BC SCIENCE
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JUST ONE PERSON—UK 🇬🇧 scientists think one immunocompromised person who cleared virus slowly & only partially wiped out an infection, leaving behind genetically-hardier viruses that rebound & learn how to survive better. That’s likely how #B117 started. 🧵 https://t.co/bMMjM8Hiuz

 2) The leading hypothesis is that the new variant evolved within just one person, chronically infected with the virus for so long it was able to evolve into a new, more infectious form.

same thing happened in Boston in another immunocompromised person that was sick for 155 days.
3) What happened in Boston with one 45 year old man who was highly infectious for 155 days straight before he died... is exactly what scientists think happened in Kent, England that gave rise to #B117. https://t.co/LBc8eCk3f9
4) Doctors were shocked to find virus has evolved many different forms inside of this one immunocompromised man. 20 new mutations in one virus, akin to the #B117. This is possibly how #B1351 in South Africa 🇿🇦 and #P1 in Brazil 🇧🇷 also evolved. https://t.co/74dr2pFiRg
5) “On its own, the appearance of a new variant in genomic databases doesn’t tell us much. “That’s just one genome amongst thousands every week. It wouldn’t necessarily stick out,” says Oliver Pybus, a professor of evolution and infectious disease at Oxford.
6) “New variants of Sars-CoV-2 are being created all the time but the vast majority of them go absolutely nowhere.
It was only when it became obvious that measures in Kent were failing that Public Health England realised the outbreak was being driven by a new variant.”
7) “#SARSCoV2 isn’t the only virus that can linger for an unusually long time within the human body. Ebola virus RNA has been detected in the semen of men a year after recovery. Some people stay infected with norovirus – a common stomach bug – for more than six months.
8) “One man in the UK has excreted infectious poliovirus for at least 28 years. The man had been shedding mutated virus for so long that researchers writing about his infection said that he, and other chronic excretors, pose an “obvious risk to the [polio] eradication programme”!
9) “But the real problem isn’t chronic infection – it’s a situation where pandemic is so out of control that the virus has endless opportunities to mutate into new variants. That situation is a reality in the UK and in dozens of other countries with dangerously high case rates.
10) ““These are all edge cases, but if you have enough people infected over a long time, you run the risk of hitting those edge cases,” says Hodcroft. It is not surprising that some of the most worrying new variants – from Brazil, South Africa and the UK –
11) ...”emerged from parts of the world with relatively high levels of transmission. “When you have millions of people infected, with millions of viruses replicating in each one, there are lots of chances for the virus to explore new mutations and combinations,” says Lauring.
12) ““If we had control of the virus, we wouldn’t be seeing as many variants pop up, because there wouldn't be as many opportunities for evolution to happen.”
13) Since Sars-CoV-2 infects cells relatively quickly, in most cases it enters a host, replicates and then swiftly infects someone else, leaving little time for the virus to acquire many genetic changes.
14) When the virus enters the body of someone who is already immunocompromised, their body is constantly applying evolutionary pressure on the virus – pushing it to evolve into new and, in some cases, more infectious forms.
15) My take: the moral lesson is that, when given time and opportunity, the virus finds a way. The virus is a cunning mutating beast that will try every way to defeat us if we let it keep proliferating. We must stop it FAST, or else it will evade: https://t.co/Zk46pouYLM
16) And the virus will even evade people who has had prior immunity and prior antibodies to the older common #SARSCoV2. Such as this example — here not even people were protected from severe disease even if with prior immunity. https://t.co/yqgeNJsgzj?
17) Now just look where we are... #B117 is threatening to dominate the US soon next month as well. Florida especially. https://t.co/I7zIjne6nD
18) It’s now growing so fast in Florida, #B117 is already at 10% of all cases. And doubling time in 9 days or maybe even less. https://t.co/DlHtxqaXAr
19) If we go for full suppression, then we can have this too https://t.co/6HkE2IoDTY

More from Eric Feigl-Ding

Eric Feigl-Ding
Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
📍DOUBLE REINFECTIONS—wow, both PM Justin Trudeau and Biden’s HHS Secretary Becerra got *reinfected* with #COVID19–from same conference—➡️when did Becerra last get infected? May 18th 2022—not even a full month ago! Trudeau in Jan 2022. I worry it’s reinfections due to #BA5/#BA4.


