CharonY

That is true for all sterilizing procedures. While I doubt that there is a real sterilization going on other than wiping with disinfectants, it does not strike me as wrong as such.

Just to present a broader perspective; the comparison between coronavirus and influenza has been made earlier to contextualize the seriousness of the diseases. And I think it is somewhat apt. However, not because influenza is harmless, but rather because it is a serious disease that has a significant health burden even in highly industrialized nations. In the USA, for example, influenza results between 9-45 million symptomatic illnesses and between 12,000 to 60,000 deaths. And this is with the availability of vaccines. I.e. without vaccines spread and health impact are undoubtedly far worse. At the same time the new coronavirus is more lethal, more contagious (again, no vaccines or immunities), so how does the comparison make sense? First, it is to highlight that we have a deadly re-occurring disease and while tragic, we kind of cope, even if it is just by getting used to it. Second, it is about the spread. Despite the fact that each coronavirus case infects more folks than each influenza case, there are still much fewer overall infections so far. While the disease is far from being contained, we are still orders of magnitude away from the spread of seasonal influenza. One can think about it in terms of quantity vs quality in a way. That all being said, there are indications that we may look at an pandemic. That might sound scarier than it is, but there is a serious risk especially for countries with less developed health care systems. It is right for health care specialists to worry- there are quite a few unknowns and the more it spreads the harder it will be to contain. But on the other end regular folks should just protect themselves as for a regular (somewhat deadlier) flu and keep away from the elderly if one has any kind of respiratory syndromes (which should be normal behaviour, anyway).

You said: Which heavily implies that it is a common occurrence to have families wiped out and that in at least one case someone only escaped death because they were abroad. Yet you provide one example in which all the folks (perhaps except wife, not sure) were above fifty. It is silly to extrapolate from this one case, while WHO and involved researchers provide different numbers. Of course that is true. And of course the death rate especially in Hubei are likely to be higher than elsewhere since the medical situation is worse. But how does it lend credibility to your claim that the disease is far more lethal than reported? If anything the rate will be higher specifically for Wuhan and Hubei than elsewhere due to the critical situation which are also exacerbated by the quarantine. There was at least one report that a disabled person died due to lack of care. So you are conflating the severity of the disease with what you believe the infrastructure issues are. Whether it will ultimately break (further) or hold (to some degree) remains to be seen, but so far you have not provided any data one way or another as far as I can see. So far in Hubei 62031 cases were reported in total. Of these 2029 have died and 10521 have been reported as cured. These are among the highest mortality rates (with decent N) reported, no doubt confounded by the bad situation there. AFAIK that are the numbers that are available. What data sources do you have that apparently are in direct contradiction to claims made by health professionals? Other numbers are available and have been reported in various threads here, but I would like to highlight again that currently we have ~56 ongoing cases worldwide (most being in Wuhan) compared to ~19k cases with outcomes. Of the latter 16.9k were recoveries and 2.1k were deaths. So there is still a while until actual mortality and other information can be calculated accurately. While the numbers especially in Hubei could become worse , it should be noted that from all collected data about 79% only have mild conditions, who therefore should be fairly unaffected from overcrowded hospitals, unless they get sick otherwise, of course. Is it ideal or even good? Certainly not. Just to re-iterate, it is a serious disease, especially for the elderly. It created a lot of local strain (exacerbated by the unprecedented quarantine enacted) and folks suffer, we should not forget that. But that is different from running wild with speculations of what could be. Right now those at the sidelines can only wait for the actual development. The internet has been running hot with misinformation which at best is annoying for the professionals and worst can seriously put people at risk. This is especially true if that panic does not lend to any beneficial actions. Remember the knee-jerk reaction from an US lawmaker who suggested euthanasia of folks coming into contact with Ebola?

I agree with you here. While I maintain that it is a serious disease and needs monitoring (such as other contagious diseases). However, the assumptions that some folks make are in itself harmful. There are reports of people avoiding or even acting out against Chinese looking folks because for fear of getting infected. Meanwhile, as you noted, it is far more likely to get seasonal flu from your fellow citizen (regardless how they look like). To me that looks like one of those exaggerated reports. Based on latest available data the fatality rate of folks below 50 is <0.4%. It is rather deadly for folks above 80 years old (~15%). While it is not impossible that a family has been wiped out but unless the families mostly consist of old folks, it is highly unlikely to have happened on a larger scale. And of course the consistent assumption that somehow there are far more deaths than reported based on the fact that the Chinese government might fudge numbers. Yet looking at closely monitored cases outside Chine, we still see no evidence of a higher death rate. The cruise ship alone is a test case where one can observe the rumored deadliness of the disease, with no way to fudge numbers. While tragic, the two persons who died on the ship were over 80 and the overall age is like skewed upward. I sincerely doubt that you will see those numbers go beyond the projections based on current numbers. Sure, accurate numbers will only be obtained once it is over, but assuming that things are far worse based on rumors is in fact harmful, especially if it gets to the point where folks actually act on it rather than on available data.

