BC SCIENCE
Saved by @CodyyyGardner

Beyond the scientific and epidemiological reasons to doubt the lab escape theory of pandemic origin, let’s not forget that no US or allied intelligence has emerged with even a whiff of evidence that a lab was the origin by accident or intention.

 To believe the lab escape theory you also have to believe the Chinese have mounted a successful, extended campaign to eliminate incriminating evidence and muzzle officials and scientists who knew or might have suspected it came from a lab.
It’s a pretty big secret to hold on to, especially for a sizeable group of people that includes an international network of scientists, other workers, and families -- many of whom are not exactly in the secrecy business.
It’s been 12 months now of intense pressure on Western intelligence services to uncover that secret. Doesn’t have to be a taped confession, slam dunk email, or official document (though that would be handy). It could be indirect evidence or suspicious behavior.
The White House in particular leaned has heavily on US spy agencies to uncover Chinese malfeasance or error. “Trump made clear...his interest in intelligence supporting the theory the virus emerged accidentally from a Wuhan lab”
https://t.co/vaZ5fY9UhD
The ODNI said the US will “rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan”
https://t.co/TpS6tQppsS
Some of the biggest proponents of the lab leak theory have been US officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior national security staff. We can be fairly certain had any decent evidence been found it would have been leaked faster than you can say “China virus”
The Administration and Republicans more generally were motivated during an election year to deflect blame for poor pandemic response by linking the pandemic to China’s actions. Evidence linking to the lab would have been gold
https://t.co/TpS6tQppsS
https://t.co/twqUBqUNq9
We can safely assume a leak would have happened, because the White House/State Dept *did* leak what appears to be all the incriminating evidence they have: a cable from 2018 describing a lack of trained personnel at the Wuhan lab
https://t.co/LJ4tG6X47q
For all the pressure it seems that no actual intelligence of substance has turned up. Back in April, the CIA determined that “no signs had emerged that the Chinese government believed the outbreak came from a lab.” https://t.co/vaZ5fY9UhD
There is “no signals or human intelligence backing up the speculation that the lab was the culprit. It also doesn't appear any person or neighborhood connected to the lab became sick at the start of the outbreak”
https://t.co/BZpvjfxsxK
Other intelligence services also found no evidence. Australians (with decent capabilities in China): “nothing that we have that would indicate that [a lab] was the likely source”. The theory is based entirely on "open source speculation".
https://t.co/LwFbHv9n1M
Five Eyes spy agencies found intelligence “contradicts theory Covid-19 leaked from lab”, concluding “it is highly likely it was naturally occurring and that the human infection was from natural human and animal interaction"
https://t.co/fsSxnJfJQQ
https://t.co/Qeu8jBblhV
So just be aware if you subscribe to the lab theory you also, by default, think China has successfully hidden all direct and circumstantial evidence supporting that theory from the prying eyes of many highly motivated intelligence agencies.
Possible that China buried all evidence of a lab leak? Sure, we can’t entirely discard the possibility. But the lack of relevant intelligence adds another layer of doubt, on top of the other layers, that lab escape was the source of the pandemic.
I wonder, in fact, if there exists intelligence showing the opposite: Chinese scientists/officials speaking among themselves saying they believe it WAS a natural zoonotic process and have evidence indicating as much
That kind of intelligence probably wouldn’t be leaked (at least not in the U.S.) because it would have served no political purpose. Only speculating.

More from Science

Kevin McKernan
Kevin McKernan
@Kevin_McKernan
When respected Scientists resign over the false narrative... Take notice... and thank them.

Google Translated Letter from

Prof. Dr. Thomas Aigner,
Department of Geosciences,
University of Tuebingen, Sigwartstrasse 10,
D-72076 Tuebingen Germany

Dear colleagues,
It was with the greatest astonishment, deepest concern, and indeed bewilderment, that I took note of the "7th ad hoc statement" from the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina on December 8th, 2020.
In my opinion, this paper is not worthy of an honest, critical-

weighing science oriented towards the service and well-being of man. I do not have any medical expertise. However, as a scientist committed to nothing but the pure truth, I take the liberty of speaking up. I feel very alarmed by several points:

1. On November 27, 2020, a group of 22 internationally recognized experts presented the following report on the PCR test, the linchpin of the "pandemic", for the Eurosurveillance magazine:

"External peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results". Quote: "This highly questions the scientific validity of the test".
SCIENCE
Carlos E. Perez
Carlos E. Perez
@IntuitMachine
It is astonishing that most of cognitive science ignores an obvious reality. That there are two kinds of humans.

Tomasello has a very credible hypothesis that what distinguishes humans from the great apes is the inclination towards shared intentional behavior. What is innate is the disposition and like personalities, it is what defines our cognition as we grow.

