CharonY

That is indeed a cause for concern. And to me, nationalism and unilateralism are going to make things worse. It should be noted that the graphs are specifically to spread awareness regarding COVID-19. Coronavirus while all respiratory (to my knowledge) can have different suites of symptoms. The discussion with cold is complicated by the fact as it is not a specific disease (as e.g. COVID-19) but rather a descriptor of symptoms that can be caused by a number of viruses and some of them belong to the family of coronaviruses. A number are endemic and responsible for a significant fraction of upper respiratory infections. Up until SARS, they were considered mostly harmless and often symptoms would fall under the "cold" bracket.

Historically bioterrorism has been very unsuccessful (a large scale food poisoning was the most known even, but even that is dwarfed by "regular" food poisoning events) . And even so, regular outbreaks have had higher impact than human designed ones. As whole bioweapons are difficult to implement, near impossible to control often inefficient compared to chemical or nuclear warfare. What it is efficient in, however, is having reasonable doomsday (or equivalent) scenarios. Undetectable spread high but delayed mortality, for example. There are oodles of novels around of terrorist groups creating designer pathogens for their purposes, but technically it is very difficult and more often than not a crapshot. There is the fear that they are easy to isolate and spread. But, as noted, common spread is often on a far larger scale than a group can orchestrate. So what about state actors then? Well, here the issue how are they going to control it (and what benefit would it have?). It is not total fantasy, of course, and there us bioterrerrorism research and prevention in place. At the same time we see that in a globalized world diseases spread at a much larger speed that we are accustomed of. So given that COVID-19 is around and possible join the ranks of circulating diseases such as influenza I am not sure what the bioweapon potential would be here. A more systematic (but slower way) to erode public health is to boost antivaxxer campaigns and otherwise reduce public preparedness. At this point I would take bets that these would end up in more fatalities in the event of a natural outbreak than what folks would achieve by actively trying to implement a doomsday scenario. And how is it different impact-wise from what is happening right now? Also note that for this disease asymptomatic spreading is very rare. There seems to be an overall correlation of spread and severity of symptoms. But of course there are plenty of (younger in this case it seems) that don't care too much about a little cough. By overall point though is that while it is always more frightening to thing in terms of an intelligent driver to some crisis, the truth is that there are plenty potential catastrophes around that can and will occur eventually (even just regarding disease think climate-change driven rise of diseases, demise of antibiotics etc.) that will likely to be more impactful than most bioterrorism scenarios. While I am not saying it is a zero-sum game, I do feel an imbalance in terms of risk and how afraid folks are about a given scenario.

Technically the virion refers to a whole virus particle. Practically it is the same as a single (complete) virus but it is typically used in structural context. Also just to be sure: the causative agent of flu are influenza viruses. These include members of Swine and bird flu for example belong all to the group of influenza viruses (classification are provided in Studiot's link). COVID-19 is a specific disease caused by the strain SARS-COV2, which belongs to the family of coronaviruses. Other notable diseases associated with members of this family include SARS and MERS.

The plot revolves around a group of highly trained professionals who break into homes of elderly folks and aggressively cough into their faces for a few minutes. In a heartwarming twist one of their presumptuous victims confuses the terrorist with their grandchild to whom she had lost contact. After a furious intermezzo consisting of baking and copious amount tea the terrorist realizes that deep inside he is just longing for the love of a family. Meanwhile the grandparent realizes that the nightly visitor in stealth suit is indeed not her grandchild (the climbing hook on the balcony being a crucial hint- as well as a flashback highlight that the real grandchild had a fear of heights). But she enjoys the moment too much to care.Tragically, this human moment is also what ultimately resulted in successful infection. The terrorist becomes guilt-ridden when it becomes clear that the lonely grandma is not long for this world and he tries to reach her a last time to say his farewells. Meanwhile, his terrorist buddies consider him a traitor and try to stop him resulting in a highly choreographed fight scene involving lots of offensive coughing and running noses in slow-mo (the filmmakers did not consult experts as per usual and did not realize that this is not part of the symptoms). Finally, he survives all these ordeals and reaches the grandma, who turns out to be a special CDC/Homeland security agent in disguise (Jason Stratham) who have been delaying a rollout of coronavirus testing in favour of sting operations to catch corona-terrorists. PS: can anyone tell that I really, really do not want to read those student reports?

