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Category: Science/mathematics

Only in our anti-truth hellscape could Anthony Fauci become a supervillain

Only in our anti-truth hellscape could Anthony Fauci become a supervillain

Margaret Sullivan writes: In October, Fauci told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that he and his family had received death threats and said he required a security detail to do his daily power walks. In November, former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon was banned from Twitter after he called for Fauci’s beheading. But the campaign against Fauci has dramatically intensified recently — especially since BuzzFeed and The Washington Post released his email trove last week. And in a twisted way, it makes…

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The value of the Hubble Constant and the fate of the universe

The value of the Hubble Constant and the fate of the universe

Corey S Powell writes: What determines our fate? To the Stoic Greek philosophers, fate is the external product of divine will, ‘the thread of your destiny’. To transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau, it is an inward matter of self-determination, of ‘what a man thinks of himself’. To modern cosmologists, fate is something else entirely: a sweeping, impersonal physical process that can be boiled down into a single, momentous number known as the Hubble Constant. The Hubble Constant can be…

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The evidence still suggests the virus came from nature

The evidence still suggests the virus came from nature

Angela L. Rasmussen and Stephen A. Goldstein write: In March 2020, a group of renowned evolutionary virologists analyzed the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 and found it was overwhelmingly likely that this virus had never been manipulated in any laboratory. Like the earlier coronaviruses SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, they theorized, it “spilled over” from its natural reservoir host (bats) to a new one (humans). Viruses jump species frequently, with unpredictable consequences. Often a virus hits an evolutionary dead end if it cannot…

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Fauci calls on China to release medical records of Wuhan lab researchers

Fauci calls on China to release medical records of Wuhan lab researchers

The Financial Times reports that President Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci, has called on China to release the medical records of nine people whose illnesses might provide vital clues into whether Covid-19 first emerged as the result of a lab leak. He told the FT that the records could help resolve the debate over the origins of a disease that has killed more than 3.5 million people worldwide. The records concern three researchers at the Wuhan Institute of…

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The mRNA vaccine revolution is just beginning

The mRNA vaccine revolution is just beginning

Stephen Buranyi writes: No one expected the first Covid-19 vaccine to be as good as it was. “We were hoping for around 70 per cent, that’s a success,” says Dr Ann Falsey, a professor of medicine at the University of Rochester, New York, who ran a 150-person trial site for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in 2020. Even Uğur Şahin, the co-founder and CEO of BioNTech, who had shepherded the drug from its earliest stages, had some doubts. All the preliminary laboratory…

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The lab-leak theory: Inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

The lab-leak theory: Inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins

Katherine Eban writes: Gilles Demaneuf is a data scientist with the Bank of New Zealand in Auckland. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome ten years ago, and believes it gives him a professional advantage. “I’m very good at finding patterns in data, when other people see nothing,” he says. Early last spring, as cities worldwide were shutting down to halt the spread of COVID-19, Demaneuf, 52, began reading up on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease….

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Covid’s deadliest phase may come soon

Covid’s deadliest phase may come soon

Zeynep Tufekci writes: If world leaders don’t act now, the end of the Covid pandemic may come with a horrible form of herd immunity, as more transmissible variants that are taking hold around the world kill millions. There’s troubling new evidence that the B.1.617.2 variant, first identified in India, could be far more transmissible than even the B.1.1.7 variant, first identified in Britain, which contributed to some of the deadliest surges around the world. In countries with widespread vaccination, like…

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Even without definitive proof, the lab-leak theory is a call for action

Even without definitive proof, the lab-leak theory is a call for action

Daniel Engber writes: Last summer, Michael Imperiale, a University of Michigan virologist and 10-year member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, published an essay on the need to “rethink” some basic research-safety practices in light of the coronavirus pandemic. But he and his co-author—another biosecurity-board veteran—did want to make one thing clear: There was no reason to believe that sloppy or malicious science had had anything to do with the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus; to suggest otherwise…

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Had Covid (or been vaccinated)? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime

Had Covid (or been vaccinated)? You’ll probably make antibodies for a lifetime

Nature reports: Many people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 will probably make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives. So suggest researchers who have identified long-lived antibody-producing cells in the bone marrow of people who have recovered from COVID-19. The study provides evidence that immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection will be extraordinarily long-lasting. Adding to the good news, “the implications are that vaccines will have the same durable effect,” says Menno van Zelm, an immunologist at Monash…

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The Wuhan lab leak question: A disused Chinese mine takes center stage

The Wuhan lab leak question: A disused Chinese mine takes center stage

The Wall Street Journal reports: On the outskirts of a village deep in the mountains of southwest China, a lone surveillance camera peers down toward a disused copper mine smothered in dense bamboo. As night approaches, bats swoop overhead. This is the subterranean home of the closest known virus on Earth to the one that causes Covid-19. It is also now a touchpoint for escalating calls for a more thorough probe into whether the pandemic could have stemmed from a…

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Biden: Intelligence community split on Covid-19 origin

Biden: Intelligence community split on Covid-19 origin

Politico reports: President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the U.S intelligence community is split between two origin theories for the Covid-19 pandemic. In a statement Wednesday, Biden notably did not detail the two theories between which the intelligence community is split. The president’s statement did note that he had ordered a review of the pandemic’s origins, “including whether it emerged from human contact with an infected animal or from a laboratory accident,” but did not say whether either of those…

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How do we know that Covid isn’t a bioweapon?

How do we know that Covid isn’t a bioweapon?

Since the revival of the lab-leak theory will once again enliven conspiracy theorists, it’s worth being reminded why it’s wildly implausible that SARS-CoV-2 was created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a biological weapon. (Also keep in mind that the possibility that the virus accidentally leaked from the lab does not contradict the still widely held view that it originated in the wild.) Last July, Ruby Prosser Scully wrote: [C]reating this virus in a lab and knowing that it…

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Intelligence on sick staff at Wuhan lab fuels debate on Covid-19 origin

Intelligence on sick staff at Wuhan lab fuels debate on Covid-19 origin

The Wall Street Journal reports: Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory. The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers…

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The once dismissed lab-leak theory is becoming increasingly plausible

The once dismissed lab-leak theory is becoming increasingly plausible

Donald G. McNeil Jr. writes: In early spring 2020, I reported an article for The New York Times on which I put the tentative headline: “New Coronavirus Is ‘Clearly Not a Lab Leak,’ Scientists Say.” It never ran. For two reasons. The chief one was that inside the Times, we were sharply divided. My colleagues who cover national security were being assured by their Trump administration sources — albeit anonymously and with no hard evidence — that it was a…

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The 60-year-old scientific screwup that helped Covid kill

The 60-year-old scientific screwup that helped Covid kill

Megan Molteni writes: Early one morning, Linsey Marr tiptoed to her dining room table, slipped on a headset, and fired up Zoom. On her computer screen, dozens of familiar faces began to appear. She also saw a few people she didn’t know, including Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for Covid-19, and other expert advisers to the WHO. It was just past 1 pm Geneva time on April 3, 2020, but in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Marr lives…

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Hundreds of epidemiologists expected mask-wearing in public for at least a year

Hundreds of epidemiologists expected mask-wearing in public for at least a year

The New York Times reports: When federal health officials said on Thursday that fully vaccinated Americans no longer needed to wear masks in most places, it came as a surprise to many people in public health. It also was a stark contrast with the views of a large majority of epidemiologists surveyed in the last two weeks by The New York Times. In the informal survey, 80 percent said they thought Americans would need to wear masks in public indoor…

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