[ImaCake]

People might be interested in why this useful. Much like with Covid today, scientists are interested in understanding when the disease first appeared. Because that gives us clues about where it came from and how quickly it is changing now. You can estimate this based on changes in the sequence of the genome. Changes (mutations) will appear in the genome at a predictable rate ("mutation rate"), and is measured as mutations per generation.

For HIV, there are plenty of estimates for the mutation rate based off a mixture of statistical bioinformatics and knowledge of genetics. But they are all inferences because we don't have many sequences from before 1988. This relatively ancient genome allows scientists to see how good their estimates are by looking at a genome that will have -20 years worth of mutations. Turns out the estimates are really good. I would then draw the link back to Covid where the mutation rate is estimated in the same way. So it's a good bet that the date estimated for Covid's emergence is pretty close to the mark.

You can see the paper here[0]. I think the actual paper would make a better link on HN, but I guess the press release is useful for those without a molecular biology background.

0. https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/05/18/1913682117

[acqq]

It's also relevant to demonstrate now that this virus too hasn't been made in the lab. The "lab origin" is a claim that some like to spread on every outbreak, even in spite of the fact that virologists know that nature produces the viruses very easily and there are no facts supporting anything else this time too.

From the abstract:

"Our phylogenetic analyses date the origin of the pandemic lineage of HIV-1 to a time period around the turn of the 20th century (1881 to 1918)."

At that time humanity didn't even know what the virus really is -- they just knew that something in some liquid transmits some illness. The most advanced lab at that time could only get that liquid using the filters.

[koheripbal]

It's important not conflate two separate accusations "created in a lab" vs "escaped from a lab".

The two are different in likelihood by perhaps two orders of magnitude and one is malicious while the other not.

When we lump all accusations together and dismiss them all together based on their most radical claim, then we do ourselves a disservice.

While it's important to be fact based, it's also important to be investigate theories of greater likelihood.

Imagine a murder investigation where a detective won't interview suspects because there's no evidence against them. It becomes a catch-22.

[prox]

Interesting you mention this, in the WP series Operation Infektion, one of the disinformation campaigns by the Soviet Union is placing an article in a small newspaper in India, wherein the claim is made HIV was made in a lab in the US.

[acqq]

I was referring to the same claims spread in the West, e.g.:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/16/historys-greates...

"Based on the theories of Dr William Campbell Douglass, many believe that that HIV was genetically engineered"

"William Campbell Douglass, M.D. Education: BS, University of Rochester, New York; MD, University of Miami School of Medicine; Graduate, U.S. Navy School of Aviation and Space Medicine" (1)

"Survey data from the United States (US) and South Africa (the only countries for which quantitative data exists) suggest that a significant minority of people endorse such beliefs and that this matters for public health." (2)

And "we know who" now spreads the disinformation about the COVID-19 virus (I won't intentionally mention him, he has too much fans here).

(Additionally, the biggest stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons were always in the U.S., apparently more of 10% of the chemical weapons are still not destructed.)

1) http://ncoic.com/aidswar.htm

2) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-9566...

[sawjet]

> And "we know who" now spreads the disinformation about the COVID-19 virus (I won't intentionally mention him, he has too much fans here).

Are you referring to President Xi?

[clint]

Elon Musk

[fhars]

I love the (probably unintended, but still funny) insinuation in 'to much fans' that those fans are an amorphous mass and not countable individuals...

[adrianN]

Something being impossible unfortunately in no way makes it less likely to be part of a conspiracy theory. I have the feeling that it's actually the opposite.

[simias]

It's pointless to try to prove anything to conspiracionists, they'll just tweak their stories and continue as if nothing happened. Anything that goes against their narrative is ignored and quickly forgotten, anything that appears to remotely vaguely confirm their beliefs is amplified and repeated ad nauseam.

Don't waste your time with them. You cannot reason people out of something they were not reasoned into.

[emiliobumachar]

Every conspiracionist beyond hope was once not quite beyond hope if you go back enough in time, and new ones are getting minted all the time and can still be saved. It's a worthy fight, even though it cannot be thoroughly won.

[Mediterraneo10]

It has been argued that one saves people from going down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories not by giving them the right facts, but by ensuring that they do not feel alone and isolated in society. Speaking with Flat Earthers can reveal that they accepted Flat Earthism simply because it gave them some feeling of community with other people on the internet, and the belief in a flat Earth itself isn’t actually the point.

[emiliobumachar]

That's definitely more important, but more easily verifiable right facts help.

[rewoi]

The question is not really "was this particular one man made?", but "is it possible?" It is pretty obvious 1970ties technology was not advanced enough to pull this stunt. But times change.

[eitland]

> It is pretty obvious 1970ties technology was not advanced enough to pull this stunt. But times change.

Take a step back:

We've been collecting useful yeasts for brewing and cheese production for a very long time, reusing those who yielded better results.

Same as with plants and animals.

So while I don't believe it is man made or synthetic or anything it is smart to have multiple lines of defense against conspiracy theories.

[trhway]

the "gain-of-function" experiments - ie. increasing the deadliness and transmissibility of a virus - doesn't seem to require any meaningful technology, at least not the way it was done in the Wuhan labs to the coronavirus[1]. Such "improved" virus wouldn't look like a "lab made". In theory similar gain-of-function experiments could have resulted in the human transmissible HIV back then.

[1]https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan...

[DiogenesKynikos]

Those gain-of-function experiments were done at the University of North Carolina.

But we know for certain that SARS-CoV-2 was not created through gain-of-function experiments. It doesn't use any of the standard viral backbones used in such experiments, it has a receptor binding domain that computational chemistry algorithms would not have predicted to work (meaning that nature "invented" it, not scientists), and the virus contains seemingly random differences throughout its genome from all known viruses - that would not be the case for a lab-created virus.

The boring answer is the correct one: this virus evolved in nature, and then spilled over into the human population late last year.

[scottlocklin]

Your statement contradicted itself in several places: a "gain of function" virus would contain random differences, and would look indistinguishable from something "created by nature." Effectively that's how nature makes more virulent viruses; the more virulent examples reproduce more effectively. Just like that's how nature/bakeries makes yeast that works better on flour. No genetic engineering involved.

I don't think there is any evidence of this, despite the usual suspects (neocon types on our side, and militarists on the Chinese side) ginning up the case for an "escape from lab" casus belli, but let's get the facts straight.

[DiogenesKynikos]

> a "gain of function" virus would contain random differences, and would look indistinguishable from something "created by nature."

No, a chimeric virus created in a gain-of-function experiment would look extremely similar to known viruses, because these chimeras are created by combining elements of known viruses. It would not be 4% different from the closest known natural virus. Accumulating thousands of mutations throughout the entire genome takes decades of evolution. In the wild, that means thousands of generations of hosts.

A virus created in a gain-of-function experiment would also use a well-known backbone. It would not be based on some virus that nobody had ever heard of.

[yters]

does gain of function require directly engineering the sequence? i saw one gain of function expeeiment where a cat virus was exposed to mouse material, and underwent zoonosis on its own additionally the sequence can just be manually copied over that paper for some reason ignores plausible alternative approaches to creating viruses in the lab

[DiogenesKynikos]

Are you suggesting serial passage in the lab?

The problem with that theory is that the virus contains thousands of mutations throughout its genome, which would take decades of evolution to accumulate. In the wild, this virus jumps to a new host every few days, meaning that decades of evolution amount to thousands of generations of virus. No lab has the time to pass virus through so many animals.