Tag: science

Infected Lab Monkey Bites Government Employee in the US, GOP Senator Demands Investigation

In the seminal 2002 horror film “28 Days Later,” an apocalyptic zombie plague devastates the world — and it all began with a batch of sickly monkeys in a lab.

While zombies (likely) aren’t real, that hasn’t stopped at least one lawmaker from sounding the alarm about what just happened in sleepy Montana.

According to Politico, “a renowned federal research lab” in Big Sky Country saw a situation where an infected lab monkey bit an employee.

The incident occurred in November at a National Institutes of Health facility, and the culprit was a monkey infected with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever.

Thankfully, the worker was promptly treated for the bite, and never picked up the lethal tick-borne illness. The employee was soon able to return to work.

While the story may have ultimately had a happy ending, the circumstances surrounding it require much deeper investigation, according to Montana Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy.

Sharing a post from Trump ally Laura Loomer, Sheehy revealed that he had sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services about the matter.

He included a straightforward — if not ominous — caption: “We don’t want Montana to be the next Wuhan. Montanans and Americans deserve answers over concerning reports out of Rocky Mountain Laboratories.”

Sheehy further elaborated on his concerns in the letter.

“Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) is a federal National Institutes of Health (NIH) research facility in Hamilton, Montana, that conducts studies on some of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases,” Sheehy wrote. “The seriousness of the work conducted at RML means that even small lapses can carry real risks for the staff and surrounding community.”

Indeed, warnings about “real risks” carry quite a bit of weight, especially given that, per Loomer, the RML facility had been doing work with the Ebola virus.

Given the seriousness of Ebola, Sheehy’s letter to HHS included a four-pronged request.

First, Sheehy wanted a thorough investigation into the basics, including what happened, what pathogens are being used, and biosafety regulations.

Second, Sheehy also wanted a thorough analysis of RML’s safety procedures, and how they can be improved.

Third, Sheehy wanted HHS to dig deeper into RML’s “personnel management practices, including background checks, oversight, and clearance processes for staff.”

Finally, Sheehy wanted a further debrief on NIH’s protocols for employees who are under investigation for whatever reason, including what sort of facility access they have.

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Neanderthal ancestry may lower defenses against common DNA viruses in people today

Researchers have found surprising links that show that Neanderthal ancestry influences our immune system today in ways more nuanced than previously recognized. Their work is published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.

Viruses account for an estimated 10–20% of the global disease burden. Many DNA viruses can persist in the body for a lifetime, and virus load varies greatly even among people without symptoms. Throughout human history, they have posed persistent and rapidly evolving threats, placing strong adaptive pressure on our immune system.

Previous research has shown that many genetic variants involved in immunity bear the marks of these evolutionary battles—including signatures of natural selection and contributions from interbreeding with archaic humans.

While Neanderthal ancestry has previously been associated with beneficial effects in RNA virus defense, the new study highlights a contrasting trend for DNA viruses.

Because of past admixture with archaic humans, around 2% of the genome of present-day non-Africans is composed of Neanderthal DNA and an additional 2–4% of people in Oceania of Denisovan ancestry. These introgressed sequences have shaped many biological traits, including immunity. But their role in defenses against DNA viruses has remained largely unexplored.

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Scientists Found 71 Genetic Fingerprints of Human History. Not All of Them Make Sense.

Homo sapiens are one species. There are no subspecies of humans, and our last relatives in the genus Homo went extinct around 40,000 years ago. But what explains how similar we humans are to each other? And more importantly, what genetic variants make different human populations and individuals so unique?

Some of the things we inherit in our genes are completely random. This is known as genetic drift, a phenomenon that happens because some individuals leave behind more offspring than others do. Their genes are more likely to be spread throughout the population, but it’s not because natural selection decided that those genes necessarily offer any added benefits. In fact, it’s even possible that a few of those genes are detrimental. Genetic drift is part of evolution and something that defines the genetic fingerprint of a specific group, but it doesn’t work by promoting adaptations that will help our species in the future.

