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> We are aware that this story is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no eviden
by scythe 7y ago
> We are aware that this story is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true;
"Engineered virus" is a much more drastic claim than "escaped from a lab". Practically all of the viruses studied in labs are natural. Engineering living (or quasi-living) things beyond adding this or that protein is still more science fiction than science.
- ac29 7y ago> Engineering living (or quasi-living) things beyond adding this or that protein is still more science fiction than science. Its certainly much farther along than you might think: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6329/1040.full https://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6329/1040.full (link to paper "Design of a synthetic yeast genome") edit: more recent info on the project here https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05164-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05164-3