A Planet of Viruses: Second Edition
By Carl Zimmer
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About this ebook
Fortunately, science writer Carl Zimmer is here to guide us. In this compact volume, he tells the story of how the smallest living things known to science can bring an entire planet of people to a halt--and what we can learn from how we've defeated them in the past.
Planet of Viruses covers such threats as Ebola, MERS, and chikungunya virus; tells about recent scientific discoveries, such as a hundred-million-year-old virus that infected the common ancestor of armadillos, elephants, and humans; and shares new findings that show why climate change may lead to even deadlier outbreaks. Zimmer’s lucid explanations and fascinating stories demonstrate how deeply humans and viruses are intertwined. Viruses helped give rise to the first life-forms, are responsible for many of our most devastating diseases, and will continue to control our fate for centuries. Thoroughly readable, and, for all its honesty about the threats, as reassuring as it is frightening, A Planet of Viruses is a fascinating tour of a world we all need to better understand.
Carl Zimmer
Carl Zimmer, author of At the Water's Edge, is 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. A John S. Guggenheim Fellow, he has also received the Pan-American Health Organization Award for Excellence in International Health Reporting and the American Institute of Biological Sciences Media Award. His previous books include Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea, Parasite Rex, and At the Water's Edge. He lives in Guilford, Connecticut.
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Reviews for A Planet of Viruses
121 ratings19 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fascinating, yet disturbing -- Makes me wish I was a microbiologist!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This slim volume is an excellent and highly readable introduction to the subject of viruses for the interested layperson. Written as a series of essays for the Science Education Partnership Award, to help support outreach to students, it covers in compact form an amazing array of basic information about what viruses are, how they affect our lives for good and ill, and the important role they have played in the evolution of life.
Viruses are the smallest life form there is, and there is even dispute over whether they technically qualify as "alive," since they cannot reproduce without hijacking the reproductive capacity of fully developed cells.
Yet they are incredibly powerful and important. We're all familiar with how they make us sick, minor illnesses such as colds, or major ones such as AIDS. Less familiar to most of us is the role they do play and have played in evolution, enabling the movement of genes between individuals and between species. This happens as a result of the way viruses copy themselves using cells ranging from one-cell bacteria to the largest and most complex plants and animals. Much of the life in the ocean is viral life; some of our own genes come from viruses.
This is a fascinating little book, well worth the time you'll spend reading it.
Recommended.
I received a free electronic copy of this book directly from the publisher. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Interesting survey of viruses.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Basic, but interesting.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'll expect nightmares tonight.
'Part chicken part virus' is a phrase that'll stick in my head. Also the image of the world's oceans, which I'll know from now on as chock to the brim with viruses -- few of which want anything to do with me personally -- which is not what can be said of mosquitoes (viruses on wings), or the new crop of viruses evolving in monkeys somewhere in the African jungles as we speak. The chapter entitled 'Our Inner Parasites' should probably be avoided by the hypochondriacally inclined and those with over-active imaginations. I knew I was right to be scared of bats.
Are there anything as terrifying as viruses, really? We're all part human, part virus, and perhaps what makes them so terrifying is that humans are reliant upon viruses at the same time as we are their victims. Viruses are the perfect villain.
I get the sense from this book that humans don't really know a hell of a lot about viruses yet, still struggling to determine whether mimiviruses, for example, are 'living' or not, and why they need all those genes.
Carl Zimmer is an excellent writer of pop-science and I'll be seeking out more from him. He's also made me want to read some Michael Crichton. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Carl Zimmer books I've read get smaller and smaller. First I read Parasite Rex, which as the name suggests, was about parasites. It was a Copernican attempt to remove animals like humans from the center of the biological universe by showing how badly numbered our large multicellular kind are outnumbered by parasites. Then I read Microcosm which was all about e Coli.
