mRNA vaccines changing DNA??

[*Hemidactylus*]

Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?

Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
And not in the way retroviruses do. mRNA vaccines lack the skill set
(reverse transcriptase, integrase, and thing that gains access through
nuclear membrane).

Good article debunking that nonsense:

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210719/covid-19-vaccines-not-gene-therapy

BUT, why couldn’t the various COVID vaccines just as any other antigen
based on a pathogenic organism, cause our immune system into “doing
Darwinism” by means of affinity maturation via somatic hypermutation? If
these vaccines are sufficient to launch affinity maturation then aren’t
they responsible for helping indirectly change somatic cell (lymphocyte)
DNA? And why would that be a big deal? It would scare me as much as
watching a sunset or paint dry. Pretty mundane stuff. But because all the
ignorant conspiracy BS and denial, people in the general public would
pretty much lose their shit if:

“As mentioned earlier, with the passage of time after immunization, there
is usually a progressive increase in the affinity of the antibodies
produced against the immunizing antigen. This phenomenon, known as affinity
maturation, is due to the accumulation of point mutations specifically in
both heavy-chain and light-chain V-region coding sequences. The mutations
occur long after the coding regions have been assembled, when B cells are
stimulated by antigen and helper T cells to generate memory cells in a
lymphoid follicle in a peripheral lymphoid organ (see Figure 24-16). They
occur at the rate of about one per V-region coding sequence per cell
generation. Because this is about a million times greater than the
spontaneous mutation rate in other genes, the process is called somatic
hypermutation.”

And: “ Only a small minority of the altered antigen receptors generated by
hypermutation have an increased affinity for the antigen. The few B cells
expressing these higher-affinity receptors, however, are preferentially
stimulated by the antigen to survive and proliferate, whereas most other B
cells die by apoptosis. Thus, as a result of repeated cycles of somatic
hypermutation, followed by antigen-driven proliferation of selected clones
of memory B cells, antibodies of increasingly higher affinity become
abundant during an immune response, providing progressively better
protection against the pathogen.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26860/

Molecular Biology of the Cell. 4th edition.

But are the mRNA vaccines sufficient to rise to this level of immune
response? I think it would be really nifty if so. Disappointed if not.

[RonO]

On 9/25/2021 6:19 PM, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?
>
> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
> And not in the way retroviruses do. mRNA vaccines lack the skill set
> (reverse transcriptase, integrase, and thing that gains access through
> nuclear membrane).
>
> Good article debunking that nonsense:
>
> https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210719/covid-19-vaccines-not-gene-therapy

This article is wrong about the elements of truth in the concern that
the covid vaccines can alter a cells DNA. The adenovirus vector that
Johnson and Johnson uses has been known to integrate in the cell culture
cell genomes. It is a rare occurrence and the virus usually doesn't do
that, but when used as a gene therapy vector it has been shown to
integrate at a low frequency. The adenovirus vector is designed to be a
transient vector that is not supposed to persist in the cell, but it has
been known to integrate into the genome at a low frequency. The thing
about mRNA is that stuffing it back into the genome is a fairly normal
occurrence because we have a lot of active retrovirus in our genomes,
and one of the most common types of pseudogenes is when a processed mRNA
gets reverse transcribed back into the genome. The vaccine mRNA would
be treated no differently than your own mRNAs and could be
retrotranscribed into a cells genome. These are both very rare
occurrences, but they have been documented to happen, but I haven't seen
any documentation that they have happened with the vaccines.

The adenovirus and mRNA lipid nanoparticles do not have to infect
antibody producing cells. They can infect any cell and produce the S
protein antigen. This S protein antigen is processed and presented to
the antibody producing cells. They can either recognize it and start to
multiply and mutate their sequence in order to create better binding
antibodies or not recognize the antigen and are not stimulated to divide.

Ron Okimoto

[*Hemidactylus*]

Hmm…would the adenovirus route be more or less likely?

With native mRNA that happens to get plopped into the somatic (or germ
cell?) genome, was it still inside the nucleus or had it entered the
cytosol then gained re-entry into the nucleus?

“To get past that membrane, the mRNA would have to have an enzyme called a
nuclear access signal, Offit says, "which it doesn't have."”

If the mRNA vaccine somehow got *integrated* too it would most likely
become junk right? It would need an upstream promoter to get it
transcribed? What’s more likely under outlandish idea short-lived vaccine
mRNA segments enter genome and are integrated: inertness or functional
expression?

>
> The adenovirus and mRNA lipid nanoparticles do not have to infect
> antibody producing cells. They can infect any cell and produce the S
> protein antigen.

Would infect apply in case of non-viral vector?

>This S protein antigen is processed and presented to
> the antibody producing cells. They can either recognize it and start to
> multiply and mutate their sequence in order to create better binding
> antibodies or not recognize the antigen and are not stimulated to divide.
>

That’s the part I’m focused on. Do the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines typically
after two or three boosters ever get to the point of resulting in affinity
maturation in various people? That seems IMO more likely a scenario where
the vaccines can “change our DNA” however indirectly. Seems more possible
than some rando mRNA from vaccine integrating inertly into the genome (and
how often would it tap a germ cell?)

I found this:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html

“Multiple studies have noted reduced vaccine effectiveness in older adults
(≥60 years) (38, 133-135) or residents of long-term care facilities,
compared with general population estimates.(136-138) Compared with younger
individuals, persons aged >80 years have been noted to have reduced T-cell
responses, lower neutralizing antibody levels, and less potential antibody
diversity (somatic hypermutation), potentially giving this group increased
risk for susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection in vaccinated people.
(139)”

139: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03739-1

“B cell responses to mRNA vaccination…Differences in somatic hypermutation
could affect neutralization through antibody affinity maturation. We found
that participants aged 80 years or more had a lower level of somatic
hypermutation in class-switched B cell receptors (BCRs) than the younger
group, and that the difference was driven by the IgA1/2 isotype (Fig. 3c).”

So yes to somatic mutation as a result of mRNA vaccines? I’m hesitant in my
tentative “vaccines change DNA” conclusion here but isn’t such a result
pretty routine stuff in the immune system as it “does Darwinism”???

[jillery]

On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 18:19:39 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

>Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?
>
>Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
>And not in the way retroviruses do. mRNA vaccines lack the skill set
>(reverse transcriptase, integrase, and thing that gains access through
>nuclear membrane).

Distinguishing between somatic cells and germ cells is important. Even
if Covid-19 vaccines altered somatic-cell DNA, the worst that would
happen would be to cause cancerous growth, but the most likely case
would be it would become just another bit of nonfunctioning junk DNA.

The *only* way Covid-19 vaccines could enter the human genome would be
for them to alter germ-cell DNA, and for those altered germ cells to
contribute to a zygote. To the best of my knowledge, there is zero
evidence of that possibility.

Another important distinction to make is that, of the approved
Covid-19 vaccines, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are mRNA vaccines,
while J&J/Janssen and AstraZeneca are viral-vector vaccines, and these
two use different viral vectors, and both viral vectors are highly
modified from their adenovirus origins.

Even if the vaccines were to cause negative side-effects, the effects
would correlate with the vaccines' differences. Once the vaccines
deliver their RNA payload, the immune process is identical, ie the
mRNA instructs the production and expression of spike proteins, to
which the body eventually recognizes as foreign and raises an immune
response to them. The immune response is essentially identical to
that of the CoV-2 virus itself. So even if the immune response from
any of these vaccines causes negative side-effects, ISTM they would be
the same side-effects as from a CoV-2 infection.

IIUC your "this level" refers to "affinity maturation", which is a
normal process of the immune system, and so doesn't really qualify as
a genome mutation. Each of the approved vaccines ultimately produce
an antigen response to a protein from the CoV-2 spikes. So ISTM if
any vaccine enabled affinity maturation, they all would, as would
infection from the CoV-2 virus itself.

--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[jillery]

You don't cite anything, but my guess is the studies which show
viral-vector vaccines to alter cell genomes describe in vitro
cultures, and not cells from living organisms.

Your description above sounds like cells routinely transcribe mRNA
back to DNA. My impression is reverse transcriptase is specific to a
specific mRNA and comes from the retrovirus. If so, integration of
vaccine RNA could occur if and only if the viral vectors carried
reverse transcriptase, and could never occur with mRNA vaccines. Is
my impression incorrect?

[RonO]

Some pseudogenes are fully processed with poly A tails added, but
polyadenylation occurs in the nucleus so I don't know if the mRNA can
come back from the cytoplasm.

>
> “To get past that membrane, the mRNA would have to have an enzyme called a
> nuclear access signal, Offit says, "which it doesn't have."”
>
> If the mRNA vaccine somehow got *integrated* too it would most likely
> become junk right? It would need an upstream promoter to get it
> transcribed? What’s more likely under outlandish idea short-lived vaccine
> mRNA segments enter genome and are integrated: inertness or functional
> expression?

It would need to integrate into an upstream promoter in the correct
orientation to be transcribed and translated.

Just the insertion can cause issues. Some of the adenovirus gene
therapy insertions were thought to cause some issues in mice. It was
how they were first detected.

>>
>> The adenovirus and mRNA lipid nanoparticles do not have to infect
>> antibody producing cells. They can infect any cell and produce the S
>> protein antigen.
>
> Would infect apply in case of non-viral vector?

Just plasmids can be inserted into the genome if they are microinjected.
It is how some of the early transgenic work was done. They were most
likely to be integrated if they were made linear before microinjection
into the single celled embryo.

>
>> This S protein antigen is processed and presented to
>> the antibody producing cells. They can either recognize it and start to
>> multiply and mutate their sequence in order to create better binding
>> antibodies or not recognize the antigen and are not stimulated to divide.
>>
> That’s the part I’m focused on. Do the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines typically
> after two or three boosters ever get to the point of resulting in affinity
> maturation in various people? That seems IMO more likely a scenario where
> the vaccines can “change our DNA” however indirectly. Seems more possible
> than some rando mRNA from vaccine integrating inertly into the genome (and
> how often would it tap a germ cell?)
>
> I found this:
>
> https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html
>
> “Multiple studies have noted reduced vaccine effectiveness in older adults
> (≥60 years) (38, 133-135) or residents of long-term care facilities,
> compared with general population estimates.(136-138) Compared with younger
> individuals, persons aged >80 years have been noted to have reduced T-cell
> responses, lower neutralizing antibody levels, and less potential antibody
> diversity (somatic hypermutation), potentially giving this group increased
> risk for susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection in vaccinated people.
> (139)”

This is about the adaptive immune response part of the post. As you age
your immune system doesn't work as well in a lot of cases.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

It was both cell culture and mouse animal model results for the
adenovirus integration. This came up when the adenovirus vector was
first proposed for the vaccine. The FDA had cleared the adenovirus
vector for gene therapy even though they knew that there could be viral
integration, so it didn't matter for the vaccine use. It doesn't happen
in all cases, it just happens sometimes. The adenovirus vector was
chosen because it is not likely to integrate into the DNA. Other viral
vectors for gene therapy are chosen because they do integrate into the
DNA, and it is supposed to make the treatment more permanent.

Lentiviral vectors have a high integration rate, but they were found to
have an issue with preferring to integrate into transcribed regions
(genes) and were causing gene knockouts when they integrated. It isn't
good if you cure one issue and create another. Adenovirus vectors are
not supposed to integrate into the DNA, but sometimes they do.

>
> Your description above sounds like cells routinely transcribe mRNA
> back to DNA. My impression is reverse transcriptase is specific to a
> specific mRNA and comes from the retrovirus. If so, integration of
> vaccine RNA could occur if and only if the viral vectors carried
> reverse transcriptase, and could never occur with mRNA vaccines. Is
> my impression incorrect?

It isn't routine it just happens all the time and we can't predict when.
The retroviral machinery has to goof up and instead of stuffing in a
viral RNA it stuffs in a normal cellular transcript.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Here is one paper on adenvirus vector integration in a mouse model. The
FDA knew of the cell culture and animal model results before they OK'd
the vectors for use.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2937808/

You can find papers where they were trying to increase the integration
rate for the adenovirus vectors by modifying them. If the therapy gene
does not integrate the effects are expected to be transitory, but it is
known that integration causes additional issues including tumor
formation. The FDA OK'd the use of the adenovirus vectors because they
are not likely to integrate.

Ron Okimoto

[*Hemidactylus*]

Sure. But what is it the covidiots mean when asserting the vaccines change
our DNA? Do they even know? I doubt it. So we must somehow deconstruct the
vague polysemic utterance “vaccines change our DNA”.

> Each of the approved vaccines ultimately produce
> an antigen response to a protein from the CoV-2 spikes. So ISTM if
> any vaccine enabled affinity maturation, they all would, as would
> infection from the CoV-2 virus itself.
>

I think it would be a matter of degree or threshold. At what point does
somatic hypermutation kick in and it could possibly be said the vaccine has
led to changes in our somatic DNA in a subset of our immunocytes. I lack
the chops for a precise fine grained journey into that.

