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Parasite Rex : Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures :: 074320011X
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| 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 Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
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Author: Guest
This book is an easy-to-read guidebook about parasites intended for the scientifically curious but non-expert reader. Strengths are the use of simple metaphors to explain complex scientific concepts, and the writing style, which is clear and vivid. A related strength is the tactful handling of the disgust factor, although we do get descriptions of the unsavory behavior of parasites, there was no need to skip entire paragraphs to avoid unsettling descriptions. Some of the material is organized by trips the author made to visit working scientists, i.e., an investigator in Costa Rica who hopes to catalog all parasitic species in his region. This style makes the book seem at times like a series of magazine or newspaper articles without a central focus. This limitation was not serious, and overall, this book would be an appropriate choice to inform and invoke curiosity in students and would also provide an enjoyable way for amateur biologists or scientists working in other fields to get a synopsis of the discoveries in parasitology.
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Author: Guest
Carl Zimmer, who I knew primarily through his frequent contributions to Discover magazine, is an excellent writer. Not only does his prose guide the reader effortlessly through some pretty difficult science, but he also chooses subjects which are deeply fascinating and brings out points of view which you've probably never considered before.
"Parasite Rex" is a good case in point. The first several chapters are pretty much what you'd expect -- some case studies, a little history of parasitology, some really gnarly pictures. Then, in the third-to-last chapter, he starts discussing the evolution of parasites and how their numbers and virulence can actually affect the evolutionary success of their hosts.
In the second-to-last chapter he applies this viewpoint to mankind, and shows how parasitism potentially influenced man's own evolution, including the development of culture, the diaspora out of Africa, and even possibly the creation of language!
In the last chapter, Zimmer shows how parasite loads are a barometer of species health -- completely opposite of how we normally think of parasites! -- and how a LACK of parasites may have led to the spread of autoimmune diseases in man such as allergies, colitis and Crohn's disease. By the end of the book you're actually rooting for parasites!
Now THAT is good writing.
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Author: Guest
_Parasite Rex_ by Carl Zimmer is a fascinating, well written, and very informative look at the strange world of parasites. Though I was worried that the book might carry a high "gross" factor (and in truth some things were a bit disturbing), my concerns soon evaporated as I became intrigued by these incredibly interesting and important organisms.
Early in the book we learn just how diverse a group parasites are. Most people when they hear parasites mentioned might picture tapeworms or perhaps something out of a science fiction/horror movie, but in reality parasites include protozoa, nematodes, fungi, wasps, flies, crustaceans, some species of plants, even bacteria and viruses (which Zimmer writes for some reason are not often thought of as being parasites, though that is indeed what they are). Many parasites are highly specialized (such as a species of nematode that lives only on the Achilles tendon of a particular species of deer or worms that subdivide the human eye - retina, orbit, chamber - into different niches for different species) and often are extremely common on a given animal (one parrot species from Mexico was documented to have thirty species of mites living on its feathers; one duck was found to have fourteen parasitic worm species, each in its own particular section of the intestine, numbering 22,000 individuals all told). Parasites can include "social parasites" like the cuckoo, which gets other bird species to raise its young. According to some researchers, parasites may outnumber free-living species by as much as four to one.
Zimmer covered much of the history of the study of parasites. In ancient and medieval times their presence in animals was confusing. The existence of so many different worms, flukes, and other creatures in fish and other organisms people examined lead to ideas of spontaneous generation, an idea considered heretical by the Church as only God could create life. Well into the nineteenth century parasitology was more of a "loose federation than an actual science," as veterinarians struggled against livestock parasites, entomologists analyzed some species of insects, and specialists in tropical medicine repeatedly failed in their efforts to develop vaccines and drugs to treat parasites (Zimmer discussed at length why vaccines are generally quite ineffective against eukaryotic or non-bacterial/non-viral parasites).
Additionally, many historically have regarded parasites as being degenerate, devolved organisms. Some, such as nineteenth century British zoologist Ray Lankester, were positively horrified by parasites, appalled by organisms such as the barnacle _Sacculina carcini_, an animal that upon an adulthood found a crab, lost its legs, tail, and mouth, and gained all future nourishment from its host. Even when they didn't hate parasites personally, many researchers seemed to believe that parasites were largely irrelevant, not figuring into such things as say ecological studies.
In fact, Zimmer showed in the book that parasites are highly evolved and very capable organisms. Different parasitic copepods are specially adapted to cling to the differing scales of each particular species of fish that they infest. _Trichinella_ is a multicellular animal (a nematode) that lives inside a single cell, so adept at making a home in its host body that it is a "viral animal;" not only disabling a host's genes but manipulating them to help construct an ideal home. The root-knot nematodes of the genus _Meloidognye_ do much the same thing, changing the structures of the plant cells they inhabit by tampering with the host's DNA to build their homes. Some types of parasitic wasps are able to inject something akin to a virus to rework the DNA of the caterpillars they implant their eggs in. The extensive coverage of the on-going wars between immune systems and parasites was more than enough to dispel any thoughts that parasites were somehow degenerate; parasites are able to avoid, distract, and even manipulate the immune system to repel other parasites or disperse their offspring.
