8 ms·

The market resides in the heart of the city so it could be that there was some other route of transmission through carriers without symptoms, animals etc. To c

The market resides in the heart of the city so it could be that there was some other route of transmission through carriers without symptoms, animals etc. To claim that this came from a lab certain requires more evidence than its mere existence. The whole RNA sequence is available online and so far no expert to my knowledge has claimed it looks synthetic.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Aperocky 7y ago
To add to this, there are 20+ genomes available now. It’s being closely tracked and any claims should not be made without genome.
mc32 7y ago
Modified, not synthetic.
- salemh 7y ago
  Any source you have found credible? Their is a lot of information going around in both directions.
  - ashildr 7y ago
    You have a very lax definition of “Information”. There is absolutely nothing suggesting that Wuhan is man made. I expected a little more scientific perspective from this forum.
    - dang 7y ago
      This forum has millions of readers. Human nature inevitably shows up at scale. Double that for human nature on the internet.
  - corporateslave5 7y ago
    I personally think any academics thinking parts are synthetic aren’t speaking about it
- svara 7y ago
  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 would perform specific localized changes to specific proteins, or contiguous insertions of genetic material from evolutionarily distant sources. Source: Go over to NCBI and do the alignment yourself, also am PhD biologist. PS: 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. :/
  - ggffryuuj 7y ago
    The community is dying. I’ve been here since 2013. Lobste.rs is currently the place to be but it’s small and is only for programming topics.
    - exdsq 7y ago
      Lobste.rs looks cool but I see you can only join if you're invited by an existing member. Would you mind sending one to me, or letting me know where I can go about getting one? :) edward [dot] haigh [at] iohk [dot] io
      - ggffryuuj 7y ago
        I’ve reviewed your comment history and was pleased with the technical stuff and lack of flaming. Expect an invite in the next 24 hours
        wtmt 7y ago
        This kind of “Gmail Beta” thingy that makes the service a premium and doesn’t allow people to join in good faith is why I didn’t join said site. I once waited there for an invite on chat, was polite and everything, but didn’t get invited. I also didn’t see many comments on most posts there. So the exclusivity, as I saw it then, was a drawback to the quantity and quality of the site and discussions. I’m no longer interested in begging around for something that wouldn’t be as valuable as HN.
perennate 7y ago
I didn't read anything in the posted article that indicates that the China-based researchers think it came from a lab or looks synthetic. So I didn't understand why you are responding to a claim that they aren't making.
- graeme 7y ago
  Lots of posts in this thread were making the claim about the lab. They’re less upvoted now.
  - perennate 7y ago
    Ah that makes more sense, it was confusing because it was posted as a top-level comment instead of a reply.
  - chadmeister 7y ago
    Thank you for clarifying this! I will rescind my downvotes
- ajross 7y ago
  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.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
    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-lab-accident-a-secret-russian-bioweapon-decoded/ 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 back, because they happened! It doesn't really matter where, when, by whom, and what exactly. Just that it did happen multiple times. Cheers. edit: Well, it even has a wikipedia article if you prefer that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak
RivieraKid 7y ago
The lab theory seems unlikely but out of curiosity, how would a lab approach creating a dangerous virus? Presumably they would iteratively try modifying an existing RNA, synthesize it, then breed the virus and test it on mice?
CriticalCathed 7y ago
Well, there's one pre-print paper that goes as far as saying that because some segments of the RNA resemble, closely, parts of HIV, that those may have been inserted by human efforts. Of course, there's been a lot of pushback to this assertion; detractor say that this "inserted segment" actually shows up in all kinds of things and it also being in HIV is not significant here. For the article and the pushback, see this link and its comments: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1
- RossBencina 7y ago
  Also discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204866
erokar 7y ago
Parts of the HIV virus have been identified in it: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf+html https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.... "Our analysis of the spike glycoprotein of 2019-nCoV revealed several interesting findings: First, we identified 4 unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike glycoprotein that are not present in any other coronavirus reported till date. To our surprise, all the 4 inserts in the 2019-nCoV mapped to It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. bioRxiv preprint first posted online Jan. 31, 2020; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871. The copyright holder for this short segments of amino acids in the HIV-1 gp120 and Gag among all annotated virus proteins in the NCBI database. This uncanny similarity of novel inserts in the 2019- nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag is unlikely to be fortuitous." https://mobile.twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1223305946723704832 https://mobile.twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/122330594672370...
- drcode 7y ago
  Other people have written about the HIV-lookalike segment mentioned in that paper and believe it is likely due to chance https://twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/1223361554495823872 https://twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/122336155449582387...
- Aperocky 7y ago
  Can it be the jumped from bat to human happened in an immunocompromised individual with HIV?
- justinzollars 7y ago
  This paper is not yet peer reviewed. I'm sure this claim will be studied exhaustively in the coming days/weeks.
corporate_shi11 7y ago
>"The whole RNA sequence is available online and so far no expert to my knowledge has claimed it looks synthetic." This is no longer true. See: 'Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag' https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1 These are findings from IIT researchers who have found "uncanny" similarities between nCov and HIV which could increase virality.
- longtom 7y ago
  This finding has been debunked in the meanwhile though. The suspicious inserts are fairly short and NOT unique to HIV. See these threads: https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1223337991168380928 https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1223337991168380928 https://twitter.com/bblarsen1/status/1223343688400527360 https://twitter.com/bblarsen1/status/1223343688400527360 Seems the entire publish and peer-review cycle occurs on the scale of hours or days now, lol.
droithomme 7y ago
> so far no expert to my knowledge has claimed it looks synthetic True, it's no single expert. It's experts. The HIV-1 insertions, made at functional points, are reasonably suspicious and worthy of further analysis.
shard972 7y ago
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1....
stevenwoo 7y ago
Some sort of stock market manipulation ploy? https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117663/twitter-zero-hedge-suspended-platform-manipulation-policy-doxxing-coronavirus https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117663/twitter-zero-hed...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Aperocky 7y ago

