A Planet of Viruses

Review«Part of a series sponsored by the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) to help support educational outreach to students, [A Planet of Viruses] packs into 109 pages just about everything you’ve always wanted to know—and a lot you’ll probably wish you didn’t know—about the viruses that have caused humanity so much grief throughout history.»—Forbes

(Forbes 20110512)

«For those with long memories, not much seems to have happened in fundamental physics and cosmology since Carl Sagan’’s Cosmos, 30 years ago. … The real action is in biology, where amazing new facts just keep coming. The techniques of genome analysis make it remarkably easy at the moment to make unexpected observations. [A Planet of Viruses] is packed with them, carefully assembled by another talented populariser, the science writer and Yale University lecturer Carl Zimmer.»—Times Higher Education

(Times Higher Education 20110420)

«Science writer Carl Zimmer has a penchant for writing about things most humans like to avoid; his previous works include Microcosm: E. Coli And The New Science Of Life, and Parasite Rex. Each chapter of his latest work is dedicated to a different type of virus, providing a brief synopsis on what makes a certain species unique, and using the example to launch into fascinating information about what it teaches about the nature of viruses and life in general.»—Onion A.V. Club

(Onion A.V. Club 20110323)

“Absolutely top-drawer popular science writing.”—Booklist (starred review)

(Booklist 20110717)

«Carl Zimmer is one of my absolute favorite science writers, and he’’s about to come out with a new book called A Planet of Viruses. I’’m a bit of a virology fangirl, and am, thus, ridiculously excited about this news.»—Boing Boing

(Maggie Koerth-Baker Boing Boing )

«Carl Zimmer is one of the best science writers we have today. A Planet of Viruses is an important primer on the viruses living within and around all of us—sometimes funny, other times shocking, and always accessible. Whether discussing the common cold and flu, little-known viruses that attack bacteria or protect oceans, or the world’s viral future as seen through our encounters with HIV or SARS, Zimmer’s writing is lively, knowledgeable, and graced with poetic touches.»—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

(Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks )

«I’m a serious fan of Carl Zimmer, and A Planet of Viruses provided a new treat. It’s thoughtful, precise, and engrossing, page by page. Zimmer has an uncanny ability to tell cool tales about nature that leave you with new thoughts and understanding, always keeping precisely to the science.»—Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone

(Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone )

«This little book will interest anyone on this planet who has ever played host to a virus. It is beautifully clear, eminently sensible, and fascinating from beginning to end—like everything Carl Zimmer writes. I don’t know how Zimmer does it! Neither does anyone else who follows and enjoys his work.»—Jonathan Weiner, author of Long for This World

(Jonathan Weiner, author of Long for this World )

«An accessible and gripping narrative on a serious topic that manages to explain, in plain English, how viruses are changing the world. Carl Zimmer has found great stories and woven them into an honest, optimistic book. It is a wonderfully vivid and compelling read.»—Nathan Wolfe, founder and CEO of Global Viral Forecasting

(Nathan Wolfe, founder and CEO of Global Viral Forecasting )

«As with any great journey, this virtual tour opens your eyes and expands your horizons. You’ll learn amazing facts. But this is no textbook. Zimmer does not do boring or stuffy; reading his work is like hanging out with the smartest, most interesting guy you have ever met as he regales you with tales of his travels and fascinating finds along the way.»—ScienceNews

(ScienceNews )

«I hope Carl Zimmer lives a long, long time so we can get more and more books from him. . . . [A Planet of Viruses is] a short read . . . but intense and well explained.»—Julia Sweeney

(Julia Sweeney )

«A contagious fear pervades the public perception of viruses, and rightly so, because they cause many serious diseases; but they are not all bad. In A Planet of Viruses Carl Zimmer seeks to convey this message, elegantly communicating the history of viruses, their symbiotic relation with life, and their influence on mankind’s development.«—Lancet Infectious Diseases

(Lancet Infectious Diseases )

Product DescriptionViruses 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.

The New York Times Book Review calls Carl Zimmer «as fine a science essayist as we have.» A Planet of Viruses is sure to please his many fans and further enhance his reputation as one of America’s most respected and admired science journalists.