Sunday newspaper round-up: White Hydrogen, Bank of England, AI
America's Geological survey estimates that if even a small fraction of naturally occurring - and clean or so-called 'white' - hydrogen beneath the earth's surface were recovered, that would last for hundreds of years. Among the backers of the hydrogen industry is Bill Gates, who ploughed $90m into Koloma, a company hunting for natural hydrogen along the US's Midcontinental Rift System. White hydrogen has also been discovered in Europe, in France's Lorraine region. Nonetheless, the true potential of the stuff will hinge on the findings from those early projects, says Philip Ball, research fellow at Keele University. - Guardian
The UK's 'pancake like' economy may fall into a recession induced by the Bank of England's policies, according to its former chief economist, Andy Haldane. "It’s stuck. The economy’s stuck. In growth terms, it’s been treading water for at least a year," he said. "And looking ahead, if you believe the forecasts, it seems set to remain largely stuck for the months and quarters ahead." The country's economy remains the only one out of the G-7 that has yet to recover its pre-pandemic size. In the case of wages, those of younger workers had dropped since 2008 by the most since the nineteenth century. Yet he remained optimistic, pointing out the scope for boosting the size of the overall workforce. - Sunday Telegraph
Artificial Intelligence may dramatically cut the time needed to develop new medicines, GlaxoSmithKline said. The drugmaker had also begun using AI to tailor drugs to patients, thus increasing their effectiveness. It AI hubs are also helping speed up clinical trials. Some stages of trials, such as analysing data, are being sped up by a factor of five. AI is also helping scientists assess hundreds of the potential causes of a disease in the same amount of time previously requierd to study just one cause. - Financial Mail on Sunday
Entain is looking into whether it can claw back tens of millions paid out in bonuses to former bosses as it faces a potential £600m fine from a criminal investigation into its Turkish unit. That would be one of the biggest criminal fines ever levied by the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK's corporate history. HMRC's investigation involved GVC's - Entain's previous name - use of third party suppliers to use third-party suppliers to process payments that in turn allowed GVC to offer online gambling services in Turkey. - The Sunday Times