DNA Inherited From Neanderthals May Increase Risk of Covid-19 (nytimes.com) 97
A stretch of DNA linked to Covid-19 was passed down from Neanderthals 60,000 years ago, according to a new study. From a report: Scientists don't yet know why this particular segment increases the risk of severe illness from the coronavirus. But the new findings, which were posted online on Friday and have not yet been published in a scientific journal, show how some clues to modern health stem from ancient history. "This interbreeding effect that happened 60,000 years ago is still having an impact today," said Joshua Akey, a geneticist at Princeton University who was not involved in the new study. This piece of the genome, which spans six genes on Chromosome 3, has had a puzzling journey through human history, the study found. The variant is now common in Bangladesh, where 63 percent of people carry at least one copy. Across all of South Asia, almost one-third of people have inherited the segment.
Elsewhere, however, the segment is far less common. Only 8 percent of Europeans carry it, and just 4 percent have it in East Asia. It is almost completely absent in Africa. It's not clear what evolutionary pattern produced this distribution over the past 60,000 years. "That's the $10,000 question," said Hugo Zeberg, a geneticist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden who was one of the authors of the new study. One possibility is that the Neanderthal version is harmful and has been getting rarer over all. It's also possible that the segment improved people's health in South Asia, perhaps providing a strong immune response to viruses in the region.
Elsewhere, however, the segment is far less common. Only 8 percent of Europeans carry it, and just 4 percent have it in East Asia. It is almost completely absent in Africa. It's not clear what evolutionary pattern produced this distribution over the past 60,000 years. "That's the $10,000 question," said Hugo Zeberg, a geneticist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden who was one of the authors of the new study. One possibility is that the Neanderthal version is harmful and has been getting rarer over all. It's also possible that the segment improved people's health in South Asia, perhaps providing a strong immune response to viruses in the region.
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If you are going to be a cruel racist you should at least be smart about it.
1. Increased risk doesn't equate to people with 0 risk without the gene.
2. On average African Americans have 1/3 of European DNA
3. As an airborne illness. Higher populated areas are at higher risk.
4. The gene isn't completely absent in Africa, there has been trade, with Africa and Europe for a long time.
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If you are going to be a cruel racist you should at least be smart about it.
I'm not sure why this is either cruel or racist. He is pointing out that two facts seem opposite
1. African Americans seem harder hit by COVID 19 [ref [cdc.gov]]
2. A Neanderthal gene-- something NOT present in sub-Saharan Africans-- increases risk.
Those two factors work in opposite directions. Pointing that out doesn't seem either racist nor cruel.
As you point out, increased risk with this gene does not mean no risk without this gene. But it is an odd thing.
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From the article:
"Social inequality matters, too. In the United States, Black people are far more likely than white people to become severely ill from the coronavirus, for example, most likely due in part to the country’s history of systemic racism."
I don't even know what to think anymore. It's all political theatre, and they aren't even trying to hide it at this point.
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Why is the strong correlation between vitamin D levels and covid-19 impact missing from so many color-of-skin conversations?
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Poverty usually makes all diseases worse. And most black people in the US are poor due to the effects of many generations of severe racism.
There's also a fair amount of evidence that there's a fair amount of ongoing racial discrimination in medical care, with black people getting considerably less care than white people with the same symptoms, even when comparing people with the same economic status.
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Are most blacks poor in the US? ... And compared to blacks everywhere else in the world?
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Yes, dramatically so. Median White household income is $67k, compared to $30k for Blacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Granted, a $30k household income is well above the poverty line - but that's the median, half of all Black households make less than that. The lower down the economic ladder you go, the more disproportionately large the number of Blacks and other minorities become.
And that should hardly be surprising - we live in a capitalist society, which by its nature rewards the possession of wealth
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2. On average African Americans have 1/3 of European DNA
Amazing. You're so racist: you consider everyone with mixed race black. I bet you weren't even aware, and will probably do some mental gymnastics to avoid having to back-peddle your faux virtue.
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1. It appears that you do not know what averages are.
I never claimed "everyone" I stated on the average. There are people with 0% and above.
2. I am unsure how acknowledging that people may contain European DNA is stating anything about race other than there is a good chance of the Neanderthal DNA can be present in people who consider themselves as black.
