> How to translate 'we really don't know what happened' to 'is birdflupanic time!' in five seconds.
I didn't take "Scientists investigate X" to mean "X is claimed to be a crisis," so I don't really understand where this criticism is coming from. When I see a headline that scientists are investigating something, I assume it hasn't been confirmed, and I know that there's a good chance the hypothesis will later be disproven. I don't really see what Reuters is supposed to do about that, I think that's a responsibility you take on as a consumer of the news.
Ask me no more questions, and I'll tell you no more lies, but I'll talk you no more truths either.
> That leads us to wonder why the species of predatory "gulls" that were sampled positive for bird flu didn't died massively
Presumably the hypothesis would be that this particular strain of bird flu was endemic to skua seabirds and exogenous to penguins. Similar to how you might travel to a different country and get sick from their tap water, but locals drink it without issue. Viruses that jump from one species to another are often especially dangerous, which would explain why this strain of birdflu might kill a lot of penguins while leaving the skua birds largely unaffected.
The title suggests to me (maybe is a lost in translation case) that lots of penguins are being killed by bird flu. The article says that evidence of this is incomplete or just a suspicion.
In a frozen sample, we can't do histopathology. All the tissues are damaged. Also all pathogens based in cells are destroyed. There are a million of things that could have killed this penguins. For example, we know that the ocean is warming, and warm temperatures in the ocean trigger algae bloom, that can introduce toxins in the seafood chain that typically causes this results.
If penguins would need ice for fishing, and ice melted, same result.
Finding a virus in a sample where you can see the damage to the cells caused by the virus is one thing. Finding a virus where the only remains are frozen viruses in a tissue soup (unless you test for DNA) is a different thing.
This is a much more interesting criticism, thank you for sharing it.
This is out of my wheelhouse but I would be very surprised if virions were destroyed in a recently deceased and frozen body. There's not a whole lot of water in a virion, so it shouldn't be torn apart by ice. Virions decay fairly quickly since they don't have machinery to maintain themselves, but the reactions which break them down should be arrested by the cold. I've started algae cultures from frozen samples before, I can't imagine that even tough, small, spherical cyanobacteria are as resistant to frost as viruses.
The headline to me is an indication that this is a hypothesis under investigation. For better or worse, a lot of science news is about ongoing research that may not pan out. I think that asks more of the reader, in terms of holding ideas lightly and checking in as the story develops, but I don't think it's a flaw per day.
How to translate 'we really don't know what happened' to 'is birdflupanic time!' in five seconds.
That leads us to wonder why the species of predatory "gulls" that were sampled positive for bird flu didn't died massively