Private channel session 1495
19 messages over 1h 42m, 2021-06-08 – 2021-06-08.
A “conversation” here is an activity session — a run of messages with under 60 minutes of silence inside it. The channel had no native conversation boundaries.
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Somebody emailed me about this - I'm wondering if we/I should try to engage Gavin Schmidt. He got caught up in the "Climate gate" shit, so he might have some advice.... [shared file(s): E3PTjDjWQAI5T29.jpeg, E3PTvcDXwAEuLAx.jpeg]
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Hi Robert, I'm a reporter with the Daily Caller News Foundation. I'm reaching out to all the scientists that worked on the Nature Medicine paper "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" about an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal onMonday by Drs. Steven Quay and Richard Muller claiming the available science suggests a Wuhan lab leak.As one of the scientists that contributed to the paper concluding that no laboratory-based scenario for COVID-19'sorigins are plausible, I was curious if you had any thoughts on their argument. Are Quay and Mueller missing anything here? My deadline is end of business Wednesday. SLACK_001149https://(www.wsj.con/articles/the-science-suggests-a-wuhan-lab-leak- 11622995184Specifically:_In the case of the gain-of-function supercharge, other sequences could have been spliced into this same site. Instead ofa CGG-CGG (known as "double CGG') that tells the protein factory to make two arginine amino acids inarow, you'll obtain equal lethality by splicing any one of 35 of the other two-word combinations for double arginine. Ifthe insertion takes place naturally, say through recombination, then one of those 35 other sequences is far more likely to appear; CGG is rarely used in the class of coronaviruses that can recombine with CoV-2._"In fact, in the entire class of coronaviruses that includes CoV-2, the CGG-CGG combination has never been found naturally._~ Now the damning fact. It was this exact sequence that appears in CoV-2. Proponents of zoonotic origin must explain why the novel coronavirus, when it mutated or recombined, happened to pick its least favorite combination, the double CGG. Why did it replicate the choice the lab's gain-of-function researchers would have made?_ Yes, it could have happened randomly, through mutations. But do you believe that? At the minimum, this fact--that the coronavirus, with all its random possibilities, took the rare and unnatural combination used by human researchers--implies that the leading theory for the origin of the coronavirus must be laboratory escape._ Best, Andrew KerrInvestigative Reporter Daily Caller News Foundation
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More from Baltimore - from the damn good business reporter at LA Times... Why he can do what so many supposed 'science' journalists can't, I don't know... https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021 -06-08/nobel-laureate-baltimore-smoking-gun-for-the-covid-lab-leak-theory
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It's behind a paywall for me but good on DB. Maybe he'll sign our letter.
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"Incognito" window and you should be able to read it...
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That's a helluva trick - why did I not learn this before?
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Works with Science too...
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Love it: "Yet Baltimore has effectively disavowed his characterization of the furin cleavage site. As with so many other claims made to support the lab leak theory, this "smoking gun" turns out to be mostly smoke."
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I can't Zoom today - I've got a lot on. I think we were lucky not to write the response to Bloom but should turn the evidence doc into a proper paper outlining what we do and don't know.
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Yeah, I agree - tricky though. Should we try to aim for a Zoom tomorrow or Thursday (Friday)? I think it would begood to touch base on what we have and where to go next
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I could do tomorrow morning - something like 2 pm your time
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Ditto for Friday
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Let me know what time you decide - I can probably make it.
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2pm my time tomorrow
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:+1:
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OK 10pm my time.
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It is when Eddie says tomorrow - I never really know what day that is.
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Sorry, my clock is set to Beijing time
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Well you need to be ready when your handlers call