3. The history of slavery does lead to a lot rape, of black by whites. As one group was granted excess power over the other. So hundreds of years in such
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Given that "black" is a categorization explicitly based on phenotype (dark skin) rather than genotype (descent from specific African populations), that seems entirely appropriate.
Consider to counterpoint: 100% of whites have African ancestry (since modern humans evolved in Africa), and yet we don't call ourselves black, because we don't have dark skin.
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Regardless of whether African Americans have a percentage of Caucasian DNA or vice versa, the percentage of them who have that particular gene should be much lower than the percentage of Caucasians, because most of their DNA is, statistically, from Africa, where that gene is basically absent, as opposed to most Caucasian Americans, for whom most of their genes came from parts of the world where that gene is fairly common.
So the question then becomes this: What factors so elevate the death rate among African
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That and Africans were unlikely to be doing the nasty with Neanderthals. Caucasians were very naughty back then.
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That would have been mostly because few Africans traveled outside of that continent, and there were no Neanderthals in Africa.
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Being poor in a country where healthcare is for the rich? Doing front line jobs instead of safely working from home?
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Maybe, but I would not assume that.
Thanks to ACA, the assumption of lack of insurance may not actually be true anymore. For example, one study in Louisiana [nejm.org], showed that the percentage of COVID-19 patients categorized as Black Non-Hispanic who were uninsured was actually lower than the percentage of people categorized as White Non-Hispanic who were uninsured. (Mind you, this was entirely based on a health system in Louisiana, which may not be representative of the country as a whole, but I would still not
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Yes, it is complex. Just the healthcare issue, how good is it? I hear stories where people have to copay and such, it is not like here where you can show up at the hospital, show your card that is issued to all residents of the Province and only have to worry about paying for parking and maybe prescriptions.
Then there are pre-existing conditions. Here the natives have a lot of diabetes for example, which might make their health outcomes worse when it comes to Corona. The diabetes might be genetically linked
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Africans are the only "pure-blooded" homo sapiens. Everyone else has Neanderthal genes collected during their migrations out of Africa.
It appears (because of science) that some of these Neanderthal genes may make people more susceptible to Covid.
African Americans have been contaminated by white people carrying Neanderthal genes. In addition, there are lots of other factors (lack of access to health care, chronic medical conditions, poverty, etc.) that cause African Americans to have higher rates of infectio
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neanderthals (Score:2)
Africans are the only "pure-blooded" homo sapiens. Everyone else has Neanderthal genes ...
It's pretty clear that classifying Neanderthals as a separate species was a misconception of the nineteenth century. They should be considered a sub-type of h. sapiens, homo sapiens neanderthalensis
There were undoubtedly other subtypes that remained in different parts of Africa over that same 400,000 year period. It's just that we have good fossils from caves in Europe and hence know about h. sapiens neanderthalensis
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It's not really clear cut when talking about a human construct called species. They're different enough that there is a good argument for them being a separate species.
Even the inter-breeding, we don't know enough about it, were all off spring fertile? Perhaps they were like tigers and lions, where depending on the sex and species of the parents, they were fertile or not. Or like horses and donkeys, where mules are seldom fertile but very occasionally they are. Then there are ring species where all the imme
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There are 4 genetically distinct groups of aboriginal people in sub-Sarahan Africa.
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That is a terrible thing to say, at least in the "scientific" sense.
First, the "African Americans" are not generically 100% Africans (and not need to be). Thanks to ridiculous "1 drop" rules, anyone with a hint of tan is considered non-white. 100 years of segregation caused a "social and cultural" divide, not a 100% pure racial one.
Second, thanks to that segregation, those populations received the lowest standard of care. The hospitals are hard working but understaffed, and under funded. Of course the healt
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Africa == African-American?
Indeed, something here does not add up.
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We now know that Red states are mostly Neanderthal. Look at the covid-19 stats! THAT is Proof!
Increased risk due to... (Score:2)
Is the increased risk due to a flaw in immune systems relative to COVID-19 or is it the risk due to knuckle-dragging, neanderthal-like behavior?
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The answer is in the second link:
A recent genetic association study identified a gene cluster on chromosome 3 as a risk locus for respiratory failure in SARS-CoV-2. Recent data comprising 3,199 hospitalized COVID-19 patients and controls reproduce this and find that it is the major genetic risk factor for severe SARS-CoV-2 infection and hospitalization.
