Science & Technology News

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by GordMay

The COVID lab-leak hypothesis: what scientists do and don’t know
Most scientists say SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted from an animal to humans; however, a laboratory leak has not been ruled out. Nature cuts through the clamour, with a sober examination of the arguments for a lab leak, and the extent to which research has answers.
Here ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01529-3

Imo it was accidentilly ( or possibly intentionally) released novel coronavirus that was found in Tibet in 2015 in the glaciers at the 10k bce level.and enhanced at the Wuhan lab via gain of function enhancement mind you that is my personal opinion and hypothesis using all available data I have read over the last several years.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by newhaul

... that is my personal opinion and hypothesis using all available data I have read over the last several years.

You should send your observations to 'Nature' magazine. I'm certain that they'll consider rushing a corrected update [to their otherwise excellent article] into publication.

[Dsanduril]

A couple of interesting articles (maybe these belong in Covid containment?):

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-global...kilograms.html
TLDR; Global weight of all active SARS-CoV-2 viruses is between 0.1 and 10 kilograms - that's the total weight at any one time of all the live (or at least 'active' so we don't have to debate if a virus is alive) virus material that has wreaked such havoc on our world.

And this one ought to be of interest in the Covid world:

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-discov...sequences.html
Lots of caveats, but headline "New discovery shows human cells can write RNA sequences into DNA".

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by GordMay

That would make more sense, if you had a case.

... Think along the lines of fortune telling and you should figure it out.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by GordMay

You should send your observations to 'Nature' magazine. I'm certain that they'll consider rushing a corrected update [to their otherwise excellent article] into publication.

Lets start here .
https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.or...an-glacier.amp

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4996883/

The moratorium on it was lifted by Obama in early janurary 2017 just before trump's inauguration

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Imo it was accidentilly ( or possibly intentionally) released novel coronavirus that was found in Tibet in 2015 in the glaciers at the 10k bce level.and enhanced at the Wuhan lab via gain of function enhancement mind you that is my personal opinion and hypothesis using all available data I have read over the last several years.

This explains your novel take on climate change.

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You're responding to the wrong post.

The quoted post is about fusion power and propaganda, not climate change.

What concerns climate change - yes it's always changing. This is correct. But so what? That doesn't prove that mankind is not messing up the climate. Both are true.

It was the right post, the claim was that fusion will give us endless free energy and solve / end climate change.

This is bogus. If you can produce endless enegy and use it for free, you will heat up the system, because whatever you do with the energy (convert it from one type to another, use it), because of the natural law of entropy, you always produce heat, and heat warms up the environment.

To end climate change is not possible, as it is a long natural process. Fusion will not solve this problem.

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

A couple of interesting articles (maybe these belong in Covid containment?):

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-global...kilograms.html
TLDR; Global weight of all active SARS-CoV-2 viruses is between 0.1 and 10 kilograms - that's the total weight at any one time of all the live (or at least 'active' so we don't have to debate if a virus is alive) virus material that has wreaked such havoc on our world.

And this one ought to be of interest in the Covid world:

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-discov...sequences.html
Lots of caveats, but headline "New discovery shows human cells can write RNA sequences into DNA".

not new, known already for a long time.

reverse-transcriptase encymes in the cells do this, this is part of the evolution, and also of the way individual dna learn from encounters with other species or repairs damaged parts by using the information from the other Chromosome (we have pairs from our parents).

The RNA is usually a short living copied sequence from the DNA used for many things, the only difference is the Thymin Aminoacid is transcribed in Uracil in the RNA and back to Thymin in the DNA, A, C and G bases are the same. The only difference between DNA and RNA is the sugar molecule desoxyribose vs ribose (the one has less oxygene and this makes a more stable double-helix polymere)

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

... the claim was that fusion will give us endless free energy and solve / end climate change.

This is bogus. If you can produce endless enegy and use it for free, you will heat up the system, because whatever you do with the energy (convert it from one type to another, use it), because of the natural law of entropy, you always produce heat, and heat warms up the environment.

