Parasite rex : inside the bizarre world of nature's most dangerous creatures / Carl Zimmer
By: Zimmer, Carl.
Publisher: New York : Simon & Schuster, 2001Edition: 1st Touchstone ed.Description: xxii, 298 pages illustrations ; 22 cm.Content type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9780743200110.Subject(s): ParasitesGenre/Form: Print books.| Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On Shelf | QL757 .Z56 2001 (Browse shelf) | Available | AU0000000007413 |
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| QL751 .M215 2018 Animal personality: the science behind individual variation / | QL757 .D47 2016 People, parasites, and plowshares : learning from our body's most terrifying invaders / | QL757 .L72 2015 Parasitology : a conceptual approach / | QL757 .Z56 2001 Parasite rex : inside the bizarre world of nature's most dangerous creatures / | QL759 .S733 2016 Cheats and deceits : how animals and plants exploit and mislead / | QL785 .B414 2017 What it's like to be a dog : and other adventures in animal neuroscience / | QL785 .M654 2013 Animal wise : how we know animals think and feel / |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-286) and index
Prologue : A vein is a river: first sightings of the inner world -- Nature's criminals : how parasites came to be hated by just about everyone -- Terra incognita : Swimming through the heart, fighting to the death inside a caterpillar, and other parasitic adventures -- Thirty Years' War : How parasites provoke, manipulate, and get intimate with our immune system -- A precise horror : How parasites turn their hosts into castrated slaves, drink blood, and manage to change the balance of nature -- The great step inward : Four billion years in the reign of parasite rex -- Evolution from within : The peacock's tail, the origin of species, and other battles against the rules of evolution -- The two-legged host : How Homo sapiens grew up with creatures inside -- How to live in a parasitic world : A sick planet, and how the most newly arrived parasite can be part of a cure -- Glossary
Imagine a word where parasites control the minds of their hosts, sending them to their destruction. Imagine a world where parasites are masters of chemical warfare and camouflage, able to cloak themselves with their hosts' own molecules. Imagine a world where parasites steer the course of evolution, where the majority of species are parasites. Welcome to earth. For centuries, parasites have lived in nightmares, horror stories, and in the darkest shadows of science. Yet these creatures are among the world's most successful and sophisticated organisms. In Parasite Rex, Carl Zimmer deftly balances the scientific and the disgusting as he takes readers on a fantastic voyage. Traveling from the steamy jungles of Costa Rica to the fetid parasite haven of southern Sudan, Zimmer graphically brings to life how parasites can change DNA, rewire the brain, make men more distrustful and women more outgoing, and turn hosts into the living dead. This thorough, gracefully written book brings parasites out into the open and uncovers what they can teach us about the most fundamental survival tactics in the universe. - Publisher