Now A Planet of Viruses is smaller in three respects. First, it is about viruses which are tiny compared to parasites and e Coli. Second, the book itself is just short of 100 pages, really a well-connected set of essays about different viruses. Finally, the book feels smaller in terms of the sweep, depth, and insight that Zimmer brings to it. That said, it is worth reading because it is a fast read and has lots of full color pages with interesting pictures of viruses.
Zimmer starts with an introduction, then he has short chapters on the history and biology of about 10 different types of viruses from the common cold to Ebola, with several other less expected ones in between (e.g., ones that live in oceans and in conjunction with sea algae are responsible for much of our atmosphere). It ends with a conclusion that generalizes on the specific observations about individual viruses. The chapters are well chosen to illustrate a range of biological points. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This fascinating book explores the hidden world of viruses—a world that we all inhabit. Here Carl Zimmer, popular science writer and author of Discover magazine’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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
A short but excellent book. I'd like to know more about the mimiviruses and the ones with photosynthetic genes. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great introduction to the world of viruses, which are amazing to begin with. Zimmer writes exceptionally clearly on this very complex subject. in under 200 pages; each of the 12 chapters focuses on a particular virus or type of virus. So much to learn. SRH
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Informative, accessible writing about the sometimes deadly strands of information that are viruses. All the usual suspects are here: West Nile, Ebola, Smallpox, Influenza, HIV and SARS, with interesting insights into the way that their existences were discovered and their effects alleviated.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Carl Zimmer books I've read get smaller and smaller. First I read Parasite Rex, which as the name suggests, was about parasites. It was a Copernican attempt to remove animals like humans from the center of the biological universe by showing how badly numbered our large multicellular kind are outnumbered by parasites. Then I read Microcosm which was all about e Coli.Now A Planet of Viruses is smaller in three respects. First, it is about viruses which are tiny compared to parasites and e Coli. Second, the book itself is just short of 100 pages, really a well-connected set of essays about different viruses. Finally, the book feels smaller in terms of the sweep, depth, and insight that Zimmer brings to it. That said, it is worth reading because it is a fast read and has lots of full color pages with interesting pictures of viruses.Zimmer starts with an introduction, then he has short chapters on the history and biology of about 10 different types of viruses from the common cold to Ebola, with several other less expected ones in between (e.g., ones that live in oceans and in conjunction with sea algae are responsible for much of our atmosphere). It ends with a conclusion that generalizes on the specific observations about individual viruses. The chapters are well chosen to illustrate a range of biological points.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nice introduction to the world of viruses, and some interesting history. It opens up some fascinating ideas for further investigation and reading; in fact, the only shortcoming is that the book is too short.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mr. Zimmer wrote a series of short essays on virology for the World of Viruses Project. This book is based on those and is a largely historically based survey of interesting and important viruses. Zimmer is very good, as usual. The main problem is the book's brevity. A work about twice as long would permit the discussion of some important ideas, some technical information, and some other viruses that are missing here.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If you want to know more about what happened to the world in the past year this is the book for you. In a short space it explains what viruses are and what we can do and have done in the past to defeat and live with them. Please give a copy of this to all your anti vax acquaintances it just might save there lives.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“A Planet full of Viruses” is a fascinating book. It’s short and sweet. Carl Zimmer does give us excellent information about the wide-ranging impact that viruses have on our lives. This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to get a broad brush overview of how viruses pervade our lives. As he writes in the book, without viruses, we would not exist. This is fascinating. This book is again, excellent for anyone who wants this broad brush overview without getting too bogged down into science. I liked it a lot.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excelent book. I have opened new world of viruses, this book have changed my view about viruses . Good work
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An unprecedented journey. A very engaging book
with full of interesting information about viruses. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent book for understanding the history of viruses. Well written, beautifully presented.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book was well written (for a non-technical audience) and is filled with interesting facts about viruses and our relationship with them through the ages - good and bad.
Science meets history in this book. I am so glad I found it on Scribd.