In the confusing polysemy left to us by the conspiracy folks one form of
vaccines changing our DNA rings true. A routine quasi-Darwinian process
known as affinity maturation. Not really a big deal. It’s been going on
before the advent of humans.

Maybe in trout:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145305X01000647

But though it is possible a rando mRNA vaccine fragment gets integrated
into somatic cell DNA, that might wind up inert and is not the intended
means for the vaccines to make us generate immunity to a coronavirus.

And the ultimate or distal meaning of vaccines changing our DNA is off the
table. Parents don’t pass the results of mRNA vaccination through the
germline.

[Glenn]

CRISPR isn't a breakfast cereal.

[broger...@gmail.com]

Well, somatic hypermutation will happen following a natural infection with covid, too, as it will follow most any infection that provokes an immune response, as well as any vaccination, so it's hard to see why you'd get worried about it in the covid mRNA vaccines and not in any of the many other scenarios in which it occurs.Somatic hypermutation is a feature, not a bug.

>
> In the confusing polysemy left to us by the conspiracy folks one form of
> vaccines changing our DNA rings true. A routine quasi-Darwinian process
> known as affinity maturation. Not really a big deal. It’s been going on
> before the advent of humans.
>
> Maybe in trout:
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145305X01000647
>
> But though it is possible a rando mRNA vaccine fragment gets integrated
> into somatic cell DNA, that might wind up inert and is not the intended
> means for the vaccines to make us generate immunity to a coronavirus.
>
> And the ultimate or distal meaning of vaccines changing our DNA is off the
> table. Parents don’t pass the results of mRNA vaccination through the
> germline.

In the 90's I was involved with the first test of a DNA vaccine (not an RNA vaccine, but a similar mechanism) in healthy human volunteers. The FDA was quite demanding in terms of evidence that integration of the vaccine DNA into even somatic cells was not a significant risk. After they were satisfied, they let the trial go forward. The chance of integration for an RNA vaccine should be even lower, as the RNA first has to be reverse transcribed before it can be integrated. Such things do happen, enough that they leave remnants over the course of evolutionary history, but they are pretty rare. There's been at least 20 years of work on DNA and RNA vaccines since then; if integration of the vaccine nucleic acids was a significant problem, it would be known by now. And, as in the case of the question of somatic hypermutation, covid mRNA gets into cells during a natural infection, too, so whatever chance of integration is there, it's still there if you don't get vaccinated.

[*Hemidactylus*]

I dunno. Just to be safe I’m going to live in a plastic bubble so my DNA
doesn’t change because pathogens. Maybe I should shield my house with lead
to keep the radiation away. My DNA. Precious DNA. And I will only drink
distilled rain water and pure grain alcohol.

[Glenn]

"As Dr. John Leonard, Intellia’s president and CEO, puts it: “mRNA is a way to make CRISPR gene editing come alive. CRISPR is the workhorse; mRNA encodes it.”

https://time.com/6080127/crispr-mrna/

[*Hemidactylus*]

broger...@gmail.com <broger...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
[snip]

>
> In the 90's I was involved with the first test of a DNA vaccine (not an
> RNA vaccine, but a similar mechanism) in healthy human volunteers. The
> FDA was quite demanding in terms of evidence that integration of the
> vaccine DNA into even somatic cells was not a significant risk. After
> they were satisfied, they let the trial go forward. The chance of
> integration for an RNA vaccine should be even lower, as the RNA first has
> to be reverse transcribed before it can be integrated. Such things do
> happen, enough that they leave remnants over the course of evolutionary
> history, but they are pretty rare. There's been at least 20 years of work
> on DNA and RNA vaccines since then; if integration of the vaccine nucleic
> acids was a significant problem, it would be known by now. And, as in the
> case of the question of somatic hypermutation, covid mRNA gets into cells
> during a natural infection, too, so whatever chance of integration is
> there, it's still there if you don't get vaccinated.
>

Thanks for conveying your personal experience and also putting a stamp of
experience into your reply. I have found this somewhat esoteric topic
fascinating since my undergrad immunology class almost 25 years ago. So I
greatly appreciate the contributions you, Ron O, and jillery have made on
this thread. Hopefully others such as Ernest Major will chime in.

[Ernest Major]

On 27/09/2021 03:06, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> I have found this somewhat esoteric topic fascinating since my undergrad immunology class almost 25 years ago. ... Hopefully others such as Ernest Major will chime in.

What do you want me to say? You've got more formal training in the
subject that I do. (My last formal training in biology was at age 14 -
at which point I was offered the unhappy choice of studying either
biology or geography.)

If you stretch your terminology somatic hypermutation in response to
recognition of a viral antigen could be labelled as changing the host's
DNA, but that's not what people mean when fear mongering about the
vaccine changing your DNA. If you do use such an expansive definition,
then there are four things a SARS-COV-2 infection can do - kill you
without changing your DNA, change your DNA and kill you, change your
DNA, or not change your DNA (if the innate immune system sees off the
infection before the adaptive immune system can respond).

Under that definition changing your DNA is the commonest outcome of a
SARS-COV-2 infection, at a rate of perhaps 99%; most of the other cases
are killing you and changing the your DNA beforehand. There are reports
of people who are known to have been infected who don't have antibody
titres; but that isn't absolute proof that they never had antibodies and
that they don't have memory B-cells, nor that they didn't generate a
T-cell response (you might be able to define your terms to draw a line
between B-cell and T-cell responses). As the chance of being infected by
SARS-COV-2 is high, especially in these days of delta - some estimates
go over 100% (you can be reinfected) - the vaccine doesn't do anything
that the virus doesn't.

What people presumably mean when fear-mongering abound mRNA vaccines is
incorporation of vaccine mRNA into the host cell genome. In principle
mRNA could get into the nucleus, and get retrotranscribed into DNA, and
then get integrated into into a chromosome, but this is a series of rare
events. And there's no obvious reason to think that it's any more likely
to occur with the vaccine than with an infection - rather the reverse as
an infection generates larger amounts of viral mRNA. (This is also a
passive process; it's not like CRISPR which actively changes your DNA.)

And even if if gets into the chromosome of an individual cell, unless
(less likely) it gets inserted near some suitable regulatory sequences,
it would just sit there. If it did end integrated into a chromosome such
that the cell constitutively expressed spike protein the cell would most
likely aptose in response to T-cell signals. By which point it seems
that worrying about acute myocarditis is a lot more sensible. (But,
again, the virus causes more myocarditis that the vaccine, nevermind all
the other things the virus does to you.)

I also note that lots of other vaccines contain RNA (or DNA) -
attenuated virus vaccines, and perhaps some killed virus vaccines,
depending on how the virus is processed to produce the vaccine. No
genome changing issues have been identified with these.

As for the reports of older people producing less robust immune
responses to vaccination, while I don't know how much credence to give
to the papers, I don't find it surprising - the phenomenon of
immunosenescence was raised at the start of the pandemic as an
explanation for the age-correlated mortality of the disease.

--
alias Ernest Major

[Zen Cycle]

On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 9:05:10 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >
> I dunno. Just to be safe I’m going to live in a plastic bubble so my DNA
> doesn’t change because pathogens. Maybe I should shield my house with lead
> to keep the radiation away. My DNA. Precious DNA. And I will only drink
> distilled rain water and pure grain alcohol.
> >

we have this stuff in our lab:

https://www.pharmco.com/Pure%20Ethanol/Ethanol-200-Proof-1x1-Gal?cclcl=en_US

When I first saw it I thought to myself 'man, these guys know how to party'. Then I mentioned it to a friend who happens to be a chemical engineer, and he cautioned me - 'scary stuff, they reach 200 proof by a chemical filtration process using benzene'.

I guess I'll stick to Grey Goose martinis.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 18:19:39 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

This sounds pretty exciting:

*Merck's Covid pill cuts hospitalisation by 50% - study*
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/1001/1250168-merck-covid-drug/

"If authorised, molnupiravir, which is designed to introduce errors
into the genetic code of the virus, would be the first oral antiviral
medication for Covid-19."

[jillery]

On Sat, 02 Oct 2021 10:20:23 +0100, Martin Harran
<martin...@gmail.com> wrote:


>This sounds pretty exciting:
>
>*Merck's Covid pill cuts hospitalisation by 50% - study*
>https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/1001/1250168-merck-covid-drug/
>
>"If authorised, molnupiravir, which is designed to introduce errors
>into the genetic code of the virus, would be the first oral antiviral
>medication for Covid-19."

That means it works a lot better than Ivermectin or Remdesivir or even
bleach to treat Covid-19.

[jillery]

Piffle, what's a few cyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules among
friends.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2021-10-02 10:37:22 +0000, jillery said:

> On Fri, 1 Oct 2021 06:45:34 -0700 (PDT), Zen Cycle
> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 9:05:10 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>>>>
>>> I dunno. Just to be safe I’m going to live in a plastic bubble so my
>>> DNA>> doesn’t change because pathogens. Maybe I should shield my house
>>> with lead>> to keep the radiation away. My DNA. Precious DNA. And I
>>> will only drink>> distilled rain water and pure grain alcohol.
>>>>
>>
>> we have this stuff in our lab:
>> https://www.pharmco.com/Pure%20Ethanol/Ethanol-200-Proof-1x1-Gal?cclcl=en_US
>>
>> When I first saw it I thought to myself 'man, these guys know how to
>> party'. Then I mentioned it to a friend who happens to be a chemical
>> engineer, and he cautioned me - 'scary stuff, they reach 200 proof by a
>> chemical filtration process using benzene'.>
>> I guess I'll stick to Grey Goose martinis.

Spectroscopic ethanol doesn't contain any benzene. (If it did it would
screw up the spectra.)

>
>
> Piffle, what's a few cyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules among
> friends.


--

Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

[Zen Cycle]

On Tuesday, October 5, 2021 at 10:45:13 AM UTC-4, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> On 2021-10-02 10:37:22 +0000, jillery said:
>
> > On Fri, 1 Oct 2021 06:45:34 -0700 (PDT), Zen Cycle
> > <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 9:05:10 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >>>>
> >>> I dunno. Just to be safe I’m going to live in a plastic bubble so my
> >>> DNA>> doesn’t change because pathogens. Maybe I should shield my house
> >>> with lead>> to keep the radiation away. My DNA. Precious DNA. And I
> >>> will only drink>> distilled rain water and pure grain alcohol.
> >>>>
> >>
> >> we have this stuff in our lab:
> >> https://www.pharmco.com/Pure%20Ethanol/Ethanol-200-Proof-1x1-Gal?cclcl=en_US
> >>
> >> When I first saw it I thought to myself 'man, these guys know how to
> >> party'. Then I mentioned it to a friend who happens to be a chemical
> >> engineer, and he cautioned me - 'scary stuff, they reach 200 proof by a
> >> chemical filtration process using benzene'.>
> >> I guess I'll stick to Grey Goose martinis.
>
> Spectroscopic ethanol doesn't contain any benzene. (If it did it would
> screw up the spectra.)

Regardless, I would think that if someone offered you a drink that had been filtered with benzene, it would at least give you pause.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 1 Oct 2021 06:45:34 -0700 (PDT), Zen Cycle
<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Reminds me of the old joke about two scientists in Ireland working on
a new high powered rocket fuel. One of them accidentally tasted it and
discovered to his amazement that it tasted just like Guinness. He told
his mate and the two of them got stuck into it.

The following morning, one of them woke up with a blinding headache to
the sound of a phone ringing. It was the other scientist who asked
him, "Did you fart yet this morning?"

"No, I didn't", he replied.

"Well for God's sake don't - I'm speaking to you from Cape Canaveral!"

[jillery]

Also, all aged alcoholic beverages include chemicals at least as
toxic/carcinogenic as benzene.

So enjoy your martinis... while you can.

[*Hemidactylus*]

jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Oct 2021 16:41:10 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
> <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:
>
>> On 2021-10-02 10:37:22 +0000, jillery said:
>>
>>> On Fri, 1 Oct 2021 06:45:34 -0700 (PDT), Zen Cycle
>>> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 9:05:10 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>> I dunno. Just to be safe I’m going to live in a plastic bubble so my

>>>>>>> doesn’t change because pathogens. Maybe I should shield my house
>>>>> with lead>> to keep the radiation away. My DNA. Precious DNA. And I
>>>>> will only drink>> distilled rain water and pure grain alcohol.
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> we have this stuff in our lab:
>>>> https://www.pharmco.com/Pure%20Ethanol/Ethanol-200-Proof-1x1-Gal?cclcl=en_US
>>>>
>>>> When I first saw it I thought to myself 'man, these guys know how to
>>>> party'. Then I mentioned it to a friend who happens to be a chemical
>>>> engineer, and he cautioned me - 'scary stuff, they reach 200 proof by a
>>>> chemical filtration process using benzene'.>
>>>> I guess I'll stick to Grey Goose martinis.
>>
>> Spectroscopic ethanol doesn't contain any benzene. (If it did it would
>> screw up the spectra.)
>>>
>>>
>>> Piffle, what's a few cyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules among
>>> friends.
>
>
> Also, all aged alcoholic beverages include chemicals at least as
> toxic/carcinogenic as benzene.
>
> So enjoy your martinis... while you can.
>

This seems to be quite a drift from the OP.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

The OP was half-baked and I couldn't see anyone go into this matter at the proper
scientific depth in their wordy replies. It's like what we see everywhere in
the internet -- generalities that try to reassure us about the extreme unlikelihood
of your genome being altered.

