Top all-time · #2880
Yuri Deigin
Personal blog · yurideigin.medium.comsciencehealth
Yuri Deigin's personal blog at yurideigin.medium.com covers science and health. Since 2020, 27 different Hacker News readers have linked it 34 times, most often “Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (29) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Yuri Deigin's Medium posts on COVID-19 origins, mainly the long 'Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy' analysis of the lab-leak hypothesis, and his 'J'Accuse' piece on the 122-year-old longevity record.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 29 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research22 people · 27 mentions · first linked 2020-12-30
- Jeanne Calment’s 122-year old longevity record may be fake (2018)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-07-26
What Hacker News says?
I too am disappointed at how politicized this is. That includes the Vanity Fair article, which was mostly about press coverage, funding, memos, and circumstantial evidence. Here's some good science sources: - Comprehensive reddit post [0] from a virologist (table of contents, also linked as a 34 page pdf), referencing over 150 sources, with several sections going into the details of the genetic evidence, also intere…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “The lab-leak theory: inside the fight to uncover Covid-19’s origins”Submitted Jeanne Calment’s 122-year old longevity record may be fake (2018) as a story · 146 points
HN discussionThis was the only piece I found last year that discussed the possibility given the science of the virus: https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug... Unfortunately I'm nowhere near informed enough on virology to understand whether these claims are accurate or are some sort of sleight of hand.
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Why the Wuhan lab leak theory shouldn't be dismissed”Submitted Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThere were very good arguments that Covid (probably) leaked from a lab as early as April 2020 at the latest (and in January if you were a virologist included in top-level NIAID emails). HN largely went along with the shunning of debate, which helped give everyone the impression there was "zero evidence" of a lab leak compared to solid evidence of zoonotic origin, which was simply never true. https://yurideigin.mediu…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins”Submitted Get vaccinated It could help you, like, not die as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis is older but it shows the BLAST of the two viruses. They're more than the same family. RaTG13 is the closest sequence ever discovered (in open literature) to SARS-CoV-2. https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out”Submitted SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Function Research (4/2020) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere is a rather detailed description of circumstantial evidence that leans towards the gain of function statement: https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Scientists who say the lab-leak hypothesis for SARS-CoV-2 shouldn't be ruled out”Submitted Cryonics 101: A deep dive into deep freeze as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIf we're revisiting this subject, it's time to revisit these articles "LEAKED GRANT PROPOSAL DETAILS HIGH-RISK CORONAVIRUS RESEARCH The proposal, rejected by U.S. military research agency DARPA, describes the insertion of human-specific cleavage sites into SARS-related bat coronaviruses." https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra... "Lab-Made? SARS-CoV-2 Genealogy Through the Lens of Gain-of-Funct…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Lab Leak 2.0?”The WIV published lots of gain-of-function research, but all by genetic engineering and not serial passage. Ralph Baric's group has published on coronavirus gain-of-function by serial passage though: > We adapted the SARS-CoV (Urbani strain) by serial passage in the respiratory tract of young BALB/c mice. Fifteen passages resulted in a virus (MA15) that is lethal for mice following intranasal inoculation. https://yu…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “US raises ‘deep concerns’ over WHO report on Covid’s Wuhan origins”"China barred WHO researchers"... and the WHO researchers themselves engage in (and fund) the same type of experiments as the Wuhan lab (and the Wuhan lab itself), and so had very little incentive to investigate or implicate themselves either... and further, there actually is evidence of what went on in the Wuhan lab, see https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “The media's lab leak fiasco”Not just the media, folks, also the rest of our "sense making apparatus". Wikipedia has been suppressing lab leak discussion, and still to this moment will not allow the old Lab Leak Hypothesis page back. It still redirects to a declared "Misinformation!" page https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19_lab_leak... And guess where else lab leak was suppressed? Here on HN. Yes, dang, you suppressed discussion…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “The media's lab leak fiasco”I think this is the relevant line of inquiry. >We know what viruses the lab was working with, and SARS-CoV-2 wasn't one of them. Do we really know what was being worked with at the time of outbreak? Plenty of published literature exists for the years leading up to the outbreak. It shows that they were working with viruses with all of the component parts of CoV-19. Their published research also shows that they were g…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Early ‘lab-grown’ Covid virus found in sample lends weight to Wuhan theory”specifically he is a specialist in bat biology, but perhaps more relevantly he had a very interesting conversation with a russian virologist who also thinks this is the case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5SRrsr-Iug here is an essay written by his guest: https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it”I've only read this [1] before, and its not a bad story, but I wonder how sure you can be without knowing every corona virus strain in the region, it can still be from a strain we haven't