zlacker

>>pseudo+(OP)
Recent related threads:

How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27184998 - May 2021 (235 comments)

More Scientists Urge Broad Inquiry into Coronavirus Origins - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27160898 - May 2021 (341 comments)

The origin of Covid: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27071432 - May 2021 (537 comments)

Edit: also these:

Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26750452 - April 2021 (618 comments)

Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26540458 - March 2021 (985 comments)

The Lab Leak Hypothesis - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25640323 - Jan 2021 (229 comments)

>>dang+Kl
@dang An hour into this submission, this was flagged despite ~100 upvotes. Was there anything off about the flagging behaviour?

It seemed like a reputed source article of interest to a lot of folks here, so I was surprised.

>>actuat+TC
I tend to flag most of the COVID lab leak stories. They’re perfect fodder for pointless flame wars: no one here is in a position to confirm or disprove the theory, and there are no consequences for being wrong. So everyone can just argue their point of view vociferously, while no one learns anything.

If the lab leak theory was easy to confirm, it would have been done already. Maybe someday it will be confirmed or ruled out and I’ll happily upvote that story. This isn’t it, though, even if it is the WSJ.

>>snowwr+MY
snowrestler says>"If the lab leak theory was easy to confirm, it would have been done already. Maybe someday it will be confirmed or ruled out and I’ll happily up-vote that story. "

Yes. These medical researchers are very good and very persistent so I trust them to do their detective work. They have always been my heroes.

For example, a recent claim is that they have found the earliest case of AIDS/HIV in humans. An excerpt:

"^By DANIEL Q. HANEY, AP Medical Editor, CHICAGO (AP)

Scientists have pinpointed what is believed to be the earliest known case of AIDS an African man who died in 1959 and say the discovery suggests the virus first infected people in the 1940s or early '50s...

The virus in the sample had degraded, but the scientists were able to isolate four small fragments of two viral genes. One gene holds instructions for assembling the outer coat of the virus, while the other is code for one of the proteins the virus needs to reproduce...

HIV mutates quickly. About 1 percent of its genetic material changes each year. So the scientists compared the genes from the 39-year-old sample of HIV with those carried by current versions of HIV."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-earliest-aids-case/

Take time to read the (short) article. It is a credit to our medical/biomedical scientific researchers and explorers and a glowing tribute to what good science can do.