Paul Maidowski Profile picture
Solar PV, climate policy, bamboo analysis/consulting. Language, systems. Fletcher/Fulbright. d|e|f|i|中 围棋 @ppmv.bsky.social https://t.co/hiHp7ti0dm
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Sep 20 29 tweets 15 min read
1. The structural parallels of SARS-CoV-2 and HIV-1 were known already 20 years ago, from SARS-CoV-1. Yet COVID-19 policy and even most scientists ignore these parallels, failing to learn key lessons. Fundamentally, genetic recombination drives both pandemics—two typical articles

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2. Don't worry about the specific article—there are hundreds more, and more relevant ones. The lesson here is we face syndemics, overlapping epidemics that cluster with inequity, not just distinct pandemics. All reinforce each other
link.springer.com/article/10.118…
frontiersin.org/journals/micro…
Aug 30 47 tweets 28 min read
1. Growing bamboo is our best chance to avert climate breakdown: the plants build soil, help biodiversity, avoid GHG emissions, provide food & construction material, sequester carbon 30 times (!) faster than mixed temperate forest. Yet stunningly, no one coordinates this work yet 40 year old moso bamboo in southwestern France grown from seed. Photo Lihua Jiang, www.yunnan-bamboo.com 2. After 40 years of climate science - first AGGG, now IPCC -, everyone feels they know climate. Yet experts only really know their own field. Generalists and practitioners can implement solutions but need experts to develop them. Bamboo as climate solution is entirely unexplored
Two bamboo stands in Zhongshan Expo Park, Taipei
Bamboo species in Tapei botanical garden
Aug 21 5 tweets 2 min read
We’ve shared this for years, it was known or suspected even before the pandemic from SARS-CoV-1. Friends of we’re going to learn at this rate, ignoring prepandemic science, populations worldwide will get into serious trouble Background. Thanks for outstanding science communications @vipintukur
Jun 13 39 tweets 19 min read
“Bamboo is our best chance to slow climate breakdown. It can replace drivers of GHG emissions and biodiversity loss (food, construction, concrete, plastic), build soil & allow regrowing rainforest." - Let's test it. Grow bamboo as blueprint for a future ecological civilization 🧵
Moso bamboo (phyllostachys edulis) seedling grown from seed with tap root
Moso bamboo forest in China, stock photo
2. Giant bamboo dwarfs trees. As grass, it grows 30 times (!) faster and can be harvested every year. Timber takes decades; too slow. Stunningly, no one in the west described the unique climate mitigation potential of bamboo yet. - Note the rhizome system:

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Jun 4 8 tweets 3 min read
SARS-CoV-2 reminder: The more immune compromised the population, the less symptoms, the ‘milder’ it appears, the more severe it really is (=Long Covid, long term damage). That’s what even most scientists seem not to get Thanks for vivid discussion everyone. It really is a fundamentally important point. Since I deleted most references for lack of structure (and frankly, just being fed up repeating the same points for 3 to 4 years), I'll look for new references that must have been published by now
May 30 6 tweets 3 min read
1. "Bamboo is our best chance to slow climate breakdown: it sustains societies, can protect soil and store carbon for 100 years in food, construction, bio-concrete and plastic." - Let’s test this. As our very German neighbors renew their English Gardens, we start growing bamboo👇

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2. Three months ago I started on bamboo: no one else in Europe seemed to have systematically analyzed or even considered its global climate mitigation potential when used as agricultural crop rather than natural forests, which do little climate mitigation.
Apr 8 6 tweets 4 min read
Hybrid immunity was invented in 2021 to sell the idea of SARS-CoV-2 infections as a good. There is no literature pre 2021. The idea to infect the global population with a SARS virus, including all 2 billion children aged 14 yo and younger, didn't exist. scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22h…


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Arijit documented this too. If you read the papers, it's a false analogy and poor reasoning.
Mar 11 24 tweets 16 min read
1. Europe imports all its bamboo. Plantations on fallow land are one good option to slow climate breakdown and create sustainable jobs. Bamboo is incredibly fast and, unlike timber, active management improves climate and ecological outcomes. Merits focus, baustoff-partner.de/d/moso-reiche-…

Image SARS-CoV-2 wasn't the last disruption to import based businesses. Our basic climate policy warning for seven years now. One of the reasons I'd encourage everyone to look into starting to grow Moso bamboo (phyllostachys edulis) or other suitable species in Southern Europe as well. Image
Feb 26 9 tweets 5 min read
You need a scale for the collapse of 'doomsday' glacier Thwaites. Compare the past two years: iceberg B22a broke off the glacier in 2002 and gained legs in 2023, freeing Thwaites to flow into the sea over the coming years: here it is today—that's 3,000 km2 worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v=-2442135.48…


