Download or read book The Origin of the Virus written by Paolo Barnard and published by . This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ground-breaking, evidence-based book asks how many lives were lost because of Chinas negligence about lab-leaked SARS-CoV-2. In a disturbing reconstruction of events by two of the most reputable scientists in the world, a new book reveals for the first time how Chinese authorities and elite Wuhan scientists knew about SARS-CoV-2s menacing biological features from the start but remain silent to this day. In The Origin of the Virus (Clinical Press) Dr Steven Quay and Prof Angus Dalgleish, working with Italian reporter Paolo Barnard, show how China engaged in lies, omissions and obfuscations to cover up the laboratory origin of the virus. Had they immediately alerted the international community and policymakers of the extremely pathogenic molecular machinery present in SARS-CoV-2's genome, very large numbers of lives may have been spared, argue Quay, Dalgleish and Barnard. The authors provide a shocking account of the extreme experiments that led to the outbreak of the worst pandemic since the 1918 Spanish influenza. They broaden the censure to explain why some American and British scientists thwarted a proper investigation of the origin of COVID-19. Despite its impeccable scientific grounding the book is both a readable and gripping account that, for the first time, allows the public to partake in what lies at the heart of the many scandals surrounding the birth of the most deadly virus in modern times.
Download or read book Origin and Evolution of Viruses written by Esteban Domingo and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2008-06-23 with total page 573 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New viral diseases are emerging continuously. Viruses adapt to new environments at astounding rates. Genetic variability of viruses jeopardizes vaccine efficacy. For many viruses mutants resistant to antiviral agents or host immune responses arise readily, for example, with HIV and influenza. These variations are all of utmost importance for human and animal health as they have prevented us from controlling these epidemic pathogens. This book focuses on the mechanisms that viruses use to evolve, survive and cause disease in their hosts. Covering human, animal, plant and bacterial viruses, it provides both the basic foundations for the evolutionary dynamics of viruses and specific examples of emerging diseases. - NEW - methods to establish relationships among viruses and the mechanisms that affect virus evolution - UNIQUE - combines theoretical concepts in evolution with detailed analyses of the evolution of important virus groups - SPECIFIC - Bacterial, plant, animal and human viruses are compared regarding their interation with their hosts
Download or read book The Major Transitions in Evolution written by John Maynard Smith and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1997-10-30 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During evolution there have been several major changes in the way genetic information is organized and transmitted from one generation to the next. These transitions include the origin of life itself, the first eukaryotic cells, reproduction by sexual means, the appearance of multicellular plants and animals, the emergence of cooperation and of animal societies. This is the first book to discuss all these major transitions and their implications for our understanding of evolution.Clearly written and illustrated with many original diagrams, this book will be welcomed by students and researchers in the fields of evolutionary biology, ecology, and genetics.
Download or read book Viral written by Matt Ridley and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Chan and Ridley write with an urgency...that inspires gripping depictions of what viruses are, how infectious-disease laboratories work and wonderfully lucid descriptions of bats. . . . They powerfully recount how dangerous pathogens can both leak from a lab and emerge in nature." (New York Times Book Review) Understanding how Covid-19 started is crucial for the future of humankind. Viral is the most incisive and authoritative book about the search for the source of the virus. A new virus descended on the human species in 2019 wreaking unprecedented havoc. Finding out where it came from and how it first jumped into people is an urgent priority, but early expectations that this would prove an easy question to answer have been dashed. Nearly two years into the pandemic, the crucial mystery of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not only unresolved but has deepened. In this uniquely insightful book, a scientist and a writer join forces to try to get to the bottom of how a virus whose closest relations live in bats in subtropical southern China somehow managed to begin spreading among people more than 1,500 kilometres away in the city of Wuhan. They grapple with the baffling fact that the virus left none of the expected traces that such outbreaks usually create: no infected market animals or wildlife, no chains of early cases in travellers to the city, no smouldering epidemic in a rural area, no rapid adaptation of the virus to its new host—human beings. To try to solve this pressing mystery, Viral delves deep into the events of 2019 leading up to 2021, the details of what went on in animal markets and virology laboratories, the records and data hidden from sight within archived Chinese theses and websites, and the clues that can be coaxed from the very text of the virus’s own genetic code. The result is a gripping detective story that takes the reader deeper and deeper into a metaphorical cave of mystery. One by one the authors explore promising tunnels only to show that they are blind alleys, until, miles beneath the surface, they find themselves tantalisingly close to a shaft that leads to the light.
