Study Guide: Spillover by David Quammen
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SuperSummary
About this listen
SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality instructional study guides for challenging works of literature. This audio study guide for Spillover by David Quammen includes detailed summary and analysis of each chapter and an in-depth exploration of the book’s multiple symbols, motifs, and themes, such as the value of scientific expertise, randomness and risk, and humans as animals. Featured content also includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay questions, and discussion topics.
Interspersing studies of medical mysteries with accounts of his own travels and meetings with experts, author David Quammen explores the emergence and potentially catastrophic consequences of zoonotic disease (illnesses humans acquire from animals).
This audio study guide presents the same expert content - written by experienced teachers, professors, and literary scholars - in an easy-to-access audio format. SuperSummary study guides demonstrate an authoritative voice, present expert analysis, offer big picture ideas, and help listeners understand a work’s underlying meanings and conclusions.
©2019 SuperSummary (P)2020 SuperSummaryListeners also enjoyed...
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- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Medical doctor and national bestselling author of Make America Healthy Again Nicole Saphier reveals how politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic has baffled the public by creating distrust, fueling conspiracy theories, and making it harder for Americans to understand the necessary path forward. The pandemic has resulted in a failure of government, much of which is unavoidable in a unique disaster scenario. However, the rampant politicization of science has hopelessly muddied the water and knee-jerk anti-Trumpism made it all worse.
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Very disappointed
- By K. Green on 07-29-21
By: Nicole Saphier
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Pandemic
- Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond
- By: Sonia Shah
- Narrated by: Sonia Shah
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Interweaving history, original reportage, and personal narrative, Pandemic explores the origin of epidemics, drawing parallels between the story of cholera - one of history's most disruptive and deadly pathogens - and the new pathogens that stalk humankind today, from Ebola and avian influenza to drug-resistant superbugs.
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You will probably enjoy "Spillover" more
- By serine on 03-01-16
By: Sonia Shah
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An Epidemic of Absence
- A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases
- By: Moises Velasquez-Manoff
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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An Epidemic of Absence asks what will happen in developing countries, which, as they become more affluent, have already seen an uptick in allergic disease: Will India end up more allergic than Europe? Velasquez-Manoff also details a controversial underground movement that has coalesced around the treatment of immune-mediated disorders with parasites. Against much of his better judgment, he joins these do-it-yourselfers and reports his surprising results.
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The point of view from a Veterinarian immunologist
- By rtgymnast on 11-03-17
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Missing Microbes
- How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues
- By: Martin J. Blaser
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In Missing Microbes, Dr. Martin J. Blaser invites us into the wilds of the human microbiome, where for hundreds of thousands of years bacterial and human cells have existed in a peaceful symbiosis that is responsible for the health and equilibrium of our body. Now this invisible eden is being irrevocably damaged by some of our most revered medical advances-antibiotics-threatening the extinction of our irreplaceable microbes with terrible health consequences.
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Very enlightening and information well supported
- By James on 05-03-15
By: Martin J. Blaser
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Plagues, Pandemics and Viruses
- From the Plague of Athens to COVID-19
- By: Heather E. Quinlan
- Narrated by: Samara Naeymi
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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It can come in waves - like tidal waves. It changes societies. It disrupts life. It ends lives. As far back as 3000 B.C.E. (the Bronze Age), plagues have stricken mankind. COVID-19 is just the latest example, but history shows that life continues. It shows that knowledge and social cooperation can save lives. Viruses are neither alive nor dead and are the closest thing we have to zombies. Their only known function is to replicate themselves, which can have devastating consequences on their hosts.
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Somewhat elemental
- By Bertha Watkins on 10-23-21
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This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
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Entertaining but questionable studies
- By mdkoci on 01-02-17
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Editing Humanity
- The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing
- By: Kevin Davies
- Narrated by: Kevin Davies
- Length: 16 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Engrossing and captivating, Editing Humanity takes listeners inside the fascinating world of a new gene editing technology called CRISPR, a high-powered genetic toolkit that enables scientists to not only engineer but to edit the DNA of any organism down to the individual building blocks of the genetic code. Davies introduces listeners to arguably the most profound scientific breakthrough of our time. He tracks the scientists on the front lines of its research to the patients whose powerful stories bring the narrative movingly to human scale.
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Excellent content, solid execution
- By Samuel Finlayson on 01-25-21
By: Kevin Davies
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Pandora's Seed
- The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization
- By: Spencer Wells
- Narrated by: Spencer Wells
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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This new book by Spencer Wells, the internationally known geneticist, anthropologist, author, and director of the Genographic Project, focuses on the seminal event in human history: mankind's decision to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.
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Short and unfocused, but often quite interesting.
- By Alan on 06-23-10
By: Spencer Wells
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A Short History of Medicine
- Modern Library Chronicles
- By: Frank Gonzalez-Crussi
- Narrated by: John McDonough
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Praised for his erudite writing, renowned scientist Frank Gonzalez-Crussi penned this concise history of medicine, beginning with the most primitive health-care practices and ending with the technology of modern medicine that we enjoy today. As with all Modern Library Chronicles, A Short History of Medicine is a wonderful primer for anyone interested in the subject.
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Dull and Disorganized
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
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The Remedy
- Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis
- By: Thomas Goetz
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1875, tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in the world, accountable for a third of all deaths. A diagnosis of TB - often called consumption - was a death sentence. Then, in a triumph of medical science, a German doctor named Robert Koch deployed an unprecedented scientific rigor to discover the bacteria that caused TB. Koch soon embarked on a remedy - a remedy that would be his undoing. When Koch announced his cure for consumption, Arthur Conan Doyle, then a small-town doctor in England and sometime writer, went to Berlin to cover the event.
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thought-provoking
- By Jean on 07-06-14
By: Thomas Goetz
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COVID: The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science
- By: Marc Siegel MD
- Narrated by: Peter Van Norden
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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COVID-19 has stolen our security and our nation's peace of mind. There is a pandemic virus as well as a crippling epidemic of fear sweeping America. Why? The answer, according to nationally renowned health commentator Dr. Marc Siegel, is that we already lived in an artificially created culture of fear that was just waiting to be unleashed. In COVID: The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science, Siegel identifies three major catalysts of the culture of fear - government, the media, and our own psyche.
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Informative and well sourced
- By A. Powers on 10-12-21
By: Marc Siegel MD