Genetic drift isn’t exclusive to humans, but a team of researchers from the Institute of Statistical Science in Taipei, Taiwan, created an algorithm to figure out how it affects the frequency of alleles in human populations. Alleles are alternative versions of a given gene that come about through mutations. The team accessed data from the 1,000 Genomes Project, a database of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which are common genetic variations caused by a difference in a single nucleotide within a DNA sequence. The researchers then used their algorithm to analyze recurring patterns of alleles in populations from different continents, as well as in groups within those populations.

“At the global scale, genetic differences between subjects faithfully reflect the well-known history of human population migration and mixing,” they said in a study recently published in Scientific Reports. “In contrast, when examining the allele frequency patterns of individual loci, we discovered many minor yet non-negligible…evolutionary trajectories in the human genome.”

Out of 78 million SNPs, the researchers found 71 patterns that tell the ancient history of how allele frequencies ended up being arranged in particular ways among various groups. It was hardly surprising that over 90% of such variants occurred with more or less the same frequency no matter what continent the population was from. The locations of most allele frequency patterns are scattered throughout chromosomes and are usually found together in “hot spots.” These narrow segments of DNA are linked to gene functions and observable phenotypical (body) traits.

Then the team used what they called a local ancestry inference algorithm to look deep into chromosomes and determine what ancestral groups an individual is descended from. The results from this algorithm were then checked against data from 1,000 Genomes and Human Genome Population Diversity (HGPD) data. It turned out that most allele patterns observed were synonymous with simulations that highlight the randomness of genetic drift. But there were also minor differences that suggest drift isn’t the only evolutionary process influencing the genetic profile of an individual or population.

Many findings were consistent with the migration of human ancestors out of Africa and into Europe, East Asia, and South Asia. Allele frequencies in African populations were found to be distinct from those of Eurasians in 1.9 million locations on their DNA. The separation of African and East Asian populations from populations in Europe and South Asia was evidenced by variants in 570,000 locations. This reflects the known history of human migration, which has Eurasians as the first to break from their African ancestors and trek through Europe and East Asia. South Asian populations arose from admixture between groups from Central Asia and migrants who first traveled from West to East Asia before heading south.

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Chilling new twist in violent murder of renowned scientist linked to dark pattern of deaths and disappearances

The mystery surrounding the murder of an astrophysicist linked to a string of strange scientist deaths and disappearances in the US has taken a new twist in court.

Carl Grillmair, 67, was shot dead outside his California home on February 16 after stepping onto his front porch around 6am local time.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department charged Freddy Snyder, 29, with murder, carjacking and first-degree residential burglary, alleging he personally used a rifle during the killing.  

Snyder pleaded not guilty to all charges during his arraignment Tuesday, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for June 5. If convicted on all charges, Snyder faces a potential life sentence in prison.

The veteran Caltech astronomer helped contribute to the discovery of water on a distant planet, with colleagues describing his work as ‘ingenious’ and saying the findings could help scientists search for signs of life less than 160 light-years from Earth.

Investigators alleged Snyder armed himself with two rifles in the early morning hours of February 16 and demanded his mother’s car keys inside their home. When she refused, he allegedly fired a shot into the ceiling before stealing the vehicle and driving away.

Authorities said Snyder then drove to Grillmair’s nearby home, where the scientist stepped outside after noticing a vehicle in his driveway. Grillmair, an astronomer at Caltech’s IPAC science and data center, was allegedly shot once in the neck and died on his front porch.

Grillmair’s death drew national attention after it emerged alongside a growing number of scientists tied to sensitive aerospace, defense and advanced technology programs who have been reported missing or found dead in recent years.

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Federal Court Strikes Down Landmark Fluoride Ruling on Technicality — ‘Not the Science’

 A federal appeals court has vacated a landmark decision that found fluoridated drinking water poses an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not challenge the substance of the lower court’s findings — that fluoride is toxic to children and ought to be regulated. Instead, the court based its decision on procedural issues related to the lower court’s handling of the litigation.

