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A comment on Why can’t we cure the common cold?.

Re:Why can’t we cure the common cold? by patall on Sunday October 22, 2017 @05:47AM (#15525924)
Interesting read. Unfortunately it then comes to a sentence like this:

"For his PhD on asthma, Johnston developed a technique called polymerase chain reaction, which magnifies DNA so that viruses can be identified more precisely."

which make me not sure what to believe: Is that bad spelling or has the author not even basic knowledge of modern biology?

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Re:Why can’t we cure the common cold? by hanniabu on Sunday October 22, 2017 @05:58AM (#15525956)
I'm not well educated as I have no idea what you're referring to, mind pointing out what in specific was misspelled or not correct.
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Re:Why can’t we cure the common cold? by danieltillett on Sunday October 22, 2017 @06:01AM (#15525964)
The problem with the quote is Jonston neither invented the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) nor are most cold viruses DNA viruses (most are RNA).
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Re:Why can’t we cure the common cold? by patall on Sunday October 22, 2017 @06:07AM (#15525984)
Exactly. PCR is THE backbone of modern biology, I would suspect an author writing about it know at least what it is. I assume she meant 'adapted' instead of 'developed' but still, it sounds fishy and makes you unneccessarily question every other sentence of the article.
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Re:Why can’t we cure the common cold? by mrob on Sunday October 22, 2017 @06:37AM (#15526075)
The reporter also called cholera a virus. You can't expect too much from science reporting in mainstream newspapers.
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Re:Why can’t we cure the common cold? by danieltillett on Sunday October 22, 2017 @06:42AM (#15526088)
This is certainly true. Of course if they can't report science correctly what chance do they have on any other subject that I don't know about :)
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Re:Why can’t we cure the common cold? by TeMPOraL on Sunday October 22, 2017 @09:19AM (#15526683)
Zero. Why people believe anything that's in mainstream news is beyond me.
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Re:Why can’t we cure the common cold? by bhickey on Sunday October 22, 2017 @07:51AM (#15526366)
The writer is mistaken, but cholera pathogenicity is caused by a virus. A temperate phage carries the genes for cholera toxin and infects cholera bacteria.
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