thank-you. you are one of the gems on the internet. it will take me a while to understand and play with the tools, but in a world of fraught, YOU give me hope.
Well. Seems the critiques deployed against the original paper are derived from inexperience or obfuscation. Why am I not surprised? My biggest issue with everything however, is: is there any way to prove or anywhere to look, that would be more definitive, and not require postulation to this degree? We have the GP 120 homology, the lack of clear ancestry, and now we have a logical pattern for removing and testing these peptides, that perfectly aligns with the the FCS/insert 4 region (that I still don't understand. Very dense and very good. Thank you for this). I just wish there was a more concrete method of inference to be deployed. As it stands we're fighting for public opinion more than anything, which is incredibly hard since the zoonotic opponents are well funded, in high enough positions to be an appeal to authority, and of course socially/algorithmically backed. I wouldn't be shocked if they still managed to keep the paper from getting published despite what you have laid out here. I don't think a single preprint I have about the SARS2 inserts and their potential functions has been published
This is an important and sophisticated summary. For the layperson, this article/interview of Michael Morell (former CIA acting director) about the future threat of synthetic biology is illuminating. “When you think about engineering DNA and genomes, the term modularity refers to the drag and drop, cut and paste, lift and shift mentality...”
Indeed there are multiple ways to skin the cat. For example, as early as 2008, Baric and others spelled out recombinant techniques that satisfy the construction of replication competent coronaviruses:
There’s no secrete here in terms of can it be done. Of course it can. Fundamental to accidental lab leak hypothesis Vs natural spillover is the question of ruling out the possibility of the later with molecular signature from the former. This is incredibly difficult to investigate. I’m not there yet. Perhaps an in-depth analysis of CoV phylogenies is due from your camp. The virologists seem to think these types of analyses have elucidated a viable hypothesis for natural spillover. I still need to dig in that fertile ground…
I read the Bruttel et al paper, watched the podcast with yourself and Alex, downloaded SnapGene, followed your instructions, had a play with it and read this Substack post which gave me a much improved understanding of the paper. Learning new stuff is always a pleasure but learning stuff of global importance makes that particularly poignant so thank you very much for taking the time to write this.
The Bruttel paper has received a lot of flack from those vested in maintaining the zoonotic spillover hypothesis particularly Anderson. Debate and the open discussion of alternative theories is a cornerstone of science, however Anderson's language and fervent desire to quash any dissent from the mainstream narrative appears bullish and somewhat desperate. Emotions aside I'd be genuinely interested to read your technical appraisal of Anderson's rebuttal to the Bruttel paper. You have a talent for translating the highly technical nuance's of genetics and cell biology into a more amenable technical framework that dumbo's like myself can comprehend.
Ok ok. ELI5.. So sars cov2 is labmade no question. But Omicron could have been worked on up to a year pre April 2020 when that paper came out? Is it daying Omicron might be a live attenuated vaccine? As in its possible the fuckers who made sars let it out to test Omicron? Or is that way off?
Ok, this is way beyond my pay grade! Can you give a summary of whether you think the preprint is credible or not, and what is your response to the criticisms I’ve seen on Twitter but don’t understand either! I think they implied there were easier ways to manufacture a virus than the way the author was showing? Thanks!
If you cut lots of corners you can build a car with no accessories. If you’re a building a car to make it easy to service and manufacture, you don’t always take the quickest and easiest route.
The SARs-CoV-2 genome shows signs of construction with foresight towards future modification and experimentation.
They built it with modularity so surgery could be very fast and cheap in the future.
Best thing they could do is Subpeona the oligo synthesis shops for oligos ordered in 2019.
BLAST these against SV2.
That would lead to the perp
A frikkin' home run read... made my night...
thank-you. you are one of the gems on the internet. it will take me a while to understand and play with the tools, but in a world of fraught, YOU give me hope.
and shoutout to Jessica Rose. i love you, too.
