A paradigm shift.

What a time, no? Filled with so much upside down oddity, so much counter-intuitive strange. Who could have ever thought that pumping tons and tons of free money into an economy makes the price of goods go up? Who would have ever dreamed that shark, generally misanthropic, hold the secret to curing mankind of its current dreaded ailment?

Not surfers, certainly, but a new study just released in the scientific journal Nature Communications makes it entirely clear that sharks, broadly man-eating, have proteins that act as antibody to Covid-19 and its variations.

Care to sample?

Single-domain Variable New Antigen Receptors (VNARs) from the immune system of sharks are the smallest naturally occurring binding domains found in nature. Possessing flexible paratopes that can recognize protein motifs inaccessible to classical antibodies, VNARs have yet to be exploited for the development of SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics. Here, we detail the identification of a series of VNARs from a VNAR phage display library screened against the SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD). The ability of the VNARs to neutralize pseudotype and authentic live SARS-CoV-2 virus rivalled or exceeded that of full-length immunoglobulins and other single-domain antibodies. Crystallographic analysis of two VNARs found that they recognized separate epitopes on the RBD and had distinctly different mechanisms of virus neutralization unique to VNARs. Structural and biochemical data suggest that VNARs would be effective therapeutic agents against emerging SARS-CoV-2 mutants, including the Delta variant, and coronaviruses across multiple phylogenetic lineages. This study highlights the utility of VNARs as effective therapeutics against coronaviruses and may serve as a critical milestone for nearing a paradigm shift of the greater biologic landscape.

I am almost loathe to share the wonderful news, as sharks have long been a natural deterrent to the VAL invasion but maybe no longer.

Maybe many soft toppers will head out to the lineup hoping to catch a little nibble along with the other great passion of clogging the inside.

The shark proteins have not been tested on humans yet but will be soon and I think surfers, for all the frontline work done amongst the toothy beasts, should be first in line.

Sensible.

Cocaine's a hell of a drug etc.

A forty-six kilogram shipment of “pure white cocaine”, compressed into bricks and sealed in black plastic, was found on the beach at Jeffreys Bay last Wednesday and handed into local police by a couple walking their dog. 

“The suspected drugs were seized for forensic examination and the docket was referred to Hawks Serious Organised Crime Investigation team based in Gqeberha for a further probe,” said the local head cop. “No arrest at this stage pending the ongoing investigation.”

It’s about now you play that little game of what-would-you-do? Forty-six kegs ain’t an amount to be trifled with. 

Cut into one-gram bags, street value in Australia $400, let’s say it’s diluted by fifty percent, and that’s thirty-six million dollars. (Unless my maths ain’t functioning.)

Yeah, South Africa is a hell of a lot cheaper. And, yeah, that’s someone else’s coke and they ain’t gonna be happy if you’re schlepping it around.

So what would you do?

Hand it in?

Cut a piece off for personal use, maybe a little extra for pals?

Go full Pablo Escobar?

Me?

Ain’t my favourite treat although I do subscribe to Aleister Crowley’s take in Diary of a Drug Fiend.

“Until you’ve got your mouth full of cocaine, you don’t know what kissing is. One kiss goes on from phase to phase like one of those novels by Balzac and Zola and Romain Rolland and D. H. Lawrence and those chaps. And you never get tired. You’re on fourth speed all the time, and the engine purrs like a kitten, a big white kitten with the stars in its whiskers.”