Download or read book The Threat of Pandemic Influenza written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2005-04-09 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public health officials and organizations around the world remain on high alert because of increasing concerns about the prospect of an influenza pandemic, which many experts believe to be inevitable. Moreover, recent problems with the availability and strain-specificity of vaccine for annual flu epidemics in some countries and the rise of pandemic strains of avian flu in disparate geographic regions have alarmed experts about the world's ability to prevent or contain a human pandemic. The workshop summary, The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? addresses these urgent concerns. The report describes what steps the United States and other countries have taken thus far to prepare for the next outbreak of "killer flu." It also looks at gaps in readiness, including hospitals' inability to absorb a surge of patients and many nations' incapacity to monitor and detect flu outbreaks. The report points to the need for international agreements to share flu vaccine and antiviral stockpiles to ensure that the 88 percent of nations that cannot manufacture or stockpile these products have access to them. It chronicles the toll of the H5N1 strain of avian flu currently circulating among poultry in many parts of Asia, which now accounts for the culling of millions of birds and the death of at least 50 persons. And it compares the costs of preparations with the costs of illness and death that could arise during an outbreak.
Download or read book zika virus disease written by Adnan I. Qureshi and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2017-11-17 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zika Virus provides an authoritative account of one of most fascinating viruses of the 21st century, covering all the main points. It includes coverage of clinical manifestations, such as fever and fatigue, but also delves into neurological manifestations like acute demyelinating neuropathy. In addition, the book discusses new evidence that suggests that Zika fever in pregnant women can cause abnormal brain development in fetuses by mother-to-child transmission. The Zika virus infection has become one of the first where women are actively discouraged from getting pregnant. Readers will find this book to be a comprehensive resource on the topic. - Covers every important aspect of the Zika virus disease, from biological, to social and economic impacts - Focuses on women's health issues that have surfaced, including birth defects in newborns - Written in an easy to comprehend manner, with technical terms clearly defined in chapters that highlight genetics
Download or read book Viruses written by Paula Tennant and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2018-03-12 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Viruses: Molecular Biology, Host Interactions, and Applications to Biotechnology provides an up-to-date introduction to human, animal and plant viruses within the context of recent advances in high-throughput sequencing that have demonstrated that viruses are vastly greater and more diverse than previously recognized. It covers discoveries such as the Mimivirus and its virophage which have stimulated new discussions on the definition of viruses, their place in the current view, and their inherent and derived 'interactomics' as defined by the molecules and the processes by which virus gene products interact with themselves and their host's cellular gene products. Further, the book includes perspectives on basic aspects of virology, including the structure of viruses, the organization of their genomes, and basic strategies in replication and expression, emphasizing the diversity and versatility of viruses, how they cause disease and how their hosts react to such disease, and exploring developments in the field of host-microbe interactions in recent years. The book is likely to appeal, and be useful, to a wide audience that includes students, academics and researchers studying the molecular biology and applications of viruses - Provides key insights into recent technological advances, including high-throughput sequencing - Presents viruses not only as formidable foes, but also as entities that can be beneficial to their hosts and humankind that are helping to shape the tree of life - Features exposition on the diversity and versatility of viruses, how they cause disease, and an exploration of virus-host interactions
Download or read book The Origins of COVID 19 written by Li Zhang and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new strain of coronavirus emerged sometime in November 2019, and within weeks a cluster of patients began to be admitted to hospitals in Wuhan with severe pneumonia, most of them linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. China's seemingly effective containment of the first stage of the epidemic, in glaring contrast with the uncontrolled spread in Europe and the United States, was heralded as a testament to the Chinese Communist Party's unparalleled command over the biomedical sciences, population, and economy. Conversely, much academic and public debate about the origins of the virus focuses on the supposedly "backwards" cultural practice of consuming wild animals and the perceived problem of authoritarianism suppressing information about the outbreak until it was too late. The Origins of COVID-19, by Li Zhang, shifts debate away from narrow cultural, political, or biomedical frameworks, emphasizing that we must understand the origins of emerging diseases with pandemic potential (such as SARS and COVID-19) in the more complex and structural entanglements of state-making, science and technology, and global capitalism. She argues that both narratives, that of China's victory and the racist depictions of its culpability, do not address—and even aggravate—these larger forces that degrade the environment and increase the human-wildlife interface through which novel pathogens spill over into humans and may rapidly expand into global pandemics.
