Spillover (CD Audiobook) - 9781480563827

“A frightening and fascinating masterpiece.” — Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs“[Mr. Quammen] is not just among our best science writers but among our best writers, period.” — Dwight Garner, New York Times“Science writing as detective story at its best.” — Jennifer Ouellette, Scientific American’s Cocktail Party Physics blogThe next big human pandemic — bigger than AIDS or the 1918 influenza — is likely to be caused by a zoonotic virus, one that jumps from a wild animal to infect a human host. Experts call such an event “spillover,” and they warn us to brace ourselves. David Quammen has tracked this subject from the jungles of Central Africa, the rooftops of Bangladesh, and the caves of southern China to the laboratories where researchers work in space suits to study lethal viruses. He illuminates the dynamics of Ebola, SARS, bird flu, Lyme disease, and other emerging threats and tells the story of AIDS and its origins as it has never before been told. Spillover is like a mystery tale, full of mayhem and clues and questions. When the Next Big One arrives, what will it look like? From which innocent host animal will it emerge? Will we be ready?