City News

          Survival of the Sickest, written by Doctor Sharon Moalem, is an interesting book about evolution and how the body adapts to its surroundings.  The book deeply describes the relationship between our body and our surroundings, and how many common diseases today were used to help human beings in the past.  For example, diabetes was a response to the last Ice age, and Hemochromatosis helped our ancestors survive the Black Death.  It explains many biology concepts such as DNA, evolution, microbes, and much more.  Each chapter describes a different, interesting story of how the body adapts to its surrounding.  Along with the general biology taught through this book, there is a lot of historical facts as well as facts from other fields of sciences.  One of the most interesting things I learned about was about a frog that freezes itself every winter, and essentially defrosts every spring, “springing” back to life.  The book gave me a new outlook on the world, as it teaches that every little adaptation to humans, or every illness we have, from sneezing to red hair, has a purpose.  Also, it explains how viruses, plants, and other organisms evolve to achieve the common goal that ties every living thing together: survive and reproduce.  Flowers, for example, can adapt to be eaten by certain animals so they are spread around by animals and able to reproduce.  Illnesses, such as the flu, adapt to make you sneeze so they can spread from victim to victim.  The book creates a greater understanding of how living things work, and is probably one of my favorite books.  It starts off just as it advertises, with chapters corresponding to certain diseases that helped us in the past and hurt us now.  It did, though, jeer off course a little bit and the last few chapters were focused on genetics.  I really liked this because it explained a lot of things to me that I didn't understand.  

            The book is very detailed, though, so it takes a very long time to thoroughly read through.  Each chapter takes 1-2 hours to read, as the pages are packed with facts.  While it was really long, I am glad I read it as it gave me better knowledge on the topic of evolution.  I highly recommend the book for anybody interested in evolution or even just science, because it is a very fascinating book that uses evidence from all fields of study to support evolution.   It also got me thinking about everything the body does, and why it does it, as it showed me that every single function of the body has a purpose.  It is really fascinating to learn how complex the body really is.  If you are not into science, or find the topics described uninteresting, I do not recommend reading the book, as it goes very in depth into these subjects.  But, if you do, there isn’t a dull chapter in the entire book.  I really enjoyed learning all of the biology, as it wasn't really presented as a biology, but I ended up learning a lot about it.  

Check out Survival of the Sickest at the Newport Beach Public Library.