Viral

Author: Matt Ridley
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063273608
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 448

Book Description
"Chan and Ridley write with an urgency...that inspires gripping depictions of what viruses are, how infectious-disease laboratories work and wonderfully lucid descriptions of bats. . . . They powerfully recount how dangerous pathogens can both leak from a lab and emerge in nature." (New York Times Book Review) Understanding how Covid-19 started is crucial for the future of humankind. Viral is the most incisive and authoritative book about the search for the source of the virus. A new virus descended on the human species in 2019 wreaking unprecedented havoc. Finding out where it came from and how it first jumped into people is an urgent priority, but early expectations that this would prove an easy question to answer have been dashed. Nearly two years into the pandemic, the crucial mystery of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not only unresolved but has deepened. In this uniquely insightful book, a scientist and a writer join forces to try to get to the bottom of how a virus whose closest relations live in bats in subtropical southern China somehow managed to begin spreading among people more than 1,500 kilometres away in the city of Wuhan. They grapple with the baffling fact that the virus left none of the expected traces that such outbreaks usually create: no infected market animals or wildlife, no chains of early cases in travellers to the city, no smouldering epidemic in a rural area, no rapid adaptation of the virus to its new host—human beings. To try to solve this pressing mystery, Viral delves deep into the events of 2019 leading up to 2021, the details of what went on in animal markets and virology laboratories, the records and data hidden from sight within archived Chinese theses and websites, and the clues that can be coaxed from the very text of the virus’s own genetic code. The result is a gripping detective story that takes the reader deeper and deeper into a metaphorical cave of mystery. One by one the authors explore promising tunnels only to show that they are blind alleys, until, miles beneath the surface, they find themselves tantalisingly close to a shaft that leads to the light.

Viral

Author: Helen FitzGerald
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571323529
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Book Description
So far, twenty-three thousand and ninety-six people have seen me online. Su has always been the successful sister. It's Leah who is wild and often angry. But when they go to Magaluf to celebrate their exam results, Su disappears. Su is on the run, humiliated and afraid. There's an online video of her performing multiple sex acts in a nightclub. And everyone has seen it. Their mother Ruth, a prominent court judge, is furious. Can she bring justice to the men who took advantage of her daughter, and what will it take to bring Su home? 'Read it.' Stylist 'Gripping.' Tammy Cohen, author of When She Was Bad 'A real psychological roller-coaster.' Scotsman

Viral

Author: Robin Cook
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593328310
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 513

Book Description
In this electrifying medical thriller from New York Times bestselling author Robin Cook, a family’s exposure to a rare yet deadly virus ensnares them in a growing danger to mankind—and pulls back the curtain on a healthcare system powered by profit and greed. Trying to find some normalcy during the Covid-19 pandemic, Brian Murphy and his family are on a summer excursion in Cape Cod when his wife, Emma, comes down with concerning flu-like symptoms. But their leisurely return home to New York City quickly becomes a race to the local hospital as she suddenly begins seizing in the car. At the ICU, she is diagnosed with eastern equine encephalitis, a rare and highly lethal mosquito-borne viral disease seemingly caught during one of their evening cookouts. Complicating the situation further, Brian and Emma’s young daughter then begins to exhibit alarming physical and behavioral symptoms, too. Emma’s harrowing hospital stay turns even more fraught when Brian receives a staggering hospital bill full of outrageous charges and murky language. To add insult to injury, his health insurance company refuses to cover any of the cost, citing dubious clauses in Brian’s policy. Forced to choose between the ongoing care of family and bills he can never pay, and furious at a shockingly indifferent healthcare system, Brian vows to seek justice. But to get to the bottom of the predatory practices targeting his loved ones and countless others, he must uncover the dark side of an industry that has strayed drastically from its altruistic roots—and bring down the callous executives preying on the sick and defenseless before the virus can claim even more people . . .

The Viral Underclass

Author: Steven W. Thrasher
Publisher: Celadon Books
ISBN: 1250796652
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
**LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 PEN/JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH AWARD FOR NONFICTION** **LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDALS FOR EXCELLENCE** **WINNER OF THE 2022 POZ AWARD FOR BEST IN LITERATURE** "An irresistibly readable and humane exploration of the barbarities of class...readers are gifted that most precious of things in these muddled times: a clear lens through which to see the world." —Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine From preeminent LGBTQ scholar, social critic, and journalist Steven W. Thrasher comes a powerful and crucial exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our times: how viruses expose the fault lines of society. Having spent a ground-breaking career studying the racialization, policing, and criminalization of HIV, Dr. Thrasher has come to understand a deeper truth at the heart of our society: that there are vast inequalities in who is able to survive viruses and that the ways in which viruses spread, kill, and take their toll are much more dependent on social structures than they are on biology alone. Told through the heart-rending stories of friends, activists, and teachers navigating the novel coronavirus, HIV, and other viruses, Dr. Thrasher brings the reader with him as he delves into the viral underclass and lays bare its inner workings. In the tradition of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste and Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, The Viral Underclass helps us understand the world more deeply by showing the fraught relationship between privilege and survival.

Going Viral

Author: Karine Nahon
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 0745671292
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
In Going Viral, Nahon and Hemsley uncover the factors that make things go viral online. They analyze the characteristics of networks that shape virality, including the crucial role of gatekeepers who control the flow of information and connect networks to one another. They also explore the role of human attention, showing how phenomena like word of mouth, bandwagon effects, homophily and interest networks help to explain the patterns of individual behavior that make viral events.

