Cycling. Health. Covid. Diet.

[Ghost1951]

Did you know about this?

View attachment 61917

I have not seen the piece of paper before, but by the end of January I think the word was already getting out.

In December 2019, some time before the Chinese government publicised the fact that there was a novel pneumonia, Dr Li Wenliang was speaking out about the virus, and for some reason was arrested and reprimanded. Li Wenliang later died of the virus in early February.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/20/chinese-inquiry-exonerates-coronavirus-whistleblower-doctor-li-wenliang

Another Doctor in China who was punished for blowing the whistle that the earlier 2003 SARS virus outbreak, was being played down dangerously by the Chinese authorities, died of pneumonia in 2023.

There is a VERY strong tendency for the Chinese to suppress bad news like this, especially if it could ever be thought to reflect badly on the government, whose reputation must it seems, be always massaged to make them look omnipotent.

The last thing that matters to the government there is that public health is protected before the reputation of the Chinese Communist Party.

Jiang Yanyong: Whistleblower doctor who exposed China's Sars cover-up dies

Jiang Yanyong became a national hero after revealing Beijing was covering up the scale of the virus.

www.bbc.co.uk

The cover up mentality is so strong that the way they suppressed information about the lab leak idea can not be trusted. There has been no open investigation into where sars-Covi-2 came from and there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence that it was not a natural event.

I note that Doctor Nigel has not in ANY WAY engaged with the points I make about why Sars-Covi-2 is unlikely to be a natural spill over. He prefers to pick cherries I am afraid.

 

[Ghost1951]

Considered the evidence & concluded that "on the information here reviewed, there is not yet a definitive and well demonstrated conclusion on the origin of SARS-CoV-2."

So NOT a "slam dunk".

Maybe you prefer this cover up letter published in the Lancet in March 2020.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext

The letter was arranged by the now notorious character who heads the Eco Health Alliance of America - Peter Daszak. He had fronted an application by the Wuhan Institute of Virology to get funding to perform gain of function research on bat corona viruses. This application was put before Faucci and rejected, but we KNOW from that application that WIV were performing research trying to get bat corona viruses to infect human tissue.

Daszak drafted this letter and circulated it among various big wigs in his address book and they signed it. It praises the life saving work of the Chinese scientists and their open and communicative attitude in sharing information.

NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!!!

His Chinese collaborator Shi Zhengli had just locked up the previously open virus database which made available the genetic code of the viruses they were working on. One day researchers world wide could examine that data, and the next it was gone and has never been seen since.

Daszak promoted this open letter without ever declaring the work he had undertaken with Shi Zhengli and the Wuhan lab

We are public health scientists who have closely followed the emergence of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and are deeply concerned about its impact on global health and wellbeing. We have watched as the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China, in particular, have worked diligently and effectively to rapidly identify the pathogen behind this outbreak, put in place significant measures to reduce its impact, and share their results transparently with the global health community. This effort has been remarkable.
We sign this statement in solidarity with all scientists and health professionals in China who continue to save lives and protect global health during the challenge of the COVID-19 outbreak. We are all in this together, with our Chinese counterparts in the forefront, against this new viral threat.
The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins. We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,2–10 as have so many other emerging pathogens.11,12 This is further supported by a letter from the presidents of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine13 and by the scientific communities they represent. Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus. We support the call from the Director-General of WHO to promote scientific evidence and unity over misinformation and conjecture.14 We want you, the science and health professionals of China, to know that we stand with you in your fight against this virus.
We invite others to join us in supporting the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of Wuhan and across China. Stand with our colleagues on the frontline!
We speak in one voice. To add your support for this statement, sign our letter online. LM is editor of ProMED-mail. We declare no competing interests.

