The Hot Zone Blog 2

I continued reading The Hot Zone This week pages 112-207.  Richard Preston does an amazing job at captivating the reader because the stories within the novel are genuinely non-fiction.  The novel goes into more detail about the strains of filoviruses and the various ways to distinguish them from certain bacterium look-alikes.  While the story remains frightening, it begins to explore more into political and economical reasons to consider when dealing with a level 4 hot agent.  It reminds me of a fiction book such as Harry Potter very much because of the subject matter.  At this point in the novel scientists inspect monkeys infected with ebola not knowing it which brings dramatic irony into context making the reading all the more exciting.  Cells are cut open and examined under an electron microscope with blades so sharp that they would not see resistance going through one's finger.  This is also an exciting book for me because I plan on going into the science field or at least use science in medicine as my career.  Something about being able to predict a reaction is interesting to me and I am always curious about things which I cannot explain.  Anyway, scientists in the novel try to pinpoint the source of ebola, but are unable to do so.  This may be because there are multiple sources, or because the virus is hard to uncover in its natural habitat.  For the virus to ultimately be effective, it doesn't have to win, it only has to not lose.  It is good at hiding in places it is comfortable with.

Blog 1 on The Hot Zone

For my outside reading for quarter four, I will be reading The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.  This is a nonfiction novel about the ebola viruses and its appearances in the history of the human race.  The novel as a whole is 411 pages long, but I only read pages 1-111 for this post.  So far, the novel has explored the origins of the filoviruses.  Filoviruses are a rare type of viruses that look like strings, instead of like spheres.  These viruses were discovered in the tropics and contain many diseases including strains of ebola and marburg disease.  The only reason a large epidemic has not occurred is that the outbreaks kill themselves out.  The real danger for humanity is if the filoviruses somehow turn airborne on a large scale.  This novel is one of the best pieces of writing that I have ever read.  It is the kind of book in which you don't want to stop reading.  The Hot Zone is also the most horrifying thing I have ever read.  It somehow brings reality to the utmost suffering and weakness to humanity.  That is one of the reasons that makes this book so great.  It is unnaturally, and yet realistically gruesome.  Humans naturally want to know more than they should be exposed to.  This book seems to bring up topics that are not for the weak minded.  I currently believe that I want to pursue a field in medicine for my career, which only seems to make the book more interesting.  Before I began reading this book, I did not have an appreciation for the power of nature.  Now I respect nature, but I also have a desire to work with it and to uncover its secrets.  For instance, all of the proteins in the ebola virus are not even known to man.