infection

Book review – Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive

7-minute read
keywords: immunology, popular science

Our lives depend on a functioning immune system, but few of us understand how it works. And fewer still can explain it because, to quote Ed Yong: “immunology is where intuition goes to die“. Thus, Philip Dettmer, the creator of the wildly successful popular science YouTube channel Kurzegsagt, has written this chunky book. An entertaining crash course in immunobiology, it does a wonderful job at introducing all the moving parts that make up this byzantine system.

(more…)

Book review – What Is Health? Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design

10-minute read

Advances in medical research mean we have come to grips with numerous diseases and health conditions over the decades. But, like a game of whack-a-mole, you solve one set of problems to only have other, often more complex problems take their place. There is valid criticism to be had of medicine and its reductionist approach and What Is Health? sees neurobiologist Peter Sterling offer a critique grounded in physiology.

(more…)

Book review – The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread – and Why They Stop

6-minute read

With the world in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, the questions posed by the subtitle of this book are on everyone’s mind. Associate Professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Adam Kucharski here takes the reader through the inner workings of contagion. From violence and idea to financial crises and, of course, disease – some universal rules cut right across disciplines. So, is this the most topical book of the year? Well, yes and no.

(more…)