Scientists uncover first atomic structure of Epstein-Bar virus nucleocapsid | Hacker News Reader

Scientists uncover first atomic structure of Epstein-Bar virus nucleocapsid

phys.org

55 pointsdnetesn19 comments

Hopefully this helps them find a cure/treatment. Most people don’t have complications from this virus, I am one of the few that did.

Now, every so often when I get the flu or a cold. Or in general my immune system gets weaker, lack of sleep, etc. I get another round of mononucleosis. My throat swells shut, I get ridiculous fatigue, and I get swelling and soreness pretty much all over. I’m then doomed to a week of bed rest and water+pudding+soap.

I fear that these complications will arise and make other illnesses worse as they do with the flu and colds. I really fear this combine with covid will do me in. I guess we’ll see.

Wow, the simptoms sounds astonishingly familiar to me. I eventually was able to find a doctor (immunologist) who was able to help me to throw this thing into a strong remission. The key part was to make a thing called "immunological profile" (--"-- analysis?).. I'm not a native English speaker and I may translate it wrong - the idea is to measure the distribution of your own's body immune cells in a blood - all of these NK-cells, T-cells, B-cells &etc. There were some strong deviations from a norm in my blood and the Doctor was able to fix it. Only then I was able to forgot about all that EBV-related hell you've described... So, try to find a good immunologist in your country, who specializes on EBV, he/she might be able to help.

PS: There's an antiviral drug called Isoprinosine - before I found the Immunologist, I used that drug to quickly suppress the virus when it bit me too heavy. Just 1 or 2 pills in 1 or 2 days was enough to suppress it for a few weeks/may be months, BUT (and this is very important!) that drug is quite unfriendly to kidneys, esp. when taken regularly and/or in high doses. So if you can refrain from using it - don't use it.

The very bad and sad thing about EBV - many doctors absolutely DON'T realize, how №%;%№ evil that thing is. You're feeling yourself just like a zombie, you can't have a normal sleep and suffering from constant fatigue, but all they say is "oh, just have a rest, it's just a flu, you'll be ok in a week, then visit your psychiatrist, he'll help you". Stupid ignorant idiots!... So, have patience and look for a normal doctor, probably, you may fix it even now! Wishing you and everyone who suffers from EBV to get well!

Sounds dreadful. My best to you. What is the soap for?

Good old iPhone auto correct. I did in fact mean soup.

Likely he meant soup.

The virus is also the direct cause of many Cancers of the immune system, it causes more than 500k cancer worldwide most of them Lymphomas

How poetic. My fiancée has chronic neutrophilic leukemia, or is suspected to have I should say. As there’s no testing or treatment, you can only see the symptoms and body’s reaction to the illness and conclude.

We see a specialist every 6 months for the rest of her life to monitor her blood and ensure it doesn’t progress. For the rest of her life.

Here’s to hoping I go out in a blaze of glory as opposed to cancer, caused by this virus, that was given to me by my cheating ex.

Very tough, but just so you don't overthink this too much, we all end up catching this Virus, in the United States, about half of all five-year-old children and about 90% of adults have evidence of previous infection, still there's only 200,000 cancer cases per year are thought to be attributable to EBV

Do you get tonsoliths?

I had a similar pattern as you.

But now, cleaning tonsoliths from my throat regularly helps reduce recurrence of infection.

> Provided by Chinese Academy of Sciences

Is it trustworthy?

In my view, hopefully that question can be replaced with: Is it reproducible? The method they mentioned, Cryo-EM, is also how we've got those amazing 3d pictures of the novel coronavirus. They mentioned that preparing a good sample was a challenge, but it shouldn't be insurmountable for someone else to repeat that part of the experiment.

No, the intent of the question was: do we still have trust into scientific information coming from China? We know that China government closely controls many aspects of life in their interests, so should we consider this an exception?

Or, instead, should we wait for publication in a trustworthy source about "we were able to successfully repeat experiments, earlier reported from China, which demonstrate..."?

I guess the matter of trust is for everybody to decide by themselves.

Indeed, perhaps I should have said it a bit differently. There's certainly a potential issue with government influence over scientific research. But there's also an issue with any preliminary finding, and the same solution could address both issues.

I considered the important finding is not necessarily the images, but the recipe for preparing a sample of the virus. If this recipe works, labs with better equipment or better techniques should be able to produce even better data. If the recipe doesn't work, it will be quickly apparent.

There are known histories of government influence over science research with unhappy endings, such as the Lysenko affair, and probably global warming research in the US. Countries know that spewing out false scientific knowledge, if it's a solution for any problem, is a short term one. The Chinese government still has an interest in developing a good reputation in science. At least that's my take.

> Or, instead, should we wait for publication in a trustworthy source about "we were able to successfully repeat experiments, earlier reported from China, which demonstrate..."?

I mean, shouldn't we wait for that always rather than reporting unreproduced findings to people other than those who might reproduce it?

I think so long as people understand how science works, or the journalists provide some explanatory insight about it, reporting interesting science news to the public should be OK. Scientists tend to be skeptical of systems that decide who should have access to information before others.

Most findings are unreproduced. It usually takes someone with a reason to be interested, to reproduce a study.

As trustworthy as the US equivalent. (I've met and worked with members of the CAS in ICT and they are people of high integrity and competent leaders in their field of science)

That's great, but for how long should we trust our previous experience regarding this? With plenty of recent examples from a relatively tightly government controlled country should we worry that a publication may pursue unusual goals?

Clearly you know the answer to these questions. Why even ask. Just be confident say what you feel.

Generally, national academies of sciences are very highly regarded.

In the case of CAS, Wikipedia says that they've been the number 1 institute on Nature Index for years.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01230-x

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