BC SCIENCE
Saved by @ThomassRichards

In a number of Sunday papers:
Scientific advisers said it was “hard to see” when the restrictions would end as new variants continued to emerge, delivering a potentially devastating blow to the travel industry. The prime minister said that after progress with vaccinations...

 ...”what we don’t want to see is all that work undone by the arrival of a new variant that is vaccine-busting”.
The idea is planted in people’s mind that this virus is mutating in such a way as to evade prior immunity. This is completely unfounded, certainly as regards immunity..
...gained naturally, after repelling the virus (which well around 99.9% of the population do, fewer, obviously in the very elderly & already ill, more in those younger & well). It’s important to appreciate that upon infection, the human immune system cuts up an infectious...
...agent into short pieces. Each of these short pieces of protein are presented to other cells in the immune system, like an identity parade. Our cells have a truly astonishing range of abilities to recognise different protein structures, and there will be some which recognise...
...each of the pieces of the invader. The cells which recognise a piece are instructed to multiply selectively so that, after a few days to a couple of weeks, our bodies contain large numbers of virus piece specific cells. These have a range of functions. Some make antibodies...
& others are programmed to kill cells infected by the virus, recognised by displaying on their surface signals that tell the body that they’ve been invaded. In almost all cases, accompanied or not by symptoms (ranging from mild to severe) this smart adaptive system overcomes...
...the infection. Crucially and against what SAGE & Govt are saying or implying, this event leaves you with many different kinds of long-lived ‘memory’ cells which, if you’re infected again, rapidly wipe out any attempt at reinfection. So you won’t again be made ill by the...
...same virus, and because the virus is simply not permitted to replicate, you are also no longer able to participate in transmission.
To mutations & variants. Many viruses are error-prone when they replicate in your cells. They make “typos” so the virus which results is...
...slightly different from the parent virus. Sometimes that small changes makes no difference to the behaviour of the virus. Other times, the change renders the virus incapable of something important to its survival. It’s possible a change makes it slightly better at surviving...
...and so over time, it becomes a higher proportion of viruses sequenced from clinical samples. The general ‘direction of travel’ is to become less injurious but easier to transmit, eventually joining the other 40 or so viruses which cause what we collectively term ‘the common...
...cold”. What generally doesn’t happen is for mutants to become more lethal to the hosts (us). But the key point I wanted to get across is just how large SARS-COV-2 is. I recall it’s of the order of 30,000 letters of genetic code which, when translated, make around 10,000...
...amino acids in several viral proteins. Now you can see that the kinds of numbers of changes in the letters of the genetic code are truly tiny in comparison with the whole. 30 letter changes might be roughly 0.1% of the virus’s code. In other words, 99.9% of that code is not...
...different from the so-called Wuhan strain. Similarly, the changes in the protein translated from those letter code alterations are overwhelmed by the vast majority of the unchanged protein sequences. So your immune system, recognising as it does perhaps dozen of short pieces..
...will not be fooled by a couple of small changes to a tiny fraction of these. No: your immune system knows immediately that this is an invader it’s seen before, and has no difficulty whatsoever in dealing with it swiftly & without symptoms. So it’s a scientifically invalid...
...reason that’s been given for really extreme responses, closing borders to almost halt international travel. To the ‘vaccines’, they are unusually narrow in the way they educate your immune system, because instead of exposing your body to the whole range of pieces of broken...
...or inactivated virus, a time-honoured method of preparing vaccines, all of these instead present only the spike protein. This still comprises 10 or so distinctly immunologically different pieces, so even if mutations did change a couple of these, the majority of the pieces...
...of the mutated virus will still be unchanged & recognised by the vaccine-immune system or the virus-infected immune system & a prompt, vigorous response will still protect you. The most limited vaccine is, as I understand the molecular biology, the Pfizer / BioNTech version.
This encodes only a part of the spike protein and, if mutations were to evolve away from any of the ‘vaccines’, it would therefore be reasonable to expect it to be this one. But even in the worst case, the other vaccines (& there may yet be more) could be used to protect the...
...most vulnerable people. So what is happening in the name of saving lives simply doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny.
Why these incorrect stories are being spun, I’ve no idea, that not being a scientific matter. But spin & completely inappropriate & severe restrictions...
...have been applied, which gradually has the effect of closing down movements. Such movements you’ll appreciate are irrelevant to the natural course of the virus & all its natural progeny through the human population. Note that in their most up to date pandemic preparedness...
...planning documents, WHO specifically excludes closing of borders & lockdowns as ineffective & hugely damaging. So I’ve tweeted my way around the houses in an attempt to explain to you why what is happening is wholly inappropriate & specifically excluded by WHO guidance.
I never encourage anyone to break any rules. I’ve always respected the law. But what I’m afraid I do have to urge you to do is do a little research of your own to test whether what SAGE & Govt is telling you marries up with the pre-2020 scientific literature & official guidance..
...or whether it doesn’t. If you find one occasion where what you’re being told runs directly contrary to pre-2020 science & guidance, congratulations! You’ve discovered that you’re being misled & lied to. As I’ve said, science doesn’t give me any advantages in trying to work...
...out “why?”. But once you’ve realised that what you’re being told is not correct, I hope you’ll have the courage to accept what that means, and not try to build an argument which defends that incorrect argument. In the end, it’s totally up to you. I’m just an ordinary and...
...independent scientist who noticed, very early on, that lots of things we were told weren’t correct & instead we’re actively damaging. Sadly, it’s not improved since in any way. Good luck!

