Summary of Nathan Wolfe's The Viral Storm

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The disease that stunted the growth of tobacco plants was first discovered by a microbiologist named Martinus Beijerinck. He believed that a new form of life must be the cause, and he named it the virus.
#2 I teach a seminar at Stanford called Viral Lifestyles. The title was meant to evoke curiosity among prospective students, but also describe one of the course’s objectives: to learn to envision the world from the perspective of a virus.
#3 Viruses are the smallest known microbes. They are dependent on the cells they infect to survive, and they must infect cell-based life forms in order to do so. They are also the most diverse forms of life.
#4 The majority of life on Earth is microscopic. Seen and unseen life, which includes bacteria, archaea, and viruses, makes up a much larger percentage of the planet’s biomass than the more recognizable cellular life forms, the eukaryotes.

Sujets

• Life Sciences
• Sciences et techniques
• Microbiology
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 20 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798350015898
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Nathan Wolfe's The Viral Storm
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The disease that stunted the growth of tobacco plants was first discovered by a microbiologist named Martinus Beijerinck. He believed that a new form of life must be the cause, and he named it the virus.

#2

I teach a seminar at Stanford called Viral Lifestyles. The title was meant to evoke curiosity among prospective students, but also describe one of the course’s objectives: to learn to envision the world from the perspective of a virus.

#3

Viruses are the smallest known microbes. They are dependent on the cells they infect to survive, and they must infect cell-based life forms in order to do so. They are also the most diverse forms of life.

#4

The majority of life on Earth is microscopic. Seen and unseen life, which includes bacteria, archaea, and viruses, makes up a much larger percentage of the planet’s biomass than the more recognizable cellular life forms, the eukaryotes.

#5

Viruses are not only responsible for destroying other organisms, but they also play a vital role in maintaining global equilibrium. They are ubiquitous in the world, and it would be surprising if they were relegated to a destructive role.

#6

All known groups of cellular life are susceptible to viruses. From the perspective of viruses and other microbes, our bodies are habitats. They live in these environments and compete with each other for access to resources.

#7

The timing of transmission is just as important for infectious agents as it is for other organisms. Whether the timing of fruiting in a tropical fruit tree or the timing of mating in water buffalo, organisms that time their reproduction appropriately have more successful offspring.

#8

The rule of the basic reproductive number, or R0, states that for every new victim a virus infects, it must infect at least one new victim. If the average number of new victims per old victims drops to less than one, the spread of the microbe is doomed.

#9

Some microbes influence our behavior, making us zombies acting in their benefit. The most striking example is the feline parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which infects rodents and hijacks their brains. After infection, mice begin to see cats positively enticing, and they die from a dead mouse but also a toxo cyst that can complete its life cycle in a cat.

#10

The Ebola virus has a small genome size of around ten thousand base pairs of genetic information. It uses overlapping reading frames to maximize its impact, and it generates genetic novelty through simple mutation.

#11

Viruses have the highest mutation rates of any known organisms. They exchange genetic information in ways that should make us question our early textbooks. When two different varieties of virus infect the same host, they sometimes infect the same cell, and create mosaic daughter viruses.

#12

The microbial world is the last frontier of undiscovered life on our planet. We have discovered most of the plant and animal life on our planet, but we regularly discover new microbes.

#13

I was in Uganda tracking a group of chimpanzees, who were hunting and sharing meat with one another. It was clear that these chimpanzees had worked together to mount a coordinated attack.

#14

The parsimony rule of thumb applies not only to our behaviors, but also to our organs, cells, and diseases. Each organ, cell, and disease presents a new point of comparison with our kin. Through careful studies of humans and our closest living relatives, we can begin to sort through historical mysteries and solidify which elements of humanity are unique and which are not.

#15

The most recent common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees lived around eight million years ago in central Africa. It had extensive body hair and probably spent much of its time in the trees. It lived in central Africa and consumed a diet dominated by fruit.

#16

The fact that humans share with chimpanzees the trait of hunting animals has been known for some time. It first emerged in the early 1960s when the British primatologist Jane Goodall documented wild chimpanzees hunting and eating meat at Gombe National Park in Tanzania.

#17

The first of our ancestors to hunt must have had many advantages. The increased caloric intake from hunted animals played well in a primarily fruit and leaf-eating species. However, the risks of acquiring new and potentially deadly microbes were not insignificant.

#18

The manner in which the chimpanzees were ingesting and spreading the blood and organs of the red colobus monkeys was creating the ideal environment for any infectious agents present in the monkeys to spread to the chimpanzees.

#19

The history of HIV begins with a simple ecological interaction: the hunting of monkeys by chimpanzees in central Africa. While people normally think about the origins of HIV as occurring sometime during the 1980s, the story actually began about eight million years ago when our ape ancestors began to hunt.