2) #BA5 and #BA4 are worrisome. They are surging and they have high reinfection potential. Your past BA1/BA2 doesn’t substantially protect you from #Ba5/4


3) Excess deaths—the new #BA4 & #BA5 variants of the coronavirus are currently the **fastest growing** strains in the US & UK. ➡️They are exponentially replacing all other past strains. Learn from South Africa’s early warning signs and their excess deaths. #CovidIsNotOver #COVID


4) Is it a Paxlovid rebound for Becerra, as some are asking? Unclear—Paxlovid rebound usually only happens at day 10-14 that we know of and have data. The FDA says it’s 1-2% rebound but I counted 12% from this Pfizer graph submitted to FDA.


5) and yes, #ba5 / #BA4 are very problematic. they are 2x more resistant than even BA2 for neutralizing the virus compared to those who had breakthrough reinfections from older Omicron.
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Eric Feigl-Ding
Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
Wow. 1 in 3 hospitalized with #COVID19 gets readmitted to the hospital within a few months after discharge. ~48,000 UK patients.

Great animated lecture on #LongCovid by @Dr2NisreenAlwan, animated by @VickiGSP using info from UK @IndependentSage experts.


2) Furthermore, 1 in 8 of those who were discharged subsequently die. And many suffer long term ailments like heart disease, liver, kidney, diabetes, and more. This doesn’t even include less clinical critical cognitive effects. #LongCovid is real.


3) How common is #LongCovid overall? UK estimates 1 in 5 at 5 weeks and 1 in 10 have symptoms have even 12 weeks after initial #COVID19 diagnosis.

Lecture again by @Dr2NisreenAlwan


4) Let these numbers sink in... 1 in 10 at 12 weeks still have symptoms!


5) Here is the original study of the above lecture from few weeks ago. We need to prepare our healthcare system long term for the impact of millions with #LongCovid. This is gonna be larger than Gulf War Syndrome or long term health of 9/11 first responders.
ALL
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Eric Feigl-Ding
Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
NEW—CDC was truly suffocated by Trump WH at every turn. Kyle McGowan, a former chief of staff at CDC, and his deputy, Amanda Campbell, witnessed WH dismissal of science, WH’s slow suffocation of CDC’s voice, meddling in messages & siphoning of CDC budget.
https://t.co/HeuNbUggiw


2) ““Everyone wants to describe the day that the light switch flipped—It didn’t happen that way—more of like a hand grasping something, and it slowly closes, closes, closes, closes until you realize that, middle of the summer, it has a complete grasp on everything at the CDC”

3) “Mr. McGowan and Ms. Campbell, both 34, say they tried to protect their colleagues against political meddling from WH and HHS but was largely stifled by the Trump administration.

4) “The White House insisted on reviewing — and often softening — the C.D.C.’s closely guarded coronavirus guidance documents, the most prominent public expression of its latest research and scientific consensus on the spread of the virus.”

5) “The documents were vetted not only by the White House’s coronavirus task force but by what felt to the agency’s employees like an endless loop of political appointees across Washington.
Mr. McGowan recalled a White House fixated on the economic implications of public health.
HEALTH
Eric Feigl-Ding
Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
⚠️TWO DIFFERENT #COVID19 PANDEMICS—Many think with cases dropping that pandemic is nearly over. But truth is, there are now 2 different #SARSCoV2 pandemics diverging—old strain is waning, while the more contagious #B117 strain is dominating. We will be soon slammed very hard. 🧵


2) Here is what is really going to happen... most countries are having a gentle case decline with R(e) currently around 0.9. But this is deceiving. The #B117 is still relatively rare so far, so the R is being influenced mostly by the old common variant. But not for long...


3) Here is what is going to happen... currently R is ~0.9 in many places, but with the more infectious #B117, the R will jump 50% approximately. And it is inevitable (all CDC and Danish models say this) that B117 will take over as the reigning dominant variant soon...


4) and when that happens, what worked before to keep the pandemic contained at R of 0.9 will no longer work. Here is the model for Alberta, 🇨🇦 by @GosiaGasperoPhD. The B117 dotted red line will soon dominate and drive a new surge in latter half of March and April.