More from Yardley Yeadon

Yardley Yeadon
Yardley Yeadon
@MichaelYeadon3
@ukiswitheu I invite people to run the thought experiment: “what if the ‘cases’ data is inaccurate?”
Ignore ‘cases’, look instead only at excess deaths (per M Levitt’s tweet). Does that look characteristic of an epidemic? It’s completely diff from spring or any winter flu outbreak.
London:


Can anyone explain why there is no ‘2nd wave’ of excess deaths in London, without invoking herd immunity?
It’s not lockdown. See NW England:
This is the largest #SecondaryRipple (which I predicted).


https://t.co/b0rT5Lq9HI
Now check the 3 predictions I made months ago. They’ve all happened. Compare predictions from SAGE’s statements: they’re all wrong.
Even neutrals at this point might ask themselves “if he’s been right on all predictions, maybe he’s correct now?”


I’ve been saying since the Lighthouse Labs got up & running that I’m deeply sceptical about the trustworthiness of their ‘cases’ data. I showed how, at low virus prevalence, the PCR mass testing data was throwing out potentially 90% positives being

https://t.co/t4qQN4rH0u
I got ‘fact checked’ a LOT over that statement. This paper just published, about precisely that time period I speculated about. Turns out that high-80s% of Dr Healy’s positives by PCR were FALSE. This alone is sufficient in my view to throw severe doubt...
FOR LATER READ
Yardley Yeadon
Yardley Yeadon
@MichaelYeadon3
@scottorandojin What if the false diagnosis rate was 90%?
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m a thorough believer in the existence of this virus.

To exemplify: the NHS is under severe winter pressure. Many staff are unavailable, largely due to forced isolation from testing. Also, I’m told the adaptations to the conditions make normal work almost impossible. Trying to keep apart patients in different categories must be...

...incredibly stressful. I doubt I could ever have coped. Add to this the real stream of sick people & it’s a complete nightmare. My sympathies won’t be accepted but I offer them anyway. As to “the deaths”, do you mean the reported count of “covid19 deaths”? Everyone is doing...

...their very best. But as to that count: it’s nothing to do with clinical judgement. A covid19 death is a death from any cause within 28d of a positive test. So once a person is labelled by a positive test, if they then die, they’re a covid19 death. Back to my substantive...

...question: how reliable is that labelling? It’s not a clinical diagnosis. We’re not used to this idea. Never before in medical history has someone had a disease (let alone cause of death) been defined by the result of a single year alone. Yet that’s where we are. I think that..
HEALTH
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Yardley Yeadon
Yardley Yeadon
@MichaelYeadon3
https://t.co/xvP6tVlIaE
Quite a surprise. Ferguson isn’t qualified to comment on such things. He lacks understanding of basic biological concepts, partly explaining why his predictions are often so extreme.


That said, I’ll take him as an ally. It’s clear we’re already at herd immunity. How can I be sure? London had a huge peak of excess deaths in spring. The timing of peak deaths showed clearly that the pandemic was self-limiting. Recall much debate about whether the interval...

...between lockdown & peak deaths was long enough for lockdown to have been the cause of reducing deaths? The answer was “no”. But it was close & I can understand people thinking “well, it’s close, so perhaps it was lockdown that did it?”, thereby establishing a foundational...

...myth favoured by those who genuinely believe lockdown saves lives (it clearly doesn’t).
I’ll get to London & here immunity. But those wavering about the evidence about lockdown in spring really will benefit from cogitating on this graph.


In blue are the 30 trusts with the earliest date of peak deaths in spring. In red, the 30 with the latest peak deaths. For me, this is proof that national lockdown, which began Mar 23, played no role whatsoever in turning the pandemic. You’ll see some areas had peak daily...
SCIENCE
Yardley Yeadon
Yardley Yeadon
@MichaelYeadon3
I urge all followers who have read my criticisms of PCR mass testing in U.K. to carefully read Mr Fordham’s carefully worded letter. Note that the innovation minister in the Lords, Lord Bethel, already admitted that the PCR system doesn’t have the equivalent of an MOT. https://t.co/zXzeDMKCBb


Without this information it’s impossible to interpret any result. If the oFPR is 4%, for example, and if the true prevalence is 0.3% (it’s probably less), then for every 10,000 tests, 400 positives would be false & 30 positives would be genuine. So 93% of positives are false.