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knuckle-dragging, neanderthal-like behavior?
Neanderthals didn't drag their knuckles and their arms were not longer, although their arm (and leg) bones are more robust and they likely had greater physical strength than modern humans.
We know very little about their behavior. They likely had language (they have some genes associated with speaking) and had cultural knowledge.
The idea that ancient people were "knuckle-draggers" came from Piltdown Man [wikipedia.org], which is now known to be a hoax.
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I like how you interpreted the OP comment as sincere. When people use the term "knuckle-dragger", it's not a sign that they aren't up to date on evolutionary theory.
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No not language, luggage. It turns out it was very difficult to roam around Europe back then without a decent set of luggage. We owe the Neanderthals one for this valuable invention.
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Piltdown was, as you say, a fake, but the erroneous image of the Neanderthals as "knuckle draggers" was well established long before the Piltdown forger started staining bones and filing teeth.
Re:Increased risk due to... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, correlation is not causation, and within a few weeks COVID had entered the northern countries, proving the hypothesis wrong. I suspect that this Neanderthal DNA connection will prove to be similar, nothing more than a spurious correlation. However, it is worth investigating, since it seems reasonable that some types of DNA would interact differently with COVID than others.
The headlines, those are sensational, nonsense journalism.
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Northern Italy was much harder hit by the virus than southern Italy.
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Italy does not count, highly mobile internal population over thousands of years. Statistics are warmer climes are more impacted by corona virus, not so much the virus but the pneumonia it triggers. The evolutionary logic is quite clear for this, dry cold air causes lung inflammation, those in cold dry climates will be more resistant to lung inflammation, to breather better and as such survive better. Those in warm moist climates are more subject to lung inflammation because it has not climate impact.
With co
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Re: Increased risk due to... (Score:1)
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This is just more anti-Neandertal bigotry.
Even in the study they talk about, the effect was way smaller than the risk caused by having type A blood, which is also more common.
And why would Neandertals drag their knuckles? Surely you know their hips and spines have exactly the same configuration as other Homo sapiens.
Africa? They know why. (Score:3)
It is almost completely absent in Africa. It's not clear what evolutionary pattern produced this distribution over the past 60,000 years.
Actually they know why, in the case of Africa. There was almost no Neanderthal gene dispersal in Africa because Neanderthals never lived there. The same with Denisovians and the unknown species which left traces in southeast Asia and Oceana. Other than interbreeding with Europeans and Asians on the periphery of the continent the African peoples were purely modern human prior to the establishment of the colonies there.
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Actually they know why, in the case of Africa. There was almost no Neanderthal gene dispersal in Africa because Neanderthals never lived there.
Neanderthals never lived in Bangladesh either. Yet this gene is more common there than anywhere else.
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For the past 600+ years, there has been history of Europeans traveling around the world, there is even prehistory of trade across the world. There will be some genetic diversity going on.
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Except the gene is *more* common in SE Asia than it is in Europeans. So there must be some differential evolutionary pressure. Thus "it's not clear what evolutionary pattern produced this distribution over the past 60,000 years."
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People have been moving in and out of South Asia as long as there have been people, geography kept Africa relatively isolated, and the presence of advanced hominids kept the archaic types from expanding into it through the two narrow corridors of Gibraltar and the Arabian Peninsula. (Before you complain about Neanderthals not being able to sail across the Straight of Gibraltar, it's been found that they colonized several isolated Mediterranean islands that have never been connected to the mainland since th
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Seriously? I thought the current on the beach in Tarifa was ferocious, I wouldn't dare go much further out. Holy carp.
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I've only seen the term "Zanclean" occasionally in discussion of Mediterranean geology. "Messinian" is much mor
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I couldn't remember the phrase for the reflooding of the Mediterranean and just grabbed the first Google result even though it sounded odd. You're right, Messianian is what I've seen more often.
I believe there was a ~7 myo anthropoid fossil found on the Greek mainland a few years ago as well. Yes, Greece and Bulgaria (which I hadn't heard of) in 2017.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
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Neandertal remains have been found in the middle east, in Uzbekistan, in parts of southeastern Russia, and in most of southern Europe. Populations have seldom remained geographically isolated, and almost always move around. It is not that hard to imagine that the population that most retained these genes ended up in Bangladesh or that maybe the gene originated elsewhere and spread into the Neandertal popu
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Neanderthal tool sets have been found as far east as the Lake Biakal area. No bones yet, but that region has not been excavated to any extent so far.
