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

sciencemag.org

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

#211

Post by throwaway41968 »

svara wrote: post #84
mc32 wrote: post #62

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…

>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. :/

HN is good when it comes to technology, and that's what I browse it for. When it comes to genetics or biology...not so much. Engineer's disease runs definitely stronger than coronaviruses here.

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

#212

Post by throwaway41968 »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #195
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…

> This is how evolution works on genomes, and basically rules out genetic engineering, since researchers would perform specific localized changes to specific proteins, or contiguous insertions of genetic material from evolutionarily distant sources. 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 mak…

Doing a bunch of point mutations that "look" like a normal evolutionary process seems awfully expensive just to engineer a virus that's less threatening than, you know, the flu.

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

#213

Post by rkuykendall-com »

officemonkey wrote: post #207

The cognitive dissonance you feel between what a government says and what the truth is often the first sign that the government is authoritarian.

This is the FIRST sign that the Chinese government is authoritarian??

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

#214

Post by aguyfromnb »

throwaway41968 wrote: post #212
aguyfromnb wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is how evolution works on genomes, and basically rules out genetic engineering, since researchers would perform specific localized changes to specific proteins, or contiguous insertions of genetic material from evolutionarily distant sources. 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 mak…

Doing a bunch of point mutations that "look" like a normal evolutionary process seems awfully expensive just to engineer a virus that's less threatening than, you know, the flu.

>a virus that's less threatening than, you know, the flu.

How can you say this as fact when we don't even know the morbidity rate of the coronavirus? The story isn't over yet, but it looks like it could be twice as deadly as influenza.

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

#215

Post by trenning »

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…

There's also that time the USG tested the effects of bioweapon spreading on San Francisco and other US cities. It's not like countries don't have a history of this.

https://www.businessinsider.com/military-government-secret-e...

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

#217

Post by xkcd-sucks »

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.

More likely is that before coronavirus Lieber's arrest wasn't politically feasible.

He was Chair of the Chem department at Harvard, respected key opinion leader etc. All he did was take money from more sources than he disclosed, to fund the normal business of his academic career. Reading between the lines, looking at the photos, everyone familiar with science+academia can clearly see he's slimy but no more slimy than many other respected businesspeople. But to lay people it seems like a scientist is getting persecuted for furthering international cooperation in basic research. And of course one does not chair a Harvard department without powerful friends.

From the court filings, it seems Lieber was caught a long time ago when he e.g. explicitly lied about funding sources to investigators.

When coronavirus happened, suddenly Wuhan, China, and research became politically exposed. Before coronavirus, if you said Lieber took money to help develop a university in Wuhan people in the USA would think he was doing charity work in some unknown tier 3 city. Now people in the USA hear the same and think of advanced bioweapons. It's a good time to indict and convict.

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

#218

Post by Fomite »

ranger207 wrote: post #148
Fomite wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 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.

Agreed. I worked on biodefense stuff for awhile, and my usual argument was that bioweapons are at best panic and disruption.

But this was mostly to address the terminal version of this particular rumor, which I've also encountered on social media.

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

#220

Post by anonytrary »

salmo wrote: post #152
anonytrary wrote: post #143

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.

Its name is novel coronavirus or more specifically "2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)". There are many coronaviruses that just cause colds. There's also SARS, MERS, and now nCoV that are a lot more deadly.

Thank you for that clarification! I think the title makes more sense if you know about the novel prefix (which I didn't).
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