Posted on 01/31/2020 8:50:37 PM PST by catnipman
They found that all four of these spike protein inserts appear as matches to at least one sequence in at least one variant of the HIV virus. The sequences come from the gp120 and Gag proteins in HIV, the former of which is also a viral envelope recognition protein. This has led many to credulously assume that this is evidence, or even a strong indication, that 2019-nCoV was engineered from its bat ancestor by humans inserting HIV sequences.
But theyre wrong; its still not engineered. An analysis of the paper clearly reveals that:
1. There is nothing remarkable about the fact that 2019-nCoVs sequence diverges from its nearest known relative, or that its unique sequences are conserved among cases of 2019-nCoV.
2. The sequence matches with HIV are very short and appear in hypervariable regions of both virus, and similar overlaps are seen between 2019-nCoV sequences and many other organisms.
3. The unique biological properties that HIV sequences could theoretically impart to another virus are completely missing from 2019-nCoV, and 2019-nCoV has no unique clinical properties that are outside what is known to be possible for a coronavirus.
In other words, the sequence overlap is not actually uncanny, and there is no big scoop here. The group in India fell prey to some of the pitfalls of bioinformatics research.
The 2019-nCoV genome does not contain remarkable genomic properties which need explaining, and for which wed look to some kind of bioengineering as a cause.
2019-nCoV continues to give every appearance of being a wild coronavirus that jumped from bats to humans by way of an animal intermediary in the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan in late 2019.
(Excerpt) Read more at theprepared.com ...
Yeah. But ya gotta start somewhere!
Scientists Confirm Coronavirus Man-Made
Contains pShuttle-SN Sequence Proving Laboratory Origin
For now - down the road he will likely “leverage” the fact that some of the worst bugs seem to originate in China.
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