Well, if you wanted to actually kill someone with the coronavirus you'd have to try to sneak into homes for the elderly to be efficient. Assuming you get in contact with 100 folks above 80 you may have caused somewhere between 8-14 fatalities. You could contribute to overall spread, but if it is already spreading as it is now, it is unclear whether it would amount to more. But to do so, you will have to spend significant time with each person as casual contact seems to inefficient. So in other words you may have made the situation worse, but it is unclear how much you contributed. That, is typically just the opposite of what most lone wolf types have in mind. Part of their motivation is some distorted desire for notoriety and striking fear into folks. A "regular" mass shooting or other attack is likely to be more satisfying to them. On top, this is only likely going to work during an ongoing outbreak as there is a decent likelihood for vaccines eventually and/or most folks will develop immunity (due to infection). So all they are doing is accelerating things perhaps a little bit. Perhaps worse than any of that, poor public health responses are likely to create more fatalities than any level of deliberate act of terrorism is going to achieve. Think about that for a minute. Let's say hypothetically that testing for the virus is going to cost more than you can afford and you have the choice between going to work or lose the job, what do yo do? You cannot self-quarantine since you live paycheck to paycheck and have no food stocked up because of that. How many are in that situation compared to say ten deliberate spreaders? Now combine that with a slow roll out of tests even if they are affordable.

Also there are more folks spreading it around due to lack of knowledge or care. There are quite a few students, for example who said that they want to travel to hotspots due since the prices are now low. They do not care much about infection since they think they are in low risk group. As such the folks in OP are probably not contributing much.

Looks like typical choloroform/phenol extraction protocol. I have not experienced myself but in general there a couple of theoretical effects that one might need to control to make sure that good phase separation happens. This includes having enough ionic strength of the aqueous layer, control of pH or sometimes even just the addition of another organic solvent. I suspect that bad phase separation can happen due to excess amounts of compounds that in a given poorly separate into either phase, which includes certain proteins and lipids.

Look, I know it is amusing in a way an accident between clown cars might be. But underneath all that there is real tragedy and one should not forget that. The administration has cut funding to critical health and disease prevention/monitoring systems and the uncharacteristically slow response may be the result of that. It is not the first time either, NOAA, EPA and FEMA all are cut or in the process of being dismantled with serious consequences for affected folks (and especially EPA issues will only be visible when it is far too late). One can only hope that damages are still fixable but for now folks will suffer unnecessarily.

OP is quite vague in their concerns and waffling quite a bit between issues more connected to undergrad vs grad situations. There is a focus about getting things done, which may mean different things and priorities for undergrads vs grads vs postdocs vs PIs. What I do read is that OP is ultimately unhappy in their position and thinks about them in structural terms (i.e. departmental issue, Western vs Eastern education system etc.). If that happens, one should ask oneself what are the precise reasons for the unhappiness. The complaints listed above appear to be very diffuse and it may be important for OP to sit down and think more specifically what the issues are. Being unhappy about how things are run is often only be symptom of other issues. One important bit that has not really been mentioned is the relationship with the PI. Ideally a PI is a mix between a boss and mentor, switching between these poles as need be (ideally mostly the latter as much as possible, the former as much as needed). What is needed is a sit-down to discuss expectations goals and develop plans how to reach them. What a student may think is an important next step may not be in the mind of the PI. Is it the only project? Or one of many? If work is self-directed, what are the hurdles? Often students overestimate their ability to work independently and have to be reigned in. This is a time consuming process for the supervisor, but sometimes the only way to ensure that usable results are being produced (or at least allowing the student to graduate in time). Ultimately, the PI has to ensure that the funded project progresses and pays the grads to do so. Unless they are swimming in money, there is only so much one can let a student play before it becomes a drain on the finances or otherwise endangers success of the project. There is a shared interest between PI and student- successful execution of the project helps obtaining further funds and pay for the student. However, there can be disagreements on how to best execute the project. Here, it is relevant to acknowledge that students are still in training and for most it will take a while until they obtain the knowledge to be able to properly evaluate progress and adjust accordingly. Again, if one is unhappy with the PI it is time for a sit down. There, it is important to discuss specifics and not make it personal. It is not your business what lifestyle your supervisor has. Rather think about what you need to achieve, what your common goal with the PI are and how you both can achieve them. But also try to have a broader view on the situation or project and don't have a tunnel view where only your perspective counts.

