Parasite Rex
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Parasite Rex
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Author : Carl Zimmer
language : en
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date : 2001-11-09
Parasite Rex written by Carl Zimmer and has been published by Simon and Schuster this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2001-11-09 with Science categories.
A look inside the often hidden world of parasites turns the clock back to the beginning of life on Earth to answer key questions about these highly evolved and resilient life forms.
Parasite Rex
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Author : Carl Zimmer
language : en
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date : 2000-09-21
Parasite Rex written by Carl Zimmer and has been published by Simon and Schuster this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2000-09-21 with Science categories.
Combining the literary sensibility of David Quammen with the scientific rigor of Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Zimmer reveals the power, danger, and beauty of the surprising creatures who dominate the earth: parasites. For centuries, parasites have lived in nightmares, horror stories, and the darkest shadows of science. In Parasite Rex, Carl Zimmer takes readers on a fantastic voyage into the secret universe of these extraordinary life-forms—which are not only among the most highly evolved on Earth, but make up the majority of life’s diversity. Traveling from the steamy jungles of Costa Rica to the parasite-riddled war zone of southern Sudan, Zimmer introduces an array of amazing creatures that invade their hosts, prey on them from within, and control their behavior. He also vividly describes parasites that can change DNA, rewire the brain, make men more distrustful and women more outgoing, and turn hosts into the living dead. This comprehensive, gracefully written book brings parasites out into the open and uncovers what they can teach us all about the most fundamental survival tactics in the universe—the laws of Parasite Rex.
Parasite Rex
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Author : Carl Zimmer
language : en
Publisher: Random House
Release Date : 2003
Parasite Rex written by Carl Zimmer and has been published by Random House this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2003 with Host-parasite relationships categories.
Almost every animal will at some time or another become the home of a parasite. Not only are parasites the most successful life-forms on Earth, they triggered the development of sex, shape ecosystems, and have driven the engine of evolution. Zimmer describes the frightening and amazing ingenuity these commando invaders use to devour their hosts from the inside and control their behaviour. Sacculina carcini makes its home in an unlucky crab and proceeds to eat everything but what the crab needs to put food in its mouth, which Sacculina then consumes. Single-celled Toxoplasma gondi has an even more insidious role, for it can invade the human brain and cause personality changes, making its host less afraid and more prone to danger and a violent end - so that, in the carnage, it will be able to move on to another host. Finally, Zimmer concludes that humankind itself is a new kind of parasite, one that preys on the entire earth. If we are to achieve the sophistication of the parasites on display here in vivid detail, if we are to promote the flourishing of life in all its diversity as they do, we must learn the ways nature lives with itself, the laws of Parasite Rex.
This Is Your Brain On Parasites
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Author : Kathleen McAuliffe
language : en
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date : 2016-06-07
This Is Your Brain On Parasites written by Kathleen McAuliffe and has been published by HarperCollins this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-06-07 with Science categories.
“Engrossing … [An] expedition through the hidden and sometimes horrifying microbial domain.” —Wall Street Journal “Fascinating—and full of the kind of factoids you can't wait to share.” —Scientific American Parasites can live only inside another animal and, as Kathleen McAuliffe reveals, these tiny organisms have many evolutionary motives for manipulating the behavior of their hosts. With astonishing precision, parasites can coax rats to approach cats, spiders to transform the patterns of their webs, and fish to draw the attention of birds that then swoop down to feast on them. We humans are hardly immune to their influence. Organisms we pick up from our own pets are strongly suspected of changing our personality traits and contributing to recklessness and impulsivity—even suicide. Germs that cause colds and the flu may alter our behavior even before symptoms become apparent. Parasites influence our species on the cultural level, too. Drawing on a huge body of research, McAuliffe argues that our dread of contamination is an evolved defense against parasites. The horror and revulsion we are programmed to feel when we come in contact with people who appear diseased or dirty helped pave the way for civilization, but may also be the basis for major divisions in societies that persist to this day. This Is Your Brain on Parasites is both a journey into cutting-edge science and a revelatory examination of what it means to be human. “If you’ve ever doubted the power of microbes to shape society and offer us a grander view of life, read on and find yourself duly impressed.” —Heather Havrilesky, Bookforum
People Parasites And Plowshares
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Author : Dickson D. Despommier
language : en
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Release Date : 2013-07-16
People Parasites And Plowshares written by Dickson D. Despommier and has been published by Columbia University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013-07-16 with Medical categories.
Dickson D. Despommier's vivid, visceral account of the biology, behavior, and history of parasites follows the interplay between these fascinating life forms and human society over thousands of years. Despommier focuses on long-term host-parasite associations, which have evolved to avoid or even subvert the human immune system. Some parasites do great damage to their hosts, while others have signed a kind of "peace treaty" in exchange for their long lives within them. Many parasites also practice clever survival strategies that medical scientists hope to mimic as they search for treatments for Crohn's disease, food allergies, type 1 diabetes, organ transplantation, and other medical challenges. Despommier concentrates on particularly remarkable and often highly pathogenic organisms, describing their lifecycles and the mechanisms they use to avoid elimination. He details their attack and survival plans and the nature of the illnesses they cause in general terms, enabling readers of all backgrounds to steal a glimpse into the secret work of such effective invaders. He also points to the cultural contexts in which these parasites thrive and reviews the current treatments available to defeat them. Encouraging scientists to continue to study these organisms even if their threat is largely contained, Despommier shows how closer dissection of the substances parasites produce to alter our response to them could help unravel some of our most complex medical conundrums.