You've blown past bogus and arrived at ridiculous.

We already have endless free energy; it's called sunlight. More energy than we could ever use beams onto the planet every daylight hour, heating everything... yet our planet warming problems didn't start until the widespread burning of fossil fuels, putting sequestered carbon into the atmosphere.

It's not the energy, it's the messing-up of the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect of the extra CO2.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

You've blown past bogus and arrived at ridiculous.

We already have endless free energy; it's called sunlight. More energy than we could ever use beams onto the planet every daylight hour, heating everything... yet our planet warming problems didn't start until the widespread burning of fossil fuels, putting sequestered carbon into the atmosphere.

It's not the energy, it's the messing-up of the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect of the extra CO2.

You are coreect insofar as it is the sun oroviding rhe energy we are currently at rhe tail of the modern grand solar maximum. And will be entering a grand minimum by 2030 we are already seeing effects of the deep minimum we have experienced between cycle 24 and cycle 25 . There is an appropriate 50 year lag wrt the temperature of the planet . They were more correct in 1972 saying we would be in a mini ice age within 40 to 50 years . 1972 to 2022 is 40 years and 2032 is 50 and the prijected end of aolar cycle 25 qhich to rhis poing is rather anemic in its run up to solar maximum. It ia not Co2 its forcings are 1) at saturation and 2) and most importantly far overshadowed by the effects of the most important and prolific ghg water vapor.

[GordMay]

For clarification:
Differences Between DNA and RNA
The DNA [Deoxyribonucleic acid] is a double-stranded molecule, that has a long chain of nucleotides.
DNA replicates on its own, it is self-replicating.
The RNA [Ribonucleic acid] is a single-stranded molecule, which has a shorter chain of nucleotides.
RNA does not replicate on its own, it’s synthesized from DNA, when required.
More ➥ https://byjus.com/biology/difference...n-dna-and-rna/

[GordMay]

How Canada can crush the variants with vaccines and make this reopening our last
Unvaccinated Canadians are a 'tinderbox' that threatens Canada more than variants, experts say.

This is an excerpt from Second Opinion by Adam Miller
➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canad...d-19-1.6063282


“... A recent study [1] from Public Health England (PHE) looked at just how effective the first dose is against the delta [B.1.617] variant.

The study found the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 88 per cent effective against symptomatic disease from the delta variant two weeks after the second dose, compared to 93 per cent against the B.1.1.7 variant, also known as alpha.

Two doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford shot were found to be just 60 per cent effective against COVID-19 symptoms from delta, compared to 66 per cent against alpha.

And a single dose of Pfizer and AstraZeneca were each only about 33 per cent effective against delta.

Experts say it's important to remember that the study looked at the vaccine's ability to prevent COVID-19 symptoms, which can range from mild to severe, and the early estimates on vaccine effectiveness against the variants don't tell the whole story...

... New Canadian research [2] from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) also underscored the effectiveness of even just one dose of mRNA vaccines against the variants and provided new insight into the gamma variant, also known as P.1, for the first time.

The preprint study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, found that a single dose of either Pfizer or Moderna cut the risk of COVID-19 for older adults by about two-thirds during the peak of the spring wave in B.C.

The observational study looked at close to 17,000 people aged 70 and older between April 4 and May 1 — a critical time when both the alpha and gamma made up about 70 per cent of cases circulating in the province.

The researchers also concluded that single dose protection for older adults was only "minimally reduced" against alpha and gamma, which they said "reinforces" Canada's decision to defer second doses of COVID-19 vaccines at a time when supply was limited...

... While BCCDC researchers weren't able to analyze vaccine effectiveness against the delta variant, which had not yet been circulating widely in Canada at the time, Skowronski says the team has their sights set on it in the near future...

... Experts agree the biggest threat to Canadians at the moment isn't variants — despite the dizzying pace of research being released worldwide — it's not being vaccinated at all.

