Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Rabies: Dramatic! - it seems 1) as if some of the 92 cases in Massachusetts of CoronaVirus thus far could have been Covid-19 (but I remain a skeptic too, for thinking purposes), and 2) all MIT classes are moving online, with 3) students asked not to come back after spring break * * * Meaningless memes and the COVID-19 'infodemic' ? * * * * I could interpret this recent Tweet by Stanford Law Professor Hank Greely with his focus on biosciences, and as an ethnographer of Harbin Hot Springs in the following ways: "I apologize (ish) for flooding my followers w/retweets. There's just SO MUCH interesting stuff going on. This would be a wonderfully fascinating time..if it weren't real."


Hi Peter Norvig, Professors Greely, Hennessy, Vogl, and All,

Dramatic! - it seems 1) as if some of the 92 cases in Massachusetts of CoronaVirus thus far could have been Covid-19 (but I remain a skeptic too, for thinking purposes), and 2) all MIT classes are moving online, with 3) undergrad students asked not to come back after spring break: 

MIT will be moving all classes online by Monday 3/30. Undergrads living on-campus have been asked to vacate their dorms by noon on Tuesday 3/17.
https://twitter.com/MIT_CSAIL/status/1237511053212147714?s=20


"MIT moving to online classes; university reports visitor with coronavirus:
MIT is moving all classes online and expecting undergraduate students to move out of their dormitories by Tuesday, as universities throughout New England step up their efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus."

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/10/nation/mit-moving-online-classes-university-reports-visitor-with-coronavirus/


Meanwhile people are working on developing a vaccine
The latest The SynBioLogist! https://paper.li/Socrates_Logos/1306934563?edition_id=5f71b090-62f4-11ea-99c6-002590a5ba2d Thanks to
@jordi_nito @prometheusgreen #synbio #genome-editing
https://twitter.com/GerdMoeBehrens/status/1237429817651363840?s=20

How to develop approaches in a time of pandemic? Let's stay in communication! 

Am wondering what possible subtexts there could be, like testing evacuation plans in general, or even purges to the sex offenders, or similar, or protecting MIT undergrads for reasons other than Covid-19? Thoughts, questions, ideas? 

Sincerely, Scott
415 480 4577




* * *

Dear Dick, Lucy, Ma and Alden,

Who knows, but perhaps I'll or we'll get to vote for Elizabeth Warren as Vice President - "Biden will pick a woman as his running mate. But who?" ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-bidens-vp-pick-is-so-important/2020/03/08/81c22fb2-5fe3-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html ? And perhaps too she'll run for President again in 2024 and win for a term or two. If Biden chose her, he'd not only get all of Harvard (re thinking), but Harvard would get another first (first woman VP candidate, I think), and from what I've observed Harvard seems to like its firsts, and writes about them a fair amount too (and these go back a number of centuries:). 

(I had thought Pres T's daughter was attending Harvard Law School, but it turns out she graduated from Georgetown Law not long ago, and just toured Harvard Law - https://abovethelaw.com/2017/05/tiffany-trump-has-picked-her-law-school/ - I think. What a Harvard Law communication loop that would have been regarding her current Papa Pres).

Looks like the person in this Boston apartment is doing the Yoga pose 'Vasisthasana Side Plank Pose and Variations' -  
"As coronavirus cases mount, just how paranoid — or cautious — should we be?
Different people are responding to the sudden outbreak — and the resulting worry and uncertainty — differently, with some adopting great caution while others are more easy-going."

Meditation and Yoga seem sensible in this infodemic, which may be scaring people in different ways (all of Italy is in lock down, not just 16 million people in northern Italy, for ex.), where meaningless 'memes' per Dawkins - see “Richard Dawkins and the meaningless meme” https://gu.com/p/3gzcq/stw (as a fascinating clarification of what memes mean for him, and regarding his playing the clarinet into a swirl of related color and shape behind him and all around at video's close ... all as memes) - are going viral as #ViralMemes (replicating cultural units). Dawkins coined newly the word meme in his 1976 "Selfish Gene" book drawing a comparison to genes, but on the cultural side of life, in contrast to the biological side, and mentioning in particular, as example, the 'aggressive' rabies' virus as genes which replicate themselves by making the host mammal thirsty and aggressive/attacking - and for the the way ideas propagate from mind to mind (ranging from a favorite novel to a pretty summer dress were examples he gave, I think).

Memes would also be meaningless regarding genes which replicate, and these COVID-19 ones which do so aggressively. 

Appreciated yesterday too the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article 
"UPMC testing, but still no positive COVID-19 tests"
with its explicit focus on COVID-19, and testing (and that Pgh hasn't seen any cases yet).
In all the press I've read (and it's been a fair amount, and in 2 languages), there's been no clear distinction between novel COVID-19 virus and known coronaviruses (see, for example, this NYT's article which mentions 4 known coronaviruses )

"Inside China’s all-out war on the coronavirus"
Dr. Bruce Aylward, of the W.H.O., got a rare glimpse into Beijing’s campaign to stop the epidemic. Here’s what he saw.

