News

23409 readers

2886 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

258

Covid origins: Genetic ghosts suggest pandemic started in market (www.bbc.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

90 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A team of scientists say it is “beyond reasonable doubt” the Covid pandemic started with infected animals sold at a market, rather than a laboratory leak.

They were analysing hundreds of samples collected from Wuhan, China, in January 2020.

The results identify a shortlist of animals – including racoon dogs, civets and bamboo rats – as potential sources of the pandemic.

Despite even highlighting one market stall as a hotspot of both animals and coronavirus, the study cannot provide definitive proof.

The samples were collected by Chinese officials in the early stages of Covid and are one of the most scientifically valuable sources of information on the origins of the pandemic.

...

Their analysis was published last year and the raw data made available to other scientists. Now a team in the US and France says they have performed even more advanced genetic analyses to peer deeper into Covid's early days.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

The samples were collected by Chinese officials in the early stages of Covid and are one of the most scientifically valuable sources of information on the origins of the pandemic.

This Part makes me question things a bit. China is not really known for being honest about things happening in China.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Questioning things is fine. On the other hand, it's pretty hard to fake the ability to trace DNA to a specific market stall.

On top of that, the person I replied to is not questioning. They've already decided it's definitely a lab leak. See all of their other comments.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Ahhh okay, nvm then

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The study itself is quite balanced and honest about data collection. It doesn't rule out a lab origin like the article claims.

our study does not rule out human-to-animal transmission, as the sampling was carried out after the human infection within the market. Thus, the possibility of potential introduction of the virus to the market through infected humans, or cold-chain products, cannot yet be ruled out.