The proper depth is this: the only way for the mRNA to change into DNA is for
there to be reverse transcriptase in the cell, perhaps from a retrovirus like HIV
infecting the same cell. This much did get talked about a couple of times,
but not the following safeguards:

1. The DNA is in the cytoplasm and lacks the tools to get into the nucleus.

2. The mRNA in the vaccine has the relatively short recognition sequence needed
to be translated into the spike protein BUT, ON THE OTHER HAND,
it lacks the much longer complement of the recognition sequence that
the resulting DNA needs for it to be transcribed into more mRNA. In laymen's
terms, it is junk DNA. So, no mRNA proliferating in the cell.

There is a particularly toxic version of the anti-vaxxer scaremongering
which claims the mRNA will get into every cell in your body and will
cause your immune system to destroy these cells in the "scorched earth"
behavior that seems to do the most damage to the body for which the Covid-19
disease is blamed.

Item 2 refutes this, but here is some additional protection: if any mRNA
gets outside an infected cell, it lacks means of entry into other cells:
the original means was a carefully constructed lipid attachment that
came with the mRNA in the vaccine. That's gone, and without it and without the
spike protein that the virus itself uses to gain entry, it's stuck in the
intercellular medium where it will be destroyed in short order.


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

All you’ve demonstrated is you have no clue what the OP was again. Reread
slowly.

[*Hemidactylus*]

And so typical of the snotty condescending tone that could be expected from
you. I note you recently mentioned me in passing on the sbp group. Why?

And in my OP I added:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26860/

Followed in other posts by:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03739-1

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145305X01000647

And I leave it for you to look down through your nostrils and figure out
the context given what I have said in this thread. I’m in no mood to play
games with clueless jackasses poking their noses into stuff they failed to
follow completely today.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

Without clicking on the link, re-reading is useless.

I admit I didn't click on the link until I saw your reply, and it does answer your
question -- but only your question. It doesn't set people's mind at rest about the
safety of the mRNA because there are alternative ways the vaccine has been
alleged to wreak havoc.

We've been through this before, in sci.bio.paleontology; it's funny how your OP simulates
amnesia about having talked about it over two weeks earlier. Here is where I very
politely talked about the alternative ways that need to be dealt with:

________________________________ begin included post ________________________

On Wednesday, September 8, 2021 at 6:26:43 AM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> Peter Nyikos <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> [snip]

To Mario:
> > Is that what you are really afraid of, that an anti-Covid-2 vaccine is more likely
> > to hurt you, and to hurt you worse, than an invasion of SARS-CoV-2 viruses
> > that your immune system hasn't got any antibodies for?
> >
> Here’s a great article debunking one of the anti-vax myths— the one about
> COVID vaccines altering DNA:


> https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210719/covid-19-vaccines-not-gene-therapy
>
> It would take jumping hurdles of reverse transcription, access to the
> nucleus, and integration for which the mRNA vaccines lack the tools.

This will scotch the altered DNA myth, but not kill it. Or kill it and not
drive a stake through its heart [pick your metaphor].
More is needed to drive a stake through its heart.

There may indeed be some some reverse transcriptase floating around,
either from a retrovirus (e. g., HIV) infecting the same cell, or the body's own reverse transcriptase
[something whose existence I disbelieved until this summer] and perhaps it could produce DNA
that codes for the mRNA. At this point, the natural question arises: what's to stop
that DNA from being transcribed right in the cytoplasm to form more mRNA, to
be reverse transcribed... in an endless feedback loop? The article doesn't mention this question.

Fortunately, there are two answers. First, transcription takes place in the nucleus.
And second, transcription doesn't get initiated unless the DNA has a somewhat
long recognition sequence of nucleotides in the right place. And the mRNA lacks
the complementary sequence. It does have the much shorter recognition sequence
to initiate translation into spike protein, but that won't initiate transcription.


There is another toxic bit of scaremongering that might fool some people
into thinking the first answer can be circumvented. And that is that
"the vaccine alters the working of your mitochondria." This slogan
has gone viral without any explanation of what the alleged alteration
is or how it is caused.

Worst case scenario would be if the reverse-transcribed DNA could get
into your mitochondria, which may not have the safeguards of the nucleus.
Whether this is possible or not, I cannot answer myself [and neither does the linked article].

However, I maintain that the second answer -- lack of a recognition sequence --
is enough to drive a stake through the heart of the myth.


> Technically immunocytes have the capacity to alter their own DNA. Part of
> this is shuffling of antibody encoding genes. But there is another process
> known as hypermutation. If COVID infection or vaccination response gets to
> that point, that’s a case of indirect DNA alteration, but not confined to
> COVID and is a good thing as it diversifies the potential response to
> pathogens.

As usual, you are so fond of glibness that you don't spell out the relevance,
if any, to possible damage caused by the mRNA. Do you know some reasons
why that worst case scenario cannot come to pass?

If not, perhaps others do. Hemi, see if you can find someone in talk.origins who has the
background knowledge to drive a second stake through the heart of the myth.
In this high-stakes debate, overkill is a virtue.


Peter Nyikos

PS Feel free to groan at my pun.

======================== end of post archived in:
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/H-SFHyhHp8w/m/Qqdbgv9QAAAJ
Re: Vaccination
Sep 8, 2021, 2:46:07 PM

You never answered my question at the end. I suspect there isn't anyone who could answer it
on this thread.

By the way, even the linked article in your OP is the same as the one you posted back then (see the repost).
You didn't find one that addressed what I address in the repost, did you?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

PS you were even more fond of glibness in your OP as you were the last time around.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Back up the truck to the part after my BUT in the OP on this thread. I can
see in this case I may have cast pearls before swine.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

See my reply to your first comment. Don't you ever wait around for your first
reply to be addressed before launching into a second one less than an hour later?


<snotty condescending comment by you deleted>

> I note you recently mentioned me in passing on the sbp group. Why?

I believe I answered that in detail. Did you stick around to see the answer?

>
> And in my OP I added:

... nothing that addresses what I addressed. As I wrote in my first reply.

>
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26860/
>
> Followed in other posts by:
>
> https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html
>
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03739-1
>
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145305X01000647
>
> And I leave it for you to look down through your nostrils and figure out
> the context given what I have said in this thread.

You are as fond of the random contexts you generate as you are of your glibness.


Your context is nothing compared to the context of the big outside world, where
a relevant question is: "Are the Biden, New York, and California vaccination mandates anti-science?"

You read that right: the anti-vaxxers and creationists aren't the only ones that are anti-science
according to the criteria that have been used in talk.origins -- in the latter case, for decades.

The mandates make no exception for people who have natural immunity through having
recovered from Covid-19. The New York and California mandates don't even include the
usual "tested negative each week" for health care workerrs.

This is in defiance of information coming out of Israel that was available already back on July 13,
IIRC before the mandates got hot and heavy:

"More than 7,700 new cases of the virus have been detected during the most recent wave starting in May, but just 72 of the confirmed cases were reported in people who were known to have been infected previously – that is, less than 1% of the new cases.
...
"With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus, the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were already infected with COVID. By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave."
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762

There is no excuse for the Biden administration not to know about this. On August 5, there was an article
in the US News and World Report by Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
and editor in chief of MedPage Today:
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/why-covid-19-vaccines-should-not-be-required-for-all-americans
Excerpt:
Some people already have 'natural immunity' – that is, immunity from prior COVID infection. During every month of this pandemic, I've had debates with other public researchers about the effectiveness and durability of natural immunity. I've been told that natural immunity could fall off a cliff, rendering people susceptible to infection. But here we are now, over a year and a half into the clinical experience of observing patients who were infected, and natural immunity is effective and going strong. And that's because with natural immunity, the body develops antibodies to the entire surface of the virus, not just a spike protein constructed from a vaccine. The power of natural immunity was recently affirmed in an Israeli study, which found a 6.7 times greater level of protection among those with natural immunity vs. those with vaccinated immunity.

Note especially the words, "...not just a spike protein." This was what the highly touted earlier research measured,
putting all its eggs into that one basket and ignoring other antibodies.
Yet this is the shoddy research that has made possible all the government mandates.

> I’m in no mood to play games with clueless jackasses poking their noses into stuff they failed to follow completely today.

It's actually amusing to watch how wrapped up you are in your own little world.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 08 Oct 2021 14:23:34 -0500, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid>:

You mean "My DNA. Precious DNA. And I will only drink
distilled rain water and pure grain alcohol."?

Apparently Dr. Strangelove is not in his group of
professionals (The Pro Phylactics?).
>
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 08 Oct 2021 15:33:16 -0500, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid>:

It's annoying to have to keep adding his new IDs to the
Special Children File...

And please stop insulting swine.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Not a random context idiot. You really are clueless aren’t you? You feign
knowledge of biology but lack the register to understand the points I made.
>
[snip pointless Nyikosian irrelevancies not germane to affinity maturation
or somatic hypermution… a huge transition in my thought totally lost on
clueless Peter]

>
>
>> I’m in no mood to play games with clueless jackasses poking their noses
>> into stuff they failed to follow completely today.
>
> It's actually amusing to watch how wrapped up you are in your own little world.
>

You really have no clue how I shifted gears with that “BUT” in the OP.
You’re stuck grinding it out in your ignorance. To recap, you showed up
quite late to this thread, took a heaping shit on my OP and the
knowledgable people who replied to it on this thread who I thanked for
their valuable input. You: “The OP was half-baked and I couldn't see anyone
go into this matter at the proper scientific depth in their wordy replies.”
Me: Fuck you!

And I seriously doubt you have a clue what my OP was about, instead you
gladly parade your stunning arrogance.

It’s not my fault you lack the requisite knowledge of immunology to catch
where I shifted gears. I said: “BUT, why couldn’t the various COVID

vaccines just as any other antigen based on a pathogenic organism, cause
our immune system into “doing Darwinism” by means of affinity maturation
via somatic hypermutation? If these vaccines are sufficient to launch
affinity maturation then aren’t they responsible for helping indirectly
change somatic cell (lymphocyte) DNA? And why would that be a big deal? It

would scare me as much as watching a sunset or paint dry…” Is the clue
fairy hovering over your thick impermeable skull yet bozo?

In response to Ron I said: “That’s the part I’m focused on. Do the Pfizer
or Moderna vaccines typically after two or three boosters ever get to the
point of resulting in affinity maturation in various people? That seems IMO
more likely a scenario where the vaccines can “change our DNA” however
indirectly. Seems more possible than some rando mRNA from vaccine
integrating inertly into the genome (and how often would it tap a germ
cell?)
I found this:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html
“

From which I drew an inference. Could you spot it? Here I’ll make it easier
for you: “Compared with younger individuals, persons aged >80 years have
been noted to have reduced T-cell responses, lower neutralizing antibody
levels, and less potential antibody diversity (somatic hypermutation)…” Do
you see it?

In reply to jillery I engaged in a bit of requisite deconstruction: “But

what is it the covidiots mean when asserting the vaccines change our DNA?
Do they even know? I doubt it. So we must somehow deconstruct the vague

polysemic utterance “vaccines change our DNA”.”[…] “In the confusing

polysemy left to us by the conspiracy folks one form of vaccines changing
our DNA rings true. A routine quasi-Darwinian process known as affinity
maturation. Not really a big deal. It’s been going on before the advent of

humans.”

I had taken a cursory jab at grounding affinity maturation per phylogeny:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0145305X01000647

“…Furthermore, it was determined that trout are capable of generating new,
higher affinity antibodies relatively late in the antibody response, which
then come into dominance. Such evidence suggests that either somatic
mutation does occur or that a unique form of affinity-based regulation of
antibody expression is employed.”

So if you think this was me being glib you can go fuck yourself. I really
have no interest in your bullshit way of crapping on my efforts here. I’m
happy with where I went with it and your johnny come lately opinion means
squat to me.

You might want to eat some humble pie while reading this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26860/

Especially: “Thus, as a result of repeated cycles of somatic hypermutation,

followed by antigen-driven proliferation of selected clones of memory B
cells, antibodies of increasingly higher affinity become abundant during an
immune response, providing progressively better protection against the
pathogen.”