Why are they different species? (Score:3)
If the groups interbred — resulting in offspring fertile enough for the mixture of genes to still exist today — why do we consider them separate species? Seems to violate the definition of the term [princeton.edu].
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Which of the dozen or so definitions? I'm reading 'On the Origin of Species', and even then what constituted a "species" was more than a little contentious. Even if you accept the 'able to breed and have fertile offspring' to what extent are you going to go down that road? A small percentage of horse/burro crosses are actually fertile, does that mean that horses, burros and mules are all one species? English sparrows from England and from North America refuse to breed with each other naturally because t
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The one I linked to, thank you very much. It seems to be the definition [wikipedia.org] too...
As are Eskimo, Africans, and Caucasians — despite being comparably dissimilar in appearance. Yet, Homo Sapiens is not even broken into sub-species, only into races... So, why not aren't bears?
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You'll find that different groups in the biological sciences use different definitions, your Wikipedia link gives three different examples in the first paragraph.
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They must be basing their choice of definition on something — what?
Actually, "my" Wikipedia link gives only one actual definition. It mentions, that other ones exist, without giving any more definitions.
There are special cases enumerated (hybrids, asexually-reproducing organisms), but none of that applies to Homo Sapiens. So, why are Neandertha
Re:Why are they different species? (Score:4, Interesting)
Convention, as much as anything else. There were sufficient anatomical differences that they were believed to be much more remote from each other than turned out to be the case. Prior to the first analysis of Neanderthal DNA paleontologists assumed that they would have been unable to successfully interbreed, and if they could that any offspring would be unable to reproduce (I think there has only been one skull that appears intermediate between the two found). Now paleontologists seem to be using a definition more like "they look different and have different lifestyles so probably wouldn't interbreed often". There are a **lot** of plants that fit that definition of species even though they're nominally fertile between them. Cowslips and primroses are two mentioned prominently by Darwin, for example. Dogs, wolves, red wolves, and coyotes are an animal example.
Actually dogs are a good example of the complexity of the issue, since a chihuahua and a Great Dane are utterly unable to mate and if one is artificially inseminated by the other there will be no offspring (fertile or otherwise), but no one tries to claim that they're different species. If you really want to get confused as to what is a species take a good look at fungi, they're truly bizarre.
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Then the definition is useless — as is the very term. A phrase like "Neanderthals are a different species from Cro Magnons" is as meaningless as "Africans and Caucasians are different species".
You've just given contemporary racists a killer argument...
Good job, biologists.
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Then the definition is useless — as is the very term.
Darwin argued much the same in some chapters of 'On the Origin of Species', but did not deny the usefulness of the concept. In his time there were heated discussions among pigeon fanciers (of which he was one) whether for instance fantails and tumblers were different varieties of the European rock pigeon or whether they had become entirely different species. The morphological differences are extensive, down to including different numbers of cervical vertebra, and their social and flight characteristics ar
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If we cannot answer the question ("What is species?"), then we shouldn't be using the term at all — except in our pursuit of the answer. Yet, it can be found in every article about Neanderthals, and in many discussions of same — your own post at the top of this thread included.
Be they climate alarmists or racists, the cooks are always happy to cite "science" to advance their argument.
The phrase you used: "they loo
Helpful explanation (Score:2)
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since a chihuahua and a Great Dane are utterly unable to mate and if one is artificially inseminated by the other there will be no offspring (fertile or otherwise)
Science is not shit you make up while you're talking, or shit that your friend told you. Even that friend who is really sciency.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/86/2... [pinimg.com]
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Photoshop is a thing, you know.
Per our vet the female will abort since the fetuses don't develop normally. If the female is chihuahua she'll normally die in the process too. About the biggest difference in size that the chihuahua can handle is a beagle, and that only sometimes. I have no idea what sick bastards tried to find that out.
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With artificial insemination, otherwise the male can't penetrate. Even then the litter normally aborts.
I'm not a breeder or other sort of expert, just repeating what someone who I consider more knowledgeable told me.
