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A poster with a cat and the words: THE WRONG AMAZON IS BURNING THE WRONG ICE Is MELTING

Good morning 🫡

Solo para ñoños #giroditalia

An updated dataset of early SARS-CoV-2 diversity supports a wildlife market origin The origin of SARS-CoV-2 has been intensely scrutinized, and epidemiological and genomic evidence has consistently pointed to Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market as the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Early cases were associated with this market, and environmental sequencing placed the common ancestor of SARS-CoV-2 genomic diversity within the market. Phylogenetic analysis also suggested separate introductions of lineages A and B into the human population, a finding that can be tested with additional data. Here, we curated an expanded sequence dataset of early SARS-CoV-2 viral genomes, including newly available sequences from mid-January 2020. In this dataset, we found no additional support for previously proposed alternative progenitor sequences, or for any evolutionary intermediates between lineages A and B in the human population. Instead, we identified SARS-CoV-2 lineages that may have spread from the market, and additional samples of a sublineage of lineage A with three mutations, including one found in closely related bat coronaviruses. Although our analysis of early pandemic genomes suggests that this mutation is unlikely to characterize the immediate SARS-CoV-2 ancestor, it is more plausible than two previously proposed ancestral genomes. These findings reinforce the proposed emergence of SARS-CoV-2 from the wildlife trade at the Huanan market, demonstrating how new data continues to both solidify and clarify our understanding of how the pandemic began. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

An updated dataset of early SARS-CoV-2 diversity supports a wildlife market origin

Epidemiological and genomic evidence has consistently pointed to Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market as the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. New sequences reenforce this.

www.biorxiv.org/cont...
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Billionaires Score Best-Ever Day as Stocks Soar on Tariff Pause The world’s wealthiest people added $304 billion to their combined net worth on Wednesday — the largest one-day gain in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — as stock markets soared after ...

See how this works? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Formerly anti-vax parents on how they changed their minds: ‘I really made a mistake’ Researchers believe personal stories are more persuasive than facts alone in addressing vaccine skepticism

This is an important read. Most vaccine skeptic parents think they are protecting their children by choosing not to vaccinate. This is thanks to pervasive mis/disinformation. Understanding why the change their minds is informative to improve vaccine uptake.
www.theguardian.com/global/2025/...

It’s ironic that 15 out of 22 breakthroughs listed in the table are related to infectious diseases, many of them vaccines.

Just published today!!! Our contribution on population-wide measles immunity measurement in these complicated times of vaccine hesitancy, disinformation and obscure political agendas.

doi.org/10.1016/j.va...

•There is an increased risk of measles outbreaks, compromising Mexico's measles elimination status.
• Our results also suggest the same applies to mumps and rubella. This is worrisome because of the lack of immunity in reproductive age and the risk of congenital rubella.

•Measles seroprotection in Mexico is below the protection threshold. Probably the same as in many countries in Latin America
• Lowest measles seroprotection was found in the 20–49 years of age group, probably because insufficient vaccination coverage, vaccine-induced immunity waning or both.

Just published today!!! Our contribution on population-wide measles immunity measurement in these complicated times of vaccine hesitancy, disinformation and obscure political agendas.

doi.org/10.1016/j.va...

An axolotl in a tank

Axolotls have been important in Mexican culture since Aztec’s time. They’re named after the god Xolotl (monsters, fire, lightning). This amazing species is critically endangered in the wild, as it’s habitat is disappearing in Mexico City. Today is national Axolotl day! 🧪🐸🌎🇲🇽

The education system is not meant to simply brainwash children and produce 'proud' citizens.

It's designed to teach them critical thinking and allow them to become ethical, confident and informed citizens.

In that respect the numbers show it's working.

Measles outbreak expands in West Texas around county with low vaccination rate | CNN A measles outbreak is growing in a rural area of West Texas where vaccination rates are well below the recommended level.

The measles outbreak in a Texas county with low vaccination coverage continues to spread. Now up to 14 confirmed cases and 6 probable. Most are children, all are unvaccinated, and 2 were hospitalized. Vaccinate your kids. www.cnn.com/2025/02/07/h...

Here’s a reason why the incoming NIH Director, health economist Jay Bhattacharya, should know cutting indirect costs at NIH is self-defeating and stupid.

Every $1 invested in NIH returns $2.5.

So $4B “savings” is actually $10B we lost.

Statement on vaccines by New Orleans Health Department.

New Orleans steps up. We need to support them.

Picture of a plaque assay (purple field with clear holes) showing gorgeous poliovirus plaques

My replies are perpetually full of anti-vaxxers these days telling me about polio vaccines.

Not shockingly, most of what they are saying is wrong. Luckily, I trained with Vincent Racaniello & he taught me a few things about poliovirus.

So let’s discuss the king of the Picornaviridae👇🏻

A ‘Second Tree of Life’ Could Wreak Havoc, Scientists Warn (Gift Article) Research on so-called mirror cells, which defy fundamental properties of living organisms, should be prohibited as too dangerous, biologists said.

