CharonY

This view is not based on politics, but the fact that nature is more complicated than our ability to cover it using a simple system. Both for common as well as scientific usage we can use a range of definitions, which have been explored to death and there is nothing wrong with either a karyotype or reproductive function per se. But since biology is always fuzzy at the edges, there simply won't be something perfect we ca use. Even if we create a better category, chances are that it won't align well with common usage and may remain an academic exercise.

It is how we define evolution. Evolution happens at the population level and essentially is just the change of a gene pool over time. Based on these definitions and individual cannot evolve. I.e. evolution is not another term for "change". Moreover, metamorphosis or similar mechanisms do not change the genetics of an organism. We would describe that as developmental changes and not evolution. Individuals can accumulate mutations in various parts of their body over time, of course, but that is more related to aging or related processes. I will also add that while OP was relatively close to science fiction, I think further speculation regarding an immortal society would be much better suited for a speculations thread rather than in the evolution section.

Assuming that folks become immortal and that there are reductions in offspring, in principle the gene pool would remain (mostly) static. Basically there are not generational changes as there are no generations.

Well, considering that this thread in the biology section I feel obliged to state that devolving is not a thing in biology. Evolution essentially means change (of the gene pool) and there is not direction attached to it.

If we assume that the policy of strategic ambiguity ultimately failed and we enter an open conflict I am fairly sure that the US will have to intervene. There is rare bipartisan support for the defense of Taiwan (be it due to ongoing commitments, stance against China and it expansive ambitions, protection of other allies in the pacific and so on). There are calls to end strategic ambiguity, but in favour of a more open commitment to defend Taiwan. And again, much of it is fueled by the view of China as the more important strategic threat (compared to Russia). As a whole, I see more elements in play that favour an intervention in a China-Tawan conflict as between Ukraine and Russia. In addition the stability in Taiwan also makes it difficult to justify a Russia-style takeover.

Just for clarification, should we assume a military intervention and discuss the likely US response or does the discussion include the likelihood of military actions in the first place?

I have read mixed reports in terms of efficiency of such filters, and I was not actually aware that they were widespread. From a report last year I was under the impression that worldwide only four such plants existed worldwide (Norway, Japan and two in the Netherlands). These carbon capture system, which effective (I believe Norway reported up to 90% capture) is more complex and expensive than simply adding a filter.

That may be true, but at some point there must be some kind of power takeover. Either boots on the ground or some politicians moving in replacing the existing ruling class. I can see how the conflict plays out on that level, but I have a hard time imagining the takeover procedure. Because I think that will eventually trigger US responses (or not).

There is a bit of a discussion about the role of landfills as emitters of GHG. However, when it comes to wood products, it depends on the decomposition rate, which will obviously vary quite a bit. For example, in a study by an Australian group (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2007.11.006) they found no loss of dry mass within 29 years and found loss of ~18% of the carbon content over 46 years. This indicates that release of GHG from wood might be rather slow at least for the tested landfills and would function as sinks for some time, whereas burning would rather quickly release the carbon. One would balance that calculation with the carbon released from using alternate energy sources. I.e. if the power could be obtained from solar, hydro and/or nuclear power, then landfills might be a better option. If coal is used instead, perhaps not.

I am not entirely sure how that would work in terms of power takeover. Do you mean information warfare and creating sufficient unrest to step in? If so, I would agree that it would be on option, considering that it was rather successful in creating effective pro-virus organizations in the midst of a pandemic. However, part of the tension is because in Taiwan the sense of independence has become somewhat more vocal (though openly a vague status quo is still preferred over open conflict). Moreover, over the last few decades, Taiwanese identity has become a thing. In the past, the Kuomintang (Chiang's party) has seen itself as the legitimate China and the ruling class also considered themselves Chinese, whereas the population that was already there saw themselves as a broad mix of identities and especially the older population identified themselves culturally closer to Japanese and did not speak Mandarin. However, after the Kuomintang arrived on Taiwan, they made Mandarin the official language and other dialects and languages were banned from school and other public places. This resulted in households where multiple languages were used to speak between generations and the identity of the Taiwanese people was conflicted to say the least. Now it seems that a new, separate identity has emerged within the younger generation and the desire to be distinct from mainland China is probably the strongest it has been since the post-war generation. In contrast, unification is only supported by a very fringe, so creating discordance in that area is not that easy (but again, one would think that a deadly pandemic would be an unifier for humanity and it turned out not to be). I will also note that in the past there have been open conflict between Taiwan and China with regard to offshore islands resulted in exchange of fire (literally) from the 50s to the late 70s. The situation seems to revert to days of those conflicts again. I am very doubtful of a Russian-style invasion of the Ukraine happening in Taiwan as the diplomatic ambiguity was carefully designed to create uncertainty for such an event. Conversely, parties with vested interest in the conflict, especially Japan, will push the US heavily into intervention. I have doubts that the US will let China project its power unchecked in that region and lose several allies in the process.