Excerpt from article ...

NYT's Question -
"What about children? We know they are rarely hospitalized. But do they get infected? Do they infect their families?

We don’t know. That Guangdong survey also turned up almost no one under 20. Kids got flu, but not this. We have to do more studies to see if they get it and aren’t affected, and if they pass it to family members. But I asked dozens of doctors: Have you seen a chain of transmission where a child was the index case? The answer was no.


NYT's Question -
Why? There’s a theory that youngsters get the four known mild coronaviruses so often that they’re protected.

That’s still a theory. I couldn’t get enough people to agree to put it in the W.H.O. report."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/health/coronavirus-china-aylward.html

Waiting to see what happens today with the road to November ... 
"Our Final Forecast For Today’s Primaries:
Biden is a clear favorite in three states, but there’s room for a Sanders upset in three others" 
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-final-forecast-for-todays-primaries/
What do you think? 

Warm regards, Scotty



“Richard Dawkins and the meaningless meme” https://gu.com/p/3gzcq/stw #richarddawkins #science #meme #dawkinsmeme and #CoronavirusCovid19 Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE -https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 For a take on the #ViralMeme side of these #Covid19 developments

https://twitter.com/WorldUnivAndSch/status/1235278201842094080?s=20
https://twitter.com/sgkmacleod/status/1235279248576802816?s=20
https://twitter.com/scottmacleod/status/1235279413257703425?s=20
https://twitter.com/TheOpenBand/status/1235280174440009728?s=20
https://twitter.com/WUaSPress/status/1235313272536158209?s=20
https://twitter.com/HarbinBook/status/1235313485078286337?s=20




* * *

Prof. Galen Cranz, Prof. Richard Robb MD, Prof. Greely, Prof. Hennessy, and All, 

With regard to thinking about some of the effects, and ongoing developments with COVID-9, am finding Prof. Greely's 2/11/20 Twitter helpful - https://twitter.com/HankGreelyLSJU . And I come back repeated to Harvard / MIT Prof of Genetics' George Church's Twitter post too - 

"link.medium.com/7zL63vauY3    Thanks Ed. Rapid response capabilities needed: molecular diagnostics, vaccines, neutralizing antibodies, and homes easily converted to off-the-grid full-recycling quarantine-biospheres. Not just for this epidemic, but the next one."

https://twitter.com/geochurch/status/1227150486320615424?s=20

The Spanish flu in 1918 apparently killed some 675,000 people in the US - https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-deaths-october-1918. 4,262 people have died so far per - https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 - and mostly in China and Asia. (See, too - https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd ).

And here are the three recent COVID-19 blog posts I mentioned - 

A great deficit in news' reporting and data sources, to my way of thinking, is the lack of distinction and clarity between  the novel COVID-19 virus and known coronaviruses (see, for example, this NYT's article which mentions 4 known coronaviruses ), news' source to news' source, data source to data source, country to country and language to language - and regarding what else could be happening under the news' 'blitz' on coronavirus; see https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/03/diamond-eureka-this-start-up-is-using.html - regarding Francis Boyle's "Bioweapons Expert Speaks Out About Novel Coronavirus" as well as very speculatively regarding possible 'radical actions.' And could this also even have been a genetic 'goofball' 'accident' or experiment, by possible related genetics' biology laboratories? ????? All ethical minefields of the highest order. (And re all 5 possible radical actions I mention here - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/03/diamond-eureka-this-start-up-is-using.html - and with the WHO continuing to call this infodemic a PANDEMIC, a 'pan'-demic? )


Appreciating yesterday, in a related vein, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article:

"UPMC testing, but still no positive COVID-19 tests"
with its explicit focus on COVID-19 (and possibly in contrast to 'known' coronaviruses), and testing (and that Pgh hasn't seen any cases yet).
In all the press I've read (and it's been a fair amount, and in 2 languages), there's been no clear distinction, again, between the novel COVID-19 virus and known coronaviruses (see, for example, this NYT's article which mentions 4 known coronaviruses, and COVID-19's lack of effect on kids in China, curiously):
"Inside China’s all-out war on the coronavirus"
Dr. Bruce Aylward, of the W.H.O., got a rare glimpse into Beijing’s campaign to stop the epidemic. Here’s what he saw.

Excerpt from article ...

NYT's Question -
"What about children? We know they are rarely hospitalized. But do they get infected? Do they infect their families?

