We’re living in extremely weird times. With everything going on around the world with the coronavirus, in addition to all the other crazy news we have gotten since the start of the new year, it seems like we’re really living in the twilight zone. Hospitals are flooded, most public spaces like gyms and restaurants are closed indefinitely, the streets are empty, school is out (kinda), and we’re all just trying our best to keep safe and sane while under lockdown until the virus slowly runs its course.
With all that being said… if there was ever a good time to sit down, relax, and read a good book, now would probably be the perfect time. So, while it has been a very unfortunate few weeks since we’ve been out of actual class, our book review assignment couldn’t have come at a better time. After browsing through Barnes and Noble’s best-of science list (shout out to Dr. Dow for the link), I stumbled across a book that sounded extremely intriguing and relevant to all of our lives today.
The book, written by Sharon Moalem and Jonathan Prince, is titled Survival of the Sickest: The Surprising Connections Between Disease and Longevity. Given our current living situations, I figured, “why not?” With a novel virus going around and seeing/hearing about how it fascinatingly affects people in such different ways, it would be interesting to learn how illnesses (which I’m hoping, within the book, includes viruses) have long-term evolutionary effects on the human population. I’m also hoping to not only gain some tips on how to increase my health and longevity, but also take a deeper dive on some of the biological processes that go into our bodies’ defenses against illnesses. Learning about modern medicine and its role in helping us fight off such illnesses would be fun to read and learn about as well.
ScienceHut 