
Engineered bat virus stirs debate over risky research (2015) - BrandonMarc
https://www.nature.com/news/engineered-bat-virus-stirs-debate-over-risky-research-1.18787
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BrandonMarc
_An experiment that created a hybrid version of a bat coronavirus — one
related to the virus that causes SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) —
has triggered renewed debate over whether engineering lab variants of viruses
with possible pandemic potential is worth the risks._

... and bear in mind, while the world has 55 BSL-4 labs, China has one ... and
it's in Wuhan. Too many coincidences.

My ardent hope is that the hubris-laden excitement over CRISPR is diminished,
especially in Wall Street and Sand Hill Road.

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a_bonobo
This is just conspiracy mongering, you cannot engineer a virus like nCov using
CRISPR alone - all CRISPR-Cas9 can do is insert point mutations/change bases,
no way to use it to mereg different genomic pieces together

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danarlow
Before you jump to conclusions, here’s a relevant quote from the article:

 _“Although almost all coronaviruses isolated from bats have not been able to
bind to the key human receptor, SHC014 is not the first that can do so. In
2013, researchers reported this ability for the first time in a different
coronavirus isolated from the same bat population.

The findings reinforce suspicions that bat coronaviruses capable of directly
infecting humans (rather than first needing to evolve in an intermediate
animal host) may be more common than previously thought, the researchers
say.”_

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Capur
This is funny that everytime China has something happening, I see posts that
either implicitly hint conspiracy or intentionally black China emerge on
hacker news. If you really want to prove something instead of only showing
partial facts, please go through a thorough logical process.

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anticodon
Not only China and not only Hacker News.

I live in Russia and it's impossible to not notice that Russia is portrayed
only in negative light in Western media. If there's some news from Russia on
BBC, CNN, HN or any other western media, it's always negative. Often without
any proof. Often wrong (as I can see by living here).

It's just a neverending media war: pour as much dirt on competitors as you
can. People reading news rarely do fact checking. And it is also complicated
by the fact that most westerners know only one language (hence they can't
find/read any alternative opinion) and trust their media as "democratic and
fact-checked by default" (which is absolutely wrong).

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ohiovr
What are the benefits?

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harry8
Fundamental understanding.

This is probably required to effectively create cures. Dangerous research is
full of tricky trade offs and ethical issues.

~~~
BrandonMarc
It's also worth pointing out, all of the Great Powers are involved in bio-
weapons research. Even the USA. Classified of course. Very dangerous, but able
to provide tempting powers to politicians and military leaders.

Not that I support this ... But neither can I close my eyes and hope it's not
happening.

