lil flagamuffin Richard Preston, The Hot Zone
I looked over the most disturbing descriptions of the middle and end stages of infection by a Marburg or Ebola virus. Seriously considered posting one of them, including 'It is said to be extraordinarily painful to lose the surface of one’s tongue.' But the quote I chose is far scarier. Preston gives historical examples of how filoviruses can surface, spread and hit the global air travel network in a matter of days.The rain forest has its own defenses. The earth’s immune system, so to speak, has recognized the presence of the human species and is starting to kick in. The earth is attempting to rid itself of an infection by the human parasite. Perhaps AIDS is the first step in a natural process of clearance.
That's not how evolution works. In fact, HIV is evolving to be less lethal, because killing one's host is not conducive to survival. Evolution resembles intelligence, but not consciousness. Romantic, but wrong.
The quote wasn't so much about the evolution of HIV as it was about the earth responding to human super-expansion by producing a response that looks like macro scale immune response. Also The Hot Zone was published in 1994, when HIV was a lot more unknown and scarier.
Thanks for the link, I didn't realize that about HIV, I only knew we were better at fighting it. It's nice to know that it's evolving to be less lethal too.
Sounds like the Gaia Hypothesis, a fun little idea. I'm kind of agnostic on the subject, unless widespread adoption leads to increased space industry funding, in which case I will lie through my teeth about my strong Gaia convictions.
This is the book with the Monkey House, right? That was a terrifying scene. I tried to visit, but the Internet was young and not the font of all knowledge that it is today. I think I saw the daycare center on the site. Now there's a Google Maps waypoint. I recall the book said you could see the Washington Monument from the top of high-rise office buildings in Reston, can you confirm? I snuck into the construction site of a condo building and climbed a tower crane to try and see for myself but couldn't make anything out.