biosecurity
Daily Alchemy: Can we make this controversy good?
36d ago“Should the House Energy and Commerce O&I Subcommittee ban public AI tools for biological design?”
Where did COVID actually come from?: Biosecurity reformers
The oversight gap The DEFUSE proposal — submitted to DARPA in 2018, not funded — described inserting furin cleavage sites into SARS-related bat coronaviruses. Whether the experiment was conducted anyway is the single most important unanswered question in biosecurity.... Where did COVID actually come from?: Epistemic process
Fifty days in February 19, 2020. Fifty days after the first reported cases. Twenty-seven scientists published a Lancet statement: "We strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting COVID-19 does not have a natural origin." No data. No evidence cited.... Where did COVID actually come from?: Lab leak
The published papers The WIV published a paper in 2015 describing the construction of a chimeric coronavirus — bat spike protein grafted onto a SARS backbone, capable of infecting human airway cells. Peer-reviewed. Available to anyone with a library card. We read it.... Where did COVID actually come from?: Biosecurity reformers
The oversight gap The DEFUSE proposal — submitted to DARPA in 2018, not funded — described inserting furin cleavage sites into SARS-related bat coronaviruses. Whether the experiment was conducted anyway is the single most important unanswered question in biosecurity.... Where did COVID actually come from?: The Story
The two sites The Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan sold raccoon dogs, bamboo rats, and civets stacked in wire cages — stressed, immunocompromised, shedding whatever they carried....