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
A media-savvy scientist cleans out his desk.
Tyson (Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, 2017, etc.) receives a great deal of mail, and this slim volume collects his responses and other scraps of writing.
The prolific science commentator and bestselling author, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History, delivers few surprises and much admirable commentary. Readers may suspect that most of these letters date from the author’s earlier years when, a newly minted celebrity, he still thrilled that many of his audience were pouring out their hearts. Consequently, unlike more hardened colleagues, he sought to address their concerns. As years passed, suspecting that many had no interest in tapping his expertise or entering into an intelligent give and take, he undoubtedly made greater use of the waste basket. Tyson eschews pure fan letters, but many of these selections are full of compliments as a prelude to asking advice, pointing out mistakes, proclaiming opposing beliefs, or denouncing him. Readers will also encounter some earnest op-ed pieces and his eyewitness account of 9/11. “I consider myself emotionally strong,” he writes. “What I bore witness to, however, was especially upsetting, with indelible images of horror that will not soon leave my mind.” To crackpots, he gently repeats facts that almost everyone except crackpots accept. Those who have seen ghosts, dead relatives, and Bigfoot learn that eyewitness accounts are often unreliable. Tyson points out that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so confirmation that a light in the sky represents an alien spacecraft requires more than a photograph. Again and again he defends “science,” and his criteria—observation, repeatable experiments, honest discourse, peer review—are not controversial but will remain easy for zealots to dismiss. Among the instances of “hate mail” and “science deniers,” the author also discusses philosophy, parenting, and schooling.
A media-savvy scientist cleans out his desk.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-324-00331-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.
Award-winning scientist Jahren (Geology and Geophysics/Univ. of Hawaii) delivers a personal memoir and a paean to the natural world.
The author’s father was a physics and earth science teacher who encouraged her play in the laboratory, and her mother was a student of English literature who nurtured her love of reading. Both of these early influences engrossingly combine in this adroit story of a dedication to science. Jahren’s journey from struggling student to struggling scientist has the narrative tension of a novel and characters she imbues with real depth. The heroes in this tale are the plants that the author studies, and throughout, she employs her facility with words to engage her readers. We learn much along the way—e.g., how the willow tree clones itself, the courage of a seed’s first root, the symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi, and the airborne signals used by trees in their ongoing war against insects. Trees are of key interest to Jahren, and at times she waxes poetic: “Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” The author draws many parallels between her subjects and herself. This is her story, after all, and we are engaged beyond expectation as she relates her struggle in building and running laboratory after laboratory at the universities that have employed her. Present throughout is her lab partner, a disaffected genius named Bill, whom she recruited when she was a graduate student at Berkeley and with whom she’s worked ever since. The author’s tenacity, hope, and gratitude are all evident as she and Bill chase the sweetness of discovery in the face of the harsh economic realities of the research scientist.
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-87493-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
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