What We Read Today 27 October 2014

Econintersect: Every day our editors collect the most interesting things they find from around the internet and present a summary “reading list” which will include very brief summaries (and sometimes longer ones) of why each item has gotten our attention. Suggestions from readers for “reading list” items are gratefully reviewed, although sometimes space limits the number included.

Leftist Rousseff narrowly wins second term in Brazil (Brian Winter and Alonso Soto, Reuters) Brazil’s president narrowly defeated (51.6% to 48.4%) centrist candidate Aecio Neves Sunday, 26 October. She won despite a severe economic slowdown during her first term by arguing that over the last 12 years her party had lifted 40 million Brazilians out of poverty, according to Reuters.

Twenty-five European banks fail stress test (Al Jazeera) The European Central Bank (ECB) has found that 25 out of 130 banks have failed to pass the stress tests for the current year. The 25 were found to need €25 billion ($31.5 billion) to “heal” their balance sheets. Of the total 12 have already made up their shortfall since the preliminary results were revealed to the banks and 13 are still deficient by a total of €12.5 billion ($15.7 billion). Econintersect finds the results quite marvelous, unless they happen to be too good to be true. When reading the words, what we notice is the word “confidence”. We do see the word “sound”. In 2010 and 2011 the EU carried out stress tests which passed banks that afterwards needed to be bailed out. Perhaps the ECB can do better?

This Comet Stinks (Jessica Orwig, Business Insider) The University of Bern has been sampling with a mass spectrometer the fumes surrounding comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The comet, which is scheduled to receive a landing craft from the European Space Agency Rosetta spacecraft next month, has had the space craft orbiting it for several months – and sampling its “bad breath”. The fact that the icy exterior of the comet, which is outgassing as it speeds toward the sun, contains a rich mixture of carbon and sulfur compounds that are some of the building block chemicals for life, is very important information for scientists. These first in situ samples of a comet’s outgassing “atmosphere” will be compared to data obtained from other comets by remote sensing techniques. Two days ago other spacecraft reported that the Comet Siding Spring Was Bleeding Hydrogen As It Sped By Mars (Elizabeth Howell, Universe Today). See also the media release from the University of Bern: The Perfume of a Comet (Prof. Kathrin Altwegg)