The Hot Zone: The origins of Ebola

You may have heard about the Ebola virus. If so, you know the ultimate horrors it can do to the human mind, and worse of all, the body. Imagine feeling sick one day. You don't feel well, so you take an asprin. Next day, you cough up your blood in black vomit. Then, you become zombie-like, not being able to think like a person. Then, you crash and bleed. That's when you bleed out all your blood either inside, or you bleed out on the outside. (Outside of your body) It also kills 95% of its victims. Now imagine this virus with the fact that it is incredibly contagious. Now it sounds like it can, and will, if it gets the chance, wipe out humans. Well, The Hot Zone describes how close it came to doing just that.

     The Hot Zone, written by Richard Preston captures the secrets of the deadly Ebola viruses, and their sister  virus Marburg. The book starts out describing The Marburg virus, a virus that makes people bleed out from under their skin, and cough up black bloody vomit. Disgusting but fascinating. It may sound hard to make that fascinating, but Richard Preston does it. The next part is about the Ebola Zaire virus, it has similar symptoms of the Marburg virus, but it kills more people. After Ebola Zaire is discovered officially, the attention switches from what it is to curing it. Sadly, there was no cure. After that, Ebola came the closest to killing off millions of humans. It was discovered outside of Washington D.C. in a monkey house, a business that supplies test monkeys from foreign countries. And you never know what happens in foreign countries. Obviously, nobody is very happy. The Army puts up countermeasures, and after much strife, the Virus is gone, receded into hiding, waiting to strike.

Biohazard team removing something possibly deadly from a hot zone.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and best (Or possibly worst) of all, it is all a true story! The endings to each chapter left me on the edge of my seat, yet it also included a lot of valuable information which is the best thing I will take away from it. The writing was good, but it jumped around too much to seem perfectly flowing. I enjoyed this book because of the facts and the way the author ended the chapters. The fluidity is something that made me somewhat confused as a reader, but nothing bad.

Wikipedia page for "The Hot Zone"
The authors website

Signing Chimps: Teaching Chimpanzees to Speak Using American Sign Language

        Have you ever wanted to speak to another species? It may be impossible to speak to them in English or a foreign language, but we have learned that it is possible to communicate with chimpanzees using American Sign Language (ASL)
        In the book Next of Kin: My Conversations With Chimpanzees, by Roger Fouts, we learn about communicating to Chimpanzees through ASL. The book focuses on Roger's experience with the chimp, Washoe, and her family. We learn about awful primate research(Please note: This video is quite disturbing. Do not watch if you are easily upset by animal abuse) labs and the way chimps are treated there.

Washoe

        Roger first meets Washoe at the Gardner's home. The Gardners were conducting a research project on teaching chimps ASL. Roger, a graduate student at the time, was to help them teach Washoe ASL. Once Gardners decided to end project Washoe, they sent her to the University of Oklahoma They wanted someone to go with Washoe, and that someone was Roger. It was at the University where we learn the reality of primate research labs. After living at the University for many years, Washoe, her chimp family, and Roger's family, moved to Washington where they were housed and funded by the Central Washington University.
         I really liked the story of Washoe and her family although I felt like there were unnecessary parts. There were times where the book could go onto subjects that were not immediately relevant to Washoe's story. The parts about Washoe and her family were extremely interesting. I would recommend this book because the story was so interesting and I learned a lot from it.

To watch a video of Washoe signing, click here or here.

  

Roger Fouts and Washoe