Avoiding Herpes Silmplex

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Hi all,

-> medical diy bio

Yesterday I was at something we call a "Christmas market" , which is kind of like a workshop with shacks, where they serve different kind of (hot) punch / negus.

I tasted the punch from a friend from her cup, afterwards I noted (it was dark outside) she had a fever blister.

It was just one draught, and maybe the virus particles weren't on the cup (the blister was at the very mouth corner). And there's a chance that I touched another spot.



However, I know too much about Herpes Simplex to just let go. Around two hours later, when I got home I did a quick google research for antiviral stuff and found out:

- green tea: drank a cup and then ate the stuff inside the bag. Today morning again.
- garlic:  ate two entire smashed garlics. Or rather drunk them, because they tasted cruelly.
- zink: found we had zink pills. One pill 100% of daily zink requirement. Took 2.
- fortunately I had tasted some beer (around 50 mL) an houre before. (Usually I don't drink ethanolic beverages. I like my ethanol in the lab for sterilization purposes). We learnt at university that beer (actually the Humulus) has antiviral properties. "Beer-drinkers don't get fever blisters" my professor had stated.


As said, it's not sure I got in touch with the virus anyway. But any other proposals how to fight them off in case they did reach me? I think the main thing should be to delay propagation of the virus so my immune system can fight it off and hinders it from reachin the nerves where it remains dormant the entire life?

[Nathan McCorkle]

If you're really scared you might look into finding some acyclovir:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aciclovir

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--
-Nathan

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Thanks!
I was at the pharmacy the afternoon (Sunday, had to drive 20 kilometers to the next pharmacy whose turn emergency service was this weekend) and he gave me exactly a cream containing aciclovir.

But if I had to guess, it won't change much. If the virus would already have integrated into a cell, over night it would have infected other cells and then gotten to a nerve cell where it may remain dormant. But I don't know how fast that virus works.

So I'm contnuing my emergency lent diet, with garlic, zink, gerean tea, wild hop I spotted, and aciclovir. Gotta give those virus particles (if they are present, anyway^^) hell. Or at least, to to silence my conscience.


Would also be nice to develop a gene therapy against it, but unfortunately it's illegal. But the virus also doesn't care violating the law by engineering my genome :P Silencing the replication protein with another virus? Oligonucleotide-mediated gene targeting?
I should start a trial one day :D


It definitely is scary, recieving a sexually-transmitted disease by just touching the cup of another person. Also if 90% of humans already encountered it. Starting in 2014, herpes vaccination will be free of charge in my contry. Shouldn't have waited for that :P

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

I should start a trial one day :D

That sounded ambiguous in english, right?
By trial I mean an official trial, approved by the government btw.

[Bjonnh]

On Sun, Dec 08, 2013 at 01:55:45PM -0800, Mega [Andreas Stuermer] wrote:
> It definitely is scary, recieving a sexually-transmitted disease by just
> touching the cup of another person. Also if 90% of humans already
> encountered it. Starting in 2014, herpes vaccination will be free of charge
> in my contry. Shouldn't have waited for that :P

It's an illness that is sexually-transmitted and contact
transmitted, I don't get your remark about that.
And you may encounter it in your future life more than you can think
of, and you have probably encountered it as a child too.

57.7% of people are contaminated by it [1]. You can be
contagious even with no visible lesions. And it seems that at least
33% of people have visible symptoms [2].
Don't forget that stress kills more people than Herpes ;)

On mices, it seems that Glycyrrhizin (from licorice root) is able to
reduce the encephalitis risk[4]. Which in no way means that it could
be the case in humans.

However if you use it, reminds that licorice can have bad effects if you
consume it excessively[3]!

-

[1] http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=203222
[2] French phone study by "Association Herpès", can't find any other
reference than the wikipedia one.
[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11394578?dopt=Abstract
[4] See the références in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquorice#Toxicity

[Andreas Stuermer]

Thanks for the input.

