Where's the petri dish thread?

[TDub]

Haha maybe so

[CrimsonNBlue]

There will be some positives out of this whole thing, hard to see now, but there will:

I've felt Americans seem kinda lax comparatively on personal sanitation and have generally been ignorant about contagion.

And, not that it is limited to the US. I've read anecdotal stories from countries in Asia where it seems the cases of common cold and flu are down this spring. Could just be a resource thing, but social distancing and handwashing may be having good collateral effects.

Not out of the woods yet, but this is part of the reason I hope mask practice extends beyond COVID during flu season.

This same week last year, the CDC reported widespread flu activity in nearly every US region, with "high" activity in 45 states. In an average year, hundreds of thousands of people are hospitalized with flu. So far this flu season, just 155 people confirmed to have influenza have ended up in the hospital.
"Right now, there is nowhere in the country that we are seeing a real uptick in flu. It is pretty much very, very low everywhere," Brammer said.
And 78 children had died of flu at this point last year. This year, just one pediatric flu death has been reported.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/health/c ... index.html

[jfish26]

Somewhere, there's a joke about Covid making the flu much less dangerous.

[Deleted User 89]

i knew phd was up to no good...contributing nothing worthwhile to this world with his fancy-schmancy degrees

[Deleted User 289]

Did I not say from the beginning that Birx is/was garbage?
She has basically admitted she literally sold her soul to the devil.
In many countries they would sentence her to death. I don't wish death upon her but I sure as heck feel she needs to take accountability and suffer some consequences.

This is from a year ago.
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/27/21197074/ ... oronavirus

[Deleted User 89]

i’m not excusing her, or any of the other “medical professionals” that were involved in “warp speed”

but, theirs was an incredibly difficult place to be, balancing their hypocratic oath with trying to stay in a position where they could do the most good

trump would have quickly replaced any of them with a more craven, sycophant

it was an incredibly difficult hand they were dealt

[PhDhawk]

i’m not excusing her, or any of the other “medical professionals” that were involved in “warp speed”

but, theirs was an incredibly difficult place to be, balancing their hypocratic oath with trying to stay in a position where they could do the most good

trump would have quickly replaced any of them with a more craven, sycophant

it was an incredibly difficult hand they were dealt

This.

It's really easy to say, "I'd have done X, if I were her"

The president of the US, no matter who it is, is not a person that you just tell to fuck off.

Most of us wimp out around our bosses who don't wield nearly the same authority, nor are they vindictive megalomaniacs like Trump.

I'm not going to praise her for anything, but I'm not gonna demonize her for failing to do more either, knowing good and well 99% of people wouldn't have done any more than she did.

[Mjl]

To pile on, when Fauci didn't go lock-step with Trump, Trump brought in Scott Atlas. Doesn't get much worse than that.

[Deleted User 89]

the same scott atlas who lied about the severity of trump’s covid infection?

exactly

[zsn]

i’m not excusing her, or any of the other “medical professionals” that were involved in “warp speed”

but, theirs was an incredibly difficult place to be, balancing their hypocratic oath with trying to stay in a position where they could do the most good

trump would have quickly replaced any of them with a more craven, sycophant

it was an incredibly difficult hand they were dealt

This.

It's really easy to say, "I'd have done X, if I were her"

The president of the US, no matter who it is, is not a person that you just tell to fuck off.

Most of us wimp out around our bosses who don't wield nearly the same authority, nor are they vindictive megalomaniacs like Trump.

I'm not going to praise her for anything, but I'm not gonna demonize her for failing to do more either, knowing good and well 99% of people wouldn't have done any more than she did.

There’s a nuance here. The bolder part only applies to us mere mortals who have no recourse and would be in dire straits if we lose our job. At the level of Drs Birx, Fauci, Redlener et al they would in fact have better opportunities because they spoke truth to power.

However, as Trad said their logic may be the legitimate concern that someone like Atlas or the My Pillow guy might replace them.

[PhDhawk]

i’m not excusing her, or any of the other “medical professionals” that were involved in “warp speed”

but, theirs was an incredibly difficult place to be, balancing their hypocratic oath with trying to stay in a position where they could do the most good

trump would have quickly replaced any of them with a more craven, sycophant

it was an incredibly difficult hand they were dealt

This.

It's really easy to say, "I'd have done X, if I were her"

The president of the US, no matter who it is, is not a person that you just tell to fuck off.

Most of us wimp out around our bosses who don't wield nearly the same authority, nor are they vindictive megalomaniacs like Trump.

I'm not going to praise her for anything, but I'm not gonna demonize her for failing to do more either, knowing good and well 99% of people wouldn't have done any more than she did.

