Ireland, Tom – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk Henley-on-Thames Wed, 23 Oct 2024 15:27:21 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-Bell-Background-Blue-32x32.png Ireland, Tom – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk 32 32 The good virus https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-good-virus-2/ Thu, 27 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=41317 A Waterstones science book of the year
A book of the year for The Times and Sunday Times
New York Times editor’s choice
Winner of the Giles St Aubyn Award for Non-Fiction

‘The book that might change the world … This is luxury-class science writing’
TELEGRAPH

‘One of the best books of any genre that I’ve read in 2023, this superbly-written book … will fascinate absolutely everyone’
FORBES

‘A delight. To learn more about phages is to discover fascinating details about a hidden world’
NATURE

‘Outstanding’
CLIVE MYRIE

The viruses that do us harm are vastly outnumbered by viruses that can actually save lives. These good viruses are called ‘phages’, and they are the most abundant life form on Earth.

The Good Virus reveals how these weird and wonderful microbes shape our health, support our ecosystems and could be the future of medicine.

]]> The good virus https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-good-virus/ Thu, 29 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=33615 ‘The book that might change the world … This is luxury-class science writing’
TELEGRAPH

‘One of the best books of any genre that I’ve read in 2023, this superbly-written book … will fascinate absolutely everyone.’
FORBES

‘A delight. To learn more about phages is to discover fascinating details about a hidden world’
NATURE

‘Outstanding’
CLIVE MYRIE

__________

Not all viruses are out to get us – in fact, the viruses that do us harm are vastly outnumbered by viruses that can actually save lives.

At every moment, within your body and all around you, trillions of microscopic combatants are fighting an invisible war. Countless times per second, ‘good’ viruses known as phages are infecting and destroying bacteria. These phages are the most abundant life form on the planet and have an incredible power to heal rather than harm. So why have most of us never even heard of them?

The Good Virus reveals how personalities, power and politics have repeatedly crashed together to hinder our understanding of these weird and wonderful life forms. We explore why Stalin’s Soviet Union embraced using phages to fight disease but the rest of the world shunned the idea. We find out why scientists only recently realised phages are central to all ecosystems on Earth. And we meet the often eccentric phage heroes who have shaped the strange history of this field and are unlocking its exciting future.

Faced with the threat of antibiotic resistance, we need phages now more than ever. The Good Virus celebrates what phages could do for us and our planet if they are at last given the attention they deserve.

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