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<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences</span></p><p class="caption">Over the last few years, researchers have published atomic structures of numerous complicated protein complexes. a. A protein complex that governs the circadian rhythm. b. A sensor of the type that reads pressure changes in the ear and allows us to hear. c. The Zika virus.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson were awarded the 2017 Nobel prize in chemistry Wednesday for developing cryo-electron microscopy.</strong></li><li><strong>The technique allows researchers to see the details of biological molecules like proteins, DNA, RNA, and viruses in ways that were impossible before.</strong></li><li><strong>The new technology is revealing secrets of how biology works on molecular and microscopic levels and is essential for developing new medications.</strong></li></ul><p>In order to understand something - even if it's microscopic and invisible, like a protein or a virus - you need to know what it looks like.</p><p>A recently developed technique called cryo-electron microscopy creates 3D visualizations of biological molecules like proteins, DNA, and RNA, making them visible in ways previously thought impossible. Three scientists - Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson - were awarded the 2017 Nobel prize in chemistry Wednesday for their work developing the method, which has given scientists an unprecedented look at what the Nobel prize committee <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2017/press.html">described</a> as "life's molecular machinery."</p><p>Being able to see the twists, turns, and shapes of molecules can reveal what types of drugs could help treat a virus or which medical molecule might fight a certain type of cancer. Just looking at these structures has filled in scientific knowledge gaps that existed for years.</p><p>Electron microscopy refers to the act of sending a beam of electrons at a small sample of a material. Unlike normal microscopes, which use light, beams of electrons can illuminate the tiniest of details in a structure, down the location of individual atoms.</p><p>The technique has existed since the 1930s, but many scientists didn't think it could be used to look at biomolecules for two main reasons. First, the force of the electron beam blasts biological material apart. Weakening the beam enough to keep molecules intact only creates a low-contrast, fuzzy image. Second, electron microscopes can't be used on anything that's in water, since the process evaporates that water. And without water (a main component of all cells), biological molecules collapse.</p><h2>Advances in the field</h2><p>In 1975, Richard Henderson, a molecular biologist who heads up a lab at Cambridge in the UK, used a weakened electron beam to capture a poor-contrast image of a protein. The protein was protected by a membrane, so didn't need to be kept in water.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Image from Nature 257: 28-32</span></p><p class="caption">Richard Henderson's 1975 rough model of bacteriorhodopsin.</p></div><p></p></div></div>He and colleagues gathered images from a number of angles, then used a mathematical model to create the best picture yet of a protein generated with an electron microscope. You can see it on the right. </p><p>But the image didn't yet have the resolution Henderson wanted.</p><p>Meanwhile, Joachim Frank, a Columbia University professor originally from Germany, was working on ways to process the flat 2D images taken by electron microscopes. In the years between 1975 and 1986, he came up with a way to process a number of those fuzzy, flat images and turn them into sharper 3D models. The 3D versions could reveal the structure of a protein, advancing the technique Henderson had previously used.</p><p>In the 1980s, Swiss biophysicist Jacques Dubochet set to work solving another problem that was keeping scientists from creating images and models of biomolecules. He developed a way to "vitrify" water by cooling it so rapidly that it became a solid in its liquid form (without forming ice crystals). Essentially, he turned it into glass.</p><p>Put together, these developments set the stage for what would become known as cryo-electron microscopy, with "cryo" being the prefix for "cold."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences</span></p><p class="caption">Henderson's 1990 cryo-electron microscopy image of bacteriorhodopsin was far more detailed.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Cryo-electron microscopy revolution</h2><p>By 1990, Henderson was able to capture a far more detailed model of bacteriorhodopsin - the same protein in his original image - using cryo-electron microscopy.</p><p>The new image (right) was taken at true atomic resolution. And because of the techniques developed by Frank and Dubochet, it was possible to capture models like this of any sort of biomolecule, not only those protected by membranes.</p><p>The technique would get still more sophisticated, however.</p><p>New electron detectors and microscope technology eventually revealed far more than the uneven surface of a protein, including details of the atomic structure of the molecules. The difference is evident in the image below.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2017/popular-chemistryprize2017.pdf">Martin Högbom/NobelPrize.org</a></span></p><p class="caption">The electron microscope's resolution has radically improved in the last few years, from mostly showing shapeless blobs to now being able to visualize proteins at atomic resolution.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Now researchers turn to this technology immediately when they want to understand anything biological. For example, when researchers first noticed that something was causing microcephaly in newborn children, they found and imaged the Zika virus and its proteins to see if they could get a better sense of what was happening.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/03/30/science.aaf5316/tab-figures-data">Sirohi et al, Science, 2016</a></span></p><p class="caption">Cryo-electron microscopy images of the Zika virus.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Creating these images helps researchers identify which components of the virus might be causing the negative effects - and that can allow them to develop ways to block those troublesome parts.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/03/30/science.aaf5316/tab-figures-data">Sirohi et al, Science, 2016</a></span></p><p class="caption">Zika virus proteins.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The ability to do all this fundamentally transforms biochemistry, medicine, and our understanding of biology.</p><p>As the Swedish Academy wrote in their announcement of the Nobel Prize winners:</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"After Joachim Frank presented the strategy for his general image processing method in 1975, a researcher wrote: 'If such methods were to be perfected, then, in the words of one scientist, the sky would be the limit.'</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Now we are there - the sky is the limit. Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson have, through their research, brought 'the greatest benefit to mankind.' Each corner of the cell can be captured in atomic detail and biochemistry is all set for an exciting future."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-crispr-dna-editing-tool-works-2015-10">Watch science writer Carl Zimmer explain CRISPR in 90 seconds</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Here's what the images that just won the Nobel prize in chemistry look like and why they're so transformative

