How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
newyorker.com
How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
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Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#2Many paragraphs into the article and I still don’t know what important discovery or observation has been made
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#3Really like this analogy: It is a somewhat astonishing fact of life that the exact same DNA is shared by every cell in your body, from the skin to the brain; those cells differ in appearance and function because, in each of them, a molecular gizmo “transcribes” some DNA segments rather than others into molecules of single-stranded RNA. These bits of RNA are in turn used as the blueprints for proteins, the molecular machines that do most of a cell’s work. If DNA is your phone’s home screen, then transcription is like tapping an icon. By sampling the RNA present in a group of cells, researchers can see which programs those cells are running at that moment; by sampling it after the cells have been infected with a virus, they can see how that virus substitutes its own software.
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#4Many paragraphs into the article and I still don’t know what important discovery or observation has been made
This kind of reporting interleaved with storytelling in a really weird voice is frustrating. Why do journalists write like this? What purpose does this word salad serve?
I can do this myself! "On a bald September day, a man walks into a barber shop, languishes at the occupied seats, and voilà, while sensing upcoming bowel movements, he discovers the next great theory of economics."
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#5Many paragraphs into the article and I still don’t know what important discovery or observation has been made
This kind of reporting interleaved with storytelling in a really weird voice is frustrating. Why do journalists write like this? What purpose does this word salad serve? I can do this myself! "On a bald September day, a man walks into a barber shop, languishes at the occupied seats, and voilà, while sensing upcoming bowel movements, he discovers the next great theory of economics."
> Why do journalists write like this?
The New Yorker is known for that style, it may even be the prime example of it.
People who don't like that style are not the audience. And there are many people who like it.
It's like asking why Linux Weekly News never runs poetry. Because it's not that kind of publication.
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#6I hope coronavirus causes 40 million deaths worldwide over 8 years. 10 million of those for rich people in the us
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#7Many paragraphs into the article and I still don’t know what important discovery or observation has been made
If you're looking for the summary, it's about 1/4 the way in.
> Usually, the viruses that humans care about are successful because they shut down both of these signalling programs. The coronavirus is different. “It seems to block only one of those two arms,” tenOever told me. It inhibits the interferon response but does nothing about the cytokines; it evades the local defenses but allows the cells it infects to call for reinforcements. White blood cells are powerful weapons: they arrive on an inflammatory tide, destroying cells on every side, clogging up passages with the wreckage. They are meant to be used selectively, on invaders that have been contained in a small area. With the coronavirus, they are deployed too widely—a carpet bombing, rather than a surgical strike. As they do their work, inflammation distends the lungs, and debris fills them like a fog.
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#8Many paragraphs into the article and I still don’t know what important discovery or observation has been made
This kind of reporting interleaved with storytelling in a really weird voice is frustrating. Why do journalists write like this? What purpose does this word salad serve? I can do this myself! "On a bald September day, a man walks into a barber shop, languishes at the occupied seats, and voilà, while sensing upcoming bowel movements, he discovers the next great theory of economics."
I find NPR guilty of the same. I want to hear a story about how fear affects the lives of primates. And it begins on a cool October day with thoughts of coffee.
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#9Really like this analogy: It is a somewhat astonishing fact of life that the exact same DNA is shared by every cell in your body, from the skin to the brain; those cells differ in appearance and function because, in each of them, a molecular gizmo “transcribes” some DNA segments rather than others into molecules of single-stranded RNA. These bits of RNA are in turn used as the blueprints for proteins, the molecular m…
'Molecular machines' is not an overstatement. Here's an example of some of them working in harmony to maintain an essential electrochemical gradient across the lipid bilayer that encapsulates the mitochondria:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQmTKxI4Wn4
It's a 7 minute video, if you only have a little time, skip around, but make sure you listen to the part starting at 6:17.
DNA isn't just the blueprint for the machine or the blueprint for the factory that makes the machine, it's the blueprint for the entire supply chain required to build and operate an entire chemical industry of mind-bending complexity. Like doubling grains of rice on each square of a checkerboard, if you wanted to create a complete catalog of all possible combinations of a string of DNA that's 150 base pairs long, you would have to marshal all of the estimated matter in the observable universe and you'd still end up short. Most of the genes that create these proteins are tens of thousands of base pairs in length and the entire human genome is ~3 billion.
Re: How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
#10Many paragraphs into the article and I still don’t know what important discovery or observation has been made
This kind of reporting interleaved with storytelling in a really weird voice is frustrating. Why do journalists write like this? What purpose does this word salad serve? I can do this myself! "On a bald September day, a man walks into a barber shop, languishes at the occupied seats, and voilà, while sensing upcoming bowel movements, he discovers the next great theory of economics."
This is 'Long Form Journalism'. The 'dip in, dip out' paragraph structure is a dead giveaway.
Not always what you're looking for but it can be a good way of cracking into a subject you're unfamiliar with, or a good way of merging the human element with something that would otherwise be quite dry.
By no means a substitute for regular news, but a good complement to it.