Böcker av Emily Monosson

Fungi are everywhere. Most are harmless, some are helpful. A few are killers. Collectively, infectious fungi are the most devastating agents of disease on Earth, and a fungus that can persist in the environment without its host is here for the long haul. In gripping, accessible prose, Emily Monosson documents how changing climate, trade and travel are making us all more vulnerable to invasion. Populations of bats, frogs and salamanders face extinction, and scientists don't have a cure. The American Northwest's beloved National Parks are covered with the spindly corpses of white bark pines. Food crops are under siege, threatening our coffee, bananas and wheat-and, more broadly, our global food security. In humans, Candida auris infects hospital patients and those with weakened immune systems. Monosson's critical reporting demonstrates that prevention is difficult but not impossible. Exposing the connection between pathogens and human action, Blight serves as a wake-up call, a reminder of the delicate interconnectedness of the natural world.

Gonorrhoea. Bed bugs. Weeds. Salamanders. Polar Bears. People. All are evolving, some surprisingly rapidly, in response to our chemical age. In this book, the author shows how our drugs, pesticides, and pollution are exerting intense selection pressure on all manner of species. And we humans might not like the result.

With BPA in baby bottles, mercury in fish, and lead in computer monitors, the world has become a toxic place. The author traces the development of life's defence systems - the mechanisms that transform, excrete, and stow away potentially harmful chemicals - from over three billion years ago to today.