Book
Panic in level 4 : cannibals, killer viruses, and other journeys to the edge of science
Record details
- ISBN: 9781400064908 (alk. paper) :
- ISBN: 9781400064908 (hc)
- ISBN: 1400064902 (alk. paper)
- ISBN: 9781400064908 (alk. paper)
- ISBN: 9781400064908 (pbk.)
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Physical Description:
print
xli, 188 p. : ill ; 25 cm. - Edition: 1st ed.
- Publisher: New York : Random House, c2008.
Content descriptions
| General Note: | "Portions of this book appeared in different form in The New Yorker." |
| Formatted Contents Note: | The mountains of Pi -- A death in the forest -- The search for ebola -- The human Kabbalah -- The lost unicorn -- The self-cannibals. |
| Target Audience Note: | All Ages. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Medicine, Popular Science Science writers |
Available copies
- 6 of 6 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 0 of 0 copies available at Smithers Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 6 total copies.
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
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- 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 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.
