Editorial: Where Did the Virus Come From?

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 154, part 1, 2021, pp. 1–5. ISSN 0035-9173/21/010001-05

Editorial: Where did the virus come from?

Robert Marks Economics, University of New South Wales, Sydney Email: [email protected]

he pandemic continues, with the sci- Journal — went to the late Dr Ann Moyal Tence behind the COVID-19 vaccines FRSN, for her 2017 paper (Moyal, 2017), taking a bow. There are ongoing enquiries written to discuss war-time correspond- about how the virus emerged, but Edward ence between Dr Moyal’s late husband, Holmes, FRSN and NSW Scientist of the Professor José Moyal, erstwhile professor at Year 2020, tells me that there is absolutely Macquarie, and P. A. M. Dirac, the preemi- no evidence of an engineered virus. Indeed, nent Nobel laureate physicist of his time at he says, the genotype shows all the evidence Cambridge. Although Dirac was skeptical of a zoonotic origin, although whence and of Moyal’s statistics approach to quantum exactly when it first infected people remain mechanics, history has vindicated Moyal: unclear. the most recent count from Google Scholar This issue of the Journal contains three for Moyal (1949), a paper that summarised refereed papers: one in reference to the an earlier unpublished paper (that Dirac had late Douglas Adams’ (2002) thoughts (the persuaded Moyal1 to delay), is 3798 cites, at a ‘puddle theory’) on the likelihood of human rate of over 13 cites per month, amazing for life — indeed, any life — in the universe; a quite abstruse paper published over sev- one on the Ellesmere meteorite, found in enty years ago. The Archibald Ollé Award August 1900 in northern NSW, not southern was last presented in 1997. Queensland as erroneously believed; and a As well as the three reviewed papers paper on self-sensing concrete, by Wengui mentioned above, this issue includes a new Li et al. section, ‘Great N.S.W. Inventions,’ record- Indeed, 2020 was the year in which the ing in this issue a presentation made at the Society awarded the Warren Prize for the November 2020 O.G.M. on the role of two of first time, to Dr Simon Devitt, a quantum our Fellows in the amazing development of computer scientist at UTS. The aim of the the virtual elimination of peptic ulcers. Was Prize is to recognize research of national it an example of synchronicity that Adrian or international significance by Australian Lee FRSN had found that, far from being engineers and technologists in their early to germ-free, mammalian stomachs are alive mid careers. In each case, the research must with bacteria that appear to relish the inhos- have originated or have been carried out pitable environs of the stomach and gut principally in New South Wales. I look for- at the same time that Barry Marshall and ward to publishing a promised paper from Robin Warren isolated the bacterium now Dr Devitt soon. A second award in 2020 — the Archibald 1 Moyal had recently escaped from occupied France, Ollé Award for Best Paper published in the and had been directed to work at de Havilland’s by C. P. Snow, then in charge of Scientific Manpower.

1 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Marks — Editorial: Where did the virus come from? known as Helicobactor pylori from human Michael Burton (2013–2015) and Donald stomachs, and suspected that it was impli- Hector (earlier) were the editors immedi- cated in peptic ulcers? Previously, peptic ately before me. ulcers were believed to be caused by excess This year marks the two-hundredth stomach acid, or spicy food.2 anniversary of the Philosophical Society Adrian Lee and Thomas Borody FRSN of Australasia, which is the direct ances- provided the means for establishing that tor of today’s Royal Society of New South Marshall and Warren were right, using the Wales. Given this timely anniversary, I am methodology of the Koch postulates. Borody sad to note that the Federal Government is and Lee developed a therapy to kill the bac- refusing to fund the National Archives of teria in vivo, a necessary step in the proof. Australia adequately; the Archives, under Marshall and Warren shared the Nobel Prize the Attorney-General’s Department, have in Physiology in 2005 for their discovery. I been reduced to appealing for donations agree with Peter Baume FRSN and others from Australian citizens, an unwelcome that both Adrian Lee and Thomas Borody version of crowdfunding. Meanwhile, other deserved to share in the Nobel glory. national institutions, such as the Austral- The issue also includes the seven presenta- ian War Memorial, are being more than tions by the participants in last November’s adequately funded by the Federal Govern- Four Academies Forum on “After COVID- ment. To celebrate our two-hundredth 19: Creating the Best of Times from the anniversary, the Royal Society will pre- Worst of Times,” as well as a discussion, the sent the exhibition, ‘The Royal Society of Governor’s opening address, and the rap- New South Wales. Nexus: Origins, Ideas, porteur’s summing-up. Will the government Advances, Impacts, 1821–2021’ at the State take their advice after the pandemic? This Library of NSW from late June 2021. A per- remains to be seen. sonal note: one of my oldest friends, John The issue also includes three PhD C. H. Spence ForMemRS, died aged 75 in abstracts. June 2021; he published a paper here in 2019. Since 2013 the Journal has been fortunate to have had 118 reviewers and helpers in the Housekeeping process of processing papers. Such people I wish to thank Jason Antony for his excel- have not been publicly thanked for some lent work at formatting this issue of the years, but we acknowledge them explicitly Journal, while at the same time editing the in this issue, with their names and affilia- Society’s Bulletin. The Editorial Board has tions listed below.3 This is my eleventh issue; provided excellent editorial support, as always. See the inside front cover for the 2 See Graham and Dore (2016) for a comprehensive Board’s membership. discussion of this. 3 We could not determine the affiliations of three people: Peter Ackland, Xanthe Lam, and Alan Palmer. If you have information on any of these, or any other person on the list, please let us know: we can amend the on-line documents. Sadly, Brian Spies FRSN (1949–2020) has died since his seminal contribution to the 2016 Forum (Spies, 2017).