Microcosm
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Author : Carl Zimmer
language : en
Publisher: Random House
Release Date : 2012-12-31
Microcosm written by Carl Zimmer and has been published by Random House this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-12-31 with Science categories.
In 1946, a twenty-year-old medical school student called Joshua Lederberg decided to find out whether microbes make love. Lederberg was motivated not by a displaced libido, but by scientific ambition. At the age of seven, he had declared that he hoped to become 'like Einstein' and to 'discover a few things in science.' The 'few things' Lederberg discovered would revolutionise modern science and earn him a Nobel Prize. He chose to observe the breeding habits of a certain bacterium called Escherichia coli, better known as E coli. His experiments used defective E coli strains lacking the essential molecules to reproduce by cloning which should, by rights, perish in the petri dish. But slowly, a few colonies of survivors began to spread accross the dishes. The only possible explanation for their survival was that they were a product of sex. Not only had Lederberg proved that bacteria have sex, he had also proved they have genes. Since then, a bacterium that was once nothing more than a humble resident of the human gut has become our best guide to what it means to be alive. Most of us might only know E coli for its lethal strain that causes food poisoning, but Zimmer uses E coli as a prism to understand what life is, what it was, and what it will become. We learn how E coli microbes talk to each other, how studies of their evolution represent the most powerful evidence in support of natural selection, and how they might just explain life on other planets...
At The Water S Edge
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Author : Carl Zimmer
language : en
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date : 1999-09-08
At The Water S Edge written by Carl Zimmer and has been published by Simon and Schuster this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1999-09-08 with Science categories.
Everybody Out of the Pond At the Water's Edge will change the way you think about your place in the world. The awesome journey of life's transformation from the first microbes 4 billion years ago to Homo sapiens today is an epic that we are only now beginning to grasp. Magnificent and bizarre, it is the story of how we got here, what we left behind, and what we brought with us. We all know about evolution, but it still seems absurd that our ancestors were fish. Darwin's idea of natural selection was the key to solving generation-to-generation evolution -- microevolution -- but it could only point us toward a complete explanation, still to come, of the engines of macroevolution, the transformation of body shapes across millions of years. Now, drawing on the latest fossil discoveries and breakthrough scientific analysis, Carl Zimmer reveals how macroevolution works. Escorting us along the trail of discovery up to the current dramatic research in paleontology, ecology, genetics, and embryology, Zimmer shows how scientists today are unveiling the secrets of life that biologists struggled with two centuries ago. In this book, you will find a dazzling, brash literary talent and a rigorous scientific sensibility gracefully brought together. Carl Zimmer provides a comprehensive, lucid, and authoritative answer to the mystery of how nature actually made itself.
Parasites
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Author : Rosemary Drisdelle
language : en
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Release Date : 2010
Parasites written by Rosemary Drisdelle and has been published by Univ of California Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2010 with History categories.
The evolution and life history of parasites, their role in shaping human history, as well as future threats posed by them.
New Guinea Tapeworms And Jewish Grandmothers Tales Of Parasites And People
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Author : Robert S. Desowitz
language : en
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Release Date : 1987-05-17
New Guinea Tapeworms And Jewish Grandmothers Tales Of Parasites And People written by Robert S. Desowitz and has been published by W. W. Norton & Company this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 1987-05-17 with Health & Fitness categories.
The medical tapestry of the world is full of organisms too small to see, carried by flying and creeping creatures too numerous to eradicate. A while ago, DDT and the antimalarial drug chloroquine seemed sure to make us all safe from such invisible assault. It was not to be. The mosquito has become resistant to DDT; malaria is on the rise; although tapeworms rarely turn up any longer in the most lovingly prepared New York City gefilte fish, a worm may inhabit your sashimi; some strains of gonorrhea actually thrive on penicillin; there is even a parasite for the higher tax brackets—the "nymph of Nantucket"; and there are new ailments—legionnaire's disease, Lassa fever, and new strains of influenza. In the long run, one might bet on the insects and the germs. Meanwhile Dr. Robert Desowitz has written a delightful and instructive book.
Worm Story
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Author : Morris Gleitzman
language : en
Publisher: Penguin Group Australia
Release Date : 2004-11-29
Worm Story written by Morris Gleitzman and has been published by Penguin Group Australia this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2004-11-29 with Fiction categories.
Who likes stomach acid and sludge farming and wants to find a friend? Wilton the worm. Who likes running away and hiding and wants to save the world? Algy the microbe. What's huge and scary and the first thing they see outside? Underpants. The hilarious tale of two tiny parasites and their very big adventure.