Origins of the swine flu pandemic

Research blogging from Not Exactly Rocket science:

In the time since the words “swine flu” first dominated the headlines, a group of scientists from three continents have been working to understand the origins of the new virus and to chart its evolutionary course. Today, they have published their timely results just as the World Health Organisation finally moved to phase six in its six-tier system, confirming what most of us already suspected – the world is facing the first global flu pandemic of the 21^st century.The team, led by Gavin Smith at the University of Hong Kong, compared over 800 viral genomes representing a broad spectrum of influenza A diversity. The viral menagerie included two samples of the current pandemic strain (the virus formerly known as swine flu and now referred to as swine-origin influenza virus (S-OIV)). Also in the mix were 15 newly sequenced swine strains from Hong Kong, 100 older swine strains, 411 from birds and 285 from humans.

The team used these genomes to build a viral family tree that shows the relationships between the strains and dates their origins. They found that S-OIV was borne of several viruses that circulate in pigs, with contributions from avian and human strains. The virus made the leap to humans several months before we twigged to its presence. It was spreading right under our noses, undetected because of our lack of surveillance of flu viruses in pigs.

Read more.

Commentary: God delusions cloud a world of wonders

Michael Coulter writes in The Age,

…What I see is a world slowly tearing itself apart for the sake of one faith or another. A world where an extreme faction of Islam wishes to put me and mine to the sword for my unbelief, and to shackle half the world for the crime of being born female. A world where an extreme faction of Christianity wants to throw away science for the sake of millenniums-old superstitions, and is prepared to kill in the name of life. A world where an extreme faction of Hinduism wishes to religiously purify India. A world where people are unashamedly trying to fulfil the biblical conditions for Armageddon.

Moderates say that these factions are perversions of faith…

Read more of “God delusions cloud a world of wonders.”

Megamouth shark is a rare dish

National Geographic reported in April that fishermen in the Philippines caught a megamouth shark. It died as they were capturing it, so they ate it in spite of urgings from a naturalist to save it for science. Megamouth sharks were discovered in 1976. They are a filter-feeder in their own family and genus.

This was only the 41st one ever seen. So little is known of them that conservation authorities can’t assess their status.

image from Natural Geographic

Great Global Warming Swindle exposed

This isn’t new, but someone has done a very nice job of dissecting a British documentary and showing its misinformation, fraudulent graphs, and false data: Great Global Warming Swindle complaint to the U.K. Office of Communications.

Among the breeches of the broadcasting code were misrepresenting the purpose of the film when interviewing; falsification of graphs or data or quotations from reports; selectively editing interviews to misrepresent the positions of the interviewees; making serious (and often false) allegations without giving those accused an opportunity to respond; use of logical fallacies “straw man,” “ad hominem,” and “non sequitur” by a public broadcaster; recycling of long-discredited myths; combining interview and narrator statements to make a misleading narrative; using data that is thirty years out of date; and making false statements.

Left, misrepresented data; right, actual global warming

Genetic analysis confirms pattern of sheep domestication

Manx Loaghtan sheep, from the Isle of Man, have 4 – 6 horns

Blogger Abbie Smith at ERV has the story: “Bah bah black sheep, have you any ERVs?”.

The gist of it is that ERVs are viral genomes which read themselves into an individual’s DNA. If the infected cells are in the eggs or sperm, the ERV is passed on to all descendants, who have the same virus at a unique location in their chromosome.

ERVs mutate rapidly, which makes it possible to trace different lineages of the same original ERV and put them into a tree diagram showing who broke off first and who’s descended from the breakaway group vs. the original group.

The evidence thus gathered confirms historical evidence about the domestication of sheep in southwest Asia in two waves. In some remote places, farmers kept on breeding the older types. The details are interesting and the explanation is amusing.