If cognitive preference is so critical in cognitive development then why is it that we seem to have completely ignored the difference in cognitive preferences between men and women?

Humans are that species of primates that wandered out into the savannah. The savannah is different enough from a dense jungle to exert the evolutionary pressures that encourage the development of planning and forecasting skills.

Furthermore, human infants required a disproportional amount of effort to rear. This meant the specialization of roles between women who were responsible for rearing offspring and men who were responsible for bringing home the bacon. Failure in either implied death.
SCIENCE
Advertisement
Max Fagin
Max Fagin
@MaxFagin
November is here, and that means a massive shift is coming. And by "massive" I am of course referring to the redefinition of the kilogram unit of mass that the world has been building up to for more than 100 years. Let me explain:


1/ I've had an unhealthy fascination with metrology (the study of measurement) ever since my 2nd year as a physics major when I took a class devoted to duplicating historic physics experiments, so please indulge me for going into heavy detail (get it?) about the kilogram.

2/ So what actually *defines* a unit of measurement? If you're American, you probably know a mile is 5280 feet and a foot is 12 inches and an inch is 2.54 centimeters etc. But where does this chain of definitions end? Is it turtles all the way down?

3/ It's actually not! For all units (even the imperial units used in America) the answers all end with the Système International (SI) unit definitions established and maintained for over 100 years by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIMP) in France.

4/ At the base of this tower are the SI base units. Just 7 SI base units define every other unit in existence. They are:

Kilogram, kg (mass)
Meter, m (distance)
Second, s (time)
Kelvin, K (temp)
Ampere, A (electric current)
Candela, cd (luminous intensity)
Mole, mol (quantity)
SCIENCE
Adam Hamdy
Adam Hamdy
@adamhamdy
1. I find it remarkable that some medics and scientists aren’t raising their voices to make children as safe as possible. The comment about children being less infectious than adults is unsupported by evidence.


2. @c_drosten has talked about this extensively and @dgurdasani1 and @DrZoeHyde have repeatedly pointed out flaws in the studies which have purported to show this. Now for the other assertion: children are very rarely ill with COVID19.

3. Children seem to suffer less with acute illness, but we have no idea of the long-term impact of infection. We do know #LongCovid affects some children. @LongCovidKids now speaks for 1,500 children struggling with a wide range of long-term symptoms.

4. 1,500 children whose parents found a small campaign group. How many more are out there? We don’t know. ONS data suggests there might be many, but the issue hasn’t been studied sufficiently well or long enough for a definitive answer.

5. Some people have talked about #COVID19 being this generation’s Polio. According to US CDC, Polio resulted in inapparent infection in more than 99% of people. Severe disease occurred in a tiny fraction of those infected. Source:
SCIENCE
Black Hole Group
Black Hole Group
@BlackHolesUSP
Today, we are bringing other exciting results involving black holes and AI. We released a new paper:

"Black Hole Weather Forecasting with Deep Learning: A Pilot Study"

Work by Roberta Duarte (@import_robs), Rodrigo Nemmen (@nemmen) and João Paulo Navarro (from @NVIDIABrasil).

The authors used deep learning to simulate the dynamics of gas accreting onto a black hole, i.e., black hole weather forecasting.

They trained the model (U-Net) with frames from numerical solutions of the hydrodynamical equations.

Numerical simulations are time-consuming. A simple simulation can take as long as 7 days to finish. If we go with more complex simulations, this time may increase.

We want to investigate if deep learning can be a new method to simulate accurately in less time!


In the paper, they discussed two examples:

1- The model simulating only one system after learning only from this system
2- The model simulating an unseen system after training with several systems with different initial conditions

In the first example, they trained the model with a single system and analyzed how the model simulates by iterative predictions.

The result is that the model can simulate up to 8e4 gravitational time accurately with a speed-up of 30000x faster!
SCIENCE

You May Also Like

Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
DEVI KARUMARIAMMAN, THIRUVERKADU (TN)

Devi is worshipped here as both Swayambhu (self-manifested) and as Parashakti (with 4 arms holding skull,sword,trishul,udukkai/damru).

Here, Muruga got Vel from Devi to fight Suran. So the place was called Vel kadu which became Verkadu.


It is said that there was an anthill here long ago. Devi appeared in the dream of a devotee and asked him to build a shrine at that spot. When the anthill was removed, the swayambhu murti of Devi emerged. So Devi is called Karuvil Illadha Karumari ( not in the womb of mother).


Once, Devi went to Surya in the form of an old woman but Surya neglected her. Devi’s anger made Surya lose his brightness.
To appease her, Surya said that His rays would fall on Her directly twice in a year and touch her feet. Also, Sunday is celebrated as day of Devi Karumari.


