Strange Invader.In Mexico, just southeast of the city of Chihuahua is an amazing cave: the Cave of Crystals. Besides boulder sized crystals the cave has numerous pools of ancient water, isolated from the outside world for millions of years, the pools contain no fish or other life forms. Yet the water in these pools was found to harbor viruses, millions of viruses. That's how Carl Zimmer starts out his informative, well written, book A Planet of Viruses. Not so much a single narrative but a collection of essays on this unusual biological entity. Each essay starts out with false-color electron micrographs of different viruses. Delving into the "life" history of each specie, the author gives you a brief overview of how they develop, reproduce and, yes, evolve.How many kinds of virus are there? The truth is, we don't know. There are new strains being discovered every day, most of which do not effect humans at all. But they are everywhere, in the air we breathe, in the water we drink, in our bodies and on our bodies. Some viruses are harmful, even lethal to the organism they use to reproduce, but most are harmless and in fact may even be necessary for all life, serving a useful function for the life forms around them. If their numbers are astounding then so too is their variety and most are specific to a particular kind of host organism. It's not just animal life that they target but plants, fungi, bacteria and even other viruses. Some are so incredibly small that they can hide in cells, by the millions. At the other end of the spectrum there are viruses so large that they can be mistaken for a bacterium. The largest found so far is the Mimivirus and I can't even guess as to the smallest. Some viruses can change hosts when necessary, like the cowpox virus that moved from cows to humans and became smallpox. The more we live and work around animals the more we risk exposure to new kinds of viruses. After a time we may develop an immunity to some of those viruses and although those particular viruses may not harm us we can still carry them with us when we travel and infect any strangers we meet. Viruses make more viruses by invading the cells, or cell, of another organism, commandeering that organisms genetic material to make as many viruses as is needed. So, can viruses exist without a proper host? It appears not, but what does that tell us about the Cave of Crystals virus? Are they truly alone in those pools or is there another, as yet unknown, organism present. Or is there a way for them to use other viruses as a host? Or maybe they have an incredibly long life span. Zimmer doesn't address that issue but he does cover a lot of ground, including one very special questions. Are viruses alive? Some specialist say yes, others say no and the debate has been going on since viruses were first discovered. They do seek out their specific host and invade it's cells to make more viruses, so they do have a kind of unconscious purpose. They can evolve to change hosts if necessary. They move about to find suitable environmental conditions. Sounds like life to me, but your guess is a good as mine. If the specialist don't know for sure then where does that leave the layperson reader? With plenty of reading material, that's for sure. There are other questions that occurred to me. How did viruses evolve? Were they the very first organisms or did they evolve later from from some, as yet, unknown prokaryotic bacterium that shed its unneeded genetic material for a parasitic life style? The debate goes on with no end in sight. For more on this subject and on the Mimivirus see James L. VanEtten's fine article: Giant Viruses in American Scientist July-August 2011. I had no technical or formatting problems with this Kindle edition.Last Ranger Short, but interesting. Not too technical. This book would probably make a good, very basic, introductory text on the subject of viruses. The book briefly discusses the official discovery of viruses, the tobacco mosaic virus, the common cold, flu, papillomavirus and the jackalope, bacteriophages and their use in medicine, retroviruses, HIV, West Nile Virus, SARS, Ebola, smallpox and the "giant' mimivirus.If you liked this book or want something more in-depth I recommend "Spillover" by David Quammen. Spillover covers some of these topics in more detail (e.g. flu, SARS, HIV, Eboloa) but doesn't mention everything covered in "A Planet of Viruses" (e.g. bacteriophages, papillomavirus, mimivirus).
Do You like book A Planet Of Viruses (2011)?
Very informative, gives basic info about different viruses and their impact through the ages.
—jacob
Very small book with an overview of popular viruses. Would have liked more depth and detail.
—nushy
I loved this book as long as it lasted. My only complaint is that it ended way too soon.
—henriqueolive
