"An extraordinary history of the perils and promise of every breath we take" James Nestor, New York Times bestselling author of Breath
"Another brilliant work from one of the very best science writers, Air-Borne will leave you agog at the incredible world that floats unseen around us" Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of An Immense World
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Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air – and thousands of living things. From the ground to the stratosphere, the air teems with invisible life.
In Air-Borne, award-winning New York Times columnist and Baillie Gifford-shortlisted author Carl Zimmer leads us on an odyssey through the living atmosphere and through the history of its discovery. We follow Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh above the clouds, where they conducted groundbreaking experiments, and meet NASA scientists who send balloons even higher, to search for life in the stratosphere.
Zimmer chronicles the dark side of aerobiology with gripping accounts of how the United States and the Soviet Union clandestinely built arsenals of biological weapons designed to spread anthrax and smallpox. Air-Borne prompts us to look at the world with new eyes – as a place where the oceans and forests loft trillions of cells into the air, where microbes eat clouds, and where life soars thousands of miles on the wind.
Weaving together spellbinding history with the latest reporting on airborne threats to global health, this masterwork makes visible an invisible world.
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9781035023462
Number of pages: 496
Dimensions: 234 x 153 mm
An extraordinary history of the perils and promise of every breath we take - James Nestor, bestselling author of Breath
Another brilliant work from one of the very best science writers, Air-Borne will leave you agog at the incredible world that floats unseen around us - Ed Yong, bestselling author of An Immense World
Carl Zimmer details the long history of studying microbes in the air and explains why that science got derailed. It’s a fascinating and also cautionary tale - Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of The Code Breaker
With Zimmer’s usual superb writing, [Air-Borne] is a page-turner filled with fascinating science, visionary scientists who were often completely wrong, and poignant moments reflecting the vast human suffering caused by such microbes . . . deeply important and unsettling - Robert Sapolsky, New York Times bestselling author of Determined
Carl Zimmer has a knack for seeing the small things but thinking big. Air-Borne is full of fascinations at both levels. From the first page, you know you’re in the hands of a master - David Quammen, New York Times bestselling author of Breathless
Through his signature in-depth reporting and lively narrative stories, [Zimmer] shows us what a dynamic force our air is, profoundly shaping our health and evolutionary history. Air-Borne is also an urgent call to understand the invisible species floating around us, so that we don’t make the same mistakes in the next public-health crisis that we face - Sam Kean, author of Caesar’s Last Breath
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