My favorite thing about the book was Zimmer's excellent coverage of the often bizarre lifestyles of parasites. Many parasites are able to manipulate their host's bodies in amazing ways. Many types effectively neuter their host, using resources that their host would have used to develop eggs instead to feed the parasites. One parasite of crabs (_Sacculina_) is even able to fool the host into treating its eggs as if they were the crab's, not the parasites. Zimmer discussed the ecological role of these spayed hosts at length as these evolutionary non-productive hosts compete with other members of their species that do reproduce.
Even more interesting, some parasites are able to change the behavior of their hosts; some parasites use more than one host species, with one or more intermediate hosts serving for a time as a home. When the parasite is ready to move to the next stage of host, it modifies its behavior so that the host gets eaten. One of several examples he provided was a tapeworm species that uses a beetle as an intermediate host before reaching its final host, rats; when ready to enter a rat the tapeworm makes the beetle sluggish, less conscientious about concealment, even turns off its only defense, glands that can produce a foul-tasting chemical.
A number of parasites unfortunately plague humankind and these are covered as well. Trypanosomes (a protozoa species) for instance cause sleeping sickness, an illness spread by the tsetse fly in Africa, an ailment that plagues cattle and humans in a wide swath of the continent (another species of trypanosome causes Chagas disease in South America, a disease that may have afflicted Charles Darwin).
Parasites can also be beneficial, useful in controlling introduced pest species (many introduced insects can only be controlled by importing their parasites) and possibly even having a positive role in developing medicines to prevent rejection of transplanted organs, prevent blood clots, and eliminate Crohn's disease, colitis, and possibly allergies.
Diverse and highly adaptable, parasites were fascinating to read about and Zimmer did an excellent job in covering them in terms of biology, ecology, medicine, history, culture, even as treated by Hollywood.
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Author: Guest
In the beginning there were hydrothermal vents, and they said, "Let there be life." And life was formed and it was good. But life was lonely, so the vents said, "let there be parasites." But the parasites smote much of the other life akin to a great flood sweeping across the land. After 40 days and 40 nights, life and the new parasitic life form began to play the arms race game of the Red Queen and that was good. And other life begat more other life through cloning of their DNA's, but reproduction through cloning once again allowed parasites to gain dominion over the land and the seas, so other life invented immunology and other life invented sex, in self defense. And so it went.
And it came to pass that there were many other life forms, but none existed without parasites, and no parasites existed without them, and the battle of the Red Queen escalated and flowed, lacking much ebb. As a parasite gained dominance over one species, other species proliferated, providing separation and new speciation. The peacock grew seemingly unnecessary featherages, the bower birds built elaborate seduction altars, and all the creatures created pecking orders and heirarchies. And so it went.
And it came to pass the parasites evolved elaborate life cycles involving different life forms and serial hosts. In each host they cast spells which they called "better living through chemistry." Some intermediate hosts became mere parasite hotels, hypnotized into helping the parasite find its next host. The more vicious parasites, in error, killed their hosts, thereby they also died. The wiser ones preferred slavery i.e., how to get the most use and nutrition out of their host without killing it. Both the parasites and their more able hosts went to absurd extremes, each trying to outwit the other, in building Rube-Goldberg defense strategies. One minor two-legged (called "human") species went to such ridiculous extremes as to evolve elaborate cognition in order to best the parasites. They became so bright, they figured many things out about their world, yet these upright walkers were still not cognizant of the prominent role parasites had played in human evolution, and their dominance. Alas, for every member of their bigger group, mammals, there were thousand of groups of parasites. The parasites had come to make up the majority of the creatures on earth. And so it is.
And the creatures that multiply across the face of the earth continue to thrive. And the hydrothermal vents who observe all of the Red Queen game say, "it is good," and they don't rest.
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Author: Guest
Almost everywhere you see more reasons to think that the world is going to hell in the old proverbial handbasket: global warming, cretin politicians, mad scientists with more schemes for better ways to destroy us and people who blow you up just because you don't shake your head yes or no at exactly the same time they do. This book will add yet another dimension to your worry. After thumbing through all 298 pages you will have a pretty good idea of what waits to glide through your membranes, colonize your nervous system, gunk up the striations in your muscles, chew through the jelly of your eyes, swim in the fishbowl of your brain or perhaps has already gotten to work and is doing these and other nasty things even as you read. Still, you have to hand it to all those sci-fi-looking worms and germs and viruses: they're pretty clever, and if you're a religious type, you might even see the many thumbs of Elohim at work--especially when author Carl Zimmer tells us that parasites just might be the arcane engine of evolution, and that adapting to parasites might be the real reason that normal gals pick guys with regular features and biceps, in the same way that hens pick roosters for the redness of their combs. The one fact that has stuck with me after reading this book, however, is that Zimmer tells us that Toxoplasma "changes the personality of its human hosts, bringing different shifts to men and women. Men become less willing to submit to the moral standards of a community....Women become more outgoing and warmhearted..." This particular parasitic ghoulie can be easily picked up from the family cat, folks. In fact many of you reading my words are already infected. Makes us wonder how much of human personality is explainable by the number of parasites we unknowingly host. Perhaps that sudden yen for a kosher dill pickle in the middle of the night might have a creeping cause, or even that get-well party for the associate that you don't particularly care for, the idea of which suddenly formed itself in a kind of Eureka-moment in the brain, might be tracable to the hormonal disruptors of something more akin to the arthropods than the angels. Yuck!
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