What does Malcolm Gladwell, think about staying in the same profession, your whole career? There is a very large and underestimated risk in now changing your courage, a country that was his advice on my podcast, the next chapter by american express business class, I'm carter first and in this season I sit down with best selling authors, including james, clear julie, Zhu David Epstein, to discuss business lessons from their books what they would write for their next chapter, listen to the next chapter by american express business class. Wherever you get your podcasts I this is david club. I'm an author in journalist and I've been in articles and books about urging diseases and novel viruses for the past two decades, this week's son, reed is a story of mine about the origins of the covert fibres waste.

Dont know with total certainty how the car when a virus pandemic started. Where did that virus come from earlier this year. I saw that the idea of a lab leak origin was becoming more popular. Even There was no increase in evidence to support that high policies and that imbalance concerned. It puzzled me so in this peace, I wrote for the new york times magazine. I explored to questions that are still controversial more than three and a half years into this pandemic. First, what is the origin of the virus known as sars? Clovy too? Where did it come from? And, second, why is the preponderance of evidence on one side of the debate and the preponderance of public opinion on another? So the origins, debate centres on three main hypotheses

The first is the natural origin hypothesis. The idea that the virus spilled over from a wild animal, probably an animal that had been brought to the infamous wet my the one on market in wine china and was being sold for food. The second hypothesis argues that the covert viruses, by a weapon that was intentionally engineers and released to infect people, and then there is a third theory, the lab leak hypothesis, suggests, that a lab worker in will Han was doing. Research on Rona viruses, possibly altering of viruses, genome to see if certain alterations would make it more dangerous to humans, and then this lab worker, so the theory goes, got infected with the virus and carried it out into the world, and that became the dynamic now want to emphasise that we still don't know for sure which these hypotheses

is true. We don't have the final gold standard of proof, but while the evidence is heavily on the side of a natural origin was quite a bit. inclination among the public, and not just in the. U s to believe that covered came from a lab leak The story you're about to hear, gets into why That is why it matters So here is my article. The ongoing mystery of covert origin read for you by Eduardo ballerina. Where did it come from more than Years into the pandemic and untold millions of people dead that question about the covert nineteen corona virus remit, is controversial and fraught with facts.

sparkling amid a tangle of analyses and hypotheticals by christmas lights, strong on a dark, thorny tree. One school of thought holds that the virus known to sciences, sars cuvier you spilled into humans from a non human animal, probably in the one on seafood. Wholesale market a messy emporium and move on china, brimming with fish meets and wildlife on sale as food and other school are is that the virus was laboratory engineered to infect humans and caused them harm by a weapon and was passed We devised in a shadow project sponsored by People's liberation army of china at school, more moderate than the second, but also implicating laboratory work suggests that the virus got into its first human victim by way of an accident the war on institute of iraqi w ivy. A research complex on the eastern side of the sitting maybe after well, meaning but reckless genetic manipulation,

that made it more dangerous to be. If you feel confused by these possibilities, undecided suspicious of overconfident assertions or just heard of the whole subject of the pandemic and whatever little bug has caused it, be assured that you aren't the only one

some contrary and say that it doesn't matter the source of the virus. What matters they say is how we cope with the catastrophe. It has brought the illness and death. It continues to cause. Those conference are wrong. It does matter research priorities, endemic preparedness around the world, health policies and public opinion towards science itself will be lastingly affected by the answer to the origin question. If we ever get a definitive answer, but much of the evidence that might provide that answer as either been lost were still unavailable lost because of failures to gather relevant material promptly on available because of intransigence and concealment, particularly on the part of chinese officialdom at several levels. Take the natural

spillover hypothesis, for instance, and assume that the virus passed to humans from a wild animal may be a raccoon dog, a fox like canine, or a malayan porcupine somewhere in the one on market to test that hypothesis, he would want samples of blood, feces or mucus taken from the raccoons good porcupines and other wildlife that languished caged and doomed in the market. It would screen those samples for signs of the virus if you found the virus itself or at least sizeable bits of genome. You would then make a comparative analysis of genomes, including sir, from the earliest human cases, to deduce whether people got the virus from the wild life or vice versa. But you can't do that because, whatever wreck

dogs or porcupines or other wild animals run sail in the market. During december, twenty nineteen had vanished by january. First, twenty twenty on that date. The market was closed by order of chinese authorities with no reported effort to sample the most suspect forms wildlife or take the lab engineered by a weapon hypothesis. As recently offered in an article in the sunday times of london, the two times reporters cited unidentified: u s: investigators who scrutinised, topsecret, intercepted communications and concluded that the chinese military was supporting a covert project to develop a weapon ized corona virus. The article also positive a related vaccine effort.

checked china's populous once the killer virus was unleashed on the world. It's a riveting narrative. The virus engineering occurred according to this account at the war on institute of iraqi. The reporters didn't name their intelligence sources or supply evidence to make their allegations concrete, but if they did, it would be explosive news. Or take the lab leak scenario, some versions of which point accusingly at a nonprofit organization in new york, eco health alliance and its collaborative and ship with doktor. Surely she a senior researcher at the w ivy she and her team study? Corona viruses, especially those carried by adds extracting fragments of viral rna. The molecule in which corona virus genomes, are written and occasionally live virus from samples of guano and other bodily material and assembling whole genome sequences, like jigsaw puzzle from the fragments