While I do not like to use of one disease to make another seem more harmless (it ain't a zero sum game). You should know that there are plenty of serious diseases endemic to the US. Seasonal flu is a big killer every year despite vaccinations and just because it is new it does not mean that existing measures are failing nor that there is a significant increase in overall risk. If you really want to be afraid, think about AB resistant bacteria.

I should also noted that in contrast to some other plans to making college debt free (e.g. Warren, Sanders, Clinton), there is not provision for that specifically. The goal seems to lower tuition a bit or at least couple it to wage development (somehow) and check that folks make the money back eventually. However, he also has a loan forgiveness plan where debts will be bought by feds and after 10 years of payment (10% of the salary) it would be eventually forgiven (and other provisions that would be easier to forgive debt). It is not certain what the net cost would be in comparison to, say Warren's debt forgiveness plan. However it seems to have caught less media attention (positive or negative). It is similar to plans proposed by Trump, but with different thresholds and will be a higher burden to lower income folks (who struggle most with student loans). Personally I do think that addressing student loan is too late, it should not come to that in the first place. It seems to me that North Americans (I am including Canadians here) seem to be so used to high education cost that only few consider alternatives "normal".

No, I am saying it is not the sole focus (as it is in Yang's outline), and especially not focused on later income returns. Otherwise unis would end up being law, medical and engineering schools. Moreover, it would kill the research enterprise as the returns in academic research jobs are low. Throughout his policy proposal. As I said, he is not coherent enough to make a specific case, but the fact that he wants to monitor debt in relation to future salaries, limit tuition to wage growth, wants uni presidents to talk to students regarding their careers, heavily implies that he sees a link between wages and expected return relative to tuition. What he neglect (except the administrative part) are the actual mechanisms of tuition cost (I have mentioned them in a different thread). The only thing to be control cost is for unis to slash services, and replace faculty with sessionals (which is already happening). Administration has potential for more efficiencies but alone would not drive down tuition cost to the required levels. And as I said if future salaries are to balance it out (rather than actually having a proper vision for investing into education) then we we will go away from broad integrative education to extended job training (i.e. where the private sector offloads training cost to public education centers, a trend started sometime in the 60s). Perhaps I am being unfair, but often the private sector is a bit myopic when it looks at things related to public goods (if all you got is a hammer and all that).

Well that is the thing, Yang has some disconnected ideas on this matter and after what to me looks like a superficial read on the matter. That does annoy me perhaps because it reminds me of student reports. I have read a paragraph and am going to expound my thoughts on that matter on several pages. I would have preferred either acknowledging the matter and say that it requires some work, rather than throwing out ideas and pretend that they are well informed. I rather have a leader acknowledging that they need to read up in things rather than pretend to have solution. You see, to me the passage reads like pure narrative (link tuition to expected return and all will be well) does not only have no actual policy ideas, but is a horrible talking point which misses the purposes of higher education entirely.

In this case it does, unfortunately, shows that his thoughts are not terribly well informed, which in turn makes me more skeptical about his thoughts on subjects that I know less about.

I actually checked the Yang website where he proposes to reduce tuition fees, and it seems that for the most part he is barking up the wrong tree. He wants universities to reduce administrative positions, but quite a few studies indicate that while it contributes to cost, it is not the main driver and also it is not clear how he wants to force unis to restructure that way. He wants to collect additional data and somehow link tuition fees with salary outcomes, but it is absolute not clear how that is going to work. University costs are distinct from the salary potential of graduates so one would need to change uni from a teaching/research environment to vocational training system mostly run by sessionals. There a few other points which do not make sense whatsoever (wants presidents to discuss job prospects with alumni- why?). As such it is not clear how that is supposed to increase teaching quality at the same time. And the biggest missing bit is that there is no serious element of federal funding (other than investing in innovative and growing schools??), which is actually one important driver of tuition costs. That section is a bit symptomatic why I have some issues with Yang on certain topics- it reminds me too much of a techbro sales pitch- it propose relatively easy solutions often targeting superficial issues, but failing to actually address the issues it promises to solve.

