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- Herausgeber: Atlantic Books
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
From the bestselling authors behind Science(ish) and Hollywood Wants to Kill You... A fascinating free ebook about the science of viruses - all told through the Hollywood blockbuster Contagion. Viruses can spread faster than fear - but where do they come from? What makes them so powerful? And how do we stop them spreading like wildfire? With wit and intelligence, Rick Edwards and Dr Michael Brooks explore the science of pandemics, from the Black Death to the Coronavirus. Packed with illustrations and fascinating facts, Contagion is a captivating handbook to the real science behind the greatest public health emergency of recent times.
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Science(ish) Presents...
Contagion
The Science of Pandemics
Rick EdwardsDr Michael Brooks
About the Authors
Rick Edwards is a writer and television presenter. He is the host of BBC 1’s quiz !mpossible. Rick has a Natural Sciences degree from Cambridge, which he is finally getting some use out of.
Dr Michael Brooks is an author, journalist, and consultant for the New Scientist. His biggest accomplishment to date is not the PhD in Quantum Physics – it’s writing Rick’s favourite popular science book, 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense.
Together, they wrote the Sunday Times Science Book of the Year, Science(ish): The Peculiar Science Behind the Movies. They also present the award-winning podcast Science(ish) for Radio Wolfgang. Follow their every move on Twitter @science_ish and the website www.scienceish.org.
Science(ish) Presents...
Contagion
The Science of Pandemics
Rick EdwardsDr Michael Brooks
First published in e-book in Great Britain in 2020 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Rick Edwards and Michael Brooks, 2020
The moral right of Rick Edwards and Michael Brooks to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Illustrations © www.alternativeaesthetics.co.uk
E-book ISBN: 978 1 83895 239 6
Atlantic Books
An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
Ormond House
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WC1N 3JZ
www.atlantic-books.co.uk
Introduction
As you’re almost certainly aware, the world is officially now in the grip of a viral pandemic. The World Health Organisation has admitted that the coronavirus has hit every continent, resisting our efforts to contain it.
In 2019, we released a book called Hollywood Wants to Kill You: The Peculiar Science of Death in the Movies. The book looked at the real-world science behind big-screen disaster scenarios; the chapter which follows examined the movie Contagion and the science of pandemics. Despite the fact that experts have repeatedly warned it was always a matter of when-not-if, the plot of the film still felt like sci-fi when we wrote it.
Not anymore.
We promise we didn’t see this coming. We aren’t Nostradamus, or even Mystic Meg. But the current crisis shows that we’re not just making this stuff up, playing death for laughs.
In fact, you don’t need us to tell you that it’s no laughing matter. The exact details of what the coronavirus, officially called COVID-19, is and does are still largely unknown. We can’t tell how long the outbreak will continue, or what the impact - socially and economically - will be. We can’t even tell you what the right response is; experts just don’t agree. All we can do is offer you this free chapter as a distraction, as useful information, perhaps, and as an encouragement to take the current situation very seriously. Oh, and as a reminder to stop touching your face.
Seriously: STOP TOUCHING YOUR FACE
Rick and Michael
1
Hollywood Wants to Kill You… WITH A VIRUS!
‘DON’T TALK TO ANYONE! DON’T TOUCH ANYONE!’
– Contagion (2011)
In Contagion, a flu-like virus arises in Hong Kong. A visiting American businesswoman becomes infected just before she heads home, and brings the virus with her – to devastating effect. Before long, she and her son are dead, and the authorities responsible for disease control soon realize they are facing a lethal pandemic.
Of the myriad ways in which Hollywood has imagined us dying en masse, the idea of a global pandemic is perhaps the most terrifying. That’s because it is one of the most realistic. Global health experts have hailed Contagion’s plot as a highly plausible scenario if we’re unlucky enough to come up against the wrong virus. Pay attention: this film could save your life.
How Do Viruses Work?
Contagion’s tagline is ‘nothing spreads like fear’, but that’s not really true. Viruses, arguably, spread faster. In the
