Friday’s business headlines

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Here’s a look at Friday’s business headlines.

Tarantula opioids

Researchers at the University of California Davis are working with components of spider venom to find alternatives to pain management to stall the national opioid crisis that is claiming more lives every year.

The team is not extracting venom directly from tarantulas. Instead, they use computers to create new versions of the tarantula venom peptide with software. They can then have modified peptide synthesized and used for testing.

They say spiders and scorpions have millions of years of evolution of small molecules and peptides that may be able to offer pain relief.

Akami outage

The internet outage that took down several major websites seems to be fixed.

Several major websites briefly went down in a widespread outage linked to content distribution network Akami.

The outage caused real-world disruptions. For example, Delta Airlines customers couldn’t check into flights online.

Intel

Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger sees the global semiconductor shortage potentially stretching into 2023.

The worldwide shortage has fueled rising prices for some consumer gadgets. Meanwhile, the auto industry has been particularly hard-hit as the lack of a key component causes production delays.

While it may be two years to get back to normal some easing of the situation could happen later this year.

Chips

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is developing plans to quickly send $52 billion to deal with semiconductor supply issues if Congress passes a bill funding such efforts, that’s according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.