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Submission + - Preliminary Study Reveals How Long Coronavirus May Linger On Various Surfaces (buzzfeednews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The coronavirus appears able to linger in the air for up to three hours and on plastic and stainless steel surfaces for two to three days, according to laboratory tests run by a team of federal and academic scientists in the US. It’s unclear whether the virus would behave the same way in the real world. The new study, published Tuesday, was uploaded to MedRxiv, a repository of early-stage scientific papers that have not yet been peer reviewed.

The new tests found that the ability of the novel coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, to stay in the air and on surfaces was highly similar to that of SARS, which is also caused by a coronavirus, according to the paper, which was done by researchers from the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, UCLA, and Princeton University. The scientists ran a battery of tests with a strain of SARS-CoV-2. They sprayed it into a rotating drum and measured how long it stayed in the air: three hours. They also deposited small amounts on plastic and stainless steel (up to two to three days), copper (up to four hours), and on cardboard (24 hours).

Submission + - Chinese Scientists Believe Coronavirus Came From Virology Lab In Wuhan (brobible.com) 1

Submitted by Press2ToContinue
Press2ToContinue writes: In a paper titled “The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus,” Chinese researchers explained why they believed the deadly disease originated from a lab in Wuhan. The paper, written by Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao, noted that the WCDC houses disease-ridden animals, including 605 bats.

The paper found that the “genome sequences from patients were 96% or 89% identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus originally found in Rhinolophus affinis (intermediate horseshoe bat).” The closest population of these bats living in the wild is in the Zhejiang province, which is 600 miles away.

“This laboratory reported that the Chinese horseshoe bats were natural reservoirs for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) which caused the 2002-3 pandemic,” according to the report.

According to the paper, a researcher at the WHCDC allegedly quarantining himself for two weeks after the blood of one of the bats in the lab dripped on his hand. The same scientist quarantined himself after one of the infected bats urinated on him.

The same researcher discovered a tick on a bat, and ticks can spread diseases from one host to another.

“It is plausible that the virus leaked around, and some of them contaminated the initial patients in this epidemic, though solid proofs are needed in a future study,” the report said.

“The principal investigator participated in a project which generated a chimeric virus using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, and reported the potential for human emergence 10,” the report says according to Daily Mail. “A direct speculation was that SARS-CoV or its derivative might leak from the laboratory.”

Submission + - China fires military laser at US aircraft

Submitted by SpaceGhost
SpaceGhost writes: The website Navy Times conveys a US Navy report that a Chinese military warship fired a military grade laser at a US Navy P-8 surveillance aircraft on the 17th of February while the aircraft conducted routine operations in the Philippine Sea, part of the contested South China Sea. The beam, invisible to the naked eye, was detected by sensors. There were no injuries, the plane landed safely and is being checked for damage. CNNs coverage of the incident suggests that this is not the first time that Chinese military forces have targeted US aircraft.

Submission + - 2019-nCov has HIV-like mutation 100-1000 times more contagious than SARS (scmp.com)

Submitted by ElitistWhiner
ElitistWhiner writes: Scientists say the new coronavirus may be significantly different from Sars. The new coronavirus has an HIV-like mutation that means its ability to bind with human cells could be up to 1,000 times as strong as the Sars virus, according to new research by scientists in China and Europe. In a follow-up study, a research team led by Professor Li Hua from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, Hubei province, confirmed the findings.

The discovery could help to explain not only how the infection has spread but also where it came from and how best to fight it.
Scientists showed that Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome) entered the human body by binding with a receptor protein called ACE2 on a cell membrane. And some early studies suggested that the new coronavirus, which shares about 80 per cent of the genetic structure of Sars, might follow a similar path.
But the ACE2 protein does not exist in large quantities in healthy people, and this partly helped to limit the scale of the Sars outbreak of 2002-03, in which infected about 8,000 people around the world.
Other highly contagious viruses, including HIV and Ebola, target an enzyme called furin, which works as a protein activator in the human body. Many proteins are inactive or dormant when they are produced and have to be “cut” at specific points to activate their various functions.

When looking at the genome sequence of the new coronavirus, Professor Ruan Jishou and his team at Nankai University in Tianjin found a section of mutated genes that did not exist in Sars, but were similar to those found in HIV and Ebola.
“This finding suggests that 2019-nCoV [the new coronavirus] may be significantly different from the Sars coronavirus in the infection pathway,” the scientists said in a paper published this month on Chinaxiv.org, a platform used by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to release scientific research papers before they have been peer-reviewed.

“This virus may use the packing mechanisms of other viruses such as HIV.”
According to the study, the mutation can generate a structure known as a cleavage site in the new coronavirus’ spike protein.

The virus uses the outreaching spike protein to hook on to the host cell, but normally this protein is inactive. The cleavage site structure’s job is to trick the human furin protein, so it will cut and activate the spike protein and cause a “direct fusion” of the viral and cellular membranes.
Compared to the Sars’ way of entry, this binding method is “100 to 1,000 times” as efficient, according to the study.
Just two weeks after its release, the paper is already the most viewed ever on Chinarxiv.
In a follow-up study, a research team led by Professor Li Hua from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, Hubei province, confirmed Ruan’s findings.
The mutation could not be found in Sars, Mers or Bat-CoVRaTG13, a bat coronavirus that was considered the original source of the new coronavirus with 96 per cent similarity in genes, it said.
This could be “the reason why SARS-CoV-2 is more infectious than other coronaviruses”, Li wrote in a paper released on Chinarxiv on Sunday.
Meanwhile, a study by French scientist Etienne Decroly at Aix-Marseille University, which was published in the scientific journal Antiviral Research on February 10, also found a “furin-like cleavage site” that is absent in similar coronaviruses.
Scientists found a section of mutated genes in the new coronavirus that were similar to those found in HIV and Ebola.
A researcher with the Beijing Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, said the studies were all based on genetic sequencing.
“Whether [the virus] behaves as predicted will need other evidence including experiments,” said the researcher who asked not to be named.
“The answer will tell how the virus makes us ill,” he said.