Over 30 prominent scientists call for a ban on the creation of a "mirror cell"--a microbe made of molecules that are mirror images of their natural forms. It could cause a mind-boggling global disaster. Here's my story [gift link] 🧪https://nyti.ms/3OUCXp6

This cartoon is from 1930.

It could have been today.

Bluesky has an impersonator problem Cryptoscammers tried to trick me using fake profiles of tech personalities. I am not alone.

Bluesky has an impersonator problem
Cryptoscammers tried to trick me using fake profiles of tech personalities. I am not alone.

www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/11/1...

Illustration of an octopus with a semi-transparent "shell"

🐙 The argonaut, or paper nautilus 🐙
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I appreciate how Elon reminds us that being a CEO isn’t a real job

in-frame deletion #genetics

Its been a crisp winter's day here in a London, with a patch blue sky and leads me to my first thread on Bluesky ... as followers who know me on the other site I consistently rage against co-opting science, in particular genetics, for new takes on racism

Mass Deportations - A Dark History Returns There have been two "Mass Deportations" of Mexicans and US citizens of Mexican descent that have happened before in the United States. You don’t know about it because this history isn’t taught.

There have been two mass deportations of Mexicans in US history.

Both swept up hundreds of thousands of US citizens in the process - many of them children. open.substack.com/pub/greattra...

Anti-Semitism goes respectable. SPOTLIGHT ON THE HILL Lobby, bills itself as "The Paper You Can Trust." It claims to report the news the other papers miss and to uncover the conspiracies the other papers dare not expose. The Spotlight never lets its readers forget that it was first to rip the lid off the world-conquering intentions of the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission. More recently, the Spotlight has been exposing other conspiracies against American free-dom, including plots by the Internal Revenue Service to harass tax protesters and conspiracies by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to arrest stalwarts of the Ku Klux Klan, the Christian-Patriots Defense League, and the American "Nazi" party (quo-tation marks are one of the Spotlight's many stylistic idiosyncracies). But the Spotlight's fundamental editorial obsession is with the "Zionists" and "dual loyalist" friends of Israel who conspire to take over the US government and to propagate the malicious fiction that the Nazis killed six million Jews. In recent months, the Spotlight seems to have become a veritable cheering section for the Institute for Historical Review in Torrance, California. This is the organization whose pseudonymous director Lewis Brandon in reality a British professional racist named David McCalden) recently offered $50,000 to anyone who could prove Jews were gassed at Auschwitz. The Institute organizes annual conferences on why the Holocaust didn't happen and publishes a quarterly, Journal of Historical Review, which features the works of such enlightened savants as Robert Faurisson, the French literature professor recently found guilty of falsifying history and given a 3-month suspended prison sentence. The astuteness of the institute's scholarship can be discerned in the title of a few of the Journal's recent articles: "The Mendacity of Zion," "The Holocaust and the Myth of the Past as History," "The Fake Photograph Problem," and "Human Soap." The Spotlight maintai…

hate Jews and only took a job at the Liberty Lobby for the money. After leaving the Liberty Lobby, Richardson became a private lobbyist for various new right causes and a member of an informal circle of right-wing political strategists known as the Six-Pack because it meets under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation, which Joseph Coors helped to found and finance. But more alarming than the easy entrée afforded an ex-Liberty Lobbyist into the salons of what passed today for mainstream conservatism is the mass exposure the Liberty Lobby now seems to be able to obtain for its bizarre doctrines. I SPOT CHT circulation figures are to bebelieve —even if they are discounted by half-the newspaper has a large readership. Last winter the Spotlight held a gala at the National Press Club to celebrate its achievement of a circulation goal of one-third million. That's more than The New Republic, the National Review, and the Nation combined. The Spotlight claims paid circulation; that means all those 333,334 subscribers pay up to 50 cents each week to read its rantings. Furthermore, the Spotlight regularly publishes a list of around 400 radio stations that it says carry a five-minute daily "This is Liberty Lobby" broadcast. (I've heard them in Washington on WEAM-AM at 6:30 pm daily.) Twenty TV stations are listed as carrying a weekly Liberty Lobby TV program, "Spotlight on the News," hosted by Liberty Lobby board-of-policy chairman Robert Bartell, a jovial man who resembles Captain Kangaroo. The Spotlight's credibility is greatly enhanced by the casual way in which some Congressmen use the Spotlight and related media to publicize their views and themselves. During the past year or so, Senate Majority Whip Ted Stevens, Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, and Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Alan Simpson all have been featured guests on the Spotlight's TV show. One Spotlight article has appeared under Hatch's byline and two have appeared un…

In 1981, Ronald Reagan tried to appoint a guy to HHS who worked for a Holocaust denying outfit called the Liberty Lobby that published a popular conspiracy rag called The Spotlight that sold quack cures to its credulous readers who they scared into distrusting all medical advice except theirs.

I have a whole collection of mandalas that aren't like my other work nor part of my portfolio yet, but I want to do better in promoting.