Well. Seems the critiques deployed against the original paper are derived from inexperience or obfuscation. Why am I not surprised? My biggest issue with everything however, is: is there any way to prove or anywhere to look, that would be more definitive, and not require postulation to this degree? We have the GP 120 homology, the lack of clear ancestry, and now we have a logical pattern for removing and testing these peptides, that perfectly aligns with the the FCS/insert 4 region (that I still don't understand. Very dense and very good. Thank you for this). I just wish there was a more concrete method of inference to be deployed. As it stands we're fighting for public opinion more than anything, which is incredibly hard since the zoonotic opponents are well funded, in high enough positions to be an appeal to authority, and of course socially/algorithmically backed. I wouldn't be shocked if they still managed to keep the paper from getting published despite what you have laid out here. I don't think a single preprint I have about the SARS2 inserts and their potential functions has been published
This is an important and sophisticated summary. For the layperson, this article/interview of Michael Morell (former CIA acting director) about the future threat of synthetic biology is illuminating. “When you think about engineering DNA and genomes, the term modularity refers to the drag and drop, cut and paste, lift and shift mentality...”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bioweapons-threat-synthetic-biology/
Indeed there are multiple ways to skin the cat. For example, as early as 2008, Baric and others spelled out recombinant techniques that satisfy the construction of replication competent coronaviruses:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1735582100
Here’s another one in which the actual spike of bat coronavirus was dropped into mouse-adapted SARs-CoV….using simple BglI:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985
There’s no secrete here in terms of can it be done. Of course it can. Fundamental to accidental lab leak hypothesis Vs natural spillover is the question of ruling out the possibility of the later with molecular signature from the former. This is incredibly difficult to investigate. I’m not there yet. Perhaps an in-depth analysis of CoV phylogenies is due from your camp. The virologists seem to think these types of analyses have elucidated a viable hypothesis for natural spillover. I still need to dig in that fertile ground…
Brilliant Kevin and thank you.
I read the Bruttel et al paper, watched the podcast with yourself and Alex, downloaded SnapGene, followed your instructions, had a play with it and read this Substack post which gave me a much improved understanding of the paper. Learning new stuff is always a pleasure but learning stuff of global importance makes that particularly poignant so thank you very much for taking the time to write this.
The Bruttel paper has received a lot of flack from those vested in maintaining the zoonotic spillover hypothesis particularly Anderson. Debate and the open discussion of alternative theories is a cornerstone of science, however Anderson's language and fervent desire to quash any dissent from the mainstream narrative appears bullish and somewhat desperate. Emotions aside I'd be genuinely interested to read your technical appraisal of Anderson's rebuttal to the Bruttel paper. You have a talent for translating the highly technical nuance's of genetics and cell biology into a more amenable technical framework that dumbo's like myself can comprehend.
Kind Regards
Lee
Ok ok. ELI5.. So sars cov2 is labmade no question. But Omicron could have been worked on up to a year pre April 2020 when that paper came out? Is it daying Omicron might be a live attenuated vaccine? As in its possible the fuckers who made sars let it out to test Omicron? Or is that way off?
Omicron still puzzles me.
Ii suspect it was rapidly evolved in mice under spike selective pressure but I was very little data to back that.
Ok, this is way beyond my pay grade! Can you give a summary of whether you think the preprint is credible or not, and what is your response to the criticisms I’ve seen on Twitter but don’t understand either! I think they implied there were easier ways to manufacture a virus than the way the author was showing? Thanks!
The paper is credible.
The folks arguing over easier methods…
If you cut lots of corners you can build a car with no accessories. If you’re a building a car to make it easy to service and manufacture, you don’t always take the quickest and easiest route.
The SARs-CoV-2 genome shows signs of construction with foresight towards future modification and experimentation.
They built it with modularity so surgery could be very fast and cheap in the future.
Thank you for the writeup.
Thank you very much.
Looks much more fun than debuggin' the friggin' new module of our water balance model.
Procrastination here I come!
This is a cool set of tools and data for anyone