Archive for: October 2012

Small Firms Facing Loans Shortfall

Oct. 29 Business no comments


With business lending in the UK falling to the lowest levels since 2006 it is estimated that a £21bn deficit will hit smaller businesses particularly hard. The problem has come about thanks to the ongoing economic downturn and, despite the government’s insistence that we are now out of the recession, there is little sign of light at the end of the tunnel.

Reports state that lending has fallen by as much as 4.6%, this representing a total lending figure of £429bn. There is concern among industry analysts that lending will not reach the levels seen in 2008 for at least four years, meaning small firms have a struggle ahead just to survive. The problems have arisen thanks to the poor economic situation as well as the reluctance on the part of banks to lend, especially as they are facing serious problems in light of the PPI and Libor scandals which have had a serious impact on their available cash.

Improvement on the Cards

Although immediate returns to previous levels of lending are not forecast, industry analysts are confident that 2012 will be the last year of falling lending levels. If the country is genuinely heading out of the recession there may be positive news on the horizon, but the question remains as to how many smaller businesses will have failed by then in their attempts to weather the storm. Banks are frequently blamed for not supporting smaller businesses, but they are not the sole problem.

The business bank recently set up Business Secretary Vince Cable is also singled out for lack of progress. Accountants say that the intended lending from this government initiative is unlikely to cover the deficit that is being faced by Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s). Quite what can be done to recover the situation is not clear, but it is hoped that 2013 will see a slight increase in lending levels and create a positive outlook for the future of smaller business in the UK.

LUX Detector Nearing Activation for Dark Matter Observation in SD Mine

Oct. 20 Science, Technology no comments

A South Dakota mine is the venue where the Large Underground Xenon Detector, a device designed by scientists, would be activated to detect the presence of dark matter, a substance that makes up 25% of the existing universe, which has long eluded scientists for the past few decades. It was lowered this into a 70,000 gallon water tank nearly a mile beneath the earth’s surface insulated enough to help it insulate dark matter from cosmic radiation that masks the substance on the earth’s surface.

The discovery of dark matter will shake the entire scientific community as it can answer the origins of the universe and the behavior of reality. Harry Nelson, a physics professor in the University of California and also a principal investigator of the project, stated that the experiment might be brutal or expensive, but it would be as astounding as the discovery of the Higgs boson earlier this year.

Regular matter, such as in the physical world, makes up 4% of the physical universe. Dark matter makes up at least 25% of the universe and the other parts, such as dark energy, still remains a mystery to most scientists.

Right after the Homestake Gold Mine in the Black Hill’s Lead in South Dakota shut down, scientists applied for permissions to use the site for experiments, which had the LUX move into the Sanford Underground research facility which is 4850 feet below the earth’s surface.

The detector, roughly the size of a telephone booth, is submerged in water running through reverse osmosis to deionize and clean it to make it more sensitive to detecting dark energy. Xenon in both liquid and gas form will fill the detector and continuously circulate through a purifier, similar to an osmosis machine.