 

Will take up Liquorice in the emergency plan :D

 

 

encephalitis? Does not sond nice^^

[Xabier Vázquez Campos]

Most people is infected with HSV and you will never get rid of it, at least not thanks to the immune-system. The prevalence of HSV1 (cold-sores) ranges from 50-100% of the population depending of the country... and it is not necessarily a STD.
Treatments with antivirals is not generally recommended unless the infection causes too many problems to the affected patient, e.g. it shows up very frequently or it lasts for too long. As they have too many side-effects.
Once you are infected, the infection injuries show up specially during periods where your immune system is depressed

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 4:41 PM, Xabier Vázquez Campos
<xvaz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Most people is infected with HSV and you will never get rid of it, at least
> not thanks to the immune-system. The prevalence of HSV1 (cold-sores) ranges
> from 50-100% of the population depending of the country...

Does that mean it's OK though, surely there must be some toll on the
body, stress or energetically. If it can randomly insert can't it
cause cancer? Is that worth the potential for some neat horizontal
gene transfer to happen as a result of infection?
:/
:P

I guess that's the trade-off of evolution, it costs and could suck for
a while, but maybe eventually it get's better/cooler/ and unforeseen
things can happen.

[Cathal Garvey (Phone)]

Iirc, Herpesviruses tend not to integrate into host DNA, instead remaining as circular episomes (think plasmids). Don't get excited though, I suspect there's a reason they only do so in the body's least replicative cells! Probably very segregation-unstable.

Anyways, the cancer risks from related viruses are due not to dodgy integration but "deliberate" attacks on host cell anti-oncogenes. That is, herpesviruses create artificial cancer cells with high efficiency so.their hosts are replicating while they, within, are replicating (cue "I herd you liek replicating" meme).

In any case, herpes simplex 1/2, responsible for cold sores and "true" genital warts, are not high up on the list of cancer risk factors, I think. It's been a while since I studied them though..

Also, unless I missed a beat, there's no vaccine for either herpes simplex virus: the cervical cancer vaccine targets a more distant relative in the large herpesvirus family which generally doesn't cause noticeable symptoms.

--
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[Jonathan Cline]

On Sunday, December 8, 2013 4:12:25 AM UTC-8, Mega [Andreas Stuermer] wrote:

- green tea: drank a cup and then ate the stuff inside the bag. Today morning again.

You didn't drink enough to make an impact, and eating the tea is useless.  Drink 1 liter or so of tea to really have a big statistical effect (yes, a full pitcher, made with respective quantity of full-leave tea).  Make the tea by soaking in sub-boiling water for 1-3 mins max.  Preferably avoid the type of tea already in tea bags (i.e. heavily processed). When the super-flus were infecting people a few years ago, and certain labs were actually very convinced the end-of-days might be coming, a couple well respected guys I knew said they were gargling with green tea, morning and night.  You could also use the (filtered and cooled) brewed green tea in a neti pot.

Also you can't drink green tea and simultaneously take vitamins and expect adsorption to be the same.

 

- garlic:  ate two entire smashed garlics. Or rather drunk them, because they tasted cruelly.

Leaving garlic out to oxidize at least 10 minutes (longer is better) is said to boost benefits, several publications on this.  Raw garlic is really tough to stomach though.  Best do it the greek way, have it on bread.


No one mentioned honey but instead referred to prescription medication.  Hmm.  Once you've already got it, maybe you can try honey.   "Topical honey application is safe and effective in the management of the signs and symptoms of recurrent lesions from labial and genital herpes."[*2]

 

(Usually I don't drink ethanolic beverages.

That's what they all say.

Anyway,
surprised no one mentioned cloves, or witch hazel, or eucalyptus oil, or tea tree oil [*1].  Several drops of each, in tea, a couple times a day to go way overboard.  Watch out if you're allergic though, it might place you in the hospital.  Also, perhaps go to the grocery store and buy 5 pounds of kale and seaweed and make soup.  Is it possible to freebase kale?  ;-D

and subsequently, do 4 hours of meditation for the following 3 days (lower stress boosts immune system).   As long as you really want to go all-out.