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Image courtesy of Julia Bartoli and Chantal Abergel, IGS and CNRS-AMU.</span></p><p class="caption">An ultrathin section of a Pithovirus particle in an infected Acanthamoeba castellanii cell observed by transmission electron microscopy. The length of the particle is ~1.5 µm with a 0.5 µm diameter.</p></div><p></p></div>It's not so often that new viruses are discovered on Earth, and it's even less frequent that researchers revive a 30,000-year-old virus from the Siberian permafrost - but that's just the kind of out-there stuff that researchers just did and <a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1320670111" target="_blank">published in the journal PNAS</a>.</p>
<p>The virus they found frozen in the ice is related to modern viruses. It seems to be part of a group of "giant viruses" that researchers have been exploring since they were first discovered a decade ago.</p>
<p>Luckily, this newfound virus isn't known to infect humans at all.</p>
<p>These resurrected giant viruses from the ice core were revived in the lab, after researchers first melted the permafrost samples, then exposed a tiny animal called a protozoan to the resulting water. This specific protozoan was one they knew is frequently infected by these giant viruses.</p>
<p>After exposure to the water, the researchers discovered that the protozoan was infected with a previously unknown virus that seemed very similar to the two types of giant viruses we've found alive today, but that they have never seen before.</p>
<p>They named it <em>Pithovirus sibericum</em>, and it's one of the biggest giant viruses that researchers have ever found - measuring in at 1.5 micrometers long. That's about the same size as a small bacteria.</p>
<p>They found three very fascinating, surprising, and confusing things:</p>
<ul>
<li>The new giant virus expresses the same kinds of proteins as the giant virus type known as <em>Megaviridae</em>.</li>
<li>However, it has the same shape to the a smaller type of giant virus, known as <em>Pandoravirus</em>.</li>
<li>Even stranger, its genome is very different and much smaller than both of these other giant viruses.</li>
</ul>
<p>These findings are super confusing (but also exciting!) to researchers who found the virus, evolutionary biologists Jean-Michel Claverie and Chantal Abergel, a husband-and-wife research team at Aix-Marseille University in France. One of them told <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/giant-virus-resurrected-from-30-000-year-old-ice-1.14801" target="_blank">Ed Yong, writing for Nature News:</a> "We don't understand anything anymore!"</p>
<p>While this virus is completely benign, it's completely possible that other ancient viruses could be freed from the Arctic's frozen clutches as the climate warms the area and mining disrupts it, causing permafrost melt and turnover, the researchers said.</p>
<p>While that sounds terrifying and like a great plot for a Stephen King book, here's a note of caution from Curtis Suttle, a virologist at the University of British Columbia who was not involved in the work, as written by Yong:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">People already inhale thousands of viruses every day, and swallow billions whenever they swim in the sea. The idea that melting ice would release harmful viruses, and that those viruses would circulate extensively enough to affect human health, "stretches scientific rationality to the breaking point," he says. "I would be much more concerned about the hundreds of millions of people who will be displaced by rising sea levels."</p>
<p>Here's another picture of the giant virus: <div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Image courtesy of Julia Bartoli and Chantal Abergel, IGS and CNRS-AMU.</span></p><p class="caption">An ultrathin section of a Pithovirus particle in an infected Acanthamoeba castellanii cell observed by transmission electron microscopy. The length of the particle is ~1.5 µm with a 0.5 µm diameter.</p></div><p></p></div></p>

Ancient Giant Viruses Revived After 30,000 Years In Siberian Permafrost 

London, May 4 () The novel coronavirus can infect and replicate in cells that line the inside of the human intestines, according to a study that could explain why some patients with COVID-19 experience gastrointestinal symptoms.<p> The finding, published in the journal Science, shows that the intestines are a target organ for the SARS-CoV-2 virus.</p><p> Studies have shown that the virus enters epithelial cells in the lungs by exploiting an enzyme called ACE2, allowing it to replicate and spread further, according to the researchers, including those from Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.</p><p> The ensuing damage results in some of the respiratory symptoms that COVID-19 is known for, which can range from coughing and shortness of breath to pneumonia in more severe cases, they said.</p><p> The researchers noted that preliminary observations suggest that the virus may also infect cells in the gut.</p><p> Patients sometimes show gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhea, and researchers know that gut epithelial cells also harbour ACE2, they said.</p><p> The team generated three dimensional (3D) structures that display all cell types of the human small intestinal epithelium and grew them in four different culture conditions.</p><p> The human small intestinal organoids grown in different conditions expressed varying amounts of ACE2, and could be infected with SARS-CoV-2, the researchers said.</p><p> Using electron microscopy, they discovered that the virus infected both mature and progenitor enterocytes, which are intestinal absorptive epithelial cells that line the inner surface of the intestines.</p><p> The researchers also found that the virus provoked the activity of genes involved with antiviral responses.</p> The rates of infection were similar across the organoid models, indicating that even low quantities of ACE2 may be enough for the virus to infect epithelial cells, they said.   SARSAR