As Mr Fordham points out, almost all policies pivot on PCR mass testing. Hancock previously admitted on talkRADIO to Julia Hartley-Brewer in late summer that the FPR was “just under 1%”. That was a flat lie (possibly inadvertent but he’s never corrected the record). The reason...

...we are sure Hancock told a lie is that they have never known the FPR. Those including Hancock who believe that the oFPR can be estimated by inspection of the lowest positivity ever recorded, while logical, is completely wrong. Changes in personnel, throughout, testing...

...architecture & the like can radically alter the oFPR. Since Hancock’s remark in late summer, PCR mass testing has moved into the Lighthouse Labs & this creates a new & urgent need to continually assess oFPR. I’ve good reason to believe it’s now VERY much higher now that the...
SOCIETY
Yardley Yeadon
Yardley Yeadon
@MichaelYeadon3
Postcard From Luxembourg: normality is restored prior to vaccination.
I’ve repeatedly said that “test, test, test” is madness, if the tests are unregulated. Why?
‘Because pandemic’, NO PCR mass testing has a declared operational false positive rate.

So we don’t know the oFPR of PCR mass testing in U.K. This is conducted in a small number of private labs, set up at pace in summer, anticipating a ‘2nd wave’ (itself a dubious prediction from the Imperial team who’ve been wrong every time before). You’d assume these “Lighthouse

...Labs are surely regulated, inspected, accredited etc. They’re doing the most impactful medical diagnostic testing which has ever happened in history. But no. None of these are true. ‘Because pandemic’. Now, I don’t know the oFPR either. But we’re paying for it. It is NOT ZERO.

However, the authorities take every positive result as a “confirmed case” (though there’s nothing confirmed). There is no open protocol you can examine & debate. None of the results are available for understanding, thinking & interpretation. Wouldn’t it be important to learn...

...how the distribution of cycle threshold for positives varies through a run of tens of thousands of samples? Or through time? Or across geography? There is no routine evaluation of the characteristics of the test, even though we know the oFPR of complex systems is subject to...
SOCIETY

More from Science

Prof. Gavin Yamey MD MPH
Prof. Gavin Yamey MD M...
@GYamey
I want to share my thoughts, as someone who has been so alarmed by the so-called "dissident" scientists like Gupta, Heneghan, Kuldorff, Bhattacharya, & Ioannidis who consider themselves brave Galileos unfairly treated by "establishment scientists." I will try not to swear. 1/n


I want to talk about 3 things:
‼️Their fringe views are inhumane, unethical junk science that promotes harm
‼️They complain that they've been marginalized but this is simply untrue
‼️I am sick of people telling me we have to "listen to both sides." There aren't 2 sides here 2/n

These 'dissident' scientists have consistently downplayed COVID-19, urging policymakers not to take aggressive control measures. They claim it is not a serious threat. Gupta even went on TV saying people under 65 shouldn't worry about it!

RECEIPTS

They have consistently argued that policymakers should just let the virus rip, in an attempt to reach herd immunity by natural infection. Kuldorff *continues* to argue for this even now that we have many highly effective, safe vaccines.


We've never controlled a deadly, contagious pandemic before by just letting the virus spread, as this approach kills & disables too many people. In Manaus, Brazil, 66% of the city was infected & an astonishing *1 in 500* people died of COVID-19
SCIENCE
Yardley Yeadon
Yardley Yeadon
@MichaelYeadon3
https://t.co/xvP6tVlIaE
Quite a surprise. Ferguson isn’t qualified to comment on such things. He lacks understanding of basic biological concepts, partly explaining why his predictions are often so extreme.


That said, I’ll take him as an ally. It’s clear we’re already at herd immunity. How can I be sure? London had a huge peak of excess deaths in spring. The timing of peak deaths showed clearly that the pandemic was self-limiting. Recall much debate about whether the interval...

...between lockdown & peak deaths was long enough for lockdown to have been the cause of reducing deaths? The answer was “no”. But it was close & I can understand people thinking “well, it’s close, so perhaps it was lockdown that did it?”, thereby establishing a foundational...

...myth favoured by those who genuinely believe lockdown saves lives (it clearly doesn’t).
I’ll get to London & here immunity. But those wavering about the evidence about lockdown in spring really will benefit from cogitating on this graph.


