Amazon is reportedly working to find a cure for the common cold
Amazon disrupted the books, grocery, and shipping business, and now it's set its sights on viral infections. The tech company has apparently tasked a team of employees to research and develop a cure for the common cold, a CNBC report indicates today. Under an effort called "Project Gesundheit," three people familiar with the effort tell CNBC that Amazon is specifically looking to develop a vaccine that would stave off cold infections. This small team exists under the broader Grand Challenge group within Amazon, CNBC says.
This is not a coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) story. Do not discuss the coronavirus.
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Amazon is Reportedly Working on a Cure for the Common Cold
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(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @01:41AM
Im sorry, I don't understand your question.
(Score: 4, Informative) by EvilSS on Sunday March 08 2020, @01:50AM (17 children)
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 08 2020, @01:55AM (16 children)
Yup. And, one vaccine isn't going to protect you from all the many viruses that can cause colds. Even IF they were to succesfully inoculate you against the ten most common, you'd still catch cold. Maybe less frequently, but it's still going to happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Touché) by BK on Sunday March 08 2020, @02:05AM (3 children)
So the first step is to kill all the rhinos. I guess we’re well on our way.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Hartree on Sunday March 08 2020, @02:15AM (2 children)
"So the first step is to kill all the rhinos."
Vaccinate the chubby unicorns?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @02:35AM
Well the Rhinoceros is the closest thing to a unicorn that exists so I guess curing the rhino virus would be the closest thing to curing the common cold?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @09:36AM
Then we'd just catch hippovirus instead,
(Score: 1) by NPC-131072 on Sunday March 08 2020, @02:18AM (1 child)
I thought immunity to everything [bigthink.com] was common in Arkansas?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:13PM
Runaway is the kind of man whose hand gets six separate headaches (one in the palm and one in each finger) every time he thinks of bashing the bishop, out of pure self-defense.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @03:09AM (2 children)
Especially where a highly enough placed $BUREAUCRAT can be, say, persuaded, to make it mandatory. Any and all effects on the health of @GRUNTS are strictly incidental.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @04:59PM (1 child)
Face masks are cheaper than vaccines, that the scam that BIG VACCINE doesn't want you to know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:12PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9wi0cPrU4U [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Sunday March 08 2020, @03:23AM (3 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @05:02PM (2 children)
Sure is a bumpy ride for 3 years tho. Jump on board!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by barbara hudson on Sunday March 08 2020, @05:50PM (1 child)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 09 2020, @03:16AM
Yep. And thallium is the other 'widow's [best] friend'.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Sunday March 08 2020, @05:15AM
I've read somewhere that since SARS1 they discovered over 500 coronaviruses in bats alone. On the other hand, perhaps they all have some common target to explore.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday March 08 2020, @02:27PM
This is the dogma, although (according to a Netflix docu-poli-adver-tainment mini series) there's a guy working on the theory that he can sort of pre-mutate a panopoly of potential viral structures and inoculate with that to prevent heretofore unseen viruses. As far as I watched, he was testing on pigs in South America and showed some success with a series of 7 inoculations - they're trying to get that number down.
What's needed is a different approach, the "pre-program the immune system to recognize the threat" vaccination theory has been well developed and found its limits long ago. Something like an implant that releases Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) on demand with a "smart" sensor recognizing incipient significant viral infection. Of course, more mechanisms of action in the implant beyond Oseltamivir would also be a TM Very Good Thing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday March 09 2020, @02:29AM
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @02:11AM (3 children)
Immediately after Amazon (allegedly) cures the common cold, Amazon employees will lose all of their sick day benefits. Then the rest of the corporate world will follow the leader and declare sick days to be obsolete.
(Score: 5, Touché) by takyon on Sunday March 08 2020, @04:09AM (1 child)
Amazon is also looking for a robotic cure to the problem of paying employees.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:57AM
What Amazon really needs is for some unwashed loon to start a Free DevOps movement to convince college students that it would be totally cool to work for free maintaining the infrastructure that keeps AWS running. That way with an all volunteer workforce the cost of cloud computing falls to zero and all revenue becomes pure unadulterated profit. You know, like how some unwashed loon started a Free Software movement back in the 1980s that led to the cost of software falling to zero and the primary workforce for producing software became unpaid college students. Amazon undoubtedly saved billions in software licensing thanks to that guy.
That's right. Richard Stallman gave an unpaid workforce to billionaires.
Now in the internet age, billionaires can and should put together an unpaid workforce of volunteer DevOps working from home for free.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @05:10PM
If they do that, it will be a good trade off. You should try being sick and unable to work for a while.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @02:20AM (4 children)
You do not talk about coronavirus.
(Score: 1) by NPC-131072 on Sunday March 08 2020, @02:35AM (1 child)
The takyon Tautology > The Kobayashi Maru
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:36AM
Project Mayhem > The Takyon Tautology
-- Tyler Durden
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by edIII on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:45AM
Actually, there might be a reason to talk about "it". I have a feeling that it won't be a simple antiviral geared towards strains of the common cold. It will be new technologies that are allowing us to target and kill viruses/bacteria in whole new ways. The kind of technologies where not one type of cancer is cured, but the foundations of nearly all cancers.
