Skip to content
By using Twitter’s services you agree to our Cookies Use. We and our partners operate globally and use cookies, including for analytics, personalisation, and ads.
  • Home Home Home, current page.
  • About

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Language: English
    • Bahasa Indonesia
    • Bahasa Melayu
    • Català
    • Čeština
    • Dansk
    • Deutsch
    • English UK
    • Español
    • Filipino
    • Français
    • Hrvatski
    • Italiano
    • Magyar
    • Nederlands
    • Norsk
    • Polski
    • Português
    • Română
    • Slovenčina
    • Suomi
    • Svenska
    • Tiếng Việt
    • Türkçe
    • Ελληνικά
    • Български език
    • Русский
    • Српски
    • Українська мова
    • עִבְרִית
    • العربية
    • فارسی
    • मराठी
    • हिन्दी
    • বাংলা
    • ગુજરાતી
    • தமிழ்
    • ಕನ್ನಡ
    • ภาษาไทย
    • 한국어
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文
  • Have an account? Log in
    Have an account?
    · Forgot password?

    New to Twitter?
    Sign up
vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

Tweets

  • © 2020 Twitter
  • About
  • Help Center
  • Terms
  • Privacy policy
  • Imprint
  • Cookies
  • Ads info
Dismiss
Previous
Next

Go to a person's profile

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @

Promote this Tweet

Block

  • Tweet with a location

    You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

    Your lists

    Create a new list


    Under 100 characters, optional

    Privacy

    Copy link to Tweet

    Embed this Tweet

    Embed this Video

    Add this Tweet to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Add this video to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Hmm, there was a problem reaching the server.

    By embedding Twitter content in your website or app, you are agreeing to the Twitter Developer Agreement and Developer Policy.

    Preview

    Why you're seeing this ad

    Log in to Twitter

    · Forgot password?
    Don't have an account? Sign up »

    Sign up for Twitter

    Not on Twitter? Sign up, tune into the things you care about, and get updates as they happen.

    Sign up
    Have an account? Log in »

    Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes:

    Country Code For customers of
    United States 40404 (any)
    Canada 21212 (any)
    United Kingdom 86444 Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2
    Brazil 40404 Nextel, TIM
    Haiti 40404 Digicel, Voila
    Ireland 51210 Vodafone, O2
    India 53000 Bharti Airtel, Videocon, Reliance
    Indonesia 89887 AXIS, 3, Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata
    Italy 4880804 Wind
    3424486444 Vodafone
    » See SMS short codes for other countries

    Confirmation

     

    Welcome home!

    This timeline is where you’ll spend most of your time, getting instant updates about what matters to you.

    Tweets not working for you?

    Hover over the profile pic and click the Following button to unfollow any account.

    Say a lot with a little

    When you see a Tweet you love, tap the heart — it lets the person who wrote it know you shared the love.

    Spread the word

    The fastest way to share someone else’s Tweet with your followers is with a Retweet. Tap the icon to send it instantly.

    Join the conversation

    Add your thoughts about any Tweet with a Reply. Find a topic you’re passionate about, and jump right in.

    Learn the latest

    Get instant insight into what people are talking about now.

    Get more of what you love

    Follow more accounts to get instant updates about topics you care about.

    Find what's happening

    See the latest conversations about any topic instantly.

    Never miss a Moment

    Catch up instantly on the best stories happening as they unfold.

    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 11
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Jonas Salk apparently worked on the early flu vaccine in 1940s. Alexander Fleming helped prove viral origin in 1918. This story has interesting cameos.

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 11
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Viruses weren’t actually seen till after 1943 when the electron microscopes were invented. Spinney compares them to Higgs boson before then. Quasi mythical and not entirely believed in.

      1 reply 1 retweet 12 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 11
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      The H and N of HxNy naming scheme refer to Haemaggluttinin and Neuraminidase, which help virus break into and out of cell apparently. Now you know. This is what the villain of this story looks like btw. Bastard.pic.twitter.com/BqFQmdjgb9

      1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 11
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Because flu viruses are single strands of RNA, they are not as stable as DNA and make lots of replication errors. This is why they drift 2% a year and vaccines have to be updated every covfefe. Shit, viruses are liek twetes. Taht’s why their hard to fihgt

      1 reply 0 retweets 17 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 11
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      So pandemics apparently happen when 2 different virus strains meet cute in a human cell and have virus sex. Results in novel immune resistant strain. Especially bad if human and animal flus meet. You get human-adapted alien virus.

      1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 11
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      This is awful. I’m never taking off my mask or going near animals again. How did we ever think we could win this arms race long term? It’s like our microbial interface is full of fast adapting little trumps crossing the wall from bird snot.