Is that too glib for you jackass?

[*Hemidactylus*]

That was a tongue in cheek reply to Bill Roger’s saying aptly:
“Somatic hypermutation is a feature, not a bug.”

And fully quoted I said:
“I dunno. Just to be safe I’m going to live in a plastic bubble so my DNA

doesn’t change because pathogens. Maybe I should shield my house with lead
to keep the radiation away. My DNA. Precious DNA. And I will only drink

distilled rain water and pure grain alcohol.”

There so many ways our DNA can be changed even by somatic hypermutation. If
someone doesn’t want their DNA changed they need to bubble up to prevent
exposure to pathogens, recalling movie roles played by John Travolta and
Jake Gyllenhaal.

Rogers also said: “Well, somatic hypermutation will happen following a

natural infection with covid, too, as it will follow most any infection
that provokes an immune response, as well as any vaccination, so it's hard
to see why you'd get worried about it in the covid mRNA vaccines and not in

any of the many other scenarios in which it occurs.”

Jack D Ripper was ranting about fluoridated water, but seems perfect for my
finale.

> Apparently Dr. Strangelove is not in his group of
> professionals (The Pro Phylactics?).
>

Puns? You bring puns?

[peter2...@gmail.com]

I've shown detailed knowledge of the relevant biology. You seem
to be unable to reason properly wrt the biology about which you wrote below.

> but lack the register to understand the points I made.

I registered them just fine below. Keep reading.

> >
> [snip pointless Nyikosian irrelevancies not germane to affinity maturation
> or somatic hypermution

So evidence of the Biden administration being anti-science in a matter affecting
millions of Americans is pointless?

I've heard of Democratic party hacks, but you give the term new meaning.

> … a huge transition in my thought totally lost on
> clueless Peter]

Au contraire, the biggest transitions (or "gearshifts" as you put it below)
you made are lost on YOU--that is, if you aren't a complete nutcase.

> >
> >
> >> I’m in no mood to play games with clueless jackasses poking their noses
> >> into stuff they failed to follow completely today.
> >
> > It's actually amusing to watch how wrapped up you are in your own little world.
> >
> You really have no clue how I shifted gears with that “BUT” in the OP.

On the contrary, the biggest gearshift in your OP came at the end of the BUT passage:

"But are the mRNA vaccines sufficient to rise to this level of immune
response? I think it would be really nifty if so. Disappointed if not."

IOW, you admitted that all the relevance of your copied-out passages
and your earlier sesqipedalianism is speculative at this point.

But now that you deleted what you damned as "pointless", you have even
shown how unable you are to reason coherently about what YOU wrote after the BUT.
Keep reading.

> You’re stuck grinding it out in your ignorance. To recap, you showed up
> quite late to this thread,

Are you so mired in the silly polemical conventions that have become inbred in talk.origins,
that you actually think coming in late is a telling criticism in and and of itself?

But let that pass. The real fireworks is below.

> took a heaping shit on my OP and the
> knowledgable people who replied to it on this thread who I thanked for
> their valuable input. You: “The OP was half-baked and I couldn't see anyone
> go into this matter at the proper scientific depth in their wordy replies.”
> Me: Fuck you!

Temper, temper...

> And I seriously doubt you have a clue what my OP was about, instead you
> gladly parade your stunning arrogance.

The irony keeps getting deeper and deeper, and you are oblivious to it. Keep reading.

> It’s not my fault you lack the requisite knowledge of immunology to catch
> where I shifted gears. I said: “BUT, why couldn’t the various COVID
> vaccines just as any other antigen based on a pathogenic organism, cause
> our immune system into “doing Darwinism” by means of affinity maturation
> via somatic hypermutation? If these vaccines are sufficient to launch
> affinity maturation then aren’t they responsible for helping indirectly
> change somatic cell (lymphocyte) DNA?

One strained transition after another. The issue is: to what extent?
Your gearshift that I quoted above was the first sign of trouble. But after
the next two paragraphs, you will see a bigger sign.

> And why would that be a big deal? It
> would scare me as much as watching a sunset or paint dry…” Is the clue
> fairy hovering over your thick impermeable skull yet bozo?
>
> In response to Ron I said: “That’s the part I’m focused on. Do the Pfizer
> or Moderna vaccines typically after two or three boosters ever get to the
> point of resulting in affinity maturation in various people?

If you weren't so obsessed with your animosity towards me,
going all the way back to the 1990's, you would realize just how much
light is shed on your question by the statistics that you mindlessly insulted
and snipped:

"More than 7,700 new cases of the virus have been detected during the most recent wave starting in May, but just 72 of the confirmed cases were reported in people who were known to have been infected previously – that is, less than 1% of the new cases.
...
"With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus, the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were already infected with COVID. By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave."
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762

Your caveat at the end of the BUT is fully justified by these real-life details.
Only your animosity towards me kept you from seeing it.

> That seems IMO
> more likely a scenario where the vaccines can “change our DNA” however
> indirectly. Seems more possible than some rando mRNA from vaccine
> integrating inertly into the genome (and how often would it tap a germ cell?)

I won't argue with that. But with your transition, about which you are so all-fired proud,
you've jumped from a cold frying pan into a Biden-burning fire.

Go back and read the "pointless" things you snipped out of mindless animosity.
The part I've reposted is just a small fraction.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

PS Or bury your head in the sand and admire your handiwork once again.
I've kept it in below if that's what you want. Your choice.'

[*Hemidactylus*]

No you haven’t. Not for the issues I introduced.

> You seem
> to be unable to reason properly wrt the biology about which you wrote below.
>

You haven’t even touched any of that, cluelessly leaving it at the bottom
after your politically driven hack job.

>
>> but lack the register to understand the points I made.
>
> I registered them just fine below. Keep reading.
>

You refuse to address them ears plugged shouting “LaLaLaLaLa!!!”

>
>>>
>> [snip pointless Nyikosian irrelevancies not germane to affinity maturation
>> or somatic hypermution
>
> So evidence of the Biden administration being anti-science in a matter affecting
> millions of Americans is pointless?
>
> I've heard of Democratic party hacks, but you give the term new meaning.
>

WTF does Biden have to do with somatic hypermutation in immunocytes, the
elephant in the room.

>
>> … a huge transition in my thought totally lost on
>> clueless Peter]
>
> Au contraire, the biggest transitions (or "gearshifts" as you put it below)
> you made are lost on YOU--that is, if you aren't a complete nutcase.
>

This isn’t about your political and interpersonal obsessions nitwit. It’s
basic immunology.

>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I’m in no mood to play games with clueless jackasses poking their noses
>>>> into stuff they failed to follow completely today.
>>>
>>> It's actually amusing to watch how wrapped up you are in your own little world.
>>>
>> You really have no clue how I shifted gears with that “BUT” in the OP.
>
> On the contrary, the biggest gearshift in your OP came at the end of the BUT passage:
>
> "But are the mRNA vaccines sufficient to rise to this level of immune
> response? I think it would be really nifty if so. Disappointed if not."
>
> IOW, you admitted that all the relevance of your copied-out passages
> and your earlier sesqipedalianism is speculative at this point.
>

You avoided the implications of
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html

Which cites: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03739-1

“B cell responses to mRNA vaccination…Differences in somatic hypermutation
could affect neutralization through antibody affinity maturation. We found
that participants aged 80 years or more had a lower level of somatic
hypermutation in class-switched B cell receptors (BCRs) than the younger
group, and that the difference was driven by the IgA1/2 isotype (Fig.
3c).””

Whooshed over Peter’s head again.

>
> But now that you deleted what you damned as "pointless", you have even
> shown how unable you are to reason coherently about what YOU wrote after the BUT.
> Keep reading.
>

You haven’t shown this. You are merely engaging in your assholery.

>
>> You’re stuck grinding it out in your ignorance. To recap, you showed up
>> quite late to this thread,
>
> Are you so mired in the silly polemical conventions that have become
> inbred in talk.origins,
> that you actually think coming in late is a telling criticism in and and of itself?
>
> But let that pass. The real fireworks is below.
>

You actually let discussing the topic of affinity maturation pass dingbat.

>
>> took a heaping shit on my OP and the
>> knowledgable people who replied to it on this thread who I thanked for
>> their valuable input. You: “The OP was half-baked and I couldn't see anyone
>> go into this matter at the proper scientific depth in their wordy replies.”
>> Me: Fuck you!
>
> Temper, temper...
>

You’re an asshole.

>
>> And I seriously doubt you have a clue what my OP was about, instead you
>> gladly parade your stunning arrogance.
>
> The irony keeps getting deeper and deeper, and you are oblivious to it. Keep reading.
>

You’re oblivious to what the OP was actually about and paper macheing over
that ignorance with a bunch of irrelevancies. Squirrel!

>
>> It’s not my fault you lack the requisite knowledge of immunology to catch
>> where I shifted gears. I said: “BUT, why couldn’t the various COVID
>> vaccines just as any other antigen based on a pathogenic organism, cause
>> our immune system into “doing Darwinism” by means of affinity maturation
>> via somatic hypermutation? If these vaccines are sufficient to launch
>> affinity maturation then aren’t they responsible for helping indirectly
>> change somatic cell (lymphocyte) DNA?
>
> One strained transition after another. The issue is: to what extent?
> Your gearshift that I quoted above was the first sign of trouble. But after
> the next two paragraphs, you will see a bigger sign.
>

Nope. I proceeded with caution, which you disregard and cite evidence.

>
>> And why would that be a big deal? It
>> would scare me as much as watching a sunset or paint dry…” Is the clue
>> fairy hovering over your thick impermeable skull yet bozo?
>>
>> In response to Ron I said: “That’s the part I’m focused on. Do the Pfizer
>> or Moderna vaccines typically after two or three boosters ever get to the
>> point of resulting in affinity maturation in various people?
>
> If you weren't so obsessed with your animosity towards me,
> going all the way back to the 1990's, you would realize just how much
> light is shed on your question by the statistics that you mindlessly insulted
> and snipped:
>
> "More than 7,700 new cases of the virus have been detected during the
> most recent wave starting in May, but just 72 of the confirmed cases were
> reported in people who were known to have been infected previously – that
> is, less than 1% of the new cases.
> ...
> "With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus,
> the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were
> already infected with COVID. By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated
> were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after
> natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of
> Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave."
> https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762
>
> Your caveat at the end of the BUT is fully justified by these real-life details.
> Only your animosity towards me kept you from seeing it.
>

I guess you’re still avoiding the topic of somatic hypermutation.

>
>> That seems IMO
>> more likely a scenario where the vaccines can “change our DNA” however
>> indirectly. Seems more possible than some rando mRNA from vaccine
>> integrating inertly into the genome (and how often would it tap a germ cell?)
>
> I won't argue with that. But with your transition, about which you are so all-fired proud,
> you've jumped from a cold frying pan into a Biden-burning fire.
>

What. The. Fuck. Does. Biden. Have. To. Do. With. The. Topicality. Of. My.
OP.

Have you been checked for Sundowners Syndrome?

>
> Go back and read the "pointless" things you snipped out of mindless animosity.
> The part I've reposted is just a small fraction.
>

I snipped them because they are totally irrelevant to the crux of my OP.

>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
>
> PS Or bury your head in the sand and admire your handiwork once again.
> I've kept it in below if that's what you want. Your choice.'
>

Irony Ostrich Boy. You never addressed the details I get at below. Not even
in the slightest.

🦇💩

Again is it?

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 08 Oct 2021 18:54:09 -0500, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid>:

>Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
>> On Fri, 08 Oct 2021 14:23:34 -0500, the following appeared
>> in talk.origins, posted by *Hemidactylus*
>> <ecph...@allspamis.invalid>:
>>
>>> peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, October 6, 2021 at 6:05:12 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>>>>> jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> On Tue, 5 Oct 2021 16:41:10 +0200, Athel Cornish-Bowden
>>>>>> <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 2021-10-02 10:37:22 +0000, jillery said:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Fri, 1 Oct 2021 06:45:34 -0700 (PDT), Zen Cycle
>>>>>>>> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Sunday, September 26, 2021 at 9:05:10 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>

>>>>>>>>>> I dunno. Just to be safe I?m going to live in a plastic bubble so my
>>>>>>>>>>>> doesn?t change because pathogens. Maybe I should shield my house

>>> All you?ve demonstrated is you have no clue what the OP was again. Reread

>>> slowly.
>>>
>> You mean "My DNA. Precious DNA. And I will only drink
>> distilled rain water and pure grain alcohol."?
>>
>That was a tongue in cheek reply to Bill Roger’s saying aptly:
>“Somatic hypermutation is a feature, not a bug.”
>

Yeah, pretty much what I thought... ;-)

>
>And fully quoted I said:
>“I dunno. Just to be safe I’m going to live in a plastic bubble so my DNA
>doesn’t change because pathogens. Maybe I should shield my house with lead
>to keep the radiation away. My DNA. Precious DNA. And I will only drink
>distilled rain water and pure grain alcohol.”
>
>There so many ways our DNA can be changed even by somatic hypermutation. If
>someone doesn’t want their DNA changed they need to bubble up to prevent
>exposure to pathogens, recalling movie roles played by John Travolta and
>Jake Gyllenhaal.
>
>Rogers also said: “Well, somatic hypermutation will happen following a
>natural infection with covid, too, as it will follow most any infection
>that provokes an immune response, as well as any vaccination, so it's hard
>to see why you'd get worried about it in the covid mRNA vaccines and not in
>any of the many other scenarios in which it occurs.”
>
>Jack D Ripper was ranting about fluoridated water, but seems perfect for my
>finale.
>

Yep.

