Tysune’s Blog Death of Destiny

“Panic in Level 4″ by Richard Preston

Apparently, my book reviews for his other books (The Hot Zone, Demon in the Freezer, and The Cobra Event) were written on my old blog and didn't get transferred to this one... Anyhow, Panic in Level 4 is the latest book I've read by Richard Preston. Preston writes literary non-fiction; that is, he writes non-fiction novels in a fictional style. The Hot Zone, a book based on true dealings with Marburg virus and Ebola virus, and Demon in the Freezer, a book based on past stories based on Smallpox virus and Anthrax, are interesting books based on true stories yet told in a way such that any reader (assuming they can handle some of the more gory descriptions) would find them enticing. The Cobra Event is similar in that it is a story based on disease, but is different in that the disease does not actually exist--it is merely loosely based on a fusion of a virus and a genetic disorder.

The book is opened with an introduction (yes, I am slowly getting into the habit of reading the introductions...) about how Preston gets details necessary for writing literary non-fiction. It documents an interesting first hand glimpse into work in a BL-4 (Biohazard Level 4) area. One thing that I found slightly bizarre is the author's mail-ordering a sample of DNA for the mere purpose of tasting it... Anyhow, the book consists of 6 essays spanning many scientific disciplines. I've included brief notes on each of them in my review.

The Mountains of Pi is the first essay in Preston's compilation. It describes the mathematician brothers David and Gregory Chudnovsky and their hunt for detailing the number pi using a homemade apartment supercomputer. Although written in an engaging format, Preston leaves many questions unanswered such as why somebody would want to determine pi to over 2 billion decimal places. Some of the images provided by Preston seem to be a bit inappropriate for the non-fiction style of his essay (such as a picture of a pizza pie with the Greek symbol for pi engraved in it, merely as a method of illustrating the symbol for pi) and seemed to just fill up space on the pages. However, to credit the academic nature of the essay, it did introduce me to the Leibniz series for pi, which I'd never heard of before. Upon seeing it's mathematical representation, I was curious to see it actually work... ...so I programmed it into Java and gave CPSC 211 a purpose--500000000 loops later and I had calculated pi to 6 decimal places; a simpler recursive method was also attempted, but I was missing a base case so my program kept crashing... ...anyhow, the essay was an interesting insight into how the mathematicians were living, though not necessarily why they were doing their work on pi.

A Death in the Forest primarily follows the eastern hemlock population in eastern USA, and how the population was affected by an exotic insect species known as Hemlock woolly adelgids. This ecology based essay also mentions other biotic interactions, including one between Ebola and gorillas; apparently Ebola could cause an extinction of gorillas in the near future. Anyhow, I noticed that my GEOB 102 class also mentioned biotic interactions between native and exotic species; I thought it was (another) interesting connection between this book and my courses this term.

The Blood Kiss is a much more familiar realm that I expected from Preston. It discusses two new types of Ebola: Ebola Kikwit and Ebola Ivory Coast. In the process, I learned the geography term ecotone (which is just a transition between two ecosystems) 8D. Anyhow, I won't go into much detail (I'll leave the excitement for the reader), but I will mention that this essay deals largely with la diarhée rouge, and is named after a doctor gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a new born baby in a hospital hot with Ebola virus.

The Human Kabbalah basically documented the work of Craig Venter and the Human Genome Project. This essay managed to touch on content from the rest of my classes this term (BIOL 200, BIOL 240, CHEM 233, and MICB 203) in the sense that it dealt heavily with the chemical properties of DNA and chromosomes. Anyhow, the content of this essay dealt a lot with the personality of Venter, including conflicts he had with co-workers such as Nobel laureate James Watson (who originally co-discovered the double-helix nature of DNA). In fact, I couldn't grasp Preston's interpretation of Venter's personality throughout the essay; at times, he would look up to certain traits of Venter, but then would later describe him as a very rude (and otherwise descriptive) character. Anyhow, a lot of people with "intense" personalities in high positions seem to create a lot of political drama throughout this essay. There's a lot of research-for-the-sake-of-science and research-for-the-sake-of-money going on, and I hope it doesn't provide a consistent insight into how organizations are actually run... On a quick note, the essay also noted Venter's work with synthetic biology, a field worked with by UBC's iGem team :)

The Lost Unicorn is an essay based on the beauty and digital capture of the Unicorn Tapestries. It again features the Chudnovsky brothers and their attempt to capture a perfect representation of the tapestries. I didn't get as much out of this essay, but it could be why I'm not an art fanatic.

The Self-Cannibals is an essay documenting Lesch-Nyhan syndrome. Lesch-Nyhan syndrome is a largely under-the-radar genetic disease known for causing autocannibalism (self-cannibalism), and otherwise self-destructing behaviors. The essay documents several cases, many of which are children as people with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome usually don't live long lives, of people who have eaten their lips, their tongues, and their fingers. It documents people who have used spoons to gouge out their noses, eyeballs, or bones in their mouths (such as teeth and the upper palate). It also mentions their verbal behavior of saying things opposite to what they want, uncontrollable profanity, and unintentional need to insult people. Anyhow, the essay is definitely an interesting, if not purely disturbing, read about the disorder.

Overall, I liked this book. Although it is pretty much a compilation of essays, the essays all seem to allude to each other and it ties them together nicely. The description provided in each essay should hopefully inspire passion in some readers. Anyone interested in purchasing a copy can get one from amazon.ca. I recommend this book to people looking for a light read, people interested in literary non-fiction, and people interested in reading about science or arts.