      2 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 11
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Anybody think about how Trump’s wall idea is just a country scale mask against people he thinks of as diseases? Some 4d irony there that I don’t have the energy to unpack. Wear masks, don’t build walls.

      1 reply 0 retweets 18 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 11
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      So flu equilibriums last about a human lifespan. Once populations get “immunologically naive” another pandemic can happen. 1968 Hong Kong flu was possibly 1890 Russian flu, and 2009 H1N1 was apparently 1918 Spanish Flu.

      1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
      Show this thread
    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 11
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      There’s an eerie echo here in outbreaks of totalitarianism. Despite “never forget” culture re Holocaust, 2010s had become immunologically naive to perils of totalitarianism. Even though Trumpism mind flu is an attentuated strain, it’s descended from Hitlerism mind flu of 1933.

      1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
      Show this thread
    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      There are apparently 18 kinds of H and 11 kinds of N. So you could potentially have a flu called H18N11 🤔. And that’s not even counting strains. We should just give up and stop living in dense cities. This doesn’t seem very winnable long term. Yeah I’m a bit defeatist.

      5 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
      Show this thread
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Ok that’s 13 chapters done. Next one ominously titled “beware the barnyard.” Bedtime horror story resumes tomorrow. Try not to pet bats and ferrets and chickens ok.

      12:04 AM - 12 Oct 2020
      • 7 Likes
      • early rok, late pregelj Nate Angell Akshay Buddiga 🇺🇸 Dorian Taylor Lorah Herr_Ko Death will not release you
      2 replies 0 retweets 7 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Footnote to tonight’s notes... defeatism here is not just me. I’ve heard a popular theory that the century of gains against infectious disease was entirely based on temporary victories. Individual battles are won but the war overall gets harder and we are steadily losing ground.

          2 replies 0 retweets 16 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Well, let’s get back to this grim fairy tale. The story of crossover. Apparently duck guts are the natural reservoir of flu viruses and that’s been known since the 1970s. I’ll never look at ducks the same. Wonder what species stores coronaviruses 🤔

          1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          They used to think flus needed to go from birds to humans by way of pigs (which would make the French origin hypothesis the likeliest for various reasons) but H5N1 in 1997 in Hong Kong showed it could jump direct. Could that have happened in 1918? 🧐

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          After partial sequencing from rare preserved samples in the late 90s, researchers managed to get better permafrost-preserved samples from Alaskan mass graves. In 2005 Ann Reid and Jeffrey Taubenberger finally sequenced the full genome after 9 years of detective work. 👏👏👏

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Damn 87 years later. Gotta love the deep historical detective work. They resurrected the virus in the lab and showed it was very bird-like. No pigs needed in transmission chain.

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          1918 flu was exceptionally good at blocking interferon, which is the immune system’s first responder that blocks virus protein synthesis. This is like a SIM card hack to get around sms-based 2FA or something.

          2 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          If this first line fails, second line defense kicks in, immune cells and antibodies. Blood flow increases to infected cells, nearby cells are killed to prevent spread... this is inflammation. Like a control burn around a forest fire I guess?

          1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The immune cells released cytokines to do this stuff. If this response is overzealous you get a cytokine storm, which seemed present in 1918 based in reports. Replicated in lab rats after the sequencing.

          1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
          Show this thread
        10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Note that we’re already into the story past the point GWB got missionary about this stuff in 2004 or so. In 2011 they figured out that the virus mutated slightly by the second wave to adapt better to humans, which is why it was deadlier. Could happen with SARS-Cov2 as well.

          1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
          Show this thread
        11. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Btw it seems like H1N1 identifies a class of viruses based on H-N topology. Not a specific strain. I guess the genus/species type Linnean binomial nomenclatureisctoo coarse for viruses.

          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
          Show this thread
        12. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          So the mutation was possibly favored by wartime conditions on the western front. Normally viruses get more moderate to spread better but if everybody is dying faster from bullets, the more aggressive strains might be favored. Also mustard gas is mutagenic so might have nudged it.

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
          Show this thread
        13. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          So if there’s a second winter wave if Covid and there’s a civil war after the election, we have a mutated worse strain to look forward to. Yay. This story just gets relentlessly gloomier as a precedent for 2020.

          1 reply 1 retweet 7 likes
          Show this thread
        14. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 12
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          More detective work. Drift rates in the virus suggest the North American origin story is most likely. Research by Michael Worobey of U. Arizona in 2014 showed 7 of 8 1918 H1N1 genes resembled flu genes found in North American birds.

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
          Show this thread
        15. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 13
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          This is fascinating. Apparently horses rather than birds used to be the main flu reservoir. There’s a chance mechanization/cars and the retreat of horses from human life made birds the reservoir. Very circumstantial evidence but I like the story.