2 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Marks — Editorial: Where did the virus come from?

References Moyal, J. E. (1949). Quantum mechanics as a Adams, D. (2002). The Salmon of Doubt. William statistical theory. Proceedings of the Cambridge Heinemann. Philosophical Society, 45, 99–124. Graham, D. Y., & Dore M. P. (2016). Spence, J. C. H. (2019). Speed limit: How the Helicobacter pylori therapy: A paradigm shift. search for an absolute frame of reference Expert Rev. Anti Infect, Ther, 14(6), 577–585. in the universe led to Einstein’s equation 2 Moyal, A. (2017). P. A. M. Dirac and the E=mc — a history of measurements of the maverick mathematician. Journal & speed of light. Journal & Proceedings of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Royal Society of New South Wales, 152, 216–241. Wales, 150(2), 188–194. Spies, B. (2017). The science and politics of climate change. Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 150, 48–60.

Thank you The Editor of the Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales would like to acknowledge and thank the following 118 researchers, together with the Editorial Board, who reviewed articles for the Journal, or suggested appropriate reviewers, from 2013 to 2021.

Peter Ackland Andrew Blakers Eric Colhoun Australian National University University of Newcastle

Olivier Alard Mark Bradford Warwick Couch Macquarie University UNSW Sydney Swinburne University of Technology

Barry Allen Rachael Brown Graham Davies Medical Scitec Australia Australian National University UNSW Sydney

Micheal S. Allen Michael Burton Stephen Duckett University of Florida UNSW Sydney Grattan Institute

Trevor Allen David Blair Andrew Dzurak Geoscience Australia University of Western Australia UNSW Sydney

Mike Archer Howard Bridgman David C. Earnest UNSW Sydney University of Newcastle University of South Dakota

Eric Aslaksen Andrew Boulton Gary Egan Gumbooya Pty Ltd, Sydney University of New England Monash University

Linda Bartolomei Maria Byrne Wayne Erskine † UNSW Sydney University of Sydney

Robin Beck Simon Carlile David Fenwick UNSW Sydney University of Sydney University of Technology Sydney

David Black Jaavan Chahl Len Fisher UNSW Sydney University of South Australia University of Bristol

† deceased

3 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Marks — Editorial: Where did the virus come from?

Sean Fitzsimmons Heinz Hora Iain Macgill University of Otago UNSW Sydney UNSW Sydney

Ken Freeman Vadim Kamenetsky Stuart Macintyre Australian National University University of Tasmania University of Melbourne

Alex Frino Jim Kehoe Andrew Mackintosh University of Sydney UNSW Sydney Monash University

Matthias Gauly Brian Kennett Roy MacLeod University of Bolzano Australian National University University of Sydney

Jim Gehling R. Keller Kopf Haggai Mazuz South Australian Museum Charles Darwin University Bar-Ilan University

Ian Gilbert Thaddeus D. Ladd Robert F. Melchers UNSW Sydney HRL Laboratories University of Newcastle

Ken Graham Mike Lake Francesca Merlan Australian Museum University of Technology Sydney Australian National University

Des Griffin Xanthe Lam Barbara Messerle Australian Museum University of Sydney

Jeff Grossman Charlie Lineweaver Bernard Michaux NASA HQ Australian National University Kaukapakapa, NZ

Elliott Gyger Nick Lomb John Morley University of Melbourne Sydney Observatory Western Sydney University

Suzanne Hand Pamela Long Daniel Mörlein UNSW Sydney MacArthur Fellow University of Göttingen

Geoff Harcourt Mitchell Low Ann Moyal † University of Adelaide Curtin University

Chris Harmer Ye Lu Clare Murphy University of Sydney Monash University University of Wollongong

Don Hector FRSN Yiu-Wing Mai Guy Narbonne University of Sydney Queen’s University

Brynn Hibbert John McCaughey Oliver Nebel UNSW Sydney Astra Choir Monash University

Grant Hollaway Scott Mooney Nigel Nettheim Agriculture Victoria UNSW Sydney Western Sydney University

Edward Holmes Vaughan Macefield Frank Nichols University of Sydney Baker Heart & Diabetes Institute University of Sydney

† deceased

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Ray Norris Alan Rubin Ian Wilkinson Western Sydney University UCLA University of Sydney

Justin O'Brien Brian Schmidt John Williamson UNSW Sydney Australian National University University of Tasmania

Paul Ormerod Tim Senden David Wiltshire Volterra.co.uk Australian National University University of Canterbury

Alan Palmer Fran Sheldon Joe Wolfe Griffith University UNSW Sydney

Dean Popovski Carl Spandler Toshihiro Yamada Hospital for Sick Children University of Adelaide Taisho University

Elsen Price Brian Spies † Greg Yaxley Musical artist, Sydney Australian National University

Gianluca Ranzi Fiona Stapleton Ann Young University of Sydney UNSW Sydney University of Sydney

Mandy Reid John Storey Douglas Young Australian Museum UNSW Sydney University of Sussex

Gregory Retallak Adam Stow Ian Young University of Oregon Macquarie University University of Sydney

David Reubenheimer Martin van Kranendonk Robert Young University of Sydney UNSW Sydney University of Sydney

Don Robertson Malcolm Walter Cosmos Zachos University of Western Australia UNSW Sydney Argonne National Laboratory

Andrew Robson Kuo-Lung Wang Ghil'ad Zuckermann University of New England National Chi Nan University University of Adelaide

† deceased