Download or read book Seven Modern Plagues written by Mark Jerome Walters and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2014-02-23 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every time we sneeze, there seems to be a new form of flu: bird flu, swine flu, Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu, H5N1, and most recently, H5N7. While these diseases appear to emerge from thin air, in fact, human activity is driving them. And the problem is not just flu, but a series of rapidly evolving and dangerous modern plagues. According to veterinarian and journalist Mark Walters, we are contributing to—if not overtly causing—some of the scariest epidemics of our time. Through human stories and cutting-edge science, Walters explores the origins of seven diseases: Mad Cow Disease, HIV/AIDS, Salmonella DT104, Lyme Disease, Hantavirus, West Nile, and new strains of flu. He shows that they originate from manipulation of the environment, from emitting carbon and clear-cutting forests to feeding naturally herbivorous cows “recycled animal protein.” Readers will both learn how today’s plagues first developed and discover patterns that could help prevent the diseases of tomorrow.
Download or read book Six Modern Plagues and How We Are Causing Them written by Mark Jerome Walters and published by Shearwater. This book was released on 2003-09-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: West Nile Virus—Mad Cow Disease—HIV/AIDS—Hantavirus—Lyme Disease ... and a new strain of Salmonella. Such modern epidemics have emerged over the past few decades as mysterious, yet significant risks to human health. These "plagues" are forcing us to modify our lifestyles in ways that minimize our chances of becoming a statistic in the latest tally of the afflicted. In Six Modern Plagues, Mark Jerome Walters offers us the first book for the general reader that connects these emerging health risks and their ecological origins. Drawing on new research, interviews, and his own investigations, Mark Jerome Walters weaves together a compelling argument: that changes humans have made to the environment, from warming the climate to clearing the forests, have contributed to, if not caused a rising tide of diseases that are afflicting humans and many other species. According to Mark Jerome Walters, humans are not always innocent bystanders to infectious disease. To the contrary, in the case of many modern epidemics, we are the instigators. Six Modern Plagues, a ground-breaking introduction to the connection between disease and environmental degradation should be read by all those interested in their health and the health of others.
Download or read book Missing Microbes written by Martin J. Blaser, MD and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In Missing Microbes, Martin Blaser sounds [an] alarm. He patiently and thoroughly builds a compelling case that the threat of antibiotic overuse goes far beyond resistant infections.”—Nature Renowned microbiologist Dr. Martin J. Blaser invites us into the wilds of the human microbiome, where for hundreds of thousands of years bacterial and human cells have existed in a peaceful symbiosis that is responsible for the equilibrium and health of our bodies. Now this invisible Eden is under assault from our overreliance on medical advances including antibiotics and caesarian sections, threatening the extinction of our irreplaceable microbes and leading to severe health consequences. Taking us into the lab to recount his groundbreaking studies, Blaser not only provides elegant support for his theory, he guides us to what we can do to avoid even more catastrophic health problems in the future. “Missing Microbes is science writing at its very best—crisply argued and beautifully written, with stunning insights about the human microbiome and workable solutions to an urgent global crisis.”—David M. Oshinsky, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Polio: An American Story
Download or read book The Seventh Plague written by James Rollins and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 2016-12-13 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Plagues of the Mind written by Bruce S. Thornton and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stirring and sobering diagnosis of the challenges that confront anyone laboring to renew America’s tradition of ordered liberty. Classicist Bruce Thornton’s Plagues of the Mind is a forceful vindication of the West’s tradition of rational, critical inquiry—a legacy now largely jettisoned in favor of a host of new deities, environmentalism, feminism, primitivism, New Age, and the cult of the therapeutic among them.
Download or read book Plagues in World History written by John Aberth and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2011-01-16 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plagues in World History provides a concise, comparative world history of catastrophic infectious diseases, including plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, cholera, influenza, and AIDS. Geographically, these diseases have spread across the entire globe; temporally, they stretch from the sixth century to the present. John Aberth considers not only the varied impact that disease has had upon human history but also the many ways in which people have been able to influence diseases simply through their cultural attitudes toward them. The author argues that the ability of humans to alter disease, even without the modern wonders of antibiotic drugs and other medical treatments, is an even more crucial lesson to learn now that AIDS, swine flu, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, and other seemingly incurable illnesses have raged worldwide. Aberth's comparative analysis of how different societies have responded in the past to disease illuminates what cultural approaches have been and may continue to be most effective in combating the plagues of today.
