Curious Coincidence

Is some knowledge too dangerous to possess? Covid-19 has put cutting-edge research on pandemic germs under the spotlight. 

We Meet:

Rowan Jacobsen, journalist

Gigi Gronvall, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and associate professor

Kevin Esvelt, professor and head of Sculpting Evolution Group, MIT Media Lab

Links:

Senator Paul and Dr. Fauci Clash Over Research Funding of Wuhan Lab, C-SPAN

Inside the risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan, MIT Technology Review

“We never created a supervirus.” Ralph Baric explains gain-of-function research, MIT Technology Review

Manipulating viruses and risking pandemics is too dangerous. It’s time to stop, Washington Post

Credits:

Curious Coincidence was produced as part of MIT Technology Review's Pandemic Technology Project, which is supported in part by a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation. The series was created by Antonio Regalado and Jennifer Strong and produced by Anthony Green, Luke Robert Mason and Lindsay Muscato, with help from Emma Cillekens. The executive producer is Golda Arthur. Theme music was composed and recorded by Jacob Gorski, with Ben Tolliday on cello and Ben Haeuser on woodwinds. The episodes contain original scoring and sound design by Garret Lang. Art direction by Eric Mongeon with illustration by Selman Design. The series was edited by Michael Reilly, David Rotman and Jennifer Strong, with fact checking by Matt Mahoney.

Scientists zero in on a market in the city of Wuhan as the place the pandemic started. But information on China’s wild-animal trade is hard to uncover.

We Meet:

Michael Standaert, freelance journalist based in China

Alex Crits-Christoph, bioinformatician, Johns Hopkins University

Matthew Pottinger, former deputy national security adviser

Ho-fung Hung, political economist, Johns Hopkins University

Links:

No one can find the animal that gave people covid-19, MIT Technology Review

In search for coronavirus origins, Hubei caves and wildlife farms draw new scrutiny, The Washington Post

The Huanan market was the epicenter of SARS-CoV-2 emergence, Zenodo

Holding Beijing Accountable For The Coronavirus Is Not Racist, Journal of Political Risk

Credits:

Curious Coincidence was produced as part of MIT Technology Review's Pandemic Technology Project, which is supported in part by a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation.

The series was created by Antonio Regalado and Jennifer Strong and produced by Anthony Green, Luke Robert Mason and Lindsay Muscato, with help from Emma Cillekens. The executive producer is Golda Arthur.

Theme music was composed and recorded by Jacob Gorski, with Ben Tolliday on cello and Ben Haeuser on woodwinds. The episodes contain original scoring and sound design by Garret Lang.

Art direction by Eric Mongeon with illustration by Selman Design.

The series was edited by Michael Reilly, David Rotman and Jennifer Strong, with fact checking by Matt Mahoney.

Lab accidents have caused disease outbreaks before, and accidents are more common - and kept more secret - than you think.

We Meet:

Alison Young, journalism professor, Missouri School of Journalism

Gigi Gronvall, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and associate professor Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Links:

Biolabs in your backyard, USA Today

The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate, Michelle Rozo & Gigi Gronvall, ASM Journals

Influenza: Old and New Threats, Peter Palese, Nature Medicine

Credits:

Curious Coincidence was produced as part of MIT Technology Review's Pandemic Technology Project, which is supported in part by a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation.

The series was created by Antonio Regalado and Jennifer Strong and produced by Anthony Green, Luke Robert Mason and Lindsay Muscato, with help from Emma Cillekens. The executive producer is Golda Arthur.

Theme music was composed and recorded by Jacob Gorski, with Ben Tolliday on cello and Ben Haeuser on woodwinds. The episodes contain original scoring and sound design by Garret Lang.

Art direction by Eric Mongeon with illustration by Selman Design.

The series was edited by Michael Reilly, David Rotman and Jennifer Strong, with fact checking by Matt Mahoney.

A group of self-appointed online investigators decide to investigate a Chinese lab. Their findings only deepen doubts.

We meet:

The Seeker, internet sleuth

Rowan Jacobsen, journalist

Links:

Meet the scientist at the center of the covid lab leak controversy, MIT Technology Review

Credits:

Curious Coincidence was produced as part of MIT Technology Review's Pandemic Technology Project, which is supported in part by a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation.

The series was created by Antonio Regalado and Jennifer Strong and produced by Anthony Green, Luke Robert Mason and Lindsay Muscato, with help from Emma Cillekens. The executive producer is Golda Arthur.

Theme music was composed and recorded by Jacob Gorski, with Ben Tolliday on cello and Ben Haeuser on woodwinds. The episodes contain original scoring and sound design by Garret Lang.

Art direction by Eric Mongeon with illustration by Selman Design.

The series was edited by Michael Reilly, David Rotman and Jennifer Strong, with fact checking by Matt Mahoney.

Why we need to find the truth, and the “curious coincidence” that set off a battle over covid-19’s origin.

We Meet:

Peter Ben Embarek, WHO program manager and covid-19 origins mission leader

Jesse Bloom, virologist, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Alina Chan, postdoc, Broad Institute of MIT/Harvard

Natasha Loder, health policy editor with The Economist

Links:

On Finding Answers, by Natasha Loder on Substack

They called it a conspiracy theory. But Alina Chan tweeted life into the idea that the virus came from a lab, MIT Technology Review

No one can find the animal that gave people covid-19, MIT Technology Review

Credits:

Curious Coincidence was produced as part of MIT Technology Review's Pandemic Technology Project, which is supported in part by a grant from The Rockefeller Foundation.

The series was created by Antonio Regalado and Jennifer Strong and produced by Anthony Green, Luke Robert Mason and Lindsay Muscato, with help from Emma Cillekens. The executive producer is Golda Arthur.

Theme music was composed and recorded by Jacob Gorski, with Ben Tolliday on cello and Ben Haeuser on woodwinds. The episodes contain original scoring and sound design by Garret Lang.

Art direction by Eric Mongeon with illustration by Selman Design.

The series was edited by Michael Reilly, David Rotman and Jennifer Strong, with fact checking by Matt Mahoney.

This is a detective story that’s unsolved. Hosted by investigative reporter Antonio Regalado, Curious Coincidence dives into the mysterious origins of Covid-19 by examining the genome of the virus, the labs doing sensitive research on dangerous pathogens, and questions of whether a lab accident may have touched off a global pandemic.

A five part investigation from MIT Technology Review.