There is also a wooden image of Devi (Marachilai Amman) here. Devotees offer locks to her in the belief that She would safe guard their houses.
Temple tank (Thiruchamber Poigai) is said to have been created by Subramanya. Taking dip in it is said to cure skin related disorders.
ALL
Greta Musk
Greta Musk
@GretaMusk
🚔 HUGE #Tesla SERVICE PROBLEMS THREAD🚔

You might remember my 3 prior threads on how
TESLA. TREATS. ITS. CUSTOMERS. LIKE. TRASH.

Here's the 4th installment.
@tomkeinan @jonsey_lisa @jwmooc @tchanpoker @bryanthediamond @EconomicManBlog
$TSLA $TSLAQ 1/22


Welcome to Greta's 4th edition of #Tesla customers getting used and abused. Because that's the Elon Musk way.
@coffeebreakls @KocgibiHarun @omaragha @JayGhahari
$TSLA $TSLAQ 2/22


"The best service is no service." - Elon Musk a.k.a. #SpaceKaren
@briansaziz @FarSha998899 @thinktankfour @Billoday1
#Tesla $TSLA $TSLAQ 3/22


These #Tesla customers represent just the very tip of the iceberg. They are ones who have Twitter, have decided to complain about their #TeslaServiceIssues publicly, and were found by yours truly.
@yanismydj @hajelatweets @AlanHeldman @francislongo5 $TSLA $TSLAQ 4/22


Dear #Tesla customers: In California, if your vehicle has been out of service for >30 days total, it's a lemon. You can get punitive damages and attorney's fees. Don't sit around and take Elon's abuse. @13arm13arm @cecimar12 @richardson_skip @shootinglee $TSLA $TSLAQ 5/22
TECH
Advertisement
antifa.drone
antifa.drone
@antifa_drone
Fake chats claiming to be from the Irish African community are being disseminated by the far right in order to suggest that violence is imminent from #BLM supporters. This is straight out of the QAnon and Proud Boys playbook. Spread the word. Protest safely. #georgenkencho


There is co-ordination across the far right in Ireland now to stir both left and right in the hopes of creating a race war. Think critically! Fascists see the tragic killing of #georgenkencho, the grief of his community and pending investigation as a flashpoint for action.


Across Telegram, Twitter and Facebook disinformation is being peddled on the back of these tragic events. From false photographs to the tactics ofwhite supremacy, the far right is clumsily trying to drive hate against minority groups and figureheads.


Declan Ganley’s Burkean group and the incel wing of National Party (Gearóid Murphy, Mick O’Keeffe & Co.) as well as all the usuals are concerted in their efforts to demonstrate their white supremacist cred. The quiet parts are today being said out loud.


The best thing you can do is challenge disinformation and report posts where engagement isn’t appropriate. Many of these are blatantly racist posts designed to drive recruitment to NP and other Nationalist groups. By all means protest but stay safe.
TRADING
Pulp Librarian
Pulp Librarian
@PulpLibrarian
Many readers have asked me "why do so many pulp covers feature women in ripped red blouses standing in swamps while a man fights off an unusual animal attack?"

The answer is artist Will Hulsey...


Will Hulsey was the undisputed king of the animal attack pulp cover. You name it, he'd paint it attacking you in a pool of stagnant water.


Very little is known about Will Hulsey, but he worked on a number of men's pulp magazines in the 1950s and early 1960s including Man's Life, True Men, Guilty, Trapped and Peril.


Their audience was ex-GIs: during WWII the US Council of Books in Wartime had given away over 122 million books to American servicemen to read; this led to a post-war surge in paperback and magazine sales amongst these newly enthusiastic readers.


As a result the 1950s saw a raft of men's pulp magazines being published to tap into this market - almost 200 different titles!
CULTURE
Anu Satheesh
Anu Satheesh
@AnuSatheesh5
Sri Mridanga Saileswari Temple Muzhakkunnu, Kannur KERALA

The temple is established by Parasurama and it is one among 108 Durga temples.
Devi will answer all the prayers of her devotees who pray to her with utmost devotion lighting the ghee deepam.


It is the family diety of Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja.
Devi is present in three forms Kali, Saraswati and Lakshmi.

Legend...👇
Once a Mridungam ( musical instrument) shaped rock fell from heaven here.
@SriramKannan77


Devi originated in the form of Mridangam and Parasurama captivated the essence of Devi into a Vigraham. Vigraham is made of Panchaloham.
Kathakali, an art form of Kerala originated here.


Temple Vigraham was stolen 3-4 times, but because of power of Devi all the attempts were failure. Police records says that Whenever the thieves try to steal, they lose their senses, and they will be in a confused state. So they will abandon the idol.
🕉
ALL