SCI-ART LAB

Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication

Q: As infections like corona virus come from eating non-veg food, does vegetarian food protect you from infection? 

Krishna: This is a myth.  Eating animals for food ( or  carelessly handling them during processing) does sometimes allow viral infections to jump to human hosts. However, 

  • Once a disease has begun spreading through direct human to human transmission, being vegan is irrelevant, unless we’re talking about a disease that’s transmitted via cannibalism.
  • Eating animals is not the only animal-human transmission vector. Rabies, for example, is transmitted from wild animals that would rather eat (or at least bite) you.

Eating plants can cause viral infections to jump from animals to human hosts. In 2018, there was an outbreak of Nipah virus in the state of Kerala in India (2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala - Wikipedia), and the source of infection was likely the consumption of fruits contaminated with urine or saliva from infected fruit bats (Nipah virus)

 It can and has happened, such as from infected plant-eating animals to plants (as a carrier) to plant-eating humans. While veganism would reduce the chances of the virus jumping from animals to humans, it would not reduce the chances of spread once humans are already infected by it.  Once a virus enters a human population, the likelihood of the “birth” of the virus will become immaterial, and it has no bearing on the likelihood or speed of the propagation of a virus if the virus can be passed from human to human without having to pass through nonhuman organisms, which is the case for the coronavirus. 

If we add bacteria to the discussion, then plants are definitely not safe. As vegetables and fruits are more-commonly eaten raw than meat, they provide a great vector for things like E. coli. This is why it is necessary to wash thoroughly before eating fruits and vegetables.

Q: What are the reasons that cases of COVID-19 increased suddenly not only in India but worldwide? Are there any hidden truths?

The cases Increased because of callous attitude of people. Haven’t you heard about the three people who returned from Italy to Kerala, India, hoodwinked people at the airport, went to their home town, attended functions and spread it among their relatives?

Haven’t you heard about a lady who returned from Italy (where she honeymooned with her husband) to Bangalore, travelled by train and air to Delhi, refused to get isolated until police intervened eventhough she developed the infection?

Haven’t you heard about an old man who returned from Saudi -where he got infected-to his village in Karnataka, travelled to Hyderabad in an ambulance, stayed with his relatives there, visited three hospitals and refused medical assistance in a Govt. Hospital and died on the way back but infected some more people before his demise?

People are running away from quarantines, hiding things, carelessly infecting other people, hoodwinking authorities and spreading the infection despite media education by doctors and scientists.

Everybody is giving advices on what to do spreading misinformation and myths.

Public who are as confused as ever refuse to trust experts and follow what they advice but believe in hoax stories and pseudo-scientists.

Nobody can stop the progress of COVID 19 unless you have the will to trust only genuine science and strictly follow its rules. Or when the Govts follow dictatorial attitudes to stop peoples’ recklessness.

Now what do you want to do?

The choice is yours!

Q: Do you think India is the most vulnerable country to Covid-19 if early precautions are not taken?

Media here reported that some people here are just disappearing from airports by hoodwinking the authorities without subjecting themselves to tests when they are coming from the high risk countries like Italy. : Coronavirus outbreak: Kerala govt warns against hiding travel histo...

Some people are not self isolating themselves after returning from abroad and are infecting others by moving around freely.

People are demanding five star treatment at quarantine facilities and are demanding several other things: Army faces new problem at its coronavirus quarantine facility at Ma...

People are spitting on roads and other public places freely Watch out! Spitting in public places too can spread infections

Political leaders who take important decisions are not well informed on these issues and say several silly things(like just taking Paracetamol tablet was sufficient to fight Coronavirus) confusing people more: No need to wear mask as coronavirus case not detected in Telangana:...

Pseudo-scientific remedies for corona virus: Pushing Magical Remedies for the Coronavirus

Fake claims : An Indian Doctor Claims to Have Found a Herbal Cure for Coronavirus

I can go on and on like this.

We still live in ancient times. Nobody can save us if we still continue with this mental make up.

Q: Who are superspreaders?

Krishna: Can a single COVID-19 patient infect dozens of others? Although transmission rates in the current outbreak appear to be far lower, a variety of factors can lead to an individual infecting many.

The concept of so-called "super-spreaders"—patients who typically infect far more people than the standard transmission rates—emerged in previous outbreaks of diseases such as Sars and Mers*.

But according to experts, the term was not scientific and there was no set quantity of transmissions that would define a super-spreader.

"But, in general, it is usually a markedly higher figure when compared to that of other individuals

A range of variables govern how many people an individual infects, from how fast they shed the virus to how many people they come in to close contact with.

The novel corona virus has a typical transmission rate of 2-3—that is, every confirmed case appears to infect between 2 and 3 other people on average.

But the pandemic has thrown up at least two patients who appear to have been super-spreaders.

One suspected super-spreader, a British national, appears to have infected a dozen others when he returned from Singapore and then went skiing in the Alps.

He recovered, but may have infected another five people after returning home.

In South Korea, which has the second highest number of COVID-19 cases outside of Italy, a woman known as Patient 31 appears to have infected dozens of others.

But in an ever better-connected world, it can be challenging to definitively link transmissions to an individual patient.

"It's possible that what we call super-spreaders exist, those patients who don't only infect 2-3 others but could infect dozens. 

Variable transmission rates could be down to how fast a patient sheds the virus once infected.

"That's just a hypothesis at this point. Obviously we don't have a clear explanation, and there's nothing specific to COVID-19."

