... The Andromeda Strain, revisited: The 2019-nCov germ warfare agent ~

... plus ...

 

My bad. I didn't read the whole OP. Genetic engineering and Bio-engineering are the same thing.

 

Cross breeding for specific traits is bio-engineering. Many outcomes of such would have had a slim chance of happening in the wild.

In order to make this virus the "natural" cross bred way in the lab would have required colonies of bats and pangolins, or at least tissue cultures of such. The GMO labeled way is much easier and cheaper.

 

maybe that's why pangolins are so prized in china, labs paying big money for them

 

They wouldn't be paying the big bucks if they weren't bidding against collies.

 

Yes, I am aware of that. Cross breeding can be used with higher lifeforms, such as plants and such, but it would be more difficult with single cell and viral germs. If it could be done, that would be how you would engineering a viral strain in such a way that no one could detect it as artificial. I think that was the idea being offered in the OP. However, technically you cannot cross breed single cell or viral germs because they are asexual. Otherwise, it might be possible by selectively controlling the host environment - relying on the germ's natural rate of mutation (or an accelerated mutation rate via radiation, etc)... ...Even then, that doesn't mean it would be practicable.

 

I'm just disappointed this thread isn't REALLY about the Adromeda Strain movie.
I really liked that movie when I was a kid.( SPOILER ALERT ) I remember being so frustrated when the scientist fails to get the information about the virus, when the flashing warning lights trigger an epileptic seizure.
And for it's time, the special effects and science seemed so neat. Also I liked mysteries and the whole story is a pseudo-science mystery.
It was based on a Michael Chrichton novel, so it was really a forerunner of Westworld, Future World and eventually Jurassic Park, and the whole the center cannot hold, technology goes wrong themes.

 

Hmmmm

I think I just found my next novel.
Thanks for the inspiration!

 

read all of crighton, mostly amazing

 

Yeah me too, quite a while back though. Had a box set of paperbacks, 5 or 6 of them. Wasn't another about ebola??

 

i can't remember either. maybe time for a covid book club

 

No, it's the spiritual side of Pangolins. After a rough morning lashing the undergrads for not faking results fast enough, you sit down and meditate with your Pangolin. It will work with you, they're very reliable that way, like so much of traditional Chinese medicine. After a while you come to realize that once you've spent 15 minutes closely studying the south end of a north bound Pangolin, nothing else in your day is really going to seem that bad. Works every time. I understand it's even been catching on in Seattle.

 

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Didn't hear it from a collie, did you? Careful, they're schemers.

 

not sure sprcial information was made to be spread on social media...

 

Andromeda strain had a 'chemistry lab' scene which was filmed in a geology lab at Caltech because none of the Chem labs look 'chemmy' enough.

The idea of a microbe capable of breaking down natural and synthetic plastic polymers has become quite news worthy. Because of accumulating plastic wastes, not (particularly) to bring down military aircraft (as in movie). Readers might be surprised by the very short list of polymer types that have not been shown to be microbially degradable. New varieties are arising in the Pacific Garbage Patch, with improved skills. Y'all should read more.

A lot of almost scientific things were in that movie and as I recall, in the source novel.

==
Microbial genetic and functional change don't quite happen as portrayed there. If anything, with modern genetic intervention, they could be worse. There is a perfectly sensible need to control some aspects of that, but no 'international government' surrogate that could make it happen. We are basically hoping that people with lab skills, proliferation skills, and evil intention are 3 non-overlapping sets in a Venn diagram. Not cheerful. Sorry.

 

Your what?

 

This may be tiresome old ground, but 'lab leak' could mean bats' coronavirus being studied In Wuhan Virology were allowed to escape BS-3 containment. This has not been supported by available evidence for location of earliest known human infections.

'Lab leak' could mean bats' coronavirus was genetically altered (gain of function seems more likely to me than making a war weapon, but whatever), followed by an even less likely containment escape. Less likely because folks doing sketchy or wholly illegal virus mods are less likely to let their pants go down. So to speak.

This Virology lab has since had international visitation (not done to everyones' satisfaction, OK?), but it has not been bulldozed and all its' staff have not been disappeared. A super-smokey smoking gun would have led to that. Followed by spin along the lines of - well I'd not even wish to say.

==
Anyone who reads the open literature on horseshoe bats and coronavirus with understanding has an adequate large view, even if lacking in full detail. That would include any country's policy community; a term not for me to define.

A larger, persistently important consideration of viral zoonotics might be impaired by squirrel chasing. It won't impair useful efforts by people who work hard to understand such things. It has and probably will continue to impair understanding by those who lactate on the lurid internet. To them, I can offer no help whatsoever.

But new zoonotic diseases are a serious concern for humanity, and squirrel chasing can only (attempt to) impair our useful responses.

 

Gain of function…..