BTW  check this out as an immune system booster as well.  Apparently flying under the radar of most.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstrap_molasses





[*1]- "Australian tea tree oil exhibited high levels of virucidal activity against HSV-1 and HSV-2 in viral suspension tests.  ...   These results indicate that TTO and EUO affect the virus before or during adsorption, but not after penetration into the host cell. "

Pharmazie. 2001 Apr;56(4):343-7.

Antiviral activity of Australian tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil against herpes simplex virus in cell culture.

[*2]-"Two cases of labial herpes and one case of genital herpes remitted completely with the use of honey. The lesions crusted in 3 patients with labial herpes and in 4 patients with genital herpes. With acyclovir treatment, none of the attacks remitted, and all the lesions, labial and genital, developed crust. No side effects were observed with repeated applications of honey, whereas 3 patients developed local itching with acyclovir."

Med Sci Monit. 2004 Aug;10(8):MT94-8. Epub 2004 Jul 23.

Topical honey application vs. acyclovir for the treatment of recurrent herpes simplex lesions.

-- 

## Jonathan Cline
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########################

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Thank you for the info,
but I stopped self-medication like 4 or 5 days after starting. And no signs of infection so far occured, so I guess there wasn't even contact to the virus :D

[Daniel C.]

On Sat, Dec 21, 2013 at 5:22 AM, Mega [Andreas Stuermer] <masters...@gmail.com> wrote:

no signs of infection so far occured, so I guess there wasn't even contact to the virus :D

Or you did get in contact, but it didn't integrate with a cell.  Or it did, but you already have antibodies for it because you were infected in the past and cleared the infection.  Or it did and you don't have antibodies, but you're in the incubation stage before you begin to show symptoms.  Or you are infected now but you'll never show symptoms, but you'll remain an asymptomatic carrier for life.  It seems a bit early to jump to conclusions.

You may want to just get tested for HSV antibodies.  If you have them, and you never display symptoms, then you're probably not ever going to have cold sores -- although you may still be a carrier, and I believe it's still technically possible to transmit the infection.

-Dan

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

>Does that mean it's OK though, surely there must be some toll on the body, stress or energetically. If it can randomly insert can't it cause cancer?

You were right Nathan. Did some research recently, and it seems, in addition that viral RNAs are always present and seem to influence cells, new research also shows that HSV continuosly breaks out. But 99% of outbreaks the immune system can win. those rare cases when HSV wins people get sores.
That is also the cause of viral shedding. Infected people continuosly produce viral particles, just very little if no outbreak is present. So you can get infected by a carrier always, it's just unlikely when no outbreak is there.


A replication-deficient HSV vaccine is being developed, human trials stage I, so only people from 60 miles arund that city can take part in the human trials.

However, another crazy idea:
What if I take Aciclovir orally, and eat all of the above mentioned antiviral foods. Then I intentionally infect myself with HSV (on the foot, so it can't reach the brain to cause rare encephalitis)? Like innoculate a sterilized needle with particles from a friends blister.
So the virus cannot replicate and reach a nerve to ettle down. And I get antibodies regardless.
Will there even be an immune respones if no viral replication oocurs? The immune system doesn't fight all foreign proteins - only if it recognizes cellular damage.

[Matt Harbowy]

Indeed, "Crazy". There's so many things wrong with this, and it is truly irresponsible to even be suggesting this as potentially appropriate.

First of all: where are you going to get the acyclovir? What dose do you think will be appropriate for you? And acyclovir, like any antiviral or anti-anything drug, is going to have potentially dangerous side effects vs its effective dose, which are both probabilities, not "guaranteed to work" levels. It will distribute unevenly in your body, such that you might not have an effective level at your proposed site of infection. Using chemicals in unapproved ways without a prescription is not just illegal, it's a bad idea. Even if you were a doctor, self-prescribing medication borders on unethical and could be cause for revoking your license to practice medicine. And when enough people start suggesting irresponsible and unsafe things, it is encouragement to society to begin limiting freedoms.