Leaked Grant Proposal Details High-Risk Coronavirus Research

The proposal, rejected by the U.S. military’s research agency DARPA, describes the insertion of human-specific cleavage sites into bat coronaviruses.

theintercept.com

 

[Peter.Bridge]

I found this interesting

Your Book Review: Viral

Finalist #12 in the Book Review Contest

www.astralcodexten.com

 

[Ghost1951]

I found this interesting

Your Book Review: Viral

Finalist #12 in the Book Review Contest

www.astralcodexten.com

Well, that is some detailed review Peter!

I bought the book about two years ago and read it avidly. It is absolutely correct that Chan and Ridley conclude that there is no definite proof either way in the sense of either an animal reservoir of the actual Sars-Cov-2 virus and indeed, no animals or people have been found with anything near to the actual virus we are talking about in the sense that it is a step or ten away from being Sars-Cov-2. Even the RaTG13 is said by those who know to be decades of mutation away fromm the actual virus, and so is the Banal52 one, so where did it do all that mutation without leaving a trail. You would expect animals to be found. They certainly have been in other zoonotic transfers and they were found rapidly.

If the matter was one of criminal wildlife traders who disposed of the evidence, where are the infected traders with antecedent versions of the mutating virus? There are none.

The other thing of course and I think I recall reading this point in the book - Chinese officials have removed evidence and disposed of it. You can't get samples from the testing data from the Wuhan market. You just have to take their conclusions, but even they don't claim to have found the origin infections. All we know is that the outbreak happened near the market which is near the virus laboratory that was doing gain of function research on bat corona viruses and that the virus exploded into the world, unlike every other zoonotic transfer, almost perfectly ready to transmit person to person.

As an example of how unlikely that is, we regularly see transfers of ability in viruses to go from one kind of host to another, but when they start out, they are pretty bad at it. We see H5N1 now causing concern in pigs, cattle and birds. Some workers doing culling of infected animals have contracted it and become pretty unwell, but it does not spread from one to another of the people around them. The information is that most of these cull workers got blood in their eyes from the culling process. Apparently the personal protection rules have not been very good. They did not wear goggles. Some in Vietnam got the new H5N1 by drinking raw animal blood (FFSke). No dout after a time in infected people, the virus would be likely to mutate to spread more easily and who knows what after that? The point is, Sars-Cov-2 exploded into action when there was no history of it being in people before. No one has been found.

So, having read the book, having considered the review, AND the fact that we know the Chinese authorities have hidden data and obstructed further investigation, I am not inclined to change my mind.

This virus emerged from the WIV in the late part of 2019. It had been changed in the lab. They WERE changing exactly that sort of virus in that lab - they had asked for funding to do it.


By the way - my arguments are not really any sort of anti-Chinese rant. It isn't about that. I think this is a very important topic because gain of function research is EXTREMELY dangerous. It is happening elsewhere too and people make mistakes. Lots of times viruses have got out of labs. It is too risky and should be banned. It is almost insane I think to take viruses we have no prior immunity to, which do not infect human beings and then tinker with them to help them infect our own tissues. It is insane and should stop right now.

 

[nigelbb]

I note that Doctor Nigel has not in ANY WAY engaged with the points I make about why Sars-Covi-2 is unlikely to be a natural spill over. He prefers to pick cherries I am afraid.

Why should I need to argue the toss with you about this? It's not something that interests me very much.
The CIA have access to a lot more data & analysis than any amateur virologist & have decided that even given the CIA's vast resources that to quote from that news report it :-

has "low confidence" in its own conclusion, noting in its statement both scenarios - lab and natural origin - remain plausible.

The agency's assessment assigns a low degree of confidence to this conclusion, suggesting the evidence is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory. Why do you think that you are correct & the CIA wrong?

 

[Ghost1951]

The agency's assessment assigns a low degree of confidence to this conclusion, suggesting the evidence is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory. Why do you think that you are correct & the CIA wrong?

It is not possible to come to a definitive conclusion for a very simple reason. The Chinese Government has controlled access and hidden the details of the work the Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing.

