A Planet of Viruses

by Zimmer, Carl

• ISBN13: 9780226983363
• ISBN10: 0226983366
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-04-30
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Viruses are the smallest living things known to science, yet they hold the entire planet in their sway. We are most familiar with the viruses that give us colds or the flu, but viruses also cause a vast range of other diseases, including one disorder that makes people sprout branch-like growths as if they were trees. Viruses have been a part of our lives for so long, in fact, that weare actually part virus: the human genome contains more DNA from viruses than our own genes. Meanwhile, scientists are discovering viruses everywhere they look: in the soil, in the ocean, even in caves miles underground. This fascinating book explores the hidden world of viruses-a world that we all inhabit. Here Carl Zimmer, popular science writer and author of Discovermagazine's award-winning blog The Loom, presents the latest research on how viruses hold sway over our lives and our biosphere, how viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, how viruses are producing new diseases, how we can harness viruses for our own ends, and how viruses will continue to control our fate for years to come. In this eye-opening tour of the frontiers of biology, where scientists are expanding our understanding of life as we know it, we learn that some treatments for the common cold do more harm than good; that the world's oceans are home to an astonishing number of viruses; and that the evolution of HIV is now in overdrive, spawning more mutated strains than we care to imagine. The New York Times Book Reviewcalls Carl Zimmer "as fine a science essayist as we have." A Planet of Virusesis sure to please his many fans and further enhance his reputation as one of America's most respected and admired science journalists.

Author Biography

Carl Zimmer is a lecturer at Yale University, where he teaches writing about science and the environment. He is the author of numerous books, including Microcosm; Parasite Rex; Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea; At the Water's Edge; and Soul Made Flesh. His numerous essays and articles on the life sciences have appeared in the pages of the New York Times, Scientific American, Discover, Time, Science, Popular Science, and National Geographic. His work has been anthologized in both The Best American Science Writing and The Best American Science and Nature Writing series.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Introduction "A Contagious Living Fluid": Tobacco Mosaic Virus	p. 1
Old Companions
The Uncommon Cold Rhinovirus	p. 9
Looking Down from the Stars Influenza Virus	p. 15
Rabbits with Horns Human Papillomavirus	p. 23
Everywhere, In All Things
The Enemy of Our Enemy Bacteriophages	p. 33
The Infected Ocean Marine Phages	p. 41
Our Inner Parasites Endogenous Retroviruses	p. 47
The Viral Future
The Young Scourge Human Immunodeficiency Virus	p. 55
Becoming an American West Nile Virus	p. 65
Predicting the Next Plague
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and Ebola	p. 73
The Long Goodbye
Smallpox	p. 81
Epilogue: The Alien in the Watercooler: Mimivirus	p. 89
Acknowledgments	p. 95
Selected references	p. 97
Credits	p. 103
Index	p. 105
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