Another thing that comes to mind when looking at how fast new variants spread, is how impossible it is to stop a virus with these characteristics. Even with tests in place, we are unable to contain worldwide spread, which does not bode well for the next possible pandemic.

I think taking over would not be trivial. It is not like China has a foot in the door and while economic ties have deepened, there was always an anti-mainland sentiment first from the older generation, because of remembered history, but the Taiwan eventually became democratic and younger folks now are for the most part not willing to give it up. So a soft takeover seems very unlikely, but how would a military takeover look like? A full on invasion is more likely to trigger a defensive response, and especially Japan will push for it. If China gets away with a military takeover, many other countries will become very nervous indeed. Otoh I wouldbe surprised if the Chinese government does not realize that such an action could further destabililize the situation and am not sure whether they think it would be worth the risk. I would think that they will try their hardest to get pro-China support and use that to make a semi-soft power projection.

I do not think your assessment is accurate (except in the vaguest possible sense). Taiwan's history is complex with many changing hands. But if we start in the late 19th century to the end of WWII, Taiwan was a Japanese model colony and a blueprint of what the Japanese vision of a Pan-Asian system under Japanese rule might have been. Toward the end of WWII there was also a civil war in mainland China between Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China and Mao Tse-tung. Chiang eventually lost and fled to Taiwan, which he declared to be new seat of power of the Republic of China. For some time they were seen as the legitimate government of mainland China in exile, though obviously that did not hold for very long. So technically if there was a mutiny, it was committed by the People's Republic of China against the Republic of China (and not the other way round).

The characterization is a bit strange as agricultural exports are barely a blip in Taiwan's economy, its largest exports have been electronics for a long while. The trade volume with the US is not huge, but still totaled 100 billion which is about 70-80 billion less compared to Germany or UK. This would still roughly place Taiwan among the top 10 US trading partners. I would also argue that especially due to its location Taiwan would be a strategic asset.

I am not aware of web-based tools. Most that I have used require some time of database of retention times for time correction and many are integrated into certain packages (such as Skyline). There are also others, including commercial packages, but I never used any of them Ultimately I found it easier to just create your own database using reference standards as the predictions were not super accurate and I found them most useful except to screen out compounds (might be different for you application). But especially with modified peptides things are tricky. I faintly recall an open source model that was called OPERA-RT (I think). But have no experience with it.

I actually wanted to write a topic on that paper but more in form of a critique, then forgot about it. Luckily here is an article that echoes a lot of my thoughts on it. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/11/mobile-clusters-of-cells-can-help-assemble-a-mini-version-of-themselves/

1) they are not necessary, but depending on t quality of your sample prep it can help reduce contamination, and improve signal quality however, 2) depending on the volume of your zip tips (10 vs 100 ul, for example) and the sensitivity of your instrument as well as you should have enough to see something. But if whether you see enough depends on your sample and application. Generally I see significant loss of protein digests (up to 70%) and that may or may not be an issue for you. You often also lose e.g. very hydrophilic or very hydrophobic peptides along the way. If you have a very well defined and/or low complexity sample, I would use them, especially in conjunction with a nano-LC to keep your system happy. If purity is an issue, I would also use them. However, if sample loss is the dominant issue, then it may not be the best way. 3) I would not do it. Theoretically you could try to regenerate the material, but you will like get cross-contamination and the capacity might degrade. 4) can't think of any papers off the top of my head. Most that describe their use have some weird modifications which presumably help with sample prep, but in real applications rarely had any impact (in my experience).

That is certainly true. Most students do not realize that a lecture is supposed to be a general guidance to the material, and is not the material itself.

I would also add that effectiveness is typically more dependent on the student than on the lecture itself. Lectures generally gives you an idea of a topic with some examples. However mastery of the subject requires additional engagement with the subject. At least if you want to go beyond just the next exam.