COVID-19 virus infects human intestinal cells, study finds

A team of European researchers has discovered a new high-pressure mineral named donwilhelmsite in the lunar meteorite Oued Awlitis 001.<br /><br />This new mineral from the Moon could explain what happens in Earth's mantle, according to a study published in the journal American Mineralogist.<br /><br />The new mineral is mainly composed of calcium, aluminum, silicon, and oxygen atoms.<br /><br />Donwilhelmsite was discovered within shock melt zones of the lunar meteorite Oued Awlitis 001 found in 2014 in the Western Sahara.<br /><br />This meteorite is compositionally similar to rocks comprising the Earth's continents.<br /><br />Eroded sediments from these continents are transported by wind and rivers to the oceans, and subducted into the Earth's mantle as part of the dense oceanic crust.<br /><br />While being dragged deeper into the Earth mantle the pressure and temperature increases, and the minerals transform into denser mineral phases.<br /><br />The newly discovered mineral donwilhelmsite forms in 460 to 700 kilometre depth.<br /><br />In the terrestrial rock cycle, donwilhelmsite is therefore an important agent for transporting crustal sediments through the transition zone separating the upper and lower Earth's mantle, said the study.<br /><br />This pan-European collaboration was essential to obtain the lunar meteorite, recognise the new mineral, understand its scientific relevance, and to determine the crystal structure of the tiny, the thousands part of a millimeter thick, mineral crystal with high accuracy.<br /><br />"At the GFZ German Research Centre for Geoscience, we used transmission electron microscopy to investigate microstructural aspects of the samples," said study co-author Richard Wirth.<br /><br />The new mineral was named in honor of the lunar geologist Don Wilhelms, an American scientist involved in landing site selection and data analyses of the Apollo space missions that brought to Earth the first rock samples from the Moon.<br /><br />Part of the meteorite Oued Awlitis 001, acquired by crowdfunding initiative "Help us to get the Moon!" is on display at the Natural History Museum Vienna, Austria.<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/sbis-profit-jumps-over-50-in-q2-plans-to-outperform-the-industry-in-credit-growth/articleshow/79039165.cms">SBI’s profit jumps over 50% in Q2 — India’s largest bank plans to outperform the industry when it comes to credit growth</a><br /><br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/tcs-infosys-hcl-tech-and-wipro-share-price-jump-amid-us-election-result-between-biden-and-trump/articleshow/79038249.cms"><strong>Indian IT stocks are surging as the US Presidential election comes down to the wire</strong></a><br />

Moon meteorite in the Western Sahara contains an new mineral that could explain what's happening in the Earth's mantle

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Associated Press/Alan Diaz</span></p><p class="caption">Miami-Dade mosquito control inspector Yasser "Jazz" Compagines sprays a chemical mist into a storm drain, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2016, in Miami Beach, Fla.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/zika">Zika</a> virus that spread rapidly in 2016 is still a major problem in much of Latin America and the Caribbean, and it could continue to spread.</strong></li><li><strong>If a pregnant woman gets infected, her baby could be born with neurological damage and microcephaly, a condition characterized by a small head and underdeveloped brain.</strong></li><li><strong>In order to make it easier to develop anti-viral drugs and a potential vaccine for Zika, researchers just created the most detailed three-dimensional image of the virus ever seen.</strong></li></ul><p><br />Zika doesn't dominate headlines the way it did when it suddenly became widespread in the Americas in 2016.</p><p>But the virus is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tick-and-mosquito-diseases-tripled-cdc-2018-5">still a serious problem</a>. If a pregnant woman is infected, Zika virus can cause babies to be born with neurological damage and microcephaly (a particularly small head and underdeveloped brain).</p><p> The <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/zika/geo/index.html">CDC still says that pregnant women, their partners, and people considering pregnancy should postpone travel to</a> large parts of the Caribbean and Latin America.</p><p>Researchers are desperately searching for a way to fight the virus. That effort requires a better understanding of the structure of Zika, which would makes it easier to design vaccines or anti-viral drugs.</p><p>On Tuesday, a team of researchers <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969212618301709">published the highest-resolution image</a> ever created of the Zika virus:</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Sevvana et al.</span></p><p class="caption">This high resolution image shows the structure of Zika virus. The three envelope glycoproteins (E) are colored in yellow, blue and red and the glycan is colored in green.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>To create the highly accurate three-dimensional model, the researchers used electron microscopy to capture thousands of images of the atomic structure of the virus, all of which could be combined into a 3D image.</p><p>Since Zika is more stable than related viruses in the flavivirus family - like dengue, yellow fever, and Japanese encephalitis virus - it was possible to create an especially accurate model.</p><p>This model reveals the parts of the atomic structure that might be vulnerable.</p><p>"With the higher resolution, it is now possible to efficiently design vaccines and engineer anti-viral compounds that inhibit the virus,"  Michael G. Rossmann, a structural biologist at Purdue University and an author of the new study, <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-06/cp-zih062018.php">said in a statement</a>.</p><p>Researchers still aren't sure whether they'll be able to design a vaccine for Zika. But this new model will at least aid that work.</p>     <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/animated-map-zikas-virus-spread-brazil-united-states-2016-6">This animated map traces the shocking spread of Zika and where it could hit next</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

