Virusphere: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

Virusphere: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
Frank Ryan

A fascinating and long overdue examination of viruses – from what they are and what they do, to the vital role they have played in human history.What are viruses? Do they rely on genes, like all other forms of life? Do they follow the same patterns of evolution as plants and animals?Frank Ryan answers these questions and many more in a sweeping tour of illnesses caused by viruses. For example, the common cold, measles, chicken pox, herpes and mumps, rubella, as well as less familiar examples, such as rabies, ‘breakbone’ fever, haemorrhagic fevers like Ebola, and virus-induced cancers. Along the way, readers will learn about the behaviours and ultimate goals of viruses, gaining a deeper understanding of their importance in relation to the origins and the evolution of life, as well as they ways viruses have changed us at the most intimate level, to help make us quintessentially human.

Copyright (#u05bbd12e-fc53-5e94-91fc-1b07bdd2ba3c)

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.williamcollinsbooks.com)

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2019

Copyright © Frank Ryan 2019

Frank Ryan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008296674

eBook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008296698

Version: 2019-02-21

Dedication (#u05bbd12e-fc53-5e94-91fc-1b07bdd2ba3c)

I would like to thank my editors,

Myles Archibald and Hazel Eriksson,

and my agent, Jonathan Pegg,

for their support of my writing this book

Epigraph (#u05bbd12e-fc53-5e94-91fc-1b07bdd2ba3c)

We all play hideous games with each other.

We step inside each other’s chalk circles.

Anthony Hopkins

Contents

Cover (#u8d73b54c-a7b6-5246-bd6c-ccecf6a807bc)

Title Page (#u555e663d-570b-5f0d-b2e0-74ae680af984)

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction

1. What Are Viruses?

2. Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases

3. A Plague Upon a Plague

4. Every Parent’s Nightmare

5. A Bug Versus a Virus

6. A Coincidental Paralysis

7. Deadly Viruses

8. An All-American Plague

9. Lurker Viruses

10. How Flu Viruses Reinvent Themselves

11. A Lesson from a Machiavellian Virus

12. The Mystery of Ebola

13. The Mercurial Nature of the Zika Virus

14. A Taste for the Liver

15. Warts and All

16. Lilliputian Giants

17. Are Viruses Alive?

18. Inspiring Terror – and Delight