Air-Borne
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The fascinating, untold story of the air we breathe, the hidden life it contains, and invisible dangers that can turn the world upside down
Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air—and thousands of living things. From the ground to the stratosphere, the air teems with invisible life. This last great biological frontier remains so mysterious that it took over two years for scientists to finally agree that the Covid pandemic was caused by an airborne virus.
In Air-Borne, award-winning New York Times columnist and author Carl Zimmer leads us on an odyssey through the living atmosphere and through the history of its discovery. We travel to the tops of mountain glaciers, where Louis Pasteur caught germs from the air, and follow Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh above the clouds, where they conducted groundbreaking experiments. We meet the long-forgotten pioneers of aerobiology including William and Mildred Wells, who tried for decades to warn the world about airborne infections, only to die in obscurity.
Air-Borne chronicles the dark side of aerobiology with gripping accounts of how the United States and the Soviet Union clandestinely built arsenals of airborne biological weapons designed to spread anthrax, smallpox, and an array of other pathogens. Air-Borne also leaves readers looking at the world with new eyes—as a place where the oceans and forests loft trillions of cells into the air, where microbes eat clouds, and where life soars thousands of miles on the wind.
Weaving together gripping history with the latest reporting on Covid and other threats to global health, Air-Borne surprises us on every page as it reveals the hidden world of the air.
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In comparison to the long-accepted belief that diseases can be spread at short distances via droplets that are coughed onto people, the field of aerobiology has been trying to prove that diseases can instead float long distances through the air since the 1940s.
Unfortunately the idea didn't quite take off. It's quite a hard thing to have enough evidence to convince people (even though scientific studies were done), and there was also a lot of strong opposition from some scientists, partly because the miasma or "bad air" theory from a much earlier time in history had already been disproved.
It was only once we were months into COVID, and enough scientists made some noise that it started to become a more accepted theory in scientific society, as we discovered that COVID was indeed airborne.
I think it's an interesting book which goes to show as rational and logical the field of science seems to be, scientists are still human and can be quick to dismiss a theory if it sounds "stupid". I'm sure the environment of COVID didn't help, since people would not have wanted to stir up more panic by considering the fact that COVID could be airborne.
Interestingly, famed aviator Charles Lindbergh even makes an appearance as he helps a scientist carry out tests to see what’s floating up at high altitudes. I got a bit sidetracked and found out that he was quite the cheater, and there's even a conspiracy theory he killed his first child.
Overall an interesting read, it provides a fairly interesting overview of the field of aerobiology.
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.