They perform experiments, sometimes combining an element of one virus with the backbone of another to learn. That element might function in the wild and they publish scientific papers, warning which bad viruses could pose. A threat to humans What if a researcher or technician under she's leadership handle a virus very much like sars, covey, too became infected by accident and then spread the infection to others. that question became from the early months of the pandemic. special and then a hypothesis and then an accusation Even now, the trade in claims and counterclaims remains brisk last month in a sub stack news that are called pebble Three authors asserted citing unnamed: u s government officials that one of the first people infected with sars. Kofi too was a sign his named ben, who, from she's lan that assertion was significant and important. If true, but

proof were identified. Sourcing so far supports it. Ten days Later the office of the director of national intelligence, released, as required by law passed three months earlier, declassified route outlining whatever was known to the: u s: intelligence community, about potential links between the woman, institute of virology and the origins of the pandemic, the report concluded on other things. The w ivy personnel at collaborated at times on corona virus work with scientists, a soul did with the people's liberation army, but So far as available evidence showed such work involved no known viruses that could plausibly ba progenitor of sars. Sars too. and then on July, eleventh, the house select subcommittee corona virus pandemic, led by representative bread when strip and ohio Republican convened a hearing

which he and colleagues interrogated two scientists, christian andersen and robert Gary about their authorship of an influential twenty twenty paper that appeared in the journal. Nature medicine. That paper was titled the proximate origin of sars coup. To the tenor of the hearing was foretold by its own announced title investigating the proximate origin of a cover up and the proceedings that day consisted of accusation defence without shedding any new light, let alone yielding certitude about the origin of the virus. certitude is an elusive goal and a high presumption even for science, even for a director of national intelligence even for the chairman of a select congressional subcommittee, philosophers have recognised that and so have novelists and poets. I was of three mines: wrote wallace Stevens, like a tree in which there are three blackbirds in the poem Stevens found thirteen differently

ways of looking at a blackbird. There are at least that many ways viewing the origin of sars covey too, and to do justice to the question you ll need like him to hold several possibilities in your mind at a time how you regard a blackbird or an origin hypothesis may be influenced by you're coming from that's an old truth, but I was reminded of it during a conversation with jesse, bloom and evolution. mary biologist at the fred hutchinson cancer centre in seattle and one of the best qualified among those who argue that the lab leak hypothesis deserves robust investigation bloom studies, the evolution of viruses for two reasons. It happens fast and therefore, in its evolution in general, and it has large implications for public health. When I spoke with him in February twenty twenty one a year into the pandemic and asked about the origin question bloom said, I think what you have a lot of people strongly defaulting to their prior beliefs. Science

studies, our nordic diseases, those that spill over Nonhuman animals into people might being and to assume a natural origin sign, so have long argued against the risks of gain of function. Research experiment to work, exploring the evolutionary capacities of potentially dangerous pathogens might readily a lab link fashion. Security experts with strong views of the oppressive secretive china. he's government might mean what's scenarios involving chinese malfeasance and cover all recently Bloom told me that his own prior inclination would be toward a natural spillover, but she certainly wouldn't think it's like ninety nine point: ninety nine percent, the most likely explanation he said adding there could be other possibilities

bad gave me pause to consider my own price for the past forty years. I've written nonfiction about the natural world in the sciences that study it, especially ecology and evolutionary biology. During the first half of that, my attention went mainly too large, visible creatures like bears, crocodiles and bumble bees and wild places like the was on jungle and the sooner and desert. I came to the subject of emerging via susan, ninety, ninety nine, during a national geographic assignment when I walked for ten days through Ebola virus habitat and a central african forest. Later I spent five years Adding a book about zoonotic diseases and the agents that cause them, including the sars virus, the earlier pillar corona virus now often called sars clovy one which emerged in two thousand to and spy

In human travellers, from Hong kong to singapore, toronto and elsewhere, alarming experts deeply scientists traced sars covey one to palm since it's a type of cap like wild carnivores sold as food and some south china markets in restaurants, but the Civic proved to be intermediate house and its natural host. Was later identified as horseshoe bats. The story of sars is only one chapter in the saga of dangerous new viruses emerging from animals. The grim tale how hiv got into humans and cause the aids pandemic is another a tale known partly by inference and partly by molecular evidence and trace back to a single blood, mingling event between a person and a chimpanzee, probably hunter and hunted in the south corner of cameroon around the start of the twentieth century. human contact with nonhuman animals accounts for our influenza as well, which

usually emerge from wild aquatic birds. Hendry virus in australia comes to humans from bats generally through an intermediate host horse, It's my trooper virus in bolivia abides in rodents when not infecting people hunt on arrests, discovered in korea and its relative senior but a virus and american south west also spill over from rodents leap, a virus. Bangladesh, and some surrounding countries comes from bats, its excreted in bad theses, saliva in europe and when certain fruit bats visit date, palm trees that are being tapped for their sugary sap accustomed in bangladesh. The virus contaminates the sap, which is sold fresh on the street to local custom as some of whom die these cases and many others like them are among my own priors and no doubt they do inclined me

the idea of natural spillover, it happens often sometimes with dire consequences. Research accidents have occurred to in the history of dangerous new viruses and long time. Concerns over such accidents constitute the priors of some who favour the law. Bleak hypothesis for covert such accidents might number in the hundreds or thousands, depending on where you put the threshold of significance and how you define accident. There was an event that probably reintroduced Nineteen fifty strain of influenza in nineteen, seventy seven, causing that yours flu pandemic, which killed many thousands of people, the two thousand for needlestick injuries of a careful scientist, kelly warfield. While she was doing a bowler research, but she proved uninfected by a bowler. Also in two thousand for just a year

