SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (152939)2/2/2020 7:39:27 PM
From: TobagoJack2 Recommendations

Recommended By
Cogito Ergo Sum
ferris wheel

  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 217549
 
looks like this effort to encourage selling failed rather badly due to bad science
perhaps because the virus pic was insufficiently manipulated
forbes.com

No, The Wuhan Coronavirus Was Not Bioengineered To Put Pieces Of HIV In It

Victoria ForsterContributor

Healthcare
Cancer research scientist and childhood cancer survivor.


A pre-print of a scientific paper speculated that coronavirus had been engineered to include viral ... [+]

GETTYThe Wuhan coronavirus has gripped the attention of the world and with this attention, people understandably have questions. Masks; to wear or not to wear? Will the flu shot protect you from coronavirus? No. Is the coronavirus anything to do with Corona beer? No, come on. But with so much focus on one topic and new information about the outbreak coming out constantly, inevitably a slew of spurious information is also flooding the internet. Unsurprisingly the virus has resulted in several, well... viral news stories with little scientific merit.

The newest of these was a little unusual because it was based on a pre-print of a real scientific paper, (since removed just a few hours ago) uploaded to website bioRxiv, where scientists can present their completed, or near-completed studies, prior to peer-review by other scientists. The work, by a group based in India, was entitled “Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag.”

Seeing HIV and coronavirus in the same sentence is understandably a little startling, so what does it actually mean?

“Based on analysis of multiple, very short regions of proteins in the novel coronavirus, the bioRxiv paper claimed that the new coronavirus may have acquired these regions from HIV,” said Arinjay Banerjee, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in virology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada who has extensively studied coronaviruses.

Some types of viruses can swap pieces of their genetic code and in this case,the authors of the study say that the specific coronavirus which is involved in the most recent outbreak (2019-nCoV) has four small chunks of sequence in its genetic code which are not found in other, similar coronaviruses like SARS. According to the authors, these pieces bear some resemblance to bits of sequence also found in HIV.

However, the authors then speculated that this might not be a coincidence and perhaps the bits of genetic code were put there intentionally. The conspiracy theory was addressed today by a scientist from the Wuhan Institute of Virology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who rubbished the claims.

The wider scientific community, upon seeing the paper, were also less than impressed with these conclusions and speculations and swiftly set about not only voicing their concerns, but analyzing the data to double-check the results.


Essentially, the scientists found that yes, there are some additions in the nCoV coronavirus originating in Wuhan that other coronaviruses don’t have, which are similar to pieces of sequence found in HIV. But, the kicker here is that these pieces of genetic code are also found in countless other viruses and there’s no reason to believe they specifically came from HIV, at all.

“The authors compared very short regions of proteins in the novel coronavirus and concluded that the small segments of proteins were similar to segments in HIV proteins. Comparing very short segments can often generate false positives and it is difficult to make these conclusions using small protein segments,” said Banerjee.

The paper was withdrawn from bioRxiv on Sunday afternoon with one of the authors stating: “ it was not our intention to feed into the conspiracy theories and no such claims are made here.” The author further declares that the researchers will revise the paper and re-analyze the data before submitting it again.

But despite the removal, the pre-print paper has stimulated a heap of discussion about HIV and coronavirus. Many people have asked on social media why, if coronavirus does not have pieces of HIV in it, HIV drugs are being used in some cases to treat the virus, with preliminary evidence that they, and other anti-viral drugs appear to be working in some cases.

“Some antiviral drugs can work against fundamental and generic steps involved in RNA virus replication. Anti-HIV drugs that inhibit viral RNA (genome) replication or the process of making viral protein from viral RNA may also work against other RNA viruses. This depends on the mode of action of the drugs,” explains Banerjee.

Presumably in response to the rather critical attention that this paper received, bioRxiv has added a banner ‘warning’ to every new preprint on the website:

“bioRxiv is receiving many new papers on coronavirus 2019-nCoV. A reminder: these are preliminary reports that have not been peer-reviewed. They should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or be reported in news media as established information,” read the statement.

