Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally • Hacker News Board

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#141

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:18 AM UTC

ci5er wrote: post #131

sjwalter wrote: post #112

The idea of this being an engineered virus wittingly unleashed on the world by some malevolent Party conspirators strains credulity--the notion is preposterous, especially from a country as obsessed with internal stability as China. However, the Wuhan pathogen research laboratory is still a worthy source to consider relating to this virus. Accidents DO happen, and China has a history of making mistakes leading to dan…

Given the rapidity with which the Harvard chemical-biologist was arrested after we received a sample and sequenced it (~36 hours), I think it is possible (possible! not likely!) that we engineered it , and they paid a researcher to give them a copy. * Some pretty heavy researchers in the US say that it (the virus) was not human-engineered. I find their reasoning spurious, but they know more than I do.

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Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#142

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

ci5er wrote: post #133

austhrow743 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is we and they in this comment?

Oh. Sorry. I was too embedded in the context of the Chinese-funding of US University/Academic research story. In this context here: - "We" == "US Research Programs, funded by the Chinese, but not disclosed according to requirements given to them by the university or the federal grant authorities (whoever they might be for any given program)" - "They" == "Whichever Chinese organizations, governmental or otherwise, tha…

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Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#143

Post by anonytrary » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:29 AM UTC

I'm not a fan of this title. It's verbose without being explicit. Should be "Wuhan seafood may not be source of coronavirus outbreak". Everyone already knows it's a novel virus spreading globally, just call it by its name.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#144

Post by SECProto » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:30 AM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #135

SECProto wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The amount of pseudoscience being peddled for attention or thrills in these threads is getting really worrying to me, I had expected something totally different from this community. :/ I believe this is generally the case with most topics outside the standard focus of this site (which I would posit is computers generally). There tends to be a mixture of intelligent, accurate commentary, and intelligent but misled c…

When you know enough about something, there's horrible misinformation on it everywhere, even on HN. But one of my favourite things about HN is the rebuttals, deep-dives, and 'well, actually's of informed commenters discussing niches I know little about.

For sure. The best way to get the right answer on [hackernews] isn't to ask a question, it's to give the wrong answer.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#145

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:31 AM UTC

wtmt wrote: post #138

svara wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple of days ago I posted a link to the BLASTN sequence alignment between the 2003 SARS virus and the Wuhan virus in a comment on one of the other discussions here. You can see they are closely related, at about 88% sequence identity. There are point mutations spread more or less evenly over the entire genome. This is how evolution works on genomes, and basically rules out genetic engineering, since researchers w…

If you’re an expert in this area, it would help everyone else if you compose and put up a top level comment explaining things. It could get upvoted to be among the first few comments, steering the conversation accordingly. Replies to specific comments with limited information won’t help as much since they won’t bubble up.

(They actually bubble up their parent comment thread, if they're upvoted highly enough. I've seen comment threads where the #1 post has negative point values, but is on top because the response is from someone with firsthand knowledge of the issue which gets upvoted to 100s of points.)

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#146

Post by throw876545 » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:44 AM UTC

epicgiga wrote: post #137

I've more faith in the bat origin theory than the others so far. Don't know if the science is solid, but given how riddled bats are with all kinds of nasty stuff, you probably don't want to be eating that unless you're particularly keen on developing an exotic disease.

If you’re talking about the video if that TV show host eating bat soup, that took place in Palau, not China.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#147

Post by throw876545 » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:49 AM UTC

mustachionut wrote: post #108

NicoJuicy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a fake account? There is no reason for that. Is there? Although your content seems very fatalistic ( = we can't understand nature). It seems weird and suspicious

> From a fake account? No. From a new, anonymous account where I intend to post my opinions without them being tied to my identity. At least until I post enough for stylometric analysis to work...

Unfortunately, saying rational things about China—instead of demonizing it—can be seen as defending the Chinese government and bring a lot of grief in this current “Yellow Peril” environment.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#148

Post by ranger207 » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:49 AM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #34

allovernow wrote: post #2

There is a recently opened P4 biolab in Wuhan within miles of the seafood market in question, with researchers who have recently been working with and publishing on the topic of Corona viruses, including research on human transmission. Not to be sensationalist, and personally I think the title is alarmist, but are a number of suspicious elements to this story that are worth examining: https://medium.com/@siradrianbon…

- Every laboratory exposure-related outbreak I've encountered has been trivially easy to trace back to that event. - Most high-end virology labs are doing research on human to human transmission of corona viruses. They're a major emerging type of virus we don't understand, and a Chinese lab working on them is even less surprising. - If this was a bioweapon, it sucks .

>If this was a bioweapon, it sucks.

Bioweapons aren't all that effective in general for the reasons seen here: they're too slowly acting, to easy to treat, and not as lethal as, say, chemical weapons (which are also not that effective as weapons). Biological weapons are most dangerous as terror weapons.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#149

Post by throw876545 » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 4:51 AM UTC

topmonk wrote: post #51

allovernow wrote: post #2

There is a recently opened P4 biolab in Wuhan within miles of the seafood market in question, with researchers who have recently been working with and publishing on the topic of Corona viruses, including research on human transmission. Not to be sensationalist, and personally I think the title is alarmist, but are a number of suspicious elements to this story that are worth examining: https://medium.com/@siradrianbon…

Heres another article: https://www.zerohedge.com/health/man-behind-global-coronavir... What also leads me to believe this may be the case is that there was (according to the article) experiments on bats being run, and in China, people often find random animals, in drainage ditches, etc., and then go on to sell them for meat. It's possible that the bats they were working on were improperly disposed of, and then picked…

> people often find random animals, in drainage ditches, etc., and then go on to sell them for meat.

I’m sorry, but this as likely as Americans getting disease because sometimes they eat roadkill.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#150

Post by betterbeehome » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 5:00 AM UTC

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #119

ajross wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The virology lab thing is a very popular conspiracy theory. Really the only evidence is that the virus started in the general viscinity of the lab, and that the lab was (somewhat vaguely, but not completely implausibly) suspected of doing bioweapons research. It's worth rebutting. The nonsense is a little out of control.

You know? I thought about your 'nonsense' and recalled something rather old in 'internet time'. Anyways, i just searched for russian bio lab accident and this came up first: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/11/decades-after-deadly... I'm sure there is more to find about that, but for the purpose of rebutting your nonsense i deem it sufficient. What do i mean by that? The theories aren't unfounded when looking bac…

I don't get it. Why are people knee-jerk adverse to this idea? We're not arguing with flat earthers or moon landing skeptics. It's entirely plausible. With people putting their reputation on it, too. Dany Shoham (Israeli biological warfare expert) put his name on the line point this out before a lot of people.

It's not out of the realm of possibility and shouldn't be disregarded out of hand like it has been. Could be from there or maybe not. We really need more information from China to settle some of these discussions.