>
>> Apparently Dr. Strangelove is not in his group of
>> professionals (The Pro Phylactics?).
>>
>Puns? You bring puns?
>

Of course! After all, no one expects...

[*Hemidactylus*]

The Nyikosian Inquisition? Fuck that guy. Your reply made me much less
pissed off.

[Burkhard]

*Hemidactylus* wrote:
> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?
>
> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
> And not in the way retroviruses do. mRNA vaccines lack the skill set
> (reverse transcriptase, integrase, and thing that gains access through
> nuclear membrane).
>
> Good article debunking that nonsense:
>
> https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210719/covid-19-vaccines-not-gene-therapy
>

best take I saw so far on this: people who think vaccines change their
DNA should treat this as an opportunity

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 09 Oct 2021 01:02:02 -0500, the following appeared

>>> That was a tongue in cheek reply to Bill Roger?s saying aptly:
>>> ?Somatic hypermutation is a feature, not a bug.?

>>>
>> Yeah, pretty much what I thought... ;-)
>>>
>>> And fully quoted I said:

>>> ?I dunno. Just to be safe I?m going to live in a plastic bubble so my DNA

>>> doesn?t change because pathogens. Maybe I should shield my house with lead
>>> to keep the radiation away. My DNA. Precious DNA. And I will only drink

>>> distilled rain water and pure grain alcohol.?

>>>
>>> There so many ways our DNA can be changed even by somatic hypermutation. If

>>> someone doesn?t want their DNA changed they need to bubble up to prevent

>>> exposure to pathogens, recalling movie roles played by John Travolta and
>>> Jake Gyllenhaal.
>>>

>>> Rogers also said: ?Well, somatic hypermutation will happen following a

>>> natural infection with covid, too, as it will follow most any infection
>>> that provokes an immune response, as well as any vaccination, so it's hard
>>> to see why you'd get worried about it in the covid mRNA vaccines and not in

>>> any of the many other scenarios in which it occurs.?

>>>
>>> Jack D Ripper was ranting about fluoridated water, but seems perfect for my
>>> finale.
>>>
>> Yep.
>>>
>>>> Apparently Dr. Strangelove is not in his group of
>>>> professionals (The Pro Phylactics?).
>>>>
>>> Puns? You bring puns?
>>>
>> Of course! After all, no one expects...
>>
>The Nyikosian Inquisition?
>

Actually damn near anyone here would expect that one; it's
"what he does".

>
> Fuck that guy. Your reply made me much less
>pissed off.
>

So my work here is done... ;-)

[peter2...@gmail.com]

I almost never post on weekends, but Hemidactylus is getting out of touch with
reality, and is aided and abetted in this trend by Casanova and Burkhard.

On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 9:50:11 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 7:15:10 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >> peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 4:00:11 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >>>> peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> On Wednesday, October 6, 2021 at 6:05:12 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

The following was a minor peccadillo as long as I wasn't around:

> >>>>>> This seems to be quite a drift from the OP.

Fast forward to the new virtual reality of Hemidactylus, where drift from OP seems
to have turned into the talk.origins equivalent of high treason in his obsessive mind.

> >> [snip pointless Nyikosian irrelevancies not germane to affinity maturation
> >> or somatic hypermution

> > So evidence of the Biden administration being anti-science in a matter affecting
> > millions of Americans is pointless?
> >
> > I've heard of Democratic party hacks, but you give the term new meaning.
> >
> WTF does Biden have to do with somatic hypermutation in immunocytes, the
> elephant in the room.

What does your egocentric riposte have to do with your devoid-of-reality accusation "pointless"?

Have the megabytes of denunciations of Trump here in talk.origins in 2016-2021,
including accusations of Trump being anti-science, been pointless too?


Peter Nyikos
PS The post on the evidence of anti-science behind Biden's executive order is here:
https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/__JVq4HGFzI/m/zePD79yxAAAJ
Re: mRNA vaccines changing DNA??
Oct 8, 2021, 6:30:10 PM

Hemidactylus's personal elephant in the room can be located via the first attribution line to this post.

[*Hemidactylus*]

peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I almost never post on weekends, but Hemidactylus is getting out of touch with
> reality,

How is focusing on affinity maturation, a biological process with Darwinian
undertones, being out of touch with reality. You hijacking the thread to
vent your politically obsessive spleen is getting out of hand.

> and is aided and abetted in this trend by Casanova and Burkhard.
>

Burk focused on the wrong part of the OP. I cannot even fathom what you’re
trying to do here or why.

Totally devoid of any relevance to affinity maturation, but maybe indicates
your own senescent downward spiral. Perhaps you should stick to not posting
on weekends. If you post anything not relevant to somatic hypermutation as
an outcome of being vaccinated or infected by a pathogen here I will ignore
it. That same policy doesn’t apply to others. Casanova is welcome to supply
more puns. Wish Burk had gone beyond my BUT…that sounded weird now that I
think of it.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 09 Oct 2021 15:15:00 -0500, the following appeared

in talk.origins, posted by *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid>:

I'd be happy to, but The Pro Phylactic (aka "Peter the
Grate" and "Doctor Whatzis") isn't really worth the time.
He's just in a snit because several here ignore him.

[Burkhard]

V. sorry, was meant more like a pun, or rather a firmly tongue in cheek
comment. I just liked the answer to the vaccination-changes-DNA
scaremongers: If that's true, have a go, any change in your DNA is
likely going to be an improvement.

[Glenn]

On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 4:20:10 PM UTC-7, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?
>
> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.

I recently posted this:

"In a perspective paper recently published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, he points out, together with colleagues from the U.S. and Great Britain, that for a more precise understanding of genetic variability and its effects on evolution, changes in the genome of somatic cells must be considered."

https://phys.org/news/2021-10-evolutionary-concept.html

And ignore this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=zygote+cytoplasm+from+mother&bih=814&biw=1440&hl=en&ei=OF1iYc-EIc3--wTi4JDoDA&ved=0ahUKEwjPgMDX8r7zAhVN_54KHWIwBM0Q4dUDCA0&uact=5&oq=zygote+cytoplasm+from+mother&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQghEKABMgUIIRCgAToHCAAQRxCwAzoGCAAQFhAeOgUIIRCrAjoHCCEQChCgAToICCEQFhAdEB5KBAhBGABQwxBYsCFgwiJoAXACeACAAbQBiAHqDJIBBDAuMTKYAQCgAQHIAQjAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz

[jillery]

On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 20:27:13 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

>On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 4:20:10 PM UTC-7, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?
>>
>> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
>
>I recently posted this:
>
>"In a perspective paper recently published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, he points out, together with colleagues from the U.S. and Great Britain, that for a more precise understanding of genetic variability and its effects on evolution, changes in the genome of somatic cells must be considered."
>
>https://phys.org/news/2021-10-evolutionary-concept.html

Your cited article refers to species which reproduce by cloning. While
there are a few species like that, Do you understand humans are not
one of them? And how many asexually reproducing species do you think
are being vaccinated against Covid-19?

>And ignore this:
>
>https://www.google.com/search?q=zygote+cytoplasm+from+mother&bih=814&biw=1440&hl=en&ei=OF1iYc-EIc3--wTi4JDoDA&ved=0ahUKEwjPgMDX8r7zAhVN_54KHWIwBM0Q4dUDCA0&uact=5&oq=zygote+cytoplasm+from+mother&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQghEKABMgUIIRCgAToHCAAQRxCwAzoGCAAQFhAeOgUIIRCrAjoHCCEQChCgAToICCEQFhAdEB5KBAhBGABQwxBYsCFgwiJoAXACeACAAbQBiAHqDJIBBDAuMTKYAQCgAQHIAQjAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz

Your search refers to DNA in mitochondria and chloroplasts. Presuming
you know that humans don't have chloroplasts, which articles show that
mitochondrial DNA is altered by mRNA?

Your search also refers to maternal cytoplasm. Which articles show
that maternal germ cells pass on mRNA from either vaccines or viruses?

[*Hemidactylus*]

I totally f*cked myself on this rabbithole. I just downloaded a pair of
batshit crazy reviews: one on somatic hypermutation and the other on class
switching recombination. Seems something known as activation-induced
cytidine deaminase seems to be the common culprit:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activation-induced_cytidine_deaminase

I’m in for a white knuckle E ticket ride on this one.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 9:50:11 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 7:15:10 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >> peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 4:00:11 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >>>> peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> On Wednesday, October 6, 2021 at 6:05:12 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

The following is the persona that Hemidactylus projects over 95% of the time:
cool, unflappable, like Paul Gans in his prime:

> >>>>>> This seems to be quite a drift from the OP.

Dr. Hemidactylus Jekyll, you might say.


<small snip>

> >>>> I note you recently mentioned me in passing on the sbp group. Why?
> >>>
> >>> I believe I answered that in detail. Did you stick around to see the answer?

No answer. Maybe he was so enraged about how uppity I was that he had lost
all interest in his own question. He had already become the raging Mr. Hemidactylus Hyde,
and you will see glimpses of that below, where I start addressing him
instead of the general readership.

<snip for focus>

> >>>> And I leave it for you to look down through your nostrils and figure out
> >>>> the context given what I have said in this thread.
> >>>
> >>> You are as fond of the random contexts you generate as you are of your glibness.
> >
> >
> >> Not a random context idiot. You really are clueless aren’t you?
> >> You feign knowledge of biology
> >
> > I've shown detailed knowledge of the relevant biology.

> No you haven’t. Not for the issues I introduced.

I more than adequately handled the bait, "mRNA vaccines changing DNA??"
That's SUPPOSED to be what the thread is about, isn't it?

Was the OP just a bait and switch scam, with the real purpose of the thread
"the issues I introduced," meaning everything in the OP *except* the question
that constitutes the Subject line?

You are shoving everything I wrote about the bait down a memory hole, and putting everything
you've got into the switch issues. Well, even there I had something very relevant to say.

> > You seem
> > to be unable to reason properly wrt the biology about which you wrote below.
> >
> You haven’t even touched any of that,

Yes, I have, liar.

<snip for focus>

> You avoided the implications of
> https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html
>
> Which cites: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03739-1
>
> “B cell responses to mRNA vaccination…Differences in somatic hypermutation
> could affect neutralization through antibody affinity maturation. We found
> that participants aged 80 years or more had a lower level of somatic
> hypermutation in class-switched B cell receptors (BCRs) than the younger
> group, and that the difference was driven by the IgA1/2 isotype (Fig.
> 3c).””
>
> Whooshed over Peter’s head again.

Like hell it did.

<snip of ranting by you ("assholery," "Fuck you!" "asshole," ...) to get to the point>

> >> In response to Ron I said: “That’s the part I’m focused on. Do the Pfizer
> >> or Moderna vaccines typically after two or three boosters ever get to the
> >> point of resulting in affinity maturation in various people?
> >
> > If you weren't so obsessed with your animosity towards me,
> > going all the way back to the 1990's, you would realize just how much
> > light is shed on your question by the statistics that you mindlessly insulted
> > and snipped:

And you might have desisted from your false accusation, "Whooshed over Peter’s head again."

> > "More than 7,700 new cases of the virus have been detected during the
> > most recent wave starting in May, but just 72 of the confirmed cases were
> > reported in people who were known to have been infected previously – that
> > is, less than 1% of the new cases.
> > ...
> > "With a total of 835,792 Israelis known to have recovered from the virus,
> > the 72 instances of reinfection amount to 0.0086% of people who were
> > already infected with COVID. By contrast, Israelis who were vaccinated
> > were 6.72 times more likely to get infected after the shot than after
> > natural infection, with over 3,000 of the 5,193,499, or 0.0578%, of
> > Israelis who were vaccinated getting infected in the latest wave."
> > https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762
> >
> > Your caveat at the end of the BUT is fully justified by these real-life details.
> > Only your animosity towards me kept you from seeing it.