Publishing scientific articles as pre-prints without any peer review beforehand is controversial and complex, with one valid question being whether media outlets should cover pre-print work and risk potentially misinforming the public if the original results are not quite up to scratch, as happened with the recent HIV/coronavirus paper. Has this recent incident tarnished the reputation of preprints?

“No. In fact, I believe that this why pre-prints were established. The scientific community can provide feedback prior to formal peer-review. Pre-prints offer the authors an opportunity to seek feedback from a wider scientific community, more than the 2-3 peer-reviewers in a formal review setting” said Banerjee, stating that this paper certainly would not have passed official peer review.

“It is unfortunate that multiple articles on pre-print servers were victims of viral social media posts, especially studies that were not robust or scientifically sound,” said Banerjee. “But I am impressed how quickly other researchers debunked the studies and reanalyzed the data,” he added.

Note: the authors of the bioRxiv paper were contacted for comment but had not replied at the time of publishing this article.


Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website.



Victoria Forster



I am a postdoctoral research scientist focusing on childhood cancers and new, targeted cancer therapies. As a survivor of childhood leukemia myself, I am a determined a...

Read More

Print Site Feedback Tips Corrections Reprints & Permissions Terms Privacy©2020 Forbes Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. AdChoices



To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (152939)2/2/2020 7:41:01 PM
From: TobagoJack  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 217549
 
lonely voicing ...

paulcraigroberts.org

Coronavirus Update

Paul Craig Roberts

Using more recent data from China of the coronavirus’ infection and death rates than the Indian scientists had, “Moon of Alabama” concludes that the “pandemic” has reached its peak and will be over with in a month.

moonofalabama.org

If so, then Jon Rappoport was correct in the beginning that coronavirus was just another big scare hype.

paulcraigroberts.org

Let’s hope that this is the case and that the coronavirus is a far less threat than ordinary flu. Nevertheless, such a happy outcome still leaves us with a lot of puzzling questions. Here are a few of them:

Why such an enormous effort by the Chinese government using draconian quarantine measures affecting millions of people and multi-country halts of travel to and from China over a threat far less serious than ordinary flu? Why is there a rush to develop a vaccine?Why the expert predictions of a worldwide pandemic?Why did the virus originate in a Chinese city known to have labs for the study of dangerous viruses?Why do the scare viruses originate in China—SARS, swine flu, bird flue, coronavirus?Why did the team of scientists in India find elements of HIV in the coronavirus genome that is believed to raise the infectious potential, a finding, if correct, implies the engineering of a bioterror weapon?The scientists might be wrong, but they are not presenting a conspiracy theory. They published their paper provisionally in order to get input from other scientists. I have no idea whether their findings will be validated, and whatever we are told, we might never know. If the virus proves to be bioengineered, the Chinese government will know whether something they did escaped. If they are not responsible for the virus, they will perceive an attack on them by the US. This type of information would confirm Chinese suspicions:

“Research conducted by the Pentagon, and DARPA specifically, has continually raised concerns, not just in the field of bioweapons and biotechnology, but also in the fields of nanotechnology, robotics and several others. DARPA, for instance, has been developing a series of unsettling research projects that ranges from microchips that can create and delete memories from the human brain to voting machine software that is rife with problems.

“Now, as fear regarding the current coronavirus outbreak begins to peak, companies with direct ties to DARPA have been tasked with developing its vaccine, the long-term human and environmental impacts of which are unknown and will remain unknown by the time the vaccine is expected to go to market in a few weeks time.

“Furthermore, DARPA and the Pentagon’s past history with bioweapons and their more recent experiments on genetic alteration and extinction technologies as well as bats and coronaviruses in proximity to China have been largely left out of the narrative, despite the information being publicly available. Also left out of the media narrative have been the direct ties of both the USAMRIID and DARPA-partnered Duke University to the city of Wuhan, including its Institute of Medical Virology.

