Show Notes
Note: This is a freely accessible serialized version of Lab Leak Fever. Audio voiceover was AI generated for accessibility. Find an overview of all chapters here or consult the book website for further information. The hollow sound of our footsteps echoed through the boundless darkness; a solemn silence had befallen us, like in a temple. Our cave guide held up a single old gas lamp, the only source of light. The flickering flame instilled the unmoving stone walls and pillars with life. Salt crystal veins grew over some walls, pure white, like frozen spiderwebs on a frosty graveyard. Ducking down and crawling through a narrow passage, we entered an underground dome. The constrained light did its best to fight back the darkness, with shadows seemingly chasing, encircling, and reaching for us. Bizarre shapes and figures carved from rock, resembling dogs and cat-like canines, chased us along our way. Some other formations evoked memories of lush forests, candle wax, and mossy grass, petrified here for immortality. Who or what could have created these shapes that played a trick on my eyes? For centuries, these rock formations were subject to interpretation by the locals. Like us, they would see in them animals and plants, contemporary objects, even spirits or stories. Elephants, lotuses, passion fruit, a candle, and a hermit shooting fire out of his eyes were among the objects they perceived. Clearly, what our guide stated as a matter of fact, or whatever elements others had perceived in the past, would not necessarily be intuitive to us. These figments were haunting yet oddly bewitching; the scars in the rocks were the perfect vehicle for the scars in our minds: tortured figures, painful convolutions, death, and decay. A jovial mechanical skeleton that stood at the entrance to Chiang Dao Cave, shaking and waving hands at tourists, rushed back into my mind. “It’s a reminder that we should laugh at death,” Peter Daszak said, pointing out its purpose. He had seen similar things all over Thailand, especially at cave entries. There was, of course, a cultural history. Ajahn Mun, a monk credited with forming the Kammaṭṭhāna, or the Thai forest tradition of Buddhism that subsequently spread throughout Thailand, was known to seek out secluded places in the wilds to mediate. The reclusiveness of caves was meant to help eliminate the defilements in the mind, develop detachment from material things, and thus deepen Buddhist practice. He is said to have attained anāgāmi — the breakage of being reborn into the human world — after meditating for three years in the Sarika Cave in Ratchaburi, not too dissimilar from Chiang Dao. At first, the local villagers wouldn’t take Ajahn Mun to the cave because of a local legend. They believed a terrestrial deva (a spirit or deity) was occupying the cave and killing intruders. This was supported by serial accounts of monks stricken with fatal illnesses after residing in the cave. And indeed, on the fourth night of staying there, Ajahn Mun would fall sick to the point of passing blood. No herbal medication would help; only surrendering to the Buddhist path would save him, so the retelling goes. Many myths contain a kernel of truth, and the occurrence of a mysterious illness befalling humans in caves is certainly not unheard of. In fact, these stories are usually what motivate scientists like Peter Daszak and others to investigate caves in the first place. But not today. We were trying to understand a different enigma, one no less worthy of investigation. ¨What is the reason we tend to perceive patterns that are not real? It is a question that has fascinated me for a long time, because much of our behavior comes down to our quick inferences, not careful analysis. § In early February 2020, a WeChat message appeared: The novel 2019 coronavirus is nature punishing the human race for keeping uncivilized living habits. I, Shi Zhengli, swear on my life that it has nothing to do with our laboratory. …I advise those w
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