> I guess you’re still avoiding the topic of somatic hypermutation.

So much for “That’s the part I’m focused on...affinity maturation..." Is this another bait and switch scam?


I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and keep talking about the real life implications
of antibody affinity maturation, and the question you asked Ron O,
[who is, btw, an expert in bait and switch scams, in his own mind and probably yours]
for a while longer.

But later. Duty calls.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

University of So. Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

If mRNA vaccination is sufficient to launch an immune response which
includes somatic hypermutation in immunoglobulin genes with B lymphocytes
coding for certain portions of antibodies increasing their stickiness due
to weak forces(???):

“The binding between antigen and antibody is not covalent but depends on
many relatively weak forces, such as hydrogen bonds, van der Waals forces,
and hydrophobic interactions. Since these forces are weak, successful
binding between antigen and antibody depends on a very close fit over a
sizeable area, much like the contacts between a lock and a key.”
From _Immunology_ by Richard Coico

>
> You are shoving everything I wrote about the bait down a memory hole, and
> putting everything
> you've got into the switch issues. Well, even there
> I had something very relevant to say.
>

The switches are the most intriguing parts.

>
>>> You seem
>>> to be unable to reason properly wrt the biology about which you wrote below.
>>>
>> You haven’t even touched any of that,
>
> Yes, I have, liar.
>

Not that I’ve seen.

>
> <snip for focus>
>
>
>> You avoided the implications of
>> https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html
>>
>>
>> Which cites: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03739-1
>>
>> “B cell responses to mRNA vaccination…Differences in somatic hypermutation
>> could affect neutralization through antibody affinity maturation. We found
>> that participants aged 80 years or more had a lower level of somatic
>> hypermutation in class-switched B cell receptors (BCRs) than the younger
>> group, and that the difference was driven by the IgA1/2 isotype (Fig.
>> 3c).””
>>
>> Whooshed over Peter’s head again.
>
> Like hell it did.
>

You didn’t pick up on the relevance. That the older group had less SHM
activity resulting from mRNA vaccination than younger leads me to the
perhaps erroneous conclusion that mRNA vaccination can result in SHM
(somatic hypermutation) then by inference. Perhaps putting all my eggs in
one basket. But it pushes toward my point in the OP that SHM is a
potential outcome.
>
[snip irrelevancies]

>
>> I guess you’re still avoiding the topic of somatic hypermutation.
>
> So much for “That’s the part I’m focused on...affinity maturation..." Is
> this another bait and switch scam?
>

Switching between terms affinity maturation and SHM is a bait and switch
scam? Really? Are you stalling to play catsup?

>
> I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and keep talking about the real life implications
> of antibody affinity maturation, and the question you asked Ron O,
> [who is, btw, an expert in bait and switch scams, in his own mind and probably yours]
> for a while longer.
>

Well I’m plugging along in a book that will introduce another bait and
switch scam about molecular evolution bridging innate and adaptive
immunity.

The authors discussing strategies of innate immune defense against
retroviruses state:
“If large amounts of DNA suddenly appear free in the cytosol, then that is
a clear indication that something has gone badly wrong. ” From
_Evolutionary Concepts in Immunology
Robert Jack & Louis Du Pasquier_

And something utilized has interesting family members. They continue:
“APOBEC3G deaminase has evolved in mammals as an innate system effector
that deals with this particular situation.”

They eventually cite: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/7/6/2757
Willems L, Gillet NA. APOBEC3 Interference during Replication of Viral
Genomes. Viruses. 2015; 7(6):2999-3018. https://doi.org/10.3390/v7062757

“Co-evolution of viruses and their hosts has reached a fragile and dynamic
equilibrium that allows viral persistence, replication and transmission. In
response, infected hosts have developed strategies of defense that
counteract the deleterious effects of viral infections. In particular,
single-strand DNA editing by Apolipoprotein B Editing Catalytic subunits
proteins 3 (APOBEC3s) is a well-conserved mechanism of mammalian innate
immunity that mutates and inactivates viral genomes. In this review, we
describe the mechanisms of APOBEC3 editing during viral replication, the
viral strategies that prevent APOBEC3 activity and the consequences of
APOBEC3 modulation on viral fitness and host genome integrity.
Understanding the mechanisms involved reveals new prospects for therapeutic
intervention.”

The book authors go on to talk about this APOBEC3 as a cytidine deaminase
attacking retroviral invaders and its relative “Activation-Induced
Deaminase” which is quite relevant to adaptive immunity (another bait and
switch I am pulling here obviously). They cite:
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/22/2/367/963921
Silvestro G. Conticello, Cornelia J. F. Thomas, Svend K. Petersen-Mahrt,
Michael S. Neuberger, Evolution of the AID/APOBEC Family of Polynucleotide
(Deoxy)cytidine Deaminases, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 22,
Issue 2, February 2005, Pages 367–377,
https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msi026

“The AID/APOBEC family (comprising AID, APOBEC1, APOBEC2, and APOBEC3
subgroups) contains members that can deaminate cytidine in RNA and/or DNA
and exhibit diverse physiological functions (AID and APOBEC3 deaminating
DNA to trigger pathways in adaptive and innate immunity; APOBEC1 mediating
apolipoprotein B RNA editing). The founder member APOBEC1, which has been
used as a paradigm, is an RNA-editing enzyme with proposed antecedents in
yeast. Here, we have undertaken phylogenetic analysis to glean insight into
the primary physiological function of the AID/APOBEC family. We find that
although the family forms part of a larger superfamily of deaminases
distributed throughout the biological world, the AID/APOBEC family itself
is restricted to vertebrates with homologs of AID (a DNA deaminase that
triggers antibody gene diversification) and of APOBEC2 (unknown function)
identifiable in sequence databases from bony fish, birds, amphibians, and
mammals. The cloning of an AID homolog from dogfish reveals that AID
extends at least as far back as cartilaginous fish. Like mammalian AID, the
pufferfish AID homolog can trigger deoxycytidine deamination in DNA but,
consistent with its cold-blooded origin, is thermolabile. The fine
specificity of its mutator activity and the biased codon usage in
pufferfish IgV genes appear broadly similar to that of their mammalian
counterparts, consistent with a coevolution of the antibody mutator and its
substrate for the optimal targeting of somatic mutation during antibody
maturation. By contrast, APOBEC1 and APOBEC3 are later evolutionary
arrivals with orthologs not found in pufferfish (although synteny with
mammals is maintained in respect of the flanking loci). We conclude that
AID and APOBEC2 are likely to be the ancestral members of the AID/APOBEC
family (going back to the beginning of vertebrate speciation) with both
APOBEC1 and APOBEC3 being mammal-specific derivatives of AID and a complex
set of domain shuffling underpinning the expansion and evolution of the
primate APOBEC3s.”

So even if vaccination against COVID is insufficient to launch SHM, this
deeper evolutionary aspect tying components of innate and adaptive immunity
is very intriguing (as a bait and switch of course).

I apologize for the total lack of scientific content.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 2:55:11 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 20:27:13 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
> wrote:
> >On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 4:20:10 PM UTC-7, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?
> >>
> >> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.

Note the wishy-washy "That doesn’t seem plausible," even though Hemi had already played
it safe by restricting himself to germline cells.

I was much more decisive both in sci.bio.paleontology, weeks before Hemidactylus
posted the OP to this thread, and now here. I had long before internalized what Hemidactylus
was relying on a linked article for, and much besides:

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/H-SFHyhHp8w/m/Qqdbgv9QAAAJ
Re: Vaccination
Sep 8, 2021, 2:46:07 PM

Hemidactylus knows, but doesn't admit, that I was answering him there about the
very article that he is leaning on in the OP.

> >I recently posted this:
> >
> >"In a perspective paper recently published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, he points out, together with colleagues from the U.S. and Great Britain, that for a more precise understanding of genetic variability and its effects on evolution, changes in the genome of somatic cells must be considered."
> >
> >https://phys.org/news/2021-10-evolutionary-concept.html

> Your cited article refers to species which reproduce by cloning. While
> there are a few species like that, Do you understand humans are not
> one of them?

They aren't, not yet: a report by a Korean researcher about having succeeded
in cloning a human was debunked, but that doesn't mean that transhumanists
and others won't stop trying.

> And how many asexually reproducing species do you think
> are being vaccinated against Covid-19?

See above. We may be getting vaccinated for a good long time if new strains
keep coming up; it may get to be like yearly flu shots, only mandatory instead of voluntary.
So you never can tell.

> >And ignore this:
> >
> >https://www.google.com/search?q=zygote+cytoplasm+from+mother&bih=814&biw=1440&hl=en&ei=OF1iYc-EIc3--wTi4JDoDA&ved=0ahUKEwjPgMDX8r7zAhVN_54KHWIwBM0Q4dUDCA0&uact=5&oq=zygote+cytoplasm+from+mother&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQghEKABMgUIIRCgAToHCAAQRxCwAzoGCAAQFhAeOgUIIRCrAjoHCCEQChCgAToICCEQFhAdEB5KBAhBGABQwxBYsCFgwiJoAXACeACAAbQBiAHqDJIBBDAuMTKYAQCgAQHIAQjAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz

> Your search refers to DNA in mitochondria and chloroplasts. Presuming
> you know that humans don't have chloroplasts, which articles show that
> mitochondrial DNA is altered by mRNA?

Funny you should ask that. This is something I mentioned to Hemidactylus back in s.b.p.:

________________________________ excerpt from post I linked above _______________________________

There is another toxic bit of scaremongering that might fool some people
into thinking the first answer can be circumvented. And that is that
"the vaccine alters the working of your mitochondria." This slogan
has gone viral without any explanation of what the alleged alteration
is or how it is caused.

Worst case scenario would be if the reverse-transcribed DNA could get
into your mitochondria, which may not have the safeguards of the nucleus.
Whether this is possible or not, I cannot answer myself [and neither does the linked article].

However, I maintain that the second answer -- lack of a recognition sequence --
is enough to drive a stake through the heart of the myth.


> Technically immunocytes have the capacity to alter their own DNA. Part of
> this is shuffling of antibody encoding genes. But there is another process
> known as hypermutation. If COVID infection or vaccination response gets to
> that point, that’s a case of indirect DNA alteration, but not confined to
> COVID and is a good thing as it diversifies the potential response to
> pathogens.

As usual, you are so fond of glibness that you don't spell out the relevance,
if any, to possible damage caused by the mRNA. Do you know some reasons
why that worst case scenario cannot come to pass?

If not, perhaps others do. Hemi, see if you can find someone in talk.origins who has the
background knowledge to drive a second stake through the heart of the myth.
In this high-stakes debate, overkill is a virtue.

======================= end of excerpt =========================

I even tried to appeal to his less hostile side with a "PS: Feel free to groan at my pun."

But I think he felt as I do, that there is no one here in talk.origins who has any clue
about alteration of mitochondrial DNA via such a route.

> Your search also refers to maternal cytoplasm.

That has a big role to play in what genes get expressed under what circumstances.
In fact the human embryo is totally dependent on them until somewhere around implantation.

> Which articles show
> that maternal germ cells pass on mRNA from either vaccines or viruses?

Since you seem to have gotten into the realm of all viruses, not just coronaviruses,
this should be a no-brainer: retroviruses have put a lot of their own DNA into humans
and their ancestors going back to the Mesozoic era. And I'm sure that not all of it is junk.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics

University of So. Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[jillery]

On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:56:30 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 2:55:11 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 20:27:13 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
>> wrote:
>> >On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 4:20:10 PM UTC-7, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>> >> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?
>> >>
>> >> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
>
>Note the wishy-washy "That doesn’t seem plausible," even though Hemi had already played
>it safe by restricting himself to germline cells.

How do you think non-germline cells pass on to descendants?

<snip for focus>

[*Hemidactylus*]

peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
[snip]
>
Me before:

>
>> Technically immunocytes have the capacity to alter their own DNA. Part of
>> this is shuffling of antibody encoding genes. But there is another process
>> known as hypermutation. If COVID infection or vaccination response gets to
>> that point, that’s a case of indirect DNA alteration, but not confined to
>> COVID and is a good thing as it diversifies the potential response to
>> pathogens.
>
> As usual, you are so fond of glibness that you don't spell out the relevance,
> if any, to possible damage caused by the mRNA. Do you know some reasons
> why that worst case scenario cannot come to pass?
>

It’s not germane to SHM. Right not, if you would kindly keep up a book I’m
reading has inspired me to see a family connection between a cytidine
deaminase that goes after the DNA [evil grin] that retroviruses put into
the cytosol and a cytidine deaminase that is involved into somatic
hypermutation. I’m baiting and switching with glibness.