The most detailed image of the Zika virus ever captured might reveal a way to fight the birth-defect causing disease

London, May 3 () Researchers have shown that the novel coronavirus can infect and multiply in cells of the human intestine, a finding that could explain why many COVID-19 patients experience gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea.<p> The scientists, including those from Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands, successfully propagated the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, in cell culture models of the human intestine, and monitored the response of the cells to the virus. </p><p> They said the findings, published in the journal Science, could explain the observation that nearly one third of COVID-19 patients experience symptoms such as diarrhea, and the fact that the virus often can be detected in stool samples. </p><p> Patients with COVID-19 show a variety of symptoms associated with respiratory organs such as coughing, sneezing, shortness of breath, and fever, and the disease is transmitted via tiny droplets that are spread mainly through coughing and sneezing. </p><p> One third of the patients, however, also experience gastrointestinal symptoms, such as nausea and diarrhea, the researchers said. </p><p> Long after the respiratory symptoms have been resolved, the virus can be detected in human stool, they added, suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 can also spread via so-called "fecal-oral transmission".</p><p> Though the respiratory and gastrointestinal organs seem very different, the study noted some key similarities. </p><p> One observation, it said, is the presence of the ACE2 receptor through which the SARS-CoV-2 virus can enter cells. </p><p> The researchers said the inside of the intestine is loaded with these receptors.</p><p> Until now, they said it was unknown whether intestinal cells could actually get infected and produce virus particles.</p><p> So the scientists attempted to culture the viruses in human intestinal organoids, which are tiny versions of the human intestine that can be grown in the lab. </p><p> "These organoids contain the cells of the human intestinal lining, making them a compelling model to investigate infection by SARS-CoV-2," said study co-author Hans Clevers froom Hubrecht Institute.</p><p> When the virus was added to the organoids, the cells were rapidly infected, the study noted. </p><p> According to the scientists, the virus entered a subset of the cells in the intestinal organoids, and the number of cells that were infected increased over time.</p><p> Using electron microscopy -- an advanced way to visualize different components of the cell in great detail -- the researchers found virus particles inside and outside the cells of the organoids. </p><p> "Due to the lockdown, we all studied virtual slides of the infected organoids remotely from home," said Peter Peters, co-author of the study from Maastricht University in the Netherlands.</p><p> Assessing the response of the organoid to the virus, the researchers found that genes stimulated by the chemical messenger of the immune system, interferons, were activated in these cells. </p><p> They said these genes are known to combat viral infection. </p><p> The researchers believe that future work focussing on these genes more carefully, can help understand how they could be used to develop new treatments.</p><p> When the scientists then cultured the organoids in different conditions, resulting in cells with higher and lower levels of the ACE2 receptor, they found that the virus infected cells with both high and low levels of the ACE2 receptor.</p><p> The study, the scientists said, may lead to new ways to block the entry of the virus into our cells.</p><p> They also believe that the findings may provide a new cell culture model for the study of COVID-19.</p><p> "The observations made in this study provide definite proof that SARS-CoV-2 can multiply in cells of the gastrointestinal tract. However, we don't yet know whether SARS-CoV-2, present in the intestines of COVID-19 patients, plays a significant role in transmission," said Bart Haagmans, another co-author of the study. </p><p> "Our findings indicate that we should look into this possibility more closely," Haagmans added. </p><p> According to the study, special attention may be needed for patients with gastrointestinal symptoms. </p><p> The researchers said that more extensive testing using not only nose and throat swabs, but also rectal swabs or stool samples may be needed.</p> In further studies, the scientists said they hope to understand the differences between infections in the lung and the intestine by comparing lung and intestinal organoids infected with SARS-CoV-2.  VIS  VISVIS

'How coronavirus infects intestine cells decoded'

