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Post by nautonnier on Jan 23, 2020 13:09:18 GMT
Australia has had wildfires forever
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Post by missouriboy on Jan 24, 2020 2:47:44 GMT
Another Python Bites the Dust.
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Post by missouriboy on Jan 24, 2020 8:50:27 GMT
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Post by nautonnier on Jan 24, 2020 11:44:54 GMT
但我以为你关上了门
"The Real Umbrella Corp: Wuhan Ultra Biohazard Lab Was Studying "The World's Most Dangerous Pathogens"
Now that not one but seven Chinese cities - including Wuhan, ground zero of the coronavirus epidemic - and collectively housing some 23 million people, are under quarantine...
... comparisons to the infamous Raccoon City from Resident Evil are coming in hot and heavy. And, since reality often tends to imitate if not art then certainly Hollywood, earlier today we jokingly asked if the Medical Research Institute at Wuhan University would end up being China's version of Umbrella Corp.
As it turns out, it wasn't a joke, because moments ago it was brought to our attention that in February 2017, Nature penned an extensive profile of what it called the "Chinese lab poised to study world's most dangerous pathogens." The location of this BSL-4 rated lab? Why, Wuhan.
A quick read of what this lab was meant to do, prompts the immediate question whether the coronavirus epidemic isn't a weaponized virus that just happened to escape the lab:
The Wuhan lab cost 300 million yuan (US$44 million), and to allay safety concerns it was built far above the flood plain and with the capacity to withstand a magnitude-7 earthquake, although the area has no history of strong earthquakes. It will focus on the control of emerging diseases, store purified viruses and act as a World Health Organization ‘reference laboratory’ linked to similar labs around the world. “It will be a key node in the global biosafety-lab network,” says lab director Yuan Zhiming.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences approved the construction of a BSL-4 laboratory in 2003, and the epidemic of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) around the same time lent the project momentum. The lab was designed and constructed with French assistance as part of a 2004 cooperative agreement on the prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases. But the complexity of the project, China’s lack of experience, difficulty in maintaining funding and long government approval procedures meant that construction wasn’t finished until the end of 2014.
The lab’s first project will be to study the BSL-3 pathogen that causes Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever: a deadly tick-borne virus that affects livestock across the world, including in northwest China, and that can jump to people.
Future plans include studying the pathogen that causes SARS, which also doesn’t require a BSL-4 lab, before moving on to Ebola and the West African Lassa virus,
What does BSL-4 mean?
BSL-4 is the highest level of biocontainment: its criteria include filtering air and treating water and waste before they leave the laboratory, and stipulating that researchers change clothes and shower before and after using lab facilities. Such labs are often controversial. The first BSL-4 lab in Japan was built in 1981, but operated with lower-risk pathogens until 2015, when safety concerns were finally overcome.
And here's why all this is an issue:
Worries surround the Chinese lab. The SARS virus has escaped from high-level containment facilities in Beijing multiple times, notes Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Below we repost the full Nature article because it strongly hints, without evidence for now, that the coronavirus epidemic may well have been a weaponized virus which "accidentally" escaped the Wuhan biohazard facility. "More here:> www.zerohedge.com/economics/real-umbrella-corp-wuhan-ultra-biohazard-lab-was-studying-worlds-most-dangerous-pathogens
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Post by missouriboy on Jan 24, 2020 22:48:22 GMT
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Post by missouriboy on Jan 25, 2020 4:09:08 GMT
Comment from an article on WattsUpWithThat regarding Wuhan Uproar wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/24/china-corona-virus-horror-video-hospital-corridor-of-dead-and-dying/Rud Istvan January 24, 2020 at 3:41 pm I know a fair bit about this as former decade long CEO of a topical antimicrobial company effective agains both bacteria and viruses, so will offer some facts followed by speculations. The common cold is actually symptomatic of a viral infection from three different viral families: rhinovirus, adenovirus, coronavirus, stated in order of prevelance. There are in total over 120 different cold causing human adapted viruses, which is why having a cold does not confer immunity. The next cold is just a different virus. And they morph, so