk the company losing talent to other U.S. tech giants such as Google, Apple and Meta.
“When we looked at the risks of the IPO, which is a number one risk in my opinion? Our compensation,” Siemiatkowski, who is approaching his 20th year as CEO of the financial technology firm, told CNBC. He was referring to company risk factors, which are a common element of IPO prospectus filings.
Plans for an IPO have been in the works for some time. In a February interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell” in February, Siemiatkowski said an IPO in 2024 was “not impossible.”
In August, Klarna said it posted a profit in the first half of the year, swinging into the black from a loss last year as the firm edged closer toward its hotly anticipated stock market debut.
Klarna’s decision to go for a stock market listing in New York represents a major blow to European stock exchanges, which have been trying to encourage local tech giants to list at home.
The London Stock Exchange, for example, has made reforms to make the U.K. a more attractive market for tech companies to list, including the ability for founders to issue dual-class shares that enable entrepreneurs to maintain control over a company’s strategy and direction.
Siemiatkowski hadn’t previously committed to listing in one market over another, and London was among the markets he was considering for Klarna’s IPO.
However, in 2021 he said that the firm was more likely to list in the U.S. than the U.K., given America is a high-growth area for the firm where it is seeking to gain more brand visibility.
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