<p class="source"><span>BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">The novel coronavirus under colored transmission electron microscopy X95,000.</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>The original case of the novel coronavirus emerged on November 17, according to data from the Chinese government reviewed by South China Morning Post. </li><li>The identity of the person has not been confirmed, but it appears to be a 55-year-old from the Hubei province.</li><li>It wasn't until December that Chinese authorities realized they had a new type of virus on their hands.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>The first case of the novel coronavirus emerged on November 17, according to a Chinese government analysis of coronavirus cases <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back">reviewed by the South China Morning Post</a>.</p><p>It wasn't until late December that Chinese officials realized they had a new virus on their hands. But even then, China's government clamped down on sharing information about COVID-19 with the public, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-it-all-started-chinas-early-coronavirus-missteps-11583508932">according to the Wall Street Journal</a>.</p><p>The data reviewed by the Post, which has not been made public, suggest that the virus was first contracted by a 55-year-old man from the province of Hubei, China. But as SCMP noted, the evidence is not conclusive. The identity of "Patient Zero" - the first human case of the virus - has still not been confirmed, and it is possible that the dataset isn't complete.</p><h2>The new data about "Patient Zero" is consistent with other research</h2><p>Chinese health authorities <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3052558/coronavirus-hunt-patient-zero-and-why-worlds-health-may-depend">reported</a> the first case of COVID-19 to the World Health Organization on December 31. Later, a team of researchers published evidence that the first individual to test positive was <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3052558/coronavirus-hunt-patient-zero-and-why-worlds-health-may-depend">showing symptoms December 8</a>, which is the date of the first confirmed case, according to WHO. </p><p>Other research, <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2930183-5">published in The Lancet in January</a>, found that the first individual to test positive was exposed to the virus December 1.</p><p>The fact that researchers are continually hiking back the date of the earliest infection means that there still may not be sufficient evidence to identify "Patient Zero," but the new Chinese government data sharpens what we know.</p><p class="source"><span>STR/AFP via Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">A doctor examines a patient who is infected by the coronavirus at a hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province.</p><p>Other scholarship, published by a team of infectious-disease researchers from China, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wechat-users-posted-coronavirus-before-china-confirmed-cases-2020-2">found</a> that WeChat users were using terms related to symptoms of the novel coronavirus more than two weeks before officials confirmed the first case of infection.</p><p>"The findings might indicate that the coronavirus started circulating weeks before the first cases were officially diagnosed and reported," wrote Business Insider's Holly Secon.</p><p>If confirmed, the report on WeChat users' lends further support for the newest government finding that the earliest case of the novel coronavirus did indeed originate in mid-November. </p><h2>Identifying Patient Zero is important for containing the virus</h2><p>As officials try to locate Patient Zero, the new government data provides clues about the emergence and spread of a virus that has thrown the world into tumult. </p><p>"We don't know who the very first Patient Zero was, presumably in Wuhan, and that leaves a lot of unanswered questions about how the outbreak started and how it initially spread," Sarah Borwein, a doctor at Hong Kong's Central Health Medical Practice, <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3052558/coronavirus-hunt-patient-zero-and-why-worlds-health-may-depend">told the South China Morning Post</a>.</p><p class="source"><span>STR/AFP via Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Members of a police sanitation team spraying disinfectant as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Bozhou, China.</p><p>For experts, finding Patient Zero is not simply a matter of digging through data and conducting research. It is also a race against the clock. As time passes, it becomes more difficult to locate Patient Zero as the number of infections increases - and to identify the areas that have been exposed to the virus the longest.</p><p>"We do feel uncomfortable obviously when we diagnose a patient with the illness and we can't work out where it came from," Dale Fisher, chair of WHO's Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-singapore-meeting/hunt-on-for-patient-zero-who-spread-coronavirus-globally-from-singapore-idUSKBN2071F5">told Reuters</a>. "The containment activities are less effective."</p><ul class="read-more-links"><li><strong>Read more: </strong></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-taiwan-case-study-rapid-response-containment-2020-3">Taiwan has only 47 coronavirus cases. Its response to the crisis shows that swift action and widespread healthcare can prevent an outbreak.</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-is-not-testing-enough-people-for-covid-19-2020-3">The US is severely under-testing for coronavirus as death toll and new cases rise</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wechat-users-posted-coronavirus-before-china-confirmed-cases-2020-2">Chinese social-media platform WeChat saw spikes in the terms 'SARS,' 'coronavirus,' and 'shortness of breath,' weeks before the first cases were confirmed, a study suggests</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-travel-bans-to-prevent-coronavirus-spread-not-effective-alone-2020-3">Travel bans in Wuhan only delayed the coronavirus' spread in China by 3 to 5 days, and in the rest of the world by a few weeks, new research shows</a></li></ul>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/economist-weighted-voting-could-help-save-us-democracy-2018-5">A top economist has a radical plan to change the way Americans vote: weighted voting</a></h3>

The first COVID-19 case originated on November 17, according to Chinese officials searching for 'Patient Zero'