Download or read book The Origins of AIDS written by Jacques Pépin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An updated edition of Jacques Pépin's acclaimed account of the events that transformed a chimpanzee virus into a global pandemic.
Download or read book Flu written by Gina Kolata and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Veteran journalist Gina Kolata's Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It presents a fascinating look at true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Eskimos living in remote outposts in the frozen tundra were sickened and killed by the flu in such numbers that entire villages were wiped out. Scientists have recently rediscovered shards of the flu virus frozen in Alaska and preserved in scraps of tissue in a government warehouse. Gina Kolata, an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. Delving into the history of the flu and previous epidemics, detailing the science and the latest understanding of this mortal disease, Kolata addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and, most important, what can be done to prevent it.
Download or read book Virus as Populations written by Esteban Domingo and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2019-11-06 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virus as Composition, Complexity, Quasispecies, Dynamics, and Biological Implications, Second Edition, explains the fundamental concepts surrounding viruses as complex populations during replication in infected hosts. Fundamental phenomena in virus behavior, such as adaptation to changing environments, capacity to produce disease, and the probability to be transmitted or respond to treatment all depend on virus population numbers. Concepts such as quasispecies dynamics, mutations rates, viral fitness, the effect of bottleneck events, population numbers in virus transmission and disease emergence, and new antiviral strategies are included. The book's main concepts are framed by recent observations on general virus diversity derived from metagenomic studies and current views on the origin and role of viruses in the evolution of the biosphere. - Features current views on key steps in the origin of life and origins of viruses - Includes examples relating ancestral features of viruses with their current adaptive capacity - Explains complex phenomena in an organized and coherent fashion that is easy to comprehend and enjoyable to read - Considers quasispecies as a framework to understand virus adaptability and disease processes
Download or read book The Evolution and Emergence of RNA Viruses written by Edward C. Holmes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-25 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the study of viral evolution has developed rapidly in the last 30 years, little attention has been directed toward linking the mechanisms of viral evolution to the epidemiological outcomes of these processes. This book intends to fill this gap by considering the patterns and processes of viral evolution at all its spatial and temporal scales.
Download or read book The Hot Zone written by Richard Preston and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2012-03-14 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling landmark account of the first emergence of the Ebola virus. Now a mini-series drama starring Julianna Margulies, Topher Grace, Liam Cunningham, James D'Arcy, and Noah Emmerich on National Geographic. A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic "hot" virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their "crashes" into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction.
Download or read book Where COVID Came From written by Nicholas Wade and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did the Covid virus jump naturally from an animal species to humans, or did it escape from a laboratory experiment? In this essay, science writer Nicholas Wade explores the two scenarios and argues that, on present evidence, lab escape is the more likely explanation. His inference is based on specific research being conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Institute’s lack of adequate safety precautions, together with the continuing absence of any direct evidence to support natural emergence. The essay discusses the failure of the mainstream media to penetrate the self-interested assurance of virologists that lab escape was a dismissible conspiracy theory. It also notes how the politicization of discussion impeded consideration of the scientific facts.
