*yawn*
Is this what you want this forum to be, Chip?
I've been laughing at your "Look at me! I'm a cowboy!" dress-up pics for a while. We play the picture game if you want, but you won't like it.
"A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."
Not playing.
Why?
"A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."
M: I came here for a good argument.
A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn't!
Me and the missus prefer to play Little Bo Peep and the straying sheep... although it can get messy. Don't ask who plays who....
Typos courtesy of Samsung Auto-Incorrect™
M: I came here for a good argument.
A: No you didn't; no, you came here for an argument.
M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn't!
lol
"A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."
Scientists are scientists. Some like to collaborate with others in their or related fields. Some don't. I've worked with both. My favorite PI (PhD version of a boss) collaborated with everyone, which meant I worked on a lot of very different things, and one main thing.
It isn't that the scientists sequenced the virus, because that's one of the things that kind of scientists do. I could probably just type in the appropriate keywords into the NCBI BLAST search engine and pull up the entire sequence for any number of pathogenic microoganisms, from viruses to parasites. Something more troubling that has happened at least once is that once the genome of a given virus has been sequenced, a lab can (and did in the case of a poliovirus) then synthesize that genome without resorting to host microorganisms to do so. What has kept that from happening on a wider scale is that relatively speaking, the poliovirus genome is tiny. Other viruses like influenza. poxviruses or Ebola, not so much. Some of those genomes are huge.
The point of sequencing any given virus, and then making copies of the genome is to study things like virulence factors. In the more benign sense, the goal is to find targets for pharmacological intervention. In the not-so-benign sense, there is always the possibility that tinkering with that genome could accidentally or intentionally make an organism that is the stuff of pandemic nightmares.
Oh, fer cryin' out loud! Okay, so I ate, breathed and excreted molecular biology for 8 years. However, the point of this was NOT to generate a pathogen. The point was to develop an accurate, sensitive assay for testing whether someoone has monkeypox or not. And it seems that's what they did. This development merely means there may be a reliable test that can be used across a variety of platforms to test for infection.
I always want to think that what I did was dead easy, and understandable by anyone. Then a post like this shows that this is not the case. It does not mean you are stupid or pig-ignorant. It means that what I did was a lot more complex and involved than I thought. It means that what I now do is more complex and involved than I think (blood banking). I, and probably most people, take their "everyday" knowledge for granted.
Don't ascribe evil governmental plots to create bioweapons when at least in the US research labs are porous and lax on basic laboratory safety. There is nothing as dangerous as a postdoctoral fellow. Nothing. Graduate students aren't much safer, but they usually aren't allowed to work with the really dangerous stuff. Based on my work with foreign grad students and postdocs, they aren't any safer than US students and postdocs. These people aren't intentionally dangerous. They just aren't as careful as they should be.
Lloyd (June 29th, 2022), Prettypenguin (June 29th, 2022)
No one did that, and the first post makes the point that conspiracy theorists will have a heyday with the notion.Don't ascribe evil governmental plots to create bioweapons when at least in the US research labs are porous and lax on basic laboratory safety.
That does not mean that governments (nefarious or not) have not or do not experiment with bioweapons - either through the development of or defense against. See: Defense Threat Reduction Agency. You may have experience in labs, but apparently not in the assessment of global threats in a classified setting.
The larger concern is small state actors with limited resources developing bioweapons in lieu of nuclear weapons. Large state actors (China, for example) do cause legitimate concern - to include accidental leaks.
The point of the OP is to raise the question about whether or not it is wise to work closely with a peer competitor whose behavior and intentions are questionable or concerning. It's akin to aiding a country to develop a nuclear energy program that instructs and provides the physical capabilities to use that program for nuclear weapons.
"A truth does not mind being questioned. A lie does not like being challenged."
[QUOTE=dneal;370414]
The point of the OP is to raise the question about whether or not it is wise to work closely with a peer competitor whose behavior and intentions are questionable or concerning. It's akin to aiding a country to develop a nuclear energy program that instructs and provides the physical capabilities to use that program for nuclear weapons.
The rational answer is no.
dneal (June 30th, 2022)
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