edh649

Once you've seen it you'll be baffled as to why it isn't a global solution. No need for the employee or others to wait while you count your coins or bag up, and no need for anyone to wait behind you while you wait for the self-service checkout to weigh each item individually, fail to scan etc.

Comment · 4 years ago

Balanced out by the centripetal force of the plane turning!

Comment · 5 years ago

I've seen swimming googles with the same idea around (virtually in adverts, not in real life)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-personal-shopper/2021/09...

Comment · 5 years ago

This is an excellent podcast around the Dunning-Kruger effect, how we can all be afflicted by it, and what it actually means. Setup around a (true) airline hijacking.

https://timharford.com/2021/03/cautionary-tales-the-dunning-...

Comment · 5 years ago

The demand for a Tesla at $25K is going to be huge. Given previous manufacturing delays, I wouldn't expect them to anywhere near keep up. Therefore although they could sell at $25K, due to the insane demand they may as well sell at $30K to reduce some demand, and then bring it down to $25K over a year or 2 as they work through those willing to pay a higher price.

Comment · 5 years ago

It's suspected that this mutation arose from a single patient who had a long case of COVID-19. Here's an interesting pre-print study on an individual (not the one from this mutation) who harboured many mutations over a 101-day period. [https://www.cogconsortium.uk/news_item/persistent-sars-cov-2...]

In terms of this strain, the actual rate of mutation is higher (5.6E-4 nucleotide changes/site/year vs 5.3E-4) [https://virological.org/t/preliminary-genomic-characterisati...]

Comment · 5 years ago

Page 8 of https://www.cogconsortium.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Repo... hints towards this.

The short answer is that 'The extent to which SARS-CoV-2 may evolve to escape immunity induced by infection or vaccination is not currently known'. However analysis has been carried out to work out how far from the receptor-binding site the mutations are, and how 'antibody-accessible' these are, with a few such as . No conclusions are drawn from this analysis.

Earlier on in the report (towards the end of page 1), this statement is given `One of these (the N501Y mutation) occurs in the region of the Spike protein, the receptor binding domain (RBD), that the virus uses to bind to the human ACE2 receptor. Changes in this region of the Spike protein can result in the virus changing its ACE2 binding specificity and alter antibody recognition`.

Saying all this, vaccines are designed to create a range of antibody responses, in order to stop this very fear of a single mutation rendering a whole vaccine useless. [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6] I also recall reading somewhere that adapting the vaccine to account for a mutation (much like is done yearly with the flue vaccine) is relatively easy, though I haven't managed to find that article again yet.

Comment · 5 years ago

For those (like me) who are looking for some more details of this new strain, I found 2 papers from the `COVID-19 Genomics Consortium UK (CoG-UK)` of great interest. It seems like the prime reasons for concern are increased frequency of mutations, increased proportion of cases, and possible change in immune response

> Several aspects of this cluster are noteworthy for epidemiological and biological reasons and we report preliminary findings below. In summary: The B.1.1.7 lineage accounts for an increasing proportion of cases in parts of England. The number of B.1.1.7 cases, and the number of regions reporting B.1.1.7 infections, are growing. B.1.1.7 has an unusually large number of genetic changes, particularly in the spike protein. Three of these mutations have potential biological effects that have been described previously to varying extents:

> - Mutation N501Y is one of six key contact residues within the receptor-binding domain (RBD) and has been identified as increasing binding affinity to human and murine ACE2.

> - The spike deletion 69-70del has been described in the context of evasion to the human immune response but has also occurred a number of times in association with other RBD changes.

> - Mutation P681H is immediately adjacent to the furin cleavage site, a known location of biological significance.

> The rapid growth of this lineage indicates the need for enhanced genomic and epidemiological surveillance worldwide and laboratory investigations of antigenicity and infectivity.

https://www.cogconsortium.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Repo...

https://virological.org/t/preliminary-genomic-characterisati...

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