Related to that here is an interesting article that highlights that rebuttals might be effective in combating science deniers. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02152-y Actual performance varies by audience, I am sure. Though we had good experience with folks who actually came individually to information sessions. Whereas if a bunch of connected folks appeared, they seemed to reinforce their beliefs. One thing that is also somewhat concerning is that quite a few folks were citing youtube videos as source. That makes it (by design, I would say) more difficult for folks to figure out where these folks get their "info" from.

Actually, the logic goes the other way around. If everyone is vaccinated, then it would effectively mean that the virus has already a reduced virulence and kills fewer people. As such there is less pressure to reduce virulence than in an entirely unvaccinated population where hosts are killed at a higher rate. However, one should take those arguments with some caution- these are only general trends. What actually happens in a population is obviously more complex and depending a combination of factors the there might be local optima for a certain combination of virulence and infectiousness. Or to put it differently, it is difficult to predict which trajectory a given virus is going to take at any given time. What we can say is that with a higher reservoir of folks carrying and producing the virus, we have a higher chance of continuously seeing new variants.

I would also like to posit that this may already be the case within the human population. Younger folks tend to have milder or no symptoms, while being able to transmit the disease (and young adults tend to be also on the more mobile side). One should therefore be careful to assume that lower virulence is inevitable or that it may happen on a quick timeline. There are also some other features (e.g. transmissibility prior to symptom development, as well as asymptomatic transmission) that could make it stay lethal for quite a while.

No, generally not. Competition against delta is a bit of a benchmark as it is currently the dominant variant in most areas. Something able to inch it out is a matter of concern. The only favourable outcome I can think of is if omicron turns out to be causing only mild symptoms. In that case you would want it to replace delta.

Going back to omicron, retrospective analyses indicate that omicron has been around in Europe as early as Nov 18 (i.e. before their identification): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59473131 While its potential to cause severe illness compared to delta is not known yet, the fact that it seems to be spreading (even in the background of delta) is of concern and worldwide efforts have increased to monitor their presence, both in retrospective (as the one linked above) or prospective surveillance. While the data could be biased due to ongoing efforts, preliminary data suggest that in SA omicron might be outcompeting delta. I have attached a figure showing the frequency of mutations in alpha, delta, and omicron in three of the genes (darker colour indicates higher frequency of a given mutation). Considering seemingly high transmissibility already indicates that the additional mutations in alpha do not hamper its effectiveness in infection. The important bit to figure out now are the health risks and then how well vaccinations are holding up.

That is very much expected. Preventing infection also prevents death from illness. Your original question was asking for evidence of efficacy of preventing infections, which you have received (repeatedly). And just to prevent a few rounds of arguing semantics I would like to point out some common usages in epi-data: "Infection" commonly refers to all positive tests, regarding of symptom status. Technically it refers specifically to the virus, but for communication with the broader population (e.g. via dashboards) it is sometimes conflated with COVID-19 infection (or similar). While this is technically inaccurate, it is simply a messaging strategy as the population was found to be more familiar with the name for the disease than for the virus. "Asymptomatic" is used if a positive test is found, but the patient does not present symptoms at time of testing. The issue is that folks are typically not tracked over time, so in some cases folks are actually pre-symptomatic (i.e. develop symptoms later in the infection process). Often the status of the patient at testing is not documented at all, so the frequency of asymptomatic cases is usually not well established. Moreover, in several areas testing strategies have switched to testing symptomatic cases only. As such in literature you will find a large range of estimates of symptomatic vs asymptomatic cases. Vaccine efficacy is the ability of the vaccine itself to improve disease outcome. This is generally done in controlled trials and historically this is based on disease presentation (i.e. showing symptoms of the disease). One of the reason is that in many diseases individuals do not spread the disease if they do not present symptoms (often indicating a low viral load). Due to the ability of pre-and asymptomatic spread of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is also monitored, but it is not as easy as tracking of symptoms. Vaccine effectiveness is basically a measure to look how efficacy translates into reality. This is done by capturing data during vaccine rollouts in an observational study. Here, it is important to segment the cohort according to the specific question. I.e. for example look at infected vs non-infected groups and check the vaccination status. Or conversely, segment for vaccination status and check for the variable of interest (e.g. infection rate or hospitalization).