Second: aren't you the OP who was paranoid about getting simplex from a casual kiss? The cognitive dissonance this causes in me is stunning. You don't have an appropriate level of distance to think in a clear and unbiased way. You cease to do science when you can't think clearly and make bad judgements as a result. The risks of such an idea so utterly outweigh the benefit. (Reduction of "harm" from casual kissing! Think! A finite risk of acute death vs catching an infection that almost everyone on the planet has and rarely has acute symptoms? )

Lastly, you propose to take a sample from an open sore on someone else's body and inject it somewhere into your leg. Why even bother with a sterilized needle? There are dozens of other species of bacteria going to be present on the lips, and in fact the reasons why those sores look so gross might be due to incursions of other co-morbid bacteria. The mouth is one of the dirtiest, most pathogen-ridden regions in the body, and you're proposing taking a live sample and injecting yourself with it? And do you want to explain why the legs don't have a neural connection to the brain, such that injecting your foot is any "safer", especially with live virus?

There are responsible ways to ethically conduct n=1 type experiments, and to scope those experiments in a controlled fashion. Step one should always be in vitro controls- how are you going to measure the progress? How are you going to measure the outcome? "Well, nothing bad happened" is not an outcome, and it is not an "experiment". It is not even infinitesimally better than quackery like homeopathy. If anything, DIYBio participants and list members should discourage such behaviors in the strongest terms possible. That no other person has publicly denounced this is a shame upon this list.

I would propose suggesting a standard of conduct for membership and posting on this list: scientific best practices, warning/ban for quackery or other ethical code violations, etc. we should hold ourselves to a higher standard, and not just post any harebrained bullshit that we think up or read about on the internet. New citizen scientists will make mistakes, and take uncertain risks: and I'm not suggesting an unfeeling banhammer- we need to mentor and cultivate positive values, not just forbid stupidity.

It is upsetting to me to see this coming out of the fingers of a fairly seasoned participant.

Matt Harbowy -hberg...@gmail.com
650 243 8467 - @hbergeronx on Twitter

[Dan]

Mega, I find it fascinating and refreshing that you are thinking so far outside the box. I saw your question as a hypothetical. I too urge you not to infect yourself or anyone else but continue to fine tune your theory. 

I'm sure most people are aware of this brave doc. He is like Crocodile Dundee.

• The Dr. Who Drank Infectious Broth, Gave Himself an Ulcer, and Solved a Medical Mystery and won a Nobel prize.
  
  

  The medical elite thought they knew what caused ulcers and stomach cancer. But they were wrong—and did not want to hear the answer that was right.

  This guy was pretty damn sure he had the cure, however

  “A physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient.”

  Advantage to you.

  
  
  http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/07-dr-drank-broth-gave-ulcer-solved-medical-mystery
  
  
  
  

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[Brian Degger]

It is an idea....not a suggestion, and prefaced with a 'crazy' ....
Self experimentation happens in mainstream science...H. pylori for example.
Critique the idea....not the person.
It's more constructive.
We will all come up with crazy ideas once in a while, and diybio is a great forum to debate them.
Remember the  bio punk grinders out there. They aren't saying "is it crazy to put magnets under my finger tips" they are doing it.  Let's talk before you do a crazy idea...not after.

A tagline for diybio could be...."we welcome your crazy ideas, we won't necessarily like them, but we will have a proper discussion."

Cheers,
Brian

[Mega [Andreas Stuermer]]

Matt, exactly this discussion was what iI was looking for. Maybe less aggressive though.

Anyway, e.g. I haven't considered there are a lot of other pathogens (and maybe associated pathogens) on the mouth too.

I haven't really considered executing this idea, it was more like a collection of ideas to see the feasibility. And where can you find more smart bio people than here?


If someone else reads this here, he also sees the negative aspects (e.g. other pathogens) he probably won't do it himself either. And anyone could have had this idea. So if anyone googles this, he finds our discussion here and it may safe lives.

[Cathal Garvey]

> That no other person has publicly denounced this is a shame upon this
list.

They have, and will continue to. It's pretty well accepted that playing
with pathogens is *not* DIYbio, it's just playing with contagious fire.
not only blatantly illegal, but stupid, too.

