Book Reviews: Parasite Rex

[Guest guest]

http://www.carlzimmer.com/parasite_3.html

 

Book Reviews: Parasite Rex

 

Los Angeles Weekly , January 1, 2004

" A squirm-inducing masterpiece. "

 

New York Times Book Review , October 22, 2000

" With Parasite Rex, Zimmer proves himself as fine a science essayist

as we have. "

 

Mark Ridley, New Scientist, August 19, 2000

" Superb...a non-stop delight...Zimmer represents a healthy trend in

science writing. In contrast to many writers, he popularises science

on its own terms rather than twisting it into one of the cliches of

the marketplace. There are no apocalyptic, sensational or

quasi-religious themes in Zimmer's writing; the science can be

enjoyed- as Zimmer clearly does-for what it is. "

 

Susan Adams, Forbes, September 8, 2000

" Zimmer is such an accomplished, vivid writer that he is able to weave

these revolting beasts into an engrossing story that you will read to

the last page. "

 

Publisher's Weekly: STARRED REVIEW.

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, too-and we have a

lot to learn from them about how to manage earth, the host we share.

 

Library Journal:

Zimmer, a columnist for Natural History, has written an absolutely

fascinating book about parasites--once the reader gets past the

" grossness " factor. As with his previous book, At the Water's Edge,

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 th emost

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 air 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 system's

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 bibliobraphy), it does

have a place in science libraries, even for students who don't realize

that their field of study is related to parasitology.

 

Kirkus Reviews:

Parasites, the stuff of many people's nightmares, are a biologist's

dream--superbly adapted creatures that have evolved sophisticated

strategies for living off their hosts. [Carl Zimmer] describes the

parasites' lifestyles in vivid detail. His subjects range in size from

the protozoan Plasmodium (which can fit inside a human red blood cell)

to tapeworms, which can grow 60 feet long. Living inside another

rcreatue's body requires developing elaboarte ways to dodge the immune

system, from hiding in cysts to releasing tame viruses that decoy

defenses from the actual threat. Some parasites can modify the

behavior of their intermiedate hosts, making them more vulnerable to

the predators that are their final hosts. Toxoplasma, which passes

from rats to cats, turns off a panic mechanism triggered by the smell

of cat urine, so the rats no longer instinctively avoid their feline

hunters. Many parasites sterilize their prey, diverting energy from

reproductive activity to the create of food for parasties.

Parasitologists believe that this sort of behavior, making some

infected animals 30 times more likely to be eaten, has a profound

effect on the balance of predator and prey species in the wild. But to

most readers, the real meat of the book will be its description of the

ways in which parasites affect the human race. The biggest surprise:

rainforest Indians in Venezuela, commonly infected with intestinal

parasites, are almost entirely free of asthma. Scientists speculate

that, without parasites to repel, the immune system turns its

attention to otherwise minor irritants such as dust mites and cat

dander. As with so many other apparent advances, the cure for one

disease may well be the cause of another. An eye-opening perpective on

biology, ecology, and medicine--well worth reading, even if the

subject makes you squeamish.