To add to this, there are 20+ genomes available now. It’s being closely tracked and any claims should not be made without genome.

mc32 7y ago

Modified, not synthetic.

salemh 7y ago
Any source you have found credible? Their is a lot of information going around in both directions.
- ashildr 7y ago
  You have a very lax definition of “Information”. There is absolutely nothing suggesting that Wuhan is man made. I expected a little more scientific perspective from this forum.
  - dang 7y ago
    This forum has millions of readers. Human nature inevitably shows up at scale. Double that for human nature on the internet.
- corporateslave5 7y ago
  I personally think any academics thinking parts are synthetic aren’t speaking about it
svara 7y ago
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 would perform specific localized changes to specific proteins, or contiguous insertions of genetic material from evolutionarily distant sources. Source: Go over to NCBI and do the alignment yourself, also am PhD biologist. PS: 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. :/
- ggffryuuj 7y ago
  The community is dying. I’ve been here since 2013. Lobste.rs is currently the place to be but it’s small and is only for programming topics.
  - exdsq 7y ago
    Lobste.rs looks cool but I see you can only join if you're invited by an existing member. Would you mind sending one to me, or letting me know where I can go about getting one? :) edward [dot] haigh [at] iohk [dot] io
    - ggffryuuj 7y ago
      I’ve reviewed your comment history and was pleased with the technical stuff and lack of flaming. Expect an invite in the next 24 hours
      - wtmt 7y ago
        This kind of “Gmail Beta” thingy that makes the service a premium and doesn’t allow people to join in good faith is why I didn’t join said site. I once waited there for an invite on chat, was polite and everything, but didn’t get invited. I also didn’t see many comments on most posts there. So the exclusivity, as I saw it then, was a drawback to the quantity and quality of the site and discussions. I’m no longer interested in begging around for something that wouldn’t be as valuable as HN.

perennate 7y ago

I didn't read anything in the posted article that indicates that the China-based researchers think it came from a lab or looks synthetic. So I didn't understand why you are responding to a claim that they aren't making.

graeme 7y ago
Lots of posts in this thread were making the claim about the lab. They’re less upvoted now.
- perennate 7y ago
  Ah that makes more sense, it was confusing because it was posted as a top-level comment instead of a reply.
- chadmeister 7y ago
  Thank you for clarifying this! I will rescind my downvotes
ajross 7y ago
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.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
  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-lab-accident-a-secret-russian-bioweapon-decoded/ 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 back, because they happened! It doesn't really matter where, when, by whom, and what exactly. Just that it did happen multiple times. Cheers. edit: Well, it even has a wikipedia article if you prefer that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak

RivieraKid 7y ago

The lab theory seems unlikely but out of curiosity, how would a lab approach creating a dangerous virus? Presumably they would iteratively try modifying an existing RNA, synthesize it, then breed the virus and test it on mice?

CriticalCathed 7y ago

Well, there's one pre-print paper that goes as far as saying that because some segments of the RNA resemble, closely, parts of HIV, that those may have been inserted by human efforts. Of course, there's been a lot of pushback to this assertion; detractor say that this "inserted segment" actually shows up in all kinds of things and it also being in HIV is not significant here. For the article and the pushback, see this link and its comments: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1

RossBencina 7y ago
Also discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204866

erokar 7y ago

Parts of the HIV virus have been identified in it: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf+html https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.... "Our analysis of the spike glycoprotein of 2019-nCoV revealed several interesting findings: First, we identified 4 unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike glycoprotein that are not present in any other coronavirus reported till date. To our surprise, all the 4 inserts in the 2019-nCoV mapped to It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. bioRxiv preprint first posted online Jan. 31, 2020; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871 http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871. The copyright holder for this short segments of amino acids in the HIV-1 gp120 and Gag among all annotated virus proteins in the NCBI database. This uncanny similarity of novel inserts in the 2019- nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag is unlikely to be fortuitous." https://mobile.twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1223305946723704832 https://mobile.twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/122330594672370...

drcode 7y ago
Other people have written about the HIV-lookalike segment mentioned in that paper and believe it is likely due to chance https://twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/1223361554495823872 https://twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/122336155449582387...
Aperocky 7y ago
Can it be the jumped from bat to human happened in an immunocompromised individual with HIV?
justinzollars 7y ago
This paper is not yet peer reviewed. I'm sure this claim will be studied exhaustively in the coming days/weeks.

corporate_shi11 7y ago

>"The whole RNA sequence is available online and so far no expert to my knowledge has claimed it looks synthetic." This is no longer true. See: 'Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag' https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1 These are findings from IIT researchers who have found "uncanny" similarities between nCov and HIV which could increase virality.

longtom 7y ago
This finding has been debunked in the meanwhile though. The suspicious inserts are fairly short and NOT unique to HIV. See these threads: https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1223337991168380928 https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1223337991168380928 https://twitter.com/bblarsen1/status/1223343688400527360 https://twitter.com/bblarsen1/status/1223343688400527360 Seems the entire publish and peer-review cycle occurs on the scale of hours or days now, lol.

droithomme 7y ago

> so far no expert to my knowledge has claimed it looks synthetic True, it's no single expert. It's experts. The HIV-1 insertions, made at functional points, are reasonably suspicious and worthy of further analysis.

shard972 7y ago

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1.full.pdf https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.30.927871v1....

stevenwoo 7y ago

Some sort of stock market manipulation ploy? https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117663/twitter-zero-hedge-suspended-platform-manipulation-policy-doxxing-coronavirus https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117663/twitter-zero-hed...