Scientists dismiss new claims that the coronavirus was made in a lab

By Graham Lawton

A research paper claiming to prove that the coronavirus was cooked up in a laboratory has been widely dismissed by mainstream scientists.

The paper, which was posted online earlier this week and hasn’t been peer reviewed, says that “unusual features” of the virus’s genome suggest “sophisticated laboratory modification rather than natural evolution”. The authors allege that the modification of one or more bat viruses was carried out in a Chinese government laboratory in Wuhan.

Experts poured scorn on the claim. The paper …