The case will now go back to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where District Judge Edward Chen will be required to exclude all scientific evidence that became available after 2020.

Michael Connett, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Defender the court “instructed Judge Chen to travel back in time to 2020 and make this ruling based on a stale factual record.”

Connett said the directive to ignore years’ worth of evidence on fluoride’s dangers runs counter to the intent of the TSCA — which is to protect hundreds of millions of Americans from substances that are harmful to human health.

The federal appeals court ruling, handed down late Thursday, stemmed from a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) brought by consumer advocacy groups including Food & Water Watch, the Fluoride Action Network (FAN), and Moms Against Fluoridation.

The groups sued after the EPA refused to consider their 2016 citizens’ petition asking the agency to regulate fluoride.

After two bench trials, Chen ruled that fluoride at the federally recommended concentration of 0.7 milligrams/liter (mg/L) posed an “unreasonable risk” to children’s health and ordered the EPA to regulate it accordingly.

However, the 9th Circuit panel said the lower court violated the “party presentation principle” — a legal doctrine requiring courts to act as neutral arbiters rather than taking control of a case’s factual development.

Connett said the decision was “a very expansive and unprecedented application of the party presentation principle.” He said that to date, “this principle has really only been applied to situations where judges raise new legal issues, not where judges use procedural mechanisms to resolve the issues presented.”

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Your Brain Restricts Full Access to Reality. But Scientists Found a Way to Turn Off the Filter.

In 1956, British psychiatrist Humphry Osmond coined the word “psychedelic” from Greek roots meaning “mind-manifesting” or “soul-revealing.” The term proved fitting. Users report that seconds stretch into eternity, sounds turn into color, and you very self begins dissolving. And now, after decades in scientific exile, those same once-ostracized compounds are undergoing a dramatic scientific renaissance. Researchers are investigating them not only for depression, trauma, and addiction, but also as a potential window into one of neuroscience’s deepest mysteries: how the brain constructs reality itself. And a small, egg-shaped structure buried deep in the center of the brain, the thalamus, may play an important role in that process.

Scientists once viewed the thalamus largely as a relay station: a kind of biological switchboard routing sensory information to the cortex, the brain’s outer layer responsible for higher thought, perception, and conscious awareness. But newer theories suggest something far stranger. Increasingly, neuroscientists suspect reality may partly reflect the brain’s constantly updated “best guess” about the world—built from memory, expectation, sensory input, and context, as Michelle J. Redinbaugh, PhD, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, puts it.

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Emory HHS-Funded Experiments Create Bird Flu Pathogens With ‘Mammalian-Adaptive’ Mutations: bioRxiv Preprint

A newly released NIAID-funded preprint reveals that U.S. government-funded researchers claim to have created bird flu pathogens specifically selected for known “mammalian-adaptive” mutations, genetic changes said to help purported avian influenza viruses spread more efficiently in mammals.

The move comes amid unprecedented international influenza pandemic orchestration, covered extensively on this website.

The new study, published online ahead of print earlier this month, says one reconstructed human H5N1 strain virus transmitted between ferrets with 100% efficiency.

The study, titled “Variable transmission efficiency of mammalian origin HPAI D1.1 H5N1 strains in ferrets,” was conducted by researchers from Emory University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the Center for Vaccine Research.

You can contact NIAID here, NIH here, and HHS here to voice opposition to taxpayer-funded research on pandemic pathogens—particularly after Congress, the White House, the Department of Energy, the FBI, the CIA, and Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) all acknowledged that the deadly COVID-19 pandemic was “likely” the result of a laboratory incident involving engineered pathogens.

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Re-Engineering Nature: Biotech Firm Plays God with Artificial Egg Breakthrough

A biotechnology firm’s claim that it has taken a major step toward “bringing back extinct species” is raising not only scientific debate, but deeper ethical and moral questions about humanity’s growing willingness to reshape life itself.