5) And Denmark 🇩🇰 CDC has found the same thing. I GQR works now for keeping R around 0.9 or even 0.8, will absolutely not work anymore once #B117 variant takes over. Forget about it. We will be hit hard. But there is a way—if we suppress R to 0.7 or less.
https://t.co/gOq0put4H5
COVID19
Eric Feigl-Ding
Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
ATROCIOUS big pharma price gouging of insulin:

This crying mother can’t afford the $1000 for her son’s insulin.

📌yet, it only costs pharma $5 to produce.

📌Insulin was invented 100 years ago by Fred Banting—who donated patent for $1 to make it free for all.

Let that sink in.


2) Insulin is one of the most disgusting cases of price gouging ever.

America has long taken a free market approach to pharmaceuticals.
Drug companies haggle separately over drug prices with a variety of private insurers across the

3) “Meanwhile, Medicare, the government health program for those over age 65 — it’s also the nation’s largest buyer of drugs—is barred from negotiating drug prices. That gives pharma more leverage, and it leads to the kind of price surges of EpiPens, opioid antidotes, & insulin.”

4) In 2018:
Johnson & Johnson CEO made $30M
Pfizer CEO made $28M
Merck CEO made $18M
Eli Lilly CEO made $16M
Gilead CEO made $16M

Meanwhile:

📌Americans spent $535B on Rx drugs

📌1/4 of diabetics rationed insulin to survive

📌500K Americans went bankrupt from medical bills.

5) What’s the right price patients should pay for medications? ZERO dollars, because no copay ==> more patients get their medicine ==> saves lives and saves money. Copays decrease adherence, and copays hurt patients who actually need them.
FINANCE

More from Science

Anosognosiogenesis
Anosognosiogenesis
@pookleblinky
An interesting thing about carp is that they can go into anoxic hibernation and switch to an anaerobic metabolism based on converting glycogen to ethanol.

The waste ethanol is diffused out the gills

https://t.co/V3D1umHf04

Carp can switch over to an anaerobic metabolism and quietly exhale booze until the situation gets better.

They basically evolved the same metabolic pathway as yeast, independently.

In theory, if you spent a few thousand years breeding carp for it, you could use them to make booze.

They'd be enormous, almost entirely glycogen deposits with a fish added as an afterthought.

The really interesting thing about anaerobic carp, is that they can go 4-5 months without oxygen by relying on liver glycogen.

You, a human, have only about 100 grams of glycogen in your liver, about 400 more grams in your skeletal muscles. Call it 500 grams total.

In humans, glycogen is also burned for energy. This is where the marathon runner's bonk comes from: you only have about 2,000 calories worth, and running a marathon burns those 2,000 calories.
SCIENCE
Black Hole Group
Black Hole Group
@BlackHolesUSP
Today, we are bringing other exciting results involving black holes and AI. We released a new paper:

"Black Hole Weather Forecasting with Deep Learning: A Pilot Study"

Work by Roberta Duarte (@import_robs), Rodrigo Nemmen (@nemmen) and João Paulo Navarro (from @NVIDIABrasil).

The authors used deep learning to simulate the dynamics of gas accreting onto a black hole, i.e., black hole weather forecasting.

They trained the model (U-Net) with frames from numerical solutions of the hydrodynamical equations.

Numerical simulations are time-consuming. A simple simulation can take as long as 7 days to finish. If we go with more complex simulations, this time may increase.

We want to investigate if deep learning can be a new method to simulate accurately in less time!


In the paper, they discussed two examples:

1- The model simulating only one system after learning only from this system
2- The model simulating an unseen system after training with several systems with different initial conditions

In the first example, they trained the model with a single system and analyzed how the model simulates by iterative predictions.

The result is that the model can simulate up to 8e4 gravitational time accurately with a speed-up of 30000x faster!
SCIENCE
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Sean Carroll
Sean Carroll
@seanmcarroll
Hugh Everett's birthday! Pioneer of the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Let us celebrate by thinking about ontological extravagance. I will do so by way of analogy, because I have found that everyone loves analogies and nobody ever willfully misconstrues them.


We look at the night sky and see photons arriving to us, emitted by distant stars. Let's contrast two different theories about how stars emit photons.

One theory says, we know how stars shine, and our equations predict that they emit photons roughly uniformly in all directions. Call this the "Many-Photons Interpretation" (MPI).