Download or read book The Plague Year written by Lawrence Wright and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Looming Tower, and the pandemic novel The End of October: an unprecedented, momentous account of Covid-19—its origins, its wide-ranging repercussions, and the ongoing global fight to contain it "A book of panoramic breadth ... managing to surprise us about even those episodes we … thought we knew well … [With] lively exchanges about spike proteins and nonpharmaceutical interventions and disease waves, Wright’s storytelling dexterity makes all this come alive.” —The New York Times Book Review From the fateful first moments of the outbreak in China to the storming of the U.S. Capitol to the extraordinary vaccine rollout, Lawrence Wright’s The Plague Year tells the story of Covid-19 in authoritative, galvanizing detail and with the full drama of events on both a global and intimate scale, illuminating the medical, economic, political, and social ramifications of the pandemic. Wright takes us inside the CDC, where a first round of faulty test kits lost America precious time . . . inside the halls of the White House, where Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger’s early alarm about the virus was met with confounding and drastically costly skepticism . . . into a Covid ward in a Charlottesville hospital, with an idealistic young woman doctor from the town of Little Africa, South Carolina . . . into the precincts of prediction specialists at Goldman Sachs . . . into Broadway’s darkened theaters and Austin’s struggling music venues . . . inside the human body, diving deep into the science of how the virus and vaccines function—with an eye-opening detour into the history of vaccination and of the modern anti-vaccination movement. And in this full accounting, Wright makes clear that the medical professionals around the country who’ve risked their lives to fight the virus reveal and embody an America in all its vulnerability, courage, and potential. In turns steely-eyed, sympathetic, infuriated, unexpectedly comical, and always precise, Lawrence Wright is a formidable guide, slicing through the dense fog of misinformation to give us a 360-degree portrait of the catastrophe we thought we knew.
Download or read book Londons Lord Have Mercy Upon Us written by and published by . This book was released on 1665 with total page 1 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Infections and Inequalities written by Paul Farmer and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2001-02-23 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation A report from the front lines of the war against the most deadly epidemics of our times, by a physician-anthropolpgist who has for over 15 years sought to serve the poor of rural Haiti and other settings in the Americas.
Download or read book Seeking the Sacred Raven written by Mark Jerome Walters and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-09-26 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Will the 'Alala ever return to the wild? A bird sacred to Hawaiians and a member of the raven family, the 'Alala today survives only in captivity. How the species once flourished, how it has been driven to near-extinction, and how people struggled to save it, is the gripping story of Seeking the Sacred Raven. For years, author Mark Jerome Walters has tracked the sacred bird's role in Hawaiian culture and the indomitable 'Alala's sad decline. Trekking through Hawaii's rain forests high on Mauna Loa, talking with biologists, landowners, and government officials, he has woven an epic tale of missed opportunities and the best intentions gone awry. A species that once numbered in the thousands is now limited to about 50 captive birds. Seeking the Sacred Raven is as much about people and culture as it is about failed policies. From the ancient Polynesians who first settled the island, to Captain Cook in the 18th century, to would-be saviors of the 'Alala in the 1990s, individuals with conflicting passions and priorities have shaped Hawaii and the fate of this dwindling cloud-forest species. Walters captures brilliantly the internecine politics among private landowners, scientists, environmental groups, individuals and government agencies battling over the bird's habitat and protection. It's only one species, only one bird, but Seeking the Sacred Raven illustrates vividly the many dimensions of species loss, for the human as well as non-human world.
