{"id":3291,"date":"2011-05-21T09:30:02","date_gmt":"2011-05-21T14:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/?p=3291"},"modified":"2011-05-21T09:30:02","modified_gmt":"2011-05-21T14:30:02","slug":"planet-of-viruses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/?p=3291","title":{"rendered":"Planet Of Viruses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Planet-Viruses-Carl-Zimmer\/dp\/0226983358\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1305982690&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3292\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/PlanetVirus_AF-300x178.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"178\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/PlanetVirus_AF-300x178.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/PlanetVirus_AF.jpg 473w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I just finished reading <a href=\"http:\/\/carlzimmer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Carl Zimmer&#8217;s<\/a> newest book,<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Planet-Viruses-Carl-Zimmer\/dp\/0226983358\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1305982690&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0A Planet of Viruses<\/a>.\u00a0 When the book arrived and I\u00a0realized\u00a0its\u00a0viral stature (a mere 94 pages containing\u00a04 sections\u00a0with 12 chapters and images) I was a bit saddened.\u00a0\u00a0Having previously read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Microcosm-Coli-Science-Vintage\/dp\/0307276864\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1305983492&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">Microcosm<\/a>,\u00a0on\u00a0the biology\u00a0gleaned from the science of studying <em>E. coli<\/em>,\u00a0I was\u00a0primed to delve into the practice of virology and\u00a0didn&#8217;t think 94 pages could deliver the fix I desired.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Well, having read the book, I still can&#8217;t say that it did.\u00a0 But is wasn&#8217;t a waste of time either.\u00a0 Here are a few thoughts&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Each\u00a0chapter\u00a0informs about a particular\u00a0virus or group\u00a0of\u00a0viruses and is\u00a0written\u00a0with\u00a0an expected\u00a0passion for the\u00a0history and science.\u00a0 The chapters are a bit too succinct though.\u00a0 You get drawn in to the story that is being told only for it to finish too soon.\u00a0 In fact, the chapters average just over 6 pages in length (some 76 written pages in total).\u00a0 Each chapter is\u00a0a wonderful stand-alone story that shares specific researched insights that could inform any class\u00a0discussion of the world of viruses, and may make a good introduction for students and lay people alike.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0book\u00a0has\u00a0a more general trajectory as well, progressing from\u00a0our\u00a0initial awareness of\u00a0viruses (via Tobacco Mosaic Virus), through old companions (Rhinovirus, Influenza Virus, and Human Papillomavirus) and their ubiquity (Bacteriophages, Marine Phages, and Endogenous Retroviruses), to more recent epidemics and issues of eradication\u00a0(HIV, West Nile Virus, SARS and Ebola, and Smallpox).\u00a0 The layout\u00a0fully supports the title&#8217;s claim, and\u00a0Zimmer\u00a0presents an apprecaited and\u00a0new perspective on the viruses as a necessary and integral part of the living world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I took some time looking around for some more literary reviews of the book to share (NY Times, etc&#8230;), but I couldn&#8217;t find much more than book sellers and other useless links.\u00a0 Here the few that I found&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.avclub.com\/articles\/carl-zimmer-a-planet-of-viruses,55946\/?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=feeds&amp;utm_source=imdb\" target=\"_blank\">Samantha Nelson&#8217;s<\/a><\/li>\n<li>at <a href=\"http:\/\/symbolic-mirage.blogspot.com\/2011\/05\/book-review-planet-of-viruses.html\" target=\"_blank\">Virtual Mirage<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The book was born from a more general project led by the University of Nebraska at Lincoln called the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldofviruses.unl.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">World of Viruses<\/a>.\u00a0 This site is still in development but appears to have the goal of supporting some curricular materials on viruses in the future.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/worldofviruses.jpg\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldofviruses.unl.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/worldofviruses.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3293\" src=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/worldofviruses.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"991\" height=\"560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/worldofviruses.jpg 991w, https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/worldofviruses-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 991px) 100vw, 991px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In summary, I enjoyed and learned enough from Carl&#8217;s new book to make it a worth while read, although I expected much more.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/worldofviruses.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just finished reading Carl Zimmer&#8217;s newest book,\u00a0A Planet of Viruses.\u00a0 When the book arrived and I\u00a0realized\u00a0its\u00a0viral stature (a mere 94 pages containing\u00a04 sections\u00a0with 12 chapters and images) I was a bit saddened.\u00a0\u00a0Having previously read Microcosm,\u00a0on\u00a0the biology\u00a0gleaned from the science of studying E. coli,\u00a0I was\u00a0primed to delve into the practice of virology and\u00a0didn&#8217;t think 94<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/?p=3291\">+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[137,523,521,522],"class_list":["post-3291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching-resources","tag-carl-zimmer","tag-planet-of-viruses","tag-viruses","tag-world-of-viruses"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3291"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3301,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3291\/revisions\/3301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kabt.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}