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Mike Nudelman/Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>First, a caveat: The Firefly vaporizer is not intended to be used for marijuana.</p>
<p>Definitely not.</p>
<p>Never mind that the herb is now legal for recreational use in two states, and can be obtained with a prescription in 20 more. Or that legislation <a href="" http:="" medicalmarijuana.procon.org="" view.resource.phpresourceID="002481&quot;&quot;" target="" _blank="">now pending</a> in 10 additional states would decriminalize the use of cannabis for medical purposes.</p>
<p>At present, marijuana is still a Schedule I controlled substance under federal law, and <a href="" http:="" www.law.cornell.edu="" uscode="" text="" target="" _blank="">U.S. Criminal Code</a> makes it illegal to sell drug paraphernalia, so no.</p>
<p>Instead, the inventors of this high-end vaping implement built the Firefly for legal substances, such as tobacco or, as the Vape World website delicately puts it, "aromatherapy blends."</p>
<p>You know, this tool is supposed to appeal to that market of people who would be puffing away on pipes like John Cheever and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but have been clamoring for a beautifully designed high-tech gizmo that produces a lung-caressing vapor instead of a bronchi-blistering smoke.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Firefly</span></p><p class="caption">The top-of-the-line Firefly Vaporizer</p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>"The tobacco is the business," says Firefly co-founder Sasha Robinson. "To ignore that market or to think it's a secondary market is just wrong."</p>
<p>That said, if someone happened to want to load the Firefly's chamber with another dried out herbaceous substance, who's to stop them?</p>
<p>"We respect the consumer's right to choose," Robinson adds patriotically. "We have to be respectful of federal laws while understanding that the market in the United States is changing rapidly."</p>
<p>It's a different world now than it was back in 2007, when Robinson and Firefly co-founder Mark Williams met and bonded over their shared passion for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-burning-man-like-2013-photos-2013-9" target="_blank">Burning Man - a wholesome gathering in the desert </a>where upstanding citizens come together to engage in perfectly innocent activities.</p>
<p>Since they quit their very lucrative Silicon Valley jobs several years ago to plunge headfirst into a sketchy and unproven new industry, the world of vaping has heated up. E-cigarettes, which utilize a similar technology, had their moment in the spotlight during the Golden Globes, when Julia Louis-Dreyfuss puffed away on camera. They're ubiquitous at New York Fashion Week, and Big Tobacco is <a href="" http:="" qz.com="" has-big-tobacco-taken-its-first-tentative-steps-into-the-marijuana-industry="" target="" _blank="">gobbling up vaporization startups,</a> grabbing a piece of the new industry before analog smokes wind up in the ashtray of history.</p>
<p>What all that means to Williams and Robinson is that some of the <a href="" http:="" www.cdc.gov="" tobacco="" data_statistics="" fact_sheets="" adult_data="" cig_smoking="" target="" _blank="">42 million</a> smokers in the U.S. (and - shhhh - perhaps a few cannabis users too) will soon be ready to ditch their cancer sticks for a space-age device that looks right at home sitting next to a glass of Barolo and a MacBook Air: a battery-powered, almost odorless, very possibly healthier way to ingest the chemicals contained various plants.</p>
<p>Instead of igniting the leaves - a technology that hasn't been updated since Prometheus - vaporizers like the Firefly heat it to extremely high temperatures, slowly drying the vegetable matter and emitting a smooth vapor for the user to suck in.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>The Birth of Vaping</strong></h2>
<p>Five years ago, if you encountered a vaporizer, you were probably sitting in a college dorm room surrounding a clumsy, vaguely sinister-looking contraption with a motley collection of hygienically challenged dudes - alternative types, hobbyists. The kinds of kids who order mysterious packages from websites that end in .net. You probably also saw a few computer parts scattered around and maybe some Grateful Dead posters on the walls. It was a very niche audience.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Volcano_Vaporizer.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></p><p class="caption">The pioneer: the Volcano Vaporizer</p></div><p></p></div></div>This was pre-Firefly. The vape of choice back then was a desktop contraption called the Volcano. Developed by German manufacturer Storz Bickel, it has a base that looks kind of like the bottom of a blender, and it comes with a plastic bag you fit over the top of it.</p>
<p>You load your herb of choice, plug in the machine, turn it on, and wait. The bag fills with vapor like a Snoopy balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and once it's full, you take it off the base and inhale. It's a little like huffing glue or getting anesthesia - neither one of which are especially appealing to a mass user base.</p>
<p>Adam Schoenfeld, one of the early distributors of The Volcano and now a prominent business consultant in the shadowy vaporizer industry, calls The Volcano "the Mercedes G Wagon of vaporizers."</p>
<p>The Firefly, on the other hand, is more like a Tesla. It's a high-end luxury product - one aimed at consumers making upward of $75,000 a year. Retailing for $269, it would take months of grocery bagging to afford one. Sorry, kids.</p>
<p>The Tesla comparison is also apt in that the Firefly - and similar handheld vaporizers on the market- depends on advances in lithium battery technology, just like the Tesla. The Firefly was not the first handheld vaporizer on the market. In 2008, the butane-heated IOLITE, by Oglesby and Butler debuted.</p>
<p>In terms of battery-powered vapes, another pioneer was the Magic Flight Launch Box. It hit the market around 2010, and is basically a tiny box of wood that comes with a rechargeable AA battery. Jamming the battery into a hole in the side activates the device. It's not the sexiest or most powerful gadget, but it gets the job done.</p>
<p>In the high-end vape market, a device called the Ploom Pax beat the Firefly by a year or so. And while the Pa<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">x is smaller and lighter (and thus more discreet), the Firefly is far more </span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Ploom</span></p><p class="caption">The Ploom Pax, Firefly's chief competitor</p></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">powerful, running on 50 watts rather than Pax's 4.</span></p>
