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Natural Defense

Enlisting Bugs and Germs to Protect Our Food and Health
  • ISBN-13: 9781610917186
  • Publisher: ISLAND PRESS
    Imprint: ISLAND PRESS
  • By Dr Emily Monosson
  • Price: AUD $76.99
  • Stock: 0 in stock
  • Availability: This book is temporarily out of stock, order will be despatched as soon as fresh stock is received.
  • Local release date: 14/08/2017
  • Format: Hardback 197 pages Weight: 0g
  • Categories: Popular science [PDZ]
Description
Table of
Contents
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Preview
For more than a century, we have relied on chemical cures to keep our bodies free from disease and our farms free from bugs and weeds. We rarely consider human and agricultural health together, but both are based on the same ecology, and both are being threatened by organisms that have evolved to resist our antibiotics and pesticides. Patients suffer from C.diff, a painful, potentially lethal gut infection associated with multiple rounds of antibiotics; orange groves rot from insect-borne bacteria; and the blight responsible for the Irish potato famine outmaneuvers fungicides. Our chemicals are failing us.

Fortunately, scientists are finding new solutions that work with, rather than against, nature. Emily Monosson explores science's most innovative strategies, from high-tech gene editing to the ancient practice of fecal transplants. There are viruses that infect and bust apart bacteria; vaccines engineered to better provoke our natural defenses; and insect pheromones that throw crop-destroying moths into a misguided sexual frenzy. Some technologies will ultimately fizzle; others may hold the key to abundant food and unprecedented health. Each represents a growing understanding of how to employ ecology for our own protection.

Monosson gives readers a peek into the fascinating and hopeful world of natural defenses. Her book is full of optimism, not simply for particular cures, but for a sustainable approach to human welfare that will benefit generations to come. 
Preface
Chapter 1. Natural Allies: Our Bacterial Protectors
Chapter 2. Natural Allies: How the Smallest of All Can Help Feed the World
Chapter 3. The Enemy of Our Enemy is Our Friend: Infecting the Infection
Chapter 4. The Enemy of Our Enemy is Our Friend: Replacing Pesticides with Nature's Chemistry
Chapter 5. Provocation: GMOs and the Science of Protecting Plants, Naturally
Chapter 6. Provocation: The Next Generation of Vaccines
Chapter 7. Know Thine Enemy: Diagnosing Crop Disease Goes High Tech
Chapter 8. Know Thine Enemy: The Future of Diagnostics
Epilogue
"Our solutions to controlling pests and disease face a formidable foe: evolution. Monosson takes us on a clear-eyed tour of biological alternatives in both medicine and farming, which may help lessen our reliance on antibiotics, pesticides, and more. With deft prose and fascinating anecdotes, Monosson's survey of the latest scientific research leaves us in awe of humankind's ingenuity."
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