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IN THIS REISSUED PAPERBACK EDITION WITH A NEW EPILOGUE, CARL ZIMMER REVEALS THE POWER, DANGER, AND BEAUTY OF PARASITES.
For centuries, parasites have lived in nightmares, horror stories, and the darkest shadows of science. In Parasite Rex, Carl Zimmer takes readers on a fantastic voyage into the secret universe of these extraordinary life-forms—which are not only among the most highly evolved on Earth, but make up the majority of life’s diversity. Traveling from the steamy jungles of Costa Rica to the parasite-riddled war zone of southern Sudan, Zimmer introduces an array of amazing creatures that invade their hosts, prey on them from within, and control their behavior. He also vividly describes parasites that can change DNA, rewire the brain, make men more distrustful and women more outgoing, and turn hosts into the living dead. This comprehensive, gracefully written book brings parasites out into the open and uncovers what they can teach us all about the most fundamental survival tactics in the universe—the laws of Parasite Rex.
- Sales Rank: #38671 in Books
- Brand: imusti
- Published on: 2001-11-09
- Released on: 2001-11-09
- Ingredients: Example Ingredients
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.44" h x .80" w x 5.50" l, .69 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
- Atria Books
Amazon.com Review
Many books provoke a visceral reaction, but few really make you itch. Science writer Carl Zimmer's Parasite Rex does just that, provoking a deliciously creepy sense of paranoia in the reader as it explores a long-misunderstood realm of science. While entomologists love to announce that there are more species of insects than all other animals combined, few parasitologists choose to trump that by reminding us that "parasites may outnumber free-living species four to one." That figure is based on the multicellular chauvinism of the 19th century, which excludes bacteria and fungi from consideration (athlete's foot, anyone?), but Zimmer looks at the E. coli in our guts as well as the worms, flukes, mites, and other critters that earn a healthy living at our expense--and the expense of our domesticated plants and animals.
The author traveled to Africa to see firsthand the effects of sleeping sickness and river blindness. He learned from physicians and researchers that the parasites that wreak so much havoc are much more than the simple degenerates we've taken them for. Their complex adaptations to their environments--us--are as lovely and awe-inspiring as any eye or wing. The examples of hormonal and other behavioral control of hosts, causing changes in feeding habits and other life essentials, are chilling when personalized. Zimmer knows his subject well, and his writing, while robust and affecting, never descends to the all-too-easy gross-out. You wouldn't expect to find respect for a tapeworm, but Parasite Rex will show you how beautiful Earth's truly dominant life forms are. --Rob Lightner
From Publishers Weekly
One of the year's most fascinating works of popular science is also its most disgusting. From tapeworms to isopods to ichneumon wasps, "parasites are complex, highly adapted creatures that are at the heart of the story of life." Zimmer (At the Water's Edge) devotes his second book to the enormous variety of one- and many-celled organisms that live on and inside other animals and plants. The gruesome trypanosomes that cause sleeping sickness had nearly been routed from Sudan when the country's civil war began: now they're back. Costa Rican researcher Daniel Brooks has discovered dozens of parasites, including flies that lay eggs in deer noses: "snot bots." And those are only the creatures from the prologue. Zimmer discusses how the study of parasites began, with 19th-century discoveries about their odd life cycles. (Many take on several forms in several generations, so that a mother worm may resemble her granddaughter, but not her daughter.) He looks at how parasites pass from host to host, and how they defeat immune systems and vice versa. Many parasites alter their hosts' behavior: Toxoplasma makes infected rats fearless, thus more likely to be eaten by cats, who will then pick up the microbe. Quantifiable "laws of virulence" lead parasites to become nasty enough to spread, yet not so nasty as to wipe out all their hosts. And eons of coevolution can affect both partners: howler monkeys may avoid violent fights because screwworms can render the least scratch fatal. Two final chapters address parasites in human medicine and agriculture. Not only are parasites not all bad, Zimmer concludes in this exemplary work of popular science, but we may be parasites, tooDand we have a lot to learn from them about how to manage earth, the host we share. Illus. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Zimmer, a columnist at National History, has written an absolutely fascinating book about parasitesDonce the reader gets past the "grossness" factor. As with his previous book, At the Water's Edge (LJ 2/1/98), evolution is central: Zimmer considers not only how parasites have evolved but how they may have helped the evolution of other species. Though humans are not the only species discussed, some of the most interesting evolutionary theories come from human-parasite relations. Mild cases of sickle cell anemia, for instance, seem to protect against malaria, implying that these sorts of blood diseases have evolved with the aid of parasites. The author discusses more recent research suggesting that some modern diseases, such as allergies or ulcerative colitis, may actually be triggered by our immune systems' not having parasites to fight. This well-written book makes parasitology interesting and accessible to anyone. Not a textbook (a few good ones are recommended in a selected bibliography), it does have a place in science libraries, even for students who don't realize that their field of study is related to parasitology. Recommended for public and academic libraries.DMargaret Henderson, Cold Spring Harbor Academics, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Good writing, no illustrations
By F. Moyer
Though it sounds odd, this book gave me a profound respect for parasites – and an understanding of just how difficult it can be to study them. Indeed, for some young adults, reading this book could be the career-deciding event in their young lives.
