Viruses are the smallest living things known to science, and
yet they hold the entire planet in their sway. We’re 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 we are 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
deep caves miles underground.
This fascinating book explores the hidden world of viruses—a
world that each of us 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
through 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 to us
than good; that the world’s oceans are home to an
astonishing 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
viruses; and that the evolution of HIV is now in overdrive,
spawning more mutated strains than we care to imagine.
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