So if we are talking undergraduate degree costs, there are a few things to consider. The first is that generally speaking each student is heavily subsidized. Increase in tuition fees are often connected with a reduction of school funding, of which typically state and federal funding are the highest chunk. Cost has also been associated with increase in student services. Schools with lower fees often have fewer amenities. In addition, public schools tend to have much lower fees than private ones. The salaries of faculty is fixed, so an increase of tuition fees as such does not e.g. result in higher salary. The latter is more often than not connected to obtaining grants, which in turn results in overhead for the university, which then also helps covering the cost for students. Thus more funds can in theory actually reduce tuition fees. In addition, research grants are a major source to pay graduate students. What you describe seems to me a common concern of mostly undergraduate students. While I am not saying that it would apply to you, many expect a high-school like environment and think that faculty are only there to cater to their specific learning needs. It often takes a while to realize that university is mostly self-directed learning. And the role of faculty is a bit different from that of a teacher.

So you have one example and extrapolate from there? That is often not representative. And it apparently is quite a bit different from your earlier characterization that the younger faculty (which are more likely to be on TT) are slacking off. The other thing to ask yourself is: do they have an active externally funded research program? If so, how can they maintain it by slacking off. If not, then you may have found an example of someone resting on their merits. Of course they are differences and if anything I found most of the slackers in the full Professorial area, folks that have accomplished much in their career and are also at an age where spending even more energy feels like have a lower return. Younger and hungrier folks are around and compete like crazy, one might as well cut down. I suppose (but then there are those who literally need to be carried out from their jobs). However, the example with thy Gym is really weird. Most folks I know get scolded by their MDs to work out more. We spend way too much time sitting and it really is bad for health as well as productivity. I still get to use the bench, and when I do, do actually feel better. If I need to spend extended time sitting down for paper/grant writing or lectures I do feel myself tiring out much faster.

See, that is exactly what I expect from folks that are overcomitted. Most younger faculty need to establish their research, balance their comittee duties, create new courses as well as engage in outreach. Older faculty tend to have settled in their research (and those closer to retirement may ramp down their labs) and have established their teaching duties. On top, there have been a lot of discussions with labs and while I am somewhat dismayed by it, the truth is that most universities are starving for money due to budget cuts by Fed and State. Labs are the most expensive parts- they require more instructors and eat more resources. While I personally like them as a teaching tool, they are also often not well-liked by students, as they can quite a chore. As such many universities have starting cutting them as a cost-saving tool. That seems to imply an intimate relationship with faculty which seems odd. Just to be sure, are you talking about college-level? There is a a certain frequency of things like dinners with colleagues, which often are a kind of networking sessions (we do talk about shop quite often, especially if partners are also researcher and/or faculty). But I have a hard time believing that folks would go out partying on a regular basis. At least I have not seen that anywhere. The only possible exception are sessionals (i.e. non-tenure track folks) who are probably drowning their sorrow on a semi-regular basis. What you should realize is that teaching, especially at research unis is but one of the many duties faculty have to fulfill and considering the competitiveness in other areas (especially in attracting grants) it is often not considered the most important bit, especially for younger faculty. In order to get tenure many institutions require some level of success in obtaining grants, which is a highly competitive process. Unfortunately just spending a lot of time teaching won't get you there.

If you are talking about faculty I can only assume that you are a student? Usually there is a ton going on for faculty and if there is no sense of urgency in things you are involved in, it is usually because there are more urgent matters to attend to. From my experience and those of my colleagues, unless you are one of the lucky folks where things miraculously seem to go your way, (so that e.g. you can buy yourself time) folks to keep too many balls in the air. Most of the time your decision is not what to keep up, but what you are able to let fall to the floor.

Yes, they are called opportunistic pathogens. However, it is not specific to viral infections but can be any situation that negatively affects host defense mechanisms or otherwise create situations that are allows certain pathogens to strive. A famous example of a genetic disease is cystic fibrosis, which creates a lung environment allowing Pseudomona aeruginosa to cause harmful opportunistic infections.

Typically two distinct epitopes are selected (one for coating, one for capture) to avoid competition effects. Often a control is added which interacts with the labelled coating antibody.

I think the whole infection process is sufficiently complicated so that there is not clear answer. At the onset of infection your body ups its response. At this time some pathogens may have a harder time to get in, while others may use the inflammatory cascade to their advantage. Malaria, for example was actually used as a treatment of neurosyphilis in order to induce fevers. Then, as String mentioned, there are interactions between pathogens. With respect to respiratory infections, folks have detected frequently co-infections with multiple respiratory viruses, but their effect on disease outcome are unclear. Conversely viral and bacterial co-infection seem to be more commonly related to the development of pneumonia and other severe illnesses. This is why COVID-19 infections are often treated with antibiotics. And of course in severe stages of illnesses the immune system can be weakened to such a level that opportunistic infections can happen with a higher likelihood. So in other words, precise answers are unlikely to be forthcoming, especially not with a disease whose pathophysiology is not fully explored yet. Edit: Quite unrelated to that, but I think it is a bit worrisome that the US seems to be fumbling the response a bit. There was time to prepare and normally the CDC is quite on top of things.