If someone here wants to study pathogens, there's an established way to
do that: go join a professional lab. If you don't have the
qualifications to join a professional lab to study potentially dangerous
microbes or viruses, *you are not prepared to do it and should go to
college and study more*.

--
T: @onetruecathal, @IndieBBDNA
P: +353876363185
W: http://indiebiotech.com

[Andreas Stuermer]

I was not talking of cultivating any virus.

My hypothetical question was about a *controlled* infection.

If I kiss another person, it is socially accepted, and it is totally ok to get HSV this way.

A controlled infection, however, seems to evoke anger?

I don't see much difference (at least at first I didn't), between getting the virus during sexual contact or by an intended scratch.

Ok, as you mentioned commensal bacteria may also be transferred.

--

---------------

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[Cathal Garvey]

The anger comes from the fact that proposing an experiment like this
without *clearly* saying you or anyone else here would *never* do it
reflects badly on our community.

The ethical problems come from the unknown aspect. We know that
contracting HSV the "usual" way doesn't normally end up killing anyone,
whereas injecting contaminated needles into other body parts could have
unintended outcomes.

The other ethical problem comes, generally, from playing with viruses,
potentially pathogenic bacteria, and needles in a poorly controlled
domestic setting, where you potentially risk others.

As long as you make it clear that for you and others this must remain
hypothetical, I'm not that troubled. Discussing disease and treatments
of disease is on-topic. Seriously considering disease "research" at home
isn't on-topic, it's reckless.

[Andreas Stuermer]

Ok, I'm sorry, I should have stated more clearly that I would never do that myself in a dirty garage.

I love my body - as can be read above - and trying to keep it from harm all the time.

What I was really interested in was an interesting discussion, what are the cons, and may there be a way to deveolp an officially approved therapy.

--

---------------

http://diyspartanbiotech.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/genetic-engineering-and-synbio-for-beginners-v1.pdf

[Matt Harbowy]

You and Dan, similarly to Mega, point out H. pylori as an example of self experimentation, as though it was step one on the way to a cure. This is a severely redacted summarization of how n=1 experiments are useful to science, and you need to get yourself some schooling before you correct my critique.

In the case of Hpy infection, there was an observation that people who developed ulcers and stomach cancer also had the infection. In this case, the doctor (who had training as a doctor, unlike most grinders) needed to make sure that there was an abundance of evidence, but the standard protocol for cultivation was not performed in a way that was amenable to detection. He first had to develop an in vitro test to establish positive presence for Hpy, which is challenging because the presence of contaminating molds and bacteria usually swamp the plate. This was the actual heroic work, because it allowed him to have some degree of certainty that all of the patients who had the symptoms had the infection as well. Secondly, the coincidence of Hpy and those diseases had evidence of successful intervention: when treated with an antibiotic, symptoms were alleviated. Acyclovir vs virus is a crapshoot compared to antibiotics vs biotics, and it has never cured disease. Herpes goes dormant and some people are just asymptomatic. In this case, he had 11 well documented cases where all of the patients were symptomatic from admission to positive culture, to growing up enough of the new organism to further characterize it, and was able to show that 58 all met the criteria for infection positive and were all symptomatic. Where's your evidence, that herpes can be selectively cultured and detected in your lab? If you have none, you are not doing science. How do you know you're not immune, or already infected, or have antibodies?

Anyone who does routine cell culture knows how easily plates can get taken over by invading mold or bacteria. It's not as simple as "plate it and forget it"- you have to do many replicates and fine tune all of your adjustable parameters. The culture broth, the temperature, the biopsy technique, etc., any one of which can go wrong at any moment. In the case here, the organism is selectively cultured and subcultured so that it is purified. We don't see the heroic amount of hours lab techs labored to get that right. And the Discover article glosses over the actual experiment itself: in 1984, they had no idea exactly what the infectious agent was. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(84)91816-6/abstract In retrospect, it's easy to say "{headslap} elementary, dear Watson, Hpy." But that's hindsight from a consensus established ten years later. http://consensus.nih.gov/1994/1994HelicobacterPyloriUlcer094html.htm And the fact is, when he drank that culture, he could have just as easily not developed symptoms and stymied his own work. In retrospect, what he did was very dangerous: if he developed an asymptomatic smoldering infection, he could have realized his mistake years later when he developed stomach cancer. So he was lucky that he very quickly got sick. He is no hero! 