The global sars care to workers that have, ironically lab in beijing, were independently infected with the virus, which spread to nine people in total, one of whom died. This followed two other single case lab accident infections, with sars virus the previous year, one in singapore, one in taiwan. when the first known cases of an atypical pneumonia began. Turning up at WU han hospitals in late, two thousand and nineteen and then exploded into a coronavirus outbreak in early two thousand and twenty, the location itself seemed to fit in different ways, friars that might incline one towards either unnatural origin, explanation or a lab leak explanation. The potential loudly connection was easier to the city contained a research facility, the warnings, to deny reality. But the well known laboratory devoted to corona virus research. on the other hand, will Han was also a major nexus for the significant national trade in wild animals for food. Fur additional medicines estimated at

than seventy billion dollars annually, where such creatures and viruses they carry were sold at many crowded marks. One of one on play, or near the center of the spatial pattern of earliest known cases so starting from simply those circumstances was a accident, more, like glee than a natural spillover. An under either of those scenarios. How much the chinese government pressure and obscurantism cons in the availability of evidence for assessing one or the other, because there exists no definitive account yet of the particular events that delivered sars

who ve two into the human population. Even experts are forced to frame their views as probabilities based on data and circumstance influence variously by prior beliefs as to how the world works in assessing the probabilities for yourself, you might want to step back from the noise anger, vitriol and political decision, that of clouded the controversy and focus on the evidence we do have to them. and it may help to note some events in the order they occurred on january, eleventh, twenty twenty and shanghai just eleven days after first reports of the outbreak and move on circulated globally, a team assigned this led by young ching Chong food on university released a draft genome sequence of the novel virus through website called virological dot org. Genome was provided by edward see homes, a british austria inclusion, evolutionary biologist based in sydney and a colleague of chunks on the genome assembly project,

is famous among Veronica's for his work on the evolution of our in a virus is including corona viruses, its prestige, bald head and his morton candor. everyone in the field knows him as eddie. The posting went up One o five, a m scotland time at which point the curator of the site, they're in edinburgh, a professor of molecular evolution Andrew rambo was alert and ready to speed things along he and homes composed a brief introductory note to the genome. Please feel free to download, share, use and analyze this data. It said they knew that data is plural, but they were in a hurry immediately. Homes in a small group of colleagues to analyze the genome for clues about the viruses, evolutionary history they drew on about ground of known corona viruses and their own understood Think of how such viruses take shape in the wild as reflected in homes, two thousand nine book, the evolution and emergence of our any viruses. They knew that career

virus evolution can occur rapidly, driven by frequent mutation. Single or changes in roughly thirty thousand letter genome by recombination one virus swapping genomes, actions with another virus when both simultaneously replicate in a single cell and by darwinian natural selections acting on those random changes, homes, traded thoughts with rambo in edinburgh, a friend of three decades and with two other colleagues christian andersen. It scripts researching lawyer, california and robert Gary at the two lane university school of medicine

Warnings in lipkin of colombia, universities, mailmen school of public health joined the huddled later. These five would form a sort of long distance study group aimed towards publishing a paper on sars, covey two's genome and it's likely origin homes, Anderson and their colleagues recognise the viruses, similarity to bat viruses, but, with more study, saw a pair of notable features that gave them pause. Those features, too short. Blips of genome constituted a very small percentage of the whole, but with potentially highs

Difficult for the viruses ability to grab and, in fact, human cells, they were technical sounding elements familiar to Veronica's that are now part of the covert origin, vernacular a foreign cleavage site, f c s as well as an unexpected receptor, binding domain are be de. All viruses have our bees, which helped them attached to cells and, if cs as a feature that help certain viruses get inside the original sars virus, which terrified scientists worldwide, but caused only about eight hundred deaths, didn't resemble the new corona virus and either respect how had sars kofi to come to take this form. Anderson and homes were genuinely concerned at first that it might have engineered for those two features deliberate, add ons certain into some corona virus, backbone by genetic manipulation, intentionally

the virus more transmissible and pathogenic among humans? It had to be considered homes called Jeremy Ferrar, a disease expert who was then director of the way, come trust a foundation in london that supports health research, for our saw the point and quickly arranged a convert. Call among an international group of scientists to discuss the genomes, puzzling aspects and the possible scenarios of its origin. The group included robert Gary two lane and a dozen other people, most of them distinguished european or british, sign This with relevant expertise like rambo in edinburgh, marian coop months in the netherlands and Christian draws them in germany, also on the call were anthony fouche. Then head of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases and france's collins, then, director of the national institutes of health and therefore fancies boss. This is the famous February first call on which, if you believe some critical voices, vouches collins persuaded the others to suppress any notion.

that the virus might have been engineered. The narrative going around was that found she told us change our mind. Yadda yadda, yadda yadda, we were paid off home, said to me. It's complete anderson, cooper. There is no universe in which this would even be possible. He told me recently based on select of their private email and slack traffic made public anderson and his colleagues have been accused of concealment and dissembling their messages? Critics contend prove that, even as they were, deeply concerned and private about the engineer, virus or lab release possibilities. There were striving to keep both out of public discussion, but as the researchers describe it, these apparent contradictions were simply reflection of their fast evolving view. After initial concern that the receptor binding domain and sars covey too, might be assigned engineering, for instance, they learned soon after the february first conference call over there

similar r b dina corona virus that infected penguins. It was detected from a public database by a bio one, from a titian in Houston, Matt, Wong and posted on the virological website, where it eventually came to the group's attention It showed that such an r b d had evolved in the wild and might well have gotten into sars covey to buy recombination the natural jean swapping process Anderson and the others also recognize that foreign cleavage sites occur. Naturally, another corona viruses like the murders virus, though not, as so far detected. In any other member of the sub genus which sars covey to belongs. Such new data lead to a new conclusion and what anderson called on twitter a clear example of the scientific process. Sixteen days after the conference call, they posted a pre print, a draft not yet pure.

Viewed of their paper and four weeks later it appeared in the journal nature medicine. This was the one title, the proximate origin of sars covey to Anderson and his co authors stated their conclusion at the top. Our analyses clearly show that sars covey too, is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully, manipulated violence that still have the possibility of a natural virus. In an animal host and passed into human, by so another transfer, or perhaps a natural virus accidentally leaked near papers. Then they stated something more new ones, but while it genetic engineering of the virus could be ruled out. It is currently impossible to prove- or this of the other theories of its origin described here. That said, they added we do not believe that any type of laboratory based scenario is plaza.

