A lucid, up-to-date account of the body's immune system from a pro who has taught the subject at UCLA for 25 years. Infectious disease is news Big Time these days—it has been ever since AIDS appeared. What is fascinating is the game of catch- up that science has been playing—unraveling the intricacies of the body's immune system and, more recently, its intimate relation to the nervous system. Clark reminds us that just a generation ago the body's defenses were thought to consist only of antibodies: the molecules that destroy foreign invaders. Not only does Clark explain how the body can be stimulated, say, by vaccines, to make millions of antibodies, but he goes into detail about T cells—the other arm of the immune system. T cells (the T is for the thymus, where they are made) come in several varieties, of which the most noted today are the ``killer'' T cells that search and destroy aberrant cells and the CD4 ``helper'' T cells that are killed by the AIDS virus. Sometimes the immune system is overzealous, however, mounting an attack that adds insult and injury: There is a misreading of molecular markers, resulting in attacks on healthy cells, as happens in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (the war within), and sometimes there is a need to suppress the system—in the case of organ transplants. Clark's upbeat outlook suggests that we can curb excesses as well as stimulate a weakened immune system with new drugs or gene therapy approaches. He is convinced that ongoing discoveries of the brainimmune system dialogue will lead to new approaches to therapy. He is also aware of the pressing need for organ transplants, raising provocative ethical issues but at the same time providing a valid Uniform Anatomical Gift Act donor card for readers to fill out. A good idea that, given his overall enthusiasm and mastery in explaining complex science, might persuade more than a few readers.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-19-509286-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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