But! Others object. That is *so many photons*. Most of which we don't observe, and can't observe, since they're moving away at the speed of light. It's too ontologically extravagant to posit a huge number of unobservable things!

So they suggest a "Photon Collapse Interpretation." According to this theory, the photons emitted toward us actually exist. But photons that would be emitted in directions we will never observe simply collapse into utter non-existence.
SCIENCE
Sean McClure
Sean McClure
@sean_a_mcclure
@engexplain @nntaleb 1/10
Science is assumed to be “evidence-based” but that term alone doesn’t mean much. What constitutes good evidence? How is evidence being used? Is it supporting or refuting a hypothesis? Was the hypothesis and experimental design predetermined or found ex post facto?

@nntaleb 2/10
The reality is you can find “evidence” for almost any narrative. Limit the sample size, cherry-pick studies, etc. Systematic reviews, meta analyses, and randomized controlled trials are all susceptible to selective interpretation/narrative fallacy.

@nntaleb 3/10
At the heart of the problem is the over-reliance on simplistic statistical techniques that do little more than quantify 2 things moving together.

@nntaleb 4/10
Take Pearson’s correlation, based on covariance. Variation can increase simultaneously across 2 variables for countless reasons, most of which are spurious. Yet this simple notion of “causality” undergirds much of scientific literature.

@nntaleb 5/10
Information-theoretic (entropy based) approaches on the other hand can assess *general* measures of dependence. Rather than some specialized (linear) view based on concurrent variation, entropy encompasses the amount of information contained in and between variables.
SCIENCE
Dr. Angela Rasmussen
Dr. Angela Rasmussen
@angie_rasmussen
Hard agree. And if this is useful, let me share something that often gets omitted (not by @kakape).

Variants always emerge, & are not good or bad, but expected. The challenge is figuring out which variants are bad, and that can't be done with sequence alone.


You can't just look at a sequence and say, "Aha! A mutation in spike. This must be more transmissible or can evade antibody neutralization." Sure, we can use computational models to try and predict the functional consequence of a given mutation, but models are often wrong.

The virus acquires mutations randomly every time it replicates. Many mutations don't change the virus at all. Others may change it in a way that have no consequences for human transmission or disease. But you can't tell just looking at sequence alone.

In order to determine the functional impact of a mutation, you need to actually do experiments. You can look at some effects in cell culture, but to address questions relating to transmission or disease, you have to use animal models.

The reason people were concerned initially about B.1.1.7 is because of epidemiological evidence showing that it rapidly became dominant in one area. More rapidly that could be explained unless it had some kind of advantage that allowed it to outcompete other circulating variants.
SCIENCE

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Vibhu Vashisth
Vibhu Vashisth
@VIBHU_Tweet
Do you know?

The Golden Shine on the artificial jewellery of modern times is a gift by Nagarjuna.

Now,u might be wondering,who is Nagarjuna?

Nagarjuna was the name of an ancient Indian scholar&scientist whose name is associated with the fields of Alchemy,Chemistry& Metallurgy.


He conducted a number of alchemic and Metallurgical experiments directed towards transforming base elements into Gold.
According to Eduard Sachau's Alberuni's India, Nagarjuna was termed as a Metallurgist who was born 100 yrs before Alberuni's time, who was born in 973 CE.


According to some records Nagarjuna was born in 9th century CE near Somnath,Gujarat and according to some Tibetan & Chinese sources he was born in Vidarbha,Maharashtra from where he later migrated to Deccan region.


Edward Schau quotes in his book,'They have a science similar to Alchemy and Nagarjuna is famous for this science which they call as 'Rasayana'.

Nagarjuna's book 'Rasaratnakara' is one of the earliest documented texts on Alchemy,Chemistry & Metallurgy in Sanskrit.Nagarjuna successfully discovered through his experiments the alchemy of transmutation of base metals into Gold.This was not real gold but a gold like substance.
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Shalini Singh Sengar
Shalini Singh Sengar
@Maverickmusafir
Post Independence, Army wanted to select the most experienced Indian commander as Army chief. But Nehru without consulting anyone appointed Gen Rob Lockhart, a senior British Army officer as the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Indian Army.