Done the hard part you quit smoking now. Do the easy part get scanned for lung cancer. Lung cancer is still bleeding cancer killer of men and women, but it is more curable been detected early if he smoked, you may still be at risk, but early detection could save your life talked her doctor and learn more had saved by the skin ign dot, org brought to you by the american lung association and the ad council. Hey. It's been frumin editor in chief of wirecutter. We put together the ultimate guide to make moving way less miserable, and I wanted to find out a few of our writers' favorite tips when you move into your new place gets a nod a priority to have everything to make a bee falling ten for your first night, but you are going to want a knife to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Probably what do you recommend buying the mattress bag? You can carry,

it matters more easily because the handles are built in and it's going to protect your mattress from the truck industry. Let's talk safety essentials when you're moving into your home, make sure that you change the batteries in your smoke detector. It just gives you a peace of mind and you won't have to worry about the chirpy sound that happens every minute, or so I've gone to the grocery store for use empty boxes. That's no good investment, good boxes. It will save you so much time and money make sure you have towels on hand. You don't want to end up taking a shower and using a dirty sock to dry off whether you're prepping moving or settling into your new place. Let wirecutter help you make a plan. Come visit us at n Y times, dot com, slash moving. one other corona virus quickly came to light as the closest known matched sars covey to this wasn't actually a virus in the flesh in physical presence. It was a genome sequence assembled from our any fragments extracted from a fee

we'll swab sample of a bat captured in a mine several years earlier in two thousand thirteen. The mine was in union province, one thousand two hundred miles south west of war on the gene was ninety six point: two percent identical to the sars covey to genome assembled from people during the early days of the pandemic. That degree of similarity or a three point, eight percent difference suggest a common virus ancestors some years ago, and independent evolution in the years since so this represented a cousin to sars covey to not its progenitor the work of sampling, the bad and assembling the sequence. First, just a Russian then, with better technology. Nearly the whole thing. I've been led by We see at the witch hunt institute, virology she and her team label. The sequence are eighty g. Thirteen coding facts that it came from an individual arena. Loafers office are a the intermediate horseshoe bat captured in that mine and tongue won, t g

and in the most young district of union in two thousand. Thirteen are a tv thirteen has attained renown, not just because it constituted strong evidence of sars kogi two's ancestry, and by viruses, but also because the Moselle mine figures in some of the more lurid scenarios for lab leak, origin. part of what makes the very name more young seem lurid is that in two thousand, twelve three workers at the mind died of unidentified respiratory infections after days of underground

or there what got into their lungs and killed them. Was it a fungus? Was it a virus? Some lab leaked proponents suggest that those deaths described in too obscure medical theses written in mandarin, represent the earliest known fatalities from a virus, possibly r a t g, thirteen that either already was or in cheese lab became sars co v two or it's immediate progenitor. That is something far more similar than a cousin. The inference is that she's team, a year after the mineworkers died, may have taken the virus back to one of the most young deaths were also reported in twenty fourteen in the journal image infectious diseases by scientists who found an entirely different virus also potentially dangerous, because it had similarities to deeper and henry viruses and was carried the machine mind by rats not bats, one take away sample the rats, bats and other fauna in mine, and you might well find of her.

any viruses you wouldn't want in your lungs, another problem with the r, a t, g, thirteen scenario: it's genome differs from that of sars coffee to add more than one thousand one hundred scattered positions throughout it's genome to engineer sars kobe two into existence by starting with the a tv thirteen would have been unreasonable and impractical according to homes and other experts and corona virus. Genomics. Furthermore, it's important to remember that r, a t g thirteen was a genome sequence, not alive virus. It was information, not a biological entity. Coaxing a virus that lies dormant in bat guano to grow in a cell culture is difficult and usually the effort fails. Chung Lee JI told John Cohen, a senior chorus. and for the journal, science in her answer to a set of emailed questions, but she never grew are a tv thirteen in our lab. She told me this

thing during it to our conversation by zoom. No, no. We couldn't culture any of the sample from this cave machine She was in shanghai for a conference on the night of december thirtieth, two thousand nineteen, as she explained to me when word reached her about a mysterious respiratory, miss spreading dangerously among people back and will hon preliminary lab results suggested a coronavirus, not sars virus, but something similar might be the cause. She was asked to help identify the thing put her lab team to work on that immediately and took a train by we're on the next day within hours. Our lab at received a partial sequence from another lab. Her first instinct was to compare it with sequences of viruses. They had worked on themselves and we found its different. She told So, the afternoon of December thirty first, I already know it's nothing related to what we have done in our laboratory. Some credit, She was well aware, had suggested that are urgency,

Checking her own records was an implicit admission of error or guilt. Its normal was her response. John Cohen, mentioned the possibility of a lab leak and report published in science on January thirty. First, two thousand and twenty, noting that not all the earliest confirmed cases had some direct link to the one on market. Fourteen of the first forty one according to one study, did not meet those people have picked. Their infection somewhere else and maybe not from an animal at all after describing a couple of vivid but unsupported allegations, including the idea that sars covey to resembled a snake virus and snakes were sold, it will on wet markets. co and added the war on institute a virology, which is the premier lab in china. That studies in human corona. Viruses has also come under fire concerns have been voiced. He wrote about the security of the w ivy biosafety procedures and facilities,