[Glenn]

On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 7:20:11 PM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:56:30 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 2:55:11 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> >> On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 20:27:13 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 4:20:10 PM UTC-7, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >> >> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?
> >> >>
> >> >> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
> >
> >Note the wishy-washy "That doesn’t seem plausible," even though Hemi had already played
> >it safe by restricting himself to germline cells.
> How do you think non-germline cells pass on to descendants?
>

Did he say he thinks that?

[Glenn]

You're off your meds, or on the wrong ones.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

Query for Glenn: does jillery regularly indulge in somewhat mischievous rhetorical questions lately?

A much more serious issue involves Hemidactylus, which I first attend to below.

But I also have a comment relevant to the charter of talk.origins, so don't go away too soon.

On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 10:20:11 PM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:56:30 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 2:55:11 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> >> On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 20:27:13 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 4:20:10 PM UTC-7, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >> >> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?

This thread topic question became, *ex post facto,* the first bait in a duo of bait and switch scams
directed squarely at me. Their scamming nature was finalized by Hemidactylus in the very act of hiding the evidence
with a bare faced lie: "[snip irrelevancies]".

Compared to that, jilley's huge deletia below are just a playful postlude to a rhetorical question.
and I treat it as such below, addressing jillery directly.

> >> >> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
> >
> >Note the wishy-washy "That doesn’t seem plausible," even though Hemi had already played
> >it safe by restricting himself to germline cells.

Now comes the playful, slightly mischievous rhetorical question:

> How do you think non-germline cells pass on to descendants?

If you read what you snipped, you know the answer. It was quite detailed [keywords:
human cloning, Korean, transhumanists ].

For those who might benefit from a little addition to what you snipped:
the usual scenario for cloning mammals is to insert a non-germline cell nucleus
into an oocyte whose nucleus has been removed. The resulting diploid
cell has successfully produced the sheep "Dolly."

And now, a comment that some creationists fond of "God of the Gaps" arguments
might be talking about somewhere in the big outside world: there may be some
difference between such non-primates and humans that could permanently
exclude the possibility of human cloning. I wouldn't bet on it, though.


Here is where you made it clear that your question was rhetorical:

> <snip for focus>

... on all that your left in: your usual sig.,

> --
> You're entitled to your own opinions.
> You're not entitled to your own facts.

Peter Nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
[snip]

>
> This thread topic question became, *ex post facto,* the first bait in a
> duo of bait and switch scams
> directed squarely at me. Their scamming nature was finalized by
> Hemidactylus in the very act of hiding the evidence
> with a bare faced lie: "[snip irrelevancies]".
>

I’m staying relevant to my own OP which is no bait and switch especially
not directed at someone who very awkwardly butted in like a bull in a china
shop. I’m currently talking immune system molecular evolution and you’re
obsessing over missing strawberries. Dole out a scoop of sand for each
portion of strawberries.

Talk about thread diluters.

[Glenn]

On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 8:20:11 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> Query for Glenn: does jillery regularly indulge in somewhat mischievous rhetorical questions lately?

Just drop the "lately'.

[jillery]

On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:18:27 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

<snip your mindless noise not relevant to me>

>On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 10:20:11 PM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:56:30 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
>> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 2:55:11 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> >> On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 20:27:13 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 4:20:10 PM UTC-7, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>> >> >> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?

>> >> >> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
>> >
>> >Note the wishy-washy "That doesn’t seem plausible," even though Hemi had already played
>> >it safe by restricting himself to germline cells.
>Now comes the playful, slightly mischievous rhetorical question:

Not playful. Not mischievous. Rhetorical only in the sense that I
expect you to avoid an intelligent answer. You have met my
expectation.

>> How do you think non-germline cells pass on to descendants?
>
>If you read what you snipped, you know the answer. It was quite detailed [keywords:
>human cloning, Korean, transhumanists ].

I did read what I snipped. That's why I snipped it. Your comments
are not just irrelevant to the topic but willfully stupid aka worg. As
you say, human cloning, by Korean transhumanists or anybody else,
hasn't happened. Even if human clones did exist, they would in such
small numbers, they would have no meaningful impact on the topic.
Which makes your mention of them, and your criticism to which I
challenged, either evidence of your fundamental misunderstanding of
how humans reproduce, or yet another self-parody. Pick your poison.

[jillery]

On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:39:02 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

>On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 8:20:11 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Query for Glenn: does jillery regularly indulge in somewhat mischievous rhetorical questions lately?
>Just drop the "lately'.

Still waiting for you to back up your mindless made-up crap about me.
Piggybacking onto the peter's mindless made-up crap doesn't count.

[Glenn]

On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 11:35:12 PM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:39:02 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
> wrote:
> >On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 8:20:11 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> Query for Glenn: does jillery regularly indulge in somewhat mischievous rhetorical questions lately?
> >Just drop the "lately'.
> Still waiting for you to back up your mindless made-up crap about me.
> Piggybacking onto the peter's mindless made-up crap doesn't count.
> --
Still waiting for you to back up your mindless made-up crap about me.

Piggybacking onto my post to accuse me of mindless made-up crap doesn't back up your mindless made-up crap about me.
You're the one that invented mindless made-up crap. Live with it.

[jillery]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 09:58:42 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>

wrote:

>On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 11:35:12 PM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
>> On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:39:02 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
>> wrote:
>> >On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 8:20:11 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
>> >> Query for Glenn: does jillery regularly indulge in somewhat mischievous rhetorical questions lately?
>> >Just drop the "lately'.
>> Still waiting for you to back up your mindless made-up crap about me.
>> Piggybacking onto the peter's mindless made-up crap doesn't count.
>> --
>Still waiting for you to back up your mindless made-up crap about me.

Really? Right here would have been a good place for you to have
identified any mindless made-up crap about you I posted.

And since you're in mindless parrot mode, you can start by backing up
your "drop the lately" mindless made-up crap immediately above.

[Glenn]

Right back atcha. When pressed, you reveal what some might describe as "stupidity".

[jillery]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 10:56:07 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>

Your mindless incoherence only proves my point for me. You must enjoy
doing that, you do it so often.

[Glenn]

Right back atcha.

[jillery]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 11:37:02 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>

Ok Polly.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

My last few replies to jillery took place in sci.bio.paleontology, where
my policy for the rest of 2021 did not apply, it having been intended only for t.o.
It applies to direct replies by jillery to posts of mine, and calls for
deleting comments about me that are purely personal, and also personal
remarks about others that lack a scientific component.
[Social sciences such as psychology do not qualify.]

Sometimes these deletia are marked, sometimes not.

FTR, jillery is not applying a similar policy to me.

On Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 2:35:12 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:18:27 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 10:20:11 PM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> >> On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:56:30 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> >> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >On Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 2:55:11 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
> >> >> On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 20:27:13 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >> >On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 4:20:10 PM UTC-7, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >> >> >> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?
> >> >> >> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
> >> >
> >> >Note the wishy-washy "That doesn’t seem plausible," even though Hemi had already played
> >> >it safe by restricting himself to germline cells.

> >Now comes the playful, slightly mischievous rhetorical question:

> >> How do you think non-germline cells pass on to descendants?
> >
> >If you read what you snipped, you know the answer. It was quite detailed [keywords:
> >human cloning, Korean, transhumanists ].

> I did read what I snipped. As you say, human cloning, by Korean transhumanists or anybody else,

> hasn't happened. Even if human clones did exist, they would in such
> small numbers, they would have no meaningful impact on the topic.

That is pure guesswork, and is outside the bounds of your rhetorical question.


I'm mildly surprised that you had nothing to say about the following comment,
germane though it is to the purpose of talk.origins:

[repost:]

And now, a comment that some creationists fond of "God of the Gaps" arguments
might be talking about somewhere in the big outside world: there may be some
difference between such non-primates and humans that could permanently
exclude the possibility of human cloning. I wouldn't bet on it, though.

[end of repost]

There may be something to it, though. There are significant differences
between human embryos/fetuses and those of sheep, like the "Dolly" clone
to which "such non-primates" refers. Sheep placenta are much less intimately
linked to the mother than human placenta. The human blastocyst buries itself
into the maternal endometrium, while the sheep embryo/fetus remains outside it, attached to the wall.

I can elaborate on this, if anyone shows interest.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia, SC
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[jillery]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 14:44:59 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"

<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 2:35:12 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:18:27 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
>> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 10:20:11 PM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> >> On Mon, 11 Oct 2021 18:56:30 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
>> >> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >On Sunday, October 10, 2021 at 2:55:11 AM UTC-4, jillery wrote:
>> >> >> On Sat, 9 Oct 2021 20:27:13 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
>> >> >> wrote:
>> >> >> >On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 4:20:10 PM UTC-7, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
>> >> >> >> Do mRNA vaccines change our DNA?
>> >> >> >> Not our germline DNA passed to descendants no. That doesn’t seem plausible.
>> >> >
>> >> >Note the wishy-washy "That doesn’t seem plausible," even though Hemi had already played
>> >> >it safe by restricting himself to germline cells.
>
>> >Now comes the playful, slightly mischievous rhetorical question:
>
>> >> How do you think non-germline cells pass on to descendants?
>> >
>> >If you read what you snipped, you know the answer. It was quite detailed [keywords:
>> >human cloning, Korean, transhumanists ].
>
>> I did read what I snipped. As you say, human cloning, by Korean transhumanists or anybody else,
>> hasn't happened. Even if human clones did exist, they would in such
>> small numbers, they would have no meaningful impact on the topic.

And you conveniently forgot to mark this snip:

>>Which makes your mention of them, and your criticism to which I
>>challenged, either evidence of your fundamental misunderstanding of
>>how humans reproduce, or yet another self-parody. Pick your poison.

>That is pure guesswork, and is outside the bounds of your rhetorical question.

Nope. Since you say your answer is based on human clones that don't
exist, my comment is entirely within the bounds of my so-called
rhetorical question. Let me know when you figure out what you think
you're talking about.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

And jillery demonstrates the truth of Glenn's comment by mindlessly repeating a
stereotyped trolling response that I've seen from her countless times:

> >> Your mindless incoherence only proves my point for me. You must enjoy
> >> doing that, you do it so often.

I already saw that "proves my point for me" gambit almost three decades ago,
in talk.abortion. To make it more interesting, one of the people who employed it
was a self-admitted Texas redneck.

> >> --
> >Right back atcha.

> Ok Polly.

With his two "atcha" comments, Glenn was wearing protective jillery camougflage,
which jillery has donned hundreds of times in the last five or so years.


Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

Well, parrots only repeat what they hear.

[peter2...@gmail.com]

On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 11:40:11 PM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:
> On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 8:20:11 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:

> > Query for Glenn: does jillery regularly indulge in somewhat mischievous rhetorical questions lately?

> Just drop the "lately'.

Thanks.

By the way, in another post I promised details about the Colorado vaccine mandate for
organ transplants for today, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.
I got sidetracked by a new thread about an article "by Carnegie-Mellon University"
which was badly in need of correction, and even so, I only had time for the parts that the OP article touched on:

https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/q-3CaEwfL9s/m/AXCD3F70AQAJ
Re: Teaching ancient brains new tricks: New research shows how modern physicists think

The title is insufferably pretentious. The article only talks about the observation that quantifiable and
unquantifiable concepts of physicists are handled by different parts of the brain in
the physicists whose brains were studied.


The person who posted about the article is not to blame for the thread title, by the way.
The blame goes to the title of the CMU article itself.


Peter Nyikos

[*Hemidactylus*]

peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 11:40:11 PM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:
>> On Monday, October 11, 2021 at 8:20:11 PM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>> Query for Glenn: does jillery regularly indulge in somewhat mischievous
>>> rhetorical questions lately?
>
>> Just drop the "lately'.
>
> Thanks.
>
> By the way, in another post I promised details about the Colorado vaccine mandate for
> organ transplants for today, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.
> I got sidetracked by a new thread about an article "by Carnegie-Mellon University"
> which was badly in need of correction, and even so, I only had time for
> the parts that the OP article touched on:
>
> https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/q-3CaEwfL9s/m/AXCD3F70AQAJ
> Re: Teaching ancient brains new tricks: New research shows how modern physicists think
>
> The title is insufferably pretentious. The article only talks about the
> observation that quantifiable and
> unquantifiable concepts of physicists are handled by different parts of the brain in
> the physicists whose brains were studied.
>
>
> The person who posted about the article is not to blame for the thread title, by the way.
> The blame goes to the title of the CMU article itself.
>

Go to that thread then. You’re diluting this one with juvenilia, since you
can’t comprehend the subject matter. Must be your dotage.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Incapable of discussing matters of serious biological science you regress
to your infantile nonsense. There’s nothing you contributed on this thread
warranting your super special sig line.

[jillery]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 16:57:37 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

>Well, parrots only repeat what they hear.

Ok, polly.

[jillery]

On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 16:36:41 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
<peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:


>And jillery demonstrates the truth of Glenn's comment by mindlessly repeating a
>stereotyped trolling response that I've seen from her countless times:

You say that because you know your mindless made-up crap is as
truthful as Glenn's mindless made-up crap.