sequenced. Also, it is more likely a something like this gets discovered in a major city vs some rural backwater, because they have more educated doctors there and more patience to detect a pattern. [1] https://yurideigin.medium.co…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it”This analysis is obviously garbage, but links to a much better post https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Israeli startup claims Covid-19 likely originated in a lab, willing to bet on it”I'm not sure whether on the balance gain of function research is a good idea or not. The point of my comment was just that discussing the impact is highly relevant, and isn't "putting the cart before the horse". But I guess I should expand on it. Regarding whether gain of function research is a good idea: Creating synthetic variants (to see if there is gain or loss in function) is very helpful in that it allows well…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Publish and Perish”The lab leak was a valid hypothesis since early 2020 and credible scientists had been warning about the possibility of a leak, specifically from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, well before that. By April, there were long arguments with evidence being published, such as here https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug... . These were not "China==bad" arguments. Just people willing to look at the fac…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Scientist finds early virus sequences that had been mysteriously deleted”I would implore those who are skeptical of a lab leak hypothesis to listen to the evolutionary biologist Bret Weinsteins Darkhorse Podcast with Yuri Deigin on the subject: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bret-weinstein-and-yur... Related article by Deigin: https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug... The podcast is a much easier listen then the deep dive that is in the article. All in all, t…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “The Lab Leak Hypothesis”This is a good one as well with some more explanation. https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “The Lab Leak Hypothesis”Someone on HN posted this a few days back https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug... The science is over my head and it’s, yknow, some guy on the Internet so take it with a grain of salt, but it seems to present a pretty compelling case that SARS-CoV-2 is in fact very similar to two viruses the WIV would have had on hand, and that the way it’s structured looks an awful lot like a bunch of other…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “An Uncommon Cold”Apparently seemless recombination was successfully attempted (search word seemless here https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug... ) Whole post is quite interesting despite author alluding from time to time to lab leak being likely. What I got from it is that lab leak is entirely possible but there are at least few indications that it would require mixture of ineptitude and pointless cunningness…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Lab-Made Coronavirus Triggers Debate (2015)”The main problem with such evidence is that even in a lab-made virus it simply may not exist. Basically, a good genetic engineer can create a synthetic virus that would be indistinguishable from a natural one. Moreover, often researchers deliberately introduce some synonymous mutations into their designs so that later they can discern their strain from natural ones. But if the creators choose not to reveal these mar…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Lab-Made Coronavirus Triggers Debate (2015)”There is no way that this is a coincidence: A GRANT PROPOSAL written by the U.S.-based nonprofit the EcoHealth Alliance and submitted in 2018 to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, provides evidence that the group was working — or at least planning to work — on several risky areas of research. Among the scientific tasks the group described in its proposal, which was rejected by DARPA, was the cr…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Lab-Made Coronavirus Triggers Debate (2015)”The US National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology gain of function research on coronaviruses. https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-backed-controversial-wuhan... There's evidence that it's synthetic https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug... https://nerdhaspower.weebly.com/ratg13-is-fake.html Most of the researchers who are strongly denying the poss…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Mild Covid-19 induces lasting antibody protection”Thank you for writing this, I was just about to start writing up something similar. The linked paper might be 'serious' in tone but the claims are not convincing. One of the best articles I have seen on the lab-made hypothesis is here: https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug... If you want to go down a more skeptical route, closer into conspiracy theories and Chinese politics, you can read some…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “Ensuring a transparent, thorough investigation of Covid-19’s origin”https://github.com/Project-Evidence Give it a read over some coffee. There's some other good deepdives by some biotechies as well, it'll take me a bit to get my brain to cough back up the magic query to get back to the articles in question. Here we go: Yuri Deigin https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug... The bulletin: https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop... A colorful,…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “The lab-leak theory is looking stronger by the day”I feel like there's a deliberate attempt at obfuscation going on. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that, at the very least, Beijing isn't being honest about the initial stages of the outbreak (see: the reports around the recent WHO investigation in Wuhan). And that possibly, SARS-CoV-2 escaped from the Wuhan viroligy lab, where it was involved in gain-of-function research to make it more virulent (see: [1][2…
Comment linking /lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
on “The superspreaders behind top Covid-19 conspiracy theories”
