Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Life Sciences - Microbiology

"Admirable, superbly researched . . . perhaps the most exciting tale of science since the apple dropped on Newton's head."
--Simon Winchester, The New York Times

Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in his London laboratory in 1928 and its eventual development as the first antibiotic by a team at Oxford University headed by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain in 1942 led to the introduction of the most important family of drugs of the twentieth century.

Yet credit for penicillin is largely misplaced. Neither Fleming nor Florey and his associates ever...

" A] quietly terrifying book. . . . It's hard not to feel a bit feverish at times while reading." --The Boston Globe

In The Viral Storm, award-winning biologist Nathan Wolfe tells the story of how viruses and human beings have evolved side by side through history; how deadly viruses like HIV, swine flu, and bird flu almost wiped us out in the past; and why modern life has made our species vulnerable to the threat of a global pandemic. He takes readers along on his groundbreaking and often dangerous research trips to reveal the surprising origins of the most deadly...

Everything readers ever wanted to know about deadly viruses, killer parasites, flesh-eating microbes, and other lifethreatening beasties but were afraid to ask

What disease, known as "the White Death" has killed 2 billion people, and counting?

What fatal disease lurks undetected in air conditioners and shower heads, waiting to become airborne?

How lethal is the Ebola virus, and will there ever be a cure for it?

How do you catch flesh-eating bacteria?

Killer Germs takes readers on a fascinating (sometimes horrifying) journey into the amazing...

When our ancestors set off from the cradle of civilization on their journey toward populating the planet forty-thousand years ago, tuberculosis hitched a ride with us and has been with us ever since. Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the organism responsible for TB, has learned through natural selection to be an almost perfect pathogen. The bacterium can enter into a latent state when a host's immune system is strong, only to come back to life when the immune system has become weakened. TB even has come up with clever ways to avoid being killed by antibiotics. Throw in the compounding problems...