191–200 of 225 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lobste.rs looks cool but I see you can only join if you're invited by an existing member. Would you mind sending one to me, or letting me know where I can go about getting one? :) edward [dot] haigh [at] iohk [dot] io
Do you need biotech people?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The odds are fairly slim. Wuhan is a large Chinese city that has a greater population than most countries. There is going to be an (X) in Wuhan for any value of (X) anyone cares to name. The fog of uncertainty is still thick; nobody has much of an idea what is going on. Anyone claiming that they have a theory on where the virus came from is fantasising. The knee-jerk people probably don't want them drowning out a wea…
What is the probability that in Wuhan exists the only X in the vast country and Y happens only once in a decade or so
It is possible; but a lot of things are possible. It is a mighty leap from a starting point of basically no primary evidence and all the people who have on-the-ground access to evidence are very busy managing a rapidly growing crisis.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modified, not synthetic.
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…
That's because a reality like Michael Crichton's novels is fun to imagine, albeit...fictional.
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…
I could relate to what you said about it’s a mental-process with maybe 99% trash, but there’s still 1% not trash in there and I can only know it isn’t trash by not getting carried away without verifying the hypothesis in first place.
Lesson learned: sure, go ahead with hypothesis hunting, but also spend time to verify them first.
Edit: more simply, be careful about confirmation bias.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modified, not synthetic.
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…
Honest question: if this is common knowledge of people in the field, why wouldn't people genetically engineering a virus (and trying to hide it) do so in a fashion to make it look more like evolution in the genomes? Is that not possible to do?
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…
> Source: Go over to NCBI and do the alignment yourself, also am PhD biologist. > PS: 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. :/ On the flip side, I've seen lots of "experts" chime in and say things that prove to be wrong. For example, during the early stages of the 2011 Fukush…
If you go back and read about any newsworthy event there are experts getting it wrong.
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…
For more recent, though more vague, evidence that China may not share the same views on handling extremely dangerous pathogens as the rest of the world, we have this story from July 2019, wherein a Chinese researcher working in one of Canada's BS-4 labs, along with her husband who was a SARS researcher, as well as several students she brought over from China to work with her, were all given the boot over unspecified…
She (and her husband) are both Canadian researchers who happens to be Chinese. She shipped Ebola and henipavirus samples with "all appropriate precautions" as part of "routine" sharing program according to National Microbiology Laboratory. They suspended her non-salaried appointments during current investigation, her students, some of whom were Chinese nationals, were reassigned. The IP concern was a Chinese Mabworks company was developing the experimental and patented ebola drug ZMapp which she worked on without authorization.
This conspiracy idea is quite far fetched. And it was probably spread as fake news, by someone with a political agenda to smear the reputation of China worldwide. (And if you’ve been watching closely, this is a very well funded campaign, that has been very active for the past 3 years.) But let’s try to think this through. If they (China) were researching it, then it is possible that this could’ve accidentally escaped…
I would love to hear more about this "well funded" campaign to smear China's reputation. Are conspiracies only "far-fetched" when the don't align with your beliefs?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At first it was like that for me too. After a reload, because trying to click on that Adrian Bond icon to see what else he posted, it's now gone completely like parent poster described. The funny thing about that is when you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Institute_of_Virology the geocoordinates there lead you into the same forest on all major mapping services, while the pictures are recent or even from th…
That's weird...it looks like an empty forest separating farmland.
It's probably one of the adjacent buildings.
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…
> 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. How about the idea that this is an engineered virus unwittingly unleashed on the world by some accident/incompetence? If one reads the history of nuclear weapons/reactors, and how all k…