Evidence regarding the origin of the virus, apart from what could be read from the genome itself, remains scarce during those early months in place of evidence It was the weight of scientific authority on one side and the volume of outcry on the other on february nineteenth twenty twenty, an open letter appeared online in the lancet, a british journal, signed by twenty seven scientists, some of them eminence senior figures in virology and public health, others Searchers in the full heat of distinguished careers, the statement of solidarity with chinese scientists and health professionals, who were then on the front line in efforts to understand and control the virus. The letter was organised by Peter. Doesn't a british american disease ecologist president of eco health alliance. A collaborator was strongly she Besides voicing support for chinese colleagues, it said

stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy, theory suggesting that covered nineteen does not have a natural origin, that expression of confidence so soon would prove be counter productive and the phrase? piracy theories landed, like bacon, greece thrown into a campfire, causing sceptics to flare and says the loudly. idea, meanwhile took hold in some political circles, partly because a dovetailed with attitudes toward the chinese government, its repressive policies and its penchant for secrecy and late january. Twenty twenty, even before collins january. Thirty. First article, the washington times, ran in article suggesting links between w ivy and a covert by a weapons programme of the chinese military. The article later walked back with an editors note was based largely on assertions by a former israeli military intelligence officer. Several weeks, afterward senator Tom cotton of arkansas voices

similar suspicion about the war on lab. On fox news. We don't have evidence that this disease, originated their cotton said, but because of china's duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question soon enough donald trump mind began to change. The president's spoke supportive lay about china throughout the early weeks of the pandemic and every seventh set of president cheating ping, I think he's handled it really. Well, then, the winds shifted and four months later trump was inciting his rally. Crowds by calling covered nineteen, the kung flu the attractions of the lab leak idea, weren't entirely partisan jamie. So is an author and political commentator who worked in the Clinton administration and at one point as a Senate committee staff member working closely with senator Joe bite,

metal has a blindingly luminous, intend liberal tinge resume. That includes a phd from oxford, a j d from harvard law school, a senior fellowship at the atlantic council and thirteen iron man triathlon A former member of the deluge show expert advisory committee on human genome. Editing met so called early, for an investigation into the origins of the pandemic, including, in his words, the distinct possibility? This crisis may stem from a research related incident in WU han Having spoken up about this in the early months of two thousand and twenty metal encountered resistance that seems to have startled and aggrieved him. When I was seeing this different story, he told me- and I started speaking publicly about it. Friends of mine would say two things. The first was, you're a progressive liberal democrat, but your delivering a message that helpful to trump implication metal should get back on the right side of scrimmage. The second sort of comment he says was: who the f are you

You have all these senior scientists and nobel laureates and others were saying. It comes from nature who the ever you to say that, based on your analysis, deductive reasoning: you have additional questions. The process. Rising by muslin others who saw a different story from natural spillover lest the swing of trumps message, plus the prevailing cultural disposition to distrust experts plus. No doubt other factors had an effect on public opinion and media attention, if not on scientific consensus, according to the pew research centre polling americans in march, twenty twenty forty three percent. leave that the virus emerged natural against less than thirty percent, who thought it came from a lap developed either by accident or intentional by september. They twenty another pulling organization found the natural verses lab options embraced almost equally by june twenty twenty one, a politico harvard bore, but the law Origin idea, ahead by two to one march fifth,

two percent of americans versus twenty eight percent metal himself, contained. The somewhat agnostic position that accidental release is a possibility, but not the only possibility. in his eventual march, twenty twenty three testimony to congress. He urged fully examined all relevant origins, hypotheses obvious. Including a lab origin, but also a market origin which some experts I respect, believed to be more probable. Among those experts, he cited michael warrant, an evolutionary virologist at the university of arizona. moreover, as a canadian born oxford, educated scientist, who speaks mildly and times entertains provocative theories. One such theory was o pv: the oral polio vaccine hypothesis for the origin of the hiv aids pandemic,

I first interviewed want to be a dozen years ago to hear about that. The o, p v hypothesis asserted that the virus hiv one group m was put into humans inadvertently during reckless trials of an oral polio vaccine on unsuspecting african volunteers, including hundreds of thousands of children. The vaccine had been developed in chimpanzees, sell cultures, so the hypothesis claimed and contaminated with a chimpanzee virus that became hiv. One m in early two thousand would be left as doctoral studies, an ox I flew to a war zone in the democratic republic of the congo and spent weeks collecting

pansy dung in the forest to test that high policies. His senior partner on this wild cat expedition was WM hamilton, a famous oxford biologists to consider the upheaval, hypothesis plausible, worthy and hamilton collected their chimpanzee samples withheld from local forest guides and then scrambled out of key son gunny war or be with his arm in a sling from a badly infected forest wound, hamilton desperately ill with malaria. They reached england and Hamilton died soon, afterward from complications. The samples got lost in baggage handling. Then found then tested negative for the chin. the z virus, except for one simple that proved inconclusive. Such are the labors and frustrations of science war be along with other scientists, drawing and other evidence eventual.

Showed that the oral vaccine hypothesis was false, open mindedness toward a provocative hypothesis and a commitment to confirm it or refuted, as the evidence may dictate our among his priors, massage covey to twenty years later. War be likewise felt inclined to give the provocative heterodox I thought this is all due consideration concerned by what he saw as premature dismissal of the lab bleak possibility. He signed a public letter in spring two thousand and twenty one with seventeen other scientists, arguing that greater clarity about the origins of this pandemic is necessary and feasible to achieve. We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data one of the letters other co signers. In fact, the first as listed was Jessi. Bloom Warby had helped initiate the letter with emails to bloom,

march twenty first of that year, including the suggestion I've been thinking about something like a perspective in science or an object in the new york times. The letter was initially, after by bloom and two others alina Chan, a molecular by. just two as an author of a pre printed, twenty twenty arguing that sars coffee too was already well adapted to infecting humans at the start. Raising questions about, providence and David roman of stamford, a distinguished microbiologist with a long term concern about bio security issues and some gain of function. Research There's a group contributed input and the letter ran in science on may fourteenth twenty twenty one under the imperative title investigate the origins of covert nineteen, but from that point with passing months and more research or be would diverge from the most vocal of his co seiners regarding what constitutes Sufficient data, strong tides of opinion, were moving by spring twenty twenty one and international.

