Spillover delivers the science, the history, the mystery, and the human anguish of disease outbreaks as gripping drama. He found surprises in the latest research, alarm among public health officials, and deep concern in the eyes of researchers. He interviewed survivors and gathered stories of the dead. For five years he followed scientists to a rooftop in Bangladesh, a forest in the Congo, a Chinese rat farm, and a suburban woodland in New York, and through high-biosecurity laboratories. Prior to the emergence of our latest health crisis, renowned science writer David Quammen was traveling the globe to better understand spillover’s devastating potential. This phenomenon-in which a new pathogen comes to humans from wildlife-is known as spillover, and it may not be long before it happens again. The source of the previously unknown virus? Bats. In 2020, the novel coronavirus gripped the world in a global pandemic and led to the death of hundreds of thousands. A masterpiece of science reporting that tracks the animal origins of emerging human diseases, Spillover is “fascinating and terrifying … a real-life thriller with an outcome that affects us all” (Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |