Science and Inquiry discussion

We can't just ignore it. It's affecting all of us. This is a thread where you can share thoughts, articles, books about the coronavirus and the covid-19 pandemic. Please don't post just the latest news. Most of us probably get plenty of that from our normal sources. But if you read a particularly interesting article or interview that you'd like to share, this is the place.

Here is an interesting interview with Yuval Noah Harari about the pandemic and what might happen as a result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS8Tx...

I have found Ed Yong's columns very reliable and informative through this period. This is his latest: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

Susan,
Thank you for this link. I've been too busy to search for a good source on this. Yong's column appears to be highly informative and very well written. I've given up on the main news channels on C-19 because they tend to consist of endless low-content repetition or speculation.

Betsy, thanks for that link. Very interesting guy. I'm listening to a couple more of his talks.

JZ wrote: "Betsy, thanks for that link. Very interesting guy. I'm listening to a couple more of his talks."

Have you read any of his books? We read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind as a group a while ago.

I will now. I was really pleased at his clarity, and wide range of knowledge, and will read the comments on the book.

One more from Ed Yong explaining the hype over mutations: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...

Unherd’s youtube channel has several 30 min interviews with some of the leading experts in the area. Different viewpoints and all very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMxi...

I noted the earlier discussion on the nature of viruses in the thread of Introductions for this group. The Covid-19 pandemic got me interested in the related question of the origin of viruses. Here's a good summary of the issue in this NCBI article ("What Does Virus Evolution Tell Us about Virus Origins?") ... really good links to some other articles on the same matter can be found in the article:

"Despite recent advances in our understanding of diverse aspects of virus evolution, particularly on the epidemiological scale, revealing the ultimate origins of viruses has proven to be a more intractable problem. Herein, I review some current ideas on the evolutionary origins of viruses and assess how well these theories accord with what we know about the evolution of contemporary viruses. I note the growing evidence for the theory that viruses arose before the last universal cellular ancestor (LUCA). This ancient origin theory is supported by the presence of capsid architectures that are conserved among diverse RNA and DNA viruses and by the strongly inverse relationship between genome size and mutation rate across all replication systems, such that pre-LUCA genomes were probably both small and highly error prone and hence RNA virus-like. "

SOURCE: What Does Virus Evolution Tell Us about Virus Origins? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...

Susan wrote: "One more from Ed Yong explaining the hype over mutations: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar..."

Susan,

I think I have read everything that Ed Yong has written that can be found easily. I went onto EBSCO and searched for all of his past articles. He's truly a brilliant science writer.

I have been collecting various articles on Covid-19 and sorting them into various categories. Here are the ones that are mainly scientific in nature (one or two may be behind a paywall):

NATURE - PORTAIT OF A KILLER: THE COMPLEX BIOLOGY POWERING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...

NATGEO - FAUCI - NO EVIDENCE THAT THE CORONAVIRUS CAME FROM A CHINESE LAB
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/sc...


THE ECONOMIST - THE PIECES OF THE PUZZLE OF COVID19’S ORIGIN ARE COMING TO LIGHT
https://www.economist.com/science-and...


GATENOTES - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE RACE TO COVID-19 VACCINE
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Wha...

NATURE - GRAPHICAL GUIDE TO WORK ON A CORONAVIRUS VACCINE
Eight ways in which scientists hope to provide immunity to SARS-CoV-2 .
https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...


GETPOCKET - A BRIEF HISTORY OF CORONAVIRUSES
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/co...

NYT - LAURIE GARRETT PREDICTED THIS
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/op...

THE CONVERSATION - WHAT THE CORONAVIRUS DOES TO YOUR BODY THAT MAKES IT SO DEADLY
https://theconversation.com/what-the-...

SCIENCE MAG - HOW DOES COVID-19 KILL?
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/...


SCIAM - THE EFFECT OF BLOOD SUGAR ON CYTOKINE STORMS
https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...


SCIENCE NEWS - LASTING LUNG DAMAGE FROM COVID-19
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/c...


NATURE - CORONAVIRUS BLOOD-CLOT MYSTERY INTENSIFIES
https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158...


WHAT IS R(0)
https://www.healthline.com/health/r-n...


RAND - A BLUEPRINT FOR A POST VACCINE WORLD
https://www.rand.org/blog/2020/05/nee...?

Thank you, Larry.

In posting the links to articles, I tried to only post links to articles that were based on sound science. And that's not as easy as it sounds, because the research is evolving rapidly, and what seemed to be good scientific results may be different now as opposed to two months ago.

In looking at the Covid-19 daily, I am struck by how good some of the popular reporting is. I didn't post anything from Yahoo, but Yahoo has had some good articles, ones where you could trace what they were posting back to the original research. Rolling Stone also had a good article. That said, it's just a lot easier to stick to NATURE, SCIAM, etc. The GETPOCKET article cited above actually originated on THE CONVERSATION, which is fairly trustworthy.

This is not an article to read, but a very cool illustrative gif about the coronavirus genome: https://www.kmeverson.org/blog/a-gif-...#

Susan wrote: "This is not an article to read, but a very cool illustrative gif about the coronavirus genome: https://www.kmeverson.org/blog/a-gif-...#"

At some point, my brain gets tired from reading articles. I loved this simple graphic, Susan.

DNA linked to Covid-19 was inherited from Neanderthals:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/he...

Betsy wrote: "DNA linked to Covid-19 was inherited from Neanderthals:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/he..."

Very interesting--and timely! The article is so relevant to the book we are reading this month, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes as the book discusses our inheritances from Neanderthals.

David wrote: "Betsy wrote: "DNA linked to Covid-19 was inherited from Neanderthals:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/he..."

Very interesting--and timely! The article is so relev..."

It is indeed relevant to that book. I'll copy the NYT article link into that discussion.

On a related note, the UN just released a report warning of future zoonotic disease outbreaks:

https://www.unenvironment.org/resourc...

Several months ago, I signed up to the 'Nature Briefing' (see a page of the most recent postings here: https://www.nature.com/nature/article...)

It is a newsletter that's like the Readers' Digest of the best science articles, with links to the full articles, with an estimate of reading time. It arrives in my email Mondays through Fridays.

This is where I get my science news, including the latest Covid-19 updates.

JZ wrote: "Several months ago, I signed up to the 'Nature Briefing' (see a page of the most recent postings here: https://www.nature.com/nature/article...)

It is a newsletter that's like t..."

I'd like to echo this sentiment. Definitely one of the best newsletters to sign up to for all things scientific.

Susan wrote: "JZ wrote: "Several months ago, I signed up to the 'Nature Briefing' (see a page of the most recent postings here: https://www.nature.com/nature/article...)
Definitely one of the best newsletters to sign up to for all things scientific. .."

I was totally unaware of this newsletter. It's just great.

;)

So glad you like it.

Fantastic extra-long read from Ed Yong (again!)

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

Susan wrote: "Fantastic extra-long read from Ed Yong (again!)

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/..."

It is a great article, indeed. And it documents the political reasons why the current U.S. Administration has failed in so many ways to contain and control the pandemic.

But since it is Ed Yong writing, it offers a great scientific explanation also ... like this" "SARS‑CoV‑2 is something of an anti-Goldilocks virus: just bad enough in every way. Its symptoms can be severe enough to kill millions but are often mild enough to allow infections to move undetected through a population. It spreads quickly enough to overload hospitals, but slowly enough that statistics don’t spike until too late. These traits made the virus harder to control, but they also softened the pandemic’s punch. SARS‑CoV‑2 is neither as lethal as some other coronaviruses, such as SARS and MERS, nor as contagious as measles."