team of scientists recruited by the world health organization to its joint w h, o china study of the origins of sars kogi too, had returned from a month and WU han and issued its phase. One report in a laboratory leak extremely unlikely that finding took credit from war or be bloom and their co. Authors of the letter to science published weeks afterwards, even a direct your general of the w h, o himself, better teachers of non governing aces hoped for further investigation at a news conference marking the report's publication. David said as far as w h, o is concerned. All hypotheses remain on the table, noting the need for continued research notwithstanding terraces hopes, and mainly because of chinese resistance. There has been no official phase to follow up study per se. Instead, the debate show

created a scientific advisory group for the origins of novel pathogens, sago a body of disease scientists who will continue to study the origins of sars coffee too, as well as other dangerous new bucks, Murray, have and kuroko the technical lead for covert at the w h o has been vocal about the barriers to Chris. There is very little information that can be accessed with regard to labelling with regard to breach of biosafety or biosecurity, and that's the problem. She told me recently saying that she had discussed the issue directly with chinese officials. That's what's frustrating she added with a lack of information. Your left with these gaping holes popular articles espousing the lab, like I d, also begin to blossom. Fourth around this time in maggie in newspapers and on web platforms in january, when he twenty one new york magazine carried a covert org. article by Nicholson, baker, but lately published a book american by a weapons research in the early nineties fifties and his frustrations with the four

Move information act baker now raise the. What? If question about corona virus research in may two thousand and twenty one nicholas wade who once worked for the new york times published a long article in the bulletin of the atomic scientists describing the collaborations between chung lee jeez, lab and eco. of alliance for research on bad corona viruses as potential threats to human health research that wade suggested could have led to the escape virus intentionally made more dangerous to humans. Soon, afterwards, in other science writer with former connections to the times. Donald G, macneil junior found himself moved by wade's article two do further probing and questioning and posted a more judicious essay concluding all we have so far is speculation and all

Explanations are unsatisfactory in early june vanity, fair, followed with a feature by the journalist, catherine ebon, suggesting that research at the w ivy or alternatively field collection of bad samples, any accident to infection of a field worker might have put the virus engineered or not into people. Then came John stewart on June fourteen twenty twenty one, the comedian appeared on Stephen colbert, show and announced with sublime confidence and transfer. and shallowness his grounds for certainty that the virus first detected in wilhelm had come from a war on lad if Look at the name. He shouted look at the name. Stuart got the name of the institution wrong. In fact, he called w. I ve the war on novel respiratory corona virus lab, though we got the name of the city right. How much that mattered to call bears millions of viewers is on

around twenty twenty and twenty twenty one scientists with deep expertise. and relevant fields, especially molecular pollution or veterans a ology and molecular low genetics. The drawing of family trees back Harrison of genomes were busy to their efforts at a data and now seized, the natural origin side of the battles. One study by two chinese researchers and three westerners showed that the wet markets and move on not just the notorious com. One but also three others contained numerous shops selling wild animals for food from may two thousand and seventeen to november two thousand and nineteen, the offerings included raccoon dogs masked palm civets and malayan porcupines Many of the animals showed would seem to be wounds from gunshots or traps suggesting harvest from the wild, as distinct from farm raised wildlife, but like the requisite document.

and to make their say legal under China's wildlife protection law. That's important because it gave local authorities and centre as the pandemic spread. What was the market as they did on January? First, two thousand and twenty conseil. Whatever illegalities had been ignored by enforcement officers there ro. The assumptions made about china's motivation to cover up a lab leak. It's worth it, and that they would have had similar motivations, including that seventy billion dollar national industry to cover up devastatingly sequential markedly. Another study published by science in July, twenty twenty two with Michael war his first author joined by any homes and marion cope months and many others consider the spatial pattern of more than one hundred fifty of the earliest covin nineteen cases from December, two thousand nineteen or being leagues found that not only were one on market customers and workers and people in contact with those customers are workers, among those cases living close to the market

but so where patients with no known epidemiological linked to the market. Therefore, that market was the early epicenter of the pandemic as the papers title declared a distinct related study that appeared around the same time with war, a b and other co authors, but in this case, with jonathan peak hours, first, author looked at the shape of the sars covey to family tree. It was unexpected as drawn from comparison of genome sequence from human samples taken at the beginning of the pandemic. It consisted too thick limbs branching from a trunk. Then each limb exploding into many tiny stems without intermediate branches the two major limbs, were lineages labelled, lineage a and lineage be from, all the viruses later diversity arose. Lineage be was the more prolific and successful accounting for most of the world's covered nineteen cases, including all early cases directly linked to the

It may need a had been found in the market to by the chinese team that swathed after the place was summarily closed. That's much of a turned up on a pair of discarded, gloves, Lenny J was also detected in two covered patients living near the market be car and his colleagues did a high tech analysis of the tree pattern. Those two big limbs, then, that explosion of twiggy stems from each and concluded that the virus probably entered humans multiple times the outbreak of human infection. They judged most likely had at least two separate beginnings. Why did this finding matter to spillovers into people? market stalls holding infected raccoon dogs was more parsimonious than to separately, and did laboratory workers carrying their infections independently to the same market, partly that's because of geography who had instituted virology, as John Stewart tried to say, is indeed in the city of who hunt, but it sits on the other side of the Yangtse river,

More than seven miles as the crow flies from the one on market imagine pass tech choices to hold you back. If knows, Go. I t vendor told you know if he knew that The harness complexity not be overcome by it. What would you do if you could see what's possum at red, hot dot, com, slash options, redheads, objective experts, flexible technologies and dedicated partners. Provide the options you need today to go wherever tomorrow leaves no matter. The clock environment up or vendor visit, red, hot dot com, slash options to keep your options: open

beginning early this year, the popularity of the lab accident idea, which grew steadily from twenty twenty three twenty twenty two received several additional boosts on february, twenty sixth, the wall street journal

ported that the? U S, department of energy, one of the organizations assigned earlier by president Biden to study the origin question offered a new judgment previously undecided. The d o e's intelligence people now concluded, though, with low confidence that the pandemic most likely began from a lab leak. The journal's reporters had this from a classified intelligence report on available for scrutiny by the public, but delivered to the white house and key members of congress who are unidentified the next day. Cnn's website posted a follow up story stating that three sources also unidentified had told see.