<p>The Firefly also works differently. Whereas the Magic Flight and the Pax use conductive technology, heating up the area on which the plant matter rests, the Firefly is convective, heating the air in the chamber to an astonishing 400 degrees. Some purists argue that this technique, known as convection, makes for a better tasting experience.</p>
<p>Either way, James Monsees, c<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">o-founder of Ploom, is certain that he's making a Tesla as well. Today's consumer</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">will settle for nothing less.</span></p>
<p>"I would argue that the reason it's happening now," Monsees says of high-end vaporizer culture, "is that we're getting precious about a lot of things. We have the luxury to be picky and be precious about a lot of things - to know what we want."</p>
<p> </p>
<h2><strong>Building the Firefly</strong></h2>
<p>Try this: Graduate from one of the best schools in the country, have a wildly successful career in Silicon Valley by your late 20s, get a prestigious job at a firm people would die to work for, get married, be sort of happy.</p>
<p>Then chuck it. Quit your job, ply your savings into a new venture all your own, and design a fetish-like new product for a vaguely shady industry that few people even know exists. Then take a look at your knuckles - they're white.</p>
<p>When they met in 2007, Robinson and Williams were dancing to a mix by a party crew called The Space Cowboys at San Francisco's Burning Man Decompression party.</p>
<p>It's a party for people who wish they were at Burning Man.</p>
<p>Both were health-conscious smokers (a rare but growing species). They had experimented with vaporizers and found the results promising. But there was a problem: The older models looked like bulky science experiments - like model spaceships - and they weren't always reliable.</p>
<p>"The early inventors were great pioneers," says Williams. "We have a lot of respect for what they did. But neither of us wanted to buy any of the products that were around at that time."</p>
<p>Normally that would be that, but Williams and Robinson were not your typical "burners" (as aficionados of Burning Man are called).</p>
<p>Williams spent years rising through the ranks at Apple designing Mac OS software, and Robinson had been working at prominent Silicon Valley companies for decades.</p>
<p>They'd both built things, and they had that hacker mindset where you look at a problem and assume you can solve it. Together, they resolved to invent a vaporizer of their own, one that would do for smoking what the iPod did for music. It would be the perfect meeting of form and function, a sleek, intuitive device that would make vaping "as quick as lighting up."</p>
<p>It wasn't exactly an easy decision.</p>
<p>"I walked away from a pretty sizable amount of money to work on this project," Williams told Business Insider. "I could've ridden Apple into the sunset."</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_left"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Firefly</span></p><p class="caption">Firefly cofounder Sasha Robinson</p></div><p></p></div>Robinson had it pretty good, too, having bounced from Silicon Graphics Incorporated, to Juniper Networks, a networking equipment manufacturer, before bailing out before he was 30.</p>
<p>"I retired," says Robinson. "I was basically like f--- this tech stuff. I'm going to learn to weld."</p>
<p>He cashed in some stock, bought a house in San Francisco, and traveled - to Thailand, Cambodia, Poland, Costa Rica. You name it, he wandered there for weeks.</p>
<p>Back home in San Francisco, he got pretty good at metalworking. He constructed jaw-dropping installations for Burning Man and danced a lot.</p>
<p>"I achieved every single career goal I had for myself by the age of 29," says Robinson, now 41. "It's a weird feeling to be both really proud and lost."</p>
<p>Lost he remained, though, until he met a girl. She told him that unemployment was not sexy. Soon, he realized she was right and joined consulting firm Moto as director of software.</p>
<p>When Moto was bought by Cisco Systems, though, he got antsy.</p>
<p>"I put my toe in it and I thought 'I'd love to make this work,' and then I changed my mind," he says. He was gone within a month.</p>
<p>Since becoming friends, Robinson and Williams were constantly meeting at house parties, or at late-night events in San Francisco's vibrant electronic music scene. It was Williams who came up with the idea to build a vaporizer. They began spending their Tuesday nights tinkering with coils and testing different power supplies in Robinson's basement, which was jammed with everything from power tools to Burning Man projects, including a colorfully painted bike with a fur-covered seat.</p>
<p>Because "if you're wearing short-shorts and not much else in the desert, it's nice to be sitting on fur," Williams explains.</p>
<p>Things proceeded slowly. Robinson and Williams were trying to tackle problems they hadn't deeply considered before, and it was tougher than they thought.</p>
<p>Like how to create a 400-degree oven that fits in someone's hands but won't explode in their face.</p>
<p>The guys started by drawing pictures of how the mechanism would work. After settling on butane, they enlisted the help of a mechanical engineering friend to build a model.</p>
<p>If Williams had learned one thing at Apple, where he worked on Mac OS collaboration software, it was the difference between a decent user experience and a great one: It was all about simplicity.</p>
<p>"That was always the measuring stick of what a good prototype was," Williams says. "People had to get it by just looking at it."</p>
<p>He also discovered that working at a big company, even one as widely admired as Apple, could be deadening. "I'll get a construction job before I fill out another TPS report," he jokes, referring to the "testing, procedure specification" reports software developers often produce.</p>
<p>Eventually, with his wife's buy-in, he decided to part ways with Apple, joining Robinson to give the Firefly his full commitment.</p>
<p>"I had a lot of nights when I was awake at 3 am working out an issue because I knew my future income was dependent on this project," Williams recalls.</p>
<p><strong>NEXT: The Grandmother Test</strong></p>