So why just three stars? Two reasons.
First, the lack of illustrations. Nature books -- especially of such strange creatures with their multi-stage life cycle – cry out for photos and illustrations. So although the text was very good, with nothing but words to go by, the visual images that the reader unconsciously comes up with could be far off the mark. (I.e., Picture visiting a natural science museum that has signs but no exhibits.)
Second, the book sometimes speculates about the influence that parasites may have had on evolution and animal behavior. Though such speculations make for interesting thought experiments, they are by their very nature unprovable.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
I wish my rectum was a cannon
By Reviewer
One of the reviews of this book claimed it would change the way you thought about the world. That sounds like hyperbole, but after reading "Parasite Rex," I have to concede it's true. I'm about as lay as laymen come (at least when it comes to hard science), and yet I found myself so spellbound by the descriptions of how various parasites operate, survive, and evolve, that I finally understood the passion of entomologists, which had always seemed so foreign to me.
The author takes the lives of parasitic organisms and makes it into high drama,and sometimes high comedy, as in the case of a bug, that, in order to thwart predators who scent its droppings, has turned its derriere into a high-powered rocket launcher that fires its feces far away in order to throw parasites off its trail.
I've spent enough time in academia (in the soft sciences/humanities) to have my eyes glaze over whenever I hear the word "interdisciplinary," but this book really does deserve the word. Zimmer brings everything to bear in his discussion, from parasites in pop culture/ media (the films of David Cronenberg and Ridley Scott). to ecological philosophy (a variation on the Gaia Hypothesis), arguing credibly that the ecosystem may perceive Homo Sapiens Sapiens as a parasite swimming in its own bloodstream, and that the multiple banes of our existences, like malaria, cancer, and AIDS, are nature's way of trying to rid itself of a persistent parasite repeatedly attacking its host.
I remember a marine biologist once telling me that she wasn't interested in science fiction, because nature always outdid the imagination. This book is proof of that theory. Hats off to Zimmer. Highest Recommendation.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Very interesting and important, if a bit plodding
By Spock
The book its an excellent review of the parasites among us. It also does not miss any key topics, although some of them it glosses over a bit. For example, the chapeter on how these criters beat our immune system could have been much better and more detailed, particularly as this was for me one of the key quesitons I had as I continued to read. While we are told that basically it is too costly for organisms to proof themselves against even particular parasites, that was never explained in sufficient detail. On the whole, however, it covers the important parasite concepts and the evolutionary twists and turns in the battle between parasites and their hosts, and responsibly differentiates scientific speculation from experimental fact.
Perhaps the biggest flaw in the book is the lack of diagrams and its minimal number of photos. One of the coolest things about parasites is how gross they are and I wanted to see more of them. Also the same parasites seemed to keep coming up as examples of everything. Perhaps there are only so many types of parasites so it just doesn't matter whether one discusses blood flukes of humans or some other animal. But the book makes bold statements about how much more diverse parasites are than so called "free living" organisms, so it seemed a bit weird to continually be presnted with the "usual suspects" as examples of each of the parasitic principles.
The writing is clear and well organized, but goes on too long and is repetitive in places. This would probably have been a better book if were 30 pages shorter. But that's a quibble.
On the whole, a very good book that should interest anyone interested in natural systems and evolution, and parasites in particular.
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