          2 replies 1 retweet 11 likes
          Show this thread
        16. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 13
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          There is some tricky inside baseball here about 8th gene and the W shaped mortality curve. I’m not going to try and follow the intricacies here. But the level of detail that detective work uncovers is astounding. I didn’t know flu research was so broad deep. Good work Science!™

          1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
          Show this thread
        17. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 13
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          2 more flu epidemics in 20th century, 1957 Asian flu H2N2 and 1968 Hong Kong flu, H3N2, both share a lot of genes with H1N1. Apparently humans gave the flu to pigs, not the other way around. Swine flu should be called long pig flu.

          1 reply 2 retweets 8 likes
          Show this thread
        18. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 13
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          We stop here for tonight and reflect on the grim fact that coronaviruses are not flu viruses so a lot of this does not apply. But we have a sense of the learning curve involved.

          1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
          Show this thread
        19. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 13
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Chapter 15: the human factor. Apparently there was a lot of variation in who died across age and time. Age mortality had a W shape with a peak for adults and also very young and very old, already covered in previous chapter... complicated. Now geographic.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        20. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 13
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Asia and Africa had the highest death rates. Some areas 30x the west. Persia seems to have had the highest rate at 22%. Undivided India highest absolute numbers, 13-18m at 6% fatality rate. Possibly higher than WW1. I’m guessing some of my great grandparents generation got it.

          2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
          Show this thread
        21. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 13
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Mostly boring survey here of patterns similar to Covid, correlated with wealth, class, caste, bring immigrants etc. Eugenicists casting aspersions at “inferior” races being weaker etc. Interestingly blanks in the US appear to have been less susceptible in 1918 unlike 2020.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
          Show this thread
        22. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 13
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Mask wearing and banning of mass gatherings cut death tolls by up to 50% in some cities and the US was better about this than Europe. Woodrow Wilson vs Trump would be an interesting comparison. Has anyone done one?

          3 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
          Show this thread
        23. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Mostly men died at greater rates except of course in India where these things always flip. TB was a big comorbidity. It’s weird to think about how TB was such a huge thing back then. Like diabetes today.

          2 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
          Show this thread
        24. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          It’s kinda grim that so many segments of this book are boring through no fault of the author. We’ve all learned this stuff more directly. We’re in the reboot of this movie. Well that’s it for tonight.

          2 replies 0 retweets 6 likes
          Show this thread
        25. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Here we go again. Chapter 16, “the green shoots of recovery” Bad news: took between 1922-26 for the Spanish Flu to truly recede, basically culling the population of the weak. Sorta good news? there was a baby boom after as the healthier ones went for the demographic dividend.

          2 replies 0 retweets 8 likes
          Show this thread
        26. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          In general the world got healthier from the cull. Especially men. But babies conceived during the flu, and exposed to it prenatally were weaker, and had poorer life outcomes. Many adults who got it had chronic conditions after, just as already seen for Covid. Darwinian 💀

          1 reply 1 retweet 6 likes
          Show this thread
        27. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          We’re only now seeing Spanish Flu effects erased as the last of those born during it die. The acute phase of the disease often had anxiety attacks and suicidal behavior. The chronic phase often had lingering depression. 💀💀💀

          3 replies 1 retweet 7 likes
          Show this thread
        28. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          In Norway, 7x higher asylum admissions related to flu every year in the 6 years following the pandemic. It’s going to be 7x the fun till 2026 people.

          1 reply 3 retweets 14 likes
          Show this thread
        29. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Tanzania had a famine because people were too depressed to plant stuff. General high incidence of “sleepy sickness” encephalitis lethargia, EL, 1917-25. War+flu I guess. A third died within weeks, a third recovered, a third went on to develop Parkinson’s-like paralysis.

          1 reply 1 retweet 10 likes
          Show this thread
        30. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The causal link is unclear but it seems these were the Oliver Sacks’ L Dopa patients in Awakenings. Damn.

          2 replies 0 retweets 7 likes
          Show this thread
        31. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Oct 14
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          We end this chapter with the story of a Xhosa woman, Nontetha Nkwenkwe, who started a religious movement out of her Spanish flu visions and ran afoul of the white state that saw her movement as subversive, and kept putting her into an asylum till her death https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontetha 

          1 reply 1 retweet 9 likes
          Show this thread
        32. Show replies

      Loading seems to be taking a while.

      Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.

        Promoted Tweet

        false

        • © 2020 Twitter
        • About
        • Help Center
        • Terms
        • Privacy policy
        • Imprint
        • Cookies
        • Ads info