You are right, it was my mistake. I was thinking of capsids as I am more familiar with those as vaccination targets and have muddled up things, including the fact that coronavirus is in fact enveloped. My apologies. Recombinant envelope proteins have also been used but often are trickier to handle. And again, the issues are the same, even in native form they may not be recognized well, a synthetic form may not correspond well to the native form (i.e. your "fake virus" may not result in the desired recognition) and it may actually be harmful. So at this point I can just re-iterate that synthesizing a protein in vitro does not necessarily make it the same as what the virus does in a cell. This is why we still have attenuated vaccines rather than just taking a pathogen protein and call it a day, for example. The target folks are focussed most on in coronavirus are the spike proteins that target ACE receptors. But even then, getting the antigen just right is difficult. So to re-iterate, taking a protein (envelope, capsid, or whatever) based on its DNA sequence does not make it suitable vaccination substrate. Jesus, that should be criminally persecuted, no doubt.

I may not understand you correctly, but you may have a number of misconceptions regarding viral surfaces. A couple of points: - virus envelopes are typically formed by elaborate protein structures and they do not have a membrane as such - these proteins have complex three-dimensional structures (as other proteins) and often require additional proteins to be folded correctly and can be decorated - as such, the interplay between different viral proteins (and host mechanisms) are required to give viruses their final shapes - the immune response is dependent on the recognition of specific shapes (epitopes) - producing a viral part in vitro does not guarantee to provide the correct shape to recognize a life virus In addition, as mentioned you have to make sure that whatever you use as a vaccine does not induce harmful events. So again, just pulling proteins from a sequence and then releasing it into the bloodstream does not easily work, rather it would need quite a long process to make sure that it works and that it is not harmful. On the other points, eukaryotic cells do have free ribosomes but are also part of the rough ER. There are various options for RNA delivery including liposomes. That being said, I think while there are quite a few clinical trials for mRNA vaccines, they have not been approved yet (but some are fast-tracked).

Just adding a random virus protein does not guarantee a useful immune response, and it can also cause adverse effects as mentioned. In quite a few cases it is necessary to modify the virus capsids in vitro in order to make them useful as vaccines. In vitro synthesis of viral particles can result in quite a different structure than in vivo, but for the latter you need to isolate and propagate the virus. Moreover glycosylation can make them difficult to be recognized and conversely, viral particles injected in significant amounts can lead to adverse inflammatory responses. mRNA only needs to be delivered to the cell. The nucleus is not the area where translation happens.

No, the idea is to have mRNA coding for viral structure expressed by the host and presented as an antigen. Just synthesizing a random viral part in vitro usually has very low success rate. You do not know whether the part elicits a suitable response, nor can you always ensure that whatever you synthesize has still its native form. Even worse, injecting it in relative high concentration can also have adverse effects without actually conferring immunity. That is why when you start designing a vaccine you often have to work with the intact virus and either design around an attenuated form or, if you can, isolate a workable part. But that requires time. Even then, if a good target is known the big time consuming step are the trials. In extreme cases there are accelerated trials where requirements are relaxed. Nonetheless you still need to show that it actually helps. And just sticking a random viral structure in and hope for the best is unlikely to work.

Well, that is why it takes a while, you'll need to figure out what components create an immune response, but you also want to avoid unspecific inflammation and other adverse effects. The last thing you want is healthy folks suffering from the vaccine especially in a case where the disease is still found to be of relatively low lethality. That being said, the fastest development route are probably RNA vaccines, which can produce targets basically overnight. However, safety and efficacy trials would also need to run.

And on top of that, the differences are not what are typically considered to be "typical" dimorphisms (i.e. there is often substantial overlap between sexes). Also, it is difficult to correlate any neural morphologies with altered functions, which is why there are actually only rather few tests where we see reliable differences. And even there, the effect size is often not terribly huge. As mentioned, training could presumably close these gaps which makes it difficult to assess what features are truly sex differences in the biological sense. That is not to say that there are none, but given the plasticity of brains it would be strange to assume that especially abstract abilities would result in such pronounced differences as expressed in OP. To wit, I would take any bet that if I provided a female group with access to information, education and training while growing up while depriving the same to a male group, it won't be the latter who will figure out how to design a car or rockets first (note: don't do that, it won't pass ethics review). The point about subjective vs objective does not make any sense whatsoever, btw.

