Wretchard.com

Surprisingly, the results showed that SARS-CoV-2 bound to ACE2 on human cells more tightly than any of the tested animal species, including bats and pangolins. If one of the animal species tested was the origin, it would normally be expected to show the highest binding to the virus.

“Humans showed the strongest spike binding, consistent with the high susceptibility to the virus, but very surprising if an animal was the initial source of the infection in humans,” says La Trobe University Professor David Winkler.

COVID-19 origins still a mystery: Study finds virus was ‘highly human adapted’

Scientists using computer modeling to study SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, have discovered the virus is most ideally adapted to infect human cells—rather than bat or pangolin cells, again raising questions of its origin.

One of the problems with fusion power is that it would upset the fission business, like the fuel rod cycle business. Then you would have to retrain all the existing gov’t inspectors to understand something they don’t. All that land PWRs sit on would cost billions to convert. There’s a lot of inertia to business as usual. The barriers to fusion are not just technical but financial.

U.S. lawmakers are demanding an investigation into the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan, China, where athletes complained of COVID-like symptoms and described the city as a ‘ghost town’ weeks before authorities admitted the spread of a new virus.

Almost 10,000 international competitors from 100 countries took part in what is known as the ‘military Olympics’ in October 2019, two months before Beijing confirmed they were treating patients with an ‘unknown pneumonia’.

Congress demands answers about illness at 2019 Military World Games

U.S. lawmakers are demanding an investigation into the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan, China, where athletes complained of COVID-like symptoms.

Users reported having issues with Google as they tried to access the search engine on their Android smartphones. According to the online outage tracker Downdetector, which gives users real-time information about the status of websites, people experienced issues accessing Google at 1:20 a.m. (ET) on June 22. Visitors to Google experienced problems accessing and using the search engine, with some complaining they experienced issues when using its app on their Android phones.

Google keeps stopping on Android phones as users report issues

Android smartphone users have complained they are unable to access Google on their devices via the search engine’s app.

More than 90 countries are using Covid shots from China. Experts say recent infections in those places should serve as a cautionary tale in the global effort to fight the disease.

They Relied on Chinese Vaccines. Now They’re Battling Outbreaks.

More than 90 countries are using Covid shots from China. Experts say recent infections in those places should serve as a cautionary tale in the global effort to fight the disease.

Who wants to bet the alternatives to Anom that people are switching to were also developed by the US government?

In other news:

Even creepier COVID tracking: Google silently pushed app to users’ phones [Updated]

Massachusetts launched a COVID tracking app, and uh, it was automatically installed?!

Maybe the only way to survive the book-burning, witch-hunting Woke era is to go into stealth mode, to adjust your visibility such that you are only visible to trust networks. In the end we may see the revival of hermitages and monasteries as places of survival.

Soon, a Black Lives Matter advocate asked, of all things, whether I would stand for the American flag. To provide context for my decision, I shared a story. As a toddler, I’d seen my mother take a call from the Department of Defense announcing that her fighter-pilot brother had been killed. Honoring her grief, I’d chosen to stand for the flag under which my only uncle had offered the ultimate sacrifice. The student’s response was presented as an irrefutable argument; my choice was “racist.”

My road to cancellation

The road to cancellation for Stanford business school educator, successful CEO and entrepreneur Joel Peterson began in 1987. Now it’s time to say enough.

Pro-Palestinian activists were swarming the social media comments sections of Ben & Jerry’s to demand the company boycott Israel.

In response, Ben & Jerry’s appears to have indeed entered a boycott — of social media itself.

Boycott Israel? No, Ben & Jerry’s is boycotting social media.

Pro-Palestinian activits swarmed the social media comments sections of Ben & Jerry’s to demand the company boycott Israel. In response, the ice cream brand appears to have indeed entered a boycott.

The virus was not the cause for global catastrophe. It was the response to the virus that crippled the global economy and our society. The disease was not nearly as damaging as the “cure” for the disease.

What to make of the COVID-19 lab leak theory

Compelling, but not the main storyline.

Limit charging your electric cars or turning on the lights due to power grid shortages

California, facing power crisis, frets over electric car charging routines

Power grid operators encouraged Californians to charge their electric vehicles before energy conservation blocks set in during the state’s latest heat wave.

New at the Belmont Club. How Biden got Green handicapped in a second cold war he didn’t see coming.

The Global World’s in Trouble: What’s Plan B?

The world Obama took for granted is gone

There are a number of observable trends in oil supplies and by extension prices, presently. I am going to discuss one of them in this article. A lack of capital investment in finding new supplies of oil and gas. A favorite analogy of mine comes to mind, the ship is nearing the dock. In nautical parlance that means the time for course corrections is at an end. So we shall see if that is the case for oil. The massive “ship” that is world oil demand is on an unalterable collision with supplies that will have profound implications for consumers

It’s Too Late To Avoid A Major Oil Supply Crisis | OilPrice.com

The level of capital investment in oil exploration and production in the last few years has been far too low, and now it is likely too late to avoid a supply crisis

The rogue state has almost doubled its fleet sailing under other countries’ flags to 123 in the past year, letting China smuggle in up to a million barrels of oil per day – or two-thirds of the UK’s daily use.

A ‘ghost armada’ of sanctions-busting tankers carrying black-market oil to China is bankrolling Iran’s secret nuclear programme, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The rogue state has almost doubled its fleet sailing under other countries’ flags to 123 in the past year, letting China smuggle in up to a million barrels of oil per day – or two-thirds of the UK’s daily use.

Iran’s ‘ghost armada’ of tankers selling black market oil to China

Iran has almost doubled its fleet sailing under other countries’ flags to 123 in the past year, letting China smuggle in up to a million barrels of oil per day – or two-thirds of the UK’s daily use.

“It took more than a decade for the truth to come out.”

The accident and a subsequent cover-up have renewed relevance as scientists search for the origins of Covid-19. …

In April and May 1979, at least 66 people died after airborne anthrax bacteria emerged from a military lab in the Soviet Union. But leading American scientists voiced confidence in the Soviets’ claim that the pathogen had jumped from animals to humans. Only after a full-fledged investigation in the 1990s did one of those scientists confirm the earlier suspicions: The accident in what is now the Russian Urals city of Yekaterinburg was a lab leak, one of the deadliest ever documented.

Soviets Once Denied a Deadly Anthrax Lab Leak. U.S. Scientists Backed the Story.

The accident and a subsequent cover-up have renewed relevance as scientists search for the origins of Covid-19.

US Roman Catholic bishops agreed on Friday to draft a statement on the meaning of holy communion which could potentially be used to deny the sacred rite to President Joe Biden because of his position on abortion.

US bishops to draft statement on holy communion, Biden in sights – France 24

US bishops to draft statement on holy communion, Biden in sights