immune memory of any specific birus is years, not decades. Same reason the annual flu shot is formulated for what docs think the next years three most common strains might be. They never get it right, so in a good year the flu vaccine might be 70% effective. Corona viruses are enveloped (they have a part human/part viral outer envelope membrane that is acquired during budding). For this reason, an alcohol hand sanitizer is reasonably effective against corona and adeno induced colds (it denatures the envelope membrane rendering the virus unable to infect a cell). Most common cold transmission route is hands (flu is inhalationwhy more revalent in winter (indoors dry air keeps exhaled droplets afloat longer since they dry down). But alcohol sanitizers still don’t generally work against colds (proven in outcomes studies in 2007), because about 60% of colds are rhinovirus based, a naked virus with no envelope membrane to denature. SARS was a civet corona virus that jumped species to humans in a Chinese wet market. Moderately infective to humans. MERS was a camel corona that jumped species in Saudi Arabia camel markets. Not very human infective. Wuhan corona also jumped species in a Wuhan wet market, but we don’t know yet from which reservoir species. Speculations. It must be more infective than reported, or the Chinese would not have imposed the draconian Hubei province quarantine. Human to human transmission is proven, a big problem. Its virulence (mortality) is unknown, except perhaps to Chinese. Reported is 2%, while SARS was about 10%. The 1918-19 ‘Spanish’ flu pandemic was ‘only’ about 5% mortality but killed over 40 million in 18 months. (It wasn’t Spanish. It was an avian (wild duck) H1N1 that jumped to humans thru pig intermediaries after the fall midwest duck migration in Kansas, then spread globally by US WW1 troops.) The Chinese face masks are ineffective. First, main corona transmission is not via aspiration, it is by touch. infected person wipes nose, touches a stair rail, then you touch the rail, then you touch nose or eyes (most people touch those several times an hour). Second, breathing thru the mask wets it, and any entrained aspirated virons have an opportunity to enter the nose or mouth, either way reaching their preferred mucosal membrane environment for infection. Is serious, but no need to panic yet as this real bad internet stuff isn’t (yet) verifiable.
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Post by sigurdur on Jan 25, 2020 7:48:16 GMT
At my stage in the life cycle, I don't fear the virus. Have had a very good run. Not that I look forward to room temperature but it is inevitable.
My kids and grandchildren tho. They are running and I don't want their run shortened if at all possible.
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Post by Ratty on Jan 25, 2020 11:30:14 GMT
At my stage in the life cycle, I don't fear the virus. Have had a very good run. Not that I look forward to room temperature but it is inevitable. My kids and grandchildren tho. They are running and I don't want their run shortened if at all possible. Ditto ..... please no 1348. PS: Room temperature here over the past week or so would rival body heat.
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Post by missouriboy on Jan 25, 2020 16:17:51 GMT
At my stage in the life cycle, I don't fear the virus. Have had a very good run. Not that I look forward to room temperature but it is inevitable. My kids and grandchildren tho. They are running and I don't want their run shortened if at all possible. Ditto ..... please no 1348. PS: Room temperature here over the past week or so would rival body heat. Even with sufficient technology, no system is designed to provide universal happy results in rapid, mass-casualty situations. Rapidity must be retarded till the system can catch up.
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Post by nautonnier on Jan 25, 2020 17:19:18 GMT
It seems that reports out of China are about as reliable as NASA temperatures....
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Post by missouriboy on Jan 26, 2020 2:31:58 GMT
Having dined daily on what passes for a free press here for the last 3 years, I'm not sure I trust any of them ... anywhere.
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Post by Ratty on Jan 26, 2020 5:20:33 GMT
Greta inspires different people in different ways ....
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Post by nautonnier on Jan 27, 2020 2:53:02 GMT
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Post by missouriboy on Jan 27, 2020 3:01:25 GMT
Ahh. Brings back memories of high school afternoons in the billiards parlor. He would have kicked my butt.
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Post by nautonnier on Jan 27, 2020 11:47:23 GMT
And if you don't think that the technology companies are already working on ways to use this technology to swing elections then you are around 5 years behind the curve
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