Didier Raoult's quotes (sethmessenger.fr - Some short news to get away from it all).

#37354
A chief rabbi in Jerusalem confirmed to me that he did not think it was possible for ten people to agree on any subject. In the rabbinical court, if there is a unanimous vote, the vote must be redone because it is considered that there has been cheating or that the question has not been well understood, that unanimity is simply not possible in Man. Science has been built with controversy. This does not mean that all the decisions taken by majority were the right ones, but it avoids a "totalitarian" attitude, which aims to impose a single thought. Thus, sometimes, the original idea was crushed because it was against the majority idea. This is what happened with The Theory of Lamarck Killed by Cuvier. Today however its theory has been rehabilitated.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37355
In fact, human beings abhor instability. This translates into the fantasy of ownership. In reality, man can never own anything since he is a mere tenant. Property is an illusion because it only lasts a limited time. If you buy land and leave it to your children, it will stay in the family (at best) for maybe two or three generations but will eventually be resold. Buying an apartment is another form of renting as it involves the repayment of a credit and property taxes. Man seeks forms of stability, while the world around him keeps changing. It would be better to adapt to survive in an environment in permanent transformation (this is the theory of the Red Queen).

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37356
Moreover, most of the genes on earth are viral. Viruses are the source of most of the genetic information and therefore of life.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37357
Contrary to a received anthropocentric idea, however, it is not the number of genes that makes the complexity or intelligence of an organism, rice and some amoeba have more than man!

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37358
The concept of early s e l e c tion of bright minds is very much rooted in culture in France, which is not the case in the United States. When I ask an American at the top of his career about his training, he will tell me about what he has done in the last ten years, while a Frenchman will still highlight the diploma he obtained at the age of twenty-five, it's ridiculous! If the most brilliant thing he has done in his career is his studies, it is not very rewarding. It is a very French habit to boast of having done Normale sup', Mines, Polytechnique or having passed the competition of the medical boarding school, as if it still meant something twenty years later. This way of thinking is also fixist, since it conveys the idea that having obtained a degree at twenty-five years, the person will remain for his life an ennarque, a normalian or a polytechnician. In fact, the French believe it! A sixty-year-old polytechnician must be an intelligent and important person. This system of early s e l e c tion has a very d e l e t erious consequence: in France, if you have not obtained the right diploma, it will be difficult for you to make up for lost time. On the other hand, in the United States it is common to go back to university at the age of forty or fifty.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37359
The concept of early s e l e c tion of bright minds is very much rooted in culture in France, which is not the case in the United States. When I ask an American at the top of his career about his training, he will tell me about what he has done in the last ten years, while a Frenchman will still highlight the diploma he obtained at the age of twenty-five, it's ridiculous! If the most brilliant thing he has done in his career is his studies, it is not very rewarding. It is a very French habit to boast of having done Normale sup', Mines, Polytechnique or having passed the competition of the medical boarding school, as if it still meant something twenty years later. This way of thinking is also fixist, since it conveys the idea that having obtained a degree at twenty-five years, the person will remain for his life an ennarque, a normalian or a polytechnician. In fact, the French believe it! A sixty-year-old polytechnician must be an intelligent and important person. This system of early s e l e c tion has a very d e l e t erious consequence: in France, if you have not obtained the right diploma, it will be difficult for you to make up for lost time. On the other hand, in the United States it is common to go back to university at the age of forty or fifty.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37360
The permanent change of everything, including in humans, is very well explained by the Greeks. The idea is reflected in the question posed by the Sphinx in Oedipus: "What is the animal that walks in the morning on all fours, lunch on two legs and in the evening on three legs?" The answer is "Man," which evolves from a four-legged baby to that of a standing adult and then an old man leaning on his cane. Everything changes all the time.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37361
At the scale of human life, man also changes according to his age and his environment. Thus seems aberrant the sentences of life imprisonment, the notion of recidivism or the early s e l e c tion of students by competitions, concepts that underlie the idea of an immutability of the human being. Science today shows that there is even more creativity than was thought in the expression of our genome. Nature does not always follow the same rules and some mistakes are sources of innovation. This probably allows us to adapt and evolve as changes change.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37362
France's tension over GMOs, unique in the world, also stems from a lack of knowledge of biology and medicine and the usefulness of GMOs in these areas. For years, diabetics have been treated with the production of insulin by GMOs, bacteria genetically modified by the introduction of the human insulin gene. In our laboratory, we also manufacture many GMOs, introducing genes into bacteria, even if today it becomes more complicated because we have to ask for permissions for each new experiment.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37363
In the 16th century, European explorers, soldiers and settlers decimated 90% of the Amerindian population, despite themselves at first, by bringing measles and smallpox to the American continent! It is not known what history would have been without these brutal disappearances of population.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37364
There are no "born" French, no human races, no "black" or "white" skin, the s e l e c tion of the best is a racist and Western 19th century invention, and the strongest will not be the winners! This is not a humanist and political statement, but a scientific reality... which can allow us, if we take this into account, to get along better and adapt better to future changes.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37365
The assimilation of viral genes has occurred in the past. It would even be thanks to the fusion with a virus that Man would have differentiated himself from the great apes during evolution! It is a retrovirus, like AIDS. Retroviruses have the property of integrating their genetic heritage into the chromosomes of the host cell (in theory to be able to reproduce more easily). Researchers have not yet elucidated the function of these viral genes or by what mechanism they were able to allow the human species to move away from its primate cousins. The only known thing, and this has just been published, is that these viral genes present in human cells are expressed only during embryogenesis (the formation of the embryo from the fertilized egg) and then remain silent. So they certainly have a crucial function in an early stage of development. Researchers have discovered that 40 million years ago, another retrovirus assimilated by one of our primate ancestors allowed the formation of the placenta, an organ essential for reproduction. It is fascinating to think that without this virus, we might not have developed a placenta. Researchers have shown that a total of 8% of our DNA has a viral origin!

