This is a really interesting theory, and explains to some degree why those with darker complexions (lower vitamin-D levels) and obesity (increased rates of hypertension) have higher mortality rates. Would it explain why younger people are much less effected though?
Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory
81–90 of 154 posts
Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
That air is a natural disinfectant is super interesting. I read that vitamin D and observed benefits for those who have vitamin D is a correlation. Meaning that taking vitamin D supplements might not be as helpful as getting sunlight (a natural way to get vitamin D)
I don't know about air, but ultraviolet light is a pretty good disinfectant.
ozone too. And it goes inside your nose, throat, lungs.
Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read the underlying article ( https://elifesciences.org/articles/59177 ) and was unable to find any evidence of that. In fact the paper doesn't mention anything about SUmmit or details on the computations :( There certainly wasn't any "heavy biochemical calculations"; this work is entirely comparative genomics, so just operating on DNA strings. I see this fluff article https://www.ornl.gov/blog/genomics-code-exceed…
I can't find details either, but I think they just used R for the post-processing, and there's a lot of computation behind this sentence: > RNA-Seq analysis was performed using the latest version of the human transcriptome I found this article discussing read mapping for RNA sequence analysis: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4833417/ > In particular, RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) technology,1 which provides a…
What good is a paper if their methods are a single sentence? Ugh.
Reads mapping is a massively embarassingly parallel computation, again not something you would need or want a supercomputer for. You mainly need disk IO to/from the source reads and the mapping table you produce.
Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if you observe the behavior of a bacterium, operating under similar principles but seeking instead a salt or pH value, you would do well to describe it similarly. The bacterium is seeking a certain condition. It can not think, but it is a machine that acts with purpose and must be modeled accordingly.
I'm curious at what point an organism is considered to be capable of thought. From a mechanistic standpoint, it seems like the goal-seeking behavior of a simple organism could be modeled as a gradient ascent toward a local optima. But even complex organisms are still seeking certain conditions to maximize their ability to survive and reproduce. Is the existence of a brain enough for a creature to be considered capabl…
What do you mean by thought?
A much simpler question can be answered: is it possible to be cruel to an animal? The accepted answer revolves around whether or not you can influence the behavior of the animal (or machine). Crabs naturally hide under rocks. If you shock them when they hide under the rocks they eventually stop hiding under the rocks. Meanwhile a bacteria, by itself, will never learn to associate a stimulus with a condition.
That may capture the capability for thought. There are higher levels past it, like learning to model the behavior of other organisms, and those models eventually turning into a theory of self.
Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
This Medium article was written on March 10 [1]. "Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff.[1] There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu vir…
That air is a natural disinfectant is super interesting. I read that vitamin D and observed benefits for those who have vitamin D is a correlation. Meaning that taking vitamin D supplements might not be as helpful as getting sunlight (a natural way to get vitamin D)
I would guess "air as disinfectant" is primarily because of its oxygen content. O_2 is actually a pretty nasty molecule like that. Oxidation is typically a fairly tough reaction to reverse or prevent.
Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
For category three I feel that goal-seeking (or the appearance of such) is sufficient for the anthropomorphism to kick in. The braitenberg vehicles thought experiment is a good example of this. Quoting from wikipedia "For the simplest vehicles, the motion of the vehicle is directly controlled by some sensors (for example photo cells). Yet the resulting behaviour may appear complex or even intelligent." https://en.m.w…
I routinely anthropomorphize PID loops when tuning them. One of the best nuclear astrophysicists I know thinks about stars as entities that want to stay alive -- "I'm running out of hydrogen, what can I burn next?" That approach yields the right phenomenology almost all the time.
That makes sense for really old things like stars, after all survivorship bias is a critical factor in most long lasting things we observe.
Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
For category three I feel that goal-seeking (or the appearance of such) is sufficient for the anthropomorphism to kick in. The braitenberg vehicles thought experiment is a good example of this. Quoting from wikipedia "For the simplest vehicles, the motion of the vehicle is directly controlled by some sensors (for example photo cells). Yet the resulting behaviour may appear complex or even intelligent." https://en.m.w…
I routinely anthropomorphize PID loops when tuning them. One of the best nuclear astrophysicists I know thinks about stars as entities that want to stay alive -- "I'm running out of hydrogen, what can I burn next?" That approach yields the right phenomenology almost all the time.
Well, yes and no. We say things like "the star wants to go nova" when we mean "stars at this stage in their development tend to go nova" - but the star doesn't want, any more than it dreams or fears to go nova. Anthropomorphizing might help us generalize about things made by people (who do want, dream and fear) though I don't think that's always the case, but I would say it isn't always useful for non-human (and especially non-living) systems.
Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory
#88The anthropomorphization of computers (especially powerful ones) is pretty annoying. A _person used a supercomputer_ to analyze Covid-19, and I’m guessing the theory didn’t just ‘emerge’ from the computer.
I remember a professor of mine (I forgot in which class) saying that humans generally make up 3 kinds of explanations about a system's behavior: 1. When a system is very simple, we explain its actions in terms of its properties and external forces acting on it. 2. When it's a medium complexity system, we tend to explain its actions in terms of its design, putting ourselves in the designer's shoes. 3. When it's a comp…
For the discussion of your category 3 you might enjoy Dennett’s influential book, The Intentional Stance, which discusses how people reason from models like “the thermostat tries to keep the temperature between X and Y”).
Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
This Medium article was written on March 10 [1]. "Put simply, medics found that severely ill flu patients nursed outdoors recovered better than those treated indoors. A combination of fresh air and sunlight seems to have prevented deaths among patients; and infections among medical staff.[1] There is scientific support for this. Research shows that outdoor air is a natural disinfectant. Fresh air can kill the flu vir…
Yes but can it kill viruses and bacteria in vivo?
By "it" what are you referring to?
Vitamin D may have modulatory effects on the biochemical pathways linked in the original article. Most pharmaceutical products we study aren't going to directly kill bacteria or viruses, usually they have a particular physical effect on a specific molecule that then leads, through various cellular pathways, to the death or suppression of the pathogen. I highly doubt Vitamin D directly kills anything, it could modulate symptoms or the pathophysiology of COVID-19 the disease, vs. SARS-COV-2 the virus itself.
If "it" means UV light, yes there are UV sterilizers aplenty today. If "it" means outdoors/fresh air, there are a lot of components to that and it's not like "fresh air" enters "in vivo" per se.
Re: Supercomputer analysis of Covid-19 leads to new theory
#90The anthropomorphization of computers (especially powerful ones) is pretty annoying. A _person used a supercomputer_ to analyze Covid-19, and I’m guessing the theory didn’t just ‘emerge’ from the computer.
I was wondering about that strange way to put it as well - was there a particular reason the article didn't want to mention the team behind the theory?