E-audiobook
Panic in level 4 [electronic resource] : cannibals, killer viruses, and other journeys to the edge of science / Richard Preston.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781415949689 (sound recording : OverDrive Audio Book)
- ISBN: 1415949689 (sound recording : OverDrive Audio Book)
- Publisher: [Santa Ana, Calif.] : Books on Tape, 2008.
Content descriptions
| General Note: | Downloadable audio file. Title from: Title details screen. Unabridged. Duration: 7:49:02. |
| System Details Note: | Requires OverDrive Media Console Requires OverDrive Media Console (file size: 112345 KB). Mode of access: World Wide Web. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Medicine, Popular. Science. Science writers. |
| Genre: | DOWNLOADABLE AUDIOBOOK. Audiobooks. |
Electronic resources
- AudioFile Reviews : AudioFile Reviews 2009 February/March
The author compounds several of his science reports reprised from articles in the NEW YORKER. Although the articles may seem eclectic, the gestalt demonstrates "how few degrees of separation there are between far-flung areas of scientific endeavors." Narrator James Lurie assumes the role of the author, who writes in the first person. Lurie's testosterone-stoked voice strikes a rapid pace, undaunted by the abundant technical terms. Two of his impersonations stand out. One is the voice of a Russian-Jewish émigré and computer whiz working on pi to several billion digits. The other interviewee suffers from a gruesome genetic syndrome, and Mr. Lurie speaks for him as though he had cerebral palsy. Done without mockery or indiscretion, the result imparts a deserved empathy for the disorder. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine - Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2008 May #2
Preston's six articles, collected here, have been revamped from their original form in the New Yorker. Several about vectors of disease echo Preston's hugely popular The Hot Zone (1994). Indeed, one article reprises that book's subject of the Ebola virus, as does Preston's introduction, which describes his wish that was not granted for The Hot Zone but was for this tome: a tour of the U.S. Army's facility for studying pathogens, the Level 4 of the title. Eclectic though this volume is, it has a unifier in Preston's focus on personalities central to each article. One features two men, brothers by relation, mathematicians by dedication, who built a supercomputer in their apartment for one purpose: to set a world record for the computation of pi. Another profiles an arborist who studied hemlock trees, and none too soon, as they are dying from an invasive Asian insect. Whether hanging out with genetics entrepreneur J. Craig Venter, the restorers of the Cloisters' famous unicorn tapestries, or the sufferers of Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, Preston personifies perceptiveness and empathy in journalism. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2008 April #2
A collection of science essays first published in the New Yorker, here brought up to date and lightly threaded together. Preston (The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring, 2007, etc.) opens with an introduction, "Adventures in Nonfiction Writing," that returns to the frightening world of viruses explored in The Hot Zone (1994), to demonstrate how he researches and shapes his work, sometimes under extraordinary circumstances. At one point, he shares his feelings of horror when the zipper on his biohazard suit breaks while he is inside Biosafety Level 4 at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. He offers a bloody, stomach-churning account of what a virus can do to the human body in "The Search for Ebola," centered on Kikwit General Hospital in the Congo. Mortality is again the focus in "A Death in the Forest," but this time the agent is a tiny brown parasitic insect, and its victim is the eastern hemlock, once found in abundance in temperate rain forests in the southern Appalachians. This story takes Preston valiantly bushwhacking through the Cataloochee Valley and climbing 160-foot trees with an arborist to witness and record the devastation. "The Human Kabbalah," which focuses on Craig Venter and the business and technology behind the deciphering of the human genome, is loosely linked to "The Self-Cannibals," which tackles a genetic disorder that causes those who have it to attack themselves brutally. While the tone of the former is at times acerbic, the latter piece includes a moving portrait of two sufferers the author befriended. "The Mountains of Pi" sympathetically profiles two eccentric mathematicians who designed and built a supercomputer from mail-order parts in a Manhattan apartment to calculate pi to a world-record-setting number of digits: 2,260,321,336. They return in "The Lost Unicorn," which recounts how their expertise enabled them to capture digital images of large medieval tapestries for The Cloisters museum.Well researched, well paced and accessible. Copyright Kirkus 2008 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2008 February #1
Preston's collected essays revisit numerous hot zones. With a six-city tour. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2008 August #4
Buffy the Vampire Slayer's James Lurie brings his rich, honeyed baritone to Preston's book of essays on radical science. The book is rather uneven. The first chapter is an overly self-referential account of Preston's own laboratory encounter with the Ebola virus he made famous in The Hot Zone; the other essays are more traditional portraits of scientists on the frontier of discovery. Lurie conjures an engaging and credible Russian accent when speaking for two immigrant mathematicians who are racing to determine all the digits of pi. But he is inconsistent and strained when attempting a genetics researcher's British accent. Still, listeners will enjoy the way both Preston and Lurie uncover the humanity of great researchers, whether they are attempting to save hemlock and chestnut trees from fast-encroaching diseases or help those suffering from Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, a rare condition that causes its victims to compulsively consume their own flesh. A Random House hardcover (reviews, Apr. 21). (June) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2008 April #3
The title of New Yorker contributor Preston's new collection refers to the subject of his bestselling The Hot Zone : a series of rooms in a government biohazard laboratory where scientists work with virulent pathogens like the Ebola viruses that would be devastating in the hands of terrorists. The essays (all from the New Yorker ) cover such scientific matters as a profile of controversial ber-genome mapper Craig Venter; a gene that leads people to cannibalize themselves; and two Russian-Jewish migr scientists who built a monster computer in their cramped apartment to puzzle out patterns in the value of pi. Preston's essay on the destruction of large swaths of eastern U.S. forests by insect parasites accidentally brought into the country from abroad is the shortest but most compelling. Preston might have done more to update his pieces; for example, the Marburg virus was found in bats last year, supporting his hypothesis that they are the reservoir for Ebola. But Preston's fans will enjoy his showing how few degrees of separation there are between far-flung areas of scientific endeavors. Illus. (June)
[Page 46]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information. - School Library Journal Reviews : SLJ Reviews 2008 October
Adult/High Schoolâ Preston gets to the heart of these nonfiction essays by placing himself in the center of the story. The "panic" of the book's title refers to his own when his biohazard suit was breached and he feared he may have been exposed to one of the deadliest known viruses. Two of the pieces involve the brothers Chudnovsky, mathematicians so closely dependent on one another that they refer to themselves as The Mathematician. The author was able to disappear as an interviewer to the extent that he became part of the brothers' portrait. At one point, one Chudnovsky says to the other: "The interviewer answers our questionsâ¦. The interviewer becomes a person in the story." Preston used this skill of blending into his accounts to his advantage. Whether he was strapping on gear to climb mammoth hemlocks with arborists trying to understand the diseases killing the great trees of the world or acting as an off-road driver for a couple of men with the disease of self-cannibalization, Preston fit in like a good supporting actor who also happened to be the cameraman, writer, and director. Teens will find these stories compelling. The author has the eyes and language of a fine novelist, but he has the mind of a scientist who is trying to understand some of the most fascinating mysteries of our age.âWill Marston, Berkeley Public Library, CA
[Page 179]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