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37366
In Brazil, Chagas disease is an infection mediated by a small parasitic worm, trypanosome. In a number of people, this worm integrates into cells and its genes are incorporated into the human genome. It can potentially be transmitted to offspring through chimera eggs of infected women. Some children have a parasite for their near ancestor!

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37367
It is also known that many virus genes integrate into the genome of humans, forming mixed male/virus chromosomes. The HHV6 virus, for example, which causes a disease close to herpes, gives a spectacular illustration of this. In a number of cases, this virus integrates the woman's germ cells (the eggs used for sexual reproduction), which can then transmit not the virus itself but certain genes of this virus to her offspring. Whereas usually a child receives the genes of his parents and grandparents, the child here would have had a kind of grandfather virus! It would be a complete chimera since all its cells would contain a share of the genetic heritage of HHV6. This phenomenon is no exception. Viruses are permanently integrated into human and animal genomes. Depending on where the sequences are incorporated and other factors, the consequences will be more or less noticeable.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37368
This story is not unique. In 2002, a woman learned that two of her sons were not genetically her children, but those of a twin sister who had never been born... It is now estimated that 8-10% of pregnancies are initially twin (and there are 1 to 2% of twins left), so there are many spontaneous abortions of twins and therefore potentially complex chimeras.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37369
In October 2015, a sensational news made headlines. An American baby was born with the DNA of his uncle... that never existed. Explanation. In 2014, a couple gave birth to a baby boy and discovered that he was of the AB blood type. Impossible since both his parents are from Group A. A DNA test confirms that the newborn is not his father's son. The hypothesis of adultery is ruled out because the couple resorted to artificial insemination. The parents turn to the clinic that performed this insemination but the doctors are formal: there was no error in the s e l e c tion of sperm samples. The problem is then submitted to geneticists at Stanford University who screen the child's genome. The result, surprising, suggests that the baby is the son of his uncle. Only problem: the child's father never had a brother! The only possible explanation for the researchers is that the baby's father is a human chimera. The most likely hypothesis is that this man had a twin brother in his mother's womb, which he absorbed while they were still young embryos. In doing so, he integrated his genes that ended up in some of his cells and in some of his sperm. One of them gave birth to the child.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37370
A mother's love for her son is often referred to as fusion. We didn't think we'd say it so well! Women are actually fantasies of their children. The first observations date back to the identification of male cells in women who had had male children. It is now known that cells, especially stem cells, can pass, via the blood, from the fetus to the mother and vice versa. Female cells have been observed in men that come from their mothers. Twins can also infuse each other with stem cells when they are in their mother's womb. Again, if they are twins of opposite sex, girls end up with male cells and vice versa. However, the genius of these stem cells, still little differentiated, is to be able to take the form of their neighbors. If, for example, they arrive in the brain next to a neuron, they in turn specialize in neurons. Researchers use them in Parkinson's disease to regenerate damaged parts of the brain. If you have a heart attack, injecting these stem cells can restore the damaged area of your heart. They are hand-made cells that make scientists dream and fantasize about the proponents of eternal youth. In other words, pregnant women receive an infusion of stem cells, considered a fountain of youth! This is perhaps one of the causes of women's highest life expectancy compared to men. In particular, one study showed that women who had more than six children had a higher life expectancy than women without children. In women, these stem cells were found mostly in the breast (where they turned into breast cells) and in the brain (where they specialized in neurons). This regeneration may explain why women who have had children are less likely to develop breast cancer than others.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

#37371
Have been completely destroyed, can be reformed by stem cells, which retain the memory of the experiments of the original worm. Stem cells memorize past learning, such as knowledge of food choices and recognition of dangerous microbes. Eric Ghigo showed that the immune response to staphylococci had entered the memory of stem cells. Resistance to these bacteria was transmitted to each fragment of the severed worm and thus to its clones. We didn't think this information was communicable. This phenomenon is close to the acquisition of knowledge with vertical transfer to the offspring described by the great French naturalist of the early nineteenth century Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck. A new protein, called MORN and associated with resistance to microbes, was then identified in this invertebrate. However, the gene encoding this protein also exists in humans. Work on this worm has therefore led to the finding of a new gene associated with immune protection in humans. It belongs to an unknown system. This discovery has an origin similar to that of the innate immunity mechanism owed to the French Nobel laureate Jules Hoffman. Thanks to planars, serious avenues open up to the regeneration of our tissues and cells and the maintenance of our functions despite aging and on a mythical field of research: that of immortality.

Didier Raoult
(Let's stop being afraid!)

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