The company at the center of the controversy, if you want to call it that, Colossal Biosciences, says it has successfully hatched live chicks using an artificial egg system—an achievement it describes as a breakthrough.

To some, the development represents cutting-edge innovation. To others, it signals a troubling step further into territory long associated with science fiction—and, increasingly, with man attempting to take on the role of Creator.

The company says it hatched 26 chicks using a 3D-printed structure that allows embryos to develop outside a natural shell.

CEO Ben Lamm framed the project as a bold reimagining of biology itself. “We didn’t just copy nature… we tried to re-engineer it,” he said.

That statement, while celebrated in some scientific circles, is precisely what gives others pause.

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2006 Ralph Baric Paper Describes Synthetic ‘Scapegoat’ Viruses Engineered Digitally With False Origin ‘Fingerprints’ to Mislead Investigators

A 2006 paper authored by Dr. Ralph Baric—the University of North Carolina virologist widely recognized as the leading architect of chimeric coronavirus genomes and in silico viral assembly techniques—openly describes how synthetic viral genomics could be used to create viruses digitally, containing misleading genetic “fingerprints” designed to redirect investigators toward a false geographic or evolutionary origin.

The SARS-CoV-2 pathogen of the COVID-19 pandemic would be found to possess exactly the three signature spike features that Baric and his collaborators had explicitly proposed engineering into chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses in the 2018 DARPA/EcoHealth DEFUSE proposal: a furin cleavage site (PRRA) insertion at the S1/S2 junction, targeted human-optimizing mutations throughout the receptor-binding domain (including the critical Q498 residue), and the two-proline (V1060P/L1061P) substitution to stabilize the spike protein in its prefusion conformation.

Also in 2018, Baric was granted U.S. Patent 9,884,895 B2 for “Methods and compositions for chimeric coronavirus spike proteins,” which claims proprietary techniques for modular domain swapping and seamless synthetic computer assembly of coronavirus spikes.

Twelve years earlier, in the very same 2006 paper that first laid out the theoretical framework for such engineered viruses, Baric had already described how computer-designed genomes could be deliberately designed to serve as “scapegoats,” carrying misleading sequence signatures that would misdirect any investigation into their true origin.

The 2006 paper, titled Synthetic Viral Genomics: Risks and Benefits for Science and Society, was published as part of a broader biodefense and synthetic biology review examining the future risks posed by synthetic genomics, reverse genetics, and recombinant viral engineering.

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Bizarre academic paper about releasing ticks resurfaces amid surging bites

An estimated 31 million people living in the U.S. are bitten by ticks annually, but this year, the number may hit a record. If a pair of radical professors had their way, then the surging bites would go unchecked, leaving multitudes of Americans sick — and unable to eat meat.

Citing its Tick Bite Tracker dashboard, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced late last month that visits to emergency rooms for tick bites were higher than normal in many parts of the country and that in all but the South Central U.S., “weekly rates of ER visits for tick bites are the highest for this time of year since 2017.” The Midwest is the most affected region.

This is especially concerning because tick bites can lead to various serious and potentially debilitating diseases including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and every carnivore’s nightmare: alpha-gal syndrome.

Amid this surge in tick bites and hospitalizations, a July 2025 academic paper defending the intentional spread of AGS via genetically modified ticks is once again in the spotlight.

AGS is a serious, potentially deadly allergy to alpha-gal, a molecule found in most mammals including cows and pigs. According to the CDC, the body of an afflicted individual registers alpha-gal in red meat and other mammal products as a threat and triggers an allergic reaction. This allergy can develop after a bite from a tick, most commonly the lone star tick.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are believed to presently be affected by AGS.

A pair of professors at Western Michigan University School of Medicine said in an article titled “Beneficial Bloodsucking,” which was published in the journal Bioethics, that tick-borne AGS should be regarded as a “moral bioenhancer if and when it motivates people to stop eating meat.”

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