There’s a nuance here. The bolder part only applies to us mere mortals who have no recourse and would be in dire straits if we lose our job. At the level of Drs Birx, Fauci, Redlener et al they would in fact have better opportunities because they spoke truth to power.

However, as Trad said their logic may be the legitimate concern that someone like Atlas or the My Pillow guy might replace them.

Yes, and I wish they would have.

But it's hard to do in real time.

I'm not saying she should be applauded, I'm just saying she also shouldn't be vilified.

Yes, I think she wanted to stay in her position, probably for good reason. I think she picked her spots and walked on eggshells. As a result she did a few good things and had many failures.

At the end of the day, she wasn't the problem and the orange bafoon was.

[Deleted User 89]

had no idea this was even biologically possible

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyl ... -pregnant/

[Deleted User 89]

https://media.nature.com/original/magaz ... 1749-7.pdf

[Deleted User 89]

this could literally be a game changer when it comes to drug and therapy designs

https://nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01968-y

[PhDhawk]

this could literally be a game changer when it comes to drug and therapy designs

https://nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01968-y

What's the difference between this and things like PHYRE, 3dpssm, and Raptor X that are already available?

[Deleted User 89]

this could literally be a game changer when it comes to drug and therapy designs

https://nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01968-y

What's the difference between this and things like PHYRE, 3dpssm, and Raptor X that are already available?

speed and specificity?

i’d honestly gave to look more closely at them all, but i’d assume that the two new AI technologies have outperformed those that you cited in the relevant competitions (presuming they participated in those or similar competitions)

are those other three open source as well?

from what i’ve read, at least with AlphaFold, it does a much better job of replicating the results of x-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy, but does so with a fraction of the time and cost

[PhDhawk]

this could literally be a game changer when it comes to drug and therapy designs

https://nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01968-y

What's the difference between this and things like PHYRE, 3dpssm, and Raptor X that are already available?

speed and specificity?

i’d honestly gave to look more closely at them all, but i’d assume that the two new AI technologies have outperformed those that you cited in the relevant competitions (presuming they participated in those or similar competitions)

are those other three open source as well?

from what i’ve read, at least with AlphaFold, it does a much better job of replicating the results of x-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy, but does so with a fraction of the time and cost

They're open sourced, I'm not sure that they use AI.

I just don't know how you can trust a computer derived 3d structure de novo.

I mean, I think it's great for, let's say the spike protein on the coronavirus, which has been crystalyzed gets another mutation and you want to see how that changes the protein structure...that's great, you have a REAL structure to start with, the computer gives you the most likely structure based on changing 1 or a few amino acids. Fast, cheap, reliable. On the other hand, lets say there's a new pathogen that shows up tomorrow and they want to determine the structure of a completely novel protein...sorry, but I'm only going to put so much trust into a structural prediction, until it gets its structure determined experimentally.

[pdub]

I’m speaking out of my element here but in time, sooner rather than later, you won’t get to say whether you trust an AI solve once it’s proven to be more efficient.

[Deleted User 89]

What's the difference between this and things like PHYRE, 3dpssm, and Raptor X that are already available?

speed and specificity?

i’d honestly gave to look more closely at them all, but i’d assume that the two new AI technologies have outperformed those that you cited in the relevant competitions (presuming they participated in those or similar competitions)

are those other three open source as well?

from what i’ve read, at least with AlphaFold, it does a much better job of replicating the results of x-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy, but does so with a fraction of the time and cost

They're open sourced, I'm not sure that they use AI.

I just don't know how you can trust a computer derived 3d structure de novo.

I mean, I think it's great for, let's say the spike protein on the coronavirus, which has been crystalyzed gets another mutation and you want to see how that changes the protein structure...that's great, you have a REAL structure to start with, the computer gives you the most likely structure based on changing 1 or a few amino acids. Fast, cheap, reliable. On the other hand, lets say there's a new pathogen that shows up tomorrow and they want to determine the structure of a completely novel protein...sorry, but I'm only going to put so much trust into a structural prediction, until it gets its structure determined experimentally.

completely agree

but i think this tech at least gives a starting point in such a case

in what i do, where epitope variation can drastically affect the efficacy of an antibody therapy, it’d be good to know where those differences are likely to be without investing the time and money into experimental procedures unnecessarily...particularly in a predictive way

[Deleted User 89]

I’m speaking out of my element here but in time, sooner rather than later, you won’t get to say whether you trust an AI solve once it’s proven to be more efficient.

in a sense i agree with you, but when the end product is a drug or antibody therapy that you’re injecting/ingesting, i think a lot of people would want experimental supporting evidence

the other issue relates to basic analytical problems...garbage in, garbage out. i would hope that the data used to train the AI “machinery” is gold standard, but i honestly don’t know and haven’t looked