Most people were shocked to know that Nehru selected a British Man after fighting for independence for over 200 years! Major Gen A A ‘Jick’ Rudra of the Indian Army was completely upset with the decision.


One day Lockhart met Nehru with a strategic plan and proposed many government directive defence policies for the country. He placed it on the table and explained the point to PM Nehru. After a while Lockhart walked out of the room and met AA Jick Rudra,+

Lockhart looked shell shocked and stunned. When asked what happened he said “The PM took one look at my paper and blew his top. Rubbish! Total rubbish! We don’t need a defence plan. Our policy is ahimsa (non-violence). We foresee no military threats. Scrap the army!”

One year after the incident the Kashmir crisis had increased and Gen Lockhart used to exchange ideas with the Gen Douglas Gracey who was commander in chief of Pakistan Army.There were many infiltrations along the border which Lockhart knew and took no action. But Lt Gen Cariappa+
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dan spaceman
dan spaceman
@ohlaika
I'm gonna do my other star wars thread tomorrow, which will primarily be me yelling at a @RowanKaiser-shaped strawman for calling the First Order and The Resistance "cosplayers who the rest of the galaxy has to deal with"

the deal w/the New Republic, the First Order, and the Resistance is very weird and complex and I actually take issue with how Story Group frames the actual conflict.

pre-TFA stuff is presented as a "cold war" between the New Republic and the remnants of the Empire that form the First Order, which 100% makes sense.

But they frame the First Order's attack on the Hosnian system and the subsequent battle that takes place across TFA and TLJ as a full on war when it's very clearly a coup. A war implies at least equal standing, but the First Order completely wrecks shop and takes over the galaxy.

ok never mind I'm fucking doing this now.

The First Order fleet we see in TLJ is *not* the entire fleet of the First Order (I don't even think Starkiller Base was their main base of operations honestly, it couldn't have been considering they were operating out of Wild Space)
CULTURE
ArmaniTalks \U0001f399\U0001f525
ArmaniTalks 🎙🔥...
@ArmaniTalks
Manipulation Sign:

If you are compromising too much, there is a chance that you are getting manipulated.

Why are you the one that's always compromising?

How come the other person always gets their way?

Be more curious.

If something seems off, stick up for yourself.

'Wait, you sure I am being manipulated?'

I have no clue, that is only something that you can decide for yourself.

'Dang is there anything I need to look out for?'

Plenty..

But let me give you a few things to look out for.

👇

I see manipulation as skillfully controlling someone's behavior for egotistical or unethical purposes.

'How come people don't leave when it's happening to them?'

Because most people have 0 clue that they are being manipulated.

1. Guilt Trip

You ever made a mistake around someone, only for them to hold it over your head?

The will always bring up the mistake when you 2 are not seeing eye to eye.

These people will use that mistake as leverage to get what they want from you in the future.

Look out.

2. The Rationalizer

This person will commit the worst acts & find a way to rationalize it.

Example: cheaters when they get caught.

They have every excuse in the book for why they did it.

Heck, they are so good at rationalizing, they will make it seem like your fault.
LIFE
Kaspars Ozolins
Kaspars Ozolins
@lettlander
THREAD: Meditations on marriage metaphors in Ruth

The book of Ruth is, of course, a story about a beautiful marriage. But even before the courtship and the wedding and the important genealogy at the end, we find interesting language that is strikingly reminiscent of Genesis 2:24


That important verse reads:

'Therefore a man shall leave [יַֽעֲזָב] his father and his mother and hold fast [וְדָבַ֣ק] to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.'

The verb עזב can be quite strong in force. For example, Joseph leaves behind [וַיַּעֲזֹ֤ב] his garment as he flees from Pharaoh's wife's sexual advances. Countless times, Israel is depicted abandoning the LORD, for example in Judg 2:12 [וַיַּעַזְב֞וּ], and going after other gods.

Likewise, the verb דבק is rather striking. Lot is mortified of disaster overtaking him [תִּדְבָּקַ֥נִי] as he flees from Sodom. Israel is commanded in Deut 10:20 to cling fast [תִדְבָּ֔ק] to the LORD and serve him and swear by his name.

Together they illustrate how radical God designed marriage to be. Marriage is a real severing of family relations in order to form a new, permanent bond with another human being.

Something very similar to this takes places in Ruth's life.
HISTORY