Scientists’ understanding of the new coronavirus has changed dramatically over the past few months.
At first the virus was not considered a major threat, with the Chinese Centres for Disease Control and Prevention saying there was no evidence off human-to-human transmission.
But that assumption was soon invalidated, and as of Wednesday, there had been more than 81,000 confirmed infections around the world.

Chinese researchers said drugs targeting the furin enzyme could have the potential to hinder the virus’ replication in the human body. These include “a series of HIV-1 therapeutic drugs such as Indinavir, Tenofovir Alafenamide, Tenofovir Disoproxil and Dolutegravir and hepatitis C therapeutic drugs including Boceprevir and Telaprevir”, according to Li’s study.
This suggestion is in line with reports by some Chinese doctors who self-administered HIV drugs after testing positive for the new coronavirus, but there is as yet no clinical evidence to support the theory.
There is also hope that the link to the furin enzyme could shed light on the virus’ evolutionary history before it made the jump to humans.
The mutation, which Ruan’s team described as an “unexpected insertion”, could come from many possible sources such as a coronavirus found in rats or even a species of avian flu.

Comment Re:Vegetable "meat" with cheese and eggs? (Score 2) 76

by Swave An deBwoner (#59771892) Attached to: Starbucks Embraces Fake Meat, Starting In Canada
You're right. I know very little about the meat "industry". But this article quotes folks who apparently know a lot about it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/02/26/cows-impossible-burger-meat-dairy/

And then there’s this: One in five pounds of beef sold come from Holstein or Jersey cows, which frequently are decommissioned dairy cows past their prime. Almost all of the meat from dairy cows is ground (it’s generally not marbled enough or muscled enough for steaks) and made into inexpensive hamburger for food service. So, it’s our consumption of milk and cheese that ultimately fuels the avalanche of burgers at fast-food restaurants.

Cattlefax, which does beef industry research, explains the breakdown of U.S. beef production like this. Seventy-one percent of the beef we ate from 2014 to 2018 came from beef cattle breeds — black Angus, Hereford and such — that started their lives grazing on grass in fields but spent the latter part of their lives eating corn on feedlots, often in the Midwest. Another 13 percent were dairy cow breeds, such as Holsteins and Jerseys, that ended their lives eating corn right alongside those beef cattle.

This 13 percent, often the male calves that aren’t much use for milk production, ended up as steaks and ground beef in retail stores, says Kevin Good, vice president of industry relations for Cattlefax, or in buffet-type chains such as Golden Corral or in steakhouses that do not grade their beef. These are the animals that previously would have been sold as veal until public tastes turned away from veal.

Another 7 percent came from older dairy cows that hadn’t been sent to feedlots. Only 7 percent were beef cattle that had not been finished on a feedlot (this would include grass-fed beef) and a final 2 percent were older bulls that had been used for breeding or sperm operations.

and

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS) reports that 3,224,200 dairy cows were slaughtered under federal inspection in 2019.

“Dairy cows slaughtered produced an estimated 2.0603 billion pounds out of a total 26.8 billion pounds produced under federal inspection,” says Russell Knight, an ERS beef analyst. “That suggests that dairy cows contributed 7.7 percent of the beef produced in 2019.”

Comment Vegetable "meat" with cheese and eggs? (Score 0) 76

by Swave An deBwoner (#59771802) Attached to: Starbucks Embraces Fake Meat, Starting In Canada
Helping the environment by slathering cheese and eggs on top of this vegetable-based meat?

Dairy cows kept producing unnaturally large quantities of milk until they are no longer profitable are then slaughtered for beef.

Male chicks are shredded because they aren't the breeds that are "good for meat" and they can't lay eggs.

Why are all of the places serving Beyond "meat" plopping cheese and eggs on it?

"Vegetarianism" (as distinct from "Veganism") was a good thing when the producing animals were treated with respect. Now, thanks to industrial farming, it's the same as "Carnivorism", maybe even worse.

Comment Re:Who uses WiFi without end-to-end encryption? (Score 1) 33

Slashdot is so fantastically secure! I'd never trust what you did on any other site but this one.

When you type your password you see "CanIHazPassword" on your screen but all I see are asterisks like this "***************".

I don't know how they do it. Must be a bunch o' F'in geniuses writing their code.

Comment All Apple can do is create a "chilling effect" (Score 1) 166

This is ridiculous. If there is no confusion, no attempt to slander the company, there is no reason that a filmmaker can't show any product they want in their film.

Compare this situation with one in which pedestrians are filmed walking through a film set that is just a public thoroughfare. The film industry claims that anyone who walks on the sidewalk and is filmed may appear in the final film and not be owed a single penny for their appearance. But a phone - no - that's sacrosanct.

https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/31860/legal-implications-of-shooting-a-movie-along-a-public-sidewalk-with-dozens-of-pe

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