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This post was originally published in “Download the Universe,” a multi-author blog about science ebooks edited by Carl Zimmer.
Be Not Content: A Subterranean Journal. By William J. Craddock. Originally published by Doubleday, 1970; reprinted by Transreal Books, 2011.
Reviewed by Steve Silberman
July 1, 2012
Continue reading “Rudy Rucker Resurrects a Lost Classic of Psychedelia”
The New York Times, June 25, 2012
On May 20, a 10-year-old girl in rural Cambodia got a fever. Five days later, she was admitted to a hospital, and after two days of intensive care she was dead.
The girl was the most recent documented victim of the influenza virus H5N1, a strain that has caused 606 known human cases and 357 deaths since it re-emerged in 2003 after a six-year absence.
H5N1 can race through bird populations, and the World Health Organization suspects the girl was infected while preparing chicken for a meal.
Continue reading “The Evolution of Bird Flu, and the Race to Keep Up”
This post was originally published in “Download the Universe,” a multi-author blog about science ebooks edited by Carl Zimmer.
What Technology Wants. By Kevin Kelly. Published by Citia.
Reviewed by John Hawks
June 22, 2012
The New York Times, June 18, 2012
For a century, doctors have waged war against bacteria, using antibiotics as their weapons. But that relationship is changing as scientists become more familiar with the 100 trillion microbes that call us home — collectively known as the microbiome.
“I would like to lose the language of warfare,” said Julie Segre, a senior investigator at the National Human Genome Research Institute. “It does a disservice to all the bacteria that have co-evolved with us and are maintaining the health of our bodies.”
The Daily Beast, June 17, 2012
Barbara Natterson-Horowitz’s world was turned upside down by a monkey with a heart attack. Natterson-Horowitz is a cardiologist at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She’s also on the medical advisory board for the Los Angeles Zoo, where she goes from time to time to consult for the zoo veterinarians. One day in 2005, the vets at the zoo asked her to come by to take a look at a kitten-size emperor tamarin named Spitzbuben that was suffering from heart failure.
As Natterson-Horowitz examined Spitzbuben, she did what she usually does with her human patients: she gazed into Spitzbuben’s miniature eyes to put her at ease.
Continue reading “‘Zoobiquity’: What Animals Can Teach Us About Our Health”