References:

“Vaccines highly effective against B.1.617.2 variant after 2 doses”
New study by PHE shows for the first time that 2 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against the B.1.617.2 variant first identified in India.
Press Release by Public Health England ➥ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/v...-after-2-doses

[1] “Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against the B.1.617.2 variant” ~ by Jamie Lopez Bernal et al
➥ https://khub.net/documents/135939561...9-b3664107ac42

[2] “Single-dose mRNA vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2, including P.1 and B.1.1.7 variants: a test-negative design in adults 70 years and older in British Columbia, Canada” ~ by Danuta M Skowronski et al
➥ https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...32v1.full-text

[GordMay]

Some Climate Change Fixes Could Drive Extinctions

A joint report [1] Thursday, by separate UN scientific bodies, that look at climate change and biodiversity loss, found there are ways to simultaneously attack the two global problems, but some fixes to warming could accelerate extinctions of plants and animals.
To save the planet, the world needs to tackle the crises of climate change, and species loss, together, taking measures that fix both and not just one. While some climate solutions can increase species loss, scientists said efforts to curb extinctions don't really harm the climate. The bulk of measures, taken to protect biodiversity, will also help curb climate change.

[1] “Biodiversity and Climate Change” ~ IPBES-IPCC CO-SPONSORED WORKSHOP

Media Release ➥ https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/...010%20June.pdf

Workshop Report ➥ https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/..._10_june_0.pdf

Scientific Outcome ➥ https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/...e_20210612.pdf

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

It was the right post, the claim was that fusion will give us endless free energy and solve / end climate change.

This is bogus. If you can produce endless enegy and use it for free, you will heat up the system, because whatever you do with the energy (convert it from one type to another, use it), because of the natural law of entropy, you always produce heat, and heat warms up the environment.

To end climate change is not possible, as it is a long natural process. Fusion will not solve this problem.

"Endless energy" is a bit of an exaggeration. The amount of energy humans use is a small drop in Earth's total energy bucket.

The Earth receives more energy from the sun in one hour than humans use in a year. That's a ratio of 9000:1. The renewable part of human's energy use is just changing one type of energy for another type of energy (e.g. wind or solar or hydro, first to electricity, then to heat). Only fossil fuels and nuclear actually "add" energy to the system. But as mentioned above, they are a very small addition to Earth's overall heat budget. So if we humans used even more energy, and generated even more heat, it wouldn't make much of a difference overall, though it certainly can make a difference locally. (e.g. the waste heat dumped from a power plant into a river can change the ecology of the river for a few miles, etc.)

What IS a making a huge difference is the addition of extra CO2 to the atmosphere, because it amplifies the effect of our main heat source, good old Sol. The reason we need to cut back on fossil fuels IS NOT to reduce heat output, but rather to reduce CO2 output.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by SailOar

"Endless energy" is a bit of an exaggeration. The amount of energy humans use is a small drop in Earth's total energy bucket.

The Earth receives more energy from the sun in one hour than humans use in a year. That's a ratio of 9000:1. The renewable part of human's energy use is just changing one type of energy for another type of energy (e.g. wind or solar or hydro, first to electricity, then to heat). Only fossil fuels and nuclear actually "add" energy to the system. But as mentioned above, they are a very small addition to Earth's overall heat budget. So if we humans used even more energy, and generated even more heat, it wouldn't make much of a difference overall, though it certainly can make a difference locally. (e.g. the waste heat dumped from a power plant into a river can change the ecology of the river for a few miles, etc.)

What IS a making a huge difference is the addition of extra CO2 to the atmosphere, because it amplifies the effect of our main heat source, good old Sol. The reason we need to cut back on fossil fuels IS NOT to reduce heat output, but rather to reduce CO2 output.

At current levels CO2 is at saturation point and would require a doubling of percentage to 800ppm ( approximately) to see any appreciative difference .