Download or read book London s Lord Have Mercy Upon Us A True Relation of Seven Modern Plagues Or Visitations in London with the Number of Those that Were Buried of All Diseases Viz the First in the Year of Queen Elizabeth Anno 1592 The Second in the Year 1603 The written by and published by . This book was released on 1665 with total page 1 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Lyme written by Mary Beth Pfeiffer and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Superbly written and researched." --Booklist "Builds a strong case." --Kirkus Lyme disease is spreading rapidly around the globe as ticks move into places they could not survive before. Mary Beth Pfeiffer argues it is the first epidemic to emerge in the era of climate change, infecting millions around the globe. She tells the heart-rending stories of its victims, families whose lives have been destroyed by a single, often unseen, tick bite. Pfeiffer also warns of the emergence of other tick-borne illnesses that make Lyme more difficult to treat and pose their own grave risks. Lyme is an impeccably researched account of an enigmatic disease, making a powerful case for action to fight ticks, heal patients, and recognize humanity's role in a modern scourge.
Download or read book London s Lord Have Mercy Upon Us A True Relation of Seven Modern Plagues Or Visitations in London Etc written by London and published by . This book was released on 1665 with total page 1 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Florida Scrub Jay written by Mark Jerome Walters and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2021-02-08 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Florida Historical Society Stetson Kennedy Award A portrait of a species on the brink The only bird species that lives exclusively in Florida, the Florida scrub-jay was once common across the peninsula. But as development over the last 100 years reduced the habitat on which the bird depends from 39 counties to three, the species became endangered. With a writer’s eye and an explorer’s spirit, Mark Walters travels the state to report on the natural history and current predicament of Florida’s flagship bird. Tracing the millions of years of evolution and migration that led to the development of songbirds and this unique species of jay, Walters describes the Florida bird’s long, graceful tail, its hues that blend from one to the next, and its notoriously friendly manner. He then focuses on the massive land-reclamation and canal-building projects of the twentieth century that ate away at the ancient oak scrub heartlands where the bird was abundant, reducing its population by 90 percent. Walters also investigates conservation efforts taking place today. On a series of field excursions, he introduces the people who are leading the charge to save the bird from extinction—those who gather for annual counts of the species in fragmented and overlooked areas of scrub; those who relocate populations of scrub-jays out of harm’s way; those who survey and purchase land to create wildlife refuges; and those who advocate for the prescribed fires that keep scrub ecosystems inhabitable for the species. A loving portrayal of a very special bird, Florida Scrub-Jay is also a thoughtful reflection on the ethical and emotional weight of protecting a species in an age of catastrophe. Now is the time to act, says Walters, or we will lose the scrub-jay forever.
Download or read book Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World written by Nükhet Varlik and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-22 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first systematic scholarly study of the Ottoman experience of plague during the Black Death pandemic and the centuries that followed. Using a wealth of archival and narrative sources, including medical treatises, hagiographies, and travelers' accounts, as well as recent scientific research, Nükhet Varlik demonstrates how plague interacted with the environmental, social, and political structures of the Ottoman Empire from the late medieval through the early modern era. The book argues that the empire's growth transformed the epidemiological patterns of plague by bringing diverse ecological zones into interaction and by intensifying the mobilities of exchange among both human and non-human agents. Varlik maintains that persistent plagues elicited new forms of cultural imagination and expression, as well as a new body of knowledge about the disease. In turn, this new consciousness sharpened the Ottoman administrative response to the plague, while contributing to the makings of an early modern state.
Download or read book The King of Plagues written by Jonathan Maberry and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2011-03-29 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Saturday 09:11 Hours: A blast rocks a London hospital and thousands are dead or injured... 10:09 Hours: Joe Ledger arrives on scene to investigate. The horror is unlike anything he has ever seen. Compelled by grief and rage, Joe rejoins the DMS and within hours is attacked by a hit-team of assassins and sent on a suicide mission into a viral hot zone during an Ebola outbreak. Soon Joe Ledger and the Department of Military Sciences begin tearing down the veils of deception to uncover a vast and powerful secret society using weaponized versions of the Ten Plagues of Egypt to destabilize world economies and profit from the resulting chaos. Millions will die unless Joe Ledger meets the this powerful new enemy on their own terms as he fights terror with terror.
Download or read book Londons Lord Have Mercy Upon Us A True Relation of Seven Modern Plagues Or Visitations in London with the Number of Those that Were Buried of All Diseases Viz the First Year of Queen Elizabeth Anno 1592 The Second in the Year 1603 the Third in tha written by and published by . This book was released on 1665 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