Epitopes are small structural elements in a good sized protein such as amylase you are likely to find a couple. Often epitopes are not larger than 5-15 AA in length so there is no need for elaborate quartenary structures. Even for insulin, which only has 50ish amino acids there are at least three different monoclonal antibodies. But crowding effects can be worse on smaller molecules. Partially it can be alleviated by using truncated antibodies (which is normally done).

Do you have any evidence that it is slowing down? Just to put it in perspective I here are the number of publications with cancer as the topic: 1980: 4,318 1990: 8,290 2000: 38,935 2010: 99,362 2015: 153,786 If anything our knowledge on the various forms of cancers have massively improved and we have a much higher appreciation of their complex biology. However, it also means that there is so much information out there that no single person has likely a comprehensive as well as in-depth knowledge of all the aspects. So it will be difficult to put the vast knowledge into proper perspective.

Please don't do that. It hurts my eyes. For the rest, what Phil said. One can add that there are antibody therapies in development, but they generally require highly specific antibodies, whereas those antibodies produced by infected folks are very broad range (and not all will be effective).

It is less a property of the pathogen but rather that of the immune response. Specifically, our ability to mount specific responses is called the adaptive immune response and it works against most pathogens.

I think the development is closer with regard to developing potential therapeutics. Or at least we will see results sooner for them (positive or negative) Last time I checked there were something like a hundred clinical trials registered to look at treatment options, many of them in China, but also in the US. This does include options against coronaviruses associated with SARS and MERS. On the vaccine front I think I have seen two (both in early stages). One is sponsored by the NIH with the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research institute another one by the Shenzhen Medical Institute in China. I have also heard rumors of some biotechs trying to develop e.g. nanoencapsulated vaccines, but as long as they are in preclinicals, it may amount to nothing. It should be noted that often companies are not at the forefront of developing new things. More commonly at least concepts are developed in Universities and research institutes, which sometimes develop start-ups which fully develop the therapeutics. Those are then bought out by the companies. The HCV treatment for example was developed in a company (Pharmasset) which were founded by then researchers at Emory University. Gilead acquired them and sold the drugs to presumably inflated prices. It is not unlikely that similar things can still happen with a vaccine, considering that often start-ups or researchers developing vaccines and therapeutics rarely have capacity to produce and distribute them.

There is a lot going one in various communities, including the medical side, but also the microbiology/virology area. Many manufacturers have also jumped in, and provide e.g. reduced rates or rush orders for research involving the new coronavirus.

Since we are in March now, I thought it might be interesting to revisit the paper again. Here, the authors created several models to estimate infections in Wuhan, assuming different levels of efficiency in containing the virus. Assuming the containment reduced the transmission of the virus, the infections were assumed to reach a peak between 55k and 84k by late February. The actual numbers now indicate a maximum of about 50k active cases by February 18. Interestingly, the low estimate by the authors predicted a peak for February 19th with 55k cases, which is remarkably close. As such, it appears the actual scenario has slightly outperformed the most positive scenario.

Essentially the moment it was reported there was also some spread due to movement of infected people. At the beginning they seemed to be fairly contained outside of China, but the issue is that not all contacts were known or followed up, allowing further latent spread. This has most likely happened in Italy, when the wider distribution was only known after serious cases popped up. I am not sure where you base your assumption that it is too fast- modern travel can distribute diseases at an incredible rate, especially those that do not have rather obvious or strong symptoms. COVID-19 is such an example as in most folks the symptoms are pretty much the same as any cold and can therefore circulate a while before folks get tested for it.

I am not certain what you mean here, but looking at the US, there is a tight connection between political and religious belief (i.e. evangelists have heavily shaped Republican politics and vice versa). So it is certainly not an exclusive situation (rather the opposite). It depends on the form of religiosity. The more abstract ones, which are better described as spirituality, sure. But there are also more fundamental/literal ones which, especially in the US have formed the (young Earth) creationist movement, which is blatantly anti-science. Believing that there is not evolution has critical impact on data interpretation, for example.