and that the deal he based his shift, partly on information about research done at the Warren center for disease control and prevention and other disease related facility in the city. More than seven miles from the Wolfson institute of virology. This caught my attention because I knew that the WU han c d c, having recently relocated, was now just a few hundred yards from the one on market it occurred to me disquieting lie that a virus leak from the center might fit the spatial clustering of early cases around the market, as analyzed by war, a b and his colleagues in a way that a putative leak from the w I ve did not but nothing more on, that provocative assertion has come from cnn or from any other news outlets in the months since, I was reminded that the war on cdc move to its new location near the market only on december. Second, two thousand nineteen that date plus

time, presumably needed to bring laboratory work back on line? Might not gibe with a viral outbreak that most likely began and late november, in any case, to different sources, with good access to the chain Research community told me that the war on CDC, as distinct from the national cdc in beijing at no corona virus research programme before the pandemic. One of those sources Jane chew A china born independent journalist added that the war on groups mandate was mainly technical tasks such as disease surveillance rather than research true, couldn't name her own sources due to their potential jeopardy in china, more recently, in mid june, came the sub stack article. I alluded to earlier claiming that Ben who and two others from shingly she's lab where the first people infected by the virus and therefore the starting.

went off the pandemic, hosted by Michael shellin and to co authors. This article cited unidentified sources within the: u s: government who was a first author on a two thousand seventeen paper describing the she groups discovery of multiple corona viruses related to sorry, groovy too and bats from a cave, not the more young mine in southern china and experimental work on three of those viruses that some critics considered risky who, when the other two scientists according to shellin berger and his co, authors had contracted covered nineteen like illnesses in november, two thousand nineteen suggesting that they were the conduits I have a lab leak who himself promptly denied the allegation in an email to John Cohen at science. I did not get sick in autumn two thousand and nineteen and did not have covered nineteen like symptoms at that time. Furthermore, who told Cohen he and both colleagues had tested negative for signs of recent covert infection, antibodies

in march, two thousand and twenty, the surge of opinion to the lab bleak idea, was interrupted. In march, when Florence de bar, a scientist working for france's national centre for scientific research, discovered another body of interesting evidence, long missing, but now found this was genomic data from the swab sampling of door, surfaces and equipment and other items, including that pair of discarded gloves gathered at the one on market. In early twenty twenty but withheld since that time the data were released, perhaps by mistake, and a bar was alert enough to spot them and recognise what they were a team of researchers, including war, or be detected a pattern in the data strong proximity between them both containing raccoon dog dna and others containing sars covey to fragments and some samples, the contained both from stalls in the southwest corner of the market or wild animals had been so

does food malayan, porcupine dna and a more hedgehog dna were also found near the virus. But raccoon dogs were of special interest because of their proven susceptibility to sars. Covey to these findings didn't established that raccoon dogs had carried the virus into the market, but they added plausibility in detail to that scenario. Notwithstanding the day of our group's revelations, the lab leak idea has remained strongly preferred by public opinion, and not just in the united states Turning to one poor has of April twenty twenty three sixty two percent of italian respondents, fifty six percent in france and fifty percent in the united kingdom. found the lab leak idea. Most compelling the sizeable segments of undecided and flux people leaving only modest minorities, embracing natural spillover. Earlier pole,

It showed lab related scenarios even more strongly favoured in still other countries, ranging from seventy three per cent in kenya and sixty four per cent in hungary to fifty eight per cent in brazil. Various factors may account for this public drift to the lab bleak hypothesis. In my view, a preponderance of empirical evidence is not one of them. I agree. It's important to remain open minded toward a lab, bleak possibility, but most of the arguments made in support of that possibility boil down to conjecture from circumstance and unsupported accusations to speak of a lab leak hypothesis in the singular. Is, of course, misleading. There are multiple loudly hypotheses, just as there are multiple ways. Unnatural spill over could have occurred, a moron

in passing and a million phrases. Research related incident referred by jamie metal and some other critics that covers several possibilities, including the chance that misbegotten gain a function. Research at the w I ve or the wolf on cdc or who knows, where yielded a dangerous new hybrid virus that escaped through malfunctioning autoclave or an infected technician or grad student. In support of the scenario. Proponents point to a grant proposal known as defuse made by eco health alliance. To a? U S, defence research agency in two thousand. Eighteen, though, never funded for experiments that some critics

and strew is potentially dangerous, gain a function. Research and other research related possibility the nightmare that some chinese by a warfare programme created a murderous virus intentionally, but let it escaped to the world by some catastrophic guph, still another. The notion that a scientific fieldwork or became infected while taking samples from bats in say the more young mine where chunky she's team found are a tv thirteen They're, all vivid, but not all logic, and it seems to me they dont, reinforce one another. If a war old corona virus from my young mine was capable of infecting in transmitting among humans, for instance, than it didn't need to fear and leave it site to be inserted during reckless or malevolent laboured, and if it, in did a scientific, fieldwork, grinned. Two thousand thirteen in that field. Work. Returned to rule on. Where did that This linger for six years before exploding through the city's population. In two thousand ninety,

and if the virus was engineered in she's lab using sophisticated. In editing methods or was is formed into this dangerous pathogen by passing. A less dangerous virus through cell cultures were living mice, which seems far fetched and then subsequently gaped than the more young mine with all its sinister narrative appeal is irrelevant and other The various research related incident hypotheses may each be plausible some more than others, but they compete against one another. You can't pile them all on the scale and judge the likelihood of an unnatural origin by their combined weight. lab leak. Partisans have focused intently on she and her lab, but it's important to bear in mind that she has made her career by publishing Research and issuing warnings about potentially dangerous corona virus is found in the wild, not by keeping them secret if she had such a form

