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#biology

62 posts50 participants4 posts today
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Andrew Kuchling

Zimmer has written a number of excellent popular-science books, and AIRBORNE: THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE LIFE WE BREATHE is his latest. It's a far-ranging survey of the history of airborne life and disease transmission, a field dubbed aerobiology.

The story starts with Louis Pasteur's experiments that grew bacteria from exposure to the air, even when done on top of mountains or glaciers. In the US Fred Meier did further experiments in the 1930s taking samples from airplanes that showed life was present into the stratosphere, even enlisting Amelia Earhart and the Lindberghs in the effort. William Firth Wells, a US government bacteriologist, first theorized that diseases like chickenpox and measles could be transmitted through air and demonstrated it in experiments, but struggled both in getting funding and in getting his work published. In the 2000 SARS was a highly visible event that led to increased study of disease transmission, and of course COVID-19 turned discussions of large-droplet vs. airborne transmission into subjects of newspaper stories and personal risk assessment.

It's another engrossing book from Zimmer. The field stumbles into obscurity through accident or misfortune, such as Meier's death in a plane crash or Wells' Tristram Shandy-esque inability to finish writing up his work, and then the arrival of COVID gives it a new importance.

Cover of "Airborne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe", by Carl Zimmer.
#biology#medicine#science
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charrvein

Biodice: a network of scientists and institutions with the common goal of promoting research, greater awareness and understanding of biodiversity in Iceland. This objective reflects the growing need to meet the challenges of massive global biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. We explain this initiative and invite others to join the network.
#biodiversity #ecology #iceland #biology #climatechange #lichen #evolution #wildlife #invasiveSpecies

biodice.is/en/about-biodice/

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