[fastaguy88]

For a non-trivial piece of code, the conclusion might be that it was copied (horizontal code transfer??). But the 6 amino acids is not a "non-trivial piece of code" -- it is a trivial short string of letters. So the more relevant question is, how often do we see "dogcat" in GitHub (468 repository names). Or perhaps something more nonsensical: "ifdlog" (6 letters from "goldfish" reversed): 1 repository and 25 code results. "hsifdl" - 1 code result.

Random things occur at random.

[thehappypm]

Sure I will not argue that the code showing up somewhere is statistically interesting. What’s interesting is that it showed up exactly once and in a Moderna patent. What’s the probability of that? That of the random strings in the Moderna patent that it would be an exact match to a string in the COVID genome but nowhere else?