A Nobel Laureate Said the New Coronavirus Was Made in a Lab. He's Wrong. - The Wire Science

22/04/2020
5-6 minutes
Luc Montagnier during the TV interview. Photo: YouTube.

...It is surprising to have a scientist of Montagnier’s stature utter such questionable statements – although Montagnier himself is a controversial figure. Among other causes, he has supported anti-vaxxers, homeopathy and a silly claim that DNA emits “electromagnetic waves”....

The 2008 Nobel Laureate for physiology or medicine from France, Luc Antoine Montagnier, caught the media’s attention when he recently endorsed a COVID-19 conspiracy theory – that the virus is human-made. His proclamation was subsequently magnified by various news outlets, including many in India (e.g., The Week, The Hindu Businessline, and Times of India).

Montagnier argued during a TV interview with a French TV channel that elements of the HIV-1 retrovirus, which he co-discovered in 1983, can be found in the genome of the new coronavirus. He also said elements of the “malaria germ” – the parasite Plasmodium falciparum – can also be seen in the virus’s genome.

His full quote: “We were not the first since a group of Indian researchers tried to publish a study which showed that the complete genome of this coronavirus [has] sequences of another virus, which is HIV.”

The COVID-19 vaccine development landscape

Stephen Mayhew
10-13 minutes
 (Figures and Tables ommited, for full article go here)
The genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, was published on 11 January 2020, triggering intense global R&D activity to develop a vaccine against the disease. The scale of the humanitarian and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is driving evaluation of next-generation vaccine technology platforms through novel paradigms to accelerate development, and the first COVID-19 vaccine candidate entered human clinical testing with unprecedented rapidity on 16 March 2020.

Powerful antibiotics discovered using AI

Jo Marchant
5-6 minutes
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00018-3
Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of Escherichia coli bacteria (green) taken from the small intestine of a child.

Escherichia coli bacteria, coloured green, in a scanning electron micrograph.Credit: Stephanie Schuller/SPL

A pioneering machine-learning approach has identified powerful new types of antibiotic from a pool of more than 100 million molecules — including one that works against a wide range of bacteria, including tuberculosis and strains considered untreatable.

“Academic mobbing” undermines open inquiry and destroys the soul of universities Open Future

Jul 23rd 2019
9-12 minutes
This is a by-invitation commentary as part of The Economist’s Open Future initiative, which is designed to spur a global conversation across the ideological spectrum on individual rights, open markets, free speech, technology and more. You can comment here. More articles can be found here.


In a 1951 essay for the New York Times Magazine entitled “The Best Answer to Fanatacism—Liberalism”, the philosopher Bertrand Russell laid out ten principles which he believed summed up the liberal outlook. The fifth item on Russell’s list was, “Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.” This statement echoes the motto of Britain’s Royal Society (a learned society founded in 1660 for the promotion of scientific knowledge), which is Nullius in verba, meaning “Take nobody’s word for it.”

Scientists just published an entire study refuting Scott Pruitt on climate change

By Chris Mooney May 24 at 1:46 PM

The Washington Post

In a sign of growing tensions between scientists and the Trump administration, researchers published a scientific paper Wednesday that was conceived and written as an explicit refutation to an assertion by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt about climate change.
The study, in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, sets up a direct test of a claim by Pruitt, made in written Senate comments following his confirmation hearing, that “over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming.”

'Brexit' May Hurt Britain Where It Thrives: Science and Research

By KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA
OCT. 17, 2016

The New York Times

LONDON — When Adam Durant started his company analyzing climate-related threats to aircraft, he and his team of researchers symbolized the possibilities offered by the European Union.

Soon after graduating from college, Mr. Durant received a prestigious European Union grant to study atmospheric chemistry and conduct climate-related research. When he started his business, he hired staff members from Belgium and France without having to sponsor their visas.

But since Britain voted in June to leave the bloc, Mr. Durant has become the archetype of something very different: a nervous entrepreneur, unsure about future funding and even considering leaving the country.

Laser-sparked fusion power passes key milestone

NEWSCIENTIST

12 February 2014 by Jacob Aron

CLEAN energy inspired by the stars is the dream of scientists pursuing nuclear fusion, in which atomic nuclei fuse together and release energy. In a first for laser-driven fusion, scientists at a US lab say they have reached a key milestone called fuel gain: they are producing more energy than the fuel absorbed to start the reaction.

But the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California, is still a long way from sparking a self-sustaining fusion reaction with an overall gain in energy – a process called ignition. Currently, the reactor as a whole needs more energy to operate than the amount that is produced.

Antarctica may have a new type of ice: diamonds

BY ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT ALISTER DOYLE

(Reuters) - A kind of rock that often contains diamonds has been found in Antarctica for the first time, hinting at mineral riches in the vast, icy continent -- where mining is banned.

No diamonds were found, but researchers said they were confident the gems were there.

"It would be very surprising if there weren't diamonds in these kimberlites," Greg Yaxley of the Australian National University in Canberra, who led the research, said in a telephone interview.