Then, he "biopsied himself". That's just a way of shielding anyone who helped him with this dangerous stunt, and someone helped him: you don't take self-biopsies of your own stomach lesions. Those people deserve to have their license to practice medicine revoked because they assisted a very unethical procedure, and if he had just simply died or gotten sick and not successfully cultured Hpy, both of which were possible outcomes (false positives and negatives happen, and not always due to analyst error), they would have. You can cite all the brave idiots you want, but there's an inherent bias: the idiots who die while doing stupid shit don't publish. 

Now, you can call me "aggressive", or not "playing nice" till you are blue in the face, but people with training and experience don't say stupid shit like "well he did it, and nothing bad happened!" Because that's the attitude of a bratty teenager, not a responsible adult. No one is going to win a Nobel prize for sewing magnets into their skin for a few weeks, until the inevitable happens and either they go gangrenous or begin to leak monomer, iron, nickel, cobalt, samarium, or whatever into their bodies and slowly poison themselves. Grinders can do whatever shit they want, but when something goes wrong (and it will) all of their "friends" are co-conspirators in either murder or assisted suicide. 

Ironically, many of these people doing stupid shit like this are H+ers or transhumanists or radical life extensioners. It's not science when you believe everything is just a well understood engineering problem, and we just have to do a couple of engineering tweaks things to live forever. "Living forever" is also a common theme voiced by the bratty teenage set- "I'm the king of the world!" Engineering works because engineers occasionally have a Tacoma Narrows dropped on their asses to remind them that there are other modes of failure that state of the art hasn't accounted for. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940) Engineers need scientists to do the in-vitro establishment of theory, so that in-vivo doesn't fuck you up. If you want to engineer a solution, demonstrate that you have the literature to hand by writing a fucking paper. Let peers review at it, and learn to accept no for an answer. Cultivate a hypothesis over many years. 

Every day I see crowd funded and posted garbage like this, which has the same business model. 1: crazy idea 2:??? 3:profit!!! To quote one of my esteemed colleagues, fuck you, no fucking way. There's so much good science and worthwhile experiments to be performed, and you're wasting all of our time while those of us who genuinely care for and are concerned for the fledgeling DIYBio community have to demonstrate for the n00bs and newcomers that no, we don't condone your bullshit, don't haul us off to jail when these idiots kill someone. I will defend your right, to the death if needed, to do citizen science and DIYBio to the limit of biosafety level two and do experiments provided you swear to use all reasonable means to limit the hazard to your fellow explorers and citizens in general. No, that's not making DIY moonsuits, or DIY autoclaves. Learn how to build safety in, so even if the protocol is "don't lick the spoon", most anyone *could* lick the spoon with no ill effects to the limit of statistical nothingness.

You want to avoid herpes? Don't kiss anyone ever. But that sounds like a sex-negative statement, and by far, I'm not. Learn to find the actual risks through writing review papers on a subject. Develop and cultivate your own sense, such that your command of the subject is obvious. Change your behavior in metered steps over time, and don't overreact. Observe and report in a notebook. Control your variables, to the point of ceteris paribus. THEN speak.

I hear it all the time: "I've found a simple cure for {herpes/cancer/death/whatever}" and I have only one response: what makes you so fucking special, that we haven't figured it out in decades, and you come in with a simple solution? If you can explain it in depth, great, do so. In the case of Hpy, those two authors, despite their questionable ethics, did rthat. Oh, and they had a near endless supply of victims^D^D^D^Dpatients to collect samples from, and teams of technicians and assistants who got exactly zero credit for their role. Discover commits a gave injustice by portraying the truth as a uniform û

So don't lecture me on the "possibilities". There's a quantifiable difference between science and fucking around, and it's not open for so called "debate". There's no democracy in observable facts. Or you know, keep fucking around and talking out of your ass, but you will drive the real people away. There's a time for proper discussion, and I'm not just scolding here: I'm trying to educate and inform. But this concept, this conceit, that any harebrained idea should be met with peace, love, and cuddles, is poison.

