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Additionally, in the same way a banana would never occur in nature, many of these experiments researchers conduct are extremely unlikely or out right impossible

Additionally, in the same way a banana would never occur in nature, many of these experiments researchers conduct are extremely unlikely or out right impossible. For wild viruses crossing over to humans it needs to go through many mutations and people before becoming adapted and highly infectious towards humans. But in a lab you can insert the exact mutation to make it highly infectious towards humans without having to mutate. For example right now the bird flu which can infect humans who have ingested bird droppings, but it can't spread human to human. The conditions in the lab are just so artificial the predictive power is practically worthless, especially when you consider the massive possibility space. Just like you'd never find something like a banana evolve to it's current state in the wild, you would won't find these viral chimeras just popping up out of no where.

throwaway4aday 4y ago
Remember this? "H5N1 is a type of avian flu virus that occurs naturally in various types of birds but has surfaced in humans in the last ten years. Although human cases of H5N1 are rare, the virus has a 60% mortality rate." "They reasoned that it'd be better to tinker with H5N1 in the lab and gain knowledge for its prevention than sit back and wait for mother nature to concoct a human-friendly strain. Both teams of researchers artificially mutated H5N1 to spread easily amongst ferrets. Ferrets are commonly used as stand ins for humans in influenza studies. To clarify what I mean by "easily" spread, at the end of Fouchier's study the strain had gained the ability to transmit through the air- an unprecedented feat!" https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/viruses101/avian/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/viruses101/avian/
rhacker 4y ago
The other thing too is that were just going to do ACE2 receptor research from now til the next pandemic, which I'm sure will have NOTHING to do with ACE2.

throwaway4aday 4y ago

Remember this? "H5N1 is a type of avian flu virus that occurs naturally in various types of birds but has surfaced in humans in the last ten years. Although human cases of H5N1 are rare, the virus has a 60% mortality rate." "They reasoned that it'd be better to tinker with H5N1 in the lab and gain knowledge for its prevention than sit back and wait for mother nature to concoct a human-friendly strain. Both teams of researchers artificially mutated H5N1 to spread easily amongst ferrets. Ferrets are commonly used as stand ins for humans in influenza studies. To clarify what I mean by "easily" spread, at the end of Fouchier's study the strain had gained the ability to transmit through the air- an unprecedented feat!" https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/viruses101/avian/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/viruses101/avian/

rhacker 4y ago

The other thing too is that were just going to do ACE2 receptor research from now til the next pandemic, which I'm sure will have NOTHING to do with ACE2.