“Though much about the origins of the coronavirus outbreak remains unknown, the U.S. military’s ties to the aforementioned research studies and research institutions are worth detailing as such research — while justified in the name of “national security” — has the frightening potential to result in unintended, yet world-altering consequences. The lack of transparency about this research, such as DARPA’s decision to classify its controversial genetic extinction research and the technology’s use as a weapon of war, compounds these concerns. While it is important to avoid reckless speculation as much as possible, it is the opinion of this author that the information in this report is in the public interest and that readers should use this information to reach their own conclusions about the topics discussed herein.”

blacklistednews.com

If the Indian scientists’ findings are correct, we should expect them to be shouted down by government supported scientists. To save their careers, they would have to acknowledge a mistake in their research. If the virus were a US manufactured one, China would have the same incentive to coverup the fact as Washington, because otherwise the consequence would be war, for which China is not ready.

There are other concerns. For example, concurrent with the announcement of the new virus there were accusations that the Chinese virus lab was responsible for the pandemic threat and might even have released it purposely on its own population. Moon of Alabama is correct to call this a conspiracy theory. It is a conspiracy theory to discredit the Chinese government with the Chinese population and the rest of the world. The Chinese government has no interest in harming the Chinese economy and discrediting itself with a population that it is trying to rule without a harsh hand, but Washington has an interest in ruining the Chinese.

I think it is a good thing that the question whether coronavirus is an engineered virus came up. There are a number of secret high security labs around the world doing scary things. As Whitney Webb writes, “The lack of transparency about this research, such as DARPA’s decision to classify its controversial genetic extinction research and the technology’s use as a weapon of war, compounds these concerns.” There is a treaty—or was as Washington might have pulled out of it like it has the arms control agreements with the Russians—that supposedly prevents countries from making bioweapons. However, whether they are making the weapons or not, they are doing research that could quickly be weaponized.

Perhaps it would be a good thing if there were a worldwide public discussion whether the benefit of the research is greater than the risk of a deadly pandemic. The lack of transparency makes mischief possible. Remember the anthrax letters in the wake of 9/11 that turned out to contain a version of anthrax available only in a US government lab. To cover this up, the letters were blamed on a dead man who had no motive to send the letters and no access to the anthrax. Something as dangerous as bioengineered pathogens require plenty of transparency.

There is no reason scientists should be permitted to investigate whatever they want. Think for a minute, what is the good of nuclear weapons? Perhaps if Earth were invaded by hightech Aliens, thermonuclear weapons could be a defense. Perhaps if an astroid is on collision course with Earth, nuclear missiles could shatter it into small pieces that would burn up in the atmosphere or into smaller pieces that would do less damage. What else are nuclear weapons good for but to bring us Armageddon?

A lot of thought is needed also about robotics and artificial intelligence. Robots such as those that can withstand deep underwater pressures and radiation are useful. But robots that displace people can leave humans unemployed and without purpose. And do we really want machines as smart or smarter than humans or weaponized?

The challenges of these technologies can be very interesting to scientists, but the unintended and ignored consequences can be horrific.

An obvious question is: If people with white skin cannot use certain words or long-established expressions, cannot read, study, or teach certain subjects that some believe are offensive, and cannot organize or segregate themselves as others are permitted to do, why can scientists and governments study and manufacture things that could terminate life itself? This makes no sense. If we do not begin to make better sense soon, conspiracy theories are going to become very real.

We cannot rely on the ethics and morality of governments. They have neither. Consider the US and its European vassals. For 20 years they have bombed, invaded, murdered, and ravaged seven countries, destroying them in whole or part, all on the basis of transparent lies. And nothing is done about it. Indeed, the murderous process continues.

Based on these transparent lies, President George W. Bush violated the US Constitution and held indefinitely American citizens on suspicion alone, and President Obama violated due process by executing US citizens on suspicion alone.

Neither were impeached. Congress, the judiciary, and the public accepted this shredding of the US Constitution and stepped into a police state. When there is no honest media to protect the people, government transparency becomes even more critical.

Since 2009, the US government has overthrown governments in Honduras, Ukraine, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, reversed the reform process in Ecuador, temporarily overthrew Chevez in Venezuela and continues to try to overthrow his successor Maduro. Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Russia, and China remain on Washington’s list of countries to be overthrown.

This extraordinary arrogance is easily capable of using a false flag engineered pathogen to produce termoil within a country that collapses a government. For this reason, the transparency of research is of the upmost importance.