Another unknown is the role played by young children, who are less severely affected by the virus but are capable of transmitting it—part of the reason many countries have moved to close schools in recent days.

But we are not all the same, we vary in our immune systems, in our behaviour, and in where we happen to be. "All of these things can affect how many people we would transmit to."

The biggest factors determining transmission were environmental, made worse in dense-populated cities. These circumstances often are: crowding; a confined space with poor ventilation; poor infection control, meaning lots of non-porous, hard surfaces which can keep a virus viable for a longer time; a favourable ambient humidity; and the infected person usually being in the early phase of their illness, when virus secretions are at their peak. It's due to these contributing factors that many experts are reluctant to talk in terms of super-spreaders. Added to this, the term might be used to stigmatise individuals, when it is likely they transmitted COVID19 without realising.

Q: Can you explain why some highly qualified people too  err while dealing with science?

Krishna: Just four days back I was having a discussion on some science subject. I added a discussion to my space on Quora (Science Communication). It was based on 'meta analysis' which is the highest form of evidence in science ( scientific-evidence ) .   It was peer -reviewed and published in a high standard journal. I fact check everything before adding anything to my sites or spaces. 

But this person who boasts on his personal page as a 'highly intelligent' 'knowledge oriented' 'well qualified'  person, started arguing with me saying that 'without conducting experiments themselves , if researchers publish papers that is pseudo-science'. I was literally shocked. 

A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analysis can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting measurements that are expected to have some degree of error. The aim then is to use approaches from statistics to derive a pooled estimate closest to the unknown common truth based on how this error is perceived. Existing methods for meta-analysis yield a weighted average from the results of the individual studies, and what differs is the manner in which these weights are allocated and also the manner in which the uncertainty is computed around the point estimate thus generated. In addition to providing an estimate of the unknown common truth, meta-analysis has the capacity to contrast results from different studies and identify patterns among study results, sources of disagreement among those results, or other interesting relationships that may come to light in the context of multiple studies.

A key benefit of this approach is the aggregation of information leading to a higher statistical power and more robust point estimate than is possible from the measure derived from any individual study. However, in performing a meta-analysis, an investigator must make choices which can affect the results, including deciding how to search for studies, selecting studies based on a set of objective criteria, dealing with incomplete data, analyzing the data, and accounting for or choosing not to account for publication bias.

Because large amount of studies are reviewed in meta-analysis, error margins are less,  reproducibility  of the results is covered and biases and fallacies  are surmounted to a large extent. That is why conclusions obtained from meta-analysis - when done in the right manner - is the highest form of evidence and we trust it more than anything else.  

When I explained to him why peer-reviewers accepted it and why it 's correct, he disappeared from my space. 

I think this happens because of Dunning-Kruger-effect.

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.
This person who argued  with me doesn't understand science and its method properly in the first place. Then he thought a woman cannot lead a science space and cannot understand science like men do. So he thought I was at fault by adding a paper based on meta -analysis.
Hmmm! What can you say about such people? I face them several times but can successfully beat them each time I encounter them.

Q: Why do we not believe that there may be such creatures who can be visible or invisible according to his requirement?

Krishna: Because we are in the modern scientific age. Fiction doesn’t impress us as much as the reality of science does.

Belief has no importance in science. Only evidence based on data counts here.

If you still want to live in ancient times, it is upto you.

But we want to live in exciting modern scientific world.

Q: Which one between religion and science will take the nation ahead?

First let us select religion: Discard science.

Then let us go to temples and pray. To get food to the ever increasing population. For stopping deadly diseases in their tracks. To get protected from your enemy countries. To get protected from natural disasters.

Results? Waiting to get Posted and read here: ????

Then let us select science and discard religion.

Agricultural science and latest biotechnology provides food for ever growing population.

Already small pox had been eradicated and polio is on the verge of disappearing. Atleast thousands of people are being saved with modern medical research.

Good forecasts are saving lives from natural disasters like cyclones and hurricanes. Modern infrastructure is saving time, energy and are fulfilling our needs.

Good arms provided by science and technology are keeping our enemies at bay.

Results: already shown

Okay, I know people still try to depict science as a villain and ridicule it saying that it cannot solve several problems.

The problems are not solved because of inadequacy of human minds, not because of science. Get that right first.

If you can donate to scientific research as much money as you donate to temples, more problems would have been solved by now. You are placing your money in the wrong boxes and blaming science because of your poor judgement!!! Hmmm!

While we are working day and night in the poor scientific labs despite everything, some people are just sitting outside and hurling abuses at science.

A critical mind can understand which one can really take you forward. Need we say more?

Please follow the space Science Communication if you really trust science.

Q: How would you react if you found out that your entire life was an elaborate science experiment?

Krishna: Oh, love to help science. Feel extremely happy.

Views: 149

Replies to This Discussion

127

If they cannot “understand”, better to leave things and carry on!

Yes, but  people who 're watching us had to get things right. If I didn't explain, they might think the other person 's right, which 's more disastrous.

'without conducting experiments themselves , if researchers publish papers that is pseudo-science'.  --> If this is the case then all the work of Albert Einstein would be pseudo-science. Even his General theory of Relativity which was proposed by him in 1915 was proved by Sir Arthur Eddington in 1919.

In fact most scientific theory in physics have been proposed and proved mathematically first and then proved through experiment much later when appropriate technology or events are available to prove it.

And may I add that you do such a wonderful work. Our country India needs more such voice of science in this era of false beliefs and supremacy of fictitious heresy.

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