In blue are the 30 trusts with the earliest date of peak deaths in spring. In red, the 30 with the latest peak deaths. For me, this is proof that national lockdown, which began Mar 23, played no role whatsoever in turning the pandemic. You’ll see some areas had peak daily...
SCIENCE
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Mark Tomasovic
Mark Tomasovic
@MarkTomasovic
What is carbon capture? And how does it work?

While carbon capture is regularly discussed in the media, no one really ever explains what it is.

Below is a quick thread discussing the technology behind traditional carbon capture 👇

Carbon capture is broadly the "capture" of CO2 emissions from a power plant or other type of industrial facility.

Technology is connected to the "tailpipes" of these facilities and is used to remove CO2 from the plant exhaust.

Once the CO2 is removed from the plant exhaust, it is typically pressurized and sent under ground for permanent storage.

This step is called "sequestration" and is why experts often talks about "carbon capture and sequestration" or "CCS".

So how do you "capture" the CO2 molecules from exhaust?

Currently, one of the most economic forms of carbon capture is called "amine-based" capture.

An "amine" is a special liquid chemical which selectively grabs on to CO2 molecules.

To get the amine to grab on to the CO2, the amine is put into the top of a large column, while the exhaust is put into the bottom of the column.

The exhaust bubbles up through the column, and the amine drips down.

The liquid amine and gas exhaust mix in the column.
SCIENCE
Medical Nemesis
Medical Nemesis
@Medical_Nemesis
All modern research questions frame your mindset and self-frame research paradigm. Broad thinking: how little of everything can a citizen survive on; how cheap can your upkeep be? /1


When an American patient lands in an Austrian hospital for a back problem, a doctor tells him to perform a set of exercises.

- How many?
- Do you have anything else to do? /2

This interchange illustrates two mindsets colliding at bedside. How little can I get away with vs there is no limit to effort when it comes to your wellness. /3

When you were robbed of movement, somebody started selling you exercise. To understand that digging a ditch, to build a house, or to carry a child around, or waking to your grandparents for an hour is not the same as jogging on a treadmill... will reveal what research hides.
/4

When I talk about doing a purposeful activity outdoors, I look at complexity of movement, purpose, meaning, sun, and air, even an opportunity to meet a neighbor... that is now reduced to a calcium pill, vitamin D, an antidepressant, an osteoporosis shot, and an oxygen tank. /5
SCIENCE
The Desi Science Page
The Desi Science Page
@desisciencepage
This is a thread on statistics in science: 1/7 (via @LogicofScience)

Basic Statistics Part 1: The Law of Large Numbers https://t.co/wUH8eAAIak

#Science #Statistics


Basic Statistics Part 2: Correlation vs. Causation

https://t.co/Azhyl8pDsX (2/7)

Basic Statistics Part 3: The Dangers of Large Data Sets: A Tale of P values, Error Rates, and Bonferroni Corrections

https://t.co/LetN6aEBRM (3/7)

Basic statistics part 4: understanding P values

https://t.co/K8MMMgTCOf (4/7)

Basic Statistics Part 5: Means vs Medians, Is the “Average”
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BANASHANKARI AMMA, NEAR BADAMI (KAR)
#bharatmandir #navratri2021

Originally built by Chalukyas in 7th century. Devi Banashankari was their family deity. This image of Banashankari Amma was installed by Jagadekamalla I in 630 AD.

Later renovations were done by Marathas.


Once, a demon Durgamasur was troubling the people of this area. Answering the prayers of Devas, Ma Parvati emerged from the yajna fire as Banashankari and killed Durgamasur.
This area has rich forests of coconut, betel nut and other trees.
@GunduHuDuGa


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Hence, she is also worshipped here as Shakambhari.
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fascinated by this man, mario cortellucci, and his outsized influence on ontario and GTA politics. cortellucci, who lives in vaughan and ran as a far-right candidate for the italian senate back in 2018 - is a major ford donor...


his name might sound familiar because the new cortellucci vaughan hospital at mackenzie health, the one doug ford has been touting lately as a covid-centric facility, is named after him and his family

but his name also pops up in a LOT of other ford projects. for instance - he controls the long term lease on big parts of toronto's portlands... where doug ford once proposed building an nfl stadium and monorail... https://t.co/weOMJ51bVF


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(1) The notion that R is well-suited to "building web applications" seems totally out of left field. I don't feel like most R loyalists think this is a good idea, but it's worth calling out that no normal company will be glad you wrote your entire web app in R.

(2) It is true that Python had some issues historically with the 2-to-3 transition, but it's not such a big deal these days. On the flip side, I have found interesting R code that doesn't run in modern R interpreters because of changes in core operations (e.g. assignment syntax).

(3) "Most of the time we only need a latest, working interpreter with the latest packages to run the code" -- this is where things get real and reveal some things that hurt data scientists. If this sentence is true, it's likely because you don't share code with coworkers.

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