Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    A Planet of Viruses: Second Edition
    Unavailable
    A Planet of Viruses: Second Edition
    Unavailable
    A Planet of Viruses: Second Edition
    Ebook141 pages2 hours

    A Planet of Viruses: Second Edition

    By Carl Zimmer

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    For years, scientists have been warning us that a pandemic was all but inevitable. Now it's here, and the rest of us have a lot to learn. 

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateOct 6, 2015
    ISBN9780226320267
    Unavailable
    A Planet of Viruses: Second Edition
    Author

    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.

    Read more from Carl Zimmer

    Related to A Planet of Viruses

    Related ebooks

    Biology For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Blood Harvest

      Feb 26, 2014

      The Blood Harvest
      5 min read

    • Article

      Lifelong Virus Actually Strengthens Older Immune Systems

      Jul 8, 2018

      A virus called cytomegalovirus, or CMV, may strengthen, rather than harm, the immune system in old age, according to new research with mice. Our immune system is at its peak when we’re young, but after a certain age, it declines and it becomes more d

      2 min read

    • Article

      Mass Extinction

      Apr 15, 2021

      Mass Extinction
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Zombie Virus Hunters

      Mar 28, 2024

      The Zombie Virus Hunters
      9 min read

    • Article

      Mini But Mighty: How Microbes Make The World

      Nov 15, 2019

      A pair of studies published this week expand our understanding of the ocean’s tiniest organisms, underscoring the vital role of the mighty microbe.

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Hidden Life of Viruses

      May 13, 2020

      If there is one thing that the coronavirus pandemic has exposed, it is that there is much that we still don’t know about the world around us. Forget about the trillions—OK, more than trillions—of galaxies in the universe that we’ll never explore. Jus

      5 min read

    • Article

      Question Of The Month

      Mar 19, 2024

      Question Of The Month
      1 min read

    • Article

      Chipping Away

      Aug 1, 2021

      Chipping Away
      2 min read

    • Article

      Going Viral

      May 28, 2023

      PATHOGENESIS: How Germs Made History, by Jonathan Kennedy (Torva, $40) When Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer Prizewinning Guns, Germs, and Steel appeared in 1997, it changed the course of how history was written. It was no longer just the stage for kings and

      3 min read

    • Article

      Going Viral

      May 28, 2023

      PATHOGENESIS: How Germs Made History, by Jonathan Kennedy (Torva, $40) When Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer Prizewinning Guns, Germs, and Steel appeared in 1997, it changed the course of how history was written. It was no longer just the stage for kings and

      3 min read

    • Article

      Super Spreaders

      Sep 30, 2020

      Super Spreaders
      13 min read

    • Article

      Deadly Dinosaur Diseases

      Jan 18, 2024

      Deadly Dinosaur Diseases
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Dark Side of Light

      Sep 24, 2019

      Beneath the surface of one of Germany’s deepest lakes, researchers are studying the hidden effects of artificial light.

      15 min read

    Reviews for A Planet of Viruses

    4/5

    121 ratings19 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Fascinating, yet disturbing -- Makes me wish I was a microbiologist!
    • 5/5
      This 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.
    • 5/5
      Interesting survey of viruses.
    • 3/5
      Basic, but interesting.
    • 5/5
      I'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.
    • 4/5
      The 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.
    • 5/5
      This 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.
    • 4/5


      A short but excellent book. I'd like to know more about the mimiviruses and the ones with photosynthetic genes.
    • 5/5
      Great 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
    • 3/5
      Informative, 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.
    • 4/5
      The 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.
    • 5/5
      Nice 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.
    • 3/5
      Mr. 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.
    • 5/5
      If 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.
    • 4/5
      “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.
    • 5/5
      Excelent book. I have opened new world of viruses, this book have changed my view about viruses . Good work
    • 5/5
      An unprecedented journey. A very engaging book
      with full of interesting information about viruses.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book for understanding the history of viruses. Well written, beautifully presented.
    • 5/5
      This 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.