We don’t know. That Guangdong survey also turned up almost no one under 20. Kids got flu, but not this. We have to do more studies to see if they get it and aren’t affected, and if they pass it to family members. But I asked dozens of doctors: Have you seen a chain of transmission where a child was the index case? The answer was no.


NYT's Question -
Why? There’s a theory that youngsters get the four known mild coronaviruses so often that they’re protected.

That’s still a theory. I couldn’t get enough people to agree to put it in the W.H.O. report."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/health/coronavirus-china-aylward.html

Looks like the person in this Boston apartment is doing the Yoga pose 'Vasisthasana Side Plank Pose and Variations' -  
"As coronavirus cases mount, just how paranoid — or cautious — should we be?
Different people are responding to the sudden outbreak — and the resulting worry and uncertainty — differently, with some adopting great caution while others are more easy-going."

Memes would also be meaningless regarding genes which replicate, and can be deadly, and these COVID-19 ones which do so aggressively. 

Meditation and Yoga seem sensible in this infodemic, which may be scaring people in different ways (e.g. all of Italy is in lock down, not just the 16 million people in northern Italy, for ex.), where meaningless 'memes' per Dawkins - see “Richard Dawkins and the meaningless meme” https://gu.com/p/3gzcq/stw (as a fascinating clarification of what memes mean for him, and regarding too his playing the clarinet into a swirl of related color and shape behind him and all around at video's close ... all as memes) - are going viral as #ViralMemes (replicating cultural units). Dawkins coined newly the word meme in his 1976 "Selfish Gene" book drawing a comparison or direct parallel with genes, conceptually but on the cultural side of life, in contrast to the biological side, and mentioning in particular, as an example, the 'aggressive' rabies' virus as genes which replicate themselves by making the host mammal thirsty and attack / aggressive - and for the the way ideas propagate from mind to mind (ranging from a favorite novel to a pretty summer dress were examples he gave, I think).

What to do in a time of emergency like this? And could / will a similar experiment / 'accident,' if this hypothesis is plausible, happen in the areas where we live? 

And how can MIT OCW-centric wiki World Univ & Sch planning to code for all 7.5 billion people (each a Wikidata PIN #, Wikidata Q-item # in Wikidata's 300 languages, or similar ... ), help further with "Rapid response capabilities needed: molecular diagnostics, vaccines, neutralizing antibodies, and homes easily converted to off-the-grid full-recycling quarantine-biospheres. Not just for this epidemic, but the next one" beyond the ideas spelled out in the 3 blog entries above, I wonder?  

With a genome sequencer on our smartphones - see George Church again ... https://twitter.com/geochurch/status/1199669550528258048?s=20
 could we self-diagnose or smartphone diagnose COVID-19 in some years? 

Thoughts, ideas, questions, suggestions?

What do you think? 

Warm regards, Scott




“Richard Dawkins and the meaningless meme” https://gu.com/p/3gzcq/stw #richarddawkins #science #meme #dawkinsmeme and #CoronavirusCovid19 Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins CSSE -https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 For a take on the #ViralMeme side of these #Covid19 developments




* * * *
Wednesday, March 11, 2020

I could interpret this recent Tweet by Stanford Law Professor Hank Greely with his focus on biosciences, and as an ethnographer of Harbin Hot Springs in the following ways:


"I apologize (ish) for flooding my followers w/retweets. There's just SO MUCH interesting stuff going on. This would be a wonderfully fascinating time..if it weren't real."



https://twitter.com/HankGreelyLSJU/status/1237526615887720448?s=20


...

"I apologize (ish)"
- is 'ish' ishvara aka Bob Hartley, founder of Harbin Hot Springs aka Heart Consciousness Church (HCC), and who is also a Harvard alumnus, with echoes of neo-conservative democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg regarding in a debate publicly apologizing for as mayor his outrageous racist stop and frisk policies toward black men in NYC ...

... "for flooding my followers w/retweets"
- 'flooding' Stanford itself with / re birds (women, who might be familiar with Harbin's alternative culture?? ... and who are open with their sexuality as well?)

... "There's just SO MUCH interesting stuff going on."
- so much money at Stanford? where going on could be 'going down,' in a '60s sense, that is 'happening' ...  +

... "This would be a wonderfully fascinating time..if it weren't real."
- is this coronavirus time (since Prof Hank Greely is posting much about coronavirus) real? (and what's 'real' in California, and regarding the media can often be fluid and open to interpretation at times, and a 'trip' even)


and partly because I know Stanford alum Phil Jelly, who graduated from Stanford in the '50s, as an undergraduate and from Stanford Law, and who is a Harbin Hot Springs' lands' lawyer ... having met Phil Jelly, and his wife, at a Stanford Alumni weekend in October 2017 in front of the Stanford bookstore (and possibly thanks to Stanford Law Professor Hank Greely ... and because of Google Maps / or Stanford video cameras? - who knows?).







* 







...



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