Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Kathy Spindler
Special guest: Ian Lipkin
Ian joins Vincent, Alan, Rich, and Kathy to describe how his laboratory is searching for the origin of MERS-coronavirus.
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Download TWiV 247 (80 MB .mp3, 130 min)
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Links for this episode:
- MERS-CoV in bats (EID)
- Mystery virus (NY Times)
- Part of MERS-CoV found in bat (virology blog)
- T. perforatus
- Frag virus (Virol J)
- Even Nature got it wrong! (Nature)
- Bats: Important reservoirs of emerging viruses (Clin Micro Rev)
- Letters read on TWiV 247
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I just wanted to point out that science is never about a person’s credibility, of course we build trust in people, but even though Dr. Lipkin may be considered an expert in debunking contamination cases, errors happen randomly and one can never so sure that one did not make a mistake and more if it is a very small one. One must always have in mind that the human memory is not something that is stored away and then passively retrieved. Our memories are a combination of what we have stored and the way we rebuild them with everything around us.