In other words, I'm betting that something that could qualify as a cure for the common cold virus, is going to be pretty effective against a wide array of viruses, including that which shall not be named. Superbugs are here, but we're on the cusp of some super weapons in our toolbox too. I never thought there would be a cure for Ebola in my life time, and yet, there is one.
I think that as long as we can survive, that kind of technology will be inevitable.
Eliminating the common cold would save us tons of money too.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @08:15AM
Could we possibly talk about aristarchus submissions about coronal virus? Asking for a friend.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @03:37AM (18 children)
Hey guys, no more CORONAVIIRUS comments, please. Cold is not CORONAVIRUS. It's not CORONAVIRUS, it's CHINA CORONAVIRUS. Is it Wuhan CORONAVIRUS? Maybe. Perhaps it's China CORONAVIRUS. Yeah, that's more like it - CHINA CORONAVIRUS.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Sunday March 08 2020, @03:48AM (1 child)
Corona-chan.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @09:22AM
I was hoping for the Sweet Meteor of Death, but Corona-chan looks like she can get the job done!
Thank you, Corona-chan!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @03:50AM
I thought it was Seattle Coronavirus, but I guess there are a lot of Chinamen there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @04:37AM (1 child)
If not the Coronavirus what about the Bud Light virus?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 08 2020, @04:48AM
Modeathlo Especial
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @05:12AM (1 child)
Perhaps it's Iran coronavirus? Come to think about it and given the upper management hit, perhaps it's Israeli coronavirus?
How's the nuke development team doing anyway?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @05:13PM
They're still surprizingly accident prone tsk tsk.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @05:27AM (10 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:14AM (9 children)
I think everyone here knows the various distinctions but they are just trying to make jokes out of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @06:39AM (8 children)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @07:03AM
Nothing wrong with stigmatizing the Chinese or anyone else. The disease originated there. They deserve the stigma.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @07:35AM (3 children)
Agreed but I guess the point is that you shouldn't make what looks to be general comments against us nerds when it is just one person making these bad comments. Direct your attention towards the bad comments and not towards the rest of us. Comments like
"We're supposed to be nerds who care about science. Let's please get shit like this right at the very least!"
seem to target too general of an audience on this blog.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @07:44AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @03:37PM (1 child)
It looks like most of the racist comments got modded down. So the record was set straight. As far as the non-racist jokes I see nothing wrong with a little humor. As far as conspiracy theories go I don't see anything wrong with them being discussed. Sure many of them are silly and you are free to refute them but I think the much bigger danger is attempting to restrict free speech like many mainstream sources do (mainstream sources now include Facebook and Google/Youtube aside from sources like CNN). I think one of the benefits of smaller forums is the freedom to discuss unpopular views. I find those that are intolerant of views they disagree with from being discussed to be far more extreme than those that wish to consider and discuss the possibility of a crazy conspiracy theory no matter how crazy. I find the mainstream sources, with their efforts to restrict free speech, to be the extremists. I work with the assumption that most people are competent enough to distinguish a reasonable viewpoint from a silly one if they are exposed to arguments on both sides.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @04:28PM
(same poster) I also work with the assumption that mainstream sources are no more competent than the rest of us in determining what should be discussed and what shouldn't when it comes to openly discussing various topics. The extreme view here is to assume that some mainstream source is able to determine, better than me, what I should be allowed to read and what I should not be allowed to read and what is and isn't true.
(Score: 2, Troll) by barbara hudson on Sunday March 08 2020, @08:15AM (1 child)
It's not racism to say that the Chinese culture of live meat markets is both fucké and to blame. And cruel. And that they should stop stealing and eating other people's cats and dogs [theguardian.com].
Is it a racist stereotype when it's true? I don't think so.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @05:16PM
but they're "good at math" so lets fill all grad programs with them and put them in all the uni jobs
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday March 08 2020, @11:43AM
The aspect of this situation that stigmatizes the Chinese is not that the disease started there, but that they sold test animals from a level 4 bioweapons lab in a meat market to make a few extra kuài. That is a fatal level of dumb-assery for which they deserve all the scorn they're getting. Also, they deserve scorn for not teaching their kids basic hygiene like washing your hands, not spitting on the floors of restaurants, cleaning things that are dirty, and refraining from urinating and defecating on public streets and squares.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Sunday March 08 2020, @11:46AM (1 child)
Bezos is a rich guy, but I don't know that he's rich enough to escape the backlash he's gonna get from the Medical-Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex for trying to break their very profitable business model of never curing anything so they can keep treating symptoms forever.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08 2020, @01:30PM
I'd rather pay for anti-aging pills than cough syrup.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday March 08 2020, @02:14PM (1 child)
Without the common cold, Earth will be defenseless against Martian war machines.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Funny) by VacuumTube on Sunday March 08 2020, @08:20PM
That's where the C*** virus comes in, but they don't want us talking about that.