by Muhammad Zaman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2020
A compelling call to action demanding that governments and scientists rise to the challenge.
A vivid portrayal of our fight against an opponent that has been around for more than 3 billion years.
Zaman, a professor of biomedical engineering and international health, portrays a conflict—between humans and harmful strains of bacteria—that has played out in plagues and epidemics over millennia. That drama has now taken a turn for the worse with the rise of antibiotic resistance. In the U.S. alone, writes the author, more than 35,000 people die every year from drug-resistant infections. One of the primary causes is the overprescription of antibiotics and widespread use in industrial agriculture and livestock for prophylaxis and growth promotion. Bacteria mutate rapidly, and those that survive an antibiotic can pass their resistant genes to progeny as well as to other bacteria species. Indeed, one of Zaman’s main points is that bacterial resistance is not new. Bacteria have been engaged in a Darwinian evolutionary competition among themselves since their origin. Samples of bacteria from a newly unearthed deep cave in the U.S.—and from the guts of an isolated tribe in Venezuela—contained bacteria that were resistant to a slew of contemporary antibiotics. The practice of modern medicine has upset a balanced equilibrium. Outside the U.S., antibiotic resistance is occurring where the drugs are available without a prescription and frequently used. They may also be adulterated or substandard and so further encourage antibiotic resistance to infections that are themselves the result of poor hygiene and sanitation. Using firsthand observations from around the world, the author presents many examples of disease outbreaks and the experts and efforts used to resolve them. These vignettes follow chapters that capture the history of bacteriology and the scientists working to fight bacterial resistance, highlighting the usual suspects—and not sparing the moral shortcomings of some. So what next? Despite continued antibiotic resistance and few drugs in the pipeline, Zaman is optimistic, citing new interest in phage therapy and experimental research funded by private foundations and other ventures.
A compelling call to action demanding that governments and scientists rise to the challenge.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-286297-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper Wave
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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by Lulu Miller illustrated by Kate Samworth ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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by Carlo Rovelli ; translated by Simon Carnell & Erica Segre ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
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Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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