Download or read book Dengue Virus Disease written by Adnan I. Qureshi and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2019-11-23 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dengue Virus Disease: From Origin to Outbreak provides a detailed accounting of one of the world's fastest growing infections. According to the World Health Organization, Dengue virus incidence has increased 30-fold over the past 50 years, with up to 50 to 100 million infections occurring annually in over 100 endemic countries. This estimate puts nearly half the world's population at risk. This book reviews the history, clinical and diagnostic aspects of dengue virus, also presenting our current knowledge on the pathophysiology of severe dengue and addressing the importance of dengue virus infections in those traveling to parts of the world where it is endemic. - Covers every important aspect of Dengue virus disease, from biological, to its social and economic impacts - Highlights the unique aspects of Dengue virus infection and the evolving nature of our understanding of the virus - Provides a complete description of Dengue virus disease, with details on more recent outbreaks, clinical features, first hand experiences, treatment modalities, and recent novel treatment regimens - Gives insights into the detailed psychological impact the disease has caused in outbreak regions
Download or read book The Plant Viruses written by M.H.V. Van Regenmortel and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of the series The Plant Viruses is devoted to viruses with rod-shaped particles belonging to the following four groups: the toba moviruses (named after tobacco mosaic virus), the tobraviruses (after to bacco rattle), the hordeiviruses (after the latin hordeum in honor of the type member barley stripe mosaic virus), and the not yet officially rec ognized furoviruses (fungus-transmitted rod-shaped viruses, Shirako and Brakke, 1984). At present these clusters of plant viruses are called groups instead of genera or families as is customary in other areas of virology. This pe culiarity of plant viral taxonomy (Matthews, 1982) is due to the fact that the current Plant Virus Subcommittee of the International Committee of Taxonomy of Viruses is deeply split on what to call the categories or ranks used in virus classification. Some plant virologists believe that the species concept cannot be applied to viruses because this concept, according to them, necessarily involves sexual reproduction and genetic isolation (Milne, 1984; Murant, 1985). This belief no doubt stems from the fact that these authors restrict the use of the term species to biological species. According to them, a collection of similar viral isolates and strains does constitute an individ ual virus, i. e. , it is a taxonomy entity separate from other individual viruses.
Download or read book What Really Happened In Wuhan written by Sharri Markson and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-10-01 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walkley Award-winning journalist, Sharri Markson is the Investigations Editor at The Australian and host of prime-time show Sharri on Sky News Australia. The origins of Covid-19 are shrouded in mystery. Scientists and government officials insisted, for a year and a half, that the virus had a natural origin, ridiculing anyone who dared contradict this view. Tech giants swept the internet, censoring and silencing debate in the most extreme fashion. Yet it is undeniable that a secretive facility in Wuhan was immersed in genetically manipulating bat-coronaviruses in perilous experiments. And as soon as the news of an outbreak in Wuhan leaked, the Chinese military took control and gagged all laboratory insiders. Part-thriller, part-expose, What Really Happened in Wuhan is a ground-breaking investigation from leading journalist Sharri Markson into the origins of Covid-19, the cover-ups, the conspiracies and the classified research. It features never-before-seen primary documents exposing China's concealment of the virus, fresh interviews with whistleblower doctors in Wuhan and crucial eyewitness accounts that dismantle what we thought we knew about when the outbreak hit. With unprecedented access to Washington insiders, Markson takes you inside the White House, with senior Trump lieutenants revealing first-hand accounts of fiery Oval Office clashes and new stories of compromised government advisors and censored scientists. Bravely reported and chillingly laid out, Markson brings to light the stories of the pandemic from the people on the ground: the scientists and national security officials who raised uncomfortable truths and were labelled conspiracy theorists, until government agencies began to suspect they might have been right all along. These brave individuals persisted through bruising battles and played a crucial role in investigating the origins of Covid-19 to finally, in this book, bring us closer to the truth of what really happened in Wuhan.