Matt Harbowy -hberg...@gmail.com

650 243 8467 - @hbergeronx on Twitter

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[Bryan Bishop]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Matt Harbowy <hberg...@gmail.com> wrote:

but you will drive the real people away

You can have your strawmen back, I don't want them:

* Nobody has claimed that cell cultures are immune from mold and bacteria. Where did you see this?

* Nobody has called you "aggressive", and it's wrong to claim they have.

* Nobody has claimed the finger magnet people should get a Nobel prize. 

* None of the transhumanists, life extension people, etc., have claimed that life extension is a matter of a "couple" of engineering tweaks. Your bias on this topic has been demonstrated before and it is boring.

* Nobody is claiming they have "cured cancer" or "cured death" in this conversation.

I suggest that making up lots of strawmen is also a great way to drive "real people" away. You've been hazed by academia, we get it.

- Bryan
http://heybryan.org/
1 512 203 0507

[Matt Harbowy]

I'm not going to call you on this point for point. If I have used straw men, it is only because I have failed to communicate my examples clearly, and when that happens, I deeply regret it. But, to quote Mega

On Jul 15, 2014, at 1:00 AM, "Mega [Andreas Stuermer]" <masters...@gmail.com> wrote:

Matt, exactly this discussion was what iI was looking for. Maybe less aggressive though. 

So don't say "nobody". Kettle, meet pot.

Matt Harbowy -hberg...@gmail.com

650 243 8467 - @hbergeronx on Twitter

On Jul 15, 2014, at 10:23 AM, Bryan Bishop <kan...@gmail.com> wrote:

* Nobody has called you "aggressive", and it's wrong to claim they have.

[Jonathan Cline]

Would you guys knock off all the petty arguing. Discuss ideas and stop
the 10,000 word essays about who is right or wrong. Studying a virus is
more important than this silly back & forth. Use your time more wisely.

People offer crazy/dumb/whatever ideas on this list, get used to it.
For every 1 crazy/dumb/whatever idea posted here, you can be sure there
are 10 other more ridiculously crazy/dumb/whatever ideas discussed in
person that are never posted here. Just simply call it out by saying
"Please don't do that" and move on.

[d wright]

"There's a quantifiable difference between science and fucking around, and it's not open for so called "debate". There's no democracy in observable facts. Or you know, keep fucking around and talking out of your ass, but you will drive the real people away." - Matt

"I was playing when I invented the aqualung. I think play is the most serious thing in the world." - Jacques Cousteau, Underwater Explorer

 
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[Matt Harbowy]

Because he alone invented the aqualung just from play. It had nothing to do with science, engineering, other people, or patents dating back a hundred or so years. You need to be a better judge of when celebrities are lying: typically, their lips move.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua-Lung

Matt Harbowy -hberg...@gmail.com

650 243 8467 - @hbergeronx on Twitter

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[Jonathan Cline]

Stop the sarcasm too. It has never translated well on the Internet.

[Andreas Stuermer]

That's the problem with writing on the internet. You can't hear the voice and see the facial expressions, if somebody is being honest/serious/...

Maybe also the language barrier leads to missunderstanding... For example, we German speakers don't use the words like  "Would" so often. We say it straight away. 

"What *would* *theoretically* happen *in case* I would take aciclovir and then kiss someone infected?"

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[Dan]

Wouldn't you be better off knocking out the nastiest genes using CRISPR then infecting the hypothetical  patient. On the other hand Could you use an intact virus and cause it find and infect cancer cells? Then stress the patient and the cancer cells would burst?

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[Andreas Stuermer]

CrispR is not a viable option unless you are doing germline engineering.

just to be safe -> DISCLAIMER: I do not intend to try this and no one else should <-

If you add crispR mRNA to your cells they start producing crispr protein. crispr protein is recognized by the immune system (unless you already had it at birth). You could get necrosis or allergic shocks.

However, for AIDS, which surpresses the immune response anyway, this could actually work? 

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