A capably guided tour of a scientific wave of the future.
An enthusiastic account of organisms that silently rule the Earth.
Viruses are “smaller than the wavelength of light,” and they replicate by invading a cell, multiplying, and then leaving, often killing the cell. A minuscule fraction cause human disease—polio, measles, flu, Covid-19, some cancers—but most are benign and often an essential part of life. Human viruses receive plenty of attention, but science journalist Ireland hits pay dirt by focusing on those that attack bacteria. Called bacteriophages or “phages,” they often attack deadly human infections. In 1917, scientists discovered that certain liquids, filtered to remove bacteria, destroyed bacterial cultures. They theorized that the fluid contained viruses that were “too small to see with a light microscope.” Researchers took up the idea of using these liquids to treat human infections. “For a few decades in the early twentieth century,” writes the author, “the world went mad for phages, and phage therapy was everywhere.” But phages are tricky. Some are weakly infectious; others are “hyper-specific, targeting only particular strains.” At the time, technology was primitive, and governments were lax about preclinical testing. By the 1930s, antibiotics appeared, miraculous drugs that made infections vanish. Sadly, by the 1990s, their vast overuse in medicine and agriculture was producing a deadly epidemic of increasingly resistant and even entirely impervious bacteria. Inevitably, this revived interest in phages. Both optimistic and realistic, Ireland writes that designing a phage for a specific bacterial strain is more complex than developing an antibiotic, and clinical trials have proven frustrating and expensive. He describes dramatic cures but no breakthroughs so far. At the halfway point of the book, the author rewinds the clock to the 1930s, describing genetic and DNA–related phage research that has led to numerous Nobel Prizes and an ongoing scientific revolution that has extended from the discovery of the double helix to genetic engineering, cloning, and insights into the nature of life itself.
A capably guided tour of a scientific wave of the future.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781324050834
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
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