What the CIA and the rest of us are left with is the incredible pile of circumstantial evidence surrounding the emergence of Sars-Covi-2, for all of the reasons I have relayed here. An event so suspicious and one so unusual as to make it next to impossible that the virus emerged instantly in the caves of southern China and somehow flew a thousand miles to the north to explode into the very city which hosted a lab modifying bat corona viruses to attack human lung tissue.

Alina Chan is not an amateur virologist, by the way. She is a Canadian molecular biologist specialising in gene therapy and cell engineering at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

 

[saneagle]

It is not possible to come to a definitive conclusion for a very simple reason. The Chinese Government has controlled access and hidden the details of the work the Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing.

Anthony Faucci and his mate Peter Daszak know exactly what was going on in that lab, since it was they, who were funding the research. Why would they do that, when they had their own labs in USA, UK and Ukraine? Why would they want the Chinese to gain such dangerous knowledge?

 

[lenny]

Healthy food costs more than double less healthy options

Healthy food costs more than double less healthy options, analysis says

Low-income families are being priced out of being able to afford to eat healthily, a charity warns.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Ghost1951]

Healthy food costs more than double less healthy options

Healthy food costs more than double less healthy options, analysis says

Low-income families are being priced out of being able to afford to eat healthily, a charity warns.

www.bbc.co.uk

WEll that's a huge surprise. Cheap cr ap is cheap and quality food is more expensive. My word - who would have thought that?

 

[Ghost1951]

Interesting and valuable insights. Why exercise won't make you lose weight, but why it is nevertheless essential to good health.

Well worth a listen.

The Food Programme - Food and Exercise: A Puzzle - BBC Sounds

Want to lose weight? How much can you achieve through exercise? Dan Saladino investigates.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[lenny]

The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria
Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans, suggesting that the world is far more interconnected than anyone realized.

The Ocean Teems With Networks of Interconnected Bacteria | Quanta Magazine

Nanotube bridge networks grow between the most abundant photosynthetic bacteria in the oceans, suggesting that the world is far more interconnected than anyone realized.

www.quantamagazine.org

 

[lenny]

Bacteria in Polymers Form Cables that Grow into Living Gels

Experiments and modeling reveal the unexpected structure that can be seen in bacteria grown in mucus samples and biofilms.

www.caltech.edu

 

[lenny]

Kansas tuberculosis outbreak is now America's largest in recorded history

https://eu.cjonline.com/story/news/politics/government/2025/01/24/kansas-tuberculosis-outbreak-is-largest-in-recorded-history-in-u-s/77881467007/

 

[lenny]

Osaka bans smoking on all of its streets, violators will be fined by patrols, vaping included

Osaka bans smoking on all of its streets, violators will be fined by patrols, vaping included

Japan’s third-largest city expands smoking ban ahead of world’s fair.

soranews24.com

 

[lenny]

Will bird flu spark a human pandemic? Scientists say the risk is rising
H5N1 is adapting to new mammalian hosts, raising the possibility of the virus spreading between humans.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00245-6

 

[lenny]

 

[lenny]

Robots to race humans at China half-marathon - Canadian Running Magazine

Two-legged droids will take on the 21.1-km event for the first time in Beijing in April

runningmagazine.ca

 

[lenny]

For real, we may be taking blood pressure readings all wrong
Blood pressure readings while lying down beat seated readings at predicting heart risks.

For real, we may be taking blood pressure readings all wrong

Blood pressure readings while lying down beat seated readings at predicting heart risks.

arstechnica.com

 

[lenny]

Microplastics block blood flow in the brain, mouse study reveals
Real-time imaging shows how plastic-stuffed cells form clumps that affect mouse movement.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00178-0

 

[lenny]

First outbreak of novel bird flu strain reported at California poultry farm
Discovery of H5N9 came alongside detection of the more common H5N1 on the farm, leading to 119,000 birds’ deaths

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/27/bird-flue-h5n9-california