Also timeisthe5th.

Oh no, there are huge repositories that you can freely access so that is generally not an issue. Even if your specific species is missing you can at least take the closes assumed relatives and work from there. Also, when you sequence something new and publish it, you have to make to submit it to one of those public databases.

As briefly mentioned, it all depends on what type of analysis is being conducted. If for example we use a species-specific marker that is not found in the species under investigation, we would not be able to amplify anything, resulting in basically no result. Similarly, DNA can degrade or be contaminated to such a degree that we will not obtain data, either. However, if the DNA is of sufficient quality to be amplified, either restriction analyses or sequencing will allow you to assess relationship to known species via phylogenetic reconstruction. There is a paper by Sykes et al. (Proc Royal Soc. B, 2014 281:1789) in which they analysed hair samples which were attributed to e.g. Yetis or similar organisms. After thorough de-contamination they sequenced a part of the mitochondrial DNA and found that they were actually from a wide range of mammals. Samples attributed to bigfoot were found to be cow, coyote, deer, black bear, horse, racoon and human, respectively. Two samples matched a fossil record related to current polar bears.

So species identification is a very specific application and there have been techniques developed based on hair-snaring. A typical genetic target are conserved mitochondrial sequences, which can be obtained from hair samples even with few or no follicles attached (though yield is better if one gets more cells with them). In the past one would do restriction analyses (in short: amplify region with PCR, digest the amplified DNA sequence and look at the resulting pattern to compare with known species), though more commonly nowadays the amplified locus is sequenced and compared to a reference database (often also called DNA-barcoding). Even if the sequence is not found, one can use conserved sequences to build a so-called phylogenetic tree. There, the sequence in question would be quantitatively compared to existing ones and based on similarities one could figure out how the unknown species is related to known ones (i.e. if it is a close relative, for example). As long as a conserved locus is used (such as e.g. cytochrome C oxidase you will always get relationship info (i.e. it would not return as unknown). One issue could be contamination by other species, but as long as you can get some clean reads out of the sample of interest, it is often possible to isolate the novel from contaminating ones. That is a part of the problem, many TV shows, especially those who are more sensationalist usually do not care much about proper reporting. There is a decent chance that a) all they got is something mundane, such as regular wildlife and reporting it as unknown just sounds more exciting, b) they contaminated their samples and mostly got DNA from their producer who handled the samples inadequately but did not have the budget to repeat the whole thing or c) they got data, but did not bother to ask an expert to interpret it or d) they used a different method, but would require some elaboration.

Essentially there are a range of DNA tests in use. To test familial relationships for example one can amplify certain DNA regions of DNA and compare them to references e.g. from the parents. If you submitted a different species, you obviously would not get usable results. In other words, the type of DNA tests are highly specific, depending on purpose and will have to be designed differently for each application as well as species. I should also note that the vast majority of these test are not based on sequencing, but mostly rely on a form of genotyping. I.e. one monitors genetic variation at a given chromosomal location.

In addition to what others said, you can get mitochondrial DNA from hair; it depends on what types of analyses you want to run.. It depends on the type of assay. The vast majority of DNA testing is performed on diagnostic regions and comparison with reference data sets. But the actual loci as well as the database being used would define what you can or cannot identify. The description does not provide enough information.

Well green tea generally should have a yellow to brown colour but if you are using crushed leafes in tea bags (which I feel should also banned for green tea) they can extract much faster than loose leafs.

How about a livefeed? I could put it in a screen and watch while pretending to listen to students!

I would like to add that evolutionary psychology is suffering from a number of issues, and is one a the forefront of the replication crisis. Many of these issues stem from ill-defined research questions (to which I would include OP). Originally, the premise was fascinating, and there have been successful studies. However, many aspects in human evolution in this field are based on extrapolation, which are often not based on solid evidence. As such, a lot of these studies may be just-so stories. As a result solid science is mixed with heavy storytelling and the latter unfortunately dilute the former.That is not to say that the field is useless, but rather it is still a field trying to figure itself out. The worst thing is probably the fact that the interest in these studies are not in line with the level of evidence they can provide. Pop culture often takes tentative studies as ultimate validation of some long-standing assumptions and stereotypes.