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3600 square kilometers, for the mathematicians here Image
Jan 14 4 tweets 2 min read
Excellent paper @ejustin46 found. Only one major problem Granted, few if any papers so far explain the Orf8 gene in beta-CoVs but never mind, that’s why you have twitter
Jan 9 6 tweets 3 min read
SARS-CoV should be compared to HIV. They are the two best researched viruses in history. "Compare and contrast X and Y" is about the most common essay question in middle school language classes worldwide; people who want to prevent this have ill (no dad joke intended) intentions. As AJ says, different opinions are perfectly valid here as long as people read carefully. It will get very complex. This is why as political scientist, to me learning from the policy & social parallels to the HIV/AIDS pandemic is paramount. Compare away,
Jan 7 5 tweets 2 min read
Don’t use Covid/LC. The real term in the literature since 2003 has been SARS survivors. It’s a SARS virus, so this require no rocket scientist, a Google search suffices. Wild how you minimize your own condition out of ignorance, friends. Worst social movement strategy I’ve seen. Why bad? If you define LongCovid narrowly as the most extreme forms of ME/CFS or whatever, you minimize the 200+ symptoms recognized by WHO, marginalize all the hundreds of millions living with chronic infection, and slow public recognition, R&D & prevention. All around failing.
Jan 4 6 tweets 2 min read
Life expectancy of children "Living with Covid" at a rate of 1 to 3 infections per year, de facto current policy in all states worldwide Country not specified, so this is the global average. - For once twitter's limited questionnaire format fits like a chin to the fist 🙌
Jan 3 32 tweets 17 min read
1. 'Live with Covid' is terrible advice. Old examples of what's possible: Arthur Schlossmann halved infant mortality from >50% by introducing hygiene in Dresden. Pasteurization of milk ended constant bovine coronavirus outbreaks, doubling lifespans after 1889. We can do the same.
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2. I shared hundreds of scientific references - and as political scientist I only explain molecular and epidemiological dynamics because without scientific foundation, you will get no effective policy. But no one wrote a real, comprehensive narrative yet.
Jan 2 7 tweets 3 min read
Happy year 5 of the SARS pandemic everyone. My annual reminder, any think tanks, analysts or -imagine!- policymakers out there who are actually serious about defending democracy? If you continue 'Living with Covid,' since every infection damages people's brains and CSF, no chance Political scientist here. Other systems of governance may have better chances; they ask less critical thought to keep democratic institutions running of the average citizen. Very exciting research questions going forward.

Well done everyone who stayed based in reality. 🤷‍♂️🏆
Jan 1 7 tweets 3 min read
— "Dad, what's the most common Long Covid symptom?"

— "Don't know and don't care, son"

karger.com/crn/article-pd…
Image "I don't care if you follow us for further apathetic dad jokes and tasteful scicomm" 🤣🤣
Dec 22, 2023 10 tweets 5 min read
1. SARS-CoV and prion disease (PrD): Will do a thread just as soon as I can scrape my chin off the floor. Dr. Laura Manuelidis starts high and goes hard sentence for sentence tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

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2. Ends on a high note
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Dec 18, 2023 17 tweets 10 min read
1. SARS-CoV and HIV share chronic systemic immune activation. Read this as if your life depends on it. Thank me later. Make sure you understand disease progression en detail. How much do you recognize in SARS-CoV?

Happy year 5 vs. year 42 of the pandemic, nature.com/articles/s4157…
Image 2. Not joking about the "teach a man to hunt, fish and cook and you can get great dinner every night unless global deoxygenation and acidification get all the fish in which case you'll have other problems" thing. Here your search function, go wild and read scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo…
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Dec 4, 2023 93 tweets 46 min read
1. SARS-CoV challenges us. Two examples stand out: Arthur Schlossmann halved infant mortality from >50% by introducing hygiene in Dresden. Pasteurization, after Louis Pasteur, ended constant bovine coronavirus outbreaks, doubling the human lifespan after 1889. We can do the same. Image 2. A long thread with 200+ scientific references, as multiple others, cover this, so if you're the type of reader who can extract highly specific information from dense articles, go for it. It's not didactically organized though; I'll rewrite over time.
Dec 1, 2023 7 tweets 2 min read
1. Bacteriophage-like: "Our results strongly suggest interactions with bacteria in intestinal microbiota. SARS-CoV-2 can enter the cells of bacteria that are part of the normal human gut microflora and synthesize both RNA and viral peptides. Important etc. f1000research.com/articles/11-292 2. Interview with Carlo Brogna, author of a widely read bacteriophage paper. Not sure I'm buying all of that, but that was an early, decent warning.
Nov 30, 2023 5 tweets 3 min read
1. Scientists have been debating whether SARS-CoV-2 sequences can be retrotranscribed and inserted as DNA in the host genome (=nucleus), creating chimeric genes, autoimmunity, and chronic inflammation. I don't know—but no one discussed or cited this paper. mdpi.com/2076-0817/12/6…
Image 2. "Detection of Coronavirus in the Central Nervous System of a Child With Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis", 2004. If some of us develop a sharp tone, I hear, it's from decades of neglect towards human coronaviruses, which are naturally neuroinvasive. publications.aap.org/pediatrics/art…