Parasite Rex (with a New Epilogue) Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures

by Zimmer, Carl

• ISBN13: 9780743200110
• ISBN10: 074320011X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-11-09
• Publisher: Atria Books

Summary

IMAGINE A WORLD WHERE parasites control the minds of their hosts, sending them to their destruction.IMAGINE A WORLD WHERE parasites are masters of chemical warfare and camouflage, able to cloak themselves with their hosts' own molecules.IMAGINE A WORLD WHERE parasites steer the course of evolution, where the majority of species are parasites.WELCOME TO EARTH.For centuries, parasites have lived in nightmares, horror stories, and in the darkest shadows of science. Yet these creatures are among the world's most successful and sophisticated organisms. InParasite Rex,Carl Zimmer deftly balances the scientific and the disgusting as he takes readers on a fantastic voyage. Traveling from the steamy jungles of Costa Rica to the fetid parasite haven of southern Sudan, Zimmer graphically brings to life how parasites can change DNA, rewire the brain, make men more distrustful and women more outgoing, and turn hosts into the living dead.This thorough, gracefully written book brings parasites out into the open and uncovers what they can teach us about the most fundamental survival tactics in the universe.

Author Biography

Carl Zimmer is the author of At the Water's Edge and a frequent contributor to Discover, National Geographic, Natural History, Nature, and Science. He is a winner of the Everett Clark Award for science journalism and the American Institute of Biological Sciences Media Award. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Prologue: A Vein Is a River	ix
First sightings of the inner world
Nature's Criminals	1	(22)
How parasites came to be hated by just about everyone
Terra Incognita	23	(32)
Swimming through the heart, fighting to the death inside a caterpillar, and other parasitic adventures
The Thirty Years' War	55	(24)
How parasites provoke, manipulate, and get intimate with our immune system
A Precise Horror	79	(39)
How parasites turn their hosts into castrated slaves, drink blood, and manage to change the balance of nature
The Great Step Inward	118	(39)
Four billion years in the reign of parasite Rex
Evolution from Within	157	(33)
The peacock's tail, the origin of species, and other battles against the rules of evolution
The Two-Legged Host	190	(26)
How Homo sapiens grew up with creatures inside
How to Live in a Parasitic World	216	(31)
A sick planet, and how the most newly arrived parasite can be part of a cure
Glossary	247	(4)
Notes	251	(14)
Further Reading and Selected Bibliography	265	(22)
Acknowledgments	287	(2)
Index	289