<h2><strong>The Grandmother Test</strong></h2>
<p>By January of 2011, Williams and Robinson had been tinkering for two years, and they still weren't satisfied. The butane was the problem. It just wasn't reliable enough. Sometimes it didn't ignite. And it seemed a little risky even under the best circumstances.</p>
<p>"You couldn't just hand it to your grandmother," Robinson jokes.</p>
<p>The Grandmother Test was perhaps a high bar for what was, after all, a fancy piece of drug paraphernalia, but the partners didn't want to settle for a workable device. Like seemingly every startup founder, they wanted to change the world.</p>
<p>Williams and Robinson knew they had to make something that users would fall in love with from their first puff. For that to happen, the vaporizer would have to be absolutely dependable and perfectly intuitive.</p>
<p>They ditched the first model and started over, pivoting to an electrical power source.</p>
<p>Now the issue was finding the right coil, one that would keep the air inside the chamber pure. Robinson and Williams started experimenting with different metals. Both of them developed an allergy to the standard industry coil, a nickel/chromium alloy, and decided to find a better option.</p>
<p>They did, but they prefer not to reveal what material they eventually settled on. Trade secret.</p>
<p>To make sure the device worked every time, they turned the basement into a lab, testing models around the clock. A mechanism would run the vaporizers in cycles - on for 10 seconds, off for 5, then on again - at least 50,000 times.</p>
<p>"I wouldn't even look at my electric bill," Robinson jokes.</p>
<p>The guys even went as have electron microscopy photos taken to see what was happening to the coil inside the Firefly's chamber. They had to know it wasn't deteriorating.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Firefly</span></p><p class="caption">Firefly cofounder Mark Williams</p></div><p></p></div>"You have to be a little nuts," says Williams, "because you have to be able to say with certainty 'my product does not degrade.'"</p>
<p>And once you can say that, you can take your show on the road.</p>
<p>To succeed in any business, it's important to understand the landscape, and the world of vaporizers traditionally has been a world of message boards and e-commerce sites, trade shows and hobbyists. Market data doesn't really exist.</p>
<p>"This industry is coming out of a really shady period," said Robinson, "so finding people we could trust in it was really important."</p>
<p>That's where Aaron LoCascio came in. In 2005 he started selling vaporizers on an eBay site along with a few other appliances. After 2008, he ditched the appliances, which weren't moving as fast. Now he runs VapeWorld.com, the preeminent online vape retailer, which has grown to a staff of 60.</p>
<p>Now, with the scent of opportunity in the air, people present him with new vaporizer designs on a daily basis. But he's pickier these days than he once was.</p>
<p>"Eight years ago, you and I could have gotten together, gone to the garage, slammed a piece of wood and some coils together and been successful," he says. "Now? Not going to happen. The barrier to entry has definitely been raised."</p>
<p>When he saw the Firefly prototype in 2011, he was floored.</p>
<p>He became Robinson and Williams' sensei, teaching them about the arcane import/export regulations, helping them find legal assistance, and schooling them on the ins and outs of supply-chain management and doing business in China, which is where Fireflies are made.</p>
<p>This last part is harder than it sounds.</p>
<p>To make a product in China, you must find someone to work with that wants to help you. This cannot be done over the phone. Instead, you must go to southern China, to towns where you'll feel lonely. You will encounter factory owners and workers with a range of notions about quality control. You will likely need to take a weekend off in Thailand to blow off some steam.</p>
<p>After wasting a few months on a manufacturer who turned out to be a poor fit, Williams and Robinson finally found a factory that could produce the device to their specifications. The Firefly launched at the end of last year to much acclaim. Gadget site Gizmodo declared it "portable perfection."</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_left"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Firefly</span></p><p class="caption">The Firefly booth at a trade show in early 2014</p></div><p></p></div></p>
<p>Customers seem to agree. Right now, the Firefly is back-ordered by about 5,000 units. Brick and mortar smoke shops that carry the device are subjected to a maximum limit. Robinson and Williams have had to hoard some Fireflies for themselves to sell directly from their website, since the margins are better.</p>
<p>In other words, after over three years, they can finally exhale.</p>
<p>But Williams and Robinson aren't through innovating. They want to expand the Firefly line to vaporizers that accept cartridges of liquid or wax, and to make improvements to the core product, which could be lighter, sleeker, faster. And while the Firefly is definitely being marketed for tobacco users (in total compliance with the U.S. criminal code), the partners have no way to control what a consumer might do in the privacy of his or her own home, or dorm room, or the back of a van.</p>
<p>Or, for that matter, at massive music-and-art festival under the stars in the desert of northern Nevada.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/longform">Read more of Business Insider's long-form features »</a></strong><span><br /></span></p>

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