I read this and it was excellent if you are looking for the biology and detective story minus the politics and media BS. Quammen has made a career out of pandemic threats and it shows. The research and organization in the book is very well done.
“In my opinion, this work on phage engineering is one of the top milestones in phage biology,” said Mutalik. “As phages impact microbial ecology, evolution, population dynamics, and virulence, seamless engineering of bacteria and their phages has profound implications for foundational science, but also has the potential to make a real difference in all aspects of the bioeconomy. In addition to human health, this phage engineering capability will impact everything from biomanufacturing and agriculture to food production.”
How to edit the genes of nature’s master manipulators
This turned up as I read it. A big deal from the sounds of it and maybe for good or bad. I am pretty sure Mutalik was in the book.
DAVID JUST KNOWS STUFF
Steve’s got it right: Quammen just knows stuff. While several of his most recent books are on disease ecology, they fit in perfectly with his interest in ecology generally. I like his collections of essays, many of them from his “Natural Acts” column in Outside magazine (otherwise dedicated to skiing and “adventure sports”), but if I had to bring someone quickly up to speed on evo/eco, I would recommend Quammen’s trilogy (he may not think of it as such, but it is) Song of the Dodo, Monster of God, and Spillover, along with Jonathan Wiener’s The Beak of the Finch. (Also Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague if disease ecology were a particular interest.)
Will have to read Breathless at the earliest opportunity.