doubly dangerous virus in our lab in two thousand and eighteen or two thousand nineteen, a virus similar to the original sars virus, but with it sceptre binding domain and a fear cleavage site well shaped for human infection features that could make it even more dangerous. She presumably would have announced that important discovery from the pages of a leading journal to a professional gain, as well as the benefit of the world. She didn't and there's a small body of lost evidence recently recovered. That seems to support this logic in two thousand and eighteen, a scientist named G8 sure. Let us study of sars related corona viruses in. That's. His purpose was to illuminate the evolution of the original sars virus by placing it on a family. Tree of its relatives show had been a post doctoral low and eddy homes, as lab going from, to the war on institute virology for a couple of years, then to a position in Shanghai shaw and a group of colleagues, including

of homes and generally, she analyzed partial genome sequences of sixty corona viruses detected in bad samples collected from two thousand and seven to two thousand. Sixteen, I wrote a paper and submitted it to leading virology journal. It was rejected. They tried another rejected. The journals reviewers wanted complete genome sequences, but the team had only partials so in october, two thousand and eighteen they gave up on that paper. They pulled it from the submission process. They forgot about it. In the meantime, they'd submitted their partial but telling genome data to an international database jen bank with a routine

stipulation that it would be embargoed in this case, for four years, the embargo allowed them to retain exclusive access to the data for that period. In the event, they wanted to revive the project for years passed and then in october, twenty twenty two, the embargo expired the data mothballed since just before the pandemic, and now publicly available were revealing for what they did not include a progenitor of the pandemic. here were sixty corona viruses, the chummily she and others had considered intriguing in two thousand and eighteen, but nothing that matched sars covey to where's. The virus said eddie homes. Recounting this to me recently, the virus is absolutely not

air to other arguments in the lab. Lakeside deserve attention. Each can be phrased as a question. Why did sars covey two from the start seem to be very well adapted to humans and why, if its natural host with some kind of bat, has that host not yet been found after three and a half years? The first of those questions ignores the fact that sars covey too, has shown itself from the beginning to be quite capable of infecting other mammals, cats and dogs and eventually, a wide range of them tigers, guerrillas- mink, why till dear and others not just humans. The second question betrays a lack of familiarity with a history of emerging viruses, The novel virus appears suddenly in humans, causing does he's and alarm. The search for its natural host is always an urgent task, but such ecological work is difficult to do under the public health emergency of an outbreak and once the outbreak or epidemic or pen

They make is controlled, the sense of urgency and the available research money tend to disappear. Finding the host animal is sometimes easy by luck and sometimes hard by dint of fine horseshoe bats with high confidence. As the likelihood of the original sars virus took fifteen years tracing the marble virus to its reservoir host. An egyptian fruit bats took forty one year. or forty two, if you count the time to publication and the natural host of Ebola virus, despite what you may think, you've heard is still unidentified forty seven years after its emergence at a remote mission hospital in what was then a year. The suggested linkage between Ebola virus in some form of bat is still suppositions, not settled scientific fact, and we have enough suppositions entangled with this subject already. So, what's tilting the scales of popular opinion,

ford lab lick. The answer to that is not embedded deeply in the arcane data. I've been skimming through here. What's tilting, the scales it seems to me is cynicism and narrative appeal. I asked about this in conversation with David roman biosecurity expert, who was also an author of the investigate letter with jesse bloom to some extent, roman agreed You sow the seeds of distrust or suggest that you haven't been transparent with what you knew. He told me you're setting yourself up for a persistent insidious, continuing distrust bad inclines, people to assume that there was something deliberate or deliberately sealed. The seeds of distrust have been growing in america's civic garden and the world for a long time more than sixty percent of americans according to falling within the past several years, still declined to believe that lee harvey oswald?

world acting alone killed. John F Kennedy is that because people have read the warren commission report founded on persuasive and minutely, scrutinise the magic bullet theory. Now it's because they ve learned to be done. restful and because a conspiracy theory of any big event is more dramatic and satisfying than a small stupid explanation like the notion that effectiveness loser could kill a president by hitting two out of three shots with a thirteen dollar rifle. Most of us don't reach our opinions by fastidious calibration of empirical evidence. We default to our priors as jesse bloom noted, or we embrace stories that have simple plots, good and bad characters and melodramatic trajectories, and it seemed commensurate in scope to the event in question. The process of scientific discovery is accomplished,

story involving data collection. Ipod, is testing I path as his false suffocation. I path as this revision: further testing and brilliant, but fallible humans doing or that work scientific. fees and driven by hubris and leading to run away. Trouble, on the other hand, is a much simpler story that goes back at least to marry, Shelley's eighteen, eighteen novel frankenstein Carl bergs from as an evolutionary biologist and an author of commentaries, unscientific misinformation ponders, among other things, how students of science or talk, or at least should be taught about not just what science says, but what science is? I asked books ekstrom about the human affinity for dark theories of big event. There was something about that in thomas hardy, he told me it's in tests of the durban we're tests is doomed by hapless chance. It really sucks to live in a way. where we are at the mercy of hapless chance

I had never read tests of the dirt prevents to my embarrassment, so I stuck with sars clovy too This is not a contest now in the public domain between bodies of evidence I promote this is a contest between store, yeah bertram said that's right. the the. How are people managing it all instinct chill this back to school season with ali gummy as they deliciously delightful supplements, like laser guess, good, bye, stress than blackberries and sleep make it easier for you to find balanced. Amidst all the calendar chaos look, there will be appointments, meltdowns in more than one sleepless night throughout promising magic here, but with ali gummy is he'll, be able to pounce at all without getting boring,

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