Viral Modernism

Author: Elizabeth Outka
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231546319
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 355

Book Description
The influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 took the lives of between 50 and 100 million people worldwide, and the United States suffered more casualties than in all the wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries combined. Yet despite these catastrophic death tolls, the pandemic faded from historical and cultural memory in the United States and throughout Europe, overshadowed by World War One and the turmoil of the interwar period. In Viral Modernism, Elizabeth Outka reveals the literary and cultural impact of one of the deadliest plagues in history, bringing to light how it shaped canonical works of fiction and poetry. Outka shows how and why the contours of modernism shift when we account for the pandemic’s hidden but widespread presence. She investigates the miasmic manifestations of the pandemic and its spectral dead in interwar Anglo-American literature, uncovering the traces of an outbreak that brought a nonhuman, invisible horror into every community. Viral Modernism examines how literature and culture represented the virus’s deathly fecundity, as writers wrestled with the scope of mass death in the domestic sphere amid fears of wider social collapse. Outka analyzes overt treatments of the pandemic by authors like Katherine Anne Porter and Thomas Wolfe and its subtle presence in works by Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and W. B. Yeats. She uncovers links to the disease in popular culture, from early zombie resurrection to the resurgence of spiritualism. Viral Modernism brings the pandemic to the center of the era, revealing a vast tragedy that has hidden in plain sight.

Going Viral

Author: Brent Coker
Publisher: Pearson UK
ISBN: 1292087951
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Book Description
The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed. Everyone wants their voice to be heard above the noise of other brands. But how do you get your messages to spread far and wide? It’s not just down to luck. If you want to make an impact, you need to make your marketing messages magnetic and, in this fascinating book, Brent Coker will show you how. Packed full of practical techniques, expert research and real-life examples, you’ll quickly uncover the nine secrets of irresistible marketing that will work whatever the size of your company. Discover the science behind the world’s most viral ideas, learn how to create messages that people can’t resist sharing and effortlessly build your brand.

Viral Loads

Author: Lenore Manderson
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1800080239
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 488

Book Description
Drawing upon the empirical scholarship and research expertise of contributors from all settled continents and from diverse life settings and economies, Viral Loads illustrates how the COVID-19 pandemic, and responses to it, lay bare and load onto people’s lived realities in countries around the world. A crosscutting theme pertains to how social unevenness and gross economic disparities are shaping global and local responses to the pandemic, and illustrate the effects of both the virus and efforts to contain it in ways that amplify these inequalities. At the same time, the contributions highlight the nature of contemporary social life, including virtual communication, the nature of communities, neoliberalism and contemporary political economies, and the shifting nature of nation states and the role of government. Over half of the world’s population has been affected by restrictions of movement, with physical distancing requirements and self-isolation recommendations impacting profoundly on everyday life but also on the economy, resulting also, in turn, with dramatic shifts in the economy and in mass unemployment. By reflecting on how the pandemic has interrupted daily lives, state infrastructures and healthcare systems, the contributing authors in this volume mobilise anthropological theories and concepts to locate the pandemic in a highly connected and exceedingly unequal world. The book is ambitious in its scope – spanning the entire globe – and daring in its insistence that medical anthropology must be a part of the growing calls to build a new world.

Going Viral

Author: Dahlia Schweitzer
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813593182
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
Outbreak narratives have proliferated for the past quarter century, and now they have reached epidemic proportions. From 28 Days Later to 24 to The Walking Dead, movies, TV shows, and books are filled with zombie viruses, bioengineered plagues, and disease-ravaged bands of survivors. Even news reports indulge in thrilling scenarios about potential global pandemics like SARS and Ebola. Why have outbreak narratives infected our public discourse, and how have they affected the way Americans view the world? In Going Viral, Dahlia Schweitzer probes outbreak narratives in film, television, and a variety of other media, putting them in conversation with rhetoric from government authorities and news organizations that have capitalized on public fears about our changing world. She identifies three distinct types of outbreak narrative, each corresponding to a specific contemporary anxiety: globalization, terrorism, and the end of civilization. Schweitzer considers how these fears, stoked by both fictional outbreak narratives and official sources, have influenced the ways Americans relate to their neighbors, perceive foreigners, and regard social institutions. Looking at everything from I Am Legend to The X Files to World War Z, this book examines how outbreak narratives both excite and horrify us, conjuring our nightmares while letting us indulge in fantasies about fighting infected Others. Going Viral thus raises provocative questions about the cost of public paranoia and the power brokers who profit from it. Supplemental Study Materials for "Going Viral": https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/going-viral-dahlia-schweitzer Dahlia Schweitzer- Going Viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xF0V7WL9ow

Going Viral: A Socially Distant Love Story

Author: Katie Cicatelli-Kuc
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 1338745204
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
When Claire Draper's fictional love story goes viral in the wake of a pandemic, the line between reality and fiction is blurred. But will she be able to tell the difference? Claire is a junior in high school when a worldwide pandemic strikes, and she's in the epicenter of it all in New York City. Suddenly, Claire is forced to isolate with her family indefinitely, which means she won't be able to see her friends or even her girlfriend, Vanessa, in person for a long time. At first it's not so bad, but the longer the pandemic lasts, the more Claire feels her priorities changing. That's when she looks outside her bedroom window and notices something new: A girl who lives in the building across the street sitting on her fire escape. So Claire starts writing a story online about a girl who falls for the girl across the street. To Claire's surprise, the story goes viral-and it seems people think true. But how true is true? And what if Vanessa finds out? Will Claire be able to manage her newfound internet fame before everything spirals out of control?