[Glenn]

On Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 8:20:11 PM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 16:36:41 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> >And jillery demonstrates the truth of Glenn's comment by mindlessly repeating a
> >stereotyped trolling response that I've seen from her countless times:
> You say that because you know your mindless made-up crap is as
> truthful as Glenn's mindless made-up crap.
> --

You say that because you know it is true, so you vomit more mindless made-up crap.

[*Hemidactylus*]

jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Oct 2021 16:36:41 -0700 (PDT), "peter2...@gmail.com"
> <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> And jillery demonstrates the truth of Glenn's comment by mindlessly repeating a
>> stereotyped trolling response that I've seen from her countless times:
>
>
> You say that because you know your mindless made-up crap is as
> truthful as Glenn's mindless made-up crap.
>

Peter just may be the least scientifically oriented poster in talk.origins.
And the most interpersonally inflammatory. And the most likely to go on
irrelevant tangents.

[*Hemidactylus*]

peter2...@gmail.com <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My last few replies to jillery took place in sci.bio.paleontology, where
> my policy for the rest of 2021 did not apply, it having been intended only for t.o.
> It applies to direct replies by jillery to posts of mine, and calls for
> deleting comments about me that are purely personal, and also personal
> remarks about others that lack a scientific component.
>

I have seen no scientific component coming from you here. You don’t even
talk a good game. All this amounts to is unwelcome thread dilution on your
part.

>
> [Social sciences such as psychology do not qualify.]
>

If you can’t post relevant context on the neontological evolutionary
implications of the emergence of immunoglobulin based adaptive immunity in
gnathostomes maybe you should take your dog and pony show exclusively over
to the paleontology group and entirely butt out of this thread. The
deleterious presence of you and Glenn here is quickly turning this into a
Superfund site. Pollute sbp with your toxic nonsense instead.

[snip irrelevancies]

[Glenn]

Seems I can't find your answer.

Why do you think you bash your head into the wall?

[jillery]

On Wed, 13 Oct 2021 08:32:11 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

>Seems I can't find your answer.

Do you have an intelligent question?

[Glenn]

On Wednesday, October 13, 2021 at 9:00:12 AM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Oct 2021 08:32:11 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
> wrote:
> >Seems I can't find your answer.
> Do you have an intelligent question?
> --

Why do you think you lie all the time?

[jillery]

On Wed, 13 Oct 2021 09:33:38 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>

wrote:

>On Wednesday, October 13, 2021 at 9:00:12 AM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 Oct 2021 08:32:11 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
>> wrote:
>> >Seems I can't find your answer.
>> Do you have an intelligent question?
>> --
>Why do you think you lie all the time?

So that's a "no".

[Glenn]

On Wednesday, October 13, 2021 at 11:25:11 AM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Oct 2021 09:33:38 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Wednesday, October 13, 2021 at 9:00:12 AM UTC-7, jillery wrote:
> >> On Wed, 13 Oct 2021 08:32:11 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >Seems I can't find your answer.
> >> Do you have an intelligent question?
> >> --
> >Why do you think you lie all the time?
> So that's a "no".
> --

Why do you think you always get to decide what is intelligent?

[*Hemidactylus*]

And beyond somatic mutation is somatic recombination especially as it
relates to antibody class switching where B lymphocytes get their antibody
affinities for certain antigens coupled to specific effector responses:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2707252/

“B cells undergo antibody, or Ig, class switching in vivo after
immunization or infection or upon appropriate activation in culture.”

I would call that a post-vaccination genetic alteration as is somatic
hypermutation.

[jillery]

You can call that late for dinner for all it matters, as long as you
make it clear these genetic alterations 1) are similar to what happens
with Covid-19, and 2) they can't turn people into X-men or their
descendants into zombie frogs.

I acknowledge that preemptively refuting such absurdities shouldn't be
necessary, but that's the kind of "reasons" some people claim for not
getting vaccinated.

[Glenn]

It would appear then that there are more evolutionists among that crowd that you would likely have imagined before.

[*Hemidactylus*]

jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Oct 2021 09:49:30 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
> <ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:
>
>> And beyond somatic mutation is somatic recombination especially as it
>> relates to antibody class switching where B lymphocytes get their antibody
>> affinities for certain antigens coupled to specific effector responses:
>>
>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2707252/
>>
>> “B cells undergo antibody, or Ig, class switching in vivo after
>> immunization or infection or upon appropriate activation in culture.”
>>
>> I would call that a post-vaccination genetic alteration as is somatic
>> hypermutation.
>
>
> You can call that late for dinner for all it matters, as long as you
> make it clear these genetic alterations 1) are similar to what happens
> with Covid-19, and 2) they can't turn people into X-men or their
> descendants into zombie frogs.
>

It (CSR) happens in frogs too so maybe, just maybe:

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(12)00347-8

“From humans to frogs, immunoglobulin class switching introduces different
effector functions to antibodies through an intrachromosomal DNA
recombination process at the heavy-chain locus. Although there are two
conventional antibody classes (IgM, IgW) in sharks, their heavy chains are
encoded by 20 to >100 miniloci. These representatives of the earliest jawed
vertebrates possess a primordial immunoglobulin gene organization where
each gene cluster is autonomous and contains a few rearranging gene
segments (VH-D1-D2-JH) with one constant region, μ or ω.”

> I acknowledge that preemptively refuting such absurdities shouldn't be
> necessary, but that's the kind of "reasons" some people claim for not
> getting vaccinated.
>

Well I can’t control for such dingbats and the guano they expel.

[jillery]

On Sat, 16 Oct 2021 10:22:49 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

It would appear that appears only in your mind.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Also:

https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-021-02055-9

“Similarly, after primary immunization with SARS-CoV-2 vaccine,
seronegative individuals displayed the same pattern of subclass response to
the spike RBD when compared to seropositive individuals at baseline, with
IgG1 and IgG3 levels being the highest. These results indicated that
similar class-switch antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein
occurred after both vaccination and natural infection…During SARS-CoV-2
infection it has been shown that neutralizing antibodies rapidly develop
and are predominantly IgG1 or IgG3 subclass [28]. These data demonstrated
that vaccination could elicit similar antibody class-switching as observed
during natural infection but the contributions to long-term immunity need
further study.”

[Glenn]

[jillery]

On Sat, 16 Oct 2021 14:39:50 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

>jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 16 Oct 2021 09:49:30 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
>> <ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> And beyond somatic mutation is somatic recombination especially as it
>>> relates to antibody class switching where B lymphocytes get their antibody
>>> affinities for certain antigens coupled to specific effector responses:
>>>
>>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2707252/
>>>
>>> “B cells undergo antibody, or Ig, class switching in vivo after
>>> immunization or infection or upon appropriate activation in culture.”
>>>
>>> I would call that a post-vaccination genetic alteration as is somatic
>>> hypermutation.
>>
>>
>> You can call that late for dinner for all it matters, as long as you
>> make it clear these genetic alterations 1) are similar to what happens
>> with Covid-19, and 2) they can't turn people into X-men or their
>> descendants into zombie frogs.
>>
>It (CSR) happens in frogs too so maybe, just maybe:

I charitably interpret the above as you being contrarian for the sake
of it.

>https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(12)00347-8
>
>“From humans to frogs, immunoglobulin class switching introduces different
>effector functions to antibodies through an intrachromosomal DNA
>recombination process at the heavy-chain locus. Although there are two
>conventional antibody classes (IgM, IgW) in sharks, their heavy chains are
>encoded by 20 to >100 miniloci. These representatives of the earliest jawed
>vertebrates possess a primordial immunoglobulin gene organization where
>each gene cluster is autonomous and contains a few rearranging gene

>segments (VH-D1-D2-JH) with one constant region, ? or ?.”

>
>> I acknowledge that preemptively refuting such absurdities shouldn't be
>> necessary, but that's the kind of "reasons" some people claim for not
>> getting vaccinated.
>>
>Well I can’t control for such dingbats and the guano they expel.

The guano dingbats expel is one of the points you mentioned in your
OP.

[jillery]

On Sat, 16 Oct 2021 13:43:03 -0700 (PDT), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>

Ok polly.

[Glenn]

"In the current study, though the sample size is small, “it is encouraging that neonatal antibody levels are high if women are vaccinated,”

https://nyulangone.org/news/pregnant-women-who-receive-covid-19-vaccination-pass-protection-virus-their-newborns

Is it really? Is there no chance that such antibodies would have mutated, and would anyone know now?

[Glenn]

Didn't like that cracker, eh.

[Glenn]

"Autoimmune diseases—i.e. diseases where our own immune system damages the body—are growing, but we know little about what triggers them."

"The disease is potentially life-threatening and can e.g. cause blood clots and inflammation of the joints and organs."

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-10-technique-pathogenic-particles-blood.html

Blood clots and painful joints have been identified as possible side effects of at least some of the vaccines.

[*Hemidactylus*]

jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Oct 2021 14:39:50 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
> <ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:
>
>> jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Sat, 16 Oct 2021 09:49:30 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
>>> <ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:
>>>
>>>> And beyond somatic mutation is somatic recombination especially as it
>>>> relates to antibody class switching where B lymphocytes get their antibody
>>>> affinities for certain antigens coupled to specific effector responses:
>>>>
>>>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2707252/
>>>>
>>>> “B cells undergo antibody, or Ig, class switching in vivo after
>>>> immunization or infection or upon appropriate activation in culture.”
>>>>
>>>> I would call that a post-vaccination genetic alteration as is somatic
>>>> hypermutation.
>>>
>>>
>>> You can call that late for dinner for all it matters, as long as you
>>> make it clear these genetic alterations 1) are similar to what happens
>>> with Covid-19, and 2) they can't turn people into X-men or their
>>> descendants into zombie frogs.
>>>
>> It (CSR) happens in frogs too so maybe, just maybe:
>
>
> I charitably interpret the above as you being contrarian for the sake
> of it.
>

I was channeling the reptilian overlords.

>
>> https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(12)00347-8
>>
>> “From humans to frogs, immunoglobulin class switching introduces different
>> effector functions to antibodies through an intrachromosomal DNA
>> recombination process at the heavy-chain locus. Although there are two
>> conventional antibody classes (IgM, IgW) in sharks, their heavy chains are
>> encoded by 20 to >100 miniloci. These representatives of the earliest jawed
>> vertebrates possess a primordial immunoglobulin gene organization where
>> each gene cluster is autonomous and contains a few rearranging gene
>> segments (VH-D1-D2-JH) with one constant region, ? or ?.”
>>
>>> I acknowledge that preemptively refuting such absurdities shouldn't be
>>> necessary, but that's the kind of "reasons" some people claim for not
>>> getting vaccinated.
>>>
>> Well I can’t control for such dingbats and the guano they expel.
>
>
> The guano dingbats expel is one of the points you mentioned in your
> OP.
>

Here’s some interesting stuff about hybrid immunity I cited in another
thread:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02795-x

“In a series of studies3,4,5, Nussenzweig’s team, which includes
Hatziioannou and Bieniasz, compared the antibody responses of infected and
vaccinated people. Both lead to the establishment of memory B cells that
make antibodies that have evolved to become more potent, but the
researchers suggest this occurs to a greater extent after infection.”

And: “here is some evidence that people who received both jabs without
previously being infected seem to be catching up. Ellebedy’s team collected
lymph-node samples from mRNA-vaccinated individuals and found signs that
some of their memory B cells triggered by the vaccination were gaining
mutations, up to 12 weeks after the second dose, that enabled them to
recognize diverse coronaviruses, including some that cause common colds7.”

Somatic mutation going on after vaccination?

[jillery]

On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 23:25:54 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

<ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:

>jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 16 Oct 2021 14:39:50 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
>> <ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 16 Oct 2021 09:49:30 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
>>>> <ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> And beyond somatic mutation is somatic recombination especially as it
>>>>> relates to antibody class switching where B lymphocytes get their antibody
>>>>> affinities for certain antigens coupled to specific effector responses:
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2707252/
>>>>>
>>>>> “B cells undergo antibody, or Ig, class switching in vivo after
>>>>> immunization or infection or upon appropriate activation in culture.”
>>>>>
>>>>> I would call that a post-vaccination genetic alteration as is somatic
>>>>> hypermutation.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> You can call that late for dinner for all it matters, as long as you
>>>> make it clear these genetic alterations 1) are similar to what happens
>>>> with Covid-19, and 2) they can't turn people into X-men or their
>>>> descendants into zombie frogs.
>>>>
>>> It (CSR) happens in frogs too so maybe, just maybe:
>>
>>
>> I charitably interpret the above as you being contrarian for the sake
>> of it.
>>
>I was channeling the reptilian overlords.

Ok, I misread your sarcasm. I have trouble tracking your tone.