Zimmer Carl

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. From NASA scientists conducting trailblazing experiments in the sky, to governments building clandestine arsenals of biological airborne weapons, Air-Borne prompts us to look at the world with fresh eyes. Weaving together spellbinding history with the latest reporting on airborne threats to global health, this masterwork makes visible an invisible world.

Boli tu pred nami, sú tu s nami a budú tu, aj keď my nebudeme... vírusy. Slovo, ktorého význam sa definitívne ustálil až s vedeckým napredovaním modernej doby, označujúci látku, o ktorej existencii sa vedelo už v dávnej histórii bez toho, že by ju niekto videl. Jej zničujúce dôsledky nikto nebral na ľahkú váhu, ale tohto nepriateľa umožnilo zazrieť až objavenie a skonštruovanie elektrónového mikroskopu. A odvtedy sú vírusy neutíchajúcim zdrojom tých najneočakávanejších prekvapení. Aj pre vedcov.

Shortlisted for the 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction She Has Her Mother's Laugh presents a profoundly original perspective on what we pass along from generation to generation. Charles Darwin played a crucial part in turning heredity into a scientific question, and yet he failed spectacularly to answer it. The birth of genetics in the early 1900s seemed to do precisely that. Gradually, people translated their old notions about heredity into a language of genes. As the technology for studying genes became cheaper, millions of people ordered genetic tests to link themselves to missing parents, to distant ancestors, to ethnic identities . . . But, Zimmer argues, heredity isn't just about genes that pass from parent to child. Heredity continues within our own bodies, as a single cell gives rise to trillions of cells that make up our bodies. We say we inherit genes from our ancestors - using a word that once referred to kingdoms and estates - but we inherit other things that matter as much or more to our lives, from microbes to technologies we use to make life more comfortable. We need a new definition of what heredity is and, through Carl Zimmer's lucid exposition and storytelling, this resounding tour de force delivers it. Weaving together historical and current scientific research, his own experience with his two daughters, and the kind of original reporting expected of one of the world's best science journalists, Zimmer ultimately unpacks urgent bioethical quandaries arising from new biomedical technologies, but also long-standing presumptions about who we really are and what we can pass on to future generations.