COVID's Dirty Two Dozen
Also, where the moon came from, how the Venus flytrap closes, and monsoon rain in the Sahara
Carl Sagan was right. As usual.
"If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater. But if science is a topic of general interest and concern—if both its delights and its social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press, and at the dinner table—we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us."
Carl Sagan. Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science.
How Theia Met Earth
Where did the moon come from? The current idea in favor is the giant-impact hypothesis, which theorizes that a large Mars-sized body, Theia, hit the earth 4.5 billion years ago. And the debris of that collision accreted to form the moon.
The moon forming collision with Theia would’ve generated enough energy to vaporize the oceans and pulverize the surface of the earth for a few million years.
How the Venus flytrap closes.
This is trap closure in real-time from a superb paper in eLife.
Why did CureVac’s mRNA vaccine underperform?
It is no secret that I’m a huge fan of mRNA vaccines and their promise. I feel we are entering a renaissance of sorts of molecular vaccines of the kind that Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax represent. CureVac’s report of effectiveness of around 47% pours water on the assertion that vaccine-making is easy. We are indeed quite lucky that we have a number of highly effective vaccines.
Nature ran a long story on why CureVac’s vaccine yielded disappointing results, but the short answer is that their formulation wasn’t as good as Pfizer or Moderna’s which used a modified form of RNA.
COVID’s Dirty Two Dozen
Vaccines focus on the spike protein which the virus uses to get inside the cell. What happens after the virus gets in doesn't get as much attention but is quite intriguing too, worthy of a feature-length movie. That's when most of the drug targets come into play.
The spike protein is like the member of the Ocean’s Eleven that gets the team inside the Bellagio. They still have to execute the heist and the escape. Actually there are more like two dozen proteins made by the coronavirus, so it should be called COVID’s Dirty Two Dozen.
This week I wrote a column for Hindustan Times on how the coronavirus pulls off the heist.
What else I’m reading.
Monsoon in the Sahara
The Sahara was green up until 5,000 years ago. New work suggests it wasn't sustained by just the African summer monsoon but also by winter rain.
The total mass of all SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in people right now could be up to 10 kg.
This is a very interesting mathematical analysis on the number and mass of all virus particles.
Cool science news roundup:
Goats were first domesticated in what is now Iran 10,00 years ago.
Yeast strains from shipwrecks are being resurrected to create new types of beer.
A massive extinct rhino species has been unearthed in China.
Novavax is a very good COVID-19 vaccine with >90% efficacy.
A landslide caused the fatal flood in Uttarakhand in February.
I really appreciate this review.
Philip Moskovitch of The Halifax Examiner (Canada) has great review of COVID-19: Separating Fact from Fiction. It’s comments like these that make the effort of writing a popular science book worthwhile. :)
I really liked this book. At first, I wondered if I wanted to read more about COVID-19. I mean, haven’t we been inundated with information about the disease, the virus, the vaccines, the socioeconomic effects, and on and on and on for more than a year now? Well yes, we have. At the same time — I don’t know about you, but I’ve often felt like I’m foundering in tons of information and struggling to make sense of it all. To put it all together.
And that’s what Mahapatra does. He starts at the beginning (although, as he notes, it is hard to know where the beginning is) and then, in a series of manageably short chapters, walks us through the basics of what viruses are and how they work, to parallels and differences between this pandemic and others, the logic behind strategies like mitigation and suppression, and on to what the future may hold. It’s all done in an accessible yet not dumbed-down style that even someone with minimal science education (like me) can grasp.