The Elephant in the Room - Liz Kalaugher ****

This is by no means a jolly read - with vivid stories, Liz Kalaugher takes us into the world of zoonotic diseases, both where humans are infected by largely wild animal diseases and where we spread disease among other species.

The book voyages around the world and into the prehistoric past (entertainingly in a chapter that begins at Bristol bus station, the way all prehistory stories probably should), suggesting that perhaps the Neanderthals were wiped out by a lack of disease resistance. Kalaugher takes us on a genuinely engaging voyage of discovery, taking in a diverse range of fauna from honeycreepers and Tasmanian devils to ferrets, frogs and foxes. If, like me, you are distinctly averse to reading about anything medical, the thought of encountering avian pox, plague, West Nile virus and more can be a little unnerving, but on the whole the stories are more about the animals and their environment than too much medical detail.

Probably the weakest part of the book, as is often the case where a very difficult challenge is identified, is coming up with practical solutions. Some are, to a degree, being implemented - so, for instance, Kalaugher points out the real dangers on the edges of tropical and sub-tropical forests - as deforestation happens, the animals most likely to bring diseases to humans are those like bats and rats, most likely to survive and move into cities, spreading those diseases. Reducing deforestation is an obvious win-win both on the disease front and for climate change impact.

In other cases, it's harder to pin down a workable solution. We saw, for example, with Covid how much global travel was to blame for the rapid spread of the disease, but it seems unlikely to be something many are likely to want to ban for health reasons, however sensible it may be. (Kalaugher toes the academic party line of suppressing any suggestion of a lab leak, suggesting it 'creates an anti-science agenda that leaves us more vulnerable', without addressing the way that coverups also generate an anti-science agenda.) I also felt there was over-sensitivity in the solutions on dealing with cultural issues like traditional medicine and consumption of wild animals. But we do get a few glimmers of hope. It's not cheery - but it's an important topic.

Hardback:

Kindle:
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

Govert Schilling - Five Way Interview

Govert Schilling is an acclaimed and prize-winning freelance astronomy writer and broadcaster in the Netherlands. His articles appear in Dutch newspapers and magazines, but he also has written for New Scientist, Science and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, and he is a contributing editor of Sky & Telescope. He wrote dozens of books (including a couple of children’s books) on a wide variety of astronomical topics, many of which have been translated into English, German, Italian, and Chinese, among other languages. In 2007, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named asteroid 10986 Govert after him, and in 2014, he received the David N. Schramm Award for high-energy astrophysics science journalism from the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.His latest book is Target Earth . Why science? We live in troubling times. Fake news and conspiracy theories abound, and trust in science is diminishing. Many adults don't seem to realize that almost everythi...

The Infinite Book – John D. Barrow ****

Authors are often asked to review books on a topic they’ve written on themselves. The reasoning is sensible – they ought to know something about the subject – but there’s always that uneasy suspicion that there’s going to be a bit of bias creeping in. So I think it’s only fair to admit up front that I have written a book on infinity (of which more later). Infinity is a wonderful subject, because it’s intimately mind-bending (if the combination sounds paradoxical, that’s what infinity is all about) and gives you the chance to pull in all sorts of different concepts and assocations along the way, something Barrow does with great gusto. There’s a surprisingly large amount of coverage here for God, and for the universe, and the book jumps around from Aristotle to Hilbert’s Infinite Hotel (explained at great length), from the paradoxes of infinite sets to the paradoxes of time travel. Overall it’s an enjoyable journey that gives plenty of opportunity to be amazed and surprised. The...

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...

Search This Blog