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Re:Why are they different species? (Score:4, Interesting)
They must be basing their choice of definition on something — what?
The pre-existing belief that humanity is perfect, therefore anything different has to be lesser. In this case, the Neandertals had heavy eyebrows and strong arms, and that seemed very different indeed to these dignified aristocrats. So they decided it was different. And to claim, as many do, that we are the same species offends their sense of being superior. So they maintain the absurd classification.
That that is the reason is not controversial, and yet, the idea of correcting the classification remains prohibitively controversial.
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In the Victorian Era this was very true, some went so far as to declare African and Asians different species from the "superior" Europeans.
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Actually, "my" Wikipedia link gives only one actual definition. It mentions, that other ones exist, without giving any more definitions.
Try here for wider elaboration. [wikipedia.org]
This largely becomes a philosophical, or metaphysical, question. Which many find not pleasant from an "unambiguous science" perspective.
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You missed the part later in that sentence where it said species could also be defined by "ecological niche". That's why, for example, the bears are considered separate species even though they could ostensibly interbreed. The same goes for the early humanoid species; their breeding grounds overlapped, but were sufficiently separate that you could at least argue that they occupied a different ecological niche.
Besides, by a strict interpretation of interbreeding, an apricot and a plum are the same species
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purely economic reasons...
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There won't be a single definition while you have different data sets available.
If you'd done palaeontology classes you'd have known that the "interbreeding" criterion isn't available for shelly fossils from the Cambrian, or different styles of stromatolites from the Proterozoic. Instead you have no data to work with other than gross morphology. There are regular "shock, horror!" headlines in the popular press when dinosaur wranglers argue whether two distinct-but-somewh
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If the groups interbred — resulting in offspring fertile enough for the mixture of genes to still exist today — why do we consider them separate species?
That is debated. Some consider them h. sapiens neanderthalensis
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and ne'er the twain shall meet.
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Because "species" is only vaguely defined for contemporary mammals, and even more vaguely for ancient ones and non-mammals.
It's pretty hard to tell if two skeletons would have knocked boots when alive, and harder still to judge whether the offspring would have been able to reproduce.
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Pravda on the Hudson, never pass up an opportunity (Score:1)
"Social inequality matters, too. In the United States, Black people are far more likely than white people to become severely ill from the coronavirus, for example, most likely due in part to the country’s history of systemic racism."
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Someone To Blame (Score:2)
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Yes! Nuke them and their planet now! Oops..
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Blame the neanderthals! That's all everyone wants these days, someone to blame.
And that's the heart of the matter. You're born. You could have been born anywhere in the world. When was born about 1 in 5 billion. I couldn't pick my parents, relatives, country, nothing. I had a certain intelligence, abilities and a normal body. Thank God I was born in the US.
If I were black I'd be told I'm being held back. I'm just as good as any white people, it's racism. So don't even try to make yourself better, you're going to fail. Go into a life of crime, do drugs, be an asshole.
I could study - l
Studies aren't proof (Score:1)
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Studies like this are a good place to start for forming a hypothesis. Seeing it published widely is less desperation for a cure and more the fact that people will read any article even tangentially related to COVID-19.
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Actually, this is completely sound scientifically. Most scientific findings either do not pan out or are meaningless in the longer term even if reproducible. The few that do pan out make it all worthwhile. The problem is the clueless press and general population that does not understand this process.
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There are also plenty of clueless scientists who think that just because a peer reviewer thought it wasn't obvious crap and a journal published it, it must be true.
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There are plenty of people that are bad at their jobs everywhere. Scientists are no exception, also they get selected a bit more carefully. From doing paper reviews (not all anonymous), I do know that there are plenty of low-insight and also a few no-insight scientists around.
Phew! (Score:2)
Thank god the Neanderthals died out a couple of thousand years before God created the earth, so I'm safe.
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Indeed. The whole thing must be fake news!
slashdot idiocracy (Score:2)
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No, SlashDot has even published Fox "News" stories before. It's just whatever submissions get upvoted enough to make it to the front page.
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Today's COVID report from the Scorttish Government (Score:2)
They noted that there was variation in other group's rates, but (this is going to make the people on the Plains of Englandshire spit) we don't have large enough death numbers to make a statistically significant grouping.