First, kudos to the Chinese authors doing this work & a shoutout to @edwardcholmes also involved
I already flagged this Wang et al. preprint yesterday but it is worth explaining its significance to both the #origins discussion and the related pandemic #prevention discussion
One can imagine CoV genomes like colorful Lego brick walls, and recombination as taking one brick from a different virus and putting it in the wall of another; changing the color while keeping roughly the function. 3/
For SARS-CoV-2, we see that its genome 'wall' is built by roughly 27 pieces (best we can tell)🔽
This means that we are not talking about "one" evolutionary history, but actually about 27 #evolutionary histories; a bit like a 'royal' family tree with lots of incest in between 4/
This simple fact that a virus consists of so many different pieces is one of the strongest arguments against #engineering from a template like RATG13
Why?
Well, because we find all the related cousins in #nature that are closer in similarity to SC2 for various bricks. 5/
While the genomes of CoVs make clear that they were created by recombination, it was much less clear how, where, why, and how often these recombination events happen in nature
#Recombination requires multiple viruses present in a cell
They studied specifically a set of #coinhabiting bat species in the Yunnan region in China & basically found a few very interesting and important things:
A) almost 50% of bats were actively infected by a virus and 1/3 of those had more than one viral infection simultaneously 7/
B) The genomes of these viruses show that bats species actively share different genetic elements through cross-species #spillover
To bring back the lego analogy, different bat species provide differently colored bricks to build new & hitherto unexplored color #combinations
/8
There has been a lot of hysterical news about 'GoF', and 'chimeric viruses' research in virology, most of it lacking nuance, but even more so proper contextualization.
And this is where the preprint helps too.
9/
When researchers create chimeric viruses through GoF to study a specific question, they have a well-defined system (e.g SARS1) and then add, remove or alter one genetic element (could be as small as a mutation, or as big as a spike gene) under strict BSL3/4 conditions
10/
In contrast, nature's open BSL-0 laboratory smashes countless dangerous viruses together, mixing genetic elements in a big evolutionary free-for-all, every day and everywhere; from bat caves in SE Asia to rainforests to cities dwelling bats to god knows where.
11/
All the while we #humans are in the middle and encroaching more and more into these bats' habitats.
So when we think #pandemic prevention, we might do well not to ignore our strolls through the unregulated BSL-0 labs before getting hysterical about the BSL3 labs
Just saying
12/
And to hammer this last point home, the preprint delivers again:
They identify a chimeric virus, a hitherto unknown mixture of SC2 and SARS1 genomic pieces, with an RBD primed for human ACE2 binding and the closest ancestor to SC2 in China.
This is a preprint with some astonishing findings (not because they are totally unexpected, but because they confirm our worries & are consistent with other evidence).
I imagine it will make a big splash when it is peer-reviewed & published.
14/
It makes clear that the defeatist, knee-jerk, or gaslighting reactions surrounding this pandemic have to stop (& that includes very much the #lableak conspiracy myth)
SARS-CoV-3/4/5/... are already out there, produced by nature's GoF laboratory.
I wrote this almost a year ago:
There is not much more to say.
If you are really afraid of GoF research or worry about biosafety, you must be #scared shitless about nature's BSL-0 GoF experiments.
And maybe that is the reason why you rather advocate for getting rid of the former, it seems more doable
16/
Serious people face reality, not chase fantasies.
Happy to talk about the already highly regulated research safety & how to improve it any day.
But not at the expense of the discussion that needs to be had about #zoonotic risk.
17/
This discussion has already been ignored after SARS-1, if we collectively ignore it after SC2 because we don't care, or worse because #lableak conspiracy myths are just more entertaining, then SARS-CoV-3 is on us.
I've written a bit about this Musk Twitter thing from a system's perspective, and this here 🔽 is a clear signal for what I deem one of the likely outcomes.
System disintegration into smaller subsystems.
Twitter will become smaller, weaker & probably align itself with 1/
If you are in the EU (+adjacent), expect Twitter to be gone sooner rather than later and live with an alternative that will be more European and less global.
If you are in the US (+adjacent), expect Twitter to stay but transform.
2/
For the US, @davetroy has laid out some suggestions (which I do not fully endorse but can see going in that direction) how a Musk Twitter might look like & be used to further the interests of a very specific network and thought ecosystem.
Maybe another word on the '#unredacted Fauci emails', now that it is clear that there were no cover-ups or suppression of #lableak, but just neutral #scientific discussion.
Observe how lableak advocates will run their #disinformation playbook, we've seen this before.
A 🧵
1/
Everytime new contradictory information (to the lableak conspiracy myth) comes out, there is an increase in #activity by lableak advocates.
We've seen this with the BANAL sequences in LAOS that proved that the RBD domain of SARS-CoV-2 was not 'manmade' 2/
Unredacted 'Fauci emails' proving no scientists had any idea about the virus and no inclination of any cover-up, quite the opposite actually, they investigated thoroughly the idea of a #lableak.
Lableakers: WHERE ARE THE HIDDEN EMAILS WHERE THEY DO THE COVERUP STUFF? 🙄🙄
I hope this will be a lesson to many in the media who extended a lot of false goodwill to the fantasies of rank #conspiracists over the statements of professional virologists just doing their work.
The fact that they double down after being proven wrong is just 🚩🚩🚩
As I said previously, and repeatedly, there is no place in polite society for people who profit from #lies, who push harmful conspiracy myths that expose scientists to harassment, threats, and #stochastic terrorism
Any journalist who still decides to #amplify them is accountable
Discussions about #FreeSpeech are misguided in the information age.
Even before our voices are drowned out by the noise on social media, or overwritten by information combatants, we lose our agency and decision autonomy to manipulative complex systems we don’t fully understand.
The whole point of the #enlightenment, the scientific revolution, our educational and #epistemic institutions was to empower individuals to find a way out of their self-imposed #immaturity, to take #agency over their lives and make informed decisions.
We need #epistemic clarity about reality, for without it, our agency will be blunted & our freedom a charade
It is public-interest education, journalism & science that truly make individuals in a #democratic society free, not the right to cast a vote or to elect a representative
I think many people do not conceptualize properly how Musks actions will manifest and alter Twitter, occupying opposing sites between 'nothing gonna change at the core' to 'everything will break down eventually'.
Both views are insufficient to understand what is happening.
1/
Musk's actions can be seen as perturbations to a self-organized system that evolved around a set of rules & environmental restrictions. This complex system has adapted itself against competing social media systems and showed a certain robustness & stability to a changing world
2/
Musk's strong perturbations threw the system out of equilibrium, and as long as they persist, will keep pushing the system further and further away from it, until one of two things happen.
A) new equilibrium is found
B) disintegration of the whole into smaller subsystems
3/
The saddest part about the repeated harassment of scientists by conspiracy theorists, influencers and information combatants is that it is not a new phenomenon, but a well established tactic.
What's new is that the information age made it a crowd-sourced project. But why? 1/
The uncertainty of the pandemic brought a variety of scientists to the forefront of society; virologists, epidemiologists, vaccine researchers, and doctors were in demand and many did the best they could to explain, advise and help society navigate the pandemic.
2/
This newfound power and authority of science over parts of societal decision-making did not go down well with more traditional power-holders, from influencers to businesses to politicians.
To re-assert influence, they discredit science e.g through the use of conspiracy myths
3/